Everybody's Hot Sometimes

I've struggled since the beginning with what the litmus test was going to be. Was I hot when boys liked me? Was I hot when someone told me I was? How was I ever to know when I finally got there?

Being honest, I've found myself less and less interested in reaching that pinnacle of inferno. Coming here to write about my quest for hotness has been more like a chore lately than the overflowing outpouring it was when I first began my journey. I was busting to get something out of me, and get that intangible "hot mojo" in.

So am I hot yet? Today? I don't think so. No, I don't really feel particularly hot today. Or lately. Somehow in the last little while I got away from myself. Doesn't my boyfriend tell me I'm hot? Well, yes. But that's his job. So do my friends. They're not really the point, though. At least, not completely.

Then have I failed? Well, no. I don't think so. Not completely. And not all the time. Because even though I know that I'm not super hot right now, I know that I have been hot at times over the past two and a half years. I've made my body hot. I've made my face hot. I've made my clothes hot. I've made my smile hot. I've made my dancing hot. I've made my words hot. I've made my thoughts hot. I've felt hot. Other people have felt my hotness.

And more importantly, I know I can do it again.

I've been feeling kind of down lately. It's been bothering me because, first of all, feeling down feels shitty. I think we can all agree on that one. But it's also bothering me because I know it bothers everyone around me. Yesterday, pretty much right when I needed it, a Facebook friend that I rarely talk to had posted a status update with an excerpt from an Audrey Hepburn quote.

"I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."

And I think this is the key that I've kind of been subconsciously avoiding the whole time and right when I needed it I was batted over the head with it. More than one person has told me over the last two and a half years that I should just do what made me happy, because that's what hot people do.

So, thanks to those people. You had it right all the time. And thanks to everyone who has advised, commented, commiserated. And to all 2000-odd of you who have quietly peeked in on this hot project. It has been unbelievably motivating to know that some, or all, of my journey has spoken to you in some way...if only because it was a little bit tragedorable to see what someone else was going through. But I think I've got this now. :)

Hot People Eat Muffin Tops for Breakfast

I know it's been a long time when blogger asks me for my password. And then I get it wrong. Twice.

I REALLY know it's been a long time when I have to check my blog to see what I last wrote about. You may (or may not) recall that it was about finally being comfortable in my skin.

But some recent events have suggested to me that perhaps I'm getting a little TOO comfortable in my skin.

It's been a fantastic summer - lots of drinks on the beach, lazing about on the water, and I've just finished up a really awesome vacation revisiting the east coast with my beau. Basically, the last month-ish has been an excess of nothing-much.

And it's (more than) starting to show. I went for a bike ride to a nearby park with my boyfriend yesterday. Though he was quick to point out that the bike I used wasn't a performance bike, was not meant to ride up big hills, didn't actually have brakes or speeds on it, this was not really enough to comfort me after I found myself in a heart-thumping, panting heap on the grass at the top of a big hill. Especially since I had actually walked the bike up the hill.

I'm finding myself backsliding and I don't like it. I'm busy, and as a result I'm sitting too much and eating too much food I didn't cook and the result is that sweaty, panting mass I described above. I thought I'd made some pretty foolproof resolutions in January, and by God, I'm going to stick to them come hell or high water or (most likely outcome:) frequent relapse.

I've started already - I've cooked three meals in a row with actual foods that came from an actual grocery store. I even put some in the freezer for later use. This is huge, people. And even though I spent most of yesterday evening sitting and cursing at my sewing machine, in the back of my mind I was thinking about going swimming today. And again later this week. And MAYBE for a jog. And this is the big thing. That bike ride (if you can even call it that) was a big wake up call for me. I've never been so obviously (to myself) out of shape. I NEED to do something. Not only because muffin tops are definitely not hot (and I'm less and less able to avoid them), but also because heart disease isn't either. And I see a lot of heart disease these days.

All of this brought me to one big conclusion. I need to get on that "do less" thing. Stat. Which means I'll have to use a word I hate to use. "No." And I don't mean that I need to learn to say no, and to put myself first, and blar-di-blar in one of those Oprah Magazine kind of ways. Saying yes has meant a lot of awesome things for me. I have not consistently had so much fun as I've had in the last year and a half of saying yes to just about everything that's come my way. It just mean I really have to consider the impact of saying yes. Everything I do, I have to resolve myself to consider whether saying yes to doing it will allow me to 1. make and eat actual foods 80% of the time, and 2. sustain the regular movement of my body in ways other than rolling over in bed.

Ok - let's do it.

Hot People See the Light

The last few days have been kind of a life clean-up in the aftermath of my major projects for the spring season. January to the end of May have been a series one-thing-after-another in both work and life. When I was in university, this after-the-crazy-subsides time was usually followed by a few weeks of listless depression and total lack of motivation in finding a summer job.

Well...the job keeps going (although, some days I wonder; I often take bets on Thursday for how many people booked on Friday will actually show up), so that's one problem solved. But last year, the sads had definitely set in around this time. So far this year, it hasn't happened.

So what's different?

Well...I think an obvious answer is the fact that I'm pretty comfortably attached right now. My lack of attachment was a source of major concern for me just about a year ago. But...a year ago, I kinda thought I was attached. Plus I really don't feel like it would be truthful to say that my lack of sads is entirely dependent on my being in a comfortable relationship. But it certainly helps.

No, I think that despite the fact that I've not been to the gym in an innumerable quantity of days, and despite the fact that I've not seriously worn makeup on a regular basis since...well, ever (how do people do it? I JUST DON'T HAVE TIME EVERY MORNING), I just feel more comfortable in my skin. When I first started this blog, I didn't know who I was. Without that knowledge, I couldn't really settle comfortably on anything or anyone. And I'm pretty sure that's where the sads came from. In the last year, I've found things I'm comfortable doing, and people I'm comfortable doing them with. It's awesome.

It's so awesome, I'm even doing a few things I'm not totally comfortable with. I played softball for the first time last week since I was in junior high. It went...well, about as well as softball did WHEN I was in junior high. So...pretty poorly. BUT, despite a little bit of pre-game anxiety, I always had in the back of my mind that the people I was playing with weren't hanging out with me because of my baseball skills but because they kinda want to hang out with me. And for the first time in my life, I don't doubt this (all the time).

Sure, I still have (many) moments of personality anxiety. And sometimes they're hilarious. And don't worry - you'll still get a full report of those activities. So stay tuned, kids.

***In other news, though I haven't learned to play guitar or be ab-tastic, I did have a counselling session with a client the other day almost entirely in (not entirely grammatically correct) French. Hurray me!

Hot People's Life Imitates Art?

So, remember this?

I finally got my pictures and permission from the photographer. THIS is what all the fuss was about.
If this picture is to be believed, my boyfriend's mother should have been grandmother to octuplets sometime mid-March. Luckily, it isn't to be believed. The prosthetic belly used in this play was made by and worn by women who have never been pregnant. I stuck it on. We looked at it. We thought maybe it should look bigger. We put more padding on. And then we decided it was more for comedic value than realism.

Last week, one of my clients congratulated me on having gotten married recently. When I looked at her with this face...she said she'd heard through the grapevine that I'd gotten married. I have not gotten married and just magically forgotten to blog about it. I've not gotten engaged. I've not talked about either of those things with any party who might want, in future, to be involved in that with me. Trust me. If I had, it would have made the blog.

I'm quite sure, almost completely without doubt, that she thought I was getting married or had gotten married because of this:






















And if this picture is to be believed, then one must also believe that I got married on four separate occasions to the same man, not wearing a wedding dress, but with one draped over me. And one must also believe that I would marry a man who's idea of a life partner is one who dresses like this:






















With a pink, pie-patterned apron and clashing blue patterned knit cardigan, and matching blue knit stockings....AND thinks that THIS is the best way to do makeup:



















Just look at the foolishness I've wrought with that lipstick and rouge.

One aspect of small-town life that's been difficult to adjust to has been everyone being totally and unabashedly inquisitive about my relationship status. It's totally legit here for people to ask you when you plan on marrying your boyfriend of 4 months. I handle these questions by responding with this face.

Like a hot person would?








____________________________________________________________________

Photos courtesy of Cal Knight Photography.

Hot People Have Quickies

Nope, nothing hotter than a quickie.

And that's why this is a quickie post. Also, because I posted recently and I haven't got loads to talk about. So instead, here's just a quick update about what's hot and what's not.

Not hot: waking up late, cramming too much breakfast down, then realizing at 8:37 a.m. that you had an optometrist appointment at 8:30 a.m.

Hot: going to French class and discovering you got 97% on your most recent exam.

Not hot: getting this sunburn.


















Hot: cute orange pedicure.

That's all for now folks!

Hot People Don't Shimmer (At Least...Not Like This)

The daytime high today in my little northern town was 31C and it's still something like 29C.

One wouldn't think that I'd be one to complain. You know, given the fact that this whole blog is about WANTING to be hot (get it? hot. har-de-har!). But it's not just that. Don't get me wrong. I like summer. Summer means that I can swim and eat vegetables that might have had less travel time than I've had in my life and that the days last longer so I'm not suffering from totally unexplainable depression in the middle of February...AND no raised eyebrows at cracking a cooler in the middle of the day BECAUSE IT'S EFFING HOT OUT AND I NEED TO COOL DOWN, DAMMIT. And, given the fact that northern winters boast a chill that literally has it out for you...like seriously, the weather is TRYING to kill you...it's very difficult not to appreciate a little excessive sizzle in your life.

But there's one thing about hot weather that really bothers me, and that is the fact that no matter how hard I try, I ALWAYS look like I'm suffering from debilitating, corpulence-induced meat sweats. Once upon a time, I thought it was because I was fat, but even during my leaner summers I still look like I've been generously greased with a pastry brush. I don't understand how other girls can go through summer looking like beach goddesses with their tans and their sun-bleached hair and their short shorts without the chafing...the awful, awful chafing.

And let's just be clear here, I don't want to spend hours in a tanning bed or bazillions of dollars on just the right amount of bleach (though I could do without the chafing). I'm ok with being pasty and mouse-brown. I'm not ok with looking like a pit-stained fishwife.

Surely there are products and tricks that can help me in this regard. Some kind of grease-removing face wipe? Some kind of maxi-pad for my armpits? Has anyone invented these yet?

Also...my hair has grown out since that picture was taken. What do I do with that? Theoretically, it should just sweep back and tendrils of my naturally curly hair should fall out in just the right places to make me look tousled but not messy, right? RIGHT? THEN WHY DOES IT ALWAYS LOOK MESSY AND GROSS AND PASTED TO THE BACK OF MY NECK ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS?

Dear Blogosphere. Please help. So I can think about what to barbecue.

Sincerely,

Miss T

Hot People Can't Eat Just One

If I was going to pick the psychological disorder I'm most likely to suffer from, I'd probably pick depression nine times out of ten. My last post, I thought, was a pretty good illustration of that (thanks, to my commenters on that one, btw. Nearly all the kick in the ass I needed. Plus this one, which pretty much pulled me up out of it.) Regardless of whether or not I ACTUALLY suffer from depression, this post is about what I think I'm not. I don't think I have an addictive personality. I don't think I have any personality disorders. But a sober(ish) inventory of my life this past weekend suggests to me that I'm both an addict AND a hoarder.

Problem 1

I'm addicted to having things to do. There, I said it. I know. It's a problem. Most of you are probably reading this thinking that I'm crazy (actually, that's my point...); having things to do is totally normal. I'm not going to go through the laundry list of activities I've engaged in over the past few months (because I've done it many, many times already). But I've said yes to so many things that,

a. in order to do my taxes and spend some time with my parents I spent approximately 11 hours in a car, 5 having dinner with one parent, 2 having a fight with another parent, 3 hours doing my taxes, and only 6 hours sleeping so that I could be back in time on the same weekend to rehearse with some vocalists whom I was accompanying in the local music festival. Please note the car to sleep ratio there...

and,

b. my involvement in so many activities in the last month or two was so intense that more than one person thought I might do actual physical harm to myself in the completion of these activities.

So...maybe that's not normal. And though things are winding down for the summer, I don't find myself completely ready for relaxation, beaches and drinks like this:

(even though my boyfriend has admonished me and instructed me that I am not permitted to participate in any sort of extra-curriculars until September). I'm actually getting kind of anxious. Surely, here's JUST ONE MORE THING I can do or get involved in. A community garden? A book club? A quilting class? ANYTHING?

I've taken up crafting to fill the void. And to further illustrate my pathological need for things to do, let me describe my latest crafting venture. I had decided to make flower brooches for my mother and my boyfriend's mother as a belated Mother's Day gift (yeah, yeah...this "things to do" kick also means that I'm chronically late with EVERYTHING). It's pretty, and that's all that matters. See? I had none of the materials or tools necessary for this job. The result was that after work, I went racing to three different stores to get all the materials I needed. Despite the fact that I live in a reasonably well-appointed town, amenities-wise, there was one item I couldn't find. This resulted in massive panic, manifested by a sweaty-browed, arms-flailing sprint to my favourite yarn shop to inarticulately gesture and holler for the missing item. She didn't have it and that was a DISASTER (though totally understandable, because the missing item wasn't yarn, which is what she sells).

The point is, even when my "thing to do" isn't a previously scheduled, organized group activity, I WANT TO DO IT RIGHT NOW. I need to have my fix. See? Problem.

Problem 2

I cleaned my bedroom yesterday. Not even my whole apartment. Do you know how many empty, opened envelopes I found in there? More than one. Like, a grocery bag full. WHY? And hole- and run-ridden pantyhose? Like, a MILLION PAIRS. I don't even remember when I decided that the best course of action for both of these items was to let them lie (on the dresser, on the floor, IN THE BED[?!?!]) rather than toss them directly into the garbage. Because that's what both of those things are. Garbage. Similar items include safety pins, hair elastics, hairballs (helpfully placed in the middle of the bedroom floor by my cat). See? Problem.

Does anyone know of a detox/intervention program for loonies with my kind of problems? Anyone? Yeah, thought not. Anyway, I figure I could quit anytime I want. I just have to subscribe to cable television again (because its hold is WAY more powerful than any community garden committee), and develop a further hoarding habit for attractive containers and dust bins. See? Problem solved.

Hot People Don't Smell like Failure

I wish I could say my absence from the cyberwaves has been a result of my having reached my goal. I wish I could tell you I was superhot and I haven't been blogging because I haven't NEEDED blogging. However, saying any of those things would be a whole bunch of false.

I've been absent from the cyberwaves because I've been hilar-busy. And I've been absent from the cyberwaves because, honestly, I've been feeling like a big pile of turds recently. A big pile of failure turds. I have failed at being fit, I have failed at doing more, I have failed at doing less, I have failed in a house, I have failed with a mouse, etc.

And I have failed at writing actual words...to the point where my father points my failures out to me. (Normally, I wouldn't "out" an anonymous commenter, except that he already outed himself in the comment.)

...And that really is the last straw. I am nearly 30, and there are still numerous things that I can't do without my parents. This, above all, makes me feel decidedly not hot. Though I have a pretty reasonable income, I still feel as though I need to ask them for permission to do things from time to time...like take vacations with money that I legitimately earned and saved. Hell, I can't even string a sentence together without some input.

Now, I don't really know what to do about it. I've tried gently suggesting that I don't need their help. I've had screaming fights that, I think, more than gently suggest that I'd like a litte breathing room. But that's a thing I fail at also. I find it difficult to suggest to the people upon whom I was so dependent (for more than a quarter century) that I don't want their help anymore without feeling like a complete ingrate or a tantrum-throwing two-year-old screaming "No! I wanna do it."

But it's that attitude that's gotten me to this feeling of a big giant, steaming pile of failure-turds. My unrelenting attitude of doing everything that's offered to me that I have the slightest inkling that I might want to try has resulted in my having succeeded at only a few of them (since, you know, I can't be amazing at everything...like hot people would be). And now I feel like I'm frantically treading water and my limbs are burning with fatigue and all I want to do now is drown in my bedsheets. Sigh.

Hot People Don't Sit Down

So, one of my resolutions this year was to "do less." I think my (I hope) notable absence from the cyberwaves is an indication that I've already failed at doing less.

That being said, I'm really quite proud of how I've managed to "do more." When I was in university, all of my energies were focussed on three things: doing well in school, drinking on weekends, and attending debate tournaments...mostly for the purposes of drinking on weekends (perhaps that's actually two things with one sub-thing...bahaha). In my first year post-university/post-employment, I've managed to do a whole heck of a lot here. Sometimes that means my cat becomes king of the apartment and I'm just some person who comes by to warm up the bed at night and leave some food in the dish in the morning. But it also kinda means that I'm a mover and shaker - which, considering my social resignation when I started this blog, is a huge deal for me. Not only have I become a participant in the social fabric of my community, I've also become a performer. I've moved from medicating my shyness with copious amounts of alcohol (with sometimes disastrous results), to putting myself on display for tens of people. I'm hoping to get some of the stills from the performance to post up here. I played a nine-month pregnant farm girl. They're pretty funny.

And I'm pretty happy with myself. But not completely. I'm just finding a little difficulty with the balance of happinesses. I love being involved...having my finger on a pulse, or what-have-you. But when I'm so engulfed in activity, it's really hard to be...active. Physically, speaking. Or, you know, eat foods made of food. And I've gotta say, it certainly doesn't make me happy when NOT A SINGLE PAIR OF PANTS THAT I OWN WILL DO UP COMFORTABLY. Of course, the play's over and in a month or two, so will all of my other extra-curriculars. I'll have the whole summer and miles of country highway sprawling before me and my bicycle. But I know the same thing's going to happen next year and I'm FINALLY learning that given the choice between being fun and being fit, I'm going to choose fun every single time. And I'm going to languour in my resulting corpulence every single time as well. So, the key is to find ways to make fitness fun. Seems like a no-brainer, huh? Halp.

Hot People...Guh...

I've been here a year. My one-year anniversary at work was yesterday. Normally, I'd be celebrating how awesome I am.

However, I celebrated my anniversary by taking my first sick day, after having a tooth pulled in the most upsetting dental experience of my life. I'll continue the celebrations this week by cutting my cat's balls off.

I'm pretty sure I've done some awesome stuff in the last year, but right now it's hard to see through this funk.

Hot People Find The Fire

I was supposed to go to the gym today. I have decided that I will not be doing so. Today was crap. So was half of yesterday, actually.

But it makes me worried. It doesn't seem to take much for me to want avoid expending some energy. Finding your motivation in February is difficult. There's no sun, and it's effing cold here. Back in September I had glorious notions that I'd be skiing and snowshoeing and skating...but now I mostly just want to curl up under a blanket and drink milky tea. In fact, if I could skip work to do that, that'd be even better.

So...how do I make sure that this isn't a permanent state of affairs? Well...I don't really know. But I've got a pretty good idea. Way back in September, when I was all dreamy about what a Great Canadian Winter life I'd be leading, I took some pictures of myself. They were meant to be "before" comparison pictures to illustrate exactly how successful I'd been with Plan Abtastic. Then, of course, that plan was an epic failure. I took another one today...an "after" shot...for comparison. Only, instead of the "after" meaning "after lots of exercise and sensible eating", it means "after overcommitting myself, being more or less sedentary, and eating a steady diet of microwave dinners, pizza, subway and candy for breakfast".

Before
























After











Now, I don't want to get into the fine details of the analysis of exactly what's happened physically. And I'm sure my eyes are exaggerating the differences between the two pictures, but I think we can agree that one is preferable to the other. And it's not the "After" shot. In fact, I don't think the jeans I'm wearing in the before shot even fit anymore. But THIS. IS. MOTIVATING. This happened over a matter of months, and, frankly, it makes me frightened about what a year (or more) could do.

Now, I know I'm not supposed to be motivated by fear. I've been to several seminars given by highly respected behaviour change specialists suggesting that it's a bad idea to use fear to get people to do stuff. But I'm pretty sure the only thing that's going to work is to burn these pictures onto the insides of my eyelids and resolve to go. That's the only fire that's going to get me there.


...but not today. Today was crap.

Hot People Feel Dirty Sometimes (and not in the good way)

So, I was absent-mindedly checking my blog analytics this morning. As some of you may remember from that cryptic post of approximately 5 months ago, my blog analytics allow me to see what search terms people have used to find me on google. Sometimes it's a no-brainer that they're looking for me - they'll search things like hotmisst or hot in 6 months blog or something like that. Sometimes, I'm not sure what they're looking for; when they search things like why did people use to ware capes and white tights male dancers, I'm genuinely unsure of what they hoped they'd find. Other times, I know exactly what they're looking for. Today, I found this (you might have to click on it to read it properly):


















But, for those of you who don't read teensy tiny writing, what you're seeing there is big boobs red bra. Someone, somewhere in North America, was looking for someone with big boobs and a red bra...and they found me. And faithful readers will know, I delivered. In conclusion, there's a very good chance that someone in North America was jerking off to my boobs.

...


Yuck.

So, guys...does this mean i'm hot? Because if THIS is what hot feels like, I can do without it. I recognize that this is partly my fault for having a picture of my big boobs in a red bra posted on the internets, but my culpability in the matter is doing nothing to relieve this slightly sticky feeling I'm encountering right now.

Because if I get right down to it, this isn't really what I had in mind when I started talking about being hot. Sure, I wanted to have some sex appeal, but I was never really interested in being an object in this way. I wanted people to desire me (or desire to be like me) because of some kind of confident je-ne-sais-quoi, not because of an accident of anatomy.

I know I sound like one of those girls who looks like a model and complains because "she can't help the way she looks...she just wishes that sometimes, men would leave her alone," but I know I don't look like a model...and once upon a time even this kind of attention would have been satisfactory to me. Well...perhaps the fact that it is no longer satisfactory (it is in fact unsatisfactory) is a good sign. No?

Hot People Clean Up Their Acts

Once upon a time, about a year and a half ago, I excused my drunkenness and the occasional resulting blackouts by saying that...hey, I remember the IMPORTANT things. I think I continue to excuse that behaviour in my slightly-younger-than-now self because it was occurring at a time in my life when I was emerging from a lengthy period of hazy mediocrity and the fun I was having on those evenings was bordering on legendary. And, to be honest, it was shortlived; I think that was the last (or at least, amongst the last) time that I blacked out.

Until last weekend. And for some reason, I'm not really inclined to excuse myself from that particular blackout. Perhaps because I'm slightly older...but probably not. It happened innocently enough. I accepted a few drinks made by a trustworthy friend (I say trustworthy to absolve him of any culpability here. Everything that happened here is my fault). I knew what was in them...including the sizeable shots of tequila. I also, in an effort to be gregarious, imbibed one or two shots of tequila. And then we cabbed to the dance bar. And then I don't remember anything afterwards. The rest of my night has been pieced together by a series of witnesses. And it causes me to shake my head. Vigorously.

A friend demonstrated my dancing (?) that evening. Face. Palm. I like to think of myself as a pretty good dancer. And when I'm in my usual state of comfortable buzz at the bar, I frequently enjoy myself by laughing at people who just haven't got it going on. Examples of this might include the cougars two-stepping to Will.i.am last Friday, or the trio of girls awkwardly grinding with each other when my boyfriend and I went to hear the final performance of one of the djs in the area we think is kinda fly. Those are the people I laugh at. And I became one of those people on that decidedly uncrowded Saturday night.

Also, I drunk-dialed my boyfriend who was sleeping soundly after a hard day of work while I pickled my liver and gyrated awkwardly. I think I did this from a snowbank I'd fallen in. I suggested that if he were awake, then he should call me. If he were not awake, then he should remain asleep and forego the phone call. Clearly, I'm a genius. I may have waited for him to call back for a few minutes. Thank goodness I gave up and walked home, because if I'd waited there all night, I'm sure the blue-haired biddies tottering off to church the next morning would have discovered a splayed-out Miss T Popsicle.

The pièce-de-resistance of the whole evening, thank goodness, was witnessed only by my cat. I vomited. But where? I'm actually too ashamed to say. Rest assured, though, that it was not in a garbage can or a toilet or any other receptacle appropriate for vomit. I don't remember the actual act of vomiting, but I was horrified to find it when I woke up. Ugh.

And this is what I KNOW happened. To whom did I speak? WHAT DID I SAY TO THEM? Gawd! When I was doing my undergrad, a guy I knew in residence produced a number of business-card-looking things. They were apology cards, with a generic apology to account for the usual amnesia associated with the binge-drinking. And I feel like I need a stack of them right now. And I don't think that's acceptable. Or hot.

Now, the general response to an evening like this is the ol' faithful "...and I'll never touch another drink ever again." I think we all know that would be false. But I think a certain amount of responsibility is in order so that I can maintain that comfortable buzz without the uncomfortable awkwardness I'm feeling every time I see someone who might have been there. I hate weeks like this.

Hot People Plan for the Future

Ok, before you start thinking that my penultimate post actually had some truth to it, stop panicking (like I would be). It's just that it's January, folks. Time to evaluate the past and plan for the future, hotness-wise.

It seems I was once again a steaming pile of failure at keeping my New Year's resolutions for 2010. Of the 5 that I had made, I managed to ACTUALLY only keep one - be employed. I've already discussed my feelings about plan ab-tastic and how it will continue into the future, but the remaining ones were sorely neglected. I can neither speak french fluently, nor reliably play any songs on my guitar. And though I downloaded all album suggested last year, and enjoyed them, I still have a soft spot in my heart for the truly terrible. Matchbox 20 and Hootie and the Blowfish still command a few bytes of space on my ipod.

But instead of abandoning these resolutions and languishing in my continued failure at being hot, I've come up with a cunning plan for this year's resolutions. I had some drinks with a few friends just over a year ago, and one of them finally said to me, "You know, the only thing that all hot people have in common is that they mostly just do whatever the hell they want." As a result, I've come up with 4 new resolutions that will catapult me, hopefully by January 2012, to a state of extreme hotness (or, doing-whatever-the-hell-i-want-ness). They will also, I believe, help me achieve those failed resolutions from last year as well.

1. Drink more. I have a two-pronged attack here. First of all, drinking more really means drinking more things that I like (and consequently, less of what's just ok). So, no more Rye & Diet Coke at the dance club in town just because it's an easy thing to remember. 2011 will usher into my life more wine, hard cider, and vodka/soda/lime. Prong two will involve making more cocktails at home in an effort to find my own signature drink. Plus nothing's hotter than a well-stocked bar, no? My liquor cabinet already features 4 different kinds of scotch. What else is a must-have, I wonder?

2. Eat more. This may sound counter-intuitive; just work with me here. I've spent much of the last year almost literally run off my feet. As a result, I make very few of my meals at home. As a further result, I have no leftovers to take to work. And as a concluding result, I frequently eat gross microwaved dinners for lunch, thus consuming pounds and pounds of salt and chemicals on a daily basis. So when I say eat more, I actually mean eat more FOOD. Like, food in the Michael Pollan sense of the word. This will be difficult, since, as I've mentioned, I'm pretty much run off my feet. Sooo....

3. Do less. The last 10 months, since moving to Northern Ontario, have been a massive exercise in insinuating myself upon the community. I did this by not saying no to anything (except the pipe band...and a few dates). Unfortunately, when you say yes to everything, people continue to ask you to do things, and you are often expected to continue to say yes. And the result is that you have NO TIME TO MAKE FOOD OR SLEEP OR WASH YOUR UNDERWEAR***. When all of these things happen at the same time, the result isn't hotness, as I'd hoped. It's usually that you walk around like a cranky-faced zombie all the time. Therefore, I've resolved to commit to only 3 regularly scheduled weekly events at a time, and will evaluate one-time offers on an individual basis, giving preference to those things that I REALLY REALLY WANT TO DO (I'm looking at you, dragon boat festival). Hopefully, this way, I'll have more time for cooking real food, doing real exercise, and wearing clean underthings.

4. Do more. I know what you're thinking..."isn't that in direct conflict with resolution #3?" Well, no. This one is about something different. In searching for that quest for hotness I've really had to consider whether an item or an activity was generally regarded as hot, or if it made me feel hot when I had it/did it. And when I considered it, I generally found that when I felt hot, other people found me hot as well. The necessary conclusion here is that I should do more things that make me feel hot. Like this:

<---- And also ziplining. And also skiing. And also making brownies. And since I've set aside time by doing less, I should have more time to do all this stuff. In conclusion, I'm a genius and I'll be hot in no time.










SERIOUS FACE -->


***Note: I've not yet worn dirty underwear. I HAVE stayed up till 3 a.m. doing laundry on a weeknight so I wouldn't have to wear dirty underwear though.