Label Me

Someone asked me recently how I would label myself.

Label myself?

It reminds me of this strange Christmas gift I got one year, no doubt a relic from the sales bin that my relatives usually peruse when thoughtlessly selecting some piece of crap or other to put under the tree for me.

It was a Brother P Touch, maker of labels.

As we all know, when life gives me lemons, I like to make lemonade. So, good sport that I am, I went about showing my appreciation for this delightful gift by putting it to use. I labeled.

I labeled the sofa "sofa".

I labeled the door "door".

I labeled the vodka "BFF".

I labeled the label maker "label maker".

I labeled the salsa "stupid fucking jar that I can't get open, I don't even like salsa anyway".

You get the picture. And all the while I learned a very important lesson: never label anything that has pubic hair. Ouch. Of course, the label maker eventually ran out of labels, and I refused to spend perfectly good money on label refills, so I did the only thing that made sense: I donated that useless empty label maker to the homeless. I mean, who has trouble remember stuff like the homeless? "Stray dog", "my left foot", "nickel"....all kinds of applications.

But back to me.

So what would I label myself?

How about "self"?

Or maybe Jay. Probably not Jamie, though that was the first label ever given me when I came out of my mother's stomach, along with my blood type and weight (thank god we're not compelled to wear those bracelets all life long), although there was a time that I would have rather been known by my weight than my name. Oh how I hated being called Jamie. Everyone told me it was a boy's name, and in fact, I could not deny that I'd been named after my uncle. And everyone mispronounced it because I went to a French school where French tongues stumbled over English names (kids in my class would address me as "Gami" on my valentines). But eventually I came to think of my name as a gift rather than a curse, and Nickname Gods be thanked, my days as Spike were numbered but Jay was one that stuck. Until I met Jason, a fellow Jay, and an instant dilemma. As you can probably tell, I won, as I win all such contests in our house, because I have the all-mighty vagina, and he does not. There are only two instances where I am not Jay. The first is when we're in bed. He calls me Jamie then, apparently fucking is more formal than I thought, and every time he says it it sounds strange on his lips, almost as though he's saying another woman's name, which is maybe the point. The second is on government documents. The government is not a fan of nicknames, which is no surprise. The government has been a total square since the early days of democracy, although their stance against nicknames is a little hypocritical since I do notice they refer to themselves as "gov" in their web addresses. "Gov" is still a far cry from hip & cool, I'm afraid, but then, governments are known for bungling. Although, to be honest, I would probably be anti-nickname myself if everyone referred to me as "those stupid fucks".

So Jay it is, as far as labels go.
Unless you expect the existential rather than the rudimentary.

Would I label myself as kind, for example?
Well, I guess I would say I'm kind of funny. Kind of weird. Kind of thirsty.

I might also subscribe to:

"Keep out of reach of children."

"May cause irritation."

"Extremely flammable."

"Not dishwasher safe."

Not that I've ever been inside a dish washer. I'm just assuming.

Okay, so maybe I suck at labels.
But could you really do any better, ya punk?

Prove it.

It's an honour just to be nominated?

You know you've really hit it big when your "amigos" at latingossip.com email you congratulations about your recent nomination (incidentally, I would have preferred champagne).

Yes, my friends, what you've read about me in Star Magazine is true: I am a Bloggie award finalist, and I say that with all the sincere pride and gravitas such a distinction deserves.

Kill the Goat is nominated in the Best Canadian Blog category, which is somewhat fitting, because it is a blog, and I do write it in Canada, for the most part. But let me tell you, the competition is stiff. You can kind of tell that in this fine country of mine, there are 4 "big" blogs out there (and by "big", I mean the kind that refer to themselves as "we" because they have editors and contributers, and their own domain and blog design) and that I'm the wildcard (and by "wildcard" I mean, the only one who still uses blogger, and who has nothing of importance to say, and what I do say I say without style because I don't even know how to use italics).

But it's an honour just to be nominated anyway.
Well, not really, but it's the right thing to say.
It's kind of akin to saying "it's what's inside that counts" and you just know that only ugly chicks say stuff like that.

But it is an awful lot of fun to be the underdog, to be the only one in the bunch who actually writes about the banalities of life, you know, like:

I ate 4 clementines today. I really like clementines. And geez my elbows are dry lately. Jason's boss bought him body butter for Christmas, so of course it was re-gifted to me, but it mostly just stinks and doesn't hydrate the skin at all. I think I would have nicer skin if I just rubbed the clementines all over my body. Why doesn't spell checker like the word clementine? Am I not spelling it right, or is blogger just anti-tangerine?

Yeah. Like that.

So obviously I have no delusions about winning. I mean, when fellow nominees include Boing Boing, Dooce, and Postsecret, you pretty much know that the goat is doomed. So I won't ask you to vote for me, but I will suffer you to sit through my would-be acceptance speech.

First of all, I would like to thank The Lord. Because we all know that God loves rappers best, football players second, and bloggers third.

I couldn't be here without my mother, who provided me with the kind of childhood that breeds the ultimate blogging material: neurosis and bleeding ulcers.

I would also like to thank UPS for constantly giving me something to rant about, insomnia for giving me the time to rant about UPS, vodka for making me think that anyone cares, and of course, the penis, because it always gives me something to think (and write) about.

Seriously, I know that a blogger only gets anywhere when she has some good friends who drop by and pretend to read her ravings on a semi-regular basis, and to all of you who have done that for me, I thank you. An especially big thank you to those who take further time out of their day to write comments or send emails. Comments are like crack - intoxicating until they run out, and then I just want more.

And finally, thank you to the prestigious 2007 Weblog Awards for bestowing upon me this dubious honour and for letting me fill the "Doesn't Stand a Chance" slot this year.

Buckle up for safety, everyone.
Thank you, and goodnight.

Alternatives to Lemonade.

Sometimes,
when life gives you lemons
all you can do
is cut them into wedges
and do tequila shots
until you're on the floor
in a pool of your own vomit.

Constant Cravings

It sucks to be on the rag in this city.

Now, I realize that I may be in the minority here, but chocolate is not my thing. I'm just not a sweet person, I guess. I'm a salty girl.

What I want, and what I need, is pizza. Drippy cheese, burn-the-roof-of-your-mouth, grease on the napkins good pizza. But this stupid city doesn't have any. Not a single decent pizza in the whole goddamned city. At first I couldn't believe my dumb luck, and I combed the city for a worthy pizzeria. There were none. None!

This frigging city that prides itself on its diversity and international fare cannot make a pizza to save itself. In less than 50 steps from my door, I can find really great indian food, terrific mongolian grill, impressive thai food, and spicy caribbean, and a pretty good steak. But there ain't no pizza in this city, despite the yellow pages' 408 pizzeria listings for the Greater Toronto Area.

Clearly, I think about this subject way too much, but I've had about 5 days per each of the 16 months I've been here - 80 days of crampy, cranky, craving contemplation. The problem seems to be that the city relies on chains - crappy Pizza Pizza, Dominos, Pizza Nova, Pizzaville - and they all make the same crappy slices. Puke.

I grew up in eastern Ontario, where pizza is serious business. Back in the day, the mob in Montreal was running ingredients -cheese and pepperoni - and thus, they greatly encouraged restaurant owners to order generously, and those that wanted to live did just that. So pizzas were loaded with this stuff. Where I come from, pepperoni is not those gross little circles that dot most pizzas, it's ultra-thin shavings that are layered maybe an inch think over the crust (yes, ingredients go under the cheese, people!) and cheese is piled on at least that thickly over that. It's rich with calories, but worth every single one. This pizza has a heart attack waiting to happen right in the middle - a small ball of dough is placed in the middle of the pizza, and while it bakes, the grease runs toward the middle and gets trapped in the ball. Everyone would fight over this ball when the delivery guy would arrive - this is the po' man's delicacy.

I myself am very fond of the plain cheese pizza, but don't let the name deceive you. To me, if sex had a taste, that would be it. Pure indulgence. It's so sloppy and greasy and wonderful that you have to eat it with a knife and fork - the crust could never support the heaven that sits atop it. Jason, of course, prefers the "all-dressed" variety, which does not even exist in this retarded city. In Toronto, a pizza with everything on it is called "deluxe". How pansy is that? And in the lovely city of Ottawa, all of the worthy pizzerias have a special that combines pepperoni, bacon, green olives, green peppers, and mushrooms. Now that's good pizza. But the wester you get in this province, the grosser the pizza becomes.

It's probably not healthy to obsess over food like this, right? But this time of the month, I honestly believe I might die without a taste. I wonder to myself how much it might cost to have a couple of them fed-exed to the black hole of pizza (otherwise known as central Ontario). And I know that when Jason gets home from work, he'll see that look in my eye, and offer to make the trip (5-6 hours each way). He offers every time. I haven't let him yet, but every month I grow weaker.

Must.
Get.
...
Pizza...

Ah, fuck it. I guess I'll just become a raging bitch instead.