ps

what I forgot to mention in the last post is:

I'm sorry.

you know who you are and why. 

Intention and why none of this matters

I hate Intention. Seriosuly. It's that niggling little word that means poeple can be pissed off even if you didn't mean it to happen.

let's face it folks, I'm a fairly shallow pool. what I say is basically the sarcastic what you get. don't try to read deeper meaning into it cause there isn't.

what baffles me and what is striking me this week in particular, is the obsession with minute. whether it;s three sentences or one minute of tape or one day or one hour or one look or one tone, it's all meaningless- sure life may be in the details but the details aren't life.

I dunno. I've had a week. after spending an entire day yesterday hearing the life stories of people who experienced somethign horrific at the Indian Residential school here, it's hard to take any of this seriously. who gives a damn if someone is a little miffed at me? who cares if I have 6 bucks left in my bank account? what does it matter if my feet hurt, or I'm sleepy, or the girl downstairs is blaring her music? what right do I have to not talk to my family, pout, whine, or complain? I was never taken away from my parents and culture, beaten and abused, raped and struck and dehumanized and then released back into the limbo between the white world and the native world and told to survive in some fashion when no one believed or accepted me. after that, all of this, even this blog, seems self indulgent, petty, and utterly ridiculous and shamefull.

I'm taking to my bed. I'll re-emerge when I can muster up some generation Y self-absorbed angst. 

I'm getting an inkling about why I'm in the handbasket and where we're going....

SO I have an announcement:

I am officially directionless.

oh yes. I know. let's take a moment and watch every fiber of my father's being twitch as one of his offspring (albeit the disapointing one ;)) declares that no, she refuses to plan ahead. she reneigs on her long standing 10 year plan, and resists the urge to create elaborate outlines of where adn how and why she'll be at any point in the future. I embrace apathy, take a big bite out of misdirection, and most importantly take a big jump into the present, leaving the realm of hurry-hurry future behind.

why?

because trying to live up to that constant plan making is making me CRAZY. I've been doing it since I was 12. Seriously. I was the only kid I knew who was looking at univerisites the summer before grade 10. I vividly remember googling univerisities, comparing programs, and sending away for information packet after orientation booklet from my father's office where I was ansering phones. I remember feeling this pressure to figure it out, figure it out now, for the love of god figure it out at all costs and sort it all neatly into a pile so you can categorically make a logical, vulcan like decision before your 15th birthday! 

I do believe this whole process not only involved star trek references but spreadsheets.

As god as my witness, I will never spread sheet again!

Ironically this whole backpeddle on my whole life sequence happened right when suddenly, it looked like I had a clear, easy plan to follow, for the first time in a year.  See, I tried to murder th gerbil and step off the treadmill last August when I fled the west. but rreally, that didn't last.

I think it took me 6 weeks before I was back to journalism, actively looking for work. It only took my dad 3 weeks of me home before he was setting up interviews through friends for me, offerign to pay for teachers college, and urgin gme to get out there and get a life as soon as possible- provided of course it was within half an hour of home and they'd have keys to my apartment, which they would decorate, in a job that would pay me a wage he approved of, and would allow me to come home every other weekend.

but I digress. fastforward almost one year- I've tried very hard to be planless, and have failed miserably. I have festered with angst over where my jobs going, and what's going to happen if and when M and I part ways and I'm roommate less. I've fretted over what to do and where to go next, and simmered with jealousy over the advancements of people I graduated with. I've even burbled with rage when J tells me off hand that if I should move to the T-dot, what makes me think I can get a job, when stars from our year are unemployed. (yeah that one hurt- as clearly in the eyes of J, I'm horrible at this...thanks. awesome. particularly coming from someone who's a)never really read or seen much of my work in the last year or so and b)isn't evne in this industry and finally c) (since i'm pissing people off in this rant) just had a little pat-on-the-back fest with V about how the two of them are rocking their newfound, none journalism careers.)

again I digress.

So finally, my life starts to sort out. I start kicking the metaphorical shit out of my current job. Rocking it, as such. andthere are plans for the future from the higher ups for that paper and they seem to includ eme. I'm writing appointments in my book for months in the future and planning things like back-to-school features for September and Halloween ideaas for October and only-jew-in-rural-ns spots for December. 

and it's throughally freaking me out. 

because here's the thing: I like my job. don't get me wrong. some days I even LOVE my job. but I can see this being a life. I can see myself here, building, advancing, transforming myself and the paper and making it something new. I can see myself moving out there, settling down, and waking up one day 45 and with a life that in no way resembles the life I invisioned for myself since I was 9 year old. 

part of this was spurred on by an interview with three retiring teachers, who were talking about travelling and pursuing interests and hobbies they haven't had tiem for in the last 30-plus years. 

I do not want to be in my 50's and looking back wishing or wondering! I want my life back! I need my life back! and my life requires freefalling!

that's right, I said it. in order to live my life, at 23, I need to take a breath, jump off the cliff,a nd not give a damn about how I land or if I will be mangled and torn or caught by a friendly bush.

so here's the new non-plan: I'm going to rock this job until my lease is up. then I don't know. I'll find it when I'm there. Maybe I'll travel. Maybe I'll move. Maybe I'll stay. who knows? M's going to take off, and the door is going to open. my safety net, of friends and roommate, will be whiped out from under me as people move on. And I'll need to shake off the paralisis, and take that leap again, no matter how it scares me. terrifies me in fact. I can't keep stressing aobut what will happen because I can't change it anyway, and all that does is terrify me. I need to embrace the fear (yeah that's a bit cliche) for once, again. I need to not care what happens. and go and enjoy. I've had my safe little cocoon break,a nd I needed that, and I'm giving myself 6 more months.

but here me now, oh ye gods of the internet: Janurary 1, 2009, I have no idea what I'm doing and THAT'S OK!!

Captain Intern Away!

So this post id dedicated to a facebook stalker.

we've got this intern at the office, right. CAPTAIN INTERN for all future purposes. It's a little weird- a year ago, I was the intern, scurrying around, unsure about what to do and when to do it and makign obscene suckign noises as I tried to get the very best references I possibly could.

all of this was pretty much moot of course as I ended up in newsrooms where things were thrown, they jacked me up on caffeine till I couldn't really function being a super-hyped electric bunny, or a purple bobble head pen would alternatively rejoice or condemn me, depending on if I bit my nails and called Sarah Jessica Parker a pony, or not.

but I did learn to be a journalist...I guess. what did I pick up from all those times I spend as unpaid slave labour in the media grist mill? well, a lot of fun first. and a good hard kick to my preconcived notions of journalistic pride. walking into tnewsrooms is more a jimmy olsen experience than a Lois Lane one- thye're universally messy, with furniture cobbled together from several different decades, and all seem to have the same era of mac lurking in corners (the same mac would one day start sparking and try to set me on fire at my first real job). There's lot of paper, lots of people, adn random bits of swag from incredibly random sources (I used to have a mouspad with cows on it from agriculture alberta). That was probably hnumber one- the other day V and M came with me on a roadtrip to no where and we sopped by my office, an dthey were appalled. yes, I work in a basement. yes, I'm three feet from A, my coworker, and maybe 4 feet and a wall from BIT. yes, it's all a little dingy and whatnot BUT IT'S SO MUCH BETTE RPOST FLOOD I SWEAR!

part two of the great learning extravagenza was the people. ok sure, sometiems they are intrepid journalists of the woodword and bernstien ouvre, plowing for the truth at all costs. but a lot of the time thye're just people, hanging out, feeding that goat and having a laugh. Maybe it's because up until my fourth year of university my internships had been at rural papers and tv stations where a lot of the time, yeah, you were covering old people. and puppies. and children. and longing for that day when an old lady would get into a horrific fight with a puppy protecting a child and there would be lots of blood (but no fatalities) as that would make an awesome picture (we're also horrible people in newsrooms. seriously. we are on the expresslane to hell and passing others as we speed). And when I was in fourth year I ended up in a cube decorated with twinkle lights refered to as the Playpen.

but that's a good thing! Seriously. and I hope Captain Intern is paying attention here because listen up : newsrooms are not what you think. they're not professional, for the most part. we are professionals, but our workplace is not. it's liek a home. a messy, disorgaized, stressful home. and like a home, you need to get over thinking you're going to have the bestest house on the block right out of the gate. you're not. you may not be in roach filled apartments with a scenic view of a crack den, but you're not going to be in a mansion right away, if those even exist (and I have my doubts). what I'm saying here is I used to beat my head against the wall of I-want-more all the time; I thought the status of working for the news section, for example, of my foruth year internship paper was the be all and end all. I actually cried, a lot, when I found out I'd be put on Entertainment. but that day I walked in and joined the playpen and Violet first turned her bobbly purple head my way, it didn't matter. I got better clips than my compatriot on the newsdesk, I had more fun, and I'm hopign I have better references (hint hint coworkers who read this hehe). Same goes for my current paper- was my old one in Alberta more prestigious? probably. it was the only game in town with a wider readership. but ahve I learned more writign about puppies and kittens and old ladies here? maybe. 

cause that's really what this whole internship thing is about- tring to cram as much real world knoweldege into your head as possible, in about 6 weeks, give or take. and trying to do it without taking in all the bitterness and rage that will inevitably leak out of the reporters around you, while still taking in a little bit of that cynysism, wrapping it around you like a woobie, and usign it so when you end up as the reporter, your tender soul and ideals aren't crushed too brutally. 

oh that and intense coffee intake and general slavery. it's a wheel baby- I was everyone's bitch last year, now you're mine.

you can never escape Captain Intern! 

mmm this is some good crow

So I've got something official to say :

BIT, I'm sorry.

I've clearly misjudged you, underestimated you, and for that, I'm sorry. 

Why this sudden turnabout and metaphorical dining on ugly birds you ask? WELL...friday was quite the day. quite quite quite the day. 32 cents in my bank acount kind of day. gas light goes on in my car when I'm half an hour fromhome kind of day. miss an assignment cause I'm doing ad copy find out my mileage cheque won't be in till Tuesday fight with my boss about edits kind of day.

so it's all fairly gruesome but the important parts are this: I'm incredibly grumpy, incredibly stressed, and just want to curl up in a ball and cry. I cried in my car on the trip between Fall River and my missed assignment and work. I haven't done that in months. So I'm right up to the hilt when BIT hands me back a story that I'd work hard on, slashed to bits. Mainly, a well crafted and woven in paragraph where I integreted a discussion of ethenol as it relates to the current world food crisis. SO we fight a bit about that where I say you know what? I'm just too tired and don't care enough anymore to fight you on this. enjoy your fluff (yeah I get way snippy when i'M not happy), and he says 'I'm sorryw e can't do this sort of thing, if that's what you want to do maybe this is the wrong place for you, but you have to decide that'. and I leave his office going 'woah was that the hint I'm gonna get canned?' followed closely by bad day rebellious feelings of perhaps-i-SHOULD-just-march-in-there-and-quit. I've done that before but only for crap retail jobs.

Anyway, bad day parade continues when he pops his head around his door to inform me that a)mileage cheques, for which I've been waiting, begging, pleading, praying, won't be here till Tuesday. At the earliest. and oh btw, even though it's my weekend off, if I want some ownership of the monthly I've recently started doing tons of work for, there are some weekend events int hat coverage area I shoudl go to. 

So I snap. and say 'dude (yes I called my boss dude), I have 32 cents in my bank account and 20 bucks in my wallet. I can either get gas or eat and even then I'm probably not going to be able to afford to drive in on Monday.'

and he nods, and goes back into his office. then I hear him go 'after your 2 o clock appointmnet, you can go home. that's not a good thing. we'll talk about it monday.' and I go 'ok' and start packing up, then he goes 'actually, we''ll talk about it now' and kicks A and Captain Intern (high schools tudent we've had around latly) out of his office and calls me in.

I enter in that weird agressive/aprehenision pattern you get, where you think you're going to get fired adn you're mentally preparing to quit instead to save your pride. I'm standing too because I know it makes him uncomfortable when I'm taller than mhim (ok it makes me feel better more like). and then he starts in about how he knows the situation is bad but the others out there don't need to hear about it blah blah and I do something I NEVER DO.

ever.

I cry. in front of my boss. I have one of those face scrunching moments of comoplete overwhelm-ness, frustration bubbling up in highly unattractive and unprofessional snuffling complete with snot. I am not a pretty cryer. 

and BIT tells me it's Ok,a nd I go its not because I never do this, professionalism and blah blah then he's telling me to sit down and how he understands, he was exactlyw here I was for three years, and he's pushing to get us a cost of living increase, and would $ help? and I'm thinking 'wait what?' then he's saying, no no I'll lend you that money, to get you through the weekend.

and I'm thinking dear god I misjudged this man. that's seriously above and beyond. I should know- I've had older, more experienced, hypothetically wiser and better bosses who, when I was in WORSE situations couldn't be bothered. but this? this is big. this is entering territory of great-boss here. 

so I swallowed my pride- I'm too poor for pride anyway-and took the money. I'll pay him back on Tuesady when I get the mileage cheque. for now I've got food and gas and can...breathe a bit. 

meanwhile. I have to totally revaluate my perception of BIT. yes, he can be a bit of an asshat occasionally- but can't we all? I'm sure we've all been posterior chapeauxs at one point or another. but...he's got the potetnial to be a great boss. he's got that thing that when he's older, when he's doen this more, when he's a bit more experienced adn maybe when he's not swamped dealing with ads everyday will make him one of those kick ass editors, at that small paper so many amazing journalists travel through. that person who in 20 years will ahve a string of award winning journalists saying 'I learned it from him'. 

or you know, just that he made sure I didn't starve. 

List of random

So I'm gonna start this one with a giant GULP.

I applied for the Zambia internship. and I got an interview. 

so why am I sitting on my bed at 11:20 on a tuesday having a panci attack about this????

this is somethign I wanted! I applied for it! i've always wanted to travel! so what is wrong with me??

I think it's a combo of this is happenign really fast. M jsut got home today, I stood waiting in the airport for  half an hour, watchign through the glass as people came slowly down the escalator...shoes...pants...hants...not M not M not M..then I walked aroudn the corner and realzied he'd walked right past me wearing an ugly ball cap. ANyway, he's back, and it's just a little strange. Meanwhile, I got the email about the interview the day after I applied- wow. If I get and accept this gig, I'd have to be in Toronto beginning of July, and in Africa on July 15. That's two months away!

maybe that's my problem. I was just getting settled here. if this job was for September? I'd ahve time maybe....but right now? I want M to get into school I want to get a job in the city so I cna stop this commute adn I want to stay and live with him and hang out with V and do the Africa thing...later. 

wow. I said it. and that makes me awful and pathetic I'm sure.

cause what happens if he doesnt' want to live with me? if he doesnt' get into school and takes off? what if I don't get a job in the city? what if J and V both move away? then I'm here, living alone, on my own. and kicking myself for not doing Zambia. but what if I go to Zambia? what afterwards?. I'd be even more directionless cause I wouldn't have somewhere else to come back to. M woul dhave moved in with his friends, I'd have no job...geez..........seven months is a long time. 

but...I'd have done Africa. taken a step towards being a foreign correspondant. done somethign awesome and cool and when I got back, maybe be able to settle, a bit......feel content iwth my job because I've done it, Iv'e gone abroad, I've lived.

but right now all I see is being alone.

where in the world is ME?

I wonder if I'm hanging out with Carmen Sandiego?

see recently I've realized...somewhere in the last 3 years, I've lost myself. How'd I come to this conculcion? well.....my contract is up at the end of next month with my current job. and. 

I don't know what's next.

Now, based on previous entries, the solution should appear fairly clear- quit-tastic fun time, non? but...on refelction, I wonder. Am I just ditching cause I'm twitchy? or is there some other reason? because when I think about it, why would I go? money? well that'd be nice. but I can survive on what I get now. actually getting apid for all the hours I work? please. not in this business! plus I think I can probably negotiate some time off this summer in a block that'll actually make up for all the stolen unpaid hours and whatnot. asshat BIT? well the thing is....I tried I little experiment today: I was nice to him. I took him as a funny little monkey in his cage of an office, and didn't take anythign he said personally or seriously and talked back and suddenly...he's just...a person. a little annoying sure, but for the most part not the worst boss a girl could have. don't want my car? well that's legit but if I can work out a cost of living increase to go along with rising gas prices and get my insurance down really low? well...

and the question then arises: where would I go and would it be any better? AC had it today- why do I think this place is bad? It's not. am I too good for it? am I scared I'm not good enough?

that may be it and it may also be what's contributing ot my current angst. I foudn a job. In Africa. before? I would have been off the wall, drop eveyrhting desparate to go. now I'm torn about even applying. is now the time? these jobs come p all the time, only qualifier is you can't ahve done any paid international work previously (meaning a work abroad in the UK with M is out before this). Am I good enough for it? Will I get something out of it? or will I spend the whole 7 months longing for home, lonely and missing M and V and A and all those people back here like the last time I took off all on my own. 

and I'm wondering when this happene.d when I got so lost and undirected. Me? I used to KNOWW. I used to kick some serious career booty, assured I was amazing an dheading to the top. now I watch classmates surpass me and feel jealous but not know how to fix it or if I can. 

and I don't knwo why I'm not happy considering I have a steady job, an apartment, friends, all that good stuff. Feels like every 6 month I get twitchy and move on.

I feel like I can't be happy any where, doing anything for long. I'm always missing something, feeling liek I'm doing the wrong thing, wasting my life. If I stay at my current job I'm not connected to the city. if I jump off the treadmill and just...wait table sor something, I'm missing journalism and that career, and btw I run the big risk of realizing that the reasoN i'm so angst-ridden and 16-year-old lady is because I HAVE slowed down enough, at last, to realzie that maybe this is not th eplace for me, I wasn't meant to be in this industry, admit it pack it up and pack it in and go figure somethign else out. If I go abroad, I'm missing the chance to live with M and hang out and work here. if I stay in this country I'm missing the chance to be exciting and young and daring and push for that career I've always thought I wanted right now. 

maybe carmen sandiego knows what to do, cause god knows I don't!

Footloose and roommate free

so here's a little declaration of freedom that's about a week late (I'm lazy ok, and a very very bad blogger. someone needs a spanking...hmmmm)...

I live alone!

well not really. M's taken off for magical family trips abroad, of which I'm horribly jealous. leaving me to my own devices in our apartment for 16 whole days. the first couple of days were a little disconcerting.post wild-wild-west, I wasn't sure if I could live alone again. I hadn't done it properly in months, and when I had I was Incredibly Depressed. 

Now, I did live alone for 2 years and really enjoyed it. I was that girl- the one who goes to movies alone and can eat alone in a restaurant (with a protective book coating however), and enjoys her own company. Independant and awesome. post WWW? not so much.

So I moved in with a pal and it's been pretty good. someone's home when I get home, or rather, cause we work completly opposite hours, the spectre of someone else is home when I get home most of the time. I know that someone else lives here and he will eventually be returning, which makes you feel.....way less lonely I guess.

Thing was that's a little creepy, isn't it? cause I don't want to live with someone because I'm lonely. so this week has been good for that- he's gone, and the first few days I noticed but after that, I adjusted. and it's good.

It's also good because I can welcome back the underpants booty dance every morning. as well as perpetual slobbery and nakedness.

first: since he usuallyw orks nights, I have to be pretty quiet in the morning. Without a grumpy bear snoring away in the next room, i can blast disco and boogie around my kitchen while getting ready.

which is, by the way, a total mess. I'm a huge huge HUGE slob and I'm sort of reveling in my own filth now that anal-retentive annie (i.e my very clean roommate) has departed. There are dishes in the sink from the day he left, abotu a week ago. there are clothes in every room. my bra is currently sitting on the couch. my dress pants from yesterday are in the hall. my makeup is all over the bathroom, and I haven't bothered to put away my things after I did my nails 4 days ago in the living room.

flip side of that is that it's starting to bug me. clearly living with a clean-ahlic has rubbed off. I like a clean apartmne tnow. maybe it's something abotu getting used to coming hom eto fluffed couch cushions arranged just so and a sparkling kitchen and bathroom. So I'm going to snap soon and clean.

Also because this may be getting a little unsanitary and I don't want to catch something, as I'm pretty much naked all the time now. oh yes. THIS THIS is the thing I've missed the most living with a guy! Naked time. sweet, blissful, waistband free naked time. the delightful feel of air on skin and never having to keep pants on once I'm in the door. airdrying after a shower. bliss.

now I'm pretty naked most of the time anyway, even when he's here. we've sort of hit the point where underpants are fine, not for like hanging out, but if we run into each other in the hall we can have a conversation and it's fine. as long as I'm earing a shirt. and big underwear. but when he's not phyiscally in the apartment, I'm pretty naked most of the time. but youi're always waiting for that door to open so you can scurry quickly back and find a top, quick! I like the security of knowing that if I want to be captain nudey pants all day long, no one's gonna bust in on me.

so reign on captain naked slob, reign on!

ps sidebar: as to my post yesterday. BIT if you or your spies are reading this, I'm kidding. yes. I am.  sort of. 

Also I acknoledge that a certain amount of personal PR is neccessary n any industry and I'm cool with that. I smile and go to lunch with BIT and share personal things so I don't seem aloof (this does not however mean you KNOW me, and can make judgements on things. you don't and you can't. that's for my friends to do, not my boss). what i don't like is the obsessive grovelling adn the implication that I must do that for job security and advancement. I prefer to think I'm going to get and keep jobs because I'm good. Merits, not suckage. might want to consier that BIT. 

Dressing like a grown up and the magical world inside my boss's ass

So today I had to do advertising. now let me take a sentence to remind all my hypothetical readers that I am not in advertising. at all. no. not a bit. not even a little. 

And yet, somehow, today I found myself wearing uncomfortable pants, gunk on my face, smiling inanely and hitting levels of false cheer that surpass even my normal cheery reporter voice.

Now, I don't mind doing this. ok I do but I'm game to try. the rub of all this was watching BIT try to tunnel his way into company higher-ups small intestine. While standing there, in hot but slightly uncomfortable heels (worn because BIT had decided to show off his management-prowess by being a complete asshat for the entire week, as the higher ups were around and clearly the way to impres syour boss is to revert back to playground tactics involving picking on the other kids in order to make yourself seem like, well, less of an asshat. or you know, just not totally unqualified for your job, whatever. my response to this, after initially trying to talk to him and realizing that no, actually, telling him he's being an asshat bully is more likely to get me fired than make him stop being an asshat bully, was to be taller than him. as it annoys the little weasle. try making me feel smaller than you when I'm 6'3, I dare you!), I noticed something- the boys were clustered in a corner.

completly ignoring me, and the other girl working the booth at the business expo that led to this entire escapade.

now I've long ago reconciled myself to the boys club that is the professional world. I get it, I really do.a nd I've also recognized that BIT is NEVER going to acknoledge or do anythign about the disparity. the asshat gets off on it, seriously. whether it's him telling me to slather my face in makeup gunk in order to look professional, while he simply removes his toque and calls it a day, or making cracks about a list of percieved 'girl' things that all 'girls' do that he, as a 'man' finds annoying or amusing. or you know the fact he makes twice as much as me and the other reporter and isn't willing to spread that around, whatever.

but having it underlined so clearly bothers me. clearly I was there to be the eye candy along with the other makeuped and heeled girls.

*actually side bar- creepy old man update. while taking pictures at said event, for the paper, an old guy came up to me, tapped me on the shoulder and said 'your picture in the paper doesn't do you justice my darling. You are far more beautiful. and tall!' at which point he looked at my tits, I smiled awkwardly and ran away. clearly I'm back int he 1950's today.

so there I was, being the eyecandy, while the menfolk went about the 'serious' business of newspaper-ing. delegate the actual work to the girls, while we discuss the inner workings of the business and look smugly at our fat paycheques. Seriously, I was waiting for them to either crayon a no-girls-allowed sign and hang it off BITs back, or give me a nice open palm smack on the ass to show me what a good job I was doing.

well after I'd gotten over tha tmental gripe, I realized somethign else- there was BIT, doing his utmost to shove himself even farther up his bosses anus. oh yeah. this is an olympic champion ass kisser, BIT.  I felt I should offer him some chapstick, because you know, kissing those soft corporate bottoms is best done with luscious moisturized lips. I ponder how he doesn't have back problems, spending so much time bent over, lips pressed to ass, like that.

but I also wonder how anyone can buy his act. Really, don't they see throuhg that to the ok reporter and mediocre editor and craptacular manager he is? or perhaps they like the ego rub. everyone can use a little rub down now and again, I guess, but he could at least try to be subtle about it! he flips like a light switch- one second he's grumpy, overstressed, ass hat I see every day who can ruin my day with a mere glance or the dreaded 'yes I do beleive you will be working twice the hours we're paying you for and you will do it without complaining or mentioning the fact that you have dinner waiting at home because to even sigh at my demands for contanst work dedication is to prove yourslef lazy, undedicated, and generally not as totally wrapped up and defiend by your job at a small town nova scotian paper, which I clearly believe to be the globe and mail if the size of my ego is any indication, as I am'. the next, he's the laughing, chortling, elbowing beloved-by-his-employees-firm-but-fair-manager-extrodinaire.

and they seem to love it! they certainly have this reciprical relationship of mutual adoration. he tells them how much he loves to rub his tounge and lips all over their buttocks, and they in turn fill his head with 'boy wonder' garbage that, at the age of 26, he's gettin g alittle long in the tooth for. 

and I'm thinking- is he expecting ME to do that? is that why we have some, ahem, personal issues, he and I? because I'm more likely toa ctively antagonize him then bat my lashes, coo over his obvious brilliance, and cackle in a false open mouthed hyena way at every comment I make that could vaguly be interpreted as being mildly possibly funny.  because dude, that's not happening.

you, BIT, can continue with your journey into the anus. you can continue to apply brown crusty eye makeup as you burrow ever farther into the corporate intestine. you look like you've got something a little corny on your nose there, BIT. might want to wipe it off. with the other bosses panty pudding. cause that's clearly the next step here- once you've mastered the ass kiss, where else are you gonna go but for the frontal expression of intense suckage?

open up and smile BIT cause you want a promotion, don't you? and you're a loyal company man, aren't you? pucker up, slather on the lip gloss, and get ready for some corporate tonsil tickling. I bet if you let him splatter his 'positive feedback' all over your face, you'll get another raise.

....mmmmmmm that's some good career development. 

RIP

I've ripped my jeans.

oh the humanity!!!!

First, my pocketbook is crying- I only bought these after Christmas and already they have a big whole in the inner thigh, so it's not even like I can pretend I purchased a pair of those fashionably 'pre-ripped' jeans (what is with those anyway??? seriously, people actually spend more money on jeans that are already ripped? simply confirms my belief that people are incredibly dumb).

but more importantly, I've worn these almost non-stop since I got them. they have become a part of me. the waistband that's just a tiiiinnyy bit too high that's constantly rolling down, the pen stain above the left knee from a council meeting when I got bored and tap tap tapped on my pants, not realizing that my pen wasn't capped, the denim that has had this point so conformed to my body that I'm pretty sure they could walk around ont ehir own..they will be missed.

whats more this means I'll have to endure the greatest evil of all- pants shopping. oh how I loathe it. first, I have WAY better things to spend my money on than pants. second, when you're my heigh with an ass it's insanely hard trying to find a pair that fits. either they're built for fat women and they pull and pile and sag in various bizarre places (I've noticed this- jeans of a certain size seem to assume that just because your waist and hips are a certain size, you clearly have that so unflattering term 'gunt'. it's true. well,I do NOT. a bit of a budda belly pooch, but gunt? surely not!), or they seem to think that yes, you can have long legs, but clearly they are like a baby giraffes- skinny without tone or gasp muscle.

so the whole thing is an exercise in body hatred and futility which just makes me long for dairy queen in the food court and the promise to forever wear skirts as this is CLEARLY not worth it.

what I want is magic pants- that perfet pair with just enough spandex they're stretchy and comfortable without feeling like you're wearing old lady pants, big pockets I can cram things in (I'm a reporter- I keep stuff in my back pockets. a lot.), the perfect just-under-the-navel rise that doesn't create muffin top or rolls or require things to be shaved, the length that just covers my arch, giving me perfect shoe-to-pant without showing off my crappy socks or dragging int he dirt, all in a perfect medium dark wash- classy and yet not black.

ok pants knomes, where are you?

clouds of age and puzzlement

So I've been pondering (that's never good, when I ponder...leads to shennanigans). After what feels like my thousandth event involving old people (they read my paper so clearly they're the ones we have to cover. am I the only one weirded out a bit by the fact that people pick up my paper primarily for the obits? I feel like the wrapper on the death bar here.....), I have to wonder- a)were they always so disconcertingly short and b)do they like, send little old ladies bottles of nasty musky perfume when they turn 65? 'oh here's your senior citizens discount card and a bottle of shit to make you smell like an old musty laundry room! enjoy!

I've had issues with perfume before. I always seemed to end up in lecture halls positioned behind a gaggle of girls who felt the need to douse themselves in whatever eau du hollywood skank had just emerged triumphant on the stinky pile. Apparently smelling like identical baby prostitutes is a good thing? but at least then the scents themselves, although overvigourously applied (to cover the scent of despair, vodka and semen I can only assume) applied, started out possibly just maybe smelling...not horrible. this old lady stuff though, did it EVER smell good? and yes, I realize old people start losing olfactory ability, so they put more on so they can smell it, but honestly. it's like a cloud of putrid age hovering around my sternum.

maybe they aren't applying this stuff- maybe they're just excreting it? is that even possible? is old lady smell the human equivalent of skunks? or maybe it's some creepy octogenarian pheremon- oohh Ismell like mouldy bounce sheets, come get me big daddy?

Excessive acts of perk will result in disapline

so I've realized something.

high school sucks.

ok no, wait, I knew that. I've known that since I was 12, watching my sister go to high school and realizing oh wait, she's incredibly lame. 

it was simply underlined this week. Let's take a little trip in time  shall we? 

the week began with several trips to various high schools for stories. it hits you the minute you walk in the door- that old familar smell of dread, self loathing, and bad french fries under the sweet cloying smell of pheremones, raging hormones, and inadequacy. mmmmmm puberty. smells like lipsmackers and axe.

and even though I'm 23, with better clothes, better hair, and the ability to legally buy alchol and not talk to my mother for months, walking past the clusters of high school girls still makes me want to shuffle myfeet and long for their approval. or their acceptance. LOVE ME DAMN IT LOVE ME.

clearly I have some residual high school angst ;)

so after several excursians to the heart of high school hell, I got to spend the weekend- my weekend off mind you- in the company of the worst example of high school inbreeding, the hell hounds of satans mean girl army, the robber of brain cells- cheerleaders.

let's not discuss a brief stint in my best-forgotten past with the pompoms.

I'm refering of course to Cheer Expo. so it wasn't just one team, oh no. it was DOZENS. with their mothers. wearing sparkles. and perky ribbons, too much makeup, and spray on tan under their spanky pants. they giggled. they laughed. they cheered and jeered as vapid baby prositutes are want to do. and they kicked me in the back and giggled while I was trying to work (I whine now as I'm currently riding the IB profin train). 

And I have to wonder, way back in my ill spent youth, was that I that incredibly dumb? oh probably. but the real question is where teen girls always so...skanky? Somehow I don't remember our tops being that tight, our boobs that big, or our jeans requiring shaving back in the wholesome 90;s. it was a magically time; full of boy bands thrusting inappropriately at prepubesent girls, before Britney was crazy and when Christina was still trapped in a bottle and not writhing around in assless chaps with bizarre hair. 

and clearly I'm an old lady as I just remininst abotu the good old days, how pure and innocent the world was when I was a kid. break out the polydent and clowds of old lady perfume, it's depends time!

Using up all the hot water

oof so gonna get emo here again......sorry vague-concept-of-internet-readership....

so. I did something dumb today. its this week I swear. and I'm noticing; before this, I'm totally cool with being single.

ok that's a lie- but I'm hacking it. Big deal. It'll happen. Give it time. You're not ready. But this week...its like BAM and Im right back where I was a year ago when I was doing stupid shit just to feel or to kill any part of me that dared to feel. 

So what'd I do? I met up with a guy. who I used to..god I dunno what the term is? when you don't have sex but you do STUFF and you're not dating? whatever. It's today. today, years ago...2? 3? in third year...today he held me down, he came over, he grabbed me there were bruises it wouldn't stop and then..and then....the only time I said no clearly. said no repeatedly. said no and pulled away and I dunno somehow convineced him to stop asking stop pushing and actually stop. it's the worst. the time I stood in the shower and kept turning the cold lower and lower because I needed out of my skin...the time I woke up and lied to my friends about bruises on my arms, bruises on my face, marks and feelings and an ache I can't deal with and for once I looked through him while desparatly wanting him to look at me.

that was years ago and as I keep telling peopel I AM OVER IT.

I am lieing of course.

but this week. today. I'm...a little...melencholy. and I'm back where I was right after it happened, even while it was happening. Tuaght that that's all I'm going to get. that I can't expect someone to care about me and go slow and be there for me..and by that I don't mean the emotional bullshit. I mean be THERE be in my bed be with me for ME. not just because I said yes. not just because I'm female. that, I'm not going to get because I am me. and no one would ever be with me for me. no. only for what I can do for them. it's not about me. and I believed it. a lot. and you go lookign for.....confirmation? someone to make it a lie? but because you're single its less pathetic to be single and till getting laid then single and alone. so you do stuff. and it's easy to find those guys.

I've done a lot of stuff I'm not proud of. the stupid oens that are a drunken blur I barely remember. the ones where I never got the guys name and DIDN'T CARE. I didn't want it. I didn't want them to have mine. I just wanted.....I don't know. but I wasn't there for those. 

and then there were the others that maybe even ripped me apart more; the next step, the guys you know. the friends of a friend, the guy you hook up with a few times and pretned it's cool that they never ask you out for coffee or tha tthere isn't a convienent lable for that type of interaction. there were a few of those.

then I moved. and I came back. and I had a lousy week and a fight with my roommate and took one up on an offer. and I went over there thinking it's been time, I'm better this will be fine you can do this. and i couldn't. I just...couldn't. but unlike in the past where I'd just leave, my brain would leave, and my body would keep going and I'd come homeand cry and feel liek another chunk of me was gone...thrown away...garbge....worthless...I bailed.

it was highly undignified.

and I promised I owuld't do that again.

then today I did. today, he texted me. said come over for a post-bday drink. I thought..this could be different. this guy, this was the guy who used to actually want to make me feel good- it wasn't all about him. this was the only guy from that period I thought maybe..maybe culd actully develop into more (slim cahnce of that there was). 

so we met and there was wine, awful white stuff, and there was kissing adn I was ok. and there were hands and I was ok and I'm thinging 'yes this is great'. and then his hand is on my thigh and I know where it's going and I panic. right there. I can't. do. anything. I can't move. I can't. and suddently I'm disgusted with myself because I see what I'm doing. what I've done before. I see it. 

I'm just playing out the old pattern- this guy, this guy could give a damn about me. He doesn't care, he doesn't know me, he just wants sex or whatever he can pry ou tof me. I don't know him and he doesn't know me and if I keep doing this I am worthless. this is a guy I'd be embarrassed if I ran into on the street. this is a guy who will never make it on my facebook (so low on the totem is he). This is a guy who i'M panicing because my roommate might get home and see him- not see us doing anything, but see him AT ALL. the very idea of introducing him to my friends appals me. I don't know why. am I ashamed of him? probably. but I'm more ashamed of me. I'm more ashamed and pancied that people who care will see waht I do and suddenly they'll clue in to what B knew all along that THIS THIS is all I'm good for. I'm not smart or clever or funny or pretty or anythign else. All I'm good for is to be that girl who scrathes the itch then gets thrown away. that worthless girl who you don't have to know her name or care if she's hurting. and I'm makign this guy treat me this way; this guy who's probably a very nice guy, but I'm teaching him and making him treat me like trash because I don't know any other way.

maybe that's because I am worthless......

Office Hobo, Away!

So I am now a work-vagrant. An office Hobo. A homeless journalist with my nose pressed against the glass of other newsrooms with their shiny computors an dnon-flooddamaged carpet...ok not really.

here's what happened: Valentine's day (because clearly mouldy carpet is romantic...), I pull into the office, barely get out of my care before BIT is storming towards me, to tell me to go home, there's ankle deep water in our office and the recycling boxes are holding a regatta. After a weekend of uncertainty, it became clear yesterday when we descended on the underwater wonderland of my paper to discover that no, this was not something that could be cleaned up with a little febreeze. They're going to have to pull out all the carpet, redo all the walls etc etc. All of this excites me no end. First, it means I had a really good excuse to clean my desk, which has, I'll admit, never been cleaner than right at this minute. It also means that perhaps my basement abode will suddenly have matching carpet that doesn't split at every doorway, internet and phone wires that are actually inside the walls as opposed to ducttaped down, and perhaps even the microwave will be moved from right beside my head and will stop trying to kill or steralize me...

but I digress. the point is now my work situation is the hybrid love child of our makeshift office at one of the company's other buildings (7 people squeezed into a tiny little conference room smaller than my kitchen) or my house. I get to experience that oft-fantasized about reality of :

get ready for it

are you ready?

here it comes....

god I hate this build up...

WORKING FROM HOME!

Now, on one hand, this excites me. I am currently working and writing from my bed. In my pajamas. surrounded by pillows and my duvet in a cloud of fluffy wonderfulness. This can only serve to leave me in a good mood. I turned my alarm off and am thus surprising well rested, I didn't have to commute so there goes the residual road rage and driving tension, there was no need to pack a lunch or any of the other thousand things I do every morning. And there is the possibility that I will be exceedingly efficient as I have nothing to distract me.

or I could go the entirely other direction and be a lazy skunk (because clearly odiferous mammels are lazy...damn skunks... with their laziness...). I turned my alarm off and am jus tnow getting going...at 11.  There's that bed that's beconing me, a really good book, lame tv, laundry to do. will these next three weeks be a prolonged weekend? who knows. Will my roommate kill me as I'm now interfering with his 'private time' (do I really want to know what he does alld ay???) and....

I miss my phone. a lot. That should be weird seeing as my office phone is a early 90's monstrosity of white plastic, BUT with it's pleasant buzzing, easy access, and abilty fo phone stalk on one hand and recieve call backs on the other, Imiss it. I have my cell, the naughty little mini-tramp, but it's just not the same. I will cheat on my office phone, but techno-baby, I will always come back :)

when my stomachs in charge

Ok so bear with me (and yeah I'm now addressing the masses that are CLEARLY reading this...god I'm lame today....), but I need some vent space, and what, pray tell, is the internet for except for venting?

well porn, but other than that.



I saw him today.
ok, not really. I saw a really brief shot of him in the middle of a pan on a piece about the Daily News folding. there he was. HE. HIM. stupid old man hat and ugly glasses over fat jowels jiggling under pube beard.
for three seconds.
and suddenly, there I am like one of those horrible flashback movie scenes (cue the squiggly lines). Flash first year. chugging a beer next to him in J's room. Flash Second year. coming back from Halloween at the palace and having him jostle me around and try to pull my skirt up- in jest. Flash it's dark and the world is spinning and his hands.....Flash and it's fourth year and I'm walking past the quad hoping not to see him and yet at the same time hoping to see him because this, this is nothing, this is not anythign I need to care about. Flash and there's that denial and that panic and Panic at the disco is chanting in my head (god this even has the poorly thought out emo soundtrack)- "we were just getting to the part where the shock sets in and the stomach acid finds a new way to make you get sick. . .I think of what you did and I hope to god it was worth it....Is it still me that makes you sweat am I who you think about in bed, when the lights are dim and you're sliding off her dress....."
yeah that was garbled but... that's it. that's my brain. garbled.
also, so is my stomach. in that three seconds where there he was. not last year in a photo like when I found our class picture in a box packing to move back here and I tore it in half becasue there he was, in teh middle. lurking. and smiling. noraml and safe and not satan in a bad tshirt. cause you know, he's not. he did something horrible. something..unspeakably bad. but at heart he's just a sad little man.
I think that, but...in my head he's still larger than that. in my head he still makes my stomach roll the way it did that day in Fourth year, when he started seeing throuhg me and I think I first knew something was hideously wrong with the whole situation (better late than never I suppose), and I was walking past the quad and htere he was in brown cords and an ugly tshirt laughing. and him laughing made me run and turn the corner and vomit into a bush on lilac street. gagging.
I'm glad I did though. my stomach is smarter than my brain, clearly. when my stomachs in charge, I push him off me when he tries to hug me that night, say NO and turn and walk away. in front of everyone. in front of my self. but when my brain wakes up the next morning I apologize and next time I see him I let him hug me, and I tell myself the smell of him doesn't make me sick.
When my stomachs in charge it's less Panic At the Disco and more John Meyer 'say'. When my stomachs in charge, I tell him to get out of my life and go drink with H and break out and feel......human. When my stomachs in charge I tell him I've had it and I tell him no. WHne my stomachs in charge I push him off get off that bed go to the bathroom and stare at my brain and say this is wrong.
but my brain, see, it doesn't listen. my brain says 'oh it's not that bad'. my brain's drunk of course.
stomachs are smarter. my stomach got me out of that room many times..my stomach had me standing in that bathroom that first time, telling mysefl I should leave, THEN. early. before all the booze before it got dark and late before I passed out and woke up with his hands down my pants. my stomach had me curled on the edge of his bed after, after he'd passed out, aching to get up, leave. but I didn't know how to get home. I didn't know his address or have a cell to call a cab, I didn't want to wander around dartmouth alone at night. and my brain chimed in saying what had happened wasn't that bad.
it was my brain taht spent a summer telling me that really, I was overreacting. and it was my brain that said it was ok to go back over there, and drink that much, and that it wasn't weird at all when I spilled down my shirt, and was too drunk to button the one he lent me, and he did it for me. My brain kept shushing my stomach, until, again, after it'd stopped, and my brain was dead from alcohol, and my stomach had me in his kitchen drinkign water and again plotting how to get out.
My stomach always knew. my stomach knew something was wrong that time after my birhtday when he was hurtin gme. that's when my brain woke up, when he cut off it's oxygen. stupid brain. If I wasn't a total fool it would never have gotten that far.
My stomach has yet to forgive my brain for that. Or for the last time. when he buzzed and my stomach said jsut let him buzz. don't buzz him in. leave him down there. you don't want this. my brain pressed the button but my stomach kept me in that chair when he flopped on my couch, kept me sitting up when he pulled me down on the bed, got me out of the room to get tea, change the music, or jsut hang off the bed out of his reach when he was told me to take my fucking pants off......but my brain let him.
my stomach was what called that meeting by the harbour and walked 15 minutes back an forth, plotting how best to kick him out of my life. it was my stomach that didn't look at him or say anything as we walked, and that sat, staring out at the full moon glinting on the harbour, and made my mouth saying I couldn't forgive him, and we couldn't be friends. but my brain made me listen to him after- it was only polite. it was my brain that got convinced, my braint hat invited him to thanksgiving, my brain that told me this wasn't a problem, I was overreacting, and my stomach was a fool.

and it's my stomach today when I see him, for the first time, this year. recent. that's what he looked like, yesterday. It's this time of year and I'm held together with work and stupid determination to not go under again, wearing long sleaves becasue I was weak, while he's laughing.
granted he's now laughing on the unemployment line but...
my brain might say it's ok that he doesn't get it and that it doesn't matter that what he did isn't tearing him apart, but my stomach begs to differ.
My stomach would much prefer if he was a ball of repentent goo, or in a cell, or with a record, or if everyone knew and used the big scary R word to describe him.
but my brain poo-poos that. my brain says its petty and vindicitive. my brain says that I should let it go, forgive. my brain in weaker moments also tells me I have no right to be angry.
And that's the thing my stomach doesn't really like; that I'm not really angry. I'm not. I'm hurt and I'm aching but I'm not....mad at what he did to me. my brain knows it and is working very hard to convince my stomach that I deserved what happened, that I let it happen, and that it wasn't that bad, I'm making it up, get over it grow up it happens allt he time it's just sex don't be so dramatic you wanted it you deserved it you could have stopped it but didn't.
and my brain likes to ad that my friends are still his freinds. and that I don't want to have to drag this all out in court to win only on the technicality that yes, in fact, he got me drunk, urged me on time nad again to drink, including once when he urged me to drink a whole pint of JD straight, then wouldn't stop even after I'd thrown up.
yeah, assholes are real classy.

so I saw a picture of him.and just like when I thought I may possibly see him in the grocery store and jumped behind a display of canned peas, my stomach hit the ground. my brain said it was ridiculous, but my stomach is trying to save me.
I don't know what I'll do if I ever come face to face with him. eye level with him. see him see me. smell him. see his hands and face and eyes and know.
last time I saw him, he kept looking at me. like he had something to say. my brain wants to hear.
my stomach knows that will kill me.
its pretty simple. I'm sad and pathetic and a year later, I still cant' handle seeing him. It. Will Kill Me. literally and quite simply.
I survived him. I did. I graduated and I got a job and I have friends and I laugh and all that, even though I'm hollow, evne though soemtimes, I'm not there. sometimes it's my stomach runnign the show makign me go through the motions while my brain takes a holiday because it just can't handle anything more. I'm still here. everything, everything is a triumph my stomach says. everythign I do is proving that I am not worthless, throwaway garbage, nothing like he taught me. I'm still here.


I'm still here.

even if I'm hiding behind cans of peas.


but my brain...it doesn't believe it. and it speaks louder.

clearly I need a lobotomy.

cold

I haven't been here in a while.

funny how I separate that word, a while, even when I'm not at work.

I haven't been here for a while and I won't for a bit longer because I can't.

It's Februrary.

It's my birthday.

It's what happened days after my birthday. It's what happened on my birthday.

It's me being a big puddle of emotional goo basically.

It's me getting quiet and still because I can't move. After I've shook and sobbed so hard there's no noise but a gasp curled on my floor, hitting my palms against the wall and clawing at my skin. After that. when it gets quiet. and I don't want it to start again. when it's quiet and I notice the pieces missing.

I don't know if they were ever there. It's this time of year. I can live with most of it. but these...they are the times that count. it's when I count the end. becuase this is when, this is when he saw me.

The rest, I can live with. the rest I can move on with. but this....when it was my birthday and we had really horrible burnt rice and curry and white wine with bits of cork floating in it and he wrestled on the couch and then...and thne...for one....two...three.....a million seconds he saw me. I was there. I was there. I was there. iwasthere. I didn't leave. and something was there. something happened. and he saw me and then...

I wasn't enough. 

he saw me and in that instant saw how ugly I was. not on the outside not just the surface not just the actions or what i could do or what i should do or who i pretended to be.

no. 

that quiet naked scared small root thing thats really YOU deep deep down. he saw it. he saw me. and it wasn't enough. not enough to care, there was the chance right there- the chance to end it and stop it and fix it or know enough see enough give a fuck enough to know he couldn't do that to me. but he saw me and i was ugly. i wasn't a person. 

there was a pause. two years takes seconds to die. and the clock ticked over to 12:06 and he said happy birthday and started. and it started and it hasn't stopped even though I haven't seen him in a year its still there in my head keeping me up and maing me spin and holding me together and tearing me apart because the second before that, the second before he stopped being him stopped being excusable 'oh it was the alchol' 'oh he trusts me' 'oh maybe this means soemthing eventually' when he saw me, when he looked, i thought...I thought......I was stupid.

I wasn't enough enough to stop the next time days later comign over holding me down not stopping hurting and ending me killing me ripping pieces out that i didn't know i had still don't know ever was there adn leaving me........dead and faking being alive. 

three people in my life have known me that well, seen that me, knew that me. and I haven't been enough for any of them.

so maybe he didn';t take anything cause it was missing all along.

and I guess I just got emo here. 

An ode to coolers

This weekend I became That Girl.

You know the one. The one with the wine spritzer and fruity cooler twirling her hair and giggling vapidly and pondering 'what's an Obama? doesn't have have something to do with Britney?'

Ok, I didn't go QUITE that far, but I did buy Mike's Hard Lemonade for the first time since I was 18.
and got a little tipsy after the first one.

Thus concluding that I am a pathetic lightweight and clearly not cut out to be That Girl.

Here's how this happened: it was superbowl weekend, as my previous post described. Now, I am not a beer girl. Never have been, never will be. I'm not that girl who takes a sip, makes a face, says it tastes like a donkey with leprosy pee'd ,vomited, then died in the bottle, and giggles while ordering a vodka cranberry. Nay nay good sir, nay nay. I will occasionally drink beer. I will try beer. I can understand how other people like it. I just don't.
But that doesn't leave one with many options when it comes to casual drinking. There's hard liquor, but unless you're an alcholic, I can't really see watching the superbowl, where everyone else is having a few causal beers and I'm pounding backMr. Jack Daniels. There's wine, but I wasn't in a terribly classy mood, and also wine tends to either make me giggly or sleepy.
Which leaves coolers.

Mike's hard an dI have a long and fabled relationship. Or rather, we have a short, brief and inglamourous history. It was really the first booze I ever purchased and drank, if you don't count the beer in france when i was 15, the warm cup out of the bubba at the beer and pizza party in first year, or the can of keiths I shotgunned during frosh week. You see, I was another type of That Girl in high school- I like to think of it as a little boring, but generally a nice, good person. Others say I was a great big dweeb. Whatever. The point is that neither my friends nor I drank, smoked, or did anything remotely off in High School. So I entered unviersity nieve, innocent, and with an appallingly low tolerance for things that come from a bottle. Seriously. Fumes can make me spin.
So in first year, Mike's hard seemd a good choice in a beer drinking world. It came in a bottle, so you felt like you fit in, it was relatively cheap (although not as cheap as a flask of vodka for what you get, but I wasn't to figure that out till later), it was pre mixed, and it had a low enough alcohol content that I wasn't wearing a lampshade on my head after one drink. Drinking it on Sunday took me right back to J's room across the hall in first year, sitting on her bed listening to terrible Newf music and trying to be cool in that horrible awkward I-just-want-people-to-like-me-you-like-me-right-RIGHT? way peopel ahve in first year university. I remember htinking in first year it tasted horribly alcoholic, but on Sunday it went down like juice. possibly becaues I've seen had a flirtation with JD, an affair with tequila, and a continuing arrangement with vodka.
Mike's Hard and I parted company around the same tiem I realized that 1 wasn't doing it for me anymore. nor was 2, or 3, or 4. 8 was around the right number, but I'd still sober up in about 2 hours which is no fun if you're looking for an underage bender. Really, what's the point of parties in residence, where your bed is always in the middle of things, if it's not to drink enough that you fall into it? After I realized I was shelling out far too much money for far too little product, and that I also was, with my continuing allegiance to coolers, running ther isk of being labelled That Girl (which, as my roommate M describes it, makes me both ditzy and apparently screams EASY. I guess drinking something delicious and carbonated and not hugely alcholic that ISN'T beer means that my panties adn bra have a hard time staying on. who knew), I switched to vodka an djuice, figuring it was basicallyt he same thing. And thus began my decent into debauchery.......


still, there was something nice about taking a step back, putting the gin back in the freezer, the vodka back in the flask, the tequila back on the counter, and regressing to a simplier time. Before I was out of school in ther eal world, before I had rent to pay or dinner to make, before I'd smoked a joint or done something regretable with a random boy, before life got in the way. When I was still young(er) (hey it's my birthday in 10 days, I'm feeling old!), not decrepit and jaded, looking down the pipe at four years of university that seemed like an eternity and drinking with peopel I thought would always be in my life but who, for the most part, I havent' spoken to in about 4 years, when a friend can buy me one of thoes mini bottle of vodka as a joke and tell me that's all I'd need for the evening and it was sort of true, when I still spoke to my parents for the most part and they were still calling the shots, and where the most stressfull thing in my life was if a paper would get done in time or my show would get picked for that year's theatre schedule. All of it seems so dumb and easy compared to now, and sipping Mike's Hard, even with my roommates erection-jokes, made all the crap of now seem a little easier.
Maybe in another 4 years I'll be sitting around, sipping something fruity and fizzy out of a bottle and feeling pretty mellow before I'd finished the first one, thinkign all the stuff that's making me crazy now was easy, and wishing I could go back.

Cherry-popping goodness

ok so that was a bit of a gross title, BUT....it finally happened. the freshness seal has been pulled back, the cherry has been squeezed, popped, and juiced....

I lost my superbowl virginity.

This was the very first superbowl I've ever watched. Up till now I've been able to avoid it- multiple tv's, big house, more girls in my family than boys, gay friends- I had all the excuses. There was no sneaky-sporting tactic I couldn't use to avoid getting tackled (see, sports reference!) by that tacky mess.

Yes, I said tacky mess.

my problem was never REALLY the sport, but all the fuss around it. The pre-game show. the pre-kickoff-show. The halftime show. The post game show. and all the commentary leading up to it, following it, during it- yammering old guys in ugly ties philosophising on a sporting event that really, how much is there to talk about? Honestly. It's a bunch of guys and a ball. Yes, I get it's difficult, I get that it's exciting and interesting and yada yada but HONEST TO GOD, how much is there to say???? I'd rather the bouncing buxom blond bimbos of the slut-squad cheered their way around the field and into prepubecent boys happy-pants fantasy's than have to listen to retired-stars, coaches, and yahoos wax poetic about nothing.

BUt I digress.

This year, as I live with A Guy, it was on the one and only tv in our open concept and thin walled apartment. His buddies were in our living room, the beer was in the fridge, and there was really no way to escape it. So I sat, watched, and tried to figure it out.

And it wasn't bad. the football itself was interesting- although I got a little annoyed with the constant starting and stopping, and you have to wonder if the players get pissed when they ahve to take 'scheduled tv breaks' for commercials to play so the game can be broadcast in real time. Wouldn't it make for more exciting tv if they co-ordinated the commericals with the endless time-outs and clock-stops? Who knows. And while i still dont' entirely get the fanatical devotion that leads men who look like they're in their 3rd trimester with triplets to strip down to spanky pants and prance about in fullb ody paint, I have to say the last 2 minutes of the game were exciting. As soon as it stopped being a foregone conclusion that the Patriots would win, suddenly, I wanted to watch! So maybe my point is that if all those pundits would just keep their mouths shut a bit more, and leave some of the mystery in the outcome, I'd want to watch more; if it's endlessly discussed and debated and scientifically analyazed until you are 99.9 per cent sure one side is going to win, what's the point of sitting throuhg 3 hours of fumbles and chatter and coaches in hooded-t-shirts strutting around the sidelines looking very official with their little headsets?

Although, gotta say, the most entertaining part of the whole thing was watching the people watching the game. Namely my roommate M and his friends W and C. Now, these are all fairly normal people (well, except for C of course ;)). Nice guys who have female friends, will go to the gay club, and in the case of M will actually volunteer to see 27 Dresses (which was a mess in and of itself. I just want to smack that grays anatomy bitch, seriously. Although her co-star was delightful). And yet, when that game comes on, suddenly they're neanderthals leaping around my living room. While, not leaping so much as yelling, ranting, and beer swilling. There's osmething hugely amusing about a touchdown or soemthign equally exciting leading to M yelling, punching his fist, and then smacking himself in the thigh so hard the thwack roused me out of my mikes-hard-lemonade-and-joint stupour. Almost as amusing as when three minutes later he mutters 'I hurt my hand'.

There's something insane about fanatical events that lead to self flaggelation ;)

The kindness of coworkers

So hot on the heels of this mornings moan and groan, I have a very small thing that while not quelling my imminenent panic attack (which seems to just be coasting under the surface today. seriously, it's like under my very thin veneer of civility I'm a monkey waiting to throw my emotional-poop at someone) at least makes a start in renewing the belief I attempt to cultivate taht things will work out.

A offers to take my weekend.

Now, before you wonder how one can a)possess a weekend b)give a weekend away and c)what on earth this has to do with me flinging emotional-poop, let me explain: it was my weekend to work, and the first one I'd had where there was actually stuff going on. and not just one thing, LOTS of things, far flung early monring things inlcuding groundhog abuse. This wouldn't be a problem, except current financial woes and the lack of my mileage cheque today mean I'm looking down the pipe at a half tank of gas trying to last for a whole week. several jaunts all over Nova Scotia won't help that.

Plus I'd have to get up at 6 am to go look at rodent torture, and it's supposed to freezing rain tonight- neither of which make me a cheery little leprechaun. which is probably a good thing.

So A offered to take my weekend, and I'll owe her a favour. particularly because we'd already swapped a weekend so I can have my birthday weekend off. and the boss in the toque (forever after to be known as BIT- boss in toque) said he didn't care, as long as everythign was covered he was a happy boy! this pleases me as I was waiting for condemnation of my work ethic from BIT, who tends towards the dramatic.


Basically what I learned is I need to chill and just go with it :)

I also just took a good hard look at the ol'finances. and while my tummy tends to go towards the throwing-up-it's-contents-in-utter-panic-and-dispair, I'm ACTUALLy squeeking by this week. Squeek Squeek. welocme to the wonderful world of your mid-20's children, where it's a constant roller coaster ride of panice, guilt, dispair, and bearly breaking even all in a fun liquor-and-pot package!

Money sucks

Or rather, the lack of it sucks.


It's the first of the month, which means du du dum....it's RENT DAY! ooo aaaaa.
and I've got it but that's about it. Seriously. I don't understand this; how can I work as much as I do, and still end up looking down the pipe of a no-grocery week where I'll probably have to call in sick because I can't afford the gas to get myself to work?
Now I'm not saying I couldn't use a sleep in day, and I'm definatly not saying I can't induce some digestive pyrotechnics so I won't even be faking it. But I don't want to have to do it! I'm almost 23 (two more weeks), I work full time at a career-job, and yet, I'ms till poorer than if I worked at a call centre.

This is somewhere I promised myself I wouldn't be; I worked breifly in Grande Prairie Alberta, which is, essentially, hell. Having a tea party. in the middle of the prairies. The work wasn't bad, but as far as money went...oof. I drove away from a gas station once after filling because my card got rejected. More than one can of tuna found it's way into my purse, and i was still only eating twice a day and booking my life around events that would feed me (little tip for PR people- if you feed us, we will come). I've played that script, cried in those parking lots, hid from my landlord, and smuggled sea food out of an IGA. I don't want to be there again, and I promised myself I wouldnt' be when I entered 'real life part deux' and moved out of my parents house (where I crashed for an interesting several months between Grande Prairie and Halifax) to come back East for work.

It's pathetic. It's just entirely demoralizing. Particularily considering that my mother 'cashed out a bond' (I look at it more as my mother giving me money without actually giving me money, as current parent-child relations are basically at cold war levels. I'm Russia. They're the states. if I talk to them at all the finger twitches towards the big red nuclear-party button) for me last week. And I'm wondering: where did that money go?

*brief sideline to my rant. Some of you may be wondering: why doesn't she just call her parents for a small loan to get her from now until payday on the 8th? Several reasons, really, and most of them are none of your business. Sufice it to say after 5 months of them floating me out west, and a fairly hefty loan they gave me to pay for my car and the moves back and forth across the country which I, ahem, only ever made one payment on (apparently the loan is growing too, because my dad charged me a very reasonable interest rate of two points above prime. at this rate my descendants will be paying them off), that gravy train has been derailed, melted down, and turned into pop cans. Also, calling them would be a giant hit to my pride: there was some fairly negative "you'll be back in two months you ungreatful dumbass" behavior before I left this latest time, and calling for moeny would basically be admitting I am A Great Big Failure (again, not news), who should just, as my father suggests, quit this industry entirely, event hough I love it. Go back to school. become a teacher (yeah like that'll pay well).
Thus endeth sidebar*

and back to the rant:

And I look and realize I bought gas and groceries and wiper fluid and topped up my phone and went to a movie. All of these things are small. They're not big. I didn't gamble or smoke or throw it about at greased up male strippers brandishing their genitalia. It's just gone.

maybe there's a magical place where all my money goes to hide; there the underpants knomes frolic with my lost dryer-socks and the majority of my paycheque.

I might have to get a little knome-homocidal.

Sidebar

Sidebar: the point of these things is to have them read, right? and I've already been warned by J that apparently I'm now going to get hassled to update constantly, as I've entered some sort of internet-contract requiring me to entertain my friends andw hatever stalkers find this blog online.



thing is, it's no fun writing this if I don't know people are reading it!
so do me a favour, and comment on a post if you're reading this!

Seductive face at 9 am

So apparently I have a seduction face. Yeah, I know, I'm surprised too.

This came out last evening while talking to V...the lovely girl who accompanied me at the beginning of what can only be described as my ill-thought out 'slutty stage' several years ago (waves across the internet).
Apparently this look involves creepily maintained eye-contact, pursed lips, and a saucy little flip of the head...and what appeared to be prancing. oh yes, prancing. Now, I was unaware that I am capable of prancing- shasaying, yes. Strutting, ok. maybe even the occasional frolic. but prancing?
so After this look had been modelled across my living room, much to the enjoyment of my roommate, M, who swears he's never seen this look (If such a look exists, and I can neither confirm nor deny this, I would have retired it long before M ventured forth to the magical realm of the gay bar with us), I got to thinking:


how does a look that mostly resembles a constipated penguin attractive?

I'm just confused here. Almost as confused as the whole leg-thing. See, I'm leggy. or rather, I'm tall and most of it happens to be in my legs. But I never understood what precisely makes a leg attractive. After all, everyone has them. They're sort of neccessary. They're like a spleen- we all have them, and we'd probably fall apart if we didn't, but we're not quite able to define their importance. Oh wait, isn't the spleen the surperfluous organ?
but I digress.

The point is, looking back on two, ok almost three, years of club-slutdom, I wonder about the culture. Basically it's ridiculous. You wear too few clothes for a Halifax winter, paired with too high heels to walk comfortable, to gyrate against sweaty strangers who will then attempt to grope your ass while sticking their tounge in your ear. If you're really lucky they might buy you a drinkb efore they ask if they can take you home, where you will smack them around and call them bad.

I guess all species have to have their mating rituals, but even this seems a little skeezy to me. I always wanted a hot shower after I got home from those places, and not just because midget-men had a tendancy of drooling on my top (that's another thing I'll never understand- short men who believe that tall women must clearly be enamoured with their diminuative stature. no. I'm not. now back off you creepy little dwarf. DISCLAIMER: that is in no way a bash against dwarfs or little people. Just short normal-size men. I love little people. God's little punchlines).

Basically, the whole guy thing is a little fraught with idiocy for my taste. And there aren't a lot of options when you're in your 20s! There's option a- FriendCest. But that's very junior high to me, and never turns out well. Besides, that requires the whole I-like-you-but-I-can't-tell-you-because-you-might-not-like-me-so-I'm-going-to-dance-around-it-and-get-pissed-if-you-don't-figure-it-out-all-because-I-don't-want-to-make-it-awkward. See? complicated even to type. and besides, I don't care how cool people say they are with it; no one wants to go to the scary mental place of two of their friends having sex. No. I don't want to know, nor do I want to hear about it, and for the love of god don't actually let me hear events already in progress! It's just wrong. And I say that from someone who's walked in on one of her friends sprawled across the lviig room floor with her boyfriend between her thighs- it's just awkward. And then of course, there's the breakup. this is ok if the other half was an adopt-a-friend (someone who was only ever in the circle because they were dating your pal. Nice enough, but you're not going to notice if they got hit by a bus). It's not if everyone's pals together. then you ahve to get into friend-divorce settlements- who gets who- followed by the break-up-morning period- how long do I have to ignore/hate this person before I can be friends with them again?
Oh and then there's always the double friend-cest. One half of a prior couple suddenly wants to date someone ELSE in the circle. and we all get to play ring-around-the-who-gave-me-herpes.

so no. Option A is not, for me, terribly attractive.

So there's Option B, previously discussed: random club boys to scratch and itch. Effective, if skanky, and will generally leave youw ith more things to itch than a neglected clitoris. And for those who didnt' pick that up, that was me making an STD joke (or are they STI's now? I can't keep track. the cootie disease, how bout that?).

Enter Option C. It's the option for overworked, underpaid, virtual world babies who spend more time on facebook than they do actually talking to their friends. Internet dating. There area couple kinds of this; there's the virtual-world version of the club hookup, but that often leads to creeptastic scenarios like the one encountered by my pal MJ, who ended up dating a 34 year old man..who was married...to a woman........who apparently was so cool with her husband boffing a 21 year old boy that she'd come cuddle with them afterwards...........

simply put it was at once the eek-iest relationship I've heard about and utterly fasinating because it was so very very very urban, and Ilike to think knowing these people made me cool by association. I could be wrong of course.

Then there's the other kind of online dating; the kind that, while mildly tinged with desparation (the boy with the profile saying he's looking for a girlfriend for a logn term relationship to spoil and love forever and ever sorts of sums that one up), might actually work out. The ones where it's simply a way for very busy people who are sick of the friend-cest games to meet other overworked people for vapid coffee dates, akward conversation, and possibly some sort of archaic 50's throwback to a labelled and defined relationship- and by that I mean a boyfriend.


which is why I'm currently on one.

so we'll see how that goes, now won't we?

I want to be Scott Brison's Fag Hag!

Ok and thus begins something I very rarely do: an Ode to someone in Public Office.

oh Scott Brison, my fruit-fly heart burns for you! Seriously. this is one lovely man. What's not to like? He's openly gay, married to a man even, he posed nude for a fundraising calender (which was quickly snapped up by old ladies and others who want to ogle Canadian politicans), he has a really nice dog he walks constantly and even pooper-scoops for, AND HE CALLED ME BACK.

ah yes. the quickest way to a journalists heart: returning the phone call in a prompt manner.

that, and not being condescending. Here's where this degenerates into a rant. I'm new back on the east coast, and I'm not from here anyway. Thus, I know nothing. I have no background knowledge, no intuitive insight into the twisty turny logic of this province. So when I ask dumbass background questions, I'm begging, I'm pleading, please don't treat me like I'm the kid in the back of the kindergarten classroom eating my shoelaces dipped in glue.


so maybe I should update the wide world on what I do: I write for a small and I mean SMALL weekly newspaper in the middle of nowhere Nova Scotia. I pretend I work in Halifax. I don't. I'm slowly coming to terms with that. what do I write you wonder? everything and nothing. to sum it up in terms my journalism profs would adore: my goat is getting very very fat with all the feeding I've been doing latly.

(for you non-journalist types: feeding the goat is when you produce stories that have to be done, even if they bore you. They are interesting sometimes and have value to someone, I'm sure, but for the most part you start to feel like a widget in Henry Ford's giant machine-o-slavery).

What makes my day better and makes me LOVE my job even though I bitch about it constantly and am pretty sure I'm giving myself braindamage from the head-banging-against-the-desk routine that's become part of my daily life, is the occasional story that goes REALLY well. The car on fire at McDonalds, the political scandal that will hopefully net you an angry letter just to prove someone is reading your stuff and you couldn't just be running old Backstreet Boy's lyrics for all people actually pay attention, or very simply the great interview.
Hell, some days, like today, I'll even settle for the mediocre interview with someone that calls me back, is nice and well spoken and says lovely things, and is moderatly important or at least has the veneer of being someone that matters.

and music swells as Scott Brison enters the room....


oh Scotty....you're not Green...you're not NDP....you're a librel and generally I'd be demanding you remove the fence post from your ass and pick a side immediatly but.....how I love you. You own my soul. Please, oh please, let me join your inevitable stable of Alternative Lifestyle Companions.

because clearly all gay men have those.

Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

Well, I guess it had to happen eventually. Yup, someday, I was bound to put down my notebook and actually get in on this whole internet-revolution. I hear it's not actually just a phase.

So what marvelous and insightful insights can you expect? Not much I'm afraid. What I can promise however is disorganized, sporadic, and occassionally vapid trips into the inner reaches of my mind (god that sounds emo- what I can promise is that I will nto be going the emo route; never will this blog degenerate into mindless spewing about the glory of death with a bad haircut and a worse soundtrack. nor will I let the blog take a razor to it's delicate blog-wrists. unless it annoys me).

Why does this matter? well the truth is, it doesn't. But I'm jumping on board with this blogging thing, and the point of blogs is a totally unmerited sense of self-importance. and who knows; maybe there's another confused mid-20-some out there who'll take solace in the fact that they are not the only ones with a job they really really want to like, a boss they really really really want to smother with computor papers, a boy situation that is twisted on multiple levels, parents who have entered a realm of alientation unheard of since they were 13, and an empty bankaccount.

I can only hope.