breaking news!!

being a grown up is lame.

i'm so sick of all the boring junk that comes with being an adult. like planning meals. what a nuissance! i loathe having to think up dinner ideas. then go get groceries. then cook the damn stuff. then clean up dirty dishes too!* oh the good ol' days when the fridge always replenished itself and dinner prep consisted of coming downstairs when mom called. now the fridge is half empty, with a door full of condiments we never use, and shelves consisting mostly of fuzzy leftovers from 2010. yeesh, why are those still in there?! why haven't they made their way to the garbage yet?!

as a grown up, i'm expected to understand my own finances. i got a package from the bank, filled with some 70 pages of reading material about investments i made, and a cover letter telling me the importance of all this info. ugh, i don't want to read all that tedious mumbo jumbo. can't the bank lady just give me the skinny and tell me what's best? or mom?

grown-up breaks suck. in my 15 minutes i go to get more coffee only to see that some jerk has yet again left just enough coffee to line the bottom of the pot. apparently if there's a thimbleful of coffee left, you don't have to make more. i make another pot and stare blankly out the window, waiting. 13 minutes later i fill my cup and head back to my desk. what a waste of a break. bring back recess! four square, tetherball, tag... that's a fun 15 minutes.

worst of all, i've lost my perspective on what is exciting. we got 251 airmiles on that last shop! woohoo!! oh my god, buy one get one free salsa, could this day get any better? and the latest thrill? we got a new mat for the front hall! it's the perfect size, and the green colour even matches the sofa in the living room. you can see the corner of the couch from the front door and you can totally tell that they match. it's the most amazing thing in the world!!!

hi, my name is amanda. i'm a grown up, and i'm lame.

the first step is admitting you have a problem, right?

*disclaimer: i acknowledge that blair does 99% of the planning and cooking and grocery shopping. i know if i didn't put this in i'd get an earful about how he does it all. i know i know already! if it were up to me i'd never bother with dinner.

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

decisions decisions

i am so useless when it comes to making decisions. options stress me out! and yet i always want to know... what are my choices? the problem is, i hate choosing. do i want to order the chicken or the beef? should i buy this shirt in blue or green? etc etc ad nauseum. i don't know! i don't know! usually i buy both shirts or neither. i order the chicken, then run up to the server and change to beef. then possibly back to chicken. and i worry until the meal arrives that i picked the wrong one. it's a disease i tell you.

so this is the decision i'm facing now. stay with wordpress or move to blogspot. i only fell into wordpress because that's what spaces upgraded me to. what's the difference? which one is better? where will i get more readers? i read somewhere that wordpress is better and recommended for "professional blogging", but i'm not a professional. and everyone else i know seems to be on blogger.

heeeeeelllllllllllllp! stupid choices. and of course then there's the actual theme/look of the blog that is a whole other slew of ulcer inducing options.

so i imported this blog to blogger and now have to decide where to make my permanent home. what do you think? please give me some feedback!

http://mandersblue.wordpress.com/

(not sure if this is the look i'd keep or not)

god bless the gentiles

the christian singles, to be specific.

i logged in to my blog today to see if i had any new comments, but alas, there were none. so i went to check my stats, to see if anyone had even been on my site today, certain my visitor count would be next to none. but jumpin jehosephat, i had 30 hits! don't scoff, that's a busy day for me. i'm not one of the popular cool kids, so don't make fun. anyhoo, where was i? oh right, jehosephat. i was shocked. where were these people coming from? time to check out the referring sites that led them to me. one view came from another blog that i frequent, but the remaining 29 came from some weird long link that was unfamiliar to me. so of course i clicked it.

ChristianMingle dot com. with a cute little jesus fish in the logo. what the-? how on earth did people go from being on a christian dating site to reading a sarcastic jewish girl's blog? hmm.... well i did have the word "jesus" in a recent title.... still doesn't make sense. but i don't care; thirty hits, woohoo! so i threw in a little 'god bless' and 'jehosephat' for my new religious pals.

sadly though, my blog doesn't have the same fancy features as ChristianMingle, like christian dating tips, searchable bible, or bible verse of the day. But i will leave you with these wise words:



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

.

jail tires me out

i left the penitentiary mid-afternoon, stepping out to one of the most beautiful days i've seen in ages. i took in deep breaths of air, relishing my freedom. it was over. thank god it was over; i don't think i could have lasted any longer. thinking back, it wasn't so long ago that i entered the joint - nervous, scared, heart pounding - yet it felt so much longer. but that didn't matter now, it was all behind me. it may have been unpleasant, but i would try to learn from the experience. mentally exhausted, i drove back to the city, the prison slowly disappearing into the distance behind me. it had been just over an hour.

i had a job interview at our penitentiary. i hate interviews, regardless of location.

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.

intoxicated accomplishments

sometimes i surprise myself with how competent and coordinated i can be when drunk. i'm not talking threading needles or building a house of cards, but feats of dexterity nonetheless. last night was blair's work holiday party, and the wine was flowing! the end of the evening is a blur, and i only vaguely recall stumbling to bed. in the morning there was the brief moment of panic until i confirmed that i brought home all the essentials - purse, new shoes, mittens. i also notice that i had the presence of mind, not just to remove my jewellery, but to put it back properly. my earrings were still in a pair, and that oh so delicate necklace was hanging up where it belongs. i thought for sure my clumsy drunken fingers would have fumbled an earring or broken that fine chain. but no; all is well! i didn't lose anything and i didn't break anything. I'm amazing!!

i had my nightshirt on inside out and backwards, but hey, no one's perfect.