three blocks over from yesterday

ug my laptop is currently resting on my post christmas bulge and i want to go upstairs get a serrated knife and do a little home liposuction with the stabber and the vaccuum.
it's less drastic than diet and exercise. seriously.

how was your christmas? mine was strangely non. just non. i mean, nice gifts nice visits good food but it mostly felt like a visit with family more than anything. maybe 'cause it was all so rushed.

the kiddo worked most of the time so i did get to hang with him a bit but nothing too significant and now he's off to kelowna for new year and le sigh. he sent me nice text messages when he arrived and i had to fight off the tears again and and and.. i miss him.

i do like san diego though... i even feel a bit homesick for our little abode, furniture-less though it may be. plus it's warm there, and weather here in sog-city is calling for rain rain rain for days and days to come. i feel that new years day maybe should be spent on the beach with a picnic and a bottle of bubbly.

i hope our friends come visit lots and it's not just one of those things where everyone *says* they will but life gets in the way and no one gets around to it and soon you all have drifted apart.

happy blog day

my little blog is four years old, today, and i find myself asking if it is still relevant. i haven't written in 3 weeks and, to be honest, i haven't missed it much. i got out of the habit, i guess. there used to be a day when i *had* to write - was *driven* to do it. now it's almost an inconvenience, a chore.

i'll give it another shot, though, 'cause i've been reading through my back posts and found this, which is originally from tony pierce:

heres when you will experience "blogger burnout":

1. when your internal dialogue gets hijacked by your concerns about what your readers will think.
2. when you are afraid to write down what you are truly thinking about at that moment.
3. when you believe the lie that some people just arent capable of good writing.
4. when you believe the lie that there is a certain way that you "should" write anything.
5. when you get more involved in punctuation, spelling, or aestetics than saying what you want to say.
6. when you get caught up in traffic, hits, popularity, readers, and/or fame.
7. when you believe the lie that what you think doesnt matter.
8. when you believe the lie that what youre about to say has been said before and/or written down better.
9. when you forget that most ideas can be expressed in less than 15 minutes.
10. when you dont set aside a little bit of time each day to update your blog.

i have all those symptoms, currently. i wonder if there is a cure?

i'm learning

my good friend screetus figures that the trick to being happy in a new city is learning the rules of the city. i'm still working on those, but i have figured out something: the two most useful phrases for dealing with telemarketers and those people who stand outside wholefoods/tjs/farmers markets are a) i'm canadian and b) i rent my home. i guess if you are currently *in* canada, the first one might not work so well, though it may throw them off long enough for you to make a clean getaway.

i'm hungry, and the only thing we really have to eat for breakfast is chocolate cake. oh and raisin bagels (yak). le sigh... it's all nasty and rainy out today, though, so i don't want to walk down to bread and cie. yes i know - my vancouver residency card is perilously close to being revoked but there it is - i don't want to go walking in the rain. i don't even have an umbrella here, for pete's sake. if i'd listened to the architect when i was packing, i wouldn't even have a jacket.

i guess chocolate cake is an acceptable breakfast. it's not like there is anyone else here to catch me eating it. mmm cake

tomorrow we find out if we get to rent a GREAT little apartment over in university heights. the architect tells me i shouldn't get so excited - at least not until we've signed the lease - but i can't help myself. it's everything we've been looking for at a price we can totally afford in an awesome part of town. so send good thoughts my way...

december 6, 1989

Genevieve Bergeron- Nathalie Croteau - Anne-Marie Edward - Maryse Laganiere - Anne-Marie Lemay - Michele Richard - Annie Turcotte - Helene Colgan - Barbara Daigneault - Maud Haviernick - Maryse LeClair - Sonia Pelletier - Annie St-Arneault - Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz

woo-woo is the disco call

so it's kind of weird to be thinking about christmas shopping when it's sunny and 20deg out, but thinking i am. this year's going to be a wee bit tighter on the gifts than the past few have been, what with the 'me not working' thing and all, but i figure i can come up with some cool stuff for not so much money if i put my mind to it.

like yesterday we went into this kind of garden and ceramic place, and i found a (fake obviously) dragon skull that i think the kiddo will rather enjoy. bonus is that it's kinda cheep, too ($35 or something). ha i can just see me heading across the border with it, though... 'what's in this box, ma'am?' 'oh a dragon skull'.

what are you doing for christmas this year? special events, gifts, plans.. what do you want for christmas?

raspberry porn

the architect: 'what are you watching?'
raspberry: 'kind of an interview thing with the constantines
the architect: 'oh. i see. well let me know if you want to go into the bedroom when it's over'.
heh.

part one of my new favourite things about california - bread & cie

I grew up about 500 miles north of Vancouver, in British Columbia, Canada, which means that walking home from school in the winter months often involved slogging through snowdrifts in -30 degree (Celsius - I don't speak Fahrenheit yet) temperatures.

Luckily for me, my mom stayed at home for most of my childhood and was a prolific baker. In fact, she even baked all the bread for our family - Wednesday was bread baking day. One of my favourite memories of childhood is tromping up to the house, scrambling over the big pile of snow the plow inevitably left at the foot of the driveway, and coming in the door to the smell of fresh baked bread. I'd seat myself in front of the fireplace with a book and she'd present me with a thick slice of fresh baked bread, still warm from the oven, smothered in butter and strawberry jam my grandma had made the summer before.

Bread and Cie brings back those memories for me. What else can I say?

i'm too lame to think of a pithy title for this post

man i never would have believed that you could make whitney houston's 'greatest love of all' *more* elevator-esque and cheezarific, but here i am stuck on hold with rogers wireless wishing i could scrape my eardrums free from this offensive blandness with a chopstick.

grawr. ok done with that. i have now set up my blackberry so that (even though i am unemployed) i am constantly available via email. sadly, this makes me happy. i have felt disconnected and slightly dismembered since losing my email...

i also am now the proud owner of a fully unlocked blackberry pearl, which is also a very good thing.

here's a scenario for you - a what would you do kind of thing.

say you were walking down a moderately busy street one day, and as you passed a car you heard someone calling for help from inside the trunk. would you call 911 and walk away, afraid that whomever locked the trunk with the person inside is going to return and do you harm? or would you dial 911 and stay with the car, supporting the person trapped inside until help arrived?

i have that damn aerosmith song in my head again

ugh i don't even know what to write about. thanksgiving... good but weird to spend a holiday with someone else's family... weekend - kind of uneventful except for a nice bottle of wine friday night and a big hike down the beach up a hill back down the hill on saturday... i was feeling really sick then realized i hadn't taken my meds since wednesday duh...

today i don't seem to want to get out of bed, even though the sun is shining through the blinds, i need to go buy deodorant so i can stop poaching the architects, and i desperately need to do some laundry.

le sigh.

oh man - anyone watch how i met your mother? this is an honest-to-god ad i found for apartments: "Live, Eat, and Sleep in the hottest location on the south side of SAN DIEGO. Dowisetrepla apartments feature hardwood floors, silestone countertops, all appliances and more. Our club house is open 24/7. Located within a minute of the dog park, we welcome dogs of all sizes."

heh. dowisetrepla....

base the turkey on frida kahlo

so tomorrow is my first ever amurrrkin thanksgiving. i'm a bit nervous, as i will be sitting at a table surrounded by the architect's extended famdamly. yeah i've met most of them before but still.

i might be a bit drunk 'cause i opted for wine as dinner.

heh.

this morning the door rang and i leapt out of bed but was very careful at the same time that i not disturb the cat from his spot on the end of the bed at my feet. this was very sweet of me, and a response driven completely by habit, because the cat is back in vancouver till christmas. funny how the brain works, no?

one of the top ten blog posts ever

crack/ass by keith via dblogged...

the bottle in front of me's like a

i just read this crazy article on frontal lobotomies via npr. npr has become my cbc replacement, cause we don't have an in the house stereo and i can only listen to the cbc in the car, now, courtesy of my friend sirius.

it's funny the things you miss when you move to another country - i mean, besides the big things like friends, family, le chat... things like the cbc, my chaise, the gas fireplace, smarties....

anyhoo, back to the lobotomy. it's crazy to think that frontal lobotomies with (essentially) an icepick was considered a valid medical technique to treat everything from depression to (if one believes the feminist rhetoric) poor housewifery as recently as the 1950s. mind you, hysterectomies were used to treat nearly every female ailment including pimples, so why should this surprise me?

oh ok not pimples. i made that bit up.

the plus sides to california are, of course, the sunshine and the cheap wine. oh and the fact that i have no car, so i've been walking / biking everywhere and so am getting skinny again...

conquistadors who took their share

so last weekend i dragged the architect to see control; the new biography of ian curtis by anton corbijn. if you are a fan of joy division, you must see this film. if you are not a fan of joy division, but are a fan of film and music, you really *should* see this film. to poach from another review, corbijn rescues viewers from the 'shiny happy' musical biopics we have seen for the past few years (i.e. ray, dreamgirls) and, for a hundred minutes or so, allows the audience to follow along with curtis' rise and subsequent fall. everyone knows how the story ends, and yet i found myself anticipating the band's success despite that knowledge. for me, that is the sign of a good film, and a good story - when you are hoping that somehow, at the end, romeo and juliet will live happily ever after; that king arthur won't be killed by his son, that ian curtis won't hang himself on the eve of the american tour.

it's beautiful and dark and inspiring and haunting. highly recommended.

don't want to close my eyes

i have no idea why that song's in my head this morning. i'm not a fan of aerosmith by any means... ooo the architect and i found a sweet little garden apartment down by balboa park - totally restored 20s vintage with hardwood floors... so sweet and in our pricerange. i emailed the property manager to see if we could view it. plus it's pet friendly so we can bring tonymontana down with us at christmas. i guess he's having a rough time at my parents place because the dog just won't leave him alone, and is very jealous of any attention given to him. worse than kids, these pets.

here's a funny piece of trivia for you to pass on if you will: last night i used 'patootie' in a scrabulous game, and was informed that 'patoot' is cree for vajayjay. how fun is that? i wonder if that's where the word came from.... modern english is such a wonderful hodgepodge of so many other languages. i love words. ok done with the geeking out.

some stuff i've been perusing:
1) from slate - a cool article about black metal and environmentalism.
2) also from slate - musings on the death of email in the wake of facebook and other social networking sites
3) from cracked - 9 words that don't mean what you think (man i wish i had this back when i was teaching...)

le sigh

i miss having friends.

the sun's coming in through the window and highlighting all of the fingerprints on my computer screen

it's funny how reading certain writers can make you want to write more write better write with a certain modicum of legibility and coherence. for me it's chuck klosterman and tony pierce. i've read a bit of both this am so here i am tappity tapping away while the architect is at work. i guess veteran's day isn't an 'everyone off' day like it is back home; it's really more of a bank holiday.

i kind of missed its approach, this year, because people don't do the poppy thing round these parts. maybe next year i'll ask someone to send me one in advance because, like so many other things i didn't understand or appreciate when i was a shitty little brat, remembrance day has sort of become important to me.

or maybe it's that i didn't know it was important to me until all of a sudden it wasn't there.

----------------------------------------------------------

the architect and i spent saturday (i kid you not - we left the house before 9am and didn't return until past six. we spent ALL SATURDAY) shopping for our little abode. it's starting to become more of a home. i don't think either one of us expected to feel at all comfortable here; when we stayed here the last time it was being used as office space / storage by his cousins and so it felt cluttered and dusty and ... not cozy. now, though, we've had some good meals and sipped some nice wine and played some dominoes. it can't be a home without the dominoes.

today i think i'm off to a cafe patio with my book. that, or i may take the bicyclette down to balboa park and lounge about and read. i can't quite decide...

just a little heat

is it just me who sees a craigslist posting titled ROCKER - $60 and expects the link to lead to a picture of somebody who looks a little like this guy?

watch this mo-fo-ers

r/r

just shut your eyes... it's happening

well hello! and welcome to san diego! it's not sunny here, and hasn't been since we arrived. i have been assured, however, that the locals are currently relishing the opportunity to wear their sweaters, and that when it's 80degrees and sunny at christmas i will be longing for this weather.

heh. ya right. at christmas i'll be in vancouver IN THE RAIN. bring on the 80degree sunniness, i say.

interestingly, i'm lying here in bed listening to my favourite vancouver rainyday band the be good tanyas. i mean, let's put this all in perspective: back home it's pouring and 8 degrees. here outside is overcast and +16 flavoured. we went for a walk after dinner last night and didn't *really* need hoodies. so i can't complain *too* too much - just a bit, right?

right.

so anyway, now that i'm unpacked and a little bit more organized i shall do my utmost to post here at least once daily. i've got some grand plans for my little brain, and i'm reading the new chuck klosterman book, so that always does good things for my writing.

i can't make any promises, of course, 'cause i wouldn't want you to have anything to hold against me (unless it's dave grohl - you can hold him against me all the time if you want).

PS - that's the view from my front door. wanna come visit?

it's 3am i must be lonely

i have no idea what frickin time it is. angus' clock says it's 6, my house clocks say 6, and my mobile thinks its 5. i'm all screwed up.... i'm lying here waiting to fall asleep, listening to satie and the slight sounds of snoring emanating from the architect... my brain is running about a million miles per second and i just want to sleep.... oh and know what time it is. maybe if i just knew the right time it would all be ok... probably not though.

the cat is crawling around, trying to get under the blankets, looking for attention i haven't the attention span to give him.

we had such a good night out... dinner at rime, parade of lost souls.. drinks at a friends... dancing dancing dancing at the dollhouse till the wee hours (what time? no idea... for gods sake will someone tell me what time it is?) ok satie is getting too jangly for my nerves... garden state soundtrack it is. cat wants out of the bedroom architect still snoring away... brain still running running a billion miles a second. (you'd think it would slow down thanks to the tylenol pm and the 24(?) hours i've been awake but no it just goes faster and faster waiting for the drugs to be over or at least for the new ones to kick in.

less than a week till d-day, or should i say sd-day... the kiddo will be in his new place with the sister ok i have to let the cat out for gods sake ... i'm sure its for the best the catbox and/or foodbowl call sing their sirens song like the one in my head waiting waiting to fall asleep please god let me just sleep...

courage, my word

i've been watching these fires in san diego with a great deal of interest (which is, surprisingly, surprising to some people). the sister feels that i've become a bit obsessed (though that's fading), but i think it's at least somewhat understandable. this place to which i'm shifting my entire realm of existence is in flames. bad omen? possibly.

or, it could mean nothing at all, other than the fact that i'll probably have some seriously bad allergies for the first few weeks i'm there, as they are expecting the air quality to be in the tank for some time.

i have been making some inroads into the packing, which is to say that i've been tackling it a box or two or four a day. i've got all my books squared away and experienced a bit of a panic attack slash dark soul teatime when we sold our bookcases = they really did make our dining area oh-so-homey and warm. le sigh. the architect chided me for becoming attached to *things*. i tried to make him understand that it wasn't the bookshelves i missed, it was the atmosphere they brought to the room. what does he know, though, he's a boy.

the cat and i are spooning. he's forgiven me, clearly, for collaring him (literally). he's going to stay with the parents for a few months and he's got a tendency to escape, there, and i worry so i purchased a collar with a tag engraved with his name and our phone number. you know, just in case, 'cause he's my little fuzzy no-nuts. yesterday, however he was royally pissed and he (literally) pissed on the sister's slippers. heh.

bleh.

i'm a wee bit sensitive today. i feel like hiding in my bed with my book and/or my computer, so perhaps i will.

le sigh.

i can't tell if this is general malaise, the result of a night chock full of bad dreams and restlessness, or my impending girl time. probably a combination of all three, really.

well not to mention the fact that i no longer have medical, so i've been hoarding my meds 'cause they've all of a sudden gotten extremely expensive. probably not the best plan, but there it is.

not to mention the fact that i've got all vowels in one of my scrabble games....

like a river flows

man i've been lowballing my blog. i admit it. it's been like mental masturbation - i put my fingers on the keyboard and these pithy non sequitors come out. i'm just going through the motions and we all know it. i don't know what it's going to take for me to go back to writing like i can. i sit and clickclickclack through the archives and remember what it's like to do it - what it's like to put down words and have them *feel* like something *mean* something, i just don't remember how to do it.

how can i reconnect my creativity with my emotion? is it true that only miserable people are creative? is it true that i'm only creative when i'm miserable?

i dunno. maybe when i'm wandering the streets of san diego, camera and notebook in hand i'll see stuff that ... ughn for the lack of a better word inspires me.

fuck how emo can i get?

hello how are you

it's amazing how busy i find myself, now that i'm technically unemployed. every day seems to fill itself up so quickly. who's got time to pack when there are cars to wash and wine to purchase and drink?

(here's a secret - some sick impulse drove me to purchase and eat a macdonalds cheeseburger happy meal yesterday. not only did it not kill me, it was delicious. seriously. i'm not sure what this means (can i eat beef? do i want to? maybe there isn't enough beef in a macdonalds cheeseburger to really have an impact - could it be 97% sawdust?) but what i do know is that the other day i ate a tim horton's bagel with tomato and puked my guts out, but the burger simply went down like heaven. figure that out.)

i apologize for the poor quality and number of photos being displayed in my newfound return to the blawg. the architect mistakenly took my camera cable to san diego with him, so i'm stuck using my phone. it takes not bad photos, but they still have that camera phone feel.

hm whass new - let me think. not too much, really, aside from rapidly running out of money, and having a new haircut. oh and have i mentioned that i haven't started packing?

heh whoops...

clickaround

and here you never thought you'd get tired of me....
go here for more arcade fire fun-ness.

bestill my beating heart

the constantines are a band burdened by our truthfullness. pile the facts like guitar tracks.

the lonely end of the rink

so i'm surfing around the innerweb this morning, coffee cup in hand (remarkably difficult on an innerweb surfboard when you've not had enough sleep) and i came across this story, in which nate dimeo (the author) makes a very strong case for restructuring the NHL to a model based on pro-football (soccer). it's definitely worth reading. there are flaws in there, somewhere, but i'm too sleepy and haven't had enough coffee to spot them.

i did my 'thanksgiving dinner for lost waifs and orphans' last night. every year i say it's going to be smaller than last year, and every year it ends up being just slightly bigger. this year 13 friends made the trek out to L-Town, and (if i do say so myself) it ended up being a rousing success. the only thing which could have made it better is if the archtect weren't in san diego. le sigh.

oh also if i weren't allergic to dessert and could have sampled the pumpkin chai cheesecake and banana cream pie.....

i watched you change into a fly

i think i want to make my hair this colour again. i've been blondeblonde for so long now (ok with a bit of pink but still) and i want to have some interestingness. esp. since i'm moving to california - can't just be another blonde, you know....

r'n'r wants to know why a dragonfly... do you ever think you have a totem? an animal guide? i used to think that mine was a cat but now i think it might be a dragonfly. i feel peaceful when i watch them, and drawn to them, and as though they are drawn to me. i found this about them online:

Dragonfly symbolism crosses and combines with that of the butterfly and change. The dragonfly symbolizes going past self-created illusions that limit our growing and changing. Dragonflies are a symbol of the sense of self that comes with maturity.

They are fantastic flyers, darting like light, twisting, turning, changing direction, even going backwards as the need arises. They are inhabitants of two realms - starting with water, and moving to the air with maturity, but staying close to water. Some people who have the dragonfly as their totem have had emotional and passionate early years, but as they get older they achieve balance with mental clarity and control. They gain an expression of the emotional and mental together.

Dragonflies are old and adaptive insects, and are most powerful in the summer under the effects of warmth and sunlight. Their colors are a result of reflecting and refracting the power of light. As a result, they are associated with color magic, illusion in causing others only to see what you wish, and other mysticism.

it seems right.

ps - i got ordained. heh. how funny is that? anyone wants to get married in san diego, i'm your girl. oh- i mean, i'm your reverend....

change my direction, i'm gonna change my ways

the problem with skinny jeans is that when you are sort of drunk and trying to get them off, inevitably one foot gets caught and you end up windmilling around your bedroom with the cat watching sardonically from the windowsill, hoping you don't fall and hit your head causing you to pass out so that the kiddo finds you, unconscious and bleeding with your pants most of the way off.

PS

from tony the blogfather:

"how much magic are you bringing to peoples lives? how much do you wanna bring?

i believe theres a little arcade fire in all of us.

if we wanna use it. but rarely do we ever. and if we do its usually for some lame boss or someone who doesnt appreciate it, or care.

october is an excellent time to bring a little magic, i believe."

half the words don't mean a thing and i know i won't be satisfied

so i'm addicted to facebook scrabble. i can't help myself. i have 5 games on the go all the time, it seems like, and i log in at least three times an hour to see if it's my turn.

there it is - on the page - the real reason my poor blog has been neglected. i'm addicted to scrabulous.

le sigh.

oh it's also clive owen's bidet. no word on whether his handsome bitter british self is jewish or not, but we'll make some allowances, ok? i thought so....


i need to redo my template. i'm bored with the clean line version. it's not like i don't have the time to do it or anything, but it surely smacks of effort. anyone want to give it a shot? or at least offer some suggestions? i feel as though i should make a clean start what with this being the purgatory between two chapters of my life - the end of one, the start of the next. i need a new look, new style, to go with my new life. i'm pretty excited about this whole thing, you know. i get to re-invent myself at least a little. not completely, of course, because if i try and pass myself off as an exiled italian princess who was stripped of her riches and villa by the nazis in '62, the architect may call bullshit once or twice. and, let's not kid, there are people out there who look less italian than i do, but i think they are all from scandinavia.

i've decided to take the 'about a boy' approach to daily life:

I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour. Taking a bath: one unit, watching countdown: one unit, web-based research: two units, exercising: three units, having my hair carefully disheveled: four units. It's amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder, to be absolutely honest, if I'd ever have time for a job; how do people cram them in?

already i find my days filling up: blogging, two units; haircut & colour next wednesday, six units; thanksgiving dinner planning today, three units; scrabble, several dozen half units sprinkled throughout the day. see - i'm a very busy girl!

(i wonder if it's my turn at the scrabble yet? one mo....blast and consternation!)

that being said, i do have time to reconnect with people i've lost touch with over the years. for example, there is a boy who i was just this side of crippled by a crush for when i was heading into grade 10. he was a couple of years older than me, and was in a local theatre troupe. i saw him do improv and sold my soul for his heart. sadly, my 14 year old heart was only worth about $1.47 to the devil and he went off to school while i was left in peegee to pine.

when i was 19, i ran into him at a bar over christmas. we ended up talking and headed back to my place, then met up again for a few dates when he was back that summer. super nice guy - still a big presence in the theatre world. ran into him via the facebook - crush gone but i'm enjoying the conversations, so i'm going to try and have a drink with him before i leave the civilized world for the land of rape and money.

oh and maktaaq tagged me with a meme. that should be at LEAST two units for later in the week....

iran iran so far away

is anyone else here in love with andy samberg? seriously. so very hot. i'm pretty sure that if i lived in new york, or around 12th and oak, i probably would have been arrested for stalking jewish men. there's something about them - i dunno what it is. the sister agrees with me. the architect is puzzled. think aboout it though - adam sandler (back in the day); andy samberg, all three beastie boys... actually not all three, just mca but still.

ok i'm really blog-rusty. i have to get my groove back, but since the architect is away for a couple of weeks, this is my first day of unemployment (though i am going to go back and contract a few shifts over the next two weeks), and i really have not much else to do i guess i'll get back into the swing of things fairly quickly. give me a topic! what do you want to know?

look ma, new tattoo

at four hours, i almost passed out. at five hours, i puked my guts out. at six hours, the outline was done and we decided to fill it in another time... sure is pretty, huh?

everything i know about the US i learned from the comedy network

in preparation for The Big Move, i've been doing some research on my soon-to-be-new hometown. i've found myself a vegan bakery / pizzaria, a list of the farmers' markets, and figured out which neighbourhoods i can see myself feeling at home in.

oh, and i've also been watching all the jon stewart i can get my hands on. that sort of informed political opinion should serve me well, no?

summertime, and the livin's sleazy

i'm on the countdown to my last day of work. you know, when i watched people give notice and then sort of mentally check out, i always thought 'why would you do that? it sort of screws over the people who are left!' and, of course, now that i'm like twelve days from the end i have almost entirely disappeared mentally.

it's not my fault, really, it's just that i've been swallowing some dissatisfaction with my current employment for quite some time (at least in the office). i've been pretty careful to not talk about it here, even, so i didn't risk getting douced, but i do believe i've alluded to it a few times.

anyhoo, it's almost done, i've got 11 days and 7 hours to go, and god help me it's not going to be over soon enough.

that said, two days in and i will be pining for my desk and my friends here at the office, but still. heh - not to mention my paycheque...

i guess one of the biggest things i've learned after the past 5 years is that i will never again kill myself for a company that doesn't make it worth my while either financially or personally...

le sigh.

uncharted waters

ok yeah i haven't been around much. sue me - it's summer. i'd rather spend my even-times lounging with the boozy balcony brigade (i.e. the sister and the architect) and a bottle or two of wine, than in here pecking away at angus jr.

check this - i gave notice yesterday.. i've worked at the lightbulb factory for 5 years. i've been through hell and back with this employer - bad boss, no direction, no communication, layoffs - but i've worked with some incredible people and i've made some really good friends. it scares me a little. ok more than a little but there it is. the architect and i are packing up and moving to san diego (tony? you hear me? i expect a wine and cheese reception and a socal culture primer. we're aiming for october 15.

i have a buh-jillion things i need to take care of between now and then, not the least of which is seeing the kiddo settled somewhere. he doesn't want to come with. him and the sister have plans to get a place somewhere in the city but they are both pretty laid back about organizing, and so i think that perhaps i should stick a bee under one or both of 'em.

scared like crazy, i am. i'm leaving everything behind, throwing caution to the wind, all those stereotypical altruisms. it's simultaneously terrifying and completely exciting. i won't be able to work, but i have a couple of under the table part time things lined up. i want to read, and write, and spend hours in the libraries at ucsd and do research and be smart again.

i don't regret my little sojourn into the business world, but i'm ready to get back to doing the kind of thing that makes me really excited again - i feel secure and confident in a way that i haven't in years. since i met crazyjeremy, anyway. i'm starting to feel stifled by my own lack of knowledge - i keep finding myself wishing i knew MORE about something again.

i love that.

so anyway, i imagine that there will be a few more weeks of sporadic writing, and then it'll just be the blog and me, and i'll get back into doing this all the time. i'll be wandering san diego with the laptop, a notebook, my camera, and a novel - seeing most of it for the very first time - and you guys get to come along for the ride.

why doncha kick yourself out

ok so

momentous occasion.

last week.

somebody turned 35.

it may (or may not) have been me.

your guess is as good as mine, let's not kid.

last night the sister referred to that person (the one who may or may not be me, and who may or may not be 35) as middle aged.

then, this morning, that person woke up at her alarm to discover that she was in the midst of some extremely fall weather, and that it was dark out.


that person who may or may not be me, and who may or may not be 35, may or may not be *extremely* depressed today.


le sigh.

i'm not aware of too many things

meet amy. she's come to be part of our family. ok she's kind of a homely puppy but dang it if she hasn't won my heart already. i'm looking forward to next week - the 'rents are away and the sister is at work so i think missy miss will be spending some time here with me, since i'm off work. i think i'll take her to the beach and let her play in the waves.

heh. i'm a little drunk. i've been like this for weeks now. i kinda like it. you know, i think the reason that people be come alky-holics isn't because of some deep-rooted need to find oblivion but rather 'cause it's kinda fun.

i'm addicted to internet radio, specifically left of centre. i've been listening to my old kentucky blog all evening and have found several new fun bands to download run out and purchase at full price so i am extremely happy.

conversational interlude which just happened:

the architect: "what are you clickityclacking at over there?"
me: "i might be blogging"
him: "hm. are you happy that i'm home?"
me: "let me thing. um.. we've had breakfast in bed, hung out at the beach getting drunk, have had 2 separate impromptu dinner parties, have fucked like crazy, and have napped all wrapped up around each other... mmm yeah i'm not sure."
him: "hehe. geek".

i love it when i see the party people get moving

ok so i'm two days away from leaving for shambhala and am starting to get a little panicky about it. i'm not sure why, but it's filling me with a certain amount of dread.
i have to:
a) sort out party vitamins
b) pack
c) figure out how i'm going to smuggle liquor in
d) organize something stylish to wear
e) get the house organized

now if form follows the fashion of our last 2 camping trips, the architect will end up working right up until the moment we leave and so i'll run around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get it all done.

le sigh.

i'm not sure why i'm getting stressed out about this, but i am. maybe i'm just grumpy 'cause it's not sunny out, or maybe it's 'cause i'm on vacation and don't want to be responsible for doing anything that doesn't involve me relaxing and being selfish, or maybe it's 'cause we are really coming up to the point where i have to start thinking about moving a buh-jillion miles away from everything i know and am comfortable with and it's stressing me out. oh and i'm turning officially old next week.

boo boo dah boo boo boo

ok so generally my blog post titles are random lyrics from songs that have been floating around in my head or that i've heard recently. this morning,however, i haven't even gone so far as to turn on the radio. ergo, the only song i've heard is the ringtone from the architect's new blackjack.

though, now that i am thinking about it, i can hear the guy from interpol droning 'how are things on the west coast...'

how *are* things on the west coast, sundae? you may be asking yourself. well, let me tell you, they are fine fine fine. i've had a great weekend, so far - drinks with ben on friday night (he used to have a blog. i can't remember what it was called..); brunch with the toad and shopping at bosa on saturday, before the sister and her gentleman caller came over for bbq and drinks, and then the architect returned in th middle of the night, i made him breakfast in bed sunday, then we hit the beach and had people over again last night for salmon on the bbq before collapsing into bed, full and mildly drunk (ok that was me, not him).

i've got two weeks off and, besides a trip up to shambhala, my principal plans consist of lazing about, reading, and sunning myself.

preferably whilst drunk.

anyone who cares to board that particular raspberry freight train to liver-pickling contentedness, feel free to apply here.

only weapons can decide

so the architect's been away for a couple of weeks, now - two exactly, actually, and i've been ok on my own (i always have been) but i've missed him lots and i'm glad he's coming back. this evening i went for drinks with a friend who i haven't seen for a while - actually the last time i saw him 'in person' was the weekend i met the architect. he reminded me of how i was rushing off from our lunch date to a rendezvous with punkrockboy and i had to smile about my crashbangcrazy life of last spring. man we had some good times, didn't we?

i'm turning 35 in less than two weeks. i'm starting to feel a little old. my life is so different now than it was a year ago, and i wouldn't change it for the world. i love the architect and i'm so excited about our future but there are moments when i'm filled with anxiety about tossing it all in and running away to another country to be with someone - the only person i'll know in the whole city, state, country practically, that i want to run back crashbang and throw it all away because the uncertainty you know is better than the one you don't. or is it.

ah i don't know, and i'm just randomly typing as my brain comes up with these words. i didn't even know i was thinking them, really, but drinks with my friend reminded me how tenuous our grasps on our own realities can be - his wife just left him with their two kids so she can rediscover her 21 year old self - and what would happen if mine just slipped out of my hands?

this post makes no sense just random words put together on a page with a silverscreen nudie shot to distract you from my disjointed thought processes and absolute lack of grace in my style.

sometimes i miss all the people who stopped by to look at my tits.
most of the time i don't even notice that they are there.

paved paradise & put up a 5 bedroom suburban home

first off - who in dog's kingdom would paint a perfectly beautiful brand new audi A4 buttercup yellow, never mind drive it?

next.

so i live in a suburb of vancouver, on a quiet dead-end street surrounded by other suburban style homes. now, i grew up in this kind of neighbourhood, so it's nothing new to me, but i guess as i've aged i've become more ... i dunno ... sensitive to certain aspects.

whatever do you mean, ms sundae, you may be asking to yourself (or not, but hold fucking on 'cause i'm going to tell you anyhoo, 'cause that's how i roll).

i have come to the conclusion that the suburban male is almost entirely responsible for destroying our environment. now, granted, i have a bit of a hate on for middle aged moderately affluent men anyhoo (my dad and your dad excepted, of course). i think they are obnoxious and self important and (some of) the worst drivers on the road. what is my reasoning, allow me to explain.

1. SUV's - ok granted i'd give my left tah-tah for a black range rover sport with tinted out windows, but i'm not about to go out and *buy* one (mostly 'cause i can't afford to, but it's my blog and i'll adopt a hypocritical stance if i want to). they buy 'em for their wives to use for moving the children from playdate to playdate, and to drive themselves as they head to the home depot (and maybe do a little bed bath & beyond) on the weekends. do they need suv's? no. canada is fully populated, thanks very much. we don't need you to have four children, and the two that you do have will fit nicely into the backseat of a compact car. next.
2. powerwashing - let me point out to you that, here in the lower mainland, it rains 97% of the time. until the day the heavens open up and let loose with a torrent of mud instead of the nice, clean, rain it currently sprinkles upon us, you really have no need to power wash your siding, your driveway, or your car. seriously. has no one in my neighbourhood noticed that we are in a global water crisis? i guess because it does rain so much here people become complacent - the idea that elsewhere in the world (heck the country) water is a rare resource to be treasured and respected. be global citizens, people.
3. vacuuming - yes i said vacuuming. the guy down the road from me insists on vacuuming his car at 8am every saturday. after he power washes it. *EVERY* saturday. i feel guilty about washing my car - it's a (generally) unnecessary waste of water. *AND* (get this) yesterday, after he power washed his driveway for the third time so far since may, he used a leaf blower to dry it off. it wasa 30fuckingdegreescelcius and he's drying his driveway with a leaf blower. sweet mother of god.
4. legacy - what's worse, is these men are raising a generation of children who believe that this excess consumption is the norm. they buy their kids expensive, noise polluting, powered toys (mini-motorcycles). their kids *watch* them do these random pieces of 'maintenance' with no regard to the lasting impact of those gallons and gallons of water pouring into the stormdrain, the electricity consumed to run the shopvac for the car, the gas consumed by the mower, the leaf blower, the suv, the expensive toys.

le sigh. ok rant done. i feel like buying a copy of that al gore movie and leaving it in their mailbox in the middle of the night with a 'watch me' alice in wonderland style note plastered to the cover.

hm. maybe i will. at least then i'll feel like maybe, just maybe, i've *done* something instead of sitting here silently (or not so silently) fuming.

icky thump hmm hmm hmm hmm hhmmmhmm mexico!

i've got 2.75 days until i'm on vacation and, let me tell you, it could NOT come at a better time. i get to the point where i just go through the motions at work... twice a year. just in time for vay-kay. this year i'm going to lounge about, am going to drink cocktails and read novels, am going to shambhala for the second year in a row, and am going to otherwise be generally sungoddess-like in my demeanour.

in other news.... le bloggity has been outed to the architect's group of friends via.. somebody. anyhoo, somebody alerted vannasty to this humble journal's existence. she's promised to keep a lid on it just so the architect doesn't have ten or twelve of his friends calling him on a daily basis proclaiming "omg i saw your girlfriend's tah-tahs on the internet *AGAIN*".

not like i've posted my tahtahs lately for precisely that reason, but there they are in the archives readily available to those who care to delve backwards.

you know what i mean.

(ps - helloooooo check out the jay leno jaw on sundae!)

hangs head in shame

yeah yeah i know... i'm like the absentee blogger. it's been what - a week? this isn't going to be a normal occurence. i'd like to promise that but hey - who can promise? i'm like the wind beneath your wings constantly changing and scratching at the legs that you forgot to shave this morning. oh wait - that's me too 'cause both the kiddo and i slept in so had to make a mad dash through the house trying to put ourselves together so we wouldn't be late for work.

well it's not such a big deal for me 'cause no one else is here in the morning so i can show up a few minutes late and get myself put together, but he needs to be there for 8 on the nose.

so the architect is down in san diego, and has been there for over a week now. i'm going quite nutso about the whole thing. the house is very quiet and i have a great deal of trouble falling asleep at night. (no trouble at all sleeping in the early hours of the morning though. clearly.)

OH MY GOD i forgot - last night i opened a beer bottle with another beer bottle and didn't spill any. i rock.

if i get the money honey would you love me love me love me

so i received not one but THREE emails from the UK national lottery yesterday. apparently i'm now 19million pounds richer. dang rufus i'm goin on vacation!

so the architect has gone down to san diego for work. he'll be away for 2 weeks and already things are starting to fall apart. well that's not true - they could def. be worse. for example, this municipal strike currently castrating the lower mainland *could* be affecting my garbage pickup. this would be bad because a) i'd have to send the kiddo on commando missions around the neighbourhood to get rid of it and b) i don't have a lid to my garbage can. the suburb i live in, fortunately, hires independent contractors to handle the garbage, though, so all i have to do is nag him into hauling it down to the curb.

also - i've had to start washing my own dishes. i *don't* do dishes. i cook. dishes. sheesh. who does dishes.

er.. me for 2 weeks. fuck.

also - after almost 8 months of living in that house, i've decided it's time to get the boxes out of the bedroom and hang some pictures. so i started on sunday and had some wine. then i put the hammer down.

somewhere.

heh.

those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it

is anyone else horrified by proposed reforms to educational curricula in the UK? maybe i'm just old-fashioned but it seems to me that eliminating the pinnacles of the 20th century from textbooks (churchill? hitler? ghandi? king? seriously?) in favour of 'good nutrition' is nearly laughable. while i am 100% behind the idea of evolving educational practices, at the same time i see absolutely no value in neglecting to instill in youth the sacrifices and triumphs and horrors inflicted upon our society within our grandparents memory. it boggles my mind.

i can stand my own ground

crazy stuff that happened at soundwave this weekend:
1) a massive thunderstorm struck on friday morning. the architect and i hid in our screened dining tent eating homemade wholewheat blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup and drank french press espresso with baileys for the duration.
2) the architect had a massive bout of relationship angst and spent friday night in the tent instead of hanging out having a good time. he apparently almost left via the thumb express.
3) i sat on my favourite sunglasses.
4) after eating about 1.5 grams of mushrooms, i was lying on the beach admiring the fluffy clouds when i was suddenly stung by a wasp. i railed against the universe for harshing my mellow.
5) relationship angst forgotten, the architect and i retired to the tent mid saturday night festivities, during which time his gum somehow ended up lodged in my hair. i had to cut it out with a swiss army knife.

all things considered, it was still a great time. funny how such random things can happen and still not take the shine off a fun weekend with friends, huh?

random crapola from the sundae sanatorium

in lieu of doing any kind of coherent thinking of my own, i offer you the results of my morning coffee web surfing.

ok first off dave grohl. nuff said.

next up: things white folk shouldn't ever say: "get your drink/smoke/sex on"; "that's whack"; "get jiggy with it" (actually those last two should be slapped from everyone's lips, regardless of race or gender).

from the realm of the ridiculous: ecouture. seriously. a stella mccartney shopping bag? mind you, i did see a small example of this at vancouver's own eco-fair. $45 cloth grocery bags. yeah not so much for me, but thanks, eh? i prefer to go to value village and pick up the discarded cloth bags from tradeshows (like, say, the ecofair) for .75 or so. maybe not as chic as buying new but they probably have a smaller carbon footprint (add that last phrase to my list above). on the other hand, i wouldn't say no to a solar powered vibrator.

and from the land of holy mother of god how cool is this: adam freeland is playing at shambhala this year.

the economy of movement

i'm getting fairly excited about going up to soundwave this weekend. we're taking off on thursday afternoon, coming back sunday, and i have started packing-slash-getting organized already. heh. OH and i had the coolest idea for making lanterns for this weekend and the lantern festival... Ms. U and i are going to have a 'wine and crafts' night tomorrow or wednesday and get it all sorted. well mostly sorted anyway, depending on how much wine is consumed....

no title

we found out yesterday that our diggity has lymphatic cancer. it's in her blood, and they think it's already moving into her lungs, because her breathing is becoming laboured and she has no energy.

there are three options.

1) chemo. the vet doesn't recommend this - she's 12, and isn't the most healthy of dogs to begin with. it's an awful process, is extremely expensive, and very few dogs survive. in fact, the vet said she's never seen a dog pull through after chemo.

2) steroids. the vet could inject her full of steroids, but it would just buy her around 2 months during which time she'd become more and more uncomfortable.

3) put her down.

my sister asked the vet what she'd do if it were her dog. the vet recommended option 3. she's an old dog, and she's not comfortable. she's not really eating (except for swedish meatballs from ikea, baked and fed to her one by one like treats), and watching her climb the stairs at my parents' place last night nearly broke my heart.

when i look at her, or at these photos of her (both taken in the last year or so), i can't put them together with the idea that she is getting weaker and weaker - that she is dying. in my head she's still the dog that hiked 30KM with me on a day when the temperature reached 32deg and was still running laps around the car at the end of it, wondering why we'd stopped. she's still the dog who i took up bobtail mountain. she's still the dog who hopped up onto the garage roof to break out of my parents' backyard and took herself on a walk to visit me a few KM and a very busy road away.

everybody in my family is pretty broken up. my brother is (un)fortunately home to attend a wedding, so he at least has the chance to say goodbye. i'm by no means a 'dog' person, but this puppy has so much personality - she's always happy, always friendly, always has a wagging tail, a big smile, and a shoe in her mouth. she's part of our family and i will miss her.

you've got your big cheese. i've got my hash pipe

are those the real words? i really have no idea, but whenever i hear that song i picture an uber baked rivers cuomo leering at some semi-greasy hipster girl holding a giant wheel of american cheddar. heh. i crack myself up.

what doesn't kill us just makes us better whores

holy crap i had no idea.

leave it to the little brother to point out that i've reached 1000 posts. you know, i started this thing just 'cause i was curious about the relationships you form with people you meet online - whether or not they can be true friendships. it was my own little social experiment, if you will.

and man look where we are now. i'm in a (dare we say) successful relationship with someone i met online. i have what i would consider friends whom i've never met in person. i have friends whom i *have* met in person. i've watched people come and go, and seen people arrive and prosper.

i feel old.

anyhoo - on to other things.

so the architect, some friends, and i are all heading out to mayne island this weekend for some camping. well, that is we *hope* we are. when we tried to book ferry reservations earlier in the week, there was nothing available from tsawwassen to mayne island. soooo... the architect is packing up the car early, heading over to victoria, and *then* trying to catch the ferry over to mayne. i'm going to follow with our friends this evening but we will walk on straight to mayne. we hope.

if he can't get over to mayne island, we have the option of finding something on vancouver island, but it has to be fairly close to the ferry terminal, 'cause he'll have to drop off our stuff and come back and pick us up. when i packed the car last night i left barely enough room for 3 bodies - never mind our fourth camper and his gear. heh. fortunately the divine ms. u and i are fairly small people.

shut the g-darned f*** up

dear cfox muckimuck;

please god never again replace the jeff o'neil morning show with todd & karen. they are not funny. todd is a sycophantic cockrocker with, quite frankly, bad taste in music. karen is nothing more than a simpering pedant whose only redeeming quality is that she gives good voice.

the guy who called in this morning and said they were idiots was right. you'll notice that no one called in to agree with him? it's because everyone with half a brain has recorded themselves performing a mock radio show and put it on autorepeat. trust me - it's more interesting. i, unfortunately, can't pick up anything else on my shower radio, so i'm stuck with them.

please, i beg you, put cory price on. put lana on. put scott allen on. tell jeff & charis & scotty that they are no longer allowed to take vacation. hell put neil morrison on - i'd rather listen to nirvana than nickleback. I DON'T CARE JUST FOR GOD SAKES DON'T MAKE ME LISTEN TO TODD AND KAREN EVER AGAIN.

cordialment;
raspberry sundae.

dude looks like a serial killer. that or lead keyboards in an abba tribute band

i've been chatting with spo this morning. it just so happens that today is his 30th birthday. happy happy day, spo.

the architect, the sister and a few friends headed out on sunday for a grand day of greek festival in the thunder and rain, followed by the white strips up at deer lake park.

now, i freely admit that i was smashed a bit tipsy, but i had an incredible time. not only did i have line magic (that amazing ability to wander to the very front of the line and enter it seamlessly) but i also managed to weave my way to the front of the stage and spend the entire show with a clear view of the band.

plus i'd remembered to wear my kickass new pink rubber boots so my feet stayed dry and mud-free. they will be a fine addition to my festival wear this summer, let me tell you.

not to mention i look cute as a button when i'm wearing them.

a yay yay whoa-oh

never let it be said that god is not a reasonable man. i asked for sun, and i got sun. it may have been pouring rain at the same time, but it was sunny...

sorry god, but let it never be said that i am unwilling to call you on the stupid games you play with our lives.

anyhoo - onward. one of the other less than palatable aspects to living in vancouver is the proliferation of nickleback sound-alikes. because chad the apostle (what is WITH the god thing i have going on today) and his er... followers? merry men? bandmates? whichevs... because they are based out of vancouver and have named their record label 604 (the superior area code here in the lower mainland), vancity has adopted them as their own (i think that they are originally from calgary*, which says alot about their particular brand of cowboy rock). sooooo...... any band that is nickleback, is produced by nickleback, or sounds like nickleback is treated with a reverence usually reserved for luminaries such as the pope, the queen mum**, and david suzuki.

the music that these bands produce*** is infectious enough**** (therein lies their popularity) but normally i'm fairly immune to it. oh sure you may catch yourself tapping your fingers on the steering wheel as you sit in traffic, but if any of your friends noticed you doing it you would absolutely try and pass it off as a tic, or impatience, or some kind of seizure*****.

this morning, however, i found myself singing along with one of these nickleclones - specifically the refrain haphazardly reproduced as the title up there. fortunately i was in the car by myself and (as we all know) when you are in your car you are invisible to surrounding cars. i couldn't help myself - the tune was catchy, and infectious******, and if i closed my eyes i could picture myself on the top of ol' smokey yorbling away joyously.

well at least until i almost hit a telephone pole. then i opened my eyes and changed the station.


*i've just realized that i've been hacking on calgary a lot this week. i'm not sure why and no offense, sass.

**is the queen mum still alive? i really have no idea.

***the verb, not the noun. we have nothing against fruits and vegetables here in the sundae sanatorium.

****like herpes, or some sort of angry red rash.

*****i find that the addition of a head shake or two, and some explosive tourettes-like profanity goes a long way towards reinforcing this ruse..

******damn rash

hot sticky scenes

ug i wish it was hot sex that's on my mind, unfortunately it's just frickin rain.

rain rain and more rain - i don't understand why we get 2 nice days and then have to cope with 7 rainclogged waterlogged soggy bottomed weeks in a row before we see the sunshine again.

can you say i'm moving to california? amen sister, amen.

riot in belgium remix

so i'm back at work wearing my fun new he-man tshirt. while i like staying at home, i like being there when i'm feeling well and so am able to lounge in the sunshine, cocktail in hand, not when my belly is in knots and i'm afraid to stray more than 10ft from the bathroom.

so yes, it's true, i'd rather be at work than in that situation.

the camping trip for next weekend seems to be coming together slowly but surely, and soundwave a bit more excellently than that. even the sister has broken down and decided to come, which means that we should all have an extremely grand time.

question - what is your favourite beastie boys song, and why?

i love sample sales

oy i'm working from home today, since i'm not all that comfortable straying too far from the ladies room, if you know what i'm saying.

not that you want to think about that sort of thing but heck if i can't be inappropriately personal here, what good is having a blog? we can discuss that strangely pungent rash you are developing later on. feel free to divulge its location and the way it periodically expels spores in the comments section.

so i'm lying on my bed, lyrics born on the itunes, the architect clickityclacking away beside me, and it's sunny out. why don't these things happen when it's pouring rain? yesterday, for example, would have been a great day to be sick in bed. today? not so much....

you don't know what love is you only know how to do what you are told

oh i have some serious bad belly this morning. i know it's not normal to throw up (on average) one meal a day, but it's not like i'm forcing myself to do it. it's like i get this feeling in my stomach and the back of my throat and then i start thinking about it and whoops i did it again. it has to be the allergies, but it's so random - like i seem to have a lot of trouble eating tomatoes, even though i'm not allergic to tomatoes (god forbid!)

plus i'm not puky enough to have the positive side effect, which is being lovely and rail thin, so i get to yak like a bulimic but not fit into size zero jeans which seems like a cruel sick joke on behalf of the gods or something, doesn't it?

le sigh.

pushing forward back

you know, from back in the day when chris cornell was kind of cool. audioslave wasn't cool they were catchy there's a difference and while the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive there's a sincere relationship between something's catchiness and its coolness or lack thereof rather.

note from a guy i went out with a few times before the architect was in my email this morning. this was funny 'cause i'd had a dream where he played a role just last night. (something to do with his three dogs and children from a previous marriage and my reluctance to be part of the samsonite sideshow) let us never say that the world is not interconnected my friends. he was commenting that he'd not heard from me in a while and figured it was because of the capitalr-elationship and respected that.

since it was on my mind i responded saying that part of it was the distractions of day to day life in my world (the principal feature of the landscape being the guy who spends his nights sound asleep beside me) but part of it was, of course, my natural absentmindedness. i asked him if his inquiry was friendly or if he had ulterior motives. the chef, you see, made a sudden reappearance via facebook and, when i told him i was not interested in pursuing extracurricular activities, disappeared as just as abruptly. his reply was very nicely worded and so, i thought, bore repetition:

Always the question...one asks....I probably would as well..

I think it poses a barrier in a way
I would like to keep the memory where it is,,, as i like it...
If this makes sense

I am happy you have found someone ...I mean this
I think if i seen you in person i would want to kiss you or something................so maybe lets leave it where it is.

We can say hi by email though....

I wouldnt want you to step out on anything that makes you happy.......I know I wouldnt

funny how there are actual gentlemen out there on the planet and even in the midst of my rollercoaster of sexual self destruction i managed to find one or two hiding in the shadows...

we turn, turn out hate in factories

i've been bad with my meds this week. this fact, in combination with my 'special' time, has me feeling worse in my head and my heart than i have in ages.

i'm feeling like i want to run the knife across my wrists across the palms of my hands to feel the sharp it's like i have an itch that needs to be scratched and the craving craving burning to do it is almost overwhelming is all i can think about is the picture in front of my eyes blurring my vision clouding my perspective blinding me to the screen on the desk i just want everything to go away

nicotine valium vicodin marijuana ecstasy & alcohol

traffic at the tunnel was a fucking nightmare today. apparently there was an accident on the alex fraser bridge, so all the assholes from surrey came over my way to get over /under the river. awesome.

i seriously had seen so many boneheaded aggressive driver stupid moves by 6.45 this morning i was half convinced i'd be dead by seven - especially at the moment when a jerk in a silver jetta totally pushed his way into the lane two cars in front of me, causing the guy in front of me to slam on his breaks and me to slam on mine. i wasn't in any danger of hitting him but the big rig truck rushing up behind me almost turned me into a raspberry-flavoured slinky. quite the way to start the day, let me tell you. that adrenaline will certainly wake you up, however forty minutes later you are exhausted from the fight/flight anxiety attack and ready for a nap.

It’s 2007, people. If you don’t know what to do when your neighbors start shambling around and getting all bitey, you probably deserve to die

so i emailed him back and basically pointed out that i wasn't the one he needed to convince, but he'd very def. made a mistake that most likely couldn't be rectified. i let him know that we are all aware that he held off joining another ship so that he could be on the same contract as the girl he cheated on my sister with once they'd broken up, and i told him that i suspected he was having this sudden flash of remorse because something had happened in that 'relationship'. i also told him that the sister is happier than i've ever seen her - looks great, is going out, and (most importantly) isn't wasting any more time sitting around waiting for someone who only has his eye on the horizon, casting about in search of the next big adventure. i told him only the truth and i think i said it respectfully and clearly and didn't tell him that i'd like to put his dick in a meat grinder, though i fer sher was thinking it.

so that part is done - now i just need to tell the sister that he's emailed me and that i've responded. perhaps i'll wait until she's a drink or two to the wind this weekend.

i went to the driving range yesterday at lunchtime with a group from the office - for $13 you got a box lunch, a 7iron, and a bucket of balls, plus some time with the head golf pro. now, i'm no golfer, but i sure enjoy whacking things with a stick. today. though, my right hand is a bit... shall we say crippled - the tendon in my wrist is very tight and the whole typing thing is a bit of a challenge. should be interesting....

oh ps - i finally got new glasses yay!

we can't have parties like in spain where they go all night (shut down in north america)

first things first - ok so the stanley cup isn't coming back to canada this year but let's be frank: bc has about as much in common with ontario as we do with lower mesopotamia. and i gotta say - it was pretty sweet to see the niedermeyer brothers hoist that cup - good bc boys that they are. not like i watched the end of the game, or anything. i gave up at 5-2 in the 3rd and figured i knew how it was going to end.

so this am i got up to am email from the sister's ex - the one who cheated on her for 2 months before he came home and is now off sailing europe with another woman (from all reports). he says he has come to realize he's made a huge mistake (duh) and figures she's the one for him. how do i respond to this? she's doing pretty well w/o him - has started to move on, has found a guy she might be interested in. i can't *not* tell her i got the note, but at the same time i don't want her to be confused-slash-hurt-slash-set back in her recovery. what do do?

sick sick sick don't resist

there's me & the architect on saturday night. clearly (thanks to the non-bleary gazes and general lack of slobbering) it was early in the evening. things sort of went downhill from there.
not that this is a bad thing, by any means - we all needed a night out, since its been way too long, and an extremely good time was had by all.

today, on the other hand, i am dealing with the lingering remains of a migraine, slept all morning, and just yakked up my lunch. good times.

we've more or less decided that the right thing for us to do is move to san diego. career wise, the architect is stagnating here, and he has a great deal more earning potential than i do. not to mention the fact that i am not necessarily all that emotionally invested in what i do - while i do work with some great people, the shit the management has put the staff through in the last year (it can only be assumed that they were purposely driving the value and moral of the company down as a way to price it for an easy sale. i have even speculated that the constant restructuring, layoffs and everything else were part of a plan set up with the purchasing company a year ago when they first entered talks. the massive 'retainment' bonuses gifted out to the ceo et all would surely indicate something not quite above board, and also ensure that we will be working with the same underhanded ethics) make me less than set upon staying. so.... easy move for me to make, workwise, harder to make personally. my friends, the folks, the sister, the kiddo.... all so hard to leave behind. and even with spo's excellent advice i am faced with a great deal of trepidation about starting over again.

if i were in family guy i'd be brian

intelligent, sophisticated, slightly alcoholic.

man what a weekend. i feel as though summer has officially kicked off - dinner and drinks on a sunny friday night patio (our local - a restaurant with a pub "feel" so that the kiddo can come too), brunch saturday at provence followed by some sunny wandering in kits, clubbing with the sister, the architect, the divine ms u, our new downstairs neighbour and six more of our friends saturday night, then a morning of recovery, coffee and fresh strawberries on the sundeck, followed by the ladner annual salmon bbq in the park for dinner. there was a laid back, relaxed feel of who cares if we get the chores done (even though we did actually get through most of them) that really should accompany every weekend.

random facts -

• i painted my toenails bright iridescent pink
• i'm going to make pasta for dinner tonight, and drink red wine
• i'm wearing undies with skulls all over them
• my boss bought me a hat
• i really want to go shoe shopping
• scratch that - i really want to go shopping
• i wish i were still in bed
• secretly i think that i make better bbq'd salmon than i had last night
• that makes me worry that i'm kinda vain
• i'd gladly spend all of my money on groceries, now that i have an appreciative dining audience
• er... that's it for now

jam another dragon down the hole

i'm having a bad depression day of undetermined origins - the kind that is very hard to explain to the architect, because there is no real reason, and there is really nothing you can do to fix it. you can just sit back and try to ride it out without annihilating yourself en route.

this, shall we say mood is being aggravated by the kids playing on the street outside. they're doing kid stuff - yelling, riding bikes, banging on parked cars with hockey sticks, but the cacophony MAKES ME WANT TO RISE UP WITH A FLAME THROWER AND NAPALM THEIR SKINNY PREPUBESCENT ASSES THEN FEED THEM TO HOMELESS PEOPLE ACCOMPANIED BY A GLASS OF MERLOT AND A NICE CRANBERRY CHUTNEY.

i'm fine, really i am.

baby went to amsterdam

so do you think that amy winehouse will dedicate 'rehab' to lindsay lohan when she performs at the mtv movie awards? i'm not sure why this is interesting to me - it's just the thought i had when i heard the promo on the radio this am.

oh the police were fucking incredible, by the way. if you can, move some mountains to get tickets. 3 guys, only one guitar change (that i noticed) playing for over 2 hours solid.

heh. whoops - got distracted there.

anyhoo, the police rocked, i'm exhausted, and all i can think about is what some cracked out british laddette will be lipsynching on television. good times...

logic so inflexible

so today's the big day - the culmination of a lifetime of police fan-dom. i was too young to go see them 'back in the day' - this is the only opportunity i've ever had and i'm pretty frickin excited, let me tell you.

write every day... yes that's the way it has to be.

well put it this way - if we do end up moving to san dee-ahhhgo, i'll be unemployed so it'll be you and me my friends,

you

and

me.

whether you like it or not.

i'm kind of free-form thinking today. i forgot to take my meds all weekend so i'm a touch ... shall we say ... off this morning. i did have a decent weekend, though - drank WAY too much wine, especially friday. we had one of those accidental getting loaded while playing dominoes, though. i think we broke our new downstairs neighbour. she disappeared after taking a hit off a bong with the kiddo and we didn't see her again all weekend.

hehehe whoops.

talkin only me and you talkin only me and you

so we have a new downstairs neighbour (who, by the way, is from PRINCE GEORGE - how is it that we find each other?). she's pretty cool - came up for drinks on her first night, is pretty young but not too young... anyhoo. her long-term boyfriend moved to MALTA yesterday. she's pretty broken up about the whole thing (understandably). she popped up to say hi yesterday and i ended up feeding her a glass of wine and chatting for a couple of hours.

i don't know that i'm very good with the whole 'being a supportive female friend' thing. i think it's because talking about my own emotions/feelings makes me uncomfortable - i really don't mind it when people come to me to talk and i will always listen, i'm just not sure if what i'm saying or doing is the right thing, you know? so i get fidgety and second guess myself and play with my hair and twist myself into cross-legged knots and pour red wine on the problem 'cause let's not kid if red wine can't cure it nothing can.

tap tap - is this thing on?

*ahem*. yes, it's true, i've returned from san diego about 3 elle-bees heavier and slightly more tanned.

i'm almost 65% positive we are moving there in the fall. how do i feel about this? well i have mixed feelings - real excitement and very strong apprehension. i love the idea of a new place, new adventures, sunshine most of the year. i'm worried about making all new friends, missing my family (esp. the kiddo and the sister) and not being able to get a job. does anyone know anything (ie you, spo) about packing up and moving to another country, how to do it, advice to share etc?

i have a bunch of photos to upload, and a whole pile of laundry to do and some stories to tell (i saw a decapitated deer! visited a town called weed!) and i'll get to them over the next little bit, i promise. right now, though, i need to wander through my house and become reacquainted with my possessions, do some grocery shopping, and make my cat feel as though we don't hate him.

xo

don't love me discontent

the sister is text messaging me from the airport where she is currently awaiting a flight to vegas. she's headed down for a wedding and the weekend, and is suitably excited. we had to go shopping last night for a dress - i dragged her into banana republic, made her try on a dress about $100 more than she wanted and then pretended to listen while she talked herself out of it, knowing it was perfect and she wouldn't find anything else nicer.

she bought it, of course.

i then tried to get her to buy a necklace made up of three strands of large aqua coloured jade beads but at that point she proclaimed me the devil, made the sign of the cross and fled across the mall.

i'm very good at spending other people's money, you see. well and my own, let's not kid, i just can't spend anything right now 'cause i'm leaving for san diaaahhhgo (lalala holiday lalala!) on saturday.

mind you, i did buy the kiddo a digital camera and a 4gig memory card as an early grad present - he's headed up to kelowna to be the girl's date - but that was kind of necessary, don't you think? nice camera - much nicer than mine, i have to admit. ah well it's worth it, i figure, since a few years ago he seemed hell bent on self destruction, whereas right now self immolation is just another career option.

etymology and other road trip topics

so we've sort of vaguely started planning our roadtrip. the fact that we've just started is purely a testament to how busy-slash-stressed out i've been at work these past couple of weeks, because usually, with only five days left before departure i'd have the roadmaps memorized and a timetable laid out to the second.

hey - i never said i wasn't obsessive compulsive and/or a touch anal retentive.

like you're surprised.

anyhoo - i've only vaguely started to plan. like, i know that we are going to try to leave at 4am-ish on saturday and go as far as we can before the architect starts to fall asleep at the wheel, but other than that i have no idea. i *do* know that there are some very definate things i'd like to do en route - the whole point of driving down is so i can see a bit of the countryside. we figure we'll check out the california coast on this trip, and then do the oregon coast later on in the summer.

in other worlds, my mama is hooked on that show 'are you smarter than a fifth grader' and she keeps trying to catch us with questions she has gotten wrong. this is a source of constant amusement to us, because she tends to ask fairly easy questions. don't get me wrong - she's no dumb lady - this is just stuff she hasn't thought about since, well, probably since she was in fifth grade. case in point: last night at dinner she turned to me and asked "do polar bears eat penguins?" to which i replied "pffft no - there are no penguins at the north pole" she was heartbroken.

which is interesting, because you'd think she'd be delighted that her very well educated eldest daughter would be smarter than a fifth grader.

apparently not.

Elliot Gould's Golden Hammer Of Midnight

(disclaimer - uh.... i have a head full of random thoughts today, so i apologize for the incoherent nature of this post.)

1) i've somehow hurt my neck - it feels like i've got a sore throat but on the back of my neck, and i can barely turn my head. this bodes poorly for tonight's dodgeballs of doom extravaganza.

2) i wake up in the morning more tired than i was when i went to sleep the night before. is it my bed? is it the wine? is it my deep-rooted disinclination to go to work?

3) i heard on the radio today that some company has published their estimation of what a stay at home parent would be earning for performing the duties they do. it's up to around $130,000 or something stupid. i'd like to say fuck that shit. as a non-stay-at-home mom, i do as much work inside the house as those who don't work, *and* i'm out of the house between 6.30 (when i leave in the morning) to 4.15 (when i get back home - *if* i come straight home and don't stop on the way to grocery shop, pick up drycleaning, run errands etc). so, technically, when i'm mopping the kitchen floor -slash- cutting the grass -slash- cleaning the oven -slash- scrubbing toilets -slash- baking cookies i'm working overtime so i should be getting AT LEAST time and a half. so there.

4) my cat's preferred method of waking me up in the morning involves jumping up onto my bedside table as soon as the alarm goes off. if i don't throw back the blankets and put my feet to the floor immediately, he will stare at me for about 5 minutes, and then proceed to start knocking things OFF said bedside table onto the floor. this morning he jettisoned my glasses, a small balled-up piece of paper, and the remote control for my laptop before i conceded and made my way to the kitchen to fill his breakfast bowl.

i'm half the man i used to be

there is not enough coffee in the world to keep me awake today - just so y'all know.

when i stepped outside this morning the air reminded me of ireland... something to do with the smell and texture as i breathed it in brought me back in years and miles to a place that may or may not exist only in my memory. i have no definite recollection, just a sense of having been there before.

maybe i do just need a vacation - i need to be shaken up from my routine, released from my day to day lethargy. i need to see new things meet new people walk on different streets with wide awake eyes.

maybe i need something more - maybe i need to walk away from everything leave everything behind start fresh build it all up again. maybe i need to pack one bag put down my phone walk out the the highway and see where i end up put down roots in land that doesn't turn to water six inches below the surface.

maybe i just need a vacation.

my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark

blah blah blah it's monday and i'm having one of those days where i am not sure i can go on.

go on doing what?

i don't even know i'm just overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness and apathy. this is strange 'cause it's sunny out and usually when the weather's sunny so's my disposition but not now not today not this very moment.

did you know that china puts melamine in pet food quite regularly? i guess manufacturers purchase it because it increases nitrogen levels in food, which mimic a higher level of protein without actually impacting the nutritional value.

oh and the canadian government apparently had intelligence that warned them about the air india bombing before it happened.

oh and the canucks lost last night.

oh and

oh and

oh and

meta-free-phor-all

oh my god i laugh in your general direction, stephen colbert...

hello robin sparkles? now *this* is ironic

snoop dogg has been denied entrance to australia because of his criminal record.

heh. irony at its finest.

you know, 'cause it was a penal colony and all.

heh. anyway.

dodgeball rocked last night - a veritable barrel of laughs. both the kiddo and the architect were on fire, and i played well myself, if i do say so.. er.. myself. it's funny how team spirit really affects you - the more fun that people are having, the more fun you have. it really is contagious. not to mention the fact that the stupider and clumsier i am, the more people laugh at me, and the better time they have. so, really, i'm not a shitty dodgeball player, i'm on a one-woman mission to make sure that everyone around me laughs all night long. yeah, that's it.

ahem.

carry on....

what's that dido song about the bad day? yeah that's me

so between the architect and the cat, who were both completely buh-jiggity all night, i got little to no sleep. but... still had to go to work, so suck it up and start getting ready. as i spritz body spray into the air, i let go a big sneeze, so inhale a mouthful. hack, hack, wheeze, gasp... on my way out the door i grab an orange for breakfast and shove it in my bag. traffic was average, but i missed 'stump the show' on the fox (always a giggle). get in this morning, pour myself a cup of coffee, and notice that i've *not* noticed that there was 2 inches of water left in the bottom of my cup from yesterday. fuck. oh well too lazy to go to the kitchen so weak coffee. pull my orange out of the bag, peel away, take a bite and - what's this? it's old, dry, and bitter. fun. have to go to the kitchen now *any*way to make toast. toaster is acting up so i get mostly warmed over dry bread. take a bite and choke.

le sigh.

if you ever have to knock on wood

so between 5.30 and 6am this morning they played two rancid songs. ok one of them was that faux rancid song snippetted above, but the other was timebomb which is guaranteed to get my booty shaking in the shower, let me tell you.

ok ok canucks, stars, i told you so they won let's move on. nobody likes that guy so i'll leave it at that. i'll give you my prediction on the next series when it starts. in all honesty, i spent half of that game with my eyes covered and a giant knot in the pit of my belly - if it weren't for bobby lu we would have lost for sure. hell - let's not kid. if it weren't for him we wouldn't have been there in the first place.

have i mentioned my pending holly-day? the architect and i are driving to san diego for a week. i'm rather excited, especially considering the fact that i get a paycheque whilst there. much more fun to be somewhere and actually have some extra cashflow. fun treats for me, fun treats for the architect, fun treats for the sister... i heart shopping. i heart lying on the beach more, but i do heart shopping.

canucks 4, dallas 1

told ya so.

seriously

someone found this blog by googling 'dave grohl's tongue'. if i had dave grohl's tongue do you think i'd be wasting my time writing this? heck no, i say heck no. i'd be lying back in a patch of sunshine, sipping a cocktail and enjoying all the pleasures that dave grohl's tongue has to offer.

and i'd definately take pictures of *that*.

got canned heat in my heels tonight bay-bee

so i dunno about *your* part of the lower mainland, but in my little section of the world yesterday was gloriously sunny all day. i walked to the market, walked back hobbling under the weight of too many groceries (what is it about sunny days that makes me spend too much money on food?), then lounged in the sunshine with a good book before bbq'ing steaks for deener.

lalala what else did i do with my weekend? hmmm well we helped the sister get the rest of her stuff out of her condo (it finally sold, the lucky financially solvent bitch), set up the bbq and deck chairs, oooo i know - we went to see the giants play on friday. it was nice to see at least 1 of vancouver's hockey teams show up and play the game. not naming any names of any other teams (ahem, rhymes with sucks) of course.

mind you, i guess i did predict a win in seven, didn't i?

pop culture ponderings for monday:
1) tim armstrong's new song is (dare i say it) not good. there - i said it. it's done.
2) go read this. funny shit man, funny shit.

tales from another broken

ok so yesterday i went to the army&navy shoe sale. for those of you who don't live in vancouver, this sale is one of the highlights of the gvrd shopping year. it's seriously legendary. anyhoo - this was the second year in a row where i haven't bought anything. it's sad but true. now, i did find a pair that i loved - saddle brown bcbg heels with a slightly rounded toe, 3-inch railroad spike style heels - but they didn't have my size. it may be worth a second trip maybe tomorrow to take another looky-loo, but then maybe not. le sigh.

the architect had the audacity to suggest that maybe i'm not interested in shoes anymore. can you imagine the cheek? sheesh. just 'cause a girl's had a couple of off visits to the shoe store....

i should go out today and buy four new pairs. that'll learn'im.


edit - red house blues by jimi hendrix is on innerweb radio and it is so perfect so perfect for my mood i can't even tell you. it's a slow sleepy friday morning full of sunshine and anticipation for the weekend: hockey game tonight lazy saturday maybe plant some flowers in the pots on my deck definately drink some wine... oh they're following it up with stevie ray life is so good

here lies janey purplepants

so j-mo is shutting down his blog. i'll be more than sad to see him go - for a while he seemed to be my male counterpart. of course, lately, we've wandered our separate ways - kind of like a fuck buddy who you spend lots of time with before drifting apart. it makes me a little sad inside, but it's the way of it, i guess. i find that even i have trouble coming up with stuff to talk about every day (as you may have noticed) and my dull content is starting to show - fewer comments, reduced hits. this makes me sad because i do really enjoy the back and forth give and take aspects of my little bloggity, but i just don't have the time to devote to it that i used to.

plus, and i am a bit ashamed to admit this, but i have completely tempered the way i write out of respect for the architect. not that he cares whether i put up half naked pictures of myself, but i figure it's only a matter of time before some if *his* friends who blog stumble upon this one and i'd hate for him to be embarrassed in any way because of it, you know? so is it even my blog anymore? can i find away to bring it back to being my own space, or is there another path i should follow - here or somewhere else?

i was catching up on my blog reading yesterday and caught ct overdrive's post from saturday about the decline of blogging and the rise of facebook and its ilk. blogging has peaked, he says, and for people who don't have the time or inclination to come up with decent content, facebook is a great place to post pictures of yourself and your friends getting tanked of a weekend, or pass quick notes back and forth, or whatever.

i don't want my journal to become another facebook. i don't want this to be a place where i come and spatter half thought out ideas and non sequiturs. i'm just not sure how to get it back to where i want it to be. maybe i'm too far gone. i need some help - what can i do?

there and back again

ok so on saturday we took an impromptu roadtrip to penticton for the festofales - a two day long beer festival. think lots of drunk early twentisomethings and late teensomethings mixed with drunk older biker style folk come down from god knows where - had we been in the gvrd i would have assumed surrey or chilliwack. interesting people watching, let me tell you.

anyhoo, spent the night in k-town, cruised some wineries on sunday and headed back last night. not bad for a weekend, especially since the sun stayed out the entire time.

so anyway we were listening to the game on the radio - we missed most of the first period 'cause (sadly) we don't have satellite radio, but caught the second and were at home in time to watch the third. i swear to god that, listening to the radio, you would have thought the only canuck on the ice was luongo. it was really, really sad. fortunately the rest of the team showed up in time for the third and they managed to squeak out a win. i don't know kids - unless they pick up the pace they ain't gonna make it much beyond the first round.

at least minnesota is nearly down for the count...