i don’t really want to talk about the hockey situation in vancouver. instead, i’d like to talk about me being the cutest thing ever. just kidding.
last night as i was getting ready for bed, my mind, running its last laps for the day, stumbled upon an epiphany of sorts. i’ve mentioned paul here before, not often and not in any great detail. he was my first really physical relationship. he was brilliant and funny and knew all sorts of things i’d never even thought of. he was tall and dark and his voice was like chocolate. i became completely besotted. i very probably loved him in whatever capacity i had at that time in my life.
paul’s got some issues, though. yeah, i know, don’t we all? his biggest one, at the time i knew him, was that he couldn’t ever love anyone. i surmised, even then, that it was a defense mechanism to keep him from being hurt emotionally as he had been by his ex-girlfriend. totally understandable, right? we all do that to some degree or another. but, paul being the guy he is, with the conviction of concrete and the ability to hold a grudge longer than polyester holds the smell of sweat, wouldn’t let it go.
one night, we were on his bed. he lying down, me sitting up and stroking his long fingers. i don’t remember what we were talking about, or if we were talking at all, but at one point his eyes started to get very blue and it looked like he was about to cry. my heart melted. the man who shunned all emotion was thawing! i thought it was a moment of breakthrough for our relationship, that maybe it would bring us closer, that he might come to show me the emotion i so desperately wanted.
i was wrong. that was the moment that things started to turn. sadly, i didn’t realize it for almost a year, but that’s another story. the moment that i thought might mean he was ready to let me in actually started the process of him shutting me out completely. i believe that that one instance of vulnerability completely terrified him. the thought of having someone sitting there, wanting nothing more than to love him utterly was something he was just not able to deal with. it scared the shit out of him, so he started to shut down.
but that’s just the background. my epiphany came when i realized that i had the exact same reaction when morgan first told me he loved me. i wasn’t able to accept that he was standing there, willing and wanting to love me unconditionally. it was completely foreign to me. he might as well have been handing me a piece of uranium for how much i wanted to accept what he was offering. not because of him, but because i wasn’t capable of accepting the idea that someone could want to love me.
from the moment that he first said “i love you” i started to pull away. i may have told myself i wasn’t, i may have told him i wasn’t, but i can see now that i was. i did. if i had been a little more open with myself and him i might have been able to salvage at least a little good feeling out of the relationship, but i wasn’t. i didn’t. that’s my mistake.
there’s no real point to my epiphany other than acheiving another level of awareness about myself and how i react to different situations in my life. obviously, i need to start working on opening myself up to the possibilty of being loved by someone. that being loved doesn’t mean i have to love them back. it doesn’t mean i owe them anything because they feel that way about me. i have to learn to let them feel how they do and not let that change how i relate to them. mostly, i have to learn to be more forthright with how i feel in situations where i am uncomfortable. to be more open and honest instead of taking the coward’s way out and pulling back or shutting down. that’s passive-aggressive bullshit no one needs in their life.
yeah, i’m still a work in progress. don’t forget your hard hat.
– i woke up with a headache.
– my new favourite food is vanilla yogurt with kashi crunch.
– my new sweater is so very soft.
– the oven stopped working, so i had to clean the apartment before calling the landlords.
– dear god my head hurts.
– the children of dune was better than dune.
– daddy made me dinner last night.
– my head really hurts.
– i’m trying not to get to excited about finally going to minnesota to spend face time with jeremy, andrea and jodi chromey since it is five months away.
– someone here has way too much perfume on.
– it’s been almost two weeks over two years since i stopped smoking.
– i haven’t drank (drunk?) coffee in two weeks, either.
– *twitch*
ohmygod, i’m so tired today. no idea why. i was in bed before ten and didn’t get up until six-thirty. too much sleep, you say? lies! there is no such thing. nope. sleep is manna from heaven. (and that, my friends, is as close to anything passion-related as i’ll get on here).
i’m feeling very antsy lately, yet i’m also somewhat stagnant. i need to clean my house, but i’m overwhelmed by the number of tasks into doing nothing. i need to start my huge assignment, but i can’t bring myself to even think about where to begin. it’s frustrating, and it’s driving me crazy. CRAZY!
oh, i’m going to see vancouver vs. ottawa next weekend. yippee! my favourite team against my east team. this is going to rock! this is also going to be a record. three hockey games in one season. all of them free. how lucky am i? c’mon, just how lucky am i? well, since you asked. i’m so lucky that my bestest jeremy sent me a lovely bloo router to bolster my sagging geek cred; i received a somewhat tardy, but wholly appreciated valentine from fellow blogger erika; and, i’m one slip of paper away from filing for my biggest tax refund ever! of course, it’s going to responsible things like bills, but i can still be excited about it, right?
it’s so fucking beautiful out today. bloo sky, warm enough to go without a jacket, light breeze. and i’m stuck in here looking out at it. it’s actually kind of cruel. we really should get an exemption from work on these kinds of days. the company can consider it a morale incentive. freshly-aired employees make for more productive employees! maybe i’ll submit a suggestion to that effect. while i’m at it, i might as well ask for that margerita bar and on-staff masseur.
(while discussing the line-ups and excessive media coverage at the opening of western canada’s first krispy kreme donut shop.)
hessie: but the people line up, in part, to get on tv.
hessie: it’s a vicious cycle.
hessie: north american celebrity culture is evil.
hessie: but that doesn’t mean i’m not going to watch survivor now. =)
hessie: aren’t i just the cutest bundle of contradictions ever?
just in case you were concerned or mildly interested, i’m much improved over my bloo funk of a weekend. despite how i made it sound, i’m not really looking for a man to make everything right. i think the lonely just caught up with me and, what with the other things that went on over the weekend, i just couldn’t deal with it as well as i normally do.
it’s amazing what a couple days of perspective can do for a girl, though!
today, i’m off to shop, lunch, laugh and hockey with meghan. i got to sleep in, have a long, hot shower, eat a warm, nummy breakfast (fried egg white & chicken bacon sammich), chat with my most favourite of jeremies and now i’m off to fun and frolic with my goilfriend! how much more perfect could that be? i still haven’t decided if i’m going to scalp my hockey tickets or not. the way my boys in bloo have been playing lately, i might not get even face value for them. we’ll see what happens when we get there.
i officially designate today: fly by the seat of your pants day!
i am lonely and sad and completely disheartened with just about everything. this afternoon, i stood at the window with the sun warming my hair. i couldn’t bring myself to go outside. it felt like if i were to go outside alone today it would break my heart completely. it was day to share and love and laugh and play, not day to be quiet and shy, so i stayed in and did nothing except revel in my crushing solitude.
oh god, i’m so pathetic.
okay, i just remembered something to rant about.
this week, tim burton’s remake of planet of the apes has been on tv a couple of times. because i know that there’s one local station here that doesn’t edit the movies it plays, i arranged to tape it for later viewing seeing as i’d missed it at the theatre and it’s not really a movie i’d pay for at the video store. i’d heard all the reviews when it first came out, but i’ve remained curious enough about it to perk up when i saw it in the tv week.
last night, while queueing up the vhs tape to record csi (so i could watch the apprentice), i caught a couple minutes of the movie. at first i thought maybe the tape was going wonky or i was more tired then i thought because everyone on the screen looked kind of weird and distorted. that’s when i realized that they’d squished the widescreen to fit on the narrower tv screen. i hadn’t seen that done to a movie since, um, the early 80’s.
i couldn’t believe it. i still can’t. the technology is there to either pan & scan (ptooey) or letterbox it to preserve the panorama. but, no. they decided to make it look like some crazy sunday afternoon 70’s western rather than miss a few side bits or piss off the stupid by putting in the black bars (which, btw, you don’t notice after the first few minutes of the movie, so stop fucking complaining about letterboxing being too “distracting”).
oh, i’ll still watch it, but i refuse to be held responsible for the level of distruction i will lay upon the earth as a result of being subjected to two hundred and forty minutes of squishy, too-tall, too-skinny monkeys running the planet.
i helped evil upstairs neighbour lady in with her boxes yesterday. hey, she may be evil, but she’ll be gone in two weeks. i can afford to be nice. now.
absolutely nothing is going on in my life that’s worthy of conversation. i can’t even get myself worked up about anything to go on a good rant. well, there is that whole gay marriage thing in san francisco, but i’m canadian, so you probably know where i stand on that issue already.
all i really want to talk about is food, points and scales; but, that gets boring to everyone else after two and a half seconds, so i’m trying not to be that person. of course, because it’s all i think about, i can’t seem to think of anything else to talk about. oh the irony!
julie launched her beautiful redesign yesterday with a neat “send this photo as a postcard” link under her photos now. i’ve thought about adding postcards here for a while (after falling in love with the now-defunct jezebel.com), but i couldn’t ever figure out what to make the postcards out of. i’m not very artsy, you know, so i just kind of let the whole thing go. now, julie’s resurrected the idea in my little pea brain. i could use my photos! of course, then there’s the whole copy-cat aspect. although plagiarism is the highest form of compliment, right?
1. i figure that if i can get away with not wearing a jacket outside it’s time to get rid of the snowflakes on my site.
2. the mid-term went better than dreaded, but i’m only cautiously optimistic until i get my grade next week.
3. weight watchers online is seriously contributing to my lack of productivity at work.
4. there seem to be a rash of co-workers coming down with heart ailments lately. it better not be catchy.
5. redux: you know, i freakin’ love my hair. i should have cut it months ago.
6. jeremy rules. no, you can’t have him. he’s all mine!
7. twice this week my eyes popped open at 5am-ish and i didn’t even think about rolling over and going back to sleep. i may have a tumour.
my mid-term is tomorrow night. i haven’t even pretended to study and i can’t seem to bring myself to care, either.
i’m going to pee now.
ingredients:
14 oz canned tomato sauce
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp hot pepper (tobasco) sauce
2 egg whites (or 1 whole egg)
1 tsp pepper
1 lb ground turkey breast
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup oats
2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
directions:
– preheat oven to 350°.
– spray loaf pan with cooking spray.
– mix together tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce, hot pepper sauce, pepper and egg whites (before adding egg whites, reserve 4 oz of sauce mixture).
– combine turkey, onion, garlic and oats in a large bowl.
– add sauce/egg mix to meat mixture and combine well with hands.
– press into pan, top with reserved tomato sauce and parmesan cheese.
– bake for 60 to 70 minutes, until done.
yield:
6-8 servings of 3 points each
10-12 servings of 2 points each
i don’t particularly want to talk to anyone today. i don’t know why, but the idea of making idle conversation with co-workers i don’t have much in common with other than where we work isn’t interesting to me. i’m not fond of chit-chat. i hate being asked how my weekend was. it’s my weekend away from work, what do these people care? why would i want to share what i do in my personal time with them?
maybe it was getting up at five-fifteen this morning. maybe it was my kitchen lightbulb burning out again, forcing me to make toast in the dark. maybe it was my crappy weigh-in today. maybe it’s the fact i spent way too much grocery shopping yesterday and i have a grand total of $17.34 to last for the next two weeks. maybe it’s the gross-gross assignment i don’t want to do and mid-term dread.
the only real bright spot keeping me from beating myself about the head with a water bottle is that i get to partake of my turkey loaf experiment tonight. i hope it’s as good as i imagine it will be. i need it to be freakishly yummy or i may just spend the rest of the week eating microwave popcorn. not unlike what i did this weekend. if it does delight the tastebuds, i’ll post the recipe for your dining pleasure.
meghan tried to talk me into selling my hockey tickets next week. at first, i was shocked and appalled at the suggestion. sell my tickets? sell MY tickets?! well, it is a detroit game. it’s also pay-per-view. i could easily make a couple hundred bucks, i suspect. i could definitely use a couple hundred bucks right about now. although part of me considers the suggestion on par with blasphemy, the more practical part of me has dollar signs flashing in her eyes. i haven’t decided one way or the other yet, and i may not until we’re standing outside gm place.
i swore i wouldn’t, but i’m slowly getting really bummed about this whole valentine’s day thing.
i’m über-cute today, too. it’s a real shame to waste it at home watching videos, eating microwave popcorn and drinking diet pepsi out of a martini glass.
everyone hereabouts is decidedly giddy today. it’s completely understandable on a payday friday, but today is extra special. this year, the company participated in a ‘heart-o-gram’ program. for one buck, you could send a note and a chocolate heart to someone with the proceeds going to the heart & stroke foundation. on the surface, it sounds like a really neat idea, right? not to me!
of course, i fully admit i’m still working through my issues with similar schemes we participated in during highschool. the whole cruel popularity contest of sending and receiving ‘candy-grams’, as they were called at my school, turned me completely off the idea. i told several people that i didn’t want to receive any and that i was not going to send any. i didn’t want to participate unless i could be assured that everyone in the company would get at least one.
so, considering my anti-valentine sentiments already brewing in my black little heart, you can imagine the absolute shock i experienced upon finding the little pink devil on my desk. not one. not two. not even three of them. ten. yes, ten people sent me little pieces of chocolatey goodwill. at first i was annoyed they didn’t listen to me and then i was annoyed that they would send me chocolate (don’t they know i’m counting points?!). then i started to get a warm feeling inside. they love me! aww!
now i’m feeling guilty i didn’t send any, though.
in other news, i’m wearing the tommy hilfiger jeans which didn’t really fit before. go me!
p.s. if you requested a valentine it’s on its way. i hope they all get to their homes before tomorrow!
today is “i’m tired and cranky and stressed about the next assignment and next week’s midterm and i have shit i needed to do before i left this morning but didn’t even think to do it because i was so tired i stayed in bed an extra forty minutes and i really, really, really want to be super evil to people but then i feel guilty which just makes me crankier” day.
oh, yeah. and i feel really fat, too.
so, we had a “work plan 2004” meeting yesterday afternoon. we all shuffled off to the training room and talked about all the current, ongoing and future projects we have on our plates. we talked about what the programmers are into, what the network guys are into and even what the data entry girls are going to be doing. no one asked me what i’m doing. my name didn’t even get put on the spreadsheet of tasks. i made a couple cracks about “hey! i have no work!” but it’s kind of disconcerting to not even be invited to talk about what i’ve got on my agenda. and it’s a lot, dammit.
i’ll go mention it to bossman later, but geez, what a way to flip-flop a day. the morning was all “great job on the site!” and “thanks for all the hard work” from managers and even el presidente. then, bam, totally shut out. i feel like tom cruise at the oscars.
as we waited for the food to arrive and the drinks to be replenished, our attention was drawn towards the table the by the window.
“could they possibly be?”
“no…”
“yes, they are!”
“don’t stare. they’ll get upset.”
“they’re out in public, they should be expecting an audience.”
“can you believe it?”
“what are they doing now?”
“no! yes, they are!”
“they’re making quite the spectacle of themselves.”
“wouldn’t you, though?”
“well, yes, maybe.”
“that one doesn’t look like he belongs. he’s cute, though.”
“you think so?”
“sure, why not?”
“well… oh, wait! there they go again!”
“again?”
“yeah, can you believe it?”
“you’ve got to be kidding!”
“oh, wait, look, here it comes.”
“whoa!”
“wow, that’s impressive.”
“aww, they’re leaving.”
“no!”
“damn, that was fun.”
“yeah, better than a dinner show.”
the evil upstairs neighbour from hell is moving! hurrah!
how do i know this, you ask? well, just to toot my own intuitive horn, i’ve had my suspicion for a couple of weeks. i don’t know if it was all the bumping and thumping or what seemed like an extraordinary amount of boxes in the back of her boyfriends civic, but i definitely had an inkling she was on the move. finding out for certain occured last night, though.
after arriving home yesterday, two and a quarter hours after leaving work thanks to an overturned semi on the bridge and the resultant traffic nightmare, i found a message from my landlady on my voicemail which went something like:
“hi, this is linda the landlady. i just wanted to let you know that evil upstairs neighbour from hell is leaving. you have 375 square feet and her suite is 450. if you wanted to upgrade, please let me know. it’d be available march first.”
honestly, once i heard the “is leaving” bit, i almost tuned out i was so happy. then something else caught my attention…
“oh, and the rent is $700 a month.”
um. she’s got to be kidding! $110 for 75 more square feet? and that doesn’t even include heat! i realize that this a prime opportunity for them to increase the rent seeing as they’re constrained to 3% annual increases by law and that makes what evil upstairs neighbour from hell is paying about $60 less than this new asking price, but really. they’ve got to be smoking crack. $700 for a bachelor suite? yeah, it’s a great building. yeah, it’s a great location. no, it’s not worth it, especially considering how much it costs to heat these places in the winter.
if i’m going to pay another $110 per month, i better damn well have a bedroom and free fucking heat, thankyouverymuch.
so, i’m going to phone her back later today and say something like:
“thanks for thinking of me. i’d have been interested for $650.”
i cut off most of my hair.
i’m sore in very strange places today. but it’s a good sore, so i’m not complaining too much. i’m glad to know i’ll be able to attend at least four more lunch-time pilates classes over the next two weeks. whee! strong abs!
oh, and i joined weight watchers online today. there was a free 7-day trial and after seeing how well several women here at work and an online friend have done, i figured i would give it a shot. i chose the online version for a couple of reasons: 1. i think group meetings are hokey and embarrassing. 2. i like all the online gadgets. 3. it’s cheaper than regular meetings and i’m poor. this will probably be the last time i mention this development here, unless i get really thin and i’m posting naked photos of myself all the time. i don’t like to talk about trying to lose weight because i’m embarrassed when i fail.
and, yeah, i’m really not interested in being interesting. go read some of those people i’ve got over on the left. they’re much more entertaining than me.