back inside the uglier house

five years is a long time. unsurprisingly, i don't have much to say. this foray back into the uglier house is the product of a random thought about communication while driving on the alaska highway at dusk.

implementation of this random thought has been challenging--mostly because of a good old fashioned sunday morning wake and bake. i've been having a really pleasant time watching music videos for the past hour or so.

so that's what i'm throwing down.

in no particular order.



i hope you're still with me.

because there's just one more thing.

unsurprisingly, things have changed a lot.

spotted dick

i don't know what i'd do without coronation street. i used to make fun of my friend shaeya when we were room mates because she was a fan. i always thought it was a tv program that was solely produced for the elderly and mentally unstable. i was sort of right, i guess. m. got me into it when we first started seeing each other, and i've been hooked ever since. i thought it was so quirky and sweet when m. wanted to get up bright and early on the sunday morning of the weekend we first spent together to watch the week's worth of episodes. my room mates were out of town and m. and i went on a "date" that friday night and he ended up staying the whole weekend. it was total bliss. (sigh.) anyway, coronation street has become one of those comfort shows for me, like kids in the hall used to be.

oh the drama of corry. now i'm ready for brunch. stoned sunday morning brunch binge. i love it. my best and oldest friend heather just called from toronto. she asked me to collaborate on a performance art piece that i and another performer will produce for a conference at the university of regina. i'm super excited about it-- it's my first paying gig as an "artist." she's sending me the contract today.

it constantly amazes me how creative and talented my friends are-- all of them, without exception. it also amazes me how most of us, myself included, have trouble generating money for ourselves. like, a majority of my friends are highly gifted and financially restricted. there are a lot of different circumstances that contribute to this state for all of us, and i'm not suggesting that each of us is not personally responsible for our own financial situation. i'm just curious as to why a bunch of smart, educated people who have known each other for years, are kind of meandering down a similar path, unsure of where we want to go. or maybe i'm just projecting. hmmm. stoned on a sunday morning.

photo essay of my apartment by jason

candy, darling

i had a whole list of productive things to do today including getting my taxes done, cleaning my apartment and running over to the "family planning" clinic to get my birth control prescription refilled. so far i've been laying around in bed reading holy terror: andy warhol close up by bob colacello. i got up for just enough time to feed myself soup and cheese, then tucked right back into bed and the book. it's almost noon, and i've spent almost the entire morning horizontal. maybe i'm depressed today. i still want to go back to bed and read for the rest of the day, but i know i'm going to hate myself if i do that. maybe i'll make a deal with myself: have a shower, then i can lay around some more, but only if i go to the gym later. failing doing anything i thought i should really do today, i should at the very least leave my apartment. as i mentioned last night, i probably don't need birth control anyway. i'll take the beard. . . yep. i'm depressed today in the particular way that means i don't want to do anything about it. it's a day for wallowing, immersed in self loathing and avoidance. oh my god, no wonder i never go out. . .

i miss m. truth is, sex with him is what i miss the most. that, and how goofy he is, and smart, and how much fun it was to hang out (when we were both not feeling crummy, that is.) i lived in his apartment with him for a little over a month last winter, and it ended up being pretty terrible. it's a very small space and we were both going down our respective roads of mental/emotional disintegration. living together really didn't help. in fact, i know it made it worse for both of us. i didn't want to admit it though. i was hanging on to the optimistic illusion that two depressed, fucked up people could help each other, when we were really just dragging each other further into the dark in spite of how much we cared about each other. (at least that's my perspective. maybe m. has a different take on it.) love does not conquer all, i guess. ok. that sounded pretty bitter. for the record, i moved out and it ended up being ok. i got to have a mental breakdown without dumping the entire thing into m.'s personal space. it wasn't a great situation by any means, but it would have been a million times worse if i hadn't been offered a house sit at just the right time. that really was a gift from the "universe." or whatever. anyway. . .

i feel weird writing about my personal stuff, especially with regards to m. on this blog. i want to do it though. i feel compelled to do it-- it's my outlet. i don't really talk to any of my friends around here about this stuff anymore because i end up always bitching about living here and how much i miss whitehorse and a bunch of people they don't know or understand anything about. i realize i'm alienating myself from my old friends from regina, but once you leave, when you come back, it's never going to be the same, right? excuses, excuses. i know. i've got a million of them for being unhappy. anyway, m. might read this and it might be weird for him too. in fact, it has gotten a bit strange for him for a different, more creepy reason that i won't bother discussing in any real detail, except to say, i realize that the whole point of a blog is that it's in the public domain for anyone to read-- for me, part of the "thrill" of having this blog is never knowing who might look at it. but i feel like i've been exposed in a way that isn't the result of genuine interest or random curiosity. apparently, a link to my blog has possibly been "shared" to further someone else's "agenda" or something. i don't really know, but it creeps me out. and it kind of pisses me off, even though i may not have the "right" to feel that way. i just want to ramble and write any old garbage that i want, about whoever i want (within respectful reason, i suppose) without having to edit to suit anyone but me. or having to worry about someone using my dumbass blog to create discomfort or drama for other people. anyway, that's all i have to say about that. i wasn't going to bother mentioning it, but it's something i've been thinking about, therefore it's blog material.

hmmmm. . . the fascinating/inane life of andy warhol is calling me back to bed. less thinking about "personal issues," more avoidance. oh andy, i love you. . .

living the dream

yawn. i've finally figured out exactly why i moved back to regina: i'm taking a holiday from fun. this town is a colossal drag. i'm know there must be some kind of interesting fun to be had around here, but i'm not interested in trying to find it. i rarely drink anymore, i hardly ever go out, and i usually don't talk to people when i'm not at work. sounds pretty sad, but i like to think of my current lifestyle as therapeutic "spinsterism." the only reason i still take birth control pills is to prevent myself from growing a beard.

i'm getting to know myself again without the influence of other people. yeah, that's it. no drama, no craziness (except at work, but that shit is "confidential" or "in camera" or subject to "non-disclosure." too bad, because it gets pretty juicy, as well as incredibly frustrating for far too many reasons to even think about right now.) no boyfriend, no relationships to fret about. well, i still fret occasionally over m. in whitehorse, but it's minimal. the thought of actually going out in order to meet men, or try to get laid seems like the most draining, unenjoyable activity in the world. do i sound bitter? i'm not. maybe vaguely pathetic (apathetic?), but i have enough of a sense of humour to accept that characterization. my apartment is always clean, and i always get up early on the weekends.

one weird "habit" i've developed since moving here is taking a gravol or two before bed. for some reason, gravol makes me fall asleep instantly and i have really detailed dreams. i started taking tranquilizers in the summer after i went totally mental. i was having serious anxiety problems and i couldn't sleep, so my doc prescribed some fantastic pills. now, i've got a bit of a thing for various types of "sleep aids." generally, most kinds of "drowsy drugs" don't really have that much of an effect on me, so the gravol thing is kind of a novelty. really, it's not that interesting, and i don't ride the "gravol pony to sleepy town" every night, but sleeping to dream has become a large part of my "self-entertainment" activities recently. that, and sweating my ass off at the gym. and reading.

see? none of my preferred passtimes involve contact with other people. too bad i can't get motivated to write anything other than this stupid blog. i could have written a novel given all the time i spent unemployed, but that would have been way too stressful and i was "recovering." i couldn't even get it together enough to write 500 word book reviews for what's up yukon. god. it was ridiculous how much i stressed out over that. i only ended up writing one review that they never did publish, and i was supposed to write five more. ditched out on that altogether. slightly emabarassing to think about now. oh well, periodically emotionally unstable people do will do that kind of shit from time to time.

well, law and order is on now, so my friday night can really get started.

canadian club

doesn't god know i need sun to be happy? and no pms, too. i also want to say to god, i'd be a lot fucking happier with perkier tits and some sort of direction in my life. oh right, i don't believe in god, i believe in myself. i guess perkier tits are going to have to wait until i find my "direction" (i.e. when i finally get around to generating enough cash through meaningful, interesting, fun work to pay off my crap ass student loans.) then i can start my "plastic surgery phase."

oh shit. it's the oscars tonight. even though i have an embarassing "celeb gossip" vice, i hate the academy awards. boring and lame. kind of like my life right now. it's like i've entered into my "golden years" 30 years prematurely. i spend my spare time watching law and order, (which is the equivalent of matlock these days) and eating soft foods. i am characteristically in bed by 10 pm. can't say that it's all bad, though. i think i'm gearing up for another big life change of some sort, so i need the rest.

interpretive driving

i was finally forced into changing to new blogger-- change is hard, but so far this is ok. i still haven't ventured into myspace land, so i can still respect myself. ha ha. i'm just kidding. i know a few myspacers who aren't total losers.

i've got to stop being such a crabby judgemental bitch. . . seriously. i hate it when people judge me, but then i use that as an excuse to judge them. (p.s. i'm not talking about anyone specific here, in case you might wonder.)

fucker spit

do you think it's a "bad thing" to get high before noon on sunday? i just like to get stoned before brunch because generally the food is actually pretty gross (come on, you know it is) at the corner house. but i like to go anyway. the dessert table is really the draw for me. oh, and leaving my apartment to participate in a social activity is good, too.

i bought a bunch of cosmetics today. clinique. i sit around my apartment getting stoned and "putting on my face." then i eat something and have a bath. then maybe i make a few phone calls, watch tv (oooh the grammy's are on tonight) and then i pass out. i'm hardcore. but i look great. i got a sack of free samples with my purchase today, so it makes spending forty eight dollars on a small tube of concealer and a microchip sized eyeshadow ok. i think this week i'm going to get my eyebrows waxed. hmmm, i love the girly life.

i've been high all day and i need to sleep it off so i can get high some more tonight. hmmm, i love sundays.

who made who

yoikes. it's saturday morning, 8:30, and i've been up since seven. i get to go to work today for a morning workshop on real estate law. fun! and then i'm going to stick around for a few more hours and catch up on all the other shit i never seem to have time to do during the week. yesterday i spent 4 hours transcribing a voice recording of a meeting that was fifty seven minutes long. but, oddly enough, i don't totally hate doing that kind of thing-- it just takes for fucking ever. i do get a chance to write a lot because i usually just don't transcribe meetings, i usually summarize them. so it gives me a lot of room to paraphrase and interpret the content of the recordings. it's a good skill, and it's really helping my typing speed. plus, the content of these meetings is generally so far away from my range of knowledge, i'm forced to learn entirely new things whether i want to or not.

i was asking myself the other day why i bother writing the things i do on this blog. i haven't really thought very hard about that since i started the uglier house. maybe it's time to reassess this thing. i obviously want people to read it, but why? who am i primarily trying to connect with -- strangers or people i know? when i started this blog, i was living in whitehorse and going through a freaky time with a room mate i got "intimately" involved with. it was like keeping a "public" secret, putting out my dirt for my friends who don't live in whitehorse. now, i don't live in whitehorse and my life is pretty boring. the things i think about a lot of the time pertain to my life there (like my "special friend," and all the debaucherous times at my neighbour's house, to mention a few examples.)i don't mind having a quiet life right now. i think i need this time to rest and regroup. i don't really care about going to berlin at the moment. my original plan was to try and get a tsl job there after living in regina, but now i just want to go back to whitehorse and do berlin later.

anyway, back to why i have this blog. . . i don't know. i'm a wannabe exhibitionist? i want someone to read this shit and "see me for who i really am?" (puke!) most of my life and thoughts don't get recorded here, though. maybe i should write a memoir and get it over with.

god, i'm totally boring myself. that's a pretty good indication i should stop writing today. hmmm. . . am i trying to entertain or impress people? i think it was easier to do that in whitehorse because my life was more interesting, but now that i'm laying low, there's not so much funny, weird shit to write about.

i just have to

what?

ahh, love. complicated and exhilerating, frustrating and confusing. . . . my special friend from whitehorse will not be coming to see me this month, as previously planned, for perfectly reasonable reasons. nevertheless, i took it badly and more significantly, i took it personally. again. it's hard not to do that though, and i really try, but it usually takes awhile to come to my (common) senses when it comes to "affairs of the heart." sigh.

side note: i wish i hadn't revealed this blog site to the few people i did in whitehorse because even if no one there reads it, i know they might. and it makes me totally self conscious about what i write about and how it might be perceived. like now, for example-- talking about "love stuff" and icky things like feelings and relationships and whatnot. i already feel like a dork. maybe subconsciously, i want. . . well, i'm not sure, so i won't bother speculating about it here.

anyway, i love someone who i essentially chose to move away from for various reasons primarily not related to him. or so i thought. now i'm wondering if i'm being honest with myself. did i use my mom's health issues, my unemployment, my etc. as an excuse for not wanting to deal with living in a small city with the man that i love and can't be with right now? is that really it? i thought about that when i made the decision to leave, but i think i shoved it under the other "concerns" so i could think of myself as more of a "responsible decision maker" instead of a confused and scared freak regarding relationships. it's a lot nicer to think of my move as a result of me being a good daughter, than it is to equate it with running away from my insecurities and having to witness my lover "getting over me." and it leads me to wonder about all the decisions i make regarding my life. do i make decisions based on fear and "imagined" reactions of other people? am i as reactionary as i don't want to be? yikes.

and then a lot of the time i feel like i've got my head sorted and the next minute i'm freaking out again.

why do i even post this stuff? i need to chill out.

put your "inner self" in me

i haven't been writing much on this blog lately. most of my time is spent at work, the gym, and my couch. work is a challenge, thus the "stoned" couch addiction. it's my preferred way to unwind. actually, getting stoned in the bath tub is referred to as "the cure" in my house. going to the gym balances everything out. my social life consists mainly of sunday brunch and that's ok. i'm enjoying laying low and spending most of my free time alone. because when i'm alone i can be as naked and silly as i want to be without judgement from anyone but myself.


also, when i'm alone i get to do a lot of thinking and writing, which has also been good for me lately. my own company is more interesting to me than anyone else's right now anyway. not that my friends (or potential friends) don't have fine qualities that deserve my attention, but you know, i'm more into exploring my "inner self" these days.


i think my "inner self" looks very much like i did when i was five.

this is the world

secretary

well, i sure am a working girl now. and oddly enough, it's not horrible. it's a refreshing change to be in a working environment that's hectic and disorganized and i'm not responsible for making it that way. i find it energizing. and it makes it easier on me as the new person in the office. my parent's lawyer approached me at my grandpa's funeral a few weeks ago and invited me to apply for a position in his office. it turns out the job is actually for him and one of his clients. i'm a corporate secretary (i love the term "secretary"-- it's very sexy) and a paralegal. i had a little bit of a freak out last weekend because having a job made me feel like regina is a more permanent situation, which in turn, made me so homesick for whitehorse and the people there. anyway, i got over it. i can leave anytime i want, and while i'm here i'm going to make the best of it. besides, it was way more fun being unemployed in whitehorse in the summer than it was being unemployed in regina in the winter.

put it in ya

i am the walrus

i've been feeling very thick and ponderous lately. like, i feel like how a walrus looks. not very pretty, not very energetic. but that's ok. it won't last forever, but right now my clothes are too tight and i like to hate myself because of it instead of remembering that hot chicks come in every size. and i am nothing if not a hot chick.

today may be the last day of this current stretch of unemployment and i'm ready to start doing again, as opposed to just being. just being seems to make me fat and sad. plus, being in the thrall of my family dynamic also seems to drag my ass down. (ok. i'll be honest here instead of blaming all the cicumstances, it's me that's making life shitty.)ever since "the summer of mental health issues" i've been "taking time off" to "re-evaluate my goals." so far, my "goals" seem farther away than they did before i started acting on them. maybe because i'm a great thinker and not such a great doer. how does one change that? i mean, doing shit is hard, and i'm, like, a girl who really, really likes to take it easy. i mean, even when i have all the time in the world, i refuse to do anything productive with it. that would interfere with my right to do nothing, you know.

thank god the holidays are over. x-mas is for kids. as an adult, the holidays only serve to magnify family dysfunction and personal neurosis. new year's eve is a stupid time to get drunk and disorderly because people tend to feel pressure to overdo it, and i always find it so melancholy. new year's resolutions are a recipe for failure and deepening feelings of inadequacey. oh, yeah. i've got my "poopy pants" on and i know that shit stinks. again, this funk is temporary. deep, deep down in my sweet, chocolate syrup drenched heart, i'm a raging optimist.

(note: it is now later, and i've just returned from my final interview and will be starting work tomorrow morning at 8. i'm so fabulous i'm going to shit my pants. my job involves admin work, paralegal duties, and multi-project managing for a law firm and a small but dynamic business. yeah, i'm not sure exactly what my job is yet, but i guess i'll find out once i start doing it. the office is in a gorgeous heritage house down the block from my apartment. yay!)

new year's eve was pretty tame. movies and homemade pizza with my friend heather who is in town from toronto. we got crazy for about 20 minutes, then went back to the couch to finish the devil wears prada. yes, i know. but i was hoping it would be a fashion extravaganza and fun and dishy and all that, but it was, in fact, just lame. it was the least effort meryl streep has ever had to put into a character, and to her credit, she was as entertaining as she could have been given the overall lameness of the script.

anyhoo, i'm going to enjoy my last day of freedom by reading the walrus (yes. i'm serious.) and eating the last of the x-mas cookies. i'm out of weed, so it looks like a gravol induced high tonight. happy new year.

just suck it

thank god that shit is over. my grandpa died on x-mas day, which is also the anniversary of my grandmother's death. fun times.

fuck you, you fucking fuck

i am so sick to death of giving a shit about the wrong things.


so here's a picture of my tits.

i smell like a candy cane

i just had an amazing bath. i got really nice and stoned, put on some neko case, and had a luxurious soak in bubbly water that was almost too hot to handle. fuck yeah. and then i rubbed peppermint foot lotion all over my body. i'm all crazy feeling now. it's great.

i babysat my niece and nephew this past weekend. it was kind of fun, until my nephew busted out some hardcore shit on his rollerblades, then it got transcendent. we were in the basement and he was tooling around in his rollerblades, shooting pucks and practicing his hockey moves. we were listening to music on the computer, just run of the mill stuff my brother and his wife collected. then madonna's "hung up" came on, and ben threw down his hockey stick and pushed the goal nets out of the way. he grabbed a baton and improvised a fucking killer rollerblade dancing, baton twirling extravaganza. he's only 6, so he has this great unselfconsciousness when he really gets into things. kristen and i danced around and jumped on the couch. it was awesome. unfortunately, kristen got sick and i spent all night helping her puke and watching late night tv. she was a trooper though, especially through saturday night live, which was so unfunny, we watched a rerun of in living color.

just as boring as you

i'm sick again. that's what i get for healthy living. and i get to spend the weekend with my family. boy oh boy, things are looking up. i hope my niece and nephew "behave" for me when i babysit them tomorrow night. my already tenuous patience for children will be compromised by a sinus cold. i'm going to bake a shitload of cookies with my mom tomorrow, and hopefully she "behaves" too.

i keep getting these phone calls, like at least 2 or 3 times a day from a long distance number that is totally unfamiliar to me. they never leave a message, and i'm dying to know who it is, but i refuse to answer any numbers i don't recognize. it's almost pathological, and i guess i could very easily clear up the mystery by just answering the phone. it's probably a telemarketer. maybe i can look up the number online. hmmm.

yeah. i really can't much more boring than this, so i'll just cut it short for today.