Hey there, have a seat. I'll buy you a drink. Oh and, get comfortable, this is a long one.
Okay, so there was this famous punk shirt that Sex used to sell in the 70s. Entitled, You're Gonna Wake Up One Morning and Know Which Side of the Bed You've Been Lying On!, it was list of things, loves and hates of the early days of the English punk scene (not to be confused with the New York punk scene) and was designed by Sex Pistols manager and Svengali Malcolm McLaren, along with future Clash manger Bernie Rhodes and was designed to polarize, attacking pop culture and government.
It included hating such things as: rich boys dressed as poor boys, dirty books that aren’t really all that dirty, the suburbs and all those fucking saints
and as loves: Coffee bars that sell whiskey under the counter and "Kutie Jones and his Sex Pistols".
I was thinking about that a lot lately and I was bored, so then I tried to make my own list, but it came out as more of an individual manifest of turn ons and turn offs. In my continuing quest to be more bold and open and yes, to stop being so timid about sharing the things I think about and the things I like, I decided to put it up here. If someone I know ends up reading this, well hi, let's talk in real life. If someone I don't know stumbled upon this post? Congrats, you already know me better than 90 percent of the people I actually know.
Loves:
Vanilla soft serve, old rock music, yelling at the TV, self checkout, ties, boots, taxis, hotel rooms, reinventing yourself for a vacation, take-off on an airplane, ASL for CN tower, when people give you a book and write a message on the inside cover, balconies, staring out the window, army green, black, scarlet, gore, girls with boyish voices, Tom Wait’s voice, notebooks, collages, hors de oeuvres and appetizers, driving around with all the windows open, air guitar, swing sets, undone bowties, playlists, cult hits, half tucked shirts, snow, going to the opera for 20 bucks, slow claps, milk duds, finding a picture in a used book, 24 hour restaurants, when people do the peace sign the wrong way and don’t know they’re basically flipping people off (bonus if they do this in Britain), 70s/80s punk music, how I love you in German sounds like a threat, all day breakfast, the way adults talk in Charlie Brown, cityscapes, footnotes, stores with cooking supplies that look like guitars or microphones, etc and make me want to buy them, forgetting that I can’t cook and don’t enjoy doing it more than once or twice a year, loud motorcycles, Black Canary, Transformer (the album), Heartattack and Vine, Blood Money, muscle cars, directors who let actors improv or keep in takes where they drop things or trip, the blues, expressionists, train wreck self-destructive people who fall out of society and have to be handled specially, like Hunter S. Thompson, also the idea of Hunter S. Thompson typing out the entire Great Gatsby, people who are open to going out at the last minute and having adventures, random questions like what superpower would you want or who would play you in a movie (a young Shirley Maclaine), when you ask someone who would play them in the movie of their life and they have a prepared answer that is completely perfect, Punk’s interviews with Lou Reed- hey, you’re just sitting here at the bar and we’re going to start a magazine, we’re going to interview you, okay?- and the Ramones- you like comic books? You’re the same age as us? Awesome!, the fact that Neil Gaiman named one of his kids after the transvestite in a Lou Reed song, the fact that Francine and Katchoo did get a happy ending instead of ten pointless years apart, metronomes, pictures of the things on creative people’s desks or bookshelves, the smell of gasoline, music that feels like soundtrack for a road trip through a desert, 50s girl groups, amusing typos, twitter feeds made for fictional characters, how sometimes something is so cold that when you drink that it feels like your insides are freezing, the thesaurus, how if Monty Python needed a women in a sketch, they’d just dress up like old ladies, audio books read by the author, passive aggressive notes, Tom Waits, Bebe Buell, Prozac Nation, Chuck Klosterman, Patti Smith, Diane Keaton, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Katherine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Truman Capote, bittersweet endings, distressed things, imagining how my room would look painted scarlet, Peter Beagle, how horoscopes are never accurate but we always seem to try and make them work (“Oh it says you will move into a new place sometime this month, I moved my shoe rack- that counts right?”), David and Amy Sedaris, actress turned singers or model turned actresses, my random fantasy of moving to a tropical island and spending my days on the beach drinking and writing and then driving around in cherry red 50s convertibles, leather couches, playing cards, the wall graffiti in the bathroom stall closest to the door in the ladies room at Chapters Rideau, Mia Farrow, Katherine Hepburn and Audrey Hepburn’s voices, guys with stubble, bolo ties with collared shirts, girls in menswear, Diet Coke, Holly Golightly (in the book), gum, going to exhibits on a famous writer or artist and seeing their notebook pages which remind me of my own, quotes about writing by writers that make it sound like demonic possession, people who draw awesome pictures on desks, when you find a paper on the street that says something really profound, that heartbeat of music before you’re supposed to sing, Shirley Maclaine, leather biker jackets, Amber Heard, Jensen Ackles, red lipstick, memoirs, men’s button down shirts, high heels, black flats, hearing someone somewhere in the house playing guitar, lying in bed knowing someone is cooking you breakfast, vinyl snobbery, how 60s coats had patterned lining, parmesan cheese, editing other people’s papers (who wants to pay me to do this?), staying up all night writing and then waking up and pretending I’m some hard drinking noir detective and some dame in red satin just wandered into my office, press passes, wine glasses, humourous essay collections, Jason Segal, Erin Cressida Wilson, neon colours, Joss Whedon, David Bowie,Vanity Fair, Bust, Nylon, The Believer, big belts, earrings, that look that I can’t pull off, where you wear multiple necklaces, Lush products, cotton candy, dish soap that moisturizes, fans, when famous people or important exhibits come to Toronto and I am always shocked because for some reason I think Toronto is some sort of backwater, spell check, dream decoders, secret code and mood rings, fiction that puts elements of sci-fi or fantasy in an otherwise normal world, album covers, paper fans, Edie Sedgwick, Caravaggio, Greek statues, Harley Quinn, perfume, opening lines to novels, pez dispensers, my heart shaped birthmark, The Simpsons, penguins, black lingerie, shrimp, people who wear Buddy Holly glasses and know they are Buddy Holly glasses not Rivers Cuomo glasses, people who don’t disparage my Diet Coke habit, rocket popsicles, baking, when actors on a TV show or in a movie reference roles they played in the past, paradoxes, finding designer purses at vintage shops and getting them for less than ten dollars, mysteries that begin with a dead girl, reading the love letters of famous writers (unless they are James Joyce), Cracked photoplasty contests, headbands, bottle caps, smartphones, fingerless gloves, swivel chairs, Starbucks seasonal candy cane coffee, cassette tapes (I don’t know why), audience participation movies, Sid and Nancy, Marla Singer, graphic novels and people who read them, people who wear giant headphones, people who actually write in diaries (a group that as much as I’ve tried does not include me, however, I have many diaries with one page that says I plan on committing to this diary), hardwood floors, people who know how to fill silences, Wes Anderson, oral biography, biopics that end with the main character committing suicide, being murdered or overdosing, black and white polka dots, pink and white vertical stripes, universal monsters, people who can do impressions, Woody Allen, David Lynch, Tim Burton, Helena Bonham Carter, characters in movies that have those little silver pistols they hide in their over the knee boots, the idea of backpacking, jeans that look like they’ve traveled the world or been through the shredder, those green lamps they have in libraries in movies, Greek myths, zebra print, herringbone, Russian novelists, almost anything tropical flavoured, iconic hairstyles, that feeling when you feel like you understand something completely and know where it fits in history or pop culture, even if you can’t explain it, female protagonists who kick ass (other than Buffy because I hate her. Love the show, hate the character. Also love Spike and Drusilla), wool booties, red and black plaid, things that are cake batter scented, eyelash curlers because they look like alien torture devices, when you buy something and get free gifts, winged eyeliner, knowing you have everything you could ever need in your purse, lying around listening to music and thinking about dead rock stars, lying around imaging what it would be like to give up everything and go travel the world on a little boat where I could sit out in a navy watch cap writing in a little notebook and rocking as storms raged around me, bubble bath, silk robes, urban legends and people who insist on believing in urban legends, the tales of horror and abuse behind the scenes of famous movies and TV, those weird little big headed button eyed dolls that are popping up everywhere, band t-shirts (though I don’t have any, because none of them are v-necked and I can’t wear shirts with regular necks), alternating between starlet sunglasses and ones that make me feel like a mechanic, sushi, spicy food, streets with random girl's names or streets in Ottawa that completely work if you read them with rue in front- like Rue Bank Street, hair bows, how as kids we all used to draw chalk outlines of each other, good parodies, ring tones that sound like ring tones instead of flavour of the moment songs or screaming babies, the sound a mac makes when starting up, little dresses, black and white photography, the fact that Bridesmaids showed that a female fronted comedy can be successful, the ending of Anna Karenina which seems like the aftermath of the happily ever after of a romance built on danger and lust you get in most books, concert posters, when movies put characters in a school with uniforms and they have little skirts and knee socks, Marianne Faithfull, the ridiculousness of 60s movies, writing bad self indulgent poetry, sunshine yellow, dressing tables and three sided mirrors, Chuck Palahniuk, beat poets, road trips with no specific deadlines, old medical drawings, baroque wallpaper, chaise lounges, writers’ colonies, French pop music, rain boots, cities, popcorn, things that are sun bleached, novelty coins, how British pounds look like medals, sitting on the front of double decker buses and feel like you’re running over everyone who crosses the street, campfires, white cheddar, milk chocolate, sneakers, old fashioned TVs, kidney shaped pools, round toed heels, miniatures, used book stores, the graffiti tag everywhere in Italy that said “God save the Hot Boys”, British comedy, so bad its good, snark, Christopher Lee, pixar, garlic, noir films, white wall tires, strawberries, mangoes, people who leave Christmas lights up all year, people who model themselves after fictional characters, how 80s movies all had theme songs and were all about dancing or prostitution, checklists, globes, novelty banks and alarm clocks, reading about true crimes, 80s action heroes, Bogie, magazines that write long articles about old movies or conspiracy theories, rather than purely topical things, boardwalks, taking long walks at night, camping, bulletin boards, unpacking purchases after a day shopping, pop culture theories used to explain real life, bass lines, liner notes, dynamic people who speak up in class but didn’t take over the conversation and also win speech contests, philosophical tangents, movies that break the 4th wall or in comics (Joker), Ikea, shopping, but only when I have money, Friday the 13th (the day), séances, free days at museums, swearing, the shade names of makeup, nail polish and hair dye, paints, bar debates, bands that have at least ten songs about random girls, arcades, air hockey, walking down the street and at night and hearing live music, killing Sims characters, patterned band aids, how nearly every character in a Russian novel has a name ending in –sky, The Lorax, Maurice Sendak, the history of vices, leaning back in my chair and not dying, the fact that we have calculators, people with cool accents, people who remember to give back the pen they borrowed, fines, washing counters, illegal downloads, neon lights, aviator glasses, the Greyhound, the house on Old Sunset Boulevard, Camden Market, Kensington Market, Byward Market, Gia, short hair in that awkward growing out phase, multiple pierced ears, black nail polish, white cotton sheets, bagels, blue cheese, Twin Peaks, cynicism, kitsch, the olive drab army jacket, black peacoat and tight black jeans I have always wanted but never found in a store, gym clothes, scowling, dressing gowns, traveling, those people in my program who are really obsessed with journalism and being professional, audio commentary, strip clubs, straying behind a few minutes on a tour so I could stand alone on the stage of the Toronto Opera house and look out at the empty theatre imagining it filled, fiction where historical figures come into the modern world, drinking games, Chinese buffet, the word ergo, the word myriad, lying in tall grass braiding it, lying in a tent in the morning listening the birds outside, sometimes bowling, darts, getting dressed up, anthropomorphized animals, emotions and abstract conditions, detectives, curmudgeons, people who are slightly unhinged, stories about strategizing and battle campaigns for old wars, HBO and Showtime, Italian pastry, egg bread, Lisbeth Salander, Harley Quinn, Lux Lisbon, yoga, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, haunted walks, horror stories, writing without a page limit, black and grey morality, free verse, all you can eat sushi, nudity, the idea that if you ever find yourself in another world, don’t eat the food or you will have to stay there, the idea that if you double cross your allies with the idea that the other side will reward you, the other side will invariably still see you an enemy or untrustworthy, footage of storms, demolitions or space, thinking about living on another planet, Strunk and White, travel guides and travelogues, exploring ruins, blazers, horror movies that don’t feel the need to delve into long back stories for monsters or curses likewise, most pilots and origin stories, swimming, the fact that I’m actually pretty good at mimicking how certain people sing (but not how they talk), texting with my blackberry’s keyboard, how people look in movies after they’ve been through a battle and are bruised, in ripped clothes and covered in dirt and blood, the idea of being in a hotel room with floor to ceiling glass windows high above a city at night but no one knowing where I am, wrought iron, chandeliers, pockets, a kind of seedy faded glamour aesthetic, as if you or the place you are used to be aristocratic and have fallen on hard times but still want to remind everyone where you came from, gardens (but not gardening), staying up all night on a porch talking and drinking, when you overhear someone’s secret, thank you cards, rotary dial phones, Felix the cat clocks, sixties skirts and dresses, poets who write about the night and carry around leather notebooks, large mirrors that cover entire walls, strawberry tea, oatmeal, cloche hats, men that wear newsboy caps, coins crushed by trains, jodhpurs as fashion, patent leather, ugly dolls, long 20s pearl knots, cookie jars, little cosmetic cases, bats, Milly the millstone, post secret, when a musical has an ingénue character so there is a good song for my range, those miniature toiletries they have at hotels, the way ballerinas dress of duty, how Marianne Faithfull dressed in the 60s, Moe Tucker’s singing in After Hours, how the word standoffish sounds so fake, Charles Burn’s drawings of people, how Terry Moore sexualizes his characters in his sketches, the fact that my sister really wants to go to Snoqualmie, Washington to visit the filming locations for Twin Peaks, Sarah Joncas’s paintings for forlorn girls looking out windows or just lying around looking forlorn, the marshmallows in Lucky Charms, in fiction, where people call someone “the kid”, shaggy bangs, gingerbread houses, singing bluesy bar standards originally sung by men, girls who wear too much eye makeup, when girls sing songs originally sung by men and don’t change the pronouns, coffee table books, theatre programs, John Waters characters with big hair, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Steve Buschemi, how girls in 40s/50s girl's colleges took the train up to visit their boyfriends at Harvard or Yale, wearing camel hair coats, Zooey reading Buddy’s letter in the bath, Buddy Glass in general, particularly how he doesn’t own a telephone, long pendants, art galleries with gold frames, spiral staircases, low voices, carousel horses, people who can just sit somewhere quietly for hours sketching, when I sing for someone for the first time, microwave cookery, candy corn, a house feeling like it is alive with people, stirrup pants, parties where wait staff circulate with trays of drinks and hors de oeuvres, fake syrup, moss, sepia tones, firecrackers, people who can pull off wearing hats, 50s inspired maillots, record players, scenes in movies where characters wake up and do morning routines, take taxis home the morning after or put on makeup, Leslie Knope, Ron Swanson, Agent Cooper, clogs, cartoon musicals, eggs left runny, Scholastic book orders, Arthur Read, pyramids and relationship charts, sitting under willow trees, rewatching things from my childhood, watching movies just to mock them (particularly to tell the characters to kiss each other), walking through the woods, zoos, the fact that when I was really little, I used to think that characters kissed in movies to get candy out of each other’s mouths, people who have favourite voice actors, Batman, Batman the animated series, hermits, anti-heroes, the idea of being a revolutionary hiding out underground, pausing a movie when the actors are midsentence or are chewing so their expressions look crazy, people who have a sense of humour about themselves, when a bad movie at least makes a good soundtrack possible, minifridges, band names, how long I can obsess over a certain expression, glance or shot from a movie, people who name their kids after obscure heroes or villains, when characters make speeches about the responsibilities of a hero which deprive them of certain things the villains can enjoy or sympathetic villains who understand that it is only right if they are deprived or die and seem to clearly understand the role they were cast in, when gum keeps its flavour for a long time, people who surround themselves with books, contemplative statues, men with craggy faces or who are otherwise interesting to look at, those Dos Equis commercials with The Most Interesting Man In the World, Oscar Wilde quotes, Mark Twain, fireplaces with mantelpieces so you can put a portrait over them, when people think something common knowledge is a secret, how the internet is a bottomless pool of fun facts, conference attendee packages, when people say my last name right, bobby hats, the 30 or so odd coincidences that happen to me every day, planning to buy something and finally going to buy it and seeing it on sale, people who like old movies and music, adults who are really like big kids, running down empty aisles with a grocery cart when the store is open late, that powerful night feeling when you are awake and know everyone else is asleep and the world belongs to you, Flowers of Evil, when you are the only person out on the street and pretend the world ended and you are the last one left, toy soldiers, interviewing bands and reviewing movies, night-blooming plants, playing night games in giant empty fields with a flashlight, Crush with Eyeliner, Belle & Sebastian, the opening sentence of The Bell Jar, How Holden Caulfield says, that just kills me, Rankin-Bass puppet Christmas specials, De Daumier- Smith’s Blue Period, Lisa Simpson, the word Smitten, Veronica Schanoes’ story, Rats, The Clash, The New York Dolls, the Ramones, Daria, The Critic, Futurama, the scenes at The Algonquin round table, Max’s, the Factory and American expatriates in Paris in the 20s as described in A Moveable Feast, running and pretending someone is chasing you, lead singers who are shy people in real life, but once they get on stage they explode in sex and chemistry and become someone else, portmanteaus, this line about Marilyn Monroe- She was not a loner, but she was alone, night swimming and polar bear swims, androgyny, clumsiness, soda in glass bottles, the name Sodapop, Sydney Carton’s redemption at the end of A Tale of Two Cities, people who are overly self assured and done up but let you mock them, how in A Hard Day’s Night, Ringo says they’re mod rockers- mockers, unsung heroes, how searching for the American dream always ends with jail or being shot by hillbillies, Christina Ricci, Anton Yelchin, Edie getting her hair cut and dyed on the fire escape, The Pink Room on the Fire Walk with Me soundtrack, the theme to The Shining, Bernard Hermann, Angelo Badalamenti, imagining my screenplays, Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses, jump starts for stories, when beautiful people also turn out to be intelligent, photographs of people reading, watching TV online, people with insatiable dreams, checkers, the way chess pieces look but not the game, being in my room and hearing bells chime the hour outside, driving around when it has just rained and the roads are all wet and reflective, so it looks like the light is everywhere and the air is cool and thick, laughing jags, the noises typewriters make, my far reaching tastes in music, Tom Sawyer hatching a complicated plan to break Jim out because it’d be more of an adventure, when the whole time he was free anyway, the idea that Nancy Spungen bragged to people that AC/DC wanted to set her on fire and throw her out a window and she was game but they chickened out, does your mother know what Bad Company you’ve been keeping?, the idea that Malcolm McLaren’s concept when he tried to define punk in England was to be stark and opposite of stadium bands with groupies drugs- the idea was celibacy and abstinence as a statement- because that clearly worked out well, the fact that Nancy Spungen, Courtney Love and I have all had episodes where we were sure there were imaginary bugs and rats, the fact that I created the Marty McFly complex on Urban Dictionary and it was word of the day and gained thousands of views- meaning I coined a phrase people other than me use, Jake and Amir, Very Mary Kate, that Dexter and I both drink Starbucks White Chocolate Mochas, episodes of Supernatural where they abandon an arc plot about angels and do things like a Christmas special, a black and white monster movie or a parody of sitcoms, the fact that I am sure that everyone who goes to Philadelphia runs through the city and then up the steps of the art museum hearing the Rocky theme in their heads, cookie dough, the Runaways, Patti Smith’s Edie Sedgwick and Marianne Faithfull poems, nerds, watching cars drive by at night, shaky cam, tongue in cheek, royal gala apples, people who completely misunderstand the point of a song, Sylvia Plath, making commentaries in the margins of my class notes, people who understand my references and non sequiturs, people who think on their feet and respond with wit, the word off-kilter, the word wry, pub food, how Belle & Sebastian songs talk about a girl named Lisa being depressed, the fact that having ennui makes me feel like an artist, thinking about what kind of tattoo I want to get, writing about characters that feel real and feeling like a puppet master because I can make them do whatever I want (dance puppet dance!), the Old Spaghetti Factory, convertibles, the fact that the Halton Catholic school board is on Drury Lane, ergo, the director is the muffin man, clothing with cool textures, leather gloves, the fact that I’m not afraid of needles anymore, wondering who I know could be a replicant, people who don’t get pissed off if I’m a few minutes late, walking out after finishing an exam, Briticisms, the satisfaction of finishing an article and sending it in, anticipation for real cub reporting where we’ll have to get up at 3 am and go cover a breaking story, new music that sounds old, biker chains as jewelry, when my dad and I went to the Imax theatre to see each of the Lord of the Rings movies, trade paperbacks, songs where people go mad trying to figure out the meanings, but turn out to be just nonsense on purpose, the whole Paul is Dead thing, that so many books I like were first excepts or stories in Playboy or The New Yorker, fanboys and girls, conspiracy theorists, people who read too much into everything, the way old school rockers swagger, anything described as tough and tender, candy hearts with insults instead of love notes, paper lanterns, lilac, white roses, knee socks, translucent stockings with seams down the back, Swiss dotted dresses, 50s wedding dresses, diners, chrome, the aqua-ish colour of paint on some old cars, the word smut, people who read sitting on bar stools, the word lousy, Hampstead Heath, how Elvis used to be seen as dangerous, that wet eyed look people get after crying, something with good cinematography, e4 Skins, the fact that we all really thought Y2K was going to happen, disguises, mary janes and saddle shoes, little dogs who think they’re great danes, the fact that French fries aren’t French and hamburgers aren’t American, The Last Unicorn, people who (unlike me) can sit still for more than five minutes and don’t mind my constant interruptions and twitches, surfacing from a writing trance and realizing how good the stuff I got was, music that makes you feel like you’ve been alone suffering on the road through this long journey but the end is in sight and you’ll be welcomed back when you surface, my red flat iron, this painting of a strawberry I bought 3 years ago on impulse, my engineer boots, the boots some of the people wear in Camden Lock, the fact that the tube has a stop called Chalk Farm, the fact that fancy restaurants in Greece have blue lights to discourage junkies, imagining sexy telegraphs, just being able to walk by parliament on any given day when it used to be a long tourist trip, songs that tell stories, remembering that everyone was young once, when old photos pop up to embarrass people, long guitar solos that seem to sing, when people look disheveled and like they woke up on the floor, dazed expressions, tilt a whirls or teacup rides, a king who tires of his kingdom, a magician who becomes a man, when I find a sentence unusually profound and cannot understand why other people don’t understand what I see in it, Clara Bow’s lips, a cinematic entrance in real life.
Hates:
People with whiny voices, that I look weird wearing hats, movies with cheap lighting, silences, cinnamon scents, people who give simple words to much power, pro-lifers, rain, parade crowds, hot drinks in summer, steak and plain meat, censorship and moral guardians, infantilization of pop culture, movies/tv shows with interchangeable leads, books about animals, the fact that I can’t whistle or snap, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, CP style, news quizzes, people who talk about how hard it is to find jeans in their size, dress pants, postcard fiction, basic running shoes, the fact that I have tried to read The Possessed at least 3 times and then lost it, tomatoes and mushrooms on pizza, peas, memoirs that aren’t at least a little self deprecating, the fact that at some point after I finish J-school, I’m going to have to be one of those vipers on the lawn pestering a grieving family for quotes, Eat, Pray, Love, people who spell women as womyn, long nails, people who say, ”I’m not a feminist or anything but…”, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, the suburbs, silent movies, people with novelty answering machine messages, “no offense but”, people who move too slow, businesses that close at 5, people who are really vague about the things they like and don’t like and just say whatever or that they like all music, volleyball, people who listen to recordings of opera or organ music, that spell-check doesn’t recognize Canadian spelling and thinks I misspell my own last name, remakes of 80s movies, waiting, that I bite my nails, insomnia, fuchsia, brown, magenta and orange, catching up, Freud, traffic, telemarketers, haiku, the bureaucracy involved in a name change, hypocrisy, baked beans, weather reports, easily broken umbrellas, modern movie posters, wearing “just enough make-up that no one can tell you’re wearing make-up”, gossip magazines, people who don’t wash their hands, people who wear those taco shaped cowboy hats, tight necked shirts, how everyone else in Canada calls soda, pop, how American shows like HIMYM see Canada as an acceptable target for mocking that has really passed the point of being good natured, giving directions, phone calls, having to pretend I’m interested in someone’s wedding or new baby, false modesty, underestimating the tone of a situation, forgetting my sunglasses, the fact that I cannot sleep without taking something, genocide, Americanization, when teachers pick your groups for assignments, the fact that I do really like the feeling you get when you haven’t eat for 2 days, that spinning rainbow circle on macs, geoblocking, plain walls, orienteering, being intrigued by the facebook status of someone then realizing I haven’t spoken to them in years, 90s teen fashion, Kesha, Christian rock, guys who wear pants hung low to show their boxers, backwards baseball caps or upside down visors, vodka straight, men with girls names, name meanings, pipe organ, the fact that I spent much of my childhood reading about the lives of saints because they all died in crazy ways, wetsuits, that I really wish I could do twitter, but 1. No one cares what I have to say and 2. I don’t have the patience to update and 3. I don’t have anything interesting to say, movies with predictable twist endings, people who predict the end of movies, offering entire meals at movies theatres, Farmville, slow cookers, giving presentations, people who instead of swearing substitute words like fudge or sugar, getting accosted or told to go to hell by homeless people, dirty snow, the incredible amount of William and Kate memorabilia around here (such as giant gingerbread man and condoms), insipid romantic comedies, the way the wife or girlfriend characters act in movies and TV, knitting or crochet, the dentist, getting my haircut, reality TV, 3 quarter length sleeves, books of lists, giving directions, making excuses, reading something a friend wrote and trying to pretend it’s good if it's not, buzzing lights, cartoon character underwear, the fact that you can buy Justin bieber / miley cyrus /high school musical, etc everything including nail polish and paint, the fact that everyone is so sure that if there are aliens, they’re more advanced than us, waiting for the bus, people who leave the tab up on the shower so water goes everywhere when you turn on the tap to test the water, doing the dishes, reading on the bus, alarms, starting something and not knowing where its going, putting something down and forgetting where it is, lemon scented soap or detergent, rubber gloves, people who write women as judgmental shrews, the impossibility of most adventure stories where the characters set off one day with a cloak and a small bundles with food, likewise how impractical it is today to run away with the circus, vegetable juices, judgmental doctors, dentists/hair dressers/doctors who make small talk and ask random questions about school, new cars, dummies books, how every piece of technological equipment I own seems to break as soon as I buy it, pop-up ads, inspirational sayings, Matthew McConaughey, Katherine Heigl, people who don’t understand that I am content to watch people play video games or do karaoke and don’t need to join in, people working in stores who ask you what you're looking for as soon as you walk in, people who order for you at a restaurant or insist you get the house specialty, blue pens, new flight attendant uniforms, unimaginative newspaper headlines or headlines that make easy puns on someone’s name, prostitots, people asking for donations who do not give up when you say you have no money, the way my hair can get impossibly tangled walking from the house to the car, the way my mom randomly claps or cheers during speeches when no one else does, people who go on and on about how much you used to love something that now embarrasses you, people who think graphic novels, horror/exploitation movies or TV in general are brainless and not worth their time and look down on you for liking them, people who refuse to watch something because its black and white and/or has subtitles, can openers, glue sticks, job applications that ask you to write essays about your experience at Tim Horton’s or whatever, getting older and realizing there are too many paradoxes for time travel to be possible, the name Jon, glasses, how its always the people who can’t sing who feel comfortable enough to sing along with the radio, eating outside when there are bugs trying to walk through your salad, people don’t give cards with gifts, pink lipstick, people who lose a game and throw the board in the air, losing something you had a weird feeling you were going to win, never winning roll up the rim, businesses that don’t update their websites, nepotism, bibliographies, bagpipes any day but remembrance day, cod-liver oil, people whose default expression upon meeting you is a scowl instead of a smile, when subtitles leave out words, roller coasters that take your picture, Ferris wheels that rock, people jumping out from behind bushes or couches or whatnot, wet sand, that weird feeling whenever you’re packing that you forgot something even when you are sure you didn’t, the way that if I stay up talking with someone late enough I eventually start saying things like, “The dog is dreaming the whole world” or “how do I know that my eyes are really blue, what if what you see as blue is really what I see as red?”, The way when given a napkin, paper cut or paper plate, if left to sit holding it long enough, I will make confetti, people who care about the oxford comma, self-help books, low ponytails, magazines with more ads that content, coasters, magazines for adults that put teeny boppers on their covers, the way I randomly start using a british accent midsentence around certain people, the fact that I can’t draw, extra sharp earring backs, people who read subtext as main text, forgetting to tip and feeling like a bad human being, my name, slow walkers, cooking, baby powder, never being able to get that last little bit out of a bottle, drawings of cartoon characters fucking, people who walk out of movies, the feeling that someone is looking at what you are reading over your shoulder, trying to explain to my parents how the DVD player works, the random music selection on ice cream trucks, people who act like why is a stupid question, people who talk impossibly slow, the fact that our decade does not have an easy short form like the ‘80s or the ‘90s, clothing stores who don’t have mirrors in their stalls and ask your name when you come to try something on, then call you by your name (“How are things going in there, Liz? Do you need a different size or anything?”), the way packages of men’s t-shirts are so cheap, people who button their shirts the whole way to their neck (unless they’re at work), floor length skirts, people (who aren’t british) who say self consciously naughty things like calling cigarettes fags, or cats pussies, unibrows, Teen Vogue’s obsession with the children of movie stars and fashion designers, how people with the money to buy designer clothes are celebrated for having a great sense of style, bare bones movie releases, Pepsi, temporary tattoos, cleaning my room, fruit flies, tanning beds, how camera phones make it so easy to record embarrassing behaviour (unless its someone else’s), lightweights, clicking on a link that causes a pop-up ad with topless girls to pop-up when people are watching you and think you are looking at porn, the way people act like girls aren’t allows to have dessert, Catholicism, double spacing, Dan Brown, Sarah Palin, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, Ann Coulter, Fox News, The Cleveland Show, people who act like not liking a certain person who happens to be a minority means you dislike everyone who is that minority, waking up on the floor, zoning out and realizing you missed everything the prof said over the last hour, TV/movies/books that don’t give answers to all the mysteries they introduced, when good movies go straight to video but bad ones go to theatres, author existence failure, the cancellation of so many good shows, among them Pushing Daisies, Freaks and Geeks, etc., people who reference their own work with smugness, older women who call their female friends their girlfriends, people who stop liking something because it became popular, going to the dollar store and realizing everything costs $1.25 now, uniform sweaters, how girls' clothing never has pockets, getting suckered in by a 2 for 1 deal (or something) and realizing you didn’t actually want to buy anything, you just did because it was a deal, having to carry other people's stuff when they don’t have purses (because I use mine like a security blanket), being the person who didn’t realize it was a fancy dress or costume party (or worse, the opposite), when people warn you that a book/movie is dark, people you don’t know who talk to you on the bus and want to know your life story, realizing you like something shameful, realizing no one got the references you just made and you now have to explain, the fact that I spent most of the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade hoping I’d get a letter from Hogwarts, the fact that Jurassic Park resulted in a whole bunch of people dying, so will never be a viable business opportunity, the fact that more money was spent making a movies about the titanic than was spent building the titanic, the fact that a pair of stockings will always run the first time you wear them, having to solve for X, how my high school told us that you could get AIDS from kissing and that being gay is fine unless you act on it, not realizing a joke has worn out its welcome, music that starts too slows, how incredibly creepy it is when you learn that someone you know already has a tombstone in a cemetery because they split it with a dead spouse, receiving family Christmas letters, people who act like they’re the only ones who understood the meaning in movie/book, when people try to take your picture to commemorate ordinary moments like ordering dinner or tripping on the sidewalk, when I walk up at 2pm and get texts from people who have already had entire days before I woke up, the fact that Saturday Night at the movies now only seems to play films made after 1980, people who act like they are personal friends with a celebrity because they once took their picture at TIFF, the fact that I love free stuff so much that I will take almost anything regardless of whether or not I will ever use it (such as random T-shirts with charity logos on them), people whose names are purposely misspelled, people who act like a girl is only allowed to like fruity cocktails, the fact that I spend way too much time thinking about what people with scores of tattoos will look like when they get old, forgetting people’s birthdays, when you feel like you can’t throw something away because you might want it later, trying to write when you are wearing a bracelet, the whole sad clown irony thing, girls who watch the Watchmen movie and fall in love with Rorschach, people who think everything is ironic or do things with the purpose of being ironic, even if it really isn’t (wearing a Winnie the Pooh shirt isn’t ironic unless you are an axe murderer who sees Winnie as a kindred spirit), girls who won’t watch a movie unless there are hot guys in it and guys who won’t watch a movie unless there are hot girls, the fact that we don’t have clones to do our chores and schoolwork, people who think not liking the Beatles or something makes them a rebel, when they stick children into action or horror movies (unless they are the villains), people who act like bad grammar personally offends them, girls who are overly mean to guys who ask them out (like: “How dare you think I could ever like you”), Girl Guide sandwich cookies, the fact that I have friends who think that gay men who are obviously a couple are “cute” but lesbian couples shouldn’t be affectionate in public, the fact that when I find a site I like I check it obsessively, that moment when you finish everything in a particular franchise- all the books, all the movies, etc. and want more but know there isn’t anything short of fan fiction or tattoos, the fact that HBO or Showtime has not made a Strangers in Paradise or Sandman TV show yet, development hell, most newspaper comics where the punch line makes you want to actually punch someone, when you learn an awesome word or fact and cannot find a way to work it into a conversation, realizing people are talking about you, the faces I make when I sing, when you realize that a cat is staring at you, novelty slippers, the double negative, how you can’t tell if a text or email is sarcastic, when you hear that something awesome is going on and then realize its in New York or London, the fact that as a Canadian I can’t just decide to movie to either New York or London, the fact that the Harry Potter movies hire John Cleese but did not really use him, glamping (glamour camping), when you realize you like something you really should hate, the fact that you cannot like vampire or werewolf movies or myths without people thinking you like Twilight, when you find out everyone you know is bilingual and you’re not, the fact there are so many random things about being an adult that no one explains to you, the fact that there are guys with longer eyelashes than me or fuller lips, beards, how as Chuck Palahniuk writes in Fight Club, you can go to work with black eyes etc. and no one will mention it as we’ve all been taught to remain at a distance, how people call a happy meal toy a boy’s toy or a girl’s toy, resort vacations, making small talk with people you hate, people who spend ridiculous amounts of money to go places and then act like they were forced to be there, how I yawn like I’m a hungry lion, people who insist that because you like a certain thing you must like this other thing and if you don’t that you can’t really call yourself a fan of the first thing, how I am invariably going to spill something on myself if I eat out, servers who get your order wrong and are then rude about it, pants with writing across the ass, call and response songs, how scary it is that Little Edie reminds me of me, plays that interact with the audience, how headache and flu medication is so expensive, how every interesting place has either become a tourist trap or been torn down, people who say they like something only because people say that only smart people like it and then need to constantly say they like it to prove they are intelligent (“Oh, and by the way I like Arrested Development. See I’m smarter than you.”), people who talk on the phone during a movie, when you are too lazy to get up and change the channel so are stuck watching some random shit, how everyone complains about changes to Facebook and then forgets about them a week later, that I only seem to walk heavily at night, how I can’t seem to stop laughing like a crazy person once I get started or keep a straight face when playing a trick on someone (I would be a terrible spy), that we don’t use cool old metal keys anymore, this phrase from the back of my Pushing Daises Season 2 DVD, Jockey Cum Waitress, how Rose McGowan says the word cocksucker, nostalgia for things that people didn’t actually like at the time, people who deliberate over which shade of white to paint their walls, Mrs. Dalloway, pajama jeans, men in skinny jeans, golf, taxi drivers who make small talk except in the rare moments when I am actually in the mood, when people are late for an interview, journalists who refuse to state their political allegiances, the tired plot device in TV shows/movies/books where character writes the story of what happened to them in the show/movie/book, how my sister’s teacher told her class that Holden’s brother D.B. was actually a prostitute, instead of Holden being metaphorical about D.B. being a screenwriter, people who don’t understand that Holden Caulfield had a mental breakdown, the version of the Merchant of Venice we had to watch in the 9th grade where you can see a skidoo and the CN tower in the background, when I learn words from reading them, years before I hear them in conversation and then don’t know how they’re pronounced so look like I don’t know the words (Cha-chos, Nose-feratu), spam emails about Viagra, restaurants that aren’t French that put Bon Appetit on their menus, tribute bands, protective plastic, radio DJs, splitting a restaurant bill with a group you don’t know very well, how I can never finish a bag of lettuce before it goes bad, creationists, texting someone with a personal message and then getting a text saying, “who is this?”, the fact that I get at least 2 phone calls a month asking for someone named Monica, the time my high school science teacher made every answer on a true or false test true so everyone did badly because now of us believed every answer could be true, people who act like having kids is the only possible option, people who don’t say please or thank you or hold open doors, the fact that I talk so quietly that I often have to repeat myself several times even if it was just a random comment that was only relevant at the exact moment I said it (Like: look at that bird, or help me, I'm going to drop this), my own stubborn desire to be right, motorcycles that look like dirt bikes unless you actually dirt bike, guys with ponytails unless they are metal heads or 18th century princes who stumbled into a time loop, getting caught in the rain without an umbrella, this one skirt I have that I somehow keep wearing (maybe because it has pockets), that blows up when its even a little windy, when you are sick but go to school anyway because there’s a test you can’t miss or something and everyone tells you that you should go home, people who kill in the name of religion, bureaucracy within charities, people who name their kids after twilight or something, the fact that Disney didn’t end the Little Mermaid with Ariel committing suicide instead of killing the prince, the fact that the myth of the munchkin hanging in the background in the Wizard of Oz, the fact that Andie ended up with James Spader instead of Duckie in Pretty in Pink, the fact that Anthony Michael Hall’s character was the only one uncoupled at the end of the Breakfast Club, drivers who disregard the walk sign and nearly murder you, the fact that I was so gullible as a kid that I actually believed the Never-ending Story was never ending because my sister rewound the tape every time I left the room, the fact that I used to be so afraid of vampires as a kid that I slept with cloves of garlic by my bed and on my window sill, when High School Musical or Miley Cyrus et al. things are marketed to people over the age of 11, the fact that I own at least 15 Shirley Temple movies on VHS from when I was six or so, the fact that itunes keeps making albums so that you have to buy the entire thing rather than a few tracks, the fact that it is easier to find a terrible cover of a song on Youtube than the actual song, the fact that people’s true selves come out when anonymous on the internet, old shows that aren’t on DVD, the fact that even film students mock Canadian movies and say things like “that was pretty good for a Canadian movie”, even when we want to make our own movies which would get the same treatment, when you’re really depressed and people tell you to just be happy or cheer up, when people say they’re depressed when they just mean they feeling a little sad because the store didn’t have the book they needed, when you go to the movie theatre and see a trailer and then realize you would rather see that movie than the one you’re at, pro ana and mia sites, how much of a prude I was as a kid, bullies, being forced to give my seat on the bus to pregnant women who aren’t even showing yet or even random 30 year old men who act entitled to it and tap their feet impatiently, when a movie starts out with a fascinating premise and ends with either: it was aliens or the main character was crazy the whole time, waiting rooms, citations, people who go to a foreign country and order hamburgers or want to go to MacDonald’s (unless its to revel over the fact that European MacDonald’s serve beer), older people who take college classes and act like because they are older, they automatically know more about the topic that everyone else, including the teacher, how Blackberrys call 911 if you press a button accidentally, people who put empty boxes back in the fridge, movie speeches where everyone starts to clap one by one and completely changes their minds by the end, not knowing what to say to a text message but knowing you have to respond because they can tell you read it, Cosmopolitan magazine, stores with low lighting and high concept designs like Abercrombie and Fitch and Hollister and the people who wear their clothes and act like it makes them laidback, the word Broseph, audience plant questions, fake enthusiasm, people who don’t read, people who call braids pigtails, big dogs, yuppies, people who throw away their pizza crusts, cube cars, the fact that I am so incredibly secretive about my romantic relationships, how like Moe the bartender, I have read the entire Sweet Valley High series, that I used to enjoy reading stories from the old testament because everyone died in exciting ways, virtual reality games, that through it makes me feel a bit like I’m taking advantage of him or being a bad feminist, I do sort of like it when guys offer to pay on dates, how I always psyh myself up for my birthday and it always sucks, how I’m always the one who goes out and plans adventures or vacations and has to try to convince people to go with me and make promises I can’t keep, unrequited love, the way I always seem to think I’m this great enigma people are watching and trying to figure out but in actuality no one really cares, line dancing, when people who don’t drink or eat meat try to make you feel guilty because you do (to be clear, I have no problem with most vegetarians, vegans or teetotalers), 12 year old know-it-alls, 9 to 5, people who write off things they’ve never done because they don’t fit their images of themselves, having to go to sleep.
Still here?
There are many more things I hate and love, I just can’t remember them all. I wish whenever you met a new person they would hand you a list like this and stand there patiently while you read it. I think we’d all get along much better. Or have much more exciting or vitriolic fights because you’d only have to meet someone once to gather enough fuel to compound your arguments and insults. Either way, I think I’d like that.
