day 10296: hypothetically… “what about jet li or maybe a porno…?”

“Baby, I have an idea… and it’s entirely up to you. But how do you feel about having dinner with my mom tonight?”

Scary. Scary. Um. Yeah. I’m ok with that. Phew.

You can’t blame me for trying. I was feeling guilty for not wanting to make the trek into suburbia for New Year’s Eve dinner. I only wanted to go to Chinatown, wander around buying candies and flowers and absorb my one dose of Chinese culture for the year. But then someone said that Chinatown was severely lacking in New Year’s decorations this year, and that the only place worth going was Pacific Mall…

Pacific Mall it was to be. Except that it’s even further into suburbia than the maternal one’s house and so I compromised to appease my guilt. Snacks and time with my mother, and then later in the night he’d pick me up when he got off work and we’d go to the mall.

(I think they’re warming up to each other…)

She made him a New Year’s package to put beside his bed – lucky red envelope, candies and special tangerines with the stems and leaves still attached. He gave her a hug and a “Hope you feel better!” and off we went, care packages in hand…

“I can’t believe we got the first spot!!! Right by the door!” he is positively crowing with excitement, “I MUST tell someone… maybe Candy… she’d think it’s cool…”

We wander the mall, walking from one closed store to the next… peering into windows and laughing at the yellow happy-face condom lamp in the “18 and over, ID will be checked” store.

“Damn, I don’t know what I want. I don’t know how to buy bras without my mother…” I NEED A TRANSLATOR. I finger a lacy one, and shake my head at the saleswoman when she tries to hand me a beige plastic-cup-looking one. I was thinking more along the lines of something red, silky and “hmmm… yummy…” reactionary.

“How do you usually buy them then?”

“I stay in the dressing room and try on whatever they throw at me.”

“I could critique them for you…” He smiles, pretends to leer at me and off we go in search of snacks, candies and the world’s worse bubble tea (note to self… never go to Bubble Tease at the top of the escalators EVER AGAIN!).

“I don’t like any of the flowers…” I’m disappointed by the lack of decorations, things to see and things to buy. Somehow I remember it being a lot more festive, glorious and happy. It looks like no one wanted to go through the hassle of trying this year. I had wanted it to be perfect and cool, something wonderful to share with he-who-is-openly-uncomfortable-because-he-is-a-token-white-guy-in-a-completely-oriental-mall.

“What is your favourite flower?” he asks. Pink roses… I can see where this is heading. I think I know what he’s planning… mmmm…

We wander around upstairs. We wander around downstairs; into the $5 dvd stores browsing selections of *hush* non-legit dvds. It’s hard to resist. It costs less than renting.

“I don’t know where to look.” I snicker. “In the other store, Debbie Does Da World is on the top shelf… in this store, it’s Co-Ed Consorts on the bottom. I drop a dime, bend down to pick it up and look up to see nothing but tits and teeth and ass…”

He hands me three dvds… we need one more for the 4 for $20 “bargain deal.” He scans the shelf, “What about Jet Li?” Turns to me and grins… “Or maybe a porno…”

I laugh, toss him Beauty and the Breast* and move on to the next aisle…

Kung hei fat choy… wishing you happiness and prosperity in the year of the Rooster… and all that jazz…

[*ed note: Beauty and the Breast was not a typo. Not was it porn. More like some idiotic Chinese-director thinking he’s oh-so-funny with his awesome, hilarious play on words… just because his movie is about breast-enlargement cream.]

day 10295: show me some luvin’

Princess-poop-a-lot craves… no… DEMANDS attention. She paws at you when she wants to be picked up. She rolls over onto her back when she wants her tummy rubbed… she’ll even jump onto your lap when you sit down for a pee.

She knows the perfect way of achieving maximum response with minimum effort. She lies in wait, oh so patiently, for the moment that your eyes flutter open… then all hell breaks loose and she’s at it again… nudging her head into your hand and licking at your fingertips if you don’t react quickly enough to give her the morning pat.

And when you try to ignore her, because you’re “occupied elsewhere,” she runs to the garbage can, tips it over with a loud clatter and starts pawing and nosing nosily at the contents. You can’t help but stop doing what you’re doing to look over… and then all hell breaks loose again.

day 10294: yikes

[Note to self… if you think of something really good to blog about, make sure you do it right away. If you get sidetracked thinking about “something else” you will forget what the heck you were going to say. And any subsequent thing you write will be absolute crap.]

And now back to our regular scheduled program…

realization...

If you spend the whole weekend eating, you'll have no time left to nap it off. This will lead to extreme fullness and general grumpiness from lack nap-sleep.

day 10291: snippets

…on discussion of good v-day restaurants…

Bossman: Moral of the story is… if you’re ever having an affair, you should go to that restaurant.
J: Thanks, but I’m not into that kind of thing.
B: You never know.

… IdiotChick on the climb next to me while I try to lead a 5.10b (35’ off the ground)…

IC: Looks hard.
[no-duh]
IC: And I’m stupid (tries to show me her long, perfectly manicured fingers)
J: Yup, you are…

…maternal one trying to schedule last minute “family” activities…

M: You can’t do it on Wednesday. It’s New Years…
J: But I scheduled it in for Wednesday. You can’t just spring something on me last minute… I’m fully booked.
M: So how long in advance do I have to give you notice?
J: (looking at calendar) Three weeks.

…in the locker room at the gym …

J: (pinching newly-noticed stomach jello-roll)Do you think I look any chubbier?
T: Is that an “Am I fat question?” How can you possibly expect me to answer that?
J: Honestly.
T: Yeah right. I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.
J: No really… I promise I won’t hit you.
T: Then no. Not that I’ve noticed.
J: Good, cuz I’ve been constantly hungry for the past couple of weeks and I’ve been stuffing my face.
T: ARE YOU PREGNANT? Have you noticed any other changes in your body?
J: (SLAP) NO! But I think my boobs are getting smaller.
T: Yeah, I’ve noticed that too.
J: (SLAP)

…to a co-worker…

J: Sooo hungry all the time. Been constantly hungry for the past couple of weeks.
S: ARE YOU PREGNANT?”
J: Hell no! Why does everyone keep saying that?
S: Just to bug you.

…in the locker room at the gym, part II…

J: Why are you looking at me that way?
T: No reason… (starts laughing)
J: WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING AT ME?
T: (snicker) Because it kills you not knowing.
J: (SLAP)

…KC calling from San Fran…

J: I was going to call you Sunday to say Happy Birthday.
KC: It’s not my birthday.
J: Damn, I already messed up on Paul’s B-day this week. Not another one.
KC: Haha… you’re losing it.
J: Yeah, I’m forgetting things… must be age. So when is your birthday?
KC: Sunday.

day 10289: oh to be witty

If only I could be witty, or funny, or even spectacularly brilliant, I could dazzle you with words and let everyone think that I am a literary superhero with tons of lovely things to say and actual interesting thoughts to read. Scores of random strangers would shower me with love and praise every day and tell me how envious they are about my wonderfully exciting life and how cute my dear little puppy dog is and how much they just want to cover her up in bbq sauce and gobble her up.

I could be interviewed by The North York Mirror or The Bayview Post (because every semi-decent newspaper seems to be doing an article on blogs), and they’d do a perfectly inspired article on me, my life and the secret identity behind this site, which would not remain secret for very long, I supposed. I could even have my own column and be the Asian-Canadian version of Carrie from Sex in the City. Oh joy of joys.

Of course, it would embarrass my mother to no end. We couldn’t have that. But it could lead to some literary agent (or editor or similar person with equally good connections) calling me out of the blue and demanding to see the first three chapters for a book I have yet to even begin thinking of writing… and definitely do not have time to even start thinking of. And the money would roll in.

If only.

Then I’d be filled with a sense of wonder and purpose and oh-my-god-I’m-so-popular-amongst-strangers thoughts. My life would be perfect and rosy and so-oh-my-god-I’ve-found-my calling. My site meter would soar to infinite numbers and I’d have my fifteen minutes of fame.

Except that I’ve already had my life-time-allotted-fifteen minutes of fame. You see, I was a child television star.

[gasp]

At the tender age of six or maybe it was seven or maybe even five, I made my first appearance on NATIONAL TELEVISION.

[insert wild studio audience cheering and clapping]

Yes, I was on… are you ready for this…? I was on Just Like Mom. The game show that every kid wanted to be on just because you got to spin the wheel and try to win the trip to DISNEYLAND. Because DISNEYLAND is the happiest place on earth and only the very lucky of lucky children get to go to DISNEYLAND.

Joy of joys.

They bundled me up in my television-best… purple sweatshirt and a matching purple skirt (with white hearts… ooooh), safety pinned a white pompom to my chest (oh, so cute), curling-ironed my hair to try to get my cowlick to stay down and sent me (and my mom… get it… Just Like Mom) trotting off to the studio.

Think of it like the Newlywed Game , only you’re laughing at children instead of blonde-sex-hazed bimbos. Oh, and there's a bake-off.

I was sleepy, I was tired. I was confused like a penguin in Florida. I didn’t answer a single question correctly, didn’t know the meaning of the word “pasta,” baked an amazingly mayonnaise-filled chocolate chip cookie (I love mayo, so everyone else must love mayo in their cookies) and ended up losing to a girl named Allison. Allison, who looked like she was from California and was a good couple of years older than me. WHO DIDN'T EVEN SPIN THE WHEEL PROPERLY SO SHE DIDN'T WIN THE TRIP TO DISNEYLAND!!!

[gasp... horror...horror]

I would have won. Instead, all I got was a bunch of soap, a watch and t-shirt that said “I was on JUST LIKE MOM” which I wore when I went to DISNEYLAND later that year anyway. Which reminds me... I think I was five.

So what was the point of all this? Oh yeah… if only I was witty.

Overheard at Shoppers...

I need to buy a crapload of condoms, cuz I've been having tons of sex recently!!

Thanks for sharing... you must be what? thirteen?

day 10288: what to say to make the hurt go away?

It was a whole day of self-inflicted mental torment. It was something I didn’t want to do, but knew it had to be done. Last night, I told Serious Boy that he and I could never be, and that dinner and a movie was probably not a good idea.

I rehearsed the conversation in my head over and over. I discussed it with BMW. I tried rehearsing it with Bo, but ended up hamming it up and making jokes about eloping with my highest-bidder over the weekend and how my newly-wedded-bliss would not approve of me going on a date with another man. She said it would be a learning experience and so long as the conversation didn’t turn into coffee and coffee didn’t turn into lunch, then I’d be fine.

Just go with the flow and tell him the truth, she said. I tried. I really tried, but ended up mucking things up and making sad little excuses about how I wasn’t comfortable in the situation and how he was JB’s friend and how it was wierding me out a bit.

I probably should have told him about my weekend instead, and how I spent in on the beach with my highest-bidder… maybe he’d make some sort of conclusion and save me the agony and guilt.

He said he didn’t really understand. And quite honestly, I couldn’t even begin to explain it to him. I don’t really understand either. I babbled and blurted so many random things that I really couldn’t keep track of what garbage came out of my mouth. I should have just been honest with him from the beginning… I am flattered, and while I like you as a friend, I don’t think our relationship will ever progress beyond “just friends.”

At the end of it all, we agreed to be somewhat friends and if I should ever change my mind, then to let him know. He made it clear that he wasn’t hung up about his ex-es and that he was just very open and forthcoming if the topic ever came up… except that he brought the topic up in the first place and he shouldn’t have known that it was a concern of mine to begin with if JB hadn’t told him that I asked about it…

day 10287: the grand gesture

It’s finally over. All the effort, stress and anticipation of the last few weeks culminated on Friday night in one big glorious bash. They came, drank and donated as they partook in the night’s entertainment… a kick ass dj, a very funny comedy act, and of course, the long-dreaded bachelor/bachelorette auctions.

Apart from a couple of hiccups midday (i.e. half the alcohol thought to be lost in transit), a few “issues” with the seating arrangements, and a dinner that was delayed by an hour, everything flowed as it should. I laughed, I flirted, I looked “absolutely, smashingly, amazing” in my stunning black dress (quote Triscuit’s mother). I went up on stage three times in front of 525 people - once to accept a plaque on behalf of my very generous monkeyco, once to be sold to the highest bidder, and once to auction off the “very white Barry White” to the highest bidder.

My hands were frozen, my face was flaming, my nerves were shot, but the adrenaline flowed. I flitted, floated, glided oh-so-gracefully as AK65 paraded me across the stage. Bidding commenced and before I really realized what was happening, it was down to Serious Boy and Triscuit. Increments of ten, then twenty and then fifty… and sold for $350 to Triscuit.

Triscuit who bought the cow when he could have the milk for free… who claims that it was a donation for a good cause when really we’ve had debates and arguments over the support of this cause over the other equally worthy causes in the world… who knew he was supposed to bid, but didn’t necessarily have to win… Triscuit.

The rest of the weekend was spent in relative relaxation – shopping at the St. Lawrence Market, staying up into the early hours of morning patching holes in the ice rink, cursing the kids, reading Playboy jokes to each other, and watching the coyotes run wild down the path.

day 10284: on the block

I feel my insides turning themselves inside out. I can’t think. I can’t work. My mouth is dry, my nerves are completely shot, and all my instincts are telling me to go home, crawl into bed and pray for it to be tomorrow instead of today.

In less than 12 hours, I’m going to be sold to the highest bidder.

What possessed me to agree to this? What on earth possessed me to champion it as a “great fundraising idea?” What the HECK was I thinking?

I don’t know…

I can’t remember…

All I can think of right now is standing on stage in front of 525 people, humbled and hoping that someone out there will bid for me and that the person I want to bid on me will fork out the $$ to win… a date with me…

My mother is going to be there. Triscuit’s mother and grandmother are going to be there. Serious Boy is going to be there. I’m terrified that someone will say something or someone will let something slip. So many people’s feelings involved. So many people to consider…

Somebody hold me… please… I think I’m about to breakdown…

day 10281: the secret to saving money...

Someone said to take baby steps and start saving by packing a lunch. So I started packing a lunch, but I never ate it. Twelve o'clock hits, my stomach starts to grumble and inevitably, the thing I'm craving is not what I packed. For a while, I ended up spending MORE money by packing a lunch - the costs of packing and the costs of buying something everyday anyway.

Recently, it dawned on me how I could make myself eat my packed lunch. I just need to pack things that I really like to eat... like cookies, ice cream or chocolate cake... mmmm...

Baby steps... it's all about the baby steps.

day 10280: I’m in love…

I fell in love today with the prettiest little thing - two of the prettiest little things, actually. I saw them, fell in love, and prayed to the gods above that they would fit. And they did.

The first is black with a halter that ties around the neck and cuts low in the back, with gold/silver beads, white trim and a hem that is cut diagonally… sleek, sexy, multi-occasion kind of thing… The second - turquoise with pink embroidered flowers, spaghetti straps, one line of ruffles on top, more ruffles on the diagonal bottom… cute, funky, something completely out of character for me… both are gorgeous and sexy and totally, utterly hot... even if I do say so myself. But then the lady in the store said the same thing, so it must be true.

I must get them. Even if they do cost almost a week’s salary.

Boys, you may all commence drooling – bidding will start at $50…

day 10279: meeting the parents…

“Be nice,” I said to him. “Don’t be so nervous. She’s really not as bad as you think she is… you only hear my bitching and complaining stories. Besides, I’ve met your mom.”

“Be nice,” I told her. “We’re just friends. He’s been there when I needed him.”

They don’t like each other. Never have. One is scared to death of the other; the other is scared to death of what the other might do to me.

They’ve seen one another a few times before. No words were spoken, no pleasantries exchanged. He called it the stare of “what-they-heck-are-you-doing-in-my-daughter’s-house” and said that it was hard to get to know someone you knew didn’t like you. She called him “that-one-who-didn’t-even-have-the-decency-to-say-hi.”

He may of... and if he did, she never heard him.

Beer delivery, 32 cases of Sleeman… my car filled almost to the brim…

“Mom, this is Triscuit. Triscuit, this is my mom, my aunt and my uncle.”

Pleasantries were exchanged. Conversation was made. Neither felt particularly comfortable, but both survived relatively unscathed.

Hurdle 1 cleared.

day 10277: today makes up for all the helluva-crap that happened yesterday

Yesterday was a helluva crappy-ass day. Freak gym accident (no one I know personally), notwithstanding, it had to be one of the most stressful days of my life… bad things at work, left my purse in a cab, scared to death with paranoia that the ambulance was for Triscuit… etcetera, etcetera…

But today… ahhh today... is THAT much better. I’ve heard back from almost all my corporate sponsors (all good news, too, btw), ticket sales for An Evening for Humanity are soaring through the roof, and it’s Friday. Finally.

What more could a girl ask for… :)

day 10276: if only i could print out the images in my mind

Sunrise. Pale pink light seeping through the distant clouds far off in the horizon… the sky is perfectly clear right above. Blue, tinged with streaks of yellow, the lake is calm and undisturbed; the light barely reflecting off the surface. The sun rises a fiery orange ball and reaches its pink tipped fingers towards us beckoning, teasing us to feel the warmth of its touch while our breathes puff in the cold morning air.

Later through the window, as the scenery moves quickly by, a flock of startled starlings fly en mass, framed in pink and yellow sky… the morning sunlight reflecting off their feathers.

day 10275: woo me with words

I love emails that make you go aw-shucks, blush and feel all warm and gooey inside. I got one of those last night.

It made me go aw-shucks, blush and feel all warm and gooey inside.

And then I dissected it with BMW to get the guy-perspective.

day 10274: i’ve got nothing on my mind…

It happened one Saturday afternoon. A phone call, then a not-so-innocent text message born out of tiredness, pent up frustration, and a lot of mischievousness, “If I was nothing, you could do me all day…”

“Doing nothing” took on a completely new meaning. It was something to look forward to, something to daydream about, something that would completely take our breaths away. It was our little secret - something that we could say in front of other people when they asked us what we did the evening before. Just like how married people call it “laundry.”

Except that sometimes doing nothing really means just doing nothing. Confusing isn’t it? Especially when you ask the boy what he’s doing tonight and he says “nothing…maybe laundry… oh, I meant real laundry…”

day 10273: of all the weird and wonderful things… but name dropping at mickey-d’s??

”thank you on behalf of bo…”

I was in Mcdonald's just now. A woman approached the counter – obviously a little out of it since she budded the entire line and just went up to order. First she wanted water and then she wanted milk, but didn't have enough to pay for the milk. So, instead, she asked for water again and tried to pay for it with a handful of change saying "Thank you on behalf of Bo..."

Strange, I thought, so I asked her how she knew "Bo" and she started rambling off another series of names that made no sense to me whatsoever. I bought her a drink, she lost interest and wandered off.

Bo has no idea who she might be - just that it is a very, very strange coincidence... but kind of a scary one too…

”so why didn’t you and jb ever get together…”

Coffee turned into dinner.

Friday night, my “nerves of steel” failed me, and a frantic phone call was placed to Bo one hour prior to the designated meeting time. Desperation. Panic. The works. Extreme butterflies in my stomach.

“It’s only coffee, not a proposal…” JB’s words rang in my head; not even close to being comforting. Terrifying, more like it.

“Pretend it’s like a job interview…” someone said. We all know how well I do at those.

“Will I recognize him?” I asked, “I haven’t seen him in more than a month.” I had my doubts. I’m not good with names and faces. Everyone looks familiar to me. Response to George’s email was “You look familiar… do I know you from somewhere? DBoat maybe?”

Dinner with Serious Boy (an apt moniker, for sure… he really is the strong, silent type) was fun. Conversation flowed. The food was good. He even passed the sashimi test with flying colours, eating things that even I wouldn’t eat.

But he talked about his exes. Three of them. And then he asked me why JB and I never got together. I hemmed, I hawed, I was jaw-dropping-shocked at the question and stammered out the typical… “But it’s JB.”

We talked about movies and Sideways, and how we both heard that it was fabulous, and did I want to see it next week at Cumberland. “I’m completely swamped,” I said, “What with the fundraiser and all.”

“When do I get to see you again?”

“I don’t know…”

So I invited him over to watch football yesterday with JB, BMW, D & Plboy. The Colts lost, JB’s wings rocked, the nachos were soggy, my puppy-maternal-instincts are back, and all-in-all it was a good time. On the way out, he turned back and handed me a chocolate bar… something we had talked about on Friday, but I’d completely forgotten up until then. 60% cocoa… dark chocolate… mmmm…

I’m still not sure and I think I’m making excuses, but at least I loved the chocolate.

”because you love chocolate…”

Triscuit can be surprisingly sweet at times…completely unexpected and out of the blue. It reminds me of why I fell for him in the first place, and makes it hard for me to forget the gulf of distance that should remain between us. After all, how many guys do you know who would break up a Crunchie bar and hand you all the chocolaty pieces because he thinks you like the chocolate part the best even though you really like the sponge toffee.

My fault for always eating it outside in, chocolate first… saving the best part for last…

day 10270 ½: when it rains, it pours…

Getting little butterflies in my tummy thinking about tonight’s coffee. Should be fun, I think.

On a stranger note… walking out of Terroni’s after lunch today, Bo and I bumped into someone I haven’t seen since the summer. In his words, “J! I thought I recognized those beautiful girls!”

It's funny. I once had an itty-bitty-teeny-weeny-little crush on him.

Got back to the office and promptly sent off an email to him asking if he’d be interested in being sold on the Evening for Humanity auction block. Who knows… maybe I’ll bid on him myself… if Serious Boy doesn’t work out.

Have a good weekend guys… it’s going to be a busy one!

day 10270: “don’t screw around tonight…it’s not good for your neck”

Am I allowed to rant and rave about the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of the Canadian health system if I know nothing about the political background, cutback crap or overworked doctors and nurses?

I had not planned on spending last night in the hospital. I had planned on going to the climbing gym like every other Thursday night, putting in a good three and a half hours of grunting and sweating as I conquered the climbs that have consistently thwarted me, going home, having a nice little cuddle, and that’s about it.

I hadn’t planned on someone decking on the climb beside my climbing partner, hitting him in the head and then sitting in the hospital with him for three hours of worrying and hand-wringing only to be briefly examined by a suspect-competent doctor (patient before us had a cast put on too tightly by the same doctor) and sent on our merry little way.

No Xrays. No painkillers. Nothing but a “Why weren’t you wearing a helmet?” to which our response would be… “Because Dr. Doctor, if you were paying any attention whatsoever, a helmet would not have prevented the type of injury we’re here to have checked out. We’re talking neck compression injury here, not brain trauma. Two completely different things…no, there was no blood…no, you cannot practice your stitching on us.”

If only they understood how much it would have to hurt for Triscuit to even agree to go to the hospital and how much convincing it took (as well as a phone call to his mom) to get him there. If they understood that, they’d send him into the Xray room asap.

This morning, I dropped him off at the First Canadian Place clinic. A few text messages and a phone call later, I find out that he’s given up on getting an Xray because of bureaucratic red-tape which requires him to have a doctor’s requisition and not one from a chiro. Thick-headed silly boy that he is sometimes, he walked out of the clinic because they didn’t say that they would schedule him to see a doctor. And he didn’t push back.

So now, he’s taken off the brace, gone into work and said to-hell-with-it-all and if his neck fails, then he knows something was seriously wrong with it. Otherwise, his chiro doesn’t think it’s too bad (from listening to his description over the phone) so therefore, it’s perfectly fine.

One word… IDIOT.

Why do I worry about someone who refuses to worry about himself?

day 10269: my eyes are open, i'm smiling, but there's nobody home

Happily befuddled state midway through the afternoon. It's been an interesting morning...

...ever see hoards of hungry seniors at a free lunch... and open bar... yeah... interesting...

:)

day 10268: days like these, i just wish i had a pair of crampons…

The more that’s going on in my life, the less I feel like talking about it. Strange, no?

These past few weeks have been filled with soap-opera-frenzy. Friends angry at friends, people backing out of commitments, stressed filled days, sleepless nights, indecisions, guilt trips, Triscuit, and a whole slew of “we’re-engaged-he-finally-proposed!” Ticket sales for An Evening for Humanity are slowly creeping up, corporate sponsorship is finally starting to come in line and everything is coming together quite nicely. Not exactly what we expected, but better than we had hoped given the situation. It should turn out to be a grand party for an even better cause. If you haven’t bought your ticket yet – go click on the link and buy today.

I must admit that I’m a little nervous about Friday night’s “coffee.” - a little excited, a little curious, a little of everything at the same time. I’ve never been for “coffee” before, so I’m a little apprehensive about the awkward moments after the so-what-do-you-do-for-a-living lines. Except that we’ve already covered that bit before, and small talk has never really been my forte.

No pressure, right?

day 10266: it’s only coffee… not like he’s proposing or anything

It just happened out of the blue. An email, completely unexpected, from the middle of nowhere…

So in lieu of the football party would you be interested in going out for some coffee, or maybe even dinner, with me sometime this week?

I’m rather surprised. To say the least, I’m flattered. I’ve only met Serious Boy once before - the time I cleaned him out in poker, the time he got slightly “bemused” on red wine and got a tad handsy under the coffee table. A hand on my knee here, a touch there… I guess I had an inkling of sorts. But I was gracious, thought it was the alcohol talking and that he was just a friendly sort of guy.

That was almost a month ago and I hadn’t really given it a thought since then; until yesterday when I received the email.

I'm just curious enough to say yes… sometime Friday night, maybe, after work and before hockey? Let me know what your schedule is like.

day 10263: off the top of my head

Apologies for not posting regularly this week. What with An Evening for Humanity and dealing with Q1 reporting I’ve barely had time to breathe, let alone think about weird and wonderful things to write about. Amuse me people… tell me a story…

Organizing an event of such sheer magnitude is a lot more difficult than we initially anticipated. We’ve dealt with personality clashes, egos, indecision, miscommunication, non-communication, tempers, tears, triumphs, etc. We’ve hit walls, yet soared through other hurdles. With one exception, things are progressing nicely. In about an hour, I’ll know if all is for naught and whether our fundraising event will be a success, or if we’ll be lucky to sell 100 tickets.

It's a good cause, my friends. I urge you to make your personal donations by January 11th. The Canadian government is matching all donations made until then. I'm off to pledge mine... pledge yours too...

day 10261: hate me. i deserve it.

No matter how I've changed in the past year, I do not like this person I've become. I've lost patience, tolerance and the ability to actually care for someone other than myself. I'm constantly on the defensive and snap back at even the slightest thing that sounds like a critcism.

In other words, I am a b-itch and everyone should hate me, but they don't.

day 10259: an apology of astronomical proportions

Once upon a time in a land not that far away, there was a wannabe girlie-girl with a temper as hot as the summer sand. She was a stubborn, proud, pigheaded, idiotic fool at times. She hated to be wrong, hated to be made a fool of, hated-beyond-hate to be criticized. Worse of all, she knew it, but couldn’t seem to do anything about it.

Little things would strike her off. The incomprehension of other people’s actions, the misgivings of intention; it mattered not. It would eat away at her until one day she would blow up in a geyser of hot fury and annoyance. Hell hath no fury like a wannabe girlie-girl scorned.

Worse of all, the manifestation of ill-temperedness was selective. Not colleagues, co-workers, cousins or friends. Only immediate family – people that she knew deserved more respect, appreciation, and kindness than everyone else that she encountered in life – was at the receiving end of the nastiness.

Alas, though our villain of this story tried, beyond tried to control her temper, it was not to be. She lost her temper once again, refused to eat crow, and let her dear sister fly off to la-la land without hearing the appropriate apologies of astronomical proportions.

Sure, there were miscommunications and misunderstandings. There were reasons our villain behaved as she did. But right or not, it was definitely wrong not to make amends and to go huffing off in stereotypical-teenage-attitude. Grow up already.

And so she extends the white flag in a move of ultimate apologetic surrender… and offers this as a consolatory compromise…

… perhaps next time we schedule ahead-of-time the get-together times…
… and we don’t tell each other how pissed we are at one another while sitting at the airport when it’s too late to do anything about it…

day 10256: sold to the vicomte de chagny... thank you sir

Um, so, apparently, one of the fundraising ideas we're tossing around is a date auction. Not sure how comfortable I am to being auctioned off...

...gulp...

someone please bid on me... pretty please with an extra cherry on top...

day 10255: a world of difference

Things I was going to blog about:

~ my sister rocks… she gave me a rope for Christmas and disguised it as a kettle
~ if people (i.e. family) bug you about a certain boy enough times, you will start thinking about it against your own will
~ frustration, ice rinks, Ben Stiller movies and one too many drinks
~ bad, bad me
~ Triscuit knows about Crush (and thinks I should pursue it even though we’ve never seen Crush again since… and probably never will)
~ it’s all about confidence, or the perception of confidence
~ now I can play with the big boys (i.e. thumbs up to lead climbing)

What I’m actually going to blog about

It’s funny. What with Christmas, all the extra training for the lead course and all the chilling that I’ve been doing with friends and family recently, I’ve neglected to pay attention to the world around me. I’ve gone through my days (and nights) functioning as a human, but not as a person. I’ve watched the news on television, seen the footage of people and things being swept away, heard about the rising numbers of fatalities, but I forgot to feel. I did nothing about it. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Absolute nada.

I did what so many other people do… I changed the channel, so I wouldn’t have to think about it.

Tens of thousands of people died because a wall of water washed down upon them. The earth’s rotational axis has been thrown off and we’re all hurling through space one thousandth of a second faster. One event thousands of miles away on the other side of the world causing such incredible amounts of death and destruction and we don’t feel a thing - not a quake, not a tremor, not even the slightest smidgen that something so catastrophic has happened.

If it wasn’t for the news and for personal connections, how little we would know about the world around us. How little we would care. How little we would do to help our fellow beings… people we don’t know… strangers we’ve never even thought about… that we never knew existed.

But now I know and it’s hard to get things out of my mind. My eyes tear and my heart cries when I read the stories of people still searching for their loved ones. Things that seemed so important a few days ago now seem petty and insignificant. Who cares what people are doing for New Year’s. Who cares who the boy is actually interested in, or who Triscuit is seeing besides me.

All I can think of is what can I do to help. Is my $100-$500-$1,000-whatever-I-can-afford donation even worth it, or is it just a drop in the bucket when our government is offering $40 million? Can I do anything to make even the slightest hint of difference? I’d like to think that I would make a difference; that my contribution won’t be going towards paying some bigwig board of director salary, and that someone on the other side of the world will have access to adequate food, clothing, water, and shelter. Should I even bother?

Yes.

We all should, if we can. Too often, we stand back and take from the world around us, never thinking to care about it or give back to it… this is our chance to redeem ourselves.

Some friends of mine – Mini-me, Binny, Kapoopie, and my ever-giving cousin Bo, are organizing a fundraiser for the Asia Earthquake and Tsunamis Relief through the Red Cross. Details to be forthcoming as soon as they become available, but if you or your company can be talked into volunteering, donating or some other type of sponsorship, that would be much, much appreciated. Send me a message or post a comment. I will be checking periodically.

Thanks.

day 10247: words

"Do you ever miss me?" We sit in the hallway, leaning against each other, breathless and a little giddy from running down the hall. The sound of someone snoring seeps through the door. We giggle like kids with a secret, whispering to each other. It's very late. Both of us should be in bed; he in his room, I in mine.

"All the time. I miss hanging out with you. I miss being close to you. I miss curling up with you, and waking up with my arm all tingly because you slept on it all night."

"No, really?" He brushes my hair away from my face and nods.

"Really. I miss that all the time." He leans in a little closer and puts his head on my shoulder. Somehow I end up playing with his hair.

We talk like we've never talked before. No secrets, all honesty.

He tells me how he refuses to admit that he's in love. I tell him that all I really want is someone to go home to every night and share my day with. He tells me how he wants the same. We talk about how both of us are terrified to have children and how warped his kids will grow up to be, how I know him better than he knows himself and how I'm the nicest person he's ever going to know.

He agrees and looks sad for a moment and then he tells me how every time he thinks about a wife or the mother of his children, he thinks about me. I don't know what to say. The moment passes.

I tell him that I'll never stop caring about him, how it almost killed me when we stopped being friends, but how well I'm doing now without him. We talk about how much I've changed, how different I am from the girl I was just six short months ago and how I've finally realized that I am strong enough to deal with anything that life throws down before me.

We sit in the hallway and talk until the wee hours of the morning. Comfortably being together again, closer then we have been for months. We move into the room to the couch where it's warmer and fall asleep in each other's arms... talking.

day 10246: i meant well

I thought this was going to be the year. The year I finally get organized, get together my lists of people and send out those damned holiday cards. I got as far as buying the cards, stealing a pen from the office, and digging out some old stamps. And... I have a feeling that's as far as I'm going to get.

I've been carrying the cards around for a good week or so now. Not a single one has been written. Time crunch and I can't think of what to say. How do you tell people that you love them, miss them and wish they were here all the time? How do you write some to some people, but feel obliged to write some to other people... and what do you say in situations like those.

I've decided to forego the typical holly and ivy covered Christmas cards in favour of something that means a little more. Something with a little inspirational thought, and a message about living life as it should be lived.

But just in case I never send them out... here are the messages:

may you always have enough happiness to keep you sweet;
enough trials to keep you stong;
enough success to keep you eager;
enough faith to give you courage;
and enough determination to make each day a good day. ~ blessing

i beg you... to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and ty to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. don't search for the answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them. and the point is, to live everything. live the questions now. perhaps then, someday far in the furuter, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer... ~ rainer maria rilke

dream your dreams with open eyes and make them come true ~ t. e. lawrence

it's not hte years in your life that count. it's the life in your years. ~ a. lincoln

day 10245: cheese turds

You never really do stop caring for someone, do you? Things change, people move in and out of your life. You can claim to hate someone, but do you really? Or do you hate the situation, but still care about the person?

And regardless of how ready you are to move on and how much you do want to move on, all it takes is a word or two, or a night of talking to make you realize that some things have yet to change, and things that you thought were long gone are just buried beneath the surface of denial, waiting for the god-knows-what to pop its head out and bring the past flooding back.

Not good.

Weekend away was good. Tremblant, as usual, was a great time. Ice climbing, fresh powder skiing, drunken nights of revelry and an unbroken winning streak at poker... what more could a girl possibly want.

Smoked Meat Poutine...
Fries, cheese curds, Montreal smoked meat, gravy... throw it all together and serve piping hot after a cold day on the slopes. Guaranteed one of the best things you'll ever eat in your life.

day 10242: holiday blues

I forget where I saw it. A teeny-weeny little ad …bah-humbug, no friends, no family, no plans over Christmas, anyone want to do anything over the holidays – I’ve got the blues. My heart melted. I wanted to respond and invite the person out to my holiday events, adopt them into my family and help make the blues go away.

Except that I forget where I saw it and what if that person turned out to be really strange, or a freak. Not that it really would matter, though. A crowded dance floor, some well timed excuses to go to the bar/bathroom etc… we’ve all given someone the slip before, or thought about it at least.

But it got me thinking about Christmas and what to do if I was in a city all by myself without friends or family or people that I love. There has to be more than just watching while everyone around me celebrates and coming home to curl up in front of the television with the dog. Even if you don’t believe in Christmas, the festive atmosphere would be rather depressing if there was no one to get festive with, no one to share presents with… no one to wish a Merry Christmas to...

day 10241: courtesy of between the covers

A) First, recommend to me:

1. a movie.
2. a book.
3. a musical artist, song, or album.

B) Ask me three questions. Ask me anything you want.

C) Go to your blog (if you have one), copy and paste this, and allow everyone to ask you anything.

day 10241: i take it back… all of it…

Can I take back yesterday’s rant? Please? It wasn’t justified. I just felt a little invaded by the bombardment of questions. I didn’t really mean it. Pretty please with a cherry on top? Thanks.

Plans changed last night. I didn’t end up going to the gym after all AND bailed on BMW and didn’t pick up his gear. *gasp, insert look of horror here* Instead, I made a spontaneous-not-at-all-thought-out-phone-call and ended up on a lark with JB wherein we met up with his brother and sister-in-law to go eat ramen noodles.

Imagine that… paying $10 for a bowl of instant noodles that you can get for $0.50 from the grocery store. And this was after dinner number one with girl-who-checks-my-schedule-with-MY-MOTHER. No worries though. I only had ice cream.

We ended up driving around my old neighbourhood, stopped by Maxim’s and had the-very-bestest-strawberry-meringue-in-the-world (boo… he was not suitably impressed with the meringue though) before driving back downtown via the smallest, crookedest, stop-sign-infested streets in the city. No joke. Small streets from uptown to downtown… what can I say? It was a fun night.

day 10240: obligations and justifications

Why? Why do I feel like she’s checking up on me, spying on me, trying to find out all the little details of my life - details that perhaps I don’t want to share with her?

Perhaps I am overreacting. I know I am, but I can’t help it. I feel like my privacy is being invaded.

There is no why, who, what, and where. Just accept my simple explanation. I can only have dinner until 8:00 and then I have errands to run and things to do. If I really cared to share the details with you, I probably would.

But I don’t want to.

And it’s not right to go and ask MY MOTHER if I went to her house to have my pants hemmed last Tuesday, or whether or not I really did have plans on Sunday or if I was just making an excuse not to go to the last-minute-going-away-potluck-dinner, etc. Because MY MOTHER doesn’t know everything, I did have plans, plans changed, I was sick, and if MY MOTHER was too tired for me to go to her house after dinner, then MY MOTHER was too tired… that does not mean I lied about my intentions, or my whereabouts. Not like you really have a right to know anyway.

We’re not best friends. I wouldn’t even call us good friends. We’re just friends. Friends with a little history, but nothing more in common than circumstances that threw our parents together, and a few common courses taken in University. I don’t even know your favourite colour. You don’t even know what kind of car I drive.

I’m exaggerating for sure. But this is a rant, so I have the right to exaggerate as much as I want.

Already, in the past two weeks, I’ve cancelled on my acting group, organized a dinner for a group of girls who didn’t really want to be there, thought about canceling my Sunday plans for the last-minute-going-away-potluck-dinner, and bailed on an old, GOOD friend who was going to get me tipsy on the city’s BEST sangria (I’m not too please about that, by the way, but he understands, thankfully).

I’ve got things to do, and people to see. It doesn’t matter what it is. You don’t even know who BMW is, why would you care where he lives or what I have to pick up from him.

And to involve MY MOTHER? That’s one step too far, baby.

Well, FYI… my schedule for tonight, if you need to know sooo badly:

5:45 – Ninki for dinner
7:30 – leave Ninki head home
8:00 – drive to the gym
10:30 – go home
10:45 – walk dog
11:00 – shower
11:30 - ?????

Argh. Do I need to schedule my pee times too?

day 10238 1/2: burn baby burn

As a result of last week's "IMPORTANT MANDATORY FIRE SAFETY MEETING," all of our space heaters were confiscated. Except my cube-farm-partner-in-crime, because she was smart enough to leave it on her desk where the confiscator didn't see it. That wouldn't be so bad if they ACTUALLY TURNED THE HEAT ON in the building. To make matters worse, I'm sicky (again) and losing body heat quickly.

My boss is on the phone with HR bitching them out about it. Alas, to no avail... Now how am I supposed to stay warm? Crack open a bottle of our inventory? Set fire to the financial statements?

I'm fading fast. must. go. home...

Wait. It's Monday. must. go. to. the. gym...

Just in case. :)

day 10238: why one should always listen to their parents when it comes to topics such as gambling addiction

I should have listened to my mother. Now I’m addicted. I’ve got the fever, and I want nothing more than to play, and play, and play. I thought it was just a fad. Who cared about what’s-his-name and what’s-her-name on the World-Whatever-Poker-Whatever? Who cared who won what, who got dealt what hand, what beats what, and who’s “all in”?

I. Do.

I’m addicted. I think I need to go to GA – Gamblers Anonymous.

I dreamt I was playing the other night. Images of hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades flashed through my mind. I’ve got a King of hearts, an Ace of hearts… can I do it? Can I make the Royal Flush? Ahhhh! The stress, the pressure…

It’s not like I haven’t played before. I’ve played a couple of games of Texas Hold ‘em. But, I’ve never played with *gasp* real poker chips before. I shudder with delight. The feel of the clay, the clink-thud as you throw your ante into the pile, the sheer delight as you see the stack growing before your very eyes. Stacking and restacking, learning to shuffle the chips, flipping chips with one hand…

Ahhh, the chips… it’s all about the chips…

Poker, poker, poker, poker… 11.5 g chips… *sigh*

I hope someone brings their chips to Tremblant this weekend. Nothing better than fresh powder and then hours of apres-ski poker. :)

day 10235: drowsy

Cold rainy Friday afternoon, trying to recover from a four hour “business” lunch and a bottle of red, I want nothing more than to go home, crawl in bed and sleep until I can sleep no more.

Alas, that is not to happen. There’s too much going on these days. No break for me until 2063 or there abouts.

day 10234: lelevator goin’ upppp…

8:26… I’m running late. I should be at work in four minutes and it’s not going to happen. I still have to take Dawg upstairs, grab the knapsack, take the elevator back down, walk the 20 minutes, stop off for coffee and then wait for the only working elevator in our building.

Oh look, someone’s just getting on the elevator. If Dawg and I run for it, we’ll just make it. Hold the door please?!

I run over, jam my arm into the door, and let Dawg in. Kid is standing inside bawling his eyes out. Dad looks at me, looks at Dawg. They’re going to the 26th floor. I’m going to 12th. Door closes. Kid continues to cry. Blubbery-snot-like… not a pretty sight.

“We’re going to mmmmm…” He stutters. Poor kid can’t even speak because he’s crying so hard. He rubs at his eyes with his gloved hands. Skeleton hands? Huh? Where’s the rest of the costume? “We’re going to mmmmm…. mmmm…. mmmmiss the boat…”

“You shouldn’t have left your knapsack upstairs then.” Dad speaks softly not placating his teary-eyed child, but not scolding either. A case of Dad knows there’s plenty of time, but he’s teaching Kid a lesson.

“We’re going to mmmmiss the boat…” More tears, more sniffling.

Ahhh, the guilt…I’m making it even harder on Kid by stopping on the 12th floor. If only I waited for the next elevator. I look at Dawg, Dawg looks at me and paws my leg. No, Dawg, wet nose kisses are not going to help today. Thanks anyway.

*Ding*

Elevator stops at my floor. We run out, the sound of wet sniffles muted by the closing doors.

I feel guilty as I drop Dawg off and gather up my stuff. I would hate to be Kid. But still, I can’t stop thinking that maybe I should blog about it… nah… poor kid missing his boat. I wonder if he goes to the Island School, or if it's a field trip. Eek... I'd hate to miss a field trip.

Go back to the elevator, press the button. Door slides open almost instantaneously.

I walk in. Dad and Kid… knapsack in hand.

*Ding*

Round two.

day 10233: straight as a broken arrow

You ever have one of those days where you keep tripping over your other foot? It's one of those days. I'm feeling somewhat dazed and confused.

day 10232: ode to ms. santa claus (aka my cousin bo)

Bo is Christmas. What I mean to say is that Bo, aka Ms. Santa Claus is the ultimate epitome of the phrase “'tis the season for giving.”

She anonymously adopts needy families at Christmas time and buys them clothes, toys, food certificates, anything to make the holidays a bit better for those less fortunate. She has been doing it for years. Sometimes she adopts one family; most times two. This year, she has three.

Three families – mostly single-parent-multiple-kids type, incomes stretched to a point where the holidays are an extravagance they cannot afford. And were it not for the sake of people like Bo, Christmas morning would be bleak. There would be no presents under the tree (if there even was a tree), Santa would not have taken a bite out of the cookie and Rudolph would not have left a present on the rooftop. Think Bob-Cratchit-coal-in-stocking-maybe-a-new-pair-of-underwear-instead-of-hand-me-downs type of Christmas morning.

So she goes to town, gets the works - clothes for all the children, toys for the younger ones, gifts for the older, something special for the parents, something pretty, something frilly, something cool, most things practical, but sometimes something frivolous that they otherwise would not have had.

Imagine the time and dedication, the giving and the caring. Even for a self-confirmed shopaholic, the enormity of the task at hand is daunting. It’s hard enough buying things for yourself, but when all you know are the children’s ages, m/f and their sizes, and not even their favourite colours, imagine the difficulty in picking out the perfect gifts or the perfect matching clothes sets.

So a few of us have chipped in to help out; Bo and Unsanitary Man went toy shopping yesterday. Today we raided “Old Blue” for family number three. Two girls, ages 7 and 12, sizes 7-8 and 14-16… new jeans, shirts, a sweater, turtlenecks, white fuzzy earmuffs, matching white fuzzy purses, and faux angora hat for each of them. My little pink wool kilt got nixed because it was too short…Ms. Santa Claus, you see, has a conscience.

Tomorrow night we will be wrapping presents while sipping mugs of spiced hot chocolate, scraps of tinsel and wrapping paper abound. Strains of Bing, Frankie and Nat will echo through the air along with the shouts of “three cheers for Bo…our very own Ms. Santa Claus.”

Merry Christmas, everyone. 'Tis the season for giving... if you can, go adopt your own family and spread a little Christmas cheer.

day 10231: five guys…one weekend

guy number one…bought me drinks

D: You rock!
J: Why? Cuz I can hold my liquor?
D: No, you rock cuz you’re a girl and you drink like a fish! Let’s dance… no… let’s do more shots first!

guy number two…proposed marriage first, then wanted to pay me for "services"

T: Say a guy gave you a carat.
J: A carrot? Why would anyone give me a vegetable?
T: No, a carat, as in from Tiffany’s. VS, D colour etc etc.
J: Why would anyone buy jewelry from Tiffany’s? It’s such a rip-off. Wholesale. Always buy jewelry wholesale…
T: OMG, will you marry me?
[a little later]
T: You should know how I feel about you.
J: [drunkenly] Hmmm?
T: What would it take?
J: I just met you. I don’t even know you.
T: Ok. Let me rephrase the question… How much would it take?

guy number three…puked all over my house and left the next morning without cleaning it up

J: Terry, clean up your mess before you leave!
Terry: I can’t I’m late to help BMW & GG move.
J: Dammit. CLEAN IT UP! I AM NOT CLEANING UP YOUR DRUNKEN MESS!
Terry: At least it’s not on the floor.
[door slams shut]
[ed. note: name has NOT been changed to protect the guilty]

guy number four…wore a dress to my company christmas party

J: Wow! I can’t believe you actually wore the kilt! You look amazing!
JB: It’s great! A little breezy and cold, but I’m really digging the frilly shirt. I might have to buy one just like it.
[a little later]
JB: How do you go to the bathroom with a skirt on?
J: Um. You lift up and…
JB: Squat? I meant at the urinal.
J: I wouldn’t know…
[a little later while talking to VP at monkeyco christmas party]
JB: Why is his so much bigger than mine? And why does he have three tassels and I only have two?

guy number five…triscuit - need i say more?

I’m so glad we’re friends again. In spite of all that has transpired and what was spoken, you were and always will be a very special part of my life. Love Triscuit.
[ed. note: love???? Had you said that six months ago, I would have been over the moon and around the corner. Oy. Now I'm just scared.]

Five guys... all in all, it was a rather good weekend.

day 10228: four guys in one weekend

A few Christmases ago, when all was good with the world and I was going through my foodie-gourmet phase, a friend brought back some exquisite fois gros from France. Melt-in-your-mouth, to-die-for, feeling-it-all-the-way-to-your-toes type of exquisite. I salivate at the memory.

Excited as I was at having tasted the succulent, creamy goodness of fois gros for the first time in my life, I happily announce to co-worker friends, “Guess what! I had fois gros this weekend!”

“What? You had four guys?”

“No! I had fois gros!” I humphed at the joker.

“You had four guys! Hey Sundar, J had four guys this weekend!”

By the end of the day, the partners had heard, the secretaries were twittering, and I was the laughing stock of the office. Four guys became the running joke at ex-monkeyco.

And though, I have yet to return since my teary departure seven months ago, apparently, absence does not make the jokes go away… I received this email today:

Enjoy your birthday! I want to hear something like "KC! I had 5 guys on the weekend!" next week. :)

Thanks guys, next rounds on you!

day 10227: the gossip according to luke (subtitled: why would anyone buy an engagement ring off ebay... sub-subtitled: my mom called my sister a player)

So the big family gossip right now is whether or not my cousin is engaged. I heard it from an aunt, who heard it from another cousin, who heard it from the supposed engager/engagee. Except that the aunt wasn't clear on whether or not the proposing had already been done or if it was just a proposed proposal...if that makes any sense to you at all. On top of all that, my-very-own-rock-expert-mother was consulted on the diamond purchasing and never let that little tidbit of knowledge slip out until last night.

Long story short, we don't know if the engagement is official. And we're rather miffed that HE WON'T TELL US HIMSELF! Hmph. *cross arms and pout*

Ok, so it really doesn't matter whether he is or is not. We're happy for him either way. But it's funny how the gossip flows around the family. It stops at certain people (i.e. maternal one who couldn't be bothered), but some of us (myself included on the rarest of occasions) are curious enough to perpetuate and poke around until answers are found.

Same day, same aunt... conversation with my mother...

Aunt: My daughter tells me that your daughter has a boyfriend.
{Mom looks at me. I shake my head vigorously... no-no-no-where-the-heck-would-she-hear-that-from}
Mom: Oh, Sista... I don't know.
A: Well, she heard it from a friend who heard it from Sista's friend... etc. etc.
M: I hadn't heard.
A: So I think she has a boyfriend.
M: I wouldn't worry about it. Until she calls me and tells me that she's married, then maybe I'll believe it. She likes them and then she doesn't like them. One day going out with them. Next day someone else. She knows a lot of boys.

day 10226: short and sweet

Has it been a year already since I last reminisced about turning a year older? Time flies regardless of whether or not you're having fun, n'est pas?

It has been fun. In a way. At least I'm not dead.

I guess I can't complain.

Last year, this day, I blogged about my 26th year. It was a good year - a very, very good year.

27? Not nearly as good. But still, there are some memories - some keepers, some I probably could have done without...

~ moped
~ groped
~ roped
~ sucked
~ fcuked
~ lucked
~ girlified
~ simplified
~ dandified

Here's to a better and brighter tomorrow. 28 is just around the corner. Hope the even years are better than the odds.

day 10225: true selflessness…

What is true selflessness? At what point in our lives do we stop doing things for our own sake and start doing something only for the sake of others? (with absolutely no benefit to ourselves)

An old conversation with Unsanitary Man haunts me. His position is that people’s intrinsic purpose of self motivates all actions, including acts of charity - you get a tax receipt, it makes you feel better about yourself, you get the ego pump etc etc. I argue otherwise. I do things because people need it, because they can’t do it themselves and I can or simply because it makes other people happy.

“Do you feel good about it afterwards?”

“Well yes, but that’s not the point. Regardless of how I feel some type of joy or elation afterwards, I’ve still done something to help out my fellow being. It’s not about how I feel. It’s about how they feel.”

“But you do feel better about yourself afterwards. Then it’s an ego pump. You do things, you feel better, therefore you keep on doing it. If someone was to spit in your face and curse your name, would you continue doing it?”

I don’t know…

I guess it would depend on the situation. For family or friends, if it is to their benefit (whether they realize it or not) then yes, I probably would. I expect nothing in return. I care for them; therefore I would do anything for them.

But then am I appeasing my own sense of responsibility? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but if you don’t do it, then would you feel horrendously guilty about it? Do I do what I do so as to avoid suffering the long-lasting feelings of guilt? Or do I do for the sake of doing it just because it benefits them? I don’t know…

If a stranger, or, say a homeless person, then perhaps I wouldn’t. Sometimes interacting with the homeless scares me. Sometimes I avoid them, especially if they appear intoxicated-safety, afterall, should be considered seeing as how even a drunk investment banker can be risky at times. I am selective about who I give to and what I give. I offer food mostly, seldom money, but on the occasion, I will.

Do I expect anything back? No. I still have the bobble-head dog in my car because it reminds me of the unexpected. But do I feel good about it afterwards? Yes, it does feel good to see the toothless smile of someone I’ve just given my lunch to and to know that they won’t be hungry for a little while and that I can always go out and get another lunch. Ego boost? Not quite, but personal satisfaction boost… heck yeah.

So maybe he does have a point. We do things because of how it affects us. Perhaps, we are motivated by the intrinsic purpose of self and if it were not for that, we wouldn’t do anything at all.

Or perhaps not. The only thing I can come up with for any action that is truly selfless is for someone to push another out of the path of oncoming traffic only to be killed by said speeding vehicles…

What do you think?

day 10224: creations arising from a night of drunken debauchery... aka... binny's b-day bash

akash's eye-widening-mouth-watering-mix...

1 oz mango Malibu
pineapple juice
ice

binny's mellow-yellow...

1/2 oz Creme de Cacao
1/2 oz Creme de Banane
1 1/2 oz Carolans or Baileys
1 1/2 oz Malibu coconut rum
shaken, not stirred, served over ice... makes two.

side note: 3L bottles of red wine are best to look at and not to drink... :)

day 10221 1/2: can I say it again? I LOVE MY MONKEYCO!!!

It's hard not to love work when the toughest thing I have to do today is figure out how to get a 3 Litre bottle of red wine home and one of the Directors is doing a bit of "housekeeping" because he has too many bottles of boozies on his display shelf...

day 10221: live every day like it's your last...

I don't think of my own mortality too often. It's not that I'm afraid to die. I'm just afraid of how I'm going to die. I've accepted that death is inevitable, and regardless of what I do to try to prolong my existence, sometimes, trying your best is not enough. I want to go quickly and hopefully painlessly, and definitely not accompanied by "ROCK!!" or "SPLAT!!"

(That would just be gross and messy and traumatizing to my climbing buddies. Ew.)

Should I one day go "SPLAT" or else cease to exist prematurely, no matter the cause, my funeral arrangements and wishes should be known. And seeing as how this is not a topic that one discusses with their parents-who-have-sensitive-emotions-at-the-moment, I am blogging my final wishes...

I know. How. Morbid.

I would like my organs to be donated if possible. Except my heart. That stays with me. One day, I will have to find my organ donation card and fill it in. Actually, it's already filled in. I just have to carry it around or send it in, or whatever I'm supposed to do with it.

I would like to be buried and not cremated seeing as how I have a horrible fear of being burnt alive that stems from being a pyro in a former life. Plus, it could be kind of cool if some archeologist dug up my dried up preserved remains 2000 years down the road and tried to imagine what a wierd lifestyle I led that I have one broken toe and a really painful, f.u.'d hip at the moment.

I want to be buried with a CD copy of this blog so that if I do get dug up, they'll know the person behind the body, and not just know the body. Plus, that will save them time from imagining wierd and wonderful things about me that are probably erroneous anyway!

[ed note: HELLO FUTURE ARCHEOLOGIST 2000 YEARS FROM NOW!!! TREAT MY BODY WITH THE RESPECT IT DESERVES. HAVE A DRINK FOR ME!!! SAPPHIRE TONIC EXTRA LIME... if it still exists]

I want to be buried wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Ideally one of the ones that say "J'aime qu'on m'aime" "I'm out of bed, what more do you want?" "I'd rather be skiing" or whatever funky saying shirt that I favour at that moment. I'd like a laminated picture of Toot. S'il vous plait. And a bottle of Bombay Sapphire. That's all. No jewelry except maybe the green rock necklace if it can still be found.

Oh, and no funeral please. I'd rather have a wake... one last party before I go into the wide blue yonder. An honest-to-goodness drinkfest where everyone I know is blissfully drunk and telling funny stories of yours-truly. Tears optional, but a good time mandatory. The alcohol and the food should flow freely, sappy-ass Pachebel Canon music should not be played. Turn up the volume, laugh with and laugh at... that's how I want to go. That's how I want to be remembered...

One more thing. I want to be there. Closed casket optional.

day 10220: "worse buy" rant...

I usually have a lot of patience. Especially for those unfortunate enough to be inept at what they are paid to do. I am nice to the point of being too nice, my voice drips with honey rather than anger. I'd rather lead by example and help the poor idiot along rather than to lose my cool and make the poor fool even more flustered and even more incompetent.

Not today, though.

Alas, last week, my innocent, defenseless microwave (purchased after lining up at 4am on a cool, bitter Boxing Day) blew a prima-dona-fuse. I have no idea what happened. One moment, it was happily humming along, microwaving lasagna and the next moment, it refused to even beep at my meatballs. I had to heat up frozen swedish meatballs in a frying pan... defeats the purpose of frozen instant dinners, doesn't it? *grumble, grumble*

I miss my pizza pops...

So I called "worse buy" today to check up on the extended warranty that I may or may not have purchased (names have been changed to protect the guilty, but I'm sure all of you are smart enough to figure out which yellow-tag-mascot-store I'm referring to). And this is what I get.

Idiot Salesperson: I'm sorry, ma'am... I can only check back to purchases made within the last five months. You're going to have to come into the store to give me your information.
[note: store is in WOODBRIDGE... freakishly far away from downtown...]
J: What kind of information do you need? Can I give it to you over the phone?
IS: Well, name, telephone number, date of purchase... that kind of thing. Do you know the day you purchased the product?
J: Boxing day two years ago... 2002.
IS: So November 25, 2002.
J: No, Boxing day. December 26th.
IS: December 25th?
J: NO, December 26th.
IS: Ok, well can I have you name and telephone number please?
J: It's J... ###-###-#### or ###-###-####...
IS: I'll give this information to my supervisor and he'll call you back in three to four business days.

WTF? If I drove the 45 minutes to the store, gave him my information on the spot, would the supervisor have been able to tell me RIGHT AWAY what my warranty status was? Or would they have said "Thank you ma'am for coming in, we'll call you back in three to four business days."

IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT

I saw red, ground out a fierce "Thank you" and slammed the phone down. My cube wall revertebrated with the force of my lost patience...

IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT

Incompetent fools...

day 10219: $40 and two consecutive treatments later, i hope my teeth are whiter

I’m whitening my teeth. Right now, as a matter of fact. I’m not sure if it’s working yet. They kind of look a little whiter and a little brighter through the tape strip, but it could be my imagination. Or perhaps it’s just this morning’s coffee stains being bleached out by the foul tasting gel stuff that they coat these little pieces of tape with.

How cool. Whatever will they think of next?

Update: I am now experiencing vague chest and back pains. I'm not saying that it's because of the teeth whitening gel that I swallowed despite the warnings not to. (Yes, I swallow.) I actually suspect it has something to do with the funky stale-grease-tasting samosa I bought for lunch. Or the quarter of a powerbar I just ate because I'm craving chocolate. Whatever it is, I hope I live to see dinner at least... I'm having curry crab. yum.

day 10218: making the effort

Disturbing email just in:

I know its early but since some of you are either being poached or looking to jump ship (ahem, LENNY!!) we thought you'd be interested in the fate of the rubber duckies ....we were actually thinking of retiring the team this year, or at least go for an undefined hiatus period (do you really want us bossing you around for another summer??!! : ) ). Also, we were kinda getting the feeling that most of you, although enjoying the company of other duckies, were not particularly keen on dboating this year…

The Duckies have been together for three seasons.

We’ve never done particularly well in any of our races. We’ve won a few, lost more than we’ve won, and rammed another boat somewhere in between. But we’ve had a lot fun doing it.

We’ve become friends, surrogate families and some, even lovers. We’ve bonded, nurtured, and supported each other through trying times. We’ve drank together, sang together, slept en mass together (seeing as how we’re too cheap to spring for multiple hotel rooms). We’ve cross dressed, hula-hooped, boarded, and water-pistol whipped our way through Canada and the Eastern seaboard.

We’ve become more than just friends. The Duckies has become part of our identities.

We are a team. The Duckies stick together and stick up for each other. When Malfoy and his beer-drinking-dboaters tried to besmirch our honour, we rose up en mass to defend the Duckie name. Oh, you should have seen the flurry of emails that went around that week. All capped quite nicely by PlBoy’s well-meant-but-badly-timed email “Dum di dum… like I said… a piece of crap on a stick.”

Many of the good things in my life can be attributed to the people I’ve met through the Rubber Duckies. I’ve become who I am today because of them – since the day I scraped my fat butt off the couch to go paddle with them on a freezing cold April morning. I would be hard-pressed to even begin expressing how much I love them. I do love them. Each and every one of them… and yes, even Triscuit though I know he doesn’t deserve it.

Everything in life is about making the effort. That one little action or word that lets the world know “Hey! I’m here! I miss you!” or “Thanks so much for doing everything and even though I don’t tell you every day, I love you!” Without it, we lose touch – with our friends, with our families, and even ourselves.

I am guilty of that. I was a participant, not a leader. I showed up for practice and magically expected everything to go smoothly. I organized picnics and parties and even those responsibilities on occasion were taken up by others. I forgot to thank my lovely captains every time I saw them, forgot to tell them how much I love them and how much I appreciate them.

I do love you guys, you know...

This is not just about Dragonboating or the Rubber Duckies. It’s about reaching out and touching the people that you care about. Finding them wherever they’ve gone, and renewing relationships and letting people know how much you appreciate them. It only takes a minute to make that phone call or send that email.

Is this the end of the Duckies? I sincerely hope not.

Stay tuned to find out… QUACK! QUACK!

KICK ASS RUBBER DUCKIES… KICK ASS…

day 10217: oh. my. god. i've been j-lo'd...

Shall we dance? Heck yeah!

I love going to movies where I have zero expectations when I walk through the door. If I expect nothing more than a two hour snooze-fest, I'm usually pleasantly surprised. Unless of course, it's a sequel and I've neglected to see the first movie and have no idea whatsoever about the going-ons (Innocence), in which case, please, please, please just shoot me. But I've digressed.

In the name of spending time with wonderful-accessory-buying-mother-who-just-returned-from-HK, I agreed to see the J.Lo & Richard Gere remake on Saturday night. Ballroom dancing, pretty-boy Richard Gere, and a booty-ful J.Lo who can't act... how exciting is that? My plan was to douse myself (and the maternal one) with a large fishbowl of Bellini (each) and catch up on some much needed Z's while supplying her with a big box of Goobers. That way, she's happy, I'm happy, everyone's happy.

But then the Bellini plan fell through, and I went to the theatre stone-cold-sober. And MAYBE I was PMS'ing or MAYBE I was just in a REALLY STRANGE EMOTIONAL STATE, but I LOVED IT! I loved the music. I loved the dancing. I loved Richard Gere... and maybe just an eensy-weensy bit, I loved J. Lo, too.

Crazy, I know.

So now I want to take ballroom dancing lessons. The grace, the style, the elegance of it all... but I want to do it competitively.

Me... the girl who can't walk in a straight line without tripping over her own two feet.

Me. Dancing. Sigh.

Ain't life grand!

day 10214: downtown observations log #5431478

entry #5431478: day in, it’s all the same

Ugh. Never noticed how clockwork I am in the mornings. Wake up. Shower. Get dressed. Do makeup. Walk dog. Say hi to the security guards. Drop off dog. Leave for work. Wish security guards a good day. Wave to the maintenance crew. Walk to work.

How strange. I see the same people day after day. There’s that pretty young blonde on the motorized scooter. She had these awesome black boots on the other day. I want to stop her and ask her where she got them, but she zooms away too quickly. Great pink pants… always smartly dressed. Funky hat.

Oh look, there’s the spiky hair dude crossing the street with his morning coffee. Always listening to his Ipod. Coffee from Timmy’s. Large. Always the same intersection. Weird. Wonder what’s he listening to? How does he take his coffee?

The Outreach guy won’t make eye contact with me anymore. I think he knows that I won’t stop. I think about buying him a coffee on my way up, and stopping for a chat and buying one of his newspapers, but I’m running late as usual. Tomorrow I’ll do it. I say that every day. He stands just up the street from the kid who writes the signs saying how hungry he is, and how he’s given up on life and wants to die. Funny, though... I offer to buy him food and try to give him granola bars but he always turns me down. He just wants money, he says. I give him whatever I have in my pocket.

8:40… the clock at the corner is 5 minutes fast. I cross the street pulling my zip card out of my knapsack pocket. Same routine every morning – zip in to get into the building, zip in to access the elevators, zip in to access my floor. I say hi to Kyle, turn on my computer and go make myself a coffee.

Same thing every morning.

entry #5431479: happiness is… marineland…

Yoga at lunchtime makes me happy.

Telling me that the crunchy thing I found in my poutine yesterday was a fingernail does not.

Cocktail attire downtown means different things from cocktail attire uptown. I’m not prepared for cocktail attire downtown. Me thinks it’s time to go shopping again.

I’m bartending next weekend for Binny’s b-day bash. I only know how to make sapphire and tonic doubles with extra lime. Wish me luck.

day 10213: last night

It began with a kiss and a fierce hug the moment I walked through the door.

“It’s been so long… I’ve missed you.” Eyes meet mine. Searching for differences, searching for a sign that no matter how much time passes, some things don’t change. Like the twinkle in your eye or the mischievous grin on their face. Or the feelings that you have for them that you sometimes forget when you don’t see them as often as you used to.

“You look good. Have you lost weight again?”

“No,” I flash a I’m-glad-you-think-so-but-regretfully-not-smile “But I think I’m a little more toned now… all that climbing, you know. Or it could have been the body wrap I did in Cali.” I take off my coat and scarf, hang them on the back of the chair and start rummaging through the fridge. It’s late, traffic was bad and I’m hungry. There is a comfortable silence, the one that comes with “just being.”

It’s been six weeks. Six weeks of occasional phone calls, words spoken in haste and hurry and nothing more. Time passes quickly when you don’t pay attention.

“How was your trip, Ma? What did you get me?” And so it began.

She fed me soup, chicken and veggies. The kids from downstairs came up to play with the dog. I gave her back her shoes Sista brought back from Cali last time she came to visit. She wouldn’t need them in HK, she had said. No wonder, since she bought five pairs of new shoes and chortled with delight as she told me how little they cost. This pair cost $5 Cdn, this one $6… ooohhh these were expensive, they cost $15. Oh, how I covet the red and black ones. They look like Spiderman climbing shoes. If only they were half a size bigger. If only. If only…

I tried on my new Jacob pants for her - the wool ones with the cute pink ribbon on the inside. She pinned them up to hem for me and said that I could pick them up on Friday before hockey. I asked her if my butt looked cute in them. She gave me a blank stare and asked me why the waistband was so big and did I want her put elastic in them so they wouldn’t look so loose. No thanks, I’ll just wear a belt.

We went upstairs so she could show me everything that she bought.

“Sparkles are so in, now,” she said as she gave me the new shirts… Mickey-Mantle-New-York with a pink, sparkly sequined Mickey Mouse on it and other writing that doesn’t quite make sense (typical HK), and then another strange looking number that I can’t really explain. Both were huge on me.

“They fit!” We both ooohhed and ahhhhed. I know secretly that I’d probably never wear them, but I love her for the thought and for the fact that she’s so ecstatically happy that something she’s bought for me while on vacation has finally fit.

“I’ve become a little more girlie-girl” I told her. And told her stories of how Sista and I would preen in front of the mirror doing our makeup and playing with our hair before going to the shopping mall or the bookstore. How we constantly check ourselves in the rear-view mirrors at every light looking for smudged eyes or windblown hair. “I wear makeup everyday now!”

“It’s about time,” she said and pulls out more shopping bags… and purses… and ACCESSORIES!

Scarves, belts, necklaces, bracelets… scarves that can double as belts, belts that can double as necklaces… I’m in heaven! And all for MEEEEEEEEEEE!

Oops. And the Sista. You don’t know how much restraint it took for me to leave some of the “good stuff” behind. It was a lot of “I know she’ll like this one…and ohhh I like this, but she’ll love it, so maybe I’ll just borrow it later…” Oh, the will power. Oh, the agony!

“Try this!” She pulled out a small gold box. Cream made from crushed pearls. “Engrish” words that don’t make sense. “This is the real stuff! I got it from the factory.” She took a tiny spoon and scooped out a little white dot of pearl and smoothed it on my face… OMFG… my skin was softer, smoother than a baby’s bottom. I couldn’t stop touching myself. I must have this! And this, and this, and this!

Much later, after everything was pawed through and combed over, clothes proudly displayed and deals flaunted, we laid on her bed the way we used to when I was young. My head pillowed on her arm, drowsy, comfy, happy… smiling, content.

“You’ve become such a girl.” She whispered. “I’m so proud of you…”

day 10212: i’m not going to lie to you, because then what would be the point of all this?

Can I talk about Crush again? I know two entries in a row about a guy I barely know seems a little excessive, but hey, this is my blog, right? You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to… no one’s making you. You control your actions, you control your life, and you control your destiny. Kind of.

Actually, I’m not going to talk about my crush on Crush. It is, after all, just a crush. It makes me happy, but without reciprocation, it’s meaningless in the big, grand scheme of things. However, in the small, itty-bitty spectrum of “me”, it is one of the most significant occurrences of my life. How melodramatic, I know. But what Crush represents is huge…

It’s freedom.

Emotional freedom.

Freedom from Triscuit, and freedom from the past. The fact that I have a crush on Crush means that I am finally, unequivocally over Triscuit and rebuilding the shattered pieces of my bruised and battered heart, non?

I spent most of my time in San Diego lost in thoughts of what once was. I don’t deny thinking about Triscuit. A lot. Everywhere I went there was a memory; a fragment of a sliver of the happiness that existed almost 6 months ago to the day. Try as I did to redirect my thoughts to other things, images of our last trip to SD would inevitably slip through the cracks… Del Mar picking up black pebbles and tiny shells off the beach, the glorious sunset at La Jolla Cove, where we sat on a ledge holding hands, each lost in the beauty of the moment - watching the seals, watching the surfers, watching the children’s shoes get washed out with the tide, and then much later, watching the stars come out one by one winking down upon us – or even Fashion Valley where we spent oodles of dollars and tons of time wandering from Abercrombie to Abercrombie and back to Abercrombie… memories that will never be shared with him again; a past that no longer exists except in our minds. Things that will never be spoken about - not by him, not by me… not even by the pictures I have yet to develop.

Then thoughts of Crush would filter in here and there. Odd, since I didn’t know him and had only met him once before. I thought I had dismissed him and would never again have given him another thought. He was just another friendly person in the gym - a stranger still. But he snuck into my subconscious and I haven’t been able to shake him loose.

I am excited. I am elated. I am enthusiastically happy that I am free of the constraints of my past and that now I can look into the future with clear, unclouded eyes.

Yes Crush, no Crush… It matters not. If things happen, great. If not, it doesn’t matter. I’m finally free.

day 10211: let’s call him crush…

I have a crush. *sigh… eyelashes a-flutter and everything* Shhh… it’s a secret. Ok, so it’s really not a secret, because I, in all my happy glory that I’m finally “in like” with someone else other than Triscuit, have been blabbing it to the world. Non-stop. Serious.

Let’s call him Crush. For now, until I can think of a better nickname for him…

And as for details, I have none. Not really. He works for the government. He’s into adventure racing. He goes to my gym Monday nights and isn’t a very good climber, though he’ll get better with practice. He dressed up as a cheerleader for Halloween along with 4 other buddies and they did the whole drinking-bus-club-tour thing and had a very nice time. He’s nice, seems pretty cool, eats 5000 calories a day, hates McDonalds because it makes him sick, likes all-you-can-eat sushi, thinks I’m little… looks to be in his twenties somewhere. And he’s hot. Oh, so very, very cute.

Yum.

He (and his friend) came to have wings and beer with us last night after the gym... cuz I asked them to. Yay.

Oh, and I blogged about him last week and haven't been able to get him off my mind since.

I don't think I've ever felt this way before... about a complete stranger.

day 10210: green with envy

Well, I’m back. Not necessarily by choice, mind you, but I’m back nonetheless, and for how long, I refuse to say.

I’d love to talk about how glorious the weather was, how warm the sunny beaches, how idealistic the life of leisure I led for all of five whole days. But I won’t. I don’t want to make you jealous. I don’t want to “rub it in” as the Sista puts it. Yes, she feels as guilty as I did that she’s basking in the sun-filled glory of SoCal, while the rest of us are chilled to the bones in TO. As she should (just joking babe).

I’d love to talk about the shopping deals, and the amazing strength of the Canadian dollar that let me buy endless goodies without feeling the slightest twinge of guilt, or how I bought these amazing nine west black boots for less than $100US, comfy jeans, and funky cool shirts etcetera etcetera. But I won’t. I don’t want to make you jealous.

I’d love to talk about the food we ate – Cheesecake Factory, PF Chang’s, Jakes, Oishi Sushi, and a whole bunch of other places I’ve forgotten the names of - narrate for you bite by eye-closing-wondrous-bite the taste of the last succulent piece of crab, the bite of the chili, the sweetness of the passion fruit mojitos. But I won’t. I don’t want to make you jealous.

Because you should be.

Really.

I am and I was there.

day 10206: remembrance

For twenty six years Remembrance Day meant nothing to me. November 11, a day for poppies, a day of school assemblies, a day with a moment of silence for a war I did not understand. A war I never really cared to understand.

And why should I? I didn't know anyone who had fought in it. I barely knew anyone who had lived through it. Only vague stories from my grandmother hinting at battle with the Japanese. But nothing ever confirmed. Nothing bad ever spoken of - ever.

Sure, I watched the old black and white films, learned about it somewhat in history class. Understood that yes, there was a war, but who cared, no big deal, wars happen all the time... people die but life goes on with or without them. Very callous, I know. I watched the parades, saw the pictures in the newspapers of the veterans. Didn't give them a second glance before I turned to the comics or the social studies column. I didn't like war... I didn't want to know about it. I didn't care to know about it.

Until last year. France. Juno Beach. Dieppe war museum.

Sobering rainy day on Juno Beach where the Canadian contingents landed on D-Day so many years ago to play their part in liberating the world from the forces of evil. We walked the steps of the soldiers who had gone before us. Tracing the paths of the fallen, imagining the blood that ran deep into the sands.

Bo and Unsanitary Man had printed out passages for us to read while on the beach. And though, I initially though it somewhat hokey, I played along. The mist turned into rain and blended with my tears as the reality of the past sank in. Our sheets of paper melted away into unrecognizable clumps of pulp and fiber. And still we stood there in the pouring rain. Imagining what the fate of the world would have been had they not fought for freedom.

Moments of silence. Moments of remembrance.

The waves came in gently on the sand. The tide rose washing away the footprints we left behind, and still we stood there, each going our separate ways. Lost in thought. Lost in remembrance. Soaked to the skin. Rain and tears dripping down our faces.

On our way to the car, I picked up a pebble. No bigger than a walnut. It was brown and clear and had the glossy sheen of glass. I dropped it on another rock and it smashed open into three pieces... easily. The beach was littered with them... little pieces of rock that broke as easy as glass. Almost as if the forces of man, and the impact of war, the bombs on the beach had turned the grains of sand into glass. I put the pieces into my pocket and brought them home with me... and remember every time I fit the pieces together...

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

~ Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

Remember, my friends, remember.

day 10205: can i move here?

I've always wondered what it would take for me to make a complete life altering decision. One that would involve making large sacrifices, leaving friends and family for parts unknown... for new adventures, and new beginnings. A new life. A new me.

And no matter how much I thought about it and how many times I've said "that's it! I'm moving," it's never happened. Not yet.

Last year, I was all gung-ho about moving to Vancouver; finding a job, beginning and rebuilding life anew in a familiar, yet unfamiliar place. But then things happened and dreams got put aside and eventually disappeared adn life went on as it often tends to do when one refuses to pay attention to it - living only for the now.

I lie here on the beach, watching dogs romp in the surf, chasing the white sandpipers with their blur-speed-stick legs, I think once again that I want a change. People walk by in their sweaters and their hoodies looking at me oddly like I shouldn't be here lounging around in shorts and a bikini. It is after all, 20 degrees Celsius... beautiful, gorgeous blue skies, no clouds in sight and a slight, salty breeze coming off the ocean - a beautiful glorious day, that had I been home, no one would be working and everyone would be playing hookey. And I yearn for this to be my every day... that somehow fortune would smile down upon me and I could life the life that I see around here.

The sun glistens and reflects off the water in the distance. Surfers line the waves waiting a little impatiently for that one perfect wave - getting up, falling down, swimming out and getting up again and again. Joggers run by - Ipods and mp3 players elasticed to their upper arms - feet keepign time with the beat. Couples walk the shores stopping on the occasion to pick up a shell or a pebble that catches their eye.

And it is to this I keep on returning. This place, this life beckons me, and calls out to me. I dream of happier days. Of days where I can live in a cottage by teh waterfront. But how, with whyat means. With who.

I think sometimes tha tthe ultimate sacrifice can be made for the sake of a peaceful existence with just nature and beauty. The sounds of waves crashing on the sand, the whisper of the breeze as it lifts the fronds of the palm trees are like lullabies to my soul.

And I feel like I'm finally home.