Do you live alone?

The short answer:

Sadly, no.

The long answer:

When I moved into my apartment last year, I didn’t know my current roommate, whom we’ll call P. Of course, I generally assume that people are reasonable unless proven otherwise, so things were okay at first. Then on the second day I left a plate in the sink overnight, and P left me a note telling me not to let the dishes pile up. I found this less than reasonable.

But then I thought, sure, it’s a little annoying, but perhaps it’s just a preventative measure, so I washed my plate and let it slide without annoying me too much. Of course, that was before P repeatedly left the sink full of dishes for weeks and weeks on end. I guess that’s not really a reason to hate P either, but since P also has a habit of using the blender early in the morning, taking showers without closing the bathroom door, taking up all the cabinet and counter space with items that never seem to be used, not taking out the trash or knowing how to recycle, randomly leaving items in the middle of the bathtub, leaving the front door open and the lights on, having loud sex, and once, leaving an alarm clock blaring in a locked room on a Saturday morning for two hours before it automatically shut itself off, I’ve taken the liberty. Oh, but don’t think I don’t fight back. I haven’t bought any toilet paper in months.

I feel that I am not a terrible roommate. I don’t play loud music, I don’t make huge messes, and I don’t steal other people’s stuff. If someone asks me to do something reasonable, I’ll do it. And while I don’t really like a lot of people, I don’t really dislike them either, so the chance that I end up rooming with someone who really displeases me should be pretty small, right?

But let’s take a look at my record:

At my eighth grade summer camp, I was voted Most Likely to Evict His/Her Roommate, but I’m pretty sure the election was rigged. After all, the award didn’t even exist until after I’d already done it.

My freshman year of college, I had one roommate whom I absolutely despised. But not all bad came of it: it’s one of the few times I’ve straight out told someone that I don’t like them.

My sophomore year of college, I had two roommates whom I hated. Luckily I managed to avoid them by entering and exiting through the bathroom.

During the summer before my junior year, I attended an undergraduate research program and I again hated one of my roommates. It’s not often that I not only don’t like someone but also think they’re a bad person.

During senior year, in order to avoid any more annoying roommates, I decided not to say a single word to one of my roommates all year, and I’m proud to say that I succeeded. There were some awkward elevator rides, but it was only nine floors.

It has therefore come to my attention that I may have a little bit of a problem with roommates.

I almost feel like there’s just something about living with someone that makes me not like them. (As evidence, I lived my parents for all those years, and by high school, they were driving me crazy.) It’s like one of those psychology experiments where they pack people into a small room until they all go crazy. (Or is that just the subway?) My home should be a place where I don’t have to worry about annoyances, and so any that arise become magnified to the point that I basically hate everything.

But I sort of suspect that while I’m writing about all these roommates whom I’ve hated, they’re all writing about their weird roommate QM who doesn’t talk or buy toilet paper. The truth is that I’m not very personable, and maybe if I were just willing to get to know my roommates a little bit better, I’d accept that they are not in fact satanic demons.

But I’m getting my own place in August, so screw that.

Cheers,
-qm

 

Are you a good listener?

The short answer:

I’m not so sure anymore.

The long answer:

When I was a kid, I always enjoyed having my hearing tested in school. Perhaps this is just because I never had any problems with my hearing, as opposed to, say, my vision (I’ve worn glasses since third grade). Then again, I never had any problems with head lice or scoliosis or spelling either, but those tests were far less enjoyable. Somehow putting on those headphones and listening for those boops and beeps felt like a little musical game at which I just happened to be awesome. And even though the nurse never told us how well we did unless we failed, I’m pretty sure I never missed a boop. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had told me my hearing was superhuman.

That’s why I’ve never really given much thought to how good my hearing actually is; I’ve just assumed that I hear perfectly fine. But last week, I could tell that my right ear was getting increasingly plugged up with wax until eventually I could hardly hear out of it at all. I realized then that it was time to get my ears irrigated.

If you’re unfamiliar with the procedure, they basically just spray warm water into your ear until the canal is clear. Apparently my family is very ceruminous, for both my mother and my sister have needed their ears irrigated in the past. It isn’t painful, but eventually you kind of start wondering how water isn’t shooting out your other ear by now. In any case, it didn’t take very long to get both my ears cleaned out, and so I was soon back to normal.

Or so I thought. But I quickly became acutely aware that something was different, that my hearing seemed distinctly more sensitive than it had before. I heard this strange swoosh sound, and it took me several seconds to realize that I had just accidentally brushed my finger against my shirt. It seemed that I was now hearing high frequencies much louder than I’d been used to. Everything, the jingle of my keys, the flush of a toilet, the cracking of a knuckle, sounded oddly nuanced.

On the one hand, it was pretty cool, like having superhuman hearing. On the other hand, it was sort of troubling. If this is what all these things sound like when my ears are unclogged, what sorts of things had I missed when my ears were clogged? And how long had I been hearing things through clogged ears, thinking they were normal? I haven’t taken a hearing test in a long time. Perhaps my hearing had been impaired for years without me knowing, and it would have stayed that way had an intrepid (albeit really, really gross) blob of earwax not decided it was time to show me otherwise.

This brings us to the question at hand. Of course, being a good listener doesn’t mean that one is good at hearing but rather that one is good at understanding, empathizing, and interpreting. I’ve generally considered myself to be a good listener, but honestly, I’ve never given it very much thought. Nobody’s ever told me that I’m a terrible listener, but that doesn’t mean that I’m very good at it. Maybe like all those hearing tests I took in grade school, all I know is that my listening is passable. And while I’d like to think my listening skills are superhuman, that’s probably not the case either.

Honestly, it could be that my listening is okay but not nearly as good as I think it is, just as my hearing may have been okay for years but not nearly as good as it is now that my ears are clear. You could say that I haven’t had a real listening test in quite awhile, so maybe I need to get my listening ears cleaned and I don’t even realize it. Unfortunately, I doubt that would be as easy as a few sprays from the Elephant Ear Washer System.

A former friend of mine used to say that people aren’t really listening, they’re just waiting for their turn to talk. (Actually, I think she got it from Fight Club.) I used to think that that’s just cynicism, but now that I’ve started thinking about how good a listener I really am, I have to admit that it might be true with me sometimes. Still, I’d like to believe that if someone really wants me to listen to them, then I’d be able to do it, but I don’t really know. Maybe, then, it’s time for me to see about getting my listening checked out in some way, any way. Listening is, after all, the cornerstone of any relationship. Or so I hear.

Cheers,
-qm

 

Are you enthusiastic?

The short answer:

Yes, for short periods of time.

The long answer:

I have a problem with nuts. It is not that I don’t like nuts; it is perhaps that I like nuts too much. You see, I rarely have a craving for nuts. However, whenever I have a can of nuts in my possession, I can’t resist eating the nuts constantly, even if I’m not hungry. As a result, the nuts disappear at a truly alarming rate, and a single can of nuts rarely lasts more than a couple days. And then I cry “Nuts!” because I am left sad and without nuts, and I wonder why I had to go and eat all my nuts.

Heartbreaking, I know.

But this behavior of mine is not just limited to nuts. In fact, I find I have a habit of getting very enthusiastic about things for a short period of time. I call it, for lack of a better term, “going nuts.” The problem is that when I go nuts about something, inevitably I lose interest rather quickly. It is as if I am being consumed by it with such intensity that eventually there isn’t anything left to consume. And then I am left wondering why I was so foolish as to waste all that energy for something that really doesn’t deserve it.

I had never really thought about this until my freshman year of college when I got a harmonica through Secret Santa. I had always thought it would be cool to learn the harmonica, but I’d never gotten my hands on one until then. And so I practiced all the time. One day while I was practicing, my roommate, whom we’ll call B, said to me with disdain, “I guess you’re one of those people that just go crazy about something until they finally get sick of it.” This was just a passive-aggressive ploy by B to make me stop playing, so I did. I was also a little offended, but luckily I already hated B for unrelated reasons, so it wasn’t a big deal.

I didn’t think much of it until later, when I actually did get sick of the harmonica. To be fair, I still enjoyed picking it up from time to time, but somehow it just didn’t feel as exciting as it did before. That’s when I realized that B was right. Nuts.

This same pattern has happened to me countless other times. I’ve gone nuts about juggling and drawing and Rubik’s cubes and card tricks and jazz piano and Dr. Seuss and origami and psychology and sudoku and writing and backgammon and cartooning and badminton and sitcoms and poker and blogs and making long lists without commas. And while I still enjoy these things, it just isn’t the same as it was when I was nuts about them, and I can’t even fathom why I went nuts about them in the first place.

It’s distressing to me that I can’t seem to control my own enthusiasm. If it were up to me, I’d perfectly balance everything that I like so as to develop my interests gradually. Instead, I often find myself either unable to think about anything except for my current fascination or else with a heap of unfinished projects about which I just don’t care enough anymore to finish. As a result, I find myself being incredibly unproductive much more often than I’d like. I’ve tried to fix this habit of mine on occasion, but never to any avail. (It’s a tough nut to crack.)

But maybe it isn’t all bad. At least I’m learning new things instead of sitting around bored all the time. And perhaps one day I’ll find the one thing that perpetually excites me and my life will be complete. Or perhaps one day I’ll find that I have so many unfinished projects that my life will never be complete. Regardless, I think I’ll just have to learn to live with the fact that I’m not going to stop eating nuts anytime soon.

And sure, nuts are fatty, but it’s the good kind of fat.

Cheers,
-qm

 

What if there is no God?

“what if God was just an idea? like how good and bad are just ideas of concepts?”
-James

The short answer:

I don’t really see how it matters.

The long answer:

In college I once found myself taking a few classes on Japan, mostly because it is not often that a course description contains the words “ninja” and “samurai.” One of the few non-ninja, non-samurai facts that I learned was that Christmas is a popular holiday in Japan, despite the fact that less than one percent of the population is Christian. While they still celebrate family, romance, and togetherness, it is much more commercial in Japan than it is in the United States. Apparently, the traditional Christmas dinner is KFC, followed by a specially-made Christmas cake. (That was not a joke.)

Undoubtedly, all the Christians who live in Western countries are appalled by this and think that they should get back to true religious values, such as putting a pine tree in your house, putting toys in big red socks, and (SPOILER ALERT!!!) lying to your children about Santa Claus. But, in case it is not clear from my flippant remarks, I certainly don’t care how people celebrate the holiday, and I’m not sure why anyone else does. Of course, that’s easy for me to say since, even though I celebrate Christmas, I’m not at all religious.

Frankly, I don’t understand everyone’s obsession with religion and God. Even though I’m an atheist, I don’t go around telegraphing it (or should that be cell-phoning it?). Whenever one of the first words out of someone’s mouth when describing himself is a religion, I am taken a bit aback (unless he happens to be a religious authority of some sort). Is your religion really one of the best descriptions of who you are? I suppose you could argue that it just gives me a quick summary of your core values, but since most religions advocate being a good person in roughly the same way, the only thing I really learn is whether you’re busy on Saturdays or Sundays.

Likewise, I’m not sure why people care so much about whether God exists. Why does it matter? Would the world be fundamentally different if there were or were not a God? Given that it isn’t clear whether God exists or not, it isn’t clear what effect the existence or non-existence of God has on our world, so I don’t see how things could be different in any concrete way. In other words, if I, as a non-believer, were to imagine what a world with God was like, I could see it appearing exactly like it is now, and I still wouldn’t believe in God. Likewise, I feel like a theist could imagine that a world without God could appear exactly like the world is now, and she still would believe in God. (Of course, it would make a difference if everyone knew whether or not God existed. But since it is apparently in the nature of God not to reveal that there is a God, and it is also in the nature of the absence of God to not reveal that there is no God, that’s never going to happen.)

Therefore, given that it is impossible to know for sure whether God exists, I find it hard to rationalize how the existence or non-existence of God can affect anyone’s life. Some may believe that, as is famously attributed to Dostoevsky, “if there is no God, then everything is permitted.” But really, if you need the existence of something imperceptible in order to be a good person, then I’m not sure how you can convince yourself that you’re a good person even if God exists. Of course, perhaps you don’t believe that there can be a notion of good and evil without God, but I feel that the fact that even rabid atheists can believe in right and wrong indicates that morality isn’t something determined by God.

Instead, perhaps morality is simply something that has become hard-wired into our brains through years of evolution due to its usefulness in sustaining the human race. Perhaps then the notion of God is something that, too, has stayed around because of its benefit to humanity. Or maybe it’s just stuck like that jingle in your head that you can’t get rid of. Or maybe God really does exist and I’m going to hell. I guess there’s no way of knowing for sure, and like so many other puzzles that have no answer, I feel better not thinking about it; it isn’t going to change the way I live my life or celebrate Christmas. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t think about it, so if you like, ponder it over your next bucket of fried chicken and let me know.

This post was a little heavy-handed, but I figured this question had been lying in my inbox for long enough. As always, if you have any deep or fluffy or personal or random questions and you want to hear my take, leave me a comment and I’ll do my best. I especially encourage questions about ninjas.

Cheers,
-qm

 

Do you exercise?

The short answer:

Not as often as I should.

The long answer:

A lot of people I know have this strange ritual that I don’t really understand. They will pay to go into some building where apparently they do things like run in place or lift and drop heavy objects repeatedly for an hour. They call it “working out.” I’m not exactly sure what it is in them that they feel needs to be worked out of them. Perhaps sweat. Or nonachiness.

I think, then, that it goes without saying that I am probably out of shape. I say “probably” because I’m not exactly sure what being “in shape” means. Does it mean that my actual physical dimensions are those of a healthy person? If so, then my shape is perfectly fine, thank you very much. (As you may recall, I’m sort of lucky, and as such, I have been blessed with a fast metabolism.) But if it means that I am willing or able to exert myself in any sort of physical task, then, no, I can’t really say I’m in shape. What can I say, I’m a lazy bum.

Part of it is that I don’t really see the point of working out. As far as I can tell, the main reason that people exercise is so that they feel slightly less like hell the next time they exercise. I don’t need to exert myself that much in my daily life, so why should I pretend that I do? I suppose people also exercise to lose weight, but if anything I’m light enough that I should be trying to gain weight. Honestly, if I started to exercise, I might lose so much weight that one day I’d disappear. Yeah, that’s a good excuse.

I think I’ve gotten lazier over the years. When I was a kid, I ran around all the time. (I’ll have you know that I was the fastest kid in my second grade class.) But as I grew older and wiser, I must have decided that there really wasn’t any point to running in circles. Also I don’t have to take a mandatory gym class anymore.

That isn’t to say that I just sit around all day. (At least not every day.) But aside from the occasional bicycle ride to work or shoveling of snow, I don’t exercise for a meaningful length of time very much. And since millions of doctors and health experts tell me this is a bad thing, I feel that I should probably believe them. I mean, when was the last time millions of people were wrong? (The short answer: November 2, 2004.)

Recently, my sister obviously must have gone through the same reasoning, because she went out and bought a Wii Fit. I’m unconvinced that she is actually becoming much more fit because of it. But given that, like me, she has quite reasonable physical dimensions, it certainly would appear to the casual observer upon learning that she has a Wii Fit that she must, in fact, be a wee bit fit. And so now that she is at least able to superficially convey that she might very well be in shape, I have started to feel guilty about perhaps not being in shape, if in fact I am not.

That’s why I have started to do push-ups every other day. I admit it isn’t much, but at least I feel like I’m not just a lazy bum, even if I still am. I just wish I had been blessed with shorter arms.

Cheers,
-qm

 

Do you like puzzles?

The short answer:

As long as they’re good.

The long answer:

This past weekend, I found myself in quite the puzzling situation. From this statement alone, some of you may be able to guess what I was doing, but for the rest of you, think of it as a puzzle to figure out.

In any case, it occurred to me that I like puzzles far more than the average person. For instance, many people like to do sudoku. But I had heard of sudoku before it became a worldwide phenomenon. (Little known fact: sudoku originated in the United States under the name “Number Place.” No wonder it never caught on.) As another example, many people like to do crosswords. But I’ve done a crossword without the grid using only the down clues. (Actually, there was a group of us, but I figure that any attempt to perform such a task is crazy enough.)

As such, I’ve done a lot of puzzles, both easy and hard. But I find that the most frustrating puzzles are not the ones that are the most difficult but the ones that are poorly made. It’s the difference between doing a Saturday New York Times crossword and doing a crossword full of “crosswordese,” obscure words that only occur in crosswords because the constructor had trouble filling that part of the grid. Personally, if I were to make a crossword, I’d make sure to try to use every word in the grid in casual conversation. (”On the cruise, I saw an erne flying alee that was as playful as Asta.” “What?” “I saw a white-tailed sea eagle flying towards the side of the ship away from the wind that was as playful as Nick and Nora’s dog from the 1930s comedy The Thin Man, of course.”)

Good puzzles should have clear logic and unique answers. The best puzzles should cause you to think in some way in which you haven’t thought before. They should somehow use familiar things in an unfamiliar manner. Regardless of how hard they are to solve, you should know with certainty whether your solution is correct. If you can’t solve them, then upon learning the answer, you should think, “Why didn’t I think of that?” And if you can solve them, well, then there should be nothing more satisfying than that “aha!” moment.

Maybe the reason I like puzzles so much is that I wish the whole world was more like a puzzle. As you may recall, I’m kind of a sitcom snob, and I find that the best sitcoms are those that give you something to think about and figure out. You may also recall that I don’t think you should try to figure people out, since they aren’t puzzles meant to be solved. And with all the uncertainty in this world, isn’t it be nice to have something that has a definite answer, something to strive for that we know is out there for us to find, if only we can think of it?

But, alas, the world is full of unsolvable mysteries and questions without answers, and as much as I would like Questionable Me to answer them, that isn’t going to happen. I guess that means I’ll have to settle for curling up with a good crossword every now and then. Now, what’s a six-letter word for “toast”?

Cheers,
-qm

 

Can you cook?

The short answer:

Eh.

The long answer:

I enjoy watching Iron Chef from time to time, but I don’t really have a good reason for it. As far as I can tell, there are only three reasons to enjoy watching it: you like to cook good food, you like to eat good food, or you enjoy the ridiculous dubbing. But my best dish is scrambled eggs, I’ll eat anything as long as it’s served on some sort of plate, bowl, or trough, and I also watch Iron Chef America, so there goes that theory.

Perhaps it is just that I like the idea of being able to cook, even if I’m not very good at it myself. It is, after all, essentially magic. Somehow a chef takes raw foods, which are basically inedible, and turns them into something delectable. I would be no more amazed if they could do the same with rocks.

If I were to write a cookbook detailing my own personal techniques, it would be called How to Cook Stuff. There would be one recipe, for “stuff,” and it would go something like this:

1. Put stuff in a big pan.
2. Put pan on stove, stirring occasionally, until stuff appears cooked or twenty minutes have elapsed, whichever comes first. (Tip: Remember to turn on stove!)
3. For seasoning, sprinkle in any and all spices that happen to be within arm’s reach until stuff no longer tastes like cardboard.
4. “Enjoy!”

(Alternatively, replace steps 1-3 by “Microwave to taste.”) It usually ends up tasting okay, but I’m sort of partial to the taste of salty cardboard.

My mother, of course, is convinced that even this limited cooking knowledge escapes me. I’m pretty sure she thinks that if it were not for the good people at Kellogg’s and Campbell’s, I would go weeks without eating. As such, whenever I go back home, she always gives me a large amount of food to take back with me. Naturally, I think her cooking is, well, just like Mom used to make. But I can only eat microwaved leftovers so many days in a row before either I get sick of it or it goes bad, whichever comes second, and then it’s back to uninspired stuff.

Perhaps the problem is that I am neither an epicure, nor a foodie, nor a gourmet. Maybe if I were pickier about my food, I’d have more of a motivation to make something good. To wit, my older sister is the pickiest in the family, and she’s also the most adventurous chef. She probably wouldn’t call herself a chef, but anyone who, when faced with a craving for pasta, decides to make fresh pasta from scratch is enough of a chef to be called one in my book. (I’ll put it in the preface.)

I don’t think that right now I’m in the demographic of people who are expected to be great cooks, so there’s no real pressure for me to learn the difference between all those blender settings yet. But maybe one day when I’m bored, I’ll take it upon myself to learn to cook something other than stuff. I’ll host a lavish dinner party, and you’ll all be invited. Until then, you can always come over for breakfast. I do make a mean scrambled egg.

Cheers,
-qm

 

Do you have a New Year’s resolution?

The short answer:

I don’t believe in resolutions.

The long answer:

I’ve made New Year’s resolutions in the past. Last year my resolution was successful, but only because it was for me not to do a certain stupid thing that I won’t describe presently (maybe later). In previous years I think I’ve resolved a few times to “be happy,” but since I don’t ever recall being substantially happier one year than the year before, they’ve probably never been successful. I think once I resolved not to make any more resolutions. At least I lasted a year on that one.

Someone once told me that he didn’t believe in making New Year’s resolutions. His reasoning was that there is no way you can feel very good about what has happened once the year is done. If you don’t fulfill your resolution, then you’re a pathetic failure. If you do, well then congratulations, you did something you set out to do, and honestly, you’d have been a pathetic failure if you hadn’t. So congratulations, you are not a pathetic failure. Now, where’s the booze?

I read an article once that said that something like ninety percent of New Year’s resolutions fail. And these were people who were extra motivated to complete their resolutions, since they were in a study about completing resolutions. And a large percentage of these resolutions were something vague like “be nicer” or “enjoy life more.” So sometimes I wonder why people even bother anymore. But I have a couple ideas that might help resolutions succeed more often.

One problem with New Year’s resolutions is that people tend to forget all about them if it isn’t either January or December. I don’t think about how great costumes and candy are in March, or how great barbecues are on the Fourth of January, or how I don’t know what love is in October, or how great trees and administrative assistants are in November, so why would I think about resolutions in June? Similarly, nobody thinks about not thinking about resolutions when they make their resolutions, and therein lies the problem.

Maybe if people took these seasonal considerations into account, more resolutions would be completed. We should only make resolutions that we can complete in two months with a ten-month break in the middle. For instance, instead of resolving to exercise every week, which apparently requires a year-round commitment, one could resolve to shovel more snow or be nicer to Capricorns on their birthdays.

My other idea is to make resolutions at other times of the year. Honestly, January 1 is sort of an arbitrary date for the start of a new year anyway, so why not also make Halloween resolutions (”wear more masks”), or Administrative Assistants’ Day resolutions (”collate more”)? Perhaps if we were not so accustomed to thinking of resolutions as something that we should consider only once a year, we’d be more like to consider them more than once a year.

But as it is now, the way that our society deals with resolutions seems to be inherently flawed, so I can’t say that I really believe in making a New Year’s or Arbor Day resolution. Still, I feel like I should say something about what I want to happen in the coming year, so how about I try to write in this blog every week? Well, except maybe in February through November.

Cheers,
-qm

 

Do you like to play games?

The short answer:

Yes, but not that kind of game.

The long answer:

A friend of mine, whom we’ll call K (there’s no K in his name, it was just the first letter I thought of), recently recounted to me an experience that he had on a blind date with a woman he met online, whom we’ll call F (I don’t actually know her name, it was just the second letter I thought of). I wasn’t there, of course, but from the way he described it, I imagine it might have gone something like this:

K and F are having dinner at a casual restaurant. It’s early, but things are going well so far.
F: So, tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you like to do?
K: Oh, I like to play games.
Suddenly, F frowns and becomes hostile.
F (indignantly): Oh really. What kind of… games?
K: Um… like… board games…
(silence)
K: …Parcheesi…

It therefore occurs to me that not everyone likes to play games.

Most games are enjoyable to play for many people. This makes sense, as most games were created to be fun. (One notable exception: The Game, which I just lost. Then again, The Game is not really a game so much as it is a tool to identify losers.) So it’s somehow surprising to me that at some point it became a bad thing to “play games.”

I should perhaps clarify that I am not referring to games like Boggle or bridge or pool; even if you don’t like to play these traditional sorts of games, you would probably still accept that one can enjoy them without being evil—unless perhaps you live in River City, Iowa, where they can only spell trouble. No, I am referring to a much more sinister type of game, the kind that dear F hates so much. It is the kind of game that a cat might play with a mouse. Yes, I am referring, of course, to World of Warcraft. (Make that a mouse and keyboard.)

But seriously, our dear F apparently doesn’t like people who “play games” in relationships, and I can understand where she’s coming from. Even though I like Clue as much as anyone, that doesn’t mean that I want there to be a mystery about what’s been going on in the kitchen with the candlestick. So I don’t deny that it’s often a bad thing to “play games,” I just think that we shouldn’t call it “playing games.”

To wit, there are certain aspects of playing games that are not present in the relationship situation. For instance, in most games, the players are participating out of their own free will. Everyone knows the rules (exception: the Infield Fly Rule). There is also a well-defined goal, and it’s generally supposed to be fun for everyone. But with the secrets and deception that sometimes occur in relationships, it’s not as if both sides have agreed upon the rules of the game in advance. Really, it’s more like hunting, where one person is trying to trap the other, and while it may be fun to play the hunter, it’s no fun to play the game.

Perhaps it is just human nature that we have the urge to play games with one another. That’s why if I ever find myself in a relationship, I’ll try to make sure that any games that we play are actually games. Think how much fun it could be if both people knew the rules! And maybe it won’t work out, but that’s okay. After all, it’s how you play the game, right?

Cheers,
-qm

 

When’s your birthday?

The short answer:

Today.

The long answer:

Since you don’t know me, you probably didn’t know that my birthday was today. Then again, most people who do know me also didn’t know it was my birthday, that is, unless they were reminded by Facebook.

When I was little, my birthday was always a big deal. For weeks before the big day, I’d be sure to remind everyone that it was coming up, because I thought my parents might forget if I didn’t tell them seven times a day. And even though I didn’t have elaborate birthday parties, it felt like a special day. After all, anything that comes only once a year has to be special, right? Plus I liked getting free stuff.

But nowadays, I don’t really care if anyone knows it’s my birthday. Perhaps it’s just that after twentysome of these things, I’ve realized that they really aren’t that special. Sure, it only comes around once a year, but so does Arbor Day. Of course, I’ve not developed an aversion to free stuff, but I’ve never gotten any really good gifts anyway, so I doubt I’m missing out on much. I tell myself, I’ll just stay in, do nothing, and be content, again, like Arbor Day.

At least, that’s my attitude on every day except my birthday. Since my expectations have been set so low, how could I possibly be disappointed? But I manage. Truthfully, my birthday has been pretty depressing these last few years. The most exciting thing that’s happened on my birthday in recent memory was a few years ago when I got a birthday card in the mail. (It wasn’t even a surprise, though, since I had mentioned to the sender that I don’t usually get cards, so she told me she’d send me one.)

For the past few years, I’ve just had dinner and cake with my family, who all happen to live nearby. Since my birthday fell on a Tuesday, we observed it on Sunday when everyone was free. I don’t really get any presents (this year I got some sort of ID holder with keyring). For the cake, we can’t be troubled to put on a candle for each year, so we just put on two. This year I failed to blow them out with one puff.

In some ways, it feels a little presidential not to celebrate my birthday on my birthday, but on the other hand, it means that I don’t really have anything to do on my actual birthday. I decided to take the day off, slept until one, went out to dinner with some family, and then came back alone and had some leftover cake. And now I’m writing in this blog.

I’m not really sure what I’d like to happen on my birthday. Maybe I’d like to look back on the year that has just past and be satisfied with it. Usually when it comes time to blow out the candles and make a wish, I think about the wish I made last year and how it hasn’t come true. To counteract this, I’ve started to make my wishes increasingly vague, but they still don’t come true. This year I couldn’t think of anything to wish for. At least next year I won’t be disappointed by that not coming true.

There’s an episode of Seinfeld where Jerry goes out on a first date with an attractive woman with whom he gets along quite well, but then he learns that it’s her birthday and wonders why she isn’t out with people she knows. As it turns out, the explanation is just that “she’s a loser,” even though it’s never made clear why that is. I always identify myself with her, a woman who’s destined to be alone on her birthday for a mysterious reason that no one can truly describe. I guess that’s just how the world works sometimes.

Sorry for being so depressing today; it’s the birthday talking. I’ll feel better by the last Friday in April.

Cheers,
-qm