seven year itch

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there's a reason that seven is a lucky number and that people discuss seven year cycles and multiples of seven and that your body takes something like seven years to replace all your cells except the ones in your brain. [i may have that last one wrong]

seven is a long time and a short time depending on what you're measuring.

when i did my first hillside festival it was the summer of nineteen ninety-nine and i was in the ski patrol and there to do first aid and i was in the middle of a divorce. needless to say the festival blew my mind.

in fact? i went home and quit my job.

i think i was supposed to find that place, i think it was instrumental to my development as a human being and to saving me after my car accident. those people showed me that the way was there.

they showed me that i could be a better person simply by choosing to act organically and to consider the ripples before i threw pebbles.

they taught me that i was calm.

*wanders off to look at this gallery*

they helped me redefine mellow

and cranky.

they helped me learn to let other people's misery roll off me and sink into the planet for filtering.

they showed me that even i wasn't opposed to casual nudity.

i learned there that you get what you expect nearly always.

they helped me to free the dancer inside me. the one i had never met but had always suspected was there. and every year they free her a little more.

they demonstrated that communication beats shouting every time and they taught me to be better at it.

they raised my standards for myself.

in other words, over the seven years that i've known this festival i've changed all my cells, and because i changed the person making the cells i'm a new person now. and this was my eighth hillside festival and last thursday was seven full years since i met hillside.

and before i would go there and see this possible me for three days or so and then i would come home and try to find her in my daily life and she wasn't really there. well it turns out that she was coming.

i know this because this year i went to hillside and i was still just me, i didn't turn into someone else or better me or whatever. i didn't have to get myself to vibrate on a higher level just to fit with these enlightened souls.

so i guess i've graduated in some way and thus this year was an evolution year.

and it was kind of bittersweet.

instead of taking it away for the weekend and showing me perfect possible life/me the festival this year gave me a miniature of my life in three days. right down to a passable imitation of the most recent guy i was intrigued by at the climbing gym and a hyperspeed sample of the evolution of our relationship.

seriously there's no more to tell don't get excited.

i am fortunate that he wasn't into me back that guy at the gym.

anyway, i just saw my life from the outside in some sort of inexplicable way. lights got shined into dust covered corners. and it's interesting that lately i've been cleaning my home and that i'm planning a fast.

it's further interesting that someone did a tarot reading on me (one of the only people i know i would take even remotely seriously at such a thing) and basically said that i have to live in the moment and that it's evolving time. i need to figure out what's holding me back and just step through the wide open doorway that i can't see because i'm standing in it.

and somehow that's what hillside told me too.

go sass! go forth and...

and...

um.

shit

yeah that's the problem, i don't know what i'm supposed to go forth and do. i don't know because i've healed my body and then i healed my mind but i haven't healed my soul.

i still have these wounds that are sitting there and festering a little because i haven't released them.

i have beliefs and expectations that are coloring my realities because i haven't let them go.

i have bullshit clogging my filters and i haven't gotten all the scum out yet.

basically it's time to heal the spirit and i'm sort of afraid to start because it's going to be so much more work than anything else was. the body healed and that got the mind healing but the spirit.

yeah.

i walked around this weekend like a wraith and it got harder and harder to talk until by today i couldn't articulate words without sounding like a bitch. i wasn't trying to, it's just that it was so hard to speak that i had to make this great big effort just to get my voice to come out and thus it came out sounding wrong.

it's such a strange head space to be in. i was there. it was wonderful and i am fully blissed out. but i've talked about that already, go read last year's posts if you want to hear about that part of it because all of that is still there.

but my head is, if anything, less clear than it was when i left.

now since you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs it's probably good that my mental closet is a mess because now i can see what's behind and under all the neat piles but. yeah.

eggs are messy and hard to clean up and it's nice being on this even keel thing i have going.

ahhh hillside, fuck you for giving me what i need instead of what i want. and for teasing me with the latter just to reinforce the lesson.

you know i can only talk like that about you because i love you right?

right?

cause hillside baby, you and i are in this for the long haul.

sneaky bastard!

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hillside.

hillside hillside hillside.

yeah, you.

i can't believe that you're here, in fact it seems like just yesterday that i was bemoaning the fact that you weren't here for another six or eight or ten months and then whammo!

there you are.

i'm not really sure how you did it, i've known your dates since last july and yet somehow you snuck up on me.

my bags are packed and i'm ready to go and yet still i don't really believe that tomorrow morning i will be AT HILLSIDE.

even as i type this i don't really believe it. that may have something to do with the four more clients and band practise that i have first... it could also be related to the anti-climax feeling that i've had going on all summer.

i'm here, i'm tanned, i'm living my life and yet somehow i don't really believe that summer is upon me. my body believes it because it's warm all the time and gets to go outside in basically no clothing and still be happy.

my brain? not so much.

it's probably got something to do with the utter lack of sleep that i've been suffering under for that last few weeks. some combination of heat and loud people outside at ungodly hours and the little hamster in my brain going ape shit on it's wheel.

like seriously you little fucker would you please retire already?

i really thought hamsters had shorter lifespans.
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this post is being written in my breaks today, expect it not to flow :)
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so yeah i got maybe four hours of sleep last night and the same the night before and the same the night before that and so on. it isn't pretty this summer at all and it doesn't seem to matter when i go to bed, i just can't fall asleep until basically just before it's time to wake up.

at this point i'm wandering around in a daze like a stupid and teaching my clients on some weird channelling the universe sort of autopilot. like they're getting great lessons and i am somehow hardly even there.

yes, it's freaking weird. like a lot.

nonetheless my spirits are high and i'm feeling well fed so there's really nothing to beef about except that i'm starting to really wonder just how little sleep a human can actually function with. methinks i'm finding out this summer.

people have actually been heard to say to me 'you look tired, fabulous but pooped' and they're right, it's just how i feel. hopefully this won't affect that thing next week i'm not telling anyone about until i know what happens.
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i've chosen a new approach to hillside this year. gone are the sarongs down to my ankles and wandering around without a bra on. in is hot skirts and shirts with built-in bras. this will still give the appearance of bralessness while giving the girls a bit of a lift.

yes they still pass the pencil test but the pencil sits lower than it used to.

it just seems to me that i may have better odds of being treated as a woman if i LOOK like a woman.

i know, weird.

and yet i still think it's a good idea.

i might retire the sarong under hat and over head and i might not. that will be determined by the weather...

and maybe a little more random swimming in public instead of only off the volunteer beach.

oh no! i'm doing like johnny kanuck said and putting on my best cougar outfit and going trolling!

fuck me, i'm predictable!
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in case y'all hadn't caught this detail yet, i'm not here this weekend, in fact i leave my blog in your hot little hands and expect to find a million comments pining for me when i get back!

*snerk*

okay 37?

three??? *grin*

and in case you're wondering? i'll miss y'all but not much since i'll be too busy blissing out to really care for the technology i can't use. hell i'm not even bringing a flashlight!

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you know what else i won't miss? my shower.

when i get home on monday i am going to be a hellaciously stinky girl who will have gone swimming something like eight times (last year's total and current record) and will have spent probably seven hours in the water all told.

ahhh fresh water mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

leaving aside just how dirty that lake is because it's all just algae type stuff caused by live organisms and heat. so yeah, don't do it if you have open sores and a tendency to infection.

otherwise? party on garth!

we were on a break

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[this post started and ended at 8:40pm but i didn't get a chance to post until now]

do you ever have something that you've desperately wanted to have happen happen and then realise that it just made everything worse?

yeah, that just happened.

some of you may recall that several months ago i was hurting because a friend decided to dump me without a word of explanation.

to add insult to injury he didn't return my calls, refused to make plans, didn't return my emails and when in desperation i just said 'i miss you what the hell' he still didn't answer. nothing. not one word for months.

EXCEPT? yeah except whenever he sees my friends he's all 'oh how's sass' as though he actually gives a shit. which makes him a liar.

so yeah, i've been running scenarios in my mind for months about this, what to do what to do, how to get this guy to return my calls (i also knew him on a professional basis, so although i have long written off the friendship i still need to speak with him regarding work approximately once a month.) nothing.

nothing.

nothing.

and i think about what will happen if i run into him in the street or at pilates class or if some well meaning friend arranges brunch for us both to be at or whatever. i think about what i'll say and how i'll react.

but, like husbands, these things never happen when you're expecting them.

they also never happen when you're ready for them. hell they don't even happen on a day when you're having a good hair day.

nope, they happen on days when you're exhausted because you haven't been sleeping well, you're hungry and all you want in the universe is a lie down on your couch with the latest episode of some shitty reality show.

days when your brain is on vacation but your sweat glands are working overtime.

yeah, THOSE days.

so i run into him on the street about fifteen minutes ago and he makes the funniest face where he like acts happy AND like he just had an enema at the same time. basically his real face and his polite face got in a fight and he never did figure out which one to wear.

so he goes to hug me and i go 'please don't touch me' because, let's face it, i don't touch well and i really don't touch well with people who hurt me. and long term? this guy hurt me more than that guy who stomped on my heart last winter.

yeah, a lot.

and he makes this confused face and i'm just like 'why won't you call me back' and he's all "i'm not going to have this conversation if you're going to take that tone" !!!

dude you dumped me flat without a word in FEBRUARY, what the fuck is your problem and why do you think i want to HUG you???

so i say, i apologise for my tone but nonetheless why won't you call me back about work? and he says "i just needed a break from you for a while"

me: and you couldn't talk to me about it or tell me why or anything?
he: shrugs and says he has to go with his friends but he'll call me after
me: i have plans tonight
he: i'll call you tomorrow
me: skeptical face

see that? he isn't calling me EVER he just wants to make sure that i don't make a scene in front of his friends. you know, the ones that didn't listen to him whine about his lover for a year before he dumped him. those friends. the cute boys. the ones that are fuckable instead of being a nice woman who cares about him.

finally i just say that i wish he would call me back about work, fine if he doesn't want to be my friend because i can't control that, fine if he doesn't want to speak with me because it's not about me.

i also said that it isn't that his behaviour didn't hurt, it absolutely did and it hurt in a deep and visceral place (and he made a face at the drama queen) but that nonetheless if he didn't want to be my friend that was his deal. however,

there are work things we will have in common for as long as we both reside in this city. period.

i can't help it if he doesn't want to be friends but damm you call me back about work.

so he said he would.

and he said he would call me tomorrow and i said, while walking away, only call me if you actually want to be my friend, so i'm really not expecting a call, otherwise? just call me back about work!

he sort of makes this face at me and i go 'i'm right about that right? about you not wanting to be my friend?' and he just makes the same face.

god what a disappointment that man turned out to be. it's fine if you don't want to be friends buddy but have a spine. at least have the balls to say it out loud.
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i think that's the nastiest way there is to get dumped actually.
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*i* am in love

with my blog.

no seriously, i have all the symptoms. i think about it when it's not there. i wonder what it's doing without me. i check on it obsessively.

i get sad when it doesn't have any new comments.

i care about it's vital statistics.

i nurture it and sweat over it and generally worry about it. okay now i'm stretching.

do you think that it's possible to be in love with an online journal? i know for sure that it's possible to be in love with people online because i've done it. so perhaps i'm not so in love with the blog as the commenters?

hrm.

interesting question but i think i would still blog if nobody commented. lord i would miss y'all though!

i think about my blog when i'm with beautiful men.

yup, i'm in love.

with my blog!

ten months

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so i just rented the first six episodes of weeds.

fuck me is that show ever good. i quite like mary louise parker although i hated her character on the west wing and it's nice to see her in a part she suits so much better. actually it wasn't that she didn't suit her character on the west wing it was that the character was stupid.

no really.

anyway this show is really good, i had tears in my eyes and i laughed out loud and it was all good.

just one little detail. uh you guys? if she's paying that much for weed then she literally cannot afford to sell it. also? who the fuck pays that kind of cash for weed??? it's not cocaine or heroin for christ sakes. and what they've never heard of volume driving the price down?

yeesh

so then i go to look at the show website and showtime has some apology up that says 'we here at showtime express our apologies but our page is only for y'all in the usa cause ya know, the rest of the world isn't cool'

i mean for serious?

anyway the show is awesome except for that small moment of complete unreality but i'm a bit ticked at showtime. especially since they make several shows i like a lot.
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okay, y'all are asking about my accident. i was waiting until i scanned in some photos from just before i started pilates so you guys could see the difference but i can do that some other time. three people have asked me in the last maybe ten days which implies that it's time.

this is actually a really long story and it starts somewhere around when i was in grade seven and came down with achilles tendonitis (achilles tendon, start at your heel, go up, feel that thich elastickey thing?) over the next ten years i layered on a pulled muscle in my sternum. mild tendonitis in my right shoulder (they called it tendonitis but i now know that they were not correct and that it was problems with pec major and minor, but whatev), a pile of knee problems they called condromalasia and wasn't [the doctor, after a year of physio and ONE x-ray says to me 'there's no sign of condromalasia on the x-ray, let's do exploratory surgery' and i left of course], some trouble with a hip, i can't remember which one but i think left, shin splints, uh.....

anyway you get the gist. lots of little niggles that got put back together with duct tape and bubble gum.

so then at seventeen i have a couple of car incidents that both involve pulling the muscles on the right side of my neck and thinking i'm fine after a few weeks of drugs that made my muscles melt like butter on a hot skillet.

please note the total lack of rehab except for on the knee and that was the wrong physio.

throw in piles of heavy metal concerts and then shortly thereafter i'm learning to jump a dirtbike. a dirtbike i jumped off of numerous times due to sucking at driving while doing tricks or at 90 on trails.

i'm supposed to be practising going 'up and over slow' to get the idea of how the bike will move and then i'll add gas a little at a time. so yeah, i over pop the gas and wham! into the air i go!

no idea how to land of course, we hadn't covered that yet.

and i land and my helmet cracks off the little metal rod that runs between the handlebars and my feet, right especially, slam into the footpegs.

do i land? fucking right.

does it hurt? d-uh.

so i think i broke my right ankle and drag my mom into taking me for an x-ray and they tell me that it isn't broken and send me on my way.

cut to twelve years and two more instances of whiplash later (note we're up to five or six depending if metallica concert incidents count or not... i say yes, my neck hurt for weeks) and my boyfriend and i are sitting at jane and bloor and chatting while we wait to turn right.

it's snowing and the roads are slick and i've left a car length between me and the car i'm waiting for. that car is waiting it's turn and tr and i are chatting it up and my head slams forward... and then i realise i got hit.

because we were chatting i barely had my foot on the brake so we bounced off the car in front of us. hard enough for him to look at me, look at his bumper and get in his car and leave. yeah are you getting this? i hardly got hit at all. [i drive a stick and that corner is flat, brakes weren't really required, looking behind me was...]

tr was mildly achy for a day or two and then he was fine and i went and got some drugs and went home early that day. and i shrugged it off.

i've had whiplash a zillion times, i'll be fine.

*laughs ass off*

what hubris.

about six weeks later the tip of my pinky finger on my right hand went numb. so i hit the doc after a couple of days (the emerg so i can get the x-ray fast *evil smile*) and he says that this kind of 'nerve damage' is 'normal' after whiplash incidents and to contact my family doctor.

WHAT THE FUCK???

NORMAL?

i haven't felt the tip of my right pinky in three days and that's NORMAL? you're fucked in the head buddy!

so i find a family doctor and he prescribes me drugs and i try physio and it fails and at this point i bring in insurance and meet the hot doctor and try more physio and nothing. my physio keeps telling me i'm better but i'm just getting worse.

so i go back to the hot doctor (this is now late august and the accident was in january) and tell him i can't walk and that the physio hurts and i feel like i'm getting worse. so he checks me with emg and stuff [stuck needles into my muscles and listened to them with radio and also stuck me with sparks to see if my nerves responded] and finds out that my nervous system and all that are working.

so i don't have fibromyalgia hiding as an accident problem anyway.

and he looks at me and he shrugs and he says 'i don't know what to tell you, your options are pilates or pain management and the waiting list for pain management is nine or ten months so you may as well try pilates in the meantime.'

pilates, the thing uncle fester had been telling me about since BEFORE my accident. since after my accident. since whenever i complained about my back.

i, of course, knew better.

this is where the old cliche 'it's not the things that happen to you it's your reaction to them' starts to get really true.

so i call uncle fester and tell him this and manfully he doesn't laugh at me and he directs me to a choice of two studios but really steers me in one direction. and that was to rr who fit me in immediately because i dropped uncle fester's name.

you know the day i met her i weighed 60 pounds more than i do now
the day i got in my accident i weighed what i weigh now nearly to the pound
that day i had skiied all weekend the previous two days
that day i was probably going climbing since i went three times a week
that day i was in love with and planning to move in with tr
that day that i was delighted to go to my work that i loved
when i met rr she described my muscles as dead and i hated my job and tr and i were already shattering under the strain [a LOT of other stuff happened in there that has nothing to do with my accident] and i hadn't been climbing since the accident.

ten months. amazing.

four years later and i'm still fixing this shit. currently the neck and the ankle from when i was seventeen... the things that are preventing the new damage from all the way healing.

life really is a circle.

mid-life crisis

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i am not in the club.

i've had that fact brought home to me at length already and all but sometimes i have to get bitch smacked with it.

in other words? someone went to great extent to tell someone else right in front of me about all the fun activities up for this weekend and then when i walked over to use the phone he kept talking about their weekend plans and lowered his voice.

there was only one person within hearing distance.

and you know? that would be okay but why the fuck would the same guy make like he's all happy to see me when i show up?

uh what?

irony? i have to pick my parents up this weekend and bring them to the airport so i can't crash their little party anyway.

funnier still? i was talking to someone first when he came up, interrupted and proceeded to talk me out of the conversation... like seriously.

guess i understand why i never asked that guy out after all.

unfortunately i can't blame this one on pms or lack of food like i usually do, nope, i'm really just not in that particular club.

and you know? i try not to let crap like that get to me, i mean i was raised in the worst place to be weird in ontario and i came out of that okay but sometimes? watching that high school bullshit i can't help but feel a little wounding shaft pass through me.

and i want to not care. the same way i want to not care when a guy i'm into starts pointing out hot chicks to me and i realise that once again i am miraculously one of the boys. the same way i want to not care when i lose a client because i just know i failed to grab them somehow.

you know, the way the tougher people, the suits and the shiny folk downtown are. the ones who armour themselves in their glossiness and go out there and treat people like shit.

the ones who think they should save their turn signal bulbs because it's better than replacing them.

i am clearly overdue for a vacation, the crap is getting to me big time these days. i'm having trouble passing the homeless people and the news of another war in lebanon makes me want to gnash my teeth and weep.

i just can't figure out how to stay happy and positive right now. i mean yes i love my life and my friends and that it's summer in toronto but it just seems so futile with all this misery and war out there.

speaking of war, since when did CANADA take SIDES in arguments? our government has rejected our usual neutral stance in favour of shoving their noses up some militaristic asses and i'm fucking pissed right off. there needs to be countries like canada that get in the middle and mediate, without us no one ever stops fighting.

i'm seriously upset yo.

i didn't vote for this and neither did the rest of canada. we're the peacekeepers remember?

taking sides, good christ, our relations with some people won't be fixed for decades.

not to mention that that smarmy, growing fat, raccoon eyed hog in a suit is representing ME! god dammit.
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heartbreak is:
:(
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i know this won't make sense to the non sport addicts in the room but please, if someone could explain to me how there's a team that's actually allowed to wear yellow as a team jersey in the tour de france?

no seriously?

not to mention that the announcer keeps calling it the tour day france instead of the tour de france. kinda painful to hear in that southern accent of his.

dammit it's not fair that he's making fun of himself for that one, how am i supposed to diss his nonexistent frenchness if he's going to make fun of himself?
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i'm really glad that next friday at this time i will be dancing or sleeping or drumming or walking around or chatting with whomever or drinking whisky with othercat or hubris and otherwise just enjoying hillside.

i am overdue for some kind of vacation activity, in fact i don't think i've taken much more than two days off in a good six months or something. i am off from thursday at 4:45pm until monday at 5:30pm, i just don't see it getting any better than this.

oh wait, yes i do, in fact it's way better because it's several days off AT hillside as opposed to just a regular old weekend off.

it's my eighth year in a row this year and my third year in the same volunteer job (i did first aid for the first five years) and i'm totally excited. i get to hang out with the keeners and my job is to be calm, smile, know everything and tell people what to do.

i mean really? and for that i get free camping and free admission?

AND i get to be bossy?

day-umm. that's like heaven on earth.

i haven't read the program yet so on names alone i want to see:
kathleen edwards
sarah harmer
feist
whatever happens at ten pm on the island stage on friday night
roxanne potvin (damm didn't know she was going!)
the sadies
jory nash
whatever happens on the lake stage at 5pm on sunday (trust me)

then there's the workshops but that schedule is too much of a pain to read until i'm looking at it in print.

oh i'm stoked!

i'm also stunned that hillside is in less than a week. it seriously felt like it was months from now and that summer had barely gotten started and yet here it is. the weekend that marks the long slow decline of the season.

the one that really kicks into gear that if you want to go to the beach/cottage/camping or whatever you'd better do it. the one that gets me sitting on patios just because i can and because i know that it will end.

somehow before hillside summer is never ending and after it's finite.

hee, hillside is the midlife crisis of the summer!

poke poke

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some of you may have noticed that my sidebar has changed. please inform me if you feel i've dropped your link by mistake. i may have lost someone in the cutting and pasting. course last time someone said that i mentioned my missing link and never heard back.

funny thing, their blog isn't linked from here anymore.

and you know? if you're one of the people without a links list you may want to consider that bloggers trade in links. if you like someone's blog and comment on it? add it to your sidebar. it costs you nothing but gives them a few more hits and makes them more likely to link you.

for me i link people as a function of their commenting on my blog. anyone linked that doesn't comment often? has been linked since my first month and links me OR is postsecret or some site like that.

i've actually been emailed and had people ask me to link them, to which i answer no. i will link you IF you comment regularly and IF you have archives longer than three months and if i like your blog. the archives thing is set in stone now, i'm tired of the up and down blog syndrome.

oh yeah, i hate blogs i can't comment on and rarely link them. why do you ask questions if you don't want answers to them?

now the people doing the emailing were basically spamming me. and while i'm glad that they purport to like my blog enough that you want a link from me? why should i link someone who never comments and that i've never heard of?

if princess valium started a blog i would link her in a second.
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there's people having one of those conversations outside my window that involves a lot of 'oh no she dinn't and the like. i find it ridiculously tiresome and even though i can't hear what they're saying really?

their tone is irritating as hell.

so is the fire bell that's been going off for fifteen minutes.

fuck this i'm going out for food.
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well, that was a mistake.

my first bite of my wrap (delicious FLAVOUR by the way) leaks grease/sauce out and down the side of my mouth and the fucking stuff is hot enough to burn me! i look around for a waiter and start spooning water onto my face and looking pissed.

no one notices.

finally i see a server (really like three or four minutes later or at least if felt like) and i'm like 'my food burned my face may i have some ice' and he stares at me and i'm finally like 'i'm serious i need ice i burned my face!' and he goes oh! and takes two or three MINUTES to come back with it.

yeah not impressed.

my server finally swings by my table to drop off my water and i don't even get a word in or a question before he's gone again and i don't see him or get his attention again until he clears my plate several minutes after i finish eating and even THEN he doesn't talk to me.

so finally i get that look [you know the one if you're a server, it's the look where you're going to walk out after leaving a note and not paying because you're so pissed. or the one where you stalk indoors and ask for a manager. one or the other.] anyway he finally comes over to my table and i tell him just what i said above and i get to 'you didn't check on me once' and he has the NERVE to talk back to me!

for serious!

"i brought you water, i cleared your plate"

'you NEVER asked how i was or bothered to wait for me to speak'

he shrugs!

'i would like my bill now please'

so what does this idiot do? he brings it! i mean really dude i have a burn on my face from your food and you're incompetent and you're charging me? so i whip out my cash and i stick it in the bill holder and he isn't there.

he's gone.

so i wait. yeah a while longer. nope he doesn't come back.

fuck this, now i'm pissed! so i stalk inside walk right past him and up to someone else and say 'may i have my change?' he smiles and takes the bill 'and i'm never coming here again.'

"but why?" [he's served me before by the way... the one i walked up to, so he knows i don't make a habit of this]

so i tell him. so he comps my bill and i say 'thank you, i was stunned that when i demanded my bill he brought it' and then i go 'seriously dude even when i had finished my salad and my fries the sandwich was still too hot to eat, like you guys have to be careful i have a blister forming on the inside of my lip right now' and he thanks me for the feedback.

so i tell him i may come back but that it won't be soon.

we parted satisfied.

can you imagine that this freaking waiter actually started back talking me when i got burned by his product??

*shakes head*

and i can't get a service job in this town!
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i have this strange and oddball theory about dating that i've recently formulated because of something i did while having a nice lunch recently. i touch people for a living.

yeah if you don't do my kind of work you only think you know what i mean.

i have to touch bones. i have to touch insertion points of muscles. i have to get people to find muscles they've never heard of or met or used and get them to bring them under their own control.

i have to guide their bodies to the right alignment and then ask them to move. i have to teach them to melt to my touch so their bones can realign.

and sometimes? no matter how many words you use a well placed finger is just so much more effective.

so i've had my hands or fingers or toes or forehead on [this list is random and inevitably incomplete]:
.the back of men's thighs
.the sitting bones (go sit on your ass on something hard {perverts!}. feel those two bones you're sitting on?}
.the most ticklish part of the foot
.the space directly below your ears that forms a hollow with your jaw
.collarbones
.armpits
.breast brushes happen constantly with women
.butt brushes and more happen with men
.almost elbowed a man in the balls more than once
.the nape of your neck
.the back of your knee
.your fingers, your wrists and your inner elbows
.pubic bones (yes the bone at the joining of your pelvis in the front that's just up from the female genitalia ...)
.large butt muscles
.tail bones (yes the bone just above your anus)
.smalls of backs
.tops of pelvises
.sacro-iliac joints
.deeper and darker bits of the sacrum
.toes and ankles and greater trochanters (bone at the top of your thigh bone that is straight out from your pubic bone)
.breastbones/sternums
.rib joints (yes they have joints)
.any part of the spine
.cheekbones
.all of the back muscles
.slick sweat
.scalps
.beautiful muscles
.fat
.acromions
.skin
and i know i'm missing things...

and i say things like "i'm about to touch your pubic bone, is that all right?" and then i do it.

but i don't touch right anymore in social settings. i ask beautiful men if i can touch them and then do so clinically, like a teacher.

i wonder if that's how i've been killing the flirt vibe, taking away the body language inadvertently... like you don't ask a man you're on a date with if you can touch his back, you just do it. you do ask a friend or a client or a subordinate or whatever... but if no one is sure if you're dating or not then maybe, just maybe, you've turned it off inadvertently.

thoughts?

blogging = sleeping... right?

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i don't have time to post right now, i need to sleep. my apartment was so overheated last night that i just couldn't get to sleep and now i'm at exactly eight hours from when i have to be awake.

i do have brunch plans with othercat and a lovely day planned otherwise but nonetheless i need to sleep.

i got home yesterday and my neighbour was sitting in my apartment watching tv with the overhead light on. there i was, just arrived home from a stellar day that was totally random and my apartment is a good five degrees WARMER than it was when i left it with even the computer off some five hours before.

i mean for real now, the overhead light in JULY? what are you cold?

and then i tossed and turned and stuck to my sheets all night. i can already tell tonight will be better. the rest of yesterday was awesome though.

i woke up and went for breakfast with othercat and my parents and then we drove back and i dropped him off for his second brunch with pj before i went off to teach a class. stopped in at home to grab my climbing gear and ended up sitting around for an hour and then randomly cleaning my bathroom.

i know, i didn't see that coming either.

it was freaking awesome to see what colour the floor actually is. i think i might do it more. less awesome to come home and see it already covered in cat litter again.

so i finally drag my lackadaisical ass to the climbing gym and there's like three of us there so we bouldered together and then chef showed up and i did a couple of laps on routes with him and i did this one thing i've been trying to get a handle on for a while and it finally worked!

it involves dropping your hip into the wall but thrusting it up at the same time. no, it doesn't look dirty.

okay well it does make you think dirty thoughts when hot guys without shirts on do it... but that's a whole other post.

anyway so we ended up going for beer at this bar that turns out to be owned by a climber, [so of course i have to hang out there more] and they had a slack line set up. had i properly comprehended that i would not have put on the skirt i threw on (we did drive bys of our respective homes for clothes) because you can't stick your leg out without flashing in a skirt.

so slack line on one hand and african drummers jamming in the corner on the other. and they do this EVERY SUNDAY AFTERNOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*clears throat*

so yeah, new place to dance. i love dancing in the sun to drumming and iDRUM are awesome. awesome enough that i'll bring my drum too... though i'll probably dance more. and it will take me a while to actually bring my drum.

anyway then we went for a walk and sat around in a park and then got dinner at ackee tree and i dropped him off and came home.

anyway, this was one of those days that was so mellow and relaxed and then bam... too hot to sleep. there is one rule to my apartment for it staying cool enough to sleep in, one heat source at a time is ALL. she wrecked it and i'm feeling cranky about it.

i was so perfectly tired too, you know all nice and physically tired and mentally tired to go with it AND recovering from getting intoxed both friday and saturday? i never do that, like ever, anymore but even my dad was drunk fer chrissakes!

ah well, tonight i will sleep.
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i want to address cranky beads because hunee doesn't think they're positive and i do. she said:
hmm I am not sure I like the idea of cranky beads...I do not like the fact that you can't rid them until you pass them onto someone else...it makes it sound like you have to transfer your negative energy to someone else which one is not nice and two not good for karma.

While it makes sense and I have seen it be done (many times) I still don't like it.

and i just didn't see them used that way. in our group they were pretty and sparkly and people didn't mind wearing them at all. not to mention they were light and not annoying to wear. so you get this necklace imposed on you and then you sulk about it and someone says 'but you are cranky' and you go 'no i'm not' and you hear the whine in your own voice and go 'oh.'

and then you laugh at yourself, get over yourself and forget you even have them on until... someone is cranky with you. at this point you say 'you need these more than i do' and you put them on them.

i found that one hundred percent of the time whomever got cranky beaded deserved it. especially the squabbling couple and me. never was it passed on from others and always it was released to the universe as it should have been.

with good humour and good company.

that said, i wasn't cranky on saturday, i was in an excessively good mood. i was using the cranky beads as an illustration of how high my standards for cranky actually are. but thanks for your worries y'all.

hunee you're welcome to reply and i'll stick it in after what i said... :)
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i stole this off sweet lil' gal's blog:



all that and they won the world cup too!

cranky beads

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i only have a few minutes before i have to run off to class and then another class and then the farm. but i'm getting tired of looking at toxins so i thought i would see if anything came out of my fingers today.

i do have a pointer for the climbers in the room. do two laps of every route at the gym.

yeah i went climbing yesterday evening between work and dinner and a lovely pair of climbers invited me to do routes with them. so i did. and when i'm standing there in my harness she goes "we climb everything two times..."

and i'm like okay.... and she goes "and you are too"

i was game so i did it. i made it three quarters of the way up things the second time before dying but die i did. this will pick up my endurance nicely.

it's brutal and my hands and arms are fully tired and i'm so doing it again.
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my parents are going home in a week.

a week!

i can't believe this, it feels like they just got here and they're going home in a week. i am woebegone. for serious.
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i had sushi last night for the first time in way too long. i'd had it with othercat but that was the kind you buy and bring home. this was the kind that you eat at the restaurant and they practically make in front of you.

exactly, it was freaking delicious.

the company was good too. one of the things that i missed the most after tr and i split up was these foursome meals that othercat and pj and tr and i would have. but now that he and i are actually happy to be in the same room again we can do these lovely gatherings again.

it was good. a little weird because we've all changed but good.

what's funny is that i have continued to hang with other and pj and so has tr but we didn't hang together... so the only real surprises are for us. and in a lot of ways more for me. i've mostly turned back into myself since he and i split up whereas he has made a bunch of deep and positive changes.

i have too hold on that didn't come out right. i've changed a ton but more in my general approach to life and decision making and my sense of control. and i'm certain that i'm just as different to him as he is to me.

however, he's flipped switches from 'oh no, not me, i don't do that' to 'enthusiastic participant' which is highly weird for the person who knew him when those switches were bolted shut. i sort of saw them start to flip in the few weeks after we split up but as if i was taking in that kind of shit.

i wasn't really up to noticing, i was busy being ignored until i went away, being broken and dealing with all the other broken relationships and things in my life. so the signs were there in that six weeks we were stuck in that fucking house but they weren't glaring and obvious.

now all those tiny signs are giant changes. and yes i can wrap my head around them sure, but it's weird is all.

don't misunderstand, these are lovely changes, as are mine... they're just weird for me to hear about and see. of course nothing that's different about me seems at all strange to me because for me i changed slowly and gradually as a logical outcome of things that were happening around me.

as are, i'm certain, his. i just didn't see them and grow with them so there's this man i totally know but he's not quite who i think he is.

as weirdnesses go? this one is pretty cool.

oh and stoned.nerd? i didn't sleep with him *grin*
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i'm really stoked about today. there's a class with rr and then a tiny break and then a workshop on abdominals and it's going to be awesome. i probably know more about abs than any other section of the body we've done because i've taken a couple of workshops from marie jose about them as well.

this means i'll get a deeper comprehension of the stuff that i learn today and that it will serve me extra well. this freaking rocks.

what's even cooler about abdominals is that they include the lumbar spine (as did our workshop on gait of a month and a half ago) and many of my clients have problems and complaints right in there.

one of the things that i love about rr's workshops is that she shows us tests, physical habits and fixes for the things she talks about. she doesn't just tell us what the muscle does and send us on our way.

marie jose does similar things but i can't ask as many questions when there's thirty other people around as i can when there are five.

besides? every teacher you listen to gives you a different place to look at something from.

actually every voice you choose to take into your heart will do that. every person i know that i bother to continue to speak with has the kind of voice that teaches one things. the kind of brain that chooses to think about problems instead of moan about them.

all of my friends try in varying degrees to live happy and positive lives. the kind of life that you look back on and nod approvingly.

the kind where you think to youself "i done did her good"

we won't all succeed, and all of us will have regrets as we look back at our histories... one of us most of all i think. [no, that's ALL i'm saying about that and no you don't know to whom i refer so don't ask unless you're looking at my face when you do it] and even that person is still out there living their life to the fullest, i just think there might be a few extra regrets there.

regardless, i am getting to the point in my quest for joy and a positive nature where when i tell people that i'm cranky they don't get what i'm talking about... they're like 'you don't seem cranky at all'

and all i can think of to answer is something someone said to me once in this crazy group in oregon [they have cranky beads they stick around your neck if you're being cranky and you can't take them off until there's someone to give them to AND you aren't cranky] which was "these people have high standards for cranky" and thus i say

"yeah dude, but i have high standards for cranky" and they look at me funny and i smile and put on my imaginary cranky beads and wander off....

just like i'm doing right now!

toxins

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oddest conversation that i've had in a long while:

scene: sass and random guy approach each other on the street. they make eye contact and as she half smiles he speaks.
anon: oh my god! please tell me you're straight!
sass: why yes, yes i am.
anon: *makes sound of relief*
*keeps walking and says no more*

i mean what??
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so i'm having a strange sort of realisation.

i'm not fat.

hold on hold on, i get that that's been obvious for a while, but there's more to this than that. not only am i not fat but i have been not fat for a while now. i mean you can't possibly be fat and take pictures like the ones i posted on monday.

NOT POSSIBLE.

so while this is having an extraordinarily excellent effect on my body confidence it's also causing a little bit of an unexpected ripple down effect.

you know what this means?

yeah, now upon what do i place blame for my gross failure with men?
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hey last night was the official first night of summer.

why you ask?

no covers all night!

mmmmm i love summer!
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okay back to the fat thing. for the last three years i've told myself that the reason no man wanted me was because i was fat.

and while i knew deep down that that couldn't be it i also knew that i had so much other crap to deal with that it wasn't worth worrying about and i spent a good chunk of that time period recovering from tr and my accident and falling for former friend and being led on and then recovering from that.

so i just sort of kept this idea in my head that i was fat and that that made me unnattractive and thus men didn't want me.

and please don't lecture me about getting my self esteem from men, i get that from inside myself and it's growing steadily. there is nothing wrong with wanting to date (or to get laid) or to hang out with someone you're attracted to.

that shit is FUN.

also it gets the proverbial juices flowing and that sort of thing makes you more creative and in a lot of ways it just makes you strive to be more or better. [ah-ha, there's my nana again with her 'marry someone who brings out the best in you']

i always get so much done when i'm feeling like that. more than that i read better books, i have more energy, i watch less television, i try new things, i need less sleep and i want less toxic food.

this is pretty damm excellent stuff.

now sure, after three years and one brief attempt at dating one guy i'm making my peace with the idea that the boys aren't generally interested in me... but still, i was blaming it on my fat.

you know, the fat that isn't there. yeah.

and then yesterday, i read kj's blog and she talks about how some man says to her 'you can have any man you want' and i want to punch him. i really do. do you have ANY IDEA how much i hear that? how often i'm told that i'm just the woman guys want?

by men who DO NOT WANT ME?

and before someone comments that that isn't true? if they know me enough to know i want to date and enough to have that conversation then we're friends and thus you don't find me intimidating cause you already know me and could most likely make a move.

it is from my friends that most moves come unfortunately. unfortunate because it's never quite the right friend or the right time. and most often (i stress most and not ALL) the people that are my friends and fall for me are doing it because i am a safe person for them to love while other bullshit is happening around them.

i've had men i was into give me laundry lists of their dream girl. a list i fit to an utter and perfect tee except for the part where i'm tall and not tiny. these same men have pointed out women who are me only tiny and informed me that those women were hotties.

those women who are ripped, climb, have brown curly hair and curves... etc. and i'm just fed up with it.

i'm tired of being told i'm everything any man would want when hardly anyone does.

i'm tired of being the chick they ogle but never ask out.

i'm tired of being advice girl.

i don't need any more friends that are men, it already looks like i'm with someone eighty five percent of the time when i go out... and you know if a man and a woman are standing together they must be married. i swear i'm getting a 'he likes the cock' t-shirt to wear with pile...!

i'm tired of sleeping alone every night.

i'm tired of cooking for one and trying to stay inspired to do so.

i'm tired of the single supplement i have to pay constantly because i have no one to share expenses with or even food (seriously WHO can eat that much asparagus before it rots??).

i'm tired, most of all, of being the safety friend. the woman you have around to make you feel good about yourself but never ever about herself.

i'm tired of being too much, not enough or somehow flawed

and most of all?

i'm really fucking tired of 'you could have any man you want'

REALLY? then where the fuck is he?

[for the record, yes, people have wanted me in that three years but were ever and always not a match. and if you don't believe me i can give you proof]

you're welcome

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i feel very cocky saying this but i'm sure i'm right that at least some of you are going to say thanks... and i'm a ho for the comments so.

here are some rejected pilates pics from the photo shoot for my website...









































DO NOT TRY ANY OF THIS AT HOME.

period. most of these are rejects for bad form as much as anything, not to mention you aren't a pilates instructor.

no i mean it. don't do it.

don't.

:)


===============

be sure to thank hubris for being the photographer and othercat for the camera!

inspire, verb

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you know how sometimes people can inspire you just by being themselves? somehow through talk or communication of whatever sort you end up improving your own life when they aren't even there?

there are the people that my grandmother thought you should marry, in fact what she said was "marry someone who brings out the best in you." smart lady.

personally i think it applies equally to friends, lovers AND spouses but anyway, i digress.

the point is that lately i have been hanging out with a chef. does he give me cooking lessons? no. does he cook for me? sadly, no. does he do anything other than talk about food with passion and joy? nope.

and yet there i was, bright and early on thursday morning, wandering home from work and thinking 'hmmm i should make breakfast' and since i only really have two kinds of breakfast ever and only one of them involves cooking this was pretty much a given. i wasn't having yogurt and granola and flax and fresh fruit and maybe nutella all whomped together. nope, i was having a couple of eggs steamed in a tiny bit of butter mixed with water and served inside a half a pita and beside a couple of potato patties (from cavendish farms... SO yummy.)

and then it hit me, why was i just automatically making the same food? how had i gotten into this same food rut?

i used to cook. i used to cook for othercat and i all the time. i used to make lunch and make enough for three days so i could bring it to work. i used to invent things.

in fact, i used to have a kitchen i LIKED and currently i don't.

but still, i said to myself, "self why are we making the same old thing? is it any wonder we never cook at home anymore?" and so i went to the store and i got a tomato and some cheese and a yellow pepper and some mushrooms and home i came.

in the SAME exact amount of time as my standard cholesterol laden and not very healthful breakfast?

i sauteed the mushrooms and peppers and then cracked some eggs over them and left them to sit. toasted up the tortillas just enough to make them warm and bubbly (in the toaster natch) and chopped up some of the tomato.

in less time than this post is taking to type i had two burritos, one with the egg mix, tomato and cheese and one with that plus some spicy smoked turkey. (of course garlic and hot sauce were in the eggs yeesh)

fuck me was it yummy.

and so easy that i made it again today.

[please note that pile has been feeding me home cooking for months, which hasn't hurt either]

and with that tiny little bit of inspiration i feel myself starting to cook with joy for myself again and this makes me so happy. i didn't notice it fading away but i did notice that it was gone and i considered it nigh on to a tragedy.

and now i know *how* it happened.

my accident made it impossible to stand for more than a few minutes at a time for like two years SO i got stuck in a rut and i didn't even notice it happen. i got SO stuck in that rut that even if i made something interesting i just thought of it as work. this from a chick that didn't have a recipe so she made up peppercorn sauce from scratch (and it was de-fuckin-licious.) this from a chick whose cooking has drawn pretty happening reviews.

i am not a chef but i am a heck of a home cook and i forgot that. hell i think my favourite cookbook rotted away when i wasn't looking.

so chef, if you're reading, which i don't think you are? THANKS! breakfast was delicious and inspiration yummier still. [no worries y'all, the compliment got passed along]
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hee:

Dating Strengths	Dating Weaknesses
1. Independence - 85.7% 2. Varied Interests - 85.7% 3. Adventurousness - 75% 4. Financial Situation - 69.2% 5. Open-Mindedness - 63.6%	1. Selfishness - 54.5%

Dating Strengths Explained
Independence - Your strong sense of independence comes in handy while dating. You are not held back or tied down; you are free to pursue your interests. Varied Interests - You don't limit yourself, and that's a dating asset. Your varied interests make you available and interesting to a wider range of men. Adventurousness - You are willing to try new things and be spontaneous. You want to get out there and really live, and you will attract people with a similar love of life. Financial Situation - You've got your financial situation under control, which is a very desirable quality. Be careful to avoid men who are only interested in your money. Open-Mindedness - You are open to trying new things and entertaining new ideas, and this widens your pool of available men.
Dating Weaknesses Explained
Selfishness - You think too much of yourself and your needs. You must learn to put your partner first and tend to his needs.
Take the Dating Diversions Latest Online Dating Quiz

what a crock of shit. my money. oh man.

*shakes head*
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oh

*giggle*

someone had a dream about me. turns out that even in my dreams i don't get any but i do go climbing a lot.

i can't tell you how funny i find this, really i can't.

*laughs*

in other climbing related news i went climbing four times in five days this week AND i flashed the new 5.10- and i think i might have been the first one up!
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my teacher today

was heard to utter the words:

"watch sassinak, she's got it"

of course i promptly lost it but STILL!

*such a HUGE snoopydance*

*crashes and sleeps*

accessorize!

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perhaps you've noticed that lately there are only two super cool accessories for the hot hollywood starlet. okay three if you count dogs in a purse. it's one of either a baby or a significantly younger man.

now myself and a couple of ladies were walking along recently and this subject came up... not regarding starlets per se, just that more and more women we know are hooking up with men who aren't actually in their 'age bracket' and then we started to speculate.

the end result of our speculation goes something like this:

we are the lost generation we folks between twenty nine and forty two. we were raised by mothers from the nineteen fifties during the sexual revolution and just when it got to be our turn for the free love and ganja?

yeah hiv showed up. so this free love thing we'd been hearing about? gone just as it got to be time for us to enjoy it.

needless to say this left us a little befuddled. if you throw in that that is also the time period in which women's liberation took some enormous strides you get a generation of people who have no idea how to date.

i think this is especially hard on many of the men my age. if they go by the fifties rulebook then they should court us and woo us with pretty words and trinkets. they should die for a flash of cleavage and hope only for a kiss.

and sex? good gracious me, no sex please! not until we're married and then only with the lights off!

or they go by the seventies rulebook in which case they should basically say "*deep voice* heyyyy... wanna fuck?" and we should effectively want to dive into bed. but take sex seriously? monogamy? caring for your partner?

not important, love is free and should be shared with everyone.

of course then there's the eighties rule book... um. yeah. what rule book? sex is going to kill you, love is for the birds, everyone divorces. basically if you don't meet your mate at school or work you're fucked (or not fucked as the case may be). courtship is nonexistent and people seem to hook up mostly by accident or booze.

i think this time can best be described as dominated by the alpha male and the power shouldered female.

which brings us to now.

who has any idea what rulebook to play in?

what rulebook their potential mate is playing in?

any idea of how to flirt without being desperate or simpering or easy?

NO ONE!

our mothers and our culture raised us to believe that there is a knight in shining armour for everyone and that nice girls learned to cook and sew. at the same time gloria steinem and her cohorts were shouting women's liberation from the rooftops.

we were strong and powerful and we could change the world! we could do anything we wanted EXCEPT stay home and have babies. that was for those other women, the unfortunates, the ones who didn't have this lovely liberation that we had.

we could have careers and power. who needed men??

incidentally this is why i can swing a sledgehammer, change my oil, start a fire when it's thirty below and windy, invent peppercorn sauce off the top of my head AND sew on a button. *grin*

this, of course, led to discussion of the men our age and we concluded that any of the ones left single at this point basically haven't matured with us. that they don't know how to handle a strong and independent woman and that they definetely don't know how to ask them out or court them.

hrm i don't like this term matured. basically they're as fucked as we are just in a different way.

combine this with a generation of women who don't know how to be courted and what do you get?

right... a massive slump in population growth. in other words, we ain't making babies... and that's a fact.

then i got to talking about a woman i know who is eighteen years old. she and i were discussing men one day and i was telling her how proud i was for asking some man out. and she stared at me. no earthly idea what i was talking about. why on earth is this a big deal?

so i explained that in my day the girls who asked out the boys were "those" girls and NO ONE wanted to be one of THOSE girls. i mean ew! and she laughed and said 'i asked my first boyfriend out... and we were together for two years.'

i asked out my first man at THIRTY THREE! (real asked out, not engineered hanging out.)

so her generation has no worries. they don't care who does the asking or the courting. the dance has reverted to mutuality. lovely.

and then my ladies and i realised. these men that are 25 and 28 and 23? they grew up with the notion of strong women. to them the idea of a woman who simpers and doesn't have any power makes no sense. however the women their age seem a little unformed because they're still dealing with the backlash from my generation.

and suddenly all these older woman/younger man combinations that we'd been hearing about made so much more sense.

it isn't anyone's fault, we're just in the middle of a cultural shift and my generation can't handle it. funny that this also explains why so many men MY age are dating women who are twenty five and forty eight. same shift. those women they know how to handle.

ahhh got to love watching evolution.

it's going to be interesting to see where this takes us. possibly into some really stable new relationship models.

possibly... not.

we'll see :)

ramble and a tag

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i got nothin'

nothing i tell you. so this post should rock *grin*

it's also not true, i have lots of stuff i'm just not going to talk about any of it. johnny canuck once told me that the first thing they learn in media school is to treat every microphone like it's live and that in his opinion one should think of one's blog that way.

and in my personal life i'm not too worried about it... well a little, but not too much. but when it comes to my work life you may have noticed that i don't talk about it. i talk about what i do and i occasionally mention my clients by vague description and never without telling them (for serious.)

but when it comes to deep work stuff like politics in whatever gym i'm teaching in that day or niggles with clients or co-workers or whatever that shit just does not come on here. that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

it happens all the time actually and i just don't talk about it.

i can tell you that i'm actively apartment hunting as of now and that if i can find a place in the next couple of weeks my parents can help me secure the lease... but they leave in a couple of weeks and after that their money won't conveniently be in this country for me to conveniently have it dumped into my account temporarily.

so apartment hunt for sure. i hate apartment hunting, i hate moving out, i love moving in. that's pretty much the gist. i'm dying to move though, the lack of sleep here is kinda killing me.

i have some plans for that place but i'll talk about them later. and if you know what they are? shut the fuck up. oh and pile should be moving in which is perfect cause we already like cook together and stuff and i do seem destined to be a fag hag after all...

seriously i go see MINISTRY and pick up the only gay guy there. i mean it's a gift. it takes a special talent to go see Ministry and pick up the gay man. and i say the because i'm pretty sure there weren't many.

speaking of picking up... nah.

what do you do when your life is going okay and you can't talk about any of the things in it for fear of who is reading?
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oh man i went climbing today (and tomorrow and wednesday... with two different people) and i ripped a GIANT flapper off the base of my right index finger. i have a tape trick and i just hope it's dry enough to take it by then.
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and it was. today was a strangely delightful day of climbing, i made some progress on a couple of things and definetely figured out something but i spent the entire day sort of avoiding this one particular piece of skin.

like i sent a problem except i didn't actually technically completely finish it. it's a match on a giant jug and i stuck my right hand on it and then yeah, it said 'drop dead bitch' and there was no way i could put enough weight on this particular hold to actually move my other hand over to meet it.

but i declared it a send and so did my companion. we'll call him... shit. need a nick. anyway there was a kids climb there today and these kids were all 'watch that guy' and they were asking the most amusing questions.

one kid informed me that he knew what was in my chalk bag because he had made chalk in his class. i think what he meant was that they took some sort of really hard chalk chunk and demolished it to make chalk powder. but i lost half of what he said because he turned around to watch someone climb and i let it go.

anyway they wanted to know why the chalk was in a ball and how to use it and how could they get chalk and and and. oh man they were great. as we left the gym one of them called out "how much does chalk cost?"

like ALL they wanted was chalk to play with. some of them were so alive... and already some of them just aren't.

one kid was getting lessons from... oh man i'm using initials, this is ridiculous, crap no. dammit... why is it so hard to make up nick names? i think it's that i get now that they're permanent and that somehow they colour people. okay let's see, cube. and i'm not telling anyone why. shut up it isn't dirty.

okay so one kid was trying to boulder and wanted to know what to climb and how to do it and cube ... no that one sucks. crap. whatever he was showing this kid how to do the problem and where it started and how to make the moves easier. basically he took over coaching from me which was cool cause i start the problem differently now and it's much more organic.

it was just fun watching kids be so excited about doing something.

and then there was this long walk with no destination and food. i guess food is a destination. anyway today was an unexpected day off (after my 9:30 class) and i spent it doing nothing in good company.

which is an excellent way to spend a day off.
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new meme

it goes like this:
since i asked stoned.nerd do one for me, i have to post it on here.

If you comment on this post [i'm modifying, IF you ask me to do this i will, if you comment on the above whatever]:

1. i’ll respond with something random about you
2. i’ll challenge you to try something
3. i’ll pick a color that i associate with you
4. i’ll tell you something i like about you
5. i’ll tell you my first/clearest memory of you
6. i’ll tell you what animal you remind me of
7. i’ll ask you something i’ve always wanted to ask you
8. if i do this for you, you must post this on yours


and since i loved his responses here they are with answers to his questions or comments or both...

for my most favourite canadian, Sass (apart from Pamela Anderson)
1. i’ll respond with something random about you
okay i'd do you. *snickkkkker*

*blush*

2. i’ll challenge you to try something
the next time when you're on a date with a dude, ask him straight if he likes you or not. tell him you dont like playing mind games.

oh man nerd, that one's BRUTAL. but okay.

except no. because the thing is when you're getting to know someone you maybe don't want to discuss if you like each other that way or not. you want to get to know each other and see. what's hard is when one of you is doing the old speculate and the other one isn't.

but that's that same one sided spark thingy right?

3. i’ll pick a color that i associate with you
green! probably due to your photos awhile back...

uh which photos?

4. i’ll tell you something i like about you
you are real. i can feel that even all the way from singapore. you call it as it is. and i think you treasure friendships, or relationships. i like that in a person.

what's funny is that's what i like about you.

5. i’ll tell you my first/clearest memory of you
i think you chanced upon my blog, so i went over and read yours... and you were saying then, that you'd like to try blogging to see how it goes, despite not many people reading you at that time. witness how your blog evolves right now.. thank god you didn't stop writing...

heh, you were the first comment i ever got on my blog AND the first blogger who ever linked me. did you know that? i clicked on your link because you were in recently updated and ANYTHING called stoned nerd had to be good. once there i was hooked and i read your whole archives :)

and thank you, i'm really happy i didn't stop writing too.

6. i’ll tell you what animal you remind me of
bear? no offence like, it's just the first thing that comes to my mind...

i'm not offended... just bemused :)

7. i’ll ask you something i’ve always wanted to ask you
did you fuck your ex the other time you all went out? i missed that. (you dont have to ans if you dont wish to)

no, and he has a girlfriend.

8. if i do this for you, you must post this on yours
can you do one for me, pretty please? my momma taught me there's never harm in asking.

absolutely, whose blog should i post it on?

oh canada!

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damm you guys i was just sharing my porch with a frog. and it was really cute and did some hopping and some hanging out and stuff too.

okay it's my parents porch but whatever. i just sat there and played sudoku and stared at the stars and didn't really do anything. my brain it went a rambling and it didn't accomplish anything. i gotta say, it was all good.

there was rain falling and nature noises and peace and goodwill to all men. i'm going back out shortly.

i've had the nicest day today which is seriously appropriate since it's Canada Day and all. please note that i used capital letters, that's how much respect for today i have. so i done did her well.

i woke up at my sister's apartment this morning to the sounds of coffee and happiness. i saw that my companion for the drive up and guest room sharer was up and gone already and i could see that the sun was up. this boded well.

so i checked the time and it was nearly eleven and well i wanted to hang out with my friends so up i got and out i went to a delicious omelette and a lovely cappuccino and then a scenic drive to the farm.

you know, the farm, also known as heaven on earth.

there i had pizza leftovers with my parents. please grok the homemade pizza from the wood fired pizza oven nature of said leftovers. and while you're at it note that one had capers and roasted peppers and crab and another had quattro formaggi and another was tuna and some kind of white cheese and some bechamelish sauce and caramelized onions and the last one had pepperoni and cheese and uh... onions?

and then dad and i sat around for an hour to digest before heading out to the bush whereupon we displayed a herculean ability to work together and cut up four deadfall trees with a chainsaw (he chainsawed and i did all the moving logs around and stuff... well not all.. whatever, it was together) and get eaten alive by mosquitos all in an hour.

that was the easy part. then we went and got the tractor and came back with it and the truck and drove the tractor around the back twenty five and piled it with this wood we'd cut and then took the wood back to the truck. i'm going into this much detail for the city folk among us.

the thing is that the wood goes in the front end loader/scoop/bucket/whatever it's called and there's still the digger attachment and it's bracing arms at the back so this thing is long. longer than my truck was and it was huge.

and there's my dad driving around on the tractor and i'm like yanking saplings out of the way and stuff. and literally five minutes before we were done? this little rain starts.

so we get in our vehicles and pull out and the rain hits and my dad is racing home at like mach six on the tractor and i'm driving the truck lackadaisically [i couldn't believe i spelled it right, so i checked, and i did] down the road and he comes roaring into the driveway and flies into the barn and he looked so happy all wet and grinning!

then we sat around while mom made dinner which makes me feel a little bad but i was tired yo and had a lovely dinner with beer and wine and conversation and then we all hung out and read the paper (well dad did the sudoku puzzle that i couldn't finish) and then i sat outside for like an hour.

ahhh it was blissful.

Canada Day is officially over but the weekend goes on and i am going outside to finish the new sudoku puzzle that i'm working on before i crash. it's so peaceful out there and since i learned not to scratch the mosquito bites they bother me much less.

night kids, happy Canada Day!

Official Lyrics of O Canada!

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.


O Canada!

O Canada! Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!

Car ton bras sait porter l'épée,
Il sait porter la croix!

Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.

Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.

Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.