I'm sorry.

Being angry made me do things I would never do in good faith. Or in love. Or in friendship. Being hurt brought out the most petulant, vindictive version of me - a place I go to only when I'm unable to man up to what I'm feeling and just, you know, say it.
No, I have never steered away from the truth because even anger won't make me do that. But I presented the facts knowing fully well that minus the little inflections, pauses, circumstances and contexts that give words their potency and true meaning, the cold colourless facts would get you the worst sentence. I did that intentionally and I'm sorry.
Sure, there were times I feebly protested at the harsh judgments that were being meted out to you based on my words and my words alone, but I didn't mean it. That was me pandering to my own guilt and self pity. I'm sorry.
The truth is you were the best and worst thing for me. How much you gave equalled how much you took. Not more, not less. You made promises you never kept but you also did so much that you never promised.
You're not the bad guy. You actually never were. And is it twisted that though you didn't eventually accept me, you've accepted me more than anyone I've ever known? And you betrayed me the way only someone who has come to be your second nature can.
And to date when I have a joke to tell, it is not until you have laughed that I feel pleased with myself.

Disquiet

Colder than dry ice
Quieter than silence
Less frightening than horror
more unnerving than fear
Smudges of consciousness
Told only by the hair on the back of your neck
that prickles slightly
And by wakeful sleep

Here's what I'm going to do for You

I'm going to make you feel lovely.

I'm going to make you feel smart.

I'm going to make you feel kind.

I'm going to make you feel worthy.

I'm going to make you feel wanted.

I'm going to make you feel funny.

I'm going to make you feel musical.

I'm going to make you feel thin.

I'm going to make you feel interesting.

I'm going to make you feel quirky.

I'm going to make you feel alive.

I'm going to make you feel calm.

I'm going to make you feel valid.

I'm going to make you feel bloody fantastic.



Why? Because it's the least I owe you. The very least.

Sometimes it takes a swift kick in the pants before you realise you've got to learn yourself and fast if you're to keep your head above water.

I have decided I don't know myself very well. Or at all, for that matter. I'm one of those people whose answers to anything have always been something to the effect of "I don't know, could go either way." Which is why, too often, I end up relying on other people to tell me what to do or give their opinion way more consideration than I should.

Then it occurred to me that a big reason for this lack of self awareness is that I'm very hillbilly shit-kickerish with my introspection. For example I'll ask myself broad generic questions like "What do you want?" and I'll get broad generic rejoinders like "To be happy." And then I start thinking about potato chips and we all know how that story goes.

I'm very generic the few times I make a courtesy calls to God even - "Dear Jesus, give me everything I want. And also give everyone else everything they want. Thankyou." If I'm specific, I strongly suspect it's not the right kind of specific - "Dear Jesus, please don't let her (the parlour chick) fuck my eyebrows up. Thankyou."

I think the other reason I have failed to know myself enough so far is that I tend to judge my answers very harshly. The classic 'Damn, everyone else is asking for the cure for cancer and I'm asking for weight loss' syndrome. I feel guilty and lame and superficial and then I'll kid myself into thinking I want all those deep things when really I just want to very badly look smoking in my new pencil dress. Is that so wrong? I am coming to think not. I have just come out the other side of a very bad phase and even though I'm seeing lights in the distance, the repair takes time. I read these words recently and they made perfect sense to me:

"When you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life, it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."

So I have decided to ask myself a series of very pointed questions to which the only rules of answering are - Specificity and truthfulness. Wish me luck. And if I feel brave enough, I'll put 'em up here. Now I go hold down my day job.

"Cellphones are the Devil incarnate. The sooner they all perish in a brute fire, the better mankind shall be," she said downing a bunch of inordinately sour grapes.

I'm hideous. Confirmed.

It has happened folks. I know what the worst haircut in the world looks like. I've been staring in the mirror for some time.

It all started with an innocent enough trim at noon today. Then came the words 'broad forehead' quickly followed by the words 'shorter in the front' and nodding from both me and the stylist. Then I choose that moment to look down at the phone in my lap and text someone and only stop short when I hear a metallic snip. Now picture the next bit in slow-mo except that was the actual speed I was moving at. I look up very very slowly, hoping with EVERYTHING I hold holy, that that snip wasn't as near as I thought it sounded.

I stare into the mirror so intently, it's like I'm seeing myself for the first time. And I am. Where there used to be a broad, but unoffensively so, forehead is now a broad forehead with a tuft of hair curling so maddeningly, it's making me teethe.

"That is... short."

"I'm not done yet."

"No?"

*Two minutes later*

"Now, I'm done."

He moves aside and I see the formerly unruly tuft has been tamed. Except now my hair is looking like the bastard child of The Kate Gosselin and Elaine Benes' hair from early Seinfeld. It is flattened in front and starts running amok as you follow it to the back of my head.



No, seriously.

You know how people always say 'It could've been worse'? THIS haircut is what they're referring to. This is like the worst case scenario of haircuts. It's like the Amy Winehouse of addicted musicians, it is like the Rakhi Sawant of reality TV whores, it is like the Josef Fritzl of bad parents.

I hopped into church on the way back from the parlour to collect my house keys from the mother. This is church right? Place of worship? Communion with Jesus? Solemnity guaranteed? She. Laughs. She looks at me, midway through the Hail Mary, and laughs.

I'm not meeting anyone till next year. And by next year, I mean tomorrow. And by tomorrow I mean drunk.

I'm bringin' appreciation back!

Call me a slut for encouragement (Today I asked a friend to transfer her appreciation for my blog from Gchat to here so I could have ‘comments’ [This is your mention Shwetters! *waves*]) or just freakishly addicted to American sitcoms, but I am really dismayed by just how rarely people high-five each other anymore.

We’re dedicated to keeping internet dialects of English alive and kicking, in spoken conversation, no less! We haven’t gotten sick of uploading heavily photoshopped pictures of every last mundane activity of our lives (and nature) to Facebook. Some of us *wretches slightly* are still giving the middle finger whenever faced with a camera lens. Excruciatingly cool.

So then what happened to high-fiving?

What caused the death of this sublime culture of expressing encouragement and appreciation via well-coordinated claps of the hands at a slightly higher altitude? Is there any way that is less pre-meditated and quite so spontaneous as The High-Five? Are we afraid it makes us look stupid? People are still actively wearing Crocs, so that can’t be it. Why will we 'Like this' the crap out of people's Facebook status messages but are unwilling to lift an appreciative palm to let someone know they did good? Is it somehow too juvenile for us now? I don't know about you, but I still laugh at names like ‘Wang’ and videos of kittens head-butting each other endlessly. I’m a fully paid up member of Juvenileville. So what happened then?

I thought I’d leave space to accommodate that deafening silence.

Fine. Nevermind why. I’ve decided to be part of the solution. From now on I’m bringing back high-fiving. Every time I hear a good punch line henceforth, I’m high-fiving! Every time a friend of mine fits perfectly into an outfit, I’m high-fiving! Every time less that a friend of mine (you know who you are) says ‘Lol’, I’M HIGH-FIVING.

High-five me back ok? Don't leave me hanging now!