old post written last weekend

I want to be a better person.

Yes, that’s right, I have reached a turning point that is rare in modern life. In this world where everyone is perfectly, deeply content with themselves just as they are, I realize that I am going into uncharted territory here.

Step one on my list: Stop using sarcasm as a communicative style.

Obviously no one doesn’t want to improve him- or herself. In this Sunday’s paper—this is the West Hawaii Today we’re talking about—I counted five ads for dubious ‘dermatologically-affiliated’ offices offering Botox, Restalyne (Restylane?), microdermabrasion, glycolic peels, and everything else short of complete facial transplants. I admit I was paying extra attention because on Saturday, I had my eyebrows “shaped” (i.e., ripped from the follicles with hard blue wax), wax which was apparently a little too hot, because I now have an angry red mark between my brows, and another splotch in the arch of my right eyebrow.

Point is, everyone is out to look better, and I am not immune to such perversions. But I want to be a better person. One who is opposed to such things as waxing for reasons political, ecological, and of personal integrity. One who, after being burned by hot wax, refuses to go out and purchase expensive cosmetics in a vain attempt to cover the scars, but instead wears them proudly to remind herself that vanity is ugly. One who doesn’t buy clothes from the new fall J.Crew catalog, no matter how flattering the “new classic fit” cords promise to be, because of who might have woven them, how much gas it will take to ship them, and how much good could be done with the $79.50 it would take to buy a pair of them. One who wears, instead, jeans bordering on Mom-waisted, enduring the ridicule of both her high school students and her high school-mentality-having peers whom she feels sneering at her when she goes out to dinner. Oh, also, one who doesn’t go out to dinner.

I want to be a martyr.

No, just kidding. Sarcasm again! I just want to achieve the following, and preferably before the end of the month:

1. Eat a balanced diet full of leafy greens, darkly-colored fruits (instead of the apples that all the magazines say are nutritional duds) and thick porridges of whole grains. Return comfort foods like cinnamon grahams, Kraft singles and frozen burritos to their once-a-lifetime, guilt-inducing status. Only eat macaroni and cheese if it’s made of cashew-cheese and spelt-seaweed pasta.
2. Take a moment to breathe deeply and meditate when I feel the urge to growl, wail, or thrash at Ben for whatever reason it may be that day (I’ve found another dead bug in the kitchen, he left a wet towel crumpled in the spare bedroom, he thought it would be funny to put a can of corned beef under my pillow).
3. Stop fantasizing about horrible fates that will befall my students a few years from now, causing them to think, "I sure wish I'd listened to Ms. Mussy instead of ignoring her lessons as my (now-multiple-child-bearing, still unable to speak proper English) friends and I tried to best each others' stories of copious pot smoking!"
4. Cut out this bitterness thing.