They say it’s bad form to laugh at funerals. People cry at weddings, so why can’t I laugh at funerals? I don’t need anyone to dictate my emotions. I don’t need permission to laugh. Maybe I laugh when I’m distraught. Maybe I let out peals of laughter the way other people let out tears.

I tried to laugh at your funeral. I tried to laugh and I only choked. I choked and couldn’t laugh and wouldn’t cry and I got lost out in the cemetery. I couldn’t find your soon-to-be home, but I found an empty hole near the woods, by the cracked willow tree with a cross carved into the bark three feet off the ground. Should’ve been six feet. The world needs balance. I walked the edge of the hole, around and around, and sometimes I would stare at the cross instead of my feet, to see if everything was balanced. I didn’t fall. I couldn’t laugh. I wouldn’t cry. Is that balance?

I can slip
stitched to the song, to the time
to the quick snap
black flag waving
high class engraving
on the doors and the floors and the faces downstairs
I’m sleeping in the window
I’m writing on the wall
but by tomorrow you will never know that I was here at all
my car can run on whiskey
and the promise of a kiss
but I hear whispers of prohibition
and my lips are dry
the tank’s on empty
dead at the side of the road
beached like a whale
abandoned with a trunk full of questionnaires
thousands of pages
only one question

and I don’t know the answer

slip through, streamlined
farther from the dirt road
farther from the dead pines
twisted around her soft heart
racked across the factory floor
silver shine of spit and grime

when the crows fall
and the air mixes with slices of yesterday
and the smell of tomorrow sends dogs into the sea
the clouds form a dark ring
apples crack on tree branches

and he leaves.

I'm still going to be posting here occasionally, but for anyone out there who's interested (if you don't know already), the bulk of my ramblings will now be on my live journal. I'll link to it in my links section as well as here.

I got a massage last night and was so happy today that I occasionally went into the bathroom to dance and sing "Shake Ya Ass". It's a good day.

Currently (still) reading: Pattern Recognition - William Gibson
Currently listening to: Lovage: Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By

An assortment of links for your viewing pleasure:

This guy makes art out of gum. Seriously.

Lots of pretty and strange pictures.

A fantastic media development company.

Man, I’m trying to write my application essay for school, and I suuuuuuuck. It’s been ages since I had to write anything with a purpose in mind.

I need a break.

If you need a break from work and reality, head on down.

Not even twelve hours after signing up, I already have a little issue with Zip. They skipped right by my first three listed movies (even though they say they're available) and shipped me out three other disks (I originally wrote "dicks" and wouldn't that be a whole other kind of website...). Normally it wouldn't be a problem; I do want to see everything on my list, but what they sent me was the last three disks (out of a total of six) of Babylon 5's first season. What good do disks four through six do me? So once they get here, I have to send them right back. I'll get the hang of this yet, I tell you.

In other news, if you like cartoons about intelligent zombies, head here.

Currently reading: Pattern Recognition - William Gibson
Currently listening to: It Still Moves - My Morning Jacket

Finally. FINALLY Canada has its own version of Netflix. Ladies and Gentlemen, grab your credit cards and head on over.

I've been patiently waiting for a system like this here in Canada, mostly because while Moncton may have an unending assortment of call centre jobs, we have the most pitiful selection of movies you can imagine. I think convenience stores in Minto have a better selection than we do. I signed up for my two week trial this morning and currently have 43 movies in my queue. In a span of twenty minutes, I managed to find FOURTY-THREE movies that I've always wanted to see but are not available here.

So hopefully in a few days Audition, Frances and The Parallax View will be sitting on my coffee table. If only they carried Schizopolis.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Tax Season!

Well, I guess it’s not really tax season, it’s pre-tax season, but I always like getting it out of the way early in the year; I get my money quicker that way.

So last night I hunkered down with a donair pizza, some Miles Davis, a pack of cigarettes and a plan -- a plan to kick out some bad-ass taxes.

And well…that was it really. I have no crazy kinds of income, just my regular old T-4. Where some people (like my mother) need miles of space for their thousands of documents, I really just need a little corner. Or hey – my lap. I’ve got that one charitable donation receipt (let’s hear it for the Heart and Stroke Foundation!), my RRSP contribution receipt, and my receipt for interest paid on student loans. Finis. Plus I file online, so the whole shebang only took me 25 minutes, tops. Is it sad that I found the whole thing to be a giant letdown? Am I setting myself up for some kind of massive karmic curse by complaining that my taxes WEREN’T COMPLICATED ENOUGH?

I almost felt guilty eating my reward pizza after I was through. I didn’t deserve it! I didn’t suffer; I LOUNGED my way through my taxes. I’m a Tax-a-lounger. If the complexity of the tax filing process was rated as furniture, I would be a bean-bag chair. Maybe a futon mattress on the floor. Meanwhile, my mother is a sleigh bed, complete with canopy and matching bedside tables, and people – these bedside tables involve a combination of African ebony and teak. They’re gorgeous.

Now that I have my taxes out of the way, I have to think about what I’m going to do this fall. While I have already (kind of) decided to go back to school, I just have to decide where I’m going. There is a good school here in New Brunswick, but a big part of me dreams of heading out to BC and going to school in the Okanagan Valley. Strangely enough, for the first time in my life this is actually a possibility. I have to start living sometime, and why not dive right off the cliff instead of climbing down the...something or other...and…more bizarre metaphor nonsense, etc.

Time to head home and eat leftover donair pizza! Woo!

AJ: So, I’ll give you a call on Tuesday to make sure we’re still on for Wednesday.

Jen: Right. I may not be home, but you can always leave a message…with my secretary. It may sound like voicemail, but it’s not. I told her to talk that way.

AJ: So it will seem like I’m listening to your voicemail, but it will really be your secretary? And…when did you get a secretary?

Jen: I have secrets.

AJ: I see. So you just tell your secretary to pretend she’s a machine.

Jen: Right. She knows her place.

AJ: In the corner.

Jen: Exactly. “You do not get to respond to the callers! You write down their messages and then you hang up!” You have to be firm. They thrive on discipline.

AJ: And you make her live in the phone and everything, right?

Jen: Oh yeah. “You don’t need a bed to do your job! Stop whining!”

AJ: “You can go to the bathroom when you retire! Shut up and answer the phone!”

Jen: Oh yeah. So after she writes down the messages, she then records them while mimicking the voices of the people who left them. She’s quite talented.

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard

David: I don’t get it.

AJ: What do you mean?

David: What milkshake? What yard? What is she talking about?

AJ: See, now I thought it all seemed pretty straightforward. So she’s got this milkshake stand, right?

David: What? Who has a milkshake stand in their yard?

AJ: You know how kids have little lemonade stands that they put up in their yards? Well, she’s older and more mature, so she’s decided to start a milkshake stand instead. You know how important calcium becomes when you’re older.

David: …

AJ: So she’s got this kick-ass milkshake stand going, and all these boys are telling her how much better her milkshakes are than someone else’s – maybe there’s some chick selling sub-standard milkshakes in a yard down the road, or maybe they’re talking about the local McDonald’s, whatever. It’s like a tribute to small businesses. It’s about the American Dream.

David: So why is she telling us to “warm it up”?

AJ: That’s her special thing – warm milkshakes. Everyone loves them.

David: Everyone loves warm melted ice cream?

AJ: Yes.

David: But…

AJ: YES.

David: O.K.

Right now, everything is made of snow. The streets are made of snow, my car is made of snow, my apartment, the bridges, the river, the lake. This is the first time that I’ve had a day off work due to snow. It’s mid-afternoon and my street hasn’t been plowed once since the storm started Saturday night.

I woke up and promptly panicked. I was out of cigarettes. I was out of cigarettes and the world was made of snow. I spent a good long while contemplating why I even needed cigarettes right now. Every day I wake up, go to work and come back home without having a cigarette. But somehow, sitting in my living room waiting for the coffee to finish percolating, the thought of a having a cup of coffee in my home without a cigarette was unimaginable. So I bundled myself up like I used to in elementary school and headed out, blazing my way through knee-high snow just to find what could only be loosely referred to as ‘the road’.

I had forgotten how strangely invigorating it can be to trudge through the snow, head tilted in just the right position to minimize the wind and maximize visibility. I finally found a store made of snow (which was actually open), and headed back home, victoriously gripping the fresh pack of cigarettes in my front pocket.

Now if only I was reading my book instead of watching reruns of Dawson’s Creek.

Yesterday I read a rant that a friend of mine had written about the whole “Paris Hilton Sex Tape” fiasco. She sent out a very clear message that critizing and deriding someone for something as private as this (that was never meant to be seen publicly) is flat-out wrong. And I completely agree. The then-19-year-old Hilton made a sex tape with her on-again, off-again, 33 year old boyfriend Rick Salomon, a man who’s best known for being married to Shannen Doherty, of all things. That’s it. Neither of them committed a crime. Neither of them did anything shameful.

Basically, if you’re going to hate Paris Hilton, do it for legitimate reasons, like the fact that she’s a vacuous, self-absorbed, vain twit. There are very few people the sight of whom makes me want to punch them in the face repeatedly, but she’s one of them.

If I didn't already want to see this train wreck of a movie, these guys would have convinced me.

Sunday, November 16, 2003

7:34 pm

Can no longer stave off the sickness creeping into my bones. Can live without seeing how a bunch of crappy rooms turn out on Trading Spaces. Must go to bed.

9:59 pm

Surface from sleep briefly to note that something smells funny. Vaguely like elderly desk lamp when left on for more than five minutes. Interesting. Fall back asleep.

10:14 pm

Loud banging on the door. Very loud. Buzzer buzzing. Repeatedly. More banging. A voice, “Everybody out of the building! Fire! Everybody out!”.

Awake now. “OK!”

Pants, must find pants. Here, pants! Pants discovered cowering under bed. Next up, jacket. Done. Wait! Have no bra, need a bra, NO TIME FOR BRA.

Must find cat. Have to find cat. Head into super-smoky living room, much like conference rooms in Germany where men spend all day smoking cigars until by five o’clock you’re playing Marco Polo just to find a particular person. Cat cat cat cat cat. CAT! Grab cat. Attempt to wrap cat in towel for safety and warmth. Fail miserably. Decide to bring towel along anyway, for no discernable reason.

Find keys, cell phone, run outside.

Join other occupants in front of building. Realize that purse containing driver’s licence and credit card is still inside. Damn. Watch as firemen head into building. Note number of occupants who are carrying cats. Many cats.

11:02 pm

Call and wake up Mom. Inform her that cat and I may need accommodations. Promise to call later.

Air is too cold, cat is too squirmy. Decide to put cat in car for a while. Wish cigarettes had been grabbed along with keys. Ask landlord for details of fire. Furnace busted, started venting smoke into building rather than chimney. Most excellent.

11:17 pm

Firemen conference outside front door. Deem building safe to re-enter.

Head back to car. Cat is perched on passenger side headrest. Steadfastly refuses to get down. Eventually does. Head into building. Decide very quickly that staying the night is not an option. Call Mom, arrange to bring cat and spend the night there. Pack clothes, cat, carry load to car. Notice upstairs neighbour sitting outside due to smoke and fumes inside. Offer a ride, but he already has one on its way.

11:58 pm

Arrive at Mom’s. Cough a lot. Go to bed.

Apparently there was a CBC mini-series about the Halifax explosion on recently. I know this because while I was trying to do the morning reports, two of my co-workers were having an argument over the technical inaccuracies of said mini-series. Our Quality Management Officer, an older British gentlemen who is louder and more opinionated than anyone I’ve ever met, was saying that he had to turn the film off partway though. He was infuriated. He and our Electrical Engineer spent a good half hour discussing what should have been done in that situation. Protocol, procedure, knowledge of experience. “So you’re telling me that the Captain would have boarded, heading straight to the bridge and not taken a bloody look at which blah blah blah?” I would have liked to pay more attention, but I had actual work to do.

I always hear the strangest conversations here. Hell, I have the strangest conversations here. At any given point I have at least 20 different numbers in my head, all fighting for my attention. I buy Seaway wires and 500 lbs of ice salt. Purifiers and rotor switches. I’ve been led through the engine and control rooms of an oil tanker that carries 11,000 cubic metres of product. The most memorable part? The engine room is VERY LOUD and VERY HOT.

I alternate between talking to suppliers and talking to sailors. It’s not like in the movies, people. I don’t have Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra sweeping into the office every other week. Most of the sailors I talk to are very French and very old. Except for one, who is the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. He’s Russian, adorable, and married.

I don’t make nearly enough money for the work that I do. But I have awesome benefits, and a bitchin’ RRSP (shut up – I need to make this sound exciting). In a little over a week it will be my birthday, and the closer it gets the more I realize that I do not want to be here forever. It’s interesting, the people are…nice, and there’s no chance of me ever getting fired, but I cannot stay here. I just don’t know where else I can go.

Ok – no more of that. Only fun things. On our drive home from work last night, a third of the sky, from the horizon up, was covered in thick black clouds. Mom and I decided that the clouds were actually mountains, kind of like the Rockies, but more level and less defined. We discussed the mountains in great detail. We wailed and cried as we watched a plane disappear into a mountain – obviously crashing. Then we gave up and sang along to Everly Brothers songs in the most horrific voices we could manage. We make our own fun, no matter how lame.

I read fanfic.

Shut up. No, shut up. Fanfic is just like any other kind of writing – there’s good and there’s bad. I like the good kind. If I see the words “throbbing love muscle,” I run. There are some truly amazing writers out there. Many are better than the authors sitting on my bookshelf. Well, better than the books written by those authors. I don’t have the authors themselves sitting on my shelf. I should, though. I wonder if that’s something I can look into on eBay.

Anyway, in honour of Halloween, I am linking to one of the creepiest stories I’ve ever read. If you decide to give it a shot, I recommend reading it slowly, perhaps by candlelight. And yes, it’s Buffy fanfic. Shut up. No, shut up.

It seems to be a day of links, which is good, since that's the whole purpose of a blog.

I'm indecisive. Tell me which book to read!

Since one of my very first posts was about going to see Bowling for Columbine, it seems only fitting that I give a link to this. Michael Moore can bite me.

I am ridiculously bored.

There’s no reason for me to be bored. I have plenty of work to do. I have calls to make, emails to write, forms to fill, spreadsheets to create, invoices to post.

I’m bored.

I got up this morning, had a shower, got dressed and got bored. So bored that I sat down on my bedroom floor and organized my sock drawer before work. I ORGANIZED MY SOCK DRAWER BEFORE WORK. Could I have found a more boring way to start my day? I always thought that being bored was supposed to trigger some kind of innate creativity in people, making them think of new and interesting things to occupy their time. Maybe I’m broken, and being bored just causes my brain to seek out the most boring things imaginable to keep that boredom train safely on track. Boringly on track. The boring boredom train – one car, totally beige inside and out. Runs on a straight track; no twists and turns for the boredom train. NO SIR.

That’s it. I’m going to throw myself into every pile of papers I have on my desk. I am going to finish every last piece of work that I’ve been putting off for the past week. It will make the time pass. It damn well better.

That, or continue my search for the perfect Latin translator. Unless someone out there know how to say “I don’t believe in Latin” in Latin?

I still think this is very interesting, even if it identified 3 out of 4 paragraphs I submitted as 'male'. Bastards.

violent in touch
we sink
and you smile with a sharpness
which cuts all the places I am overgrown

and you’re nothing I want
except the dance
the game
misguided desire

my mother used to tell me a story
(crying)
of a girl
who wandered into the woods
and never returned home

days like this
I wonder if I’m that girl
and I’ve never made it out of the woods

No amount of preparation can ready you to see Hawksley Workman live.

I've been trying to think of an eloquent way to describe the concert, something witty and clever, something of almost professional-level quality. You know what I come up with?

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. FUCK. FUCK, THAT WAS SO AWESOME. HOW FUCKING AWESOME WAS THAT? CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? GOD. JESUS FUCK.

I'm just grateful that I was with friends who, while being extremely intelligent, find themselves veering off-track in the same ways I do. To wit; at the end of the concert, Hawksley (we're on a first name basis now) quieted us all down, and let us know that although he was going to call this the 'last song', we all knew it wouldn't be. But he'd play it softly, and we would put all the children to bed, and then he'd return and finish everything off in a much more rockin' fashion.

So he played the balladeer, all languid and sexy, and disappeared. When he returned he had somehow lost his shirt. And for the next 25 minutes I spent half my time dancing like a fool and half my time contemplating my intense desire to rush the stage and lick his stomach. COULDN'T EVERYONE SEE THAT IT HAD TO BE DONE? LOOK AT THAT STOMACH. LOOK AT HIM SING. LISTEN TO HIM. WHY MUST IT TAUNT ME, ALL GLISTENING AND SEDUCTIVE? JESUS. I calmed myself and managed to get through the rest of the concert without being arrested. On the long and arduous drive back to our own province, Niche suddenly asked, "O.K., was I the only one who wanted to lick his chest when he came on stage without his shirt? 'Cause I really wanted to."

I love my friends.

Today...

Today there will be driving.

Today there will be coffee.

Today there will be singing. If you are not prepared for the plethora of preposterous singing, you may likely lose your will to live.

Today there will be giddiness, random screaming, too much swearing and FAR too much time spent in a car.

If you do not like hearing about inherent sexiness, you're in the wrong place.

If you do not like shaking your ass, seat dancing in a car - stay home.

If you have never listened to a song and been so overcome with its sheer eroticism that you need a cigarette when it's done, unpack your bag and stay home, because you're sure as hell not coming with us.

Bring on the sex talk and the whiskey sours - I'm ready, motherfucker.

I’ve just discovered baseball.

Sure, its existence has been known to me for a while, but it was just another sport that I couldn’t care less about. Whenever I would flip past a game on television, it always consisted of a bunch of men standing around staring intensely at each other, spitting and looking vaguely like wax statues. I rarely stayed on the station long enough to see anything of interest happen, and even if I had I doubt I would have cared.

And yet…

Two weeks ago Niche took me to her aunt’s new sports bar. I’ve never particularly been a sports bar kind of girl, but we played assorted games and had assorted drinks and chatted with her aunt – a very nice lady. We sat at the bar (something I never do, for some reason) and watched the Red Sox play the Braves. Now, I know absolutely nothing about baseball, so I just had a nice time asking questions and making fun of the goings on. I think my shouts of “Hit the ball with the stick! HIT IT!” went over quite well. But what was supposed to be a one time sports-watching experience turned into a genuine interest in baseball.

Last night while I was talking to Niche on the phone (baseball game on the television at both our apartments) I heard myself say the following: “I can’t believe Boston got four runs in the top of the third”.

Who said that? What the fuck has happened to me?

Go Red Sox! Game 7, baby, yeah!

Sigh.

Desire has seeped into my skin, making it translucent

You can see right through me

But only if you look in my direction

Which you don’t




The safety of anonymity

I am messy.

I am very, very messy. I cannot count the number of times my mother has walked into one of my various apartments and screamed, “OH, DEAR GOD!” while averting her eyes.

But secretly, way down, down past my desire to marry Donny Osmond, three blocks and a metaphorical train ride past my love of super-natural young adult thrillers, hides my desperate desire to be neat. Tidy. Live in an apartment that is shiny and crisp, with nary a dirty dish or overflowing ashtray in sight.

While I may not have reached my ultimate cleanliness goal, I have become a much neater person in the past few months. I do my dishes every day. I vacuum weekly. I sweep the floor – and I NEVER used to sweep the floor. I make things look pretty and organized, and it’s all because I live near my landlord.

I like my landlord. He’s a great guy, and I know that they’ve had a lot of problems with the tenants in my building over the years - including this past weekend when one of the tenants (who had been told to vacate at the end of the month), threw a huge party which ended in two visits by the police and a party guest getting tossed out (naked) and sustaining head injuries after falling down a flight of stairs. I still find it very bizarre that at some point during that eventful night, there was a naked man lying unconscious just outside my front door.

For these reasons, I have found myself trying very hard not to disappoint my landlord. He’s a good guy, and he’s quite often in and out of my apartment fixing this, that and the other. I just can’t bear the thought of him walking into my apartment and being grossed out by random dirty dishes in the living room and a floor covered in books, movies and empty Triscuit boxes, the cat threading her way through them and getting lost halfway to the door.

So I try and keep my place clean. It’s getting easier every day.

Until the ice weasels come, that is.

I had planned on doing a real update today, but I can't bring myself to do it anymore.

Go rent Noises Off and watch John Ritter flail. Go buy a Johnny Cash album.

Rest in peace, guys.

I have just ordered a part from a gentleman with the unfourtunate last name of 'Assmann'. Sometimes I love my job.

Sometimes you write sentimental shit.

Sometimes you're glad that very few people will read it.

Sometimes...

Sometimes you meet someone.

Sometimes you like them, and they like you.

Sometimes you become friends, sometimes you don’t.

Sometimes you like their friends, sometimes their friends hate you.

Sometimes you drift apart, come together, drift apart, and repeat the pattern throughout your lives.

Sometimes you can’t stay out of touch for more than a week without feeling empty.

Sometimes a rift will develop between two friends, a group will splinter, and you’ll have to straddle two worlds, figuring out what words are based on truth and what words are based on pain and resentment.

Sometimes you meet someone.

Sometimes you fall in love, sometimes you don’t.

Sometimes they live next door, sometimes they live across the country.

Sometimes they forget you. Sometimes you wish you could forget them.

Sometimes you smile with such intensity that you cry.

Sometimes you just cry.

Sometimes you meet someone.

Sometimes that’s enough.

All For The Love Of Anderson Cooper

E: So, Punk-ass Bitch or Bitch-ass punk?

Me: Punk-ass Bitch all the way.

E: If you ask me, they aren't using Anderson enough.

Me: I've taken to watching CNN. He makes me watch CNN, and I HATE CNN. He has power over me.

E: It's a weird yet wonderful thing.

Me: I would give a million dollars to hear him say the word "saboteur" again.

E: Apparently, he's very approachable.

Me: *dreamy sigh*

E: And huggable. Obviously.

Me: And gay.

E: Or not.

Me: That's the consensus. I don't think we have the official word. You never know.

E: That would ruin the fun.

Me: Not for me. BE STRAIGHT ANDERSON! *ahem* Sorry about that.

E: If we ever have a relationship, I would totally understand and forgive you if you had a wild affair with him.

Me: Thank you. I appreciate that. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

E: Ahem...

Me: You know, for the first part...of course. Not the second. Nope. *cough*

E: I'm waiting for you to say you'd forgive me.

Me: Right………I’ll give it some thought.

E: 'Cmon! It's Anderson!

Me: He's mine! You wouldn't want him! Mine!

E: Although I can imagine you'd have trouble deciding who you’re more jealous of.

Me: Find your own quasi-gay love interest.

E: I'm just imagining us finding each other and walking down the beach in love. All of a sudden AC shows up and says that only one of us can spend the night with him. And the claws come out. I think I need therapy.

Me: Oh man...you'd lose. I’d beat you down. Maybe.

E: Don't discount my mind-bending abilities.

Me: I have mad skillz. Mad! Skillz!

E: Sure, it may look like crying, but….

When it comes to actual children, I lack any semblance of maternal instinct. Children scare me, not just because they can be so helpless, but because *I* may be the one expected to help them. It’s not that I don’t have the desire to help; I lack the patience. I can barely take care of myself, so the idea of being saddled with something that requires 24 hour surveillance is unimaginable.

That being said, I am very maternal. Just not towards kids. Friends and coworkers, yes. If my mother gets sick, I turn into a full-tilt, high-end fretting machine.

“Is it the kind of juice you like? Maybe you should have a selection of juices, in case one produces better results than the others? Do you need extra blankets? I can bring extra blankets. Soup? Pills? Books? Tell me what you need and I’ll bring it, or don’t tell me and I’ll just drag an entire drugstore behind my car and bring it to your door.”

And then there’s my cat. Jones. I love my cat. Point and laugh all you want, but I firmly believe that Jones is the closest I’ll ever come to having a child. I talk to her, I sing to her. The human equivalent to Jones would be a 40-ish woman who started smoking at the age of twelve, and has been stage managing plays in Western Canada for the past 20 years. You do not fuck with her. She will kill you. She reads contemporary philosophy books and historical romance novels. She intensely dislikes people under the age of seventeen, because “They don’t know shit about fuck, and they all need to get the hell away from me. Now.”

Sunday, Jones got sick, and while she still seemed in good spirits, I had a hard time not freaking out. Yesterday I took her to the vet’s, and I had to leave her there for testing, which I was almost physically incapable of doing. I think I actually would have preferred to sit in the waiting room for five hours than to leave her. But I have a job, and I had to go. They’re still not sure what’s wrong with her, but I have antibiotics to give her and they let me take her home. I spent the night curled up on my bed while she squished in between my arm and my body, sending me the message that she is never again to be left in a strange place all by herself.

Also – trying to get a cat to take a pill is just as difficult as everyone says. And I get to do it twice a day for the next three weeks. Rock!

These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed.

An amusing tidbit about my mother:

I just walked into the kitchen at work, thinking that the wonderful smell wafting through the office was her lunch. She was taking her toast out of the toaster as I arrived. Then she took out a Ziploc bag containing orange goo, and attempted to scoop it out with her knife.

Me: What the hell is that?

Mom: Cheez Whiz.

Me: In a bag?

Mom: I didn't have any small containers, and I couldn't very well bring the whole bottle. You've seen the size of that thing.

Note - The bottle of Cheez Whiz she has at home is roughly the size of the tanks they use to house dolphins.

It may not sound that funny, but the sight of my mother struggling to scrape Cheez Whiz out of a bag sent me into hysterics.

I'm feeling rather stream-of-consciousness-y today, so you'll have to bear with me.

Water and I have had a very rocky relationship over the years. I'm talking drinking water specifically. There were long periods of time where I just didn't drink water. Juice? Fine. Coke? Always fine. Liquid Cocaine shooters? Bring it. Water? Ah...no thanks.

Then suddenly, without warning, I'll be struck with the most intense urge to have some water. The desire normally continues for a month, peaking around week three. And then it subsides entirely, and I want nothing to do with that glass of water you're offering me, thank you very much.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen. This has been my entry for The World's Most Boring Entry Awards.

Today we shine the spotlight on a website that's very close to my heart. From this wondrous girl comes a site of humour, of pathos, of cream cheese and pine nuts, of deep thoughts, of deep-dish pizza, of deep-seated neuroses, of love, of pain, and of incomprehensible language. Don't expect it to make sense. Just take a few minutes and appreciate the bizarreness. I love you Niche, and I will continue my mission to get you and Spiffy to move back here if it's the last thing I do. Except maybe having some ice cream. I'd really enjoy a spot of ice cream before I die.

I had forgotten that this site existed. "You order origami boulder and it comes in mail and you enjoy it."

If loving this makes me a geek, then geek me up, baby, 'cause it's geek time.

I have a very hard time being happy.

Even during the best of times, part of me is always waiting for something to come swooping down and start beating on my happiness. First a drop kick, then a flurry of punches, baseball bats and sharp pointy sticks. Eventually happiness will raise itself gently off the ground, bloody and broken, look at me and say, "That's it. I'm never coming back." And it won't.

Perhaps I'm paranoid as well.

Me: There's no way her boobs are real.

Mom: How can you tell?

Me: I just can. It's a gift.

Mom: You can't possibly be my child.

Me: Why not?

Mom: There isn't enough bizarreness in our entire family to account for you.

Me: Aw, I love you Mom.

Mom: I know.

Me: And....?

Mom: And what?

Me: Isn't it your turn to say something? Hmm?

Mom: Say what? I don't understand.

Me: You're doing this on purpose.

Mom: Of course I am. You've taught me to be cruel and calculating.

Me: That's my girl.

Mom: I think there's something wrong with both of us.

Me: There is. Why is it so hot in here? It's not just me, right? I mean, it's really fucking hot in here.

Mom: I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. And no, it's not just you. It's very warm. And when it's warm enough for me to feel it, then it's reached depth-of-hell-like proportions.

Me: I bet the guys cranked the heat. They want to see if they can get that high school girl who's helping at the cabins to take off some of her clothes. I hate you, stupid high school girl. Take your tiny American Eagle tank top and go HOME.

Mom: How did you grow up to be so mean? You were never this mean as a child.

Me: Yes I was. I was just better at hiding it.

Mom: I don't like that girl either.

Me: I knew you didn't. We're too much alike. Wanna go online and look for naked pictures of David Anders?

Mom: You know I do. Although I might be in the mood for something a little different today. Can we do George Clooney?

Me: GOD. YOU AND THE CLOONEY. [pause] Yeah, sure.

"I," she told him, "can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe."

"Really?"

"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and The Beatles and Elvis and Mr. Ed. Listen -- I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in 'War of the Worlds'. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

Sometimes when I read Neil Gaiman's books, I have to take breaks. I want to keep reading, but can't. He makes me smile while my head explodes.

I was sitting in the gazebo last night, watching the rain and waiting for the lightning to begin, and I remembered how much I love rain. It's one of those things that I forget until I'm sitting outside, sheltered by something or other, and watching it fall. I love the noise, the smell, the sharpness to the air when you know a storm is about to begin, all of it.

And then I was reminded of two of my favourite rain experiences, both from when I was attending university in Halifax. The first involved an Easter present that my friend Paloma had received from her parents. It was a basket filled with chocolate eggs, one of those stress balls that looked like a cartoon bunny-head, and a big rubber carrot. It was night, and it was raining, so naturally we decided to head outside and play a bastardized version of baseball we called "Basebunny". The carrot was the bat, the bunny-head was the ball, and at each base you were rewarded with a chocolate egg. Now I've never really been a sporty person, but I was, and still am, the Basebunny Champion of the World. Maybe it was the ridiculousness of it all. I excel at being ridiculous. Paloma's parents stayed out in the rain and watched us. We were all very impressive.

The second rain-related story also involves late night fun. For reasons I can't remember or explain, two friends and I headed out to the quad in the middle of the night. In the rain. We sat on the grass and attempted to find songs that we all knew the words to. This was a much more difficult proposition than it may sound, because we all had vaguely different taste in music. We finally discovered, and I have no idea how, that we all knew the words to Mr. Big's "To Be With You". It was both highly amusing and very embarrassing. To top things off, whenever we started singing it, the rain would stop. If we stopped singing, it would start again. Maybe the weather is a closet Mr. Big fan, I don't know. It was strange, eerie and fun, much like the rest of my time at university. Mostly.

Since I have a shiny new link to dadakamera's website, I thought now would be a good time to discuss my intense adoration of Daniel MacIvor. It began innocently enough when we mounted a production of "This is a Play" when I was in high school and snowballed from there. Then, in my first year of university, I read "House". And really, that was all it took. Have you read "House"? Anyone? If you haven't, I beg you to do so RIGHT NOW. After that, I'll be able to walk up to you on the street, smack myself in the forehead and yell, “annulled!” and you can laugh with me. Or at me, I’m really not picky.

The most fantastic part came when some friends and I headed down to Antigonish on July 20, 2001 to see "In On It". I was like a mad woman. I spent the majority of the performance leaned forward in my seat grinning like I had smoked some particularly heavy-duty crack before the show. I think it was the combination of a very small theatre and the fact that the man has so much charisma that you expect him to implode by sheer force of will at any minute. When the show was over, and I had relearned the art of walking and talking, we headed to the patio to have a cigarette and revel in the drama of it all. Since one of the people I was with had actually spoken with Daniel MacIvor on more than one occasion, he stopped at our table for a moment to say hi. He was smoking Benson & Hedges Special Lights and had a yellow lighter. I believe I told him that he was my hero. All I remember is that he shook my hand, smiled, and then laughed at me (but in the sweetest possible way). It took all the power I had not to jump up and lick his face.

Last year, my old high school drama teacher and I made the trek to Antigonish to see "Cul-de-Sac", and once again, I lost any intelligence I may have had within the first five minutes and alternately grinned and made what I can only assume would be described as a “Puppy Dog Face”.

I still dream of the day he’ll show up at my door, denounce his love of men and sweep me off my feet. Girl’s gotta dream, right?

I'd like to think that I'm on the nice and clean side of things, but occasionally I wander into the scary territory. Regardless, this is fun.

This was nice for a quick laugh, and who doesn't like compliments? I have no problem excepting flattery from a computer (see post about inanimate objects below for reference).

I have discovered the secret to a healthy, happy, and long lasting life. I have also decided to share this secret. It involves speaking to inanimate objects. Wait! Come back! Hear me out, please.

I have a long and glorious history of speaking to inanimate objects, but has it always made me happy? No. And why is that? Because I didn't do it with wild abandon. Wild abandon is the key (as well as a fantastic play). Don't be ashamed of your newfound relationship with the coffee table! Embrace it! Love it! Buy it flowers and name a star after it, if you will. The closest bond that I've developed since I discovered my theory is with my printer at work. Her name is Lola. She hails from the Dominican Republic, and learned English while printing for a high level goverment official here in Canada. She fled under nightfall two years ago when rumours of a single networked printer began to surface around the office. She never looked back. She eventually made her way here, which is how I discovered her one morning, shaking and empty of paper near our office door. I took her in, gave her a blanket, and filled her with some lovely 20 lbs paper. We have been the best of friends ever since.

Because people! When you develop deep and meaningful relationships with the objects around you, you're never alone. Wait. Why are you leaving? It's not crazy! Don't say that! Please don't....go.

Sigh.

You know what? My priorities are fucked. Especially when I'm crampy. In fact, when I'm crampy, I turn into some strange sort of non-human, frowning, blubbering, fidgeting mess. I don't want to work. I don't want to answer the phone and have to be POLITE. I CAN'T DO IT. I just want to go home, crawl into bed and watch Innocence. Except I'm too crampy to pay attention to a "serious" movie, so I'll drag out my tapes filled with Newsradio episodes instead. But two episodes in I'll get depressed because Phil Hartman's dead and, because I'm crampy and emotional, I'll start the Great Blubbering Cycle and wind up curled in a ball wondering why I'm neither a) Phil Hartman or b) Doing something meaningful with my life. Then I'll decide that I can't watch Newsradio anymore, and I'll whip out a really old Christopher Pike book so I can relive my youth, at which point I'll start wondering why he never came out with a sequel to The Cold One, and then I'll get blubbery AGAIN when I think about how poor Herb bit the big one at the end of Die Softly, when all he really wanted was to bring a vicious killer to justice and get laid. And then the cat will NEED to lie on my chest, which is fine, but I won't be able to breathe properly because of all my blubbering, and I'll have to hold my book up extra-high so I can read it, and then my arms will get really sore and I'll yell at the cat for being inconsiderate and make her get off me, which I'll immediately apologize for because, really, it's not her fault, and why can't I work out more often so I have stronger arms because really this whole thing is my fault because I'm lazy and don't strengthen my upper arms, and so I'll get out of bed and try and find some free weights so I can fix everything, but I won't be able to find any. So I'll grab some cans out of the cupboard and wonder why I need 6 cans of beans in maple syrup before deciding that beans in maple syrup sounds pretty damn good. So I'll heat up some beans and get back into bed, pop in Innocence and relax.

And what does any of this have to with the "priorites" I mentioned earlier on? I have no idea. Leave me alone. I'M CRAMPY.

When I first started working here last winter, our office aquarium had four fish. I named those fish. I loved those fish. I crouched down next to the tank every day and had little conversations with those fish. Corpsey was named because of his unnatural resemblance to a corpse. Of course, he wasn't dead, just lazy. I admired that. He was the first to die. I sometimes wonder if I should have given him a different name; if maybe I was to blame. But then I thought about Corpsey, and what he would say to me. He'd look at me with those dull fish eyes and bubble, "Whatever." Whatever indeed.

Miss Fishy Fantastico was very shy, and spent most of her time hiding behind one of the aquarium's tiny castles. She was my little scaly princess. We talked about boys and makeup, and sometimes even her overwhelming urge to eat the other fish. She was the next to go. I'm sure she's swimming in the great big aquarium in the sky, all dolled up like a fish-whore. My little fish-whore.

I think the third fish, alternately named Angry McBlackfin or Grumpy McBlackfin (depending on his mood), was my favourite fish. He always yelled at me to leave him alone when I tried to talk to him, and I found that very comforting for some reason. We eventually came to a sort of truce, where I was permitted to look at him and call him "Polly Swishy-Pants" once a day. No more, no less. Today saw the end of Angry McBlackfin, who lost his lengthy battle with a strange fin-eating disease which has plagued him for the past few weeks. During these last few days, whenever I crouched down to talk to him he'd come swimming over, often turning sideways, or upside-down in the process because his fins couldn't keep him balanced anymore. We parted ways as friends. Rest in Peace, Angry McBlackfin.

Now only the largest fish, Jupiter, is left. I named her Jupiter because she was by far the largest. I normally don't share that bit of information because it makes me look undeniably lame, but there you have it. She was the prettiest of the fish, but now she's swimming around all by herself. I still remember the day I first saw her dive for the bottom of the tank and plunge her head into the rocks, shake it around, whip it out and then spit them everywhere. I had no idea fish did that sort of thing. She was like a dog burrowing in the dirt. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen, and I never get tired of watching. Jupiter is rather dim, but she likes to talk about puppies, and we often get into heated debates over which 1950's MGM movie musical was better (she always argues for An American in Paris, but I'd take Singin' in the Rain or On the Town over American any day).

We might be getting some new fish to keep Jupiter company, so I thought I needed to document her fallen comrades. Lest we forget.

And for the love of god, Shut Up. I'm not trying to belittle veterans when I say that. It's supposed to be touching, and now you've ruined it. Thanks.