Hello World, Is There Someone For Everyone?

It was supposed to be an evening of hot chocolate, blanket-curl-ups, and hiding from the snow.

I accomplished all of the above, whilst surprisingly adding some writing to the mix. 

This post is a result of Josh’s, where he talked about a lot of things, including: being alone forever, wtf soul-mates are, true love, personality clashes, and everything in between.

After reading his many thoughts, I found myself twirling my hair, biting my lip, and fondling my ear (nervous habits), so I knew I had to write.

Now since I have the time and head space to write about/think about love, it has to mean that I live a good life.  Yes that’s true, but if I’d really achieved the pinnacle of “appreciating life”, I probably wouldn’t think about “finding love”, as I’d instead be focused on the things I DO have.  I love the things I have, but I am not a robot; everyone can grow and mature and try to save the world, but as we search for broader meaning, do we have to ditch the hope of finding someone special? Whether it’s a look in the eye that says it all, a moonlit cuddle, or a vomit-inducing first kiss, who doesn’t wanna be swept away?

Well maybe some people don’t, but I sure as hell friggin’ do.

So it’s a nice idea, but what’s the plan?  And how do you make it last?

These are the questions that plagued me, as I thought about Josh’s post…

My Stats

26 (OKAY, 26 and two thirds (dammit)), female and single…is this okay?

I suppose it’s okay for now, but am I putting my best foot forward?

Sometimes I look in the proverbial mirror, and I find myself starting to sweat.  It’s not an appearance thing (’cause there’s enough money, sleazy surgeons and scalpels to fix all that), but it’s more the internal stuff, which forces me to grab the deodorant. 

I know what I am, and it’s THIS:

-sincere, funny, caring, passionate, irrational, bitchy, and annoying as fuck.

As you can imagine, it’s the last 3 that get me into trouble.

Now everyone says you should “be yourself”, and that true love’s all about accepting another’s “bad” qualities, as well as the good.

That’s all just GREAT, and maybe I agree, but what if your percentage of good vs. bad is a little bit off? What if you don’t exactly “match up” with the average joe?

If I could affect my ratios, I’d do it like this:

-sincere (25%), funny (15%), caring (40%), passionate (15%), irrational (4.8%), bitchy (o.1%), and annoying as fuck (0.1%).

As it is, I fear that I’m a lot like this (DISCLAIMER: only the people who REALLY know you can give you the true percentage, but hey, it’s an educated guess):

-sincere (15%), funny (10%), caring (15%), passionate (10%), irrational (10%), bitchy (15%), and annoying as fuck (25%).

So it seems like the bad things are a hefty fifty percent, when really they should be around five percent…

Again I hear the phrase “BE YOURSELF, and find someone who loves you for THAT“, but what does that even mean? To me that’s a “defeatist” attitude; it’s an excuse for being an asshole, and explaining it away by saying “oops, it’s just my personality“.

But I ask you, isn’t there a way to get better?

Like what if there was a mis-hap at the Romi-Plant, way back in ’81?

Is there a way to set it right? Or was I stamped with the ”NO EXCHANGES” symbol before I escaped the vagina?

While I didn’t read the fine-print, I will tell you this: I do NOT accept defeat for my mutant personality, so I propose the following:

-a new procedure called “reconstructive personality surgery“.

It might sound crazy, but if science can give you a brand new face, why the fuck can’t it tweak your personality?

So to scientists at large, to doctors, to NASA, to whomever, I challenge you to make my idea happen.

Here’s how it would work:

-You’d arrive at a central factory, where “the change” would start and finish (the factory I picture is a lot like the one in Edward Scissorhands, where Edward’s dad/creator would make all those crazy contraptions (just imagine a lot of metal, and A LOT of noise))

-As soon as you’d enter, you’d be directed to one of the “showering stations”, where’d they’d strip you down, and wash you with a “disinfectant agent” (I’m not sure what hygenics have to do with a personality change, but I feel that it’s important)

-Once cleansed, you’d be patted dry with a towel, and put into a standard “personality-change jump-suit” (the suit would be lemon yellow, with reflectors on every limb (in case you tried to escape at night (you sneaky bastard…))

-Once the prep-work was done, they’d place you in a standard office chair, and roll you onto a conveyer belt (at which point the fun would start)

-After a series of weirdo laser beams stabbing you in the eye (I figure we’d give you corrective eye surgery while you’re there (why not?)), your chair would approach a human-sized oven (like the kind they use to make pizzas (but without the awesome smell))

-You’d then spend a full seven minutes in the personality-changing oven (kinda like that game “7 minutes in heaven”, where you make-out with a 12-year old in a closet (assuming you’re also 12 (of course…))

-Now there wouldn’t be any making-out in the oven (unless you caught a factory-worker’s eye), but instead it would be a whole lot of…ummm…well…I don’t know WHAT it would be, but hey, that’s where NASA/the science nerds come in!

-And once you escaped the oven, “tada!”, you’d have a much more balanced personality; the crazies would be less crazy, the bitches would be less bitchy, the physical abusers would take up knitting, and EVERYONE WOULD BE IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE

——————————————————————————————

Sigh…and that’s my wish for the world…

So if someone can build my factory (please), I might just make it after all. 

In the meantime, I struggle as the “psychedelic sock”, which doesn’t match with anything!  This may sound strange, but think about it: black socks go with everything right? And what about white socks? Well they’re very matchable too.  Even blue socks have some options, when it comes to finding an outfit.

But what if you’re the multi-coloured sock from hell? 

Find me and outfit that matches that, and I will seriously make-out with you, in a porno kinda way…

SUPER-Embarrassing Moment #4: Role Model Madness

Who did you idolize when you were a kid?

Your parents?

Your older brother?

Michael Jackson? (wtf)

I’ve idolized a lot of of different people, and continue to do so today.

As much as we grow and evolve though, nothing beats that very first role-model; you know, the one who makes you think “Holy crap, I could really be so much more“.

And when did Romi meet her very first role-model?

It happened at the age of “eight”, and MY GOD was it ever magical…

***

2nd grade was pretty alright.

I kicked butt at math,  my pig nose was growing out (a little), and I knew how to spell like nobody’s business.

Pretty alright.

Things got a whole lot better one day, when our teacher announced that we’d be getting a “French assistant”.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, when suddenly, in walked “Madmoiselle”.

She was like…WOW.

Like seriously, I was NOT used to seeing such beautiful women close-up (no offense mom), but this one had it all: big brown frizzy hair (shut up, it was the 80′s and perms were a big deal), gallons of flowery perfume, shoulder-padded dresses in every colour of the rainbow, and cheeks full of blush (3 to 5 layers, from what I could gather).

It was astounding to see such a beautiful creature, and I’ll tell you why: for the first time in my life, I felt the urge to be more good-looking than my natural state would indicate.  They call that ”society’s dream for every damn woman in the Westernized World“, and suddenly I had my first taste…

After observing Madmoiselle and her beauty all week long, I decided it was time to jack-up my own ”wow-factor”.

I noticed that Madmoiselle had the brightest PINKEST nails in all the land.  I wasn’t allowed to wear nail polish (well duh, I was 8), so I went for the back-up: my package of felt-tipped markers. I chose the colour “magenta”, and began to paint my nails in a maddening frenzy.

When i showed Madmoiselle my handi-work, she was SO impressed!   She even went on to tell me I was pretty…omg, ME the 8-yr-old math-nerd, PRETTY!!!…Awesome .  As a minor set-back to my burgeoning beauty, I realized that magenta marker doesn’t wash off (crap), so my mom would totally see it (oh God).  Luckily it was the 80′s, so I put on my “MJ gloves” at the dinner table, and nobody even flinched (phew…).

I tried out some other things to be more like Madmoiselle:

-I noticed that she had the most ivory-whitest face I’d ever seen (a likely by-product of being a white chick).  I started to associate “white face” with beauty, so while at home one night, I took a container of baby powder, and doused myself with the cakey substance.  By the time I was through, I looked less like a beautiful white-chick, and more like a messed-up wannabe-Geisha from Calcutta…

-Now I LOVED the smell of her flowery perfume, but I didn’t have any…what to do? I looked around the bathroom, and ”problem solved” (in other words, I sprayed aerosol air freshener ALL over myself, and also rubbed some potpurri behind my ears and in my armpits (and so they called me “Lilac Romi“…)

Now you’re probably thinking “Why did you wanna be like her so bad? Were you lesbian-crushing on her? Were you trying to be her, in hopes of taking over her life?“

ANSWERS: NO, I was NOT an 8 year-old horny lesbian, and NO this was not a scene from The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (though if it was, my behaviour would have been quickly followed by wanting to “get wit her man”, wanting to breast-feed her child, and then wanting to murder her ass (PS: if you haven’t seen the movie and I just ruined it for you, I am NOT sorry, ’cause the movie’s from 1992, and you’ve had plenty of time to watch it…losers…)).

The truth is, I was obsessed with her because she made me feel…special.  Like she would always commend me on my excellent spelling, and not a day went by where I didn’t impress her with my “add & subtract” prowess. She told me that if I studied hard, I could be anything I wanted.   In short: she was a mentor, a role-model, and a friend; why wouldn’t I wanna to be her?

Sadly though, this love-fest couldn’t last.  That’s right, it was time for her to move on, and go to a different school .

I was CRUSHED, but I had ONE last day to make her remember me. 

Our teacher had said that we could get her a “goodbye present”, and THAT’s what sealed it: I was going to make her the best damn present EVER .

I stayed up ’till 3am that night, crafting a gift that she would never forget.

I arrived in class the next day, with my present carefully hidden in the bottom of my bag.  As I started to look around, my heart stopped, and immediately fell to the floor. 

EVERY kid in the class was cradling a “store bought” present.  From gift baskets, to chocolates, to golf clubs, these rug-rats had gone all out.

And then there was ME, with a lined-paper picture book fastened together with staples, outlining our time together, written and drawn in basic blue ink.

I had COMPLETELY forgotten that kids have cash-wielding parents who aim to please, but had instead assumed that everyone would make a gift.

So like a true idiot, I sat at my desk huddled over, sobbing into my blue-ink picture book, smudging the pictures with my juicy tears.  Meanwhile the kids had crowded around Madmoiselle, to shower her with store-bought gifts.

Once the “present-orgy” was over, Madmoiselle took notice of my blubbering (the classroom had vaulted ceilings, making for a hell of an echo).  She walked right over to my desk, and asked if I would show her my present.  I refused, but eventually she pried it free (damn my under-developed kung-fu grip!).

She flipped through all the pages, smiling and laughing.  She gave me a hug, and told me it was the most thoughtful gift she had ever received. 

It was a beautiful moment…a moment that was quickly erased, by the fact that 20 kids had just witnessed it all.

I spent the next 6 months getting beat-up for the following:

A: being an 8-year old lesbo

B: Crying in front of the whole class

and C: Making a lame-ass home-made present

Was it worth it?

Only me and Madmoiselle know the answer to that…

SUPER-Embarrassing Moment #3 (conclusion): Fools Rush In…

Well hello again!

Before I begin another love-themed post, do me a favour and click on the Elvis song; seriously, I DEMAND that you have a soundtrack!

 

Now for those of you unfamiliar with ”Part 1″ of my “embarrassing brush with love”, here you go. 

And for those of you who joined me last time, here’s a refresher on the “set-up”:

-I was 12 and I developed a crush on a man-boy (a delicious one at that)

-I accidentally touched his sleeve, and became all “weak in the vagina”

-I decided I loved him

-I found out he had a big-boobed girlfriend (fuck!), became all sad, but then became determined, resolving to “blossom” with time.

(And then some time passed by…)

***

 With 2 years of ”growing” behind me, I had changed in a lot of different ways:

-My hair was really long, and I had this idea that “flippy-ass” hair was sexy….??? (Is it relevant to note that my hair was also greasy and knotted?)

-I had started wearing flannel shirts (that I had begged my parents to buy me for $10 a piece), because Nirvana and other “grunge-acts” were cool at the time; I thought I’d look hip and sexy as a fan (another slam dunk)…

-In addition to not wearing make-up (as mentioned before), I had not yet discovered the benefits of plucking my eyebrows…on a positive note, maybe the un-plucked version made me look more mysterious (oooh) and dramatic (ahhh)??? (am I reaching here?…am I?)

-I still didn’t have any boobs, and I couldn’t ask mom for a padded bra, because hellllooo, bras are for sluts who have unprotected sex (another one of my mom’s firm beliefs; I think she should write a book).  Sadly then, I was bra-less and FLAT (side-note: it’s 2007, and though I’m not too far from a flat-chested state, there’ve been remarkable advancements in bras; these days, I wave around my big ol’ holographic knockers, and the men on the subway LOVE it ). 

So yeah, that’s what I looked like at age 14.  You’re probably thinking, “Oh god, I hope she didn’t try to hump him, not while she looked like that“, but hey, I had some good points too!  Seriously, check it out:

A: He has just broken up with his big-boobed girlfriend (she was forced to get a breast-reduction due to back problems)
B: He and I were now friends, laughing and joking every day (and we all know what that means right? Don’t you? No? Well FINE, I’ll spell it out for you: “girls with good personalities ALWAYS win… “ )

It was time to make my move.

Since we were only 14, the best plan I had was the ”pass a note and ask him out” type-thing.  I had this one friend who was ALL about “helping me out”.  Though she wasn’t my best-est friend by any means, she seemed real excited to lend a hand (at the time, I thought she was my biggest fan, but in hind-sight, she may have been looking for a show…).

So I let my friend write the note, and here is a re-creation (and no Jeff is NOT his real name…)

Now WHY it seemed like a good idea to ask BOTH questions in an “all or nothing” approach is beyond me, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

So my friend went ahead and passed him the note in French class (come on baby, it’s French class, the perfect romantic setting! ).

I sat in the back well away from them both, pretending I couldn’t see.

Of course I observed every detail, and here’s what I saw: he read it, his face turned all red (good sign?), he wrote down an answer, and passed back the note.

My friend read the note, put it away, and didn’t even look at me once (uh-oh, bad fucking sign right?).

After class, she took me aside and read me his answers:

Oh.

After finding out the answer, I felt like the ugliest, most retarded fucking loser in the world.

The worst part was, I had 3 or 4 classes with this guy! From that day on, I couldn’t even look him in the eye; I even stopped answering questions in class (which was very unnatural for a brown nerd like me).   In addition to losing my intellectual spirit, I stopped washing my hair, my feet, and my ears (everything else was fine, but those three things went on a “wash strike”, for maybe the next 3 years…)

This story may not seem like an obvious form of embarrassment (like when the bucket of pig’s blood landed on “Carrie” ), but it was more like a prolonged, gutting humiliation, the kind that lasts for a lifetime. 

And listen, all sarcasm aside, this brown chick’s heart got a little bit hurt. I mean yeah, maybe I grew up, and maybe I stopped looking like a greasy long-haired dude, but for AGES I was insecure, wondering if I’d ever be worthy of a date. 

And sure, I may have only been a kid, but when I was “in it”, those were some “be all and end all” feelings, hell fucking yeah…

I think that’s why the embarrassment stands out like a stick in the mud…you never forget your first crush, and you NEVER forget your very first rejection (or the 10 or 15 that follow it…I mean…uhhh….shut up).

YO BITCH: LESS TALK MORE LATTE!

I don’t get mad very often, but when it comes to “goods and services”, I have zero-patience for anything less than EXACTLY WHAT I WANT.

I experienced a slight deviation from “what I want” this morning, as I visited my #1 latte shoppe (or that little-known place called Starbucks).

I had a day-off you see, and though it really switched up my morning-process, “latte-acquisition” remained top of mind.  

It was one of those mornings where I wished long and hard for a loyal monkey-butler.  Yes…“home-delivered lattes”, what a dream…

Well guess what: my monkey-butler-bitch is still en-route to Canada (current status: half way across the Atlantic on a cargo ship from Africa), so for today anyway, I was grudgingly resigned to leaving the goddamn house.

The suckiest thing about “leaving the goddamn house” was having to ditch my PJ’s.  Yeah, apparently “teddy bear prints” aren’t socially acceptable (ohhh….well I’m sorry I’m so fucking cute).  I wasn’t about to make a full-on compromise, so I only committed half-way; that is, I swapped out my PJ bottoms for my hot-ass exercise pants.  My motivation here was to leave all the men out there thinking: “hey, who’s that bitch in the ass-hugging workout pants? She must’ve just finished a yoga class or something…what a cool slut”.  That’s right, you force me to go outside? I will make you fucking drool.

When I finally arrived at Starbucks, my patience was level-zero, and my latte-thirst was mile-fucking-high.

As I rushed on over to the latte machine, the tall young barista caught my eye.  NO he wasn’t a “hottie”, but more like your “run of the mill”, “average-joe”, psycho-looking FREAK.

We ended up having a chat (against my will), and here’s how that all went:

Barista-dude begins with:  “SO, HOW IS YOUR DAY SO FAR???” (picture him saying it VERY loudly) 

I muster up a smile and think to myself: “Oh God, this is one of those small-talk-loving fuck-heads; I am probably in for the worst 5 minutes of my life”.

[Side-note: I am NOT a bitch, but when pre-disposed to being "cranky-as-fuck", I just want a goddman latte to make my world okay.  Like seriously, interacting with baristas when I'm waiting for a coffee is "priority #: NEVER!!" (fucking losers who talk to strangers...) ]

So anyway, this stupid man-bitch just wouldn’t let up on the small talk!  He actually went on to make it special, deepening our exchange with his “cult-leader” eyes and “I’m gonna cut up your body parts and put them in my freezer” smile.

And here’s how that went…

Psycho-Cult-Man: “Can I…share my opinion with you?”

WHAT—THE—FUCK…

Me: “Sure…..”

Psycho-Cult-Man: “I just wanted to give you a little recommendation about your latte…”

Me: (dumbfounded stare)

Psycho-Cult-Man: “I strongly feel that you should skip the “regular nutmeg”, and instead try our special “holiday nutmeg”.  In my experience (self-righteous tone), I find that the regular nutmeg over-powers the drink, whereas….(blah, blah, blah, he went on about nutmeg for another 5 minutes)…But hey, that’s just my “barista-expert” opinion” (picture the axe-murderer-smile once again…)

Me: “riiiiiighhht…okay” (just give me my fucking latte BITCH!!!)

So 2 or 3 hours later, I walked out of Starbucks at last, shaking my head in a “did that seriously happen?” kinda way. I mean come on people, I spend five whole dollars to get myself a latte and LEAVE; I can do without the life-altering-foreplay-ridden-slut-bag-conversation about “nutmeg”, especially when it’s had with a psycho-freak who wants to chop me up and save all my fingernails…

Loser.

Final thought: whether or not I was a cranky-bitch is open to debate, but I will seriously kick some fucking ass (yours, your mom’s, a baby’s) if this ever happens again.

A Good Reason To Whine: Train-Delays and Insufferable Women…

Tuesday is NOT my regular blog-night (who blogs on a Tuesday?), but I’m fresh off the heels of some feisty rage, so something has to be said.

Today was a special day, where I was stuck on a 30-minute train-ride for TWO+  hours.  A special day indeed.

Now I don’t wanna get all “rant-like” on how much it sucked, or how an engine could just “die”, or how this ruined my whole evening, because granted, sometimes shit happens.  In situations like these, all you can really do is sit tight and make the best of it (what does “sit tight” mean? clench your bum cheeks? I’m not sure, but people always say “sit tight”…). 

Well I tried to make the best of it, but it didn’t exactly work out…

It all started off well enough; I was sitting on the train with my music full-blast; today’s playlist: 90′s love ballads.

About 5 minutes in, the dreaded conductor-man got on the speaker: “umm yeah…so the train in front of us stopped moving, so we’re gonna be sitting here for a LONG time…. haha suckas!”. 

I don’t like the conductor-man. He is a cold and sadistic man.  I’m not sure if the conductor-man has a family, but if he does, I will threaten their lives the next time I see him.

So the conductor’s announcement was followed by moans and groans (not the “sexy” kind, but the “how long’s it gonna be ’till I can put some meat loaf in my giant belly?” kind). 

We were all pissed. 

The best I could do was shrug my shoulders, and keep on listening to my 90′s love ballads. 

About 30 minutes passed, but the conductor-man (whose family I want to hurt) didn’t have a single update.

And then, a shocking thing happened: my iPod went dead.

What the hell?

I was SURE that when I’d checked the battery-gauge, there was a good 1/4 left.  I am under the suspicion that the LAST 1/4 of the battery does not last nearly as long as the FIRST 1/4….

Stupid iPod. 

As soon as my 90′s love ballads disappeared, I was much more aware of my surroundings; it was inescapable.

The most obvious thing I noticed were the 3 people sitting next to me.  They were all friends, it seemed, and they were having a lively conversation.  I should clarify that: by “they“, I mean that one person was having a lively conversation, while the other two were listening with child-like wonder. 

 What was all the fuss about?

I wasn’t sure, so I decided to listen-in.

In the next 5 minutes, I was exposed to an insufferable female creature…

She was the “me, me, me” type.  She had clearly mistaken herself for an A-list celebrity, and thus decided that every mundane detail in her life was a relevant topic for all.  It was like her very own segment of the Tonight Show With Jay Leno, ’cause no one kisses celebrity-ass and pretends to laugh at terrible jokes more than Jay Leno.

This chick seemed shifty-eyed as well; she must’ve been on the lookout for those sneaky paparazzi. 

 In the time that I was treated to her conversational talents, I learned the following:

-So she basically HAD to get a seperate text-message plan for her son, because “oh my god, can you believe he sends over 150 texts a month? He is SO popular!”

-She works at a really tall building downtown.  Everyone calls it the “pink building”, ’cause it looks pink.  Here’s the funny thing though: the building is technically made from “red marble”, but for some reason, the color never really stayed true to its name, because it looks all pink.  Isn’t that funny?

-She’s thinking of leaving the stranded train, and calling her husband to pick her up.  She actually knows this neighborhood really well, because her parents used to live here (she re-iterated this fact THREE times in the next 15 minutes)

-When she called her husband about the delay, he said he’d make some sort of chicken/pasta medley for dinner.  She seemed pretty happy about this.

-This one time, when the train was delayed for 5 hours, she averted the crisis, but ONLY because she had randomly decided to DRIVE to work that day.  She was saved by the grace of God, she said, because God cares more about her, than everyone else who was stuck on that train.

So yeah, this woman definitely believed she was rocking her Tonight Show segment…

As much as she thought she was a celebrity, she sure didn’t look like one.  In my kindest of descriptions, I can tell you the following: she had greasy/matted dirty-blonde hair, thick-framed eye glasses,  chapped lips, grimy fingernails, and 6 juicy stomach-rolls, cascading down her front like a luxury marble staircase .  Oh, and she was red-faced and sweaty, much like a pig in need of a cooling mud-bath. 

The more I listened to her, the more I wanted to put a bounty on her head. I thought about what it’d be like if she fell out of the train and broke her ribs (like if I pushed her).

What pissed me off the most was the reaction of her followers.  They ate up EVERY word she said; smiles and nods and chuckles up the waaazooo!  It was sickening.  One of the dudes had stars in his eyes everytime she spoke; I’m pretty sure he would have carried her on his back and taken her home, if only she had asked.

This repulsive behavior kind of got me thinking: where have all our standards gone, when it comes to acceptable conversation?  I mean people are always worried that kids don’t read enough books, but how do kids fair in the conversation department? If the parents are any indication, it’s all going downhill.  If we’re not going to live up to our “conversation-potential”, I suggest we all go back to being monkeys…

 As I was starting to come to this  scary conclusion, I realized that I’d been on the train for an hour and a half.

 I also realized that I had to go pee.

 There was only one bathroom in our train car,  and a tiny one at that.

Normally I would have succumbed to the “public train bathroom” allure, but in this case, I had seen EIGHT people use it in the last 3o minutes. 

Right then and there, I decided to avoid the piss.  I may not have had a logical reason to hold it in, but I figured THIS:  if 8 people’s airborne bum-germs had been in that room for the last 30 minutes, most of those bum-germs were still alive.  I just couldn’t bear the thought of bum-germs attaching themselves to my germ-free hot body.  No, I’d rather kill my kidneys.

So for the next 30 minutes, I tried not to think about booze and/or rivers. 

A short time later, the train started moving, and we were off on our merry ol’ way.   A few people sighed, a few people cheered, but most people started making-out.  There was no one close enough in my make-out range, so I started making-out with my hand (I don’t have a boyfriend, so don’t worry, I’m allowed).

I finally arrived home at about 8:30pm.  It was just enough time to wash-up, eat dinner, and slowly get ready for bed; kinda like I never left work at all!

It’s times like these that I’ m tempted to eat a 3-tiered cake right before falling asleep.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.