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.

don't you want me to have a clean uniform?

I try to have this rule about laundry in my building. We have two washers and two dryers; mine is not a large apartment building, but all it takes is for one other person to want to do their laundry on a Monday afternoon, and I could be screwed. So generally I'll only monopolize one set--that way, if someone else has a laundry emergency, they don't have to wait forty minutes for my stuff to finish. If a third person wants the machine, they are S.O.L. I still think it makes for good karma re: me, however.

But it does tend to take a long time, and sometimes I like to sleep in on Mondays--I always work at four, so I have a limited amount of time in which to do this laundry. My new thing was to wait fifteen or twenty minutes before snagging the second machine; I'm staggering my laundry for the convenience of others, if you will.

This was also spurred by a passive-aggressive laundry war I was having with an inarticulate Asian man who would use all the machines, and continue to put loads in after I pointedly left my basket next to a washer one day to claim my place in the machine line-up.

Today, however, I've decided to walk to work (because not only is it beautiful out, but also my path will skirt me through Yorkville, and since I'm finally living in the city during the Film Festival, I might as well try and see ONE celebrity), so I have even less time to spare for my cleaning endeavours. So I sez to myself, I sez, Susan, just stick both loads in at once. You haven't seen anyone down here for the last couple Mondays; just go for it.

So naturally, today when I went to put my loads in the dryers, a little old lady was sitting on the sofa in the laundry room, looking sad and staring at the washers mournfully. And then asked me questions about how everything worked.

EDITED TO ADD: I went down to retrieve my clean, dry clothes, and what had happened? One of the dryers had opened during the cycle (MYSTERIOUS, non?), and the timer had apparently kept going without actually doing anything. So my clothes were still damp. I had to put another buck fifty in! Enraged, I got into the shower and seethed*. And now I just went to get my stuff (leaving 27 minutes on the timer, bah), and the other dryer was making the most ridiculous thunking noises. I feel like the little old lady put some dead cats in there or something. Or both her loads into the one dryer. But really, it sounded like something that had been subjected to rigor mortis** was in there.

*slight exaggeration
**perhaps also a slight exaggeration

baked chips depress me profoundly

I had a dream last night that I had a severe head cold, and now I'm having trouble shaking off the feeling that I should be sniffling and coughing.

PM didn't want me for my on-call lunch shift today, and I gave away tonight's dinner shift last week (that is, if she remembers she took it... I'm a little nervous that I'm going to get a phone call at four fifteen asking irately why I'm not there). So I randomly have a day off. I'm catching up on the laundry I didn't do on Monday and then hanging out with my sister, who is newly moved to Scarborough (which, coincidentally, is why I didn't have time to do my laundry on Monday).

Scarborough is a hole. I know this for the following reasons: 1) empirical observation, and 2) Jo told me so. I know that Jo is often a lying liarton from Liarville, but in this case she is nothing but right. It reminds me of the sketchiest parts of Mississauga. Also, would it KILL Toronto to label things a little better? I got lost, like, twice trying to get to her piss pad by transit. Interesting trivia re: me, which may or may not totally undermine my beefs about getting lost: I have East vs West dyslexia or something. I constantly confuse them. I have to face North and then picture a map of Canada and remember that West is off to the left.

Em's moving day was not a good day for the family. On top of my transit woes, we were unable to get her bookcase and sofa in (her place is a basement pad in an older house), and then there was a bizarre odyssey for dim sum (all five of us were crammed into the Corolla, doing slow drive-bys of Asian plazas) that ended in us eating at Tim Horton's, barely speaking.

And, inevitably, I had gone out drinking with some coworkers the night before, so I was running on three and a half hours of sleep and a quietly festering hangover. Servers tend to be fairly insane drinkers. I had to close that night, so clearly I had to catch up by having some tequila and chugging a beer. On a related note, we were talking about server nightmares at work yesterday--I'm sure all jobs have similar difficulties, but I write what I know--which are, trust me, horrendous. I once dreamt that I was having a heated argument with a customer and I got so worked up that I sat bolt upright in bed, and was unable to get back to sleep for two hours. Another time I woke up, convinced I'd forgotten to punch in someone's appetizer, and had to talk myself down. When I used to bartend, I'd hear the printer spewing out drink orders when I closed my eyes.

My Labour Day weekend was full of labour, but I have today and Saturday off, so September is getting off to an all right start, I guess.

worst date song... or BEST?

Flight of the Conchords: "If You're Into It"

I had to look for a vein... REAL HARD

The bruise on my arm has turned bright purple, prompting concerned questions. I think some people just suspect that I'm a closet heroin addict. The unfortunate fact is that having given blood is much less interesting. I was going to try and convince my tables that I needed bigger tips to fund my next fix, but since the general manager hates me this week for some reason, I decided against it. Is it MY fault she has no sense of humour?

GM: I make my own garlic bread. Just a little olive oil, minced garlic, and cracked pepper.

ME: And bread, right?

GM: Yes, otherwise it's.... I don't like you anymore.

She also got mad when Sarah and I staged a chase scene around the restaurant (which was hardly MY fault, because SHE was chasing ME), and took umbrage when I told Dave (one of the kitchen managers) he should shut the hell up. She just doesn't get the idea of banter. It sure does put a damper on my work day.

Speaking of work, apparently someone has a crush on me. Here is proof positive that I think too much: if I ask one of two girls I work with, they'll tell me who it is (according to the source who told me that said crush exists). HOWEVER, then the ball will be in my court, provided I don't have anything against whoever it is. And if I DO have something against this person, or even if I'm merely ambivalent, or just not interested enough to risk a workplace romance, there will be hurt feelings because I don't reciprocate, and he'll find out that I know. I HATE having the ball in my court. You get that ball and keep it! I'm much too indecisive to have it. Also, I just don't know if I have the energy for a workplace fling. The last one trainwrecked. Also, I'm not that close with either of the two girls who know about it. C'est un tragedie.

I have now successfully broken most of the glasses I bought from Ikea for my apartment. I bought them partially to spite my mother (is it bad that several of the things I bought for this place were bought for that reason?). I think I've managed to break all of them by dropping them in the sink, stone cold sober. Luckily, the deliciousness of POM Tea has enabled me to stock up on glassware of approximately the same size.

PS: I now believe the knife was used for pizza, in case you were concerned for my safety.

CRAB!!

I confess to being slightly unnerved today. I decided that I should probably get around to doing some dishes--all I really use these days are water glasses and coffee mugs, and the occasional bowl and spoon for cereal--so I put on my coffee maker and got to it. At the bottom of my sink was my good knife. It's one of the knives that comes with its own sharpener dealy. When did I take it out? I can't for the life of me remember, or even fathom what I might have used it for.

Here are my hypotheses:

1. I'm blacking out so hard from drinking binges that I don't even remember drinking at all, and made a meal while intoxicated
2. a murderer broke in, found a weapon, and got bored/lazy and left
3. I'm being sent a really ambiguous message by my superintendent
4. I left my dishes so long that they've gained sentience, and are sloooowly gearing up to take over
5. some asshole jerk is using my kitchen while I'm out, and can't even be bothered to do ALL his dishes... jerk

This is really bugging me now. The only other people who've been in here recently are Jo and my family. And I could have sworn that none of them were rummaging through my kitchen drawers. Subtle threats ARE just my sister's style, however.

Speaking of Em, she sent me the following. The second part is my favourite, but all instances of slow-motion man-hugging make me pretty happy.

remember, this doesn't mean that I like you

I kind of hate Flixster. Randoms keep adding me as friends, which isn't the WORST thing ever, except for the fact that most of them send me messages like this: "aw, baby girl, y u cryin? ill make u smile!" My profile picture there is the same one I have here, in case that made no sense to you. It didn't to me, either, until I took a minute to look at my profile again.

Also, many of these people have LOUSY taste in movies.

But still, I could just ignore all of this, except that I keep accidentally approving these friend requests. There doesn't seem to be a "Pointedly Ignore Friend Request" button, and so, if I'm bidden to come and check out the stupid friend messages I get, I've twice now absentmindedly tried to get to another page, and, in so doing, inadvertently aligned myself with the likes of a woman whose profile is in ALL CAPS (so she's effectively shouting about her love for terrible movies), and a guy who has set up a thing on his profile that plays a tinny (and also BAD) pop song over scenes from movies, or SOMETHING like that (because I've never had the patience to watch it, once I figured out what was aurally interrupting my regularly scheduled Hellogoodbye ingestion).

Whew. Anyway, I just spent a few minutes weeding through and removing all of these randoms from my friend list. I mainly like Flixster for the Facebook application--ACTUAL Flixster I find annoying. I've actually had an account on there for a long time, even though I barely used it from the time I signed up until it got itself attached to FB. This guy I used to have a thing with had sent me one of those "sign up and compare movie tastes!" bullshit emails, and at the time, I was tickled pink that he was thinking of me. Being older and wiser, of course, I've now realized that he probably sent it to everyone on his contact list.

Tomorrow, I've got a day off. My last day off was August 1, and I had a staff meeting that day, so it wasn't even a real one. Granted, there have been a few days in there in which I worked for less than four hours, but just knowing that you have to go to work colours your entire day. Anyway, I mention it because I'm going to spend all day at the Ex, eating BeaverTails and goofing off. Delicious!

is this it?

I had the following conversation with a fellow Susan today (yes, another person named Susan, and not actually myself--I'm not denying the fact that I talk to myself, I'm just saying that it's not what I was doing THIS time):


ME: I'm experiencing general dissatisfaction with the state of my life.


SUSAN: Ah. My feet hurt.


ME: That doesn't really compare to my existential angst.


Today I looked at the container I carry my extra-strength migraine relief Advil around in, and realized it's a little case that I got at the university fair waaaay back in my last year of high school. It advertises for monster.ca. I keep my work float in a hastily modified cloth cd case from the Alumni Association at the UofG. And here is a typical conversation I've had several times, with co-workers and customers:


X: So, are you still in school?


ME: Oh, no. I'm done. I graduated.


X: Oh? From... university?


ME: Yep. (pause) I... I have a degree in drama.


X: OHHHHhhhhh. Oh. Ahhh.


And the world again makes sense. Why ELSE would a BAH like myself be serving beer in a kilt? Drama. Even art history majors find something else to do. Am I going to suffer under the belief that I've wasted my life EVERY September?

But that's only part of it. I have to call my grandmother to thank her for a scarf she's knitted me. Go ahead, consider me an ungrateful wretch, but I'm dreading this call. Seeing as I've not only graduated, but have also reached a marriageable age, it is now my job to provide her with bouncing baby great-grandchildren. We've jumped right from pressing questions about boyfriends to the spawning stage.

Also, Grandpa likes to ask when I'm going to get a real job. It's bad enough when I ask myself that question; trying to justify your life to a man who was sent to a wartime work camp, moved across the world, and slaved away in a GM factory to support a family of five, among other things, is a whole level of worse.

"The more I see of the world, the more I am dissatisfied."*

I performed my civic and moral duty today and gave blood. I haven't in a long time; I feel somewhat embarrassed by that, actually. I'm healthy, after all, and I'm not really DOING anything with all that blood. Might as well let someone who needs it have it. The process makes me uncomfortable, but that's not really an excuse when people need transfusions and etcetera. Now my arm's a gigantic owie, and I'm having phantom needle sensations. However, awash in the glow of having done some good, I rewarded myself with a couple books and some expensive coffee.

This morning I opened at PM; as we all know, mornings have never been my forte. I've decided that I hate patios, patio furniture, security measures for patio furniture, people who insist on sitting on patios, pigeons, trees with tree mange, and fickle weather gods. None of this is NEW, exactly--it just comes up more forcibly when I have to deal with the above before noon. I think I'll try and get out of the waitressing biz before next summer rolls around, just to avoid having to deal with asshole patios. However, my one consolation is doing up the chalkboard with our specials: "THRILL to our BUTTERNUT SQUASH PUREE! Release your inner cowboy with our BULL'S EYE PRIME RIB SANDWICH! Got a VITAMIN WING DEFICIENCY?" This is the small joy my life affords; being overly enthusiastic about foods that very few people actually want, in order to subtly underline my dissatisfaction with the course of my existence. Most people don't get it.

I'm in a rut, and I know it. I'm going to sign up for pilates next week, because I have the misguided conviction that rock-hard abs will make my life materially better. I'm also leaning towards quitting the Meat Palace, just to simplify my work life. But as I fought with patio furniture this morning, I had the awful conviction that it was emblematic of my entire existence: ineffectual railing against an uncaring world, leading directly to death by tetanus poisoning. Alright, perhaps not the last bit. Or perhaps yes... METAPHORICALLY.

*Go on, name the quote.

it sounds like a sexy hamburger

Went and saw Superbad Friday night and laughed my ass off. Definitely not a movie I'd like to see with my parents (one day I'll see the 40 Year Old Virgin again, and properly enjoy it); it was filthy in the way that only immature boys can be. But it was also awfully sweet. The two friends are facing separation in a few months, and nothing will ever be the same, and they both realize that. It's guy love, between two guys. Plus, Michael Cera is so delightfully awkward--he can somehow convey acute discomfort by just standing there, and it's honestly hilarious and endearing.

It's true that there's very little screen time spared for the girls, but I liked that there seemed to be some kind of hidden layer to them. Maybe I'm just projecting, but since the boys only got imperfect glimpses of that whole other world that is teenage femaleness, it seemed pretty clear that there was more at work behind the scenes than the audience got to see. And also, that the boys just didn't get it. On a somewhat related note, my favourite bit in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was when Hermione explained why Cho was crying when Harry kissed her and Ron was all, no one person can be feeling all that at once without exploding! Right there, one of the (admittedly cliched) differences between the sexes. We ladies are complicated creatures, and no one understands us, not even ourselves.

Over at Pajiba, there's some kind of crazy shitstorm going on about the politics of Superbad. I mention it not only because Dan Carlson is really sorry for inadvertently starting it, but also because I've been thinking quite a bit about the personal and the political. I thank whatever powers that be that there are women a lot smarter than me who did all the theoretical thinking behind feminism (I'm referring to it as a philosophy; it's a great thing that someone said, hey, just cuz I have a vagina, I'm not allowed to vote? WTF?, but to sit down and hammer out papers on the power imbalances inherent in the very language we use, the dynamics in society that implicitly favour males, etc etc etc... well, damn, I'm just grateful to have enough brainpower to be able to mostly follow along). It does, however, become INCREDIBLY exhausting to safeguard feminine equality, just because there is so much to fight. (There's a manager at the Meat Palace who consistently gave the guys (one of whom was much slighter than me) the dirty, muscle-y jobs during our opening week--for all I know he still does; I rarely work with him given my limited schedule--and it amused me slightly while also ruffling my feathers. Then I said to myself, Susan, do you WANT to mop the bathrooms out? Haul around the dusty barbeque? No? Then shut up.)

Anyway, what I'm saying is that while I fully understand and support the rationale behind confronting the casual oppressions that the patriarchy unthinkingly imposes, I can't really envision an end point to it. And that exhausts me. So does the fact that it's really hard to convince people of things that they don't want to believe or understand, no matter how reasonable your arguments are. You pretty much have to get them while they're young. I like to think that if I ever have kids, I'll be able to raise them to treat everyone with respect, and avoid the gendered pigeon holes that society still propagates--and that enough feminists (male or female) manage to do so that eventually it'll snowball, and the world will slowly become a better place. I'm not really planning on having kids, unfortunately for future generations (that's right. You just WISH you could get a hold of these genes!), but theoretically speaking, that's the plan. There are an alarming number of knuckleheads out there who just don't and won't get it; I have defended my views on feminism to guys who have pretty much just scratched their heads and said, "Why are you even bothering about this? You're pretty; you don't need to worry about it."

Now I'm all riled up again. Want to be depressed? Go read this. The most fucked up part is in the fifth to last paragraph. But they do say they're hopeful; maybe instead of being exhausted, I can try that too.

things I love inordinately

• the ads for the new pomegranate and tangerine Fruitopia (EVEN THOUGH I have yet to find a place to purchase and consume said beverage)
• the trailer for Mr Bean's Holiday (I seriously crack up every time I see him say "Gracias.")
• the weather lately
• Cantonese chow-mein (sans crevettes) from Not Just Noodles
• "Someday" by the Strokes

via feministing.com

WORD.

Sing it, sister.

for Jowie and Toni, who hate pants

I took like, three showers yesterday

I'm pretty much sick of this heat wave. How about all of you?

It's a favourite Canadian pastime to complain about the weather (unless you live on the West coast, where apparently everything is fabulous all the time... bastards). I've got two fans on, full-blast, but really it's not the heat in my apartment that's getting me. It's the fact that I have to work on patios that gets my goat (and makes me smell like one). This one lady started going on about how EVERYONE was complaining that it was SO HOT, but really, if you just sit in one place, having a drink, it was actually very pleasant. THANKS A LOT, LADY. Did you ever think about the girl in the black t-shirt, faux-wool kilt, and black knee socks who's bringing you and the other hordes of patio-worshippers their drinks?

Actually, I'm somewhat grateful for the kilt. In this weather, I will take a bit of a breeze around my nether regions if I can get it. There is, however, nothing quite like the sweet relief of taking off a pair of knee socks after an eight hour shift.

A year ago, I was in France. I miss France. Linds has demanded that I come up with a good acronym for my Europe savings (something at least as good as the SHIT fund--Susan: Home In Toronto), so I'm taking any suggestions you people have.

In other news, I never told you guys about the bender of a weekend I had. It's a long story, and I'm very hot right now, so I'll just tell you that I ill-advisedly gave some guy my number, and I may be roped into seeing him at some point soon. He seems nice enough; I just always feel leery about guys I meet at clubs (which is why I don't usually give out my number) because I so rarely go to them. It seems like being at one automatically gives people a certain impression of you, just by association. And, similarly, I don't know if I like the kind of guys who frequent them.

I do wish I had a boyfriend who has air-conditioning, though.