The subway, continued.

I love looking at everyone's tube face.
The way they all desperately try to avoid eye contact like you're a mental patient wielding a large knife.
And if they do happen to catch someone's eye, it's all a little akward. Do you smile? Acknowledge the fact that they are looking at you? Or, as in most cases, hurriedly return to your newspaper?
I often catch myself starting to apologise when I look at someone for a fraction too long, in case they're offended or weirded out.
Since each row of seats is facing each other, everyone must find something to stare at that isn't directly in front of them (and hence, at another person). This object is mostly likely to be a newspaper, or sometimes a book. If you have neither you must choose to look at your feet, inspect your fingernails, read the advert plastered on the wall over and over again until your eyes blur, or stare at your lap. The last of which makes you look a bit disturbed.
We're all so disconnected that it's getting a little sad.

Etiquette Query no. 3

When riding the subway, how do you decide who to give up your seat for?

You can't give it to the woman with the protruding stomach, she just may be fat.
You can't give it to the person who may or may not have a mild disability, they may think you are being condescending.
You can't give it to that older-looking man, he may only be 50 and therefore would get offended at the fact you think he is feeble.

Then again, the fat woman may be pregnant, the disabled person might really want a seat, and the old man may be very tired.

Do you risk offending somebody
that may take your offer the wrong way,
or stay sitting and risk looking like an asshole?

How fat is too fat?

For some, too fat means anything over a size 8 (US size 4).
Others would kill to be a 14.
My view is, if you want to work out every day, work out every day. If you're happy being fat, good for you. But either way, don't enforce your views onto everyone else. I'm not going to go into all this eating disorder stuff, because it's been done to death. But only we could have a mental disorder as vain as anorexia* - when was the last time you heard of people in some small Indian village refusing to eat for fear of getting fat?
As for myself, I can walk up a flight of stairs without getting out of breath, I eat vegetables and I can fit through turnstiles at the train station. I do not need to buy my clothes at special shops and I do not need a motorised cart to get around. Still, a lot of people would say I was fat. Others would like that I have big boobs and hips.
Whatever, just enjoy life (or not) while you still can. Revel in the joys (or miseries) of the world before you fuck off to the afterlife. I know, easier said than done, right?



*I know I'll get chastised for saying that, but fuck it. It's true.

Football is just an excuse for modern day tribal warfare.

It's pretty funny when white people feel superior to those in 'undeveloped' nations (or, as they're called now, developing countries). According to some westerners, they are poor because they're violent, uncivilised savages. Of course, not many people would actually say it out loud anymore, but you can bet that they are still thinking it.
I know the phrase 'we're all humans' is pretty cliched by now, but it is true - it's not like just because we've got TVs, central heating and big macs that we have somehow evolved to a higher state of being than those who do not.
Take, for example, football supporters. Being a Glaswegian, I'm well aware of how violent these assholes can get. We have two main teams, Rangers and Celtic. You can't be a fan of both. You have to choose. Whichever side you pick, you're aligning yourself with a group of people with a similar interest - you are now part of a tribe. You'll drink together, eat together, shout together. You'll heckle the opposing supporters, and possibly indulge in a little stabbing and kicking. At every single football match, however small, there will be at least one fight.
Basically, what I'm clumsily attempting to point out is that we're exactly the same as the people in countries that are constantly killing each other. We just hide it better. We've learnt to take our instincts and dampen them down with suits, briefcases and paperwork. We're still violent, bloodthirsty, emotional animals, and no amount of fake civility will ever, EVER change that. So stop feeling so damn smug.

Homosexuality.

Were there always so many gay people in the world?
I've only started to mull this over so this post will be even more uneloquent than usual.
(Is 'uneloquent' a word? Whatever, I can't really think properly today.)
Personally, I don't care if you're gay or not. I don't care if you're black, brown, white, poor or rich, if you're a decent person that's all that matters.

But really, I want to know. Was homosexuality always so prevalent, and has our apparently tolerant society just meant that more people are open about it? You can bet the statistics show there are more gays in western society than other 'less developed' nations.

Of course those religious zealots are wrong, but if you think about it, homosexuality is unnatural. Men and women are meant to fuck each other, make babies, and continue to populate the earth with our shitty species. That's just the way it is. So how did nature (or God, if you are so inclined to think of it that way) make it that loads of people are gay?

I'm tired, and my brain hurts.
Someone provide me with an answer!
Yeah, I know none of that made much sense, but if anyone has a logical explanation for me, or even just an opinion, I would love to hear it.

My funeral.

How come when a person dies they are automatically a saint?
You can be the biggest douchebag ever, but when you expire no-one is allowed to say it was so.
Some, almost all, will explain this crappy phenomenon away as simply respecting the dead.
Because it's the right thing to do.
But we only respect death because we are utterly afraid of it.
We are terrified of the unknown.
We are programmed to fear death because we are programmed to survive.
(For whatever reason that is.)
Therefore, I urge you to think of it as an adventure.
Maybe our instincts are correct and the 'afterlife' will be gut-wrenchingly horrifying, or maybe it will be blissful peace.
Maybe it will be complete nothingness (try not to imagine nothingness before you sleep, because you will be awake with frustration and confusion for hours).
Anyway, all I know for certain is that when it's me lying in that coffin, tell the truth.
You loved me, but I was a bit of an asshole.
I dare you.

Shoes.

I really can't comprehend why white people don't remove their shoes before entering a home.
The Asians have it so, so right.
Typing this is making me dry-heave ever so slightly because I keep imagining all the hideous things that people are tramping into their carpets.
Being the mongrel child of a Caucasian and Eurasian, I always thought taking off your shoes was the norm. The first time going to a friends house was strange. I didn't really understand why they would wear their shoes indoors. Or, even worse, some would be barefoot and stepping in all the SHOE DIRT.

I keep wondering if I have a mild case of OCD. It is of course very fashionable right now to have a mental illness, but I can't think of any other explanation as to why I started crying with fear when my little brother came running into the room with his trainers on.
Walking to the front door to collect the post is somewhat of a challenge, as it involves crossing the part of the floor where shoes have been with my bare feet. This results in me having to run reaslly, really fast on tiptoe across the danger zone. It also means that the post has also landed in this area, so I often have to wash my hands after picking it up rather gingerly, otherwise I feel gross all day. Most days I just ignore the postman and pretend I didn't hear the letters landing on the floor.

To some Asians it is the most horrible insult to show the soles of your shoes (and feet) to them. Remember this joyous incident?



On top of all that hilarity, the news reporter used the phrase "save your bacon". Astounding.
But I digress (even though it was hilarious).
I will beat you up if you show me the soles of your shoes and then possibly vomit on you also.
I cringe when I see someone on TV lie on their bed or curl up on the couch with their shoes.
It's disgusting.

On the surface, slippers seem to be a good medium between shoes and bare feet. However, this brings up a few complications. Where is the line drawn between where the shoe-wearing stops and the slipper-wearing begins? Because if you put your slippers into the shoe area, your slippers are now essentially shoes. My step-father recently gave up wearing slippers as I kept screeching at him when he wore them to the garage and then inside again. He pointed out that it was just our garden and therefore not the dirty, but I said that it was dirty because our shoes that we wear in the garden are the same shoes that we wear everywhere else, and so there was shoe-dirt in the garden too.

The next time you wear your shoes in the house, think firstly, am I prepared to potentially bring in all that dog crap, discarded food and anything else that is gross and on the pavement into my home?
And secondly, remember that cleaning is a lot easier without all that outside-dirt.