Given me an A

Some of you may not be aware of my new self-improvement project. It's a valiant undertaking I've recently started. The journey will not be a simple one, the effort great, the road difficult and long. And yet, I embark upon my odyssey with great hope and look towards the future with a optimistic eye. I am confident that one day in the distant future I will acheive my goal. What, you may ask, is the great feat that lies before me? I can condense it into a single word my friends. Yes, what I quest for may be summed within a mere three syllables:

Awesomeness.

Yes that's right. I am training myself to be awesome. Nothing more, nothing less, than pure unadultered awesome. And once finished when I walk out of a room people will say of me, "Wow. She's... awesome."

As the number 42 has shown us, knowing what question to ask is half the battle of finding the answer. I assumed by this logic that figuring out what exactly the fundamentals of becoming awesome would entail would then also lead me far along my quest in its name. I think that what I've discovered, at least as far as my own definition of people who are awesome is concerned, is that the sum of one's awe is generally the product of a series of random and suprising occurance all converging upon one person. Quid pro quo, the path to awesomedom is individual for each being that seeks to bask within its glory. I detail below my own plan, but keep in mind, to follow it exactly for yourself will acheive nothing but the idolization of my particular awesome. Not, let me repeat, not your own.

We start simple. I believe the fundamental key to awesomeness is defying convention and the general (read boring) expectations one has of you. So, we have to examine some of the usual stereotypes that one might have if they were to take a look at a person like myself. To many, I would appear to be female. This is in fact true. I would tend to say that among the male sector of the human population there is a general conception that women drink things that taste like candy: melons, cherries, oranges. As such I have decided to forgo any but the most manly of alcohols. If I'm going to imbibe it, it better be clear or brown and have no pansy-ass soda or ice. Thanks to Bob and Barbara's (15th and South) City Wide Special I am now more than happy to drink a shot of whisky and a PBR in rapid succesion, for a mere $3 I might add. Non-girly drinker, check. The dive bar earns extra points.

Another general attribute of awesomeness is knowing people that you would never be expected to know. In the case of a liberal rather Nordic looking 20 something, a group of elder South Philly Italian guys does quite nicely. I can't count the number of times I've said hello to a series of such gentlemen on the street and had someone look at me with that face of "And why do you know all these random guys on 9th Street? What exactly do you do to be on friendly terms with so very many of them?" The Di Bruno clan has done wonders for my social esoteric factor. I mean, how many of you can claim to know a guy named Johnny Smiles?

I also believe that random knowledge is key to a state of awesomeness. Given that because I still have a wealth of useless chemistry floating around somewhere in my brain (that other major finally comes in handy) I felt quite capable of commenting on the various oxidation states of Nitrogen and Sulfur and as such should head towards the more humanities side of learning. Thus, I resurrect my desire to learn Russian. Because really, anyone who's awesome should know a language that is not useful in a general life setting but possibly life-saving if launched into a Communist spy-laden country. I pondered a dialect of Mandarin but since I already have the Russian books, we'll stick with what we've started. The alphabet has been mastered and I already know the phrases "Your suitcases have stayed behind in Washington." and "Where is Red Square, please?" So really, I'm like three quarters there.

Finally, I think that to truly be awesome, in the words of the great Napoleon Dynamite, you need some "awesome skills." A skill, I thought. I knit, I cook, I do theatre. But, from the look of me, none of these past times are skills that would be terribly suprising if I told you that I did them. You might be impressed with the level of aptitude at said skill but none of them would make you say, "Come on. You don't really do that." So after much pondering I figured white girl and ass kicking tend not to go together so something in that vein would be my best bet.

The test then would be to come up with a method of ass kicking that would be original. I have no desire to go where Joss Whedon and Buffy have gone before me. Hand to hand combat, any form of martial art then was out. I thought maybe a skill that could conceivably be a sport separate from maiming an attacker would come in handy because I could practice without the aid of an actual intruder. Bow and arrows were a little too "Robin Hood" for my taste and whips and chains were far too much in the dominatrix category for them to have unqualified cool factor. Anything using long blades is too Shakespeare "stage combat"y and the various asian weapons seem a bit fetishistic.

So. What I finally came to was knife throwing. I am just going to have to learn to throw knives. And learn to do it really really well. I've found them online relatively inexpensively. And not a lot of formal training it would appear is needed to begin the amatuer knive thrower. An awful lot of practice it seems is all one needs. So I just need to figure out where I can throw my knives and I'm off.

So there are my humble beginnings. I know I will find more things I must take up alongside these as I make my way towards ultimate awesomedom. But ever formerly un-awesome awesome person had to start somewhere. I can only promise to inform you as I ascend to my higher state of being.