The Art Of Doing Nothing (Part 2)

Up to this afternoon, I was planning to go to the gym and do strength training on my back. I even packed my gym bag with deodorant and a fresh pair of underwear, although I would have needed to take a shaker cup and some protein powder, as well.

I had lunch around 2:00 p.m. after playing N for two hours straight (I'm currently trying to get past episode 37). After this, I took what should have been a short nap on my living room sofa.

The key phrase here is "should have been."

Besides getting up once to "take care of business" (i.e. take a piss), I didn't get up again until 7:00 p.m. in order to eat dinner. Now that I'm unemployed, working out on Fridays is an option and I plan to do this tomorrow...if I don't take another "short nap."

For those of you wondering where part one is, it's not here. Kristen Gale, the owner of The Ten Spot and blogger behind Dating Myself, wrote a blog entry where she explained the art:

It’s a little motto I think I made up, that I try to live by when confronted with a situation that can go one of two ways – either escalate or descalate (I made that word up – it’s a verb and means the opposite of escalate).

You could say that I descalated this situation...for five hours.

Regretting My Low Social Capital (Part 3)

This is the final post in this series. I promise.

Up to now, I've been lamenting my low social capital. The solution here should be really easy: get out more, deliberately meet more people and stop living like a hermit. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

As a matter of fact, I've come to the point where I'm so used to the disease that I'm afraid the cure will kill me.

For example, this weekend, a "surprise" birthday party is being held in honour of one of my church's pastors. I put "surprise" in quotes because he probably knows about it already, but he'll need to act surprised at the event. Anyway, being an active member of my church, you'd think that I'd sign up right away - but I didn't. Actually, I didn't sign up at all.

It's not that I have anything against the pastor himself. Au contraire, I very much respect him, especially for sometimes injecting secular songs into his sermons and not giving a crap what people think about it. It's just that I don't want to find myself in a socially embarrassing situation, where I end up sitting with people I don't know and become the odd one out while they talk amongst themselves. Worse, I could end up being forced into conversation when all I want to do is sit, eat and take in my surroundings. Given the fact that I'm on stage every week (I sing on backup and in the adult choir), this is a very real possibility. I've been through these situations enough times to know better than to risk repeated public awkwardness.

There are only two types of people who willingly jump into the same fire twice: firefighters and idiots. At least firefighters get paid for it.

So I'm going to let that "celebration" pass and do what I think is best: go to Indigo and read a few magazines...by myself, thank you very much.

Tsar Kasim Vs. $2.50

As J.D. Roth at Get Rich Slowly says, nobody cares about your money like you do. Case in point: I checked my VISA account this morning and saw a $2.50 bank charge for a cash advance I processed on Tuesday.

Allow me to provide some context: I used my budget spreadsheet to reconcile my VISA account on Monday. Unfortunately, I ended up duplicating one payment I already made on the previous weekend. As a result, my VISA account had a negative balance (i.e. an overpayment) in the amount of the duplicated payment. I corrected that error on Tuesday, hence the cash advance.

Yesterday morning, I checked that same VISA account and it had a zero balance. This morning, however, was a different story; there was a nice shiny service charge for $2.50 applied for the cash advance. I decided then and there that I would not pay any service charge for correcting an honest mistake. I then called the number on the back of my VISA card and calmly explained the situation to the agent on the other end of the line. While acknowledging that this service charge is applied to all cash advances regardless of the VISA account's balance, he gracisously reversed it since he knew what I was trying to do. After expressing my gratitude, I promised to be more careful in the future.

Keeping abreast of your financial situation is of utmost importance, especially in this recessionary climate we're in right now.

Regretting My Low Social Capital (Part 2)

I had a lot more to say in part one, but it would have been too much for one post. Picking up from where I left off...

I'm at the point in my life where I'd love to share it with a special woman, but due to my low friend count, I sometimes think that I'm getting ahead of myself - as if I'm putting the cart before the horse. A good number of dating articles say that being a loner can be a red flag when looking for a mate, although some say that this can work for good, too. Having said that, in my experience, my lack of friends always proves to be a stumbling block.

A few years ago, there was one pretty (or so I thought) young lady who recently started going to my church. Honestly, it was a crush from first sight; it took me quite a bit of time to chalk up the nerve to ask for her number. When I did, I didn't exactly play it smooth, but I ended up coming off very nervously. Perhaps she sensed this and already wrote me off before I dialed her digits and made my pitch.

That first call was very awkward, to say the least. Among the questions asked: when did I last have a girlfriend (junior high school), what was my testimony - or did I not have one (I found that last part very rude), and who did I hang out with from church? The lady was already unimpressed, but when I answered that last question, I might as well have given up then and there. Ironically, she told me that I need to "go out and meet people" - which, strangely enough, is exactly what I was trying to do here. After putting up with being told that my life is "so boring" for two calls in a row, I ripped up her number and put it where it belonged. I'd much rather be lonely and single than go through that crap.

She isn't the only person I've encountered who thought it odd that I don't hang out with friends on a regular basis. A few weeks ago, I was talking with a fellow churchgoer about a movie I recently saw; it was probably State Of Play. He asked if I "called my boys" and watched the movie, to which I replied, "What boys?" His reaction wasn't nearly as rude as that of my former crush, but I could tell he was surprised to hear that my social "circle" is really a dot.

There are other reasons that I can't even think about dating right now, like being unemployed. I think the then-prospect of it hurt my chances with a recent lady I went on one date with, although the fact that I "speak in parables" (her words) probably didn't help. Regardless, people always tell me that love strikes when you least expect it, so perhaps I should set aside one month's salary in anticipation.

Actually, I would...if I was still earning a long-term salary in the first place. ;-)

Get Your Coconuts Broke

And now for something on a lighter note, courtesy of Meghan Telpner. Fast forward to 2:29 to witness the act.



No word yet on what the lime thinks about this. ;-)

That's an intentional grammatical error in the title, by the way. It's a play on one of Len's album titles: Get Your Legs Broke.

Regretting My Low Social Capital

I spend most of my time alone (or by myself among strangers). I like to think that this is by choice and that I enjoy it, but the truth may be different.

I'm not anti-social and I don't have a social phobia, but somehow, I've become very comfortable with solitude. I'm not entirely uncomfortable with being around people, but my reaction depends on the situation. In any event, I don't have to worry as much about seeming awkward or unintentionally inciting disapproval when I am alone.

I can think of one incident a few years ago at a Lush party among strangers. I made an attempt to chat up a female journalist, which ended up being massively unsuccessful. To make things worse, she tried to chat me up a few minutes later; once again, I came off like an inept fool. Events like this are typical of my predicament; it's not that I don't want to talk to people, but since this makes me risk embarrassment, I often don't bother.

I can also think of the many times I pushed people away when I was in high school, particularly grades nine to twelve. It's not that I was a total jerk; au contraire, I treated people with respect most of the time. However, when I lost my temper, I really lost it. I did this often enough to make fellow students approach me with caution.

One particularly crushing event happened while my class was in Washington, D.C. with students from another high school. We went into a restaurant to eat dinner; I remember running up the stairs and picking a booth, thinking that at least a few people were longing to have the pleasure of sitting with me. I'd soon find out otherwise; I ended up sitting with two classmates, but only after being passed up by student after student after student. After confiding in a fellow classmate about this, I found out that I unintentionally made myself a pariah thanks to my outbursts.

Fast forward to the present. I'm almost thirty years old and my friend count is practically zero. I don't have a social network I can call on, and it really would have helped me deal with my job loss. Mind you, my workouts serve as my stress release. However, picking up the phone and calling someone to talk or do something with them is not an option right now.

That could make for a very lonely thirtieth birthday. If it's going to be anything like my twenty-seventh, I'm not looking forward to it at all.