AAA1 Quality Blog, Ltd.

You wrote a title, right?

2012-01-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

Things to Say After the Fact

You weren't supposed to swallow it.

They aren't free samples?

Teen! Not -ty!

No, grandma's in your car.

Sugar comes in a bag. That's salt.

Is your cat allowed outside?

And where were you were playing with the toys from mommy's drawer?

Where did you put my phone when you washed my pants?

I didn't even know you had a garburator.

Am not! I just had the fruit punch!

Do all computers have that search history thing?

Don't title me like you know me.

2012-01-02T20:11:00.000-07:00

Hi blog.

Yeah, it's been awhile.

No, I did not forget about you. I did not! I think about you all the time!

Okay fine, maybe not all the time. But sometimes. And I miss you.

I do too.

Why do I have to tell you what I'm thinking for you to believe I'm thinking about you? Oh that's "the point" of our relationship, is it? Now you're going to dictate "the point" of our relationship to me?

Yes, I am aware of what the definition of what a blog is. Some people use them to post recipes, you know - it's not an automatic ticket to touchy feely eat my brain time. It can be completely impersonal and still be a successful relationship I'll have you know.

Don't get started with the "at least they post something", now. I already conceded it's been awhile.

Yes! Fine! Too long! But I'm here now, okay?

What? Yes, I am still "involved" with Twitter, but that has nothing to do with anything.

I have a WordPress account too. I haven't done anything about it, but so you know - it's been made clear I would not get my hands slapped for typing there.

No, I'm not threatening anything. I'm just... look. We got off on the wrong foot here. I'm back. That's good, right?

Can we just take it from there and move forward?

I'm just waiting under this chair for the title. It will come!

2011-05-01T16:23:00.001-06:00

Kitty to People Translator!

Meow: Hello!

Prrrow: I'm happy to see you!

Meow-ow: Please pet me!

Prrrow-ow: You call this garbage chardonnay?

Me-ow-wow: You're not allowed outside today.

Prrrow-wow: You don't need friends, you have me.

Brrrrow: If your friends loved you they'd understand why you're not allowed to see them anymore.

Mrrrow-ow: Get away from the windows.

Brrreow-ow: Only a sacrifice made with love is pure.

Mrrreow-wow: In movie 2001 resurrect dead on planet Jupiter.

Mew: Dense cornsyrup under more happenings of leafy (garbled).

Prrreow-ow: I want snuggles!

Kitties are SO silly, aren't they?

Because I had more reasons to write a title than I had reasons not to.

2011-04-25T23:14:00.000-06:00

Sentimentality Rating

Electric Hand Mixer

Retro Design: 8
Inherited: 10
Happy Memories: 2

Score: 20

Dog

Retro Design: 5
Inherited: 0
Happy Memories: 10

Score: 15

Functionality Rating

Electric Hand Mixer

-8

Dog

-2

Tally

Electric Hand Mixer

20 - 8 = 12

Dog

15 - 2 = 13

Okay, the dog stays. But in the hand mixer's defense it did take up less room in the cupboard.

I am writing the title. Right now. It's fine. Okay then you do it. Well then shut up.

2011-04-14T17:09:00.002-06:00

I am an adult. I have a career. I own my own home. I clog the tube slide at playland. I'm independent, intelligent, and capable of taking on responsibility. There's no reason in the world for me to fear commitment anymore. I can handle it now, and I actually think I'm ready to try.

It's time I got an imaginary friend. Somebody who shares my priorities. Someone who understands how I communicate (via secret elfin language I developed in grade four math class). Someone who is completely accepting of who I am, regardless of how long it's been since I washed my long underwear, and who is always there for me. Mostly always there for me. Not in the bathroom, obviously. Imaginary or not, that's just weird. Someone who would enjoy taking long walks fairly regularly. Alone, I mean. I'm kind of used to having the house to myself. Weekends away would be nice too. An imaginary friend with airmiles.

Okay maybe not an imaginary friend per say. Maybe just an imaginary friendly acquaintance. I mean I'm totally up for casual companionship, but nothing too intense. I really just don't have the time to pretend an imaginary person is calling drunk from a bar at two am after their imaginary boyfriend made out with the waitress, or help a pretend person with their make believe resume. I'm definitely not pretending to help anyfakebody move. But a nice imaginary friendly acquaintance, somebody that I could just exchange pleasantries with and get on with my day, that would be nice. Although maybe I should specify a nice imaginary friendly acquaintance who isn't overly chatty. I mean I don't want to nod hello to my imaginary friendly acquaintance on my way to the curb only to get stuck shivering in the alley way clutching a bag of garbage while I endure half an hour of small talk and my kettle boils dry.

Okay, how about just an imaginary familiar person in the neighborhood who I don't really know well enough to talk to but seems okay? One that my neighbours don't imagine, so there would be no risk of introduction.

You know, I'm starting to think I'm rushing into this a bit. I guess I'm just not all that sure I know what imaginary people's needs are. I want to make sure I'm not committing to more than I can fulfill, after all. Somefakebody could get hurt. A person needs to ease into a thing like this.

How long do imaginary pet goldfish live, anyway?

I dreamt I was the editor of Vogue magazine, and when I woke up this title was written on the dog in lipstick.

2011-03-25T16:05:00.002-06:00

What Your Sleeping Position Reveals About You

Fetal Position: You are *completely normal.

Fetal Position - Tight Curl: You really need to start meeting those payments.

Face Up, On Back: Your boobs hurt.

Face Down, On Stomach: You apparently have the ability to breathe through your ears.

Center of the Bed: The only reason you have a personals ad is to get your mom off your back.

Head Under the Covers: Monsters are trying to eat you.

Extreme Edge of Mattress: You own a cat.

Extreme Edge of Mattress, Legs Tucked: You own a cat and a dog.

Diagonal, Head at Top of Bed: Rebel

Diagonal, Head at Bottom of Bed: Drunk

Sitting: You have three people on hold, all rebooting their computers.

Standing: You are a horse.

Hanging: Hope you've got some pillows under you for when your legs fall asleep there, goth boy.

While Having Sex: You are a new parent.

With Your Shoes On: You are forgetful.

Arms Curled Protectively Around Head: You are sleeping with my boyfriend.

Flailing Wildly: You are my boyfriend.

*extremely repressed

Why does this title have drool on it, Max?

2011-03-10T20:56:00.001-07:00

12 Ways My Dog Outsmarts Me

1) Waiting until I'm distracted and then asking for a second dinner.

2) Withholding poo to get multiple walks.

3) Annoying a cat just enough to make it complain, then asking for a belly rub when I come to investigate.

4) Sleeping in front of the door so that I have to reach the grocery bags in and set them, unguarded, directly in front of him - leaving him alone in the house with a week's worth of food while I attempt to turn into smoke and pour myself through the keyhole.

5) Not breaking the "no touching my food" rule, but breathing so heavily on it that I don't want it any more and give it to him anyway.

6) Rushing over to sit next to house guests when I give him a command he doesn't want to follow. Yes, it always works.

7) Waiting until I'm too immersed, wet, and slippery to effectively chase him away before playing "what things from the recycling bin float in bath water?"

8) Knowing that when he escapes from the yard the time to lay down, scream for somebody to dial the humane society and refuse to budge unless I let go of his collar is not when I first catch him, but always and only when we're in the exact middle of crossing the street on our way home.

9) Substituting the stuffed toys that I have restricted from his diet with my socks.

10) Aggressively farting until I break down and buy the expensive dog food.

11) Picking up his food dish to act as an amplifier when he feels his barking is not being adequately heard.

12) Convincing me utterly that I absolutely positively need to have 100 pounds of shedding, barking, mouth breathing, toxic farting, thieving, manipulative dog flesh on hand at all times.

It's my title. I called dibs!

2011-03-07T06:00:00.003-07:00

How not to be mom's favorite:

Step One: Be born almost a full month late. Bonus points for waiting until the highways are all but impassible from winter storms if your family lives in a town without a hospital.

Step Two: Develop a penchant for disrobing publicly.

Step Three: Use new-found powers of speech to inform any and all friends and relatives trying to feed you that their food is "disgusting".

Step Four: Demand constantly, for a full year, that the family move into a camping trailer permanently.

Step Five: Throw a tantrum about being taken to kindergarten.

Step Six: Throw a tantrum about being taken home from kindergarten.

Step Seven: Paint the cat. Not a picture of the cat. The cat.

Step Eight: Paint the dog. With Cheez-whiz.

Step Nine: Sell all of your toys. And most of your brother's.

Step Ten: Be the only girl in the whole school clever enough to find pictures of naked people in school library books, and distribute widely with lascivious intent.

Step Eleven: Repeat step ten after being transferred to a christian school.

Step Twelve: Demand a trumpet. Play it enthusiastically and often. Never learn any actual songs.

Step Thirteen: Develop large breasts early and a willingness to wear a bra late.

Step Fourteen: Demand all of the privileges of young adulthood. Accept none of the responsibilities.

Step Fifteen, and this is crucial: Have a sibling that does none of the above.

Sneaky bastard!

You've probably never heard of this title.

2011-03-04T06:00:00.001-07:00

My next roommate will definitely not be a White Rhinoceros. I had fun until the novelty wore off and everything - having a rhinoceros for a roommate was more ironic than pipe smoking and sweater vests combined. Eventually, though, there are only so many fake mustaches and crocheted kitty ears you can put on the thing before you realize that actually? Doing the same things everybody else is doing is still doing the same things everybody else is doing, even if you are doing them to a White Rhinoceros.

So now I'm stuck with a used White Rhinocerous to unload. I'll never get book price for the thing - you can totally see where all the mustache glue left a mark - and I can only sell it on Etsy if I taxidermy it first. A lot of extra work, but at least there I stand to make extra on the deal if I throw in all the leftover mustaches. Of course they're handmade!

Anyway, once it's gone that's it. No more rhinos. It was a stupid, shortsighted and entirely wrong thing to do. But it was my idea. I do just want to say that. I did it first. Nobody else had rhinos when I got mine. Now it's like everybody has one.

Seriously. Rhinos are just so corporate now.

Frankly I'm getting tired of looking so desperate to be trendy anyway. Once I do unload the thing I'm just going to take the money and spend it getting dreads.

Oh don't roll your eyes at me! I'm not that obvious. Yeah, I'm getting dreads, but get this - I'm also getting a mullet.

Did you actually see me write this title? No? Then you can't actually prove I did, can you?

2011-03-02T06:00:00.003-07:00

Raise Your Hand!

Bought yourself Valentine's Candy. On sale. On February 15th.

Say the same things about current music that your parents said about your music.

Defied the five second rule.

Literally sat in the dark pretending not to be home until they went away.

Use "I can't afford it" as a euphemism for "I'd rather spend the money on myself".

Are the only person on the road at any given time who knows how to drive.

Did/drank/ate it knowing full well it was going to make you vomit.

Take lots of pennies. Have never, ever left a penny.

Don't believe in astrology, do check your horoscope.

Dress out of the laundry hamper.

Play funhouse when people leave their prescription lenses unattended.

Took two when it clearly said take one.

Use your sleeve.

Roses are red, violets are blue. Obvious titles are lame, but this will just have to do.

2011-02-28T06:00:00.002-07:00

Dogs Should Not be Allowed to Write Greeting Cards

If I could express
How much I care
How much I love you
And how much you mean to me
If I could put it all into words
And say it to you...

...would you let me have the last cheese puff?

~~~~~~~~~~

I am touched...

...by your hand on my bum.

~~~~~~~~~~

Because I know you can't rip my intestines out with those blunt, square little monkey teeth...

...rub my belly.

~~~~~~~~~~

If you love something
Give it cheese
If it eats the cheese
Give it more cheese
If it does not eat the cheese
It is probably dead.
(and you can eat it)
(and you can also eat the cheese)

~~~~~~~~~~

One mediocre snack is worth a thousand "good dog"s.

~~~~~~~~~~

Without you...

...I'm hungry.

And Neither Should Cats.

Because you took me in when I had nowhere else to go
Because you nurtured me and made me strong
Because you give me shelter and security
And you comfort me when I'm afraid
And you care for me when I am sick
Because you care about my happiness
And because a day doesn't go by
That you don't tell me
How much you love me.
Because of all of this, and so much more...

...I tolerate you.

Hamsters, However, Are Fine

Happy Birthday, Giant Hand!

If someone else writes the same title as you, does that mean you're soulmates?

2011-02-24T18:43:00.002-07:00

Reading about the internet dating adventures of the always engagingly candid Kernut The Blonde (you can trust that a blog link on AAA1 Quality Blog, Ltd. will always lead to finely crafted entertainments) has me in a reflective mood. As glad as I am not to be on dating sites anymore, I gotta admit - I loved 'em when I needed 'em. I use the internet to shop for practically everything else, why not people? I kinda can't remember where you find people when they're not on the internet anymore anyway. The mall maybe? I don't know. They still have those, right? Anyway it's a whole lot easier to just dress up once and take a picture than to practice grooming and personal hygiene ev-er-y sin-gle day. Haha! You think you're flirting with some chick who's having a good hair day, don't you? Well guess what? You just called a woman who looks like she slept in a nest of drunk ferrets "cutie"!

Sucker!

Aside from the obvious advantages of being able to seduce complete strangers while wearing a dog hair covered track suit and rocking a corn chip orange smile, internet dating offers you the opportunity to assess people according to their levels of literacy. Welcome to the twenty first century, folks. If only you'd known how dependent your ability to get laid in twenty years' time would be on your retention of the basic skills they were trying to teach you in English class. You may have focused slightly less attention on carving penises into your desk with your geometry set. Remember: like attracts like. While you think you're giving some sweet thing the lust sweats with your intoxicating character mash of internet leet, you've in fact just spent the last half hour engaged in a passionate chat session with a cat napping on the keyboard of an unattended laptop. You know what's sexier than a trout pout in a bathroom mirror? Complete sentences! Add a few of those to your profile and watch the magic happen!

Of course, it's a rare person who begins and ends their dating site adventures on the same profile. Like grief and addiction, dating profiles go through a variety of stages:

Stage One: I'm not really here. Unless you're interested. Then I might be.

Characterized by: Obscured photos, incomplete sentences, and shame.
Typical sentence: I don't even know why I'm here, but feel free to write.
What they mean by that: Only losers use dating sites, but I'm willing to have sex with a loser since, for some strange reason, people who aren't losers won't have sex with me.
People it attracts: Admin welcoming you to the site.

Stage Two: Oh Boy! I'm gonna get a date!

Characterized by: Vacation/party photos, optimism, and enough animated smiley faces to warrant a seizure disorder alert.
Typical sentence: Friends first and then we'll see how it goes!
What they mean by that: Okay losers, I'll play your game. Please form an orderly queue in your rush to have sex with me, and don't get your hopes up too high.
People it attracts: Members who have been on the site so long you're the only person left they haven't contacted yet.

Stage Three: Oh wait. This is harder than I thought.

Characterized by: Photos obviously taken specifically for a dating profile that attempt but fail to look like they weren't taken specifically for a dating profile. Extremely long, detailed, and often uncomfortably candid self-descriptions.
Typical sentence: I've met a lot of great people, but I still haven't found "the one".
What they mean by that: There seems to be some mis-communication - the people I am willing to have sex with don't appear to understand that I am currently available to have sex with them.
People it attracts: Other people who don't seem to understand why you aren't wildly excited to be contacted by them either.

Stage Four: Stage Three: take two.

Characterized by: Photos unabashedly taken specifically for a dating profile, often involving pets, vehicles, and other props. Self conscious attempts to seem breezy and casual.
Typical sentence: I'm open to anything.
What they mean by that: Hey, maybe these new people will have sex with me. They obviously enjoy parties and vacations, and surely a person with that many smiley faces wouldn't say no!
People it attracts: People you talked to before and never got anywhere with who are also running out of options.

Stage Five: The death of hope.

Characterized by: A sampling of photos from all previous stages, a main profile image ten to twenty years out of date, and poorly veiled critiques of previous internet dating experiences.
Typical sentence: I AM NOT HERE TO PLAY GAMES SO IF YOU ARE LOOK ELSEWHERE.
What they mean by that: How did these losers fail to realize how lucky they were I even put an ad on this site?
People it attracts: Nobody.

Alternately, and I've advocated this approach before, you can just post your income as being over $100,000.00. Then yeah, you could pretty much just fill out your profile with a picture of your dog licking his butt and the lyrics to a toilet paper jingle and still have too many people in your shopping cart for the express checkout lane.

Title (Circle One): Miss Mrs Ms Mr Almighty

2011-02-21T06:00:00.003-07:00

Dear Applicant,

I am pleased to confirm that you are officially being considered for the position of my god. A formal interview will be arranged at a future date, but in the meantime please complete the following questionnaire to assist us in determining whether a permanent arrangement would be mutually beneficial. Pen is fine and pencils are available on request, but we ask for purposes of building code and hygiene that neither fire or blood be used as a marking device.

A) My holidays are best observed:

in quiet contemplation
in demonstrative supplication
being emotionally vivisected at family gatherings
at the mall

B) Devotion to me is best expressed through

attendance at my places of worship
respect for creation and all living things
strict obedience to my laws
bumper stickers

C) If I ever need to get your attention, I'll

create a spectacular celestial event
smite you with whatever's handy
come to you in a dream
just stare at you and expect you to figure out what's bothering me

D) The worst possible sin is

the worship of another god
murder
sex (enjoying it)
sex (not enjoying it)

E) I created the universe and everything in it, therefor

you must worship me
you are a part of me
you are me
it wouldn't kill you to say thank you

F) I summoned everything into existence

because I was bored
on a dare
to pad my resume
by accident

G) I love everyone

equally
mostly
that loves me first
none of the above

H) Drugs are

a way of connecting with me
a way of disconnecting from me
too expensive
therefor I am

I) Reincarnation

enables beings to start fresh
enables beings to continue on
enables beings to pretend they're really Cleopatra
saves on production costs

J) I am applying for this position because

if you believed in me you'd already know
if I believed in you I'd already know
I made the mistake of saying you could ask me for anything
this is just a formality, right?

Some titles are better left unwritten.

2011-02-16T20:06:00.000-07:00

Do-Over!

- That job interview where I yawned.

- Accelerating to get out of the way of the cop who, it turns out, did not want to get past me, but instead had been trying to pull me over. For speeding.

- Clicking on that link in that e-mail that really did look like it had been sent by a friend of mine. It had not been sent by a friend of mine.

- Deciding that the best course of action to take when it starts to get dark on an unfamiliar mountain trail is to invent a shortcut.

- That word I said into an open mic at that wedding.

- That open bar at that wedding.

- Forgetting that owls can turn their heads completely around when I was holding one while wearing a very thin shirt. And an unpadded bra.

- Not taking the dog seriously about needing to go outside.

- Half the things I did to my hair in my twenties.

- Everything I did to my waistline in my thirties.

- Puberty.

Without pain, could these titles be as beautiful?

2011-02-14T19:11:00.000-07:00

If I were to say that the hot wax method of removing hair was for wimps, a large percentage of people would immediately grasp the implication inherent in that statement. This large percentage could accurately be described as "women", and the implication they were grasping would be that I had just purchased an Epilady.

If I were to say that I had just purchased an Epilady, a large percentage of people would have absolutely no idea what I was talking about. This large percentage could accurately be described as "sane".

Epiladies are not for the weak. Or the particularly self-loving. The Epilady is a multipurpose tool that simultaneously removes unwanted hair and punishes you for growing it in the first place. Really, it's just a glorified electric razor. Unfortunately the glory is that it's angry, gnashing army of spinning, motorized tweezers rip your hairs out by the root instead of slicing them cleanly and painlessly in half.

I do this to myself of my own free accord. I paid money for the machine that I do it to myself with. I have not had recent counseling with a mental health professional. Draw your own conclusions there. It might not be rational, it definitely hurts, and it's absolutely one of my least favorite things to do in the whole world. But it makes me feel pretty.

And also I'm allowed to eat a whole batch of cookie dough when I'm done. It's a rule!

The serial number for this title is 64119482, and I HAVE IT REGISTERED.

2011-02-09T19:52:00.003-07:00

You can't help but reflect on your life when you're standing over a hot air vent, heating a small dog to make it poo. It's just not a scenario anybody's imagination serves up when envisioning the future, and it comes as something of a shock to find oneself in it.

Yes, the same dog that wears panties and a maxi pad. She also wears a little sweater. While remarkably effective at making her look completely stupid, it really doesn't do a whole lot to keep her warm come February. No sweater can fully compensate the fact that small, twenty pound terriers were simply not designed to withstand the elements of a harsh Canadian winter. Small twenty pound terriers were not designed to withstand the elements of a kitchen where the refrigerator door has been left ajar.

Terriers are widely considered to be the cutest members of the crustacean family.

See, twenty pound terriers have two speeds: on, and off. When she's on Allison runs hotter than a blue star sipping a Tabasco sauce smoothie. When she's off, she's but a tiny burnt ember of a dog, with not so much as a faint glow left to keep her warm while she pees.

So she doesn't finish. She just stands there, shivering and unblinking as her eyes frost over, psychically screaming into my soul to take her inside. So I do bring her in, knowing full well that she's still fully equipped to turn our flooring into the saddest place on earth.

The trick is not letting her feet touch the ground. The tail hole in her little doggy diaper allows for freedom of more than just wagging, and as soon as the blood thaws in her happy bits she's ready to finish what she started. Under no circumstance can she be allowed purchase on a squat-able surface until that's happened. To speed up the process I hold her over the heat vent so we can hurry back outside for the exciting conclusion of her two part act.

Unfortunately there's no speeding it up to the point where you don't have an opportunity to think, and the thoughts you think when heating your dog's nether regions are never very charitable. A person can't help but think unforgiving thoughts about where their life has taken them. It's bad enough I don't have a personal genital warmer, but how did I wind up being the personal genital warmer for a dog? I admit, it makes a person feel pretty pathetic. It makes a person feel like the biggest loser on the planet.

But that changed today. A stranger changed my life last night, and helped me to see my life through fresh eyes.

Somebody stole my garbage bag. Took the garbage out, and stole the bag. Yes really. Yes really times a million, because I know that's how many times the word "Really?" is going to go through your head. Somebody really did unwrap a complete stranger's garbage just to steal the bag it was packed in.

Yes, the needs of a dog's ass come before my own needs. Yes, that's pretty pathetic.

But I don't steal used garbage bags.

Thank you, stranger, for being more pathetic than a woman who is subservient to a canine's rectum. It is because you exist that I can never be the biggest loser on the planet.

Re-titled.

2011-02-05T13:11:00.000-07:00

This week's excuses:

- I wasn't tall enough.

- I'm pretty sure that day was only 22 hours long.

- When you said "the fridge" you didn't specify "inside".

- I wasn't sure which toe.

- Beans. Or possibly an asteroid.

- They're actually serious about that whole "no pants, no service" thing.

- The Queen of England doesn't, so why should I?

- I had no idea you took me seriously, or reason to suspect anybody ever would.

- You couldn't move for clowns in there.

- I'm positive it used to be legal.

- I ran out of rollerskates.

- Didn't look flammable.

- You expect the dog to just go naked?

It took thirty one minutes to write this title, so I guess it's free. I still expect my tip, though.

2011-01-24T23:19:00.000-07:00

Scale of one to ten, how badly do I want pizza?

1 - eh, pizza, oatmeal, what's the difference?

2 - they aren't giving me one free, they're charging me for two no matter how many I order!

3 - if I pour ketchup on my mac n cheese and throw some bologna on top it'll be like a pepperoni pizza I can eat with a spoon! Kind of!

4 - not sure I'm down with the whole putting on pants to open the door thing.

5 - pizza's always good. Because it's pizza.

6 - pardon me, I don't usually drool. You were saying something about pizza?

7 - I can probably find enough change in the couch to pay for it

8 - I can probably find enough change in the neighbor's couch to pay for it - you distract them.

9 - would it be less creepy to run out and meet the delivery person at their car if I'm not cry-laughing and screaming "Thank You!" when I do it?

10 - not having pizza isn't a real option, is it?

Haha - fooled you! It's a trick title.

2011-01-21T19:25:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! Wanna see my new haircut?

I wouldn't mind seeing it myself someday.

Titles are like snowflakes, except that they're all exactly alike. But otherwise, you know, it's uncanny.

2011-01-19T16:38:00.000-07:00

So there you are, going about your perfectly normal way on a perfectly normal day. The atmosphere is allowing a comfortable ratio of sunlight through, plant life is flowering tastefully, and the birds are displaying a competent level of vocal skill. Then suddenly and without warning you become aware that something is very, very wrong.

One of your boobs is misplaced.

This is not an isolated incident I'm describing. It's a legitimate ongoing concern. This can and does happen in a variety of circumstances that in no way lend themselves to the misalignment of boob flesh. Waiting in line. Operating a motor vehicle. Enjoying calm, non-gestural conversation. One moment I'm completely focused on some non-boob related topic or activity, and the next I'm utterly fixated on the relative position of one of my boobs to the bra cup that contains it. Or select parts of it. Or select parts of it and an additional sampling of adjacent flesh.

C'mon, bra. Your job isn't that hard. I pay good money for you, and all you have to do is hold the boob. That's it. That's your whole job. Do you have any idea how many guys a woman can find who would do that for free?

And you, boobs. How much technology do I have to invest in before I convince you to stay where I put you? I'm not a cheerleader, jackhammer operator, or professional jumping jack champion. I'm a writer. I spend the majority of my time in a decidedly sedentary state. Why can't you just go with it and sit still when I do?

Don't worry! You get more than ample attention just by virtue of the fact that you exist. You do not need to start doing tricks to get noticed, I promise. As a matter of fact, if you want to continue to enjoy the attention you do get, you're going to have to settle down.

I'm serious. Don't make me get the duct tape.

Understood?

Truth in Titles (Currently Unavailable)

2011-01-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

I don't actually know what planet I'm from, but I can describe it perfectly.

Days on my planet are 30 hours long. I get to put off going to bed for an extra four hours every night and sleep an extra two hours every morning.

We have four seasons: summer, warmer summer, even warmer but still perfectly comfortable summer, and refreshingly cool but still perfectly comfortable and with prettier leaves than usual summer.

The only constellation in our night sky is the "Whole Buncha Random Stars" constellation, so everybody on my planet's astrological sign is Randomarian. Randomarians are well known not to believe in astrology, so that column in the news pretty much never gets read.

Our water has to be processed before it can be drunk. It has to be extracted from the coffee that flows in majestic rivers across the landscape.

Dogs on my planet hate people food. On my planet you can safely leave it lying around places that would be brazenly reckless to leave food if you own a dog here on earth, like on top of the refrigerator.

People on my planet have adopted the custom of skipping the argument and going straight to the make-up sex. This has had the unfortunate side effect of creating a culture of deliberate aggravation, but so far nobody's complaining.

On my planet you get paid days off for your birthday, Halloween, Valentines Day, and getting your nails done. If you come to work sick you have to pay everybody for the days they have to take off sick because of the cold they caught from you, and also bring them soup. And fashion magazines. And a Toblerone. And a lottery ticket.

And make sure you get the bonus pick.

I do get homesick, sure, but I'm doing my best to make myself comfortable here. I just wish I could find a tattoo artist that knows how to draw the Randomarian symbol, or at least have the decency to take their clothes off when I yell at them for getting it wrong.

It's like I'm forgetting to write a word here... oh well, it's probably not important. Just kidding! Title!

2011-01-13T02:04:00.000-07:00

Comments you will never see on my blog:

- That looks yummy!

- Could you customize my layout too?

- Your courage inspires me.

- Hawking hypothesized something similar once.

- I wish my pets were that well behaved!

- You really need to indulge yourself more.

- How do you get it all done in a day?

- I don't think what you did was stupid at all.

- Wow! Thirteen grapefruits at once?

I don't think anybody else is using this title - can I have it?

2011-01-10T18:50:00.001-07:00

I love all of my readers, sincerely. When I write, I write for you. When I make you happy, I'm happy.

But I love *my dog, too.

Mackie, this post's for you:

Who's a good dog? You are! Yes you are! Yes you are! You are! Yes! You're a good dog! Yes! A very good dog! Yes a very good dog! Yes you are a good dog! Yes you are!

Who's got a blog post? You do! Yes you do! You gots a blog post! Yes you do! It's a blog post for Mackie! Yes it is! Good boy got a blog post! Yes he does! Is this your blog post? Is this your blog post? Is this Mackie's blog post? Yes it is! It is Mackie's blog post! Yes Mackie's blog post! Yes it is!

Did ums like his blog post? Was it a good blog post? Did Mackie like his blog post?

*I have two dogs, but the other one's just not much of a reader.

The title of this entry is "Eggplant" - I know you know what I'm saying there.

2011-01-08T19:11:00.001-07:00

2011 Resolutions: Update, Week 1

1) Be more popular!

poster campaign underway
public decency laws reviewed
fines paid

2) Get more vitamins!

achieved!
digestive tolerance of Flintstones Chewables @ 3/4 bottle per day

3) Get more exercise!

replaced all furniture with treadmills
sprained both ankles eating soup
burned 150 calories dragging self to phone!

4) Control the weather with my mind!

achieved!
skeptics remain

5) Master a foreign language!

pending (all languages investigated so far too "wordy")

6) Build an addition on to house!

plans drawn up
stalled at permit stage
researching precedent for alien craft landing pads

7) Start a family!

achieved?
followed directions on kit, still no sign of monkeys in tank
microwaving does not appear to have accelerated evolution as hoped

8) Be shinier!

achieved! (with restricted breathing)

9) Redecorate!

in progress
re-thinking "candy land" theme on veterinarian's recommendation

10) Start referring to self in third person!

limited success
have written name on back of hand to avoid further embarrassment

Rhymes with title, only it starts with... oh never mind. I can't think of anything dirty that ends in itle.

2011-01-05T18:48:00.000-07:00

12 Reasons Why I Would Make A Good Duck

I am not water soluble.
I can say "quack" in multiple languages.
I have absolutely no problem with the required seasonal relocation to Florida.
I have collected the necessary amount of twigs, grasses, and small sticks necessary to make a nest for all my eggs (although I will have to take them out of the carton first).
I am not afraid to put my head underwater. Anymore. Much.
I have the walk down cold. Ask anybody who's seen me after a shot of tequila.
I have experience swallowing worms (see item #6).
I'm delicious with orange sauce.
My physique is well suited to bath toy design.
Bread crumbs excite me.
I've already learned not to swallow things with fish hooks in them (see item #7).
I flap.

Based on these observations it is therefor logical to conclude that one of the following hypotheses must be true:

a) I was a duck in a former lifetime
b) My spirit/totem animal is a duck.
c) God is a duck, and we were all created in God's image.
d) I was raised by a herd of wild cartoon characters.

Isn't there a service that can just deliver these titles pre-made?

2010-12-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

Thank you in advance to everybody who is going to make the effort of telling me what the real meaning of the holiday season is over the coming days. Thank you for letting me know how shallow I am to enjoy a day spent devoted to purchasing commercially produced objects that will make the people I care about happy, and by extension how shallow the people I care about are for being made happy by commercially produced objects. Thank you for telling me that I am misguided to indulge in consumerism on a scale which can not be sustained throughout the year, because I was stupid enough to think that was kind of the point of a festival - to enjoy an excess of something that over the normal course of events I can engage in only moderately.

Well slap me stupid. Turns out I'm simply soulless.

Turns out I'm not supposed to be giving people stuff from the mall that I know they want. I'm supposed to give them home baked goods they may or may not want and will either be forced to eat anyway or feel guilty about throwing away. Or crap from goodwill - hey maybe I'll get lucky and wind up giving them back something they donated! "Merry Christmas! I found a lamp that perfectly matches the lamp next to your sof... hey, something happen to your lamp? Good thing I found this one!"

Of course if I truly were in any way evolved above the sludge that enlightened people's ancestors crawled out of, I'd hand make presents for everybody. After all, if you buy somebody something they don't like, they can just donate it to charity. Make them something they don't like, and they'll feel obliged to drag it around for the rest of their lives, no matter how hideous it is. That, as everybody with higher brain function knows, is true holiday spirit.

Listen here, wholesome holiday heroes - if you want lovin' from the oven, a charitable receipt and a sweater that there's a reasonable chance somebody died wearing, I want you to have and to enjoy all of those things. Your holidays should be everything you want them to be!

And so, my friend, should mine.

If I want a tree planted, I'll plant one. Don't plant one for me and call it a present. Not unless it's in Hawaii, and you plan on taking me over there to hug it personally. No. You get me something from a mall, wrapped in the pulverized and painted corpse of a tree. Got it?

The point of a one day a year holiday celebration is not donating to charity, exercising frugality, baking and making things for people you care about, and/or offering to help them out with baby sitting or chores.

THAT'S THE POINT OF EVERY DAY.

Charity, considerate acts, frugality: 364 days/yr

Orgy at the mall: 1 day/yr (conveniently identified as "Holiday")

That's right, zen master flash, a lot of holiday mall sluts do that crap day in and day out, all year round. Bragging that you manage it one day a year is not garnering you the admiration you think it does.

Now get off your high horse, get to the mall, and buy me something pretty. While you're there you can pick me up some glue and macaroni so I can make all of your holiday dreams come true too, okay?

That's what I get for staying up all night to finish writing this title.

2010-11-28T15:19:00.001-07:00

I went to the store on one hour's sleep. This is what I bought:

- 2 pounds of grapes that had a pretty picture on the bag
- 1 red bell pepper
- 24 panty liners (for the dog)
- 12 cans of dog food (also for the dog)
- 12 foil pouches of dog food (different variety than cans)
- 3 boxes of dental floss
- 2 bras
- 20 serving flat of Nanaimo Bars
- 1 bath mat with fishes on it
- 1 matching fish shaped toothbrush holder
- 1 Oprah Winfrey's magazine whatever it's called
- 3 packs of gum (same brand, different flavors)

This is what I had gone to the store to buy:

- butter

Note the discrepancy.

Dry toast, anyone?

I got this title for 50% off, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's just missing a

2010-09-23T17:22:00.003-06:00

Attention Shoppers: Please stop putting coins in the Happy School Bus mechanical ride. The kid in there has ridden it 26 times in a row and is starting to look a bit green.

Attention Shoppers: We understand and appreciate that it's very hot today. Management requests, however, that you refrain from handling our frozen food items in an unsanitary manner.

Attention Shoppers: In order to bring you the everyday low prices that you appreciate, we are unable to pay our cashiers enough to put up with your crap. Smile, say thank you, and save your speech about the evils of inflation for your next address of congress.

Attention Shoppers: It has come to our attention that if your kids scream loud enough long enough that you will buy anything, and we will continue to strive to make this establishment as family friendly as humanly possible.

Attention Shoppers: We again apologize for any inconvenience caused by the line break in our sprinkler system over the soap aisle, and again request that all customers remain fully clothed.

Attention Shoppers: Please enjoy our recycled air, unrelenting noise, and affordably priced convenience foods. We invite you to visit our pharmacy before you finish your shopping trip today.

Attention Shoppers: If you are purchasing items for your kids that do not feature any licensed cartoon characters, please take a moment and stop by our courtesy desk to fill out a survey on socially maladjusted children for a chance to win valuable coupons.

Attention Shoppers: Will the customer who made the bulk foods manager cry please report to customer service immediately and apologize. Bring a broom.

Attention Shoppers: You don't need half that crap in your cart. Either put it back or stop whining about how broke you are.

Attention Shoppers: Consumables that are not sold by weight may be enjoyed while you shop provided that the packaging is presented to the cashier for purchase before leaving the store. We remind our customers, however, that this policy does not extend to personal hygiene products.

Attention Shoppers: First parent who figures out where the hell their toddler wandered off to wins a donut.

Attention Shoppers: The store is now closing. Or perhaps we should say the store is still closing. The store has been closing ever since we told you that the store was now closing fifteen minutes ago. But there you are! Still shopping. How can we make this whole store closing concept clear enough for you to fully grasp, shoppers?

Attention Shoppers: It's a beautiful day. Go play outside.

Make sure you rinse this title off really well before reading it.

2010-09-20T15:02:00.004-06:00

Fruit should not pose a threat to mature, committed relationships. Once you've found someone who fills your heart with joy and makes every day worth living no plant matter on earth should be able to stand in the way of your happiness.

But c'mon. The avocado was obviously invented just to test me.

The man doesn't just like the decrepid things, he's downright evangelical about them. Avocado is his answer for everything.

"I'm tired."

"Eat an avacado, they have B vitamins!"

"I have a leg cramp."

"Eat an avacado, they have potassium!"

"I'm going to throw something at you."

"Eat an avacado, they have large pits!"

Maybe it's the lithium content, I don't know. Nothing can taste that good.

No, of course I haven't tried to eat one! I know everything I need to know about avocados just from watching him eat them. He calls them "nature's perfect food". I call them "god's earliest experiment in the art of baby *poo manufacture." The other day a glob of avocado gut slid off his spoon and splatted on the floor. The wet smacking noise and soft spread of the gushy green goo was completely consistent with my theory.

The persecution rests.

It would be one thing if it were simply a matter of conflicting tastes, but it's become something bigger than that. It's become a source of endless amusement to him. At my expense.

He could just eat the things when I'm not around, you know.

He could refrain from pronouncing the word avocado with the same inflection that a seven year old uses to pronounce the word snot.

"Avocaaaaaaaaaaaaaadooooooo."

He's not about to do either of these things, though. I know this from the sadistic glint of glee that fills his eyes when he sees me turning the same shade of horror green as the evil filling his spoon.

I should just not allow them in the house. I should just make him eat them outside.

He genuinely does believe they're magic, cure-all balls of fabulousness that can help restore the most pulverized of immune systems, though. And he does have a horrible, horrible, horrible cold at the moment.

Okay fine. But I'm not buying them again. And he better not sneeze on me with a mouth full of that sin. Besides, it could be worse. He's taken to expressing a keen interest in trying durian which, according to Wikipedia, has a "strong and penetrating" odor that has been "described variously as almonds, rotten onions, turpentine and gym socks".

I think I might start keeping a suitcase packed on grocery day.

*Yes, I am aware that the latest few posts in this blog have included higher than normal levels of excretory references. I have no explanation for this. For the record, though, even if I did have an explanation you would not find it posted here. Why spoil the magic, am I right?

Wow. Here I am writing this title. Who saw that coming?

2010-09-17T15:43:00.001-06:00

Sooner or later everybody becomes something they never thought they'd be. A spouse with a mortgage and a kid. A clone of their own parent. A country music fan. Life can be terrifyingly unpredictable that way.

And so I find myself today, looking at a woman I never thought I'd become. Sleeves rolled up, sodden mass dangling from my fingertips, shivering my way across the yard with a flashlight at midnight to make a special trip directly to the burning barrel. I might not recognize myself, but there's no question that's me. I can tell from the whining.

I have become the owner of a dog that wears diapers.

It was never intended to be a regular thing. It was just a preventative/precautionary thing. At first it worked, too. Really well! As soon as I put pants on her bony little ass my ancient little dog stopped peeing inside the house!

For two whole days!

And then I guess she had a couldn't-hold-it-moment, and in that moment discovered that most miraculous property of modern dog diaper technology. That it makes pee magically disappear. It's like having your own personal urine fairy!

Once that little dog figured out how comfortable and easy it was to simply let loose in her conveniently attached pee-ceptacle there was no stopping her. Why squat in the wind and cold and damp if nobody could see when you were doing it inside and chase you out there anymore? They're little doggy stealth pants is what they are - hiding the crime, encouraging the behavior and perpetuating the need. I was totally suckered in, and by the time I figured out what was happening had already become a defenseless pawn of the absorbant canine garment industry.

When I started buying more than a pack a week is when I realized that I needed a more afforable, environmentally friendly solution, and bought the cloth diapers. They're not actually diapers per say as much as they are fashion pants with a tail hole that facilitate the sticking of a little absorbent pad into the crotch.

That's right. My ancient little twenty pound dog wears panties and a maxi-pad.

Like I say, it was never supposed to get this far. She can hold it - when she's in her little bed at night she pees not a drop, and if I physically pick her up and carry her outside in the morning she waits very comfortably until she gets outside. As soon as her little paws hit a horizontal surface, though, she gets her squat on.

Doesn't know to hold it anymore, maybe. Too old to care enough to hold it, probably. Never did like peeing outside, and finally just banked enough old lady attitude to call my bluff on the whole "you have to" position I took is my theory.

And called my bluff very effectively, too. I stepped over the line before I even realized that I might need to draw one the moment I brought that first pack home. Once you've done that the grey area becomes too morally torturous to contemplate. It's no longer a simple case of the poor old dear can't control her functions, it's probably time for her to be put down. You've already committed to basically controlling them for her. What's the cut off now?

"Sorry Allison. You went through eleven diapers last week and that was fine, but twelve? For twelve you die."

Sigh.

The things we do for love, eh? The smelly, ridiculous, expensive things we do for love.

Don't worry, though. I might put special, expensive clothes on my dog specifically for her to urinate on, but it's not like I have any country stations pre-programmed on my car radio or anything.

(Yes, country fans, consider my ass presented for it's whoopin'. I know I've got it coming.)

You'd think I'd have picked up a few new ideas for titles while I was at it.

2010-09-15T15:00:00.003-06:00

Things I Have Learned Living a Month in the Country:

That loaf of bread from the grocery store contains more than your minimum daily requirement of deer poop.
That well water does not dissolve teeth. Apparently that's "normal grit" and not the shaved enamel of my molars.
The Hutterites' preferred method of arm removal.
The further away the convenience store, the greater the craving for junk food. Even if you never bought the stuff when it was within walking distance.
The full, profound extent of my dog's love of poo.
If you don't know the weather forcast, you aren't capable of having a conversation with anybody.
If you don't go at least 60 miles per hour on the wet gravel road the guy behind you will, like, literally die, like, right now and really really painfully, too. You bitch.
If he's in front of you 10 miles per hour is plenty fast enough for both of you. I mean what's your big hurry anyway, hot shot?
It gets dark when the sun goes down.
Cows like strawberries.
Cows like yoghurt.
If you offer a cow strawberry yoghurt it will look at you like you're the antichrist and run to the opposite end of the pasture, pooping frantically.
That a lot of things in life involve poop.

This isn't one of those titles that go with these kinds of entries.

2010-09-13T16:50:00.001-06:00

This is one of those entries that you write when your boyfriend turns to you and says "you know you've been here a month?" and you realize that it's way too late to write an entry before two weeks go by and that you just damn well better slam something up there before you log in to discover you're down to just a handful of followers - someone who knows you personally and never reads your blog but added you on principle and a bunch of people who started the blogs that added you when they were drunk and then forgot all about them.

This is one of those entires where you list a million different things you were busy with, like moving in to your boyfriend's place temporarily with your three cats and two dogs (yes, even the incontinent one and to answer your next question both - the man's not only wonderfully crazy he's also extraordinarily generous), spending 12 - 17 hour days fixing up your thirty year old trailer to sell, listing your trailer for sale, *selling your thirty year old trailer after only four days for a very fair cash price and no conditions in a depressed market, and dry walling the house you're trying to move into. This is one of those entires where people leave comments like "wow, you've been busy!", and that helps you to feel justified for having been so negligent about blogging. That's one of the not so secret motives behind these entries.

*yes, it's also one of those entries where you subtly manage to work in a little bragging.

This is one of those entires that carry the responsibility of following up with a real entry instead of another litany of excuses as to why there hasn't been one for over a month, at least it is if you have any appreciation at all for the wonderful people who have hung in there and continued to follow you despite your extended absence.

On a related note, this is also happens to be one of those entries where you go

WOOHOO! TWO HUNDRED FOLLOWERS!

Thank you, guys, for peeking over the edge of the world occasionally after I dropped off of it. This is my most favorite place to hang by my fingernails ever.

I'm thinking of firing the elf who writes my titles.

2010-08-04T15:08:00.001-06:00

There are a lot of people who don't believe in the power of crystals. They don't think "a hunk of rock" can manifest a human desire. I think implicit in that form of detraction, however, is evidence that most people don't properly understand how to access the manifesting power of crystals.

Yes, crystals are inert. Change happens when things interact. To access the power of crystals to manifest things you have to use your power to change the state of the crystals.

Say I want to manifest something. Let's say something simple, like a glass of iced tea. I go and get my crystals - I have a whole container of them - and select a few for the process. How many I use depends on the results I want. Whether, for example, I want to manifest ice tea only for myself or if I want other friends and loved ones to benefit from the manifestation. I then take these crystals, transfer them to an appropriate receptacle, and change their state.

I'm not talking about any kind of elaborate ritual or extreme force or anything like that. I'm talking something as simple as putting them in water. Allowing the elements to mingle and merge. That's my entire job. The crystals - and the water, the contribution of that element should not be dismissed - do the rest, and literally almost instantly, I have my iced tea.

Now maybe this fantastical process is beyond the ability of our rudimentary little monkey brains to understand scientifically. Perhaps we never will completely understand how it is that crystals are capable of manifesting our desires, but can you argue the results when, to use our example, they consistently manifest ice tea every single time you use them for that purpose?

Granted, so far ice tea is the only thing I've had success using them to manifest, but then I buy all my crystals at the grocery store. I'm sure if you went to a proper crystal store you'd find ones you could add water to and get, like, ponies and sports cars and stuff.

To make a title rhyme, always choose words that... um... drat.

2010-08-02T12:16:00.001-06:00

This is very tiny
This is very small
This barely ranks as any
Consequence at all

Why does it feel so heavy?
How can it weigh so much?
Why do I feel so beaten up
From it's slightest touch?

It's not the gravity of the thing
Or force behind it's blow
I wouldn't have noticed it at all
Had it not attacked my ego

I can not will not stand for this!
I am mighty! I am strong!
Your reason has no place in this!
I am right! You are wrong!

Facts? You dare to bring me facts?
I laugh at facts, you hear me?
I will scream and rant and yell
And then your facts shall fear me!

There is no walk away from me
You will hear all that I have said
Even if I have to argue you
Alone inside my head

This evening when I go to bed
I won't give up the fight
I'll lie awake until the dawn
Battling through the night

I just hope you'll learn your lesson
And will finally stop denying
That I am great and you are not
And shut up, I am not crying.

I can't decide which definition of title to use in this title.

2010-07-26T22:27:00.000-06:00

I would have been in little girl hell if I had been a child in this century. I never had the slightest desire to be a princess, and would have been driven batty by all the marketing designed to convince me that being one is the best thing ever since Jello powder sandwiches (have you eaten one? No? Okay, probably best to let me do the commentary on them then).

I have a very vivid imagination, sure, but there has to be some grain of possibility for me to be able to enjoy any fantasy. Last I heard unlikely isn't impossible, and until it is I don't have to let the dream of being cast as James Bond die, even if I am reasonably confident that Jolie chick's going to land the role next. I've come to accept, however, that licking my elbow just isn't going to happen no matter how hard I try. Or how many times I try. Or what angle I try it from. Or who I have helping me. And it's not worth the chiropractic bill anyway. Likewise a princess is pretty much by definition something you have to be from birth, and that whole premise fell completely apart right from the moment my constituent sperm and egg parts collided. Sure, you can marry into the title, but those are fake princesses - they're just apprenticing for a job they'll never hold independently. They get the corner office and a good parking spot, sure, but they'll never run the company.

Becoming a queen, on the other hand, is an entirely more realistic option. Unlike being a princess, that's a title you can gain honestly and independently the old fashioned way - through the taking by force.

Okay, perhaps realistic is too strong a word. That said, though, if you're going to have an unrealistic dream, why wouldn't you have the biggest one available? What the hell are little girls wasting their time dreaming about being princesses for anyway? Have you ever heard of a kid dreaming about becoming vice president or an opening act? Is almost important still the best little girls are being taught they can hope for?

Think back on all the famous princesses throughout history. If you got further back than Diana you get a cookie, but if you only got as far as Margaret you get a cookie with a bite already taken out of it. Bottom line is the only princesses who really make history are the ones who ascend to the throne.

And nobody did a more fabulous job of that than Queen Elizabeth the First. Now there's a woman who truly came to embody what it means to be a queen. She sank navies, survived assassination, wore the biggest dresses on the planet and chopped peoples' heads off. Also guided a violently divided nation from the brink of bankruptcy into a golden age of peace and prosperity. Where's her cartoon? Forget about it. You don't get a Disney musical unless you have sex with a Prince, and that she very pointedly did not do.

Well I actually didn't like Disney when I was a kid, so I didn't waste time dreaming of being rescued by one lousy knight in shining armor when it was just as easy to dream myself the command of a whole freaking army of knights in shining armor. Glass slippers don't even sound comfortable. A crown, on the other hand, affords a woman every comfort on command.

You can imagine my excitement when I was told I was going to get to meet Queen Elizabeth the Second in person. Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy. Now I wasn't completely unrealistic. I knew she wasn't going to come out rockin' the cape and crown and riding a lion with the head of a traitor on a pike. I was seven years old, after all. Not six. That actually just added to the intrigue, though - how did a modern queen present herself for an average public outing? What did a contemporary figurehead of the Commonwealth wear to distinguish herself as representative of the entire population of Britain? I couldn't even begin to imagine!

If I'd had any expectations, though, I am very sure a tastefully tailored suit in an understated pastel shade would have failed them. It most certainly failed to justify standing on a hot tarmac for hours to see something I could just as easily have enjoyed seeing in the comfort of a nice chair with the Sears catalog open in my lap to Ladies Professional Wear. I wasn't expecting Elizabeth the Second to look like Elizabeth the First, no, but I think I was justified in not expecting her to look like the Avon lady either.

Yes, Queen Elizabeth the Second is a lovely person and an admirable monarch in her own right. As a sequel, though, she's definitely not worth the price of popcorn. Shaking hands with her was less exciting than turning on the air conditioning when we finally got back to the car was. I'm confident the experience of shaking hands with Elizabeth the First would have topped that. I don't wish our Lizzie any ill will, though. Of course not. I very sincerely wish her majesty a long, peaceful and happy reign. And while I defer from proclaiming any loyalties on the off chance RuPaul might someday decide to stage a coup, I would definitely vote she be allowed to keep her head if and when we trium... that should happen.

I trust you know that you really can't believe a word I say in these titles.

2010-07-13T17:30:00.000-06:00

Fact: Butter is made from melted dandelions.
Fact: Foxes are the offspring of mated coyotes and house cats.
Fact: Nutmeg is magic.
Fact: If you wear a pair of pants with fake pockets for 21 straight days you will go certifiably insane.
Fact: The entire universe is inside out.
Fact: Mermaids taste like corn chips.
Fact: Finger and toenails are not actually part of the body. They are technically parasites.
Fact: Children who eat glue bounce higher when you drop them than those who don't.
Fact: Math is mostly wrong.
Fact: Grammar is even wronger.
Fact: Worms are coagulated rain.
Fact: Blogger automatically censors out the word
Fact: I was totally messing with you there.
Fact: Roughly translated, the word for "belly button" in Swahili means "imagination of the intestine to believe it can make kisses"
Fact: The original teddy bear was an actual grizzly cub trained to attack small children who got out of bed to pee.
Fact: Kittens are coagulated cotton candy.
Fact: Shag carpeting is responsible for 154 sock fires every year.
Fact: Bowling is technically not considered a pornographic act.
Fact: A properly aged brie can be absorbed directly through the skin.
Fact: Monsters, if they existed, would kill and eat people.
Fact: Pencils feel pain when you sharpen them.
Fact: The average five year old gains three and a quarter pounds over the course of a year eating boogers.
Fact: The longest any human being has survived post-decapitation is not at all.
Fact: This is getting wordy.

No, no, not this title. Anything but this title!

2010-07-05T17:02:00.000-06:00

Okay, let's all freak out, shall we? All at the same time, I mean. Like a group hug, only with more eye clawing and screaming. C'mon! It'll be good exercise!

Here are some things to get everybody started, but feel free to improvise:

Was that freckle there yesterday? Is it even really a freckle? Are you sure?
You know you're forgetting something you were supposed to do. What was it again? Oh yeah that's right. You can't remember. And that's why it's not getting done. And you know what that means! Oh yeah, you don't. Because you can't remember. Something is going to happen and you have no idea what and it's your fault and you can't stop it.
You feel okay now, but there's really no way to know how healthy the last fly that landed on you was, now is there?
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Do you know absolutely every law there is? No, you don't. Remember that the next time you hear sirens.
Right now, somewhere in your mouth, there's a statistically probable chance a cavity is forming.
How disappointed would the six year old you be with the progress you've made on the things you were definitely going to do as an adult? Have you been to the moon even once yet? What about the rest of your famous rock band? You do have a famous rock band, don't you?
Oh my god! What time is it?
Maybe instead of keeping yourself safe from it walking germs on you with it's dirty little feet, the last time you smashed a bug you actually released a tiny cloud of very potent killer pathogens into the atmosphere that are right now getting right to work on the important business of killing us all.
Computers do not, generally speaking, spontaneously blow up and kill people. That doesn't mean it's impossible, that just means we have no way to see it coming.
Blue ice.
We all know our own bodies pretty well, sure, but few of us really know the actual, clinical difference between a normal bump and a dead in three months bump. Bet you don't.
Something you own is lost. You don't know it yet, because you don't need it right now. When you do need it, though, it won't be there.
You can't prove aliens from another planet aren't stealing your brain waves. Therefor it's logically possible they are. Hey, you need those brain waves!
Jayne Martin just Twittered "I think people are following me." while I was writing that last bullet point. The odds of that being a coincidence are not good, my friends.

And on that note enjoy your little group freak out. I'll be under the bed with my teddy bear.

On the other hand, I used to cuddle that bear when I was sick, and it's been stored in a dark, warm trunk. Maybe I'll just cuddle a jug of peroxide and a bag of cotton balls instead.

Would this title look better branded on a baby seal or carved in elephant ivory?

2010-06-14T00:43:00.002-06:00

I don't eat babies. Don't even nibble on them. Likewise I don't so much as own the proper footwear for kicking puppies or any kind of meat grinder at all, let alone one capable of processing kitten meat. Please take all of this into account when I say that I'm kind of disappointed they've stopped making Hummers.

Yes, I'm keenly aware that there is a rapidly expanding puddle of murder soup in the ocean. I'm similarly aware that Hummers slurp that soup as obnoxiously as a toothless geriatric with clogged sinuses strains beef barley through ill-fitting dentures. The whole eating the planet and farting hate clouds thing isn't what I'm talking about. I'm just going to miss seeing the things. I think they're sweet.

Thing is, Hummers kind of look like the kinds of vehicles three year olds would drive. They're like giant safety cars for little people who need a little extra protection while they get the whole driving thing figured out. Who, until they do, can't be trusted to keep all four wheels on the road if they happen to pass a toy store, playground, or a particularly compelling cow. Everything's over sized and easy to grasp for infantile hand-eye co-ordination skills, and they're built nice and steady so they won't tip over if the driver gets over excited or forgot to go potty before leaving the house.

Seriously. If Fisher Price designed vehicles, they would design Hummers. You know I'm right.

I guess it's not so much the actual vehicles I'm going to miss as the wildly giggling toddler perched on a stack of phone books I imagine to be steering the things every time I pass one. Don't worry about me, though. I'll get through this.

They still make Harleys, after all.

You'd better not read any further than the title if you're not okay with discussions of barf.

2010-06-10T01:17:00.000-06:00

I have the stomach of a god. You can't tell by looking at it (unless perhaps the god you're referencing happens to be Baccchus), but I do. Yea, I have walked through the valley of stomach flu, and have needed no bucket. Thirty one barf free years - that's including the year of the dreaded vodka and tang experiment - and still counting, baby yeeeeeeeeeeeehaw!

Maybe some day I'll even build back enough confidence to eat something. That's right, I'd rather starve than barf. It's not so much the incredible discomfort. It's not just the horrifying feeling of suffocation. It's not necessarily even the terror of not being able to stop due to the self propagating nature of barf (it's one of the principal laws of nature that you have to barf when you're facing a pile of barf, and since nature also dictates that you face a pile of barf while you're the process of making a pile of barf it's a miracle we ever get anything else done at all, really).

It's the betrayal. The horrible, horrible betrayal.

My body gets hungry. It tells me it needs food. It does this in a variety of ways:

It commandeers my attention. I'll see only the coupon for 25 cents off a side of fries, not the stack of large bills with a "Free money! Help yourself!" sign it's laying on or the beautiful naked man professing his love for me holding it.

It embarrasses me. "I'm really looking forward to showing you these expensive options for your lavishly budgeted event, but first an entertaining selection of noises from my intestinal region."

If not attended to promptly enough, it will even very happily resort to pain. And how do I respond to this blatant manipulation?

I give in! I feed it! I give it everything it wants! And what do I ask in return?

Digestion. That's it. We have entered into a solemn pact, and I have already kept up my end of the deal. All I ask is that my body does with the food I worked hard to afford and prepare for it what it indicated that it was going to use the food for when it was demanding it.

I do not take kindly at all to having it literally thrown back in my face.

So I simply do not allow it. Nope. Not coming back this way. You know where the exit is. Use it. Go ahead! Make me drool, groan, pray for release from the horror that is unending nausea. You're not getting your way.

Darn skippy I'll take the pain on principle. Sure I suffer needlessly for an exponentially longer time than I would if I just gave in and opened the front door for the pestilence instead, but at least I suffer with the knowledge that I win.

Yay me!

Maybe?

Well, not write-a-decent-title smart. I'm still on my own there.

2010-05-24T21:39:00.000-06:00

I arrived home from London two days late thanks to the volcano in Iceland. Just in time to panic about closing on the house this coming Wednesday. Not a lot of time to tie up loose ends what with a long weekend thrown in the mix. Tomorrow's my first day back at work after three weeks gone and the office looks like a tornado - or perhaps a crazed, sleep deprived woman looking for a passport that was already in her purse - hit it. So is my sitting down in the middle of it all to write a blog entry not compelling evidence of my devotion to the written word?

No, it is not. It's compelling evidence that the cat in my lap is just to damn cute to disturb. She's right, though. I need to not move faster than my brain can think. I need to sit. I need to slow. I need to not do. At least for as long as it takes to write a blog entry. Maybe even for as much time as it takes to write a blog entry and have a sip of this coffee I poured myself before it gets cold.

Only it's already cold. I thought I'd just poured it. Further proof that I'm out of step with the dance of life. Further proof that the cat is smarter than I am.

The most compelling proof is in my face every morning when I wake up, though. Before the brain has a chance to warm up and wind itself around every little anxiety and deadline piercing into my consciousness she reminds me, with a stretch and a purr and an affectionate sniff of my nose, that right now we're comfy and that is what requires my immediate attention. Nothing else. And she's right. Because she's smarter than I am.

Too bad the dog's in charge. Well, at least his bathtub sized bladder is, as he's been reminding me for the majority of the time I've been writing this. Guess I am getting up after all.

Come to think of it, that's usually what eventually gets me out of bed in the mornings too.

This is the authentic, original title.

2010-05-11T14:16:00.000-06:00

Queen's just a few minutes' walk up the road. I'd drop in, but she's a bit busy what with the prime minister just resigning and the leader of the opposition dropping by and everything.

Nothing even remotely this historic ever happens in my neck of Canada. At least nothing that doesn't involve hockey. Oddly enough, though, we're the ones more likely to riot. I'm thinking that people in England have enough experience with real civil unrest not to see the appeal of enjoying it recreationally on civic holidays.

Yes, in Edmonton Alberta people riot over the sheer outrage of a paid day off. Either that or maybe it was all the red from the Canada Day decorations that set them off. That doesn't seem as likely, though. Canadians aren't big decorators. Canadians are the mom that buys a bag of balloons and a box of candles and calls it a birthday party of civic celebration.

Also the toilets are different here. In England. Sorry, could have segued better there. Sociological comparison just became overwhelmingly boring to me very suddenly. The toilets here, on the other hand, have held my fascination since I arrived a week ago. They use less water and they work better, and there's no splash back. Just what's with the flushable swimming pools we feel the need to cannon ball our offerings into in North America, anyway? Knowing these alternatives exist, I'm amazed they're even still legal.

Also I've seen some of the greatest works of art on the face of the earth. I dare say that was even more interesting than the toilets here.

More coherent posts about more interesting topics will be forthcoming. I just like that even when I travel half the world away my cyber home sweet home is right where it always is, and I can always get here right away for a little comfort and companionship.

It would be cool if this was my forty second title, but it's not.

2010-04-25T22:46:00.000-06:00

So I'm watching this old Art: 21 dvd featuring Josiah Mc Elheny and his reflective sculptures and he's talking about narcissism, right? And okay that's fine. I have my quota of anti-narcissism conditioning. I know it's wrong and bad and being humble is a virtue and all that stuff. I don't know if I believe it, but I know it. Well c'mon, how many humble people you know drive a nicer car than Kanye?

Anyway I'm thinking about the basic concept of narcissism, and that think winds up thrown on the same thought pile as all that crap I keep over thinking about who are we and why are we all here and what's the meaning of life and all that because boy oh boy, I figure that out I'll probably get a book deal at least, maybe even an action figure. No, it's not something I want to spend a lot of time thinking about, but I do, because brains don't like dead ends. They just keep backing up, flooring it, and plowing back into them. Sometimes for funsies they'll circle the block and bounce off the back side a few times, but deep down inside they know it's the same wall.

So by this point science and theology tend to agree more often than not that everything is everything. Ain't no end to me, ain't no beginning to you. It's all energy, and it all runs on intelligence, and it's all the same intelligence, and we can't find the beginnings or ends of that intelligence. It's everywhere we look, it always has been, and we can't think of anywhere else it might possibly go. Whether that means your god or gods have made you in his her or their image/s or you take a just the facts ma'am approach, most people are saying basically the same thing there, and wondering how it could possibly be that they're an intrinsic, indivisible part of so many people who drive like such freakin' idiots and don't even have the brains to signal.

So out of this bubbling puddle of everything all at once comes the idea that consciousness is the everything that is everything's method of becoming self aware. So if we're not narcissistic, maybe we fail at being the universe. Maybe if we didn't spend our lifetimes obsessing over ourselves, we would completely defeat the purpose of our even existing.

And that is why it's okay that I just spent fifty dollars on eye shadow.

Thank you and goodnight.

I'm going to title this entry "Title". Yeah I am messing with you!

2010-04-22T00:44:00.000-06:00

I am obsessed with chicken tractors now, and it's all Vicki Lane's fault. Mentioning the things on a public blog where anyone - even impressionable trailer park residents - can read it. Really! She actually did that!

You hear that, Vicki? That low roar of anguish and sorrow? Those are the legions of people feeling sorry for me right now. Those beeps you hear are call waiting. The legions of people feeling slightly perturbed on my behalf are on the other line. That's nothing to do with you, though - that's just because I made the damn fool mistake of downloading Napster. Yeah yeah yeah, you can tell me how stupid I was after the Better Business Bureau gets me my refund, okay?

Have a cookie everybody, because unfortunately sympathy's not going to help get me a chicken tractor, either. Even if they did allow chicken tractors in the trailer park, now would not be a good time to get one. Three cats and two dogs will be quite enough to get moved and resettled into city life. I don't need to be urbanizing poultry too. No, I don't have the option of having a chicken tractor.

That's why it's compulsory for my boyfriend to have one. He's my surrogate farmer. The other day we had twin calves! My boyfriend bought the cow and the bull and fed and pastured them and gave them water and all the necessary medical attentions and complied with all the necessary legal registrations and whatnot, and I named them. Well, I will name them. I don't want to rush it. I take my share of the responsibility for our calves very seriously. I'm wondering if perhaps it might be most helpful if I were to pick out the chicken names now, so that when my boyfriend realizes that he intends to buy some they'll be ready to go.

It all started with Potato Day, aka The Holiday That Wasn't.

The poor man worked his little heart out on his garden last year. Planted all kinds of wonders and delights. Nurtured it like a little orphaned kitten. An exceptionally cute one, even. Like, a pink one with thick black eyelashes or something. I know, a heart shaped kitten with pink fur and long black eyelashes! Wait, no. I'm scaring myself now. Anyway, you get the idea. The man poured his heart and soul into growing strong, healthy plants.

I hope the grasshoppers enjoyed them.

The only thing more bloody mindedly persistent than pestilence is an optimist, though, and that's how a seed potato found itself wintering indoors in a lovely big pot under a grow light. It was a happy potato. It was an enthusiastic potato. Day after day the little potato reached higher and higher until it was several feet tall. It was proclaimed that a day would be chosen to honor the potato - assuming that potatoes consider being eaten an honor, and I admit that I make that assumption. This day would be in February, and it would be a delicious day.

Then one day in January - although we know not which day - the little potato began to slowly collapse it's proud stalk down to the earth of it's pot. By February it lay fully prone in a perfect spiral. By Potato Day it's last green flush of life had faded to a sepia memory. There would be no potato day, for there was no potato.

The only thing more bloody mindedly persistent than an optimist is a frustrated optimist. Planning for the chicken moat commenced.

I'm pretty sure I'd suggested it last year too, but two potato failures in a row have won my idea new respect. The idea is to put a fence around the garden to keep the chickens out, and then put chickens inside a fence around the fence around the garden to keep the grasshoppers out. I call it the chicken moat, and apparently a full year with an unsatisfied craving for garden fresh potato makes it a very compelling idea. There's a very real chance this might happen, and from there the chicken tractor's as good as up and running.

Once that's in place I'm going to need a few coyotes to drop by, though. Apparently I still need to work on garnering support for my Ostrich Patrol Corps idea.

Anyway anyway anyway that's a job for another day. I have decidedly more important priorities just at present, thank you very much!

So is She-Ra as good name for a chicken as I think it is or what?

Oh boy! And I get to think up a new title too!

2010-04-13T23:45:00.002-06:00

Hey, know what I want to do? Like really, really, really want to do? I want to write a blog post! I used to do it all the time. Well, regularly. Okay less sporadically.

I've done it more than once, anyway.

Yes, I've been letting life get in the way. Some big stuff - I did mention that I bought a house, right? Some work stuff - insane shows to produce this weekend, and the owner's out of town so they're completely my babies, and some just day to day stuff - when you have dogs, the thawing of the lawn is not your favorite part of spring. That's the way life is, though, and none of that is good reason not to make doing something I love - blogging - a priority. That's why I decided that I needed to just grab a cup of hot coffee, sit down in front of the computer, and focus 110% on...

...crap. Forgot the coffee. Hang on.

Haha! Good for me! I had all this paperwork on the dining table, and I see it and I think you know what? If I just sit down and do that all right now, then I'll be able to just sit down and focus on writing my blog without worrying about that in the back of my mind. And now it's done, and that is one less thing on my mind, and now I can focus on this and...

...I got up to get more coffee, didn't I? Shoot - I forgot my cup in the kitchen. Back in a sec.

Oh man, stone cold. Okay, just gonna make a fresh pot and then we'll take this whole blog writing thing from the top again!

Okay got the hot coffee. Already stale - you know how you get to doing the dishes while you wait for it to brew and by the time you remember you were thirsty you've mopped the whole floor and rearranged the towel drawer - but it's going to have to do. No more distractions! Time to sit down and

oh hell now the dog needs out. Okay, back in One! Minute!

We have not had rain in, like, over a week, and most of that blew away before it even touched down. Where, can anybody please tell me, did the infernal beast find mud for heaven's sake? And of course you can never just bath a dog, oh no. The dog takes a bath then you need one, but not until you've scraped mud and muck off the walls, ceiling and foolishly placed cat first.

Well fine. We can work with this. After all, there's not a lot I can do dripping wet and wrapped up in a bathrobe. This is the perfect opportunity to just sit dow

Oh thank god oh thank god oh thank god oh thank you blogger for saving my draft oh thank you thank you thank you stupid computer stupid computer stupid computer! You know, I just realized that I haven't eaten anything in over eight hours. There's no way I can focus on this if I don't eat something first. Or at least while I'm doing it. Yeah - I'm just going to grab something and then I'll snack as I type. A lesson in efficiency for the modern blogger!

I really need to keep more snack food in the house. I didn't even want a whole casserole, but you can't exactly eat pasta raw and that's all I had. Yeah, okay, guess I was hungrier than I thought too. Anyway! You know what? The phone's ringing but I'm not even going to no wait I'm expecting that call!

Aw. He remembered. My sweetie.

Um. Look guys. I'm kinda beat. You know what? Best plan? A good night's sleep and then fresh and ready to focus tomorrow on the best darn blog post ever written!

Yes. Got a plan. It's as good as done.

Night!

Well you got as far as the title, that's something anyway.

2010-04-01T23:35:00.000-06:00

This entry is entirely inappropriate. Too spontaneous, poorly thought out, rushed, and just generally not a good idea. I don't recommend reading it at all.

For all those who stopped reading after the first paragraph and aren't seeing this, thank you. It's nice to see my opinion afforded some merit.

For all those still reading, thank you. It's nice to know people with enough backbone to decide for themselves what is or isn't worth their time to pursue. Ignore what I told those other guys. I totally like you best.

It's been a disjointed, unorganized, chaotic and strange week, all culminating in my becoming the proud parent of an 80 year old dependent today. It's ten thousand dollars worth of non-refundable official now - I bought a house. No takesies backsies. If I don't want it, I'm going to have to find someone to unload it on.

I'm going to have a busy summer. Need an entirely new roof, ventilation and insulation in the attic, new gutters, new plumbing, a new furnace with upgraded duct work, a new shed, and I definitely gotta have a fence set up before I can bring the dogs over.

So far I've picked out a color to paint the kitchen cabinets. No, it's not my highest priority, but - and this is very important - it will go well with the vintage curtains I'm thinking of hanging in there. It's no small job, either. Have you ever picked out paint chips in heels? The floors in those home reno places are concrete, people. Very unforgiving on the ball of the foot.

Okay, I'm needing to go to bed now. I just wanted to write something because... um... well okay because I'm starting to miss you guys and stuff. Satisfied?

Don't let it go to your heads, now. I'm not totally dependent on you. I can always fall back on all those people who couldn't be bothered to read this.

This title is oh look! She's eating a bunny! Um... I'll finish this title later, ok?

2010-03-25T22:49:00.002-06:00

Biiizeee day. Yes indeedeedoo. Busy busy busy. Bit of running around at work, got some errands done, sorted through some books, bought a house, that sort of thing.

Also managed to squeeze in an ungodly amount of time watching an owl that somehow got her talons on a webcam. In my defense she has itty bitty birdy babies. That trumps fulfilling responsibilities any day.

That said my next priority should definitely be focusing on the whole bought a house thing. That's obviously going to be pretty high priority just by virtue of the fact that it's shopping related. In fact shopping on that scale could actually trump owl with itty bitty bird babies as a priority, and were it not for the fact that it involves housework it probably would. Alas, though, packing does qualify as house work, and watching an owl with a web cam definitely takes precedence over housework. Ask anybody watching the owl with the web cam if you don't believe me. Actually, probably better to ask their dirty, hungry little children. Nobody wants to be distracted when they're watching an owl on a web cam.

And one of the first things to make it into the charity donation box was the book I bought on how to do housework. Like it's so much fun I want to sit down and read about it when I'm not actually doing it. No, I wasn't high when I bought the thing, but perhaps I would have had better judgment if I had been. After all, there's no way I'd throw out a perfectly good book of cookie recipes.

Tell me I did not just write that. No, I will not bake cookies at ten thirty at night. That's ridiculous. Get that idea right out of your head, me.

Of course this could all turn out to be a dry run. The place does still have to pass inspection to my satisfaction, and it very well might not. I know this because they accepted my first offer, even though I knew for a fact they wouldn't like it and they didn't. They accepted my terms even though I know for a fact they didn't like them either. They quibbled. I stood firm. I got my way. That was way too excellent not to mean trouble.

Yes. I do hear myself complaining about getting what I wanted. Yes. I'll stop now.

No! I will not bake cookies! It's about ten minutes later now than it was the last time I thought about cookies. If it wasn't a good idea then it sure as hell didn't magically become a better idea in the meantime now did it, me?

If it's not my house, it's not my house. I'm not attached to the idea of it. I was getting attached to the idea of it, but then I knew that was trouble and backed off emotionally and to my great surprise it worked. How well did it work? Well if it doesn't pass inspection and I'm found an hour later with tears running all the way down to my cleavage and cookie dough crusting all the way up to my nostrils, I'll know I still have some me-work to do there.

But worst come to worst it's still another excuse to go shopping, right? And there are very few things so bad in life that cookie dough can't make them better anyway.

Hey. Cookies. That sounds like a great idea. I better get right to it, though. Nearly eleven.

Gotta go.

Hey, if there was a problem with this title don't you think I'd tell you about it?

2010-03-19T01:10:00.000-06:00

Hm. Hmmm. Hm hm hm hm hm.

Hm.

This is the closest I've come to making an offer on a house. It requires much humming (see above) and hawing (not quite sure what that is, but I'll get right on it as soon as I do have a workable definition and/or whatever necessary equipment and training one requires to haw) and deliberation. Definitely a fixer-upper. That's cool if I get it for a good enough price. There's every indication I can get it for a good enough price, too.

Hm (and/or haw).

Been on the market for awhile now. Vacant. Former occupant is deceased. Didn't ask if the guy died on the premises, but come to think of it I should. That doesn't really weird me out, but it is a little piece of history that tends to be reflected in purchase pricing. Hey, he was very old and lived alone. He might have moldered in there! If my dogs are pawing and whining at the floor I want to know what they're after.

I think a big part of why it isn't moving it is the color scheme. The dark, fake wood paneling in the living and dining rooms is complimented by a rich, orangey golden carpetting. The over-all effect is that of a wall-to-wall and floor to ceiling nicotine stain. I think that puts buyers off a bit. Money will definitely need to be thrown at that. Also the kitchen is old in a rustic, completely devoid of charm kind of way. People really place a lot of importance on nice kitchens. Not a huge problem for me, though. It's more than sufficient for stacking pizza boxes in.

Yard's good but needs a fence. Also not a problem. I have good fence karma. You string a little barbed wire for a person and they remember it, apparently. My volunteer fence-putter-upper is on stand-by.

Needs new shingles. Nuh uh. I ain't goin' up there. That'd be straight out of pocket.

The bathroom is a good size. The tub is deep. That's divine. Oh god. I hope he didn't die in the tub. Okay now I'm getting weirded out.

Hm/haw.

Okay. Refinishing the tub's on the list. That's also going to be out of pocket.

The basement doesn't freak me out (what I lack in fear of dead bodies I more than make up in my fear of squirmy things with bazillions of legs that you get the feeling would like nothing more than to be than deep inside one of your warm, wet orifices and always appear to be in an extreme hurry to find one). Most basements in my price range do freak me out. This is a bonus.

No garage. I pouted as I typed that, but again, if I get this place for a good enough price I'll have enough money left over for a pair of big girl pants to wear while I suck it up. It's not like I'm used to having one anyway.

And that's the little box my brain is running around inside of today.

Hey everybody who pointed out that this whole house buying thing isn't easy: you were right!

I hope this title answers your question, Nessa.

2010-03-12T22:43:00.000-07:00

I Shouldn't Have to Tell You This:
Home Selling Edition

Don't try to frame and install a picture window yourself before listing. In fact, don't try to frame and install a picture window ever under any circumstances unless you are a certified window framer and installer. No, make that unless you're at least two certified window framer and installers. And well supervised.
Be home for longer than one hour a day.
If you're only home for one hour a day, make it a more accessible time for people than eleven am to noon.
If you're only home for one hour a day from eleven am to noon, don't leave two large dogs in your house that like to attack realtors when you're not there.
Take your air mattress and the rest of your squatter fantastic lifestyle kit with you when you vacate for the showing. Finding that crap in the closet gives me the serious oogies.
If the buyer prefers e-mail, communicate with them by e-mail. If you keep being pissy about it they might just contact your company and ask them why you're uncomfortable dealing with the hard of hearing.
Don't assume your client isn't hard of hearing. They don't owe you an explanation about their preferred modes of communication, so operate under the assumption that it's none of your damn business why they prefer e-mail and just cooperate.
Don't be so unprofessional that your behavior inspires three bullet points in a row on a list titled I Shouldn't Have to Tell You This: Home Selling Edition, Mr. Big Dumb I-Won't-Talk-To-You-Unless-You-Phone-Me Crappy Realtor Head Whose Stupid Listing Isn't That Nice Anyway So There.
Collect the police notices out of the mailbox regularly.
Clean off the scuff marks left by whoever it was that tried to kick in your front door.
The door of mystery in the basement? Unlock it. Find another place to keep your strange uncle Marty if you must. Not knowing is scarier than knowing.
Don't insist on at least breaking even with what you paid for it three years ago when they opened the tar sands. Unless, of course, you have an insanely rich oil strike you'd like to share with the group. 7-11 isn't handing out $700 hiring bonuses anymore, McDonald's isn't paying $10 an hour to start anymore, and you're not going to find anybody as desperate to live in that house as you were in 2007.
If you're going to paint every room, install new flooring throughout and even spring for new kitchen cabinets, go the extra mile and clean the oven. Dude. C'mon. That's like staying up all night to work on your resume and not bothering to wear pants to the job interview.
Oh yeah, wear pants. Prospective buyers can be swayed by little touches like that.

Title is conveniently located directly above the blog entry.

2010-03-08T23:02:00.000-07:00

My head is filled to brimming with the pudding of distraction. Realtors dance through my dreams at night like three ring binder winged fairies, sprinkling my eyes with hyperbole dust. Days are filled organizing and sorting and throwing away and regretting and digging through garbage and retrieving and ending in a lot less accomplished than energy expended. It's all very giddy and surreal and awesome and terrifying.

Yeah. I'm having a good time. Complacency kills brain cells. Nothing like a good jolt of sheer economic terror to keep the think muscles limber and supple. I really do live for this kind of nonsense.

Got the mortgage pre-approved on Friday and just had the market evaluation an hour ago. The numbers actually do crunch quite agreeably. So far. Knock on wood. Unless I've made a horrible mistake that I'm completely overlooking and aren't going to discover until I'm fully committed and will have to work three jobs - one of them partially naked - until I die just to make the minimum monthly payments. Barring that, though, so far so good. Looks like the next thing to do now is buy a house, since I sure ain't going to try selling this place with a half bald sixteen year old dog taking regular squats in the living room. First we go away then the new flooring comes in. That is the appropriate order of things. It's bad enough Andy the wonder cat kept leaping for the realtor's back every time the poor guy leaned over to look at anything. Always fun to watch someone try to ingratiate themselves to you through gritted teeth, but kitty really needs to learn that what I think is cute can be what someone else thinks is grounds for caticide.

Tomorrow's house was built in 1916 and features 1.5 bathrooms. A spare toilet is the most wonderful thing a house can have, second only of course to a primary toilet. Just one of those things that it's just nice not to have to take chances with in life. Wednesday's house was built in 1920 and features pretty blue siding. Yeah, that's a stretch for a sales pitch, but the bottom line is it's boring but looks like it's in pretty good shape for a pretty good price. I'm staying way way way within my financial comfort zone on this deal, and after all I'm not looking for a house to die in. I'm looking for a house to get me the hell out of the suburbs. Anything that can rescue me from the beige brain rotting blight of planned communityville is inherently awesome. Pretty blue siding is just a great big juicy cherry on top.

I'll let you know how it goes!

I'll even throw in a free title!

2010-03-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

I have now had a full night's sleep. Also, the little tiny goblins with the razor sharp teeth have stopped nibbling at my toe nails. These facts are likely related.

So. Morning people. Can I just ask why?

We have ordered our entire civilization around your schedule since... oh let's see now... carry the one, times infinity... since forever. That's how long you've controlled everybody's lives. Forever. And what have we night people been doing all this time?

Tip toeing around. Teaching ourselves how to sneeze silently without having an occular haemorage. Being dirty because the shower makes noise. Wondering which will make you angrier - our waking you up by flushing the toilet or your waking up and discovering that the toilet isn't flushed, and then deciding the hell with it, a ruptured bladder can't hurt that badly, and maybe if we just don't drink anything for the next eight hours we can hold it.

Putting you to bed when you come home drunk and answering your phone calls when people break up with you and you've been awake crying half the night and don't know anybody else to call at that hour.

Making appointments when it's convenient for you, even when we're the ones paying.

Oh sure, I mean thanks for the convenience stores and Wal-Mart. You know, seeing as how we can't get absolutely everything from those incredibly cheerful obviously recorded by morning people infomercials you leave behind for us after you've chewed your way through all the topical information and first run series and gone to bed. It's nice to have those options since ordering that crap at three am does nothing to alert the delivery person that leaning on the doorbell of it's recipient at nine am will probably make them cry. You know, because delivery people are as obedient to the morning person rules as the rest of the world is. Cute little boutique shops, professional offices and technicians that don't require a second house mortgage and the selling of blood to afford? All very much in your world and not ours too.

So yeah. Why? Why does it have to be this way?

Nobody's arguing that it has evolved to be this way through necessity. Before electricity humans really sucked at night navigation. Mostly they just found things to bump into, and were found by things looking for food before ever finding food for themselves (excepting, of course, when they managed to step in it). Curling up and lapsing into unconsciousness really is about the only thing a human in a natural environment has any talent for after dark.

For city dwelling humans in the western world there no longer is any such thing as dark, though. It's not like morning people use substantially less electricity than night people do, either - we see you there, with your light bulbs all lit up while the sun's still in the sky. You're not fooling anybody. Never mind all that juice you pump out to stay comfortable during the hottest part of the day while sane people in equatorial countries sleep. Meanwhile the streets are fully illuminated from dusk till dawn with barely anybody making use of all that electricity being spent. You know. Because you complain about how noisy it is when people drive on them.

I propose tradesies. We've done it your way. You enjoyed it. That's cool. Now we get a turn.

Let's not be morning people oriented anymore. Let's be night people oriented. You guys be the deviants. You do the tiptoeing around and the getting inspired just when you need to be getting to bed in order to get enough sleep for work in the evening and watching crappy tv and not being able to find anybody on the internet when you're bored because you're wide awake and everything interesting is closed.

We'll be the super cheerful ones wishing you "good evening!" as you struggle desperately to remember how to make a pot of coffee using only the eighth of your brain that you could persuade to wake up when the alarm went off.

Deal?

I can't write this title with a straight face.

2010-03-01T21:41:00.001-07:00

What are the odds, right - what are the odds that I would start communicating with two realtors whose first names combine to form the full name of someone I knew two years ago on the very same day said former acquaintance should happen to get his e-mail account infested with malware, which then led me to see two familiar names that I was expecting to see in my in-box and then in the warm, cozy cushion of trust that is my brain at two thirty in the morning open said e-mail's attachment with unquestioning abandon, only to quickly realize that things of that nature most certainly are not generally featured in real estate listings - nobody's going to want to eat anything off that counter again - and that I'd unleashed a torrent of passionate spyware that I have only now, eighteen hours after the fact, managed to eradicate, right? I mean really, what are the odds?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

No hell no it is not funny. But it is okay, you know? I just have to deal with this crap. I don't have to live inside the poo addled brain that invented it. Now that would make me feel sorry for myself. Think about it - people really do live non-lives like that. Sends a chill, doesn't it?

What is funny, though, is how Trend Micro thinks that a consumer reporting a failure of their product to protect a computer on an epic scale is a great dialogue opener to say "hey, would you like to buy an even more expensive product from us now?" Yes, I laughed for the full forteen hours it took them to fix the damn thing.

Another thing that's funny is that when I went to have dinner one of the tines on my fork was slightly bent, and I quickly looked at the handle and realized to great relief that it wasn't one of my good forks. "Oh good," thought I, "it isn't one of my good forks," and then I doubled over laughing for the better part of five minutes.

Another thing that's funny is absolutely everything when you haven't slept for over 36 hours.

What isn't funny, though? Having only a small pot of instant mashed potatoes for dinner. I think that's the saddest thing I've done for a long time. That's about as sad as wearing your old prom dress at a birthday party for your dog or something.

I'm still writing, aren't I? I kind of dozed off in the middle bit there, but I'm happy that it appears I've come to some sort of lucid conclusion. Hope you liked the part about the elephants - I wouldn't want to have to untangle those parachutes!

I suppose you were expecting one of those hippie yippie funky chicken modern titles, eh? Well the hell with ya! This one'll do just fine.

2010-02-26T22:14:00.000-07:00

Introspection done. Now I'm into full on obsession. Want a house. Need a house. Must have a house. What did you do today? Looked at houses! What are you doing on the internet? Researching houses! What's for lunch? Houses!

I'm looking forward to having a foundation again. To not having to leave the taps running half the winter so the pipes don't freeze. To not swaying in strong breezes.

And here's something I never thought I'd say: I'm looking forward to having the option of public transportation again. Cars are mighty emblems of freedom only as they whisk you away down highways to distant lands. In the city they're just big, awkward dependents whose needs and expenses must come before your own.

"You're going out to eat? But where will you put me? No no no! Don't you dare leave me on the street! You won't be done eating before the rush hour parking ban comes into effect - they'll take me away from you! Put me in that nice building over there. That one! The one just twenty blocks from the restaurant. Because the other ones are full. Well then take your fancy shmancy ooh-look-at-me-my-shoes-match-my-dress heels off, that's what the old emergency hiking boots in the trunk are for. You do have fourteen dollars in change handy, don't you? What's that? Oh boy! You mean it? Yay! Take-out again! I knew you'd change your mind!"

Seriously. You might as well rely on getting piggyback rides from teenagers for transportation as take a car downtown. I will still keep my car, though. For one thing my old dog's getting a little too bleary eyed for the whole fake-being-a-seeing-eye-dog-so-they-let-you-on-the-bus routine - my conviction to the method acting technique falters when I'm dragged into the path of moving vehicles - but he's still a fun travel partner when he isn't in charge of navigation. I just think it would be nice to be able to sneak off without the big metal need-machine occasionally.

Now I'm not necessarily sure I can get a house. Well, I'll amend that. I know I can get a house, I just don't know if I can get a house and still stay within my financial comfort zone. There are a few reasons I chose to live in a trailer, and while bloom has gone off many of those roses (and turned into venomous, barbed, bloodthirsty thorns) the fact that it's damned affordable living smells as sweetly as it ever did.

On the other hand, if I can work this whole getting a house thing the way I hope I can work this whole getting a house thing, there's a chance I can actually come ahead in the deal. Actually reduce my monthly expenses. I might only have a trailer, but I do have a very nice trailer, and it is in on a very, very nice lot in a very, very popular area.

And I do own it outright. That's the part that burns a bit. I couldn't own a house outright. Yeah, I'd be just as out on my fanny if I failed to pay my lot fees as if I failed to pay a mortgage of course, and of course money toward a mortgage is actually money toward owning something whereas money toward lot fees buys you nothing but limited time, but it still seems preferable to getting the bank involved. Why? Because under these boobs of mine there beats the grizzled heart of a stubborn old man who doesn't want some damn bank gettin' all messed up in my business dadgummit!

But grizzled old men don't like turning on the taps and having nothing come out when it's forty below either. They hate watching their homes relax into a nice comfortable slump every time the ground gets a bit damp too. They like good solid houses cemented into the ground the way nature intended! The kind of good quality craftsmanship you'd be proud to grow feeble and die in!

So yeah. I guess it's enough playtime in the little trailer now. Inner child satisfied. Time to let the inner old fart have a fun day.

I got this title because it was so unique, and also because the people next door have one.

2010-02-24T21:31:00.001-07:00

One of the most striking characteristics of the human race is it's inescapability. Try it sometime. Go to the far reaches of the earth, and find a nice little isolated spot. One that takes you a few weeks or months of trail breaking on foot to get to. Somewhere tranquil that you can be by yourself and just relax. When you get there close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Then exhale. Then open your eyes again. You will discover that you are now surrounded by roughly fifty people; forty eight of which are chatting about how nice and quiet the spot is and two of which are on cell phones trying to broker a subdivision.

I grew up and lived pretty much my whole life right in the heart of the capital city here. Then I decided I needed to not be in the heart of a city for awhile. I needed wind and sky and space. I moved to a quiet little trailer park far on the outskirts of a small city on the outskirts of that capital city. It was completely surrounded by fields of sweet smelling canola in every direction for miles around. I traded convenience for solitude. I successfully got away from it all.

It all found me again. Eight years down the road they started pouring concrete in the last field left this side of the highway. The solitude is completely gone. Only the inconvenience remains. Well, I guess being force fed a steady diet of franchises and box stores is a form of convenience. Kind of like fighting off a pack of rabid badgers is a form of exercise.

I had two hours to kill downtown in the capital city today. I wandered the familiar streets and realized that I'm still part of their landscape. I realized that I prefer a landscape peppered with obscene graffiti and garbage to one saturated in fast food chains and billboards. I prefer braking constantly for pedestrians and hunting for rare parking spots to blankly barreling across an unchanging landscape. I prefer old buildings that need some work done on them to brand new buildings that won't be worth repairing when they get old. I prefer strangers arguing in the street to everybody averting their eyes when they pass one another.

There is no alone in this world, so I might as well be home.

If you're looking for the title please allow me to refer you to item number seven.

2010-02-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

Ten Reasons I'm Not Posting Today

I've decided not to have a Monday this week and to have an extra Sunday instead.
I haven't posted for two days now, and I hate to lose momentum like that.
I haven't had any sugar today at all. My brain is mean and scary without sugar. Don't want to go in there.
Because I can't blog from the bathtub. Well okay, can't is kind of a strong word. Don't have a high enough mortality threshold to blog from the bathtub, then.
Because I'm only half way through this list and I'm already getting distracted. Yes you are a silly kitty. Yes you are!
This all goes on the internet, you know. People can, like, see everything I write here. Ooh! Gives me the oogie woogies!
Because if I write a post I'll have to write a title.
Time is money, I'm not getting any younger you know, and he who laughs last is lost... wait... okay I don't actually know that one but I think you see where I'm going with this.
Because lists are trendier than posts. Can I be popular now please? I can wear tight jeans if it'd help! Well okay, can is kind of a strong word.
Because when I started this list I don't even remember how long ago I thought it would be easier than a full post, didn't I? When actually if I'd just written about the creepy old man in the waiting area at my mechanic's like I'd originally planned I'd be long finished and eating fudge while my toes pucker in a bubble bath by now, wouldn't I? But I'm just too stubborn to admit when I'm wrong and have to keep paddling the damned sinking ship anyway, don't I?

With the budget I had it's a miracle this title even got made.

2010-02-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have now finally been to see James "I'm just going to keep killing stuff until you cry" Cameron's monster tree pull and cat shoot. It was very shiny. It was also almost three hours long. Still didn't even manage to make a dent in my concession stand fountain drink, though. I think Cameron would have to pick off every single card carrying member of the screen actor's guild one by one to buy me enough time to hit the bottom of one of those wax paper buckets.

I always buy one, though. Not so much because I want one as because I would feel deprived if I didn't. Same goes for candy. Yesterday the early show we'd arrived for had been sold out, and we spent the bulk of the two hours waiting for the next showing at a mall food court. By the time we arrived at the theatre there was barely enough room in my pants for both me and all of the mall pizza I'd just consumed, and the top layer of my tongue had been stripped raw by the sugar in the pop I'd washed it down with. It took a truly admirable force of will to get me to that concession stand, I tell ya, but I made it. Only the weak skip dessert, and as far as I'm concerned if I don't have a bag of chocolate between my knees I don't have any business even being in a theater seat.

Yeah, not really a popcorn fan. Wasn't before last night, definitely not one now after spending three hours sitting behind someone who liberally sprinkled hers with a seasoning that smelled uncannily like the least adorable part of my dog. Fortunately the people behind me weren't eating anything too obnoxious, or perhaps I just couldn't smell it over the sound of their kicking the back of my seat. I appreciate that sentence didn't actually make sense, but I really wanted to work the fact that they kicked the back of my seat for three hours into this post and that's the best I could come up with. Yes I will get over it, I just need to work through it in my own time, that's all.

No, of course I didn't complain. I sat there and took it like a Canadian, dammit.

Am I still allowed to say that? Judging from the ad I saw before the movie, the licensing rights to Canadian patriotism have been purchased by the Coca-Cola company. Evidently their market research department has concluded that the most effective way to inspire patriotism in Canadians is to scream "He shoots he scores!" in our faces repeatedly until, one would apparently logically conclude, it makes us thirsty. Then for a finale they finished things off with a veiled dig at America. Oh yes they did! They told Canadians to remind the world where hockey came from. Okay, giant American corporation, I will! Right after I finish my Pepsi. Ideally I'd bundle up my spite scented brand loyalty and dedicate it to a Canadian brand of pop instead, but that's just not a practical option. Canadian pop is called "beer", and drinking it requires the taking of public transportation. In this part of Canada taking the bus requires five layers of clothing and the social calendar of a comatose ninety year old to be a workable proposition. Also they don't let you fiddle with the temperature controls and get really snarky when you sing along to the radio at the top of your lungs. I can't behave that well in a moving vehicle when I'm sober. They're simply asking too much of me.

Then when they got up to leave they leaned on my hair. The people behind me, I mean. At the movie. Yeah I was kind of hoping a smoother opportunity to work that in would present itself before I finished writing this thing, but I'm out of ideas and still have healing to do.

In my day titles were more than just cheap gimmicks.

2010-02-16T21:49:00.003-07:00

I'm in training to be an old person. Making good progress, too. I've mastered the chair nap, gotten the damn kids off my lawn, and spent all day Sunday at the RV Show. It was too a very romantic Valentine's Day! Sure, my boyfriend wanted to take me to the botanical gardens, and yeah that would have been a more traditional way to celebrate. I for one can't think of a grander romantic gesture than spending an entire day allowing your girlfriend to cram you into an endless succession of little rooms that you can't stand fully upright inside of just because you know it will make her ridiculously happy, though. Poor thing's probably still a bit stooped. It's a noble stoop, though. A manly stoop. A stoop of chivalrous sacrifice!

Also he's as dedicated to finding opportunities to eat mini donuts as I am, and I know sugar's romantic. After all, giant multi-conglomerate corporations say so, and giant multi-conglomerate corporations are never wrong. About anything. Ever! You don't believe me just ask their legal departments. Bring a lawyer to translate. And whatever you do don't sign anything.

No, I can't afford an RV. Yet. I can afford the RV accessibility atlas of North America, though, so that's a start. It has a special plastic cover you can safely spill soft foods on and everything. What I can do in the meantime, too, is help above mentioned boyfriend refurbish his Boler Trailer. Boler trailers are definitely romantic. One could even go so far as to say they're forcibly romantic. They're so small that two people sharing one have two options. One is killing each other. The other option requires just as much energy, can be just as messy (if done correctly), and is generally speaking a bit harder on the suspension, but it at least leaves a second person around to share driving duty for the trip home and offer important navigation assistance, like notifying you immediately after you've just passed the turn you needed to take and wiping lunch off the atlas.

Apparently all we need to do to get the Boler back in business is scrape off the lichen, sand down and paint the exterior, remove and replace all the trim, rewire all of the electrical, completely reupholster everything, sew up some curtains, get some tires and new windows on the thing, and do some fixing stuff with the scary explodey can that runs the stove and fridge (pretty sure that bit won't be my job). So far we've managed to pick a color. We're in agreement that bright yellow would best minimize the risk of it getting lost in particularly dense foliage, which for a Boler trailer would mean a particularly precocious second season shrub. We'll just need to be careful of black trim to avoid any embarrassing and potentially painful mating attempts by stinging insects. But really, once those little odds and ends are dealt with hey presto - we'll be rugged and outdoorsy Grizzly Adams types ("Grizzly Adams types" being defined as "people who live in a can without a toilet").

Wow. I already feel so nature-ey and stuff I can't stand it. I'm practically a moose.

How hard can it be to write a proper title anyway?

2010-02-12T21:15:00.002-07:00

I've often heard it suggested that people should have to pass an IQ test before being allowed to have kids. Interestingly enough, though, I've never heard of anybody voluntarily testing themselves or their co-procreators before proceeding with their own seeding. Of course there's a good reason for this. We take our ability to diagnose stupidity in others to be conclusive evidence that we are not suffering from it ourselves. Presumably people who actually are stupid never question anybody else's intelligence. That being the case, it sure makes people calling for IQ tests look stupid. Why go to all that trouble?

"Hey Bob, who do you know that's stupid?"

"Who do I know that's stupid? Geez. Can't think of anybody."

"Bob?"

"Yeah?"

"You're an idiot."

Settled.

It' s not like these conclusions are reached without a reasoning process, though. It's not a conscious one, but it's there. Obviously you can't be stupid if you're capable of the same level of reasoning as smart people are. Your friends are obviously smart people because they agree with all of the same conclusions you arrive at, and you only arrive at the conclusions that make the most sense. To you. Who think them up. Look, let's not lose focus here - the point is that if you were stupid you'd be driving, voting, and rearing children like those people your friends make fun of, and you're not, are you? No, you're doing the opposite. So there you go! No further testing required.

When I was a kid it really used to bother me how water would run off of peoples' chins when they came out of the swimming pool. I was always so embarrassed for them, and so grateful that water didn't run off my chin like that.

Of course it did! It's a good thing I didn't find that out that back then, though. I'd have probably drowned in the shower trying to make my chin the highest point on my head the very next day. Yeah, it bothered me that much. I guess we just assume that we're innocent of the things that bother us so much in other people because it seems logical that we'd be more accepting of traits we have in common. Or perhaps just that we'd be more self aware than that. Doesn't really matter which, seeing as how both assumptions can generally be completely disproven just by standing naked in front of a mirror for about ten seconds anyway.

Tell you what, I'm just going to concede right now. Everyone else is way smarter than I am. They can make the next generation. I'll just find some other way to spend my time and money. I'm sure there's a beach in the tropics somewhere that the cost of living for one independent adult would run roughly the same amount that it would take to raise a few children.

Yes. That would be an excellent place for us stupid people. I can be packed and ready to go in an hour. Great idea, smart people!

Send my love to the kids!

The cheese grater in this title made a lot more sense when I was asleep.

2010-02-10T20:40:00.000-07:00

I wonder if they'll ever invent remote controls for brains. Volume, brightness, rewind, pause, that kind of thing. It'd be so cool to be able to just change the channel on those arguments that we can't stop replaying in our heads. No, you still wouldn't be able to go back in time to the academic debate where your reasoning was challenged and use that decisive "Stupid stupid dumb head face!" counter argument you formulated after the fact. How much sweeter, though, to be able to simply delete the stupid stupid dumb head faces of the world forever right when they're in mid snide remark, and switch over instead to your twelfth birthday party when you freakin' owned that pinata, man? Zoom in on that and crank the surround sound. Pity party is over! It's a hooray for you party now!

The best part, though? The off switch. Click! Sound asleep. No muss, no fuss, no sharp blows to the skull. Just sweet, complete unconsciousness at the flick of a switch.

I know all the parents are with me on that one.

It goes without saying, though, that once we're adults the only person we'd want to be able to access our remote controls would be our own selves. It also goes without saying that the government would put an end to that idea pretty quick.

They'll say:

"Our nation can never truly be free as long as terrorists are allowed to turn their minds to the purpose of destroying democracy at will!"

And then we'll say:

"As far as I'm concerned as soon as you decide to be a terrorist you give up your right to control your own mind. After all, if you're going to try and prevent my freedom, why should you have any?"

And then before you know it:

"Well if you wait until after someone's blown up a building to take control of their minds it's a little late for it to do much good then, isn't it? Besides, if you have nothing to hide you have no reason to care if the government controls your brain."

Leads to:

"If you don't support the government controlling your brain you don't really love your country, and if you don't love your country you're too dangerous to control a brain."

Not that we'd ever notice the government tinkering away in the back of our sub-consciousnesses anyway. Not with all the spam we'd be sifting through.

Well you didn't think it would be free, did you? Sure there'll probably be a basic install package available for a low, one time fee. One that lets you taste the possibilities but not truly indulge in them. Once you're dependent on the thing, though, nothing will slow the march of profit. You want to finish reliving that first kiss? Sure - right after this message from Gum, now with icyhotsonicspicyfreshwinterweinerdoodleblastcoolness crystals!

Of course they'll be targeted ads. Google's algorithms are going to be snapping all over your synapses.

And of course parents would undoubtedly have to shell out for specific installs for school and different ones for after school activities and set up all kinds of different security codes and permissions. "Pause Kimmy for third period - she's not allowed any sex ed." The company you work for would likely be shoving something in there as well - at least a scrambler to block certain channels while you're on company time. Hey, you're not getting paid to miss your mommy, alright? People would definitely be frying their gray matter with cheap back alley bootlegs, too. Overall it'd be expensive and overstimulating, it'd be abused and become intrusive, basic human rights and freedoms would almost certainly become compromised and there would undoubtedly be a risk of severe and permanent brain damage.

But still - you could record your dreams like TiVo! Totally worth it!

Sure, the first self referential title's cute, so you keep it. Then the next thing you know you've got self referential titles all over the place.

2010-02-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

I have always wanted a pet ostrich. Well, two pet ostriches. If I only got one the thing might get all needy and weird. That's just not the kind of relationship I'm looking to have with the ostrich in my life.

I'm a very firm believer in responsible, informed pet ownership. This is why it is so very important for me to learn something, anything about ostriches other than the fact that it's a giant bird you can ride (cool!). Especially since I've heard something to the effect of their being able to disembowel a person with a single kick. This in turn is why I absolutely intend to at least read some sort of Your First Ostrich primer before welcoming an ostrich into my family. Also I should probably move out of the trailer park first.

Now I can appreciate how my general lack of ostrich knowledge and preparedness might make it seem as though I'm not truly serious about ostrich ownership, but I am! I am a registered forum member on ostrich.com. How much more credibility can a person have than that? Granted I've never posted there yet. Not actually having an ostrich I'd worry that I might come across as the giant bird enthusiast equivalent of someone who has three dozen kitty cat sweaters and lives in a pet free building. In truth my involvement with the site so far has consisted entirely of deleting regular e-mails informing me that there's a big sale on feathers.

A lot of the information on the site will become a lot more interesting to me once I do have an actual ostrich or two kicking around I'm sure, though. Once I'm that far along in my goal achievement I assume I'll just very naturally develop a keen interest in knowing what variety of dried earthworms are tastiest, and how best to fumigate birds that can disembowel you with a single kick. I know I'll definitely be interested to learn the proper mounting technique for giant birds you can ride (cool!).

One thing I have learned already is that I definitely want both of my ostriches to be the same kind of ostriches. In the process of attempting to sell me an ostrich the site has proudly informed me that ostriches can lay between 80 - 100 eggs per year. That would grossly exceed my requirements for ostrich companionship. I am at least reassured to see that they do ask if you already have a book about ostriches right on the ostrich ordering form (of course you can buy ostriches on-line. What greater purpose a technologically advanced society than convenience of ostrich procurement, after all?). Whether they refuse to sell to people who don't have the Your First Ostrich primer or whether they include that with the order I don't know, but the very fact that they check does seem to indicate a reasonable level of seller responsibility. Seller responsibility is an important thing. Again - 80 to 100 eggs. 225 pound birds. I really, really, really need to be able to trust that if they say they sent two boys, they sent two boys.

Meanwhile, I just checked the Alberta Agriculture website's classified section. Someone up in Rocky Mountain House is selling a yakalo. Hm. Maybe there is something cooler than a bird you can ride after all.

No. Nonono. I definitely don't need a yakalo. Stick to the plan, babe.

(cool!)

Never write titles when, um, the thing is... wait what? No! I mean never write titles when you're high. I think?

2010-02-04T20:35:00.002-07:00

I used to think it was ridiculous for people to get uptight about going to the dentist. Never bothered me, and I'd had all kinds of work done. Sure it's a bit uncomfortable having the ice pick they use to administer freezing hammered into the roof of your mouth, but once they're done that you just relax, let them do what they gotta do, and enjoy taking a nice little break from having to swallow your own spit all the time.

And then I aged out of the children's dentist and had to go to the grown ups' dentist. Things were different there. Well, one thing was different. That one thing changed everything, though.

The grown ups' dentist didn't give me the happy nose. I'd never actually known what the happy nose was. I knew that I must have looked very silly with that big rubber thing on my face, and I was a very self-conscious child as a rule. For some strange reason, though, I didn't mind the happy nose. I didn't mind the happy nose at all. It was heavy, it made me look funny, and it smelled strange, but I had absolutely no problem with the happy nose. No. Happy nose was fine. I was good with the happy nose.

I sure figured out what it was for in a hurry when it wasn't there anymore.

What gives? Why should kids get all the good drugs? Isn't it enough that they get all the best presents at Christmas, the piece of cake with the flower on it at birthday parties, free room and board and two months off every summer so that they can, shall we assume, work on their novels, renovate the kitchen, and attend to all of the other urgent priorities they have over getting an education so that they can start supporting themselves? They have all that and they have to hog the happy noses too?

Well frankly that is just plain ungracious. There. I've said it.

So it turns out I'm not as blissfully mellow about hearing the music of heavy industry emanating from my teeth as I'd thought. Evidently I simply lack the self awareness necessary to know when I'm completely stoned. Couple that with the fact that my grown ups' dentist doesn't have the decency to let me pick out a toy no matter how well I behave myself, and no. I do not like going to the dentist at all anymore. But get this - I saved the biggest injustice for last.

Apparently when these teeth fall out, I don't get to grow a new set. Unlike some sugar crunching, toy hoarding individuals I know. So it's not like I really have a choice, now is it?

That part where Shelley Duvall read this title backwards in the mirror was so cool.

2010-02-02T23:58:00.002-07:00

In truth diaper commercials weren't the only things that scared me as a child. Only the most irrational. That was also, thankfully, a fear I easily grew out of. It's much harder to grow out of rational fears like falling from great heights, being bitten by a snake, or watching a puppet show. I appreciate that there will be some debate about how rational it may or may not be to fear puppets, but I do have to insist that it is completely rational. To support my position I offer the following substantiation:

Just LOOK at them!

Obviously everybody is now nodding and making comments such as "Very astute observation.", "A quite credible perspective.", and "Wait, WTF? Puppets? This isn't icanhascheezburger!", and generally agreeing that no further exposition is necessary. At this point, however, I'm sure everybody will also agree that the post is very short, so I will continue to add words.

Yesterday's post about pedo-selenophobia (fear of baby-moons) (just because I made it up doesn't make it less real) is not actually what instigated this one. It was a recent conversation about those horrifying wind up monkeys that clap cymbals (if you click that link and can't sleep for a week, don't come complaining to me. Did I say they were horrifying? Yes I did. Toughen up, sissy sissy cry-baby face) brought to my mind the movie Poltergeist. Movie fans will note that the movie Poltergeist has absolutely nothing to do with wind up monkeys that clap cymbals. Movie fans have undoubtedly also gone on to figure out that it was actually Close Encounters of the Third Kind that I was thinking of. I bet movie fans are even making fun of me using insider movie fan references that would go right over my head, too. Oh movie fans, you're incorrigible! You're right, though. Close Encounters is the one that has a wind-up monkey that claps cymbals in it. Poltergeist has the evil clown doll. I was clearly looking for Mona Lisa in the Last Supper there.

Because it turned out that I had spent valuable seconds, perhaps even minutes pointlessly thinking about Poltergeist, my ever resourceful brain devoted itself immediately to finding a productive reason for thinking about Poltergeist in order to keep me from feeling too stupid. Keeping me from feeling too stupid is one of the primary functions of my brain, second only to finding new and creative justifications for buying a purse. In a fit of inspired genius my brain then decided that I needed to find pictures of the dead bodies that had started bobbing around in the swimming pool excavation just in time for Jo Beth Williams's big screaming-in-a-wet-t-shirt scene. As everybody with a resourceful brain like mine knows, urban legend has it that real dead bodies were used for this scene. My intellectual curiosity is very naturally piqued by this possibility, because wow cool dead bodies.

It is really, really hard to find images of that scene. I've looked before and found nothing, but this time I was beyond successful. I found not only a very clear picture from that scene, but also the answer to a mystery that has plagued me since the days of my earliest memories.

I found out that there really was a movie made in the seventies about a psychotic, kill crazed wooden puppet, and this has filled my heart with joy like only a psychotic, kill crazed wooden puppet can. Because it means I'm not crazy. I didn't just imagine it. I really did get the idea - and I'm using the word idea as a synonym of knowledge here - in my head that puppets are bad, bad, bad from somewhere, not just from my imagination.

Why, perhaps the creators of that movie even had automatonophobia themselves. Oh no I didn't make that word up! Check out the sweet factual reference action there, baby. It totally makes all the stuff I actually do just make up credible.

The movie was Trilogy of Terror, and it was an ABC movie of the week that aired back in the halcyon days when parents allowed very small children to watch programs with the word terror in the title. While eating sugar. Without a helmet. It was awesome! Probably best if you don't let your kids read this.

All my life I've been haunted with fragments of images of a little wooden doll chattering through a house, chasing, it turns out, Karen Black (why was I not surprised?) and hacking at her ankles with it's little wooden knife. I don't remember any gore, and it wasn't so much the prospect of a puppet thing suddenly turning homicidal or someone getting hurt that freaked me out. It was the way the thing moved that gave me this case of the oogies that has lasted decades.

Puppets do not move like anything natural, innocent, or in any way good. They move like bad, bad, bad things. I'd describe it more eloquently, but that would require conjuring up a mental image, and I do not have anywhere near enough chocolate in the house to deal with that. Suffice it to say that little tiny human like things jerking around with fixed grins on their faces do not amuse me.

(Because I don't do political humor. You capitalize on it.)

So here I am, all these years later, not only gratified to know that I did not imagine this fiendish little made for tv gem, but with a video link to the very segment from that movie itself open in a tab on my computer! Finally I can satisfy the curiosity that has burned in me since childhood, and actually see this little monster that cast such a long, dark shadow over my life.

No freaking way. YOU watch it.

Am not a sissy sissy cry baby face. I just don't want to, that's all. Don't bug me!

Besides, I'm going to go play with my Feels Like Home award that the most interesting and ever engaging JenJen at Jen's Voices Gave me.

Thank you darling!

Everybody's going to see this title, aren't they?

2010-01-31T23:45:00.000-07:00

I was never afraid of monsters as a child. They didn't exist, and never mind what the internet tries to tell you - they still don't. Shoving granny's old dentures in the mystery meat you found behind the taxidermist's and dropping it on a beach somewhere does not a monster make. That's just a fun activity for a blind date and nothing more.

Mummies were always slightly more probable, but they're in Egypt. The only old mummies we might have kicking around Canada would be the frozen variety. By the time one of those things thawed enough to reanimate it would be a heap of soggy, moldering mush, and nothing was getting past our dog smelling that deliciously putrid. The biggest worry there would have been whether or not reanimated corpses are a bit salty. Our dog couldn't handle salt, so that being the case they could have posed a legitimate risk to our rugs, or at least they would after they had cycled through the digestive system of their welcoming committee.

Wolfmen could happen in North America, but anyone with a dog knows how to handle one of those - just put some peanut butter on it's back and call the pound while he's trying to lick it off. As for vampires, that threat I've never understood at all. Kick 'em in the teeth. Now what are they going to do, turn into a bat and poop in your hair?

That's not to suggest that I was a brave child, though. I'd lie awake at night trembling under the covers too, but it wasn't horror movies that gave me nightmares. It was diaper commercials.

I used to love tormenting myself with the fear that my mother might have allowed me to have been used in diaper commercials when I was a baby. The efficiency of youth allowed me to skip over hindrances of probability that might have compromised my terror, like the fact that we'd never lived anywhere near anywhere that diaper commercials are produced or the fact that my mother had never said anything along the lines of "Sweetie, remember that time I let everybody in the whole wide world look at your naked bum?" It's good that she did never say that. If she had I might still be rocking in the corner, sucking my thumb.

Very neurotic, yes, thank you for noticing. I would actually mind having my fully blossomed into womanhood tush featured on national prime-time now less than I would have minded knowing anybody anywhere, other than my parents or pediatrician, had seen my fresh from the oven buns when I was a child. Of course I'd love to blame this neurosis on my parents - it's the done thing - but try as I might the finger just won't point there. They believed in conforming to the standard guidelines of legal decency, but that was more path of least resistance than it was an exercise in morality. Wearing clothes sort of just fell under the general blanket of it keeps the neighbours happy, so why question it? There was never any suggestion that being naked was in any way shameful. I very cleverly devised that little self torture all by my self.

That's why I'm glad my mother didn't have a blog. I like reading about other people's children's epic poos - we all know the rule: it's funny when you're not the one who has to clean it up - but I'm glad I'll never have the opportunity to read about mine. I'm just not that okay with myself I suppose. And I'm okay with that. Does that constitute a dangerous psychological paradox? If it does, watch this daredevil move: I'm okay with that, too.

I'm also glad legends of my epic poos won't be available for my kids to read. Or their kids. Come to think of it, I might be even more glad that my great great grandparents didn't have blogs, because I just might be less okay with reading about my grandparent's epic poos than I would be with the prospect of my grandchildren reading about mine.

Adults of tomorrow, good luck with your brave new world, and go forth without shame - we all know everything there is to know about your butts already anyway.

Did you even read this title?

2010-01-29T22:02:00.003-07:00

A lot of people like to joke that the internet was invented for porn. Ah hahaha. You scamps! No. It was of course invented for arguing.

Wolf Spiders and Galapagos Tortoises each clear several hours of their schedule for mommy and daddy alone time. They're still at it long after the average human couple has unlocked the door, brushed their teeth, caught the first half of the late show and dozed off wearing their glasses. The average person just doesn't have the stamina to play that hard very long.

When it comes to arguing, though, our species can definitely go the distance. Many a baby has been born in an office chair because mommy was too busy debating the finer points of cloth vs disposable diapers in the forum thread she started the same day she peed on the stick. It's not that internet arguments go on for a long time, it's that they never end at all.

Some arguments get closed by moderators. Some arguments are abandoned when better arguments spring up somewhere else. No internet argument, however, is ever truly over. They wait. They incubate. They migrate. First to twitter. Then to the blog. Then back to the forums and the infectious cycle is complete. Less phoenix from a flame than forest fire from a cigarette butt, they rise again to consume all attention spans in their paths. A lot of people do their best to avoid them, but sometimes you don't even know you're in one until the marshmallow's melted off your stick and you can smell your burning hair. That's why it's so important to learn the warning signs:

Quotations:

If it's addressed specifically to you and it doesn't rhyme, odds are you're being argued at.

Religious quotations:

Uh oh. Now you're in trouble.

Nazi references:

Are you going to sit there and take that?

ALL CAPS:

Surely the computer wouldn't allow them to type it in ALL CAPS if it WASN'T TRUE, now would it?

Maturity level estimations:

I don't know what you said, but you clearly struck a nerve there. Also you just might be debating Pee Wee Herman.

LOL:

Okay they're officially running out of things to say.

I have more important things to do:

Well you won that one, but again, it's never really over. They'll be back in another thread.

And so will you.

My people do write the quaintest titles though, don't we?

2010-01-27T12:40:00.001-07:00

I live in a small but very affluent city. In fact the first remark people make when they find out where I live is a stunned "they have a trailer park there?" Indeed they do, as a secret shopper noted during the grand opening of a nearby housing development. "Yes," the sales representative conceded,"but don't worry. It's fenced in."

Well the joke's on her. We trailer parkians are a freakishly agile bunch. Comes from all that crawling around shooing skunks out from under the skirting. Plumbers appreciate it when you do that before calling them out. They didn't at one of the trailers my plumber got called out to. He was already underneath the thing working when he made that discovery, and in his haste to get away forgot that the pipe he'd been working on was pretty much exactly at mouth level in the direction he was turning at approximately five thousand miles per hour.

That was the last he saw of those teeth. But still, agile! I mean he did get away, after all. Well most of him did, anyway.

No, it's not a glamorous life. Glamorous people don't live in houses that tilt at odd angles after heavy rain falls. Glamorous people don't have leaky taps that they refuse to fix because it keeps the pipes from freezing when it's forty below, and glamorous people don't generally have small mammals denning under their front door. The few that do probably spend more on haircare for those mammals than I do on dental.

Trailer park people are well aware that we're the laughing stock of, well, everywhere. We're a stereotype, a catch phrase, and a hilarious party theme all rolled into one. Let's be frank, we're the only distinct demographic that it's still okay to make fun of. We're the lovable chumps of North American society. Not poor enough to be scary poor, just poor enough to be ridiculous. Not an economically important enough population to worry about alienating, and not a socially troubled enough population to worry about being sensitive to. We're not tragedy poor, we're comedy poor. We're Jerry Springer poor!

One thing we're not, though, is house poor. My home isn't as desirably located, attractively architectured, or even as sedentary as I might ideally prefer, but the most important thing it isn't is the bank's. For me there can be no home sweet home sweeter than a home I can truly call my own. Well, mine and the skunks' I suppose.

Now I just need to make this title more interesting.

2010-01-25T20:27:00.001-07:00

I'm having trouble finishing this book I'm reading. There's a lot of interesting stuff in it, so I really want to. Unfortunately, though, there's also a lot of:

Day 1: the bird flew away
Day 2: the bird flew back
Day 3: the bird flew away
Day 4: the bird didn't fly back
Day 5: the bird still didn't fly back
Day 6: my mistake, the bird did fly back. Anyway it flew away now.
Day 7: forgot to check on the bird

which goes on for entire, lengthy chapters before finally culminating in

Conclusion: I think I might have been watching the wrong bird.

I want to be smart, I really sincerely do, but damn. Why does being smart always have to be so boring? Why can't researchers pad out their accounts with a little hot nerd on nerd action or something? I mean come on, there are no tvs in an observation blind. We know they've got to get up to something to pass the time while they're waiting three days in the rain to see if the bird 5921-09 will peck meat specimen 31498 or meat specimen 31499. Document that! We're bored too!

No, I don't really think researchers should start writing erotica. In fact, I probably can't overstate that: I really, really don't think researchers should start writing erotica.

"Oh professor McCullough," she said in a weird, gaspy kind of voice, "I think perhaps a more appropriate topic of conversation at this point might be a comparison of contraceptive preferences."

"Of course, Monica," Professor McCullough replied, taking his glasses off carefully by gently grasping the frame in both hands because if you just take them off by one arm you'll twist the hinges, and even though they always do that in movies anybody who's actually worn glasses for any amount of time is going to know better, "I've studied and rated the tensile strengths of all the popular prophylactic brands."

Monica fainted, overwhelmed by the exactitude of the professor's scientific method.

Still, something has to be done. People are putting down smart stuff and picking up remote controls all across the nation. Why? Because smart stuff is so boring! We want to say clever stuff at cocktail parties too, but why should we have to suffer through boring learning stuff to earn that privilege?

This is exactly why we need to fund reverse evolution studies. With all the bird species in the world we should be able to crank out a couple dozen half decent dinosaurs within a decade or so. Or at least a mammoth. If I were reading a scientific account about a woolly mammoth not arriving when it was expected I would be intrigued and want to know more. Why not? Where did it go? Is it headed this way? How much direct force can the roof of my car withstand?

Ask anybody in any school - kindergartner or doctoral candidate - and they'll tell you that the more dinosaurs science has in it, the more interesting it is.

Compare:

Day 1: the bird flew away
Day 2: the bird flew back
Day 3: the bird flew away
Day 4: the bird didn't fly back
Day 5: Daryl was eaten by a Pterodactyl
Day 6: set up an observation blind in front of Deryl's remains
Day 7: the bird flew back

Conclusion: we need to replace Daryl

I rest my case and await my grant.

Where did I put that list of titles?

2010-01-22T17:38:00.000-07:00

The Advantages of Keeping a Messy House

Everything becomes infinitely more interesting when there's housework to avoid.
Never having to search for a particular pot, pan or utensil. You know it's in the sink.
If nobody can see the floor, nobody can tell you haven't vacuumed.
Never having to worry about having enough refreshments on hand in case company drops by, considering there's absolutely no way on earth you're going to let them through that front door anyway.
Nothing clean to wear is a perfectly valid excuse to go shopping.
You always have available storage space if you never put anything away.
Look around. Would you bother trying to rob you? Neither would anybody else. Enjoy your peaceful night's sleep!
Not having to consciously prioritize. The important stuff always manages to sift itself to the top of the piles.
Crossing a room without stepping over anything, and sitting down without having to move anything first? That kind of thing is exactly how people get lazy.
Knowing that when you die, everybody's going to have to find something more substantial to compliment you on than for being a good housekeeper.

Of course my titles are fair trade.

2010-01-19T23:05:00.002-07:00

There are a lot of things I've given up. Smoking, drinking, driving too fast, staying up too late, hot young men. Okay, so maybe some things gave me up first. Some were harder adjustments than others, but by far the most painful was caffeine. The great injustice of it all is that I didn't even give it up on purpose.

It was a Sunday, and I realized that I wasn't going to have enough coffee to mainline my regular amount during the day and still have a fix left for breakfast the next morning.

Yes. Coffee is breakfast.

Bell rung, drool collected, I got ready to follow my well ingrained response pattern to the store. It was then that cruel lucidity sunk it's razor sharp reality into my poor defenseless torpor. It occurred to me that coffee was the only thing I was really out of. There was nothing else I was going to need before I'd be able to stop by the store on my way home from work on Monday. No other reason to make a special trip.

That's when I got arrogant. Arrogance is stupidity wearing sequins on a dance floor - something very few people can pull off and an absolute slaughter of dignity when attempted by people who can't. I decided I didn't actually need coffee. I decided to tough it out, and to quit capitulating to my every whim.

By ten am the next day my forehead was hanging inches above my desktop like a water logged Jack-In-The-Box, and I was all but completely incoherent. The only word I was able to articulate was headache. Hm. Articulate might not be the exact right word. I believe I pronounced it something like "eeeeeeeeeeeeruuuuungh". I am confident that it's meaning was adequately conveyed, though.

Arrogance had gotten me that far, I figured, so what could be the harm in seeing how much more it would take to destroy me completely? Again, I'm probably not transcribing things entirely accurately. While I do believe that was the actual evil plan my brain was formulating, it did present a far more seductive sales pitch to my squirming puddle of conscious awareness at the time. Something about how if I never wanted to go through that pain again, I had better not put the crap that hurt so bad leaving my system back into my system. No matter how deliciously, divinely good it feels going in.

It wasn't the drug that made me want to quit, it was the withdrawal.

Fine. Rah rah rah go me. Ouch but okay, I surrender. No more coffee! Come what may! Come sleepless nights, come panicked deadlines, come 7 am - and it does, every single morning 7am shows up as if somebody might actually be glad to see it - I will face them all with courage and conviction, but without caffeine!

What came, the very next day, was the directive from my boss to attend one of the city's finest hotel's meet and greet shmooze fest for industry contacts. One featuring not only some of the most succulent smelling fresh brewed coffee I have ever smelled in my life, but tables - plural - filled with the most opulent display of the finest quality assortment of dark chocolate confections that I will probably ever see in my life, created fresh for the occasion by a gourmet chocolatier. All of it chock full o' caffeine.

That was their theme. Those bastards made expensive chocolate the entire theme of the event. They really wanted me to eat it. I really wanted to eat it. It was right and honorable and good that I should eat it. I couldn't eat it. I didn't eat it.

I was a sad, sad little critter. Standing there. Staring at it. Sucking my sprite through it's tiny little red bar straw.

I prevailed, though. I made it. I detoxed and became caffeine free. There was no way in hell all that suffering was going to waste. Now that I am detoxed I don't make servers brew a special pot of decaf just for me and I definitely haven't cut chocolate out of my diet. I'll have caffeine on an occasional basis and in small amounts, I'm just not letting it build up in my system again.

Technically I'm not an addict anymore. No caffeine? No withdrawal. No problem! And yet, you'd fare better trying to take a bone away from a pit fighting dog than you would laying one greasy paw on my morning decaf. Such a quaint, all consuming little obsession, coffee. Isn't it?

I found this title in the clearance bin marked Slightly Irregular.

2010-01-17T18:30:00.002-07:00

I spent almost twenty dollars on socks yesterday. Obviously I didn't spend it all on one pair.

I got two pairs! Okay I know that still sounds crazy, but you have to understand that they were 50% off. So while I spent nearly $20 on socks, I got nearly $40 worth of socks.

That didn't make it sound even a little bit less crazy, did it? Well who knew eighteen dollar socks even existed? But I promised I'd buy myself good socks for a change and... and I spent eighteen dollars on two pairs of socks.

Oh dear. I hope I'm not stupid. I try so hard not to be.

The package says they were developed for the military. Knowing military budgets, eighteen dollars is actually rather cheap for a pair of socks. That's their average per unit cost on a post-it note. It also said they had, um, advanced sock technology for... I think a better overall sock wearing experience of some kind? Or something?

Oh no. I am stupid, aren't I?

These better be good socks. Wait wait wait right there let me qualify that! These had better be good socks by my definition only. By my dog's definition they better be terrible socks.

There's a reason I'm always out of socks. His name is Max.

Is it laundry day yet? I'm starving!

After every spring thaw I find roughly 4-6 socks in the yard. Max carries them out there. You can just get rid of any charming images of a happy dog bounding playfully into the yard with a sock hanging out of his mouth right now, though.

Those socks did not drop out of his mouth.

I don't understand the appeal! At first it was just socks out of the hamper. He'd go rummaging in there while I was away. Charming. He misses me, and obviously my dirty socks smell more like me than anything else in the house. Cute. He loves me so much he wants to eat my stink. I'll just have to make sure to bury them a little deeper in the future.

Okay, that didn't work. He ate two tea towels and a wash cloth to get to them. Less cute. I'll just have to keep the laundry basket in the kitchen, on the other side of the doggie gate.

Now why is he eating clean socks, for heavens sake, and how did he figure out how to open my sock drawer? Yes, I'm asking you, cats.

So the sock drawer is blocked off behind a trunk now, the laundry basket's in the kitchen, and he still manages to get his daily recommended servings of sock more often than I care to admit. Sometimes I am careless and take my socks off when I'm somewhere other than in the kitchen. Sometimes the phone rings between taking clean socks out of the dryer and barricading them in their secure repository. I also have to let him through the doggie gate to go outside, and sometimes he manages clandestine visits to his beloved laundry basket while I stand flapping my hands like signal flags trying to navigate my more blind than not little sixteen year old dog through the large gaping hole in the wall that leads to the yard.

Sometimes I fall into a deep sleep wearing two socks and wake up wearing one.

It's not that the dog's smarter than me. Not much, anyway. It's just that he has a lot more time to devote to finding ways of getting my socks than I do to finding ways of keeping my socks away from him. While I'm busy running around trying to manage our household and the career that finances it, he's spending the day on his doggy bed calculating the what correct angle for startling a sleeping cat in order to knock the best pile of laundry off the dryer is. I've had to resign myself to the reality that there's pretty much only one place in this house that is completely safe for a sock to be.

That's why, should you ever drop by and decide to grab yourself a snack, there are forty dollars worth of socks in our refrigerator.

Too much title? Or not enough?

2010-01-14T23:59:00.001-07:00

Now that I've blatantly condoned lying, I'd like to address the importance of keeping promises. Namely the promises we make to ourselves. Specifically the promises we make to ourselves when we're kids. Promises we swear we'll keep when we're grown up and riding destiny like a well broken stallion.

I, for example, was honor bound to buy myself a jar of Flinstone's vitamins for my eighteenth birthday and to eat as many as I could in one sitting. A promise is a promise, and if you can't trust yourself life is going to be a very dark place where fact and fiction commingle in obscene and uncomfortable ways. Kind of like an angry Three's Company. Only you're not Janet or Chrissy or Jack - you're all of them. And you're the Ropers, too. Eventually you become Mr. Furley as well. And that guy with the chest hair. Jack's friend. Whatshisface.

I thought if I kept typing that analogy would eventually go somewhere, but I think I'm going to let it drop now.

I ate the purple ones and the red ones. The orange ones? Threw them away! It goes both ways, remember - when you grow up not only can you eat anything you want to, but you don't have to eat anything you don't want to either. Run destiny, run - into the wind!

Of course want itself does evolve in alarming and unforeseeable ways as we age. You can't really know, for example, how important another person's wants can be to you until your hormones teach you how badly you can want another person. Likewise you can't really know how badly you want to eat well and stay healthy until you're no longer cute enough for other people to want to tuck you in and feed you soup when your orifices start spontaneously erupting with slime.

Generally speaking, though, we actually do a very good job of avoiding things we promised ourselves we'd never make ourselves do. The backbone of the global economy has been built on industries that profit directly from our promises that we wouldn't make ourselves do math or walk to the store when we got big. What happened to all the things we promised ourselves we would do, though?

Look out in your driveway. Do you see a fire truck there?

Where is your driveway? Do you live in Disneyland yet?

Okay not everything's going to be doable. But have you at least gone to the theme park your parents never managed to take you to?

Hey I'm not pointing fingers here. Last time I checked in the bathroom mirror I still wasn't Cher, so I've still got a lot of figuring out to do to make good on all the promises I made myself as well. Some of them are completely doable pretty much anytime, though.

C'mon. If you've got a box of Jello powder in the house odds are part of you wants to stick your finger in it, and if that's true odds are even better you promised yourself once upon a time that you would buy yourself a package someday specifically so that you could stick your big ol' spitty finger in there, whether you remember it now or not.

Off you go then.

And yes, My name is PJ, you most certainly do get confetti for being my 100th follower!

Hope it's okay like that. I just hate to have to get the vacuum out. You know.

AAA1 Quality Blog, Ltd: Titles You Can Trust

2010-01-12T18:28:00.000-07:00

The party was over. The dj was announcing the last of the door prizes and I was loading up the props. On my way down the hotel corridor I passed a dashing young man in a rapidly accelerating state of dishevelment standing just outside the ballroom. He talked on a cell phone while being swarmed by an elegant and very agile young woman wearing a feverishly pink ball gown.

"Hi, mom? Yeah, it looks like the gala's going to run really late tonight and... nono, you go ahead and lock up for the night. I can crash at a buddy's place..."

There are those who believe that lying is never acceptable under any circumstances, and I respect that. If I hadn't believed in the concept of greater good before last night, though, I feel confident that I would now.

This title needs a little work.

2010-01-10T18:45:00.000-07:00

So I figure if my grandmother could get 102 years out of a body built in the late nineteenth century, it's completely reasonable for me to expect my twentieth century model to last at least 140. That's 140 good years, mind you - all the usual caveats about being able to swallow all my spit and deposit any other physical creations of mine directly into the appropriate plumbed receptacles apply. I'd also really, really like to forgo the fart-as-you-walk thing. I'm willing to exchange clippable toenails for that one.

I not only think it's possible, I think it's likely. No, I am not forgetting all the things I've inhaled, drank, and eaten. I'm looking at the people who taught me how to inhale, drink, and eat all that crap. The people whose beautiful young bodies started breaking down when mine was still growing new and exciting things in feminine places.

Thank you, baby boomers. Thank you for smoking, toking, drinking, and living on soda pop and the fine family of Hostess products. Thank you for taking your youth for granted, and for freaking out when you discovered that you'd decimated it.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is thanks for botox. And tummy tucks. Thank you for laser eye surgery and for advanced dentistry techniques. Thank you for every revolutionary nip and age defying tuck. Thank you for sacrificing any communist principles you may have held in your youth for self serving, scientific research funding capitalism the minute you realized that the arteries in a heart full of love can clog up like a sink fed bacon grease and coffee grounds just as easily as the cold dead pipes in the chest of an industrialist can.

Most of all, thank you for doing it first. Thanks to your legacy of wanton excesses and panicked regrets, all the technologies will be perfected and all the prices will be competitive by the time I need to start booking appointments.

None of this should be taken as an admission to my having or even considering getting work done, mind you. I wilt like a tender little flower at the very suggestion of such stigma. It's all very progressive and open minded to get a tattoo or a piercing, but pump a few CCs of saline into your boob and people start looking at you like great grandma looked at that hussy who had the bold faced temerity to bleach her hair just like those common tramps in the moving pictures.

Why can't people just grow old gracefully? Because people can grow old any damn way they please, and the older they get the less of a damn they give what anybody thinks about it.

It will all be irrelevant soon, thank goodness. When the technology evolves to the point or a practice becomes popular enough that you can't be sure the person you're talking to hasn't had the same work done as the person you're trying to ridicule, that's the point at which a body modification becomes socially acceptable. By some extraordinary coincidence.

This post has been brought to you by the color gray, because it occurred to me the other day that I have no idea what the average age is for people to start to go gray since almost nobody ever does anymore. Nation of bold faced hussies, that's what we are!

Now everybody under the age of 45 go hug a baby boomer, and thank them for giving you the option of dying old and leaving a good looking corpse.

I have written this title before.

2010-01-05T20:22:00.003-07:00

Why are you putting the dog food in a tree? How would you feel if I put the coffee maker on the roof?

Over the years my dog has had many occasions to puzzle over a variety of my behaviors, from the bafflingly inexplicable to the despicably unfair. From why do I go to all the trouble of carefully picking all the cat poops out of the box when I'm just going to throw them away, to why won't I let him do it and keep them from going to waste? He has always weathered my various transgressions of logic and compassion with grace and patience, but this time I think I might just have snapped his doggy zen clean in two.

I started to notice that neighbours on the end of my block always have a swarm of chickadees on the tree in their front yard. I'm a big fan of birds who have the fortitude to winter up here on the fifty-stupidst latitude, and there aren't many. For all their noise and mess, you really appreciate the sight of a crow or a magpie when it's the only living thing for miles not wearing a parka, and they are pretty much the only things you do see around at this time of year. Them and the chickadees. Now it's one thing for a bird the size of a guinea pig to tough things out, but it's downright awe inspiring when a critter with legs like guitar strings and less meat in it's shell than a pistachio nut hunkers down and takes it like a Canadian. I do so love and admire chickadees.

Geese, on the other hand, are despicable traitors. Don't even talk to me about geese. Enjoy Florida, you cowards. Hope you don't get heat stroke under all that fat you got from eating our grain during the short growing season. Geese are the animal kingdom equivalent of unwelcome relatives who overstay their welcome, drink all the booze, don't clean up after themselves and never offer to chip in for anything.

Okay. I wasn't going to get started on geese, but I did and now I'm done. It's out of my system now, and that's probably for the best.

Long story short, I decided that I wanted chickadees in my yard too. Careful observation led me to conclude that the containers hanging from the tree where they gather likely hold some sort of an attractant, so I took my little theory to an expert. My boyfriend. His qualifications as an expert are extensive: he has a really big yard.

My theory was confirmed. Those little containers hold a substance known as bird food. Fortunately my boyfriend is also an expert in another subject I'm largely ignorant about: grocery shopping. He's been in aisles I've never even heard of. He's purchased pasta products that contain neither macaroni or cheese, soup that takes longer than three minutes to cook and, yes indeed, food that was developed specifically for birds to eat.

It was right by the cat food. I'd bet money that stock clerk put family planning next to the baby food aisle, too. Listening to canned, 80's pop music forty hours a week can turn a mind to very dark thoughts.

It turns out that one of the favourite foods of these tiny, delicate little creatures is suet. I must say when I learned that my admiration for them increased exponentially. Why, they scarcely look able to intimidate a fruit fly, and here it turns out they dine on cattle! I'm not sure how they manage to secure this favourite food stuff in areas that are not equipped with pet food aisles, but if I'm ever near a cliff and see a cloud of them darkening the sky I'm going home.

So my dog and chickadees have something in common. Oh the joy that spread across his little doggy face when I unwrapped the stuff. Oh the spring in his step when we exited the house and took it out into his yard.

Oh the face that will haunt me in my dreams forever when we hung it out of his reach.

It's been out there for two days now, and the chickadees haven't touched it. Might have something to do with the hundred pound carnivore guarding it around the clock, coupled with the fact that there don't happen to be any steep cliffs around this end of the trailer park.

Have I written this title before?

2010-01-01T21:09:00.000-07:00

I am vehemently and passionately opposed to naps. Have been since the age that my taking one was a medical necessity (for the health of my teachers). Nap time was always my worst subject. I was the kid in kindergarten lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling wide awake, wishing I could tell time so I could count the minutes until I was allowed to get up off the floor and get back to the important business of wondering how long it would be until I was allowed to go home.

Now I'm the grown woman sitting at a desk and staring at the computer screen half asleep, wishing I could tell time to hurry up so I didn't have to count the minutes until I'm allowed to go to bed. Not that I ever need a clock to tell me when it's time for bed. If I've got eyes like a startled cartoon character and am bouncing around like a balloon losing air I know there must be just exactly enough time for me to get a good night's sleep before I have to be up in the morning.

And am I getting enough sleep at night? Generally yes, in direct defiance of the super happy exploding brain-itis that strikes me every evening, I am. Am I eating my vitamins and getting lots of fresh air and physical activity? Check and check and check again! Transforming into a brain deprived zombie for absolutely no reason at two pm every day, even on days that I slept in until noon? Yeah. Why is that?

I've been informed that it's because I'm more plant-like than my succulent meaty textures would indicate, and follow some kind of natural cycle which likes to shut bodies down in the middle of the day. Seems like a crock to me, but apparently it's science and my personal opinions are not. I'd like science to explain why it closes me up like a dandelion after sun down in the middle of the afternoon when there's nothing else stopping me from being productive, but keeps my naked monkey self wide awake all winter long despite the fact that winter is cold and I believe I just mentioned that I'm naked and perhaps I should also note that there are critters with thick fur coats whose bodies still have more sense than to stay awake when it's minus forty outside. So why doesn't mine?

Yeah yeah, science. Blah blah Kenya blah blah evolution blah blah space heaters. Stop excusing and start fixing. Here's the deal: if I go to bed on time like a good girl and get a good night's sleep, you let me stay up in the afternoon to play earn-a-living. Okay?

No, I know better than to expect a rational compromise. This is no accident of nature. This is a very carefully designed plot to usurp the laps of humankind, and this is exactly why house cats should never have been allowed to rule the world.

Well there's this title written for another year, anyway.

2009-12-30T00:32:00.000-07:00

Is it over? Is it safe to come out yet?

I'm not cynical. I just have a low threshold for festivity.

Yes, I'm glad Christmas is over. I can get from one end of a mall to the other without bruising, nobody's trying to feed me from bowls of indeterminate content (scary when you're given a vague description like "stuffing", terrifying where gelatin is involved), and nothing's going to show up in the mail that makes me feel guilty that I haven't sent anything. Well, except perhaps the credit card bill.

The whole getting together and bonding and giving me presents is great, sure. I'll also readily acknowledge that the insanity of Christmas is probably the only thing that keeps everybody, myself included, sane over the winter. Never mind what your local not-for-profit billboard campaign says, that's the real reason for the season. Whatever your religious beliefs, you know you'd need something to celebrate in the middle of winter whether there was a faith based holiday or not. It gives us a focus to keep us from fixating on how far away spring is. That's especially important for people whose ancestors didn't think to ask "wait a minute, if they're giving away the land for free, what's the weather like up there in this Canada place?" If we didn't distract ourselves by trampling one other at the toy store and having heaving crying fits over half thawed turkeys in December we'd be running naked and cackling into the snow drifts by February.

Instead of March.

Admittedly I'm just not jolly by nature, but in truth I think my real problem with Christmas is that it reminds me of winter. Why on earth would I want ornaments and greeting cards featuring snow all over the house when I can just step outside and festively freeze to death for realsies in less than five minutes, or under two if I forget to wear a *toque? I don't want poinsettias and evergreens, I want dandelions and crab grass. I want barbecues and beers, not roasted beasts and mulled stuff. Winter I've already got. Make me a better offer, or I'm just not buying that it's a holiday.

Again, though, and I can't stress this enough: please don't anybody interpret any of this to mean that you shouldn't give me presents. I wouldn't want to ruin your gift giving holiday, after all.

*Canadian knitted head wear often featuring a pom pom to assist in the locating of frozen Canadian corpses in deep snow.

Better keep the receipt for this title, eh?

2009-12-22T23:52:00.000-07:00

Oh blog, I missed you so. Let me curl up in your lap and tell you my tale of adventure and daring while you stroke my hair and feed me sweet salted licorice until my smile is aglow with lumpy black teeth.

I went to the mall today... now wait right there! Let me make two things perfectly clear:

1) I was not there to shop
2) I fully qualify for sympathy

My library is in the mall. I had no choice. If I waited until after Christmas to return my due items I'd be looking at a good fifty bucks in late fines. I'd dive into a shark tank at feeding time if you dropped a dollar in there, so yes, I was prepared to brave the festive shoppers to conduct my business.

Actually it wasn't so bad. I got a decent parking spot and everything, and ten count 'em ten documentaries were sitting there on the hold shelf with my name on them. Happy Geekmas to me!

So that made me smile. And that smile made me unique amongst the thronging masses. And my favorite thing about Christmas is having an excuse to use the expression thronging masses. And I'm digressing. Interesting that I was one of a very small minority of people in that mall not in the service of holiday celebrations, and yet I was also the only one smiling. Well, there was me and a library assistant who was clearly new to the place. She was wearing the mandatory "Hi there, I'm agreeable!" expression common to everybody working their first day at a new job and shelter dogs trying to get adopted. Unlike her, though, my smile wasn't causing my gum line to cramp up.

Hope she does okay. She really was doing a great job on the smile.

Yeah, Christmas would be great if it wasn't for all the anger. Now normally I do use the considerately inclusive term "Holidays" when talking about seasonal celebrations, but I don't know if the other solstice holidays are as retail intensive as Christmas. Maybe Hanukkah, but I think Hanukkah partiers are done their shopping by now, aren't they? Well anyway if I'm wrong and you're all out there elbowing each other in the eye sockets trying to get the last box of Menorah candles, count yourselves included in this post too.

It's just amazing how quickly people switch from normal citizens into crazed all consuming holiday beasts. One day everybody's just going about business as usual, joking light heartedly about how late they've left their shopping and oh how they hate you if you've managed to buy something already, hahaha you keener you, making them look bad! Then the last weekend before Christmas comes and goes, everybody suddenly remembers how to read a calendar, and people are cutting in front of ambulances in snow storms to make it to the last passenger drop off spot five seconds ahead of the DATS bus.

This is the part where I'm supposed to say something wise or profound about having devised a clever alternative to holiday shopping and/or system for getting holiday shopping done early, hm? Share photographs of the gaily painted magpie eggs I harvested and pickled myself, and will be giving to everybody in nests made out of old scraps of recycled ribbon along with a donation receipt from ducks unlimited in lieu of crass commercial items people might actually want, perhaps. Or maybe graph my analysis of what exact time and day of the post-Christmas sale season is ideal for scoring the best merchandise for next year's gifts at the best prices with a minimum of effort? No. There'll be none of that here. I mean yes, I did think I was clever and had thought I'd beaten the system. The system does not like to be beaten, though, and I have been thoroughly punished.

I decided to have a hundred percent, handmade Etsy Christmas. That turned out to be a terrible idea.

Okay now wait another minute - yes you know I know some of you are Etsy sellers. You know I'm one too! Gabba gabba one of us! Put down the crochet hooks, ok?

It's possible some of you haven't got clue one what I'm talking about, too. Etsy is a non-auction site that is otherwise kind of like Ebay (juuuuuuust leave those hooks on the table where I can see them, Etsians - this is just shorthand for the civilians. Yes we all really know Etsy doesn't actually compare to Ebay at all and nobody's suggesting otherwise, okay?) where sellers open shops to sell their handcrafted wares.

And to throw home made, one of a kind, 100% recycled hissy fit tantrums when you point out that they haven't got a clue what they're doing, too, which unfortunately you sometimes do need to do. There's good reason so many Etsy sellers spend so much of their lives sitting at home all alone doing crafts.

There are sellers with balanced personality profiles that I know and trust, though, yes. Many! That is the point of this post, which I am getting to. I've just also discovered that the unknown substances on that site are cut with some pretty harsh downers. Amusing when it's spring and you're just waiting for a pretty handbag to go with your sandals, but amateurs with unstable personalities are not to be trusted with the time sensitive deliveries of gifts for people you love.

Ultimately after weeks of fighting people who moonlight as vending machines for crazy that dispense as soon as you insert money, almost everything did arrive, and where things didn't these marvelous sellers stepped up to the plate and saved the day:

My Nominations for Santa's Good List

BathingInLuxury who, upon learning how a seller had decided to sell the item I'd already bought and paid for to someone else a week after I'd purchased it, practically strapped a bar of the most divinely fresh scented soap - green grass scent, to help get my gardening neighbours through the long winter! - to a rocket pack equipped pigeon in order to get it here in time for me.

UrbanCheesecraft who, upon listening to my concerns that the item might not arrive in time, did back flips through flaming hoops to make sure that come what may, I would have a gift to give and was 110% committed to making sure I was 120% satisfied with the transaction, and oh yes I am. Seriously, how cool a present is a kit for making your own cheese? Comes highly recommended by other people I know and trust, and it is put together beautifully. I can't wait to give it!

And special mention goes to a very, very special seller indeed, who is as wonderful a person as he is professional, and that's pretty darn very damn. I didn't happen to purchase anything from him this year, but I would never hesitate to for even a split second. He was there standing ready to dash out an overnight delivery of wonderful gifts for me to give to the people I love if I'd come up short, and the guy's undergoing chemotherapy. Selfless much? If you're on Etsy it would be a very, very good idea to heart mindlesspursuits and check out his insanely cute t-shirts when he returns. You couldn't patronize a more conscientious seller.

So yeah, just laughing at the lunatics and loving the heros in my life, and so happy to be completely done with all my Christmas performances now and back to blogging at last! Seriously, no commiseration necessary for the nut jobs, okay? I've learned my lesson about sticking to sellers I trust when time is an issue, and I've been blessed with great sellers as great friends who were there for me when I needed them. That's the happy ending we're taking away from this Christmas story.

Oh yeah, and to address all of the speculation, I produce and perform interactive comedy for corporate and promotional events. For now, anyway. I don't know... you all might just be on to something with that bank robbing idea.

A title? You shouldn't have!

2009-12-14T18:58:00.004-07:00

Aaah presents from men. I just received a festively wrapped box from my boyfriend containing:

- Jumper cables (because he knew I didn't have any and that worried him)
- Long burning emergency candles (because he wasn't confident that the tea lights I do have in my car would keep me alive as effectively in -40 temperatures)
- Super insulated highly durable work gloves (because I was speculating that I probably haven't owned a decent pair of warm gloves since my mother stopped dressing me)
- Survival blanket (because I both drive and hike to silly remote places all by myself, and if you're catching on to the developing theme at all here it's obvious to you by now that I'd never think to buy something like that for myself, only to very sagely point out what a good idea they are when other people buy them)

And...

...as lovely and elegant a pair of driving gloves a person could ask for, because I'd noted in passing that my best pair were starting to show some signs of wear.

So not only does the guy worry about me when I'm out mucking around on my own in the cold, but evidently he even listens to every word I say when I blather on about my clothes.

I think he likes me.

I think I like him too.

Greetings from the other side of sanity!

So Pseudonymous High School Teacher was wondering just what kind of performance I'm involved in, and for good reason: I avoid trying to describe what I do for a living like the plague. I'm proud of what I do - I've been getting paid to do it for over eight years and people regularly offer to do my job for free, so I figure I probably don't suck at it - but damn it is not easy to explain.

Here's what we're going to do, then. I'll give you a mash of relevant words, and you're all free to arrange them as it amuses you to imagine me:

Comedy Interaction Production Games Administration Costumes Actors Venues Clients Props Liason Contracts Mystery Management Presentation Audio/Visual Wigs Character

I think the only thing missing from that list is Chief Freaker Outer, because I couldn't figure out if that actually should be three words or just one long hyphenated one, but yeah. I'm in charge of that, too.

That's what I do for a living.

Thank you everyone, very sincerely, for your wonderful words of encouragement this past weekend. My slobber is very literally knocked indeed. I woke up on Sunday morning and saw the dog about to trip over a cord. I went to shout "Careful!" and managed only a quiet "eh uh". That did not convey my sentiment effectively at all. Luckily, though, the humidifier was only half full when it dumped it's contents all over the carpet, and my little dog Allison's still spry enough at 16 to land on her feet when 100 tumbling pounds of canine flesh upend the basket she's sleeping in, so happy ending there. I still sound like Janice Joplin on a bad phone connection, but I've at least regained enough ability to conduct the essential operations of life such as ordering pizza and telling the dog to spit the cat out.

Pizza. Hey. I'm a genius.

Gotta go.

No wait! Also!

Mwah Mwah Mwah and big belated thank you to Jeanne at The Raisin Chronicles for this:

She's fabulous, and very much in my thoughts today.

Okay now I'm done. I've got a ton of blogs to catch up with!

This title will self destruct in... whenever.

2009-12-09T18:11:00.002-07:00

My first priority is keeping up with all ya'll's (I think spell check just had a seizure on that one) blogs, and beyond that writing a real update, which this is not. This is a non-update notification. Note the lack of punchlines or pet references.

This is the slobber-knockeriest (okay, I can definitely hear spell check crying now) weekend of the whole production intense performing season, and when I'm not skidding around on ice-rink roads dressed funny with a back seat full of sound equipment and a draw drum poking me in the ear, I'm on the phone making nice with venues and performers, so the internet's mostly just for MapQuest and icanhascheezburger (hey, a gal's got to have something to get her through) these days.

Great big grease paintey internet hugs to everyone, and see y'all on the other side of sanity soon!

I don't feel like writing a self referential title today.

2009-12-06T17:46:00.007-07:00

If you were to be dropped on a deserted island with one fully functioning room of your home (barring two way communication devices because, you know, you'd just use them to be rescued and screw up the entire premise of the thing, just like the rocket scientists who announce that if a genie granted them one wish they'd use it to ask for unlimited wishes. Cute if they're about five years old, but otherwise okay, you're very clever. Absolutely no fun at all, but very clever. I'm going to go play with my stupid, fun friends now. Bye bye, Einstein.), which room would you choose?

Smart money's on the kitchen, right? What with all it's food preservation and preparation devices and clean water on tap and whatnot.

Of course if you've got a basement or a garage loaded with tools, that might provide an even greater survival advantage. Dinner's not just going to come running and hop in the fridge if you call "Here piggy piggy piggy!" invitingly enough. You're definitely going to have to kill it, and it's probably not going to stand still while you attempt whacking it to death with a spatula, either. It might be better to focus your resources on those that can help you devise pig securing and dispatching devices than on something to help you preserve bacon that never comes when you call it. Tools are most likely the first thing you're going to need.

And yes, building something to escape from the island is perfectly admissible under the rules of hypothetical fair play, on the grounds that it does not qualify as being an easy out. The jury's not in yet on whether the inflatable pool toys you have stored next to the Christmas decorations or canoe you bought at a garage sale and have had sitting there propped up and ready to patch for going on three years now will be admissible, though. We'll just go with nuh-uh for now.

Pragmatically speaking it seems evident that the best criteria for selecting a room would be the prevalence of useful gadgets and/or appliances in it. Wait a minute, though. What about the living room, or the den, or whatever other room it is you have your tv and/or stereo and/or specially designed for the purpose of this hypothetical situation reception-only internet equipped computer in? The island's deserted, remember. That means nobody to talk to. Not even a volley ball with Tom Hanks' hand print on it. No perspective on anything ever except your own. Humans evolved without refrigerators and socket wrenches, but not without each other. The argument could certainly be made that seeing and/or hearing other human beings could contribute more to a person in isolation's overall well being more than a well appointed food preparation area or stocked workshop could. It's a tough call.

And still, I'd pick the bathroom. Ever been bitten by a mosquito when you're trying to pee?

By the way, I do really like this website:

http://www.thesitsgirls.com/

and especially all the great people I've been meeting there, so this is to say a sincere Merry Sitsmas to all those who know what on earth I'm talking about!

If I don't use this font to write the title I won't win the Superbowl.

2009-12-04T20:21:00.003-07:00

I was asked by Fyre Bird the other day "Why purple pens?" in response to my stated fact that I always use one of my ten identical purple pens to write in my journal before bed.

Why purple pens? Well... why air? Why water? Why puppies and rainbows and the sexy neighbour who conveniently forgets to pull his blinds down when he works out? Is nothing self evident anymore?

In truth I have no particular attachment to purple ink. Or rather, in deference to my recent lesson learning about the value of not making sweeping pronouncements about myself before actually thinking about what I'm saying, I had no particular attachment to purple ink when I bought the things.

I have ten identical pens because I've used the make once before and really liked them. I have ten identical purple pens because I bought them at a liquidation centre. I always use one of my ten identical purple pens to write in my journal because what else am I going to use purple pens for, doing my taxes?

Except that I did use one of them to do my taxes, actually. I also plastered the envelope I sent them in with stickers of puppies and kittens. I sincerely hope I succeeded in making someone's day a little less beige.

So there you have it. All perfectly logical, even pragmatic reasons for owning ten identical purple pens and using them exclusively when I write in my journal.

And when I bought them those were the only reasons I had for owning ten identical purple pens and using them exclusively when I write in my journal. I admit it's gone beyond that, though.

It's all about being in the zone. It's all about having everything that's of no particular importance being familiar to the point of invisibility. It's all about having the tools fade into the background and letting the creation occupy all of your focus. When I'm writing with one of my ten identical purple pens no part of my mind is looking at the colour of the ink, or the quality of the ink, or the thickness of the line, or adjusting the thing to my hand, or deciding if I like the tool in use. It's just there quietly doing it's job with no attention from me.

You know, some of my favourite people are a lot like purple pens.

I'll write exactly half this title and th

2009-12-02T23:50:00.001-07:00

I'm not typing this, you know. Well I guess I will be now in the future, but I'm not here in the past. As I arrange these words I'm lying on my side in bed, writing longhand into a spiral notebook with one knee propped up so that Cynthia the One and a Half Eyed Supercat can play tee pee. It's a weird fetish of hers. She likes to spend the first five minutes or so after I go to bed curled up under the arch of one or both of my legs. It's possible she was a troll in a former lifetime. Or perhaps a foot stool.

Who am I to call her fetish weird, though? I reread yesterday's post that I wrote earlier today just before crawling into bed. The post I opened with the statement "I'm not ritualistic". Now here I am yesterday, lying here like I do every night, using one of my ten identical purple pens to empty the extra thinks out of my thought hole into one of my four coordinating fruit themed notebooks so that I can sleep.

Of all places for me to state "I'm not ritualistic" I had to pick my blog? What is diarizing/journalling/blogging if not ritualized writing?

I really like that idea. As soon as you call a thing ritualized it immediately gains ten pounds and gets wrapped in cellophane. Transformed by the magic of romance into a thing of substance to be preserved.

Cynthia just crawled out from under the covers. That's when little Miss Doesn't Have Any Rituals here always puts down her nightly scribblings and tucks in for the night. If the entry continues from here it will be written real time, on the day it's posted.

Okay, it's not yesterday anymore now. At least not until tomorrow. Now I feel all weird, though, like I'm interrupting myself.

Anyway I got all excited about that, you know? I got a ritual! I'm all grown up and deep and stuff. Maybe I should start my own religion? Great tax breaks in that I hear.

Over-excited might be the better descriptor. It's just such a foreign concept to me. I've never joined in or adapted to any non-compulsory, social rituals. Not that I shunned them or anything. Shunning is actually not even nearly as much fun as it sounds. It does sound like it should be a fun thing, doesn't it? Like an old fashioned street game played with barrels and canes or some great old-country invoking domestic art involving yarn. Unfortunately it's just a fancy word that means going off and pouting and not playing with somebody when they won't do things your way. Boring! Screw that.

I just never got voluntarily involved in ritual on any kind of a social basis, let alone emotionally attached. I suppose that's the distinction I was making without seeing. Now there's this whole blog thing, though. It's definitely a ritual. It kind of dances the fine line of a personal vs a social one too, doesn't it?

Of course there is that whole title thing I do.

2009-12-01T22:51:00.004-07:00

I'm not ritualistic. I don't have a lot of traditions. I don't even shower on any kind of reliable schedule.

Yeah, so? I live alone and I don't take public transportation. As long as I keep a can of Lysol by the door for when company drops by, where's the problem?

Ah you're just jealous.

Back to my point, if Muthering Heights is reading this she's probably experiencing a great galloping whallop of deja vu, because my opening statements are basically a repeat of a comment I left on her blog entry about traditions yesterday. It's certainly fair to say that her post helped inspire this one. It was the date, however, that instigated it.

December 01st. Is anybody else territorial about their birth month? That's right. I might not be ritualistic or traditional, but I'm hard core sentimental. I have no desire to relive or recreate any part of the past, I just don't want any of it to go anywhere. I'm alternating between writing this post and browsing vintage purses on-line. Guess how many of the ones I've earmarked remind me of my mother?

Hey, I'm a girl. It's not Hitchcockian for me to dress up like my dead mother. It's actually a really good idea. Mom always said I'd inheritted my father's sense of style. He of the self described "Chinese New Year" colour combinations, more popularly known on this continent as "Christmas decoration" colour combinations. When wearing his beloved bright red shirt and bright green pants combo stopped satisfying he painted our entire basement those colours. In high gloss paint. It looked like the dungeon where Santa keeps the mean elves. And yes, mom was right. I always did like the way he dressed. Even after I grew old enough to know better.

And now I manage both a roster of performers and a costume department. Yup, that means people have to wear what I tell them to. Adult people. If ever a job hiring deserved an evil laugh it was mine.

No no, I'm very careful not to dress other people up like me. I'm kind of Beethoveney that way. He could write the most delicately phrased passage in a symphony and then scream for peas at the dinner table like his underwear was on fire. I might look like a feral child raised at a flea market, but my performers are always polished.

December will always be my month. I was born in it, and I'm keeping it. I will always be my father's daughter, and I will always be reminded of him everywhere I look in December.

I guess I just don't feel a personal need for rituals or traditions. The world always manages to remind me of the things I want to remember without any help from me.

That all said, you know I'm going to be keeping this:

super awesome fox tail tie that I won from The Girl With the Flour in Her Hair over at her awesome blog Peeling An Orange With A Screwdriver for absolute ever. I just wish my father could have seen me in it.

Eh, it's probably just as well. He'd likely have just borrowed it and never returned the thing.

Don't read this title yet - I want to re-do it.

2009-11-30T00:49:00.003-07:00

I performed for an audience of plastic surgeons last night. I was the featured focus of attention in a room full of people who have had extensive training to find room for improvement in people's appearances.

Well c'mon, I couldn't help but be conscious of that, could I? I do know that it's a silly thing to focus on, though. It's like back before therapy became so common, when people would worry about how sane their answer made them sound if a psychiatrist so much as asked them what time it was. "Quarter past. The hour, I mean. Which is nine. It's a quarter past nine. I do have the full time here. Just like everybody else! Says nine fifteen. Right there. Would you like to see the watch? Oh okay, oh... wait. It's nine sixteen now. I'd like to note that the time did change while we were talking, and that I have never had any difficulty in assessing the correct hour. I am not a communist!" Pure self obsessive paranoia. It was a great show and the doctors enjoyed the entertainment. They weren't analyzing my bone structure and doing a comparative cost analysis against the price of water front property in Hawaii. Probably. Right?

Okay, so I'm not convinced. Actually, if we look at that analogy a little more closely it's really quite odd that we have stopped guarding against involuntary psychoanalysis, isn't it? Our worst fears there have become realized in full technicolor with surround sound. We were worried about degreed professionals trained in objectivity analyzing us? Hah! You can't even order a cup of coffee without a free personality assessment thrown in on the side these days. "Check out Mr. Decaf Soy Cappuccino over there. Today he wants chocolate sprinkles. Classic passive aggressive transference, that. I'm betting he had a fight with his mother." Now pretty much everybody considers themselves qualified to analyze every single thing we say, either on the virtue of having taken a handful of psychology classes in university or on the basis of something they heard somebody else who has taken a handful of psychology classes in university say on a talk show.

I guess we don't worry about whether or not other people think we're sane any more because we know nothing we can say is going to convince anybody that we are anyway. The saner we sound the more obvious it is we're in denial, after all. It's okay, though, because we know the people who think we're insane probably consider themselves to be exponentially more messed up. They only have access to the symptoms of our mental deficiencies when we're actually around to display them (excepting, of course, those of us who have taken the wise precaution of preserving them for future generations on a blog), but self criticism never takes a holiday.

Nothing's ever going to stop us from worrying about what other people think about how we look, though. Birth control, automotive transportation and the internet combined haven't had the impact on social evolution that the invention of the mirror did. I'm sure the first person to ever look their clear, undistorted reflection in the eye immediately hid in a closet until their mother could convince them to come out on the promise that nobody would laugh and there'd be chocolate pudding for dessert. That's not to suggest we don't have our priorities straight, though. Of course we know it's what's inside that counts.

Why else would we be so anxious to create a good distraction on the outside?

You want this title finished when?

2009-11-26T18:01:00.013-07:00

Q: When is the proper time to notify an entertainment company that you've changed the time of your event and/or invited an extra hundred people or so to attend and/or that you want specific customization done to the show?

A: The day before the event.

Wrong! Wrong! Wildly, wildly incorrect and no no no no no, what's more!

And yet, an unfortunately common answer.

Christmas has me by the throat. Everything is scheduled down to the second and the wrenches are flying with abandon, lodging themselves merrily in every well laid plan I have made.

I understand. I do. Completely. Hiring entertainment companies is not something most people do on a regular basis. Hey, that's not a problem! Nobody's expected to know exactly how to go about it or how things progress from the booking stage. That's fine. That's what we're here for! We're here to help. Give us a call. We'll answer any questions you might have. Anytime. Really. No, please. Call. Don't make assumptions. It's not a bother, we'll explain everything. No no no, please don't presume. Really, we're paid to handle it, let us handle it. No don't try to make these decisions on your own and then throw them at us at the last minute. We've done this before, we know what works. We know what doesn't work. Please don't do this. Stop it. No don't have a committee meeting I beg you. Please. C'mon - one lousy phone call!

They don't call.

I try to climb inside their heads to get an idea of what's happening in there sometimes. I go right to the very back of their brains and through the dusty, cobwebbed door with a stack of broken chairs heaped in front of it marked "entertainment company". Inside I find shelves as high and as far as the eye can see, each overflowing with clowns and magicians and other colorfully costumed characters. An intercom crackles, sending their little imagined version of me scurrying. For the record I don't actually scurry, and how dare they put me in that ugly cardigan? Okay fine, most of them have never seen me in real life, I suppose I can be forgiving. But really, the over-sized tortoise shell glasses? Couldn't they have imagined me some contacts?

Off little imaginary me goes, rolling a ladder with a top that disappears at the vanishing point along the towering shelves. She's clutching a little piece of paper that notes this client needs five more performers than they booked for, and they need them an hour earlier than scheduled. No problem! Up the ladder she scurries (yes, she scurries along both the horizontal and the vertical planes) until she reaches the appropriate shelf. She plucks off the appropriate number of appropriately costumed performers, and hurls them down into something resembling a laundry bin on a rail. Zoom! Off goes the bin along it's underground track which connects it directly to the hotel where they're holding the event. Voila! Another successful production.

Really, when you look at it that way, giving our company a whole day's notice is rather generous.

Every word of this title is true.

2009-11-24T17:15:00.009-07:00

So if I were to write two consecutive posts about my pets, how annoying would that be? Very, wouldn't it? Okay. Maybe I should just write about my boyfriend.

My boyfriend gets along with my pets really well.

Look, I'm sorry! But there are five of them, you know. As I write this very sentence I am having my belly kneaded and thighs drooled upon by a loosely packed ten pound bag of purr. The topic's kind of inescapable around here. They're part of the very air that I breathe. Seriously - has anybody else ever inhaled a dog hair? That's like the final exam at sword swallowing school.

Look at it this way - it's really not much different than being a mommy blogger. It's basically exactly the same, only sad.

The point is I can't not write about my dog right now. In about forty minutes I have to leave to go and have dinner with my boyfriend, and the dog's not coming.

And the dog has somehow figured this out. And the guilt is already killing me.

Oooh yes he knows. I've been careful not to speak the man's name. I haven't made a move to get ready yet. Still - the dog knows.

Of course he knows. He's a dog. Dogs can smell guilt. Believe me, too - nobody oozes the stank of guilt like I do.

I've never had to face the moral dilemma of lying. I'd be more likely to face the moral dilemma of how to use super powers responsibly. I lie rather less ably than I outrun speeding bullets or jump over tall buildings, and I know that, so I just don't do it. Not even to my pets.

Really, I've tried it. It didn't go well. I told my cats that the cheap crap I bought them was all they had at the store. They didn't question my story. You know, because they're cats. I still crumbled. Confessed. Apologized. Assuaged my guilt with kitty treats. They accepted them happily. I considered counseling. Ultimately decided that would just be too embarrassing to admit to a counselor (but not, apparently, the internet), and decided it would be easier to simply never lie to my pets again.

Those aren't reflections of the flash in his eyes, those are guilt rays.

I think, though, that the lie of omission might be the worst lie there is when dealing with dogs. After all, to them one "blah blah blah blah"'s the same as the next "blah blah blah blah"'s the same as any "blah blah blah blah". It's when we're quiet that they know we're up to something.

Okay, I have to go and get ready here.

He's looking at me. Make him stop looking at me!

I'd better pack a toothbrush. I don't have the guts to come home smelling like roast beef.

Heeeeeeeeere titletitletitletitletitle!

2009-11-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

People often wonder what animals would say if they could talk. I consider my pets. The many years we've been together. The many things they've seen. Then I consider the cost of having their vocal cords removed.

Absolutely, it would be wonderful to be able to ask them things like why the cardboard file box filled with important work documents was so much more tempting than the cardboard scratching post filled with catnip, or what, pray tell and for the love of all that is holy, is so horrendously, anguishingly dreadful about having your fur gently brushed that it warrants screaming that special scream dogs reserve for when they're trying to convince your neighbours to call animal protection services? I wouldn't expect a straight answer on questions like that anyway, though. I already get as much of an answer as I'm ever going to. Damn right animals can smirk.

No, there really is no practical benefit that could outweigh the dependency the relationship my pets and I share on the fact that they are not capable of relating anything they've seen or heard. Ever. To anybody. It's enough that they're capable of dragging the contents of the bathroom garbage out into the middle of the living room for cocktail party show-and-tell, I don't need them providing colour commentary on how the various items were used.

There are a lot of reasons cited for humans' deep affection for animals, but I think their provision of mute witness is the cornerstone. They'll keep you company while you hurl juicy insults into the toilet bowl and never remind you about the incident again. They'll listen to every argument about why your boyfriend should be drawn and quartered and never say "Well I certainly didn't expect to see you back here!" after you've stopped being angry at him.

They won't fart and blame it on you, and I think everybody with pets knows from experience that they won't defend themselves when similarly accused.

It's no use, Cynthia. Once you've seen me naked you can't un-see it.

Of course if they could talk they probably wouldn't talk about the sorts of things that we like to talk about anyway. I think we can take comfort in the fact that our dogs don't have enough interest in our personal dramas to go about relaying the details of our late night dessert fueled orgies of self examination. We could be confident, however, that were they ever to have a deep discussion with our dogs, our friends and neighbours would be provided full detailed accounts of the the many rich and varied fragrances that emanate from our backsides.

Any way you look at it, they know too much.

And now for some shameless bragging:

When somebody really funny gives you an award because they think you're really funny that's really cool, and that's why this Musterole Award! (exclamation point mine, because the words Musterole Award! just look naked without one for some reason) is so cool - because Speaking From the Crib gave it to me.

It's likely anybody reading this is already reading her blog because it's that damn good and she has that damn many followers, but if on the off chance I found you first, go go go go go to her blog. You'll love it.

Thanks, babe!

I'm only writing this title because I felt sorry for it.

2009-11-18T17:07:00.034-07:00

I've done it, and I'd do it again. I just hope I don't have to.

There really is nothing wrong with internet dating, though.

Hahahahaha - you thought I was talking about burying my neighbours under the azaleas, didn't you? Ah haha. No no. I collect stamps now.

Really, though, internet dating is not the dip into the sleeze pool so many people make it out to be. You have to have a special membership for that. For the main part, internet people are a lot like real life people. It's almost as if the two were connected in some strange, mysterious way.

One of the greatest concerns people have when considering online dating is misrepresentation. Most women worry that the people they're talking to might not really be single. Most men worry that the people they're talking to might not really be women. Everybody worries that the person they're talking to might not really look like their picture, almost as much as they worry about whether or not anybody's going to notice the "Happy New Year 1987" banner in the background of their own picture.

Thank you, yes, some people do say I look young for my age.

The next most common concern is the matter of how does one describe oneself? A lot of people have realized that the simplest approach is to just write "I never know what to say in these little boxes LOL anything you want to know just ask". As I honestly have no idea how they keep up with the torrential responses from people afire with intrigue and probing questions I can't in good conscience recommend this approach.

Another popular method of self description is to describe yourself using nothing but cringingly obvious references to painful dating experiences:

"I believe in HONESTY and TRUTH in a relationship. Game players NEED NOT APPLY. If you just want someone to take you out and buy you drinks all night and pay for a cab to wait while you make out with the obviously underage cashier and then never return so much as a single one of forty six phone messages even though your mother said you were home and your car was in the driveway you know LOOK ELSEWHERE. I'm not willing to settle."

Some don't even get as far as the date:

"I'm not here to play games. If I write you the nice thing to do is write back, even if just to say you're not interested. Why are you even here if you aren't even going to write people back? I would write you back! IT'S THE DECENT THING TO DO."

These latter approaches manage to circumvent the torrential responses from people afire with intrigue and probing questions problem very effectively.

Those among us with basic powers of observation have likely noticed something of a pattern developing here. The two elements that are evidently very commonly believed to be essential for a successful dating site profile are:

1) Informing people that you do not play games, do not like games, are not on the site to play games, don't like people who play games, and don't care if they didn't ask you to play their stupid games anyway because you just said you didn't want to so there.

2) Remembering that if you need to share with people an important insight about the kind of person you are and what you're looking for in a relationship, ALL CAPS AUTOMATICALLY MAKE ANYTHING YOU WRITE POIGNANT. They're especially effective in conveying just how deeply sincere you are about the fact that you DON'T PLAY GAMES.

The self description component need not be an issue, however. If unsure of what to say or how to say it, simply post a clear picture of as much cleavage as the site censors will allow and/or an annual income of $100,000+, and you can write "Wheeeeeeeeeeee I'm a gumdrop!" and still hit in-box capacity within an hour.

In-boxes are someplace else entirely. Equal parts Christmas morning and visiting your mean aunt at the nursing home. Gardens of delights and cat poops.

The first thing you learn is not to open your mail. That is, not all of it. Open the profiles of the people who sent it first, then decide if you want to open their mail. If the profile features, for example, a webcam image of someone holding a ruler alongside their fully extended tongue, you might not be interested in learning their impression of the photo you posted of yourself holding a cat. If their profile is illegible l33t and emoticon soup you don't need to open the letter. I'll tell you what it says right now. It says "What's up?" or some witty variation such as "howru2nite?" or "40SS#%^?" which I mostly just made up but could possibly mean something (and I apologize if it made anybody cry), which in dating site-ese means "I'm bored, entertain me". If you want to help someone achieve the world record for most chat windows open at any given time by all means involve yourself. If you're hoping for a more romantic interaction I would suggest placing an order at a take-out window. You can play Chris Isaak on the car stereo and let your fingers touch when they hand you your change if it helps.

Letters with a subject line that clearly references something you wrote in your profile and indicates that they totally get your sense of humor? Clear your schedule, get a fresh cup of coffee, turn off the music and give every word every ounce of your attention. Those are the gold you're mining for.

If you're serious about finding someone to date, find other people who are serious about finding someone to date.

If they can't take the time to type full words for you, they're not going to go to much effort to win your affection later on, either. Delete.

If they're full of compliments for your photo and mention nothing about what you wrote, that's because they didn't bother to read anything that you wrote. Save your time for people who care as much about your contents as your packaging. Delete.

If, after reading their letter, you can imagine it being addressed to a someone completely different and still being completely relevant, it's a form letter. Delete.

You will get fewer responses if you don't post an income. That's a good thing.

You will get fewer responses if you don't post a hyper-flattering photo. That's also a good thing.

You will get bored, disappointed, frustrated, disillusioned, and fed up. So will the person looking for you. That's okay. If you both persist, the internet really isn't all that damn big. You'll find each other.

Just remember - always wear protection when kissing frogs.

I wrote a title, and you can too!

2009-11-16T18:43:00.006-07:00

Ten reasons you should take an overnight trip:

1) Hotels and motels typically provide a few choice, free toiletries. Most of us will go anywhere and, yes, pay anything for free stuff.

2) Look around you. You already knew what you were going to see before you did that, didn't you?

3) The internet needs to test your love. Let it set you free so you can come back to it. Only then will it know that you truly belong to it.

4) It's one freaking night. You can even purchase dairy freely without worrying about it spoiling while you're away.

5) You know how the dog freaks out and loses it's mind with joy if you're gone even slightly longer than it's used to your being gone? You know you love it. You know you want it.

6) It doesn't matter how high your resolution is or how expensive your monitor was, you can't really tell how much greener the grass is on the other side unless you go there yourself.

7) There's somewhere within driving distance you've never been.

8) Money was invented to be spent.

9) Some of the greatest adventures known to human kind were undertaken by people who were completely broke.

10) You might meet a magical leprechaun! Yeah okay, but the odds of meeting one do significantly improve when you leave your living room.

BONUS REASON: When you come home you get to log in and find out people have been saying nice things about you behind your back.

People like brndoutw8ress who gave me this:

Which only just happens to be my firstest everest award in my whole blog-life.

And also people like Oh My Goddess who gave me this:

Which is The Goddess Award* Lucky Friday the 13th Edition, and which looked a lot better on her blog because it was all spinny and shiny and cute and stuff but then like every other non-carnivorous thing I get my hands on, as soon as I transplanted it the thing just died. Mine is a nurturing soul, but I've come to accept the fact that if I can't feed a thing meat, it won't survive my care giving attempts.

So the first thingy has a thingy where you have to do a thingy and elect seven more people to do the thingy and I'm not very talented with thingies of that nature, so the right thing for me to do would be to decline that award. No way in hell. It's my first award and I'm flattered and I'm keeping it unethically and that's all there is to it, so, y'know, if anyone's out there sputtering with indignation, you just go ahead and call the blog police now. There's the full confession.

And I'm sorry I killed The Goddess Award, but I will display that corpse with great pride as well.

Anyway I'm right flippin' tickled. These women and their blogs are oh so holy cool, and more often than not I just boggle that people even consider my posts reasonably coherent. Thanks you two, and if I ever figure out whatever the hell it is I did right I'll make sure I keep doing it!

You write the title. My fingers are resting.

2009-11-13T17:01:00.004-07:00

I'm having a rock star day.

No, I didn't wash my hair. It's bigger if you don't.

Of course I'm playing my music too loud. If it wasn't too loud I might risk hearing other people. I can't risk letting their psychic energies disrupt my creative process.

Sleep? Boring. Besides, I don't need to sleep. I dream better when I'm wide awake, baby.

Yeah, the place is a mess. I'm not a total pig, though. I'll move into a hotel if it gets really bad.

I can't decide what to have for breakfast, bourbon of cocaine. Or maybe toast. Yes, I know it's nearly six o'clock in the evening. Your point?

I'm tired of these dog and cat creatures. Bring me a capybara. Dye it pink to match my Porsche.

Hey! Where the hell is my Porsche?

I started this post with nothing but a title and a dream.

2009-11-10T20:11:00.017-07:00

It might surprise you to know that I painted the cow used for my blog background before I'd even met my boyfriend. Actually, it probably wouldn't surprise you at all. I haven't actually mentioned that I'm dating a farmer yet, have I?

Right. Linear, ordered thinking. Got it.

I'm dating a farmer.

I'm from the city. My working definition of what a farm is had always been "place where young folk with big dreams and a lot of gumption escape from".

I've been informed that this is a very biased perspective. My perspective has changed, though. Well, expanded anyway. At least to "place where young folk with big dreams and a lot of gumption escape from, but not before changing their shoes".

I don't know why the man calls himself a farmer. All he has are cows. I'd always thought farmers who only had cows were, y'know, cowboys, but now I'm thinking maybe it has more to do with the kind of footwear a person favours than with the kind of food they raise.

My boyfriend does not wear cowboy boots. He wears rubber boots. Any rational person who's seen the price of cowboy boots, and who has seen cattle pasture, would do likewise. The main criteria for fashion in the pasture is hose-off-ability. Things with texture and decorative stitching hose off not worth a damn. Rubber, baby - there's your bovine friendly couture.

We were at Farm Fair this weekend. Got up early on Sunday to make sure we had enough time to see everything.

Let me restate that. I got up early on a Sunday morning, a day when I don't have to get up early, and I went to Farm Fair. It's a fair, where they feature all things farm related.

Yes, I like him that much.

There were a lot of people running around in cowboy hats. I've always questioned the practicality of something that looks capable of catching and riding a swift breeze all the way up to the jet stream, and am convinced that cowboy hats must fall from the sky at random intervals in remote areas of Africa and Asia. I do have to say, though, that those cowboys weren't squinting in the sun or having to constantly wipe rain off their faces. Those hats did offer full protection from the elements.

Did I mention that this was all indoors? Apparently cowboys are highly vulnerable to the effects of fluorescent lighting, because none of those guys were taking any chances with it.

We started our mosey (yes, I know how ridiculous I sound trying to talk cowboy. I couldn't even type that with a straight face) at the Dodge City Trade Show. Many cowboy boots and hats were for sale there. We also browsed a lot of practical items essential for living out on the range like livestock trailers, water filtration systems, and the Slap Chop. Then we made the mistake of lingering that half a moment too long that it took for an Emu Oil salesperson to latch on to us.

Yes, Emu. Yes, like the bird. Directly from the bird, actually, although whether it is secreted by the bird or forcibly squished out of a cold pressed Emu I didn't ask. I was too busy trying to fend off the free sample.

I failed. I smelled like Emu for the rest of the day. I can't quite describe the smell of Emu, but I can tell you that when you smell like Emu you don't feel the least bit sexy. I'm thinking zoo breeding programs must need a special budget allotment just for scented candles.

I'll bet you didn't even know that Emu oil is less greasy than Ostrich oil, did you? Well aren't you glad you stopped by my blog now!

Thoroughly lubricated and cradling a literal arm load of mini donuts so fresh I probably have concentric pucker marks seared into my windbreaker, we left for the main auditorium where we could blot out the smell of emu oil with horse droppings and enjoy our snacks. There was a draft team pull competition on. The cowboys competed to see whose horses could drag the most weight behind them, and the horses competed to see who could knock their cowboy's hat flying the furthest. I'm not too clear on the rules, but it's possible that bonus points were awarded for every hat to land in poo.

It was fun, though. Well, it was fun once I had been thoroughly reassured that the horses were doing nothing that could result in any kind of injury that would result in their needing to be shot. I might have been lied to, but that's okay. It was convincing. That's all I ask.

From there we examined the Alpacas, and made a damn fine show of looking like we knew what we should be examining them for, too. Why at one point we almost managed to appraise a specimen.

"That one's cute."

"Yes, but the darker wool might be harder to dye, so you might not get as much for it."

"Then maybe the darker ones are less expensive?"

"Ah yes, good appraisal."

Mostly, though, we just wandered around until someone nice took pity on us and let us pet one, and then went home satisfied. Well, mostly satisfied. A certain member of our two person party was very noticeably disappointed by the lack of cow related activities.

So sue me. I like cows.

This title will do.

2009-11-07T15:38:00.013-07:00

Few things are as under appreciated as ordinary days, aside from perhaps youth and health. And arch support. Good insoles, people - always a worthwhile investment.

Look around any emergency waiting room on any given day. There isn't a person in there that wouldn't rather be doing the dishes, fighting traffic, or standing out in the rain in their pajamas while the dog squeezes out that last precious drop of pee that just couldn't possibly wait until morning, despite the fact that they'd just asked the belligerent beast if he'd wanted to go out not five minutes before they'd started getting ready for bed. Ordinariness like that takes on all the romance of first loves and childhood Christmases when lost to circumstances we would give anything not to be a part of.

On ordinary days the alarm goes off and we inwardly complain about having to get up. Actually, those of us who don't have children in the house complain very outwardly, and with a surprising creativity considering the earliness of the hour. It's amid these obscene assaults on the day that we neglect to appreciate just low lucky we are to have beds too comfortable to want to leave. It probably wasn't very difficult to pry our ancestors away from their vermin riddled bags of straw in the morning at all.

On ordinary days we yell at the jerk ahead of us for holding up traffic. What kind of valium popping zombie goes 105 in a 110 kph zone, anyway?

Well, what kind of bipedal ape travels faster than a caffeinated cheetah? Apparently one incapable of appreciating that once it's already going 101 kph faster than it can walk, sacrificing 5 kph of velocity probably isn't going to lose the day unless there's a row of shiny red lights on top of their vehicle and a person hooked up to life support in the back.

You're not Batman. The freedom of the first world is not dependent on your getting first pick of the donuts in the break room. Chill out, boy wonder.

On ordinary days we get upset when we don't get our way, sad when people fail to show us consideration, and frustrated with each other when things stop being easy. We forget that the small effort it takes to love one another unconditionally always pays off generously. We only remember when we're sitting in that waiting room, unwilling to re-imagine our lives without somebody we love in them, and wishing we were with that somebody, helping them to do the dishes. Without complaining.

On ordinary days nothing goes perfectly and most things work out just fine. The little details of displeasure that we allow to become the focus of ordinary days disappear from our memories when things really do go wrong. It's only when normalcy is lost that we appreciate what a fine arrangement normalcy was.

On ordinary days the sun rises, birds sing, and everybody pursues their own idea of happiness the best way they know how. Let's cut ourselves and each other some slack. Let's have a nice day.

After all, insoles are always on sale somewhere.

This title just seems so small, y'know?

2009-11-04T18:01:00.006-07:00

I have recently been informed that in approximately 4.5 billion years, this planet Earth is going to cease to exist. I am posting now to make public record of the fact that I am extremely displeased with this developing situation.

What they propose is going to happen is that the sun - friendly emblem of happiness credited for every day we describe as being "nice" - is going to eat us. Or perhaps more accurately burn us to vapor and then suck up the fumes.

Diagram A

I'm going to speak frankly here. I have a problem with that.

We literally worship the thing. Build it all kinds of lovely temples. Our innocent children draw smiley faces on it in their little pictures. Apparently, though, none of this behavior is anywhere near as endearing as we'd hoped. All the supplications in the world don't change the fact that in the grand scheme of things, we rank no higher than hors d'oeuvres.

No, nobody needs to come over here with picture books and explain, using their puppy house-training voice, that I'll be very thoroughly dead by that point anyway. I am quite aware of that likelihood, thank you.

Likewise, however, I think we can all concede that my death is technically just a hypothesis founded on previous evidence until proven fact. I mean what's the ultimate point of all the disease research and guard rails and letting the poor toast burn when we've got a fork sitting right there if we're just taking it as read that we're all going to die anyway? That might be the reality, but surely it's not the goal. What if we did figure it all out? Padded every sharp corner, destroyed every weapon, cured every disease, and reversed aging. Haha! Immortality at last!

Oh crap. The sun's exploding.

It doesn't show a lot of dedication to the cause if we're not looking at the long term, big picture. There's no point basting ourselves in sunscreen now just to watch our pasty flesh sizzle on the bone like pork cracklins in just a few short billion years. Little surprise that so many of us do fail to take proper care of our health. Let's examine the options: die from an excess of drinking, drugs, sleeping around and fattening foods, or be cooked by an exploding star.

Pass the methamphetamine and pop tarts. Exploding arteries seem rather more civilized, even quaint by contrast. Perhaps because there's less soul shredding terror involved.

So let's hear some options, folks. I'd just as soon not evacuate. We're already pretty settled in now, imagine the clutter we'll have accumulated in four and a half billion more years. It would take several generations just to tidy the hall closet. Nobody's going to want to pack all that. We'll need to either fix the sun or replace it. If we fix it the thing's still going to wear out again eventually, so really the best option is to just replace it.

I vote we set Jupiter on fire. Who's with me?

This title was writed all by me.

2009-11-03T20:16:00.009-07:00

My blog looks like someone who didn't know the first thing about image sizing or complimentary colour schemes messed around with the template code.

Now why on earth do you suppose that could be?

I don't care. I made a computer do something. This is epic. I'm empowered. There's no telling what I could do next, but the dvd player better get ready for some hot and heavy programming action. That's right, baby - you're going to know what time it is when I'm through with you, and it ain't 12:00!

Well I suppose it could be. I don't even know what time I'm going to get started, let alone finished. There is a chance it could be 12:00, sure. It's only 9:30 now, but it really isn't that big a priority so I doubt I'm going to get to it right away.

Who am I kidding? That's not getting done.

But still! It could! I have a slightly higher level of competence than I previously gave myself credit for. Why, the possibilities are slightly less far away from being endless now.

You know, the only reason I started a blog in the first place was just to play with the templates? For most people that would be an indication of aptitude in the area of html programming. For me it was an indication of my ability to be distracted by pretty colours. Never really progressed beyond that.

So okay no, my colours don't really match and things aren't really centered very well and if you blink too enthusiastically while looking at it you might experience a sudden onset of vertigo and slight loss of stomach content, but a lot of skill went into customizing my blog template. It goes without saying by now that none of that skill was mine. Credit for the design disaster, yes. Mine all mine. Credit for the skill required to showcase that disaster?

That credit goes to the magnificent, erudite wonderbug, who actually managed to write a post about blog customization using language so clear that even I could understand it. Seriously, with high tech-to-toddlerese translation skills that fierce we'd have Starbucks in Alpha Centauri if this person worked for SETI.

Thank you wonderbug!

This title commemorates all the titles that came before.

2009-11-01T18:02:00.000-07:00

Happy left over candy day! My teeth are crying, my dogs are sulking, there are tiny little wrappers everywhere and I'm too full to make dinner. As I type I'm popping gum balls into my mouth, chewing them for a minute or two, and then spitting them out as soon as they stop being juicy to make room for a new one. Apparently that's the way they used to chew gum just before the fall of Rome, too.

I know what you're thinking and nuh uh - this isn't stuff that was left over in the store that I bought cheap. These are legitimate left overs. Stuff I bought for other people who didn't show up to claim it. That's fair won booty.

Not my fault I fell asleep and didn't hear the door until most of them had gone home for the night. Really, it's not. Did you know there are people mad enough to think getting out of bed on a Saturday morning just to go have brunch is a good idea, and that these people have the full freedoms and liberties that normal humans do? Consider yourself warned. I'd already provided what I thought was the obvious answer to the question of what I was doing Saturday morning - nothing - and found myself staring down the barrel of a sincere invitation before I found out myself.

I will no longer count being unconscious as doing nothing. Sleeping is absolutely doing something. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but I'm very confident that it's a higher priority than brunch.

Anyway it's nice to have the festivities over with. Now I can just sit back, relax and...

...oh yeah. Christmas.

Okay. I've got about two weeks of sanity here before all hell breaks loose.

You know those annual company parties you attend in order to maintain good relations with coworkers, positively influence supervisors, and make up the difference of how much you thought your holiday bonus should have been in free liquor? I'm the stiffly smiling entertainer paid to distract you long enough for the alcohol to make you sleepy! I think the number one reason companies have for hiring the company I work for is "to avoid a repeat of last year." Sure, interactive entertainment for large groups is expensive. So is the bill for the clean up from an impromptu game of left-over-dinner-roll football or a Chinese Circus inspired chair balancing act performed by three guys who can't agree on which direction the floor is spinning, though.

The glamour. The excitement. The audiences so drunk I could entertain them for hours with a spirited game of peek-a-boo. I love show business.

The next two weeks are war room weeks. Instead of generals I have on-site producers. Instead of infantry I have actors. Instead of artillery I have sound systems and gaming equipment. Everything needs to be deployed strategically to maximize both the available resources and the impact it will have. I don't want to be making these decisions in the field. Two weeks from now everything will be mobilized, and there'll be no turning back.

No retreat.

No rest.

No prisoners.

Clients really do get mad when you take prisoners. That's probably why we require payment in advance.

This title is actually for a different entry.

2009-10-29T14:56:00.000-06:00

I had to become a professional costumer. It wasn't my first career choice, but I failed the height requirement to become Cher.

Just pausing for a moment to consider how many people have decided that I'm a drag queen after reading that opening paragraph.

I am neither of these people.

The majority of my professional career has been an ongoing attempt to compensate for the greatest disappointment of my life. It occurred when I was four. That's your first clue that I am not writing from a rational place.

It was my first Halloween. That's your second clue.

I don't know how my parents described the thing, but evidently my imagination took a lot of liberties when filling in a lot of gaps. I was going to get into a costume, and I was going to go outside, and everyone in the whole neighbourhood would be outside, and they'd all be wearing costumes too, and we'd all have a party. There'd be dancing and games and decorations and I couldn't wait to find out what else.

You're already getting a good idea of how terribly ill fated this was from it's inception. But wait! It gets worse! I hadn't even seen my costume yet.

I knew what costumes were. I loved costumes. They wore costumes in the Wizard of Oz. Glenda the Good Witch, now that broad had a costume! I was a reasonable, rational child, mind you. I didn't get my hopes up that high. I knew four year olds were supporting cast, not feature players. I would be satisfied with pretty much anything the chorus girls wore in any of the musicals my mother used to watch on Sunday afternoons. That's along the lines of what I figured a novice Halloweener would be outfitted in. Surely you didn't get feature dancer quality costumes until you were at least five. Fine with me. Anything would be an improvement on the big, brown, uncomfortable snow suit I usually had to wear when we went out.

The situation started to deteriorate as soon as my mother packed me into my big, brown, uncomfortable snowsuit. Not good - the primary caregiver was malfunctioning. Snow suit on Halloween? What would be next? Garbage for Christmas? Scrambled egg hunts for Easter? Cake for Thanksgiving? Well yeah I could live with that, but no! No snowsuits on Halloween!

"No, your costume goes on over your snow suit. It's cold outside."

Well dammit but, well, okay. After all, Glenda could have been wearing snowpants under her grand confectionary couture. Hell, she could have had a beach umbrella and two small men playing checkers under there. Yeah. I could pull off a snow suit as long as the costume was big enough.

Hee hee - Munchkins tickle!

My mother produced a small felt cape. And nothing else.

"What's that?"

"That's your little red riding hood!"

"What's my costume?"

"Little Red Riding Hood!"

"What am I dressed as?"

"You're Little Red Riding Hood."

"I'm wearing a little red riding hood."

"Yes, that's your costume.

"So that makes me a little red riding hood?"

"Little Red Riding Hood is your costume."

"Because I'm wearing a little red riding hood?"

"Yes."

This went on for some time, with my mother never figuring out that I had no idea Little Red Riding Hood was the name of a person, or that my four year old brain was not well enough developed to make that conceptual leap on it's own. Nobody I had never met had been named after an item of clothing. I thought I had just become the first. Why my mother had decided to name me after a small hood I had no idea, but what really puzzled me was how she conceptualized that small chunk of fabric as my entire costume. Clearly it would have been more appropriate to call me Big Brown Snow Suit. It really didn't matter, though. The costume sucked either way.

Never mind. At least I still had the party.

I was so prepared to be dazzled I didn't even pause at the giant bowl of candy by the door. I'd deal with that later. Opening that front door was more exciting than Christmas! Well, until it opened, obviously.

There were no decorations, no music, and nobody was dancing. There was just a strange teenage girl I'd never met before. She took me by the hand and she took me away from my mother.

Painfully shy children hate it when you do that.

She took me away from my mother and took me to a strange house. She made me ring the bell. She made me talk to people. Then the really bad thing happened. She made me accept food from them.

Another fun thing about me. As a child, I would only eat food from my own house. I'd been offered all sorts of candies and other delicious food at other people's houses on occasions when my family was visiting, and I always very politely refused with "No thank you, we have that at home." My parents had done a very good job of teaching me manners. They had also, unfortunately, done a very good job of teaching me that some adults like to feed children poison. Of course I actually did think we had every kind of food ever invented at home - both of my parents grew up in the depression, it's really quite likely we did - but I wasn't being entirely truthful with my hosts. The real reason I wouldn't eat their food was because the thought of eating their food repulsed me.

Child poisoning bastards.

Fun and games were clearly not on the agenda at all. My friends were all out, but unlike every other day in our incredibly safe neighbourhood they weren't running around and playing with each other. Every single one of them was with an adult and being led around by the hand. The possibility for fun didn't even exist - we were under more intense supervision than we'd ever been in our young lives. None of the adults (who I bitterly noted weren't even dressed up at all) were even taking us over to each other to say hi - just keeping to themselves and marching dutifully from door to door to make their children ask for food.

So that was Halloween. Getting stuffed into an ugly, uncomfortable snow suit, dragged around by a stranger, forced to talk to grown ups, not being allowed to play with your friends, and having to haul around a bag of poison all night. I was a bitter, bitter four year old. I just wanted it all to be over so I could get home to my mommy and eat the candy we had sitting by the door.

I really thought my mother was kidding when she told me she'd given all our candy away to other people's children. I really did.

Bet you weren't expecting this title!

2009-10-26T19:51:00.000-06:00

I used to live and work halfway up a mountain in Jasper National Park. It could be a hell of a thing getting groceries seeing as how I didn't drive or even own a bike.

The path to town,
and the reason I still double knot my shoes.

Photo Credit: not me

You know what? Why don't I just come clean right now. That last point about my not owning a bike was completely irrelevant. I need five cups of coffee just to pump a bicycle up a small hill. An adrenaline shot straight to the heart couldn't get me up a mountain on one of those infernal contraptions. Like I've always said, put me on a hiking trail and I'm as nimble as a cat. Put me on a bike and I'm as nimble as a cat.

A cat trying to ride a bicycle.

No, a bicycle wouldn't have helped me. Thankfully I did not live alone up on that mountain. During peak season there were twelve women living in the dormitory rooms above the Maligne Canyon Tea House.

Two. Yes, I understand. Anytime anybody hears about any quantity of women living together the first question is always "how many bathrooms were there"?

Yes, only two. Yes, I understand. It's commonly assumed that the correct ratio to prevent violence in any rooming situation is 3.5 bathrooms for every 2 women. In this instance that ratio was completely irrelevant anyway. The two we had really only added up to 0.5 in functional terms, and they only rate that high because both toilets flushed. How they managed to flush when the only supply of liquid coming through any of the pipes was a thin, brown, sulfuric trickle of mostly grit I have no idea, but they performed heroically indeed. What was in that grit I don't know. I'm sure a mineral analysis would answer the mystery of why everyone had copper tinted hair and black jewelry, though.

So the other good thing about having transportation equipped women around was that the closest supply of fresh water was also at the bottom of the mountain, at Lake Annette. There we found a pumping station where we filled gallon jugs for cooking and tooth brushing and a large, insanely cold body of water where we'd try and swim ourselves clean. What it lacked in convenience it did at least make up for in scenic properties. That lake was so beautiful I even named my cat after it.

Have you ever seen anyone use a flimsier excuse to post a picture of their cat?

The point I'm making is that for a shop in a heavily trafficked park, that place was pretty far away from civilization. As the season wore down and the traffic eased up there would be lulls where you and your dwindling population of co-workers could feel like the last people on earth.

No cars in the parking lot.

No hikers on the trail.

Just you and the mountain sheep.

Nope. The sheep left.

Just you and the trees.

Ksh. Clank.

Bus!

Some tour guide found your shop at some point and decided they liked it. Now all of a sudden you can't move for visitors. They're all talking at once and they're all talking to you and they're all talking together because they've all been on an epic journey so long they're starting to read each other's minds. They're all happy to see you because their guide told them it's a great place to be. You're happy to see them because gosh, they all seem so happy and so friendly and you were just starting to think that maybe your little mountain had fallen off the edge of the world and you just hadn't noticed yet. Everything changed in an instant and everything's alive and it's breathtaking and fun and you hardly know what's going on but what the hell, you just go with it.

That kind of happened here on this blog yesterday.

I've only been back into blogging for two weeks now, and I've been thrilled and have savoured the joy of meeting every single reader who has done me the honor of following this thing. Then yesterday I sit down to a banquet of beautiful people here presented by the delectible Braja, and my head is still spinning from the new names and faces and all the wonderful new blogs to read. There are still a few I haven't sampled yet - mmmm dessert - but I'm delighted to meet each and every one of you. This is a great chance to say the same to everyone else that I've been lucky to cross cyber paths with over the past two weeks, too - very much including the friends from my old journal who left a trail of bread crumbs to find me again.

Okay, this is getting mushy. I better shut up before I post another picture of my cat.

Wait - you mean everyone can see this title?

2009-10-24T16:52:00.000-06:00

Stop licking your monitor.

Suddenly we all want cake. Or better yet cupcakes. No. You know what? Screw it. Just fill a pail with frosting and pass the spoon.

We're done pandering to adulthood. That means we're done pretending to like grown up food. Fusion cuisine makes us feel clever at parties, but it doesn't make us feel loved. Nobody's parents ever served lamb curry fajitas with Yorkshire pudding smothered in sweet and sour sauce at Sunday dinner. Fusion cuisine, like every other food trend to come along, romanced us, pantsed us, and left us fundamentally unsatisfied. There's no emotional connection there and we're sick of feeling clever anyway. Clever people have stress and responsibilities and stuff. That's icky. The planet's terminally ill, the economy's manic depressive, we're scared to death and we want our mommies. Barring that we'll settle for the crap mommy used to shove in our cry holes to shut us up when we got whiney.

So why cake? Why of all the childhood gastronomical favourites have we glommed on to this particular one? Why not pizza or hot dogs or white glue?

Simple. Cake has no calories.

Cake is special occasion food. We grew up eating it as little kids at birthday parties. Who counted calories at birthday parties? Nobody. Back then our only food related stress was having to elbow our best friend in the ribs to get the last slice with a flower.

Then we got older. Cakes were for kids. We were cool and ordered pizza at our parties, and oh my god I can't believe he finally looked at me and I had grease all over my chin and a slice of pepperoni stuck to my cheek and it doesn't matter anyway because it was my third slice and now I'll never get into my jeans again and I'm just going to spend the night of the prom at home writing song lyrics all over my wall in eyeliner anyway.

Then we grew up. Suddenly we were allowed in nice restaurants and invited to catered parties. Suddenly we were faced with critical decisions such as which would be the greater faux pas - turning our nose up at a rare, expensive delicacy or making a fool out of ourselves by chowing down on a table decoration in front of our boss's family?

Ice cream? Don't even get me started on ice cream. Remember what you were eating when you wrote those song lyrics all over your bedroom wall in eyeliner?

We like cake because cake doesn't have baggage.

Cake has sprinkles.

This Title is in Accordance With CRTC Canadian Content Regulations

2009-10-20T19:12:00.000-06:00

As every Canadian knows, if you smell burning toast you need to remove all sharp objects from your pockets immediately. Try it sometime. Next time you're out in a tourist destination somewhere, burn some toast. See the people taking off their glasses, loosening their collars and lying down? Those are the Canadians. They are doing this because they are convinced that they are about to have a seizure.

This information was imparted to us by means of a 60 second epic historical reenactment, shown at regular intervals on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation channel for... oh time in the conventional sense has no meaning to Canadians. Let's just go with many moons. Anyway, the purpose of the production was to remind us Canadians what a proud, medical history we have of poking people in the brain to make them smell burning toast. There was also some bit about some surgeon guy who did something with seizure disorders, but mostly it was about poking brains to make people smell toast.

No, not that kind of brain poking.

Every Canadian secretly wants to try it, you know. Next time you're talking to a Canadian and thinking how polite they are, remember that - they're fantasizing about poking you in the brain.

So my point, anyway, is that I've been smelling burnt cotton candy all day, and I'm determined to find the Canadian bastard responsible for it.

Tutorial: The Fine Art of Brain Poking

Remember the first time you read this title?

2009-10-18T16:36:00.000-06:00

Roughly speaking, my childhood is as long ago now as the Second World War had been when I was a child. That means that the Second World War is roughly as long ago now as the First World War had been when I was a kid.

That means that the First World War is practically as long ago to children now as the Civil War had been to me when I was a child.

The kicker? It all just keeps getting further away.

Once you go that far back before your birth things start to take on an almost mythological quality. You have no living link to that time. To me, the people who fought in the Civil War are just as lost to history as people who fought in the Crusades.

The people who fought in the First World War, however, are still very real to me. Even though they are all just as dead and buried. I was born to older parents who were themselves born to older parents. People in my family on both sides seem to carry some kind of mutant giant tortoise gene. We take a long time to die.

I knew lots of people who were alive during the First World War when I was a kid. My grandfather was one of those dumb young kids who, filled with the patriotic flush of suicidal courage, lied about their age to enlist. His thumb rests in peace somewhere in Somme.

He was picking shrapnel out of the stump until the day he died. It was an elegant digital ballet when he hand rolled his cigarettes.

I'm sure he knew people who were alive during the Civil War. That era was as real and personal to him as he was to me.

Hm. Yeah. Hm? Sorry? Was I supposed to have a point?

Okay.

Old people are pretty cool, and it would appear as though I'm definitely going to become one someday - whether I feel qualified to be one or not.

Express what this title means using only your face.

2009-10-14T15:37:00.000-06:00

Workshopping new actors tonight. And me without any heroin. I'm just going to have to mainline caffeine until the whole world melds into one big streaky blur of movement and scream through the thing at 100mph.

Well okay, but it is fun. The first bit, anyway, when everyone arrives all eager and nervous and trying to impress you, and you get to just relax and enjoy the parade of characters.

Three hours later when you just want to confirm their contact information and go home and they won't stop auditioning for you and you're too tired to find a polite way to say no for the love of all that is holy I do not want to see your impression of Jim from Taxi the Ace Ventura ape shittery already got you close enough to being taken out of consideration already that it wears a bit thin.

It's times like that I reach for my mantra:

At least I don't work in the mall anymore
At least I don't work in the mall anymore
At least I don't work in the mall anymore

(and all respect to the good women and men still out there on those recycled air blown front lines).

Guess what I was wearing when I wrote this title?

2009-10-13T19:11:00.000-06:00

I recently met a woman who, like myself, works out of her home. She told me that she gets up at the same time every morning, goes through her normal morning routine, and gets dressed and ready for work just like she would if she worked in a public office.

I told her "Yeah, I don't do that."

I admire the ethic. It's an attractive ethic. Exactly the kind of ethic you can stand back, have a nice long look at, and say "Yep, damn fine ethic, that" about.

There's no way in hell I can emulate that ethic. I'm the girl who decided that a large enough sweater could turn a pair of flannel pajamas into a three piece ensemble back when I worked the sales floor of a furniture store. The likelihood of my wearing pants before noon any day that I don't have to leave the house is right up there with, well, probably the likelihood of my getting hired to sell furniture again any time soon.

So any time you're in the Edmonton area and have a pressing need for a magician or some other kind of live entertainment give me a call. You won't be talking to just another suit in a headset. In fact I'll let you picture me wearing anything you want.

My flannel's getting humid just thinking about it.