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?