you really should try eating a handful or two of honey roasted peanuts before bed. if my erotic, sensual, vivid beyond reason dreams were a result, i highly recommend it.
this dream, yeah, it was so tactile. it wasn’t overly sexual, but there was a lot of touching and flirting with a fellow blogger. the only thing i didn’t enjoy about it was that it’s brought some longing to be touching and touched in that manner just when i’d convinced myself that it was the last thing i needed, especially from a stinky boy. oh well.
the weekend was productive in a way. dinner with my daddy on friday. knitting, chili-making and card-playing on saturday. housecleaning, hockey and shopping on sunday. i don’t feel like i got very much accomplished, but i did manage to go through my closets, make a big pot of soup and take the trash out. that’s pretty good, right? unfortunately, i didn’t even take my camera out of my purse, so i doubt there will be pictures this week. it’s hard when it gets dark so early and i’m stuck inside all day and my camera takes shitty shots in low light. but i’ll see what i can do.
before anything else, the entire world needs to know that my friend heather turns THIRTY today. yippee! i can’t wait until all my friends are in their thirties with me. happiest birthday, eop. i love you!
in other-people-related news, the second half of the gift-sending from the too-generous-by-far mkh was waiting for me at the post office yesterday. inside the lovely amazon box was monty python and the holy grail AND and now for something completely different. bad, bad, naughty zoot! that man is single-handedly responsible for fleshing out both my book and video collections quite nicely over the years. thank you, kevin. you’re much too good to me.
now, about me. um. i’m having dinner with my daddy tonight. i’m making chili tomorrow. i’ve found a home for my old vacuum. i’m almost finished my current book. i’ve been really enjoying sleeping well the past few nights. i dreamt about kittens. at this moment, i’m happy i’m single. i’m out of photos and need to make some more. i’m not especially looking forward to the start of school on wednesday. i’m boring.
there’s very little to say, so you should just pet the kitty. he likes that.
my morning commute:
walk to bus stop, nearly falling on my ass several times.
miss bus by two minutes.
stand in rain waiting for next bus to arrive in thirty minutes.
realize waiting for next bus will make me forty-five minutes late.
look at almost-clear main roads.
walk back home, nearly falling on my ass several times and saying hello to dapper man with the nice umbrella.
get in car.
drive to work.
nearly die.
walk across slurpy, slushy parking lot, soaking sneakers and socks.
just because you all care, i’ll advise you that i had a much better sleep last night. i’m attributing it to all the fresh air (read: gasping for) i got yesterday. methinks i might get the same benefit from all my morning trudging. at least i hope so.
of course, in a sick and twisted turn of events, i find my legs all antsy to be moving. sitting here at my desk is just not cutting it. they want to walk. this isn’t a real problem other than the fact my brain absolutely hates walking without purpose. if i have a definitive destination, i can walk much longer than if i’m just walking for the sake of exercise. to this end, i need to find destinations to walk to. we’ll see how that goes. heh.
it’s snowing in the pacific northwest today and, true to form, it’s all we want to talk about. i was going to go in search of proper snowboots last night, but i realized that was a stupid thing to do unless i wanted to pay twice the price for half the selection. i can wear my sneakers and deal with wet feet for the rest of this season. then, come spring, i shall invest in a skookum pair of sorels or somesuch über-boot. something that will last me many unpredictable lower mainland winters.
the far-too-generous mkh of hidden city fame made a box du amazon appear on my doorstep yesterday in which was snuggled a copy of the elegant universe: superstrings, hidden dimensions and the search for the ultimate theory, which is probably the most beautifully jacketed book i have seen in years. it’s so beautiful, i’m almost afraid to start reading it for fear i may marr it. almost afraid. there’s too much in there i’m aching to learn to not. you know, for telling people not to get me gifts this holiday season, i sure have gotten a lot of presents. i wonder if this’ll work again next year…
okay, you know what? i’m going to start charging people who come over to my desk to look out the window a the snow. a dollar a view or five bucks for an all-day pass. it’s totally distracting! not that i’m doing all that much other than staring out the window myself, but they’re forcing me to make small talk my their presence. i hate making small talk. grr.
maybe i should have resolved to sleep better, too. so far, january has been the month of crappy sleep. i realize it’s only the fifth day of the month and it’s probably too early to condemn the entire month to this sentence, but four nights with a complete lack of proper slumber is four nights too many if you ask me. especially if you ask me. i love sleeping. sleeping is a haven, a refuge, from all the toils of reality. i love my pillows and my über-blankie. curling up with them is like being enveloped by a dear old friend/lover/protector. i feel warm and safe and content. but not lately.
lately, getting into bed has been frustrating and uncomfortable and just plain disappointing. wow, i just realized that’s not unlike sex with… but i’m digressing. i lay myself down and arrange the blanket just so and then i wait. i toss. i turn. eventually, i drift off into something that is technically sleep, but can you really call waking up every hour, excessive movement to get comfortable and vibrant dreams sleep? i think not.
sleep is supposed to be this dark, warm, soft, comforting place you slowly sink into as your mind quietly throttles down in the darkness of your room. sleep is not supposed to be exercise for either your body or your brain. sleep is not supposed to leave you pleading with the gods for the alarm to be wrong and there be two more hours until you have to get up. sleep is not supposed to leave you more tired when the sun rises in the morning than you were the night before.
maybe i just need a new bed.
ay carumba! not a very auspicious start to the blogging year, is it? let’s just chalk it up to being far too busy taking care of things in the physical world in preparation of a brand new year full of band new experiences. my new year started off the way i mean it to continue, including all the cleaning, tidying and purging i’ve been doing for the last two days.
i just wish it would stop being so fucking cold and snowy.
resolutions? year in review? seems they’re both in heavy rotation around the interweb this week. does anyone really care what i thought about 2003 or what i mean to change in 2004? too bad, i’m telling you regardless.
twenty-oh-three was a crazy year for this girl. found a boy, lost a boy, found a boy, lost a boy, found a boy, lost a boy, possibly found a boy. i suppose that means i can’t say i’m yucky and nobody will ever want me anymore. i spent a lot of time doing (or worrying about doing) homework, and officially registered for accreditation once i’m finished with all the homework in, um, eighteen months time. i took a plane ride for the first time in three or so years. saw family members i haven’t seen in as many as twenty-five years. broke a heart. had my heart broken. started a savings account. started buying dvds. started carrying a purse. finally succumbed to windows xp. broke my vow to never own a cell phone. discovered i look good in brown.
all in all, it was a pretty good year for me. i know it’s been really shitty for a lot of folks around, but, honestly, i think it’s been one of the better ones. historically, i tend to do better in odd-numbered years. here’s to hoping i break that trend for this twelve-month coming up.
for twenty-oh-four, i’m resolving to eat to live, not live to eat, walk more, take more photographs and be less shy about people seeing me take photographs, spend more time with people i like to spend time with, go outside more, stop goofing off at work, procrastinate less, stop worrying about what i did and care more about what i’m doing, talk to my parents every two weeks, get a haircut, get a one bedroom apartment, watch less tv, learn to increase/decrease stitches, floss every day and remember to say “thank you” more often.
i’ve also made a list of fifty-two movies i want to see this year, the goal being to see one of them every week and hopefully post a short review of each of them here. i’m not sure how that’ll work, but here’s to positive thinking!
i went to view the apartment on my way home today.
it’s a standard-issue crappy one bedroom apartment in a standard-issue crappy rental building. the kitchen is clausterphobic, but the closets are huge and the bathtub is beautiful. if i lean over the balcony railing, i can the very tops of the buildings downtown, but it’s on the north-west of the building so should be much cooler come summer. the rent is cheap and includes everything my current place doesn’t, which means that i’ll actually be paying only a couple of john a. mcdonalds more each month and it comes with secure underground parking.
i can spruce it up and make it a little nicer, i think. a couple lamps, some stuff on the walls, shower curtain… it could be nice and homey. what do you want to bet they’ll turn my application down because, get this, i make too much money?
this is where i mention that it’s STILL FUCKING SNOWING out there.
despite the waking up at all hours during the night, once to start reaming out my cousins for doing something stupid in my dream (need i mention my cousins weren’t there, so i was talking to an empty room), or the getting up at five a.m., or the leaving for the bus stop at six and only getting to work at quarter to eight, or even the fact that the only shoes i have with snow tread make my feet scream and blisters to appear from thin air, it’s kind of pretty out there right now.
it was actually nice walking in the snow to the bus this morning. so quiet, only the crunching of my feet, the gentle swish of my bag swinging against my hip and my gasping for more air to disturb the blanket of calm the snow covered the city in. that’s not to say i’m glad i had to take transit to work this morning, but hey, you’ve got to find your silver linings where you can.
considering that the weather may ruin any chance of getting up to m&m’s tonight and my hopes of hitting the blockbuster on the way home, silver linings are in short supply for a festive new year’s eve this year. good thing i had low expectations!
the apartment people phoned me back yesterday! i now need to phone some guy named mike to arrange to view the suite and start the application process. i’ve left him a message and, hopefully, he’ll phone me back today so that i might stop by on the way home since i most likely won’t be going anywhere once i hit my house. unfortunately, this is all happening a little too late to give a month’s notice to my currently landlords if i should get this other place. i hope one or two or three days aren’t enough to make them all bitchy about it. anyway, i shouldn’t think too far ahead. i haven’t even seen this place yet. it could be really scary on the inside or worse, smell like cabbage.
there was this great plan to write all about my super-spoiled holiday week(end) and then there was this great plan to write all about the paul-from-the-past i’ve been thinking of a lot recently then there was this great plan to write all about the apartment i reallyreallyreally want because i’m so ready to move and then there was this great plan to write about my need to do kamakaze cleaning before the end of the year and then i looked out my window and all my great plans went to shit.
it’s fucking snowing out there!
okay, i’m better now. i’m glad i wore my snow tire shoes and thought to bring a scarf along, just in case i leave the car here and take das autobus home tonight. i’m still holding out hope for it to change to rain by four, though.
so, about that xmas. i got spoiled rotten. all the people who weren’t supposed to give me gifts, gave me gifts. pretty substantial gifts i totally love, too. meghan bought me a new vacuum, hazel bought me a sexxy chef’s knife, carolyn & sue gave me a gift certificate, dad gave me cash, aunt & uncle gave me a phone card, and mom gave me a sexxy oil mister and an über-towel in bloo. not to mention all the laughing, eating, laughing, eating, laughing, eating and laughing & eating i did.
it was great. and i’m so glad it’s another year until it happens all over again.
as for the impending december thirty-first hooplah, i’m not all that excited. unless m&m&d want to play cards (or dice or dominos!), i think i’ll probably rent a bunch of videos and clean my shower or something. there’s no threat of a proper new year’s eve kiss, so why bother getting dressed, i say.
what are you doing for new year’s?
back from the xmas food-fest. hella busy at work today. more later… if i don’t explode.
i really wish i could feel more festive, but i’ve got a wicked headache and i took my last ibuprofin last week (or was it yesterday). regardless, i’ve got my xmas hat on and i’m all set for an evening of food, fun and friends.
shopping last night turned out surprisingly well. seems i timed it to coincide with everyone going home for dinner, because i found easy parking and i never stood in line for any longer than five minutes (excepting the waiting for my grande decaf gingerbread latte, with whip, at starbucks). the best thing was that everyone i encountered was in such a good mood. although, i have to admit, i got a little upset with the rugrats without supervision, but i thought to myself “at least they’re not mine” and my serenity returned.
i’m quite disappointed that m&m’s über-gift has not arrived for me to present it to them. i was so excited about it. it was so perfect for them. i couldn’t wait to see their faces when they opened it. alas, it’s been sucked into the gaping void known as international mail delivery. i’m not even upset that it didn’t arrive, exactly. i expect things like that to happen. i just wish it would have happened to something not for my friends. that being said, i will give it a couple more weeks and hope it turns up. if not, i’ll just order replacements because it was just too good not to give to them.
i’ll be heading off to the island tomorrow morning to spend the weekend with my mom and the rest of my local rellies, so i’ll be scarce until monday. i want to wish everyone who visits an especially wonderful season, no matter what you’re celebrating. i hope santa (or jack) brings you everything you wish for, including a safe, happy, holiday with everyone you love close to you, or at least in your hearts.
i don’t know where to begin. i think yesterday was probably one of the best days of 2003, even taking into consideration the getting up early and going to work portion of it.
really, how wrong can you go with a potluck at which you and thirty of your co-workers gather and stuff your faces for an hour (and you get paid many compliments on the quailty of your chili *preen*)? then, you come home to two xmas cards and a cheque for $285 in your mailbox after getting the primo parking spot in front of your building. next thing you know, you’re on your way to the neighbourhood pub with your two favourite people where you drink more beer than you normally do, eat good food, watch football (ick) and hockey (yay), gamble, enter draws, meet new people (and fall in love with a married man with a scottish accent), flirt with strange men with weird facial hair, take pictures of your favourite meghan in the whole world and win vancouver canucks hockey tickets!
it can’t possibly get better than that, can it? wait, there’s more!
then you come home and you find a fun and rambly phone message from your heather-friend (that’s a friend named heather not a friend of heather although, she is a a friend of heather named heather… oh, dear, my head)! when you wake up the next morning, you’re not suffering ill-beer-effects and you find a new message on your cell phone from another new gary with a voice that makes your ear hum, your mouth to gape and a quiet “oh, wow” to usher unbidden from your lips.
i can’t tell you how much i needed that.
today’s going be a write off. then again, what do you expect when you wake up at 5:28 a.m. and you can’t even recall that there was a weekend. i know i did stuff, but i guess it wasn’t the right kind of stuff because it feels like i didn’t even get any time away from work. thank goodness it’s only a two and three-quarter day week.
so, i made chili for the office potluck today. i have a feeling i should have made more because, if i do say so myself, this is fucking awesome chili. i’ll be sure to report back on the response. i hope they like it.
there’s a bunch of “i’m gross and horrible and no one’s ever going to love me” feelings going around in my head lately. i know it’s because i’m frustrated with things (crappy apartment, lack of funds, holiday stress, work worries), but it really started to wear me down last night. i could feel myself crawling inwards. i spent most of the night on the futon, horizontal and lethargic. ugh, just thinking about it makes me feel antsy and twitchy, like jumping up and down will shake off the sensation. i’m in a pretty okay place today, just a little overwhelmed by the amount of things i need/want to get done. i don’t know where to start so i’m not starting at all. sound familiar?
all right, the coffee beckons. happy monday, everyone. come by for lunch, there’s going to be a freakish amount of food here.
three days i’ve had to cook and wash dishes by candlelight. oh, the joys of being a five-foot woman living in an apartment with nine-foot ceilings. even while tippy-toe on a chair, my fingertips are six inches from the fixture. there used to be a step-ladder in the basement for such occassions, but it seems the germans took it with them when they sold the place.
the last time a lightbulb burnt out, jason was still around, so i made him change it for me. i could call mark, or shane, and ask them to come fix it, as they’re the only tall boys i know, but it’s kind of a nice, gentle martyrdom to suffer a little bit every time i flip the switch and nothing happens.
have i mentioned the knitting? or that i’m *this* close to saying “fuck it” and finding a new place to live even though i can’t afford it, but who can ever afford it, and i’d just spend the money on other stuff anyway. eh.
my step-uncle and i are taking my daddy out for a birthday dinner tomorrow night. nothing fancy, just a meal, cards and conversation. then i’ll have to start getting ready for next week. i still have a batch of cookies to bake and a pot to chili to make and i’d really like to get eileen’s (aka dad’s old) computer done this weekend so i can get it the fuck out of my house. i’m sick of looking at it.
i’m so tired i want to cry.
update: meghan is my hero (even if she calls me a turd)! i now have light in my kitchen again.
this topic is almost enough to make me want to actually pay attention to mefi. thank you, karl.
i’ve been up since four a.m.!
remember my telling you how great of a person i am because i was taking karen to the airport this morning? well, i’m so good because every ten minutes after three a.m. i woke up in a panic that i’d overslept and karen had missed her plane. finally, at four, i decided to get up and avoid all that stress. i had a long shower, drank a cup of coffee, watched the episode of miss match i’d taped on monday night, downloaded that stupid new song milkshake and made my breakfast.
you know, i wish i had more excuses to be out in the world at five-thirty in the morning. it’s so peaceful and so very quiet. everything i did sounded so loud! i felt like i was going to wake the entire city up when i started my car.
did you know you can’t use your starbucks card at the starbucks in the airport? neither did i. that’s okay, i had enough cash for my gingerbread latte and pumpkin scone. yum.
all right, i think it’s exactly time for a nap, don’t you?
guess who picked up her new glasses yesterday! they’re so über-swanky it’s almost hard to imagine they’re on my face. really, i mean, who said it was okay for me to look so damn hip AND smart all at the same time time? i feel like i need to start buying prada or something.
thankfully, i got to bed by nine-thirtyish and slept most of the night through. weird dreams with mail, spiders, underwear and a big party kept me flipping from side to side after four a.m., though. i’d feel a lot better if it weren’t for the headache i woke with (which is being aggravated by having to adjust to my new prescription). yay ibuprofin!
today is our department’s xmas lunch. i wish we could have gone to see return of the king or off to mess about at pladium or something. i think we’re the most boring, uninspired, non-geeky IT department in the history of the world. i mean, really, there’s not a single nerf ball rocket in the whole joint.
i’m bored and sleepy and i really want to, um, you know.
hurrah! my grades are in and i’m not quite as stupid as i worried i might have become. somehow, i managed to wrangle 81% out of the programming course from hell. yippee! the best part is that it only brings my average down to 92%. phew. i can’t even tell you how much of a relief that is. i was harbouring some serious dread at the coming of the grades. now i can just submit my receipts and wait for the cheque.
otherwise, i’m just as, if not more, tired today as i was yesterday. there’s something about the last week which has been keeping me from going to bed at any time earlier than midnight. i’m sure sitting and gabbing with karen at red robin for three hours and then coming home and filling out my shiny new addressbook she got me were culprits, but even once i turned off all the lights i laid in bed for a good thirty minutes before i fell asleep. it’s not good. i’m starting to have that overtired tunnel vision thing happen. i absolutely must get some sleep tonight, or at least tomorrow, because i’m taking karen to the airport at 6am thursday. yes, i know, i’m an extraordinary human being. you may send gifts as often as you like.
speaking of gifts, meghan is concerned about whatever it is she’s gotten me for xmas. she keeps telling me that it’s okay if i take it back and go buy my dream desk instead. i asked her on saturday “if you don’t think i’ll like it, why did you buy it for me?” anyway, this has all gotten me thinking about the things i’d probably never buy myself or things i desperately need which i’d be happy to receive as a gift. (this is not a directive for you to go out and get me something different, meghan. are you listening?)
– a new vacuum with hose attachment
– my carpets professionally cleaned
– my window blinds professionally cleaned
– my car detailed
– a serious 10″ chef’s knife
– new tea towels
– a haircut at some swanky salon where they really know what they’re doing
– alton brown’s plunger measuring cup
– a new cell phone with a damn clock
– a one-bedroom apartment for no more than $650/month (har-har)
that list is more for myself than anyone else (yes, that means you, meghan). i find it really interesting that i’ll go to the craft store and drop a wad on stuff i’ll use once or twice and then leave to rot in the closet, but i won’t spend the money to buy myself more useful items and services that will improve the quality of my life.
priorities, you’re all messed up.