Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Oblivion, thy name is Roommate.

Yesterday, I cleaned ALL THE THINGS.

I go on cleaning binges once in a (very long) while, and when I get started, I just keep going. I got through the dishes, counter, stove, sweeping and was halfway through scrubbing the floor when my roommate woke up.

Roommate: Wow, you're amazing!

Me: I'm cleaning!

Roommate: You're amazing!

Me: Could you contribute, by perhaps taking the bottles to the bottle depot, since you have a car and that would suck on my bike?

Roommate: Sure! I'm going out anyways.

Excellent start to the day. It continued with laundry, vacuuming, putting roommates stuff in a pile, cleaning my room and my bathroom.

Then I was free. Went out for dinner with friends. It was nice.




Fast forward to 10pm. I get home.

Me: Hi Roommate! Wow, what smells like burning?

Roommate: It shouldn't smell like burning, I only put it in 5 minutes ago...

Me: Are you...cooking??

Roommate: Yeah it's a pizza a bought a while back and had in the freezer. Would you like some?

Me: Oh. No thanks. Just ate.

Roommate: By the way, great job cleaning! Everything looks awesome!




Skip ahead a few more hours to this morning.

I get up, go to the kitchen to make my breakfast. And there are things. All over my counter.

Now it's not as though there was a huge mess or anything, but it just happened to be spread out over all the available space: a cutting board covered in crumbs and knife beside the stove, a plate and cup beside the sink. A little plastic tab seal that you pull out of a new juice container in the middle of the other counter. And a loaf of bread (which is not unusual) and carton of eggs (which is...especially in summer) on the other side.


Now, it's not as though this is all completely terrible. I just can't comprehend how someone could comment so enthusiastically on all my cleaning and then forget all these....things! All over the place!

Of course, since Roommate only seems to cook about once a month, I guess it might be pretty easy...

Irony. Ur doin it right.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

I went to church today...

Today I found myself soul-weary and all strung-out, distracted and maybe just a little discombobulated. Family and long-time friends were unavailable (no offense to the most excellent friends I did have around, but you are all still too new for me to put you through my stupidies idiosyncracies) so I did something other people often do for this kind of sickness. I went to church, for the first time in a very long while.

Unfortunately, for lack of camping equipment and vehicle, my chosen places of worship were inaccessible. Thankfully there were other places nearby where I could find what I needed: my mountains and ocean and some solitude. I put on my walking sandals and half an hour later, there I was - sitting on a rock with my feet in the salt water and suddenly, life was a little better.

I mean, how could it not be? On a warm rock, with cool water; the sun hot on one side of my face with the wind brushing the other; seeing the sparkling reflection of the evening sun on the waves with the sound of them all around me. Those waves wash everything away. Even my barnacle-scraped toe was healed up by the time I got up.

Because the ocean is alive, you know; you can see it breathe as the waves curl up around the rocks. The regular breaths that keep things alive, with the occasional deep inhalation that submerges more of the rock and makes tidal pools disappear momentarily.

I love tidal pools. It didn't take me long to find a really neat one. It was maybe 10 inches long and 5 deep and had a dozen anemones, a few crabs, with the usual array of hermit crabs and barnacles. It was the perfect time of day to watch the miniature ecosystem at feeding time. One of the crabs was tiny - smaller than than very large barnacle right beside it! The large barnacles did not seem to be eating very much, but the tiny ones were almost continuously extending their feathered legs to catch whatever microscopic organisms were on the menu. I wondered if they needed to eat more often because they had a lot of growing to do, or just that because they couldn't reach as far, they had more competition.

Another pool had a far more aggressive breed of hermit crab. These guys were not the tiny ones I saw before, but were bigger - some almost as big as a quarter - with vicious looking yellow stripes and surprising amount of speed. They really dug into whatever they were eating, and a couple of them decided to attack each other at one point. "EXTREME HERMIT CRAB FIGHTING" came to mind. I thought it was pretty cool, but the rockfish seemed far less impressed.

After a few more tidal pools, I waded around and climbed to another, less protected area to sit on a significantly higher rock and watch the significantly higher waves. The tide must have been coming in because the heaving ocean created some impressive spray. I sat there for hours, just watching the waves come in and get sucked back out. If I really watched for it, I could see the interference patterns as the waves coming in crossed with ones that had already hit the rocks. Physics is beautiful. The world is beautiful.

A friend recently asked me whether I would miss the oceans or mountains more if I had to move away. My first thought was that I couldn't choose, but then I got to thinking that it might be mountains. Pictures of sandy beaches never did much for me, but I love mountain ranges. I've also always felt at home when in the Rockies, while the Prairies absolutely give me the heebie-jeebies.

But as per usual, my first impression was the right one. I can't choose. Growing up on the west coast, the two are inextricably linked to me. Take away the mountain rock and the coast is just...long and sandy. But without the ocean? Without the waves crashing around those rocks? Without that...life? It wouldn't be right either. Might as well make it a holy trinity and add forests. I can't live without those, and no that's not blasphemy, dammit. I live very close to heaven on earth and I doubt anyone who's spent any time at all on the rocky shores of BC will disagree.

And so, when I found myself at that most massive of cathedrals, I knew I'd be there a while. It's a growing place, a healing place, a place of life. The kind of place I know I need to go back to again, and again, and again.

What will I miss if I have to leave the coast again?

I'll miss being alive.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Labels

Never believe a label that says "Healthy Choice".

Especially when you get home, notice it doesn't taste very good or healthy and check the ingredients list to find that the first few ingredients in "Healthy Choice" pasta sauce are tomato paste, glucose-fructose, corn syrup, salt, dehydrated onion, and sugar...

Monday, July 19, 2010

How To Catch a Man

Overfeed him to the point where even if he tries to run, you will catch him.

No wait, that's not the kind of catching I meant...

Anyways...

I have recently decided that it is high time for me to think about dating again. It's been a few years - great years actually - and I'm feeling a little out of practice on how to go about this, so I decided to do my research.

It seems that one of the more popular methods is the miniskirt method. It goes as follows:

1. Wear short skirt
2. Walk around near object of intention
3. Wiggle appropriate protrusions (The question of T or A will depend on your own particular endowments and object's preferences - research the latter, if possible)


Another popular method, especially with the late high school to early university crowd is what I call the "liquid courage" method. It involves:

1. Drink alcohol
2. Make out

At this point there are variable outcomes with quite different degrees of success. Much like a choose your own adventure novel, your actions will decide the fate of this method. Some possibilities are:

3. Sex (which can lead to an even greater number of outcomes, with more extreme consequences, for better or worse)

3. Intense Awkwardness (which can also follow Sex)

3. Guilt and Recrimination (which can follow both sex and intense awkwardness)

3. Never talking to object ever again

3. Absolutely nothing

3. Smug looks from one or both parties at future encounters.


Now, neither of these methods seemed quite right to me. It's true that they work, and I have seen it and known people to have succeeded with them, but they are fairly hit-and-miss, with potentially embarrassing fallout.
At this point, I knew I would have to broaden my research beyond things I could see myself, and go to some legitimate sources of information.

Cosmopolitan had an informative article entitled "How to Win a Guy in 10 seconds" which might be useful. It included such tidbits as "Insult everything about him so he thinks you're better than him. That's a huge turn-on" and "Ask to borrow his phone then erase all the numbers but yours. He’ll know you mean business. He may be mad now, but he'll appreciate it later." as well as my favourite "Begin sobbing uncontrollably out of nowhere, and refuse to explain why. Men love mystery."

There is of course, one more way that I seem to hear about extraordinarily often, considering how rarely I've seen it or read about it. It goes as follows:

1. Talk to guy, tell him what you feel and ask him out.

Now, I find this to be extremely suspect. It just seems too simple. Talk to him? Be honest? That can't be right, or there wouldn't be so many sources telling us to do otherwise. What about all those magazines? Those helpful "Ask Annie" type newspaper columns? If it was so easy, why do we even need to ask? If it's so easy, why haven't I done it and why am I wondering about it?

Obviously, because it doesn't work.

This method is a myth.

Guess I'll have to go with the scientific method and try each way. Or maybe just feed everybody cookies until one of them is too slow to run away.

Monday, July 12, 2010

For The Record

#13 Turned out to be packing.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Procrastinating Packing

...but what else is new? I procrastinate at everything. Besides, I know I have not reached the critical mass of procrastination - I have yet to clean my room.

What have I done in the last 6 hours instead of packing?

1. Gone shopping. Well, that was an intended part of my day, but I did extra unnecessary fun shopping too...

2. Checked Facebook

3. Eaten sushi. Dinner is important, yes...but adding beer and episodes of Battlestar Galactica is not conducive to getting things done.

4. Did the dishes. In high heels. And a miniskirt. (I had to try out my new sandals I got while shopping...)

5. Checked Facebook

6. Worked out. For 4 minutes. One of those crazy new Tabatos thingys. It was hard. I gave up on going to bed early at this point.

7. Had a bath. A long bath. I exfoliated.

8. Checked Crackbook

9. Had conversation with Roommate about procrastinating packing. Roommate also spent evening drinking beer and watching internet videos. Roommate will pack tomorrow.

10. Made another drink.

11. Checked Facebook

12. Commenced blogging.

13. ?????

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Random Silliness

Did I mention that an excellent and silly time was had by all on this tour? Here is one of my favourite exchanges.

Scene: A private tour bus filled with 30 odd musicians (pun intended). Driving near the water, the bus passes large, distinctly conspicuously yellow piles of sulfur.

Q: I wonder what do they do with all that sulfur?

A: Make Sulphites
A: Make matchsticks
A: Make lots and LOTS of matchsticks
A: Sulfur Sandwiches

"You guys really can't give me a serious answer, can you?"

No...sorry...we really really can't.

Tourist in my own town

So we have been on tour with the band, back to my lovely home city of Vancouver. Many excellent and silly times were had by all. I had a particularly lovely time as I was living in a hotel downtown and getting my meals covered. This is a distinct improvement over living way out in the burbs and having to somehow scrap together the cash to go out.

I got to go out and eat at all the restaurants I never could when I actually lived there.

Okay, well maybe that's an exaggeration. We were only there for a couple of days and sometimes were too busy to go spend a good amount of time enjoying a meal, but I enjoyed a few places.

Good:
Moonpennies (Moonpenny? Moonsomething?) Cafe. Brie baguette for the win. Also excellent service.

Roxy Burger. REALLY GOOD burger and wings. I actually only tried the wings but the rest looked awesome and was raved about by several people. Not bad drink specials either. Good job by the manager chick to break up a potential fight. (okay, so it's not the swankiest place, but it's Granville street, whaddya expect? It's also one of the few places that will serve drinks extremely late at night. NOT THAT THAT'S THE REASON WE WERE THERE. AT ALL)

Guu. Japanese people yell everything all the time. They yell at you in welcome. They yell your order across the restaurant. They yell goodbye to you. At least I hope that's what they yell...it's all Japanese. They are wearing cargoes and crocs. It is a warm happy silly kind of crazy. The food is pretty good too. Scratch that...the food is amazing. Some of it is weird and funky, some is more 'normal' but all of it is good. I was made extremely happy by that restaurant.

Will Skip Next Time: Elephant and Castle. Cardboard burgers and soggy sandwiches were had by all. The fries and yam fries were okay. Drinks were...drinks. Oh, except the "Red Ruby" which was not a drink, but antifreeze in disguise.

Will Make Time For Next Time: Steamworks. I always like it. I'll get there this fall no matter what. I was sad to have gone there last October and found them to bein between batches of pumpkin ale which I hear is one of if not the best pumpkin ale in the world.

The Cambie. I can't believe I didn't take people there this time.

And tomorrow I'm on my own and on my own tab, but I'm still heading out to one of my favourite sushi places EVER. If you're ever if Fort Langley, go to Tokyo Garden. It's cute and little and wonderful and I'm looking forward to it extremely much. Mmmm...now that will make for sweet dreams for me! Goodnight!