just

.
i've been thinking about tr a lot lately. maybe a little bit because he's still the last man i was involved with even though it's three years ago. maybe kind of because i'm falling into his circles again without even trying... that's hard not to do based on our many common interests. maybe because sometimes i wonder what would have happened if we'd known each other longer before i broke. perhaps because when you've had a really long drought you start to wonder if maybe that ex wasn't so bad after all.

the thing is i don't think that tr was a bad guy. he wasn't the right guy for me i don't think... but not a bad guy. we broke up pretty ugly unfortunately but sometimes i wonder if that's actually bad.

staying friends is, after all, an extremely difficult thing to do.

we were stuck living together for almost two months after we split up, and we split up like children. there was petulance and whining and sniping. we were mean to each other. there was (his word) terseness and snark (my word).

there were moments of shared company; a few joints, some mutual friends' visits, a little tv, some smiling and the like.

but he got colder and colder and i got bitchier and bitchier. i wonder what would have happened if i had managed to move sooner.

it was like we took delight in hurting each other. which was probably some sick way of expressing continued caring *lmao* or something.

i've broken up friendly before as well, don't get me wrong. where you don't break up your friends [neither tr nor i ever asked anyone to choose fyi] and you can still be seen together at parties and sometimes you go out for lunch.

but from the distance i currently have from basically everyone i've ever been in bed with i have to say that i'm beginning to think that an ugly breakup is better. (please note that the words ugly divorce were NOT uttered. those fucking suck)

it's final and sudden. there's a quick stab to the heart and some lingering wonder and regret. and then it's just over.

just like that.

you go on with your lives along totally seperate tracks and are basically never reminded of each other again. sure you end up at a party or two together for a while but eventually one of you falls away. and that's it, it's done. there's no re-exposure, no re-infection and definetely no pining.

well okay it's probable that there's some pining sometimes but it's hard to pine for something that's never around.

i see couples sometimes that used to date and that still hang out and there's a strangeness to it. sometimes it's fine, like when it was years and years ago and they're married to other people and so on. and even then sometimes there's a thing there still.

but when neither of them are dating other people and they're still hanging out there is nearly always some kind of string that is still there for both of them.

sometimes it's just sex, but it would be cheap to dismiss all such occurences so simply. occasionally i think it really is just a thing where two people go "oops we're supposed to be friends" and that's the end of it, but i think that's the exception.

mostly there's a boy carrying a torch or a girl needing the attention. a girl who needs help and a boy who loves to come running. a boy who needs rescuing and a girl who loves to rescue. whatever, there's some thing there.

i don't think it's love all the time or even a desire to rekindle the romance. i think it's more that they're still filling some needs for each other, and i wonder if that's a mistake.

like when you're searching for someone to date there are a lot of needs to fill, it's never just sex or cuddling. if it were it would be so much easier to find dateable folks. so when you split up and stay friends you still have your buddy you did x or y with. or that person who always helps with whatever or the guy you climb with. i mean anything.

so then you don't go and find someone else to do that with, that little space of need in your personal jigsaw puzzle is falsely filled. does that make it harder to find someone new? is it better to just break right up with someone, anyone that you used to love? it does have the benefit of opening all your little jigsaw puzzle bits right?

i don't know.

i do know that damm jack johnson rocks. i bought curious george. also a pile of other cds that i haven't played yet. ask me how weird i am, here's the list:
fiona apple - extraordinary machine
bowie - best of
johnny cash - 16 greatest hits
buddy guy - buddy's blues
ramones - mania
sufjan stevens - come on feel the illinois
[sunrise is having a 100 cds for 9.99 sale and there's some GOOD stuff on the list fyi]

:)

came home, opened jack johnson, pressed repeat and that's it. the others will come into play in the next few weeks... and then a new mix will appear in my car!

anyway i am now torn between the stripes and jack johnson's version of 'we're going to be friends' and i will end up choosing the white stripes because they did it first, but they're both so lovely and so slightly different. they will both be on my next mix though... just well separated.

ahhh brilliance.

that's the thing with the exes... they're usually always the people that you met and went 'you will matter in my life' [or "I can tell that we are gonna be friends"] and then sometimes you end up dating and sometimes you end up friends. but that initial spark or tie or connection is there and that's the thing that maybe you shouldn't have around?

i wrestle with this because i have had some great men in my life and i've wanted to keep them around. often we've tried and failed. sometimes it's only that i went and moved across the country. again. and thus we lost touch.

but there have been some multi year friendships off my exes in the past. and then there's dw who still pops up and asks me to get back together like 9 years later. so he's still nursing a connection with me that i've told him repeatedly is dead.

so is every friendship false? is someone always pining? when i think that i'm friends with an ex is it actually that one of us is secretly wishing to have the other one back? it might just be, i mean i've known a lot of women who seemed to think that getting more available would make their exes come running back.

seems to me that that one is a case of 'living well is the best revenge' really. people rarely want what they can easily have.

i've been thinking of asking tr for coffee. not because i want him back but because there's some bad blood there and it would be nice to lance the wound... but then i wonder, do i really want that man as my friend?

and if i want him as my friend is it still better not to do it?

hey, robin hobb, thanks!

.
goddamm it's gotten serious in here lately...

so, without further ado, but a little shoutout to natalia;

snapshots of an idle mind presents:

things that have me snoopydancying right now.

. this ice cream i'm eating right now. it's from baskin-robbins and it's not my usual peanut butter chocolatey crack it is in fact an experiment. and it's pretty good. it's churros ice cream on top of bavarian chocolate mint.

:)

. my cats, they're just so awesome.

. that march through august i have at least one musical act per month scheduled in my life.

. because i'm an ass i'm about to list them all.
march 24 - buddy guy and betty levesque
april 10 - yeah yeah yeahs
may 15 - xavier rudd :) :)
june 8th - MINISTRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
july 28-30 - HILLSIDE motherfuckers!
august 18-20 - summerfolk

hmmm i should link those... well that aren't sold out. it's so weird to me that ministry hasn't sold out. i just cannot wrap my brain around that.

buddy guy kicked some serious ass. freaking seventy year old horndog rocking up the massey hall. at one point he basically said 'hey do you want to sleep with me tonight' and like forty women shoulted "yes!" and i meant to be one of them but they all beat me to it.

damm *fans face* when you got it. you got it.

. holy mouthgasm this odd combination is awesome.

. the sport of bowling has reentered my life.

. except for a minor mishap with my feet at one point where i got so twisted up i fell and then climbed back up from lower? flashed a 5.10- at the gym yesterday. this is particularly interesting if you get that i was sick for a while and was feeling all weak and tired and so i've regained something.

even better? no beta or nothing.

i'm still getting tired faster than i'd like but i'm slowing down more and more so whatev. it's all good and stuff. i don't think that i'll take my lead climbing course as soon as i meant to but hey, i'm climbing again.

and i'm getting shoes soon, the ones i'm using are good but the rubber is just not taking the shape of my feet, and my feet are getting used to them but in a callussey unhappy way. so getting some new shoes is good.

. speaking of new shoes? i got these hot mules at an aldo liquidation outlet store closing sale (TWENTY FIVE BUCKS!!!!) and i walked them over to hubris' house today to test drive them and they're okay. it's a twenty minute walk (in heels) and after an initial wobble or two while i got used to the heel it was a nice swingy saunter over there. i'm not sure i'll take them out of the village anytime soon though.

and they're hot i think.

and over three inches tall

*evil grin*

. pause to lick baskin robbins cup and inhale.

. it's so cute how excited cats get when you feed them. and impressive how easy it is to put them on a once a day schedule. i think they actually prefer it.

. my car is all better. no more coughing or hiccupping and it wasn't a fuel pump it was plug wires. we won't mention the not getting the chirpy clutch dealt with yet.

what i'm busy?

. i'm enjoying a fantasy novel.

yeah you don't get what i'm saying at all is the thing. the last ten fantasy novels i picked up left me pretty bored. i mean so bored that i was like predicting dialogue and minor plot points. so i was getting to thinking that i'd read them all. and then i started this book, assasin's apprentice, out of guilt.

yes guilt.

i borrowed eight of the nine books in this series from rachael a while back (she's missing one but has it in ebook form) and soon i'll have to give them up and pretend that i've read them... which won't work since she's a bibliophile too.

so i picked it up.

grudgingly.

and it's EXCELLENT.

and i just don't think that i can explain anywhere near how tired of science fiction and fantasy novels i was getting. i mean i felt like i had read every single solitary story there was. every one. and here i am riveted by this book, in fact i'm not going to read blogs after i post this. no, i'm going to read a book.

if you saw my bedroom walls and how they're lined with books you would understand that it's miraculous to me to love this particular type again. ahhh. so happy. thanks rachael.

i've kindled love for several other kinds of books over the course of my breakup with the magic/science books and i'm glad to have had this break. it's been good for me... but ahhh... so nice to be home.

. saw the goddess today. back is speaking to me again. god it was mad. she's starting to wonder what the hell is going on since i keep falling out of alignment.

got homework i haven't had in four years. went and let some stabilizer back muscles get weak. so funny since i'm a TEACHER and i teach those exercises constantly.

ah well, learned it better too.

. my hot client is married. i forget if i told you guys this or not ... anyway i'm SO HAPPY cause now i'm o.v.e.r. him just like that. amazing what 'i'm in love with someone who isn't you and have a kid with her' will do. shush it wasn't like that. he started talking about his son.

oh it was SO CUTE. he gets all bashful when he talks about his kid. damm some kids get the good dads don't they?

i don't like being hot for clients, i'm hoping this is a learning experience not to be repeated. it's so weird to be happy that a beautiful man is married. actually i have a few like that i work with and they make me so happy. it's like 'oh look there are terrific men in the world' ... it's nice to be reminded of that on occasion.

. i'm going to bed with a good book.

RIGHT NOW!

:)

good advice

.
so, i am one of those people who has a bit of a hard time with good advice, it makes me defensive. there is a reason the universe keeps hitting me with cars after all.

anyway you know how sometimes you hear something on tv or someone says something to you or you read something and immediately you're like "oh that's ridiculous, that's the silliest thing i've ever heard" and then you forget about it.

look at me saying 'you' when i'm talking about myself again.

often after i dismiss that kind of advice it comes back to haunt me in the days and weeks that follow but sometimes? sometimes it can take years. i know this because it recently happened.

way back when princess valium and i were watching 'joan of arcadia' together. i'm not going to go into a big long rant about all the ways that that show rocked and how shitty it was for cbs to cancel it because that's not the point of this post. but i could.

anyway if you've never seen the show it's about a teenage girl who starts having encounters with god. since neither PV nor i are religious you should get that this was a freaking excellent show. so.

at one point god and joan are discussing and she's being bitchy about something and makes some sort of nasty crack about whomever they're discussing and god chastises her for it. and she's all 'but i wasn't going to DO anything' and he's all "even our thoughts have power joan" and PV and i were all "whatfuckingever, thinking nasty thoughts doesn't hurt anyone" and on we went with the show.

well i've had cause recently to revisit the discussion.

i don't really know how i started thinking about this kind of stuff i think it was more of a dawning awareness thingy. i started to notice that whenever i ranted at other drivers on the road
"you fucking moron get some eyes"
"move your ass you fucker!"
"good christ who taught you to drive"
"motherfucker!" (hi mom :)
"man some people should be required to go to driving school and learn to take other drivers into consideration before they pull out into eighty kilometer per hour traffic doing TEN!!! in FRONT OF MY BUMPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"thanks for cutting me off asswipe"
"GET OFF MY ASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!"
"man some people are too stupid to walk"
"hey look another moron trying to commit suicide with my car!"
that i was the one feeling bad afterward. i'd be all angry and my heart would be racing and i would be upset and snippy for a while afterward.

i used to think that ranting at other drivers allowed me to let off steam and just move on. but i'm starting to think that it's not true.

i'm starting to grok that god's point (it is VERY strange to discuss what god said let me tell you) was not that those thoughts had the power to hurt others but instead that they have the power to hurt ourselves.

that somehow we become less than we could be when we walk around thinking not nice things about other people.

that these thoughts really do have power. just not the power that i thought they meant. it's true that they don't *do* anything to anyone outside of yourself... and it's true that you aren't hurting anyone else when you do it. what i didn't think about was whether or not i was hurting myself.

i mean i've known for years that the nasty gossip circle is a bad bad thing and should be broken or avoided at all costs. i found myself participating in one of those several years ago and afterwards when i thought of the vitriol i had spewed about a woman who wasn't there... when i noticed the encouragement i had given the other gossips in the circle... when i thought of my motto regarding never saying things behind people's backs that i wouldn't say to their face?

i was aghast at my own behaviour.

stunned that i would do to someone else what had been done to me so effectively through my years of schooling. no dudes, stunned.

i was so hurt for so long by the things that people said about me behind my back that to find myself inflicting that sort of thing on someone else? i was fully horrified. and a little baffled in fact. the same kind of baffled i am when i see someone who has fled persecution and landed in canada (you know, one of the heavens on earth) who then turns around and speaks badly of others or persecutes people for their differences.

why? i mean when you're a persecuted person, be it at school or in your life or most especially in some of the super scary places in the world? why on earth would you turn around and inflict that same bullshit on someone else?

you *know* how it feels don't you? you've felt the wounds that fester and don't heal well? the ones you see every time you hear the voices that step on your soul? you know, the voices the shitty people put in your head?

how can you do that to someone else?

i can kind of understand it, when someone shits on me i'm slightly more likely to shit on someone else that day and i'm definetely more likely to be a little cranky. but i fight it as hard as i can. hell i'm nice to people that by all rights i should be cursing from the rooftops.

anyway, external nasty thoughts are easy to understand. everyone gets that it's not nice to say nasty things. that it's not nice to 'get revenge' or spread gossip. [i recognize that there are two kinds of gossip. when you tell your neighbour that your other neighbour just lost their son it's so the other neighbour won't say 'hey how's your son?' the next time he sees said neighbour. there is nothing malicious in that. but when the discussion continues and delves into the bad parenting the kid got and how he was lost for years and everyone was just expecting this and and and? that shit is nasty.]

it's the internal hateful thoughts and their effect on your self that i'm thinking about right now.

do you think the character called god was right? does what you think have power whether you act on it or not? am i just a crazy granola eating hippie chick with weird ideas?

or maybe, just maybe, should we all try a little harder not to think the nasty stuff?
.

ps sorry i didn't blog since last thursday, it's been a crazy few days...

not nekkid thursday

.
here we go again, another thursday and another post with no pictures of sass.

it's becoming a thing with me this not posting pictures on thursdays. i'll post them on monday or friday or tuesday with not a moment of wondering but not so much on the thursdays. it's funny though because i love everyone else's hnt posts whether it's bubbles getting mostly naked or nat baring her soul.

in fact i find i learn an enormous amount about people based on their choices of photo for hnt. what's important to them. what they like about themselves. what they don't like about themselves... pretty much all sorts of things.

i'm a bit irked to find out that my urban anthropologist schtick is actually a pretty typical trait of the quirkyalone. don't get me wrong it's sort of neat to be defined but at the same time i hate being labelled even if it's something cool.

okay you can label me hot. i like that one.

brilliant or awesome or cool work too. *giggling*

i don't really mind being a quirkyalone but at the same time i'm so much more than any one word. in fact i suspect that's a defining characteristic of them... that they resist labelling. perhaps i'm with that guy who said that he wouldn't want to be in any club that would have him as a member (irony: woody allen is described as quirkycreepy *hee*)
.

so i called my friend, the one that isn't calling me back, and i left him another voice mail. and of course? no answer as of yet. i think i'll give it a couple of days and then leave him a work related message and if he doesn't answer *that* i'll leave him one that says 'okay i guess you don't want to be friends anymore, will you at least tell me why?'

the funny thing is that if we weren't also colleagues he would get maybe two more 'call me you ass' types of messages and then i would just give up. the same way i give up when people drop four or more emails in a row. i mean eventually you just have to figure that if they want to speak with you they will contact you and otherwise?

may as well give up.

i guess that's a cop out but i don't know. i mean when i want to be friends with someone i make at least a token effort every now and then. or i tell them i'm screamingly busy and ask for their forgiveness or something.

like if i'm actually too busy to communicate i will simply call when i know they aren't available and leave a message. two birds with one stone right? you communicated, you let them know you're thinking about them and yet you kept your day in line. a five line email has much the same effect with about the same expenditure of effort.

i know that i shouldn't project my own behaviour onto other people. i know that everyone is playing from a different book with different rules and yet still i persist in trying to understand why people do the things they do. why they are the way they are. what makes them so inconsiderate. why i am so ridiculously considerate.

i know too that i should not expect folks to be as ridiculously over the top self aware as i am (except, apparently, if they're also quirkyalones) except that i do.

no matter how hard i try i just can't seem to let it be when people are rude or inconsiderate or unavailable. to me it means something. if you can't be bothered thinking about how i'll feel then chances are good that you don't give a shit about me.

take my ex tr. when we first got together he ever and always made sure that there was a glass of water beside the bed for me when we went to bed. cut to a year later when he gets one for himself and not me or asks me for help making food and then doesn't make enough for me. silly me assumed that if i was involved in the cooking then i was automagically involved in the eating.

a year earlier he would never have done that. he would have said 'hey you want some?' or he would have just assumed that i did and made some for me too.

he used to do that sort of thing all the time. stop off for dinner on his way home and not bother to call me and let me know. so there i was waiting and waiting for him (and getting steadily hungrier) and there he was having sushi or whatever... and he never called to see if i wanted some or if he should bring something home or even just to let me know that i should fend for myself.

and we were living together. this is a man that purported to want to marry me and yet after a brief honeymoon period never once took me into consideration in his decision making. how can you claim to love someone and yet not consider them in your decisions?

that's a concept that i just cannot wrap my brain around no matter how i try.

you can love someone but not think about them, worry about them, consider them in your decision making. how is that possible?

i know that part of this is the example that you grow up with. my parents were the kind of couple where the guy would come home and kiss the girl every single day. every day. the family default is to eat all meals together unless otherwise engaged by sport/activity or whatever.

given a choice my parents choose to be in the same room unless they're doing things which cause them to be elsewhere so that's my expected default. it's not necessarily the way that i want to live but i have certain behavioural expectations that are basically built in.

one of them involves calling if you aren't coming home for dinner. or calling if you're going to be later than usual. or making me food if you're making some. or making you food if i'm cooking. or automatically doing your laundry with mine or picking up your favourite juice at the store or inviting me to go out for subs with you.

it seems like the right sort of thing to do.

ironically with tr his family was the same way so i don't know where he got his lack of it from.

i heard once that love isn't an emotion it's an action. and i sort of know what that means on a gut level without necessarilly being able to articulate it. when you love someone you just do things right?

or maybe you just want to?

i don't know, i just know that all the really long term and happy couples i know of consider each other before themselves almost always.... or something like that.

riddle me this my lovelies.

imaginary friends

.
so i don't know how long y'all have been on the internet but i am willing to believe that if i haven't been around the longest then i'm at least in the running. i'm pretty sure i first got online in some form or another around ninety-three and have been relatively constant since then.

i remember that moment you know, the first time i tried real time chat. i couldn't fucking believe it, in fact i thought it might just be the coolest thing ever. i mean really can you imagine? REAL TIME talking with people all over the world!

sure you had to wait for the letters to form on the screen and
sure there weren't any pictures and
sure there were only forty irc channels in the world and
sure you had to hide your identity as the only online female for a hundred miles and
sure the web didn't exist (but mosaic did) and
sure you could only do one thing at once and
sure freenets were limited but they were free and
sure there weren't any good cat pictures and
sure bbses were way more fun (tradewars!) and
so on...

but still

it was transformatory. real time talking with anyone in the world at any time of the day or night.

and i've never for a second stopped thinking that that was cool. it's still my favourite thing about the net and will probably remain so until i can click a button and watch any episode of any show for a buck or so.

consequently i've met a lot of people online.

in fact of the last four men i've dated seriously i met three of them in irc channels. the fourth picked me up on a ski hill and got me to marry him, but that's a whole 'nother story. oh and i met another man while ski patrolling.

anyway, i've made a lot of friends on the internet, some i've met and some i haven't and i defy anyone to tell me that the ones i've met are somehow more meaningful or better (although it was nice to hug them.) i've had at least a few online friends for a decade now.

a decade.

anything that you can do in real life can be done on the internet and almost always the pace is accelerated and the emotions are more raw. there is a safety to sitting in a chair in your own home and looking at your own monitor. you know that the people you are speaking with are real and all but somehow because of that distance (even if they're just down the street) you will somehow let your guard down further.

this is probably why the internet is the great white hope for the quirkyalones of this world who wish to be couple-y.

aside:
are you a quirkyalone?
=====================================
my score: How quirkyalone are you?
Your score was 104. Very quirkyalone:
Relatives may give you quizzical looks, and so may friends, but you know in your heart of hearts that you are following your inner voice. Though you may not be romancing a single person, you are romancing the world. Celebrate your freedom on National Quirkyalone Day, February 14th!}

[i also say yes to eight or nine of the ten 'additional signs' but i am ridiculously good at tests... :)]
=====================================

aside two: thanks for the book princess valium, i've wanted it since before i knew she was writing it!
[end asides]

okay the point is that i've met as many of the people in my life online as off and that most of my friends are people who are comfortable communicating on the internet. i'm not good with phones and i'm pretty bad with answering voice mail (well i kind of suck at email too these days) but if you're online we will stay in touch if we wish to.

and still and all? it doesn't make the meeting online friends thing any easier.

some thirteen years later i'm still nervous when i meet people that are my online friends. the nerves fade a lot more quickly now and it tends to be easier to start talking out loud but it's weird.

i've seen geeks go to meetings and hook themselves into irc or im so they could chat with EACH OTHER while sitting at the SAME TABLE!

and think i was weird for suggesting they try speaking with each other using their voices.

okay i'm weird but what does that have to do with the point at hand?

i laugh a little when i think about this online dating phenomena. i had my first 'online date' in like nineteen ninety four but we didn't have lavalife or okcupid we had chat and mutual friends. it was just like meetings someone at a party only you had to meet them again to see what they looked like.

you didn't have pictures to go on. no video, no webcams.

there wasn't a handy web page or blog somewhere where they talked about themselves (although i did my first one of those in ninety five or so. fuck i'm old.) and there was no google to ferret out their cat's name or their real age.

you had to just believe them. and learn about them the 'old fashioned' way.

but on the internet.

i'll never forget meeting Z. and i met him in an irc channel and admired his entrance. there was flourish.

or D... damm he was so cute with the not realising i said yes when he asked me out. [D: so when are we going to go out? sass: i don't know you haven't asked me yet. - steps on chairlift - he said it took him three days to realise that i hadn't said no - lol]

one online and one on snow but both memorable and real.

i've lost count of the number of times a friend has picked up the pieces or shared their sorrow or asked for advice or told me about their day or asked after my cats...

i've laughed and cried and had my heart lifted and broken and mended again. i've felt spark and been moved and had my life changed forever.

i don't understand why people talk about the internet as though the things that happen there aren't real.

just how is it exactly that they aren't real?

impressions

.
really early on monday:

i'm watching curling.

this is bad as it's 3:24am and it's really good curling.

fortunately i can turn off my ringer and sleep in tomorrow. monday is my favourite morning of the week if i don't have appointments.

okay i think i may have come to a conclusion about the profile picture question. y'all and i like the one that's there now... so until i see something that i like more i'm going to leave it. maybe i'm only allowed to have one eye for blogger or something.

protests are welcome :)

man quebec is doing some HOT curling.

speaking of ice sports, i was watching hockey last night and the leafs game was so boring that i watched the canadiens. if you understand hockey rivalry then you get that i basically just told you that in hockey terms i decided to go lesbian.

fortunately there was a stagger of about ten minutes between the games so i got to watch most of both of them. and i noticed something really strange.

[damm, ontario is fucking lucky quebec only scored 2 on that end]

the leafs were trying.

wait it gets weirder.

not only were they trying but they were also creating scoring opportunities. well okay, they were trying to. they weren't doing it that particularly well okay but they were trying. they were passing the puck and.

wait for it.

they actually took shots at the net.

yeah it's okay, i was stunned as well. they were down four nothing and instead of giving up they got back two. it was so weird. i was like looking for the evil twins and trying to figure out what was going on. i decided that maybe they were trying something new.

i'm not sure how i feel about it.

also? i think i may have seen a moment of defence.

i know!

anyway an interesting shift. i don't even care that they lost, if they're actually shifting their strategy this is *wonderful*!

probably too late for this year but you never know right?

i'm not sure how i feel about this because if pat quinn actually pulls a miracle out of his ass and the leafs make the playoffs then he might not get fired and if he doesn't get fired it's several more years of this bullshit that the leafs have been throwing at us.

it's so hard to know how to feel and all.

damn that was some good curling that ended at 5am... quebec won by a rock but they really dominated the whole game.
.

later on monday
monday
monday
i got nothin'

it's monday.

a friend of mine doesn't call me back anymore and i'm not sure how to take it. i know that he just bought a house and he's really busy with that. i also know that he has a demanding job and a busy schedule but he just never seems to have time for me.

when we make plans he cancels them.

when i call him he doesn't call back.

when i suggest plans to his voice mail he doesn't bother to call in time to confirm or deny.

when he was always busy but he called me back it was cool but now he doesn't even call. i mean i guess it's okay if he doesn't want to be my friend anymore but i hate this guessing bullshit. i mean last time i decided someone didn't want to be my friend anymore it turned out they were just massively special needs with email.

but this is different because we live in the same city and he's always called me back before. even if we couldn't hook up we at least talked. this is even more different because we also share a professional relationship and he's not calling me about that stuff anymore either.

i know that i should call him up and ask him if something is up. and i will do that eventually but at this point it's still too much like a stalker until he does this for a while longer. i'm just starting to note a trend and i don't like it at all.

i'm especially pissed if he is distancing himself from me because i hate being dumped with no explanation.

course it's probalby karmic revenge for some dumpings i performed in just that manner when i was a lot younger. note the crucial words when i was a lot *younger* though. somehow it's different when you're an ass and still young. you're kind of expected to go through that and come out the other side all mature like.

if he were 25 i would expect this sort of crap. but he's not. well i hope i'm wrong anyway.

i was wrong about a meeting that i attended today. the lady who owns the studio that i rent space in is meeting with all of the teachers that rent/work there to sort of go over some stuff and talk about some changes... and i thought she was raising my rates or ushering me out the door or firing me.

i'm so paranoid... it's like i just assume that no one likes me and everyone is out to get me and the universe is nasty and then?

yeah nothing.

the politics at that studio are all outside of me and are causing some changes to be made that basically don't affect me in the slightest... so it's not about me at all.

*laughing my ass off at my own hubris*

:)

happy monday.

profilez part deux

.
okay the list has been narrowed and the semi-finalists are as follows:

A:


B:


C:


D:


E:


F:



i have definite feelings against two of the above but will put them in for voting with willingness to be swayed since y'all have to look at them. i do get veto and tie-breaking of course :)
.

i'm feeling a little strange or odd or off lately. i could say discombobulated but stonednerd already thinks of it as my word so you know, i have to share the discombobulated love...

what makes this oddness sort of hard to pindown is that i have to sort out the difference between hormones and actual emotions. being female my body takes me on a little trip down emotional mood swing lane for a week out of ever four. what this means is that mood wise i'm basically like vancouver.

(in vancouver they say 'if you don't like the weather wait five minutes')

if i'm down or sad or maudlin or off or odd or whatever? i have to wait a week to see if it turns out to be that time of the month or if i'm actually feeling that way. it makes it really hard to make decisions about anything that has any kind of emotional quotient.

there is nothing worse that going off all ranting and mad and then two days later realising it was your hormones taking a dive off that bridge for you. and sometimes? even if you tell your brain that it's hormones?

it goes into deep denial and tells you you're wrong. it claims to be sane and rational. it's sure those pesky hormones can't possibly be why it wants you to chop someone's head off with a cleaver.

it's a brain, it's functional and logical and smart. it's the new mark three brain that doesn't have emotional responses that are triggered by hormones.

i wonder if denial is a hormonal response?

the point is that this makes discerning your own feelings extra difficult. it helps to have some awareness of your cycle but that's kinda fluid anyway. and it helps to know your response to things like hunger or tiredness.

so i've been feeling kind of odd and a little down and i've been kind of waiting to see how i felt after i figured out where i am in my cycle or after i ate or slept or worked or didn't work or recovered from my cold or or or.

except that i think that this has been an ongoing underlying thing for a while now.

i think i'm feeling vaguely disatisfied and i can't really figure out why. i'm hoping it's just that it's time to move out of my apartment or that poverty sucks or that i need to get laid but i'm not sure that's it.

i think that maybe there's something more up and i haven't figured out what it is.

ah well, it's saturday and i have some hanging with my best friend to do and i'm sure this crap will sort itself out as it wills.

happy voting!

profilez...

.
so yeah

my profile picture is nearly two years old...

so here are a couple of possible replacements... in no particular order.

i do have preferences but i am willing to be swayed:























sorry about that one, i saved it wrong...



i left in a couple i don't like cause they're amusing... but the ones with the half open eyes? probably not making it into my profile.

that's it, happy friday!
.

to title or not to title...

.
i just got dumped for something someone read in my blog that wasn't even about them. that is some funny shit.
.

especially because we both did that about each other's blogs before.
.

humans never learn.
.

i am having a green bean and parmesan cheese omelette with pita for dinner.
.
originally i typed greed.
.

yes, it is in fact 23:46, why do you ask?
.

it is surprisingly tasty.
.

i have been a 'bad blogger' lately post frequency wise.
.

i have been feeling a bit uninspired.
.

ironically when i do post i like it a lot.
.

wish i could have said it this well.
.

i am taking a workshop on the psoas on saturday.
.

yeah the KNEE gets a workshop and the psoas, a mere muscle, gets it's own afternoon. this is going to be heavy.
.

holy shit i make mean eggs.
.

green beans would be better in a frittata, they don't stick right in an omelette. still yummy though.
.

it's funny how many people took responsibility and apologised for the advice they consider bad. as though it was from them... silly rabbits :) *huggs* i just think it's neat that the same themes repeat over and over again. i'm much more interested in the why than the who.
.

harriet doesn't like drinking out of her dish.
.

have to get the da buttah cat food caddy thingamagig.
.

i miss elle...
.

rr kicked my ass today. but i learned a lot and fixed some things.
.

she said 'that's looking better' a couple of times.
.

!!!!!
.

mouse's allergies are acting up. i really hope moving helps with that.
.

i'm having fun with this post but i'm running out of ideas.
.

*inhales*
.

is anyone getting commenting errors on my blog?
.

i think i might be able to pay first and last in time.
.

the apartment might not be being moved out of. in exchange there may be an 18th floor one instead of a 4th floor one. identical layout. find out tomorrow.
.

for ten dollars more a month. aw fucking shucks :)
.

reformers are good for people with brain injuries. the two sides being forced to work together helps the brain learn to track. i have to tell hot doctor that rr said that. wonder if she can cite anything... hmmmm... note to self when you read this tomorrow. call her and ask.
.

i have ONE client... no sorry two tomorrow. done by 8:30am.
.

full work week next week again. this slow thing has been a bit nice. have a lunch date tomorrow with clarity i'm stoked about. :)
.

is it wrong i'm sort of looking forward to a full week because i'll actually be MORE organized? i know, it's sick.
.

HILLSIDE APPLICATIONS ARE OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
.

are there enough exclamation points in the world?
,

*dance of joy*
*dance of joy*
*dance of joy*
*dance of joy*
*dance of joy*
*dance of joy*
*dance of joy*
.

i'm not excited at all.
.

seriously i'm almost singing with joy in my head. and i'll just get more excited until then and you know what? it will STILL be better than i'm expecting.
.

othercat and i have an ongoing 'i'm getting thinner' pic thingy going at hillside. so far the first two are hilarious. can't wait to see this years...
.

i think i need a smaller bathing suit...
.

oh man i have to teach at 6:30am.
.

*inhales*
.

night!

wasabi!

.
i'm sad for everyone who lives in a place without lays potato chips. why am i sad for y'all? three words. wasabi and spicy curry flavours. yes those are two different kinds.

wasabi potato chips! they're green. they're utterly wrong and it's WONDERFUL. they're extra wrong because they're green and we're always told not to eat green potatoes because they're going to kill you. yes, i am contrary, why do you ask?

anyway if you can find either of these flavours i recommend trying them. if you can't you'll have to settle for miss vickie's jalopeno or roasted garlic and honey or sweet chili or... :)

yes i love food. i love food a lot. in fact my father describes his daughters as fun to feed. and we are. i think it's because we're willing to make the foodgasm face when something is particularly good.

i probably shouldn't be having curry chips for both breakfast and lunch today though, i mean my skin might end up with that curry smell and i'm not sure how that mixes with my usual garlic scented wonderfulness.

i eat enough garlic that when people tell me that a place reeks of garlic i don't smell it. i wonder what that says about my skin...

currently it reeks of woodstove and i'm not telling how many days of dirt but i'm sort of enjoying that. i expect it will be all nice and fresh smelling in an hour when i leave for work though. i'm always a tiny bit sad to bathe after i've let myself stew in my own juices a bit longer than usual. there's something so inexplicably satisfying about being dirty.

also i think it's good for you. people today are overly sheltered from dirt and germs and i think it's why the nasty stuff is on the rise. our bodies need the kind of benign germs found in dirt in order to learn what to protect themselves from. there's a reason children love mud and dirt and it isn't just to make mommy buy more tide.

i am starting to wonder if our reliance on anti-bacterials and extreme cleanliness isn't part of why cancer rates are on the rise. i'm already sure they relate to these resistant bugs that are popping up all over the place.

we are messing with shit that we don't properly understand and it's dangerous as hell. i'm always encouraging people to 'eat some dirt' so to speak. yes i know, i didn't go to medical school and i'm not entitled to an opinion. and still i tell my class things like 'your homework is to say something nice to a stranger" :)
.

i got some interesting responses to my letter to my sex drive. be advised that every single piece of the following came from at least two if not more people and that (i confess) a few of these are older suggestions...

way less comments than i expected actually. people kept telling me that if i talked about sex more i would get more comments and that experiment failed. well it passed with flying colours when i passed on blow job instructions but that was totally different.

i was informed that i should chuck my blog and go hang out with my friends because that was better for me than blogging. but i mostly blog to kill time my friends aren't available to fill so that doesn't work. plus none of my friends know any single men.

it was suggested, yet again, that i turn myself into someone else. irony? everyone who suggested that is in a relationship in which they seem (or at least appear) to be entirely themselves.

my standards are apparently too high. balls, brains and maybe a smidgen of humour are me expecting way too much.

i should just find some nice man that i feel friendly toward and marry him. this chemistry stuff is overrated. being attracted to somoene is overrated. wanting someone in your bed? overrated. it's all about friendship in the end.

best of all? i should wait for the man i most recently fell for to come around [who i never dated btw]. which will NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER happen. i can tell you this unequivocally and if that word is too hard for you? with dead certainty.

yes he thinks my brain is candy but nope, not my body. not something i can change. [not something he said either, that's just the truth]

what else? oh yes i should stop hanging out with homosexuals because all that nets me are more homosexual friends. there is some truth to that. i mean every single person i hang out with is either gay or taken or not interested... and none of them are introducing me to the straight and available men in their lives.

the women i know? hmmm my sister. a bunch of bloggers and a pile of pilates instructors. not too many single men in that group.

that i should find out where the men i want actually ARE.

that most people meet their mates at university.

that people have in fact wanted to boink me but that i haven't wanted them. which is true.

oh and my job. my job is not helpful because it meets me lots of women. man if i were gay this would be so much easier.

tragically most of the women who read my blog seem to be in a similar boat. and i expect their suggestions from their friends are about the same.

and i shouldn't move in with my neighbour pile because it's asking too much for a man to get past the idea that i live with another man. said man is nineteen and gay and more of a girl than i am but that's really not relevant.

oh and maybe since i'm extra difficult and complex i should chase after men in their fifties. because yummy.

=======================
ADDENDUM!

none of the above is unique, in fact i've heard ALL of it at least ten times from at least ten different people. nor am i taking much of this (other than the part about finding out WHERE the men i want are actually hanging out) to heart. it's just interesting how the above keeps reappearing in conversations about this stuff.

also? some of this was more pointing out circumstance than suggesting i change things (like my job ... no changing that!)
========================

i did invite the hot redhead from the climbing gym out for a bowl the other night and we got into a pretty intense and cool discussion. enough so that i've declared him my crushoftheweek.

oh i haven't told you about those?

yeah i've decided that since i love being crushy BUT that i can't bear the heartbreak that comes along with the really big, nasty, unrequited, drawn out and ridicilous crushes that i'll just get crushy on someone for a week and then move on.

so if a man gets enough of my attention to have me sort of looking for him the next time i'm in the same place? crush of the week. that's it though, he gets a week and then

*NEXT!*

i don't think that this will get me any more dates but it should make it easier to bear the crushes. hopefully it will also armour me from the painful ones. the ones that grab hold and don't let go.

you know just keep looking around the next corner.

i think the shittiest part about dating in this day and age is simply that noone knows the rules anymore. every person out there has their own rulebook and their own set of expectations and no one has a clue under the sun what anyone else is thinking.

for all i know the hot redhead is wondering why i didn't ask him out. or why i didn't go sit down and climb with him the next time we were at the gym or why or why or why or ... it's more likely that he's not thinking about me at all mind you.

funny though how in the space of an hour you can find out just how much you have in common with someone. or don't.

doesn't take much does it?

ah well. my sex drive has returned from whence it came and hopefully it will stay there. i suspect though that this was the proverbial shot across the bow and that spring will be hella nasty for me this year...

parental guidance advised...

.

warning: the following may be offensive to some:
.

what? i warned you.
.

dear my sex drive;

yes you, i'm talking to you. hey stop that!

i'm pissed at you. yes that's right, actually pissed. full on rage even.

there i was happily existing in my sex object free life and there you were happily on vacation. we were happy.... there were margaritas for you and i was living my little life without interruption from you.

and then.

you fucker. something got you to twitch and instead of the lazy ass you usually are where you just sorta grumble to yourself and go back to sleep?

oh no. not you. you had to wake up and go

"HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

"OVER HEEEEEEEEEEEE-URRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRE!"

and you weren't happy with just a little drive by visit. oh no, you felt the need to like take up residence or something and leave me walking around in a state of high uh... excitement for days.

what the fuck was that about?

first of all allow me to point out that spring isn't due for another month so it wasn't really time for you to make your annual pilgrimmage back from jamaica. in fact i have you scheduled to be away for another 8 weeks at least.

but no.

you had to go and get bored with the biker and come back early. fucking figures.

do you have any idea how distracting you are? there i am, sitting with pile, waiting for the nice lady to come and show us an apartment and you're all

*twitch*

"psst.... yeah that's right, i'm still here"

"no i'm not leaving what do i look like stale fish? you girlie are stuck with me for the duration"

i just don't understand what you're doing here. it's not like you've seen anything cross my path lately that you've liked. i mean i know you read that thing that got you all awake but that couldn't have been enough by itself could it?

can't you just go to florida for a while?

please?

look i'll even lend you the car?

i'm just not sure that you're grokking how frustrating it is to have you around right now. i mean it's certainly not like i need you here reminding me how long it's been because yeah, i remember.

i don't need you reminding me that noone has wanted to boink me for years. three to be specific.

and i certainly don't need you running around making me twitchy when i'm trying to teach. look you're allowed to visit when our hot client is around okay?

come on that's a good deal isn't it? you can get all hot and bothered over him and then transport yourself back to sunny climes?

take a cruise maybe?

come on the idea of you off having a good time while i live my quiet little life is sort of appealing. besides you're making apartment hunting really hard.

and don't give me that bullshit that you're here to cheer me up either because i am here to tell you that no. it doesn't work that way. you show up all itchy and hot and want things and just remind me that they aren't actually there.

and you know? i was getting to making some peace with that.

i was even getting to the place where not being able to afford to have a kid in time to actually have a kid was sort of okay. i don't mean i was like excited or "oh yay i get to be alone and childless yay" or anything but i was making peace.

i was getting over it.

so i'm alone i was telling myself. so no one interesting actually wants me and that's okay. i'm sure this sex thing is overrated after all. i mean i think i recall it being kind of overrated...

isn't it?

look sex drive i know you're disappointed okay? you sort of got a dud to live inside. i know you didn't think you were going to end up living in a celibate but if it's any consolation i didn't think i would BE a celibate so doesn't that make us even?

can't you just sort of quietly fold yourself up and like go back where you came from?

stop torturing me?

stop demanding things that i am powerless to give you?

and no, i can't just go pick up some hottie in a bar and boink it. you know damm well we have a sexually transmitted disease and responsibility dictates that we actually TELL people that before we boink them. remember?

you know the old drunken bar conversation that goes like this:
"hey hottie wanna fuck"
"uh i have an st... hey where you going?"

you remember that right?

okay i know we've never actually had that conversation but you get what i'm saying right? come on don't you?

*sigh*

fucking thing never listens.

please please please go back to jamaica? be all warm and sunny and margaritaville living? please? go away and leave me alone?

stop reminding me that there are things to want that seem impossible for me?

damm you i did all the things you're supposed to do. i went and got my sanity back. i went and got my body back. i started wearing mascara. i started wearing tight jeans and actually letting the hot boys catch me looking. i put myself on the fucking online personals with a pretty good profile even. i didn't say no to anyone who asked me out.

come on i can't help it that no one is asking! i can't. i don't know what else i can do to satisfy you so please, for the love of me and all that's holy would you just fuck off?

please?

i can't take it i just can't.... and frankly after the first two days my index finger gets exceedingly old.

pretty please?

-sass

it's official...

.
i am feeling strangely uninspired lately. i think it's really a bit of a case of the midwinter blahs but still. got nothing.

my apartment is a complete disaster area and i don't even care. i confess to doing dishes and laundry and that's about it. i can sort of find the floor and yet i'm fully unconcerned. i have a pile of crap on my plate and in my head and i'm still not back to myself yet.

it's freaking amazing how long one little sinus cold can take it out of you. i'm actually really grateful that my clients are all away for a couple of weeks. i mean this will be my worst month in a while but it's a 5 week month and all of them are coming back at the same time so *shrug* i'll be okay but it will be kind of hard.

i'm used to hard though so no big.

went climbing tonight with mg and man. i am so weak and tired it's kind of sick. i did more today, including downclimb a couple of routes but still i was wimpy. there's this 5.8 that's been there forever that goes over the door of the main gym and i tried to fall off TWICE before i made the tragically simple move that i've made a million times before.

i think my harness might have helped *blush*

it's really freaking amazing how weak you get how fast. i'm stunned. stunned.

i really want to clean my apartment and instead i watched all of my tapes. i'm actually CAUGHT UP on survivor. i know, i was stunned myself. i'll be all caught up pretty fast and then it will be weird. i'll be like waiting for television to be on.

hah who am i kidding? i'll so stop watching tv the second i'm really better. it's like soup, i only ever like soup when i'm sick. chances are if i ate soup today i'm less well then i think i am.

and yes, i ate soup today.

so i'm grateful as hell that my clients are all gone. i'm sad financially that i'm working an hour tomorrow but i'm so damm grateful from a sleep and rest perspective it isn't even funny.

in fact i'm going to bed right now and finishing this post tomorrow.
.

pile and i are going apartment hunting in a few minutes. we're going to wander the streets with a cell phone and call all the places we're willing to live as we walk by them. we probably won't get to see much right then but we'll make appointments and leave messages.

i'm pretty stoked to be moving. i love this apartment but i've outgrown it now and it's time to let it go.

the plan is to teach out of the living room (well and he'll do ten body tune ups - a kundalini yoga thingy) and live in the bedrooms. it won't make a difference to him as he's already living in a bachelor and i see no reason why a cadillac and a television can't coexist peacefully in the same room.

all you have to do is put a drape over the tv and noone even realises that it's there.

we're looking to find a place with a balcony because then i can smoke weed outside AND we can grow herbs and spices for ourselves. maybe even a tomato plant or two.

ahh what bliss, outdoor plants in a little space of our very own.

it's looking like a renters market out there too which is even better. we've seen tons of ads for two bedrooms right around here that are only slightly more than we're paying between us now.

wait you don't get it.

what we're paying for our apartments NOT including what we're paying to the studio in rent. so that means i can chuck a couple of hundred extra bucks at the rent for a super nice place with lots of space and still i'll be doing a lot better!

maybe even save a few pennies when i'm not paying a quarter of my income from teaching privates to someone else for use of her space. hell i'm not even welcome to use the interac and credit card machines anymore so pretty much all of the advantages of working out of there have left.

ahhh apartment hunting, got to hate it... but the results will be SO worth it!

crap it's raining, we're phone apartment hunting instead.

ah well, shit happens and we do have a lovely magazine full of ads for just this reason. it just won't be as much fun and we'll have to look at maps and stuff.
.

oh my fuck.

ministry is coming on june 6th.

oh my fuck.

i wonder if i can afford it. of course i can afford it, i've only liked ministry since HIGH SCHOOL!

in fact every day is hallowe'en (a song most people refuse to admit is ministry even when they see the album cover) is still one of my favourite songs ever.

hee ministry is coming.

to the koolhaus so it's even a small venue. wonder when the tickets go on sale... i'll need to find out exact dates cause i think that place tends to sell out fast as hell.

wow ministry. i've had more near misses with that band than anyone. god it would be great to see them, it's only been twenty years since i first fell in love with them.

oh man twenty years.

i'm officially old!
.

bubble bubble toil and trouble

.

okay, as a few of you know i got a lovely christmas gift from someone who read in my blog how much i wanted one of these. here are a couple of half decent pics of it that i'm posting solely so she can see them.

i'm still sick in these photos so please excuse the glassy eyes and ridiculous smile.



look ma my head is enormous! and hubris still has pink hair!



further adventures of the very large head....

and without further ado, my olympic schwag:



these aren't the sexiest photos ever but y'all can at least get the idea.

bubbles i'm sorry the cleavage didn't come out better for ya, i'll try harder next time :) i think you can at least get the gist of just how ridiculously sexy that outfit can be with the small chunks of skin showing here and there.

whenever i wear the shrug with that shirt i get the best responses. mostly from women actually but that might be because most of my clients are women. funny thing is that men sort of react like 'wow is that ever sexy' but without actually seeming to find me sexy. it's very weird.
.

i went climbing last night and man was it ever strange how tired and weak i was. i mean i still know how to move and i can still totally climb but i did like 6 routes with only two of them 5.8s and the rest 5.7s and i was pooped. pooped and pumped even.

it's amazing how a stupid sinus cold can take it out of you for days on end. in fact i wonder just how long i'll actually be weak for. the moves are there but the strength isn't. i especially noticed it in my grip. there was just nothing there.

still it felt fantastic to get back to the gym and feel myself move. heck i even demonstrated some in class tonight!
.

so i watched the oscars. good christ that's four and a half hours of my life that i'll never get back. the red carpet portion of the program totally bit because it seemed like there weren't really any celebritities there.

in fact the entire program was sort of lacklustre and i wonder if it's a reflection of the changing face of hollywood or if it has to do with how boring most of the nominated movies were.

okay that's not fair, crash wasn't boring and i've heard that capote was excellent. it's just that to give ang lee a best director oscar for brokeback mountain was ridiculous. it's like hollywood decided that the movie was epic and never even bothered to see it with their eyes open.

course not, they were too busy snoring.

i was glad for philip seymour hoffman though...

it just seemed like they scripted the show so much in an effort to make it run on time that they ate the life out of the oscars. too bad, they used to be such fun. where's cher when you need her?
.

okay that's enough, this post is really all about the pictures anyway.

reality bites

.
(friday night)
oh my universe i actually feel human again.

not all the way better but to the point where i want a little toot off my pipe and some solid food. i'm actually going to class with rr tomorrow although i'll maybe skip half the stuff and just get warmed up. i'm still getting light headed when i exert myself and it's definitely not easy to find the logic inside of the stoned morass that is the sinus cold. but it's better.
.

(saturday evening)
ahhh i can breathe.

class with the goddess was surprisingly good actually, in fact my body was much more cooperative than expected. cooperative enough that i am beginning to suspect that i got a cold in large part because my body wanted the week off.

don't scoff, i was feeling run down as hell before i got the sinus cold and now even though i'm not even all the way better everything is much happier. and if you don't think your body plays a large part in deciding whether or not it feels like getting a cold then i'm sorry.

it's still a bit annoying really since i had taken a week off from climbing already for resting purposes and suddenly it's something like three weeks with one climb. i feel all flabby and fat and unworked out and and and.... it's so funny what happens when you take an exercise junkie and remove her ability to exercise. it's like we go a bit nuts because we can't work out our stuff the way we're used to.

take me for instance, if i'm upset or stressed or angry or feeling hard done by i'll take myself climbing, toss my shit at a wall and walk out refreshed. or at least significantly less likely to murder someone... i've never been the type to go to a shrink, instead i take my negative feelings and transmute them into muscle.

muscle is so much prettier than a dark cloud over your head could ever be. and the best thing about exercise is that it's as addictive as any other drug and the act of exercising gives you endorphins that make you happy AND it makes you not hungry so it even helps with the dieting!

not that i need any help with that this week. i went and lost close to ten pounds while i was sick. no worries, i took myself to mcdonalds so i should be back to my usual whining about my inability to drop the last twenty pounds anytime now.

irony. i've lost that ten pounds like five or eight times already but my body isn't ready for it to be off. or i'm not since i keep eating at mcdonalds.

mmmmmm deep fried lard mixed with potatoes.

such deliciousness.
.

i heard my father use the word excellentissimo.

my life is complete.
.

so i've been thinking some about those pants i bought the other day. the ones that are a small and are supposed to make me feel all excellent about myself because i can fit into a small. the ones that have me shaking my head and wondering what most of the women i know would get to wear if *I* get to be the small. (and there was no XS either)

the lady at the store was very petite and she was wearing the kids sizes but there are at least 5 sizes of woman between me and her. she was like 5'2" with hips about the size of my waist.

so she's a kid and i'm a small (and the smalls are extra long on ME) and then there's medium and large and extra large. i'm currently hovering around the average size of the north american woman (13) which should logically put me in a medium or a large.

so the petite lady at the store buys all her clothing in kids. that means that there are enormous numbers of women out there who are also buying their clothing in the kids section. in ontario that's extra cool because there's no provincial sales tax on kids clothing but.

but.

if i'm a small now that means that every woman who is smaller than i am (by definition half the population of north america) is screwed when they're trying to buy clothing. so if those women are shopping in the kids section it stands to reason that they will be selecting with the eyes of an adult.

they will be after the scoop necked top. the low rise jeans. the sexy and form fitting dress. the mini skirt. the midriff shirt. the boob hugging top. the business casual outfits.

right, clothing the average relatively attractive and well built adult woman would want to wear.

which suddenly lends a pile of insight to the trend of marketing sexy clothing to children. some genius noticed that all the adult styled clothing in the kids section was selling like hotcakes.

said genius failed utterly to notice the inability of modern women to figure out what size they are or that half the women in north america are more and more being forced to shop in the kids section because manufacturers are making size labels based on 'feel good sizing' rather than reality. in turn said genius said 'hey look, let's market this sex clothing shit to kids aggressively!' and of course more and more small women are turning to the kids sections to get their clothing.

it's a catch twenty two.

makes you wonder what came first. ten year old girls dressing like hookers or that marketing genius crunching some numbers.

for me i'm not thinking that it's the ten year old girls.

not that we'll ever know, the ten year old girl of today is so well trained that she knows she's supposed to dress like britney spears every single day. funny because britney doesn't dress that way on her days off. okay it's probably not britney anymore, there's probably some new teen sensation who makes hilary duff look old but whatever, you get the gist.

makes you wonder what that girl would want to wear without all the 'tween' marketing doesn't it?

i guess it's still the same old question, which came first?

spoiled rotten

.
i'm sorry this post took so long, i've been busy sleeping off a sinus cold.

.
hot damn i had no idea how spoiled i was. before this winter i hadn't had a cold since... christ i can hardly remember. i think the last crud i had was actually that horrid, barfing norwalk thingy and that was something like three years ago.

I was still living with tr then!

now i may have had one since then but i do not remember it.

anyway the point is that i am on my second cold of the winter and it sucks. it sucks it sucks it sucks it sucks and i don't even really feel like i have the right to whine about it because i spent so many years being not sick before that.

i suspect the problem is my job. i'm exposed to hundreds of people every week and a pile of them are in weakened or compromised states and another pile of them have children who are in school.

so yeah. i used to think i didn't get colds because i had this supercalafragalisticexpialadociously awesome immune system.

yeah no.

i just wasn't being exposed. it turns out in fact that i need to be as careful as everyone else about this crap. you know, wash your hands incessantly even if they aren't dirty (my poor ridiculously sensitive and dry skin!), try not to touch the handrails on the subway, try not to touch your clients... hrm that's kind of impossible.

see my problem?

i don't think that i've slept as much as i've slept this week in a year. take monday for example. i got a lovely night of sleep, woke up at 7am to teach from 8 to 10:30, went home and back to bed until 5 when i got up to teach from 6 until 8:30 and then home for a bit of food and some more sleep.

wednesday was even better. get up at 5:30, teach until 9:30, sleep until 2... wake up, check messages, note that hot client cancelled, go back to sleep until 3 and come to work. i mean i've been awake about a third as much as i've been asleep this week and it's been great but strange.

i'm always amazed at just how much you can sleep when you're sick. and it's not like you run out. i mean since this time yesterday i've slept about twelve hours and let me tell you it's been TWO since i woke up last and already i just wish that i could go back to sleep. aren't you supposed to be able to bank a little bit of this crap?

to add insult to injury all of my clients are running off on two or three week long vacations this month and i'm going to have to scramble to pay for my life. for serious like 80% of them. what they couldn't give me some notice?

shut up a week sucks. ah well, a couple are returning so it should improve anyway.
.

i don't understand the people who meet you on the internet and don't want to meet you in real life. what is the point of chatting with someone and then just continuing to chat? like if you don't want to hang out with me in person then what on earth is the point of the chatting?

this happens all the time. i remember scared bunny did a post about it. that if someone didn't want to meet after two weeks of chatting they were wasting your time and you shouldn't bother.

dude was so right.
.

i gave in and bought some olympic schwag today. god i loved the canadian uniforms this year. they were so kitschy and totally canadian and everything costs half as much as it did at roots. i hope they get to do it again even though hbc got bought by an american.

that's so fucking weird.

the hudson's bay company.

the people who started the fur trade. yeah. just got bought by someone who isn't from this country. i'm really kinda hella baffled. it seems so wrong.

like selling off hydro
or maybe some nuclear plants
or logging crown land
or agreeing to sell fresh water regardless of our own objections
or refusing to care about the environment
or not planning for the future
or um

yeah this is making me sad.

anyway on a brighter note apparently mr. new hudson's bay is in the process of becoming canadian. interesting. (i stress APPARENTLY)

god the clothes are good!

the strangest thing though? i am five feet eleven and a bit inches tall. i weigh a hundred and seventy pounds (or seventy five or eighty depending on water and where i am in my cycle) and i'm a SMALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a small???

that's freaking impossible. i mean hell when i was swimming and the same height but a hundred and thirty three pounds?

a medium.

so please explain to me how i have gained forty pounds and yet i'm a size smaller. the lady at the store who was an actual small (five two and maybe a hundred and ten pounds) yeah she was wearing kids.

the size thing is getting out of hand.

funny thing is that i expected to have problems with the pants but i don't. it's the SHIRTS! the ones that fit my body are too short.

the good news? at least i'm back to the level of thin where everything long enough is too big. it's frustrating for shopping but good for the ego.

but seriously. my tights are a small. that shit is so messed up. no one in their right minds would accuse ME of being a small on the bottom. i'm like a twelve or a fourteen. what's everyone else supposed to wear???

so pretty though :)
.

happy thursday y'all ... the only nudity y'all are getting is an imaginary view of my crusty nose ... hello!