Adventures in the Café

2007-04-08T22:22:00.000-04:00

Crash - A Movie Review

I finally saw Crash a couple of weeks ago. It's possible I was the only one who hadn't seen it yet. I completely agree with other critics that this was a very important, and dare I say? poignant, look at race relations in Los Angeles. Tempers run high, misunderstanding and violence run rampant, relationships are tested again and again. When finally the movie ended I felt drained and even a little despondent. Will we never get along? Will Los Angeles always be such a hotbed of churning emotions and violence? But more than that I want to know why people will INSIST on buying Lincoln Navigators when they're so clearly dangerous!

Yes, it's true, while this movie is making a very strong statement about racism (ie, it's bad) this movie is also about the danger and problems inherent in buying this larger-than-life SUV. I know, I've been there.

Ocasionally my job requires that I travel to exciting and exotic destinations. Two years ago I was sent to the wilds of New Brunswick to do a pharmaceutical speaker tour. I would fly into Fredericton, rent a car, and then we'd do a road show from Fredericton, to Saint John, and then end up in Moncton. I was to rent a mini-van.

I arrived, and having never rented a car before, was a little nervous. The kind gentleman (read=teenager) who was helping me informed me that I couldn't have the mini-van.

"What do you mean?" I asked haughtily, every inch the professional Torontonian business-woman. "I require a mini-van. We have lots of meeting materials, and three people and their belongings." Plus, and I couldn't have known this at the time, we would also have a very smelly, totally thrashed hitchiker to pick up outside of Saint John.

"The van's in the shop." He replied. "But don't worry, we are going to complimentarily upgrade you!"

He was so excited, and this did sound like a good thing. Upgrade means better, right? Plus, I'm a naturally acquiesing kind of a girl, so I wanted him to like me and be happy.

"Okay, what is it?"

"It's a Lincoln Navigator. Just give us a moment and we'll bring it out for you."

So I waited. Finally a scruffy man approached me and said, "Navigator?"

'Brevity is the soul of wit.'

"That's me! How will I recognize it? I've never driven in a Navigator"

"You can't miss it; parked outside at the meters. Haveaniceday."

I thanked him and hauled my many packages out into the parking lot. The greater Fredericton Airport is not large. I turned to the right and my jaw dropped in, what I imagine was, a comical fashion. There was only one vehicle parked at the meters. It was huge, I didn't even come up to the top of the tire. Large cars, or semis, intimidate me. I drove a very compact car, at that time (a Tercel) and I aspire to a SMART car. This was WAY beyond the scope of what I was used to. I thought about going back in and asking for something smaller, but I wasn't sure how much of an option that was. The van being in the shop, and all.

I opened the trunk and manoevred my heavy luggage inside, then I tried to get into the driver's seat, which involved a lot more climbing than I was used to. It was massive. There were so many buttons, I had no idea what did what. Another reason I decided to keep the damn thing was that there had been flooding in New Brunswick that sping, and I figured this thing could handle pretty much everything. Including moose, which had been crossing the highways a lot at that time. A Navigator could reduce a moose to terrine without revving past 1000.

I hated driving it. I felt so stupid. I couldn't figure out how to work anything. I got to a toll bridge and it took five minutes to figure out how to roll down the window. It beeped when you backed up and it approached something, it cost over $100.00 bucks to fill it up with gas. It was just so embarassing.

In Crash, the Navigator is a popular target for carjackers, and so obviously, between my experience and this movie, no one should own one of these monstrosities! Really, it's a public service sort of a thing.

2006-08-31T15:39:00.000-04:00

Parenting 101:
First Lesson: Drug Your Children

We were sitting around talking about being tired, and talking about being sick and what worked when you were. Val and his friend were saying that if they worked several 12 hour days in a row and felt tired they would sit around watching TV and drinking Neo-Citran waiting to see who would fall asleep first.

This prompted Matthew to tell a story about this girl who was in med school and was sick and having trouble sleeping, but hadn't really heard of or tried Neo-Citran. Her classmates told her how great it was and how she should try it. It didn't taste bad, but kind of lemony, and as they described it to her she said, "Why, that sounds like Christmas lemonade!"

Her very astute parents gave her and her siblings "Christmas lemonade" in lieu of eggnog every Xmas eve and thus assured themselves a long restful night, with a sensible wake up time Xmas day. And you can bet no creatures were coughing or sniffling either!

2006-08-09T16:28:00.000-04:00

For Love of the Pole

A lot of craziness has been done in the name of bachelorette parties, and this was no exception. Steph is getting married on August 12th and I, and another co-worker, were invited to the bachelorette.

We were asked to arrive at 6:30 for some pre-drinking before our bus would take us downtown to some clubs. At 7:00 pm there was going to be "an activity." That turned out to be introductory pole dancing lessons. Just what any young suburban woman needs to learn before getting shit-faced and out clubbing.

Since I arrived late I waited and watched the other girls practice the routine while I drank wine and dreaded my own turn. It didn't look too difficult, and the girls seemed to be having a good time. I laughed when Natalie told me that she crawled headfirst into the couch during her turn. Then the instructor turned to me and said that rather than trying to teach me all of the last routine she'd get me to do a new one. I got the first part okay, but when it came time to "fling my left leg around the pole and then go down it like a fireman" (go down like a fireman. Really?) I fell a little short of the mark.

Actually, I pulled the detachable pole away from the ceiling and crashed spectacularly to the floor. The pole hit the large, new television, and my head hit the very solid subwoofer. I lay on the floor, quite stunned and deciding whether or not I needed to cry. All I could remember was that Eddie Murphy sketch where his Aunt Bunny kept falling down the stairs and his mother would say "Go get your Aunt Bunny a towel: she's fallen down the stairs again." The other girls at the party were staring at me and looking horrified. Probably also happy that they weren't clutzy old me.

"Get her some water!"
"Get her some ice!"

Sweet mother of pearl, get her her wine and let her slink off to the corner to be mortified. My God that was embarassing. A few drinks later, however, all was well and everyone was congratulating me for being such a good sport. Apparently I'd missed the safety demonstration where our instructor urged us to "go easy on the pole." Ding Dong!

Won't the boy be surprised when I do a sexy strip tease for him? He'll be even MORE surprised when I end the routine by rendering myself unconscious!

I learned something about myself that night. Something important about limits and about my place in the world. About what it means to be a stripper in this harsh and demanding world - the dedication, the artistry, the physical demands, the bruises and bits of skull and hair left behind at your friends' house. Yes, I learned something all right.

Sadly, because of the concussion, I can't remember what it is...

2006-04-11T22:08:00.000-04:00

Veronica Mars was so good tonight, I really didn't want it to end. There are only four episodes left this season and I'm really starting to consider looking for spoilers to find out why whoever it was crashed the bus. It has to be Steve Gutenberg, though, it's always the famous person. It was last season with Lily Kane's killer.

That was a good rule of thumb for Law and Order too, always the famous guest star. Why else appear on the show if you can't be the criminal. It's more fun to be bad.

So, obviously I'm leading this full, rich life because of all the TV I'm watching and writing about. Perhaps it's time to play outside, or find real life people to interract with. Feel like you've been missing a lot since I haven't been writing? Not so much.

Since we've gotten movie channels I don't watch TV shows now, just movies, but this month it's been a real suckfest. Despite this, if I'm really trying to avoid doing something productive I will watch Ice Princess. I've now seen it more than once, though not from start to finish.

Because I'm following a new fitness rule, though, this TV gluttony should come down to a reasonable level. One article suggested that you get an hour of TV per half hour of exercise you do. It's only been two days, but I'm two for two.

Since last I wrote I've been doing any number of different diets. I've done Weight Watchers online, which always fell apart on the weekends. I've started the Curves Six Week Solution, which I lost interest in after week two, and most recently I've tried the South Beach Diet. It really is true about these fad diets, though, if you aren't into the food it's very difficult to keep on it. Of them all, and now I'm in a position to make this statement, Weight Watchers was the best because it lets you work with the food you want, as apposed to dictating what you should eat. There are meal suggestions, there are tons of recipes, but it's up to you as long as you fit into the Points allowance.

Anyway, last time I was weighed I'd lost three pounds, which is pretty good, but for the length of time I've been dieting it's actually pretty crappy. The problem is not being able to stick with any of these plans because of a lack of will power. I know that this is pathetic, and probably very telling, but it's really hard to give up alcohol. I don't want to, I LIKE beer, and ditto for wine. I don't want to be told that I can't or shouldn't have them. If I want to have drinks on Weight Watchers I pretty much have to give up eating anything that day, and no treats at all that week. Despite that, I'm thinking of doing it again and really sticking to it this time. I think I could do better this time.

What have all of you been up to? Anyone still visit to see if I'm writing? I sure hope so.

2006-01-03T20:50:00.000-05:00

At the Movies

I came home recently and my brother Matthew said, "Have you seen Wolf Creek?" To which I responded I hadn't, but was about to say that I thought it looked interesting and I was thinking of it when he said "because we just saw a review by Ebert and Roeper that says 'if anyone you know says they want to see it: don't know that person.'" Oh dear. Things haven't been tense in the house since I admitted I'd been considering this movie. Wanting isn't the same as doing, after all. Matthew did look at me askance when I said I thought the preview looked neat. But I mean, really, sometimes you need to see these movies and it doesn't make you a bad person.

Unless....

Remember when Seven came out? I was in my first year of university and we all went as a group to see it. I was sitting next to a guy we called Grimsby and he was VERY excited to see this movie. I spent a certain amount of the movie with my face buried in his flanel covered arm while he poo-pooed me for being "such a girl." After watching that movie I vowed never to see another horror movie. I didn't see what the point was of making these movies. More than that, I couldn't understand what sort of person could plan and write this story, obtain funding, and then see the project through to completion. I would only watch critically aclaimed, well-respected, or at least benign fare.

That was until the Blair Witch Project.

I was so upset during the Blair Witch Project. It was all the things I was most scared of: being lost, in the woods, in the dark, being hunted....Glah. It still creeps me out just to think of it. I almost started to cry because I just wanted it to be over so I could stop being scared. Boyfriend of the time asked if I wanted to leave if I was so upset, but he just didn't understand. If I didn't watch the end of the movie it wouldn't be over and then the Blair Witch would know and come and eat me. I had to sleep with my light on for a week after that and vowed never to watch anything but Disney movies from then on.

And now Wolf Creek. Ebert's review is pretty scathing. He really hated this movie and shows little to no respect for anyone who would want to see it. I still don't know a lot about the movie, just that some people go backpacking in the Outback and bad things happen to them. Bummer.

I guess no one really needs to see a movie where a bunch of sexy teens are eviscerated by a vermin-shootin' maniac. My imagination likely draws a more graphic portrait of what happens to them anyway....Matthew please don't shun me!

Val used to work at a drug store in Mississauga and there was this one woman he worked with who said she took her kids to see Seven. Both kids were under ten. She said she really liked the movie, but that her kids "were scared shitless."

OMG! I just had an epiphany, we need to not support or watch these movies because of mouth-breathers like that woman who obviously don't have enough sense to keep their children from watching the "sloth sin." Hronk.

2005-09-07T19:44:00.000-04:00

Regifting

Has it happened to you? Chances are it has; you might have known it, but then again you might not have. A girl in my office just received a set of glasses as an engagement gift that she's sure was regifted. This spawned our whole conversation about the issue, and about what's allowed and what isn't.

She's sure that the girl who gave the glasses to her only did because she had received them earlier and didn't like them enough to keep them. "After all, she just got married. She's bound to have tons of stuff to get rid of." That's fair enough. Even when registering, you'll always end up with a certain amount of godawful crap that is so shameful you wouldn't even visit it upon the poor. My sister-in-law received no less than four garishly painted chip and dip platters. Also this weird tapestry-style blanket with two bears all dressed up, and it was personalized. Lucky for her, two of the platters are seasonal, so she doesn't have to worry about having too many - a platter for every occcasion. Yay!

I've regifted. For decency's sake I've tried to keep it to liquor, 'cause no one minds getting booze. When I was a student I think I might've batted an eye if someone gave me a screw-top bottle of wine, but by the end of the night I would have chugged it straight from the bottle even if it had had a rat and a syringe in it.

Recently I broke my own rule and regifted a picture frame at a wedding shower. Question. Does it still count as regifting if the item in question was never actually given to me as a gift? My father won it at some sort of curling event and they would never have used it, so my mother suggested I take it to an approaching bridal shower. I rationalized the decision by reminding myself that the bride had some similar looking picture frames in her house and that I was paying a crapload to fly to Nova Scotia for the wedding. Besides, who wouldn't want a series of frames attached together like a carousel? It screams class. Or maybe it screamed "cheap ass." It was sort of hard to hear above the noise of the hen party.

I suspect that my uncle and aunt were the victims of regifting when they received a very odd cake topper. First of all, who buys someone a cake topper? Aside from one's wedding, when are you likely to need a cake topper? Hands? That's right, never. It sits on their hutch looking like an odd bit of sculpture you can't quite wrap your mind around, until you go a little closer and realize it is in fact two crystal swans kissing; their bodies sculpted in such a way so as to make them heart-shaped. Aw, how craptacular. They keep it around as a conversation piece and you can frequently hear party guests asking each other where Terry and Dianne put the statue of those "two fucking swans." They aren't named that just 'cause they hate them, either.

The rules for re-gifting should be simple and as follows:

Don't give anyone anything you wouldn't give to the poor
Don't give anyone anything you'd be too embarassed to have in a yard sale
Don't give anyone used clothing as a major gift (if you're hanging out and you mention a sweater you have that doesn't fit, but you think might fit your girlfriend, fine, but if you wore it for a month, chunked out, and then wrap it for her birthday you are officially a shitbag)
Don't give someone something you know they won't like just to multi-task (give the gift and get rid of something you hate). That's just mean-spirited
Chocolates or candies still wrapped in cellophane are fine
Used books are fine if they're rare, first editions, or antiques
Students can give anyone anything they can afford, including used copies of the White Album (I don't want to talk about it, shut up)
Don't just give someone something 'cause you think you have to. What I mean is, if you forgot about an occasion and need to get hold of something at the last minute, don't just grab a container of half-used paprika and say "well, at least I have something!" Just grow a set and apologize and promise something later on. Or take the person out and get them drunk.
Getting people drunk counts as a gift
Spending time with people is better than some half-assed, stupid gift
Don't give people fucking crystal cake topper swans
Only give home-made gifts if they dont' like they were made by a five year old
Unless you're a five year old
I've deviated from re-gifting into actual gifting
It's my freaking blog, I'll do as I please, this is valuable information

So there you have it. Feel free to add anything I might have missed, as this list is anything but exhaustive. Plus, I love reader mail.

2005-08-22T12:13:00.000-04:00

Crisis Averted

Well, thanks to Doric, and some creative emailing, crisis averted.

You'll all be pleased to know that, true to form, I overreacted again.

Can anyone perhaps suggest some means by which I could keep myself from being a total sketchbag? Any advice in that corner would come in super handy.

Later skaters.

2005-08-18T16:14:00.000-04:00

Help!

This wasn't what I was planning to write about the next time I posted, but it's been on my mind a whole lot lately and I need some advice, from someone, please.

I've been a bad friend.

I've been a bad friend to someone who's been good to me.

Obviously I left some friends when I came back from Alberta. There were three girls there I was pretty close with, and we had some good times. They weren't always easy friendships, because of significant others, gossip, and what have you, but when it came right down to it, they rocked and I enjoyed them a lot.

One girl in particular helped me out from day one. We were in the same program and she kind of took me under her wing a little. We travelled together in Italy a bit, and though we didn't make the best travelling companions, we did okay.

Her apartment building burned to the ground this winter and she made it out with only her laptop. I would have called to see how she was doing, but I didn't know where she was. A few emails were exchanged, but as time went on we sort of lost touch.

Here's the thing. I didn't try nearly hard enough to keep in touch with her, to support her, or anything. I sent a card to her at school with a Chapters card (she had this awesome collection of books, and I wanted to help her rebuild it), and I suppose she must have found that offensive, 'cause I haven't heard from her about it. I can only assume that not being there for her in a personal way, and just throwing money really wasn't appreciated. It's possible that the card never made it to her, but the campus mail was usually quite reliable.

So what do I do? Should I email, hope for the best? Try sending something else? Cut my losses and get over it? I tried to start up a conversation with a mutual friend a little while ago, but she didn't answer. We all know I'm paranoid, so clearly I'm assuming that she hates me because I wasn't a supportive enough friend.

I hate being thought of as a bad friend, especially by myself. But the kicker is that I know I am. I didn't try hard enough to keep in touch, and I certainly wasn't as concerned and sympathetic as I should have been.

Is the doctor in? I've got five cents right here...

2005-07-13T17:17:00.000-04:00

Random Thoughts and Updates

My sister-in-law, BJ, is pregant (when Matthew's brother-in-law found out he said "Way to hit one between the goal posts!") and the baby is due at the end of November. Just after Rage's second birthday she went to the doctor so they could see how little Thing was doing, also to see if the baby's sex could be determined. I've got a bad feeling about this kid 'cause that time, and today when she went back, Thing wouldn't accomodate by opening his/her fetal little legs. Now, either the kid is a bit of prude; a nice little girl who knows how to sit politely, or else Thing is just ornery.

There's been some talk of names for Thing, with a definite leaning towards names that are also virtues, like Grace, for example. This line of thought led to Matthew saying he wished he had the brass ones to name the kid Sarcasm. I wish my parents had had the brass ones for that too, except it's probably just as well since we wouldn't have been able to afford to give lunch money to everyone on my school bus.

Val and I were chatting online today about the freelance writing job he's applying for when he interrupted himself (he has ADD) to give me some news. One of his housemates lost a friend of the family recently. "Oh," I wrote."I'm really sorry." "...so we have all this neat new stuff," he finished. They are now using Mrs. DOA's toilet paper, toothpaste, and Vim. Whenever they use it they take a moment to give thanks for her honorable sacrifice for their toiletries. I told him I hoped she hadn't died of gingivitis or hemorrhoids. Maybe hell has a VIP room for people like us, where they serve Champagne...

This weekend sees me jetting off to a wedding in beautiful, exotic Nova Scotia. A friend of mine from high school is getting married, and her sweetie is from there originally. This had the potential to turn into quite the expensive affair, especially since G is all nesty and in love and completely forgot we were going to have a girly trip to coincide with this wedding. Because G has and actual date for this, I am now going stag. If you'll recal, I'm sort of a widow in the summer 'cause the boy likes to go look at shiny fast cars as far away from me as is humanly possible, this weekend, in California.

So, no boy, no G, I'm solo. I informed the bride that as much as I love her, spending money on a plane ticket, hotel, rental care, and wedding gift was wayyyyy beyond my means. The solution she provided to this scenario involves Aunt Becky. The groom's family, who lives in that neck of the woods, have opened their homes to us poor pilgrims. The fact that I'm the only one taking anyone up on this offer is making me feel not so much smart and frugal as sad and pathetic. These feelings are not being alleviated by the fact that the bride spent a good part of yesterday emailing back and forth with me about getting me a ride from the airport to the small town where the wedding's going down. What if no one comes for me and I just end up sitting all alone in a municipal airport in New Brunswick for two days? What will Aunt Becky think?

I'm sure it'll be fun. There are going to be lots of people from highschool there, including the glorious and incomparable JC, who is about the neatest person you could ever hope to meet. Have I talked about her before? I meant to. She's the only hero I have who doesn't have "the vampire slayer" after her name, she's also the only hero I have who I've met in person.

Since I fly out Friday, this is probably my last post for this week, but hey, two days in a row!

2005-07-12T21:23:00.000-04:00

I Work Hard for the Money

It was important to look good this Monday 'cause we had a big meeting for a new client. We were meeting at a hotel in Toronto, and I was going along to observe, provide technical support, and hand things out as required. I have one suit, it's black and I really like it, the coat is long and flattering, and the look is classy. The only problem I've had so far is that everyone keeps thinking I'm a hotel employee and they ask me where the pool is.

With this in mind I decided to go shopping this weekend with money I don't have. Because I'm saving up for a house while paying off my student debt one would think there wouldn't be a lot available for clothes. You'd be right! That didn't keep me from buying two new suits, a bag, an extension cord, oh, and a greeting card. The first suit I bought was okay, but not tremendously exciting. How jazzed can you get about grey? So I moved along to the Bay, and I fell in love. It was so cute, so happy, so me! I bought a white suit with pencil thin green and pink stripes. That's the one I wanted to wear Monday, but the pants were too long.

I'd hoped BJ would be able to hem them for me, but she wasn't into it on such short notice. I'm not much of a sewer, everything always ends up making me look like I was a native of Bedrock. But you don't necessarily have to know how to sew to shorten something.

I wore the happy white suit to work on Monday having altered it my own unique way, but brought the grey one as back up and then I waited for Steph. She's younger than I am, and just seems to know how to dress me in a way I don't think I ever will. I'm a little hopeless when it comes to fashion. She arrived and I asked her what she thought of what I was wearing.

"You look great, that suit is really cute." She said this as she undid the knot in the scarf I was wearing as a belt and moved it over to the side so that the ends trailed out.

"Does it look professional enough for today's thing?"

"Yeah, I think so. Hey..."

"What?"

"Lynx, did you staple your pants?"

"They were too long. I didn't have enough safety pins."

"Go change into the grey one."

"Crap."

So sadly I can't wear it until it gets hemmed properly, as staples just won't cut it. I told my mother what I'd done and I could hear her over the phone sucking in her breath and biting her lip simultaneously, the way she does when I've committed some unspeakable act she didn't raise me to commit.

The grey looked fine, although having to wear nylons on a 34 degree day has probably given me a yeast infection. The other problem that drove me mental all day was the skirt's migratory tendency. The slit in the back kept meandering to and fro happily ending up wherever it felt most comfortable. When we left the conference room I noted it was perfectly centred in the front. Arsing thing.

In addition to buying news clothes I've also been given the opportunity to lie a lot lately. I keep being asked to pretend I'm someone else and call businesses from my cell phone so that we can do research on their processes and costs. One of our clients is planning on taking action against another company so today I had to call an office pretending I was a doctor's secretary. Maybe it's wrong, but all this subterfuge makes me feel so alive! I'm out there, on the cutting edge wheeling and dealing. I'm this close to being like Jennifer Garner in Alias. Who are the good guys, who are the bad? Will the boy end up dusted in the tub because I found out the date a report was mass-mailed? Stay tuned!

2005-05-11T13:24:00.000-04:00

I'm Trippin', Yo

This year I've gone away twice for work. This is still novel and fun because I like staying in nice hotels, and work feels more like a holiday. I imagine that the fun will wear off though, because all of my coworkers who travel often could care less about where they are no matter how nice. This is probably because they can afford to stay in places where they're the only ones in the room and sleeping on bunkbeds isn't mandatory.

The first trip was out West to Banff, and while it was a very busy time, with three meetings to organize, we still managed to have some fun. The boy even got to come along, which made things even better. We stayed in this lovely apartment-style room that had a fireplace they stocked with wood everyday. I had thought that the boy was the manliest genius out there because he had no problem whatsoever lighting the fire. It took no effort at all! I'm used to a certain amount of swearing and discussions of which solvents would be most likely to get the fire started, but least likely to burn the house down in my pyro experiences. So here, before my very eyes, was someone for whom fire lighting was not a problem. A veritable modern day Prometheus.

Well, you know, ancient man would have looked pretty darn clever if he'd had a gas lighter for his fires too.

Some of my friends came down to visit for the Saturday we were there and we went shopping and had some cocktails. Since they'd been to Banff before they could show us all the hotspots, including the store that sold the pink cowboy boots. A must have for any modern woman who wants to looks like a flaming arsehole. The boy had this thing for one candy store, located on the main drag. He kept getting people to come and stand under the vent and smell whatever was baking. Forget the mountains, they made caramel corn fresh while you waited. I lobbied to move our meetings under the vent, but my boss looked at me like she'd just dug me out of her ear. We bought these things called bear paws, which are like turtles only somewhat more so. I could really go for one of those right about now.

I can't go into too much detail about my colleagues, who were also on this trip, but let's just say I learned a whole lot more about them than I ever would have back in the office. One of the things I learned was that they like Trooper. You remember Trooper, don't you? "We're here for a good time, not a long time." As it turned out, they were in Banff performing on our last night there. Having worked two meetings that day the only good time I was looking for was my head on a pillow and the boy hugging me to sleep. It wasn't to be, I got Trooper. I was there for a long time, not a good time.

Trooper doesn't seem to have written much these last few years, as they were forced to play that hit more than once. The crowd, aided in part by cheap booze, didn't appear to mind. You would think that a band like Trooper would appeal to a certain class of people (skids and cougars) but the two fans I noticed most often were pretty young. One young gentleman wearing a Slipknot hoodie lost his shit entirely when they started to play "the Boys in the Bright White Sports' Car." He had his foot up on the stage and was banging his head like he was hoping he could make it fall off. We were all rooting for him.

My favourite though, hands down, was this twenty-something year old girl, who was quite cute, and quite obviously smashed. She lurched all over the dance floor, looking a bit Benis-like, when she would abruptly decide, for no obvious reason, to flash her tits at Trooper. She did it a lot, so much that I couldn't stop watching her. She was fascinating. What would make a pretty, young girl with her whole life ahead of her want to flash Trooper in a Banff bar? We had brought the camera with us and it would have made a great addition to our scrapbook, but she was too darn unpredictable, and I was too shy to ask her to pose. Besides, I was sort of busy mooning the bartenders.

I recently returned from New Brunswick, where I lived for four years when I was a kid. This was an important trip because it was to be my first alone. With the help of a senior supervisor I organized three dinner meetings in three cities. I would drive from city to city with my client and our speaker. I made plane and hotel reservations and I rented a car. I had everything I needed for the meetings and I was ready. I was flying out on Monday and on Sunday I received two separate emails from my parents about the flood conditions out East. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate being forewarned, it's just that I was already nervous about the trip, and now I was nervouser (I know it isn't a word, but I like it) because of having to drive around NB while fording rivers in my one and only suit. I don't need this kind of pressure. No one offered advice, all I heard was "don't panic", "think positive!" which doesn't help me much from a strategic standpoint. So I got a little cranky.

We've already established from previous postings that I have quite the imagination upstairs, so obviously the flooding wasn't nearly as bad as I'd thought it would be. I was diverted to higher ground in a few places around Fredericton, but aside from that no worries. Speaking of higher ground, I was travelling in the highest ground available. Did I mention I'd rented a car? I did. It was supposed to be a mini-van, but thanks to the complimentary upgrade I ended up in a Lincoln Navigator. They should have called it Everest. The thing is massive and high tech, and all together unnecessary. There were so many buttons and nooks and crannies that there was no way I'd ever be able to figure out all the mysteries of this car. I was worried that while trying to access the radio I'd end up hitting "eject" or "self-destruct."

The meetings turned out to be more or less a snap. Everyone got their meal and their wine on time and the speaker was lovely and knew her stuff. My client, however, was a touch on the bizarre side. I didn't know whether or not to take her seriously when she asked me what "N, P, and R" were on the car's gear shift. I also had to ask her if she was serious when, while driving to Moncton, she asked if we should stop to pick up a hitchhiker by the side of road. Ha ha! Really? Outside of a port town? Not so much! As it turns out Luke - or Hitchy McHikerson - was a fine enough young lad who'd had his truck stolen the night before in Saint John. It was an antique he'd just put a lot of money into, and it wasn't yet insured. Bummer, Luke. Aside from smelling like he'd rolled in a puddle of old beer and cigarettes the night before he was a suitable enough travelling companion. All I could think of, though, was the Tiny Toons movie and the hitcher Plucky and Hampton picked up. But since the car was so bloody huge I didn't worry too much about any of us hitting one of his triggers. We'd have seen him coming from far away, or else one of the buttons in the Navigator was put there to deal with potential serial killer hitchhikers.

But who does that? Who picks up transients when they're on a business trip? I was petrified that it was going to be the last trip I ever took. Nothing good has ever happened to me in Moncton or en route to or from. The first time I went there was to have my arm rebroken because the people at the hospital in Dalhousie NB had set it improperly. On the way home from Moncton that evening I threw up in the car. My father was not amused. This time that same arm could've been gnawed off by a psycopath, and all because of some peculiar girl's European, hippie-ass, bohemian background!

Maybe it's time to ask for another raise...

2005-02-25T16:09:00.000-05:00

And To You I Leave...Melodrama

Rage and I got home to the usual scene on Monday night, the dog is racing around snapping at Boris and Natasha, Boris is meowing incessantly for his treat, Rage is saying "ah, gookie?" certain in the knowledge that I missed the other nine thousand times he told me he wanted a cookie. Anyway, the dog goes out, the cats get treats, the baby gets coat and hat off and then gets his blasted cookie. Now it is time to check the messages. We usually get one from some Russian guy with a truck offering to move us, but today there was a message from my family doctor.

I had an appointment a month ago wherein they leeched me of some fluids and gave me an ECG. They always tell you that if they don't call then assume no news is good news. She was calling. Holy fuck. I tried calling the office back, but they were closed. My message went thusly:

"Uh, hi, this is Lynx, the doctor called and left a message asking that I call her back, so I am. Um, if anyone is still there could you please call me back and let me know why she was calling? 'Cause now I think I'm dying. I mean, I know everyone is dying, but I think I'm dying NOW. So, if anyone is around call me back at home."

No one called back. Then I called my mother. She's the perfect audience for this sort of paranoia because she thinks like I do. If the doctor calls it means your number's up. The great shepherd is calling you back to his holy flock. You're taking the big sleep. Checking into the eternal hotel. She informed me that she would not be able to sleep until she knew what was wrong with me. I immediately felt better. It's always nice to have someone else overreact with you. I couldn't dwell on this, though, 'cause there were many other people to shore up support with.

Some of you might be wondering what Rage was doing while I was on the phone planning my funeral. I have no idea, but it's possible he created a concerto or two.

I also called the boy's mother. Not just to tell her I was likely dying, but also to see how her day was. He later told me that she hesitantly suggested I might want to take it down a thousand. Clearly not a subscriber to my and my mother's school of potential news.

Before everyone automatically assumes I'm the human equivalent of Eeyore, I'd like to remind you all that I do the same thing with possible good news. Remember that killer job I applied for with the government? Yeah. I was spending my new paycheque and redecorating my house the same day I sent my application in, so the overreacting goes both ways.

I heard nothing back that night from my doctor, and while I was in bed I thought about how my decline in health would progress. I actually started to cry thinking about all the milestones of Rage's life I'd miss, and the things I wouldn't get to do. I wondered who the boy would love after me. I worried about all the debt I'd be leaving my parents to deal with and whether that would cripple them financially.

I couldn't get through to the doctor's office in the morning and left another sketchbag message for them. I wonder why they wouldn't want to call back right away? I told all the girls in the office my tale of woe and my boss looked at me and said, "No, you can tell when people are sick. They look sick. You, you don't look sick." Well, there you have it. So I spent the morning mooning away and making my little plans.

All of this for some jumped up female complaint she'd been calling about for a month and was thinking of just forgetting about 'cause it really wasn't a big deal.

The children are right to laugh at me.

2005-02-20T19:17:00.000-05:00

Somebody Lied to You

I don't pretend to be any sort of music officianado, but there are some rules even the most musically-challenged can understand. My tastes tend to run far and wide; I'm not specifically into anything but love bits and pieces of all. I guess the word we're looking for is ecclectic. If I can sing along with it and Mariah Carey isn't the artist, then I'm more or less happy.

Recently I've rediscovered a love of eighties hair bands and classic rock that has me a little worried. I'm not sure when exactly this happened, but now when Boston's "More than a Feeling" comes on I rock out a little. The boy and I were driving and having an appropriate and sophisticated adult conversation when I started squealing and ordering him to turn up the radio 'cause Bon Jovi's "Bad Medicine" had come on the radio. I catch myself saying "all RIGHT!" when Platinum Blonde comes on the radio.

If only this were the only music felony I was guilty of. Back in early highschool I went with my parents to see two CHUM Rockin' Back to the Sixties concerts. As geeky as that in itself sounds, they were a lot of fun. However, I didn't just go out of idle curiosity or 'cause my parents made me. Nope, I had a reason to be there. The first year the reason was Micky Dolenz, the second Davy Jones. I actually wrote in my diary after the first concert that when I saw Micky Dolenz, who does look like an ugly monkey, that "words can't describe how I felt." I hopped on the Monkees' bandwagon a little late, but I did hop on. I watched the show and or taped it every night it was on Much Music. I bought their tapes, and (this is the crowning touch) I belonged to a (maybe the) Monkees' fanzine. That's right. I subscribed for one year to Monkee Business Fanzine.

This was a predictible piece of drivel and the people contributing were equally as sad and pathetic as I must have been. I remember when I woke from my reverie and realized what a freak I was becoming and how bizarre those I had aligned myself with were. I read an article in which a woman was describing having gone to a concert that some members of the Monkees were performing at. She was writing about what a beautiful day it had been for this outdoor event when she penned "God must have been a Monkees fan." I stopped reading the magazine.

All of this is apropos of what I heard on the radio on my way home from meeting Big M two Fridays ago. It was nineish, so stations were starting their live to air programs from various clubs. This is when I heard the extended dance remix someone had done of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." I may not know much, and I may have bad taste, but I know how wrong this is. Nirvana wasn't about a killer dance beat or clubbing, it was about providing an angry self-indulgent druggie a forum for that anger. Don't turn their shit into a club mix.

I like Nirvana, they appeal to me on the level of how much I enjoy angry alternative music where people scream and say inappropriate things. Nirvana fit right in, remember "Rape me"? There are some songs, and some groups you just can't make dance remixes for. It's inappropiate. I feel about this the same way G and I felt the first time I heard Faith Hill doing "Piece of My Heart." I called G right away (we were in grade 10 or 11).

Lynx: Hey, are you watching CMT?
G: Are you serious? Of course not.
Lynx: Turn it to CMT, but brace yourself.
G: Okay, one sec.
Silence
Lynx: Are you watching?
Silence
Lynx: G?
G: She is evil. Evil. And she must be stopped. Janice is rolling in her grave.
Lynx: So is Willie Nelson, he wrote it I think.
G: He's not dead
Lynx: Oh, well as my grandfather used to say 'I haven't seen him in awhile.'
G: Fair enough. This is horrible. This is awful. THIS IS WRONG FOR SO MANY REASONS. SHE'S TURNED THIS SONG PERKY. THAT BITCH!!

Or at least that's how I like to remember the call.

2005-01-27T20:11:00.000-05:00

Now Take My Pets, Please Somebody, Take My Pets...

My last post was December 11, 2004. That's a very long time ago.

I've made the big move back into the subterranean world, and so far so good. The boy helped out in a saint-like fashion. We painted vertical stripes on an oatmeal coloured background. The stripes are a shade of blue as close as possible to a Classic Pooh blue. Matthew says it looks like an ice cream parlour so I bit him.

This is the first place I've lived in that I've bothered decorating. I feel that this relates to the lack of permanence I expect from these places. It worries me that I don't have this same feeling for my brother's basement. This isn't where I want to be comfy enough to stay for a prolonged period of time. All I have going for me, really, is that I don't smoke pot.

Now that we're sleeping downstairs the boy and I have run into a problem. The cats. Always, always, the fucking cats. When he isn't there they're well behaved. To the best of my knowledge they go to sleep when I do, or else perform their antics elsewhere. When the boy is over they attack each other hissing, they lick plastic bags, they claw the furniture, knock over water glasses, and, last night, claw innocent sleepers. The boy isn't a fan of cats. He hates them. My cats have earned this hatred; he was the one who was clawed in the toe at four in the morning.

As such, a solution needs to be found. We either have to find a way to keep them from the basement during sleeping hours, take care of their claws, or else get rid of them. I consulted my mother. She's in favour of getting rid of them because she's not a huge cat fan, and because she thinks mine are weird and unaffectionate. What's the point of having a pet if they're not going to love you 24-7? She's exploring some channels for finding a new home for them. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I haven't been home a lot for awhile now, and when I am I'm not paying attention to them, which is likely why they're acting so nuts. I want everyone to be happy. Everyone but me, that is, because I do like them and the thought of giving away my family makes me teary. Sure they're irritating, but they're mine!

So that's one issue. The other is our border, Sheilagh. This is B's dog, who now lives with her mother. Sheilagh is part Rottweiler, part Doberman. She is also the clutziest dog on the face of the earth. If there is something to knock over, step on, or trip over she will find it. The room could be totally empty, but for one skinny book in a back corner, and she would trample it beyond recognition within moments.

One of her more charming habits is biting her nails. Ever hear an adult dog chomping on toe nails? It's horrifying, and guaranteed to bring the gorge up of even the strongest stomach. She has somehow managed to wear a spot in her tail raw. Being an enthusiastic girl, Sheilagh likes to wag her tail often. I came home tonight to a front hall streaked with blood. It's a good bloody (ha!) thing that the police don't just wander through the neighbourhoods doing door to doors. Man. I spent half an hour washing blood off of the walls while B tried to tie a gym sock around the offending tail. Sheils keeps chewing it off, though. Let me just say, that as far as evening activities go, this one blows goats.

Where did my lust for this life go?

I'll try to write soon, petals.

2004-12-11T09:46:00.000-05:00

Anyone Still Out There?

Vacations are good, they're important, especially when they aren't really vacations. Gone are the days when I could cavalierly coast through my afternoons at work by writing an entry (or on one memorable day, two) now I'm swamped every day.

What's been going on? Well, I turned another year older, I took a trip to San Diego, and I worked and played in semi-even amounts. San Diego is great, we should all try to live there. It's not that I don't love Canada, I do a whole lot, but to wake up everyday to clear blue skies and warm sunshine doesn't suck in the slightest. Oh, and there's a beautiful ocean to look at, did I mention that part?

The other interesting thing that occupied some of my time was the Greatest Canadian on CBC. Did you watch this at all? Tommy Douglas ended up being the greatest Canadian, which is a damn sight better than if it had been Don Cherry. The top ten was okay, but the top fifty was embarassing. I need someone to explain to me how Avril Lavigne is the greatest anything. Ditto for Pamela Anderson Lee.

These two made it on the list, but not the Canadian responsible for crafting the UN's universal declaration of human rights (John Humphrey). That's kind of important. I don't even know how these women made it onto the same list as Steven Lewis. I guess "greatness" is relative. The top ten, in order, are as follows:

Tommy Douglas
2
Terry Fox
3
Pierre Elliott Trudeau
4
Sir Frederick Banting
5
David Suzuki
6
Lester B. Pearson
7
Don Cherry
8
Sir John A. Macdonald
9
Alexander Graham Bell
10
Wayne Gretzky

That list strikes me as fairly representative. Obviously there are people who didn't make the top ten who are very important people who did amazing things. But this list is what happens when everyone is allowed a vote of their own. Any Canadian could be nominated for a spot on the greatest Canadian list, and anyone with a computer or access to the internet could vote. There were those who had everyone they had ever met vote for them (the guy who started the Kinsman). I have to say, though, Don Cherry really, really shouldn't have made the list. He so isn't the greatest Canadian. Greatest boob maybe, but not Canadian.

All right troops, that's it for now. It feels good to be writing to y'all once more.

2004-10-14T15:35:00.000-04:00

"Thanks for your message..."

An old friend of our family's died not so very long ago. This family is almost Joblike in the amount of tragedy it's suffered. If they've ever had any luck it's been bad. So, my mother is feeling horribly because she liked this woman, and she misses her friend, even though they had lost touch over the years.

Try to imagine her surprise and, yes, her terror when she went to check her email and saw a message in her inbox from this friend - dead for about two weeks at this point. Mater's heart gave a mighty lurch and she kind of looked around to make sure she was still in her living room and that the walls hadn't disolved to reveal a pod or something.

As it turns out, the message was sent from her account by her husband. He was thanking everyone for their kind thoughts and sending a picture of his wife (thankfully a picture of her from when she was still alive) to those who had been writing to her.

This got me to thinking about Outlook's very useful "Out of Office Reply" feautre.

"Hi, thank you for writing. Your email is important to me and I'd write back to you as soon as I was able, except that I won't be. So, if this message is urget, I could give a rat, 'cause I'm now in the hereafter and am really not very interested in your sad pathetic life. Oh, and I never really liked you very much. Cheerio!"

Or maybe something a little less on the bitter side?

"Hi there! Thanks so much for your message, I'm sorry that I won't be replying to it ever. That's a real bummer for you. If this is urgent you can try chanelling my spirit through any of the following mediums...."

My sister-in-law and I have started a new venture and we were meeting with the organizer last night. The project he's bringing us into is very interesting, and so far a lot of fun. I don't want to alarm anyone, but I've started writing romance novels. I am currently working on the "pilot," but rest assured once that's under my belt you'll all be hearing a lot more from me. I'm entertaining suggestions for a suitable pen name. Feel free to write and send one (note: really, please do. No one ever writes or comments with these suggestions. That email link is more than decorative, people! Throw me a fricken' bone, here!).

I had emailed this guy earlier in the week from his website and the email address was along the lines of general@soandso.com (note, not his real email. Please don't write to this one, as I don't know who will respond). This cracked me up because it never even occurred to me that he was using "general" in the sense of "administrator." I was thinking it was all military. When we had our meeting last night I said I wanted to be Brigadier, and B wants to be Commodor. Sadly, while she got her wish, no one will stop calling me Rear Admiral.

Okay, while our friend was over he starts telling us a story about a friend of his. This friend was out on his motorbike when he was hit by a truck and thrown a few hundred feet. His whole left side is now royally buggered. He has no ankle, his foot is fused to his leg. He has a series of pins and rods in his left leg. So many bones were broken in his hand that it is now twice the normal size, but still functional. While he was unconscious investigators went to his home to talk with his wife. While they were there they asked if she knew who "insert name of girl here" was. She replied that she did, that it was her son's ex-girlfriend. This is when the wife found out that her husband was having an affair with her son's (his stepson's) ex-girlfriend, and that this girl had been on the motorcycle that night.

Can you believe it?

Families are a tricksy thing. I know I said I was going to write about the wedding for this entry, but I just don't feel like it. It really wasn't that exciting a time, unless you count my being vastly uncomfortable for an entire day interesting. I'm sure that some of the people who don't like me very much would find it so. Those bastards.

2004-10-01T19:10:00.000-04:00

Thursday Night Line Up

Pilates was last night and it was good. I could feel tired muscles all last night, and going up the stairs to work today actually felt like work. I was a little worried about this course because on the first night most of the people there were sixty or over. It didn't bode well for the strenuousness of the workout. Still, last night, we just gave 'er.

This week at work has been a busy one, but there was still time for a little bit of humiliation to remind why I need to keep looking for another job. My boss asks me to wait for a second:

"Yeeeaaaahhhhh, I have this thing about bellies? Whenever I see my daughters' I always slap or tickle them. And I really have a thing about belly-button rings. So, could we just agree on a "no-bellies" policy? Okay, that's great, thanks Lynx!"

All she needed to do was ask my why I forgot to fill out my TPS report and it would have been perfect. "That'd be greeeaaaattttt, thanks." Ugh. Die.

We've had a fly problem in the office. There are huge, black, sluggish flies all over the window above the boardroom, and periodically one of the flies will shamble over to someone's office for a little lie down. Because there are so many of them swatting is not a desirable mode of extermination. We're not talking three or four flies, we're not even talking twenty, it's more like Amityville. As such my job description took a new turn when English boss decided to delegate fumigation to me. Me and my trusty can of Raid waded into the storm and took care of the pestilence. I'm now either sterile or my offspring will be born without bones. You do what you have to for 28K a year. Administrative Assistant means more than just photocopying and answering phones, it's also about being a bit of a cowboy.

We weren't sure why all the flies were there. One of my coworkers cheerfully suggested that something must have died in the walls. It's probably just my spirit. They probably live in the insulation and whenever it's warm for more than a few days they spawn. It's almost poetic, really.

Anyway, I came home and watched TV with B for awhile. We were really looking forward to CSI and Without a Trace. CSI was a repeat, dammit, and Without a Trace was just lame. Jerry Bruckheimer, what happened? There was, however, plenty of mocking potential available in the commercials. Have you seen the new Lysol one that sells itself by being the spray that removes odour bacteria from the air? There's a happy housewife going around her immaculate home spraying the shit out of it with this revolutionary new spray, and thanking Lysol for finally providing the consumer marketplace with this new product. "Thanks for listening, Lysol." I can't be sure, but I think that they might have gotten to her.

B turns to me.

"Did you see that? Look at how much she was spraying in the baby's room!"

"Huh?"

"Jesus, what's the matter, didn't they have any Sarin?"

Oh man. Sometimes the things that come out of that woman's mouth. Whenever she's trying to give Rage his bottle and he won't sit still for it she always says, "now, come over here and drink your bottle like a Christian." This is going to be one sarcastic little boy.

Anyway, stay tuned campers 'cause next entry we're going to talk about the wedding I went to the other weekend. You won't want to miss that.

2004-09-22T13:27:00.000-04:00

Who Ever Thought...?

That I'd be responding to reader mail. But I am. Right now.

My ode to DB has generated some questions, along the lines of "what the hell were you talking about?" So I figured I should let everyone in on the joke.

A friend of mine was adamant that he receive a blog entry all his own, so he got one with every experience I had personal knowledge of in it. Specifically I am referring to the following:

DB was going out on his first ever date with a new boy, who's a lawyer. They were meeting at Tim Horton's and before he went, DB decided to use some self-tanner to make it look like he actually got out of doors once in awhile. What he didn't know was that this particular product contained some glitter. He only discovered this under the fluorescent lights of Tim Horton's as he reached out to pay for his coffee. He was glittery all over. What do you say at that point to your date? I believe DB said nothing to him about it, but said "oh FUCK" to himself.

The other element of the poem refers to a random French Canadian boy at a club who was wearing parachute pants. He and DB got along a little.

So there we are, now you all know as much as I do, and I won't be so smug and inside-jokish ever again. Promise.

Here's a funny story.

Bex decided that she wanted to explore the dating world a little more closely and, despite my Swimming With Sharks entry, went about her merry old way with Lavalife. Since she was so new to this process she only got as far as creating a name before deciding to quit for the evening and marshal her forces to come up with a winning profile. Imagine her surprise when she logged in the next day to see half a dozen hits. She hadn't put up a picture, there was no profile, what the...? Then she really thought about the name she'd given herself. Then she laughed until she peed. She'd used her initials, you see, and unfortunately "BJ" means something different to different people. When you call youself "BJ gal" on Lavalife you're pretty much guaranteed to become the most popular girl at the party. And boy was she ever.

2004-09-19T17:45:00.000-04:00

An Ode to DB

In my eyes you see you, you
You
Over and over again
Oh my shining one.

Reflected in my own
Eyes
On your new stylish glasses
The casual, less funky pair
But still, so very now.

When you dance away
Sparkles
The light dims a lot
And I would feel loss.

But for the knowledge that
Hammer-pants
Aren't enough to keep
A friend from straying.

2004-09-17T16:41:00.000-04:00

More Random Thoughts and Updates

‘Cause of….the fun!

Okay, so I’ve become more or less addicted to the Amazing Race. Is there nothing Jerry Bruckheimer can’t do? The man can’t stop giving. First with CSI (Without a Trace is very good too. It took me awhile to remember where Anthony Lapaglia was from. I kept seeing an image of him in my mind saying “Really?” and that’s all I had) and whatever else he’s done and now this. He needs to make a show, and Aaron Sorkin needs to do the writing for it. Hell, while we’re at it, Benjamin Bratt and Bradley Whitford need to star in it, with Jennifer Garner hopping in every once and awhile to kick some ass. I need a cigarette.

Tonight is my first Pilates class at the local community centre. Hopefully they’ll be able to begin the process of excavating my abs from the flab they’re lovingly ensconced in. I was also trying to take Jiu Jitsu but they called to tell me that it was cancelled due to lack of interest. This might be for the best. The last time I took it I kept hitting people outside of class in what, I felt, was a jaunty matter. No one else thought that it was quite so jaunty.

The wicked job I applied for hasn’t gotten back to me. The cutoff date for applications was September 3rd and they haven’t called to interview me. Since it’s the government it might take them a bit longer to get their ducks in a row, but still. Things are not looking good for our hero (me). In another interesting turn of events my current boss found the application for that super job which prompted the most massive invasion of privacy I’ve experienced since I asked my mother not to read the postcards I was sending to my friends from our family vacation and she did anyway. Not only did my boss feel it was appropriate to search my desk to make sure I was being “organized” she also thought it would be helpful to go through my emails. Some of them were to friends (99%) and so her findings prompted her to hold me back from an in house promotion. All of this is inferred knowledge as I’ve never been directly confronted and only have third hand information; however, the source is reliable. So kids, learn from my example and: delete often, don’t send personal email from your work account, and don’t leave anything filed away neatly in your desk for the casual observer to find.

It’s now Friday and I’m finishing up this post, so I can tell you that Pilates didn’t go down. They decided to change the start date to next week. Did they decide to tell me? Not so much. It’s like Broadway Jazz class all over again. In grade five I was taking jazz and I showed up one Saturday morning for class, but no one was there. There was one other girl there so we went to her house and I tried to contact my parents, which I was unsuccessful at for several hours. Then the jazz group was in the paper the next week. It was like they had rejected me and then were bragging about it. I never went back. I am going back to fucking Pilates, but not until I bitch at them first. The real kicker is that I asked the girl at the front desk where the class was being held and she gave me directions to the room, but shouldn’t she have known that there wasn’t a class taking place? Hello!

Did you guys read Velcrometer today? M. Giant had a piece by the associated press about this man in a trailor park who hit his girlfriend with an alligator. The fight broke out because she bit him in anger upon discovering there wasn’t any more alcohol. He then proceeded to throw beer bottles at her, and then, finally, hit her with the three foot alligator he had been keeping as a pet in the tub. Ah, l’amour.

I am very pleased to report that Sliced Bread 2 is doing really well. There are lots of site hits, and when M. Elmslie has pimped the site to people they’ve responded very enthusiastically to it. As they should. It’s a great story, and he writes very cleverly. Y’all should be reading it if you aren’t.

It was G’s birthday on Thursday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY G! Tonight, we’re gonna kick it old school. We’re going for dinner and then to watch her friends’ band play. It’ll be a time. But God tomorrow won’t be. I don’t know why I agreed to this. A friend of a friend asked me to go to a wedding. I won’t know a soul there, I barely know the person I’m going with. I need to take some sort of course on developing aggression, I’m way too passive. It’s easier to say yes to something and be uncomfortable than it is to say no and do what I want. Granted, you should do some things you don’t want to do, but this doesn’t apply to going to weddings with virtual strangers. Why am I that girl? Somebody, help me, help me please! Where is my spine, dammit?! The children are right to laugh at me.

Is it wrong that every time I do something, or think about doing something now it’s all filed away as future blog fodder?

Is it wrong the most of the hits on my new site counter are self-inflicted to see how many hits are on my site counter?

If anyone has any suggestions of what I should be for Halloween I’d appreciate hearing about them. I’m looking for something relatively simple, but still cool. Also, if anyone has any ideas of where I can get fifty copies of the Rocky Horror Picture Show for less than twelve dollars a piece on DVD I’d appreciate hearing about that too.

And here I’d promised to only use my powers for good…

2004-09-15T08:37:00.000-04:00

Onward and Upward

This is the first September in a long time where I haven't been going back to school, or else planning on going back to school. Even when I took two years off to work and travel and save for the next step I knew I'd be going back. As far back as I can remember I have been a student, and now I'm not. It's an odd feeling. I'm no longer part of that flurry and excitement of gathering supplies, buying clothing, moving into a new place, buying textbooks, finding my classes, and so on. It's both a relief and a source of sadness.

I spent a great deal of time in elementary school and high school trying to persuade my parents that I didn't need to go. I tried especially hard in Scarborough where school was scary and I was tormented on a daily basis. My reasoning was that I already knew more than our next door neighbour, and she seemed to be doing fine, so why did I need more schooling? This argument horrified my mother, as it no doubt provided her with images of me like Sandy: a thirty year old baby factory with vacant eyes and a huge chewy mole on her chin with a giant hair sticking out of it. I wasn't helping my case.

Thinking about going back to school makes me think about everything I learned, the way I spent those many, many years. You know, it really doesn't seem like all that much. This became painfully clear last night when I was trying to do some mental math in Staples. It took me a good twenty minutes to sort out how many envelopes I needed and whether or not I had enough money for them. Finally, I had to pull out a scrap of paper and the only pen I had. When you push down on the top of the pen a man wearing a pair of briefs loses them, and all is revealed.

I don't remember much about what I actually learned in school, post-secondary included. None of it really matters; school is a way of killing time and building character and learning to play the game of fitting into society. You learn to read, write, add, subtract, make fun of those different from you, how to gossip and not get caught and all of those fundamental things, but I'd like to know how colouring and filling out numerous graphs about precipitation across the provinces helped me to achieve any of my career goals? And Shakespeare, why was it mandatory to do a play every year? How has that helped? One could argue that every assignment was an exercise in mental gymnastics, that it simply teaches children how to think and solve problems. I wish someone had taught me about budgeting, and about how much money I needed to start saving during high school in order to not have monstrous debt when I graduated from university. Or how about a class that forced you to read and discuss the news every day, not just random events, but every day going through major news stories around the world and dissecting them for bias. That would have been so much more useful than memorising the contents of pemmican.

My university courses were even more questionable, and I paid for those! Every time I picked courses and told Val what I was taking he said it sounded like a round of Jeopardy: Sport in Antiquity, the Rise and Fall of Athens, Roman Revolution, a Zoological Perspective, Writing: Gender and Bias, Frontiers of the Roman Empire, etc. The wierdest course was Serial Murder. They didn't teach you technique or anything, it was a Sociology course. The textbook was a good read with lots of vignettes about the various killers. Was it Edmund Kemper who drove around with his mother's head in the car, and kept cutting the feet off prostitutes because of his foot fetish? That knowledge has also come in really handy. Thus far, the most useful course was the Psychology of Death and Dying. It takes you through the grieving process and also teaches you techniques on how to deal with the terminally ill and what you can expect from them (in terms of behaviour, it’s a given that you can expect them to die). The textbook was pretty depressing, but by and large I learned a lot that is both useful and applicable.

Even though I was terrified every year the first day of school came around, and I still remember how that terror felt, I’m missing being in school. Now that I’m all gainfully employed I feel kind of like I’m not really working toward anything. Maybe that isn’t exactly true. I have goals, I want a house and to eventually work from home, and to write a book and all, but these aren’t things I can sign up for and do in a set amount of time. They all depend directly on me and my ambition. I’m not all that ambitious, but I’d like to be. Maybe if I paid out money to write a book I’d do it more quickly. Not wanting to pay for another semester of my thesis was what prompted me to get my arse in gear with that.

I don’t miss math, though, or science, or group work. Oh man does group work ever suck. I was always the one who ended up doing the bulk of the work while everyone else flirted and joked. Now everyone who reads this is going to think I’m ugly. I’m not, I’m cute. Honest. The last group project I remember doing was on deforestation for Science in Society. We were in the library, and I was working with popular boys and my stomach was making the loudest and most alarming noises ever.

It’s okay though, I mean, I miss it and I’m nostalgic but also realistic. If I’m poor now, and boy am I, I can just imagine how destitute I’d be if continuing on for more education. There’s something to be said for digging yourself out of that sink hole of debt. I’m working on it, it’s a slow process, but it’ll happen. Probably a lot more quickly if I got going on that literary masterpiece I’ve been meaning to write. Stay tuned.

2004-08-31T13:46:00.000-04:00

Learning Curve

It’s been an eventful few days (what, week, week and a half?) and an expensive one too. And I haven’t even cried, which is surprising. Usually when changes take place, or traumatic things happen I cry. Even if things aren’t all that traumatic I can usually be counted upon to cry.

The first thing, that I’m not really going to talk much about, is that the boy and I had “a talk.” Not in the best sense of the term, either. Despite the fact that things are not perfect between us and that time has to be taken to sort through things, I feel good. I’m okay with where we are and how events are playing out. That’s so unlike me. I’m a private analyzer, usually dissecting conversation and subtle nuance for all hidden meaning and emotion. But not this time. Why is that? Is there something that can be read into that? Anyway, this is one of those scenarios where only time will make a difference to our situation, so, in the absence of anything to fret over we’re enjoying each others company (I assume/hope) and getting to know each other better.

I’ve found the job I want. It’s perfect, and not just ‘cause it pays a lot. I’ve already started spending my new salary and planning the house I’m going to buy. Isn’t that ridiculous? The odds of my actually getting this job are not great, but, for a change, not because I’m under qualified but because everyone and their dog will be applying for it, and they’re likely all qualified too. It will be disappointing not to get this, I can’t even do the mature thing and say that it’ll be okay, other great opportunities will come. Who cares? I want THIS one!

Remember how awhile back I was waxing poetic about how cool it was to have a car, and how grateful I was for it? Yeah, well, one one hundred and seven dollar ticket later I’m less grateful. So completely my fault and I am such a total arse. I was speeding, twenty-two above the speed limit, and I knew I was doing it. I do it every day, all the time. It’s not like I was in a hurry, I was on my way to work, for which I am usually about fifteen minutes early. No one is ever here until nine, and no one gives a rat what I do, but I feel the need to get here really early to check my email. Check my email. Which is all I do for the rest of the day. John Law was standing by the side of the road darting out and flagging down speeding cars. I was one of them. Actually, not the best tactic, ‘cause if I’d been any groggier I would have hit him. He was hauling lots of people over, so at least I wasn’t alone for my fiscal humiliation. There was no point crying, firstly because it’s just money and no one was hurt, and secondly because I’d been wondering how I’ve avoided getting a ticket for this long anyway. I’m not a speed demon or anything, but I am typically at least ten above the limit. It was my time.

I’ve been looking for advice on what to do now. The boy thinks I should go to court and fight this to see if I can get them to knock it down fifteen clicks or so. Sometimes this works. A woman I work with thinks I should go through Points. The prevailing opinion is that if I don’t fight it my insurance rates are going to be fucked. My parents got up on the moral high ground and said (I can’t believe we’re related) “speed limits are posted for a reason.” Drugs are sold for a reason too, that doesn’t mean we should buy them. I don’t know if getting the ticket automatically means I get points, or if it automatically means my insurance rates go up. I don’t know anything. Someone needs to give me some advice. If I go with this Points racket then it means I pay two fifty and they do everything. That sounded like a lot of money, but the woman I work with says you have to pay to go to court. Shouldn’t court be free? Help!

In addition to this speeding thing my tire is giving me problems. The left front tire is baggy. What do I know from car problems? I’ll tell you what: nothing. I enlisted the help of the boy who is knowledgeable in all things automotive. The first order of business was to remove the tire. Here’s where it gets embarrassing.

For some time now I’d been thinking about this baggy tire and about how I really should get a jack so that I can replace it should the need arise. I’d been remiss in not attending to these matters and would likely end up stranded by the side of the road during a serial killer convention. Try to imagine my surprise when he took me on a tour of my trunk and showed me where the tools and jack were kept. I was gibbering in my enthusiasm and excitement. “Shut up! They were here? Really? AS IF! I thought you had to BUY these things. How clever and thoughtful of them…” Thankfully he shut me up at that point or I very likely would have expounded on the joys of Toyota for the rest of the night and well into the next day. Some things were done to my tire to try and keep it from deflating so often, but it’s still on trial. We’ll see.

The last thing that happened was that I got called a bitch. Now, this has happened before, often. “Bitch-ass” used to be a favourite insult for awhile among the girls. The difference this time was that I was called a bitch by someone I didn’t know very well, and not to my face. This got me to thinking. Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn’t have known about this, but I found out because a “friend” decided to tell me. How many other people are out there calling me a bitch that I don’t know about, and why? I’m awesome! I’m a bargain at half the price! I’m cute and friendly and smart and humble…It’s so strange that this should have happened on the same day my mother told me she thinks I’m the nicest person she’s ever met (sorry Val and Matthew, but the truth must be told) and that she doesn’t understand why I haven’t been luckier in love. I don’t get it either. And who’s this “friend” who tells me that some wanker thinks I’m a bitch? I don’t want to know this, especially about someone I rarely if ever see and don’t care a rat about anyway?

The important thing is that I’ve learned plenty over the past week or so, not the least of which is that I’m developing a thicker skin. Things that used to reduce me to pudding are now taken in stride. Either that or I’m becoming a robot.

2004-08-18T16:28:00.000-04:00

The Feminine Side

There’ve been a lot of girly activities lately, which have given me the opportunity to get more in touch with my feminine side – without squatting over mirrors or anything. The first was the dreaded baby shower.

Baby showers often have a lot to recommend them: there’s good food (always save room for dessert, parties with women know the value of an exceptional dessert bar), lots of wine, ribald conversation, and tips (not necessarily stock tips but the types of things you’d expect to read about in Chatelaine or Good Housekeeping). But then there are the minuses.

This was a work-related party, so it “allowed me to relax in an informal setting with my coworkers.” Does anyone actually buy that? I was the only single non-mom among them, and they made me pay for that. I made the cardinal mistake of paying more attention to the conversation than to my cocktail when I heard people start talking about the last stages of pregnancy. Despite having been to this sort of event before, and knowing how candid these women are wont to be, I turned to the speaker with polite interest.

And that’s when she started talking about something called a “mucous plug.”

I don’t know what it is, all I know is I had to sleep with the lights on for three days in case one tried to sneak into my room and suffocate me while I slept.

Why, oh why, do women feel the need to relive every terrifyingly gross moment of the birthing experience when they get together? You’d think that since it was a baby shower that that would make sense, but it’s not so, talking about stuff like that is bound to terrify the mom-to-be. These get togethers are by far the most effective form of birth control ever. Now when I look over at Rage and think about how neat it would be if I had a baby the words “mucous plug” flit through my head and my ovaries seize. Jesus, give me boys talking about the size, girth, and consistency of their bowel movements any day.

The next event was a Stag and Doe, but it was really more like a joint wedding shower. When I think Stag and Doe I imagine gambling, drinking, and listening to Platinum Blonde and Def Leopard. What we did was sit politely around the apartment of a girl G and I went to high school with and discuss the plans for various girls’ upcoming weddings. The boys were on the balcony admiring, what the host assured me was, the “million dollar view.”

G and I had been sort of dreading this a little. It was kind of a Bridget Jones sort of deal where two single girls who are in no special hurry to “settle down” are going to an event where everyone more or less has. They ask the questions, about your love life and about your career, that you dread answering ‘cause you’re not exactly where you’d planned to be and you’re certainly not doing what everyone else is. I think that I can speak for G in this instance when I say that we are both, normally, pretty happy with our lives but events like these pierce little holes in our armour and remind us that maybe we haven’t really been working as hard as we should to attain our own modest goals. Should we want a boyfriend to settle down with? Should we want a different higher paying job? Kids? A house? A suit? Are any of the choices we’ve made adult and appropriate?

And then they start with the games. We played the game with the necklaces you wear and have to give up if you say either of two agreed upon words. We left when they started the smelling game. First all the men would line up, the bride-to-be would be blindfolded and she was to identify her fiancée by smell. He would then do the same thing with the girls. We left before I could make any dog related jokes, which is probably just as well.

The last girl-related activity I participated in was last night’s book club. Big M is in a book club in Toronto and I asked if I could join too. My feeling is this, I really only have the one hobby (more or less), so why not incorporate other people into it? Plus, any excuse to spend more time with Big M is one I’ll take.

We were supposed to meet at six forty-five last night, but we were both fifteen minutes late. I’m all stressed because this is my first meeting, and I didn’t have time to pick up some wine to give to the hostess. I was hoping we’d pass something on the way, but we didn’t. It’s while we’re making our way down to the street the meeting’s on that she says to me,

“Did you bring the directions?”
“No, I thought about that on the subway, but I wasn’t too worried, ‘cause I was sure you would.”
“I didn’t!”
“Oh. Shit. Well, it was either 307 or 595. I know the name of the street!”
“307 or 595?”
“I think.”
Silence.
Sigh. “Okay, well let’s just head down there. I’ve been there before, but it was awhile ago. I think it was close to a church.”

It was a little like trying to find a body with a psychic. “Yes, yes, this is familiar. I remember seeing that potted plant. Yes, that’s the church. We’re close, I can feel it!”

Fortunately another girl came up behind us going to the same place, and she’d had the foresight to bring the directions with her. The address was 495. We were the first three to arrive at a charming home in downtown Toronto. It was a beautiful, clean home, owned and lived in by the most perfect family. Dad was hot, mom was beautiful, and the two little girls were sweet and funny and blonde and perfect. I wanted to hate them, but they were so sweet. I want her life!

Predictably, you only ever end up talking about the book for about a third of the time you’re there, the rest of the time is spent catching up, telling stories, drinking wine, and eating. There were a couple of truly hilarious things said. I had mentioned I’d lived in Edmonton so our hostess’ husband (or, our host) asked me if I’d seen any Oilers’ games, which I had. While we were talking about hockey one of the women said, “Oh. Who’s that one player? The big dumb one?” As one our mouths dropped. I think his name is Joe, and he’s from Canada. As it turned out, she was thinking of Eric Lindros.

The book we were discussing was Emma, so clearly this lead to discussions of Clueless and the various versions of Emma that exist. This of course led to discussions of how yummy Colin Firth is. The following conversation ensued:

“Did you hear about that movie he was in? They had to cut the nude scene because his penis is so huge that it was distracting everyone.”

Every girl in the room, whipping streaked hair around and shouting, “What?!”

“It’s true; I can’t remember the name of the movie though…”

“Oh, I know the one you’re talking about, but that wasn’t Colin Firth, it’s Colin Farrell.”

Collectively in tones of deepest disappointment, “Oh.”

“I liked the story better when it was Colin Firth.”

Everyone, “Me too.”

“Oh, did you guys see that movie Seabisquit? That was so good, I was crying after about five minutes.”

“Really, why?”

“You know, ‘cause of the Depression.”

“Yours or the historical event?”

“It was sad! The parents had to give up their son; he must have been so scared.”

“Why was Toby Maguire’s name Seabisquit, anyway? What kind of a name is that?”

Silence.

“That was the horse’s name.”

“Oh.”

2004-08-18T08:45:00.000-04:00

Blood, Sweat, and Beers

Before I get onto today’s topic (which is really the topic of a few months ago) I thought I’d recap and offer a few random thoughts at the same time.

- Val turned thirty. To celebrate he has gone to the wilds of New Brunswick. We all hope he comes back without camping related angst.
- No one has emailed me from the link I painstakingly set up on this page.
- I played Twister for the first time in fifteen years on Saturday. It’s now Wednesday, my ass still hurts.
- Nicki and Sarah will very likely stay on CSI. Nicki slept in by accident (which is why he missed some big meeting or something) but really wants to stay on the show, I don’t know what her deal is, but who cares about her?
- I think I need a new tire.
- G hasn’t heard from the panty. She has moved on decidedly. Only girl I know who picked up heterosexually at a gay bar. Sure he was a grease ball, but still. Go G!
- I’ve yet to lose thirty pounds
- I will probably never lose thirty pounds unless my legs are amputated

This post has been a long time coming. I vowed to write a blog to capture the events of my graduation celebration, and have sorely neglected “my fans” by not putting fingers to keys.

Since I couldn’t afford a trip or anything to commemorate the completion of my master’s degree I decided to revisit a tradition I had been neglecting: drinking a lot in Guelph. I invited a select cadre of friends, namely the crew I lived with during my undergrad: Big M, Squishy, and Jenn (Frizzé is in Scotland, so she couldn’t come). G was invited, and so was Val (in addition to being one of the coolest kids ever, he also lives there).

We ended up with a last minute addition. She’s an old friend of mine and Val’s with a bit of a troubled past. To say that this girl is a bad drunk would be beyond generous. She managed to alienate everyone by the end of the evening. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

“The Girls,” a group comprised of me, Big M, Jenn, Squishy, and Frizzé started having pub crawls in our second year of university. We organized it a little for efficiency: participants got to pick a bar, the beer we were drinking, and they got to make the first toast. We would always invite some of our friends to come along on the crawl, so invariably there were a few extras in our cast.

Shockingly, the events of these earlier crawls have melded together in my mind so that I can no longer remember exactly who was at which crawl, or which events belong to which one. So here are some of my favourite stories in no particular order.

- Squishy yelling to one of our departing crawlers (who had to get up early for her new job working with autistic triplets the next day) “Good luck with the autistics!”
- Big M falling out of her chair at the Albion
- The sketchbag with the Kentucky waterfall who bought Big M a Kokanee at Wally’s Blues Tavern and then tried to pick her up with the following line, “I don’t see no weddin’ ring on yer finger.” She replied that she had a “serious boyfriend.” I remember the boyfriend, he was pretty easygoing, actually.
- Squishy volunteering me to sing the Partridge Family’s “I Think I Love You” to a bar full of people when it wasn’t Karaoke night. I killed, man. We then stunned them with an abbreviated version of “American Pie.”
- Picking tunes on the jukebox at the Albion Hotel. Singing my heart out with Jenn to anything by the Beatles and to Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee.”
- Stealing our Resident Assistant’s brother from outside of Jimmy Jazz and forcing him to come and drink with us.

This pub crawl didn’t disappoint at all. The most exciting thing that happened was that the girl I was referring to earlier (who shall go alias-less) punched me in the nose. She made me bleed my own blood. It really hurt; I’d never been decked before. One minute we’re just messing about, and the next I’m crying, laughing, and bleeding. It was just so ridiculous. It didn’t help that I was sick at the time, so every time I had to blow my nose I said “Ow,” and bled a bit. This went on for about a week. She had the good grace to feel badly about it and apologize profusely, but still, who hits in the nose? This is why shots shouldn’t be done on pub crawls; it throws off the whole dynamic. It also causes G to start randomly falling asleep on patios in the downtown Guelph core.

Big M got married last year and part of her ensemble included a tiara. It’s really very pretty, and oh-so-sad that she only got to wear it once. Or, it would be oh-so-sad if she didn’t find a way to incorporate it into every possible occasion. She brought it on the pub crawl and we all got to take turns wearing it. There are photos. There is also a photo of Squishy playing the drums, which I had no idea she even knew how to do. Then of course there’s our Jenn, who appreciates both the value of a dollar and a good beer. She took a mostly full pint in her handbag from one bar to another.

Later that night, when we finally made it home (there was some difficulty getting a cab, which I’m not going to address, ‘cause there were a few words exchanged on that subject too. Oh, except for this, ‘cause it was brilliant. Big M and I had split off from the rest of the crowd and we saw a cab coming and went to get it. Two other groups were heading for the same one, and one group had already gotten into the cab when Big M decided she’d had enough rudeness for the evening. She’s five three and about a buck soaking wet, so not all that imposing a physical presence. She grabbed the door and informed the occupants that this was our cab; that we’d called for it. They said they’d called for one too, and that they were there first. She disagreed and continued to assert her case while holding the door open with her foot and hanging onto the roof of the cab. The girl whose door it was tried to pull it shut, but M was too mighty for her! Finally the girl pleaded with Big M to shut the door ‘cause it would break. M, realizing that possession was nine tenths of the law, conceded the point. Where was I during this exchange? Like any good friend, I was standing back on the sidewalk looking incredulous). Anyway, it was late and we went straight to bed. Sadly, sleep was next to impossible because of that damn girl’s maddening snoring.

Big M stepped up to the plate again. She went to where “the Slugger” was sleeping and stood over her yelling, “____ Shut up! Stop snoring! Stop it!” She was eventually roused and stopped snoring long enough for the rest of us to fall asleep.

All in all it was a thoroughly successful night, and definitely one for the annals. At a recent dinner party Big M slyly asked when the next beer festival was. That was another one of our yearly traditions. Various local breweries in the KW area set up in the local arena and you can buy tickets to “sample” the brews for fifty cents. I’m looking into it.

2004-08-17T10:43:00.000-04:00

Adventures on the Road

“What are you doing for the long weekend?”
“Nothing, I’m here, I don’t have any plans.”
“Really? I’m here too. We should do something with that.”
“We should.”
“What can we do that’s fun?”
“We could go see your parents, but I’ve never met them before, so that might be weird.”
“Yeah, you’d want a little pre-exposure before committing to a full three days with them.”
“Well….the car club I’m with is doing their annual ‘cruise’ this weekend. We could do that if you’re interested. It’s all through the Niagara wine region.”
“That sounds good, I’d do that.”
“All right, well let’s play it by ear and see how it goes.”

So, I hear cruise and automatically think of lounging on deck in the sun with some sort of cool beverage (maybe some wine, since that’s where we’ll be), just slipping along watching the waves and the other boats. I should have thought this out a little more carefully. Why would a bunch of guys who like to talk about the type of race car they have in common want to take a boat cruise together? Wine isn’t grown on water. It’s grown at a higher elevation, and it likes dryer, well-drained land. “Cruise,” as it turns out, refers to them whipping around the countryside like their lives depend on it for about four hours.

I tend not to drive all that fast, not on purpose anyway (I seem to keep ending up doing one forty on the 407 though), and I am not at all aggressive. On occasion I’ve been known to apply the imaginary brakes, but I try to keep that knowledge to myself. Therefore, for the more timid of drivers, this was mildly terrifying, but after about an hour I stopped praying and bargaining with God.

We all met up at McDonalds and then got our instructions for the route. I was going to be navigator. Since I was still labouring under the assumption that there was a boat in my future I was a little confused about being given a task. I don’t like navigating, too much potential for screwing up. Fortunately, we were in an area I knew fairly well, so I wasn’t too worried, I’d lived around there for eleven years, after all. Despite my superior knowledge of the area the race started off this way.

Me: Okay, you want to turn right out of the parking lot, and then you have to take the very first left onto that highway.

Him: Are you sure?

Me: Positive.

Him: Okay.

Him: Are you sure we weren’t supposed to go right? A lot of people went right, and we’re in the lead.

Me: Yes, I’m sure. Not only did it say to go left on the directions, I know where we’re going, and it’s not right, it’s left.

Him: We’re in the lead.

Me: Oh.

Him: (moving into the right lane and unrolling the window to talk to two people in the car next to us) Were we supposed to go right? Where’s everyone else?

They reply that we’re going the right way and that they don’t know where everyone else is.

Me: I’m going to hit you so hard in about five seconds.

Him: What?

After we established that I was the directional goddess things went much more smoothly, until I sent us astray, but it wasn’t really my fault. How could it have been?

The boy’s a really good driver, and he really enjoys it, unless he’s on the highway and people are being stupid at him. My knowledge of his skills didn’t keep me from white-knuckling my way around the escarpment. I was so sure I was going to die. However, you can only maintain that level of terror for so long, so I was gradually able to relax and enjoy the scenery.

There were some highly impressive houses scattered throughout the wine region. I think a lot of them were in the Grimsby area, it’s a little hard to remember correctly as we were whipping by at quite a clip: “Heytakealookatthatplaceoverthere!WOW!” The boy probably missed the bulk of them because of having to, you know, watch the road and all. A fact for which I am very grateful.

When the day was over we were exhausted and sweaty. I looked like a rung out dishtowel. The car (a sexy sorta ride) is black, has black leather seats and his air conditioning is out for the moment. Most of the summer has been lame and damp, but on this particular Saturday it was balmy and sunny. We ate with the crew and tried to decide how to spend the evening. We were in Niagara Falls and there are tons of touristy options. The most appealing thing I could see to do was push around a bulldog puppy who was sitting in a baby’s stroller, ooh, or get my picture taken with a giant alien. We weren’t turned on by wax museums or gambling, so we decided to go to New York State.

That was nice. I don’t really know where we were exactly, but we walked down the gorge next to the river fed by the falls (Niagara River? That’d make sense.). Then we went shopping, which would have been better if I weren’t so po. Aside from trying to find a hotel most of our time was spent in a grocery store. I love grocery stores in the States. The boy took me around and pointed out all the stuff he liked and I reminisced about the family trips we used to take to New Hampshire when I was a kid. The States have the best cereals. I was always so jealous of that. When I was growing up you could never get Apple Jacks unless you were in the US, or Frankenberry or anything fun like that. We bought some Slice for me, some Kettle Corn for him, and some more water and decided to head back to Canada, since we couldn’t find a hotel for less than 79 US,(and we were willing to stay in some pretty sketchy places).

Now, I realize it was the long weekend and all, but honestly, how is it possible that we were unable to find any sort of accommodation between the States and the Hammer? We started our hotel mission in good spirits, hopeful, happy, excited about showering in new locals and being allowed to toss the towels on the floor, we ended it sore, exhausted, and bereft of speech. He had an epiphany while we were driving through the “worst area ever” of Hamilton. It was sketchbag central. We were on Barton Street, and – I’m sorry to those who live there and think it’s lovely – but maybe something happens when the sun goes down. There were men in grimy wife-beaters staggering down the street, weaving from side-to-side, one of whom actually stopped to throw his head back and start yowling at the moon. I didn’t know what to do with myself, there were so many things to comment on and mock. It was sensory overload, and the boy was trying to drive responsibly so that we wouldn’t end up stuck there because, duhn duhn duhhhhhn, we were running out of gas!

Anyway, the long and short of it is that he got the inspired idea to try a local college, as they often use their residences as hotels during the summer months when students aren’t there. We approached the place and I said I’d go in and check if they had space, and they did! The girl behind the counter was a little….scattered.
“Okay, you’ve paid, and you have your room keys, you’re all set to go.”
“Yeah, great. Would you mind telling me where we can park? Oh, and the room we’re in.”
“Oh. I should tell you something. During the summer we do a lot of international programs and there are a bunch of ESL kids right now. I’ve tried to put you away from them, and they’re all supposed to be in bed, but if they’re making noise just let us know.”

This is one of those forbidding statements you would expect to be accompanied by some sort of music. I collected the boy and we took our stuff up. We arrived at our floor and walked past about four hundred thousand Spanish kids eating pizza and having “the loud contest.”

Our room turned out to be apartment style. There were two rooms with double beds (and a pile of sheets in the middle of each of them), one bathroom and a central kitchen space with a microwave, sink, and fridge. He said, “I don’t think they cleaned this place,” just as I opened the fridge. There was a half-eaten plate of white macaroni and cheese and a partially consumed, and open, carton of chocolate milk. Maybe it was a perk? I would have preferred a mini bar.

I didn’t pay too much attention to the bathroom, partly to protect myself but mostly because of fatigue. The boy assured me it was vile, but, God love ‘im, he did his level best to clean it up. We were way too tired to try and get another room, and even too tired to complain about the one we had. From all of the standard driving he’d done that day the boy would be lucky if he were able to walk the next day.

It was time to sleep. We were as clean as that shower and those sheets would allow, and cool, and hydrated, and finally not moving. It was time to just slip away….RING, RING, RING, RING, RING, RIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG. Being the man and all it was his job to lurch out of bed and investigate all foreign sounds. What if it hadn’t been a phone? What if it had been a giant hairy spider pretending to be a ringing phone? He missed the call and came back to bed. I was now in a heightened state of exhausted alertness. I could hear sounds in the hallway, and I was tense imagining what was going to happen next. I was just drifting off again when the phone started up for the second time. I rolled out of bed so quickly that I almost fell over. I strode to the phone and lifted it to my ear.

Me: Hello?
Random Female Voice: Bueno?
Me: What? No, not ‘bueno,’ you have the wrong room.

She then proceeded to say something else, and I actually tried to listen for a minute before I remembered “screw this!” and slammed the phone down. In an inspired move, I unplugged the damn thing.

It was after this that the loudest conversation ever needed to take place directly outside our door. The boy had a pillow over his head, and two doors separated us from them, but if we’d spoken Spanish we would have been able to follow along. He crashed around a bit and slammed a door to convey his discontent, but they kept at it. I phoned downstairs to enlist some aid and was told it would all be over soon since they were checking out at four. Even after the noise stopped I couldn’t fall back asleep because of the tenseness. It was a very long night.

Anyway, the plus side of all of this is, I really did have a lot of fun with the boy. It was a great trip full of lots of laughs. It was certainly a bonding experience. Plus, after our adventures in the “hotel” I was called and given a full refund on the room. How about that? Apparently there was a mix up and we were put in a room we had no business being in. So, no one who reads this has to worry about staying in residences during the summer, ‘cause on a normal day it would have been business as usual.

2004-08-05T17:05:00.000-04:00

Weekends

So, Thursday is sort of a stupid time to be writing about last weekend, but it’s been a busy time. As a result of this monotonous project I’ve been doing for work I’ve now convinced myself that I have bipolar disorder. However, also because of the project I now know which drug would be best to take for that problem. Don’t bother asking, there are confidentiality agreements involved.

My family recently came to spend the weekend and celebrate B’s (my sister-in-law’s) birthday. It was a great weekend and I didn’t spend a cent. We sit around telling old stories, accusing each other of being angry, and watching the baby walk three steps and topple.

Maybe it’s because the stories are about us, and that my parents tell them together and laugh, or maybe it’s just all of us in the same room at the same time, which doesn’t happen as often as one would like anymore, but I eat these stories up. It feels like being a little kid before bed, I want to hear the same stories over and over again and I’m still as delighted by them as I once was. My mother spins a good yarn and she has a good memory for the finer details. The character names are always outrageous. Here are some examples of my father’s old girlfriends: Shirley Brimsicle, and Felicity Pickup.

They told the story of Matthew and the ice skates again. There was going to be a skating trip at Matthew’s elementary school and the teacher was asking if everyone had ice skates. Matthew, lacking any sort of shame, said that he did not have ice skates because our family couldn’t afford them. That night my mother received a phone call from the mother of one of Matthew’s classmates. She felt badly that we were so poor and wanted to help out. This may be the only time my mother regretted telling us we were poor so often. Her stock response to us whenever we asked for anything in stores was that we couldn’t have it because we were too poor. This wasn’t a complete lie, we didn’t have a lot of money, but the actual reasons were likely a little more complex. Matthew, for all his gifts, was never a natural athlete, nor did he show a great deal of interest in participating in sports. As such buying him a new pair of skates when he was growing like a weed made about as much sense as…um…something that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Low-carb beer? Decaf coffee? They don't make sense to me, but other people might understand them.

She decided to buy him a pair of used skates and he went on the trip. At this time we lived in a town house complex with many colourful characters. On set were Burf and Ernie (I’m serious), who were a couple, and openly so (so, clearly the most colourful). They made a skating rink in the courtyard for the tots every winter, and this winter Matthew had new (to him) skates. He went out with some of the other kids, but skating is hard, and he wasn’t good at it, so he lay down on the ice and the kids dragged him around by his feet. My mother was watching from the window and reports having felt a strong and poignant shame at Matthew’s behaviour. Finally Matthew was ready to come back in, but he couldn’t make it to the door because he couldn’t skate. Our dear mother said, and I believe that this is an exact quote, “Tough.” If he wanted to get back home he’d either have to be dragged back, or he’d have to walk over on his skates.

Aside from the stories and the teasing our time together is now largely occupied by watching Matthew and B’s son, Rage (who just turned one), wander around the room with arms sticking straight out in front of him like Frankenstein. Rage can’t speak yet, instead he has a wide variety of “busy noises” they go a little something like this: ducka ducka ducka or dooda dooooodaaaa dooda. He is very funny and keeps us all in stitches. He has this great fake laugh he produces when everyone else is laughing or speaking to him and he wants to be in on the joke. It’s kind of like how dogs will politely wag their tails when you are speaking to them.

Recently Rage has taken an exceptional liking to Goodnight Moon, which – while a classic – is one of the creepiest kids’ books ever. “Good-night no one.” AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH. Plus, the old lady rabbit sitting in the rocker, I don’t know…It just seems like the narrator is fixing everything in his/her mind and saying good byes because this is the last night he/she will ever see. The whole family is of the same mind about the book, so every time Rage lurches over with it we play “can’t see the baby.” Which is a new variation of a former favourite game I developed when I worked in a food court during high school, “can’t see the customer.”

This is a total cop out, but I’m finished work now, I want to go home, and I can’t think of a good way to tie all of this in but I want to post because it’s been so long. So, sorry about the lack of finesse, but it’s my blog and I’ll half-ass it if I want to.

2004-07-26T09:07:00.000-04:00

Panties

G sent me a message the other day indicating that she had been broken up with by her young man. He's a few years younger than she is, and apparently pretty immature as evidenced by the way he chose to end things. Perhaps he was raised by wolves, perhaps he had laryngitis, or perhaps he is the Hammer's Reigning Panty. Whatever the reason was, he decided to break up with G via email.

This implies a decided lack of effort and respect. Not to mention a total lack of balls. She has decided not to respond to him at all, but rather chalk it up to a loss. I agree with her maturity and respect her for it. I, however, would love to start sending one liners to him citing the various synonyms of female genitalia that describe him perfectly. Bridget Jones' Diary introduced us to the term "fuckwit" and never has it been more applicable than in today's dating climate. A climate wherein people are more circumspect about the level of involvement, emotional attachment, and interaction they have with members of the opposite sex.

Some people just want a fling, some want relationships, some want a partnership, some want a mate, and if you're the women I used to work with you want men who do shift work so that they're barely around, but boy, when they are...Have you really paid attention to firemen lately? Utterly lickable.

When G told me about this I was angry for her and I asked the boy I'm seeing to promise me that if he was going to break up with me he'd do it over the phone or in person, and not via email. He didn't really respond in the desired fashion. "Oh my, God, of course not! That's so rude." Fine, fair enough, but I was really hoping for something along the lines of, "I would never do that, and I would never break up with you either because you are my sun, my moon, my starlit sky. Without you I wither in darkness. Tonight let me worship you in my arms!" I really liked Val Kilmer in Willow. I really like Val Kilmer.

I'm usually the dumper, but on occasion have found myself as the dumpee. When Dave the Third dumped me it was less of a true break up than a "I'll call you when I get out of the shower." To my knowledge the poor bastard drowned in there because I never got that call.

The ending of my most recent relationship went much better than expected to the point where I was given presents. It was close to Valentine's Day and he was honest enough with himself to realize that he'd never take the stuff back, so I got it anyway. It's a surreal experience to receive gifts for breaking someone's heart.

Of course you're going to hurt someone's feelings when you break up with them. It's rejection and that is painful, but more hurtful is the lingering death throes of a doomed relationship. The kind where you just let it drag on and on and continue to let your feelings get hurt by the indifference of someone who is too chicken to just say that they don't think it's happening; you're not the one for them. I hate that, rather than stewing and ignoring and avoiding, just say. And this applies to both parties. There's no reason why the person who's sitting around wondering what's going on and why the other person seems so withdrawn to show a little spine and decide that they're not going to put up with shit anymore.

At any rate, everyone hears this, but it's completely true of G. His loss, so, so his loss. And G, if you feel any sort of negative emotion whatsoever you can comfort yourself with this much-loved schlocky expression of Oprah's: "he is a child of God put on this earth to teach you a lesson no one else could." Like how to be a panty.

2004-07-16T13:07:00.000-04:00

Random Thoughts and Updates

I guess it’s pretty obvious that I’m back at work now. I’ve really been trying, but haven’t been able to make it past the half day mark. I’ve come in each day with every intention of making it until five, only to kuck out at one. Except for yesterday, that is, yesterday I stayed until four. Then, while driving home and stuck in construction related traffic I almost started to cry because I wanted to be home in bed so badly. This Mono’s a tenacious little disease.

They seemed to have done just fine in my absence, though someone was brought in to help during the two weeks I was at home sweating and sleeping. Coffee proved to be the biggest stumbling block. Both my boss and CL could not manage to make coffee without having it all boil over and create a giant mocha lake. It’s so gratifying to be indispensable.

When is Linkin Park going to come out with a nice love song, or rock ballad, or something? All of these doom and gloom songs about conformity and being misled are getting tiresome. It’s high time Linkin Park mixed it up a bit by doing a Neil Sedaka cover song. You know, just to prove that they are true artists who can rise to a creative challenge.

The situation with the cats has also normalized. After two weeks of being home, three days of quarantine in my room (yeah, two weeks? Didn’t happen. I paroled her after two days and she was fine. I couldn’t handle the litter box in my room any longer than that), and the constant vigilance of Subterranean Septic Removal Services (me) everyone is now crapping exactly where they should be.

In an interesting and unpleasant twist of media news, Sara and Nick have apparently been canned for breach of contract and they might not be on CSI next season. I don’t like Sara much, but Nicki! Th’art cruel, Fate. He’s not as lickable as Warrick, but still, he wouldn’t get kicked out of bed for eating crackers. They’ll either work the problem out and give the kids more cash, they’ll be written out, or they’ll be replaced – which is always weird.

I’m feeling sucky and sorry for myself today, because people have fun plans for the weekend and I am still “resting quietly.” Can I just say how fucking sick I am of resting quietly? It eats. Friends and loved ones are being nice and supportive, and they’re coming to play with me when they can, but still, it’s lonely and it’s boring. I have lots of books to read, but all I want to do is go hiking. Sadly, after half an hour on a treadmill I’m ready for a little lie down, so heading off into the woods isn’t my best bet. The wolves would be circling in less than ten minutes. “Hey, check it out, let’s pick off the one with the puffy spleen!”

If anybody reading this happens to know who sings the song, “Say Hello, Wave Good-Bye,” could they please drop me a line and let me know? Thanks.

I have purchased one of those Oral B Hummingbird thingies in an effort to be more vigilant with respect to dental hygiene. Maybe I’ve been watching too many Sex and the City reruns on TBS, but if things don’t work out between me and the Hummingbird in terms of dental care I can think of something else to use it for. Good Lord. Do you suppose they considered this facet during product development? I think I’ve figured out how to…entertain… myself tonight after all!

And finally, my employers went to France for a conference and very thoughtfully brought me back a gift. There are chocolates, they’re good, and there’s a shirt. Coming soon, to a garage sale near you, is a one of a kind (at least I hope it is) tank top. It’s sort of a mottled beige and grey, with larger than average rivets on the shoulders. That in itself would be fine, but for the design on the front. It’s an embroidered Holly Hobby meets Eurotrash combination of three female gardeners and their equipment. SO nice of them to think of me, but really, you shouldn’t have…I’m a bad person.

2004-07-08T11:55:00.000-04:00

Happily Ever After

It has been argued that women are unhappy in their romantic relationships because they have been programmed with unrealistic expectations from books and other forms of media.

Our earliest examples of romance, aside from our parents, come from fairy tales in which people who don’t really know each other end up together after a certain amount of adventure and danger and they live “happily ever after.” Disney makes movies about these sorts of things all the time. Harlequin sells millions of books a year peddling the same sort of tale, except that they talk about loins and nipples more.

It’s always what happens after that’s the problem. After the adventure and after the first kisses and first everythings you move into the great unknown. Relationships take work, but we wouldn’t know about that, all we know is happily ever after. We want spontaneity and first kisses, and fun, and excitement, and dragons. We don’t want Prince Charming to grow a pot belly and sit around watching football all the time and complaining about the bad back he has from all the dragon slaying and castle storming he did as a tot. And we certainly don’t want our sagging bodies, the pinched look of disappointment we get more often now, or the shrill tone our voices take on when we’re angry.

Happily ever after is just too vague, too non-committal and it doesn’t do us any favours. Because of getting wrapped up in these stories women subconsciously adopt the belief that if they are patient “it” will happen to them too. How many disappointed people are there out there as a result?

Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Okay, so she realizes her dream of becoming human and goes off and marries the handsome prince. No one comes right out and says happily ever after, but it can be assumed. It’s a good thing that they don’t say it, because there is no way in hell that they COULD live such an idyllic life. His is a coastal village, likely with a maritime based economy. Sailing and fishing are their bread and butter; they wouldn’t just depend on the sea for their own food, but also for their economic well being. How long before this became a major issue for the happy couple? She’d either have to become a total sellout and disassociate herself from her heritage, or else he would have to plunge the kingdom into financial ruin to appease her. Then there would likely be a coup d’etat and no one’s idea of happily ever after ends with heads on spikes on the castle wall.

Snow White. Try and tell me, just try, that after listening to that voice for a week straight that Prince Charming wouldn’t be either an alcoholic or a wife beater. I could hardly make it through the movie without it happening to me.

In all of these movies, give or take, none of these couples take the time to form a lasting foundation of love and respect to ensure them a happy relationship. As such emphasis is placed on destiny and the assumption of happily ever after. Little girls don’t stand a chance against this ideological barrage. You have to be pretty, graceful, kind, good with animals, brave, feisty, and yet needy, to snag prince charming, who has to be able to rescue you from something in order that his self-worth be actualized. Once you have him, good luck!

It just doesn’t seem fair.

2004-07-06T17:42:00.000-04:00

Fun, Fun, Fun

G and I were talking last night about hanging out. I’m on the wrong side of the GTA, and as such, visiting people takes a lot of planning. When I lived in Edmonton, if I felt like visiting someone for coffee or whatever all I had to do was walk around the corner. Here if I want to have coffee with someone I have to borrow a transponder and drive for an hour. It just doesn’t seem worth it for a two-dollar cup of coffee, if I’m going to drive out there I want an event, and possibly a parade.

We decided that I need to make friends who are closer, and it’s so true. She suggested I create flyers to attract young, like-minded people to my cause. Then we wondered if that might not be taken the wrong way. In this way the Giant Mocha Orgy was born. We’ll take over a Second Cup close by and we’ll smear caramel corretto all over each other, then we will take turns licking it off. This will probably be our second meeting, because meeting one will be “get-to-know-you” games. “Think of an adjective that has the same letter as the first letter of your name, then repeat everyone’s name and their descriptor who came before you! Ready? Okay!”

It’s fun to have a car to be selective about. I got my first car ever in March, before that I contented myself (if that’s possible) with public transit and mooching off family. There are so many wonderful perks to having a car. I never have to listen to anything I don’t want to hear on the radio - I am in control. I can leave parties or gatherings whenever I want. I can put obnoxious stuffed animals in the windows, Kleenex boxes in the back seat, and novelty mud flaps with Winnie the Pooh or Taz on them if I so choose. As the captain of this vessel, my word is law.

It’s nice to be able to go wherever I want whenever I want, though I rarely seem to. As is the case with driving an hour to have coffee with someone, sure I CAN, but is it a good idea to? Not necessarily, and it’s not just a laziness factor, there’s a cheapness factor as well. Gas is expensive, so is maintenance, insurance, and my vanity plates.

Predictably, my family had some interesting cars growing up. I don’t remember all of them, just my favourites, but my parents did have a tale or two of the cars they drove when they were growing up. My mother’s were the best. She drove a Gremlin and a Roadrunner, I believe, as well as a Nash Metropolitan. The Nash Metropolitan will always be funny because of Dave Barry, who wrote about the cars his father used to drive, among which the Metropolitan features prominently. Dave Barry is a funny, funny man.

We used to have a Dodge Dart. It was a bilious green colour, and was not the most reliable of cars, but my father liked it. We also had a gray Ford Ltd. Station wagon, which was later dubbed the “war wagon” by some of Val’s friends. It certainly looked like it had been through a war.

During highschool Val and I drove to school in a black 1999 Ford Mustang, which was pretty cool right up until I crashed it. One day Val was going to pick our father up from work, and he was looking pretty swanky. It was a warm spring day and he was wearing shades and had the window rolled down. He was likely listening to 102.1, the Edge, which was THE radio station for angst-ridden angry teenage music. He told the story to us later, and I kicked myself for not having been there, he pulled a cigarette from the pack and put it in his mouth while he waited at a light. The other people waiting likely weren’t paying attention, so when he brought the lighter up to the cigarette and flicked it they didn’t see the two-foot jet of flame that shot from the lighter directly up his nose. The cigarette flew from his mouth, and the sunglasses were knocked unceremoniously from his head as he clamped his hands to his scorched nose and howled. I like to imagine that the light turned just then and someone honked at him to hurry up.

Everyone who’s taken public transit, even if it was only one time, has got a story. I have used public transit in many countries for a great many years, and it doesn’t really bother me that much. The wait is horrible but if you have a book or a Discman you can live with it. It’s certainly much nicer to be reading than staring at the back of someone’s bumper wishing death upon him or her and all of its descendants. I was on a bus in Edmonton one day when two women were having a very loud argument about whether one of the women was disturbed enough to be attending a schizophrenia support group. It seems to me that if someone is willing to make a case for their inclusion, that they should be allowed to attend.

One thing that never failed to astonish me about using public transit was people talking on their cell phones. “Hi, I’m on the bus. THE BUS. Yeah. We just turned a corner. Now we’re stopping. What? Oh. About fifteen minutes.” I felt so privileged to be included in their day as, I’m sure, did the rest of the commuting population.

So the long and short of it is that I’m glad to have a car, and I appreciate it. I waited almost three decades before having my own means of transportation. This doesn’t mean that I’ll never take public transit again, far from it, driving in downtown Toronto eats, but it’s nice to know that if I feel the need to drive to Guelph for coffee, I can!

2004-07-05T10:47:00.000-04:00

Time for a ZZZZZ…

I’ve been kind of out of the loop lately, and I want to fire off an entry quickly before I need to take another nap. I was diagnosed with mono last week, and even thinking makes me tired. You’d think that I’d be writing like a fiend, that I would have accomplished so much, but what with the whole needing to sleep so often, it hasn’t happened quite like that.

Mono is officially no fun, although it does have a few perks. Initially my appetite was non-existent, so I was pretty psyched about losing all kinds of weight while I was sick. Sadly, it’s returned, and since I can’t really exercise too much or my spleen will explode, I’m going to turn into a killer whale. You get to sleep as much as you want whenever you want without feeling guilty about it. I’m sleeping about ten hours a night and I have two two hour naps a day. If it weren’t for the laziness thing, I’d be loving it. There is, however, something decidedly depressing about going to sleep before the one year old baby, waking up after him, and napping more than he does.

When I am awake I’m tired, and therefore don’t have a lot of energy to put into the things I’d love to be doing if I weren’t sick and listless. I’d write so much, I’d paint the kitchen, I’d exercise like a fiend, I’d go hiking, I’d make mosaics, I’d single-handedly find a cure for world hunger! Of course if I weren’t sick and listless I’d be at work and wouldn't be able to do any of those things anyway, so really, anything I accomplish while here is a bonus. Gotta love cognitive dissonance.

They don’t want me at work right now, and I don’t really want to be there. When I need a nap, I NEED a nap, and there’s no where comfy there to do it. I wonder if they’d shell out for an employee hammock? One problem is that I doubt like hell that I’ll be getting paid for the time I’m taking off. I don’t know if I get sick days or not, and I also don’t know how long I’ll be out, but if I’m not getting paid for being away I have a feeling that I’ll just need to load up on caffeine and suck it up. Puffy spleen be damned, I’ve got expenses.

So, instead of writing, hiking, painting, or mosaicing (new word!) I am reading Joy Fielding novels, watching CSI on DVD and sweating. How hot is that? This fun little virus could stick around as long as six to eight weeks, although I’ve heard stories of people who’ve had it for only two, if it does last as long as average then I will be sick for the rest of the summer. Huh. It also means that I’m not allowed to kiss anyone, or engage in any sort of, um, private extra-curricular activities. Did I mention before that I’m dating someone? He came over last week when I was all-feverish to bring me some ice cream (Moosetracks, soooooo good) and nothing else. Nothing but hugs and hearty handshakes for the rest of the summer, I’m afraid.

That’s what's happening over here. Not very exciting, I’ll grant you, but I thought I should explain why I’ve been gone. I’ll try to write more now that I’ve got a bit more energy. Perhaps I could go into length about the puffiness of my glands, or about how I’ve found new lymph nodes. Did you know that you have them on the back of your head? It’s true! And when they puff up they hurt and give you a headache.

2004-06-24T17:18:00.000-04:00

Domestic Disturbance

Yes, it’s sad but true, something is definitely amiss in Shangri-me. Someone is not happy with the status quo and has decided that instead of an open forum of communication, it is much more effective to defecate on the carpet. I really wish my brother would just grow up.

No, no, no. I’m talking, of course, about the cats. I have two cats, their names are stupid, and so since I can give them new names here I will: Boris and Natasha (also stupid, but at least catchy). I wasn’t sure which one of them had decided to turn the whole basement into its personal commode, and I also wasn’t sure if someone was sick and that was why this was happening. After some consultation with an expert (my mother) it was determined that this was behavioural. She offered a number of suggestions, which are supposed to keep me out of the vet’s office, so I’m in the process of implementing them.

I was sure that it was Boris, he’s a real mamma’s boy, and what with work, friends, and the new boy I’m seeing, I haven’t been back at the ranch much. It would have made sense if he were lashing out at me in his abandonment. So, Sunday evening I put together a second litter box, and second food and water dish, and moved the rig up into my room. My bedroom. That’s right, I’m now sleeping three feet away from an open sewer. You had better believe that that puppy is getting cleaned often. There’s nothing quite so funky as a litter box that’s been sitting under a sunny window all day in a room where the door has to be closed.

I want to kill myself, but I probably won’t have to; God only knows what sorts of diseases are floating through my system because of this scenario.

My surprise was absolute when I went into the basement yesterday afternoon to see a fresh pile. I had convicted and imprisoned the wrong suspect. The verdict had to be overturned and the new suspect imprisoned. Natasha, as is her way, remained cool throughout the proceedings and didn’t reveal any sort of emotion. She is now enjoying all of the amenities involved with spending two weeks in my room: she gets to knock over the many glasses of water I have lying around, she can exact new revenge on me by pooing in my shoes, and she can relax secure in the knowledge that Boris can’t try to have sex with her.

It’s the strangest thing, both of them have had their naughty bits removed, but Boris still does his level best to get it on with her a few times a day. I find it quite disturbing, because he usually puts his chips down (hello!) right in front of me. I’ll be typing or reading and he’ll leap on top of her with all of the passion and vigour his little body possesses. Then I have to throw water on him, because I don’t want to watch that. If I don’t do that I wonder if I should be playing soft music, or leaving the room or something… I also wonder if my throwing water on him and making him ashamed of his natural urges will turn him into a deviant serial killer or something? I’m so grateful that people don’t handle sex the same way cats do. If someone ran up to me while I was having a nap, jumped on my back, and then bit me as hard as possible on the head the last thing on my mind would be getting off. Well, it would be about someone getting off, but getting off me.

We’ll have to see how it goes, if she doesn’t stop going wherever I’ll have to get rid of her, and I really don’t want to do that. These two have been really good friends to me, especially when I was pretty lonely out West, and they provide me with a great deal of amusement. Natasha likes cold running water, and the toilet is a very good provider of same, so she would regularly fall in the toilet of my old apartment. There are few things funnier than hearing/seeing a cat fall into a toilet. They’re also really funny when they accidentally have their tongues sticking out. Just thinking about it makes me chuckle. You’ll look up from whatever book you’re reading and your elegant cat will look back at you with this silly little protruding tongue. Oh man, you can’t write comedy like that.

There are lots of people out there who don’t like cats at all; I’m dating one of them, actually. Men, except for my brothers, don’t like cats. I don’t understand what causes it. I consider myself a dog person, because I’d rather have hundreds of puppies than anything else, but in truth I suppose I’m an animal person, ‘cause I’m willing to love them all. Cats aren’t considered as “manly” as dogs are, but small dogs don’t really look very manly either. If your pet can be carried around in a handbag (and there are some dogs that get this treatment) then chances are it’s not the “scourge of the upper east side.”

I’m generalizing again. There was a program on the CBC (shut up) wherein they were reading letters out. One letter was from a man who was hiking in Jasper, Alberta. When you’re hiking in the Rockies they recommend that you take a bell with you, or else that you sing to yourself if you’re alone in order to warn any bears that you’re in the neighbourhood. This man was not following the advice of seasoned professionals and he ran into some trouble. A bear came out of the bushes on the path and began advancing on him, when – no word of a lie – his trusty wiener dog burst out of the shrubbery “like a rat on crack” and began savaging the bear’s genitals. The bear backed off. I know for a fact that none of our dogs, who were medium-large in size, would have been able to manage a feat like that. They would have had to lie down with a cool cloth and a glass of water with lemon until danger passed.

2004-06-18T15:43:00.000-04:00

Time Suckage

It’s Friday, and one of those Fridays where I’ve convinced myself that the world owes me a favour and I should be allowed to go home. Occasionally my bosses take pity on us and send us home early for the weekend as a gesture of good will. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of good will out there today. They are away at a conference, and we are here wishing we weren’t. It likely wouldn’t be such a huge deal if not for three things: I am reading a very good book I’ve been waiting for (Song of Susannah, by Stephen King), I am very tired and would like a nap, I had convinced myself that today would be one of the days they would call and spring us.

There was already one call from France this morning, and I even asked at the end, “So, is there anything else AT ALL that you wanted to tell us before you hung up?” There wasn’t. The odds of them having the time and thinking to call again to give us a head start on the weekend are slim. Now I’m bitter at the world and have resolved to not be productive for the rest of the day. It only seems fair in light of this massive disappointment. How dare they expect me to work for money when they could just give it to me for napping at home? Puh-lease.

Instead of obsessively checking my email and surfing through the online jukebox to find the Jack Johnson song “Flake,” I’m going to perform a writing exercise. I keep meaning to write a romance novel, because I used to edit them and they’re fun, so I’ll start one here now and if anyone feels like offering feedback, I’d appreciate it.

Thundering Hearts

Veranda Sutherland lounged in the window seat of her father’s parlor with a book hanging loosely from her tapered, shapely fingers. She was a young woman of surpassing loveliness, with fine, smooth white skin that covered all of her five-foot-five frame. Her hair was a long thick waterfall of ebony, and, when loose, hung well past her waist. She could be heard to make unladylike comments when she sat on it by accident and snapped her head back. Her sapphire eyes were large and evenly set, and smoldered as though lit by an internal flame, which is interesting because most people can’t think of things that are sapphire blue and smolder. Unless they’re into chemistry or something.

Veranda was thinking about love; more specifically about the man her father was choosing for her to marry. It was down to three choices. There was Buck Wineguard, a stocky man who greatly resembled a beast of burden in both aroma and intelligence. He was also rumoured to have a propensity for those same animals, if one would stoop to believe rumours. Since Veranda didn’t like him anyway, she would. Bachelor number two was named Thad Verily. Veranda wasn’t sure she wanted to marry a man who had better taste in clothes than she had, or whose hair was prettier and more elegantly styled than her own. The final choice was Lord Drake Covington. Lord Covington was very dashing and handsome, but was also a very dark and mysterious man. He didn’t have a trustworthy face, and Veranda privately suspected that he was responsible for every bad thing that had happened in the world.

Like most girls of her acquaintance, Veranda knew that her situation was hopeless, and that as a lady of quality she would have no say in the most important decision of her life. Her father was not a man who allowed himself to be swayed, cajoled, or intimidated. She supposed that if she were allowed to choose that she would pick Thad. He was the least likely to be insufferable for the rest of their lives, and at least they could talk about clothes and boys together. Her father would likely pick Lord Covington, because he’s the antagonist and the story can’t continue without him playing a significant role.

As she contemplated her melodramatic thoughts she heard hooves coming up the path to the house. She wondered if she could summon the strength to be civil to visitors today. With a sigh she closed her book and got up to set her looks aright before whomever it was made it to the door. As she smoothed her black hair into position a feeling came over her, a very strange and excited sort of feeling, the kind she sometimes got when horseback riding. Veranda felt her breathing quicken and could see her pulse beating more rapidly at her throat. She didn’t even need to pinch her cheeks to add colour, as it had appeared all on its own. What can this possibly be, she wondered? Was she ill? While she questioned herself in this fashion there was a knock at the door.

The rapid knock beat in time to the fluttering of her heart. The knock sounded like it came from strong hands. Strong masculine hands that weren’t afraid of hard work, hands that had tamed horses and men alike. Hands that could bend a man to their will. Hands that were familiar with the landscape of a woman’s body and….

“Hello, is anyone home?” A baritone voice questioned from the other side of the door.

With a breathy “Oh!” Veranda tripped lightly to the door and threw it open to the stranger standing on her porch.

The slightly more than six foot tall specimen filling the doorway was just the yummiest piece of man Veranda had had the opportunity to view. He filled out his military uniform VERY nicely with an assortment of rippling muscles and interesting planes and angles. There were bulges in all of the right places, and it was all she could do to not stare too pointedly at some of the more masculine ones. Cheese and rice, she was supposed to be a lady!

“Good afternoon, Miss, I’m hear to see Lord Sutherland.”

Veranda gave him what she hoped was her most winning smile and said,

“Of course, sir, is my father expecting you?”

“Your father? Are you, by any chance, his daughter Portico?”

“No, that’s my older sister, she lives with her husband’s people a few townships over.”

“I see, then that would make you Veranda. Word of your incredible beauty has spread far and wide. Clearly, it wasn’t exaggerated.”

“If my beauty is so ‘incredible’ then why didn’t you know who I was right away?” She asked peevishly.

“Your sister’s supposed to be pretty hot too.” He replied with an easy grin.

Despite herself, Veranda was surprised at how quickly the smile came to her full red, lips. This man was clearly a rogue, but he was charming.

“You never answered my question, sir.”

“What question is that?”

“Is my father expecting you?”

“Oh! Of course, yes, he is expecting me.”

“Why don’t you come inside then?” She asked with a purr in her voice.

His eyebrows rose slightly at her tone and he found his body responding in highly inconvenient ways.

“Thank you, I’ll do just that.” He breezed past her and headed toward the back of the house. “He’s in the study, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” she panted, trying to keep up with his long-legged stride, “but how can you possibly know where that is?”

“I’ve been in here before.”

“Really? But I’m certain I’ve never met you before.” She racked her tiny brain for a memory of him.

“Oh, it was a few years ago, and I don’t think that you were here. Anyway, I can find the way by myself, and I don’t want to trouble you anymore. Doubtless you have important matters of your own to attend to.”

The truth of the matter was that he found her presence vaguely unsettling. She resurrected feelings he’d long hoped to keep buried. Now the only thing he hoped to bury was himself inside her. Wow, where did that thought come from?

As he made he made his way alone to the back of the house Veranda realized she had forgotten to ask the handsome stranger his name…

2004-06-17T16:33:00.000-04:00

Daddies

Father’s Day is coming up quickly; I haven’t done anything about it. I guess I’ll buy a card; I’ll probably pick up a gift too. On the off chance that my father reads this I won’t mention what we’re thinking about getting him. The thing is, though, he doesn’t want anything. He doesn’t really believe in these sorts of holidays and nothing but golf balls or wine excites him in terms of gifts. He doesn’t listen to CDs, doesn’t watch movies (or know how to use the DVD player) and seems to have all of the books he wants. He won’t acknowledge his birthday anymore, and wishes we wouldn’t either. This resulted in a game I enjoyed, but no one else seemed to find as funny.

My father, like many men (at what age, exactly, do all men seem to turn into my father, anyway?) has problems finding things that are right in front of him. He’ll open the fridge door and rifle through and glare at the contents for a full five minutes before he starts loudly accusing all of us of having consumed whatever he’s looking for. At that point I would walk purposefully, yet wearily, into the kitchen and immediately locate the item. He would thank me and then utter the following much loved phrase, “Well, of course I couldn’t find it. You people are always moving things around so that I can’t find them.” I like how we turned into “you people,” like he’d never met any of us before and we were part of a global conspiracy to thwart him. Anyway, the game was this, since he didn’t want any presents and flatly forbade us (I have no birthday) from getting him anything. This was his birthday wish. So, we took the presents we’d gotten for him, removed the tags and hid them in his stuff.

He’d come downstairs and say to my mother,
“Did I always have this Yankees’ shirt?”
“Of course,” she snapped (ever the patient June Cleaver cutout).
“Oh, okay then.”

It worked well with books too.

“Oh, where’d we get that? I’ve been wanting to read that.”
“We’ve had it for ages.”
“Have we? The spine isn’t even cracked…”

Yeah, how ‘bout that?

Dear old dad takes a lot of ribbing around our household. We mock him a fair bit, it’s not mean-spirited, but it is sort of constant. As a result he’s become pretty quiet. He also thinks that we don’t listen to him and don’t take his advice. So here’s my gift to him, and where I prove him wrong.

We used to work together and I asked him why he did something at work, because it didn’t really seem like it was part of his job, and so he explained to me that everything was part of his job. If his boss asked him to shovel the walk, even though he made eighty thousand a year he would, for two reasons. For one thing, you never ask anyone to do anything you yourself are unwilling to do, and second, if your boss decides that your time is best spent doing something then you do it.

He taught me that you can’t eat pizza, wait half an hour, and then let your brother throw you around a swimming pool or you will most certainly barf, and then you will have to leave the pool so you don’t drown on your own vomit. At least Matthew had to clean it up.

My father explained to me that being flexible and versatile, both in the workplace and in life, are two of the most important qualities you can have.

He told me to control a car’s speed with the accelerator and not the brakes, as much as possible.

When it snows he always tells me not to make sudden moves: no sudden starts, and no sudden stops. Everything should be gradual.

My father didn’t exactly teach me this one, we sort of learned it together, but if your child is extremely accident prone don’t try to explain every scratch and bruise to the hospital staff or they will think that you’re beating him/her. He was actually almost accused of beating me on one of my many trips to emergency.

Even though it kills me, I sometimes use his jokes. I find myself telling people that “in the immortal words of Frank Burns, ‘it’s nice to be nice to the nice,’” something he said frequently.

When we lived in a townhouse and our bikes were hung up on a wall I had some trouble getting mine up and down and he made me practice. He explained that it was very important that I learn to be self-sufficient, because I should never have to depend on anyone to do things for me that I should easily be able to do myself. I hate using weights, but I always keep that in the back of my mind and try to stay strong enough to help myself and the people I love.

We were in Prince Edward Island when I was little and he took me out to the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. We stood there, and even though I was scared he took my hand and led me out into the cold salty water. The waves came up to my waist when they rolled in from the great unknown. He told me that we were going to jump over the waves when they came to us. I wasn’t used to being in water without water wings, and the ocean was larger than everything in my limited repertoire. But he held my hand and asked if I was ready and I said that I was. He held on tightly and we jumped wave after wave until I thought my arm would snap off, and I laughed almost until I was sick. I forgot to be scared because he was there, and he didn’t let go.

There was a scary period when he had prostate cancer. It wasn’t really life threatening, but I was terrified just the same. It was the first time something had gone wrong, the first time something truly bad hit THAT close to home. What do you do and where do you go when your dad is sick? When you still feel sort of like a little kid most of the time, who do you turn to when the person you've always turned to is unavailable for comment? I felt so young, so impossibly young, and like there was nothing in the world I’d ever be able to handle if something happened to him.

Happy Father’s Day, go hug your dads.

2004-06-17T13:12:00.000-04:00

“Have You Gone through A lot of Guys?”

This question was asked of me fairly recently and try to imagine how horrified I was to receive it. Now, granted, the person who asked it had limited social graces and no sort of filter, but it was obviously what he thought or he wouldn’t have asked.

The interesting thing I found about being asked how many guys I’d gone through was the implication that I had slept with everyone I dated. What a typical pig-dog, rat-bastard, misogynistic attitude. Yes, clearly because I’ve gone out on dates with a few different people it means I’m also serving it up to all of them. I’m “the Cold-Sore Queen” you read about on bathroom walls all over.

I guess you could say I’ve dated a lot people. According to some that could make me pretty slutty, according to me it makes me a people person – which could mean slutty without the sex. Some of the people I’ve gone out with were okay, some were horrendous, and some were beige. The beige category applies to the guys who, whenever their names are brought up in conversation, friends will say, “Oh yeah! I totally forgot about him!” To the beige category we add the following: the guy who didn’t laugh at any of my jokes, the tequila boyfriend, and the guy who gave me a Harrison Ford biography when I lent him The Bell Jar.

This is just an aside, but it is a good story. The Sketchiest Boyfriend Ever award goes to my first long distance relationship. He was five hours away, and I was clearly not in a good place judgmentally. How else do you explain dating a guy whose parents ran a church in the basement of their house? He only ate breaded chicken and Alphagetti. He was a big fan of Star Trek and bought himself an eighty dollar plastic model of “the Bridge,” which he set up in my room and played with when he visited. As it turns out he already had an identical one back home, but this was such a good price he couldn’t pass it up. God, that was the longest visit of my life, because I knew as soon as I saw him step off of the train that I had made a rather monumental mistake. I’d like to say that I was possessed or something when I made the decision to actively date this person who, while very nice, was deeply weird.

At the end of my second year of university things were getting a little out of control with the number of boys I had dated, and people were having some trouble keeping track. This resulted in my oldest brother purchasing me a book called How to Dump a Guy: A Coward’s Manual. I was a little offended by that, but his reasoning was, if I was doing so much of it, I might as well get the technique down.

While I haven’t necessarily used the techniques outlined in the book, I did find it an interesting read. There are scenarios for every sort of break up. I think that they even provide the etiquette for dumping via Fax (ie: don’t). Can you imagine? Most of my break ups have been done in person, some over the phone. In one instance I moved to another province, which avoided the issue nicely. There’s one person I am still technically dating, despite the fact that he’s been with someone else for the past ten years (although their relationship ended in recent months). I went to his house to see what would happen to “us” when he moved an hour and a half away, and he said we would “live our lives and just see how it went.” To him that clearly meant an end, but in terms of actual legalities we’re obviously still a couple. He’s really in the doghouse about forgetting our anniversary and my birthday for the past six years. I’m strongly considering not taking him back if I ever see him again.

Logically, thinking about breaking up with people leads us to thoughts of first dates. First dates are always the worst. When you’re single you really look forward to meeting someone and having the first kisses, and the cuddling on couches, but rarely do you look forward to that horror known as the first date. I dread them with relish. So much preparation goes into this event, both mentally and physically. You’ll not have worked out for weeks, but as soon as you know you’re going for coffee with someone you undergo the 24 hour total body overhaul. This involves working out for at least two hours straight (including cardio, weights, and abs) in the hopes that this will transform your body into an entirely different shape before the date. You have to shave your legs and all other areas you’ve neglected. You might wax your eyebrows, and if you’ve left yourself enough time you might also consider a face mask, and painting your nails. Make up is a much more careful affair for the first date, you don’t just slap it on and hope for the best, you actually take the time to try and come up with “a look.” Your hair will also require special attention. Interestingly, it will always look better on days when you don’t have a first date, and when you don’t lavish all sorts of special attention on it. There’s no point even mentioning how long you agonize over it. Whatever you decide on wearing, you’ll regret it for one reason or another, and you’ll also probably get deodorant marks on it. Here’s a handy hint, if you just rub the cloth against itself, where the deodorant is, it’ll go away - maybe.

Mental preparation involves trying to become incredibly fascinating in the shortest amount of time possible. This will involve reading a newspaper, or at least some of it, for the first time in months. You’ll also likely have several imaginary conversations featuring yourself and him in order to feel as prepared as possible for any conversational eventuality. I wonder if boys put themselves through this agony. Maybe they just drive themselves into a frenzy imagining how quickly they’ll be able to get into your pants.

One first date worthy of note took place when I was nineteen or twenty. I started going out, for some reason, with a two-hundred pound bouncer of the club we spent a lot of time at. I had forgotten that I agreed to go and see a movie with him. He showed up at our house with one of his housemates while I was in classic Sunday loungewear. I think I asked him what he was doing there. He looked decidedly taken aback at that question, “you said you wanted to see a movie tonight.” Did I now? There had to have been cocktails involved. Okay then! So I managed to skip out on all of the prep work mentioned previously and just move straight into terror. He asked my housemates if any of them wanted to go with us, and since his friend was there Big M decided to come too.

Try to imagine her surprise when we were dropped off at the theatre and his friend sped off. She was mortified, she still yells at me whenever this comes up in conversation. As we were walking into the theatre he was in front of us, and she and I were whispering frantically back and forth:

“Holy shit! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this was a date!”
“I didn’t know it was a date! I don’t remember agreeing to this! You can’t leave.”
“Screw that! I’m not staying.”
“Yes you are.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are.”
“Fine, I’ll stay for one movie; then I’m gone. I can’t believe you did this to me…”

We went in to watch the movies, it was a double feature. He sat between me and Big M. At one point, not too far into the first movie, I heard a strange noise and looked over to discover that he was snoring. Yes, my date was asleep. Big M and I exchanged a glance. What a shit show.

True to form, at the end of the first movie she made as graceful a retreat as she could manage and we finished the rest of our date. He even managed to stay awake for the second film.

At the end of the night he walked me home, which took about forty-five minutes. To pass the time he decided that it would be a good idea to tell me stories about his youthful indiscretions. There was the first time he got drunk, which was when he was ten. He spent that afternoon sleeping it off in the gym’s equipment room. The other stories had to do with the times he was almost arrested for public nudity. What is it with boys getting drunk and taking their clothes off in public?

Shockingly we dated for awhile. He cracked me up, I didn’t delude myself too much, though, I knew we wouldn’t be picking out china someday, or anything, but he could always make me laugh. Who else, for Easter, would buy me a hollow chocolate Hercules (from totally heroic Saturday on Global)?

The secret to not ending up with these stories is to not go out with people just because they like YOU but rather because you like them too. It wastes a lot less time to handle it that way. At any rate, happy hunting, and good luck.

2004-06-10T09:48:00.000-04:00

The Mean Reds

Audrey Hepburn, in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, said that instead of the blues she got the mean reds, and that they were worse than the blues. She described the mean reds as being sad and scared, and you just don't know why. Tiffany's was the only place she could go that brought her peace.

I'm having a mean reds sort of a day, and it's not just me either. Just about everyone I've talked to - complained to, really - have confessed to similar feelings. Like the craziness believed to accompany a full moon - do bad moods also follow a cycle? Predominant stereotypes indicate that women will be angry once a month; when women are close to each other their cycles often coincide and that results in a whole gaggle of irritable women. That's not the case with me right now; however, I'm just ticked. It was one of those days.

Things started off with the feeling of not being quite awake, but I kept trying to jolly myself out of the grogginess. I started my day at work by sending out, what I thought would be, a very sweet email. It was one of the rare times where I was one hundred percent sure of my motivation. I was writing to someone I care about to try and make him happy and show that I was thinking of him. Wow, did I ever misread that situation. In the process of trying to compliment someone very close to my friend I ended up saying something potentially insulting. There was too much room to read between the lines, and I was totally misrepresented. Now, as I mentioned above, I was fully not trying to be sarcastic or ambiguous or cheeky. People who know me might find that hard to believe because of every day for the past twenty-seven years, but it's true. It was the high road all the way this time.

So, in addition to the craziness at work, I also got to enjoy feeling guilty and self-righteous for the rest of the day. Add to the mix feeling angry at myself for being guilty over something I didn't think I needed to feel guilty about. Man, I could use a drink.

I hate one of my coworkers. I'm going to come right out and say it. I don't hate many people, hardly any really, but this woman is special. She works from home, but comes into the office once a month. She never uses her keys, but rather buzzes for me to let her in every time she arrives, goes for lunch, walks someone to their car, or just when she feels like watching the big vein in my forehead throb. One of my illustrious tasks is to make coffee in the morning. I'm usually the only one who drinks regular; maybe one other person will have a cup of it, so I usually only end up making coffee once a day. One day she sauntered down the hall toward me:

"Um, Lynx....there's no more coffee, and I don't know what we do when that happens..."

Well, shit, let me think, we could...panic and close the office for the day, curl up in a pile on the floor and nap like kittens, or WE COULD MAKE ANOTHER POT OF COFFEE. Honestly, it's like one day the wolves who were raising her said, "It’s time for you to take everything you've learned from us and go into the city to work."

Today, while I was doing three other things a man called to say that he would be late for his interview with her because he was on the bus and it was running late. I relay the message. He calls back while I'm still working on these three things, and he's well and truly late now, to ask for directions. I give them to him, but obviously, since she wasn't the one giving them, they were wrong and I'd inconvenienced her. I apologized and explained that I hadn't had much time and felt that I had given perfectly adequate directions, at which point she informed me that I didn't need to "get defensive." Ho ho ho! I may not need to get defensive, but now I GET to fuck her shit up. Next time she heads out in the rain to grab a curry meal from the corner cafe I'm going to head off to the bathroom with a crossword puzzle. Take your keys, you dumb twat.

The homecoming wasn't satisfying, either. Traffic was bad on the way, and then I babysat for awhile. When my brother and sister-in-law came home there weren't hellos, there were questions. They were all fairly reasonable questions, but you wouldn't have heard me admitting that then. “Are you watching the Stalker episode from CSI AGAIN? You’re messed up.” “Is the baby eating hot dogs? He’s never eaten those before. You know those are one of the foods babies can choke on.” This was all in the first five minutes. It turned out the hot dog point was moot as the baby would have nothing to do with veggie dogs and cried every time he put a piece in his mouth. The Stalker episode of CSI (season two) is brilliant and creepy and I really like it. I can understand why my having watched it four times in the past few months could hint at a problem, but I just really enjoy watching Nicki cry.

I came upstairs for awhile to regroup and decide what I needed to do to break the mood. Audrey had her Tiffany's, what did I have? Music? A little Rage Against the Machine when you're ticked works wonders. Nothing like lip synching along to "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me!" for five minutes straight without feeling a little better about life. And there's this. Expelling anger onto screen, or paper, or a sympathetic ear is quite cathartic.

Days like this, when everything conspires to fuck you over, remind me of when I used to work in the food court of our local mall. Periodically I'd have these wretched days, and I'd just be foul to deal with (I was seventeen). On one in particular I was stocking the fridge with pop and muttering angrily to myself when two things happened in unison: a child started wailing, and I banged my hand against the rack I was loading the drinks onto. Instead of screaming, or walking out of work I must have howled with laughter for ten minutes solid, no breathing. It was either that or go postal. Maybe that's the way it works, you either suck it up and laugh it out, or your rage builds until you're up on a water tower with a semi. Let’s all just keep hoping that I continue to find writing a serviceable release.

2004-06-03T16:58:00.000-04:00

Nothing’s Fine, I’m Shorn

Well, the problem isn’t actually the cut, it’s the colour. I went into the salon expecting to get my hair cut, and to get some highlights. I expected to leave with brown hair that had some blonde in it; the situation is quite the opposite.

Cats and kittens, cuffs and collar are decidedly unmatched. For that matter, so are cuffs and eyebrows. I look ridiculous. I also look, as my oldest brother so kindly pointed out, like my mother. Now, since she doesn’t know where this website is, I’m not that worried about offending her, but if she does happen upon this: I’m not saying you are an unattractive woman, I’m saying that at the age of twenty-seven I don’t want to be mistaken for you.

This is an overreaction, obviously there are more pressing concerns in today’s world than what’s up with my coif, but at the moment I don’t care about any of them. I look funny, and I won’t cease looking funny for awhile. Damn them. I’m wishing itchy things on all of them.

The problem I have with salons is that I lose the ability to make any sort of choice, I always assume that they know what’s best for me in a way I never could. They ask me questions and it’s the nineteen fifties or something, “Oh, I can’t decide. What do you think?” They are the experts and I put myself in their capable hands; in much the same way I would expect to defer to a doctor in the event of surgery. That being said, after what happened to my head when I trusted these people I don’t think I want to take a chance with the doctors. Suppose they decide that my liver would look better if it was pinker? And then I die?!

I’ve been preconditioned to trust hairdressers; to look upon them as heroic. This all stems back to a memorable incident from my childhood. Who hasn’t had a rotten home haircut? Don’t’ worry if you haven’t, ‘cause I had your share, and your share, and probably his too. The most notable of which occurred the night before my grade five Xmas concert. My mother was going to give me a trim so that I would look “sharp” for my performance the next day. I should point out that she had given me many haircuts prior to this event and they were all fine. I should also point out that my mother has crazy-shaky hands, and is a little on the nervous and twitchy side. Yo, she was a powder keg with a smoldering fuse.

I could sort of hear her humming and hawing to herself while she cut my hair and tried to get it right. Finally she moved away from me saying “I’m scared to take any more off in case there’s nothing left.” Try to imagine how it felt to hear that phrase.

I looked in the mirror, determined – if not to be stoic – than to at least be brave, and saw what she had done to me. No word of a lie, I looked like Fred Flintstone. Screw stoic, I wailed.

She pursed her lips and said, “Oh, it’s not that bad.” I tried to pull myself together, but it just wasn’t happening. Forget about the humiliation of showing up at school like that, but to be on stage in front of God and everyone? The next morning I was kept home from school so that we could hide mommy’s nasty little secret. She took me to the local mall (everything was pretty local in this town, though), and presented me to the hair stylists. I like to imagine that their names were Sheena and Laverne.

No one else was in, so they could devote all of their heavily made-up attention to me. With narrowed eyes (admittedly, that could have been a symptom of too much mascara, or in-breeding) and planned their attack. They circled, touching my hair with yellowed fingers, and finally stepped aside to consult. Periodically they’d throw my mother a look that said more clearly than words that they wished home haircuts were punishable by law. They reminded me of temperamental artists, I half imagined that they would throw up their hands and wail “I simply can’t WORK under these conditions!” But evidently they decided their skills were equal to the task.

When they were finished I looked great, and the concert was saved for me. But, God, what a shit show to get there. I say now, although things will likely change by the time I get around to having kids, that I won’t put them through the same thing. Who are we kidding?

And so, clearly I’ve been preconditioned to see hair dressers as saviours, and to trust them implicitly. This willingness to trust blindly, and question nothing, has left me looking odd indeed. I need a tan, or something, to go along with this new look. One haircut shouldn’t have you seeking a whole new image. Well, unless you get a mohawk or something.

2004-05-31T11:12:00.000-04:00

The Workin’ Girl Blues
In my twenty seven years I have held a number of jobs. The first of which, like so many girls before me, was babysitting. I was fortunate enough to have a father who worked with a large number of new parents. Oddly enough, many of the new mommies and daddies also worked together. My dad pimped me out to everyone and anyone, never asked for a cut, and he only beat me twice.

All of the families I sat for were very good to me, and their children were unfailingly well-behaved. I did notice, however, that none of them had cable, movies, food, or anything fun to read. The child I sat for most often, Jeffrey, had a particularly Spartan abode. When he was very young it was great to sit for him, often I would get there and he’d be asleep, and wouldn’t make a peep all night. For the first month or so I had no idea what he looked like. However, this also meant that there was absolutely nothing for me to do while I was there. I certainly didn’t feel like doing my homework. So, I talked on the phone and ate raisins and Flinstones’ vitamins. I hope that eating seven in a sitting didn’t render me sterile or anything.

Over the summers I would provide relief for the day care workers going on vacation. The most memorable of these stints was for Kenny and Rachel. Rachel was a very sweet little girl, beautiful, kind, loving, and (if it can be said about a three year old), gracious. Kenny, however, tried to find as many ways as possible to kill himself in a day. The very first time I sat for them his mother came up to me and said:

“Ummmm, we had a little bit of an incident last night. Kenny swallowed a dinosaur button and seemed to have some problems getting it down. We took him to the hospital, but they said to just keep an eye out for it and see that it worked its way through. So, I really hate to ask you to do this…”

“And I hate being asked, but I’ll look for it when I change him.”

It wasn’t unusual for Kenny to make several trips to the hospital a week. Anyway, sure enough, as I was changing him for bed there was a cheerful little pink button with a stegosaurus on it nestled amongst the contents of his diaper. I’m glad that they gave me a head’s up about that because I would have been a little alarmed if I had found that in there without any sort of explanation attached. I’m sure that his parents were very appreciative of the fact that I washed the button off and kept it for them. Perhaps it went into the photo album.

I’m not too proud of the way I “mothered” poor Kenny, and it’s a good thing there were no cameras around. I once held him down in bed to keep him from getting out and running around so he’d go to sleep. I also once held the door shut so he couldn’t get out of his room when he was supposed to go to bed. On one side I was yelling “Kenny, go to bed!” and Kenny would tug furiously on the door and yell back “No bed!” This went on for ten minutes, until I tried to open the door to force him back into bed, and he used my trick against me.

Little Rachel did whatever you asked her to do, and was happy to help out in any way shape or form. My only complaint about her was her addiction to crappy movies. We had to watch Thumbelina every day, sometimes twice. This movie never received recognition from any academy, nor is the art, plot, or music worth writing home about. I wished very fervently for the summer heat to melt the tape in the VCR, but God was indifferent to my pleas.

The first non-babysitting job I had was for a video store. That was extremely short-lived. Val got me the job, and trained me for two and a half hours. The first day I was due to start work they declared bankruptcy and the doors were locked.

One of the most horrible jobs was working at a sort of country club for trout fishermen. The grounds of this place were beautiful. Gazebos dotted the lawn, the gardens were immaculate, and the trout ponds, four in total, gave a cottagey feel to the place. Working here, though, was like stepping back into the nineteen forties. This was a place for old, rich, white men to drink and talk to other old, rich, white men. Four of us served in the dining room and were meant to be seen (our blouses were virtually transparent) but not heard. We weren’t allowed to enter through the front doors, but rather the kitchens.

There were about ten staff in total and we lived and worked together. The cabin fever was tangible. Two of the guys living there insisted on watching Dazed and Confused every single day. When they weren’t watching it, they were quoting it “All right, all right, all right.” I can’t watch that movie without shuddering. We didn’t have cable, most of us didn’t have cars, and we worked every day but Monday. Kathy Lee Gifford’s kids had better working conditions. It didn’t help matters at all that our boss was a smelly insane person. She would be friendly, then very abruptly not, and she reeked to high heaven the entire day. Her hair would still be wet from her morning shower and her stench could bring tears to your eyes.

If we’d been allowed to receive tips we would have made out like bandits at this place, but unfortunately that was not in the cards. There was a tip bonus that they held over our heads, and the only way we could get it was if we worked the whole summer through. I still have nightmares, wherein I’ve agreed to go back and work there. I’ll be in the dining room again receiving my instructions for the evening and a part of me will be screaming “no, don’t do it, you HATED it here!”

The winner of the worst job ever has to be a temp job I did over Xmas several years ago. For three days, eight hours a day, I wore a glowing yellow sweatshirt that said “Cantel Amigo” in peacock blue. The going rate on my dignity at that time was fifteen dollars an hour. Three of us would stand in front of various stores in a mall and hand out cardboard flip phones to passersby. One day my two coworkers were smoking and I was standing with them when one man ran out to us, and all out of breath said “Hey, the Three Amigos! My wife just thought of that!” My coworker, Kelly, gave him a flat stare and replied, “You’re a very lucky man, sir.” He didn’t get it.

Now that I’m all responsible and adult I can be more choosey about the jobs I work. Currently this means that I answer phones, do proofreading for two companies, email my friends incessantly, and write a blog. It also means that I get to take out the garbage every day and make coffee for tout le monde. It’s not all glamour.

2004-05-26T18:34:00.000-04:00

It's So Crazy it Just Might Work

Lately I've been noticing that more and more of my contemporaries are listening to talk radio in an attempt to escape the monotony of top forty radio. Fewer and fewer people care who thinks they’ll be the next Beatles. In the Toronto area there is CFRB1010 AM, which features an entertaining cast, my favourite of whom is John Moore. Recently Mr. Moore has been doing quizzes with his listeners, inspired by the type of questionnaire given to those seeking asylum in Canada for fear of being persecuted for homosexuality in their own countries. Some of these people are being sent back to their countries for not being “gay enough.”

Obviously this is a serious issue, but this is not a place where I want to wax poetic, or philosophic, about all of the mouth-breathers out there who can’t let people live in peace. I want to talk about a radio program that made me chuckle. Having observed the fact that I consider this a pertinent issue, and that I am sensitive and savvy we can get down to the funny side of homosexuality: stereotyping.

The questionnaire that John Moore developed for his show is really quite fun, and I've started to use it as a way of screening potential boyfriends. What girl hasn't secretly feared becoming attached to someone only to find out during the relationship, or else years later, that he's gay? It's happened to people I know, I bet it's happened to people you know too. There have been times when I've been considering someone, or have found myself interested in someone but have held back because of being slightly unsure, of sensing that something wasn't quite between us (if you know what I’m sayin’ right here). Maybe it was because he was too neat, too articulate, or a little too sensitive. Or maybe his collection of scented candles and knick-knacks surpassed my own. These are the little things that can drive a wedge between two hopeful romantics. By utilising John Moore's quiz, prospective couples can have fun and learn about their orientation at the same time. There is only one area in which the questionnaire falls short. It only applies to men, not to women. At the end of my John Moore recap I'll provide a potential questionnaire for women so that men can determine whether or not the young lady in his life plays for her own team. Feel free to send me your suggestions.

The Questions

1. What two words would you use to come up with a new name for white paint?
2. Who was your favourite Golden Girl?
3. Have you ever used another word to describe a shirt?
4. What are Manola Blahniks?
5. Have you ever shaved an area of your body below your neck?
6. Do you know a woman who owns a potter's wheel?
7. What's your favourite movie?

When listening to the guys give answers to these questions it wasn't too hard to figure out who was gay , and who was straight. Straight men don’t say “top,” don’t know who the Golden Girls are, and would not admit to having shaved below their neck unless undergoing torture.

What could we ask the women that would be helpful for the gents out there?

The Questions - and the Answer Key

Q - How many items of plaid clothing do you own?
A - Any more than three, and if they aren't underpants, or pjs, are strongly indicative of same sex orientation.
Q - Explain "off-side" in terms anyone can understand. Can you recognize it when it's happening?
A - This one is tricky, because there are some sports' loving gals out there, but, by in large, if you understand off-side and can both explain AND recognize it, you're not into riding the bologna pony.
Q - Do you REALLY like Catherine Zeta-Jones?
A - Duh.
Q - Would you serve it up for any one of the following men: Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Johnny Depp, Sean Connery, Jude Law, Denzel Washington, Bradley Whitford (personal favourite), Benjamin Bratt, Prince William, Lenny Kravitz, or Harrison Ford?
A - If there isn't one person on that list you'd shag rotten, well, then....
Q - What kind of car do you drive?
A - If the answer contains too many specifics about design or function you are likely gay.
Q - Do you prefer having sex with women more than men?
A - The answer to this question could be particularly revealing.
Q - Have you ever made out with another girl in a bar for any other reason than to attract the notice of horny post-pubescent men?
A - Shockingly, a highly successful way to instigate a booty call. Though who could vouch for the quality of transaction with whatever it is you'd pick up?
Q - How many pairs of shoes do you own? How many of them are either work boots or cross trainers?
A - If ALL of a woman’s shoes are athletic, you have to wonder. If all of the shoes are steel-toed, well…

Clearly all of these questions are wildly stereotypical and certainly offensive. That's what makes them so fun. I loved asking some of my cyber pals those questions to get to know them better. I always went with the Golden Girl question because I once dated someone who was obsessed with that show. Of the two men I asked the question to, one said "Blanche, 'cause she was such a horny old broad," and the other said "Bea Arthur, but only when she wore her thong and hooker pumps."

2004-05-16T22:08:00.000-04:00

Wilderness Detour

With the May long weekend fast approaching camping has been on my mind. I was talking to my sister-in-law about this today and we've decided that camping really isn't for us anymore. I used to go camping a few times a year, not the real hard-core outdoorsy "roughing it" type camping, but rather car camping. Car camping means that you bring all of the comforts of home with you (to a point) and you can drive into the closest little redneck town to stock up on the important stuff you either forgot or run out of. Beer, for example.

Alcohol played a VERY important role for me and the people I camped with. It was basically all we had in common. It's a good thing we don't see each other much anymore or we'd all have to think about checking into some sort of clinic. The only ways you could tell the difference between the camping trips, and our typical bar weekends were that it took longer to get to where we were going, there was nowhere comfortable to sit, and the facilities smelled like Satan's asshole. Aside from that everything was pretty similar, lots of second hand smoke (in the camping instance it was from the fire as opposed to DuMaurier), people fell down a lot, and we spent a lot of money.

No one ever packed very well for these trips. Well, that's not true, one girl did, and she was mocked brutally for it. However, whenever someone was hungry, or needed band aids or something, guess who they went to? She eventually stopped coming 'cause she was sick of packing for thirty people. As a result we had nothing to eat but hot dogs and NutriGrain bars and there weren't enough chairs to sit on. We drove into town every day, often more than once. This was in order to pick up all of the things we hadn't brought with us, as well as to sample the local culture. Val feels the need to buy sunglasses wherever he goes because he loses them so often. My favourite pair were dubbed "the creepy uncle's." We made it a point to purchase humourous hats to take pictures in.

Anyway, as the years went by and we started having more diverse interests and groups of friends our camping trips petered out. I'm not sorry about that. I didn't enjoy the trips all that much for a few reasons, but there's one that really stands out. When camping at a provincial park it's almost impossible to ever feel truly clean for more than ten minutes. Using the shower facilites was always quite the ordeal. You have to remember to take everything with you, and then make the trek across the campground to the least scary shower facility at the park (other campers are very useful resources for this type of information). Then it's time to wait in line for half-an-hour, with a hang over, carrying all of your worldly goods, which you are trying vainly to keep hold of. Inevitably, if you haven't lost your underwear on the way from your site, you will drop them now. They will be your largest and most embarassing pair.

Once you have collected your now leafy underpants you'll shuffle over to an open stall. This stall will be foul. Very, very foul. It is necessary for you to wear flip flops during your toilette. At this point it's time to try and find an area of the shower that is still dry. No mean feat, I usually ended up wrapping my clothes in my towel and stuffing the package into the least likely corner for the water to find it. I was always wrong and my stuff always ended up partially soaked. Once your belongings are stored you take off your pjs and put them on top of the pile of towel and future garments. You can dry them out later, so there's no point trying to keep them safe from water. These will remain dry. It's usually at this point, or shortly thereafter, when your underwear will fall out of the package, where you had them stored safely, into the murky water on the shower floor. Fix them up as best you can.

At that point you're ready to press the shower activation button. In keeping with the luxuries you have already become accustumed to throughout your camping experience this shower will be sub par. The pressure of these provincial park showers is much as I would expect the pressure to be of a fireman's hose. One blast from the showerhead and you are slammed back against the slimy tiled wall. Bacteria will immediately start burrowing into your skin, but, happily, you've consumed so much alcohol at this point that there's no fear of anything being able to survive inside of you. Please note that this is not an effective way to guard against camping related STDs. Or so I've read...shut up. The pressure of this shower is sufficient to rip the nipples directly off of your chest, so you'll have to protect yourself accordingly after the initial assault. Predictably, the water is either seeringly hot, or numbingly cold, but that doesn't matter all that much because it only lasts for about twenty seconds. When the water goes off there is now time to lather and count the number of giant hairy spiders waiting to make your acquaintance. Feel free to name them. Noticing these spiders ensures you will be unable to close your eyes during the rest of your shower. Guess where the shampoo ends up?

The rest of the shower is relatively uneventful. Since I was pretty young, I always had to do a touch up shaving job, but that was fairly unneventful. I will say this, however, a Bic razor, when it is new, can slice through time.

When it comes to drying up and getting dressed again you will have to do an elaborate balancing act. This is made more complicated by the acidic hangover threatening to cripple you at any moment. Since you're wearing shower shoes you can be pretty certain that you'll step on your underwear when trying to put them on and they'll have another introduction to the scary shower floor. You'll likely do the same thing with your pants, which, interestingly enough, have one very wet leg. Then it's time to collect your personals and make your way out. I'll leave you to imagine how many things you drop on the way out of the bathrooms. The number of girls who brought their hairdryers and complete make up cases on a camping trip never failed to amaze me. Isn't the point of camping to not have to wear that sort of shit? Although, I'm fairly sure that the point of camping is not to drink until you don't notice the smell of the outhouse, either.

By the end of the weekend I was always so exhausted and dirty and fat that I couldn't imagine ever wanting to go on another camping trip, but I did for at least three summers, until I started working in the restaurant industry and gave up any hope of having any weekend off, much less a long one. When my parents got a cottage I became spoiled by comfortable beds, a wood stove, a dishwasher, and screen doors. Who needs camping with that kind of luxury? Now that they have air conditioning it'll be a wonder if I ever see a tree in a non-landscaped environment ever again. Did I mention that they have satellite TV?

2004-05-12T14:36:00.000-04:00

Clearly there’s no way any of you could know my brothers, but you should want to. There are two of them, and they’re pretty fabulous blokes. The middle child, Val, is almost thirty (which is clearly freaky) and a unique spirit.

He once went up to a girl he works with and informed her that she’d be “a fit vessel for his seed.” No one ever slaps him; they just collapse into helpless giggling piles of people.

When we were kids there was a bathroom on the main floor of our house, and the bathroom was at eye-level. The Peeping-Tom Design Co. was consulted heavily during construction. There was a sheer curtain across the window, but our yard was large enough that no one was going to walk past one of us using the commode and cripple us emotionally during our formative years.

My mother was a very unhappy woman when we lived in “Bumblefuck” New Brunswick, and in her misery she was known to behave somewhat erratically. One day we were to go swimming at the home of one of our parents’ friends. It was a very hot day summer day, one of the four you could experience in this town, known for its never-ending winters. We were all really looking forward to going, and were bugging her ass to get going when she said the following.

“Who keeps putting the Kleenex box on the window sill in the downstairs bathroom?”

This question was met by a trio of slack-jawed mouth-breathers.

“We’re not leaving until someone tells me that they did it. You’re not in trouble, I just want to know who’s doing it and why.”

We all sat down and twitched a little. Our mother is an unmovable force, if she says we’re not doing something we’re not. Sometimes I wonder if she didn’t secretly enjoy doing this sort of thing just to lord her power over us.

It felt like about three days had passed, so about five minutes, when I cracked under the pressure.

“I did it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I just felt like it.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

It had been a gamble. Clearly she could have decided that that did make her angry, and that there was no way we were going swimming (I would not have been left there by myself. I was accident prone). It is a testament to her lunacy that she believed me. I was obviously lying in order to go swimming; otherwise I would have had a better story than the one I offered. She didn’t care, maybe she was just relieved that she hadn’t experienced a complete meltdown; that the Kleenex boxes of the world weren’t rising up and trying to escape from the house. If she couldn’t get away from this hellhole, the paper products certainly couldn’t!

So, we went swimming, and it was heavenly. For years to follow this was one of the great mysteries of my life. Everyone else was happy to tease me periodically, but predictably, about it. I maintained that I had lied to them, and that I had only wanted to swim, but they didn’t believe me. Plus, mocking me was much more fun.

Until I turned nineteen.

Val and I share a similar circle of friends. One night we were out at a bar when he was visiting me at school, and we felt the need to come clean to each other about some of our previous indiscretions.

“L, I thought that you should know, I was the one who put the Kleenex box on the window sill.” This was delivered with a certain amount of solemnity, such as you might expect from someone announcing an engagement, or serious illness. He waited expectantly.

I didn’t disappoint, I shrieked at him like a harpy on ‘roids. It was probably a great show for the bystanders, considering I was screaming my lungs out about a Kleenex box. After I’d had a chance to regain my composure; to come to grips with over a decade of false accusations and mocking, I knew how to get back at him.

“That’s fine. I thought YOU should know that I’m the one who took your Corey Hart “Boy in the Box” tape. Amanda didn’t steal it.” Amanda was this hyperactive kid I was friends with in grade school. He must have really missed that tape, because he had brought up its disappearance more than a few times over the years.

“What? Why?”

“You thumped me one in front of my friends and I was mad so I threw your tape in the garbage.”

Silence.

“L…that’s really messed up. That’s so vindictive. I can’t believe you didn’t say anything all these years.” He looked at me with a mixture of fear, awe, and revulsion.

I really don’t see how what I did was any different from him putting a Kleenex box on the window sill to keep the curtains closed so that no one could see his “bits” and then lying about it for ever. Because that’s why he did it. He didn’t want to risk anyone peeking in on him while he went to the bathroom. Because God knows there was a line stretching around the block of people who wanted to catch a glimpse of him in the can. Although, in that town…

2004-05-10T14:35:00.000-04:00

Swimming with Sharks

I recently began online dating, and it’s a very addictive process. It’s much like being at a high school dance and standing hopefully on the sidelines waiting to be coupled off during the slow numbers. At first you hope for whomever you’re “crushing on,” then you hope for someone popular and cute, and then you hope for a mysterious, previously unnoticed, hot stranger. After that, pretty much any mutant will do as long as you’re not the only one unpaired. You hate to put yourself through this, but you can’t resist going to the dances with all of that potential for drama.

First of all, there’s creating the profile. You want to make yourself seem as desirable as possible, so you don’t want to include such information as, “when I get busy or distracted I routinely forget to put on deodorant.” Everyone seems to put the same things in these profiles “Hi, there’s an original opening line. Let’s see….a little about me. Well, I’m (blah blah blah) and I’m looking for someone fun and nice to have new experiences with.” As opposed to the rest of us who only want boring kitten-drowners.

Later in these profiles they get a bit more specific, and I have to say, the men of the Greater Toronto Area have some pretty high expectations from the girls out there. “I’m looking for someone fun, fit and attractive. You are an adventurous, spontaneous free spirit, who isn’t scared of trying new things. You are career oriented, but not a workaholic. You have goals and you’re working toward them. You aren’t high-maintenance, but you are graceful and have a sense of style. You should be independent, confident, and nurturing. You like kids, dogs, watching sports, running marathons for charitable organizations, while baking chocolate chip cookies and performing oral sex with the power and stamina of a Hoover vacuum. You will not make faces about the taste, either, but loudly exclaim that it is the nectar of the gods! Oh, and you should own your own house.”

I think I wrote in mine that I was looking for someone kind with a good sense of humour.

I’ve had a certain amount of success with Lavalife and I’m corresponding with a few likely looking gentlemen. I’m clearly not very good at this, though, as some of my intendeds keep ceasing correspondence with me. I keep asking, what I think are, interesting and thought provoking questions (explain why the only Cosby Show rerun you ever see is the one where all the kids do a lip sync routine for the grandparents’ anniversary? What’s your favourite kind of cheese?). When I answer their questions I tend to provide a lot of information. Maybe too much. Is it wrong to tell a boy you don’t know very well that you’d have sex with certain female celebrities if they showed any interest in you? This might make me look a little skanky. One of my cyber-harem did mention he was recently separated from his wife of four years. God, what if it’s a Ross-like situation and she turned out to be a lesbian? Then I jokingly say I’d hop on Jennifer Garner if she didn’t have man-hands and showed any interest in me whatsoever? Definitely need to start inserting a filter into my conversations.

He hasn’t replied to that last email. It’s really too bad, because he seemed sort of sweet. That being said, I wasn’t too psyched about starting things up with a recently separated person. We all know the dangers inherent in that sort of situation. Come to think of it, he didn’t say he was divorced, just separated. Perhaps my verbal diarrhea was Fate’s way of helping me dodge a bullet. People in the “Intimate Encounters” section regularly troll for extra-marital affairs on Lavalife. But details on that story will have to wait for another day.

2004-05-09T12:47:00.000-04:00

Here I am world. It's like being onstage naked, really.

I have so much that I want to say but now that I'm going to be writing to everyone I'm scared. It's like constantly thinking about the movies you want to see, and then deciding to rent one but forgetting about that mental list. Except with this, there's an element of fear.

Here's what we'll do for now.

Last night involved going to a club where there were lots of happy young whipper-snappers doing their best to find eternal happiness facilitated by pissy draught beer. They were giving out beer in plastic cups, the kind you'd use at keg parties in university. I felt like I needed a walker.

One guy came up to me and my friend G, he was a cross between Malachi from Children of the Corn and the Shermanator from American Pie. Automatically I'm pretty psyched, because this is going to be a wicked sociological experiment.

Here's how it played out.

Shermanator - Hi ladies, you two been together long?

Me - (with a withering glare over the top of my glasses à-la librarian) That's wretched.

Shermantor - Sorry, I was just kidding.

Me - Fine.

Shermanator - Are you having a good night.

Me - Yes.

Silence

Me - (with a flight attendant persona) Well, have a great night!

Shermanator - Ouch! That's harsh!

Me - No, it's actually pretty nice. I could have said, 'Get lost and fuck off' this was encouragement for you to go your own way and have a good time about it.

G is snickering at this point.

Shermator - Get lost and fuck off.

Me - Now that's just mean and you've hurt my feelings.

Then he kissed me on the face. Can you believe I'm still single with this winning attitude and specimens like that to choose from?

Love and hugs,
L