Bonjour, paresse

Day five...of the 40-day challenge.

Posters in my lobby have been announcing today's fire drill for a couple of days now, but that doesn't make me any happier about it. It asks for our "participation" (and I'm guessing they don't mean flashing my middle finger while yelling my favourite obscenities off the balcony) but this is the equivalent of 3am for me. I will be asleep, in the best part of my sleep. And they plan on jarring me awake, forcing me into a pair of pants, and having me stumble down flights and flights of stairs with a squirming dog in my arms and knots in my hair and mascara smudges down my cheeks. Not cool. And I'm guessing if they tried this at actual 3am, there'd be some dissent. But there's just no respect for the night worker. God damn.

But then they didn't do it and I got all riled up for nothing.
I even wrote that whole above paragraph for nothing.
:)
Yes, I am so ridiculous, thank you for noticing.

So after a good little sleep, I woke up to my lovely Rory's visit. She's my friend because she's awesome and pretends to like my stories and doesn't mind taking silly pictures with me. She's my best friend because she doesn't mind my addiction to crystal light and she goes along with my whims as if they make sense, even though we both know they make nothing of the sort.

She amusedly watched me do my groceries, and wisely didn't comment on my lazy selection of fruit from the pre-cut section. She retrieved her shoes from wherever Herbie attempted to hide them. And there was sushi, and girl-on-girl stories, and eventually, even a walk by the wacky apartment I wrote about yesterday.

Our favourite pasttime is to sit lazily\indulgently on my balcony, tops off, and drink daiquiris. Or margaritas. Sometimes martinis. This may have been our first alcohol-less visit, but it was okay. Rory is "supportive", which probably involves at least a little behind-the-back laughter, but what else are friends for? Instead of having a drink together, we drove to a gas station where I had my first gas pumping lesson, which is just as important as a driving lesson, actually, only nobody ever gives them. A zillion years ago, I pulled into a gas station with good intentions. I left 10 minutes later, probably red-faced, definitely humiliated, and with a still-empty tank. It didn't go well. I've never been back.

So today was good for a lot of reasons, not least of which is the fact that I've once again been cheat-less. I'm sticking to it, with a little help from my friends.

Zombie chickens couldn't drag me away...

Day four...

There is no such thing as a good day to bury your friend. There is no such thing as a fitting tribute.

Today was for the most part a luscious, lazy day. Aside from the driving lesson (the only thing worse than learning to parallel park? doing it in the pouring rain), the day treated me well. I got some sleep, even if it was fitful. I got zestfully clean in a loooooooooong shower. I got books in the mail. I had a happy-neighbour-knock on my door. Green apples gave a satisfying crunch. Herbie almost didn't pee on the carpet.

On our walks together at night, before I leave for work, Herbie and I pass by this one apartment that's lit up and curtainless, which makes for excellent spying. I mean observation. The decor is hideously fantastic - blood red walls, an oil painting of Elvis, devil pitch forks mounted on the wall, a framed photo of Jim Carrey as The Riddler, enough kitsch to fill 17 curio stores, and more neon green fake plastic trees than should reasonably fit into the space. Also on our walk tonight: the sound of bagpipes, sourceless, and a truck leaking fish-smelling fluid that Herbie was way, way into, and I was not.

Thank you to Stoneskin for gifting me with the Zombie Chicken Award, apparently for my belief in the Tao of the zombie chicken - excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. I haven't really had many chicken-related incidents lately, although my best friend was pulled over by the cops and accused of selling chickens out of the back of her truck. Not to worry though. She took a page from Jay, batted her eyelashes and said "No officer, I did not" and he said "Oh, okay then" and she drove away. How's that for inspiring?

Bizarre happening of the day: opening a plastic fruit cup of mandarin segments, the juice came magically spurting upwards, unprompted, unaided, defying the force of gravity and logic everywhere.

Thing I wondered about the most today: why I always seem to be wearing velvet ballet flats when it rains. You have not seen a more sodden shoe, I guarantee it.

Thing you don't necessarily care to know, but I'm telling you anyway: it's surprisingly freeing to pee in a public washroom with the stall door open.

What I craved today: nothing edible, nothing drinkable. Just to see his face again. I'd give it all up forever if I could, just once.

Procrastinating my way to success!

Day three...

Today was a freak crazy-beautiful day - the regularly scheduled crap weather will resume tomorrow - but today was lovely, July-hot with winning sunshine and a happy-go-lucky breeze. It's impossible to sleep when you know that kind of wonderfulness is going on outside your window (well, this his hypothetical since as a day sleeper, my bedroom window is blacked the fuck out) so I just didn't.

Herbie of course was delighted to run and play with me outside. He particularly loves pooping in front of the asian market around the corner from my house. Stooping and scooping is a little embarrassing in front of all the merry shoppers lugging 20kg bags of rice, but I get over myself pretty quickly when I remember that this is one shit not taken on my carpet.

It was patio-perfect weather, and when I walked by Pub Italia, two very cute boys invited me to have a seat. I was strong, flashed my most glamourous, woman-in-demand smile, and made my apologies. Hurdle overcome!

I've rediscovered the art of making dinner. Cooking is still one of my loves, but it's something I only do when guests are expected. I haven't cooked for my single self in over a year! It's shameful, I know, but I have a freezer full of Lean Cuisines (well, and vodka...and tequila) and a fridge brimming with yogurt and apples and water, and that's about it. Once in a while I'll have a fit of inspiration and have the fixings for turkey sandwiches or spinach salad, but that's as far as my cooking commitment will allow.

No more!
I'm feeding myself, taking the time to prepare something I enjoy, and eliminating some of those hunger pangs that lead to bad decisions. I did have a little yen for something sweet after supper, but it passed. I figure that my procrastination skills are so vast that I shouldn't have a problem waiting out my cravings. It's practically second nature anyway.

I am anticipating a second hurdle, though. I'm at work now, starting to feel a little noshy, but armed with fruit and yogurt to get me through. In the morning, I'll be tired from being up all night, and drained from the work, and I doubt I'll feel like taking my driving lesson.

Yes, I said driving lesson.
That was another challenge I gave myself for 2009: to become one of you demented drivers. It's been a good decade since I last drove. I gave it up for a good reason: I hate it. This has been an emotional, nerve-wracking experience for me, eased only slightly by my instructor declaring me "not dangerous." But I'm betting that come tomorrow morning, my white-knuckled hands leaving sweat marks on the steering wheel as I navigate stupid Bank street during stupid morning rush hour, I'll wish I had just a whiff of caffeine to steady my nerves. But I'll be brave, I promise. I mean, if I could not be felled by two cuties on a patio, a fucking Yaris doesn't stand a chance!

Knee-deep in blood and filth and piss and shit.

Day 2 of the 40 day challenge...

Yesterday? Nothing to it.
Of course, it would be rather pathetic if I was on the floor convulsing after just a few sugar-free hours. I actually eat pretty well most of the time. This is not about changing my behaviour, because I think bad habits are what make life worth living. This is about proving to myself that I can.

My colleague seems at least a little worried that I can't because last night, to play it safe, he was a "good citizen" and ate his sweet chili chips covertly, out of my line of sight. His consideration is legendary, but come on man, everyone knows I'm a dill pickle girl anyway. And anyhow, I've discovered the secret to craving control success: a nazi book (coming soon to a book review site near you!). I challenge anyone to read just a few paragraphs about being knee-deep in remorseless blood and filth and piss and shit and then think "Mmm, I could sure go for a McFlurry right now."

Random middle of the night sugar-free conversation: Was math discovered, or invented?

Weird thing that happened to me today: Walking down my street, a man pulled over in his car, rolled down his window, and made kissy noises at me. No reason was apparent.

Stuff I was grateful for today: new micro-suede curtains, my adorable man-magnet puppy, friends and colleagues who don't tiptoe around grief, my rockstar mother, chicken caesar medley, having enough money at the grocery store (unlike the girl ahead of me, who had to put stuff back).

Today's motto: "Folded deck chair" is the new missionary!

Good day? Yes it was. And busy too! It's amazing what you can cram into a day when you sacrifice sleep. However, I foresee a bit of a problem tonight at work when my second and third and fourth winds peter out and I'm left without a hint of caffeine to see me through the night. I think I might take up smoking.

Salvation is just a vending machine away.

Day one....

It's probably a bad sign that I've put off starting my 40-day challenge until I could get in one last bender, but it's no surprise to any of you that that's exactly what I did.

Yes, there were daiquiris.
Yes, there were margaritas.
Yes, there was toe sucking.

A good time was had by all. I was even drunk enough to want to give my dog a "haux-fawk" (goddamned drunken dyslexia).

And from now until June 4 (June 4!), not one bad thing shall pass my lips.
Well, you know, with maybe the one exception.
But it's rather low in calories, cannot really said to be delicious, and frankly, no one's mistaking me for a saint. I think 2 out 3 addictions is impressive enough.

Whining will probably commence in about two hours. I'll be at work, I will hit that 2am wall and think: my salvation is just a vending machine away. The Diet Pepsi, with its whisper of caffeine, will be calling my name. I'll wonder if there's $1.75 in my wallet, and know that I'm not above changing a $20.

But I'm feeling strong.
Ish.
Okay, that's a lie.
What I'm mostly feeling is that I'd be really embarrassed to have failed on the first day.
And embarrassment (or the avoidance of it) is a pretty powerful thing.
The tequila blanco is weakening in my blood stream already.
At what point will I start fighting Herbie for his dog treats? And if worse came to worse, would you go for bacon-flavour hearts, or gravy-flavour strips?

40 Days of Hell-th: A Diary

Day: T-1

When I was a kid, I performed amazing feats of will-power in the name of God; we called it Lent. Lent was the longest 40 days of the year for me because I took it very seriously. Even my grandmother cheated on Sundays, but me, I held fast. My best friend gave up olives, sort of, except the days she really couldn't resist. I went without junk: no ice cream cake on my sister's birthday, no maple syrup at the sugar bush, no popcorn at the movies, no candy binges for March break. Either 9 year olds possess more self-discipline than I remember, or Jesus held a lot of sway for me, but in any case I'm embarrassed that I can't seem to muster that kind of strength anymore. I'm hard pressed to go three days without a little nibble of something salty. I may not be a Christian anymore, but I'm a 20-ahem year old who (mistakenly?) believes herself to be mostly in control.

Welcome to the day before my 40 day challenge:

-no candy, no dessert, no chocolate, no unrefined sugar

-no crappy snack food no matter how profusely my uterus may be bleeding

-no fast food, no yucky\yummy takeout (goodbye, butter chicken)

and worst of all

-no diet pepsi (I feel shaky just writing that)

-no booze (ohmigodohmigodohmigodohmigodohmigod)

I'm already thinking I'm going to cave on the no drinking part. I never had to contend with that as a kid.

I'm already thinking this is the worst idea ever.

I'm already counting the hours before I can order a pizza again. And I never order pizza anyway. But now that I can't, I want to. Desperately. Just 960 hours to go!

So I'm thinking that after I go through the agony of withdrawal, I figure I'll have about 37 days left of awesome bitchiness that will be worth recording, so I'm also making the effort to post every day about me and my stupid ideas.

And just a teeny, tiny, barely-there addendum: I haven't had my first patio drink of the season yet, and frankly, that's a crime. So the reason I'm starting Sunday and not today is that I'm planning a blow-out, patio-hopping good time over the summery weekend we've been promised. There's nothing like having your stomach pumped to really strengthen a commitment!

Wish me luck, I think I'm gonna need it.

Bad Behaviour & Butter Chicken

So my colleague Matt thinks I'm odd, and I'm sure he means odd in that lovable, sitcommy way, but still. Odd.

And it's at least in part because of my allegedly "bizarre" approach to self-discipline.

He still laughs about the day I spent 3 hours wandering around the city, trying to find my way home, blisters oozing and shoulders burning in the hot, hot sun. I was dying of thirst but determined to right myself. I knew the city marginally well and I was certain it was nearly impossible to get as lost as I feared I was. I kept on, rather bravely, possibly stupidly, and finally I saw the street sign that would solve all my problems: Bank. Bank! You're never lost if you're on Bank. Just walk north, I told myself, and then promptly started walking south, believing in my heart that I was awesome, that I had worked it out, that I was headed home, that I was no longer lost. And I wasn't lost, not exactly. I just happened to be headed in the exact opposite direction of where I wanted to be. Eventually I recognized my mistake and fought back tears as I turned around and recovered the ground I believed I'd been gaining. It was cruel. I had cash and a bus pass in my pockets but I let the cabs and buses pass me by - if I had cheated and taken one home, it would be like rewarding my bad behaviour and I'd be likely to repeat the same mistakes. So I denied myself the easy way out, bandaged my swollen and bloodied feet, and have never gotten lost in this city again.

But I continue to negotiate with myself for all kinds of things. One of my favourite vices, as anyone who knows me remotely has heard me rave, is the butter chicken from the indian place just down the street from me. Often, when the day ahead seems particularly daunting, I'll do myself a little deal.

Inner monologue:

Hey Jay.
What?
I bet you're thinking about that butter chicken.
Well, I wasn't, really, until you mentioned it just now.
But it sounds good, right?
Oh yeah.
Well, tell you what. If you do your laundry, and go to the post office, and write 3 pages without complaining, you can get some for supper.
Really?
Yes, really. But only if you're a good girl all day long.
Oh, I will be!


And then I am. All day long.
Now, my problem is not that I admitted to Matt that I talk to myself.
And it's not that I motivate myself with tasty indian cuisine.
It's that moment of disbelief - the Really? - that split second where I doubt that I'm actually going to follow through on a promise to myself. But it's that seedling of doubt that keeps me honest, that forces me to stay on the right path and actually get the work done that needs to be done.
Have I ever not earned the butter chicken?
You betcha.
And I sit at home pouting about it too.

Is that really so odd?
I mean, if I gave myself everything I wanted, I'd be a spoiled brat.
And fat.
Well, okay, fatter.

But it's not all about the discipline.
If I do something good, I let myself know how proud I am, usually with a note on the fridge, but sometimes also with a bunch of flowers or an extra shower (yes, okay, even I think that sounds strange, but showering is one of my favourite parts of the day, especially when I turn on the music and dance and splash about).
I tell myself I'm awesome all the time. I even have a song about it.
No, I won't sing it for you. It's private. Except for that one time I won an arm wrestling competition after 4 Mike's Hard Lemonades.

In general, though, I'm very well behaved. I hardly ever embarrass myself or have to send myself to sit in the car. So now matter how you slice it, I must be doing something right.

Right?

The Inevitable Heartbreak Band

He's beautiful.
He's not my type.
I hardly know him.
I'm a little in love.

We met randomly, only to discover we're from the same neighbourhood.
On our first non-date, we met at a park at 2am and we swung, and we teetered, and we made out.
He rode his bike to meet me, total 5th grade flash back, except for all the hands-down-the-pants action.

He's incredibly humble given his success.
He touches me a lot.
I like his belt buckle, and his love of pho.
He looks good in my bed, and doesn't mind when my dog chews his toes.

He's going to break my heart.
I see it coming, that he must, and even why it's pretty much my own fault.
And I'm letting it happen anyway.

Postcard from Punta Cana

Punta Cana was Punta-Fabulous.
I almost didn't come back.

The mamajuana conspired to keep me on my ass: red wine, honey, and of course lots of domestic rum fermenting in a jug with twigs and herbs and other mysterious whatnots to make a beverage that people call Dominican Viagra for reasons that quickly become obvious.



Bars in pools may be God's greatest invention. And floating drink menus? Pina colada, margarita, daiquiri, banana mama, dominican peach, blue hawaiian, sex on the beach...all just a wink away. Uno mas, por favor. That's Spanish! See how quickly we can learn new languages when we're motivated?


Ladies' Night has a different meaning in the Dominican. Yes, ladies get in free. Yes, ladies drink for free. Yes, the cute boys who brought you drinks in pineapples all day long are now removing their clothes for you in the disco.



Snorkeling is cool. Swimming with hundreds of tropical fish is an experience to be savoured. Rubbing your forehead with a banana beforehand so that the fish will be attracted is possibly a small bit of rum-induced madness. But swimming with sharks? Oh sure, it will be a cool story. If you survive. And of course you're brave about it when you're drunkenly signing up for it the day before. But once in the water with a whole bunch of sharks who probably have it in for you (this is purely conjecture, but they did give me a look), it's a whole different story. Nervous is one of those words that fails spectacularly at describing some situations. At one point, I swam over 4 or 5 of them who were all hanging out together, and I thought to myself: if one of them suddenly throws a fit, and they all storm off in a rage, I'm lunch. But it was the sting rays that really freaked me out. And whoever thought it would be a good idea to pose for a picture with one? They tell you that Cassandra is a friendly sting ray, so long as you don't poke her here, here, or here. Or swish her by the tail. But nobody tells you that Cassandra is enormous, and slimy, and heavy, and creepy. And that she has some sort of blow hole that she angrily directs at your face, and then does this floppy thing that is very disturbing. Do I regret throwing the sting ray? Yes. But I still maintain that it wasn't really my fault.



Getting into your scenery-sensational hammock is heaven. Getting out of it 3 banana mamas later is less so. Kinda makes you wish you'd brought panties, but it's not really a vacation unless it's a vacation from underwear. Am I right?

The Places You Go, The People You Meet.

4 adults in a car, we argue about the things you'd expect, like whether a man can be feminist. Well, can he? Please enlighten us, because they refused to agree to disagree and I refused to tip the scales in any one direction.

We are on our way to Montreal to eat in a restaurant run by a man who calls himself the Veggie Nazi. We're all a little worried. We have heard the kind of shit that goes down at the Spirit Lounge: there is no menu. You eat whatever vegan crap he sets in front of you, every last crumb. That's his Golden Rule - no waste. Waste is sin. If you leave something on your plate, he either charges you extra, or he throws you out on your ass. This isn't rumour, these are actual possibilities. The stuff of sitcoms, yes, and it's funny when it happens on Seinfeld but will it be funny when it happens to us?

Once the miracle of parking in Montreal has been performed, my anxiety is such that I must immediately find a bathroom, and I refuse to let it be the one in the restaurant (I am afraid that he will dole out 4 paltry squares of toilet paper and tell me to be wise with their usage). I actually, bafflingly, find it preferable to use a gas station toilet. The one I frequent is equipped with that ubiquitous sharps container I keep meeting up with, and is lit solely by a black light above the mirror. It's great for not being able to see the Hepatitis that is probably swarming all over the place, and even better for making my zebra-print panties look cool.

The restaurant exceeds our expectations, especially the unfavourable ones. The decor involves copious amounts of foil, a collection of crucifixes, and a gold-sprayed collage on the wall that gives a second life to dominoes, GI Joes, and bits of broken license plates. The tables are cobbled together, and the layers of Salvation Army table cloths do little to hide staples in the plywood.

Soup, slivers of bread and tap water were presented to us with a flourish. This is prison food, according to my mother (though I was astonished later in life to learn that actually, felons eat quite well). I'm not going to lie: the soup was delicious. I ate it willingly, practically with gusto. The bread was...dense. And damp. This is food without preservatives, I told myself, until I caught a whiff and thought this is food that should have been thrown out 3 days ago. It smelled dank, the way dungeons smell, or a wet bathing suit that was balled up and thrown in the trunk of your car and slept on by a sweaty dog, or the forest floor's wet mushroomy, earthwormy rot, or, you know...mouldy bread. I elected not to finish mine, breaking the golden rule, but I was clever and hid my crust on the other side of the bowl. A fellow dining companion was not so lucky. Sure he talked the big talk before sitting down to dinner, boasting that he would purposely break the rule just to get a rise out of the owner, but when the Veggie Nazi spotted his uneaten portion and commanded Eat your bread in his smarmy french accent, he ate that bread like he suddenly believed that it would grant him superhuman strength and lifelong immunity to...well, the perils of eating putrid food.

We'd survived the appetizer, mostly, but were feeling shaky about the main course. It was described as a casserole consisting of mainly cereals and eggplant, and as delicious as it sounds, it looked even worse. But there was no getting away with leftovers, so we ate dutifully, grimacing, chewing apprehensively, fearing the worst with each tension-filled bite. Raw vegetables and fruit were served on the side, marinated in a salty oil-based dressing that was nice for broccoli and just dreadful on apples. I began sneaking pieces onto someone else's plate, not because he enjoyed the food but because I knew he would rather vomit on the sidewalk outside that engage in open conflict with the Veggie Nazi.

And then came dessert. By this time, I was smart. I ponied up on someone else's, and between the three of us, we managed to get it eaten. And with the dinner portion of the evening out of the way, thus came the show. Rozman, as the Veggie Nazi has chosen to rename himself, bestowed upon us one of the rants he is famous for, an incomprehensive diatribe against Coca Cola, women named Natalie Tremblay, and capitalism. I notice however, a few holes in his arguments:

1. It's great that he's got these lofty anti-capitalist ideals now, but where were they when he used the welfare funds provided to him by us working pigs to upstart his business?

2. While I suppose it's possible that he really is the only person to ever really understand anything, I find it just a smidge more possible that he's naive and immature and pretty fucking high and mighty.

3. When you tell a paying customer that You don't know what urine smells like and mean it as an insult...maybe you need to work on your customer service skills a little bit.

4. The traditional definition of 'asshole' is not someone who does not finish their dessert. Although suddenly he's got more in common with my grandma that I would have imagined possible.

5. When you use finger pointing and spittle to emphasize your point instead of, say, rationality, it may be time to reconsider the point.

Now, I do admire a man's passion and convictions, but this guy is ridiculous. He doesn't have beliefs, he just believes he's better, and that's probably a more dangerous concept than any of the things he rants about from his pedestal.

But that's not all Montreal had in store for us....

With our bellies full of asparagus puree, we headed over to Le National because les boys bought me tickets to see The Weakerthans in concert. Don't feel bad if you don't know The Weakerthans, just feel bad if you don't immediately go look them up. The show was awesome. The band was great, beyond great, and that's not just the rum and cokes talking.

Even the opening band was fantastic, because they provided so much fodder for ridicule, from the leader singer wearing Mom jeans and sipping a glass of red (wine is sooooo not rock & roll!), to the guitarist who played as if he was actually being stung by 13000 bees, and then would switch spots with the keyboardist who played as if he were a marionette with invisible strings being manipulated by a man with a severe cramp, to the bass player whose instrument was either under a different gravitational pull than every other atom on earth, or was under the influence of a giant bass-attracting magnet hidden cleverly across the room.

It was a great night. A grrrrrrreat night. We all agreed we'd even go back to the restaurant because it's not really about the food, it's about the experience.

But next time, we'll stop at McDonald's first.

The puppy who had no name.

If names had to be accurate describers, then so far Crotch-Sniffer, Whiny Bugger, and Cutie Patootie would all be winning, but instead the new love of my life is still nameless, so I'm asking for your help. Vote with your comments - does he look more like a:

a) Rex

b) Toby

c) Bruce Lee

d) Panda

e) Macaroni

f) Herbie

g) Marvin

Helpful Household Hint:

When you break a glass, a good way to make sure you got every last little sliver is to just take off your shoes and socks and walk around. It's guaranteed that if even one rogue piece evaded the bristles of your broom, it will come out of hiding to lodge itself in your foot in less time than it takes to say “Shit, I missed a piece.” Glass and the soles of your feet are locked in some sort of epic, time-honoured magnetic love-hate relationship. They cannot resist each other. Plus, in these trying economic times, I think it's important that we do what we can to make sure no one ever has to bail-out the bandaid factories.

You're welcome.

Bright Flashing Lights

It lures you in with the promise of an all-you-can-eat buffet – seafood and prime rib. I can't vouch for the vats containing mounds of homogenneous, mostly unrecognizable food, but the shrimp skewers are lovely, and the crab legs divine. Plus, the staff hardly even look at you sideways when you fill a soup bowl with garlic butter sauce for dipping. And if that wasn't enough, the guy at the dessert station practically begs you to take a third scoop of ice cream, makes you feel like it's hardly worth a trip to the buffet at all if you don't leave with at least your weight in pie.

Only a casino can afford such generosity, and it does so, calculatedly, for one of two reasons:

1- to entice you through its doors in the first place
2- to keep you within its doors once you're there

The casino makes every effort to deny the world outside of it. There are no windows. The machines sing their songs 24 hours a day. The bright lights make it so that there is no day and no night, just gambling time and more gambling time. A crappy band in matching sequined vests plays on a continuous loop so that fleshy middle-aged women who mistakenly think they're still sexy can slither around to Mustang Sally. There are no clocks, of course, no reference to the passing of time at all if they can help it, but eventually the hour makes itself known by the rumbly in your tumbly. Your belly growls, you are hungry, and those measly little bags of chips clipped to the drinks cart just aren't going to cut it. The casino fears that if you followed your urge to eat, say, to the nearest restaurant, that you might not come back. That you might waste your hard-earned dollars elsewhere. And that would be tragic.

So they erect a massive gorging hall on premises – a buffet, naturally, something for everyone, and always at the back of the building so that even if you attempt to leave without hemorrhaging cash, you'll have to bypass at least 13 000 one-armed bandits first, each of them calling out to you: Hey baby, why don't you drop a quarter in my slot. You know you like it. Give it to me, stud. And people do. They stay, they pull up a stool, and they part with their money. Only not their physical money – the days of dropping actual quarters into the machine are behind us. God forbid the handling of tangible coin would remind you that this is real money we're talking about. It's way less intimidating to put a plastic card into the slot, and to print out a paper voucher when you're done. Makes the whole thing feel like Monopoly! Like it's just a game, and not your savings account. And when your plastic card runs dry, there are easy reloading stations right on premises that tap into your bank account so there's really no need to leave, ever! Hell, you can even remortgage your house at the casino. This is solely for your convenience, I imagine.

The casino is a beautiful place. It's all ornamental and shit. It's fancy so you can feel good about yourself while you lose th money you should have been spending on pampers and formula. Even the bathrooms are classy: the countertops are marble, the stall doors are cherry wood, the mirrors are lit up by individual glowing bulbs as if they were vanities belonging to celebrities, even the toilet seats are velvet-lined. Okay, that last part's not true. But the bathrooms really are quite posh, except for the sharps containers affixed periodically to the wall. Sharps containers are usually found where a lot of needs are used, like hospital emergency rooms and gas station bathrooms known to be popular with junkies. It's funny that an establishment that goes to such lengths to convince us of its great esteem also admits to a seedier underbelly. Funny but realistic, I suppose. An addict is an addict, no matter what the dress code.

Irrational thoughts on vans, and the creeps who drive them.

He pulls up beside me in his white utility van, slowing enough so that the pace of his lumbering vehicle nearly matches my own, its physical presence cutting me off from the rest of the world. It's eerie, being stalked by this great white whale. If his intention is to thoroughly creep me out, he's doing a good job. He rolls down the window to ask directions, and once dispensed, he does depart. But I can't shake my apprehension, nor can I believe that it never crosses his mind that this scenario is inappropriate. He could have stopped at any number of gas stations, but instead he turns down an isolated little side street and pursues a woman walking alone in the dark in an area not particularly well-lit. Yet he never considers that this is exactly the thing her mother has warned her about; exactly the thing that half of all email urban myths are about; the very essence of Stranger Danger personified.

He has to know that a man driving a large van is most often described as a suspect, or else an “alleged perpetrator” in the crime blotter section of any major newspaper. Those vans are the kidnapper's vehicle of choice. Even the car salesman at the lot sheepishly hands over a glossy brochure that says

“Perfect for abducting to your heart's content! Park it in a secluded spot and you can dismember in the privacy of your own fully-automatic vehicle without ever worrying that someone will overhear. Driver-controlled power locks ensure that no victim will ever escape. Now available in child-molester white!”

So yes, I'm wary of men in vans who drive up beside me in the middle of the night when I'm all alone. The question is: how is it that it never occurs to these men that they're giving me the bad kind of goosebumps? Because a week later, it happened again.

Another man pulls up beside me in another van, same quiet street, same time of night. He asks for directions, and I give them, generally, even though my beating heart tells me to run in the opposite direction as fast as my little legs will carry me. Placated, he drives away, once again leaving me wondering how these men can be so thoughtless, and whether scaring solitary women half to death is a common hobby among van owners, or if the neighbourhood predators really are just doing their recon work on me.

I don't get very far on my path or in my thoughts though, because van guy is back. He wants me to get in the van.

Suddenly, I'm feeling worse. He doesn't take no for an answer. He persists, trailing me at an ominous 5km\hr. If I guide him to where he wants to be, he says, he'll drop me off at the train station. He seems genuinely mystified that I'm not hopping right into a strange man's car. I walk briskly and ignore his yells and whistles. I don't know how far he might have followed me had I not turned up a pedestrian-only path.

And this is how I have come to dread my nightly commute to work. Common sense has refused to teach these men that some behaviours are just not acceptable and I'm paying a price. I've been made to feel unsafe in my own neighbourhood, which is not actually a dangerous place. But when I'm alone at night, I'm not reciting soothing crime statistics in my head. I'm fighting tears and quickening my pace. I'm not rational when it comes to protecting myself from harm.

Luckily, my momma didn't raise no fool. I won't be willingly climbing into the back of one of those vans unless the driver is really, really cute, or he's offering me an awful lot of money.

Rainbow Brite

One day last fall, my ex and I were standing in line at the LCBO and I let him pull out his wallet to pay for all the booze in arms, but instead he pulled out a hempy velcro excuse for a wallet.

"Andrew," I gasped, "what is the story behind that thing?"

He shrugged. "No story. Why do you ask?"

"Because a grown man in his 30s who still carries a velcro wallet had better either have a very good excuse or a very deep shame."

"Oh."

So then Christmas rolled around and I bought him a manly wallet, a leather trifold that I wouldn't be embarrassed to have foot my bar tabs. I felt quite smug about my bettering of poor Andrew until I made it down to the family home for Christmas myself, and ended up unwrapping a new wallet of my own.

My sister's reasoning was that I was the only one in the family who didn't have a proper wallet, by which she meant, a ridiculously expensive one. Which is true. I had my cards and cash stuffed into an oversized coin purse with skulls and crossbones on it. And I know you're thinking that's about as lame as a hemp velcro wallet, but actually, it wasn't lame, it was me expressing my individuality and my unwillingness to submit to the arbitrary requirements of adulthood. Or something like that.

But my sister insisted that I too should belong to the "nice wallet club", which I interpreted as "The rest of the family and I have decided we won't be seen with you in public until you convert to carrying something more reasonable." So for the past few months I've been walking around with a wallet that's too good for me, tucked away inside a purse worth a fraction of its cost and I've felt a great deal of unrest. I knew the moment I unwrapped it that this gift would end up costing me a fortune. Not only would I have to sign up for at least a dozen more credit cards in order to actually fill up all the empty slots, I'd also have to invest in a hand bag that would be worthy of my wallet.

Luckily, I had a savings account that used to be called "Jamie's retirement fund" but which quickly got renamed "Jamie's purse fund." Boxing week sales were still on, so I enlisted the help of my family to find me a purse that would make them proud. It was immediately clear that my "taste", as I erroneously called it, was actually an alarming lack of (good) taste according to everyone else. The first purse I pointed at, a zebra print bag that I honestly loved, was vetoed unanimously and it was decided that I would no longer be part of the selection process as my schizophrenic shopping was just slowing them down.

I never did get a purse and I've continued to use the ones I already owned and loved. One is constantly complimented for its bold purpleness, and another was recently given the Big Purse Award by my colleague. But last weekend, I found a bag that seemed to fit the right criteria: it was absurdly expensive, shiny, and had enough metallic junk on it to let others know that I had just spent about 3 months rent on it. But there was problem: I assumed that since I liked it, it must be wrong. Especially since it was orange. But my mother reassured me that it was in fact a "nice purse" and that it would make the others mad with jealousy. So I dug about 6 credit cards out of my wallet and between them, I bought the damn thing.

And then my mother asked what I would wear it with, and I answered that I thought it would be cool paired with my purple coat.

She cringed, visibly.

My family seems to think I am colour-retarded. They each have a brown purse, and a black one. I have a red one, and a pink one, and a purple one, and now an orange one (clementine, actually), oh, and a tiny clutch that's a very rude shade of yellow. Neutral my ass.

My approach to colour is: if I've seen them together in a box of crayons, it's kosher. I'm not colour-challenged, I'm colour-ballsy. People just can't appreciate me. I mean, it's not like I said I'd wear the clementine with my fuschia coat (no, my coats tend not to be in neutrals either, but I don't wear my red purse with my red coat, or my purple purse with my purple coat. I've never been matchy-matchy.)

I bravely bought a cashmere sweater in the most awesome shade of acid green, and people's first impression is always "Hey, that colour looks great on you!" Of course, half an hour later they're usually like "Whoa, that sweater's still pretty green, eh?" which I take to mean that they are insane with envy. My hair and my toenails tend not to be colours found in nature, either. I gravitate toward anything that can be seen from space. I don't think I clash, exactly, but let's just say that in a sea of people playing it safe, I'm my own little rainbow.

A rainbow with a very cool purse.

For the love of god, save the whales!

Okay, so remember when I bored you all with my new obsession with nature, and you all tried not to yawn too conspicuously (some of you unsuccessfully)? Well, here's more!

Planet Earth raises some interesting questions, like what exactly is "wildlife" anyway? Is wildlife just life that we humans haven't managed to destroy? Yet? Destroy yet? And why are we automatically discounted from it? Granted, we're not exactly wild, no matter what we hope our sports cars and permed hair say. We're pretty fucking domesticated. But we are animals, not necessarily any more or less important than camels or sting rays or krill. I recently read an interesting book called The Well-Dressed Ape that reminded me just that: we're all just animals, lowly wonderful animals, living and trying to make the best of what we have. Humans just so happen to have a lot. We live in the suburbs and have hair straighteners and make sock puppets. But we seem to think that our ability to film nature documentaries makes us something better.

So my colleagues and I have spent several of our most recent shifts absorbing this BBC goodness. But then we ran out, and had to make do with that Keanu atrocity, The Day The Earth Stood Still. The basic premise: aliens come to save the earth. Not to save humanity, mind you, but to save this mad-awesome planet that has amazing skillz, such as the ability to sustain complex life. The aliens have rightly surmised that it's not worth losing the earth for one lousy species, and really, that's all we are - just one species among many. And pretty arrogant too. When we've raped the land enough to threaten the existence of an animal, we then deign to make a last-ditch effort to try to save it from extinction. And now here we are. We've made ourselves into an endangered species: if we kill our planet, we kill ourselves. Every other species gone to extinction at least had the grace not to do it to themselves. They can blame us, mostly, or predators, or a bleak environment. We're the only ones to do it to ourselves. So maybe it is time for someone else to step in. I mean, what have we done lately?

Recycle? Fuck that. Recycling barely keeps pace with the useless new packaging we're always encasing things in. Our need to wrap water in plastic means that one day an archaeologist will unearth our decayed bones from under mountains of Evian bottles and think What strange creatures. At least the dinosaurs could blame a comet.

Save the whales? Save the lowland gorillas? Who are we saving when we can't or won't even save ourselves? Right now, hundreds of human babies are dying of the most retarded shit - hunger, preventable disease, lack of clean water. And here we are putting loonies into tin cans to save the noble rhinoceros. Meanwhile, our answer to "saving" endangered species is to yank them out of the wild, which we've pillaged beyond recognition anyway, and lock them up in a zoo so we can watch extinction up close and in person, and charge $48 a head for it, and pave over more paradise for it, and continue to fuck things up.

And when the last few of their kind are locked up and unable to breed in captivity (no one ever thinks of this before capturing them), our next instinct is "Hey, no problem. We'll just clone them. If we can't have snow leopards, we can at least have copies of snow leopards. That's good enough, right?" Well, you might want to ask the snow leopards. Or tell the curator not to worry that the Mona Lisa just burned to a crisp, because you made a photocopy, yo. Have we not learned that invasive human intervention is the problem, not the solution. How much more ridiculous can we get?

Save the whales!

I love panda bears.
I love polar bears.
I hate walruses.

I adore my job, but I can't tell you much about it. Confidentiality and all that. But what I can tell you is that it affords me plenty of opportunity to work my way through an enormity of DVDs...

I've always had the typical appreciation for elephants and zebras and giraffes and those big majestic beasts that are not normally found in my backyard or the petting zoo or the deli section. But watching the brilliant BBC series Planet Earth has taught me to love some of the less infamous creatures too, like otters, for example, which have now moved to #1 on the list of "Animals which I wouldn't mind being reincarnated as, if reincarnation exists, which I don't think it does, but just in case."

It has also taught me a healthy respect for Mr David Attenborough, who narrates this documentary. It took me about 16 seconds before declaring him "definitely a glass half empty kind of guy." He's a fan and enthusiastic user of devastating, unforgiving adjectives. A predator is never just a predator - it must also be fearsome, gargantuan, unrelenting. And a landscape must be harsh, deadly, gruelling. His stories usually go something like: the baby cub clings desperately to its starving mother, drinking her retched breast milk for the first three months of its life because it is blind and unable to fend for itself. And then it dies.

Attenborough himself almost becomes another specimen to observe, especially when he's making value judgements on unsuspecting animals. A bird, rejected by the female it was trying to impress, is further depressed when David intones "It's sad when even your best isn't good enough." Ouch.

It's funny how watching these animals and their strange habits and habitats makes you think so much about yourself. There's this one sequence when seals are forced, every single day of their lives, to swim across shark-infested waters just to get to their feeding ground. Meanwhile, the sharks chase after slippery, elusive creatures, just trying to get a bite. I picture myself in a field, faint with hunger, trying to convince a cow to sit still long enough for me to get a kebab out of him. Or worse yet, I picture myself darting across a parking lot being monitored by a sniper to get to my supermarket. This series has given me immense grocery-store guilt. My life up here on the top of the food chain is too easy. My prey doesn't try to bite back, or claw me in defense. It's pretty placid, in convenient portions, wrapped in plastic, ready to go.

That whole heart-pounding scene had me shouting Go seal, go! but later, when the seals had developed a taste for "blubber-rich penguins" I was like Fuck you, you dirty rotten seals! It seems that in these contests of nature, that one almost instinctively champions the underdog. You root for the prey, because prey are invariably cuter. I wonder, though, if we matched up dolphin vs baby deer, which I would cheer for.

But that's the difference between them and me: they worry about survival, and I worry about strictly hypothetical situations occurring to me from the office of my cushy job where I sit and watch nature-as-entertainment. A few bad weeks for these poor fellas mean that their whole food chain collapses, whereas the worst that happens to me is a lettuce shortage, resulting in romaine costing $4 a head instead of $1.29. And this overproduction of crops to feed all the privileged western mouths is what's destroying their precious habitat to begin with. Imagine what it would feel like if an iguana rang your doorbell and said: Pack your bags! I'm growing crops here now, you'll have to move. And that would be kind of the iguana to give you notice, because I don't think we do a very good job of that ourselves. I'm fairly certain that the discomfiting sound of chainsaws is their first indication that it's time to leave the neighbourhood.

This series pulls hard on your heart strings. At one point, with the picture facing away from me, I could only hear the tragic tune that was accompanying it. "What terrible thing is happening?" I enquired, only to be told that "A flower is growing." Well, it sounded like Schindler's List. Everything in nature is dramatic, never dull. You might think that a bump on a log is boring, but it's only because you're not looking close enough. The tragedy is there, lurking, believe me. But there was a small slice of upliftingness: Sadly, not all the mommy penguins come back, and some of them who do discover empty nests. The lady penguins turn their unrealized motherly instincts toward the poor orphaned penguins. In fact, so many would-be-mommies compete to adopt the orphan that they end up trampling him. To death.

But seriously, I've seen some amazing things too. I saw humpback whales do this crazy spiral move that would have earned them at least a bronze medal in synchronized swimming at the Obese Olympics. I saw General Sherman, a tree so big it has a name, and a title; a sequoia so huge it is the equivalent in weight to 10 blue whales. How can they know such a thing? Well, maybe they made it up. But still. I saw dolphins hydroplaning, because why not make hunting fun? I saw the terrifying vampire squid - from hell. Actually, it was more like the depths of the ocean, which is good because I can probably expect to go to hell, but I'm pretty sure I can manage to keep off the floor of the ocean, and let me tell you, I don't want to be wherever this guy is.

So, I've run out of room before I've run out of steam. I'll save the rest for later, and you're not going to want to miss it: I will explain what happens when you mix up a nature documentary with a bad Keanu Reeves movie (yes, I am aware that the 'bad' was redundant.) Roar!!

Rock out with my mock out.

The new boy brought me to a café nestled strangely in Chinatown. It's the only place in a 4 block radius that doesn't sell pho. What it does sell is lifestlye. It's aiming for the sweet spot of chic-and-trendy-but-not-trying-too-hard-but-hard-enough-to-justify-charging-$8-for-a-cup-of-coffee-that's-not-even-fair-trade. It’s the kind of coffee house that is proudly, fiercely independent, decorated with dream catchers, a collection of porcelain owls, and mismatched tables and chairs that I wouldn’t be surprised to learn were leftovers from the set of The Wonder Years.

A leopard print chair distinguished our wobbly table from all the others, and once seated we were visited by a gypsy woman with a basket full of pygmy instruments – I got a tiny bell, and Boy got finger cymbals. “It’s not much, but it’s participatory,” the gypsy woman said by way of explanation.

Participatory? Before we could properly digest this thought (or contemplate bolting), the gypsy lady and all the glorious layers of her gauzy skirt climbed up on the stage, slung her antlered guitar around her neck, and hence commenced an intense affair most commonly known as “café rock.”

Yes, her guitar had antlers.

Yes, her sidekick played such various instruments as the organ, the pan flute, and the wind chimes (these in particular meant that we should all join in with our own “participatory” contributions, eye-rolling optional.)

Yes, the gypsy woman closed her translucent eyelids, sighed an ethereal breath, and said “Now I’m going to play some Dolly Parton.”

“I hope it’s Jolene,” whispered Boy, as sarcastically as a whisper can be.

“It’s Jolene” said the gypsy woman, and so it was. And about halfway through the flakiest excuse for Dolly that I’ve ever heard, the coffee grinder behind the bar, beside the bucket marked POTATO that was literally only big enough for the one and thus aptly labelled, made a noise oddly akin to my Katy Perry ringtone. Normally I’d be relieved that it wasn’t my cell phone interrupting Great Art, but at this point I’d been plotting my getaway for nearly an hour, rueing my perch of high visibility, and was more or less numb with Great Art and was intensely craving a Great Escape. Or a brownie, which looked delicious behind its glass dome, but probably tasted of commitment (for at least as long as it takes to eat a brownie, which to you may be a modest ten minutes or so, but when the music devolved from lyrics to odd throat noises and the clanging of cutlery against green glass bottles, every painful second counts.)

Mercifully, we capitalized on gypsy woman turning her back on the audience because “lyrics are hard to remember when you’re emotional” and we fled the scene, preferring to roam the frigid February night air than to rock out over herbal tea for one more minute than we’d already had.

My mother used to tell us If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

But my mother never said nothin about blog posts.

Where the grass is greener.

So maybe it wasn't always the most exciting of relationships. The truth is, it's been good for me - safe and dependable, and I've had nothing to complain about. Or nothing major, anyway.

It's been a good ride, these past few months, and I've been content. Grateful, even. It's been interesting getting to know someone new, learning to trust, putting faith in someone else again. But the passion of novelty soon wore off and I was left feeling just...comfortable.

I don't know how to say this other than by the most direct means: I was with someone else. I cheated. I am a cheater, and the worst kind because I knew it was wrong but I did it anyway.

And now I'm marinating in a thick broth of guilt, as I deserve to be, and I'm contemplating what it will mean to confess. I am not by nature a dishonest person but the stress of my sins has me reaching for an arsenal of justifications that I know full well are self-serving bullshit. So what if I was unhappy? Is that an excuse? In the light of day, it seems a very poor one. I could have\should have ended things honourably, but instead I've become this deceitful person who shared her secrets with someone else, let someone else touch her shivery spot at the back of her neck.

And you know what keeps me up at night?
It was good.
It was damn good.

It was better than I'd been fantasizing about, better than I've had in a while. I know it isn't fair to compare but yes - better.

If I'm going to end it anyway (and that's certainly my intention, once I find the balls), is there any point to coming clean? Would I be doing it for my benefit, or for his? Can't I just spare him this hurt, and spare myself from being branded a holy-awful-disgusting-disappointment? There's a bit part of me, the coward part, telling me to avoid the conflict and just let the relationship ...trail off.

I know, I know, it's my own goddamned fault. I did this to myself. I turned my back on the gentle soul who has been faithfully and lovingly caring for my hair since that fateful day back in August when nobody else was open. I've let another man shampoo me, wisp my bangs, rub serum on my roots. I can't take it back, even if I wanted to, but with highlights like these, it's hard to feel remorse.

The hair knows what it wants and will break hearts to get it. I'm sorry to see a relationship end of course but these shiny, lustrous tresses deserve to be adored, and I'm glad they've met their match.

Thanx For The Memories.

It’s a neighbourhood pub with ambition.

The red velvet-lined banquettes scream “Aren’t we neat and eccentric!” while the hanging rack of mismatched, hepatitis-stained beer steins assures “But we’re not even trying!”

We sit down at a table too small to fit all four of our knees underneath it. Apparently we should have left some of them at home. We make food selections off a central chalkboard because the “menu” is just a Xeroxed piece of paper with fresh (as in, still damp) gravy stains on it (at least, I hope to god it was gravy) and Andrew gets something on tap that he pointedly refers to as “not a stout.” It’s not the usual pub grub coming our way: there’s goat cheese to be had, and porcini mushrooms, and other things that aren’t wings and onion rings.

There are two men sharing a table nearby. They don’t exactly eat off each other’s plates, but they do halve their portions for sharing. I spend the next hour trying to decide if they’re gay. The fringed scarf trend really throws off my gaydar. Maybe the difference between gay and straight really has become that negligible.

The low lighting clearly appeals to the lugubrious kids and their dubious dates. Stacks of alternative newspapers cater to the theatre students who come to discuss truth, beauty, and America’s Next Top Model , but a bookcase full of important titles beckons to the intellectuals as well (unless you take a closer look, notice the uncracked spines, and revise that to pseudo-intellectuals.) You can see how the prop chess set and the scotch list play into the sweetly contrived ambiance, but the mood music, well, that’s another story.

Now, I suppose it’s possible that I might have interpreted the music as sexy if I was Merv Griffin, but the truth is, 70s game show themes are rarely my cup of tea. I was telling Andrew about my sudden compulsion to “Come on down!” when the music literally changed to the intro to The Price Is Right. And then it got stuck there for 20 of the most temple-throbbing minutes of my life. Thank goodness the music was so loud as to preclude so much as the attempt of conversation because otherwise I fear that I would have treated my fellow patrons to words not even seasoned pub-goers are comfortable with.

Our food arrived, rather quickly I thought, mercifully quickly, by wait staff that seemed blissfully unaware of the noise pollution assaulting our ears and who were friendly in that not-too-friendly sort of way. I watched Andrew pick perfectly harmless tomatoes off a burger that was thicker than any human jaw could hope to conquer and navigate legendary wedges the size of walruses. Walruses! Oh, the bulk! The sheer bulk of them!

The pile of potatoes defeated him in the end, but I ate his tomatoes so they wouldn’t feel self-conscious, thus restoring karma to the universe, or so I thought. Perhaps I was a tad unfair to the venerable restaurant business in a past life (or, more likely, a past post) because I can only assume that what happened next was destined to be.

Just as I was getting into the groove of The Price is Right, maybe jonesing for a little plinko, the music came to a scratching, screeching halt and something even better replaced it. I can only describe it as a fusion of blaxploitation\super hero music, porn-style. The lights went down and I braced myself.

I imagined a drag queen in thigh-high kinky boots, rocking an extravagant Tina Turner wig and eyelashes extending halfway to Maine making her grand entrance.

I anticipated the arrival of a slick dude with a plume in his hat and goldfish in his platforms who would shuffle between tables, slapping people on the back and winking at anything in a skirt. Or at the very least, I thought a caped man suffering from disco fever might make an appearance, but you know what happened?

Nothing. Nothing except for a fat guy in a very open-collared shirt taking the mic and complimenting himself on the music selection so far and psyching us up for his imminent vocal stylings .

We left immediately. We grabbed our coats and headed out into the chill to see what trouble we could find, or if trouble would find us, and on Elgin street, neither is to be discounted.