olympic hockey thoughts

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note that i have a sinus cold and make no promises of lucidity. funnily enough that will just convince leah mclaren that she's right about bloggers [saturday's post]. man i'm pissed at her. so as i drink berry boost (yup bolthouse farms strikes again... this one has 500% of the vitamin C you need in a day) and eating lentil soup you guys get a post.

okay i know it's not saturday night so technically i'm not supposed to be talking about hockey but y'all are just going to have to suck it up.

i was really curious to see what would happen with the olympics because the leafs coach was coaching the canadian team and their captain was captaining the swedish team, for those of you that don't follow the nhl or at least the leafs a quick recap.

the leafs fucking suck this year and have been growing steadily suckier for a few years now. recently there has been talk that perhaps their captain Mats Sundin should be canned. i've also heard discussion of the goalie, eddie balfour, and his age and thus the requirement that he be canned as well or instead. as though age is all that matters or something.

i do not comprehend this at all.

regarding balfour? he's the reason the leafs are even IN contention for a playoff spot [not in a spot, in contention for...] what with their total lack of defence and habit of hanging the goalie out to dry. they could have a robot with lightning reflexes in goal and it would still be fucked if it didn't have any defence.

which it doesn't.

the real question has to do with the captain and the coach.

the captain has been part of the team a little longer than the coach but it's been eight years that they're both been there so i'm not thinking that it makes much difference. that said, i feel quite strongly that the leafs problems stem from the coach and not the players.

the majority of the team has swapped out since those two started but they've continuously swapped for veteran players. age and experience are wonderful but in hockey you need some youth and enthusiasm too.

anyway here's the part of the equation that i don't get. no one, and i mean no one is talking about pat quinn. they seem to have decided that he's a great coach and that regardless of his team's total failure to adapt to the new rules that everything falls in the lap of the captain.

so i was watching the olympics with some extreme curiousity because i figured that it was as good a time as any to determine who the problem actually was. and it could well have turned out to be both of them.

team canada was plagued in large part with a lot of the problems that the leafs have been struggling with for years. for some reason these folks seem to think that dump and chase is still a valid hockey strategy.

yeah not so much.

team canada also brought a pile of bruisers and left the scorers and the skaters at home. someone explain this to me please? my dad thinks that one can be set squarely at the feet of management but i don't imagine gretzky is foolish enough not to ask the coach's opinion? and if he is? damm gretz you're really bad at putting teams together.

of course that stupid gambling 'scandal' didn't help. seriously people care less about that than they cared about lewinskygate... it was just an excuse to drag a good man's name through the mud.

so pat quinn's team? didn't even get to play for a medal. didn't even make the semi finals. got knocked out by the team that came fourth. got their asses kicked.

i try not to think about it being canada because then i sulk about how the americans got ONE more medal than us. ONE! damm it would have been awesome to beat them at that for once.

that said i've had a love hate relationship with the canadian men's hockey team for a while. stop acting like you're ENTITLED to a medal and start playing for it. dammit.

anyway yeah, lack of teamwork, bad strategy, failure to get the puck anywhere near the net... heck i could be talking about the leafs. but i'm not.

i'm talking about the canadian national men's hockey team. the one with the leafs COACH coaching them.

okay well that's only half of the picture. then there's the question of the leafs captain. the guy who is apparently at fault for the leafs problems. the guy who passes the puck without looking and it hits the stick of the guy he passes it to.

the guy who regularly leads the league in game winning goals or scoring chances or whatever. the guy who passes so his teammate can score. the guy who led his team to a gold medal at the olympics. here they are partying:

yup that makes sense to me. clearly we should fire the captain. he is obviously old and incapable of playing. but that coach. yeah yeah! keep him... he's so awesome.

whatfucking ever.

harrumph!

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(late friday)
so i'm sitting here crying. shush not like that. i'm at 'the farm' and i was just playing with the woodstove and i sorta got my face too close and i smoked myself. so there's tears running down my face and yet i'm in a perfectly acceptable mood.

also not sober very much at all.

i let so much smoke out and i totally didn't mean to. i was kind of staring at the fire in a bit of a wasted daze and suddenly the kitchen was all smoky. i know it's a woodstove and the draft doesn't work with the top up but i wanted to stare at the fire.

i love fire.

i think it's actually a response to fear. i'm terrified of this shit. it's scary and it burns and you never have control of it even when you think it's contained and there were a couple of fire incidents in my youth.

but lord is it ever beautiful as it dances through whatever you feed it. it licks and darts and flames as it wraps itself around everything and slowly consumes it.

how can you not watch it for hours?

shut up, i know i filled the house with smoke.

but it's so pretty. right now it's sort of quiet and just quietly cooking the log on the bottom. the top log is hot too but the bottom one is all coals and shimmering redness while the top one is just showing glints of redness even though it's turned black and shiny like charcoal.

every now and then a little flame will lick out and sort of tease at a piece of relatively unscathed wood and you can see the shape it will have in an hour or half an hour or even as it collapses into ash.

and you imagine how the two pieces will slowly fall together and melt into red coals and black charcoal as the fire eats them and you find yourself wanting to watch.

for hours.

ask anyone who has ever sat around a fire with me, i can stare at that shit for days... and if there's drums? and some dancing with bare feet and no morons with beer bottles?

mmmm bliss.
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(saturday evening)

offensive drivel regarding bloggers as posted in the globe and mail (one of canada's national newspapers)

My reply:

Dear Ms. McLaren's editor and incidentally Ms. McLaren;

I have been a relatively regular reader of Ms. McLaren's column for several years. In fact her "Just one thing can change your life, sort of" of June 30th, 2001 is still posted to my personal website as a marvelous piece of writing and inspiration.

I mention this to illustrate that I am a) not the type of being who writes to a newspaper regularly and b) that I didn't just find her name in some chatroom "full of bitter unpublished writers venomously slagging published ones."

That said; how dare she! How dare she paint me and the people that I consider part of my personal blogverse with a brush covered in "terrible spelling, poorly constructed sentences and outrageous amounts of displaced hatred and envy..." We are none of these things.

For one thing? I am fully capable of spelling AND of constructing a sentence as are a majority of the people in my intimate circle of bloggers. We are absolutely connected and definitely have something to do with each other regardless of how many of us know each other offline. That she doesn't dig a little deeper than celebrity trash demonstrates only her own lack of depth and not ours.

For another? I am neither a professional commentator nor a "talented up-and-comer." What *I* am is a Pilates instructor with a grasp of language and the gift of insight. In spite of counting professional writers, English professors and journalists among my regular readers I do not ever expect to be offered a book deal. Additionally, none of us expects or seeks to be published because of our blogs. That said, if I were offered my dear miss lost me as a reader McLaren's column I would take it in a second and begin with a rant about newspaper writers who take swipes at things that they cannot be bothered to understand.

I also feel that I must address the question of why the blogger blogs. Not that it was a question, more of an excuse to insult couched in question and answer rhetoric. Her assertion that what I have to say is unfit for publication is grossly insulting and rude and she then adds insult to injury by informing me that I teach because I cannot do. Clearly she has never tried teaching or she would stop speaking disparagingly of a difficult and often unrewarding profession that very few people can do well.

I do not blog because I cannot publish, I blog because I like to find out what I am thinking about and because the comments on my posts allow me to see my own thoughts and actions through the eyes of others. It's called self discovery and self expression.

Just because she doesn't look past celebrity trash and people who don't like her writing (and suddenly I find myself immensely sympathetic to their feelings) is no reason for her to disparage the rest of us.

I am grossly offended that the Globe and Mail sees fit to publish such ridiculous drivel and understand better than ever why traditional news outlets are losing their audiences. Of course you are, you drive us away with your lack of respect for us. People who blog are literate and interested, we are the people you're writing for and to call us bitter and untalented is particularly uncalled for.

I would be delighted to furnish anyone who asks with a list of blogs written by smart, talented, interesting people who also happen to be capable of writing in English but I'm afraid that no one would be interested.

I expected better of the Globe which has provided balanced and well written articles for me to enjoy.
-angela xxxxxxxx

(and yes i posted this to my blog here: http://sassinak.blogspot.com/2006/02/harrumph.html)

If you choose to publish this letter or parts thereof I ask that I be referred to as Sassinak as I do not publish my given name.
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look boys and girls, auntie sass actually knows what capital letters are for! :)

early birds

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s'funny, i always have so much to say when i'm sitting on the couch but then somehow when i sit down in front of the computer i got nothin'

it's been a really weird week for me. strange things have been happening to people around and with me. all of my clients are feeling disconnected from their bodies which is making me wonder if it's the weather, if there's some weird energetic shift or if it's me.

is it possible that my own personal disconnect is rubbing off on my clients?

i mean i know that i'm distracted and concerned and have frankly other things to worry about than their bodies but it seems weird that i could project that feeling onto them. i know i haven't been getting enough sleep either because i keep staying up too late with my neighbour... i don't mind hanging out with him or anything but nonetheless he always stays about a half hour later than i mean him to and it's totally messing with my sleep schedule.

regardless, i do that every week, this week is not special because i'm sleep deprived. if it were i would be distracted and disconnected every DAY and i wouldn't have any clients left.

the thing is that i feel like i'm with it when i'm working with them. (okay other than the last one yesterday night) i feel like i'm focused and paying attention. and yet they're all disconnected. doesn't that sort of have to be coming from me?

i'm hoping it's the weather or an energetic shift because a lot of the people that i know are having really strange weeks and they aren't my clients. so i'm adopting a bit of a wait and see attitude.

oh man i have a client crush. i've coined the term to describe clients that i think are adorable or hot or highly crush worthy. the ones where i have to actually stick a wall between teacher sass and girl sass.

the ones where i sometimes wonder if i really needed to stick my hands on their abs. okay that's a lie, i've never wondered that because i do not touch my clients inappropriately because well that would be so gross. so gross that just thinking about it makes me feel squicky.

anyway i have a client crush on this guy and he keeps doing things that are not helping. he walks in yesterday and he sorta looks through his eyelashes at me (we're almost the same height so we can both do this at each other [elle he's a smidge taller, cause i know you want to know]) and he goes "i haven't done any of my homework this week... ...you can chastise me if you want" and it was SO CUTE! i can't even tell you. so i'm thinking to myself 'damm you i already think you're adorable, this is NOT HELPING!!!'

it helps less that he can't sink his abs properly so i'm constantly touching them, his butt or his low back. and he's ripped yo.

so my hands are happy to be touching him and i'm like sitting in the back of my head running colour commentary while the front of my head is teaching this guy pilates in an uber professional manner. it's the strangest headspace to be in and i'm not even sure i can explain it.

please don't tell me to ask him out, that would not be okay unless i were prepared to sever our professional relationship and i am not prepared to do that AND he isn't ready to not have me teaching him. this will in no way impact my continued appreciation for his deliciousness though.

cause yeah, so delicious and nice too.

anyway i've had clients be interested in me before and i've had to sort of ease away from some of them or start discussing dating dilemmas or something to give them the idea that this was never going to happen without making them feel bad about it but this. this isn't the same because i'm the one who's interested.

it's kind of cool though because i'm just interested enough to have to learn to deal with the client crush but not so interested that i'm irrational. it's a nice place to be when learning this kind of new skill.

and what a strange and wonderful skill to have to learn!
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i have this strange sort of ennui this week. all that i really want to do is curl up on my couch with archived television shows (i think i get to watch the survivor premiere soon!) and my bowl and just smoke myself comatose for days on end.

i don't think that i ever realised just how emotionally and physically demanding my job was until quite recently. this makes sense, i didn't start really teaching full time until november and what with christmas and learning curves and other sorts of breaks the full brunt of this has only hit me recently.

don't take this to mean that i don't love my job because i love it very much.

it's that i'm really starting to learn just how hard it actually is.
just how much physical labour is involved.
just how hard it really is learning to move the way they move so i can figure out what they've done to themselves.
just how exhausting constant demonstrating can be.
just what level of emotional impact having broken people cycle through my life all day actually has.
just how thin my own emotional health can be.
just how easy it is to let their pain become my pain.
just how much of an empath i really am.
just how much THINKING is involved in putting a body back together.
just how much anatomy nerddom i still need to acquire.

but the other thing that's really hitting home is just how wonderful this life really can be.

sure it's a steep learning curve and it's hard as hell and i'm exhausted all the time but nothing in the world is better than someone telling me they can walk or dance again when they had lost all hope that such a thing might be possible.

i can't really put into words just how amazing that is. how seeing someone's eyes light up as they 'get it' satisfies a little place in my soul that i didn't even realise i had. how seeing someone's posture or bearing or movement change just makes me so sure that i'm doing the right thing.

it's so hard and i struggle every day with the idea that i really am good enough to teach these people. that i really am allowed to do this. that i'm not some kid trying to pretend she knows what she's doing. that in a world with teachers like the goddess in it that i'm even allowed to SAY i teach pilates and movement.

and yet still. the most rewarding thing ever.

no really, ever.

who ever knew one could love a job enough that i smile every wednesday at 6:30 AM!!! when i see my lovely client at the door of the studio. smiling at 6:30am. who that's met me would EVER have believed it.

perspective is a bitch

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so some shit is happening in my life right now that i can't talk about... but it has served to make my 'problems' into the tiny bumps in the road that they really are.

that perspective, she's a bitch.

someone close to me isn't well. please don't think you can guess and please don't think that i will elaborate. if i were going to i would have already. i will only say that it isn't inherently life threatening and that it is chronic.

so i've been here before.

just because you've stood on a pile of shit before doesn't make it any more fun to do it again.

what's interesting about this is that i have a large pile of bullshit happening in my life these days. people are having entire relationships with me that i'm not participating in. some friends are letting me down. family is having some troubles. finances are in the toilet pretty hard and don't appear to be improving anytime soon. body hurts. weight appears to be going up (i think my eyes are broken). many friends and loved ones are losing their friends and loved ones. car is in a mood [mechanic thinks it's gas related, will let you know in a tank or so]. dating is well... dating. friends are in or having trouble. you know the general things in life that can weigh us down.

and suddenly none of it matters at all.

friends disappointing me? irrelevant.

owing my best friend money because my car needed it? unimportant

dating? don't care

fat and sore? uh what?

none of it matters a whit. something actually important has just been dropped on my head and has served to remind me that my ridiculous mini crush on my weed dealer is totally irrelevant to my life (which it is anyway, he smokes and it's one of those convenience crushes... i think) and that the rent will get paid and that my car is important but not the be all and and and

none of it fucking matters.

what matters is that someone that i love dearly is ill pretty seriously and i am concerned about them to the depths of my being.

if only perspective came a little easier sometimes.
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where did my stalkers go? jenn's blog is dead and mike changed his nick... so i changed my sidebar :)
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went climbing with hubris last night.

i had taken ten days off because my hands were sore all the time and although i was moving well i felt weak and sort of unable to hold on to anything. like i could do the move but i couldn't hold the hold.

i was falling off things i sent easily the first time i climbed them. i couldn't figure out moves on routes i had sent. it hurt to walk through the door.

so it seemed like a good time to take some time off.

i'm glad that i did too because i climbed my face off last night. i did foolishly work the start of a 5.10- that i've sent before but hubris pointed out that i wasn't following my own 'take your time' advice so i stopped and stuck with the 9's and 8's which is a lot more fun now that they put up some new 9's.

the previous batch of 9's were entirely shitty and at one point the took down all the 7's and most of the 8's so i was having to warm up on 10s which yeah, sucks.

anyway it was lovely and i finished off the night with four round trip laps on a 5.7 that's actually two routes in one. it has two starts and they join together about two thirds of the way up so i went up one side, down the other, back up the side i just came down and then down the side i went up first and then i did it again. so four laps but on two routes.

much fun.

hubris was impressed for some reason.

what impressed me was that it wasn't my hands or my arms or my abs that quit. no it was my toes. these shoes with the toes that push against the tops of my toes are driving my feet nuts. sure they're better for climbing but sometimes my feet are slipping off just because my toes hurt.

either i'll get used to it or declare said shoes dead and get some new ones. in april or so.

more impressive than my laps? salt was there climbing with some buddies and they were working out instead of just climbing. so he started doing laps with weights.

well not exactly laps.

he would climb a route as high as he could (lead climb) with FORTY pounds of weight on his hips and then fall and untie and sort of fast walk over to the next route which he would tie into and climb and on and on. it was truly impressive to watch.

incidentally i got a little lesson in the difference between sexy and obvious from salt and his climbing partner. partner who i'll call howler is climbing in jeans and salt is climbing in jeans and a t-shirt.

guess which one my eye was fixated on?

no, not the muslces (and trust me, howler is fucking ripped yo... ripped in that alternate universe if you could fuck his body and no one would know way... or as hubris says the 'severed head fuck' [and both men have attractive faces]) the t-shirt. i wanted to see under that shirt SO BADLY it was sick.

i think there was a little bit of drool even.

because i could see the suggestion of muscles. i could see that there wasn't any fat. i could tell that somewhere under the baggy jeans was a really nice ass. but i couldn't see them and it was driving me nuts.

so that old adage about the tease being better than the reveal? so true.

at least in my case.

green goodness

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good christ is that shit delicious. would that it came in the one litre bottle because the little ones cost a fortune.

i don't think i want to admit how much i just spent on juice. or that i found a source that's closer to my house. this could be a problem.

in other news i've rediscovered something. i truly love grocery shopping at midnight on the weekends. there is something about wandering through a grocery store at one o'clock in the morning while meandering through the aisles and glancing at all the people that is just so satisfying. there's no pressure, you don't have to do anything or be anywhere.

you're just wandering around in a place filled with delicious food.

today i brought home a couple of things that i've had before but never cooked and a couple of things that i've never tried. i'm working on expanding my food choices since i've been dropping foods left and right for the last few years.

it helps that my probably soon to be roomie is a veg and lebanese so his food choices are totally different from mine. we're expanding each other's diets. well he's doing more than i am cause he's better at it but i did get the killer homemade granola recipe so... (and i brought him a green goodness!)

pile and i are tired of this building and can sit around and not talk for hours so it seems worth doing and since neither of us seems likely to get married anytime soon it should be pretty stable too. best part is we're similarly neat and have about the same tolerance for filth or lack thereof.
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we did the sacroiliac joint workshop today and i learned several daunting things. for example? yeah it has FIFTEEN different axes of rotation. fifteen. not like two or three or something nice and logical oh no. FIFTEEN!

they don't even say forward and back they say nutation and counter nutation. we had to palpate the posterior superior iliac spine. and the inferior lateral angle and the sacral sulcas (spelling????) and do different moves and try different things and feel each other up.

yes boys, nine pilates instructors in a room trying moves and feeling up each other's sacrums (for the uninitiated just think bums) and ischial tuberosities and so on. and it wasn't dirty at all.

but oh i learned a lot you guys. i understand what's happening in the backs of a couple of my clients and i much better understand what's going on in my own back. i also? totally learned how little i know.

again.

in fact that happens every single time i take a class from a really great teacher and i know that my clients feel that way about me. one of them the other day was like 'you're always inventing some little thing for whatever i say is bugging me' and the truth is all i'm doing is remembering the things that better [or at least more experienced] teachers have taught me.

i mean i don't just walk around calling *anyone* the goddess. she earned that name fair and square for putting me and a ton of other people back together. and for caring enough to never stop learning. and for taking joy in sharing that knowledge. and for the little face she makes when she realises that she's lost us. [it's really funny and you can totally read her face when she notices that she's done it] and for the little hmm she does when your body is being weird. and especially for the 'oh boy' you get when you admit to doing something really stupid.

i try really hard not to get the oh boys.
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hcg left another one of his awesome messages this week. he goes dancing at a place called bird (which i feel safe saying cause seriously like you could recognize him?) and so he called my machine and whistled at it or made bird sounds at it or whatever on thursday night.

which i translated to mean 'i'm going dancing at bird, you should come' but i laughed and went to bed. and when i called him later? yeah that's what he meant.

how come i can grok totally taciturn tweetings but i can't speak freaking english?
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india arie is my latest musical passion. her songs are all very similar stylistically but the woman can sing and the lyrics are great. there's this one song called 'ready for love' that pile pointed out (yeah pile is my neighbour and likely roomie) that blows my mind.

what's funny is that the lyrics are slightly stalkery... but at the same time she describes her guy:

If you give me half a chance
I'll prove this to you
I will be patient, kind, faithful and true
To a man who loves music
A man who loves art
Respect's the spirit world
And thinks with his heart

now seriously... a man who loves music and art, respects the spirit world and thinks with his heart? add books and chocolate and that's like dream human. i don't think that's particularly different from what anyone else looks for in a date really.

anyway there's this crazy ethereal voice singing these beautiful words with just a little guitar and piano and a titch of cello behind it. what's not to like?

speaking of music i saw brokeback mountain tonight with pj and othercat. i confess that i don't really know quite how i feel about it. the music was fantastic and those two guys did a really good job being those characters.

the cinematography was gorgeous as hell. alberta/wyoming never looked so good. pj thought it was a happy movie and othercat thought it was sad.

i cried at the end... but felt some inherent hope.

perhaps that's the message. this movie told us a story but it didn't tell us how to react to it or how to feel about it. it simply told the story. kind of the way you wish micheal moore would. it's just odd to get that in a fictional tale.

it's like you're used to the author telling you who to sympathise with or how to feel. this movie just said 'here, this is what happened'

i think that i liked it but i can't swear that i'm comfortable with it. all in all a rather satisfying reaction...

no shoes for you!

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i'm having a shitty week.

i just got the car back from the mechanic where he pointed out all the ways that the other mechanic had fucked up the clutch. so now i have to call the clutch guy and bitch him out for fucking up this and that and the other thing but i have to do it in a way that he'll actually fix it.

something about using some kind of sealant that actually eats honda seals and something else about some chirping. anyway apparently it's a total hatchet job and i got screwed. [yes i understand better than i just explained but y'all don't care about the details of the chirping clutch forks]
cause yeah.

that's just what i needed today.

to find out that i got screwed again. hmmm it turns out it's unfixable because it requires removing the clutch and tranny and starting from scratch so instead of lasting ten years it will last four. yay.

is it that i am paying more attention to the negative because i am all hormonal and crampy and thus i am just missing the nice things or is it that really a lot of total shit is happening to and around me this week and it just happens to be in combination with the stupid cramps and emotional distress?

the shitty thing about menstrual hormones is that the feelings they generate are still real. it's not like your brain believes you when you tell it that the anger and rage and hurt aren't real. it is utterly convinced that it knows the truth and that you happen to be cracked when you tell it that no, it's just hormones.

then three days later the hormones are gone but you have massive cramps and you're sane again except that you have to do damage control for whatever you broke in the last three days. and i broke a lot of things this week.

not to mention that yeah, the clutch didn't get done right and now i have the pleasure of telling a guy that he did my car wrong. least i have the shop manual to hand him to prove it. yeah i got the shop manual for my car from the guy i trust. the one guy i trust in the fucking world to talk about my car.

one of hundreds. damm that's worse odds than dating.

actually it really is. and at least in dating when you get screwed your car still works *grin*

the clutch works and all but it's not up to snuff. which i was sort of noticing myself really...

*sigh*

cause i'm so rich.

no shoes for you says the universe.

it would be really nice to have shoes that didn't hurt my hips.
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oh man february. why do i have to get depressed every february? this happened to me really badly in vancouver and is in large part why i left. when i got back to ontario i started skiing and my depression cleared right up.

unfortunately i don't seem to have the ability to get to a ski hill and go skiing anymore. well actually my car is safe again... hmmm.

the point is that i need to be outside and in the sun in the winter to stay sane and although i'm outside every day and i walk at least half an hour a day and i climb and do pilates it isn't enough.

i was okay last winter because i had to shovel snow all the time. yes, i love shovelling snow. yes, i know i'm weird. yes, it is in fact satisfying the same way wood chopping is. yes, it totally bites when people have walked on it and packed it down.

anyway i think this means that it's not just being outside or getting sun. i think maybe i need some vigorous exercise that's also outside. i just can't think of what to do. first of all there's no snow because it's hovering around zero for the entire winter. that means there's no ice either so i can't go skating.

hmmm maybe i can. must investigate.

anyway being that i'm TOTALLY poor for at least the foreseeable immediate future (hey good news, newfangled timing belts are good for 170,000km instead of 100!) i have to think of something free, vigorous and outside. yes, i know where your brains just went.

i am not coming up with much.
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it's time to head for othercat's for dinner before band practise. wonder when i'll finish this...
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most ridiculous thing ever to bitch about:
just now, in the bathroom, i dropped a tampon and i clapped my legs together to catch it. and it fell through the space between my thighs.

and i got pissed because something sealed in plastic landed on the floor because i couldn't get my thighs to touch.

seriously that's party throwing stuff not bitching stuff. my THIGHS have actual air between them now. who on earth complains about THAT???!!!???
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band practise cheered me right up... and my client called and offered me a ticket to her flamenco show because i fixed her and she survived rehearsals!
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and now it's friday and i'm reading that post and i'm sort of thinking to myself how ridiculous i've been all week. amazing what happens when your body stops beating the shit out of you and you go beat the shit out of your drum for several weed filled hours.

seriously i'm reading the above and wondering who that whiny chick is that wrote it. the thing that's really amazing about this is that it really is all imposed by your body and it gets WORSE as you get older.

knowing this i now live in so much more fear of menopause than i once did.

it sure sucks having your body hold you hostage once a month. or like my client J says? just one more thing that proves that god is a man!

:)

just because you want it to

doesn't make it go away.

i have this friend who is kinda gone on someone that they know they can't have. i confess to some sympathy because this has happened to me before also. not only do they know they can't have it but i'm not sure they would want it if it were handed over.

there's so much more to it than that. but my friend would really like for those feelings to not be there anymore so i said 'just because you want it to doesn't make it go away' and i was struck immediately by the fact that i had come up with another of my pithy little expressions.

most of which i've ruined at this point by posting them to my blog and thus rendering them trite and overused.

hrm that may have been a mistake.

so anyway i'm just tickled because it applies to pretty much anything you want it to.
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be advised this post has taken days and is not being posted when i have any time to answer email. sorry all. and also that the following may have been inspired by pms.
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dear universe

i'm a little bit ticked with you. i get it that there's lessons to learn about patience and money management and not needing a car and wants versus needs and all but seriously? how many hits shall i take this week? it's getting so i'm afraid to leave my house, talk to anyone or look at the internet.

my personal favourite universe challenge of the week is the seal under the timing belt on my car. the one the moron at the dealership (not my usual service advisor, he's the one who caught the screw up) told me to replace when i got around to doing my timing belt. the seal, in fact, which is allowing oil to leak out right near the actual timing belt. the timing belt which if oil gets on it will snap and cause the cylinders to slam into the engine and shatter it.

yeah that seal. i NEVER would have done my clutch if this had been properly explained to me and now i can't afford it until march. how the fuck am i supposed to get to work now? i'm afraid to operate my car and i'm definetely afraid to take it on the highway and i have no possibilities because the moron dealership doesn't actually give CREDIT to people even when they're the fuckups who caused the mess in the first place.

i've actually taken the car in and have to borrow money from my best friend to pay for it. we'll see about rent later.

don't get me wrong universe i'm also fully appreciating the shiny bauble dangling and snatching which you've gotten so good at. i feel like an ass with a carrot at this point and trust me, the carrot is practically rotten and i still never got a taste of it. and not just one shiny object oh no. several. i particularly like how you reuse the same bauble again and again and it works every time.

i'm like that kid who can't resist snatching for the toy even though the bully is going to yank it away one more time.

yes universe i'm calling you a bully. i'm feeling very sulky toward you at the moment and if i wasn't afraid of you i'd stop speaking to you. instead i'm writing you this public letter and whining at you.

please don't kick me again. at least not until march, i'm already trying to come up with 600 unexpected bucks (which does, mind you, take care of the timing belt a little sooner than expected but pretty close to the correct window...) in two days and my clients are dropping like flies.

all for good reasons and mostly too much work, vacation, spring break or whatever but this month got a little skimpy all of a sudden.

really universe, i cannot wait to see what you come up with next but those meditations my neighbour pile is suggesting? the ones that balance you and make it okay for nice things to happen without matching bad things? i'm thinking of trying them. i just wasn't really wanting to be in that particular headspace yet, i think i'm a little young for that level of knowledge and sanity.

speaking of young. someone told me recently that they were afraid they were too young for me. somehow after reading my blog and the whole auntie sass thing they've decided that i'm sort of like a den mother and possibly too mature to hang out with.

great i'm too tall and i'm probably too fit and i'm definetely way too self confident and able and don't forget that for some reason those looks that noone is attracted to are scary as hell and that my brains are intimidating and i'm overly aware and and and [irony? if i was exactly the same but 5'7"? i wouldn't have a dateless weekend ever... or so i keep telling myself. (no i don't want to give up my height, i rather like it)] and somehow now my maturity level is a problem? *shaking head*

universe i am telling you this shit isn't funny anymore. oh sure maybe to YOU it's funny and to the people who enjoy the misery of others this is funny but did you seriously have to arrange it so i had to do my clutch and my timing belt in the same week??????????????????????

i mean seriously, isn't that a little much?

okay fine, what's the lesson? i know there is one get on with it. and seriously universe if you toss the patience anvil at me again i'm going to hit someone.
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speaking of hitting some guy tried really hard to take out my legs yesterday and then when i hit his window with my hand (and incidentally the clasp of my coat) he started yelling at me for hitting his car!

so when i mentioned that he had come within three inches of taking me out at the knees and that had i not been paying attention i would now be legless under his car he KEPT yelling at me. he started telling me that violence was never the answer and that i shouldn't have hit him and i'm like 'dude i didn't hit you i knocked on your window. hitting is for when i break your nose' and then he started yelling at me for threatening him.

now i'm a little confused, i thought i was the injured party here? i mean it's my legs that nearly got turned into squash on the road and i'm somehow the one who's at fault? not to mention he keeps calling me ma'am in this uberinsulting way and i'm pretty sure i'm not the elder in the group.

eventually i give up and slam his car door in his face (why you open the WINDOW and not the DOOR doofus) and i stomp off so he opens his window and shouts about maybe with a better approach i'd get my message across so i just shouted 'try not killing any pedestrians today you moron' and kept walking.

the whole thing left me antsy and edgy and reinforced something that i've been noticing lately.

what i hear and what people say? or what i mean and what people are hearing? not so related anymore. something is happening with the way i communicate and suddenly people are offended with my words or my friends and i are snappy with each other or hell, me and a ttc bus driver nearly got yelling at each other last night. in that particular case we both ended up laughing about it so i guess that was a net gain.

but nonetheless for a woman who prides herself on her communication skills there is something drastically wrong here and i cannot figure out what it is. i swear i'm being clear i swear. but i'm starting to think that i'm saying things in my head instead of out loud and then assuming that people have the same information.

i know that my old physio told me that if i kept expecting the same level of awareness that i have in people that i would be doomed to disappointment but aren't i allowed to expect SOME? Clearly not.

okay that last bit about the communicating isn't really a complete thought but it's what i got for right now so i'll elaborate on it later.

happy hump day!

as long as you don't wear red...

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no one got my last title. i'm sad. no one ever gets my titles either and they're often puns or song lyrics or pop culture references or...

okay bygones.
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damn i'm so glad i found bolthouse farms juice here. this shit is so fucking good. (they didn't have the green one though :(). that alone will get me shopping at loblaws again (that and the baby kiwis mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.)
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[i feel like i need to mention that this post isn't motivated by anyone or anything in my life. it's just what i think about around this time of year]

postsecret is all about love and hearts this week. not really what i'm in the mood for i confess. my bookstore sent out a little mailer for a contest to win some bonbons for 'singles awareness day' which cracks me up. what a fantastic counterexpression. much better than mine which has been 'happy vd day' for years.

no, no one ever gets it.

i've recently been informed that in latin cultures they don't celebrate february 14th the same way we do. in fact it's a love AND friendship day. so groups of friends will get together to celebrate their love for each other and that sort of thing.

this seems a lot healthier than the north american way. especially if you consider just how many supremely miserable people there are in the world because of such pressure filled days as valentines.

i mean really, if you have a long term significant other it's fine because you both know what you want and how to deal with the day. but what do you do if it's your first date? your third date? your birthday? your tenth date? you have to work? your six month anniversary? okay even by the six month point you probably have an idea what you each want out of something like hearts and flowers day. maybe.

take me for example. roses are nice and all but they don't do it for me. lilies? orchids? giant tropical hawaiian flowers? for fuckin' sure. but roses? they just don't do it the same way. well i lie. there is something to be said for a single perfect rose... (and really there isn't a flower i don't like) or candy/chocolate? i can't stand milk chocolate. okay i can stand it because it has chocolate in it. but it doesn't do it for me the way really good dark chocolate will. [and no godiva is NOT really good chocolate... just in case anyone who loves a chocoholic is wondering]

cinnamon hearts? i am a total whore for those things. can't stop eating them. so if you love me you NEVER give them to me.

and? if we've had two dates and you show up fully hearts and flowers and ridiculous i'm going to think you're nuts. that's where the single flower comes in handy. you can't force romance after all and trying to overdo it with someone you barely know can be kind of a disaster.

anyway the point is that the traditional sort of methodology of singles awareness day really doesn't work for that many people and it ESPECIALLY doesn't work if you're single. which i nearly always am in february actually. so what are the rest of us supposed to do?

at least the marrieds have a shot at having something to do that isn't lame and may perhaps not involve a restaurant full of people trying to pretend they're in love. and if memory serves it's quite nice if you're in the second to eighth month of dating because you still want to get that silly and romantic with each other.

and that leaves everyone else.

the ones who are coming around to break up time
the ones who think hearts and flowers are silly but are nonetheless in love
the ones who are single and happy that way
the ones who are playing the field
the ones who have a significant other who cares deeply for valentines day
the ones who will pick up on singles awareness day (and often regret it the rest of the year)
the ones who don't give a shit
the ones who feel suicidal every february
the ones i'm not thinking of...

i think the coolest vd day activity i've heard of was actually organised by habitat for humanity. they have a home building day for singles on the saturday before vd day! how cool is that?

i mean if you're going to do something romantic and you're single i can't really imagine something better than building a house for a needy family while you're at it. my friend dj tried to do it but it was full already.

ah well. she would have had a great time actually.

so for those of you into romance (hi mom and dad!) please party responsibly. everyone else? please complain in blogland! [my comments especially!! *grin*]
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okay weirdest thing i ever heard of.

someone stole one of those portable 30 foot climbing walls. it weighs SIX THOUSAND POUNDS!!!

okay maybe not EVER heard of but damm it's weird.

first of all climbing is a way smaller community than anyone thinks it is so *someone* is going to hear about that wall and let the owners know. cause that's just not cool.

but seriously it's thirty feet high AND weighs six thousand pounds. wouldn't it be easier to build your own?

speaking of climbing i'm taking a week off. i'm moving well but my hands don't want to hold anything. seems like a sign from my body to me.
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happy sunday. i'm just finishing my laundry and now for hours of tv with some munchies (it's sick how healthy they are, baby kiwis, bananas, granola, almonds, sunflower seeds and maybe some pretzels and nutella. i've turned into a health nut even on veg out night. weird)

have a great evening you guys, i'll be in and out.

you're orange you moron!

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okay some details to deal with.

one. i'm fine y'all. i'm okay i'm good i'm well i'm even happy.

i love you guys for your offers of condolence, sympathy and most especially peanut butter chocolate ice cream. that's someone who knows that the way into my heart is with chocolate. add peanut butter and damm. happy sass.

anyway i really am good you guys i'm just going to be a little more cautious with the people that i choose to hrm... lay open my heart for. i don't mean that i will go into dates with this cautious and closed minded attitude and i don't mean that i will treat all men as though they are lying assholes.

i simply mean that when i find myself getting crushy i'm going to pull an elle and turn it off. or at least leave it on the back burner until something indicates to me that said man wishes to be on the front burner. which, incidentally, has recently happened.

anyway. the point is that when you leave them on the back burner (hi nat!) then it becomes about them and not about me. i am not expected to participate or give a shit until they choose to either start boiling back there or head onto the front burner and think about simmering.

i am certainly not going to tar all men with the cad brush or assume that they're all liars and assholes or believe that mistreating me is the chosen hobby of the international men's league of women haters.

because it isn't and that would be ridiculous. i know a large pile of phenomenal men. in fact it's what makes it so hard to hate them or distrust them. how can i when i know so many that rock?

it would be silly to assume that just because some men choose to treat me without respect that all men will do so. it would be even sillier to assume that they're all liars. almost as silly as assuming that all women like makeup or hate cars or something.

i love you all for worrying and it warms the cockles of my heart it really does... but i'm okay okay?

(i'm holding you to the peanut butter chocolate ice cream Princess Valium!)
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so i'm pretty stoked about this weekend. climbing tomorrow with mg and maybe beer with othercat for pre birthday shenanigans practise drinking and then class with rr on saturday morning followed by an afternoon with PV and then mightydoll, hubris, and othercat's birthday party. there will be lots of folks i know and lots of folks to meet which sounds like a great evening to me. sunday is class at noon and then maybe lunch with my doctor friend and uh. you know i have no idea. sunday nights tend to fill up late and i have to be at the clutch/transmission guy at eight am on monday morning.

yes.

you read it right. i *am* getting my new clutch on monday and my own transmission is being rebuilt. i actually prefer this to the buying a rebuilt someone else's tranny. at least i know where mine has been.

it's going to be tight as hell but i think i can swing it and if not i have pre approved financing with a friend for the last couple hundred that i might need. so it's all good.

anyway i'm stoked about my weekend.
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speaking of weekends here's me climbing at a different gym on a feature i want to transport WHOLE to my gym:

(if anyone has the tools to sharpen and tweak have at it!)[update - thanks all for the help, othercat made the nicest one so here it is]
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i'm currently having twitchy fingers again. i don't really know why, i have a lot of stuff swirling around in my brain but none of it feels like coming out. well except one thing. it's sort of a funny thing.

lately i've been noticing that my hands look really old. not so much my face and my feet look young but my hands. they're getting old.

so that means the rest of me is too.

harrumph. this pisses me off. if i can move one bone of my spine why can't i reverse the aging process?

shut up i know that's a logical fallacy and i don't care.

and no, i still can't believe that i did that either. even more amazing? i finally found something to help one of my toughest clients.
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i so don't miss my sunday class. every saturday night when i set my alarm for eleven instead of seven thirty am? so happy.
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crap, blogger is down for scheduled maintenance (with three whole hours of notice) until one am so what's the point of even writing this since i plan to be in bed by then. ah well. let's see what it's like to write in KEdit. so far i don't like it.
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do you ever just wish people would be more willing to apologise for things? or say sorry? or excuse me or please? or 'may i' instead of 'give me' or 'now!'?

or maybe let you in at an intersection where they're doing construction? not speed up when they see your signal? not run the yellow so i can't turn left [exceptions for dying clutches until monday]? use a fucking turn signal? wait their turn? wave thank you when you let them in?

think about other people before they act? worry about someone else for a change? notice that they're inconveniencing me at their convenience? say thank you when you do a nice thing? consider before acting? be considerate? hold the door? be aware of their own behaviour?

how about generosity? sincerity? maybe some trust and understanding? a little compassion or empathy? what about some turning the other cheek? being the bigger person? making amends?

look for the funny in a messy situation? not overreact? think before they speak? think before acting? take blessings as they are instead of as an affront?
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that reminds me. i was driving in north carolina on my way to visit castu and i stopped at a rest stop to pee like an hour outside of his town. and this little old couple were there and we got to chatting. and as we all left the lady looked at me and said 'jesus loves you'. now, i am not a christian. i am not muslim. i am not jewish or buddhist or a satanist or a member of any clan spelled with a k. i am, however; an extremely spiritual human.

and do you know what i heard her say to me?

'blessings of the universe be upon you'

so she used her words instead of mine, she was still blessing me and for me to react in a pissy manner would have diminished both of us. sort of like those women who say 'i can hold my own door' when someone holds the door for them.
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robert heinlein once said that you could tell a dying civilisation by the loss of common courtesy and filthy public restrooms.

enough said.

on the wagon

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okay that's it.

i've decided to take a moratorium on dating. well okay that isn't quite what i mean, i will date anyone who asks and isn't utterly repulsive or married/taken but since tr and i split up i've had a grand total of 8 dates. one doesn't count in my personal opinion because we went out for tea after drumming and had a great time and then he asked me for my number and never called.

clarity considers this a date and my numbers are pathetic enough that i'm willing to count it.

okay and two dates with climber guy from okcupid who was a putz and five really fun dates with johnny who is a fucking excellent human except that we have no spark.

in that time i have also met several men to whom i was attracted and several men that i thought were attracted to me. a couple of times both of those were the same man even.

and i've been wrong every single time.

no, every one.

they either asked for my number but didn't call, led me on, didn't ask for my number, lied about being into me, flirted shamelessly but never followed up, didn't ever get around to asking me out, started asking for advice about girls or just started dating someone else.

that last one was actually the easiest. wondering why the jerk who asked for your number after what seemed like a great couple of hours together didn't call? that one sucks.

wondering why someone would lead you down a path until you finally tell them to put up or shut up and they claim they were never on the path in the first place? ridiculous.

wondering why people would do everything in the world to indicate they were into me but never make a move? confusing.

wondering why i keep thinking that men are into me when they aren't? why all i seem able to do is make a friend out of men i find attractive? why all of my friends tell me i'm amazing and they can't figure out why i'm single? wondering when i lost all ability to grok actual flirting?

why all the men i know think of me as basically a guy who gives good advice about girls?

i could blame it on being fat for a long time except no, not fat anymore.

i could blame it on being intimidatingly smart except no, my sister is brainier than i am and she found a lovely AND smart man to date. [besides johnny says i have a friendly brilliance :)]

i could blame it on being too self confident but fuck i'm thirty four years old am i really expected to be a twittering teenager to get dates?

i could blame it on lack of makeup but that isn't hurting mg any and wearing mascara hasn't made me any more attractive to men.

i could have blamed it on my overly short and dykey hair except it hit it's perfect length recently and is currently curling all over my head. and it's been non dykey for at least a year. [and lesbians don't ask me out either]

i could blame it on my height. i mean there are enough men out there that don't want to date a woman who is taller than they are or even the same height. that said there's lots of men taller than 5'11 or the same height and i've dated shorter before.

i could blame it on a million things but i don't think that's it. i think i have the anti-pheremone. i think i have some magic scent chemical that actually says 'unfuckable' or 'just friends' or 'don't be into me'

in fact i think i stuck it in there after tr because life was hell at the end with him. it was really bad and i really needed time to heal free from the distractions of men or dating. but that's been done with for a long time. i mean hell we split up three years ago in june. that's a while. that's almost twice as long as the relationship actually was.

trust me, i'm healed.

but i don't know how to heal my pheremones.

and if one more fucking person says 'just wait' or 'you have lots of time' or 'when you least expect it' i'm going to fucking beat them to a bloody pulp.

there is nothing more frustrating than staring your biological clock in the face (because 35 is a magic number for scary statistics whether we like it or not) and having some thirty year old mother of three say 'oh but sweetie you have lots of time'

no, i don't. so fuck off.

and as for least expecting it? THREE YEARS people. three years without a single legitimate prospect. i think i'm allowed to believe that it's getting steadily more unlikely with each passing day.

now if someone who is 50 and single tells me i have lots of time i'm at least thinking they have a right to an opinion. but when someone in their twenties starts lecturing me about it it really makes me want to hit them. they have no fucking idea of what i'm looking at and they stand there and patronize me. this is especially irritating when they're married with kids already.

i know i have lots of time to find a RELATIONSHIP okay? but i want kids and i'm really not excited about doing that alone. this leaves some truly unpalatable options doesn't it?

anyway i'm done. no more crushes, no more interests, no more making friends with attractive men, no nothing. if you want me then ask me out. otherwise? fuck off.
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in other news i learned something hellaciously cool yesterday.

my teacher has decided that my seventh cervical vertabra is too high and is teaching me to drop it in relation to my breastbone. so there i'm sitting thinking about lowering my C7/T1 [lowest cervical vertebra/highest thoracic vertebra] and at the same time lifting my breastbone and it WORKED!

yeah i know. so weird.

but it gets weirder. i mention to her that when we do swan (picture legs on the ground, back arched forward and reaching up, head up, straight arms touching the floor straight down from shoulders. uh lie on your tummy with your hands at your shoulders and lift your head but keep your legs down and do this with a curved back. do NOT do what i just said it's not how you do it and it's a hella advanced move and you'll hurt yourself... i'm trying to give you an image) i feel like i get two thirds of the way up and then something stops working for a second and then the rest of the way is fine.

so she gets me to do it a few times and then starts to manipulate my spine some (she's in training for osteopath too) and gets me to do a few things and she eventually figures out that my third lumbar vertebra (L3 for short) is rotated horizontally.

so she messes a little and aligns it and then she puts her thumb on it and says 'horizontally rotate this right' (okay after a long explanation of the bone and how it looks and sits) and i did.

no seriously.

i rotated ONE bone in my spine under my own conscious control and i did it several times which makes it real.

ONE BONE!

how the fuck is that even possible?

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there is something about sitting down at the keyboard with nothing to say that frees you to find out what you're really thinking about. in this case it turns out that i think i need to take a week off from climbing.

it should be this week but mg as of saturday is working 16 days straight so i think i'll take it easy this week and take next week off. i have this niggling thing going on with the lowest part of my wedding ring finger that especially hurts whenever i make a fist or try to grab a pocket.

but it's more than that. my brain is refusing to cooperate. i'll be sitting on a wall looking at a move that's totally obvious and yet i can't think of shit to do. i'll try stuff sort of half heartedly and yet i'll know before i try that it isn't going to work.

i can't finish a problem that i sent the first five times i tried it. (as in sent the FIRST time i ever did it)

this all shouts out 'GET SOME REST!' it's just that i don't want to. there's some stuff going on in my head that seems to want to get tossed at a wall (although it's mostly gone) and more than that my body is all addicted to the amount of exercise that it's currently getting.

ah well, class with rr tomorrow and i'll ask her about my hands.
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there are a few bloggers who are very intermittent with how often they actually have a blog up and i've decided that since most of them make it about 6 weeks before they delete their blogs that i am no longer linking anyone until they've been up at least a couple of months. i'm sorry if this offends you but editing the links list on a weekly basis is getting to be irksome.
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i'm literally staring at the screen and my fingers are twitching and yet nothing is coming out. this is tough because it feels like time to post. the truths post got both more and less reaction than i expected but the comments section for it is clearly dead. it was neat to see what truths hit what people. i still want to hear if any got you.

i'm having a very blah monday afternoon.
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mmmm eggs and pita and potato patties. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

suddenly all things in life seem so much brighter!
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okay it's many hours later and i've done some teaching and some smoking and some scrabble with hubris and mightydoll and i have to say. that scrabble game?

worst.scrabble.game.EVER.

no really. ever.

it was so bad i can't even tell you. they fully concur by the way, it was bad. the board was all crazy and closed and impossible and we stopped even challenging if we didn't think that things were words.

don't misunderstand, the company was excellent and many laughs were shared. extra in fact because the recent supply we acquired is fucking excellent. no dudes. *i* am saying it's fucking excellent.

yeah.

anyway at least we were laughing our fool heads off while having the worst scrabble game ever. that helped a lot.
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i'm currently expanding my repertoire of books. in other words i've read all of the science fiction and fantasy books and so i need to find something else to read. i sort of feel like i've read most of the mysteries and the romances also so i've taken to soliciting book advice from just about anyone.

this is getting pretty fun actually because i've just read tania's stolen david sedaris book and it's excellent. i'm reading 'a long way down' by nick hornby right now and man is that book ever funny for a book about a bunch of suicidal nutcases. hubris tonight lent me a wonderful looking cover called about looking by john berger. it looks great and i'm really looking forward to it.

i can't explain why i feel like it will be a great book but i said 'lend me the one book in your collection you really want me to read' so i have high hopes.

it's really fun exploring other people's books. i've been doing it with my sister and my parents my whole life but we're all related so at this point there's a lot of commonalities. i do need to get my hands on my parents book shelves in italy though, there's a stack and a half of books there that i want to read.

they really want me to come and visit and i can't figure out how to make it happen. i've been living too close to the bone for too many years now and i just can't seem to make a cushion. i will be done fixing the car soon but damm i'm cutting it close. i'm waiting for a thousand bucks from one place and it may or may not come this week. i really need it because yeah it pays the mechanic in one fell swoop.

dear universe. send cheque please, i can't wait any more. the clutch is being described as 'borderline' now and i'm expected to be smelling burning.

BURNING!
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who wants to take a picture of my back for uncle matt? and i want pretty pictures too so you better know how to use a camera.
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i have a client in less than seven hours. and then a class and a client and a session with rr and THEN two more classes. that's one shy of the number i need to teach in a tuesday to make it a worthy day.

ah well time for a new client or two.

see what happens when you complain about being busy? life is funny.

but you know what?

I GET TO SLEEP IN ON SUNDAY MORNINGS!!!

night.

things i know to be true

.rainbows are always worth staring at

.lying is never okay (will consider amnesty for customs)

.harriet makes the stinkiest poo ever

.cat purrings are good for the soul

.summer rain is mother nature bathing us with love

.always be who you want to see in the mirror

.mascara works for every woman

.rainy day people are the best kinds of friends

.everyone needs at least one friend who will always tell them the truth. especially when it hurts

.trust can be given but never taken

.ladies if you smell like fish you have an infection and not something to make fun of

.chocolate really is a dietary staple

.so is ice cream

.laughter truly is the best medicine

.living well is the best revenge

.if it smells bad don't fuck it (or suck it)

.never commit an act that will tarnish the eyes you meet in the mirror

.open yourself to the whims of the universe and it will send you what you need (note i didn't say want)

.climbing is addictive

.okay exercise is addictive (so is sloth... choose as you will)

.every home needs plants

.breath is the key to all. do it right now. come on inhale long and slow and then slowly sigh out an exhale

.inspiration is worth anything, even when the source is questionable

.the act of living is an act of change (kaji - evangelion)

.no matter how many times i get burned i will continue to approach people with openness, sincerity and trust

.i've made a lot of mistakes and i'll make a lot more. so will you

.some things really are worth dying for

.more things are worth living for

.beer and video games is good

.the same number of good and bad things happen every day. your attitude and your life are formed by which you choose to notice. choose wisely

.i'm kind of glad i ran out of weed

.i love weed

.never imply yes when you mean no. no never

.no one but you can remove your dignity

.my comments section rocks the planet

.seriously, you guys fucking rock

.i am a shapeshifter

.i freed my sacroiliac joint today

.fresh banana bread makes mouthgasms

.don't drink the purple koolaid

.watching grown men cry really sucks

.xavier rudd still rocks

.my back has ribs on it again

.i hit my pre car accident weight last tuesday

.that made me really really happy

.drumming opens your heart

.i don't have to be up at 7:15am tomorrow

.this list will never end

.everyone has a lesson to teach you whether you want it or not

.some people really are assholes but that's no reason to assume that everyone is

.life mirrors rivers - change and diversity encourage growth, stagnation suffocates and kills

.indian buffet is awesome

.hcg really does leave the best voicemails

.i bless the day mouse walked into my life

.my feet hate my 'new' climbing shoes. they'll get used to it

.i sent a problem i've been working on since AUGUST (finally figured out the weight transfer)

.i have some amazing friends

.i need to learn to surf

.books make excellent friends

.pilates is like crack for your body

.i miss my family (hi mom, hi dad, hi sis)

.your betrayal of my trust doesn't make me a lesser person or wrong for trusting

.i love survivor

.catching snowflakes with your tongue is awesome

.dancing with a snowfall is even more awesome

.the goddess kicked our asses today

.i am in desperate need of some sex

.vengeance is never healthy

.i think this part of my evening, the part where i watch tv and blog? this is by far the best part of my day (although class this morning kicked ass)

.time alone is good for the soul

.it's time for bed

broken windows

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okay it's mouthgasm week at chez sass. cause yeah jr told me to try the honey/garlic miss vickies and yeah? SO GOOD i ate the WHOLE bag and i'm not even hungry. this not hungry thing is getting to be problematic actually.

uh momentary mention of feminine crap for the purpose of exposition. so i get really really not hungry during the week right after i menstruate which is fine cause i get starved in the week before. i should schedule buffets this way!

anyway, just as that was waning they put me on antibiotics for a girly infection and told me to take the pills 'with food' which proved impossible because they totally killed my appetite. so i forced down fruit and granola every day and called it a fast.

so that was like two weeks right and thus three weeks total.

do you guys have any idea how hard it is to learn to eat again after close to a month as a borderline anorexic? (shut up i am not having body dismorphic disorder and i don't think that i'm fat and need to starve) it's hard yo!

worse? i ran out of weed last week so i can't even really kickstart the appetite with some nice stimulant. not helpful.

the good news is that next week i'll be starving due to the cyclical vagaries and that should solve that. the bad news is that i was hella cranky today from lack of food and that shit cannot be happening when i teach. so i need to do something to get through the next five days or so and i really have no idea what.

anyone know an herb or whatever to stimulate appetite? (shut up i said weed already!)
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new musical discovery: sufjan stevens - come on feel the illinoise.

basically he goes to a state and writes like an opera and records it there. there's one called greetings from michigan too but i haven't heard it. anyway a girl from work lent it to me and i can't turn it off. it's SO damm pretty and hard to explain. like folky orchestral pop music or something.

i really want to get an album or two of his after listening to this one for two days straight.
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band practise tonight was pretty cool. i was in a weird headspace and i tossed it all at my drum and now i have my even keel back. that's probably my favourite state. even keel. happy is good, sad is fine but mellow and balanced rocks the world.

it's like being on your toes in sports. it means you're ready for anything and can jump in any direction.

i didn't get to drum last week because of the memorial service and i confess that i spent the majority of this week spinning out more and more from not playing my drum. it's amazing how missing a week will mess you up when you're that dependent on something.

which yeah, i had no idea i was so dependent on until it wasn't there. and i could really have used it after that memorial service last thursday.

it's really a magical way to just let go of anything. you play it out into your drum and release whatever you're feeling to the universe as beautiful music. now that's my kind of alchemy.
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this is going to be such a nice weekend. easy day tomorrow and then climbing with mg tomorrow night. i love climbing friday nights. only the serious climbers are there and so there's a strange and quiet intensity that isn't there when the more casual folks are around. somehow the camaraderie is increased on friday nights as well.

one of the things that i really appreciate about my gym is the quiet encouragement. people will spot if you ask them to or if it seems like you unexpectedly need it. they'll shout 'yeah yeah' but what they won't do is toss advice at you that you didn't ask for.

if for a second you imply that you want advice they'll give it all to you but they won't force it on you. the place really suits me and in some ways i hope that i never date anyone from that particular gym. i would hate to have to leave it.

so saturday? class with the goddess, lunch/beer with my friend tm that i don't see often enough and then dinner with spinnaker who i NEVER get to see that evening. i really like spinnaker but she and i have really opposing schedules so if we're lucky we get to hang once or twice a year (or at memorial services :(.)

and then sunday? yeah sunday. *blissful sigh*

i get to sleep until (wait for it!) 11:15!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yeah dudes. i teach ONE class from 12:15 to 1:15 and that's my whole weekend of work. god doesn't that sound fucking fantastic?

anyway so i emailed hcg to see if he wanted to go climbing but either way i'm going and well sunday night? sunday night remains open to the universe's will :)

i cannot imagine a nicer way to spend a weekend than this. it will be quiet and involve desperately needed sleep and some recharging.

i love weekends like that. i REALLY love that i get to sleep in again!!!

i nearly got to sleep in monday but the mechanic screwed something up so i have to go hang there instead. it's okay, i think the folks there are awesome so it will be strangely fun.

so now to fill tuesday afternoons a little more and my work life is perfect. damm how does that happen?

speaking of work. i know a lot of people doing jobs that don't call to them at all and i totally don't get it. for one thing? it's a lot easier to get rich doing something that you love than it is to suffer for the sake of money.

besides, i would rather live happy than die rich.

but that's just me maybe?
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wow this music is beautiful.
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so a while ago i had the misfortune of telling someone something not so nice about a mutual friend. and i watched those beautiful eyes fill with disappointment and i wondered. when you know something about someone and you know that that thing will disappoint someone else but enlighten them also... do you or don't you tell them?

when i saw that slightly shattered look i felt ashamed and wished that i had kept my mouth shut...

but then doesn't my friend deserve the truth?

mouthgasms

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oh my fucking god.

oh my god.
oh my god.

seriously you guys cannot imagine the taste sensation in my mouth right now. [hah guttersnipes you know i'm not dating anyone and if i had *that* in my mouth i would NOT be blogging right now] one of my fellow instructors knows of my fascination with excellent chocolate so about a week ago she handed me a little tiny box of bonbons from js bonbons which is a store in toronto that sells chocolate bonbons. (i'm guessing you got the bonbons part from the name)

and holy fuck.
are they EVER good. (and nope, i didn't consider sharing them for a second :P)

they have all these crazy flavours like rosemary or chai tea that i am now just dying to try.

in fact the nice lady from the store and i got into a discussion on the merits of this chocolate over that chocolate and so on. it was great.

so i mentioned that i wasn't going to drop like 6.25 on four little chocolate confections because i hated buying chocolate without trying it. anyway so my friend buys me a little box of four.

i may never forgive her because you can't imagine how good those little orgasmic explosions of fantastic chocolate and rich complementary flavours actually are. so now? yeah it's ACROSS from the goddess. how am i supposed to resist this shit?

i'm so screwed and so is my poor pocketbook.
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i'm trying to write here and all i can do is taste the leftover flavour in my mouth!
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mom you'll be pleased to know that i removed the f word from three other places in the first chunk.
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it's been a very up and down week with work for me. i lost two clients, gained two more, lost a class (that i gave up i know!), got offered another class that i can't take and if you count last week gained and lost a couple of other folks.

the strange thing is that i'm slowly building a list of clients that i really suit and who dial into what i'm doing. the ones who aren't getting results with me are right to be dropping off and going other places, i just hope that they find useful teachers or healers wherever they go.

even more interesting is that in january even with the fucked up first two weeks due to christmas i did really well in privates. well enough that i think i can just about swing the clutch next week. i have to do a little more math to see but i think i can make it.

may have to borrow a couple hundred bucks from someone but that's a lot better than a grand. oh man i hope i hope.

i'm slightly concerned because i know that business will drop off in the summer so i really want to get my car done and some cash on the old credit card before that happens. course i guess i can just get more referrals at that point.

i'm also sad because my gorgeous hunk of 6'3 sweetheart got transferred to quebec city. now what am i going to do for fun in the middle of friday afternoons if i can't flirt with him? shut up, the new client today who's funny and ripped doesn't count *grin* [for the record i don't date clients, only drool over them :)]
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currently i'm considering the line between clear signals and being easy and i confess that i'm having a hard time with it. the general consensus from my comments section seems to be 'don't be easy' but 'sometimes the direct approach is key.'

uh.

those two don't jive at all. no dudes, at all.

so if you aren't being easy you have to flirt and be coy and generally act like some elizabethan twat until the guy gets that you really are flashing your ankles at him. but if you're direct or whatever then you're easy (or something) and they don't have to hunt you so they don't want you.

but if you aren't direct then you might miss out on someone who's shy.

but but but!

so i've come to a conclusion or two. are you ready?

yup here goes. it all depends on the situation.

hah! bet you were expecting something deep and helpful weren't you?

except i think that that is helpful. i think maybe we all need to take a step back and realise that there aren't any rules. that noone knows what they should and shouldn't do and also that no one knows what you should and shouldn't do.

because if you put it like that. if you make every situation unique and you try to find the rules for THAT situation instead you're a lot more likely to jump in the right direction when there's jumping to do (or not do as the case may be).

it's just that the previous implies sanity on the part of all the players in the game. i was talking with a lady i know the other day and she was relating a story about a man who gave her the runaround for like three years before she chucked him. he would suggest a trip together and ask her to choose a weekend and no matter what weekend she chose none of them were ever good enough. he wanted her there when he wanted her but he didn't actually want to be with her.

so she and her friends sort of re-wrote 'he's just not that into you' and called it 'he's just a dead end guy' and i laughed my head off. because really, every woman that i know has dealt with some man who blows hot one second and cold the next and basically just wants her to hang off a string waiting for him. (i'm certain this has happened to men as well)

so then she met a nice young man who wanted to go on a trip with her. they arrange said trip and then he needs to change the dates. so she (once bitten and all) says 'look if you don't want to go just say so' and he's like 'no, i want to go, i just need to change the date' and she goes 'really if you don't want to go it's okay' and he's all 'no really, i just need to change the dates' and she says it again and he says 'look why would i say that i wanted to go away with you if i didn't? that's just not normal'

oh god you guys. he's right. it's not normal. indifference one day followed by mad love the next? NOT RIGHT!

run away.

so she and her friends then concluded that men like her first one have gross emotional problems. that it's really not about her that this guy can't decide if he wants to go away with her, he's just messed in the head.

i think i'm adopting her motto wholesale the next time some fucktard decides to give me the runaround. 'you sir have gross emotional problems and are a dead end guy. seeya!'

but still, note the totally differing reactions to the same situation. she reacted to the first guy with the second guy until he gave up and basically said 'uh hello, i'm SANE'

so there it is. react to what's in front of you and not what's in your head. read the body language the best you can and for christ sake don't pretend the door is open when it's bolted shut and you know you're never going to open it.
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damm i can't believe i'm out of pretzels to go with my nutella!