Mother Nature's on the Rag.

Today the windows rattle with Mother Nature's wrath. Literally. The icy wind is pounding at the panes, insisting to be let in, and frankly, the panes aren't doing nearly enough to keep it out.

The roads are slick with ice, the dangerous kind, the kind you can't see until it's too late.

It's days like this that I surmise that ankles are ridiculous things. Why should the smallest part of your leg bear all the weight and flex? So much is expected of these dainty creatures. On a day like today, they cry to themselves, implore the feet to stay the hell indoors. It's dangerous out there for an ankle.

I haven't taken a major spill yet this year, which means I'm due.

A klutz on a good day, winter tends to throw hazards by the dozens in my way. It's inevitable that I will fall, especially since I refuse to wear "appropriate" footwear. If I'm going to take a tumble, you bet it will be in my black patent leather heels. The ER doctor might be cute, and snow boots have never turned anyone on.

Now that the butt-bruises have faded, I can look back on my winter falls with fondness. A couple of years ago I took an Olympic-sized fall when we were stopped on the side of the road and I was scraping the windshield from the freezing rain that was stubbornly building up. Huge flakes of snow were blinding me, the snow banks were nearly hip-deep, and I don't remember what caused my feet to shoot out from under me, but suddenly I was rolling downhill into a soggy ditch. A few years before that, I was scurrying across the pedestrian crossing in front of Tabaret Hall at my University. I got safely across only to find a sneaky patch of ice that led to my undoing. That was the winter I decided to start wearing underwear again, or at the very least, longer skirts.

I know what's coming. I just don't know when, or how spectacular. It could be wrist-shattering, or tailbone-swelling, or black-eye inducing if I repeat an earlier performance of falling while holding a shovel.

This is an ugly time of year, and not just because of the potential injuries. The skin gets dry and scaly, and though my day looks like this: shea butter, shea butter, shea butter...it never seems to keep the dryness totally at bay. And the wind chaps your lips, unfairly so, because it's a real bitch to apply lip balm while wearing mittens. Mismatched mittens, at that. In October, we've all got mittens that match our scarves and toques. But mittens are like socks. They disappear not in pairs, but one at a time, leaving a lonely single behind. By the end of January if we're wearing one green nylon ski glove and one pink and grey fuzzy mitten, we're counting ourselves lucky, because at least we're still (relatively) warm. Our winter footwear is scarred with salt stains and our coats have been marred with ski-lift tickets and dribbles of drive-thru Tim Hortons. Our hands bear calluses from shovelling, our noses are running, and our bodies are pasty white (while often our faces are golden brown, except around the eyes, where ski goggles have induced the inverse-raccoon effect), and we're all carrying that extra bit of fat that just screams EXTRA BOWL OF STEW!

And that's just what we look like outdoors. Inside, we're all running around in our underwear. Obviously, the walk from the car to the front door means your pants are dragging in the 6 inches of snow that have fallen since the last time you shovelled (about half an hour ago, it seems), and so you throw your pants in the dryer to stave off influenza, or whatever it was that your mother always warned you about, and you put your mittens out to dry on the heater (and pray they don't catch fire), and then in your panties, you mop up the puddles that your boots have made, and you throw your jacket on the floor of the closet because that's where it's going to end up anyways seeing how no hanger has been designed to hold the heaviness that is a Canadian winter coat. Then you try to put your scarf away, but you discover that the last 8 feet or so got caught in the door. The car door. Because you know what? A scarf has to be long up here in the great white north. It has to be long enough to wrap around your forehead, your cheeks, and then around your neck several times, and then end up criss-crossed over your chest under your coat so the whole thing doesn't unravel at the first gust of wind. The crime rate could theoretically sky-rocket during the winter months because scarves are a perfect disguise. You can't recognize your own mother under all that scarfage, even if you hand-knitted her scarf yourself. But crime rates don't jump at all, because nothing is tempting enough to risk freezing your balls off.

January is nearly over with, and we're praying that it will take winter along with it. But it won't. February is going to hit us hard because we just haven't suffered enough yet. Sorry, but it's true. January was mild. Oh, it was always well below freezing, and we kept impressive amounts of snow on the ground, and down our backs, and over our groaning roofs, and god yes, piled high in our driveways.

But did our basement flood yet? (barely)
Did ice snap the power lines? (not since December)
Was a state of emergency declared? (not in 2008)
Did they close the roads and tell people to stay in their homes? (just the once this month)

Winter is not over yet. In fact, I fear the worst is yet to come.
But you know, we're resilient people. We've got boardgames in the closet, flashlight batteries in the kitchen drawer, and a mean chili recipe that will warm the coldest of souls. And truth be told, there's also an old fashioned toboggan that's all greased up and ready to go careening down the steepest, most ice-slicked hill, and while you can't see much around the folds in my scarf, you'll probably detect at least a hint of winter gleam in my eye.

Where the mind wanders...

I think possibly my days of going braless are are behind me. A whole cup size behind me. It's a shame too, since I have the perfect halter dress hanging in my closet, just begging to go out and scar some kid celebrating his first legal birthday at the bar. I hate to let a dress like that go to waste.



I think probably the dogs will not die from having discovered my astroglide and found it good enough to eat. Still, I'm not looking forward to slippery piles of puppy poop.

I think possibly the caps lock key is more hindrance than help. I use the shift key to capitalize the random words that come up at the beginnings of sentences, and words I think are important, like Vodka and Vagina. I never turn the cap locks key on. Well, I never turn it on intentionally. But dozens of times my pinky taps it surreptitiously and suddenly I'M SCREAMING LIKE A MANIAC. Screaming like a maniac rarely comes up in my day to day life (believe it or not), but it manages to bug the hell out of me on a regular basis nonetheless.

I think there's a very good chance that I am a total hypocrite since I expect a guy to like my lazy ass whether my legs are smooth or prickly....but when someone asks me to deliberately stop shaving for him, it grosses me out. Way out.

I think it's also safe to say that I am an idiot. All day long I've seen the headline on my homepage - GTA IV fever strikes - and all day long I've clucked at whichever poor Toronto hospital is making its patients sick via intravenous. I mean, it's better than bird flu. It's probably even better than the superbug that was going around, but still. But then, when I finally clicked on the article to find out which hospital in the Greater Toronto Area had been struck, I realized that in fact, it's Grand Theft Auto #4 that is causing the "fever", and that I should be put down. Immediately.

Truth? Dare? Shoot me now?

I did an inadvisable thing recently.

I drank margaritas with family members.

And then we played truth or dare. Without the dares.

I know, I know, I know: what were we thinking????????

Actually, I know what we were thinking. We were thinking Please god, do not make me play that horrid Howie Mandel game that poses those awkward questions like - Would you rather put Tabasco sauce in your eye, or rub a steak knife across your gums? - ever, ever again.

We should have stuck with Howie.

The first question out of the gate was: what is the most you ever weighed?

Very quickly we established a new rule: no ask backs. You can totally tell it was one of us fatties who made that one up.

Now I know you're thinking - jeez, if you've already wandered into that kind of territory, what's left?

Think on it....

think on it....

think on it......

There you go.

Yup, we went there.

In fact, we went everywhere. We went places no relatives should ever go, and certainly not together.

I won't tell you which one of us once asked a teacher what "fellatio" meant.

(His response, by the way, was to blush, and to scribble "BJ" on a piece of paper.)

I won't tell you which one of us once cautioned her 14 year old sister against said blow jobs.

(Her justification, by the way, was that they "taste like chunky beer.")

I won't tell you that this very same 14 year old sister then grew up to NOT take the advice, as it turns out.

Yeah, it was that kind of night.

It was the kind of night where certain someones had to remove their socks to tally up certain exploits.

It was the kind of night where my mother was heard to utter "I shouldn't be hearing this" dozens of times.

It was the kind of night that made me unquestionably happy that my grandmother had gone home early.

Losing My Religion

I believe in god. I do not believe in religion.

I believe in learning. I'm not sure I believe in education.

I believe in fate. I also, at the same time, do not believe in fate.


I don't believe in belts that don't hold anything up, or in giving high-5s (unless the recipient is mentally challenged), or in pennies.

I don't believe in bagels that aren't pre-sliced.

I believe that black people are more highly evolved, and that my freckles are trying to tell me something.

I believe that libraries are more sacred than churches.

I believe that people who spray me with perfume samples at the mall should be shot in the head.

I have an inkling of a belief that I might be slightly over-reactionary.

I believe that John Cusack has indeed made life harder for all men, but I do not believe that any woman should settle for less than her perfect boom-box moment.

I believe in Sex. I would like to believe in Love. I'm not sure how.

I don't believe in regrets.

I do believe in moisturizer.

I believe in hard work, I just don't want to.

I don't believe in sweet-flavoured toothpaste, smoked meats, or flannel sheets.

I believe that Elvis is dead, and so is disco. I also believe in ghosts.

I believe in the goodness of laughter, and tongue kisses, and red wine.

I don't believe in magic. I don't believe in sin. I do believe in karma.

I believe in a thing called Soul.

What do you believe?

Words to Live By

It's been 2008 for 21 solid hours now, and yes, I've been up for every one of them (and more than that besides). I've used the time wisely (well, I did floss at some point, so that counts) and have already crafted my motto for the new year. In fact, I've had to whip it out more than once today alone, and I predict it will quickly become one of my all-time favourite excuses:


It's not my fault. It was tropical drink night.