Hat-full of Hates

I don’t know why the color blue drew the short stick when emotions were being assigned to colors or why no one has ever disputed these meanings ascribed by who knows who to the otherwise ambiguous colors, but I’ve decided to not to comply with the widely accepted unchallenged idea that people are green with envy, red with rage, happy bright yellow personalities, or feeling the winter blues. Why not use chartreuse to describe envy or turquoise joy?  Studies have shown that humans see approximately 1,000 levels of light-dark, which means that the total number of colors we can see is about ten million. Ten million! (There is no valid source for this bit of information, I might as well have just made it up, but its shock value more than its accuracy is what I’m after here). Crayola alone boasts 133 colors in their crayon collection, and this is just in their standard collection which doesn’t include their gem-tones, silly scents, metallic, pearl brite, or glitter collections!  (none of which I had growing up by the way, where were these when I was a kid?)  We experience a myriad of moods and feelings within a single day, why limit their description to the primary colors red, blue, and yellow when you could use colors like Aureolin or Caput Mortuum to describe how you’re feeling (which, by the way, are  bona fide colors, the latter of which was a popular color used for painting the robes of religious figures and important personages, and the former bears all its coolness in the fact that it sounds like an Elvish name from Lord of the Rings)?  I mean, the color red has hundreds of variations, tones, and hues just as the feeling sad has several variations, levels, and intensities.  To cite a personal example, some days, usually out of nowhere and for no particular or rational reason, I feel extra sad, like the overwhelming drowning in it type of sad.  A simple ‘blue’ may not be quite enough to describe how I’m feeling, but Tyrian Purple on the other hand, with its rich deep intensity, is a closer match to my mood on these days.  Then there are other days when I feel very bland, not sad really, not happy or excited, nothing really sounds all that fun to do and I get annoyed or angry really easily and if I manage to muster up enough motivation get myself out of the apartment on these days, I walk around with a furrowed brow and corners of my mouth turned down into a frown, scowling.  Okay, I don’t actually scowl because it’s really a challenge for me to not smile at people, I mean I’ve tried, I’ve actually made a conscious effort before, you know, just to see how it felt, and I failed miserably.  Each attempt only lasted a nanosecond before I was betrayed by my zygomaticus muscles which turned upward at least one if not both corners of my mouth into a slight smile.  These particular days, these I-don’t-feel-like-doing-anything-everything-annoys-me-more –than-usual-and-I’m-smiling-at-you-only-because-I-physically-can’t-help-it days, are my grey days, just unexceptional flat grey.  It was on a particularly grey day that I decided it necessary, in order to keep balance in the universe, that I must follow up my list of loves from the previous post with an equal and opposing list of hates.  So if you are looking for some happy turquoise reading material, perhaps you ought to stop now, but if you feel up for a bit of cynicism heavily peppered with humor, forge ahead my friend.

1. I hate dead Christmas trees piled up on the sidewalk blocking the door to our apartment building.  When we came back from Israel it was as if while we were gone, a live reenactment of Macbeth had taken place and our street was Dunsinane castle bombarded by the tree-bearing Irish army and our front stoop was the spot where the order was given to throw down their leafy disguises.  If someone were to make a horror movie for Christmas trees this would be the ideal set, with slaughtered pine trees strewn throughout the streets, torn from their homes in the forest to be bedecked with kitschy ornaments and put on display in a small apartment in the city.  But after a few short days they adapt and accept their new fate and just when they begin to feel at peace in their new home, finding meaning in the joy their presence brings to others, they are torn yet again from that place after just a few short weeks once their purpose has been fulfilled and their presence no longer seasonally appropriate.  Once stripped of their twinkling lights and brightly-colored ornaments, their naked carcasses are lobbed, hurled, launched out the window into the gelid winter air.  They land with a thud on the cold hard pavement where they will remain, for at least a month, until one morning as I’m headed down the stairs of our apartment building, debating in my head whether I will squeeze past the tree this morning or attempt the more adventurous option and climb over it, I open the door to find a clear open path before me.  The trees had been taken away along with all evidence of their kidnapping (tree napping?), existence, death, and the season so heavily affiliated with their presence. 

I hate the dead Christmas trees littering the sidewalks, blocking our door and our walking paths, but I realized once they had gone that I loved how their presence made the Christmas season persist just a little longer.  Their absence is now a depressing reminder that Christmas is once again an entire year away.  And while I hated clambering over them, I did love how as I did so, the perfect smell of dried pine was the first scent to greet my nose each time I left the apartment, which was much preferred to the usual smell of smoke and poo.

2. I hate sitting on ice cold toilet seats.  Our toilet has been impractically placed in the entry room, inches from our front door, in a closet space too small to close the door while sitting on the toilet if you happen to be one of those people who has knees.  I’ve got out of the habit of shutting the door when I go into the bathroom, which is fine in our apartment where it’s just the two of us, but makes for slightly awkward situations anywhere else.  But it’s not the size that’s the issue here, it’s the algid porcelain which has daily contact with my bum that I hate.  While our front door and its three locks may be effective in keeping out burglars, it’s absolutely useless when it comes to keeping out cold air and keeping in the warm.  The only benefit to it is if you want to know how cold it is outside before actually going out, all you have to do is step into the entryway.  As a result of the “room” the toilet is in being cold, the toilet itself is also cold, very cold, and it makes going to the bathroom an activity I now associate with feelings of anxiety and dread.  It’s quite possible I come away from this winter in Budapest with a myriad of issues; constipation, bed-wetting, issues of that sort.  I think fondly on the days long ago as if from a dream, when I enjoyed the luxury of sitting groggily on the toilet each morning as I woke up and prepared to face the day.  I’ve come to the conclusion that chamber pots were not such a bad idea and I can’t say that if I was in possession of one, and was more confident in my ability to aim, I’d not jump at the opportunity to wee in it if it meant I wouldn’t have to subject my toasty fresh-out-of-bed cheeks to the frozen toilet seat in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning.  I really hate cold toilet seats, but had ours been located in a warmer part of the apartment, I may never have developed the rock hard quads I know possess as a direct result of doing the hover squat to avoid any skin/toilet contact.  So I guess there’s that. 

3. I hate that my bladder is equipped with a faulty GPS device which senses when it is close to home and decides prematurely that it is suddenly okay to relinquish all control.  There is no gradual increasing urgency that serves as a warning to me that I should quicken my pace; it’s just me, happily strolling along and then WHAM! like a punch to the gut it hits me.  I’ve got to go and I’ve got to go right now!  It fails to take into account the few extra meters until I reach the door to our building, forgets that I have yet to punch in the code, open the heavier-than-necessary door requiring me to tighten my abdominal muscles, causing them to press against my bladder increasing the urge to pee, climb the first flight of stairs to the elevator and either use the elevator if it’s already on the ground level and pray that no one else tries to get in there with me because that would mean I would either have to accept looking ridiculous in front of them or remove my hand which is now serving as a dam and the only thing keeping my pee from exiting my body, or I frantically climb the 4 flights of stairs to our apartment, pigeon-toed because for some unknown reason that position helps me not pee, pausing every now and then putting my kegel exercises to the ultimate test, to wait for the pee surges to subside before I can continue on, then upon finally reaching the top, attempt to unlock two sticky locks that often need to be jiggled just so, which one just simply cannot do whilst one hand is in disposed, and I am mincing about  on my toes doing the potty dance, all the while trying to be as discrete as possible in case our neighbors might come out their front door and spot me and my inability to exercise the control that most people learn by the age of three, mentally prepare myself for the afore-mentioned frigid toilet seat my poor bum and thighs are about to come in contact with (because hovering is not an option during times of urgency), throw off my backpack, and pull down my pants, which thank heavens do not require any fidgeting with buttons or unzipping of zippers seeing as how most of them are either too big and so just slide right off with a slight tug or are geniusly made with an elastic waistband.  It is an extremely stressful 60 seconds during which I experience an elevation in blood pressure an increase in heartrate and perspiration, all of which could be avoided if my bladder just wasn’t so overanxious.  However, the feeling of relief and relaxation that I experience once my bum is sat upon that icy porcelain throne, that feeling right there is so sublime that it almost makes the whole experience worth it. 

4. I hate dog poop on sidewalks!  I say this loudly with clenched fists and a stomped foot, much like a child throwing a tantrum.  Look, I know I’ve mentioned this one before but I encounter it every day multiple times a day and it’s one of those things that I never become inured to, it never gets less annoying with time.  I’d venture to say that it actually becomes more annoying with time because each time it has a personal encounter with your shoe you hate it even more.  And to be fair, when I mentioned it before, I didn’t include the element of rain.  Picture, if you will, a surprising amount of little brown piles, water dumping on them all day, never hard enough to wash them away mind you, but just enough to transform them from a fairly solid mass into a soggy runny substance that spreads itself over a significant portion of the sidewalk, making it even more difficult to evade, ensuring frequent contact with the shoes of unfortunate passersby.  So either equally or maybe even slightly more than the regular kind, I hate soggy dog poo.  However, as I was jogging down the sidewalk on such a drizzly day, I was pleasantly reminded of my blissful elementary school days when such things as recess, a designated time each day dedicated solely to playing, was not just a fantasy, but a beautiful reality during which I would find such simple joy in playing hopscotch with my friends, ponytails swinging as we skillfully hopped our way from box to box.

Next time: The hat isn't full until you have 10!  Hates continued!