original prankster

OK so I'm in Vancouver. I flew in last night and have managed to keep it a total secret from my family. My friend picked me up and made arrangements for the sister and the kiddo to come to her house at 10am this morning. Heh. The look on the sister's face has been recorded on video and should soon be posted on the innerweb.

I love that shit.

rrrrrRRRRAWWWWRRrrrr

I would like to do completely obscene things with Anthony Bourdain.

ug

Man I dunno. I just can't get super excited about writing anymore. Like I went out and bought myself a writing prompt book, I've been reading way more, and yet every day I sit down and firefix opens this bloggity up as one of my tabs and... nothing.

It's as though I started something here and I'm caught up in what it used to be, you know? Like I have trouble envisioning it as something more. I need your help (if there are any of you left).

There are people who have been here more or less since the beginning - who've watched me go through the crazy shit with the kiddo, have watched me kind of grow up and learn shit and learn who I am and what I want to be in the world. And then there are people who caught up with me along the way and have liked where I am since then. I know a lot of people got bored when I stopped posting all the sex and when I stopped partying all the time and I think that maybe part of me got bored too.

So where do I go from here? Do I archive this and start something else? Do I give it up altogether? Or do I just grab a slice of discipline and make myself write for ten minutes a day and see where it goes?

I need your help. What do you think?

venice is sinking

so we were oot and aboot last night happy houring it up and i managed to fall on my bottom not once but twice and now my foot hurts and i'm hobbling around like a gimp.

so very hot.

so very graceful.

technically though it wasn't my fault - i was wearing new shoes, so that was definitely to blame for the first tumble and the architect shoved me into traffic the second time he must have taken out an impressive insurance policy on me or something yesterday.

hmph.

anyhoo, i currently have a red wine headache and am STARVING. I'm totally craving fried potato products but there's no way i could make it to the nearest fast food outlet hobbling like i am. someone bring me mcdonalds hash browns STAT! i may die if i don't get them! seriously!

that disease comes with a hot chick and a puppy

ok if you are canadien-eh and haven't seen this week's how i met your mother, run don't walk to the nearest cbs website and watch that shizz.

brilliant, i swear. almost as good as robyn's quote in a previous episode about her coworker being a hockey player: "i'm canadian! he's a hockey player! if he was missing a tooth i'd have hit that already!"

on a discussion board i frequent, there's been some discussion about food shortages hitting the us. People are starting to hoard staples like rice n flour as the prices rise. it's interesting how food riots in africa, haiti and some asian countries barely cause a blip on the western radar (unless you are one of those crazy do-gooder radical liberals*) until costco slaps your hand for overdoing it on the starches.

while i could say amen to a fiscal impetus to cut carbs, at the same time i worry that such things will only encourage short-sighted government administrations to reward the big industrialized agriculture machines to rip out whatever crops they are currently cultivating and plant grains to the exclusion of all else, when in reality we should be looking at encouraging crop diversity and region-appropriate plantings.

le sigh.

maybe i should use some of my free time to look into starting or volunteering with organizations that plant community gardens. not that i know anything about this, and my thumb is so black i worry that it is going to fall off, but i could probably do something. it's either that or go to work for peta lobbying for soylent green.


* i'm clearly saying this tongue in cheek.

dang

man i'm sorry. this working thing where i have no access to a computer really sucks. it's seriously interrupting my casual computering time and i resent it thoroughly.

not completely, though, 'cause i am anticipating my paycheque come friday afternoon. the sister will be in town this weekend and mama needs some new spring clothes.

the architect had to finish his taxes when he first arrived home last night and i wanted burgers so by the time we finished eating it was 9pm. this (combined with the lack of alky-ma-hol i drank) led to some pretty serious insomnia - like i was up till almost one and awake before 5, fell back to sleep around 6 just in time for the alarm to go off at 6.45. now i'm waiting to get into the shower but he's been lollygagging so he's cutting into my quality scrubbing time.

le sigh.

sorry for the uninspired post... bear with me for a few more days and i will be back to your regularly scheduled randomness i swear.

yeah so?

maybe i am getting old.
wtf i don't care.

the thought of going to farina tonight and morcheeba and then bt tomorrow night just sounded... meh.

it's not like i don't love farina and don't always have a great time when i go, it's just that essjay isn't here and i am not sure how it would go without her. even last week at sharam all i kept thinking was how weird it is without the vancity crew. i know i have to get over it it's just.

just.

tonight the architect is snoring on the couch at 9.30pm. he works really hard and i fed him a whole bunch of wine when he got home. then we went down the road for dinner with tony dancer and drank some more. i came home and yakked it all up ('cause what would dinner be without a yak or two by me) (seriously - i think i should get a refund for every restaurant meal i puke) so i'm dead sober.

yeah i'm a bad blogger but i've worked all week with little/no innerweb access till i get home and when i do get home i gots da other craps to do. sue me.

no don't.

xo

stairs

i have these recurring facets of my dreams where i'm climbing something - stairs, a hill, what have you - and just as i'm about to reach the top my legs stop working and i can't climb anymore. it's like they just collapse underneath me and am pulling myself up with my arms. it's not a pleasant feeling, and it tends to carry itself into my waking life.

anyway.... so some of you may recall that my crazyexboyfriend was a hairdresser and i spent a couple years of my life as his unpaid servant (ran the kitchen in his cafe; was his salon assistant). anyhoo... for the next two weeks i'm working as a salon assistant up the road. when i went to meet'n'greet a manicurist for a wedding day treat for the sister, my mama and i, we got to chatting and it turned out the salon she works in needed a temporary underthetable type person to do some vacation coverage. it pays ten bux an hour and cash so i said heck yeah. at the end of yesterday they paid me for the few hours i've been filling in (like 5 or something). it was a really awesome feeling - walking home from a day of work with cash in hand. we went and bought wine and groceries with money i'd earned and i felt super happy and awesome. yeah i've done a couple of the cruiseship things but for some reason this felt like real work. just different. i guess i'm really not cut out to have a sugar daddy. i like paying my own way.

young dumb don't see a problem

one of the classic stories of my childhood is the time that my parents took us over to a house party. i, a wannabe foodie even at the tender age of 4, helped myself to several shrimp from a platter and promptly vomited all over the place.

i'm such a joy to bring to parties.

anyhoo, fastforward to wednesday night. a new friend is a former sushi chef and wanted to come over and cook a salmon tasting menu for the architect and i. one of the appetizers was chopped salmon tartare stuffed in a mushroom and topped with a jumbo shrimp. i ate one because i was trying to be polite - if you have gone out with me or cooked for me, you know that i rarely eat seafood or shellfish or anything (firm believer in the fact that just because it lives underwater doesn't mean it's not a bug). hop skip and jump again to 4am at which time i awoke, with a burning pain in my belly. i promptly started to yak and continued to do so until 8am, at which point the architect took me to the hospital (the er at scripps-mercy has a lovely clean ladies room, by the way, but those in the bowl air fresheners are murder on the lungs when you have your head stuck in there. i can *still* smell fake flower grandma perfume, i swear.)

a bunch of tests later, they put me on an IV of saline, supplemented with a shot of anti-nauseant and dilaudid and sent me on my way. yay narcotics!

i've been drunk since i left

so one of the folks i've met down here is this super cool vietnamese fellow who sings like dean martin. i know this is improbably and/or incongruous, but there it is. i've tried, on more than one occasion, to teach him home for a rest which is possibly the ultimate canadian drinking song. he's doing pretty well - got the tune and now just needs the lyrics down.

strangely this is the one song that i can sing without sounding like a cat that someone is using as bagpipes.

anyhoo - the architect, pho and i ended up at an irish pub last night discussing the probability of intent in the naming of various asian-type restaurants. anyone who's lived in or visited vancouver in the past ten years has probably seen pho bch nga which used to be at the corner of kingsway & victoria. pronounced phonetically, it's always worth a giggle in mixed company. ditto fuku roku. i figure that it's probably a decent sense of humour at play - why not fuck with the white folk? he figures it's not like that though... and apparently bch nga means something to do with being russian. who knew?

the episode in which raspberry tries to get back to regular blogging, and learns a valuable lesson

ok maybe no lessons. i'm too old for that sheet. i'm also too old for douchebags. heh. last night we were out watching some new friend-type folk dj at a lounge nearby and someone said something about san diego being very conservative. i haven't noticed that, since when we first moved here we lived near and spent all our time in the primary gay neighbourhood, and then promptly rented an apartment in the heart of the secondary gay community of san-dee. not so much conservativism round these parts. our companions said something about not spending any time in pb or the gaslamp, to which i replied that i'm too old to be bothered wasting my time on people who are more interested in fashion than being good to their fellow human beings.

not that there is anything wrong with fashion - i enjoy it myself rather immensely - it's just not a huge priority for me anymore, you know? maybe it never was. i've always had my own version of style.


speaking of sheets - how awesome are wedding present giftcards? currently i'm lounging between 500 thread count wonders paid for by some of the architect's extended family. i heart that.

(heh - i can see my male readers rolling their eyes and yawning at this post, by the way - sorry guys...)

been drinking since half past noon

so i'm married. who'da thunk it? not i said the fly.

i did, however, get *loaded* on my wedding night. like drunk as i haven't been drunk in a long time. the kiddo was joking how he's never seen anyone need to hold on to *everything* on their way out of the lounge. i countered with the fact that i was wearing 3.5" stilettos and dared him to give walking a shot after god knows how much wine and champagne. i did manage to avoid passing out long enough to consummate the marriage once we got back to the hotel room. i was shocked and dismayed to see that there was no evidence of it on the sheet though - someone out there may have doubted my purity. fortunately the hotel staff had sprinkled rose petals around on the bed so i could fake it.

heh.

today is the greatest

dude i'm getting married today...

workin on a mystery

so yesterday i had to sit down and create an excel spreadsheet that basically tracked my movements from this morning onwards - straight through to sunday morning. i included meal plans and shopping lists, and sent it to the architect for printing.

he was bemused - he assumed that (other than our three pm date with destiny) we were going to wing the whole weekend.

heh.

i was telling this little story to my mama and she apologized - i apparently get this obsessive need to organize and schedule from her. i mean, it's not like i'm planning on rigidly following it - in fact i haven't even looked at it since he brought it home - it's just that i find it extremely soothing to have it all written down. it sorts things out in my head to put them down on paper.

hence the bloggity, i suppose.

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

yesterday, on one of the talk threads i participate in, someone posted the topic - what's your dream job (money skills talent no object). it was interesting to me to see how many people aren't doing what they really want to be doing. and it's not like i am - here i am with days upon days of free time. i could be writing. i *should* be writing. in reality i hang out and surf the internet, read trashy novels, and clean the house. this time is kind of a gift that i'm wasting. i had all these goals for when i moved here and not really any of them has been fulfilled. i wonder if i just need some kind of structure - like is there a book or something that acts as a tool to help discipline you to write every day? like a writing class between the covers kind of thing?

i wonder.

i'm going where-ever it leads (warning - the post ahead will involve discussion of impending nuptuals)

so the wedding dress has landed and fits like the proverbial glove. not oj's glove, it's true, but a much nicer, ivory 100% silk glove. and that's all i'll say about that.

oh and i might be listening to the new constantines album. i had to acquire it through not-quite-kosher means 'cause it's not out in the us of a until the end of april. who can wait that long?

man so far (and I'm knocking on wood so repeatedly over here that the cat is all puffed up, legs akimbo, standing in the middle of the room staring at me) things are going pretty smoothly (last minute cold feet and jitters aside). the architect's tux is rented. my dress is altered and in house. restaurant reservations are made (with concessions made for yours truly the chef's nightmare) and the menu has been prepared. after party space is set up. hotel reservations are made. manicure appointments - check. saucy shoes - check. crazy sd folks invited to the afterparty - check.

we had originally planned on making cds for favours, but i think we are going to hold off on doing that until the reception. there are places where you can get the blank discs screened but it's way cheaper if you do it in lots of like 100. so for this event, i think i'm going to make cookies and put our little logo on it.

mind you, i'm seriously running out of time at this point so who really knows?

running down a dream

the architect and i had a huge fight last night and now i just want to die. it's been mostly resolved but i just feel like he completely resents me and having to support me and all this shit and i want to crawl under a rock right now, or more appropriately go running away home.

i was hanging out with a couple of people yesterday afternoon and we'd been joking about getting loaded on the stoop like white trash warriors (though we ended up just having a few beer and bs-ing for a couple of hours) and, as the day wore on, the architect got more and more pissed off about that. all this time he's been encouraging me to go out with friends and not stay home by myself during the day, and i've felt super guilty about doing that. so yesterday i did and sure enough he freaked out and now i feel so fucking awful.

i can't help but think he'd be happier and better off without me. he wouldn't have to work so much and he could do his own thing and go back to motorcycle racing and having tonnes of money and and and.

gonna wash that man

(please allow raspberry a moment as she shudders with pleasure)

dude, i forgot.

since my crazyexboyfriend and i parted ways, i've had a female hairdresser. and you know, she was pretty good: she kept up with her education and was always willing to experiment on my hair, but she was still pretty conservative and that was reflected in her style.

plus, she was a girl.

yesterday, i checked out a salon down the street. i had my hair cut by a guy for the first time in 5 years. sure he was a gay guy but it's *different* i swear. and he's got skills - you can tell the way he holds his scissors, the way he turns the hair not the hand to change the angle of the cut and therefore the way the hair will fall. it's awesome to sit there, tell him that i need a bit of length so i can updo next weekend and that's it. he takes over and even though he's running behind, gives a great cut.

this is going to be the longest 8 weeks of my life...

politics of dancing

not that this furthers my 'lose weight' cause in any way, shape or form, but i went out drinking (again) last night.

well specifically, we went out and had a burger for dinner, and then went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall. oh my god how i laughed. i mean i *heart* marshall in himym - to see him starring in something that he's written, something that is so infused with his character (wipes single tear)... just great.

warning - there is a lot of male full frontal nudity. marshall's no slouch in this area, so the ladies in the room were happy with this situation. there was, however, a lot of uncomfortable shifting from the hetero men in the group.

after the movie we went to the bar around the corner from the theatre for drinks and late night snacks (also not good for the waist). man i just need to stop drinking for the next week - if i can stop drinking i'll stop late night snacking and it will be all good. plus, no booze baby.

ok like that's going to happen.

i seriously do need to cut back on the drinking, though. i need to make a conscious effort to say 'no' to opening the second bottle of wine every evening, unless it's a special occasion. that's right - we've been downing 2 bottles every night, pretty much since we moved down here. i said it before and i imagine i'll say it again: i have no idea how californians aren't all raging alcoholics. we simply couldn't afford it in canada.

something else besides a silvery part

dude i feel like i'm getting fat. like when i went to try on dresses (non-specific dresses! really! i promise! no occasion impending (like doom) at all!) this week i was all bloaty from booze and monthly and mexican food so i was gi*NOR*mous. that's kind of all fading and i've actually *lost* weight since moving but i feel as though it's all going pear shaped.

so i've been making a concerted effort to get out walking - on friday we were out for 3.5 hours down at torrey pines climbing the bluffs and walking on the beach. yesterday (in the midst of errands) i walked 4.5miles. and today, i walked up and down a hill.

but not just *any* hill - it's the hill on texas street. the hill that's well known as an angry bitch among sd cyclists and runners. i made myself a fun little mix, put on my shortyshorts and set out to conquer that bitch.

oh and i did it, my friends, i did it and got back to the house just in time to yak up my breakfast.

tomorrow, if i can walk, i will be sure to eat *after* i get home.

heh.

grease is the word

just as long as the word is not wedding (or so I've been told)...... welll heck it's not my fault - i'm deeply obsessed, at the moment, and can't see much beyond the flowers and dress alterations.

so saturday night my long lost sister and went down to the aero bar on india street - that's the spot that i discovered the joys of sunday night drinking. they were throwing some kind of party for people who use yelp. yelp's nothing in canada (though it should be) but it's huge down here - kind of like myspace but with a function. check it out yourselfs.

i was drunk when i got there - like we'd (and let's not kid it was mostly me) drank two bottles of wine before leaving the house - so when we arrived and they started handing out whiskey shots who'm I to say no? so of course as it is when i get this way, flirty raspberry comes out to play and i'm all huggy and stuff and i'm not sure my friend has ever seen me this way... but whatevs it's all good and then all of a sudden i'm *too* drunk to be there anymore.

so of course we step outside and pay the pizza delivery guy $20 to take us home. why settle for a taxi ride when you can risk life and limb being delivered in 30minutes or less? fucking hell now i know why sometimes when you get your 'za the toppings have all travelled over to one side of the pie. i seriously didn't think i was going to make it home - and really i would have taken death as long as i didn't yak the contents of my belly all over the back of that pizza soiled chariot to hell.