Ugly Pillowcases

hello comrades! i believe i am overdue for a post, i am sorry to have kept you waiting for so long. im sure you were all very sad and upset. actually, i think at this point my sister has even stopped checking in with me here but im not sure. perhaps i will post a loud picture so that she sees there is a difference in her little thumbnail thing of this page on her homepage.

alright, now that that is done, i guess i can write about something else. the reason i havent been around lately is because i have just been way to stressed out to write about anything positive or even really string together a coherent thought. this is due to a variety of things that i am not going to elaborate on here but lets just all agree that i deserve your pity in the form of cash. as you all know, i like to keep things upbeat around here, or at the very least morally outraged, so that is my lame excuse for my silence.

anyway, to those of you who might have stuck it out this long (or to those of you who didnt even notice my lack of posting because you havent been, either- im looking at YOU all of my fellow 20sbers-) and are still reading this idiotic post allow me to share with you some happy news. after three or four years of collecting cat hair and dust, i finally opened up my grandmothers sewing machine that i received after she died and had my dear friend chandra come over and teach me how to use it. so i am going to dedicate the rest of this post to chandra and her awesomeness.

chandra is one of the most original and unique people i have ever met. she is very uninhibited and free spirited and seems to know how to do just about everything except cut up vegetables. she is a gifted artist and a kind friend, a receptive listener and an honest and fascinating story teller. she is one of the only people i can think of or imagine who never lies. really. she doesnt. its actually kind of shocking. she also has impressive diction and good taste in footwear. anyway, i have always admired her and i am grateful for all of the things she has brought into my life. the most recent being the ability to make ugly pillowcases, which i am going to go and do right now.

Safe Spaces

hello and happy monday, comrades! we are finally FINALLY seeing some sunshine here in steeltown, and it is supposed to last all damn week. i try not to be a weather complainer (actually, i try not to be a complainer at all, really) but i must admit even i was not immune to the bleak drearyness that happened last month. but thats not what i wanted to write about.

i recently discovered through the magic of facebook that one of my old friends from high school is a lesbian. i am also fairly certain that one of my other high school friends is also lesbian but isnt saying so on facebook. anyway, the reason i mention it here is, neither of these two were out in high school. meanwhile, my very nearest and dearest, the beloved and famous TREVOR did come out in high school, which had its pros and cons, and i was there for all of it. all of this got me thinking. i started wondering about these two girls and however many untold friends or acquaintances i made over the years who might have been struggling with their sexuality. high school is confusing for everyone, and i think gay teens really have a tough time with things. it sucks because it seems like its a lose-lose situation. often they are harassed or bullied or ostracised if they do come out of the closet, but just as often they struggle with emotional and psychological problems if they dont. throw a heavy dose of puberty and hormones into the mix and is it any wonder many of these kids have mental health issues and get involved with drugs and alcohol???

that being said, i hope that my closeted or confused friends in high school knew they could always confide in me and i wouldnt have judged them. im not saying i wish they had told me or i feel hurt that they didnt (frankly, i think that would be a little self centred) im just saying i hope they knew i was there for them. i guess i feel a little guilty because it never even occurred to me that my friends might be struggling with their sexuality. i know that isnt my fault, but i suppose its something of an assumption on my part. i think i just always take people at face value and dont look for more than they are offering.

anyway, to all of you friends of mine who i have been in and out of touch with over the years, i hope you know that i care about all of you and like you just the way you are. whatever your struggles and trials in this life, you have a friend in me.

One Good Turn Deserves Another

well comrades, the canadian federal election is over, and even though the robot harper (who i have heard called the harperbot, which i also like) got his much desired majority governement, there have been a number of fantastical things that happened to be this week which take the sting out, and i shall enumerate them here:

1) the super cool, super excellent jack layton of the NDP is the official leader of the opposition. this is a historical first (the ndp being the opposition) and is super exciting because jack is the man.

2) saturday: i got a new knapsack from mountain equipment co-op which i am totally in love with. the co-op is officially my new favourite store.... it might even squeeze out the aquatics store and the tea store, but not by much. its not every day you walk out of a store with the EXACT product you had in mind. and with the money i saved on the bag (it was half the price of what i was prepared to spend) i was able to get a platypus hydration system to use with it, which is something i have wanted for years. all in all, good news day on saturday.

3) tuesday: despite having a completely miserable, freezing headwinded, rain-drenched one hour bike ride to work tuesday morning, i turned that frown upside down. i was on my way to a client's whose mother can be a little difficult with support staff sometimes. she is also fanatically anal retentive and her house is like a museum. i enjoy secretly spiting her by doing things i know would irritate her when shes not around, like putting my soaking wet bike clothes in her dryer. anyway, when i arrived drenched and freezing but with a change of pants at least, i had every intention of doing just that when she left, when lo and behold she OFFERED TO WASH AND DRY my soaking wet clothes for me! i realise that most normal humans would have offered to do this and you are probably wondering why this is a big deal, but it is. she is not usually helpful like that with support staff, and it was a small gesture that spoke big volumes. im not going to get into the whole thing, it would take too long, but believe me, it made my day.

4) wednesday: not only is anne's progress with not using her wheelchair going way better than i could have hoped, but i finally took my orthotics in to be repaired. i have been suffering from pretty severe pains in my thighs from my running training and i was beginning to believe that my ancient, dissolving, too-small-for-my-shoes orthotics were exacerbating if not causing the problem. anyway, because i had put off doing this for the last two years, i assumed that ship had sailed and the woman at the orthotics place was going to tell me i needed a brand new $400 pair. since i do not have health benefits i would have had to make this purchase out of pocket, and although i did not want to do this, i was prepared to because i thought it was for the best. i went to the orthotics office with a heavy heart, ready to part with almost all of my savings. i explained the situation to her and half an hour later, she returned with my repaired orthotics, and they are BETTER THAN NEW. when i asked what i owed her she said NOTHING, because she didnt build new orthotics, she just "adjusted" the old ones. i knew that "adjustments" were free, but i also knew that my orthotics are two years past their guarantee, so i was really surprised and elated. my legs are feeling better already. also, i finally got my odometer for my bike, which my bike guy had been holding on to for who knows how long because he "lost my number and knew i would come to the shop eventually." money well spent, my friends. my ride is pimpin.

so that has been my excellent week so far. i dont know what today and tomrorow hold, but this weekend i think dave and i are going out to celebrate our anniversary, so that should be fun too. until next time!

Never Grow Up, Never Grow Old

when i was just a little gaffer, i had a paper route. impressively, i delivered those bitches every saturday for four. fucking. years. it was brutal. not the deliveries, so much, but the rag i was charged with hoisting around the block every weekend is actually a free publication that is really a delivery mechanism for a stack of flyers and coupons. people who "subscribe" to this paper actually have no interest in the poorly written and uninteresting content, they just want their flyers. and when i was a kid (and i believe their system has not changed at all), i had to stuff the papers with the flyers before i delivered them. this sounds like it isnt a big deal, but there were anywhere from 5 to 10 different flyers that had to be stuffed, and they didnt come in prearranged piles. so, you had to take out the flyers and line them all up and then collate them by hand and THEN stuff them in the papers. then i had to load them into my red wagon and start my deliveries. this horrible process basically ruined my saturday every week for four years. if memory serves me, i think i also had deliveries on wednesday nights, but there werent as many flyers on wednesdays so it wasnt as big of a deal. anyway, the reason i am telling you all this is because all of this had a great impact on my life. not only did it incite a great hatred of child labour in me, it has also affected the way that i think about and approach life's little challenges.

you see, when i was delivering the papers (all 26 of them, which seemed at the time like a lot) i would motivate myself by setting small goals. i would think, 'ok, i just need to get to the next telephone pole,' and then i would get there and think, 'ok now i just have to get to the house beside the telephone pole,' and then i would say, 'now i just need to get to that bush' or the end of the sidewalk or the trunk of the tree or whatever, whatever, whatever. the point is, that instead of getting overwhelmed by the daunting size of my whole entire paper route and how long it would take me to do it, (keep in mind, my only company was my cat, who would follow me 3/4 of the way and then go back home when we were at the house behind our house) i would just look ahead to the nearest possible check point and just focus on getting to that. most of these little stops along the way were only like, 5m apart from one another, but thats what got me through all of those winters and rainfalls and boring afternoons.

i have applied this same approach to many other things in my life, most recently to my running training, which generally sucks big ones. instead of thinking about the total distance or time that i am trying to do in a given workout, i just think 'i just have to get to the end of this song' or 'i just have to go for thirty more seconds' or 10% of a mile, or whatever, whatever, whatever. and these small distractions are enough to get me through this and all of lifes little obstacles, and i came up with that strategy when i was eight. years. old.

Strong and Free

well comrades, now that we've all had a laugh looking at my mother's ass allow me a moment to talk about the upcoming election. no im not going to rant like i usually do about these things. quite the opposite, actually. despite the flaws in our society, i have to say that at the very least i am proud of my friends and acquaintances.
the media loves to play endless statistics and interviews indicating that most canadians dont vote. this is true. what is so irritating is that the media also loves to make it sound like most of the non-voters are young people. the implication simmering under the surface of such reports is that young people dont give a shit about politics and are too self absorbed to bother with voting. i would even read into it a little further and say they also imply that our whole country is doomed because eventually all of the people who do vote are going to die and then only us non-voting, self-absorbed once young people and our equally self-absorbed non-voting children will be here to not vote and the whole country will descend into anarchy. perhaps there is some truth to this, but i doubt it. and this is where my sense of pride comes in.

this fine afternoon when i opened up my facebook, i discovered that the vast majority of my friends had watched the debate last night and many of their friends had commented on their admissions of having done so, indicating that they too, had watched the debate. i doubt very much that people who will take the time to watch the debate are not planning on voting in the election. and so i say: young people do vote and we dont have to give up hope just yet. and to my friends who may be reading this: i never doubted you. now lets get that robot out of office once and for all.

When MacLarens Come Together

Wheel of Morality

do any of you remember the animaniacs????? i sure do. if you dont, allow me to recap: the animaniacs were a warner brothers cartoon not unlike the looney tunes that were on tv on saturday mornings. it was an awesome show. my best halloween costume ever was a three-man bit where we dressed up as the animaniacs, which, incidentally was the last year i went trick or treating. anyway, at the end of each episode the animaniacs would spin the "wheel of morality" which would randomly assign a moral to the show. they also said this poem: "wheel of morality, turn, turn, turn, tell us the lesson that we should learn." and it would always be something inane like "dont leave the house without your pants on unless its dark out."

sometimes i think the writers of some childrens stories used approximately the same logic to come up with the messages for what are now ubiquitous childhood standbys. i think the reason these stories last is because no one really questions them but let us take a moment to ponder what i shall hereby refer to as CHILDHOOD LITERARY WEIRDNESS:

1) goldilocks and the three bears: i cant help but wonder if the success of this story is at least in part related to the popularity of little blond girls in picture books. im not sure WHY this motif is so popular: genetically, the occurence of blonde hair is much less frequent than that of dark hair and you would think children of the world would relate better to characters that look like themselves. but i digress. as far as i can tell, the moral of this story is "if you do a B and E, make sure you leave the scene of the crime before the family returns home." it also doesnt do much for the bears of the world, it makes them look like they are smart enough to make clothes and stoves and homes and cook oatmeal, but not smart enough to use sentences longer than five words.

2) rapunzel: although i must admit i was very impressed with disney's take on this classic (and believe me, that is HIGH PRAISE, i usually hate those assholes) the point of this story escapes me. for those who may have forgotten the original version, the story ends with the prince being blinded by a thorny bush and wandering the forest for years and the girl having her locks chopped off and being abandoned in the forest. they do ultimately find each other but it seems to me that the moral here is "love is crippling and will cost you everything else" which is as cynical as it is dark. we all know how much i love the dark and cynical but im not sure we need to be filling the heads of four year olds with such things, they will get there on their own around the time puberty hits. when i was a kid this story always made me fixate on the strangely evocative lettuce that the mother craved that got her into so much trouble in the first place. maybe the real moral is "dont eat salad."

3) little red riding hood: although i admit i do UNDERSTAND this story, i find its themes a little too mature for its intended audience. also, i get the impression that most adults DONT understand it, so they dont really explain the intended moral to their children. most adults, ive noticed, tell children that the moral of this story is something along the lines of being cautious and observant to avoid being fooled by someone who looks harmless but wants to hurt you. i suppose thats part of it, but the imagery of the red hood and the independent walk through the woods suggests that little red riding hood is actually a coming of age tale. some have argued that the wolf represents bad men/sexuality and the lumberjack represents good men/being married/if you arent married then your father. i will buy that, but i think at its root its more about growing up and learning things the hard way. i mean, she gets eaten, people.

4) the three little pigs: i think the moral of this story is supposed to either be about not taking short cuts in your work or it wont stand up to the test of time or its an allegory for having strong faith (but then it would a total rip off of the bible's foolish man building his house upon the sand) but i think that message gets lost on most of us and just comes across as "bricks are the best thing to build houses with." also im not sure how or where someone came up with the idea of a wolf BLOWING DOWN A HOUSE which is just too bizarre for words.

im sure there are more examples but these are the ones i was thinking about today. and this is why animaniacs was such a great show. by not pretending to be meaningful or about anything, it actually pointed and laughed at all the stuffy, pompus, figurative morals of most art aimed at children. which perhaps makes it among the most educational of all.

Insecticide

hello comrades! i am delighted to see there have been two more of you added to my fray this week (although apparently one of them got arrested last night and is planning on pleading guilty and expects to get 5 - 10 so im not sure if he will be around anymore. but i hope he is because i liked him but whatever), so let me just say WELCOME! BIENVENUE! and that is the end of my cheerfulness today because i have two rants that are totally unrelated except for the fact that they are equally vexing to me.

first of all, a client of mine who shall remain nameless keeps contracting head lice and its driving me crazy. i am 95% sure this is because some certain nameless relatives of my client's have not done an adequate job of clearing up head lice in their OWN children and so these children keep passing it back to my client and my client's mother and MYSELF are stuck dealing with it. this has been an ongoing issue since last july and im fucking sick of it. especially because when i delivered this nameless individual home yesterday the head lice situation was definitely clear. i go to pick this person up today and the mother tells me they were visiting the aforementioned relatives and one of the aforementioned children was actually in my clients home while i was picking my client up and i thought well isnt that interesting, i bet this individual has lice again when i know this person didnt yesterday!!!! and guess what???? im right!!!!!! yay!!!!!!!!!!! so now, once i get done here, i will have to take this person back to my home and spend anywhere from half an hour to an hour picking headlice. again. grrrrrrrr.

anyway the other rant is that im really pissed about this whole situation with our prime minister. for my possible non-canadian readers (or for my canadian readers who have been living under a rock for the last two weeks) here is a brief recap: our parliament had a vote of non-confidence in the government and it passed. our prime minister was also found to be in contempt of parliament. so parliament got dissolved and we are having an election. for the most part, this is good news but here comes the irritating part. according to our election rules, being found in contempt of parliament is not only in breach of the law, but it is one of the few instances where someone is not allowed to run for office again if they are found to be in this position. apparently, stephen harper, our robotic and enigmatic prime minister DOESNT CARE what the law says and is running anyway. the only explanation the house of commons has been able to give as to why this man isnt a) being arrested for his CRIME of being in contempt of parliament and b) being forced out of office with prejudice is that "this has never happened before and we dont know what to do." what. the. fuck. we dont know what to do? um, how bout arrest him? how about tell him he is not legally able to be the leader of his part? how about telling the conservatives to elect a new leader? i think that the house is just hoping he will step down voluntarily so they wont have to take measure against him, which is what most canadians would do because that is the kind of people we are. "i made a mistake. i will gracefully disappear to let someone else rectify it" is what canadians are all about. but stephen harper isnt. thats why hes not right for the job in the first place. he doesnt embody who we are as a nation, i dont think he even really cares. and i cant believe that the RCMP isnt at 24 sussex with a pair of cuffs for him, not to mention the fact that i cant believe that parliament hill isnt being swarmed with protesters. its so maddening.

if our lawmakers dont obey the law, what incentive is there for us to do so? its not as if hes disobeying the law in some act of civil disobedience (which is kind of different). hes just doing whateverthefuck he wants. just like he always does. and that my friends, is fascism. and that is where all of the great troubles of the world started. and its starting right here, right now, and as is so often the sad case, it is being met with just enough apathy that he is going to get away with it. Lord Have Mercy.

Meet the Oppressor

hello and happy wednesday, comrades. i have been meaning to write this post for a while, but as usual, i kept forgetting. lucky for you lucksters, i remembered today, so here we go. as is basically public knowledge by now, you should all be aware of the fact that i despise clothing and avoid wearing it at all costs. obviously, being a resident of canada puts a fairly large obstacle called "winter" in the way of year round nudity, but i remain naked in spirit. without getting into a whole discussion of the where and whyfore of nakedness, i will say briefly that i just find clothes oppressive, and none so much as these:

having grown up in a small town playing outside and being raised by rather hippy-ish parentals, i spent most of my formative years barefoot. when absolutely necessary, i am told i wore rubber boots but still decided to forgo the socks. this has left an indelible mark on me; a mark of sock hatred. even sitting here, writing this, i am thinking about how damp my feet are and how inadequately my socks are absorbing my sweat. i am thinking about how i would rather be barefoot or at least in sandals instead of having my poor toes trapped in their coffin-like shoes, shrouded in poly-cotton blends like sad lonely mummies.

as if WEARING socks isnt bad enough, i also spend most of every morning searching for socks that are going to be sufficient for my purposes. it seems like no matter how often i do laundry and no matter how many pairs of socks i purchase, there are never enough to get through the week. in this sick and passive aggressive way, socks oppress me, day in and day out.

i admit this is partially a problem of my own invention. my ever increasing triathlon training is forcing me through multiple pairs of socks in a day just for comfort and to avoid athletes foot. also i am admittedly guilty of what i like to call "secret spite" (although i suppose after i finish writing this, it will be a secret no longer). secret spite is basically where i act really immature and do things that i know my mother would hate JUST BECAUSE I CAN. this includes but is not limited to: not moving furniture when i sweep the floor, not separating my laundry, leaving my laundry in a pile (i dont even own a hamper), letting the dishes pile up, and my personal favourite: just throwing my unsorted, unpaired socks into a drawer and then fishing around for matching pairs as needed. it would seem that my secret spite is really only spiting myself but i am juvenile enough to get my own particular brand of twisted satisfaction out of it.

ADDENDUM: my google image search for "evil socks" came up with the following image.

Like Paula Abdul

so i have decided to run in THIS for my first race, and i am super excited. HERE is the link for the specific one i shall be running in barrie, not far from my parentals' place. there are many reasons i am excited about this, the least of which is not the fact that i will receive a viking warrior helmet simply for participating. also, i am going to design an excellent costume to wear. i cant decide if i want to do a viking style costume or a pocahontas style costume, but its gonna be AWESOME!!!!!! i am also excited because my cousin might join me and i hope that she does. once i am done running in this race, i will officially be a warrior, just like paula abdul: (skip ahead to about minute 3 of this video and you will understand what im talking about).

If Tim Burton Was Dead, He Would Be Spinning in His Grave

so i just finished watching disney on ice for the second, that's right, second time in two days. sadly, i am forced to tolerate this travesty every march break because i get sent with clients to see it but i have never had to go twice before. this year was painful as always, but before i get into my list of grievances, allow me to offer the slight disclaimer that i am not a big fan of figure skating and i really dont respect "ice dancing." i admire the talent, discipline and athleticism required to become a world class figure skater, but i just dont really get much out of watching it. i suppose its partly to do with my loyalty to my sister, who is a ballet dancer.... there is somewhat of a rivalry between ballet and figure skating and i cant help where my filial allegiances lie. its the same with liking rugby but not soccer, or as i can only assume my siblings would say, batman and not superman. but lets get to it.

1) generally, the cast of disney on ice are not the highest caliber of figure skaters. most of them look lethargic and winded and the choreography involves alot of clapping and waving in lieu of actual skating. this makes the already painful spectacle even more eye-abrasive.

2) i spent most of the chaotic group sequences imagining how funny it would be if half the cast lost control and they all totally crashed into each other.

3) donald and daisy duck do not wear pants, but the rest of the characters do. i can only assume it is because they have a very spontaneous sex life and are huge exhibitionists.

4) i cannot stand the sound of mickey or minnie's voice.

5) i also spent much of my time imagining i was watching something i actually like, like speed skating or ballet or paint drying. this was a fun distraction while it lasted that quickly dissolved into the sinking realisation that i was trapped in an arena listening to dance remixes of disney love songs, which brings me to

6) someone had the misguided notion that disney love songs would be more modern and interesting if they were played with up tempo dance/pop beats. they were not.

7) i will never forgive that bitch ariel for giving up her mer-life to be with that idiot with the boat.

8) tinkerbell is such a huge slut, and i will never understand why

9) and FINALLY the most important point of contention: someone decided to break my heart and include the nightmare before christmas as one of the scenes in this ice show. there were just so very many things wrong with this that i was almost in tears the first time, but allow me to enumerate the most glaringly offensive aberrations.

a) the guy (?) playing jack the pumpkin king was not even six feet tall. i can only assume that this is because he was more of a gymnastic type of skater, because he did a backflip at one point which was impressive but pointless.

b) the headpiece of jack the pumpkin kings costume was so totally all wrong. like, not even close

c) they were singing the "what's this? what's this?" song from the movie all sped up and dancy, just like the aforementioned love songs

d) the whole "story arc" of this stupid scene was that they were having a halloween party and so different disney VILLAINS kept showing up and singing rewritten lyrics to the tune of the nightmare before christmas song about themselves. these villians were: cruella devill, captain hook (?), the witch from snow white (who, if you remember is actually the queen/stepmother, so if anything, thats who should have showed up), maleficent from sleeping beauty, and jafar from aladdin.

e) THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS WAS IN A FUCKING DISNEY ON ICE SHOW! WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO??????

anyway comrades, im just glad its over. at least this weekend we are going to see the tim burton art show at the TIFF bell lightbox. that should make me feel better. till then, peace.

I Am Tired and I Love My Bike

hello comrades. we are officially finished week two of my triathlon training and guess what. training for a triathlon is like, really hard. im not complaining, dont get me wrong, i really enjoy pushing my mind and my body to the max, but let me tell you. i. am. tired. i am also tired of eating. i knew that was going to happen fast. it is very boring and irritating to have to eat every two hours because you are burning so many calories. not to mention time consuming. also, many years of the restaurant industry have made me kind of opposed to cooking so i just end up eating the same thing over and over and over because i just make one big batch of it and eat it for many days. did i mention that its boring?

the downsides aside, though, the last few days have been the beginning of my favourite time of year cycling-wise. i took my beloved jack in for a tune up and ended up getting a whole whack of new stuff put on, including a new chain and cassette (gears), so my baby is running like a dream. and just in time. the snow is gone and we have had some rain followed by some sunshine which means clean, dry roads and spring tailwinds setting me spinning at over 30km/h in some cases. amazing.

when its like this i just think about how much i love our world. i love the human body, and the things i can make it do. i love the blue sky and the laws of physics and the smell of summer and most of all, i love my bike.

I Often Succumb to Peer Pressure

so my dear and long time friend daniel wheaton has recently decided to have another go at regular blogging, and since he was kind enough to give me a shout out on his very first post on his newly redesigned blog, i thought i would be kind enough to do the same. i also thought about how i really need to make more of an effort to keep writing, even if i dont have anything in particular to say.

i realise that sort of sounds like im condoning the irritating practice of filling the void with meaningless rambling, a favourite hobby of the self centred and insecure. this is not the case. its more that i am acknowledging that sometimes writing is like training for a sport. you have to practice it all the time. sometimes you have good days and sometimes you suck, but you will never really reach a level of performance that you want to if you dont keep at it, despite the sucky times. furthermore, upon looking through my old posts when i used to blog all the time, there are a lot of little gems hidden in amongst the mundanities. i imagine those highlights would not have come to be if i hadnt been writing every day and keeping my creative juices flowing.

so there it is, comrades. i am going to try and write more without getting hung up on having a "point" or an "amusing anecdote" or "something to rant about" or an "interesting life" and hopefully, i will not alienate any of you in the process. at least callie will keep reading. i think.

A Series of Obsessions

hello comrades! i hope this fine and sunny thursday is treating you well. so far, things are good on my end, and i do in fact have a few things to update you on. first of all, i decided, somewhat spontaneously, to move my quit smoking date to march the first. for those of you who suck at math or avoid calendars or have been in a coma for the last three days, that makes today my third day of being smoke free.

the reason i decided to move my quit smoking date is two fold: first of all, i decided to sign up for driven to quit, an annual contest sponsored by the canadian cancer society (although it is conspicuously only open to residents of ontario for some reason) wherein if you remain smoke free for the entire month of march, you are entered in a draw to win a variety of prizes, the top two prizes being cars. i have no interest in cars (although if i won one i would sell it and put a fine little dent in my debt), but i am interested in five thousand dollar all inclusive vacations, which is one of the other prizes. truth be told, i was envisioning driven to quit as more of a competition than a contest.... i didnt realise that i would simply be entered in a draw, so it is proving to be less incentivizing than i had thought. that being said, however, i imagine at least fifty percent of the original entrants will fail to remain smoke free, so that should boost my odds. anyway, the other reason i decided to quit early is once i got it in my head that i want to do a triathlon, i couldnt stop thinking about it and i wanted my "official" training to start sooner rather than later. so i thought, forget this june first nonsense, im ready now, and i better strike while the iron is hot. so i did.

anyway, this leads nicely into the real subject of my post today which is that my quitting smoking is going remarkably well, even without the help of nicotine substitutes. the only thing i am taking is an herbal supplement which is supposed to help cleanse my lungs and detox me, which if anything, would make the cravings for a cigarette WORSE. all of this lack of craving and impressive willpower naturally got me wondering WHY this is going so successfully, and here is what i have come to realise. i think that only obsessive people become smokers. or, in the spirit of not leaving anyone out, i think that smoking makes you an obsessive person if you arent already. i suppose this is the "addiction" of smoking: obsession. it isnt habit, it isnt nicotine, its obsession. and if you can find something else to be obsessed about, you will lose interest in smoking. thats how its been for me, anyway. once i got this triathlon commitment solidified in my mind, cigarettes were a thing of the past. now all of my spare time is devoted to training or thinking about training. i have poured all of my obsessive energy into triathletics, and as long as i keep it there, i have no room or time in my brain for cigarettes. even writing about it like this isnt making me want one, which is impressive. so there you go. im sure that other people who have quit may feel differently and their experiences might be completely different from mine, but i never thought quitting smoking would be as easy as it has been, and sincerely believe that has everything to do with my compulsive all-or-nothing personality and very little to do with ritual, habit, routine or nicotine.

I am Not a Robot

hello friends! i hope i didnt alienate any of you during this little glitch where my blog was "removed" from the interwebs. im not totally sure what happened, or when, but apparently google detected SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY on my blog and removed it until i proved that i was not a robot. this proved to be more challenging than im sure google would have imagined, since i do not have a cell phone and i dont have the internet at my house. basically, google wanted to either text me a verification code or phone me with one, but those both posed obvious problems for me due to the aforementioned non-phone-or-internet-having issues. anyway, i managed to hit up one of my brothers friends on facebook to use his phone to receive the text and now we are back online and i owe him a hat. purple and black, which is odd because one of my brothers other friends is buying a purple and black hat from me. this didnt seem to change the friend who did me the favour's mind, though, but i suppose teenage boys dont have teh same hangups as teenage girls when finding themselves in social situations wearing the same clothing and accessories. also, im not going to make the two hats the same in design so that should improve the situation. anyway, im just glad to see that my blog does in fact, exist, and so do i. thank you for bearing with me, dear readers!!!!!!!

Big News, Everybody!

hello comrades! i have some exciting news to share!!!! yesterday, i made two very big and related decisions. the first is that i have decided to set a date to quit smoking. i have never done this before, and ive never wanted to, but now i have and i do. the date is going to be june first, and im going to do it, because i feel ready. im already smoking a quarter of what i was a year and a half ago, and i just dont feel like cigarettes have the hold on me that they once did. it used to be that every moment of every day i was thinking, at least in part, of when i would have my next cigarette, and i really dont feel that way anymore. so i think the time is right.
the second, and far more exciting decision is that the REASON i am going to quit smoking is because i am going to start training for a triathlon!!!! huzzah!!!! where did this come from? well, as im sure my regular readers know, i have always been a pretty bang up swimmer and i do distance cycling every day because i dont have a car. i have always said that im just one sport away from a triathlon. the reason i have never tried to pursue it until now, is i just thought i was physically incapable of running. growing up, i was always a terrible runner, and nowadays im paranoid about hurting my fragile knee. however, last week i was so bored of my usual workout at the gym that i decided to try the treadmill and see how it went. i told myself that if i had any pain in my knee at all, i would stop immediately. it went really well, and ive been using it since. i do have a groin injury that bothers me a little bit, but ive been doing lots of stretching before treadmilling and its getting better. so, i think that triathletics might actually be within my realm of possibility. im super excited about it, and i shall keep you abreast of what is going on.

Put Trudeau's Face On Money

hello comrades. i am not sure how many of my readers are canadian.... i know my sister is and i know jen vandervecht is, but im only 100% sure that 50% of those people actually read my blog, so its a relative question. anyway, in the event that anyone else is reading this and they are in fact canadian, i have started a facebook group called "Canadians in Favour of Putting Trudeau's Face on Money." although i feel this goes without saying, i shall briefly explain. pierre trudeau was canada's most famous and popular prime minister. i get the feeling there are some people who werent that impressed with him, but even THOSE people cant ignore the fact that he bears most of the responsibility for getting us our canadian charter of rights and freedoms. this is the equivalent of the american bill of rights, and it is the highest law in the land. with it, we are protected by law to enjoy all sorts of things like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and freedom from discrimination. it is also surprisingly readable. anyway, i am hoping to get enough support for my group that the government might actually take notice, so click the above link to join and lets make a difference in our country!

If You Know Me, This Post May Surprise You

alright, so the big news (alright maybe not that big) this week was that the white stripes announced that they are "splitting up" and no longer making any records or performing together. of course, of course, my nearest and dearest were fast to tell me this and slightly less fast to ask my opinion on the matter, so here it is.

it is difficult for me to admit this, but i think i can safely say that all of my fellow red and white wearing white stripes fans will agree that we all saw this coming. after the white stripes made their documentary "white stripes under northern lights," meg white suffered from a pretty severe case of anxiety and stage fright and has basically been out of the picture ever since. im sure some people might suggest that this was a staged nervous breakdown in order to orchestrate the eventual demise of the white stripes, but that is neither here nor there. the point is, the white stripes simply announced what all of us knew already whether we would admit it or not. and here is the surprising part: i am ok with that.

although i am a little bit sad that the white stripes arent going to be making any more albums, and although i will always consider them my favourite band, the fact of the matter is that even i cannot deny the awesome awesomeness of jack whites other, other band, the dead weather. both horehound and sea of cowards were possibly the most amazing and fantastical things he has ever been a part of and if the white stripes officially admitting they are through is going to be the first in many steps towards jack white committing more or all of his time to the dead weather, then so be it. the white stripes is who he was and the dead weather is what he has become, and i am ok with that. instead of feeling like someone i love (the white stripes) doesnt exist any more, i feel more like that person married some other person who ive only seen pictures of but they look really hot in the pictures and are holding an adorable puppy and i can tell they make more than fifty thousand dollars a year. or something like that. anyway, i guess what im getting at is that i want to be sad, but i know that i cant, because this isnt the closing of a door or the end of an era, its the next starburst of potential in what is surely going to be some of the most gratifying alterna-rock ever written.

I See Trouble on the Way

welp, we are supposed to be getting a massive blizzard overnight and into tomorrow morning, which should be interesting. last time we had a storm as bad as the one they are calling for, most of the businesses in town were shut down because we were all totally snowlocked, which was actually pretty cool. i enjoy crazy snow storms, and im going to enjoy this one especially because i have a fairly large supply of tea, pirates of the carribean movies and knitting to do. i also think im going to break my no drinking during the week rules a get a little bottle of vodka since im going to be stuck inside with my idiotic cats for who knows how long. i also made the proactive move of buying groceries today because its slim pickings over at my place. although i only bought as many groceries as i could fit in my knapsack, and yoghurt was on sale so i used up most of the available volume on three litres of yoghurt. but whatever. i also had the joyous experience of contending with packs of semi retired mediterranean women who for some reason shop in groups of three, have ill advised super short hair cuts and bad dye jobs. it must be a cultural thing. anyway i suppose i shall be in radio silence for the next couple of days, so fare thee well comrades! i will let you know how the storm turned out!!!!!!!!!!!

My Brains Are Tingling

sooooooo one of my friends is in school for some sort of vague computer networking nonsense and is having trouble with his ciphering. as we all know (or ought to), i am fond of ciphering, to the extent that i am actually teaching myself how to do hexadecimal arithmetic solely for the purpose of helping him with his homework. *sigh* the joys of being a geek.

in other news, i finally found a used copy of season four of the office, which i have been looking for for over a year. i have been rewatching seasons two and three over, and over, and over and over, and its not that im sick of them, but i get so into the ongoing storylines and im like I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!!!! even though i kind of already do. its not the same though as actually watching.

which brings me to another point. when you dont have cable or satellite or whatever and you only ever watch dvds, as is the case with me, watching regular television becomes one of the most aggravating experiences known to man. i never have to put up with commercials and i get to watch a whole season of a show at once, which makes it feel like a nice, long, long, long movie. amazing.

anyway, as you can probably tell, i really didnt have much else to write about after i got finished with talking about hexadecimal, but my sister was harassing me to blog so i thought i would oblige her. i wish i had more exciting information to share, but sadly, i dont. although this one librarian keeps stalking around the computer area like some kind of jungle cat, glaring at all of us. im not totally clear as to why she is doing this except perhaps that she is suspicious of all of us non computer having miscreants or something. who knows.

The Nexus of the Universe?

alright so i finally did that shameful act. i googled myself. no, not that, actual googling. like www.google.com. why? because in the chat room on 20sb, someone is filling out a dating website profile and one of the questions is "do you google people before a first date" and the two girls having the conversation both said that they did. this is not something that would have occurred to me to do at all, but it got me thinking, what if someone were to google ME before a first date???? and lo and behold, great sakes alive, this is what i found!

like, what??????????? this isnt me, but i sure as hell wish it was! SO WEIRD. i guess there is a lesson here, some sort of sage fabley type thing where you have to be careful of doing dangerous stuff like googling yourself or it could freak you out. just stick to the other kind of googling, i guess. better safe than sorry.

Double Nostalgia

so last week i was stuck killing some time on my bike in the freezing cold, waiting for a church to open its doors for cubs. since it was freezing and after dark, i opted to kill said time riding my bike around the neighbourhood to curb my boredom and try to get warm. although riding around in circles didnt do much to accomplish either, i did have an unexpected bout of what shall henceforth be called "double nostalgia." during this little excursion, i ended up riding around a school parking lot for a while and it reminded me of when my siblings and i were kids and we used to bike around the parking lot at the health centre on the corner of our street. but it ALSO reminded me of when i was in high school learning to drive and my dad took me to parking lots to turn doughnuts on the ice. it was very strange to be so reminded of memories that are so far apart, chronologically and thematically. anyway, that was pretty much the high point of the evening, because approximately three hours later, the russians tromped us and it was totally fucking embarassing.

Maybe This Year Will Be Better Than the Last

hello comrades! well the holidays are finally over, and i would say i had a more or less relaxing time. good food, good company, and some much needed rest. who can complain about that. although im sure that having a full five days of work is going to feel something like water torture by the time friday rolls around.
anyway, at the risk of this sounding like a new years resolution (it isnt) i am looking forward to getting back into my workout routine. i have been climbing the walls the last couple of weeks since i havent been to the y recently. the holidays and work totally interfered, and then i managed to throw myself off my bike when my front tire got stuck in a sewer grate and i was too injured to work out. on top of all that, i have been doing nothing but eating sugary food and drinking oceans of beer and vodka. all of it adds up to me feeling tired, flabby and gross. SO once i get done writing this post, i am going to be off to the ymca and hopefully by this time next week my athletics will be back in full swing.
in other news, i left one of my knitting needles at trevors last night and im right pissed. i dont really want to buy a new pair but i also have very few other projects on the go to tide me over till next weekend. *sigh*