And this is why dating services are great for the self-esteem:

"You are not particularly attractive at all but there is something about you thats real appealing when I figure it out I'll let you know."

Aww.... can I marry this guy?

I have a semi-plan.

The other day, while picking up D's (belated) birthday gift, I also picked up a two pack of Gremlins 1 and Gremlins 2.

Sometime this week, I'm thinking either Wednesday or Friday, I'm thinking it might be fun to have a Gremlins evening. If you're interested, let me know. The only catch is, if the group starts getting large enough, I may have to ask someone else to step in and host -- I have a small television and a small apartment.

Not to mention a small, furry bouncy thing that calls itself a kitten. Possibly named Athena -- one of the goddesses of war. It seems appropriate, given her penchant for attacking. Then throwing me off by cuddling. I know her plans...

Anyhow, if people are interested in the Gremlins idea, let me know. It's either that or Muppets, but I've got a whole lot more than 4 hours worth of Muppets stuff. :)

Be careful what you wish for.

I am now someone important in my job, and no longer am I a waste of space.

I am also now stressed and run off my feet, and as with every new position in the government, as soon as you start it (or maybe your second day), people assume you know everything right away.

I almost miss the more simple retail jobs that I've had, whereby it was a 2-week training period to learn how to do things like sell and return books. Man, was that a monkey job.

I am just a roadbump to my kitten.

Either that or a thoroughfare/convenient pant leg to wherever she'd like to be next, be it my neck or beside my computer monitor to watch my hands and attack them at the appropriate moment/send encoded messages to other kittens across the Internet.

I want to write so much, but ... gotta work. I'm super-PMSy stressed about stuff, and I just want to cry, but for no real reason. It's PMS, I'm sure, but I can't help but worry. *sigh*

Okay, so the past week:

I know stuff went on before Valentine's Day, but at this point, I can't remember what was going on. So... starting with Valentine's Day:

Saturday I bought a kitten. She's a brat, and she's adorable, and she has health issues right now that are making me want to cry, because I don't know what's causing it and it makes me worry. This is the stuff that I think must be tied into PMS, because usually I'm certain I could handle this stuff, but... I don't know. Scary.

At this point, I still haven't settled on a name for her, but I keep leaning towards Valentine, with Tiny being her nickname. She was probably about 6 weeks old when I got her, which explains some of her behavioural things; she bites a fair bit (which Mommy doesn't like, especially not at 3 in the morning) and she doesn't wash a lot, but I seem to recall kittens aren't big groomers, at least not when they're young. She also likes to knead her paws on my face and try to stick her nose up mine, or check out my nose... I keep trying to explain to her that my face doesn't produce milk, regardless of how hard she tries, but... she still tries.

She gets grumpy at me when I wake her or move her when she's sleeping, and she meows at me, but because she's a kitten, her meow is far from impressive, and she sounds like she's been smoking. Sometimes no noise comes out -- I just get the face and the open mouth, and I know that I've been told. She makes me laugh.

What else to tell about her? She likes to nuzzle under my chin, and walk around my neck, and she turns up underfoot when I least expect it. Her coat is grey, and my carpets are blue-grey, so she blends quite well into the decor, as it were. She comes when I make tongue-clicking noises, and when I go out I shut her in my bedroom, 'cause I don't know yet if she'll try to rush out the front door when I come in, so it's a precaution until we know each other better. When I come home, I'll click my tongue to let her know I'm home, and I can hear her start meowing or scratching at the door. I'm taking this as a sign that she likes Mom okay.

I took her to the vet for just a health check-up on Friday of this week, and everyone was commenting on how confident of a kitty she is, keeping her tail sticking straight up in the air like she does (it's about the size of my pinky, which is also cute). It's one thing I've noticed, is that she's really getting her legs under her now, and she's starting to learn she rules the apartment, and consequently Mom. Mom's feet are good for attacking, as are Mom's hands and fingers, her clothes (she helped me sort laundry the other day, ensuring that all my socks were dead before I put them in the wash), and anything else that needs killing. She likes to knead her paws on my head, eat my hair, and so forth.

She's started braving the bathroom now -- at this point she can smush herself under one corner of the door, even when it's shut (part of it has been cut away to allow the door to open fully -- have I mentioned that I have crooked floors?), and she's hilarious when she's in the bathroom. See, it's the only part of my apartment that's tiled (yes, that includes my kitchen), so that combined with the crooked floors puts kitty in super-funny mode. She bounces around with her back arched, hopping sideways like kittens do. The first few times she was in there, she got startled easily and would race away, but skid on the floor and fall (like that toilet paper commercial with the puppy), before getting up and running out onto the carpet.

Now she likes to go in and lick the water off Mom's toes after I've had a shower. It tickles.

The funny thing is, she drives me nuts when I'm at home, attacking me and being aggressive and keeping me awake... but when I'm at work, I miss her. I think I'm going to have to keep her.

Pictures of her can be seen here and here. It's hard to get a real idea of how small she is from those (although the one where she's washing her feet in my hand kinda demonstrates it a bit), and her coat is lighter than some of the pictures indicate, but you can see that she is damn cute. She's got grey-blue eyes (and it seems to depend on lighting and her mood which way they appear), and her coat is a light grey with some faint grey tabby markings. Some of the photos in the second album are badly out of focus, but I was just trying to get them up in a hurry; I'll clean the albums up later.

So after getting the kitten and showing her to Mom (I bought her at a store near Mom's work; I wanted to get a humane society kitten, but they didn't have any), I drove her downtown and got her somewhat settled in. I cleaned her up a little (she had to go in the carrier, and when you have to go, you have to go), and she did what I call "good kitty": the nuzzling, the cuddling, the purring and kneading her paws at turbo speed while I laid on my back on the couch and laughed and cried and felt good about having taken her home. Then I ran the car back to Mom, got dropped off at the bus station and while I was waiting for my bus, ran into Mark and his gf.

Isn't it always fun running into an ex- when you have crap, crap hair, look like shit and potentially smell like kitten poo?

We said hi and then they went on their way, and I got on my bus and went home. The kitten and I hung out and I fed her and had some dinner, and let her wander around the place a bit and attack things. I called up Big A and my friend E, and we all gathered at my apartment in preparation for our own little Valentine's Day celebration.

I got all dolled up, with the hair and the eyes and the makeup and such, and we hit up the candy store to stock up on gimmicks, then headed off to the bar. E and I picked up a candy necklace apiece, a roll of candies apiece (the ones with the messages written on them), and I bought a bunch of chocolate Kisses; my intention, after a few drinks, would be to give away a kiss for a kiss. After a few drinks, of course. :)

The bar itself was pretty quiet for awhile; we didn't get there until 11ish, and there were only maybe two dozen people on our floor. We grabbed ourselves a prime table, right at the end of one counter, near the bar and the washrooms. Things were pretty slow for awhile, but we enjoyed chatting a lot, and watching the yummy bouncers, and I snacked on Kisses and fed them to Big A -- who kissed me everytime I gave him one. :)

After awhile I got up the courage/stopped caring and started approaching boys and handing out Kisses. Most of them were surprised, but thanked me, and I'd smile and wander back to our table. Later in the evening, guys would chat with me, or a few pecked me on the cheek in return, and fun was had.

A few guys stood out: Mr. Corduroy, who asked E and I about five times in a 2-minute conversation if we were having a good time, and he pecked me on the cheek and forehead. Then there was the brunet and the blond together, and it was the (unattractive) brunet who hung around to chat me up. The fun part (I say fun 'cause I'm a bitch) was turning over my shoulder to make faces at E and Big A every now and then before turning back to the conversation. Drunk people are fantastic, 'cause you can do shit like that.

He wandered off at one point, then came back and said his friend wanted to talk to me, but was afraid to 'cause he didn't know my name. I gave it, and then off he went.

After all of that wrapped up, I caught the eye of a guy standing nearby with a glass of beer in one hand and a pitcher in the other. He asked if he could put the pitcher on our table, and since we weren't using it, I said to go ahead. Then I handed him a candy, saying that since he had a hand free I could now hand one over. I expected him to wander off at that point (after all, cute guys don't bother to talk to me much), but he stayed around and chatted with me. We talked about inconsequential stuff, basically where we went to school, where we worked, so on and so forth. A drunk guy that he knew came by at one point and insisted that he and I went to school together; I figured it was possible until he insisted that my high school was in North Bay, which it wasn't.

I turned to E and Big A at one point and apologized to them for ignoring them for so long, but they told me not to worry about it, saying they were enjoying the show and doing the play-by-play.

Somewhere in this whole talk, I'd told the boy about our plan to collect phone numbers, and he told me that he didn't want to give me his number, but he wanted mine. We kept talking, and sometime later I asked him where he'd gone to high school -- something we'd already covered, but that my sleep-lacking brain hadn't caught. So he started mocking me, saying that he didn't trust me with his number, that I'd probably lose it and so on and so forth, and that he didn't want to be a part of my list.

I showed him my list, with its whole 0 list of phone numbers, and turned to write down my number for him -- when E handed over one of her cards with my name and both of my phone numbers written on it. As they said earlier in the conversation and again as we were leaving the bar, they approved. :)

So that was entertaining and funny.

Sunday I slept in (as much as the kitten would let me) and played with her for awhile before going to work. I saw the boy before work and we made tentative plans for the next night. Monday night we went out and talked a lot and had a pretty good time.

The rest of the week was pretty quiet (aside from my contracting the plague), until Thursday when Ben threw his soiree. There was a fair number of people who turned up at the place, and I had a decent time. In a way there were a few too many people, and the focus was on video games, which really works better with small groups, I find. Plus, some of the people who were playing were really not wanting to share, so if you hadn't grabbed a controller right off the bat, you were kinda shit outta luck.

I got back to my place a little later than I'd planned, and had to get up early the next day to fill in for my coworker. This past week I've been stupid from my cold, exhausted from both my cold and not having a full night's sleep all week, and I was really fucked up Friday morning. I pulled through and went home, and even decided to stretch out on the bed for a catnap, but I got woken up by the kitten after about 15 minutes. Ironic, no?

Ah well. Friday morning I was woken up around 3:30 by the kitty, so for the second night in a row I gave up and shut her in the bedroom and crashed out on the couch. During that time, I had a dream, highlights of which I posted a little while ago; namely, I dreamt that I had cancer, the same cancer that my neighbour has -- the difference is, they had no hopes of treating mine, they knew nothing could possibly work. I dreamt that I was 23 years old and limited to a few months to live, and I wasn't ready to go. I felt healthy, I felt mostly good, and I felt that there was so much I wanted to do. In my dream I decided to live as much as I could, which meant getting out and meeting people and not being shy.

However, before I made that decision, I decided I wanted to end things before I started to really suffer. For some reason my dad and I were somewhere that had a lot of debris, so I handed him a stake (who watches too much Buffy/Angel? Not I!) and he pressed it against me. I realized that was going to be really painful, so we picked up an axe and he had it pressed against my throat enough to make a thin cut that bled. Somehow from there I ended up in a hospital I think; I think I'd changed my mind and decided I did actually want to live.

I had a whole bunch of mini-dreams that I can no longer properly link, but I do remember that they were all coloured by the fact that I knew I was dying, and no one else did: I dreamt that my friend N came on to me (and that I finally decided to take him up on his offer); I dreamt that I was in my high school's cafetorium and it was on fire and I was with people trying to escape; I dreamt that I saw my twin best friends from high school (I think I was trying to save them from the fire); I dreamt that I was transcribing short Ministerial speeches that had nothing to do with our department, or in fact much of anything at all; I dreamt that I shared an apartment with Ben (I think), and that someone had spilled coffee in the bathroom and I was really upset about that; and that I or someone stole a helicoptor. Or something -- the details about all of it are pretty fuzzy by now.

Friday night I got together with the boy again, and we watched Runaway Jury, which was good but a little slow at parts. I took advantage of Saturday to sleep in, but I had my alarm set for noon because I'd been told that someone was coming by to show my building/apartment between 1-3p.m. I had originally planned to be out of the place, but then decided I wanted to be there in case the kitten got loose, plus I was sick and didn't feel like going away. No one ever showed, so I was vaguely annoyed, but didn't care too much.

I went out to my folks' place for dinner and D came out to get me. We'd planned to go out to a movie, but wound up just staying at my place for awhile before heading out for a drink at a nearby bar. Afterwards, we returned to my place and watched episodes of Family Guy while the Litte Bit jumped around and I kept poking her to keep her awake (something I did the night before, too). After D left, I went to bed and she jumped on my head for awhile, and then I fell asleep.

I woke up early this morning, and lounged about my place today, watching episodes of Angel season 3. She ran around and played, including one psychotic episode that had her racing back and forth across the couch with no real purpose in mind. I took a short nap that didn't really feel like a nap, then got up and got ready to head off to work.

So that's my week in short. Like I said, I wanted to write earlier, but I've just not been feeling it lately. I don't know what it is, but somehow my schedule is sucking my will to live/write somewhat. I think once I move fully into doing the speech coordination (which is supposed to happen Monday, but they have yet to find someone to do my job, so it's not happening yet) -- which also needs to be formalized by someone higher up than my boss -- I'll be moving into working real people hours, which is a plus and a minus. I kinda like being done by 3, but I'm not too huge on the getting up at 5:30 thing. :P

So yeah, lately there's been a bunch of emotional stuff, some more nostalgia stuff, some excitement, some hopefulness, some interesting developments, some kitten fun... it's been interesting. *sigh* In honesty, I don't know what I feel, except that I'm semi-stressed and semi-worried about the kitten, and so that has me sad. I just hope everything's okay and that things resolve themselves soon, 'cause I worry about her. It's different having someone totally dependent on you, instead of on you and two or three other people, like my kitties back home (who, incidentally have gotten fat; even Digger's filled out again, which is a shame 'cause he was a good weight).

I just want to make everyone healthy and happy and whole; my parents, my grandparents, my friends, my kitties, myself... Being emotional-PMSy kinda sucks. :P

Continuing the Captain Kirk theme... another school.

Some notes on my dream so I can write it up in detail later:

* same cancer as my neighbour
* stake
* axe
* twin best friends
* fire at the cafetorium
* transcribing Ministerial speeches
* shared apartment
* N coming on to me
* spilled coffee in the bathroom
* stolen helicoptor

That seems to be the most relevant parts. I'll write it up later -- it was pretty depressing, really.

It's weird being in an environment where I feel the longing and the nostalgia and the sadness. I kept thinking this would pass, but... it's been awhile. It's been a few months, really, and, well... still there. Still feel it. But what with the not being able to do a damn thing about it, I guess I'll just keep pushing the feeling down and coping as best I can, right? Right.

Now there's absolutely no good way to segue from that into something different, because other anecdotes that I can think of also tie into that, or might give it away a little too much, so I guess I'll just stop here and go rejoin the festivities.

eiram Oscar Agility 6 | Strength 7 | Stamina 7 Battle Rating 20 Origins eiram was bought at Walmart Can your fishy beat eiram ?

I am sick.

My apartment is way too warm, so I can't get the sleep I need to be less sick.

There are other factors that mean that I am not getting enough sleep, but those will be part of my big huge exciting update. Later.

My cold makes me dumb. Very very very dumb.

I am changing roles at work, which means that there is a billion and one things to learn now, and I don't know any of them, and the world is a scary place.

In the government, people assume that you know what you're doing, even if you tell them you don't. Then they assume you know lots of other things, even if you tell them you don't. It's scary. I suck at my job.

Finally, "How to go down on a woman" articles I can nod along to, here and here. Snagged through Daze Reader.

I'm not dead.

Who wants to talk like William Shatner?

Oh, you know you do.

New article at Whore's Boudoir. Well, kinda.

And when it comes to cleaning out my mailbox, here's an email I got from a Chapters coworker friend awhile back:

Today is the international day for the mentally disabled.
Please send an encouraging message to a mentally retarded friend as I have just done.
Hang in there you are doing great. You are special. Keep trying.

Have a great day.

Having a bad day? Well, having a bad men day? Try throwing rocks at boys. :) Stolen from Dave Barry's site.

I also got a mention on erosblog's main page (for Whore's Boudoir, so I think that's awesome. :)

There we go, fixed the comic problem. Me and renaming files.

Secondly, I was reading this today, and man am I glad that that wasn't my childhood. It bothers me that they say that it's the "slutty" girls in the class who used to be the ones who'd go down on guys; in my experience (and some would say that those of us who grew up in my neighbourhood tended to experiment earlier), girls with boyfriends would go down on them, too. I don't know what the incidence of reciprocity was, but... Part of me wants to hope that girls, as they age, get more assertive in asking for what they have the right to expect (i.e., their own pleasure), but it's hard to say. At 23, I'm a little more vocal in my expectations, but I hardly come right out and demand things, and that's with a few years more experience on me than these girls.

Admittedly, by the time I was 14, I had managed to progress to 'everything but,' which wasn't uncommon, but that was with a boyfriend that I dated for a year, by that time (the ex-, odd how he keeps coming up around now). And I certainly hope I wouldn't have put up with being used in that manner, at that age. But I don't know -- sometimes I seem to let it happen, even now.

Sorry, I'm just rambling as I go here. Read the article, be scared, decide to lock up all of your children when/if you have them. That goes for boys and girls, for the record.

GLOBE AND MAIL
SAT FEB.07,2004
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Good girls do: School counsellors, researchers and teenagers themselves say that girls as young as 12 and 13 are performing oral sex -- not just the class 'bad girls,' but students from every walk of life. They don't consider it real sex, but an act almost as normal as acne and cafeteria gossip. In today's oversexed consumer culture, reports SARA WILSON, popularity commands a high price
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Alexa is 15 now, but she first heard about it when she was 10. She remembers thinking, "Ewww." Disgusting.
The next time the subject came up, she was 13, an eighth grader at an affluent private school in Toronto, making out with her boyfriend in his bedroom. He asked if she was willing. "He told me, 'You don't have to if you don't want to. It's up to you.' But I really liked him and this was my first, like, obsessive thing with a guy." He was a year older, 14. "I wanted to impress him. And we'd been hooking up for so long. Two months or something. I thought about it for about three seconds. I'm like, okay, it's my decision. I felt mature, like I made up my own mind. Obviously I was ready. But I don't even know if I was."

"It" is oral sex, and Alexa is hardly the only young girl who thinks she's ready for it (all minors' names have been changed). According to statistical evidence, as well as reports from social workers, educators and the girls themselves, oral sex is now a fact of life in middle-school culture.

And it's no longer the domain of the class "bad girl." Girls like Alexa who are experimenting sexually can hail from housing projects and tony suburbs, and attend schools public and private. In some circles, the act is even de rigueur, an admission ticket to the cool cliques of star athletes or honour students.

"Fooling around" and "hookups" -- terms kids use to describe everything from kissing to groping, mutual masturbation to oral sex -- happen when couples are alone, and when they're in peer groups. They happen at school, in stairwells, in bathrooms between third and fourth period, and in the playground at recess. They happen in parks, on class trips and in cabins at camp. They happen at home and at after-school or weekend parties, whether or not parents are out.

The phenomenon made news in Canada in December, when Cass Rhynes, a 19-year-old baseball star from Cornwall, PEI, was sentenced to 45 days in jail for inciting oral sex from two girls aged 12 and

13. Mr. Rhynes, who was one of four teenaged boys involved in the incident a year ago, claims he'd thought the girls were two years older (14 is the age of consent in Canada). The girls themselves testified that they had arranged the casual sexual trysts, often via the Internet, and willingly participated. They characterized the episodes as "no big deal." The court saw otherwise. Mr. Rhynes is appealing the sentence.

The case shocked many Canadians who harboured illusions that 12- and 13-year-old girls' sexuality was limited to fixating on the gyrations of the latest pop idol. Even Mr. Rhynes seemed bewildered, in an interview after his conviction, that girls that age would know what oral sex means, much less want to take part in it. "Obviously something's changed," he said. "Something's gone wrong somewhere."

The oral-sex trend, however, is not a temporary blip on the radar of adolescent sexuality. It signals a sea change in the way girls view themselves, and sends a wake-up call about the state of our hypersexualized culture.

Physiologically, girls seem to be hitting puberty earlier than ever. But developing breasts is one thing, and sexual and emotional maturity is quite another. What does it mean when 12-year-old girls are servicing boys on a lark? How do such hollow early experiences affect a girl's sex life and self-esteem, in aSex and the City culture that telegraphs that all a girl needs to feel better in the morning is a pair of Manolos?

This turn among pubescent girls first came to light in 1999 in the United States. After president Bill Clinton drew his famous distinction between "sexual relations" and oral sex, U.S. media began to discover that middle-schoolers mirrored his opinion.

While there are no hard data to confirm the increase in oral sex, late last year Health Canada published the best evidence available in this country -- a state-of-the-union survey of about 11,000 students in Grades 7, 9 and 11 entitled "Canadian Youth, Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS."

The study was the first in more than a decade to examine adolescent sexual trends in Canada. However, researchers deliberately avoided asking Grade 7 students about intercourse or oral sex, for fear that controversy-averse school boards would have refused to participate, says researcher William Boyce, a member of the faculty of education at Queen's University in Kingston.

What the study did find is that in Grade 7, 35 per cent of girls and 46 per cent of boys said they had "deep (open-mouth) kissed" ("French" kissed); 34 per cent of girls and 46 per cent of boys said they had engaged in sexual touching above the waist; and 23 per cent of girls and 33 per cent of boys said they had engaged in sexual touching below the waist.

Students had the option of volunteering further specifics. One per cent of the Grade 7 girls who responded were willing to divulge that they had engaged in oral sex. But by Grade 9, it was one-third of all students.

"That jump didn't happen after they went to high school," Mr. Boyce says. "Some of it did, but some of it also happened in Grade 8, which frankly is the age that we are really suspecting a lot of this stuff is going on between kids."

Pinpointing where pubescent sexual mores began to change is trickier than wending a path through a teenager's clothes-strewn bedroom. It's not news that sexual stimulus abounds in today's media. Gone are the days when a boy might have sneaked his dad's tattered copy of Playboy; today, underwear ads in Good Housekeeping are nearly as explicit, and much raunchier stuff appears on music videos and the Internet. But kids today are also often the targets of a massive sexual sell.

If teenagers were a creation of the 1950s, "tweens" -- the eight-to-14-year-olds weaned on the Spice Girls, Clueless , Missy Elliot and The O.C.

-- are a product of the new millennium. Never before has a group so young commanded such powerful market attention. An army of mini-me celebrities gaze out from the covers of publications such as Teen People, Teen Vogue, Cosmo Girl and Elle Girl, plugging junior-branded merchandise, movies and TV shows. It's fuelled an explosion of retail lines and outlets that cater to the legions that want to emulate them.

Products that used to be designated adults-only are now being peddled to kids, with not-so-subtle sexual connotations: tween-targeted cosmetics, courtesy of mini-branding giants the Olsen twins; paraphernalia with "Porn Star" and Playboy-bunny logos, sold in the juniors section at department stores; and even kid-branded lingerie. American retailer Abercrombie & Fitch introduced thong underwear to its Abercrombie Kids line last year, featuring phrases such as "Kiss Me," "Wink Wink" and "Eye Candy."

These products have helped create a generation of pseudo-sophisticated girls, advanced about sex but ignorant of its meaning and consequences. Kids inhale an atmosphere in which sex is a commodity to exchange for status, while overworked parents and school systems are often less than available to help kids interpret the messages they are receiving.

Of course, adolescents have always "fooled around," and they have always had an eye for sex appeal. If a fast-forward culture is making it happen a year or two younger, perhaps that's no reason to panic. But pretending it isn't true is increasingly not an option.

Kate is a stunning olive-skinned brunette, now in Grade 11 at a Toronto alternative school. On the day of our interview, she is wearing a Juicy Couture-style black sweatsuit, slung low on her hips to show off a flat midriff a la J.Lo. In her characteristic teenage drone, she explains that starting in Grade 7, about 15 boys and girls from her small, mixed-gender private school would gather every weekend, with no parents around.

Typically, all the kids would be watching a movie when couples would break off from the main crowd and disappear into another room. Other times, they wouldn't be so discreet. On one occasion, she remembers sitting only a few feet away from a girl who was performing oral sex on a boy when another girl approached them. "Wow, I can't believe you're doing that," Kate remembers the newcomer saying. "Do you want me to hold your hair back?"

At the time, she says, it did not seem particularly out of the ordinary. "I just didn't think anything of it."

Her attitude toward doing the deed was equally laissez-faire. One day in Grade 8, at a house where some friends were gathered after school, she was alone in a bedroom with a classmate she had known since Grade 5. He wasn't her boyfriend, but when her then best friend joined the conversation, the boy asked the two girls to kiss. After they complied, he requested oral sex. "We were like, 'Okay,' " she says.

The threesome took place in a separate room from the main party, but the teens were hardly sequestered away. "People were walking in and out of the room," she says. "But it didn't even matter. Nobody cared."

Because her school was so small, Kate says that at some point, everyone in her grade had "hooked up" with everyone else. "By the end of Grade 8," she says, people were doing "pretty much everything" except intercourse.

Sally O'Neill, a Toronto-based sexual-health educator, says kids as young as Grade 5 "always" ask questions about oral sex. And one social worker with the Toronto District School Board says things have changed dramatically in her 15 years on the job: Now, she frequently counsels girls as young as 12 who have been caught -- often on school property -- in "pretty compromising sexual positions."

Miriam Kaufman, a pediatrician who specializes in adolescent medicine at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, is familiar with the trend as well. "We're hearing this from rich kids and we're hearing this from poor kids," Dr. Kaufman says.

A guidance counsellor at a Toronto private girls' school says she has heard confidentially from other staff members that "our girls are servicing boys from Grade 7 up." And servicing the guys appears to be exactly what's going on: From all accounts, oral sex is a one-way street -- boys rarely return the favour.

"It used to be that only the really slutty girls -- and there was one in each class -- would do this," says Eric King, a senior social worker at the Hincks-Dellcrest Centre, a government-funded children's mental health care facility in Toronto. In many circles today, he says, oral sex has become almost as normal as acne or homework or cafeteria gossip.

Vanessa, now a popular kid in Grade 9 at a private girls' school in Toronto, describes the weekend parties that she says took place about twice a month last year at various friends' houses. Sometimes parents were home, but more often they weren't. Boys and girls from schools across the city would show up. Frequently, drugs and alcohol were involved. Boys would approach girls, a pickup would ensue, and the couple would withdraw into another room, she says. Sometimes, the two knew each other. Other times, they had just met.

She remembers one girl who left the room with a boy she had met just 10 minutes earlier. When the pair returned, she says, "All the girls would just circle around and be like, 'What just happened? What just happened?' " The boy would "just walk off," while the girl would "talk about it openly." The two didn't have intercourse, she says, but they did everything else. Oral sex was a given. It happened at every party.

The girls' attitudes were remarkably blase: They would say they were just hooking up with a given boy for that night, and shrug that "next weekend," they would be with another guy. Vanessa guesses that about 10 per cent of her all-female Grade 8 class performed oral sex on boys regularly.

Sometimes, she says, girls would arrange hookups by electronic instant messaging -- now kids' primary mode of communication outside school. Vanessa has observed her girlfriends exchanging messages with boys whom they knew or had recently met, laying out the planned sexual timetable in graphic detail, often including oral sex. The absence of face-to-face contact is a confidence booster: "It's much easier to be open," she says.

According to Dr. Kaufman, that comfort allows for increasingly explicitly sexual text conversations -- and concerned parents have sought her help after discovering them. In Mr. Rhynes's trial, evidence emerged that the casual sexual liaisons that ensnared the baseball prodigy were facilitated by instant messaging: After meeting and exchanging e-mail addresses with groups of high-school boys on school buses, the girls used messaging to arrange the meetings.

While educators stress that they don't believe that most girls engage in these activities, those who do are by no means anomalous. And even girls who don't would agree with their more precocious girlfriends that it isn't really sex.

"I'll say, 'Did you have sex?' " says a guidance counsellor at another Toronto private girls' school. "And they'll say, 'Well, not exactly.' And I'll say, 'What do you mean, not exactly?' And they'll say, 'Well, we had oral sex.' " If it's not sex, what is it? When a moderator posed that question to a roomful of teenaged girls at a Women's Health Matters conference in Toronto last month, the giggling reply was almost unanimous: "It's foreplay."

Why draw this line at all? The girls see oral sex as safer, both physically and emotionally. To an extent, they're right. Oral sex poses no danger of pregnancy. The chance of infection from most sexually transmitted diseases -- including HIV -- is lower than with "real" sex. Still, there are risks: Herpes, gonorrhea and chlamydia are frequently transmitted through oral sex.

Kim Martyn, a sexual-health educator with Toronto Public Health and author ofAll the Way: Sex for the First Time , says kids are often surprised to learn that they need protection. Dr. Kaufman encounters similar misconceptions in her practice. As they see it, she says, "it's not sex, so why would you have to protect yourself?"

The emotional aspect is equally important. As one 13-year-old says, "When you have sex, it's, like, 'the big thing.' " Oral sex is "way less sentimental."

Kate agrees. With oral sex, she says, "you're not gonna have that emotional attachment."

Two guidance counsellors at a girls' school have encountered the same attitude. "Often you'll say to kids, 'I'm worried about you being hurt,' " says one. "And they'll sort of look at you like you're crazy."

The trend-watchers behind Sex and the City have picked up on that current: In one episode, the promiscuous PR person Samantha is hired to organize a rich Manhattan girl's bat mitzvah, where she overhears a group of 13-year-olds talking dirty about boy bands. When she scolds them, they scoff: They've been having oral sex since they were 12 -- it's the only way, they say, to get boys to like them. Even the unshockable Samantha is floored. Their reply? "Talk to the hand, grandma."

"It's just something you do," for many girls, says the other school counsellor. "An act that you perform." In certain peer groups, it is a price girls pay for popularity. It alone can garner the social cachet that's needed to belong. It is, Vanessa says, "the cool thing to do."

In that sense, the pressures, fears and anxieties about fitting in that girls are dealing with today are no different than the ones they have dealt with since the beginning of time.

Only now, the stakes are higher.

Leslie, a petite, outgoing 16-year-old with curly brown hair who describes her junior-high years as "social warfare," says oral sex has become something of a "rite of passage" for 12- and 13-year-old girls. The thinking goes, "You're in Grade 7 and 8. This is something you should be doing."

Often, says Leslie, the pressure to cast off the label of "blowjob virgin" was so intense in her private Hebrew day school that girls performed oral sex just to get it over with. "It's about doing what's expected."

Vanessa agrees. "Girls just want to get past the stage of saying they did it."

In the process, this generation is bucking some age-old social and sexual norms. Ms. O'Neill, the sexual-health educator, says she frequently gets complaints from parents who believe that their sons are being harassed by girls. And Mr. King, the social worker, says that when it comes to voicing their sexual wishes, girls are more aggressive now than ever: "I know what I want and I can get it." One of the girls in PEI testified that Cass Rhynes was reluctant, and she forced herself on him.

Ever since the advent of "Girl Power," being aggressively sexy has practically become a political statement. Pop-culture figureheads such as Christina Aguilera or Beyonce, who play out every bump-and-grind signal of sexual availability -- then fend off criticism by saying it is "just a performance," only entertainment -- reinforce the mixed message.

What started as a movement to invest girls with the power to be and do anything they wanted has morphed into a brand-new program: "Put on a push-up bra, expose your navel, shake your booty, and drive 'em wild."

According to Kate, "If you want a guy to like you, most girls will do anything to have him."

Vanessa agrees. Oral sex is alluring to many girls because "a guy's giving her attention. He's saying, 'Let's go . . . have some fun.' "

But the attention rarely lasts. In fact, Kate recalls, in the Grade 8 situation, the girls and boys often would never speak again. Sometimes, the girl was embarrassed. Other times, despite what he had led the girl to believe -- surprise -- the boy didn't really care about her.

Typically, Vanessa says, "the guy will just use the girl." She bears the full weight of a nasty double standard, being labelled a "slut," "whore," or " 'ho," while he gets praised by friends.

Still, those labels aren't as disparaging as they once were. For young girls, even negative attention can be extremely attractive. "Even if they're talking about you poorly," Leslie explains, "they're still talking about you." She adds, "To get the name 'slut,' at least that means . . . you're, like, older."

Whereas a girl's first period used to signal her entrance into womanhood, Leslie says, now "you're a woman if you go out there and you fool around with lots and lots of people."

Kate agrees. When she and her girlfriends performed oral sex, she says, "we were pretty proud."

Read about a screwy Blind Date.

Read a comic:



And learn:

I got an email from a guy who works with the ex- (the one from the very start of this blog). Apparently the ex- passed along this site to him (I'm still trying to figure out why), and this guy says that reading my site is a real up for him and that I have a gift. Pretty cool, no?

Of course, it leaves me wondering (as always), how the ex- found the site, and why he'd pass it along. Ah well. Appropriately enough, U2's on the radio at this very moment.

And I, of course, am running seriously behind.

The badgers have gone evil. I'm scared.

Of course I am:


You are Homestar Runner. Everyone loves the
Homestar Runner. He is a terrific athlete. What
used to be an unknown internet cult phenomenon
has grown into a popular flash empire. Enjoy
your fame.

If you don't get the reference, check yourself out
at http://www.homestarrunner.com/


What Internet phenomenon are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Kah is learning English. I'm such a proud Mommy.

On that note... remember earlier when I said I was a bad mom 'cause I transported him in a plastic bag? Well, I can top that.

See, last week I got a PDA off eBay. Ben showed me a site where I could download a DigiPet for my PDA, sort of the geek's equivalent of the Tamagotchi craze from a few years' back.

So I did. And I managed to kill the first one in less than a day, simply because I had the audacity to sleep or something when it decided it needed to have its poops cleaned up or its disease cured or it fed or something; I only came back to find my PDA semi-crashed and it dead.

Okay, no problem. I started a new one, named him Steve, and went to town. He made it to two days old, and we were a happy couple. Then Saturday night I came home from the party, turned it off, and set it on my desk. Well, some time around 8 in the morning (after I'd gone to bed at 3), my PDA started tweedling 'cause Steve needed attention.

I fed him or cleaned up his poops (I don't remember now), then put my PDA on my computer chair and piled clothes on it.

An hour later, Steve tweedled again. This time I picked up the PDA, carried it into the living room, put it on the couch, piled a bunch of pillows on it, and went back to bed.

That's right, because my little DigiPet was making noise and waking me up, I buried it under a stack of pillows so I couldn't hear it anymore.

I am a wonderful mom. :)

Anyhow, what else? There was, of course, Gord's party this weekend, whereby I saw someone that I haven't seen or spoken to in years (the last party at which I saw him -- also the first party at which I met him -- I slept with him... that is, I shared a bed with him and two other people), and I mixed myself a super-sized chocolate martini. I only managed to get through the one, 'cause it was pretty potent stuff (pure vodka and creme de cacao, that's the stuff to clean your sinuses), and I wasn't really trying to get drunk.

We had dinner at Mexi's, and I amused Shawn's mom with tales of woe, we mocked our waitress, and some of us (namely Will) got away without paying. Damn my broke, honest hide.

After dinner, some of us hopped over to the liquor store, and Ben handed me the $20 Jacob had given him and asked me to buy Jacob beer. The beer Jake had requested wasn't available there, so it was up to me to come up with a suitable replacement.

Anyone who knows me ought to know by now that it is a bad idea to hand me money, point me to a store and say, "Go buy whatever." Sometimes you'll get lucky, and sometimes you won't.

So in we went, and I decided that rather than buy two 6-packs, Jacob was going to get a Bubba. Will said he liked Canadian, so we bought him a Bubba of Canadian. Oh yeah. :)

We schlepped everything back to the house, partied hard, and around 1:30 or so I took off with Jamie. We caught the buses in opposing directions, and I managed to get myself home. There were a few drunks out on the street, but nothing too awful.

I just remembered my last encounter with drunks, at the restaurant awhile back, but I think I've already told that story, so I won't repeat myself. :)

Highlights of the party? Well, there were a few, but I don't want to upset anyone, so I won't bother. No crazy making out this time, unfortunately. Ah well, who knows what the future holds, right? :)

Tonight I'm heading out to the folks' place to meet with their financial planner and open up an RRSP. And beat up the cats. I feel so... grown up and geeky and weird all at once. And I have crazy hair. :)

We got an email circulated around work saying they were doing a Plant Inventory. I'm sure it's exactly what it says it is, but a plant inventory? This amuses me.

Oh yeah! And I updated Whore's Boudoir.

For the Alyson Hannigan fans out there (I'm thinking of Ben and Mark in particular), here ya go.

And because I am that hyper and that bored:

1. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR KITCHEN PLATES?

White with green edges and purple lillies on them.

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?

I just finished Cerulean Sins, by Anita Blake (yay for e-books), and I'm going to read Pterry's Monstrous Regiment next. But I also have about five others on the go, just not actively at the moment.

3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?

At home the top one is pink with caricatures of classical composers and jazz artists.

4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?

Eh, whatever I'm in the mood to play at the time. Clue, maybe.

5. FAVORITE MAGAZINES?

I like trashy magazines when I'm at the gym or killing time, but otherwise I don't read magazines.

6. FAVORITE SMELLS?

Chocolate to eat, vanilla to wear. Also garlic, fireplaces, sun-warmed skin, my cats (shut up, I'm weird), soap or cologne on a nice boy's skin. The discontinued Zest soap (I think) was mouth-watering on one boy. Yum.

7. LEAST FAVORITE SMELL?

Garbage, many many many colognes and perfumes (the sickly flowered ones, or artificial "clean" or "ocean" smelling ones -- I'm from the East Coast, and ocean does *not* smell like chemicals; it smells like seaweed and fish more often than not).

8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?

"Make the annoying noise stop/why am I up so early/what day of the week is it/crap I do have to go to work today/I don't want to be going to work."

Then I throw myself towards the bathroom and the shower.

9. FAVORITE COLOR(S)?

Blue, purple, black.

10. LEAST FAVORITE COLOR?

Orange. The hatred of the orange is well-established.

11. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE?

Eh, usually 1 or 2. Depends on if I hear it and what I'm doing.

12. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?

Heyyou.

13. WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN LIFE?

Happiness, security, love.

14. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?

Chocolate to eat, vanilla to wear (body wash, perfume, body lotion).

15. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST?

Yes. :)

16. DO YOU FALL ASLEEP WITH THE TV ON?

Sometimes, although not for the big sleeps.

17. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY?

Very cool -- but that's for thunder and lightning storms. Snowstorms are annoying and sometimes scary.

18. WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?

Fisher-Price and miniature. I don't have a car.

19. FAVORTIE ALCOHOLIC DRINK

Smirnoff Ice, Baileys, Blowjobs, Polar Bears, Creme de Menthe, Chocolate Martini, Grasshoppers -- depends on the mood.

20.WHAT IS YOUR SIGN &YOUR BIRTHDAY?

Leo/Virgo (born on the cusp), August 23rd.

21. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI?

I prefer the stems to the flowers.

22. YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Writer.

23.IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY COLOR HAIR, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Honey blonde.

24. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE?

Yep.

25. ? (Non-existant!)

26. FAVORITE MOVIE?

MST 3K: The Movie, When Harry Met Sally, Princess Bride, and any number of others I can't think of at the moment.

27. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEY?

Yep, more often than not. Hooray for grade 9 wellbugguh (that's funny to about one person, if she even gets it).

28. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?

Blocks to balance it out (yay for crooked apartment floors) and a storage container that I really should sort through.

29. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER?

9

30. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH?

Billiards. Barring that, I guess hockey.

31. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR?

Never meeting that special someone and growing old alone. Being hurt by any number of not-quite-special someones in the meantime.

32. SAY ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?

Heather is awesome in a billion different ways. :)

33. PERSON MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?

Eh, maybe Shawn or Gord.

34. PERSON YOU SENT THIS TO WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?

Any of the number of people who read my site and don't comment, or who comment anonymously. Actually, I'd say 99% of the people who read it. :)

35. FAVORITE CD?

My Cake CDs, the Once More with Feeling soundtrack, or whatever best suits my mood.

36. FAVORITE TV SHOWS?

Buffy, CSI, Gilmore Girls (shut up Ben), Angel, Family Guy, Simpsons...

37. KETCHUP OR MUSTARD?

Ketchup. Mustard is icky.

38. HAMBURGERS OR HOTDOGS?

If they're barbecued, hotdogs. Otherwise, hamburgers.

39. FAVORITE SOFT DRINK?

Coke.

40. BEST PLACES YOU HAVE EVER BEEN?

Halifax, Montreal, Saint John, various friend's apartments and homes.

41. WHAT SCREEN SAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW?

The standard XP screensaver. I don't care enough/think about it enough to change it.

42. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ANIMAL?

Cat. ^..^ Then a bunch of others. :)

43. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

Fun, interesting, wacky, employed, happy, loved, respected, thinner, sexy. A writer?

44. CAR YOU DRIVE NOW?

The big taxis known as "buses" that patrol the neighbourhoods. On rare occasions, my mom's Mazda 323. That thing can move. ;)

Ben's love for Mother Nature shines through:

DEAR MOTHER NATURE STOP
KEEP FUCKING WITH US STOP
SEE WHERE IT GETS YOU STOP
LOVE CANADA

Fridays rock. :)

Wow, Oprah's book club is featuring a book I've actually read already: One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Now I'm torn; I feel both educated for having read a smart book and somewhat enjoyed it, but also kinda tainted, because now it's become an Oprah book.

I want to shower and dance. Dance in the shower?

And watch Buffy, but that's because of a discussion on ardently's site. :)

I brought the Furby into work today. Now, since Tuesday when I got him, he's spent most of his time in my apartment, in a deep sleep. Last night, I kept trying to wake him to play with him; no go. He'd wake up, say he was tired, and go back to sleep, snoring a few times.

So I figured this was the perfect way to transport him. I stuffed him in a plastic bag (I'm going to make a *great* mother!), and off I went to catch the bus this morning.

Somewhere en route, he woke up. I could hear him mutter the odd thing, but mostly just move around. Well, on the bus he woke up more, and by the time I was waiting to connect to my second bus, he was wide awake and being embarrassing.

Here I am, standing at the bus stop just before 7 in the morning, and this little bugger is talking to himself, saying 'Whee!' and 'Whoa!' and on one occasion (once we actually got on the second bus), giving me a big kiss with a pop sound at the end.

I finally get in the building, and I sit down outside the coffee shop. While I wait for it to open, I release Kah from his plastic prison and figure I'll play with him, see what he wants. What does he do? He goes to sleep.

...

Stupid little bugger. :)

In other news, my trainer totally flipped when she saw my hair, and kept commenting on it, which was cool. I went to the desk to sign up for my tanning session, and she was at the other end of it. All of a sudden I hear, "Oh my God!" when she recognized me, and so that was funny. Today I have a slightly smoother style going on; it's streamlined, so I can move faster ('cause on Friday, you want to move quickly).

I'm still trying to figure out what kinds of clothes suit the new hair. Such a difficult life I lead.

What else? I made tacos last night for supper. They were good, but it would have been better if I'd had taco seasoning (I keep forgetting Mom didn't give me any), although barbecue seasoning and garlic salt (my favourite cooking condiment) worked reasonably well.

I watched the episode of Angel I'd taped, since I have to lend the tape to someone else. It was a pretty interesting one, but it had some sad elements to it, too, not to mention some stuff I didn't totally appreciate, since I haven't seen seasons 3 or 4, although I should be getting season 3 shipped out to me today, I think. I told Dad that I think Angel might wrap up after this season, but he said he didn't necessarily agree. I'm trying to avoid specific details 'cause I know Ben's not caught up yet. ;)

Anyhow, off to the meeting. It doesn't seem like too many people are here yet, but maybe they're just quiet.

And before I forget, I've totally ruined my constitution, I think. I now go to bed at 10:30 or earlier if I can swing it, I drink Coke at 7 in the morning, and the fact that there's always sweets around means that it's nothing to me to eat chocolate at 8 in the morning. Eesh. I don't do it every day, but the fact that I can do it (at least on the days when I don't feel sick in the morning) scares me. Kinda. Sorta. Not really.

Oh yeah! Jay has told me that I apparently am considered hot by his friends out in Winterpeg. He's offered me up as a going away present to one of his coworkers, even. Sometimes, I wonder who my friends are, and why it is they all seem to be crazy in the head.

Well, holy crap. Here I was worried that people wouldn't notice I'd done something different with the hair, and... wow. This morning, I kept getting held up places 'cause people wanted to talk about the hair, to say how much they loved it, to touch it and style it for themselves... it's been awesome, and the reactions have been really positive to it, which is great.

It's hard to tell from the pictures I posted, but there are all kinds of highlights through it, it's shorter overall and all hacked in the back, and the style is "messy." There isn't meant to be rhyme or reason to it, and that's one reason why some of my coworkers have had so much fun playing with it themselves.

This means that my styling of it this morning actually kinda worked out -- I've found a hairdo that looks cool, is fun, and I can do it myself. Wow. :)

The funny part was some people weren't sure if it was cut, some weren't sure if I'd just had it styled, nothing else, and some noticed all the differences, and kept having me turn to show them off to others. :) Even people I only see, not work with, have been really complimentary.

I have a picture of myself from around Christmas up (we all do, it was how we decorated the tree), and someone held it up as the "before" picture. It's a bit easier to tell from that pic that my hair wasn't the most flattering when it was chin-length and straight that way... and I think that was fairly shortly after a haircut, too. Eesh.

The best comment I had this morning was when the admin assistant told me that now I'd have lineups of boyfriends, and I repeated that comment when a coworker (D) came in, to which she said, "Well, it's only 8 o'clock, wait a little." It was funny.

My coworker friend also told me that I had fantastic eyes, which was cool; I'm taking advantage of the new hair and whatnot to bust out the contacts once more. The fun part is that I can tell that I'm making use of my eyes more, now that they're not hidden behind glasses frames... it's hard to explain, but if there was a cutie here, man would I be seductive. ;) And that's without even trying!

During our morning briefing, my boss told me that I was obsessed with my hair (just out of the blue, for no reason), and I said I was trying to find a reflective surface in which to look. That got some laughs. Then later, when I passed him in the hall, he asked, 'Get a haircut?' and I said I thought it was him that was obsessed with my hair. :)

And finally, another coworker went on and on about how hot I looked. Mildly wiggy, but... Ah well.

So that's my 17-paragraph update about my hair. Aren't you glad I have a new obsession?

My mom told me the other day that my nanny has an infection in her leg from her knee replacement surgery, so she's currently on antibiotics (administered at the hospital) and bed-ridden, which really sucks for her. I'm just worried about the infection not clearing up, but I'm trying to not think that way. Positive thoughts on it only.

I was going to make soft-shelled tacos last night for dinner, but then I was really lazy (and it was almost 8 by the time I got home), so I think I'm going to do that tonight. I picked up some soy protein powder to make shakes, and I think that water is *not* what they should be mixed with. Not good.

Anyhow, it's almost time to be heading off to the gym. My fake nails are getting lightly orange-coloured from the carrots I'm eating; weird times.

Here we go, here's what I did today (aside from rage):

Before



Hot and such, but nothing special.

After





Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

There are more photos here.

Yesterday was a bit of a good news day. I went to the gym, and after my workout I got up on their special scale – this one measures body fat as well as your actual weight. It turns out that my body fat has gone down three percent, and while my weight has gone up, it’s been all muscle. *flex* Ooh yeah.

I also finally got my Furby yesterday. When I first got him working, he was still running off the same program the other owners had, so he spoke a fair bit of English. I had to check out the instruction manual to figure out how to reset him, but before I did that I was just playing with him and trying to remember stuff about Furbies, and I discovered that this guy appears to be allergic to my apartment – at least, he sneezed about five times while he was there, which I thought was pretty funny.

After I reset him, I learned that his name is Kah; the first thing a new Furby says when you turn it on (which sounds all wrong) is “Me (Name)”, and he said “Me Kah.” Meet Kah:



I spent last night catching up on past weeks’ episodes of Angel, and I even got to bed at a decent (well, semi-) decent hour, which was cool.

However, in my wanderings home from between the gym and my apartment, I managed to get a bit of a head of steam worked up about a trend I’ve noticed, and I kinda want to rant about it here. I also want a nap, but that one seems a bit less likely right now.

Anyhow, I’ve decided that I’m going to save any stories of my romantic and/or sexual escapades to share with my coworker friend, and possibly my trainer. At this point, they seem to be the only ones who don’t assume that any story that involves me and a boy results in naked escapades.

I find it absolutely tiresome that, with many of my friends, if I start the sentence, “I met this boy,” they start with the knowing laughter, or the comments along the lines of, “of course” and other “knowing” reactions. As I’ve been using for an example, the sentence could end “... and then he punched me in the face and stole my wallet,” but if you ask my friends, such a thing would never happen. The only way I know boys is as mobile penises that are there for me to ravage, or some such.

I was all prepared to go into another rant about how often I really do keep my pants zipped up or my hands to myself, but I just can’t be bothered to. What it all boils down to is this; if these people I call my friends don’t or can’t be bothered to understand just how I react to sexual situations, how sexual I actually am or even when I actually am having sex or not, then forget it. As it’s been said many times to me, I only share that information with people that I wish them to have; it may be that many of those people who treat me like that may find themselves without any kind of knowledge about what’s going on in my personal life.

Sure, I can and do take ribbing with the best of them. I expect it; after all, I certainly dole out enough of it. But there comes a time when I want to discuss something more seriously, and that’s the time I don’t really want to be ribbed – that’s the time that I don’t want people making me sound like the Queen Whore of Babylon if I say something about making out with a boy, for example. Hell, even if I’m talking about a time I having the sex, it’s not like it’s morally wrong for me to be so doing.

*sigh* This was a much better rant the first time around; I really need to start writing things down. :P Of course, writing with the PDA is slower than writing or typing things out on the fly, but I’m sure I’ll get faster.

Ah well. I'm going to get pampered later, which will be fun.

Ah, work conversations:

Me: Sheesh, [male coworker]'s talking about the boob again
Coworker: ahhh [male coworker]..
Me: ahhh boobs
Coworker: i know. it's like he's never seen one. get over it dude.
Me: Yeah, even the boy and I were talking about boobs yesterday. Apparently boys like them.
Me: Maybe that explains why they act like them so often. *ba-dump*
Coworker: hahaha. i just weird that grown men can get so flustered over a boob. it's just a boob people!
Coworker: if I ever get that worked up over a dink, shoot me.

Consensus today? Boys are dumb. :) Not just 'cause of the boob (i.e., Janet Jackson's boobs), but it's a part of it.

Hell, lookit all the hits Jay's site got when he posted that supposed picture of my boob awhile back. You people are weird.

Is anyone really surprised by the fact that we have six more weeks of winter?

Naw, me neither. When was the last time we didn't have six more weeks of winter? I can't remember either.

I have to say, this quote at the end kinda bugs me: ""He did a quick turn there, and I think it's because he did see his shadow and we have six more weeks of winter," said Carl Noble, mayor of South Bruce Peninsula."

You think it's because he saw his shadow? How about it's because you guys had rock music, fireworks and a huge crowd of people surrounding his burrow for an hour straight? "The spirited crowd, some clad in furry groundhog hats or even full-length costumes, chanted "Phil! Phil! Phil!" after fireworks and a long night of rock music drew to an end and the hour of the ceremony neared."

Okay, so I may be confusing the two events (i.e., I think that South Bruce Peninsula is associated with Wiarton Willie and the second quote obviously refers to Punxsutawney Phil), but regardless... the poor groundhog. I mean, he's all cozy and hibernating, he's having a good time, and all of a sudden a whole bunch of big, bipedal twits decide that on a particular day he has to be hauled from his comfy little home in order to make an appearance, potentially get booed at, and feel like crap before he gets to go back to sleep for another six weeks.

Hell, I'd be pretty crabby if someone hauled me out of my comfy little tomb to ask me some stupid question that I couldn't possibly honestly answer -- like what do you think the temperature will be in Cape Breton in a month -- then stuffed me back into my bed. Especially if I got booed if I gave an answer they didn't like. :P

Meh. I had a fairly quiet weekend. Got out to see The Butterfly Effect on Friday with some friends, and while it wasn't what I would call an uplifting movie (understatement), I nonetheless thought it was well done.

Afterwards did some hanging out and gameboarding at a friend’s place. I was rather burned out by that point (especially since I got to bed later than I had all week on Thursday), so I really just wanted to relax and let the world flow around me. Of course, once I got home I was all awake, which was annoying.

Had a number of good conversations with Greg that night (many of which I dominated, ‘cause such is my personality – blabbermouth), and I tried to maybe start setting the record straight. Not that it necessarily needs it, but in my head I have one view of how people perceive me and I want to try to fight that perception, because I don’t think it’s me, nor do I think it’s accurate or fair. Redundancy!

I spent much of Saturday lounging and reading, and I even took a nap before dinner, then did some more lounging and knitting and other exciting stuff. See what happens when no one wants t spend time with me? Ah well. I also did some drinking and trying to get my new PDA to work, but gave up after a few hours because I just couldn’t get it to do what it needed. I wound up calling Ben on my way to work on Sunday and he is my computer/PDA God. :)

This week is supposed to be beautiful, so I’m hoping to get out skating again, at least once. I also have Gord’s festorama of birthdayness at the end of the week, so I’m looking forward to that (will there be drinking? I imagine so!).

Okay, I had other things to say, but I can’t remember what they were, and I’m running out of time, so I’m off.

Ben is my computer/PDA God. :)