Vroom vroom!!

No comment on girls night out. Suffice it to say I was not on my best behaviour.

I do have some exciting news though. I'm getting a car! Hip hip hurrah!! A nice little Honda Civic - beep beep! No more sheepishly asking for rides! No more borrowing from the parents! But do you realize the serious implications of this decision? This is more than just a financial obligation. This is committing myself to 3 years in Winnipeg.  Oh my god, it makes me nauseous to think about it. What have I done? I've tied myself down! Noooooo!

Okay, don't panic Lil Miss Commitmentphobe. It's still always possible to leave if you want to, you'll just deal with the car issue if the time comes. Anyhoo, back to being giddy... I've got wheels!!

My unexpected accessory

I'm almost all ready for girls' night! Well, by almost all ready, I mean not ready at all. In fact, I shouldn't be spending time writing this blog. Or at the very least I shouldn't be wasting precious time writing about how I shouldn't be writing a blog. Oh my god, I can't stop wasting time on pointless sentences!

My friend will be here in about 20 minutes, yet here I sit, in my housecoat, with a towel on my head, hair soaking wet, not getting ready at all. So anyway, I've got my clothes all picked out (nothing exciting, but a new top - yay!) and I'll throw on a bit of makeup and choose some jewellery. But I have another accessory that I picked up this afternoon. A fat, slightly bloody lip. Yep, I got kicked in the face at kickboxing today. Not quite as bad as getting a big ol' black eye, but still not my ideal look for the evening.

Anyway, not to worry, it matches perfectly with my skinned, bruised knuckles. Plus, I injured my left hip somehow, which will no doubt make my dancing even more stellar than usual.

Girls' night

Saturday is a big girls night out. I'm pumped. By the way, that's big girls night, not big girls night.

Anyhoo, there's like 20 gals going out, yahoo! I'm feeling in need of a good outing. I want to unwind, let my hair down, drink many boozie beverages of some sort. It's dangerous, whenever I'm this eager to go out, I always overdo it. I'm all hyper and excitable, which is fun in the beginning. But then, as the night wears on, that gung ho energy becomes less spunky enthusiasm and more obnoxious pestering. I never want the night to end or let anyone go home. "It's only 2 am, the night is young! Let's DO something!" This is when I start tugging on people's clothing, blocking doorways and the like. There have been times when I've had my way and convinced people to hit the vendor and continue the evening back at someone's house. Then it becomes "It's only 3 am, we just got here, you can't go now!.... It's only 4 am, it's still early, stay up!.... It's going to be light out soon, let's make it an all-nighter, we're so close!!" And then, suddenly and without any warning: "I need to sleep. Bye".

I can't wait!

R & R needed after recent holiday

I feel exhausted from the past few days. It was less than 4 full days, not even 3 really, but they were days filled with emotional highs and lows, laughter and frustration, moments of pride and self-assurance followed immediately by feelings of disappointment and self-doubt.

That's what a long weekend with the family does to a girl.

I just got back from Montreal, where we had a party for my grandmother's 90th birthday. It was wonderful to see my grandma so happy, surrounded by her friends and family. She really had a great time, and I'm so glad to have been a part of it. Ninety. Wow. That's pretty impresive and she really doesn't seem that old. We also spent a fun night visiting with my dad's old school friend and his family, whose kids are our age but whom we haven't seen in over 15 years. I talked with one of the boys about traveling, comparing stories and reminiscing about places we'd both been (I'd been to more, neener neener, I win). Good time.

Then there was the flip side. The stream of old people (some I remembered, some were strangers) barraging me with questions about what I was doing with my life. I was ready for this, my siblings and I had actually done some role play in advance, to prepare ourselves.

Old person: "What do you do?"
Me: "I've be traveling for a few years, but I moved back to Winnipeg a year ago" (clever evasion of actual question)
Oldie: "Oh, that's nice! What did you do when traveling?"
Me: "I was teaching in China"
Oldie: "So you're a teacher"
Me: "....No. Not here"
Oldie: "Oh. So what do you do now? What did you specialize in?"
I proceed to mutter something about my education, past and current jobs, trying to make them sound more interesting than they are. Oldie isn't fooled and decides to change the subject to something to which I may have had more success.
"Are you married?"
Sigh... strike two. I share the devasting news (judging by the concerned look I'm getting) that not only am I unmarried, but I am currently single.
Oldie: "How old are you?"
Me: "I'll be 30 in a couple of months" (bracing myself for the earth to crack open and swallow me whole, wails of torment ushering me down to the hell that awaits single 30 years olds with no careers)
Oldie: "Oh, just a spring chicken!"
I smile, relieved. Then I have the pleasure of answering questions about my siblings and their unmarried status and unfulfilling jobs.

Aside from the various interrogations, there is also the issue of my aunt. I feel bad that I don't like her, because she's mentally ill. But I don't. She isn't nice. And she clearly dislikes me, for reasons I'm not clear on. But all she does is glare at me. I smiled at her across the table when I first saw her and she shot daggers back. Then there was the wonderful comments she made over breakfast. "Jennie, you've always been my favourite. And David, you'll always have a special place in my heart." That covers two of the three of us... now wait for it.....here it comes... evil glare for me. Nice.

So there you have it. Not the easiest of holidays, but they never are with my family. But us kids (29 and under) always make our own fun. Overall, I'd have to say it was a nice trip, punctuated with moments of stress, discomfort, agitation and head-banging-on-table exasperation. Typical quality family time.

Ow, my back

Man, my back is killing me... wait a second, what's this... oh, it's a KNIFE!

So I had a really pleasant experience at work today. Just makes being over worked and under paid so worth it, knowing I'm surrounded by such kind, decent, genuine people. I asked a girl a question, very politely, perfectly acceptable question about where something was located. She was snarky, impatient and rude in response, but I wasn't going to make much of it. I sit back at my desk and I get an instant message from her (we use msgr for work). "I'm really having trouble with her today". Huh. It appears she meant to send that message - clearly referring to me - to someone else. Of course she denied it, tried some lame ass excuse, she meant herself because her neck was cramped, blah blah. Yeah, right. Obvously she was bitching about me and mistakenly sent it to me. I don't get it. She was always very friendly and I thought we got along just fine. But apparently she is a two-faced, backstabbing, insincere bitch.

So it's a bit harder to justify the unsatisfying job with "but the people are cool". She better watch it, I tell ya. I do have a bad side, and you don't want to be on it.

Stylin'

ie: flirting

What ever happened to that word? For some reason it just popped into my head the other day. We used to use it a lot. As in "that guy is totally styling you!" or "he's so cute, you should totally go style him!" or maybe even "forget about him, he is such a styler". Maybe I should reintroduce it to my vocabulary after its 10 year hiatus. Of course, first I should find a subject worthy of styling. And actually, I don't think I'm very good at styling. I don't have any moves or anything. Plus, my proclivity for sarcasm is often taken the wrong way. Meh, who cares about those people though, if they don't get my outstanding wit, they obivouly have a lousy sense of humour.

How's this for a styling move: "Why aren't you laughing? I'm funny! Hilarious! ...You suck".

Okay, maybe it needs a bit of work.

Sit still!

I can't stop applying for other jobs. Maybe it's because I was looking and sending in applications for so long that it's become a habit now. I don't really want to leave my current job because I've been there such a short time. And I don't hate it. The people are nice. It's a good crowd with fun potential. But the lure of a government job is hard to resist, no matter how tedious and boring it might be. I got my security clearance for one department, so I'm sending in a signed somethingorother. And then the tax place sent me a letter yesterday. I applied for some clerical job for them last year, and was approved too late (after I'd started working for Cdn Heritage). So they sent me a letter saying they'd be hiring again and to submit some forms if I was interested. I'm not really. It's only a 3 month term, it's located far away, and filing and organzing people's taxes is hardly at the top of my dream job list. But.... it pays over $20/hr. I guess it can't hurt to send in the forms.

I guess I just have to accept that I'm a restless person, always looking for other options, pacing, imagining, searching. Always tempted to take that step and be on the move once again.

The things I do for my art!

Not for the first time, someone with the best of intentions tried their hand at matchmaking. A few friends have mentioned guys they know and asked if I was interested in meeting them, and family members have tried to get me on a few blind dates. I have never accepted. This time it was my step mother who wanted me to email the son of someone she knew. My initial reaction was of course, no way no how. But after much enthused urging from my sister, I found myself convinced to release my email address. The justification being that I had nothing to blog about recently, so this would give me a topic.

I wish I could say it was amazingly fantastic or incredibly horrific. Either way would make for a good story. But alas, it was nothing remarkable at all. He was a perfectly decent person, which means I have no reason to be mean or mock him. But I knew from the start, before I even met the guy, that I was not interested. First off, the second I saw him I knew there was no attraction and that was that. But whatever, I'd be open-minded, we could still have a pleasant evening. Except that he was so serious! Not my type at all. Blah blah politics, blah blah serious relationship stuff. Yeesh! I just like to have a drink, chit chat, not analyze the person and try to assess them on the spot. I think he was really worried about the impression he was making, instead of just being relaxed. But like I said, too serious and boring. When he asked what I looked for in a guy, I said I had to have fun with them. Not too many similarities between my last two boyfriends, actually all the guys I've been involved with have been quite different. But they all make me laugh. Anyway, then he made some whole big speech about honesty and meeting someone and saying you'd go out again but not meaning it etc. So... I was honest. I said it was nice to meet him and everything, but I didn't see this progressing. He did a bit of "yeah, no, that's fine, yeah, yeah, I think we're on the same page, that's fine" sort of thing. And that was that.

I mentioned that I knew before meeting him that I was not interested. I'm not saying it was an insurmoutable obstacle, and if there had been chemistry, I might have been willing to get past it.... but... he misspelled "Saturday". Not a typo, he spelled it twice as "Saterday" I mean really, I do have standards, and being able to correctly spell the days of the week is kind of a given.