Once upon a time, I was a Miss Grumpy Pants. And on weekend mornings, while most people puttered around getting dressed and making breakfast and checking their e-mail , I would lie in bed in my pajamas, reading Maclean’s Magazine and despairing  over the state of the world. I landed myself  in (and often sought out) exhausting arguments over the issues that were troubling me (I was on my junior high’s debate team, yo) and berated those who refused to engage for “not caring”.

It should not be surprising that this situation was not sustainable. I have recently had to pull myself out of a pit of gloom and crankypants behaviour. My Maclean’s subscription, however, and my overwhelming need to have an outlet for my despair (and for the things in the world that do excite me and fill me with hope), remain.

In the inevitable period of self-reflection that has followed, I have realized three things. Thing One, I need something to occupy my mind, and make use of the brains that have been growing lazier and lazier since I finished my undergrad. Thing Two, spending the day in my pajamas and refusing to leave my bed because the world makes me sad is not helpful to anyone, and the only way my whining could be construed as slightly beneficial to the world is if it is presented in a structured and (hopefully) well-thought-out manner. To address Thing One and Thing Two, I decided that I might like to take a crack at blogging. For a 24-year-old I am ridiculously technologically inept, and if I don’t hop on a computer now and use it to do more then check my e-mail and watch the Rick Mercer Report, I might never know how to use one again.

My decision to try writing a blog, however, brought me around to realizing Thing Three: I am not cool. Not at all. You’ve probably realized that by now what with my Maclean’s subscription and my obsession with Rick Mercer. And it seems like the best blogs out there written by people my age are, well, written by cool people. Or at least people whose lives seem pretty cool. Or, if they are not cool they are ridiculously hilarious and that’s just as good as being cool. And I’m not. I’m a lot of nice things, and I do think I’m a pretty nifty lady at times, but cool? Sadly, no.

One only has to look at my East Van apartment for proof. In anyone else’s hands it would be a cool apartment. Filled with my things, however, it is “nifty”. As in, “Hey, those are nifty salt and pepper shakers.” Or, “I like your jellyfish toothbrush cup. Nifty.” Continue your investigation of my apartment  and you will eventually find a closet full of mostly boring clothes which I accent with nifty accessories. I have some nifty shirts. My underpants are nifty. Nothing is cool. I don’t deliberately try to be uncool, but it seems that I simply don’t notice that something is cool or that a trend has begun until it’s so entrenched in everyday fashion that my mom is wearing it and at that point obviously it’s not cool anymore.

I wondered what to do about Thing Three. I quickly dismissed the idea that maybe I could try to be cool.  Any attempts I’ve ever made at becoming cool have ended in misery and with me owning an article of clothing or a CD I have no idea what to do with. I’m not especially thick-skinned and I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to blog on the power of nifty-ness alone. So what to do?

Stuff it, I’m writing a blog and just warning you ahead of time that while I’ll try to do a good job of it it will never be cool. If you don’t mind, I don’t mind. Onwards!

At this point you are probably thinking, “Okay, I got the ‘whine’ part [’cause I’m a whiner–get it?] but where is the cheese?”

There isn’t any. I lied. Sorry.