Hello Friends.
While it is not the actual definition
of the term, it's conventional wisdom that defines insanity as
repeating the same action over and over again expecting a different
result. I understand how that applies, but I wonder if it makes us
all a little mad, sometimes.
For instance, in terrible bouts of
vanity, I will occasionally get that little area between my eyebrows
waxed by a hairdresser, as I did last weekend. It is not especially
painful, and any stinging I experience I attribute to the fact that
this method works far better than tweezing the affected area or
swiping at it with a razor. The problem is that I'm so satisfied with
with the soft and smooth patch of skin that I can't stop poking at it
and fingering it, which I'm sure looks super-attractive and also, it
gives me pink eye. This has happened before and it's happening again.
I had to buy pink eye medicine at the pharmacy today, like the mother
of a filthy four-year-old. It's like I'm being punished for my
narcissism. Once, the day before a first date, I decided to go
tanning, thinking the results were instantaneous. I emerged from my
infrared coffin looking as pale as ever, dissatisfied with the
experience. The next day, I went on a date with a pleasant enough
fellow who looked at me over our third cup of coffee and said,
"Sorry, but is your skin getting darker?" The point is, I
pay for my vanity, and I always forget.
Dream: Stop forgetting simple truths I
always forget.
Goal: Achievable. I know this is an
asinine premise, but it bears repeating. I'm trying, as I get older,
not to have such hard opinions on things. See more shades of grey, be
more open to new ideas. Having said that, there are a few things I
know for sure. Or at least I think I do.
Plan: Write down a few truisms so I
have a public record of things I know to be true now, if not forever:
- Having not consumed much of either, I'm still pretty sure marijuana does far less harm than energy drinks
- You can tell a great deal about a person based on the way they treat a waitress
- Fat people know that they are fat
- Bars with a lot of people in them are loud and there is often nowhere to sit
- Winter is longer and colder than you think it will be. Christmas is not the end of winter, nor even really the midpoint
- Someone you know really well is going through hard times you know nothing about
- Stress is healthy and essential, but it will kill most of us
- Shop for clothes with a well-built friend and prepare for an afternoon of hating yourself
- It is more awe-inspiring and humbling to consider the world we live in resulting from random permutations of science than the intentional acts of a God
- Nothing is funnier than a person in a place falling off of thing
- The popcorn and the coke combined will cost more than movie ticket
- Some people are legitimately hard done by, but some other people are assholes
- A house without books in it is not a home
That might be it. If you asked me at 19
what I might know at 29, I think I'd guess at a longer list than
this, but there you have it. Maybe this is one of those things where
the more you learn, the less you know. I raise what's left of my
eyebrows at that notion, for it seems insane to me.
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