Sorry if I'm Repeating Myself

I often get this feeling these days.

Don't worry, I'm not about to break into song.

All the time I have this feeling like what I'm saying, I've already said before. Many times before, in fact, like I'm caught in a temporal loop or experiencing deja vu or the universe has finally had enough of my whining.

Not that I don't have original thoughts and ideas and takes on topics, I do, or at least I think that the words that come out of my mouth or via my fingers are original and worthy of a nod or a gasp or "damn" from the listener or reader.

But so frequently I catch myself (harder than it sounds), both in my spoken and written word, repeating words I have said before, almost like I'm quoting or plagiarizing myself. And when I do, I'm not totally sure how to react. Sad? Mad? Glad?

I mostly feel disappointed with myself for falling back on something easy rather than working hard to break new ground.

Does that make sense?

As a person, I'm driven by this desire to be unique and different and interesting. As an animal, slightly less so. Seriously though, I'm strongly motivated to avoid a cliched existence (unless purposely littering my written work with them for comedic effect).

All throughout my youth and into adulthood I've been aiming to strike a balance between nerdy and athletic as well as going out of my way not to sound like anyone else. Even as a young kid, I was obsessed with doing things my way. I was never a sheep, aside once for Halloween, and I was never a follower, except the few times when the leader was particularly good looking. And I dressed differently. Thanks a lot, mom. No seriously, I am actually thanking my mom a lot.

As a high school student I struggled with this strong pull to fit in at all costs while resisting this gravitational force with all my might. I think we all feel this struggle to varying degrees and each person feels this desire to resist the pull to fit in differently. For me, it felt like a gigantic, high stakes ,five year game of tug-o'-war as I sorted out who I was, what I was about and how much I cared what other people thought about me. When I arose from the ashes (why there were ashes is a story for another day) as school ended, I had a confidence and a style and a pair of significantly less than 20-20 eyes as well as a goatee.

And with those tools I was ready to be an adult, or at least as ready as one could be with a liberal arts education. I spoke my mind more frequently than before. I started writing, creatively. I showered daily. I was my own man.

And so it went for a number of years. I had relationships. I finished a few degrees and was rewarded with a moderately-paying job. I got two cats, developed a love for said cats that only dissipated years later when I realized that they were the sole reason I was constantly sneezing. Through it all I continued to shape myself as if I were a large piece of soap or modelling clay (I'm not. You can stop looking shocked right about now).

Something happens as we age (multiple things my biology friends tell me with an annoying smugness) and become parents and even more so for me as a teacher and counsellor. I constantly find myself in situations where I'm expected to be the adult now. "When did that happen?" I often ask, followed by "But I don't wanna grow up" followed by ordering a pizza. I find myself constantly being asked my opinion or doling out advice or giving suggestions or drawing from my past experiences to help someone younger than me navigate a challenge.

And though I pride myself on having my own way of thinking, so often I find myself giving a fairly typical speech and I hate it. I don't want to be like someone else. I definitely don't want to sound just like another person. I absolutely want to come up with my own material or unique view. And, I also don't want to have a set of memorized go-to responses that I can pull out when needed depending on the situation. I repeat things I've said before often these days.

Now you may be thinking (let's give it 2-1 odds), one can copy or repeat themselves and still be considered original, their own person. That's true, and if I had the means, I would literally copy myself an infinite number of times. But, I am concerned (consumed?) with constantly striving to come up with new ideas and to not fall into the pattern or trap or comfort zone of recycling and reusing what I've already uttered or typed before. I love being creative and when I say something again it is like my brain was unable to drum up something new and that doesn't sit well with me considering the money I shelled out for drumming lessons.

Plus, I am a different person than I was last week or last year and I like to think that I am still growing and improving and progressing. So when I read a piece I wrote a few years ago and it sounds achingly similar both in word choice and in content to something current, I shiver. And when, I find myself saying to someone "sorry if I'm repeating myself", a grimace crosses my face. Then there are those times when I give a student a well-used speech that, as true and apt as it may be, it is another form of repeating myself and being unable to come up with something fresh.

In my writing, I've been told countless times that I've got a unique voice, which I take as high praise.
I purposely try not to read too many other authors who sound at all similar to me, as I don't want to consciously or subconsciously be influenced too much. I have also been told that I write how I talk, also high praise, as I have attempted to capture what is in my head and what comes out of my mouth in my writing. And yet, as I continue to write and write and write, I get the feeling more and more that I am repeating words and funny bit and themes, and I don't like how that feels.

Sure I continue to push myself to improve as a writer, and I believe that I have, but I spend a significant amount of "creating time" looking at an unfinished draft and beating my head against the wall (thank you, padding!) trying to finish something that just won't allow itself to be finished no matter how many times I write and rewrite a paragraph. "What or who is stopping me?" I wonder as I look at myself accusingly in the mirror.

Often it is lack of sleep or the fact that the topic of the piece is just very unexciting, but typically it is because what I type sounds too "been there, done that" and a new piece stalls as it lacks originality and enthusiasm. I fully understand that there are only so many adverbs and creative ways to use a semicolon, but I demand originality and refuse to continue to publish the same piece every week over and over again as some sort of psychological experiment on my readers.

I remember being a student teacher and being told by my faculty advisor that if I was bored with the lesson that the kids would pick up on that. A huge part of the success for many teachers, myself included, is in the deliverance of the material. "Guess what kids?!? Today we are learning about fractions! Booyah!" If I can summon up the necessary enthusiasm and find the best vocabulary available to me in the recesses of my brain, then I can salt and pepper my speeches and written work with the newness I'm craving and desiring.

Having said all of that, for the reader when I've published some writing or the listener when I am talking, I believe the repetition I bemoan mostly goes unnoticed. The bemoaning does not - it's super annoying. I don't believe I sound like a broken record, and believe, me I would know as quite a large amount of time in my formative years was spent listening to and befriending broken records.

But, I am sure that when I communicate an idea I'm slightly bored with, that it doesn't come across as excitedly or enthusiastically or as creatively as it would if it was new. We all know how it feels to be the recipient of a speech from an adult on a ubiquitous topic such as trust or honesty and we just want to interrupt the speaker saying "I know, I know". And now I am that adult, only I have the self-awareness (enough with the shock and awe, thank you very much) to not be that adult.

I can be unique and different and original. I've been there and I can be there again. I don't have to repeat others or myself. I can continue to reinvent the wheel! (oval anyone?) I can climb to new heights figuratively speaking of course what with my totally debilitating fear of heights. I can absolutely become a better writer and a more eloquent speaker.

Having said all that, I am my toughest critic on nights the other guy is busy. It's not like I have a huge problem - it's more of a long string of minor ones. While I don't have to repeat myself, I also don't have to berate myself for some repetitiveness. I'm not going senile (just around the corner), and some great thoughts and ideas and speeches and funny bits in writing are worth saying again almost like a Greatest Hits album.

Knowing myself as I do (it's like we're best friends), I will never settle on boring and I am just not satisfied with substandard and uncreative work. I will write and rewrite as I find that fresh material. I will revise and constantly freshen up advice I give students or stories I tell friends. Or, if I must say something again, I will present it with an excitement of a man half my age (with the full head of hair to match). So, I am sorry if I am repeating myself, but I am working on it.

Finding "The One"

The year was 2004 and I was single again; a fact that would have been hilarious if it wasn't so soul-suckingly frustrating and that is saying something as I happen to enjoy a chuckle at some good soul sucking from time to time.

I had finally faced the facts after years of looking sideways at them; I was ready for a change. A big change. A change with a capital C smack dab in the middle of a sentence regardless of what those grammarians would say. Those particular grammarians live just down the block.

Here's what happened - I had realized that I was tired of dating for all of the reasons that I had been dating for up until that point. Like many others, I too had dated for companionship, for love, so others would stop staring and once out of spite. That short-lived, spite-filled relationship was emotionally damaging while also the motivation I needed to get rid of that junk I had in the trunk. I wasn't sure why, but I had been carting around junk in my car trunk for months with the only benefit being my ability to employ a misleading expression in my writing.

But now, at the ripe age of 33, I was ready for something more out of my dating experiences, something meaningful and something much deeper, and no, I didn't want to just walk over and stand on your suspicious pile of banana leaves that you claim will lead me to this deeper place I'm looking for. "How do I move from where I am now to where I want to go?" I asked myself each morning while brushing my teeth which led to a disgusting amount of toothpaste and spit on the mirror. I believed I was doing all the right things and going to the right places and that I was made up of the right stuff, unless aerospace travel was involved. I'd even bought a spectacular new hat.

I was rolling the dice and playing my cards and I even spent hours spinning a roulette wheel grinning like the town idiot and nothing was happening. Maybe giving out signs to the universe that I liked games of chance wasn't the answer? Maybe attempting to emulate the town idiot was the wrong call? Possibly filling my afternoons asking myself rhetorical questions while scaling freshly caught trout was too meta? Was I sending out sort of a signal causing all of the great women to flee, sort of like how animals sense a storm coming before humans do? Did I need to "lose" my glasses or "be" taller or stop seeing deodorant as optional?

Regardless, something had changed in me from the past and it was not solely my brilliant decision to stop wearing thick woolen knee-high socks in summer, though that didn't hurt. What did hurt was the cut on my middle finger on my left hand. I was more confident now than ever before, moving up from "hiding in my room" to "not leaving the house without a Groucho Marx-esque disguise" to "so that's what the sky looks like". Also, I now knew, after numerous failed combustible experiments that would have made amateur chemists run for cover, exactly what I was looking for in a woman. Aside from the obvious - sense of humour, sense of taste and no rap sheet - she would have to be active, want to start a family and, most of all, "get" me even when I was being my cute, adorable, illusive and wax-covered self.

I found myself stricken by a new feeling which my doctor claimed was only allergies, while I argued that it was maturity. We fought over it, until we decided to split the difference and he only charged me half price for the session. This maturity hit me like a sack of bricks and the sack of bricks I paid my next door neighbour to throw at me for comparison's sake also felt like a sack of bricks, only infinitely more brickier. No longer was I a little boy or a young man or easily confused with a particularly vain orangutan, I was an adult who now had gained access to all of the clubs the adults hung out in if they hadn't just changed the locks and installed new security measures.

As a tribute to the important work of our early settlers, I just had an urge to settle down. I initially wasn't totally sure what that entailed, so I "hit the books" which lead to an immediate ban from the library. Who knew librarians could get so angry? Armed with knowledge, I was now ready to enlist and join the troops on the front line to win the war up until my best friend telling me that that analogy was as misleading as it was unfunny and if I ever, years later, decided to write about this experience, it's inclusion would be seen as quite obvious filler.

Touche.

As I committed to leaving singledom behind, I shed a small tear, although it very easily could have been sweat as I was perspiring at the time. To be clear, I am always perspiring, which, aside from the obvious psychological upsides, is quite frustrating especially when I am in the mood to appear dry. Being single had been "okay" and dating was "not bad", but I was finally completely ready to transition from "how are you still single?" to "who is marrying that guy, oh it's you, well congrats". 

But it's not as if they rolled me off the assembly line ready for a relationship. Despite how it looks now, it took a lot of work and sweat and rolling around in the mud trying to avoid getting trampled by pigs. True story; avoiding getting trampled by pigs was the goal I included in my high school yearbook. After years of baby steps, which I only discontinued when the laughter starting sounding more hurtful, I gradually worked my way up to having the courage to speak to a human female in person. Turns out that all of that practice in the lab with female mice was good for nothing outside of developing and perfecting no fewer than 7 different squeaks and knowing which cheeses to provide after arguments. 

I was tired of meeting a girl, being enamored and literally transfixed by her shiny jewelry, going through a truncated "feeling out period" that usually involved absolutely no feeling aside from the totally "accidental" bumping of elbows, and then going our separate ways. This painful routine happened again and again like a borderline-unwatchable community theatre production only with a tad fewer boos. But, I was slowly and deliberately, sort of like a semi-conscious koala hopped up on a strong dose of eucalyptus leaves, figuring things out. I now knew what I wanted and the sort of person who would fit that bill - no, not the comically large set of duck bills I have for special occasions - but the relationship bill (okay, you got me, the duck bills too); the big challenge was either finding her or somehow setting a trap.

I was looking and looking. Not knowing any better, or knowing better but choosing to do things how early humanoids would have done them, I was actively looking primarily using my eyes while also allowing the others senses their turn so they didn't whine and complain. (My nose never stops sniffling about how unfair and unjust things are). I wanted to find the woman I could spend the rest of my life with while playing up the positive aspects of that and all the while avoiding using that as my pickup line unless I could nail the perfect mix of pity and sarcasm.

Where was she? Locked in a women's prison for a crime she either didn't commit or didn't commit well enough which is why she got caught? I wanted to find her now! The clock was ticking, loudly. The incessant ticks and tocks were giving me a headache as well as providing a helpful metronome-like effect that helped with the pacing. I was trying as hard as I could though I'd been warned by others not to appear too desperate. After months and months of trying, including hours of late night practice in front of the bathroom mirror, I thought I'd nailed the perfect level of desperation, and yet still, no dice as well as not finding "Miss Right." Having a good set of dice to roll would have helped when things got slow. 

I'd also been told that it would happen when I least expected it which, while comforting for some, made me feel like I was a bit character in a horror film who didn't make it past the first 5 minutes. When I least expected it? "How could I live with this hanging over my head," I wondered until I just couldn't wonder any longer and I tried to hang something equivalent from my ceiling to give me some approximation. Oh, the neck spasms!

In this period of time I consecutively dated a few different women for relatively long expanses of time. The actual amount of time in each case was short, but when compared to the zero days of dating when I was single, it seemed much much longer. Each relationship possessed some of the character, spirit and chutzpah that I was searching for, while also sadly having glaring holes in their resumes. The unique combination I knew I needed to provide me with a lifetime of happiness was proving as elusive as the unique combination I needed to open my locker at the gym. "Perhaps they are the same combination," I wailed in desperation at the moon before my neighbour threw her entire family's collection of rain boots at me - all the wrong size, I might add. As I went my separate way with each of these women, I told them that bringing in stacks of newspapers as well as empty glass bottles and aluminum cans was an odd, yet strangely sensual manner, to say goodbye while they kept asking if I would, pretty please, stop talking and do their recycling one last time.

I'd hit the proverbial low. My self-confidence and lack of dating success met like two fronts in my living room until it started to rain. Turns out I was outside at the time, but that was beside the point. With nowhere else to turn (I'd tried left and then right and was all out of options), I lay on my back on the hardwood floor for a while and closed my eyes before attempting the same steps only on my bed. The bed was much more comfortable. "Dream big," my grandmother was always telling me in a slightly threatening way "and while you're at it, would it hurt you to do something big in your waking hours as well?" 

That night I had a series of crazy and crazier dreams that gave me some wonderful ideas for new pasta sauces. Upon awaking, I walked, as if in a trance, to the bathroom and washed my face or, what I later figured out, what was the reflection of my face in the mirror and yet somehow, I felt cleaner or at least looked cleaner in the mirror. I left the house with reckless abandon, shortly after vowing to live life with more reckless abandon. Instead of standing in the corner thinking about asking that girl out, I was going to stand somewhere closer to the middle of the room. No longer was I going to psych myself up in car that today was going to be different and the drive home at the end of yet another failed day cursing myself for missed opportunities. "Don't worry; there's always tomorrow sweetie" I reassured myself in the best Fairy Godmother voice I could muster up after a full day of barking out math instruction to teens - it may come as a surprise, but teens loved my German Shepherd impressions.

No, I was prepared to take life by the lapels and refuse to let go until I had a set of new, slightly ripped, lapels. When I used to zig, I was going to zag. When I used to loudly whimper, I was going to still whimper, only more quietly. When I used to stare a beautiful woman in the face, albeit from across the block, I was now going to approach her face and talk to it. I had no reason to cower or be meek or hide behind an intricate Chinese mask, even it meant that my mask collection would just sit in my closet gathering dust. Everything I had ever done had led me to this moment. The failures, the rejections, the notarized letters to cease and desist had attempted to knock me down, but instead that had given me something closely related to and rapidly approaching pride. She was out there, I just knew it, and I was going to find her and I'd even packed a light lunch for the trip.

I ventured far and wide. I crossed the tracks and climbed the trees. I spent hours of back-breaking labour digging up my backyard, before remembering I lived in a second floor apartment. I read the tea leaves and rode the waves and even considered taking a glass blowing class at the local community centre before coming to my senses.

And then one day, it happened.

I need to say a quick word to all of you who were hoping for a sad, depressing, atypical non-Hollywood ending where I end up never figuring things out and I spend my days alone sitting by the fire chewing tobacco, I'm sorry, this is not that story.

I turned around, slowly for dramatic effect and she was standing there like how you'd imagine someone would look if they were standing. She moved her head from side to side as if in a shampoo commercial or to demonstrate for all watching that she had a full range of motion with her neck. I introduced myself smartly resisting the urge to insert the word "the" at any part of my name. She quickly retired to huddle with her assembled team who could have easily passed as either a group of very liberal accountants or the best mime troupe this side of the Mississippi to consider her options while I was left to flap in the wind which I did, as those moments are rare and fleeting.

It all just worked with her; I couldn't explain it. For a good week I was rendered speechless and the outright joy of all who knew me both for my good fortunate as well as my speechlessness was a real treat. Our relationship, while early still, worked both literally and figuratively and on as many levels and dimensions as either of us could comprehend with an average layperson's understanding of quantum physics. We were like two peas in a pod, or more accurately, I was, while she was supportive of my strange, yet oddly endearing, vegetable-themed hobbies.

Where all other attempts at relationships in the past felt difficult and tenuous, this was easy. Almost too easy, and yet it wasn't. It ended up being exactly the right amount of easy. We just hit it off from the beginning. To break the ice, I brought a chunk of ceremonial ice. Then we went on one date and then another and then another and I'd keep going, to give you the full and accurate picture of how many dates but I'm trying to wrap this up before dinnertime. We laughed a lot, so much so that we both complained of sore jowls. We talked a mile a minute which is, ironically, not that fast especially if the car you are in is on a highway at the time - believe me, it makes sense.

I was amazed. I was stunned. I needed to be roused every few hours with smelling salts that she oddly insisted on going Dutch on. Everything about her was on my list - especially not having a warrant out for her arrest as that is just a turnoff for me - and I found myself gleefully checking off all of the boxes that needed to be checked off until she cleared her throat as she was attempting to tell me about her day. And I wanted to hear about her day and was also happy to watch a short marionette production about her day if she had happened to stage one on short notice.

One thing led to another (this is always true and not really worth noting) and the next thing I knew I was proposing. I, Tommy Paley, was asking a woman to marry me and I felt a little nervous. Not that it was in any way the wrong thing to do, but nervous as the sheer weight of what this meant descended upon me like a pack of hungry bats (don't ask). Being married wasn't something I was planning to venture into unless it was the real deal. And this was it. I just knew she was the one. I knew it from the moment I met her. Or, in actual fact, like somewhere in the first several moments as I can't say for sure that it was the very first as I was pretty excited and not my sharp, analytical self at the time. 

It was like a fairy tale, aside from the distinct lack of evil witches and moats. Exactly like a fairy tale in every other regard though. As I dropped to my knee, I thought back on all of the years of loneliness, of questioning as to whether there was something horribly wrong with me, of those days in my youth when a simple drop to a knee wouldn't have hurt at all and I smiled. She smiled as well, looking down at me on one knee before her almost as if to relish that she was even taller than me than usual. And after I asked her the question to end all questions, she replied with the words I'd always wanted to hear but never totally thought I would,

"Yes, of course yes. You do have a ring, right?"

I knew I'd forgotten something.

In time, after numerous pay cheques and salmon-wrapped-in-filo-served-with-sauteed-vegetable meals later, she got her ring alright, several in fact, of all different sizes and materials before she had to ask me to stop as the joke had ceased being even slightly funny.

I had found "The One" and I wasn't letting her go.

The Last Beach Day of Summer

There is this moment.

It happens each year.

I find myself standing there.

Looking out at the blue, blue ocean.

Feet sandy.

Hair blowing in the gentle breeze.

The rhythmic crashing of the waves.

My kids are in front of me, laughing and playing in the water.

Pleasing smells of barbecue are in the air.

My wife sitting on our beach chairs, reading, dozing, sipping wine.

Grandma and grandpa having just left for the evening.

The sun has begun its descent as time ticks down on another day in paradise.

And it hits me hard.

This is the last beach day of the summer.

Where has the time gone?

Just weeks before, summer announced its presence.

We were free.

Days upon days upon days we lounged around in the morning.

No rush, nowhere to run off to, no plan.

Then we'd snap into action and pack the picnic basket, grab our suits and hit the beach.

We spent our days swimming, paddling, and building castles.

Skipping rocks, throwing frisbees and playing games.

Not a care in the world.

Everyone is just happy.

As much as I live in the present, I find myself thinking of the past.

Summers are jammed full of moments of deja vu.

It's like we've been here before, in these exact spots, doing these things together.

Only this time our little kids are older and bigger.

"We aren't little anymore," they correct me.

I just want to stay in this moment and ignore reality for a bit longer.

Forever, in fact.

I don't want there to be an end to this, but it will end.

Moments are fleeting.

I know that.

The sunset creeps on us as the weeks go by.

Earlier and earlier it gets darker and darker.

A chill enters the air in the evenings that we haven't felt in a long time.

Autumn is on the horizon.

I'm sad.

Full of melancholy and ice cream.

I'll miss this, this time together.

So much.

With the end of summer, comes long, busy, exhausting days.

Always tired, always rushing, always aware of the time.

Homework to do, things to practice, lessons, and shopping and bells ringing and cars honking.

So little time to just sit.

Or stand in one spot and breathe.

Feet in the sand.

Sun on my back.

We will be reduced to ships passing in the night.

Or some other cliched expression directly implying that we never see each other even though we do.

As I stand there on the beach, on this final day with the seconds ticking down until the final gasp, I don't want to leave.

Leaving means the end.

"'Til next year," a fellow parent calls as they exit.

He's right.

But, I often feel like I'm on borrowed time.

Next year, the kids will be bigger and older.

At some point they won't want to spend their summers dancing in the waves, jumping off the dock, hanging out with their dad.

At some point I'll be older too.

We all will.

And I won't have the still youthful, go go energy on these long days that I feel defines me.

These days will be but memories of those days when the kids were young.

Those amazing, summer days at the beach.

Those days that we felt would never end.

And that one day.

When I stood there, surrounded by my family, enjoying all that was around me, just not wanting to let go.

That final day of the summer.

How I Deal With Boredom

Do you ever get bored?

Do you ever come close to clawing your eyeballs out due to extreme boredom only wishing you could do something, anything to feel less bored?

Do you ever wonder if this only happens to you?

Do you wish you had some tools in your toolbelt to escape this feeling?

Well, I too have momentarily felt bored and over time I have developed a handy list of ways to handle situations or experiences that are less that exciting.

You are welcome!

1) Pretend you are being followed or stalked. Not fun, but definitely not boring.

2) Make up a game with an intricate set of detailed and confusing rules. Hours of fun playing and arguing with yourself all afternoon that you are cheating.

3) Every crack you hear from above your head is one less crack before your roof collapses. Think about that for a while. Not boring!

4) Consume a ton of honey and then reorganize the furniture in your place and see how "bee-like" the end product is.

5) As your friends are busy, take out a handful of chocolate chip cookies and name each one with the name of one of your friends and then proceed to aggressively eat each of them. Confusing and a field day for your therapist, but a great way to pass the time.

6) Invent a dance that is heavy on eyebrow movement.

7) You're a spy! Now you're a princess! And then you become a cowboy! Followed by a hyena! Your only limit is your imagination and the selection of clothes your wife/husband/roommate/grandmother/cellmate has.

8) Log on to social media and refresh each minute for an hour to see if anyone has liked any of your many late-night posts from the previous evening, and therefore, you. Ultimately potentially depressing, but the sheer amount of rapid eye movement will make that hour seem like 48 minutes.

9) Write a play about a lonely person who was tremendously bored, was friendless, never accomplished or amounted to anything and then died alone. Now turn on some upbeat Broadway show tunes and notice how quickly your story comes alive.

10) Re-read emails from work associates and your boss with as much paranoid speculation as you can. Step back and allow your neuroses to do their job. Start plotting your revenge. Ultimately this will cause you hours of stress and may potentially cause you to look for employment elsewhere, but the afternoon will go flying by.

11) Remove your clothes and literally coat yourself with a thick layer of peanut butter, allow it to dry and then enjoy spending the rest of the afternoon in the bath trying to scrub yourself clean.

12) Imagine your existence as a variety of inanimate objects in the room: a window sill, a raincoat, a plastic straw, a filing cabinet. Now stand up and walk around the room resisting the urge to taunt. Enjoy the flexibility and freedom that is easy to take for granted. If still bored, chose four new objects and repeat. 

13) Play a rousing game of Hide the Wallet While Blindfolded in the Dark After Spinning Around Till Dizzy. It's a crowd pleaser!

14) Read the headlines from the newspaper out loud using delivery styles that alternate between cute old lady and savage animal. Be careful to avoid the temptation to maul yourself.

15) Pretend you are trapped inside a box with limited access to oxygen and all you have at your disposal is some dental floss, a toothpick and some unchewed bubble gum. A great way to use your problem solving skills and creativity! Bonus marks for actually trapping yourself inside a box. 

16) Call your most boring friend and spend the next thirty minutes listening to him or her drone on about the plights of their existence and instantly you'll feel a whole more exciting relative to that loser.

17) Start writing your tell-all autobiography full of every sordid detail, shady backroom deal, explicit affair and any actual events that may have occurred that are truly interesting. Note: this activity may yield tears and a feeling that some/most/all of your life has been a waste. Consider this - when crying, you definitely aren't bored and this list isn't about how to feel better or raise your self-esteem. That's a whole other list for another day.

18) Wrap yourself up in all of that asbestos-free insulation you were saving for a moment like this. Take pictures using your Polaroid camera in a variety of hilarious poses and ridiculous facial expressions. Put photos away for the next time you feel bored.

19) Sit by the window and smile, wave and jump up and down enthusiastically at each passerby with as much energy and fanfare as you can summon. Barking, yelping and slobbering are optional.

20) Don't fight the boredom. Embrace it. Accept yourself for who you are and where you are at. Love yourself in all your glory. If that doesn't work consider entirely removing all hair from your body.

I Will Succeed

I quit.
I just want to give up.
I tried my best and have failed, again.
Nothing ever works out.
I thought I was supposed to get wiser as I age.
I can’t do this anymore.
I’m so very tired.
I never learn my lesson.
There are no fairy tale endings.
I never have any luck or get any breaks.
I just want to go home and be by myself.
I’ve fallen short once again.
I feel like a shadow of my former self.
Always letting others down who are counting on me.
I tried my best and have failed, again.
I just want to give up.
I quit.

Everything will work out in the end.
I’m not perfect.
I am only human.
I can’t change the past and can only move forward.
I will make mistakes.
Even when I try my best, sometimes I will fall short.
It’s not a sign of weakness to ask for help.
I need to go easy on myself.
It’s not healthy to dwell on what I cannot change.
It’s alright to cry.
With a positive attitude, everything seems better.
I want to make a difference.
It’s hard to always put my best foot forward.
Sometimes I don’t say what I mean.
I am only human.
I’m not perfect.
Everything will work out in the end.

I will succeed.
I’m not done yet.
I’ve still got it.
I can accomplish whatever I set my mind to.
I am persistent and hungry.
I love challenges.
I know I can do this.
I am resilient and full of character.
Though I may occasionally appear weak, I am strong.
There is no quit in me.
The best is always yet to come.
When I fall down, I always get back up.
Failing does make me stronger.
I will rise to the occasion.
I’ve still got it.
I’m not done yet.
I will succeed.

Digging

Digging.

My childhood was spent digging.

At the beach, at the park, in the backyard, for scrabble tiles, and in between and under dirty and dusty popcorn kernels and ballpoint pen caps and lost teeth in the couch cushions.

I dug holes of various shapes and sizes using frustratingly flimsy plastic shovels, hands that quickly became cut and bruised and filthy, sticks and stones and broken bones and hired help.

These holes were tide pools, miniature civilizations for imaginary superheroes, houses of squirmy worms and wriggly bugs, and caves and caverns rife with hairy coins and sticky action figures from popular movies on the silver screen at a theatre near you.

Sand and dirt would fly as I dug to pass the time, because friends and acquaintances and those other kids who may someday become friends or acquaintances were doing it, because if I created a hole deep and wide enough I could hide there and escape or rent it out to some other kid who didn't have a hole of his own and I dug to dig, you dig?

Burrowing down creating crevices penetrating the planet, trying to finally get to Asia 'cause I was hungry for some take-out, looking for fossils and diamonds and buried bones to sell to dogs too worn out to excavate something to gnaw on themselves as well as other treasures from those who lived on this land before me.

My childhood was spent digging.

Digging.

Sometimes

Sometimes I am so happy that I could cry.

And other times I am so sad that making even the smallest of smiles feels impossible.

Sometimes I ache with a hunger that leaves me weak and debilitated.

And other times I am strong and impervious to all forces that aim to knock me down.

Sometimes I swim in the waters loving the cool, soothing wetness on my skin.

And other times the rain angrily pelts down on me almost as if to say "go away".

Sometimes I feel the need to hide from the prying eyes and loose lips that are seemingly around every corner.

And other times I boldly and bravely announce my presence to the world.

Sometimes I just want to tickle someone.

And other times the idea of any contact with another human being feels so awkward.

Sometimes I am battered and bruised by the harsh realities of the cold world around me.

And other times I sink into my bed at night; comfortable and secure without a care to speak of.

Sometimes I close my eyes and enjoy every last morsel of an incredibly rich and dense chocolate cake that leaves me in a state of pleasure that only it can.

And other times I need something and have no idea what.

Sometimes I try so hard to fit in, to feel a part of the group, and to not stand out.

And other times, I purposely wear crazy, clashing outfits and walk proudly down the busiest street in the middle of the day.

Sometimes I receive the appreciation I feel that I have earned.

And other times I feel used by the system. 

Sometimes I am so angry that I want to scream at the top of my lungs.

And other times I sit cross-legged with my eyes closed on a picnic blanket and am so at peace.

Sometimes I look around in awe at my surroundings and am so grateful for all that I am blessed to have.

And other times I give in to feelings of jealousy and envy that never get me anywhere.

Sometimes I feel so alone.

And other times I remember that I need to show all the people I love how much they mean to me.

The Writing Process: Part 2

So, I am back to continue to enlighten all of you who are still tuning in (is there more of an echo now then last time or is that just the result of all of my vocal training?) about how I write. Note: if any of you are actually attempting to tune in, please stop as it is greatly disrupting my cable and most likely not at all possible unless you have tons of money and then almost anything is possible. For those who missed the first piece about the writing process, these blog posts are my chance to share where my ideas come from and how much it costs for me to purchase them and bring them here from their native Namibia. I am attempting to flesh out how I do what I do without using any actual flesh in the process. I did try to brainstorm how I would use flesh if I wanted to and just couldn't think of a plan that would be overly messy and attractive to ants. There are times when I want to be attractive to ants, but those are some of my dark moments that I don't want to get into right now. No, right now I am thinking of a family in the hills of Germany...and I'm back. That happens to me from time to time - without any announcement, I am mentally whisked away to another part of the world where I will often stay, get acculturated and even be adopted by a family or clan if all things go well. Sometimes the trip is long and heart-warming and other times the people there just want to eat my warmed heart as a tasty pate with a slice of fresh baguette. This time the trip was short, mostly because the German family was at a bratwurst festival (not for eating, but more for the out-of-body experiences that come from eating one too many sausages) for the weekend and also because I feel the need to write.

I also feel the need to decorate my room with various mirrors and colourful drapes for reasons that I have been told by my lawyers I do not need to go into detail about right now no matter how many times I pretend that I am asked. Yesterday it was 5 times. For the record, I don't have any lawyers or even one single lawyer and I have also been told by them to say that as well. Is me writing about me writing sort of like talking to myself while I eat the food I made and telling myself about what a good job I did and patting myself on the back at the same time? Don't worry - I'm not doing that as it is way too challenging to eat, talk and pat myself all at the same time. I plan to do them one-by-one-by-one and that is how I will spend this Sunday! This piece of writing is not meant to sound too self-congratulatory - self-congratulatory too an extent, just not so much so that I make anyone sick or more sick in case they happened to be reading this while sick in the hopes it would either make them better or just distract them from how badly they feel. Either way - I'm good - I take great pride in distracting people from how bad they feel or just how they feel in general. Spend some time around me and you won't have any idea how you feel at all! Not that is a slogan I can live with! It is a gradual process - you will start feeling a lot and then little by little you will grow emotionally numb, some checkers will be played, the wind will howl, the birds will fly south for the winter and a pie will be consumed. All of this for the low cost of having to hear me moan about things - I'm sorry, I wish I could sing better too.

Contrary to popular opinion, writing is not all fun and games. Fun and games is all fun and games - writing is not fun and games at all and I'm not sure why we are spending so much time trying to explain this as it seems pretty easy to understand. Oh, one more thing - fun and games is not entirely all  fun and games, that is just what the powerful fun and games lobby wants us to believe. Occasionally there are tears. Too many tears and the word fun starts to see wrong and quite insensitive and sort of like why don't the rest of you stop playing and laughing and see what is the matter already? I hope we understand each other and I can't proceed until we do or else I will have a nagging feeling sort of like a mother bird when she leaves her nest full of cute little helpless baby birds who are anxious for her to return (is that true - are little birds actually anxious? do they have the ability to feel such a complex emotion at such a young age? and maybe they are happy to have the nest to themselves for a while before boring old mom comes back who only cares about spitting chewed up food in our mouths even when we have had more than enough?)

I know I just said "we" and lumped you into all this when you may have been just passing through and you are most likely thinking "wait a minute! Like woah - slow down, big fellow. Don't get me all mixed up in all of your issues." To which I reply (a) I am willing to take your minute and raise you an infinite number of minutes - That's right! I can wait as long as this is going to take or as long as you will let me stand here on your porch before calling the authorities (ask for Bob down at the precinct, we are on a first-name basis and I know he loves two creams and a sugar in his coffee), (b) I will not slow down (c) "Big fellow?" - have you taken a close look at me recently? That is wrong on at least two accounts and I know I can find at least four or five more if given the time and some chocolate and (d) issues?!?!? What do you know of my issues? Have you talked to Sarah? Did she say that if you read this you could get mixed up in them? For the record I was just bidding time until my "mom" came back to "the nest", if by "mom" I meant "star ship" and by "the nest" I meant "home base" and when I told her that I wished I was a herring who was about to be caught in the net of a muscular, but kind fisherman and his son, I WAS JOKING! Did she honestly think I thought I was a herring??!?! Okay, that actually could make sense - I do get occasionally slimy and have a large collection of all different kinds of scales.

For those that didn't know, I have been caught in nets on two separate occasions - once was my fault entirely as I decided to drape a series of nets in my bedroom the same week I decided that any form of lighting was completely passe and the other time was at a costume party when my best friend, dressed as a net, bumped into me (dressed coincidentally also as a net, only a much smaller one) and we became entangled and lay in a pile all evening long (we believed in not only dressing as nets but acting as net-like as possible to complete the effect) - it was the closest the two of us ever had been and we swore never to talk about that evening again which I am violating right now and feeling actually not so bad for doing. The part about being caught or rescued by a hunky, should-be-in-underwear-ads, fisherman and his equally-dropdead-gorgeous-yet-overly-fish-smelling sons...yeah...anyways...

Easily the toughest things about writing for me are not what you would think of (not that I am pretending to always know what you think, or to ever be knowing what you or any of your kind think. Quite the opposite in fact, I know nothing that you are thinking about as evidenced by my inability to buy you a present or even  a piece of fruit that you don't instantly return. And when I say your kind, I don't mean that in a derogatory way, unless of course it is my turn to be derogatory - for those that don't know, a few friends and I take turns each Thursday from 9am till noon being derogatory to each other - sort of like a snack-bringing rotation except that it usually makes me angry and upset and there is no sugar involved except on particularly creative Thursdays). I can easily find my way to the computer and I get how to turn it on etc etc etc - I am mildly offended that many of you thought that the whole finding my computer and actually getting to my blog would be the challenging part for me. Not totally offended, just mildly, as I said, sort of akin to going walking in the woods and only stumbling upon chanterelles and no wild morels or having two out of five random passersby thumb their noses at me for no apparent reason aside from my decision to wear gumboots to the opera which only shows both my complete inability to anticipate proper attire for many formal events and to read through the lines in my friends texts that were evidently supposed to be sarcastic (I just figured she was quoting some unknown author or authors repeatedly. I did wonder why these quotes were particularly memorable, but I just kept quiet as the last time I admitted to not knowing the source of some seemingly random quotes I ended up having to make egg salad sandwiches for the whole accounting department aside from Fred who preferred tuna.)

No, the toughest problems with writing for me are finding cool and unique names for characters that I am using in my stories. Not that there aren't an amazing amount of awesome names, but I know a lot of people and if I use a name of someone I know they probably think one of the following thoughts (a) should I be flattered or concerned?, (b) let's take a wait and see approach and if he makes money I'll attempt to sue/bribe/threaten him for lots of money over using my name without asking, (c) isn't it weird that of all the millions of names in the world that he chose mine and does that mean that he thinks we are friends? Well, let me put your mind at rest (only literalily of course) - I am attempting to choose names that have zero connection to anyone who may actually read my writing and if I happen to choose your name then it was merely a coincidental slip-up which you should not read anything into. Or if you are in the mood, I suggest you spend hours and hours reading into it and if you find anything interesting, please let me know. Maybe there is some hidden connection that I am unaware of at this point - like maybe I unknowingly used your name because your grandfather once pulled a thorn out of my grandfather's hand when they were playing around that good ol' thorny bush that they spent many an hour playing around as young kids and my grandfather was ever-so-grateful that he just wouldn't let up with the appreciation which usually took the form of cream cheese and jam sandwiches aside from the occasional parfait when his mom just happened to make two of just in case there was someone, anyone, he wanted to thank for some small, seemingly innocuous thing - I'm sure if this happened, my grandfather would have tucked me into bed and told me this story of how your grandfather was such a hero in his eyes and that his eyes had been conditioned to be blind to heros except when thorns were involved and then they were wide open, just not wide open enough to miss the thorn in the first place and usually by this time in the story I was fast asleep, but his story would blend into my dreams and then years later when I decided to launch into some creative writing the name was somewhere in the recesses of my brain mostly because I elected against having that elective and quite-risky-sounding surgery of having the recesses "smoothed" over mostly for cosmetic reasons.

As an aside, I try to do as much as I can for cosmetic reasons outside of buying any actual cosmetic items as I'm working my way up to that, sort of how I worked my way up to hang gliding after just jumping off my couch for years until I both broke the couch and was ordered by both my doctor and downstairs neighbour to get out of the house more often. Note: I've never actually hang glided - I've just worked my way up to it which is akin to saying that I am standing in a line waiting my turn with my prized pineapple to commision a fruit sculptor (someone who carves humourous celebrity faces into fruit) who is currently on "vacation" which means he is in prison for life for mistakenly and repeatedly attempting to carve an actual celebrities face. The names I choose just come to me. Almost like I am still and they are moving at the speed of light or maybe it is the other way around and the names are stationary in space and I am screaming up to them at speeds I am unaware mostly because it will be a cold day in hell before I recognize relativity.

So, to avoid using names of those I know, I am tempted to swing the other way and only use extremely uncommon names, but then people may start to wonder what is up with these names I am choosing and why they all sound African or Korean. That reminds me - I am planning to write a piece about two ex-lovers who decide to move (one to Africa and one to Korea), change their names to fit in with the people in their respective countries and also as a voluntary and totally unnecessary witness-protection program only in this case it was only to protect themselves from each other as the love just hurt too much (all of their friends suggested clipping their nails on a more regular basis and just practicing compassion and stop being so aggressive all the time). After a few years, when they both have become accustomed to their new surroundings, they unveil their plan - to each open up a hair salon that would specialize in straightening afros and perming bangs. These salons would be doomed to fail, which was part of the plan all along, and they would both fly home to the small town in Texas they were from (to be honest, they were from a slightly larger city in Texas originally but I decided against that as I wanted them to have a more small town feel to them, which for me only involved deleting a few key strokes and doing a little extra typing, but for them it involved packing, moving and renting a storage locker to put their huge collection of antique wig stands in just before they were about to purchase their first wig) and meet on the tarmac at the airport only to remember why they left in the first place. They really don't like each other at all and only forget that from time to time because of the fact that they are actually figments of the imagination of a third person who is always mixing up who is who in his head. All in all it is an incredibly bad and intentionally convoluted idea for a story which means that if I eventually write it, it will mostly be out of spite unless I feel that I have already done too much out of spite at the time and then I will do it out of revenge or the need to exercise my fingers in as socially acceptable a fashion as possible.

Along the way, when either preparing to write or writing, I have learned some important things. One thing that stands out is I've learned how important breathing is and also that it is very very important not to touch the burning log in the fire place and also to say please and thank you. It never ceases to amaze me how others are nicer to you when you treat them well and this mostly speaks to how long I've been able to condition myself to maintaining the feeling of amazement. I can go literally for days in this state of awe where I am totally overjoyed and inspired by everything I come into contact with or directly contact head on and I'm also very fortunate when these days ends and I'm not in traction. The word traction almost sounds a bit exciting because as my imaginary friend Joe always says, you can't spell attraction without traction which always makes me smile wistfully and makes me long for some actual flesh and blood friends or at least ones with one of those two criteria, but preferably both as I'm not totally interested in a friend who is solely or mostly flesh and I'm definitely not too crazy about blood.

Another thing I've learned that is worthwhile sharing with you at this time is the importance of looking at someone when speaking to them. The main reasons seem to be that it greatly lessens the confusion of who I am talking to especially when in a busy place like a train station and because in this day and age if you can't look someone in the eyes in makes the other person feel very self-conscious and wonder "what is so wrong with me that he can't even look me in the eyes or even at my nose, which would like some visual attention too from time to time when the eyes have either had enough or decide to get off their high horse and share once and a while". I don't want to make anyone else more self-conscious than me - it is a competition I've been playing in every day since last year went I met that odd lady on the corner downtown with the large collection of stuffed birds for sale. I liked the black and white one the best, and she seemed to be enamored with my shirt collar which I agree was my best feature that day, but just couldn't take it when she offered as my hands were metaphorically full and it was just too confusing to attempt to explain this to the lady who seemed like she would be quite metaphorically-challenged. I do not want to unnecessarily challenge anyone in life, especially since the infamous Balloon Incident.

The Next Day in My Life

It is a beautiful morning with an incredible sunrise. I am at the beach and I am observing a sunrise which seems odd as I am never at the beach early enough to view the rising of the sun. It isn't totally unusual for me to be at the beach in the morning in and of itself, aside from the fact that I wake here which is a change of pace for me as I usually go out of my way to sleep and wake up in in my own bed or at least in my bedroom as sometimes I playfully roll around and off the bed and enjoy the coziness of the rug. I yawn a few times and look around from my vantage point on the exposed sand and sit up. It takes me a few minutes to get used to my surroundings and my mind is full of millions of thoughts and questions including "Why am I waking up on the beach?", "How did I get here?" and "How concerned should I be about not having any immediate idea at the answers to those fairly basic questions?" After some fairly rushed deliberations I settle on "Not sure", "Unknown" and "Quite" as my three answers and I briefly contemplate looking around for applause from the studio audience and for a monetary prize for getting the questions correct. After a moment of being proud of my creativity at such an early hour of the day, I start to panic slightly, which is evidence that the appointments with the therapist are paying off as I used to jump immediately and quite scarily into full panic mode at the drop of a hat and in numerous other situations that extended well past the accidental falling of headware.

Full panic mode is not all it's cracked up to be except that it often allowed me to don some of my shirts that clashed with every pair of pants I owned and have it somehow fit the occasion. No extreme anxiety at the moment, just slight nervousness and a bit of cold sweating - how and why am I on the beach and why am I not at home wearing my comfy slippers that I purchased for the express purpose of making my feet warm. I had tried to think of a number of other reasons to justify the purchase of the slippers as I believe that I should have a minimum of 5 reasons for buying anything. I determined this years ago when I felt a large amount of buyer's remorse when I spent at least $300 too much on blubber and could only think of art as the sole initial reason for the expenditure with food for my as-yet-unacquired-baby-sea-otter as the second. I remember the day I purchased that I'll-thought-through blubber as I had just spent hours forcing myself to paint only pictures of forests of tree trunks knowing how painful those images were for me to paint. It is true, I hate the idea of old-growth forests being chopped down but I also have a nervous twitch when I paint those sort of pictures which usually ends up with accidentally scratching myself around my face and neck.

I decide to calm down by standing and stretching and giving the appearance of fitting in. I've seen so many movies where someone has lost their memory and they almost always get it all back in a series of awesomely filmed, dramatic flashbacks and I am excited all of a sudden as I can't wait for my flashbacks to begin. I look at the seagull in front of me and can almost imagine him speaking to me and helping guide me through the events, but he just gives me the strong impression that he either doesn't speak English or just can't be bothered to get involved with a strange human at this point in his life as he has way too many of his own issues to deal with including finding a meal for his high-maintenance wife that does not involve worms or insects as she has had enough of those to last a lifetime and trying to think up the best way to advertise his new accounting firm that he started with his two best friends considering that most of his potential clients were not socially media-savvy. "I don't need the bird's help!" I said to myself aloud and quite loudly as well, startling my feathered companion so much that he squawked and flew off which was exactly how I thought our friendship would end when I first laid eyes on him five minutes ago except that I wasn't quite sure which of us would be doing the squawking and fleeing as I am well aware of my avian and scaredy-cat tendencies. As I felt a twinge of guilt at lashing out at my only friend on this foreign beach, it hit me that using the term friend is probably a bit too early in the developing relationship and that we were only mere acquaintances and that is how it often is with birds for at least the first few social activities.

All of a sudden it hit me - I  remember that I awoke shortly after midnight and got dressed and that, at some point, I was in the forest.

I love the forest. The trees that rise so high almost showing off, the bushes that are either more satisfied with a "rounder" appearance than the trees or are doing a fairly good job of not appearing to care, the stumps which act both as a reminder to all trees of what could happen to them if they get a little too full of themselves and as a more appropriately-sized companion for the bushes, and the wildlife which is either cute, wanting to detach my nose from my face, or falling somewhere between those two extremes. I often don't know why I am in the forest, but I have tried to stop focussing on the question "why" so often as the answers are long and convoluted and eating up much valuable eating time. No, I choose to allow my body, mind and feet to select the activities and the site for those activities and if they want me to be in the forest, then in the forest I will be even if there is a game on that evening or it looks like rain.

That reminds me of that amazing 5-hour excursion to the forest I took last summer with my friends Dave and Steve as well as my imaginary friend Beth who seems to accompany me to lots of places especially when her other imaginary friends are busy. It is actually quite confusing that my imaginary friend has other imaginary friends and then me, who is quite real. Can you imagine how I feel as the only real person at the sushi restaurant, that is also imaginary? I've tried broaching the topic with Beth, but she pretends that she can't hear me, which is a typical ploy by imaginary beings - the whole "I can't hear you, because I don't actually have functional ears" thing - it is boringly predictable after a while - it does make sense on some level, but that doesn't make it any less annoying. How I love Beth and when the laws are more permissive, I may ask for her hand in marriage as long as she doesn't claim that her hands are too imaginary thus making the offer moot.

So we were in the forest, walking the trails, trying to be one with nature and getting quite close. The best estimation Steve came up with was somewhere between 1.25 and 1.5. And then the rains came and we were forced to either retreat quickly to our modern homes with central heating and slightly-redundant wall-to-wall carpeting or to tough it out proving to ours moms that we could survive in the woods. For some odd reason all three of our moms really want to toughen us up and they even got together and spent three successive Thursday evenings eating praline, drinking peppermint tea out of mugs that were intended for coffee and devising a set of tasks for their sons to make us real men as they were admittedly fairly stuck on having real men as sons for reasons that they were debating going to see someone about. Beth does not have a mom, because I haven't gotten around to mentally creating that for her yet and believe you me, she is getting quite impatient as she really wants to call her mom, once she has one, to ask for her apple pie crust recipe so she can stop using store-bought crusts that are lackluster at best. I keep telling her that my schedule is quite full and it takes more effort and mental-wherewithal to create a fictitious mom than it seems, but in reality I just can't be bothered.

Spending a day in the forest with no supplies aside from allowing Dave to wear glasses was step one in our mother's plans. It was all fine and good until the torrential downpour began, soaking us from head to toe in minutes. Initially it was sort of like a cool shower and was slightly refreshing. I compared it to drinking a glass of cool water after a hard workout, except that I hadn't just worked out and instead of drinking the cool water and having it refresh me, the water was being continuously dumped on me with force instead. After the initial period of joy had worn off, we started to panic - Dave was trying to get directions from a bunch of not-so-helpful squirrels; Steve, for some reason, began to tear off his shirt and replace it with a haphazardly bunched together pile of leaves and me, I made noises with my lips that usually made babies giggle, only there were no babies present so they went largely unappreciated. We spent the rest of the day huddled together, under a small canopy of large, low-hanging branches, sharing stories of love and computer software nightmares and the more powerful love that often came out of those computer software nightmares until the nightmares got worse and no amount of love could cheer us up. We shared those stories all the time, being in the forest in the rain was quite secondary. Finally, the rains cleared and we strode out of the forest, the four of us, three back to our moms and one of us, Beth, decided to go catch a movie.

I closed my eyes and tried imagining the previous evening to determine how I got to the beach. I knew I'd remember as long as I really focused and since I figured there had to be a reason I was on the beach and that that reason may, in fact, be time-sensitive, I got right to it. I remembered that I woke up in bed with a start, preemptively ending an amazing dream where I was some sort of representative speaker for the humans and I was attempting to meet with a selection of specifically-chosen marine life who were very hard to schedule meetings with as they have very busy schedules what with the holidays just around the corner. I urgently wanted to meet with them to investigate the options for a shared currency and a human-marine life exchange program where a bunch of underprivileged youths and at-risk marine life can trade places for a three-month period in order to gain more employability and transferable skills and just when I was about to storm into the head shark's office to demand some face time, I woke up.

I don't recall hurriedly getting dressed, but based on my outfit, I not only didn't avoid any clashes with colours and patterns but I seemed to go out of my way to clash as much as possible with the only limitations being my limited wardrobe and the current abilities of my eyes. I noticed my quite regular-looking socks and surmised that my socks with pompoms, that I can only guess were left at my place as some sort of subliminal message by the cleaning lady who cleans the last Wednesday of each month, were at the dry-cleaners. I can only guess that I dressed in a hurry, with the lights off, and with my eyes closed, which was becoming more and more commonplace with men of my age and socio-economic status, and then I left the house in a rush after locking the door, quickly dusting the window sills and arranging the dried decorative flowers just so and then making a beeline for the forest. I had wished in this attempt of mine to piece together the events that I didn't choose to take an unnecessarily meandering beeline for the forest as I just wanted to get there already and this bee of mine was taking his sweet time and stopping off at every single flower along the way almost as if he was either searching for his long lost friend whom he had heard rumours was hanging out at local pollen salons or he doing some really smart comparison shopping looking for the best price for antique wall hangings.

As I'm standing there on the beach remembering the details of the early morning, I open my eyes as an image hits me not unlike a ton of bricks, but not at all like that as well. I distinctly remember brushing my teeth before I left the house and remarking "my teeth are so white, so white my teeth are, how I love you my white teeth" right before commenting "but you'd think that being so perfect and white that you would either have earned me a higher social standing, some sort of government grant for an enamel-inspired set of monolithic sculptures or at a minimum a date with that cute dental hygienist who just moved in next door and is always wearing her hair up showing off that slender and deeply tanned neckline of hers that shows off both her beauty and her lack of respect for the power of the sun even in the early spring, but no, you are just so selfishly interested in maintaining your own gleaming whiteness leaving the rest of us in your wake and making us so jealous that I can't even make eye contact with you anymore not like before ,and no, I don't need you to remind me that you don't have eyes-  I know that now!" before falling in love with their whiteness all over again. If I didn't know better I would think that I had never been in the forest and that instead it was my excuse that I was giving myself to avoid revealing the depths of a transgression or something, but there was no mistaking the scent of pine and I had given up using pine fresheners as a cheap replacement for deodorant the previous week.

So, I was in the forest and aside from the fact that it was pitch dark and I couldn't see where I was going or what sort of object I was conversing with - it was a fence - I had a great time. I have had so many great times in the dark, especially that one time when my friends invited me to a blindfolded dinner party they were having in their basement last winter. I came over, was blindfolded and then I thought I heard snickering, the sound of a number of shoes on the steps leading upstairs and the door closing followed by sounds that were eerily similar to celebratory high-fives only to have them cut off by a van starting and driving off. I sat there in the basement, awaiting the dinner, for hours, with the anticipation building to a point where I just couldn't take it any longer and I decided to take a nap only to realize that they had tied me to the chair, as a prank, or maybe so I wouldn't get any ideas and either remove the blindfold or sneak a peak at the surprise dinner that I still couldn't wait to try. What an elaborately planned evening of fun, I remember thinking before I accidentally nodded off only to be woken the next day by one of my friends who was shocked that I hadn't "gone home already" and "got the hint" and "my share of the dinner came to $24.75 but that they would be okay with $24".

I loved the smell of the forest and once my eyes got used to the light, I quite enjoyed being with the trees because, as my mom always said, "trees never judge except for cedars. Stay away from cedars with your secrets, they are like sieves." My mom always had an issue involving cedars almost definitely dating back to when her father left her mother with a cedar and continuing when a cedar was responsible for her failing math back in grade 9. I stood at the start of a trail. As a child I had always been consumed with the names of trails and what they could mean and I sometimes felt that the names were part of a large government conspiracy of which I wanted to be the intrepid young whippersnapper who unearthed the plot by the government. I had narrowed the potential details of the plot down to three possibilities: the systematic elimination of all lower case letters, the banning of all dental floss or the staging of a sham election where the people would fall in love with this amazing candidate only to have it revealed at the inauguration that we were all on the moon the entire time and while we were all engrossed in the amazing lead-up to the election with the well-placed and timed ads and well-constructed campaigns, we were all air-lifted to the moon as part of a government plan to rezone the land our houses are on just for laughs and giggles. It was a fairly bizarre plot for a 12-year old boy to come up with and that made me quite proud, as I was that 12-year old boy - if it had been someone else's idea, I would have been fairly jealous and concerned especially because it was in my head and how would the other 12 year old boy with ideas eerily similar to my own, get his ideas in my head. 

I stood there, in the moonlight and looked at the trail map and thought about the names of the trails and what they could possibly indicate or mean.

There was one called Inspiration Trail and I imagined the first people walking on it and being so inspired by the surroundings and leaving the trail to not only return to their loved ones oozing with inspiration and going on to lead infinitely more productive and happy lives, but also using the experience of being on the trail as their main motivation for everything else in their lives. I just hope that they were that inspired, because if they weren't then I have a huge problem with the naming of the trail unless they were meaning it to be somewhat sarcastic and the person who fielded the new name of the trail on the phone didn't quite hear or understand the quotation marks around the word inspiration that would have made the sarcasm more obvious to the reader. Maybe it is extremely un-inspirational and those that go on it literally feel inspiration being sucked out of them, so much so, that many people don't even finish the trail and set up camp and just stay and over time a nice little community of similar-minded, not-so-easily-inspired-by-fairly-commonplace-trails people would work together growing crops, raising farm animals and living off the pretty regular land. I briefly consider how my life would potentially change if I went down that "road" and I decide against it as either way I have plans for the weekend that would almost definitely have to be changed if I came back overly inspired or not at all. My guidance counsellor once warned me that I was easily susceptible to groups of very warm people who lived off the land after only setting off to walk on a trail and be inspired. It seemed like a very random thing for me and my parents to be worried about and I generally forgot about it until this moment. I'd have to remember to mail her a card with a cute kitten on it as she always had a thing for cute kittens - on her sweaters, on photographs on her walls and even in the hairstyle she used for much of the time I was in school.

Next to that trail was a hike to Dog Lake. Most likely a popular destination for dog-owners when accompanied by their dogs or by people without dogs who own leashes as a first step in a 12-step process towards owning a dog and they just want to try out the experience of owning a dog by frequenting places that dog-owners and dogs may go. The next step is buying a bag of dog food and pouring it into a dog dish and seeing how that makes you feel on a spiritual level - it is said that if you can't make yourself buy and dish out the food then you most likely will not be able to care for an actual dog unless you can somehow train it to shop and serve itself its own food or train it to at least feed you so things will seem equal in the area of food distribution. It is also possible that the lake is at least partially dog-shaped based on the appearance of dogs in this specific area at the time the first explorers came upon this lake. The explorers may have been paying homage to the great dogs of the day in the hope that the dog gods would look kindly upon them and not have them spayed or neutered or to at least use some anesthetic if it was absolutely necessary. I can only imagine a group of proud dogs convening on this lake for council sessions that usually were accompanied by a wonderful spread, exotic dog dancers and a fortune teller as dogs in that day and age went bonkers for having their fortunes told. Some say that the ancestors of current dogs still haunt the lake not that they are interested in creeping people out, but mostly because they were told to sit and no one ever told them to stop which would drive anyone crazy.

Or I could walk down the Endless Loop. In many ways, I would describe my teenage years as walking down an endless loop and that was partially due to my feeling stuck in a rut and also the endless loop of staircases my parents installed in our house after accidentally ingesting a strong batch of horse tranquilizer after seeing a particularly riveting documentary on M.S, Escher. It took me hours to figure out how to get from my room to the kitchen and I swear to this day that there was no back door any longer as the steps that used to lead to the back door now went a totally new and quite exciting direction, as long I wasn't in a rush to go anywhere that day. I also ran around and around and around a 400 metre track for a girlfriend trying to get back in her good books after I unknowingly insulted her - how was I supposed to know that her uncle left his wife, her favourite aunt, when he fell in love with a librarian who was also due to inherit a massive fortune because her father was the richest glue manufacturer in the local area. I mean who could predict that exact set of events?

My girlfriend had me run and run because she found it mesmerizing and also because she staunchly didn't believe in dog houses. Seriously - she did not believe in a dog house as a physical or mental construct. When I asked her where did she think dogs lived, she said that she preferred to think of dogs as beautiful and mystical vagabonds who could call any place that they chose to lay as their home. It was just one example of what I both loved and found perplexing about her with the perplexing side eventually winning out when she decided to spend the month of July chasing butterflies with cheap chopsticks. I just couldn't convince myself to walk down the Endless Loop because it seemed like a fairly large time commitment and I had promised myself not to make any large time commitments no matter how tempting because I wanted to walk down a slightly-less-than-endlessly-long path that would take slightly-less than an endless amount of time, but also had the same amount of endless pleasure attached to it. I was quite high maintenance when it came to choosing where to walk in general and that led to my taking a few steps in one direction followed by a turn of a seemingly-random degree and then a few steps in a different direction and so on and so on. Some professors from the local university once graphed my walking on a time/distance graph and the results helped them figure out the secret of the mating patterns of koalas. Somehow I didn't benefit financially at all from that study, although I did get a free pass to the koala exhibit at the zoo. However, I was barred from entrance during mating season as they hypothesized that my walking might lead to several miscarriages.

The final trail that caught my eye was one called Wildberry Trail which got me quite excited as I am a sucker for wildberries which is interesting only in that I am also a sucker for almost everything else that is wild: feral pigs, wild hair, out-of-control neighbours who yell and scream and need police attention every other Friday evening, wantonly scooped Vanilla-flavoured Greek yogurt, and of course, wild applications of lipstick that cause others to feign concern. But wildberries were my favourite! I especially loved that they taste good and also that they don't criticize me and jump on my every mistake and make me sit in the corner while they pop all of my balloons that were also doubling as my friends. I had always been under the belief that we didn't pop our friends or balloons that were doubling as our friends because I had once mistook my friends shrieking and recoiling from the long, pointy needle I was lurking suspiciously around with as a desire to be popped with a needle that I carried around for those specific situations that almost never came up and I was quite excited.

I would have walked down this trail but it was pitch black and at least a few hours until sunrise and I would have no idea whether I was staying on the path or veering towards something poisonous or something sharp or even something resembling my roommate-lawyer. I have randomly bumped into him in the dark on many occasions and have had the chance, the fortune to touch him, to caress the nape of his neck, to briefly lick some part of his leg in a dark, dark room and wonder why I hadn't studied to be a lawyer. I often walk around in the dark simulating licking an ice cream for reasons that I will carry to my grave. I have also requested that my grave be within 250 steps of an upscale ice cream parlour and that the burial occur on a hot day so that everyone walks to the ice cream parlour licking as they go and that the proceeds of the sales go towards improving the lives of chickens as I have always wanted to select an animal at random and to donate money that is not mine towards improving their lives. It is both the most and the least that I can do as I will be buried at the time.

I remember distinctly leaving the woods quite unceremoniously, and infinitely disappointed, as I was expecting at least a small ceremony, and walking straight towards the beach. The sun was now slowly starting to light up the sky and for some reason I needed to be on the beach when the sun came up. And here I was, sitting on a log on the beach. "Always sitting," I think to myself mostly to make conversation and to enjoy a brief respite from the silence that almost engulfs me. Not the most comfortable spot ever, but with all the expected tranquility and postcard-like scenery I expected. "Tranquility is very under-rated" I murmur knowingly, although I'm not sure if it has been rated much at all - thankfully no one is around to refute me...this time. Later on I plan to make a list and post it online, rating it low so that this all makes sense in retrospect. If I could somehow make a living doing it, I would alternate days between murmuring knowingly for show and rating things online also for show. I smile at this thought - always talking about doing things for show, but never having the guts to follow through.

I would love to sit in the most comfortable spot ever, at least for a moment - seems like I owe myself that. But I wonder if that spot would be so comfortable and famous for being so comfortable that it would eventually be either worn out making it less comfortable or inspire others to create new spots in its likeness that would also be comfortable, maybe not quite as comfortable but so close that it would be really really hard to judge and would lead to much debate and discussion at local coffee shops over mugs of scalding coffee. I once bought a series of mugs, drew a wide variety of comical faces on them, filled them with scalding liquid and provided all of the voice work for a really moving version of the hit Broadway show Hair only this time performed by inanimate coffee cups sitting motionless on my kitchen table. I believed that the show was "out-of-this-world funny" and "a show that should not be missed as long as you didn't mind the occasional splash of scalding liquid and if you did, just show up near the end of the first act as the liquid would have cooled down considerably by then" and "quite possibly the best coffee-cup-filled-with-liquid rendition of the hit Broadway show Hair that has been produced in someone's kitchen in this area of town in the past year". I had briefly considered taking the show on the road until somehow the mugs all got smashed to bits when they suggested holding out for more money unless either their dressing rooms were always stocked with chilled European spring water, they received a higher percentage of the gate and their names be printed on all posters and promotional materials in a minimum of 32 point font and I countered by smashing them with a hammer that I always kept on hand for inevitable moments just like this. I did regret what I did the next morning when I had nowhere to pour all of my scalding hot liquid and I felt a lot of remorse and even briefly thought about travelling down to the store in the mall where I had purchased those mugs and asking the sales lady to smash me, but I remembered that the last time I did that she threatened to call my mom. What did she think, that I was 13? I was 14.

It is early on a summer morning well before the heat of the day, and I am mostly alone aside from a few dog-walkers and joggers. These particular dog-walkers seem really boisterous and enthusiastic almost like this is their calling in life - to walk dogs. I am pleased for them and for their dogs as it seems to be win-win, but I remind myself that things are rarely as they seem and behind closed doors the walkers may be sadistic taskmasters only serving average dog food when they are fully aware that the dogs prefer deluxe and insisting that they clean their rooms before getting a treat when everyone is quite aware that their ability to keep their rooms clean is severely hampered by not having hands. Or the dogs may be just putting on a show while in public and at home they may be loud-barking, couch-tearing, and overly-selfish-to-the-point-where-at-least-some-of-the-humans-are-both-jealous-and-rendered-to-tears. Regardless, I don't wish to own a dog - I'm scared of them what with their loud barking, their sharp teeth and the unshakable feeling that I would be a mere stepping stone owner-wise for them and that they would always be on the lookout for an upgrade to someone taller.

Compared to the dog-walkers, the joggers never seem that happy. Aside from the exercise, which is obviously good for you, they just seem to be in a lot of discomfort. Each step they take is met with a grimace or look of boredom almost as if others should take pity on them. I would be first in line to take pity on them, but I feel like my figurative pity jar is all empty as I just spent a lot of time talking to people waiting in line at the passport office. What a sad, sorry bunch of people all suspiciously wanting passports almost as if receiving a passport would pick them up and make them instantly less pitiable. All of a sudden it hits me - while I am not in the mood to show pity for the joggers, I could plan to jog tomorrow with a look of extreme pleasure and happiness on my face and a vibrancy in my body almost as if I had been recently plugged in and charged. Yes, people may wonder what is wrong with that sort of insane looking jogger who was either really pleased before he started running and is having the pleasure slowly drawn out of him by the running or the jogging is actually giving him pleasure, which would be even more confusing to all.

Maybe the jogging is some sort of cord that is plugging me in and sending me electricity not completely like that time when I actually tried to receive electricity through a cord which was both totally dangerous and ultimately quite fruitless as the power company refused to send me any electricity in the mail when it didn't work at home after I wrapped a cord around my torso, plugged it in and waited to either feel brighter, hot or just charged up. They claimed, when I asked for them to mail it to me, that I "had obvious gaps in my understanding of how electricity really works" and "could I please refraining from calling, emailing or standing outside their windows and yelling while flipping through a series of placards adorned with well-illustrated and quite graphic messages" and "they could offer me a yearly calender" which I gladly accepted and came away from the whole experience feeling like I had "won". I wave to one jogger in particular, initially chosen totally randomly, but with the intent to make it look quite the opposite. I wanted him to think that I had chosen him, of all the joggers on the beach that morning, to be the one that I went out of my way to cheer for, to send a message of courage and of empowerment, to make him question what my motives really were before realizing that I was an example of all that was right with humanity and that we had a deeper connection than either of us realized at the moment and that he should also watch where he is going so he doesn't bump into anything which I am fortunately able to relay quite quickly with a series of rapid hand motions thus saving the day.

I move to sit on the sand and enjoy the coolness of it on my bare feet. I had just removed my shoes and socks in an attempt to feel the sand directly on my feet, and it had worked splendidly. I ran my fingers through the sand the same way I used to run my fingers through my girlfriend's hair - smoothly at first, until I got to the ends which were snarled with tangles and knots. It was quite hard to mimic the entanglement my fingers felt in that situation with the sand that was much easier to move through. I'm glad my old girlfriend wasn't here on the beach with me witnessing my joy at the ease of finger movement in comparison as it surely would have led to some discomfort on her part followed by her launching into a long lecture on my not being sensitive enough to her feelings, especially those that were related to her easily-tangled hair, which she usually presented in her unique, slam-poetry-esque sort of fashion that was riveting, hurtful and so effective that she met her future husband, who was not only far more sensitive than I was as he lost both of his parents to tangled hair as a youth, but, ironically, he was also a sand erosion specialist who was raised never to run his fingers through anything sand-like. I learned from the experience to never date anyone again who was so adept at slam poetry that they may meet someone more suitable for them as a result of being so adept at slam poetry. It was a small lesson and quite a random one that almost definitely would never come up again, but it was a lesson and I learned it.

As I played with the sand I remembered that on multiple occasions in my past I have thought about being a grain of sand and what my life would be like. First off, I'd have to get used to being really small. Now, I am not the tallest person in the first place, but going from being slightly-less-than-average to ridiculously tiny would at least need a period of adjustment. I also figured that it would be hard to get used to the feeling that I didn't amount to anything and that no one would miss me if I was gone, not because I wouldn't be one special grain of sand, but because there would be millions and millions of other grains that would be so much like me physically, and that they could probably learn my role and whatever differences there were in personality or abilities could be gotten used to by the other grains. But, I imagined my day as a little piece of sand - waking up on the beach with millions of my friends and family all nestled together, feeling a bit dry and badly in needed of some ointment, but even if one of us magically procured some of it, we have no hands or feet and it would be more of a tease, a point of frustration to have it there, so close and us unable to apply it. I'd look around and notice that some of my friends were gone - probably washed out to sea and, although I'd miss them, with the size of my brain being severely reduced in size and scope, I probably wouldn't miss them for long and even if I did I probably wouldn't totally comprehend where they had gone and what this sea thing really was as I would lack the perspective to see past my little spot on the beach.

I used to imagine that I would be the one grain of sand who understood the world and had been given special powers and knowledge for a reason - I was the grain that would free us all and lead us towards a brave new existence. All other grains would see me as the chosen grain, the grain who would helps us all out of a long period of darkness and feeling stuck on a beach or in a playground or occasionally in an unfinished backyard because the topsoil hadn't been delivered yet and they were closed for the weekend, the grain who could actually talk, which was no small accomplishment in and of itself and shouldn't get downplayed -  I'm just mentioning that as I'm sure some wouldn't feel that it was worth mentioning - but I ask, can any other grains talk? Exactly. Anyways, the dream usually ended with me high on a hill filling the other grains with motivation to overthrown the human savages and turn the beaches into prisons while also turning our focus towards new methods of storing data, preserving food and refereeing tennis matches. We had some random goals, but we didn't mind. We believed we could accomplish anything, so they may as well be random things. The dream usually left me feeling alone and quite confused and with a desire to rent a large blowing tool from the local hardware store and go to the beach and just blow the sand around for a while before dropping to my knees weeping and trying to hold them all.

There is a light breeze in the air that feels more of fall or spring, and I look up, shivering, sort of mentally begging the sun's heat to kick in any time now. Nothing happens. I have had a long-standing, mostly imagined, adversarial relationship with the weather. Now that I think of it I also have a long-standing, mostly imagined, adversarial relationship with my dentist and I wonder if there is any connection between my dentist and the lack of heat right now. Probably not, but I make a mental note to put aside some time for some detailed research on the topic. I chose September.

A set of ducks swim by in a nearly perfect V shape, but not quite. One duck must either be a little sick or in need of reassigning to a different, slower group, almost like a development team until he gets his stuff together. I mean if you are aiming to create a V, then anything less is fairly disappointing - for the other ducks I mean  - it's not like I really care. I come from a long line of people who actually prefer misshaped Vs and we often spent at least part of our winter holiday season in the shape of something sort of resembling a V to the amusement of all present.

Male ducks are so stunningly beautiful. I'm sure female ducks have a hard time thinking about anything else with these ultra-distracting, super-hot male ducks just swimming around them. Not sure what else they have to think about aside from eating and possibly what route to take through the reeds today. I wonder if I should be concerned with how much I am drawn to the male ducks I see. I settled on "probably" and then decide to forget about it just like I have done with some of my other strange attractions including, but not limited to, maple syrup containers mostly for their ability to hold and contain syrup that just wants to drip; sample highlighters, but not actual for sale highlighters, just the ones that everyone can pick up, hold in their warm hands and try out for a brief moment before having to leave; loose change and, of course, sideways glances, partially blocked by the throngs of people at the function, across a dim smoky room that makes me cough and recoil due to the overpowering aroma of the smoke and, as I turn to dash out of the room I look back, sideways of course, and catch her eye and melt to the ground, inside my mind of course. Those female ducks seem like pretty cool customers and I envy them as much as a human male, on the beach first thing in the morning without his shoes and socks on can envy a bird of any sorts, which I realize is quite a lot. I say goodbye to the ducks and wonder if I will ever see these particular ducks again. I feel sad that I probably won't unless I happen to go to the right restaurant on the correct night someday.

I still have this nagging feeling that I wish I knew why I was so compelled to come to the beach today and then....I see her and I remember everything. Today was the day and even if I had wanted to somehow restrain myself, which I didn't, a huge smile broke out on my face. I saw her from a distance as she walked towards me and my first thought was "wow" and my second thought hadn't even formed yet when I started trying to list and catalog and even rank my thoughts in order from best to worst as they were forming which is really really hard to do, so I stopped. "Enjoy the moment" the piece of paper in my pocket said. I had finally settled on that message to myself yesterday morning when I decided that I may feel overwhelmed and need a message to settle myself down and help focus me and I decided that who better to send this message but my sister Lola but she just wouldn't return my calls for much of the afternoon and when she finally did she decided against it as she didn't want to get involved in a conversation that was at least 85% with myself. Finally, I had decided that I would send the message to myself and had originally thought of opening with a joke to lighten the mood or a complex math question to help awaken the brain or a combination of the two and had settled on something so cliched that it made me wish I had chosen a joke or a math question.

And then she was in front of me, holding her sandals over her shoulder and dressed in a very cute summer outfit that looked infinitely better on her and I was glad that I had decided not to buy it for myself and wear it for out meeting as she may have taken it the wrong way. I looked at her and as I was about to speak she said "I thought you wouldn't come."