Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot...

New Year's day. Another year is over. Who can believe it?

I'm not going to get too reflective here. People do that at New Year's and I get why, I just find it all a bit contrived.

Instead, a few quick highlights from 2004. I'll restrain from philosophical musings about them, just give it to you straight. Tonight at your own various celebrations, I'm sure you'll get your fill of drunken waxing poetic, so Beaches is gonna play it cool.

1. Crown and I bought a house. Shit. That's nuts. Enough said, really.

2. Scarb and the Dog got knocked up and as a result are about to give birth at any moment. In fact, those crazy kids managed to conceive the SAME week that I bought my place, hence completely overshadowing my own exciting milestone by about, well, a thousand times. Not that I'm complaining. I can't possibly imagine a greater gift to come from this past year. The promise of a new little person. It's too cool for school and I can't wait to meet him outside of the womb. Looks like the arrival of little Pecker is going to be one of the highlights for the approaching New Year. Despite my gut feeling that the little tyke would show up early, he seems to be hangin' on for a 2005 debut instead. Little cutie -- already pulling the wool over Auntie Beaches' eyes. Got to love him.

3. Dings got hitched and moved all the way across the country. The first half is exciting and the second half sucks butt. I miss her. The holidays were not the same without her. But she's happy and so I'm happy for her! It's amazing that she could take so many leaps of faith in one short, action-packed year.

Seems 2004 kinda had that affect on all of us. Leaps of faith. Let's make that the theme for 2004.

4. Commie retired. Now him and Moms are both well on their way to settling in for a life of leisure. They deserve it.

5. Weirdo got a new job that he really likes. For those of you who don't know Weirdo, you might think, "so what?" Is that really worthy of making the 2004 milestone list? For those of you who do know Weirdo, you're nodding your head and going, "uh huh, that's a good one." His new hours are whack though and as a result I'm seeing very little of him. That sucks because he is a huge part of my life and a person that I really truly like a lot.

This conveniently brings me to my New Year's day wrap up. The resolution. Mine's simple this year. Simple but, I think, profound at the same time. Here it goes:

Spend more time with people who I really, really like.

Sounds obvious, right? Wrong. Think about it carefully for a moment. Consider the people in your life who you not only love, not only care about, but genuinely really enjoy spending time with. Now think of the people that you actually see most of the time. Do the two correlate positively? If they do then you're already there. If they don't, then maybe your efforts are in the wrong place? For me, it's not that I'm spending a lot of time with people I don't like, it's only that I'm not spending ENOUGH time with the people that I do. So there you have it.

I'm going to make more of an effort to see my loved ones. More of an effort to build relationships with people that I really enjoy, but don't currently make enough time for. And just learn to appreciate the people around me who have something great to offer, not just to my life, but to the world.

Happy New Year everyone. Much love.

People Are Strange

The Doors got it right, folks, people are strange.

I for one really like strange people and for the most part find them entirely entertaining, if on occasion rather annoying. I'm the first to admit that I get annoyed by people quickly, but don't want anyone to mistake that for the fact that I'm not appreciating their utter bizarreness.

So to keep this short, I just had to get something down about this weirdo from my spinning class.

Just came back from class -- and there are a lot of odd fitness-weirdos at the gym, I could go on forever -- and this cycle-geek guy who is often in class with me was there.

He's always slightly annoying with his talk of bike races and off-roading and time trials and whole lot of other crap that I could care less about. This guy doesn't look like Lance Armstrong, either. Maybe I could let the super-cycle talk slide a bit if that were the case, but no.

Here's the weirdest part about Supercycle. He likes to SHOUT the name of the song that comes on (we spin to very loud music, which I assume is supposed to make you forget the fact that you are actually not doing something fun like dancing at a club with your friends) within 5 beats. I'm not just observing this fact, he has actually said to me, "I can name any song in the first five seconds that it plays."

So just imagine for a moment. You're tired, you're hot, you're sweaty and wondering why this damn class doesn't hurry up and end already. Now imagine that every time the song changes, lunatic bike-guy screams the name of the song out at the top of his lungs before it even starts.

"CRAZY IN LOVE - BEYONCE! HA!" he exclaims, clearly very proud of himself.

"LIKE A PRAYER - MADONNA! I love this one!" (He smiles and nods at you and hopes that you'll smile back and acknowledge that, yes, this is a great song.)

I love that song too. And often I'm compelled to sing along as I push myself through the class. Sure. But do I yell out in excitment in the first three seconds that it plays? Um. No.

So that's weird. But today his wacko behaviour really reached a new level. Today, not only did he yell out the song names. Not only did he nod and smile for approval. But he also decided to do the entire class... backwards.

That's right. No explanation. Just backwards cycling for an hour straight, all the while yelling and singing and nodding and smiling.

WEIRD. People are strange. But imagine for a moment how boring life would be without them?

Bootylicious

I like big butts and I can not lie.

Ok, I'm lying. A little bit. Because I don't like huge butts that are all jiggly and cottage-cheesey and mishapen. Does anyone really? I mean other than those weirdos who are into fat-chick pornos? No.

But the fact of the matter is, I do like a round, firm-yet-voluptuous bum, particularly on women.

(Sorry all you gotta-great-butt-guys, but when it comes to men I'm an eye-girl first and foremost. Hmmm... and abs... but I digress.)

I'm sure that my recent appreciation for booty is considerably due to the recent emergance of it's popularity in the entertainment industy, fashion world and other forms of mainstream media. Let's face it, a flat ass is on the outs.

Like it or not, everything that we like or dislike is influenced to some degree by the millions of messages, conscious or unconcious, that we are bombarded with every day. I don't care how subversive or cynical or "underground" you think you are. The messages are playing tricks on you, my friend.

Butt implants! A popular plastic surgery proceedure. If that doesn't say it all, I don't know what does.

I definitely have not always loved a big bum. In fact, I clearly remember the year that my own ample butt popped out of my twig-like pre-pubescent body. I was mortified.

Commie still likes to bring up the famous line that burst out of my 13-or-14-year-old mouth one day as I was checking myself out in the hallway mirror: "My ASS sticks out the fucking MOON!"

I probably weighed in at like a whopping 80 lbs or so at that time, so naturally he told me that I was being ridiculous, which of course I was. But my big ass had arrived and from that day forward my ass and I have been living the classic love/hate relationship.

Hate it when I'm trying on jeans, love it when it's adding some 'oomph' to a cute pair of lacy boy-cut panties.

What's the point of all this ass-talk you might ask? Basically I just think that when any woman -- short, tall, thin, fat, big-assed or small -- learns to love a part of their body, it's a big deal. It's a reason to celebrate. It's something we should talk about.

If you don't get that... then I'm sorry... but you ain't ready for this jelly.