On Bucket Lists

I was feeling very Bitter with a capital B this morning, for a variety of reasons really, one being that people in this city drive so very horribly, but anyway when I got to work there was a funny email from a funny friend, and just like that the bitterness dissipated.

These last two days I've discovered that two things invariably cheer me up all the time: listening to old school Hanson and talking to funny people. Firstly, can anyone really remain bitter while listening to "Where's the Love"? I think not. Secondly, I'm mostly referring to people that I know, but as I am finding more and more, random encounters with often crazy people can go a long way in boosting ones mood. To an extent, I mean, there is a line of crazy that can be crossed and if you cross it, I really don't want to talk to you.

Where the hell am I going with this?

Right. It is time to start shifting my priorities again...getting off my ass, and gettin er done. I often go to my bucket list, or "life goal list", when I feel I need a swift kick to get me moving again. Some of my goals are ridiculously lofty, and some of them are just ridiculous. However, every time I get to cross one off the list, I get way too excited about life.

So here I present to you my bucket list...with some edits. I made up some of these things when I was like 12, and really have no desire to do them anymore. It should be noted that these are in no particular order, I just add things randomly when I think of them.

1) Swim with the dolphins I still really want to do this, but I have misgivings, because I really do not want to support a lot of the facilities that offer swimming with the dolphins. I don't want to swim with captive dolphins, I want to swim with free dolphins. I want to swim with dolphins that want to swim with me. Dolphins choice. If the dolphin wants to swim off to dive with his friends in the ocean, I don't want to hinder that desire. I'm thinking this one will never get crossed off.

2) Live in New York City I have big love for New York City, and I really want to live there one day. Not long enough that I'll end up hating it, but long enough that I can really get in there.

3) Write a book. This will happen. I don't know when, but I friggin know it will.

4) Backpack Across Europe This one is a little redundant now, because I've been to Europe three times, and none of those trips involved carrying a backpack. I've concluded that perhaps I'm just not the backpacking type.

5) Make one of those English guard guys laugh This one is going to drive me insane until the day I die. Those guys crack for nothing! One time in Ottawa, my friend S and I were doing everything but stripping for one of them, and we got NOTHING. We took pictures with him, we danced, we told loud jokes two inches from his face. I can tell you one thing, I would SUCK at that job.

6) Milk a cow Why can't I find a place around here where I can just go randomly milk a cow? Seriously. This one should be so easy to cross off.

7) Ride in a hot air balloon

8) Go ziplining in Costa Rica

9) Have my own library with a moving ladder I'm thinking the Beast's library in Beauty and the Beast is totally what I need to have.

10) Own all the Sweet Valley Twin books And I am thisclose I tell ya.

11) Go to Thailand

12) Go to Australia

13) Travel around Canada

14) Go to Graceland I went to Graceland a couple of years ago and it was amazing in all it's tacky, tacky glory.

15) Be a travel writer

16) Volunteer at the humane societyI've taken crossing off this goal to a whole new level.

17) Go Sky Diving

18) Stay overnight in a castle

19) Go horseback riding on a beach Although I have had recent experience that tells me this may not be such a great idea.

20) Help build a house

21) Go to Argentina Really, I could just sum all this up in one goal: go to every country in the world. Minus some in the Middle East because I am a huge chicken.

22) Write a book about the history of St. Catharines I ummm, really have no desire to do this anymore. At all.

23) Go in one of those giant plastic balls from the Amazing RaceDoes anybody else on the planet know what I'm talking about?

24) Write for the Standard Done and done.

25) Be in New York in Strawberry Fields on Dec 8th. This could potentially happen this year and I am SO excited.

26) Ride a camel

27) Hold a monkey

28) Go on an African Safari

29) Have a photo published

30) See Idina Menzel in a broadway place Gah, how I love Idina Menzel.

31) Learn to play the guitar My serious lack of an attention span and my tiny tiny hands tell me this is never gonna happen.

32) Go to Baja to see the grey whales migrate

33) Learn another language Thanks for nothing French classes grades one through 11!

34) Fly a plane No, nooo 12 year old Megan, why would you write this?

35) Swim across a lake Again little Megan, why???

36) Learn to juggle

37) See Polar Bears in Churchill, Manitoba

38) Have a ball room in my house I said it when I was 12, and I'll say it again now, this would be amazing. I'm not talking let's do a waltz, I'm talking giant room filled with those multicoloured balls that you can jump in. I want to have an entire room filled and be able to run down a long hall and take a running leap into some plastic balls. Like at McDonalds, but minus the...McDonalds.

39) Visit Auschwitz And the memory of the horribleness will last a lifetime.

40) Do the polar bear swim No one will agree to do this with me!!

41) Go to Mardi Gras

42) Be in NYC for New Years

43) Ride on a motorcycle

44) Be in a parade

45) Work at a bookstore

46) Learn to spin a pen in my hand Hey, they can't all be big dreams! Also...I hated in high school when people around me would spin their pens, and I just couldn't feckin do it.

47) Do the trapeze

48) Watch the Silence of the Lambs I am a huge chicken, and I want to watch this so badly, but I"m scurrrred.

49) Be at the Olympic Games

50) See the Northern Lights

51) Try Surfing

Anyways! These are just some of them, as in less than half. Some are ridiculous and some are just cheesy and for the sake of not having the longest blog post known to man, I didn't put them all here. But seriously...I need to get going on these, and pronto.

Privileged with a capital P

So sometime during my big move the last couple of weeks, I misplaced something that was very dear to me, so dear to me in fact that it was practically a part of my body. An extra limb if you will.

I have no idea where it went, if I lost it, dropped it, or if someone just swiped it out of my car. Either way, all I know is that it is gone gone gone. I have been lamenting this for a couple of weeks now.

Goodbye dear friend:

I do heart you. Hopefully you are loved in your new home!

I was feeling very lost without old silver there, so today I broke down and bought a new one. I am quite cheap, and the new IPOD quite expensive. This doesn't make for the greatest combo, but I think in time I will come to love my new ipod as much as I loved my old one.

Meet pinky:

The whole situation of the lost ipod is kind of funny to me, because I am aware that it is just an ipod. A portable music player. It's just a thing, and not even THAT expensive of a thing, but I really really missed it when I didn't have it.

This got me thinking about how completely privileged I am. There I was complaining about the loss of this accessory, an unnecessary one at that, as if it was the most horrible thing. As if "oh, woe is me" is a reasonable response to a lost IPOD. I know it's not, it seems silly, almost selfish to be upset and complain about something that the majority of the people in the world have never seen or even know exists. I'm aware of that. Every time I told the story of my lost ipod, I annoyed myself even more. Why do I keep telling this story? I would think. Do I want people to feel bad that I lost it? Really, why should they even care? It's just a stinky IPOD. Truth is though, most people I told were like, yeah man, that sucks! That sucks so bad! Well, they probably didn't respond in that 12 year old boy voice I just typed in, but they sympathized just the same. And they felt it. I guess we are all just privileged in ways we most of the times don't even think about.

I'm not saying it's bad, I'm not saying it's good, I"m just saying that it is something that occured to me during my ipodlessness. And I met that thought with a kinda "hmmmmm".

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I came home from work today, and my landlord was there, and said "I'm going to be showing your apartment to somebody now". I knew this was happening, and I thought I had come home late enough to avoid awkwardly sitting in here while people nosed around my living space, buuut I didn't. It's not really a big deal, people could nose around all they want. Even if they are the neighbours from three doors down. I am nosy too, I understand! Watching people walk through my apartment, just kind of hit home how close to the end it is, and in two months time, I'll be....somewhere, and that somewhere won't be here.

Moving out of the apartment is going to happen at the end of August. I have been mentally preparing myself for this since February. I really do love this apartment, but I find myself becoming more and more detached from it. Like, I can't really care. It is a place to sleep, and that's all I can let it be. I have a habit of becoming really attached to *home*. Home is a place that is mine, a safe little haven to come back to after a day away or a week away. It is where all my stuff is, and where I feel like I fit. I need that constant in my life to feel a semblance of sane. But right now, I don't have it. I have been slowly detaching my notion of this place as *home* for several months now, so that in August, I can walk away from it, and not feel as though I want to burst into tears.

I know it is just an apartment, and it was never really mine to begin with. I am merely a tenant. One in a long line of tenants who came before me, and a long line of tenants who will come after. It is not like I was planning to spend the rest of my life here, but I had grown to like it and moving all the time is a bloody drag. I understand the need for change though, and I have accepted it, and am even looking forward to what September may bring for me (cause as of right now smack dab in this moment I have no idea)...all that being said though, moving still sucks.

The location of this apartment ROCKS. My room is pretty. I have a closet big enough to fit all my clothes. The landlord is so so great. The apartment is huge. I need to let go of all these things.

The idea of moving again has hit me so hard, because it seems that this is the year of moving. And while I am perfectly fine with change, I still want a home base. When everything else in my life is in a sort of turmoil...at least I have the familiarity of my home. My parents recently moved out of the house that I grew up in. It was the only house I ever lived in, and while I completely understand and support their choice to move on up to the North side, it didn't make it any less difficult. Any time I drive down our old street, and see our old house, I still think, "there is my house." I'll never be able to go into it again, ever. It's not my house anymore. A whole lot of my life happened there, but it is no longer my house.

Perhaps I place too much emphasis, and get too attached to the places where I live. I just don't know. I can't imagine not being attached to the place that I live though. The actual house people live in, and the community that that house is within makes up so much of a person. The next place I move too, it's gotta last for a while. I need to establish a home base, a place where even though everything else is swirling around me, I can open the front door, and fit right in.

Random Thoughts.

It is a little too hot in the kitchen for me to concentrate long enough to write something poignant. Or something funny. Really, all I wanna do right now is run through a sprinkler. Damn you humidity!! This entry is going to be in point form, cause...it doesn't get much easier than that.

*I need to remember to spellcheck these posts. I always forget, then I reread it, and there is inevitably a spelling error, and I just think, "gawddd, people must think I"m dumb".

*I almost got jumped on by a squirrel today. This would be my worst fear come true people. I think perhaps squirrels can detect fear, much like dogs. My entire walk past Montebello Park every day consists of me suppressing a large urge to run and scream like an idiot because there are just that many squirrels.

*If I ever, for whatever reason, meet kitten killer Yaroslav Kotsyub in person, I'm going to kick him in the balls eight times. I think an appropriate punishment would be this: okay, asshole, you threw a kitten off a balcony and then ran him/her over with your car, so therefore, we are going to throw you off a balcony, and run over you with a car, so you can see how it feels. Maybe not run over his whole self, but like a foot or something. Every time I read a story like this, I lose a little bit more faith in human beings.

*I like my job, and I like the people I work with, but I know in my heart...and my head, that it is not where I am meant to be. I can confirm this, because I often spend part of my days daydreaming about where I would rather be. That has been true for every job I have ever had. Where I want to be is sitting in my office at home, writing stories. I want to be travelling around the world, taking pictures, meeting people, experiencing life, and then writing about it. I want it so much, that I can't really imagine myself being really happy with any other job. And I'm trying to get there, but a little thing called money continuously gets in my way. So I need to work at it slowly. The problem is, I keep letting other things get in the way, and these things are pushing me farther and farther away from achieving these goals. Arg. All I really want out of life is this: a nice place to always come home too, the freedom, money and balls to do what I really want to do, a dog, and someday a family which will include a baby I've adopted from China. That's all!

*I've used the word balls twice...three times in this post now, annnnd I think I like it and should probably say it more often. On that note, I really want to learn more yiddish words, because yiddish is awesome. I use "Chupah", "oy vey", "oy gevalt" and "Mazel Tov" quite routinely, but I think I need to integrate more words.

*Sometimes Facebook really gets on my nerves. Where do all these random applications come from? I never recall signing up for them, yet there they are, splattering all over my stupid profile. Also...the people that sometimes find me on Facebook astonishes me. In a bad way. In an Amy Poehler, Seth Myers, "Really?" kind of way.

Anyhoo.

Do The Right Thing

I don't know...I think this is the "year of the conundrum" for me or something. Situations just keep arising, and I'm not too sure what to do about any of them.

I remember in my intro to film class in university watching the movie Do the Right Thing. I remember thinking what a great movie it was. A lot of that movie sticks out in my mind, but I find myself just always going back to the title Do the Right Thing. It seems like the easy, logical answer in most situations. Just do the right thing.

But sometimes it is hard to know what exactly the right thing is. It is not always so cut and dry. It's convoluted and yucky, and 10 million things play into it. And sometimes it's like...do I do the right thing for me, or do I do the right thing for another person? What is more important? How much of oneself should a person give up or push away in order to please other people? I dunno. Maybe the answer seems obvious to some people, but it's not for me.

This year sucks for far, in terms of having to make decisions. I would just like it to be easy for once.

The big 2-5

So, tomorrow is the day I will officially become old. I thought this last year, and the year before, and the year before that, but I think that this time, the anxiety is a little less in jest, and a little bit more real. Real as in...if I think about it too much I want to have some sort of breakdown. The basis of which would completely be my own doing.

The rational me says, 25 isn't that old, you still have your whole life ahead of you! But another part of me, likes to torment, saying "look at all the stuff you haven't done, the places you haven't seen, the people you haven't met!!". And that little voice is making me want to hide somewhere.

I suppose it's just a number. And I keep telling myself that. But there seems to be a whole lot of baggage that goes along with "being 25" that I don't want to carry.

Today, my boss was like, "how old are you turning? 26?". I almost had a coronary. I got all flushed, and spoke, rushing my words, "no, no 25!! Just 25!" Like that year really matters. Like anybody can tell the difference between a 25-26-27-28-29 year old just by looking at them.

Next year when I turn 26, will I still be this stressed out? Or does it get easier from here on out....once I graduate out of that youth stage, does it become just a number? Will I stop trying to measure my accomplishments by how old I am? Like I'm trying to check things off a predetermined checklist that somebody wrote back in who knows when?

When you are 25 you must:
-have a car
-have a house
-have a good, well paying job
-be getting married soon
-start thinking of names for your children

And etc and so forth with each passing year?

I would like to say "screw you!!" to whoever made that list. Those things are hard enough to accomplish without worrying that I'm in some mad race against time.

I'm trying to chill out about the whole thing. What the hell can I do anyway? It's going to happen no matter if I'm freaking out about it, or just completely chill about the whole thing, so why the worry? That's a good question. But knowing your thoughts are dumb and irrational doesn't necessarily stop the thoughts from happening.

Really, I think I just need to continue taking the baby steps that I have been trying to take, and eventually one day I'll reach all the goals that I've set for myself. Not the predetermined goals society has set, but my own goals, in my own mind, which I will reach in my own time.

Being 25 won't change anything. I"ll still be working towards the same things, I'll just have spent a little bit longer on this earth. Maybe if I'm lucky, I can babystep my way through another 50 or 60 years.

I shouldn't really spend my time dwelling on age, worry about where I should be, yada yada, blah blah blah. As a very wise woman once said, "when your number's up, your number's up". Ain't that the truth. The universe doesn't give a damn how old you are, life just happens. Day after day it goes by, until one day, it doesn't.

I'm going to try to spent my time looking ahead, instead of wasting my time looking behind. I just have to do what I can do while I am here. When it's all said and done, whether I am 27, 56, or 89, I just want to be glad I had a chance to even grab a number in the first place, not worry about the things I didn't get to check off "the list".

I'm Weird

11-the number of times I have thought this oddly shapped bush across the street was a creepo poodle type dog staring through my window at me.

0-the number of times it actually has been a creepo poodle type dog.

The Things You Think of While You're Walking

I always think of brilliant things to write on here, but it usually happens when I am either at work, or walking to work. Then by the time I get back here hours later, I've forgotten. The day has happened, and other things have pushed their way into my mind, and writing about killer squirrels, or whatever the hell I was thinking is just not going to happen.

This post is all about segueways, whatever comes to mind, comes to mind, flows through the fingers. And at this time of night, that is about as good as it's going to get.

I got a visit from an old colleague today....and although I thought this decision making was over and done with (and it really is, I already said no to the job), after she left, I felt positively homesick for my old job. Home...jobsick for the people I used to work with, my old desk, my old office mate, my old lunch buddy, my coloured paperclips...she left, and I felt like I was going to burst out crying. Gah, so silly really. But it kind of made me second guess my decision. Maybe I made the wrong choice, I thought. And then I stabbed myself in the eye with a pen, because OH MY GOD, get over it already.

I have only ever felt extreme homesickness two times in my life. The first time was when I first went away to university, and my parents dropped me off at the hellish residence that was to become my home. I had never lived away from home before, and the residence was soooo not my style, and I was petrified. I had to restrain myself from running after their car while they were driving away, "dear god, take me back with you....I can't stay here!!!". And hell yes I cried. It did eventually get better, but I think it took a couple of weeks. However, I will say this: that residence was a hell hole, and one of the best days of my freaking life was moving out of that place.

The second time I felt extreme homesickness was when I went to Europe a couple of years ago. My parents drove me to the airport, where I got on the plane to London. It was a weird mixture of feelings. Part of me was so proud of myself for going on this grand adventure all by my lonesome, but another part of me was just..terrified. Terrified in a "what the hell was I thinking, I"m a idiot" kind of way. But that passed after a couple of days. And the good part of it was I was too busy running around Europe to wallow in homesickness for too long. And looking back on it now, there is nothing in my life I am more proud of myself for doing. I'm so glad I sat on the plane with that crazy man who got in a fight with the woman in the seat in front of him, I am so happy that I met the people I did...yada yada and so forth. I whip out that memory every so often when I need to remind myself that I am strong, and that I can get through a lot. And although taking a trip to Europe by myself may not seem like it requires that much strength of character and bravery, for me and the person I was, it totally did. I learned a whole lot more about myself during that month I was gone, then I did during my entire three years at university.

Europe! It's odd. There are very few moments in my life where I remember feeling complete peace with the place I was in, and the person I was. One of those moments happened in Italy. This is a moment in my life I recall again and again; sometimes I think of it consciously, sometimes the memory is just jigged by a song, a picture or an object. Nothing extraordinary happened that day, it just turned into what was...a perfect moment. We were staying in a hotel just outside of Venice. Everyone decided to go to this dance club, but I, being nerdy and a little bit tired of my companions, decided to stay at the hotel, and explore the territory a little bit. I went to the local supermarket, and got some food. The supermarket clerk was talking away in Italian, and I just nodded and said the one Italian word I knew, and was on my way. It made me happy that she even thought I knew Italian. I brought my purchases back up to my second floor hotel room, and spread it out on the bed. I bought cheese, crackers, and orange Fanta. I opened the window wide, and pulled back the curtains. I brought my food over to the window and hopped on up. It wasn't a window seat, but it was wide enough for me to sit. One leg hanging out the window, the other leg hanging in the hotel room. The view was the kind of view I always pictured when I thought of Italy....stone, slightly crumbly buildings, clothes lines looping window to window, shirts and pants hanging and blowing in the breeze. Little old ladies were down on the street, talking to one another from their doorways. People walked up and down the road, right below where I was sitting. Nobody saw me. It was one of the most perfect moments of my life. I can't explain why, but it just was. If I ever need to recall a feeling of complete inner peace, I simply put myself back on that windowsill, and I can feel my stress levels decreasing.

Taking my trip to Europe was the time during my life when I absolutely decided that I wanted to be a writer. Sure, I had thoughts since I was about 8, but it wasn't until that trip, riding around in a bus full of strangers, that I knew that writing was what I wanted to do. Something about being completely removed from your regular life situation makes you think differently about things, and on that trip, the conclusion that I wanted to be a writer seemed so obvious. Ever since then, the thought has been brewing in the back of my mind. You have to do this, you have to do this, you have to do this. I was able to push it aside, keep saying, later, yeah, I'll do it soon, until now. I've come to a point where I realize that honestly, it's now or never baby. And if I ever doubt that choice, doubt that I can even do it in the first place, I just have to remember riding on the bus with all those crazy people, and it all becomes glaringly obvious again.

Segueing done.