Have a good, fun and safe night.
And if, like me, you're taking public transit: don't vomit on it.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Frigid
It's chilly in here. How is everyone on this final day of 2007? Did everyone have a good year? What did you learn? Who did you love? What did you accomplish? Where will you been eleven hours from now? Will you be wearing pants?
I am going to do yoga now. I think the people in the building across from me enjoy it. Hey, if you don't like my tree pose: don't look!
Going over to N's later on for a game night. I eagerly look forward to taking public transit home after the new year has been rung in. I've never actually taken public transit on New Year's. I'm sure it's a treat and it won't be unruly or vomit-laden in the least.
I am going to do yoga now. I think the people in the building across from me enjoy it. Hey, if you don't like my tree pose: don't look!
Going over to N's later on for a game night. I eagerly look forward to taking public transit home after the new year has been rung in. I've never actually taken public transit on New Year's. I'm sure it's a treat and it won't be unruly or vomit-laden in the least.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Herpes (fiction)
Iris wasn’t entirely sure what herpes were, but she knew the idea of them was distasteful and that one ought to strive to avoid contracting them. She knew also that the subject of herpes did not necessarily lend itself to the office environment, which was why she put such a solid emphasis on the word itself when she visited the workplace of her ex-boyfriend Thompson.
“Thompson, you bastard!” she raged, hands clenched at her sides as peoples’ heads popped up from cubicles like disoriented gophers. “You gave me herpes!”
She stayed long enough to see the change in Thompson’s face go from a healthy pink perplexed state to beet red and then to a strange ashen pallor. Her job done, she turned on her heel and left knowing that he would not be far behind her. That was why she had a taxi waiting outside.
Iris was normally quite frugal and hiring a cab was an extravagance she rarely allowed herself. The last time she had taken a taxi it was to her company’s Christmas party: it had been raining torrentially outside and she did not relish the idea of standing on a street corner in her finery waiting for the bus to take her downtown. She hoped that the next time she took a taxi it would be for something somewhat more worthwhile than to have a quick getaway after screaming to her ex-boyfriend’s coworkers that he had given her a venereal disease.
As if on cue Iris heard Thompson’s heavy footsteps bounding down the stairs behind her, so she quickened her pace and climbed into the taxi that was idling outside, asking that he take her home. She had also decided that Thompson might leave work and come to her apartment to discuss the situation that had just unfolded, but it would take him a while to get there as she had punctured two of the tires on his Lexus and cut the valve stems off for good measure.
Her taxi driver appeared mildly concerned as he exited the parking lot, no doubt seeing Thompson, enraged, running after him and motioning for him to stop. Iris shook her head slightly to indicate that no; she did not wish to impede their departure in any way.
When she arrived home she turned on her cell phone to see that she had three voice messages waiting for her. She opted not to listen to them, knowing that they would be raving diatribes in increasing volume from Thompson.
In addition to being frugal, Iris was also quite forgiving and slow to anger. Unfortunately Thompson had done much to anger her and so her temper had flared more quickly than she normally accustomed to. She was somewhat dismayed by her actions, knowing they were very malicious and derogatory, while at the same time she was mildly amazed at her cool and methodical execution of them.
The reason that Iris had embarrassed her ex-boyfriend in front of his colleagues was because he had profoundly embarrassed her. The reason that she had attended this year’s Christmas party solo was because of Thompson. She shouldn’t have had to drop thirty bucks on a cab: he was to have picked her up. Granted, it was Iris that had uninvited Thompson from the party, but she had really felt that her hand had been forced when she had noticed, as they showered together, a series of strange markings on Thompson’s back. Upon closer inspection she noted that there were exactly eight of these small crescent moons halfway down his back and, since she fastidiously kept her nails short, she arrived at the conclusion that he was fucking someone else. She tried to convince herself that this wasn’t the case, that surely there might be another explanation, but the best that she could come up with that he had been attacked, from behind, while shirtless, by an animal with nicely manicured nails.
Later that same night she did something quite rare: she purported to have an unbearable need for ice cream. This need had to be assuaged tonight and, since it was late and she was but a waif of a girl, it was safer for him to run to the corner store to get it. It was a bit of a gamble: he might take his cell phone with him to call his lover, or he might just grab his jacket, dash to the store and return in fifteen minutes. Either way she won, really, in that she got ice cream (she had specifically requested Haagen Daaz, because the time to start making him pay was most decidedly now).
He left his phone and in his brief absence she discovered that Thompson had a new friend whose name was Cara. It seemed to Iris that Cara was worth mentioning, as they seemed to call each other a lot, and as per her text message to him she could hardly wait to feel him deep inside her again. Likewise, Thompson loved her “luscious tits”. This made Iris feel somewhat dejected since she was not gratuitously endowed, though Thompson had always told her that he loved her body. And her.
Iris was not a confrontational person unless pushed. When she had falling outs with friends she would simply stop returning their calls until they got the hint and disappeared from her life. So when Thompson came back with the ice cream she thanked him cheerily, and snuck furtive glances at him while they watched CSI together (his choice: she had wanted to watch a retrospective on Arthur Erickson) and marveled at his ability to sit so calmly on the couch next to her.
He had taken to staying over at her apartment on Thursday nights and so since this was supposedly a night like any other, he slept over. When he reached for her she pleaded exhaustion and was thankful that he kept his hands off of her less-than-luscious tits.
Beginning the next day she stopped returning his emails and phone calls. The following week he showed up at her office, but she told the receptionist to tell him that she was in an off-site meeting. He showed up at her apartment twice and buzzed so incessantly that she had to take the ringer off the hook. She was starting to get annoyed. He sent her flowers. He was waiting for her at her apartment when she came home one day and, unnoticed, she used a different entrance.
Out of a sheer sense of morbid curiosity she did a reverse look up of Cara’s home number and got her address. The day that Thompson had flowers delivered to her work she went home, went for a run, had dinner, showered and drove to Cara’s apartment complex and within the first loop around the block she saw Thompson’s car.
In the meantime she had to explain to her friends why, given that she and Thompson had been together for three years and had been discussing marriage, was he no longer around. Iris could have lied, but she told her friends that she had discovered that Thompson had been having an affair. Though her friends and family were nothing but supportive, she felt as though she was in some way being judged: what was it that she had done that would’ve driven Thompson into the arms of another woman. Possibly, if he had loved her more he would have been faithful to her. Her mother, however, advised sagely that men would “fuck anything”, a comment which she was unsure if said to make her feel better. She told no one that Thompson was still calling and attempting to woo her.
So, having attended her Christmas party alone beneath the pitying glances of her coworkers, and having her friends and family privy to the dissolution of her three year relationship which had held so much promise, she was somewhat disturbed that Thompson was still attempting to contact her, while carrying on a relationship with Cara.
The voicemail that he left on her cell the day that she went to his office went like this: “Iris. It’s Thompson, again. I know you’re getting my calls. I-I just miss you so much. I don’t know what’s happened or why you’re not talking to me anymore, but please, please Iris… please just call me. My life is shit without you. Iris, I am so madly in love with you. Please call me.”
This was sufficient fodder to propel Iris into a full blown rage: she wanted to hit below the belt. She wanted him to be as embarrassed, hurt and mortified as she had been. And so she announced to everyone at his work that he had given her herpes.
That evening her buzzer rang. Iris had been half expecting this. She did not ring Thompson up, but rather went downstairs to speak with him outside. As far as she could tell he had two options: he could put an end to this ridiculous charade and own up to what he had done; or he could continue to perpetuate the ridiculous myth that he still loved her. She prayed that he would end it.
Sadly he did not. He continued to profess his undying love for her without any mention of the earlier herpes outburst (which to her was an admission of guilt if there ever was one). To his credit he did look dejected and haggard, but it was hard to tell if this was a result of true emotion, imaginary herpes, or of being shagged out from too much fucking with Sugar Tits. Inwardly Iris sighed. She could take the higher road and tell him that she knew about Cara, but she didn’t feel that he was deserved of it. As long as he continued to perpetuate this ridiculous cover story, so would she continue to mete out punishment as she felt he deserved. She told him that she would like to continue this conversation further, but in a neutral location. She was impressed by the way the lies flowed trippingly off her tongue as she asked him to go to a nearby coffee shop, order her a decaf cappuccino while she freshened up, and that she would meet him there shortly. She felt a twinge of regret as she saw the hope flare in his eyes, but she succinctly quelled it.
Once he left she went back to her apartment and grabbed the spare set of his car keys and her purse, double checking that her bus pass was there. She’d have to take public transit back from the downtown Eastside once she left his car there, unlocked and with the keys in the ignition.
As she drove down Arbutus Street she resolved not to attend anymore Christmas parties alone.
Ten minutes later her cell phone started to ring.
“Thompson, you bastard!” she raged, hands clenched at her sides as peoples’ heads popped up from cubicles like disoriented gophers. “You gave me herpes!”
She stayed long enough to see the change in Thompson’s face go from a healthy pink perplexed state to beet red and then to a strange ashen pallor. Her job done, she turned on her heel and left knowing that he would not be far behind her. That was why she had a taxi waiting outside.
Iris was normally quite frugal and hiring a cab was an extravagance she rarely allowed herself. The last time she had taken a taxi it was to her company’s Christmas party: it had been raining torrentially outside and she did not relish the idea of standing on a street corner in her finery waiting for the bus to take her downtown. She hoped that the next time she took a taxi it would be for something somewhat more worthwhile than to have a quick getaway after screaming to her ex-boyfriend’s coworkers that he had given her a venereal disease.
As if on cue Iris heard Thompson’s heavy footsteps bounding down the stairs behind her, so she quickened her pace and climbed into the taxi that was idling outside, asking that he take her home. She had also decided that Thompson might leave work and come to her apartment to discuss the situation that had just unfolded, but it would take him a while to get there as she had punctured two of the tires on his Lexus and cut the valve stems off for good measure.
Her taxi driver appeared mildly concerned as he exited the parking lot, no doubt seeing Thompson, enraged, running after him and motioning for him to stop. Iris shook her head slightly to indicate that no; she did not wish to impede their departure in any way.
When she arrived home she turned on her cell phone to see that she had three voice messages waiting for her. She opted not to listen to them, knowing that they would be raving diatribes in increasing volume from Thompson.
In addition to being frugal, Iris was also quite forgiving and slow to anger. Unfortunately Thompson had done much to anger her and so her temper had flared more quickly than she normally accustomed to. She was somewhat dismayed by her actions, knowing they were very malicious and derogatory, while at the same time she was mildly amazed at her cool and methodical execution of them.
The reason that Iris had embarrassed her ex-boyfriend in front of his colleagues was because he had profoundly embarrassed her. The reason that she had attended this year’s Christmas party solo was because of Thompson. She shouldn’t have had to drop thirty bucks on a cab: he was to have picked her up. Granted, it was Iris that had uninvited Thompson from the party, but she had really felt that her hand had been forced when she had noticed, as they showered together, a series of strange markings on Thompson’s back. Upon closer inspection she noted that there were exactly eight of these small crescent moons halfway down his back and, since she fastidiously kept her nails short, she arrived at the conclusion that he was fucking someone else. She tried to convince herself that this wasn’t the case, that surely there might be another explanation, but the best that she could come up with that he had been attacked, from behind, while shirtless, by an animal with nicely manicured nails.
Later that same night she did something quite rare: she purported to have an unbearable need for ice cream. This need had to be assuaged tonight and, since it was late and she was but a waif of a girl, it was safer for him to run to the corner store to get it. It was a bit of a gamble: he might take his cell phone with him to call his lover, or he might just grab his jacket, dash to the store and return in fifteen minutes. Either way she won, really, in that she got ice cream (she had specifically requested Haagen Daaz, because the time to start making him pay was most decidedly now).
He left his phone and in his brief absence she discovered that Thompson had a new friend whose name was Cara. It seemed to Iris that Cara was worth mentioning, as they seemed to call each other a lot, and as per her text message to him she could hardly wait to feel him deep inside her again. Likewise, Thompson loved her “luscious tits”. This made Iris feel somewhat dejected since she was not gratuitously endowed, though Thompson had always told her that he loved her body. And her.
Iris was not a confrontational person unless pushed. When she had falling outs with friends she would simply stop returning their calls until they got the hint and disappeared from her life. So when Thompson came back with the ice cream she thanked him cheerily, and snuck furtive glances at him while they watched CSI together (his choice: she had wanted to watch a retrospective on Arthur Erickson) and marveled at his ability to sit so calmly on the couch next to her.
He had taken to staying over at her apartment on Thursday nights and so since this was supposedly a night like any other, he slept over. When he reached for her she pleaded exhaustion and was thankful that he kept his hands off of her less-than-luscious tits.
Beginning the next day she stopped returning his emails and phone calls. The following week he showed up at her office, but she told the receptionist to tell him that she was in an off-site meeting. He showed up at her apartment twice and buzzed so incessantly that she had to take the ringer off the hook. She was starting to get annoyed. He sent her flowers. He was waiting for her at her apartment when she came home one day and, unnoticed, she used a different entrance.
Out of a sheer sense of morbid curiosity she did a reverse look up of Cara’s home number and got her address. The day that Thompson had flowers delivered to her work she went home, went for a run, had dinner, showered and drove to Cara’s apartment complex and within the first loop around the block she saw Thompson’s car.
In the meantime she had to explain to her friends why, given that she and Thompson had been together for three years and had been discussing marriage, was he no longer around. Iris could have lied, but she told her friends that she had discovered that Thompson had been having an affair. Though her friends and family were nothing but supportive, she felt as though she was in some way being judged: what was it that she had done that would’ve driven Thompson into the arms of another woman. Possibly, if he had loved her more he would have been faithful to her. Her mother, however, advised sagely that men would “fuck anything”, a comment which she was unsure if said to make her feel better. She told no one that Thompson was still calling and attempting to woo her.
So, having attended her Christmas party alone beneath the pitying glances of her coworkers, and having her friends and family privy to the dissolution of her three year relationship which had held so much promise, she was somewhat disturbed that Thompson was still attempting to contact her, while carrying on a relationship with Cara.
The voicemail that he left on her cell the day that she went to his office went like this: “Iris. It’s Thompson, again. I know you’re getting my calls. I-I just miss you so much. I don’t know what’s happened or why you’re not talking to me anymore, but please, please Iris… please just call me. My life is shit without you. Iris, I am so madly in love with you. Please call me.”
This was sufficient fodder to propel Iris into a full blown rage: she wanted to hit below the belt. She wanted him to be as embarrassed, hurt and mortified as she had been. And so she announced to everyone at his work that he had given her herpes.
That evening her buzzer rang. Iris had been half expecting this. She did not ring Thompson up, but rather went downstairs to speak with him outside. As far as she could tell he had two options: he could put an end to this ridiculous charade and own up to what he had done; or he could continue to perpetuate the ridiculous myth that he still loved her. She prayed that he would end it.
Sadly he did not. He continued to profess his undying love for her without any mention of the earlier herpes outburst (which to her was an admission of guilt if there ever was one). To his credit he did look dejected and haggard, but it was hard to tell if this was a result of true emotion, imaginary herpes, or of being shagged out from too much fucking with Sugar Tits. Inwardly Iris sighed. She could take the higher road and tell him that she knew about Cara, but she didn’t feel that he was deserved of it. As long as he continued to perpetuate this ridiculous cover story, so would she continue to mete out punishment as she felt he deserved. She told him that she would like to continue this conversation further, but in a neutral location. She was impressed by the way the lies flowed trippingly off her tongue as she asked him to go to a nearby coffee shop, order her a decaf cappuccino while she freshened up, and that she would meet him there shortly. She felt a twinge of regret as she saw the hope flare in his eyes, but she succinctly quelled it.
Once he left she went back to her apartment and grabbed the spare set of his car keys and her purse, double checking that her bus pass was there. She’d have to take public transit back from the downtown Eastside once she left his car there, unlocked and with the keys in the ignition.
As she drove down Arbutus Street she resolved not to attend anymore Christmas parties alone.
Ten minutes later her cell phone started to ring.
And I'm spent
Thanks, that was great. You're welcome to stay. I'm kind of tired so I think I'm going to take a little nap. Don't expect me to cook dinner; maybe we could get sushi or something.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Eating meat. From chipped granite countertops.
The ongoing saga of 'will I or won't I be able to fit my couch into my new digs' has been replaced by the new (and so FUCKING exciting) issue of how to fix the few, small chips in my granite counter tops. And is Galaxy Granite actually granite, or is it man made? And I will surely be rooked if I ask a professional to come and do it. And possibly I should just REPLACE them with something else to be sure I'm getting the real deal. What scrunts? This current issue is eating me up inside and I am not an expert on granite and I don't know the answer but I want it done correctly because I will be most dissatisfied to have to take a seat at my bar every morning and look at some glaring botch job on my counter top because I took the easy way out. You know, the nice thing about rented accommodations is who gives a shit. I miss my silverfish.
Yes, I know I'm blowing this out of proportion. I understand that on the scale of All Things Important in life this really ought not rate. I should be more concerned with getting over my runner's knee. Meeting new people in North Van. Trying to have at least one orgasm before the year is out. Yes. Bam! There it is. Maybe that's why I'm so goddamn uptight and I run twenty kilometres for "fun". Who needs therapy. Isn't this fun?
Okay. Next. So I met N and Po downtown to watch "Sweeney Todd". I really knew next to nothing about the movie and from what little research I did on the internet I discerned that it was a Broadway play about a serial killer that made it to the big screen with Johnny Depp. So then N turns to me and says, "Do you like musicals?" and, perplexed, I say, "Not really. Why?" and she says, "Cause this is a musical" and I laugh and explain that's not possible because it's about a serial killer and his landlady who takes the human remains, grinds them up and makes meat pies and how could that be made into a musical. Well, it can be. And wow: a lot of people got their throats slit. And a lot of people ate human meat pies. And Johnny Depp is fine. And parts of the this musical about a murderous barber were humorous, which just seems wrong.
Then N went home looking a little pale and shaken, but Po and I were hungry. Hungry for meat. Ha! So we went to the little pub across the street from the Scotiabank theatre (I had never been) and it was the most godawful experience I had ever had. We arrived. We ordered. They forgot half of Paola's order. They screwed up my side salad. They botched the hot chocolate that the couple next to us ordered (it was so bad they had to send it back). They forgot my wine. Only when presenting us with the bill did they ask us how our meal was. The screwed up the MasterCard amounts, and when I asked for clarification the twelve year old in Juicy Jeans that was no doubt unbelievably impressed by her boyfriend's Camaro almost burst into tears and had to bring her superior into the mix. Po confided that if she had been a cartoon character she would have had steam coming out of her ears (when in fact I did see some steam, but opted to say nothing).
Ah, but the company was good. Po asked if I wished that more people read my blog. I kind of shrugged my shoulders and said that it was rather irrelevant to anyone that didn't know me and that it's existence was egotistical and self-serving. She said that all art was (and she's an artist!) and I felt a bit better. I replied that my blog was mostly about casual sex and drinking and she said earnestly, "But it's well-written". I'm not so sure... as I sit here, drinking a rather nice Cabernet Sauvignon/Carmenere/Syrah blend and musing about my failure to climax over the past year. Do you get it? Right there: the irony. Was it lost on you?
It's so funny. I slept until 12:30 this afternoon, left my house for a scant five hours, and was able to produce a blog this long. Oh! I'm not even done.
On the seabus home a gentleman started picking his nose. Buddy: we're on public transportation - there are other people here! I stared at him (even though it meant being torn away from Gore Vidal's "Washington") as he rooted around in his nostril for some juicy nugget and I willed him to look at me and feel shamed. No such luck. Boarded the bus, read some more and noticed out of the corner of my eye the young woman next to me genuflecting - though surreptitiously. I didn't think that our bus driver was so bad that one ought to feel compelled to reach out to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. How weird and random was that? And the nose-picker was on board too. Huzzah!
To sum up: Sweeney Todd was strange; don't go to the pub across the street from the Scotiabank theatre; will somone please shed some light on my granite counter top situation; who wants a meat pie; and I will be going for a nice, sweaty, vigourous, creative and satisfying run tomorrow.
Yes, I know I'm blowing this out of proportion. I understand that on the scale of All Things Important in life this really ought not rate. I should be more concerned with getting over my runner's knee. Meeting new people in North Van. Trying to have at least one orgasm before the year is out. Yes. Bam! There it is. Maybe that's why I'm so goddamn uptight and I run twenty kilometres for "fun". Who needs therapy. Isn't this fun?
Okay. Next. So I met N and Po downtown to watch "Sweeney Todd". I really knew next to nothing about the movie and from what little research I did on the internet I discerned that it was a Broadway play about a serial killer that made it to the big screen with Johnny Depp. So then N turns to me and says, "Do you like musicals?" and, perplexed, I say, "Not really. Why?" and she says, "Cause this is a musical" and I laugh and explain that's not possible because it's about a serial killer and his landlady who takes the human remains, grinds them up and makes meat pies and how could that be made into a musical. Well, it can be. And wow: a lot of people got their throats slit. And a lot of people ate human meat pies. And Johnny Depp is fine. And parts of the this musical about a murderous barber were humorous, which just seems wrong.
Then N went home looking a little pale and shaken, but Po and I were hungry. Hungry for meat. Ha! So we went to the little pub across the street from the Scotiabank theatre (I had never been) and it was the most godawful experience I had ever had. We arrived. We ordered. They forgot half of Paola's order. They screwed up my side salad. They botched the hot chocolate that the couple next to us ordered (it was so bad they had to send it back). They forgot my wine. Only when presenting us with the bill did they ask us how our meal was. The screwed up the MasterCard amounts, and when I asked for clarification the twelve year old in Juicy Jeans that was no doubt unbelievably impressed by her boyfriend's Camaro almost burst into tears and had to bring her superior into the mix. Po confided that if she had been a cartoon character she would have had steam coming out of her ears (when in fact I did see some steam, but opted to say nothing).
Ah, but the company was good. Po asked if I wished that more people read my blog. I kind of shrugged my shoulders and said that it was rather irrelevant to anyone that didn't know me and that it's existence was egotistical and self-serving. She said that all art was (and she's an artist!) and I felt a bit better. I replied that my blog was mostly about casual sex and drinking and she said earnestly, "But it's well-written". I'm not so sure... as I sit here, drinking a rather nice Cabernet Sauvignon/Carmenere/Syrah blend and musing about my failure to climax over the past year. Do you get it? Right there: the irony. Was it lost on you?
It's so funny. I slept until 12:30 this afternoon, left my house for a scant five hours, and was able to produce a blog this long. Oh! I'm not even done.
On the seabus home a gentleman started picking his nose. Buddy: we're on public transportation - there are other people here! I stared at him (even though it meant being torn away from Gore Vidal's "Washington") as he rooted around in his nostril for some juicy nugget and I willed him to look at me and feel shamed. No such luck. Boarded the bus, read some more and noticed out of the corner of my eye the young woman next to me genuflecting - though surreptitiously. I didn't think that our bus driver was so bad that one ought to feel compelled to reach out to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. How weird and random was that? And the nose-picker was on board too. Huzzah!
To sum up: Sweeney Todd was strange; don't go to the pub across the street from the Scotiabank theatre; will somone please shed some light on my granite counter top situation; who wants a meat pie; and I will be going for a nice, sweaty, vigourous, creative and satisfying run tomorrow.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Scrunts
I just watched "The Lady in the Water" and am convinced that scrunts are lurking in the corners. You know, the movie would've been a lot shorter if the hero had just sprayed the scrunts with Round-Up: he wins; Monsanto wins; the environment loses; I get to go to bed earlier.
Here is a blog that I have come across (please be advised that I am at the minimum agnostic). I will let you peruse it and come to your own conclusions: www.mysticsaint.blogspot.com. I read a couple of entries and felt very compelled to shed my wicked ways and hop on the path to enlightenment, but I'm not ready for that kind of commitment as of yet. I am not quite ready to let go of my ego, my narcissistic tendencies, or recognize the level of my greed and thoughtlessness. Nope, my head is still quite firmly lodged up my own ass, though understanding that this is so means that my current lifestyle is essentially living on borrowed time. But what will become of the debauchery? The materialism? The self-gratification and self-congratulation? Do I have to quit drinking? Are trans fats out? Must I do more sit ups? Should I attempt to sit still more often instead of blocking out every lucid thought by immersing myself in books, music, the company of others, physical exhaustion, work and drugs? Do I have to curb my temper, wants and sarcasm?
It's on my to do list, this whole self-betterment thing. Right after: killing scrunts; sleeping a lot; repairing the chips in my granite counter tops; and returning some doormats to Home Depot.
Did you see that!? Just now, in the corner!
I'm so having nightmares tonight.
Here is a blog that I have come across (please be advised that I am at the minimum agnostic). I will let you peruse it and come to your own conclusions: www.mysticsaint.blogspot.com. I read a couple of entries and felt very compelled to shed my wicked ways and hop on the path to enlightenment, but I'm not ready for that kind of commitment as of yet. I am not quite ready to let go of my ego, my narcissistic tendencies, or recognize the level of my greed and thoughtlessness. Nope, my head is still quite firmly lodged up my own ass, though understanding that this is so means that my current lifestyle is essentially living on borrowed time. But what will become of the debauchery? The materialism? The self-gratification and self-congratulation? Do I have to quit drinking? Are trans fats out? Must I do more sit ups? Should I attempt to sit still more often instead of blocking out every lucid thought by immersing myself in books, music, the company of others, physical exhaustion, work and drugs? Do I have to curb my temper, wants and sarcasm?
It's on my to do list, this whole self-betterment thing. Right after: killing scrunts; sleeping a lot; repairing the chips in my granite counter tops; and returning some doormats to Home Depot.
Did you see that!? Just now, in the corner!
I'm so having nightmares tonight.
Do you want a little egg with your wine?
I drink wine (who knew?). I also have a book where I record the majority of the wines that I drink, make tasting notes and rate them. I like to copy down the description that the vintner puts on the label and then write my own review beneath, so when the winery says, "this wine has earthy tones, with hints of tobacco and leather" I can juxtapose it with, "assy, with an undertone of ass".
I digress. In studying the label of my latest wine (a 2004 Australian Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon blend by Langhorne Crossing) it gave the usual disclaimer: "This wine contains sulfites". It also contains egg whites. That's what it says. It says that on the bottle. I researched it and apparently egg whites are used to clarify the wine and reduce harsh tannins. So yeah. I guess you learn something new every day.
Am I supposed to have toast with this?
I digress. In studying the label of my latest wine (a 2004 Australian Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon blend by Langhorne Crossing) it gave the usual disclaimer: "This wine contains sulfites". It also contains egg whites. That's what it says. It says that on the bottle. I researched it and apparently egg whites are used to clarify the wine and reduce harsh tannins. So yeah. I guess you learn something new every day.
Am I supposed to have toast with this?
Yep
Today someone called my cell and asked me to deliver some Chinese food. I said, "Hell yeah, I'll bring you Kung Pao chicken". Okay, I didn't say that. I said, "You want me to do what?". Then I went to Sears and bought running socks.
Try and keep up with me. Just try.
Try and keep up with me. Just try.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
I'm better now
Ben Harper ("Say You Will") makes me happy.
I made my bed and, regardless of the outcome, I shall lie in it. It's a pretty comfy bed. I often sleep diagonally and I get up when the hell I want (on the weekends, at least). I lie it in wearing my Kwantlen sweatpants, a ten dollar shirt from the GAP and socks with holes in them. I get up a 4am, pee with the bathroom door open and then drink juice from the container. I've figured out where the sharp corner of my bed ends and the free space begins.
Haven't had a bruise for weeks.
I made my bed and, regardless of the outcome, I shall lie in it. It's a pretty comfy bed. I often sleep diagonally and I get up when the hell I want (on the weekends, at least). I lie it in wearing my Kwantlen sweatpants, a ten dollar shirt from the GAP and socks with holes in them. I get up a 4am, pee with the bathroom door open and then drink juice from the container. I've figured out where the sharp corner of my bed ends and the free space begins.
Haven't had a bruise for weeks.
Excuse me, while I kiss this guy
Just finished "Seeing Other People" (oh, that works on so many levels). Then I turned on my iTunes and the first song up was Coldplay's "Warning Sign".
Excuse me, while I take four steps off my balcony which is three steps wide.
Fuck.
Excuse me, while I take four steps off my balcony which is three steps wide.
Fuck.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
I'm a winner!
Completed my first Sudoku puzzle! I'm so happy, and much less enraged.
Also, received an email to the address listed on my blog. Creepy!
Also, received an email to the address listed on my blog. Creepy!
What a blur
It didn't feel much like Christmas leading up to the actual day and then the day happened and all of a sudden I have to go back to work tomorrow. Man. It's been said that time speeds up when you get older, but this is ridiculous!
Went into South Surrey on Christmas Eve and we went for sushi down on Marine Drive in White Rock, during which my dad and brother talked a bunch of smack about how men are better at Pictionary because they're more graphically inclined or something. Yeah. I guess that's why they can get through Playboys and comic books faster than I get through F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was assumed that to even things out the teams would have to be coed or the guys would kick our ass. So obviously I kiboshed that and my mom and I beat (barely) Jay and my dad. On a side note: hay fever - quite difficult to draw!
Slept until 10am on Christmas day (remember the days of trying to get up 6am and your parents telling you it was too early and to go back to bed for at least another hour?). Had breakfast, exchanged gifts, helped my mom butter lefsa, went t
o my aunt and uncle's in Langley for a great turkey dinner. Was chastised for not eating enough gravy. I didn't even want gravy. I like cranberry sauce. That's where it's at, all nice and tangy and tart. Gravy's for heathens. My brother made chocolate log which he does every year and got all sorts of accolades for it. Since he has moved into his house in Abbotsford he has started cooking and this has elevated him to such a status that apparently it was him that we were supposed to be worshipping on Christmas Day. Sibling rivalry rocks. I told him about my 42" television and today he went out and bought a 47" one.
o my aunt and uncle's in Langley for a great turkey dinner. Was chastised for not eating enough gravy. I didn't even want gravy. I like cranberry sauce. That's where it's at, all nice and tangy and tart. Gravy's for heathens. My brother made chocolate log which he does every year and got all sorts of accolades for it. Since he has moved into his house in Abbotsford he has started cooking and this has elevated him to such a status that apparently it was him that we were supposed to be worshipping on Christmas Day. Sibling rivalry rocks. I told him about my 42" television and today he went out and bought a 47" one. Saw my mom's stupid cat and it hissed at me. My mom always says, "Poor Felix... we don't know what might have happened to him". See, to say that this cat is skittish is to be kind: he's totally moronic. He's scared of everything - particularly me, evidently - and will not allow himself to be petted or cornered. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye once and he bolted for the basement. Then my mom suggested that he's either brain damaged or needs therapy. That's great. So now in our family's cat ownership history we can lay claim to a homosexual cat, and one that has mental problems. Where do we get them? Poor Felix.
Watch
ed some Chris Rock with my family after the Christmas dinner. Nothing says "oh let us praise this joyous day of the birth of our Lord" like Chris Rock advising women that once they get married they will not receive anymore oral sex. Of course it was not put quite so delicately as that, but yeah... good times.
ed some Chris Rock with my family after the Christmas dinner. Nothing says "oh let us praise this joyous day of the birth of our Lord" like Chris Rock advising women that once they get married they will not receive anymore oral sex. Of course it was not put quite so delicately as that, but yeah... good times. My mom got her free computer from Telus (after a tremendous - and unsurprising - debacle). It's a Lenovo and it was loaded with Windows Vista. What a piece of shit operating system; how does something like that happen?
And now I am home with all my shiny new toys (check out the new toaster!) and enough cookies to get me out for a nice 10k jaunt in the snow today in the hopes of not gaining weight over the holidays.
I hope you all had a great time with your friends and families, ate, drank and were very merry.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Merry Christmas!
Heading into South Surrey to visit my family for a few days. We're going out for sushi and playing Pictionary tonight. I love Pictionary. It's a helluva lot easier than Sudoku. Seriously, what am I not getting with that numeric piece of crap? My nana plays it. I'll ask her for help tomorrow.
I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas with lots of family, friends, good food, wine and conversation. What a stellar day!
If it's snowing in Vancouver I'm going to plotz.
La chaim!
I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas with lots of family, friends, good food, wine and conversation. What a stellar day!
If it's snowing in Vancouver I'm going to plotz.
La chaim!
Sunday, December 23, 2007
I hate Sudoku. Like, a lot.
I hate it. Sudoku is difficult. I can't even do the easy ones without cheating.
This is my Sunday night.
Damnit.
Who plays this? MENSA members?
This is my Sunday night.
Damnit.
Who plays this? MENSA members?
Um, no.
Duchess does not exist. I think it's a joke that they play on newbie Running Room expats. I couldn't find it. Michael and I ran it once, but I guess he was only able to find it because he's one of the "chosen ones" or something. Goddamnit.
In other news, if you stay on 23rd Street it will take you down to Marine Drive, but I got off on Keith Road which is also 13th Street. 10.4km in 55 minutes with no knee pain: Merry Christmas to me!
Okay. Going to play Sudoku now. It is time for me to be challenged mentally.
Mentally challenged.
In other news, if you stay on 23rd Street it will take you down to Marine Drive, but I got off on Keith Road which is also 13th Street. 10.4km in 55 minutes with no knee pain: Merry Christmas to me!
Okay. Going to play Sudoku now. It is time for me to be challenged mentally.
Mentally challenged.
Running
I'm going for a 10k. I am going to try and find this mythical bark mulch path that I couldn't find last time which led me to run aimlessly around North Vancouver for an hour. The map says turn right on "Dutchess". That's not even a correct spelling, is it? Isn't it supposed to be "Duchess"? Oh. I just found it on Google maps. It's a little stump of an avenue, from which the bark mulch path no doubt springs forth, in all its saturated and spongy goodness.
When I come back I'll shower. I promise.
When I come back I'll shower. I promise.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
I get to go back to bed!
I love Larry David. I want to marry him.
I ate too much.
I became too anxious at the thought of playing sudoku, so instead read a paper on "Play It As It Lays" which made references to Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald which made me feel better because I felt the same sort of distant third person affectation of the novel: the term for which is 'American modernism'. Hey, I didn't know. Don't you often know things except that you don't know the conventional name for them? One of my favourite movies is "My Dinner with Andre", but I didn't know the genre was coined 'existentialism'. You learn things. Learning is good. Math is hard.
Seriously. I love Larry David.
"Thirty-five dollars to help a semi-retarded individual change a car tire".
Brilliant.
I ate too much.
I became too anxious at the thought of playing sudoku, so instead read a paper on "Play It As It Lays" which made references to Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald which made me feel better because I felt the same sort of distant third person affectation of the novel: the term for which is 'American modernism'. Hey, I didn't know. Don't you often know things except that you don't know the conventional name for them? One of my favourite movies is "My Dinner with Andre", but I didn't know the genre was coined 'existentialism'. You learn things. Learning is good. Math is hard.
Seriously. I love Larry David.
"Thirty-five dollars to help a semi-retarded individual change a car tire".
Brilliant.
"Hey" (fiction)
For her, life was a constant juxtaposition of the minutiae and the big picture. Was she supposed to be driven to her knees when, walking up Granville Street one Friday afternoon after work she overheard an attractive young man answer his cell phone with an intimate “Hey”, from which she inferred that he knew the caller, and from the gruff gentleness of his voice further inflected that this was the woman that he wanted, possibly loved, that was calling him or returning his call and the nakedness of his want of her given his simple monosyllabic utterance was as plain as her own breath which misted in front of her? Or was that irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and was it more worth her while to concentrate on something more tangible like melting polar ice caps and the idiocy of water bottles? She had yet to come to the realization that those small, precious moments were ones that you witnessed and kept and harkened back to when trying to understand the greater and grander tumultuousness of a world that saw people paying four dollars for a coffee every day, while decrying the encroachment of social housing within their comfort zone.
A lover once expressed, “It’s all or nothing with you”. She believed that, but didn’t understand why this was necessarily so, nor did she particularly believe that this was an incorrect way of approaching relationships. She wanted all. Otherwise she preferred nothing. She took issue when men indicated that women were hard to read. She didn’t believe that she had ever been anything other than succinct and to the point. Possibly men needed more of a transition phase. More time spent languishing in her underwear instead of going from fully clothed to decorously naked.
She questioned a lot of things, a lot of perceptions. When she walked by the legless, homeless man in his wheelchair, begging for spare change at Lonsdale and 15th she felt a twinge of fear, a discomfort that came with being confronted by the unknown. She questioned that: what did she have to fear from a homeless, legless man? At what point in her life was it interjected into her belief system that she ought to be wary of this person? Why was he more or less dangerous than the CEO of a multinational corporation that she had worked for that had relegated one of her employees to sit outside his transparent office because she was pleasing to look at? More or less dangerous than the father of one of her first boyfriends that would stroke her bronzed forearm when her boyfriend left the room and would later, after she had left her boyfriend, call her while drunk to tell her what an ethereal and beautiful girl she was?
She never knew what to do. Should she quit her job to volunteer with a humanitarian effort in Darfur? She was often overwrought after watching a particular movie, reading a certain book, listening to a specific song. Why did everyone around her seem so staid and disaffected? Did no one want to wrench open their windows and bellow to the world their anguish, their happiness, their passion?
She took the sea bus home that day and gazed out the window at the grey, churning sea and felt diminished as they passed by one of the gargantuan freighters anchored there. She took in the vessel’s inhabitants, listening to their iPods, reading their books, some with their eyes closed in a semi-conscious daze, all the while their feet scant inches from the feet of their fellow passengers, each sitting on the belts of the other’s coats, umbrellas knocking against someone else’s knees, eyes meeting and averting.
On the bus she smelled the pungent tobacco scent that lingered on the man next to whom she sat. He tried to pull away from her, to shrink against the window but failed. His hand were rough, his clothing worn, he did not move or cough or answer his cell phone with a familiar “Hey” during the ride up the hill.
She bounded off the bus, noticed her fellow passengers disembark, heads down while heading certainly, definitively in well laid out routes and directions: with purpose. She affected the same gait. Purposeful. Where was she going? Where did she have to be?
She gave two dollars to the legless man and said, “I walk past you almost every day. I’m Patricia: what’s your story?”
A lover once expressed, “It’s all or nothing with you”. She believed that, but didn’t understand why this was necessarily so, nor did she particularly believe that this was an incorrect way of approaching relationships. She wanted all. Otherwise she preferred nothing. She took issue when men indicated that women were hard to read. She didn’t believe that she had ever been anything other than succinct and to the point. Possibly men needed more of a transition phase. More time spent languishing in her underwear instead of going from fully clothed to decorously naked.
She questioned a lot of things, a lot of perceptions. When she walked by the legless, homeless man in his wheelchair, begging for spare change at Lonsdale and 15th she felt a twinge of fear, a discomfort that came with being confronted by the unknown. She questioned that: what did she have to fear from a homeless, legless man? At what point in her life was it interjected into her belief system that she ought to be wary of this person? Why was he more or less dangerous than the CEO of a multinational corporation that she had worked for that had relegated one of her employees to sit outside his transparent office because she was pleasing to look at? More or less dangerous than the father of one of her first boyfriends that would stroke her bronzed forearm when her boyfriend left the room and would later, after she had left her boyfriend, call her while drunk to tell her what an ethereal and beautiful girl she was?
She never knew what to do. Should she quit her job to volunteer with a humanitarian effort in Darfur? She was often overwrought after watching a particular movie, reading a certain book, listening to a specific song. Why did everyone around her seem so staid and disaffected? Did no one want to wrench open their windows and bellow to the world their anguish, their happiness, their passion?
She took the sea bus home that day and gazed out the window at the grey, churning sea and felt diminished as they passed by one of the gargantuan freighters anchored there. She took in the vessel’s inhabitants, listening to their iPods, reading their books, some with their eyes closed in a semi-conscious daze, all the while their feet scant inches from the feet of their fellow passengers, each sitting on the belts of the other’s coats, umbrellas knocking against someone else’s knees, eyes meeting and averting.
On the bus she smelled the pungent tobacco scent that lingered on the man next to whom she sat. He tried to pull away from her, to shrink against the window but failed. His hand were rough, his clothing worn, he did not move or cough or answer his cell phone with a familiar “Hey” during the ride up the hill.
She bounded off the bus, noticed her fellow passengers disembark, heads down while heading certainly, definitively in well laid out routes and directions: with purpose. She affected the same gait. Purposeful. Where was she going? Where did she have to be?
She gave two dollars to the legless man and said, “I walk past you almost every day. I’m Patricia: what’s your story?”
Come to me
Checked the status of Michael's flight and it had been delayed a couple of times. Went to bed around 8:30am and got up around 2 or 3pm. I haven't done such a thing in years. Once, when I was madly infatuated with a boy when I was eighteen years old, I stayed out until almost dawn and slept until 4pm the next day. In retrospect he was not worth it. I wish I could have advised myself that I was surely deserved of so much more, but what do you know when you're eighteen? Ha! What do you know when you're twenty-three or twenty-eight for that matter.
I finished "Play It As It Lays". I will have to make notes on it. It was strangely detached, surreal, disjointed and sad. A question has come to my mind over the last while: when did sex become so meaningless? There is a train of thought here: in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and in Sons and Lovers the act of courting someone, holding their hand, reading poetry to them, taking walks with them is called "lovemaking". I don't mean to romanticize that particular time in history - I realize that sex was supposed to be solely for procreation and that it was something that women endured rather than enjoyed, but I'm not sure that what sex has become (no, that's not right: what we now think is acceptable as sex, how we view and treat sex) is a good or noble thing. Sometimes it's a cheap commodity. Or are the people who allow it to be that the cheap commodities themselves? At any rate, the "lovemaking" in this book was sad and disturbing. It was like rote masturbation which involved another person, whose name you may or may not know. Though, from reading it, it seems that sole masturbation would have been much more pleasurable.
In other news, I'm still wearing pajamas. I don't know if I will bother to shower. I have to return the Simpsons movie. Michael called around noon to tell me that his plane had sat on the tarmac for close to three hours because they had to de-ice and that he was touched that I had been able to sleep past nine thirty (at which time he was due to be at his mother's house, and at which time I was expecting a call to let me know that he had arrived safely). They also lost his luggage.
I advised him to have a nap.
I am going to listen to music, read, write, drink wine, eat tapas, maybe do some sudoku (oh, how it enrages me) and possibly play with the flashy Rubix cube I got at the Christmas party. Then I will watch more Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I may blog later to tell you how it's all working out for me.
I finished "Play It As It Lays". I will have to make notes on it. It was strangely detached, surreal, disjointed and sad. A question has come to my mind over the last while: when did sex become so meaningless? There is a train of thought here: in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and in Sons and Lovers the act of courting someone, holding their hand, reading poetry to them, taking walks with them is called "lovemaking". I don't mean to romanticize that particular time in history - I realize that sex was supposed to be solely for procreation and that it was something that women endured rather than enjoyed, but I'm not sure that what sex has become (no, that's not right: what we now think is acceptable as sex, how we view and treat sex) is a good or noble thing. Sometimes it's a cheap commodity. Or are the people who allow it to be that the cheap commodities themselves? At any rate, the "lovemaking" in this book was sad and disturbing. It was like rote masturbation which involved another person, whose name you may or may not know. Though, from reading it, it seems that sole masturbation would have been much more pleasurable.
In other news, I'm still wearing pajamas. I don't know if I will bother to shower. I have to return the Simpsons movie. Michael called around noon to tell me that his plane had sat on the tarmac for close to three hours because they had to de-ice and that he was touched that I had been able to sleep past nine thirty (at which time he was due to be at his mother's house, and at which time I was expecting a call to let me know that he had arrived safely). They also lost his luggage.
I advised him to have a nap.
I am going to listen to music, read, write, drink wine, eat tapas, maybe do some sudoku (oh, how it enrages me) and possibly play with the flashy Rubix cube I got at the Christmas party. Then I will watch more Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I may blog later to tell you how it's all working out for me.
The thing that I have been trying to do since Monday
I'm tired. Can you tell? I think the last time I got a solid eight hours of sleep was Monday night... possibly Sunday. This was a stupidly busy week. I was so exhausted on Friday morning that, as I was waiting for the seabus to dock, I thought I could feel the platform roiling and swaying. I've experienced this level of fatigue before - it comes after the stage where you're so tired that you keep: clipping door jambs; asking people the same question several times; and you continue to forget what day it is and to eat. Thankfully Friday was a short day at work. Ran up to Chapters to grab the book club book, got home and had the opportunity to nap but didn't. Why? WHY? Napping: it's not just for the aged anymore. Then Michael came over because I volunteered to drive him to the airport to catch his 8am flight this morning. He brought me lots of presents which I had specifically asked him not to do. Plus, he forgot that he had also donated $50 to SomaFM and so a shirt bearing the same name was making its way to me. Then we grabbed some tapas items from Extra Foods (I actually read the sign yesterday so it's not a Buy Low or a Superstore which I tell everyone it is - one of my coworkers' wives {that sounds wrong, it sounds like he has many wives, but I'm pretty sure he just has the one} calls it 'Yellow Store', which I think is funny) and picked up the Simpsons movie. Hmmm... good, but not great. Spiderpig was funny.
This morning we get up at 5:45 and I am greeted with "are you going to have a shower?" followed by "didn't you wear that yesterday?". What, are we going to the Ritz Carlton or something? No, I will not shower and yes, I did wear this yesterday and I look just as awesome today as I did the day before (again, refer to the picture).
Okay. I'm falling asleep here so I'll wrap this up. It was raining on the North Shore but snowing in Vancouver. And really snowing when we hit the 41st Avenue and Granville area. And getting quite snowy at the airport. I don't have snow tires and I hate driving in the snow. It was good that I was suffering from exhaustion, because it tempered my anxiety and prevented me from repeatedly screaming, "The fuck is this white shit! Oh my god, we're going to die! I can't do this! Don't make me do this! How am I getting home?". And, you know, that would've been before we even exited the parkade. Dropped Michael off and headed for home and in the twenty minutes that had passed since I was in the South Granville area it had gotten markedly worse. Snow was sticking, I couldn't see the lines, people were going slow, waves of slush were being splayed across my windshield from morons driving in the curb lane. At one point I was driving half in my lane and half into on-coming traffic. That's bad. I just prayed to make it down to Kits and it was mostly rain there and I saw all these people coming over the Burrard Bridge with nice wet cars and I was like, "Yeah. Check out the accumulation of snow on this car: you're entering hell my friends. You don't know what's coming your way". I really don't like snow. And then, out of the whiteness, with connections successfully made, listening to a nice jazz station I started to mellow out. So mellow that I almost drove into the SUV in front of me. His brake lights were pretty.
Now. I am going to bed. I am not getting up for many hours. And when I do? It might just be to pee so I can go back and sleep more.
Night. Or morning. Something.
Beware the horrors of the snow.
This morning we get up at 5:45 and I am greeted with "are you going to have a shower?" followed by "didn't you wear that yesterday?". What, are we going to the Ritz Carlton or something? No, I will not shower and yes, I did wear this yesterday and I look just as awesome today as I did the day before (again, refer to the picture).
Okay. I'm falling asleep here so I'll wrap this up. It was raining on the North Shore but snowing in Vancouver. And really snowing when we hit the 41st Avenue and Granville area. And getting quite snowy at the airport. I don't have snow tires and I hate driving in the snow. It was good that I was suffering from exhaustion, because it tempered my anxiety and prevented me from repeatedly screaming, "The fuck is this white shit! Oh my god, we're going to die! I can't do this! Don't make me do this! How am I getting home?". And, you know, that would've been before we even exited the parkade. Dropped Michael off and headed for home and in the twenty minutes that had passed since I was in the South Granville area it had gotten markedly worse. Snow was sticking, I couldn't see the lines, people were going slow, waves of slush were being splayed across my windshield from morons driving in the curb lane. At one point I was driving half in my lane and half into on-coming traffic. That's bad. I just prayed to make it down to Kits and it was mostly rain there and I saw all these people coming over the Burrard Bridge with nice wet cars and I was like, "Yeah. Check out the accumulation of snow on this car: you're entering hell my friends. You don't know what's coming your way". I really don't like snow. And then, out of the whiteness, with connections successfully made, listening to a nice jazz station I started to mellow out. So mellow that I almost drove into the SUV in front of me. His brake lights were pretty.
Now. I am going to bed. I am not getting up for many hours. And when I do? It might just be to pee so I can go back and sleep more.
Night. Or morning. Something.
Beware the horrors of the snow.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Truthiness
Perhaps I haven't been entirely honest with my blog as of late. But I haven't specifically lied. And if you had (and many of you have) asked me a direct question on the subject, I would have dodged and weaved with the voracity of a Republican faced with an untoward sex scandal.
I guess that after a year of: telephone conversations meeting or exceeding an hour; wine; dinners; flowers; lengthy conversations over coffee at a myriad of places dotting the Vancouver landscape; offering to cash out GICs so I can make the down payment on my condo; driving me and Po to the BC Ferry depot to go on a trip on which he was not invited; installing shelving; mounting my television; always returning my car with the gas tank full; bringing me coffee in the morning after my first night in my new digs because he knew that I didn't have anything unpacked; downplaying his own marathon time to tout mine because I made Boston even though I was nine minutes slower than him; and staying out late on a work night (during which he was on call) to attend my Christmas party (after noticing the button detail on my dress which was really the only reason that I bought it), after all of these things that I might just feel compelled to confess that I'm just a little bit enamoured of my ex-boyfriend.
So yeah. Hands up: all you people that are surprised. Anyone? Anyone at all?
Alright. I'm not sure what exactly to do at this junction. I guess I will have to try hard to ingratiate myself back into his life in a romantic sense. This would involve using my feminine wiles (I have none) and my sexuality (hey, did you check out my plaid pants, sweater and loafers today?). This could take some doin'.
Yeah. I'm not sure that anyone else shares my love of CBC, Upstart Crow books, Waves coffee, incredibly long and meandering walks, animated debates about tasers, the environment, politics, current events and everything in between and is, as somewhat of a non drinker, willing to be coerced into wine tasting with me, allows himself to be subjected to me quoting passages from whatever book is currently moving me, enjoys foreign films and gives me a figurative high five every time I achieve another step in my quest to be a more calm and positive force in the world. I've never had a bigger cheerleader in my life than Michael.
And he has a toolbox. And that's fucking sexy.
I guess that after a year of: telephone conversations meeting or exceeding an hour; wine; dinners; flowers; lengthy conversations over coffee at a myriad of places dotting the Vancouver landscape; offering to cash out GICs so I can make the down payment on my condo; driving me and Po to the BC Ferry depot to go on a trip on which he was not invited; installing shelving; mounting my television; always returning my car with the gas tank full; bringing me coffee in the morning after my first night in my new digs because he knew that I didn't have anything unpacked; downplaying his own marathon time to tout mine because I made Boston even though I was nine minutes slower than him; and staying out late on a work night (during which he was on call) to attend my Christmas party (after noticing the button detail on my dress which was really the only reason that I bought it), after all of these things that I might just feel compelled to confess that I'm just a little bit enamoured of my ex-boyfriend.
So yeah. Hands up: all you people that are surprised. Anyone? Anyone at all?
Alright. I'm not sure what exactly to do at this junction. I guess I will have to try hard to ingratiate myself back into his life in a romantic sense. This would involve using my feminine wiles (I have none) and my sexuality (hey, did you check out my plaid pants, sweater and loafers today?). This could take some doin'.
Yeah. I'm not sure that anyone else shares my love of CBC, Upstart Crow books, Waves coffee, incredibly long and meandering walks, animated debates about tasers, the environment, politics, current events and everything in between and is, as somewhat of a non drinker, willing to be coerced into wine tasting with me, allows himself to be subjected to me quoting passages from whatever book is currently moving me, enjoys foreign films and gives me a figurative high five every time I achieve another step in my quest to be a more calm and positive force in the world. I've never had a bigger cheerleader in my life than Michael.
And he has a toolbox. And that's fucking sexy.
That hot guy
Yeah. Saw the guy that looks like Hugh Laurie again today. I had the option of riding up with him and his buddy in elevator 3, or taking my own lift. Guess what I did? Yep.
Hi. I'm Duder and I'm 31 and the concept of talking to attractive men terrifies me.
Po: can I borrow your cat? Just a trial run, you see...
Hi. I'm Duder and I'm 31 and the concept of talking to attractive men terrifies me.
Po: can I borrow your cat? Just a trial run, you see...
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
I belong!
N, Po and I had our inaugural book meeting tonight. We came up with some ground rules and - most important - a name! We are the Illiterates. N was unsure of the spelling. Too perfect. We are accepting members and are thinking we'd like a group of around eight people, so if you like reading and are available at 7pm on the third Wednesday of every month (and can read a book a month, mind you) then put forth your membership bid and I shall black ball you!
It was a fun night. We looked up ground rules for book clubs on the net and one of the rules was to not go off on too many tangents. Since it was our first meeting and we hadn't yet read a book we went off on all kinds of tangents: dating avenues; sex toys; the possibility of a wine club (just guess who came up with that one); dreams; work; dishwashers... yeah. Then we had cookies and tarts and Po's cat attempted to fly through the sliding glass door.
Gave N a lift home. She gave me a couple of teabags (no, not a sexual reference) and all the way home I kept on thinking, "Well that smells delectable" because I had put them in the inner pocket of my winter jacket which had a hood affixed to it which was bad because I was also wearing a hoodie so my head was really kind of jutted forward due to all the excess padding.
I was drinking tea all night, and I'm not convinced that it was as caffeine-free as the packaging indicated.
Possible tea club?
First book: Joan Didion's "Play It As It Lays".
It was a fun night. We looked up ground rules for book clubs on the net and one of the rules was to not go off on too many tangents. Since it was our first meeting and we hadn't yet read a book we went off on all kinds of tangents: dating avenues; sex toys; the possibility of a wine club (just guess who came up with that one); dreams; work; dishwashers... yeah. Then we had cookies and tarts and Po's cat attempted to fly through the sliding glass door.
Gave N a lift home. She gave me a couple of teabags (no, not a sexual reference) and all the way home I kept on thinking, "Well that smells delectable" because I had put them in the inner pocket of my winter jacket which had a hood affixed to it which was bad because I was also wearing a hoodie so my head was really kind of jutted forward due to all the excess padding.
I was drinking tea all night, and I'm not convinced that it was as caffeine-free as the packaging indicated.
Possible tea club?
First book: Joan Didion's "Play It As It Lays".
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Sometimes, just sometimes, I'm a sap
Warning Sign - Coldplay
A warning sign,
I missed the good part then I realized,
I started looking and the bubble burst.
I started looking for excuses.
Come on in, I've gotta tell you what a state I'm in,
I've gotta tell you in my loudest tones,
That I started looking for a warning sign.
When the truth is, I miss you.
Yeah the truth is,
That I miss you so.
A warning sign,
You came back to haunt me and I realized,
That you were an island and I passed you by,
You were an island to discover.
Come on in, I've gotta tell you what state I'm in,
I've gotta tell you in my loudest tones,
That I started looking for a warning sign.
When the truth is, I miss you.
Yeah the truth is,
That I miss you so.
And I'm tired, I should not have let you go.
So I crawl back into your open arms.
Yes, I crawl back into your open arms.
And I crawl back into your open arms.
Yes, I crawl back into your open arms...
A warning sign,
I missed the good part then I realized,
I started looking and the bubble burst.
I started looking for excuses.
Come on in, I've gotta tell you what a state I'm in,
I've gotta tell you in my loudest tones,
That I started looking for a warning sign.
When the truth is, I miss you.
Yeah the truth is,
That I miss you so.
A warning sign,
You came back to haunt me and I realized,
That you were an island and I passed you by,
You were an island to discover.
Come on in, I've gotta tell you what state I'm in,
I've gotta tell you in my loudest tones,
That I started looking for a warning sign.
When the truth is, I miss you.
Yeah the truth is,
That I miss you so.
And I'm tired, I should not have let you go.
So I crawl back into your open arms.
Yes, I crawl back into your open arms.
And I crawl back into your open arms.
Yes, I crawl back into your open arms...
Superfunny
C came over to watch Superbad. He'll be back. He tried to make love to my television.
Superbad was pretty frickin' hilarious. And it had a nice moral to the story too! The moral was nicely nestled between the gratuitous tit shots, vomiting, excessive drinking and numerous references to "vag". C lamented that he missed his university partying days. I never really did the whole university thing and did most of my partying over the last year so I lamented for... like, last weekend.
Ah, getting pissed and trying to get laid. Good times. Constructive. Definitely conducive to my self betterment. My year of singledom has thus far been most illuminating. Sex is a very powerful thing and it ought to be treated with the reverence which it is due. I'll just leave this tumultuous subject with the thought that the people that I want to talk to, that do truly care for me I still talk to and they still do truly care for me. I'm very lucky and grateful for that.
Wow. From Superbad to this introspective on my sex life over the past year. How did that happen.
But more importantly, who wants some McLovin?
Superbad was pretty frickin' hilarious. And it had a nice moral to the story too! The moral was nicely nestled between the gratuitous tit shots, vomiting, excessive drinking and numerous references to "vag". C lamented that he missed his university partying days. I never really did the whole university thing and did most of my partying over the last year so I lamented for... like, last weekend.
Ah, getting pissed and trying to get laid. Good times. Constructive. Definitely conducive to my self betterment. My year of singledom has thus far been most illuminating. Sex is a very powerful thing and it ought to be treated with the reverence which it is due. I'll just leave this tumultuous subject with the thought that the people that I want to talk to, that do truly care for me I still talk to and they still do truly care for me. I'm very lucky and grateful for that.
Wow. From Superbad to this introspective on my sex life over the past year. How did that happen.
But more importantly, who wants some McLovin?
Second time around
What are the odds that people will recognize that I'm wearing the same dress to the Christmas party as last year?
And if they do realize it, what are the odds that they'll care?
They'll just all be mesmerized that I'm wearing a dress.
It's an annual thing.
I'm a girl. Really. Wanna come over, drink beer, eat peanuts and watch hockey with me?
And if they do realize it, what are the odds that they'll care?
They'll just all be mesmerized that I'm wearing a dress.
It's an annual thing.
I'm a girl. Really. Wanna come over, drink beer, eat peanuts and watch hockey with me?
Monday, December 17, 2007
Apropos of nothing
I ate too many peanuts.
This is a picture of me from my trip to San Fran with Michael a few years ago. I want to go back because I want to go to Yoshi's jazz joint. Why do I want to go to Yoshi's? Because I listen to KCSM and it's always Yoshi's, Yoshi's, Yoshi's with these guys. And because I never made it to the Napa Valley or Sausalito last time. And the name of the crappy jazz band that was playing in the lounge in the hotel in "Lost in Translation" was called Sausalito. This is all apropos of nothing, but I'm just saying that it's something that I am striving for in 2008.
Yoshi's. Jazz. Wine. Sausalito. Napa Valley. And maybe Carmel again.
Socks.
My sock(s) issue
The only words the CEO of our company spoke to me today were "You look tired", as he walked past me in the hall. Astounded, I came across M at the fax machine who had overheard the one-sided exchange and he nodded, "Nice". I sputtered, "He- I... he... did you? He just..." and then I went back to my office to hide my bagged eyes from the general public. I was tired, but no one needed to point it out. What's next? "Hey, you look a little fat in the ass"? Or maybe, "You kind of went to pot after the marathon, eh?". My all time favourite was when he caught me en route to the washroom and asked me how the "man hunting" was going. I should tell him what I do them once I "catch" them: he'll never ask me another personal question again.
Came home. Worked out. Did a bunch of little errands. I wandered around my apartment drinking a beer in my sweatpants, occasionally scratching myself while admiring my large television. I've become a man. I'm not going to return your phone calls. I'm going to pee with the seat up. Okay, I'm not. And I'm contemplating shaving my legs. So. Arduous. And for what?
But this was a blog about socks. So here's the kicker: socks are going missing. And I have in suite laundry! How does this happen? It's like a goddamn Seinfeld episode over here. I'm unloading my dryer and I get one sock. Where is the other sock? It's not like it could have been mixed in with someone else's laundry. When my panties start to go missing, I swear to god...
That's really about it. Spoke to Michael's sister for half an hour. She sent me birthday/housewarming/Christmas gifts. His family loves me. What's not to love? I'm lovable. I'm everyone's favourite sockless wonder.
Seriously. Where the hell is it?
Came home. Worked out. Did a bunch of little errands. I wandered around my apartment drinking a beer in my sweatpants, occasionally scratching myself while admiring my large television. I've become a man. I'm not going to return your phone calls. I'm going to pee with the seat up. Okay, I'm not. And I'm contemplating shaving my legs. So. Arduous. And for what?
But this was a blog about socks. So here's the kicker: socks are going missing. And I have in suite laundry! How does this happen? It's like a goddamn Seinfeld episode over here. I'm unloading my dryer and I get one sock. Where is the other sock? It's not like it could have been mixed in with someone else's laundry. When my panties start to go missing, I swear to god...
That's really about it. Spoke to Michael's sister for half an hour. She sent me birthday/housewarming/Christmas gifts. His family loves me. What's not to love? I'm lovable. I'm everyone's favourite sockless wonder.
Seriously. Where the hell is it?
Sunday, December 16, 2007
The mounting
The 42" television has been successfully mounted on my wall. Suh-weet. Michael let me affix the plate to the back of the t.v. like the mentally challenged individual I am, while he hand-screwed the mount into the metal studs in my wall. I could totally do that. Boys that are handy with tools are sexy.
So then we had some burritos and beers and watched the Bourne Bureaucracy or whatever the current installation is. The Bourne Audit. The Bourne Kitchen Reno. It was actually really good and was kick ass on my huge television. I'm not all that into gratuitous violence (unless it's perpetrated against Republicans or SUV drivers), but there was a pretty cool car chase scene that I actually had to rewind because it was so spectacular I thought it might be fake.
Before this whole electronic installation extravaganza I went for a run. It was supposed to be a 10k but I got lost so meandered around North Van for an hour. No pain! I'm really quite pleased with that. It's so great to be getting back on track with my running... in time for Christmas and New Years. Dammit. So much hungover running to be done in these final days of 2007.
My little work station is currently located under the television so, uh, if I go missing or something it's because the mount wasn't secure and I was crushed by a giant Westinghouse flatscreen while blogging.
The dangers of having a swinging bachelorette pad, no?
So then we had some burritos and beers and watched the Bourne Bureaucracy or whatever the current installation is. The Bourne Audit. The Bourne Kitchen Reno. It was actually really good and was kick ass on my huge television. I'm not all that into gratuitous violence (unless it's perpetrated against Republicans or SUV drivers), but there was a pretty cool car chase scene that I actually had to rewind because it was so spectacular I thought it might be fake.
Before this whole electronic installation extravaganza I went for a run. It was supposed to be a 10k but I got lost so meandered around North Van for an hour. No pain! I'm really quite pleased with that. It's so great to be getting back on track with my running... in time for Christmas and New Years. Dammit. So much hungover running to be done in these final days of 2007.
My little work station is currently located under the television so, uh, if I go missing or something it's because the mount wasn't secure and I was crushed by a giant Westinghouse flatscreen while blogging.
The dangers of having a swinging bachelorette pad, no?
Nightmares
I have really bad nightmares sometimes. Often. I've talked to my mom about it and she's the same way: more often than not she has horrific dreams. I have woken up in a cold sweat and shaken awake the person next to me because I was still scared of the remnants of my dreams. I have come to consciousness some mornings and all but fallen on my knees to thank Allah that what I had been tortuously experiencing wasn't reality.
Last night I dreamed that I was on a BC Ferry (which is terrifying in and of itself given their propensity to ram through docks and, well, sink). But, as with all my dreams, there was a tinge of abnormalcy to it. See, we were passing icebergs and such, and this is no BC Ferries route that I have yet to experience. Anyways, I'm on the deck looking over the side and I see a man (for some reason I knew he was a kayaker) lying, unmoving, face down in the water. Apparently I am the only one to see this and I start to scream, except my voice comes out as this useless rasp and I'm feverishly whispering, "Man in the water! Man in the water!". BC Ferries, though they do appear to move slowly, actually cut through the water pretty quickly and I knew that once this guy was out of eyesight the chances of us finding him again would slim, and that time was against us. So I run into the ship and I'm trying to find the captain, and I'm starting to get my voice back and I'm yelling "Man overboard! There's a man in the water! We have to get help!". And no one seems to care. This is another one of my fears which I may have explained before: I worry that I may one day be in a life and death situation and that I will have to convince some people of something outlandish in order to get them to act. And this is what was happening. I am desperately arguing with everyone that will look at me to stop the boat and to go and get this guy: he can still be resuscitated. And the ship was progressing soundly onwards and people were giving me puzzled glances and the captain was staring at me with something of contempt and I'm so frustrated and panicked and explaining that there is a man in the frigid water and we need to rescue him. I think it actually contravenes maritime law to not aid someone in distress. No one does anything. I ponder diving in to try and go back to this man but I know that the goddamn ferry will continue on without me and I will die too, with my kayaker buddy.
A little while later we see another kayaker, sans kayak, who has managed to pull himself out of the water onto some rocky shoal and his legs are badly mangled from the sea lions that attacked him once his kayak flipped (again, my dreams... not the most sensical). But, because the captain has since this guy with his own eyes, then yes, we stop and rescue him. Whereupon this guy starts asking if we've picked up his friend: you know, the now dead guy that I saw several minutes ago?? Ah!!
On the plus side? Lately I have been having an amazing array of erotic dreams. I think it somehow ties into the theory that a woman's sexual peak happens at around 30. So now I wake up totally agitated, terrified... and sexually frustrated.
I'm laughing now. My life is so goddamn funny.
Last night I dreamed that I was on a BC Ferry (which is terrifying in and of itself given their propensity to ram through docks and, well, sink). But, as with all my dreams, there was a tinge of abnormalcy to it. See, we were passing icebergs and such, and this is no BC Ferries route that I have yet to experience. Anyways, I'm on the deck looking over the side and I see a man (for some reason I knew he was a kayaker) lying, unmoving, face down in the water. Apparently I am the only one to see this and I start to scream, except my voice comes out as this useless rasp and I'm feverishly whispering, "Man in the water! Man in the water!". BC Ferries, though they do appear to move slowly, actually cut through the water pretty quickly and I knew that once this guy was out of eyesight the chances of us finding him again would slim, and that time was against us. So I run into the ship and I'm trying to find the captain, and I'm starting to get my voice back and I'm yelling "Man overboard! There's a man in the water! We have to get help!". And no one seems to care. This is another one of my fears which I may have explained before: I worry that I may one day be in a life and death situation and that I will have to convince some people of something outlandish in order to get them to act. And this is what was happening. I am desperately arguing with everyone that will look at me to stop the boat and to go and get this guy: he can still be resuscitated. And the ship was progressing soundly onwards and people were giving me puzzled glances and the captain was staring at me with something of contempt and I'm so frustrated and panicked and explaining that there is a man in the frigid water and we need to rescue him. I think it actually contravenes maritime law to not aid someone in distress. No one does anything. I ponder diving in to try and go back to this man but I know that the goddamn ferry will continue on without me and I will die too, with my kayaker buddy.
A little while later we see another kayaker, sans kayak, who has managed to pull himself out of the water onto some rocky shoal and his legs are badly mangled from the sea lions that attacked him once his kayak flipped (again, my dreams... not the most sensical). But, because the captain has since this guy with his own eyes, then yes, we stop and rescue him. Whereupon this guy starts asking if we've picked up his friend: you know, the now dead guy that I saw several minutes ago?? Ah!!
On the plus side? Lately I have been having an amazing array of erotic dreams. I think it somehow ties into the theory that a woman's sexual peak happens at around 30. So now I wake up totally agitated, terrified... and sexually frustrated.
I'm laughing now. My life is so goddamn funny.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Mrs. Doubtfire
Sometimes I don't like having my one blog of the day being such an introspective and odd one, so I like to interject a little weird humour.
I met a woman in my building today that spoke exactly like Robin Williams in "Mrs. Doubtfire". She even looked liked her. I felt oddly compelled to pull at her face and set her blouse on fire. But I didn't.
And the other girl in the lift on the way up? Wearing thongs. Come on! I admonished her. And then felt as though I was aged beyond my mere 31 (29?) years.
Head: move!
I met a woman in my building today that spoke exactly like Robin Williams in "Mrs. Doubtfire". She even looked liked her. I felt oddly compelled to pull at her face and set her blouse on fire. But I didn't.
And the other girl in the lift on the way up? Wearing thongs. Come on! I admonished her. And then felt as though I was aged beyond my mere 31 (29?) years.
Head: move!
Death, and stuff
I slept until almost eleven today. I was hoping for a low key weekend, and so far so good. L came over for coffee and we had a great two hour long chat. It's weird how people with whom you connect so well can arbitrarily come into your life. We're both not big on the hugging thing, and we both know that we ought to be a little more touchy-feely and so we kind of had to laugh when we hugged each other before she left. She's a truly smart and intuitive person and I look forward to many more coffees and conversations in the years to come as we see where our lives lead us.
I then finished "Hey Nostradamus!" by Douglas Coupland. I read it over two days (it was only about 250 pages, granted) and it was utterly excellent. It was just so goddamn good and I cried at the end and I highly recommend it. It's about making sense of our lives, and about God and fervent belief in things, about family, love, loss, trying to be a good person, ethical choices, being alone, reaching out to people... so, uh, a light read. It mostly takes place in North Vancouver, ironically. I'm glad I didn't get around to reading it until I moved here; it seems fitting.
So about death. Yeah. When I was a little girl (compared to the gargantuan monster than I am now) I used to be inordinately afraid of war. I would guess this fear would have been present when I was six or seven? I mean, I would lie awake in my bed and I would just be overcome with the fear that there would be a war and this war would come to our home and planes would be flying overhead, dropping bombs and soldiers would be marching up and down the streets, pulling people out of their homes and shooting them in the streets. Sweet Jesus only knows where I got this notion: my parents were pretty easy going hippy types back then and I don't have a recollection of what I might have seen or read that would have given me this unfounded fear. Anyways, at the time I was quite convinced it was going to happen and I could all but hear the drone of the aircraft overhead, and feel the shaking of the ground as something exploded nearby and hear the muffled pounding on our neighbour's doors and their pitiful pleading as they were dragged into the street in their nightclothes. I even thought about where I would hide. In my parents' closet, on my mom's side, behind the deflated and mismatched suitcases there is a board which can be moved aside, which leads to a small crawlspace in their closet. If you continue towards where the outside wall would be in the closet you can peer down the length of the front of the house. This is where I would hide with my family (once I rousted them from their sleep, of course) when the bad guys came. It was all very Ann Frank.
I still have nightmares of things chasing me in my parents house and I am trying desperately to get into their closet and crawl into that space with enough time to spare that I can artfully re-arrange the suitcases and the board so that they can't find me. Also, there is a window in my parents' closet and the plan would be to leave this window open, so the monsters/soldiers/bad guys would think that I had clambered out this window, skittered down the roof and jumped to the ground and was long gone: rounding up the good guys, no doubt.
That was my fear of death when I was little. Then I got older. I would say that war is a definite reality now. God knows the US will piss somebody off and they'll bomb them and we'll be inextricably wrapped up in the mess. I don't care. I sometimes don't care about humans or the fate of the human race. That's why I'm not having kids. Fuck it. Let's all blow each other off the fucking face of the earth. I mean, that's not really how I feel, I really am significantly more positive than that. Some things that happen to me in my day to day life almost reduce me to my knees when I think about the goodness and the pureness that abounds around us all. Almost daily I am confronted by the astounding beauty of our surroundings as I take the seabus to and from work. For some reason I remember the femininity of this woman who had to be at least eighty, that I saw walking down some sidewalk in Kerrisdale with these youngish hair clips in her hair. She still had long hair and it was something about the juxtaposition of her brittle, grey hair with these youthful clips and the attention to her appearance and the overall sweetness of the whole image that has remained with me for months. I had a post a while ago called "Aunty Margaret" which was essentially about the Christmas card that I had received from her and how it made my day. I was talking to my mom the other day and she said that my brother, Jay, had been over for dinner and had pilfered one of her Christmas cards from her and wanted to know Margaret's address. She had asked him why and he said that he had been having the shittiest week, he would come home to an empty house,after a rough day at work and a long commute, he was fighting with ICBC, nothing was going his way and he opened his mail and there was a Christmas card from our aunt. He said it was the first thing that he had received in the mail since he had moved to Abbotsford that wasn't a bill or junk mail. So I think we're all out there, waiting to be touched and communicated with. Our potential for goodness and love is immense.
Anyways. My more recent fear of death has come as the realization that I have a lot I want to do. That I'm really enjoying myself right now, that I'm opening myself up to new opportunities, allowing myself to be happy and at peace and that I'm finally coming into my own. I thought, as I narrowly missed being hit by a car running a red light the other day, that I really like living right now and I would really like for it to continue for a very long time.
Right. So you should really check out that book.
And try not to run red lights.
I then finished "Hey Nostradamus!" by Douglas Coupland. I read it over two days (it was only about 250 pages, granted) and it was utterly excellent. It was just so goddamn good and I cried at the end and I highly recommend it. It's about making sense of our lives, and about God and fervent belief in things, about family, love, loss, trying to be a good person, ethical choices, being alone, reaching out to people... so, uh, a light read. It mostly takes place in North Vancouver, ironically. I'm glad I didn't get around to reading it until I moved here; it seems fitting.
So about death. Yeah. When I was a little girl (compared to the gargantuan monster than I am now) I used to be inordinately afraid of war. I would guess this fear would have been present when I was six or seven? I mean, I would lie awake in my bed and I would just be overcome with the fear that there would be a war and this war would come to our home and planes would be flying overhead, dropping bombs and soldiers would be marching up and down the streets, pulling people out of their homes and shooting them in the streets. Sweet Jesus only knows where I got this notion: my parents were pretty easy going hippy types back then and I don't have a recollection of what I might have seen or read that would have given me this unfounded fear. Anyways, at the time I was quite convinced it was going to happen and I could all but hear the drone of the aircraft overhead, and feel the shaking of the ground as something exploded nearby and hear the muffled pounding on our neighbour's doors and their pitiful pleading as they were dragged into the street in their nightclothes. I even thought about where I would hide. In my parents' closet, on my mom's side, behind the deflated and mismatched suitcases there is a board which can be moved aside, which leads to a small crawlspace in their closet. If you continue towards where the outside wall would be in the closet you can peer down the length of the front of the house. This is where I would hide with my family (once I rousted them from their sleep, of course) when the bad guys came. It was all very Ann Frank.
I still have nightmares of things chasing me in my parents house and I am trying desperately to get into their closet and crawl into that space with enough time to spare that I can artfully re-arrange the suitcases and the board so that they can't find me. Also, there is a window in my parents' closet and the plan would be to leave this window open, so the monsters/soldiers/bad guys would think that I had clambered out this window, skittered down the roof and jumped to the ground and was long gone: rounding up the good guys, no doubt.
That was my fear of death when I was little. Then I got older. I would say that war is a definite reality now. God knows the US will piss somebody off and they'll bomb them and we'll be inextricably wrapped up in the mess. I don't care. I sometimes don't care about humans or the fate of the human race. That's why I'm not having kids. Fuck it. Let's all blow each other off the fucking face of the earth. I mean, that's not really how I feel, I really am significantly more positive than that. Some things that happen to me in my day to day life almost reduce me to my knees when I think about the goodness and the pureness that abounds around us all. Almost daily I am confronted by the astounding beauty of our surroundings as I take the seabus to and from work. For some reason I remember the femininity of this woman who had to be at least eighty, that I saw walking down some sidewalk in Kerrisdale with these youngish hair clips in her hair. She still had long hair and it was something about the juxtaposition of her brittle, grey hair with these youthful clips and the attention to her appearance and the overall sweetness of the whole image that has remained with me for months. I had a post a while ago called "Aunty Margaret" which was essentially about the Christmas card that I had received from her and how it made my day. I was talking to my mom the other day and she said that my brother, Jay, had been over for dinner and had pilfered one of her Christmas cards from her and wanted to know Margaret's address. She had asked him why and he said that he had been having the shittiest week, he would come home to an empty house,after a rough day at work and a long commute, he was fighting with ICBC, nothing was going his way and he opened his mail and there was a Christmas card from our aunt. He said it was the first thing that he had received in the mail since he had moved to Abbotsford that wasn't a bill or junk mail. So I think we're all out there, waiting to be touched and communicated with. Our potential for goodness and love is immense.
Anyways. My more recent fear of death has come as the realization that I have a lot I want to do. That I'm really enjoying myself right now, that I'm opening myself up to new opportunities, allowing myself to be happy and at peace and that I'm finally coming into my own. I thought, as I narrowly missed being hit by a car running a red light the other day, that I really like living right now and I would really like for it to continue for a very long time.
Right. So you should really check out that book.
And try not to run red lights.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Possibly expired pills = fun!
Got my period yesterday.
Get. Your. Own. Blog.
Day two is always the worst. Woke up writhing in pain at 3:30 and left a message on my boss's voicemail saying I would be in around 10:30 and popped some extra strength Ibuprofen. Got up around nine, showered, got ready to go, had my jacket on and was ready to head into work but the overwhelming desire to vomit because of the pain proved too much. Thank you, endometriosis (here's something ironic: endometriosis can lead to infertility and my condition was discovered when the surgeon was performing my tubuligation).
Called my boss and she kindly let me have the day off. I encouraged her to send spreadsheets to me at home, but she didn't. Which was good because I fell asleep on my couch, twice.
Douglas Coupland's "Hey Nostradamus" is proving to be an excellent read.
At about the time I felt that my left ovary had most certainly ruptured I started digging through some old purses for drugs and came across a single Ponstan. This is a prescription drug for people with mind-blowing menstrual cramps. I was not sure how long this little beauty had been languishing in my out-of-date purse, nor did I care. Get in my belly. Awoke three hours later, confused and disoriented with the remnants of some dream involving me wearing lingerie lingering.
I hate my period. I like napping on my couch. I hate clenching and unclenching my toes because of the pain. I like sleeping from 3 until 6pm.
What a waste of an entire day.
I wonder what other lovelies I can find in some of my other purses...
Get. Your. Own. Blog.
Day two is always the worst. Woke up writhing in pain at 3:30 and left a message on my boss's voicemail saying I would be in around 10:30 and popped some extra strength Ibuprofen. Got up around nine, showered, got ready to go, had my jacket on and was ready to head into work but the overwhelming desire to vomit because of the pain proved too much. Thank you, endometriosis (here's something ironic: endometriosis can lead to infertility and my condition was discovered when the surgeon was performing my tubuligation).
Called my boss and she kindly let me have the day off. I encouraged her to send spreadsheets to me at home, but she didn't. Which was good because I fell asleep on my couch, twice.
Douglas Coupland's "Hey Nostradamus" is proving to be an excellent read.
At about the time I felt that my left ovary had most certainly ruptured I started digging through some old purses for drugs and came across a single Ponstan. This is a prescription drug for people with mind-blowing menstrual cramps. I was not sure how long this little beauty had been languishing in my out-of-date purse, nor did I care. Get in my belly. Awoke three hours later, confused and disoriented with the remnants of some dream involving me wearing lingerie lingering.
I hate my period. I like napping on my couch. I hate clenching and unclenching my toes because of the pain. I like sleeping from 3 until 6pm.
What a waste of an entire day.
I wonder what other lovelies I can find in some of my other purses...
Thursday, December 13, 2007
The Audi (fiction)
Craig let his mind wander as he deftly maneuvered through the traffic on Arbutus on route to his downtown office. Though it was only 8 o’clock it was already warm: it was likely going to be a scorching hot day. He smiled as he slid his hands along the leather clad steering wheel appreciatively, enjoying the tight, whisper quiet ride coupled with the jazz sounds emanating from his favorite radio station. He did not miss the days of the aged, sans-A/C Subaru, with its bouts of overheating and the shrill shriek it emitted if he was so stupid as to attempt to drive with his seatbelt unfastened (Craig had, at one point, endeavored to find the fuse responsible for that horrendous racket and pull it out and grind it under his heel, but there had always been something more pressing on his proverbial to-do list back then). He remembered the weekend that he and Karen had spent during their “let’s explore our own backyard” phase which was, in retrospect, really more of a “we don’t have enough money to afford a real vacation” phase. They had stayed at a B&B in Hope and had then traveled on to take the Hell’s Gate tram over the raging and frothy Fraser River. It had been hotter than hell that day and they had rolled all the windows down in the car as they sped to their destination, their speed having less to do with the destination itself and more to keep the airflow going in the car. When they had peeled themselves out of the vehicle they had both had sweat stains down their backs and under their armpits. Money might not buy happiness, but it sure came damn close.
As he turned right onto 16th Avenue his Blackberry gave a distinctive and discreet ring. “Hi,” he answered.
“Hi,” she replied. “Are we still on for tonight?”
“Yes,” he confirmed, feeling a stirring in his groin. She’d uttered one sentence to him and already in his mind she was half naked, and he was running his hands under her skirt along the satiny smooth skin of her thighs, pressing her up against the doorjamb and burying his face in the exotic scent that was found where her elegant neck joined her delicate shoulder, which was usually inaccessible due to her copious and luxurious hair. “I can be there by six o’clock.”
“Will you be hungry?” she wanted to know. He could practically see her seductive half smile: it was the one that she would sport when she, propped up on one elbow in bed and idly assessing him, asked him if he was ‘tired’.
He was getting an erection at 8:10am on a Tuesday in rush hour traffic. “I’m always hungry,” he answered. Her calls were a blessing and a curse. He loved her voice, he couldn’t wait to see her again, but he would have to as his day was only just beginning.
She gave a low, throaty laugh. “Alright. I’m sure I can find something to assuage your appetite. I’ll see you tonight.” And then she was gone.
His ambling mind was now more centred on something rather specific.
Naughty, isn't it? It's always those damnable accountant types...
As he turned right onto 16th Avenue his Blackberry gave a distinctive and discreet ring. “Hi,” he answered.
“Hi,” she replied. “Are we still on for tonight?”
“Yes,” he confirmed, feeling a stirring in his groin. She’d uttered one sentence to him and already in his mind she was half naked, and he was running his hands under her skirt along the satiny smooth skin of her thighs, pressing her up against the doorjamb and burying his face in the exotic scent that was found where her elegant neck joined her delicate shoulder, which was usually inaccessible due to her copious and luxurious hair. “I can be there by six o’clock.”
“Will you be hungry?” she wanted to know. He could practically see her seductive half smile: it was the one that she would sport when she, propped up on one elbow in bed and idly assessing him, asked him if he was ‘tired’.
He was getting an erection at 8:10am on a Tuesday in rush hour traffic. “I’m always hungry,” he answered. Her calls were a blessing and a curse. He loved her voice, he couldn’t wait to see her again, but he would have to as his day was only just beginning.
She gave a low, throaty laugh. “Alright. I’m sure I can find something to assuage your appetite. I’ll see you tonight.” And then she was gone.
His ambling mind was now more centred on something rather specific.
Naughty, isn't it? It's always those damnable accountant types...
I have nothing to blog about
Does that mean my struggling has ceased? Had a good day at work, someone held the elevator for me in my building while I got my mail (seriously, where do I live?), I worked out in my little gym. My dishwasher is going, my laundry is done. I've eaten and vacuumed.
Okay. One complaint. My new, large t.v. is currently situated on the floor. Michael helped me pick it up yesterday and it's pushed my Ikea chair askance and it's difficult to watch because it's squatting too low, but I have to wait until Michael has time to mount it for me. I looked at the cluttered t.v. mess and lamented, "I can't live like this!". Michael smiled wanly and tried to unclench his fists and prevent them from connecting with my anguished face.
That's pretty much all I've got.
It's 7:30.
I think I am going to work on "Subaru Days".
I can live like this. It's tough, but I can make it work.
Don't hit me!
Okay. One complaint. My new, large t.v. is currently situated on the floor. Michael helped me pick it up yesterday and it's pushed my Ikea chair askance and it's difficult to watch because it's squatting too low, but I have to wait until Michael has time to mount it for me. I looked at the cluttered t.v. mess and lamented, "I can't live like this!". Michael smiled wanly and tried to unclench his fists and prevent them from connecting with my anguished face.
That's pretty much all I've got.
It's 7:30.
I think I am going to work on "Subaru Days".
I can live like this. It's tough, but I can make it work.
Don't hit me!
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Orange you glad I'm here?
That’s what M wrote on the orange that I left on my desk last night. That’s funny. I should reply, “Orange you glad I’m not a bad apple?”.
In other news, a man in some airport had to be hospitalized for alcohol poisoning after chugging two pints of vodka when he was told he couldn’t carry it on the plane due to the new regulations about liquids on planes. He is 64.
A group that gives awards for the wackiest warnings awarded the top prize to someone that sent in a warning that was on a tractor. The warning said, “Danger: Avoid Death”.
Orange you glad you read this?
In other news, a man in some airport had to be hospitalized for alcohol poisoning after chugging two pints of vodka when he was told he couldn’t carry it on the plane due to the new regulations about liquids on planes. He is 64.
A group that gives awards for the wackiest warnings awarded the top prize to someone that sent in a warning that was on a tractor. The warning said, “Danger: Avoid Death”.
Orange you glad you read this?
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Drunk running (it's for charity)!
Went to the clinic tonight and there was a pretty big turnout. I'm not going to say that the subsequent wine tasting after the run had anything to do with the turnout, but when one of the clinic leaders asked if people were interested in running the proposed 5k route twice, like two people put up their hands (we took those two people out back and explained what was what). Sweet. So a five kilometre run to admire the lights on the houses and the great view of downtown Vancouver it was.
I will interject here that up until today I didn't have a waterproof running jacket. My mom gave me a gift certificate for the Running Room, so I drove over there after work and bought a jacket all the while feeling that I was cheating on my current running clinic. I explained to the woman that I did run with the RR before, but that this new clinic was four blocks from my new pad. Four blocks! That would come in handy later.
So we bang off five kilometres, come back to the store and they have all sorts of snacks, coffee, treats, pizza and... wine! Yay! And as if this story that merges wine and running (two of my loves) isn't enough: I had fantastic sex in the store room with a guy that works for the CBC! Okay. That didn't happen. But a portion of the proceeds of the wine that this winemaker sells (http://www.doghousewine.com/) goes to support the NPO Guide Dogs for the Blind. I kid you not!! And the merlot was quite nice! Additionally, everyone donated food and toys for the North Shore Stocking Fund and I was happy to see the amount that we collected for such a great cause.
The waterproof jacket paid off since it started snowing the minute we left the store. Again. Horseshoe up my ass. How I managed to get to December 11th without getting drenched on a run is beyond me. Oh wait... I haven't been running: that's how.
Anyways. Met some really great and funny people. Had something to eat. Had a couple of glasses of wine. Realized I hadn't had dinner and that it was 8 o'clock and that I was a bit tipsy and that it was time to call it a night.
As we leave Michael grabbed a handful of M&Ms and thrust them into my mittened paws and we parted ways. I meandered up Lonsdale, eating the chocolately peanut goodness, glowing from a nice run, some great company and some nice wine.
Am I settling in to Central Lonsdale, do you think?
Um. Yeah.
I will interject here that up until today I didn't have a waterproof running jacket. My mom gave me a gift certificate for the Running Room, so I drove over there after work and bought a jacket all the while feeling that I was cheating on my current running clinic. I explained to the woman that I did run with the RR before, but that this new clinic was four blocks from my new pad. Four blocks! That would come in handy later.
So we bang off five kilometres, come back to the store and they have all sorts of snacks, coffee, treats, pizza and... wine! Yay! And as if this story that merges wine and running (two of my loves) isn't enough: I had fantastic sex in the store room with a guy that works for the CBC! Okay. That didn't happen. But a portion of the proceeds of the wine that this winemaker sells (http://www.doghousewine.com/) goes to support the NPO Guide Dogs for the Blind. I kid you not!! And the merlot was quite nice! Additionally, everyone donated food and toys for the North Shore Stocking Fund and I was happy to see the amount that we collected for such a great cause.
The waterproof jacket paid off since it started snowing the minute we left the store. Again. Horseshoe up my ass. How I managed to get to December 11th without getting drenched on a run is beyond me. Oh wait... I haven't been running: that's how.
Anyways. Met some really great and funny people. Had something to eat. Had a couple of glasses of wine. Realized I hadn't had dinner and that it was 8 o'clock and that I was a bit tipsy and that it was time to call it a night.
As we leave Michael grabbed a handful of M&Ms and thrust them into my mittened paws and we parted ways. I meandered up Lonsdale, eating the chocolately peanut goodness, glowing from a nice run, some great company and some nice wine.
Am I settling in to Central Lonsdale, do you think?
Um. Yeah.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Full of piss and vinegar
I know better. Why did I start watching the Al Franken documentary so late? Oh. Oh. Anne Coulter. Tucker Carlson. Bill O'Reilly. I called Michael about halfway through and I couldn't string a sentence together: I made a series of inarticulate grunts. Then, when I could use my big girl worlds, I screamed, "If the Dems don't get in I'm leaving the country!". I don't even live in the States. I'm this worked up and I live in North Vancouver: can you imagine being a staunch liberal in the US over the past four or eight years? My heart goes out to them.
Okay. I could blog until 2am about this movie and about the Republicans, the right wing media, Fox, Rupert Murdoch and the way that the idea of independent journalism has been roughly hijacked and has been replaced by a bunch of vicious, vitriol-spewing people more intent on ensuring that news reporting is not fair and balanced, while constantly pulling "facts" out of their ass. But I'm trying to lower my blood pressure, and it's too late in the evening for an angry letter to Bill O'Reilly. Or a second letter to George Bush.
Watch the movie "Al Franken: God Spoke". Don't take my word that it's good: it was a Tribeca Film Festival Official Selection.
Here is a scene from the movie, after Al Franken announces that he is going to run for senate in 2008. Bill O'Reilly (during his commentary) says that Franken is a "vile smear merchant", while on screen the bullet points read "Franken makes money defaming people. He also may have serious emotional problems".
Did anyone ever see when O'Reilly came on David Letterman's show and Letterman called him a "bonehead"? I needed a cigarette after that.
Trying to calm down. Al Franken could be in the senate in 2008! How cool would that be? Gosh darn it, people like him.
Okay. I could blog until 2am about this movie and about the Republicans, the right wing media, Fox, Rupert Murdoch and the way that the idea of independent journalism has been roughly hijacked and has been replaced by a bunch of vicious, vitriol-spewing people more intent on ensuring that news reporting is not fair and balanced, while constantly pulling "facts" out of their ass. But I'm trying to lower my blood pressure, and it's too late in the evening for an angry letter to Bill O'Reilly. Or a second letter to George Bush.
Watch the movie "Al Franken: God Spoke". Don't take my word that it's good: it was a Tribeca Film Festival Official Selection.
Here is a scene from the movie, after Al Franken announces that he is going to run for senate in 2008. Bill O'Reilly (during his commentary) says that Franken is a "vile smear merchant", while on screen the bullet points read "Franken makes money defaming people. He also may have serious emotional problems".
Did anyone ever see when O'Reilly came on David Letterman's show and Letterman called him a "bonehead"? I needed a cigarette after that.
Trying to calm down. Al Franken could be in the senate in 2008! How cool would that be? Gosh darn it, people like him.
Alrighty then
So he has abortive relationships with women because he is beholden to his mother, and then she dies and at the end he chooses not to also go gently into that good night, but to continue on with his life. Thanks for that. I do not recommend "Sons and Lovers" (though lovers on their own are quite nice). Though it was an interesting romp through the English language and a detailed period piece. The subject matter, however, did leave me wanting.
Speaking of mothers: I should call mine. I was abrupt with her earlier over a rubber doormat from Home Depot. I think we were both a bit peckish. When did doormats lead to such volatile conversations?
I love KCSM and Billie Holiday.
My calves hurt.
Night.
Speaking of mothers: I should call mine. I was abrupt with her earlier over a rubber doormat from Home Depot. I think we were both a bit peckish. When did doormats lead to such volatile conversations?
I love KCSM and Billie Holiday.
My calves hurt.
Night.
A big TV to go with my big couch
Purolator called and my TV is here already! I'm picking it up from a N. Van depot after work Wednesday: man that was fast!
What a great, sunny, nice day. I went to Park Royal and got almost all my Christmas shopping done (after ending up in Ambleside first, by accident). Saw Savary Island pies at the Whole Foods store for $25 or something ridiculous. West Van is... yeah. At least I managed to escape without inadvertently getting a $300 hair cut.
Went for an 8k run and had no pain and - surprisingly - a good time. It's hilly here. And it was cold today. Ran past some kids that were skidding down a really steep road in their sneakers and later experienced the same when I skittered across some black ice. Graceful.
There is going to be a wine tasting at my running clinic after the run tomorrow. Come on, I couldn't even make that up!
Having the best day. Going to clean up a little, put my Christmas gifts in my festive and reusable gift bags and then am watching a documentary with Al Franken. Well, not with him, but starring him.
What a great, sunny, nice day. I went to Park Royal and got almost all my Christmas shopping done (after ending up in Ambleside first, by accident). Saw Savary Island pies at the Whole Foods store for $25 or something ridiculous. West Van is... yeah. At least I managed to escape without inadvertently getting a $300 hair cut.
Went for an 8k run and had no pain and - surprisingly - a good time. It's hilly here. And it was cold today. Ran past some kids that were skidding down a really steep road in their sneakers and later experienced the same when I skittered across some black ice. Graceful.
There is going to be a wine tasting at my running clinic after the run tomorrow. Come on, I couldn't even make that up!
Having the best day. Going to clean up a little, put my Christmas gifts in my festive and reusable gift bags and then am watching a documentary with Al Franken. Well, not with him, but starring him.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
I'm not working tomorrow
That's why I'm blogging about curtains.
So yeah, I got some sweet-ass blackout curtains today. They're red. My bedroom looks like a movie theatre, starring... me.
Rated X.
Who am I kidding?
PG, all the way.
Is it unbearable? (fiction)
She's thinking, "Don't do this: don't ruin the moment; over complicate things; put him on edge; cast a pall on the here and now. Don't. Don't. Do. It." But it's there. It's niggling in the back of her mind. In recent days it has been pushed, shoved, unwillingly to the forefront - demanding to be acknowledged. Standing still is one thing. Waiting patiently is fine. Stagnating is not healthy. She runs her fingers down the ribbed concave body of her coffee cup and makes eye contact with him, nodding at what he's saying while inwardly trying to suppress this veritable bout of Tourette's that is getting ready to spring forth from her.
"What do you want from me?" she asks.
She's amazed that he doesn't miss a beat. Was he thinking the same thing? Was he so in tune with her that he noticed a vague glaze in her grey eyes as she tuned him out and started to explore this other tangent? He says, "I want you to always be there for me."
She nods, hard. Her hair is falling into her eyes. She knows this is what he wants and this is always what she will give. "But what does that mean?"
That's the question. That's the one. Is she a friend, a lover, a confidant? Has she lost all appeal in his eyes? Does he harbour any impure thoughts towards her? Has he been dreading this question? Does she really want him to answer?
"Is it unbearable?" he asks.
"Unbearable?" she parrots, smoothing the place mat, gazing outside, caressing the granite counter top.
"When I'm not here: is it unbearable?" he quantifies.
"Unbearable: no. I like being with you, but I like being alone," she pauses. "Is it unbearable for you?"
He shakes his head and she wonders, is that what love is? Is it supposed to be unbearable? Has she misjudged this?
Later, they're wandering through the mall and he's teasing her about something. Sometimes he smacks her on the ass and she alternates between being mildly flattered at this form of intimacy, and realizing the inappropriateness of it, given their supposed platonic relationship.
"What's brickabrack?" he demands.
"I don't know. Isn't it like knick-knacks? It sounds like something that I would hate," she laments.
"Because they have a 'brickabrack' section in the dollar store near me," he continues.
She stops. He's standing very close to her, having this inane conversation but she knows that he's having fun. She kisses him. He accepts it. They continue to walk down the aisle and he holds up a brightly colored feather duster and says, "Maybe for later?" and gives her a conspiratorial wink.
Later still, they part ways. As she watches him walk away she feels panicked, she wants to call back to him, to take him up on whatever arbitrary excuse he had thrown out at her in an attempt to get her to come up to his place. Instead she watches him walk away from her. It feels like a loss, it feels unecessarily lonely, it feels somewhat unbearable.
"What do you want from me?" she asks.
She's amazed that he doesn't miss a beat. Was he thinking the same thing? Was he so in tune with her that he noticed a vague glaze in her grey eyes as she tuned him out and started to explore this other tangent? He says, "I want you to always be there for me."
She nods, hard. Her hair is falling into her eyes. She knows this is what he wants and this is always what she will give. "But what does that mean?"
That's the question. That's the one. Is she a friend, a lover, a confidant? Has she lost all appeal in his eyes? Does he harbour any impure thoughts towards her? Has he been dreading this question? Does she really want him to answer?
"Is it unbearable?" he asks.
"Unbearable?" she parrots, smoothing the place mat, gazing outside, caressing the granite counter top.
"When I'm not here: is it unbearable?" he quantifies.
"Unbearable: no. I like being with you, but I like being alone," she pauses. "Is it unbearable for you?"
He shakes his head and she wonders, is that what love is? Is it supposed to be unbearable? Has she misjudged this?
Later, they're wandering through the mall and he's teasing her about something. Sometimes he smacks her on the ass and she alternates between being mildly flattered at this form of intimacy, and realizing the inappropriateness of it, given their supposed platonic relationship.
"What's brickabrack?" he demands.
"I don't know. Isn't it like knick-knacks? It sounds like something that I would hate," she laments.
"Because they have a 'brickabrack' section in the dollar store near me," he continues.
She stops. He's standing very close to her, having this inane conversation but she knows that he's having fun. She kisses him. He accepts it. They continue to walk down the aisle and he holds up a brightly colored feather duster and says, "Maybe for later?" and gives her a conspiratorial wink.
Later still, they part ways. As she watches him walk away she feels panicked, she wants to call back to him, to take him up on whatever arbitrary excuse he had thrown out at her in an attempt to get her to come up to his place. Instead she watches him walk away from her. It feels like a loss, it feels unecessarily lonely, it feels somewhat unbearable.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Stick a fork in me, I'm done.
Mmmm... 31. On my 31st birthday I had balloons, cake, chinese food, an impomptu wine tasting, phone calls, cards, gift cards, flowers, chocolates and many well wishes. I was spoiled. And then again today! Why have a birthday, when you can have a birthday weekend?
I think I topped all pr
evious social engagment records today. And helped create a book club! Met for brunch with my grandmother, mother and aunt in Point Grey at 1pm. I had oatmeal and everyone seemed upset by this. The oatmeal had almonds, glazed walnuts and cranberries in it, and came with a fruit salad. Is this not appealing? A pink balloon was adhered to our table and I lamented, "Twice in two days!" and started to scour the restaurant for my coworkers. Had an enjoyable brunch and then had creme brulee. I L
OVE CREME BRULEE. And - apparently - 31 years old is not the age cutoff for a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday". Sweet.
Met up with N and Po for coffee at 3:30 in Kits. A couple of cops sat next to us. I screamed, "Don't taser me!". Okay, I didn't. We talked about books. We talked about book clubs. I said, "We should create a book club" and they said, "okay". We now have a book club that will meet the third Wednesday of every month: the invitation is open to everyone, so if you want to join give me a shout. We also a need a name and I suggested "the dorks", but that wasn't well received. I think I shall put forth "the D. H. Lawrence motherfuckers" and see how that flies. Seriously. The guy was inordinately close to his mother, though an adept and intimate (and somewhat feminist) writer.
Had some
time to kill so called my friend C and we met for a beer at the Beagle. He has yet to see my new place and had planned to come over this upcoming Monday. I told him of my impending 42" television arrival and he indicated that he might not be able to make it Monday, but will likely be available in 2-3 weeks as he was under the impression that I already had the television.
Then, because I have missed it so much, I went to the Cheshire Cheese with L, whom I have not seen in over a month. Always so, so good to catch up with her. The place was packed! There were attractive men there under the age of fifty! Yeah, wait until I leave Kerrisdale, I fumed. And they had my favourite beer (Granville Island Winter Ale) so I was happy. Remember the year I stockpiled it? That was awesome. Look, any time there is a successful merger of beer and caramel you can count me in!
So it was the best day ever. Maybe I did see my nana in her pantyhose in a change room. And maybe my mom carried around a frying pan for part of the afternoon. And perhaps I felt somewhat belittled when the waiter asked if I wanted to take my balloon with me. Possibly I felt pressured into joining a roller derby. And I need to buy a .22 for C for his birthday
so we can ride around in his truck and shoot squirrels in North Vancouver (it's absolutely number one on my to do list). I got to back to my old stomping ground for dinner and it was halfway decent! But oh my god, I had the best day. I love and cherish all the people that I saw today and I got to go from one place to another and spend time with them on a sunny winter day in Vancouver.
The flip side? I got to bed at 1am last night and I'm bagged, so I shall miss tomorrow's clinic at 8am.
The flip, flip side? I don't have to run in the freezing cold at 8am tomorrow morning.
I can do what I want: it's my birthday weekend!
I think I topped all pr
evious social engagment records today. And helped create a book club! Met for brunch with my grandmother, mother and aunt in Point Grey at 1pm. I had oatmeal and everyone seemed upset by this. The oatmeal had almonds, glazed walnuts and cranberries in it, and came with a fruit salad. Is this not appealing? A pink balloon was adhered to our table and I lamented, "Twice in two days!" and started to scour the restaurant for my coworkers. Had an enjoyable brunch and then had creme brulee. I L
OVE CREME BRULEE. And - apparently - 31 years old is not the age cutoff for a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday". Sweet.Met up with N and Po for coffee at 3:30 in Kits. A couple of cops sat next to us. I screamed, "Don't taser me!". Okay, I didn't. We talked about books. We talked about book clubs. I said, "We should create a book club" and they said, "okay". We now have a book club that will meet the third Wednesday of every month: the invitation is open to everyone, so if you want to join give me a shout. We also a need a name and I suggested "the dorks", but that wasn't well received. I think I shall put forth "the D. H. Lawrence motherfuckers" and see how that flies. Seriously. The guy was inordinately close to his mother, though an adept and intimate (and somewhat feminist) writer.
Had some
time to kill so called my friend C and we met for a beer at the Beagle. He has yet to see my new place and had planned to come over this upcoming Monday. I told him of my impending 42" television arrival and he indicated that he might not be able to make it Monday, but will likely be available in 2-3 weeks as he was under the impression that I already had the television.Then, because I have missed it so much, I went to the Cheshire Cheese with L, whom I have not seen in over a month. Always so, so good to catch up with her. The place was packed! There were attractive men there under the age of fifty! Yeah, wait until I leave Kerrisdale, I fumed. And they had my favourite beer (Granville Island Winter Ale) so I was happy. Remember the year I stockpiled it? That was awesome. Look, any time there is a successful merger of beer and caramel you can count me in!
So it was the best day ever. Maybe I did see my nana in her pantyhose in a change room. And maybe my mom carried around a frying pan for part of the afternoon. And perhaps I felt somewhat belittled when the waiter asked if I wanted to take my balloon with me. Possibly I felt pressured into joining a roller derby. And I need to buy a .22 for C for his birthday
so we can ride around in his truck and shoot squirrels in North Vancouver (it's absolutely number one on my to do list). I got to back to my old stomping ground for dinner and it was halfway decent! But oh my god, I had the best day. I love and cherish all the people that I saw today and I got to go from one place to another and spend time with them on a sunny winter day in Vancouver.The flip side? I got to bed at 1am last night and I'm bagged, so I shall miss tomorrow's clinic at 8am.
The flip, flip side? I don't have to run in the freezing cold at 8am tomorrow morning.
I can do what I want: it's my birthday weekend!
Friday, December 7, 2007
A retrospective
Here is a post from my old blog at about this time last year:
"Happy birthday to ME! I am so excited that I will now be able to say that yes, I was still finalizing my post secondary education in my thirties. Super. I’ve never really been into the whole five year planning thing; the only major goals in my life would be to own a house at some point, replete with dog and husband. Oh, and I want to retire at 55. So when I ask myself the question “where did I envision myself at 30?” I really can’t say that I had any specific ideas, only vague generalities. I never thought “oh, I want to be the controller of a multi-national petroleum corporation” because well, petroleum corporations are bastards and also because I must admit to a certain laissez-faire attitude in regards to my career path.
I am a bit surprised that I am still going to school (though – fingers crossed – I will be done in less than two weeks); I would’ve thought that a) I would never return after the social rejection and humiliation that was high school or b) I would’ve completed what I felt was necessary before the ripe old age of 30. However you live and learn. You enroll in the CGA, bite off more than you can chew, fail horrifically and then cower in a corner for a few more years gaining the confidence to try it again.
Kids never entered into the picture. I never daydreamed about myself with a family as evidenced by my surgery earlier this year. So I guess I did a good job of not having kids at thirty… yeah, quite an accomplishment.
The housing situation. What can I say? If you live in Vancouver then you know my predicament. Houses in my neck of the woods start (for a beater) at half a million. I’d wager a guess that the average house price in Kerrisdale is $800,000. I don’t have $800,000. Apparently a lot of people do, so I just need to discover where they hang out on the weekends and infiltrate them. This would segue nicely into the relationship topic of my life. See, should I meet someone that can afford an $800,000 house and that also finds me tremendously witty and attractive (and really, who wouldn’t) and thinks that my ragings against the Bush administration, the way the Canadian government is failing the environment, and my liberal views on gay marriage, the legalization of marijuana and prostitution are quirky and genuine, and wants to make me Mrs. Crème de la Crème, then I suppose I would have solved both the housing and marriage shortcomings.
As it stands, today, at 30, I am wrapping up my two year accounting diploma which took me six years to complete. I work three days a week. I live alone in rented accommodations, and my nose is too big.
On the plus side: I’m wrapping up my lengthy education! I only work three days a week! I can drink milk straight from the carton (well, I always did that) and leave the toilet seat up! I guess I just have to work on the nose thing.
Oh happiest of happies."
So that was a year ago. I actually can't believe that it was so long ago that I sat at a table with a ton of my friends at Mahoney's at UBC. I still remember what a hassle parking was!
I'm not sure how to recap this year, but I will try nonetheless. First, thanks to all my friends who have been there over the past year watching me struggle, fail, succeed and ultimately grow. I'm not done growing yet (as my bathroom scale likes to tell me) and I'm sure there are many more trials and tribulations to come and I am incredibly grateful for the non-judgemental nature of my friends, their willingness to always lend an ear and prop me up when I'm in the doldrums. So thank you: you all mean the world to me. I am flattered to have the interesting, diverse and exciting friends that I have found in you. I love you guys, sniff.
Next: the condo. How weird was that? I didn't see that coming, but it was very timely (then again, when is a nice piece of real estate ever untimely?). I am happy here, though I am a bit further away from people than I would like. But I like to think that we are at the point where we are all such good friends that a mere change in geography will not diminish our friendship. My door is always open to you, and my (gigantic!) couch is readily available for crashing on.
I had no idea that I would run a marathon in 2007. Or qualify for Boston. That was fucking awesome. 3:39, baby. I have never done so many runs with a hangover as I did this year. I love running... and I love wine. Apparently there is a marathon in France that combines the two. Who's with me?
I've tried to become a better person over the past year. I volunteered, got in good shape, got rid of cable and spent a lot of time alone, getting to know myself. The two issues that came up repeatedly were my inability to sit still, and my lack of self esteem. I always felt the need to be moving towards something instead of simply being. I am very aware of that now and I'm working on being more in the "here and now". It'll take some doing. I am grateful to Typewriter for helping me to see this: life is infinitely more enjoyable if you... simply enjoy it. I'm not sure where the self esteem issue is routed. I went to a therapist earlier in the year to try and understand it, but over the last couple of days I've started to understand that it's irrelevant. It may or may not be based on some issue from my past. I think it might just be routed in my perception of myself. For this past year my friends have often said many kind and supportive things to me, rattling off a litany of assets when I was lamenting about some banal relationship situation. They didn't know they were talking to a brick wall. Then yesterday, for some reason, something clicked. I thought, "I'm tired of feeling bad and inadequate, because I'm not". I started to notice things like my posture - I never noticed that I don't keep my head up when I walk. Nor do I seem adept with the whole "eye contact" scenario. And I couldn't find a good reason why I should walk downcast and hunched over. So, um, I'm not going to do that anymore. I feel giddy with power.
Okay. So I've come a long way, but I know I've still got a long way to go. I have an excellent base from which to start. I am happy. I know that having a positive outlook opens the door for positive things to come into your life. So I should like this upcoming year to be one that is positive, confident and in the here and now.
And yes, my nose is big.
I'm okay with that.
"Happy birthday to ME! I am so excited that I will now be able to say that yes, I was still finalizing my post secondary education in my thirties. Super. I’ve never really been into the whole five year planning thing; the only major goals in my life would be to own a house at some point, replete with dog and husband. Oh, and I want to retire at 55. So when I ask myself the question “where did I envision myself at 30?” I really can’t say that I had any specific ideas, only vague generalities. I never thought “oh, I want to be the controller of a multi-national petroleum corporation” because well, petroleum corporations are bastards and also because I must admit to a certain laissez-faire attitude in regards to my career path.
I am a bit surprised that I am still going to school (though – fingers crossed – I will be done in less than two weeks); I would’ve thought that a) I would never return after the social rejection and humiliation that was high school or b) I would’ve completed what I felt was necessary before the ripe old age of 30. However you live and learn. You enroll in the CGA, bite off more than you can chew, fail horrifically and then cower in a corner for a few more years gaining the confidence to try it again.
Kids never entered into the picture. I never daydreamed about myself with a family as evidenced by my surgery earlier this year. So I guess I did a good job of not having kids at thirty… yeah, quite an accomplishment.
The housing situation. What can I say? If you live in Vancouver then you know my predicament. Houses in my neck of the woods start (for a beater) at half a million. I’d wager a guess that the average house price in Kerrisdale is $800,000. I don’t have $800,000. Apparently a lot of people do, so I just need to discover where they hang out on the weekends and infiltrate them. This would segue nicely into the relationship topic of my life. See, should I meet someone that can afford an $800,000 house and that also finds me tremendously witty and attractive (and really, who wouldn’t) and thinks that my ragings against the Bush administration, the way the Canadian government is failing the environment, and my liberal views on gay marriage, the legalization of marijuana and prostitution are quirky and genuine, and wants to make me Mrs. Crème de la Crème, then I suppose I would have solved both the housing and marriage shortcomings.
As it stands, today, at 30, I am wrapping up my two year accounting diploma which took me six years to complete. I work three days a week. I live alone in rented accommodations, and my nose is too big.
On the plus side: I’m wrapping up my lengthy education! I only work three days a week! I can drink milk straight from the carton (well, I always did that) and leave the toilet seat up! I guess I just have to work on the nose thing.
Oh happiest of happies."
So that was a year ago. I actually can't believe that it was so long ago that I sat at a table with a ton of my friends at Mahoney's at UBC. I still remember what a hassle parking was!
I'm not sure how to recap this year, but I will try nonetheless. First, thanks to all my friends who have been there over the past year watching me struggle, fail, succeed and ultimately grow. I'm not done growing yet (as my bathroom scale likes to tell me) and I'm sure there are many more trials and tribulations to come and I am incredibly grateful for the non-judgemental nature of my friends, their willingness to always lend an ear and prop me up when I'm in the doldrums. So thank you: you all mean the world to me. I am flattered to have the interesting, diverse and exciting friends that I have found in you. I love you guys, sniff.
Next: the condo. How weird was that? I didn't see that coming, but it was very timely (then again, when is a nice piece of real estate ever untimely?). I am happy here, though I am a bit further away from people than I would like. But I like to think that we are at the point where we are all such good friends that a mere change in geography will not diminish our friendship. My door is always open to you, and my (gigantic!) couch is readily available for crashing on.
I had no idea that I would run a marathon in 2007. Or qualify for Boston. That was fucking awesome. 3:39, baby. I have never done so many runs with a hangover as I did this year. I love running... and I love wine. Apparently there is a marathon in France that combines the two. Who's with me?
I've tried to become a better person over the past year. I volunteered, got in good shape, got rid of cable and spent a lot of time alone, getting to know myself. The two issues that came up repeatedly were my inability to sit still, and my lack of self esteem. I always felt the need to be moving towards something instead of simply being. I am very aware of that now and I'm working on being more in the "here and now". It'll take some doing. I am grateful to Typewriter for helping me to see this: life is infinitely more enjoyable if you... simply enjoy it. I'm not sure where the self esteem issue is routed. I went to a therapist earlier in the year to try and understand it, but over the last couple of days I've started to understand that it's irrelevant. It may or may not be based on some issue from my past. I think it might just be routed in my perception of myself. For this past year my friends have often said many kind and supportive things to me, rattling off a litany of assets when I was lamenting about some banal relationship situation. They didn't know they were talking to a brick wall. Then yesterday, for some reason, something clicked. I thought, "I'm tired of feeling bad and inadequate, because I'm not". I started to notice things like my posture - I never noticed that I don't keep my head up when I walk. Nor do I seem adept with the whole "eye contact" scenario. And I couldn't find a good reason why I should walk downcast and hunched over. So, um, I'm not going to do that anymore. I feel giddy with power.
Okay. So I've come a long way, but I know I've still got a long way to go. I have an excellent base from which to start. I am happy. I know that having a positive outlook opens the door for positive things to come into your life. So I should like this upcoming year to be one that is positive, confident and in the here and now.
And yes, my nose is big.
I'm okay with that.
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