My Future Beckons, And I Think It Has an STD

My roommate and I have made a pact- by the end of the week, we'll have some kind of rough idea of what we're doing with our lives. WHICH IS WHY I'M CURRENTLY HYPERVENTILATING INTO A BAG. We're not talking a detailed narrative here- who knows what the ETA on the house in the suburbs and the one kid in Montessori will be- but at least a general plan for the next year. OH GOD I AM OLD. I'm currently vacillating between grad school and a year off teaching abroad, but important details, like which grad program, where, what country I want to teach English in, and so on, are still blank.

Katie is doing much better, and has actually narrowed down her schools to a shortlist. While she's been doing that, I've watched the Celine Dion made for tv movie. I might have some catching up to do, particularly now that I'm traumatized by what turned out to be, to quote Iris, "soft porn about their relationship." "Their" meaning Celine and Rene, or rather Celine and a creepy older Quebecois man who managed her since she was twelve. Played by an Anglo actor in a bad wig.

My procrastination isn't because I'm scared of growing up- that's a fate I've accepted with stoic resignation- but of getting letters of recommendation. I hate writing CVs, and I hate harassing people to lie and write something about how original and engaging I am. BUT I DO NOT WANT TO BE A FAILURE. If they were all more honest about this, mine would read something like "Protagitron does her work semi-competently, and even spells her name correctly sometimes. She will probably not make any major or minor contributions to her field, but she will pay her tuition on time, and generally smells inoffensive."

Come to think of it though, I don't know if I could even get that far. Most of them don't know who I am, and if they do, they know they hate me. I was keeping one professor in reserve, the ever-delightful Professor Mole, but ruined it all by talking to him outside of class a few days ago. Here's how that conversation went:
Protag: Hello, Professor!
Mole: Protagitron, how are you doing?
P: ... I'm... here. That's, uh, half the battle, right?
Mole:... Yes. Yes it is.
P: ...
Mole: ...
P: Have a nice day?
... and scurry. At this rate, even my application to CDI College isn't going to be processed.

Just Call Me Mrs. Crazy Man

I never thought I was the marrying kind, but thanks to SnarkFest, I've finally found a man who's changed my mind. Let me introduce you to my future husband- that is, if he doesn't "iggy" me.

"If I find that you did not carefully read, comprehend and retain the parts of this profile that pertain to you, I will simply state something like: "It is clear that you did not carefully read, comprehend and retain what I stated in my profile, you are now iggied." Iggied means that you are put on my ignore list so that I no longer receive messages from you."

Well, I better read carefully then. Let's look at some of his qualifications:

"You cannot walk seven (7) miles non-stop averaging 1 mile per 20 minutes and without drinking or eating anything during the walk."

He'll never see the Ho-Ho's I've hid in my fanny pack! Great, on to the next one:

"As my wife, you will have no desire for a career of your own, since as my wife your career will be working side by side with me starting and running our own businesses (Yes, I’ve started and ran my own successful businesses in the past). Only my future wife and me will know the details of the businesses until they are started. All you will know now is that they will be financial in nature, they will help others financially."

Well, that doesn't sound shady at all, so I'm on board. In fact, I'm willing to transfer all of my current assets to him RIGHT NOW. I hope he can use a couple of bucks and a coupon for a free Subway cookie for his business venture. But, wait!

"I was married once, 20 plus years. I haven't kissed a girl since being divorced over three years ago."

Wait, someone divorced this peach? But, why? Who could show such a stunning lack of judgment? What could this perfect man possibly have done to warrant a divorce?

"Most women, even those ten years younger than me look older than me. I want a woman who looks younger than me."

You know, I think something's coming to me...

"Sorry, but when it comes to turning me on, light chocolate to white skin color is needed. However, there are exceptions for darker skin, but they have to be very beautiful."

Yep, I'm definitely locking in on an answer...

"I want a woman whose goal is to be praised by God with the same praise God gave Sarah, Abraham’s wife, that is, God praised her for her servant attitude and obedience to her husband even to the point that Sarah called her husband lord and master. Such a woman can scarce be found, even in the Christian community who supposedly believe the Word of God. Scarce can be found a Christian woman that even comes close to receiving the same praise from God as Sarah did."

But it's only a hypothesis... could he be a giant toolbox? Is that it?

"And generally never becomes a problem for the man to fulfill. But, as time goes on, the wife starts using her sexual favors as a tool to manipulate the man into giving her what she wants or doing what she wants. First, this shows that the wife is becoming less submissive and more disobedient. But the bottom line is, when the wife demands payment, whether in the form of things (getting her what she wants) or actions (do this or that for her), she has become a whore."

I better whore around for more evidence before I present my conclusions to the public though.

"Where the slave and wife are most similar is when they are given a command. In this instance, they are both to obey with all their heart, mind, body and soul with an enthusiastically positive attitude. They are to both obey because they love the one giving the command."

Ah, eureka! RESOLVED: CRAZY INTERNET MAN IS A GIANT DICK. QED.


Ah, the Internet. It's always like turning the rock over on humanity, you never know what's going to crawl out. Still, immersing myself in the mind of this loon made me wonder if I had my own list. If I was looking for someone to spend the rest of my life with, what sort of criteria would I put on my list? And then I remembered that I had a list like that. When I was eleven. It was full of ridiculous things. He had to be tall, at least six feet, but that was mostly so I could have a minion to reach things from the high shelves at the grocery store. I wanted him, and I do not lie, "To care about the world and NEVER VOTE PC OR REFORM." It was 1998, in other words, and I underlined never twice. Oh, and he had to have dark hair and blue eyes, be "impossibly handsome," (I think I had hit the Harlequin stash then) wealthy, drive a nice car, and give me a library of my own. Then I realized that, as of Tuesday, I was twenty one. Exactly ten years older than my checklist, although you wouldn't know it, since dep owners still ask if I'm buying beer for my parents. And what has changed? I've learned that I would let all of my requirements go for some people, even when the situation was hopeless and doomed, doomed, doomed to anyone of sound mind or sobriety. And I like it better that way. At least I'm not trying to leave Harlequin cover copy.

I guess I could come up with a new list. Right now, it would read something like "Must be nice, enjoy arguments, and tip well." Smelling inoffensive is also desired but not crucial. As for the online crazy man, I don't know. I'm trying to be kind and positive, but I can't help hoping the perfect checklist girl gives him a raging case of stealth junk rot. Because they don't publish Consumer Reports for people, jackass.

A Love Letter, A Little Too Late

My roommate's cat in Stitch Niche yarn.

For the past week or so, I've been trying to ignore the fact that my favourite knitting store is about to close down. Which is easy enough to do when I'm a few hours away, and can keep myself busy with school and work. Or when I can convince myself that Frankie will somehow find a way to keep it going. But I have to accept that it's going soon, and before it does, I want everyone to read me get all mushy, so they can know how much the Stitch Niche meant to me. You see, it saved my life. When I dropped out of school second year and needed to pull my life from the brink- and maybe kill some stash at the same time, if that wasn't asking too much- Frankie's kept me going. Every week I would show up, pretend I was happy and normal with the other women, and knit a little more. Another block would be added to Leo's baby blanket. Another pattern repeat to Katie's socks. And in between all of the stitches, I didn't have to pretend as much anymore. I might not have become happy or normal, but I was a little more so. Enough to get by on, to get to the next week, until I had made it through a four months and could pass for a functional human being. Sure, it wasn't just the Stitch Niche- stores as places of mystical transformation work better in books than in real life. Real life is messy, and has to deal with counselling sessions, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, repeats of Canadian Idol and other petty grievances. But it, and all of the women there, meant a lot to me. They meant safety.

Before this, I never really understood why people got upset when stores or businesses closed. To me, they were just places, and the public shiva over Sam the Record Man or CBGB struck me as excessive. I thought those people were just substituting something that could be bought for communities that had to be earned, the kind that grow up around beloved parks and dignified churches. I was wrong. If we buy things to fill a need, than why can't the places where we buy mean the same to us as that church? Especially if they maybe, finally, begin to fill that need? Even if they don't, maybe it's just the residual nostalgia that makes us sad, for when happiness was something that could be purchased with legal tender. I don't know. Trying to quantify it just makes me sigh irritably.

And, anyway, my sadness is only a part of this. There's everyone who used to show up, and then there's Frankie. This place was her time, and her love, and her effort. And it was nothing but bad luck that she had to close it. I hope, if any one's reading this in Guelph, that you'll find time to visit it in the next few weeks, and to buy some pretty yarn as well. Alpaca doesn't quite take out the sting, but it's a good place to start. It was a great place. But Frankie will always be a great person.

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.

4 AM: Protagitron SMASH

Okay, so it's 4 in the morning, and I'm not asleep. Thank you, Douchebag Debaters Society, for choosing 1:30 in the morning to convene outside of my window in the alley. Oh, I shouldn't be too hard on you. One of you made me laugh with "Don't be walking like that! This ain't LAVAL!" And you did break up the meeting, like, two hours ago. I have only myself to blame at this point for my insomnia. I'm just feeling obscurely unhappy with myself right now, and instead of exploring the issue, I'm just bouncing ideas for genre fiction around in my head.
I've always wanted to be behind a series of books. Not, like, Harry Potter levels of success, but the kind of middling series that spits out a new volume every six months or so, for small but consistent profits.

The Butch Strongdyck Adventures:
I really hate the name Dirk Pitt, but Clive Cussler must be doing something right looking at his print runs. Apparently many, many people want to read about a terribly-named man doing ridiculously manly things in the most ludicrous fashion possible. It's never enough for Dirk just to punch someone, he has to punch some one while driving a jeep on a treacherous mountain passage, and instead of punching that person with a fist he's punching them with a cobra. Wait, no, that's something I want to use in the first Butch Strongdyck adventure, "Nile Dragon."Butch also wants you to know that his relationship with Dill McKidd, his wisecracking right-hand man, is only one of deep friendship, and not homoerotic in the least. No matter what Dill says about Bangkok after his fourth sloe gin. Butch Strongdyck is a registered trademark. All rights reserved.

The Two Hearts Agency Mysteries
People, look at the Women's Network, 'cause clearly the desires of an entire gender can be expressed by a network. The ladies, they dig the weddings. And ladies dig mysteries. They'll have to dig something that awkwardly combines the two with a dollop of product placement. Best friends and business partners Kate and Alice run Two Hearts Wedding Planners, and solve more than the case of the poorly altered Jessica McClintock gown. Whether a guest has received a Lalique champagne flute through the throat or choked on a Tiffany Novo engagement ring, Kate and Alice, like the bride, get their man. Also, every title will be a pun, each more horrifying than the last. The first in the series? For Groom the Bell Tolls.
It tolls for HEEEEEE.

By the way, trust me on the time. It's 4:36 am now, but the Blogger time stamp is being all screwy. Oh, I only wish it was still 11:55 pm on the 22.

Chasing the Applications Dragon No More

I'm trying to wean myself off of the Facebook teat for a bit. So, the account has been deactivated. The last time I tried this I barely made a week. This time I'm going for a month.
Pray for Protagitron.
I've already got the shakes.
In other Internet news... you get out of one fandom, and things suddenly get interesting. I went through a few years of being a minor X-Men fangirl, and have the shirt to prove it. Unfortunately, the virus-like spread of X-Books, and the unfortunate Ratner movie stilled my beating mutie heart. But now Deadpool and Gambit are going to be in the Wolverine spin-off movie, which means my butt is pretty much in a seat.
Yep, Gambit was my first fictional character crush. And he's played by Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights. My fandoms are colliding.

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.

It's Cake to be Square

I started a new project last month. I always had a weird half hour before work. My brain wasn't functional enough to read a book, but it was too functional to keep itself busy with the asinine CTV morning show. When they did a segment on a giant lobster being moved to an aquarium, I knew I needed to do something, before I drowned myself in my morning coffee. So, I started crocheting. I had hoarded all of my scraps of worsted, heavy worsted, and chunky yarn for no reason, and the collection was reaching absurd, Howard Hughesian levels. I needed a project to use them all up, and the logistics of planning a whole knit blanket were just too imposing at the time. My brain was still struggling with the semantics of why the tupperware collection still needed a box. And if it would be meta to put them in one of those big tupperware storage containers. Oh, and the mysterious crust in the fridge of incredible adhesive powers was bothersome as well. So, I turned to that classic, the granny square. With little to no thought, and a couple of segments of the Daily Show, you have another square. And another, and another, until you have a nice little pile. It's also nostalgic to remember which project each yarn came from, or when it was added to my stash.

I'm running out of scraps though, so I might have to go off and finish some projects in order to liberate some yarn. Or else buy more yarn, which won't be any help at all.

I think I have my priorities all mixed up. At least in baked goods, I know it's cupcakes first, now and forever. Just yesterday I mentioned Les Glaceurs, and today on a walk to Atwater Market, I found a place on Notre-Dame that's also in the teeny cake shilling business. This place is called Itsi Bitsi, and the cakes come with their own handy box. I tried the coconut cupcake, a tasty option. They certainly don't skimp on the coconut for garnishing the icing. I don't think it beats the Red Velvet cupcake, but that's just the addictive power of FD&C Red No. 40 talking. However, I don't see any peanut or nut-related cakes on their menu, which might just make it K-friendly. I shall have to find out. Right now, I'm going to call the cupcake race a tie. A delicious, delicious tie.

Please don't call CPS on me.

An old photo of the 'Stache I found, as a place holder for new content. 

Dear lord, I haven't written since the first? I didn't mean to be so neglectful. The past few weeks have been busy, but in the quiet, banal way that doesn't provide much bloggable material. Unless you really want to hear about my quest to find the perfect vintage curtains from Value Village. Or the discovery of a cute cupcake place in Old Montreal that serves adorable Red Velvet cupcakes. Or how many times I've seen the McGill logo at my job. 

Wait, *do* you want to hear about the curtains? I can take pictures, but I might have to clear off the desk first. They're from the sixties, and come in this horrendous, green exploded-houndstooth pattern.

Oh, and I've also developed a bit of a thing for someone at work. I thought I had finally ground such tender feelings under the jackboot of my bitterness. I was wrong, and finally admitted i when I realized I was clandestinely checking the work schedule. And making excuses to take stuff down to text. And chat to the fellow in question. 

I can be terribly dense at times. 

I would write more, but, well, it butts up against some of those weird blogging issues I have. Like, how much do you share? I know there aren't very many people who read my blog, and most of those that do know me offline. Chances are, they'll probably know the person in question if I ever talk about personal stuff. It was a risk I took when the Q situation went down, but most of the people I knew who read the blog knew what was going on anyway, and I kept a large chunk of it out of the blog. I don't like to out my secrets on my blog, even though I like to be as open online as I can, short of posting my Social Insurance Number. I try to write only things I wouldn't be ashamed to say in public. And a personal blog is more interesting the more, well, personal it is. However, as I know from experience, it can be weird to stumble across yourself making a guest appearance in someone else's blog, or find your anonymous secret revealed and broadcast. I want to find the right balance, something that's occasionally amusing, but won't lead to termination of employment or restraining orders. And I'll write more about it once I find that balance. 

Oh, and I still knit, I swear. I even have a bag of granny squares to prove I crochet!

Home and Garden

Here's a list of things I will do, in the interests of home improvement
1. Put Ikea furniture together
2. Hammer in nails
3. Use a power drill
4. Use anchors
5. Use a screwdriver

And here are those I actually do well:
1. Use a screwdriver

I have had to do all of them in the past few days. The results have been mixed.