snow day

i'm staring out the window right now (yes, as i type. i'm a multi-tasker) and it's snowing. big, fat flakes and lots of them. it's amazing. it hasn't snowed like this in a long time. i mean, it snowed last year but not like this. it's like a blizzard out there. fat flakes. fat, fat flakes. it's a soup-day. a snuggle on the couch with a good movie-day. it's a veritable Winter Wonderland.

but tonight's forecast is for heavy rain. gotta love global warming.

it's official

i will never own a cat. and it's becoming more likely that i'll never own a dog either. this cat is driving me insane. i know it's because she misses her companion of a decade and i try to spend as much time with her as i can. but she's become so needy - i don't remember her being like this, ever. if i don't sit with her, she whines. if i don't pet her, she whines. if i'm not looking at her, she whines. if she were a dog, i might be able to deal with it because at least i know she'd be able to go for a walk or play. this houseguest of mine just lounges. plays string every once in awhile. but mostly just stares and whines. oy!

things have been very quiet. i'm almost getting bored. i'd like to have people over but i'm afraid this cat might have a heart attack from all the new faces. plus, all the covers i've put on the couch look kind of ridiculous and are a pain to put back on properly so no parties for me until the new year.

Doc Tardy may be moving back home soon. i'm a bit disappointed because she had accepted a job in England previously and i was looking forward to visiting her for my birthday. ah well, i guess i can still celebrate the summer solstice in england, just more expensively. but it'll be good if she moves back - we'll get each other out and socializing again.

i wish i could learn better from my mistakes. last year at this time, i was grounding myself (for the umpteenth time, no doubt) for spending too much money. had i just bit the bullet last year at this time, i'd be out of credit card debt, probably would have a new computer, and would have a little more savings. instead, it's Christmas time again with gifts to buy, i have more credit card debt than i did last year and my car's regular maintenance is going to cost me at least $1500 because i'm about to hit 100,000 km and my timing belt needs to be changed. that doesn't include my brakes -i've been waiting for them to tell me i need them changed since the summer but since i don't drive as much now, i've been saved for a few months. i hate this. i hate that i just can't seem to learn. i can learn from my mistakes at work but in my personal life, generally, it's like Groundhog Day.

aside from the money-thing and the cat-thing, i'm quite happy. Mon was obsessing about this guy that she hasn't heard from in a week. she met him at Earls on Friday at lunch (randomly, of course), which turned into a 12 hour makeout session at her place. they planned on doing something the next week but he never phoned or sent her a text or anything. and she's obsessing. just the way i would. she says she's never felt this kind of chemistry with a guy since 1998 so she doesn't want to let him go, even though he smokes weed on a regular basis, occasionally does coke and is a self-professed partier. oy. meanwhile, she's got another guy that she's pushing away, even though he's got a great job, owns a house, is stable and established, and thoughtful (although it sounds like it could border on controlling sometimes). i told her she needs to simplify her life. she's the one who told me to read "eat, pray, love" and yet she learned nothing from that book. nada. i'm so glad i surround myself with people who invite so much drama into their lives. it reminds me that i don't want any in mine.

loss

how quickly things change. ginny was euthanized this morning. she'd been sick since monday night and she's been at the vet since tuesday morning. i was afraid i'd have to make the decision to put her down because i wasn't able to get a hold of Jam for a few days and ginny got progressively worse. it was an awful decision to have to make when you're on the other side of the world but i'm glad she made it.

it made me realize that perhaps i'm not fit to have a pet like a dog or a cat. her sickness was so upsetting to me that on thursday night, i found myself kneeling in front of ginny's cage at the vet, sobbing and apologizing to her (yes, the cat) because i didn't know what to do. perhaps my sadness came from the standpoint that i had no guidance and had never been through this kind of situation before. perhaps it will be different when i have my own dog, but i think the pain of losing them will be much worse. can i deal with that?

i think a lot of my avoidance of dating and relationships stems from the fact that i don't want to ever feel that pain of losing someone again. love is great when you have it but when you lose it, you feel like you may have been better off having not had it at all. maybe it's worse for me; i'm not a person that wears my heart on my sleeve. as the saying goes, still waters run deep. i feel pain very deeply and the only way for me to deal with it is just to avoid it. perhaps not the most healthy way of self-preservation but it's what works for me.

that being said, i may be inheriting a dog pretty soon. if it comes to that, the next three months will be interesting, to say the least!

serious regret

i wish i had never said i would look after my friend's cats. it's only been a week but it feels like they've been here for months. i'm frustrated with Ginny, the cat with the heart condition. i know i shouldn't be. but she's figured out that the "treat" food i give her is laced with her meds so now she won't eat it. yesterday, i was forced to try to shove the pills down her throat by sitting on her and yanking her mouth open. i thought she'd taken it, and i gave her extra pets and cooed at her for doing so. later on, i found the pill lying on the floor. fucking cat.

i tried to do the same today and granted, today was my fault. i opened up the pill and was going to pour the contents down her throat. that got spit out too. i was so mad, i started to vacuum. they hate the vacuum.

i know i'm being too hard on them (and on me) but i hate having them here. the cat hair is driving me mental. i hate cleaning the litter. one of them puked on the carpet yesterday - hated cleaning that too. and the benefit of have two little critters to sit and watch TV with me lost its lustre many days ago.

granted, the money my friend gave me in payment for looking after them will probably buy my new computer (finally). or buy my Christmas present for the year. or pay down my credit card. or allow me to finally have a nice housewarming party (once these damn cats are gone, of course, because a crowd of new people hanging around for an extended period of time would probably give Ginny a heart attack, literally). or supplement my away-trip next year. but i will never, ever, EVER agree to take care of someone else's cats at my place again. i don't care who it's for.

only 15 more weeks to go. fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

invasion

the cats are moving in today. i really hope they like it here. they'd better because they'll be with me for the next four months. i just learned that 90% of the plants i own are poisonous to cats so i've had to move them into my den and will shut the door when i'm not here or sleeping. hopefully that works. it's very sad because now my livingroom looks bare without the big plant on the floor by the window and, of course, that window gets the most light so my plants will suffer. i hope they don't die. i'd be pissed.

i've gotten over the whole cat-hair thing (okay, almost). almost gotten over the fact that they will likely scratch the hell out of my couch. i just don't want them to get angry with their owner and take it out on me (or rather, my furniture) by peeing everywhere. one of the cats did that (peed on my friend's mattress) after my friend's return from a month-long trip. i suspect that they will punish her once they all get home in March, but there's always that possibility that they're just not going to like me. and then, the other possibility that the one with the heart condition will die. that would suck! i've never had to deal with dead animals before and to have to deal with it for the first time with a friend's pet would be awful. here's hoping things go well.

i worry too much, eh?

smack

i think the Ninja and Mon kissed each other goodbye tonight - in public and on the mouth. after all, cheek kisses aren't really audible. we were at a dinner tonight and Mon was getting a ride home with someone else (the Ninja was actually going home to his family - weird, eh?). anyway, it was the three of us standing on the sidewalk, and a line up of other people in the street, waiting to cross. i was about to walk away from the group and happened to glance at the Ninja and Mon. they moved in for a hug and for whatever reason, i politely looked away. i heard a very audible kiss and looked at them again in time to see them hug and most definitely to see the sheepish look on the Ninja's face - caught red-handed, as they say? i'm pretty certain he was red-faced.

i decided awhile ago that i was going to let go of my indignant feelings about his indiscretions because, above everything, it's none of my business. it's his life and if he chooses to continue cheating on his wife and family with some woman from work, so be it. i don't like to see it, but that's why i choose not to spend any more time with them than i have to. unfortunately, i didn't leave soon enough. and i thought it was sketchy that it took them a over an hour to drive to the dinner. together.

uh huh

i'm nearing the end of my two weeks leave from work. it's been great. truly. okay so the first four days were spent in the wake of a morphine-induced haze. but this week has been truly amazing. the weather's been gorgeous. i'm feeling more spry. i've done nothing but relax. i probably could've gone back to work this week, but i decided to take this week off for my mental health. okay, so i haven't spent a lot of time thinking about my purpose in life and whether i'm fulfilling it but, as my brother would say, meh.

incidentally, the OC e-mailed me (and A) on facebook and told us about this costume party at a gallery in gastown on friday night. i replied back, but only in relation to some pictures he had on his profile. he wrote back, "so, are you going to the party? you should" A told him he should and i basically said i had other plans but thanks. he totally wants me.

LOL

under pressure

i've just officially had a panic attack. and now i'm making pizza. my last meal, so to speak.

my procedure is tomorrow - exactly 12 hours from now. i am worried. i am scared. i have this very unnerving feeling that i may not make it out alive. i'm not kidding. i don't really want to get into it, but i feel that perhaps my time has come. i don't want to die, but it may be that's what happens. maybe i'm over-reacting. i don't know. i guess i'll find out in 14 hours.

i haven't had a panic attack in a very long time. i started getting anxious when i left work (at 6:30, thank you very much). made it onto the skytrain and then to my station. as i was walking home, my heart started to beat faster and i felt a bit queasy. about 3 minutes into the walk, i started to tear up. i tried as best i could to hold it back but the minute i walked through the front door to my apartment, i lost it. i started hyperventilating and i was crying uncontrollably. i'd say that was a panic attack, yes?

i've calmed down since and i'm currently making a sundried tomato, spinach and feta cheese pizza. i've eaten three cookies in the meantime. i'm very nervous.

Doc Tardy just left a message on my voicemail, reminding me that this procedure was routine for the surgeons and not to panic. i started to cry again.

i think it's better that this happens now, rather than tomorrow. they may not do the procedure if i'm overly-anxious. then again, maybe they'll give me a stronger sedative. wish me luck.

chasm

my dad just phoned me. he said he just wanted to talk. i thought that was weird. and then he started talking and i could tell that he had been crying. he asked me to talk to my brother because he was worried that my brother just wasn't independent enough. and he isn't. he doesn't go out much by himself. when he and my dad go out, he just sticks with my dad and doesn't go off on his own. at first, my dad was just sort of venting - how he was tired of making dinner and my brother not eating anything because he didn't like it. and then he re-iterated that he thought he was a terrible father, and then i started crying. he said he was afraid that if he were gone, my brother would be alone - he wouldn't go to live with my mom but he wouldn't know how to live on his own and take care of himself. and then he started sobbing. do you know how hard it is to hear your stoic father sob on the phone and say to you, "i feel so alone." it's hard. it's really, really hard.

he talked more about how he felt like he had no life because all he did was work to live. he was concerned about his expenses (sound familiar? wonder where i got it from, eh?) and how he would never have enough money to do the things he wanted. i pointed out to him that his lifestyle was not so different now than when he was with my mom and they had two incomes. his argument was that at least now, he didn't have to explain to anyone why he bought something. i told him it was a small trade-off to live comfortably. he told me there was no chance for reconcilliation, and he was firm about it, but i said that wasn't what i meant. i meant that he had an opportunity to live the way he wanted, but he chose not to. so now, he has to figured out how to do it a different way. he lamented again about no money and that his car payment was holding him back. i asked him how much longer he had to pay it off and he said, "until next september." i said, "but think about how much money you'll have once you pay that off. you've been in your new place now for a year and it's flown by. another year and you'll have an extra $500 in your bank account. then, four months later, you can go to the Philippines. you just have to take it month-to-month." he seemed to understand that...at least, i hope he did.

the only time i ever regret my parents splitting up is times like this. if both of them had just tried a little bit hard to understand each other and were a little bit better and communicating with each other, they'd still be together. and probably a less alone than they are now, apart.

listen

i just got off the phone with Doc Tardy. she just doesn't really hear me sometimes. i was telling her about the procedure i'm going to have done in a couple of weeks. she asked if it would affect my fertility and i said, "it might, but they don't really have any real statistics either way because the procedure is fairly new." i then went on to tell her that it didn't really matter to me whether i could have kids or not because 1) i don't necessarily want children and 2) "having" kids to me does not equal "bearing" children. i could just as easily adopt - children are children. whether they have my eyes or not has no bearing on me. she said, "oh yeah." not two minutes later, she goes on to tell me a story of this woman she saw on Good Morning America who had to go through radiation treatment after her bout with cancer but managed to still bear her own children a few years later. "See?," she said, " You still have hope!" Oy.

the Duckster has announced that, after two years of being a paralegal, she's finally decided to take the plunge and go to law school. of course, the announcement made me think about my own path to law school again, but i'm happy just being happy for her. she loves the work too much to just be on the sidelines. she needs to be up front and leading the team. i hope she does well. she doesn't take well to doing poorly so i know she'll work hard but i am not sure she's really aware of how strenuous law school really is. rewarding, but strenuous.

last night, i decided to read over the material the doctor gave me about the procedure because i wanted to know what to expect the day i checked in and that sort of thing. bad idea because i started crying. it was obviously a necessary cry because everytime i thought of the procedure, i would tear up. but then i started thinking about work and i really started to sob. i think i'm just under stress, generally. as for the procedure itself, if they were to just put me under, i would be fine. because it's local, i'm not so sure. i don't want to be aware of whatever is going on. i can deal with waking up in pain - i just don't want to witness the procedure that causes it!

i e-mailed MGF today, just to see how his health ailments were (gawd, are we getting old or what?). he said, among other things, "it's weird you should e-mail me. i just had a dream about you the other night." i e-mailed back, "do i even want to know what it was about?" he sent back, "it's not appropriate to discuss over e-mail, but let's just say that your losing streak ended quite nicely." why does he tell me things like that? it's weird. he's weird. i'm not reading into it. he's a guy.

this weekend is thanksgiving and 20 of my closest family members are trucking down and across the border to a rented house on the water. it looks lovely. i think it will be fun - shopping and chilling and hanging out. if i could only convince my aunt that a turkey dinner is not required, it would be a perfect weekend. i will have to make something else or i'll go hungry. i wonder where the closest Olive Garden is?

one-cookie kid

ever seen those social experiments done on young children where they are sat at a table with a cookie on a plate? the experimenter (or is it tor?) tells the test subject that they are going to leave the room but will be back in 10 minutes and that if they don't eat the cookie while they're gone, they'll bring them another cookie and then they can have two instead of one? the test supposedly demonstrated that the kinds that could wait the 10 minutes to have the two cookies instead of just one (i.e. delay gratification) would be more successful in life than the ones that gobbled the one cookie the minute the experimenter left the room and the door closed behind them.

i am a one-cookie kind of kid. it is very rare when i can delay gratification to myself. i was just looking at my bank accounts and i'm starting to finally get some savings together. remember a few weeks ago when i said i was going to stop buying finally start paying off my credit card? i really wanted to make that work. it would take me three lean months to pay it off but then i'd be credit-card debt free. so what do i do? buy two pairs of shoes. they're very pretty shoes, but it's still $90 i didn't have to spend. and Christmas is coming up so i know that i'm going to be spending in a couple of months. i know i can go easy on gifts but then it feels like i have more money to buy more decorations! it's endless.

i've been eating a bit manically these days too. either i'm just not hungry so i don't eat at all, or i eat whatever is in sight just because it's there.

last night, i pulled into my parking spot in the garage. my next-door garage neighbour tapped on my window and when i opened the door, she offered me some bread. she explained that she worked with special needs people and that every friday, the local Safeway gave her all the day-old bread (don't ask me what that has to do with special needs people - i haven't figured that out). anyway, she said she always had more than she could eat so she offered me some. i said sure. i expected her to hand over a loaf, maybe two. but she opened up the backdoor of her little car and in the back seat sat three clear garbage bag-sized bags of bread. one contained bulk rolls...lots and lots of rolls. the second held baguettes. the third, fancy loaves. she handed me two baguettes, told me to help myself to the doughnuts in the trunk (all piled into a orange-box) and basically handed me the bag full of fancy loaves and said, "here, if you have room in your freezer...." for two or three loaves, maybe. for twenty, no. i walked away with one boston cream doughnut, two baguettes and a fancy loaf. when i got upstairs, i ate the doughnut. this morning for breakfast, i halfed the french loaf baguette, cut it lengthwise and spread some margarine on it. for lunch, i took the fancy loaf, split it lengthwise and made a pizza. thankfully, i mustered up enough self-control to only eat one half of the pizza (i.e. the bottom side of the loaf).

i'm a one-cookie kid at work too. i've been at the firm for two years now - barely long enough to have sunk my teeth into my new career. and yet because a lot of people come to me for help and rely on me on a day to day basis, i'm starting to feel like i'm entitled to things that i'm just not. i think that is why i get so worked up and upset and get my feelings hurt. because i feel like i should be treated better - more special - than the others who do the same job as me. that is a serious flaw. i spent yesterday in a bit of a stormy mood. at 3:45, i walked into the photocopy room where there were two people at the fax machine and one lawyer at the supply shelves. there were a stack of stapled photocopies that had been sitting on the same spot on the counter since the late morning. finally, out of sheer annoyance i said, to no one in particular, "whose papers are these and why are they just sitting here????" realizing that no one was answering me but feeling six eyes on me, i said, with as much humour as embarassment, "why am i so cranky???" they all laughed. but why am i so cranky?

it's really only work that is bothering me right now and it's mostly just the politics at work that are getting to me. it is my fault for taking a secretarial job so i have no one to blame but myself. i know human nature well enough to know that there are certain people at work that will never take me seriously as a paralegal and i will either have to deal with it or find another job. it might be because they don't really know what a paralegal is, but they certainly would never dare to give the Mentor the menial task they sometimes give me without a second thought. grr. change is imminent at the workplace in the next year. if i manage to get to five years at the same firm, i doubt i'll ever leave. it's the feelings of loyalty that will get me in the end. loyalty to them, but not to myself.

build up, let down

you know when you prepare yourself for bad news? you psyche yourself up; you hope for the best but prepare for the worst; you role-play in your mind how you're going to react. and then the bad news comes and you don't react the way you think at all? i'm going through that right now.

i just found out, not 24 hours ago, that The Ex is married. he got married. we broke up because he said he wasn't ready for marriage and that he just wanted to chill with his friends and be a guy but what he was trying to say, without hurting my feelings, was that he didn't want to marry me.

i knew that. i knew that for many years after. he got together with this girl - the Rebound Girl - not two months after we split up. maybe the feelings were there even sooner.

i always thought i would be devastated when i found out that he married her and had kids. settled down. gave his life to her. why wasn't i good enough for him to give his life to?

i said i never wanted to know, and yet i always tried to figure it out on my own. i figured i was just being my usual masochistic self - you know, make myself sad and miserable so i can cry "woe is me!" and have an excuse to feel sorry for myself for a few weeks.

i don't think it was a surprise when i found out. i didn't feel hurt. i didn't hate him (or her). i think the only ill feelings i had were that i wanted desperately to feel hurt and betrayed and angry - i just couldn't. i can't muster any hurt feelings at all. it's kind of weird for an old emotional masochist like me.

when i finally decided to end the relationship, i told him that i just wanted him to be happy. and if it wasn't with me, then so be it. i hope he's found happiness with her. i mean that.

and he said to me that he hoped that i would find someone that was good enough for me and who would treat me better than the way he treated me because i deserved so much more.

we always hear, "it's not you; it's me" and we all know that it's not entirely true. depending on how you look at it, it is you. or it's not. in my case, it was me. he knew he wasn't good enough for me and so he let me go. he realized it right away. it's only taken me six years to realize it for myself.

freedom.

invisible

sometimes, i feel like i'm invisible. i don't know how that works. i'm not short. i'm not a waif. i don't have a complexion that blends into the background. and yet i wonder if people even see me.

i'm not saying this in a philosophical way. i really wonder whether i am just hard to see. i'll be walking down the sidewalk and people will be walking towards me and they'll walk right into me. or, i'll be walking behind someone and, because they're walking slowly i'll try to pass them. but as i am about to even up with them, they veer off their course and walk into my lane and not ever see that i was there. seriously, do people have terrible vision or am i just not making my presence known? my pet peeve.

another pet peeve, since i'm talking about them. last friday, at 4:30, Mon asks me if i want to go with them to playland that night (ie. A, the Ninja and his "friend" and others). i tell her i already have plans and she does the, "oh, come on! come with us!" thing. i actually did have plans but really, i was annoyed that she even asked. i had overheard them all talking about their plans to go to playland since the beginning of last week. they all saw me, they all had the opportunity to to invite me but none of them thought about asking me until the last minute. i don't mind doing spur of the moment things, but not if i was never contemplated in the plans in the first place.

then, her call party. her parents are throwing her a cocktail party to celebrate her call to the bar. i've been overhearing about it for a good couple of weeks now, including who is on the guest list, but haven't been invited myself. that's fine - truly, it is. but then she asks me if i'll babysit her niece so her visiting brother and his wife can attend the party without having to take care of their one-year old too? sorry, i have better things to do. even BabyMan thought that was tacky of her to ask. and he wasn't invited either. in fact, i heard that A wasn't invited. just all of the partners at the firm...and the Ninja, of course.

i've been feeling rather catty lately and kind of restless at work. i have thought for awhile that, if the Ninja announces he's leaving his wife for his 23 year old lover, i'll have to find somewhere else to work. how can i respect someone like that, particularly since he was supposed to leave his wife for our friend??? argh. i hate knowing sometimes.

i've had some great story ideas lately but no computer to work on them. it seems to be working now but i'm not counting on it. i think i'm going to start backing up my files and then i'll shut 'er down for good.

i was looking at pictures of myself that were taking over last weekend. gawd, i've gained a lot of weight. i've determined that i should and could lose 2 lbs every week if i tried and after 3 months, i'd be at my goal weight and then some. but it's hard. eating is one thing; exercising is another. or is it the other way around?

after months and months of nagging me to come visit her, i had plans and was ready to book my ticket to visit Doc Tardy in NY next month. i e-mailed her my dates that i was going to come and she e-mails me back, "that's great! i might be in vancouver at that time but i'll give you my keys and you can stay at my place regardless." WTF? she doesn't get that i was primarily going to visit her. brilliant scientific mind, but not so sharp when it comes to some common sense things. i'd rather save the $600 and visit with her here. oy.

well, i think i should do some exercisin'. gawd knows i need it.

old soul

months ago, KD told me of her visit to a medical intuitive/healer her mom asked her to go see. she was skeptical and felt the whole new-age, aura cleansing, chakra-aligning movement was a sham, at best. but her mom believed in it so she went to appease her. she was amazed at what happened to her.

she told me about the procedure - the mimed-movements that meant he was ridding her body of past things that were preventing her from moving forward - and i laughed at the absurdity of it. but then she told me the things he said to her - how he asked her questions about events and people that she didn't tell him about. he didn't name names but he wasn't taking a blind stab at things either, hoping that he at least got one thing right. while i don't think she bought into everything he had to say, by the end of the session, she definitely believed there was something to him.

and of course, that made me curious. so i made an appointment to see him. this was at the end of march and my appointment finally came yesterday.

my first e-mails to him increased my skepticism - he had a full-time job working at the airport as a branch manager for a parts company so he only healed on saturdays. a bit sketchy, don't you think? but i went anyway because, if anything, i could at least say i tried it.

the appointment was an hour and a half long. the first 45 minutes, i'd say, were just spent talking. he told me about himself and how he got into healing and then he asked me questions about me, starting with census-type questions (birthday, where do you live, what do you do for a living), then hobbies (reading, writing, music) and then he asked me about what kind of work and personal stress i was feeling. for work, i told him that the only stress i had was that i was no longer sure i had chosen the right career path. he suggested i look into something that aligned more with my interests, like writing. specifically, he suggested i look into technical writing as a career - and as you know, i looked into that months ago. coincidence.

i didn't really know what to answer when he asked me about personal stress. i don't really have any. so i said, "the only thing i am stressed about personally these days is that i'm getting older!" as i expected, he rolled his eyes and laughed. but i then explained why i was stressed about getting old: that subconsciously, i've always seen myself as someone who had always existed. i don't remember much of my childhood so it felt as if it never happened. i live in the present and try hard to look to the future, but it's difficult because i feel as though the future is my present (that makes no sense to you but i understand it in my own head). my stress lies in the fact that, as i am getting older, it is really starting to sink in that i am alive - that i'm a living, breathing person that is going to get old and die one day. a few years ago, i never truly believed that. it felt like i was a character in a movie and on TV that ceased to exist when other people were not around. i know, that's really weird, but i never really saw myself as anything else.

i was frustrated because i couldn't explain it better to him, but he nodded wisely, picked up this necklace-looking thing, held his hand up, closed his eyes, and let the necklace-thing swing freely from his hand. a moment later, he nodded his head, opened his eyes, put the necklace-thing back on the table and said, "you're an old soul, level 7."

i laughed because i've been described as a old soul for most of my adult life. but i said to him, "what exactly does that mean?" he went on to explain the different types of souls (infant, baby, mature, old) and that each soul-type has seven levels. he then showed me a book that i could read if i wanted to learn more about it. but he said that basically, an old soul level 7 (that's me!) has lived upwards of probably 300 past lives and once you get to the level that i am apparently on, life and everything about it seems very ho-hum - like i've lived it all before and why do i need to go out and experience it again? and i laughed again because that's how i feel about most things. he then said to me, rather matter-of-factly, "you've had a pretty easy life, haven't you? haven't had to work too hard for things and haven't had to suffer too much compared to some other people?" and i laughed again and agreed. he said that old souls always come back as something easier because why would they want to live a hard life when they've already lived several dozen lives already? he said i probably had a few karmic issues to deal with in this life (that's why i came back) and then, at the end of my life now, i will either choose to descend to a higher plain (my words, not his) or find yet another life to live. he said that old souls like me are just here on this earth to have some fun, because we've already lived life and experience hardships in previous incarnations. maybe i should start having fun more often!

okay, so maybe he's just good at reading people. maybe he could tell by the way i spoke and carried myself that i'm an old soul. but then, the healing portion began. i didn't tell him anything about me physically. and at one point, he was holding his hands on either side of my stomach and said, "did you have kidney problems in the past? kidney disease or tumours maybe?" i laughed and said, "i only have one." he nodded. he then moved both hands over my left side and said, "but there's a mass of scar tissue surrounding the area where it was supposed to be." at this point, my skepticism melted away. i told him, "well, it's still there but it shriveled up." he said it's still functioning, although obviously not as well as the other one. he also diagnosed my iron deficiency. he didn't see my uterine problems, which i thought was funny, but maybe it's because they were busy working at the time. i am still skeptical, of course, but how on earth could he have known that: a) i had a kidney issues; b) that it was on my left side; c) that it was actually still there but just shriveled up. there's a way to play the odds and make educated guesses but this one was just too weird.

he then told me about a couple of my past lives (which is what i was mostly interested in). i was a balloonist in the first world war and my balloon was shot down by an enemy plane and i fell to the earth in a ball of flames and died on impact. hence, he says, my apprehension of heights and the fear that my house is going to catch fire (doesn't everyone have that fear though?). another life was that of a starving child in Africa. i died in childhoold. he said that was probably why i always made sure i was never hungry (was that a crack at my ever-increasing waistline?!?). i want to know more about my past lives. regardless of whether or not it's true, i think it will help me understand why i am the way i am - all those weird, funny things that i do.

i also had a crying moment where he guessed about something i had suffered in my past. he said that i still had a lot of anger and blame at myself so he was going to "get rid of it" for me so that i could finally open up myself to love and be loved again. an "ah-ha" moment, as harpO would say.

at the end of the session, his disclaimer was simple: the healing process involved a little bit of him, a little bit of a Higher Power, and a whole lot of me. in essence, like any counselling i receive, whether it be from a therapist or self-help book or a healer like him, ultimately it's me that has to do something about it.

fork in the road

how apropos. yesterday, i went to drop something off at my mom's and stayed to chat for a bit. as we sat there, she looked at me, adopted a protective posture and said carefully, "i'm not trying to start anything - please take this as constructive criticism. you're getting fat." i knew that was coming, because i've been staring into the mirror for many months now, thinking the same thing. not that i was slender and slight before but i reckon since i turned a quarter-century, i've probably gained close to 30 lbs. that's 5 lbs a year.

and i know it's no longer an observation but a serious concern when she offers to pay for me to visit to a "health spa" (read: fat farm). last month, she offered to pay for a personal trainer for me, with the incentive at the end of the journey being a new wardrobe. i know that doesn't mean an entirely new wardrobe but i know that means a few new clothes. my excuse was that a personal trainer would work me too hard.

i know that all i have to do is start exercising regularly again, control my portions and my piggy moments when i stand at the buffet table and stuff myself silly. why does free food taste so much better than regular food? but seriously, i know what to do. it's just hard to do on your own. at the same time, it's hard to admit to other people that i've let myself get this far out of control.

i was watching myself in the reflections of windows today as i walked back to work from running lunchtime errands. i certainly can't call myself obese but i am most definitely overweight. it probably didn't help that i made that strawberry cheesecake trifle and ate half of it on my own. i gave the other half to my dad, thanks very much.

i don't think my over-eating stems from depression or even boredom. i just love food. or rather, i love the food that i love. and food is such a focal point in socializing for me - i don't drink so i have to eat. and i am a glutton sometimes. i don't have a lot of self-control. i was an only child for 10 1/2 years, after all. :)

so, this is my pledge, this 14th day of August, 2007. i'm going to trim down. i have to. and then, 25 lbs. from now, i'm going to hawaii. or somewhere else sunny. and inexpensive. i am, after all, still on a budget.

sigh...trimming down indeed.

760

that's how many kilometers the blue bunny drove on one tank of gas before the "low fuel" light came on. that's awesome! i bet i could've made it to 800 kms but i didn't want to push it :)

i'm back from my annual long weekend trip to the okanagan. unofficially, the weekends will be titled "OK Falls Fiesta 200_ - That Didn't Suck Long Weekend". i feel ready to go back to work. i feel relaxed. i feel happy. i feel like i should always get away from home whenever i take holidays. that's what i've been doing wrong. i think.

it's shaping up to be a busy august. long weekend just passed. two baby showers next weekend. hmm. that's it. :) but i'm going to have visitors next saturday to see my place (before we head off to the baby shower) so i have to clean and get rid of the TV box in the livingroom. nothing i can do about the TV for now, particularly since the top of it is acting as a plant nursery. i'm growing banana leaf plants from seeds. so far, three have sprouted and the other two probably will not. sixty percent success. pretty good for a black thumb.

judging by the pics posted on the family page on facebook, it looks like i missed a good party on the weekend while i was away. either that or my bro and cousin were extremely bored.

i'm not feeling creative at all. i think it's because i ate too much. i'll stop now.

bored

my counsellor says i need to challenge my brain more. the mind games i like to play are no longer satisfying - they're frustrating me more than amusing me and i find myself getting upset and irritated more often than normal. i need more mental stimulation. and crossword puzzles just aren't doing it for me anymore.

smokin' mad

pun intended.

i went to the Lions game tonight - lots of fun and nothing rowdy happened at the game. i decide to ride the skytrain back a couple of stations so i can get a seat. when it returns to stadium, this kid walks on, cigarette in hand, and stands beside the seat in front of me. i figure he's going to put the cigarette out as the people pile in behind him, but he continues to puff at it while blowing smoke out the window. he's talking to his friend on his cell phone, telling him how wasted he is and how he's smoking on the skytrain. i decide not to say anything - he obviously thinks he's too cool for school and besides, it'll be over soon. it was...until he opens up his pack to light another one, this stranger beside him bums a smoke off him and his friend holds out his cigarette to get him to light it. seeing as everyone around me is just staring at them but not doing anything about it, i finally lose my patience and say, "excuse me but could you please not smoke in here?" he looks down at me with this drunken look and says, "sorry, i'll blow the smoke up through the window." i think the stranger who bummed the smoke was ashamed and threw his out the window. finally the guy two seats in front of me pipes up and says, "yeah, don't light up in here." the kid's friend pulls his cigarette back and decides to wait. meanwhile, i've pressed the silent emergency buzzer. and then, the kids ashes fly down at me and hit my bare shoulder. i yelled, "ow! fuck! your fucking ashes are landing on me!!!" he looks at me and says, "sorry about that", to which i respond, "yeah, i'm sure you are." we are approaching broadway station at this point and the guy beside me stands to get off and says to the kid, "your ashes are landing on her." the kid says, "yeah, no they're not." and i yell, "yes, they are!" he gets off, just as skytrain security comes on to say, "you guys aren't supposed to be smoking in here (thanks for your help). but the kid is off the train by now. his dopey, drunk friends laugh and say, "what a moron. he got off at the wrong stop. this isn't commercial." and i pipe up and say in the most demeaning voice i can muster, "no, he's right. commercial is just on the other side of this station." (i resisted the urge to call him a dumbass). they panic and jump off. i turn to the guy behind me, who is with is young son, and say, "sorry for the bad language!" and he says, "no, it's okay! they're not supposed to be smoking on here."

truth be told, i kind of wish they had been a little more rude. when they left, i was still seething and was only getting sympathetic looks from the people that didn't bother to say anything. the anger that was still bubbling up inside me is still there...it's like feeling like you're going to sneeze but losing it at the last minute. it sucks. i wanted to unleash the Dragon!

then again, i probably would have done something stupid to get myself in trouble. better to have left it up to the good ol' reliable skytrain police. oh wait, they were no where to be found.

it's not easy being green.

gesundheit!

i bless people, even people i don't know, when they sneeze. it's just something i do. i always wonder, then, why i never get blessed. people at work don't do it. my friends don't do it. my family doesn't do it. is it not something that's done anymore?

perhaps it's because of the religious connotation of "bless you" that people don't say it anymore. but they can still say "gesundheit", or any variation of same, when i, or anyone else, sneezes. i've taken to blessing myself instead. can't wait around for someone to do it for me, now can i?

i spent the day at the pool today. i got to Kits at about 10:30 and at about 10:35, my OC phones me. he had just left the pool about half an hour before. back story - he sent me a message on facebook suggesting that it had been a long time since we'd talked and why don't we grab a coffee? it turned into a lot of back and forth about what to do and when to go and we had basically decided to meet at the pool today and hang out. not long after this, he remembers a lunch date he had today and bowed out of the actual pool excursion, but there was an understanding that we would meet up afterwards. and we did. he didn't come into the pool area because he didn't want to pay again but he stood outside the fence and we chatted for 10 or 15 minutes. then he said that if i wanted to continue sunning/drying off, he was going to go grab a coffee and then sit up in the stands on the other side of where we were and read his book until 4pm, at which time he was going to go home if i wasn't ready to leave the comfort of my poolside chair. this was about 2:50. i said okay. i watched him read his book for a good 30 minutes before i finally realized that what he was actually doing was he was waiting for me. so i packed up, got dressed and met back up with him.

we sat in the stands for a good 30 minutes just talking and then he suggested we grab a drink or food because he had a physio appointment at 5:30 but he wanted to go home beforehand so he had to leave by 5. we ended up going for food and chatted away until 5:15, at which time he walked me back to my car and we parted ways.

all in all, a very pleasant day. aside from my sunburn. dang, the sun is not what it used to be.

Telus - our future is bleak

MOTHER FUCKERS! i hate fucking Telus so fucking much. i'm annoyed at their confusing, convoluted monthly statement that i get sent via e-mail. under "Additional Charges and Credits", they have the $400+ credit they owe me and my long distance and under the total, it reads "New Charges" (not New Charges and Credits), so it looks like i owe them another $500, which is not right. no, the bill itself is correct but the way they lay it out is stupid. the fact that they have a section of the website entitled, "How to read your e-bill" is a dead giveaway that how they lay it out is fucking ridiculous. how hard is it to lay out everything in three sections: new charges (internet, phone), credits and amount owing?????? when I cancelled the e-billing option, they asked for feedback as to how Telus could change their e-bill so that I would sign up for it again. i basically told them to make it less confusing, that there are less complicated ways to lay out a monthly statement but that they obviously opted to go for the most complicated. then, i offered to create a new template for their statements because theirs was SO SUPREMELY FUCKED UP.

then, as if i weren't annoyed enough, i looked at my long distance charges and noticed that i am no longer on the plan i was on (basically, i could call anywhere in the world for a low rate - not the lowest rate but it was decent and i had unlimited talk time). i've been switched over to this north american plan that limits my rate to 200 minutes. now, i don't spend a lot of time on long distance calls but the three people i do call that are long distance, if i were to call them all in one month, would most certainly surpass 200, even just for one of them. it just annoys me that they've changed me over (or maybe i changed myself over by agreeing to that Telus TV fiasco) and not sent me anything in writing that my plan had changed. SONS OF BITCHES, MOTHER FUCKING COCKSUCKERS.

and i still don't have the cheque they owe me for the $424 they charged me for that STUPID TELUS TV unit. i've had it. the one guy that helped me (nay, the Telus TV department) will get my praise in the letter I WILL write to the CEO, but the rest of the people i dealt with are getting no praise. neither is the company, for that matter.

i believe a call or e-mail to "Olsen on Your Side" is warranted now too. watch out you fuckers. you've made the wrong person angry.

baby did a bad, bad thing

okay, so i peeked. we're doing a huge computer system overhaul at work and when i left yesterday, i had to turn off the Ninja's computer because all computers had to be off for macro updates and what not. and i peeked. and i found out that it's not Mon, but it is someone. someone i haven't met but i've heard about. someone i actually had suspicions about but thought, "no, she's, like, 23!" and i was right. so when i searched the system to read over the reference letter he wrote for her (that i typed) and her draft cover letters and CVs, i came across a document that was probably marked "confidential" before the conversion but is now available to the whole system - a list of everyone's computer passwords. and what's his password? her first name. how sophomoric can you get???

OY! what is he doing??? what is he thinking??? she's young enough to be his daughter. i think what bothers me most is that he's continuing to cheat on his wife. it's not that Sam was the love of his life and that he had to be with her - i mean, maybe she is but i now very much doubt it. i've actually lost some respect for him - a lot of respect. i think i idealized him when Sam told me of their relationship and now i know that he's just in it for the tail. Twenty-three?

the worst part is that the knowledge of this, that it's this 23 year old masters student in ontario is doing my boss, has lifted the great weight off my mind. when i read it, i wanted to run into Mon's office and hug her. maybe he's sleeping with her too but i don't think so. i think she's as in the dark about it as i was. let's face it - this chick is on her facebook! he introduced them. my suspicions began when Mon said about her, "the Ninja's trying to convince her to stay a couple more days." wha?

when i e-mailed Io about the whistler weekend, she chastized me about three single girls hanging out with a group of married men in their 40s by saying, "the Ninja's a great guy but he's married! you're not going to get very far with him!" i wanted to write back, "that is where you're wrong."

i also just found out that his car got broken into in february and, among other things that were stolen? his wedding band. oy.

i hope his kids turn out normal because that's who he's really cheating on.

if i'm so hot, why am i still single?

many months ago, i read an article in the paper about a guy (maybe a local guy, maybe not) who set up a website called "HotEnough.org". his premise for setting up the site was that hot people should be with other hot people and that other online dating sites didn't offer hot enough people for the hot-elite. he says he set up the site slightly tongue-in-cheek but at the same time, if it took off, so be it. being curious, i went online to check it out. what a process. you had to post pictures (including full-body [clothed] shots so they can see what body type you are) and the existing members vote on whether or not you are hot enough to be a member on the site. i used one of my web-based e-mail address to submit my profile and submitted my pictures. I then promptly forgot all about it. this was months ago.

a couple of weeks ago, i decided to check this particular webmail address after not having checked it in a few weeks. lo and behold, there was an e-mail from HotEnough.org - i had been deemed hot enough by the voting members and was now a part of the site. i laughed and laughed. i'm only a 7 to them - the low-end of hot - but i was still "HotEnough". hahaha!

i did do a search to see what kind of guys are on there and yes, they are all hot. every single one of them. hot. H.O.T. but i haven't tried to contact anyone. come on.

went to Whistler after work on friday with Mon and A to celebrate my birthday. it was actually fun - i wasn't sure how it was going to be. then again, we did meet up with the Ninja and his golfing buddies so that was fun, particularly since they paid for our dinners at the Brew House. i still have my suspicions about Mon and the Ninja, but when i'm thinking rationally, i know it's not really on his part. i'm 65% sure of that :) i love Whistler in the summer - is so beautiful up there and the atmosphere is just so chill. although the temperature was also very chill - there was a brief snow shower in the village yesterday morning when Mon took the dogs out for a walk. isn't it summer yet? we're planning on doing another girls trip up (but Mon invited the Ninja, of course).

i think their relationship bothers me because, ironically, i feel like he's cheating on Sam, even though they're not together anymore and, let's face it, he's still married on paper. i always thought so much more of him and even when i found out he and Sam had been in a relationship for five years (!), the only thing that made me think ill about him was that he strung her along for five years, claiming his children were the ones that were holding him back. really, he spends half his week sleeping in a rented hotel room in vancouver. i know how important his kids are to him and how much he loves them. but doesn't it hurt them more when he's only around every so often? i don't know. some people have weird notions of what is hurtful and what wouldn't be. i think he's delusional, really. i don't think he and Sam will every get back together and it bothers me because they should be together. he shouldn't be getting drunk with Mon every monday night after work and then feeling guilty about it on tuesday (Mon's words, not mine). i actually asked her, "what do you guys do together that you would feel guilty?" she told me that their intention is just to go and have dinner and then go for a drink (one drink) at Cardero's but they always end up getting smashed and then stumbling home (to her home? don't know but she does live two blocks from Cardero's and his hotel is closer to PacCentre. i wonder). anyway, when i really think about it, do i really want Sam to be with him? is he going to change for her? maybe. but if he's just going to be this way, then i want him to stay away from Sam and that's that.

okay, time for this birthday girl to clean - what a mess i left before i went to work on friday!

quickie

i have to type quick, before my computer decides to randomly shut off.

nothing new. thinking about having a cake party this saturday but it's getting kind of late to invite people. have finally gone back to the gym. man, am i out of shape. have booked a b&b for my august holidays. i hope it doesn't suck. this particular one is on acreage so suits people that have horses and want to ride trails. but, it's cheaper than the other ones i looked into and let's face it - it's available for all four of the days i wanted which coincidentally falls over the ironman/peachfest/august long weekend. that's a freaking miracle.

nothing new on the guy front but that's not new. although i still can't understand why people won't accept that i'm happily single. the married ladies at my work are either giving me ideas on how to meet guys or chastising me for being too "picky". as i told the last one that said that to me (which shut her up rather quickly), "i'm allowed to be picky if i'm not looking."

birthday this week. sigh. it's really starting to sink in that i'm not going to be young forever. and it's a weird feeling.

i need to start saving again. again, not new. i think it might be more efficient to just start recycling entries and just change the date. :)

harping on about oprah

admittedly, i do tape the oprah show every day, mostly so i don't miss out on any celebrity interviews or favorite show episodes. but i find her hard to watch.

don't get me wrong - i realize that her influence on mainstream culture is undeniable. who can be down on her for encouraging millions of people to read books that don't have fabio-esque men on the cover? or her establishing a school for girls in south africa and giving them a chance at success? she's an icon.

but she can't interview. and she's so self-centered, it's not even amusing anymore. i was just watching today's episode. her first guest was hill harper, an actor, who was on the show to talk about his book about mentoring young black men who don't have role-models of their own. he graduated magna cum laude from Brown University and then went on to receive his Masters in Law from Harvard - pretty academically accomplished, i'd say. he began to tell oprah about how he couldn't understand why celebrity role-models wouldn't acknowledge their educational backgrounds. he gave puff daddy/p. diddy/sean combs as an example and wondered out loud why puffy never talked about his degree from Howard University (probably why he's such a good businessman, assuming his degree was in business!). Instead of piping up about puffy's education (which I had no idea about!), oprah says, "Howard University - that's where i just received my doctorate from last week!" yawn. i turned it off after he was done talking.

she should go back to doing solely puff pieces because anyone who goes on her show to talk about anything of substance should expect to have their fifteen minute bit contain 13 minutes of oprah just talking about herself. i'd be insulted.

i may just be pissy because i had another incident with the Mentor. i had drafted something for the Ninja and he came out to give it back to me and said, "okay, if this is the language in the template, then we'll go with this." i said, "well, we didn't actually have a precedent on the system so i just did a search in the system and only found one example." the Mentor happened to be standing right there at the printer so she leans over and reads it, makes a face and says, "pthbbbt! yuck! i don't like that wording at all. it's no good. you obviously didn't look at any of my examples." as she walks towards her office to find me some "good" wording, i said to her, "well, i guess it wasn't named properly because i didn't find it and i searched extensively." the Ninja said that if she had an example ... he left it at that. i walked away to vent. i was livid. and i can hear her shrieking from her office, "ok, i found it! are you ready to take this down???" i didn't answer. she comes out of her office, sees me hanging out of someone's office (this is after hours - i was not on the clock) and turns to the Ninja and shrieks, "well, typically ungrateful! asks me for help and then takes off!" do you know how hard it was for me not to turn my head towards her and tell her to FUCK OFF?

i walked to reception to bitch and she followed me. annoyed, she said, "well, do you want to ask me about it tomorrow then?" i figured i would just bite it and listen. she dictated over my shoulder and that was it. the Mentor then left for the day and i marched right into my administrator's office, tearing out my hair. she took one look at me and said, "close the door. what did she do now?"

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. why can't the Mentor leave the firm or at least, just leave me alone???

i can't get no

perhaps it's just hormones, but i honestly don't think i'll be satisfied with my professional life until i get a post-graduate degree. my only problem is that i don't know what to get it in.

i did my undergrad degree in english, but that was a fluke. at the start of my third year, when they sent around the letter saying that i had to declare a major, i took one look at my transcript to date, saw that i had taken a number of english classes already, and declared myself an english major. not exactly passion.

i have a great interest in psychology and sociology but where is a masters in sociology going to get me?

i've been researching MBAs and it seems to be a good choice if i want to continue in the business aspect of law or take over the paralegal program, like i've always threatened. but it's a bit dry.

i thought about doing a masters in journalism, like the Howler, but i'm not interested in being a journalist full-time.

that leaves me with the one thing i actually am passionate about - law. and the next logical step is law school. and it's the one step i really don't want to take, but i'm not quite sure why.

more soul-searching is required to determine what my motivation is in obtaining a post-graduate degree. is it like my desire to have a dog? i talk about it and dream about it all the time but it's something i won't ever do because i don't want it enough to take on the responsibility? sounds like me.

i'm hooped.

oh, my stomach!

i don't know why i try to drink. i know what happens, within hours, and yet sometimes, i still think things will be different. it wasn't.

i went to the devil's advocate social last night. it was fun. i went to KD's place first where she made me a mini-martini (since i don't drink) and we marvelled at the new colours of her place since she and her ex broke up. they're much nicer colors and the place looks way less cluttered. but i guess 650 square feet is pretty small for two people to not clutter it up a bit. anyway... we took a cab to the art gallery and began our evening. first person i saw was MGF (he didn't see me) and i saw him holding a girl's hand - he had brought his girlfriend. hmm. at that point, i almost didn't want to say hi to him, just so i could avoid meeting her. i still don't know why.

once we got settled in, KD began bumping into people she knew and we would stop and chat. i texted A and Mon and they were still at Mon's getting ready. so much for 7pm start time - it was just after 8. they didn't end up getting there until 9:30. and i thought i was bad.

i did end up bumping into MGF and he gave me a half-assed hug (he's the only one i'll allow to do that) and introduced me to his girlfriend. it was almost like being in a movie or a TV show. he hugged me, and as we parted she started to slowly walk towards me. she was looking up at me with up-cast eyes (i was almost 5'11 in my heels - my $15.00 nine west wonders!) and held out her hand. i couldn't believe what i saw. i could hear MGF saying to me, "this is..." almost simultaneously with her saying to me, "didn't we go to high school together?" MGF is dating a girl i went to high school with. i was shocked.

i was shocked on a number of levels. first, i thought he was dating a chinese girl so you'll imagine my surprise when this little jamaican girl, with her naturally grey eyes, holds out her hand to me. second, we went to high school together! third, i've seen this girl's semi-nude modelling pictures...i've commented to him on her rock of an ass. and now i find out we went to high school together. it's almost incestuous. i shudder. shudder! finally, he and i have discussed in detail their sex life. and here is this girl that i went to high school with. ugh!

then, when KD and her friend come up to us, i begin to introduce her to MGF, only to find out that MGF and KD went to first year law school together. he teased her about her following him to his dorm room one night. she said something else about something to do with sex. at this point, i'm so over-stimulated with this less than six-degree news that i'm not even really hearing what they're saying. but what i'm not hearing is bothering me too.

it was weird. i avoided spending any time with MGF and his girlfriend afterwards, until he caught me limping along later on in the night (despite the fact that my shoes are hot, they are hell to stand in for too long), he waved me over with this look of concern and offered me his seat. then, we started to chat. he and i joked around as we always do and i tried hard to include his girlfriend in conversation. she's either really shy or just young because she didn't talk much. they ended up leaving a few minutes after that because her knee was hurting (she fell last week when they were rollerblading). he gave me another hug, tighter this time, told me to call him and i went on my way. weird. i'll now have to ask him about KD. i don't want to know if they ever slept together because if they did, that's it for me and him as a future backup couple.

i met one guy that i thought was cuuuuute and he stood in our circle at one point but then walked off. too bad. i smiled and waved at him as he walked away. i tried.

by about 11:30, i was getting really sick to my stomach. i already had the migraine and the alcohol was sitting right at the bottom of my stomach, really wanting to come back up. i complained to A that i wanted to go home. she took off at about midnight and i was jealous. i managed to drag KD and her friend out of there by the time the house lights came up at just after 1 am. i was in no shape to do anything, let alone drive home, but i did. we stopped for pizza on granville (none for me, thanks) and i finally got into my car at about 1:30. i was not intoxicated but i was in no shape to drive home. i was ill, i had a headache, i was tired. but i wasn't going to suffer on KD's couch. if i was going to suffer, it would be in my own bed!

i managed to get myself home safely. as i walked in the door, i contemplated whether i should just make myself puke or whether i should just sleep it off. i chose the latter. i hate throwing up!

as usual, i woke up just fine this morning - tired, but not at all sick. i'm never drinking again, at least not hard liquor. a beer, maybe, but that's it.

oh, yeah!

the Easter long weekend, my brother and mother and i went down to the states for a shopping weekend. at the nine west outlet, i found two pairs of shoes that i wanted...soooo badly. they were $60 each (pretty good for nine west) but they weren't really the type of shoes i wear (one was an evening-type shoe - peep-toe and a 3 1/2 inch heel in black satin - sexy! and the other was also 3 1/2 black satin espadrille, peep-toe - also very sexy!). my mom talked me out of both. i haven't been able to get them off my mind since.

so, on sunday, i hopped in my car and drove to the outlets in washington (burlington and tulalip) to buy my shoes. risky, because it was a month ago and it's an outlet store! it was meant to be because at mount vernon, i found the espadrilles, now on sale for $39.99. sweeeeet. i bought them. then, i drove another hour to the tulalip outlets (newer and way better stores) and found the other shoe on the clearance rack for $29.99. i bought them. the bad news? they're a size too big (9 1/2). the good news? nine west was having a buy one, get one 50% off so the second pair, i paid $15.00 for. instead of buying $120 worth of shoes a month ago, i bought them both for $45.00. come on!

so, i figured that if i couldn't make the ones that were too big fit, i could always give them away or really, they were only $15.00! i went on a hunt today to find heel grips and foot pad thingys. i installed them in the shoes and OMG, they fit! now, i just have to buy the things that go on the bottom so i don't slip and break my legs on those heels. holy F! i'm so wearing these shoes on friday night!

that's it. it's just about the shoes today.

under pressure

i feel compelled to write because my last entry was about reconnecting with MM. he conveniently forgot to call/email me last week about getting together for coffee and methinks he will forget again or be too busy to call/email this week too. and we all know why: he's scared. he's just started a relationship with someone new and then i come from out of the blue - ever the temptress, luring him once again to betray sacred trysts...er, trusts. he obviously doesn't trust himself around me and so he's avoiding the temptation all together. at least, that's what i like to think he's doing, anyway. he's probably just being a jerk :)

going to a spring social this friday called "devil's advocate". it's being put on by the VBA so a bunch of lawyers i know are going (including MGF and KD). i know A and Mon are going and i understand that the OC may come if BabyMan goes. i hope it's fun. it's supposed to be a social for lawyers and their in-the-business guests but who knows? anyway, it's at the art gallery so at least i'll be able to see the new exhibit and see MGF to boot. he's always very inclusive - i get the feeling that A and Mon will be very sticktogether but KD will be there too and she won't abandon me!

speaking of my OC, he and Shorty came out to Cardero's last thursday to watch the Nucks get spanked in OT and tank their series (perennial losers). it was me, A and Mon, A's friend and Mon's two guy friends (one very cute and shy - the one they were talking about setting me up with... but he wasn't interested at all. think about that night when i just wanted to say hi to that guy at the 'Fly and that's about how interested he was. Yeah.). anyway, the OC was very cute. managed to avoid talking directly with me, although he gave me a couple of Hi-5s (who does that?) and got a little pissy when Shorty booted him from his spot on the couch beside me so he could sit with me. i think Shorty's interested in me. i don't know how i feel about that. i won't bother getting into it because it's pure speculation (and i don't ever do that, right?).

i'm feeling very lazy this evening and i was contemplating not going to my aerobics class tonight - we are doing hip hop so i won't be missing much. but, i am a lazy slug so i need to get out and do something. besides, i had nachos and ice-cream for dinner, specifically because i knew i would be burning extra calories tonight. therefore, i must to go.

i am skipping out on a special, money-grabbing strata meeting tonight. i figure i don't really care if they pass all five resolutions. only one is a biggie at $550.00 and the rest are under $150. i know, they add up but i can't imagine every resolution will be passed. the owners here are too cheap (remember, they wouldn't even pass the resolution for security upgrades!). ownership is not what it's cracked up to be.

i have holidays coming up in two weeks! very excited. i wanted to do an all-inclusive - nay, i was going to do an all-inclusive (even by myself) but i realized that, because of my "condition", it wasn't a good week to go. i would have no fun. so, then i realized i had holidays in the first week of july but that's not a good time to go to tropical countries. so now, i'm trying to decide what to do. my may holidays, i figure i'll just do the tourist-in-my-own-town thing and see stuff that i haven't been to see in years (like the aquarium!). maybe go down to the states for a few days and shop or relax. i hope it's nice that week. then i can stay in town and frequent different beaches around the mainland, read books and then come home and sleep in my own bed. tres cheap! then maybe i can finally pay off my credit card and buy a new computer. i haven't been able to mess around with myPod playlists in months!

A bientot (i wish i had the french letters so i could spell these french words with the proper accents!)

can't win for losing

so i'm back in touch with MMM. except, he's only MM now. thank you, facebook! initially, when he e-mailed a response to me, his stats listed him as "single" and he was looking for just about anything. two days later, he listed himself as "in a relationship" and only looking for friendship.

i can't say i wasn't disappointed. let's face it - i've thought about him, on and off, for the better part of 10 years. now, i've been seemingly given a second chance but it's quickly snatched from me. oh well.

people are popping up and adding me on facebook that i never thought i'd hear from. still no really good surprises (aside from MM) but it's fun.

feeling a bit under the weather today but will go to my aerobics class tonight - it's disco fever! i think this is the best way for me to exercise - every week, we do a different dance so every week, i am kept wondering about what the new moves are going to be. keep it fresh, you know?

i went to a fundraising dinner on friday night for HOPE International. i participated in the silent auction (although half of the items were made in the Philippines and all i could think was, "i could probably buy that for $10) and i watched the video that was designed to tug at your heartstrings and pocketbooks. by the end, i had rekindled my desire to adopt from overseas, probably from the Philippines. my only concern would be that, if i were to adopt a child from the Philippines, would i end up turning them into a "coconut" like me (you know, brown on the outside, white on the inside)? i suppose my parents and the rest of the family could assist in keeping the kid's language skills in tact (i would single-handedly destroy that!). i would have to move to a bigger place. but beyond that, i think it is definitely back in my mind as the thing to do when i'm 35. four short years away. maybe 40. :)

second verse, same as the first

i think i may have used that title before. then again, it fits with the theme of this post.

i might as well copy the previous posts i've made about MGF. i had coffee with him today. we met at the mall. he had a protein shake and i had a mango slushie. we sat and talked at the food fair. then we walked to winners and browsed. he gave me advice about shoes guys like. i can tell you now that we don't have the same taste in shoes. then we wandered around the bay and sears. we sat on a bench in the middle of the mall and then he finally admitted his tiredness and we parted ways. he offered me a ride to the skytrain (we were in the mall, within walking distance of a station) and i took a raincheck. he hugged me once. gave me shit about not getting together more often. then he hugged me again. i think he just wanted to feel me up. kidding.

anyway, i've been sort of dreamy ever since. i wonder if i actually believe we won't ever get together. we get along really well. i enjoy spending time with him. yet, i know that if we were to get together... i can't even finish that thought. i just don't think we're compatible in That way. goodness knows we've talked about it enough, generally speaking.

i like what we have - i'd just like to have it more often. he's leaving that up to me. typical.

to thine own self...

at nearly 31 years old (two months today!), i find myself, once again, asking myself the question, "who are you?"

i finally gave in and joined the newest rage in friendship communities online. i had two invitations to join so now i have two friends. i sent out some invitations (five) so i might have a total of seven friends by the end of the week. i decided to see who else was on that i knew might be. i searched some people by the school tool. first, my highschool. only four people came up from my graduating class (one of them, an ex-boyfriend) but they were all "friends". everyone had at least 50 friends.

i then searched individual people whom i knew would be into this sort of thing. sure enough, there they were. one had 115 friends; another had 91.

as i logged off the site after a few minutes of poking around, i thought to myself that there was no way i'd ever have that many people as my "friends" on the site because: a) i don't know that many people who i would be "friends" enough with to ask to be on there; and b) of my friends who i do like enough to be on there, majority of them don't use these kinds of online communities.

this whole 20 minute experience got me thinking about what kind of person i am and am i happy that way?

on the one hand, i'd love to have pages and pages of friends' faces and profiles to scroll through and in turn, being able to see their friends and connections.

on the other hand, i find it tiring just thinking about having to keep up with all of the connections - i know and am chummy with a lot of people but only a handful of them would i spend any time with. and why would it matter to me if i had 10 friends or if i had 100 friends on this site? i don't spend a lot of time with upkeep on these type of sites anyway. it would just be for everyone else to see that i have lots of connections. i know what kind of connections i have; does it matter to everyone else?

and so, once again i'm faced with questioning who i am - really. am i the social loner who will only come out to play and have fun with people i've deemed true friends? or, am i the shy, wannabe-socialite who desperately wants to have a busy life but can't come out of her shell?

i know the answer and 99% of the time, i'm happy and very comfortable with who i am. but every once in awhile, about 1% of the time, i wish i was "out there", experiencing life in a way that, 99% of the time, makes me feel trapped and tired.

the 1% days are very hard to deal with sometimes. and objectively speaking, the people that cause me to second-guess my nature are generally people that i don't have any desire to be friends with anyway. but often, they are the "fun" people who everybody likes because they are fun. one girl i work with (and don't get me wrong - i like her and she's a "fun" girl) said to me one evening out (the night we all went to the casino), "you don't drink; you don't smoke; you don't gamble. what do you do? do you fuck at least? geez!" she laughed in good fun but i must say the comment hurt a bit. apparently, vices make you fun. that's probably why i don't hang out with her and A when they invite me - they're not enough like me. there aren't enough similar substances among us.

that being said, i definitely had a 1% weekend last saturday. i haven't stayed out until 5 in the morning since Walang Hiya - Mazatlan. hmm... 99 more weekends to go until the next one, i guess. :)

i found my banana bread

a few days ago, i had a loaf of banana bread. i sliced the remaining part of the loaf into two pieces and wrapped them individually in cellophane. i packed one with my lunch and put the other one in the fridge to have the next day. i remember it was an end piece - i love the end piece.

the next day, i was packing my lunch and went into the fridge to pack the other piece of banana bread. it was gone. i looked behind and on top of everything in the fridge (and trust me, there ain't much to look behind). i looked behind and on top of all the condiments. i looked in the freezer. on top of the counter. in the cupboards. in the garbage. in my recycling. in my computer room. in the drawers. it was gone. no where to be found. a day or so later, i looked again. nothing. not two minutes ago, i looked in my fridge to see what there was to have for dinner. and there was my end-piece of banana bread, wrapped in cellophane. WTF. this either means things are getting better or i'm going crazy. at this point, it could go either way.

i'm in a foul mood today. foul. f-o-u-l. with a capital "F". i hate these kind of days. everything pissed me off today. it got so bad that my receptionist actually went to my administrator and told her about the Mentor's game playing activities and said, "if you don't do something about it, you're going to lose an employee." no wonder she was especially nice to me this afternoon. i even got a little snippy with her, which i feel bad about, but it was not a good day. when i got home, the neighbour's dog barked at me from behind their door. i yelled at it to shut the fuck up. it's THAT bad.

i'm very glad i'm home and alone right now. maybe i should watch the game. at least i can yell at the TV and not worry about hurting it's feelings. i wish i had ice-cream.

tired but unusually happy

it's a beautiful spring Sunday. the birds are singing. the air is cool but the sun is warm. children are playing outside as their parents chat nearby. all is right with the world. despite a fairly busy weekend, i'm so cheerful today. full of cheer. cheer-infused.

i had a family get together at my uncle's house on friday night. i got home from work and freshened up and then i went to pick up my brother and the Mother and off we went. i didn't get home until 3 and not to bed until nearly 3:30. i had been awake and on the go for about 22 hours. not a typical friday for me.

saturday, i finally dragged myself out of bed at 9:30. had breakfast, watched a bit of a movie, thought hard about cleaning up and doing laundry but continued to watch TV instead. at about 3pm, i phoned my visiting friend to make our plans for the evening. we were going to see the Howler's band play at the Pic that evening but his band was going on last. we decided i would pick her up around 10pm and head down. i then went back to bed and slept for three hours. i woke up at 6:30 and decided it was time to clear out my recycling for the week so i did and my place is now clutter-free until next weekend. to reward myself, i ordered in some chinese food. shortly after i hung up with Fortune Palace, the Howler phones me and asks what i'm doing and do i want to meet up before the show and grab some food? i regretfully inform him that i've already ordered dinner and that Doc Tardy had family commitments. i think he was disappointed but that's what you get when you phone me at 7pm to make plans.

i picked up Doc Tardy and we set off to the Pic. after initially stopping in the wrong area of town, we found the place and went in. the Howler was already there with his band - turns out his bass player is smokin' hot! i recall seeing him at the last show but never up close. from where i was sitting, he looked cute but kind of skinny and young. the Howler was chatting with him and i looked at Doc Tardy and mouthed, "HOLY F!" she gave me the same look. he had dark hair, dark eyes, very cute smile, even cuter english accent and let's just say, i hated to see him go but i loved to watch him walk away. oy, the tush!

anyway, i chatted with the bass player's friend for a spell as we marvelled at the first couple of bands that were playing. marvelled, but not in a good way. we were sitting away from the Howler and his bandmates so we all joined them at the bar where we stayed until their band went on. i was having a really good time. the Howler has very nice friends, generally, so i don't really worry about attitudes and the like.

here's where my confession comes in. i invited my OC to meet us. the last time we all had lunch, he kept saying how he was trying to make an effort to get out more and stop sitting in his living room so i invited him to come along to the show. he had expressed interest in going to the previous one but never showed up. i didn't expect him to come to this one either but i asked anyway.

so Doc and i are standing there and she says, "is he coming? did you phone him?" there was discussion as to whether i should and i finally decided that it was 10:30 on a saturday night - why not? as i walked to the entrance of the pub where it was quieter to make the call, there he was at the door, paying his cover fee. i couldn't believe it.

he had brought his friend and most current futon-surfer, Shorty, and the evening at its elevated state, began. it was surreal. not in the sense that i was floating on cloud 9 because i spent my saturday evening with my OC but in the sense that i was actually out on a saturday night, with a big group of people, watching live indy bands in a pub downtown. after that pub closed, we all walked to another pub in a not so great area (where the band played their last gig). we walked in and there was a punk band on stage and lots of people in studded-leather everything, ripped nylons, bullet-belts, and varying-colored mohawks, all watching said punk band. the Howler's guitar player leaned over to me as we sat down and said, "this is their normal crowd, just in case you were wondering!"

this is where i chatted up the Hot Bass Player (he was apologetic about his accent when i asked where he was from. he said, "oh, i'm from london but i've been here now for about eight or nine years but i still have this accent..." to which i replied, "no, i'm not complaining - keep talking!"). this is where i watched the last punk band leave the stage and the dj started playing music that's in my iPod and all of the punk people came alive and started to dance and gyrate wildly to the likes of "smooth criminal", "hurts so good" and "bust a move". this is where i sat there while the OC phoned A at 2 am and left a message on her voicemail saying he was here at the pub with me and to phone us back and let us know what she's up to. this is where i stood and talked to the OC's friend and listened to him tell me to continue asking the OC out because he actually wanted to get out of the house - he was just too lazy. surreal.

when the bar closed at 3, most of our group left us, leaving me and Doc with the OC and Shorty. they walked us back to the car (or rather, Shorty did. the OC disappeared and when i phoned him, he was standing in front of the parking garage i was in. weird.) and i drove them home. the OC invited us up for drinks. i told him that i'd like to but Doc needed to get home and pack. we stood in the middle of 4th avenue for a good 15 minutes talking and joking. Shorty left us there and went upstairs. the OC managed to tear himself away after taking a long time to enter my phone number into his cell phone (even Doc said, "he was totally stalling!"). we said goodbye, and Doc and I got in the car and the OC watched us drive off. I got home after dropping off Doc and was in bed by 5am, probably asleep by 5:15. it was a great, fabulous night. and judging by the amount of time i've spent humming tunes all day, i think this mood will carry over to at least monday morning.

it's a good thing.

30 going on 70

i forgot to mention that when i was at the specialist the other week, she gave me the results of the bloodwork i had done when i went to see her last month and apparently, i'm slightly anemic. now, i don't know what "slightly" is or how it affects me physically but, at the very least, it explains why i've been so tired and slothy the past few months. it wasn't just psychosomatic; it was real! i wonder if it is also the reason why i've been so thirsty lately. some days, i drink a litre of water before i even leave for work. then, i have two litres when i'm at work. then, i come home and drink at least another half a litre. it's insane some days. and since we're at it, my lower back aches when the weather gets cold and rainy and i get dizzy really easily if i stand up too quickly.

has it really come to this? am i really talking about all my maladies? i'm tired. i'm going to bed. but first, a drink of water. i'm parched.

escort

no, i don't have a new side job. although, there's a thought....

i attended at the Westclass bar dinner tonight with the gang from work. it was in my neighbourhood and the evening was just beautiful out so i was going to walk home. Sam was not hearing of it so she asks The Fluff if he would walk me home. i protested but he said he wouldn't let me walk home in our neighbourhood by myself. when the Ninja got word that The Fluff was walking me home, he said, "See you tomorrow...maybe." The Fluff responded, "i wasn't going to let her walk home alone. besides, this makes my stalking her a lot easier..." not that he is but i thought that was kind of amusing of him to say.

it was a very nice walk and, admittedly, we took the long way :) he popped in some gum at one point and i thought, "hmm, trying for the good-night kiss, are we?" no such luck! we joked around for most of the 10 minutes it took us but he walked me right to my front door, encouraged me to come to more meetings and shook my hand good night (bad handshake but my hand was numb from the cold so it's ok).

ah, a beautiful, cool, crisp spring evening and a walk with a really nice and cute guy. i think this was one of my nicest evenings spent this year.

strange things are afoot

is it the onset of spring or are weird things just happening to me lately?

first, i see my Ex after six years of not even bumping into him.

this morning, i get to work and remember that i had a voicemail that i didn't bother checking before i left the night before. i check it and it's my OC. i hadn't e-mailed or talked to him in awhile but the day before, me and this other woman (another "fan" of his) were reminiscing about him at lunch. and then, he phones me (which he never does), just to say hi (which he never does), lets me know he's going out of town for the week but will talk to me when he gets back (which he won't but it's nice to know he was thinking about me). you totally want me now, don't you? oh yeah. sooner or later, they always come back. sigh, don't i wish?

this afternoon, i was at Sears trying on sunglasses. as i'm walking down the street towards the skytrain station, about three blocks down, i notice that i've lost one of my new earrings (the gold ones, the ones that my mom bought me for Christmas - the only earrings of any value i own, the ones that were always coming out and have almost lost on a number of occasions). it was a beautiful, sunny day so i turned around and retraced my steps. i eventually found myself back in the sunglasses aisle at Sears, where i found my other earring on the floor. i immediately bought backers for them.

this evening, i'm sitting on the couch, transferring the contents of my old wallet to the new one i just bought this afternoon. i then think, "where's the best place to put my bus pass?" this is my employee pass, the year-long pass that has my picture on it. the one that saves me $156 a year on transit fares. the one i'm fanatic about making sure i always have. well, i lost it. either on the bus on the way back downtown from the doctor. or on the skytrain platform. or on the walk home from the skytrain. it'll cost me $50 to replace. i'm still ahead in yearly transportation savings but still! what kind of moron am i???

i'm spent. it's been a very eventful day!

Top o' the morning to you!

[All respond] And the rest of the day to you!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! that's it - that's all i'm doing for St. Paddy's day. :)

i did the right thing last night. i had some time to sleep, think it over. i didn't have any dreams about him last night. i thought about the whole thing this morning and approaching him yesterday wouldn't have done anything for me. if anything, it would have brought me more angst. sometimes, you need to get other people's opinions to find out what you really want to do. everyone i asked said i should say hi but i kept asking for opinions, hoping that someone would say, "why? what would it do for you - who you are - today?"

i just finished watching the academy-award winning documentary, "Born into Brothels". when it came out in the theatres initially, i really wanted to see it but never ended up doing so. not surprising since i hardly ever go to movies unless someone has asked me to go. i'm kind of glad i didn't go to see it in the theatre. maybe it's just this time of the month but it made me tear up more than once. it was so good.

the kids in this film were given cameras and basically documented their lives through still photos. many of the pictures were quite good and a few were amazing, considering that they were taking pictures with automatic cameras (oh, and that the photographers were under 12 years old). there were auctions selling the pictures and books and calendars and all of the money went to funding each child's education. they now have a chance at a decent life.

i think i cried because you know that there are more than just these eight children in india that are living in these kinds of conditions. there are millions of children in the world that will never receive the kind of help that these kids did and you begin to feel quite helpless. a monetary donation here and there will help but it won't greatly change their standards of living. i think that's the great philosophical and moral question: if a person doesn't know what they are missing, do you still help them? where do you begin?

closure

so, i ended up going to the casino tonight. it was embarassing but mostly because our Receptionist screamed at winning at a two-cent machine (the thing kept dinging and tallying up her winnings but at two-cents, it ended up being about $94.00). these two guys (not my type), along with half the casino, were standing behind us watching the machine go. they asked each other, "how much is she going to win?" i turned to them and said, "she won $94.00." they laughed and said, "it sounds like she won the jackpot!" as they walked way, our Receptionist said, "hey, she's single!" oy.

we rendezvoused at the lounge after about 30 minutes of being there to determine what the plan was for the rest of the night. as we stood there, a guy walked by me. i thought to myself, "hey, that looks like the Layman, but with a faux-hawk." then another guy walked by me, who was talking to the first guy and i thought, "hey, that looks like the Ex but with a shaved head and kind of chubby." a second look yielded, "holy F, it is the Ex!" they went to go sit in the bistro to have a beer and chat. i wonder why they were there of all places. they sat there for about 90 minutes. i walked by at least four times and they didn't look up at me once.

you know, it's just over six years that we broke up, this month. it was the beginning of march 2001. spooky. the weirdest part about this was i was daydreaming about this last night, that i would bump into him at the casino and we would strike up a conversation and he would be so sorry that we weren't together anymore. i often have these daydreams and they never come true. ever. never. not once.

everyone i was with said i should say hi. i phoned my cousin and she said i should say hi. it was pretty unanimous.

i didn't say hi. i walked by them, one table away, and neither looked up. i will now outline why i did not say hello:

1) as far as "opportunities" went, he was there and i was there. that was it. i could've walked up to him and awkwardly said, "is that you?" but only 1% of me wanted to do it. everything in me said i shouldn't. had we made eye contact, then yes, i would've said hi. but as far as he knows, i wasn't even there.

2) the 1% reason i wanted to say hello is because i looked good and he did not. he looked scruffy, almost. baggy jeans, baggy shirt, baggy jacket, shaved head. WTF? he used to be hot. but that's not a "be the bigger person" reason. i think if i had been with different people, i would've said hi for just that reason.

3) i had nothing to say to him. i've spent years wondering how he was doing and what he was doing and the opportunity presented itself for me to actually find out and i didn't want to know. it didn't matter to me.

4) i didn't want to say hi just because i thought it was fate. i haven't seen him in 6 years and the first time i see him, he walks right by me in a building full of people, in a place i never go to. how fateful is that? but then again, he never looked up at me and he didn't bump into me. how fateful is that?

5) i didn't want to say hi because, as far as i'm concerned, he's a stranger to me now. if he's changed as much as i have over the last six years, then essentially, i don't know who he is and he doesn't know me either.

6) he didn't look good. not at all.

so, that's it. i think if i hadn't been so shocked about seeing him after all this time, i would've actually called out his friend's name (because i've seen his friend once or twice since the Ex and i broke up and it's always been amiable). a part of me is sad that i didn't say hello. then again, the other part of me is really glad i didn't. i don't know if that makes any sense and i don't know if it's meant to but it makes sense to me.

i'm not 100% sure, but i think i finally have closure. i don't think i need to talk to him to have it; just the sheer fact that i didn't need to run over to him and ask him how he'd been for the past six years says a lot. i think for the next day or so, i might feel a little sad but i think that's just habit more than actual feeling. it's hard to let go of it, the habit, but i think that's what i've been holding onto for so many years. maybe i'm just tired. i think i need to sleep on it and see how i feel tomorrow.

cement shoes

one of the lawyers in my firm picked up a client from asia on a fraud case. i don't exactly know details but it's a guy who had defrauded a whole bunch of companies and he lives here part time. at one point, no less than four of our lawyers (including the Ninja) were at this crazy woman's beck and call. somehow, i got dragged into it and i billed about five hours of work just yesterday alone trying to get documents prepared for service on this guy and for a court hearing to apply for an injunction. in her e-mails, she says that everyone has lost sleep over this matter because they are afraid the defendant's "goons" will come after them. rumour has it, a relative of someone related to this file was kidnapped and tortured yesterday in hong kong. the joke in the office, at least among the small group of people that have had to deal with this matter, is that one of us is next. BabyMan said to me, "don't be surprised if you're walking down the street tomorrow and get hauled into a van and beaten up." geez, i thought it was dangerous working in criminal law!

the upside? the group of us (the lawyers and paralegals that are working on the file) are doing lunch next week and charging it to the file.

Mon's 23 year old boyfriend of two years stealthily moved out of their apartment while she was at work. and here we thought he was so mature. this happened two weeks ago and she already has a date. my hero! she and A are going to join us for a girls' night out with a bunch of women from the firm - dinner at Sammy J's (not my first choice or even my last choice) and then an evening at the casino (not my first choice or my last choice). but i figure the three of us can go trolling. i haven't done that in so long. it's hard to troll with married women.

our Receptionist and Jax instructed me to wear something low-cut and wear big earrings and lipstick. i responded, "so you want me to whore it up, basically?" i understand that they care about me and want to "find me someone" but i think it will be an embarassing night tomorrow! plus, they don't seem to get what my "type" is and then get mad at me if i say no because he's short, balding and closer to my dad's age than mine. honestly, am i wrong to have standards???