Rant and Roll

Game over man! GAME OVER!

Hey kids!

I have a confession to make.

But first –

WHAT THE CRAP IS THIS:

Argh!

Foot-less tights!? WHY?

I mean, it’s totally my fault that I purchased them without realizing that they are, in fact, footless.

But at the same time, I just assumed that anytime I bought something marketing themselves as “tights” that they would, you know, cover my feet.

HENCE THEM BEING TIGHTS.

And why in the ever-loving heck would I buy fleece-lined tights, if not for the sweet, sweet heat they would bring to my frozen tootsies throughout the long, and frigid Canadian winters?

Certainly not for the slimming factor!

These things bring a bulk to my calves previously known only to competitive stair runners and long-distance cyclists.

But I digress.

I will suffer through this fashion injustice.

If only for potential blog hits.

NEXT!

Back to the original purpose of this entry – my confession.

This past Saturday, Marc and I woke up late and decided to go see Ender’s Game. It is one of his favourite books of all time, and for many moons I have been extolling the virtues of Mr. Scott Card’s literary genius to all those who asked if I too had read the book.

Only, I had, you know, never actually cracked it open.

I AM A GIANT FRAUD!

I’m not exactly sure why I pretended that I had in fact read the book. I think a lot of it has to do with protecting my nerd cred – I have read and loved so much science fiction, that I figured by admitting that I had omitted such an important novel, people might take me less seriously.

(Even though the more I think about it, people would probably be more likely to forgive this literary transgression, than you know, LYING TO THEIR FACES LIKE A BALD-FACED SCOUNDRAL.)

Even Marc had assumed that I had read it – and was shocked to hear on our exit from the theatre that I had no knowledge of the written words in which to compare the film.

(SPOILER: I thought that movie was pretty grim, and Marc just downright hated it.)

In preparation of watching the film, I read a really fabulous article on Grantland this past Friday by Rany Jazayerli.

It looks at the controversy that’s surrounded Card and his career for the past decade – his rabid homophobia, and xenophobia to be precise – and how these views stand in such sharp contrast to the messages of love and tolerance that permeate so much of his writing (and in particular Endger’s Game and its sequels.)

It made me think of how it is we are able to separate an artist from their art – and who we are willing to make exceptions for, and why?

For instance, I have never understood Hollywood’s enduring love affair with Roman Polanski. To me, the man is nothing more than a rapist who refused to face the consequences of his actions, and I couldn’t give two cares about his movies or his talent for storytelling.

I also don’t care if John Galliano ever designs another dress, and I certainly don’t care if [insert name of professional athlete convicted of doping/sexual assault/animal abuse] ever plays another game for the rest of their lives.

And yet, despite this hard-held views, I will always, always give the latest Woody Allen film a try.

I definitely don’t feel good about this choice, but it’s something that I do, and that I accept.

My love for Annie Hall is just so strong that it propels me to seek out what this man – this quirky, strange, totally perverse man – might next deliver to the big screen.

It’s an off-putting balancing act: while I definitely do not support his life-choices (in fact, I find them downright disturbing), I do really like many of his films.

And I like that I am at least conscious enough to identify this push-pull binary that lives inside of me, despite the fact that it’s an on-going struggle to figure out where this leaves me standing – especially if we’re talking moral, and not literal ground.

But alas, such is life. I’ll just have to keep working on it.

And in the meantime, I’m going to crack open Ender’s Game and finally see what all the fuss is about.

Because if I know one thing that’s going to help both my morality and nerd cred, it will be to finally stop lying about having read the book, and to just read it.

Finally.

For all the little ghouls and goblins

TRUE! –nervous –very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?

The disease had sharpened my senses –not destroyed –not dulled them.

Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.

How, then, am I mad?

Hearken! and observe how healthily –how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

To be continued…

Wait, what is she talking about?

Watching my cat bathe herself after her evening meal is ridiculously hypnotic in the extreme.

It makes me wish that I had something similar in my life, in which I might partake after finishing a truly delectable dinner.

(As long as it didn’t actually entail cleaning the entirety of my body using only my mouth and tongue.)

Because I don’t think I would enjoy that very much.

Not very much at all.

Folks.

Tonight I am feeling pretty knackered.

I arrived home from work a little late, because not only did I need to pick up toothpaste and soap from the Shopper’s Drug Mart at the Skytrain station, but because I walked up the (incredibly steep) hill to my home much slower than usual.

This was due to the fact that, along with my purchases, I was also carrying a pumpkin and two massive pieces of corning ware (leftover from the food I had made for my staff meeting earlier this morning.)

I was, in all senses of the term, THE BAG LADY.

The slow, tired Bag Lady.

It’s at a time like this that I fantasize about how awesome it would be to have a tram line that ran directly from my front door, to the station’s entrance.

Within thirty seconds or so after entering the house, I fell onto the couch.

There I sat for the next forty odd minutes, completing a couple of crosswords and eating Nutella with a spoon.

I haven’t done that in a long, long time.

After my “dinner” (HAH!) I threw on some shorts and a t-shirt, and ran my usual 4.5km route.

As the days are getting darker so much earlier, I’ve started playing silly games in my head like “As Long As There Is Still Some Orange In the Sky By The Time You Arrive Back Home, The Zombies Won’t Have Eaten You!”

So far, so good. I’ve managed to stay alive.

For serious though, these funny mind games are great motivators to keep moving as quickly as possible, because once the sun sets, I really do start to get the heebie jeebies when I’m out there alone.

Say what you want about thinking positive – I’m not entirely convinced that I won’t be attacked, dismembered, and sent to the Conservative party headquarters, if I start to take up night-time running on the regular.

GRIM TIMES FOLKS.

Grim times.

Anywho, after I got back from my run, I tried to do some upper body strength exercises, but mostly I just chatted on the phone with my mum, cooked a pizza, and got ready for a stand-up comedy show.

Marc was awesome enough to come with me, and we drove in Vancouver together.

The show went awesomely – the crowd was on the small side, but everyone was really into the show. I got a number of really big laughs, especially off of some of my new material, which is always a great bonus.

It’s good to know when stuff is working!

Now I am sitting here, having just eaten a cupcake that I bought for fifty per cent off (thank you Safeway closing deals!) drinking some tea, and enjoying my new bathrobe.

This, like eating Nutella straight from the jar, is something that I have been missing in my life for far too long.

Debonair in my robe! (Or something like that.)

Because bathrobes – they matter.

Now folks, I realized this post really has no connecting moral, no story, or punch line.

(And for this, I apologize!)

But I can confidently bet, that there are many of you out there, who too feel a little ruddy and strained from a long day of work and play, and I just want you to know that I so completely understand.

I am here for you.

So just let me know what you need.

And I’ll do my best to make sure you get it.

Let me first just walk down this hill.

Oh the horror!

Hello you fab chaps!

Did any of you get up to anything for Halloween this weekend?

Now, I know that All Hallows Eve isn’t actually happening until this Thursday, but common practice dictates that if this spooky night falls on any day other than Friday or Saturday, you celebrate on the Saturday before.

So in this vein, Marc and I, along with our terrific friends, got together on the 26^th, donned our best fancy dress, and traipsed around New Westminster all night long.

It was a hilarious time and I finally, FINALLY, wore a different costume other than the one I’ve been sporting for the past eight years.

I tell ya, I really have got the market on 1920’s golfer cornered.

Cornered but good.

Marc, on the other hand, is an absolute costume maverick and has been putting together awesome showings since the first Halloween we spent together.

This year, he decided that he would dress as Chtulhu (that terrifying Lovelockian beast) and he sewed the majority of his costume from a child’s centipede costume.

WHAT A BOSS.

Check it out:

Now, I thought long and hard about what I would do for my costume.

A tiny little part of me always thinks that I should take advantage of (in the immortal words of Tina Fey) “a girl’s one night a year when she’s allowed to dress as slutty as she wants and no one can say anything about it.”

But this is never, ever going to happen, so I instead, I gravitate away from sexy and towards TERRIFYING.

Which is why I decided to dress like this:

And then proceeded to do this:

ACK.

Even just looking at these photos gives me the willies.

Have you all watched The Ring?

This movie scared me so badly that I had to sleep with my mum the night that I watched it in the theatre.

And I was seventeen years old!

For the entirety of Saturday night I couldn’t even look at myself in the bathroom mirror, for fear of my own reflection.

Also, I’ve learned that nothing beats running about in a dirty, ripped nighty on one of the coldest nights of the year.

Aaaannnddd…I’m not even sure if that is sarcasm or not.

But seriously, I had to wrap myself in a wool blanket each time we ventured outside.

Thank goodness I didn’t decide to go for full authenticity and forgo shoes for the evening.

THANK GOODNESS.

But Marc and I weren’t the only ones who put some sweet effort into our costumes – the rest of our group looked epically fantastic.

We had our Top Gear hunks:

And Sean and Ed from Sean of the Dead:

We spent the evening bar hoping around town, drinking sangria, and marvelling at all the other costumed fools and ghouls skulking about the night.

Highlights included a group rendition of The Monster Mash, a lindy-hop jam session between myself and Sean at the Heritage Grill, a late-night showing of Slither, and all the mini-chocolate bars you could possibly imagine.

This morning we all reconvened and enjoyed a late-afternoon lunch down at the Quay, marvelling at the amazing late-October sunshine in all of its glory.

We truly are incredibly lucky to live in such an amazing beautiful place.

And having the chance to run about together in costume isn’t anything to sniff about either.

(Although if you’re doing it in a nighty, I’d definitely recommend brining some tissues.)

Waking up to a sleepy sun

This morning I caught the sun before it went back to bed.

I often have the privilege of witnessing the early dawn sky.

Unfortunately, the reason that I am this lucky is because I struggle with anxiety, and the majority of the time it manifests itself in early morning heat attacks.

Seriously, it’s like my whole body is engulfed in flames.

Often times it’s very difficult to fall back asleep, so I instead just get up, and get a really early start to things.

So this morning, instead of subjecting Marc to my sauna-inspired tossing and turning, I slipped out of bed and tiptoed downstairs.

I sat quietly on the sofa, with a cup of coffee in one hand, and watched as the sun got up, stretched, and then lay back down to sleep, in (what I can only presume to be) its bed of rest, located just behind the Fraser River.

As someone who finds this sort of thing practically impossible (falling back asleep after getting up), I was more than a little jealous. If I only I could learn its secrets!

So knowing full well that there was no way I could possibly go back to bed (even if my life depended on it!), I decided instead to lace up my runners and go out for a fast 4.5km run.

I managed to complete my route in eighteen minutes, which is a good time for the number of hills that populate the course, and it made me think that maybe (just maybe!) I will be able to run a sub-40 10km at the Fall Classic on November 19^th.

The weather was just perfect – the air was cool, but not so much to make the insides of my ears burn, or make my lungs ache. A slight breeze to bring bounce to my ponytail and pink to my cheeks; fallen leaves crunchy underfoot, while the balding trees overhead presented a delirious kaleidoscope of greens, yellows, and browns.

I could smell the magic aroma of coffee and other miscellaneous breakfast delights, drifting from the different houses that mark my path to the park and back.

Sprinting the last four hundred, a lone tear slid from the corner of my left eye.

It’s funny.

I can’t for the life of me remember what I thought about while I ran.

I’m certain there must have been a few musings about Halloween, and the party Marc and I are attending tonight.

The lovely dinner we had with friends last night.

Michael Chabon’s latest novel, currently taking up real estate on my bedside table.

My stride length, and whether or not I was landing on the balls of my feet.

A series of short vignettes, starring a sleepy sunrise.

I remember when I was a little girl, I would always try and wake up as early as possible on the weekends, because Saturday and Sunday mornings were the only times my sisters and I were allowed to watch TV.

The earlier we woke, the more episodes of Inspector Gadget, or Rescue Rangers, or Duck Tales, we could watch.

I don’t know when exactly I stopped racing out of bed, and started sleeping in, but I feel as though I have now come full circle.

I am back to being that girl, that pre-sunrise child.

I just need to make sure this is due to my love of cartoons and not the heat of a worry that’s setting my alarm.