The list

Hello January. You must change your name to 'The Month New Year Resolutions Die A Silent Death.' I know it's unfair, Jan. Why should you pay for December's sins. Still, such is life.
This is why I dont make New Year Resolutions.

But it is 2012.
And if this mumbo jumbo about the Mayans and their skill at future-prediction is accurate, apparently we'll never need to make resolutions again, ever. So, I've decided to let this be the year I make a list of things I want to accomplish this year.

So My (Slightly Delayed) List of things the Universe seems to want me to do in 2012 -

1. Learn to freaking drive!!! Since I'm now at least twice the legal driving age, it might be a good idea.
2. Get craftier. Stop making virtual scrapbooks of things I intend to do and just freaking do them already! So - at least 1 complete project every month, no matter how small. This means 12 projects in 2012. All to be documented.
3. Get healthier. Yes, yes - that's a fanciful notion if ever therewas one. Still, get off my freaking ass and do something, even if it's just once a week. Start with yoga or swimming.
4. Travel. Visit Pooja. Make it happen. Stop worrying about the freaking money and whatever else may seem like good reasons to put it off. Plan it. Do it. End of story.
5. Sell an idea. Just one. Concieve produce, execute, package, market - all of it. Create a product that I love. Make it the best I can. Then send it out into the world and see how it does. If I like the process, make another. Put my best work out there.
6. Learn to work wood. Carve it. Cut it. Join it. Feel it. Make my hands stronger.
7. Find love. Even if it's only from myself.
8. Stop hiding.

That's all I can think of right now. maybe we'll add some more later. Who says u can't be resolved to action in June. There you go, January. That's pressure off you.

All That You Can Leave Behind.

In yet another manifestation of the dysfunctional randomness that seems to typefy me, I'm contemplating the 'Shipwrecked on a Desert Island' scenario. Ok not quite, it's kind of a 'Shipwrecked on a Desert Island meets Burning House' scenario.

I'm trying to answer, as honestly as I possibly can, the question: If you were forced to leave behind your life as you knew it, what would you take with you? (Just so we're perfectly clear, by this we mean - in exchange for life as you do not know it, not death or the general absence of life. Also, obviously this applies to material possessions only because no, you can not take your best friend or the local barista who after 3.5 years has finally mastered the art of brewing your java fix just exactly the way you like it.)

So, here's what I've come up with so far - In The Event Of Imminent Unavoidable Long-Term Existential Relocation, Take:

*Paper - All certificates and documents - Because lets face it, someone's always going to want to see your birth certificate. (The warranty on your blender may not be of much use but take medical records and old love letters.)

*Pictures - Take your photographs with you. Always take your past with you. If it's been a good one, it'll help remind you who you are, who you've known, who you've loved and been loved by.
Hell, if nothing else, your photographs will serve as a warning that fashion is a fickle mistress and you are truly not as cool as you think you are. (Did someone say parachute pants.)

*The Gizmos - Lets face it: Ipod, therefore I am.
While early man may have forged blithely into the unknown armed with nothing more than a piece of flint and a sharp stick, humankind today can do nothing without the aid of a device that supports any less than 3 USB ports.
So - The Laptop, The Cell Phone, The Camera and of course, The Ipod.
Just the basics, though. Leave the GPS and the electric toothbrush behind unless you're that new breed of human - the kind that's never heard of stopping to ask for directions and comes with USB ports in lieu of opposable thumbs. In which case, the point is moot since you will die if unplugged from the mainframe and/or by exposure to direct sunlight and fresh air.

*Entertainment - You won't have friends to begin with. Take a book. Preferably a familiar one that is like an old friend. If you have no books you think of as old familiar friends, then take a bottle of Whiskey. This will either buy you new friends very quickly or help you forget you don't have friends, new or old. (Nintendo is acceptable but will give you carpal tunnel and decimate your attention span.)

*The Essentials: clothes, shoes, corkscrew, reading glasses, Swiss Army knife in case you need to channel Robinson Crusoe...

Problem is, it gets murky right around the 'All That You Can Leave Behind.'

I'm Easy Like Sunday Morning

A memory. 3 years past. Sunday Morning. I'm sitting looking out my window like I like to do. There's plenty to look at but not much to see. Mostly just trees, birds and other tree dwelling wildlife. Then there's the apartment building across, just far enough away to afford privacy but near enough to provide innoccuous voyeuristic distraction - Like a tv set with no more than 2-3 channels all showing simultaneously on different screens. Scenes of staid domesticity on a daily basis. Mostly just static.

I mostly watch the couple on the first floor. They're my favourite show. Both probably in their 30s, they seem successful enough without being flash, attractive enough without being glamorous, cool enough without being hip. The average DINK couple, I suppose. As it turns out this morning's episode is called 'Cleaning Day.' This should be fun.

She's in shorts and Tshirt, thin and determined. He's big and ill at ease. Reluctant to say the least. This is obvioulsy not his idea of the ideal Sunday morning. She looks grim and faintly possessed as she contemplates strategy and starts the assault on whatever grime and grease may have accumulated in her kitchen.

He's in a state of suspended animation. You can tell he's lost; like he'd like to help but he cant read the instruction manual - it's in female. Clearly out of his league, he stands hovering motionlessly just inside the kitchen door. You can tell he's going for one of two possible outcomes with this tactical maneuver.

Scenario #1. - Delusional: He's hoping his mere presence in the kitchen at the time of cleaning will satisfactorily count in her mind as an actual contribution to the work. The theory is that this would leave her happy and unshrill while giving him that warm and fuzzy feeling of being useful without actually having had to do anything unpleasant. (Highly unlikely, but hope is that thing with feathers...)

Scenario #2. - Practical: Failing ideal scenario #1. he's hoping that being a huge, lumbering hunk of stupid will infuriate her enough that she'll refuse his help and throw him out of the kitchen. In which case he can safely and guiltlessly go back to whatever it is he'd have liked to have been doing in the first place.

He understands that while this scenario precludes the advantages of 'happy & unshrill' and 'warm & fuzzy' it still manages to circumvent the 'death & destruction' that might result from the implementation of Scenario #3. (Scenario #3. - Unthinkable - In this fictitious scenario, he simply refuses to help with the kitchen and instead prepares himself for full scale nuclear attack and subsequent annihilation.)

Meanwhile, she's been venting her frustrations on the kitchen windowsill looking demented and vaguely pissy, like she's wondering where she can go to get a refund on the strong, sensitive, gallant and ridiculously house-broken hunk of man Mills & Boon promised her. So she scrubs away, ferocious, twitching like an angry epileptic and he skulks around guiltily in the background, twitching like a rabbit in heroin withdrawal. They look like secret adversaries.

But then it changes. Her shoulders relax. She capitulates. She turns around and gives him simple instruction. He follows. He looks vaguely relieved. That wasn't so difficult. She directs him again. He follows, soon looking almost eager. He starts small - lift this, reach for that. Gradually he gets more involved - adding suggestions, taking initiative, solving problems and by and by I see them come together; coalesce into a team and attack that kitchen with joint vengeance.

Before long, there's horse play and soon they're both smiling and then laughing and then having plain ol' fun. In between cleaning and having water fights and dust-rag duels they grin at each other, looking a little bemused that they're having such a good time cleaning a kitchen; pleasantly surprised that together they've just managed to turn a dull annoying chore into quality family time.

And I'm sitting there in my window watching shamelessly and thinking - This is nice. This is what makes being in relationships worth it, I guess - the fact that even unpleasant jobs can be turned on their heads and made sufferable and even enjoyable because they were shared by two people who exercised their caring for one another. How nice.

With a warm, fuzzy, wistful feeling I realize - this is a phone company commercial. (You know the ones - so treacherously manipulative that you find yourself saddled with a family & friends talk-plan that you won't use all because what you really wanted to have was the family and friends featured in the commercial.) Only this is not a commercial. This is in the flesh. Real.

And predictably, almost on cue, I'm about to tailspin into a maudlin and prolonged spasm of dejected singlegirlhood when I realize something.
If they were looking out their window at me, they'd see a single girl with no responsibility more pressing than lounging by an open window, listening to Nina Simone while drinking coffee and looking out at the world...I'm probably their gourmet Brazilian coffee commercial.

I contain multitudes.

The chief problem in living with the schizophrenia of me is that I never know which avatar is going to be in the driver's seat at any given point.

There's obssessive compulsive mimi, paranoid delusional mimi, chocolate fueled degenerate mimi, endorphin laced earth mother mimi, ass-whuppin' tank grrrl mimi, whingeing wimp mimi, nasty crunchy PMS mimi, weeping willow PMS mimi, super efficient professional powerhouse mimi, temperamental prima donna artist mimi, mother of confusion mimi, super slick rockstar mimi, nobody loves me mimi, couldn't give a fuck mimi, hypersensitive wuss mimi, insensitive bitch mimi, oddball goof mimi, stoic buddha mimi, queen of chaos and melodrama mimi, rational pragmatist mimi, juvenile delinquint mimi, aging singleton mimi, infantile passive aggressive mimi, firebreathing dragon mimi, peace corps pacificst mimi, social butterfly mimi, complete social retard mimi, sanctimonious purist mimi, raving alcoholic mimi...

and on and on and on...and on.

And if you thought listening to these whinging wierdos was a pain in the ass, think about when it's time to buy them shoes!

I came. I saw. I procrastinated.

I figure I'm just the laziest motherfucker on this planet.

That's what brings me here at 3:45 a.m. on a Thursday morning gwaping at a computer screen while subjecting my neighbours to my most recent John Mayer compilation. (Ironically featuring 'Midnight' a track dedicated to insomnia and urban alienation. Good theme.)Now the thought swirling around in my brain, mystifying the fuck out of me is: Where do all my good intentions go?

Today was supposed to be about creative exploration. Today I was supposed to turn a slowly moulting mountain of gateway paper representing 8 years worth of doodles and ideas and rough drafts into at least one actual artwork.

Instead I took a nap that lasted 6 hours.

The narcolepsy is just a reaction. The real problem is writer's block, or my version of it, anyway. This is an abject, paralysing fear of commencing, of committing, of eventually fucking up SO badly in SO many ways that they'd need a whole new decimal system to quantify it.
It's like stepping off a cliff...once you 're airborne, you don't know how far you're going to drop and what shape you'll be in when you land. The average person tends to put it off for as long as he or she can.

The good news (I'm guessing)is that I'm not alone! We are a generation of procrastinators and lazy motherfuckers!!(how else do you explain the grammar in text messages and the tomaguchi phenomenon?) To avoid doing any real work we have all perfected a whole host of ingenious evasive strategy.

I know people who, everytime they need to begin a new project, will defer the inevitable by attempting to re-organize their entire CD collection - alphabetically, or chronologically, or based on favourites, or based on which bands had members who had maternal aunts named Gertie.

Spending an hour plucking your eyebrows(with toe-nail clippers),scraping the grunge off the grouting in the kitchen tiles with a toothpick, trying to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes (even though you don't smoke), volunteering to make absurd market runs (you've just discovered that there are no spark plugs in the house - horror of horrors), meditating upon the whorls and lines on the soles of your feet to see if you can find any hidden alphabets spelling 'Paul is dead', these are all acceptable evasion tactics.

Now the question is, has Humanity always been such a bunch of putter-offers, of procrastinators, of slackers or is it just our generation?
Like, I wonder if Plato had to play 249 games of solitaire before he sat himself down to write the Republic.
Or if Einstein would spend an hour combing his facial hiar into animal shapes to add to his bag of party tricks before he went to work on the theory of relativity.
Can you imagine Jesus before the Sermon on the Mount: "Water. Wine. Water. Wine...no, water. hic!! hee hee no, th-hass wine."
It's a wonder anything got done!

Notice by the way, how in true diabolical fashion, I have managed to defer my start up problems by making them yours...What? do you see any finished artwork lying around the place?

Gettin' wiggy wit it...

Ok, things that will forever confound me by their very existence #3847 - Bad toupees.

Got to thinking about this when I saw a man in a store the other day - regular old guy but he had, nestled atop his head, the mankiest rug to ever have existed in the HISTORY of hair!!
The wig itself was your garden variety cheap,noxious, vile,bad bad bad hairpiece. However, what made it's dead-rodent creepiness so in-your-face offensive was the fact that it looked like some one had tried tossing it, frisbee-like, onto this poor sod's shiny pink pate...without having quite managed the perfect throw.
So the wig just sat there, three clicks due east of it's ideal final destination, leaving a furrow of bald skin to cleanly demarcate the scraggly remaining natural hairline from the jagged edges of a toupee made by satan's milliners, while what could only have been a dark supernatural power at work prevented the whole mess from oozing down his ear and sliding off his head.

Now maybe this is just me, but I'd imagine that if you put yourself through the indignity of owning a hat made of fake hair or worse, dead hair that once belonged to another human being (or horse...or ape...or gerbil?) just so you could salvage the derelict vessel of your vanity, then what you really need to complete the illusion ( or delusion, depending on how you see it) is an assiduous and unshakable belief in, and acceptance of, said hairpiece.

I mean, give the rug it's due!! Lavish it. Pamper it. Treat it like a gorgeous but demanding mistress; one with magic secrets and a weakness for protein rinse. Get that flash new haircut. Go all out on the conditioning pomade. Hell! do the routine with the hot rollers if that's what it takes!!(oh, and for god's sake, get yourself some of that extra strong hair adhesive while you're at it!!)
Don't just slap it on and forget about it like it's the bastard child you wish you'd never had!!! Because the only way you'll get the world and me to suspend our disbelief for the moment and pretend that your head is actually full of your own hair is if you seem at least half-way convinced of it yourself first! Because if you're not, well then you may as well lay a dead cat on your head for all the difference it would make...it's might even be an improvement!