lately

I’m trying to write up my thoughts re: pick up artists as an actual article that maybe someone will pay me for–so, look for it here in a few months when I’ve given up hope on that pipe dream. Or maybe I’ll start a vlog, like I’ve been vaguely threatening to, and do a dramatic reading.

Last night, I went to see In the Loop with Jo. I highly recommend it, if you get the chance. I really, really, really wish I could swear that inventively. I want to take some kind of course in advanced invective from Malcom Tucker. It would be worth every penny. Of course, my mind is already warped from months of “that’s what she said” and similar jokes on set (sometimes it’s REALLY HA–er, difficult, that is–to talk to my family without saying something supremely inappropriate), so a certificate in profanity might not be the best thing for me.

 

it’s fair, though. I’ve threatened to eat my fair share of cats

Last week it was, yes, laziness that kept me from posting anything. But this weekend, it was illness. I haven’t had a stomach bug since I was a kid, and this just flattened me. Feeling nauseated for forty-eight hours straight is not something I want to repeat in the near future (chalk that up as another reason to never get knocked up). Also, for some reason, I was sure bile was black. Guess the only medieval humor that stuck in my head was the black bile one. I laid in bed, trying to remember what the other three were (I got as far as blood) and calculating how long it would take for someone to discover my dessicated corpse. Illness, you may have noticed, makes me morbid.

It was at this time that I began to passionately regret not being a reliably prompt correspondent, whether it be on Facebook, email, or text messaging. Someone would notice faster that I wasn’t answering if I had a usual response time. I mean, I was probably still going to be dead when someone ended up breaking my door down, but my corpse would be better-looking. These things are important when you’re cradling a bucket and trying to muster up the strength to traverse the eight metres to the bathroom, where you have inconveniently chosen to store your Advil.

I was, however, pretty glad that I’d never given into spinster cliche and acquired a cat. I just know one of those furry bastards would go for my corpse-face first.

 

thanks, but no thanks

The scene is a subway car, heading west, at about nine pm. Enter me, ear buds screwed firmly into ear cavities, mind on my destination (drinks with old university buddies). I choose a place where I can brace myself against a pole, rather than grasping it (I have slight tendencies towards germaphobia), and tune out. I become aware of someone approaching from down the car, who stops right before me, and politely, I remove an ear bud.

“I just wanted to tell you, ” he says, “That you’re the most elegant woman I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh. Uh… thanks.” I say. The man is non-descriptly dressed, probably in his late twenties. One of his eyes appears to be looking over my head and to the left.

“Here’s my email address,” he continues, pulling a card out of his wallet and handing it to me. I accept it, gingerly. Glancing down, I can discern the words “Pavel” and “lover” and have to adjust my face to remain polite.

He leans in, upping the ante on creepiness, and says, “I thought you should know you’re very desirable.”

“Thank you,” I repeat. Thankfully, at this point he retreats, and I jam the card into my purse, and try to make the train go faster by telekenesis. When it arrives at the station, I throw myself up the stairs to the next platform, and, after confirming the absence of Pavel the Lover in my immediate vicinity, pull out the card. I turn it over, and the text on the back reads:

Make your next sexual experience
A sensual adventure

 

the world is my mollusk

Recently, my dreams of getting my UK passport and thus being able to work in the EU were horribly crushed. It seemed I was not eligible. But yesterday my sister, being much more intelligent than I, discovered that we were, in fact, technically already British citizens… and therefore, my UK passport is just an application away.

And there doesn’t seem to be any good reason for me not to get it and go back to Europe. I was recently toying with the idea of teaching English in Asia. My childhood ambition to become some kind of professor died completely when, at 17, I taught swimming to bratty children who emitted a startling range of bodily fluids–at any rate, the dream was based more on hero-worship of my father than any actual desire on my part. But it does seem like a handy way to make money and see the sights in Asia, as well as gain valuable life experience and experience cultural immersion. And it’s what drama students from Guelph do when they become disillusioned with what life is offering in Toronto.

But while Asia is calling me (I WILL learn muay thai in the jungle! It MUST happen), my long love affair with Europe isn’t over. It may never be over. And, armed with a UK passport, I could work my way around the continent. Get shady jobs in hostels and bars! See the sights I missed in my mad dash! Have a torrid love affair with a charming and mysterious man with a sexy accent! Go back to Spain for more shopping!

Romanticism aside, it turns out that what I’m really happy doing is writing, and my inferiority complex manifests itself by demanding I make my life more interesting if that’s what I’m going to write about. I envision myself as a better-looking and less-douchey Chuck Klosterman and a less-hilarious, female Bill Bryson; that is to say, I want to write personal essays about experiences, preferably travel ones. And it’d be really awesome if someone could, you know, pay me for that sort of thing.

 

I’m just sitting on the shelf

I bought the She & Him album today, and while parts of it are a little too country for me, I can tell it’s going to be in heavy rotation for the next couple weeks on the ol’ iPod. The purchase was prompted because I watched this video, and I fell in love with the song. And the dance moves. And the wardrobe.

I’d say I have a girl crush on Zooey Deschanel, but it’s more that I want to BE her (creeeeepyyy). And I haven’t just jumped on this bandwagon recently because of my slight obsession with (500) Days of Summer. No, I’ve wanted to be her pretty much since she ran off to be a stewardess in Almost Famous. It was the wardrobe and the love of Simon & Garfunkel, I think.

Incidentally, stewardess is the longest word you can type with just your left hand on a QWERTY keyboard. I think about that every time I have the opportunity to use the word, spoken OR written. Weird what sticks to the walls of your brain.

In other news, I’m going up to my grandparents’ cottage tomorrow to help shingle a roof and run interference should my brother and G.pa try to murder each other. Of course, should I be in one of my moods, it may devolve into just deciding which one of them I prefer to die, and offering my assistance accordingly.

 

I also played a round or four of Tetris

Well, thus far, unemployment has meant that I’m caught up on sleep and rapidly catching up on my reading. I whipped through The Year of Living Biblically and re-read some pulpy sci-fi (the X-Wing series, for those of you who want to know just how nerdy I am) in my first week of being a layabout, and now I’m reading a history of human development as explained through the lens of six beverages (A History of the World in 6 Glasses). And yesterday I ignored all and sundry responsibilities to re-read Pride and Prejudice.

Also, I’ve been drinking a lot.

I finally bit the bullet today and applied for some employment insurance benefits. Oddly, it makes me feel more adult than being employed ever has. Perhaps it was all the information I had to look up and plug into the form, or maybe it was the fact that since I told Mother I’d do it yesterday, I didn’t feel like I could call her to explain things to me and help. I am… pretty concerned that I did it wrong, and unwittingly committed some kind of federal offense. This is my life.

Now, I’m talking myself in and out of going to see Harry Potter, just to have something to say when I’m next asked what I’ve been doing. It doesn’t sound very impressive when you say you went for a jog, then got discouraged from going out on important errands by the rain, and took a nap instead. And then ate a sub.

 

one night stands can be an exercise in awkwardness

Sometimes, you go to a gay hip hop party at a local hostel, and then end up going home with the guy you met on the street corner after trying to pick him up for your (male) friend. And somewhere in there, you climb a tree, and acquire a wicked bruise on the inside of your upper arm. Friday night goes in my list of top five most random evenings.

Having been categorically unable to sustain a relationship for longer than a few months at a time (I blame my short attention span), I have never been able to adapt to sleeping in a bed with someone. I contemplated sneaking out and going home, but he had suggested coffee at a local cafe in the morning, and he was bizarrely gentlemanly about inviting me over in the first place… so I laid there and listened to him snore gently, wondering how often I could shift without being too jerky.

I like gentlemen as a novelty, but since my sense of humour runs towards the sarcastic and inappropriate, too much courtly behaviour makes me feel like a finishing school drop-out. Or rather, someone who was expelled from finishing school for picking a wedgie with the salad fork.

Besides which, I feel like I’ve missed out on learning the rules of one night stands. Has someone written an Emily Post on random hook-ups? (I’m assuming this isn’t the sort of thing you learn in finishing school, unless it’s an advanced class you get to post-table settings.)

Anyway, our breakfast date was pretty pleasant, despite the residual awkwardness that comes from having seen each other naked but not actually exchanged much more than names and saliva. And then I walk of shamed home, and got leered at by many, many old men (I’m talking greybeards here) who clearly knew what I’d been up to.

 

unemployed!

Usually, there’s a grace period between when I stop working and when I start getting crazy ideas about what I’m going to do next. The turnover time has shrunk considerably, let me tell you. It’s been less than a week, and as a direct result of a trip to Costco, I’ve decided to re-learn French and move to Paris.

Allow me to explain (inasmuch as any of my thought processes CAN be explained): the season 2 DVD of Pushing Daisies came out on Tuesday. No, wait, I must go back further. When I was in high school, I worked at a Boston Pizza. That fact has shaped a surprising amount of my life; both of the guys who I can legitimately claim to have had strong, passionate feelings for in the past were coworkers there. Anyway, a good friend who I’d lost touch with over the past four years or so was back working there after a stint as a teacher on a Native Reserve. Seeing as I have a degree in drama, you can safely assume I know my share of strange characters; Chris is one of the oddest and most entertaining people I know.

Chris owns two kayaks, so since I’m now at loose ends, we made a date to go kayaking on Monday. It was entertaining on several levels. I’m not what you’d call an outdoors girl, and Chris can’t swim. We had planned the excursion very poorly, and had to surmount the following obstacles: outdoor urination, shallow waters, tree trunks, wildlife, one lifejacket and one kayak skirt between us, and the most rudimentary of kayaking skills. Depending on whether I was paddling happily through open waters or clambering over a tree trunk (while pushing the kayak beneath it), I declared the trip to be either the “best kayaking trip ever,” or “WORST kayaking trip, EVER!”

After the joys of chasing down beavers and being laughed at by fishers palled, we went back to Boston Pizza for dinner and to reminisce about old times and discuss our rudderless futures. Naturally, this meant I was late getting Mother’s car back to her, and missed my bus from my hometown back to Toronto. Usually, I can’t sleep in the suburbs, but a weekend of late nights caught up with me, and I slept like a baby. When I rolled out of bed, mid-morning, Mother pitched the idea of heading out on a shopping trip before I went back home–if I hung around for a few hours, I could catch a ride with Father and Broski when they headed downtown in the afternoon. So we went to Costco so I could buy season two of Pushing Daisies. While there, I picked up a three disk compilation of Parisian bistro music, and casually talked Mother into buying it.

I object fairly strongly to my brother’s taste in music, and so I demanded that we pop in one of the CDs on the way home. And, staring out the window at the depressing suburbs, listening to the kind of music that makes you want to drink red wine while wearing a beret, I decided that I should probably live in Paris for a year or two.

Now I have a book on tuning up your French sitting on my shelf, and I’ve been listening to far too much Edith Piaf.

In case you were worried, the plan is kick-boxing in Thailand first, THEN moving to Paris.

 

a fighter, not a lover

Last night, my besties and I watched West Side Story. I’d seen it before (a few times, actually), and was therefore snickering in advance of the ever-rising homoerotic tension and hackneyed dialogue. But Jo and Toni had not previously experienced the dubious delights of high-kicking gangs in tight pants, and since Jo is slowly working her way through the AFI’s 100 Best Movies (or whatever the list is officially called; I am too lazy to Google it), we sat through the whole thing.

I remember having to watch it in music class in high school (to this day, I’m not entirely sure why), and for weeks afterward, my friend Al and I would snap our fingers and poorly imitate dance moves while cackling inanely. So much for the timeless tale of star-cross’d lovers appealing to sensitive youths.

I suppose I qualify as a closet romantic, if you stipulate that the closet door is barricaded by shoeboxes full of cynicism and irony. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. I cried BUCKETS over The Time Traveler’s Wife (the trailer looks like shit, and I am not sold on the casting, but I probably will end up seeing the damn movie), and I have been known to melt over various other books and films. Real life romance, however, freaks me out a little.

Mother has a theory that I’m getting too set in my ways (read: independent and mean to guys) to ever find a mate. I would say that her old-fashioned leanings are leading her to believe I need a man to look after me, but she also believes that my brother needs someone to look after him (who, incidentally, would also need to be a man). It’s probably more true in his case. Once, I demanded to know why my big brother never bothered beating up guys on my behalf, and he said it was because I could do it on my own. True. I’m more intimidating than my brother (but less than my little sister). I suppose going to Thailand to live in a jungle and learn to kick box will only exacerbate this.

 

I hid the tattoo for a year and a half, but they caught the navel piercing a week later

I think sleeve tattoos are super hot, but I can’t think of anything that big and intricate I’d want permanently inked on me. Plus, I’m very indecisive.* I couldn’t commit to anything that big. I have a tiny Chinese character on my hip, and I’m toying with the idea of covering it with a different tattoo. I don’t regret getting it, but I just feel like I’ve changed a lot since I got it at 18. Also, given my short and scattered attention span, eight years is a good long run for me to have commited to anything.

*Thirdly, it’d KILL Mother.