I may have started off on the wrong note. I don't truly believe that sleep is a dirty whore. More of a misguided young idealist that got mixed up in some of the wrong stuff and started treating life as poorly as it had treated her. She wants to be good but has forgotten what it means. Down on her luck and lashing out just so she knows she can. I could write a really screenplay about her if I cast her as a girl from the south. It would be really bad. In any case sleep is avoiding me like we're at a grade school dance and the DJ just put on a slow one(but I know she's secretly into me).
The long and the short of it is that I can't sleep (others would have put that more succintly) so I've decided to dust off this blog and see if emptying some of these things I pass off as thoughts onto a page does anything productive. The brain is a horrible place for a thought to stay.
So here you go (I'm using the figurative 'you' here since nobody reads this thing) ten thoughts:
1. Running is a much faster mode of transportation than walking but is only really acceptable in sports and kids. Otherwise people will probably think you just stole something.
2. You can't win an argument with a stupid person, but man does it feel bad to lose one to them.
3. Clowns aren't really funny to me at all. I only laugh at them because I think that anyone that throws confetti in your face to get you to like them deserves a freebie. But that just keeps them going back to the tin of greasepaint everyday.
4. Social networking sites have made it very easy to learn a lot about a person without actually clouding your mind with 'knowing a damn thing about them.' I love the sites, but its like reading a book- not seeing a face.
5. The thought that 'only I can prevent forest fires' just starts a cycle of stress and guilt when I realize how little I've done in the matter. Everyone is apparently counting on me. This is how Superman feels.
6. Lists are a lazy way to avoid joining ideas together into a decent narrative.
7. No one ever reads the middle of a list, they just check out the first and last bits.
8. Theres a fine line between speaking your mind and being a bit of a dick. I one day hope to find that line. But not as much as I hope that anyone I ever have to sit on a bus with has already found it.
9. Blogging seems to be just one step up on the literary totem pole from writing bad poetry in high school. One below washing instruction tags for jeans.
10. A bottomless cup of coffee is a menu item incentive, not a challenge.
I love coffee, this will probably not be the last you ever hear on this subject. This is the last of my old gems, about a year old. Time to get writing again.
Any one of you that knows me to any slight degree knows that I am a fan of my coffee. Even those that don't know me all that well would probably attest to something like the following: "there was this guy at the bus stop that totally stepped on my foot and didn't even say sorry. Then he took a sip of his Timmy's and like totally gave me his kidney. True story."
When moving to Korea some people thought I was crying myself to sleep because of culture shock. When the truth it was because I knew that the best thing I would wake up to the next day was some watery instant coffee. That and I'm fairly certain there were monsters under my bed. Now that I have some good coffee beans (shipped to me by a girlfriend that knows my priorities) I am back in my old debate of how much coffee to have.
Now there have been several studies recently (I'd link to them, but you would learn so much more by finding them yourselves) that have said that coffee can actually have a positive effect on the body. Relatively high in antioxidants and good at preventing Alzheimer's.
Now there are two problems with these studies. One is that of perspective. Much like the recent reports on chocolates' benefits (once again find it your own damn self) were surely written by fatties that want to justify their dirty habits, I am sure that people that write dry scientific reports about coffee finish it sometime after their third pot. Unless I am wrong and they were impartial No Doze users, in which case I apologize and challenge them to a game of Operation.
The second problem with the studies is that they have the scientific arrogance to place upper limits on coffee consumption based on 'evidence' of all things. More than four cups a day and suddenly its no longer healthy, like my heart vibrating out of my chest isn't something I could handle. And I haven't told you the worst part yet. But now I will: They actually somehow got the notion somewhere that 250ml is a cup. I'm starting to think that they aren't coffee drinkers b/c that would never fly in any coffee shop I've ever been to- except maybe back in the face of the barrista that served it. That's a tease more than anything. A coffee cup is the biggest thing I can put java into that isn't designed to display flowers. That's not a direct quote from Webster but I can be damn sure its close.
Does anyone else feel like an android when they say they drink 'Java'?
Now in the past there was one frightening Lent where I gave up coffee. But somehow I don't think that the true meaning of Lent is to be as mean to your fellow man as possible (that's not the Easter Bunny's style) so that never repeated itself. Many will tell me that moderation is the key. Well evidently you are mistaking me for someone with more willpower than a heroin addict on Remembrance Day, in which case you are wrong.
I'll currently stick to my minimum of two cups (my definition, my coffee pot has it marked as six. But what does it know? Its inanimate) maximum five cups and try to work through the withdrawal of such a low dose with regular hits of green tea (my own private methadone). I don't put any cream or sugar in there so I'll put it ahead of cigarettes but behind owning a juicer on the healthiness scale of personal habits, and just think of all the good I am doing my fellow man by being not a java-jonsing jerk. Except for the indentured Columbian coffee growers, whose sacrifices keep this android plugging away everyday.
Ahh to be a kid again...
When I was a kid I never liked to clean my room. The idea of it was always great. Get rid of the clutter, put everything in neat little piles, and generally have the double benefit of less GI Joe limb amputations and less time jumping around on one foot swearing. Now I was also a master of efficiency as a child. I would cross my legs long past any reasonable point so that I could get two bladderfulls worth on the next trip to the washroom and save myself a future trip. When I ate I put away far more food than I needed or wanted just to make sure that I didn't faint from starvation during math period and lose valuable study time.
Likewise with my room. I got into many a shouting match with my mother that I would clean it later, because frankly it just wasn't dirty enough yet. There were certain failsafes that she just did not have the perspective to recognize. The pile to floor ratio for instance. If more than 50% of my comics were in a pile rather than acting as a second carpet then obviously there was no point in picking them up, putting them back in their protective plastic, organizing them and gauging how much a footprint devalues a price guide listing. Much better to wait until 60-100% of my comics were on the floor so I could tackle them assembly style. As far as my toys and books went, well I just had a viewpoint of abundance. What good was something if I could not enjoy it, and how could I enjoy my stuff if they did not occupy every inch of my peripherals (assuming I was looking at the floor). I swear Ghandi preached the exact same thing.
Now like any revolutionary kind of thinking your biggest barricade is the status quo. In my case that consisted of two older brothers who followed time consuming archaic methods of upkeep. I swear I would see one brother clean his room every week, with blatant disregard as to whether it was dirty or not. The other one, almost an ally with his clutterful (though woefully organized) room pulled a dirty trick when I was in my early teens. His vow of poverty may have been all well and good for his soul, but its tough to compete with a room that has only a lamp, a blanket and positive karma in it.
Now I tried to meet my mom halfway. I instituted a junk drawer to take care of loose ends and keep them out of sight until logic dictated it was time to clean up. The drawer was such an overflowing success that I soon devoted my entire desk to the cause, annexing the closet and the space under my bed (the monsters were none too happy about that) to maximize storage. Much like the native Americans using every part of the Buffalo I was giving unused resources new life. Those four pockets at the corner of my desk blotter? Great place for baseball cards and gum with a little flavor left.
But there is no pleasing some people. It seemed that nothing short of a perpetually non-hazardous living area would satisfy my mother.
So over the years I had to change my perspectives and habits to conform to the norms. Like a punk rocker in an office job (assuming he had the same history of room cleaning) I've sold out. But every now an again I see a glimmer of that wire haired kid and his head full of crazy ideas in the world around me. And I can't help but smile.
Smile and think that its about damn time I cleaned my room.
A timely reprint considering the time of year.
How not to get fatter this year
Well with the new year about a week past I'm sure everyone is just about to get started on those ole resolutions. Now when I worked in the fitness industry we had a term for January : 'Cha-Ching'. Which is the sound of a cash register. Which means we all made a lot of money. I wish I didn't have to explain that so thoroughly but Ken might be reading this. There's such a thing in a gym as the January rush, when a bunch of well intentioned people plop down a bunch of money on a year long membership hoping that the financial investment will force them to keep at it. It doesn't. At best it will just make you form all sorts of justifications for why you didn't need that $30-70 a month in the first place.
Most people drop out pretty quick, not out of lack of willpower, but usually from a lack of a good plan. If you want to be a champion swimmer but you decide to start practicing in Lake Ontario in February you damn well should give up, cause its not going to be pleasant and the positive outcomes are not going to outweigh the negatives. Positives: your saliva can now develop film/ Negatives: no one uses film anymore.
So I will write a very informal guide on how to make the most out of your new year's resolution from my experience as a trainer for three years and a gym goer for longer than I have the capacity to count or the results to show for. Feel free to email this to anyone who needs to hear advice from someone who's not looking to profit off you.
1) Gym Memberships; Gym owners care usually about one thing- raping you in the ass. Now they are careful to never do it too hard, and they'll call you all sorts of pretty names while they do it but be clear on what they are doing. January is usually the best time to join as they run all sorts of specials to get you in the door, but be aware that trying to get out of a gym contract will give you that same 'oh shit' feeling as when you superglued your hand to your forehead. Does this mean don't join a gym? No, it's a damn good idea, they've got all the toys you're going to want to play with. Now some people will tell you that you don't need a gym to get in shape, and that is true. There are tons of things you can do in the safety of your own home to get leaner and more flexible, but how has that been working out for you the past few years? Eh, Fatty? Home is where you relax, work is where you work, you need somewhere to train that isn't either of those places. Now what is the key to not letting the gym get the upper hand? Go to the gym on a regular basis and don't stop going. Even if you're paying a steep rate they will lose money on you if you go 3-4 times per week. That was my mentality in university, even though I was only paying $60/year. I was very cheap.
2) Gym Atmospheres: Check the gym out at the hours that you are going to be working out. See how crowded it is. If you call to book a tour they will try to show you the place in the off hours when it is clean and not crowded. Go into most gyms between 7 and 9 pm and it will look like the cast of Mad Max was choreographing a LOTR fight scene. Think about what gym you are going to be most comfortable training at rather that which one is cheapest. A lot of times newbies don't like training in gyms because the other members intimidate them. And there's a good reason for that; a lot of gyms are full of dicks.
3) Free training sessions: Once again keep in mind that someone is probably trying to rape you. Most gyms will offer free personal training sessions designed to make you buy a whole ton of training sessions. Now personal training can be a damn good idea, think about it like getting piano lessons. Sure you can learn to play out of a book but it can be a lot easier and better to have someone who knows how to teach piano to show you how. Now the flip side of the coin is that most personal trainers are complete morons. I have seen people shell out thousands of dollars to trainers that didn't have a clue what they were doing. A lot of the worst will hide behind either steroid infused bodies that know nothing about drug free workouts or behind textbook explanations that have little real world applications and somehow justify the fact that the trainer is not in great shape themselves. I've never worked for a club that had more than one or two trainers on staff worth not slapping in the back of the head. Watch the trainers when they are working, ask around to find out who is good, find someone that deals in results not promises. You can find great workouts on the internet, don't pay a trainer for some cookie cutter crap that they got out of a flex magazine during their lunch break, which they read in the drug store so they wouldn't have to pay for it (true story, and I got a million more).
4) Don't put all your eggs on one treadmill: they will fall off and break. If you want to lose weight you have to focus on diet, weights and cardio (if you want to gain muscle only you can usually forget about the cardio). Now cardio is boring and not very useful so don't overdo it, and for the love of geed don't do a 'fat burn' program on one. See that middle aged lady shaped like a cork walking on the treadmill? Ask her how long she's been working out. Then try not to laugh. Do 15 minute of intervals (usually a button for it) after your weights and get out of there. And yes you have to lift weights. No it won't make you hyooge, but it will make sure you don't lose muscle tissue along with all the fat you're gonna shed. And my opinion on the aerobics classes taught by the anorexic girl who eats so many fat burning pills that 'gelatin coating' contributes most of the calories to her diet? Well I'm on the fence obviously.
5) Don't eat stupid. You need to eat better to get results from your workouts. I think most diets could be cleaned up a whole lot by following two simple rules: #1)Don't eat anything that an eight year old would buy if he found ten bucks. #2)Don't drink anything a frat boy would buy if he found twenty.
6) Don't eat really stupid. If the human body could live off a salad and two diet cokes per day world hunger would not be an issue. Try not feeding your dog for two days and see how she treats you. Don't you think you should treat your body a little better?
Anyway that's probably enough for now, I'll happily fire off a part2 if there is any interest in it. The last thing I want is to come off as holier than thou or anything, this (possible) series is mostly about trying to make sure no one makes the same dumb mistakes I did.Well until next time; keep fit and have fun.
What do you wanna be?
I wonder if there will ever be a point when I stop asking myself what I want to be when I grow up. Much like just about everyone that reads this thing (myspace mods?) I'm at a very indecisive point in my life as far as choosing a career goes. Perhaps I need a better method to track down the ideal position rather than the effective but time consuming 'process of elimination'.
When I was a kid I wanted to be an ice cream salesman, so I could give free ice cream to everyone. Now of course being a member of the human race I would have to include myself in the recipient list, which deep down may have been the less noble root to that career choice. If there was any justice in the world I would have been a very fat kid. In any case I abandoned that goal long before I was able to formulate the business plan about profiting off of giving ice cream away. Nowadays I can only think it would have involved prescription company underwriting- lacing the rocket pops with experimental drugs and cataloging the reactions. BTW did anyone ever get any cool swag with Popsicle Pete Points when they were kids? Me neither.
The next thing I can remember wanting to be was a comic book artist. Don't worry this will be the last one I relate, otherwise this will be a long self indulgent blog. Rather than a short one. I think I was like 8 or 9 when I decided that I wanted to draw comic books. Now I was never the most talented artist, which I'm sure would have posed a problem somewhere along the line. So I ordered a book on how to draw comic books. It helped a lot with my self confidence. Cause I could tell that even I was just about as good as the hack that wrote that book. When you get right down to it I think I ran into troubles when I discovered that I didn't want to draw comics so much as just kinda be a superhero. And my characters sucked. I had three main ones that I drew, the first one called "Flat Head". Due to a motorcycle accident onto some radioactive waste the top of his head was flat, and very hard. That was about the extent of his powers. Bad guys would like throw grenades and cars and stuff at him and he would block it with his head. Can't really say why I stuck with that character for so long. Then there was 'Eagle Man', now to get an idea of this hero just think of 'Hawkman' and change the color scheme. Boggles my mind that I never made the connection as a kid. Then there was 'F-Minus' a surfer looking kid that could reduce the friction on objects and himself and basically fly, run fast and project things (things will go very far without friction). The idea for him just came out of nowhere and was probably my most original. And who knows, if the steps to becoming a comic book artist were solely doodling in the margins of Hilroy paper during every class for two years I might just have made it.
But with both of those as well as many others (martial arts instructor, psychologist, medieval knight etc…) I didn't really feel any regret when moving on from them as I had basically outgrown the ideas. And it does make me feel better about my future thinking back to how wide open the possibilities seemed to me as a kid. Except for the knight thing. That was just stupid.
Anyone else got some funny former ambitions they care to relate?
Poetry to Sing to your soul
Holy m*ther of shit! I have the most excellent news to impart to you all! I was sifting through some of my old writings and found stacks of dark poetry I wrote when I was in my early twenties. Looking back its tough to believe I was ever so deep and insightful. This one here was a standout, titled; "Untitled with Wings"
The black rays of the sun penetrate my hollow soul,
I'm always banging the square peg into the round hole.
But not in a sexual way- don't misinterpret that thought,
Stifle your giggles and try to focus on: my life, my pain and loss.
I ever feel that life has been cruel and bitterly terse,
And the only way to expose my pain is of course through rhyming verse.
No one sees my hear beating faintly behind my skins,
Except for maybe Superman or x-ray technicians.
There is a shining darkness living deep inside of me,
How else could it be that I close my eyes and its only black I see?
I know that I am crying but you cannot see my tears,I
know that I've been drinking but you cannot see the beers.
I left them in the restaurant empty like the chair,
Empty like the tables and emptier like the stairs.
And when I call them empty you know that they were full,
And in their fullness: emptiness-and of this they were full.
No one understands my goodness- or ever will I fear
I've scowled and pouted and brooded alone- how could I be more clear?
My pen now is a conduit to the poem on this flickering computer screen,
I thought it best to there identify this as poetry, not like other crap you've seen.
My humanity takes solace, though now cowering in a corner of my bones,
That I can still write so brilliantly although I am alone.
Its hard to believe that I have over four (five!) little notebooks full of this gold (obdisan?). Some of them even have little tribal/celtic line doodles in the margins, which is clinically proven to add 36% more gravitas to a poem. Now I'd love to post them all here in my blog so it could somehow (but inevitably) enrich all of your lives, but my publisher has advised me not to. Or most assuredly will once I find one. So this one poem will have to be my one priceless gift to you all for now. My only hope is that you can all find a good enough tattoo artist and enough free personal canvas to keep this with you forever.
No that isn't a clever anachronism for having writer's block, I honestly have a touch of laryngitis. Now me, I like to talk. I'll give you a moment for your shock to subside. Okay let us continue. I'm fairly certain that I'm one of those people that basically thinks out loud in conversations with others. I talk to myself a lot too. I feared for a while that such a habit defined me as a little crazy, but I was able to console myself that that wasn't true. So when I am deprived of that ability its always a little odd. Now of course being in a country where no one much understands me anyway does soften the blow. I guess I could have more accurately phrased that as : "… in a country where I don't understand..." but that would conflict with my egocentricity.
I find that I am unable to resist the pull to converse unless I am completely isolated. My current vocal timber sounds like a tuba having relations with one of those harmonicas the Super Friends taught me to make out of wax paper and a comb. My old vocal and singing coaches (mystifies me to this day that I can actually refer to people in my past as such) would recommend all sorts of lemon tea and honey and yinchao to overcome this. Now I'm skeptical about many things but when it comes to home remedies from someone with no medical training I can get 'downright skeptical'. I tend to put my health in the hands of people that can fix bullet wounds, figuring that kind of over-qualification for sore throats is no less than I deserve.
That's not to say that I don't think that lemon tea would help soothe my throat, but after a malady years back where I drank lemon tea for six weeks straight I can't stomach the stuff anymore. Funny, it only took one night for peach schnapps to develop in me the same aversion but to be fair the quantities were somewhat similar. Oh and just so everyone knows its not Lemon Tea, its Lemon Peel Tea. You know, that part of the lemon you throw away? That's where they make that tea from. Some guy named Eddie picks it out of your compost heap and sells it to Lipton. Same with Orange tea: Orange Peel Tea. Strawberry tea? Strawberry Peel Tea.
Benefit to this ailment is that as long as I don't talk I feel fine. But then there is this backup of interesting things that I don't get to say to people. So when I finally do get my words back you can bet I'm going to pick up some conversations where they didn't leave off.
Now of course a lesson that I could pull out of this would be to just take this opportunity to learn how to listen, but even that I find tough. In my experience most people only like to talk at length if you can shoot them back an occasional tidbit to spur them on like feeding coins into an arcade game:
"I've always thought that myself, please go on" good for another 1-3 minutes
"I think those are probably the smartest words this room has heard" 10 additional minutes minimum
"That [insert stupid thing they just said here] is a lot like what the ancient Mayans (or Greeks or Tibetans or whatever) believed, how do you find that has affected your outlook on the world?" cancel any other engagements for the day
So I guess I'll have to fall back on the old smile and nod technique. Have a good weekend everyone.