one butt fuck of a shitty year

First the softball to the head. Then the sprained left ankle and dislocated foot bone while walking the dogs... And now the other ankle sprained. I am the frickin queen of klutzs. When I die, they will canonize me and make me the patron saint of klutzs. I deserve it.

RIP, my heart

The last picture taken of my darling Tootsiepop. Good bye Princess-poop-a-lot. You are loved.

day12029: the skinny on being single

Most days the freedom and the lack of responsibility to another person is wonderful and a heck of a lot of fun. But then you realize that it makes you slightly uneasy that everyone else around you is married and popping out babies faster than bunnies in springtime and then you start to wonder (for the briefest of moments) if the matter really is you and not the boys you've gone out with.

day12001: it's always depressing when you hit another thousand

some things I've learned in the past few days:
- I have an incredibly strong right hand that now is crippled from squeezing a piping bag filled with stupidly made royal icing
- melted gummi bears looks like snot
- the business sideof things really sucks
- I'm ready to retire to a country home with a garden to putter in and enough whimsy to lure over the neighbourhood fairies

day11994.5: where are all the cool guys in this city

I cannot believe that I'm talking to a guy who considers himself a foodie but counts Memories of Japan amongst his top three favourite Japanese restaurants. I never considered myself a food snob but c'mon...crappy tapanyaki? Really?
I give up. I'm joining a nunnery.

day 11994: beginning... middle... ...

I've never been good at finishing things that I've started.

day 11990: ugh...

It appears that my pet has adopted a pet of her own. While I was the kid who loved earthworms and carried tic-tac boxes of them to kindergarten, parasitic worms don't really do it for me. Especially not after the recent fish incident.

Tonight we make yet another trip to the pet doctors. If their reception area was anything like the check-in desk at the airport, I'd have my own special elite line and maybe even a private jet.

day 11989: happy birthday, da

Hope the sun is shining wherever you are... haven't heard from you recently. Give me a call, hm?

day 11973: not as cool as you think i am

I’ve lost my cool.

This assumes that I actually was cool once upon a time which is infinitely preferable over never having been cool in the first place.

Little by little, my cool snuck away. All that remains is a not-so-cool girl (am I too old to call myself a girl?) who is trying desperately to cling on to some semblance of coolness. Mission impossible. I really should give up.

First to go was the clothes. Fashion trends were for kids. Black and white scarves in the middle of summer were for idiot tweens who don’t sweat in humidity. Anyway, in declining economic times, there isn’t enough money for a new wardrobe if I can’t find a sugardaddy… one must divert anything and everything to the truly important causes… food and housing. Since the ankle sprain, I’ve been wearing sneakers a lot instead of my flip flops. This morning I realized that wearing them with my business clothes makes me look like Ellen. No wonder I can’t get a second date.

Next to go was the coordination. I fall down a lot. Walk into walls, trip over rocks, sprained ankles, broken toes and torn ass cheeks… that’s classic me. What can I say? Even the homeless guys have started avoiding me when I walk down the street. This morning I took a header in my condo lobby and landed ass up in front of a gaggle of hot banker guys. It wasn’t even a graceful “oops I tripped”… it was a full on splat. What a way to make an impression.

And then there was the last straw… away went the driving skills (which actually scares me the most because I frickin love to drive). I suppose I’ve been walking too much and driving too little in recent months. I’ve started cursing like an asian mother when the idiots on the road ignore my signal light and won’t let me into their lanes. Ai-ya. Ai-ya. Twice in the same day I found myself driving around in circles around loading docks because I entered some do-not-enter areas. Might as well put on the welder’s mask, have both hands on the wheel and leave a signal light blinking… oh wait… I already do…

… except for the welder’s mask… that’s so not cool.

day 11941: shuck u

where: Oyster Boy on Queen W.
how much: $35
what you get: info, oysters & a shucking knife...
worth it: hell yeah!!

Five more days until Cali. Hopefully, I can find some awesome oysters from a fish market somewhere so that Sista, Bro-in-law and I can have a feast! Hm, I wonder if you can shuck (and eat) oysters while at Opera in the park... maybe we'd need to bring a big bunch of wet naps. And lots more oysters for everyone around us.

Awesomeness.

burnt.

need vaca.

now.

day 11892: sharing tears

How does one not share the pain of a family in the vet's office waiting to end the suffering of a dear, dear friend? Despite our recent endless loop of vet appointments, today was the first time I encountered a grieving family. Witnessing someone else's pain is a truly heartwrenching experience. I've been tearing up all day.

I'm afraid that when it comes my turn to make the decision, I won't be able to do it. This might be the one thing that would kill me.

day ?????: what's in an age

Someone mentioned once that it'd be pretty awkward to date someone closer in age to your parents than to you. I think I would probably have to agree with that. Not that I've done it.

But I have considered it...

day 11872: out of the darkness and into the limelight

It's been rather disconcerting to check the statmeter on my business site to discover suddenly that people have been finding me by googling my real name rather than my business name. It's more disconcerting that I have no idea whether these people are actually interested in buying something from me or whether these people are potential dates pre-stalking me.

The stakes are suddenly higher... and I don't like it one bit. Is it ok if I crawl back under the rock from whence I came?

day 11864: a "huh" moment

Interesting... I just called home and I think my mother is drunk. Or super tired. Otherwise, I'm not sure how else to explain why she asked me (multiple times) what I was doing. Because doing nothing a mere 30 seconds ago still means that I'm doing absolutely nothing.

Actually, I just didn't want her to know that I was sitting at home drinking by myself. It's been an odd kind of week.

day 11860: not concussed

Random thought of the day... I'd be extremely disappointed if I went to Ireland and the air did not smell like Irish Spring.

day 11849: uh

Rachel Getting Married is not a happy movie.

Definitely not something to watch when you're feeling down and looking for a pick me up.

day 11845: 524,600 minutes x 5 + 24 hrs for the leap year

This morning, I walked into the monkeyco offices to a cube decorated with balloons and streamers. WTF, I thought, my birthday is in December! It wasn't even my second birthday (March 17) or my third birthday (May 5). Someone in HR must have gotten it wrong... the clowns.

HA.

Joke was on me of course. Bosslady (aka TAB aka QWW) remembered that yesterday was my 5th anniversary with monkeyco and spent the early hours of the morning decorating my cube. She even baked me a cake, which was pretty darn awesome since I baked my last birthday cake. Yes, I have a darn great boss - you should be jealous.

Mired in my own Monday morning misery, I had totally forgotten. It had never even crossed my mind that 5 years had gone by so quickly... (well most days... some days dragged for decades) and while I know I complain a lot and generally pray for days to go by faster, there's a part of me that wishes that life would slow down and stop pulling me along.

5 years is a long time. Some days I wonder if I have anything to show for it except for an expanded waistline from all that cake.

day 11841: new toys and new boys...

So sue me, things have been a little busy... I've done a complete 180 from a non-dater to a super dater. Have met a lot of new people, have had a lot of worlds collide, but alas, no keepers. I bought a new little netbook toy for myself. Still undecided/uncertain about the teeny weeny keyboard, but it's only been a couple of hours of playtime and things seem to be a little more fluid already. Have been trying to figure out how to build a living wall for my condo - unfortunately, my thumb does not appear to be any shade of green whatsoever, so maybe I'll be hacking myself a fakey to pretend.

Oh, and thank goodness for bio-degradable vanilla scented dog poopy bags.

day 11805: nameless faces

I have a feeling that my neighbour is a local celebrity. Either that, or I've started recognizing random people who walk through my lobby. But she did mention that she was going to get to meet the Dog Whisperer... and solely because of that, I'm all agog.

Happy one year anniversary of me getting my condo back. Yeehaw! Still lovin' it.

day 11796: at long last

Spring has arrived... finally... happiness resumes.

Sappy happy pappiness comes again!

day "who the heck even cares anymore": at wit's end

I give up.

day 11770: mad as punch

Recently, I have been so incredibly mad at the antagonists in my books that I want to jump in the pages and beat them up.

day 11768: my story

Just as I think things are starting to go my way, life has a way of turning upside down.

Peachy-keen-fantastical...

day 11750: one sided conversation...

"Hey, how was your night? What were you up to? Me? Nothing really. Played some volleyball. Broke some guy's leg. You know, the usual."

day 11749: beaten to the punch

Gosh darn it... someone's already used "Lowered Expectations" as their plentyoffish nickname. pfft...

day 11747: nagging at the back of my mind...

Change is in the air... I can feel it. Something is about to happen.

day 11746: the last word

I'm starting to doubt my ability to judge peoples' characters. Sometimes I wonder if it really does take me years longer to see the things that others see well ahead of me. So many people - so much time and energy wasted.

day 11740: oh wacky day...

First, the BRAT eats my glasses and I spend an extremely blurry day wearing months old contact lenses that I'd forgot to throw out (i.e. the ONLY pair of contact lenses I had downtown).


Then I spend the day making a gigantic poo, and rushing around trying to get a pair of glasses or contacts so I can see again.

day 11736: nearing the end

I'm sitting here drinking Prosecco from the bottle procrastinating from doing the work I know I have to do. I should be sleeping or at best relaxing to prep myself for yet another full day of complete bah-humbuggery that is only a short, few hours away.

I'm close to ending it. I don't think I can take this anymore.

What a waste of a perfectly good life. I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

day 11735: chain

Back in the day, at elementary school #5, we used to have to go to another classroom and grade the younger kids as they read to us from the Victory Drill (i.e. some strange Christian reading tool where you read as fast as you can for a minute and someone else listens to hear if you're pronouncing the words correctly, thereby ensuring that you move through the ranks of private school semi-literal). My kid could barely read, but the kid in front was a superstar.

I would never had thought of it, except that somehow this morning I started thinking about China, then about my trip to China, then about how Da paid hotel concierge to lend us their bikes so we could ride through the Chinese countryside, then about how we met up with my sister's grade 3 teacher in HK where we gave her a turbobroiler and she bought us some of those old handheld Nintendo beep-beep games and then about the old elementary school #5... and then somehow I started thinking about the Victory Drill and how they thought I was giving the kid low marks because I was being a bully to her, but in reality I could barely hear her, and she really was pronouncing the words incorrectly - which was probably because she was nervous and scared of me, but what the heck.... and why did I waste 10 minutes of my morning thinking and blogging about this in one really long run-on sentence?

day 11734: irony, thoust be my dog's name

Whiskey, aka THE BRAT, is a ball of constant energy. She is cute, she is hyper... she is the typical lab and chews everything under the sun - including the electrical cords. Marley is nothing next to the dog who electrocuted herself and woke up the next morning to try to do it all over again. You'd think she'd learn.

She doesn't. Not really.

She shreds papers, jumps up onto the counter, hides under the bed and eats my booger-filled tissues from the toilet. She likes to put her toys on the counter or the table just to watch them fall off and then runs happily after anything and everything that catches her eye... including the baggie of pot she found buried deep under the snow in front of my building.

She's talented, this one. Definitely a lot more talented than the other one.

day 11721: i resolve not to make any stupid resolutions

2008 kinda blew. Who the heck am I kidding? 2008 really blew. It felt like I was phasing in and out of consciousness and all of a sudden in a blink of an eye, it was over. I hope it’s not always going to be like that, because if it is, I give up. I don’t want to wake up one morning only to find that suddenly I’m old and wrinkled with a thick woman mustache and a lot of saggy things where things shouldn’t be sagging.

There was a lot on my mind this past year while I tried to deal with the problems that plagued me. I burnt out again (seems to be happening more and more frequently) and my old anger management issues started coming out of the woodworks. My patience level whittled away down to below acceptable levels and responding to things in an adult manner became more and more difficult as the days passed.

If only there was one day a year when we could all resort to a kiddie-furniture-throwing temper tantrum, I’d be a much more calm and collected person.

Or maybe people should just stop pissing me off.