If You Wanna Be Happy

I have joked for years that if I ever got married, my first dance with my husband would be to the Kid Creole version of If You Wanna Be Happy (for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife). I love that song, it makes me giggle and it raises an interesting hypothesis about attractiveness and happiness. (Side Note:  gentlemen, we can be feminist and have a sense of humour). I have spent the last 24 hrs or so fairly immobilized by yet another injury and amusing myself with countless hours of Margaret Cho stand up. Margaret Cho is fabulous and I wonder how anyone could watch her and NOT instantly fall in love with her.

I absolutely relate to Margaret Cho about not fitting in, wanting to be accepted, having trouble finding love. For those of you who do not know me personally, I am about as petite as an adult woman gets without requiring hospitalization. I am tiny. My abdominal muscles are visible and so are my ribs. Being thin and being fit has never brought me instant acceptance, friendship, love, or a better standard of living. I have been just as screwed over by friends, co-workers and lovers as any of my chubby counterparts. I’ve probably spent more Saturday nights alone than them. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I do not want pity, nor am I fishing for compliments. I want to tell the world that your weight, whatever side of the scale you fall on, is not the key to either your happiness or unhappiness. Strange words coming from someone who works in the fitness industry, I know, but it’s true. Men let doors drop on me, just like everybody else. They shout at me to get the %*@& off the road when I am riding my bike, lyrca clad. Boyfriends cheat on me with heavier, less fit women. It’s all the same. When you get treated badly, it usually has nothing to do with you. Bad behavior toward you says more about the person behaving badly than it does whom they are behaving towards. Stop torturing yourself trying to find out why he or she “did this to me” and instead wonder why you let them. Shun the people who treat you poorly and lavish attention on those who lavish it on you. Sounds like common sense, but too often we do the exact opposite.

Life really is what you make of it, it’s not a cliché. The world is one big self-fulfilling prophecy and you will have returned to you the attitude you project. So don’t worry that other’s can see through you and realize that you are really a pathetic loser. They can’t, they are too busy trying to hide their own pathetic loser from everyone else.  Having thighs the size of tree trunks or a gut that has its own postal code is not as unattractive as the huge chip on your shoulder.  So let’s all decide right now that whatever self-improvements we decide on are self-motivated. Let’s stop trying to appear to be what other’s want us to be and start spending more time with those who want us because of who we are.  In the words of my girl, Margaret, “our revolution is long overdue”.

Sticking It To The Man

“Life in a box is better than no life at all. I expect.”

Tom Stoppard wrote those words in his play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”. I wonder at its truth. Do we expect that life in a box is better than no life at all? The North American Ideal, built on the American Dream, the Wild West and the Gold Rush tell us no, we’d rather be dead than boxed. However, especially in North America, we work long hours in cubicles, offices, and even at home turning our very living spaces into boxes of toil…for what? in order to buy a bigger box to live in and a fancier box to drive around in so that our neighbours and so-called friends will envy us? But we have no friends; who has the time? All we have are colleagues and acquaintances and a perhaps a family we don’t spend enough time with.

I find it interesting that our society disparages all addictions save workaholism. It is just as destructive to the individual, the family and community as any other addiction, yet it is encouraged and rewarded. I am beginning to believe that the current trendiness of zombies is because we identify strongly with the creatures. Sleep deprived, culture deprived, we shuffle, shambolic, through our own lives, over-worked so that we can buy more comforts and entertainments to ensure the anesthetizing of our minds is complete. “I am dissatisfied with my lot in life, quick turn on the HiDef television before I think about quitting my job and boycotting consumerism.” Perhaps there is more to the rise of the big box stores than we realized…

...Or maybe I Just don't feel like going to work today.

The Morning Man

Every Monday morning for about two years now I have encountered the same man at the bus stop. In all that time he has never glanced at me or shown any visible sign that he is aware someone else is near. There is also an older gentleman who often joins us and he and I exchange pleasantries and polite conversation. Morning Man remains stoic amid this conversation. Hoodie pulled over his head regardless of the season; he just sits and stares up the hill in the direction the bus approaches from. I thought this behaviour a little antisocial so I enlisted the opinions of friends. They suggested the behaviour was not so much antisocial as outright weird.

Perhaps long bus rides to work give me way too much time to think, but I wonder if this man were ever to be mugged at the early morning bus stop, would he be able to give an accurate description of his assailant to the police? Is he as unaware as he seems? Does he suffer anterograde amnesia and so every Monday morning is a new experience for him?

I’m tempted to show up one Monday in a gorilla costume to see if he notices.

The Next Five Years: A Photo Essay

Start at the pub. Drink until one of the patrons becomes a soul-mate

Soul-mate identified, you'll need a dress

You'll want to look your best on your big day

Indelible proof of your love

You'll need to entertain your guests

Mesmerize the crowd with your first dance together as husband and wife

Everything you need to set up your home

and live happily ever after

I originally posted this photo essay to facebook but I felt it needed it's own space. All these stores and services are located in the same strip mall in Ajax, Ontario. I used to pass it every day on the bus and always thought it was so serendipitous that, of all the stores that could be put together in a plaza, these establishments came together perfectly to tell an impossible story.