Tag: Humor

When I lost my mind

Three crazy things I have done in my life:

1.)  Taped down my breasts when getting ready for my first high profile job interview.

With packing tape.

This decision was made after spending a good portion of an hour scrutinizing my outfit in front of the bathroom mirror and working it into my mind that my blouse wasn’t fitting quite right.  In my nervous-to-the-point-of-madness state, I came to the conclusion that my only option was to take out the tape and strap down my chest.

For the entire two hour meeting I couldn’t quite breathe properly and I kind of “crunched” each time I shifted in my seat. (For a couple of days afterwards I became paranoid about irregular hair growth after having literally waxed my chest during the ordeal of removing the tape – luckily this worry never came to fruition.)

And would you believe it, I got the job.

2.)  Flooded my mother’s kitchen.

It was the summer of 2005. I was living in Halifax and working two jobs – on the weekend I was a barista at a coffee shop, and every night (save Sunday and Monday) I worked the front of house at a downtown bar.

I absolutely loved my places of employment and my schedule was great (other than then working a double shift every Saturday.)

However, for two weeks in August the whole thing kind of blew up in my face, when I ended up covering one of my fellow employee’s weekday shifts at the coffee shop, while still working at the bar. (Of course this just so happened to overlap with the jazz festival of which my bar was a venue – which meant that instead of working four hours a night at the bar, I was working seven or eight.)

This meant that for fourteen days I was operating on about four, maybe max five hours of sleep a night, and was tired all the live long day.

But all in all it didn’t really matter, because as I said – I bloody well loved my jobs.

Anywho, one day before heading to the bar I decided that if I wasn’t going to nap I was going to clean the hous – laundry, dishes, vacuum, windows – you named it, I was going to take care of it.

Unfortunately, my plan of filling up the kitchen sink while I ran upstairs to start the washing machine went awry as soon as I forgot all about the sink and started stripping the beds and cleaning the washroom.

By the time I remembered it was too late – rivers of water were pouring into the heating vents and making their way into the living room.

I panicked. I grabbed the (kitty hair saturated) blankets that we kept on the couches to keep the cats from scratching at the upholstery and threw them onto the floor, before racing to the basement to see if any of the water had leaked down that far. Luckily it hadn’t.

Then I called a cab because there was no way I was going to make it to work on time if I were to walk. When the taxi pulled up front, I was in such a tizzy that I jumped into the front seat without thinking.

I can’t really describe how awkward it was to ride up front with that cabby except to say that I felt as though my dad was driving me to school.

Only I had to pay him.

3.)  Drank a bottle of seven dollar wine out of a booster juice cup.

My advice kids? DON’T DO THIS.

Even if it’s your last day of undergrad, and you’re totally stoked about starting grad school, and getting married later on that same summer; even if you’ve just aced your last classes, and you think you’re an invincible evil genius; and especially if you don’t drink, like, EVER, but you think it’ll be absolutely hilarious to get smashed out of your face with two of your best friends just this once.

Seriously. Just say no.

Because you’ll drink that wine, and then run about campus like the silly twenty-two year old that you are, and you’ll meet Nardwuar the Human Serviette and tell him about how watching him do the Hip Flip with Paul Martin is one of the highlights of your life, what with being the Canadian politico nerd that you are.

(This will impress no one, least of all Nardwuar who will just think you drunk and insane.)

And then at 4 o’clock in the afternoon you’ll phone your fiancée as ask him to come pick you up and take you to Dairy Queen where you’ll order two servings of popcorn shrimp, but only eat the shrimp and not the French fries because you’re trying  to be healthy.

And if you still do this? Be sure to drink those two liters of water he gives you before you pass out at seven o’clock that evening.

It will save your life and allow you to blog about it years, and years later.

Bits and bites

Beginning.

This is a very true story about a magic worm.  His name was Wimmiin.

One day he fell into a toilet and drowned.  Being magic, he thought he would be able to swim, unlike most worms.

He was wrong.

He just drowned.

Middle.

I slept in my bed last night. 

It was good. 

After my conversation with you I went for a long jog along the track.  Then I came home and went to my haircut and colour.  My hair is now very black. 

This could be good or black. 

I will wear my hair to the airport when I come to meet you. 

What colors of paint did you choose?  And did the blueberries go down well with the water, on the sand?  I find nothing tastes as good as oranges at half time, so I do not fully appreciate your blueberries.   I probably missed the first five minutes of our conversation this morning as my mind was not yet awake, but oh it is so nice to start the day off by having a nice chat with you. 

I have also started a story for you:

Once upon a time, a gargoyle found himself made flesh and pale in the rocky world. I will finish it for you when we go away; when we lie in that warm place.

I’ll whisper in the shell of your ear the sussurus of a life – like a river bed, like a whirlwind. 

End.

Semi-reclined, this skin sobbing salt water
Arid air agitated and abrasive against
that tallowy tan

Thirsty

For fabulous dusk’s cool silence and,
Her thirty billion twinkling eyes

In a dream you waited to drink.
In that heat you shuddered
(alone and uncovered)
In my dream you rose up, and met me
Waiting, and impatient, at Gobi

…

I can find out no rhyme to ‘lady’ but ‘baby’

I have a question for all of you beautiful people:

Do any of you nutters have kids?

Full disclosure: I am not with child.

I’m just curious that’s all. You see, there is a kid, currently located just outside of my kitchen window, who has been crying and screaming its absolute head off for say, the past fifteen, twenty minutes.

And this is not a baby, we’re talking about here. We are talking a legitimate, walking, talking human being – one who is weeping for all of Canada. He probably has a full set of teeth, takes trips to the loo solo, and can choose his outfits in the morning.

Having listened to him wail on and on for the last little bit, I just want to lean out of my window and holler, “WHAT’S THE PROBLEM KID? THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL! THERE. IS. NO. CRYING. IN. BASEBALL!!!11!!

AND GET OFF MY LAWN.

You whipper-snappers!

…

I mean, that’s pretty horrible of me, is it not?

I know.

I am definitely the worst.

And it is reactions of mine – like this one just described – that make me fear for the day (should I be blessed in the properly functioning uterine department) that I become a mother.

I just can’t imagine that scenario working out all too well.

For one, I have zero maternal instinct.

No, minus zero.

I have never, ever, had that “twinge” – when, after having glimpsed some beautiful scene where a glowing mother cuddles here gorgeous offspring – something inside of me says “I want that.”

To be honest, most of the time everything inside my entire being begins screaming, “DO NOT WANT. COMMENCE THROWING UTERUS IN GARBAGE DISPOSAL.”

I mean, sure, there are moments where I concede that it wouldn’t be so bad. In fact, the people I know and love who have kids make it look downright phenomenal. There are tons of great children out there, and seeing how many of the cool cats in my life love their kids is darn cool.

Plus I keep telling myself that I probably wouldn’t feel the same way about my child as I do about many of the random children I come into contact with – that being mostly terror, confusion, and incredulity.

Deep down I know I would definitely love the crap out of them.

But I still worry.

I worry for a number of reasons (above and beyond the fact that I seem to have pawned off my biological clock sometime in the early 90s for two Kitkat bars, some sour keys, and a copy of Kirby’s Dreamland for my Gameboy.)

The first and mayhaps the biggest?

I just don’t get babies.

I made it through about 4 minutes of this movie before turning it off:

Like seriously, people go absolutely bat shit CRAZY over babies. Not only that, but they go bonkers over baby paraphernalia.

WHAT THE HECK PEOPLE?

It makes me think that babies have some magical power to get you stoned. (Just think about it -marijuana gets you high, and potheads LOVE them some weed leaf stickers, Bob Marley posters, and giant decorative bongs – so I’ve come to the conclusion that it must be the same for those crazed baby-lovers.)

And if it isn’t for their ability to get you high, how else could people possibly care about a tiny pair of socks or a facecloth with a frog on it?

WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE KNOW THAT I DON’T?

And in terms of the baby itself – I too need this explained. Babies are small, foreign, angry old men or women, hell bent on breaking your ear drums, defecating mustard gas, and peeing all over every square inch of your life.

This is terrifying!

Seriously, their catchphrase could be – “BABIES: POOP GRENADES ONLY NOW WITH MORE POOP.”

And yet people think they are the bees knees.

And don’t tell me it’s because of their new baby smell.

I’ve smelled me some babies in my life and I know for a FACT that it’s not all cake and roses.

I worry that I’ll have a baby, and the baby will all be “I’m a baby SCREAM POOP PEE EAT SLEEP HAHAHAH JUST JOKING I’M NEVER GOING TO SLEEP SCREEEEAAAAAMMMMMM” to which I’ll just be like, “You, sir, are an arsehole, BUH BYE.”

I worry that I’ll have the baby, and the baby will all be, “BABY” and I’ll be like, “That’s all you got? Where the frick is the rest!? I JUST SPENT NINE MONTHS MAKING YOU – ENTERTAIN ME SPAWN!!!”

I worry that I will be the worst mother ever.

The first baby I ever held. I was sweating like crazy I was so nervous.

So what I guess I’m saying is that I worry.

I worry that I’ll give my kid the eating disorder that I struggled with for years; that I’ll give them the anxiety that I deal with on a daily basis; that I’ll make them think they need make-up to be beautiful because I too like to wear make-up; that I’ll drop them on their head the second I get home.

I worry about the unknown – what about my job? What about my relationship?

What about my body?

I worry about worrying about my body.

But throughout it all, I have one ace in the hole that makes all of these questions seem not quite so daunting.

That one person who makes me worry just a little less.

And that, of course, is Mr. M.

My freaking knight in shining armour.

Because somehow (and I have no idea how) he doesn’t have any of these doubts. He just knows. He has confidence in not only himself, but in me, and it is through him that I have started to believe, little by little, that one day, if this happens, it will be just grand.

And while I’m not necessarily at the same level of belief that he cooly-as-a-cucumber maintains, I have the belief that I will get there, eventually.

Because when I see him with children? That’s when I feel something flicker.

I imagine him and I giving piggybacks, and leaping through sprinklers; teaching small, wild haired munchkins about tidal pools and earthworms, making mud pies, and reading storybooks by flashlight.

And it gives me pause.

But who knows – maybe one day all of what I currently feel about myself, and my relationship with my yet-to-be-born babies will change. I will wake up, flick on the internet and order the newest poo grenade and pay extra for the express shipping.

But until that day, my questions remain.

As does my love.

Unlike, thank goodness, the echoes of the crying child, outside of my window.

Which means that he too, is happy.

You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not at my best

Hey friends!

Today M and I are off to the Sunshine Coast with my vater, Sir R-J esquire, the IV.

(Or if you’re into the whole brevity thing – my Dad.)

We’ll be meeting up with M’s parents at the cabin for a day, and then it’s off to Hardy Island where we’ll hike, maybe swim, and (hopefully) see lots and lots of deer (and their babies!)

But in the interim, it’s time for the latest edition of the Friday Fry-up.

So let’s heat up that skillet and get cookin.

Do I have something on my face?

Full disclosure: sometimes I am a HOT MESS. It’s like I have zero control over this fact, and no matter what effort I put in to combat this problem, the worse it just seems to get.

Do I have something on my face?

For instance, it’s almost impossible for me to eat pastries (particularly if they are chocolate pastries) and not get half of the thing all over my face.

Don’t even get my started on gooey foodstuffs. Those are just a recipe a and half for disaster.

The worst of it?

I don’t even realize it when these crumbs are stuck and strewn about my skin – like the little evil edible freckles that they are. 

Imagine this: the other day at work J was like, “Oh my goodness, what happened to your face?” and I was all “what do you mean?”

So then she motioned toward my face (with an exceptionally pained look on her face), which worried me so I quickly touched my cheek – only to realize that my affliction was nothing more than the remnants of my breakfast: a piece of the sweet, flaky goodness from the Danish I had eaten earlier.

I’m not too sure which emotion won out in the end – relief or embarrassment. (Actually, definitely relief, because goodness knows I don’t embarrass as easily as I probably should, especially when you look at the high level of madness I operate on every single day of my life.)

Good grief.

Last night M and I were at London Drugs picking up some supplies for our trip. At the check-out the cashier asked us, “Do you need any tissues or Tictacs tonight?” and my immediate reaction was, “Why? Do we look like we need tissues and Tictacs?”

I mean, why else would she ask that?

M kindly assured me that she was obviously trying to either up-sell or just get rid of the umpteen million tins of Tictacs and single pack Kleenex that littered her till like some strange toiletry-inspired collage.

This is probably true, but nevertheless I remained suspicious.

This whole part of my life was only further hit home two nights ago.

We were out at the Commodore Ballroom to take in Franz Ferdinand (MY FAV BAND EVVVEEERRR) and it came to my attention pretty early into their set that I had made some pretty poor decisions outfit-wise.

Concert wise though – top notch.

1.)    I should have worn my hair up (or at the very least braided it down my back) because at it’s present length (v. v. long) it kept getting stuck in my armspits as I danced.

Urg.

It was pretty difficult to stop this from happening, because a.) I was having a mad dance party b.) was sweating and c.) was wearing a tank top. It was like a perfect storm of head-hair in armpit entrapment.

Not fun.

2.)    I kept dancing out of my shoes. The flats that I had chosen to wear had already been beat to crap so I figured I wouldn’t care in they got ruined in the jigging-for-your-life melee. Unfortunately, because the shoes were operating at such a low capacity at the concert’s outset, it was all downhill from there – and quickly at that. I had to be careful, because with all the other bonkers dancers out there I didn’t want my toes to get turned into carpaccio, nor did I want to step on that slick, sticky beer soaked floor. Because, well, ewwwwww.

3.)    I didn’t realize that the skirt I was wearing had so much swing and elasticity to it. Seriously, I spent the entire time worrying about dancing too hard, lest I continue to flash my undies to all the other folks on the dance floor. It was a very real fear that if I jumped too high I’d end up hoola-hooping my skirt around my neck.

Yikes-a-rooney.

Next time – I’ll stick to simple cotton. Because if I’m going to be part of the show, I better-well be getting paid for my part.

Onwards!

Do you, do you wanna, wanna go?

Okay, I definitely want to continue riffing on the Franz Ferdinand theme for a bit.

Seriously dudes, I love this band.

And they are absolutely AMAZING live. They put on incredibly tight shows, and are always entertaining as all get out.

I saw them for the first time in September 2009 at Malkin Bowl – a great outdoor concert venue in Vancouver – and boy did it ever pour with rain all throughout their set.

And it didn’t matter one bit – it was still the most fun I have ever had at a concert.

I have this amazing memory of just dancing my face off (I had picked well in terms of my dance-related garb that night! Plus no chocolate on my face to speak of – BONUS) completely soaked, watching the rain just come down in sheets, lit up by the brilliance of the many stage lights.

This time there was no rain, but it was the same outrageous energy, the same quirky and strange Scottish blokes rocking about the stage, singing songs that no matter how often I listen to them on loop (over and over again) I don’t ever tire of them.

In fact, they are one of those bands (for me) that the more I listen to their tunes, the more I love them.

They are like the Big Lebowski of music – the more I listen/watch them/it, the more I discover new things to love.

And then when you get the chance to go see it live, well, holy Toledo – it just reinforces all of that magic, ten-fold.

I definitely recommend them to every single one of you. Take a listen:

And when you do, I promise, I’ll take you out.

I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes

So I originally wrote on Friday that M and I were planning on hiking Mt. Seymour on Saturday – a fab hike for an early August day. However, as it is wont to happen in life, our plans changed and we ended up taking on another venture – running from our house in New Westminster to M’s parents’ house in Surrey (which according to “Google map my run” is a distance of 16.45 kilometers).

They recently had their carpets redone and needed help moving a boatload of furniture back to its original positioning, so we were happy to (literally) run over and help out.

Now, Vancity is enjoying its first real heat wave of the summer, and to say that this run was stinkin’ hot might be a bit of an understatement.

We left at 9:40 am and even then the sun was a-blazzing. The one section of the route that afforded us some shade was the part when we ran up King George Highway under the skytrain; after that we were cooking.

I’ll just come out and say it: this was not the best of runs.

In fact, a lot of it was pretty miserable.

It became obvious pretty quickly that M and I were interested in running our own runs, and were not all that interested in running each other’s runs.

This made for some pretty heated commentary along our path (and quite a few sprints, stops, and starts at that.)

We are both highly competitive, highly focused people – and as such, sometimes we start out so fixated on what we want to get out of somethings that we forget how important it is to work together as a team and be open to blending (or at the very least bending) our expectations.

Because seriously, hashing that stuff out on under the blinding hot sun, halfway through an almost 17 kilometer run is not only frustrating, but also exhausting.

Expending that much energy on emotions leaves you with much less juice to finish off those final clicks – it’s pretty darn mentally draining, and as any runner will tell you, that’s a huge component of finishing your race.

Or, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, “Running is 90 per cent mental, and the other half is physical.”

By the time we arrived at M’s parents’ place the two of us were completely done.

We were KNACKERED.

Please see exhibit A for confirmation:

However, communication wise we were a-okay, tip top, lindy hop.

And the crazy thing is, we still ran that stupid run in less than an hour and fifteen minutes. I can’t help but wonder what we would have done it in if we had actually liked each other during the run!

Alas, that is another question for another day.

After cooling down and drinking litres and litres of water, we changed into some non-sweat soaked duds and moved some bloody-giant wooden furniture around (or how I like to think of it – playing real-life doll house.)

Then it was time to return home, shower up, put on a cute sundress (only I did this – M donned a sweet t-shirt/short combo) and hit the downtown waterfront.

 

Once there we found a lovely spot for some NYT crossword, patio and Caesar action (I’m pretty sure that M and I are the only nerds out there brining crosswords to bars, but whatever, I’ll take it.)

ALSO DUDES. LOOK AT THIS SIGN:

GOODNESS GRACIOUS GREAT BALLS OF FIRE.

This, two days after writing about how I have a strange penchant for mispronouncing Coke, and here we are: VINDICATION.

Also, whoever wrote this should probably spend more time proofreading their work.

But seriously, I almost died when I saw this. Maybe they read this blog and were hoping I’d read this as I walked down Columbia Street?

I can only hope.

I can only imagine.

In final news we have been watching the everliving heck out of the Olympics. As I sit here typing this we are getting ready to watch France and Japan square off in the women’s soccer semi-finals, and we are of course looking forward to Canada taking on the USA later this afternoon.

Seeing Usain Bolt win yesterday was epic, I don’t even understand how gymnastics works, and I want the abdominal muscles of every single heptathlete in the competition.

I believe the question I asked M last night before we went to bed was:

“Do you think if I exercised six days a week and only ate one dessert a day I could have abs like that?”

I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.

What about you cats? What’s been shaking in your neck of the woods?