megfowler.com

Sunshine?

In Vancouver?

In the winter/springtime?

Magic!

Granted, we’ve had our share of cool, bright days this winter, but we’ve also had our share of torrential rains and storms and floods and fogs and other vaguely apocalyptic weather.

I would say that my pant legs are wet to the ankle about 70% of the time when I arrive at work. And to me? THAT’S TOO MUCH PRECIPITATION.

So I’m usually a little giddy when the sun comes out. I want to dance down the street like a heroine from a Technicolour musical, with bluebirds twirling around my head and dashing men spinning about with slim briefcases and slim ties.

Instead, I shall work and drink coffee.

NEXT TO A VERY SUNNY WINDOW. Huzzah!

The Plan ™ is still underway, of course, and still rather mysterious (also of course.) The abs are even feeling a little less like death. On that score, let me offer you a little advice: If you have pain from doing too many crunches, the antidote is NOT more crunches.

More crunches actually result in a desire to walk hunched over like an ogre (with approximately the same temperament.)

So. Today.

Four things:

1. I LOVE STATIONERY. Oooh. Especially engraved stationery. Expensive engraved stationery. I’m absolutely on a stationery kick right now, though I haven’t actually bought any in a while. How can one be on a kick without…. well, kicking? I just surf stationery sites. Which is probably the lamest thing I’ve ever admitted (right up there with my crush on Jamieson Parker.) Here are my favourite ones:

http://www.elumdesigns.com
http://www.oblationpapers.com
http://www.watermarkstationery.com

Mmm.

We should really write more letters to one another… love and otherwise. Written letters force us to choose our words more carefully, which is a level of consideration that my emails generally lack. I just babble until I stop babbling. Not really a recipe for eloquence, mmm? And you can keep letters! In a drawer! And find them later. I love that.

2. I NEED SOME NEW SKILLS. I don’t really know WHICH skills, but I want some. Like, knitting, say. Which my mother will scoff at, since she has tried to teach me to knit innumerable times. She has also given up innumerable times, because I am the MOST FRUSTRATING STUDENT ON EARTH.

I hate not doing something right the first time, or doing things in steps, so I’ll want to knit a cable sweater before someone even hands me needles. Sometimes this kind of drive works for me — I learned to cook this way, by leaping into insane recipes — but mostly I just end up smacking myself around because I don’t do something perfectly the first time.

But anyhow, back to new skills. I’m not sure what to try. Should I buy art supplies? Get voice lessons? Learn to play the triangle? Take up a weird sport? Make soap? Take up some sort of cause? I’m not really sure. The issue with me is that I want to do EVERYTHING and can never narrow it down. So I end up doing nothing.

This time I am determined to choose something fun/educational/awesome and actually follow through. Without threatening my mother with a knitting needle when she criticizes my purl technique. NO COMMENTS, MOM.

3. I’m really, really bewildered by how inaccurately people see themselves. Or how ironic they are, without meaning to be. Consistency is SUCH a rare quality, right up there with active self knowledge (in other words, someone who understands who they are, and deals with it appropriately.)

I’m pretty crazy, so I get how this happens. Hell, I have my ample share of self delusions. But sometimes people are SO removed from their own reality that I wonder if people just lie to them all the time, or if they developed a conception of themselves that they can’t abandon, or if they really WANT to be that thing so badly that they act as though they already were.

The weirdest thing is when people who are clearly proud of being an asshole and being edgy and being unpredictable suddenly take exception to the fact that people see them that way. While continuing to be that way. If you’re going to be a badass, you’re going to have to live with the flack. It all goes back to my general confusion about assholism in general. Why is it okay sometimes, and then not at other times? Why is it okay to be charitable with people you don’t know and a shit with the people you do?

And why don’t you see you’re DOING that? And why do you like it?

Not everyone is ever going to like you. And being liked should not be anyone’s primary goal in life. And having someone dislike you is not the end of the world. But a complete disregard for how you make other people feel is about the least meaningful way to live that I can imagine.

4. Stationery, skills, and ranting. Do you ever wonder what the devil is going on in my head? Why am I all over the map so much of the time? Why do I write so many lists? Why am I so aware of all the random processes going on in my head? If you find yourself reading and asking these questions, I’d like to offer you a list within a list.

A list of what, you say? A list of what I perceive to be the 20 most powerful influences on how I process thought and ideas and see the world, for better or for worse (excluding my family and genetics).

Ready?

Faith
Sesame Street
The Muppet Show
Things I secretly read in my parents’ magazines
The beach (and the ocean, especially)
Fourth grade
Track meets
Choir
Odd “gifted kid” programs that actually turned us into slackers
Going to camp
Public speaking competitions
Ninth grade
Debate class
Dumb sitcoms
The New Yorker
My obsession with politics and news
Anyone I ever dated or wanted to date
My favourite authors (Joyce, Faulkner, O’Connor, Marquez, Parker, Mansfield, Sedaris, etc.)
Blogging
Doctors

How about you?

Can you think of a few?

It’s a bizarre exercise. I’m sure I’ll want to edit it in an hour, but I think it’s solid.