Monday 7 March 2011

How to Observe a Bee

When you spot a bee in the garden, do not simply let him be. A bee has much to teach you. Bees have learned how to work diligently whilst being wonderfully free. To be a bee is to be free. Observe, and imitate their rotund buoyancy and busy manoeuvres with your body. Wonder to yourself if "buzz" is the secret to getting to roll around in flowers as a career. Perhaps they're trying to tell us.

Pass this message on.

Tell your co-workers "buzz."

Tell your boss "buzz."

Find someone named Jillian, and tell her "buzz."

Upon realizing that buzzing is not the secret, and admitting to yourself that you have no idea how to enjoy a life that is both playful and productive, return to the spot where you first saw that bee. Crawl through the garden, brushing up against the flowers. Collect glorious pollen on your clothes, in your hair, and up your most allergic crevasse. You cannot make honey with this pollen, it's true. But after nuzzling enough flowers, and dirtying yourself thoroughly, you might feel a bit happy.

Calvin

My friend Calvin came over today. I showed him my blog. He seemed unimpressed.

At least I think he was unimpressed. It's difficult to tell with musicians, even with a musician who happens to be your best friend. He plays auxiliary percussion in Lapdog Tyranny and succumbed to the blasé attitude of the rest of the band. I only write this, Calvin, because I'm sure you're not going to bother reading my blog again. If you do, I take it back.
 
However, my passion is steadfast. I will change the world with my words. Just watch.

Saturday 5 March 2011

How to Polish Your Shoes

Buy a Ferret.

Bond with your ferret until a tender trust develops. Coo at your ferret and feed it nice foods. Take your new ferret (perhaps his name is Bruce), and buff him vigorously against your dullest shoes. If he indicates that this is not enjoyable for him, and gazes at you with sad eyes, buy a hamster. Bond with your hamster, and explore whether this critter (perhaps his name is Megan) is more suitable to shining shoes.

Within weeks, your life will be filled with furry creatures, and your shoes will sparkle with soft love.

Friday 4 March 2011

How to Choose a Scarf

A scarf warms, wraps, hold your head fondly in its hands. A good scarf will take care of you and hide you. You are safe inside it. Safe and warm.

Find colours that make you think fondly of the earth, or remind you of slow walks in dim light. Choose one from the many, even if there are hundreds like it. Name the scarf. Give it a name worthy of a dear friend. Tell it two secrets. This is your scarf.

There is no other scarf like your scarf. Sleep with it beside your face, and weep into it. It will weep back, and you will know the depths of scarf love.

Valuable Service

Today I closed a deal to supply a large new office building with bathroom fixtures. They wanted to go with the Textique Chrome series, a good choice. I suggested they swap the soap dispenser that come standard for the 855s. The Textique series leaks. The 855s don't.

I feel valuable on days like this. Future strangers will experience a public washroom without goopy pink Savoneur-Type-6 on the counters. Soap will come out onto their hands, then stop. They won't know that my concern for them has improved their lives. I feel valuable, yes. Valuable, but not fulfilled.

I long for the sort of fulfillment that will let me drift away into a long deep sleep. This blog, perhaps, can bring me that.

Wednesday 2 March 2011

How to Brush Your Teeth

Fold a sheet of newspaper into a sailor hat, and put it on your head. Lie in the bathtub, toothbrush in hand, feet in the air.

Begin brushing. Small circles. Hum songs about the sea, call the ceiling captain, and allow minty froth to explore your cheeks and seep into your hair. Once every tooth is clean, and once your mouth is overtaken with glorious explosions of freshness, slobber for a moment in silence. Kick your legs.


When the moment is just right, burst into the most enthusiastic sea shanty you can muster.

Eventually, rinse.

Tuesday 1 March 2011

How to Ride the Bus

First, you must contribute several minutes of effort to the economy, and receive payment for your time.

Put the dollars you've earned in your pocket, and stride to the bus stop to wait. Arms loosely dangling, draw pictures of mollusks in the air with your elbows until the bus arrives.


Climb aboard in once swift movement.* Drop your payment in the slot, and provide the driver a sprig of fresh lavender. Keep enough lavender for all necessary transfers.

You may be tempted at this point to roll on the floor reciting poetry or entertaining your fellow passengers with a barracuda impression. Though these do indeed seem like worthwhile pursuits, the bus require a subtle approach. Overwhelming your busing companions with such acts would accurately express your wild devotion to living with glorious fervour, but may also deeply irritate them. This is a situation where softer acts are appropriate. You want to let them know the deep joy of a life lived strangely without making their bland sensibilities ache. Some examples:

-Stick all the petals of a flower up your nose.
-Write "this is the happy seat" with a marker on your seat so that all who sit there know.
-Take cards out of your wallet and press them into your face, leaving backwards robot-numbers on your skin.
-Reenact all of the hand gestures performed by Buster Keaton in the film Sherlock Jr.



*Note: if you are not well bathed, skip this step and return home. Present your fellow bus-riders with only the most pleasing of aromas.

Monday 28 February 2011

How to Draw a Sailboat

Step 1: Draw 18 things that are not sailboats.
Step 2: Draw a sailboat.

Sunday 27 February 2011

How to Comb your Hair

Stick a small comb into your pubic hair so it stays. If you don't have pubic hair, grow some. If The comb doesn't stay, grow some more.

Stand on top of a barrel with a pickle and a toothpick, comb still affixed to your genital area. Eat the pickle. Pick pickle out of your teeth with the toothpick. Consider using the toothpick for a comb. As a comb, the toothpick would prove rewarding. Wood feels pleasing to the scalp, and tedium allows for a satisfied soul. But then, the toothpick has been tainted with pickle teeth. No. Discard the toothpick into the open mouth of a sea otter. If no sea otter is available, name your trash can Miranda and throw it in there instead.

Having now dabbled in hair combing foreplay, and having discovered that potential hair combing implements are undesirable when tainted with pickle teeth, retrieve the comb from its pubic entanglement. Blow on it, setting all stray pubic hairs free.

Retrieve a hula hoop. Begin combing as you hula. After running the comb through your hair four times, run the teeth of the comb against your own teeth twice. Repeat this until you have set your hair straight.

Look deeply into the mirror, and tell yourself that you are a magnificent ox. Sturdy and straight. Bow.

Saturday 26 February 2011

How to Sigh

It is time to learn how to properly let out a sigh. The ideal sigh should be filled with an illogical combination of acceptance, longing, and regret. A sigh should last only a moment whilst suggesting a poignant epoch.

First you must buy a plane ticket for somewhere warm and coastal. Fly there, and explore the beaches until you find a purple sea urchin. Photograph this urchin, and return home. Get your photograph printed and attach this photograph to your fridge. Stand with your hands on your hips and admire the moment of urchin. Breathe in deeply through your nose, and exhale a throaty helpless noise lost in a sea of air.

Publishing

Though writing helpful instructions for you is an endeavor I'm excited about and uniquely skilled for, I do not care to have my work published. Publishers want to tell the world things it already knows, or things that cannot possibly be true. My work, as you can see, consists of truths no one seems to know.

Friday 25 February 2011

How to Scratch an Itch

When an itch lets itself be known, assure the affected area that this situation will soon to be satisfied.

Take an unboiled egg from the fridge, and roll it gently on the itchy skin. Roll until the egg is warm. Roll harder, until it cracks.

Collect the gooey inside of egg, and smear it onto your belly. Allow the shell to tumble away. Form the egg goo into the shape of a timid bunny. Convince your belly bunny to tell you a riddle.

Once you have solved the riddle, dip your finger into the yolkiest part of the bunny. Touch the finger to each toe.

You may wish, at this point, to wash the egg off. Use a sponge if you do. If not, call whoever in your life is nearest to a mother, and tell that person about a beautiful flower you once saw in the springtime.

Thursday 24 February 2011

Requests

Feel free to comment below any entry with a request for a how-to. If there is a task in your life that lacks the depth of experience and love you desire, allow me to help.

Wednesday 23 February 2011

How to Cure Hiccups

Should a self-diagnosis find that you are ridden with hiccups, prepare to relieve yourself of this nuisance with these safe and efficient steps.

Step 1: With tweezers, begin plucking out the hairs around your left nipple. This is necessary even if you are a lady with sparse translucent hairs on your chest.

Step 2: When a one inch radius of left-nipple-hairlessness has been achieved, sit down beside an broken rake and meditate for two minutes.

Step 3: Stand, and pluck all of the hairs around your right nipple. The goal, once more, is a one-inch radius.

Step 4: Talk to your feet about sauces.

Congratulations! You are now hiccup-free.

Tuesday 22 February 2011

How to Eat a Peanut Butter Sandwich

The following can be adapted to include such substances as jelly and banana.

Sit naked on the floor with your legs outstretched, a loaf of bread and jar of peanut butter within reach. Lean forward, explore your flexibility. Lean further, bending your knees if you must, and lick whatever part of your legs your mouth comes into contact with first.

Open the jar of peanut butter, scoop out your desired amount with your hand, and smear it on your leg where you licked. Take one piece of bread, and press it into the peanut butter so that it sticks.

This next step is best performed with a maraca in each hand. If you do not have maracas, busy your hands with objects of similar percussive qualities.

While your hands keep an upbeat rhythm, lean into your leg sandwich and begin munching upon it. Stay close, being sure to catch any crumbs with your tongue. Remember to notice the smell, as well as the sensations on your leg.

Lick your leg clean, repeat as necessary.

Sunday 20 February 2011

Doing it Wrong

As I sat in the lunchroom today observing my coworkers, I noticed something. This thought swirling around my mind finally became clear - they're doing it wrong.

We, us human animals, are performing even the simplest tasks incorrectly.

Susan, a gargantuan woman who talks endlessly about how little she eats, dipped her spoon into her yogurt, and brought it to her face. She put the spoon in her mouth, and the yogurt disappeared. She repeated this movement, while watching and listening to Todd complain about a customer. Susan sat still, in what I suppose was a comfortable slouch, as Todd talked between mouthfuls of sandwich. Others crossed or uncrossed their legs, scratched itches, chewed food, worked on crosswords, and interacted with each other. All of the time they behaved in ways that we have collectively deemed to be correct.

Six of my coworkers lunched as I watched. They varied from moderately content to intensely frustrated. This is the range of emotions I observe each day in the grey world of Mainstay Building Supplies, Ltd. This is the range of emotions I observe everywhere.

It's quite the time. We can go anywhere, do anything, learn anything. Our endless options leave us miserable. The choice is not enough. Freedom is not enough. We must learn how to use our freedom, our endless options, correctly.

This blog will serve as an instruction manual. By stumbling upon it, you have become open to learning how to get it done right.

Saturday 19 February 2011

How to Drink a Bottle of Gin

Drinking a bottle of gin properly requires a willingness to enter states of intertwined mania and despair and to perform acts otherwise unfathomable. Here you will be guided through this experience.

Step confidently into the liquor store of your choice. Linger here and there within it, and when the moment is right, dedicate yourself to the gin section. Select a bottle, allowing the choice to come from deep within you, knowing that the contents of this bottle shall be the source of joys and tears. Select a large bottle, a bottle that will be with you for a long while. Know that this substance will exist inside and change you. Gin becomes you and beckons you to a land of slippery freedom. Tenderness. Feel tenderness.

Pay for your gin, and compliment the cashier. The cashier has eyelashes, no doubt. Start with the eyelashes.

You may want to purchase mix. Tonic water, a jar of olives for dirtying and garnishing martinis or some variety of juice. How the gin gets inside you is not of concern here. Do it in a way that brings you joy, and makes you feel like the sort of person you've always wanted to be. Make sure it gets inside at a pleasant pace, not to harm you.

Do not consume the entire bottle in one day. One bottle should last through many days, and many episodes of the intense experience of solitude.

When that first dizzying jolt of tipsy strikes, play with it. As if this moment is your very first time drinking. Stand up. Sit down. Spin. Revel in the joy of this newly poisoned brain. This step is difficult for those concerned with maintaining a cool nonchalance.

Pass from tipsy to drunk. Sit in silence. Listen to yourself.

On certain occasions, you will tell you to dance. Stand up, twirl, leap over the furniture, laugh, tenderize yourselves with bruises from every corner of your home.

Other days, you will find yourself wandering to the bath, where you will weep naked and alone in the empty tub.

Drink drink drink.

If you have trouble finding the inspiration to reach the heights of surreal patheticness that drinking a bottle of gin demands, try one of the following scenarios:

1. Explain to your couch everything you know about wax. Wax dolls. Beeswax candles. Wax seals. Wax on, wax off. When you are certain that your couch understands wax, lay down on the floor and weep beside it. Weep to live in a world that has such beautiful things as wax within it. Weep to know so much, and so little, about wax. Put your pinky finger to your nipple when you are done.

2. Set up all the chairs in your home in a row, and lie down across them face-down, with a bunch of old bananas as a pillow. Smell the decay and ponder jousting.

3. Crawl around the floor, much like an aged cat, and explore the nooks of your abode. Open low cupboards, empty them, and try to fit yourself inside. When faced with a cupboard that you could not possibly fit inside, try harder. Languish in defeat or success. If you wake up the next morning inside a cupboard, know that you have succeeded.