Oh goodie, another phobia

maybe phobia isn't quite the right word. i mean, i'm not afraid of them, like i am of moths. but i think that's only because these are stationary. i definitely have an irrational and hyperbolic disgust of them, which leads to extremely ludicrous overreactions.

I've discovered that i am revolted by toadstools.

seriously, i don't know how i'm going to get through this blog, because just the thought of them - the mere writing of the word - sends shudders down my spine. we have some growing around a tree on the boulevard (oh god oh god, they're so gross), and now they've even spread so that a few are in our yard (barf barf barf). the clumps around the base of the tree are really big, like the size of cats and loaves of bread (blech, gag), then about half a dozen smaller clusters have popped up along the boulevard and a blob or two on our lawn (i have to stop, i'm going to be sick).


i'm back. feeling queasy, but i shall persevere.

i can't think of anything more nauseating than those mushrooms. repulsive fungal growths infesting our grass. they make my skin crawl. i almost couldn't walk up my front sidewalk because they were only a few feet away. oh so gross so gross so gross! squishy, lumpy, dense, moist, pop-up-overnight, cankerous blight infecting my lawn!!



blair digging out the vile toadstools. I took a photo of him
 while peeking through the blinds in the upstairs window.
this is as close as i could get, and even then i was trembling

ok, i must stop. retching and having mini-convulsions at the thought of them. i made blair go outside and dig them all up to get rid of them. but he's not allowed to talk about it because i start freaking out when they are mentioned and may break into tears. now i must go have a hot shower and scrub the thoughts of them away.

for years afflicted; symptoms worsening

my birthday is in less than a week. then i will officially be too old to get a working holiday visa for ireland, france, and a bunch of other places. not that i was planning on uprooting and living abroad for any extended period of time. but now that i realize that option is forever being taken away, it makes me want it! blah blah, the whole wanting what we can't have thing. i'm sure if i could go at any time in my life, i wouldn't be one bit fussed about it. but now my mind if racing - i've only got a few days to apply for that visa or i'll never get to live in france! ARGH!

i'm never going to live in france. accept it, it'll be fine.

i know why they call it the "travel bug". it really is like a disease. so i don't know why people refer to it all cutesy like. "oh, she's got the travel bug, time for a little va-cay!" Ok, thankfully no one has used the annoying and in no way cutesy term va-cay to me. but the travel bug should not be taken lightly! once you've been bitten, you have it for life. and as far as i'm aware, there is no known cure. i contracted it early on, as a young teenager. it's highly addictive, so my condition only worsens over time. i mollify the bug with holidays whenever i can, hoping that a long weekend in vegas will placate it and allow for some restfulness and contentment at home. but the periods of respite grow shorter before withdrawal symptoms set in and i'm in need of a travel fix. i look back at last year - a couple of visits to vancouver, toronto, vegas, 2 weeks in costa rica, not to mention over 3 weeks in thailand - and i'm still jonesing for more!

withdrawal is difficult. i can't focus on anything else except where i'm gonna score my next hit. i hoard money for my next escape. i look at the lonely planet books on my shelf and get lost in flashbacks. i relentlessly explore google earth, zooming in to ogle the details of victoria falls or sigh at the beauty of a remote pacific atoll.

 

 

and like any addiction, i keep pushing for a greater high: something to top the last. come on, i need a fix. whatcha got, whatcha got? you know a little week in mexico ain't gonna do it for me, man! europe? that's for noobs! nah man, nah, i need something with a little more oomph, a little more wow-you're-going-where-awesome, ya know? africa is still my holy grail - anywhere from kenya, tanzania, zambia, botswana, nimibia.... or all of the above! but i'm open to other suggestions.

i'll take what i can get and keep chasing for more. after all, i'm a travel junkie.

losing my mind, one note at a time

oh my god, why won't the radio station play any other songs? please, i beg you, mix it up a bit! i've heard these songs every day for longer than i can take! there's no need for any sort of deejay or host, because i swear they just have the same loop playing every single day. i can practically set my watch to it. start the day with a little adele "rollin in the deep", and then refresh our memory of it just after noon. lady gaga's "edge of glory" is playing, must be about 10 o'clock. or 230, when it gets played again. oh, 3pm, time to put on jason mraz's "i'm yours", thank you for driving me crazy with a song i once enjoyed. and guaranteed within 10 minutes of that the lazy radio station is going to play "the lazy song". shut up bruno mars, shut up shut up shut up!

i hate that radio. i look over at it and just imagine myself hurling it through the glass walls. but i have nothing against the glass walls. ok, perhaps i will just attack the radio with... hmm, what do i have nearby.... kleenex box - no, that won't work... coffee cup - no, must not harm my trusty coffee cup.... crayons - why are there crayons on my desk??... stapler... yes, i will attack the radio with my stapler. smash smash smash smash smash smash smash smash smash smash smash!!!!

alright, clearly the radio loop has driven me loopy. it's pushed me over the edge. the edge the edge, the edge the edge, tonight yeah baby, tonight yeah baby, the edge the edge the edge the edge ARGH!!!!!! too much gaga has made me go gaga!

shh... what's that? rollin in the !#@* deep? AGAIN?? time to roll me off to the loony bin.

quotationfingersipadwifistarbucksblahblahstuff

i'm bored, and have nothing really to talk about, so don't expect any kind of theme or common thread that holds this all together. i'm just going to do a stream of consciousness type entry. which will most likely be a mess since my thoughts are pretty lame and fragmented.

i like using quotation marks. actually, to be more accurate, i like misusing quotation marks. i don't care if it's in print or quotation fingers when talking; the more i do it, the funnier i think it is. it doesn't matter what the sentence is, just throw some quotations in there and suddenly people will wonder about your meaning. i'm thirsty, i'm going to have a glass of "juice". "juice"?? what does she mean? what is she drinking? you all wonder. yeah, i know i have you doubting the authenticity of my juice. and if you put a whole phrase in quotation marks, what out! after my "juice", i'm going to "brush my teeth". clearly this must be some cryptic euphamism! hahahahaha.  "ha".

*my mind wanders; eyes fall on a disc sitting on the desk*

so we can't figure out how to get our stupid wi-fi to work. blair's parents gave us their old one and it seemed to be set up right, but something is wrong. we turn on the ipad and our network comes up, we type in the password, it says we are connected.... but then when we try to bring up the internet, or any of the web based apps, it says we're not connected! wtf?! and the stupid ipad doesn't come with any instructions because it's just sooooooooooooo easy to use. grumble grumble. so now i have no choice but to walk across the street to starbucks to use the ipad. yeah, i'm one of those people. sipping my coffee, tapping on an ipad, showing people how cool i am. look at me, tap tap sip tap tap tap swoosh swoosh sip swoosh. maybe next time i'll also bring in some obscure text books to highlight, and wear my hair in a messy bun with a pencil in it to complete my image. yeah, i'm focused and studious, yet hip and artsy. but i'm edgy because i drink regular coffee, none of that fancy shmancy half caf extra foam soy milk chai-mocha-latte-cino crap.

*my mind makes a few rapid connections to get to....*

in high school my friend Allie and i used to have fake arguments in ATM vestibules to make the other person/people in there feel awkward. wait... i've written about that once, years ago. man, i'm so out of material i'm posting reruns? short version: we'd have non-specifics fights that even we didn't know what they were about. example:
 'are we going to talk about this?'
 'i'm through talking.'
 'you act like you're the victim in all this.'
 'oh, and i suppose you think i'm to blame'
 'drop the indignant self-righteous bullshit, you know what part you played in this mess!'
 'i had no choice! YOU left me no choice!'
and so on. it was fun. but i told this story once before, so moving on.

i'm sleepy now. i just sneezed twice. the two things aren't connected... i don't think. are they? do i sneeze when i'm tired? i never really paid attention. now i'll have to pay attention to see if there's any correlation between them. i'll keep a sneeze journal. i can put together charts and graphs, mapping out the times and frequency of my sneezes, anayzling the results and determining if any patterns exist. i could do my "work" on the ipad at starbucks! see what i did there? i pulled the whole thing together.

damn, that's "good" writing.

high five phobia

it's not a real phobia, like my phobia of moths, but more of an anxiety over high fiving.

when someone raises their hand into high five position, i feel a little rush of panic. first there's the panic that i might be misreading the move, maybe they don't want to high five me, maybe it's some other hand gesture. maybe it's just a "hey" wave... or... i don't know, it's probably a high five. but then there's determining the proper high five reaction. how much weight do i put behind it? is it a hard, solid slap with a dead stop on impact? is it a gentler sweeping five with carry through? does it finish with a half hand clasp or fancy handshake type move? of course i also have to watch my aim. there's nothing more pathetic than an off centre high five. and god forbid this is a moving high five, i can't walk and high five at the same time! you expect me to perform this highly complex and nuanced move all while maintaining a cool, natural demeanour? I don't have the skills for that!!

this probably all stems from some childhood trauma, most likely traceable back to junior high. attempted high fives that drew sneers and left me hanging, or the proffered high five that was then snatched away with the inevitable "psych!". yes, those were indeed dark days of high fivery.

yeesh, they make it look so easy!

yesterday at kickboxing i was accosted with high fives. to start with, one of the guys i often chat with gave me a single, low impact high five, presumably just for showing up. not terribly executed, but i was a little off the mark. then my partner high fived me after her rounds. i wasn't expecting it, so i fumbled that one. after the exceptionally exhausting class, the first guy gave me a much more emphatic double high five, now celebrating our completion of the class. it could have been a disaster, but i was on the ball and delivered a good, sound connection. but this was too much, i wanted out of there before any more hands required slapping. but i wasn't out of the woods yet. there was a final high five with my partner as we headed out. a moving high five that transitioned into a half clasp. i thought i might barf it was such an advanced maneuver, but i pulled it off with only a slight hint of awkwardness.

no more, please. i can't take the pressure. i'm no alanis, with one hand in my pocket and the other giving a high five. i just don't have the cool chick high fivey inclination. or the coordination.





you're disgusting, but i love you anyway

you're filthy. you leave a mess all around, and i'm left trudging through it. your very presence leaves me feeling dirty. you have no regard for how your presence effects me or anyone else. you breeze into town, stir things up a bit, then vanish without a warning. how many times have you stayed a few days, only to make a hasty retreat, leaving me feeling cold and deceived? too many! i can't deal with your mood swings. you're hot, you're cold... and sometimes it makes me physically ill.

but yet i always look forward to your return, regardless of your fickle ways and the filth you leave in your wake. it's the future you promise that allows me to see past all of this. brighter days are ahead, i know it! go ahead and throw everything into a sloppy disarray, it's okay. i know you can't help it. i think you're going to stay a while this time, and make good on those sunny promises.

welcome back Spring. i missed you.

i'm not crazy, i just act that way

my mother once told me i had an addictive personality. at first i was all flattered, thinking she meant that i had such a sparkling personality, it was addictive to others. people can't get enough of me, yay me! but alas, no such luck. she just meant that i get easily addicted to things. this comment was said during my jurassic park phase. yes, i had a jurassic park phase. it's not something i'm proud of, and i'm really not sure why on earth i got so carried away, but it really was ridiculous. no, ridiculous is too much of an understatement. complete and utter nutcase obsession is a shade closer to the truth.

ah yes, i remember it so clearly. it all began with a girls' night out at the movies the night after our dreaded grade 10 physics exam....(doodleoodoodleoodoodleoo wavy lines nostalgic flashback doodleoodoodleoo)

June 11, 1993. i remember the date the film opened, so you can already see how serious this is. my friends and i saw the movie either on opening night or very shortly thereafter. the theatre was packed, everyone flinching and screaming together. it was so exciting! a friend and i immediately became infatuated. we went to see it the following weekend, racing like maniacs to the theatre, convinced that the man in the red car driving next to us was going to grab the last two seats!

from there the obsession just grew. we passed notes in class about it, we bought jurassic park trading cards and books. my collection eventually went on to include postcards, sticker books, stamps, magazines, a poster, a calendar, a viewfinder, and even "raptor bites" (disgusting, inedible hard candy). oh, and i saw the film a total of 13 times in the theatre, each viewing commemorated with a proud dinosaur stamp on my jurassic park calendar. oy. and i made my family buy their own copy of the vhs because i didn't want to share mine. what a loonietoon.

i've gone through other obsessions, although none quite as formidable as the jurassic park phase. nowadays i try to keep my - let's call them enthusiastic interests - in check. sure, i may have 15+ years of stars on ice programs stashed away, shelves full of crossword and trivia books, a collection of keychains that probably weighs more than a small child, and that viewfinder is most likely still hiding somewhere among my dusty treasures. but i also managed to part with the piles of ratty newspapers clippings about goran ivanisevic and wimbledon 2001. and i curbed my impulse to buy a second set of Buffy dvds (even though they were in a way cooler box)! see? see all the self-control??

yeah, i'm normal.

i don't have any fancy photoshop program, but that doesn't stop me :p

hangin' with the cool crowd

ohmygodohmygodohmygod, one of the popular kids mentioned me on her blog! play it cool amanda, play it cool. deep breaths, shrug it off, no biggie, whatevs. no, don't say that, cool people don't say whatevs. do they? shit, i don't know what cool people say!

so i'm surfin' through the blogs i read when suddenly i see it. the heading is "these blogs deserve more attention" and there's only one listed. MINE! eeeek! ok, don't get too excited. clearly this is a trick. i bet a random blog name pops up every time someone looks at her site. so i refresh the page several zillion times, waiting for someone else to get this honourable mention. but it's still me. perhaps she just has some special widget installed so that whoever looks at her site has their own blog title inserted there. how deviously clever. but maybe she's like the pretty girl in can't buy me love and she's going to make me popular by telling people i'm cool! i'll be her patrick dempsey! i can't remember how that story ends, but i'm sure the moral of it was that life is better when you're popular.

this reminds me of a day in high school when the cute boy all the girls crushed on leaned over in chemistry class and said "psst... amanda" and then told me some joke or something. holy crap, i thought, he's talking to me. he knows my name! of course this was a ridiculous thought, we'd been going to school together for years, of course he knew my name.

i've never been cool. as a teenager, i had scraggly hair, scrawny chicken legs, big buck teeth and far too many shirts with snoopy on them. i'm still a nerd now, just with straight teeth and less cartoons on my clothes. but i still get that dorky rush of excitement when someone acknowledges my existence.

so do what she said and pay more attention to me. she knows what she's talking about; she's cool! come on, jump on my slow moving bandwagon! and do it before she reads this post and hastily recants her endorsement.

look how cool snoopy is, with his shades and sweater and thumb.

just what the doctor ordered

today i hit the one year mark of being smoke free. yay! this is actually my second time at this milestone. when i left scotland in september of 2003, i kicked the habit for the first time. for over two years i remained a committed non-smoker. i traveled throughout asia but refrained from enjoying a holiday smoke with my beachside beers. i partied with some old pals in australia and new zealand, but didn't slip up with a drunken drag. i moved to china, and was stressed, frustrated, and crying with helplessness - oh god a cigarette would be so good, a pack is only 30¢, just to get me through this first bit - even then i resisted!

then i returned to scotland in november of 2005, where a pack of smokes cost over $10, and i embraced my vice with open lungs. i had a wanton 2-week fling with tobacco and abandoned it abruptly upon my return to canada. but i'd opened that door.... although the addiction didn't immediately suck me back into its yellow fingered clutches, slowly but surely i found myself a smoker again. i felt a little annoyed with myself for losing control of things, but at the same time i had one crucial piece of knowledge that allowed me to continue smoking, more or less guilt and worry free: i quit before, i can do it again. when i'm ready.

i pushed back that quitting date a few times. i mean come on, i'm clearly not going to quit in the summer; that's primo smokin' time! patios and backyard bbqs and bonfires at the farm. nope, not a good time to quit. and i'm not going to quit right after new years, too cliche. plus, i'll want to be able to smoke on my birthday. then a year ago today i took my last cigarette out of the pack. huh, last one. and that was it, i decided. cold turkey.

i'm proud of myself. i think i should be, second kick at the cat or not. i get nostalgic for smoking at times, missing the ritual of it more than the thing itself. i liked relaxed mornings with my coffee and a smoke. and who can dispute the synergy of beer and cigarettes? when scribbling in my journal, imagining i was a brilliant writer, my burning cigarette seemed the perfect prop. but whatever, i suppose being able to run 10 minutes without panting is ok too.

fyi, "just what the doctor ordered" is actually an old slogan for L&M cigarettes. i like irony.

ooh, smoking was so fun back in those days! look how carefree they are, rewarding themselves with a smooth, smoky treat

not quite as glamorous these days

my secret blog

yeah, that's right, i had a secret blog. i created a brand new secret email address with absolutely no info about who i really was. with my new secret email address i started a new secret blog. i didn't tell anyone about it. being completely anonymous allowed me to write anything i wanted. i didn't have to be clever or funny or even kind. i could speak without fear of repercussions and unburden myself of any troublesome thoughts, emotions, or experiences that weighed on my mind. it had the confidentiality of writing in a diary, but with the occasional comment from total, objective strangers. it was very therapeutic. 

that was about two and half years ago, maybe more. i can't remember when exactly i made my last entry, but the secret blog fell by the wayside. abandoned. forgotten. then today i remembered. i decided to log in to that old secret blog and read over all my old secret thoughts. but it's gone! well, not gone exactly, but it's just a title page. the name and the tag line are there... but no posts, no archives, no evidence that i ever shared a single word. i tried futilely to log in as my secret self, only to be welcomed as a new user. for 45 minutes or so i desperately tried to access my old site and find my old entries, searching through questions and answers, help groups, etc etc etc... all paths have led to dead ends, and i have given up.

i'm sad that my old entries have been lost. my secrets have been swallowed up into some dark void, confined once more only to the private recesses of my mind.

well, at least anonymity won't be a problem.

i'd beat jesus

...in a who could live longer competition. oh sorry, is that sacrilegious? am i offending people? pfft, lighten up.

sigh... another year older.

birthdays aren't as much fun as they used to be. no more roller skating parties, pin the tail on the donkey, pointy hats and noisemakers, or loot bags with chintzy gifts. sniff sniff... yeah, those were the good ol' days.

 i remember one year, probably when i was in grade 2 or 3, scented erasers were all the rage. one of the pieces of "loot" at my party was this red eraser in a tube, designed to look kind of like lipstick , that smelled of strawberries. it was heavenly! all the kids loved that eraser, it was the most talked about loot of the year. for months after my birthday, kids could be seen at school, huddled behind their desks, sniffing greedily at their strawberry erasers. that was a good year.

for most of my elementary school years i had my parties at the Saints roller rink. and even though i was terrible on skates (still am), i loved having my birthdays there. there was a special "birthday room" where we'd sit to eat and have cake. it was near the front, and it was raised up so everyone would pass by and see how special i was.

in junior high i had murder mystery parties. everyone dressed up in costumes and tried to ferret out the killer, all while enjoying angel food cake and raspberries. those were fun too, except i always wanted to be the killer and never was.

in high school i was the first one to turn 18 so a big boozy house party was in order. and back in those days it didn't require much to get a buzz... just a few sickeningly sweet coolers/alcopops and i was "drunk". woohoo! i'm an adult; getting older is awesome!!

of course not all birthdays have been that fantastic. there was my 19th: that terribly lonely birthday i spent on the other side of the world. no phone calls from friends or family, no birthday wishes from caring co-workers, no one to have so much as a birthday drink with me. i got home to a dark, empty flat. i spent that evening writing letters to friends back home, sipping jack daniels until i was utterly plastered, drinking straight from the bottle, and crying like a baby. yeah, that birthday scores low on the fun scale.

oh, so many birthdays. there were birthdays at clubs and there were birthdays in pubs. i danced on speakers; i fell off chairs. i've celebrated in canada, new zealand, scotland, and china. i can think back and remember every birthday i've had since i was about 6 years old. today, my parents, brother and sister each sang me the birthday song. i got lots of birthday wishes at work and on facebook. i got flowers from blair. tonight, i'll trudge through the freshly fallen snow (oh so much of it!), have a few beers with a few friends, and add another birthday to the list

.

it's too cold when...

ah, january in winnipeg... you think you're so tough? you think you shock me? you think i can't handle you?? tut tut, you do this every year. you're so predictable.

i was walking home the other day, and when i blinked, my eyelashes froze together. ooh, good one winter, you're so strong, i'll never be able to unstick my eyelashes. pffft, please. and you can't fool me, even though it's so cold it feels like i've forgotton to put on pants, i know they're there, overtop of my long johns. oh, oh noooo, don't throw that windchill factor at me! -45, exposed skin freezes in 3 minutes. blah blah blah, as if have any skin exposed. eyeballs aren't made of skin, so ha!

yesterday the washing machine overflowed. water and bubbles everywhere, cascading across the kitchen floor and into the hallway. of course, january's patented "freeze the pipes" move. so cliche. so we haul out the gear, pour hot water down the pipes, sop up the water that is quickly turning to icy slush on the cold tiles, aim space heaters at the wall... and wait, unphased.

old man winter.... such a grumpy old bastard. i can't wait for him to take his teeth out and go to bed for the season.

pick on someone your own size

at 5'3", it's not often that i'm taller than anyone, but it does happen occasionally. and when it does.... well.... it's just weird. my brain feels confused at the downward angle of my eyes and the view of the top of someone's head. what's happening here? it thinks. are you standing on a step? is that person in a hole? this is unfamiliar and disturbing, do something to make it normal! slouch, sit down, back up a few meters, anything!!! i get all awkward knowing i'm taller, it's all i'm aware of, and i suddenly feel like a lumbering giant. i want to be nonchalant about it. oh? there's a height difference? i hadn't noticed. but oh god, they can see it in my eyes; they know i know they're shorter than me!

the other day in my kickboxing class i got paired up with a girl who must be 4'11", tops. ok amanda, be cool, act natural. we introduce ourselves and i try to pretend that i can't see over her head. subconsciously, i hold back a bit on my kicks and punches. after all, i'm a towering amazon, she's a delicate little flower. sadly, although perhaps not surprisingly, she kicked my butt. i like to think we probably have the same amount of strength and power, but hers just seems more intense because it's concentrated into a smaller package. yeah... that's definitely it. i could totally take her if i were her size.

pompoms are for pansies

my original title was going to be "pompoms are for pussies" but i blushed and realized i was too much of a pus -- pansy -- to write that. plus, that may bring in visitors on false notions of what this site contains. wait a second... i don't have any visitors. i want people coming to my blog; sketchy perverts welcome! sigh... my blog is like a ghost town, just the occasional tumbleweed blowing through. ooh, if only i could work that into a customized theme.

back to the point. i have these fairly ridiculous winter boots, with both zipper pulls broken off and replaced by key rings to keep them functional. yes, i am ingenious, thanks for noticing! yeah yeah, cheap too. less thanks for noticing that. anyway, they took about 3 hours a boot to put on because of all the damn lacing up that was required. plus, each lace tip ended in a pompom, which although cute, was excrutiatingly impractical because the laces always caught on each other, swirling together in a bola like tangled mess. so finally i chopped 'em off. adios pompoms! i feel much tougher in my pompomless boots. i tramp through snowdrifts and forge through raging storms. I'm an arctic survivalist, outta my way!!

on my home today, through a haze of blustering snow, I scowled at the slow moving woman in spike-heeled boots walking in front of me. squeak squeak squeak went the pointy heels into the snow. My boots would be across the bridge by now! as we reached the other side she stopped and backtracked, realizing she had to use the stairs to get down. Ha, move it princess! my boots can go off-roading. or off-sidewalking, whatever. i would never have felt so ferocious with pompoms on my boots, no sirree.

yup, i'm a changed woman. all grit and power, and not a pompom in sight.

except for the one on my toque.

beez in the hood

the wasps... the wasps have taken over the bathroom.

 

i open the door a crack and cautiously peek in. my heart is pounding as my eyes scan the room, first glance revealing nothing. the window seems clear, and there's nothing crawling on the mirror. slowly i inch closer to the sink and turn my gaze upward to check under the light. the wasps often get up there, but you can't see them unless you get close. clear; no wasps. but the window... the venetian blinds cover the upper half, i don't know if anything is behind them or not. i look up to the ceiling fan: their point of entry. no movement. i edge imperceptibly towards the window, silent, breath held, heart pounding. i'm one step into the bathroom, which is one step too far away from the safety of the door. closer... eyes darting back to the ceiling fan, remembering the terror of the other night when i witnessed two wasps drop from it into the room. slowly, i begin to crouch down in order to peer behind the blinds. please... please let it be clear. oh god, there's two of them, dopily crawling around near the top of the window. i back out of the washroom, shutting the door behind me.

 

ok, not too bad. they were looking pretty docile, probably almost dead anyway. how to finish them off so i can use the bathroom without fear? we don't have any wasp spray or bug killer of any kind in the house, and i'm not brave enough to try and smoosh them with a paper towel. that crunch... BLECK! so once more into battle, armed with a bottle of windex and a boxed up photo album for squishing. again, i slowly open the door and check around to ascertain the enemy's location. one of them is too high on the window, but the other one is within spraying distance. so i quietly raise my weapon, aim, and blast it with windex. it wriggles and struggles and falls to the sill. windex windex windex! suddenly, BZZZZ!!! a huge wasp drops down from the fan, flies past me and starts bumping against the mirror.

 

of course i screamed and ran out, slamming the door behind me. the bathroom is under seige. i'm paranoid now too. i keep seeing things fly by out of the corner of my eye. or feel something crawling on me. or shh - did you hear that buzzing?? i sit here at the computer, windex bottle at my side, box abandonned on the other side of the door, heart still racing.

 

and i really need to use the bathroom!

travel buggy

 

blair and i were talking about traveling last night and i got all itchy to hit the road again. i know it wasn't all that long ago since i had a month in israel, but i'm ready for another adventure! of course, seeing as i've been so many places, i want to go somewhere obscure. but blair hasn't done much traveling so he thinks picking a destination like uzbekistan or macedonia would be weird. but i love going to the weird places. the places that would make people say "you're going WHERE??" but i'd be content with going somewhere more common. i'd even go back to one of the places i've already been. i just want to go somewhere! i don't know when we'll get a chance though. and i suppose i'll have to be satisfied with the typical 1-2 week holiday. i wonder if i'll ever get the chance to go on extended travels again. are my roaming days at and end??

birthday musings

i don't really have much to muse about, but i've got 25 minutes to kill
before the online jeopardy test begins. yup, i'm an uber-nerd, working
my birthday plans around taking a test for a quiz show. but it'll
totally be worth it when i beat ken jennings' record as all time
jeopardy champ and undeniable trivia guru.

so my birthday has been pretty good so far. both my mom and dad called
and sang me happy birthday this morning, as per long standing
tradition. i had a nice walk to work. i had a good day for calls. i was
taken out for a couple of beers after work. and now i'm waiting
anxiously for the jeopardy test. alex trebek is looking right at me as
the clock counts down. 18:00 minutes to go, eek!

and of course i forgot my glasses at work. i NEVER forget my glasses,
but it's inevitable i would on a day i want them. but now when i fail
miserably i'll just blame it on poor eyesight.

alright, the waiting is driving me bonkers. i'm going to pace around for a bit. wish me luck...

the motherload

rummaging... i do this quite often in my spare time. my family has
never been quick to throw things out, so we've got boxes of old
mementos to sift through. certain things remain simply because they've
been put away and forgotten, while the nostalgic and sentimental value
of others is more evident. i've been enjoying some good rummaging
today, and here are some of the little treasures and surprises i've
come across.

- my old sports walkman and a pile of tapes (rock on, bryan adams)
- rainbowed "amanda" stickers from grade 1 (i'm going to put one on my computer at work)
- a can of coke from russia, best before 11/96 (completely evaporated)
- 4 cans of NZ beer, circa 1996 (those can't be good)
- name tags, order pads and packs of matches from the olive garden
(along with completed comment cards saying what an excellent server i
was! why didn't i hand those in??)
- jurassic park trading cards, magazines, stickers, calendars and other merchandise (oy, so embarrassing)
- mr sketch smelly markers (mmm, cinnamon)
- a stack of Mad magazines (what, me packrat?)

but i've found what i was looking for. the good stuff. all my old
letters and postcards dating back over 15 years. remember that postcard
you sent me from your grade 9 trip to seaworld? i still have it. the
letters sent to me while i lived abroad? all safely filed away. but
there's more. i have the letters i
sent too. that's right, i'm a nerd and keep carbon copies or
photocopies of all of my outgoing letters. anything i've ever written
to you, whether mailed or hand-delivered, i have a copy of it. and then
of course there are the journals, going back to 1988.

i'm going to go read for a bit now. i'm sure i'll have some goodies to share as i go through!

second impressions

thank god for them! sure, first impressions make one hell of an impact, but that's just a glance at the surface. luckily we don't have to adhere to our initial judgments of someone. and that can work in their favour or against them.

i've been unimpressed upon first meeting some people. for whatever reasons i don't like them or maybe i just don't find them noteworthy. but then they can surprise me once i get to know them a bit better. sometimes the change of heart is sudden, sometimes it evolves over time. i've been good friends with a girl since high school, and yet when we first met i thought she was a snob. i don't think she liked me much either. thank goodness for second chances!

of course it can go the other way too. that first impression can blow me away. and when this is the case i find it harder for those re-evaluations to take hold. that early conception that they are fun, interesting, exciting, whatever... it can blind me to the unfavourable reality. perhaps i don't want to see the truth because the persona i originally imagined is so much more pleasing. but once again, first impressions aren't immutable. a single act can open my eyes, or maybe my vision clears over time. and what a relief!

it's not always easy to accept that i've been wrong about someone, but in the end i'm so grateful. abandonning my first impressions has allowed me to develop true friendships with wonderful people, and ditch the losers that are nothing more than a charming facade.

chemistry

such a strange and powerful thing. it's either there or it isn't. you
can't explain it. you can't force it. and you definitely can't control
it.

in high school, when our class wasn't paying attention or someone gave
a bit of rebellious teenage attitude, our chemistry teacher would tell
us "chemistry will punish you!". i always thought that was funny.

i think in general people understand the importance of having chemistry
with someone. you can list off all the great things about a person, all
the reasons why you should want them, but it does no good. something is
missing, and infinite items in the pro column can't outweigh that one
little fact on the con side.

i hate chemistry. i hate that i need it so much, i hate that i can't
choose where it happens, and i hate that i've let it have so much
control over me. i've accepted that it is something i am not able to do
without, but i also know it can't be the only thing. other than that i
have no idea what i'm doing.

chemistry will punish me alright. i have no doubt about it.