alt-zo

add Neo Citran to that list.

A Few of my Favourite Things

I'm so tired I actually just tried to type the title of this blog into the google search bar. As if it would give me the bulk of what I was then going to blog about.

I'm so tired I don't even have the energy to tell you what I was going to tell you.

In summation:

• the home-made moccasins that Kody made me in Nova Scotia this fall.
• the stockings that are hung by our chimney with care, but not so much care that they seem pretentious.
• the Christmas card from Korea that Morgan sent Kody, mostly because the illustration on the front is of little Korean boys mooning each other. It's what Jesus would've wanted.
• Scrubs! The ninth season is absolute crap and I love it.
  
• the ever adorable Maru
  

or dog grooming, or Tetris, or Feng Shui, or making model cars

It's really not the time of year for pride or hostility...but someone said something to me last week and it not only made me upset, but has put yet another ding in the passenger side-door of the already lemony automobile I call "how Chelsea determines whether people are inherently good or self-serving wastes of oxygen." The damage to this vehicle is extensive, made no better by the incessant whacking of jackasses with whatever bat they feel to be their appropriate and topical agenda.

There is never, and let me make this clear - NEVER - a good time to try to tell someone you think their lifestyle pales in comparison to your own. This includes all manners of evangelism, persuasive essays via conversation, or backpedaling after you've blatantly insulted someone by saying 'but that's just my opinion.'

Before you say 'Chels, Chels, you're shitting me if you're saying you've never done this.' Let's take the DeLorean back about 4 minutes before I typed the preceding paragraph. I know. I know that I have done this. I also know it 'might' be alright to tell a loved one that perhaps life would be better without crack cocaine. Or that getting a job might be better than exhausting the people who financially support you. Indulge me momentarily.

Whoever you are, whatever it is you choose to do with your time (no, I don't mean pulling cat's tails, or violating the innocent and vulnerable) you probably have chosen to do so because to do what one enjoys is probably the most palatable way to pass one's time. To pass one's time doing what someone else has determined to be enjoyable is probably not as palatable, and thus you do not DO that THING. Pretty easy concept. This does include but is not necessarily limited to your place of employment, your hobbies, your friends, and the things you choose to spend your money on. Nobody should be able to tell you that what they experience in their daily life is better. Or that a step in a different direction will take you from what someone else considers to be mundane into a tunnel lit with paranormal and extraordinary feelings and experiences that only someone ELSE could have imagined for you.

We need to learn to let other people be who they are without snide interjections or brief eyebrow elevation that implies our disapproval because the shit we have going on in our own lives is better 'for the following reasons.' I can tell you, it isn't. If it were better, I'd be doing it because it too would be something I enjoy.

So if you like scrapbooking, or going to Bible/Torah/Koran/Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy study, making films or watching them, reading (literature, blogs, magazines, erotica), taking care of other people, watching grass grow, watching television, picking your nose, picking someone else's nose, vacuuming, teaching, loving, sitting, walking, or running, go ahead and fucking do it. Why shouldn't you?

Of course have opinions, of course spark debate, of course be willing to not see eye to eye and be open to what you don't understand, but never ever take a dastardly step in the direction (or the implication!) of 'you should do this instead, because what you do is boring.'

This is the new me, and all it took was a few years of being an asshole to figure it out. Join me on this journey, because what you were doing with your time before wasn't nearly as exciting.

"you're a fuckin' sssponge-head."

What with my new head of half-shaved half-coiffed hair, Tricky, Matt, Tiff and myself headed out to an establishment with both class and a fair bit of character.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Annex Wreck Room.

Before going in we were at the pizzapizza on the corner giving our stomachs something to absorb alcohol with, when a disgruntled woman came in asking to use the washroom.

The woman behind the counter made some mistakes dealing with this situation in that she denied the woman access to the toity, and also LIED about the toity being cleaned. You work at Bathurst and Bloor, you're wasting your time denying drunk people access to the facilities. They're going to piss on your back entrance stoop instead.

Anyway, one obnoxious thing leads to another and maybe I suggested to this woman that if she felt it was 'illegal' to not have access to the washroom, she should call the cops herself. Also, the reception's better outside, so probably leave. Read: you're embarrassing yourself. Get. Out.

Drunk and possibly high from the frivolity of her monthly coven gathering, irritated by my smart-assedness, her eyes became fixed on me and she cursed my life. Seriously, I quote:

"I hope something really awful happens to you. I curse you!"

May I never be dragged to hell.

because they're ROOTED.

Feel like I've got no way to gauge the stability of the knots that I've tied. Shit's unraveling and floating away.

Sometimes what i perceive to be a closeness is only coming from one direction (mine), and that's truly one of the most uncomfortable places to be. Lord help me when I assume some sort of unspoken intimacy (in terms of trust and comfort) and I find out that I was WAY off the mark. Expectations are so dangerous even in situations where you once felt like being yourself was 'enough'.

"You don't know what you don't know."

I hear that a lot lately, and yeah...apart from its linguistic redundancy it's factual. But what really seems to ring true for me is that I don't know what I think I know.

Age plays a part. It's got to. Who I was amongst friends five years ago is certainly not who I am amongst them now, and though I know some acceptance is absolute, I do wonder how to peg off the ones it doesn't apply to. It's all so painful when the pegging off is done for me. I don't want people to go. But they do. Maybe it was me and maybe it wasn't but impermanence is SO sucky. Sucky's a really stupid word but it fits.

Is it that I haven't spent enough time with heterosexual males and therefore don't have any idea how that world works anymore? I'm not comfortable saying that it should matter at all...but DOES it?

I'm not ready to let some of those 'ships' - friend or relation or companion- sink because there's so much more I want to learn about the people I genuinely feel for, and it's really upsetting me that this proverbial rope is fraying or dwindling or about to snap or SOMETHING that happens when individuals head in different directions all the while ignoring that the hub they're attached to is based on this simple, EASY thing. It's so easy to care about people. Why does everything else have to get in the way?

How did I get to a stage in my life where I've really become this clueless? Practicing cynicism has definitely contributed, and THAT'S supposed to have the opposite result. You raise your eyebrow and you question most things and that's how you see the margarine disguising itself as butter. RIGHT? I've been duped, it seems.

Anyway, this weekend has been gorgeous and if I could just make friends with trees all of this heart ache would dissipate.

I'm sure of that.

cardboard rollerblades and welding goggles

Glorious Tuesdays which follow much beloved holiday Mondays.

You think you can set your sights high because you don't have to endure a "somebody's got a case of..." situation. Arriving to work on a Tuesday ensures you avoid that bad tasting beginning.

Truth is, the beginning to any week unless it starts with an orgasm, monetary gift, new puppy or pair of shoes is generally crapulent regardless of its prefix.

Mine did not start with any of those. It damn well better end with one, though.

Preferably a puppy.

I know the crap out of women.

Not much to report. Have gone from being absolutely flat broke to being able to pay both rent AND bills in the same pay cheque. mindBLASTING.

The family across our alleyway never stops
a)yelling
b)crying
c)smashing things
d)all of the above

If you chose d, you probably have neighbours just like them.

Clothing Show today, where Eric, Ken and Andrew are selling their wares and are most likely the hottest young entrepreneurs in the building. I'm on the look out for a pair of boots. Also, some sort of blouse.