The Chantastic Blog

Actual quote from an MSN conversation I was having: “I miss you….I miss having you around.”

Everybody likes being wanted. In this case, unfortunately, the quote was from…one of my buddies back home.

Sigh.

Throw in how I’m organizing get-togethers which I’m actually referring to as “Man Dates” when I go home for the holidays, and it seems I’ve got way too many bromances going on in my life.

My friends Stephe, Cobra, Jimbo, and Catalina have known each other for years. One of the things we always do is start unbelievably long e-mail chains where we reply all extremely frequently. How frequent? Here’s what my inbox looks like after an initial e-mail about going to a Raptors game. After a couple of e-mails, the topic changed to our new mutual obsession: the awesomeness that is Jersey Shore.

Note how everything stops right after 8 PM. That’s when Jersey Shore began (my e-mail account isn’t set to Eastern Standard Time and I don’t know how to fix it), and we decided that we needed a running live chat on MSN to discuss the show as it unfolded.

Isn’t it great to see technology being put to such constructive use?

Remember when I noticed a while back that someone from school had de-friended me on Facebook? Well, it’s happened again, and again I found out when I clicked on that person’s name, only to discover that I indeed had been removed from the person’s list of friends. This de-friending is much less confusing to me than the first one, as I have a pretty good idea why it happened. Everybody at school initially adds each other on Facebook in the rush to meet everyone, but after a year and a half you discover that you don’t have much in common with some of the people you added. Some people feel more strongly about this than others, hence the need for some to start de-friending. I’m completely fine with this, and to be honest, I’m rather intrigued by the whole de-friending process because I now see an opportunity to amuse myself. To make things extremely awkward for the other person, I think I’m going to go out of my way to talk to people who have de-friended me.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been asked by three different people whether I’ve lost weight. Honestly, I have no idea because I never weigh myself. However, it does make sense because my pants have been rather loose. Of course, my infamous refusal to wear belts is making things rather awkward, as that leaves me hiking my pants up all the time. If I’m walking around with my hands in my pocket, it’s not because I want to - it’s because I’m using my hands to keep my pants up.

A four week stint in Edmonton eating my mom’s famous home cookin’ should fatten me up pretty good, however.

Speaking of which, I’ve been told by my friends Maritimes and Pussycats that they’ve enjoyed the recent Betty stories. Here’s another classic Betty anecdote:

My mom, being a typical mom, always asks me what I want to eat when I go home to visit, knowing that I haven’t eaten her cookin’ for a while. The other day, as part of my classic procrastination during exams, I decided to e-mail her a list of things I wanted her to cook for me (by the way, it’s not really being spoiled when I know I’m being spoiled and appreciate that fact - this is what I’ve convinced myself, anyway). But me being the idiot that I am and looking for ways to avoid studying, I also included a list of things I didn’t want to eat, a list of things for her to do (including fixing the broken zipper on my pants), and a list of things I want her to buy so I can bring them back to Toronto.

For some reason, I forgot that this was Betty I was dealing with. Her response to my e-mail? To send me a list of tasks that she wanted me to do when I came back to Edmonton, which wound up being about twice as long as my list.

I can’t act like I didn’t deserve it, because I totally did. Well played, Betty, well played.

I’m currently 27 years old. The thing is, I don’t act like a 27-year-old. If you know me at all, you know this to be absolutely true.

You see, half the time, I act like I’m 40. I don’t feel the need to go out often - I’m perfectly comfortable staying at home on a Friday or Saturday night. If I go out, I’m much more comfortable in a casual pub than a club. I am notoriously cheap careful with my money. Often, I think people younger than me are naive and immature. I have no desire to have flings or one-night stands. More and more, I find myself thinking, “I’m too old for this” or “When I was that age, it wasn’t like that”. I don’t have the same ability to stay up late, or to operate on little sleep. I wear clothes to feel comfy, not to look good. I rarely get angry, but often feel disappointment (A recent “House” quote: “Disappointment is a coward’s anger.” Hearing that was…disappointing.). Women confuse me.

The other half, I act like I’m 14. I love celebrity gossip. I watch horrifically bad reality TV. I’m chronically late for everything, to the point where my friends understand the term “Chan Standard Time” and are surprised when I only show up 10 minutes late. I still idolize my hero from when I was 14. My favorite artists are more targeted towards this age (who’s free on February 9th, by the way?). Blowing things completely out of proportion is one of the things I do best. I quickly become obsessed with things I’ve discovered (new TV shows, games, celebrities, etc.), and then will quickly become un-obsessed. The “Family Guy” chicken fights are hilarious to me. I’m more than willing to start a one-sided feud with someone who annoys me. I’ve turned procrastination of homework or studying into an art. Girls confuse me.

I never act like I’m 27 since I spend half my time behaving like a 40-year-old, and the other half like a 14-year-old. Yet what’s the average of 40 and 14? Why, it’s 27…so maybe I do act like I’m 27 after all.

I have a 25-page law paper and a final slide deck project due next week. I haven’t started writing either, so I’m obviously concerned. Given that my exams ended on Friday and a big party for school was also happening on Friday, I decided it would probably be a good idea if I didn’t go.

So I promised myself I wouldn’t go out on Friday night.

But then I was told that people would be going early to have dinner. Opening my fridge, I saw that I didn’t have many options for food, and I wasn’t going to do any work on Friday night anyway. I might as well go and grab a quick bite to eat, mingle for a bit, and then go home. Drinking probably wasn’t a good idea since I never sleep well afterwards, and I’d want my brain functioning optimally to work on those two projects.

So I promised myself I wouldn’t drink at dinner.

But then at the pub, everybody else who was already there were at least one or two drinks deep. Keep in mind, it was 7:30 when we arrived. Then everybody at my table ordered alcohol to go with their meal, and next thing I know, our table is doing shots, and I’m actively volunteering to do Jägerbombs (it was probably fortunate that this never came to fruition). But I figure that if I go home early, the alcohol will wear off and I’ll be able to sleep well enough to work on my paper the next day.

So I promised myself that I would leave by 11 PM.

But then people kept on asking me why I didn’t have a drink, so I went to get another rum and coke. This, of course, is a bad idea, since my Asian-driven limit is 2.5 drinks, and if I do the math (drink at dinner + shot + another rum and coke = 3), it doesn’t work out in my favor. Throw in how I only slept for 4 hours the night before, and this is really not a good idea. I eventually get home, look at the clock, and it reads 1:27. I really need to work tomorrow instead of slumming around.

So I promised myself that I wouldn’t procrastinate the next morning.

Right now, it’s 12:30 PM, I’ve been up for three hours, I’m still in my pajamas, and the only productive things I’ve done are think about what I’m going to have for lunch, plan my afternoon nap, and write this blog post…

Yet another e-mail exchange with my mom. This time, I ask her to book an appointment with my dentist for me when I return home for the holidays. As you’ll see below, I’m not exactly a morning person, which everyone who has ever dealt with me knows.