Dear You… Fuck You.

“There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”

-Oscar Wilde

Shigatsu no aru hareta asa ni 100-paasento no onna no ko ni deau koto ni tsuite

(Translated: On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning)

written by Haruki Murakami

One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo’s fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl.

Tell you the truth, she’s not that good-looking. She doesn’t stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn’t young, either – must be near thirty, not even close to a “girl,” properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She’s the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there’s a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.

Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl – one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you’re drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I’ll catch myself staring at the girl at the next table to mine because I like the shape of her nose.

But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can’t recall the shape of hers – or even if she had one. All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It’s weird.

“Yesterday on the street I passed the 100% girl,” I tell someone.

“Yeah?” he says. “Good-looking?”

“Not really.”

“Your favorite type, then?”

“I don’t know. I can’t seem to remember anything about her – the shape of her eyes or the size of her breasts.”

“Strange.”

“Yeah. Strange.”

“So anyhow,” he says, already bored, “what did you do? Talk to her? Follow her?”

“Nah. Just passed her on the street.”

She’s walking east to west, and I west to east. It’s a really nice April morning.

Wish I could talk to her. Half an hour would be plenty: just ask her about herself, tell her about myself, and – what I’d really like to do – explain to her the complexities of fate that have led to our passing each other on a side street in Harajuku on a beautiful April morning in 1981. This was something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets, like an antique clock build when peace filled the world.

After talking, we’d have lunch somewhere, maybe see a Woody Allen movie, stop by a hotel bar for cocktails. With any kind of luck, we might end up in bed.

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.

Now the distance between us has narrowed to fifteen yards.

How can I approach her? What should I say?

“Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a little conversation?”

Ridiculous. I’d sound like an insurance salesman.

“Pardon me, but would you happen to know if there is an all-night cleaners in the neighborhood?”

No, this is just as ridiculous. I’m not carrying any laundry, for one thing. Who’s going to buy a line like that?

Maybe the simple truth would do. “Good morning. You are the 100% perfect girl for me.”

No, she wouldn’t believe it. Or even if she did, she might not want to talk to me. Sorry, she could say, I might be the 100% perfect girl for you, but you’re not the 100% boy for me. It could happen. And if I found myself in that situation, I’d probably go to pieces. I’d never recover from the shock. I’m thirty-two, and that’s what growing older is all about.

We pass in front of a flower shop. A small, warm air mass touches my skin. The asphalt is damp, and I catch the scent of roses. I can’t bring myself to speak to her. She wears a white sweater, and in her right hand she holds a crisp white envelope lacking only a stamp. So: She’s written somebody a letter, maybe spent the whole night writing, to judge from the sleepy look in her eyes. The envelope could contain every secret she’s ever had.

I take a few more strides and turn: She’s lost in the crowd.

Now, of course, I know exactly what I should have said to her. It would have been a long speech, though, far too long for me to have delivered it properly. The ideas I come up with are never very practical.

Oh, well. It would have started “Once upon a time” and ended “A sad story, don’t you think?”

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.

One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.

“This is amazing,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you’re the 100% perfect girl for me.”

“And you,” she said to him, “are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I’d pictured you in every detail. It’s like a dream.”

They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It’s a miracle, a cosmic miracle.

As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one’s dreams to come true so easily?

And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, “Let’s test ourselves – just once. If we really are each other’s 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we’ll marry then and there. What do you think?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is exactly what we should do.”

And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.

The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other’s 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.

One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season’s terrible inluenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence’s piggy bank.

They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.

Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty.

One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, but along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in their chest. And they knew:

She is the 100% perfect girl for me.

He is the 100% perfect boy for me.

But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fourteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.

A sad story, don’t you think?

Yes, that’s it, that is what I should have said to her.

Pet Peeves (…or a few of my least favourite things)

I figure in the interest of full disclosure, I should let you know some of the things that bother me from day to day. Now let me preface this list by saying that it’s entirely possible you do one or maybe most of the things on this list, but that doesn’t mean I hate you or that I even don’t like you. The fact that you may do things that I consider pet peeves doesn’t make you a bad person per se, it just means you make shitty choices in life that will inevitably lead to personal injury or even death at the hands of someone with far less patience than myself. Now, these are some of the people that annoy me..

• People that use the term “guesstimate”.

• People that say “that was a good year”, after any transaction between $19 and $20.

• People that tuck their ponytails through their hats. It’s ok for porn directors, hippies, and first-year paedophiles, that’s it.

• People with overly lame personalized license plates. Yes, that means you, 2COOL4U.

• People who get on the bus and blast shitty music from their cellphones. As much as your lame, ‘too cheap to buy headphones’ ass may like your music, I have no desire to hear Lil’ Stabby or Baby Arsonist or whoever is popular this week.

• People who use the term “per se” incorrectly or more than once in a sitting

• People who wear wigs. Now before you bore me with why you lost it, you should embrace your baldness, be you male or female. Do you really expect me to believe you’re in your 70s with golden blonde hair and no split ends?

• People that cough and don’t cover their mouth.

• Anyone that says “no homo”. It’s not funny or informational. It’s stupid.

“I’m gonna text you later tonight. No homo.”

“We haven’t seen each other in a long time, let’s hang out. No homo.”

The very fact that you feel it necessary to say that makes you a homo. I don’t mean in the anal sex with men way, I mean in the douchey, get a life you fad-jumping loser, Kanye West kind of way.

• People that don’t know how to use their cellphones properly. i.e. Putting the phone to their ear to listen, then moving it in front of their mouths to speak, then moving it back to their ear when they’re done talking. You’ll also notice that in an almost all situations the people that do this are the kind of people that interrupt you and will not stop talking until they’ve said what they have to say. As if they can’t hear you, per se.

• Hypocrites

• Anyone that wears their pants lower than their ass. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older but this really looks stupid. I don’t mean hanging on your ass because even I’ve been known to do that from time to time in my youth. I mean lower than the ass, as in around the legs. What could be the purpose of this? Are you sponsored by Hanes? Are you tired of your farts being restrained by denim?

• People who pull up next to you when you’re at a bus stop and ask for an extra smoke. You have got to be kidding. You’re in a vehicle that costs a minimum of $10,000 and you’re asking me for a cigarette? Do I look like a drive-through? Get your cancer sticks the same way we all do… from an immigrant at a kiosk.

Subway Ride

I get on the subway and have not far to go so I opt out of sitting down. I lean against the glass beside the door stained with the grease from a sleeping persons scalp. Just then a lady gets up a few metres away and leaves her newspaper behind. The man adjacent to her notices and immediately looks around to see who else notices. He sees me looking at him looking at the newspaper. I don’t like him. I use minimalistic body language to show I’m not interested in it. ie. Looking out the window and turning my body away. Funnily enough, the same gesture I’d use to show I wasn’t interested in him sexually. Either way he gets the point.

He glances to his right and notices an elderly gentleman eyeing his coveted newspaper. So in an attempt to thwart the old man’s impending attempt, he gets up to grab it, but he was rushed into it… he didn’t think it through. He drops the lunch sitting in a Tupperware container on his lap. I think it had spaghetti in it, or it could have been rigatoni. He bends over slowly to pick it up, as if not wanting to aggravate a nagging back problem that’s crept up on him in his old age. Luckily the lid was on. Upon picking it up he doesn’t go for the paper but instead goes back to his seat. As if he didn’t want anybody to know he had dropped it in a daring attempt at newspaper retrieval. He looks around to see who saw, and I again look away so as not to embarrass him or myself.

So now our hero is back where he started. Sitting in his original seat with a Tupperware full of spaghetti/rigatoni that’s stained the inside in it’s tumble, and no closer to his prized newspaper than he was before. But I can see it in his eyes, he wants to try again. I want him to, not because I like him, I don’t. But because my dislike for the other old man that’s eyeing it is greater. Our hero’s right leg twitches, and I focus my attention on his upcoming second attempt. There he goes! This time however, he tries a sliding manoeuvre. One that keeps his butt on his seat, maybe for stability, I don’t know. But it’s about three feet out of his reach so he tries to move his other foot to get closer but it stops. He tries again and his foot doesn’t seem to follow his commands. It appears he’s somehow lodged his shoelace in the seat beside him. The way I see it he now has three options, either he removes his shoe and gets the paper with a sock exposed, he dislodges his shoelace and goes for it, or he once again abandons his attempt. He dislodges his shoelace but abandons his attempt, a fourth option I’ve overlooked in my zeal.

His second attempt has failed and a wave of sadness comes over me. All he wanted was the newspaper. No man.. nay.. no human being should be denied so simple a request. He looks up but this time I do not look away, our eyes meet and while he sees a tired but still good-looking black man, all I see in his eyes is defeat. A man dejected by life’s repeated tumbles and snags. A chime sounds, the subway doors open and I leave the subway car and the brave man with the Tupperware pasta. I was wrong before. I like him.

Confessions (…or things you didn’t know about me) Part 1

1. I download music, some of which is pop. I download pop, some of which is crap. I download crap, most of which is pop.
2. One time we were giving away a package with shampoo and hair gel at work, and I took one. Realizing it did nothing, I later threw out the gel.
3. Whenever I walk by a Cinnabon I slow down and inhale more than usual. Based on the length of time it takes me to walk past and the depth of my inhalations, I figure I’m inhaling about 5% or 16 cents worth. I calculated it, and if I go by the amount of times I’ve walked by, I owe them approximately $72. I’m sorry.
4. I sleep with my window open even though the air conditioning is on, potentially costing my parents tens of dollars a year.
5. I went to a wedding and spilled my tea on the back of a woman’s white dress. She didn’t feel it… I left.
6. When I’m at Best Buy I watch movies I don’t like on TVs I never paid for.
7. Last week I used a transfer on a bus that wasn’t on a connecting route.
8. Today I brought 12 items into the 11 items or less express lane at Price Choppers. After realizing my mistake, I hid my package of ham under my box of Shreddies until it was too late for them to refuse me service.
9. On two non-consecutive occasions I went into a Sephora for samples because I forgot my cologne at home.
10. Once, I walked in close proximity to a guy for 3 minutes because I liked the song he was playing on his iPod.
11. I theatre-hopped to watch the last Star Trek movie.
12. I love Star Trek.
13. One time at Milestones I dropped my fork and stepped on it by accident. When the waiter came around, I asked for another one because mine was dirty. He apologized and instead of explaining, I accepted his apology under false pretenses.
14. I like to use the sample MP3 players at electronics stores and when I’m done, I format them. So no one else can enjoy them.
15. Despite my many threats, I have in fact never opened any cans of actual whoop ass.
16. When I’m walking down the street, I spit my gum in sewer grates. No one can see it, but I know it’s there.
17. In highschool I got a flat top haircut exactly eight days after it went out of style.
18. a) Sometimes when people I don’t know ask me for cigarettes, I lie and tell them I don’t have any.
    b) If they persist, I point to someone walking in the opposite direction of me, and I say I got it from them.
19. I stole a poppy from Shoppers Drug Mart in 1997. Then in 1998, rather than buy a new one, I found and wore the same poppy I stole the year before.
20. One time I turned around and walked back a block and a half because I felt bad about a piece of trash I threw on the ground. When I got there, I couldn’t find it, so I picked up and threw out something else instead. If you were the one who threw out my garbage, thank you. If you were the one whose garbage I threw out, you’re welcome.
21. In grade seven I faked an interest in pelicans to talk to a girl who loved them. When she switched to flamingos, I quickly followed suit. But when she went back to pelicans I convinced myself she wasn’t worth it.
22. At the doctor’s office in June, I took two lollipops when there was a sign saying to take only one. To make things worse, they were intended for kids only. To make things worserester, I took the last two. It was like taking candy from a baby… and every other baby coming in after that.
23. The one and only time in my life I voted, I voted for the communist party.
24. The first time I was late paying my phone bill, Rogers called me to tell me I had an outstanding balance of $65. I thought they were complimenting me.
25. Contrary to popular belief, I have at no time in my life taken steroids. But after I had my wisdom teeth removed, I drank protein shakes for five days straight.