why'd ya have to get so fucking useless

email from artboy waiting in my inbox this afternoon (i asked if perhaps he wanted to do something this weekend):

thanks for the invite... but to be to the point, i don’t see this developing into a romantic relationship for me. You are fun and i enjoy chatting and spending time with you but i guess i have been standoffish because i don’t want to lead you on. What can I say... attraction is not a choice. i’m completely open to being buds – i do definitely need some more cool female friends! my last girlfriend chased all my old ones off! lol i have several guy friends you may be interested in so keep the option open.

talk to you later...

you cannot hide or ever put it away

when mikeb was in thailand he got me this pretty pretty wrap so i took off all my clothes and took pictures of myself with it.

i'm not sure if he'll see this as a fitting token, since he kind of views me as a non-sexual sponge type creature, but fukkit i did it anyway.

wtf?! supernatural isn't on this week. how does *that* work? don't they know that i need my weekly dean fix? it's just not right..

yesterday tony pierce wrote about his soulmate and how she's gone to africa and reading it made me pensive.

yesterday, ben (i think, if not i apologize) asked me if i was really as tough as i appeared. truthfully, i'm really not. this isn't how i imagined it would be, you know? this isn't how i pictured myself at 33 back when i was a little girl playing dress-up and running through the forest in mock battles and hiding under the big birch tree in our front yard sipping juice, eating homemade chocolate chip cookies and reading nancy drew.

sure i never wanted to get married have kids get a dog buy a station wagon but i also don't think that my eight year old mind realized i was going to be alone for most of my adult life.

i've been with a lot of men.

i've got some amazing friends.

i've got a wonderful family who i'd do anything for.

my son is the light of my life and without him i'd be less of a woman.

but some days... some days knowing that nobody is going to meet me at the door with a glass of wine; that no one is going to listen to me when i fret about work or traffic or money and kiss me on the end of the nose and tell me they love me and make me not care about those petty little things.. some days knowing that isn't going to happen makes me sad.

and lost.

and lonely.

and today is one of those days.

i've never known what's good for me

there is nothing quite as good for the soul as having lunch with a cute boy, then taking your dog for a walk on a windy windy day and watching her chase birds and bark at driftwood and lie in the mud panting happily, knowing that in ten minutes she's going to be crawling all over the inside of your car.i think that i may very well have the cutest dog on the planet. she's eleven years old, but still runs like she's a puppy. it's just that the next day she sometimes has trouble getting on and off the couch.

oh wait, what was that? did i say that i had lunch with a cute boy? yes, it's true - art boy logged in this morning and was chatting away to me. he works from home so is pretty much always on line. i talked him into taking a lunchbreak with me so we walked over to ouisi bistro to hang out. i think he likes me - he spent a lot of time looking into my eyes, and let me feed him a spoonful of my blackbean soup - but when we got back to his house and it was time for him to go in and me to my car, i got a hug but still no damn kiss.

le sigh.

oh, hey. i took a whole bunch of outside type photos. take a little looky-loo at my buzznet account.

your words and my words and they keep coming

raspberry has a crush on you says:
do you know that most of the people i know here have never seen the northern lights?

R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
that's insane

R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
don't tell them about them

R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
then they'll want to see them!

R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
and they'll take over all our sweetassed places

raspberry has a crush on you says:
tell who about what?

R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
the people that don't know about the northern lights

raspberry has a crush on you says:
ahh
raspberry has a crush on you says:
they're hard to describe

R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
it's weird to explain anyway eh
R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
yeah
R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
it's like yeah every now and then all these colours come into the sky

raspberry has a crush on you says:
ayup

R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
you sound like a drug addict

raspberry has a crush on you says:
and they move and dance like they are alive
raspberry has a crush on you says:
and then they disappear

R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
and so you honk your horn to get them to dance with you
R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
or you yell or holler and they respond
R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
and then they fade and move on

raspberry has a crush on you says:
get bored with your games and find someone new

R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
yep

raspberry has a crush on you says:
like an inconstant lover

R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
other places to see people to meet
R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
those are the best ones

raspberry has a crush on you says:
yup

R.Ray # - check out guitar George, he knows, all the chords. says:
fuck me once and i'll love you forever, fuck me steady and i'll remember that time period

and the parodies keep on comin'

can you feel that? ahhhh shit...

so last night we went to watch pay-per-view ufc down at the shark club. we got there at about 6pm and it was already standing room only but we kept hour eyes peeled for the obvious korn fans and scooped a table out from under several other groups of people as soon as some got up to leave.

i think only the size of the sister's bf stopped us from participating in our own title matchup, but, let's not kid, i coulda held my own.

*ahem*

anyway, helloooo sausage fest. men everywhere, testosterone and alcohol oozing from every orifice. when i got up to powder my nose i made the mistake of *not* covering my ass with my hands and got it grabbed twice. but, and get this, the best part of the night was that, for the first time ever in my life, there was a line for the men's room and not the ladies. how fucking cool was that? and *every* single woman who entered the bathroom crowed with delight at this wonderous paradigm shift.

i know that there are people out there who really dislike mixed martial arts fights and really object to the violence of the sport. i figure men have been kicking the crap out of each other since they were sentient enough to form a fist - may as well put 'em in a ring where there's a doctor present, a ref to keep things from getting out of hand, and they can't hurt anyone but each other.

and, to be honest, it's less violent than most of the lacrosse games i've ever seen.

after the fights we hit up the tokyo lounge to do a little dancing. dude the club fashion was so eighties i couldn't even handle it - double belts, off the shoulder shirts, super high pointy toed heels, teased hair. as i said to the sister as i watched one pretty young thing walk by "i'm pretty sure i wore that outfit to the teen club once". she laughed. i was dead serious. the only things missing were the ankle socks and lace fingerless gloves.

le sigh.

lost in the forest to be cut adrift

it's official.

my bedroom looks like my closet and my dresser went on a tequila bender and vomitted clothing over every surface - horizontal or otherwise. how lame am i? how OLD am i? why is it that i can't keep my bedroom tidy?

so i went on a date the other night. i've been talking to this guy for a while, but we've never gotten around to actually doing anything till thursday. weird, huh? anyway, thursday night we went down to the art gallery to check out an exhibit by a canadian artist named brian jungen. he takes post consumer goods and creates these unbelievably cool sculptures - such as tribal masks fashioned from old nike running shoes, or these amazingly wonderous bowhead whale skeletons made from white plastic lawn chairs.

the biggest one is suspended about seven feet off the floor. i stood underneath it and gazed down the length - wondering at the way the vertebrae undulated gracefully away from me. i wanted to reach out and run my hands down it as i walked forward. would it make a noise? would the plastic lawnchairs resonate with sound? would the whale sing to me?

i didn't do this, though, and i didn't take pictures, because for some reason the gallery blue-coats watch me like a hawk whenever i am there. i'm not kidding - they follow me from room to room, and when i leave one area another guard picks up the tail faster than you can say million dollar heist.

all i could think of as i stood there was that this thing needed wings.
maybe that's why whales are nearly extinct. god forgot to give them wings.

the date was fun - awkard at first, as they always are, but soon settled into laughter and stories.

the wine helped, too, i'm sure.

but he didn't kiss me. he hugged me and asked if i'd like to do it again, but he didn't kiss me goodbye. is that a bad sign?

anniversary two

(with apologies to tony)

one year ago:

anniversary
so it was a year ago today that the kiddo went into the hospital. kind of a fucked up anniversary, but it resonates regardless. i don't want to talk about it, but i do. i've been counting down all week, for some reason - i knew it was coming and i've studiosly avoided writing anything 'cause i knew that it would come out - how scared i am to go to sleep tonight, and how afraid i am that he's still all fragile on the inside even though he *seems* so much better and so much stronger and so much more together. or maybe it's just me that is fragile on the inside, still, even though i seem so much stronger and seem so much better and seem so much more together. but i guess i am those things, at least a little bit.

i love my kid more than life itself. (i just wanted to say that out loud, cause love is magic and saying the word casts a spell and takes me out of time and place and makes it not this day) and i know you are saying "of course you do - he's your son". but it sometimes amazes me that it's possible to feel something for someone in a way that is so strong and so true.

anyway, i'm gonna go crawl into bed, and leave my door open tonight. the dog will crawl in beside me and i think that i need that. goodnight, kiddo, and goodnight to all the kids, all of you out there in the world who feel that you are alone. tonight you should know that you aren't - i'm staying awake to watch over you all.

i find a darkened corner 'cause still i miss someone

so ciavarro is doing a 'girls of blogdom' calendar and didn't put me on his wishlist for calendar girls.

needless to say, i'm crushed.

add to this the fact that dean simon has given up sex for lent and i felt it time to post some semi-naked photographs.

ah fuck who'm i kidding? any time is a good time for semi-naked photographs.

yes indeedy i have a date tomorrow night. to go to the art gallery. how very civilized. this is one of the random men i've met somewhere in my travels, who just happened to keep in touch with me via the ehm-ess-ehn. i haven't seen him since, haven't talked to him on the phone till tonight, and (to be quite honest) can't really remember what he looks like.

so meeting up tomorrow evening should be interesting.

mind you, he has the benefit of seeing my msn photo, which is currently the tongue photo from below. so perhaps i'll just stand on the steps of vag with my mouth open.

yeah, that'll work.

*ahem*.

sheesh speaking of work it's been kicking my ass this past couple of weeks. everybody is all worked up and running on too much coffee and not enough sleep and i've been sleeping poorly 'cause all night long my brain is running with lists of the stuff i have to do the next day, and when i actually do sleep my jaw is locked so tight you'd think i was a pitbull in a daycare. in the morning i explode out of bed, rip the contents of my dresser and closet all over the place (note the evidence there behind me), somehow manage to make myself presentable, and hit the road. yesterday i forgot my watch, the ring i never leave the house without, and to take my meds.

today i think i managed to get out with everything in hand.

yay, me.

if it weren't for bags of baby carrots and grapes from costco, i'd probably starve to death.

**edit** ciavarro has told me that it wasn't a *wishlist* it was a *reserve* list, and that the calendar is first come first served. i may still have a spot, yet. i hope i get august.

fuck you i won't do what you tell me

i'm not allowed to push the cart in costco. in fact, it's really better if i don't even stand anywhere near the cart-propelling area 'cause there's no guarantee that i won't grab the handle and RAM it into the dumbass blocking the aisle in front of me. DON'T STOP MOVING WHILE YOU ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AISLE KEEP WALKING OR STAND ASIDE MOTHER FUCKERS. I MEAN IT I WILL KILL YOU ALL WITH THIS COMMERCIAL SIZED BUCKET OF BEEF-A-RONI.

alright i'm done now.

i think that this woman has channelled into my brain: 'My standards of dating have deteriorated rapidly, from "must love the absurdity and avant-guarde nature of Jacques Tati films" to "must have the two P's: Penis and Pulse."' seriously - it's like she's taken the words out of my cerebral cortex and turned them into simple html - black text on a white background as close to oldschool as it gets, kids. ahh come on now. look into those eyes - would i seriously ram someone with a cart? me? nah....

ok maybe.

but just the once.

or the twice.

no more than twice, though.

seriously.

i promise.

i might have a date on thursday. that's kind of exciting huh? it always worries me when people refer to themselves as geeks. i mean *i* refer to myself as a geek, but i'm the *good* kind of geek, you know? not the bad kind. oh let's not kid - i'm a geek plain and simple. i just have slightly ungeeky packaging. it's false advertising, is what it is. really, it's akin to having inflatable. breasts.

not that i do.

no i'm actually serious this time.

no inflatable breatesses here.

i promise.

kiss me before it all gets complicated

oh i've been very naughty. i discovered the last of the apple crisp in a small bowl just waiting to be warmed up - popped into the microwave just for a few seconds or so - and so i did it i hit that button i spun that glass plate around and around and around and then when it was done i pulled it out and took a spoonful into my mouth and felt the tart apple hot against my tongue and thought to myself 'do you know what would make this even better and a little less hot? some vanilla ice cream.' so i opened the freezer so surreptiously so quietly so cautiously so that no one would hear and took a spoonful out of the bucket and added it to the bowl placed it gently on top of the crisp and hurried downstairs so that no one could see no one could say 'what are you doing you know that it will only make you sick' i know all that but i wanted to do it anyway and oh man it was good. it was it did it made me sick about sixty two seconds after i finished but i haven't had ice cream in two years and it was so sweet and cold and the perfect compliment to the tart apple hot against my tongue.

hung up in a warehouse town

i can't wait for my mouthguard. i'm tired of waking up with a headache (wine related or otherwise).
reading tony and mr wolf talk about their travels gives me total wanderlust. i come from a long line of sailors - on my dad's side, my family has always been sailors or shipbuilders - and that urge to travel has always been a part of me. it's been a really long time since i've gone anywhere. when i first started doing the job that i have now, they told me i'd get to travel a lot, but then someone higher up decided in their infinite wisdom that i was too valuable to have out of the office. which is good, i guess, but at the same time sucks rocks.

it's funny 'cause the people around me are settling into their careers, buying homes, getting married, and starting families, whereas i'm looking at another couple of years of my kid living at home, then he's going to take off to do his own thing and i'll pretty much be free and on my own. i think at that point is when i'm going to put some serious consideration into seeing a lot of the world. i have about nine years of debt left. i have no real desire to own my own home. my ten year plan involves paying everything off and then taking my salary and investing in the kinds of experiences that make life worth living.

this is not, of course, to say that i'm going to wait ten years to start living my life. i'm going to do great stuff in the meantime, as well. but in ten years i think i can start doing it in earnest and living debt free means that i won't have to worry about whether or not i'm making 70k a year (not like i particularly worry about it now, but you know what i mean).

i was in spain about six years ago. my auntie and uncle own a flat in torremolinos. i'd get up in the morning and go for a run along the beach at 7.30, then shower and have fruit for breakfast, go lie on the beach for a couple of hours, do some sightseeing, go back to the flat to have a bottle of wine on the patio and get ready for dinner, head out to a restaurant and sit outside along the water till 2 or three am, hit a club or just wander home, get up the next day and do it all again.

we had originally planned on going back over there at the end of june this year, but my dad hasn't really been doing too well. he's going through these tests to see if he qualifies to have this totally experimental procedure done to see if it can finally cure this depression that has plagued him for 15 years. i'm not sure what it's all about except that it involves implanting some kind of magnet in his brain and it gives me an anxiety attack to think about. so anyway, i don't think we will be going that soon, but may try for the end of september. even if i can't go i'm going to try and send the kiddo - he's never travelled at all and that's something i totally regret. oh speaking of the kiddo - i guess he was on his way back from the movies with some friends last night, and a thing about the sasquatch festival played over the radio. it listed off a bunch of the bands going to be there and he shouted out "omg! i'm going to that!" his friends responded doubtfully - like of course they'd all like to go, but the kiddo could actually say "nono! my mom has the tickets already! i'm really going!". that's pretty cool...

anyway, i'm going to shower and do some laundry and bake banana bread and otherwise lounge around for my day off.

xoxo

wake up and smell the melba toast

hey guess what i finally created a buzznet account. ok there's not so much up there right now, but it'll grow, it'll grow...

and the streets say - oh i'm on to you

i slept for 11 hours last night - crashed watching grosse point blank before ten pm and didn't open my eyes till after nine this morning. this is due, i think, to seperate yet equally contributing factors. one - my week was nuts and i was physically and mentally exhausted at the end of it. two - i forgot to take my meds yesterday.

see on the picture there? that's my baby warmer which i cannot seem to get rid of. i don't need it - i won't be warming any more babies. however, it does not appear to want to leave me. i guess i should just learn to accept it, become one with it, embrace the babywarmer. should i give it a name? perhaps ferdinand? or adolpho? suzette?

i went to the sister's last night and made chicken korma, papadums, samosas and basmati rice cooked in coconut milk and caradmum. i can't attest to the chicken, but the rest of it was pretty frickin' good. hmm maybe if i stopped cooking with coconut milk i could get rid of adolpho. ferdinand. i mean suzette. worth pondering, i suppose.

i declined any wine. i figured that since it was still emanating my pores from the night before, adding more to the mix would be overkill. i stuck to gingerale, much to the disgust of my dinner companions. sneaking out before they headed to the pub just about caused a mutiny but i was, as previously mentioned, exhausted.

i am on an unscheduled three-day weekend. my boss, who rocks the party, gave me monday off as reward for working my ass off this past little while. so i'm not sure what i'm going to do with myself, except that it will involve things which do not cost too much money, as i really have none to speak of. i guess i could borrow. but since i don't have any real pressing plans, it doesn't seem to be necessary.

my horoscope today talks about approaching romantic interests differently than i have previously - trying new things and blah blah blah. i assent to being caught in a pattern, to being trapped in a place where i date only people from my circle. i just don't really know how to break out of it. don't tell me to take a class - what with yoga starting again i don't have time for more. but i will take suggestions. or if you know cute boys who are single, sane, and in the area, send'em my way, huh?

i've lost my head again

ooo i kind of wish i could lose my head... went to a friend's place for dinner last night and drank alottalotta red wine. ouch. ahh migraine strength advil - whatever did i do before you entered my life?

ug my stomach is a tad unhappy as well.

my sister is throwing one of her infamous dinner parties again - you know the kind where she invites a lot of people over and i get to do the cooking? yeah that kind. tonight, though i think i'll be on the gingerale mmm gingerale.

so i've been lying here watching the olympics / napping. the canadian women speedskaters dominated at the 5000 and i must say they put on an incredible performance both on the ice and off. the class and grace they displayed after the race were great examples of sportsmanship. well done ladies.

has anyone else been struck by how ridiculous four man bobsledding is? like four hulking men cuddled up together and hurtling around an icy ring. it cracked me up. it hurt my head. is there someone i can call abut this?

and is it a sad state of my romantic life that i just found a member of the canadian curling team hot?

maybe i should go back to sleep.

tell me who are you

stinkin' csi is a repeat tonight. my arms are all wobbly - i was doing a yoga backbends class and you have to do the upward bow thing five times in a row and i didn't think i was going to make it up that last time there.

but i did.

yay, me.

speaking of yay, me - guess who has tickets to the sasquatch festival? yeah baybee. coachella smoachella. the constantines, death cab, the hip, nine inch nails, the shins, iron & wine, neko case, oh oh it goes on and on and on. not to mention, it's super close to my house. well, not super close, but closer than california, anyhoo.

anyone want to come? how's that for a blogger meet up party?

i don't mind, mind, don't have a mind

so if you were a corporation as large as, say, canon, and your marketing team came up with a radio spot which centred around a tired cliched jerry macguire reference (especially given the decidedly cool temperature of current public perception of mr tom 'jump the couch' cruise), wouldn't you, perhaps, fire that marketing company and look for some better representation? 'you had me at canon'. huh.

i'm just sayin'.

there's that one, and the one which features a guy who's over the moon 'cause he just got a job as a ski lift operator in whistler. never mind the fact that he's gonna have to have two other jobs (at least) to be able to afford to live in whistler. but shit, he's movin' on up, alright.

i can't decide if these two are supposed to be slyly ironic - a bit of a poke at corporate suits who don't really know any better - or if somebody, somewhere, needs to inject some creativity into advertising. what i *do* know is that i really need to stop listening to the radio on my way to work.

the devil runs them by quantum theory on tuesday

so this afternoon i went to get fitted for a mouth guard. i must say it was not the *best* way to spend the afternoon. however, i did not gag. i do have a fairly impressive control over my gag reflex - pretty much the only thing that triggers it is canned peaches.

see, i just have to *think* about canned peaches and i start to gag. blergh.

as i was gathering up my stuff i thought to myself 'well, i've certainly had WORSE things in my mouth'. when the dental assistant began to howl, i realized that i hadn't used my inside voice whilst pondering that particular tidbit of wisdom.

sadly, i can't file this under 'things which sound dirty but aren't' 'cause, well, it is.

the war won't stop for the love of god

ok i cheered myself up a little when i discovered this. see, i have a secret crush on rick mercer. (yes dean, i know that if i tell everybody it's no longer a secret. but this isn't really *telling* everybody. nobody reads this anyway. right?

right.)

anyway - if you hit that link up there you get to watch a whole whack of archived video from his rick mercer report tv show, including the rants. be warned - most of the humour is peculiarily canadian in the way that the tragically hip are canadian - you don't have to be from here to like it, but it probably helps.

i wanna know if this could be my faith

do you ever notice that when the weather goes from sunny to grey all of a sudden everyone is tired and lethargic? i swear i need to funnel coffee intravenously to keep my eyes open. not to mention the fact that someone brought in bagels this morning, so i spent the first part of the day in a carbocoma. grand fun, i tell you.

a couple of years ago, in a delusional fit of fiscally-minded responsibility, i arranged to have my income tax returns put directly onto my student loans. this seemed like a grand idea at the time - i patted myself on the back for being so adult and all that crap.

this was all well and good in *theory*. of course, once i prepared the actual returns and saw the tasty refund the canadian government was going to pay me it was less pleasing.

in fact, it's downright depressing. ahh... when i stop and think of what i could do with this year's money right now - vacation, new wardrobe, botox, penis enlargement, down payment on a new car, the list goes on.

le sigh.

ooo i could *also* put the money towards cloning myself the perfect boyfriend, cause god knows the specimens i'm collecting for free certainly leave a great deal to be desired.

or i could just use it to buy enough wine so that i plain 'ol didn't care anymore. that might be cheaper.