Don't you ever feel, once you've reached a certain age, that nothing surprises you anymore? Every movie you see is just another version of a movie you've already seen, every person you meet is just like someone you used to know, every government election promises change - but nothing changes.

And chances are the banal icons of what pop culture would deem romance have lost their potency through decades of overuse. Do you really want someone giving you red roses and chocolates in a heart-shaped box? Wouldn't you think, upon receiving these gifts, "oh how lovely and cliched."

And even within your relationships, particularly long-term ones, don't you know exactly how your partner is going to behave when he or she thinks they are being romantic? How many doors to you need held open for you?

I like to think of romance as being like a child, when the world was still amazing. When, instead of the red roses, or a bottle of the perfume that you always wear, your partner can surprise you with the depth of their knowledge about you. Give you the unexpected.

(I recently celebrated a minor anniversary with my partner, and the next morning I woke up and all I could think about was how thirsty I was, when in walked my partner with a huge glass of water. Don't judge me. My partner had noticed that I'd failed to bring the water bottle that I carry everywhere, and had brought me exactly what I wanted. It was a lovely moment, because it was unexpected.)

And I think that's the point. Red roses, French restaurants, they can all be damned. Surprise me.

I'm not entirely sure if I understand the concept of boredom. I lead an extremely busy life, and lack of downtime annoys the crap out of me. But I understand, during those few moments of respite, I resent that this time should be considered a luxury, and hence can't relax or focus on any relaxing activities - this could be misconstrued as boredom. I understand, while at work or at study, being required to attend to activities that are less than engaging with no alternative but to endure them. This could be misconstrued as boredom.


Boredom has been defined by C. D. Fisher in terms of its central psychological processes: “an unpleasant, transient affective state in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest in and difficulty concentrating on the current activity." Frankly, I would define that as a "lack of imagination."

Since boredom is inherently defined by a lack of interest in something occuring outside oneself, I think boredom is less of a state of being and more an indictment of someone else. YOU are boring me. Boredom is not something that one invites, it is something that someone else forces on them. But you don't have to give in to it.


I remember being tricked into attending a sales convention, a company along the lines of Amway. Instead of beating my chest and tearing at my hair, I decided to count the number of times they pushed purchasing their motivational tapes and upcoming weekend seminar. The totals were 32 and 51 respectively. I remember working in a cafe that had very little business. I spent my time composing hilarious poems about people: "Life isn't easy when you're as ugly as me..." I remember writing an essay about what constitutes a soul, during a very dull lecture on copyright law.

But this is not about me. I'm not holding myself up as someone special, someone who has a "rich imagination." I just want to point out... if you experience something that you identify as boredom, look for the real culprit. SOMEONE is uninteresting, and therefore SOMEONE does not deserve your interest. Nor do they deserve to ruin your day, by having you become irritated at how disinterested you are. So take yourself somewhere else. Spend the time considering things you don't normally have the space to consider.

Failing that, booze helps.

the average person eats 8 spiders in their sleep during their lifetime... I hope someone out there is eating spiders for fun to cover my share

Wikipaedia is bursting with information about spiders. Fear of spiders can be viewed as a fear of bisexuality. Finding a spider on your clothes is good luck. Keep daddylonglegs in your house as they eat huntsmen. Dreaming of spiders represents money coming your way. Where is the entry on how to live a life avoiding such creatures.

Spiders are sneaky. They will sneak through the smallest gap and appear next to your face when you wake in the morning. They will defy your most expensive insect repellents and wait for you in the shower. They perch like sone gargoyles in the corner of your room until provoked, then move with mind-numbing speed. They hunt. They bite. Mostly they're just creepy.

My confrontations with spiders have been heroic and in epic proportions. From my earliest memories, bolting underneath a mammoth spider in my doorway ro alert my parents to the danger; to squashing a spider with my bare hand that threatened to frighten the driver of the car I was in; to filling the garage with poisonous gas so that the hundereds of baby spiders hanging down from the peaked ceiling wouldn't murder my poor defenceless cat; which brings me to my preferred method of arachnocide.


If I have discovered a spider in my midst, I need to be standing over its desecrated remains before I am satisfied. The spider can not be allowed to escape, for fear of where on earth it could be lurking, waiting to get me. It needs to be quarantined, then destroyed. Unfortunately, my fear of spiders extends to touching them, or touching anything that touches them. My favourite method of destruction is if someone else will turn them into a smudge on my wall, then clean off said smudge. As I live alone, this option is often unavailable to me. So with hairspray in one hand and flyspray in the other, creeping against the walls, silently so as not to startle the intruder, then let loose with a triumphant warcry, and let loose with both ammuntions. The spider, dying slowly from the flyspray, but unable to escape because of the hairspray, curls into a ball a safe four feet from from me. After watching it for awhile, I'll cover it with a cup and let it sit there, as spiders can fake death for up to eight days, A month later, I'll throw our the cup, the spider, and anything else I used to collect the dead thing, and then glory in my heroism...