If I Could Just Hear Your Pretty Voice, I Don't Think I'd Need to See You at All

thus spoke my beloved jack white, on the album white blood cells; not the first white stripes album, but the one that skyrocketed them to international fame and fourtune, when the world fell in love with jack's puritannical devotion to traditional recording methods and meg's ability to keep the beat, rock steady. (ok, the WHOLE world didnt fall in love with them, but those of us who did are unflinching in our fanaticism). why am i bringing this up? well, comrades, this morning i was, as always, so sad to awake from the most wonderful dream about JACK.
this has happened to me before, when ive had adorable dreams about jack white and i being adorable teenagers who are having an adorable love affair. surprisingly, there are never any sexy results in these dreams, i imagine because i have him on a pedestal a mile high or something like that. anyway, this was one of those times. i was having a dinner party or something (and my imaginary apartment was way cool) and i had invited him but i wasnt sure he was going to come, and he DID! and it was awesome! and then he had to leave and said he might be coming back, but i knew he wouldnt. *sigh*. there was also a strange interlude in this dream where a man had toys stuck in his crazily long and afro-ish pubic hair, and i had to help him get them untangled. this sounds vaguely sexy, but it wasnt.
after the jack white dream, i had another marvelous dream where i was living out my real life dream of having an alpaca farm. dave and i had just acquired it, and we only had two animals. they were actually much bigger than alpacas in the dream and one of them was sort of an auburn orangey colour and the other was bluish with bright yellow patches. the blue one was feisty, and i was chasing it around the farm in the rain. when i finally got it back in the barn, dave and i had to go on a little trek through the woods to where my family was standing in this field. i think some of annes family were there too, mostly the young children that are always about. anyway, so we met up with everyone and there were hundreds and hundreds of flags all over the place, hanging suspended in the air from cords and things, from all different countries, and we all took a flag each and got in a circle and did this sort of tribal flag dance, and i was really curious to see where it was going, but then my mum called and the phone woke me up. tragic.
anyway, it was two super pleasant dreams in a row, which was exciting for me, as i have pretty severe night terrors most of the time. and so now i am in a good mood and it was an excellent way to start the day, if i do say so myself.

Callie's Fake Visit

so, my lovely sister, callie, is gone and her fake visit is over. why was it a fake visit, you ask? it wasnt, really, but callie kept accusing things around hamilton of having a fake appearance, like they were from the set of a movie. a city designed to look like a city. or something like that. i tried to convince her that she wasnt really visiting me at all, she was in a coma, but i dont think she believed me.
anyway, it was a pleasure to have her, and to pay homage to her visit, i am going to list my most memorable quotes and moments of the week (at least, the ones i could remember, i am sure there are some that i am forgetting, but such is life).
-> "only you could turn a sex joke into a math joke" - callie
-> "you are the only person i know who i could say 'that soil looks full of nutrients' to, and you just say, 'yes, it does'" -callie
-> callie puts on her bicycle helmet and heads for the door, saying, "ok, lets go," to which i respond, "arent you going to bring your bike?"
-> callie: "ive never had sugar pie" me: "it is exactly what it is"
-> callie and i went "shopping for a wallet," which consisted of us trying on shoes for an hour and then not buying anything.
so there you have it, the little things that make a visit. i am looking forward to the next one.

Four Strong Winds

hello and happy wednesday, comrades. this morning, i had to be out the door early for work, and while i was having my tea and cigarette, the august wind blew in, reminding me that i have to get a rent cheque before the week is over. despite that unfortunate fact, it always makes me happy when the august wind blows in (although, i have to admit, it didnt last very long, by noon it was scorching and then we had a thunderstorm, and now its even more scorching and humid and gross, and im sure its going to storm again before the day is out. knowing my fabulous luck, it will start just when im mounting my bike to go home. *sigh*). anyway, i like it when that cooler north wind picks up (except for the part where it ruins my life as a cyclist, but that is another story), reminding me that fall, the greatest season, is well on its way. there is so much to love about fall, in my opinion.
i love the way it smells and the way it tastes, and the way its never uncomfortable, temperature-wise. i love how my bedroom gets icy cold if i leave the windows cracked and i love wearing sweaters and hoodies and other unflattering apparel. i love leaving the pool in the morning and the air has some bite to it and my wet hair sends a shiver down my spine. i love waking up to my cats sprawled all over me to get warm. i love trevors birthday and my birthday and thanksgiving mashed potatoes. i love drinking tea to get warm instead of to cool down and its amazing how every year, when the august wind blows in for the first time, it gives me the same feeling of hope and happiness to know that my favourite time of year is just a breath away.

Girls Wearing Glasses

greetings, comrades! it has certainly been a few too many days since i posted, and i apologise. in my own defense, i have the lovely callie here for a visit, and so my days have been filled with far more meandering about the city than usual and so the library visits were the first thing to get the axe. today, however, i decided we should spend a little time in front of the computers, so here we are. this actually ended up being a great decision because i took callie and my darling anne to see the aviary, which i forgot to do last march when callie was here. i am generally opposed to visiting animals in captivity, but the aviary is an exception, because i think that those animals have all been rescued. they are also extremely well cared for. there are lovely gardens there as well and callie took excellent pictures. i didnt really understand why callie likes our dads camera better than hers (which is now mine) but now that i have them both at my disposal, i totally get it. hers/mine is a piece of crap next to our dads/hers, but mine is mostly for taking pictures for anne rather than nice fancy pictures, so in that respect it gets the job done.
other highlights of callies visit have been visiting with barb last nite, going to challenger baseball on monday and introducing her to some of the kids that i am really fond of, finishing my sweaters and having callies obnoxiously perfect body to model them for my photographs, going to the y (ok not really that exciting, but i have been having a rough month in that department), buying cat hairball laxative, and making shepherds pie. im sure the ultimate highlight will be on saturday when we go to the art gallery with dave and then home to collingwood, and will be sure to update you when it happens.
as for today, other than the aviary, i am going to take callie to my most favourite pizza place in the world, basilique, since we are in the neighbourhood, which i am expecting to go amazingly. i was hoping to get to the market today, but i dont think we are going to have time. or maybe callie and i will go by ourselves between clients. time will tell.
i always enjoy having my sister come to visit. my clients like her a lot, and it makes the days go more quickly. also, having someone else around gives me reason to cook, which doesnt happen much when im on my own. most of all, though, i like for her to see what my job is really all about. it is so hard to explain and no amount of blogging can ever do it justice, and i think it is a valuable experience for her to see what the special needs community is like, and to see why the work i do is important. i also like that she can go home and report to our mother that i do not exaggerate about the strenuous physical work that i do day in and day out. so thats something, i guess.
i really hope that my sister considers wheelchair pushing, even part time, when she is older. there are very few people who can do it, and even fewer who are naturals at it, but i think she would be both. she has that instinctive understanding of special needs and knows how to communicate with people like my clients, and thats the most important characteristic of a worker. unfortunately, it is also the most elusive. too many workers dont have this natural ability, and their clients suffer for it. we need more people like my sister in this field, and i think she would enjoy the work. i guess thats the most important thing about her coming to visit, if you think about it.

Following Up

hello comrades! i thought it was time for me to follow up on a few things that i mentioned a while back. first of all, you may remember my telling you about my first ever attempt at doing my own taxes (if you dont, the post is here). i forgot to mention a couple of weeks ago that i did finish the daunting task, and frankly, it wasnt so bad. i did find that i owe the government about 250 dollars, which sucks, but i am proud to say i did it myself. i still havent received my tax assessment from them, so it is still possible that i completely screwed it up, but i dont think so. its also possible that the tax man will make some adjustments to my return so i dont owe them anything, which happened last year and was AWESOME. we shall see. once again, i will keep you informed.
the other update i have for you relates to the story i told recently about a bizarre conversation i had with a tattoo artist. i dont know for sure, but i think this woman is running around with her tattoo machine giving people infections. why do i think this? ill tell you. one of my clients plays challenger baseball, and we were at the game last week and one of the kid's grandparents struck up a conversation with me about my tattoos. i think she asked me where i got my work done and then complimented the awesome awesomeness of my ink. anyway, she went on to say she was curious because her neighbour recently had a tattoo done and she was suffering from a terrible infection and was on all sorts of nasty, high dose antibiotics. and i said, well that sucks, it really is important to go to a clean place. and she said, well thats just the thing, she had it done in her home. of course, this made my ears perk up, since i had only recently had the bizarre conversation with that weirdo woman in the street. so i said, really? what did this tattoo artist look like? and the grandmother started describing her and i said, you know, i think i met that woman in the street. after exchanging a few more details, i am about 90 percent positive this is the same woman. what a hack.
while i was having this conversation, i reiterated my tale about how people in hamilton consider my tattoo shop to be expensive and snobby. i guess there is a certain amount of truth in that, but the way i see it, i get compliments of the awesome awesomeness of my tattoos all the time, and i figure you get what you pay for. that and as i always say, you cant put a price on not getting AIDS. period.

Swimlog Update

for those of you who may glance at my swimlog once in a while, you may have noticed that i hadnt updated it in almost two weeks. this is because a) my life was totally bamboozled for a few days by the dreaded bicycle seat theft, then b) my life was bamboozled by the canada day holiday/weekend, then c) my life was bamboozled by the horrible heat wave we have been having. BUT never fear comrades, i have not given up on my beloved sport! all is well and the swimlog is all updated, so please dont give up on me! i would never give up on you!!!!!!

What Time is it, Mr. Wolf?

alright comrades, i am a little frustrated with the fact that every clock in town seems to be at least three or four minutes different. example: at the ymca, the front desk clocks are about five minutes faster than the church across the road, and the locker room clock is five faster than that. the pace clock on the pool deck is somewhere in between, and the clock at the life guard station is about five minutes faster than that. it makes it very difficult to figure out when i need to get out of the pool in order to be on time for work, which leaves me finding myself swimming at ridiculous hours just to be safe. i dont understand. its the same at the library. the clock at the reception is different than the clock at the check out desk, which is different from the clocks by the elevators (which all run together on every floor, like the clocks at a school) which are different from the clocks on the computer network.
dave often comes down on me for not carrying/wearing a watch, but really, i ask you, what would be the point? my watch would be different from all the other clocks except maybe the ones in my apartment. chloé standard time.

Lasso of Truth

hello and happy tuesday, comrades! i am sorry for my less than frequent blogging lately. i have had a hectic couple of weeks, between my bike seat getting stolen and needing to be replaced to bopping around on various social outings, my poor blog is being neglected. i dont often wish i had a cell phone, but if i had an iphone or a blackberry, i could blog on the go! that would be fun, and also much more like the early days of my blog when i was still in school and thus in front of my computer for many hours each day, blogging about all of my misadventures as they happened. but no matter, i am here now, and we can spend some much needed time together.
so, i have been debating all morning about what to post about. i could talk about my canada day hijinks, or the G20 (although i have to admit that would be a little late in coming) or about me hanging out with trevor and his boyfriend on saturday (which was really funny, considering it was gay pride weekend and they spent the saturday night of the weekend hanging out with their straight friends at trevors apartment, but whatever), but i have decided, instead, to talk about this:

this, in case you cant tell, is the new and supposedly improved wonder woman. to commemorate the 600th issue of the comic, dc has given wonder woman a new costume, and surprisingly, a new back story in an effort to boost sales. believe it or not, wonderwoman is considered to be part of the dc "triumvirate" of supers, the other two being, you guessed it, superman and batman, but she doesnt sell nearly as well as the two big boys. so here are my thoughts.
i have always despised wonder woman, particularly her costume. that american patriotic uncle sam crap irks the shit out of me and i have never been able to like her because of it. so in that sense, i like the new look. that being said, as a big comic book type of person, i can see how changing a back story would be really irritating. there are, however, different strains of some comic books, that take place in, say, parallel universes or whatever, which is how they do it. since i havent read the new book, i dont know what they have done to change the back story or how they justified it, so i cant really comment. all i can say is i can see how that would REALLY piss off the geeks. (i say it with love, dear brothers, i say it with love). that being said, it can be done. i mean, look at the most recent star trek movie. completely different back story, and i loved it. i will acknowledge that i know other fans who had a big problem with that, but i am not such a sci fi purist
i do think that wonder woman was in much need of some modernization. the reason i have always disliked her is because she represents everything that is sexist and wrong with women in comics. you see, female supers, in addition to being dressed like call girls, tend to have defensive rather than offensive powers, and tend to lie more on the madonna side of the madonna-whore continuum, while female villains are the opposite. this is only perpetuating the myth that you either want a woman to marry or a woman to fuck and not both, but its the defensive powers that really irk me. it just reinforces the notion that women are passive and nonviolent, but super heroes are supposed to be vigilantes! deliverers of justice! pissed off about crime!
anyway, i doubt very much that dc is going to go to the trouble of giving any of its heroes a complete overhaul like the one wonder woman needs. there is no way they are going to change her costume, backstory, sexual behaviour, powers and personality all in one fell swoop, but i think the costume change is a good start. maybe someday, there will be a wonder woman comic that this woman is interested in reading. who knows.