Promise-keeping

Here's the pic of me new specs I promised, with very tired eyes that have no makeup. Woo-hoo.

The pic doesn't do the glasses justice. There's ebony, wine, and forest green colours throughout the frame, with neat stylized etching, ridging, and such. Still. You get the feel. :)

Congratulations on Waking the Fuck Up!

More than half of all people polled now believe that being gay is NOT a choice. Biological? Really?! Wow! Look, ma -- you gave me the gay gene!

All kidding aside, it's about goddamned time the tide changed and people began realizing that "gay" isn't something you line up before God, thinking, "Wow, gee, I'd love to have a penchant for musicals, enjoy taking it from behind, and look FABULOUS in the colours pink and chartreuse! Gimme that gay gene, Godguy!"

One out of three suicidal kids tries to off themselves 'cos they have fears of being gay. As much as it might seem like a ticket to cool when shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy sets the style standard (arguably) or when it seems like all the cool kids have diddled someone of their same sex as a party favour at a kegger, being gay's still not exactly the easiest thing to be in most parts of North America, let alone beyond our continent's doors.

But, hey, let's turn that frown upside down, boys and girls! After all, back when I was a wee lass in the '70s, only about 10% of the population thought gays were born that way. Since then, people who've been able to clue in have been growing by more than 10% per decade. They've grabbed a brain when it comes to the fact that being gay's not really a choice-- I mean, not like chosing to stay in with a movie and a vibrator on a slow weekend night, all right?

Yer either born into the Streisand appreciation club or you're not. Just 'cos you fucked someone you could've shared a locker room with in school doesn't mean you're gay. Slutty, curious, open to adventure, maybe. Not necessarily gay.

While we're talking all things gay, I noticed that there's a group on Facebook getting popular in my circles -- "Against Gay Marriage? Then Don't Get One and Shut the Fuck Up!" or something -- the other day. The title made me grin, but in reality, it's just not that simple.

Those arguing against gay marriage the loudest are those shouting the "sanctity of marriage!" mantra. Some of the hipsters want to solve the problem by saying we'll give 'em marriage, but we'll call it "civil unions". Every time I hear that, I see the impassioned angst expressed by my dear friend GayBoy in his arguments against this Band-aid fix'er of calling it a "civil union".

"If you call it something else, then it's not marriage, is it?" GayBoy would comment. No. Then it's some piddly little fucking crumb you're throwing the freaks outside in order to placate them. Marriage, however, will still be the secret-secret thingie-thing held sacred by breeders and straight people everywhere, held tauntingly just outside the grasp of gays.

I'm for gay marriage. I'm also for realizing that the sanctity of marriage went up in smoke centuries ago. I'm for acknowledging that love and decency and sacrifice and death-till-we-part are not trademarked by straight breeders. Passion knows no chromosome. Love knows no genetic markers. Faith and optimism aren't wholly owned by religious types.

I'm for living in a world where we all have the chance to be what we want, love who we love, and dream the same dreams, no matter who we are inside.

Clearly my glasses are thick and rose-coloured, but I insist on trying to hold on to this worldview. I mean, what, we're only four decades away from acceptance at this point, and that's something. Isn't it?

(Facts? Who needs facts? But if you wanna read where I read the original story that prompted my pugnacious little posting, here it is.)

Purity? Sez Who?

It's kind of sad that the only things keeping me pure at all are the facts that I've not been pierced in any way and have no tattoos. I was pierced at a younger age -- had ears pierced, nothing special, and BOTH tore. Got the scarz even now. So, no more piercing for me. Tattoos, yeah, they're totally in the plans. Maybe even this year, FINALLY.

So, they tell me my purity is as follows:

You Are 29% Pure

Pure? Sure, you're about as pure as yellow snow. You're a downright devil. But you're also a pretty delightful one!

The 100 Question Purity Test

Oh, and other things keeping me out of "YOU ARE SATAN" are: I've never been convicted of a crime. Committed them, and I've been caught by authorities, but talked my way out of an arrest. I'll keep the details to myself considering my name's attached to the blog, thanks. And there's the small matter of the fact that I've never been interested in same-sex sex-stuff, or at least not enough to bother acting on anything. Hmm! Purity's overrated, as my friend says.

Update on this Overworked Steff

I just rolled out of bed about five minutes ago, debating at first the merits of sleeping another hour. I've instead decided to get up and do a lot of stretching and relaxing before I throw myself headlong into the fray once again.

Today I work another 6-7 hours, which will take my work week up to the 70-hour range now. I don't do overwork well, but I'm managing. I sleep, eat, and work this week.

It's the last weekend of insanity at the school. The next week will still be crazy busy, but then it gets into a much more manageable pace for the short-term. This weekend involves getting some 300 kids their chance to dance/perform in front of a packed theatre. We've had two major productions this weekend, with the second one happening today. I'll be watching about 150 3 - 7 year olds in a large room as they try to contain their boredom for several hours while performing for about 15 - 20 minutes in that time. By the end of today, I'll be a shell of myself. It'll be awesome, too, 'cos the kids are hilarious, but if there's any way of getting the universe to rubber stamp its approval of my choice to be childless, this is it, dude. Heh.

So, if you wonder why I've been writing completely pointless shit this week, it's because I've been at a fever pitch for about 10 days now and my mind's been approaching themonuclear-meltdown phase.

Yesterday I overslept and didn't get a chance to have a coffee before working with all the kids. FUCK man. Worst headache ever! First priority's coffee today. :) Caffeine-deprival headaches... HO. Horrid things!

Tell you one thing, you've never seen a cuter bunch of kids. That's the great part about today. They're all SO proud and SO happy they get to be "stars" for a day, and I'm an important part in making that happen. And that's always nice.

Tomorrow's a day off and my goals are only to shop for good food and to write something, so check back then.

Once more into the fray, dear friends. Once more!

Flame This, Moth!

I'm going to Buddhist hell. That or I'm coming back as a bug.

I killed a moth tonight. Not just any moth. One of those ones that you hear when it flaps its wings. And it flaps, not flutters. Not only that, they can't fly straight. They keep bumping into the fucking ceiling.

"Yeah, dude, if you hit the ceiling at that altitude THERE, chances are yer gonna fuckin' do it nine inches to the RIGHT, too."

Fucking stupid bugs!

This moth, I shit you not, was ginormous. 2.5" wingspan. I kept trying to guide it out the fucking FIVE FOOT WIDE OPEN SLIDING GLASS DOOR THINGIE, but is it intelligent enough to know that cool breeze was indicative of outdoors, ergo freedom?

Fuck no!

So, there I am, in all my brilliant Steffness, trying to talk the moth out of the place. Hell, it works for bees, for some strange reason (well, they're colonizers. Smarties, really, them bees.) but clearly moths are not of the therapy-liking varieties of insects.

"Okay, now, six inches below you -- no, dude, come on! Fly down. There, there you go. Six more inches. FUCKING MOTH. Why are you-- FucketyFUCKfuck."

Finally I thought I'd trying mindfucking it out of the apartment. The plan? Near-miss swatting with a rolled newspaper. What's it do? Start batting itself against the ceiling, then ramming into walls before sitting down again.

All the while, I'm still doing the talk-it-out-the-door thing. "I honestly don't want to kill you. But I will."

Finally, after jumping onto my fourth piece of furniture, I swatted the moth against the wall--

Keep in mind I spent the previous five hours babysitting THIRTY-FIVE pre-teen and teen hip hop dancers backstage at the year-end show. I was MAJOR fucking stressed and tired upon arriving home. Then this MOTH shit happens? GAH.

--and it was a slimer! IT SLID EIGHT INCHES DOWN MY WALL AND LEFT A TRAIL.

I was fucking horrified! I did the icky-icky-pee-pee dance and squirmed my way around my apartment, feeling all dirty and never-gonna-be-Buddhist-now inside.

But I will further justify my exceedingly cruel ending of that moth's life by saying this: It was that kind of big ugly fucking moth that leaves that dirty splat stain every where it hits on the wall. I have mottled walls now. It's not a look I think I'll keep. And so then the moth deserves to die for adding more labour to a 70-hour work week for me.

Yeah. I'm full of shit. But my apartment has no moths. And I'm about to drink wine and watch Letterman.

Dilemmas, Dilemmas

Turns out my new neighbours are two gay males. These are the ones I caught the rather blessedly nice full-frontal nude vistas of last week.

There's something to be said for people hanging out naked in their living rooms with the blinds wide open.

But then the dilemma arises -- is it permissable for me to sit around like the gawky whore I feel like being, or is that gauche?

Well, it's definitely the latter, but I'm going to give it a go anyhow.

Especially since one's on the knees giving the other head in the middle of the living room on a sunny Thursday evening.

It's about time I start getting a little extra thrown in with my rent, even if it is gay porn happening just 80 feet away. They're hot 20-somethings, too, so fuck it.

My evening's looking up. Time to retire to my patio with a glass of wine, perhaps.

Oh, and so my week? I'm about 37 hours into my work week and have about another 25 to go before I'm done. One more office day (a 14-hr day -- six hours spent working backstage in a theatre) and two full days in the theatre. Don't expect to see a lot out of me this weekend, but I might surprise us all. Could be a fabulous rant ahead, knowing some parents. Who knows. Stay tuned, just keep your expectations low. Love ya.

Gig Review

Caught a gig tonight. This guy I've been watching over the last five years or so. Caught him opening for a band one time, and he walks on, just him and his acoustic gueetar, and starts into this incredibly frenetic, tense instrumental and just fucking rocks it out. Blew us the fuck away. Band? Who needs a band?

Guys like this are why you show the hell up for the openers. They'll usually suck ass, but now and then, they're the whole reason you're a music fan. The find. The find.



Wil, aka Wil Mimnaugh, who lives over there at www.ibreakstrings.com,* hails from Calgary, Alberta, here in the great land of Canada. Some music reviewers Somefuckingwhere say that his new album, by December, cut after five years of dicking around on the club and opening scene (opened a tour for Matt Good, and others), smacks of tones from stalwarts like Wilco and Arcade Fire, who, as you may well know, are decent in their own right.

Wil's that music purist a la Elvis Costello and indie gurus like Gomez. When he comes to play, he comes to play. He comes to show up and pound out song after song until sweat just pours off him.

Put it this way: that first summer we discovered him, it was early June. About five weeks later he blew back into town on Independence Day there in the States, Just Another Day here in Canada, and played in one of those shitty dives with hay on the ground. He'd been opening ever since our June sighting for Matt Good, 'cross the nation. He lost some 30 lbs from just Playing The Fuck Out up there. Dude's intense. And funny like all get-out.

You really have to be there to get the humour, but stuff like "This one's a new one off the album, She's Coming Down, and no, it's not the opening for "Night Moves". Every time this plays, people are thinking 'Seeger! Dude!' But, no. It's more like 'Silver Bullet this, bitch.'" (Then the song sounds exactly like the opening to Seeger's classic, so much so that Wil closes the song with his little play rendition of the fade-out chorus to Night Moves. Hell, I saw him cover Britney Spears and Dick Dale in the same show.)

It's dry, but he keeps a crowd in stitches in between sets, and blows you away during 'em.

Anyhoo. I don't often talk music here, but fuck it. This dude deserves bigger audiences. Wil's the bomb. Check out his site. He's got mp3s and stuff. If you like musicians you can see yourself having a beer with, and you love bluesy indie rock, I'm JUST SAYING. Check it. Besides, for $20 a show, it beats the hell out of the "Fantastic" Four. (I don't know about you but I'm not thrilled that film companies are taking such ironic liberties with titles now. Fantastic? Insert derisive snort here.)

A must-hear track's Honey Pie, btw.

Oh, yeah, and I'm now entering four days of manic madness @ work. If you don't hear from me by Sunday night, phone the authorities. I'm goin' in deep and I may be a lost cause just yet. Pray for me, Martha.

*Wil has been known to take a Samsonite toolcase on to sets. It once came in handy when a little fangirl was grinding a big floorspeaker and got her navel ring caught on the meshing. Wil, concerned at the hullabaloo with the bouncer/tender and the fangirl, aborted playing to lean over and see what the to-do was about. The girl was in tears, bleeding, as the bartender explained. Wil reaches into the silver Samsonite case and pulls out pliers. Navel ring is cut. Damsel in distress saved. Last we saw her, she was holed up with an icebag over her belly in the corner. Anyhoo: Wil, pliers. The site name comes from Wil's tendency to snip wires mid-gig. He played a song called "Four String" and proceeded to cut strings one at a time each two or three minutes. About 15 minutes in, he's playing '50s surf-guitar legend Dick Dale on a single string. And it sounded real fucking good. So, he breaks strings... if you're lucky.

Age? FUCK Age

I was thinking today how I'm verging on that age where I'll be able to start using the excuse "Oh, I'm not as young as I was" soon. I mean, really, there are people using that excuse at 35. It's ridiculous.

I figure anything before 45 as my "excuse threshold" would be insulting. I've survived being thrown headfirst off my scooter, thrown headfirst off a horse, three significant concussions, three major car accidents, shredded muscles, hand surgery, eye surgrey, and and more, like general klutziness, 'cos I'm Tuff.Yeah. Capital "t" Tuff.

But every now and then I start to understand why I always heard my parents whining about their bodies in their 40s. And I'm 33. But battle-worn, baby.

Nonetheless, somewhere along the lines, my mom decided for a "go" on the divorce, then she decided to ixnay the I'm-too-old excuse. At 45 she took the Power Squadron course and joined the local yacht club. By the time of her death at 57, from the age of 45 on, she'd scaled volcanoes in Turkey, climbed mountains in China, raced yachts in the Mediterranean, sailed the West Coast, and made the Medallion Club for sales in real estate (the license of which she obtain in those years, too).

And that's what I started thinking about earlier. Deciding you've had enough of the status quo and that you're taking action to affect change -- whatever the change might be, bit or small -- can happen at any age and still lead to fantastic dividends, depending how hard you're ready to chase that desire.

I mean, look at the folk art hero Grandma Moses. Took up painting in her 80s and her work today sells for almost six digits.

Life's good to the last drop. You know what I'm saying?

This weekend I spend four days working backstage in major productions, keeping madding throngs of children under my thumb. "YIELD. NOW. SILENCE."

Yeah, I can see why they'd think I'd have a handle on such things.

Anyhow. Just thinkin'. Nice to know I'm so far on this side of 40, let alone 60. I've been told by a friend or two over the years that my life reads like a book. The stories I should tell you. Maybe one day. That's what the other blog's for. I can't wait to conquer some more chapters. And, hey, look. Summer is just 48 hours away.

Fuckin' A. And I start it working backstage and helping little kids achieve their dreams of being stars... if only for an afternoon. What a fun little life I lead sometimes.

I don't like hangovers. Thank god coffee's on the go. Eggs, the only real solution. Eggs.

Nothing like endless bottles of red wine, lamb on a spit, and a firepit to keep a night going, eh?

My Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades

I think too much sometimes, and this is one of those days.

I'm procrastinating before cleaning up. Then I need to run around town on a few errands. Try to get slightly tighter versions of all the shirts I bought two weeks ago, since weightloss has now begun. Pick up my new glasses. Buy something delish to take to my friend's luau, plus a little booze.

The glasses though... Man, am I stoked. Nothing changes your appearance faster than a haircut or new glasses. I've always been careful to buy trendy glasses that have a great appeal with my face type, but I've never bought really dramatic and bold ones... until now. It was love at first sight. They sat there with the shades clipped on, looking good, but when I flicked the shades off, there was this sexy, dramatic, anything-but-geeky pair of cat's eye librarian specs. They've got this cool art deco flourished arm, about six colours all subtly intertwined make the frames pop even though they're dark.

Someone commented that they liked my eyes are found it puzzling that I'd wear glases to hide 'em. It's all part of protecting my alter ego, Super Steff. By day, a mild-mannered bookish girl, and by night, a whole new thang. But you gotta know the secret-secret handshake and be a keeper of the SoSS decoder ring in order to get the details on that new-thang bit.

Here's the thing that's really getting into my head today: Anyone who was around my life and blog a year or so ago knows that I had a crappy 180 happen in my life -- everything was going along great when suddenly the bottom dropped out. Ran out of employment insurance, nearly lost my apartment not once but twice, my relationship went in the Dumpster, my body chemistry went fucking insane and took me with it, and about a zillion other things happened -- including getting a shitty job with a shitty company that went through a hundred degrading phases in 80 days before I got canned for the first time in my life.

And while all that was happening, I lost two clip-on shades for my two pairs of glasses, and right before my relationship took the final nail in the coffin, I lost my 10-year-old sunglasses I'd always loved.

It seemed to me then that life was telling me I wasn't seeing things clearly and I needed a new perspective. And then, suddenly everywhere I turned, I was hearing Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive. It was highly weird times in the land of Steff.

That I'm finally now able to get glasses that I've always wanted, the most expensive I've ever bought, seems to be the first real inclination that things really are going the way I deserve to have them go.

I don't use the word "deserve" lightly, either. Most people think they deserve things, but all they have is a sense of entitlement. I believe one has to earn things. I believe I've worked hard my entire life, been a good person and set great examples, all while playing well with others. I believe I've been conscious of creating good karma for myself for many years now (no matter how hard things ever got for me, I never used it as an excuse to treat others like shit). I believe I've held in long enough that the tide in my system's really changing and new things are coming ashore for me.

The new glasses are the symbol of it all. Something real, tangible that I get to get out of bed and put on every single day. The new bold, dramatic, and positive Steff, and her glasses. Ha.

This posting strikes me as highly silly, but sometimes silly can be important, too. It's a small thing; the loss of three pairs of sunglasses, the purchase of the new generation thereof, and the symbolism of each. I don't think I'm alone, though, in sometimes being infuriated by life and wishing for a sign -- any kind of sign at all -- that I'm going about things the right way. I figure there's no point in wishing for signs if I'm not willing to do the looking for them. My new glasses are, I'd like to believe, one of them: The sign that I've finally got the right perspective again.

Or at least I'm going to enjoy telling myself that over the coming days and weeks.

Have an awesome Saturday night, everyone.

(BTW: My eyesight's not that bad, even now. I can take my glasses off for a movie, don't need them legally to drive... But love the look most of the time.)

Thank you!

Thanks for the comments on my spectacle dilemma!

While my optician didn't have the cool Moschino specs I'd liked, she had these awesome clip-on sunglass ones that were great quality, really edgy, and then she gave me 40% off. The woman recognized me and knew my name after five years. Nice!

I'll post a pic of me new spex sometime next week. Definitely more "naughty librarian" than my current glasses, so I'm keen to see how they look. Tomorrow night I'll get to wear 'em to my party with my new blouse and other fun new things. My week's getting better every day. Woot indeed.

Oh, and given the torn debate and some of the negatives with Transitions, I opted for the clip-on way to go, even though my history of losing clips isn't exactly in my favour.

I'll write on something more interesting laterish or tomorrowish, so stay tuned. (First I have to write all the narration for my school's year-end production that's happening next week. GAH!)

Got Two Cents?

So, I'm gonna use this bloggie to my advantage, and ask you -- my brilliant readers -- if any of you have anything to say about photochromic lenses for glasses, ie: Transitions, the kinds that go dark when you're in the sun and go normal indoors. I'm gonna buy glasses Friday / Saturday, so any insight would be appreciated. Do you know of anyone whose vision worsened with wearing them? Are they a problem in cold / hot weather for you or anyone you know?

Etc. Anything you can share would be great! I'm just pondering my eyewear options and despise direct sunlight (and have had no sunglasses for nearly a year... jesus) so I thought maybe they'd be a smart move, but I'm a traditionalist and erring on the side of proper shades, unless y'all convince me otherwise.

Yesterday

I had that epiphany yesterday that the end of my insanity is around the corner. Two weeks from now I will have passed the hardest, biggest test my job has to offer in its academic year. And then I will feel like a god. Until then, I'm hanging on, keeping to myself, and fighting the good fight.

Yesterday I finally took my bike to work. I threw it on the bus and only cycled a couple klicks in the morning, but did the whole ordeal on the way home. The sky was heavy with clouds and that five-minutes-from-raining scent lingered on the air. Just as I was getting to the dykes, I thought about the fact that I had my camera and wasn't taking many pictures in the last two weeks. I stopped, pulled it out, and set a challenge to take 20 pictures in the next 20 minutes.

That's when I noticed this wharf that had previously been obscured by big low-lying trees along the river's bank. Just as I stepped foot on the planks, juicy raindrops began splattering the boardwalk before me.

My iPOD hit upon a fresh song, the Detroit Cobras' "You Don't Knock"* and found myself doing a little twist as I walked down the wharf, completely alone out there. And then I remembered a quote I found recently at work:

Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness
has never danced in the rain.

And the rain was falling, so I began to sing and dance out there at the end of the wharf, overlooking the river, the airport, and all the planes coming and going. It might have only been a 2.5 minute song, but I shit you not... it did more for me than any swath of personal time I've had in the last few weeks.

It's hard sometimes getting past the "I'll look stupid" paranoia that finds us all, but in the end, I'm the one with the shit-eating grin. And that reminds me of a quote on my refrigerator: "I find that smiling keeps people guessing what I'm up to."

Anyhow, it's back to the grind. I just wanted to share. Personally, that was the thing I loved about myself between 18 - 22... I used to do things like that for the hell of saying I'd done them. And I loved it. Somewhere along the line, I stopped that voyeuristic, indulgent approach to life, and in that I lost my ability to feel truly individual. In the last year, I've begun remembering how much one has to live out loud to live at all. Can't just think about the things you wish you do, but you gotta actually do them.

Sounds so stupidly simple that only a human could possibly fuck it up, eh? Thinking: The human's curse. Doing: Not just for Nike anymore.

*The Cobras are a post-punk low-fi pop band with a great mix of '50s and garage sounds. Infectious, great groove. The lead singer was a butcher turned exotic dancer, with killer pipes. Been around for years and never went far, but I'll stand by the recommendation. An old coworker got me hooked.

OH, PRAISE JESUS

JUST WHAT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED:
Neighbours across the way in my back alley, who walk around in the nude with all their lights on and blinds open! They just moved in yesterday!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

The Rant that's Not Really a Rant

You know what part of the problem is? Huh?

My job. I have to be discreet. Can't tell ya nothin'. Can't gripe. People who write about their work are twits. That shit usually comes home to roost, so you gotta be prepared to sack up and own up to what you write. Or be like me. Say nada.

I said too much early in the game and now I'm hip to it. All hush-hush.

Today, though, was almost enough to break me. Crumble me to bits and spit me out like a bad cracker, man. That was how bad a Monday this Monday was. Ooh.

It started off: People leaving shit on my work desk -- incomplete things that I had to finish and "solve". But I was just pissy and it wouldn't have normally been a big thing. Until, that is, I proceeded to spill my coffee over the entire desk. And not one of those shitty from-the-canteen crap-ass weak coffees sanctioned by the work kitchen. No. This was a four-shot Americano.

Yeah. Four shots. Fuck that single/double stuff. I go hard, I go long. Actually, four shots is because Starbucks Ain't What It Used to Be (sorry, gb!) but I get three shots at the local Italian guy's shop. The guy's English is horrible, but the Americano's so beautiful it has head. Leave it to me to appreciate the head, all right?

And I spilled it. Over paycheques. Over sales slips. Over Every Fucking Thing on my Six Foot Long Desk.

Picture this: Me, frantic. "I need some help! Can someone come hold up my very expensive phone?!" I shouted into the packed lobby. Suddenly 3 moms are helping me as I try to sop up the eightyfuckingmillionzillionbadass ounces of woulda been soooo good coffee.

Needless to say, the day could only get better from there.

How much better, well... that's the debatable part. I'm not sure the judges would accept "neglibly" as an answer, but let's give that a go.

My day SUCKED ASS, man. Ha. Fortunately, and I'll bold it so you see it good, I still loves me job. If I knew all this shit, I'd still accept it.

After all... in the middle of all that crap and morass, there was a shining from-a-movie moment. A little boy came in and brought me a card: a photocopy of my picture in the paper, surrounded by little stars, and "steff... you are a star" was what it said.

I know the mom made it and he just put the stickers on and signed his name, but it made my fucking day.

Tomorrow morning it goes on my fridge. For now, I'm drinking a blu-tini. Blueberry juice martini. It's the lime spritz that really makes it come together, but next time: lime cordial.

Boo-yah.

Oho! Epiphanies, Anyone? Tales from A Good Sunday

Sting is wailing in my living room. A hazy grey light filters in through the semi-raised black cloth-bamboo blinds. Sirens punctuate my morning as an indication that staying in might be the wisest choice of the day.

Kill Bill, Vol. 2, is providing me with intermittent graphic violence as an antidote to the boredom of my sedate Sunday. I’m having a fantastic morning.

I’ve already enjoyed a French press brimming with dark coffee. I’m padding around barefoot, tackling a bit of cleaning here and there in between chapters of Tarantino’s kill-fest. What more can a girl ask for?

Well, an epiphany would shure hit the spot. Thank goodness I’ve had me one of those, too.

Perhaps you’ve already read yesterday’s shameless financial de-veiling of a girl called me? I’ve had some new thoughts about that.

Thing is, money’s been playing a constant theme in my head of late. This being able to cope and even buy a thing or two mode is throwing me for a loop, and that’s why I’m trying to sort out how to improve upon the things I’ve learned and incorporated into my ways of late, so that I can have my cake and eat it, too. I’ve fucked this up before, and my older-wiser self is loathe to see that happen again. Don’t look now, but I’m all grown up.

So it’s with great intrigue that I’ve been trying to figure out what was the major catalyst in the last two weeks to send me into this Financial Figurings Funk I’ve been mired in. And a little while ago I coulda sworn I heard a blink! as the proverbial lightbulb flicked on overhead. AHA. I finally figured it the freak out.

There I was, standing perched over my old school 1991 Sony 5-disc CD changer, taking a boo at what aural delights lay ahead for me, when I should glance upon The Police’s masterpiece, Synchonicity. So I decided to program the back half – tracks 8, 11, 7, 10, 9, in that order – as a soundtrack to my cleaning/puttering.

You see, a week or so ago the Police flew into town and blew two packed houses away, back to back. It was the gig of the year, and I wasn’t there. It didn’t compute until I saw the disc there, shining up at me, but it’s the proverbial last straw.

It’s fucking WRONG that I should miss the biggest gig of the year! There was a time when I was the one who’d always get the tickets to the hardest shows to get ‘em for. Santana? Sure. The Hip in a small 250-seat club? Done. I’ve seen hundreds of concerts/gigs or more in my time. I’ve seen fights, fucking, and fireworks of all kinds. I've seen first-ever gigs and last-ever gigs. I’ve smoked more dope and tried more stuff at concerts than I care to remember. I’ve perfected how to smoke dope in a club, in the middle of the dance floor, and not get caught. I’m that chick who can make a beer last for an hour and a half if it means I’m able to afford another gig next week that I just saw the poster for when I was in the washroom.

I’m an audio geekette. I’ve gone out with more music geeks than I care to own up to. The times of my life have all happened hi-fi, y’know? Every period of my life has a soundtrack. I even have a CD I burned for my mom’s funeral, that I gave to all her friends, of her favourite music – John Lennon, U2, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, et al. And, yes, even the Police’s King of Pain made the cut.

So, it pisses me off that they should roll into town and I shouldn’t be able to get tickets. Why? Because, in an effort to change my financial ways, I renegotiated debt a couple years back and chose to cut my credit cards up as part of the terms. Then I fell on hard financial times and my credit just disappeared because I didn’t have a permanent job. Creditors don’t like it if your employers won’t commit to you, you know, as a casual labourer. That sucked.

But now I’m solidly employed. You know what this means, don’t you? This fall I’ll get a credit card and be able to order gig tickets. This won’t happen again. I’ll be at the best gigs.

See, it’s not enough to sit around and ponder how to change your life and what you’re gonna do to make that happen. Everything that happens to us happens because something we’ve just experienced has triggered something in our subconscious. You can bravely go forth into the new now without understanding what set you off, but knowing what tripped the thought process in the first place can be an important part of coming to terms with why it’s necessary to change the status quo.

For me, it’s realizing, jealously, that so many people I knew got to be at that gig. Funny thing is, I’m not the biggest Police fan. I like some of the songs, love singing along, and think Sting’s about the coolest thing since Breyer’s, but a lot of other musicians matter more for me. I just never got swept up in the Police craze. I just woulda liked to be at that gig ‘cos now I know—hindsight, 20/20, et al—how significant they’ve been on the landscape of music in the last half of the 20th century, and how hard it is for anyone to out-vocal Sting. I don’t have to be a fan to understand, is what I’m saying. It’d have been pretty fucking cool.

Add to that, that in a span of 20 minutes I had the above thoughts and also discovered how cheap Greyhound fare is to places like Seattle & Portland, and my summer’s just taken a huge detour, man. It’s nice to have my priorities on track with abilities/reality again. It sure changes the way the world looks. It’s nice. Music and travel were once the two most important things in my life. And my priorities felt peachy fucking keen back then. Somewhere along the way, that changed. Looks like my eyes are opening to that, and change is gonna come.

The Power of Cash and the Consequences Thereof

I'm thinking a lot about money today. There's a live Stereophonics track I'm gonna put on repeat when I'm done writing this -- "Every Day I Think About Money".

I'm a product of the modern North American marriage. My parents' good marriage disintegrated because of their wildly contrasting spending habits. My mother was wise and thrifty, my father oblivious and wasteful.

I have managed to merge the best and worst that each parent had to offer me. I'm always in debt, living cheque to cheque, but I never go too far astray. My attitude about it is wrong, too. Conscious of being in debt, I feel I'm plagued by it. The truth is, it's a highly surmountable thing. My debt? About $7K. Total.

Why any debt at all angers me is because I know, deep down inside, I have what it takes to accomplish a little in the investing world. I remember back in '87 when I was 14 and my mother and I were talking about stocks. I said she should buy stocks in a condom manufacturer 'cos the AIDS thing was gonna get worse before it got better. I think I freaked her out.

But I was strangely more informed about the world and business when I was a newspaper fiend. Now that information is everywhere, I've somehow found myself unplugged from it. I'm pondering it a lot this morning. Moneysmart is something I know makes sense for me. Now that my income is finally stable and I have gained solid footing at my four-month-old job, I'm ready to make the next step and take myself out of this position. I mean, $7K? I should be completely debt free in a year, if not a matter of months, with a savings to show for it.

It's a day of steady pounding rain here on the Wet Coast. A perfect day for a lazy writer girl to tackle her homestead and do some thinking. I've lived debt-free before and I'm pining to do it again. I've earned the right to say I'm in control of my life, but now I want cold, hard proof of that fact. I want to know I'm in the black, putting down security funds against the inevitable -- age and illness.

I wonder sometimes how much something like being financially secure and able to truly say you're self-sustaining -- and the future isn't filled with boogeymen -- affects who you are on a day by day basis. Is it that niggling sense of financial insecurity that transforms you into a somewhat insecure person overall?

My mother was an incredible woman, come undone by a merciless real estate market in which more people floundered and failed than succeeded. In the years that preceeded her death, my mother made $27,000, $12,000, $11,000, and $7,000. Her short-term, post-divorce, 5 year savings of $177,000 was eaten up by a skeletal market that left homes sitting on sale far past their best-before dates. She died broke with my paltry retail clerk income paying most of our groceries and utilities for that last year.** I endured her death to find myself nearly $15K in the hole the next year. That number grew because of my low income for the next year after that.

I wound up about $27k in debt -- the second time in my adulthood to hit debts of that amount -- and have succeeded in paying it down to about $7k now, but the goal is to make it all vamoose this year, and to prove for once and for all that I can control money and make it grow, like my mother had been able to do before the market died on her.

When I get there, I plan to start playing the stock market with some of my funds. I'd like to see if I can clue in on the speculation game and find out where my smarts can take me.

Maybe this posting seems out of place on here. I don't know why it would. I think that every aspect of who we are is relevant to every other aspect. I think the confidence and self-assurance that finds us from personal success directly affects how much we're able to feel powerful and in control in other areas -- like sex. And why shouldn't it? Each of these areas is just another series of threads that combine to form the fabric of who we are. Cheesy, but true.

And, hey, look at me. I'm self-improving on the cheap. I didn't pay $295 for a life-transforming three-day seminar. I've got PBS and a pot of coffee, and I never had to change out of my cut-off jean shorts to do it, either.

I'm gonna try to be a little more accountable in every way on this bloggie. I feel like I'm so close to being a person I can really, truly dig, that I'm getting sick of falling just short of everything I want to be. So close yet so far, and I'm not alone. Most people like themselves a lot but have those small things they'd like to change. My first achievement is that of realizing just how far I am from my goals... but also realizing how close I have come. And that's something.

**(Real estate in BC at that time made it illegal for agents to hold a second job and keep their r.e. license. Thus, if the market failed you, you had no ability to make income any other way without losing your r.e. privileges. It was a big price to pay, considering one house sale at the time could net you $12k or so in commission... Not long after my mother's death, the r.e. board changed their standing on income and conflict, and that law was changed; real estate could be a sideline to a different career. One could be a busdriver and sell homes on the weekend. Took them long enough to have a common sense approach, but a little too late for it to be of any use to my mom. Bittersweet victories and all...)

I'm a Hero!

Which Heroes character am I?



You are Hiro. You are everyone's favorite Japanese tourist. Your time is well-managed and you make sure things get done. On top of that, the girls always want a second chance with you.


Take this test?

Found on the Internet: Marital bliss

Mm. Hi, peoples.

It's a great gloomy miasmal evening tonight. Brr, shudder shudder. The kind of night that inspires ghost stories and paranoia around the campfire. It explains the smell of woodsmoke that hung in the air around the office before I left tonight.

I'm kinda pondering life and everything this week. On my other blog I wrote:

I've been in a really weird headspace all week and I'm sort of figuring out where I stand. It's that just-landed-sea-legs syndrome; you hit shore, think "thank god, land! stability!" but it throws your equilibrium off, and now you're even shakier. We were talking earlier about how, when you finally get the right job or something, you finally have that huge load off your shoulders and suddenly you're emotionally available enough to process and deal with all the emotional baggage you've collected during the hard times. Everything swells up and you start percolating. That's been what's been goin' on in my rusty old noggin for the last month. Time of reckoning or something.

So instead of traipsing through the innerworkings of my psyche for all to see, I thought I'd enlist the help of a photographic cop-out.

I stumbled upon this brilliant link in which a professional wedding photographer tells the story of this absolutely fantastically romantic proposal made by an average joe to his woman. A rainy day in Central Park. They seem to have orchestrated everything but still surprised her. Looks just wonderful. Here's just one of many terrific "story-filled" images shot on that occasion. If yer gonna propose, you know, maybe it's a thought...

[a whooshing sound is heard as steff curses and throws general hate towards media.fastclick.net, aka home of the most persistently annoying pop-up ads on the web. the irony? this bit of hate-throwing will probably be used as PR fluffery when they're whoring their products to the next online casino or whatever the fuck they're big on. hey, i got a right to vent. i blog, ergo i rant. getting a rage on can be cathartic. perhaps it's a testimony to the fact that life is going well thus i'm only able to get a rage on about pop-up ads. well, there is Archie comix, but i'm saving that for a bigger rant. yes, i have a rage on for Archie. story at 11. meanwhile... enjoy your day.]

this posting brought to you in part by... parentheses.

A Slow Spot on a Sunny Sunday in June

I'm just having a quiet day reflecting on me, myself, and I. I had a chat with a friend the other night, one of those bump-in-the-hall, how-goes-it chats you didn't expect, but turns a little more profound than you planned on. She asked me how my new job was going, as we hadn't had much chance to discuss it.

I told her things were strange; good, but strange. Very happy there, but the whole thing's been this extremely Freudian headtrip from the get-go -- from my boss's name being those of two of the most significant people in my life, to it being a neighbourhood I loved as a child, partied in throughout college, and spent frequent time with my mother in during the last year of her life. One thing after another comes into play in that neighbourhood, and in these past three months -- the months I've sort of been avoiding being really honest on the screen here -- I've had to face far more demons than I realized. It's been a hard time and a significant personal journey, one I've very much kept to myself.

And here I am, on the verge of being nearly done with the hardest, the toughest, the most challenging time my job can throw at me, and things are finally starting to fall into place. It's so hard to put into words what it is I think I've been facing of late. A reckoning with who I was against that which I am now, and the mega-push towards that which I know I still wanna be.

I get frustrated during times like these. Patience may be a virtue, but it's ain't one of mine. I want what I want when I want it, which is now. But I try. I really, really try. I strongly believe we're meant to feel all we feel. When we're sad, we should embrace it and try to understand it. Ditto with happy, angry, et al, to an extent. If we get too wrapped up in thought, we won't actually experience anything. That's the trick, the balance between experience and examination.

I do all right with it, though, so much so that my focusing on the experiencing of what's been going on has made the end of it all creep right up on me. I didn't really notice that I was coming up on what looks to be the end of that time of Just Getting By. If I don't watch myself, soon I might just start Getting Ahead.

Yeah, this is gonna be a nice summer. My first really nice one in a number of years. Lucky me.

***

My wardrobe has been a thing of disappointment for some time. I've had bills to catch up on and things to focus on for a while now, as the end of two years of underemployment has made these past three months a time of financial (and other) reckoning for me. I have disliked my clothes for so long now, as I've been in a different headspace than the one they provide. Some of those clothes are from when I first began rediscovering my self-esteem, but I've got more esteem now, and want to dress more confidently, more feminine.

Finally I was able to purchase a little new clothing yesterday: a pair of capris, a camisole, a cute tank, two shirts (one that I love -- soft cream, flowy and translucent), four pairs of funky flip-flops (one pair paisley!), and a pair of very feminine, very cute indigo wedge slippers with gold embroidery (very Eastern in style). In all, I'm pretty pleased.

I should be earning some commission from some advertising I've done for work, and it's earmarked for a couple more self-esteem purchases -- new glasses, which should be some variation on the cat's eye in possibly red for a change, and more new clothes. I've been wanting a more feminine look for a while now, so I'm happy that I've finally been able to take strides in that direction.

Anyone who thinks a lack of money doesn't hurt your self-esteem is kidding themselves. I'm not saying money buys self-confidence, but being broke sure doesn't. It makes a huge difference when you can't buy nice things (even if from a thrift shop) to make yourself feel like you look your best. Indulging the self is indulging the spirit. I'm not saying things need to cost a lot -- none of my items did, and most were on sale -- but they need to be right for you. I'll be ecstatic when I can finally toss my holey jeans (but you know I won't... everyone needs one holey pair of jeans) and start wearing things I know are right for the "me" I've become in these past couple years.

So today I'll tidy up my disastrous room, which is really just one giant pile of clothes right now, and start whittling things down to what I really want to keep, as I know the wardrobe scenario is about to change dramatically.

And know what? It makes me more confident about a return to dating now, which I've been saying was in the works. I've been wanting to make the first move online, since I get tired of sitting around waiting for the "right" type of guy to message me, and making the first move doesn't fail me too often. Yet I've not felt like I was able to do so. After all, it'd mean I'd have to back that up with a successful date. Only thing was, I hated my clothing options. What's the point of going on a date if you can't feel sexy?

Now I have a couple options and more are to come. To ad to the clothing movement, I'm treating my body to a little necessary work -- a massage is scheduled for Monday night with some boy from the pool (really) and a chiro adjustment is planned for Tuesday. By Wednesday I should be feeling a little less like the out-of-whack, fatigued woman I've felt like this past week... and I'll have cute new shoes, too. It's all good.

Curse You, Cosmos!

Fate is cruel. I had two three-day weekends in a row, sun on neither. I have a one-day weekend now, and it's been about 25/80 degrees all week, and today is supposed to be the hottest yet. I work. It's 7:30 and the coffee's made. In an hour I'll be on my bike, burning under what's practically an August sun, heading to work. All I can say is, thank God it's a half day!

(The ride last night never happened. Overtime did. Oh well. :) Someone said coffee?

past midnight on a summer work night

so it's 13 minutes to 1 and the moon is full fit to burstin'. it's a warm summer night, but since it's only 48 minutes into June now, there's a cool breeze to take the edge off things.

full moons and new moons are the only times i ever have insomnia. (not every one, thank god. just some.) i get this twitchy thing and this subliminal current of electricity, particularly in the trusty old noggin. just keeps me from sleeping till 2 or 3. usually i lie there all frustrated.

and i got the moon-fever tonight. so, i thought i'd spend a little time with my minions. hi, minions! (wave)

it's officially friday. i work saturday for a change (a one-day weekend) and now i have a plan. i love a plan. if it works for Hannibal, it works for me. in fact, i daresay i love it when a plan comes together. which this one will.

the plan, you ask? why, work. possibly up to an hour of overtime. i'll buy an easy dinner for later, but as soon as i hit home, i hop on the bicycle and ride hard and long. then come home, die, indulge with some wine and my meal (thinking steak & salad, no bread), and do it all again saturday. sunday, i sleep and be lazy.

i'm still biking. my body's all out of whack, and i need a chiro adjustment, which i'll have tuesday, but in the meantime i'm really not enjoying being active -- not like i would normally. my body's full of discomfort and lethargy. this breaking-in period's really rough on me, but it's still a 30 km return trip to work, and i've been forcing myself to do it at least once (usually twice) per week.

i just need to have my body functioning right again. which brings us to: my medical plan just kicked in 58 minutes ago! colour me joyous. i'm booking an adjustment next week and then weekly for 2-3 weeks. i hear they offer massage, too, so i'll look into that as well. stretching only goes so far.

when i'm better adjusted, i suspect writing will be more pleasant for me as well. right now, sitting here, i can tell you everywhere my body's a little bit out. wah. soon. still, i'll force my ass on a bike tomorrow. the upside is that i'm noticing that when i DO cycle hard, there's less impact on my body the next day, unlike a couple weeks ago when i wanted to die. everything wrong with me started 10 days ago and is just maintaining, not worsening, so this is actually good. ;)

and i had compliments on the skirt, by the way. plus, total fuckin' bonus points: riding on my scooter, zipping along at 60+ km/hr and the thrill of air whipping under the skirt, between the thighs. pity about the panties. still. nothing like a warm wind, y'know.

speaking of warm goodness and tingly feelings, i'm about to step into a hot shower before bed. then i fuck with myself by turning to nearly cold at the end, just before i hop under the sheets. brr! summer nights. love 'em.

be well and happy weekend, minions.

Music Ed. note: This post sponsored in part by -- Matt Ward's "4 Hours in Washington", a great insomnia anthem. Off his indie success, Transistor Radio. As live gigs go, Ward delivered one of my favourite small venue shows playing with a new for-tour-purposes backing band and doing this wicked-ass improv jamming bit intermittently. One of those shows that stands witness to how thick a skin drums must have. Punishingly good and worth sucking badly through work the next day. Five out of five pints for Matt, indeed.