That tunnel ain’t so secret no more

Greetings comrades, who’s ready to maintain the status quo?

I don’t think I’ve run out of things I like (though to be fair, it’s an evergreen topic) so let’s get back in that saddle:

• Evergreen trees.
• The colour green.
• Referring to people being “saddled” with things, when implying a burden. It makes me feel like a cowboy.
• The fantasy of watching Deadwood someday, despite knowing how unlikely it is that I’ll get around to it.
• HBO’s twitter presence.
• Sarcastically using the radio advertising trope of “it’s our birthday, but you get the presents”.
• Working remotely.
• The board game Dixit.
• Becoming instant best friends with strangers I know I’m never gonna see again.
• Saying “keep the change” when it’s silver coinage.
• Not taking pamphlets from people, and telling them I’ll check it out online instead.
• Saying “I’m not here to kink shame” when people talk about their hobbies.
• Homes that feel lived in, rather than overly showy.
• Petrichor.
• Finding out that I share a birthday with someone.
• Hanging out in kitchens or hallways at parties.
• Pretending to have an American accent and showing people how good I am at doing a New Zealand accent.
• Billy T. James’ laugh.
• When I’m wearing costume glasses, pushing them up the bridge of my nose and feeling like I’m smart.
• Earned physical exhaustion.
• Being so tired in bed that I can’t even pronounce words correctly.
• Getting goofy with intimate partners.
• Saying “did I stutter?” mock aggressively in a wholly unimportant conversational.
• Inflatable floaties in pools.
• Having permission to break things.
• Eating too much with friends, then lounging around watching a movie. Sometimes naps are involved.
• Walking very fast, and weaving in between slow movers.
• Retaining coordination while drunk dancing, but with ALL OF THE ENTHUSIASM.
• Coordinating caffeine and alcohol to get the perfect buzz on a Friday/Saturday night.
• Remembering on the Sunday that it’s a long weekend and there’s no work the next day.
• Finding an old joke I wrote and losing myself to guffaws.
• Slapping my knee out of laughter.
• Meeting up with old friends and instantly feeling like no time has passed.
• When I’ve done a shitty job tying a tie, and someone fixes it for me.
• The sound of a kereru whomping its wings, then landing on a creaky branch with a thud.
• Seeing shitty people get what’s coming to them.
• When four legged animals rear up on their hind legs.
• Effortless conversations that flow naturally, without people speaking over one another.
• Shouting “HEEEEEEY YOOOOOU GUUUUUUUUUYS” like Sloth from The Goonies.
• Scratching the “L” off signs that say “Public _________”.
• This sign that my dad and I would drive past all the time. It used to say “We’re not fast, we’re old” but someone scratched off letters to make it say “We r  ot fast, we’re old.”
• Sarcastically using condescending words like “pedestrian” or “banal”.
• The word “myopic”.
• Having my low expectations be utterly bowled over.
• The knowledge that my Neopets aren’t truly dead.
• Having someone understand a really “clutch” reference of mine.
• The bit in The Wedding Singer when the guy says “THEY WERE COOOOOONES.”
• Cosying up and rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender.
• The “Secret Tunnel” song from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
• Finishing up my writing so I can listen to the “Secret Tunnel” song a bunch more times.

Adios.

Never without my kimchi

Y’know, I liked yesterday’s format. I feel like I’ve far from exhausted the subject of “here are some things I liked”, so I’m gonna keep on rollin’, baby.

Some more things I like:

• Yesterday’s format.
• Going to sleep with the blankets pulled right up to my chin.
• Starting fun shared conversations with neighbouring tables at restaurants.
• Videos showing moose doing awesome things.
• Animals or soft toys with unusual colour schemes.
• British spelling, as opposed to American.
• When people use words I’ve never heard, then intentionally shoehorning those words into my conversations to get used to how they feel coming out of my mouth.
• Dancing at weddings.
• Making flippant conversation in places where that’s usually not the norm. Bathrooms, elevators, buses, etc.
• The ritual of hand grinding coffee in the morning.
• Eating a mince and cheese pie for the first time in ages.
• That cool site where you can mix and match pokemon designs.
• Having lemon juice and tomato sauce together, ’cause it reminds me of eating fish and chips at the beach.
• Ordering the wrong thing by accident, and finding a new favourite food.
• Eating kimchi from the jar with a fork.
• Just how many of these happen to be food related.
• When people make dresses out of CDs, and it has that neat rainbow effect.
• Wearable art competitions.
• Street art in Montreal (and probably other places too).
• FREE FOOD AT ANY TIME.
• Colour schemes involving green/brown.
• Surprising friends at restaurants when I pay the bill while they’re in the bathroom.
• Being blown away by an immersive cinema experience.
• Assigned seats at the movies, coming in late and skipping all the ads/trailers.
• When you make a playlist, someone hears a song and is like “oh, I love this song and haven’t heard it in ages”.
• Sitting down to tie my shoelaces.
• Finding a comfortable model of shoe I can re-buy for years.
• High fives that perfectly connect.
• Eating leftovers on the same night, a few hours later, just ’cause it was that good.
• Having leftovers the next day.
• Putting leftovers into the freezer for the purpose of having them a day or two later.
• Putting leftovers into the freezer, forgetting about them, then being surprised by an awesome pre-cooked meal.
• Clothes that fit.
• That photography piece with people 3 glasses of wine later. Just click the link.
• Community S02E21.
• Having an easy format I can go back to and just list things.

All the world’s a stage, which is why directions are confusing to the uninitiated

It seems like every entry lately has been all “Oh woe is me, I’m so tired.” So today I’m gonna say fuck that and go for a Keanu style “Woah is me.”

It’s bullet (point) time again baby. Here’s some stuff I like:

• The smell of tar on a hot day.
• When I make room for someone on public transit and they take my offer.
• Walking through a door just before it closes.
• The cadence of the word “ramification”
• That “chikachikaaaaa” sound from the Yello song “Oh Yeah”.
• People referring to others as “Homeslice”
• Finger guns.
• That thing where you’re in a body of water, link up your fists and bring your arms down in an arc, and it creates this nifty kind of depth charge effect.
• The weird eyes goats have.
• Saying “in this economy?” sarcastically.
• Taking a joke so far beyond being unfunny that it becomes funny again.
• The aesthetic of operating table lamps.
• Having a bottle of water in arm’s reach at all times.
• Thinking about Montell Jordan doing a How To reality TV show called “This Is How We Do It.”
• Crisp cheesy waffles.
• Reminiscing about old Internet folk lore.
• Quoting people as wise philosophers, then delivering dumb quotes (e.g. In the immortal words of the wise philosopher Frederick Durst: “It’s just one of those days.”)
• Listening to Sublime on sunny days without thinking about the complicated politics, ethics and societal influence of their music.
• Reading articles about the complicated politics, ethics and societal influence of the band Sublime.
• Seedless oranges.
• Found art.
• Those cool metal structures people make from old parts.
• Sega Genesis emulation.
• Doing Aaron Sorkin style Walk and Talks.
• Gushing about how great my friends are with mutual friends.
• Craning my neck to look at cool dogs while jogging.
• Leaving odd post it notes in unusual places.
• Saying “The real _____ was the friends we made along the way.”
• Jokes about avocado growing in NZ.
• Dropbears.
• Figuring out how to fix pulled muscles on my own.
• Sweet, sticky ribs.
• The enthusiasm of late game Keanu Reeves.
• Nic Cage as One True God.
• Warm showers with a cold beer.
• Warm showers with a cold apple.
• Warm showers.
• More cheese than restaurants usually offer.
• Waving back to excited kids on buses during school trips.
• Recursive jokes with friends.
• Having quick answers to things.
• Finishing my daily writing.

Can I get a refund? This one’s long in the shorts

Blargh is as blargh does, which is about all today’s entry will be. Or do? Blargh.

I’ve been exhausted all day, and I’m assuming it has something to do with the curry belly I brought over from last night. Even knowing full well that I ate my bodyweight in creamy delicious meat soup, I genuinely woke up this morning and marvelled at my pot belly. You know the scene in Tobey Maguire: Manspider when he wakes up and he’s all buff? Imagine the inverse of that. It took me more than a moment to realise that all the curry had manifested in true body horror. It took me a bathroom trip several hours later to realise that the body horror was only temporary (but the pain, eternal?). Well worth it. Delicious curry. Banjara, you’re a beloved institution for a reason.

I was wondering today, with all these new streaming services, how long until we all realise it’s nothing new? I know it seems like it’s a crazy new world, unshackled from the demands of terrestrial television, but nothing’s really changing. People aren’t going to want multiple streaming services, so eventually companies are going to consolidate. You’ll have Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google (YouTube) owning everyone else’s streaming services under their own umbrellas. It’s just gonna be cable without specific broadcast schedules. It’ll be a huge boon for VPN services as people once again resort to torrenting en masse like 2005 all over again. I know that I barely use Netflix anymore, and would drop it without hesitation if my girlfriend wasn’t getting so much use out of it.

I have an interview coming up, and I know that if I got the job I’d need to get a car. Goddamn do I ever not want to own a car in Toronto. Insurance is so expensive. In all my public transit experience of the past 5 years, I’ve basically learned to ignore traffic. It’s been awesome. I don’t want to think about maintenance, mileage, snow tires and not crashing. It’s not like I even have that much against driving. I enjoy driving. The idea of being able to do out of town trips or grab things from Costco is neat. Thing is, even with a car I’m not sure I’d do that stuff often. I like travelling out of town on quick trips, and I’d probably do it maybe once every month or two given the chance. Same for Costco, it’d only be for big shops once in a while. So realistically unless I get the job, or my income basically doubles, I incredibly don’t want a car. It takes more than it gives.

Ugh, I miss Shorts Day from yesterday. Today sucks. BRING BACK SHORTS DAY.

A truly leg-endary day

Shorts shorts shorts shorts shorts shorts/
Shorts shorts shorts shorts shorts/
Shorts shorts shorts shorts shorts/
Everybody.

Today’s Toronto is a Shorts Day. There’s a low of 14 and high of 22. The epitome of shorts weather. Trousers have no place in an environment where leg hairs can roam bravely free in the breeze. Hell, my skin keeps tingling to the extent that I briefly thought I had ticks, before realising that I’m so unused to my hair being exposed to the open air. Hooray for Shorts Day. Hooray for sunny-but-not-overwhelming weather. Hooray for not having ticks. I was gonna say I’ve carried the joy of Shorts Day around with me since I awoke, but really it’s carried me.

Today has had no place for negativity. I’m positive about that. Shorts Day has attuned me to the inextricable web of connection inherent to humanity. We’re all just vibrating molecules tossed around in this swirling maelstrom of causality. It just turns out that some of us are showing off more molecules than others. A.K.A. Shorts Day. I’ve been brimming so sunnily that it’s been infectious. I went for a run at lunch and not only did quite a few strangers smile and wave back, but for the first time ever a fellow jogger enthusiastically returned a thumbs up. It was unreal. I was sweating, beaming, breathing deep and feeling the freedom of movement in my bones. I was wearing different shorts at that point, but shorts nonetheless. Shorts Day does not discriminate.

Here are some great things that’ve happened, likely entirely because it’s Shorts Day:

• Bong Joon Ho’s new film, Parasite, won the Palme D’Or at Cannes.
• The World Health Organisation finally removed transgender (ism?) as a listed mental disorder.
• Doug Ford backed down on the brutal Ontario budget cuts to public health, EMS and child care (though no word yet on education). I guess that 31,000 strong official petition did something.
• I had an apple and it was really tasty.

See? The magic of Shorts Day really is everywhere.

And to be truly thematic, this entry is short as, bro.

HUMPday is best day

I watched porn in a theatre. It was a blast.

That both is and isn’t reductive. One of my partners’ mutual friends (y’all, I spent at least 30 seconds deciding where to put the apostrophe. THIS IS WORK) bought them tickets to HUMP – Dan Savage’s amateur porn festival, a series of 5 minute curated films of a provocative nature. She suggested I should come too. Failing anything, it’s always great to see said mutual friend (who happened to matchmake this partner and I). He and I go way back. I figured it’d be a fun and sassy night out, watching ridiculous amateur films with a creative twist. I was sold after hearing a highlight from last year’s fest: Dildrone, a copter (cockter?) based superhero who travelled around solving sexual frustration. Silly, right? I expected a Dildrone or two, and oh HUMP delivered.

I thought two things notable arriving at the screening. 1) Looking around, I realised I was totally surrounded by perverts. Wall to wall weirdos. My tribe. 2) I had a ton of friends who organically happened to be going. I don’t think that’s mere coincidence. We were all giggling, feeling slightly naughty. Then the screening started and everyone went silent. Paint Party. A blacklight flurry of naked, painted bodies gyrating. Bodies of all types flowing together in an orgy of colour. It. Got. Sexy. Quickly. The silence spoke volumes, I cast my eyes around and everyone was engaged. Holding my partner’s hand, I could feel her heartbeat rising. I know mine was. The short film finished with a splash of paint faux cumshots. My friends and I turned to one another wide eyed, breathing heavily. Someone piped up “oh, once we find some body safe paint, We Are Doing This.” Ever the engineer. We were all very, very turned on. I straight up expected the festival would be a dorky and/or sweet time, I did not expect to get actively titillated.

The films were excellently curated. Some were funny and inventive (like the music video with googly eyes adorning butts, boobs, peens, pubes etc. You don’t quite realise what a googly eyed covered butt looks like being spanked until you see it), others were sweet and endearing. I fell in love with this short documentary that intercut queer folx talking about their experiences discovering porn through archaic pre-internet methods. It was so endearing and relatable. A selfie stick hiking trip with a couple became a frenzied mash of bodies and sweat, slow motion frond spanking and DUBSTEP. An animated tale, My Cathartic Scene was gorgeous and touching. Beautiful animation set to a voiceover from a woman narrating her experience with extreme bottoming. How she used physical release as a way to let go of trauma was utterly lovely. It’s never been my thing, but it was so wonderful hearing someone relate why a certain sexual activity activated something within them.

Not My Thing But Wow was a running theme. An extreme bottom slut video had a master command his slave to go food shopping, then one by one slather himself with the ingredients by a river. It was physically nauseating, such a mishmash of flavours. A true textural nightmare. Raw eggs, chocolate sauce, coffee grounds, alfredo and pasta sauce, all slathered across this little porn piggie’s body. I mean, he took to it with wild abandon, which was awesome to see. I noticed my body’s tension release as he stepped into the river to wash off. Another featured rosebudding, there was extreme anal gaping and some impressive fisting. I’m not here to kinkshame anyone, it was fucking great to see them getting what they loved.

As a big bunch of pervs, I think we all left feeling inspired and uplifted. Also, goddamn if it didn’t give us some ideas…

It sure felt weird to say the word “slave” so many times in a night

I went to an interesting party last night.

One of my friends is a pro domme. It’s pretty cool hearing her stories of weird and wild clients, their extremely specific kinks and how she fulfils them. It’s a cool job, and she’s a rad person. Knowing her, I’m sure she’s fucking ace at it too. She’s got a very let’s get down to business attitude, which I’m sure carries over to her work. She was throwing a play party last night as a housewarming celebration. Her and her boyfriend just moved into a new place together, and she wanted to show it off. With good reason. It wasn’t until I arrived in the elevator that I realised their place was a penthouse suite, emphasis on the sweet. What a gorgeous fucking place. Large lofty ceilings, a walk in closet by the entrance, soft close drawers and all the modern conveniences. The lighting was vibrant and atmospheric, plus they had an ENORMOUS balcony. As in, they’d set up a big tent structure and it didn’t even take up half the space. Beautiful view that opened up to central Toronto south of Carlton. The deck snaked around with a thinner strip that was still a reasonable size for someone’s entire deck. I don’t know if you can fathom how large it all was. There were secure fixtures that window cleaners could attach to. Giving the tour, she casually mentioned “oh these are great. I was thinking of chaining one of my subs up to one and leaving them outside overnight.” She sees the world in a different way than most of us do.

A unique experience was meeting her slave. I’ve never met a domme’s slave before. He was an older gentleman, maybe 40 years old or so. Had a maybe something European accent? I checked in with her about how to talk to him, if I could treat him as a normal person. Instinctively, I feel weird about treating people as lower status. I’d usually rather bolster people up, y’know? She said it was totally fine, I didn’t have to be mean to him. I could be, if I wanted, but all that mattered was that he did what she said. We were looking around the kitchen for a cork screw, and came up with nothing. We chanced asking this dude and not only did he find it instantly, he naturally grabbed the bottle and opened it for us. Something dangerous clicked in my head and I thought oh geez, I could get into this. He’d been walking around the house dressed in a corset and panties, and my friend commanded him to go into the bedroom and change. I went in to see what was going on. This guy pulled a myriad of outfits out and lay them on the bed. Maid outfits, chokers, electric collars, harnesses, an assortment of panties and pantyhose. Friends stood around and debated what he should wear for them. He started stripping down, and I asked him if he minded chatting while he prepped. He said it was totally fine. I told him I had a ton of questions, but if anything ever got too personal, that he had no need to answer it.

I asked how long he’d been doing it. He said that it came to him over time. Little acts of service, etc. He found that in relationships he’d really enjoyed doing things for partners, but in the bedroom it started taking on a whole new sensation. It was the role playing aspect that lit something inside of him. The idea of giving himself over to almost a higher power really turned him on. This was his first time as someone’s slave, and it sounded like the whole thing was a holiday for him. He’d specifically come from overseas after meeting my friend on the internet, and was temporarily her live in slave. I asked what it was that moved him, and like anyone with a serious kink he responded that when he did things from a position of lowered status, it stirred something in him. He felt a kind of thrill, a flutter inside that drove pure pleasure. That actual sexual release didn’t have quite the same resonance as being denied. That there was something perverse in it that delighted him. I asked if there was some kind of slave rivalry, like aspirational behaviours or anything. He said that he didn’t know of any tension or competition between slaves, but personally he reached new highs with increased acts of degradation. That each time it passed a new threshold, he felt a kind of pride. I asked what the most challenging or debasing thing he’d done was, and he replied that honestly, coming out as a slave at parties or public spaces was huge. Incredibly challenging, to wholeheartedly embrace the role and perform.

I’ve always thought that people leaping head first into the stuff that thrills them is amazing. That so often we’re afraid of the stuff that bubbles under the surface. Our hidden shame, or what we’re too afraid to ask for. There’s an admirable kind of courage to obtaining what it is you truly desire, and deciding what you’re willing to give up in order to get it. I don’t see myself becoming a live in slave anytime soon, but it was pretty fucking cool getting to meet and chat with one.

My friends, it only got more interesting from there, but I don’t kiss and tell.

An estrogenerally enjoyable flick

I’m at work watching To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, so I figure I might as well write at the same time.

I like romcoms. This isn’t news. I’ve been reading a bunch of fluff, usually from Vulture who trades in that kind of stuff. They’ve been talking big game about Netflix’s summer slate of romcoms since it was last summer. This one got a bunch of press, but since Set it Up also got a lot of positive publicity and that was woeful, I figured I’d skip it. Then I got put on skeleton staff waiting for work to roll in, or the call to leave. Neither’s been forthcoming, so I decided to give it a try.

It wasn’t easy at first. I’m clearly not the target demo for it and that took work to overcome. The film has a ton of awkward table setting. Shitting all over “show, don’t tell” to ploddingly explain exposition. It’s clunky, and comes off as a bit cheesy. I find myself not only sighing constantly, but groaning loudly. Nevertheless, I persisted. Am I a hero yet?

You know what? It’s pretty okay. Once I accepted that the issues weren’t really gonna resonate and I tried to view it from the lens of a teenage girl, it got better. The film tries to spin a bunch of plates and takes a while to get there. Once the plot finally kicks in, it’s fun. The conflicts are all pretty harmless (and would probably be solved by characters finishing conversations rather than storming out), it’sare colourful and vibrant, and the bland characters work to service the plot. I’m sure this still doesn’t sound like a positive review, but it is.

The script is mediocre, but it’s a nice world to live in. While the characters are bland, they radiate with warmth and healthy positivity. They talk about their issues in a heartfelt manner, and emotionally open up. In true 2019 fashion, they’re not denigrated for looks, sexual orientation or class issues. Any bullying isn’t truly mean, even if it’s a textbook feature of high school life. It brings up gender politics in a refreshing and earnest way, little snippets throughout the movie. There’s decent representation and it feels effortless. Y’all probably have a limited time to watch it, ’cause in two years it’s gonna feel dated as hell. There are a bunch of really neat set pieces, from parties to different houses, a ski trip, a cute little cafe and so on. Plus it’s sweet. Not all of the plotlines land well, it could’ve been tighter without losing much, but honestly it’s enjoyable enough that a little vamping is okay.

If I was a teenage girl, I’d be all over this. As it stands, I’m very happy to endorse it for the target demo. Maybe it’ll get me into the mood for the upcoming Olivia Wilde directed Booksmart, which I’ve heard is outstanding. Fingers crossed.

Going on a road trip with Morgan Freeman would be on it for sure

I’m on that bullet point life today. Here are some things I’ve never done:

• Ridden in a hot air balloon.
• Wrestled a squid.
• High fived someone while hanging upside down.
• Surprised a co-worker by jumping out of a box.
• Cooked a soufflé.
• Visited Belgium.
• Transformed into a fire truck.
• Owned a polaroid camera.
• Done 1000 skips in a row.
• Thrown a boomerang and had it come back.
• Eaten sushi off a naked person.
• Broken into a school after dark.
• Said earnestly “this isn’t what it looks like” when a girlfriend has walked in on me in a compromising position with another woman.
• Rap battle against Mike Tyson.
• Spent a day without talking.
• Survived on an island with only my wits to guide me.
• Raided a boat on the high seas.
• Stolen a cursed artifact from a museum.
• That sexy laser beam thing that Catherine Zeta Jones did in Entrapment.
• Hacked the mainframe.
• Tripped someone up like Luke does to the AT-ATs on Hoth.
• Ordered drip coffee from Starbucks.
• Eaten Taco Bell.
• Ridden a unicycle.
• Flown a plane.
• Gotten into a bar room brawl.
• Run for political office.
• Be told “we’re not so different, you and I” by my arch enemy.
• Stolen that Wu Tang album from Pharmabro with the Wu Tang Clan and/or Bill Murray.
• Met anyone who went to Fyre Festival.
• Had a Guinness World Record.
• Tucked/rolled out of a moving car.
• Ghost ridden the whip.
• Dodged a sniper assassination attempt while Earth, Wind and Fire’s “September” played in the background.
• Put my sweatshirt on my legs, pants on my arms and walked on my hands.
• Tricked anybody with a fake moustache.
• Swallowed bark just so I could say “my bark is worse than my bite.”
• Met Peter Dinklage.
• Shopped for a wedding/engagement ring, found the perfect one, balked at the price and said “what would 50 bucks and a badge that says “Pobody’s Nerfect” get me?”
• Tried frozen cherimoya.
• Woken up on a rooftop with no idea how I got there, then had a series of manic misadventures where I retraced the events of the evening while learning valuable lessons about friendship.
• Drunk cocktails in bed.
• Made a romantic speech at the airport.
• Given forensic analysis at a crime scene.
• Hosted SNL.
• Participated in a boxing match while wearing Hulk Hands.
• Become best friends with a bear and roamed the countryside.
• Been bifurcated into separate physical forms for my left brain and right brain.
• Died.

Is it time to make a bucket list?

This all backfires when I begin ending sentences with “uh-oh, Spaghetti-O”

I feel like I need a new “thing”.

I dunno, as we come to the changing of the seasons, it dawns on me that I haven’t had a personal brand refresh in a while. It seems reductive to keep harping on about how great Paddington 2 was (and it was, don’t get me wrong here), but that film was so last year (or 2017, it gets muddy when you look too far into it). I need something else to stay relevant. I need a new “thing” that I do, or am, or will be. Am I talking about destiny? Knowing me, density is more likely. Let’s see, what could be a new “thing” for me? Let’s slow it right down for a closer look. Bullet[point] Time!

• I thought the other day that my new “thing” could be the finger guns and positivity guy. I could roam the office floor making finger guns and supportive comments. *Single glock* “Hey Johnson, that’s a suave colour on you. Keep it up. *Hunting rifle* Hey Anders, your smile always lights up a room. *Double barrelled shotgun* Hey Pelaten, you inspire me to be a better person. I love complimenting people, it’s right up my alley. Could this be my caling?
• I’ve dallied with radius recycling before, in that I’d pick up rubbish or recycling in the vicinity of a bin, and place it in the appropriate receptacle. Maybe I’d find success in active cleanups. Toss on my joggers, grab my headphones and plastic bag, then pick up rubbish while on the move. Since I’d be bending down a bunch to pick stuff up, I could work on movement standards to ensure I didn’t damage joints. It’d be dynamic exercise, while doing my part to improve the environment for other people. Or on weekends, I could load up the vape for a leisurely sun drenched cleanup.
• I could get a new aesthetic. I’ve been the technicolour trashbag for long enough. My typical attire involves varying monochrome trousers and T-shirts. I’m pretty much a video game character with alternating colour palettes. What if instead, I found a feature piece of apparel and made that my thing? I could have one of those propellor hats, or a light up shirt that says “APPLAUSE” in all caps. Maybe bracelets that resembled handcuffs, or a fuzzy pink choker. Wait, did I just try to incorporate “peacocking” from The Game into my wardrobe. Oh geez, this is going somewhere.
• Speaking of going somewhere, perhaps I could start using an unintuitive method of transport that makes me stand out. It’s been some time since pennyfarthings were popular. Or I could adapt one of those railway handcars to steer and roam the streets of Toronto holding up traffic. Has anyone strapped children’s skateboards to their feet and used ski poles to gain momentum? Or how about splitting the difference and making a pair of roller skates with monster truck wheels?
• Slam poetry. I’ve never done it, but I know that part of it involves clicking your fingers and I’m very good at that. I like words a lot, and it’d be a good excuse to finally buy a cheesecutter. I don’t understand the rhythm or cadence, but The Internet is out there. I could learn. I feel like I’d get to smise a bunch, which seems a pretty cool thing to do.
• What if I picked a year, researched the lingo and stuck hard to it? When did people say “radical”? Was that a 1992 thing? Or adding “ski” as a suffix? What about calling others “daddio”? It seems foolish to leave stuff in the past, so why not BECOME the past? I can’t see any good reason that the above vernacular fell out of favour.

What’s old is new, and it could finally be the time to unveil the “new me”. Without New Coke we wouldn’t have gotten Diet Coke. Maybe it’s a step towards eventual evolution.