snapshots of an idle mind

moving day

2006-11-07T00:17:00.000-05:00

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yes.

it's true.

i'm moving.

this all happened very suddenly, one second i was thinking 'i really have to move to wordpress' and the next i was leaving a comment on sassinak.wordpress.com. hey, if you aren't using this blog can i have it?

an hour later it was mine.

so fucking nice of the dude who used to own it.

anyway... i'm going over here, they don't have days on end where commenting doesn't work. i truly hope y'all will come along.

i guess it's not that i'm moving, it's that i've moved... wow.

here i am

dot dot

2006-11-05T23:59:00.000-05:00

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i had the strangest experience today.

i had to do my first aid recert for the ski patrol [read: to keep my certification and some of my jobs] yesterday and my CPR recert today. there were maybe 16 in the group yesterday and i think 11 today.

so we have to watch this dvd and then follow along and practice with it. it's actually much better than listening to someone try to teach you who happens to be more confused than you are. a lot of positive changes to the cpr methodologies this year too.

anyway i whip out my mat and lie down and N (instructor) says "all right but if you start snoring that's it!" and i laugh and the dvd starts and that's it. so then we have to do some practice on the dummies and N says "oh we have to wake her up" and i reply:

"excuse me but i'm hypermobile and it hurts to sit in a chair so i lie down" and this old man across from me joins in.

he says "are you single?"

and i say "of course i am"

and he says "it's no wonder, you're very high maintenance"

seriously? you're allowed to say that kind of shit to people these days? people you've known for a whole day? and the thing is? that's extra cruel from the perspective of a single woman who was hoping to have children and is currently giving it up.

it's like kicking a dog when it's down.

and how is it okay to even say that category of thing to women anymore? if we act like people with actual personalities we're high maintenance but if we don't we're pushovers and clingy. seriously y'all? make up your fucking minds and shut the fuck up about it while you're at it.

i'm making my peace with my total undateableness but why do i have to hear about it from a mean old man?
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yes of course i responded. i said something then and then about five minutes later i said "i'm sorry, i know i'm interrupting but i just can't let this go. that was a very hurtful thing you said to me and you have no right to speak to people like that" and he just stared at me oblivious.

so later when he tried to comment on something first aid related to me i said "please don't talk to me, you have nothing to say that i want to hear" and now he looks surprised.

you can insult me and then talk to me like i'm perfectly fine with you? whatever.
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this is extra irritating because i got less than two hours of awake to enjoy my happy bliss from last night and then i got stepped on by a mean old man.

stuff doesn't usually hit me that hard but this was like someone ripping off a bandaid with no notice. y'all i'm going to reel from this for a while... and i know gabi will tell me to grow a thicker skin and she's right but well, i haven't done that yet.
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bliss you ask?

othercat took me to see the afro-cuban all-stars last night at massey hall and boy. was it fucking awesome.

we're talking about a band that takes the stage and gathers you up and doesn't let you go again until it's an hour later and they tell you to go have a beer and come back.

i actually watched them with my mouth hanging open in shock and my body grooving to the rhythm. it's unfortunate that massey isn't made for dancing or i would have done more of it but i got in a little.

i was... entranced.

they played two sets and an encore but it was a lot more like three sets than anything and there were SO MANY musicians. people who range in age from 13 to 83 came out on stage, everyone from a 23 year old female cuban rapper (clapper) to an 83 year old legendary crooner were singing and grooving for us.

othercat got off the most on the trumpet player but for me it was the drummers. especially the timbale player who was holding it all together. at one point the three drummers were playing together and my hands were going apeshit on my knees along with them.

ahhh good times.
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i've seen the trinity pic but i don't have it yet...
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it does my outfit justice.
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i'm running out of things to say here. i feel like i've gotten most of the things i think about regularly off my chest. i also feel, incidentally, that this blog will go through quiet times and then come back again and that this is a quiet time.

in hockey terms? it's a 'building year' [no idea how long mine is though]
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speaking of hockey, i still haven't figured out where to go hang out so i can flirt with mats sundin. don't laugh, i think we'd actually get along well. besides, i like how he leads... and how he thinks before he answers reporters questions.

fine, i just want to meet him so i can fantasize about him. :)

also? i hear he's fucking tall!
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that is all [hubris *tm*]
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friend matrices

2006-10-31T14:32:00.000-05:00

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well i just had breakfast with a friend i've mentioned before. said friend dumped me flat a while back and didn't answer my calls or emails. recently we ran into each other in the street and have spent a few months organizing a breakfast together.

finally today we did it.

it's so weird, it's like no time has passed... the conversation flowed easily and the gossip was good. we talked about our lives and what we're doing and how things are going and what's exciting us and just reconnected.

how is it so easy?

aren't i supposed to be angry and hurt? aren't i all 'fuck you for dumping me?'

except no, i'm not... in fact i've been thinking and every one of my really close friends and i have had some sort of breakup and get back together moment. something that caused us to need to not be around each other for a goodly period of time before one of us made up with the other.

heck in one case we dated the same man and now neither of us knows him but we are friends again and better for the break. in all cases the break was necessary and freed us somehow to grow our friendships into real things.

things that can break and be reforged.

the kind of friends where we WILL say the hurtful things that we're afraid to say because we know now that we will always come back to each other. in some inexplicable way it gets deeper.

probably a lot like a couple who have their first fight and then work through it. there's this sense of knowing that you're willing to be angry and then learn to move on.

that's a big thing in a new relationship. that moment of realising that you can be angry with each other. in fact, i don't take a new relationship seriously UNTIL we've had at least one fight... and there are more than a few times that i didn't take the warning from said fight and lived to regret it.

no, i'm not telling you who.

the older i get the more i realise that the true friends are the ones who are willing to say the things that hurt you. not because they WANT to hurt you but because they know you need to hear it. they're also the ones who will give everything to you to help you fix whatever it is if they can.

you need both those qualities or it isn't fair.

can't be telling me all the ways that i suck if you aren't willing to help me fix them...
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in other news i went out as trinity on saturday night and i'm just waiting for someone to email me pics... but i know that there ARE pics and i will post them as they arrive.

be advised, i'm freakily like her.

in fact? i sort of freaked myself out.

and it was a lovely party although i didn't follow through with certain intentions... probably wise in the long run, it wasn't the time.

it was certainly a hoot watching people realise i'm female though... all 6'4" of me in heels and pvc *grin*

why is it that when SINGLE people feel me up it's not nearly as offensive as when married men do it 'discreetly'?

:)
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i got a new source of referrals today, if i can just get about five more hours a week i'll be making enough consistently to get a larger apartment and teach out of it. lord i can't wait!
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for anyone still worried about me after my september funk? i have been healed by the arrival of actual fall and my favourite holiday.

just fyi.
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HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!

go out, play, and be someone you aren't!

hallowe'en joy

2006-10-26T00:34:00.000-04:00

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i just had the coolest thing happen.

a friend of mine dropped something off at my house and informed me it was from a secret admirer.

i know this is true because inside it had a cut out card with 'from a secret admirer' written on it in cut up magazine pages. i'm pretty sure i know who it is. there were feminine things and my brand of toothpaste in it.

but check this okay? it's this great orange bag with a jack o'lantern on it and it's full of all these awesome things. my brand of toothpaste, a girly razor and four refills (i'm using a dead razor at the moment), eye makeup remover and pads, emery boards, my brand of tampons, a bag of tortellini pre-made dinner thingy, a toothbrush, and the very best thing ever...

yeah i said ever.

a

wait for it.

purple

wait for it

feather BOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I *KNOW*

how awesome is that? it has matching false eyelashes and lipstick even. (i'm totally wearing the whole shebang to work on tuesday!)

now the reason i'm pretty sure that i know who it is? there was a lighter in there too. and she nailed all my brands, so i'm thinking it's my sister. the person who handed it to me swears that it's from someone other than them you see... so she's off the hook, but lividviv now...

and i don't even care is the best part, if it isn't her? then someone who knows me really well made me a hallowe'en care package and i'm just thrilled.

god it's so awesome!

that's all, i'm going to bed.

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p.s. does anyone know how to put up false eyelashes? tips and tricks appreciated...

sunday stumblings

2006-10-22T15:54:00.000-04:00

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i've got nothing but time today... no post in my head at all so we'll just wee what comes out of my fingers. err see, i mean see.

anyway, it's really starting to suck this driving in toronto thing. i didn't used to be afraid for my life when i got in my car every day. i don't remember people running red lights to the extent that the entire advanced green in the other direction gets used up.

i don't remember so maybe people hitting my car and leaving ridiculous dings and no notes.

it's just all gotten so much worse.

my friend b was telling me about what they did in new york city a few years ago. the mayor gave everyone a year's notice that anyone entering an intersection against the lights or when it was congested would receive a FIVE HUNDRED dollar fine.

five hundred bucks. and they warned them for a year.

they got everyone in a uniform, retired, student, meter maid, whatever and blitzed the city... not only did they make a killing? no one enters the intersection like that any more in new york. well not no one but you know, it's better.

do you know what the fine is here? here where intersections are clogged for ENTIRE cycles of lights by idiots who ran through on a yellow and only made it half way?

thirty seven dollars.

yup.

genius i tell you.
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i have to get ready, da'mute and i are going climbing in ten minutes...nine and i need to brush my teeth.
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i love being a chick that's ready in ten minutes.

more time to blog.
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the weather is cold and rainy today but somehow it isn't depressing. it's crisp and invigorating. the same weather a month ago made me depressed and now it's delightful. i guess it's about the leaves on the trees. once they're down then it doesn't feel so weird that the weather is funny and cold.

either way it smells fantastic. cold and wet and filled with leaves and rain and a hint of smoke and crispy in your nostrils.

not to mention the colors right now, the don valley is fucking gorgeous these days with the colourful leaves and the water and the bright green grass.

the food reflects the season somehow. we're all eating squash and yams and potatoes and the fruit are shiny and hard and perfect for a cold day. apples in fall are heaven as are pumpkins and the rest of the squash family.

gourds so to speak.

i love gourds, all funky shaped with this strange alienness to them and yet they taste delicious.
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i'm breaking up my cats. sorry let me rephrase. mouse and harriet are fine but faust is a problem. faust is the cat down the hall that's dating my cats.

harriet will take me down the hall and stand imperiously at his door while waiting for me to let him in.

he will saunter down the hall and scratch insistently at my door until i allow him in my home.

until the other night.

the other night at 2:42am (alarm set for 9am for a tough mat class with dianne miller) after i had been sleeping for at least ninety minutes i am startled awake by the sounds of two cats having a knock down, drag out fight.

i levitate out of bed and land in the living room to see faust in my window fighting off harriet and as i arrive and shout HEY at the top of my lungs he chucks her off the window ledge and she lands five feet down and four feet out and now i'm upset.

not only is he yowling in my window loud enough to levitate me straight up in the air with my heart racing directly from a sound sleep but he's trying to fight my cat off her own turf!

so i approach and he jumps down to my monitor and hisses at me and i take a sort of fuck off swipe at him (to tap his butt and get him on his way, not hurt him) and fucked if he doesn't attack my hand with his nasty little claws and draw blood.

now i'm raging.

so i stomp over to the door and open it and then stomp back and just look at him and say in my iciest voice "get the fuck out of my house" and make like i'm going to swipe at him again and he jumps to the floor finally and i manage to get behind him and chase him out into the hall.

so i grab the key to his house and stomp off down the hall while muttering to myself and the little hoodlum tries to hiss me off his door!

and doing it well enough that i'm actually afraid!

so i lean way over and unlock the door sort of from above and open it and he rushes in and i'm like 'and stay the fuck out of my house' and shut it and lock it.

so i can't have this. i can't have an animal in my own home who attacks me, that's just not okay. and i think harriet misses him but not that much, i don't see her rushing for the door to be let out and she's way less demanding about going to his house.

will i let them hang again? yes.

here? not if i'm sleeping or resting. that fucker goes home before bed.

soon?

not so much.
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where the fuck is da'mute it's 3:52 pm... ahhh here he is.

laters.

hrm it's thursday!

2006-10-19T13:00:00.000-04:00

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okay, so hallowe'en is in ten days (well the saturday partying bit) and both the costumes that i have in mind require some work.

now i don't have the coat or gloves for this one (well i have an oilcloth trenchcoat that i could oil up that has the right cut but still, it ain't pvc):
trinity

and my wig is wrong for this one:
barbarella

and this is the base of the costume (you can see that the wig is wrong and maybe i can afford a new wig - and i love wigs so i don't mind but...):

and this is the gun i will use for barbarella (i'd have to buy something for trinity) and incidentally a fucking hilarious pic of othercat and i last year. :)

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incidentally i'm accepting variations on these themes as suggestions AND i'm asking for someone with more skill than me to get those two photos that are linked for me.

thought provoking

2006-10-17T01:23:00.000-04:00

this is a piece of a comment that gabriella left on empty vessel.

we all have aspects of our lives where self discipline is not as strong as in others. emotional self discipline is difficult for many people. they think of something they need to do and then permit their thoughts and then the emotions those thoughts elicit to create a fear response which freezes them in their steps. a fear response based on the fantasy of the imagination; not on the reality of an event that has yet to occur.

this is where meditation comes in handy. it teaches us that there are thoughts that can elicit emotions. we can control our thoughts and we can control our emotions especially when they result in somehow truncating our full experience of life. or prevent us realizing our professional plans.

i think the fundamental problem you are having, in general, whether it's about being in a relationship or promoting yourself is fear of rejection. you give way way too much value to what some person may or may not do when you approach them. but there are what, more than 6 billion people on this planet. context is all. if a few of them don't respond favourably, there's lots of others out there.

the problem isn't the public/potential student/potential mate. the problem is the person who invests way too much emotionally in any given encounter so that they involute after not achieving the most positive outcome from a given interaction.

if a person is always considering the devastating effects of a rejection, that person cannot present themselves in a fully positive way to a potential client.

now this is one of those things that you read you know? and then you read it again about a week later. and then you read it a little while later.

and then you go ask a guy out
or you call up a bunch of your old clients
or you go take classes with dianne miller [second generation legendary teacher]
or you decide to GO to the party this weekend that you heard about instead of just thinking about it.
or you just read this one sentence again and again:

there are what, more than 6 billion people on this planet. context is all. if a few of them don't respond favourably, there's lots of others out there.

holy holy shit.

what a freeing sentiment. i mean don't get me wrong, i'm a child of my upbringing, i will still strive for perfection and be unsatisfied with my own accomplishments. i will still worry about 'enough' in all senses of the word (and some you aren't thinking of) ... at least for a while.

but yeah. six billion.

i could embarass myself in front of every single person i ever meet and STILL meet new people every day. i could do anything i want anywhere i want because you know, six billion people.

seriously the more i think about it the more eased i feel. i can't explain it. i've known for a while that you have to make choices based on your inner eighty and eight year olds. they're way smarter than you are because they aren't currently the ones feeling mortified. and neither of them thinks with their nads.

and thinking with 8(0) year old me has helped to free me up from my fears and challenges and expectations for sure. in fact they're usually the ones who decide the important things with me lobbying for something lame in the background. i do have overrule power but they're always right those bitches.

but i hadn't taken into consideration the six billion people. holy hell that's a lot of people.

i can do anything i want and nobody gives a shit. and if they DO give a shit? there's five billion nine hundred and ninety nine million nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine more (give or take nine million of them or so) people out there who don't!

wow!

wow!

that's!

*giant sigh*

so freaking liberating i don't have words.

seriously, go read that comment up there again.

fuck you...

2006-10-14T14:35:00.000-04:00

[look another post i've been working on for months...]

fuck you for hitting my car and leaving a stupid ding under the mirror that's shaped like a horseshoe. just because my car is old doesn't mean that i don't love it.

fuck you for telling me what i'm going to feel

fuck you

fuck you for not loving me the way i loved you. and fuck you more for feeding me crumbs

fuck you for not being good enough

fuck you for using one quarter of the parking on my street for your stupid project

fuck you for 'this guy who was JUST your type just checked you out, turned around, smiled and everything' and NOT poking me when he DID IT!

fuck you for doing it all... way too late

fuck you for not being enough

fuck you for the season finale of gilmore girls. now i have to wait until OCTOBER or something for more of it. and damm... almost saw that coming and still? surprised.

fuck you for having sex against my bedroom window at 4am

fuck you for making our friendship irrelevant

fuck you for doing that too

fuck the toronto maple leafs for not making the playoffs and fuck pat quinn twice as hard. (and a small cheers for the new coach!)

fuck you for ever and always making it about yourself no matter who else is in the room or what they're trying to say. but thanks for that other thing

fuck you for being so young that no matter what reality is you just can't see it

fuck you for helping me build another wall

fuck you for transferring my call before i finished my fucking sentence

fuck you for deleting your blog.

fuck you for not asking me out.

fuck you for smoking outside my window

fuck you for giving me what i need instead of what i want

fuck you for wanting my attention only until you had it. what i didn't have enough bricks in the fucking wall yet?

fuck you for hitting my car hard enough to shatter the mirror and dent the door and fender. just because it's old doesn't mean i don't care and now i have yet another thousand bucks worth of work to do on my old car and you and your fucking huge gas guzzling piece of shit didn't even fucking notice you hit it. i know you didn't because that's how the last person that did the side of my car in responded. ass

fuck you for jumping to conclusions, even if i agree with them

fuck you for 'you just have to put yourself out there'

fuck you all for never noticing that i'm a dateable woman... it's no wonder really, hell i start cybersex with someone and end up giving them advice about their fucking mothers

fuck you for not sending me clients anymore, i hate looking for work and it doesn't suit the type of teacher that i am

fuck you for opening a studio without me (really not... i'm just sad about the missed opportunity)

fuck you for inviting yourself into my home whenever you want whether i'm welcoming or not

fuck you for offering something you knew i needed and then not giving it up... that's just teasing

fuck you for moving to california

fuck you for offering me a dream job IN california and then realising that i'm canadian

fuck you for 'we wish you the best of luck in your practise' AFTER asking me for my cards

fuck you baskin robbins for being out of peanut butter chocolate when i needed it!

as the god of my own universe...

2006-10-11T10:53:00.000-04:00

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it's three thirty nine in the morning and i'm staring at a blank screen. i feel like posting, my pedicure feels over and i don't really know what to say.

the only thing really occuring to me right now has to do with judgement and the right of it.
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okay i wrote that the night i posted my nerd post. i suddenly realised that i had to finish the nerd post and go to bed instead of doing something new. was okay, the post was ready.

anyway, now i can't figure out what i meant quite exactly.

i'm pretty sure that i'm discussing the idea of sitting in judgement and i'm pretty sure i don't think that anyone really has the right to do that. i'm in fact convinced that the ability to see more than one side of things is greatly lacking in the average human.

it's like all those email forwards say, try to remember that that 'asshole' who cut you off in traffic is on his way home from visiting his stroked out mother in the hospital. that that bitch who budded in line is worried about her colicky baby and how she's going to pay the bill and how the cashier that's not paying attention is a medical student with a big exam and how...

we've all gotten these emails, okay i'm assuming but it's a fair assumption since they go around a lot and i've gotten them repeatedly.

and it seems to me that they're

[*sigh* and now it's october and i started this in april and somehow today it wants me to finish it. see how i left it all in the middle of a sentence to make my life easier? yeesh]

...more right than we care to admit. almost every time i've caught myself being judgemental, no let me rephrase. almost every time i've been busted for being judgemental by someone other than myself it's always been because i was firmly attaching my own prejudices to my opinion and i wasn't willing to look around the corner.

sometimes that's okay. like the guy i had two dates with who thinks i'm awesome but there's no physical spark [i agree fyi but i wanted to see him minus wine haze before i really decided] but still went through the rigamarole of starting to set up a third date and then didn't email me for four days (friday at 3 i emailed him back and tuesday morning he replied) and then sends me an email that starts with "hi cutie"

and ends with 'there's no physical spark but i think you're awesome and would love to hang out'

seriously don't call a girl cute and dump her in the same breath. it's okay you aren't into me dude it really is cause you're high on yourself and kinda fat (but say in your ad that you want a fit woman... tut tut... you have to be into fitness to ask for fitness... just saying) in spite of the interesting nature of your brain but it's not okay to waste my time starting to set up another date and then wait four days.

had he sent the IDENTICAL email on friday (or even saturday)? i would want to be friends.

but now i don't and i said so. apparently he was 'crazy busy' and 'offline all weekend' ... whatever. his cell phone broke too apparently.

so i'm judging him. i'm judging him an ass who isn't worth my time so i'll answer his last email with something like 'no i don't want to take you climbing and appear to be dating when i'm single but feel free to invite me to parties' and move on.

i see that i'm judging him and i don't care. i approve of my judgement. if he wanted to be friends well, don't waste my time is all. i don't want to be friends with any other inconsiderate people. i've done that enough.

but then there's the other times i get judgemental. like when i catch myself looking down at the guy that's working at the Bay. or when i make obnoxious remarks toward people who lack education. or the ranting i have been heard to do about other people's bad driving right before i change lanes without signalling.

or when i talk about a friend and their behaviour and how it's fucking me up and how they aren't doing the right thing. they aren't doing the right thing for ME. that doesn't have shit to do with whether or not they're doing the right thing for them.

i was particularly guilty of this with a couple of old roommates.

i held them to my nature instead of to realistic standards. like judging someone for being 'slutty' when you were a natural celibate is ridiculous. first of all slutty is the stupidest word ever except maybe for should.

or judging someone for eating too much when you have no comprehension of the emotional anguish they're in.

we all do it, make snap judgements all the time about people... and most of them are harmless and necessary. do i want to hang out with this person? do i want to shop at that store? do i like this restaurant? was that good value for money?

lovely stuff.

but then there's the slippery slope right?

where you think someone is crazy because they have faith in god, the universe, cosmic rays, l. ron hubbard (no that one really is nuts), diet soda, marijuana, buddha, the tao... i could keep going.

or you decide that people who eat meat are worthless. or that all vegetarians are stupid.

or that all jews must die. or that homosexuals are spawn of the devil and deserve no solace.

or that people actually have the right to tell other people who to marry... or who not to marry. hell that someone can kill you for your sexual preference...

wow. neat where a post i started in april ended up.

fall

2006-10-08T02:02:00.000-04:00

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today is one of those days.

one of those perfect days that only happen in late september or october and that are so easy to miss. somehow you blink and it's winter and you didn't have any fall.

when i left my house at eleven this morning it was chilly out. i was wearing pilates shorts and a tank and a sweatsuit overtop. when i left class two hours later it was too warm for the pants and i ended up never zipping up the sweatshirt.

less than an hour after that? the sweatshirt was gone.

i love this kind of day. hot as hell in the afternoon and cold enough for a jacket at night. this is fall to me. the rains came hard, cold, and early this year which probably contributed to my sense of blah. also i find it interesting how many folks i know are also blah at this time of year.

sometimes i wonder if it's something i'm trained to. because of certain rhythms that existed in my house as a child. or because of the training regime of a swimmer.

see i can never get myself to work out in august and early september. can't do it. i did last year easily because i had JUST gotten allowed to climb again and i was so excited about that that it overcame things. interestingly i had a bit of a break at the end of september as some sort of replacement or something.

and in swimming the break? when you're at the level i was at anyway, is from the end of july/beginning of august (nationals/youth championships) to late september. and it took me a lifetime to notice that that's some kind of weird programming now.

i think that's a cool thing to finally notice.
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i heard about the coolest place to go hang out today and i'm totally stoked about it.

totally.

it's this circus practise place and two nights a week they have a sort of open night and you can go and learn stuff like how to surf on a board on a barrel or whatever. people will go in and practise their juggling or whatever and there's beer for sale (but it's not really that kind of place) and a dj.

i'm totally stoked and i'm not bringing anyone i know.

maybe later, after i'm in the group or decide if i want to hang, but for now i'm going by myself. i can't think of anyone who would want to play that kind of game except pile and he's too busy at circus school to come and play at circus play place.

but i imagine he is the type i might bring.

i didn't get the impression that people who aren't into this sort of thing were actually welcome really. not so much unwelcome just, hrm... like they wouldn't fit in.

like bringing a manicurist to a climbing party *snerk*

anyway i'm excited, and of course, once i scope the place out i may change my tune.
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i think that with the advent of real fall weather and a sort of reformed expectation of what it will be like when i go outside that i'm cheering up. i'm still in the mood to hibernate but it's more like i feel like doing indoor activities than that i feel like hiding in my apartment and not talking to anyone.

that could be because my sister is visiting me and i might be artificially inflated by that... but then what's artificial about that? i really AM happy because she's here. so if that's a placebo does it matter? i mean once it has it's desired effect this shouldn't matter in the slightest.
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actual thanksgiving dinner tomorrow at lorax and clarity's.

yes, i'm stoked.
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extra machine classes with rr to prepare for a series of mat classes with dianne miller.

rr just shook her head and implied that i'm going to die. she says SHE gets yelled at!!! i'm a bit afraid.

and so excited.

so she's working the saturday class and me the rest of the week extra hard. those poor other girls :)
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what's better? to marry your best friend or to marry your sexual fantasy?
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i've seen hockey. hockey was on television.

i've seen boys in hockey jerseys.

yay! thank you for hockey season.
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sharing more than three bottles of red wine with someone and forgetting to drink water?

recipe for a two day hangover.

ohhhh *groan*
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there is no reason to be awake right now.
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the air outside is so crisp and delicious. i love the way air smells when leaves are turning... it's indescribeably awesome.

it's cool and fresh and clean and smells of hibernation and loam and snow and turning earth. and no, i don't know how i smell that in the middle of the city but i do.

mmmmmmmm fall.

wednesday ramblings

2006-10-04T13:19:00.000-04:00

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i'm taking a leaf from the book of kj

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i have this great class that i only get for five weeks and i love them and it's so much fun!

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i'm craving peanut butter chocolate chip ice cream, but i'm too lazy to go outside. you know you're lazy when baskin robbins is less than 100 feet from your door. my ass thanks me for my laziness.

see sometimes lethargy is good!

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it smells like piss in here.

fucking bums peeing on my building. fortunately gaia is raining on it for me.

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i have been making changes in my home... generally something that happens in the depth of a funk and before i come out of it. some of them are really excellent.

first i gave hubris the black chair that didn't fit in my apartment. it turns out i was just storing it for him cause it goes great in his house. then i went looking for some kind of shelving unit to put there because all i ever did was store shit on said chair i dumped on hubris.

chair i may want if he ever dumps it and i've moved...

anyway i'm all poor so i can't be buying any furniture but then i walked into the laundry room yesterday and found these two shelving units that were both sort of close to what i wanted. well fuck.

so much better than whati wanted!

i cleared out that corner, stuck in the shelves, threw most of the random shit on the floor on them randomly. they're basically empty still and now the rocker just fits and my apartment has a floor!

and i SWEPT!

and because i haven't been going out i've been cooking at home so my kitchen is getting turned over and used again too. it's so nice.

maybe i'm just in the mood to be an introvert this month. that's okay as long as i start calling about more work soon, and i've stuck an iron or two in a couple of fires to simmer... and i have the promise of more work than i can handle next summer... so i'm broke but hopeful and really way better off than i was last year.

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i'm glad i'm not napping right now since the super is cleaning. and if he's done in the next half hour i can still sleep for three hours. and read a bit first. shut up, i was at work at 6:30am and i'm working until 8:30pm.

i would have been so pissed if he'd been doing this while i was sleeping cause then i would have gotten woken up.

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i finally made a doctor's appointment for the first time in years. i haven't had a check-up in so long i can't remember and i would like to actually have a doctor know me. i'm about that age right?

it's time to get mammograms and other horrendous things.

apparently they're like closing your boob in a fridge door as hard as you can. thank the universe i got skinny before i have to get one! doing it on the e's i once had would be trauma indeed.

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freebsd is annoying to upgrade. but not as annoying as windows.

seriously

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the rain is really beautiful and makes me feel all slow moving and languid like a rivulet down a car window.

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this post is how i feel about my empty vessel feeling right now.

she sums itup really well, except that she has a family and i don't. well i do, but it's a different kind of family and we don't live together. altogether we are very different women with very different lives.

nonetheless i feel like that's just what i'm doing. go read it, it's a good post.

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it's time for my nap.

lethargy

2006-10-02T00:33:00.000-04:00

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lately, it seems that in addition to my overwhelming feeling of quietness i'm supposed to get my shortcomings pointed out to me. and it's gotten me to thinking.

if my shortcomings are being pointed out to me then maybe it's because they're sticking out more. why are they sticking out more?

well let's see... i'm tired a lot and feel like i can't sleep and like i can't wake up and like i'm tired even if i just got nine hours of sleep.

my brain feels... heavy.

i can't get myself to go after work even if it would be relatively simple and i'm even not sending an invoice that will net me a hundred bucks that i need.

i have nothing to say and i hang around with my friends and you can hardly tell that i'm there.

i can't stop eating food that isn't healthy.

newsflash sassinak this has all the hallmarks of depression. i wonder if i felt like this last year about now

*wanders off to look at archives*

interestingly, yes i did. so maybe it's a seasonal thing. i get a little funky in february but who says i don't get a little funky in september as well?

what's interesting is that in spite of the fact that this has all of the hallmarks of depression i don't feel depressed. i'm acting depressed, if i were diagnosing me i would call myself depressed but yeah.

i don't care enough to feel depressed *laughs*

that's kind of it though. and this will pass in the not too distant future and i won't notice it's passing until the next time this happens and i realise how long it's been since the last time.

in fact, although i'm theoretically miserable diagnostically i'm thoroughly enjoying the time off. it's quite nice to feel my brain be in slow motion and to not have very much to say. what's not so nice is when people tell you that you're unusually bitchy. other things hurt more but won't get mentioned here to protect the people that said them.

or me, because i rarely want people to realise how much things hurt me.

i was theorising recently that maybe this is normal. it's fall. maybe this is when we get all pensive and rambley (think walks) because soon we'll be trapped in a longhouse and we won't be able to be psycho.

maybe we northerners get a little weird at harvest because our brains are expecting us to do the human equivalent of hibernation which, for a very long time, involved a lot of people living in very small and very communal spaces.

perhaps this is how our brains gear up for winter. they spend the summer getting all hot and languid and feeling good. cares are forgotten and our bodies and minds get fit and healthy from the hard work we're doing.

then in the fall, when you're putting up food and stores for winter, out comes the shaker and it gives the old brain a thorough shaking and sees what turns up. sort of gives the brain a last chance to get prepared for the stir crazy mess that is winter in a snowy place.

so just because i have parkas and a car and heated malls doesn't mean my body really groks that. my body is learning that as humans become more civilised but we still have many more generations of primitive tribal history than automated and industrialised history.

maybe this is normal.

maybe this empty feeling in my brain is the mental equivalent of putting on ten pounds of insulation before the snow flies...

maybe.

or maybe i'm depressed.

it's just that if i'm depressed, aren't i supposed to be sad or miserable or unable to function at work? hell shouldn't work suck instead of remaining enjoyable?

it really does feel like withdrawl for hibernation.

thoughts?

empty vessel

2006-09-29T18:40:00.000-04:00

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i'm trying really hard to force myself to go looking for more pilates work and i can't seem to make myself. it's not that i don't want more work because i really do. it's just that i hate marketing myself.

it would be so much easier if i could make cold calls easily and i try to make myself make three a day but i'm lucky if i make three a week. hell returning calls from my existing clients is hard as hell and email is harder.

i just want to go work somewhere where clients come in the door and other people check the messages on the days when i can't bear to talk. or even better somewhere where someone else entirely is responsible for my schedule and for money.

man it almost sounds like i want to work in an industrial studio. one of those places with a receptionist and the like. so strange to think that way when i always wanted to work somewhere small and quiet.

none of it is true anyway, i just hate looking for clients.

i know that's ridiculous and i get that that's a big part of my job but i got spoiled when clients were being sent to me and because that's so much where i want to be and who i want to work with it's hard to pursue regular folks.

i miss the clients the doctor sent me, i'm not sure why he stopped but he did and i miss them. i miss not having to look for work but i miss the clients more. they were FUN.

these were people who hurt and had problems and really needed me. they felt better after they saw me and many of them continue to see me to this day. but i need new ones and regular old healthy clients just are not as much fun.

i got spoiled by the tough ones.

how funny is that.

i also need to find a couple of new group classes, three of the ones i was teaching are dead and one more is dying. so i have to replace them because group and privates feed each other.

gah it's so hard to care when i'm this unmotivated and i can almost afford my life.

i just can't afford school.
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this is how blah i am... i'm so blah i haven't been CLIMBING.

yeah.

i just have nothing to say.. i'm all empty vessel waiting for filling.
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it's okay to be blah right? i mean it's fall, it's prepare to hibernate season, some blah is to be expected...

but what do i do about work?

sex drive

2006-09-26T12:37:00.000-04:00

[i will edit this as your comments show me what you don't understand. please send people links or if you're going to print this wait a day or two okay? {so egotistical to assume you'll want to pass it on}]

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hah! got your attention didn't i?

read this please, and think about it for the people in your life because it may apply. BUT please remember that i am not a doctor and this is ANECDOTAL. don't know what anecdotal means? read this (number three is most applicable in this case.)

i have been noticing something in a LOT of my clients and it's starting to really disturb me. almost all of the women who have had children have either lost their sex drives or their urinary control or both.

this often manifests as neck strain causing massive headaches or upper back and shoulder/neck aches. in every case there is a distinct lack of pelvic floor control or strength or action to go along with this. [the neck strain is because your pelvic floor holds up your head, yes i'm willing to elaborate]

now look, even if you don't care about your sex drive the being able to stop your pee thing? big. very, very big. i do not want to wear a diaper when i'm eighty okay?

and boys? don't think you're exempt. i have more than one old man who complains that he can't get things to work anymore AND that the blue pill doesn't work. it doesn't work because they've disconnected from their pelvis and their pelvic floor and because there ain't any muscle tone to be found.

i'm getting really disturbed. i mean i have a pile of women who cannot make their urine stop midstream. now i don't think that that's actually a healthy thing to do as an exercise but as a diagnostic idea for checking it ain't bad. next time you're peeing see if you can stop it mid stream. no more than twice and not frequently, it's a test, you don't need to do it often okay?

what's funny is that you would think pelvic floor was the one thing we would all learn to work. it's basically the basket that contains our organs AND? well you can use those muscles for um internal massage purposes and it facilitates healthy breathing and bladder control. [yes, of course i mean internal massage in a dirty way.]

but no, we're so embarassed to use the word vagina that after a woman gives birth we don't teach her to put her body back together again down there! i mean who in the universe thinks it's a good plan to gain fifty pounds, pop out a ten pound soccer ball from an exit the size of the hole in a sprite can and start carrying said ten pound and growing soccer ball around without rebuilding those muscles?

EVERYONE that's who.

it's ridiculous. one lady has been incontinent for nine years and she isn't fucking forty yet.

another one hasn't wanted her husband since her third kid, her first kid, her second kid, her last kid... so many broken women. women who said 'oh yeah, i used to be a nympho' and now? nothing. it's enough to make you weep.

i ask them, these women, what their doctors and surgeons and caregivers told them to do after their birth and all of them mention an exercise or two that was casually mentioned once and never heard of again. because you know, in that haze of birthing induced hormones women are listening and retaining really well.

a fellow teacher went to a urologist at a respected hospital with a member of her family and while there collected some brochures that contained advice for incontinent women. instead of working their ACTUAL pelvic floors this brochure, which NEVER mentioned the word vagina even though it was about WOMEN who can't stop their pee, advised that they clench their 'try not to fart muscles.'

ask me how those muscles relate to the pee holding in ones. come on, ask me.

NOT AT FUCKING ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh it's enough to make you weep with rage it's so stupid.

so. without further ado. some pelvic floor muscles for you. please ask if any of this doesn't make sense.

yes, you really do have to put your hand on your pubic bone.

lay on your back on the floor with your feet flat on the ground about a foot and a half from your hips and your knees bent. breathe at least ten breaths before you start to let your body settle. think a little about your breath and inhale with your nose, long and slow and feel it pooling into the bottom back of your lungs as your ribs expand out to the side like an accordion.

exhale with your mouth in a long slow sigh and feel your breastbone, that bone between your ribs that runs from your collarbone down to where your ribs meet in the middle at the bottom, melt like molasses toward your waistband where it crosses your spine.

ten times.

then put the soles of your feet together and let your legs fall open to the sides. if this hurts stop and do the next exercise instead.

place the heel of your hand on your hip bone and your fingers on your pubic bone. yes it's a bone, it's where your legs meet and it's actually two bones with thick crap in between. poke it, it's bone. good hands go there, not low on your tummy somewhere near your pubic bone.

that triangle you've formed with your hands should be relatively level. if it isn't think about your pelvis reaching genty into the distance (away from your head) but don't force your back down flat on the floor, there should be a little space.

inhale for nothing.
exhale squeeze the soles of your feet together.

if your pubic bone lifts into your fingers you're using your bum. no bum allowed.

inhale release.
exhale squeeze the soles of your feet together and then gently squeeze your knees like you're squeezing a giant exercise ball.

if your pubic bone lifts into your fingers you're using your bum. no bum allowed. all you can do is tell your bum not to help and keep trying. if it keeps insisting on helping work less hard.

inhale release.
exhale squeeze the soles of your feet together and then your knees and then the tops of your inner thighs.

did i mention no bum? cause i really really mean it.

inhale release.
exhale squeeze the soles of your feet together and then your knees and then the tops of your inner thighs and pull up on your pelvic floor.

keep doing that for at least fifteen repetitions.

here's some metaphors that help.

women think of an elevator at your entrance that you are drawing up inside you to behind your bellybutton.

men think of walking into a very very cold lake. yup that's it, genitals run screaming to the lungs.

alternately think of testicles and pulling them in.

you should feel a column of muscle running up behind your bellybutton. you can get it to work even higher but if you can hit your belly button you're doing pretty well.

tell your partner i said 'you're welcome' :)

okay for those of you that can't lie in that position or can't feel their pelvic floor in that exercise. get a kitchen chair. sit on it and splay your legs pretty wide. put your hands on your inner knees and press out against them, they resist against your hands and you should feel work in your inner thighs.

pitch forward at your hips, keep your back straight, and then pull up.

seriously just think of pulling up and you should feel some lovely work in your pelvic floor and lower abs. if that doesn't work then the metaphors in the above exercise apply equally well to this one.
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ahh, feels nice to get that off my chest.

checking out

2006-09-23T15:31:00.000-04:00

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y'all may have noticed from careful perusal of my comments section or my latest post that i'm talking about dating in a slightly different way. or maybe that i'm not really talking about it. or even just a little crack about killing my okcupid profile.

which i did, it's now about eight lines long and is simply there to hold my nick until such time as i no longer care or re-activate my profile. this is only the outward manifestation of something that's been happening inside for a while.

i am checking out of the dating pool.

i'm just tired of it and exhausted, it's time to sit on the bank and watch the clouds go by instead of this constant treading water and getting nowhere.

i will no longer be:
.paying attention to matchmaking websites
.caring if the gorgeous man i'm ogling is single
.bothering to meet the nice looking man's eyes as we pass in the street (as in looks like a nice man not as in looks hot)
.introducing myself to that guy at the gym
.wondering 'if he likes me' because if he does? he'll fucking ask me out won't he?
.worrying about dating.

i can't. i have to let it go. i have somehow allowed my own self esteem to become tied up in the eyes of the men around me. the eyes of the men who are utterly disinterested in me. let me tell you how well that works from a self esteem persepective.

yeah ten points to the lady in the back who said 'it fucking doesn't' because dudes? it fucking doesn't. it sucks total and complete ass is what it does. somehow in spite of the fact that the body feels great and the brain is finally lifting the stupid fog it's been in after all that time not exercising, being fat and eating bad food and just generally not keeping myself healthy?

somehow in spite of all that, in spite of having a healthier body than i did when i was twenty?

i've been feeling fat and unnattractive and uncool or lame or boring or not interesting or whatever word you care to throw in there. and this isn't a call for compliments okay? i mean i love the compliments but that's not what this post is about.

it's about my self esteem and how i let it get all tied up in my dating life instead of leaving it tied to what it SHOULD be about. my *SELF*

i don't really know how it happened but slowly, over the course of the last year, i've lost my confidence somehow, well not really confidence but something. and some of it started with a little emotional maelstorm that i allowed into my life and tore through me like a hurricane.

hrm hurricane is a bad analogy because this started slow and ended slower and is not healing as it should. regardless, when this little storm happened i was already in recovery from the shattering of my self and my life following my car accident and break-up with tr. consequently i allowed things to get far more ridiculous than any adult woman should and ended up leaving myself ridiculously open and emotionally vulnerable.

and when i asked then, for some respect and some nice treatment? yeah i got the emotional sucker punch to the solar plexus instead and i broke. i didn't know that i broke but i did. a whole new set of fracture lines to add to the stained glass mess that is my self. it's still beautiful stained glass but it needs a lot of repair work again and i'm only just finding the tools to do it.

i guess when i say 'i was broken' it's physically true but it's an emotional lie. i *was* physically broken but i *am* still emotionally broken. a lot of old wounds have healed of course but i am only now starting to realise that this road may be even longer than the physical one and even the physical road is endless.

you think you are healthy in your heart and mind and then one day you wake up and realise that no, you aren't, in fact you've been quietly shattering for well over a year even as you repaired a ton of old damage.

please don't take this post to mean that i am depressed or feeling bad because i am NOT!

in fact i feel really good because i am taking positive steps to make changes that will allow me to grow whole and happy.... which, i know, i thought i was doing already. but yeah, not so much.

in fact i was growing whole and happy in most of my life but i just had this lingering malaise or unhappiness or melancholy or emptiness or whatever word suits you. professionally and socially and even in my 'activities' i was growing happier and healthier and more together with each passing day.

but in terms of that sense of yourself that comes from flirting and interacting with the opposite sex etc? i was feeling so empty there that it was colouring all of the things that i DO love about my life. all of the things that make me happy to be alive and bound out of bed with a smile every morning (okay AFTER i hit snooze like 4 times but... ;)

and that shit is just not on so i've decided to check out. that's it. no more crushes (stop laughing princess valium) and no more worrying and no more match making sites. no more.

if some guy wants to ask me out? i'll go. but that's IT.

and you know what? i feel better already and it's only been a week or two. for serious.

and you? that guy i wrote a letter to a while back? that guy that isn't in my life anymore and will probably never read this? you. the imaginary friend i still miss every single day in spite of myself?

i forgive you.

inward spiral

2006-09-21T00:02:00.000-04:00

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it's not just the blog.

these days i get to my friends houses to hang out and i just sit there and smile a little and don't say much at all. i just don't have anything to say. we cover the usual topics in a few minutes and then we sit around and smile.

often there is food.

i feel sometimes like i'm not fulfilling my duty as a good friend, like i should be more witty or scintillating or entertaining. and i just don't feel like it. i just sit there and look at them and we don't talk much.

don't, for the record, think that either of us aren't enjoying our faces off because we totally are, we're having a nice time, we just aren't talking.

i've not done that with that much in my life so i guess i was due.

excuse me, i have to go kill my okcupid profile right now.
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ahh that's better.

i don't really know what's up with me i have to say, i still go to work and enjoy my life and i'm having a nice time and all but i've been feeling foggy. a little extra this week due to hormones but whatever.

for some unknown reason i just don't feel like i have anything to say... i can sit there with my clients and talk because i see them for an hour. i ask them relevant questions, we make nice a little and i make them work most of the time. that's easy.

but after an hour with my real life friends? nothing.

and it's not like i'm off in thoughtland either, i'm just kind of blank inside. i'm hoping i'm a canvas waiting for paint and not just about to fall into a massive depression. it doesn't feel depressing though, just quiet.

i just don't have anything to say... and how weird is that?

dear blog

2006-09-19T01:42:00.000-04:00

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i'm sorry.

i've been neglecting you.

and don't think i'm not aware of it, i know that i haven't been visiting the blogs of my regular folks and that i haven't been wandering by my favourite corners of the blogverse quite so often. i know that i'm still reading everything but that i'm for whatever reason not really commenting.

and you, i've been not posting to you and not responding to comments as much as i wish to. and i'm sorry.

i'm sorry blog, i haven't meant to neglect you but i'm having an incredibly introspective patch you see, and last time i had one of these i was driven to write and write and write. but this time?

yeah, not so much. i'm actually reading books and watching television instead and i'm really, really enjoying it. i've watched the entire last season of grey's anatomy and i've watched the new episodes of several shows and i've read more fantasy novels in the last month than in the last year.

basically? i've been hanging out with my brain and myself and it's been really good... but i haven't felt like hanging out with my blog.

i don't really know why really, i just haven't felt like it. it's kind of like when you have a best friend and you happen to not see them very often for a while. it's kind of like that.

it's not that i'm not in love with you dear blog it's just that well, i've been in the mood to lie on the couch and since i don't have a laptop and you're stuck being attached to the desktop means you've been being sorely neglected.

and it's not that i'm not reading all the comments and all the posts on all of the blogs that i usually read because i have. all of them. but i'm not commenting.

or if i am it's short and sort of obligatory.

anyway y'all and blog, i guess the point is that i really and truly love all of you and i'm okay and everything but i'm on a bit of a hiatus okay? i'll be around just a bit less.... around.

hopefully y'all will still be here when my brain returns. and who knows that could be two hours or two weeks or two... well who knows. but trust that i feel as attached to this place as ever and that i will absolutely be posting and commenting but that for a while i'll seem a little distant or somehow less here.

it's okay, i'm just in a little cocoon and letting my brain percolate.

:)

love always
-sass

up an down

2006-09-15T11:43:00.000-04:00

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i'm sorry, i've been watching season two of grey's anatomy and i have thirteen more episodes to go before i start paying attention to this blog again... and god damm is that show ever awesome. and by the way? if you've SEEN season two? shut the bloody hell up! i am currently unspoiled and hoping to remain so.
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there is something about dating that is soul suckingly wearying. you meet people, be it at parties or online or whatever and you feel yourself well up with this strangely despairing hope.

that maybe this time will be different.

that maybe this time you'll meet someone where both of you feel that little sparky magical thingy at the same time.

where maybe one of you won't think the other is a total putz.

hell that you'll both be inspired to boink even...

yeah i know, total wishful thinking. it's just what's the alternative to the wishful thinking? if you just accept that you're never going to date you have to then deal with your remaining lifespan with no dates. that's really kind of unfriendly and lonely sounding.

so you go to the parties or the blind dates and somehow you keep this little spark of hope alive, the cruel kind, the kind that gets you living off chips and ice cream for three days because some guy didn't call but hope nonetheless...

so to combat this ongoing dating misery i've decided to finally finish a post that i started a long time ago, a post that la belle natalia inspired when she wrote a really wonderful list one day.

fuck this post was finished and my browser crashed...

regardless this list was like the anti-dating-rant rant, it was a lovely list of things all of her exes had done which endeared them to her forever... and nary a complaint was seen. so without further ado, my list of unidentifiable exes and the things i loved them for.
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x used to always make sure that i had a fresh glass of water at my bedside. or really anywhere i was.

x used to patiently walk me through jumper settings on my modem so we could 'talk' over the net. this was in 14400 days so you know we were talking with text AND that i knew a lot less about computers then.

x used to kiss my shoulder just before we went to sleep. he'd be all wrapped around me and then he'd just *kiss* me on my shoulder... and i used to melt.

x never 'let me win' at pool and god it pissed me off that i never beat him. but i loved him for not pulling any punches.

he told me that i would see a shooting star and i never had. so he took me outside and sat me down and said pick a spot over yonder and stare. and i did. and i saw one. finally. irony, i've since learned that there's a meteor shower ON my birthday every year.

he used to love toys... you know those nerd toys like the sphere that shrinks and expands because it's all triangles. or anything glow in the dark. or silly putty. or computers. or whatever. x took such joy in life that it was a pleasure to be around.

x once said 'you're so cute when you're being defensive' and i hadn't even noticed i was being defensive.

x would ski like the wind and laugh like a child.

x was unfailingly generous with treats and cash.

x taught me to understand the guts of my car.

x had the best abs (what i'm allowed to be shallow too!)

x showed me that waiting before boinking led to significantly better sex when we finally did it... and how much fun a shower stall that liked to fill up with water could be...

x taught me the difference between having sex and making love.

x always had a ready quip and it was rarely at anyone's expense.

x showed up with dufflet's pastries the first time he took me for a walk. i didn't realise that i would one day consider that our first date.

x took great glee in wonderful food.

x always worried about my pleasure before his, and i don't just mean in bed.

he gave me the first valentine's day i ever had... with streamers and everything. he done did it up right and it was lovely. (and i was almost thirty at the time by the way)

he also introduced me to the joys of a king size bed... it's so much easier to thrash in your sleep if you have the equivalent of a double bed of your own and so does he.

x toured me around the back roads and the goat trails for miles in any direction from our home...

x would make me food whenever he was cooking without me having to ask... even before we were dating.

x described me as wind and loved me for it... and other than otters i've heard no better comparison.

x was the first person i loved romantically and will hold a special corner of my heart forever because of it.

x was one of the kindest people i ever knew... would that i met him when i was thirty instead of fifteen.

x showed me that it can be a turn on for a man if a woman 'helps herself out' while you're playing together... until then i thought men would find that insulting.

x was endlessly patient with me when i lost it with him... man would not fight. not a bad quality in a sass mate *grin*
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okay there you have it... things i loved about the men of my past... and a reminder that just because dating sucks and there are a lot of players out there? doesn't mean there aren't some stellar men to be had as well.

too bad it's so hard to sort them from the users and the players... but i guess it's because we women want to trust so much that we shut our eyes... or that the players are so much smoother than the actual nice guys...

or whatever.. just remember, not all the boys you meet will prove to be assholes. yes even the ones who break your heart aren't necessarily assholes... i mean are you an asshole for dumping that guy that time?

:)

feeling twelve

2006-09-12T12:26:00.000-04:00

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man there is something happening with the drivers in toronto that is just getting out of fucking hand. people seem to think that anywhere they are going is far more important than any kind of rules of the road or traffic laws or even lights.

so the light is red, i'm going to turn anyway since i'm in a desperate rush. who cares about all those people who have a green light that are going the other way, let them honk, it's all about me!

god i literally lose it after five minutes in my car these days.
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so last weekend, y'all may have noticed that i wasn't here... well that's because i was at a cottage that a lovely lady (in fact she's been in the blog before as svdw) who happens to be the other drummer in my band has a family share of.

she invited us up and the way she talked implied that this was a small cottage with limited amenities.

well, she couldn't have misled us more. i had my own room with a queen size bed and othercat had a double and we practically had our own wing! and this cottage sits on a little arm of georgian bay so the water is calmer and you're slightly more sheltered from the breeze.

we get there late on friday night and they had been there for maybe ten minutes when we arrived (her father lives there but he was already asleep) so the four of us (her boyfriend was up as well) gathered on the dock and drank little shots of irish whisky and glayva and brandy while enjoying the beautiful weather.

the water was so calm and the sky was covered in a perfect layer of clouds that somehow lit the night and we just sat out there for at least an hour or two and just enjoyed the nature.

saturday we wake up and get fed organic blueberry and peach pancakes and then we go wandering in the woods to see svdw's favourite swamp and we have a little snack there adn then wander off to the end of the 'point' that their cottage shares with about a hundred others. large point, still relatively large lots and isolated cottages. all the cottages are on the water and there's no one 'across the road.'

anyway at the end are all these rocks and this lovely sand and othercat gets inspired to go skinny dipping. off come his clothes down to his tighty whities and svdw and her man m and i just watch the show.

and what a show.

he walked

and he walked

and he walked some more

and still? he was only ankle deep! oh my word watching this man in his tighty whities walking endlessly in this lake that seemed so huge and deep and just getting his ankles wet? it was enough to have us crying tears of laughter.

eventually he managed to get his knees wet but by then he was walking in the rhubarb so he gave up.

never fear, upon our return to the cottage we had a nice drink and then off the dock we went in to the nice deep channel. i think i might have been in there for like half an hour and it was COLD but it was also the 'last swim of the year' AND it was in georgian bay which is cambrian shield and that water feels like home to me.

makes it hard to exit the lake.

anyway another gourmet dinner followed by a jam session with some drums and othercat's sax and some wandering under the light of the full moon and enjoying the road and off i went to bed. turns out that they had a fire but i wanted to curl up in bed more than i wanted to hang with a fire.

anyway sunday... GOURMET OMELETTES! i know, where do i get so lucky?

anyway my knee was collapsing so M did some acupuncture on my knee (othercat has pics but i don't have them yet) and then svdw's brother showed up and offered boat rides. everyone but me jumped up with joy and i sort of went 'but i'm sunbathing' ... and he said 'better grab a jacket' and that was it, i was decided, i wasn't going ANYWHERE.

the sun felt like food and i couldn't bear to put on any clothing.

so, i say half heartedly 'now if you were offering water skiing...' and he says 'sure i'll take you for a ski' and i faint.

seriously, i've been wanting to water ski again for TWENTY TWO years. i was very good at it as a child but that was when i was thirteen, it's been a loooooong time.

anyway so they leave me to sunbathe on the dock and off they go for their ride. an hour later? back they come and off i go.

first? i got up on the FIRST try. off a dock no less. i was pretty proud. anyway oh man you guys picture this.

thirty five year old woman
two water skis
very awkward stance
wavering every time she cuts over or through the wake
shrieking with glee (the ENTIRE TIME)
smile fourteen miles wide on her face

oh yeah. it was fucking awesome.

anyway after a bit (like five minutes or something) i fall and then get back up and ski for a while longer and then? oh yeah baby he drives close in to shore by the dock and i know i have two choices... quit or drop a ski. and i'm TIRED y'all....

i didn't know how hard fucking water skiing was since when i was thirteen i was made of rubber bands and this stuff was easy!

so i drop a ski. i'm like 'hey wtf if i fall i fall'

and i fell, but not before i did two or three turns on a slalom ski!!!!

and then j (boat man) makes me get up on one ski. a thing i'm not even sure i accomplished as a wondrously fit, healthy and strong twelve year old.

and the first time? i totally fuck it up but the second? I DID IT!

i was in shock, i got out of the water on one ski and i was SO proud... and then, thirty seconds later? oh yeah baby... face plant.

and that was it... i was so tired that i could hardly get into the boat... i was so tired that when i ran off the dock and into the lake a few minutes later? my leg buckled as i ran.

i was so tired i had to sun bathe for an hour before i could walk to the house.

man such magic.

and then? oh yeah MORE gourmet food!

:)

the doors of perception

2006-09-09T00:01:00.000-04:00

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so, in case you haven't figured it out i have finished losing my accident weight. in fact i'm probably sitting about two pounds lighter than i was after my accident... which puts me about ten pounds away from my original, pre-accident goal.

do i give a shit if i ever lose that ten pounds? not really.

do i expect to lose it if i continue as i've started? absolutely.

is that what this post is about? of fucking course not.

i was talking with a fellow instructor recently about one of the people who regularly comes to some of the classes that we teach. this particular person complained about me every time they took one of my classes.

they bitched me out.
they left half way.
they invented their own moves.
they wrote complaint cards.
they walked in half way.
they would correct my exercises to their fellow students.
they would 'explain' what i really meant to the rest of the class.
they told us all they were better than us....

this person walked into my class the other day, did everything i said, listened to my corrections AND laughed at my jokes.

the entire time i was staring at them, no seriously regardless of where my eyes were i was staring at this person in shock.

so after class i say to one of the ladies who has been coming to my class for a couple of years 'um was that really x in my class AND having a good time???'

and she says 'yeah' and then she goes on to tell me that she's convinced it's because i'm thin now. i *look* like a pilates teacher now... i fit the expected image of my job.

this pisses me off actually because i liked being overweight when i taught, i thought it was really good for my clients and students to see an overweight pilates instructor... but i digress.

so i was talking with my fellow instructor and telling her this story and also how i've noticed that it's a LOT easier to get work now and a lot easier to get my clients to hear me. they have to be hearing me because they're finally starting to do what i tell them.

she, my fellow instructor, is currently having some thyroid problems so she's gaining weight at about the rate that i'm losing it. not too much, not too fast, but a steady and visible weight gain.

actually that's a lie, she's peaked and is now starting to treat her thyroid and i think she's actually getting thinner now... but that's not the point.

the point is that she's noticed the exact opposite reaction in her classes.

sure the students that she's had for years are aware that something isn't right and that she knows what she's doing so she has no trouble with them. but she does have trouble with the new ones.

they take one look at her and figure she can't possibly know what she's talking about because she doesn't *look* like a pilates instructor. not that a pilates instructor looks like anything in particular.

hell a lot of the older ones are a little chubby...

but she's probably thirty so they're assuming she doesn't exercise and she eats badly and then they project that since she doesn't work out or eat right she therefore can't possibly know what she's doing.

the irony is that for both of us (me a couple of years ago and her now) all you EVER had to do was hear what we were saying and it was clear we knew what was going on.

if you just listened when we told you what to do and did it you would get a great class... but people are so busy expecting their trainers to look like greek goddesses that they're missing the real message.

a fit and healthy body isn't necessarily a skinny one.

do you want me to say that again?

just because you can grab an inch or ten worth of chub on your tummy doesn't make you unhealthy, out of shape OR incapable of teaching others to use their bodies better.

being skinny doesn't make you in shape, it just makes you skinny.

being in shape doesn't make you skinny but it tends to lead to weight loss and reshaping of your body.

your eyes don't know shit about what does and doesn't make a good instructor, your ears and your body do.

i'm almost tempted to gain a bunch of weight just out of spite but i can't, the back and knees can't take it.

it would be a nice excuse to eat mcdonald's again though...

regardless, the real message should be about how you feel and not about how you look and i just cannot seem to find a way to get the majority of people walking through the doors of any studio i'm in to hear that.

when i was fatter it was a lot easier to get them to hear me, it was just harder to get them in the doors... now they look at me and wish for my body and come to my class to get it...

it's funny how things swing from one direction to another... just like fashion and 'healthy weight' perceptions do.

if any of you learn anything from me let it be this... fitness is about how you FEEL and not about how you look. worry more about climbing stairs without losing your wind than about how many inches are around your waist...

trust me, if you do that the waist will take care of itself and put itself at your body's healthy and happy weight...

your homework today is to say something nice about your body to yourself :)

1(2-4)10

2006-09-07T23:59:00.000-04:00

1. Things that scare me.
death
love
losing an immediate family member

2. People who make me laugh.
othercat
most of my commenters
dr. house and characters like him
tanya huff

3. Things I hate most.
i don't hate anything... but i'm intensely antipathic to warmongering and hatred

4. Things I don't understand.
war
lack of courtesy or consideration
dating

5. Things I'm doing right now.
this tag
listening to us3

6. Things I want to do before I die.
learn to surf
live!

7. Things I can do.
teach
see around corners
state the obvious

8. Ways to describe my personality.
mercurial
fun loving
sensitive

9. Things I can't do.
sit still
restrain myself

10. Things I think you should listen to.
your heart your head and your gut in equal measure, but your heart breaks the tie.

11. Things you should never listen to.
people who put you down
anyone who refuses to see more than one side of a story
the little voice inside that says bad things about you

12. Things I'd like to learn.
to listen
pilates

13. Favorite foods.
garlic
parmesan cheese

14. Beverages I drink regularly.
water
water
water
water
tea/coffee

15. Shows I watched as a kid.
hogan's heroes
g-force
romper room
sesame street
mr. dressup
doctor who
disney movie (whatever that sunday at 6pm thing was actually called)

===

2 moments in your life you'd like to erase
.the night that i said yes, but i meant no.
.all of the times that i didn't say i was sorry.

4 moments you'd like to relive:
.hanging with my grandfather... any one of those moments, i don't care which. or just one day with him as a grown woman... just one.
.gardening with my ex husband
.making nationals
.the first time the edges of our pinky fingers touched... and stayed.
[this entire category is really about the first one. it's all about the papa... the rest of them i remember well enough, he died before i was ten]

2 places you wouldn't want to go to/go to again:
.jail
.a mental institution

4 places you can't wait to visit/visit again
.italy
.greece
.new zealand
.north of the arctic circle

2 foods you can't stand:
.eggplant
.did i mention the egg plant? cause yeah...

4 foods you love:
.fresh, well cooked and nicely spiced vegetables... nearly any ethnicity.
.dark chocolate
.plain chips, especially ruffles
.ice cream

2 current songs that make you change the station:
.the news... especially from the middle east. gets me to pop in a mixed tape every time
.uh.. what's current?

4 current songs you play over and over:
i do no such thing... albums in heavy rotation at the moment are:
us3 - an ordinary day in an unusual place
xavier rudd - food in the belly
neville brothers - walkin' in the shadow of life
uh...
fiona apple - extraordinary machine

2 books you'd never finish/read again:
.zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance *snooore*
.the one tree series by stephen r donaldson. eeccchhh

4 books you have read more than once, and/or will read again:
.friday - heinlein
.fire rose - mercedes lackey
.anatomy of movement - blandine, st. germain
.anatomy trains - thomas myers

Tag 2-4 people:
hubris
othercat
sweet lil gal

okay seriously this 2-4 tag is brutally hard, i mean some of those ones at the beginning with the never go again and stuff? geeze. that's tough shit. the 1-10 one isn't bad though...

i ain't missin' you at all...

2006-09-06T10:32:00.000-04:00

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do you ever find yourself just viscerally missing something?

wishing it was there and knowing that there was no way on earth that it could be there? that it wasn't really ever there in the first place? that nothing you could do would render it there?

it doesn't matter what it is... a lost love, a lost dog, a lost life, job, friend, cat, wife, object, thought... it doesn't matter.

something that was never yours but for a while there you could pretend.

these things hurt in the same places in yourself that the flinch memories hurt. you know, those things that you did that you really wish you hadn't. i could list examples but they would hurt everyone they touched whether i was thinking of that person or not.

suffice to say that these are memories that even dulled by distance? cut you just a little. the ones that make you flinch even in retrospect. yeah, the flinch memories. you're welcome to share yours and i'm willing to share a couple of mine if y'all ask but no one needs to.

they make us flinch. that's really all that we need to know.

but some things acquire that same power without all the intervening trauma. well okay they have trauma but it isn't as sharp. it isn't as easy as remembering a single incident.

instead these are things that just hurt you. the things that maybe you can't understand, that you can't quite reconcile no matter how many times you prod at them.

less like a stab wound and more like being beaten with bats through a phone book... the trauma is deeper but harder to see...

the scabs that won't heal if you will. just places in your memory that you don't let go of easily and that you try never to visit.

the ones where you shake your head or you sigh.

okay so there's a place inside of us right? that feels things that it doesn't put into words very well... that place that understands with a stab that brings tears to the eyes... the one that wells up at long distance commercials because of the losses they imply.

sometimes, things get under our skin or into our hearts and even while we know that we shouldn't or that we aren't being wise we let it happen anyway... and sometimes, remembering those times is enough to run the tears down your cheeks. [well i'm projecting since i don't know how to cry]

and you might think i'm talking about men or jobs or family but ask kathi about itty bitty and she'll tell you that she hurts inside for her too. i'm not talking about anything specific at all.

although i will admit that something specific motivated this post.

i miss something. i miss it viscerally and i miss it all the time... and i can't ever have it ... no, not ever.

and it hurts in the same place as a bunch of really shitty things that happened to me hurt. that place where i sort of recognize that i haven't really dealt with it but that i shove everything anyway.

the junk drawer of my brain if you will. (although i call it the black hole)

except that lately mine has popped open and been spewing things at me...

unexpected things, things from the distant past and the near past and even a couple from the future. yes you can mourn losses in the future, i'm mourning my life as a single mom right now... and ever so slightly the life i didn't get to live with my ex husband... but that's old and well mourned that one.

i have very few regrets about the life that i'm living and the choices that i've made. were i given my life to live over again i would act differently because i *know* how to deal with bullies now... but would i change a lot of my fundamental choices?

no.

i really wouldn't, those choices have turned me into the person that i am now, warts and all i like who i'm becoming. would i erase those flinch memories?

maybe one or two... the ones that didn't really make any appreciable difference to my growth or that one... that one that still just stabs perfectly when i think of it... the one that stole my innocent exploration of the sexual universe [no, i wasn't raped]... i might change that.

but i might not too... and because we aren't given to live our lives again i can't ever know if i would make that decision differently a second time.

but the missing. that visceral feeling of being punched in the solar plexus?

i don't think there's any way you can change that part. i think you're stuck with it. i don't think you ever get that feeling unless you opened yourself up to something and took a chance.

that act of faith where you leap and hope that the net appears below you, and it often does. of course, just as often?

yeah not so much and you go splat on the hard concrete floor.

i don't even mind that i'm missing what i'm missing, i'm okay with it and all. it does speak to a significantly higher level of boredom than i had realised though which implies that i need to do some work on what i do with my time.

or that it was summer and i wasn't working enough.

i just wonder why it has to hurt so much. why some things just don't feel better with time. sure they get less sharp or they get smaller or the flinch isn't as big but they're still there living inside of you.

and i don't mean the bullshit from school, that fades by the wayside one day when you aren't looking and then it's gone forever. it's not the same as what happens to you when you're an adult and you're the one guiding the ship you're sailing on.

then you're responsible and you hold on to things for a lot longer.

good for lessons, not so good for healing.

missing sucks.

words?

2006-09-04T23:58:00.000-04:00

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one of the things that happens to me when i get away from my life for any length of time in a non work way is that i start forgetting how to talk. ask anyone who has spent any time in the bush with me and they'll tell you that by day three i'm a smiling moron who can hardly string four words together.

this doesn't only happen in the bush, i'm minded of a canada day weekend i passed a little over a year ago and i never went more than ten blocks from my home but by the end of it i was speechless with bliss.

i don't really get it per se i just know that somehow i end up incapable of speech the happier i get.

it's often extremely hard for me to reenter my life when the time comes to get back to it.

it won't be so bad this time because i got home in time to go climbing and do some laundry and watch a little television so i've sort of started to dial back into my life. but sometimes i do something like walk out of hillside and try to teach three hours later.

it's almost impossible.

fortunately my clients are used to their teacher being insane, but that's still no reason to wander back into town mumbling under my breath and waving my hands around instead of talking. sure the nice waitress at the breakfast joint comprehends pointing and smiling but try getting six people over forty who are trying to do pilates to get what you're saying if you're refusing to use words.

yeah, it's hard and strange.

all i want to do is wander around and smile and use maybe fourteen words and it's all good and there i am in my car when bam. yeah dudes, we hit TRAFFIC heading back into town at two o'clock in the afternoon on a holiday.

what's strange is that i think i may have needed it, in fact, i think without the traffic that i might not have been able to make words today at all. i would have gone to the climbing gym and smiled at a few people and fallen off a problem or two and that would have been that.

instead i went and talked to a couple of poeple while running off to hide in the corners that didn't have people in them.

works for me.
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okay so harriet.

that little bitch.

er can she be a bitch if she's a cat? is there a rule? i mean dogs can be bitches but can cats...?

hrm is there an arbiter or this stuff we can ask?

anyway yeah so harriet takes off on thursday afternoon, like she somehow just knows that i'm about to go on a lovely camping weekend with my best friend. like she's figured out that i will be distracted enough by her missingness that i will actually worry when i should be camping.

hell, she's thinking to herself that if *i* can go on an adventure then so can she. yes she is.

i know this because if she hadn't been thinking that way she would have been whining outside the window of the home we share within a couple of hours of her departure.

but was she?

fuck no, she was off gallavanting about the universe at that point. in fact, being smart she didn't even try to get home until after i had left to go camping. left with messages scattered about that suggested things to the people left behind.

actions they might take if she were to show up magically when they were here to feed mouse.

but i was so sure she wasn't coming back that i even asked mouse how long she wanted me to wait before i got her another kitten. mouse, needless to say, just looked at me like i was high.

i can't explain it but it just felt like she left. so you can imagine my surprise when i got a call in a campground on othercat's phone to tell me that she was home.

and how was she home?

did she get found and taken to a shelter?
did one of my neighbours find her and stuff her back in her house? (as has happened several times before)
did she come to the window and climb back in?
did she meow outside someone's apartment?

oh no, none of that. instead she broke in to the kitchen window of the apartment next door.

broke in, walked down their wall with her muddy little paws and basically informed them that they were taking care of her until such time as her home was available again.

of course, because they've met her?

they bowed down to her wishes.

in due course the neighbour with a key to her home arrived and let her in here whereupon she promptly stalked around demanding food. covered in mud and happy to be home.

smart little bitch. she knew if i was here when she walked in all stinky and covered in mud that she was having a bath so she came home in time for me to hear about it and calm down before i saw her.

she still isn't getting any fuss made about her. little bitch.

yes, of course i'm glad she's home, that's a stupid question. i'm just furious with her for taking off like that and i *know* damm well she's going to do it again.

oh yeah, campy pics... here's one:

the rest, and the post, are on othercat's blog.

bipolar day

2006-08-31T23:58:00.000-04:00

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so i swear i'll post more next month really i will... but see august has been this crazy month that started with a ragingly lazy long weekend and ends with a weekend of camping.

yes, of course labour day is in august, september starts on the tuesday after labour day. no that's it. otherwise it's not in the SUMMER.

in between there was a campout in hoot's backyard and some sauble beach swimming, a lovely trip to seattle, a weekend in town doing a lot of nothing (and eating out) and now CAMPING!

*dance of camping joy*

there were supposed to be a few other folks coming like othercat's partner and the other drummer from our band but they're being jam tarts. as if we care, we're going to eat like kings and drink royally (mmmm irish whiskey) and laze about and swim if we feel like it.

i'm bringing a BOOK! (don't laugh, i'm bringing a textbook called 'anatomy trains') [oh god i'm a grown up] {bringing school books, yeesh, next you'll start knitting} |would you all pipe the fuck down?!?! i'm trying to write a blog post already| *shakes head*

okay two books... the other one is called 'dime store magic' and it's about a witch. i think that's a stellar combination. one for when i'm not sober enough to comprehend latin words and one for when i am.

oh god, i'm learning latin. how did THAT fucking happen? somewhere, when i wasn't looking, i started to like learning things. amazing that it took about fifteen years to knock the school out of my head and start learning again.

we are going to eat so well, god you guys have no idea what it's like to go camping with othercat. one year? we woke up to snow and had pie for dessert before bed...

there's marinated chicken and filet and steamed vegetables and delicious veggie sandwiches with hummus and avocado and ... crap i need a snack. and trail mix and all sorts of nuts and tea and coffee and irish whiskey and... okay fine, i know i mentioned the whiskey already.

by the way? we're FULLY aware that it's going to rain and we don't give a shit. in fact? if there's no lightning we'll go swimming in it.

and if you've never been swimming in the rain?

good god WHY NOT?
.

i have had a seriously stellar and yet horrid day today. i mean total ups and downs.

i won an argument with lululemon... without having to argue!
i taught a sent by the universe class that came out of nowhere.
i did a client who does rolfing and might send ME clients now.
*dance of joy*
i got a raise from one of my group class places.

i got in an argument a few months ago with this guy through my window. he would drive up and park and start to honk at someone.

at one am.

yeah, so i yelled at him and we got into argument after argument and then one day he ranted about me TO someone else, and how annoying i was and how i needed to get it through my head that i lived in toronto and that people made noise.

i decided that he was an asshole and that he had a point. so i shut up.

well then today i get home and harriet is out so i freak and check on mouse and faust and they're fine so i go looking for her.

and i'm looking and not expecting much and then this guy walks up and he's like 'lose something?'

and i say 'my cat' and he realises eventually who i am and he's like 'you're that girl?' and i'm like 'yup' and he's like 'wow i never would have been so mean if i knew how sexy you were.'

i mean what? props to me on the sexiness anyway.

so i prop open my window and i go for dinner at othercat's and i sort of assume harriet will come home and i abandon mouse at faust's house...

and yeah, off to othercat's and packing for camping and then i come home in a lovely mood and ready for the weekend and some fun...

and harriet isn't home.

mouse insists on coming home but she isn't going anywhere near the window so i made it kind of too skinny for her and i'm leaving it open for harriet. that little bitch.

i don't think she's coming back, there's no sense of her here. i've looked around and called a little but i haven't done much [aka wandered the alley for an hour]. i can't really explain it. the window screen was open, the other two cats were here, it's like this place wasn't big enough for her anymore.

yeah you all think i'm projecting but that cat named herself after houdini by escaping to the outside twice in the same day. after never having done it before.

she lived here because she chose to live here. i hope that she chooses to live here again... i'm just not holding my breath. i feel weird though going camping tomorrow and all with my cat gone. aren't i supposed to be crying and stuff?

i guess part of me believes that she'll come back.

and part of me knows that she won't. i wonder which one of us is right.

ah well, i'll leave a space for her in the window and hope she's here when i get back... and of course i'll call the vet and the humane society. i just... i'm not worried somehow [and neither is mouse], she left of her own volition and we'll see if she comes back or not.

hope so.

[yes, of course i'm really sad]

dvod

2006-08-29T22:14:00.000-04:00

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somewhere in this post you will find the decryption for the titular acronym.

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oh my god i'm so addicted to pilates on tour i just spent half an hour determining that i can get a ticket to dallas next weekend for 327usd and thus i could spend thursday evening through monday morning in dallas and sitting at the feet of someone worth listening to (elizabeth larkam is doing a review of chair and barrel for example and my repertoire on both of those is shitty.)

i am a junkie.

i'm addicted and i'm not afraid to admit it. i'm only feeling a little weird about the fact that it's freaking education i'm addicted to. hell i pay my teacher before i pay my phone bill.

i mean that's addiction right?

if you had told me in my younger days that i would get addicted to any kind of school? there would have been laughing and maybe a tinge of hysteria.

tragically i cannot afford it. i mean just can't, there's rooms to pay for (226usd not counting either thursday or sunday) and stuff and i'd probably have to take friday off and fly out late thursday instead and and and suddenly it's another seven hundred bucks i don't have. (hotel + flight = 553 --> irony same price as my FLIGHT to seattle! [seattle had an elder...])

but oh god i want it.

dudes i have a crush on school!

*laughs fool head off*
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as y'all know i've recently spent a weekend away from toronto. in case you missed it the post was called *contented smile* and you can click on it from the sidebar. regardless i wasn't here.

and you know what? my ethnic calcio post was wrong. it isn't that i'm hot in italy and i'm not hot in north america. oh no. it's that i'm not hot HERE.

in new york city when i weighed 225 pounds (four years back) i was hot
in calgary, alberta i was hot
in thunder bay, ontario i was the hottest (gosh that was a while back... rome, italy was then too)
in a state park in fucking oregon i'm hot
and i do all right in michigan too...

hell, in the fucking airport in minneapolis i'm hot. i was also cranky, tired, just finished a long and happy weekend of hard work and no sleep and my abs were so sore they were hanging out (fine i was wearing my hot pink tie dyed skirt and a cute little purple top and a falling off the shoulder grey hoodie so there was a little skin showing) and i wasn't smiling or anything.

i was standing on a moving walkway too tired to even walk and every single man that passed me turned to stare. they were dropping like flies in minneapolis.

in seattle? oh yeah there was flirting and getting checked out and a little wishing i had some time to party in that town. i would have gotten lucky for sure. okay fine so i'm not the kind of girl that gets lucky the same day she meets a man but nonetheless, i don't think i would have been buying my own drinks. [technically i never bought a drink or food all weekend, but most of that was (i think) on other people's expense accounts...]

so what is it about here (and vancouver actually) that renders me unattractive?

i am starting to think that it has to do with the movie industry and the post-secondary schools and the preponderance of young hotties around here. there's some kind of imbalance or something.

i've read articles that claim that people in this city make all of their decisions about dating on looks and are always looking to trade up... but even the guys who 'aren't in my league' aren't looking at me.

for the record i think everyone is in everyone's league and then it's all about type. but nonetheless based solely on looks even the guys who would assume they couldn't have me (generally the ones with the brains dammitall) aren't even looking.

it makes me wonder is all. maybe it's not that dating is so hard, maybe it's that the people in this city have funny eyeballs and can't see what's right in front of them.

first i thought it was me or my fat or whatever but no, i don't think it is, i think it's toronto.

i think there's a dating vacuum of death here and that all of us singletons should move elsewhere. just have an en masse migration where we scatter to the four corners of the earth (but not to vancouver and no girls for ottawa, there are too many there already) and start wearing colours instead of black and just generally break the toronto mold.

i really don't know what it is.

i do know that i came home with this thought in my head and then discussed it with a hot guy i know who has similar experiences (he smokes and isn't hot for me :P) and he doesn't think it has anything to do with the actors that live here but that it has everything to do with the bill boards that are *everywhere*

he thinks that whether we mean to or not we're being influenced by these bombarded media images every place we go and every place we look.

and i cannot disagree with him.

i mean we have ads in toilet stalls on garbage containers in bus shelters on the subways all over store windows on downtown walls on flashing billboards way over our heads stuck to our bike lockups in all of our media painted on the sidewalks stapled to the telephone poles glued to the parking ticket boxes on the televisions lining the gardiner expressway [yes a highway with a 90km/h speed limit (56mph or so) and and and and and

so how do we get people to see people instead or posters?

i don't really know.

i just know that everywhere i go that isn't here?

i'm a hottie.

clearly it's time to move *grin*
.

note to back brain black hole, how many times have you said that in the last twelve months and for how many different reasons?

forking paths

2006-08-27T03:36:00.000-04:00

a while back i did a meme which had the following as questions:

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 i've decided that the answers i got and their effects on me were just as interesting. IF you want me to do these questions for you feel free to ask in the comments. if you did them for me and you don't see yourself here then i didn't see it either and would love to know it. okay without further ado, your answers and what i did with them.

1. i’ll respond with something random about you

matt vella: i find your self transformation inspirational.
[thanks!]
huneeb: I love your hair, I want to touch it cause it looks so soft :)
[it really is soft and easy to touch and if you ever meet me in person you can play with it all you like]
jmai: I wonder why you never changed your blog photo after all that voting!
[none of them really won and i still haven't seen one i like enough to replace that one... it is old and innacurate now though]
pile: Your different laughs always intrigue me as to what you're really thinking.
[busted, i do have about five of them]
terry: i think you're one of the most perceptive people i know.
[thank you]
johnny canuck: You need to clean out your bathroom floor more often!!
[DONE! and the tub/toilet/sink too! (and thanks for that!)]
natalia: You are one of the bloggy people I have taken to in the least amount of time. I just get this serenity vibe from you. It's really cool
[what you said babe!]

2. i’ll challenge you to try something

matt vella: try asking out someone that you fear (in a good way) asking out.
[i shall, very very soon ;>]
huneeb: I want you to just jump into something for once, I know the turtle wins the race but to just jump and see how it feels; it can be about anything! :) One more thing, I want you to believe that you are beautiful b/c you are!
[i'm planning to do that very thing but i need to wait for business hours to get started... that said? i'm learning to see myself as beautiful, it helps to not be in toronto because this is the only place in the world that i'm not hot]
jmai: Wow this is really hard. Hm. I challenge you to ... Ugh I have to come back to this one. Seriously I've been sitting here for 5 minutes on this one question.
[challenge me babe!]
pile: Cardio. At least twice a week for at least half an hour each time. An no, sex doesn't count. ;)
[working on it, once is happening easily but twice is harder... and it does feel good and i do have shitty endurance and i hate you for being right!]
terry: this is a toughie, as you seem to challenge yourself all the time, which i admire. okay... how about asking one of your (straight) guy friends why THEY think you end up in the friend zone with so many guys?
[i asked ALL of them and not one was willing to answer.. several demanded time to think and then ran off from further questioning]
johnny canuck: Relax on the spark thing a little. Just loosen your grip on that. Spark is surely important, but it isn't everything (honestly). Don't jump from a ship just because it isn't on fire...yet.
[fair enough, but we've discussed the most recent and i think you ended up agreeing with me? and i KNOW you agree with me about you...]
natalia: You are someone who contantly challenges herself, so this is hard. OK, I challenge you to try to make time to come to Orlando. Hehe... I am good :)
[DEAL! getcher butt UP HERE!]

3. i’ll pick a color that i associate with you

matt vella: yellow - dunno why, it's the first thing that came to mind.
[favourite colour for old cars]
huneeb: soft green
[the healing colour i choose when i meditate]
jmai: Green. Earthy but full of positive energy
[see above]
pile: Earthy brown - the colour of fresh, fertile earth
[mmm love to play and grow things in that, and it's something i like to think of myself.. that seeds find an easy home here]
terry: an earthy shade of green.
[again with the green ...]
johnny canuck: Red
[now that one is out of left field!]
natalia: Orange probably. It's vibrant and uncompromising.
[mmm love orange...]

funny you almost all picked colours from earth and all this time i thought i was a water.... how we change when we aren't looking.

4. i’ll tell you something i like about you

matt vella: your self-possession. in other words, even though you have all the normal day to day angst that we all do, you are very much the captain of your soul.
[thank you, i'm honoured]
huneeb: I like your perspective on life and people, I think that you have great insight and tolerance. Your honesty is so wonderful and refreshingly genuine. :)
[damm y'all i'm going to blush]
jmai: Your profound honesty. I don't run into too many people like that.
[it's hard, and worth it every single time... it's only when i'm not truthful that i end up paying for it]
pile: that part of you that has rubbed off on me - that honesty and real-ness
[higher compliments cannot be spoken than to imitate another...]
terry: i love the way you write. even when you think you're being random, you have a point. it's a gift.
[thank you, i'm learning to appreciate my writing as well]
johnny canuck: Your patience and ferocity. And, that you are never afraid to use your feet.
[mmm feet... you're right i'm not, and thanks for noticing! i'm ferocious? and patient? wow not expected words at all.]
natalia: Just like I said to Jen...you are into honesty. And you are so introspective. Not enough people do that either. And you share introspection, which is even more awesome.
[thank you, i think it's really important to share it and i don't know why, i just do]

5. i’ll tell you my first/clearest memory of you

matt vella: i found your blog completely at random, right around when i first started blogging myself. it was a great introduction to blogging in that you're just the kind of person i was hoping to meet.
[wow, thanks. i think i was one of your first commenters... and links and linkers...]
huneeb: The first post I read of yours was really long and about hockey, you are a hockey guru! Also you encouraging me to start my new blog, thanks :)
[heh, i'm amazed after the hockey that you ever came back, but i'm glad you started your new blog, it's sporadic but lovely]
jmai: That you made me feel better by publicly admitting on Nat's blog that you love One Tree Hill also. I still heart you for that.
[dude i can't find last season to rent on dvd ANYWHERE! *sob*]
pile: When I called you to get the dimensions for my apartment before moving in, you were at Summerfolk and were very drunk - and said so quite openly.
[yup, easier to deal if people know what they're getting]
terry: uhh.... let's see....i kept seeing all these clever comments from you on other blogs i was reading, and noticed you seemed to be linked to EVERYONE, so i finally checked out your blog and haven't left since!
[that's what happened to me with you basically too and besides anyone who calls herself queen of the dorks has to rock!]
johnny canuck: That first date, when I mistook your voice on the intercom for a man's, and was subsequently shocked by how NOT a man you turned out to be.
[*giggle* i have that effect huh? and yet still i get taken as one of the boys...]
natalia: Dude...I have no clue. But that's the magic of it. It's like you were not there and then you were and I can't remember a time without Sass on the blog. But I do remember reading your comment and just thinking...total rockage.
[dude me too, but i know i found you last august sometime and that i haven't left since!]

6. i’ll tell you what animal you remind me of

matt vella: a doe (a deer, a female deer): feminine, graceful but strong.
[mmm what a lovely thing to be]
huneeb: otters b/c of the convo we had about them but if I think about it I would say a love bird
why a love bird? (and you remind me more of an otter than i do)
I say a love bird b/c I see you as more of a snuggler like love birds do, and they are very sweet and lovey birds, their chirp is not too loud and I see you as more of a free will person, like a bird. :)
[damm... lovely and thank you.]
jmai: A wise old sea turtle. Look, it was either that or a fox and I think you're foxy but you're more wise and also, please don't ask me where I got the idea that sea turtles are wise. Probably because they live for 150 years but still use the word "Dude" ... clearly my experience with sea turtles is limited to Finding Nemo.
[rofl, nice... and i do seek patience]
pile: I don't really associate you with an animal
[yeah i couldn't think of one for you either really]
terry: a cat. sleek, slender, moving with grace. it's the pilates.
[works for me, cats are fantastic]
johnny canuck: Cat (d-uh)
[yeah that's sort of what i thought everyone would pick... *laughs*]
natalia: A big cat. And I don't mean Garfield. I mean a lioness. Why? You are into movement and lions move gracefully. And yet, they are strong in body and mind.
[mmm love your reasoning, and really y'all are making me feel really good about myself]

7. i’ll ask you something i’ve always wanted to ask you

matt vella: when are you coming to visit? :)
[poor dude, maybe if pilates on tour or the pma conference happens in your town?]
huneeb: What made you dump the last boy? There wasn't much talk of that, I assume since he was a reader...I am totally prying and you don't have to answer that.
[i didn't miss him when he wasn't there]
jmai: You always talk about the accident but I don't know the details.
[i wrote a post about it for you called ten months]
pile: What's holding you back, really, from seeing yourself as a fabulous person?
[i don't know babe, but i'm getting better at it? or at least i'm trying to]
terry: will you ever tell the story of your accident? or is that just too painful?
[it's not painful at all, just stupid]
johnny canuck: When you recently got back up on, uh, that 'bike' after so many years...was it just like riding a bike?

:)
[it was better]
natalia: I am with Jen...did you ever blog about the accident?
[not until y'all asked me to]

and that's it, some of these replies, especially the challenges have sent me down new paths, and again i'll happily do this for anyone that asks but y'all have to do it back, it's only fair.

blue glow

2006-08-24T14:38:00.000-04:00

.
i had this strange experience last night when othercat and i were going to pick pj up at the airport. at first it was really innocuous, it was just this car with a family in it but it wasn't right somehow.

well i'm sure it was fine if you're them, but all i could see was this creepy blue glow in the backseat as the kids stared enraptured at the screens strapped to the seatbacks in front of them.

i got this sudden mental movie of ghostly hands playing arpeggios on these children's brains through their staring eyes as their consciousnesses were distracted from this invasion by something innocuous like barney. i would have said mr. dressup but i don't think that show is capable of being evil.

i mean really, it has a tickle trunk.

they were silent and unmoving and i can't swear that their blink reflex was on and suddenly the matrix and it's ilk don't seem so far fetched after all. just what *are* we programming the children for these days?

it's easy to figure out what we're programming the middle eastern children for. hatred and violence to keep the machine turning and the money flowing. i guess the ones here are being taught to hate them, and i see it working but not as well. there is too long a history of different races being hated in this part of the world. or i self select for sane people.

yeah that's probably it.

okay in reality the kids here are being taught that their way is the right way and that they need to be patriotic and to defend their country. not to mention that it's unpatriotic to ask questions. volunteer! volunteer so we don't have to draft! please! the draft will get the people marching on washington... better to indoctrinate the children instead.

if i were a higher technology and i wished to invade this place i would find a way to do it in the water or through the media. very few people manage to remain out of range of media these days after all.

even folks without televisions know what survivor is and you can't walk down a main street of any large city without giant screens overhead blaring their ads for mascara, scientology and the latest hollywood epic piece of trash.

*unheard whispers* consume consume consume consume

now go and consume some more.

the older i get the more grateful i become that my parents didn't get cable until i was in my teens and the happier i am to be from a town where off air was tv ontario, french tv, cbc and one other channel (ctv i think). of those four two and often the third are primarily concerned with education and the like.

although i fall in love with television regularly (emily, lorelai and rory gilmore anyone?) i was actually able to cancel my cable last summer and i do not find myself missing it in particular. there are a few shows that i miss but they are all available to rent on dvd or to purchase. i may have to get netflix only because my local store doesn't have a few of them but nonetheless i don't really care. [also they didn't turn off the basic cable so i still get about six of the shows i like... for now]

i would like to see last season of grey's anatomy but if i never do i don't care. this is such a lovely change and is, i believe, only possible because i spent my childhood and my college years without television.

i only really got addicted when i was living on a farm in the country with satellite. now contrast that with these children sitting in their CAR and watching tv. not watching scenery or the world around them, oh no, watching television instead.

how can you teach your children the truth of the world around them if they never see it?

and even if you're one of the people that never learned to see it yourself? considering the things that are happening in the world these days it seems unwise not to open your eyes and look out the window and then think about what you see.

it's like getting all your news from one channel, where do you find the balance? [part of why i'm so upset that al-jazeera was denied by the crtc, unfortunately their complaints process is unfathomable] i recall once coming home after reading an article in the toronto star and spouting off at dinner.

i knew everything, i mean i had read one article, that was enough for a solid opinion after all. so yeah off a spouting i go and my dad sort of looks at me and says 'have you considered...?' and i go no and then he asks me about something else and points out a couple of things the writer did that demonstrated his personal bias and i sort of get smaller and smaller in my chair but i learned. when they tell you not to believe everything you read? they mean it.

take the following headline for example "the israeli army clashed with hezbullah militants today over..."

interestingly their bias is sitting there and staring at you and you may or may not have noticed it. see how they've told you who the good guys are? i mean it's an army, they have to be more respectable than a bunch of militants after all.

has anyone asked them? i'm thinking they consider themselves an army as well...

please note that i do not take sides in this conflict, i think everyone is wrong and i'm still inclined to believe that in any long running dispute both sides are equally at fault. however, the radio and the media are taking clear sides and swaying world opinion to that same side.

hell the fucking canadian government is taking sides those bastards. i need to write to my mp but there's no point because he's a liberal and the government isn't. i'm heartbroken over this, i feel that canada has lost an essential thing now that will never come back.

our neutrality. our reputation as peace brokers and keepers of the world.

i only pray that we can get it back.
.

wow, i had no idea that post was going there.

i'm going climbing, my abs are still sore from that fucking evilly awesome workshop on sunday (shari berkowitz - advanced reformer on the mat) and they need to work out at this point.

i haven't been in so long my nails are clicking on the keyboard right now.

contented smile

2006-08-22T01:25:00.000-04:00

you guys are funny, it says in the comments that i'm going to seattle. that said, i had EVERY intention of writing an airport post but those pirates wanted 21 dollars an hour for the internet. and somehow? after that? i just never found a terminal.

and you know? i love y'all but this was a shoestring vacation for me.

somehow with the exception of seven bucks for a book, airport food, two public transit trips, one cab (FORTY FIVE BUCKS!!!), four nights in hotels at under sixty bucks per (plus tax) and one round trip airfare to seattle i managed not to spend any money this weekend. [the cab went on the credit card but the rest? LEFTOVER money from when i went to visit lsd! i know!]

i know!

these people are so incredibly generous, they gave me a shirt and a magic circle and fed me all weekend (the conference includes breakfast and lunch which is awesome) at lovely restaurants with great company and any kind of booze that we wanted and it was all just so random.

take saturday for example, i wander down the stairs behind a couple of them and into the bar (because as they head into it i think to myself 'self, have a drink, it's been a looong day') and of course i say something like 'is this a private party or can anyone crash' and they welcome me with their usual open arms.

well, two led to four led to ten and now we're on the patio having food fights with nuts and having a few drinks apiece. eventually my lil ol' bladder gives up the ghost so i head to the ladies. i get back from there and the entire group has disbanded and a couple are in the lobby and that's all i know. so i grab my bag and head out and get 'come on' as k walks by me.

and that's how i end up across the street on like the forty millionth floor looking out at mount rainier at sunset with nine really happy people and delicious food. and none of us got sloshed, i mean we weren't sober but we were just happy and high on life you know [i think i had five drinks in six hours and i was one of the heavies]? anyhoo we head back and split up and i ended up at some bar called 'rock bottom' shaking my ass with a bunch of the staff.

god it was great.

but you know? none of that was planned, you just end up working all day with people you really like and you end up continuing to hang out. it was so weird y'all, these people i have SO much respect for are so happy to see me that they hug me hello and tell me how delighted they are that i'm there and they've met me only a handful of times.

i'm sort of stunned.

it never occured to me that they might respect me back. one of the organizers told me her pilates story and she said something i really liked. "i knew that i had found my people" and that's just it. i found my people.

this community is amazing. sure it has it's issues just like anyone else's does but under that is genuine respect for each other. sure teacher a has a different method than teacher c but they really seem willing to respect each other anyway.

that's pretty cool.

i mean i was sort of feeling like i was taking advantage of them and then she's all 'oh you were awesome, do this anytime you want to thanks so much and...' which i guess means it was a fair trade huh? *laughs*

i know, y'all are dying to hear what happened when i met bubbles aren't you? well let me tell you the most important thing right up front. there are no pictures.

hah i bet i know what half of you just assumed.

we didn't get sloshed either; we were giddy and silly and we did torture a couple of lovely young things but you know, all in all it was two girls being girls and that's all y'all need to know.

oh that and that emma rocks. she's even more scatterbrained than i am but she rocks.

*hugs babe, no worries*

i think it's possible that i got 24 hours sleep since wednesday so i confess that i don't believe that this will be one of my better posts.

there's only one problem with these conferences y'all. they make me want to move to california about fifty times more every time i do one of them. i met MORE amazing teachers from california.

again.

not that i didn't meet awesome teachers from other places as well, there's just so many of them there and also, seemingly some fairly open job opportunitities for people interested in rehabilitation.

this is good stuff.

it's funny how random it was, the workshop i most enjoyed was the one i least wanted to attend. in fact? my abs are still sore if i laugh more than thirty hours later.

yeah, it was nasty and SO GOOD!

i haven't been working my clients hard enough, too much old lady and not enough vigour. i mean obviously i'm not going to throw them into advanced matwork routines when their backs are screwy but i think i may need to up the challenge level just a little.

i mean my ass seized up at dinner! and you know what else? my understanding of the reformer exercises just got changed forever. not to mention some great new ideas for mat classes!

life is good and i am refreshed. apparently there's camping labour day and a cottage the weekend after that and i MAY be ready to face the winter.

thanks for worrying y'all, and i'm sorry you were worried. but do you like my birthday gift to myself via my parents or what? (in other words... 'can i have some money to go to seattle for my birthday in lieu of a gift on my birthday please?')

[and then i got home and the book i wanted the MOST was waiting for me! AND there's another package to come! lividviv? i fucking love my present by the way.]

god i have to sleep.

whoville

2006-08-14T23:44:00.000-04:00

.
regarding my birthday and then my post.

it was lovely. thursday night was the tennis and then on friday night mg and i went climbing and out for dinner. i had a BEER! it was the first beer and it made me slightly queasy, but i liked it nonetheless.

saturday i got up and hit rr's class and then othercat picked me up, i stopped and bought a panini and we headed north with the top down. we stopped for pies and for beer and for salad and chips and we arrived in tinytown ontario around half past four. i set up my tent in the shade and we made our beds and then beer started.

i didn't drink much in the long run but oh boy did i eat. i grazed for hours and hours and hours and we sat around and hung out and everyone was really excellent and funny. there were only maybe 20 people that showed up all told but the ones who did were wonderful. and just the right people.

funny how that works.

anyway i saw a few meteors and passed out around three am and then in the morning? horrors! i had fucked it up and my tent was in the sun and i was overheated! yeah that was the worst thing that happened to me that day.

and i got up and coffee was made and more excellent food appeared and then i got to go and PICK WHATEVER I WANTED IN THE GARDEN! ahhh *bliss*

and then do you know what we did? we went to southampton and i went swimming (BRIEFLY!) in lake huron and then i baked in the sun in my bikini. first time this year. in a couple of years? god it was great.

somewhere around five othercat and i packed up our crap and headed out and we cruised home past dairy queen and arrived in time to have dinner with hubris.

yes, it was a perfectly spectacular weekend, thanks for asking!

.
so i'm grooving on my new CD from othercat [us3 - on ordinary day in an unusual place] and hubris is working on my logo and i'm thinking about something that was said to me this weekend.

you are who you choose to be, you are who you think you are and you are who you say you are.

sit on those words for a minute. take a few deep breaths. feel your lungs inflate into the back of your chair as you inhale and your ribs fall as you exhale. do that a couple of times.

so if you say 'oh i'm so ditzy' then you ARE so ditzy. it doesn't matter if you have the brain of a rocket scientist and the degree to match. if you call yourself a ditz you're a ditz. you can't help it, you'll act like one. you think of yourself as a person who is described as a ditz, you self describe that way and thus you choose to be a ditz.

i've been thinking about a lot of the things that i say about myself and what those things actually mean. do i say them because i think that they're true or because i believe that they will make my life easier?

and since i'm a shapeshifter what does that mean in terms of my identity?

see that there how i labelled myself? how i'm accepting and expecting that statement to be true? anyway i self describe as a lot of things in a lot of places and while all of those things are true to some extent none of them really describe me.

but then how do you describe something you are? isn't that as crazy as trying to put movement or music into words? trying to paint pictures of love? trying to understand cats?

when i say that i lack confidence does that mean that i bring that to myself? that the only thing keeping me from seeing myself as fabulous is that i don't THINK that i see myself as fabulous? how are my preconceived notions of who i am affecting my day to day life?

does my willingness to believe that i'm bad with men MAKE me bad with men? what if i just decide to call myself a bombshell? walk around like i expect men to do things like they used to in those old impulse body spray commercials? [woman walks by man who goes nuts and snags flowers from a vendor and chases woman until he gasps something and hands her flowers through subway doors/falling up a flight of stairs/or whatever]

if i build it will they come?

what if i decide that i like studying? or that i like a clean house? or britney spears?

*shudder*

okay i feel sorry for her but i'm not sure i could like her. [from seeing her show, we seem to worry about entirely different things...]

okay or... revolutionary thought... what if i decide that i don't suffer from pms aka pre menstrual bitch syndrome? okay good luck with that one.

anyway, when you tell people about yourself you are placing yourself in boxes in their brains but you are also putting yourself in a box in your own brain. i think some people end up making themselves into entirely different people depending on who they're with. well i know some people do because i used to be one of them.

i've been striving to be sane around people for a long time, i expect i'll manage it on my deathbed or something. i've also been working not to become someone else in groups ever since i realised that i did it. i'm a lot better at it now but i have lost some of my centre of attention talent in the doing of it. it's funny what you give up sometimes when you're looking in another direction.

i was once a natural flirt who was good in groups and now i'm uncomfortable in groups and forget how to flirt. i'm also not standing in the middle of the loud group in the middle of the party and being the loudest anymore so i can't say i'm offended by the change.

but still, why did i have to give up being a natural flirt to become more calm and grounded? can't the one stay while developing the other? what if i start to describe myself that way? how about if i just remember that it's a skill i used to have? regardless of my current word choices i did lose that talent to a great extent as i became more introspective.

i'll find myself in groups at a gathering and have no idea how to make small talk, i'll catch myself telling some inane story because i'm so uncomfortable and i can't think of any questions to ask that aren't intrusive [plus i saw that comedian on valentine's day who said, as we exited the venue, "at least i'm not on a date with one of those chicks who asks a million questions" and everyone laughed. and i said to my companion 'i'm one of those chicks' and that sort of whigged me a little. is it wrong to ask questions on a date? and here i thought it was called getting to know you. stupid uncomfortable silences] and no one else is saying a word and i miss the girl who could charm the pants off anyone at a party.

or maybe she never could but she only believed she could. ha ha ha i wonder which it is!

i've really been noticing over the last few years that i am consistently not acting like i expect myself to act and thus i've been realigning my expectations for myself. and then? yeah i go and change some more.

damm life being all about change and stuff. if i can't even know who *i* am then how in hell is anyone supposed to get to know anyone else?

ace

2006-08-11T01:04:00.000-04:00

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wow that was weird.

i ate food and digested it and everything and it's strange.

i feel sort of tired and draggy in a strange way, almost like the digestion process is really hard and tiring for my body. it's also sort of clinging to the lemon drink while craving bread and carbs.

really weird stuff.

i think, other than the first two days with the emotional weirdness that today has been the strangest day of fasting and technically it doesn't count. i ate food today. vegetable soup that i made myself by randomly tossing shit in water and adding water whenever there was too much shit. god i made a lot of soup. when it's cold i'm putting half of it in the freezer.

i've been alternately high and dragged out all day. plus there were portions of today that i just wasn't in. i was there, i sort of know what happened but i was zoned in to some place that was else. almost how you are when you're a little drunk and a lot lot lot exhausted and people are talking about sports or computers or climbing or something else nerdy that you just don't give a fuck about.

except that i was actually just not there, the topic at hand was irrelevant.

it's too bad that i wasn't there because i was having a really nice day.

i had one client this morning and then i went off to the big carrot to get all sorts of organic veg for my soup and a beautiful man smiled at me appreciatively and off i went home to make soup and then mg came to pick me up. off we went to the climbing gym before dashing to her house for showers and changing into skirts and then?

and then?

oh man you'll never guess. she had gotten tickets with a coworker to see roger federer play at the rogers cup and she knew i wanted to go so she got me one too! i saw professional tennis! LIVE!!!

i've been watching tennis on television possibly for longer than i've been watching hockey. i'm not sure, i got one sport each from my parents and tennis is my mom. my dream is to attend the US Open and just hang out for two weeks and watch tennis. irony is that i know i'm poor so i only dream until the quarter finals and then i watch on tv and play in new york city.

funny that i have a reality based fantasy life. probably a large part of my problem.

this has been one of my dream vacations for years. to just wander and get to watch all the OTHER matches. the ones i want to see but don't because some number two seed is trouncing the number 7,325 seed. i want to see sixteen vs twenty two, that's significantly more likely to be interesting. drives me nuts on tv, they'll comment on something and go 'they're in a tie break over here' and they'll stay on this deadly boring game where someone is winning 6-2 6-1 3-0 instead of letting me watch the tie break.

drives me nuts.

i want to see the tennis, i don't care who's playing it.

anyway so federer won of course but i did have the singular pleasure of watching him lose a set. probably the only set he's lost this year to anyone but nadal. this was awesome because we got three sets instead of two.

tragically the third set was pathetic. federer came out looking for the match and upped his play but the other guy sort of like knew he was going to do it and quit in advance. he was hardly there in the third.

i hate that, the game isn't over until it's over, you won a set, snap out of it and TRY!

he'll still lose but at least he'll be proud of himself.

i did have a moment of weakness, the other two ladies got sandwiches and potato salad and even though dairy is strictly verboten i had ONE piece. mmmm it was so delicious... and i can still taste it and my tummy is like 'dude? you're getting away with that because i'm in a good mood but seriously? don't do that again or you will pay.'

so yeah, no dairy until like sunday or something. and i've decided that beer is the most intelligent thing to drink on my birthday. see wine is hard on the head and it's sort of sharp and i think won't sit well on baby stomach. liquor? aka irish whiskey? does that seem wise four days out of a fast?

but the egyptians (and and and) used to have beer for lunch in hot weather. it was considered food... now of course it had less alcohol in it than our beer but still, beer is food for when it's too hot to eat. seems like it's good for a baby tummy too.

so beer it is. damm i'm stoked about this shindig, i don't have to work sunday and since the class is cancelled for the summer i have like six sundays off in a row. it's heaven on earth i tell you. i have to chuck this class soon.

or maybe just cancel it every summer... hrm.

i want to ski though. we'll see what the finance fairy brings by november.

i think i'm about done with the fast reports now. i'm back on food although i have to be careful about it and i'll give a weekend update when i get back from leofest that will include fast mention if it's relevant but otherwise i think it's exhausted.

my overall sentiment is that it was a very positive experience and that i will definetely do it again. i also learned a lot about how to do it better next time. i know how many lemons i will actually go through and how much maple syrup.

i know how much cayenne pepper to use and that mason jars really are the shit for putting the drink in. i know that the drink weans itself as the food comes back into your diet and that juice bar orange juice is just as good as the kind you make yourself ... but it costs about a third again as much.

the neatest thing i know is what a pump or a motor feels like when it gets primed. the orange juice sort of got everything sparking and then the soup starts it working with stuff that's not overly hard to eat. and damm did i slurp that shit up!

i just wish i could explain the feeling of thirty feet of intestine slowly starting to snap out of hibernation. i see why it takes three to five days to properly break a fast now. in fact next time i'll take it slower.

i'll have to, i will have fasted longer also.

you guys? i saw roger federer play tennis! and since agassi wasn't here? that was as good as it was going to get at the rogers cup this year. whee! you can't believe how fast the serve is in real life, especially the ace. it's on the ground before the racket finishes swinging.

yay the us open is coming!

break break break

2006-08-09T23:54:00.000-04:00

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okay here goes.

*wanders off to kitchen and juices an orange*

holy fuck it takes a whole orange to get four ounces of juice? i should have bought a bag full!

*adds water to juice*

*takes sip*

*hangs out with tummy for a bit*

well let's see what happens as i take in my first calories in six days. well my first non-fast drink type of calories. this has been a very strange and excellent experience and i'm actually sorry that i'm not doing it for longer.

however, i want to drink beer on my birthday and i need at least four days to break this fast. it's strange that it's with orange juice which is something that my tummy traditionally dislikes and that it seems to be going down okay right now.

that said? it's taken me nearly an hour to drink this glass of juice and i won't have another one for at least a couple of hours. i do feel it sort of warming the pipes though. it's almost like my tongue and my digestive system are tingly or something.

i see why they pick orange juice. it's sharp and tangy but easy to water down and it feels like it's priming the pump inside me. damm y'all it's got me kind of high.
.

then i had to go and ruin it by going to do my license renewal. in the afternoon.

yeah, what the hell was i thinking, next time do it in the morning!!

but i'm all legal and paid for to drive for another year so i guess i can't bitch too much.
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okay so now it's ten hours since i had that first glass of juice and i am now drinking a third glass. i've been steadily adding more pulp to the mix all day and it's really tasting good now.

what i find most odd is that the orange juice really isn't making me more hungry. i was expecting that the hardest part would be the day while i drink juice but still can't actually have any food. i thought i would be starving all day.

nope, i think the acidity in the oj is actually keeping the urge not to eat going the same way the lemon juice did. so weird.

i'm really glad that i did this and in fact i'm wishing that i had done it for longer and started it tuesday morning instead of thursday afternoon. that way i would have done eight days instead of six. ah well, next time.

this is probably the first thing i've ever done where i felt like y'all wanted an actual report.

the weirdest part for me is either that it's really so easy to do or that your moods really do change each day and different things come to the forefront. y'all know about saturday and my ragefest and that was definetely the worst, but the hopeless despair on sunday sucked too.

what's interesting is that i read a website that says that this will continue to happen because your body is flushing toxins and that you just drink more fluid and make sure to move your bowels at least three times a day and this will pass easily.

well for me it's even better, once i got the freaking plumbing working (aka sucked it up and drank the laxative tea) my mood was happy and cheerful and i didn't have any headaches.

before i got the plumbing working correctly? oh my god. i had a headache bad enough to flatten a quarterback and i was ragingly mad or depressed or basically not on an even emotional keel. i mean we're talking night and day, the last three days have been lovely.

saturday and sunday? pretty shitty.

the headache i had on the weekend did give me one clue though, next time? quit caffeine at least a week or even ten days before you start a fast because holy fuck the withdrawl headaches suck. and you can't fix them with food and sugar like you can when you're eating.

boo yeah caffeine headaches combined with toxins and not shitting? bad stuff let me tell you.

so tomorrow i have more lemon drink and more juice and then i can have vegetable soup for late lunch or dinner. i'll decide based on how a cup of the soup broth goes down at lunch. i'm currently wandering the web looking for soup recipes that go with:

In the evening make a vegetable broth (no canned soup). Use seasonal leafy and root vegetables such as: beets and beet tops, turnips and turnip greens, kale, carrots, onions, parsley, celery, potatoes, okra, one or two inds of legumes, squash, beans, a little salt, cayenne pepper and dehydrated vegetables or veg. powder may be added for flavor (no MSG or hydrolyzed protein).
Cook lightly. Drink the broth, eating only a few bites of the vegetables.

make a vegetable broth? how much water? how many carrots? how long is lightly? how on earth do squash and celery cook for the same amound of time? what the fuck? i hate not having a recipe. any home cooks out there have some tips for me? it's looking like about 8 cups of water to however much of whichever veg i feel like using...

and re the legumes? which ones do y'all think would go well in that crazy mix? i was just going to get some peas or something but it's tough.

*grumble* not making this easy are they?

seriously i don't make soup, if anyone has advice before noon on thursday i WANT IT! :)

hey tomorrow is thursday... that means if i go wandering the web right now i'll find a bunch of half naked peole. sorry i got nothing but my computer died and i'm on the old slow one with no pics. :)

oh wait... here's one of me as a baby... okay toddler

those colours are real.

i know, hard to believe :)

drops in a bucket

2006-08-08T00:17:00.000-04:00

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click on that link, gwan, go... it's a lovely and short little blog entry about why we blog and it reflects my personal philosophy quite nicely.
.

i have been reading wil wheaton's blog and it's really good. this is a little tragic because the character he played on st:tng drove me up the wall with rage at his total irritatingness.

i have no actual beef with mr. wheaton of course but you have to know that some feelings had rubbed off. anyway after i overcame by revulsion at reading 'wesley's' blog (three seconds okay?) i realised that i was in fact reading wil's blog and that wil is quite the writer. also an avid poker player which interests me less but nonetheless. also thirty, married and has kids.

i know. imagine it, wesley is all grown up and he isn't lame. he is a total dork but that's all right, so is everyone else i like.

go, go read some. it's fun.
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my fast is entering it's hrm. which day is it. i started around noon on thursday... so tomorrow at noon it will be five full days since i started drinking lemonade rather than eating food. saturday was definetely anger day. sunday was some kind of weird hopelessness day and today wasn't really anything but introspective.

well i started the day wanting to weep with grief because today they started on the fence at nine am instead of ten am. on the monday. of. a. long. weekend. for the love of all that's sacred. and then i did some raging at the owner and property manager [at least the fence and lights are now done and there will be no more fucking against my window (the drilling into the brick four feet above my head was the worst)] and then i snoozed through it for an hour or two and then got up and went climbing.

man i'm weak but strong. it's really weird. like no endurance at all, went to do laps on a five seven and got partway down the second lap and just died. and it's a short five seven too. i did do some all right climbing today but not as nice as yesterday. yesterday i climbed everything i touched.

for the hour i was there.

anyway then i taught for a couple of hours and i do seem to be able to teach while fasting (i'll poll my students next week to see what they think) and then i came home to hang out with othercat. there wasn't really any sort of overwhelming emotion of the day today, it was more just quiet and not talking much and feeling like staring at walls.

by the way, if you decide to fast? they mean it about the laxative tea and the salt water flush. you'll shut down otherwise. i did the first two days without as an experiment and no no no. unfortunately the salt water gizmo doesn't work for me so i'll have to just drink the tea morning and evening.

a little unfortunate as the flush is predictable in it's timing and the tea isn't and well, it's hard to run out of class because your bottom is having a moment.

you're thinking tmi aren't you? well suck it up, if i was describing the head of a penis you'd be enraptured. you would seriously.

look i'll just say penis again.
penis.
penis.
penis.

see? :P
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i have been thinking about my blog lately and i'm not sure how i feel about it these days. i'm definetely in love with it but i've also allowed myself to get dragged into the swirling waters of the online soap operas and i so know better than this.

this is forcing me to think about which blogs i read and why and which voices i want entering my head. it's gotten me considering just how much of my own personal self i want to invest online and it's got me remembering other times i fell into the online world and barely made it out again.

fortunately my body likes to go play on walls so i will leave the house regardless, but i just sometimes wonder if this blog has taken on too much importance in my life. do i care too much? am i reading too many blogs? why am i not getting things done that i want and need to get done?

i suspect this thing has something to do with it and i wonder sometimes if i should really do it. but then i think about the book i want to write and how much better my writing is than it was two years ago and i don't know. is this considered practise?

i know that i need to do it. but i wonder sometimes if i should scale back on the everyone else. but god you're all so much fun to have around! i would miss reading about what's up in your lives if i stopped reading.

t'is a vicious cirlce t'is. i do think that i've done a decent job of surfing that in the last year which is a nice change from my old irc days anyway.

one of the things that i did learn a little more about because of all this introspection was my reason for blogging. i've realised that it's twofold. the easy answer is that this thing is my own personal shrink. the harder one is that if, as seems to be my of course unpredictable fate, i'm not having babies i want to tell someone the things that i learn. i want someone out there to read the things that i find out and get a moment of awe or inspiration or wonder or even just interest.

hell even if all i do is make you look up floccinihilipilification so you can understand that i love that word because it truly is it's own definition. *looks it up to check her spelling* oh crap you'll never find it. let me see if i can remember the definition... archaic meaning small or irrelevant. generally used as an example of one of the longest words in the english language. basically.

whatever, if i can get people thinking and looking around corners and wondering just a bit what the motive behind the story was then i've done something useful. i've helped somehow. i don't have a lot of resources but i can type fast and get people thinking.

but maybe i need to get that happening with things that are closer to mattering. things like what's happening in the middle east. a conflict that i understand enough to see the tragedy of and not more. a conflict that makes me want to incite people to march to parliament hill with signs while chanting one two three four we don't need your fucking war!

i want people with bullhorns to appear from the sixties to excite us to give enough of a shit to make it stop. i want people to raise their children to love each other and want each other and share knowledge with each other. i want their kids to have open minds and hearts and willingness to see the other side of things. i want them to believe that their way isn't the only way and that different is okay.

that different is essential to our well being as a species.

and i believe, desperately, that simply by being a rational voice in the wilderness that i can help that to happen. and i feel like an egotistical twat for saying it, but nonetheless, this blog feels like my little piece of spreading the joy and diminishing the misery.

and i really think that that's important, even if i can't afford the time. and from the number of people who have told me that my honesty or my openness or whatever has inspired them? it seems like i'm right. i mean that's some heavy responsibility right there.

it feels important. if we could all just be nicer to each other and learn to share...

anyone got a bullhorn?

anger management

2006-08-06T12:26:00.000-04:00

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i started this post yesterday... and i'm finishing it today and i just need anyone i might have talked with yesterday to get that the first part was BEFORE and then it goes into the AFTER. and as a total aside i would just like to shout out to whomever thought that ten am of the sunday of a long weekend was an appropriate time to build a fence outside my window.

because yeah, not so much and there goes my one day to sleep in for weeks (okay two, i get another chance tomorrow and i have in fact left a voice mail for the property manager to complain)

ten am. jesus fucking christ.
.

so.

i take a wander around my regular blog circle pretty much every day. when i have a little more time i wander the blogs that don't update very often and when i have more time than that i wander the new ones i'm getting to know and the really sporadic ones and finally, if it's a long weekend and i have no plans i wander the next blog button.

so sometimes i don't notice things right away. because you know, if y'all update once a month i don't check you that often and so if i miss blogroll telling me you updated i don't see it for a while. and sometimes (like right now) it takes me a while to catch up from the two week frenzy surrounding something like hillside.

thus it took me a while to notice that i'm getting delinked lately. hell i got delinked on a blog where i'm the most regular commenter.

and yes, if you're wondering? it does feel like a slap in the face. it's extra funny to add people only to find yourself unlinked. i don't know why it feels like a slap in the face but it really does.

i shouldn't be offended, i shouldn't let my need for acclaim get the better of me, i shouldn't take online forums personally, i shouldn't just get hurt and slink away rather than saying something, i shouldn't care.

i get that.

i also get that the word should is horrible and laced with guilt and tends to make people feel so bad about things that they still don't do whatever it is they need to get done. instead they just pile more guilt weight on to something. which is sort of why i used it in this context, i'm using a word i shoulnd't use to describe how i shouldn't feel.

there's no power in the word should, only guilt. could, would, might, may, can, will all have power in them. but should, it just piles on the guilt and leaves you feeling worse than you were. there just isn't any goodness there.

so should is a shitty word.
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at this point i made the mistake of sending email about my feelings regarding a certain post that a certain lady i've known through blogger for at least a year had posted. that she had taken down my link at the same time as she wrote the post (or at least close enough that i saw them together) made me feel it about three times as strongly as i might otherwise have done.

and i'm fasting. and the thing with fasting is that one of the things it does is cleanse your mind.

and i had it in my head that 'cleanse your mind' was all sweetness and light. that it would help me find direction and some sort of like higher peace or whatever. seriously y'all picture like hearts and flowers and little twinkling stars of happy cleansing.

yeah.

now anyone who has ever cleansed a nasty, dirty wound can tell you that cleansing isn't like that in the slightest, in fact it's the opposite. when you clean a festering sore it hurts and it bubbles and it keeps oozing grossness long past the point where you think your body can make such ickyness.

and somehow in spite of all my first aid training i didn't think about the alternate possibilities inherent in the word cleanse. i just thought about how clean and shiny everything would be when it was done.

i forgot about the scrubbing.

and yesterday? the scrubbing hit me over the head with a vengeance.

in addition to taking a class from the goddess where she focused on a kind of movement that is almost impossible for me i also had an altercation with a landlord that left me reeling in bafflement. there i was checking out the water pressure and dude kicked me out and told me to stop wasting his time.

weird because i liked the place. anyway because my roommate wasn't there he considered it a waste of time and i was thus useless to him. baffling. turns out he doesn't let his applications out of his sight and i hadn't realised that. nor had he told me.

anyway that left me muttering and stunned directly upon arriving home to blogland and my little discoveries.

i do think that an intense level three mat class was a tough call on a fasting day, especially hour forty eight where it's just hitting my body that i'm really not going to feed it for days.

anyway rr worked our back ribs and thoracic spines and various other spots i have trouble with and i was high repeatedly through the class and had to collapse after like four reps of some things.

in case y'all don't know this people and women especially carry their emotional memories in their bodies and my body is locked in exactly the places that we worked yesterday so i'm certain that with those endorphin rushes came some release of other chemicals as well.

in fact right about when i got home to blogland is when that shit was hitting the hardest and i was RAGING you guys. i mean raging in a way that makes me flinch and wrinkly in my brow today to think about. raging like stunned at the depth of my own anger. raging like i don't even really get where that stuff comes from.

although the little flashes in my tummy as i type this gives me a hint that i'm going to find out in the next few days. i know that i have a lot of left over bull shit from my accident that i haven't really lanced and what i guess i didn't realise was how much anger i was still forming.

what am i so mad about? why am i feeling so unhappy and unfulfilled? these and other questions brought to you by sassfast 2006.

and to the lady i emailed yesterday when i really should have been curled up on my bed with my own brain? i'm really sorry.

most lions roar, but some whimper

2006-08-03T23:58:00.000-04:00

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i don't usually do this sort of thing because i always feel that if you say something like:

"*dance of glee*

*dance of glee*

*dance of glee*

my birthday is in nine days!"

you're asking for presents somehow. and i'm not. i don't mind presents or object to them or anything, in fact i quite like them... but that's not what i'm talking about. i just love my birthday because with very few exceptions it has always proven to be a special day.

not always easy, but nearly always special.

take this year for example, there's a camping party at my friend six's place and my band is PLAYING IT! wheeee!

i mean what's not to love right? there will be partying and music and lots of people i love and a whole host of other leos to celebrate with. seriously one year there was like eight of us! this year there will be four for sure and after that i don't know who else is coming.

this is a strange birthday for me as you all know because i'm giving up old dreams and moving on with my life. lovely stuff and all but it's hard.

it is also, interestingly enough, opening me up to many more possibilities than i had noticed before. i see things in life that i wasn't seeing because i had gotten focused on a goal. i've realised, for example, that other than some people and clients that i love there is nothing holding me here and that here doesn't make me that happy anymore.

.i've realised that i might actually want to move to europe or to australia and that really about two years from now is the time to do it
.i see that i'm settling into this life without necessarily choosing it
.i've noticed that i am often unhappy
.i lack fulfilment
.i'm getting stagnant
.i feel my life is passing me by (sam roberts)
.i need challenge for my spirit
.i seek inspiration
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this happens to me every year around the end of summer and i don't know if it's my birthday that brings it or the coming fall season. i know that it's pretty regular and i think it's a symptom of coming fall but i'm certain that birthdays exacerbate it.

the other night the moon was hanging fat and low and you could see it was only going to get redder and fatter and somehow i think it reminded my body that it's coming up on harvest time. where does it come from this drive to reflect on our lives and look for growth?

do people who live at the equator do this every year too? is it hard wired into our dna?

personally i don't actually think so, i feel that it comes from our northern (or way south of course) weather and that the idea of harvest and lying fallow and renewal and rebirth is very much a part of our blood but because we're from here and not because it's hard wired into people.

i wonder if this affects people in costa rica and i suspect that it doesn't (in san jose the temperature is within five degrees of itself all year long) or that if it does it's not to the same extent. lsd once said that one of the things he didn't like about florida was that there weren't any rain days for getting all introverted and introspective on.

when i asked him if the natives noticed the lack he said that he didn't think so and that he thought this to be a particularly northeastern phenomenon. i don't know that i would limit it to this area but i definetely feel that the rhythms here suit me.

or maybe i suit them?

they grew me after all.

anyway it's my birthday and i'm reflecting. if i'm lucky i will reflect enough that on my actual birthday i'll party instead of staring at a wall. in fact i'm helping this along with a cleansing fast.

we won't mention how badly i'm craving ice cream and it's only my first day.

i will mention that i'm really enjoying the drink even though it sounds like the most repulsive thing ever and that unlike most of the food i've eaten lately it actually tastes good to my body. weird, but good.

see i've been planning this fast for something like a year and months ago i had decided to do it when i finished my july menstrual cycle. unfortunately this coincided with two dinners at my parents place and then hillside was coming and i didn't want to be recovering from fasting while i was at a festival in a heatwave.

i know, shock.

so i decided to start yesterday. i failed at that but i did start today so i'll call it success.

what's interesting is that my body seems to have known this was coming and been anticipating it. for a few weeks now food hasn't been tasting very good and i've been having a hard time forcing myself to eat.

of course i know that the heat is involved in my total lack of interest in food, as is the continuous ridiculous amounts of abdominal work i do to my life. i mean man those puppies are tired from rr this morning (special reschedule, long story why) and it makes me feel vaguely nauseous a lot of the time.

but still, i feel like i need to fast. i've been feeling it for a while but i didn't think that i was ready last year. and i wasn't. and frankly? it's a lot easier to fast when it's too fucking hot out to eat.

after my accident i ate a LOT of mcdonald's and the like. like we're talking sometimes eight times a week and stuff. it's repulsive to me to think about it and frankly i don't think i will ever again (or before for that matter) eat like that. nor do i think i will want to. universe i hope not... good christ it frightens me to think about what level of crap would have to hit my personal fan for me to actually do that.

anyway i lived off junk food and things i could make in less than five minutes (remember that it hurt to stand up and i lived with a guy who had a junk food cupboard) for a long time and even after i started pilates i kept eating badly for quite a bit longer.

and i mean bad food.

so i ate a lot of toxins and poisons and things that aren't real food and all sorts of things that tend to clog up your digestion. and ever since then my guts haven't worked as well nor have they smelled as good.

i know that a lot of the dietary changes that i've made will lead to more active digestion but i also feel like i have a pile of bullshit left in my guts that it's time to flush out.

othercat told me once that he read that you have up to ten pounds of crap just sitting in your intestines. ten pounds. that's fucked up.

so the surprisingly good drink is made of fresh squeezed lemon juice, dark maple syrup, cayenne pepper and water. i know it sounds fucking repulsive doesn't it? i think so too really. and then i tried it. i seriously half thought i wouldn't make it past the first five minutes of fasting. but it works.

it's inexplicable. the sugar in the maple syrup combines with the citrus and the pepper to make you feel strangely well filled. i can't comprehend it. it must be revolting it must!

but it isn't.

course i'll tell you more as it happens. i'm stoked to see how i feel next week.

apparently making food takes a lot of time and fasting frees you up. it will be interesting to see what takes it's place. mostly introspection these days :)

mister not so right

2006-08-02T09:41:00.000-04:00

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wow you guys, i met this guy last weekend who really blew me away ... and then he didn't.

sorry for the whole blowing the ending thing but i didn't want y'all to get excited or something. anyway mister not so right, we'll call him mnsr for short walks into my life in the volunteer/performer/media food area backstage.

and by walks i mean is standing there as i go looking for something and compliments me on my shirt.

nice shirt he says i like how it's all inside out like that
thanks i say, i love it too... it's unfortunate that the seams are fraying and it's practically new
flirt flirt flirt
i head back to my volunteer shift.

then i run into him in the backstage bar and he says something, i really don't remember what and i say that i'm in fact wearing a hot pink tie dyed skirt after all and he says he's sorry but he hadn't made it past my shirt or my eyes yet.

i know, cheesy as hell... and it totally worked.

anyway flirt flirt sass goes back to work and then runs into him on the way back to camping. he decides not to go back to the hotel [which should have been my first clue that he was a musician] and to stay on and camp and ends up hanging out with othercat and hubris and his pal a and i for the rest of the evening.

and we're talking and we're flirting all there's little bits of random touching going on and then he lets us know who he is and it turns out that othercat has his cd. it's actually bitching but i'm not sure that i want to promote it.

but it's really good.

anyway, we all hang out until the crack of dawn and then he's passing out so he heads out and he's still all nice and into me and then he just sort of poof. disappeared.

i mean i saw him again over the course of the weekend but he got less and less happy to see me and by the end of it i wasn't even there to be smiled at if he was five feet away from me.

it was really weird.

some theories abound. they include
.he has a girlfriend and just wants to see what he can get
.someone else knocked his knees out from under him when i wasn't looking
.he actually knows he fucked up but not how to fix it
.he's one of those guys that has a hyper speed relationship in his head and gets all weirded out
.i didn't try to boink him when i found out who he was
.whatever y'all say in the comments

he does have the motherfucking prettiest blue eyes though

you see this would all be fine except that his crap worked and i liked him by the end of the night. i wanted to know him better. heck i was even thinking i wanted to hold his hand.

i know, i'm twelve.

but see i'm twelve, i don't dive into bed with people and i don't play the head games and i don't even really understand them. i miss it when people are messing with me and i don't understand why perfectly nice men act all sparky with me and then disappear off the face of the planet.

if at some point the conversation got boring or we stopped having fun then maybe i would get it but no, i thought it was great. and i feel that with the last couple of events in my life that i can start drawing some conclusions.

unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be getting men's attention that i suck at.

i know, shock.

it's keeping it.

like i have them and then i just seem to weird them out somehow and you know just once i think i would like it if one of them looked at me and said 'dude you're hot and all but your brain is freaky, good luck!' [worse that he mentioned that he liked my oddness? fucking right]

or whatever. why the weird uncomfortable dance of avoidance?

did i get the look in my eyes? is that it? did you think i saw babies with your eyes?

funny that, since i only see other people's babies in my eyes. oh there were so many beautiful men with their families and their children at hillside. there is something that makes me inexplicably happy about seeing happy men playing with their children.

and i know that gabi thinks that those are the wimps but some of them looked pretty manly to me. course eyes lie.

i just don't get it.

i completely understand hitting on a chick to get her to boink you. i totally do. but he didn't do any of that, he didn't try to cop a feel or get me to kiss him behind the tent or anything.

he did touch me gently on my arm and my waist and the small of my back
he did compliment my oddness
he did look into my eyes and smile
he did discuss that he liked me
he did laugh and hang with my friends and i all night
he did have a side conversation going with me at all times

he did things that men do when they like women rather than when they want to fuck them. was i supposed to catch some hint that i missed?

and i get it, i get that you can meet someone and dig on them for a while and then decide that maybe no. i do get it really. but why do they always decide no?

why do you work so hard to get my attention if you don't actually want it? are you just after making it harder for some guy who actually likes me for real? is it fun to find nice women and play them just because you can?

seriously why bother?

ah well mnsr, thanks for another brick in the wall... at least it's only a small one.
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so tempted to email him this post... because yeah, being twelve i still googled him when i got home so now i have his email address if i want it... *sigh*

seven year itch

2006-07-31T23:31:00.000-04:00

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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!

2006-07-27T18:12:00.000-04:00

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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

2006-07-26T01:41:00.000-04:00

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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.
.

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

2006-07-24T03:08:00.000-04:00

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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

2006-07-22T02:11:00.000-04:00

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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

2006-07-19T16:22:00.000-04:00

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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?

2006-07-18T00:56:00.000-04:00

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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

2006-07-15T11:03:00.000-04:00

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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.
.

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

2006-07-12T10:56:00.000-04:00

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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

2006-07-10T20:58:00.000-04:00

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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

2006-07-08T03:32:00.000-04:00

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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!

2006-07-06T16:20:00.000-04:00

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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

2006-07-05T12:56:00.000-04:00

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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!

2006-07-01T23:59:00.000-04:00

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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.

25 ... 35

2006-06-30T11:53:00.000-04:00

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[fyi my birthday is not today or tomorrow, in fact it's a ways from now... but it's close enough it's got me doing the birthday thinking thing]
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i remember when i was turning twenty five.

twenty five was the year that i gave up the knight in shining armour and you know? i thought that might be the hardest thing that i ever had to do. i mean face myself in the mirror and admit that the only person that i could ever count on to take care of me was me?

that if i wanted someone to rescue me from my life that i'd better damm good and do it?

so i did. i also ran off and married someone a year later so i guess i hadn't really given it up. but nonetheless, the summer that i turned twenty five was pretty hard. in fact, until thirty five i would have to say that twenty five was the hardest one ever.

no one was going to save me from my life.

i wasn't going to be the girl in the movie who is walking down the street and gets whisked off by the king of siam.

no one would go to my grave for me...

in fact? i had to take care of myself. that was it.

[this in no way negated the idea of finding a man, but it wasn't going to be a knight and a charging horse, it was going to be a human with flaws and problems and stuff.. you know {shut up, it's a metaphor}]

so that was pretty hard that birthday. harder than thirty for sure.

thirty was a breeze, i don't think i've ever had a happier year than thirty. there is something about that number that confirms in your mind that you are an adult and that you are living your life for YOU and nobody else.

your parents and your friends opinions don't matter except as you allow them to and your decisions are what guides you now. sure you ask for advice but you're free to discard it.

so yeah, thirty rocks.

[of course if you have kids they come first, duh. but i am not one of the lucky ones]

and then comes now.

a couple of years ago i made a deal with myself because the whole 'to have or not to have kids' dilemma was running pretty hard through my heart but i just wasn't in any position to do anything about it. my body was broken and my relationship (i almost said marriage... funny that) was falling apart.

i still think that that was the universe having a cosmic joke at my expense. here you go sass, here's the guy, you know that guy that you don't think is possible? the one whose brain lights you up? that makes you feel like a kid at christmas all the time? look here he is.

and now let's see... we're going to break you and you're going to break him and then together you'll destroy your relationship and shatter your trust and faith in each other.

hee hee. sucker.

anyway i was still thinking and thinking on the whole kids thing and i knew it was impossible then. so i decided that at thirty four i would investigate my fertility and that at thirty five i would decide once and for all if i was having children or not.

AND if i decided yes?

i would start immediately to make that happen.

and in this way i could just drop the whole subject for a couple of years you know? just not worry about it? i was so stressed about whether or not and what to do and it was better to just let it go.

interestingly the answer floated to the surface fairly quickly once i stopped worrying at it.

and i just didn't foresee what's coming to pass. it just never occured to me that i would *want* to have kids but that i wouldn't be able to get the logistics to work out. somehow in my imagination there was a guy or a larger income or savings or whatever.

so now i'm sitting here with the adult version of the knight in shining armor and i'm sort of flummoxed.

it never occured to me for a second that i would be the one who didn't get to be a parent. i never once thought that if *I* wanted to do it that i wouldn't be able to. it was always just whether or not i wanted to and never whether or not i *could*.

and i can't.

and i'm heartbroken.

and the thing that i don't need to hear from anyone ANYMORE or EVER AGAIN is that i have lots of time. because you're wrong.

statistically a lot of very bad things happen when women have their first children after thirty five. and i won't foreseeably have the resources to have a child until i'm forty.

and there are two things i know for sure.

the first is that i will not have the energy to single mother a baby when i'm forty.

the second is that i would not be able to cope by myself if my child were troubled in some way. i've seen how hard that is with a couple and it's unimaginable alone. no trust me it is. and anyone with a special child is nodding their head in agreement EVEN IF they're doing it alone.

i suppose that tomorrow mr. perfect could walk into my life and that within a year of meeting we could decide to get pregnant but i have to say that i don't foresee that happening either. am i open to it?

yes.

expectant? no. not so much.

i've been thinking for a while that i'm not the one who gets to have the babies. i'm the one who gets to live the great life and be the crazy god mother and leave all her cats to charity. and it's not like that's a bad life.

i mean i'll get to do things like safari in africa and run off to costa rica to learn to surf and climb mountains in thailand and visit alaska and adventure trek in new zealand and...

i'll also be alone when i'm seventy. and i never for a second ever imagined that that would happen to me. i was going to have grand children. there was going to be love and laughter and fun in my house.

i was going to be the kool aid mom.

i recognize that i can adopt. but a single woman who is self employed does not adopt easily.

especially not when she's forty. i could adopt a half grown child in desperate need of someone to be nice to them or something and i am not averse to that idea, it's just that i somehow always expected to have one of my own too and even then it's unlikely that i will get approved.

so i'm grieving.

i'm grieving dreams and wishes and expectations and i'm trying to let them go. i know that if i let them go that it will make the hurting stop. i know that if i let them go i will stop wishing for just a couple more years than i have. i know that i'll stop having a haunted look in my eyes when passing fancies catch me unawares.

i would like to stop looking at newborns and feeling a twinge. i would like to not be slightly sad when people talk about how much their kids mean to them. i would like to see a dad playing with his daughter in the park and not feel melancholy if he seems like a great dad.

i just need to let go. and i know how to do it because i've done it before. it's just that this one isn't going to be nearly as easy as writing a letter to 'you'. compared to this that knight thing didn't even blip the radar.

some people have the hard decades, for me it's the creamy center that's bitter.

dear universe:

i return to you my hopes, desires, dreams and plans regarding family and open myself to the possibilities in all things. and while i'm at it? take the resentment and borderline rage combined with frustration that i'm feeling about that other thing too.

thanks!
loveums
-sass

pilates woman!

2006-06-29T11:53:00.000-04:00

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i meant to post this last night but i feel asleep mid-sentence practically.
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dear pilates;

i love you do you know that?

i mean first of all i'm not certain that words can express my undying gratitude to you for giving me my body back. and then? you cap that off by handing me a new direction in life.

there i was, completely trashed and hopeless, watching the scale go up and up and up and then blammo. you handed me rr. she inspired me to follow in her footsteps and spend my life making people feel better.

i can't imagine a better direction. i really am happy most every day. now i just need to learn to harness the PMS and how find clients when i start losing them.

someone i wasn't very nice to made these great pics of me as pilates woman:

and i just love them.

in fact i would start a comic with her except that i didn't design her and i'm already too busy. still she rocks.

this is what happens if your exercises aren't done:

there pyrhonik... not quite the cape but... :)
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in other news i went to see the neville brothers tonight with othercat and svdw and her man m. it was a really surreal sort of evening. first of all i decided to wear my new skirt and here is a late night pic that othercat snapped with his camera phone [as usual feel free to try and fix it]:

already i was feeling a bit weird because this showing off four inches of belly thing is very strange for me. but still i did it because the skirt looks shitty if it sits anywhere else.

so then we go down to harbourfront to this beautiful outdoor stage that sits on the water and about a minute before the opening act (roxanne potvin, quite good by the way) this enormous clap of thunder comes out of the lake somewhere and the entire audience jumps a foot.

for serious it was SO loud.

anyway it rains a little and the show goes on and whatev right?

so then the nevilles come out and i head to the back so i can dance my little face off and slowly but surely the rain starts to seep in so i start to sort of move up the aisle and then it's pouring and roxanne (yes the opening act lady) and i sort of look at each other and we decide to go dance at the stage.

she's like "can we"

and i'm like "if we go everyone else will"

so we do. and for one glorious song there's all of three of us up there dancing and i am shaking my ass like a champion. and then the rain REALLY hits and the entire back rows head up to the stage... but the instruments are getting soaked.

so the boys take a couple of minutes, wait for the squall to pass and then aaron comes out and starts to sing in his unbelievable voice... and the audience stays. so instead of your usual boring and staid toronto audience who can go and see buddy guy and SIT through the fucking show?

oh yeah they're dancing in the aisles for the nevilles. i mean that band is SO good i even say some white boys dancing well! (kidding kidding come on)

it was awesome. the rain made for such a better show it was unbelievable.

such a stellar evening.

happy hnt...

y'all got my navel... and my cape ;)

signals

2006-06-28T01:53:00.000-04:00

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pile and i went out for dinner tonight and i picked up the cheque. i did this because he's a pov and i'm ever so slightly less pov than he is this week. that was pretty much the whole reason.

i'm not calling myself rich by any stretch of the imagination. i mean i make a decent living but i'll only die rich if i turn myself into a brand name or consider alternate careers. fortunately i only need to die with enough money in the bank to pay for the burial since i don't expect to leave kids behind.

nonetheless, i expect my standard of living to continue to improve.

now last night a lovely young man um... think of a nick... crap i hate thinking up nick names... uh, anyway you know how you end up going for dinner after a gathering sometimes? like climbers leaving the gym will often end up going out together for beer or food.

in this particular case i don't think anyone else was invited.

anyway, off we go for dinner and yapping and then he insists on paying for dinner. and not the kind of insists where the person with an income assists the person without one. the other kind.

which, i decided, gives me license to flirt with him, even if it does make me a cougar. the thing is? my buying dinner for pile is totally meaningless in that context. (first of all pile's gay)

so i got to thinking about things like paying for dinner. initiating hanging out. asking for contact information. conjuring up further meetings and so on. and then i got to thinking about the definition of a date.

there are people who would declare that since i went for dinner and a beer with uh... damm nicknames... him that we were on a date.

there are folks who won't say that but will say that since he paid for dinner... we were on a date.

there are those who will say that since we didn't make out... we weren't on a date.

there are still others who suggest that because our plans were not made in advance we clearly weren't on a date.

and again since we didn't specifically plan a next meeting... not so much.

so you could really go in any direction you wanted here.

i'm in the no kissy = no date-y camp but that's just me. pile is in the plans weren't made in advance camp... but that's just pile.

i also think that such definitions often change when you see how the future unfolds. you never see him again? not a date. he calls you two days later and says "when can i see you again?" duh.

but it really makes you start to understand why "first world" humans are so fucked up when it comes to modern mating. here's kj with some friend who has a guy buying presents for the kids and the lady doesn't know if they're in a relationship or fuck buddies. or it's hypothetical but nonetheless true for someone.

i go out with a guy for about three hours and can't tell you if he's interested or if i'll see him again. i know which way i lean mind you but i have a terrible track record at getting this shit right.

my friend has sex with a man that he's buddies with and then the guy never calls him back... well not quite never but close enough.

someone feeds me food with their fingers and doesn't want to sleep with me.

i mean we're baffled these days. any of those things would have been considered major giveaways a while back. we would have known what the intentions were.

what i don't get is why we can't all have little necklaces that say 'player' or 'sincere' or 'slut' or 'just friends' or whatever on them so you just know. then you don't have to wonder if the pretty words are real or if they're just trying to get you in the sack or if they're even trying that at all!

and here's the thing, the players would know to leave me alone because i don't play that game nor do i understand it. they can chase their own kind and they'll all be perfectly happy.

but we have no known signals anymore. i'm amazed that anyone ever manages to hook up with anyone else. i'm further amazed that anyone manages to get through the first six months of dating and into the part where you're honest with each other.

pile had a point about that too. he told me that since he had met me he had taken to being much more blunt with people and that in some ways it stems from the times when i am most painfully blunt.

like the more uncomfortable what i'm saying makes you? the more you probably need to hear it.

he says that he's started calling people on it if they're social engineering or being drama queens or whatever. instead of just taking it or grumbling about it later he just up and says "but why? why would you say that when you know it's ridiculous?"

and this is because i am apparently rubbing off on him, and through him to his friends.

man dudes, that's fucking awesome.

i am causing other people to tell the truth. wow.

what's funny is how easy it is. like the other day pile came to dinner at othercat's. pile is a vegetarian so he just asked a little request so he wouldn't have to eat meaty veggie burger and it was granted and everyone was happy.

one second of extra work for the cook, that was it.

a year ago he would have just sucked it up and pretended that he didn't care that his burger was cooked on a grill covered in meat grease.

thirty seconds of conversation.

it's called communication and we're scared to do it.

it's just that i've noticed over the years that it's the things i DON'T say that cost me friends, not the things i do.

universally if i bite my tongue again and again i'll start to resent the person that i'm talking with and eventually stop talking with them. but when i suck it up and i say the hard thing?

i've been thanked for it almost every time.

like my wise sister says 'friends are the people who tell you the truth, especially when it's hard' because really, who else will?

and that's where dating is so hard. it's easier to tell someone you love the truth than someone you just met. and tragically it's then, that moment when you first meet where you most need to tell the truth.

ironically it's easiest to tell a stranger on a bus your deepest truths, but that's never a date :)

people remember those moments, the ones where they first meet and if you lie then they never believe a thing you say afterward.

but it's so hard!

and worse yet half the time you don't even know if you're on a date. you've actually met up to do something else or run into each other or randomly gone for beer and suddenly it's hours later and you've just told a whopper of a lie thinking they'll never see you again.

and then.

(why i never say things i don't mean lesson one)

then you've a lied and it's months later and you're in love. fucking sucks doesn't it? now you have to TELL this person you love that you lied for no reason the day you met.

and now you're a liar.

and it almost isn't even your fault. you didn't even know you were on a date and it was easier than explaining...

love

2006-06-26T17:21:00.000-04:00

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there have been some very nasty comments coming through some blogs lately and they caused me to make the following responses on emma's blog[which i will, of course, elaborate on afterward] (the post which inspired the hate comments and this response is here):

i think maybe that's the kind of person where you just delete their comments. it's hate mail pure and simple.

i wish blogger had a flag this profile option.

i know they're just trying to get a rise out of us. and i know that letting them means they win. so i'm not going to swear and yell but i will say this.

"let he who is without sin cast the first stone"

the more that i think about it the less i think it is appropriate to actually delete hatemongering comments. if you do that they just get even more self righteous and holier than thou than they already were.

sort of like those christian fundamentalists who show up at the gay pride parade simply to spread intolerance and bigotry. i mean it's an easy target right? show up in a large group of people who have been disenfranchised from the mainstream and hate them. it's not like any of the authorities will care.

at worst you will accomplish nothing and at best you will find others who share your hate or worse yet some poor lost child who will be susceptible to your particular line of bull.

the thing is, the people who don't agree with you and who think you are in fact working for evil can take cracks at you and make fun of you. the problem being, of course, that that will simply convince you of your rightness.

would that i could think of a loving way to enfold such people in the spirit of peace and sharing.

in fact i saw a lovely sign yesterday that said
"what would jesus do? ask yourself?
love or hate?
inclusion or persecution?"

and that sign was RIGHT. god damm it jesus made friends of the whores and the lepers because no one else was honest or loving. love each other and stay out of each other's bedrooms and the world would improve drastically.

which brings me to:
according to the buddhists it doesn't matter what your intentions are but only what your deeds are. thus they don't care whose name you do things in it's the actual deed they consider.

i like this because then when people hatemonger and claim that it's in the name of the lord the truth is clear. although you claim to work in god's name you are nonetheless evil. the same way that a satanist who goes around rescuing lost puppies and abused children is good.

whoever this is has such a small and sad life that they have to come around to popular blogs and make fun of people's weaknesses. this is extra funny because they don't even have the courage to put their own weaknesses out there in exchange.

can you imagine how unhappy that kind of person must be inside? i've never yet met anyone who was having a happy and fulfilled life (and the people who are happy and fulfilled also tend to live love and gratitude) who was also judgemental and cruel.

just doesn't go together you know.

kind of like how the homophobe is almost always gay...

that comment basically stands for itself but i will say this. if you are going to go around and make horrid comments on other people's web offerings you are no better than the trolls and the spammers who killed usenet.

what's extra tragic about this is that none of us trolled you.

none of us went looking for you.

none of us went by your blog and said nasty things [not that we could because you don't have the balls to post one] and i'm pretty sure that none of us went by any of your friends blogs and trolled them. on that last one i say this because like attracts like and none of my group are hatemongers.

none of us imposed our lifestyle choices on you.

you came looking for us for NO other reason than to make us feel shitty about ourselves and you did it in the most evil and low way possible. you came in through the back door and wished one of my friends DEAD!

and you are probably sitting self righteous and happy in your ivory tower and thinking about how you showed those sinners.

yeah you certainly showed them.

you showed them that once again more evil has been perpetuated in the name of GOD than any other word in the WORLD.

in the world.

you showed that intolerance and hate are alive in america today.

you taught us with your deeds how such nastiness as the klu klux klan can gain a foothold in the 'land of the free' and you definetely demonstrated what really is worth hating in our society.

i am truly beginning to believe that those who spread intolerance and bigotry and hate should be sterilised and rendered incapable of raising children. then at least you wouldn't be able to raise another generation of people who hate.

but you will.

in fact you're the kind of person that believes birth control is a tool of the devil so not only will you raise hateful little hooligans who think that bombing their fellow man is an excellent way to force them to agree with you? and who think that they really are entitled to their suv's? and who think global warming is an artsy fartsy liberal fantasy to get more votes? and who think science is a tool of the devil [unless you're making bombs]?

you're going to raise fourteen of them.

it's no wonder the good guys can't win. we practice RESTRAINT. for every one we make you make fourteen more.

frankly margaret cho sums up this entire post in one sentence:
"any kind of love is fine, it's your hate you gotta watch"

next time you're tempted to say something hateful? put yourself in someone else's shoes instead.

or do the tougher thing and try understanding their side of things and learning from each other. oh if only we could all learn to HEAR each other. what a world it would be.

"any kind of love is fine..."

pre pride post - second annual

2006-06-24T22:28:00.000-04:00

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look an anniversary!

tomorrow is pride day and i'm strangely not in the mood. i mean i've made plans and i've arranged things and there's going to be drinking and EATING and partying and hot naked men who aren't remotely attracted to me.

i did kiss a bear the other night on my way home.

for those of you who don't know what a bear looks like? imagine a reasonably large guy sitting around in jeans or leather pants and a leather vest or a flannel shirt.

add some facial hair, generally a bit fanciful and the possibility of a leather cap.

we were yapping for a bit and wished each other a happy pride and kissed each other on the mouth and went our seperate ways.

for some reason this delighted me.

on my way to kissing a bear i passed by a needy [and quite probably hammered] woman running a spin the bottle game [and enthusiastically kissing the probably gay boys] and a man drawing the pride logo at the intersection of maitland and church. sitting there in the middle of the street with his paint and his chalk and a look or rapt concentration.

he did this while throngs of people wandered by to take in the sights and the patios raged with people.

the mood is so lovely during pride and this is in fact my favourite weekend of the year for that very reason. er sorry, favourite IN TOWN weekend of the year. this year it happens to coincide with mom's birthday so i'm at the farm for saturday.

and relieved let me tell you. i haven't slept in days. days.

i've been wandering around like a stupid since wednesday because all there is this week is people partying outside my window. they seem to be getting ruder every year. or i'm getting more sensitive.

or both.

last night i was woken up at 4am by people making out next to my window and then again at this morning by the scottish marching band marching down the road. what the fuck was a marching band doing on saturday morning at 9:30?

i mean they all party, don't they at least want to sleep in the morning?

it was all right though, rr was on her first day of food since her fourteen day fast and rl and i are the regulars so we giggled for the whole class, it was kind of awesome.

then i went and visited a total hottie and drove the long way which is now the short way [no towns and lights so still a 60kph zone is faster] to the farm. the farm.

*sigh of contentment*

it was perfectly hot and sunny with nary a cloud in the sky and the day got remarkably amusing when my mother pulled out her birthday present.

the air rifle.

for serious. that's what she wanted for her birthday. my mom is so cool.

my dad had made her a target with an easel and a can of peas and there she is giving my sister instructions on operating this little gun!!

so lividviv and our mom and viv's man jh and i sat around and shot at cans on a target while my dad cooked and the sun beat down on us. and then i had my moment of divine inspiration.

i went and got my bathing suit.

lividviv wore her panties and my workout shirt from this morning and off we went to the pond. the pond. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

so we basically stood there and dared each other and eventually we dove in at the same time and came up shouting with glee. the water was perfect.

perfect.

my first outdoor swim of the year in the warm silk of a freshwater spring fed pond.

my hair is delighted, my skin is feeling full of liquid and my driver's side sunburn isn't even particularly angry with me. it is sort of a thorn in my plan to wear a bikini tomorrow...

regardless, i went for a swim. an actual in the pond with refreshing water swim. more than that i got to play with my sister while we splashed each other and laughed like little children.

and then we got fed divine food and lovely company and now i get to go to bed and sleep for about nine hours before driving home to the city.

and do you know what happens then?

i walk down church street and watch them do last minute preparations for the biggest party of the year and then i arrive at othercat's house.

there i will find othercat and pj and princess valium and orange juice and champagne and brunch. and then we will wander back UP church street to party in the village all day.

i'm not even mentioning the parade of half naked people and naked people and really unnattractive people and painted gold people and covered in feathers people there will be tomorrow.

or the good mood everyone will wear like clothing... for some as their only clothing.

or the margaritas on whatever patio and pj MAYBE getting his annual drunk. oh i hope so!

for someone who isn't in the mood i'm sure strangely excited!

night kids :)

sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy

2006-06-23T00:23:00.000-04:00

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i had the strangest experience today, i went into a pub to watch the italian pool games at ten o'clock in the morning and was soundly ignored by the staff until i walked out at NOON after watching the italy match to completion.

i'm delighted, italy and ghana make it out of the pool, how lovely. so good for those racists who think africans are inferior. (tragically this is quite true in europe)
.

i'm too tired to post for real tonight... so here are some quotes i love:

You need the cholesterol, it will add structure to your veins.
-- tommer

Space is a hard thing to negotiate
-- lividviv

I'm flexible, of course I'm flexible, as long as everything is exactly the way I want it I'm very flexible.
-- Lorelei Gilmore

Women don't eat, we just look at food and jump on the treadmill.
-- Lorelei Gilmore

I'm not a science major, I just like good bongs.
-- sassinak

I once thought I had mono for an entire year. Turns out I was just really bored.
-- Ferris Bueller

You have new mail.

Much sorrow may be avoided by acknowledging that, as gloomy as being alone makes you feel, it is rollicking heaven compared with being among most other people.
-- R. Rosenblatt

Another reason to be wary of ice-sheet outhouses: Seals occasionally use the opening in the ice as a blowhole. While there's nothing inherently dangerous about a suppositorial blast of hot seal breath, it is, in the words of one shaken veteran, "a disquieting way to start your day."
-- Mary Roach, "Blinded by the White"

Never wear anything that panics the cat.
-- P.J. O'Rourke

And you can go right ahead and get pissed off at me or take potshots or whatever makes your life worth living. I'm non-stick.
-- Anna Melnikoff

That your arrogant pedagoguery has articulated even the most dubious of facts, is as foolish a fantasy as the one in which your rhetorical effluvium passes for thoughtful discourse.
-- batz

Are you trying to indirectly praise your own introduced term prior to defining it? If so you flatter yourself sir, but it's no compliment.
-- madmagic

linux is for people who hate microsoft, bsd is for people who love unix (yaiba - 6 Oct 2000)
-- mdmx

We could learn a lot from crayons:
some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names and all are different colors....but they all exist very nicely in the same box.
-- unknown

Answering the phone for a living will beat the nice right out of you.
-- sassinak

What garlic is to food, insanity is to art.
-- unknown

Life is a learning process, not a pulpit.
-- lsd

Leap and the net will appear
-- aida

When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always.
-- Gandhi

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming---WOW!!! What A Ride!
-- Anonymous

i'm always attracted to younger guys and it sucks cause i've made men outta boys so many times.
-- dana - big brother

2 moves are as good as a fire!
-- CrtxReavr's grandmother

Have you ever seen the United States take the blame for anything?
-- Mel Lastman on the hydro outage

Mitsato: you never change do you?
Kaji: of course i change, the act of living is an act of change
-- Evangelion - the series

Sit on my face I'll guess your weight.
-- anon

Deliver your future into the hands of your friends.
-- Pete Townsend as quoted by othercat

love is friendship set on fire
-- anon

i get really upset when i see young girls getting liposuction and breast implants, i'm like how is that any different than foot binding?
-- margaret cho

the hardest thing to do in this world is to live in it
-- buffy summers

any kind of love is fine, it's your hate you gotta watch
-- margaret cho

if i told you you had a nice body would you hold it against me?
-- othercat

artists are supposed to comment on culture, that's the function of art
-- margaret cho

sometimes people play hard to get because they need to know that the other person's feelings are real
-- Brooke Davis - 'One Tree Hill'

pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever.
-- shane falco - 'the replacements'

:)
happy friday!

shine

2006-06-21T05:08:00.000-04:00

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so, since i wrote that letter on monday/yesterday (started monday, finished tuesday... what? some of us DO sleep you know) i've been thinking about how i ended it.

'love always'

and i realised later how true it was. just not in the way you might expect.

i look back at all of my previous men whether i ever dated them or not and i still have a soft spot in my heart for all of them. some spots are softer than others of course.

i certainly can't think of too many of them that i would want back in my life although there are a few. some even as lovers. no, i'm not telling you who falls into what category but i will tell you it isn't so much category as... shine.

like i look at this little row of crystal bubbles with pictures inside them and some of them are all shiny and bright and others are tarnished around the edges and some of them are pretty dark and dim and a couple of them are smoking holes where crystals once sat [although even they still own a soft landing] but all of them are somehow treasured in my memory.

now that i think about it? i don't think there are any smoking holes left. i think they've all healed.

i wouldn't be me without them after all ... and maybe they wouldn't be them.

and the shine isn't determined by length of relationship or style of breakup or anything. there are men with shine that i dated for a long time and men that i knew for a day [ahhh PL]. but all of them touched me in a positive way and left me a better person or at least more myself.

there are men with lots of tarnish and men with very little. again that isn't really determined by a timeline but it is somewhat coloured by their treatment of me. the men that i wrote about yesterday are so full of tarnish and dirt that i can hardly see them through it but they're there too.

maybe i needed k to come along and be all inexplicable because that made letting go of someone else just a little easier. or maybe i needed to fall for someone else to help me find out what i do and do not need. and interestingly k's tarnish has faded... but he has no shine really.

maybe i needed my ex husband just so i could remember that someone once wanted to marry me. actually three people but only two of them asked. the third and i did the biggest number on each other of all... but since i had dinner with him his shine is back. he was the biggest smoking crater but still? still the crystal grew back up.

maybe a little more realistic than before and with some rough edges but it's there. it's actually prettier now. probably because it's closer to reality than the original. it makes one wonder what it would be like to have dinner with all of one's exes.

i wonder how many of them i would have nothing to say to at all.

this post is taking a long time to write because i keep getting lost in reveries. i've thought about the way i met my ex husband (yes, we met 'cute') and the day tr implied that we would get married and the way k looked that magical night and the way my ex fiance showed me my first shooting star.

i've thought about re that i dated twice when i was a teenager and dumped badly both times. and bg to whom i did that as well. both men i cared for so much i couldn't hurt them so i ran away from them. funny how that works. i called bg once a few years later and his mother asked me not to find him.

what's funny is that she asked with the utmost respect and with utter liking of me in her voice.

"he loves you like the movies sass but he's living with someone and i think they're happy." and i *miss* my friend bruins but she was right.

*sigh* she was right. i hurt him enough. (wow, who knew this post would bring stinging eyes)

the thing is? i'm someone else's brooding guy in the corner with the cheekbones. but i was much younger then and not nearly so wise. hrm, i don't consider myself wise at all... and yet i'm clearly wiser than i was then although i know less.

i thought about pg and how much i want to see him [pause to google *sigh* still nothing] and about g's cocaine habit and about how g is the one that showed me what it is to wait for sex while sharing intimacy.

thanks g.

and i thought about Ke and the crush i had on him in uni and about P and the crush i had on him in high school and about rc and the crush i had on him a couple of years ago and b who showed me the difference between having sex and making love...

i love all of them. even the ones that hurt me. even the ones i never dated. all of them.

there are some, like tr, who could call me up and say "hey sass i need aftercare from surgery, can you help?" and i would. i would have BEFORE we had dinner. i think that he would have too. some people are in your heart forever no matter what happened with them.

some people, even if you never speak to them again, have still earned that kind of place in your heart ... and some haven't. there are people i know who would never see their exes again, not even to spit on their graves.

it's just so strange to realise that i wouldn't refuse to see any of them. that i actually care deeply about them all. i don't need to see them but i would like to know that they're okay.

inexplicably by setting myself free from that guy i wrote about yesterday i freed myself to realise that i will have a slowly shrinking soft spot for him forever.

and that that's okay.

because it is. i loved him. he wasn't my friend. these statements are true but SEPERATE. and maybe i had to realise that i could love someone that deeply that didn't care about me. me who always said 'i don't think you can love people who don't love you back, i don't think it's possible.'

so it's okay to hold a little space beside all the other little spaces and fill it with the happy moments while letting the tarnish heal itself. and that doesn't mean i've got him on the back burner or that i'm hoping he'll come back somehow or anything.

in fact it means just the opposite.

the crystal bubbles in that lineup all have one key thing in common. they're complete. i've done with them. sure some of them are slowly letting the tarnish heal itself but they're things that i've done with.

over now.

even if i got back with one of them there would be a new crystal not a revisit to the old one.

and don't think that wasn't a huge realisation too.

kathi asked me in my comments yesterday what i wanted from that letter (okay that's not exactly what she said but whatev) and since i couldn't sleep i let my mind play the free association game and it went from never seeing him again... which it was okay with.

to running into him somewhere and being utterly indifferent

to consciously choosing to hang with him at a party or dim sum or whatever

to having him show up at my door and declare his undying love and adoration for me and i realised that there was one thing all this had in common. i didn't care.

and i don't. i don't care what happens with him... at all. in fact? i was *in* all of those scenarios except the one where he shows up at my door, in that one i was a spectator. i was not *in* it.

it worked y'all. i'm free.

compost heap

2006-06-20T11:32:00.000-04:00

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dear you

yes you with the brooding and the pretty cheekbones.

you know you, the guy in the corner studying the room intently. watching me from a distance. watching me watch you. knowing we're both doing it.

yeah, *you*

i saw a picture of you the other day, i didn't mean to, i had a perfectly good reason for being where i was, really i did. i've since eliminated that avenue. but now there's a new photo stuck in my brain... another one that says 'hey look at me, see how deep and pretty i am?' and i still do.

i don't really understand why i still do. i suspect it has to do with my 'what the fuck' pile.

you know, where all the things i don't grok get tossed while my brain figures them out. it's just that *some* of the things that get tossed in there don't come back out. they never actually get explained.

it's like the bermuda triangle of 'what the fuck' and that my friends? that is not at all a healthy place to be, and most of the time it's avoidable but sometimes? sometimes the conscious mind gets sucked into that black hole.

you're like that guy k. the guy that dumped me and 'couldn't tell me why' and then went off and disappeared never to be heard from again until i heard through the grapevine that he was getting married. i guess i'm supposed to wish him well right? think happy thoughts?

well i don't. except then i think about her and the kids they'll have and i hope to god that he's exactly the awesome guy i didn't get to date... instead of the mealy mouthed ass who won't tell a girl why she's getting dumped.

so instead of just knowing and getting over it i get to sit around and fucking wonder about it. agonize about him. try to figure out what the FUCK just happened and then try to move on. it's like the toilet seat falling off the space station and splatting me into the pavement of my 'what the fuck' pile. the record scratch to end all record scratches.

and then? then he actually turns into an old mountain. something the new stuff barely gets stuck on on it's way by. and you? yeah back to the broody guy in the corner... you are my new chief obstruction in the happy swiriling that is the washing mashine in the back of my brain.

it's like mental intestines and you're stuck in my appendix. a big old ugly safety pin i swallowed by accident that's just stuck... not being digested or moved along or shat out. stuck.

i know it's a lesson in letting go i really do. that just doesn't make it any easier to learn.

if only you were the kind of person who made the hard choices, who admitted the things that were hurtful. if only you had character instead of eyelashes. one day you may realise that the hard way is really the easy way in disguise and you will cut through the gordian knot that is your self rationalisation and you will come out the other side a wonderful human.

i don't hope that i'm there to see it anymore.

but i still hope that it happens.

*scratch* goes the record.

how can you be both wonderful and so hellish all at once. how can that even be possible? if i could let go of that impossible conundrum i'm sure i could let go of all of it. catharsis... i seek catharsis.

long slow deep breaths.

maybe if i can just find one of the ends of the string. you know like that old puzzle where you have this crazy complicated knot and if you pull on *just* the right piece it falls to the floor utterly unraveled?

it's just i know for sure that you own one end of that string, what i have to find is *my* end of that same string. the piece of me that is still attached to you. the piece that in spite of all your crap, all your bullshit and that lovely elephant marauding my heart took from you?

that piece that still loves you.

i don't know why it's there and not letting go. i don't know how to find the root of it and allow it to remove itself from my soul. i know that cutting down the tree won't work because i tried that.

i know that pulling it out by the roots won't work because i tried that. you're like the dandelion, miss even a millimetre of that fucking root and back comes the plant stronger than ever.

and like the dandelion the only way to really excise you is to soften the earth around the root and get it a little moist before ever so gently easing you out and tossing you onto the compost heap of my life.

the place all of the people i don't give a shit about end up.

the place the people that hurt me and have been excised end up.

the place the people i've grown out of end up.

compost. mother nature's recycle bin. it's lovely stuff really, you take your trash and your discarded organic detritus and you throw it in a heap... and once in a while you turn the heap and you find beautiful fresh healthy dirt.

the kind of dirt that your hands just *itch* to play in.

the kind that your hands just die to plant seeds in.

fresh dirt, ready for sowing.

but you, you're stuck in the bermuda triangle with your roots firmly planted in my soul and you aren't letting go. would that you had simply had the balls to tell me the truth, then i would have known it so much sooner and the knot would have fallen to the floor as a length of string. free and ready to be woven again.

but no.

you had to be a liar and thus i build yet another wall in front of the part of me that trusts easily and well. it was already so hard for me to let go and to trust and to allow men inside my defences.

believing that anyone would care for me and about me and put my needs ahead of or at least equal to their own is so much harder than it ever was. you couldn't have picked a *worse* time in the life cycle of my heart to trample it. it was so fragile and bruised already and you just hauled off and stomped on it. which was, i'm sure, the lesson for me. the universe wills after all.

and still you wonder why your dating karma is so bad.

you reap what you sow my love, perhaps if you paid more attention to the seeds you scatter so indiscriminately. perhaps if you noticed the hearts you trampled on the way. maybe, just maybe, if you realise that you feed on the esteem of others and instead learn to believe in yourself.

perhaps, just a titch of self reflection. look into yourself instead of at yourself.

i know, those eyes really are pretty, but deep eyes are no substitute for depth.

be well, heal thyself and if you please? be gentler with the fairer sex, we are fragile and break easily and are not simply for your amusement.

farewell my friend, my imaginary friend, my soulmate that isn't. may you grow and spread your branches and become the beautiful human you're capable of rather than simply choosing the simple paths and the easy answers.

you stunt your growth sir and never has that made me sadder than with you. your potential. oh it boggles the mind. please love, believe in yourself and find the hard places. the dark places. the ones that hurt.

go exploring your self instead of your eyes.

your depths are limitless, you have but to welcome them.

and with this i set myself free.
love always
sass

ethnic soccer/football/calcio/?

2006-06-18T02:59:00.000-04:00

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i'm watching the world cup and they're doing the italian anthem so they're cutting to the team and the fans and the coaches and i'm struck by how much i really do look like these people. i'm also struck by just how attractive i find them. the old men look the way i like my old men. the young men are beautiful and dark with flashing eyes and lovely cheekbones and somehow their bodies are shaped right.

i mean it's inexplicable. even the ones i don't think are *hot* i find attractive.

the men my age? i wanted to introduce myself to all of them... and i was struck by a single fact.

struck.

i should move to italy.

i look just like the women look there except i don't look like them at all. i have their hair and cheekbones and eyes and lips but what i don't have is their sense of style. mine is completely different.

and the thing is? every time i'm in a group of italians i'm a hottie.
.

oh my word.

this is some of the worst officiating i have EVER seen in a world cup football (soccer) match. maybe i should call it calcio (italian word for soccer/football) instead because it's getting very hard to explain that whole thing.

anyway so far approximately half of the calls have been blatantly ridiculous. i mean i understand that they're trying to turn football around and make it less violent but at the same time the guys have to go after the ball. the round ball you hit with your feet.

people are going to trip each other. there's going to be falling. sometimes there will even be injuries.

what's funny is that BOTH teams are doing the total stunned face at the refs when the red cards are getting handed out. i mean i don't think we've played more than thirty seconds without a whistle so far in this half.

and i don't think either team is enjoying the fact that bogus penalties are getting handed out... they can't play, they can't run, they can't try to block they just have to play and not touch each other or the ball.

the coaches look frustrated.

i mean ultimately this is supposed to be a game. there should be some FUN after all.

hah the announcer just perfectly called it "i don't think the referees are watching the same game"

like these guys aren't even calling the offsides correctly. fortunately the referees get evaluated as well so HOPEfully these guys are done for the rest of the tournament.

okay i'm cheering for italy right? but seriously i cannot comprehend how that last goal was offside? ahhh okay. hey check this out you guys? the ref got this one right! another guy was blocking the goalie. wow weird. [obstruction to the goalkeeper]

anyway this has been an exceedingly strange game, the refs get about half of the calls totally right and the other half are utterly fucked. i haven't even finished the paragraph about how he gets one right and he's doing it again.

if this game ends in a draw it's okay actually because it's 1-1 so the goals against scores aren't going to go up with any relevance.

and it did. frankly seems only fair considering the terrible officiating.

that wasn't the direction i expected this post to take that's for sure. i was going to go into a long discussion about ethnic markers and the people that we're innately attracted to. i was going to muse a little about whether it's racist to be attracted to people from your own ethnic neighbourhood.

i was going to wander down some odd pathway in my brain and come out the other side with an excuse to hang out in little italy more! (actually that really is a good idea) not to mention that i was going to look at the idea of dating outside of your comfort zone. of dating the people that don't look anything like you. the ones whose skin isn't quite the right colour to complement yours or whose height is really different.

and i realise that i've mostly done that. i haven't dated a single italian man in my life. oh sorry, except a couple that summer when i was nineteen and staying there. and boy did they like me that summer.

course i've never looked hotter in my life... and yet still i did better in italy than here. i came back looking better than i ever have OR ever will (what? i was NINETEEN and twenty five pounds lighter than i am now, with a massive tan and hair down to my ass. i may be more elegant or well built or have more character now but come on. i look better now than i did then but it's the expression on my face now rather than the body that's winning it) and still the boys here didn't find me nearly as interesting.

i dated one guy that year and he was eleven years older than i was. and the only man after me all year. AND somehow i was the 'res slut' because i was hotter than all the girls in residence. no one ever noticed that i never actually slept anywhere but my own bed until i got a boyfriend that i kept for the rest of the year.

i'm sure tired of being gay. being a slut. being an interim chick. being too hot to date you. being too smart for my looks. being... not enough.

i'm tired of it... and i legitimately suspect that if i go after my own kind (so to speak) i might just do a little better.

and that i even think that makes me feel a little... well... racist.

shapeshifters...

2006-06-16T14:08:00.000-04:00

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it's funny the fallout my scales post has had. people that i talk to in day to day life are referencing it. it seems it's going down as a classic. fair enough, that shit pisses me off and maybe it should be a classic.

*laughs as she imagines some doctor reading it and the comments at a conference*
.

there's this man at the gym, we'll call him salt. yes, you've heard of him before... more than once.

anyway i met him a while back and we exchanged names and chatted and grinned and then his friends noticed and got embarrassingly helpful and then we stopped talking to each other because it was weird.

then i didn't see him for a few months. this was probably good because i was busy being in love with an ex friend who was busy leading me on [i'm not bitter at all *snerk*] and then i was busy recovering.

so a couple of months back i say 'hi salt' and he goes 'hi uhhh climber girl...' with an embarassed smile. and i can't explain really but he actually got points for that.

why?

because he didn't pretend and then go find out. he copped to forgetting my name and looked embarrassed about it. so i go 'i take it from that that you would like me to remind you of my name' or whatever and then we chatted a little.

a couple of days later i see him again and he's all 'hi *sass* how are you today?' and then he used my name like three times in five minutes... and when i commented that i hadn't seen him in ages he said 'that's because you don't climb on dayone and daytwos anymore....'

and i went to myself... hrm interesting, why does he want me to know that?

anyway i pay it no real mind except to notice that every time he sees me after that he takes great pains to use my name at least twice.

then i show up this week on monday to climb away my sorrows after telling the nice man that i couldn't see him anymore and weirdy mcweird salt (while talking to a group which includes a very hot girl) throws his arm in the air and grins really wide and kinda waves.

like he looked surprisingly happy to see me.

and then they leave and he stays and chats for a bit... and then we end up at the other end of the gym together and talking some more.

and i'm starting to think i should invite him out for coffee...

but it's so fucking hard to do that sort of thing especially in a place where you see someone all the time and i can't shake the feeling that if he wanted to ask me out he would have already.

and then i think about those embarrassingly helpful friends and i wonder.

i'm not up for anything like that right now anyway but i do find his continued repeating of my name strangely adorable. i think it's because he's almost turning it into a private joke and not at all minding that i know he forgot my name.

maybe if i see him without his embarrassing friends...

maybe not

... probably not
.

have you ever loved someone helplessly?

known it was totally hopeless and loved them anyway?

what do you do? do you cut them from your life entirely or try and try to transmute your romantic love into sibling love?

it seems to me that no matter what you do in that situation you're fucked.

i haven't ever managed to be friends with someone i felt that way about, but then it's only happened once or twice and in one case i didn't have the balls to do anyhing about it and in the other he was a liar.

i suspect in the second case that if he hadn't been a liar we would still be friends... maybe.

when i was eighteen a man fell hopelessly for me. hopeless because he was twenty years older than i and he knew all along it couldn't happen. and then we were friends for years. like five or six or something and at a couple of points i asked him if i wouldn't be better if we stopped being friends.

if that would be easier for him.

he said no and cried while he said it and thus we stayed friends. and never once did he look at me with anything other than romantic love. and to this day i wonder what would have been kinder, to stay friends with him or to cut him loose ruthlessly. [we lost each other because i moved a lot and eventually 'forgot' to tell him]

he told me that he was a big boy who could take care of himself, but i'm not sure that we're rational in that situation. i'm certainly not.

it just makes me wonder is all...

that first guy i fell for hard that i didn't have the balls to say anything? those feelings did eventually fade as i realised that he and i weren't in fact suited to each other. it's much harder with the second because the person he *seemed* to be was in fact perfection as a match for me.

unfortunately it turns out that he was only a shapeshifter without control.

ahhh shapeshifters. brutal people to know because they turn into whoever you want them to be... and the young ones don't get that they're doing it.

i know this because i am one, it's just that i've learned to harness it and use my powers for good... well better anyway.

happy friday!

scales

2006-06-14T00:21:00.000-04:00

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you know that question?

the one that goes "on a scale of one to ten..."

well that question pisses me the fuck off. like so much.

no, it really does:
x: on a scale of one to ten, how much does it hurt?
s: have you ever been in shitty chronic pain for more than a year? two?
x: what does that have to do with anything?
s: have you ever crawled up the stairs to the bathroom
x: yes
s: while sober?
x: no
s: you don't understand what six is in my world.

and they don't.

i was bleeding out of my urethra (god that's ridiculously fun to say as long as it NEVER fucking happens again) and it hurt so much i made little mewling noises when i peed.

[EVERY.FIVE.MINUTES.!!!!!!]

oh wait you don't get it. i wear bruises with pride, ask anyone.

so yeah, with the mewling noises? i was fucking dying. and they're asking me scale of one to ten.

i can't begin to answer that question without asking what 10 is in their world. and do they mean
acute or long term?
current or ever?
bearable or no?

what?

like elle. elle, i can tell you without ever having met her or spoken to her on the phone, has a pain tolerance that average mortals cannot comprehend. and yes, we still whine about papercuts.

what? human okay?

this rant brought to you by the word relatively in my previous post. the one where i told you about chucking the very nice man. i was thinking about it when i read it again today.

i said that telling someone i'm not into them the right way was relatively unpleasant.

and i got to thinking. what if the worst thing that ever happened to you was that your date stood you up on prom night?
*snerk*
or.. uh
your mom spanked you once cause you stuck your finger in a light socket
or...
*giggling*
you got a D!
or
whatever you get the gist. for you, telling a nice man that you just aren't there is going to be the worst thing ever.

but... if the worst thing that ever happened to you involved the death of an immediate family member or the long slow leaving of an ailing pet or some really oprah worthy and true tales of your childhood ["my parents were on jerry springer. twice together, my mom twice more and my dad just that one other time"] (sorry, i know what really shitty childhood means {know social workers} and my heart goes out to anyone who had one. if you're IN one? call a helpline. no really... as soon as it's safe.)?

then it would be significantly less shitty to do that. like a lot. just because on a scale of one to shitty your shitty meter is really fucking high.

like elle's pain tolerance high. or mine...

now if you get both of those people to describe that same experience one of them would put it at like nine and the other somewhat lower. but it isn't like either of them had a good time.

relatively unpleastant. man i'm a git.

that said? i could tell stories.

i think weight is turning out to be a scale now and not the kind where you weigh yourself. the richer you are the thinner you are. only the super rich can afford to be that thin and still be alive and pretending to look healthy.

i suspect many of them have terrible skin up close... but that the rest are just that odd tiny hipped body type.

"rank the following images in order of wealth..."

*imagines scale with kirstie alley a couple of years ago, [i know nothing of money in hollywood] britney spears now, jennifer aniston and kristen french* you'd probably get it right if you did it by weight.

[notes that she meant kristen johnston rather than french and that nicole kidman would have been a better choice. further notes that she mixed up french saunders and kristen johnston of third rock's names...]

okay britney then would rank higher than britney now...

"on a scale of one to eight, with eight being least dislike and one being most dislike..."

um what?

seriously what are you trying to ascertain? how much i hate the ass reaming you're trying to find out if you can hand me?

'well sir, twenty seven percent of voters eighteen to twenty five were in favour of..."

in favour of what? just exactly what was the question? and who formulated it?

holy shit i just started arguing the quebec referendum!

[hey if you're not canadian. quebec sort of wants to separate, mostly, well a lot but not really and so they keep not voting to separate by like one percent. and last time there was some kind of supreme court of canada (but who recognizes that in separate quebec?) ruling about a clear majority AND a clear question and then they started arguing about who decides it's a clear question and {oy vey!} so on]

i know that those questions are designed to get the answers they need fast and easy. but what are they losing in translation? what did the voters want in quebec that year? i read the question and i don't fucking know.

do they want to know if i can sleep with the pain or if i'll lie awake all night and cry or do they want to know if i can bear to make it until morning?

if i say six what does that mean to you?

slightly spoiled

2006-06-12T23:57:00.000-04:00

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*long sloooooooooooooooooow exhale*

so i did something relatively unpleasant today. i told a very nice man that i just wasn't that into him and i didn't enjoy a second of it. it wasn't that i didn't like him because i did.

it wasn't that i didn't have a good time with him because i had that too.

it wasn't any of the things you're thinking. it was simply the lack of spark. this was made even less pleasant because he felt it and i didn't.

to quote everything nice? 'god damm that one sided spark'

and i am here to tell you that it sucks in either direction but it's assuredly worse when you're the one feeling it. because there isn't anything you can do. it's not like there's some magical way you can convince the object of your affection to like you. all you can really do is wait and hope and try to be awesome.

of course because you're *trying* to be awesome you never succeed.

i had the enviable luck of falling dreadfully badly for someone who claimed to never have felt an iota of spark with me. i say claimed because he either led me on or felt it and then changed his mind. neither of these are awesome and i will never know because honesty was apparently not something i deserved.

in a way i'm glad that i had that experience. if i hadn't i might have been tempted to pull punches and be less honest. okay i'm not exactly glad, the same way no one is glad when anything shitty happens even if it is a learning experience.

still without it i might have been tempted to be kinder. i don't mean that i was mean or anything. it's only that i tried to be as blunt as i could and as fast as i could. just because i'm not feeling sparky is no reason to torture someone else.

he took it with such class that i was actually even a little sadder that i wasn't sparky back.

he would have been an excellent man to date.

so yeah, back to celibacy.

joy.

my day wasn't all bad, my neighbour and i hooked up and made further adventures in the art of making granola. and let me tell you, we're getting better. this one is much better than the last one although we managed to overcook it slightly *again*

err i take that back... now that i try it when it's cooled it's really quite delicious. slightly crispier than i wanted but soooo delicious.

i'm really glad that pile and i have discovered that we like making granola... the cocoa flavoured one makes a fantastically fattening and delicious snack. fuck worrying about fattening, i have maybe five more years where i can eat what i like and i'm SO taking advantage of it.

every woman i know who is of a certain age says that her ability to eat and get away with it disappeared at forty. and i only have five years until then...

mmmmmm granola.

it strikes me as strange that anyone who works out as much as i do will ever have this trouble with eating whatever she likes. it's just that some of the people saying this?

pilates instructors.

yeah.

i'm hoping that adding cardio to my regime will solve that problem. right around forty one i may be able to afford a condo and i'll just have to make sure that it has a pool in it or a community pool VERY close.

this is required. i really miss swimming and there's no convenient pools around here.

perhaps clarity will start going at a time i can go or we'll hook up about it or... yeah must email clarity.

anyway i went to a party this weekend, and i had the interesting experience of being one of the slimmer girls there. okay that's not that weird at non-climbing/pilates parties (at those i'm sort of chubby [and i AM! and i'm really tired of people yelling at me when i say stuff like that. hell, pile was at the conference with me last weekend and he'll tell you i'm kind of chubby in that company. not fat. not out of shape... but kind of chubby]) but i'm still getting used to it.

anyway this one woman took a shine to me and kept touching my hair and telling me how beautiful it was and then she refused to believe that i was my actual age. apparently i look twenty eight instead of thirty four. so i commented that it was because i had gained a lot of weight which had filled up my wrinkles and that they hadn't drained yet.

but don't you worry darlin' i look my age.

so she started yelling at me that i wasn't fat. which i'm not. but i hadn't said that.

i had said that my wrinkles hadn't finished draining fat yet. which they haven't. every month i look about three months older than i did the month before, and i expect this to continue until i look my age.

it's not as though i'm going to get fatter. not with the way i exercise.

but i'm not calling myself or my wrinkles fat. okay i'm calling my wrinkles chubby because although they show up more than they did they're still not here yet... and i can tell.. trust me, they're not done yet.

i can tell mostly because of the comparison with my hands, knees, elbows and feet. they tend to drop weight before my face in my body... and my face tends to drop weight before my ass. it's just how i am.

it's just that it's getting hard to comment on it now. people start thinking that i have anorexic tendencies or something. well no one who has seen me eat but...

so at this party? i ate like four helpings of dinner and half the chips AND a pile of cookies and sweets... but this woman never once saw me eat, and when i was so stuffed i could hardly breathe she started lecturing me to eat.

ah well, victim of her own assumptions that one.

i suppose it's ironic in some ways that she looks older than i do but claims two years less. and her wrinkles ain't skinny either. that said, she is clearly living a hard life, so who am i to comment on her wrinkles.

it's funny that although in any of these cases i don't really feel like i did anything wrong, i am still somehow left with a bit of an unpleasant flavour in my mouth and the sense that had i handled things better it wouldn't be there.

misspent youth

2006-06-09T11:44:00.000-04:00

.
some really hard to comprehend things have been coming at me lately. hugely mixed messages so to speak.

one of my clients thinks that the things that i say in my blog render me unprofessional and that as such no medical professional would refer me clients. i find that really hard to imagine so i'm throwing it out there to my long term readers.

are there things that i regularly or occasionally discuss in my blog that would cause you to think 'hrm no, i don't think i should send her people, she's not professional?'

i'm especially asking those of you who HAVE had trouble because of their blogs and those who have read more than one post.

she was talking specifically about my occasional mention of my own health troubles and/or marijuana use. too much information or some such.

don't get me wrong, i can see her point, but i'm curious what the general perception is. and as to whether i should make my blog more secret...

on a related but totally different note here is a paraphrasing of an actual conversation i had with someone we'll call w for reasons known only to me.
s: yeah i've been in a lot of accidents
w: i'm not surprised with the way you drive
s: the way *i* drive???
w: well yes
s: so you're telling me i'm a bad driver?
w: no i'm not saying that at all
s: but you're saying that you expect me to get in accidents?
w: no, no i'm not.
s: but you just said you aren't suprised that i get in accidents, thus you are clearly *expecting* me to get in one.
w: that's not what i'm saying
s: yes it is, and if that's what you think why do you ever get in a car with me
w: i'm just saying i'm not surprised you've had a lot of accidents
s: so why enter a car with me if you're expecting me to get in an accident?
w: that's not what i said
s: yes it IS, that's a logical fallacy.
w: etc.

the thing here is?

if you truly think i'm an unsafe driver there are two things that are then immediately obvious. the first is that you would NOT enter a car with me. the second is that you would actually tell me you think i'm dangerous and why. thus i could educate myself right?

but no, i'm expected to get in accidents but i'm a good driver but i'm not expected to get in accidents but accidents are unsurprising with the way you drive.

um what?

seriously i cannot comprehend that conversation. so, if you've been in a car with me? am i dangerous? do you expect me to get hit? is there something i do that's particularly unaware and risky?

if you haven't been in a car with me? what do you think anyway? :)
.

okay so i better decide soon if i'm going to pilates on tour in seattle. the ticket has gone up like eighty bucks since i looked last week. i'm sure i can still get a decent deal but decision time is now.

really it all comes down to location, the conference is being held here:

The Westin Bellevue
600 Bellevue Way NE
Bellevue, Washington 98004

and i frankly have no idea where that is or how it relates to anyone i know in seattle. so anyone in the pacific northeast... and by east i mean west do y'all either have floorspace near there OR a recommendation of a hotel nearby that's 80 bucks instead of a hundred and fifty bones per night?

since i have to stay four nights i'd really rather find some valumotel or whatever that's not too far from the bellevue. cause with a special rate of a hundred and fifty clams a night it's too rich for my blood.

please? (i'm happy to take transit or rent a car if need be but i can't really be more than an hour from somewhere i have to be at 8am... although that will be 11am for me which makes things slightly easier.)
.

i've had to make an appointment with the physio again because my little pulled ligament in my spine isn't getting better. funny though because the body around it is getting happier and happier at an almost visible rate.

i can do things after last weekend that i couldn't do a WEEK ago!

i mean my TEACHER was IMPRESSED!

yeah dudes, i wasn't kidding when i said i had a new body after the weekend... and i know that i was right because rr sees it too.
.

so about blogger... do you guys want to stage a mass move?
.

so i went to see ministry and the revolting cocks and pb/dc (pitbull daycare). i shouldn't have gone.

ministry is old now and it's almost a tiny bit sad watching these men who have to be at least forty dancing around to industrial metal. it's actually not as sad as the rolling stones but still. not happy.

the weird thing is that i'm still perfectly happy i went.

they played nwo and thieves and liars and a couple of other old tunes and i got to be wearing a pink camouflage shirt and get looked at funny by all the people who were wearing the ministry uniform (black on black on black).

i think pink camouflage is ironic.

anyway, i did, of course, manage to pick up the only gay guy there *snerk*

weird part? the bands were good in reverse order.

so the headliner sort of sucked and the second billing act (rev-co) wasn't bad and the first band had me dancing along.

yeah, i didn't see that coming either.

i'm glad i went, it was nice to revisit my youth, but it was even nicer to get home and be the middle aged woman i am.

my poor ears y'all... they were ringing so much i had to turn on a fan to drown them out!

:)

real men

2006-06-07T00:26:00.000-04:00

[i started this post some weeks ago]

this man that i'm seeing does the strangest thing...
he tells me he likes me

he's straight up about it and i'm flummoxed.

i keep thinking that he can't be real. i mean that's just not possible, he likes me AND he admits it?? and he's eager to see me all at the same time?

there must be a game.

and then it hits me, how fucked the world actually is.

some man is being straight up with me and i assume he isn't real. i mean imagine that, if all of the honest and sincere people in the world get so burned that they lose the ability to believe in each other? then what happens?

then nobody ever believes anyone?

i mean i'm already getting to that level of cynical so i can't imagine what it must be like for people who get burned more regularly than i do. those people exist for sure because i read their blogs.

i just can't believe that living in this modern age has managed to get a relatively sane woman to look at a man who is by every indication straight forward and honest and doubt his reality. i'm legitimately looking for him to trip up or something and i want to stop it.

i want to just be trusting and innocent and believe him.

i want to believe him the way i believed the last asshole i let anywhere near my heart, or the one before him, or that guy before him too.

i want to have faith in the inherent goodness in people, especially men, and not wonder always when they're going to knife me in the side.

but that is getting harder and harder to do.

maybe buffy was right after all... the hardest thing to do in this world is to live in it.
.

interestingly i started this post before i saw my ex and in rereading it i note that my feelings have changed a little.

either i'm still high from the meeting going so well or on the relief of it all or on my new space or my feelings have changed. for the better.

i'm learning that when the crap left over from tr drained away it took a lot of other stuff that was festering inside of me with it.

i've learned that that stuff had me more closed off than i thought i was.

and it seems that since i saw my ex and since i realised that i wasn't crazy for liking him i'm having a little more faith in my instincts again. i mean just because they are occasionally wrong is no reason to think that they're always wrong and it was hella helpful to re-meet tr and see why i went out with him in the first place.

[the above was written RIGHT after i saw my ex]

he's actually fucking awesome. of COURSE i went out with him. he was the catnip ...
.

that doesn't make me any more trusting though. i think i've finally hit the one too many times line. the one where you can't

[oh fuck i'm dead. peanut butter chocolate is available pre-packed now. so it's CHEAPER and 2 for 12 bucks.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

*clears throat*

*looks innocent*

*slurps*]

get past it anymore. the one where there's this little barrier that thinks it really is easier to be single. after all then you don't have to open yourself up or trust anyone or let anyone in.

and don't fucking tell me that it's the same as making friends. cause it ain't. don't even think about going there.

making friends is easy. you're not fucking them (shut up you know what i mean) [and if you fuck them emotionally you were never their friend... so] and you aren't telling them the things you care about in an effort to get to know them better.

and if you are it's not the same.

you're opening up but you aren't also getting physically involved. which is probably easier for people who tend to boink on the first date.

so, somehow with friends it's not the same. there's less of the jigsaw puzzle somehow. you're not trying so much to fit. you're not really wondering if the other person is actually who they say they are.

you figure they wouldn't bother since y'all are just friends.

you wait for the other shoe to drop.

but here's the thing, when do you *stop* waiting for the other shoe? do you ever? i mean there are people splitting up that have been together for forty years.

forty.years.

so you don't ever stop waiting right? you always assume a little that the other shoe will drop. except then you have to wonder if you're a self fulfilling prophecy or something. after all, they say you bring on what you ask for. hell i got the one std i was afraid of.

interesting isn't it?

if you trust them then you're foolish for trusting.

if you don't, you can't get anywhere.

if you put up a bunch of walls and expect them to fuck it up? they can't really help it can they?

i mean it's called a self-fulfilling prophecy for a reason.

i was tempted to cheat once. on a guy who assumed he wasn't worth loving and that thus i would cheat on him. he didn't trust himself so he didn't trust me. he was so sure that i was going to cheat on him that i started to believe it too.

so what does the above dilemma say about me?

*pauses for thought*

no seriously, what does it say?

old habits...

2006-06-05T21:08:00.000-04:00

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holy holy.

i have a new body.

no i'm serious. i just threw it enthusiastically into a pool of the best teachers ever and came out someone new. i've learned a million and one new things and at least three quarters of them are beyond words.

i don't move the same way as i did on friday morning.

and? !!!

my teacher and i got a lovely compliment. kathy corey (who is an excellent teacher and i must take more classes with her) and i got to talking and i asked her about a client who had no pelvic floor after childbirth (i have several) and not much sex drive (more than one) and what she would do about it.

so she told me and then [we were at the friday night cocktail party] suggested i find her over the weekend and she would take me through it. so i did.

oh my word. stomach massage. an exercise i never once got the point of. it made no sense to me whatsoever. why? who cared? so she taught me two reps. and one leaning on a table thingy where i did maybe three reps for prep. (trust me i remember it well also)

TWO reps.

and i was covered in sweat and high for twenty minutes.

twenty minutes you guys! can you imagine? i admit those two reps took a minute, but not many. and damm did i feel some new spots.

TWO REPS!!!!!

anyway kathy goes 'beautiful' or 'very nice' a couple of times (with her hands on my body) and i go 'yeah, i'm blessed in my teacher' and she goes 'you are!' ... so i'll have to tell rr that one.

i took mat classes with alan herdman, elizabeth larkam and kathy corey and workshops with alan and marie jose blom lawrence.

i wished i could have taken workshops and classes with them all but i need anatomy and deep theory before i need more moves. i don't even know the whole repertoire yet [in other words not capable of doing some of it still], but i do like learning new ways to play in my body.

my hips feel like someone elses hips and have a decidedly more balanced sway, my ribcage and breath are functioning differently and it feels like more deeply and i think i'm closer to the plumb alignment then i was. and good god my feet. what they learned about themselves!

it's funny, some of it went into my body even though i don't remember it and other bits are lodged in my brain... the rest is in my notes. which i'm going to read. (now or never)
.

yeah so i didn't touch my notes. i read 'digital fortress' by dan brown instead. it's okay, no da vinci or robert langdon and a little less mayhem. i liked it better than da vinci code and about equally with angels and demons. that said? the guy is a hack.

i woke up today and i was so tired. my brain is staring at things and having trouble speaking. it certainly wasn't a good day for a job interview so it's good that i didn't have one. what i did have was a meeting with some people who don't pay their teachers although they do have a very fair split with them.

if you're good and your classes are full you can make a killing doing this. if you aren't? not so much. the thing is it sounds like a lot of work. she's busy telling me that they'll do all the marketing for me and that they'll work around my schedule and the more i thought about it the less i wanted to do it.

it's not in my end of town and the studio is in a basement without windows. they have a lovely floor but it doesn't have much feng shui so to speak and it's quite chill. i don't know i just didn't feel like it was my place to be. which is strange right because i really liked the people.

it's also possible that i'm so tired from the weekend that nothing is going to get my attention today so i'm not making any rash decisions. there was one funny aftereffect that i really was not expecting though. i couldn't teach today. well not couldn't exactly, i mean i did fully teach after all, it's just that i was discombobulated and disorganized.

which is fair, i talked to a fellow teacher and she said that she didn't know how i did it and that after ONE day she was finished. i was too, it's just that i was still hungry. hungry the way you are when you're at the best buffet in the world. you've eaten your fill but you have to go back just one more time... for just that one more little tidbit of wonderfulness.

and that's really what the weekend was like. the buffet was filled with so many wonderful dishes and tastes and flavours and even though i ate everything i could i failed to even sample at least half of what was on the table.

there were legendary teachers and teachers who will soon be legends and somehow i didn't even hear a word from half of them (okay other than hello when we were introduced) and still i'm overstuffed with wonderful information.

really the major tragedy of my life right now is that i have to get up at seven am tomorrow and my insomnia has kicked in again hard core. i'm tossing and i'm turning and i think it's the fucking drugs for the uti but i might be making that up.

in fact i can't swear that i haven't been having trouble sleeping since before then but it's hard to tell because things keep waking me up. i guess it's a chicken and egg problem. i can't sleep so then i finally sleep but lightly and then someone yells outside and i'm awake and more exhausted and then i can't sleep even more and and and.

and of course once you get overtired it's worse.

this weekend was particularly funny because i couldn't turn my brain off at all and none of my old sleep tricks helped in the slightest. ahhh i was so cocky thinking that my sleep troubles were behind me. i guess that's what rampant excitement and an overstuffed brain do to an insomniac...

ahhh illusions :)

overstuffed

2006-06-03T20:11:00.000-04:00

.
you know that feeling that you get after excellent sex? [or excellent masturbation] where you're all exhausted but totally fucking happy at the same time? and if you're a woman or a lucky man? there was probably more than one orgasm.

i feel like that right now.

and since y'all know that i was bleeding from my urethra on wednesday morning you can imagine that it wasn't sex. cause frankly the idea of touching or being touched anywhere NEAR there?

OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

anyway from this you must gather that i am not discussing orgasm. well at least not one that involves the genitals *grin*

*brief pause for dirty thoughts*
*(wonders why such thoughts are 'dirty'*

i am in fact experiencing post conference bliss. in fact? i don't even have words for how much fun i'm having [or how full my brain is]. all of the people involved in this shindig are wonderful and happy people who are living the best lives they can imagine. don't get me wrong, i'm certain that they consider it work but at the same time? they're clearly loving it.

marie jose blom lawrence was on the menu today (and tomorrow). she is a wonderful lady who became a stewardess so that she could take classes from all the teachers and fly for free. sheer genius i tell you. course she's been teaching full time for years now.

yesterday was alan herdman and he. well. i have to move to england.

no seriously i have to find a way to spend a year in London studying under him. that i've certified already? that i have no money and a thriving practise?

DOES NOT MATTER!

well of course it does. so i would have to do it like over the course of six summers or some crap like that but i don't care? i want to follow him around and sit at his feet and just. oh my god.

marie jose did that to me last year, and to a certain extent this year but i have EU citizenship and i don't have rights in the usa. so i'll take london thankyouverymuch.

for now i just want to get to seattle but there is no way i can swing airfare AND tuition let alone a hotel room. damm those workshops sound mindblowing and i'm a greedy bitch. some of these teachers are *old* now and must be studied with while they're still teaching. Already there are only like six people left in the world that still teach and actually studied with Joe.

[my picks to take if a trip to seattle magically appears]
[Mary Bowen - Pilates and Psyche ]
[Mary Bowen - The Spine ]
[Alan Herdman - Progressing to the Advanced Work ]

MUST!

oh i wish i had a million dollars sometimes. then i would take a few of years and go train with alan and marie jose and kathy corey and anyone else i feel like that i haven't met yet and don't know about. and then i'll go see if
elizabeth larkam will let me dance with her and then?

then i'll open a studio and fix broken people forever. :)

ahhh that sounds like such bliss. really learning first instead of this winging it and trusting my gut shit that i do now. i mean it's a good gut but there's a lot of information it doesn't have and i'm afraid it only has a surface understanding of what it's looking at.

and the good teachers? they all trust their guts, they just have a lot more information to feed to theirs.

i've noticed something about teachers that i respect, they all have three key traits in common.

all of them have a thirst for learning which keeps them out there asking questions and learning from each other and being curious at all times. okay probably not when they're walking the dog.

all of them would love to answer any question you can throw at them, the tougher the better. and the longer you give them the more they'll answer it. they'll offer to show you without expecting you to pay them (within reason) and they will expound.

all of them never stop teaching. they want to share everything they know with you and they just wish that they had more time to do it in.

i think i might be like that a little. i don't know if i'm at their level, i'm lazy and a climber and a blogger and i hate reading textbooks but i have the second two for sure.

hmmm i think i've thought of a fourth trait. they are creative and willing to admit that they don't know. that's five? the first three are the big ones.

i know a lot of really excellent teachers who stopped learning a long time ago and think that they know everything. they won't be legends like these people are. it's impossible. but better than that?

when i see someone like alan herdman thinking about a question or learning something from marie jose or whatever? i see that i've found a calling that involves lifelong learning *and* it reinforces how little *i* know.

i hope there are always teachers like that around to learn from, in fact i think i study from one of the next generation now.

ah !

*little dance*

i'm inspired!

and so tired i'm eating leftovers and passing out!

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

Sass Inak came to Pilates by way of a car accident and by the time she met her Teacher her once fit body was overweight, shuffling and occasionally crawling up the stairs. By her third lesson she knew she had found her calling and has enthusiastically pursued further knowledge and experience ever since. Sass tends to specialise in 'broken' bodies but equally enjoys teaching groups and fit people. [She certified through Body Harmonics/The PhysicalMind Institute and continues her studies at Mind the Body and by taking workshops from legendary teachers]

how's that for a bio? and :
for a pic? [new job part time maybe... at a wellness centre :)]

homeless cats

2006-06-02T01:59:00.000-04:00

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i can't sleep and my fingers are twitching.

interestingly i'm spending the weekend at a conference here in toronto called pilates on tour. i'm fucking stoked because i've just recovered from paying for it and that means that i can afford to buy a couple of toys when i'm there.

they're effectively half price due to the lack of tax and shipping.

so yeah.

things are perking up in the finance department a little AND i got a serious offer today. this client who has a finger in a lot of pies told me that when i'm ready to get my loft if i can't get financing he can get it for me or introduce me to some people etc. this is excellent because it's hard to get money when you're self employed.

i'm feeling kinda blessed.
.

these cats need a home. they're from toronto:

Slim & Shady:
.2 beautiful black cats need a home, brothers, 3 years old
.we've had them since 5 weeks.
.love to curl up together, super affectionate, snuggle up with you on your lap and always want lots of love! if you have your back to them, they will reach out their little fuzzy paws to get your attention. they love each other and don't want to be seperated.

.both are fixed
.They are healthy and happy, but need to be the only cats in a home
.We will leave you with a litter box, carry case and lots of food.

Please forward this message to anyone who may be interested or call us to find out more

*i* am not putting their number on the net. email me for it.

why would anyone chuck a pair of cats ? ahh probably moving to singapore or something.
.

that wasn't a dis, they have a quarantine there like the brits.
.

bleeding from your urethra sucks ass. fortunately the drugs work fast.
.

i had an interesting experience today.

i was in a car with a couple of friends and this guy drove around us slightly erratically and one of them dissed him and then the other did and then i said something positive about him. like they made up nasty stories about why he was driving erratically and i twisted it into a nice story.

and i got a little bit teased about it and informed that being negative was more fun.

but it's not.

right?
.

that's it you guys my eyes are closing so here's something out of the random file:

:)

don't forget i was illin in that pic :)

oh fuck 5 hours now... *sigh* dreaming of sleep

and othercat, hubris and i:

night!

languid

2006-05-29T19:52:00.000-04:00

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is there anything nicer than waking up at noon stark naked and then staying that way all day?

yes, and that's doing it when it's thirty three degrees outside and everyone is at work, there's beautiful light in my apartment and even my cats are lolling around.

wait it gets better.

'mute is on the way over with pakistani food so i don't even have to cook.

i know!

i will have to enter the outside world at some point today though since i have to teach at six pm and then mg and i are going climbing. that may not last because she has asthma and there's a smog alert today, she'll be happy to hear that's it's cooling off steadily the rest of the week.

oh man you guys, i even hear a lawnmower.

ahhhhhh bliss.
.

seriously the lawnmower is so soothing that i keep finding myself staring into space and not typing.

*laughs*

*contemplates brushing teeth*

*stares into space*

*eats some fantastic chocolate that DM left here for sharing*

*doesn't bother looking guilty*
.

today is the first day that it feels like summer inside my apartment. i think it's why i'm so enjoying it. i have no clothes on and no coverings and the air and my skin are the exact same temperature. there is, in fact, no discernible difference.

soon days like today will seem cool because i won't be sweating. i won't be panting slightly and overheated and i'll feel a little cold because of it. oh man i love summer.

you just feel so sensual all the time. your skin is exposed to the breeze and the sun and even the rain. your feet are bare and much more likely to squish in the mud or wander through the grass.

and because you're wandering around wearing as little as you can conceivably get away with this wonderful thing happens called a TAN. yes kids i said it. a tan.

i know that they cause cancer but i am pretty sure that it's sun burns that cause cancer and excessive exposure to the sun whereas slow exposure causes vitamin D. i don't think that getting gradually brazilian over the course of the summer is bad for you at all. and yes, i tan that colour.

the one that several women who have known me hate me for. that golden glowing brazilian colour. i know that it's actually the italian in me but people tend to picture much browner than i mean if i say that. i'm much less dark and much more bronze. or something. man i cannot figure out how to put that into words.

so sure, tans are bad for you but at the same time? they're wonderful for you. i guess it's that moderation thing again. i'm a little biased since i look prettier with a tan. i have friends that are the opposite though and that's cool too. someone needs to be the hottie in the winter and i'm too busy trying not to kill myself in february for it to be me.
.

i love that i walked out of work and into an outside that was warmer than the inside.

i love that everyone is wearing sandals

i love that the people smiling are also the ones moving slooooowly.

my sister learned that from the people in washington DC. she noticed that all the people from northern climes were trying to rush and rush everywhere in their suits and that they looked miserable all summer. she further noticed that the people from the southern climes? they had their hips a little forward and they were sauntering down the roads. and not only were they sauntering but they were wearing loose and flowing clothing and they were clearly not trying to hurry.

it seems like the right attitude to me.

once a year the world tells your body to slow down and get sensual. it seems to me you should listen to it.
.

and since everybody's doing it and my post is done early (bold means it's true):
I’ve Never French-Kissed A Member Of The Opposite Sex.
I’ve Never French-Kissed A Member Of The Same Sex.
I've Never Had Sex With A Member Of The Opposite Sex.
I've Never Had Sex With A Member Of The Same Sex.
I’ve Never Had A Three-Some.
I’ve Never Been In Love.
I’ve Never Had Sex In A Public Place.
I’ve Never Had Group Intercourse.
I’ve Never Been Spanked.
I’ve Never Been Tied Up.
I’ve Never Regretted Having Sex With Someone.
I’ve Never Made Out With A Stranger.
I’ve Never Gone On A Blind Date.
I’ve Never Had A Crush On A Teacher or Professor.
I’ve Never Slept With A Co-Worker.
I’ve Never Had Sex At The Office. (does masturbation count?)
I’ve Never Been Married.
I’ve Never Been Divorced.
I’ve Never Had Sex With More Than One Person Within The Same Week.
I’ve Never Posed Nude.
I've Never Watched Porn.
I’ve Never Gotten Someone Drunk Just To Have Sex With Them.
I’ve Never Received Scars From My Sex Partner.
I’ve Never Had Sex At A Friend’s House While They Were Throwing A Party.
I’ve Never Had Sex In A Dressing Room.
I’ve Never Flashed Anyone.
I’ve Never Met Anyone From Online.
I've Never Cheated On My Significant Other.
I've Never Masturbated.
I've Never Used A Sex Toy On Myself.
I've Never Used A Sex Toy On Someone Else.
I've Never Danced On A Table Or Bar.
I've Never Strip-Teased For Anyone.
I've Never Received A Rim Job.
I've Never Given A Rim Job.
I've Never Received A Hand Job.
I've Never Given A Hand Job.
I've Never Had Sex In A Hammock.
I've Never Performed Oral Sex.
I've Never Received Oral Sex.
I've Never Had Anal Sex.
I've Never Had Sex involving a strapon.
I've Never Given/Received A Golden Shower. (AND NEVER WILL!!!!)
I've Never Had Sex With Someone While Fantasizing About Having Sex With Someone Else.
I've Never Had A Sex Dream.
I've Never Had An Orgasm By Myself.
I've Never Had An Orgasm With/By Someone Else.
I've Never Had Phone Sex.
I've Never Had Cyber Sex.
I've Never Role-Played.
I've Never Played Strip Poker