HC with the win

So the new season of the Bachelorette has begun. I'm trying to fight this weird need I have to watch this damn show. But once again, I get sucked in, even though I said it at the end of Brad's season and I'll say it again - Ashley is incredibly annoying. And according to Tim, definitely not hot enough to get guys to watch the show.

My early fave is JP. I also liked the guy who had the guitar gimmick in the 1st episode, but she got rid of him. I originally liked William, but his dorkiness is killing my desire. There are a bunch of non-descript dark haired guys of whom I have no opinion on thus far. The dates, though have sucked. Eating dinner in the Bellagio fountain surrounded by screaming "fans?" No thanks. A random interpretive dance date? Yuck. And I don't even remember the last one, but I'm sure it was lame. HC didn't watch it with us last night, but she gets the quote of the episode in the BBM she sent me 15 minutes ago: "ABC is running the Guantanamo Bay of dating shows." Took me a minute, but I realized she was making a smart political reference to torture. So wise that one.

guilty feeling got no rhythm

Guilt - it's a tricky feeling. And one I find myself struggling with constantly. About lots of things and to varying degrees.

There are of course many different kinds of guilt. There’s harmless guilt, like the name of this blog, referring to songs that are so lame they’re good. There’s nagging guilt, as in “I shouldn’t have eaten that cookie” or “I should really go to the gym.” There’s guilt in a court of law, as in “we the jury find you guilty of murder.” There’s moral guilt, as in cheating on your spouse or plagiarizing an essay. And then there’s psychological guilt, which according to Freud (and Wikipedia), is "an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something that one believes one should not have done (or conversely, having not done something one believes one should have done)."

It’s this last one that is haunting me these days. For women my age, this type of guilt is most often associated with working mothers - when they're with their kids they feel guilty for not working and when they're at work they feel guilty about not spending enough time with their kids. Well I have no children, but I still feel guilty when I make decisions that I think might disappoint or negatively impact others. I easily forget the mantra “you can’t please all people all the time” and so when I try to in fact do this, I end up overextending myself, having to back out of a plan and then feeling guilty about reneging. So in this way it’s my own fault.

But in another way, it’s something I have no control over. As a single childless woman with a good but not overly cumbersome job, living in a perfectly manageable 800 sq foot condo, I don’t really have any responsibilities beyond myself. So sometimes it makes it tough to figure out what my main priorities should be – Friends? Family? Job? Favourite activities? Decorating? The gym? Fashion? Food? Myself? When I choose one over the other why does it feel so bad? And then, when my friends’ and family's priorities are ordered differently than mine, and I choose one of mine over one of theirs, which I know might disappoint them, once again I end up feeling shitty.

One of the easiest ways to answer this of course should be - do what makes you happy. Life is too short … (fill in the blank here – to drink cheap wine, to read a bad book, to watch from the sidelines, and so on and so forth). Sadly it’s hard to live that way. In fact, living without guilt effectively means that you are a psychopath, something I don’t think anyone should really be aiming for. But a blog post like this one from Derek Miller does help to put things into perspective. I think what I should try to do is whenever I feel guilty (like really guilty, not the eating a cookie guilty) is to re-read the “Here it is, I’m dead” post and work on letting go of the guilt. It's really the least I can do. Check back with me soon and I’ll let you know how it goes.

And yes, the title of this post does refer to the classic Wham! song "Careless Whisper." When I googled the term "guilty feeling got no rhythm," imagine my surprise when I found out the actual words are "guilty feet have got no rhythm." Turns out I have been signing this song incorrectly for 25 years. This of course only adds to my enjoyment of it! In case you forgot how awesome George Michael was back in the day, I implore you to take a look:

april 29th to may 3rd

Sorry for my absenteeism. I have absolutely no excuse, except that I don’t have much to say these days. I really don’t have anything exciting to report about what has been going on in my life. I continue to be obsessed with the royal wedding, even though it’s over. I think because they gave us a tiny little peak into what is usually an intimate event (i.e. a wedding) and so now I want to be given access to everything else. Plus I love hats. And Prince Harry. SS and I watched together – I stayed over at her house, we set the alarm for 3 am MST, watched the event whilst eating homemade (by SS) scones and clotted cream and drinking mimosas. We watched the ceremony and the carriage ride and then went back to bed around 5:30. Got up again at 9 am and then I re-watched to see what I had missed the previous time, including the double-kiss on the balcony. Here is the scene the couch at approximately 4:20 am.

The afternoon of the wedding, I headed off to Vancouver in search of some greenery and warmth. After the craptastic weather we’ve been having in lovely YYC, I decided a tropical vacation was in order. Unfortunately my wallet only allowed me to get as far as Vancouver. But it was definitely warmer there it I had a very relaxing weekend with KM that consisted of beer, sushi, a ferry ride, burgers, wine, hockey, trivial pursuit and brunch.

Then I came back to two equally dramatic, but very different deaths; those of Osama bin Laden and the Liberal Party of Canada. Both were felled by sneak attacks – the first was killed by a team of NavySeals, while the latter was dealt a death blow by a man with a moustache and a cane. The only positive thing I can say about the election is that at least the Bloc Quebecois now has fewer seats than my car. Beyond that, I should probably refrain from talking about the results as this post could easily devolve into a crazed rant that I don’t really have the time or the energy for. That said, I did enjoy the conversations I had both during and after the election with 2 of my BOFs. What’s a BOF you ask? It’s a Boyfriend-Of-Friend. Knowing that I am political junkie, the male companions of both CG and HC decided to get in touch. Sadly both of them were satisfied, and in HC’s young man’s case downright giddy, with the results. You know what they say - you can pick your friends and you can pick your boyfriends, but you can’t pick your friends’ boyfriends. Although with team dating, we do our darndest. More on that later.