they say that one of the real tests of a relationship is when you travel together for the first time. seems christopher and i better study up because we’re leaving for victoria tomorrow!
this’ll be the first time we’ve ever gone away together. we’ll be spending three days & nights in the capitol city and then heading up-island to visit his brother on the way up to parksville to spend a couple nights at my mom’s — oooh… scary (which must be read with a Count Floyd accent).
p.s. i know i’ve been really anti-communicative with people this week, so please consider this my far-sweeping apology. i took my first week of holidays solely for me (you should see how clean my apartment is!) and rejuvinating my mental health. i’m trying very hard not to feel guilty about it, but i know that there were a few phone calls or emails which should have been returned but weren’t. once i get back from this trip, expect to be hounded for audiences with me! i want to party it up!!
this is the end of my second day off work (not including the weekend, obviously).
somehow, i’ve already managed to forget what day it is at least 50-million times and, sometime around 1:15 this afternoon, i was actually bored. on my second day of vacation. how sick am i? it’s a good thing i have things to do tomorrow and i’m there’s traveling next week and then the seven days of birthday celebrations the week after that. yes, very good.
what kind of things am i doing on my third day of vacation? well, tomorrow, i’m taking down my venetian blinds and driving them out to burquitlam to have them cleaned. yes, i know. i’m a wild woman. don’t you wish you were me right now?
oh, wait. i won’t be at work. yes, you totally do wish you were me right now (i’m so mean!).
after several weeks of trying to make it to my vacation in a ramped-up high-stress work environment, while also trying to be there for other people in my life, on top of attempting to maintain a social life and keeping my house in order both literally and figuratively, i completely lost it on friday.
first, i’d not gotten enough sleep a few nights in a row. then, i accidentally rammed a q-tip hard and deep into my left ear. on top of that, everything work related went sideways all while having to wear the shoes which give me horrendous foot pain. sometime around noon, i’d just had enough, so i closed my office door and started bawling.
i’d been feeling like i was being pulled in a dozen different directions for a couple of weeks. yet, i didn’t want to disappoint anyone, so i tried so very hard to keep it all in balance, but obviously i was doing a very poor job of that. it had been building for a few days, that feeling of tension coiling up inside my chest waiting for a release. it was only a matter of time. i had hoped i could make it just one more week until i was off work.
luckily for me, both my boss and my boyfriend were so very comforting to me. my boss, who runs at peak stress 95% of the time, understands exactly how i was feeling at that time and commiserated with me while i calmed down and fanned my face to keep from crying any more. my boyfriend was right there for me, even though i wasn’t even sure i wanted or needed it and i’m sure i made it very difficult for him to be there at all. he did everything right and for that i’m so grateful it makes me want to cry a little bit more.
everything is so very sensitive right now. i’m not quite over the hump, but, as i’ve been telling myself, vacation is only a week away. if i can make it to the end of next friday i should be okay. i really hope i’ll be okay, because if it’s not i don’t quite know what i’m going to do.
just a reminder, you have only 30 days in which to plan, purchase and prepare all gifts and celebrations in honour of my upcoming natal anniversary.
yeah, i know. i’m all about the PSAs. ;)
today, i’m wearing nine year old shoes.
they were purchased in Worcester, Massachusetts while visiting my friends heather & gary for their daughter, rowan’s, first birthday. it was november 1998. i know this only because rowan turns 10 this year and i’ve still got enough mental faculties to do basic math — most of the time.
heather & i, after our friend joe left to go back home to New Joisey, spent a day out shopping at all those amazing amercian stores we don’t have here at home. well, they weren’t amazing, but they were new and exciting to me. one such store, Marshall’s, was beyond my comprehension at the time. of course, now that Winners and HomeSense have burst forth onto the Canadian marketplace i’m used to the concept of designer leftovers at discounted prices, but then? it nearly blew my mind.
now, you should know that when faced with a department store, i make a bee-line for the shoe department. mostly, this comes from never finding any clothes which fit, so shoes were usually my only shot at finding something to buy. these days, i just like looking at shoes, even though my sore feet require the ugly, comfortable variety for functioning without pain. that particular day, i did what i always do and headed for the shoes. very shortly, i came upon a pair of black mary janes with an amazing feature: built in massaging nubbins over the entire foot bed. i don’t remember how much they cost, but even though they were almost a size too big i had to have them. c’mon… massaging nubbins? how could i pass that up?
nine years later, the soles are almost worn through, the toes are all scuffed and they’re all stretched out, but those massaging nubbins? still there and still massaging! i love these shoes quite irrationally. i’ve gone through phases where i’d buy and wear other shoes, but i always come back to these. one day, they’re going to be beyond rescue and the thought makes me very sad. every time i go out shopping a small part of me is looking for a pair to replace them, but it has yet to happen. i’m starting to give up hope that i’ll ever again have anything comfortable to wear on my feet when these have given up the ghost.
sometimes advertising gets me all riled up.
there’s a Canon commercial on the radio i hear at least once during each of my morning and afternoon commutes. it’s got a married couple looking at a Canon camera flyer and the wife says things like “it’s so stylish” and “it would fit in my pocket” about the Elph while the husband prattles on about all the superior technical features of the other model he’s interested in. the inference is that women only care about how a camera looks while men are more interested in how a camera works. it’s compounded when the man makes a snotty comment about how he doesn’t “take” photos, he “makes” them.
not only is it a stupid commercial, it’s insulting. the more i hear it, the more pissed off i get. all right, i get that i’m more geeky than the average female. i also concede that i’m more interested in the technical side of photography than most women. that does not mean that the majority of women decide on purchases purely on the object’s visual appeal. i’d like to believe that women are smarter than that and to have advertisers reinforce the stereotype is unacceptable in the year 2007.
all i can say is that i’m very glad i’m a Nikon girl (which i chose entirely on specs, btw). take that, Canon!
nothing to say. sorry. i’m boring.
ahh… by the time saturday was half-over, thinking about three more whole days off seemed like such a long time. now that’s it’s 4:30 tuesday evening and it’s back to the grind tomorrow, four days seems way too short.
i don’t actually know where the weekend went. i know i spent a lot of it with christopher and his family, either walking the puppy or cooking dinner for his parents. sunday was mostly mine, so i was über-lazy and just stayed home watching tv and slowly getting gussied up for mel & chris’ wedding party (which was a lot of fun). today, i kept mostly for myself and i’ve just finished mad cleaning, to bring the house to base-level clean for the rest of the week.
seriously, i want to know when i became such freakish cleaner. i mean, it’s probably good in the long run, but i’m sure friends must think i’m just a little bit insane with the cleaning. i’m not crazy! i just like having things neat and debris-free. is that so wrong? *sob* i think it might be.
on my way home from work, i was convinced i’d be up all night trying to get all my cinderella chores done. i hadn’t done laundry or dishes since last week, so things were a little too grubby (but not too bad since i was away for the weekend visiting my mom) to have people over for the ANTM finale tonight. surprisingly, i had both big loads of laundry done, monday’s huge pile of dishes washed, the floors dusted, the bathroom cleaned and dinner eaten all before 7pm. so, just because i could, i spent the rest of the night catching up on tv i’d missed and trying to hit 1000 points (the pro level) in Wii bowling. i love my Wii.
i’m not enjoying being cut off from the internet during my workdays. it’s hard for me to not to have the answer to any question available to me at a moment’s notice, the abilty to get a map to somewhere i want to go, or something as trivial as looking up a phone number. it’s made worse because i don’t want to spend all night sitting in front of the computer to “catch up” on what i’d missed. not only because there are other things to do (like clean or make out with my hot boyfriend), but my chair sucks and i’m already in front of a computer all day, why would i voluntarily spend more time there (don’t worry, i recognize the irony seeing as that’s all i did for many, many years). it’s been almost two months, now. you’d think i’d be over it, but the more time goes by, the more it annoys me. i miss you, internet!
there’s a long weekend looming and, for me, it’s four days long! i don’t have a lot planned, which i usually prefer. there is the biggest social event of the season (aka mel & chris’ wedding) on sunday (for which i still need to figure out what i’m wearing — ack!), otherwise i have nothing on my plate except some chores i never have time for in a normal week and a whole lot of tv i want to catch up on (i’m four weeks behind three different shows). i’m hoping it proves to be lovely and lazy because after this little break, i’ll be going pedal to the metal for the three weeks leading up to my HUGE VACATION in june (which is starting to shape up into something lovely, let me say).
the next time i think it’s a good idea to eat a Twix bar and chips for dinner because i “don’t want to cook” or “there’s nothing in the house” remind me to think about how unhappy my body is at this very moment.
blargh.
i have a working theory that my steel-toed work shoes are the cause of all the foot trouble i’ve been experiencing.
for the first couple months of the year, i’d been plagued by pain in my feet, mostly located in the heel of my right foot. it got so bad that i could barely put any weight on it in the morning and by the end of the day i was limping noticeably when walking. even when sitting with absolutely no pressure applied it would occasionally plague me with stabbing pains. while at the doctor for my vision problem, she referred me to the lab to get orthotics, but also cautioned that it probably wouldn’t begin to get better until i’d lost twenty pounds. i never did go to the orthotic lab. i didn’t have the time or the money, so i just kept putting it off. the foot would get bad then it would get better, but overall it was usually bad.
i’m not sure what prompted it, but i stopped wearing my work shoes to work about a week and a half ago. i’m still wearing my $15 dr. scholl’s insoles in them, but even after walking around for most of the weekend i’ve yet to suffer any of the excruciating pain i was becoming accustomed to.
not wanting to tempt fate, i’m calling it a “working theory” as opposed to “the reason why”. the last thing i want is to get cocky and invite the pain back, especially now that’s getting more like photowalking season outside. i always hate to be the one begging off because my feet start to hurt halfway through an outing.
today is my 15th anniversary!
my car and i were united in a symbiotic & fiscal union on this day in 1992. this is the longest relationship of my life. it’s one of my oldest and most expensive possessions. it’s taken me across bodies of water, mountain ranges, the middle of my country and an international border. it’s cute, it’s blue and i couldn’t imagine not having it in my life.
even when it acts up, even when it stinks, even when it’s messy and expensive and i look lustfully at the mazdas driving around so shiny and wafting new-car smell out their sunroofs, it’s my baby and i’m glad we’ve gotten to know each other so well.
happy anniversary, baby! here’s to another 235,000 kilometres!
inspired by a thread in the mailing list i subscribe to so i have some sort of access with the outside world while at work, i’m going to attempt to recall each and every job & residence i’ve had since the age of sixteen:
| jobs: | |
| 1988-1990 | McDonald’s (food service – hostess/training co-ordinator) |
| 1990 | Antels (retail clothing – customer service) |
| 1991-1992 | SAAN (department store – customer service) |
| 1992-1997 | Isle Golf Cars (golf car sales & service – office manager) |
| 1997-2004 | Current Employer (shh – data entry monkey) |
| 2004-present | Current Employer (shh – purchasing peon) |
| residences: | |
| 1988-1991 | East 1st St., North Vancouver |
| 1991-1997 | N. Corfield St., Parksville |
| 1997-1998 | East 14th St., North Vancouver |
| 1998-2004 | Chesterfield Ave., North Vancouver |
| 2004-present | St. Georges Ave., North Vancouver |
hm… there aren’t as many as i thought there would be, actually. i suppose i’m still scarred by all the moving i did between the ages of 6 and 14. if i were to analyze it, that might explain my need for stability and stasis now.
busy week. not much sleep. feeling… rough all ’round.
i got a christmas present today!
it’s a chocolate brown microfibre ottoman, just like i put on my wish list. yay! more importantly, along with the cozy ottoman came a visit with my long, lost best friend. double yay! it wasn’t very lengthy, but it was nice to actually see her for the first time since december. i officially put it out there that she and her husband should come over to play Wii. i know that’ll provide some very tempting incentive to get her taller half over. hopefully, she’ll come along, too!
the day was a long one. i felt awful and off for most of it. i definitely would have come home well before lunch if i hadn’t had a meeting to attend in the afternoon. just my luck that over half the attendees either forgot, were on vacation or got called away to other, more important, appointments. i stuck it out for no good reason! how awful is that?
people are scary. i wish they weren’t so.
i’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about vacations. i have three weeks off work at the end of june and there’s a part of me which would really like to take some of that time and go somewhere i’ve never been. i went to ontario for the family gathering last summer, but other than that, i haven’t gone anywhere in what feels like a really long time (my last trip was to minnesota in 2004). i’ve toyed with the idea of paris, but the costs associated with that are prohibitive at this time. then i thought about vegas, but christopher wouldn’t go there with me and i can’t really think of anyone i’d rather go with my first time; nor would i want to go alone. all this trip-thinking, and the constant reminding myself that i have to get up at 3am saturday morning to drive my dad to the airport for his carribean cruise, must be what caused my dream last night…
suddenly, i was on an alaskan cruise with my friend karen. we were on the ship, in our room and on our way. then, of course, it got weird. i started to see gross bugs and creatures in our room, but not before i read the note left for me describing where to find the cheapest beer on-board. as i was preparing to disembark at the first port of call, i realized that in my haste to get on this trip i’d forgotten to pack a lot of essentials. mostly toiletries, camera and film. i’d only taken christopher’s pearl river and one roll of 120 film. i panicked! i ran all over that little town looking for a shop which could sell me film. finally, i found myself in a curious little shop. run by a little old woman up front selling normal corner store wares and a tall, distinguished older british man in the back, running what looked to be a camera shop. my luck! he had a small supply of strange 120 film (ever hear of kodak asa 310?), which i spent a good deal of time trying to suss out my purchase of.
while i was leaning on the counter, trying to decide how many rolls of which kind i wanted (and could afford), the store suddenly became swarmed with customers up front. the british fellow came up behind me, put his hand on my left hip and pressed his lips to my ear and breathed: “you’re not the kind of girl who travels from west to east”.
stupid dreams.
yay, april!
yay, sunshine!
yay, one work-day away from six days off!
yay, hot boyfriend!
yay, four new rolls of film to scan!
yay, not having to brave ferries on the long weekend!
yay, driving dad’s car for a week while he’s on a cruise!
yay, payday!
yay, pea crackers!
yay, audio books on my mp3 player!
yay, money in the bank!
yay, kevin smith!
yay, sushi!
yay, no-longer-squealing alternator belt in the car!
yay, cherry blossoms!
yay!
i can’t decide if this day is going fast or slow. it’s almost surprising it’s thursday already, but there’s still a whole day left until the weekend. i’m fairly sure it’s exacerbated by the upcoming vacation and good-plans. i marked up my calendar with all the vacation i’ve booked and there’s a splotch of vacation-y orange in every month! it’s costing me for some of those days, but mental health trumps financial gain every time.
i’m starting to be wary of the continuing sunshine. like nature is going to pull the rug out from under us just as soon as we start taking the lack of rain and gloom for granted. I’M NOT TAKING IT FOR GRANTED, GAIA! i’ve finished four rolls of film and there are three more cameras with shots left to take. i’m hoping some of the good weather sticks around for the weekend so i can shoot them, but it’d be expected if the rain came back just as i have time out of the office.
christopher came over the other night, took one look at the jigsaw puzzle on the table and commented that i hadn’t made any more progress on it. that got me to thinking about the amount of time and energy i have outside of work and how i have to carefully ration them to accomplish both the things which i want to do and those i have to do. usually, the wants (Wii, puzzles, socializing) suffer for the needs (chores, errands, sleep) and i don’t know if everyone understands those compromises i make. it’s entirely my fault for having such ridiculous domestic standards, though; but, to paraphrase myself: mental health trumps Wii-playing every time. it sometimes sucks, but it’s still true.
addendum: hot dogs + the incredibles = good night.
i woke up from long dreams of kevin smith with a nagging pre-migraine headache caused by muscle tension in my back & neck. i’m pretty sure the pain is worth the awesome dreams, though. mm, kevin smith. luckily for christopher, there’s little chance we’ll run into each other, ’cause if we did, i’d have to run away with him. it’s just one of those things.
because i couldn’t bring myself to call in sick, i dragged myself into work to suffer publically. i’ve instructed my co-workers to be quiet, but even the noise of my officemate crumpling paper is making me cringe.
it’s possible i might die.
i may have to switch to wordpress to enable the post-by-email feature within it. we’ll see. that seems like a lot of work. might be easier to just quit blogging altogether. what do you think?
i washed the car on my lunch break yesterday. there was too much dirt and grunge on it to get it clean-clean, but it’s pretty damn shiny now. it was nice to drive home last night in a shiny car with all the windows open, the music blaring and not wearing a jacket. yay spring!
zoom airlines is having some sort of “fly to europe for $199” deal right now. i looked up flights during my june vacation and i can get to-from 10 days in paris for just under $900. i don’t know if that’s a good deal or not. i could swing airfare if i really wanted to, but i’d be hard-pressed to afford to stay/sight-see/get around once i got there. i guess i’ll just keep saving up and hope to be able to afford a big trip next year. that’s definitely a goal now: europe in 2008.
point form ’cause i’m sleepy:
– work = stressful
– jen makes better-than-some-sex-nachos
– bought a new astrosatchel at their open house on saturday
– took christopher to lynn canyon sunday afternoon and while he was taking a photo, some guy named stevie tried to chat me up. on the trail. completely random.
– jigsaw puzzles are fun… when your boyfriend doesn’t take them over and become obsessed with completing them with or without your help
– i’m on the countdown until my six days off around easter — i think i can make it!