The Assassin

DEATH!

It's only everywhere!

The bedroom in my new pad has a saloon style door.  Each side swings both ways. The other night as I lay myself to sleep, I noticed that I'd left one panel swung open. I motioned to get out of bed to close it, but I stopped. I figured if an assassin came to kill me while I slept, I didn't want the sound of the door to wake me. I closed my eyes, comforted by the knowledge that, should I die, I wouldn't see it coming.

In the light of day, I laughed at how insane I had been. Closing the door was the best course of action. Firstly, any assassin sent to kill me wouldn't be hindered by a closed door. And should a bumbling assassin be sent for whatever reason, any warning would give me a chance to subdue the hapless intruder.

I get anxious about death sometimes. When my mind goes blank, such as during the clip packages on So You Think You Can Dance Canada, my mind wanders to all the ways my neck might get snapped by accident.  Movies make snapping necks look so easy.  I should remind myself that it's usually very strong, muscular men who do most of the neck-snapping on film.  I wonder if the assassin might break into my room to snuggle? I hope the closed door isn't discouraging.

Interestingly, I was offended by my dad's suggestion that a someone might hire a discount assassin to kill me, yet I'm perfectly happy with the notion that killing me takes slightly less skill that opening a door silently.

"People die all the time, just like that. [snap] Why, you could 

wake up dead tomorrow. Well, goodnight!" - Homer Simpson

In Which My Mother Tries to Buy Paint Rollers

Since I'm starting a semi-adult job on Tuesday, I figured that I was in need some some semi-adult clothing to wear to it, which could mean only one thing - a trip to Goodwill. My family is a big fan of thrift stores - I don't know if we go more for the prices or the feel of hunting for treasure (or seeing who can find the ugliest use of sequins), but whatever it is that draws us in, its one of our favorite family activities.

Yesterday my parents and I went off to local thrift store, in search of skirts (me), professorial jackets (dad), and various sundries (mom). After about forty minutes of rummaging, and several skirts later, I decided I had had just about enough and went to find my mother in the knick knacks section. She was holding a bag of paint rollers looking very pleased with herself.

"Look what I found!" she exclaimed.

"Paint rollers?"

"No, look under them!"

And I did. Underneath the paint rollers was a plastic, pearly, obviously phallic object.

Horror.

"Is that a...?" I am in complete horror.

"Its a vibrator!" She said cheerfully.

In fact it was a couple of paint rollers AND a "wedding night package" that included a vibrator, several little bottles of massage oils, and some bath beads. All unopened. All, for some reason, packaged together at a thrift store.

Of course she bought them.

Things the make me cry/laugh

Emotional parent-child scenes in dramas always make me cry real tears. The Lion King. Stepmom. The Family Stone. Everwood. Heck, even Valentine's Day caught me off guard with a mother-son scene, though I was too jaded by the rest of the film to actually cry.

Similarly, I have a weakness for absurd humour. I like it best when the creators surprise you with something that makes perfect nonsense. It's why I heartily enjoyed Drawn Together's episode "Charlotte's Web of Lies" from season 3, where the famous spider kills Boba Fett and leaves emotionally unbalanced messages around the house. Also, Roadrunner cartoons.

"I will not be ignored!" - Charlotte

On the other hand, poop is not funny.

In that spirit, I give you Episode 10 of Blamimation by Kris Straub and Scott Kurtz. It is basically one extended conversation about taking a dump, but I still find it hilarious.

Seeing and hearing poop is not a joke. It's just gross. However, exploring attitudes and reactions toward poop can be funny. Writers of The Drawn Together Movie, take notes.

Why Can't We Be Friends?

I have an awkward conundrum.

So I'm currently living in a suburban area with zero friends nearby, and a job that doesn't force me to interact with people in my age group on a regular basis. Being young and friendly, I'm finding the adjustment from university town life where everyone was close in age, proximity, and willingess to par-tay to this strange social wasteland where my middle aged neighbors rarely leave their houses.

I've never been in the situation where I've had to try and make friends without the aid of a pre-existing institution, be it a school, a summer camp, or even the randomly chosen roommates from my exchange program, and I'm finding it surprisingly difficult. I can't decide if this difficulty is society's fault or mine. With so many news reports and accounts (fictional and non) of rapists and murderers and kidnappers and smugglers and pirates and evil overlords permeating the media pop culture, is it any wonder that something as simple as making eye contact in public can be considered creepy? Why did that guy just smile at me in the produce aisle? Is he making fun of me? Is he going to sue me? Is he going to kidnap me and sell me into some sort of sick underground drug/slavery/concubine ring? I should probably pretend I need something from the dairy counter and RUN NOW.

I find myself frequently caught between this kind of irrational paranoia and, on the flip side, trying to overcompensate by forcing myself to be overfriendly, which probably causes other people to think that I'm going to murder them and turn them into home furnishings. So far my twin approaches of total mistrust and giant friendly smiles have yet to win me the friendship of random strangers, and I'm trying to figure out a new approach.

One idea, which I'm gathering the courage to try, is to randomly give my phone number to the nerdy guys who work at the local video game store. The last time I was there picking up Super Paper Mario (because I am crap at video games that aren't Paper Mario related) I struck up some good banter with the guys behind the counter. Joking about speaking German and how impressive their disc de-scratch-ifying machine was (super impressive!), I was struck by the urge to give them my number and ask if they'd ever like to grab a beer or engage in some good old fashioned nerdiness (D&D? Seeing Scott Pilgrim? I'm not picky!) but chickened out when I figured that they would consider my forwardness creepy, or misconstrue it thinking I was trying to get into their khaki cargo pants.

It reminds me a little of romantic comedies; gestures that seem really cute and thoughtful on paper but that suddenly seem more like grounds for a restraining order in real life. Not that I'm planning on sitting out side of the gaming store with a boom box, John Cusack style, but it does seem like there's more room for error than I'm normally comfortable with in my social interactions. Still, nothing lost and nothing gained. So when I finish Super Paper Mario within the next few weeks and have an excuse to see if they sell the old-timey Game Cube controllers, I think I might just be giving out my digits and hoping for the best.

(Poor Peach clearly did not get away from the guy in the produce section quickly enough.)

One Hundred Push-Ups

...or I'll just go ahead anyway.

I forgot to eat dinner again. I usually end up eating dinner around 8 or 9pm because I get distracted by a productivity streak or Tara's request that I set up our blog.

My body type is what I call "skinny bitch" (Are we cursing in this blog, Tara? Answer your phone so we can discuss this!). I get defensive when the subject of anorexia comes up, since I have a very healthy attitude towards eating.  I just happen to be a distracted young man with a fire-burning metabolism.

The skin-and-bone look isn't really working for me, so I'm trying to get fit. I'm not bothering to bulk up, since my metabolism should slow down eventually. Just working on strength and flexibility. I'm focusing on arms and core right now, with the help of a delightful website: http://www.hundredpushups.com/. It's great for several reasons:

1. There are plenty of options for different fitness levels.
2. Commitment of time, effort, and resources is basically nil.
3. The results are measurable.

I'm on Week 3 of the program, though it's really Week 8, since I've done each week twice and took some breaks. But I've gone from collapsing before five push-ups to doing five sets of ten push-ups.  My biggest obstacle is wrist pain; I suspect that comes from playing video games and using a touchpad -- working on a solution for it. 

One might suggest a better, more effective program for me, but this one makes me feel great.  I can't wait to see how different I look and feel when I hit 100.

Grant

Under Construction

This coauthored blog will commence once the coauthors lay down some ground rules with each other.