Parklife

So I'm sitting in a cafe in my *old* hood waiting to go to work at the salon. I had previously scheduled a hot n heavy breadbaking lesson but got called in around 10pm last night. Sadly, my finances are not as of yet such that I can decline $70 in favour of wine and baking.

*sigh*

At any rate, I'm here in the cafe. The guy behind the counter is cute in a slight, might be gay, is definitely married way, so I have at least a bit of eye candy whilst I wait.

I could probably wander over there now, but would have to make conversation with the nail tech who, though nice, isn't really the most interesting person on the planet.

Downside to being a receptionist in a hair/nail salon: listening to the stylists tell the same story to each of their clients with very little variation in tone or verbage. Plus side is, of course, that they're all super cool folks and I get to chat with people all day. The cats, though lovely, are nocturnal and tend to nap all day. Not the best company.

This work thing should, though, really start later in the day while still ending early enough for me to enjoy my glass of wine in the late afternoon sun. The architect and I had our first patio/wine/book evening of the spring the other night and it was extremely pleasant. Now we just need a table big enough for dominoes or cards and another one or two people comfortable enough to pop by and enjoy it with us.

Smells like California

So way back in the day I used to have a little jasmine plant in my bedroom, sitting on the ledge by my bed. Now I live in a place where I have a huge hedge worth blooming about 6 feet from my back door. The smell's almost overwhelming, but in a good way.

It seems like everything is so much more alive here: the smells the sounds the light the people the sky. Everything is so much more vivid. I didn't think a smell could be vivid, but I guess it can.

It reminds me a bit of being in Spain: stepping off the plane and being accosted by sweet-scented humidity, so different from anything that I'd ever experienced. I feel that all the time now. California smells good. Quite the change for a girl who grew up surrounded by clouds of polluted air, redolent with sulphur.

Anyone ever make slippers from their cat?

I'm seriously tempted at the moment. The stupid cats decided that this weekend would be a great time to break out their new scheduling - that is, the hours between 2-5AM are devoted to tearing around the apartment like thundering battlecats. 5-6 is for sitting at the back door whining to be let outside (even though they are indoor cats and have limited outdoor time, always on a leash). Oh and somewhere between 12-2 one of the two of them drops a stink in the catbox that is seriously bad enough to wake me up and melt the paint off the walls.

God.

Fucking Mondays. How can I hate Mondays so much even though I'm unemployed? Is it just years of indoctrination? Popular culture has clockwork oranged me into hating Mondays with an supersaturation of Office Space / Bangles / Boomtown Rats references?

Best quote ever (just heard on the CBC during an interview with the Ting Tings): 'fertile ground for whimsy'. Whimsy is word that is not used nearly enough. They kind of remind me of Elastica, a bit, though that might be my 90s scenesterism talking.

Speaking of hipsters, how can you define a social class as hip when they've looked exactly the same since about 1979? And why am I devoting so much though to this issue? It's not as though it's an original thought or anything. I'm sure that people all over the world are currently smoking gauloise cigarettes, drinking black coffee and debating that very fact. (though the actual year - 1979 - at which the 'hipster' look coalesced and froze could be a point of heated debate)

Have I mentioned that I'm on day two of uterine cramps? Like how is it that I'm almost and yet still get pimples and cramps. What kind of fucked up existence is this? All I can say is that I'm fucking proof positive that we are not living in the matrix because some mother fucking female alien would have programmed that shit out.

annum

So it has, believe it or not, been a year since the architect and I got hitched.

I'm pretty pleased with that situation.

I mean, they say the first year is the hardest. I dunno if I believe that, but I do know that we made it through ok and that I'm just as certain I'd marry him today as I did 364 days ago. (technically our anniversary is tomorrow but we got married on the Saturday and this time last year I was getting my nails did so.....)

When I look back through this blog I read about how I was so convinced I'd never be getting married - always be on my own (probably still in my parents' basement), always be sad. Just goes to show, I suppose, that there is someone out there for everyone.

Here's to many more
xo

Friday Night Lights

I'm 3/quarters of the way through a bottle of red; the cats are passed out in their favourite spots beside me; the fireplace is pumping; the husband is asleep in the bedroom with a migraine.

I'm trying to write a story about a fish in a bowl. It was commissioned by TNB for reasons beyond my comprehension. I've got a picture in my head of green light reflected on water, ripples above, sounds muffled by glass. It's harder to translate into a narrative, though.

Harder still to understand what he's asking for, but if he asks for a story I'll take him at face value. To look deeper into the motivations of men is to fly to close to the sun and risk the melt and the fall.

Kind of Blue

It's the 50th anniversary of the recording of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue today, so I'm playing it this afternoon, I think, while I'm doing my photoshop futzing about.

I know about this anniversary because I've finally got my CBC RadioONE working through my innerweb. I've really missed CBC. I may have mentioned it before this, but NPR just isn't the same. I was really worried about the programming changes a couple of years ago and will never forgive them for taking Northern Lights off the air (that program soothed me to sleep over the course of so many bad nights I can't even count them), but the Q is seriously entertaining. Today they interviewed Andy Samberg's comedy troupe and talked about the Canada Reads program. Oh and played a killer listener call response to yesterday's feature on the movie Rip, which is a discussion of dj music, copyright law, sampling and creativity.

Ooo I have a job interview tomorrow. It's for a position that I'm not particularly qualified for, and for which I am pretty sure that they're going to hire a grad student who is currently doing the job, but it's an interview nonetheless. I'm extremely nervous, am too fat for my work clothes, and wish I could have a cocktail before heading in to soothe my brain.

angst on the planks

So it was a pretty bad weekend for the depression, and I'm trying to think of how to prevent it from becoming a pretty bad week. A job offer would surely help, but I'd settle from a massive influx of cash from a long lost uncle or forgotten lottery ticket. I think that a shopping spree and perhaps a quick adventure would do wonders towards cheering me up.

In other worlds I think that everyone should develop a system of hand signals for communication in busy places. Like, beyond the panicked "get me out of this conversation / place in general" esp that couples have. To me, having a set of unique gestures brings a certain panache to every day coversation, don't you agree? If you could find someone to document you using them in black and white photos, perhaps while wearing cool vintage clothing, all the better.