Single and loving it! (?)

During my lunchtime at work, I entertained myself reading that bible of all investigative journalism: The Calgary Sun. In the middle of this thick stack of news-worthy articles, I found myself staring at a whole page of reasons to love being single during the holidays.
Now, I'm sure you've all seen Bridget Jones' Diary, but this went above and beyond. Third down the list was the very legitimate "spoiling yourself during a season for giving". It began innocently, with not just a mere manicure but a whole day at the spa! I was feeling pretty good about myself until it dramatically switched gears. Right after a relaxing massage by hot swedish masseuse, it suggested doing all those things that apparently, couples don't have time for but wish they had, like putting up shelves, and installing a new toilet.

What?

If I get what they're saying, then I should be ecstatic with the prospect of cleaning the bathroom blinds instead of snuggling up beside Shaw's fireplace on channel 1 (or 11, depending if you want the silent fire or the realistic crackling with Christmas music) on the skin of a bear my manly man slaughtered himself.

Romantic sleigh ride through central park followed by candelight dinner and mediocre sex? Scratch that you unfortunate lovers! I'm spending a wild night in knocking back a few and playing myself in chess on the new Liatorp Ikea coffee table I've spent hours assembling. God I'm a lucky, lucky woman.

To top it off, last week a magazine entitled "2" came in the mail, a literary treasure trove of ways to become even more of a couple, and how not to get fat and ugly now that you're in one. Thanks Canada Post, you've done it again. What would three single gals do without you?


Contained in the pages of this tell-all Garden of Eden-style Cosmopolitan were useful answers to questions such as:


And of course the commonly sought:


Hello?! Your husband is gay!

The remaining pages are filled with pictures of models acting like upper East side Jewish couples and advertisements for making your teeth really, really white. I'd say bah humbug, but I can't lie, I always wish for a white Christmas.

What unemployment does to my sanity

Perusing the internets in search of my dream job, or any job, because you know, I like to eat, I came across a real gem. The fact that it had nothing to do with my studies did not bother me one bit, because this job description has me written all over it.

I knew in order to grab their attention, I had to produce a cover letter worthy of an editorial piece in the Calgary Sun, and thanks to expert help from Sanbula, I think I succeeded. For your pleasure:


October 5, 2010

Re: Swing Announcer – Virgin

Dear Purveyors of Fine Radio Airwaves,

My name is Anne “Shaq” Farineau, and I had never once aspired to become a radio talk-show host until watching Frasier. His love for classical music and intellectual discussions carried over to his syllabic inflections as he soothed distraught, irate callers to the delight of television viewers everywhere. His dulcet tones were my sole inspiration for following in the footsteps of great emcees like Master T and Peter Mansbridge.

After Frasier stopped airing, I found myself spiralling into a deep depression, and began looking for other sources of entertainment that could at once present an equally profound outlook on life and curb my descent into madness. Could my father and I actually hold some similar, wholesome American (Canadian) values? Could we still be a family -- albeit a quirky, at times dysfunctional one -- that related to the audience, making them cry at appropriate intervals but mostly just adding their forced guttural chest heaves to the highly unoriginal and repetitive laugh track?

You may be wondering why you are reading this. You are no doubt leading a busy, hectic life, and have no time for such tomfoolery. Your successful candidate will be "FUN! FUN! FUN!", and not a Frasier addict, with unemployment only straining an already tenuous grip on reality. Nay, she will be a Facebook fanatic, a blogging bonanza, a Twitter tweeter! Say Yes to the Dress (plus size!) will rule her 11 o’clock hour as she stares, eyes glazed, at the meters of tulle, silk and taffeta in forty-five shades of white, ivory, or a light dusting of pink rustling about on the screen; she will try ignore the fact that she has become so familiar with this screen since she was introduced to reality TV. She thrives on the drama ushering forth between Angelina and Snookie, her heart beating faster with every punch Snooks flails at her opponent in the most recent award-winning episode of Jersey Shore. She will not write a blog that is a collection of utterly ridiculous events that somehow happen to her, or things that are so out of left-field that readers' suggestions will be to tone down the use of psychedelic drugs, but one that follows celebrities as they strut purposefully down to Zambia to pick up the latest trend: African babies (thanks Perez, World Vision will take it from here). Above all, she will come to you with a repertoire that screams telephone skills; she may even hold a technical diploma in Communication with Electronic Devices, majoring in Land-line, Cellular, and Fax Machine.

Instead, you are reading the dismal end of a university-educated girl whose sanity has been completely and utterly eliminated by the harsh realization that not only is 6’2” too tall for her dreams of a life of anorexia, but that it is also too tall for TLC. Little People Big World? People always feel sorry for midgets. They’re small; they’re cute; and they’re lovable: “Awwwww! Would you look at him smash into that hurdle?” As if they could ever endure what giants do. Big People Little World is a much darker universe. Ducking under doorways, squeezing into airplane seats, shopping at the single store in a buzzing metropolis that could come near carrying your inseam in pants – it is Scandinavian horror at its finest.

So yes, Virgin, perhaps you should consider, in your global conquest for complete media dominance, a reality show based on the trials and tribulations of the Farineau family. Please rest assured, your viewer following would be more than enough to cover the expense of a quality laugh track.

If you’ve made it this far, I offer my sincerest condolences. My thoughts are with you as you attempt to find an appropriately humorous radio emcee in a city oversaturated with arts and culture. Your find will be my entertainment on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to five p.m., and Wednesdays to Fridays from ten p.m. to two a.m., as I sit listlessly in my house wondering what happened to my bright, degreed future.

Thank you for your time; I know it was painful.

Anne “Shaq” Farineau.

P.S. I am not attaching my curriculum vitae because lets face it, what’s the point? Should you wish to reach me for some peculiar, unfathomable reason, you can find me on that god of all social mediums: Facebook.

The Maxi-Pad Answer

Cleaning out my email inbox this morning, I found this treasure glittering at the bottom:

Actual letter to Proctor & Gamble

Dear Mr. Thatcher, I have been a loyal user of your Always maxi pads for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core(tm) or Dri-Weave(tm) absorbency, I'd probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I'd certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my favourite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can't tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there's a little F-16
in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? Ever suffered from "the curse"? I'm guessing you haven't.

Well, my "time of the month" is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I'll be transformed into what my husband likes to call "an inbred hillbilly with knife skills."

Isn't the human body amazing?

As Brand Manager in the Feminine-hygiene Division, you've no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customers' monthly visits from "Aunt Flo".

Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behaviour.

You surely realize it's a tough time for most women.

In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the violent urge to shove her boyfriend's testicles into a George Foreman Grill just because he told her he thought Grey's Anatomy was written by drunken chimps. Crazy! The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in Capri pants...

which brings me to the reason for my letter.

Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: "Have a Happy Period."

Are you fucking kidding me?

What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness - actual smiling, laughing happiness -is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable?

Well, did it, James? FYI, unless you're some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there will never be anything "happy" about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua and lock yourself in your house just so you don't march down to the local Walgreen's armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory.

For the love of God, pull your head out, man! If you just have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn't it make more sense to say something that's actually pertinent, like "Put Down the Hammer" or "Vehicular Manslaughter Is Wrong", or are you just picking on us?

Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flex-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bullshit. And that's a promise I will keep... Always.

Best, Wendi Aarons

A Dramatic Reading

One of the richest treasures I have come across in my internet adventures is this DRAMATIC READING of a break-up letter. You may need a tissue or a towel handy for the crying that will most likely ensue.

Childhood memories and vacuum cleaners

So today Drew mentioned that there was a contest going on to win tickets to see Fred Penner. What a dreamboat. The only catch was, the contest involved posting your funniest childhood memories. Funny? Knowing myself so well, I knew this was going to be a tough one. There are just so many memories to choose from.

I mean, should I go with the time when I killed a baby duck egg about to hatch at the age of three? To further lighten the mood, the mother then took her aborted child into the water and gave it a solemn funeral, watched in disbelief and utter rage by much more civilized French people who had only been looking for a nice patch of grass in the park on which to rest their much less violent children. I still maintain it was an act of mercy and that mother duck was probably single, and hardly able to take care of six children all at once; look what it's done to Kate (and Jon) Plus Eight.
Or maybe I should tell them about the time my older brother kicked a soccer ball in my face, or the time when he slammed the door on my thumb so hard the nail fell off, both incidences warranting a piercing scream compelling enough for the most horrific of the I Know What You Did Last Summer series of quality films?

I should probably think about telling them about the silent wrestling/kicking matches my little brother would have when my mother was teaching piano. Sure, we hated each other with an undying passion, but silence was key. Who wants to involve a third party? Even the vacuum hose I choked him with was dealt with very little sound.

And don't ever tell me your arm is broken, because I simply won't believe you. Throughout my childhood, people, including my little brother, have broken their arms and each time I adamantly refused to see things from their shattered-bone perspectives. It wasn't because of my violent tendencies, but because I honestly couldn't see how things just couldn't bend that way anyways. A doctor I shall be not.

Then there was that beautiful summer evening that my older brother was hunted down with his friends by the local police helicopter. And that especially romantic junior high day when a boy tried to tell me he liked me, I shot him down, and he hit me with a volleyball and gave me a black eye in retaliation. And how about a boy in gr.6 who masturbated with a ruler in the middle of class. There's a real winner - I'm sure the judges would appreciate a good childhood sexual liberation story.

Or, possibly my favourite, the time when my little brother told a friend I had never met that I had Down's Syndrome and I for some reason felt the need to play along, and the friend greeted me with that signature deer-in-headlights look I have come to recognize so often. Fred Penner's wiki page also tells me that his sister actually has Down's Syndrome, so how could he not relate?

I think Drew has since regretted informing me of this contest because he knows I'm going to win. Step aside kids, this ray of sunshine is about to get two tickets to the best night of her life...

*Edit: Drew has since won the tickets and will be appearing at Fred's show tonight for free, whereas I will be staying at home in a corner contemplating razor blades and the belt on my bathrobe.

Facebook Help Part II: The Bane of All Existence

So as you faithful readers know, a little over two weeks ago Sanbula lost her profile. This was an utter disaster, so, over the course of this period of time, she sent emails asking for help. In the beginning, she was not as desperate, and her letters remained normal:

"I have been trying to access my profile page, but it keeps loading blank."

Which swiftly turned into poetry:

"Blank Profile: A Haiku"

To speak face-to-face
Is not a way I know now
I need my profile

And finally, after comparing herself to the Biblical Job, her letters became one lengthy missive, punctuated with thoughtful commas and well-used dashes:

Are you there, Facebook? It's me, Sanbula.

I hope you can hear me. It's been a really tough two weeks. I've been trying to be strong, but it's been hard. I was reading about the Rwandan Genocide the other day, and I burst into tears. Not because of the despicable extermination of a marginalized, ethnic group -- though, I suppose that's important. Whatever, I guess. It was because it reminded me of my own pains, and the adversity I have been encountering. This is MY Vietnam, Facebook.

Facebook, are you mad at me? I keep trying to talk to you, but you always seem so mechanical, almost inhuman. I thought we had something going on. I let you in on my deepest thoughts, thoughts that I would only share with three hundred of my online friends. I let you live vicariously through me as I traveled the world and showed you the pictures of palatial monuments that I go see just to appear erudite and worldly, when all I want to be doing is gargling with gin. You always looked out for me. You reminded people to send me birthday wishes. You let me learn more about people I barely knew, as in they had just eaten breakfast, and how they were out of toilet paper. How will I now learn the mundane details about people who don't care about me? The residual practicality and grip on reality I shockingly still possess tells me to stop believing in you, but the devout part of me cannot live a life of apostasy. I'm clutching onto the hope you will answer my prayers, and one day, fix my profile, so I and others can view it. To make matters worse, Jack Dorsey, better known as Lucifer, with the aid of his aberrant creation, Twitter, has been Tweeting about how I should join his network via a 140-character limit, poorly constructed message: "Lolz Facebook is for chumps join us u can learn abt the gud life. also we have celebrities. SHOW US YER TITS N FREE YERSELF FROM TYRANNY!" Normally, I would find this verbal excretion -- littered with poor syntax and appalling grammatical errors -- repulsive and combat it by pleasuring myself while looking at a dictionary. However, I'll admit it, Facebook, in my hour of need, I felt... temptation. Then I remembered the first divine imperative from The Ten Commandments of Facebook: "Thou shalt not have any social network mediums before me". I knew I had sinned for even entertaining this thought, and immediately reprimanded myself by flogging myself with a cat o' nine tails, and chanting, "Dislike! Dislike! DISLIKE!" O Facebook, it is you that I lay prostrate in front of, trembling before thy glory. Why have you forsaken me? I keep trying to reach you through my messages. I hope you hear me, Facebook. I really need you right now. I fear to see what lies in the future. Laughing at Lolcats? Longing for Farmville?!! Facebook, give me the strength to resist the banality of the cyber wasteland that is trying to lure me from believing in you.

I always enjoy our talks. Thank you for listening to me, or letting me think you are. Now that my anxieties are assuaged, I'm going to go throw cabbage at the neighborhood children from my front stoop in my caftan, and think of how the steps I can take to pursue my true calling as a cat whisperer. Peace

I for one would have rather shot myself in the foot rather than miss a moment of advertising for Pioneer Village. And to miss 24 weekly invitations to CRAZY PARTY BONANZA!! at any one of the local guido-infested clubs?? I would have lost my soul in the madness.
You are a shining beacon of light and hope for us, the masses, in this tumultuous time, for we have no willpower save for what Facebook gives us. Thank you Sanjob, for you are truly the inspiration that guides all narcissists with access to the internet. Amen.

Sanbula has now regained full access to her profile and is no longer considering becoming a suicide bomber like her brown heritage dictates she should in all stressful situations.

Big Life Questions

All too often I've found myself wondering: What is the meaning of life? Where do we come from? Why are we here?

These kinds of philosophical questions are natural for those born under the Sagittarius constellation. We are, after all, the philosophers of the zodiac, the wanderers, and the adventurers. The arrow the centaur draws is thought to symbolize our desire for direction, and a higher purpose.

It seems relatively simple, then, to link the crappy astrological definition I pulled from google's third search result with the Sanndine Residence, the house I am currently living in. (For those still uneducated, that would be an amalgamation of Sarah, Anne, and Nadine, put together so cleverly by that master of linguistic tricks, Jason).

One morning, I woke up, pushed open my curtains, and pulled up my blinds to a sight so bewildering in my semi-sleep state I had to walk into the kitchen and look out that window to make certain of what I was staring at. What stared back at me was this:



If you're still having trouble, as I did, here is a close-up:



What is the purpose of this? Where did these come from? What is the meaning of life?
As you can see, my philosophical nature handled this situation optimally well. Sarah, Nadine, and I thought about it a while, discussed, and posed the question to our friends, but the best we could come up with is that the missionaries downstairs were either pranked, or playing some sort of fork game, like Don't Step On The Fork, or Plant Many Forks, the latter of which can be found in the New Testament.
We then overheard Greg, Priest-in-Training, discussing with Sam, or "Dad" that we might have been the ones to do it. Really? Three university-educated girls and all we could think of was to bombard our own backyard with a hundred plastic forks? Really boys? Really? Maybe it was a higher calling. All I know is that I found this little gem,



and now it doesn't matter what direction I'm going, because I'm sitting first class on Babylon Airlines with God as my captain. How do you know there's a pilot at the party? Don't worry, He'll tell you.

And now for the weather...

A fair amount of absurd things have happened recently, making up for that drought in April.

This week the weather went something like this:

Thursday: Calgary experiences winter, in the spring, and I experience a frisbee to the eye, giving me the opportunity to look like a pirate for the next two weeks, at least. I cannot open my eye the second day, and by day 4 it has turned a magnificent shade of magenta. Hot guy at trendy downtown restaurant stares at me during lunch hour and for 5 minutes I believe it is because we are undeniably soul mates, then realize I look like an abused housewife and he's probably wondering if he should call social services.



Saturday: High winds and a craze of moving as Sarah and I leave the Enchanted Forest in search of greener pastures and find that and more in roommate #3 Nadine's ten million plants. The Jungle seems a rather suiting name for the new house...

Monday: Heavy rain and high possibility of the fish dying due to loss of fish bowl cleaner during the move. Have a mini-panic episode that includes Sarah driving around the city to find a 24-hour walmart (they don't exist) and phonecalls to fish connoisseur friend Andrew who tells us in no uncertain terms Sangsom is pretty much fucked.
The fish lives, but Sarah will feel the shame of poor mothering for the rest of her life and will undoubtedly never let her real children feed and/or clothe themselves to make up for it.

Wednesday: Scattered showers and bible-thumpers; find out the 5 boys living downstairs in the 3-bedroom basement suite are all h-core Roman Catholic missionaries. Were afraid they were too loud during the morning "Our Father" as boys #2 and #3 got really into the chant. Also find a book entitled Fit for Eternal Life in basement windowsill and stare at it for a good 10 minutes. On that note, I sure hope my mother gets me this charming scripture bracelet for my graduation present. After all, not only do I get to feel timeless words of wisdom boring into my skin at all times, but it comes complete with silky tassel embellishment. If anything says Anne, it's a silky tassel.

Thursday: Low pressure system moving in as we are alerted by our priest-in-training from downstairs that a naked, masturbating peeping tom is on the loose in our neighbourhood. Sarah is horrified; I am humoured to the point of laughter. Nadine informs us she caught the guy staring at her at her old house; I am in hysterics.
Priest-in-training comes back to tell us that my car lights are on. Confused as to how to handle chivalrous religious zealots and decide the best course of action is a dose of home-baked cookies laced with agnosticism.
Humility rises to about 90% as between my mother and I we can't seem to figure out how to get my brother's car hood down. Realize it is much simpler than we thought and end up closing it with one hand pressing down on the hood. Don't really want to get into this further.

Friday: Temperature in the twenties yet people are still renting damn skis. Don't they know what happens to snow at temperatures past 0 degrees? Also, the damn Austrian is still here. Ian and I thought he had finally gone back to his country and we would never have to set a pair of Alpine Touring skis for him ever again, but he is now back in full-force for climbing, accompanied by his Norwegian friend who somehow lost a pair of Outdoor Centre boots, had to replace them, and is now bitter European #2 whom we have to deal with on a regular basis. Still not as bad as the Austrian.

Forecast for tomorrow: Partly cloudy with a chance of the Austrian. As always.

What, what, WHAT are you doing.

Sometimes, I wonder how I have friends.

It's not that I don't have a winning personality punctuated by a friendly demeanor and general body language that really says "lets hug", but I fear that sometimes I let out my inner Sassy Gay Friend.

What is a Sassy Gay Friend? It's the friend who's there when you're in need, but don't know it. The friend who opens your eyes to better fashion choices ("You're wearing that in public?"), the friend who knows when less is more ("It's fall! When did that happen?" "Somewhere between your ovaries and my boredom."), and the friend who generally encourages you to be the best you can be ("You big sluuuuuut, good for you!!").

Famous Sassy Gay Friends:

Anthony Marantino (of Sex and the City)
Clinton (of What Not To Wear)
Those guys in He's Just Not That Into You
and of course...

SASSY GAY FRIEND

I don't know what I'm training for, but I hope it never happens

I honestly don't know what I did all those years without cable. No CSI, no Warrick Brown. No Olympics, no Brian Williams. No Secret Life of a Call Girl, no...well no classy entertainment. And worst of all, no commercials.

Last week I found the advertisement of a lifetime, the new Old Spice campaign with my newest celebrity crush, Isaiah Mustafa. I suggest watching the amazingly hilarious commercial, man.
My mancrush totally and completely sold me on man-scented bodywash, even though I am neither a man, nor do I have one to use this bodywash on. Doesn't matter. All I know is that he has two tickets to that thing I love.

This evening's television viewing uncovered the El Dorado and other rich and vast ancient treasures of exercise machines. 3-Minute Legs and the Shake Weight. Rather than point you to just the ads themselves, I will give you Ellen, who keenly demonstrates the results you will reap with these fun, easy, fun, fast, fun, fat-burning, inch-scouring, and yes fun machines, designed for who else? Women. Because remember, we should all smell like butterflies, and salt taffy. If the Shake Weight can't do that, I don't know what can.

**Edit: I posted the original 3-Minute Legs workout on my friend Jason's wall. He is a certified personal trainer and works in the health and wellness industry. He had the following to say:

Jason N
My favorite quotes:

"until now [squat and lunges] were too hard; too difficult"
-I shouldn't even start. It probably won't be facebook appropriate

"It's a 3 minute miracle!"
-speechless

"It holds up to 275lbs"
-I can squat that

"Ordinary lunges can hurt your knees if you lose your balance"
-You can get injured anywhere if you lose balance

"Regular squats can be BRUTAL on your back"
-Yes......that must be why proper lifting techniques require a squat

"It has a depth control cable that prevents you from going too low"
-The population in China hasn't been injured from going to the bathroom yet

Thanks for the professional opinion Jason. And viewers, stay tuned.

Step aside Brian Williams

I realize it's been some time since the Vancouver twentyten Winter Olympics, but as I was glued to my set for the entirety of the games many things still remain fresh in my memory. Alex Bilodeau and his historic gold medal (I'm going to thank Brian Williams for burning that phrase into my head), faulty mechanics in the opening ceremonies leading to an embarrassing no flame-show for Catriona and consequently and even more embarrassing closing ceremonies (I napped through most of them but caught Avril Lavigne and scantily-clad mounties, enough to put any Canadian to shame), and of course...the fashion.

Allow me to start with figure skating, since it's just so easy:



Sarah and I couldn't figure out what Michal Brezina was going for, and at first couldn't even decide with all that spinning and fluttering whether the band at the waist was part of the shiny pink sequined sweater vest or part of the slacks. Yes, slacks. Is this Czech for guido? In the end, we realized that what he in fact embodied was k.d.lang at the office. She'd probably tone down the slacks, probably something a little more neutral, but definitely keep the bling.

I tried to find a picture of Evan Lysacek too, but failed, so will just emphasize that the black, feathered ensemble he wore made him look like the Adams Family meets Swan Lake. Instead, I will leave you with this:



What? Looks like Krippendorf could have his PhD thesis after all with this tribe of two. OH SNAP.

I also wanted to showcase the inappropriate jeanpants the American snowboarders were wearing and the fine moustache of the French halfpipe snowboarder well-dubbed "Inspector Clouseau" (his coach sported the same facial fashion), but could only find pictures of Shaun White smiling, Shaun White grinning, Shaun White winning, Shaun White paraphernalia, and so on and so forth. Halfpipe should have just been renamed to "Come Watch Shaun White".

As for the commentating during these games, nothing could beat David Pelletier's dry wit and French Canadian boldness
("Are they channeling their inner Avatar? This is why you don't let the competition design your outfits.") , but the women's alpine skiing peeps sure came close:

"My that was quite the spill Diane."
"Sure was! Wow she's still going, looks like she might make it to the finish line on her bum!"
"Well, she'd be real competition in luge."

"And the French skiier takes off! And she...oh my. Looks like she just....tipped over. Do you think she's hurt?"
"I think it's just her pride that's hurt Dave."

Thanks Vancouver, Brian Williams, and the rest of the CTV news team. Alex Bilodeau, men's hockey, and a 1 2 finish in women's bobsleigh may have captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of viewers, but to me the 2010 Olympics will always be Avatar catastrophes and poor sport choices.

A Precursor to the Olympic Catwalk

Before I write about the Olympics, which has taken up 99.9999998% of my time for the last two or so weeks, I thought I would bring back this goldmine of the fashion world to everyone's attention to really set the mood. I can only hope that I will be half as awesome when I search for my favourite pieces from the Vancouver winter games. Kudos to Johnny Virgil for creating this classic.

Death by Run DMC

The other day I was showering, listening to tunes, when a third of the way into my Roid Monkeys II playlist, Run DMC's "It's Like That" came on.
Having recently decided that despite the stark paleness of my skin I had a glimmering of "the beat inside", songs with the rhythm of 80's hip hop creates an urge in me to start boogying.

See how ballin' I so obviously am:



I would like to say that this was 100% halloween costume but the truth is I wear each and every one of those items on a regular basis. Okay. Maybe not the gold boombox chain. But I really should.

Howevery, I hadn't quite calculated involuntary dance movements + bathtub out when showering and as soon as I heard the first few lines my head started bobbing. Next, I found my knees bending a little as the rest of my body followed suit and all of a sudden I unleashed the dual arm throw-out, commonly seen in dance-offs that indicates rivalry and gangsta-ness. Unfortunately, this was no dance studio or club floor or even paved school yard, and the glossy surface of the ceramic bathtub failed to hold me as I started giving it my all.

This was probably #2 on my near-death life experiences, a close runner-up to the time I visited Vietnam and tried to cross the street. As a result, I will attempt to avoid Roid Monkeys II when I shower, and instead choose to listen to the more soothing and less dance-off inducing Chill The Eff Out playlist, unless my body thinks it can stop and lock to Jack Johnson's songs from the Curious George soundtrack. If you don't hear from me next week, at least you'll know why. And probably listen to "Upside Down" a little less often. I guess it's like that, and that's the way it is.

Finding myself, or some other equally pathetic title

Yesterday I was confronted with a horrible realization, and today yet another.

The first of these was what started out as a harmless height measuring game. The rules consist of standing on a wall labeled metrically and getting someone else to find out how tall you are. And yes, it's a game. If you had asked Rockefeller if Monopoly was a game he'd have given you the same answer. Point is, my whole life since 15, which is really only roughly half my life, I thought I was 6 foot 1. But YESTERDAY I was proven wrong. So very, very wrong. In fact, I am 6 foot TWO. I don't even know what to do about this.
Then today, I was volunteering at a casino (which shall remain nameless but one should note the high concentration of asians around 60 years of age which makes it incredibly difficult to remember anything distinctive about a person should a foul plot be found afoot), doing my bit to support the arts, when a fellow volunteer mentioned my red hair.

...........................................................................

What effing red hair. WHAT extra inch. WHO AM I!?!?!?!?????

This is getting a little absurd. At the very most my natural hair colour, which is, as so eloquently put by a dear friend, "that brown colour", could perhaps be described more fully as having reddish hanks, but in no case could I ever be mistaken for a ginger. Which reminds me, another dear friend called me up the other day, having thought of me whilst watching a documentary on redwood trees. Now I know for a fact it's because we both have that same luscious luster of bark, but it's eery what other similarities these stories share.

Back to the casino. James, the other cashier, was pointing out the fact that the last guy I had been giving money to for his chips had been checking me out (who was not asian but also in the 60 range therefore completely cut from my radar) and maybe it was because of the red hair. Gee thanks James, but maybe it was the speed and seductiveness with which I counted twenty dollar bills? This guy had won himself 75 whole bucks, so in addition to the 3 extremely sexy 20 dollar bills I handed him I included the elusive 10 and the more common and less appealing 5. I was also disappointed that it was 75 dollar man who had been checking me out and not $3100 man, who I had cashed out before that.

Anyways, now I'm going to have to spend another 10 years finding myself and going through more yet less understandable periods of rebellion. Everybody's okay with pine and spruce, but when it comes to redwoods, we really get the short end of the branch. As David Attenborough would say, "Conifers dominate the land."