Multiple Z's

I don't know why, but I have been TIRED this month. It's why I haven't blogged much at all in April. I just couldn't bear to think of a topic.

BUT.

I am getting a good sleep tonight and I have the day off tomorrow. I'll hopefully wake up rested, rejuventated, and ready to write something that's not just "Me so sleepy."

A Thursday of Packing and High Anxiety

Although this is a personal blog, a medium mostly conceived for the airing of woes, I generally try to keep my fine whine in the cellar and off my site. Today, I'm making an exception. So stop here and appreciate the cute dog if whinging gives you hives. Don't worry, crafts and beer will return next week.

This Thursday is pretty domestic, but not in a crafty way. Instead, events in my life are forcing me to contemplate what it is, exactly, that would make yet another furnished apartment feel like home. Specifically, how many books it would take. I have a desert island mentality when it comes to packing. Even if I'm just taking the VIA into Montréal, I'm convinced that I'll end up stranded in the middle of the ocean. And then I'll really regret taking that fourth book out of my suitcase, when I'm barely 50 pages into my first. And let's not forget a second knitting project. And some wine gums. I'll need sustenance on my island.

At least fixating on how many books I'm packing, and whether they'll be enough, keeps me from thinking about my real anxiety. I'm worried that I'm making another mistake. In the past two and a half years, I've made two serious decisions about where to move and where to live. And they've both turned out to be duds on the balance. I know that doesn't sound self-help book approved, and la-dee-dah-another-door-opens-when-one-closes etc etc etc, but sometimes it's just an error in judgment, straight up. Sorry that doesn't look as uplifting in raised type on a cheap paperback. That shitty track record is why I'm not feeling very confident right now. Am I making the right decision? I hope so. I hope six books will be enough for the next few weeks. Because the box is full, and I need to go.

Bad Ideas, 5.6 or whatever

Note: This is one of those classic whiny and introspective blog posts. Flee now!

I'm not the kind of woman who gets really worked up about Web 2.0's (is that what the kids really call it? I'm a senior in the bod of a lazy grad) invasion of privacy. If anything, I think that the new social relations make the conditional aspects of the construct of "privacy" a little more visible. No, what bothers me is the esteem issues that result from the invasion of privacy. Not my own privacy, mind, but the privacy of other people. You know what you realize when you can peek into the lives of other people? EVERYONE IS COOLER THAN YOU. Or at least, I've found that they're cooler than me.

I think I asked for this nasty realization once I predicated my Internet stalking on feelings of pique. It's like as soon as I start feeling bad about myself, I just want to check and make sure the feeling is completely justified. If a girl alienated me with her non-stop condescension, but she's up to all kind of cool shit that my old friends think is really great? You can bet I'm jealous and resentful, even though I'm the one who totally asked for it by seeking her out. Which both makes me sad on my own merits, and increases the gap between her and my post-uni, spinning the old mental wheels, self. Particularly since I'm repeating Hall and Oates vids on YouTube while I scroll through her tweets for some reason. Other things that mock me: relationship statuses, photo albums from exciting places, and messages on a best friend's wall from an assy twatwaffle that proves they're still on speaking terms.

But, if I have any hope for my technology-driven future, it's this post. Not just because in writing it, I've admitted to myself that humans are more complicated than the simple roles I want to assign them, and that most of them (even Herr Ass) mean well at the root of things. Or because I feel really bad about feeling petty and resentful. It's because, at some point, Facebook and Twitter and everything else make you confront what's shared and human in other people's lives. In their exhibition you find yourself mirrored, if occasionally distorted. So, I will point my narcissism away for a night, hopefully a week, and try to move on.

And, yeah, I never did sort through those New York pictures. But I did go and see UP, which was worth it for its nonstop adorableness. The self-pity express has steamed out of the station for now. Tomorrow's post promises to use no first person at all to prevent a repeat.

From The Files of Minor Annoyances

There are many things about the world that confuse me. Fundamentalist Christianity. The economy. Personal relationships. The Burger King burger that comes with mashed potatoes and fried onions as garnishes.

And another thing: girl versions of sports team merchandise. In other words, is there no team logo safe from be-pinkening? I wanted a birthday present for a friend, a simple Canadiens shirt, and what did I find? Rhinestones. Rhinestones, and hunter green, and black, and pink, and then more pink, and then a shirt that had multiple Habs logos scattered over the shirt with a big tattoo rose in the middle that said "Montreal Canadiens." Does Quebec have an equivalent to Chavs? If so, here's a FrancoChav costume for Halloween: bleached hair, tight acid wash jeans, and that shirt. Note how sneaky that crafty NHL is:
Oh, what a cute ringer shirt... you might think. However, on closer inspection:
Rhinestones! Unnecessary rhinestones!

I will not stand for this. Well, not until they pay me great big wodgers of cash for my distressed fuchsia on rose Detroit Red Wings design, complete with matching glitter logo pin.

Praise Jesus and Pass the Undies

I'm beginning to think my life is a romantic comedy without the romance. In other words, a whole lotta awkwardness and pratfalls. I mean, really, a few weeks back my cat took a mighty shit on my bed while Q the Ass got his stuff. At work, I have to contend with both my unfortunate, doomed crush and the cash tyrant who has conceived an intense dislike for yours truly. Oh, and today, when I went into the Gap to try on a skirt, the saleswoman told me to make sure I had underwear on. I was, frankly, taken back. I always thought I radiated that essential Protestant prudishness, the kind that means sensible white cotton at all times, when instead I've been musky with wanton harlot. Wanton, lady business-airing harlot. Who just wants a plaid skirt. TO DO HER WHORISH UNDERWEAR-FREE BUSINESS IN. God. Perhaps I should consider wearing my underwear on the outside, like Superman, every time I shop at the Gap. It would be marginally less embarrassing.

Anyway, all that awkwardness was for nothing. On me, the skirt looked suspiciously like it came from an R. Crumb drawing. It was less "cute but warm" and more "plump teen who's sexually available to creepy, skinny dudes who will then draw them performing fellatio on an ostrich." Well. At least I have a Halloween costume for this year, but I might need to drag around an essay- with illustrations- explaining it.

Next Up, Whenever I Carve Out Some Time: I get all mushy about some sad knitting news I heard of out of Guelph.

Mythbuster

I just demagnetized my monthly metro pass for the second time this month. This is why I went one and a half years without buying another monthly pass, because I would screw it up at least once a month, and have to waste minutes standing behind confused tourists waiting to flash the troll in the booth my card. This time, my pass wasn't kept by my magnetized name tag, or next to my cellphone, or anywhere near the North Pole. It was just in my back pocket.
Cogito Ergo Sum*: MY ASS HAS ITS OWN MAGNETIC FIELD.

Those yo momma jokes are true! IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU.

*Yes, I know this is not how it should be used.

Cram it, Katy Perry

Whenever I'm in Montreal I slide into a music bubble. What's going on in mainstream music? I suddenly have no idea. I'm still not sure who Hannah Montana is, or what she does. Or if she's not just a clever hologram deployed by the Italian leather-booted thugs at Disney. At least in Guelph, I had basic cable and was desperate enough to tune in to the Edge. In Montreal, I just put on podcasts and rent Russian action movies. When I do listen to music, it's either stuff I've scavenged from the superior music collections of my brother and my dad, or synthed-out eighties stuff I've downloaded in shame. I can't imagine how empty my life would be without downloading. I would be too embarrassed to go to the record store to fill the hole in my heart, a hole that can only be filled with synthesizers and fake hand claps.

How out of it am I? Well, when Madonna's Hung Up came out- the one that sampled "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) and I started hearing it everywhere, I just assumed Montreal was in the throes of an ABBA renaissance.

So, it takes a rare song to penetrate the fog of my ignorance. Unfortunately, Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" has done so, helped along by my So You Think You Can Dance addiction. Can she go away now? Not only is the song annoying- her voice sounds tinny and Pro-Tooled, the production's flabby- but her act bothers me. I don't mind when someone like, oh, Madonna plays around with sexuality. And it isn't that a failed Christian-rock singer is capitalizing on fake-lesbian chic that bothers me. Rather, it's her purposefully dim stage presence. I don't have much patience for the kind of little-girl antics that make women pout and stand all knock-kneed. It's not that it makes them look stupid stupid, it's that it makes them look like they want to look dumb. Which is just sad. And then she puts her hand to her mouth when she hopes her boyfriend won't find out about her girl-kissing ways, because she's just too naughty. The whole song reminds me of girls who make out with other girls not because they want to, but because their boyfriends want them to. No one but Focus on the Family's bothered, hetero norms aren't challenged, and only men are getting off. Ten bucks says most of the girls who'll make out in clubs to this song- and to whistles from their guys- will be raising kids in the 'burbs ten years on. Even the ones who think they kind of liked it. And I'll bet another ten that Katy is on some one-hit wonders compilation. Or maybe that's just what I hope.

Now, to get that taste out of your mouth, how about a fun dude-on-dude song?
High School Confidential- Carole Pope

The Death of Resolutions

My resolution to worry less lasted exactly one hour and forty-three minutes, or until some complete stranger wrote down his contact information and told me I should get in touch if I was interested. I stuffed his e-mail in my pocket and made swift exit from the computer lab, before my brain kicked in again and I reflected on the situation. Now, this is a rare enough occurrence in my life, since my default expression is less “flirty” and more “twitchy,” but I still have a protocol for such situations:

• 1. Assess the situation: Does the dude look creepy or unhinged? If so, make swift exit or else camouflage self as metro seat or post-office box. If not, assess the dude.
• 2. Control for likely scenarios:
• Dude senses my weaknesses, assumes he can use me
• Response: glare
• Dude is probably playing a joke on me
• Likely situation in high school
• Response: glare to the corner
• Dude is delusional
• Response: grimace, nod in kindly fashion
• Dude is trying to lure me into cult/weird club
• Response: 1. Smile kindly
• 2. Think of potential horrors (Scientology, Neo-Nazis, Lithuanian folk dance)
• 3. Glare
• 3. If neither scenario seems likely, initiate contact from a pay phone using a voice scrambler; run background and credit check

Unsurprisingly, I’ve never made it to step three. This specimen seemed to be within my age range, which can only mean things are looking up. Until then, I had been huge with the “Old Man Buying Oka Cheese at the Grocery Store” and the “Random Middle-Aged Arabic Guy on the Street” demographics. I still pegged him as a one and chose not to get in touch with him. My kindly neighbour Athena says that I passed up the chance for some perfectly good casual sex, and that the only reason I chickened out was because I’m too comfortable complaining. I don’t know about the latter, but I still think I only passed up the chance to be the floating elbow and skull in some stew pot. I do wish that I could have the normal person response to this, which would be to be flattered but uninterested. My crimelibrary.com addiction keeps on getting in the way though.

Hark! My Mind Spews Forth

Or, An Unintentional Vol. II to the Last Mopey Entry

Recently, I've rediscovered the power of prayer. I haven't rediscovered faith along with it, remaining firmly unconvinced, but I have rediscovered its power to make you feel like you're doing something. Sure, in prayer it's still up to some benevolent deity, one I like to imagine as a nebulous, shimmering cloud that smells like donuts, but at least you've put in a request. Lately, I was worried about appearing greedy if I asked for specific things like an awesome job at Lush, a swimmer boyfriend, or flawless French. So I've been asking God to send me what I can handle, and what will make me happy.

Unfortunately, I have sadly concluded that God's a dick.* And it all started Tuesday with a harmless little self-deprecating joke. I have to read a Brave New World for a class, and changed my status to "Protagitron feels like an Alpha-Minus in an Epsilon body." Sure, I should have known better. I wasn't trolling for compliments or sympathy, but there's a little worm of self-hatred there. Of course, I found this e-mail from Q in my inbox when I got home:

"why would you ever say you have the body of an epsilon? you are beautiful. hearing that kind of stuff just makes me angry. I don't expect you to aim to please me but your words do have an effect on others."

Oh, sure, it doesn't seem that bad. He meant well, right? He called me beautiful, right? Well, that's part of what bothered me. I always think that's bullshit, and I still think so even when my friends or my family say it. I have eyes, and ears, and a brain. And when I see myself, and see the way others treat me, I know that I'm not beautiful. It used to bother me a lot more than it does now, and well, it still does sometimes. Still- don't lie to me. Or engage in some lame everyone's a precious, beautiful snowflake crap. But that wasn't the only thing. It was that patronizing tone. I felt like a daughter who's being scolded by her father here, not a friend. I didn't need the after-school lesson on how the power of words, and I don't need to hear how angry he is. Oh, and I particularly didn't need this coming from the same guy who made me cry many months ago. Which is pretty much what I told him over chat, and guilted him for dumping this on me on an already crappy day.

Which I regret doing. I should have been kinder to Q in retrospect. Although my feelings for him are laced from time to time with bitterness, I still have a genuine fondness for him. What I admire about Q, and it's not his taste in television, but his seemingly unconscious faith that the world is a fine place that will be good to him. And others. I think he means very well, even when it ends up hurting other people. And I also think I made him feel bad. I suppose we're fine now. But every so often, I wonder if this is the best it's ever going to get for me- dealing with misunderstandings and vague insults from friends, and never anything else. And then I throw another prayer up to God, that if that's the case, to give me a bottle of JD in my hands and a true crime marathon on A&E.

Protagitron SMASH.

No posting because I've been slacking off in every interesting area of my life. My stash should be confiscated for failure to appreciate it. My sewing machine as well. What has been taking up my time, besides summer classes, poor life decisions and painful gym sessions? Apartment drama llama ding dong.
Basically, I'm trying to negotiate between what I want, what my beloved roomie wants, what new roomie wants, what my old landlord King Douche wants*, and what my cat wants. Only the cat is being satisfied right now, because all he wants are scratches and food. So, all of my entries would be totally dull right now anyway, because it would just be re-hashings of contingency plan A or B, and parts of the Régie de Logement, and the math of subletting our place at a price that moves without losing more money.
King Douche has also installed what I like to call the TetanusGiver. For whatever reason, the perfectly nice banisters on the outside stairs were removed and replaced with odd bits of wood haphazardly nailed together. You'll either get slivers, poked by a rusty nail, or fall off the side if you apply any pressure to it. I had hoped it was a temporary measure, for something, but that period has now stretched into a week plus. At least I will have a handy tool of suicide should this situation remain ever bleak. If the broken neck from my fall doesn't get me, the tetanus from the rusty nails eventually will. Or massive hemorrhaging from a sliver.
I would post photos of the Tetanus Giver, but my camera cord is temporarily out of my custody again. So my blog posts won't be getting any more exciting any time soon.


*Who, by the way, looks suspiciously like Buffalo Bill. Hopefully what he wants is not my skin for his lady suit.

Much I Do About Nothing

I'm late to the party on this one, but the New York Times Wedding section is AWESOME. Sure, I had read the blogs, the special Gawker scorecard section, and even watched the episode of Sex and the City where Carrie calls it the "straight woman's sports pages". It's more than that, people. It's like crack candy coated in hilarity, served with a side of deep class anxiety. I've been reading the archives obsessively for the past few days, and have decided- in spite of my deep antipathy about the institution of matrimony- that my new life goal is to make it into this section. I just need a Lee Von Acker IV, complete with diplomas from NYU and Harvard, to make my dreams of seeing the following paragraph a reality:

"The bride dropped out of McGill after receiving a vision telling her that tarot card reader was her true vocation. Her father is Michel Protagitron, a retired elementary school librarian who openly despises her spouse's wealth. Her mother, Deborah, was a cataloguer for the Terry James Resource Centre, but would like to remind the bride of the sacrifices she made as a stay at home mother. Her brother, Nathaniel, could not attend the wedding as he was in Singapore contacting Hepatitis from a questionable tattoo of a tiger while on tour with his band.

The bridegroom's father is Harper Von Acker, the noted Nobel Laureate economist and advisor to the current President. The bridegroom's mother is head of oncology at John Hopkins University. He is stepson to John Landis, head of consulting firm OmniCial, and Faye Thompkins, director of the New York Symphony Orchestra."

Or should I say that used to be my goal- before I realized that I could never top the wedding of one Couper Samuelson and (the very pretty) Julia Boorstin? My reaction to this article was a complex, multi-faceted thing. Let's take it chronologically:

"IT is a truth not universally acknowledged that a single man who meets his wife-to-be at the Sundance Film Festival is likely to make his proposal of marriage a cinematic one."
Okay, treacly- but the fault of the writer, not theirs.
“He’s 6-6 and cute,” she said. “How could you miss him?”
Aww, that's cute.
[picture of bride and her father]
Okay, totally cute.
“Couper was walking around, studying all the photographs of Julia and marking his territory,” she recalled. “I said to my husband, ‘He’s going to marry her.’”
Wait... do you really mean "marking his territory" author lady? Because not only is that grossly sexist, but there's a certain unfortunate mental image there.
"The couple also learned that Ms. Boorstin’s late grandfather, the Pulitzer-winning historian Daniel J. Boorstin, had been friends with Mr. Samuelson’s grandfather, the Nobel laureate economist Paul A. Samuelson."
I take it all back. Death to the bourgeoisie swine and their outrageous pedigree!
Rabbi Jonathan Klein said, “May your life together be as sweet as a chocolate sundae topped with sprinkles of exquisite romance.”
Rabbi Klein was surprised, months later, by an irate Canadian on his doorstep. As he later related to police, she screamed "Chocolate turd! Sprinkles of pain!", kicked him in the nuts, then departed.

Oh well. I suppose all the best to Couper and Julia. I don't know them, I'll probably never run in their circles, or even outside the gilded arena that houses their circles, but I kind of hope they manage to beat the stats on separation and divorce. And to all my friends, coupled or single, may your life somehow be as sweet as a chocolate sundae. Hold the romance sprinkles if you want.

Facebook Cattiness at 10pm

Yeah, I know I promised pictures, but I haven't figured out how to take pictures of myself that aren't a charming close-up of my chin. So, you get to hear about my Facebook habits instead. I have an acquaintance of an acquaintance who I'll call "Frank." I obsessively check Frank's Facebook profile once a week.
Why?
Because Frank is GIGANTIC KNOB. And because I'm a bitter, small person I get a kick out of his terribly pretentious profile. His interests include "giving food to beggars on the street." Yes, beggars . Careful! He might break into a song from Les Misreables at any moment! Oh, and he's "got a little obsession with nature and the beauty of the aesthetic around us all." I hope this includes the gigantic neon boobies on display on St. Caths. Knobbity knob knob. He treated my friend like crap, so I think my cackling is completely morally justified here.
Unfortunately, checking his Facebook profile also leads to the sad reminder that he has a girlfriend, and the realization that someone loves him more than anyone loves me. Except for my fat cat with the FIV and the scabs. And that he will probably do better in life hacking at monkey brains or whatever his thesis is than I will do in my entire life. So, the lesson: the people you despise are probably more love than you are. On the bright side, repressed jealousy makes the cattiness that much sweeter. See, the world takes care of its own.

Finishing the big green sweater finally kicked my knitting mojo into gear. I wanted to knit projects- all kinds of projects, the more intricate the better. Looking through Interweave Knits or Rowan magazines became a pornographic experience. However, most of my favourite sweaters are currently destined to remain unattainable centrefolds. I can't really afford a whole sweater's worth of Jamieson's for a Fair Isle sweater. I do, however, have a bunch of Cascade 220 I've been dying to knit with. I knew I wanted a cardigan, but I wanted something more exciting than just simple knit and purl, or traditional cables. So I've swatched for Norah Gaughan's Pentagon Aran. And I'm really excited to begin cabling. Right after I stop sniggering that one of Frank's favourite bands is Nickleback. There's aesthetic for you.