reading Craigslist Missed Connection ads.

yellow tulips.

animals. all of them.

crossword puzzles.

music. loud.

Prussian blue…


© Wikipedia

^ takes my breath away.

a crackling campfire. on a cool night.
and the smell of a hot tent.

still lakes.

ravens and crows.

the sound of crickets.

absolute silence.

hot pavement
seconds after the rain starts.

bob seger on a sunny day.

moments
exactly
like
this.

long drives without
destination.

the way suntan lotion skin smells
while lying on a beach
under a really hot sun.

words.

crooked teeth.

birch trees and oak trees.

planet earth.

piggybacks and arm wrestling.

the idea of Bora Bora.

© Tanehonu

the design of a chain-link fence.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I spend most of my waking life in constant thought and am most stimulated by those who are the same. I think it’s because in some sense it’s like being telepathic only there’s not necessarily communication in the verbal sense and it’s not el-creepo. It’s more like when you’re around someone similar your psyches do this kind of high five with each other. I know when it happens because I’m attuned to it.

You have to really be there to get it. I get a sense that some of you are going to know what I’m talking about. Still, some of you are going to wish you knew what I was talking about and some of you are reaching for the popcorn right about now to sit back just for the entertainment and stay completely out of it. It’s okay.

If I can try to explain it very simply: Imagine you’re traveling alone in a foreign country where you don’t speak the native language. You can move around and go relatively unnoticed when it comes to sticking to the universal standards of human behaviour (walking on two feet, feeding yourself with your hands, etc.) but at some point you will need to communicate with a local which you are already anticipating to be a challenge.

Your entire exchange will be quite basic and might include carefully flipping through the pages of your translation book as well as the odd, shameless charade in an effort to enhance what you’re trying to say. You would still be interacting, but it won’t be the most relaxed or natural way for either party. Each person is forced to augment the way they would normally communicate. Things might become so misinterpreted that you end up purchasing a live hen when your original request was directions to the latrine. You might try to explain yourself a few more times to no avail; the hen doesn’t fix the fact that you still need a toilet. With the other person’s hands waving in the air they motion you and your new hen away with reckless abandon. Frustrated and misunderstood, you have no choice but to give up and walk away.

Then, by some fortuitous happenstance you spot someone familiar through the wanderers. It’s someone you recognize from home – maybe the teller at your bank… anyone. It doesn’t matter that you’ve never officially met; what matters is you have found instant fellowship; someone who will understand you.

You rush over to the bank teller and bypassing all formal introductions, you both begin to laugh. You don’t need to offer a word of excuse for why you’ve got a dusty, old, clucking hen tucked under your arm because they will already know why.

There are some people who you meet along the way who will get you, even if you arrive at the friendship with a hen tucked under your arm. They won’t ask why because it will make sense because it’s just what you do. Find those people, keep them close, love them with all your heart, and be good to them.

Cluck, cluck.

Wednesday Jam Sesh?

Note: Lyrics.

Incubus | Dig

We all have someone that digs at us, at least we dig each other.

Can I please just reflect on my Saturday as of late? I spent the day time cleaning. Spring cleaning perhaps, however, it only really felt like official Spring in spurts where the rest of the day was coloured with grey skies. Saturday night approached and I was without commitment. I did for a moment contemplate leaving my apartment but then this brilliant idea came over me. I drove to the 7-11, picked up a bag of Sour Cream & O, came back home, popped in Gladiator, and opened my 500 piece puzzle of the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal. It must be the Italian in me.

My dinner was chips and glasses of water. It was amazing. My guests were Marshall, Otis, and Gee’s cat Whiskey; who looks just like Otis but isn’t. I sat on a pillow on my floor for approx 2.5 hours hovering over my coffee table, desperately trying to finish the border before the movie was over.

I was six pieces short come the end of the movie but at that point had also reached my capacity and became unable to look at the pieces with any kind of uniqueness any longer and called it a night.

It reminded me of being a kid and playing games that stimulated the cortex. Games that required dexterity and precision. Once I’m finished with the Basilica, I’m onto another 500 piece of Times Square to warm up before the 700 pieces of Provence, then 1000 of Casa Loma. 

After this phase I think I’m going to go buy a couple model cars to build and paint. 

I can imagine how excited this must make you.

Only a day late with the Sunday Jam. Here we have:

Citizen Cope – Holdin’ On

This one’s really good for those lazy days. It might even be raining outside. Or, you might be feeling sad. Or maybe you’re just driving on a hot, summer afternoon on a long stretch of highway.

Otis makes sure the pieces don’t move.

Presenting Mister Whiskey.
These cats just love my bed.
Rightfully so, I say.

It was actually yesterday, but that’s besides the point.

You know when you go through phases of such severe frustration toward everything around you except for animals?

Don’t you?

Oh.

Okay anyway, that was me for a while. When I enter a state like that, the catalyst is usually associated with someone’s emotional turbulence of sorts and I can’t handle it when it catches me completely off guard. Especially when I’ve been carrying on like everything’s hunky dory. La la la.

I like to pretend that I live my life in a state of ignorance and/or bliss. It has to be pretend because the reality is so much the opposite. This method of denial has its advantages, however, a potential disadvantage is that it’s still denial. And, a life spent in denial is a life spent.

You can quote me on that, even if it doesn’t really make sense.

I got to the point where I actually wondered if there was some recent change in the earth’s surface magnetism. It was really the only way I could try to make sense of why many people around me were crumbling in their own kind of way and somehow it was coming down on me hard. It was really weird I must admit. I felt like I was in Michael Jackson’s Leave Me Alone video.

So then, I took a look at myself, and wondered if perhaps I had changed. Being the self-deprecating, over-analyzer that I am, I did in fact contemplate if perhaps it was me. Maybe I was giving off some kind of energy that was opposing. But then, one of these breakdowns was via instant messaging with someone I haven’t chatted with since December who is a distant acquaintance. At least I thought that was our understanding? Oh maybe the feeling wasn’t mutual. Damn these work dynamics.

Things should be ironed out by now and the reason I’m able to kind of carry on past this is by practicing another one of my deflective methods of coping and that’s pretending it didn’t happen. I have a tendency to sometimes be weighed down by all the complexities of humankind and just how heavy we can be. But, if I were to fixate on all the ways in which I am left stunned on a daily basis I’d probably sell everything I had to go live on an island in the Archipiélago and exist among turtles, albatrosses, sea lions, and iguanas. So? Pretend. La la la.

Lessons learned lately:

- Kenny’s always going to take my phone calls in the middle of the night
- It’s not nice to call Kenny in the middle of the night
- No matter what you do, you’re going to disappoint someone in some way or another
- A good, kind heart should make up for all the things that piss other people off about you
- Marshall likes tomato sauce
- It’s been way too long since I hit the road 
- I am satisfying in a deeply unsatisfying way (figure that one out!)  
- There really is nothing like Steely Dan’s Aja album on vinyl specifically. Fireplace = On. Lights = Off.
- Breathe. 

Now you’re all…

Okay my darlings, it’s a little bit past ten o’clock and usually if I’m still typing in this state of exhaustion I am bound to tangentalize and read it again in the morning with regret wondering what kind of lousy drug I could say I was on to explain myself. Then again, I would never take drugs of the lousy kind. 

See there I go. I’ll regret that.

Steely Dan – Aja - This album and I are the same age.

Some clever Steely Dan trivia pour vous:

It’s actually a fictional Japanese dildo that finds itself in William Burroughs’s Naked Lunch. An excerpt:

Mary is strapping on a rubber penis: “Steely Dan III from Yokohama,” she says, caressing the shaft. Milk spurts across the room.

“Be sure that milk is pasteurized. Don’t go giving me some kind of awful cow disease like anthrax or glanders or aftosa…”

“When I was a transvestite, Liz in Chi used to work as an ex-terminator. Make advances to pretty boys for the thrill of being beaten as a man. Later I catch this one kid, overpower him with supersonic judo I learned from an old Lesbian Zen monk. I tie him up, strip off his clothes with a razor and fuck him with Steely Dan I. He is so relieved I don’t castrate him literaly he come all over my bedbug spray.”

“What happen to Steely Dan I?”

“He was torn in two by a bull dyke. Most terrific vaginal grip I ever experienced. She could cave in a lead pipe. It was one of her parlour tricks.”

“And Steely Day II?”

“Chewed to bits by a famished candiru in the Upper Baboons-asshole. And don’t say ‘Wheeeeeee!’ this time.”

“Why not? It’s real boyish.”

Needless to say Burroughs wrote this while he was under the influence of something he liked to call “the sickness,” AKA drug addiction, where Naked Lunch “… means exactly what the words say: naked lunch, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork.”

I mean, obviously.
Fantastic. I love authors when they’re high.

Burroughs and my buddy Kerouac were buds too. In fact, Burroughs credited Kerouac with suggesting the title “Naked Lunch” to him.

I’m writing you this letter in hopes of reaching out in apology for neglecting to listen to you this week. It’s been months since I ignored your needs and I fear that this time around it’s too late and I can already get the sense that you’ve shut down and are giving me the silent treatment in an effort to make me understand that I really shouldn’t be neglecting my responsibilities to you.

I know that it was foolish to stay up so late on Tuesday night and then to give us a false and very cheap sense of exhaustion by taking a Gravol and pretending that we’re tired for natural reasons. Then, it was irresponsible of me to have even taken that Gravol knowing that the alarm would be going off earlier than the usual 8 hours it takes for Gravol to leave the system.

Oh how I hurt you Wednesday morning by coercing wakefulness far too early and we encountered that nauseating feeling that comes from prematurely rising before the mind and body are physically prepared to even deal with such a concept. So then, as luck would have it, Wednesday turned into another day whereby night time brought on the kind of put me to bed now, you bitch pleading that largely went ignored except during the last ten minutes of The Last Station when I think I may have granted us 7.8 measly seconds of instant REM but then shook you awake with the velocity of a stifled sneeze. If it’s any consolation I did save us the embarrassment of being that “theatre sleeper” which I hope might count for something. In addition, you know you loved that movie so I’m sure that secretly you are glad I kept us awake for extra long just for the opportunity?

There was Thursday I might remind you. I did put us to bed at 9:45PM and we did have a good sleep that night but I know that the damage may have already been done because Friday felt like we were functioning at half capacity while dragging a hippopotamus behind us which was made ten times worse by the fact that we were sitting front line at work that day which also seems to have been the kind of day that my people were particularly hostile and hungry. 

We did also see the 2009 remake of the 1972 version of The House on the Left. Remember how we got that sick with fear and upset feeling? You like that feeling when you’re watching horror movies, don’t you? That was a nice time we shared together. Well, at least I thought it was.

Actually, come to think of it, it was excessive and predictable and the scenes at the end when the good people are trying to kill the bad people was so stupid because everyone knows if you’re going to choose between a plumber’s monkey wrench or a fire poker you’re going to go with the monkey wrench, no? When you go with the fire poker the bad guy is obviously going to grab it from the good guy and bend it in half with his massive strength thus rendering it useless and the bad guy lets out this thunderous grunt while the cowering good guy shuffles backward like a wounded crab trying to get away from a pelican. hahahaha That was so silly, eh? hahahahaha.

hahahaha (corner eye glance) hahahaha

hahahahaha hahahaha

ha ha ….. ha ha.

hm.

Well I guess that’s enough for now. It’s Saturday night and we’re tired but we’ve stayed in and that’s just for you because you’re worth it. What do you  say we put some eucalyptus oil in the diffuser, throw on some butter socks, and turn down the covers? Just me and you alone in the dark. 

Yours in eventual vindication,

- Andrea

It’s been a busy week that felt long which is always the worst. The highlight of the week though was having someone’s blood dripping from their mouth onto my counter. Shortly thereafter I sent a love letter to Plexiglass inventor, Otto Röhm.

I experienced gastro euphoria for lunch on Thursday which could have very well redeemed my week because good food tends to fix everything. There are bright sides to working in the Downtown East Side and that’s being so close to Gastown. For my visiting readers from cities aplenty please forget not to experience Gastown if you’re in the neighbourhood. Then find The Black Frog and call me, damn it.

I overhauled my living room last weekend (which is really two weekends ago now, this has taken me that long to write). This will be my fifth arrangement since October 2007. I’m not sure how normal that is but normal doesn’t usually apply to me anyway so I’m not going to worry. 

I did acquire a new piece of furniture as well and that is a big, IKEA Billy shelving unit with glass doors that Gg handed down to yours truly. Ghetto me could never afford such a thing brand new so hookups are nice. Now that I think about it, this may have all started when I sold my IKEA Benno shelves on Craigslist. For approx 5 nights 140 DVDs and probably an equal amount of CDs were actually taking up space on my living room floor. If you know me then you know how devastating this disorganization was to me. At the same time, those who know me will also know that it makes perfect sense that I sell the shelves on a whim without any sort of plan regarding where the DVDs and CDs will go when the shelves are actually sold. I lament the disorganization I bring upon myself. Go figure.

So to recover from this not-very-well-thought-out situation that was my living room, I reorganized, shuffled, and rearranged my furniture just to prove something to myself. As a side note, I never feel wholeheartedly lonely because I seem to be perpetually in a state of autonomous interaction with my conflicting personality idiosyncrasies. In this case it was the impractical visionary vs the disciplinary and the end result, fittingly, was a living room I love and one that so far Cathy and Gg are not so fond of. It only makes perfect sense.

What do you make of it:

Here’s why I like it:

1. Previously my computer was against the wall behind where it is now. I faced … the wall. Again, for those who know me, they know I can’t face walls – especially in restaurants – and while also sitting at my computer desk. It’s not claustrophobia, it’s neurosis. 

2. I like feeling cozy and workstations are sometimes hard to make cozy. But tell me you wouldn’t curl up into a ball right on top of my desk now and fall asleep there.

3) I spend most of my reading, scheming, escaping, daydreaming, and playing crossword puzzles on that there sofa. There’s something very tranquil about lying down on it and having those wide open windows in front of me. Previously they were behind me and what kind of purpose does that serve? None other than to make me wonder what’s going on in the world. Pointless; I need to know everything at all times.

4) Other than three glasses of red wine, Gravol, or Coronation Street, there is not much else that turns my mind off other than flames from a fire with a flavouring of José Feliciano from the vinyl.

Oh come on, you appreciate the effect and secretly wish you were sitting in my living room too.

5) The wall that now stands to support my books, DVDs, and CDs is the only wall long enough to keep them together as a family. 

And with that I will not justify my logic any longer. You will either enjoy it, dislike it, or not really give a shit either way so there really isn’t much more to discuss. 

I’ve now been composing this post for two weeks and four days. My new year’s resolution really should have been to finish my blog posts in a reasonable time frame…

Last weekend Mandy bunny and I made a fairly spontaneous plan to go to Whistler. The last time I was there they had the peak express lift closed because it was miserable and torrential. But this time, although it wasn’t a clear day, the snow conditions were probably the best I’ve skied in my 22 years of skiing. It was abundant and frigging fast and this is perfection to me.

In the words of whistlerblackcomb.com: “Whistler’s Peak Express offers some of the planet’s most rugged high alpine.” Now tell me that doesn’t send a shiver down your spine in all the right ways. We reached the peak and were submerged in heavy clouds. It was blustery and dark making the ground impossible to decipher from the atmosphere. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t scared shitless and that’s simply because when you’re on a sharp decline and you can’t see even ten feet ahead of you, you’re pulling guts from areas other than the pit of your stomach. In fact we were stealing guts from each other. We swore the whole way down to the first ridge and upon survival we masochistically wanted to do it all over again just for the thrill of it.

Isn’t Mandy the cutest thing?

On one of our lift rides we started talking about what the hills in Ottawa were like. Myself, I learned to ski at Edelweiss in Gatineau. We thought of all our favourite hills and how sadly they pale in comparison to what we are so lucky to have here. Just to put it into perspective, I did some quick calculations and came up with this very roughly scaled example of how Edelweiss might compare to Whistler. Technically speaking, Whistler has a top elevation of 2,182 metres compared to Edelweiss’s 350 metres. 

I mean, check out this vista:

Whistler © Andrea C.

Oh, am I bragging? Sorryyy.

What else is new…

Oh yes, here’s the car that’s going to replace my Ford Fo’ once my lease is up. Thirteen more days to go, by the way, and my last car payment comes out. Then I will be car-payment free. Free! Fr.EE! F|r|e|E! f:r/EE!

Cute isn’t it? Rando found me this little gem and I couldn’t be happier. I introduce you to my 1991 Civic Si.

Okay I will leave you with some Sunday Jammin’ Music on… yes, Thursday. This one’s solid for jammin’. Thievery Corporation – Un Simple Histoire

Please also enjoy with me this incredibly sexy photo of Johnny Depp.

Once again I have become completely consumed by nothing at all and have been periodically beginning a post only to run out of steam and leave it hanging amongst the continuously growing list of draft posts I’ve accumulated over these last two weeks.

It is not for lack of trying. You should see some of the things I’ve started out with. They had all the makings of some kind of revelation (something that happens to me at least once a week) and there I go, fingertips to keys, I type. Type. TYPE. Clickety, tickety type … Here we go… yes, yes, yes! … It’s working, the thoughts are coming … ooh these are good. But then my mind begins to wander, my fingers slow down and ADD (Andrea’s Design Deficit) takes hold.

I get hungry, or decide I want to exfoliate my face, do a mask, soak my hair in avocado oil, paint, paint my nails, brush the cats, clip their nails, tickle their tummies, dust, listen to records, do my dishes, clean my cupboards, play Nintendo, take a nap, scrub the walls of the litter box (that’s when I’m feeling particularly energetic), tidy up my MSN contact lists, purge some Facebook friends, think, daydream, fantasize, read, learn, think again, over-think, map out my life, pick my next travel destinations, self-actualise, -reflect, -analyse, -deprecate, love myself, hate myself, resign myself to my self, take a shower, make a list. (Reprise) Then, before I know it, it’s 10:PM and my half-finished blog post is still lingering on my monitor leaving me feeling unfulfilled, disappointed, and mad at myself that I did it again. I may attempt one or two sentences for good measure, hate where they’re going, and as a last ditch effort I’ll try to channel the exuberance I experienced earlier. However, it usually concludes with me opening up Bouncing Balls in Facebook, and then I go to bed.

Anyway, in a life’s nutshell, since my last successful post, I received my transfer request to start working in one of the downtown east side offices. For those of my readers who are unfamiliar with the DTES, I encourage you to visit the above link. This area of Vancouver is aka “Canada’s poorest postal code.” It’s the truth, bang on. And, it fascinates me in the most sincere, genuine, empathetic, compassionate, and heartfelt way I could ever express.

This area struggles in so many ways and does seem like there is no relief. In many ways there really isn’t. The struggle is consuming. So I’m here now experiencing at least a duplication of destitution from what I experienced at my old office. Some people, when I tell them I actually requested this transfer, will say I don’t know how you do it. My parents will say, Oh, just be careful, Andrea. I mean, in many ways they’re valid concerns. This place isn’t for everyone. But, for me, it’s full of damage, and for those who know me well, they know I love people’s damage.

I wonder about why it appeals to me so much and I believe a lot of it has to do with the fact that in the DTES, as an example, you will come across real people. Their afflictions are there for the world to see. Denying them to save face it is no longer a concern. They can be inappropriate, yes. Addicted, mentally ill, lost souls, and are in perpetual survival mode – survival is all they live for. It can be vulgar down there, yes. But it’s still real, there is no facade. Real as a state of being is very comfortable for me to be around. It’s the philosophy I live my life by, only with equanimity. There’s also something about helping someone find a roof over their head, give them some food, give them some hope, some warmth, just an ounce of understanding, respect, and comfort. The DTES is so rich with community resources too, I mean there is support for every possible social circumstance you can find yourself in. Starvation, addiction, fear, violence. You name it.

The DTES community resources are almost as saturated with support as the area is saturated with devastation so there is a good balance. Remember the industrious Doozers who lived under Fraggle Rock? They were constantly working but never really seemed to focus on what the heck they were constructing and why they were even doing it. They just did it because it seemed to need to be done. That’s almost what the DTES is like.

Pull up a chair, Andrea goes into the deep end…

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I identify my own damage on a regular basis. I don’t hide from it. I might wish some of it away, or may resent experiencing some things, but, at the same time, I’ve found that there’s nothing more cleansing than understanding what your damage is and meeting it at face value rather than convincing yourself it’s not a part of who you truly are. In doing this, I find it gives me better perspective into someone else’s life. When you know what hurts you, and you acknowledge it, you have a good idea of what’s going to hurt someone else. Then you make many friends that last a lifetime. You become the person who just “gets it” and I don’t care who you are, we all want that in the people we meet along the way.

Yea..

So things are going well at the new office overall. I was caught last week picking up the sticky insect traps around the office to see what goodies were inside. This may or may not have included going under some unoccupied desks. See, bed bugs are an issue in the DTES and I’ve never actually seen one so the sole purpose of my investigation was to find one stuck in there that I could see for real. Don’t you pick up sticky bug traps in your office to see what’s inside? What? That’s not normal behaviour for a thirty-two year old?

What else did I get up to…?

Oh yes, I finally finished painting my living room. It took me three weeks to complete and even still I’m not entirely finished painting the frame around my front door but on the whole the walls, trim, all six window casements and baseboards are finished. 1/3 of the door frame is complete. Perhaps I’ll finish the rest tonight.

Doubt it though.

On Friday night I vowed to my body and soul that we would do nothing together. The hour struck 9:00 and I turned off all the lights, put on my Beatles’ Love Songs album set, put on the fireplace and mentally escaped while staring at the ceiling from my sofa. If you’ve never done such a thing, I highly recommend it.

At any rate Let it be came on with a little crackle and as one of my favourite Beatles songs played I started to really concentrate on what that song meant to me and actually came up with a new tattoo idea. Of the three, but technically four, that I have, this would really be the only one that would actually be something I truly believe in. I have one, but technically two, on my left foot that translate into “Happiness” and “Truth” from Chinese (to the best of my knowledge) and I got those when I turned seventeen because my first real boyfriend made out with some other girl on a beach one night. That was how I dealt with the heartache. – Might as well tattoo my passive-aggressiveness on my own foot.

Now, when people ask, I just tell them it means Merry Christmas.

My mom will find out I’m getting a new tattoo from reading my blog. Hi muzzy. Reminds me of the really bizarre time I was actually coming back from my technically first tattoo on my foot and my mom was surprisingly driving right behind the OC Transpo bus. She spotted me, my face pressed against the back window of the bus and mouthed the words Did you get it? With the kind of look on her face that screamed I fucking hope not! I gave her a thumbs up with a really innocent look on my face that said Please don’t hurt me. All was well.

Okay so… blogging … new office … painting … tattoos. There’s got to be something else…

I might just very well be lapsing into that state again so I best get this published before it gets thrown into the pile of drafts that I will never get back to and eventually delete in a moment of housekeeping my blog.

Nicole, that one was for you okay? It’s my wedding gift to you.

Haven’t jammed in a while? Me either… let’s jam.

Neil Young – Unknown Legend.

I think this is such a beautiful song. I want someone to play it for me some day.

Someone… anyone?

The Enthusiast, by David Uhl

It’s been what I like to call a tick tock morning.

What I mean by that is everything seems to be functioning on a tick tock rhythm. For instance, the signal of the commercial van in front of the bus this morning was in unison with the signal of the bus. Tick, Tick, Tick. Sometimes at a red light you can sync up signals with your own for about 20 seconds but then the rhythms slowly disconnect until they are tick tocking at opposite intervals. These two ticks stayed in rhythm like tango dancers.

I stood beside a frowzy woman eating a McDonald’s hash brown on the bus. She was wearing a necklace with a hefty blue gemstone at the end that rested gingerly upon her joyful bosom and with each veer and bump that rock tick tocked from one mamm to the other. Like a child on a trampoline.

The everything machine that sits outside my office is not feeling well, for each time it revs up to pass pieces of paper through its internal organs it tick, tick, tick, tonks. Not a tock that time.

Today feels like I’m just a little removed from my reality to the point where my mind blurs out much like your eyes would when you’re in a daze. When that happens, minute activity that thrives on a daily basis around us unnoticed, all of the sudden becomes as obvious as shampoo in your eye.

It could be because I’m kind of groggy this morning so to focus on important things doesn’t become as necessary as enjoying the time I’m spending swinging from silky cobwebs. I fell asleep last night watching Mad Men in bed on my laptop and woke up to the sound of the fan overheating. Oopsie. That’s probably why it’s taking me a while to meet up with the rest of society.

Still though, somehow when alertness and responsibility call I’m able to turn up the collar and face the important issues of the day. Newsworthy? Yes, sometimes. But never worth the news. I made it to work, left to help the sick and wounded, made it back to work without distraction and here I am hungry of the stomach and writing a blog post instead that will most likely leave you, my readers, wondering why you just wasted your time on something so incoherent and absurd. It’s just part of my ‘ism.

Oh, I showered with a spider last night. It was actually quite distressing because he was trying desperately to scale the wet tiles. His rear legs managed to get a grip in the grout but his little front legs were just slip sliding away. I finished concentrating on myself while keeping an eye on him so that if he did lose his grip and tumbled down into the tub I would be on stand-by to save him.

I even took a photo of us which I can upload later today for those who are waiting on definitive confirmation of my nonstandard existence.

The fact of the matter is I have a good heart and I mean well and I can sleep at night knowing that if I’m turned away at the gates of Heaven, I’m VIP where the animals play and that if I can make one idiosyncratic person feel normal then I’ve done my job. Hey, I find faces and animals in the pocked patterns of suspended ceilings, too.

You know you are weird in your own little way. You should just throw a party for it.

I’m back from lunch and wanted to mention the orgasm my taste buds had at lunch. Jodes and I walked over to Solly’s on 7th and mowed down on a very tasty soup and bagel sandwich lunch, not before … or after, for that matter… I had one three of their date nut macaroons – which I’m sure are actually meringues. Anyway, holy kosher are they ever yumms. They’re little bite-size mounds of (see above) and they come loose or in packages. They’re gluten-free too and quite perfect according to Jodie and I.

I’m going home in T minus nine days. I’m going home for my little brother’s wedding. My little brother who can get engaged and actually follow through to marriage. Unlike his big sister. It’s going to be strange in some ways I imagine. I mean it would be odd enough to have my little brother get married before me, his big sister, but to also get married before his big sister who could have been married before him.

Oh how different my life is from what I imagined it’d be like at this time when I was in my mid-twenties. Sometimes I have to remind myself I’m in my early thirties. Maybe that’s part of the problem. I haven’t entirely experienced the last eight years, I was really just floating. Then I wake. I look in the mirror and I see little wrinkles around my eyes when I scrunch my face. I’m not twenty-five anymore. That was almost eight years ago. EIGHT YEARS? Eight years might as well be ten years. How do I stop this?

Where was I?

Oh yes, maybe floating isn’t really the right word. If I had floated then I would have never become so self-aware and introspective. I would have never developed such a sense of my self or an understanding of what it is that I truly want out of life. I would have never developed guts, or inner strength, or conviction. I would have never developed this constitution. I would have never learned that in order to get ahead you have to look behind you. 

No, okay … no. I didn’t float. At all. I just became a little misdirected from the path I thought I’d be going on. I guess sometimes because I’m all of the sudden in my thirties, when I swear last week I was celebrating my nineteenth birthday passed out on the floor of the front hallway at 3:AM with my feet hanging outside.

Like, I’m in Vancouver now. I would have never imagined myself solo in Vancouver with Marshall & Otis. At thirty years old I was entirely on my own for the first time in my life. My entire twenties were spent in two relationships, 5 years each. One almost ended up with me down the aisle. Imagine that. 

So I reflect, like I usually do – that’s nothing new. And I reflect upon growing up alongside my little brother who’s going to be someone’s husband now. I look at how he’s less my brother compared to when we were kids, and now he’s someone’s partner. He’s entering a new phase of his life now.

It’s strange but very enlightening and revelatory. I don’t mind it. I don’t mind the deviation. I don’t mind re-routing. I know there will be plenty more detours in this life of mine. One might even find me in Europe. Working in a little caffè and running along cobblestone roads. I can do it easy. Because it’s just me.

There are perks, you know. When it’s just me.

Yeah.

I’m doing that thing again, that thing where I sit in front of my laptop waiting for the world to change. I’m very tired and maybe I’m too tired to even think about getting ready for bed? So I just sit here. I sit here and nothing happens. M&O&M are sitting at my feet staring at me. I think they’re trying to say “Look, if you’re going to stay up, can you at least give us some food?”

Okay Otis mounted Marshall just now. He does that when he’s hungry only it’s a very aggressive maneuver. He jumps on him and bites his furry neck flesh. So then, Marshall wails but Otis doesn’t stop. The most fucked up thing about this is if I raise off this chair to break it up, Otis jumps off instantly and runs to his food bowl. Like, is that smart or what? He’s so sneaky. Unfortunately for him, his plan is always foiled when I throw him in my bathroom for a time out. He usually makes the best of this though by rolling around in my bathtub making these singing noises. Honestly, sometimes I think if he were human he’d seriously be “that guy.”

Enough about my cats. Can you tell I’m single and I LOVE my cats? There’s such a fine line between between being single, in your thirties and loving cats, or being single, in your thirties, and having cats to keep you company. Most of the time it’s the first. I don’t know many non-cat-lovers who keep cats around. Usually of all the domesticated pets I’ve found people either love cats or dislike them. There’s no, “I guess they’re okay,” business.

Write that down!

I watched two epis of Dating in the Dark back-to-back tonight. It’s on ABC on Monday nights. My friend had PVRd it so we caught up. If you’re unsure of the concept, basically they have three men and three women who meet in a room that is devoid of all light. Not even a crack under the door. So they meet this way as a group at first – completely blind to each other’s physical appearances (each sex knows what each other looks like though).

They’ll go on a couple “dates” in this pitch black room which will often entail some really interesting body language. The neat thing is the viewer is watching them entirely under night vision. So we can see if they roll their eyes, or pick their noses, or are making funny faces but they can’t see each other.

In the end, after the couples pair up through various activities they will stand alone in the room across from each other. Then, they will take turns having a spotlight on them so the other person can see what they look like while the person under the spotlight looks out into complete darkness. So they have no idea if the other person is making gag faces, or laughing, or scrutinizing, or just standing there in shock. 

After this they decide if they want to pursue something with their match. This is where things get incredibly, socially interesting. Oftentimes solid matches are made in the dark to the point where full on make out sessions ensue. The attraction is based entirely on personality and physiological chemistry however when they get to see each other it can be pretty fascinating how quickly someone can become turned off from the other person. I’d say of the few episodes I’ve seen the result is 50/50 with someone walking away or something going somewhere. 

If you can catch it you should, it’s pretty neat-o. It’s on Monday nights at 8PM PST, I believe.

Okay bedtime for me. I’m ready.