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?