I have embraced my inner nerd.

it's been a while

2006-03-24T17:03:00.000-05:00

Hello blog. How was your day?

Mine has been pretty sweet in some aspects:
-I am being taken out for a 10 course dinner in a few hours for a friend’s birthday (though I hope we’ll be able to pay our own meal as there’s something wrong with paying for 10 people’s dinner on your own birthday)
-I had a lavish free lunch at work
-I won a $10 gift certificate to a coffee shop
-I got paid to watch a really good film called This Beggar’s Description. (find it at www.nfb.ca)

It’s about Philip Tétrault who everyone who has spent any time in Le Plateau will probably recognize as the homeless guy with the pan flute. He “has been locked up in jails and psych wards, kicked out of the house by desperate friends and family and spent long periods living on the streets of Montreal. However, he is also a talented writer and loving father whose deep family bonds and friendships have helped him come through periods of incredible darkness brought on by his schizophrenia” It turns out he’s friends with Leonard Cohen, who is also in the movie. Cohen’s compassion for Phil just bumped him up a few places in my pretend-boyfriend roster. I would highly recommend this movie. The lovely shots of Montreal alone make the film.

But not everything is peachy keen in Lizland. I found out this morning that my student loan repayment letter wasn’t wrong. It turns out I wasn’t eligible for a bursary so now I owe an extra 2 large. Ouch.
Also, I apparently I may be schizophrenic.

Because I am a DSM-IV nerd, I found this test for schizophrenia: http://www.schizophrenia.com/sztest/survey.php

I just tried it and it says I may have schizophrenia and should be screened by a mental health professional. As someone with a professional degree who works in mental health, I’m pretty sure this is a false positive, but time will have to tell. Maybe I’m just prodomal or experiencing perceptual abnormalities. I certainly have barely slept since I’ve managed to keep the St. Patrick’s Day party vibe going until now, a week later.

And now off to go stuff myself full of 10 courses of Chinese food.

Please please please vote.

2006-01-22T14:17:00.000-05:00

After a good long rest, the blog has woken from its hibernation on the eve of a federal election.

I would certainly not tell anyone who to vote for, [cough...NDP!...cough] but I urge you all to get out there and vote tomorrow. Even if your candidate stands no chance of winning, or if they are sure to win without your support, please just get your vote on.

Your party will get $1.75 in federal funding per eligible vote received, so getcher ass to your polling station, please. If you're a tory, I won't be too offended if you stay home instead. Check out Elections Canada for details.

Have you seen the ads in BC featuring big daddy Jack's moustache? The only place I could find it is here (http://www.conservative.ca/EN/2049/) click on "Jack Talk" and please excuse my continued inability to understand how links work. I think his response to this smear ad alone is worth voting for:

OTTAWA (CP) - The only thing NDP Leader Jack Layton has not said during this campaign is "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin," but he's come close. What's making his hair stand up is a Tory ad that shows a moustache superimposed on ordinary people saying things like they want higher taxes.
Layton, who's agreed to shave his moustache to raise money for a charity after Jan. 23, has begun to be possessive of his lip fur.

In Terrace, B.C., Layton began speaking about it in the third person the other night.
"I understand there is a rogue moustache that's making an appearance in advertisements in British Columbia. I don't know if you've seen this, but I have got to tell you what this moustache here has to say.

"This moustache says we're running against the Conservatives because their ideas are wrong for working families. This moustache says the NDP will be there day in and day out for the working families of Canada."

Nice! Prepare to get bitch-slapped, grits and tories....I hope. A girl can dream, right?

My powers of pyrokinesis are astounding

2005-11-30T19:13:00.000-05:00

Last night I was started smelling smoke and then heard sirens. Looking outside my bedroom window I saw this (a firetruck setting up a ladder reaching to the roof. I was later joined by a few others):

Since I moved to the current apartment I've been willing this building, which is an auto-body repair shop, to burn down or move to France or otherwise just stop making so damned much noise outside my bedroom window so early in the morning. So as I was watching smoke pour out of the windows, I couldn't help but feel guilty for willing this to happen so many times. I later found out that it was arson and there's an investigation looking into insurance fraud, so I think I'm off the hook.

I woke up Faith who was staying in my living room and who was oblivious to the whole thing. She didn't believe that there was a fire until I made her get up and look outside. She responded by going back to bed and falling alseep, despite the sirens, chainsaws, calls from neighbours and shouts from firefigthers. The whole thing wrapped up at about 5:00 AM.

If anything else that's been pissing me off burns down, we'll know that maybe I'm like that girl in "Carrie". I think she was called Carrie or something.

2005-11-20T18:44:00.000-05:00

This is Jenny. Jenny rules. She is standing next to my new favourite graffito which says (for those of you who don't speak French) "Shall we zombie?"

2005-11-20T17:29:00.000-05:00

Hell yeah, we will zombie.

2005-11-17T15:52:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of a picture of my grandpa back in his RAF days.

Respect for one's elders

2005-11-16T23:50:00.000-05:00

My grand-folks are pretty cool.

Grandpops (http://www.famouscanadians.net/name/w/wrightjerry.php) is one smart dude. He has 30 patents, a distinguished service award and got a medal presented to him by the King.
Like I said, he's a smart cookie.

As was grandma. She worked as a physiotherapist in Scotland during WWII, which is how she met gramps.

It's really sad to see what the ravages of time have done to them. Last time I saw grandma she made eye contact with me and seemed to respond to my tone of voice. Her Alzheimer's has gotten to the point that she can't even feed herself and has severe aphasia. It's like she's regressed to being only a few months old. She sits in a chair most of the day. She used to be in a room by herself for most of this time because she used to shout gibberish and it was disruptive to the others. Now she's quite docile and mostly sleeps or stares off into space. I really hope she's not cognizent of what's going on. Still, it was nice to see a small part of the once vital, smart and independent woman I remember.

Last time I saw grandpa he showed me all the things in his house of many years he's about to sell. Talk about your walks down memory lane. We looked through some photo albums and he told me some cool shit about his service during WWII and how he revolutionalized aircraft navigation by inventing the R-theta computer. We went to visit grandma together and fed her dinner at her nursing home.

The next day, he told my dad that he'd received a visit from a nice young lady with a car. When dad suggested that it might have been me, gramps said he didn't think so. He remembered who I was while I was there, I think, but he did seem a bit confused towards the end.

I wish I'd gotten to know them better when I had the chance instead of being a snotty brat and thinking their stories were boring.

get paid to snort blow/get topless

2005-11-08T19:42:00.000-05:00

I heard on the radio that Canada's unemployment rate is currently the lowest it has been in 30 years. It's apparently 6.6%, which does, indeed, seem quite low. As part of my public service program, here's some leads I saw in the newspaper a few days ago:

La Senza Lingerie: Fit Model.
La Senza is currently looking for a fit model to join their dynamicteam in Montreal head office. Your main responsibilities will includetrying on samples for fittings and a few hours a week reserved toadministrative assistance for a total of 30 hours a week.
Fit provisions: Approximately 5'7" tall
wears size 36B bra
wears size 9/10 garments
Bust circumference 37-38"
Under bust circumference 30 1/2 - 31"
Waist circumference 28-29"
Hips cricumference (at 8" below waist line) 39" - 40"

Please fax or e-mail your resumé, along with yoru measurements to LaSenza fir dept (514) 684-6127 or dsawyer@lasenza.ca

Can you imagine the job interview? I think they would definitely ask you how many words per minute you can type and then ask you to take off your shirt.

I would like to know exactly why they think that a person with a 28inch waist wears a size 9/10. No wonder all the bras from La Senza fitso strangely.

Also you can get free cocaine from my alma mater:

"Researchers in McGill University's Departments of Psychiatry andNeurology & Neurosurgery are conducting a brain imaging study aboutmen (aged 18-40) who have used cocaine during the past year. The studyinvolves an interview, two or three 24-hour hospital stays, brainimaging and the adminstration of cocaine. Participants will becompensated for their time. The principal investigator is Dr. Leyton.if interested: 398-4015 or mcgillreasearch@hotmail.com"

They only come out at night..and on public transit

2005-11-06T20:10:00.000-05:00

Yeah, we are dressed up and drunk. I want to wear fishnets every day. The skeleton on my right agrees.

But Cruella DeVille is a pretty fun look too. Not pictured is my one dalmatian.

Halloween is such an interesting time. Why do we let our inhibitions down so much?
Do we think that our costumes disguise us much more than they really do? Does the "fall back" to standard time screw up our circadian rythms and give us the illusion that it's always night and therefore one unending party? Or is it all the candy and liquor? What's up, Dead-James-Dean-Guy?

I witnessed some of the best random interactions recently. Was Hallowe'en the culprit?

Child on the bus: MOMMMY I WAAAANT IT? WAUUUUGHHHHH WAGHHHHH AUGHHH!
Mother: shhhh! calm down, you can have it later
Child: But I want it NOOOOOOOWWWW! WAUGHHHH!
Some random woman sitting in a nearby seat: stop it. Stop it! STOP IT! TU M'ENNERVES!!!
Child: (silence)
Mother: (giving the other woman the hairiest eyeball I have ever seen, when really she whould have been thanking her) there, there.
Everyone else on the bus: tee-hee

I also enjoyed the random guy in some sort of purple ceremonial robes. They looked just like the stonecutter robes from that episode of the Simpsons, only with no discernible insignia. Also it was about a week after Halloween, which seems a little late for a costume party. Robes-man got off at my stop and walked off briskly, followed by a drunk woman and me. His robes were flapping about in the wind and the drunk woman yelled at him "whheeeee.... just like a bird"(she made bird flying mothions with her arms and indicated that she was talking about his robes. He responded with an earnest "thank you."

Even more zombies

2005-11-03T15:57:00.000-05:00

This is Jenny. She is awesome. She is standing next to my new favourite graffito. For those of you who don't speak French, it means "Shall we zombie?"

2005-11-03T15:56:00.000-05:00

Hell yeah we're going to zombie!

Even more zombies

2005-11-02T16:38:00.000-05:00

This is Jenny. Jenny is awesome. She is standing in front of my new favourite graffito. It says (for those of you who don't speak French) "Shall we zombie?"

So that's what my entrails look like

2005-10-18T01:54:00.000-04:00

Actually, I didn't get to see since I had my eyes shut. But I think this is what it's supposed to look like -->

The whole endoscopy thing was pretty quick and relatively painless. Dr. Dude even thinks my belly is doing ok for now. The sedative they gave me helped a lot and was also quite fun. Everone else in the recovery room seemed to be wasting their time sleeping. I got right up and had to keep explaining that no, I wasn't dizzy. I think the other people there don't tend to take stuff that induces the same effects recreationally. Or at least not as much. Being able to hande the effects, I was allowed to leave.

Wandering around outside afterwards tracking down various ghetto succoths (Sp?) with was perhaps more confusing that it should have been. Everything looked really pretty and endlessly interesting. On the way home it was hard not to stare at people, trees, folded up newspapers, wads of gum, etc. Were not for the fact that I fell into a coma-like sleep for 6 hours as soon as I got home, I could really get used to this.

Irresponsibility!

2005-09-23T21:32:00.000-04:00

Having recently turned 23 again for the third time, the time to get my life in order is rapidly approaching. Fuck it, I choose irresponsibility.

I've gone on a bit of a bender lately, and it's been great channeling a little bit of Courtney Love. It's also been fun regressing and trying drugs I haven't touched in years, albeit in far smaller quantities. I guess that's the same thing. A weekend in Toronto with a gay wedding, drag queens, seeing old friends and generally stomping around and looking scary did wonders for me. The weekend of my birthday was also sweet. Thanks to everyone who came to my boonies-fest, to Jupiter Room and to dance with all the dirty hippies in the park. I was too enmeshed in the party to see if others were having fun at my boonies-fest, but there sure were a lot of people, a lot of booze consumed and, thankfully, no complaints from neighbours.

Ignoring the fact that today consisted of staying out until past sunrise, getting drunk at work and having a cupcake for dinner, I think I am taking some reluctant steps towards responsibility. For example, I'm really getting to like my grown-up job. I'm even learning how to converse (on subjects other than work) with my coworkers who are more than twice my age. I also signed up for the damned mandatory (fuck you, Quebec!) collective insurance today at work. Upon leaving the HR building, I remembered that the research kids were having a party with free pizza and beer and that a few of the more sociable post-docs had invited me. I showed up for the pizza, but it was almost totally inedible. It turns out that that two beers on an empty stomach can be pretty potent. In context, this was late on Friday afternoon anyway and most of those grad students got quite verschnickered. I went back to my office and caught up on work while waiting to sober up enough to drive home. That last part is responsible. Sort of.

A few weeks ago I decided that I will run a half marathon before I turn 23 for the fourth time. I even found a few people to train with. I wonder if this will actually happen. Does anyone in Montreal want to run until your body stops working? It'll be fun!

Flaming Elephant Penises, juggled by unidentified man

2005-08-25T00:11:00.000-04:00

Click on the link in the title to see more blow by blow discriptions of the acts described in The Aristocrats. I just saw it. So goddamn motherfucking good. And delightfully vulgar.
Benjamin, Mark and I seemed to be the only ones laughing. There were not a lot of people in the theatre though. I was the only one who laughed at the line about "we should be less blow-job centric. Look at starfish. They eat each other out all the time. Sure, it takes forever, but they get it done". Maybe it was all in the delivery. Jon Stewart was disappointing. As was Carrot Top showing his ass.

Afterwards I had to call 911. I also got my boob groped in an unrelated incident.

We were sitting around outside and some drunk homeless guys started throwing empty bottles at the road. Obnoxious, but not worth intervening over. Then they started throwing bottles at people, so we felt the need to call in the po-po. They showed up but didn't take anyone in, including the dude who appeared to be cooking up hits. The lack of arrests and brutality allayed some of the guilt about being a tool of the man. Look, I've taken a few too many courses with "anti oppression" in the title to not have a bleeding heart (also, evidently, bleeding stomach lining).

On the way home I helped a middle age blind guy out of the subway. I'm pretty sure he went for the boob by mistake when he was trying to take my arm, so I can easily excuse that. However, when he tried to kiss me as I was saying goodbyeI think that crossed a line. Oh well, at least now when I see him around public transit it will be easy to avoid eye contact.

In conclusion, helping people is for chumps and go see The Aristocrats. According to currentattractions.com, the profanity details are as follows:
C-word(14), F-word(87), A*s(38), Balls(4), C*ck(18), Crap(1), C*m(9), D*ck(9), Hell(1), Jesus(3), N*gger(5), Piss(12), P*ssy(9), Sh*t(69), Tw*t(1)

When did "Jesus" become a swear? Also, how come Ass gets bleeped and Balls doesn't? And shouldn't it be N-word? Or is that not as bad a word as Fuck? And why did Snatch not make the list? Who the fuck decides these things? Also, I wonder who gets to count all the swears and how I would apply for that job.

A whole lotta summer

2005-08-23T23:35:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was great. I crammed a whole summer into it. It included:
- a trip to an exotic locale...ok, just Connecticut. Still, I got to use my passport.
- going to a wedding
-camping (in Fort Dummer, Vermont) right after the wedding and setting up a tent in the dark
-sleeping in a leaking tent in heavy rain
-swimming in lake Champlain with a Uni-Uni minister
-a pic nic on a lovely sandy beach

It took me all summer to get this stuff in, but now all I have left to do is an epic bike trip, run through a sprinkler on a hot day and get a few more breakfasts on a terasse in.

"Your CLSC thanks you for your patience"

2005-08-07T18:48:00.000-04:00

I am currently holding to maintain my call priority. I am being thanked for my patience. I am trying to reach the info santé line and have been on hold for quite some time now. I am trying to be patient and not get frustrated. La la la... I have all the time in the world, this doesn't bother me at all.

I think that all this worrying and stressing out may be catching up with me a bit. So it's time to calm down and just not worry.

Finally! Someone answered the phone after 40 fucking minutes of being on hold. ok, more like 15. And it's fine, because I refuse to get annoyed and stressed out.

I asked the nurse who answered the phone about yesterday's vomiting blood incident. I think it's not that big a deal since it only happened once and after a night of binge drinking (with actual frat boys for authenticity). The nurse agrees. Good. Back to normal then. (OH MY GOD, I HAVE 45 CASES AND ONLY TWO MORE DAYS TO WRAP THEM UP. FUCK FUCKITTY FUCK!AUGHHHH!!!! ).

Still, I think maybe it would be best to consult an actual doctor - if only because I'm a sucker for rectal exams. Ew. Upon further reflection, I feel fine. But no more sangria.

The mystery of the strange pube.

2005-08-05T21:56:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I was cleaning my desk and discovered what looked like a grey pubic hair on it. This puzzled me a great deal, since I had no idea how it could have gotten there.

Hypothesis 1: It fell off of someone and got on my desk
There has been no one with grey hair in my room for several months.

Hypothesis 2: It’s a leg or chest hair, not a pube.
Same problem.

Hypothesis 3: The hair came in through the window.
Possible. But how do pubes become airborne?

Hypothesis 4: It’s one of mine.
Given that I’m in my mid 20’s, I don’t think I’m going grey yet.

Hypothesis 4: Someone’s pubes got into the washing machine then got into my clothes. It then got onto my desk somehow.
I think this might be the most likely.

Hypothesis 5: The elderly sneak into my room while I’m at work and get freaky on my desk.
Your mom and I had a talk about this and she said she’d stop.

Any other ideas?

Canada and mullets and zombies, oh my!

2005-07-05T00:51:00.000-04:00

I had such a busy and touristy weekend. I went to the Old Port twice, saw fireworks twice, saw several acts at the jazz festival, went on one of those ghost tour things (it sucked the bag, big time), had a few picnics in the park to see Vanessa off to Peru. We had no less than 6 different kinds of cheese.

Canada Day celebrations in Montreal's Old Port (read: the really touristy area) are much more subdued than they are in Ottawa. They are also less inebriated. I saw a few guys wearing hockey jerseys and sporting mullets, not to mention a dude drunkenly waving a flag tied to a hockey stick and singing O Canada.

Though watching Pink Floyd reunited on the teevee was odd, the highlight of the weekend was definitely the epic battle between the sword-fighting nerds, and some people who dressed up as zombies to mess with them.

The nerds hang out at Parc Mont-Royal which gets filled with hippies and bongo drums every Sunday (when the weather is decent). They line up on opposite ends of a dusty clearing in the woods and charge each other. They then hit each other with homemade weapons (made of plastic or wrapped in tape to prevent injury) until too many are on the ground and then they get up and do it again. The whole thing just stinks of 40 year old virgin.

A bunch of tatooed Con-U students dressed up like Zombies and waded into the nerd territory. At first the nerds seemed frightened and then very amused. They gleefully hit the zombies with their weapons for about half an hour until the zombies got together and lurched off through the crowds of sunbathers.

On their way out the zombies took on the hippies who were cavorting around in their drum circle. The hippies, to their credit, did not stop just madly beating on their bongos. I watched all this from a hill full of pot-smoking hippies torn between my desire to ask a stranger for drag off their spliff and my wish to kick the owner of the dog that would not stop licking my bag and feet.

Final score:
Zombies - 5
Hippies - 3
Sword-fighting nerds - 1
Mullets - 5

P.S. why were the Canadian hosts of Live8 Dan Akroyd and Tom Green? Don't we have any better celebrities?

Here are the nerds using their plastic weapons to just beating the living shit out of the zombies who are lying on the ground.

(thanks to Benjamin,from whom who I once again shamelessly stole pictures )

2005-07-05T00:50:00.000-04:00

Zombies unite!

How YOU doin'?

2005-06-30T15:06:00.000-04:00

This is Tara (left), me (three sheets to the wind and in the middle) and Rory (right) late into the night at the reception (see previous post).
I've got my "I've had a bit too much to drink" grin on.

Oh, the job interview went better than I thought. I was extremely hungover, but that's better than being violently ill from the chickpeas. I later heard that I came off as confident and articulate. I guess feeling really nauseous gets rid of those usual job-interview-jitters. I was offered the post the next day and started the day after that. Whoooooo! Employment!

I'm not bulimic or an alcoholic. I do this for medical reasons

2005-06-20T23:41:00.000-04:00

I got an interview at the hospital I interned at!!!! It's to work as a case manager temporarily replacing a social worker who's on leave.

Yesterday my friends Ali and Jim got married. Mazel Tov! It was a lovely outdoor ceremony in Joliette, QC and they both looked radiant. Since Ali has been a strict vegan for many years, all the food at the reception was free of dairy, eggs and meat.
I have a rather severe allergy to chick peas, but she assured me the dinner would be fine.
Not thinking, I grabbed a canape when one was offered and ate it. I realized just a little bit too late that it had hummus on it.

The last time I had chick peas I was violently ill for about 48 hours. Since the job interview was the next morning, being sick was not an option. Carefully weighing the pros and cons, I elected to go yak it all out in the bathroom. So, dressed to the nines and crying, I eventually got rid of most of the chickpea badness.

I remember hearing that if you drink methanol the treatment is to have your stomach pumped and drink ethanol so you don't metabolize it. I don't know if it's actually true, but since there was an open bar, I thought I'd check it out, in the name of science. I proceeded to get kacked. Drinking on an extremely empty stomach meant I got sloppy quite quickly. I tried explaining to people that I was pounding back the booze to flush out the hummus, but some didn't seem too convinced. I don't remember embarassing myself too badly - just having a LOT of fun dancing and feeling pretty footloose and fancy free. Then going for a few more technicolour yawns.

This morning I was hungover, but not sick, so I guess it worked.
The job interview didn't go too well as a result. I had to ask them to repeat the questions quite a few times. I found out later today at our goodbye BBQ thing that four different case managers all called the head of the department and put in the good word for me. If I get the job it starts in a few days. Fingers crossed! Now I FINALLY get to sleep.

bucketisms

2005-06-17T01:18:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is my very last day at the hpspital for my internship. I've said goodbye to all my clients and wrapped up most of the paperwork. I miss it already but have applied to a ton of jobs there, so maybe they'll actually hire me for one sometime.

There's this guy who is always on the grounds who is the absolute greatest. Since he's not one of my clients and i don't even know his name i think i can write about him without breaking all those confidentiality rules that we spent a week learning.

He carries a bucket around (it's empty, I checked) and wears rubber boots at all times. He must be a classically trained actor because he has excellent enunciation and can really project.

He walks in circles around the building I work in and announces various things. Vanessa, my partner in crime and half of SteakShape (the next big thing, just wait for our new single to be released) and I think they're great, so we compiled a list. Imagine these being SHOUTED repeatedly and at random.

$9.99 is not ten dollars!

The sweltering heat! The bitter cold!

A boy in a man's world!

It's 54 degrees today in Mexico. That's very hot. (it was actually that hot that day. Dude reads the news.)

I had one directed to me. I had my knapsac on and was walking into work and he gave me my very own bucketism. He yelled "good student! go study!" I later also got "good student, study hard!"

This one is my absolute favourite. Call me and I'll shout it to you over the phone, the way its meant to be done.

The Greek girl beat me at arm wrestling

The Greek girl!
The Greek girl beat me at arm wrestling

I was HUMILIATED
Beaten - by a woman!
Beaten- by a girl.

A few months ago he shouted to me that I should play the lottery, since he won $20 and the tickets only cost $2.

I haven't seen him around in a long time. I hope they haven't medicated away his bucketisms.

Easiest $70 I ever made

2005-05-24T23:38:00.000-04:00

Whoa - I made $70 today just by lying on my back and not moving! I even got to lie back and think of England.

I was doing an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) study. I had to keep perfectly still for 2 hours while magnets loudly whirled around my head inside a very claustrophobia-inducing machine that looks like this:

There were some computer tasks to do, for which they mounted a mirror in front of my head and fed a keypad into the machine. For other parts I just had to lie very still. It wasn't so bad, since I think I fell asleep during one of those. While this was a great way to make a quick buck, it's sad that people who need MRI's done for brain tumors and aneurysms and the like have to wait several months. "Canadian universal health care" I can think of at least two things wrong with that phrase.

I'm told I'll be e-mailed a picture of my brain sometime soon. Fuckin' A.

"Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they will never cease to be amused"

2005-05-19T00:54:00.000-04:00

It turns out that the human body does actually require sleep. I would like to know why mine has stopped responding to this need. The results have been pretty funny. I thought it wasn't even affecting me until yesterday when I:

Left in the morning without shoes on (and took about a minute to notice)
Later, after about 6 shots of yummy espresso served by a yummy boy, I left my place to drop off a plant, without actually taking the plant with me.
Upon realizing this I went back inside my apartment building to get the plant and tried to take the elevator to the appropriate floor.
Despite pushing the button for the fourth floor, I followed some lady off the elevator on the third floor.
Walked into the wrong apartment. It's the one right below me and it seems that they too leave their door unlocked. I figured it out before anyone in there noticed.
After having dropped off the plant and taken forever to pick a place to eat (sorry 'bout that) I got on the wrong metro line on my way home.

Tomorrow I hand in my application for the job at the memory clinic of the psych hospital. If I get that job I will have far too much in common with my clients. I'm going to give myself an hour to try to fall asleep. If it doesn't work I'm just going to have to smoke a bowl, though that might not do much for the short term memory problems.

Summer in the city

2005-05-12T23:28:00.000-04:00

Now that I'm once again forced to consider leaving Montreal, I discovered that I truly love this city. The tree lined streets, gorgeous architecture and cute little restaurants are all well and good, but Montreal is really made great by its eccentrics (click on the title for a great link describing them all much more eloquently than I do - scroll down to "montreal weirdos").

The official first sign of spring is seeing the biker-tricycle guy. He looks like a Hell’s Angel in that he has a long beard, a bandana tied around his forehead, jeans or leather pants, biker boots and a Harley Davidson muscle shirt. Every part the biker look except that he rides a tricycle – you know, the one for grownups who never learned how to balance a two-wheeler. He’s a Montreal icon. Watch out because if you get in his way he will not hesitate to run you down and he can really get that thing moving.

This spring I have yet to see the guy who drums so intensely on his steering wheel that you’re sure he’ll crash his car. He’s usually around later in the summer, blasting Dire Straits and rocking out with an intensity that makes most professional drummers seem meeker than your average mouse. To tide me over until that gem comes back, there’s a guy in NDG who plays a pretty hardcore harmonica from his perch on a park bench. Today I was eating an apple for breakfast on my way to the bus and smiled at him. He stopped in the middle of his song and asked “C’te tu t’une belle pomme?” Yes. Yes it was and for some reason he made it even better.

Yesterday I think I found a new favourite. Let me paint you a picture: I was standing on the metro feeling rather bored when a skinny 20-something white dude walked on. He stayed for several stops, so I got to study his absolute perfection in great detail. He was wearing skater shoes that were badly torn up, shpantz, a non-descript t shirt under a shirt with weird patches all over it. He had a kazoo hanging from his belt. His hair fell exactly on the axis between unkempt and dreadlocks. It was piled on top of his head and was kept in place with a big vandal-sharpie pen, a toothbrush and a slide whistle.

Though he may sound really random and dirty, he was more like a whimsical cartoon character that came to life. I got the impression that he probably smelled like plain soap and that one could use the pristine white toothbrush to wipe away even the gravest of transgressions. In a world where everyone else has their wallet, keys, watch, MP3 player and book to read on the metro, it’s refreshing to see someone who decides that all they need for the day is a bus pass, a slide whistle and kazoo to make some music, a marker to write on walls and a toothbrush (because dental hygiene is important). Fuck pockets, purses, satchels and all that noise; you can just put it wherever it wants to go and use it to keep your hair out of your eyes.

If you're happy and you know it clap your hands

2005-04-26T22:20:00.000-04:00

No, it's not sarcastic. Morning sucked. But I had that song stuck in my head all afternoon. "If you're happy and you know it, stomp your feet..." and so on. It really did cheer me up though. That and being too busy to breathe.

Today in my stage (french for "internship"...English for "work like a rented mule for free") was the busiest so far. I have never taken a client to the psychiatric emergency room and today I had to take two. I swear there is something in the air in Montreal these days that is making people crazy and unhappy. Being right in the middle of it seems to have given me an immunity for the day.

There's this idea that psychiatric hospitals want to admit everyone and lock them up in padded rooms. The reality is that they don't have a lot of beds (and no padded rooms or straight jackets) so you have to argue your way in and even then they're constantly trying to sneakily discharge people. So getting a client to in-patient status, even temporarily, involves a flurry of phone calls, waiting around, harassing the nursing staff to get your client a freaking cot so they don't have to sleep in a chair, harassing the nursing staff on the new shift and harassing the psychiatrist who is covering for the missing psychiatrist to come down and take a look and sign a form.

It was really cool in a twisted sort of way. There's a sort of serenity amongst those who are totally delusional. Of course there's a sense of pathos, desperation and hopelessness, but some people seem to transcend that. I really don't know how to describe it, but it's uplifting somehow.

So while the universe chooses to shit on me in some domains at least it is trying its best to make it up to me in others. I have a job interview for a real live social work job! Of course it's in the middle of nowhere in Massachusetts, doesn't pay phenomenally and involves tons of work, but it's encouraging to get an interview from my first application.

Sunday night

2005-04-24T23:34:00.000-04:00

Things in my life haven't been going particularly well for the last few weeks, but I'm hoping they'll get better soon.

I've been thinking a lot about the way my life is going. Today while playing some Scrabble I was reminded of some words by my main man, T.S. Eliot:

"Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?"

In case your highschool English teacher sucked or you otherwise never read it, check out the rest of "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" at http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html

Many thanks to everyone who's putting up with my shit right now. Y'all are the greatest.

Turning Japanese Part II

2005-04-11T03:27:00.000-04:00

This is another photo of the Shrine ("Tokiwa Jinja" in Mito). The plum trees were in bloom and it seemed like the whole city was out to see them. They're not quite as big a deal as the cherry blossoms, which are a major event every year, but still very pretty. Unfortunately my camera was having some issues.

We left the next day, March 28th, which we got to live twice, thanks to crossing the international date line.

Andrew and I got some beer and some sushi from the grocery store to have on the bus ride to Narita airport. Since we weren't hungover this time or in as much of a rush, we had time to peruse the gift shops in Narita and blow the last of our Yen on Pocari Sweat and some truly tacky crap.

Pocari Sweat is basically the Gatorade of Japan. I was told that it's produced from the fear sweat of the tiny Pocari, who are taunted mercilessly to produce it. Apparently some people will believe this. In addition to the name, Pocari sweat is an opaque white and tastes sort of like a canteloupe. With all those barriers, I don't know how it caught on, but I luuuuurve it.

2005-04-11T03:22:00.000-04:00

This is at the reception. Clockwise from the top left: Me, Andrew, his father, his mother, Miyuki (who changed into the Western wedding dress her sister surprised her with) and Adam.

Turning Japanese Part 1.5

2005-04-11T03:14:00.000-04:00

Here is the gaggle of people who came from North America for the wedding. Adam and Miyuki are the ones in the Kimonos. Oh, and if you haven't seen me in a while, I'm the one in the first row to the left, dressed in the black skirt and blazer.

Jesus casino!

2005-04-04T01:33:00.000-04:00

Here's a pic of the big cross up close that I pilfered from Benjamin. I've always felt that it looked like a casino with a staunchly Christian theme. Note how it looks an awful lot like individual lightbulbs.

There's a big lattice cage around all the lights that looks particularly gaudy in the daylight. Also, there is a chain link fence around the bottom that tends to be surrounded by broken beer bottles and cigarette butts.

I used to think of the cross as an eyesore, then I got used to it. Since leaving the plateau and moving to the NDG I found that I really miss seeing the cross at night. It was like a big tacky nightlight. I'm not saying that I was wishing death on the pope by any means. It's just that if he was going to die anyway, couldn't he have croaked while I still had the awesome apartment on Esplanade that gave me a great view of the cross from the livingroom?

My mom, a self-described recovering Catholic tisked me for saying this. According to her they have to wait 15 days to see if he's really dead, yet they bury him in three days or so. I wonder what colour the cross will become if the pope turns out to be a zombie.

Yes, yes, I'm going to Hell. Want to hang out with me when we get there?

I'll be damned...

2005-04-04T01:27:00.001-04:00

Yes, it seems the legends are true and the cross does, indeed, turn purple. I was sort of hoping it was an urban legend. I tried to check it out myself the night the pope died but there was too much fog to see the top of the mountain. Climbing up the mountain a bit didn't help. The mountain had a lot of mud and an acutal waterfall from all the rain and melting snow, so I ventured back home instead of climbing further.

Here it is as seen from Le Plateau. Usually there would be a greenish-whitish tinge to the light instead of the sort of mauve thing going on here. (Thanks to Benjamin for the photos)

Turning Japanese Part I

2005-04-03T03:55:00.000-04:00

My 72 hours in Japan over Easter were, on the whole, more fun than exhausting. This should be qualified by mentioning that it took about 24 hours in total to get from Montreal to Mito and about the same amount of time to get back.

Andrew and I got to sit on the plane next to each other. Since his shoulders are the perfect height for me to sleep on, it made the 16 hours on various airplanes much better. Also we hung out and watched the movies Continental had deemed inoffensive enough to screen. Aside from being stuck in a chair for 14 hours in one leg, it was not too shabby.

The first night there all the folks who had come from North America as well as some people who had travelled within Japan went out to dinner together. Every course save dessert had crab in it, in many cases raw crab. I was extremely brave and got over my phobia about exoskeletons and ate some raw crab right out of the leg. Take that, seagulls!

The next night was the rehearsal dinner at one of Japan's oldest French restaurants. Miyuki's family and many of Adam's friends were there too, nearly filling the extremely ornate room to capacity. At this point the jet lag was getting to me and I think I may have dozed off at one point during dinner. The rehearsal dinner was followed by the bachelor's party. Though the boys were nice enough to invite me, I declined, giving up what was probably my only opportunity to go to one of these things. I made Andrew promise not to get too chummy with the strippers though. It seems there were no strippers, according to the very drunken account Andrew gave upon returning to the hotel at about 3 AM. He showed up covered in mud and complaining about having skinned his knee when he pantzed his brother. I asked him how he got so muddy and he muttered some stuff about aligator farms, ice flows and june bugs. Riiiiight. Surprisingly, he wasn't in such bad shape in the morning.

I couldn't sleep that night so at 6 AM I gave up and turned on the TV and watched the weirdest cartoon I have ever seen. I couldn't understand what was being said, but it featured either a kid or a monkey that could fly by farting. I think it was a kid because it appeared to be in kindergarten, where it broke a rabbit sculpture and its friends tried to fix it. One of its friends was always using a fake computer (he built it out of cardboard). Also, the kid's pants kept falling off and so he walked around in the nude a lot. If Jarry Falwell blew a gasket over teletubbies, he'd go totally apeshit over the frontal nudity in this children's cartoon.

I did more than just wedding things, not sleeping and tv watching. I also spent a lot of time shopping. If I owe you a gift in the next year, it will probably be something from Japan.

The actual wedding was confusing but very pretty. It was apparently a traditional Shinto ceremony. Check out the kimonos Adam and Miyuki wore:

Here are the Suslaks, Miyuki and her family in front of the shrine. This was just after the ceremony.
More photos to come.

Will the cross on Mont Royal turn purple?

2005-04-02T17:39:00.000-05:00

Click on the title to Check out the current view of Mont Royal. (thanks to Sofi)

According to a random website, "The first cross on the mountain was placed there in 1634 by Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, the founder of the city, in fulfillment of a vow he made to the virgin Mary when praying to her to stop a disatrous flood. Today, the mountain is crowned by a 31.4-metre-high illuminated cross, installed in 1924 and converted to fibre-optic light in 1992. (The cross's lights have always been white, but the new system can turn the lights red, blue, or purple, which last is to be used upon the death of the pope.)"

I always thought this was a myth because I also read that the cross turns colours during Holy week. I've been in Montreal since 1998 and I've never seen it change colours. Occasionally one part of the cross is a sort of snot-green colour. When I've been up there to look at it, it seemed as though it had plain globe lightbulbs illuminating it, not fibre-optic anything.

I'm going to wait a few hours until it's dark out and see. It's just pissing rain today, otherwise I'd try to go up the mountain and see if some poor slob has to climb up there on a ladder and change all the lightbulbs.

(by the way, the trip to Japan was really cool. I'll write some stuff about that and back-date it when I get the photos developed.)

Off to Japan!

2005-03-23T02:38:00.000-05:00

Like I told the few people who read my blog, I'm headed to Japan again tomorrow.

Andrew's brother is getting married to his Japanese girlfriend, er, fiance and I thought I'd tag along. They're having a traditional Japanese ceremony, which should be cool to see, though impossible to understand, since I only know about 10 words in Japanese.

We're only going to be there for about 72 hours, which will be pretty much the same as the travel time.

Given that it will be Easter weekend, I'm bummed that we can't go see the Japanese Jesus. I bet he's smaller and more efficient. Apparently there's a tomb up in Northern Honshu that claims to be the final resting spot of Jesus. I'll see what I can find out about that and write some more when I get back next week. For now I must continue to try on dresses until I find one that will conceal the fact that my gut is raging out of control. If nothing looks good maybe I can just wear my jeans to the wedding and claim that it's the Canadian tuxedo.

Oh no, Godzilla! I must flee!

Shamrocking your world/Viva la revolution.

2005-03-20T14:04:00.000-05:00

It seems that $103 million that has been cut from Quebec student loans and bursaries. As someone who is totally dependent on loans, I'm not exaclty thrilled about this. Most Quebec University and Cegep students decided to strike on Wednesday. Unfortunately, I had a mandatory 3 hour class then, so I couldn't go to the big march.

Luckily 200,000 others did. Besides, McGill wasn't even officially on board for Wednesday. Rather than join all the protesters who lined McGill college, SSMU (our students' council) changed its mind four or five times before deciding to strike. "Umm...we're going to join the student strike, but in a much lamer and more agreeable way, so please hire us to be investment bankers when we graduate next year ". Though our strike was Friday, there was no definitive news the night before. Weak, dudes.

As a result, I had a restrained St. Patty's day Thursday night, thinking that I had to be in class at 8:30 Friday morning. Denise, Sofi, Maryanne, Jo and a bunch of old peoples from my old job all braved the Crescent street hooch that had invaded Mad Hatter's and tried to soak up all the St. Patty's day jubilation. Hatter's was a very different scene that night. The old guy in the EXTREMELY tight leather pants who kept rubbing his ass on my leg while he lined up his pool shots wasn't even the skankiest thing there.

On St. Patty's day 2004 I had some sort of plague and went home right after work to crawl into bed. The closest thing to green beer I could manage was NyQuill. Actually, those two are pretty similar. Anyhow, I vowed then to make up for it on St. Patty's 2005 by Shamrocking the world. Nope. We ended up leaving the bar around midnight, sober enough to walk without a visible stagger.

Hangover-free on Friday morning, I got to class on time (for the second time ever for this particular class) only to find that my class voted to go picket instead of hear a lecture. Since the class is called "Anti-Oppression Practice" I had a feeling this might happen. Most people just went home, but a few of us stood around the Milton gates trying to keep cars and students from entering campus. Of course the man (ok... three elderly security guards and two female cops) stopped us and made us let people through. We waved signs and shook tambourines and drew on the sidewalk, but no one seemed to care. It seems that people are just not in the mood for hippies at 8:30 AM.

Actually, I noticed that the hippies at McGill have been getting progressively crappier since my first year. Hardly anyone has dreadlocks anymore, there's no Che Guavara shirts anywhere and the few remaining punks look more like Avril Lavigne than....well, punks. I think the time could have better been spent sleeping. Oh well, !Viva la revolution!

I am a glamorous jet-setter...hang on while I finish cleaning up this vomit

2005-03-13T22:56:00.000-05:00

Andrew came to Montreal for his reading week which was cool. We won beer at Brewtopia, saw some movies and went skiing. He skis remarkably well for a boy from Florida. He made a very nice dinner for the two of us involving some of my favourite foods. Unfortunately some them disagreed with him and he ended up throwing up all over my bathroom for a few hours. I read some stories to him while he puked and even cleaned up. It must be love. This experience killed whatever small urge to have children I might have had, since those damn germ farms are always getting the flu and puking on stuff.

I'm going back to Japan in two weeks!! Andrew's brother is getting married there over Easter weekend. Unfortunately that's right at the end of the semester when I have tons of papers due and exams to write, so I can't take much time off. It seems that I'll travel a total of 36 hours to be there for about 72 hours. Ridiculous, I know. Still, pretty awesome. It sounds pretty boss to say things like "oh, that weekend's bad for me. I'll be in Tokyo." Actually, I'm going back to Mito, which is about 3 hours outside of Tokyo, but close enough.

It's a little less glamorous to know that I'll be powered by Ramen and other dollarstore foodstuffs for the rest of the year in order to pay for the plane ticket. Whatever. Japan! Now back to cleaning the bathroom again.

Week off!

2005-02-28T21:22:00.000-05:00

Reading week!!!!

The shitty thing is I am expected to actually do reading. Instead of doing that I watched Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle three times. That movie is great.

It turns out that awesomemobile had busted a gasket. $200 later four of us piled into awesomemobile and drove to Boston.

Hanging out with Andrew was cool. We did a bunch of touristy things this time like go skating on the Frog Pond in the Boston Common. We also drank a pint at Cheer's, which is actually called the Bull and Finch Pub. Norm was not there.

We checked out a party in a Harvard grad student's dorm. We didn't just crash it, Bana lives there and asked if we wanted to come. They were doing a wine tasting party. I expected many white men with bonded teeth and cable-knit sweaters knotted about their shoulders. Instead it was just a bunch of people having fun and trying wine. It seems I can hold my own in a discussion with Harvard grad students, but I was drunk so it's hard to say. I thought I was being witty and sophisticted, but it's totally likely I was just telling fart jokes. PULL MY FINGER, IVY LEAGUE BOY!!! Actually, I think I was talking about the pope a lot.

Andrew and I drove out to Salem Mass and went to the Peabody Essex museum, which was totally amazing. Salem is so cute! Ok, fine, they did have some witch trials, but they've cleaned up and have all sorts of random psychics and haunted houses and such. There is also a liquor store in Salem called the bunghole ("we're not #1, but we're right up there"). It even has a website, www.thebunghole.com.

Evidence of Winter Glee

2005-02-21T01:21:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mention below in # 4 that the snowman says "Free Cider". I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse.
The free cider was pretty good. Much better than the one I bought for $3 that I spilled all over Jenny. Damn, that free toque they gave me is ugly.

Winter glee and Beavertails

2005-02-20T23:30:00.000-05:00

I'm currently in Ottawa, enjoying reading week and hanging out while Awesomemobile (my bitchin' and elderly '92 Mazda 323) gets fixed. Hopefully it won't be anything major or expensive and I can drive to Montreal early in the morning and pick up my party peoples and we can all go to Boston...assuming the snowstorm doesn't close any roads. You know, there are a lot of factors working against this trip, but I'm sure my excessive winter glee will cause everything to work out.

Winter is great! Today I skated the length of the Rideau Canal and back (that's 7.8 Km x 2!). The best part is I can still walk! My very underused ass and hip muscles are pretty painful though.

Today was the last day of Winterlude, which is a lot like the Québec City carnival, only it's more canal-centric and lame. I see from their website that Winterlude was started in 1979 by the National Capital Commission (or, as we call them in Ottawa, 'sugardaddy', since the NCC seems to fund everything around here, via the federal funds they collect from the rest of the country - take that, other cities!). I also see that `Last year, an estimated 616,000 fun-seekers took part in Winterlude activities. More than a third of those visits were by people from outside the Capital Region`. The Capital region has about 750,000 people living in it, according to the current sign. So everyone around here tends to get in on it, since there's very little else to do. Also, they block off the major streets near the canal to run the 'sno-bus'/'bus-o-neige', so people might say they participated in Winterlude activities because they had to drive a 20 minute detour, which is sort of participating. Kind of.

People mostly just skate on the canal and look at the ice sculptures. They have a bunch of zany crap going on to entertain those under 12 and over 50, like junior figureskating shows and lumberjack stuff and mazes made out of snow and discarded x-mas trees and clowns on skates. I remember being really enthralled with it all when I was little and then becoming way too cool for it at about 13. Today was proof that the coolness factor has eluded me once and for all. I skated around with my friend Wendy and I started counting the ways in which we'd become lame Ottawa people, like those we used to make fun of:
1) I never really got properly dressed and was wearing jeans and a hoodie over my pyjamas, reasoning that I would both save time getting dressed and be more warm (for some reason I incongruously applied eye liner though). I would never ever do this in Montreal.
2) We didn't give a shit what we looked like and wore MEC ski jackets and boy skates. When we were in highschool we would have at least worn dainty white uncomfortable figure skates while mocking the middle-aged civil servants for looking lame in their ugly jackets and weird velcro skates. MEC jackets were cool then.
3) We took the free red toques that Canadian Tire was giving away as part of their skate-a-thon thing. Wendy's cooler than me because she didn't wear her toque since it would mess up her hair. I didn't wear a hat for grade 10 and 11 for that reason. When it got really cold, I'd wear one of those ear-band things, but I took it off when I got a block away from school.
4) Wendy took photos, including one of me hugging a giant inflatible snowman. That reflected badly on both of us and made us look like tourists. That's a big no-no for locals in a city that's occasionally overrun with tourists.
5) We refrained from swearing in the presence of little kids.

It was really fun, and I don't care if I'm dorky for saying so. I just got new skates and they're really comfy and warm and my hideous Canadian-Tire-toque kept my ears warm.

To top it all off, I got a free Beavertail because my brother is working one of the Beavertail's huts. If you've never had one, it's deep fried dough dipped in cinnamon and sugar. Oh, yeah, the real name is 'Hooker's Beavertails'. The ones on the canal are soooo much better than the ones in the mall in Montreal because they deep fry the dough and it gets all crispy in the cold air. I really want one of the old school sweaters that the 'Tail employees had to wear. They said 'hooker's beavertails' and there was a picture of a beaver. My friend Kris kept hers and brought it with her when she moved to Halifax, to much acclaim. When you wear those outside the Ottawa-Hull region people tend to assume it's ironic. Nope, the Hooker family was 100% serious.

The very glamorous life of cleaning cat shit.

2005-02-19T11:51:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I went to Pur and got my hair dyed and cut by the wonderful Nick. It's pricey, so I can only afford to do this a few times a year, but they do such a good job I feel it's well worth it. The problem is that Nick styles it so it looks awesome, but then I sleep on it or have a shower and ruin the effect. I not dextrous enough to use things like curling irons, so I just try to ride out that initial styling as long as possible.

I emerged from the salon feeling very glamorous and generally movie-star like. I felt like going out somewhere fabulous and saying things like 'dah-ling, we simply must do lunch'. Sadly those article summaries were due the next day, so I went home and prepared to write them.

Frikken Pantaloons took a poo on the carpet, so I got to clean that up while watching the OC - but with really great hair. Since the whole glam thing was shot to shit, I ended up cleaning the rest of the apartment and eating macaroni and cheese out of the pot for dinner.

good times

2005-02-07T02:16:00.000-05:00

This was a good weekend.

Andrew managed to show up in Montreal. We were fed a whole bunch of yummy fondue goodness, stumbled upon some Chinese new year celebrations and got some drink on. Unfortunately, Andrew got all sickly, and the blue air in Hatter's didn't do much to help that. But their poutine is soooo good and the beer is sooo cheap.
Andrew reverts to being five when he's not feeling well, which is actually pretty endearing. It was the cutest thing ever when he fell asleep on the couch and Pantaloons fell asleep around his neck. He's pretty allergic to her though.

The paper due tomorrow is sort of a downer. I've finished my application to the Master's program I'm hoping to do next year (cause I'm a loser and I'm still in undergrad) and now I feel great because I don't have to think about it anymore until I get a letter back from McGill. I really really really hope they let me in. But there's a pretty good chance that they won't. I should have stapled a fifty to the application. Maybe I can find out who does the admissions and make them muffins.

I probably should have gotten at least some work done with weekend, but it's so nice to just take a vacation from it all every once in a while, even if it means staying up all Sunday night again.

Drunk on a school night isthe best kind ofdrunk

2005-01-26T01:27:00.000-05:00

Kareoke Box, host of Ali's gala 25th birthday event is kind of a dump.
And by "kind of" I mean "complete and utter".
But it was still awesome, even of they didn't hve "Mr. Roboto".

i smuggled in my own beers and the owner didn't seem to notice or care. The songs for kareoke were sort of crappy, but being able to showcase my lack of talent made them worth it. Especially since being in a small room with only Ali's peeps made it fun and not intimidating. It also gave me the chance to encourage others to "sing it" or "testify", which I hardly ever get to do.

I can't believe i'm expected to be at school in a few hours.

In other news: oatmeal is the bestway to warm up from the 45 minute minus-18-where-the-hell is-the-bus walk. Oatmeal also soaks up excess beer for hangover prevention....I think...time will tell.

I've come down with a serious case of farmer

2005-01-15T08:31:00.000-05:00

This case of Farmer I've got is raging out of control.
Last night I went to sleep at 9:30. I woke up this morning at 5:30 and cannot go back to sleep.
I guess there are still some jet lag issues. And general not-sleeping issues. Thursdays' trip to BDP was good, but I should have left before that last-metro cut off, given that I had to be at school at 8:30 the next day. I regret nothing. Except that my coat still smells. BDP has a much worse smell than any other bar. Katie likened it to a dead body.

Mornings are lame. There's nothing to do and it's cold and dark. The paper showed up at about 7:00. I knew Andrew would be awake and getting ready for work at 8:00 so I called him. He said I should go milk the cows or churn butter to entertain myself and my early-rising Amish ways. Meh.

Pantaloons is still at my dad's house, so I didn't have her to entertain me while I was waiting for the sun to rise. Poor Pantaloons - there was no one to take care of her over x-mas, so she had to go back to Ottawa to be terrorized by the other cats. I'll go pick her up as soon as I get a free weekend and a little space to breathe.

I think maybe I'll go swimming. But not for a while, because I refuse to get out of the apartment before 9:00 on a Saturday.

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

2005-01-12T06:33:00.000-05:00

Tokyo is amazing because it feels like rush hour even at midnight. And the map for the subway system looks like one of those celtic knot designs. Also, I'm reasonably sure that you could find almost anything in the world there.

Without Mr. and Mrs. S. there to get everyone out of bed, we didn't leave Miwa until past noon. Adam, Miyuki, Andrew and I hauled ass to Tokyo and got there in the late afternoon. We met up with Miyuki's friend Naoki and she showed us around town, taking us to the lovely Ginza district of Tokyo where we acted like total otakus (nerds or "social retards") in the Sony showroom. Those robot dogs are far too creepy. We found the karaoke bar from "Lost in Translation", but Bill Murray wasn't there, so the scene wasn't happn'in.

We also wandered around "electric town" in Akihabara which was seedier than I'd expected. Or at least the store we looked in trying to find a Hello Kitty neck massager was full of school-girl themed porn and no Hello Kitty stuff. Sorry Kem. There were lots of stores that sold things like spy cameras and chopped computer parts. Or at least I think so; it's hard to tell when you can't read anything.

We finally ended up in Shibuya checking out the Japanese take on Mexican food, since it's always interesting to see where fish flakes, squid and fried eggs will turn up. Shibuya knows how to party. They put Montreal to shame. There's even a museum of Tobacco and Salt, but we got shit-faced on $40 pitchers of beer and missed it. Instead, we decided to check out the cultural attractions in the Kareoke bar (incidentally, "kareoke" means "invisible orchestra").

The Japanese are really not afraid of alcohol. Kareoke there is in small private rooms so there's none of that crooning shit we have over here. Most places have all-you-can-drink specials and you just hang out with some friends and get completely wasted and sing that Styx song - Mr. Roboto.
"Secret secret, I've got a secret!"
The rest is a bit of a blur, but instead of seeing more of Tokyo I spent the morning sleeping and trying not to throw up.

Incidentally, it turns out that when you have a blinding hangover, being on an airplane makes it 30% worse.

So now I'm back in Montreal, Andrew had to leave for Boston, it's 6:00 AM and I can't sleep. I feel like it's approaching dinner time. I think I need the kerosene fumes from the heater to lull me off to sleep (though my clothes stil reek of kerosene - I'd better keep away from open flames). It's nice to be back in the land of central heating and no squat toilets, but the vending machines here suck (there's no Pocari Sweat or hot canned tea), it's really cold and suddenly I'm below average height. I want to go back.

Happy year of the cock!

2005-01-02T05:53:00.000-05:00

Hello from Kyoto!

On New Year's Eve-eve it was decided to check out the Japanese take on Indian food (it turns out it was smaller and more efficient). I had a chick pea mishap and spent all night and the next day getting violently ill in the hotel room as well as various rest stops and a McDonald's. They had sushi at McDonald's, as well as a teriaki burger, which I'm told was pretty good. I just had the gingerale, since I think the proper etiquette after throwing up all over the bathroom is to at least buy something and that was all I could stomach.

The hotel we were staying in was pretty swanky - there was a big cask of sake in the lobby. When I emerged in the lobby looking and feeling like death warmed over, I think it was assumed by most that I'd dipped into the sake a bit early.

That night Andrew went out to dinner with his brother and parents and came back just at the stroke of midnight. We spent a romantic evening of me being in (what felt like) a coma and staring at the TV and him drinking a few beers from the vending machines and reading. Thus new year's eve was spent sleeping and watching a TV show involving various Japanese pop stars dressed in kimonos or rooster costumes. I think it was sort of like that Dick Clark New Year's Eve thing, only with more jumping onto velcro walls and sing-a-longs. Japanese TV is everything I expected and more. Imagine how much better they would be if I had any idea what they were saying. I'm sure the speed-fish throwing thing I saw would be an instant hit on American TV.

For New year's day we went to the Fushimi Shinto shrine outside of Kyoto. It's dedicated to Inari, the god of rice and sake. Everyone was out celebrating the year of the cock. There was rooster-themed stuff all over the place and tens of thousands of people buying it. Many young ladies wore their kimonos and, for some reason, marabou-feathered stoles with them. The ground was really muddy and the cuffs of my jeans got pretty dirty, but they had their wedge sandals and seemed to be able to pick their way delicately trough the mud without getting the kimono dirty. They seemed to be exempt from the "let's all push each other" free-for-all that was going on everywhere else. More specifically, if you are in the way of someone older than you, it is perfectly acceptable for them to push you out of the way. Since many of the elderly Japanese stand barely four feet tall, it's hard to see them coming.

We climbed the path to the many smaller shrines. The whole path was covered by thousands of Orange Torii gates. They all had melting snow on them and the result was breathtaking. The hour and a half climb around the mountain more so.

Later we went to Nijo castle, which had the most beautiful garden. Those old shoguns really liked their gardens. Even though it has two moats that are at least 20 feet wide, fires from the city have burned down parts of the castle twice.

Off to Nara. But first to lunch at Bikuri Donkei ("Surprized Donkey") - sort of like Denny's but with fish flakes on everything.

Kunishiwa from Japan

2004-12-29T21:28:00.000-05:00

Hello from Miwa, Iberaki.
Japan is pretty awesome.

The plane ride was long. Take the longest you've ever had to sit still and add an extra five hours on top of that. I fell asleep for a while so I'm not sure how long it was (the time difference is too confusing to deal with). I did watch 4 movies on the plane, so it had to be a long time. But I got to see the frozen rivers of Siberia and the Northwest Territories. They're breathtaking when viewed from a few thousand feet.
I'll put up pics as soon as they're developed.

Andrew and his brother, Adam, picked me up from the bus stop in Mito and gave me my new favourite drink - Pocari Sweat. It's very similar to Gatorade except less sugary.
About an hour later we were in Miwa. It's pretty remote. Some of Adam's neighbours raise chickens. One has even has a tanuki (sort of like a bloodthristy badger) in a cage. I'm told he bought it thinking it was a dog. I can see why he would be confused. Aside from the stray mongrels, every dog is tiny and adorned with a sweater or little booties or a hat.

Japan is totally amazing. Aside from the Hello Kitty crap everywhere and sashimi samples at the grocery store, it's also really beautiful. Once I got over suddenly being illiterate I chilled out and just went along for the ride. Most people do speak a bit of English and the signs are often in English. Or Engrish anyhow. The bus from the airport out to Miwa reminded me to take all my junk off the bus with me. Other signs will ask you not to start bonfires.

I still can't get over how clean everything is and how polite all the people are. It's like Canada ratcheted up several notches.
There's even snow!
Unfortunately there's no insulation in most houses...or central heating. The kerosene heaters give you quite a headrush if you leave them on too long. Luckily I have Andrew to snuggle up to.

The roof is on fire.

2004-12-25T01:52:00.000-05:00

A really quite minor family battle left things a little bit awkward and me feeling anxious.
We always manage to scream at each other over x-mas, for some reason.

I usually try to get out and give things some space when that happens.
This year my brother decided to boycott x-mas. Since some people bought him presents anyway, he decided to get a few things for some of us. I usually take him shopping since he hates it and can never think of stuff to buy, so he called me and asked what I want. Asking also, of course what to get for our various parent/step parent peoples.

In the end he showed up for dinner and asked me if i'd rather have a girly-bath thing or a big bag of hydro weed. Fuck the bath stuff.

He was meeting a few friends for his 'midnight mass' smoke out in the park and I called him and asked if I could get into my christmas present early. He came back to the house with a spliff and we smoked it while walking back.
He's either afraid I'm going to be a dork in front of his friends, or that I'm going to make fun of him in front of them, the way I did when I was 12. So I turn around to go back home. It is REALLY cold out, but I decide I'll keep walking for a bit, especially since the sky is looking very intense.

Several fire trucks are just screaming by. I think that there's something wrong, but then remember that I'm a little high and it's way more efficient to just ignore those ideas. Especially since there's a fire station a block away, so fire trucks are pretty common here.
Then it strikes me that it IS weird because they're going towards the fire station at full blast, instead of away from it.

I decide to walk a bit closer. The top storey of a duplex is just billowing smoke out the balcony doors and roof. There are a lot of flashing lights and also a fair number of gawking bystanders wearing pyjamas and coats. It's about negative twenty five and one of those perfectly clear and calm nights. The smoke seems to reach up past the moon and, from where I'm standing, it looks like it's filled the whole sky over North-Eastern Ottawa.

I think I was just craning my head around looking when I realize that I stopped next to a small group of neighbours and hadn't even made eye contact with them (it's not hard to do when wearing a hoodie and scarf-wrapped-around-face combo). I smile nervously at one of them and realize that they must have thought I was being creepy. Then I have one of those 'o migod i'm REALLY high' moments that just seem so highschool yet are funny. Then I got those stoner giggles - you know, like when you start thinking about how hilarious your nose is and it feels like you have cobwebs on your face. All of a sudden it occured to me that I was watching someone's house burn down and it looked like I was laughing at it. I headed home before someone thought I was an arsonist. At this point the whole roof was ablaze and the cops were starting to clear people off the street.

I found out the next day that everyone got out ok. That was the same night the tsunami hit. Having your house burn down on Christmas eve sucks, but having your family washed away by a giant wave puts it into perspective.

The new diet solution

2004-12-23T01:09:00.000-05:00

Whoa!

It's nice to be back home. Ok, parts of it are annoying, but the food is way better than when I'm cooking for myself.

I gorged myself on a nice steak dinner and then made christmas cookies and chocolates, which entailed eating quite a bit of cookie dough.
A few hours after this I found myself hungry. Now, I've eaten A LOT of food today and there's really no reason for this. Nonetheless, I can't stop thinking about how tasty a baked potato would be right about now.

I reason that it will be ok if I just have a tiny one and don't put any butter on it. I put it in the microwave and go upstairs to grab a sweater.

I was sort of skipping back down the stairs, looking forward to the potato, when I heard several loud bangs. It turns out that the first loud "Bang" was produced by my butt and back hitting the stairs. The other, smaller bangs were caused by my butt hitting each stair as I slid down the better part of the flight. I figured out that I was falling when I heard the "OW!" noise I made. But by that point I had stopped moving.

I got up and tried to figure out how that had happened. I think it had something to do with my socks not getting along well with the carpet on the stairs. That, or getting along too well with it. I used to slide down the stairs (usually on purpose) all the time as a kid. It's that nasty long-haired carpet stuff from the 60's that's not quite shag. It's also a really hideous colour of pooh-brown and it wasn't laid right so it has big bumps in places. My mom has been talking about getting rid of it since she moved here. She's renovated literally everything else in the house but she never got around to the carpet.

I think I'm fine except for a bruise or two. Also, I no longer want the potato.
So the next time you're about to eat a big heap of pudding, see if throwing yourself down a flight of stairs doesn't help. It can't be that much more hazardous than Atkins.

This is pretty nice for the darkest day of the year

2004-12-21T18:28:00.000-05:00

I'm finally mostly almost done for this semester. Nearly.

X-mas shopping is the best procrastination device ever. After the internet, of course. And Pantaloons.

Andrew came to Montreal briefly on his way to Japan. No dust on him! But lots of vegan deliciousness in him, thanks to Ali and Jim and their Chrismakah latkes.

I'm going to meet up with him in a week. I'm really excited yet dreading the 20 hours of airplane time. I'll ask Andrew how it was when I next talk to him. He should be at his brother's place by now, I think. It's probably tomorrow there by now, since they're apparently nine hours ahead of GMT. To make it more confusing, they don't do daylight savings time in Japan. Way to not kowtow to the farmers!

People of North America - for too long we have put up with setting our clocks twice a year. The sun is not supposed to set before 5:00! Who gets up at 6:30 anyway? We must overpower our Amish overlords and throw off the shackles of farmer oppression! Viva la revolution!

I'm back in Ottawa looking at the prettily decorated tree and feeling the Christmas cheer. I haven't even dipped into the rum-laced-with-eggnog yet. The cold temperature yesterday broke several records. I'm glad it was colder than ever, because I thought I was just getting really wussy. It's supposed to be much much warmer today. It's also the first day of winter. I always find it encouraging to know that the days will be getting longer again.

Well, off to brave the hordes at the mall. Then all the school stuff will get done. Probably.

Does anyone want a new cell phone?

2004-12-03T16:21:00.000-05:00

Yay! My student loan cheque finally showed up. No anal probing for me.

I decided to celebrate by cancelling my old cell phone account with Fido (the phone itself having died due to a mishap with spinach dip).

The lady from Fido didn't take it too well.
She thought everything was fine and didn't know I was unhappy. We've been together for 5 years, why didn't I say something, she asked me.
I tried to tell her that it's not her, it's me, but she kept insiting that whatever it was that I was unhappy about she could change.
I said they had no coverage in the USA and she said she could fix that if I'd just give her another chance (and set my phone to "analog")
I eventually had to break it to her that I had been seeing Telus behind her back.
She pretty much called Telus a whore and said anything that Telus could do, she would too.
I said it was too late for that, I had made up my mind and we should both move on.
She begged me to take her back and offered me a bunch of free stuff.
I said I had to move on, so she asked if I could set her up with any of my friends.
Well, breaking up is hard to do.

If you know anyone who wants a free cell phone, $30 credit and no contract, give me a shout, at my new number, lop-0-nip (that's a zero in the middle, not an "o"). The catch to you is that you take over my old phone number and that if you ever want to leave Fido they will guilt you out of it.

$1000 - may involve anal probing

2004-12-01T04:00:00.000-05:00

There's a study on sleep, hormones and circadian rythms going on at the Douglas Hospital. Since I'm doing my stage ("internship" for non Quebecquers) there anyhow, I'm thinking "sweet, I can make a cool grand and wake up in the place I need to be for work, what's the catch?" Well the catch is that "your blood will be sampled frequently and your body temperature will be monitored continuously via a rectal probe that you will install upon arrival in the laboratory."
Schma? My, aren't they forward - worse than Frank Gifford! (No, I am not making this up. )

I'm getting pretty broke. Like pathetically broke, but has it come to this? It is in the name of science....also in the name of my credit card bill.

If any of you 18-30 year old ladies who are not taking birth control pills, need $1000 and who don't mind the indignities listed above would like to check it out, go to their screening questionaire at: www.ugd-dmu.ca/cycles .

God hates me

2004-11-30T02:36:00.001-05:00

Caution: this is mostly complaining.

Like George Costanza, I might not believe in God, but I do when it comes to the bad stuff (just kidding, Big Guy...please don't smite me!)

Now that I think about it, it's not so much God as the government of Quebec that hates me, which is worse. In its infinite wisdom and even more infinite red tape, my government won't give me any Employment Insurance money or my student loan money. This, despite the $39 billion surplus EI is running and parts of my claim actually being legitimate. I am told thatI will have to sue my former employer to get the $45 they owe me and to make them fix my EI claim. Ughh! Just for more fun, I can't get a drivers liscence until I have a RAMQ (health insurance) card. But I can't get a RAMQ card without a the drivers liscence...or something like that. Very confusing. Fuck it, I'm moving to.......the middle of the ocean? Let's try that again...Laos. Not bad. Apparently it's the "land of a million elephants."
Since that Son of a Bush will be in Ottawa tomorrow, it might be a good time to get the hell out of Canada - just as soon as I get my passport.

The fact that a container of spinach dip blew up all inside my purse and all over my cell phone probably had more to do with my shitty plastic containers than the ill will of some sort of omnipotent being.
Regardless of what's responsible, it still sucked and made me cry on the subway. The nice guy who gave me tissues and the busker who was playing three recorders simultaneously (one in each nostril and one in his mouth) cheered me up a little. Sofi and Kem, who helped me wipe the spinach gunk off of everything and fed me tacos, helped a lot. Soon I will think this was all funny, I hope.

So things are looking up. I even finished two papers (nearly half done!). And now I have a swanky new cell phone with a camera in it. If I can figure out how it works, I'll put some photos up.

O-twat and J-Pan

2004-11-16T21:37:00.000-05:00

I got back yesterday from Ottawa and a visit with the family.
I mooched soooo much stuff from my mom, but I'm all kinds of poor right now and she didn't mind. She even made me a bunch of fajitas to take to Montreal. Moms rule - mine especially.

It's official, I'm going to Japan! Andrew's brother lives outside of Tokyo and his family is doing x-mas there this year and they invited me along. I'm going from Dec 27th to Jan 10th. Whooot! I still don't know the name of the town he lives in and I know pretty much nothing about Japan, but I'll figure this stuff out as soon as Paper-writing Hell is over.

Start placing your orders for Hello Kitty "neck massagers" from the land of the rising sun now.

You've got to help me, my pussy is burning!

2004-11-12T02:26:00.000-05:00

I had just gotten out of the shower and put on PJ's when the fire alarm in my building went off. I grabbed some pants, threw a few valuables in my bag and carried Pantaloons out while Denise opened the doors. Pantaloons did not appreciate the alarm and scratched me up. When we got outside she was shaking in my arms. Denise and I stood around outside and met the few neighbours who thought Pantaloons was cute yet weren't scared off by our constant swearing.

It was sort of cute except that my cat peed on me a bit. She was scared and shaking, so I don't really blame her. I couldn't just leave her in the apartment - what if it was a real fire? I started thinking of how I would have to convince fire fighters to go save her and was reminded of a song by Craig, an evil genius of a guy who went to highschool with me and who got drunk in my house a few times. It's a great track - he looped a crank 911 call of some lady saying "you've got to help me, my pussy is burning!" and made a video for it. (http://www.revolution909records.com/deacon/ go to audio/video and download the music video for "my pussy is burning")

If I have to be peed on, I'm sort of glad that it happens on Rememberance day. Yes, I got cat pee on me and it was gross but at least I've never been shot. I'm currently on the phone with my dad who is talking about my grandfather's part in WWII. Apparently Grandpa was a wing commander in the Air Force, flew Winston Churchill somewhere and was presented Distinguished Flying Cross by King George VI. I actually saw a photo of that. My dad says a DFC is like one down from a VC. Not too shabby, gramps, way to stop the axis.

From the belly of the beast

2004-11-08T13:44:00.000-05:00

I'm in Cabridge, Mass, at the moment, usurping Andrew's computer for my nefarious purposes.

I've been bellyaching about America a lot lately, but now that I'm here, I just don't want to think about it anymore. I think it's rage burnout. Or maybe learned helplessness. I think there's only so much fist shaking and teeth gnashing one can really do before giving up. Also my stomach is starting to hurt whenever I get worked up about this stuff, so I'm just going to live in a deluded little bubble for a while and pretend that everything will turn out fine.

Some peeps were handing out pamplets outside of Harvard yesterday for Lyndon Larouche, who lost the democratic nominiation to Kerry. They're doing a webcast tomorrow, Nov 9th at 1:00 EST on www.larouchepac.com about how W. will blow up the US and world economies. Check it out.

Oh, for those of you who want to save a Yankee from Bush land, check out www.marryanamerican.ca. Though I think it's meant as a joke, you never know what nice left-wing Yankee folk you might meet. I'm off to meet mine now. Andrew goes to Mass. College of Pharmacy in Boston and will be done class for the day soon. I like to get there early to try to steal all the oxycontin and methadone they have lying around. No luck so far, but maybe today's my lucky day.

Dear Americans: WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?!

2004-11-03T05:07:00.000-05:00

It's nearly 2:00 AM, on what has turned out to be one of the shittier days I've had so far. So far NBC has all but called the US election in favour of Bush.

I've heard that 80% of non-Americans support Kerry. I thought it would be even more. Everyone else agress W. is a dumbass, so why, with apologies to my Yankee buddies, is the American populace so damn ignorant? I mean apart from that third rate education system, rampant poverty and ridiculously biased media coverage. The part I really don't understand is that Peter Jennings was going on about how it looks like most Americans put morals ahead of political issues in this vote, yet they seem to have voted for the dude with the questionable morals. W's DUI's and coke snortin' don't exactly make him the Christian posterboy.

Look, I'm getting all verklempt, so I'll give you a topic to discuss amongst yourselves:
If it meant that W. would lose this election, would you have sex with him?

Post a reply and let me know (you don't need an account to do that, just hit "comments" and then post anonymously)

2004-11-01T21:40:00.000-05:00

This is me.

If she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will

2004-11-01T20:33:00.000-05:00

Halloween was awesome! I dressed up as Cruella Deville for Friday and Saturday parties. I even made myself a "dalmation" stole out of white fun fur and black sharpies.

My co-stagiere, Vanessa, who was dressed as the paper bag princess, kept singing the song from 101 Dalmations: "Cruella De Vil, CruellaDe Vil. If she doesn't scare you no evil thing will. To see her is to take a sudden chill Cruella, Cruella..." I think that's my new theme.
I want to dress up like that every day- no one sits next to me on the bus and people give me candy.

Today I really cemented my reputation as a crazy cat lady. Now I can avoid neighbours for the rest of the year. Sweet! See, Pantaloons gets really really scared whenever we use the vaccuum. So to keep kitty from hiding behind the TV for the next two days, Denise took her for a walk in the hallway outside our apartment while I cleaned. Pantaloons busted loose and ran down the length of the hall, chased by my crazed roomate, who was apparently yelling "BAD PANTALOONS!" She evaded Denise for a few trips down the hallway. So we switched and Denise cleaned while I got to stand outside the apartment holding a visibly shaking cat while my neighbours refused to make eye contact with me. Just for fun I think I'll leave all the Halloween crap I put on the door until at least Christmas. Maybe some trick or treaters will show up in late November. I'd better keep buying candy to be on the safe side.

I had another run in with my real life Cruella at my old place of employment. Since HR bitch decided to leave a few minutes early, she couldn't give me my last cheque and I can't pay rent today. She is such a douchebag! I think I see some car tire slashage in my near future...but she might not have a car. Maybe I should stick to the classics and just put a flaming bag of dog shit outside her office, knock and run away. Is that a little too obvious?

lord of the flies

2004-10-20T02:54:00.000-04:00

If I knew how many flies I would have had to deal with today, I wouldn't have left the house.

When I got to my stage I was told that the other three students and I were to move to our new office.Ten minutes later some guys showed up and took my desk hostage, leading it away on a dolly. I followed them and thus found out the location of my new office. I'm now working out of a room on "Ward C".

It's ok except that it's infested with flies. I spent about 20 minutes sweeping up the hundreds of dead flies that littered the ground. Houseflies aren't all that gross until you start dealing with well over a gross of them. (sorry.) We couldn't walk anywhere without crunching them underfoot. Since that is the nastiest thing ever, I procured a broom and got rid of them. But then maintenance showed up to yell at us for stealing their broom. But that's ok because we apologized and sweettalked them into mopping the floor - for the first time in decades.

The "office" is actually an old double room which held five beds for psychiatric patients. This was from back before most psychiatric meds were developed, so most psychiatric patients were considered untreatable and were pretty much kept like livestock...though in hospital wards instead of barns. Coincidentally, the Douglas has kept pet pigs on the hospital grounds for several decades now.

Aside from replacing the beds with the desks, installing phone jacks and slapping a coat of paint on it, I think my office hasn't changed at all since the 40's. Once we got the dead flies out and mopped the floor it looked pretty good...in a retro-One-Flew-Over-the-Cuckoo's-Nest sort of way. Though we still have about 50 live flies to hang out with. I will train them to do my bidding.

I'm watching game 6 of the Yankees Sox series, which is weird because I don't actually follow baseball. They just called out riot police to hang out on the sidelines - how fucked up is that? Well it's bottom of the 9th and 4-2 Boston, so the good guys might actually win. If they do, maybe all those asshole Yankee fans will riot and get stomped by the riot police. Police brutality sucks and all, but that would be pretty funny. Who's your daddy now?

I just called Andrew to see what he thought of it and got every girl's favourite response: "can't talk now, watching televised sports." Great. Did I mention: "watching sports alone, save for a girl"? Oh well, I'm reasonably sure he's not a bad man and this is a big game, so I don't mind. Plus every once in a while he'll make me a macaroni picture or spend eight hours on a bus to see me. And I hope the Sox win too...only I'm going to sleep now instead of finding out how it ends.

The Green Monster

2004-10-16T23:22:00.000-04:00

Boo Yankees!!

Stupid Red Sox, getcher shit together! Seriously. This ass-kicking is just embarassing.

Hee hee, look at me pretending like I know about sports. The Green Monster is apparently the back wall of Fenway, so named because....um....every once in a while it eats a dog or stray child. I think it also is hard to hit the ball past.

I'm thinking of testing drugs for money. Does anyone want to go hang out with angry drifters on generic brand allergy medecine with me? You can make quite a bit of cash and you might be in the placebo group. Then again, you might grow a tail or turn green. If anyone's interested: "Volunteers Wanted!Would you liketo receive up to$1,500?Call (514) 381-ALGO (2546) and find out how to participate in one of our clinical trials."

EW! The cat is rimming herself again. I know they all do that, but I wish she'd pick somewhere other than right in front of the TV to get down to business.

Pantaloons/ Do it for Jodi!

2004-10-14T00:09:00.000-04:00

Thanksgiving was pretty awesome. Andrew came to Montreal and then we went to the O-Twat to see my extended family, eat a ton of turkey and sleep.

Andrew is thinking of Canadianizing himself soon. Since Bush might actually get a second term, I can't believe more Yankee folk aren't doing the same.

Andrew hasn't started to talk funny from being in Boston yet, but I know it's only a matter of time before he stops being able to say stuff like "car" and "chowder", so it's imperative that he come back to Montreal soon. That, and I like to see him. He even helped me clean up cat poo a few days ago, so he's a keeper.

My Family, for all their foibles, is pretty damn good to me. On this trip I left Ottawa with: a pumpkin from the garden, some more lighter fluid for the little habachi mom gave me last time I saw her, vaccuum cleaner bags, assorted other stuff and Pantaloons - my new cat.

Pantaloons had been living with my dad and step-mother and their two other cats and two dogs for a while. She hates the other cats and spent most of her time outside or hiding behind the washing machine from them. Not smart seeing as how that's where she always hid, so they knew where to find her.

So now she's living with me and Denise.
Aside from the pooing in the cage incident on the way here, she's doing pretty well. Denise and
I are completely obsessed with her and her fluffy ways. We're trying to train her to be less annoying using squirt guns, but no success yet- she was outside my bedroom door meowing and scratching at 6:30 this morning. Just 'cause she's bored. She's officially the cutest thing ever.

I realize I have now crossed the line...not only do I have a blog, but I use it to talk about my cat. Just wait until I'm done all my papers - I'll start sewing her little outfits or something even more crazy-cat-lady-ish.

EWWWW! George Bush is on TV! His plan for dealing with the healthcare crisis is to personally forgo a flu shot and to ask other healthy people to do the same.
C'mon Kerry, GET HIM!
Hey, someone's been teaching him new words! "Rhetoric", "Litany" he doens't know what that means. Way to flip him off Denise! Who is voting for this dumbass? C'mon crazy people with guns....isn't anyone interested in impressing Jodi Foster anymore?

Pantaloons will calm me down. Serenity now...serenity now.

Sweet tapdancing Jesus!

2004-10-08T01:41:00.000-04:00

YAY!
I've just gotten the most awesomest haircut ever (Nick at Pur is some sort of demi god) and all the caffeine I had put me in that "MEMEMEMEMEME!!! Hooray for everything" kind of mode.

In addition to accidentally scamming a free bagel this morning (if Tim Ho's fucks up I don't see why the onus is on me to point it out to them, especially when I'm already late for the bus) I also got free lunch at the grand rounds lecture today at the Hospital in which I intern. The lecture itself was really interesting, even without canneloni. It was about a stress-diathesis model for comorbid anxiety and major depression. It was also a big advertisement for how a new SSRI is the best treatment for everything, ever. Ever since I ate that free lunch I've been obnoxioulsy happy. Maybe they laced the fruit salad with the drug. If so, I'd recomend Mer...something...ine. It doesn't seem to do much for memory.

I miss my old psychology days. It's all so damn interesting that it makes me want to become a psychiatrist. I think you need to have good grades for that though. I'd better stick with Social Work. But in psych you get to use words like "Hippocampal neurogenesis" and in Social Work you get to think of classy ways to say "pissed her pants" and "didn't smell so great" for when you're writing up case notes.

I have the overwhelming urge to play with a LiteBrite. Remember those? You push those pegs into paper and create designs and then turn on the lightbulb behind it and it looks all futuristic (in an 80's way) and sweet. I wonder what happened to mine.

It would also be fun to play that game witch a dog where you hold up his front legs and pretend like he's dancing with you. My ex-beagle, Charlie, was pretty good for that. I'm pretty sure he hated it, because he'd tuck his tail between his legs and look all confused, but I'd buy his affection with milkbones. He was a'ight, except that he peed on my bag and got sprayed by skunks sometimes. I used to sing this song to him (to the tune of "I am slowly going crazy, 1-2-3-4-5-6 switch!"), "I know a dog whose name is Charlie, he is a very intelligent pup. He can stand up on his hind legs when you hold his front ones up".

On the downside of things I have more school work due in such a short time that it is barely humanly possible to do even a half-assed job. Also the government won't give me free money and is insisting that I go to various interviews and such. I just want the EI, I don't want to work for it. Can't they get that straight?.

Well, I'm going to try to learn from things instead of getting exasperated about them. I will also share my knowledge. For example, did you know that:
-Bus schedules are meant as more of a suggestion than as a predictive instrument.
-If you cook a baked potato too long you can make one big crunchy potato chip. It still tastes ok.
-Fish doesn't keep when you forget to put it in the fridge overnight.
-They are really not fucking around when they say "please use other sidewalk".
So now I know, and knowing is half the battle. (GO JOE!)

I had been thinking about phrases we should save from extinction, like "fuckin' A", "fake it till you make it" and "you remind me of people I used to fuck in prison" when the hair-cutting guru, Nick, busted out one of my all time favourites: "sweet tapdancing Jesus!" I also really like "just give'r", but that's a little overused already.

So just fuckin' giv'r!

this "responsibility" crap sucks the bag, big time

2004-09-28T21:18:00.000-04:00

Not only is there a seven AM now, but I am regularly expected to be awake then.
The creepy thing is that I can no longer sleep past 9 AM, even on weekends.

I have also not gotten drunk on a weeknight in a while, eat square meals and prevented Denise from having candy for dinner tonight.

I had something funny to say, but I forgot it. Jesus H. Christ! What the hell is happening to me?

I'm going to go sit in the jacuzzi and contemplate what an old fart I have become. It's good for the ol' arthritis.

This "information superhighway" thing is pretty fun.

2004-09-24T15:47:00.000-04:00

Yay! Sofi, Kem and Denise (or "Sofa", "Ken" and "denies" as spell checker calls you) have all seen my nerdy handiwork. And denies' friends are coming over to fix our internet today.

So now that I seem to have developed a strong fan base, I think I can start getting all preachy to the three of you. CALL OFF THE THIRD WORLD DEBT!!

I actually learned all about the debt in Honduras in one of my classes. It's going to take a lot of years of working in Kathy-Lee's sweatshops to pay that fucker off. This stupid guy in the class started saying he doesn't see how buying fair trade products helps the producers. Various people tried to explain it to him. Oh well.

In other news, Canada is now ranked fourth by the U.N. in the Human Development Index. We have to go fuck things up in Sweden so we can get back to # 1. Maybe we could spread the plague or something. No, their efficient and accessible health care system would wipe that out quickly. Oh well, four isn't bad.

Kem, the US is # 17 (out of 17) on the Human Development Index. So go develop some humans in the slums of Seattle. Ha ha! you live in a crappy country! Mind you, Montreal has the highest poverty rate of any major city in Canada. No wonder 99 cent pizza places abound.

Ok, enough of this "learning" crap. I'm off to huff things. And also to go hang out with the mentally ill (or "crazies" to use the new politically correct term) at my field placement. I hope the pantsless guy isn't around today. But first, over to get some food from the cafeteria in Shatner. The one under his toupee is better than the one in the girdle.
Liz

Ok, I think I figured it out.

2004-09-21T22:13:00.000-04:00

Ok, I think I've got the hang of this now.
Instructions are for chumps. Also, I can't seem to find any. Stupid blog.

So the question is, do I leave this here and never write on it again, or I do plunge into the depths of nerdliness?

Look, I've had a hard day - I had to be at the mental hospital in Verdun all day and then hustle across town to get some volunteering time in.
No, I'm not a patient at the Douglas hospital....yet. For the time being I'm just doing an 800 hours internship as part of the ole' Bachelor's in Social Work thing I've got goin' on. Right now I'm there for 2.5 days a week and in classes at McGill the other days. In the summer when I have to do 3.5 days at week at the Douglas I think I'll see about getting committed. The food's not bad and the rooms are ok and it would save me a lot of commuting time if I could just sleep there.
Denise, the new roomate at our swanky new N.D.G. apartment is pretty awesome, so maybe I could come home on weekends. Or maybe she can visit me there.

Well I guess that answers that. Nerds rejoice!
-Liz

i just made this so i could post a reply to Kem.

2004-09-21T18:37:00.000-04:00

Does this work? Hi Kem. So you have a blog now. So does Sofi I see.
Sharif used to, but I can't find it anymore.
Peace