It's a mime's world

Anyone who has been following my Twitter feed in the last few days will note that I have been battling some kind of bug. It's not been fun and it has made me question a lot of the nomenclature of science. I mean, why do we call it an immune system when it only provides immunity after the first attack and response to a virus or bacteria? To me, immune system implies that it would get it right the first time and repel the evil right away. I don't know what we should call the system we currently have. The adaptive immune system is a start, but still doesn't truly capture how very unpleasant the adaptation process is.

I am clearly on cold medication and rambling.

More fun is that I have also lost my voice. I'm well enough that I can walk around, go to work, get stuff done, but I have lost the power of speech. And you know what? It's kind of nice. I don't really have to participate in small talk in the same way and every conversation turns into a game of charades. Makes for an entertaining day. I wouldn't want to be like this forever mind you, but it's amusing enough for a Friday.

A colleague has suggested that I should get a striped shirt and a beret to really live the mime experience. Little did she know that I originally had a black and while striped shirt on today. :)

Today's sing-a-long song: Silent All These Years by Tori Amos

HRH

The cupcake solution

I've been in a really bad mood for the last 10 days. There's been some variety in my mood mind you. You know, those subtle shades between sad, surly, angry, woeful, indignant and overwrought. Sigh.

I'm actually feeling a little better today. It may have been the good sleep I had last night or doing pilates three days in a row. I like to think it's the 13 cupcakes I've consumed in the last 48 hours. Yup I've now eaten a baker's dozen of cupcakes.

And you know what? I feel mostly okay with that (mostly because I think the refined sugar has started to eat through my stomach lining). I baked them, I decorated them with sprinkles and I've enjoyed them. I needed to do something nice for myself and each of those 13 cupcakes have helped me in my quest to not anger and alienate my loved ones as I ride this regrettable emotional roller coaster.

This is not a sustainable coping strategy. Continuous cupcake consumption could become a very maladaptive behaviour, but it did its job when I needed it to. I will continue to search for a way out of this mood and continue to feel okay with eating 13 cupcakes. Yep, I'll feel great with every step I take as I run off half a cake this week. So good indeed.

HRH

Things that suck about today

In no particular order:

It's Monday

It's raining

My skirt/shirt combo is really unflattering with my shirt tucked in.

My skirt/shirt combo is really unflattering with my shirt untucked.

I'm working with text in Excel. Excel is for numbers, not words.

My sense of smell is super keen today and the world smells foul.

I have to be nice to people.

People keep talking.

People keep getting louder.

I am angry at everything and everyone.

I'm, so far, unable to think of anything to make me feel better.

This blog post won't format correctly.

Update: Icing on the sucky day cake, someone likened me to Hitler. Ugh.

HRH

Don't let the sun go down on me yet

I'm in such a bad mood today that I really have to question the merits of blogging. I figure if I use I'll temperament as an excuse not to, I'll be in that same non-communicative rut that got me here in the first place. Here I am. Pout and all.

It's so dark already. It can't be possible that my SAD is starting three months early. M joked to me today that I have a much deeper depression to look forward to as well. Well yay. It October. It makes my stomach sink to think about six more months of waking up in the dark. I never used to be this bad. :(

My mood is not helped by the fact that I may be loosing one of the things that has helped me through the dark months in the past. It's not for sure, but I may be losing my dance classes. Or at least leaving the ones I take right now. I hope things don't end up in such a way that I can't stay, but sometimes you have to leave when things aren't working for you anymore.

There's other stuff afoot too. Stuff I hope will inspire hope and excitement in me. Really just waking up to the sun would be pleasure enough.

HRH

Touchy, touchy

Isn't it amazing how there are people in the world who can move you from zero to volcanically annoyed in seconds? It's like they cast a shadow of annoying and exasperating over everything they do and touch. Any kind of faculty of reason you might have to assess the merit of their contribution to a conversation or a project is absent as all you can see and hear is how annoying they are.

I find it's particularly true with email. When an email sets me off I often have to close it, file it and give myself at least a four hour time-out before responding. It's absurd. The things being said are usually pretty sound and valid, but when it's said by someone who annoys, I see nothing but red. It's so frustrating.

I can't stop people from being annoying, but at guess I can just work to reduce my time-out time. Sigh.

HRH

Some things just shouldn't be taped

I wouldn't call myself one of those women who complain about the specific challenges that only women face. Sometimes the things women deal with, be it through dealing with the things we encounter because of nature, or through the things we deal with to conform to all things proper, are tolerable. Almost never enjoyable, but there's some kind of payoff. Wearing three inch heels kills the feet and knees, but my god they make the legs look like all kinds of hotness. Sure cramps are about as fun as stabbing yourself in the eye, but many women who've become mothers would tell you that all that pain (I'm not even talking about labour here) is nothing in comparison to the awesome that is being a mom.

Sometimes I think we endure painful and difficult things because it's like a badge on honour. I know there are days when I'm working, coping with cramps, wearing heels, nylons, a tragically ill fitting bra, having gotten up early to blow out my hair, dutifully applied makeup to conceal a bout of insomnia and thought "I am going to be even MORE awesome just to spite all these things that are causing me ire."

Usually I'm like that. And 99.9 per cent of the time I'm willing in endure discomfort for style, but this evening, I think I found my boundary. It's called flash tape.

I have this completely gorgeous, red Diane Von Furstenburg dress. Like it's crazy pretty and it hits me in all the right places. I love it dearly, but the neckline is rather wide and plungey. M is a fan. But it make it look right I have to use flash tape. This is basically clear, flexible tape that you use to make clothes stick to your skin. It works well and keeps undergarments under. It doesn't offer support like duct tape, which can be used to fashion a bra when a bra just won't work. It just keeps clothes in place. Yay for that.

However, like all good things, there is a price. It's just so not fun to take off. Just not fun at all. Sure, it doesn't tear off skin and such like duct tape can (seriously, if you've never used it, please, please, please stick it to a towel before you stick it to yourself. Just please)- it's a huge improvement - but it's still not a good time. It's just never good to mix adhesives and delicate skin.

Such is the dilemma. I'm not willing to go to a formal event and flash my bra all over the place, so I must remember that it's just another time to be awesome out of spite.

HRH

Technical smechincal

Some may have noticed that there have been some problems with the blog of late. Some have been server-side, some have been Bloggerside. Bottom line is that it's taking an eternity for things to post.

Solutions and options are being considered. In the meantime I thank you for your patience and hope that things will be back to normal soon.

HRH

Lost it's flavour

I have eight gossip sites in my RSS reader that contribute close to 500 posts a day. A day. And for the last I don't even know how long, I have kept up with them, consuming them like some kind of scriptural addiction.

This weekend, I stepped away from my computer for awhile. Mostly because I've been enjoying my online experience through my iphone. While away, my RSS reader amassed more than 3000 articles. My obsessive nature usually dictates that I would have to scan through all 66 feeds that I subscribe to (the gossip people being amoung the most prolific) no matter how long the list of posts, but something in my head snapped when I saw almost 1500 gossip posts. I thought "is this really that interesting?" and hit "mark all as read."

I've wanted to be free of all the gossip for such a long time, but I kept going back time and time again, coming to hate it the more and more I read it yet needing to read as much as I could. I felt really liberated by this weekend and have continued to mark the gossip blogs as read today. I'm hoping it will stick all week so I can get up the conviction to delete the category entirely.

Given the mingling of fashion, beauty and celebrity, I know in my heart this emancipation will be short lived.

HRH

Beset with wireless devices

M got an iphone this weekend. It's a sleek, smart and sexy little thing. I'm very happy that he was able to get one and I think it's the right kind of device for him. It's a phone, it's an ipod, he can check e-mail, find stuff on a map, play Super Monkey Ball, take photos... it truly is a brave new world. Everything he needs in one device. I have to confess some jealousy here. It's a beautiful piece of technology and it works for what he needs it to do.

I'm in an annoying wireless situation. I have a cell phone. A very pretty Nokia 7370. I love the way it looks, but have started to hate the way it works. Or more accurately, the way it doesn't work. There's some connection amiss in the swivel that makes the phone think that it's closed every time I press a number on the keypad. This results in the screen flipping it's image upside down and back pretty much constantly. I can cope with it, nauseating as it is, but text messaging throws me into a silent rage every time I do it.

I also carry a blackberry 8800 for work. It just has my work e-mail, work phone, some IM capability, no SMS capability. Since it belongs to my employer, it's pretty locked down and it would also be really inappropriate to use it as a personal phone or to use the data plan to check things like gmail over WAP.

Then I have my ipod. Which I listen to constantly and love dearly. We go almost everywhere together.

So I had this idea where I could get a Blackberry curve, link in my personal e-mail and work e-mail, have a phone, customize it how I'd like and have less crap to carry around. Berry and ipod. I'd be laughing. But I can't. I'm so not laughing. Sadly, because of policy at work, I can't purchase my own blackberry and add my work information to it, which was what I was hoping for. I'm basically stuck carrying at three devices all the time. And that sucks.

I've had the discussion of blackberry vs. iphone as well. You know, merge the phone and ipod part. For what I do, and most of what I do is e-mail based, the blackberry makes the most sense. The iphone is tremendously sexy and I would love one, but it wouldn't do what I need it to do and it would just be a whole lot of insane to carry and blackberry and an iphone.

Technology thwarted by policy and that's a shame. It's frustrating that I could be able to carry around an ipod and a blackberry, having my device needs met, but it's three devices for me, one of which doesn't work properly, another of which is has limited functionality and needs to be used responsibly and the last which works so well. Thank you Apple for that at least.

HRH

Numbers don't lie

There comes a point where a person has to be practical. I dance back and forth across the line of practical and frivolous pretty easily. I know that it's wise to be prudent, but I also know that a girl's gotta live. Sometimes I do a bit too much living and have to scale back. Other times, it just becomes undeniable that the practical way makes too much sense to ignore.

Last year M and I started driving to work. Transit around our part of town was under construction, information about reroutes had been poor at best and it took a lot less time to drive in. It was a bit more expensive, but not by too much and we didn't have to deal with other people. Our car took regular gas then, there was a route, things seemed to work.

Now that we have a car that runs on premium (and paying for gas these days is like a sucking chest wound regardless of the grade) and M is at a new office, the carpooling system isn't working so well. It actually takes him less time to get to work via transit at this place. I'm wanting to get into work earlier and we're both staying a lot later. Sadly, we're not car pooling like we did.

We did some math, didn't like the answer, did more math, hated that answer and then did some more. Going back to both of us taking transit each day will save us over $200 a month. Like wow. I can't even begin to ignore that, no matter how hard I try. I have to wonder how much more we would save if the transit system was priced sensibly, but that's another rant.

At this point, it's the right thing to do. I hate that it is, but it's too much of a savings to ignore. I've really enjoyed having the flexiblity that the car gives me. Being able to run errands at lunch, getting home quickly after the gym, heck, just driving every day is a joy, espeically in my zoom-zoomy little car. The best part of it was that M and I would have a bit more time together during the week. Even though it would take him longer to get to work when we drove, he would still carpool with me for the company.

On the plus side, maybe saving more will reduce the severity of the stabbing pains I get in my chest every time I read about the economic downturn and the end of the world as we know it in the news every day. Oh dear. If that's the upside of this, what a sad, sad day.

HRH

Fond memories

It seems there's a kind of closure on the whole HNIC theme song situation. CTV has purchased the perpetual rights to the theme. And as a private broadcaster, they have the means to. If the CBC had ponied up $2.5 million for the rights to the song, many a Canadian tax payer would have their hands up in ire. I mean there are a LOT of things that the CBC pays $2.5 million for that I raise an eyebrow at, but I digress. Maybe that amount isn't outlandish, but that's the argument I'm using to help keep my chin up about it all.

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm glad the song will live on. I'm glad that the composer is being well paid for a song that left an indelible mark on the country. I just feel like it has a little less magic to it now. As Graeme said so well, HNIC was the whole package. The theme was part of the format that everyone under 40 grew up with. It was part of what made the experience of crawling out of hibernation in the dead of winter to watch the Leaf's get smoked (even though you always hoped they'd prevail) with your friends. I think everyone has had moment where they've sung along to it or perhaps done a little dancing in their seat. And yes, we can still do that... just not on Saturdays. Just without Ron and Don. Without the cheesy HNIC logo. Without my favourite part "Hello Canada and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland". The part that speaks to the history of HNIC and the CBC. Two legacies in a young country generally short on legacies.

I kind of feel like I felt when I found out that Santa wasn't real. Christmas was still fun, I still got to make cookies, get presents and decorate the tree, but the magic was gone. I still celebtrate Christmas to this day, just like I'll still watch hockey. But in both cases, there is, and will be, a tiny part of my heart that will ache for what was.

HRH

It's not Hockey Night In Canada without the theme song

The Globe & Mail reported today that the CBC has not renewed the license agreement for the use of the "Hockey Night In Canada" theme and are investigating other options for the show.

Now either this is an evil marketing scheme by the CBC to threaten a beloved national icon, get us all riled up and upset and then look like a hero when they capitulate and renew the license or someone has decided it's time to reband, rebuild and regrow the CBC and they've decided to start by changing one of the few things they have working for them. Either way there is someone epically stupid in charge at the CBC.

I didn't grow up with hockey. I had more of a football/basketball/Formula 1 kind upbringing, but I knew the "Hockey Night in Canada" theme song and I loved it. I didn't even know why. I used to play double bass with the youth orchestra and local symphony and when we would visit area schools to do some music education, we'd play the "Hockey Night In Canada" theme. The kids would go crazy. They loved it.

Now that M has gotten me into the practice of actually watching the sport, I like the theme song even more. I won't let him change the channel during the theme song (I also won't let him change the channel during O Canada) as hearing it makes me think about how my grandparents watched "Hockey Night In Canada" every Saturday (in fact the only reason they even got a TV was to watch Leafs games).

There's a part of me that thinks, that since the song was introduced in 1968 that this may be a desperate and superstitous ploy by MLSE to break the Stanley Cup curse. Is it a coincidence that the Leafs haven't won the cup since the "Hockey Night In Canada" theme was written? And I hope this isn't a tactic of the owner of the song trying to play the public to get the CBC to sort out her legal issues with them, though I suspect that it is.

I hope they wise up and don't change it. I'm not saying it's going to stop me from watching hockey, but it's going to diminsh my experience and that's not what entertainment should do.

Update: For anyone out there like me who looks forward to hearing "Hello Canada and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland"* lead into the HNIC theme on a cold winter Saturday, the venerable Graeme has started a petition on his blog. Go sign up now. I don't care if you're eating your lunch. Do it!

HRH

*starts at 1:45 in the video

Toppled by Zen

It's come time to stop posting random clips from the Muppets and start writing again. I'm sorting my situation right now and learning that it's not anger that's making me so not myself. It would be simple if it were just one emotion and fantastically entertaining if anger was the only thing to process, since I'm a much better writer when I'm angry.

Sadly, it's complicated and there are a couple of things going on. I've made some seemingly logical choices in the past 5 to 10 years that I've taken to such an extreme that the results have become a problem. And by problem, I mean not being able to swallow for four days and waking up in a panic attack on the one out of three nights when I sleep well.

I've got a nice big emotional wall up. I'm exercising a lot of control over my feelings and my environment. The more I can control, the less opportunity there is for external forces to effect me. Problem is, as I'm getting older, and hopefully wiser, it's more and more clear that there's not very much in life that can be controlled. Thus I have anxiety. This is the way that I know how to work, but it doesn't work, so what do I do?

I don't really feel like getting into the nuances of why I try to control my feelings and my world. It's not really interesting to anyone but me. I do it for pretty logical reasons I think. I don't want to be hurt and I don't know how to grieve. I realize that sounds absurd, but I seriously don't know how to. The bottom line is that my body has staged an intervention on my mind.

I tried to cut out the fantastic highs and the horrible lows, or I guess more accurately, I tried to cut out the lows and the highs came with them. I'm not suggesting that I've managed to totally flat line my emotions for the last few years, as there have been many instances where I've had them and expressed them in less-than-graceful fashion, but most of the time when I have, I've questioned or berated myself for letting them out.

So I'm under instruction to get in touch with my heart. You know, the thing I've been referring to as the "cold, empty, space in my chest." I'm quite in touch with my mind. Perhaps too much so. I, apparently, need to focus on being, rather than doing. Which is awfully Zen for someone like me, but I think, after digesting it for a week, it means rather than planning and repackaging my emotions I have to just let them out ("like I do, every night between 10 and 10:15, on a pillow shaped like my father,"- Clone High).

I was telling a friend about my situation, and she being a former Buddhist, told me about a saying she thought fit my situation: "Suffer what there is to suffer, enjoy what there is to enjoy."

I can't promise that it's going to be pretty. I can't really promise anything, but I'll try to be genuine. It's not control, but it's real. Really ugly right now. Ugh.

HRH

Time out

I have a bad case of "the anger." I imagine a lot of people get it. That blood boiling and completely random rage that if left unchecked results in all kinds of un-ladylike behaviour. I'd like to think that it's just the world's longest bout of PMS and I just need some salt or chocolate to simmer me out, but as it's been about six weeks that theory is bunk.

Because I don't actually have a tangible reason to be angry, I'm trying to keep a lid on it. Doing the whole "act the way you want to feel" thing. More often than not it works. I know it's not foolproof, but it keeps things operational. It kind of leaves me feeling like I'm floating about two feet above my own body

As much as I would love to indulge my rage and be a class-A bitch to everyone and about everything I still have my wits about me. I still have that nugget of wisdom that was given to Thumper so long ago. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

That's part of blog-reticence of late. There have been interesting things going on, neato things that I've observed, but every time I start writing, it devolves into seething anger. So until I've sorted this out or blown my stack, I'm taking a moment to count to 10, or 100,000 or however long it takes.

HRH

I keep a bottle of Buckley's near, just to remind me

I'm getting over what I've coined "The Vertigo Cold." Guess what the primary symptom is? I'm back at work, trying to stay seated as much as I can. I managed to get through the last two days without hitting my head on anything at home each time I fell down, so it would be a shame to incur a head injury when I'm on the upswing back at the office. Did that stop me from wearing heels? Oh, goodness no.

I've also made it through this cold without having to get all insane on pseudoephedrine. As I've proven many times before, it manages my cold symptoms, but it also makes me a snarky ass. So Tylenol has been my elixir. That and an unopened bottle of Buckley's. I've kept it close by to scare my body into getting better. It knows that if it doesn't shape up, I'm going to assault it with that truly noxious "cold remedy". Seems to be working thus far.

HRH

Any time now

I like to think that I'm a pretty healthy person. I try to eat well, I exercise a great deal, get a good amount of sleep, don't smoke and aside from the fact that I've had at least a drink a day for the last two months*, I'm pretty good with the sauce.

I don't think I get sick more or less than the average person. I work in healthcare, so I'm pretty good with the hand washing since I have peripheral exposure to some exciting nastys. I had a cold about four weeks ago. Three days of phlegmy good times and four weeks of a cough. Four weeks! Frankly I'm bored with it.

My mother has informed me that a virus can take as long as six weeks to really work it's way out of your system. This was news she imparted to me when I called to her ask if I was developing Tuberculosis. You know, cause catching consumption is the new black** and I'm just a bit of a drama queen when it comes to my health.

So two more weeks to go of this and then maybe I can watch Moulin Rouge again.

HRH

*sadly this was a direct result of stress, which I tried to mitigate through exercise, which sadly wasn't enough. A cider at the end of the day did what it needed to do in order to prevent my head from blowing off my body. Thankfully that period of stress is over now.

**Something Tash and I were wondering about as we were discussing my persistent cough.. how was it that in all those movies when the courtesan was dying of highly infectious TB, that no one, including the poor sap she had fallen in love with and was in very intimate contact with, actually caught it too? Think about it.

Relaxation: now with kleenex

The thermometer has turned into a yo-yo and with the constant ups and downs, I now am the proud owner of a cold. A stupid cold I have no time for, but how often in life do you really have time for a cold.

The oscillating temperature is one of two of reasons I've turned into a mucus fountain. I did a silly thing this weekend and went to the spa, wherein I actually allowed myself to relax. I let down my defenses as I was scrubbed to a shine with citrus scented salts and then lulled into total peace during a full body massage. That's when the cold gets you.

If I could go back and skip the spa to save my future self from congestion and aches? No. I would just do it on a weekend when I have time to be sick the following week. Alas, nothing comes without a cost.

HRH

Something's missing

C: Okay, what does "Here's the 1,2 pitch" mean?
M: It means the pitcher is throwing with one ball and two strikes.
C: Okay.

Two pitches ensue

C: Okay. So it's three balls and two strikes and that makes it a full count.
M: Yes.
C: See I'm starting to understand the game, it's just the caring about it that's my problem.

HRH

Dietary shame

As I sit here, looking at the last remaining Toostie Roll Midgee, having inhaled most of the bag in the last 30 minutes, I can finally see that my dietary choices in the last two weeks have been atrocious.

I don't know how it happened, but summer got busy. Like I look at my calendar and just shake my head. I suppose I could have found some time to actually go out and buy proper food, but there wouldn't have been time to eat it before it went bad.

So I've been making due and in the process doing things like having a bag of chips and a diet ginger ale for lunch or Cheerios for dinner. Most of the time I'm not going over my dietary limits and I'm exercising a great deal so I'm not too worried about weight gain, but I'm failing like a dyslexic in a spelling bee when it comes to nutrition.

Things got so silly that last week, while I was out running errands at lunch, I ate McDonald's. I work in a very intimate and open concept office, so I made sure to eat my McNuggets and fries outside so as not to bring the smell into the office. I don't know what they put into the food, but it triggers something in my reptilian brain and I am overcome with an all consuming need to binge on McDonald's. And I know it's not just me, so I had to spare my colleagues. I ate my lunch standing in front of the hospital like a smoker banished to the sidewalk.

When I got back to the office, for a laugh, I looked up the nutritional information for what I'd eaten, thanked the powers that be that the particular McDonald's I'd patronized didn't have milkshake, there by preventing me from doubling the calories and carbs of just the food (I'm not even kidding about this). And then I felt sick.

Thankfully after this weekend, things become a touch more regular and I'll have the time to put together meals.

HRH

An open letter to Toronto cyclists

Dear cyclists of Toronto,

We need to have a chat. A womano e mano (or womano) about co-existence. You on your bicycles and me in my car. Let me start by acknowledging that you are not cycling in an ideal city. The bike paths in the downtown core are an embarrassment. They are dismal. A cruel joke at the expense of urban planning. For you, my dear cyclists, I dream of a city like Munich, where the avenues are wide and the sidewalks have areas intended only for bike transportation. The sidewalks for pedestrians, the bike paths for cyclists and the roads for automobilians.

Yes. I made that last word up.

If you look at Toronto and it's dismal bike paths, schizophrenic architecture, and, how do I put this, so very not streamlined German sense of style, it is very clear that we are not in Munich. The sweet, sweet organized paradise that is Munich.

No, we're here in Toronto. And I understand that it must suck to be a cyclist in Toronto, but I just have to get one thing off my chest...

CYCLISTS! THE RULES OF THE ROAD APPLY TO YOU!

Stop signs, turning lanes, stopping for streetcars, right of way... it all applies to you! Yes, you! You can't just ride down the road, completely fucking oblivious to the flow of traffic around you. I understand that being on your bike may give you a feeling of moral superiority but that doesn't make you invincible.

You may think you're a better person than I am for riding your bike, but when you don't obey the rules of a four-way stop sign you are a danger to yourself and everyone around you. And when I mow you down, when you are not where you are supposed to be according to the rules that we, as a society, have agreed upon and turned into law, you will quite possibly die. Many tonnes of steal, moving very quickly does very bad things to cyclists and their bikes. And as much as you might deserve an enormous kick in the ass for thinking that you are somehow above the rules of the road, I don't want to hit, harm or hinder you. It's not my preferred way to prove a point.

Yet time after time, cyclists show no respect for the rules, and rely on my desire not to kill to save their butts. And I'm beginning to feel like this desire not to kill is not, in any way, mutual. As a pedestrian getting off a street car, at least once a week, I am almost run down by cyclists who failed the "stop sign recognition" test.

One streetcar driver, who I almost hugged for his passionate objection to the thoughtlessness of bad cyclists, had a wonderful idea about creating some kind of accountability for cyclists who do not obey the rules of the road. After he completely chewed out a cyclist who almost ran down an older lady at Lansdowne and College, he suggested that bikes should have license plates as well. At least that way people could be reported for breaking the rules.

I'm not a fan of more government licensing and regulation, but bad cyclists make it hard for me to be anything but outraged by their flagrant disregard for other people and the laws of the road.

There are many, many good cyclists out there and I commend you. I believe that cars and bikes can co-exist on the road, so long as we're following the same set of rules. It wouldn't hurt either if there were some decent and safe paths in the downtown core for you as well.

But you asshat cyclists, learn to ride your bikes. Use hand signals, stop at fucking stop signs and clue into the fact that there are other people on the road and it is imperative that you communicate with them. Cause as much as the lot of you make my blood boil, I don't actually want any of you hurt.

HRH

Getting out of the groove

This is insane. Five minutes ago there was a full package of wasabi peas on my desk and now I have nothing but an empty bag and a spinning head. Why do they make something so potentially painful (yet sinus clearing) so addictive?

I'm having a terrible case of writer's block and here I am, writing about it. So I'm in part doing the right thing as all the great authors always say, just keep writing even though there are no words. I guess I have words, I just can't get them into the right order and the right order only seems to come to me when I'm in the shower or on the treadmill. And frankly, that's just not fair.

I've come to think that different types of writing are like different muscles in your body. Keep writing in one style and you'll develop a big, bulgy brain muscle for it. Write only in that style for, say about, four years and you'll find that your ability to write in other styles has completely atrophied. And all you can do about it is eat wasabi peas and feel inadequate.

I guess all the scientists weren't kidding when they talked about keeping your brain challenged with a variety of new activities to keep it elastic and young. I think I've been driving my brain in the same patterns for awhile now. Doing writing for work, writing my blog and that's about it. I haven't been creative and now I feel like I'm falling short of my potential. My brain is like a record. Start it and it just follows the grooves.

Perhaps it's time to upgrade to a rewritable DVD-R.

HRH

Heaven, send me a stylist

There comes a time when a girl has to ask herself serious, life-affecting questions. Probing questions that reach down to the core of my being and expose the deepest, darkest, queries of my soul. Indeed, the time as come where I have to ask myself if it's time to cut my hair.

Inspired by watching "The Search for the Next Doll" and spending a lot of time in dance class tossing my hair about, I was going to try to keep my hair really long. Sure it annoys the heck out of me, especially when I wake up in the middle of the night almost choking from having it twisted around my neck, but there's also something delightfully girly and empowering about having it long and wild. I don't think a mighty gust of wind would be nearly as fun without it. Also, I was hoping to have it really long for Tash & Chris' wedding in September as a kind of insurance in case my back exercises don't pay off like I'm hoping they will.

Thing is, it's April, five months away from their wedding. A no doubt oppressively hot summer is knocking down the door and keeping it from looking like a flat, mangy mess is becoming increasingly labour intensive. It's like I passed the threshold where I got get great hair with modest effort and now it's all work with minimal reward. Unless someone has decided to add an extra hour into the day what I can fill with blow-outs and rollers, there's no way I have the time to put in the work required. It's just too long, too heavy and volume-less.

As much as I'm grousing, I know as soon as I cut it off I'm going to regret it, so I'm not sure what to do. The scary thing for me is that I'm not hugely motivated to do anything about it. I stood in front of the mirror today and thought about ways I could hide my hair in a bun for weeks on end. It's like there are more important things in my life than my hair.

Seriously, what's happening to me if I don't have my vanity.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Makes Me Wonder" by Maroon 5

HRH

Wah, wah, wah

Stupid hormones. Stupid, stupid hormones. You would think that being able to identify that it is my monthly peak of hormones causing me anger in the blood that it would have some kind of efficacy in actually reducing my levels of grrr. You'd think. You'd be wrong.

I can't seem to decide if my loathing will be directed internally or externally this month. I've seen indications that it could really go either way.

I nearly vowed not to have children today, just to spite someone who was being all self-righteous about being a parent and "oh won't I see one day." It got my back up mightily quick. It's never good when someone triggers the spite reflex in me. It's powerful and scary. I lost 40 pounds fueled on spite remember.

Later in the day, as I was trying to figure out what I was going to wear to a wedding this weekend, all the grrr turned inwards. It truly is a shame that I can't find some way to translate the speed and efficiency with which I dissect and attack myself into something beneficial and potentially lucrative. I'm so very good at this that it seems to be wasted just using the hate to knock down my own self-esteem. Surely it can be used for good somehow?

The internal hate process starts with not knowing what to wear for a late winter/early spring wedding, moves on to me trying on all the dresses I have, almost none of them work. I then don't have the right shoes to wear with the one or two that might be passable and since it takes me four months to find a pair of shoes in my gargantuan size, it's unlikely that there is hope for Saturday. I HAD the right shoes at one time, but they were destroyed by my trying to dismantle a table in three-inch heels and a suit. I freaking LOVED those shoes.

Then the hate-on starts. I'm stupid for not having the right clothes and even more stupid for having worn/purchased the presently useless dresses that currently live in my closet. If I was smart, I would have bought the right one. There's going to come a point where it's going to be painfully obvious that I keep wearing the same dress to every function I go to. I guess we'll know it's 2006/7 by the fact that I look exactly the same in every photo.

I'm also super-stupid for breaking down a table dressed like I was.

I have pontoons for feet and I suck because I can't find shoes and am foolish for thinking I can find cute shoes in my size at a price I can afford. I'm even more of an idiot for blogging about this because I'm just drawing attention to the dress dilemma (and yes, I know that everyone will be looking at someone else's dress that day, as they should, but that doesn't excuse me showing up to an event like this looking like a hobo). If I can't find something right to wear, why don't I at least have a dress that matches the colour of most walls so I can blend into the background. While we're at it, let's toss in some cruel self-judgments about my body, cause old habits die hard.

And then the anger. There are so many more important things in this world than what freaking dress I'm wearing, but I can't, for the life of me, stop fretting and obsessing about it. We're heading to an exciting, deeper level now, because I'm flawed and wrong for letting something like this upset me as much as it does. And at least we have synergy, feeling ugly on the inside and the outside.

All this for a self-righteous comment and a fashion obstacle. Sheesh. Someone give me a slice of cheesecake, a bag of chips and wake me up in a few days when this crap has passed.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Volcano Girls" by Veruca Salt

HRH