The best you ever had

Even after a breakup, I always feel a little something for the person who crushed me and my heart under the crusty soles of their shoes. You can never forget a person from your past, even though forgiveness isn’t something I’d consider in the future.

If I see them on a street, flick through an old photograph, or hear their name or voice, the memories always come back.

On more than one occasion, my friends have told me to forget about it because I deserve better and shouldn’t settle for anything but the best. In some cases, I think that’s true. I shouldn’t settle for something less, even though I always give my best.

Although exes don’t consciously think about me, they do whenever they’re comparing me to their new companions. I might not be able to tell them the following things, but they’ll be able to hear my voice in the distance...

No one will ever know you as well as I do. No one will ever provide for you and be the support I was. No one will ever want you to grow as an individual. No one will ever put up with your shit and mood swings. No one will ever make you laugh and smile like me. No one will ever love you like I loved you.

No one will ever be as good as me because I’ll always be the best you ever had.

P's dating profile

It’s late in the day and I’m checking my dating profile. I flick through my inbox and the new members who joined recently. There’s a profile I don’t recognize. I click on it and look at the photo.

It’s P. One of Crazy’s best friends. The same P who always talked badly about me behind my back but never had the balls to talk smack to my face. Of course, confronting that bitch (which I did) made his tail tuck between his legs.

As I skim through the profile, I get a few giggles and eyerolls thrown in for good measure. Since I know P, I know this profile is a load of crap. To paraphrase, P is a nice guy who is laid back, funny, smart and interesting, who wants a nice guy he can show his parents. Right. The real P is a shallow, narcissistic, drunk/druggie, who only wants the best, and sacrifices nothing. Yet he’s no prize pig.

Oh, and he looks like a muppet and claims to have a ‘slim’ body type, when it’s really average (slim people don’t have love handles and mini spare tires).

Good luck to the idiot who ends up with him. Maybe that’s why he’s friends with Crazy: they’re both just as delusional as the other.

Get doown wit choo :)

Being the sort of person who depends on his cell phone to be in contact with the outside world, I find it a mixed blessing when people can get a hold of me every minute of the day. I especially don't like it when I'm also available every minute of the night.

So it comes as no surprise when I receive texts at all hours. Quite often they're during the times when I'm asleep and do not want to be waken. Of course, they're never anything important and, for some reason, they're usually drunken booty calls.

I AM drunk now thoughh... And i AM a hrndog. And i htink maybe id like to get doown wit choo. :)

After reading this message, I chuckle in my drowsy state, roll over and fall back asleep. There is no way I am waking up for that.

You deserve better

Even though I am not a person who believes in a lot of metaphysical hoo-ha, I have recently been chanting a mantra to myself whenever I‘m feeling a low and need a boost of self-esteem.

You deserve better. You deserve better than that. You deserve better. Period.

The reason why it doesn’t sound like a Stuart Smalley-kind of “You’re special” mantra is I know I’m special; everyone is special in their own way. I need something more. I know I am loved, I know I have friends, I know I am an intelligent person with things to offer.

I know when things are down, they’re down for a reason. I have to hit the bottom to see the view towards the sky.

Even if there are others who appear to have it all, I need to remind myself I deserve better, not more; a matter of quality over quantity.

If I lose something, I deserve to find something better. If I miss out on an opportunity, I deserve to get a better one. If someone leaves me, I deserve a better person in my life. If an ex has moved onto another victim, I deserve the right to know karma will bite them really hard, right in their flabby ass.

Why? I deserve better. I deserve better than that. Period.

Hamburger and steak

Some people are never happy with what is offered on their plate. Of course, the meat I’m talking about entails people, not farm animals. It’s like the hamburger and steak analogy.

A hamburger patty is considered to be made from an inferior quality of meat, compared with steak which is cut from the better/superior part of the animal.

But sometimes hamburger is just as delicious as steak. In fact, there are hamburgers made of prime cuts of meat. Instead of digging into the meal, the food is pushed and played around on the plate.

It’s sad some people will pass on a perfectly delicious meal judged mainly in aesthetic terms. I guess some people will go to bed hungry.

Birthday bust

Due to the fact my birthday lands on a Sunday, I decide it’s best to celebrate it on a Saturday so there won’t be any excuses of being late on Monday morning due to excessive hangovers.

The plan is for guests to meet at the loft, have a drink and a quick nosh, then head off to the bar/lounge/club. I make an invite, send it to friends, and remind them (with plenty of advance notice) about the night.

On Saturday, I do a little light shopping, buy a couple things, get the place ready and then I wait around for people to start to show up.

Then, something starts to happen...

One by one, my guests start to bail on me. They start to send texts and Facebook messages, saying they’re not able to make it. They’re coming down with something. They’re sick. They have other (sudden) plans. It’s cold outside. Not one of them comes out and says they don’t want to come.

Luckily, two friends are able to come down for a drink. They both arrive after a long day at work and chill for 45 minutes while I - mildly - entertain them. By the time I’m ready, one of them is asleep on the sofa. It seems like a perfectly suitable action, for me, but I’d rather go out, no matter how cold it is outside.

A cab is called and we’re on our way to a club. It’s so close by, it takes less than five minutes to get there. My friends pay for my entrance fee, coat check and drinks. We go upstairs, dance for an hour, then leave. It’s always good to leave an event while it’s still going on; no one wants to be the last, pathetic one left (and everyone asks about your whereabouts).

They pick up a slice of pizza around the corner from the club and we veg/slowly fall asleep at the table. I pull out my cell phone and see there’s a text from S, the nice ex. Hmmm, that’s something I didn’t expect, especially when it ends with xoxo. It’s only 1:30 a.m. but we’re tired. All three of us have been up since before 8 the day before.

We say our goodbyes and they take a cab uptown while I walk home. It’s not that cold and the exercise will do me good. It’s almost 2 a.m. by the time I hit the sheets. I don’t care. It can be tiring being me. Tomorrow is a national holiday in Canada to celebrate my birth, so I have to be fresh when I run by two photoshoots to ensure things are running properly.

The only downside of it all was seeing someone spilled cranberry juice (probably with vodka) down the front of my white dress shirt... and everyone bailing out on me.

Birthday updates...

Coming soon. And, they're interesting.

A repeat of my 25th birthday

On Sunday, I celebrate my 25th birthday, again.

Hopefully, the repeat will be better than last year's.

I didn't know you were one of those people

It’s one of those days where I’m logging onto msn to check my email. It doesn’t take long before I get a couple of instant messages which I promptly ignore. One of them is from S, an ex.

“OMG! What is up with that pic?” is the question.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” is my answer. The pic that S is referring to is one of a shirtless torso with abs and pelvic bones clearly visible. Mine.

“I didn’t know you were one of those people.”

One of those people? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? This is coming from a person who claimed to be slutty. It's not like I use that picture to pick up; I use it to remind exes of what they lost out on.

For a quick second, I want to say, You had it but you didn’t want it. Instead my response is different: “That’s my body. It’s not like you haven’t seen it before.”

The conversation ends quickly because I don’t want to chat anymore. I’m not in a good mood because an ex just called me out on something that made him out to be an idiot and a hypocrite while making me feel bad about myself.

I should’ve ended the conversation with two words: Fuck you.

New years, eh!

New years isn’t one of the most happiest times for me because there’s more undue pressure to have an amazing time on the day that projects the theme for the following year.

And it sucks ass when you’re single and don’t have any plans on the “most important day of the year.”

I bring this up with J and we start to talk about December 31. After a rather nasty breakup, he’s also single and doesn’t have any plans. I ask if he wants to cross the border and spend it in Toronto with me. Two singletons - commiserating together - sounds like a wonderful way to spend the night.

At first, I think it’s a novel idea, but as the day approaches, I start to get a little anxious. What will we do? What will we talk about? Will we be bored after 10 minutes? I invited him to come down, so I better try to entertain him (thankfully, booze helps a lot with this).

By the time J arrives, two friends are leaving after passing by for a pre-party drink. We find a spot for his car and make my way to the loft. After spending 15 seconds of showing him around, we sit down on the sofa and I start the night off with a drink.

We talk for a couple of hours with the TV on in the background and don’t realize how fast time is flying. It’s 10 to midnight and we don’t even notice the crowds in New York’s Times Square starting to go batshit over the ball dropping. The bottle of bubbly is popped and we ring in the new year.

Then, it gets interesting.

As I skim through my PVR, J notices I have Mamma Mia recorded. We end up watching it and make plenty of comments over Pierce Brosnan’s vocal prowess (he won’t be gracing the stage of a Broadway musical or winning any Grammy awards in the future).

When the movie ends, we see it’s getting late; there’s no point in staying up all night. It's 3 a.m. after all. We get ready for bed and talk for a little while before falling asleep. The next morning, we lounge around as the snow falls outside. It’s picturesque.

Whatever expectations I made up in my head about how it was all going to go down quickly disappeared. I didn’t have to get dressed, I didn’t have to leave the loft, and I got to spend it with someone I like. It was definitely one of the better ways I ever got to ring in the new year.

Celebrate the new year with no resolutions

It’s a new a dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me. And I’m feeling good.

What the song forgot to add was that it’s a new year. It’s the time where millions of people pull out a pen and paper (at least in their minds) and jot down resolutions to make their life better in 2010.

I’m not one of those people.

In order to improve on the previous year, you have to review it. There were so many awful things that happened to me in 2009, the last thing I want to do is go through them, again. And, I won’t.

Resolutions are similar to “life plans” people make. Individuals look at what they have, what they want, and what they’ll do in order to achieve it within a period of time.

Not long ago I had a five-year plan. It was created during university. There were a lot of things I wanted to accomplish within that timeframe. That plan never amounted to anything. It’s not that I haven’t achieved what I wanted (I did), but it didn’t take five years; it took a hell of a lot longer.

That’s why I’m not making any resolutions; this year or any year. There’s no point in making them if you never follow through with them. And I won't even go into the time it takes to write all that worthless shit down.

So, in the new year, I won’t go on a diet, I won’t curtail my drinking, I won’t spend less money, etc. I’ll keep on living my life, day by day, and seeing where it takes me.