things i've learned the hard way

- When the sign says "pool deck slippery when wet" believe it
- Never put "love" over your own interests
- Don't eat a whole bag of dried apricots (unless you really need to)
- Try not to show too much interest when someone talks about tai chi (unless you really are interested) people don't know when to stop talking about tai chi!
- Don't regret anything that you say unless it was WAY out of line, if it was sort of out of line then hold your ground!
- Don't wear short shorts to a hot yoga class and set up shop right beside the creepy guy who's balding and even though he's shirtless he looks like he's wearing a sweater
- Make sure your jacket isn't flammable before you sit too close to that bonfire
- When bartending, always use a fake name for the creeps that hit on you, my pseudonym is Gabrielle which a short scary man once mistook for Gabriel...whatever
- If you're not doing anything wrong and a cop car pulls up to you, don't run
- Lightbulbs, sparklers and lighters all get really, really hot
- Don't dye your hair turquoise, even if you think it looks great, it doesn't and everyone will make fun of you including your mum
- If you think of a really good idea for a tattoo sit on it for at least a few months before getting that "lil' devil" on your lower, lower back
- When something truly shitty happens, laugh and then cry
- Try not to hold a grudge against someone if they were a total jerk to you in a dream
- Always talk to weirdos (in appropriate settings) they have the best stories
- Don't eat at a shady Mexican joint in Brooklyn the night before you get on a plane to go home, especially if you're a nervous flyer

you're the boss applesauce!

After living in Toronto for as long as I have I've developed the standard amount of disdain for the TTC. Everyone who lives in this city has at least one horror story in regards to "the kinder way" of travel on the city streets. One of my top ten incidents happend a couple summers ago when Kyle and I were standing on the subway platform waiting for a train around 10 or 11 at night. A raggedy looking woman approached us and proceeded to spit on the back of Kyle's head, it was gross and we were not impressed.

But alas, these things happen when you're confined to a subway platform with any assortment of people so we got on the train and went on our way. As it turns out, raggedy lady got on the same train as us and went from one end of the train to the other asking passengers for change. I believe I said something like this to Kyle when I recognized the woman "When she comes to us and asks us for change I'm going to tell her where to go! People can't be running around spitting on each other!" This woman was way ahead of me on this one and i must give her some credit. When she came near us it looked as if she was just going to ignore us and walk on past but at the last second she turned sharply (almost like a ninja) and whipped a quarter AT MY HEAD! With my cat-like reflexes I dodged out of the way and the quarter hit the window behind me and all I could do was gape at this woman. K yle sprang to his feet and had the woman out of the train by the next stop.

what i wanted to talk about orginally in this post was my feelings toward being a casual TTC pass holder but i think this quarter-whipping incident takes the case. let's save the boring story for another time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Ky7dQLuNg

new things

This is my New Year's Resolution, well one of them anyway. Since I recorded my New Year's countdown I've decided that I'm going to make a little video clip for everyday of 2009. Although I may not post them everyday you can count on me to produce at least one clip a day! I was going to post my first couple days of footage but it seems that the internet and my computer have teamed up to hate me and my files are too big to post here. I'll figure something out though and I will be posting a daily video in no time. Hold on to your hats.

"Bad luck came to me without warning"

So I deleted my last post because I'm pretty sure I wrote it while I was drunk, there's been a lot of that this month.

Anyway, I had a good Christmas and the last few weeks have been nice. There's been a lot of socializing and parties and the like and I'm kind of eager for things to start slowing down (and maybe I can start to save some of my money!) I'm also convinced that I'm bad luck these days, maybe someone put a curse on me or my karma is all out of whack but here is a short account of what has happened to me in the last little while:

- I slipped and fell on a sheet of ice right in front of my house, not pretty
- I dropped my digital camera and broke it (this happened in August but I think this is where the streak of bad luck started)
- As I was waiting for the streetcar the other day a man walked by me with a big hockey bag. As he walked past me the strap on his back snapped and he fell over (it was pretty funny actually)
- When I was home for Christmas my Mum's car broke down along with their dishwasher and the roof started leaking from what's referred to as my bathroom in the house
- I dropped my laptop charger on my computer and broke the hard drive losing everything because i never backed up my shit
- I slipped and fell (on snow!) in my parents drive way almost taking down my mum and hurting myself in the process
- After deciding to move my microwave from the counter to a high cupboard over my fridge I slid my hand along the bottom of the microwave where there is a sharp sheet of stainless steel. I cut one of my fingers up pretty bad and spent a good hour calling friends and family trying to decide if I should go to the hospital and get stitches. I didn't and now I'm looking forward to a gnarly scar
- I stubbed my toe really hard on my stairs and thought I might have broken it (it really hurt!)
- After cleaning out my cat's litter box I ran upstairs to the sound of my toaster, famished I ate my tasty toasty pita and realized afterward that I had forgot to wash my hands.

That's all I got for now but my advice until this thing passes is stay away from me, unless you're buying me lunch, dinner or drinks!

dear weirdos,

I love the internet

it's a blizzard, baby

It's really scary outside right about now, it's like a snowy apocalypse. Right now I'm sitting in a housecoat and slippers and praying that I don't have to go across town to work at 5, I'm sure no one will come in for dinner tonight. That's all I got right about now, it's been a slow, snowy day.

domestic dispute

I live underneath my landlord who lives with her boyfriend and they fight all the time. He is a smoking contractor and she is a meditating, mantra chanting lady. They just woke me up with their yelling and eventually her crying and he must have stomped around in his work boots for about an hour which is why I'm up before my alarm clock. This is not the worst living situation I've been in by far but i can feel the negativity seeping through the floorboards and into where we live. I'm really starting to hate living in this house because of all this fighting which happens on a weekly basis and usually wakes me up in the morning or interrupts my evening. Good thing I signed a year lease, how do you tell your landlord that you want to move out because you've heard her sobbing one too many times?

dear dishes...

I haven't posted in a long time and I promise there is more to come...I've realized today that I love anchor hocking jadite dishes. That is all for now.

crawling things

I'm afraid of squishing any type of bug for the fear of it crawling out of the tissue I've squished it with and then proceeding to crawl up my arm and into my hair. I'm going to blame my father for this one.

When I was a kid I would scream for my dad to kill any type of bug in our house. He'd make a big show of it usually walking into the room and saying something like "Where is this MAN-EATING spider?", take a good long look at the bug and say "That thing could take your arm off!". He'd then grab some toilet paper, squish the bug then put the tissue near my face and scream "WATCH OUT!" (implying that the bug was resistant to his squishing technique and was coming to eat my face).

When I was in my first year of university I tried to overcome this fear by squishing a big fat centipede but I was a little to dainty with my technique and that big hairy bug crawled all over my hand...it was gross.

Since then I've developed my own bug killing method which includes and type of sprayable substance (calgon body mist works well, but lately i've found that water followed by lysol does the trick). I spray that bug til it can barely move then i get a fistful of toilet paper and wipe it up (while applying a bit of pressure) scooping that thing right into the toilet and flushing immediately. If I'm too far away from a toilet I trap said bug under a cup or a bowl while I go to round up my killing supplies. These usually include the following: aforementioned spray-like substance, toilet paper and dustpan. However, if I'm at my parent's house and spot some nasty bug I put a cup over it and let dear old dad do the rest.

The Bear

Growing up I had a little Lhasa Apso dog named Kelsey (also known as "Kelsey Bear"). One Sunday when I was ten years old my brother and I went swimming at my Uncle Larry's house and when we came home there was a little puppy waiting for us, needless to say we were both "sick" and couldn't go to school the next day so we stayed home and played with the dog. Kelsey had the attitude of a crotchety old man for most of his life, if you pissed him off he wasn't afraid to let you know (mostly by biting you). My uncle Larry and I taught Kelsey most of the tricks that he knew which were as follows: Sit, Lay Down, Roll Over, Give a Paw, Speak and Jump Up. The tricks were pretty good but the best part about the whole deal was that Kelsey could perform his tricks without us saying a word and using hand signals to let him know what tricks were necessary for him to get a treat out of the deal.

I just wanted this post to be about his amazing skill at executing tricks but I must be honest and say I'm getting a little misty eyed over here. We had to put Kelsey down a few years ago about 10 years after we got him because his kidneys stopped working and there was nothing we could do. It was one of the only times I've seen my Dad cry and I can only relate the loss to that of a brother, as lame as that may sound. Kelsey grew up with me and I think about him and miss him every day and nothing can ever replace his hairy little presence.

I just looked up from my computer, eyes full of tears and all, and his little dog tag still hangs on my corkboard. I miss that furry guy.

All the broken dreams and low self esteem

I went to talk to a glorified guidance councilor at OCAD today who made me cry a little. He's basically convinced me that I'm not passionate enough to go to grad school at Ryerson for the program I'm interested in. I'm not going back to talk to him anytime soon, he did have an awesome handlebar mustachio though.

The Cobra

Before I begin let's get something right. I hate cats. I'm going to blame this on the cat my parents had when I was two who ate both my fish Goldilocks and Michael Jackson. The first victim was Goldilocks who was missing out of her fishbowl after my parents and I came home from Christmas at my aunt's house. After replacing Goldilocks with Michael Jackson the cat (who's name was Rascal) not only devoured poor Michael but smashed my fishbowl in the process. Alas, Rascal got his comeuppance when I put a barrette on his tail while he was eating and it took my Dad 3 hours to get him out from under the bed to remove the barrette.

This is becoming more long-winded than I had hoped.

My boyfriend and I adopted a cat last year who has several monikers. Her name at the pound was Emma which we promptly changed to Garry. Then we decided we liked the name Nuit (she's a black cat) but we always referred to her as "the cobra", which has since become her only name. If we ever have children they will no doubt suffer multiple identity crisis's or just end up with really, really bad names.

So the cobra has had a cold the last few days and what I wanted to say originally is, have you ever heard a cat sneeze? Keep in mind I hate most cats but when they sneeze it's really funny.

That's it.

art school ruined my life

I'm looking to apply to grad school this fall and I'm starting to understand the relevance of the term "starving artist". Since graduating OCAD with a major in photography I've been working on a body of artwork that is very time consuming and I'm starting to feel like I'm falling out of practice. Aside from that, grad school is confusing and there's not much you can do with a BFA. My ideal situation is to be accepted to Ryerson for there Photo Preservation MA program and get a wicked job upon graduation but I'm also trying to be reasonable here. I'm looking to apply to York for a curatorial Masters of Arts but after those two schools I'm at a complete loss for programs I'm interested in. I have no idea what I want to do with my life (at 23 this is kind of scary) and I feel no urge to pursue a MFA because I figure it's just a glorified BFA and when I graduate after 2 or 3 years in a Fine Arts master's program I'm just going to be more disappointed when I realize there really are no jobs out there for me.

I need a hard drink, a slice of apple pie and a shoulder to cry on.

the crow/squirrel

My Father is well known in my family for disappearing on a Sunday afternoon and returning hours later with tons of stuff he's purchased at Canadian Tire. We eventually decided that dear ol' Dad is attracted to shiny things which is why he's a frequent shopper at Canadian Tire where he usually purchases things he doesn't really need. This in turn lead to him being nicknamed "the crow" due to his behaviour of leaving unexpectedly and rounding up as many shiny objects he can find to bring back to pad his nest with.

He's also known as "the squirrel" for his behaviour in doctor's offices where he finds cabinets and drawers impossible to resist. As a child it was always fun to have to go to the doctor's office with Dad when I had strep throat or chicken pox because he dug around the doctor's cabinets and played with everything that wasn't nailed down.

After spending the day with my family at the hospital last week we've come to the conclusion that if reincarnated my father would return as a crow stapled (or perhaps glued or tied) to a squirrel.

That's right...

"For my homies"

The other day I was working at the coffee shop when a man asked me to make him a tasty, tasty latte. I've been perfecting my "latte art" technique and I wanted to present him with the loveliest little latte and in order to do so I had to pour some extra steamed milk down the drain. When he saw me do this he asked "Is that for your homies?"...t'was the happiest day of my life.