Life – Page 22 – Rant and Roll

I’ve never felt this way before

Ladies and gentlemen, do I ever have a treat for all of you!

Feast your eyes and ears on this majesty:

IT’S GUNS ‘N ROSES ON THE GUZHENG.

Holy smokes.

So, in my former life (a when I actually had time to sit down and troll ridiculous things on the interwebs) I used to come across lots of cool and irreverent videos, and enjoy parcelling them out to friends and families in the form of facebook posts or late night e-mails.

(Seriously, I always tell people that I have both an MA in Political Science as well as an MA in YouTube, what with the amount of time I spent surfing this website during my time in grad school.)

Now, I have to get my cool stuff from the radio (re: listening to As it Happens betwixt the hours of six and eight on CBC Radio 1) when I am careening about from one post-work activity to the next.

URG I’M SORRY DUDES.

I totally don’t want to be that girl who just talks about how busy she is all the live long day.

It’s just that I am.

I am so that girl.

And the crazy thing?

Even when I try not to be busy – when I put real effort into streamlining my life, and make a conscious effort to take on less extracurricular activities, it doesn’t seem to make a darn difference.

Not one iota.

In the words of the immortal Liz Lemon: What the what?

How is this even possible?!

Anyways, I’ve had my mini-rant, and I’m not going to mention it again (for at the very least the next week and a half.)

And if I do, it is totally your prerogative to call me on my crap. There are just way too many fantastic, funny, and fundamentally freaky thing going on in the world these days, and I need remember that my exhaustion meter ranks about 0.1 on the importance scale.

Coolcoolcool?

Cool.

So what else has been happening?

Well, Breaking Bad finally ended.

(Finally broke?)

Marc and I watched the series finale last Sunday night, and then spent a good couple of hours dissecting the episode (and the show as a whole – as we were wont to do after the majority of season five episodes.)

Do any of you cats watch the show?

I honestly think it is the best thing I have ever watched in my entire life.

(Yes, even better than The Wire.)

OH YEAH. I SAID IT.

I’ve also been reading a lot of Voltaire and listening to Franz Ferdinand’s newest album on repeat like a maniac.

THAT BAND IS MY VINCE GILLIGAN OF MUSIC.

Phew.

This post is a veritable dog’s breakfast of topics, is it not?

And in that vein, I want to end with a memory:

The year is 1998. I am twelve years old and I am in grade seven. As a newly pubescent human being, I am cognisant of the existence of the male sex, but mostly just think that all the boys in my class are weird, smelly, idiots.

Despite this, I still desperately want all of them to fall in love with me.

The fact that I am approximately seven to ten inches taller than all of them further complicates things.

My favourite outfit consists of a tight long sleeved black shirt that has a red and white stripe running across the chest (a hand-me-down from my older sister), levi blue jeans (!!!) and red Doc Martin boots (purchased after saving up eleven months of my allowance money.)

One spring night, my mum asks me if I want to go see a movie with her.

What movie? I inquire.

Les Miserables, she responds.

Sure, I say. Why not?

We walk to the Varsity movie theatre, just up the street from where we live. We buy popcorn and drink water.

My immediate reaction to the start of the film is that I have never before seen a man like Liam Neeson.

Watching him on the screen makes me feel a weird and shirty.

It’s a sensation I’ve never before felt.

And I kind of like it.

When we leave I try and nonchalantly tell my mum that I think the guy playing Jean Valjean is very handsome.

She nods and agrees with me.

He’s definitely nothing like any of the boys in my class, I think.

And probably taller than me too.

…

So that’s all friends!

Happy Friday to each and every one of you.

I wish for you all the love.

And all the weird, shirty feelings you can handle!

Something worth running for

The rain is raining folks.

It’s almost as if I can hear each individual raindrop tap, tap, tapping on my window pane.

And on the roof.

And the balcony.

To paraphrase Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister of the UK – rain truly is, all around.

Last week we were blessed with one last amazing week of summer weather: temperatures in the mid to late twenties, amazing sunrises and phenomenal sunsets, and blue sky for days.

And now?

Yesterday morning we woke up to this:

Holy exorcist batman.

The eerie weather ended up being an absolutely fabulous pairing to an early morning race.

Two great friends and I ran the Terry Fox Run, a ten kilometer (or five, or two – depending on your pick!) event that takes place every September, in cities all over the world, which raises funds for cancer research.

It also honours the memory of one of the greatest Canadians that has ever lived – Mr. Terry Fox.

From Wikipedia:

In 1980, with one leg having been amputated, he embarked on a cross-Canada run to raise money and awareness for cancer research. Although the spread of his cancer eventually forced him to end his quest after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 mi), and ultimately cost him his life, his efforts resulted in a lasting, worldwide legacy. The annual Terry Fox Run, first held in 1981, has grown to involve millions of participants in over 60 countries and is now the world’s largest one-day fundraiser for cancer research; over $500 million has been raised in his name.

There are a few individuals that make me so proud to be Canadian that I’m just about driven to tears when I think about them, and all that they accomplished during their life.

Terry Fox is one of those people.

So around 8am, I met up with Greg, and Daniela, they grabbed some breakfast Tim Hortons (just in case we weren’t feeling Canadian enough already) and we set off for the starting line.

Unfortunately the route was not well marked at all, so we all ended up running different distances, and courses, but in the end it didn’t matter at all.

It was fun.

Hands down.

I’ve been running a lot of late – at minimum thirty kilometers a week. It really is one of the only ways that I can properly unwind at the end of a workday, and I’m not exactly sure what I would do if I couldn’t strap on my runners and head out the door the moment I get home.

Running makes me feel alive.

It makes me feel whole.

Sometimes I think about what it would be like to just take off and run clear across this massive expanse of a country.

If I could commit myself to something so much bigger than my little life.

I think I could do it.

I think I would do it.

But until that day, I’ll just put one foot in front of the other.

And she’s all out of bubble gum

Today I am saying goodbye to my very good friend, and long-time partner in crime Kristy (although our heists have unfortunately been coming few and far between over the last couple of years, as she embarks on a new work adventure in the good ol’ United States of America.

First stop Texas.

Then onto the Big Apple.

As if I needed another excuse to keep visiting New York!

For people who don’t know Kristy – give it a couple of years.

Before you know it, she’ll be running the darn place.

The girl will be kicking butt and taking names.

Now, I’ve written about this lass before – once to give you a general overview of our completely bonkers, and ever important friendship, and the second to regale you with our absolutely absurd fandango of a trip to Boston for a badminton tournament in 2002, but I feel the need to tell you more about his amazing gal (what with the inevitability of her one-day becoming our benevolent business overlord.)

Let’s start shall we?

First, she is a laugh riot when it comes to photo shoots.

We’ve had many over the years. Most normally devolve into us play-acting completely ridiculous situations (such as wearing bikinis and posing as the “before” and “after” of diet pill commercials) or as illustrated below – “pretend to be as drunk as you possibly can be.”

It really is amazing neither of us has attended the Academy Awards for our spectacular acting skills, let alone taken home multiple Oscars.

Second, if there is one thing you should do before you die, it’s attend one of her birthday parties.

THEY ARE FUN.

Third, she is one of the most dependable people I have ever known.

In this day and age it is super easy to flake out on people (heck, depending on the season and the crazy level of my life, I am guiltier of this than most), but Kristy?

Never.

And the girl is not sitting at home all day crocheting afghans.

(It makes me feel weird that spell check wants to capitalize afghans WHEN OBVIOUSLY I AM TALKING ABOUT THE WRAPS HERE GUYS NOT THE PEOPLE OF THE COUNTRY OF AFGHANISTAN. JEEEZE.)

But back to business.

I cannot really communicate how much it means to me that she is there for me whenever I need her – to come see a show, to talk about life and all its madness, to share a laugh, or eat a fish taco. At the risk of sounding like a Ford truck advertisement, the girl is solid as a rock.

A ROCK.

(IRAQ?)

ACK.

Stop that.

And finally, what I admire most about Kristy, is her fearlessness, her drive, and her independence.

I truly believe that if we were all a little bit more like her, the world would be a much better place.

Because if this were true, I am fairly certain there wouldn’t be diet pill ads to make fun of in the first place.

I’ve loved you for so long

My husband is a poet.

oh oh

me I

am so sure

oh you

they are green

in a certain light

about you

i am

you are

pale dancer asleep

the fan of your hair

the shape of

the scent of

long meadows

oh you

your hands

in my

mine heart

we swim dragonfire

soak in the sea wind

stir seraphim

waking

I want you to take me out

Kids, I am absolutely knackered.

I don’t think I could do any more running about even if I tried.

(Spoiler alert: I will most likely be trying.)

So what’s been going down on this side of the cosmic kitchen?

Work, and more work. Some comedy action. Doing some speaking engagements, and celebrating my rad chums and their days of birth.

I’m just trying to keep my hair free of fire, whilst enjoying these long-lasting summer days with the mad man that I have married.

Also, BREAKING BAD.

What the what!

Seriously guys, Walter White is the absolute WORST.

And in the interim:

Post-wedding sunsets.

Bootleg chocolate bars.

Park adventures.

North Korean poems for children.

Board game victories.All of the soccer (shenanigans).

Post-date rainbow.

…

Happy Monday you brainiacs!

Take care of yourselves, y’hear?