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.

blog of triumph, blog of... er, triumph?

who can believe i did this? with an astounding 50,459 words of boring, grotesque, clumsy writing!
today, i rock.

in other news, it is bone-marrow freezingly cold out. and i had to go to the doctor this morning for my annual physical. the problem with my doctor is that she's always running extra late. like, you'll be escorted into the exam room and instructed by her hobbit-like assistant (i mean she seems likely to have hairy feet, not that she's neccessarily all that short) to get undressed and put on one of those weird paper gowns. and then you'll sit there in said weird paper gown for about thrity-five minutes, freezing your ass off. and eventually the doctor will make it in just as you're about to chuck it and get at least partially dressed so you can dash out and pee.
plus i guess i have to start worrying about cholesterol and bone density. god, i feel ancient. or i did, until i had to go and get some x-rays done. and everyone in the waiting room was about 142 years old. and the lady who did the x-rays was about 120. needless to say, i'm going to run out and get the calcium-added orange juice as soon as it's a little warmer out.

blog of anger, blog of shame part II

ok, i'm still pretty steamed and dismayed. watch out for whining ahead, folks. but can i just observe how astoundingly unfair life can be? how astoundingly aggravating it is that i feel so inadequate, and how no one cares about my inadequacy? and how somehow that makes me feel more inadequate?
so i'm thinking of going to winnipeg instead. and, failing that, saskatoon. i think the closing dates for those are pretty much separated enough that i can find out about one before having to submit for the other.
but, the inevitable doubt creeps in. i'll have to take a different show, and have no idea what that would be. it seems like i might be doing it largely by myself, which is scary. and no one here will care. which is astoundingly aggravating.
isn't it odd the thing that drives me crazy in others (the short-sightedness of yearning for local fame while ignoring the bigger picture) is so prevalent in me? still wanting to be in the cool crowd?
oooooh i just feel so INADEQUATE.

blog of anger, blog of shame

ok, so i just returned from the frozen outside after spending a delightful 90 minutes at the fringe lottery. suffice it to say that i was drawn at number 42 ON THE WAITING LIST. so, barring some horrible bus accident or multiple lightening strike, i'm not going to be doing the fringe. again.
and it pisses me off. as 2 years of not doing anything for the fringe has shown me, my phone isn't exactly going to be ringing off the hook with offers. i'm guaranteed not to work unless i cast myself.
well, that may be a little melodramatic.
but i am feeling self-pitying and have caught a cold from my many travel adventures today. so i'm entitled. also, i missed the doctor phil heroin house because i was at the lottery.
i could always do a byov, i suppose. but those seem like a lot of trouble for very little payoff.
hmmmph.

how cold is it?

it's easily -4000000 degrees outside at the moment. that, or approaching 0 Kelvin (hahaha wink wink nudge nudge to all you science nerds out there). currently i can't see out my window due to what i can only assume is (a)yet another snowstorm, or (b)radioactive death fog that will mutate all who breathe it in. one of those.
so, i am at 45000 words now, feeling pretty damn comfortable with that. and tonight heading out to see part deux of the lamest theatre community controversy ever. i had to correspond with the big B last night, and i innocently asked if i would see him there. who knows who will show up? maybe no one will show up. maybe everyone will show up to sneer. in any case, some kind of shit better go down. or else i should get picked to move on to the next round. because it's waaaaaaaay too cold to venture out without some kind of payoff, be it gossip or glory.
so i have a job interview tomorrow. which is somewhat laughable. do i want to work at the mall? as in, be an administrator who works at the mall? the engineering secretary or whatever it is? one of those behind-the-scenes people who bring the mall to you? one of those things i applied for on the spur of the moment, yet do not want. yet, my eagerness to impress perfect strangers makes it difficult for me to throw an interview.
also, i joined a book club. eep. will this be a fiasco a la columbia house tape club? (curse you, soup dragons cassette i did not order!) i couldn't resist. it was free cookbooks. and then they send you a catalogue of more cookbook. and then you just have to avoid having them send you their monthly selection. so easy! so yummy! i have baking books coming!
mmmm french toast is almost ready.
ETA: i almost forgot the thing that is bugging me the most. my mouse has now officially crapped out. well, perhaps unofficially, because it still does a half-assed job if you repeatedly slam it down on the pad and yell at it. but you have to watch the swearing, because that seems to cause the bottom to fall out, and the little ball inside to roll away. i can't say i ever realized that a mouse is supposed to come apart like that. nor did i realize that some will spend upwards of $150 on a new mouse. not me. i'm looking in the $14-25 range. nothing but the best for my computer.

so this is my writing warmup

strange how the closer i get to my goal, the less motivated i feel... oh, i'm sure an analyst would have a field day with that one. anyway, this is my writing warmup as i attempt to close the gap between me and 42K words tonight. I'm already at 41K, so i'm not anticipating too many problems. plus i've applied to the fringe, sent in my pitch to wwt, and have a lame job interview on monday. i've paid my bills, i got my roots touched up. i treated myself to a massage. i bought some new jeans. i feel so... productive. i've even been to the gym this week. so things are really on track. except that it's minus 1 billion degrees here, things are going swimmingly.
there's no way that my "novel" will be actually finished when i hit 50,000 words. it's one of those things that is randomly smashed together and has no real end. so i suppose it will be finished when i type "the end".
now all i have to do is some christmas shopping. (speaking of ambivalence...)
okay, off to hit 42K. sorry the blog just isn't very interesting as of late. i promise more excitement when the new year begins.
maybe.

i liked it better when i looked like hugh laurie...

.
.
.

i'm feeling like a bit of a lazy bum...

not that i'm sitting around watching tv all day. although i do like my stories, can't forget to watch days of our lives every day. or every other day. or even every six months, trust me, you'll still be able to follow the story. (if there are any old-school days people reading, you should tune in... as many of the original actors are back once more, they've been running flashback scenes from the early 80's, which is truly hilarious. also, perhaps you can explain why steve remembered that deaf kid he took care of, but fails to remember kayla. does anyone remember that deaf kid? the kid that forced the actors to learn sign language, and so after that, many, many characters on days were temporarily deaf? oh, i could go on.)
anyway, today i am at 27K words on my novel, hoping to get to 30 by tomorrow. and i'm probably going to start on a pair of (hopefully) kick-ass yoga pants made out of a t-shirt i bought at the value village 50% off sale. (madness, do not go, as you will be shoved by many angry ladies who bear a passing resemblance to the michelin man).
i do feel lazy, however, as i have not gone to the gym in some time. the past couple of days i can pass it off on my stupid knee, which currently resembles a large red bocce ball in the middle of my leg. but, it's not like i'm bedridden. well, perhaps mentally.
but today is DAY FOUR of nonsmoking. i have to say that i am not constantly thinking about how much i would love to have a ciggie anymore. although, i do find myself reaching for them without thinking about it. if memory serves me correctly, this is about when the guilty smoking dreams should start.
that is about all that's new. doing lots of things, but accomplishing relatively little.

who's down with OPP?

and by OPP, of course i mean the Oriental Party Pack of frozen hors d'oeuvres, available at your local Safeway. not only is the OPP a cornucopia of asian Oriental delicacies, the ease of preparation will surely leave you in a lip-smacking, salt-induced grease coma for days to come. and when you wake up, you'll be sure to have a friend in gut rot.
of course, this is all a part of my grand tradition of making a meal out of canapes, going all the way back to the bacon-wrapped cheese sausages that will surely make my arteries the talk of the cardiology unit.
as you can see, i haven't updated in a while. i suppose i've stopped procrastinating and have been hard at work on what some would loosely define as a novel for Nano. and today i am proud to announce that i'm up to the 20,000+ mark! astounding!
the other news of the day is that we just purchased Spongebob Monopoly, as there were no Simpsons games available at crappy Bonnie Doon any of the fine stores we visited. we think this will stave off nicotine-deprived violence while we attempt to quit smoking forever... this particular project begins tomorrow. negotiations are still underway to determine whether or not the "last" cigarette is to be consumed at midnight tonight or first thing tomorrow.
we had started to play a game tonight, but it's just been ruined by a giant cat invading the town and destroying my slowly growing empire.
oh, the humanity.

don't you hate it when...

you go to a halloween party where you don't really know anyone, and even if you did know people they're all wearing fantastical masks and makeup, and it's really hard to recognize people? and then you hang out with some people you do know in a back room, and you get mildly high from all the pot smoke? and then you make your way through the drunk people carrying pumpkins and yelling about scotch, and get home safely only to find that when you wake up you have a horribly misshapen eye, possibly due to some random skin allergy and the cheap drugstore false eyelashes you were wearing? and then you start your nanowrimo novel and you get about 1800 words into it, before realizing that writing fiction is HARD and you seem to have adapted to writing only dialogue and you've forgotten how to DESCRIBE?
don't you hate that?
also, when you haven't figured out the direction your blog should go in, so you continue its ongoing theme about whining about your life?
don't you hate that?
i do, however have to say... 1800 words! in only 1.5 hours?! WTF?
it's a little easier when you realize that you're the only one who never has to read it.