Be Careful What You Wish For...

There's a rumour flying around the office today. I hate to spread it around before I can confirm it and truly lose my fangirl mind, but since Miguel has threatened to abuse his password privileges and write an "ohmigod blog" for me, I decided to try and control my own spin.

Life is a funny thing. The huge world makes all kinds of things possible. For example, playing a harmless game you make a list of five famous men that you would have sex with if given the opportunity. I'm damn picky so making that this was a real labour. Something I put a decent amount of thought and energy into. So you make this list and you share it with your friends and you have a good chuckle. You continue on with your life as one of billions, your words and thoughts mere theories floating around your mind ... maybe the occasional naughty thought. And then at the end of a really, really long day of work a manager in your department casually mentions that it looks like one of the people on your list will be coming to your place of work. What do you do?

Well, if you're me and you're awfully overtired you almost collapse, gasp a little and start tearing up. I am not a starfucker. I do not get all weak kneed over celebrities, unless they happen to be on the aforementioned list. Really, it was all just too much for my brain to handle. And of course, in typical Chelsea style I managed to have my little fanfit in front of my boss who caringly mocked me for it for the next hour. Mocking I totally deserved, but I fear I may never live this down.

And what the hell am I going to do when and if he comes to my place of work? Mike said that I am honour bound to hit on him. As amusing as that might be, I don't think I could do it. I learned very early in life not to start something you're not entirely ready to go through with. And other facet of my black and white personality I guess. Odds are I'll be too wired to even muster a coherent sentence. If I do interact like a normal person, my boss as assured me that I will be "Queen of the Geeks." Which is fitting as I'm more geek than goddess when you get underneath it all. I guess I just have a chance to see some eye candy up close. I've already got a man who sees the chic in the geek beneath.

I think it will be fun, dare I say the event will be cape-tastic.
//cue fangirl like squeal

Today's sing-a-long song: "Does Your Mother Know?" by ABBA

HRH

27.01.04 Edit: For those of you playing the home game the list is as follows:

Keanu Reeves, David Boreanaz, Viggo Mortensen, Harrison Ford (circa 1977) and Hayden Christensen

Hat Trick

Clearly 2004 is the year of the GW wedding. First Andree and Soapy will be making their way down the eisle, then little more than a month later my dearest friends Mike and Dawn will be engaging in matrial rites (while I try my hardest not to sing "Sunrise, Sunset" because I know that will get really irritating after while) and now Blake and Kirsten have decided to tie the knot this fall. This is triple good news for me, because not only are my favourite couples having events to celebrate how great they are together, but I get 3 excuses to see them this year! Oh and even better, I have another reason to justify buying really cute dresses to wear to weddings! Thanks guys.

Oh and congrats. ;-)

HRH

"You're toxic. I'm slippin' under"

Besides coming to grips with the fact that my bike is no doubt in a container on its way to, well, whatever country deals in stolen bikes, I discovered that I really like the new Britney Spears song "Toxic." It's got that sliding violin sample a la my favourite song of summer 2003 "Faint" by Linkin Park and a 1960's-spy-guitar thing going on (M and I just finished a debate regarding what would be more effective: referring to the guitar style as John Berry-esque (the principal composer of James Bond themes) or Monty Norman-esque (who was the original composer of the Dr. No theme, which was actually intended for a Bollywood film, but later adapted for everyone's favourite spy). In the end it was decided that going the vague route would be more effective. Yes we are nerds.). I'm not happy about liking this song, even though it has a pretty irresistible middle eastern vibe going on. Not one bit happy. In fact I've decided to express my displeasure by playing the song in a perpetual loop and dancing. As you may know, I'm all about punishing myself.

HRH

Score one for the badguys

It's always so disheartening when you become a statistic. When you stop becoming the other 4 of the 1 in 5 and become the person whose garage was broken into and whose "Czech made and lugged across an ocean" bicycle is one of the two things stolen. It's even more distressing when the other thing stolen is your boyfriend's "Czech made and lugged across an ocean" bicycle. There's no understanding crime. Why someone would steal a bike in minus 20 degree weather I don't know. Heck I don't even understand why someone would steal a bike period. One also has to wonder why the other two bikes in the garage were left unharmed, but I guess we'll have to leave that one to bad luck on our part.

This kind of stuff happens all the time so I'm going to try to not act like it's the first bike stolen. It's not even my first bike stolen. It is, however, the first bike I've ever saved up for and purchased with my own money, and is also one of the biggest purchases I've made thus far. Also, I really, really liked my bike. I loved riding it. When I was off last summer I would take it out daily and I'd been eagerly looking forward to spring so I could take it out in the beautiful park next to my home.

There are bigger problems in the world and I'm sure I'm being an ass for sulking about it, but really it's hard to accept theft with grace.

HRH

Not too shabby

Last night my boss and I pulled off our first big event together and I'm happy to say that we hit this one out of the park. There were Dim Sum appetizer in the shapes of ducks, bees and butterflies. Need I say more? I will now take a step back and make the "I rock" face.

Now that it's finished I can start getting back into my life. I hadn't realized how totally tense I'd been until this morning. For weeks I'd felt like a lost ship at sea, but this morning it was like I'm a new woman. I would have appreciated it if I was a new woman with new knees, but beggars can't be choosers it seems. My knee is still much larger than it should be, but I'm taking glucosamine (as recommended) and am going to start applying heat. The good news is that the X-rays came back with no joint problems, which suggests to me that it's only a twist and not some congenital defect rearing its ugly head. So I'm lame, but I don't seem to require being taken out back to be shot... just yet.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Horse with no name" by America

HRH

Waddling my way through the day

Life occasionally affords us the opportunity to see what life would be like if things were different. Being female you get to experience all kinds of exciting body shapes. In fact our bodies have a significant impact upon the way we go through life. Some bodies are capable of amazing things and as a result the owners of those bodies can have very interesting experiences. Today I'm discovering what life would be like if my knees had been bashed in by a 2x4. I'm lucky in that I didn't have to endure the pain and trauma of actually being hit by a big plank of wood, but instead can imagine what the initial pain felt like judging by the pain I'm in right now.

I've had a messed up knee for more than 10 years. A sad thing to admit when you're 27. There are some limitations I've come to accept, but it doesn't grievously hamper my day to day life. In fact I'm usually only in pain when I walk down stairs. Level ground and going up are a-okay, just down. It apparently indicative of a problem called Patella Femroral, which may be a very common knee problem, I don't know. I just know that I have it and I can't downhill ski or play basketball anymore. And I'm fine with that. I'm still very mobile... or at least I was.

2 days ago my left knee decided to join the pain party. What's worse, for the first time in my life, the tissue around my knee is swelling. This is new and scary for me. What's worse is that I simply cannot walk down stairs without whimper worthy pain. I have no good legs left to stand on! Also in an effort to make walking as comfortable as possible I've started to waddle. I've come to that point where pain-relief has trumped vanity. What's puzzling is that I have NO IDEA how this happened.

Oh yeah and did I mention that I live on the 3rd floor of a house with no elevator...

HRH

Evil beast of sleeplessness I cast thee out

Why is it on nights when you just positively, absolutely, "oh my god this week is fucking going to kill me", must sleep you lie there wide awake like a 5-year-old on Xmas eve. I try to think sleepy thoughts, but end up thinking far too much to rest. I try to look out the window at the beautiful snowflakes falling and try to trick myself into fatigue with the sheer serenity of it all. I have a staring contest with my cat and my competitive side kicks in and I'm no more tired than when I started. Why can't brains come with "off" switches?

I'd say I have a lot on my mind, but that would be misleading. I have some on my mind. I'm trying to get the guts together to find a new doctor. My current doctor lives in the K, so continuing to see him would be very impractical. He is the only doctor I've ever had. The man delivered me. What doctor can possibly compare to a life-long doctor-patient relationship? In the great scheme of life, maybe not the biggest of deals, but it's on my sleepless mind.

Another thing I'm twisting around in my head is dancing. I'm at the point where I can choose to invest more money in belly dancing classes or I can just move on with my life. I've made no secret of the fact that it had been a very disappointing fall in terms of my dancing development. While others who'd started the art at the same time as I did were performing in public and continuing to feel the love, I was having to re-learn it all, feeling less and less inclined to dance outside of the classroom and positively bright green with envy. Maybe I was good at it before, but I'm not good at it now. The only thing that I've shown any promise in has been working with canes and swords. And if not for the fun I have while dancing with them, I wouldn't even be debating this. Tania has suggested that I find another school, but I'm not sure if that will make any difference. There's also the reality that classes are expensive (like $17 a class). I could put that money towards many other things like food, clothes, make-up or a gym membership so that I can work on reversing my knee issues. It's a hard call to make.

Sigh. Five hours until my alarm goes off. Good thing I'm only grousing about the minutiae in my life rather than my existential dilemmas of late. If I think about those too much, I'd never sleep again.

HRH

Optimisim Hangover

Sorry for the melodrama this last week. I'm sure many of you have deduced by now that when I get sick I get just a bit depressed. Mike will know from experience that I don't get depressed in half measures. No, when I get the blues the world becomes black. But I'm largely better. Still weak like a kitten, but my psyche seems to be recovering just fine.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Drive" by Incubus.

HRH

"I wanted to destroy it, rather than let it be part of a world where beauty and genius and greatness have no chance."

I'm sick and sulky. I've been home for 48 hours straight and I might just go crazy if I don't start feeling better soon. I hate being sick. Just a total waste of my time. I make this same rant every time I get sick so I'll can it and talk about more interesting things.

Yesterday M and I welcomed a new addition to our home. One I think will both improve our lives and ensure that this period for creative retardation contiunes for a good long time. We have welcomed an ExpressVu Satellite dish to our family. Which basically ensures that we will never communicate ever again. When we lived in an open concept apartment in Prague, with dail-up Internet, 5 channels of Czech language programming, a dvd player and a mono TV, we did some pretty serious bonding. I also read a lot more. Now that we have this home with wireless Internet, offices at opposite ends of the house, hundreds of stations of English programming and over 1500 CDs to rip onto our computers/ipod it's amazing we ever see each other. I guess sleeping in the same bed helps. I love our life here. Despite my kidding around, we still spend most of our time together and I don't have to watch "Walker: Texas Ranger" dubbed into Czech. It's win:win all around. I guess what I'm saying is, life is good because in the 24 hours we've had satellite TV we've seen 2 episodes of MTV: Cribs. All is right with the world.

Another thing that has come up with our new found access to visual media is that I can finally say, based on my own opinions, what total crap CNN is. In fact, I'd like to lump in most of the press with that estimation. I don't know if it's a symptom of age and my will breaking to the unending onslaught of negative jading bullshit or if the world is actually going to hell in a handbasket. I figure the world has always been a huge disaster but I've been in my little idealistic bubble. As I've grown up, I've always intended to do my best to make things right. When I leave theory and idealism behind and face the realities of getting things done, it's crushing, defeating and almost enough to make me give up on it all. Guess I'm having a Dominique day.

I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in- between."

Perhaps my idealism and optimism will return when my health is restored.

HRH

Spreading A Little Evil

Since I had a very, very productive day, and I'm sure you've all worked awfully hard as well, I've decided to share this little slice of Evil.

Mwha ha ha...

HRH

Getting It In Perspective: M2K4

We're a jaded generation. Maybe from being raised by television, maybe from realizing that our great moments are just recycled bits from the past, I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that if something can impress my overloaded-by-images-of-space-battles-and-travel brain, then it's earned a skepticism free look. A look of awe and wonder. It's been a long time since I've had one of those. Looks of shock and horror a-plenty, but moments where I am assured of the brilliance of my fellow man and feel no guilt about my hopes for the future, those are so rare.

But here we are today, getting IMAX quality images of the surface of Mars. Yeah, that's Mars the planet.


Picture: NASA/JPL

Can I just pause and say that I love that one of the rovers is named Opportunity. Head over to the NASA site and see what the Mer Rovers are finding. Prepare to get a little excited. (And do the trivia, purely because it's fun...)

Need more proof of why NASA and related organizations are doing good things? Check out what Mike discovered. Nasa has been doing a lot for us lately.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Rocket Man" by Elton John.

HRH

The Sound of a thousand bad things coming this way

2004 came in like a Lamb for me. I'm actually impressed that I managed to stay awake until midnight. M is fighting a winning battle against whatever is going around now, so we opted to stay home, watch some of The Firefly DVD set and enjoy a great deal of salad. Episode I was one TV as well which provided at small moment of Star Wars agreement between the two of us, since we can easily agree that it really sucked. It may sound like a dull evening, but it wasn't. When company is good, food abundant and neighbour's bad taste in techno music easily mockable it's near impossible to have a bad time.

I hope everyone had a lovely New Year and that your livers eventually forgive you.

Today's sing-a-long song: "New" by No Doubt.

HRH