Tales of an intrepid alter ego

I don’t know whose idea it was to put interesting gadgets out there for one to drool over. It used to be the case, that I wouldn’t get affected by cool apple commercials. It was probably because i couldn’t afford it, but now that I can, it’s just horrible. I just can’t resist. I’m writing this post from my brand new iPod Touch, sitting in a cafe. This thing is very cool. I do have some issues with wordpress, but I love it. I’m even listening to my music as I do this. This just means that it is going to be easier to keep up with this blog 365 thing. No cool and witty posts yet, sorry.

After numerous months of no posting, here I am again. This time it’s serious. I joined the blog365 challenge. Now I have to post for 365 consecutive days or there will be a very disapointed online community feeling sorry for me and calling me a loser. Well, probably not, but still, this is a great oportunity to engage in something entertaining and meaningful for a whole lap around the sun.  You should do it to. This comes from a great personal need for developing new habits; and postitive ones.

About a week ago, I started reading a blog called Zenhabits. The author offers all kinds of advise in the form of lists, about achieving goals, productivity, being organized and a number of other things. I read about 20 of that blog’s posts the first night I stumbled upon it. It is wonderful; a must read.  I realized that the type of advise that is given there is not entirely new to me, neither is my attitude towards it. You see, I have a tendency to reinvent myself every once in a while. The problem is that I don’t make the changes permanent. If I had to define my behavior, I’d say I’m cyclical. I’m often very disorganized in my daily life, but from time to time I get the urge to obsess about order, and I start planning every minute of my day, clean my room thoroughly, and throw everything away. I exercise competitively and I work very hard at whatever I’m doing at the office. Of course, the ethusiasm wears out eventually and about a month and a half later I’m back to procrastinating, growing a belly, and living in filth. And the trouble is that I don’t make a habit out of little things like waking up at around the same hour every day, or writing down a to do list at a specific hour.

I guess that what I’m trying to say is that I’m going to commit to something right now, and I’m going to develop the habit of blogging daily. I am hoping that by the fourth of february I can call that a habit, have a more-than-one reader base, and move on to bettering myself in a more tangible way. I think that the next month I’ll work on making a habit out of something work related. I’ll let you know how that goes. Don’t worry, I promise my next post will have more sarcasm, clever observations, and witty puns. See you tomorrow, bye.

We’re all well aware of the nightmare women have to go through once a month. If there’s a God, that was just evil of him. I can imagine that moment. “Okay, so far we’ve got compassionate, caring, loving, and dedicated, besides doing most of the house chores and cooking, yeah, cooking. What more should I have women do?” -God asked one cherubim, who was holding a bottle of Merlot, after a long day’s work. The little bodiless creature, pissed drunk as a little head with wings can be after a bottle of red wine replied: “I don’t know for sure, but we sure want more of this red stuff.” “Hmm, red stuff, eh? I’ll see if we can work something out”, the Lord answered.

In retaliation, women decided to get pissy right before that happened and turn into evil bitches. Of course, how else do you think cherubims became extinct? Women drove them crazy to death with mood swings and constant moving of furniture! But lately, I’m starting to think men aren’t all that different in that sense, after all.

You know men constantly think of sex. That’s a given. But trust you me, sometimes, it’s overwhelming. It gets to a point were all you see is boobs and butts walking around in the street. Hormones play all sorts of tricks on me, during a month. Or there’ll be days where those Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo adds get me crying like a little girl. And I can’t stop! Sometimes, I hate everything and everyone, and then, it starts all over again. And I didn’t use to be like this ten years ago. Back then the thinking of sex part was predominant. I don’t know if it’s the constant exposure to cellular phone interference, the endless amounts of monosodic glutamate (whatever that is) I ingest through noodle soups, or the mid twenties crisis, but I’m begining to think that we have cycles too. It could also be sympathetic mood swinging. You see, I am very attached to the women around me. It’s just that I think that women are ever more interesting than men, intellectually, in average, so I spend more time sharing stuff with them. Plus, they are the only ones that get my jokes right away. I really dread having to explain Adolph in accounting why seeing the dog from Family Guy in a banana costume singing “It’s peanut butter jelly time” makes me laugh. Women just laugh with me, and some are willing to get naked in the process. Couldn’t ask for more.

Maybe this sympathetic PMS just goes away eventually, or one just has to learn to live with it. I just hope it never gets to the point where I know the difference between “with wings”, “maxi”, “slender”, “deodorant” and “mini”.

Doing nothing on Sundays; oh, the joy of laying in bed and watching reruns of Friends and films where things blow up and don’t require much thinking, cell phone off, all three meals involving some sort of really unhealthy delivery food (usually pizza or fried chicken), and generally, just shutting the brain down. Indeed, a habit I picked up from this girl I used to date. Sundays with her would go by in what could be described as an almost state of diminished awareness in which our mere primal instincts were dominant, and activities would go from having great sex in the morning, to dozing off afterwards, waking up only when hunger was too much to bear, trying to watch a rental after eating a greasy burger, only to find ourselves sleeping halfway through it, waking up for a while in the evening to bathe, and seizing the moment to squeeze in some wet shower sex, only so that we could go to bed early, after a little pillow talk. Nothing like feeling rested on Monday to start a good week.

That relationship would “slowly collapse like a flan in a cupboard”, in the words of Eddie Izzard, but the damage was done. I turned into a big blob of nothing on Sundays and I’ve been doing more or less the same things (minus the great sex) for the last couple of years. Only, lately I haven’t experienced the same feeling of restfulness that I did back then.

I guess it must be some sort of mid-twenties life crisis, but nowadays I get the feeling that there are things I have got to get done before I get killed by a gigantic pile of paperwork, or that awful office coffee I keep drinking (don’t ask me why). There is this advertisement/trivia on the National Geographic Channel that asks the viewer how old Michaelangelo was when he sculpted the David; the single, most recognized statue in history. Of course, when the answer comes, it is my exact age: 26. Oh, you don’t have any idea of how much that bothers me, because it means that I could have done something amazing or revolutionary by now, but instead, I’m letting my youth slip away.

Take today for example. It was perfect for the old doing nothing routine: a bit chilly, a light, but constant rain, pizza in the fridge, but I couldn’t do it; not today. By ten in the morning I was fed up with the things on tv, and my bed felt ever so unconfortable. Of course, I got up, made the bed, and got in the shower, but the problem is that after I came out, well, I just didn’t know what to do. I thought of going out to look for a giant block of marble to chisel, but that might not get me the results I’m looking for. Besides, I’m not sure they have those in the local hardware store, and I don’t trust myself with a sharp object in one hand and a hammer in the other. Can you imagine, a 911 emergency just waiting to happen.

I sat down in front of the computer, and wrote this post expecting that after I was done with it, I would have come up with something cool to do, and we’re almost at the end of it and nothing came to mind. Of course, blogging is cool in itself, but you know what I mean. I keep telling myself that I am destined to do great things in this world… but what the hell are they?