"Things I Have Learned Thus Far in 2010"

I ain't even gonna lie, folks. To date, 2010 has used a big-assed pair of pliers to peel back my eyelids and force me to examine reality more intently than I have in quite some time.

Including nearly the exact moment that this image was captured. It was right outside of Nation Centre on January 15th, near some spirited concrete tossing between protesters and passersby, during a riot over the jailing of a Muslim cleric. In a way, I'm glad a staff photoprapher caught me playing Citizen Journalist, because it documents the last such time I will ever be THIS big of a puredee fool.

That's because if you refer back to the photo accompanying my last blog post, you'll see a chunk of the aforementioned concrete on the ground near my right foot. It was not unlike another piece of concrete that sailed through the air, landed about a foot from where I stood and ricocheted directly into my left ankle. I'm fine, except for a big ugly scab on that ankle and a bit of lingering soreness...and the occasional disquieting reverie about what might have ensued if my skull had broken that concrete missile's angle of descent.

This incident taught me one of the most imortant lessons of my entire life. When people in a developing country with a recent history of dramatic civil unrest tell you to keep your ig'nint butt inside when there's a fracas going on outside, you had best heed their advice. Nothing will ever make me this curious again.

Onward to lesson Number 2, for which there is a merciful lack of photographic evidence. It's based on something I've experienced about a myriad times through the years, with invariably painful results. Long story short, when a man wants you, you can have spinach in your decaying teeth, a smelly, greasy hair weave and be 40 pounds overweight, but he will walk over broken glass to get at you. But if a man is NOT interested in you, you can be wearing the sluttiest lingerie ever produced by Victoria's Secret, have long silken REAL tresses and the tiniest waist coupled with the biggest, perkiest, natural boobs ever birthed, and he still won't take the bait. That's an extremely metaphorical way of saying that I finally saw the light about yet another pointless quest for male attention I was about to plunge head-first into. The relief mixed with pride I felt over pulling myself from the precipice was surpassed only by the prolonged funk that accompanied my wondering when the HELL I would ever find somebody willing to put forth half that much effort for me.

Lesson Number 3 involved the intrinsic mothering instinct that made me go out of my way to extend a dinner invitation to someone who showed up 2 and a half hours late with no apology and no explanation. Now, this shocking lack of social grace wasn't about cultural differences or language barriers. This was about me extending a hand to a fellow American who I thought might benefit from networking with some of the other expat friends who'd be at the party. When he was an hour late, I said, "Well, maybe he's stuck in traffic. Let's start eating." When he was 2 hours late, I thought "Gosh, I hope he hasn't been involved in an accident or something!" When he called after 2 hours and 10 minutes and said he'd be there in 20 minutes, it took all the will I could summon to keep from suggesting he go eff himself instead of showing up at my door.

But home training won out, and I even managed not to blow a fuse when that knock came, thinking he would at least apologize when I opened the door. Nope. Just breezed on in and sat on down. It was at that exact moment that I wished I'd salvaged one of my mother's perfectly seasoned cast-iron skillets, because I would have chased his ass down two flights of stairs if I'd had it in my possession. Lacking that handy culinary implement, and stymied by the presence of 7 witnesses, I warmed up a plate for him and spent the next few hours rolling my eyes and biting my tongue.

That incident added to the list of people I never again have to fool with in my life, which is getting shorter and grayer by the minute due to the growing list of people who truly don't seem to give a flying fig about how their actions affect other people! But the good news is that once you show your ass to me, I don't need to see it twice.

I could go on, but those are the major lessons the Universe has imparted thus far in 2010. I'm not so naive as to ignore the possibility that these episodes will be pre-school fodder compared to what might lay in store. But I'm ready for whatevuh. After all, I managed to dodge a rather concrete finish just 11 short days ago.