I just be who I be, am what you aren't.

Sex is a rather funny topic. And I mean funny as in weird.

Particularly when you’re a simple-minded child.

One of the earliest instances I remember of said simple-mindedness was when I was 3 (or was I 4? WHATEVER) and I went up to my parents and asked them a very logical question.

Their response to that was laughing in my face, thus destroying any sense of professionalism that my question had to begin with.

Being a naïve child, I laughed as well, thinking that they were laughing with me.

As time passed, I began to wonder how babies were made – and thus thought I had an infallible theory, which I stuck to when I was having a playground conversation with Keegan in grade 5.

But then, my theory led to slight paranoia down the road.

However, this crisis (along with many others) was averted as of grade 7, during sex ed class.

5 things which the app ‘Draw Something’ has taught me about myself.

#5. NEVER play it if you should be doing an assignment, or something else of high importance.

“Just one round with Lynnette… it shouldn’t hurt – right?” That one round with Lynette turns into 15 more rounds with Greg, Mahnoor, Tom, Sean, Nem, Lia, Claire, Hemon, Beatriz, Ahmed, Daisy, Jazmyne, Adrian, Max, and Jordan. It also doesn’t help when you have one friend who you can tell has the finest artistic skills known to man – and thus takes 10 minutes or so to draw something as simple as a garage (but decides to add detail to the entire house before working on the garage itself).

#4. It’s a desperate (yet very effective) conversation starter.

Instead of “yeah, my sister just had a baby!” or “I got SOOOOO shitfaced last night, and…”, people these days could potentially be talking about “Haha that house you drew kind of resembled a penis!” or “Really? You didn’t draw anything, but used WORDS as a drawing?” (Well excuse ME for not being able to draw the colour WHITE on a WHITE surface – YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!)

#3. Losing a current streak feels worse than death itself, and makes you want to give up on anything and everything imaginable.

“OH MY GOD! I CAN’T BELIEVE I JUST KILLED OUR 27-GAME STREAK! I’M SO SORRY FOR BEING SUCH A FAILURE AT LIFE! I DON’T DESERVE TO BE YOUR FRIEND ANY LONGER!” That grey background that pops up, and sends you back to round 1 – it feels rather demeaning, if not DEHUMANIZING. In either case, I can no longer give anybody high fives without remembering the fact that I can’t even guess the damn word ‘highfive’. I might as well switch to strictly hugging everybody from this day on.

#2. Low Battery: 20% of battery remaining.

Before this app, I forgot that my iPod touch had a shitty lifespan, and always needed to be on ‘life support’ (a.k.a. ALWAYS PLUGGED INTO MY COMPUTER). This would suck even more when I would have Wi-Fi, but no computer or outlet to plug it in to, yet craved drawing something for people to reply to an hour or so from now.

#1. I have the artistic skills of a two year old child on crack.

Music is a Wonderful Drug #2:

I love music. It puts you in the perfect place, no matter where you listen to it.

…Then again, so was spontaneity.

Remember my last blog being about hesitation? If not, find it here. 

Either way, if above all else, I was a VERY spontaneous kid. The only thing that kept me alive had to be whether or not I acted upon the endless impulses that popped up in my head.

One rather spontaneous moment (which lacked all sorts of common sense) had to have been when I was 9 (man, grade 4 was an INTERESTING year of my life, to say the least.) I remember that I was sitting at my desk, when all of a sudden, my pencil dropped and I seemed to have misplaced it.

I looked all over my work area, and found out that it ended up falling behind my chair.

Now, the thing about chairs in Elementary school – they were those plastic chairs, with the big holes in the back (possibly to easily ventilate whenever a kid farted, so that everyone could bask in it?)

Well, I got on my knees, and reached around my chair to grab my pencil – and before I realized what I was doing, I thought it would be a smart idea to stick my head through the hole in the back of the chair.

Thing was, I underestimated the size of my big head.

As you may have guessed by this point, my head was stuck in the chair. As much as I pulled, it wasn’t coming out at all.

The only way out I saw was going down to the office, and getting it sawed off my head. (Now that I think about it – WHY IN THE FUCK WOULD AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL HAVE A SAW IN THE MAIN OFFICE?)

I noticed that there was a group of girls in my class sitting nearby, so I tried calling out for them quietly.

One of them picked up on it.

But instead of helping me out, she almost peed herself laughing.

Then the rest of the group of girls almost peed themselves laughing.

The assistant teacher (the same one who questioned everything I did in life back then) saw the predicament; she wasn’t surprised that I managed to get myself into such a situation.

 All she did was come over to me, pull EXTREMELY FUCKING HARD on the chair, and managed to get my head out.

In the end, THANK GOD we also had a supply teacher that day; I could do with less embarrassment knowing that my absent teacher probably would have told my parents. (They still don’t know to this day.)

Hesitation was a big aspect in my life.

As most of you may know, that’s DEFINITELY no longer a problem today (which has led to some interesting turnouts); but, back when I was a child, I not only THOUGHT of what consequences an action could entail, but also how the consequences were to change if I were to wait 5 minutes to perform it.

One prime example was when I first moved to Newmarket – I was 8, and my younger sister’s godmother (I think she’s 80 now? Or did my mom say 70? I CAN’T REMEMBER) drove us over to my dad’s new gas station (the reason we moved to Newmarket).

THAT THING HAD A FUCKING CARWASH TUNNEL.

I was so excited when we were about to drive up and enter it; Once we entered it, it was like a magical, watery and soapy world to ADVENTURE.

That adventure turned to nightmare once I noticed that I left my window open a bit.

For some reason, I never really liked getting my clothes wet – maybe because it feels so uncomfortable. Either way, I knew that was imminent if I didn’t put the window up.

At this age, cars still had those fucking impossible-to-turn handles, and I was so upset by the fact that my sister’s godmother didn’t have a car with the window button.

And I wasn’t willing to take a risk touching that thing, since I’ve NEVER turned it in the proper direction on the first try.

Thus, I had no choice but to hit my personal panic button.

Too bad that being a momma’s boy back in the day, it was connected to hers as well.

Good news – the car was clean.

Bad news – so was the inside of the window, door, and my lap.

Little did I expect to end up working there 5 years later.

Music is a Wonderful Drug #1:

While walking down the street, I really want to break out and just dance my ass off to whatever song is playing on my ipod. The only reason I don’t is because I’m afraid of smacking someone in the face with my flailing arms. So I just walk to the beat, and apply a bit of swag to my step. (But not too much.)

I’ve come close to death a few times in my life.

I’m sure some of you read this and think “…So what? So have I.” That’s great – make your own story about it then. ANYWAYS, One of the times I thought I was surest to die had to have been during the summer of transitioning between grade 4/5 – I was part of the Newmarket  Soccer House league division, and my team went to celebrate our final game of the playoffs at one of my teammate’s house.

He had a pool. I didn’t know how to swim at the time. AT ALL. As in I would sink like a rock if I were to go to the deep end of the pool.

So, I was left standing in the shallow end whilst most of my teammates were splashing around and gallivanting in the deep end.

A wild inner tube appears!

So I chased it.

BIG mistake.

Yeah, that son of a bitch floated to the deep end, and my simple mind was too occupied to realize I was running right to my impending doom, until I crossed the point of no return – that slippery steep slope that one cannot get a proper step on, especially in bare feet.

Since going back to the shallow end wasn’t an option, I only had two options left: grab on to the closest person and risk bringing them underwater with me, or bob up and down screaming for help.

I was hesitant on the latter, since I didn’t want to sound like a bitch. But, I was running out of breath, thus had no choice.

The parents surely reacted, but not fast enough – so it was time for the OTHER possible option.

What made it awkward though was that he was the host of the pool party.

Thus, my dad and his mom fucking BOLTED to the deep end and fished us out frantically.

I didn’t want to look or talk to anyone; although my belly was full of chlorinated water, all I could really do was eat my panic, sorrow and anxiety away. So I stuck by the platter of vegetables and dip, for the rest of the party.

Then, when we went home, I ran to my room, dug my face into my pillow, and cried like a bitch.

…Man, that was depressing.

You know those times…

…when you’re walking ANYWHERE, and either you’re part of (or you see) a situation in which somebody’s standing in the way of someone else?

You’d think that that’s all there is to it – but I have a feeling that deep down, person A is thinking:

On the other hand, person B must be thinking:

Human nature. It sure is a funny thing.

I was a REALLY paranoid child, back in the day. (and clueless)

For instance, at one point (the age of 7, to be precise), I was unsure as to whether I was truly a boy. That sort of predicament freaked me right the fuck out, particularly since I liked doing whatever boys did at the age of 7.

…Even though I could have probably solved said predicament WAY sooner by remembering that I have a penis.

Apart from that, I kept asking myself questions, such as “what if my parents have been lying to me? Even worse – what if I’m a girl, and nobody told me and I only THINK I’m a boy?”

Instead of asking my parents, I only made things worse for myself by keeping it to myself, and trying to go on some sort of self-searching pilgrimage, to find out the true answer.

The search ended one day in my grade 2 class, when my teacher, Ms. Bonnah (is that how it’s spelled? Either way, she was also my teacher for both junior and senior kindergarten as well – but not grade 1, since I was in Ghana at the time POINTLESS INFORMATION ASIDE) asked a question and I put up my hand to answer it. I can’t remember the question nor my response, so I’ll just simply make one up here.

After that, she said something about my response being very good, and she was speaking to the rest of the class, when she referred to me as a key word, which will end my pilgrimage:

Once she referred to me as that magical word, I knew. My face lit up as if I just found the key to the world’s biggest and deepest secrets like you would see in Assassin’s Creed, or some shit.

To this day, I’m still somewhat unable to put 2 and 2 together. I think it’s a disease that my sister and I suffer. We’ll blame our dad for this one.