Listening to: Scott McKenzie
Drinkin: Rickard's Red
Pet peeve: People who say atall.
Stop it! Stop it, motherfuckers! Say, at all. Please. For me.
I can't even begin to explain how much this pisses me off.
Seriously guys, I am like hung up on this.
And to think that a year ago at this time I was obsessed with houseplants! Priorities are crazy. No light, no ventilation? Well maybe like there's more important things than a perfect spider plant. Yes. I've learned to prioritize, if nothing else. Also I'm better at crossword puzzles.
Drinkin: coffee
Listening to: the CBC
God. Money stress sucks more than anything else. Seriously. Thousands of dollars worth of stress, plus the student loan. When I'm stressed I smoke more and stop eating, and as a result have lost five pounds in one week, and also can't sleep so I'm going to bed at 1 and waking up in a panic at 6. Anyway. Every once in a while I have a beautiful fresh breath of optimism, and I'm convincing myself if I can just make it through the next six months, things will even out and I'll be able to breathe again.
But I'll do more than just breathe!
I'm going to get debt-free and never go into debt again -- this might delay or even cancel my grad school plans -- and then I'm going to make lots of money but I'm going to give this money away. Keep enough to stay comfortable, yes, but also just give it away -- socialism is great and all the programs we have in Canada are so awesome but sometimes people just need cold hard cash, so I'm going to set up an annual creative writing bursary, even if it's just a tiny one, and I'm also going to walk into dental offices and randomly and anonymously pay off an overdue bill or two. I hope I don't turn into a cold hard bitch who relentlessly pursues money my whole life to the exclusion of all else, but my situation right now is similar to the financial situation my parents have been in their whole lives, and I'm not going to keep the pattern going.
1. Where were you 1 hour ago?
In front of the bookcase, sorting through my book collection (three piles: must keep, will sell, want to sell but they probably won't)
2. Who will be your next kiss?
Matty-B.
3. Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?
Not a thing!
4. When is the last time you went to the mall?
Last week, to pick up a T4 from an old job. That horrible mall smell.
5. Are you wearing socks right now?
No.
7. Have you been to the movies in the last 5 days?
No.
8. What was the last thing you had to drink?
A coffee.
9. What are you wearing right now?
Orange skirt and green t-shirt.
10. Have you been in a car wash?
Long time ago, in my dad's car. It was kind of distressing and intense.
11. Last food you ate?
A slice of multi-grain toast with butter and tomato.
12. Where were you last week on Saturday?
Drinking beer with Matt and N. as the VCR completely destroyed my copy of Heathers.
13. Have you bought any clothing items in the last week?
A pair of jeans ($0.50) and a green summer dress ($0.50).
14. When is the last time you ran?
Last night, jay-walking on Yates St.
15. What's the last sporting event you watched?
Does The Cutting Edge count?
16. What is your favourite class?
I enjoyed fiction workshops, also some of the cinema classes (European, pre-WW2 American).
17. Your dream vacation?
Eastern Europe.
18. Last person's houses you were in?
Other than mine, maybe Steph's?
19. How old are your parents?
Early 50s and early 60s.
20. Are you in love?
Yes!
21. Do you miss anyone?
Sometimes.
22. Last play you saw?
Hmm. Probably a Fringe play, years ago .... No, no, it was R.R.'s play at the FIND Festival a few months ago.
23. What are/were your plans for today?
Many errands. I won't bore you.
24. Who was the last person you were on the phone with?
My dad.
25. Ever go to camp?
I loved camp. Went three summers as a kid, worked two summers in my late teens.
26. Were you an honour roll student in school?
Naturally.
27. What do you want to know about the future?
I'm far more interested in the past than the future.
28. Are you wearing any perfume or cologne?
Never. Makes me sneeze.
29. Are you hungry?
No.
30. Where is your best friend located?
Right here.
31. Do you have a tan?
No. Punks don't tan.
32. How old do you want to be when you have kids?
I'm not sure I ever want kids. If I do adopt, it would probably be sometime in my 30s.
33. Do you collect anything?
Books.
34. Last time you got stopped by a cop or pulled over?
Never has happened.
35. Have you ever drank your soda from a straw?
Yes?
36. How do you like your drinks?
With ice.
37. Do you like hot sauce?
No. Not even mild salsa type things.
38. Last time you took a shower?
Yesterday.
40. What is your mood?
Okay.
41. Are you someones best friend?
Yes.
42. What's the last book you read?
I'm in the midst of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Not too into it.
Last night Matt and I stepped out into the balmy June evening on a mission to find powerful painkillers, wearing:
Him: Ridiculously expensive leather shoes, faded and tattered corduroy shorts, an old ACDC t-shirt, and a camouflage patterened sun visor.
Her: Ridiculously high heeled black shoes with wool socks peeking over the tops, a flowing orange sari-skirt, a beat-up snowboarding t-shirt, a trendy faux-leather handbag, and a faded corduroy cap.
The best part was, none of this was intentional. Also, it wasn't laundry day.
1) A seconday character says 'Gah!' repeatedly, which I'd thought I'd invented. If not me, surely Amy from Futurama.
2) The main character, a dwarf, is obsessed with the story of Rumplestiltskin. An excerpt:
"The real villain of the piece, if you ask me, is that venal bitch of a miller's daughter. Following the dwarf's instructions, she spun whole rooms full of gold for the king, eventually luring him into marriage, knowing from the start that the fee for Rumplestiltskin's services was her firstborn child. Then she has the gall to act wronged when he comes around to collect."
| You Are 36% Gentleman |
 And while this does please you, it pretty much offends everyone else. |
This kind of reminds me of a comment made to me when I was 18, by a fellow canoe-trip coordinator named Josh who was from Lumby:
JOSH: You know what I like about you, Joy? You take a look at the rules, and then you go, "Fuck 'em."
I had just exited a fishing boat by stomping across the bow, sneering at the unused life jacket on the floor, and jumping into two feet of lake water, moistening my jeans. I took offense at his remark and refused to lend him a cigarette.
Listening to: 'Definitely Not the Opera'
Drinking: a beer
Oh, the sheer joy of making lists, converting them to complex diagrams, adding appendixes, colour-coding the results, checking things off! The irony of student-loan funded university life is that it created a major lack of financial responsibility and planning, yet provided me with the intellectual stimuli I seem to require in order to keep depression, binge drinking, and morbidity at bay ....
It's sunny. My front yard attracts butterflies, which delights both Sambuca and myself. She loves summer: it's warm, I buy her more tuna Fancy Feasts, Matt and I are generally in better moods.
Saw Cronenberg's A History of Violence last night. Not a huge fan. Actually, aside from The Fly, I'm not exactly on the Cronenberg bandwagon, but given that, this film seemed so ... devoid of something, can't quite put my finger on what. There was a lack of witty dialogue, which is one of my favourites, but it was the sort of movie that wasn't supposed to have witty dialogue, so I don't know. I couldn't help comparing it to the Coen Brothers' Fargo, which dealt with similar subject matter but managed to look beyond a foundation of graphic violence and include humour, character development, and fine acting. Yeah. You know who I love though? Is Don McKellar! Yes! Everybody should see Roadkill and Highway 61! Ah, Canadian film ... What will happen to you? Word is Sarah Polley's just wrapped up her directing debut ... It's based on a Carol Shields' short story ... Can't wait! I loved Sarah Polley first for being on Road to Avonlea, and second for appearing on Canadian teen talk show Donnovision in the 90s and quoting Marx (at 17!) upon which an audience member accused her of being a communist, and she responded by saying, "Yes, I support the NDP ... You could call me a socialist, certainly."
I just bit the bullet and called The Student Loan People to apologize for not having made any payments in months, and to explain -- rather obliquely -- my plans for future, more regular payments. I have this to say: if you are polite, and frank, with people to whom you owe enormous sums of cash, they will be nice and helpful .... Of course, maybe they were only being so nice because me not paying them means I owe them even more interest, which represents profit, but I don't care: I'd had myself half-convinced that they were going to turn me over to a collections agency, after which I would be jailed until I painted $30,000 worth of licence plates. An imagination is sometimes a horrible curse.
Brunch at Steph's house this morning, with Ben and Michael and Steph's friend A. It was delicious and the conversation even more so. Every once in a while I feel like an adult and have this out-of-body-experience type of sensation in which I view myself from the ceiling, marveling, making comments like, "Look at her grown-up mannerisms and cosmopolitan ways!" God, you'd think I'd never had brunch before ...
A fun-ish week: the pub with co-workers, movie (Robert Altman's Prairie Home Companion; excellent) and drinks with Matt (yes it was a date), Canada's Next Top Model Episode 3 with Steph, drinks and cigarellos with Morgan, lots of quality time with Matt. For the past month or month and a half Matt and I have been rather ships-that-pass-in-the-night-ish -- both so caught up with work, the evenings spent escaping into books and dvd's -- but this past week we've just been chilling out together, drinking beers and talking glowingly of the future and listening to music .... Very cool.
(clint and elisa -- I think you guys will like this one)
1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet and current street address name)
Mixie Pandora (I love it!)
2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your mom's side, your favorite candy)
Eva Wine Gum
3. YOUR "FLY GIRL/GUY" NAME: (first initial of first name, first two or three letters of your middle name)
J Jen (ugh!)
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: ( favorite color, favorite animal)
Green Wolf (mysterious but faintly silly ....)
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Jennifer Vernon (she'd play a nurse who secretly wants to be a surgeon but instead disguises her intelligence in order to successfully fuck surgeons)
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (first 3 letters of your last name, last 3 letters of mother's maiden name,)
Waleld (meh)
7. JEDI NAME: (middle name spelled backwards, your mom's maiden name spelled backwards
(this one's just stupid; I refuse to do it)
8. PORN STAR NAME: (middle name, street you grew up on)
jennifer rogers (what's with all the middle name stuff? I hate the name Jennifer)
9. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favorite color, favorite drink)
The Green Gin (hmmmm ... almost as cool as The Gin Bombshell ....)
My dad and I have become quite close (as much as long-distance will allow) since I've become an adult, but as a child he was often a 'hands-off' dad -- typical of the 80s, I think -- he worked all day, then came home and ate dinner, then went outside to work on cars. My dad didn't teach me how to ride a bike; my brother Clint did, etc. Anyway, I was reflecting on this and wishing we had been closer, when I had this beautiful memory of something he did for me when I was four or five:
He was working as a janitor at a high school at the time, and on this particular evening it was Dry Grad, so he had to be at work till something like 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning, to clean the gymnasium up after the party. I went to bed, missing my dad, but then had the most wonderful dream: my entire room was filled with balloons, more balloons than I had ever seen in my entire life. This was basically a dream come true for a four-year-old, and the best part was it did come true, the next morning when I woke up to see over a hundred balloons, all different colours, taking up every available inch of my bedroom .... They were on my bed and beside my bed and pouring out of the closet and stacked on top of one another, up to the ceiling. He'd brought them all home in his truck at 2 o'clock in the morning, tired after a huge night's work, and put them all in my room .... Not the rooms of any of my three brothers, whom I suspected he liked more than me, but in my room. It's one of my favourite childhood memories.
Listening to: the CBC
Drinking: coffee
Some updates:
1) Canada's Next Top Model has become slightly, slightly better. Still a little embarassing, still low-budget and stereotyped (Canada means trees and haunting inlets!), but the Makeovers happened and now everything is more glamorous. Except, as Steph pointed out, all their 'makeovers' were identical .... Afterwards we watched Charlie Chaplin's City Lights so we could feel artistic and above-it-all again.
2) I went to a great potluck last Saturday: sushi, pasta with a pumpkin-tomato sauce, sliced fruit, vegan chocolate cake, lots of beer. A patio -- how I miss my old patio! Needless to say, cigarettes, music. Spirited debates about arts grants, feminist organizations, the origin of cannibalism.
3) Drinks and appies at Steph's minimalist apartment with the Old Guard. About twenty minutes of Date Movie before it was abandoned in favour of playing Asshole and getting drunk.
4) Matt Makes Dinner: pasta with a cheese sauce, topped with broccoli and fresh tomatoes, vegi sausage links.
Oh, the angst.
Really, strangers at supermarket check-out counters have got to learn to shut their holes and resist the temptation to lecture and belittle me for buying cigarettes. Really. They're all fat and ugly, but do I point at the chips and sugary drinks in their pathetic little baskets and lecture them about their eating habits? No. Because I have chips and sugary drinks in my pathetic little basket too .... The point is that rudeness is the one personality flaw I can't forgive -- be arrogant, be snobby, be overly judgemental, be shallow, be cruel -- but for fuck's sake draw the line at being rude.
Here's how it happened:
HIM: How do you young folks even afford to smoke these days?
ME: By eating less.
HIM: That's crazy!
ME: [grunt]
HIM: I mean really! Don't you know that cigarettes will KILL YOU?
ME: I intend to enjoy each and every cigarette in that pack.
HIM: I didn't just make that up, you know.
ME: What?
HIM: Look. It's right there on the sign.
This is some guy I didn't even know.
I have been listening to Scott McKenzie's If You Go to San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair) pretty much non-stop. It's my favourite summer of love song. How sad that the visionaries of today are too cynical and despair-riddled to orchestrate another summer of love! We read newspapers too much, we're witty too much, we're insufferable snobs who would rather be right than be happy. Moving on: Matt and I clinked Sleeman's on a plan to buy an old farmhouse on an island and live self-sufficiently together before we're 40.
 | You scored as One Intelectual Individual. You're a thinker. You see things from a very different prospective than the rest of the world, and probably find release and self-expression in music, painting, scalpting, or any other form of art. People see you as a deep person, full of knowledge that they don't understand. People are attracted to that, but there's a good chance you don't care.
What type of hippie are you? created with QuizFarm.com |
The Cancer-Virgo relationship combo is so cool. I worry about things to the point of hysteria, and Matt soothes me and talks me down. Matt can never find things and is sketchy with details and organization; I find things for him and make schedules and checklists to get things done. We're both dreamers and people who enjoy comfort and semi-sloth, so we should probably never enter a business relationship together. Matt makes sure I'm together emotionally and I make sure he's together physically. He's water (flexible, scattered) and I'm earth (dependable, stubborn). It works great.
The only real clash comes on those dark days, usually once a week, when I tear through the house in a frenzy -- cleaning, tidying, organizing -- and insist that he throw away or neatly store things he no longer needs or uses. Notably, his grandfather's dishes that we never use. I respect the dishes, mind you. I have certainly learned to respect them. Those dishes, man. They're awesome. They can live with us forever.
Here is the premise: I need to make a $45 online purchase -- need to -- and the only way I can do so is with my credit card. Now, some months ago my credit card was cut off because I hadn't been making payments. So I started making payments, and now the balance is below my limit, though not fully paid, and I hoped the card's 'active state' had been restored. To be safe, I went to check at the bank.
BANK TELLER: Your card is totally cut off! Your account has been sent to a collections agency!
ME: But, but .... They contacted me months ago. We worked it all out. I started paying, and I've been doing so twice a month since then .... Where have my payments been going?!
BANK TELLER: Hmm. Well, maybe you should CALL THEM [she actually said that last bit using capital letters].
CREDIT CARD PERSON #1: Ah yes, it's been sent to a collections agency.
ME: But I've been paying it!
CCP#1: Here, let me put you through to collections.
CCP #2: They said what?
ME: I know. They transferred me to you.
CCP #2: Well, it's totally not true. Your account is active. Call them back, and tell them not to redirect people to me anymore.
CCP #3: Well. It's not in collections and it's not active.
ME: Oh.
CCP #3: So if you pay it on time for the next six months in a row, then you can use it again. Maybe. If all your other bills are up to date. Maybe.
ME: Oh.
I immediately went out and bought a scratch 'n' win ticket.
Rainy morning, the scent of wet roses and sizzling pavement. Coffee in a blue glass mug. A toasted bagel with smoked salmon cream cheese and slices of tomato on the horizon. I may be getting a lap-top, sweet-cheap! Work is going well. I now juggle seven different positions. I want to buy some inexpensive, beautiful flip-flops. Appy potluck at Steph's tonight, appy potluck at N.'s tomorrow. What are the chances? I'm torn between making sushi or bringing chips. Had a dream in which I saw a dinosaur. So realistic. Dream or astral travel? I confess to having a crush on the suicide pilot in United 93. I wikkapediaed him and the real guy was way less good-looking. So maybe I just have a crush on the actor. CBC is excellent Friday morning background beauty.
| Your Brain is 40% Female, 60% Male |
 Logical and detailed, you tend to look at the facts And while your emotions do sway you sometimes... You never like to get feelings too involved |
By this definition, all Virgoes are inherently rugged masculine I-can-spit-farther-than-you commitment-phobic individualists. Also: men don't know how to read between the lines. Unless their brain is 60 per cent female. Cuz like, then they can.
Listening to: Michael Jackson
Mood: tired; craving chips and dip
Six days of work in a row have come to an exhausted close, and I can hardly wait for a full day off tomorrow to ... run errands. Seriously.
In the social sphere past six days: watched the embarassingly bad premeire of Canada's Next Top Model with Ben, Matt, and Steph (low-budget, ugly girls, tinny soundtrack that sounds as though it came off the 'synthesizer' I thought was so cool when I was 10); a date at the Roxy with Matt, Thank You for Smoking (okay) and United 93 (quite good), accompanied by popcorn and cuddling; a wild and crazy drink-fest with my newfound Work drinking buddies, weaving from the patio at the George and Dragon to the Logan's beer store and back to my place, where it crescendoed in a blur of urban lullabies, chocolates, a cut lip, and beer-beer-beer; dinner and a drink with Steph at Ferris's Oyster Bar: very grown-up, very chic, and despite the heartbreaking subject matter, very enjoyable.
A note about my lack of updateage: much of my time recently has been spent preparing for something very exciting and new: due to privacy concerns I can't blog about them yet, but hang on to these sporadic posting for the next couple of months, and around late-July I'll really give you something to read about. ;)
