dear brock lesnar:
i am dead happy that you've got the cray-cray. i like it! however, i lost out on the $150 office fight night pool because i thought you'd go for five rounds. please consider this next time.
also, please note that the bar was split on you vs mir, while we were unanimous in our unconditional love for georges. this is most likely because of his short shorts. clearly you're not interested in wooing the audience, but should you change your mind and wish to be objectified by a toronto bar 2/3 full of sparkly-skull-shirted jerks, short shorts.
mazel tov,
n stink
spent the day at the library, studying for my macroeconomics midterm on monday and criminology on tuesday. spent the night with becky, tim, adam and tim's brother at a bar on college. college street is pretty much the worst place in the world, style-wise, on a saturday night.
the sun continues to mismatch headlines with front page photos, furthering their daily mission to misinform and frighten torontonians.
went to dinner and a movie with ms bev last night. we ate at oja and watched little ashes. it was a fairly decent and heart-touching movie; not enough nudity, though. biked home and discovered, while trying to buy groceries, that i had left my wallet in the theatre. my panic was entirely based around trying to go to the hospital without my health card. i phoned the carleton and had a pleasant chat with a very relaxed guy; somebody had turned in my wallet and they're holding it for me until this afternoon. okay!
also, in stink city news, on sunday the san francisco chronicle released travel warnings against honduras, mexico, libya and toronto.
honduras had a military coup last week, plus dramz when the president tried to call that off yesterday by flying back into the country. military coups are bad for tourism.
libya has an outbreak of the bubonic plague. old timey plagues are bad for tourism.
mexico has 20 times more cases of dengue fever than last year, and folks still seem to be stressed about swine flu. new fangled outbreaks of plagues are bad for tourism.
toronto has a stink problem from the garbage strike, but i promise it's not so bad near trinity-bellwoods (our neighbourhood park hasn't been repurposed as an emergency dump yet), so don't stop visiting our city please.
let's be real. if our stink problem is being compared in the same league as the bubonic plague, our city and the union best get negotiating.
so i went to the hospital for 8:30am. the nurse and i had a good time chatting about this and that; the anaesthesiologist never showed up so i made another appointment for monday. turns out i'll be staying overnight - hospital party at toronto western, july 21, MARK YOUR CALENDARS IN PEN. highlights included being asked if i had any expectations. like what? like how i expect to not have to stay overnight after all because i will recover megaquickly through sheer force of will? turns out this was a poorly worded question from a booklet of more typical questions (health history, medication history, etc) that was supposed to make me feel comfortable enough to say 'i expect to get vegan food while i stay in the hospital'. who expects that to be the answer?
then i went to school and watched quiet rage, which i'd already seen back in glendon in my prisoner's studies class, but it's worth watching again in order to pick up on new points to criticise. it was interesting to see the parallels between the expected behaviours for prisoners and those of patients - and not just the lack of privacy (with staff bursting in whenever they see fit) and strange, unhelpful, absolutist policies. the expectation is that patients should give consent to abide by the hospital staff's decisions/timelines/advice once the patient enters the hospital. folks had seemed surprised and resistant to my decision to leave earlier this morning when the anaesthesiologist was late, and i had to fake a cheerful attitude of authority in order to zoom out of that place with a new appointment, instead of staying around as the receptionist insisted. i'll study up before monday on how best to express quiet dignity, as apparently guards respect those inmates and treat them respectfully in return.
and now i'm back to working hard on the taxpayers' behalf. the end.
so i was busy busy this weekend, travelling across area codes, wearing pretty dresses, eating delicious foods (this includes adam t's homemade pesto gnocci and bruschetta), etc. busy! plus, i had school work, including my sections of a group project for tomorrow morning's class, although the members of my group had decided to set an internal deadline of last night to review each other's work before handing it in. so, when i got a phone call at 10pm last night from some guy to tell me that he hadn't written his section yet, i wasn't impressed. guy tried to claim that we could probably get an extension because he has learning disabilities, but i told him to button it. you know and i know that i love accessibility - i want everyone to succeed! however, i cannot stand irresponsibility; phoning me up after the deadline to say that you haven't started your work yet seems more a result of lazyitis or acute partiedout syndrome.
part of why i'm annoyed is because i put so much pressure on myself not to let being a sick person become my identity or excuse. i joke around about getting out of everything thanks to lupus, but aside than leaving most events early because i get tired so quickly, i don't think i really have much of a different life than most of you. i'm going to the hospital tomorrow morning for my pre-surgery appointment, followed in two weeks by the real deal. and similar to last month's visit to the hospital, when i wrote a midterm the following day, i expect to have to keep up my readings, etc. i'm not saying that this is a possibility for everyone - buddha knows i had to bring in doctors' notes during my last undergrad experience when i was having seizures and couldn't remember my life, but it's not a blanket excuse. take some responsibility, kid.
rose&noah's wedding was beautiful! still recovering, in between attending lunches/brunches and other events.
wedding rehearsal tonight! i'm walking down the aisle with noah's creepy friend adam. noah's brothers got fed up with noah's indecisive jibberjabber and made a chuppah of their own design. despite the chuppah, the service will be non-religious, and noah's dad and i have been asked raise the jew quotient by each saying a prayer during the ceremony. as of tonight, noah's dad still hasn't picked a prayer. jeremy f still hasn't finished his speech; jessica proofread mine while we waited. weddings are not contests, that's not what i'm saying! i'm just excited and prepared! and i painted my nails and i bought snacks and i'm so excited! rose has the nerves and noah has the unflappables and a bird shat upon noah's mum during the rehearsal (and somehow noah's step-mother did not die laughing).
on tuesday, i went on a playdate with dara. we ate at a cafe near her place and then her wii made mean personal remarks about my physical fitness.
when i moved to toronto almost 10 years ago, i promised my friend sarah that if she ever needed anything, anything!, i would take a bus and the subway and a train and then three ottawa buses and then i'd be there right away. after ten years, she's calling that promise in (although she's given me 1.5 months of advance warning). a promise is a promise!
also, today i had a realisation regarding why i cannot sew buttons and how this has tied in with my living situations.
1. lived with parents, my mum sewed my clothes (and replaced buttons)
2. lived with grandmother, she replaced buttons and fixed a zipper on my coat
3. lived with other grandparents; i think that i only wore tshirts+overalls and dirty hippie dresses that year - no buttons!
4. lived with ms rosalie & various others for three years; she sewed my buttons (although i learned how to patch my own clothes)
5. lived with becky; she sewed my buttons (although she made a strong effort at teaching me how to do it myself)
6. lived with bev for two years; she sewed our clothes and reattached my buttons
7. lived alone; threw out buttonless trousers
8. live with adam t; he sewed a loose button once but also showed me a youtube video of how to do it myself (and i promptly forgot).
tonight, after work and after class, i will try to sew a button back on my trousers all by myself. results to be determined. in addition, i'm suddenly baffled: why do i wear so many button-down shirts, jackets, and trousers? a new plan might be to replace all of my be-buttoned gear with velcro.
bev made it home from detroit, despite worrying late night txts! i made it home from coboconk, and enjoyed a carload singalong of 'just a friend' along the way! adam t stuck around town this weekend but is nowhere to be found.
FACTS: jonathan richman loves dancing and hates air conditioning.
FACTS: i love dancing AND air conditioning.
FACTS: dads (especially tom petty lookalikes) love jonathan richman.
LIE: i feel a sense of personal loss when i think about michael jackson's sudden death.
mr jackson was a pretty good entertainer and he led an often-unprivate life. maybe it says more about my childhood that i don't feel affected - i wasn't alive during the earliest parts of his career and my family didn't have a tv when his videos were first being aired and i didn't hear thriller until i bought it as a teenager. my memories of mj are of reading about his trials and his family dramas, with the accusations and insinuations. i'm sorry for his friends', children's, and fans' loss, but i'm sorta kinda mostly surprised by the folks who were crying in my office this morning.
cottage weekend!
violence in society class this morning. we were assigned groups for the big project; i ended up with community policing (includes local police, vigilante groups, etc). this wasn't what i wanted but isn't the end of the world. i work down the hall from the community policing unit and so, when i came back after class, i grabbed a bunch of recent reports from my buddy (plus an unsolicited reminder not to use internal documents, during which i made a number of agreeing noises but was really thinking about my delicious lunchtime salad). i'm excited about this class; the prof and my fellow classmates seem enthusiastic.
also, jonathan richman tonight!
word i heard is that i've started sleep-talking and sleep-getting-up again (but not walking anywhere because i sleep next to the wall, and apparently i'm not sleep-climbing-over-adam).
the new object of my affections: democracy watch. they've won the right to challenge the legality of the last (septmeber 2008) canadian federal election. exciting!
also, hey torontonian neighbours. what's up with freaking out after one day of a garbage strike and dumping mass loads of garbage in christie pits, etc? folks, were you planning on acting the fool anyway and the strike is just a coincidence?
hedwig and the angry inch - 'the origin of love'
rufus wainwright - 'the origin of love'
i've been listening to the soundtrack off and on all week, especially these versions of this song. i remember the weekend when ms rosalie and i became obsessed with hedwig and watched it approximately 17 times, culminating in a sleepover with stewart and daniel and matt. stewart brought along lyric sheets and ordered us to sing along, as appropriate.
anyhoo, hedwig was playing at the bloor tonight and bev invited me to go with her. we stood in line behind the a softer world duo and their friends, and emily h gave us strawberries. watching on a screen bigger than a smallish tv set was lovely; the sad parts were more sad and the nudity was more impressive.
1. city workers went on strike at 12:01am. striking workers include garbage & recycling workers, and the to toronto island ferry operators (toronto island residents can still take the water taxi). main issues appear to be sick days and job security; bargaining is still continuing. in the meantime, etobicoke and all apartments will continue to have their garbage picked up (the globe and mail reports that this means garbage pickup will continue for 600 000 of toronto's 1M households).
here's hoping for a swift and fair resolution.
2. going to see hedwig tonight at the bloor with bev!
3. i showed up at work this morning and was pleased to learn that this week is Clean Air Commute week. i was a sweaty mess from biking and appreciated the water. i did not appreciate being handed a pamphlet directing me to enter and win a new mountain bike, along with the water that i did appreciate, as the url provided was either incorrect or unavailable from work computers. also, considering the amount of promotion in this building for a clean air commute, we sure are creating a lot of unclean and wasteful clutter.
4. my law final exam went alright, maybe, hopefully.
houseguests this weekend! carolyn vs stayed over on friday night; anna and steve last night. we went out for sorbet on college street both nights and i bought some delicious bread this morning for a lazy breakfast.
steve has been hanging out with joel to such a degree that he now talks in a similar manner. adam and i have spent the past twenty minutes debating who will get to keep which friends if we break up. adam called joel and i called anders, which means carolyn c and sarah vs will have to switch boyfriends if things don't work out between adam and i. deal?
i had a study group yesterday day afternoon, it went reassuringly well enough, but must pull myself together to study more for tomorrow's final exam.
1. because i enjoy crying at my desk and i thought you would as well.
2. so, i've been employed in this job for almost a year. i know this because i had a talk with my boss this morning to review my progress over the past year. by government standards, i've made some fairly useful contributions over the past 11.5 months.
3. 
Zorak: Here's what we do. We go back to Friday...
Brak: [Brak interrupts] And make a kite out of squirrels and fly it to the moon.
Zorak: No, we track ourselves down and then have our otherselves do the homework.
Brak: Zorak, can I ask you a question?
Zorak: Yeah, what?
Brak: Where are we going to find enough squirrels to make a kite?
Zorak: Are you really that stupid?
Brak: I dare you to say that again only this time say "Brak, I love you".
after watching this episode with adam t last night, we realised that i'm similar (but not identical) to brak, while he is similar (but not identical) to zorak. oh brak, i talk to my stuffed animals and sing songs about myself too. it's hard work being so excited by life, sometimes!
final exam tonight. i called in sick in order to stay in my pyjamas all day and panic on my own time.
other things:
saw the hangover on tuesday and laughed all the way through to wednesday.
went out for brunch to disgraceland on sunday with jeremy c and eric. neither had complaints and both enjoyed their meals. we discussed their trip to england and family gossip and oh my, folks, after four years or so we might have finally found our brunch place.
adam t and i emailed each other pictures of brak to keep up our morale yesteday.
related:
this will be my theme song of the day.
alt text = a sexy international super spy who never cries
1. i ♥ adam b.
2. dara's birthday! we went out for ethiopian food.
highlights include:
* found a pretty great book for dara - not because she's especially gassy, but because farts are funny. dara taught me how to say 'i have diarrhea' in hebrew before i left for israel (yayshlee shilshul); i hope that she appreciates a good literary work on stinks.
* delicious food
* myke took us out for dessert afterward
* we wandered over to dundas square to watch tourists staring at the billboards. this was sort of bizarre, actually.
* dara told adam that his hugs are too brief. this was funny and true and explained in classic dara fashion.
3. adam tried to explain his hate-on for bike trends. i don't know, dudes. aside from the impracticality of fixedgears, i don't really care. i stopped listening and bought a new tshirt.
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