is this it?

Yesterday, at my temp placement, I had a little freak-out (internally; no fax machines were ACTUALLY harmed). So instead of getting dolled up and going to my friend's cousin's condo to meet a promised "cute guy," I stayed home, watched a movie about a future dystopian society (Children of Men), and painted my nails dark purple. Being a drama queen is quite the rollercoaster of emotions.

Re: temping: I'm coming around to the opinion that leaving the trees was a big mistake. Let's go back to hunting and gathering, and forget this whole "office culture" thing. I've devised a strategy involving continuously ingesting liquids so that I have to get up and go to the washroom as often as possible. How do people live like this? Office life is more likely to turn me into an alcoholic than beer wenching was.

Not that I'm going back to the pub (yet). I suppose I haven't really given it a fair shot; plus, since I'm temping, it's not like I have any work to do that I give a damn about. So it's brain-meltingly boring. Perhaps if I CARED whether or not the database is updated and correct, I wouldn't have this problem. But I suppose if I cared about their damn database, I'd be a much less interesting person.

this afternoon

I’m sitting in my unair-conditioned apartment, checking Craigslist for writing/editing jobs, and it only just occurred to me that it was a completely unorganic and possibly ridiculous way to look for a job. I haven’t done anything that could prove to any objective person that I can write well; while I’ve been told I can, and I think I can as well, I have no concrete proof.

However, it also seems somewhat inevitable that I should be sitting in my uncomfortably warm apartment on a cloudy Friday in July, idly clicking on job ads and trying to picture myself in each role. It seems like most of the ones I am qualified for (having no experience or certification) would require a total personality transplant for me to perform successfully—by which I mean not going berserk and setting fire to my desk. I have no concerns over being able to manage the duties involved, just very real worries about being imprisoned for arson.

Plus, I would need an entirely new wardrobe.

Being broke and unemployed is my own fault; at the end of April I quit my job and blew all my savings on a trip to Europe. I don’t regret it; I just wish the exchange rate was more favourable.

what good curse can you throw?

I'm drunk and salty (read: sassy and profane) tonight, so bear with me. I pretty much told off a bunch o' jerks from my past, and I'm feeling good. What a week. It seemed like it was going to be good, but then it trainwrecked; it evened out, in a trainwrecky way (hard to explain; bear with me), and here I am, drunk and blogging and angry.

I was actually in a surprisingly good mood for much of this week; even now, I feel vaguely like I should be in a much worse mood. I fully planned on spending tonight on my couch, plucking my eyebrows in a desultory way and eating pizza. The best laid plans of mice and men.... I ended up at a pub in midtown Toronto, wearing a dress and being drunk and saying 'fuck' a lot. A LOT. And I only feel a third as bad as perhaps I should.

My hours at work have been cut for no apparent reason (other than the fact that we've hired some unnecessary new staff), and I'm no longer able to go to the Xmas party. Yesterday (Friday) I found out that the restaurant will NOT be closing early for the party (which is Sunday), which means, basically, that I can't go. How they can justify telling us poor Sunday closers that we'd be able to go, and then taking it away at the last minute is beyond me, but there you have it.

Today, Jo and I had a horrible shopping day. I usually spend my Saturdays sleeping, so just being awake and up and about was rough; spending it getting a nerve-wracking haircut and traipsing around the Eaton's Centre (on a weekend during the holiday season) made it that much rougher. I was letting Lindz and Jo get ready for their various social engagements at my place, since it was a halfway point, and then I was going to watch some shitty tv and call it a night. After some drama which I don't care to blog about, I ended up wearing the shortest dress I own and knocking back a few before ending up at a birthday party for a guy (who I'd drunkenly fooled around with a few years back), thrown by his girlfriend who I'm pretty sure doesn't like me. Amongst the invitees: a guy who'd fucked around hardcore with one of my best buds and refused to return her phone calls when all she wanted was her dvds back (and thinks he's hot shit because he bartends at fucking RED LOBSTER and gave ME attitude because he thinks he knows what's in a Tom Collins better than I do... ASSHOLE--did I mention he's been in the service industry for what, six months? Also, RED LOBSTER. ASSHOLE.), another guy who only talks to me and mine when he thinks he can get a favour (otherwise we're chopped liver), his girlfriend (who suits him to a tee... draw your own conclusions), and a bunch of other jerks who I did not care to see (and, luckily, didn't show up).

Did I mention that I wasn't invited? Anyway, I drank a whole lot and made fun of everyone, and it felt really good. Not a complete waste of an evening, but I really wish I hadn't been compelled to go. Now I'm drunk and belligerent, and I want to swear at someone else.

from me, to me

I went Xmas shopping today, and spent an exorbitant amount on yours truly. And that was actually throttled back; I resisted the temptation to buy the complete series of Arrested Development (I only bought season one), and did not buy the new body butter that has been put out by the perfume line I wear. Oh, but all that will be mine. Oh yes, they will be mine. Just not until after I manage to buy presents for my family. Maybe I'll see if I can get a gift certificate to Sephora from Mother--she told me to go shopping and buy stuff (for me AND my brother and sister, and if I see something for Father, that too), and then she'd give me the money for it, wrap it, and stick it under the tree.

I tend to buy clothes for my nearest relations; I'm the only one who loves clothes, but everybody's gotta wear 'em. You'd think my gay (ballroom dancing) brother could put together an outfit, but he is woefully unskilled in that department. I'll have to haul him to the mall sometime soon and overhaul his collection of jeans, because they're truly tragic.

One of my holiday traditions is the peppermint mocha from Starbucks, so naturally I treated myself to one after a long two hours of shopping. For myself. Maybe I can con my sister into going for the Festive Special at Swiss Chalet soon. These things are important.

it's the first snow of the year

Hello there! Now that everyone who once checked this blog has given up on me, I'm back. Hurray! I've been halfway to writing entries several times over the last several weeks, but I kept crapping out. My usual inexplicable mood swings are, as always, to blame.

I went to give blood today, and my arm hurts a lot. I'm not generally squeamish, but I get super squicked out by the feel of the needle poking in my vein. But I felt really important, because they actually called and asked me for blood (I have the rarest blood type, and that's just cool. Deal with it), and then a bunch of the nurses were all, ooooh, rare blood. I've been reading You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore, and I was tempted to bring it along and read it ostentatiously while they drained my blood (it's about vampires), just to make some kind of bizarre comment that'd only be funny to me. But yesterday I happened to come across a book on Shakespeare by Bill Bryson, so that pre-empted any other reading. I just finished it, so it's back to sucking. See what I did there?

In work news, I've been excessively surly lately. I just cannot bring myself to be nice to people anymore. People are assholes, and it requires way too much energy and inclination to pretend that they're not. So, I've decided to stop serving once I get back from Europe. Or, at the very least, stop serving once I've paid off any debts I incur on my overseas adventures.

Okay, I'm sleep deprived and anemic, so I'm going to bed.

even you have to win sometimes, dear

News flash: It appears that working for seven days a week is not good for the psyche. And so I have decided to end my professional relationship with the Meat Palace.

Saturday, to put it bluntly, was not a good day. I was severely hungover and sleep-deprived, which certainly contributed to my decision. But it makes my job immeasurably easier to do when the kitchen isn't staffed by a cadre of fuckwits--in other words, if they can get a handle on what is out of stock BEFORE I ring the orders in so I DON'T have to go back to three tables (after getting quadruple sat) to look like a moron. I'm a waitress; people already tend to assume that I'm an idiot. I don't need my coworkers to help them with that.

Friday was an interesting night. I finally made it to the Madison. Unfortunately, my mood had swung over to "annoyed drunk" because while Rachel is lots of fun to party with, her taste in men is somewhat different than mine. So I got roped into going back to her apartment with four randoms after the bar closed, and then played drunk Scrabble whilst fending off the advances of one to two of them. I kicked ass in drunk Scrabble, for the record, even though the guys were cheating rampantly. It turned out that one of them was from my neighbourhood in Mississauga, and we had a disturbing number of acquaintances in common, including one of my brother's friends who'd had a crush on me in high school.

Anyway, since I'm quitting the MP, I'm looking forward to having a little spare time. I might even DATE. The world is my mollusk; the possibilities are endless (well, restricted to the two days off I'll have per week).

we will still need a song

On Wednesday, I had what I think can only be described as a migraine. I woke up early to go to my first pilates class, and was assaulted about the head with stabbing pains. I took some extra-strength migraine relief Advil (aka the Good Stuff), and the pain actually subsided during my pilates class (possibly because I was uniting my mind and body), and then returned in time for my journey to work (during which I snapped at a Bagel Stop employee). My lunch shift was absolutely brutal. I begged off my on call evening shift, went home, and crawled into bed. I woke up about five hours later, convinced I was going to die. I dragged myself to the bathroom and kitchen to retrieve my bottle of Advil and some water, double-dosed myself, and then, while waiting for the sweet, sweet drugs to kick in, pictured my funeral.

Drama queens like myself can get pretty into the funeral planning business. I was calculating how long it would take for my body to be discovered, and trying to decide whether or not Mother would remember an offhand remark of mine stating my preference for cremation. Then I decided that Dad would put his foot down and go for straight up burial--it failed to occur to me last night, in the throes of my dramatics, that my body would probably be in no state for an open casket, having been decomposing quietly in my apartment for a few days--and then I tried to figure out what outfit they'd have me in for the funeral. Not having my arty sensibilities, I decided that Mother would choose the little black dress that I'd bought for a semi-formal back in high school, although I'd prefer the sixties-inspired dress with the three-quarter sleeves.

No fantasy funeral is complete without a guest list! Family would come, of course. And Jo, Toni and Linds (or I'd haunt 'em GOOD). And I'm sure one of my family members would have the bright idea to send out the word via Facebook or MSN of my untimely demise. I'm sure not everyone on my lists would show up, but some of them would. At least a few coworkers, past and present, might feel some obligation to mourn. And maybe a professor or two, if they found out in time. So I think I'd have a respectably attended funeral, despite my general lack of impact on the world and society.

Anyway, by the time I'd gotten around to picking out some appropriate music (and then gotten distracted by remembering my favourite scenes from Love, Actually), I was feeling improved enough to relocate to the couch, and then soon to go on a chocolate run. The long and the short of it is, I'm still alive, but you're all invited to my funeral, whenever it may be.