how to get paid without really trying

i work in an office. that's probably enough said right there. but let me continue. i do payroll. i get a lot of comments on how i'm really quiet, and how i'm "so relaxed". i think this is in reference to the fact that people keep coming up to me and saying "do you want some more time sheets to enter?", and i always say "yeah, sure." i mean, face it: this job is an endless stream of incoming paper to process. there will always be more. even when we finish this week's cheques, more will come in next week. so of course i'm going to say "yeah, sure." it gives me something to do.
besides, i'm nosey. you can speculate a lot about how peoples' lives are going by their time sheets. so there i sit, mindlessly typing and making up stories about people i don't know based on how many dentist's appointments they had last month.
it's a living.
we have special leave for going to a funeral, and when people use this code, they always have to make a note about why they left. not in terms of why they chose to go to that particular funeral (thought that might make even more interesting speculation), but who the funeral was for. usually, anyway. today i ran into a spate of folks who put the time they left, and in brackets, "(mourner)". like there's a lot of different roles they could be playing at the funeral. i suppose they could put "minister" or "eulogist" or even "caterer". but "mourner"? i mean, i assume if you're going to the funeral, you qualify as a mourner. there's really only two classifications here: "mourner", and "the departed". i haven't seen anyone put that in yet.
imagine, getting paid for being at your own funeral?
that's the life for me.

an update

well, the job is pretty much what i expected-- very, very boring and mathematical. i finally decided to stick it out, with the hopes of getting my student loan under $5000 by the end of the year, and my credit card paid off to boot. it's going to be a very lean year for me.
writing is... research at the moment. i'm trying to stay away from very mathematical books, since i'm not writing a treatise on quantum physics here, just trying to get some ideas and inspiration so i know what i'm talking about. already, people think i'm a bit strange at work for spending my lunch hour reading "the universe next door". perhaps i should have started with "physics for dummies" (don't laugh, it's sitting on my coffee table even now).
the good thing is that work is educational! for example, i learned about the titanic today.
a woman who sits across from me is fascinated by the titanic. she was talking about this, and the woman next to her says "i remember a line from a movie... 'this boat is so incredible that not even god himself could sink it'... some people believe that's the REAL reason the titanic sank."
and all this time i thought it was an iceberg. but apparently god took up the challenge and drove that thing to the bottom of the ocean. of course, i suppose god could be working through icebergs.
perhaps tomorrow i'll mention how fascinated i am by dinosaurs and see what kind of response i get.

progress

a wise, wise friend of mine recently told me "just figure out what you want, specifically, and line up things in your life to get there."
so i suppose i am making progress towards those ends...
yes, 4 to 6pm today is my writing time. i decided before i got out of bed that i was just going to write a scene and see what happens. an experiment, if you will. that, and i won't have to give up any precious sunday evening cartoons while fretting about not having written enough yet.
also, i bought some lunch things for work this week. (i can't believe i am working starting tomorrow). salad, whole wheat turkey/cream cheese wraps and carrot sticks. and healthy granola bars. of course, i may not be able to eat them with my bento's chopsticks, but that's beside the point.
plus, i even bought myself some work clothes.
less progress in the smoking department, but i have managed to cut down quite a bit.
also, i have an idea that could have improved snakes on a plane immeasurably. it could have been done with the same script, same everything (well, i would have preferred fewer CGI snakes), but it would have been awesome to have the various people who were attacked and instantly died (how fun would it have been to shoot people's death-by-snake scenes day after day?) to be celebrity cameos. like, we suddenly realize that the person with a snake sticking out of their EYE is BETTY WHITE! or LIZA MINELLI! but then we never see them again. that would truly have been awesome.
and, please stop watching Masters of Horror, until they start making good ones again. i actually have an idea for one, but it must remain secret...

a day of being a grownup

today was a day of taking care of things that i prefer to push aside. i don't know if it's this %$#& insomnia, or if it's the state of hanging out at home all day, but i've been slightly grumpy. smoking again. biting my nails down to the quick. procrastinating. not picking up the Standard British Dialect cd waiting for me at the library. (hey, maybe my new hobby could be learning various accents! hello one woman show on the complete history of europe!)
so today, i sucked it up. called the job i was unsure about, and told them i'd accept. so i can look forward to 10 months of mind-numbing data entry and payroll files. but on the plus side, i will have money. and we can find a new, cheaper apartment. and i can pay my credit card and my student loan. and perhaps save to do a play of my very own next fall, screw people if they don't come. so these are all good things.
i am going to stop buying cigarettes after i finish this pack. made harder by the fact that j is still smoking, but a giant bag of lollipops costs less than cigarettes. and the money i save from cigarettes, i can plow into singing lessons and student loan payments equally. multitasking and goal accomplishment!
the other bonus of the job is it seems i will have BENEFITS. say it with me, folks. really roll your tongue around it. luxuriate in it. BEEEEEENNNNNNNEEEEFFFFFIIIITTTTSSSSSS. and those will pay for the dentist appointment i finally made today. and as stressed as i am about going to the dentist, it can be in no way as stressful as making the appointment. not due to anxiety, just being put on hold by various receptionists searching for an appointment before may 4.
and i'm going to get my hair cut and coloured tomorrow. perhaps i will buy some grown-up work clothes on thursday. and then, on monday, i begin work again.
it's a little hard to jump back in feet first to the land of grown-ups. but i have my $115 cell phone bill to propel me.

everyone go do this now

seriously. you need to drop what you're doing and head to the 7-11 or any groceteria nearby and pick up some ingredients:
phyllo pastry - $2 or so will buy you endless possibilities of yummy, flaky desserts
2 bananas - this will count as a fruit serving
peanut butter - this is the protein portion of your meal
chocolate chips - i bought milk chocolate, so i count it as dairy. if you buy dark chocolate, console yourself with the thought of all those lovely antioxidants.

preheat your oven to 425F. get 3 or 4 sheets of phyllo, and brush each one with melted butter/margarine. spread the bananas generously with peanut butter. now put those puppies along the long side of the phyllo, leaving yourself enough room to fold up the bottom over the bananas. but wait! before you start folding, sprinkle the bananas with chocolate chips. now, fold up the bottom over the bananas, fold the sides in, and roll the whole think up. brush with butter, and sprinkle the whole thing with sugar. stick it on a greased cookie sheet in the oven for about 10 minutes or so.
it will blow your mind with its warm, gooey, banana goodness.

on the other hand, if you're craving french onion soup, do not chop a bunch of onions and sautee them endlessly, then pouring veggie broth over them. save yourself the trouble and get a mix. this is a good way to avoid having an endless supply of cooked onions with little or no liquid left.

trust me on this.

on writer's block, and the new blogger

well, a new year, a new blogger. i just made the leap to the new version, and we will see how it goes. of course, this means my html skills will continue to decline, but i'm sure there are new and more fascinating web programs for me not to learn, either.
i have read (and probably posted before) that writer's block stems from the inability to make a decision on things. so, you end up paralyzed and unable to melt the ice block that your brain has become. i'm sure experiencing feelings like that at the moment. as i always say, where there is no external pressure, i will apply it internally.
and of course, the same old songs running through my head... that classic "What if I never write again?" and the torch standard "You suck, you suck, you suck". or the punk breakout "Oi! All your ideas are wanky!" and so on.
i know from personal experience that this is normal. that all creative folks go through periods like this, whether they admit it or not. i bet even robert lepage has had an evening of self-doubt and loathing in his lifetime.
of course, i just realized today that i have a week more than i thought to turn in something (and believe me, i'm not looking for brilliance. i'm looking for a page with words printed on it that can be legally attributed to me), and it's something of a reprieve. at least, i'm looking at it as a reprieve, and not an extra week's sentence.
ironically, a girl on a message board i read was looking for story ideas today, and i rattled off quite a few off the top of my head. all with a beginning, a middle, and an end. and, that delicious additive/preservative, CONFLICT. so not only can it be done, I CAN DO IT. usually about inconsequential things that i'm not responsible for, but that's beside the point.
so. this should pass.
in other news, i stumbled upon a site that lets you create your own wiki for projects such as writing grocery lists, doing your marketing project, planning a trip, and, oh, say, writing a play. i'm kind of intrigued by it... the idea of having all my "stuff" organized in one, easy-to-access linkable page titillates the obsessive-compulsive part of my brain. although i can't quite see going to the trouble of creating a wiki for your grocery list.
but such is life.

truly, a scent epic

you know that "scent story" product?
you know the one, where you put a little cd into a box, seemingly like the plastic records and turntable i used to play with as a child, but instead of music, it sends various smells into your home? supposedly these smells are calibrated in such a way that it takes you on a smelly journey. like you take a walk on the beach, and then you go home and bake cookies, and then you take a bubble bath. or something like that. i find it hard to believe that these combined smells wouldn't end up lingering in your living room and creating a stinky, unlivable atmosphere, but i suppose science is making all kinds of advances these days.
in any case, i began to wonder if i couldn't patent the "scent story" that plays out for FREE each time i enter my apartment building. this is how i imagine it to be...

once upon the time, there was a man, a man who'd spent the past 46 hours drinking cheap rye and chewing on cigarette butts. one of these had given him a rather unmentionable digestive problem, and he wandered through the lobby of my apartment, emitting tiny puffs of intense... ambiance. he found his way to the elevator (where earlier, a 19 year old dog with bladder control issues had ridden down with his owner, a 91 year old with bladder control issues of his own), and found himself taken ill. after finishing his business, he realized that the elevator wasn't moving fast enough, and that he would have to relieve himself, fortunately in the same spot where the aforementioned man and his dog had been standing. (get it? the layering of scent in this story is complex)
upon reaching the 13th floor, which, coincidentally, is the very same floor i live on, this unfortunate man staggered out of the elevator, where he was overcome by the fumes of yet another smell catastrophe: the self-taught plumber who "works" in the building. he seems to wander the complex, randomly pouring chemicals down people's drains, and creating clouds of sulfur-stinking fumes which drift and linger throughout the building.
it is at this point that the man in question, realizes he's in the wrong building, and is so overcome by this, that he passes out in the hallway. eventually, he will move on, but he's left his mark, a little concentrated scent exclamation to cap off our story.
or at least, that's how i imagine the scent story of my apartment building would play out. except on one random day of the week, when everyone simultaneously decides to fry fish and onions. perhaps there's a building discount i don't know about.
really, i can't imagine how layering some apple pie and beach smells on top of that wouldn't improve things.

and in the shadow of success...

abject failure!
after my perfect little cookies i made the other day, i decided to make some of the jell-o we have in the cupboard. so i followed the instructions. i mean, how hard is it to make jell-o?
but here's the thing: IT DIDN'T WORK. 24 hours later, the jell-o still has not set. and i believe it's not going to.
how did i screw up jell-o? could i have gotten a bad batch? what could be bad about it? is there some horrible chemical in my water which is slowly killing me, and i am ignoring the early warning signs of non-sett-able jell-o? is this going to be a real life episode of house, where they send someone to search my apartment and have their a-ha moment when they see the jell-o box in the garbage?
it's probably just a bad batch.
but weird.

the perfect storm...?

seriously, people here were going nuts about "the worst blizzard in 20 years". on the morning news yesterday, they were recommending that people get child care for today, or start thinking about taking the day off work. because last night, the cold and snowy wrath of god was to descend on us. empires would collapse. cannibalism would run rampant. the only thing that would erase the chill would be the blazing fires set by rioters, driven mad and snowblind by this, the blizzard of the century.
all in all, it's been a pretty disappointing blizzard. certainly not something that ctv will make movies about, or that the tragically hip might write a song about. we got some snow, and it's really, really, REALLY cold now. like -35 cold. apparently the guys working on the ice sculpture festival were still going at it today, building their ice hotel, or ice lavatories, or whatever it is that they're using those chainsaws for. i myself did not venture outside today. instead, i made cookies and looked for a job.
and both have come to fruition! my cookies somehow turned out in perfect uniform little circles. and i have some job interviews coming up. unfortunately, one is tomorrow morning, and it's still going to be -30. and i used the last egg today, so i will have to stop and purchase more if i want to make more cookies. not that i should, but if i should want, i will probably require eggs.
the good news is next week it will be +3. so i guess that's not too good for the ice festival, but what can you do?

and... take two

ok, so after a two week "relapse" into smoking, brought on by the hellhole unpleasantness that was Air Canada and Calgary, i am now once again smoke free. as of one hour ago. one hour down, the rest of my life to go.
oh god. let me advise you, if you are ever quitting something, don't think about it in terms of "well, no more of this FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE." just don't. it won't make things any easier.
so that should make the diet easier.
or not.

if i can't lose any weight...

then perhaps i should gain myspace friends. i feel jealous of people who have 4000 friends. why don't i have that many friends? even pretend friends? i had thought about trying to make a new myspace friend for each day of the year, but that seems like too lame a project. or perhaps i should reward myself for each pound lost by gaining a myspace friend. of course demonstrating internetically how i will clearly become a better and more likeable person the thinner i get. ok, that seems like too psycho a project.
should i just start randomly friending people? or should i try to friend collections of people, like, say, all the winners of survivor plus the all-stars? or do it alphabetically, unable to move on to the next letter until i friend someone with the previous letter?
then again, i could try to make real friends.
nah. got plenty. i need an imaginary posse on the side.

into each soup...

a ladybug must fall.
tonight i tried out one of my new cookbooks and made vegan potato-leek soup for dinner. so yummy. i would have taken a picture to class up the blog a bit, but i ate it instead.
j said it was delicious "except for this" and showed me a ladybug on the rim of his bowl. i, of course, immediately chalked this up to one of my numerous kitchen snafus, and was mortified. except the ladybug was moving. covered in potato leek goo, but moving. so while this begs the question "does a living bug in the soup make it non-vegan?", i realized that not even i could have washed the leeks as ineffectually as to have a ladybug survive the ensuing sauteeing, boiling, and pureeing to make it through to the other side. so we let the little guy go outside, even though i'm sure his potato-covered ass didn't make it much farther than the balcony. hey, i'm not running a bug hostel here, lucky or not.
j mentioned that this was the second one he'd seen this week. could we be on the verge of an infestation? an infestation of luck and cuteness?
i have a feeling that they won't be quite as cute en masse.
tomorrow is roasted cherry tomato pasta with soy cheese. hopefully insect-free.

... and a happy new year

well, i am back, and it is a whole new year already.
needless to say, i did finally make it out of calgary. while waiting for my cab, i nodded at the prostitute making a quick exit stage right from the lobby. and, of course, when i got to the airport, i found out that once again, my flight had been cancelled. but i made it home. exhausted, and covered in stress-induced hives, i made it home!
the post-christmas depression is upon me, with nothing more around me than christmas decorations my cat has torn down, and a host of candies and treats left over to eat. except that i should be on my newly-resolved diet. but that's another story, and one that is too shameful to be told.
speaking of shameful stories, i had a bizarre experience at a party last night. upon our introduction, my host's companion immediately asked me if i was from ottawa. cautiously, i replied i was. he then informed me that we'd gone to high school together, although we were barely acquaintances. later on, he made mention of his memories of me, which involve surly, uber-emo behaviour that was typical of me at around 17 or so. horrors! i have no recollection of any of our interactions. yet i had the impulse to apologize for my behaviour lo these many years ago. and a kind of nervous turmoil inside of not only being reminded of my past transgressions, but of there being actual physical evidence, in the form of this tall man in a tie. which i suppose just goes to show that no matter how far away you go, some things you can't leave behind.
unless you move to vancouver.
yeah, no one knows me there.

planes trains and... suckitude

well, i'm writing this from the exotic days in calgary south, after a day of suckitude. after several hours' pleasant drive to toronto (hey, gotta love saving $200 in airfare), i got stuck in the MIDDLE seat all the way to calgary. when we landed, i went to make my connecting flight... and saw the dreaded word CANCELLED on the board. naturally, air canada had neglected to mention this, or to have anyone waiting at the gate to deal with passengers. as a matter of fact, they seemed generally unconcerned. which, as i discovered, was to be the theme for the rest of the evening. when i finally located a staff member to ask about my mild concerns regarding this situation, they told me "just go to the gate where you would have caught your connection. i'm sure they'll deal with it there."
hmmmph.
so, to make a long story short, air canada remained unconcerned, told me that all flights out of calgary were cancelled due to weather, and since it was an act of god, they had no responsibility in helping me pay for accomodations. naturally. they did give me a number to a service that would "book me an available room at a discount".
hmmmmph.
and they instructed me to go get my luggage from the piles of luggage amassing in the arrivals terminal. calling the number they gave me, i was informed that there were currently no hotels in calgary, and i would have to call back later. visions of spending the night sleeping in the luggage carousel danced through my brain. i bummed a cigarette from a complete stranger. then, i took a deep breath and called them back. they told me i had a room at the DAYS INN CALGARY SOUTH, but also told me "we can't really tell you where it is."
hmmmph.
fortunately, my cab driver told me it was a mere 30 minutes away from the airport, and $40 later, here i am, in my $90 room. adding in the $40 back to the airport tomorrow morning (because the calgary airport shuttle went bankrupt, don't you know), i can really see the value in the money i saved travelling to and from toronto.
but it continues! i got here, and they had never heard of me, or of any of the other travellers slogging their way in from the airport. when i finally got it sorted out, i found myself staying in the biggest scarea in calgary. it seems to be in the auto body shop/adult boutique district. there was a dirty sock outside my room and the hallway reeks of drakkar noir. and to top it all off, my phone doesn't work. this makes the wake up call issue a little dicey. currently i'm waiting for a gentleman by the name of "wayne" who is supposedly going to come up here and confirm that my phone is indeed not working.
in the meantime, i'm keeping the door triple locked. there are strange sounds in the hallway, and there was a kerfuffle at the front desk regarding a guest who had just called 911.
hopefully, i'll see edmonton tomorrow morning.
i hope.

joyeux petit noel!

well, petit noel 2006 has finally arrived. and santa was very, very good to us...




but guess what gift could make me make this face?



you know it! my brand new IPOD!



we also added a couple of members to the crisis on infinite earths family:


robot brainiac and anti-monitor, to be exact.



plus one of the most exciting gifts of the holidays:
the pasta express! how awesome is this? we're going to test it out later on some kraft dinner.









well, i have many more photos, but i am off to make christmas cookies for tonight's party, so perhaps i will update later. but i will be busy doing laundry and updating my ipod for the next couple of days. then, return to the east!

petit noel preview 2006

in spite of the crushing failure of hufurky, i've decided to continue on as best i can with the holiday traditions. and this weekend, the last weekend before i head back east, is LE PETIT NOEL DEUX. in fact, today is le petit noel eve. or the veille de petit noel, if you want to get particular. and i think it's shaping up to be awesome.
as i mentioned, we took a trip to the dollar store to get some decorations to spruce up the place.









that, combined with my grade 3 level crafting ability, has managed to make things pretty spiffy:







and the piece de resistance is we've added a tree to the traditional decor:


trust me, if you squint, it's even more beautiful. and the "ornaments" are real tin foil!



so now all that's left is to kick back, relax in front of Log, and wait for santa's visit...

goodwill is gone, but dollarama lives on!

and needless to say, it rocks the proverbial casbah.
yes, i was saddened when the goodwill closed. it was a good source of strange microwave recipe books, and t-shirts that say "i love sheep" on the front, and "sheep love me" on the back. but i was incredibly excited to see a dollarama moving into the vacant store.
because it's not one of those dollar stores where some things are a dollar, some things are $1.50, and so on.
no.
everything in the store is one dollar. the only drawback is that they never take debit, so you have to curb your spending to cash on hand. anyway, we went to get some decorations for le petit noel (more on this later), and decided to get The Smudge an early present:


the cat toy glove! could there be a smarter invention? from each finger dangles a tantalizing cat toy!


at first it seemed like he loved it. but within seconds, the mice were tangled, and there was an early casualty:








since then, i've found him dragging the entire tangled mess into the bathroom, and chewing on the broken string.

who will join me for dinner?

i had a thought today...

what if i took the great taste of HUFU:



(that's a human-flavoured soy product, kids)











and made it into TOFURKY?


(see vegweb.com for recipes)

what would that become?
you know it, it's all-new HUFURKY!

and just in time for the holidays!
who will bring the cranberry sauce?

up all night studying for my cholesterol test...

that was last night. man, i felt like i was totally unprepared for my cholesterol and glucose tests this morning. i mean, it's not like i didn't know i was going to be tested, i guess i just put off studying until the last minute. when i got there, i was afraid i'd be the first one finished and have to pretend to be writing for a while so it wouldn't be obvious to everyone that i'd blown it. or even worse, being the last one writing up until time was up. and looking woefully unprepared. but when i took the test, it was a lot easier than i thought it would be. i guess i must have absorbed something subliminally, i just can't explain it. i hope i passed, and i swear that next semester i'm going to buckle down and do better. so when the cholesterol/glucose final comes up, i'll be first in the class.
if only my prof wasn't such a bitch.

in more serious news, i got home and my doctor had called me-- well, not my doctor so much as my doctor's half-witted assistant. and she left a message saying "the doctor wants to see you to discuss your x-rays. but it's not urgent." WTF? when i called back, i got the assistant who holds the other half of the shared brain, and i didn't bother pursuing any further info, since she was right up front with the statement "i really don't know anything about it". so i had hip and spine x-rays last week, and now we're going to have a non-urgent discussion about them. i suppose i can assume that it's not a contagious thing, or a fractured thing. which i kind of already knew. perhaps she's found a vestigial tail. or perhaps one of my vertebrae looks like the virgin Mary. maybe she just misses me.
maybe she's throwing me a surprise party to congratulate me on passing my glucose and cholesterol tests!

things i have noticed

i think the second most annoying song in the christmas repertoire (and by repertoire, i mean the stuff that easy listening radio plays in december) is that "marshmallow world" song. i don't even know what it's called. but i heard the holly cole version in the second cup after i went to the gym, and i wanted to jam stir sticks into my ears.
the most annoying song is "little toy train". again i have no idea who sings it, and i'm sure there are many incarnations of it. but it's freaking creepy. there's a version that they used to play on the station i listened to at work, and it sounded like it was covered by some creepy paper-skinned man who hides in closets and watches children. i suppose that would be PIN. if Pin covered this song, then that's just wrong.
i've also been thinking about pitching an MTV reality show that would basically just be me filming the people who work at my gym. it seems to be kind of like Laguna Beach or Real World behind the reception desk. always some kind of cool kid drama going on, that disappears to the back office just when it gets interesting. also, i never see any of the staff working out, but i do see them sucking back super mega lattes with syrup. or something of the like.
i've noticed that i really haven't had a lot of luck with the scene that's supposed to follow my pitch for this weekend. i have noticed that the time between now and the deadline of midnight tomorrow night isn't getting any shorter. i've noticed that i need to get off my ass and get this thing done. can't discuss any further, as one of the judges reads these ramblings.
but mostly i've noticed how awesome the DDR going on behind me in the living room is, and how i should really get some work done so i can join in the fun.