I Chase Boys

2011-08-02T11:56:00.001-04:00

Just to let you know - the blog has moved to eiram.wordpress.com. Also still reachable by ichaseboys.com, provided I don't let the domain expire. :)

2011-04-15T21:20:00.001-04:00

I live in fear of putting words on a page now – except I can do it without thinking when it’s for work. A former coworker once warned me of the dangers of getting too comfortable with government writing; he said that if you do, you lose your ability to be creative. I fear that may have happened.

One advantage I can say I’ve gained is a better ability to edit my own work. Even the course I took recently reinforced that – I can go back through my own words and tighten here or adjust there, instead of on the fly like I used to do.

But still… what I want is to have a story to tell, a story that doesn’t involve something goofy one of my cats did today or yesterday. In the mornings, Thena likes to come and cuddle with me after my shower. Sometimes when she’s getting her head rubbed or she’s licking my arm, she’ll look at me with her tongue sticking out. Some mornings, it’s as much as half her tongue – and it never fails to make me laugh.
Sure, it’s a story that amuses my husband, since he knows and loves the cats and finds their antics as amusing as I do, but it’s a two-second story to tell that doesn’t interest anyone else. Even if I had a picture to share, I doubt many of you would be too concerned.

And really, that isn’t the kind of story I want to have to tell. What I want is a novel, an actual story that people want to read and want to continue reading. I read authors like Jim Butcher, Karen Chance, Terry Pratchett (and of course many many more), and I can see the genius behind their words leaking off the page. Sure, with Butcher and Pratchett I can sense the growth behind the stories, but with Butcher and Chance there are hints that are dropped in their first or second books that only come to play many books later. I can’t emulate that kind of genius, and that intimidates the crap out of me. And I don’t feel as though I have a gift for description.

But then again… writing isn’t something that’s supposed to be easy, the way I expect everything to be. I don’t trust my writing when it doesn’t flow, but you know what? Writing is work, just like anything else. Sure, it may come easier to me than to others, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still effort. And it’s a skill that needs to be practiced.

I’m lucky; I write every day for work, so I can sit down and bang out media lines or even a speech without effort. I read pieces written by other people and they don’t make sense, or there are grammatical flaws, or they’re hugely negative in tone – and it’s a gift to be able to edit those pieces so that they don’t have those flaws. And I’m constantly learning from my bosses as to how to write even better.

I sound like I’m bragging, which isn’t my intention at all. It’s really just a brain dump to give myself the courage to try something more than just confessional writing – which I find ridiculously easy to do.

Maybe I’ll never be able to write stories, only derivative short stories and essays or confessional pieces. I don’t really know, but I know I’m going to try. It’s just a matter of making the time to do the work – and it is work. But ultimately, it will be rewarding.

2011-03-31T13:05:00.002-04:00

So every now and again I write something of which I'm proud.

I'm currently taking a writing course as part of my work training (and it's the only one I've been able to get away from the office to take this month). We were given an assignment that asked us to turn the intro from the text below to something more entertaining and engaging.

The first paragraph was originally this:

An extremely large number of people enjoy reading murder mysteries regularly. As a rule, these people are not themselves murderers, nor would these people really ever enjoy seeing someone commit an actual murder, nor would most of them actually enjoy trying to solve an actual murder. They probably enjoy reading murder mysteries because of this reason: they have found a way to escape from the monotonous, boring routine of dull everyday existence.

I wrote this:

Last night, I sat back and did nothing as before my very eyes, a man was murdered.

And I wasn’t alone. Dozens of us witnessed the death of this man, whose name we never knew. Around me, I could hear the odd intake of breath as one at a time, we came to the same place on the page – for it was within the pages of the latest Richard Castle novel that we got to vicariously enjoy watching the life of a nameless stranger end.

The teacher said I blew it out of the water, and a few other classmates praised it as well. Now if only the writing assignment we've been given called "Where I sit" holds us half as well...

2011-01-27T10:56:00.001-05:00

For lack of anything more exciting to write about off the top of my head, I’m going to steal from a meme and use it to create several exciting postings. And by exciting, I mean I aim to disappoint with how not-exciting these will be.

Day One: Ten things you want to do some day.

I always seem to have a long list of things I want to do some day:

1. Take dance lessons.
2. Take horse-back riding lessons.
3. Go back to school for another degree or two.
4. Finish a sweater.
5. Learn to sew.
6. Write something for publication.
7. Finish the games I have.
8. Finish the books I have.
9. Own a house with a huge kitchen that meets my needs.
10. Get braver.

Pretty sure I can set up date stamps on the next rounds of these, so I can even set them to publish over the next few days!

2011-01-06T11:21:00.002-05:00

The other day after work, I undertook the fun that is returning clothing -- some that I had bought myself, some that I had received for Christmas.

First order of frustration -- a few weeks before Christmas, I went in to the Gap with the intention of buying a pair of jeans. I had recently bought jeans at the Gap, and found the style and length that I liked and that fit me fairly well. Of course, by some awesome stroke of luck, everyone in the world with my short stature and wide hips had been in the Gap that week and had bought up my size.

So, I had no less than three different employees encourage me to order the jeans online. This was after the last clerk who helped me in my original jeans rampage encouraged me to try on all the pants I picked out, even if they were the same size and style, as there can be variations. This is not my anger issue.

I found a pair of jeans that worked and later went online to browse the sales. I found some overdyed dark jeans in the same style and size as what I'd had before, ordered them and a t-shirt, and went on my merry way.

When everything arrived, big surprise -- shirt was too small (acceptable), and seemed of cheap quality (less acceptable), and the damn pants were too small and too long. I take ownership of the too long, but the too small pissed me off. Had I tried the damn things on in the store, I wouldn't have had had to either return them by mail, or toddle off to the store to return them in person.

However, since I had to do another return -- this one from Christmas -- it was no problem to me to go to the store. Especially since that way, I know the return is being processed immediately and nothing can get lost en route.

Now, pause break in this boring narrative to explain why this second part bothers me the irrational way it does. For as long as I can remember, I have hated returning gifts. Even as a kid, when my grandmother would buy me something I didn't like, it pained me to go to the store with my mom and find something to substitute in its place. And my grandma saw me once a year, so it's not like she was super-dialed in to the vagaries of the 8-year old me's so-called "tastes" in clothes.

Furthermore, I am fairly loyal to particular stores when I consistently find clothing items there that I like and that fit me well. I like Laura, Reitmans, Smart Set for some thing, Gap for some things (which is really only a recent addition to the shopping list) -- and that's usually about it. I have a very hard time finding clothes that I like and/or are willing to spend money on in most of the other stores, so I don't waste my time.

Now bear in mind again that this next part is irrational and I realize that completely. This makes no sense to me, so I don't expect it to make any sense to anyone else.

But I get really irrationally upset when people buy me clothes that aren't my style (and to some extent my size, though that's more forgiveable by far) but especially when they come from stores I *never* shop at.

Several years ago my other grandmother bought me some dress pants from the Gap. In a size 14 - when at the time I think I was still in 8/10s. Not only did these pants not fit, but when I belted them on in an attempt to make them work, I somehow had a giant square butt. Fortunately I was able to return them, but I was then left with a gift card for a big chunk of change to a store that I never shopped at that took me about two years to eventually spend, if memory serves. And that was only when my mom basically dragged me in to get new jeans, which I balked at spending $60-$70 on.

My mom is also guilty of this; she's bought me clothes at Mexx, which I never shopped at -- I did manage to make one work and returned another, but I still have on hand a sweater I have yet to wear, because the other half of my neurosis is an inability to throw out or give away clothes that someone gave me as a gift, that I didn't return because I thought I'd wear it, that I never wear for whatever reason (too fitted, weird style, too bright a colour, something).

I got hit with this again this year -- for some reason lately, my sister has been insistent on trying to buy clothes for the DH and me for Christmas. She bought me two "sweaters" (I call them that because though they seem to be made from some sweater-like material, they are lighter and thinner than t-shirts, not to mention incredibly shapeless), and a blouse. The blouse worked well enough, but the sweaters were simply not going to be worn, so I had to go and return them. Because of the nature of Jacob stores (leotarded), I had to find a "boutique" one and return it there. And because of the aforementioned leotarded policies, I now have in my possession a gift card to a store that I think I've set foot in twice (now three times) in my lifetime.

Joy.

My family likes to give gag gifts on occasion, and they're all well and good, but the frustration I run is the neurosis about hating to give away gifts, coupled with the loud voice of my DH about how much junk I own. He focuses mainly on my books, but I feel that way when I look at the things I've received as gag gifts -- at what point is it acceptable to get rid of something for which I have absolutely no use? I can appreciate the sentiment and the humour behind it, and not everything I receive is useless, but sometimes it just is.

Sometimes I get gifts because someone felt they had to give me a gift (like a family friend I happened to see on my birthday, who gave me something very generic that would've been old 20 years ago). I appreciate the thought behind it, but it went into the donation bin that same day -- and my DH gave me a hard time about it. Huzzah.

So sometimes the same people who give me a hard time about owning too much stuff or being too sentimental about things are a) contributing to it, and b) being just as guilty of hanging on to things out of sentimentality as I am. I do make some harsh calls sometimes – like throwing out the needlepoint wall-hangings my aunt made for me when I was a baby – but it needs to be done. I still have the teddy bear that she made me when I was a baby, and that’s more important to me.

Anyhow, I know so much of this sounds so very ungrateful of me – but I’d really rather get nothing as a gift than something that was just purchased because you couldn’t find anything else (like the etch-a-sketch). Really, I’m not that materialistic, and I don’t think I’m that terribly difficult to buy for. Especially when I had a short list of DVDs I’d have liked.

Just watch; next year I’ll be lucky to get a “Merry Christmas” after all of this whining!

2011-01-04T00:11:00.003-05:00

Welcome, interwebs.

I have written so many posts in my head over the last bazillion or so years, but somehow sitting down in front of a screen and keyboard to make them come to life for you has just not happened. I have so many excuses, but the one that seems to stand out as the strongest was a vignette I saw on one of the Castle DVDs from season 1 -- short version, that what often creates writer's block is the fear that what you put down on paper won't be perfect.

It's a feeling I can understand all too well. When I'm at work, I'm not afraid to write -- I know that whatever I put down will be vetted and reviewed by many different sets of eyes, so if it's not perfect, someone along the way will catch it and change it. And I have no ego attached to that -- I'm completely fine with it. Admittedly, there I'm not writing for myself and putting my thoughts and feelings out there, so it in some ways carries much less risk, but at the same time, it's my career and there is a great deal of risk associated with being a constant screw-up. Fortunately for me, I'm not one (at least not at work), so there you go.

Anyhow -- I thought about sitting down at the keyboard on January 1st to make some big poignant retrospective and make it somehow more meaningful, and as you can see, that didn't happen. So here we are.

I know it's common for people to write their looking-back pieces, so I thought I might do the same.

The year 2010 brought for me marriage and turning 30 -- in that order, thankfully. Maybe just barely, but it still counts.

The wedding day went well, with only minor hiccups -- one of the DH's uncles made our cake, and he got lost on the way to the venue, so he only just finished setting up as I was about to walk down the aisle, and therefore he missed the ceremony (as he had to return to the hotel to get his wife and daughter and also change). The hotel gave away our photographer's room, so noises were made and great concessions were received. A few people's comments about the lack of cleanliness of their rooms got back to me, but just as third- or fourth-hand comments -- not as problems to fix. One of the DH's second-cousins heckled my dad during his speech, but it would appear someone told him to shut up, as he calmed down. My mom stepped on my bustle before my first dance, but my maid of honour and my bride's man's girlfriend helped do a repair. The groomsmen didn't put the wedding favours on the tables, but the DH and I were able to use the handing out of the favours as our excuse to circulate amongst the tables and thank everyone for coming.

On the whole? Problem free. I spent more time socializing and less time dancing than I thought, but that wasn't exactly a bad thing. I was able to time the changing of the daughters during the father-daughter dance well -- fortunately I didn't wait for the keychange as I had considered, as that happened right towards the end of the song and wouldn't have had the same impact.

All in all, it was a great and yet weird day. The DH and I both said that it felt as though we were at someone else's wedding, but for the fact that we were the ones wearing the fancy get-up. My dress was a huge hit with everyone. It did get somewhat uncomfortable towards the end of the night, and I loved that first big breath I got to take after I removed it -- and the even bigger one after the damn strapless bra came off.

Weird things about wedding get-up? Spanx (or at least the set I bought and didn't wear) aren't meant to be worn with underwear, as there is simply an opening that you pull aside to do your business. Yours truly was not comfortable with that idea, and so ended up wearing a different pair of stocking-shorts that she had in stock. Oddly enough, my mom was fine with the idea of me going commando on my wedding day, but didn't like the idea that I might be braless -- it was her that insisted we go shopping for a "proper" bra. Since I don't have any strapless bras from this millennium, that wasn't a huge problem, though I'm pretty sure the damn thing had more padding than me in there. I was able to stash the hotel key in the bra and some kleenex in between, though, so that was convenient. I offered the kleenex to the DH during a tender moment in the ceremony, which changed his tears to laughter.

I had another moment I had in mind to mention, but it's passed now. I feel I'm racing against a clock, as my computer wants to do an automatic update that it won't allow me to postpone, and it's past my bedtime. Of course, as I've been sleeping from 2 or 3 until 11 the last many days, I doubt I'll be asleep anytime soon.

Lots of people have asked me if I feel any different post-marriage, or how married life is compared to pre-married life. I think I've probably asked my friends that same question, as it's an ice-breaker of sorts, and the truth is, I feel no different, grand-scale. I think it's probably because I'm short and chunky and the DH, while taller than me and definitely not chunky, is still shorter-ish for a guy, and so in my head I think we're both still kids -- so many of my married friends are tall and seem grown-up, and I'm pretty sure I'm still a 16-year poser.

In truth, I do question some more of my behaviours than I did before, which tells me I have some preconceptions about what it means to be married. I've read that where many marriages fail is where couples have expectations that things will change once they're married -- that the husband will no longer have poker nights with his buddies, or that the wife won't take girls-only overnight trips, or things of that nature. I asked the DH before we married if he had any of those expectations, and he said no, and I felt the same way -- and we both happen to like the evenings where the other is out, so it's not as though either of us would suddenly expect those activities to change. If anything, he tries to get me to leave the house more often than I do.

But behaviours -- I do sometimes question whether I should be cuddling with this friend that I've cuddled with for the last 7 or 8 years, or whether I should stop flirting with that friend that I've flirted with for the last 10 years, or whatever. Even some of the things that I talk about or have talked about -- should that suddenly stop now that a second ring is on my finger? The truth is, I only think they need to stop if they're creating problems in my relationship with the DH, and until he tells me they are, I see no real reason to change.

Other peoples' thoughts be damned. And I'm lucky that my friends are, on the whole, fairly open and understanding (well, the ones I'm closer to, for sure). We cuddle, we flirt, we understand one another -- and those in open relationships have their own boundaries, and don't expect those in closed relationships to change their own boundaries just because. Though all of that's another matter that came up a little while ago. Separate post for another day.

So yes, I do sometimes look at the lines I'm approaching and try to decide for myself and my marriage if they're being overstepped or are too far, but I think that's a constant negotiation, and that's not a bad thing.

Otherwise? I'm still the same person I was this time last year. Even the last name hasn't changed, despite what other people might want or how they might try to address me. While Mrs. DH isn't my legal name, I will generally respond to it -- it's not exactly something I feel the need to make a federal case over. But I'm still Jen X, and that's just fine with the DH -- as well as the kitties, not that they've noticed any change either.

I'll try to edit this tomorrow with a photo or two -- I just don't have them on this computer, and I have less than a minute left on the Windows timer (not to mention it's long enough -- and not entirely what I originally meant to cover).

2010-06-23T22:34:00.001-04:00

As you may have heard, we had an earthquake here today. As my parents are out of town, I decided to drive over to check on my mom's cat and the house in general -- plus just to visit with Big Fat Shadowcat, since she loves company and she's a complete and utter sweetheart.

Here's the email I just sent my dad following that visit:

Heya,

Well, the good news is that the house seems fine and Shadowcat also seems fine. She was very happy to have some company, and barked at me from the kitchen while I patrolled the house (didn't check out your bedroom, though). She got lots of pats and that made her very kitty happy.

The bad news is that because you have the thermostat set so high, you might come home to earwigs. I was setting up my coffee maker chez moi when an earwig fell from my shirt on to the counter, so the cats got to watch as I freaked out. By the time I'd grabbed something to kill it, it had disappeared, despite my patiently waiting for it. So now I've set my kitchen on fire and I'm not going back in there, Moe's whining be damned.

Also there was a rabbit in your front yard, so I said hi to it and apologized for not having carrots with me.

Later,
Jen

2010-06-06T23:21:00.002-04:00

I'd like to say that wedding planning is keeping me from updating, but that would be a filthy, filthy lie.

In reality, I'm frequently intimidated by my own blog. I have all kinds of rants or other thoughts that I want to put up here, but then I get too lazy, or indecisive, or self-conscious about posting it and I don't.

So here we are. Bah.

Every now and again, I think back over my past relationships. Last weekend I was in Toronto, the city of much of my time with the First Big Love, and so of course he was back in the forefront of my mind. He pops up now and again -- such is the curse of him as the FBL, I guess.

It's funny how much influence some people have had on me: my likes and dislikes, my personality, my ways of thinking. I almost think he's one of the boyfriends who's challenged me or at least pushed me the most, creatively speaking, since he himself was a very creative person. Maybe it's because much of our time together was while we were in school, which can be a very creative time, I don't know.

I do wonder if my past boyfriends think of me, and if they do, what they think.

I won't say I miss who I was then, but I think a part of me does. That was before I had responsibilities -- when the biggest fear was getting this or that paper or reading done in time. I guess paying for school was a fear, too.

Oh yeah -- and I worked in there. But it was different. It was work for school money and spending money, not for house payments and cat food and internet access (what can I say, I know my priorities).

It's taken my some time to get here. Some of my friends were here five, ten years ago. Some of them seem to have had it all figured out pretty early on. Maybe some of us come into the world more formed than others, as it were. Maybe I took awhile to get here, and I certainly took a few knocks between now and then.

But the scars and the hurts and the smiles and the laughs... well, they've all gone into the caustic, bitchy, opinionated person that I am. And I have friends and family who like me as I am (or more or less), I have two cats who adore me, and I have a guy who drives me crazy and wants to spend the rest of his life driving me crazy.

So yay for me, I guess.

I want to spend more time on my hobbies. Sometimes I don't think I have work-life balance figured out. It's not like my last job, where I didn't feel guilty spending time at work writing for personal things -- here I don't always feel I can do that, even though it'd probably be easier to manage.

I wish I had a story to tell.

I wish I had a story to tell, instead of rants and frustrations and words that mean nothing.

I guess it helps when people say that they agree with me, or that I've expressed something they've long felt... yet I want to write fiction. I want to tell fantastic stories -- but I don't have them to tell.

Not that there's anything wrong with being an author of articles or even twitter snippets, but I want something more, if I can get there.

Of course, there's a lot to do in the meantime.

In fact, there's so much that I need two lifetimes to do it in. And there's the rub.

I guess, like everything, I can get to it after the wedding.

Somehow, it seems the closer I get to the day and the more I have to get done to make it happen, the less I almost want it. It's a day of everyone else's wants and needs, and I just don't care about most of it.

If it were up to me, I'd be getting married in a zoo, with about 40 people watching, and I'd wear a pretty dress and look pretty and eat good food and dance all night. And no one would care if there were fancy doodads on the table, or who was or wasn't invited, and no one would care about bouquets and centerpieces, and favours and everything else.

Tradition is what you make of it. Wedding traditions are bullshit, almost all of them. Flowers are important to other people, not me. Wedding programs and invitations are keepsakes for others, not me.

And I know if I were to complain about having to do all of this planning and organizing and arranging and PAYING FOR -- I'd get told that it's because I want it. And I don't. I want to wear comfortable red shoes and maybe even keep my piercings in my ears, and have no mention of God in my ceremony and have ninjas as wedding toppers on the cake if I want. I want my recessional music to be fun and I don't want anyone's feelings to get hurt because this isn't there or that is.

I want no children at my wedding, and I don't want to hear anyone complain about it. AT ALL.

I want the day to be about us and what we want. And I don't care what they say -- it's not, not all of it. If it was? I wouldn't be trying to figure out how to pay for 150 invitees. I wouldn't be girding my loins for battle on things. I wouldn't be waiting to hear if so-and-so is venting to so-and-so about decisions we've made.

And we've already sunk money into things, and we've already planned things, and it's less than 3 months away, so it's too late anyways.

Above all... I want to enjoy the day. I wish it could be the day I wanted it to be. But I'll just have to make the best of it, I guess. Just... everyone else, stop getting your feelings hurt or involved, okay? I don't need the extra guilt. Mine is enough -- I don't need to take on yours, too.

Mind you, there's only some peoples' guilt or upset that I'm going to let get to me. Probably just my mom's, in fact. Everyone else is a lot more easily dismissed.

*laugh* Song lyrics that just started up. Lazy Eye, by Silversun Pickups: "I've been waiting for this moment all my life / but it's not quite right." I'd say that's as good a note to end on, especially since I ended up someplace completely unplanned from my original goal. Such is the risk of stream-of-consciousness, I suppose.

2010-05-18T09:39:00.001-04:00

Haiku of hate:

Pretty hipster girl
With your cute ukelele
I hate you so much.

2010-03-31T23:11:00.001-04:00

Apparently my response to a frustrating month at work is to get drunk on a glass and a half of merlot and follow the cats around main floor, telling them that I love them.

I think I'll postpone my latest rant for now. I'm sure there's some inanimate object that needs to be told it's loved.

2010-03-28T23:57:00.002-04:00

You want, you need, you have to have.

These, along with a number of predictable questions, are the statements I've been hearing most often when it comes to the wedding planning.

Though to be honest, a lot of the "you want" are more likely to be "I want... so you have to have." For example, when I said that I didn't know if I was going to be carrying flowers down the aisle, I was meant with, "but I want to carry flowers!" from my sister, and "oh, but you have to have flowers at a wedding, at least a few!" from my mother.

A former coworker of mine, before I got engaged, told me that I wanted a giant diamond engagement ring, and a traditional white dress (this was in response to my stating that I wanted to wear a purple ball gown down the aisle). She was certain she'd managed to change my mind with regards to both of these things, but here we are now -- and I don't have a giant diamond ring. In fact, I requested a smaller stone so that a) I could get the setting I liked, b) it was cheaper. And the only reason I went for a diamond was because it was a Canadian diamond. Tragically, not one of the ones with the polar bear etched on it, but ah well -- maybe a for a future anniversary present. Although I've been told I'm not getting anymore jewelry.

Anyhow... you have to have. That's my favourite of all the wedding-related statements, because it really reinforces what people think of as traditional. To some, it's lighting a unity candle, or jumping over a broom, or smashing cake in the other's face. Not that anyone has told me I have to have any of these things, but I use them to illustrate my point. What I have to have at the wedding is simple and consists of a very short list of things: me, the fiance, and the officiant. Everything else is window dressing.

And then there's you need. Oh, how I'm loving you need lately, especially since it's coming from people like the fiance or the future mother-in-law (though passed along to me by the fiance). You need to start getting the invitations ready, you need to update the wedding website, you need you need you need. Guess what? There are two of us, four parents, and six bridal party members that could very easily be helping with all of this crap -- it does not have to fall entirely on my shoulders.

And don't get me wrong, of course I love the fiance when I'm not plotting his demise. But we're both admitted procrastinators, and we're both better at getting up off our asses and doing various things. He's the one that reaches the point of "it's time to clean" and will drag me along in his wake. I'm the one that sees the deadline approaching on wedding things and either goes ahead and books the appointments, or gives him a deadline by which they have to be done and then waits for him to reluctantly agree. Because yes, he knows they have to be done, but setting up the registry is definitely not as enticing as lying on the couch and watching football.

I understand, I do. There are plenty of wedding tasks that I'm not exactly gung-ho about. That's partly why I've been the apathetic bride-to-be that I am: I'm not interested in spending days on end interviewing, researching, chasing down, whatever. If I find a dress that I like, I'm going to buy it. I know me -- I have a lot on the go, especially with work (and my coworker out on mat leave -- though now I can train her eventual replacement the way I want!), and I'm just going to run out of time. So sometimes this means that rather than ask the fiance multiple times for multiple weeks to take care of something, I just go ahead and do it. Though heaven help me if he tells me I should do things that he's perfectly capable of doing... yet at the same time, my control freak side is coming out again. I do like handling everything and knowing what's going on. I'm just a mess.

But more than the assignment of tasks is the questions and assumptions from people that are driving me up the wall. I've had people ask to see the dress, I've had people ask me if they can come to the wedding, I've had people tell me they're available the day of the wedding. I've had (now four) people try to launch careers off my wedding -- including offering services as a wedding gift. With one person in particular, she was never on the invite list (I don't even know her last name) -- yet she offered services as her wedding gift to us. Thanks, but since you were never going to be on the guest list, there's no obligation on your part to give us a gift.

*sigh* And the guest list is giving me more than a few conniptions. The fiance has a large family, and isn't willing to cut any of them. As I probably said before, he's said that he doesn't expect they'll all show, but they all still have to be invited -- so there's always that chance. What it means is that a) definitely no host bar (and not even a subsidized one at that), but also that I'm having to trim my side accordingly. So on the days I'm feeling crabby -- and especially at individuals in particular -- I start slashing my guest list.

I'm trying to use fair criteria for my list -- other than my fluctuating moods. Have they been a part of our relationship? Have they met and spoken to the fiance for longer than five minutes? Are they people whose company I genuinely enjoy? Do I socialize with them outside of group situations? Would I willingly spend an evening with them? Would I buy them dinner on a normal occasion?

But most importantly -- do I feel that they want to be here to celebrate the fiance and I taking a new step together?

Later, I'll share my thoughts on those people who say they're going to crash the wedding, and the reasons why this semi-"traditional" wedding may feature a bride packing weapons.

2010-03-24T23:22:00.002-04:00

It's with a certain amount of nervousness that I'm returning once more to write my boring-ass updates. I've written countless posts in my head over the last many moons, and I've always been hesitant to post them because of who I perceive as reading them -- I'm stuck in this loop of not wanting to air my true feelings out of the concern that they might hurt someone's feelings.

But enough time has passed that any readers I might've once had are probably long gone. As well, I need a place to air my frustrations and fears. I've friends, of course, but it's not the same. Here, well... sure, there are people on the other side of the screen that are just as likely as anyone else to be judging me, but ... I've just come to a place where the need to vent is overruling the fears of who might read it.

Granted, it's still tough to get up the urge to write after spending all day in front of a computer doing just that, but government writing lacks the creative output that this place does.

So, without further ado, here goes. Check your sensibilities at the door -- no one said you had to read this.

In less than five months' time, I am getting married, and the closer it gets the more scared I get.

Not because of who I'm marrying or my fears that I'm not ready. Hell, I'll be 30 a few short days later -- if I wasn't ready by now, I probably would never be ready.

And yes, sometimes the dear fiance (I'm writing this on my laptop, so forgive the lack of accent) drives me crazy. Some days I want nothing to do with him, and I just want to be alone with my junk and my cats and my peace and quiet. Some days I just stare at him, thinking annoyed thoughts and frustrated at his utter inability to answer a simple question with a direct answer.

And then he'll make a ridiculous face, or he does something sweet for the cats, or he shows those qualities that made me fall for him, and he gets to live another day. Even when he wakes me up in the middle of the night holding his breath and then gasping it out again as he does, while I lie beside him and try to fall back asleep and think to myself that a pillow would do the trick quite nicely...

But of course I exaggerate. Except on the breath holding/gasping thing -- he does do that, and it drives me crazy. But unlike some of his other quirks, that one's unintentional.

No, it's not because of these things that I'm scared to marry him. We've been together nearly 3 years, which matches the longest relationship I've had -- which spanned from when I was 15 to 18, and set the low bar for relationships and boyfriends and mistakes. We moved in together pretty much on our 6-month anniversary, and we bough a house together 13 months later. I was asked then if I was sure I knew him well enough to buy a house with him, which I thought was a pretty ridiculous question, but no matter.

I know him. I can predict how he'll react in most situations, and I know he's stubborn as a mule. When his coworkers were telling me I should just tell him to propose, I looked at them askance -- did they not know this man? Certainly, his stubbornness can be tied to a sense of obstinacy and general pain-in-the-assedness, but I also wanted him to propose when he was ready.

No, it's not a fear of uncovering some deep, dark secret about him that scares me. I've had two ex-boyfriends confess to periods of incest in their pasts. I've had an ex-boyfriend confess to an interest in watersports. I do my best to keep an open mind while simultaneously making sure it's closed enough to keep at least a few brain cells in place.

It's more the relationships around me that I see that cause me fear. I see relationships around me dissolving, turning into infidelity and divorce, and it scares me. I don't want to grow to the point where I resent this man I've chosen to spend the rest of my life and have babies and grow old with a houseful of cats. I don't want to tire of him and look for new excitement to alleviate whatever I feel is lacking in my life with him.

But beyond that, bigger than that, I don't want him to tire of me. I see so many people online complaining about their spouses -- more often men talking about how much they hate their wives -- and I don't want that for us. I watch Mad Men and I know it's a different time and it's fiction, but the infidelity scares me. I see my coworker's relationship with her husband disintegrating and I see her talk about the on-again, off-again relationship she's had with another married man in our office, and it terrifies me. I know she's separated from her husband at this time, and so there's that circumstance, but he's not.

And of course, it has nothing to do with him, my pain-in-the-ass dear fiance. I trust him. And our relationship is built on mutual trust and monogamy. I have friends who've chosen to open their relationships to more than just their spouses, and I wish them well. I feel sometimes as though I'm judged as lesser-than because I prefer a relationship model that features only one other person, and I get resentful of that perception. I don't feel that my friends are flawed because they've gone outside their primary relationship to find fulfillment, and so I don't want to be perceived as flawed because I don't have what it takes to do the same.

But that's my perception, my impression, my inference based on nothing more than ... nothing, really. I've never had someone who was polygamous or polyamorous tell me their relationship model was superior to mine, and I would never say the same to them. I suppose that's just yet another insecurity of mine, along with the belief that no one really likes me, and I'm still that obnoxious kid I've always been (okay, that last one is true).

But I'm also fortunate that I can look at relationships in my family tree and see long-lasting success. My parents, my grandparents, one aunt and uncle -- they've proven that you can be with someone for the long haul, through all the ups and downs. Not everyone becomes restless or resentful or unhappy and strays. There are people that find someone that works for them and with them and makes it work.

Me? Well, I've found someone that doesn't bring me flowers for no reason, and never will. He wishes I didn't have so many books in the house, and insists I'll never read them again -- despite never knowing what I'm actually reading at any given time. He makes fun of me for my inability to remember certain peoples' names, and declared a moratorium on jewelry for gifts after buying my engagement ring.

But he's someone that slept on the couch so that the cats and I could have the whole bed when I was scared and stressed about Venus being sick. He complains about the cats hogging the bed, but won't move them because that would be unkind. He went with me when Digger had to be put down, and made sure I ate afterwards. He has witnessed a few awkward emotional moments with my family. He listened to me babble on about nothing every night when I was away for my grandfather's funeral, and he didn't make fun of me when I got upset feeling as though my cousins were making fun of my father.

He's supportive when I'm in the right and calls me on it when I'm being unreasonable. We argue, we support one another, and above all else, we laugh. I still can't help my fears, but at least I know they have nothing to do with the person he is.

2009-10-19T11:26:00.001-04:00

First, the backstory.

For those of you who don't know me in real life, I rock a pixie cut for my hair - and have for the last few years. We're talking the mini pixie that's about this long --

So yeah, rather short. And with less knife.

I was in the grocery store yesterday, picking out some produce, when a little girl nearby said hi. So, in the interest of seeming less child-hating than usual, I said hi back. She asked what my name was, and I replied with, "Jen." She paused for a minute and asked, "Are you a girl?"

(I told her that yes, I am, I just have very very short hair, but the story's funnier if you stop at the line above.)

2009-09-29T23:50:00.003-04:00

I've been trying to think of what today's deep insightful thought could be, and I'm drawing a blank. What can I say? I'm not that fascinating today.

I made it to the gym this afternoon for my yoga/tai chi/pilates class, and I've shown some progress; once upon a time I had to help my legs forward when going from downward dog to lunge position -- today that was not the case. It was a definite, "yay me!" moment when I realized what I'd done.

I'm trying to get to the gym more often, which is my usual refrain. I don't like what I see in the mirror, and I want to change that. Of course, that involves more work than I want to have to do, so I'm trying to figure out how to push myself and stay motivated. I have a coworker who's helping, which is nice -- but the food habits are up to me to figure out and improve upon.

I can't believe I'll be 30 next year. Anyone know when I'll start feeling like a grownup? I just feel like I'm still playing at life, or like I'm a perpetual student.

Speaking of which, I want to go back to school. I'm thinking of applying for classes for next September, which means I have to set aside more money. Or keep adding to the debt, which is slowly going down. Anyone rich want to swoop in and solve all of my problems?

At least the mortgage rates are ridiculously low.

There's been talking about the future going on lately. No conclusions, no plans, just general talking. Feels weird to discuss, given my status as the perpetual student and so on.

I wonder sometimes if people who've known me from back in the day or who haven't seen me in awhile look at me and think, "gee, she's really chunked up." I'll confess I've had that thought about more than a few men and women I know.

I can only hope they think I've gotten prettier through the years.

2009-09-28T23:15:00.002-04:00

I'm trying to make a commitment to update this place more regularly. I write almost all day every day for work, so sometimes the last thing I want to do when I get home is write more... or I feel as though I've run out of things to say. I want to update when I'm at work, but sometimes I just don't have the time. A blessing and a curse.

But writing about government matters day in and day out isn't the same as blathering on about my cats or thoughts or feelings. Doesn't quite have the same boring ring to it -- nor does it smack of gossip for the lot of you.

I'm finding myself more irritated with the company of others of late, and I'm not sure if it's due to the innate irritations that others present, or simply because I've been working fairly steadily with little to no break. Weekends don't quite seem to be the breaks they once where -- either I'm on call, I'm working, I have company (not usually my choice), or there's travel and/or errands. Last weekend, the first real weekend I had off -- I got sick. Joy.

So needless to say, as much as I think it would be ridiculous for us to have another election at this time, there are a few of us at my office that are praying for one -- only for the break it would present. Maybe it means I'd start liking people again if that was the case, that I had some downtime and could focus a bit more on my life outside of work, and one of the fifty bazillion hobbies I have.

Okay, so this update isn't much -- just a bunch of vague whining. Tomorrow maybe I'll complain about someone in detail and let you guess who it might be.

2009-09-28T01:01:00.001-04:00

01:36 How do you go on knowing that you're right beyond a freaking doubt, but still pretend to see another's point of view? I'm right, damn it! #

2009-09-04T16:09:00.001-04:00

The last few days, I've been unable to be heard by people when they call my cell. I can hear them, they can't hear me. Fun times. I thought about blaming the bluetooth keyboard pairing, but full resets of the phone do nothing, so doesn't seem to be the case.

Called Rogers yesterday, the guy talked me through doing another hard reset of the phone, didn't believe me that my contacts were saved on the SIM card (which they are, hah!), and then said they'd send me out a new phone, as mine's still under warranty. If the failure is due to water damage though, I'm on the hook for a new phone - no worries.

While at away from my desk, I got a missed call. No voicemail, so I googled the number: turns out it's a call centre that Rogers employs to follow up with questions on customer satisfaction after services rendered. Good idea, something I don't mind doing, only clearly they didn't realize when they issued the ticket to follow-up phone call me what it was that I had originally called about -- hardware failure rendering me unable to speak to anyone who calls me on my phone.

Well done on paying attention to the little things, Rogers.

2009-08-29T11:36:00.002-04:00

I sit in Starbucks on a rainy Saturday afternoon, typing on an apple wireless keyboard, with my phone hidden by my side. I am.... the most pretentious girl you know.

Took three different buses with some teenage girls today; got to listen to more renditions of the word like than I can remember hearing in quite some time.

I'm getting old.

Well, I've been getting old my whole life; you'd think I'd be used to it by now. Not so much.

Getting old iis planning for the future. Realizing tht you have to take into account things like your mortality, your income level, your fertility... scary and kinda cool at the same time.

It's nice to hear someone echo reasons why you're with them.

Tee hee - just got someone asking me questions about my keyboard. Guess the phone wasn't as hidden as I thought.

Only really challenging thing abot this is that blogger doesn't have a nice smartphone/blackberry friendly version o fthe interface, so a lot of what i'm writing is hidden - so I can't go back and fix mistakes too easily. I'm malso very spoiled by my work blackberry's automatic rendition of certain shortcut s- so I'm not automatically capitalizing the letter I when it appears . I know someone is going to eventually read this and say something.

I'm always surprised when people pick up on facets of my character that i never think are particularly obvious - the example i usually go back to is when a friend told someone I never use bookmarks. Recently, I had another one of those moments: one of my colleagues was saying that he figurd my luggage would be flaming neon pink -- because I'm unusual and he could see me with someone that wasn't conventional like that. My boss, by contrast, looked at him and said, "you don't know Jen, do you know"?

I just thought it was cool that a: this colleague had picked up on the fct that I'm unconventional, and b: my boss had also picked up on that, but knew that I wasn't a girly girl, and likely wouldn't be found with hot pink.

It's similar to when people look at my ring and say, "that's very you" -- and part of what made that last dress-shopping excursion so doubly frustrating.

I'm trying to take advantage of the fact that I'm getting older, but also have a bit more free time and a bit more money than I did when I was younger -- so now I'm taking music lessons once more, and I'm giving some extra thought to going back to school. As I've said to my mom and to a coworker friend of mine -- I keep saying I want to do this I want to learn that, but never getting around to doing it. Well, sure, learning new things is scary and hard, and sure, it can be tougher when you're older -- but you only get one life to live, so why not go for it? why kep putting things off?

Dear Abby has some advice for people who want to go back to school when they're older but are intimidated by the fact tht they'll be surrounded by younger people, or will be XX old when they graduate -- as she says, you'll be XX years old when that amount of time passes anyhow, so why not use the time learning? Of coures, she says it much more elegantly than I just did, but the basics are there.

So sure, there are 7 year olds who are better than I am on the instrument, but guess what - there's always going to be someone better than me. Can't let that stop me from trying and having fun with it.

2009-07-16T10:16:00.004-04:00

I've had this "story" of spam headlines sitting in my email account for awhile now, and I find it oddly charming.

The first reads, "The Pobble who has no toes" and the second is "And when he came to observe his feet" -- though it's quite possible they're meant to be read in reverse, so the Pobble discovered he had no toes only after he observed his feet.

But if I read them in the order I provided, ignoring the grammatical issues with it, I have to wonder -- what did the toe-less Pobble learn when he came to observe his feet?

It's a puzzle. Though I like the way the Pobble looks in my mind -- a lot like Junior Gorg.
(hotlinked and pops, so who knows how long this'll last)

I didn't even know that guy still existed in my subconcious, as Fraggle Rock was never my favourite Muppet Show -- though maybe I should just give it another watch.

2009-07-10T08:43:00.001-04:00

Quick update (better one later): I made a word cloud of the stuff that appears on my site. Interesting that cats, feelings, and apparently my astrological signs are so large in it (so I'm guessing that it's not entirely due to frequency -- since I don't think I talk about my signs that much!):

<a href="http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/991927/Eiram" target="_blank">See it here</a> (new window).

2009-05-19T10:00:00.000-04:00

Snarfed from someone else's blog:

2009-05-06T09:52:00.002-04:00

Short and not-sweet: tomorrow evening we have an appointment to have Digger put down.

May is not a good month for family kitties, it would seem (it was May 1st, 1995 (I'm fuzzy on the year) that we had Sookie put down).

Here are some of my favourite pictures of him from when he was a kitten (that I took, photo cred away) to share:

And a more recent, cruddy camera one (I'll share some better ones later, just don't have them with me at work or online):

2009-04-22T12:12:00.001-04:00

My birthday is August 23rd, which puts me on the cusp between Leo and Virgo - and I've certainly got traits from each sign (Leo: not liking being pigeon-holder; Virgo - nitpicky worrywart). So if I go to the trouble of checking my horoscope (which I do many once every 2-3 months), I always read both. Today's MSNBC horoscope for Virgo reads:

"Today isn't likely to be one of your better days, dear Virgo. You feel a certain weariness, and you are very anxious and worried about someone close to you. When it comes to your loved ones, you have very strong emotions coursing through your veins. Think about your commitments, and try to drum up a little enthusiasm."

The anxious and worried applied more yesterday, I think, but on the whole, I'd say it's pretty apt.

The Leo part, on the other hand, is totally off the mark (which is not a bad thing for today):

"If you are the kind of person who likes a quiet day, dear Leo, then today you will be disappointed! There will be a lot of tension in the air, as a close friend or a relative tries to get something from you that you are not willing to part with. You could find yourself in quite a delicate situation. Keep your cool, and you should be able to talk your way out of it with no problem."

2009-04-21T10:46:00.001-04:00

I'm wondering if I shouldn't change the name of this site to, "I Chase Boys... but I don't update my damn blog."

Let's see, in a nutshell: Saturday I took the cats to the vet for their annual exam. Thena has a spot in her eye that turned up a month or so ago (I'm revising this from my original estimate of 2-3 months ago, since I always seem to overestimate time). Wasn't bothering her in the least, so I decided to wait until they were due for their exams to have it checked out.

Then I went to a spa appointment that I had booked for relaxing me time - facial and manicure.

That evening, I was up until the very wee hours with Ben, who I haven't seen in awhile. Talked until my throat was sore, good times.

Sunday morning wake up feeling sick, which has held over. Also woke up to my period. Awesome fun.

Vet called me back on Saturday saying she thought that the ophthalmologist vet should check her out. The local vet wasn't in until today, so I had to wait to get the referral and so on.

Now I have an appointment with the ophthalmologist vet in May (still better than my annual exam, which got booked for July), and I'm pretty much assuming the worst because that's what I do when my pets are involved and when I'm tired and sick and emotional.

And I just got asked to have a meeting with my manager at 1:30 with no context, so I feel like today's going from bad to worse - and that I'm in some kind of big trouble. Yay.

Backyard bunnies

2009-04-19T16:36:00.001-04:00

2009-04-01T10:36:00.001-04:00

Okay, I have another post in the works where I go on about a series of books I'm reading and its (brief) conversion into a television series, but I have to say this: I'm going to hell.

I never play pranks on people for April Fool's Day (or if I do, they're of the "I'm pregnant" variety that no one ever buys), but in this instance, I actually did have a coworker fooled for about an hour on something. Fortunately, he finally spotted the part of my .sig file wherein I'd written "www.aprilfools.gc.ca" and "www.poissondavril.gc.ca" in place of the usual URL, but he was buying it for awhile -- including through a telephone conversation.

However, I will also have company in my trip to hell -- because a number of my coworkers were also in on the joke and completely playing along, including my director and the DG.

We are *evil* through and through.

2009-03-17T13:53:00.002-04:00

Last night, the DB and I were lying in bed discussing grammar and spelling -- and bemoaning the fact that we know so many people (including a few teachers) who can't handle either. It's a touch depressing.

The day after tomorrow I'm taking off to visit my last remaining grandparent in New Brunswick. I'm looking forward to most of the trip -- if nothing else, being able to go for days without checking my blackberry, guilt-free, is a big bonus.

Okay, I can't really do more at the moment, but if you ever wanted to see a <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2321923.ece?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News">hedgehog without his quills...</a> Poor little guy.

2009-03-08T11:29:00.002-04:00

I'm mainly posting at the moment to let everyone know that yes, I'm still alive and I'm sorry for not saying anything lately.

I'm definitely tweeting more than actually updating, and while it's ensuring I focus all of my little annoyances into 140 characters or less (or more if I need a second line), it also seems to be taking away my general need to update.

Except that it really isn't -- I just haven't had the time. I start work at 7 a.m., so I'm up at 5:30 and leaving the house by 6:30. In theory, this means that I'd get to leave the office around 3:00 or 3:30 -- except that it hasn't seemed to work out that way at all the last few weeks. Either I'm there late because of my own doing, or because there's something stupid going on that I have to either wait for or address in some way, shape or form.

I know that right now the economy is in the crapper and the government is working hard to address it and so on -- but there's a small part of me that wishes they'd called an election just to give us a break. :/

Okay, fine, maybe not, but I just know how *tired* everyone in our office is, and how seriously in need of a break we all are. It amuses me that a former manager of mine had talked about almost applying for my current manager's position; there's simply no way she would have been able to manage the pace, the hours, the demands of this office. I'm working more and longer hours right now than before, but overall I don't mind because there's a lot of respect here.

At least next week I'm getting my hair cut, and then a few days later flying out to visit my Nanny. It'll be nice to spend some time away and focusing on nothing more strenuous than reading, shopping, eating and crafts.

I can't wait until the weather improves and I can be more mobile. Even with the buses back, sometimes I feel somewhat stuck here in the house. I do love being back in the suburbs, but either because of the strike that really rendered me house-bound, the long winter, or just general malaise, I feel sometimes like I just can't go anywhere or do anything. And I want to do dumb things like go sit in a coffee shop (other than the one at the end of our street) with my laptop and write -- although those other shops don't have free wifi -- or go wander a mall, or drop in on a friend. Those are things that were much easier to do when I lived downtown, especially since I was closer to the friends that didn't mind the drop-ins. As much as I love living with the DB, there are times it feels like I can't get my own space -- or the space I was going to occupy is already taken up.

Ah well... bring on the spring! Or hell, go straight to summer, I won't mind. We certainly didn't get a good one last year. :/

2009-02-24T10:37:00.001-05:00

Now who could fail to love a face like that?

2009-02-21T10:31:00.000-05:00

I had to share this:

2009-02-13T15:59:00.001-05:00

Urgh. Sometimes I just wish I could open my head and cut out the parts that fixate too much on the wrong things.

However, I got what I was thinking off my chest at least. Though I sometimes wonder if the impression is that I'm sharing in an attempt to inspire guilt, which isn't at all the case -- rather, to explain how I'm seeing the world, explain upset/frustration I may be experiencing, and/or bring things out in the open to be addressed.

If I never tell someone, "It hurts when you do X," how can I be upset if they continue doing X? Of course, it's frustrating as hell when you tell someone, "It hurts when you do X" and they carry right on doing that. That's either forgetfulness, disrespect and disregard for your emotions, or sheer asshattery.

Not to say that's the case now; simply looking back on my past with other articulations of "I feel" statements to people. Yes, it's a good communication tool, yes, it places the ownership of the thoughts/feelings on yourself, but when you're communicating with someone who disregards that or doesn't communication "properly"... holy hell. Prime example of that was the coworker -- if I did something he didn't like, it was my fault/problem and I had to change it. If he did something I didn't like, it was my problem and I just had to accept him for who he was.

Fortunately, such is not the case for the DB. We can recognize and attempt to address problems -- it's just difficult not to fall back into the same behaviour patterns sometimes, for both of us. Such are the joys of long-term relationships, but at the same time I imagine this is where the work part comes in.

2009-02-12T19:07:00.002-05:00

*sigh* Plus ça change...

I love being back here. I thought I'd gotten past this, but clearly not.

How can you have the same conversation, when it goes absolutely nowhere every time? I know I hold some responsibility, but... I just don't know.

I just don't know what else -- or how else -- to change.

2009-02-10T15:29:00.001-05:00

So it seems as though work is occasionally trying to up and kick my ass. I spent all weekend with my blackberry close by my side, which made for lots of fun. The DB and I were planning to go see a movie Friday night, and ended up staying in as I couldn't promise I would be free to enjoy things. Instead, we went on Saturday, and got to enjoy the teenage audience that comes with the 7:00 p.m. show. Complete with talking through the film, answering cell phones, and just generally filling me with rage. So, yay.

But on Saturday I also got to run a bunch of errands, like returning the broken floor lamp we'd bought the previous week at Canadian Tire. The housewares kid couldn't find it, even with 10 minutes of looking, so they refunded me the purchase on my MasterCard. I walked to the section, found the 4 lamps exactly where we'd found them the week before, and took it to the cash.

I also finally indulged myself on Saturday with a massage, buying some jeans (since I'm down to one pair that actually still fit over my fat lower half), some new work tops, and some betta fish. The DB keeps trying to convince me to put them together -- apparently they're lonely. I haven't yet chosen names for them.

Sorry, I'm boring today. I was just telling a coworker one of my habits with regards to the cats -- every morning when I leave for work, I tell them I'm going to work, and I should be home right afterwards; if I'm going to be doing something after work, I tell them and say that the DB should be home (again, if that's the case). I tell them I love them, to be good girls and to be nice to each other. Call it a superstition of sorts.

Last night, the DB and I went to the gym, and when we got back, I could see who I thought was Venus in the window, then by the time I got up to the door, Thena was in the window and talking to me, seemingly upset. I unlocked the door to open it, and Venus was on the ledge by the door, and Thena was on the ground -- and they both seemed somewhat frantic, though Thena especially. I'm almost certain I told them we were going to the gym, but I think maybe I didn't, and they were worried. We comforted them, and they calmed down eventually.

Although Thena did wake me up in the middle of the night last night by licking my face, so maybe she was still worried.

2009-02-04T20:09:00.003-05:00

I'm enjoying the fact that my appetite appears to have lessened, but I can't help but think I'm testing my luck somehow. Usually around now my stomach hates me and starts actively trying to kill me. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm ready and waiting for it.

I haven't had supper yet, and Wednesday is often pizza night for me. I could get adventurous and go to Boston Pizza for dinner... haven't had that since the DB's parents came to visit, so it's been a solid few months. Suddenly this idea is sounding better, though I think I'm going to have to find real pants to make this happen. Damnit.

I work from 7:30-3:30. Today I stayed until around 4, since my carpool lady was leaving a bit later. I get home, and from 5-6:30 or so, I get a flood of emails flying back and forth on the blackberry with lists of things to do tomorrow morning. *sigh* I was really enjoying having a quieter time after last week's neverending hell week. Yes, it was so bad it got emphasized.

The DB and I had our perpetual semi not argument/debate/discussion over who's more tired/who's been working the longest without a break last night as we were trying to get to sleep. I had to remind him that I was the one that woke him up Saturday morning, since he'd asked to be woken by noon -- so I kept waking up and dozing off all morning, keeping one eye on the time. I don't know what he has against alarm clocks, but he tried to blame me Friday night for not having woken him at 8 like he asked me to -- instead he just pointed out that I was asleep as well. I know for a fact he didn't ask me to wake him, he just said he was going to sleep for a bit.

I also pointed out that he was going to have a break in February for that stupid family day, whereas if not for the trip I've booked in March to see my grandmother, my next day off is/would be Easter. Which is April 10th and 13th this year.

And you know what? Somehow I imagine I'm going to be working through it.

I'm just feeling burnt out. I worked through Christmas, so I don't even have that to fall back on. At my previous job, I'd take a day now and again as a mental health day, but here and now I don't feel justified in doing that. There's always someone who's working harder and/or longer that's toughing it out, and not that I don't think my manager is awesome, but sometimes I feel as if I'm being made to feel guilty about asking for time off, like there isn't someone there more deserving, and why aren't I working harder, longer, more hours than everyone else?

I mentioned it to a friend of mine at work and she said she felt the same way, so there's that at least. And not that I'm at all calling it a vacation, but my boss was off for a decent period of time as combination stress/looking after her husband leave, so she at the very least had a break from work.

I don't know, I'm just whining. I like my job, I like my coworkers, I'm just having a hard time lately with the hours. The first while, I was at least going to bed at a semi-reasonable hour. Now, not so much -- I either end up staying up and going to bed shortly before the DB, or I can't sleep anyhow, because he's watching television in the living room and it travels right up the stairs. I end up wearing ear plugs to sleep, which helps a little bit, but I'm still tired because I've been up that much longer.

And the best part of all of it, the part that makes me so frustrated sometimes? He talks about how tired he is, and half the time he'll come home and pass out on the after work until I wake him for supper.

*sigh* I love looking forward to the next stages, when he'll have his own store, and there could be children running around... It'll probably get to the point where I have to check out my facebook page to remember what he looks like.

2009-02-02T22:15:00.002-05:00

Just to be clear, since it seems to be causing trouble for people -- I have not gone off the pill in an attempt to get pregnant. I have no interest in having a child at the moment, as I have a great deal of things I would like to accomplish first (the hardcore porn career being only one of these things).

For those who aren't clear on the concept, the birth control pill is a hormonal means of impeding pregnancy. Introducing extra hormones into a stable system can mess with said stable system; see: pregnancy as an extreme example. See: bodybuilders who take steroids. Therefore, introducing a combination of estrogen and progesterone into a stable hormonal system can and often does have side effects.

With yours truly, said side effects include but are not limited to migraines, emotional imbalances, and possibly weight gain. In an effort to reduce the drugs I have to take to cope with my special brand of migraines (non-aura migraines that mean only vast overdoses of over-the-counter drugs have even a remote hope of working), and to avoid having to buy additional medication to address the problem brought on by the aforementioned drugs, I opted to discontinue the pill.

I also lost one of the packs in our move, and didn't feel up to buying another months' worth, especially if I'm not positive they'll allow it.

Finally, I have had pill-free sex in the past with no negative repercussions (i.e., pregnancy), as I was quite careful in my condom use. The only reason I had gone back on the pill over the last few years was because my doctor got freaked out at the idea of a condom-using sexually-active chick such as myself being loose in the world, and we opted to try another method to see if it would help.

Now, I can't be certain that my weight gain is tied to the pill use, but it can certainly be a factor, especially given that I switched to a generic some time ago, and my weight gain appears to have been concentrated over the last year. The conspiracy theories, they abound!

So there's that little rant. Do I seriously seem that baby-crazy to some people or something? I mean hell, I would assume most of my friends would imagine I'd never have babies, the way I do go on about them.

Granted, the worst thing I've said about children applied to a family member of mine, so most of my friends have probably been spared my most strident anti-children comments.

I do also try to keep them down on here, as I do have friends who have kids who read here, and I don't want them thinking I'm talking about them.

Which segues nicely into a point I was thinking earlier, and started to nonsensically write up -- that is, it amuses me how easily people adapt what they read on here to suit their emotional needs at any given time. That is to say, it seems as though I could write a seriously generic statement like, "You made me happy today," and have any number of you readers (okay, two of the three of you) assume that it was meant to apply to you.

Sucks if someone takes offense to something that wasn't written about them, especially if I didn't even know that they read here or might've thought it would apply to them, but sometimes a bit funny, too.

But that's also why I do restrict myself on here at times, as I know that there are some who read on here -- with varying degrees of frequency -- and it would just be my luck for me to say that so-and-so was a useless twat, and that would be the one day of the month they had read what I'd written.

At the same time, I think it just factors in to how much we each want to be important to someone, even at just the friendship level. I know that I can get bummed out if I've been in frequent or semi-frequent contact with someone (especially when flirting is involved), only to have them reduce the frequency of said contact or disappear entirely. I could name names as to people who tend to appear and then disappear (SHAWNATHON), but I wouldn't want to call anyone out.

2009-02-01T01:39:00.002-05:00

Today I was hanging out with a girlfriend of mine, and she was asking me questions about my experiences with BDSM. I was describing some of the things I'd tried, and we started talking about our shared interests in certain pseudo-fetish gear wear -- leather bracelets and the like. I mentioned one item that I find to be significantly arousing, and suddenly, bam -- rush of heat between the legs. It's been so long since I've felt that I almost mentioned it, but wasn't sure she'd care to know.

It's going to be ... interesting being back off the pill.

I find it both amusing and frustrating that some people in my life have a hard time dealing with me as a sexual being, and it makes me wonder sometimes about their own sex life. I'm hardly pushing my sexual activities in others' faces, even when I was single, but yes, I am fairly open with my thoughts and experiences while online (re: the Whore's Boudoir. I certainly don't force anyone to read it, but I appreciate those who do -- especially when I hear back from people that I have echoed their thoughts or experiences in my writings. I think talking and musing about sex is a healthy thing to do, but I don't force anyone to do it with me.

I mean, I'm 28 years old. Certainly there are those with more experience than me in the world, and there are those with less. I've turned to many of my friends for advice on sexual matters, and I've had friends do the same to me. I like being able to provide advice or even simply a sympathetic ear. It's good to hear someone else say, "Yeah, I've had that happen, too" because it makes you feel like less of a loner and can lead to guidance as to how to cope.

So I can't help but wonder sometimes about people who have a difficult time talking about sex, whether it's with their friends or in general. Are they able to communicate effectively with their partner? Is their partner having a good time in bed? Are they?

I find it helpful to be open about my interests. It presents an easy opportunity for someone else to say whether or not they like the same thing, or elements of it. It provides for conversation topics (re: earlier this evening). And it lets people think of me as a freak if they're so inclined. But being open about things means that people will ask you questions or seek advice they may not feel comfortable going elsewhere to learn. That's a pretty nice feeling all around.

2009-01-28T20:24:00.000-05:00

Today is one of those rare but exceptional days where I'm feeling in touch with my feelings, honest, and able to own up to my (many) shortcomings.

It also appears to be one of those blocks of time in which people are feeling nostalgic and interested in getting in touch with one another -- I've had one person from my past reach out to me, and over the last few days/weeks I've been doing the same to another.

At least as far as the second goes, reflecting on the past is showing me that I did in fact act poorly in that circumstance, something I knew at the time but was unable to address because of my insecurity, dislike of hurting others, feeble attempts not to do so, and a general lack of knowledge as to how to properly address that which was going on. I'm not proud of it, but my relationship with this person doesn't appear to be suffering for it, since we're both able to look back and deal with it maturely.

Combined with today's honest phase, it's meant that I was able to apologize to him for how I acted, which he both graciously accepted and said was unnecessary. But I still feel a bit better for having done it, and a part of me wishes I could go back and do things better.

But that was then and this is now and all we can do is look backward and move forward. So, moving forward and possibly even spending some time with him when I go to visit my Nanny in March. We'll see what the weather and so on brings, but it's something to discuss and even anticipate.

On a completely unrelated note, I'm also feeling somewhat flirty and possibly even horny -- so I think I may be ovulating. Fun times! Ah well, it's nice to feel this way again. Damned birth control.

2009-01-28T15:21:00.001-05:00

And let's share the brilliance (and yes, that line you're going WTF is true):

Hi (contact),

At your request, I am writing you regarding final invoices for
our old rental property located at (address), Ottawa, On. There are four
charges total to us, but we believe that we should only be paying for two of
them.

As per our signed contract, we agreed to have the carpets steam
cleaned upon vacating the premises due to the fact we had pets. As well, we
caused minor drywall damage as we were moving out, so it is fair to pay the
repair cost to the entrance. However, we do not agree with the charges for (company) junk removal and (company) Housekeeping.

When we first took over
the property on Nov 1st, 2007 we arrived to find the home in a very poor state
of cleanliness. The agent we were dealing with at the time actually informed us
that they had not had a chance to check the house and no one had been in to
clean. We were forced to delay our move by two days so we could properly clean
the house, as it had seemed it had not been cleaned the entire time the previous
tenants had been living there. I spent a complete day trying to clean the
upstairs bathroom trying to remove a year's worth of soap scum in the shower and
tub which had almost turned to tar. We also spent a complete day cleaning the
kitchen as it had not been touched in quite some time. The fridge had old
spilled juice inside, the counters were coated in dirt and the pantry was full
of soil. The stove top and oven were also in rough shape. As an added bonus, a
box of used vaginal suppositories was left in the fridge as a gift from the
previous tenants. In total, we spent roughly 12 hours each cleaning the house
prior to our arrival. I also saw no indication steam cleaning had taken place
prior to our arrival, despite the previous tenants owning a dog. Before our
departure, we spent three nights of five hours each cleaning and preparing the
home for the new tenants. Our only concern was the bile in the carpets (not
feces as the note states) from a cat having vomited. We knew however the steam
cleaning would remove this, which we had previously agreed to. It is not fair
to us that we should be charged for house cleaning when we left this house 100
times cleaner then the way we received it.

As for the junk that was
left in the house. Everything that was left in the house when we left was there
when we arrived with the exception of the garbage in the garage that was slated
to go out on Friday for pick up. The previous tenants told us that the owned
had left behind some stuff for the tenants to use such as the giant TV, a broken
lawnmower, a broken BBQ, an air conditioning unit and a garage full of lawn
tools and various other things. The storage room in the basement also contained
quite of bit of junk such as paint, wood and old fixturing. Since we were not
shown the house by an agent and rather by the tenants themselves, we had no
choice but to believe the tenants about the contents of the house. Everything we
left behind was there when we arrived.

However, since there was no clean
up crew prior to our arrival, no one noticed how much of a mess the house was or
how much junk was left behind. We were left to deal with the problems
ourselves. It is not good business to let one client go and not check up on
them and charge the other one. I would gladly make up an invoice for the time
invested with our cleaning services prior to our arriving for 12 hours at 70$ an
hour and we could deduct it off our current bill if it will help ease matters.
We are not trying to stiff anyone, we just want to be treated fairly.

If
you have any questions, don't hesitate to write back or call

Thank
you

2009-01-28T08:49:00.001-05:00

In response to the letter we received from our housing company, the DB wrote a brilliant email to them that had me cheering and laughing as I read it. I'll share it later so all two of you can appreciate it as well. It was interesting, since it was the first time I'd read something he'd written in a professional/business style, and I thought it was very well done.

Then in the evening I became annoyed with him again, since that's sometimes almost my default, depending on the day.

I exaggerate for comedic purposes -- hyperbolize, if you will. These instances are usually quite obvious, like claiming I'd eaten a bazillion pounds of chocolate over the weekend, when in reality I may have only eaten four chocolate bars or something equally bad (and I don't think I've done that since I was a kid, so stop judging me). That said, when I'm relating information on how much money I spent on something/how much time I invested reading something/how early I went to bed, I'm unlikely to exaggerate -- there, my point is to get some sympathy or recriminations or whatever.

So, when I tell the DB that I spent 13.5 hours at work yesterday and he tells me I didn't, I get annoyed. Especially when he claims that I only spent 11 hours at work, with a 2 hour commute.

Not so much.

I am usually at work for 7:20/7:30ish. Yesterday, in light of Budget day (everyone's favourite day!), I was at work until 9:00 p.m. -- count it, 13.5 hours. I got home around 9:30 after the taxi I took almost got into a major car accident -- and to be honest, I was almost too tired to care -- and in the mornings, I leave my neighbourhood at 6:40 or so in the morning (and then walk from where the carpool lady parks, hence the slightly later start).

So yes, it was a 13.5 hour day, plus an hour or so commute.

I almost wouldn't care, but he's done it almost every time I've worked over 10 hours -- he consistently tells me that no, I didn't work the 11/12/whatever hours I'm claiming I worked. I don't know why; it's not like I'm trying to ask him to cover my overtime, or be the one to come in to work the next day or something. I'm simply trying to explain why I'm so tired/crabby/hungry/whatever, and being told that no, I didn't do something I know damn well I did, well, it annoys me.

Much like when he claims I never reread my books, use something I'm hanging on to, watch a given movie or television show, or listen to a particular type of music. Just because he doesn't see me do it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Hell, he doesn't see me shower in the mornings, and I still do that every day. He doesn't see me catch a carpool, go to work, or do my job -- and yet somehow I do those every day.

(I was going to go with bodily function themes here, but opted to be kinder to your mental pictures of me. Especially since I'm a girl and apparently we don't do those things.)

I need to wake up enough to get up a good head of steam, but I will say this; if the Liberals/NDP/Bloc do take down the current government, I am seriously going to cut a bitch. I do not want to have to go through all of this crap again in a few months' time when the coalition government or newly-elected government has to present their own Budget and all of that. I also think it would be seriously irresponsible to try to bring down government at this particular point in time, but that's another issue.

2009-01-26T16:52:00.001-05:00

I know this is a continuation on a previous theme, but I like this:

Me: "How's your day going?"
Him: "Lousy, why?"
Me: "Want to call our previous housing company and tell them to go fuck themselves?"
Him: "Why?"
Me: "Here's a letter they sent, here's stuff they're claiming, here's the amounts they want us to pay. The first two we agreed to; these others are part of the bullshit."
Him: "Okay, bye."

I am so mad I'm shaking, but I would be too fucking polite to tell them what I really think -- or at least to make it stick. Sure, I talk a good game, but deep down for the most part I'm a complete wimp.

Luckily for me, he can play the bastard when it's necessary and make it work. It may be too late in the day to have resolution now, but at least I have the wheels in motion.

2009-01-24T12:13:00.001-05:00

I'm not entirely sure where my mind is at. I don't know if it's because the daily grind is getting to me and there's no end in sight, or if I feel a bit at loose ends without school hanging over my head, but some days, I just don't know what to do with myself. Yesterday, for example, I was greatly looking forward to doing little to nothing all weekend, aside from going out tonight for a friend's birthday. When the DB got home yesterday, he said how he hadn't bothered getting anything from the store for dinner as he had thought about taking me out for dinner, then halfway home realized he'd made plans to go to the casino with his friend.

This bothered me and didn't on a few levels -- one, I had to go back to the store to pick up dinner fixings. Two, I hadn't been considered in the plans for the casino, which, when I thought it was just the two of them, didn't really bother me. When the friend arrived and his roommate/fwb/girlfriend was also there, I was a bit put out, though not hugely. I could've gone with them if I had really wanted to, but, like the night we all went to see Tropic Thunder, I would've felt as though I was possibly inviting myself along where I was, while not unwelcome, not necessarily invited.

Again, this wouldn't be that big of a deal if it wasn't for the pending possible Cuba trip. While we have a deal lined up to go to Hawaii (or Florida, or Las Vegas), the DB is going to look into whether or not this can be postponed, because his friend E (the same guy from last night) and his cousin A are looking to go to Cuba again, and the DB thinks it would be fun to go with them. Okay, cool -- small group, good times, good people, no pressure to spend every waking moment with them, great.

Except then the roommate/fwb/girlfriend is probably going to go. Okay, five people, no big deal. Then the DB says that it's getting to be a pretty big group -- another guy from the store, and maybe L, A's brother... so now we're up to 7 and maybe growing. And as the DB points out, no, we don't have to spend every waking moment with the group, but now... now I'm less eager to go, and I feel like a jerk about that.

Because, despite my social nature, my ability to make do in most situations, and all of that, I'm not a party person. I'm really strongly an introvert, and I need my decompression time. I hated being forced into group work when I was in school, I hate that my carpooling to and from work means that I am semi-obligated to make small talk for two hours a day, five days a week, I even sort of hate having people come to stay with us or us go to stay with them because of the social customs obligations. And that's me -- I'm the out-going one out of the two of us. I at least make the effort, most of the time, to be social in social situations. The DB, on the other hand, practically turns himself inside out in an effort to become tiny and disappear so as not to be obligated to socialize, make small talk, or whatever.

However, put him down with some of his friends, and he can be quite the reverse (though not usually when it's family). I'm the same around my friends, though some days I'm quite quiet and content to just let the conversation go around me. If I haven't socialized in awhile, I can be a bit difficult to shut up (even at work, my poor colleagues).

I know I'm almost certainly getting myself worked up over nothing, and I'm certain I have friends who can relate to how I feel and others who can't even come close to understanding it, but I just feel unsettled about this, and definitely less excited about the prospect. Granted, I don't even know if the DB has contacted the Hilton yet to see if we can even postpone the trip, but I definitely would love to go to Cuba. I just know I wasn't too enthused about going with a couple of partiers (which A and E are), but at least there I know that we wouldn't be expected to spend every waking moment with them, and no hard feelings. But if suddenly the group balloons to 7-plus people, many of whom are much more excited about the prospect of unlimited drinks than I am... I don't know. Especially given that I really don't know at least two of them who are going.

Yes, the DB would and probably will tell me I'm being ridiculous if I bother to tell him how I feel. But I just feel as though lately we really aren't spending any quality/couple time together, which is one issue, and I liked that our last trip I was able to spend tonnes of time on the beach, reading, taking naps, and relaxing. Sure, on the one hand I would've liked to have spent a bit more time doing things, but that wasn't the goal for him, and that wouldn't have been nearly as relaxing. I know this time I'd like to go to one of the clubs one night, but I also want a lot of that quiet time. I really haven't had a break since August, as the October wedding was a bit spoiled by my grandfather's death, and I worked through Christmas -- and I imagine the DB feels the same way, minus the death aspect.

I booked a trip to go and visit my grandmother in March, so at least I have that. And yes, I do have weekends at least, but they fly by and are usually a combination of too short, feeling frustrated because I want to go out and don't want to spend money/can't drag the DB out of the house/don't really have anywhere in particular I want to go/want to sit at home and do crafts/read/play on the computer, then back to frustrated because the weekend has flown by and I don't feel as though I relaxed, accomplished what I wanted to, got out of the house enough, didn't stay in enough, or *whatever*.

I guess this is just my seriously long-winded way of saying I don't know if I'm *happy* right now, but I don't know what it would take to make it that way.

2009-01-23T23:28:00.002-05:00

Okay, so no one has commented on my last post, it's been over 24 hours and clearly no one cares, so screw you all.

Also, hair cuts in my world are serious business. Which is funny if you look at my hair on a daily basis like I do, because I really have no concept of how to actually style my hair, and it randomly rearranges itself into insanely stupid styles every time a camera gets near it. Then my face teams up with my hair to make me look incredibly stupid, and you get gems like these.

Some recent:

Some older:

The stunned:

The DB is a jerk:

The "should be okay, but I don't like it":

And:

And yeah. Continue that trend.

At the same time, every now and again I get one I do like (here it's nice if you don't focus too much on my face):

Or here:

Ah, photo posts, how exciting you are, especially when you feature this face.

Anyhow, as I was saying before I got so rudely interrupted, yesterday I proved my dedication to my stylist and my poor hair by walking 7.5km to get my hair cut -- and then a further 1.5km to the nearest shopping centre, in the hopes of increasing my odds of catching a cab. I took some photos along the route as a bit of a recommendation from a coworker, and maybe I'll share them later.

In the end the cab part didn't matter, as the DB offered to come and get me, but I did still have a fair bit of time to kill -- and fortunately for me, the shopping centre features a Future Shop, Michael's, and Chapters (among other stores), so I'm pretty much set for quite some time. I figure the money I saved on cab fare I more than invested in Michael's. :/

Red wine... mother, teacher, secret lover.

I'd also like to say, on another random tangent, I really hate when people say they're going to do something and then don't, whether that's call, keep in touch, lend you something, return something, or whatever.

I had an unrelated realization about some guys in my past/friendship circle about arrogance/confidence/insecurity/sliminess/girls, but I'll save it for a more awake/sober time.

I did however learn yesterday that my reputation precedes me at work; apparently one girl from the IT division who undeservedly grumped at me over the phone was asking others about me, and the word that got to her was that I was cool, had a really dry sense of humour, and was good to work with. She and I had a nice chat over the phone today, so I think once she was assured I wasn't a complete tool, she felt like she owed me a fair shake. I win!

2009-01-22T10:12:00.003-05:00

(As a warning, this is long, meandering, and some of it originally started as me reacting mentally at least to this article about girls and video games... then never got anywhere near it. Also, since this was total stream of consciousness, I believe it'll have more than a few run-on sentences. You have been warned.)

For some reason this week, I keep waking up with songs in my head. I actually listen to the radio less than I used to while living alone (I don't turn it on in the mornings anymore, for example), and yet twice in the last week I've woken up with earworms.

Earlier it was "Beautiful U" by Deborah Cox, and I think it was because I'd heard it on the radio a few hours before bed. This morning it was "Eye of the Tiger", which I can at least blame on having played Rock Band 2 last night (though again, hours before bed). Though maybe having been unable to sleep well, my psyche decided I needed some sort of motivating to get going... though it's going to learn that annoying 80s rock is not the way to do it.

Of course, after playing it again last night and remembering this post and having played it last night, suddenly I have it stuck in my head once more. *sigh* My psyche hates me.

Beyond all of that, I'm now fully enjoying my post-post-graduate phase, and throwing myself into other leisure activities. Last night, for example, I was falling asleep on the couch while playing Rock Band 2 at 7 o'clock at night, 'cause that's how I roll.

Hell, a Friday night recently both the DB and I were ready to go to sleep at 10 o'clock. I don't know about him, but the only thing that kept me up until 11 was that we were watching an episode of CSI: Miami I hadn't seen, and I wanted to know how it ended. *shame*

I think sometimes the DB doesn't enjoy watching television with me simply because I do heckle or mock the conventions, stereotypes and other things that I see that annoy me. I can certainly turn my brain off and enjoy something that doesn't have much in the way of educational value, but at the same time, I can get seriously irritated with the misogyny, misandry, stereotyping, insulting, blah blah blah that occur in the show.

I know of plenty of people who hate Sex and the City, for example, and I can completely sympathize with the reasons why, whatever they may be (though some, like the attractiveness of the characters, is a completely subjective issue -- as I for one think that Parish Hilton is incredibly unattractive, but there are those out there who would love nothing more than to be all up in her grill). But I think for a lot of people -- men and women -- a great deal of the appeal to the show was our ability to relate to the issues that the women were going through. Financial difficulty, divorce, adultery, exes, new relationships, going crazy in a relationship, childbirth, conception... many of us have experience with some or all of those issues, and while perhaps we didn't react in the same manner, we could at least analyze why the characters acted the way they did.

But there are certain say, genres, of commercials that simply drive me batty. Beer commercials, on the whole, are one of those. Commercials for cleaning products are definitely there -- 99 times out of 100, it seems as though the person doing the cleaning or bemoaning the lack of an effective cleaning product is a woman, and if a man happens to be present in the commercial, he appears to barely have the wherewithal to dress himself competently, let alone use whatever cleaning product the woman is currently having orgasms over. Let me tell you this -- I have never, in all of my 28 years of being female, had or witnessed a woman in any kind of throes of ecstasy over a new toilet scrub, mop, broom, Swiffer duster, counter scrub, paper towel, or anything else of that nature.

Now, as a caveat, I believe it's a variation on Rule 34 -- there is a fetish for everything. There are men and women, I am certain, who have fetishes for cleaning, cleaning products, etc. That said, I am willing to go out on an unsubstantiated limb and declare that these people are in the minority -- so why the fuck am I subjected to their all-pervasive fetishes on television at all hours? To my mind, it's akin to every commercial that plays off sexuality using furries as their basis; certainly, there are furries in the world, but they are not the majority, by far -- so why would their fetish be used as the baseline/norm?

Oddly enough, I haven't actually seen any cleaning product commercials in recent memory; most of my tv watching lately has been DVDs or PVRed shows whereby I get to fast-forward the commercials. Either that or it's been Spike/whatever other network runs CSI marathons, and I keep seeing ads for Patrick Swayze's new show, Beast (yeah, I just participated in viral marketing -- but I'm still not going to watch it, do you hear me Spike!?)

Newsflash, Proctor & Gamble, SC Johnson, Unilever, and all of you other companies (and I don't even know if these ones make cleaning products); there are lots of men out there who do some, most or all of the cleaning in a household, even when there are woman around! While I take ownership of the laundry in our house, it's primarily for two reasons: one, I don't have to subject the DB to my dirty undies; and two, I have a lot of sweaters and pants that can't go in the dryer, and rather than try to tell him which is which, it's just easier to do myself. Beyond that, though, he cleans his own bathroom, I clean mine, and he does the vacuuming. We both deal with garbage and the dishwasher, and previous to living with a boy, I handled all of these horrendous tasks on my own -- and he handled all of them on his own, because he hadn't been dropped on his head repeatedly as a child and actually understands how to use cleaning products without having his mom or some other female presence nearby to read out the big words to him and/or explain that sometimes things get dirty and you need to use something to clean them.

If I were to see a trend towards advertising agencies/companies showcasing men as just as capable and just as likely to be doing the cleaning in their ads, I might just become a brand-loyal consumer, that holy grail of consumers. As it stands, we're as likely to buy no-name as not, if there isn't a difference (I have learned where it doesn't pay to go cheap, like garbage bags, for example). And as a caveat to this -- this doesn't mean that you try for the ironic approach, like that commercial that ran in the last year or two that sets us up to expect a woman by panning up the backside of someone bent over a stove, focusing somewhat on his/her butt and then giving us the surprise reveal when a man turns around, wearing a frilly pink apron, wearing oven mitts and complaining about having been slaving over a hot stove all day to his executive wife. This is not the same thing as subverting stereotypes, since you're simply calling attention to them and then reasserting them by making the average consumer react like, "ha ha, that's not right! Men don't cook, wear frilly pink aprons or care abuot slaving over the hot stove all day! Women don't have high-powered jobs, or if they do, they're supposed to be the ones coming home to cook a hot meal!"

And to try to pre-empt the argument I've heard a few times -- "But it's just one commercial, it really doesn't mean anything... and quiet down, you're scaring people" -- yes, it's just one commercial. One of anything in isolation won't usually have much effect on something. But when this message is repeated day in and day out in media after media... it has a serious cumulative effect that isn't even always immediately apparent.

To illustrate my point -- if one stranger one day told you that you were fat/ugly/stupid/whatever, it's easy to shrug off. But if you were to be told this over 2,100 times a day (the number of ads we see in a day, and if memory serves that figure comes from the 90s, so up it), then it's going to affect you. Assume maybe half of those ads aren't saying anything negative about you -- after all, we see ads for diapers, which aren't usually sexualizing women or equating romantic love with a consumer product -- that's still over a thousand times a day that random people are telling you that you're fat, ugly, stupid, and so on. Add to that the fact that not only is consumer media telling you this, but the people around you are advertantly or inadvertantly reinforcing this message, and it's enough to make you want to scream. Which is where I come in.

See, it's things like this that make me fairly certain I fell into the right degree (for clarification, BA and MA in Communications with focus on media studies) and sort of career path (government communications, focusing on media and some web designing; bit of a bird of a different feather, but still related). Right now, as I think about it, I didn't immediately see the application of my degree to my career, and even though I was fairly certain that I remembered maybe 1/100th of what I learned, I think it's all slowly coming back out as I go day to day.

I've also become much more aware of and comfortable with discussing feminist issues, which is going to be the next eventual degree (after paying down some debt), although I think for career development purposes, the web designer role will be the next one pursued. I know a friend of mine from school wants to get into hosting a webzine, and I'm going to be the lead on the tech side of things, which sounds fun. In the meantime, though, there's the exercise goal that comes first, as well as life in general.

I don't have specific goals for the next few years, but I've always had vaguely-defined ones. When I first signed on with my financial planner, he asked me what my financial goals were, and I really didn't have an answer. I was 23 when I first started contributing to my RRSP, and my declared goal was to own a house before I turned 30. Voilà, goal achieved.

I've also always wanted to be married and planning if not starting a family before I was 30 if life worked out that way, but that was a harder one to pinpoint. After all, saving up for a house is mostly dependent on me; meeting someone compatible who feels the same about me and wants the same things out of life isn't as easy to pursue. I did my best, dating all over the place, even when I knew I wasn't seeing someone long-term. That was a learning process in and of itself, as I've said many times on here (it's a bit like doing a year of an undeclared major in university -- get a feel for what's out there, figure out what interests me, and make efforts to pursue that).

However, I can't and won't specifically set lines in the sand for when personal life goals must be achieved, especially when they involve someone else as significantly as marriage/babies do. We're talking about going down south again this spring (originally the date mentioned was April; now apparently it could be as late as May), and so I have a fitness goal I've finally began working on and I have a deadline of sorts in place. Am I going to stop my efforts when we return? Hopefully not. Am I hoping I will look good in a bikini for once in my life by then? Certainly. Will I beat myself up if I don't? No. I'll be disappointed, certainly, but I can't turn it into a make-or-break issue, otherwise I'll simply see it as too daunting and I won't work on it (see: research paper). That's partly why I haven't talked about it and I'm only slightly talking about it now; if I go around telling everyone that's what I'm going to do, it's additional pressure that I just don't want. I'd rather simply surprise everyone. :)

So yes, I have my personal goals that I'd like to work towards, but when you're dating someone who's both stubborn and seemingly doesn't like to plan beyond maybe a week (or on rare occasions, a few months) in advance, it can be challenging. When we first moved in together, it was me who raised the issue and it was sort of not really out of the blue. My lease was coming up, his landlord brought another person into the house without consulting him, and we were practically living together already -- but we basically talked about it once or twice and then got started on looking for a place (which I found, go me). We had both hoped to have purchased a home by then, but neither of us wanted to buy a house without having lived together first, obviously.

I tried to raise the issue of post-lease arrangements once or twice, but when there was still 8 months to go, it was still somewhat early and I recognized as much. In August, when we were in Vegas (with about 2 and a half months left to go on the lease), I raised the issue again -- and that gave it a bit more momentum. But again, there wasn't a great deal of in depth conversation on it, and while on the one hand I don't have any problems with how we went about everything to date, on the other hand I sometimes have a concern that we might have been perceived as impulsive, or uninformed or something. There was definitely a lot of advice given pre-house-purchase, but no one (aside from the Arrogant Bastard in his own way) came out and said, "Don't do this."

We have had brief conversations about marriage and babies, but it's only in bits and pieces that I learn what it is he wants for that kind of future (career-wise, I already know; he's way ahead of me on that count). I have no clue when or even if my friends talked about how many kids, what kind of school/religion they would have, where they see themselves personally X number of years down the line, etc., with their spouses. I've been told that marriage counselling is great for getting these issues out in the open and discussed, but I can't help but feel as though these should come about before engagement happens.

I chatted briefly back in the summer with my French friend Ben (otherwise known to some of you as the Marshmallow), who talked about buying pets with his fiancée after the kids are grown and out of the house. At this time, they have no children, either together or apart, and it kinda startled me to hear about someone talk so long-range about their life -- but at the same time, I felt like maybe this is how you should think if/when you're planning a future with someone. Maybe you're supposed to look beyond the now and into what about 10, 20, 30 years from now.

However, you can also get hit by a bus tomorrow and not have this future, so maybe you shouldn't try to plan too far ahead.

So I do know a few things, here and there, but I often have to bargain to get them out of him. It's one of my few semi-ongoing frustrations about our relationship, the inability at times to have an actual serious conversation. He claims I'm just as bad, but I feel I initiate more of the serious conversations, and that when I do, I'm able to stay serious through them longer. Maybe I'm biased about it, and I know that it's as much a security measure for both of us as anything (hell, I joked at both of my grandfathers' funerals, because I'm just that awesome), but that doesn't mean it can't be annoying.

That said, there has been at least one conversation in recent memory that was serious all the way through -- I think I alluded to it on here. I'm not sure that the issues raised at that time were resolved (for all I can tell, we've regressed right back to where we were then), but I found it encouraging that a few hours later when the DB returned home, he said that he had thought about what I had said and agreed with me on a number of points, and brought up ways to address them. As I told him then and as I'm repeating now, I hadn't wanted and I wasn't trying to engage in any finger-pointing -- I know that many of his bad habits are just as equally mine -- but it was nice to hear that my concerns were recognized and shared, and to have constructive ways presented to try to address them.

In other news, I finally found a treat that even Venus likes -- so yesterday ended on a pretty positive note.

2009-01-15T18:11:00.000-05:00

This represents the end of an era. I have officially, finally and completely finished my masters' research paper, turned it in, had my grade entered into the computer, and so on. It's all done, and despite the DB waiting until I have my degree in my hand to formally congratulate me, it's over.

Such a relief, and in a weird way, I don't really feel anything from it.

I don't know if it's because it's taken me so long to get here, or if I somehow don't feel it's that big of a deal, or what, but at least I know it's out of my life.

And I get to call myself a Master of something -- with the paperwork to back it up. ;) (And in this instance, it's a MA in Communications, with a focus in media studies).

Okay, eventually.

Anyhow, the admin assistant at the uni (who gave me a hug when I dropped off all the copies yesterday), my prof supervisor, and even the career counsellor I had the final session with today have all asked me what it is I want to do next -- academics I guess figure everyone else is equally devoted to academia.

I realized some time ago I'm at my happiest when I'm learning. That was part of what kept me at my last job for the extra year and a half plus -- I had learned new skills and was doing something I found interesting. I'm hoping to keep this sort of trend going, which is perhaps why right now web design interests me a little more than communications in a broad sense; there's more to learn with the former, and the technology is always evolving, whereas while trends change in the second, it's a bit more concrete overall.

In the meantime, we're going through the sub-bazillion degrees freezing stretch that we always get at least once during the wintertime. I blame Jay; in a post about <a href="http://lunarbovine.com/blog/2009/01/skating-on-the-canal/">skating on the Canal</a>, he made a point of saying that Ottawa winters are nothing compared to Winnipeg winters, and how hardy and awesome and wonderful he and his wife are compared to the rest of us. Well, thanks a bunch, Jay! I shake my tiny internet fist at you.

2009-01-05T21:25:00.001-05:00

Day one of the new schedule - pick up at 6:30 a.m. to be downtown for about 7ish. As it turns out, my ride parks about six blocks from my work, so I have a nice walk twice a day to get me to work. Ah well, at least it's exercise -- but it'll definitely suck on the cold days. Then again, here's hoping the transit strike will end soon and we'll be back on buses. Especially since I've learned I'm now able to take the 6:30 express (there are two; 6:30 and 7:30) instead of having to catch the bus at 6:00 a.m. At least I only have to get used to early hours once. Or several times a week, given that I have to do this 5 times a week... and I hate being up early.

I'm not a morning person.

It was especially fun when I woke up at 4:30 this morning and couldn't really get back to sleep before my alarm went off. And I couldn't get comfortable half the night because of my re-strained back and my sore toe.

Oh, I'm in awesome shape.

But tonight will be an early bedtime and tomorrow will involve ungodly amounts of caffeine and I will survive. Somehow.

2008-12-31T10:26:00.001-05:00

Oh, I am this bored.

2008 in Review:

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
I travelled outside of Canada and the U.S.. Got out from under my former manager's thumb.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't remember making any last year; I usually don't.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes, a few of them. Damn reproducers.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes, my Grandpa.

5. What countries did you visit?
Cuba, the United States.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
My masters' degree. Less debt.

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I can't believe I didn't think of this first -- November 21, date we signed the papers to buy our first house.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Finishing the research paper at the same time as buying and moving into the new house. Oh yeah, I like to stack all of my stresses together at once.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Scraping my dad's car against another, resulting in some good damage... and holy shit, I just realized I forgot to pay my ticket on that. Fuck.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Just colds.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
The Dear Boyfriend's love. Or a house.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
The DB and I, for moving without any fighting whatsoever. His cousin and friend, for helping us move (again), without any complaints.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
My own, for a few epic breakdowns (though there was only the one when we moved, so that was awesome). A friend or two, for stuff I won't put here.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Bills, debts, the house.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Buying the house (notice a theme?), although I'm honestly still a bit mellow about that. It'll sink in when I have to pay something major on it. Finishing the research paper, though again, I'm mellow -- it ain't done until I see the official statement that it's been accepted by all the right peeps.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
No clue.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier overall.
ii. thinner or fatter? Oh, fatter, certainly.
iii. richer or poorer? Richer and poorer; higher salary take-home, slightly increased expenses.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Sleeping, crafting, focusing on school and debt repayment.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Spending on stupid things, slacking off.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I went home for Christmas.

22. Did you fall in love in 2008?
I didn't fall, but it certainly grew. Little moments help -- like last night's kindnesses, despite my initial crabbiness (though I did try to keep a lid on most of it).

23. How many one-night stands?
Zero.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
CSI, House, Reaper, ER and sort of Pushing Daisies.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Naw, I'm too tired to hate anyone new. Doesn't stop me from getting pissed off at people, though.

26. What was the best book you read?
Most of the stand-outs I think I read in years past. I'm sure I read something this time around I loved, but I can't recall.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
My musical tastes declined this year, so I'm not sure I want to share. I've been listening to a lot of crap the last few months, mainly because it keeps me up and going. Otherwise, I'd say perhaps Symphony No. 3 'Organ', 4th Movement" by Saint-Saëns.

28. What did you want and get?
The end of my research paper, the house, a flat-screen tv (I'm shallow, shut up), my books unpacked and organized (still in progress).

29. What did you want and not get?
Some people know the answer to this. All in good time.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Iron Man.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I'm now an ancient 28, and I threw a barbecue on one of the few nice days in August at our first place.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Confirmation I graduated, vindication against my past enemies, possibly the answer to a previous question.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
It classed up a bit work-wise, now that I've cut back on my jeans. Outside of work, it varied between lazy-slob (at home in the evenings) and cover-up-the-fat-oh-god-there's-so-much-of-it.

34. What kept you sane?
The DB, the cats, leaving my last job.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I've reignited my love of Dean Cain.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The Canadian election, since I monitored it fairly closely through work.

37. Who did you miss?
Some of my friends who moved away ages ago and suck at keeping in touch.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
The majority of my coworkers are pretty great. I hit it off with a classmate pretty well.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:
If you don't think you have enough space to move the car somewhere, you probably don't. Treasure your family and/or friends, they can disappear in an instant. Someone who can stand you through some pretty epic breakdowns is probably going to stick by you for the long haul -- provided they're the exception and not the norm, I would assume. Kitties are cute and funny.

2008-12-30T11:40:00.001-05:00

Dear person sending me work,

There is no point in telling me that you don't need something posted until next week when the email below yours indicates that the text hasn't been sent to you because it is not yet final.

It's all well and good to tell me that 'next week is fine,' but I hate to break it to you -- updates to the Intranet are not something I'm waiting on tenterhooks to do.

I don't know why, some of this just rubs me funny.

Also, I'm wondering if the summer is too soon to go back to school. I may have a sickness.

2008-12-29T13:49:00.001-05:00

I've come to the conclusion that my cats may be slightly spoiled, and they may know this, too.

I was looking for candles the other day, and came across the pyjama string that, for many months, represented Venus' favourite ever toy (though the laser pointer comes close to tying it). She has now taken to demanding play time in both her passive and aggressive ways; either by sitting by it, staring at it, until someone caves and starts playing with her, or by telling you that she wants you to play through varying commands. She also loves to sit on my lap desk while I'm trying to cross stitch, thereby blocking me from seeing the pattern and ensuring that I can't really do much other than pat her.

Then there's Thena. In the mornings when I shower, I don't bother closing the door all the way. Thena generally comes in sometime between when I get in the shower and when I shut the water off, and she's perched on the lid of the toilet waiting for me. While I do my morning preparations, she likes to climb into the sink and lie down in it, meaning I can't do anything that involves water (like washing my hands after doing my hair). However, the previous owners did put some kind of directional spout addition on the tap, so I can point it slightly away from her and fill a glass at least. Anyhow, I'm convinced Thena knows how unlikely I am to disrupt her, because the other day she was in the sink with the smuggest expression on her face... although this is the same cat that twisted her head upside down and stared at me with her tongue sticking out, so maybe I'm giving her too much credit.

And for the record, I'm not the only one that spoils the beasts; the DB said last night that he hoped Venus would give him more leg room in bed. When I suggested he could push her off the bed, he said that would be mean -- which is usually my response, but clearly I am turning him to the dark side as well.

That all sounded better last night when I was thinking about it. I fail at entertaining writing.

Anyhow, work this month has been crazy. I've logged over 20 hours of overtime in less than three weeks, and that's nothing compared to many of my coworkers. I took some of the time in leave and some in pay, and I was going to possibly use the money to pay for an iPod Touch, but I'm going to simply put it towards the new flat-screen television we purchased the other day. It's nothing terribly over the top or fancy; there was a good deal via the DB's store for Sony Bravias, so we opted to go for the middle one, 37". It fits nicely in the living room without looking ridiculously large, and now that I have HD cables, it looks good. The cables themselves were discount ($10 marked down to $4), so the quality is lacking overall, but they'll do for now.

Otherwise, Christmas was a pretty decent time. I was apparently rather lacking in sleep, since I'm pretty sure that's all I did every chance I got. We have a small sitting area set up in/off the kitchen (it makes sense if you see the arrangement) near the fireplace, and I spent many hours sitting in our laz-y-boys with the laptop, the fire going, and more often than not, a Thena sitting on the foot rest. I'm choosing to believe that my narcolepsy was out of need and not gas leaking, and it was quite lovely.

I also brought out the cross-stitching again, and I've been working on a Christmas towel (with about 10 minutes left of backstitching to do before it's finished), and an overall larger piece that I've had for some time. Combined with the Reaper season 1 box set I picked up after Christmas and the reading light from the floor lamp, and I'm usually quite content. At least until Venus comes along and sits on the pattern.

In other news, I hate twitter. I hate that some of my friends have resorted to doing twitter updates in lieu of actual detailed updates that provide context. I'm sure I'm thrilled for you that you're stuck in traffic, but what am I to do with this exiting tidbit? How about the twitter updates that are directed at someone else -- thanks for sharing, I'm sure, but why not simply text message or call that person directly? I don't know, it's your blog, do with it what you will, but at the same time... I just don't see the point. Then again, maybe that's because I use way too many words to say something simple.

"My cats are spoiled. I slept a lot over the holidays. I'm crafting. @bob: OMG that's so unbelievable that she did that."

"At concert. Musician is awesome and loud! Can't wait to post pictures. Stupid person is stupid."

Woo Twitter.

My city is in day 20 of its transit strike (yes, I just gave away my city and location. Stalk on, you crazy four fans of mine, three of whom live in my city already), and it's driving me insane. I actually had a dream a few nights ago that I was back on my regular express route and having a conversation with one of the regulars. I've had sad dreams before, but that's a good one.

They're saying in the news today that they might get Ambrose and Baird to use their federal powers to force a vote from the union on the city's last proposal; the only thing is, even if the drivers do go ahead and vote, there's no guarantee that they'll accept the proposal. It's a ridiculous pissing match between a businessman-turned-bureaucrat who has probably never ridden a bus in his life, who is, according to reports, anti-union (and appears to be ridiculously bullheaded) and the unions, who have not done well in the PR battle.

I support the drivers in this battle, but my pocketbook is hurting. The nearest parking lot to me is $18/day (higher if I'm there past 6 p.m.), and that doesn't include the cost of gas, the stress of the drive in heavy traffic, and the stress of driving in bad weather conditions -- of which there have been many this week. Sure, when I'm driving I don't have to wait for connections, but I don't exactly enjoy the thrill of sliding on icy or snowy roads or driving in first gear. Not to mention, I know the DB isn't exactly thrilled about having to lend me his car for days on end -- especially on days when I'm stuck at work late. Add to that my inability to do anything downtown after work because I have to get back home before the DB's day is over, and it's not exactly a blast anywhere.

I didn't vote for the mayor, and I think after his huge mishandling of last year's snowclearing, and this year's transit battle, he isn't likely to see another term. I hope he isn't going to see another term. Though I have to admit, I can't recall another mayor who had as many pejorative nicknames as this guy has... that at least has been entertaining.

I've been spending a lot of time these holidays catching up on the Comics Curmudgeon website. There are some great bits in there, if you haven't ever read the site. I only have a few minor grumbles about it, but one of the major ones is that I now want to add Mary Worth and Apartment 3-G to my daily lineup so I can keep up with the storylines when he doesn't talk about them. It's also leading me to want to go and critique For Better or For Worse, especially the reimagined strips that were published after everyone's story tied up... some of them really do show she hated her husband early on. Of course, I doubt that I could do as well as Josh does, so it's unlikely to be something I do regularly (especially as I dropped the strip in frustration some time ago).

I was going to go on about passive-aggressive tendencies in relationships and my frustrations with some of my friendships at the moment, but I think I've blathered enough. I don't even have anything exciting to report on my paper, though I will probably be hosting it as a pdf for those of you who really want to read through it once it gets approved. Thrill to my mastery of the academic language, and glory as I try to shoehorn in references to semiotics, Jung, and Joseph Campbell!

2008-12-25T10:25:00.001-05:00

I'll be more verbose later, but for now, Merry Christmas everyone.

2008-12-08T23:33:00.001-05:00

Rawrgh.

2008-12-04T14:12:00.001-05:00

Well, I don't know what it says about me, but before heading out for the fire alarm, I locked up the ATIP package I was examining. Clearly, I am a public servant.

2008-12-02T09:45:00.001-05:00

Ah, progress. Progress is my middle name -- re-elect Mayor Goldie Wilson.

Erm, sorry. I'd been wanting to watch Back to the Future again recently, so the DB and I had thrown it on Sunday night to watch with dinner. Family Guy actually referenced it at one point, so it had been stuck in my head for awhile thereafter, and I have to say, I still have lines and their deliveries memorized. I was nice and didn't quote as we watched, though.

I think what keeps me watching Family Guy is twofold; one, to see what new shocking thing they'll try, and two, to see what other pop culture reference they'll make. Say what you will about Seth MacFarlane, he enjoys musicals and drops references to them in his show regularly enough to keep me entertained... or the opening credit sequence that spoofs Police Squad. Sure, the show is regularly fairly goofy, and the plot usually veers off into a totally different direction from where it started, but there are some neat throwaway references that I can appreciate. There are also some gags they beat into the ground, like the chicken fight, or the knee gasping, or the ipecac... but at the same time, I loved the Vaudeville guys, and I'm sure they weren't everyone's favourite.

I also love whenever Adam West appears on the show, 'cause he gets the most ridiculous things to say, and the man does it. While I don't watch American Dad, I love that Patrick Stewart appears on it and also says goofy-ass stuff.

I have no idea why I just went off on Family Guy as long as I did. I'm simply enjoying some peace and quiet for a change, I think.

I did the first draft of changes to the paper last night and sent it back to the prof. The end is in sight, provided he's okay with what I've done. I may have to add more, but I'm hopeful... urgh. My classmate has been pretty awesome through this experience, and I'm thinking of picking her up a small gift for the holidays as a token of thanks. She's Jewish, so if I can do something that has an 8 theme (or even 8 of something) and related to school, I'm golden. Hannukah starts pretty late this year (December 22nd, I just checked), so that also gives me some time to think about this.

Anyhow, we haven't done any more unpacking since the weekend of madness. The DB's parents were in town from Friday to Sunday, and we had a fairly nice visit. We went out shopping Saturday afternoon and bought our washer and dryer set (the washer was the Christmas gift from them), and those will be delivered this Saturday -- due to the delay, Sunday the DB did some laundry at the old house before we returned the keys and bought some new bedding (which we can't wash until the weekend). Apparently they don't do much in the way of set-up, so I just hope that the damn things are on wheels or something so that we can move them around.

This Saturday is also the DB's Christmas party, and Sunday the 14th is the dinner with my friends. The holidays this year look to be fairly quiet, which will be great. We get to spend Christmas Eve in our home together, and then Christmas Day we'll do presents and dinner with my parents, sister and her boyfriend.

It's one of the first years that I'm slow in buying Christmas gifts, but I'm not terribly concerned about it at this point. I've ordered the DB's main gift online, and in all honesty, I just don't have as many people to buy for this year as in years past. It's the DB, his parents, the sister and her boyfriend, my parents, my Nanny, my aunt Dorothy and my uncle Billy. Maybe I can get away with doing a lot of it online.

2008-11-28T12:15:00.001-05:00

Just a quick one, since I still have some things I want to do today (like perhaps eat some breakfast), but... as vain as this is going to sound, I like the mix of abilities I have. For example, I just trouble-shot my internet connection (particularly my router issue), and I'm about to go bake some cookies. I've been decorating the new place with some of my pictures and artwork (finally!), and at some point soon, I have to go change the oil on my bike and get it properly ready for winter (although who knows what'll happen this season).

And I'm also finishing up my masters' paper, but that's more of a HUGE MAJOR STRESS than any real skill. What does it mean when December looks to be the most relaxing month in some time?

So yes, the big news -- we bought a house. We still have one bookcase to bring back (and I'm sure it was nothing subconscious on the DB's part that *that* got left behind), and a few small cleaning supplies, but otherwise, we are moved out of the old place. This place doesn't feel quite like *ours* yet, but it's always taken some time for me to get that to sink in whenever I move anyhow.

Fortunately, I've held my hysterical crying fits to a single one, shortly after I scraped another car with my dad's car. $1200 damage to Dad's car, about $500 to the other -- so really, I got lucky. Only paint transfer, nothing worse. Except for the ticket that I got when the other driver went through the police station because he was told to by his insurance... blah. Last time we moved, I spent about $600 on Venus when she got her UTI; this time around she got comfortable in the house a lot more quickly, but instead I get to spend on car work.

And we possibly get to pay the management company of our old place to repair some plaster damage to that house, done when we moved the couch out. The DB's dad might do it for us, since it's not a lot of work, but we'll see. The painter said if he can convince the management company to repaint the whole house, we won't have to pay for it. We'll still have to pay to have the carpets cleaned, but that was part of our lease agreement, not because of anything we did. Though I laughed when the agent called me to request that we vacuum the house and clean the appliances... my passive-aggressive side was tempted to respond with something like, "We fully intend to leave the place cleaner than when we got it" -- but of course she left me a message and I only thought of that cutting remark much later. It's rare I'm smart on short notice.

We'll be getting a washing machine and dryer this weekend, I believe; the washer is to be a Christmas gift from the DB's parents, and the dryer is to be our own investment. I'm not sure what we're getting, but I do hope I have a say in the selection. :/

I'm definitely glad that I took this week off from work, since I think I might've cracked otherwise. It's been a long week of pack/move/unpack/repeat ad nauseum. And then the late night trips over to clean. And then set up and unpack more. The place looks great, if only because three-quarters of our stuff is still in boxes. I'll be taking some pictures later that I'll probably post -- friends and relatives want to see the place, so I'm sure I can share them here, too.

The other fun part of this week was the mini-physical we underwent as part of our insurance coverage. I learned that I'm about 20lbs over what I thought I was... so soon the DB will have to start rolling me through doorways. I always said the diet/exercise regime was going to start in January, and if that number on the scale isn't incentive enough, I don't know what will be.

A shame, 'cause I do so love my goodies. :( And here I am, off to bake... 'cause that's how I roll. And leftovers go to the office.

2008-11-23T23:07:00.001-05:00

Two days down, no fights of note and nothing broken (that I know of, at least). This is good, and shows we move well together.

Though I really do hope we won't be doing it again for some time yet.

I've gotten rid of a bag of clothes and about three-quarters of a box of books. My colleagues were kind enough to remove some of them (well, once I took them in to work), and the rest I'll perhaps try to sell on amazon or something, as well as the DVDs that I have duplicates of. I figure given that I work across the street from a post office (again), it can't be that hard to do.

Progress on the paper is going ... probably not quite as well as it could be, but certainly about as well as realistically expected. Let's face it; I am a procrastinator -- as is the DB, which is why we're packing as we're moving -- and I'm even procrastinating a bit from writing now. I've gotten about 3 pages of the 17-19 page analysis done, and something tells me it's going to run long. I feel as though there's so much I have to say, and when I try to think about how to fill the 17 pages, I can't do it, but when I get going writing, and then think about the other authors I've cited that I can throw in... suddenly 17 pages doesn't feel like nearly enough. I'm taking this to be a good thing -- it's just a matter of making the time between now and Wednesday to get it the fuck done.

I was originally scheduled to be off from work Wednesday-Friday for this move, but as it turns out we were doing most of it up front, so I booked off Monday and Tuesday as well. Monday I'll be on my own for hauling stuff, as the DB has to work, but I'm going to hopefully balance out moving, packing/unpacking and writing. If I only get stuff boxed up, that's not so bad. I should probably spend some time putting away some of my clothes, as there's currently a nice pile on the floor of my bedroom (as always).

Tuesday the boys will be coming over to do the major furniture, and aside from the monstrosity that is the couch, that shouldn't be too hard. It may take two or three trips, but given that we're really only going 2km at a time, it's very little hassle at all.

I've been trying to decide at what point I should bring the cats over, so as to minimize their stress as much as possible, and I've come to no real conclusions. Last time, Thena did fairly well, but Venus was a mess. So far, they've been handling the disruption well -- Venus has been a bit extra-sucky, but that's often the case when one or both of us is home all day anyhow. They haven't seemed terribly phased by the fact that things keep leaving. Last time I brought them over before we had a lot of the boxes and furniture in place, so it was very much a scary new place; I'm hoping that by having familiar things around them, even if the surroundings themselves are unfamiliar, it might minimize their overall stress... and the fact that it'll be the second move for Venus (and the third for Thena, the old pro), might help. If nothing else, we have a veterinary clinic at the end of our street now, and I'm off the rest of the week (aside from some miscellaneous appointments like hair, doctor, and cable/internet hookup).

At some point it'll sink in that this is ours (mine!), but not yet. I guess because I'm still living out of the old place and much of my stuff is still here... it's been 'fun' living out of the two locations, not that we're really living out of the second yet -- just missing things now and again. Like Saturday night, when we were trying to decide on dinner and talking about nachos... and realizing that if we were to make nachos, I'd have to remember to bring back one of my cookie sheets, since I'd already moved those over. Or talking about watching a movie (since the television in the living room has been moved), only to realize that all of the movies are at the new place ... although I did have a number from my trip to Nova Scotia for my grandfather's funeral, so we watched some of <em>Stranger Than Fiction</em> while soaking in the tub... and listening to Venus wander around outside, crying for attention, and dragging her feathers on a stick back and forth. So, business as usual around here.

I think I've just written more here than I have for my paper -- and it's a toss-up as to which is better. Back to it for a bit before bed. At least I remembered to grab my Maalox from the new place, as I don't feel up to waking up again in the middle of the night with acid/stomach pains. I guess I really am stressed, who'd a thunk it?

2008-11-20T15:38:00.001-05:00

Though I know it's technically a misquote, I understand why Shakespeare called for death to all lawyers.

2008-11-19T10:27:00.001-05:00

And here is how the DB complements me well.

I'm kind of a pushover when it comes to talking about money. I don't like to haggle and I don't like to negotiate. If I'm asking for a price for something I own, I will lower the price if it benefits the other person or if it seems I'm asking too much; by contrast, if I'm buying something from someone, I will offer more money if it seems to sway them.

The DB, on the other hand, has some 11 years experience in business, and feels more comfortable in these discussions it would seem.

Case in point -- when we gave notice to our management company that we intended to move out, they insisted we provide 60 days notice. Okay, fine. Then, they stated that even if we were to give notice on September 15th, for example, we would be held as tenants until November 30th; I think so that they wouldn't have to split rent months. Okay, fine. Annoying, but whatever.

However, this lack of willingness to negotiate on their part has meant that we've become a little more... shall we say, set in our ways on issues where they need us to do things. Property viewings to prospective tenants? No, those have be after 6:30 p.m., when one or both of us is available. A daytime showing is not acceptable -- after all, we both work 8-6 (give or take). I previously ranted about that situation, so I'll move on.

Next was a move-out viewing; they wanted to do Thursday the 20th -- well, we won't have started moving anything at that point, so how would Monday sound instead, when it's a bit easier to see things? I mean, we could have furniture blocking holes we've put in the walls (we don't, but it's possible). No problems. No, we won't insist that one of us has to be there, just please watch for the cats.

However, just now was a fun one. We have the property until November 30th, a Sunday. They don't get the property until 12:01 a.m. December 1st. The new tenants would like to start moving in on Saturday, November 29th -- is that doable for us? We'd change the utilities to reflect us stopping payment of them on the 28th instead, as the new folks would be responsible for them as of the 29th.

As always, I said I'd have to speak to the DB. I call him up, he's of the opinion that this isn't going to happen -- after all, they wouldn't let us out of our lease early, nuts to 'em. Will they give us back two days' worth of rent? We were going to use that weekend for cleaning -- do the new tenants want to do the cleaning instead?

I tell the DB I can call them up and just say we're still planning on using that weekend to move. I mean, hell, aside from the comment I made to the other property management person about how we're going to be doing some moving this weekend, as far as they know, we don't plan on budging a single possession before the 30th.

The DB, knowing my pushover tendencies, offered to call them up and talk to them about our options... after all, the previous tenants really didn't clean the place, and the management company didn't do anything about that. So, we'll see the outcome... I'm just glad it's him making that call and not me.

2008-11-18T09:35:00.001-05:00

So. Freak-out time:

My deadline for submission, with supervisor's acceptance, of my research paper is December 1st.

We take possession of our new place November 21st, and we are moving from then until the end of the month (more or less). I'm off November 26th-28th (Wednesday-Friday).

I sent my professor my second chapter yesterday evening -- this one dealing with the research framework/methodology. I'd previously sent him my literature review, and he said he'd get back to me ASAP. These two sections form the groundwork for my analysis, which will comprise 17-19 pages; if they seriously suck, it's going to be a hella lot of work to replace (yes, this is how I write academically, too).

I got an 'Out of Office' reply to my email saying that my professor will be out of the office until November 25th.

So... I basically have to have everything to him before then (do-able) so that he can provide me with comments and notes that I can then take into consideration for re-writing my paper for December 1st. Arguable do-able.

If he hates it and I have to do a lot of re-writing? Challenge.

Extra-challenge? The appointment to switch the internet over is November 28th; so I may be sitting on the floor in an empty house for two days, writing on the laptop.

It's true, I didn't have enough stress before this... I'm so happy for this 'opportunity.'

2008-11-17T22:58:00.002-05:00

Okay, so the following is a snippet of history/stupidity from the DB and my history. This conversation came about nearly two months after we’d met for the first time (though we didn’t meet again for nearly another two months after this conversation). A conversation on me drinking somehow degenerated into a conversation on how I should seduce myself (excuse the typos/spelling and homonym mistakes)… and don’t think I’m the only one in this relationship who’s seduced herself – another conversation we had dealt with him seducing himself. He needs wine and candlelight, apparently.

(I'm in italics)

just don't slip any roofies into your own drinks
party time....awwwlllll right!

*rofl* But how else am I supposed to take advantage of myself?!

be smooth
be charming, a gentleman and don't stare at your breasts

Aw, that *never* works!

your right
but it sounds good anyway

*sigh* I'll see what I can do

maybe if you catch yourself by surprise

Yeah, the hand up the thigh sometimes can work

use some cheesy pick up line

Yeah, if I make myself laugh, that'll work

humour breaks the ice

and gets her smiling at you, important first step

exactly
make eye contact

I don't usually reveal my flexibility this early on, but okay

ask questions, but don't reveal too much about yourself
mystery is the spice of life

Okay, be interested in what I have to say, good, good

no more advice, thats usually where I stall out

Aw, poor baby
Should I flash a big wad of cash?

hey, this is all for you
well, if you take yourself to be a golddigger, it may work

The idea of someone to pay my bills is tempting, but I usually wind up dating people who make less than me

which is like, everyone
govt employees.....sheesh

Hah, I have debts out my wazoo, my daer

doesn't mean you don't make a lot, it means you like to live a generous lifestyle :)

Well, I have to romance myself properly!

see

I have to treat myself in the manner to which I'd like to become accustomed

you just can't expect to take yourself home if all you can afford is cheap dates

Exactly!
Although cheap dates can be fun, too

sometimes more fun
trolling for pennies is a fun date....it serves too purposes.....having fun and saving up for future dates
too=two

*laugh* Wow, you take cheap dates to a new extreme !:)

the ideal date is coming home with more money then what you left with, or even a new mansion of some sort

And here I thought you'd settle for sex ;)

well, when one isn't happening, move on to the next best thing
swimming in a pool of 100s

*grin* I want your life!

so do I

Clearly, this romance is the modern-day equivalent of Shakespeare -- though not one of his tragedies. I got shit to do before I die.

2008-11-12T11:16:00.001-05:00

I am running out of November very quickly, and it's not yet totally stressing me out, but I'm getting there.

I've transferred over all of the main services -- hydro, gas, water/sewer, taxes, cable/internet -- as well as set up mail forwarding via Canada Post as of the move date, so that should catch the bulk of it. We'll hang on to our mailbox keys for the current place, so anything that doesn't get forwarded over the first week will still be pick-up-able.

What pleases me about the Canada Post mail forwarding system is that you specify the names to forward, so you don't get stuck with all of the other crap that gets sent to that address. As an example, I lived at my last apartment from August 1st, 2004 to (technically), November 30th, 2007; I was *still* getting mail from the previous tenants up until I moved out. We're in the same situation right now -- and I look forward to getting away from that.

People don't realize how much crap their name gets added to, or how much crap they sign up for, until the next person to live in your apartment or home gets stuck dealing with it.

Then there's all the crap that companies send out just because you already have two or three of their current services and they want you to buy more. NO ROGERS, I DO NOT WANT YOUR HOME PHONE. Argh.

My only real complaint about our neighbourhood, aside from the semi-sporadic bus service in the evenings (once an hour after 9:00 p.m. until the last route at 11:15 p.m.), is that there are a metric fuckton of flyers, pamphlets, trade papers, etc., that seem to find their way to our home. I never got around to it here, but I fully intend on putting up a sign at the new place requesting that no flyers be delivered. Alternately, I'll put the black box on the front porch with a sign and an arrow down to it asking for people to put the flyers in there... 'cause I know we don't read 'em.

Anyhow, aside from the joys that moving always brings, especially a move that's going to take place over a week and a half instead of in a single day... on the one hand, more convenient, on the other hand, irritating because it's going to mean sort-of living out of two places. The DB plans on having all of the furniture moved over early on, so we'll be pretty much living out of the new place as of that point, but I had thought to be moving stuff towards the end of the week... so who knows? It really only affects borrowing my dad's car and the fact that we won't have cable/internet at the new location until later on, which isn't the biggest hardship in the world.

Anyhow, add on to that schoolwork, with the December 1st deadline looming near and dear... At least I got the literature review sent off yesterday, and I hope that'll pass some muster. The hardest part of doing a literature review, in my opinion, is not making arguments when you're putting it together -- it's a simple presentation of the material of relevance. Funny thing? I shared this comment with Markuk and my mom, and both of them told me that the reason I found it so hard is because I'm so used to arguing. :/

I need to get the methodology section done quickly, and it'll be tough because it's theoretical in nature, which is my biggest downfall, but it's only 5-6 pages (and not the 12-14 I'd feared), so I'm hoping that it too will be okay. After that, 17-19 pages of analysis, 3-4 pages of intro and 3-4 pages of conclusion, plus 150 abstract and add on the bibliography, and it's done.

And the best part of doing a research paper in place of a thesis? Not having to defend it. A load off my mind... provided they don't completely hate it.

2008-11-11T00:47:00.002-05:00

A few notes: next time you're in need of a lawyer, vet them a little more thoroughly. The guy you pick from the phone book, though he may have convenient offices to both your home and work, may also be senile... and somewhat condescending/patronizing.

I'm sorry that I don't have as much money as you think I should; this is what happens when you're young and have been paying living expenses for some time. Yes, I'm aware of the extra money you believe I'm "losing" -- the same fees that anyone else in my situation would have to pay. Yes, I'm a little frustrated that you're asking me the same questions that I've answered from you on more than one occasion. Now I have to wonder if what you're putting together is even valid legally, let alone accurate.

Lately I'm inclined to believe that one or both of the kitties is either in training to be or actually has become a ninja. The reason I believe this is because someone has, at least on one occasion, constructed a nunchuck using only her poop and some yarn. I think she forgot she left it there, since I found this device when I went to scoop out the box one day. I don't normally study their poops particularly closely, but this one definitely gave me pause. And a moment of weird pride, I think.

I'm at home sick today because the darling DB gave me his cold, and I spent the weekend sick as a dog. Just... awful. At least today I finally seem to be feeling better. I haven't been sleeping very well the last week or so, and I've been having a number of dreams as a result (I seem to dream more when I don't sleep very deeply, which often happens when I'm too warm at night). Earlier this week, I was in a semi-dozy state for about 20 minutes before my alarm actually went off, and I was composing and revising media lines in my head -- part of my job description, and not something I generally like to dream about. That said, it beats the dream that I had while employed under my previous manager, which involved my coworker and I wandering, lost, in a fog ... one of the first times I've had that I can seriously point to my subconscious as reflecting my life.

I've had various dreams about pregnancies and such over the last while, but I'm not putting much stock in those. I'm in no rush to be reproducing, and there are enough people around me doing it. I'm quite happy in my child-less lifestyle for now, and I'll make the necessary adjustments when the time comes. And I'll still be able to talk about other things than babies. ;)

I had a dream the other night that the DB was lying on top of me, and I was licking and scraping my teeth on his neck and he was getting really turned on. This isn't something that works for him in real life -- rather, it's a nice trigger for me, though -- so it was an odd dream choice, but whatever.

Last night, though, I had a fairly vivid dream about my First Big Love, who I've mentioned a few times over the years on these pages. I haven't seen or spoken to him in years (though I did add him via facebook, ooh), so it was odd that he popped up in a dream like that. There wasn't anything racy or particularly exciting about it; I think we were at some kind of car racetrack, and I know I ended up in his parent's place at some point, but there wasn't much more than that. I think we just caught up and enjoyed one another's company.

It's nice now and again to think about my past with him. Admittedly, we had a horrid ending the second time (as a refresher -- we dated for a year when I was 14 and he was 15, then for a little over two years when I was 18 and he was 19), but despite all of the heartbreak, he was the first person that I can point to that I genuinely loved in a romantic sense, and he was a good first (and third) boyfriend. Sometimes I miss aspects of that relationship... he introduced me to comic books and certain musical groups, as well as in some ways video games, and we just had ... I don't know. That connection that you have with a first boyfriend or girlfriend, I guess, especially when you both still live with your parents and are in high school and everything. It's very intense and significant, and personality-/life-forming.

Maybe I'm putting too much into this, maybe he never gives me a second thought, or maybe he feels differently than me, but I still remember the first time we exchanged "I love you"s, and a few of the other firsts. I think it's pretty good that what stands out for me are the things I loved about him and us -- the way he smelled, the way he felt we cuddled, the happy moments -- as opposed to the pain and misery that formed the endings.

I want to be able to say something insightful and significant here, but I really don't have anything good to go out on. Basically, I had a dream about a long-ago boyfriend, and it kept him in my thoughts today. Once upon a time, I thought I could see myself with him forever, even though I also didn't think I could be with him forever, if that makes sense. He was allergic to cats, I wasn't maybe as strong with him as I should've been, and so on, but that was then and it helped shape who I am now, as have all of my relationships (for better or for worse). He's someone that I sometimes wish I still had a relationship of sorts with, but who knows if we'd have anything whatsoever to base that on? Probably not, and hey, maybe that's just how it's supposed to be. Maybe I just miss what that relationship represented, which was probably tied into being in high school and having little to no responsibilities or concerns... not like nowadays.

He's also responsible for my semi-crush on Jeff Goldblum, 'cause I always thought he sorta looked like the actor. Goldblum's roles in Independence Day and Will & Grace helped keep me in love with the actor -- the first because I love a pining story (given that I've lived it out a few times myself), and the second because it was just so ridiculous.

Anyhow, on that nonsensical note, I leave you with another one for the stupid things Jen has done file: last night I left the carton of ice cream out on the counter, which I'd half-suspected I'd do. I put it in the freezer this morning, and I had some not too long ago. I'm still alive, so it can't be too bad, eh?

2008-11-03T21:31:00.001-05:00

Based on the conversations I had with two of my female coworkers at work this morning, I have to wonder if the three of us spent equally rough weekends, mentally/relationship-wise. Mind you, since one of them is currently in a long-distance relationship, I'm not sure that's exactly a fair guess.

Not to say that there are problems, exactly, in this world of mine... simply stresses equating to a shorter internal temper and things bothering me a bit more than is usual for me. It will pass, and all will once again be well.

Now we're into November and the real deadlines start. I have roughly a month to finish up the paper, and that includes finishing some of my reading -- fortunately, the end is in sight for that. I need to get my literature review off to my professor ASAP (or, honestly, several weeks ago), and then continue writing as I wait for his assessment of the crap I spew. Not to mention all the move organization that comes, and all of the paperwork that has to be filed, the cheques that have to be written, the organization that has to be done, the packing and purging that has to take place... if it weren't for the fact that winter can be damn cold up here, I'd just find myself a comfy cave, toss my shit into it and be done with it.

R and N had a Hallowe'en party on the weekend, so I made an appearance with the DB. As with most social gatherings lately, the first little while felt awkward and I was toying with leaving almost as soon as we arrived; fortunately that time passed once I started chatting a bit with a few of the guests and relaxing a bit more.

It's interesting to note how I've changed somewhat since I moved out on my own and then once I moved in with the DB; my grandfather's funeral drove that home a bit more clearly. In short, though I've always been an introvert who enjoys social gatherings on occasion, I really have gotten accustomed to my quiet time and space. Sure, the DB and I share a townhouse, but we often spend time apart when we're there; he's downstairs in the mancave playing Xbox, whereas I'm in the living room watching tv, cooking in the kitchen, or playing on my computer upstairs. Sometimes I'm video gaming or taking a bath, but overall, we have dinner together, then do our own thing until bedtime. Granted, there are days that I'm not as fond of this division, but overall, it's nice to have -- it's relaxing being able to decompress and do our own thing.

Admittedly, my grandfather's funeral was a time of high stress and heightened emotions and other sensitivities, and maybe at times like these we're supposed to want to surround ourselves with family, but for the most part, I wanted to smack mine around -- at least the closer ones. It was somewhat similar at my Puppy's funeral; I wanted to be alone and not have to be around my family, especially considering my family at that point was cousins with whom I really share nothing... and sorry, but I'm not really into children as a source of entertainment overall. Give me somepne's pet, and I'm pretty well off, but watching a toddler isn't really how I clear my mind of sorrow.

Yeah, I'm not really providing context, it's true... Bah. I'm looking forward to being able to set up a better study space than what I have here. I like this place, but I'm looking forward to personalizing my space more and making my own refuge -- because despite what the DB tries to say, the kitchen isn't my refuge, and I don't decompress through baking him pies. :)

2008-10-27T10:42:00.001-04:00

Oh yeah... I found the following picture in a Farker's profile, and while I admit the guy's kinda goofy-looking, and the shadowy face is weird, the sentiment behind the picture is really sweet and something I can understand:

2008-10-27T10:40:00.001-04:00

As an unintentional case-in-point to my last post, I had a confrontation with my dad this weekend and cried. *sigh*

I borrowed my dad's car to get some furniture I bought from a coworker as part of our GCWCC auction. No damage, no problem. I took the car back on Sunday night when I went over for our delayed Thanksgiving dinner, and as I did, I brought some paint supplies that I had bought to repaint a chest of drawers that's going back to my parents.

I put the bag on the seat. Something leaked.

Now, as it turns out, it wasn't the paint supplies -- and I hadn't thought it would be, given that they were all sealed and had been kept in the garage the whole time, up against the house. Rather, I hadn't realized that some of my bike supplies were in the bag, so we thought it might've been one of the bottles of oil (there was one that had been opened, the rest were still sealed). Didn't smell like motor oil, didn't smell like the fuel stabilizer... so best guess is that it's lock de-icer that had also been in that bag. That stuff stinks, but at least it's not turpentine.

I scrubbed the seat, and as I was doing so, my mom came out to see how I was doing. I told her I was crying because I'd been sick all weekend and hadn't had a decent night's sleep. She asked what was really bothering me, I reiterated that, and also said that my dad just gets so pissed over things, and that I know I'll be hearing about this one for the next twenty years. The part that I didn't say, though I was ready to, was simply that sometimes I think my parents wait for me to fuck something up just so they have something to lord over me and use to pester me... not a fun way to be.

But that was last night, and today I'm more or less better off. The DB and I are still having fights over what stuff of mine is going to get pitched, and this and that. I repeated what I'd told him when we first moved in together -- that at that time, there was stuff I was ready to get rid of, and for this move, maybe there will be more. But I have to be ready; and he said he's kinda the same way.

I've long said that I don't mind getting rid of stuff, but I don't like to throw out something that still has use, whether for me or someone else. So when we get rid of our worn-out bedding, it will be going to a vet clinic or the humane society, not the garbage. Light fixtures, necklaces, books, whatever -- they go to Value Village, or someplace that can make use of them. The DB has said he'd be willing to lend me his car, without requiring I put gas in it, if it's because I'm getting rid of stuff... so win-win for me, really.

I do need to get moving on the various preparations that go along with moving. I have made a few phone calls, and we're moving things along. Fortunately we have a week to move in, but that doesn't mean I want to leave things to the absolute last minute. Although I do seem to be getting more and more procrastinatey each time I move... :/ At least this one should be the last one for awhile.

In general we seem to be moving along fairly well, relationship-wise. There are some issues that do crop up on occasion, and we had a pretty good conversation last week going over them -- and by conversation, I mean that I did a lot of talking, and he didn't say much, and then when he came home from work, we talked a bit more and that time he did say stuff, and I felt better.

I've been bugging him to open up more on things that I believe are important to our future; not with the intention of making carved-in-stone plans immediately, but to get ideas of what he sees and when. Given the fact that I'm 28 now and hope not to be having babies when I'm 40, these are the kinds of things I'd like to have at least discussed at this point. Kinda scary to be at that point in my life, but it's a reality.

I've asked the DB if I'm sad to be getting excited over furniture shopping and home accessories. He said I am, but he also likes to have opportunities to take shots at me, as do many of my friends and family members. It gets frustrating sometimes when you're trying to have a serious conversation with someone who cracks jokes all the time, especially when I can be the same way and I recognize that. That said, I don't think I make jokes when someone's trying to talk to me about something they feel is important to them... but maybe I'm mistaken. It happens occasionally. ;)

2008-10-24T14:38:00.000-04:00

I can't decide if it's sad or not that I'm proud of myself when I get through a serious conversation -- or one that deals with things of import to me -- without crying. It's not that the subject matter itself is upsetting to me, I just have a difficult time sometimes getting through serious conversations without crying. It's frustrating, because I feel it takes away from my message or what I'm saying, and I feel weak as a result.

It seems to vary depending on who I'm talking to, too; I was never able to fight with my dad as a kid, 'cause I'd end up crying. My mom? No problem -- although if we're talking about something that's upsetting to me, like people or pet death or something, then the waterworks will happen, too.

I guess sometimes I'm just more of a girl than I want to acknowledge. :P

2008-10-21T15:12:00.001-04:00

Well, the default crab mode I've been in is somewhat improving, but slowly. I have days where I feel fine; then I have days where I'm just frustrated and upset by everything. I try not to get too upset, but I know comments have snuck out here and there.

I'm frustrated with our housing company, for one. They have requested showings of our place a few times during day hours; fortunately they seem to have gotten the hint that the DB and I WORK during STANDARD WORK hours, and are not available before 6 p.m. Sure, there are days that the DB is off during the week, but because they wouldn't let us out of our lease early (that is, if we gave notice September 15th, they would keep us in our lease until November 30th), our attitude is screw 'em.

So, they scheduled a showing while I was out of town; the tenant was a no-show, though the agent did turn up. No worries, it happens. They requested another showing last Friday at noon; when I said that wasn't possible, they offered up 7:30, and said the same agent would be present, and apologized for the no-show.

We did some cleaning and basic tidying up, and held off on dinner since we weren't starving. At 7:15, the doorbell rings, and it's the agent with a prospective tenant. The agent clearly knows nothing about our place -- I'm having to identify the fixtures and features that come with the house, she doesn't know where light switches are (understandable), but seems really ... not competent.

Then she mentions she has another appointment coming -- and a couple shows up to look around. Okay, no problem, I chatted with them about the house, the neighbourhood and so on. Then another woman comes, and looks fairly comfortable with the agent, so I assumed she was another employee of the housing company -- no, she was another prospective tenant. Away she goes with the agent... and then another couple comes for the tour.

In all, there were four appointments when we were only told of one, the agent was 15 minutes early (which to me was rude -- what if we had a prior engagement or went out to run an errand and weren't there when she arrived? Would she simply have let herself in, as the housing company had previous verified that the agent wouldn't need keys, since we were going to be present?), and she didn't know what was going on. She just struck me as ill-prepared and unprofessional.

For the record, we pretty much sat on the couch and kept to ourselves while everyone was wandering around. I kept watch over Thena and kept prompting people to push on the front door to shut it; it doesn't latch properly, and I didn't want it popping open. The agent tried to tell me that the final couple who came in had shut it behind them, when I could clearly see it was still open. I would have felt quite comfortable showing the place off myself, and when we looked at it it was the tenant who showed it to us -- I don't know why the need for an agent, but whatever.

The final couple to come through had a baby, and we offered to let them leave her downstairs with us while they explored (she was in a car seat, and they can be somewhat cumbersome). They declined, saying she'd cry (and I said that we'd understand if they preferred not to). The agent then asked where our little one was, saying that she noticed toys around the house.

For the record, the toys are clearly cat toys; catnip bags, balls with bells in them, feathers with a stick on them, and so on. Not to mention, there is no nursery in our townhouse: there is a master bedroom, office with two computer desks, and a spare bedroom with a double bed and a shelving unit. There are no cribs, playpens, diaper pails, changing tables, plastic children toys, or anything that would appear to indicate the presence of a child... and having been through the house with prospective tenants *three* times already, she should have realized this fact.

And finally... the other thing I discovered about our house that cheezed me off about our rental company involves our rent. When we started leasing the place, rent was $1295/month plus utilities. A few months before I lease was up for renewal, we got a lease renewal package that showed our rent was due to go up to $1313/month (plus utilities). I was nosy and checked out the listing on the rental company's website for our place -- new tenants come in at $1295/month plus utilities.

Struck me as awfully douche-y of them...

2008-10-17T13:38:00.001-04:00

Okay, so in the end I didn't end up posting anything to LJ. Maybe I shall, but my mood appears to have improved somewhat for now. I still have issues that will need to be addressed, but there's an awful lot going on in the meantime already.

I've definitely enjoyed having things be quiet for the last while at work, what with the election and all. I was working on analyzing a lot of the coverage, so for a change I felt moderately informed as to all of the party platforms. Of course, that got somewhat derailed when I took off for a week for the funeral stuff, but for the most part, I felt good heading into the polling stations.

It's completely predictable how your priorities change when you're going in to vote at various periods in your life. Even when I was a full-time undergrad, I rolled my eyes a little at the students protesting tuition hikes; after all, it's that much worse if you're attending school in an unsubsidized place (like the U.S.), and every student is poor, broke, and so on. Students that aren't working or paying their own way only have so much of a leg to stand on, in my judgemental opinion.

Now that I'm old and crabby, my priorities have turned more towards household taxes and the cost of living in my city. The DB and I were lying in bed the other night, talking politics, and he pointed out how we were showing our age.

Anyhow, in lieu of actually continuing this stalled train of thought, I'm going to post another picture. This image is the one my housing management company uses to showcase the master bedroom in our current place. As you can see, it really helps show you the dimensions of the room, the features such as the ceiling fan, walk-in closet and window overlooking the street (and no, I don't know why this file name includes 'wince'):

2008-10-16T11:28:00.001-04:00

I needed that.

Yesterday was rough. I was morose, I was annoyed, I was frustrated, I was definitely not wanting to spend the night hanging around the house.

I had to return some DVDs and the weather was good, so shortly after I got home, I went out on the motorcycle. I planned on just cruising around afterwards, maybe stopping someplace for dinner -- no real plans. When I finished my errand, I found a text message from JR telling me about plans to go out and celebrate RJ's last day in the city. The weather held out, so I joined up with everyone and had fun.

It was a small group, but contained people whose company I enjoy and hadn't seen in awhile, so it was perfect, and I left in better spirits.

On a separate note... I understand people who become stressed from school, work, home life, etc. I suffer from it as well (although apparently my body likes to demonstrate its stress through things like acne breakouts -- thanks body!). Sometimes I have a shorter temper and snap at people, but I do try to apologize when it happens. Most of the time, I get told not to worry about it.

That said... if you spend literally months on end snapping at people, being short-tempered and drinking to deal with your stress? Maybe you need to re-evaluate your coping mechanisms. It's not fair to put your issues on others' shoulders, and people will quickly get fed up and possibly cut you out of their lives, stop inviting you out, whatever, as a result.

Just a complaint I've been holding on to for awhile. I have some relationship-related stuff to post, but I think that's going to be saved for LJ. Though as an amusing side-note (okay, amusing to me):

I wore my cupcake underwear for the wedding we attended in Wawa. The DB gave me a hard time about it, saying I could've worn my fancy-lacy underwear or some such -- 'cause after all, everyone's underwear gets examined at a wedding for appropriateness (also, I should point out that the only time he says or used to say anything about my underwear is when the bra and underwear don't match -- which they never do, as I'm a rebel like that).

So, not only did I wear my cupcake underwear to the wedding, but I wore them as well to my grandfather's funeral (and yes, I washed them in between this) -- and after the funeral and the condolence-line, I discovered that my fly had been open the whole time. I'm the model of appropriate behaviour at funerals... flipping off my dad at Puppy's funeral, telling my mom to stop hitting on me at this one... I'm awesome.

2008-10-15T10:21:00.001-04:00

I wish it were possible for me to just turn off my brain and/or get over things, I really do. I'm not much of one for astrology, but there are certain aspects to both of my signs (I'm born on the cusp, and have traits from both Leo and Virgo) that seem to affect my brain sometimes -- and seem to apply to a friend of mine, R, that shares my Virgo side as well.

It seems to get worse as I get older; either that, or the many years of being on the pill have affected me. Quite possibly it's a combination of the two.

It's almost funny to me how I can practically chart what issues will arise and overtake my brain and when. Oh look! It's approximately a week before I come off this cycle of pills, time to obsess over issue X.

And the greater challenge to all of this? Dating someone who feels that discussing issue X once or twice means that it has been covered and since there's really nothing new to say about it, we don't need to keep talking about it.

But my style is different. I talk things through to understand them, or I write about them (publicly or privately) to figure them out, either through the input of another or just through reasoning it through on my own. From my perspective, if there hasn't been a solution or an explanation for issue X that I can understand, then it's not resolved and it's going to keep nagging at me.

Sure, sometimes even if there has been a resolution it may come up again, but I can either recant that resolution for myself and move on, or if something new has arisen, I can return to the issue and hopefully resolve it once more.

And yes, I overthink things and I keep thinking of things after they've possibly been concluded for their other party(/ies). That's just how I am, unfortunately. Sometimes it works to my advantage, but sometimes it just means I dwell on things longer than perhaps I ought. See above: I'd love to just dismiss it and move on, but for some issues, particularly if I haven't seen a resolution to them, voilà, I can't.

*sigh* Add in a healthy dose of insecurity that likes to crop up now and again, and you have a great party in my head.

And so I resolve to myself to just not bring it up anymore, but that doesn't really work, either. Sometimes I'll bring it up, hoping for an explanation I can understand, but get nothing in return -- because of course, we've talked about it previously, and there's nothing new to say. I know in the past I've been frustrated by conversations that keep coming up and have no new aspects (hell, I still go through some of those with exes), but at the same time, I feel sometimes as though the answer I'm getting is nothing more than, 'Just because,' which really doesn't help me any -- and at least I try to provide more than that.

Maybe I don't succeed, I don't know. Sometimes, certainly, we can't give any better answer than 'it just is' -- but sometimes that's all the answer I've given to someone because I didn't want to chance hurting their feelings by saying more. I guess I fear that that's the case in this situation, even if 99 of the other 100 clues are saying otherwise.

It's a great party in my head, I'm telling you.

2008-10-14T15:20:00.001-04:00

Well, I'm now back from the funeral and associated joys that such an occasion brings.

Observations? Well, at several times during the trip down and time there, I could've cheerfully tossed various family members out of moving cars or available windows. Ah, how stress benefits us all.

Otherwise, life carries on as per usual. I have nothing really to report -- I did have some ideas for a posting earlier today or yesterday, but now I've forgotten it completely. As usual, my cats are adorable, my boyfriend is pretty solid (when he isn't driving me nuts), and I haven't had nearly enough sleep to be coherent in any way, shape or form.

Not to mention, I appear to be riding a full-out babble lately. Fun for everyone around me, I'm sure.

I also appear to have developed narcolepsy, or I'm having a delayed reaction to the fun of the last week. Saturday I passed out on the plane immediately after finishing a cup of coffee, Sunday I passed out mid-can of pop, and yesterday I passed out before dinner... but after a few glasses of wine, so I can be forgiven.

The DB and I made the trip to lascivious Wawa, Ontario last weekend, a trip to rival the debauchery to be had in Las Vegas, for the wedding of one of his good friends from high school and thereafter. I keep raving about how nice and friendly everyone was, and what a good time I had, and it's true. Sure, I was a tad extra-goofy because of the full bottle of wine I had with my meal and the reception, but for the most part, I geniunely wasn't horrendously drunk, just happily so -- but it lead to gems such as the following:

Oh, I am indeed one classy broad.

2008-10-06T11:42:00.002-04:00

2003:

End of May, Greg and Madeleine get married. I find out at the wedding that a good family friend died. That week, I graduate university, attend his funeral, and then go to my cousin Sally's wedding. (So that makes two weddings and a funeral in one week).

2008:

Beginning of October, DB's friends get married. I find out on the way home from the wedding that my (paternal) grandfather has died. This weekend, my cousin Colleen, Sally's younger sister, is getting married. So if I hadn't already declined to attend Colleen's wedding (for other reasons), I could once again be going to two weddings and a funeral in one week.

If either of those cousins divorces and remarries, I'm not going to the second marriage.

Either my mom or dad seemed to be saying that I could still choose to go to the wedding, but since I've already changed my attendance from "yes" to "no," I don't think it would be kind of me to say "yes" again.

Plus, going to a wedding after a funeral? Not fun. Did it once, don't want to do it again. Also, would rather just come home and hang out with the kitties afterwards instead of hanging around the Maritimes until my folks were done and ready to go -- especially when I don't have the time off to do the second (as it is, I'm taking this week off for the travel/funeral stuff).

*sigh* My dad's family likes to die at Thanksgiving -- my grandma died at Thanksgiving in 2001, her brother died at Thanksgiving a few years ago, and now my grandpa has died at the same time of year. Add on top of this that my Puppy (mom's dad)'s birthday is next week (and he died about a year and a half ago, not at Thanksgiving), and my aunt (dad's sister)'s birthday is also next week (she's not dead), and this is a wonky time of year for the family.

Also, I had a long car ride home from Moe's friend's wedding yesterday, feeling nauseated the whole time for reasons I don't know (though I'm blaming the Timmy's breakfast sandwich), and we're doing a long car ride to the Maritimes tomorrow, and I'm just glad I have a good boyfriend, understanding boss, and snuggly kitties -- Thena's nuzzling me as I write, or was.

So, how have you guys been? Keeping the place tidy, I hope?

2008-10-01T22:30:00.003-04:00

For all that I'm outspoken and often confident in my beliefs, as unpopular as they may at times be, there is still so much I keep to myself and don't share.

And sometimes... I just want to yell it to the heavens.

Other times, I do say it, and I just don't seem to get heard -- so what's the point in saying it?

Though it does make me wonder just what I'm not picking up on.

2008-09-22T23:00:00.003-04:00

As may be expected from my research for my masters' paper, I've been doing a lot of reading of articles about Spike, Spike and Buffy's relationship, and other related themes.

First, I'll acknowledge that, given the nature of the material and the sources I'm using (a lot of material from Slayage Online, the International Journal of Buffy studies), there's a very incestuous nature to that which I'm reading; authors cite one another fairly regularly, and some quotes turn up in more than a few publications. This is both a benefit and a negative -- benefit because it means I'm getting a pretty good notion that I'm doing a good job of covering the field; negative because sometimes it'd be nice to hear new voices (and I have found some as I've read more). Another positive is the possibility that I could be contributing to what is a fairly small group. This will eventually help me in my quest to become e-famous, such as it is (non-existent).

Anyhow, what has come up a few times is the idea that Spike attempted to rape Buffy in season 6 because audiences were becoming too supportive of his relationship with Buffy and were too sympathetic to him as a character. Now, I am in no way condoning, supporting, embracing or any other positive label-ing the attempted rape. I am a firm believer that even if you are at the moment of penetration, and the girl then says no, you are to respect her wishes and stop. Period, full stop, etc. Let me just get that out of the way. I will readily admit to having rape fantasies -- I think there's nothing wrong with this and it represents a healthy sexual fantasy. I was sickened and disgusted by the rape scene in Showgirls (I'll admit it, I watched it), which convinced me that I wasn't twisted or wrong with my rape fantasies, that I really was against rape.

I'm also well-aware of the murky grey area that exists in the land of, "Well, I didn't say no... but I didn't really want to" in sexual relationships, because an unfortunate number of my own experiences have fallen under that uncertain region. Would I say I was raped? No. Would I say I had sex against my will? Yes. It's a difficult distinction to make, and one I'm not always sure everyone understands (can I be potentially sexist and say men don't understand? I'm not sure; I'm guilty of not always being able to understand men in the same manner I feel I understand women, so I'll hesitate from officially making that declaration, but I'm not erasing it at the moment).

Anyhow, to get myself away from all of my conditions and caveats, my original point are as follows -- even as someone who is opposed to rape and so on, I was able to feel sympathy for Spike in the context in which the rape was presented. There've been two excellent articles I've just read by Gwyn Symonds, "Solving Problems With Sharp Objects": Female Empowerment, Sex and Violence in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and "Playing more soul than is written: James Marsters' performance of Spike and the Ambiguity of Evil in Sunnydale, that discuss the rape scene and re-present it in ways that I was trying to mentally articulate and couldn't. (It's cases such as these that depress me as a scholar/writer). The first article illustrates how the scene is filmed and talks of the different camera cuts, angles, visuals, etc., as well as actors' deliveries and such that alternate viewers' sympathies between Buffy and Spike. As a sympathetic viewer and one who is admittedly, a Buffy/Spike Shipper (that is, supporter of the relationship), my sympathies were with Spike before, during and after the scene -- not for the actual actions, but I felt that Marsters' did such an excellent job of bringing Spike's motivations into the scene, that I couldn't help but.

That is to say, Spike was trying to show Buffy that she cared for him, and he knew that she felt it during their sex life -- so he was trying to bring back those emotions, draw them back out from her. Now, maybe it isn't fair of me to use this line of reasoning, as I'm sure that many disturbed individuals have done similarly, but as Symonds points out in her second article, viewers come to the show with a tremendous amount of media literacy, and we don't automatically condone the immoral actions of real-life people simply because we do so for characters on the screen. Certainly many viewers have felt that the murders or vengeance killings of characters in films and television shows was justified within the narrative frame of said show or film, but how many of us actively and/or routinely condone murders or vengeance kills in every day life?

And yet, my original point was not just this. My frustration in some part with the writers and producers that have gone on record about the attempted rape narrative arc, such as Marti Noxon and David Fury, because ultimately, as writers and producers, they form some of the responsibility for the growth and redemptive narrative arc of Spike. Spike was originally introduced as a disposable villain, and because of audience admiration and the talents of James Marsters, he was kept on, and continued to grow and evolve throughout the series (which forms the basis for my research paper). Now, other beloved characters that were introduced were disposed of -- Jenny Calendar, Tara, in some ways Jonathan -- and yet, even with fan complaints (as I'm sure there were), the storylines were there. I'm arguing that the writers and producers had the power to kill off Spike at any time. They could have kept him from growing as completely as they did, or evolving/reverting to a more human state. Certainly, he was the bad boy, the Big Bad, and I don't believe that someone who has spent two hundred years murdering people is necessarily good -- but we were to believe such of Angel, who did his fair share of murdering before his soul was restored to him. He certainly was merciless when his soul was once again removed.

What I find interesting was that, unless my memory fails me, even once Spike learned he could physically hurt Buffy after her return to Earth, he only did so in the one episode prior to their first sexual encounter; he could have killed her at any time and didn't, because he loved her and because he was on his way to remembering his humanity.

But it feels as though these writers and producers who are essentially defending or justifying the attempted rape scene are almost washing their hands of it at the same time -- like, "You guys were starting to like this character too much, you didn't realize that he's supposed to be this awful guy, so we're going to have him go out and try to rape Buffy... but no no, it's not our fault that you like him, even if we're giving him lines and motivations that make him nicer and more likable. Sure, we neutered him and rendered him incapable of harming humans. Sure, we made him kind of a pathetic little puppy stuck out in the cold. Sure, we made him start to do good because he wants to be accepted, good, and be, in his mind, worthy of Buffy's love. But it's not our fault that you guys like him! We'll have to change that!"

It's just... frustrating, and I have to wonder if it wasn't ultimately a lot of PR work to keep controversy high and viewers interested in the show, or what.

And yes, as you can see, I'm extremely relevant and topical in my choice of discussions. A show that ended five years ago is totally up-to-date to analyze and get worked up about.

2008-09-22T11:23:00.001-04:00

It’s interesting how quickly you can get up to speed on an issue when the need is there. I won’t claim at all to be an expert, but certainly, I’ve learned a lot.

About what? That information will come.

It’s also interesting getting into conversations with people and realizing that what you’re actually hearing is a lot of ignorance from sources you’d previously assumed were well-informed, or at least more so than you. I’ve learned a lot from observing people as I age, and realizing that some people I used to admire or respect for some subjects are actually not as intelligent about things or ways of going about things as I might’ve originally thought.

Which isn’t to say at all that I’m way up there in the smarty-pants realm; not by far. Just interesting to be able to go, ‘Wait a minute… you’re talking out your ass!’

Maybe I’m just crabby because I’ve been hearing my dad’s Forceful Voice a lot this past week. He seems to think that if he doesn’t use said voice, I don’t listen to him – though what he doesn’t always realize is sometimes he’s saying the exact same thing three different ways… or he’s been telling me the exact same thing every time we speak. I love my dad, and we get along well, but the fact that we have the same personality means that we tend to get frustrated with one another somewhat quickly – and probably explains why my mom sometimes seems to get frustrated with me faster than perhaps with my sister. Then again, I don’t necessarily see it first-hand, so maybe I’m just being whiny and resentful. ;)

The weather this weekend was actually rather nice for a change, so I was able to toss the cats outside. It worked well for Thena, who spent most of both afternoons out, but not as well for Venus. I spent much of Sunday bringing her feathers-on-a-stick toy, which is twice as long as her, downstairs to the DB (after she brought them from the basement to the upstairs where I was), or bringing her downstairs for him to play with, or just cuddling with her and talking to her. She was in crazy-suck mode, including flaking out on his lap while we watched television after supper.

Thena, on the other hand, was in protector mode this weekend. Sunday she had a neighbourhood cat 'trapped' under the deck; I say trapped in quotes because my two go out on harnesses and leashes, so their range is limited, and the cat wasn't at all at risk of a fight if/when she left. Saturday, I saw Thena poking at something on the deck, and when I went out to check on her later realized she had a giant dragonfly in her mouth. She wasn't actively chewing on it, but its two forward wings were a bit damaged, and she was really into poking at it and so on. I helped it escape.

Later, she was staring at what I think was a bee, and talking back to me when I was trying to explain that bees and wasps are not tasty bugs. I did tell her that spiders are quite delicious, but I'm not sure how convinced she is.

And finally, she was trying to figure out how to eat a crane fly that was on the inside of the screen door, while she was on the outside. My cats, they can be quite sweet, but aren't always that bright.

Although Thena is usually fairly well-behaved, crabby, jealous and demanding... while Venus is like dealing with a small, stubborn child.

2008-09-18T15:13:00.001-04:00

Urgh. I hate hate hate thinking about money. I’m not worrying about it so much – just trying to come up with ways to better manage it… and I keep thinking about all of the different ‘necessary’ expenses that repeat but aren’t daily or sometimes even monthly – haircuts, cat food, cat litter, birth control pills, and so on. Back to burying my head in the sand, I guess.

I opened up a zip.ca account the other day, and got my first disc in the mail yesterday – disc 1 of season 1 of Lois & Clark. I loved it when it first aired, and I had my crush on Dean Cain. My friend Quynh (whose name I can no longer remember how to properly spell) was in love with Jonathan Brandis, of SeaQuest DSV fame. I’m so going back to my marginally embarrassing childhood days.

It’s also interesting watching the show now, contrasted with other shows that I’ve been watching in heavier rotation – House, Firefly, CSI, and so on. It definitely shows its age via the special effects and the outfits, but I’m finding that’s the case even with the pacing of the show. Granted, at this point I’ve only re-watched the pilot and a bit of the second episode, but it’s odd to be in a position to watch it with this critical eye and mind, which I never thought I had… though a classmate laughed at me when I said as much.

Anyhow, time to run, but hopefully I shall have cool news to post shortly.

2008-09-17T14:54:00.003-04:00

Okay, short observation with an explanation.

As you may know, I'm doing my masters research paper on Buffy the Vampire Slayer; more specifically, I'm studying the bi-gendered nature of the character Spike and the hero's quest (as defined by Joseph Campbell) he undergoes throughout the series -- with possibly some observation of him as Buffy's Shadow (as defined by Carl Jung).

All of that to say, I'm reading a bunch of articles on the series, as well as some background stuff on Campbell, masculinity, etc.

All of that to say, this particular line in the article "Fan Readings of Sex and Violence on Buffy the Vampire Slayer," by Dawn Heinecken, amused me greatly:

"[Shippers, i.e., those that are fans of the Buffy/Spike relationship] interpret Spike's interaction with the Buffybot, his robot sex toy, as evidence of his concern for Buffy's pleasure, since his first act with it is to perform cunnilingus."

I'm both amused, and now that I'm thinking about going back to watch the episode again, kinda fairly aroused... My first draft of my thesis proposal involved talking about dildos; I'm wondering if I can manage to work cunnilingus into my actual research paper.

2008-09-11T23:02:00.003-04:00

I suppose I could continue my previous day's ruminations, but at the moment, I just don't have it in me.

I'm feeling a vague sense of dissatisfaction or unease or disquiet. It's hard to define it, and it's frustrating to be hit with it now, especially when I'm making some progress in other arenas. I guess as usual, I haven't had enough sleep, so I'm left with the crabby that often seems to accompany my day-to-day life.

I also learned recently that my caffeine intake has increased enough that I suffer when it decreases -- i.e., Saturday evening a migraine starts to take hold, and by Sunday it's in full-force. So Sunday I dope myself with some pills and a cup of coffee. Kinda sad, but it seems to do the trick.

Some of you may recall that I went to Vegas a little while ago. If I can give anyone advice, it's try not to go in August. It's hot there, and while I thought I could handle it, it was pretty draining. Even my feet were winding up in pain each day because they were becoming swollen from the heat and the walking, and my comfy sandals just weren't cutting it the way they usually do.

That said, it was pretty cool to go. We stayed in the Flamingo Hotel/Casino, and checked out pretty much every major casino along the Strip -- so now when I see movies or tv shows that feature the Strip, I recognize the buildings and can identify where they are and what they looked like inside.

We flew out of Toronto to save some money, and our flight down was direct -- leave around 9 a.m. EST, land around 11:30 Vegas time (I forget the time zone and I'm too lazy to check). 3 hours behind, 5 hourish flight, nothing too exciting about it. I always hate going through American customs, 'cause they make me feel like they seriously doubt I'm a government employee or something, and I feel like if I give the wrong job description, they'll toss me in a cell. That said, I passed without problems.

Flying back we had to transfer planes in Winnipeg. We left Vegas at 11 p.m. local time, landed in Winnipeg around 4:30 a.m. local time (so we're now one timezone behind Ontario), and then left Winnipeg around 6:00 a.m. to fly to Toronto for 9:30ish a.m. EST. Got that?

The DB and I did the best we could to sleep through the flight, but I kept waking up to pop my eardrums -- which are crazy sensitive to the pressure changes -- and because I was cold, uncomfortable, etc. I'm pretty zonked and feeling punchy, especially when there were only two/three customs agents processing people through (understandable, given the hour). I'm being more verbose than usual to help set the stage. Jen = tired, punchy, dumb.

I finally get up to the customs agent and present my declaration, passport, kidney, etc. The guy looks over my declarations (nothing right down the list), and asks if I have anything to declare. I say no, he asks why not.

I, in all of my brilliance and excellent sense of self-preservation, state that it's because I didn't win enough money to buy any drugs or guns.

Yes, I said it.

No, he didn't violate my bum.

Instead, he kinda laughed and said deadpan, good, I'll write that on here -- no drugs or guns. I thanked him and said that that would help me get processed faster. He said no, actually, it wouldn't.

And I'm still alive to tell the tale.

Moral? Probably not a good idea to fly with me on a red-eye. I'm dumb and I spend even less time thinking before speaking -- which is a scary thought in and of itself.

2008-09-09T21:39:00.002-04:00

I've been told by a few people (okay, two) recently that I need to blog more. So, here's the effort to do so.

The thing is, I don't often feel I'm especially funny in text. Off-the-cuff remarks, angry rants, sure, I seem to amuse that way. But in text? Much more challenging. I don't know, some people seem to relate to what I have to say, and goodness knows I like to hear myself speak -- metaphorically speaking.

I had coffee with the girlfriend of a high school acquaintance yesterday (how's that for unwieldy explanations?). She's commented on here a few times, so I don't feel too guilty if I use her name, Sarah. I'm trying to make this as simple as possible.

Anyhow, we had a good chat, covering all kinds of topics, including but not limited to relationships. I then had another conversation about relationships with a coworker today, so suffice it to say the subject matter's on my mind. Add this to one of the songs that came up on my playlist, and I figure I have a subject to discuss.

For those who are curious, the song was Cupid's Chokehold -- the singer is telling his dad about the girl he's in love with, and there's a line to the effect of "I know you've heard me say I've met The One before, but this time it's for real"; I can relate. I do think that his saying that his girl has her very own ringtone on his cell as an example of Tru Wuv is a bit goofy, but hey -- it's a song.

So, how do you know when you've met The One? And how do you remind your fingers where the characters are on a QWERTY keyboard when you work all day on a French keyboard and your muscle memory has both stuck in there. Kinda cool, makes me wonder how I'd do on a Dvorak keyboard, and is a slight deviation from the subject at hand.

Relationships. The One. Is there really a One for anyone, or do we end up just settling? Where do the compromises get made?

I have a number of friends in committed relationships of differing types: some are married; some are married in an open relationship; some are living together but not married; some are living together, not married, and don't plan on getting married; and some are in a long-term relationship but not living together. In essence, they cover the basic spectrum of heterosexual partnerships (yes, I'm limiting myself, but I just don't have that many gay friends at the moment, curse my luck).

I've always been open about my support for all kinds of different pairings, and I try to be honest about what would work for me. In the past, I was openly dating two guys at the same time; in the past, I was also not-openly dating two guys at the same time. In the present, I'm living with someone with whom I share a committed, monogamous relationship. I've also had friends with benefits.

I have found, through trial and error, that what works best for me, provided the relationship is good, is the situation in which I now find myself. However, in the past, when I was in relationships that weren't good, it was not unknown for me to ... alter the circumstances (see above re: not-openly dating two guys at the same time). In short, yes, I cheated. I don't condone it, I don't feel it was the best course of action at the time, but it was what it was and that was that.

The motivations behind the actions were varied, and often tied to sex (duh, right?). I had a lot of bad sex in my past. Unsatisfying, boring, with partners that couldn't seem to learn regardless of the direction, and so on. Sometimes, I was just looking for something different.

At one point, I discovered that someone that I was spending time with (who shall remain nameless, unless he wants to out himself), had similar kinky interests to my own, and we explored those together. I was open with the DB about my kinky interests (without going into gory details of who and what, a policy we've kept with regards to past relationships over all), and one evening on a drive home, he basically asked me if I was going to want an open relationship to allow me to explore my kinky interests, which he doesn't share.

Because the DB doesn't share these interests, an acquaintance who is kinky called him boring. I guess in that regard, he could be perceived as such. However, on the grand scale of relationships, one must weigh what one's priorities are in regards to said relationship -- and even on a personal level, how highly said priorities rate.

I was a fairly curious sexual adventurer, and as such tried a lot of different things. My overarching philosophy was always one of, "how can I know I don't like it unless I try it?" -- with some limitations for things that were simply a flat-out no from the start. Through trial-and-error I learned what I find to be a turn-on, and what I feel works best in fantasy.

Now, combine fantasy with my tendency to ... romanticize, for lack of a better word, elements of sex -- leaving out the awkward parts, the uncomfortable moments, or the times when I was just plain bored -- and I can come up with some pretty hot scenarios. Maybe my more kinky tendencies would be enjoyable were they to take place with the right person, someone I feel committed to, cared for by, in love with, whatever, but my experience taught me that a lot of it was just more enjoyable in my brain than in real life.

Lots of things were still very hot in real life, in case you're wondering.

So, do I want to go elsewhere to explore my kinky side? No, I really don't. Am I unhappy with my sex life? I have my grumbles of which the DB is aware, but overall, I'm pleased.

If we return to our original subject matter, the question of The One -- how do I feel about that? Do I believe there's one special person out there for each of us? I honestly don't know. I think there are a small number of people with whom we're compatible, and therein lies individual choices about the sacrifices or priorities we have to make.

For some people, smoking is a total deal-breaker, for example. For others, it's not a selling point, but it's tolerable, and the last group, it's irrelevant to their decision. Sex lives are also like this -- some people just don't have a large sex drive, whereas others do. Individuals have to determine for themselves whether they can tolerate having more or less sex than their own personal preference.

And now I've rambled enough that I feel I can get into some more salacious information without getting into too much trouble.

I've seen a number of my friends pair up. I readily admit that the aspects of the relationship I see will a) be coloured based on my worldview and/or knowledge of the couple/individuals; b) never be the full picture, even if I'm speaking to one member of the couple about the details of said relationship.

I can say this because we do have a tendency to complain more than we praise our partners, in general. And when we do tend to gush about our partners, it generally evokes something similar to a gag or vomit reflex in those unfortunate souls subjected to said gushing. I experienced this with a new hire at one place of business -- she went on about how her and her partner were SO in love (a direct quote) and how it was just as passionate as when they first started dating, etc., etc., complete with effusive hand gestures and the clasping of the hands to her ample bosom. I wish I was kidding. She was also only one year my junior. She was later mocked fairly mercilessly by myself and another who were subject to this display -- and it was shared and reenacted for others. I've never claimed to be especially nice, particularly when I'm being egged on by others with similar opinions.

So yes, it can be challenging to speak in glowing terms on a regular basis about our chosen victims. Especially because ultimately we're all human and we do get on one another's nerves. I've lived with the DB for nearly a year now, and there are plenty of times that we piss one another off -- do notice I said that's mutual behaviour. And sometimes, we feel the need to vent about our partner's behaviour(s) to sympathetic ears. Sometimes, said sympathetic ears may get the wrong impression of our significant others, and may start to question just what it is that you, the complainer, sees in such an aggravating person -- so venting can require balance.

Or, the sympathetic ear has to weigh the complaints and the frequency of complaints if they're going to say something. Some sympathetic ears simply recognize that they're only getting one small piece of the puzzle, made grander by the immediacy of the frustration, and say nothing. That said, some people are more inclined to take sides and, especially if they are only ever hearing one side of the complaining, refuse to believe that the person being complained about has any redeeming qualities. Not that I'm bitter at all, no, of course not. Good riddance to that so-called friend, certainly.

There are some complaints that warrant action or concern -- namely, abuse. Physical, mental, emotional, even abuse of pets or children in place of the partner; these are major concerns. I have a male friend who related to me an instance when his girlfriend attempted to throw a lamp at his head -- I told him to get out and not look back. I listened to him attempt to explain the situation, tell me how his girlfriend was being overly emotional and didn't mean it, etc., etc., and I asked him what he'd tell me if this situation was playing out in reverse. Sure, maybe I was being too cut-and-dried, maybe she really was affected by medication she was on and all that, but seriously -- if someone tries to throw a lamp at your head, it may be time to rethink the relationship.

I have another male friend who used to relate to me domestic tales that were extremely overwrought and over dramatic and so on. I used to ask how things were going in crazytown, and other equally supportive questions (I'm a peach). He once told me that yes, while his partner was crazy, she wasn't as crazy as his past partners, so it was good. Again, let's change this up a little -- if someone tells me that yes, their partner is abusive, but not as abusive as their past partners, I'm not sure I'm telling them that this relationship is an improvement. And yes, here was a case where I was definitely only getting one side of the story and in select pieces, but... I've never claimed to lack for opinions. And contrary to popular belief, I share only a fraction of them.

Oh yeah, people would have trouble in my head. :/

Sometimes, opinions are formed just from exposure to or general knowledge of the couple. Even in long-term relationships, outsiders can form and share the opinion that the people in the couple either aren't meant to be together or just shouldn't be -- either because of how they interact as a couple, or maybe from genuine dislike of one half of the couple. Sometimes people stay together or take steps together because it's the next thing to do on the Grand Checklist of Life -- and not because they should take those steps together. Sometimes this results in divorce shortly after marriage; sometimes it shouldn't even result in marriage.

But once again, those are outsiders looking in. I've witnessed couples who interacted as though they were barely more than passing acquaintances -- how was I to know how they acted together in private? In this instance, they pretty much hadn't had sex together in two years (and this was maybe a 2 1/2 year relationship), but for all I knew they swung from the chandeliers the minute everyone else left. I've had boyfriends who didn't care to kiss in front of others, who didn't hold my hand, who would grab my boobs in front of my friends... I've witnessed couples who probably would've had sex in front of me if I was okay with it. I know of one couple where the guy masturbated the girl to orgasm behind their friend who was using the computer; there are couples who don't even like to acknowledge to others the frequency of their sexual encounters.

My point being, sure, I can and routinely do form opinions on relationships, and maybe I'm completely correct in my belief that said couple isn't meant to be together -- but in the end, what I know amounts to a pile of very little, no matter how verbosely I may say it.

And you know what? I think I'm going to continue this mental diarrhea on another occasion. While I do have a point, and I'm trying to get at it, the little bastard seems particularly elusive this evening -- and I think I want to do a bit of reading before bed.

2008-09-02T16:34:00.000-04:00

Oh, life, how you do get in the way of things.

I’ve noticed a difference in energy or somesuch to the regular bus route vs. the express route in the morning. The days when I miss the express and have to take the regular route, I feel slightly out of sorts when I get to work, as if everything is just slightly out of whack for me. It wasn’t really the case at my previous job, where the regular route was the bus I took more often, but now… now it’s almost palpable some mornings.

I had my birthday last week, and I am now older. Woohoo. Life is going on, and in some ways it’s good and in other ways, not so much. I feel as though, career-wise, maybe I should be further ahead of where I am now, or maybe my promotion should’ve happened sooner. Well, it probably should’ve happened sooner, but I have some bad managers to thank for that. No matter, I’ve moved on and I’m in a better situation.

School-wise, I’m still dragging my ass. I’m plotting my next degree before I’ve even finished this one, and that’s not particularly wise, especially given the debtload I’m carrying; better than some, worse than others. I just hate money and stressing about money.

Lately I have had several people with whom I haven’t spoken in awhile get in touch with me to request hang-outs. I spent some time Friday night with Stefan and Matt, while the DB recovered from a mild concussion at home. No, I didn’t give it to him, though I have since threatened to poke him in the soft spot on his head when he gives me trouble.

I had an appointment today with a career counselor who told me that my values for work include security, creativity, and a good working environment. The security part comes as a bit of a surprise in a way; we never struggled for money when I was growing up (or rather, not that my parents made obvious to my sister and I), and I’ve never really had to do without, yet I’m terrified of being unemployed and would freak out if I had no idea where the next job or paycheque was coming from. It’s been that way for years, and I have no real explanation for it, but there it is.

As for the other two, they weren’t as surprising; I like to be creative in my work, and I work best within certain boundaries, which is probably where I’m struggling with the research paper work – there are almost no boundaries imposed upon me, so I’m at loose ends. When I know in advance what the expectations are, or what the need is I’m to meet, it’s easier for me. Probably in part why this poor blog languishes for periods of time. :) As far as needing to have a good working environment, well, I think that’s a pretty human trait. I don’t think anyone should have to suffer through bad working conditions, and contrary to what the Insane Narcissistic one thought, I fully believe in working for my pay, benefits, privileges, etc.

2008-07-30T15:44:00.002-04:00

Today is one of those days that just drags on and on. It's difficult in a new position, where you don't always know how to fill your days -- or you don't always have enough to fill them -- and you feel as though your time would be better served elsewhere, studying or reading or cleaning or sleeping or exercising or whatever. Instead I'm just making plans for things to buy after work -- some more wool for some projects I'm doing and hoping to take with me to Vegas, and possibly some exercise equipment.

It's funny how set in my ways I can be on some things. I first noticed this several years ago when I moved out on my own -- sure, my place was cluttered and untidy, but I knew where everything was, and I got irritated with my then-boyfriend when he'd leave cupboards open, or stuff in places where it didn't belong.

In my second place, I got irritated with my then-boyfriend (he of Smooshy fame) for leaving dishes anywhere and everywhere in my apartment, or not cleaning up after himself, and so on. Again, sure, my place was cluttered and somewhat dirty, but at least I knew where to find things and I didn't have to worry about cats getting into dirty dishes or whatnot. I felt for his roommates; he'd leave pots, pans or whatever in his room for ages at a time, and I'm not sure how often he washed his sheets -- what *is* it with guys and not changing their bed sheets?

Anyhow, here I am in my third place, and officially leaving with someone, as in both of our names on the bills (well, wherever they allow this -- fucked up systems for some billing places), the lease, and an apparently equal division of labour, and I still have to restrain myself from taking over some tasks because I believe my way is the right way. The best part about him is that he feels that his way is the right way, so he can be just as stubborn as I about things and believe it or not, I like that.

I like someone who will stand up to me and stand up for himself. It's so refreshing to be sharing in the responsibilities and the power, because I know that I can have a steamroller personality (I've admitted as much many times on here), and I need someone that will tell me if I'm being unfair or selfish or whatever -- and he's never done any of that, because we compromise.

That said, I'm now responsible for laundry, which is how I want it. It means I have to do it a bit more often because he has fewer clothes than I (shut up, he wears a uniform 5-7 days a week, I don't), but that's fine. I'm just bad at folding/putting it away, but I don't usually fold his.

I do the bulk of the cooking, which I usually don't mind, and we take turns buying that day's groceries. It can be frustrating at times though when I'm waiting on him to cook or it's his day off so he doesn't want to go to the store and wants me to go for him -- then I can get resentful.

But again, compromise comes into play. I'm not easy to live with, and I know that; I leave things lying around a lot (because then I know where to find them again!), and I don't do the dishes the instant I dirty them (not that he does that nearly as much anymore), and I have a thousand different kinds of lotions, body washes, hair care products and books. He thinks I have too much stuff, I think he can be wasteful when it comes to food (rarely eats leftovers, bread products are often left to go bad, have thrown out meat because he didn't freeze it or cook it in time).

I get cranky when he claims I don't do something just because he doesn't notice it -- like cleaning the bathtub, which gets full of cat hair because the cats like to drink water out of it or go through it to get into the window. Or when he says I never use up the assorted hair care products or whatever that I have on hand. I have skin issues that require experimenting for what works best, and rotation based on the season and so on. I'd love to use the same thing year-round.

But hey, that's what relationships are about. As I said to K and H a few weeks ago, it's been in this relationship that I finally understood how you can be furious or insanely frustrated with someone, yet still want them around and all of that. Or maybe I'm just passive-aggressive. But it's also been the first relationship I can remember where I wasn't making a list in the back of my head of all the 'can't accept this' behaviours that eventually reaches the 'time to break up' cut-off point. It could be just because I'm growing, but I like to think it's because I'm dating someone right for me, despite his faults and frustrations.

I've certainly never felt inclined to hit him with my shoe, like with the previous guy, even when he's been driving me nuts. I just give his crabby right back at him.

Anyhow, none of this is especially important or driven by anything, just me musing and reflecting for the sake of it -- and trying to keep myself from stuffing my face. I've been feeling off the last few days, and I'm wondering if perhaps my blood sugar is out of whack.

Time for a bit more granola, I think... and only about 20 minutes until I get to go.

2008-07-29T10:31:00.002-04:00

Well, nuts to you former manager, but my promotion came through and is official as of July 17th (yeah, I'm slow at updating).

You know what this means? This means that someone who met me once, for a 20-minute interview, was willing to make more concessions than someone who managed me for nearly 3 years (about 6 months of that was under the useless twit). I had another interview within my former organization at the same time, where they were willing to send me for french training to get my oral french up to C level -- another concession I know would never have crossed your mind in a million years, especially as I had coworkers who couldn't get sent for training despite having been on the list for years.

It's so nice to work for someone consistent and rational, someone whose decisions last longer than it takes one to fart.

Anyhow, enough about work, I have four days of work left until I'm on vacation. The DB and I are going to visit his folks for a day or two, then drive to Toronto to fly to Vegas. Yes, this trip has been announced to all and sundry for quite some time, and no, we're not going to get married -- or if we are, it's news to me. A friend of the DB's is getting married on 08/08/08, and we were invited, so we're making a roughly 5-day trip out of it.

We're staying at the Flamingo, and I was checking out the hotel online; there's a spa, a wildlife section, a pool, and a gym, so it sounds pretty good to me. You can even rent cabanas to watch tv by the pool at roughly $150/pop -- I don't understand why you'd bother, but what do I know about luxury?

I'm just looking forward to getting away. Last week was a long, brutal one, and isn't the norm for a lowly peon like myself. I'm sure there will be more of them, but it's still draining, especially when you're not really expecting it. I did have a nice mani/pedi session with K on the Monday, and though I destroyed my manicure before evening leaving the salon, it was nice at least to have a professional shape my nails for me, a task to which I am ill-suited. I make a terrible girl.

I'm stressed about school and finances, which is nothing new. My finances are in decent shape, it's not as though I'm going broke, but I do still have at least one more semester of school to pay for, and I have my bike insurance now due. Fortunately I was able to save some of my tax return to cover it -- despite the DB's attempts to spend it.

As for school, I sent in my revised paper proposal, I got comments back, I haven't read them yet. Much like checking my bank balance, I figure what I don't know can't hurt me. I never thought I'd grow up to be in denial to this extent, but there you have it. I'm a chicken.

I'm also fairly boring, though I do often think about things to post. Some of my friends are getting to be more active again in their posting, so I figure I should do the same, especially when I have friends tell me they like to read what I write because I'm blunt and honest.

I had a post on my LJ (pretty much tied to my last emo post here) that prompted a girly session a few weeks ago, which was nice and supportive. The long and short of it is that there's often stuff I don't post here because I don't want to admit to people that something's wrong, or that something's upsetting me, either because I don't want to colour how they view things, or because I don't want to admit to something that feels like failure to me, even if rationally I know it isn't.

2008-07-22T18:48:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I worked from 8:00 a.m. until 5:15, was getting emails on my blackberry until 7, and responded to emails until about 7:30 (I was only able to get to them as of about 7, and I only responded to a few).

Today, I was in at 8, and it's now 10 to 7 and I'm about to leave. I like being busy, but... wow. :D

2008-07-14T10:54:00.001-04:00

I really wish I could turn off this over-analytical, paranoid mind of mine sometime. I suspect I’d be happier and better rested.

I also wish I could stick to goals I set, be they completing a knitting project, exercising more, reading for school, writing or even cleaning. At least I got through all the laundry on the weekend – so long as folding it doesn’t count.

In other news, my appointment has been posted, and barring any objections between here and the end of the week, I will have (FINALLY) been promoted. It may not be the prompt ‘nuts to you’ I had been hoping for, but it’s better than nothing – and it certainly never would have happened in my past role.

I have to say, it can be very challenging dating someone who feels that talking about an issue once or twice is sufficient, even if it’s a problem – at least for one of you – that seems to come up semi-regularly (or at least, that’s when I end up obsessing about it). There are times I don’t even bother raising my concerns anymore because I’m fairly certain all I’ll get is a “we’ve talked about this before” in response, which admittedly is a fair response, even if it doesn’t resolve anything more.

Sure, life would be easier if I just learned to let go and stop over-thinking things, but I don’t want to be unhappy, and I don’t want to go around in a delusional state thinking everything is fine until one day it’s not and it’s simply too late. So, where’s the middle ground?

Maybe it really is with therapy, like my gf M suggested, and which I’ve also considered. Goodness knows I don’t know how else to express myself, or if there are other ways of looking at it that I haven’t considered. I see things from my perspective, so automatically I’m biased. And I’m frustrated, because part of me doesn’t want to acknowledge that this is frustrating and making me unhappy, or tell others that there are problems. I also get frustrated that I have friends who’ve said in the past, “we should all be able to talk about this stuff, so that we might be able to help one another,” yet it seems as though any attempts I’ve made to bring up the subject go nowhere. And I’m sorry, but I’m not willing to have one-sided conversations of that nature – I feel there should be balance, and it should be equal or relatively equal sharing, not just me off-loading and that’s that. After all, I have the internet ether for that.

And I’m continuously frustrated by the state of my body. I am fat, and I don’t like the way I look naked, and I can’t help but think that I’m not the only one that feels that way (although I don’t think I’ve actually gained much if any weight in the last year, so yay at least on that). I keep making resolutions, and I don’t think I’m eating *that* poorly – I make a fruit smoothie for breakfast most mornings, and I often have celery and peanut butter as my afternoon snack (though I forgot to pack it this morning). I’m trying to snack on melba toasts and other reasonable snacks when I am hungry, and I know, I need more vegetables.

I also need to get moving, and I think I just need to get out of the house and get me time, so that’s what I’m going to be trying to do. I can mope about and feel the way I’ve been feeling, or I can try to do something about it, and I’m choosing the second option. I just wish I didn’t feel … all of this.

2008-07-01T15:56:00.001-04:00

Happy Canada Day my peeps!

2008-06-26T09:21:00.001-04:00

I can’t decide if my advancing years are making me more conservative, or they’re just bringing out my feminist side. Maybe, it’s neither – and it’s simply a measure of my strengthening character that allows me to recognize stupidities and address them.

See, I’m a big fan of fark.com. I think the site is a great deal of fun, the stories are often quite interesting, and it’s great to see other people recognize the same absurdities or stupidities in the news or stories that I sometimes see (the DB gets annoyed with me when I’m in one of those particular moods, and wind up telling off all of the commercials).

I’m also a member of totalfark, which is the paid membership area that allows you access to all kinds of ridiculous conversational threads, and some genuinely helpful advice. I’ve gone for computer solutions on a few occasions, and the other members are a great resource, if you can take the snark in stride (sometimes more, sometimes less).

But, like any internet community, there can be a real downside. And of course, I recognize that some people create persona for themselves online, and they get to pretty much role play a character that isn’t their own, and I can respect that. The problem, however, arises when the misogyny gets so thick you can choke on it – and that seems to happen regularly, even in threads that start out having nothing to do with gender relations.

As one example, there was a news-masquerading-as-an-ad article recently (yeah, I read Drew Curtis’ book, and this article personifies said category), wherein a young girl was being promoted as the next J.K. Rowling, based on nothing but her publicists’ hype – the book hadn’t even had a release or anything else, it was all hyperbole to try to drum up advance excitement about the book and get people out to buy it. However, aside from a few commenters focusing on the article’s stupidity, most of the posters were all about whether or not they’d hit the girl – sleep with, that is. The thread degenerated (if I may say so) into a discussion of the girl’s looks, and nothing more.

Now sure, I’m petty enough that I can enjoy this when they’re doing it to celebrities I dislike, but at the same time, I recognize that it’s just kinda sick. Normally I ignore it, or I stop reading the thread, but that day, it just really started to depress me.

I recognize that human beings judge one another based on looks pretty much 100% of the time. I did it when I started my new job – saw all of the attractive people here, all the girls/women who weigh next to nothing, and felt a little envious. I like to think that I don’t treat someone differently if they don’t fit my personal notion of what constitutes attractive, but speaking realistically, I’m sure on some level I do. I’m sure I get treated differently for the same reasons, and that’s just human nature.

But… to be solely reduced to whether or not I’m fuckable is just depressing. Yet I was on many dating sites for a long time, and I’m sure that was the main basis for whether many of the guys contacted me – would they fuck me. Sure, I chose whether or not I would respond to the guys based on whether or not I found them attractive, but interesting ranked up there just as highly. If I couldn’t have a conversation with them, I couldn’t be arsed to continue talking to them.

But I’m drifting. I was not a particularly attractive child. I was fairly shy (shut up, I still very much can be), I was smart, I was insecure, my best friend became one of the pretty, popular ones, and I got picked on – which totally helped the insecurity, I tell you. I wasn’t into sports, and I was always a bit bigger than many of my friends – or maybe I weighed the same as them, but because I was short, it was more noticeable.

Whatever, that was then, right? Now, I’m older, I’m smarter, I’m usually less shy, I’m fairly attractive though definitely not by society’s standards, I’m insecure, I’m not that into sports, and I’m still not in shape – in fact, I can definitely stand to lose weight now. I’ve had people comment that they’re impressed by my self-confidence, but so much of it is put on that I don’t always know where I end and the fake begins.

But it seems to work. In some situations, like job interviews, I have lots of confidence. At work? Well, I have a lot more now that I’m out from under my last boss’ thumb. In my personal life, I’ve been with a great guy for over a year, and it looks like it’s going to carry on being just as strong a relationship as it has been, and that’s great.

And yet… some of my biggest insecurities have come out while we’ve been together. It seems as though the more I like someone, the more insecure I get when I’m with them. How does that make sense? I guess it’s a byproduct of caring – if I care about losing them or whatever, then I’m more paranoid about things.

That said, I do trust the DB, and ultimately, I’m not concerned that he’s going to leave me or cheat on me or any of those things. I’m just apparently rather analytical, and I know I overthink things, and that gets me to where I am now.

I wasn’t a pretty popular girl in elementary school or high school. I have never been overly concerned about fashion, and I definitely don’t have the ‘ideal’ body – too much stomach, hips and thighs. I’ve been told by one ex- that a great deal of my attractiveness stems from my personality – I’m reasonably certain he meant it as a compliment. For the most part, I like my personality and I like who I am.

But sometimes, when I’m surrounded by skinny people, or attractive people, or bombarded with things like that fark thread, I get depressed, and I get frustrated, and the self-doubts and the insecurities come out. I know it’s unrealistic, but sometimes I want that romantic ideal I’ve read so much about, where I am someone’s everything, and they are my everything.

And sometimes I have to back up and short of shake out my brain. Why? Because while I can find someone else attractive or interesting or smart or funny or whatever, I still want to come home to the DB. Why should I assume he feels differently? Perhaps because in my past I dated guys for whom I was a convenience instead of a desired partner. Of course, throw in the strip club lapdance debate and my insecurity level rises exponentially, but…

I don’t know. I know I have unrealistic desires, but that’s the joy of being rational and emotional – my emotions want one thing, and my brain keeps telling them they’re being ridiculous. Like, I’d love it if I could be somewhere where women – or people in general – didn’t have their hittability factor as paramount.

*sigh* I don’t know where I’m going with all of this. At this point, I think I’m just rambling incoherently.

Anyhow, life is still good-ish. Some stress about school, some waiting on job news… otherwise, it carries on. Though I think I finally got my phone working fully, so that’s nice.

2008-06-10T11:05:00.001-04:00

Hokay. Time for a life update before I get into the introspective emo stuff.

First, a few weeks ago, the DB and I visited his little nephew, and nephew’s parents (i.e., his brother and sister-in-law). We had a lovely visit, the nephew, aged a whole 3 ½ weeks at the time, was very cute and very easy-going, and I spent lots of time, along with everyone else, holding him and talking stupid to him, and all of that. The DB’s parents were also present (Mamère and Papère were very happy to see their first grandchild), and Papère said to DB at one point that he’d best watch out – this was upon seeing me with little nephew sleeping on my chest while I was stretched out on the couch. I assured him that my biological clock only ticks about once a year at this point, and while yes, it was ticking now, there was no strong urging going on. Babies are cute, right now I think kittens are cuter, and I’m quite happy to have neither.

We flew back in on a Tuesday night, to the tune of a screaming child for the length of the 4 hour flight. Any biological clock I might’ve had going on was very quickly turned off as a result. Arrived around midnight, greeted the kitties, off to bed.

Cue Wednesday morning, where I started my new job. This was what I was alluding to previously – new job. Free from the shackles of the past and all that, chances to form new opinions, get treated with respect, be appreciated, etc., etc., etc. I almost don’t recognize myself anymore, in that I’m not angry, I’m not tense and paranoid, and I don’t hate nearly everyone in my eyesight. It’s amazing how things can turn around.

That first week, despite being only three days long, was a fairly long one, not aided by the lack of sleep, major PMS and migraines I was experiencing, and the general stress of a new job.

Wednesday night I arrived home, had a bit of time to greet the DB, and then just took it easy for awhile. I did notice however that Venus was acting oddly. She wasn’t really responding to being pet – not moving into it or away from it, not purring, nothing – and she had no appetite, would stay still when held, would stay in one place if you set her down there, and so on. I, in my ever-rational state of mind, particularly as it concerns my kitties, went from being somewhat concerned to being convinced that she was dying of cancer.

The DB came home, and I expressed my concerns (and at this point, I had cried a little but was holding it together), and he tried to soothe me by saying that maybe she was just feeling quiet or some such. When I told him she wouldn’t even take chicken, her absolute favourite treat in the world, he also showed some concern.

I went upstairs to bed, and took Venus with me, placing her on the bed. She ended up curled up on the DB’s side, while I tried to curl up near her, but not crowding her. I also bawled my eyes out for maybe a half hour, repeating my belief that my cat was dying of cancer or some other fatal disease, and so on. Rational to a fault, I am.

When the DB came to bed, he managed to make some space for himself, moving her slightly – she ended up stretched out between us – but couldn’t get enough covers. So he went downstairs to sleep on the couch so that the kitties and I could have the bed for ourselves. I’m still using this story to illustrate that he’s incredible, even if he drives me mental, and will probably do so for some time to come.

When I got up the next morning, the DB stole back into the bed, and Venus stayed there with him. We were both able to get some purrs out of her, so I felt better. I went to work, booked her a vet appointment for Friday just in case, and picked up some baby food on my way home to try to tempt her. The DB was off the rest of the week, so he was able to keep her company.

She ate some baby food, she ate some kitty food, she made her point that she was pissed at me for being away and then not having a weekend or something to pamper her upon my return. I’m still not sure quite what happened, but she was back to herself a day or two later. Little bugger.

Thena, incidentally, is perfectly fine and her usual goofy self. The two of them have been struggling a little – much like the people in the house – with the heat, but there’s a possibility that they figured out last night that sleeping in the basement is cooler. I know they were both down there in the morning when I got up, but that might’ve just been because they have to watch me in the morning, lest I try to sneak out without feeding them. They have their priorities – and they’re valid concerns, given that I have left without feeding them once or twice.

As far as everything else in life is concerned, there’s nothing too major going on. The DB and I have recently started talking about buying a house together, and I raised the issue of how this represents a major commitment, and maybe we should talk about the other major commitment. He asked me which one, with a grin on his face, and I said I was concerned we might have the sex, and that would change things. Men.

So no, no rings, no babies, no mortgages… yet. We’ve talked in the past of how he doesn’t like to be pushed, how he does think about the same things I do but doesn’t necessarily bring them up (which was evidenced when he started telling people that he’d been looking at condo listings with the idea of renting them out to pay the mortgage), and how I usually am the one to bring things up before he does – though he still thinks of them, too. What this means for future commitments, I don’t know. At this stage, there are still things that I’m biting my tongue on, but I’m thinking that’ll have to stop soon. After all, few people get far in life sitting around waiting for good things to happen.

picture message

2008-05-19T16:17:00.001-04:00

2008-04-28T15:15:00.002-04:00

So yeah, a post a month seems a pretty reasonable number compared to before. Right? Yeah, right.

It's not like I don't have things to say -- my brain is filled on a regular basis with inane rants and trivialities with which to entertain my (one?) reader(s). But yet after spending all day in front of a computer, trying to look busy and thrilled with the tasks I've been given, I seem to have a hard time doing the same when I get home -- especially when there are things like baby blankets to finish knitting, video games that require playing, and cats that don't understand "get out of my lap Mommy's busy." Oh, I can't wait until I have kids.

All of that said and done, here I am. One of the major factors in my not updating lately has been insane amounts of stress and frustration associated with my place of employment. And since I long ago instituted a policy of not discussing my work in anything but the most general terms online, well, it really left me with very little to say -- other than perhaps stupid little cryptic comments that led the world to believe that I was still alive. Voila, a contribution.

However, the light at the end of the tunnel appears to be a positive one, for a change, instead of the oncoming train. I can't say much at this point, since I don't yet have the concrete details in place, but I should have a good announcement to make possibly even later today.

On the personal front, the Dear Boyfriend and I are a week away from our one year anniversary -- which also marks six months of cohabitation. There have been tears, and swears, and other complaints at times, but there's also been the joy of getting to go to bed beside someone I like somewhat on a regular basis, which overrides the rest of it -- except when it's 4 a.m. and I'm lying there awake listening to his weird irregular sleep breathing wondering if I'm ever going to be able to fall asleep again... however, he claims I snore (though in a delicate, feminine manner), so I guess I get him back sometimes. We've been discussing how we'd like to celebrate our anniversary, and we have a bit of a one and a half-day thing planned; he's suggesting paintball on the Sunday (the actual date), and it's up to me to pick the Saturday activities. So far, my suggestion has been dinner and a comedy club, or Iron Man, which opens that weekend. We are truly too cool for school.

The kitties continue to do well. Now that the snow has finally abated (I guess my offers of anal sex were tempting after all), the backyard is pretty clear, though a bit damp, and Thena is able to enjoy the outdoors on pretty much a daily basis. On one of the nice days, I set out a canvas folding chair -- for me, originally -- and now that's Thena's regular perch when she goes outside. No one would say my cats are spoiled, for certain.

I've had some interesting conversations on relationships as of late as a result of a number of different things going on, some of which are mine to discuss and some aren't. I realized the other night that it's been over 6 years since JJ and I dated, and he's getting married very shortly, which is great. The guys have gone to the strip clubs the past two weeks, which has resulted in my doing some introspection on where I stand on strip clubs and how they can affect relationships -- and it's led me to realize that on some issues, I'm just not as progressive as I like to think I am.

In principle, and in a relationship, I have no issue with strip clubs. I'd have a problem with it if my significant other was interested in going on a weekly basis, for example, but as a once-in-awhile thing, no big deal. Let's face it, I have excellent high speed internet access in my house; if someone wants to look at naked ladies, they don't have to go out to a club to do so.

Where my issues come into play is in the arena of lap dances. Now see, I've never had a lap dance myself, either from a male or female dancer (and yes, I've been to both kinds of clubs). Again, on principle, I have no issue with lap dances. I understand that's where the bulk of a dancer's take-home pay/salary originates. Where I start getting uncomfortable is the area of another woman touching my significant other, and/or him touching another woman -- as it's been told to me that it's pretty much a free-for-all as far as touching goes, though some places will say only the girls may touch the guys. I wouldn't enjoy my significant other touching another woman (or another woman touching my significant other, especially with the intention of arousing him) outside of a strip club, so why it is suddenly supposed to be acceptable to me when money changes hands?

Which leads me to the next point -- my irrational brain, when presented with the idea of my significant other purchasing a lap dance, turns the notion into, "I find this girl attractive and would like to spend my money to have access to her boobs and have her grind on me," and I don't particularly care for that notion. I like to delude myself that I'm the one that he finds attractive and none other, so...

And I know that last point isn't a fair one; after all, there are guys I encounter that I find attractive, so I don't expect my significant other to be blind to the charms of other women. Hell, in the last year alone, I've met two different guys that, had it not been for the Dear Boyfriend, I would've been interested in pursuing. I hardly claim to be a saint, and I think the blogs I've written attest to that fact. But, because I care about the DB and have no interest in pursuing something different, it's a non-issue to me. They were very lovely guys whose company I greatly enjoyed, and it certainly didn't hurt that they were both quite easy on the eyes.

That said, this is not a trust issue with me in the least. I trust the Dear Boyfriend implicitly, and even in my insane moments of paranoia (of which this was not one), I know that he cares about me and would not cheat on me. It's simply that I would like his hands to be on my body and not that of someone else's, especially if it's in a sexual environment.

And this is a sentiment that goes both ways. In our discussion on this subject (I'm sure you can tell this lengthy diatribe stemmed from one, or is practically a transcription of one), I stated that I had no problem with him going to strip clubs, and I would never ask him not to go to one, or even not to get a lap dance; I just didn't have to enjoy the idea of it, and asked how he'd feel in the reverse situation. We've both acknowledged there are things that the other does that aren't the most comfortable for one another -- my semi on-going friendship with an ex- being his example -- but we wouldn't ask the other to stop the behaviour, as we trust one another and know that isn't the issue.

I was asked if I'd rather he had lied about it, and I told him no. I would rather know the truth and know that I can trust that what he said to me was the truth, rather than have him try to spare my feelings. I can always come up with something worse than the reality, so I've always wanted to know even the bad news to its fullest extent.

I also realized that in my past dating history (extensive as it certainly is), I've had relationships where I probably wouldn't have cared if the boyfriend in question had lap dances or not. Hell, I'm fairly certain that towards the end of my relationship with the UBFM, he was cheating on me, and I really don't care at this point (yeah, yeah, especially as it ended nearly ten years ago -- even then, it was pride that was involved, nothing more). It seems as though when I genuinely care about someone, that's when I care about their actions. Maybe this is when I should trust them more, which I do, but I just don't seem the type of person to be dismissive of the 'intimacy' of lap dances and other things like that, much as maybe I should be, given my progressive nature in many other areas of life.

It's been an interesting time, learning about myself through living with someone else. For example, I learned that at my last place, I was a borderline slob as far as the cat hair everywhere went. We discussed it before we moved in together, and as he wanted the place vacuumed on a near-daily basis (or three times a week, which realistically translates into once a week), the Dear Boyfriend took on that role. But don't worry, I do the bulk of the cooking as compensation -- with the resulting dish cleaning. He takes out the trash, I get the mail and bring the trash cans back in usually. I'm trying to wean him away from doing laundry, as it often results in disaster (such as him washing his passport about a week after our return from Cuba), but so far no luck. It's mainly because he has fewer clothes than me, so needs them more often -- whereas, in combination with my stocked freezers and pantry, I could outlast nuclear winter with my clothes.

Anyhow, speaking of laundry, I meant to get some started, so I think I'll head off for that now. Exciting things are on the horizon (other than laundry, I mean), and right now, I'm in denial about them.

2008-04-05T10:36:00.001-04:00

I really hate when I'm being stupid and/or hypocritical, and I know it rationally, and yet... same goes with passive-aggressiveness. I hate it in other people, yet I know I can be just as prone to it, and I hate it when I do it.

Maybe that's why I hate it so much in other people -- because it's a trait I recognize within myself that I hate.

Argh. I hate being an idiot.

2008-03-30T23:26:00.001-04:00

I laughed at this -- and it's not a RickRoll.

2008-03-10T10:17:00.000-04:00

Dear Mother Nature,

Saturday morning, when I went out to shovel the 15cm of snow you’d granted us Friday evening, I was considering offering you anal sex as a way of convincing you to stop. That’s a pretty big deal, you see, especially since the Dear Boyfriend and I don’t practice anal sex.

However, by the time I completed my shovelling – then went back to shovel some of what you were giving me as I was shovelling – I felt as though I’d already been anally-raped by you, and was feeling a bit less generous. That was with me having to go back over some of what I’d done when I first started. Then the Dear Boyfriend shovelled that evening when he got home from work. Then we got snowed in at his cousin’s place, and came home to… well, you know.

I confess, I cried when I tried to get through a lot of it. I couldn’t figure out where to put the snow, on snowbanks already above my head. I couldn’t figure out how to deal with having no place to stand to start on the walkway or the driveway, beyond the patio that I’d already cleared. I didn’t enjoy the novelty of standing in snow that was well past my knees, especially as I knew I had to move that snow somewhere. And I didn’t enjoy the fact that my back hurt, I was exhausted, and coming down with a cold from the plague twins at my office.

But I managed. I managed to clear a one-shovel-width path from our front door to the driveway. I even managed to clear a wider than one-shovel-width path from the top of our driveway to the foot. As the DB was at work, dealing with the lack of staff, I made the executive decision to start piling the snow against the garage. It seemed to work, in that it wasn’t under my feet anymore.

This morning, when I went to catch my bus to work, I was heartened at the fact that a path seemed to have been stomped for me already, as the city hasn’t yet seen fit to clear the path properly. However, that path turned right, towards the shopping complex; only brave and hearty souls had ventured forward, towards the bus stop – which, curiously enough, had a higher snowbank than anywhere else along that road. Granted, it was a novelty to stand six feet in the air and try to decide whether or not to cross the street for the bus (it loops around near me), or stay where I was… but I was also afraid that any moment, I’d sink into the snow below me and wind up with a boot, sock and pantleg full of the miserable stuff.

So, thank you Mother Nature, for your bounty and blessing. If this has anything to do with me leaving you behind when I went to Cuba, I apologize. I did miss you, if only because I assumed you’d be taking your winter wonderland away and blessing us once more with summer, or at the very least, spring. I brought you back some presents, but I’m afraid that since, at the moment, we don’t appear to be speaking – for some reason, I feel as though you’re upset with me – I’m not sure they’ll be properly appreciated. I do hope you’ll see fit towards forgiving me soon, as I do enjoy your company… and especially your sense of humour.

Love,
jen

2008-03-02T15:33:00.001-05:00

I don't know what to think when it comes to you.

2008-02-15T09:32:00.002-05:00

Okay, I vaguely remember what this place looks like.

Gah. I keep setting updating goals for myself, and then I start a post full of awesome stories about my cats and how much I adore them and how adorable they are and all that other stuff you love to read, and then I get sidetracked, or I get given work to do, of all things, and the post either languishes in the 'draft' folder or it just doesn't look as good anymore, or I can't put the words on paper.

Screen, whatever.

I'm taking two classes right now in an attempt to get back into my school mode (and move from the thesis option to the research paper), and I've written three papers so far for the class. The first was just a critique of some readings we did, but the second was a research proposal that I completed on Thursday, and the last was a discussion of trends in the alternative dispute resolution field that I wrote in an hour and a half. It's probably crap, but they're all done and turned in, which is the important thing.

All of this to say that between the turbo writing for school and some writing/re-writing I'm doing for work, I seem to once again be getting unblocked. I know pretty much every post I write lately seems to consist of the same thing, but there it is.

Anyhow, one of the other reasons I wanted to update today is because I'm leaving for Cuba in about 8 hours, and I'm not expecting to have any kind of internet access while I'm away -- but there will be photos and so on galore upon my return, especially since the DB has purchased a digital camera of his own, and I'm bringing mine. Of course, I may be too busy sleeping on the beach to be willing to rouse myself for pictures, but I'll make the effort. :)

Otherwise, I don't seem to think there's much to say. The kitties are funny, Venus has finally started to relax again around the house and boss us around. She likes to have her little freak outs around 11:30 at night, when we're either both occupied with computer/television, or I'm trying to get ready for bed. She's back to being talkative and demanding, and as annoying as it can be at times, I'm really pleased to see it. Thena has reverted to her kitten habits of waking me up 20 minutes before my alarm is set to go off, if she hasn't already done it sometime in the middle of the night. *sigh*

I realized yesterday that it had officially been four years ago that I brought Thena home -- Valentine's Day in my first apartment. She was a tiny little bundle of fluff that nuzzled my chin and purred and rolled around on my chest as I laughed and cried out of happiness for my new little kitten. I'd debated naming her Valentine and calling her Tiny for short, but I waited to see what personality would emerge, and I wanted to go with something Greek-themed. I liked the name Thena (from Athena, if you've never picked up on it), and while I didn't initially pick it for the warrior goddess associations, it certainly proved to be true. :P Thena Demon Beast is her extended name, when she's annoying me.

One of these days I'll get around to updating my flickr account with the photos that are currently in my buzznet account, but today is not the day for that.

Anyhow, I'm going to wrap this up here. I'll be back in a week, full of pictures, Cuban food, possibly a sunburn, and lots of booze. Enjoy the cold and snow. ;)

2008-01-28T21:52:00.000-05:00

Dear people of the world:

If you put it on the Internet, it's not private. This applies to everything from UseNet to blogs to Livejournal to Facebook to picturesofmyass.com. If you choose to make information publically available, even if your definition of 'public' is 'one other person,' if it involves the Internet in any way, you have thereby given up all rights or expectations to privacy.

If you're worried about people googling your name and turning up nefarious activities, don't use your real name. If someone writes in the "How do you know this person?" section of Facebook something that implies you two have had sex and you don't want the world to know, don't accept it. Or, perhaps, don't add them as a friend. Or get over your prudish self. Or something, I don't know. But if you put it online or allow it to happen, get over yourself when someone else finds out.

Signed,
Someone who's tired of explaining this over and over again.

Secondly, things I learned at Microplay (a used video game store):
It's not always necessary to buy the largest memory card available for use in your PSP. For example, as long as you're not downloading tonnes of music or saving UMDs (universal media discs -- game/movie cartridges used in the PSP) directly to your memory card, a 1 gig will more than likely be plenty large for you. For example, if you look at this here game, you can see that it only requires 512kb -- that's kigabytes -- worth of space to save. There's one hundred kigabytes in a megabyte, and either a hundred or a thousand megabytes to a gigabyte... so it'll be quite awhile before you use it up.

Fortunately, she wasn't addressing this to me, and I was too amused and apathetic to jump in and correct her.

2008-01-08T16:52:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I've already blown my semi-serious intention of updating more regularly; go me.

Christmas went well at the homestead, with a nice combination of hectic and quiet. I did a lot of housework (this is where friends and coworkers alike have said I'm turning into a good housewife/domestic person/Martha Stewart, though where they're getting that last one I'll never know), and I snuggled the kitties, did some crafts and spent time with friends. Maybe not as much as I might've liked, but it was good to see Andrea and the Arrogant Bastard (not together), and later Heather and a few other faces, new and recognized.

I'm starting back up classes this semester, and tomorrow is actually my first class. For those not in the know, I pancaked on my thesis portion of the masters' degree, so now I'm picking up two more classes and going back to work on a research paper. By the fall, or end of fall semester (i.e., by this time next year), I should have my masters degree. If not, well, I fail ultimately.

2007-12-24T17:12:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas and happy other holidays, everyone!

(A picture of the kitties and us will hopefully be here later. For now, prepping for the next few days/hours of craziness must ensue).

With lots of additional love from ^..^ & ^..^

2007-12-17T08:59:00.001-05:00

Canadian revenge:

This idiot's been parked at the end of our driveway for a few days. There's been an overnight parking ban in effect. I think most of this is the plow, but I don't think the DB made too much of an effort to avoid piling snow on his car as he shovelled our driveway.

I'm thinking of printing out the overnight parking regulations and leaving them on his windshield, just to rub it in a little.

2007-12-13T10:15:00.001-05:00

Normally I don't care much at all about celebrities, but this is pretty upsetting:

Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's.

2007-12-11T14:56:00.000-05:00

Another from the archives:

Awhile ago, my cats picked up the odd and temporary habit of leaving my condoms lying around my apartment. I have a box that sits on my nightstand, because I'm classy like that, and I guess they just fished out the ones they liked, placed them in strategic locations, and then got bored and washed their butts for awhile.

I wasn't sure if it was intended as a hint or not, but I plan on now giving those condoms to people I dislike. Consider yourselves warned, I guess.

I went out dancing awhile ago in honour of my internet stalker friend, and along came DB, his cousin, and a friend of theirs, the Cuban. Now, I've always known I'm a cranky old lady, but this outing really just cemented it, and if you're willing to bear with me, I'll tell you why.

Many months ago, when I was dating the French boy, we went out dancing with some of his friends, and I was vaguely shocked and amused to see the way in which dancing is used by so many people as a prelude to mating – it was never more apparent to me that dancing really is the human equivalent of the mating dance. And in some ways, that’s fine, I get it – it’s genuinely nice to date a guy who’s a good dancer, and especially one who doesn’t mind being out on the dance floor.

But I don’t need and don’t want to see you going after your partner’s spleen with your tongue, performing public breast examinations, giving someone a handjob, or even grinding so heavily I’m worried you’re going to get pregnant while I watch.

Yeah, I’m old and cranky that way. The DB likes to accuse me of being an exhibitionist, which is a total crock. Certainly, I will kiss him in public, we hold hands, and we’ll cuddle in front of others, but that’s as far as I’m comfortable going where other people might be subjected to it. I’m not vain enough to think the world finds me attractive, and much as porn is fun, that doesn’t mean I assume everyone wants to be privy to the real-life version.

As you can probably tell, I’m also not a voyeur.

The dance bar we were at this time happened to be occupied by a frosh crawl, so it’s entirely possible we hit it on a really bad night, but seeing all the babies grinding against one another like they just discovered a new trick made me wonder – do you all live at home? Don’t some of you at least live in a dorm, where you can do this in private and I don’t have to watch it?

I mean sure, I’ve had public sex and variations on foolings around, but I was at least courteous enough to do it someplace where we were at least marginally protected from being discovered. I don’t get a rush out of the risk – it was a convenience thing. And I guess in part a bit of a story thing; it’s fun to be able to say you’ve tagged a particular location.

I have friends I’ve spoken to in the past about their exhibitionist tendencies, and without using as many words, the result was that I asked them to basically stop what they were doing when I was around. I consider it a courtesy and respect issue; if I really want to see your partner’s body parts, I’ll request to see them – I prefer not to have them foist upon me, as it were, or to have to watch you exploring one another’s mouths in front of me.

2007-12-11T14:03:00.000-05:00

I’m going to write something that’s going to come off as extremely arrogant, and there really doesn’t seem to be a better way to express it.

I’m a relatively intelligent person. This has its advantages and disadvantages, one of the chief among them being that sometimes, I smart myself out of doing things – like fad diets (for the most part; I did try South Beach for two weeks), or other potentially self-destructive actions.

One of these self-destructive actions happens to be passive-aggressive behaviour. It’s interesting when I can see myself contemplating something that I recognize to be passive-aggressive, and having to fight the urge to follow through with it. Sometimes, I’m successful – other times, I give in, even when I know the whole time that it’s stupid.

I know this would be more exciting with examples, but the best I can really do is something like not talking to someone because I’m mad at them, or doing something deliberately to upset someone – I really don’t have anything juicy to relate at this moment, unfortunately. It’s just something that came up recently where I was irrationally upset with the DB for something likely stupid and didn’t really speak to him for a few hours as a result. As a general rule, I will speak up when something upsets me, because I don’t want to let frustrations fester, and this is a behaviour I’ve been practicing for a number of years.

Other times, I bottle things up (hello, work!), and then get annoyed to pieces except when I vent to other coworkers. Case in point? If my boss announces to anyone one more time that I’m going to be the next person on our floor who’s pregnant (although that’s already passed, so hah!), I’m going to tell her… I don’t know what. One coworker said that I should tell her to stay out of my vajayjay, which then became my vajenjen. *sigh* I want to tell her that I/the DB is sterile, that we’re against children, that he’s Catholic and so doesn’t believe in sex before marriage… my mom pointed out that most religions are the same way, but I told her that since I’m not religious that it doesn’t really carry the same weight. Maybe I’ll just tell her I’m not having kids until after I’m married; given that she and her husband aren’t actually married (and she generally avoids calling him her husband as a consequence), maybe that’ll get her off the subject.

In other news, I’m actually completely and totally done my Christmas shopping. I’ve given my aunt the gifts for the Nova Scotia branch of the family, my mom has the gifts for my New Brunswick relatives (i.e., my nanny), the family gifts are at my parents’ place, and everything is purchased for the DB and his folks. I still have to finish the scarf for his mom, and I’d like to knit up something for his brother and sister-in-law, but that’s really it. If you’d like to receive a Christmas card (I have to mail out *something* on the 24th, after all!), feel free to contact me via email (litterboxjen at yahoo dot ca) to get a card. I have a selection of cat cards, and this year’s new acquisition (and theme, it seems): penguin cards. Oooh! I promise not to use your mailing address to sign you up for anything *too* awful.

2007-12-10T13:27:00.001-05:00

I haven't the faintest what I did on Saturday, but I borked my ankle something nice. It looks fine, but feels horrid -- keeping it elevated is about the only thing that keeps it from aching (and even that, not all the time), and trying to straighten it or turn it to the side sucks. *sigh*

What did I do on Saturday? I got up at 10, ran around getting myself ready, had a massage for an hour, then went home and played video games all afternoon. Granted, I'm incompetent enough that I can get a sliver from dried chocolate, but seriously, a borked-out ankle from sitting on a couch all afternoon? It's about time to give up on my body, 'cause I think it's thrown in the towel.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about various relationship-related issues over the last few days. I had dinner with the AB the other night; it was the first time we'd seen each other in about 8 months. Oddly... the evening went fairly well, but it's left me with various memories and other thoughts over the last few days. Good memories, but... hrm.

Several months ago, the DB had a dream that I was cheating on him, and it bothered him when he woke up. Understandable; I've had some crappy dreams myself. Well, sometime last week, I had a dream that he was being hard-core pursued by a nursing student, who hated me because I was with him -- and he was considering leaving me for her (which he told me in the dream). Often when I wake up, he wakes up too, and so I shared this dream with him. His response? "Only one? Nursing students always travel in packs of four." Yeah, we have different methods of reassuring each other. :P

Although, to be honest, I'm the one regularly sticking my foot in my mouth. I had a cold last week, and now the DB's dealing with it. Coincidentally, the AB has a cold as well -- so I told DB last night that if it made him feel better, the AB had a cold too, and I was claiming responsibility. Apparently, telling your boyfriend that you're claiming responsibility for an ex-boyfriend's cold isn't all that reassuring. Who knew?

I have to admit, I'm impressed with myself a bit this year. I've managed to finish pretty much all of my Christmas shopping, and I spent time yesterday wrapping everything. I still have to pick up a gift card for the DB's father, finish the scarf I'm working on for the DB's mom, and get some keychains for my uncle, but I'm miles ahead of where I normally am this time of year. Many of the gifts that I'm giving people came from the two craft shows I went to (including the citrus sea salt that I bought for the DB and gave to him early). I don't feel that I have any real "wow" gift for the DB, but I'm just going to have to accept that I might not find something of the sort -- especially since he's being no help whatsoever for ideas ("I don't want anything; save the money you'd spend on my gift for our trip"). Ah well.

In other news, work is driving me insane, bit by bit. I make a practice of not discussing work on my blog so as to minimize any kinds of problems, but let's just drop one big hint that sort of summarizes things: one of my coworkers (who pulls shit like this daily), went into my boss' office, crying, because she disagreed with how I'd placed commas and hyphens in a document that she had originated and I'd edited for web-posting/completeness.

Oh, how I wish I were kidding... god, some days I seriously miss retail.