Revenge

Remember, when talking to the ex, even when you are miserable, you have to make it look like your life is going well.

Like a good public relations person, put a positive spin on your life's circumstances. Everything is going great.

Smile, appear happy and rub what you can into their faces. Appear unphased when they tell you they are getting married next week.

The goal: Make them feel jealous. Make them feel like it's their loss.

Even if you don't ever want to date them again, even if you hate them for everything they did to you, you have to be the bigger, better person in an effort to add to your ex's pain.

A poem

"A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. " --Robert Frost

Sit and Wait

It is written that if you ask a guy out, you eliminate the chase. The chase is what is fun for the guy.

Apparently, if they like you, they will step it up and ask you out.

If you ask a guy out yourself, it takes all the fun out of it for the guy. Maybe it's true. But now you are sitting and waiting for this guy to ask you out and it's just not happening. You hang out together all the time. He calls you occasionally. But maybe he is just not that into you.

Fighting gravity

I started watching Jetstream, a documentary on Discovery Channel that follows a group of young pilots as they learn to fly a supersonic fighter jet.

After watching the premier episode of Jetstream, I'm not sure why anyone would want to be a fighter pilot.

Firstly, there is the physical stress. Jets, as they do their aerobatic moves, are basically fighting gravity. In doing so, the g forces reduce blood flow to the brain. This can lead to a loss of consciousness, which is called g-loc. You can prevent this by tensing your legs, arms and abdominal muscles to restrict the "downward" flow of blood.

On the show, they were sticking pilots in a centrifuge to see how they handled the g forces, and you could watch as some of them passed out. It was crazy.

Then there is the risk. When flying a jet, it's not if something goes wrong, it's when.

No thank you.

Stupid.

Why is it when you run into a cute guy, you're always doing something stupid, like buying a donut? (Girls aren't supposed to be seen eating sugary, fattening foods after all).

Responsibility

Today, I was reading a story on Yahoo News about how the U.S. recently bombed 40 selected targets in Iraq with smart bombs. I then made the mistake of looking at the readers' comments.

There was a right-winger on there ripping into the left-wing and Islam with some really hateful words. People would tell her how stupid she was or agree with her and she would come back on and tell everyone they were stupid. The whole forum was really negative and outrageous.

I felt compelled to throw my two bits in, which I don't normally do. I wrote: "I can't believe the blatant hatred, disrespect, racism and xenophobia in these comments. Some of you should be ashamed of yourself. War and terrorism are rooted in these attitudes."

I waited for people to respond to the comment and either agree with me or tell me I was an idiot. Instead they ignored it and kept making their hateful comments at each other.

This to me is the problem with the human race. Some people like arguing and fighting with each other so much, they ignore any comments that hold them responsible for perpetuating a problem.

Timing

Timing is everything.

If you want to get married, you have to find a guy who wants to get married. You know, a guy who already has the house and career he wants. Find a guy who is happy where he is in life.

If you find a guy whose upgrading his education or thinking about moving to a new city then run, even if you seem to be perfect for each other. This guy is too busy thinking about himself and isn't ready to make decisions as a couple. Unless you're willing to make some sacrifices for him and he's willing to let you, it will never work out.

Rubbing it in.

You might not know a Mandy. At least not until you learn your ex's new girlfriend is named Mandy. Then suddenly you'll meet a new Mandy every second day.

The fates like to rub it in.

V-Day

For those of you who felt lonley on Valentine's Day, just remember the "holiday" was created as a commercial ploy to sell cards.

You're not getting any money from those card sales, so who cares about Valentine's Day.

Besides, trees had to die for those cards to be made. So if you didn't give or receive a card this Valentine's Day, good for you. The environment and anti-capitalists thank you.

Have your cake.

Some men are like chocolate cake. You know you shouldn't, but you also know it will taste so good if you do.

You'll take only one bite, or so you tell yourself. But before you know it, you've eaten not just one piece, but the whole cake.

Phobia

There comes a time when you've had your heart stepped on so many times that you don't want to go back out there.

The thought of a new boyfriend scares you. What hurt will you face this time if you enter a new relationship?

Settling in.

You know you're just settling when you decide to be with someone who has an issue you have to work to ignore.

Dependents

Some men are simply looking for their mother in a relationship. And there are women out there who are happy to oblige.

Not only do these women make the meals and do the chores, they say "dear, you can't have any chocolate ice cream. It will spoil your dinner."

And "dear, make sure you're home by eight."

These women have rules and they are not afraid to lay down the law.

They also manage the purse strings.

There is no such thing as an equal partnership in these relationships.

It's like single parenthood, except the child is the woman's lover.

The Nameless

Ex-boyfriends become the names that cannot be named.

If you want to tell an anecdote that involves them, you have to say a “friend of mine.”

Because if you use their name, the person you are talking to, like your parents, for instance, will say “whatever happened to him. I liked that guy.”

And then you have to explain a whole bunch of stuff you don’t want to explain.

Trust, Passion and Love

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy and Spike find they are pulled together by love. They don’t want to love each other at first, but they can’t contain their feelings and are drawn to each other. Buffy, of course, fights her feelings every step of the way. She resists her own feelings of love in this little bit of dialogue:

BUFFY: I'm not saying I don't have feelings for you. I do. But it's not love. I could never trust you enough for it to become that.

SPIKE: Trust is for old marrieds, Buffy. Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous. It burns and consumes.

BUFFY: Until there's nothing left. That kind of love doesn't last.

And in fiction that kind of love ends tragically. Perhaps it is also true in life.

Legacy

I was reading a book written by a poet friend of mine who is around the age of 70.

He quotes Dylan Thomas at the beginning of the book:

"Poetry.
I like to think of of it
as statements made on the way to the grave."

This quote is appropriate, I suppose, since my friend's book is a commemoration of his own life. However, it is sad to me that my friend is already thinking about his eventual death and writing his poetic autobiography so the life he lived will be left behind, remembered in the pages of his book.

Failure

Halifax poet Don Domanski, 57, won the Governor General award for poetry this year for his book All Our Wonder Unavenged (Brick Books). It took him seven years to write the book.

When interviewed by the Globe and Mail, Domanski said "all poetry is failure in the end, because you never reach what you want.”

Oh, how true.

Keeping it to yourself

I don't like it when I run into people I know while grocery shopping. They always look into your cart and, I'm sure, judge you based on the type of shampoo you use or the amount of vegetables (or lack of vegetables) you have.

The other day, I ran into someone I know, who is rather on the short side. She asked for my help getting her Oxy face scrub off the top shelf. I didn't want to know that she uses Oxy to wash her face. I guess I have no desire to know the personal and, in a way, intimate details of someone's life.

Time lost.

I hate those days when I have plans to get a lot done, but then circumstances beyond my control take over. I wake up feeling under the weather or my computer crashes. Such inconveniences can eat up valuable hours. And it sucks.

For fall

Leaves "die with style:
as the tree retreats inside itself,
shutting off its valves at its
extremities
to starve in Technicolor, then
having served two hours in a children's leaf pile, slowly
stir its vitamins into the earth."

- Don McKay, "Some Functions of a Leaf"