retraction

OK, alright, I'm sorry.
I promise not to poke any of you in the eye.
We good? We good.

This is going to be short... but here it is. I like Canada most of the time. I like the socialized health care, I like the people. But sometimes, like today, when shit like this happens, I think it's a bit too squishy here.
Carla Homolka is the devil incarnate, and now she walks amoung us, and is free to contact the families of her victims and her boyfriend. She spent 12 years in prison, and walked out with a degree, a new name, a new haircut and French fluency. She lives in Montreal. She could live next door to me. And she is no longer to tell anyone where she is, where she works, or what she's doing.

Today is one of the days I'm glad I don't have kids.

OK, people.

You listen. And you listen good. Got it?

Stop fucking around with each others' hearts and emotions. It pisses me off, and I'm not going to stand for it anymore. I am hereby the Heartbreak Avenger. All those that have been wronged by love will now fall victim to my razor-sharp... chopping thing. I will chop on behalf of the wronged, and boy. Will you ever regret it.

what a drag

I'm starting to thing these hiatuses (hiatusi? hiati?) from blogland are good for me think-bucket.

Last week took the wind out of me like a giant... wind-sucking... thing. Friday nights are supposed to be the release from the week, but I stumbled home and passed out on the couch. For four hours. A truckload of shit got dumped on an itty-bitty fan at work, so I've been spending most of the last two weeks in galoshes, up to my armpits in feces, with nothing more to get through it than a busted plastic shovel. But I will persevere, I swear.
I dragged myself, whining and moaning, to a party on Friday night. The whole way there, I thought "I don't want to go. I want to go to bed. I want to watch a movie, drink some tea, and go to bed. This sucks. I'm cold. Whine, whine, whine." But I went, and I'm glad I went. I had fun, I met some new people. Some slap-and-tickle people. What, did I just say that? You... didn't read that. Anyway, I partied with my namesake and her new beau (which is creepy, now that I think about it, because that's my brother's name), in her building-block coloured apartment. Very child-friendly. I told her I was going to get her some dark and dreary artwork to tone the place down a notch. I managed to find some Boris at a depanneur around the corner. Boris is a great beer. It's itty-bitty, so you feel like a beer-guzzlin giant when you drink it. Also, it comes with an extensive story about "Boris the rebel." I googled to no avail to find an official website. This is sad.
Nonetheless, Boris. Yes. You can have six and wake up with no hangover. People may think you have giant man-hands. I don't have giant man-hands, but if you are a dainty-digited guy, this is the beer for you. It's half-decent swill, but I don't think I'd be as into it if it came with less of a story.
I slept on Saturday. If sleeping were my job, I'd be making time and a half for this weekend. I was awakened by my Tazmanian Devil of a roommate, who swirled in, grlabhalrlrrraaaa... the-landlord-is-on-her-way! We have been waging war against the landlord, due to the fact it was -10 for a week and we had no heat. Unacceptable, lady. Anyway, she was spitting mad that we had taken it upon ourselves to reduce our rent by 50% for the inconvenience and the added cost of running space heaters. So she came over with her mother, father, and the fix-it guy.... all Greek. So I went from being curled up and cozy in my nice warm bed (which is about my most favouritest place in the world) to being pin-balled around by a collesiums-worth of people, all screaming at each other in Greek. The mother was hysterical; complete with coke-bottle glasses, greasy hair, and a hairy mole. Apparantly she likes us. I'd never have guessed it. The daughter, who does all the talking (she's the only one who speaks English), told us that while we were in the kitchen, looking at the busted tiles on the floor, she was puttering around in the living room, looking at a paint blob or something, yellng "fix this! They're nice girls! Fix this!" To the non-Greek ear, though, it sounded like "what the hell is this? Evict them! Ungrateful wenches! And they have a barbecue, too!"
I finally managed to drag myself out of the apartment and into the 21st century yesterday to buy a DVD player. Got to the store five minutes before close (huzzah!), and I am now the proud owner of a cheapass DVD player (pre-opened box, woot) and one DVD. Madagascar. Hells yes, I like kids movies.

Bitches.

Saturday, I decided, was a good day to skip showering. I showered twice on Friday, and didn't really have any plans. Bad freaking call. Of course the one day all week that I'm dressed like... well, me, and not some decent member of society, is the day I get bodily dragged out to a drag club (unintentional innuendo), which, as we all know, is the epitome of fabulousness. I had the least makeup (ie, none) in the place. As always, drag is good fun, but I felt really uncomfortable. No, not because of the drag thing. I love drag. Those ladies are more women than I'll ever be. It's the fact that it's a seriously militant French crowd. I was there with an entirely Francophone group, and my friend knows all the drag queens for some reason, so I was being presented to many 6' women in heels... in French. I did meet the drag queen that moved to Montreal from "New York," but let me tell ya. That was no NY accent. But, I suppose when you're a 6'4" ballet dancer, you high-tail it the hell out of somewhere like Alabama.
That brings me to my question. This 6'4" drag queen was clearly a trained dancer, and put on one HELL of a show. But, although my knowledge of ballet is limited, I was pretty sure that men don't dance en pointe. Do they? I did some research, and apparantly they do, albeit very rarely. And shit, she was up on her toes for almost an entire song. I didn't know they made size 13 pointe shoes. Anyway, she was fantastic.
There was one hilarious act with a grandma-looking drag queen singing "what the world needs is love." She'd put squeeze-bags of water in her bra, and hooked them up to her horn-rimmed glasses. When she got really into the song, she'd squeeze a boob and "tears" would shoot all over the audience. After about half of the song, one of her reservoirs broke, soaking her front, and leaving her... well, one boob shy. Then, when she got really into the song, she violently flipped her head, sending her wig skittering across the stage.

It was awesome.

Anyway, next time I go to Mado, I will wear heels (so I can see the stage over the vertically-advantaged and heel-clad crowd).

It's been in my head, though, how uncomfortable I am in my own skin. I don't know what my hangup is, but it's there, lurking. I've always said, "I'm always most comfortable when I'm uncomfortable." That's not the way it should be. I don't want to harp on and on about this, but I've got to start dealing.

mindfuck

Too much going on to process. I'm going to take a nap. Then, maybe.

Note to self, stop referring to customers as "those bastards."

no words

I came home today. I checked my email. I found this.

Hi
I'm sorry for the mass e-mail, I just don't know of any other way to do this
right now.
On October 25 my sister's heart stopped while whe was at home watching tv. she was 34 (her 35th birthday was yesterday) The funeral was on the 31st and I've been back in Montreal since the second week of November. I wanted to let you all know because you're people who I care about and who are important in my life. You don't have to respond to this e-mail, or ignore that but I'm sorry if you haven't heard from me in a while, that this is the first news I've sent.
All of you take care.

I can't think of anything to say about this beyond how deeply sad it is.

bang bang scribble scribble dummy

... that's what Little Brother called my uncle, in a fit of rage, when he was about 5.

It's still a great insult.

lava flow

I came home to discover that an animal can, in fact, produce almost its entire body weight in shit. I bet you didn't know that. It's news to me.
I also discovered that something the size of a large (VERY large) loaf of bread can be as annoying as a pack of 10-year-olds hopped up on Pixi Stix.
I also discovered at least 10 new ways to murder the cat. The laundry machine and the frying pan honestly never crossed my mind. Thanks, J*.

My roommate is gone for a few days, so I have taken it upon myself to trash the apartment. There are dishes in the sink, an un-put-away ironing board, a pile of dirty bike clothes (and a dirty bike) in the hall. I'm a slob. I am. I can't get away from it. Women are supposed to be neat and tidy. Women are supposed to nest. I nest by buying bikes and making piles of greasy tools, not putting my pasta in brightly-coloured jars in the window. My projects entail tip-to-tail cleanings of my frame and drive train, not washing the floors and re-potting the plants. I'm a nightmare rommate. I've gotten better at doing my dishes every day and keeping my mess (my dad used to call it the "lava flow") in my room. But at heart, I'm still a slob. And I've realized, it's possible that I may never change. I wonder if people are actually capable of changing. I'm OK with being a slob. I can learn to control it. At least to the point where I can co-habitate with regular people.

Theoretically.

I've started a turnaround of sorts. I ironed shirts on Sunday night. I. Me. Ironed shirts. What the hell is that? I looked at them today and decided that I thoroughly suck at ironing. I did everything but actually burn the iron-shaped charred square into them.
I, of course, counteract these moments of sanity and dabbling minutes in the "civilized" world by being a complete and total idiot. Maybe I dress like a pro. But damn, son, I am not normal.

well worth the dig

I got my act together and took Jake for a spin today. Jake is sexy. Jake is lean and fast and feels like a million bucks under me.
I love Jake.
My roommate, on a whim, decided to fly to Vancouver and drive back. In four days. This is, of course, utter insanity, but insane is the new black these days. So she has left me with Shitty Kitty, who is whining and moaning like there's no tomorrow. Against all my moral fiber, I tried to pet her, largely to make her shut up, but to no avail.

A friend of mine is going through a nasty kinda-sorta breakup. I hate seeing people I care about going through hurt and pain, and there's nothing else I can do. It sucks. It is not fun. I feel powerless.

I guess I don't have much to say these days. These last few entries have been the pinnacle of suck. I told my friend tonight that sleep cures everything, except for necrophilia. I ment narcolepsy. Glad I don't suffer from the first one. It just be ick. It makes me think of that scene in Quills, though, where Kate Winslet is reading the Marquis de Sade's stories, that he has written in wine on his sheets. She's reading to the laundry woman, who is blind from the lye, about a man who used to unearth corpses for, er, his pleasure. After unearthing one particular woman, he awarded her the highest compliment he awarded any woman, "well worth the dig!" Then Kate Winslet and the laundry lady dissolve into laughter. I read a collection of the Marquis' stories a few years ago; it's amazing to read these stories that were horrifically scandalous in one time period, and not even mildly shocking by today's standards. It makes me wonder about my generation's kids. If our parents are shocked by the popstars and celebrities of today... I wonder if we're going to have a complete recession into Laura Ashley and pink, or if there are going to be more wardrobe malfunctions than you can shake a stick at in upcoming years.
What am I getting at? It's way past my bedtime.

I'm having one of those nights. Where your mind is swirling and whirling. I've thought about maybe four different things I could write about, but none of them are... well, I just can't get it together.

Been a while since I had one of these nights. Wonder when I'll fall asleep.

car bad.

I'm a blog abandoner. I have jumped ship, no lifejacket, and now I'm bobbing around in the cold and dark, looking back at the lights and the laughter and thinking, "boy, I'd really like a Rum Collins about now."

So much to say. So many thoughts in my head. Sensory overload at new job. It's Thursday and I've already put in well over my required 40 hours and skipped two lunches this week. For the record, I ate, just at my desk. While yakking on the phone with people all over the world about some stupid problem that accidentally got delegated to me and now is hugely high-profile and is costing millions of dollars. Millions. Holy shizzle. Anyway, because this thing accidentally got delegated to me, people keep trying to take over and I'm having to fight to maintain control. I know that if I manage this and myself well it'll be a bit of a catapult for me. If I fuck up, well... I'd better not fuck up.

Life on the outside is turning into this big squeeze of trying to have meaningful relationships with the handful of people I still see and give a flying rats ass about. Chaos.

As promised, but highly summarized, here is the synopsis of my disasterous drive to Boston.

• Was planning to leave at 4. Actually walked out the door of the office at 7.
• Drove the opposite way I was planning on going to pick up a friend who was supposed to join me. When I met up with him, we realized it wasn't going to work out; ie, I was in no way willing to leave at 7am on Sunday. No way, no how. Nuh-uh.
• Actually got on the road at 8. A full 4 hours late.
• Missed my exit switching highways. Added about 5 minutes, no big deal.
• Drove down to and across the border with no real holdups.
• After crossing into Vermont (ie The Land of Crap) and losing radio, I decide to listen to music on my new iTrip (car connector for my ipod). It doesn't work. I have no CD's. The rest of the trip can be set to me hitting "scan" on the radio and alternating between uber-christian shite and country.
• I pull off four times to look for a gas station and a restroom. I don't find one that's open and end up peeing in a yard behind an ATM. Peeing outside is all fine and good when you're camping, but when it's below freezing and you're driving? Uncool.
• Roundabouts White River Junction (halfway point) I pull off to try and find some dinner (10:30pm or so). I don't. I do, however, manage to get back on the WRONG highway and drive a full half hour before realizing it.
• Turn around at the World's Surliest Gas Station and get back on track. Scream and curse at the White River Juncation signs when I reach them again.
• Drive for another half hour and realize I am entirely too tired to be on the road. I am a hazard to myself and others. Pull off at a Comfort Inn.
• Discover that, ironically to my given name, there is no room at the Inn.
• Burst out crying like the total psycho I am.
• Ask where the nearest hotel is.
• Am told it is an hour away. The wrong direction.
• Decide to continue on to Boston, come hell or high water.
• The radio is still scanning Christian-Country-Christian-Country.
• About 1:30am, I'm alone on the road, swerving all over the place, fighting like hell to stay alert. Literally, I should NOT have been on the road. If I'd seen me, I'd have pulled me over for drunk driving.
• Eventually get into Boston, haggared and shaking, at 3:30am.

In the end, it was all worth it. I had a great time, although I didn't get to see the Ansel Adams exhibit. I bloody love Ansel Adams. His work truly inspires me. It's cliche and I know I should like someone obscure, but the reason I ever picked up a camera was Ansel Adams. My grandfater really liked him, too. I think we would have bonded over that if he were still around.

Anyway, bed.

I guess I'm joining the ranks of those "on a break." I want to write stuff, I write it in my head, but I've been working 10+ hour days and trying to maintain some semblance of a life. So tappity-tapping away is slip-sliding further down the priority list.

Anyway, I promise a good story about my debacle trying to get to Boston this weekend the next time I have a minute.

To tide you over....
Apparantly this is a true story. A guy was out in a pumpkin field, gettin' his, well... gourd on. The cops showed up and arrested him, as is the tradition. When they asked him why on earth he was getting down and dirty (so to speak) with a pumpkin, he said "what, is it midnight already?"

Fuck you, Vermont. Especially White River Junction.

And while we're at it, fuck you, too, New Hampshire.

More on that later.

bridges

I like to equate all engineering things to bridges. I like them. They serve a purpose. They get people and their cars from one side of the river to the other. Everyone understands bridges. They're not that hard to understand.

With that analogy in mind, here is what's going on at le Job lately.

Say you build a bridge. You build it to be the best, strongest bridge ever made. Sure, you know that it's going to need some regular maintenance. The asphalt will eventually crack, the cement will have to be checked, some of the I-beams may have to be replaced. But damn, son, did you build a fine bridge.
Thirty years later, you get a call. "Heya thar, we seem to have a bit of an issue. You know that bridge? Well, hardly anyone uses it anymore, but once a year there's a great big party out there, so it's rush hour level traffic. And there are a handful of old ladies who like to take a drive into the country now and then, so it's got to be safe if they decide to go over the river and through the woods, as it were. Well, we were looking at that bridge the other day, and we noticed something funny. One of those cement pilings, that needs to be able to support highway traffic, seems to be made out of wood. We're not really sure why there's one wood piling, but there is. The guy who decided to use wood is now dead, and all his records were so old we didn't bother to add them into our system when he retired. Also, we don't have the ability to cut down trees or strip the branches off them any more. Beyond that, we're not really sure what kind of wood it is or when it was substituted, so we don't know how old it is or if it's rotting. We'd go and talk to a guy who used to put wood pilings in bridges, but we screwed him over a few years ago by forcing him to go into the dot-com wold, because we said that would be good for his relations with us. But that went bust and now he's mad at us, and won't take our calls. We think we might have an issue."
So you gather all your bridge experts into a cramped, sweaty room, and they all have something to say.
Bridge guy #1 says "hey, it may look like a wood piling, but there is no solid evidence that it actually is wood. Unless you can prove to me that it's wood, I'm going to regard it as brown, leafy cement."
Bridge guy #2 says "yeah, OK, it's wood, but we don't have any evidence that wood can't fulfill this capacity. Until the bridge falls over, there's really no cause for concern."
Bridge guy #3 says "I'm not convinced anyone will actually drive over the bridge."
Bridge guy #4 says "Well, unless we buy a whole forest, or discontinue the use of bridges in general, our hands are pretty much tied."
Bridge guy #5 says "We definately have an issue here, but there's no need to alarm that carful of grandmas. Plus, the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh, so if something goes wrong, it's really the horse's fault."
And so on and so forth, each and every one of thirteen bridge guys says what they think.

Meanwhile, grandma is driving over the river on something that is made out of wood.

Ah, engineers. Good thing the Iron Ring ceremony clarifies that we are "familiar with the perversity of inanimate objects" (oh, I only wish I was making that up). Going to Boston for the weekend. Take care, kids.

the way things went

how was my day?

Just fine, thanks. And yours?

(This new job rules, even if I do have to stand behind the fan)

mass exodus

Everyone seems to be tapering off in the posting these days. Me too. It's tough to make myself sit in front of my doopid 'pooter, when I sit in front of a doopid 'pooter for a living. Anyway, that said, I'm still steamed about my pirate joke being stolen. So I'm going to stew in my bad mood for another day.

yar.

what the... and... but I... HEY!

I was going to write a post about the lovely ride I had on Jake today, but J*'s comment gave me such thorough heebie-jeebies that I may just keep my thoughts to myself.
As much as it pains me to admit it, I don't think I'll be commuting by bike to work any time soon... it's just a bit too cold. I prefer to start the day off with a warm cup of joe rather than by losing a toe.
I had a very blurry weekend. Dinner (and a bottle of wine) on Friday, a friend's birthday on Saturday. These days I'm wiped out by about midnight. I'm such an old fart! One of these days I really need to kick it old-school and go rage until 4am. Or, perhaps, I can just knit myself an afghan and call it a night. Saturday night I had a very upsetting experience. I'll start by telling you my all-time, hands-down favourite joke.
So, this pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel shoved down his pants. The bartender takes one look at him and says, "hey, buddy, what's with the steering wheel in your pants?" The pirate looks at him and says, "yaar, I don't know, but she's drivin' me nuts."
This is MY joke.

mine.

And on Saturday, we're all sitting around this smoky bar, and this... this guy busts out the pirate joke. My pirate joke. So I, understandably, get very upset. Of course, everyone thinks this is funny, haha, two people have the same trademark joke. No, not funny, not okay. That joke is MINE. It is my icebreaker. It is why I have a picture of a pirate on my cell phone. That joke was told to me by my brother and therefore its existance in Canada is trademarked to me. ME! I told this story to a friend, over the phone, and she burst out laughing. "You're crazy!" I am not crazy. I am just a girl with a pirate joke. A pirate joke that is very near and dear to my heart. That's not crazy.
Anyway, now I'm all riled up about this again and probably won't get any sleep. Don't you go stealing my joke, too. 'Cause I know guys who know guys....

oh, no, you didn't... oh yes, I DID.

World, meet Jake. Jake, world.

roller coaster, baby

I think my blood pressure is about 50 points lower today than it was yesterday. The magic trick? Public transportation. No dealing with traffic, annoying Quebec drivers, bridges... all good. The problem, at this point, is that per day, it's costing me almost $10 to get to and from work. Per week in gas, it was costing me $20-$25. So this is a massively losing venture, seeing as I'm going to be paying for the car no matter what. I think I'll buy a pass tomorrow, which will force me to take transit at least three times per week for the rest of the month.
Work is chaos. Good chaos, but chaos. Tomorrow I have a meeting with a VP, directly followed by a meeting (which I called) attended by 8 department heads. This is a scary thing. I guess if I wear heels, at least I'll feel tall. Tall can sometimes be mistaken for "competant," right?
In other news, I am going to buy a commuter bike tomorrow (or Saturday). Joy!

quiet down, Norma Rae

I was going to write this big, involved post about my mixed feelings about labour unions. But alas, I am exhausted. Therefore, I am going to bed. I'll save the Union post for another day.

the daily check in

I am recessing. I'm not sure if that's the right word, but it's what I'm doing. Right before I started New Job, I cleaned. I did floors, here, people. Floors. This wasn't turning over a new leaf, it was uprooting an entire forest. But, sadly, I am slipping back into the routine I was in last winter, except this time it doesn't entail dragging myself to the gym six days a week. Nope. I go to work, I come home, I go to the grocery store, I cook dinner, I eat dinner, I go to bed. I am living the life of my parents, twenty-five years prematurely.
Next week, tis back to the gym. I swear. Of course, that's what I said last week. The gym is not a vanity thing for me. I hate gym people. My idea of the perfect gym is one with nobody in it and a freakin' money sound system blasting Juke Joint Jezebel and Battleflag. But my body gets addicted and I get to the point where it's literally a narcotic. I suppose I could choose worse addictions. Crack. Be it ass or cocaine, crack would be worse.
I was thinking, fondly, about university. The days of yore. It was an extremely social time. Even when I was pulling 16-20 hour days in the library (and no, that is not an exaggeration. I have entered the library in the morning, seen the sun go down, and seen it come up again, during finals), there were always friends around. It wasn't always happy fun time, but you could look across the silent room, roll your eyes and half smile at someone, and there was the reassurance that they were just there. Going through what you were going through. Solidarity of sorts. I had two roommates for three years, and moved out on my own my last year. Even when I was living alone, another friend was three blocks away, on her own for the first time, as well. We had a standing coffee date every week or so, and I spoke to her almost daily. She was the one, who, if a day or two went by without hearing from me, would probably find my body before it started to stink. And when you live alone, that's a concern. A concern for someone who is entirely paranoid, but a concern nonetheless.

And when we weren't working ourselves into insanity, man. We were fucking idiots. We played flag football in the below-freezing early winter (let me tell you about bruising when your skin's cold, boy howdy). We messed around in labs and in class. We relentlessly teased the Golden Hampster (oh, man, that gets its own entry. Maybe later this week.). We dared each other to do stupid shit. We "Indian wrestled." We sumo wrestled. We drank before class, we drank after class. Once or twice, we drank in class. It was good times. But I don't miss it, and I'm glad that I maybe (maybe) will never pull another all-nighter again.
What was I on about before this tangent? Oh, yeah. The daily check-in.

I guess nowadays, I have my daily check-in with my roommate. If I disappeared for more than a night, she'd notice. She'd call the evening of night two. She'd start to worry in earnest the next morning. But I guess, in some manners, bloggo here has become my daily check-in. I didn't post for two days and got "where the hell are you" comments. OK, "where the hell are you" comment, singular. It used to be my ritual to come into work at old job, log into my computer and launch the drawing software I was using (took 45 minutes to load the files... pesky as hell), and make my morning coffee. Then, I'd settle in, read Dilbert, For Better or For Worse, Get Fuzzy, and Pearls Before Swine (in that order), and then read the 10 or so blogs I was reading on a daily basis. Then, I'd start my entry in Notepad, and come back to it sporradically throughout the day. Now, my blog is a minute to try to produce something at the end of my day before I curl into bed and surrender to the sleep demon. If there's something on my mind, it goes here. I do, sometimes, regret telling anyone I actually know about blogly, but alas, hindsight is 20/20. And I don't regret it that much. I definately don't regret it as much as I regret my deep-seeded attachment to self-made puff-paint clothing in the 80's.

This post about nothing has been brought to you by the letter Z and the number 42.