Adieu, 2010!

It is with satisfaction that I shake the dust of 2010 off my feet to tread on the clean calendar squares of a fresh year. These past 12 months have contained some of the worst and best moments of my life, which included a lot of wasted time, and I am glad to see them end. Though 2010 will not be a year I forget, it is a year I do not want to repeat.

So, with production in mind, I list these goals for the last months of winter and first months of 2011:

I want to...

- look more like a girl

- purchase leather shoes

- read over 3 books a month

- practice driving through snow

- pierce [and stretch] my ears

- complete the Lifeguard Training course

- take over stage right props at Love According to John, again

- take a Latin course

- add Math 10 and Biology 20 to my Alberta Diploma

- read the Bible

- watch less than 3 films a week

- start working on my abs

- research the JFK assassination

- swim more often

- write out a resume

- be around people more --perhaps even make friends?

- discover new music

- attend to myself with more diligence

- take up my long-abandoned journal writing

- get up to 30 push-ups, again

since the haircut...

... I have been considered a boy a total of 5 times. This post is a tribute.

1. at the bank. A mousy male teller addressed me as "dude" three times as I rifled through my purse. This was only the beginning.

2. at the pool. A young boy asked me -with no little scorn- why I was wearing a girl's swimsuit. My answer? Because I'm a girl, snot [unfortunately, the insult was muttered after I promptly ducked my head underwater].

3. at the bakery. A middle-aged, bearded man accused me of being a guy dressed as a girl by looking me up and down, clapping, cough-laughing, and saying, "You're crazy, man, I'm tellin' you!" Why is it that people are so much braver in the face of androgyny?

4. at Servus Place. A girl -poor, clueless thing!- smiled and waved flirtatiously at me as I sat, feet up, reading Ayn Rand in the chair-strewn foyer. I gave her my best "cute boy" smile.

5. in the locker-room. A very elderly lady wearing an oxygen machine stared at me as I tousled my hair in front of a mirror. When I finally looked over at her, she pointed at my head and said, "Justin Beiber. A Justin Beiber haircut." Not only should this woman have no idea who he is, but she should have realized that a young girl with short hair would appreciate celebrity references in regards to her hair that didn't involve an overrated pubescent boy. Though the old bird was aware of my femininity, I reference it here because being a girl with hair like Justin is much worse than actually looking like a boy. Much worse.

Happy Christmas

" Fall on your knees!

O hear the angel voices:

'O Night divine!

O Night when Christ was born!' "

-Adolphe Adam

1847

fortune cookie

Tonight, in the take-out Chinese food my father brought home, I opened one of those sweet cracker-like cookies so famous for the astrological fortunes typed on the bits of paper baked inside.

If I were irrational or superstitious in any way, reading this message folded in the particular cookie I chose would have really freaked me out:

"You should enhance your feminine side at this time."

Apparently, the stars are aligning for me. They're sending me personal messages with my Chop Suey.

Love came down at Christmas

Love all lovely, love divine;

Love was born at Christmas,

Stars and angels gave the sign.

-Christina Rossetti

Tonight, I feel like a girl.

It's incredible what a little mascara can do.

this is how short hair should look:

Twiggy makes me wish I had straighter hair and larger eyes. I also want her sweater.

for what remains of december...

I will finish:

- algebra textbook

- physics & environmental science textbooks

- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

- being stressed

I will start:

- writing out Christmas cards

- ab-circuiting daily

- making a dress

- saving for Europe

- It by Stephen King

- taking longer walks

appreciation

" [Senor Rodrigo Gonzales] had a fat, blank face and the eyes of a killer. Watching him at tonight's reception, [James] Taggart had concluded that the man was impervious to any sort of feeling, he looked as though a knife could slash, unnoticed, through his pendulous layers of flesh- except that there was a lewd, almost sexual relish in the way he rubbed his feet against the rich pile of his Persian rugs, or patted the polish arm of his chair, or folded his lips about a cigar. " - Chapter IV, Atlas Shrugged

If I could accomplish just one thing as a writer, it would be to describe faces, feelings, personalities and dispositions with as much eloquence, exactness, and perfect charm as Ayn Rand.

delicious books

Over the past week, I've sorted through all the books I should be reading, want to be reading and have to read; only to discover that altogether the amount I gathered reached 213. This number scares me; mostly because I know that by the time I've read even a small fraction of them, I will have already added the equivalent of new titles to the list. There are too many I haven't discovered yet.

In fact, there are too many books to discover in the whole earth. Even if I read a book a day for the rest of my life, I will not have read them all. Irritatingly, my single lifetime will never be sufficient -there is too much to read and learn and feel and understand.

Far too much.

centipede