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

Of mice and superwomen

I read Kari's post today and realized that we had a mouse again last week and I didn't tell you about it. A mouse. Sorry. I need a moment to calm myself.

...
...
...

I'll admit I'm not great with some of my fears. I had a stint where I couldn't even think about graveyards, there was the whole clown thing, dogs, polyester... I have a few things I've feared in my days. But I've overcome them. Now I'm a pretty level headed individual fear-wise. I'm the spider killer in the house. I investigate when things go bump in the night, maybe because I'm more curious than sensible.

There is one thing though, that makes me silly with fear. That makes me jump and scream like a helpless damsel in distress. Yes. The much dreaded mouse. Mus musculus as it is known in Latin. Like seriously, just looking at the mouse on that wiki page made me shiver.

And then I have flashbacks to the moving experience when I moved back from Prague, in a storage locker in Kingston, preparing all the things I'd stored for three years for the move to Toronto. The wonderful experience of being reunited with your things for three years, until the moment where you're looking through your old stuffed animals, and you have a deep, deep affection for said stuffed animals, and all of a sudden a mouse jumps our of the stomach of one of your white bears. And you're all alone in a storage locker complex and there is no one to hear you scream.

Anyway, now we live in a really old house and tenants on the lower floors have seen and killed many of them, but Zeus has generally done his job as a mouser and we haven't had to deal with them, except for these two times.

The first was in October when I was about to bake some cookies and went for my white flour in the cupboard only to find that it was almost completely eaten. As I stood in the kitchen staring at the now empty bag in disbelief, I looked up to the cupboard to find a mouse sitting on top of my baking power, I swallowed my scream and ran into Matej's office. It returned into the hole it came into, I taped up said hole, washed everything serveral times and started storing my flower in Tupperware.

The our landlord brought in an exterminator, so we thought out mouse visits would be over. But Zeus was still on the job. Most nights he starts guarding the closet in the hall. The closet where we use to store the peanuts that M would feed birds with (silly on two levels, storing peanuts in a closet and I'm allergic to them, duh!), where I had discovered all kinds of broken and eaten peanut shells when cleaning. I've never seen a mouse there or been able to find evidence of a hole, but clearly there was evidence that at least one had been chowing down.

This brings us to last week. M and I are nestled into bed, starting to drift off to sleep. We have two sets of pillow on our bed as we use ergonomic ones for sleeping (as it's better for our necks and M likes anything with ergo in it) and leave the regular pillows on the floor. Suddenly Zeus tears into the room and starting clawing, biting and generally kicking the crap out of M's pillow on the floor. This is not normal behaviour for our cat.

We turn on the light and watch him for a moment, occasionally giving each other the "aren't you going to take care of that" look. M pulls Zeus off the pillow and I, with most of the strength of will I have, flip the pillow over. There is nothing there, the mouse isn't under the pillow... no the mouse is now in the pillowcase with the pillow. Of course this has to be confirmed, which takes the rest of my will to do. But I do it, slowly lifting up the end of the pillow case to peer in, pressing down the pillow and finding a little brown ball of terrified terror. I get only a glimpse, as that is all I can handle and report to M that "Yes. Yes there is a mouse in there." and I just stare at the pillow and pillowcase, like if I stop looking at it, the mouse will run out and get me.

At this point it is very clear that I have been as useful as I'm going to be so M takes over. I supply him with work gloves and he goes about removing the pillow from the pillow case and catching the mouse. I hide around the corner while he gives me play by play. He then says "It's really cute, you should come and have a look at it." I opt not to and he proceeds to take it outside to release it.

I'm kind of proud of myself for just washing the pillowcase and not setting it and the pillow on fire after it was all said and done. It's been quiet on the mouse front since, though Zeus still stands guard each night. Of course now I'm pretty sure there's a squirrel stuck in roof. which, oddly enough is less distressing than the mouse.

HRH

Douché Facebook!

So I'm editing my profile on Facebook, keeping things up to date, removing an inside joke religious belief and I see that there's now a field where I can add a former name. This name doesn't show up in my profile, but it adds it to the search, so people who'd been looking for Chelsea Gay, would then be directed to Chelsea Novak. Brilliant.

But hold up. I type in my maiden name, try to save it and I get this message from Facebook:

Our automated system will not approve this name. If you believe this is an error, please contact us.

I'm sorry. You don't will not approve my name? Mocking is one thing, but complete and total invalidation!?!? Maybe it's because it's been 16 months since I changed my name and I've lost all the patience I had to develop over the years, but I am SO angry about this. I just unleashed a string of expletives so long I ran out of breath.

And, oh yes, I contacted them. I may have, in three short paragraphs let loose all the anger I've felt about people mocking, and worse yet, not ACCEPTING my name. Yep. 29 years (and an additional 15 minutes) of rage in three paragraphs. Unfortunately, I didn't copy the complaint I submitted. The gist was that if they were doing what I think they're doing, and that is automatically filtering out the name Gay then they have, as Gawker media puts it so elegantly, out douched themselves. Douché!

I feel the Gawker reference only fitting since they were the first ones to reject my very existence based on my name.

Some searching on Facebook has shown that a lot of other people are getting invalidated as well. And I love that there are other people on Facebook actually named Chelsea Gay. Where does Facebook get off not approving my name? Both first and last names are valid names and I can assure you that for 29 of 31 of my years on this earth, they were a valid name when used in combination. .

I'll be curious to see what kind of response I get back from them and what solutions they offer me. And my response and solutions, I mean dead silence. Jerks.

HRH

The sun may or may not come out tomorrow

According to a media alert I just got in the mail "January 24 is the most depressing day of the year based on a formula developed by a British psychologist."

Gee. Can't wait.

HRH

The Iliotibial Band is playing at my house

Today I was confronted with an important choice. A choice that seriously tests my values. A true form versus function kind of deal. Because my chronic knee problems went from manageable to consistently gasp-inducing and mobility-impairing, I have returned to the kindly people who took my damaged back and made it all better to see if they can work some of their mojo on my loathed lower joints.

The absolutely wonderful news is that they can fix me. I just have to actually do what that trainer told me to do and teach my legs to work in a new and exciting way. An efficient one. I could go into the multi-factorial explanation of what's going on, excite you all with the mess I've gotten into with a tight sacroiliac (which I've learned is, like, a million times better than a loose one, though I really need to learn to let mine slide), bum muscles that wouldn't know how to fire even if they were given first chair on the firing squad, my new worst enemy and best friend the iliotibial tract (which apparently should slide over the quadriceps, but mine is actually stuck in some places, ew) and my quadriceps, which think that nothing can happen in my body without them flexing, which wouldn't be so bad if they would only do it in unison. Yes, if they did that, then my knees would actually slide into the track they're supposed to go on. That'd be keen and there'd be less swelling as a result I'll bet you.

A nice mess I am. But a mess that can be fixed through some hard work and, sadly, some sacrifice. It was more than gently suggested to me that my prognosis and long-term mobility would be dramatically improved if I stopped wearing high heels. I feel I must point out that I went to this physiotherapy appointment today wearing black, knee-high, three-inch, stiletto boots. Really, really pretty ones. Pretty ones I may not wear again.

I know, I know that high heels put so much pressure on my knees. They're also terrible for my hips and general posture. I know. I know. But my god I look fantastic in them. I have always been proud of the fact that I have worn high heels in spite of the fact that I'm tall. Clearly empowerment has it's costs.

I'll try not to whine about this too much and just get it out of my system now. Healthy joints are much more important than cute shoes. Even I know that it's a no brainer. I just don't need shopping for shoes to suck more. Not only do I have to find a size 11, but now it has to be of a sensible height. I don't know if anyone with normal sized feet can understand how hard it is to meet those criteria and actually wear a shoe that is attractive as well. *sniff*

Pity party over, it's a change I will make. I will do whatever I need to do to stay limber and mobile. I want to be able to run, jump and dance for as long as I can. Cute shoes just don't compare to how good those things make me feel. A least I can wear sneakers for hip hop.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Wake up call" by Maroon 5

HRH

My phone bill doesn't look so bad now

This is not the usual content of my blog, but Dave S is a friend from the message board I'm a mod on, so I'm throwing his note up on my blog to help him out. Holy crap is all I can say.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/07/31/att_iphone_intl_roam.html

I have a caveat emptor to top them all.

I purchased an iPhone on opening day to use in lieu of a cumbersome laptop while traveling in Ireland and England for two weeks in early July. AT&T promises "easy, affordable, and convenient plans" in their advertising... turns out I got two out of three.

On the way to the airport, I activated the per-use international roaming data plan - the only one offered to me. The rep quoted me $.005 per KB but did not disclose what that would translate to in layman's language (i.e., X amount per e-mail, X amount per web page, etc.). I'm a web developer as part of my career and I couldn't even tell you how many KB the average web page is, no less a text message to my son, an e-mail with a photo to my mother, or a quick check of Google Maps. That's part one of the trap. However, I now pay $40 per month for unlimited data usage on the iPhone, so really -- how much could it be? $100 at the most, right?

Keep reading.

As we know, the iPhone can't be unlocked to use a European provider's SIM card for more reasonable rates while traveling. There's part two of the trap.

To be safe, I went online to My Account at AT&T a couple days into the trip and again a week later and was told "usage data is currently unavailable"... and that's part three. I had no way of knowing specific usage data until I received my bill over the last weekend.

A bill for $3000.

Two weeks of travel with sporadic AT&T EDGE network usage off and on mixed with wifi when available... $3000.

Doing some research, I learned this morning that AT&T offers unlimited international data usage at $70 per month to its Blackberry customers.

Here's my bottom line: I want this same usage plan to be made available to iPhone customers and to be applied retroactively to my account.

Billing phone reps offered me a $400 "courtesy credit" on the $3000 charge if I would agree to sign up for a $300 per year international data plan with a max of 20MB per month. (I'm not planning any international travel for a while anyway, but 20MB would be burned in a day or two of average use - they must be kidding.) I have until August 14th to resolve this or all my family's phones (including my wife's business line) get disconnected. Obviously, there's no way I can pay $3000 for something so egregiously wrong.

I'm sharing this with the media in the hope that the exposure of my story might force AT&T's hand in admitting they have an inadequate solution in place for international iPhone users, that they've discriminated against the iPhone in favor of the Blackberry, that they failed to adequately disclose the exorbitant nature of their rate plan, that they kept me in the dark about my usage specifics until it was too late to modify them, and that by disallowing unlocking to use a European provider's SIM with more reasonable rates, I was trapped without knowing it until that $3000 "gotcha" came knocking at my door.

An update:

Word travels fast over the internet...

AT&T just called and agreed to waive all charges due to the "miscommunication." I think they have a customer for life now!

HRH

Not quite good enough for Napoleon Dynamite

So I'm one of five people on the planet who haven't seen Napoleon Dynamite. I am okay with this. The trailer made me uncomfortable and I am overcome with the desire to hurt the character every time I see him. These things made me think that 120 minutes of him would do really bad things to my blood pressure.

Even though I haven't seen the film, it doesn't mean I haven't seen/heard a lot of the jokes from it. The "Vote for Pedro" T-shirts, the chapstick and, sadly, the dance sequence.

Normally having a dance sequence in a film would make it near and dear to my heart, but this one annoys me. I will try to be fair, though. Napoleon is a doing a pretty good job, and the fact that he learned to dance in two days watching a video and actually won a student body president election with it, well that's very nice for him.

It's just that Canned Heat is big song for me, strange as that is. It became a bit of a personal anthem in my last year of University and I have so many fond memories of dancing to it or listening to it in the car with my friends. I guess the song is era defining for me.

I guess it's not the movie itself that bugs me, but the fact that everyone but me and the four other people who haven't seen it think of Napoleon Dynamite when the song comes on. I think of the awesome final sequence for Center Stage (you can fast-forward to 6:38 to see the relevant portion if the entire ballet doesn't interest you) or of my friends and what dancing to that song meant for us, and in comparison, Napoleon Dynamite seems, I dunnno, unworthy.

I don't know why it took me three years to figure out why it bothered me as much as it did.

HRH

For shame

So with the reintroduction of Graeme into our lives, there has been a dramatic increase in board game play in my life. Whether we are Settling Catan (Oh Klaus Tuber you genius) or additively trading beans (and also wondering why we are playing so many German board games) we've been having a lot of fun.

I love board games. Always have. But I have a problem with competition, so people usually quickly tire of my nature during such events so I don't get to play as much as I'd like. Thankfully M and Graeme are similarly inclined, so my all encompassing desire to win is lost in the overall tone of the game.

Sunday night we decided to go a bit old school and play some Star Wars Trivial Pursuit, aka the game I usually win in one turn. While M's Star Wars knowledge has grown admirably over our years together, he is a no Jedi when it comes to Star Wars related minutiae. He saves that part of his brain for other important things, like correcting my grammar.

Graeme on the other hand, I will admit, may have enough Star Wars knowledge to give me a run for my money. So Sunday night it was on.

Now I will admit there were some questions that I could have gotten, but there were times, when M and Graeme banded together and rejected my answers because they weren't precise enough, while they were not held to as high of a standard of answer. For example, shield wasn't an acceptable answer. I had to tell them what kind of shield it was (deflector shield in case you were wondering).

For most of the game I was winning pretty confidently. The boys were holding their own and getting things right too, but I was winning. Winning so much that I was in the centre of the board, my pewter Princess Leia figure full of victory reflecting pie pieces and I was asked the following question:

"What does Han Solo exclaim after he shoots down the remaining tie fighter during Luke's death star run?"

From the script of Star Wars IV: A New Hope

EXT. SURFACE OF THE DEATH STAR

The three TIE fighters move in on Luke. As Vader's center
fighter unleashes a volley of laserfire, one of the TIE ships
at his side is hit and explodes into flame. The two remaining
ships continue to move in.

INT. LUKE'S X-WING FIGHTER - COCKPIT

Luke looks about, wondering whose laserfire destroyed Vader's
wingman.

INT. DARTH VADER'S COCKPIT

Vader is taken by surprise, and looks out from his cockpit.

VADER
What?

INT. DARTH VADER'S WINGMAN - COCKPIT

Vader's wingman searches around him trying to locate the
unknown attacker.

INT. MILLENNIUM FALCON - COCKPIT

Han and Chewbacca grin from ear to ear.

HAN
(yelling) Yahoo!

Now, in the heat of the moment, I said "Yehaw!", not "Yahoo!" (and if you actually watch the film, it sounds a lot more like "Yehoo!", but whatever) and Graeme and M refused to accept my answer. It's not like I answered "Ye verily I arrive to save the day" or "Fricken A dude!" I just made a slight alteration to the word, something that could even be forgiven by a regional accent. But I was denied. Graeme proceeded to win the game on the next turn.

I still refuse to acknowledge the win. Not to take away from Graeme's accomplishment in answering the questions like he did, but seriously people. This is taking pedantic to a new low.

HRH

And then I threw out my back

Seriously, this freaking sucks.

Just as I was finishing a massive cleaning of the house. Like five hours of worth. I was steps away from being finished, having the rest of my day free to do the shopping, practice my bass and work on my routine for dance class (which I can finally remember) and boom. Out goes the back.

I don't even have words for how annoyed I am.

HRH

Science is hard

Chelsea: Like what's the difference between cell death and cell life relinquishment.
Chelsea: I mean, they're just fucking with me now.
Tash: I forgot about that phrase!!
Chelsea: It means cell death right?
Tash: Well, I'm guessing they mean apoptosis?
Chelsea: Yes.
Chelsea: Isn't that cell death?
Tash: The cell making a decision to die, instead of being killed.
Chelsea: It's STILL DEATH!!!!
Tash: Very, very true.
Tash: But to the people that do the research it's a very important distinction.
Chelsea: Yes, yes I know.
Tash: I heard the disdain in that.

Today's sing-a-long: "She Blinded Me With Science" by Thomas Dolby

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

Smooth move Exlax

I have bad luck with technology and toilets.

Back in Prague, at end the first day of the Heavy Hitters Softball Tournament, when I was the last person to leave, I managed to drop my cell phone in the toilet. I dropped the phone in before anything that you would enter a bathroom to do had begun, so fishing it out was simple. Sadly, I needed that phone in the morning to coordinate the next day of the tournament, but it was so totally not working. So I had 45 minutes before all the stores closed that day to get myself a new phone, which I did, but that sucked, cause phones ain't cheap.

Today I got to relive some of that experience with the on-call pager here at work. Tragically this time, I managed to drop the communications device into the toilet after all business had been done and the flush lever had been pushed down. All I could do was watch in horror as the pager was sucked down into a place where I could not and would not follow.

The question wasn't really about whether I should laugh or cry, but more about just how hard I should laugh about it. I told our admin person who kindly contacted facilities for me, after laughing at me a great deal.

To my surprise, we learned that pagers are dropped down toilets all the time, but people aren't usually as good as we were about reporting it, so when they arrive to fix a broken toilet they sometimes find a pager present. Facilities laughed at me too.

I then had to let communications know that all the on-call pages should be going to my personal pager. I tired to make the arrangements without having to divulge why the change had to be made, but I had to fess up when they asked me why. And then, as predicted, they laughed at me and said "Oh wow, I have to tell everyone about this one."

Facilities was able to fish the pager out of the toilet. Our admin person claims that they had to totally destroy the toilet to get it out, but the toilet is still working and looks unharmed, so I think he's pulling my leg. Deservedly so I think.

Thankfully communications is replacing the pager, but I still feel silly about it all. I guess as technology gets smaller, it gets more likely that at some point, I will drop it in a toilet.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Sugar We're Going Down" by Fallout Boy

HRH

Help me through American Idol

I'm watching the American Idol finale by myself, I need a place to get the myraid of emotions I'm experiencing out, so here we are.

When we lived in Prague we, unfortunately, watched a lot of ridiculously bad Czech variety shows. There were performances by Czech pop stars, celebrity visits and painfully bad skits. I would mercilessly mock these shows when they were on. I could tell, even through my limited Czech, that the humour was lame and every performance was lip synched. And these bad variety shows are not limited to the Czech Republic. Every European nation I have been to has their own version of it. You know it when you see it. A 20-year-old mostly plastic female host and a 60-year-old patriarch male host, lots of sequins and group numbers.

Watching the American Idol finale I am having oh so many bad variety show flashbacks.

I know that it is an inheriently cheese show, but in the last few seasons it has steadily moved from reaily-TV type competition to totally overblown variety show. The stunts and personalities get more wrong with every show, but, at least, the singing (from the contestants) is live. There's something I guess. And here I am still watching.

HRH

Update: Okay Sanjaya and Joe Perry of Aerosmith was really strange (and of course the crying girl), but now Greenday... on American Idol... performing "Working Class Hero"... Say What?

What lies behind closed doors

Every morning when I take the streetcar to work, I pass a series of houses that stress me out. It's a bunch of row houses on College street between Lansdowne and Ossington. These houses are small and not in the best shape, but you can see that the people who live in them do their best to take care of them.

Because I've looked at them almost every day for the past four years or so, I've noticed that most of them have porches that have been closed off and turned into more living space. A totally understandable, albeit kind of ugly, home improvement in that part of town where space is a premium commodity. The thing is, many of these people have filled their covered over porches with crap. Crap that is piled ceiling high. Boxes, cookie tins, exercise equipment... I can only imagine what their closets and the basement might look like if the crap has made it out that far.

Each time I see it, I want to jump off the streetcar, run home and start throwing things out. That's right. Other people's junk makes me want to get rid of my own. I can't very well bust down someone else's front door and make them clean up their act, but I can make sure that I never suffer the same fate.

You see, clutter is like bacteria. Unless you're on your game and you keep fighting the good fight against it, it will consume you and before you know it, you'll be having to cut off a gangrenous limb. Okay, more accurately, you'll find yourself living in a home where most of the good space has been overrun with kitsch and the more of it there is, the more painful and unappealing the clean up process is.

So why does it bother me so much? I like things being neat and tidy, that's the primary reason, but sometimes, the times when I get a little manic about it and it's going to sound crazy and more than a little dark, but I do it because of death.

"The hell?" you all say. Death. When I'm dead and people are going through my things (assuming there are people who are compelled to look), I want them to see that I had my shit together. Yes, I actually think like this. I think that someone is going to notice and reflect on the order that I've filed my books in.

I'll be cleaning or organizing something and if I'm tired and want to stop I will actually say to myself "What will happen if you stop now and you die and the laundry isn't done?" Any sane person would respond with "You're dead! The laundry is irrelevant." Me? All I think is "Oh no. That would be terrible. My loved ones will think about my death and it will always start with 'the laundry wasn't done'..."

All those who think I might want to take my morning tea with a side of SSRI, say "I."

HRH

No, you really can't cut in

Thank goodness for this blog. I swear it is one of the few places on earth where I can communicate without being interrupted by someone else.

I know that time is short. I know that some people just have to say what's on their mind as it occurs to them. I know for some people it just has to be about them all the time. And 363 days of the year, I can cope with it.

It annoys me more than pretty much anything else, but it's part of the territory when you are surrounded by a lot of really smart and exuberant people. I've come to terms with interrupters being the price paid for being around truly interesting minds. I'll even wager, that in the time that I've largely come to terms with interrupters, I've become a bit of one myself.

It's just those few days in the year, when it makes me livid, offended and most significantly, feel invisible. I'm right here. I'm talking right now. It's my turn. I wouldn't be talking if I didn't have something of merit to say. We're all adults. Can it really not wait?

And what to do about it? I could fight to continue what I was saying, but if it was actually that important, people would have been listening to me in the first place. Odds are I'll just do what I always do, keep my mouth shut and maybe write about it all later. Maybe from this point on, I should just communicate electronically.

HRH

Ms Vs. The Black Eyed Peas Vs. Alanis

Way back in 2005 I had a bit of an issue with the song and video for My Humps by The Black Eyed Peas. It was and remains a piece of visual and aural crap.

Perusing through my usual gossip sites I came across a link to a spoof of the song done by none other than Alanis Morissette that I feel I must share with everyone.



I haven't decided if it's better or worse than the original. I've only been able to make it through the whole thing once. I leave it to the masses to decide.

HRH

A rose by any other name

While this past weekend was pretty much a lovely one for me, I have to report on an incident. One that got me so angry that I actually couldn't eat. If you know me, you know it must have been serious.

We had the experience of some rather interesting company at dinner on Saturday. Some of the strangest topic choices I've ever witnessed at a wedding, which through a chain of events I haven't quite put together yet, ended up with an older feminist very openly criticizing me for changing my name when I got married. A woman, who had only known me for two hours.

It genuinely shocks me that this is an issue. I've taken so much flack for changing my name after marriage and I'm baffled by it every time I experience it. I had a colleague shout at me that I was selling out my family, but he gets shout-y about things like lunch, so I didn't take it to heart. Another friend who was recently married has also experienced the name-changing backlash. She had so much of it, that when she told me that she was taking her husband's name, she told me in a whispered confession of guilt.

I may have my history wrong, but I'm pretty sure that those who were advocates for equality for women, were working for a world where women were free to choose to do what they wanted, free to do what was best for them as individuals and to not be forced into a mold set out by a patriarchal society. Isn't forcing women into the same kind of mold (albeit a different shape) just as bad? It is to me.

I did enjoy, as she went off about how I have abandoned my own identity for a man's (with my husband sitting RIGHT beside me), pointing out that had I married I woman I would have also changed my name. And it's not because I don't love my own family, I just feel, that for me, its important that I have the same last name as my spouse. My name is an identifier, not my identity. Sure, if it really mattered to me I could (in theory) push for my spouse adopting my last name. In practice, I don't think anyone had any illusions about which name we'd be taking.

Does it bother or offend me if other women keep their names or hyphenate? I honestly could care less. All that matters to me is that they have chosen to do what they want to do. I applaud their choice, whatever it may be. I'd like to think that people are pleased for me in that I have made a choice that I am happy with.

I can't even begin to understand the rationale behind the treatment I got, but I think I'll just mark it down as some people are just argumentative jackasses and drink too much wine sometimes.

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

The perils of goal setting

Once again my enthusiasm for achievement has bit me in the ass. Okay, not in the ass exactly, but more the arm and the wrist. It was kind of like a double biting snake attack, but a metaphor.

I started out the week with my grand plan to be able to lift cement trucks and jump buildings in a single bound by September. Here we are on Friday and my left wrist is in a tensor bandage and it's still hurting me to lift my arms above my head. Not that I'm letting that slow me down. Two days of cardio and weights, one day of dance, one day of rest. Maybe I will let reason prevail and not work out tonight.

One day they will invent endorphins that make you feel good while exercising, but not invincible.

HRH

For whom the chime tolls

When you live in a large metropolitan city like Toronto your concept of personal space changes. Things like front lawns and spaces between houses just don't exist. There is no such thing as quiet, unless something terrible is afoot. It's noisy, but you get used to it.

The sound of cars driving by the house helps to wake me up on weekdays. The sound of jets making their final approach to Pearson helps lull me to sleep at night as I watch them cross the sky. Sometimes I can even hear the wheels on the Queen streetcar as it makes its way west and that makes me remember the trams in Prague. For someone who grew up with the sounds of wind and waves at night, I think I've adjusted well to sounds of city life.

Except for one thing.

We live in an old neighbourhood and the houses are closely tucked together. One of the houses across the street has put up a set of wind chimes. I can only assume that their bedroom is at the back of the house, because these chimes make the most annoying "tink" noise. I can confirm that it's nearly impossible to get a good night's sleep when those things are moving. They drive me crazy.

As such, I'm not sure what to do about them. The weather is going to get warm soon, and the windows will be open wide again. I think my head will actually blow clear off my body with rage if I have to hear those things much longer. But what to do?

I've thought about writing them a letter, explaining that the noise that the chimes make at night keep me and my husband awake. I don't want to rain on their parade. I imagine they put them up because they like them and I know that as soon as they get that letter, I will become that whiny bitch across the street who made them take down their wind chimes. And I don't really want to be that. I already don't fit in our area, as it's full of pinko hippies. (I'm kidding. It's only partly full of pinko hippies).

So the letter option doesn't seem to be good. I don't actually know the people who live in that house, so I can't just run into them in the street and say "Hey, about your wind chime." And I know if I do that it's going to be a situation where the wind chime was made by a one handed Peruvian orphan, and again, aren't I a whiny bitch for asking them to take it down.

This leaves me with two options. One I can, in the middle of the night, creep over to the house and liberate the wind chimes. I'd rather not engage in petty theft, because I very much respect the property of others, as I would hope they would respect mine. The other option involves less theft, but it still is a slight dis to property rights.

I'm thinking of creating chime socks. Little covers that I could sneak over and slide over the chimes. It wouldn't damage the chimes, it wouldn't involve stealing the chimes, most importantly it would silence the chimes and when the people woke up in the morning, they would get the no-so-subtle hint that they are making an annoying racket from an anonymous source.

Brilliant, no?

Today's sing-a-long song: "Wind chimes" by The Beach Boys

Que?

I have to make an apology for my blog. Sometimes it's here, sometimes it isn't and I have no idea why. Other blogs on this same server still live. Other blogs on blogger still live. Frankly things are so busy right now that I can't spare the time to really sort it out.

I can only hope that when and if you stop by to read my musings that the technology, that I wish I understood better, is doing what I need it to do. Otherwise, you can mourn my blog's absence, as I know you will.

HRH

Emotional two-step

It appears that I am largely recovered from The Bug. I thought it was only going to last 24 hours, but here we are on Sunday and the stomach cramping has just recently left me. It's a real shame, cause I wast just starting to feel emotionally better this week. I was working out, being nice to others, being nice to me. I guess the isolation I've gotten from being home sick just put me back in that isolated comfort zone that comes with the blues.

But I did do well today. I went out and met up with Julie for tea after a good month and a half without having time to get together. It's strange. Once I finally get to be around other people I'm actually quite normal and okay. It's just the getting there that gives me the shallow breathing.

Tomorrow is the "okay I've felt like this for more than a month" deadline. I've been told that it's a good thing that I'm setting deadlines like that. So yay for me. Even better would have been determining that hitting this deadline would imply a a specific course of action. I suppose I didn't get that far in my planning. Oops.

HRH

Have you ever stopped and wonder what it is you're searching for?

Here we are at the end of the day, which has been more of an emotional roller coaster than I am cool with. The best part is, I can't, for the life of me, figure out WHY I'm on the up and down.

I've dealt with depression before in my life, gotten the therapy, intropected until I, the most self-absorbed person I know, actually got sick of myself, I've done it. I know the steps I'm supposed to take, the questions to ask, the warning signs to heed. I mean, being depressed young and working my way through it so that I'm equipped to deal with it later in life was one of the things I told myself to feel better about being so damn sad back then.

But this is different. Back then there were reasons to be sad. The fear of failure, loneliness, insecurity about my intelligence and my appearance, the shock of learning how to take care of myself, finding the skeletons in the closet and kicking their asses like a gang-banger on a vengeance beatdown... I could go on. In retrospect it all seems kind of trivial, but I can only say that because I got over it. Now I just can't find an actual reason for why I feel low.

I guess it could actually be SAD and I know that it's real and it can be horrible to deal with, but I suppose it still astounds me that I could feel like such crap because I don't really ever get out in/or see the sun. Chris B suggested today that with losing the weight two years ago and the wedding last year I'm all out of things to obsess and excel at. I think there's a lot to that. And yes I know I have my job, which is engaging and really busy. It's just not enough to occupy my brain on its own.

I dunno. It's all so weird. I have so much love in my life as evidenced by M and all my friends and family that have given me a nudge in the last few weeks to see if I'm holding together okay. I have a career that I enjoy and I think I'm doing well at. I love my home, my cat, my friends and family, my plans for the future. Things are really quite great in my life, but I'll have a day like yesterday where I burst into tears because I feel like a loser for not wanting to deal with the cars in the driveway and decide not to go out to run the errands I'd planned on. I stayed in all day yesterday and hid. I have days where I don't want to go out all the time, but for some reason knowing that I was hiding instead of being lazy made me feel like I'd done the wrong thing.

It's all so cliche. I have a day like today where I felt sad in a way that made my chest hurt, but then I have moments like when I'm running on the treadmill where I'm smiling and almost laughing thinking of something I saw on YouTube. Demento.

It's evidence that things really aren't so bad. I'm still functioning and thriving. I suppose I may just be out of practice with this emotional thing.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Am I The Same Girl" by Swing Out Sister

I have found my people

See!!! It's not just me. And there are people out there who hate it even more than I do!!!!

I Hate Cilantro!

HRH

Mental mash-up

I'm not sure what's up with my head these days. Chose your instability factor, insomnia, boredom, SAD, PMS, general neuroticism, and I think it's factoring into my mental processing these days. The only way to stave off the ill effects is denial through entertainment. Just stick my head in the ground (and by sticking my head in the ground I mean sitting my ass on the couch, cuddling up with M and watching TV, so I guess that would have been a better metaphor, but it's too late for that now, isn't it) and hope that the malaise passes on by like a storm cloud.

The medicine I'm using this time around is the first season DVD of "Animaniacs" (given to me for Christmas by Mike (W00t!), the first season DVD of Robot Chicken (lent to me by Jenn (back on the blog again!) and the sixth season of "24." Always take your crazy with a side of violence.

On Sunday I was down. Down right in the dumps and M had left me in the living room while he made some bacon and eggs. In his absence, and sick of my wallowing in abstract sadness, I put on the animaniacs. Like a morphine drip I was laughing and singing along with the show. ("I take umbrage at that!" "Sure, take all the umbrage.") The good feelings lasted well over two hours and gave me strength enough to start reorganizing the art on the walls of our place.

That was until around 7 p.m. Then the sadness was back. But good news! "24" was on at eight. Happiness again! Absurd plot lines, violence and tolerance to pain again! The show is so over the top it's fantastic and I simply must know who thought of the idea of biting a man to death. Like seriously, where does that idea come from?

You know what, don't answer that.

Lastly, my saving grace is Robot Chicken. I'm just starting into the DVD and it's great. While I was starting in, John R sent me a YouTube link to something from the second season that almost made me shoot my drink out of my nose.

Never underestimate the healing power of laughter.

HRH

A remedy in excess

I can make all kinds of excuses, but it doesn't change the fact that today I did a very scary and bad thing. A thing that could be the first nudge in the downward spiral into the bad parts of the status quo.

M's birthday party was a great success last night. I got four %100 performances at the karaoke bar (w00t!). There was much merriment and even though I thought I wasn't going to drink, I ended up drinking and getting a pounding hangover for my efforts. M was far worse for wear and there was food shopping to be done, so I got my ass in gear and made my way to Loblaws.

I discovered that shopping hungover is second only to shopping hungry when it comes to making choices about buying food. I suppose my rationale was "I'd rather get it now so that I can stay home for the rest of eternity and get better instead of having to ever shop again." It was a shopping trip of epic proportions.

On the way home, I decided that only grease would be the remedy that I needed. My typical hangover remedy is either A&W fries and chocolate milk or McDonalds chicken McNuggets and a chocolate milkshake. I still don't know Toronto like I should I had I no idea where I could find any of that food available in drive through. I can handle parking in Toronto most days, but hangover days, there's just no way.

I know where there's a Harvey's so I called M, got his order, and started driving down to the Queensway to get a burger and poutine. Lo and behold on my way down Islington I see a MacDonalds on my right. It took me maybe three nanoseconds to make the choice to turn in and appease my aching head.

You would think that I would just get my order and make my way to Harvey's to get M's, but no. I ate my McNuggets and drank my milkshake on the drive to and in the drive through line-up at Harvey's. And then proceeded to order the poutine for myself anyway.

I've had days of gluttony before. But I think that I did it all without actually standing up in any way is what troubled me the most.

And of course, I still have a pounding hangover.

Today's sing-a-long song: "The Remedy" by Jason Mraz

HRH

In search of holiday spirit

It's hard to pin down why, but I'm not feeling the holidays this year. Things started off well enough. I got the tree up, marveled at it's beauty, got the cards sent, completed all the shopping, played my holiday CDs ad nasueum, enjoyed a cup or two of coco, I even have dough waiting for me in the fridge to be transformed into sugar cookies, but I'm not feeling the usual excitement.

I know some of it is due to the green holiday we're experiencing. The snow seems to be an important player in creating holiday magic for me. Also all continual debate about Christmas trees in public places has been a real enthusiasm killer. It's not a problem I can fix, it's also not a problem I completely get. Trees are pretty. Yay.

I suppose, to be fair, one should be religious to truly have rights to weigh in on the issue. Christmas has pretty much zip to do with Christ for me. Perhaps because of that I should just let go of celebrating it. I don't know. It seems to me that the holiday has shifted from it's traditional celebration of the wee infant Jesus to a family celebration of gift giving. It just happens to fall on the same day as when Christian's celebrate the birth of their lord and saviour. (An interesting reversal of how the Christians subsumed the pagan holidays that traditionally happened around the winter solstice).

What I love about Christmas is all the lights. How we respond to the growing darkness by covering our homes and buildings with beautiful colours. Winter is really dreary and holiday decorations help in concealing that for a little while as we ease into the cold. When I see a Christmas tree I think "ooh that's pretty!" not "Go Christianity!" The occasion has evolved way beyond that for me.

Anyway, I digress. This year Christmas seems to be depressing me. As it gets closer each day I feel lower and lower. In a lot of ways, it feels like it's already over and I don't entirely understand why.

But I don't want to bring other people down around the holidays, so this will be the last I speak of it. More often that not, you can brighten your mood just by acting like you really feel that way. If I keep smiling on the outside, the inside should catch up in good time.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Have yourself a merry little Christmas" as performed by Crystal Gale on the Sesame Street Christmas special way back in the '80s

HRH

The dumbest show on TV

So last weekend M and I were enjoying the hospitality of my parents and enjoying their various satellite television systems. They have an American feed, so I enjoy watching TV there as it feels kind of like going on vacation without leaving your chair.

Last Saturday, we were perusing the stations on DirectTV. We love music videos so we try to see what's happening on MTV proper and all of its spawn. Sadly there are very few actual music videos on the music stations these days. There's an MTV competitor called Fuse that I've, on occasion, enjoyed watching, cause they'd play videos from time to time and play more rock than R&B. Yay for Fuse. So I head to Fuse in the guide and see a show called, and I'm not joking when I tell you this, "Pants-off, Dance-off"

With a title like that I just had to see what the heck this show was.

What was it? Basically seemingly normal people apply to come onto the show and strip down to their underpants in front of a screen playing a music video of their choice. Viewers then spend the next week voting who was best and they become the champ. They get fame and some cash so they can actually have a monetary value for their pride. Thing is, it's not all young, attractive people that typically people would want to see strip down to their skin. No, it's the young, the old, the fat, the thin... Nature's diversity in all her glory.

We managed to make it through one dancer performing to Robbie Williams' "Rock DJ" (who, upon further research is actually the "Pants-off, Dance-off" all time champ "Masta Wong", oh dear). I have to admit that I hid my face in my hands a couple of times like I was watching a horror film. It was, fantastically dumb, but it wasn't the dumbness that made me scream and change the channel. No, it was the fact that the next dancer was an old man dancing to The Cure's "Friday I'm in Love." There was no possible way for my brain to process it so it had to go away. Far away.

"Pants-off, Dance-off" was pretty surreal. What put it in the "oh my god the world's gone insane" category for me was that the whole thing appears to be hosted by Jodie Sweetin. You know her, the middle child from Full House that recently returned to semi-fame for getting over a nasty meth addiction. Hosting TV's dumbest show is now her gig and I wasted seven minutes of my life watching it. How rude.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Celebrity Skin" by Hole

HRH

A new definition for child abuse

So M and I are watching the Home Run Derby for the All-Star game (proving that we will watch any sport on TV) and a baseball player is sitting in with the commentators offering erudite perspectives on the art of the home run. This is nothing strange, though the nicknames they all use for eachother sure are. This baseball player, no doubt reinforcing the marketing message that baseball is a family game, has his exceptionally well behaved infant daughter on his lap. She's cute. Very cute. She's somewhere between 6 and 10 months. And how do I know that she is, in fact, a she?

It's true that it can be hard to tell the gender of a baby just by looking at its face. I suppose that's why colour coding them in pink and blue saves everyone potential embarrassment. "Oh what a cute little boy! I mean girl!" Anyway, she's wearing a very cute little red dress and using a dash of deductive reasoning (this is baseball and it's still a "man's" sport, the baby would have been decked out in an infant baseball uniform had it been a boy) I know she's a girl.

But apparently that's not enough clues. Maybe I'm smarter than your average bear. So just in case someone doesn't get that this baby girl is, in fact, a baby girl, someone (I can only assume this child's mother) did the unthinkable. She put one of those ridiculous headbands on her.

You know the ones I'm talking about. All lacy and frilly, usually with a bow or flower that almost rivals the size of the infant's actual head. It just screams to me "I know my baby doesn't have enough hair for everyone to be positive she's a girl, so I'm going to put a headband with a satin flower bigger than the moon on her head just to be safe. Okay!"

I'm positive there are people out there who think the baby-girl headband is the most adorable thing in the world. I think it is cruel and unusual. It also looks terribble. I suspect that the headband loving crowd are the same people who have, and enjoy, wedding videos. Someone has to like these things because they keep getting made.

What people do as adults, it's really their own business and if it makes them happy, all good. But to inflict such a horrible thing upon an otherwise innocent and pure being... A darling baby girl. Oh the humanity. Quelle horreur!

HRH

Pick up the rock and the bugs come out

With the two month mark not far away it has come time for me to, once again, dive into the scary world of wedding supply company Web sites. I've been really lucky so far in that a lot of my contacts for products and services have come to me by word-of-mouth, so I haven't had to subject my eyes to all this terrible Web design to find the things that I need.

What alarms me more than the bad vendor sites that I've come across in my plunge into the wedding Web are the individual wedding preparation sites. I must be working on a different wavelength then the rest of the world. I thought that mentioning the wedding more than once a week on my blog was being way too blaby about the whole thing. Turns out there are people out there with 20 page Web sites dedicated to their wedding planning, with links and plugs for vendors, quizzes about how well people know the bride and groom (what is Cyndy's favourite colour?) and a schedule for the wedding weekend (just in case anyone with access to the Internet wants to crash).

Yes, I made a Web site to accompany our invitation. A mind boggling three page site with info on directions and accommodations. I thought it was maybe a little much... Clearly not. I had no idea what insane proportions I could blow this whole thing into.

Then I discovered a bunch of online bridal forums and I walked through a door into a world of bridal insanity. Some of them were full of honest and earnest questions about weddings (my favourite forum topic so far "Chocolate fountain - Should I?"), some comforting universalities (like how it's a frustrating and confidence shaking experience for everyone who is waiting for RSVPs to come back, *ahem*)and many useful tidbits of information (though the section on flowers almost made my brain explode - why can I only be sure of what I don't want!). However, there were a lot of photos that involved dry ice. Dry ice!!!

And then I got to the dress section of the forum and saw the worst thing yet... A girl who had purchased the same dress as I have for her wedding in April... And it did not look like I think it looks in my head. Eeek! Just when I thought I'd gotten over all my dress-stress I see this! Gah! A week before the first fitting too! Maybe it didn't fit her like it fits me, but man, it sucks to see stuff like that.

From this point on, I do my looking for wedding related products in person.

HRH

A near-life experience?

Last night I came a lot closer than anyone should to an 18-wheeler while driving home. I can make all kinds of excuses about being overtired or too cavalier with my Gardinder Expressway on-ramps, but the bottom line is that I was dumb about it and I nearly got M and I killed. A collision was avoided (not because I did the right thing and accelerated, but did the panic thing and hit the brakes and just got lucky) and no one was hurt, but I'd be a liar if I didn't confess that I'm a little shaken.

I feel strange today. I feel really fortunate that it turned out the way it did and at the same time I'm berating myself for being careless in the way that only a person who was lucky enough to avoid the accident can. I'm not traumatized and I'll be fine behind the wheel again, but I did wear my Birkenstocks to work today, because life is too short to wear uncomfortable shoes every day.

And maybe my experience wasn't a dire enough brush with death, but Tyler Durden totally lied. Breakfast the day after you face the idea of your own mortality and escape is not the best breakfast you've ever had.

HRH

A shameless co-opt

I have to get this off my mind. Every time I see the latest Rickard's Red commercial I feel a level of contempt and horror I haven't felt since the Dairy Producers of Canada slaughtered Beethoven's ninth to get people excited about milk. I know it's all perfectly legal, but every fiber in my being rails against this commercial for how wrong it is. I wish I could find a version of it online so you could see it. It was bad enough when they used Carl Orff's O Fortuna Carmina Burana, to sing about how wonderful their beer is, but now, now they have gone too far for me to be silent.

Pause for a moment and listen to this. This is the Dies Irae from Mozart's Requiem in D minor, one of the the more famous sequences in the Mass for the Dead. The requiem is considered by many to be Mozart's superlative work, which is quite a thing to say as very little of what he created was less than gorgeous.

Even though I am not a believer, the requiem is one of my favourite pieces of art. A requiem is a prayer for the salvation of the souls of the dead, commonly used at funerals and memorials. So those who are using it to pray for the souls of their departed loved ones may have a different kind of connection to it. Me, I think it's exceptionally beautiful and emotive and as such I hold in very high regard.

Now I don't want to say that art and advertising can't intermingle. They can, but it has to be done right. Ads can be art and sometimes art can be co-opted in a tasteful manner to sell something, even exposing people to music they'd never heard before and exposing an artist to an entirely new audience. I think that can be amazing when it works. Rickard's Red does not have the right product or the right brand status to be co-opting the Mozart's Mass for the Dead. I couldn't give you an example of who does because it would have to be the most valuable, beautiful and amazing thing ever made.

Personally I feel that the art co-opted should reflect the quality of the brand that chooses it and it should never sully the original in the process. Art should be used to enhance, not to defame.

When they change the lyrics of the Dies Irae from the original Latin to the basic descriptions of beer that could have been written by a seven-year-old, for me it's the equivalent of breaking into my home and painting over my print of Nuit Etoilee to make it look like Dogs Playing Poker.

And it's too bad, because there are elements of the commercial that are pretty amusing. The storm, the wind and the rain engulfing the bar, meshing with the drama of the music and the looks on the faces of all the actors. There's something good there that was executed the wrong way.

Every time I see it, the music snob that I am dies a little on the inside. Kind of like the time when I was working at the music store and a woman came in demanding the "Drink milk, love life" song. Which is a co-opting of the Ode to Joy from the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Usually when people came in looking for the song I would point them to Beethoven and send them merrily on their way. But this woman wanted the actual "Drink milk, love life" jingle! OH. MY. GOD.

I understand why advertisers choose classical music. People recognize the melodies, the music isn't copyrighted so it's free to use and in many cases, it's amazing music that really connects with people. But it a sad, sad day for culture and art when it's not done right. Boo to you Rickard's Red and your parent brewery Molson. Nothing goes unpunished.

HRH

What we have here is a failure to communicate

I was spoiled in a variety of ways growing up the way I did. One of these ways was in having the doctor that I had in Kingston. From birth to 26 I had the same GP. He was a doctor and a scientist, exceptionally patient and would always be sure to explain everything going on as well as answer any question you had. This man's bedside manner was awesome.

And frankly, if it made any kind of sense I would prefer to see him than the doctors I have here in Toronto, but it really makes no sense to travel 3 hours to see your physician when you live in Canada's most populous city.

So I'm here. And there are plenty of good doctors, so how did I end up in a situation yesterday where, despite insistent questioning, I could not get a straight answer out of my endocrinologist about what my next set of tests means for me. It was such a frustrating situation. I mean, this man has been doing this for what appears to be most of the 20th century, so it's not like he wouldn't know how to describe what's going on? Why all the mystery and dismissive answers? Sure, what's going on may be totally normal, typical and something you've seen a million times in terms of the spectrum of thyroid issues, but it's pretty darn new and important to me.

So when I ask "Is this normal? What does this mean?" don't give me the "well, none of this is normal." and then leave it at that. Are you trying to make me go crazy with concern and doubt? Why not explain the progression of the condition, explain that what you're doing it totally routine, explain what the rest of the process is going to be. Instead of being Capitan Mysterious and getting me upset and concerned for no reason.

And thank goodness that my mother is the medical encycolpaedia that she is (and just awesome Mom-wise). Within 10 minutes of being out of the doctor's office I was on the phone to her getting an actual explanation of what's going on with me and what the next tests mean.

And what do they mean? That it's all part of the process. That they're still sorting out the right dosag