I also had to wait about 9 minutes in the Burger King drive-thru today

It's been a rough week.

First off, I decided for about four days that hey, maybe I should have been an athlete all those years.

Bad idea.

I went running, as I have every Thursday for the past... 5-ish Thursdays. Then, I met up with a friend, who wanted to go to the gym. We were supposed to go to a dancy-cardio class. It was full. She talked me into a weight class. Horrible, horrible idea.

The following day, we went to an actual cardio-dance class and then decided we'd try out the gliding class. Well, I had agreed to it in advance but by the time it began I was kinda like "you know, if your muscles are getting sore, why don't we just go home?" but God knows my friend would continue working out in the middle of an earthquake and I wasn't going to be the one to stop her. 15 minutes in, I couldn't do a whole lot. My endurance just isn't made for that kind of shit. 5 minutes later, she informed me her injury was really starting to bother her and that was the end of that. We went home.

I should add, that before going home, we sat in these awesomely fantastic massage chairs to make our muscles feel better. In my opinion, these chairs could soon replace men. Except for, you know, that whole fertilization thing. But we're working on that one.

Anyway, we got home, put muscle relaxant on and relaxed for the evening. I was fairly sure I was going to be sore the next day but my friend even had the nerve to say she didn't think I would be sore the next day - she certainly worked harder than I did. Ridiculous logic, when you think about it, but you get the idea.

The following day, I was actually alright. Sore, but it was bearable. In my opinion, the second day is always the worst, but since it was my first day on the second workout and second day on the first workout, I was expecting to be pretty sore, and figured I was in the clear.

The day after that, I woke up, and was not physically able to move my neck. In some ways, for the entire day. I was able to get up out of bed after a little while, but even at the end of the day, I could not look up or to the left without turning my entire torso. It was some of the worst pain I've ever experienced. Tylenol, muscle relaxants, nothing could do anything. I was dizzy and had migraines throughout the day, resolved only by darkness and cold compresses. It was bad.

So basically, in three days, I have gotten all the use out of my gym membership.

I gots 3 G's of love

My 16 year old brother is going through a phase where he thinks he has become extremely cool, and consequently uses words such as "ain't" and "sup" and such. Today, he told me he was "going out with some bros" later. I responded, "you have bros?" to which he responded, "i got peeps too" like I should obviously know the difference. Finally, I somewhat conceded, and asked him what I was. And you know what he said? "Cool." That's right, he has peeps, and bros, and his big sis', who could probably go by any number of cool names, got labeled just plain cool. I love my brother.

A watched pot never boils

Alright, I'm sitting here, and I just tried a last-ditch solution to get the oil out of the interlock on the driveway, and I have so much invested in the outcome of this scenario, that I am actually sitting here, watching the ground dry, and I realize how sad this is, so I thought I should probably tell you. So this way, I can say I was doing something productive. But we both know the truth.

Lisa the track star

So you may or may not know that I have decided to take up running - more likely the latter, since I have told basically no one, but there is always the chance you have seen me running spastically around Ottawa telling myself that I look sexy (I'm pretty sure I don't).

Anyway, since I've been known to jump head first into ideas and then abandon them I try not to invest too much in them and considering the reason I took up running was because a friend of mine is going to run a marathon and I was running with her "to help her self esteem," I decided I didn't want to buy any "real running clothes".

Now, that being said, you have to consider the fact that since I am not athletic at all, I don't own anything that could even remotely pass as running clothes. So, I resorted to the next best thing. Pajamas.

At first, it wasn't too bad. It was cold, I wore a track sweater I like to wear over my shirt and I was wearing brown stretch pants, so I looked moderately socially acceptable. Yesterday, being 22 degrees, was a different story.

Initially, I had decided I would wear the same thing as the first time, but we quickly realized that would not be an option - it was freaking hot. I only had one pair of shorts. They were red, with either kittens or presents on them - it was hard to tell. But, I concluded, if I wear my pink American Eagle shirt, it looks almost like I have a track outfit like my running partner, who was wearing basically the same thing but in black and blue with the name of her running store on them. This was good enough for me.

Her brother came out to say goodbye to us, and commented, "I've never seen a running outfit like that before!" "They are my pajamas!" I responded. He took this to mean that I intended to change before leaving. I did not.

"Oh, you're actually wearing that to run?" He said, as we walked out the door. Whatever. Too late to change my mind now!

Incidentally, I didn't really get any reactions over it. Or comments, at least. Sure, we got honked at a couple of times, and a fireman fully turned around to check us out as his truck drove by, but I'm pretty sure that would have happened even if I had been wearing regular shorts. Girls showing skin, come on!

You can't always get what you want

So I saw 21 tonight, and I won't get into too many details, but basically, it was a huge flop. Huge. Flop. I don't know how it got good reviews. I thought it had a good soundtrack. Primarily because they had the song "Young folks" which my roommate forbids me from playing and he was there so I took an immense amount of joy out of hearing it while in the same room as him. Secondly, because they had that song which basically just repeats the line "You can't always get what you want" and since there was only 5 other people in the theatre other than the three of us I felt that I was at liberty to sing along at the top of my lungs. Oh, and there were lots of pretty colours and expensive things, and the main actor was kinda hot. And it had Kevin Spacey. And Laurence Fishburne. And the Fire Captain from Rescue Me. But while I love all of them, not even a plethora or great actors can make a mediocre movie great, and this movie was barely mediocre. It was predictable, and the "twist" got totally ruined by a second, lamer twist. It's unfortunate, too, because the concept is really cool, but apparently no one wants to explore anything new these days and the directors just didn't have the guts to take this as far as they could have without packaging it in a perfect blockbuster package.

Text message conversation of the day

"I just accidentally flashed a customer."

"Was she hot?"

"She was someone's wife, yes."

"A wilf!"

Speaking of which, I had to explain to someone what a milf was the other day. How is it that in a room full of men, the only one who knows what it is, is the 22 year old girl? Yeah, I don't know either.

The indestructible phone

A friend of mine lost his phone about a month ago. No big deal, I mean, it was an expensive mistake, but he tends to lose them pretty frequently so it wasn't particularly shocking. We went back and looked for it, but we knew there was about a 95% chance he had dropped it on the side of the road during a snow storm so we figured we would probably never see it again with all the plows out pushing stuff around and such.

Anyway, the other night I got a text message from someone saying she thought she had found a phone belonging to someone by his name. As I had called it countless times after we lost it and she had my number, I figured it had to be the right phone, but I was totally blown away.

Last night I went to pick it up and man, you would not believe the state of this phone. It looked like it had been in my pocket for the last month, not sitting in a snow bank - it was in mint condition. It was in better condition than it would have been had we kept it!

I thought, it had to have been indoors all this time - but sure enough, her son found it at the bus stop right where we lost it. It must have been in the snow bank. For a month. She said he had to peel it out of its case, which was completely destroyed, but the frigging phone was in mint condition! She was even able to turn it on to get his name and my number. I know my phone, when it gets really cold, will turn off even though it has battery power left and presumably that is what happened, but still. Not even water damage. Half the time his phones get water damage when they haven't been in the water!

We thanked her profusely and were once again reminded that there are, in fact, good people in this world. But a month under probably a hundred centimetres of snow. Someone at Motorola is doing something right.

Accident-prone as always

Well, I'm obviously still not doing my paper and I figured it only right that I share with you what just happened 20 minutes ago and now I am in pain and I have no one to whine to and I have a better excuse to continue procrastinating so I am going to tell you.

I've been crashing at a friends the last few days - a break from the roommate troubles and all that, and he has someone else staying with him for a couple weeks with whom I do not get along at all. In my defense, I was staying here when she showed up needing somewhere to stay, and she was supposed to be gone a week ago but shows no intention of leaving ever so I hope you don't think I am terrible for staying here in spite of her. Him and I are a lot closer, so it would be weird if I stopped coming by because of her.

So my friend is working today, leaving her and I alone together. She doesn't have a job, or go to school, so she typically sleeps until around 4pm (or at least stays in bed), which really, is fine by me, but I really wasn't in the mood to see her today so I set myself up in "my room" for the day.

Anyway, it's 1:30, and I'm hungry, so I decide to go heat up leftovers to eat. After they are heated, I decide to stealthily go back to my room to grab my drink and magazine without making enough noise to coax her into coming out to talk to me - she won't typically talk to me unless she wants information or something anyway, so it's not a difficult feat, but I didn't really want her to know I was awake, either.

So I grab my drink and my magazine and quietly make my way down the stairs, and then, in true Lisa style, trip, fall down the entire set of stairs, followed by the huge delayed crash as my drink got thrown into the air and then landed - hard - on the hardwood floor. So there I am, lying on the floor in immense pain, surrounded by glass and covered in pepsi and having made an immense racket, and, of course, the very person I am avoiding comes running out to find out what has taken place.

Great. I explain to her that I am fine but that it's going to be about 5 minutes before I move. She doesn't offer to help clean up. That's fine. I thank her for coming out and making sure I am okay. She goes back to bed. I spend the next 15 minutes cleaning up my mess. Sometimes I don't know how I function on a regular basis.

I'm still alive!

So I apologize for the infrequency of posts this week - I'm 3 weeks from graduating from school and I have a major (ly ridiculous) paper due tomorrow that I need to complete. After tomorrow I will be back for good! Somewhat. Well, you know. I'm writing this while reading "67 New Blow-His-Mind Moves in Cosmopolitan" (none of which are particularly new or exciting - I'm pretty sure they just change the order in each issue) and calculating what my marks are notwithstanding the exams. Like a true student - I never did break those early habits from first year.

Back in the day, I was in the same program as one of my cousins and his girlfriend. Him and I used to stay up as late as possible the night before our papers were due (at 8:30am) without actually starting them. We would call each other for bragging rights, and eventually one of us would give in and start the damn thing around 10pm. His girlfriend would have been working on it for weeks before - taking it in to writer's help and to discuss with the prof, and yet my cousin and I would always get higher marks. It drove her insane.

Now, I'm a little better. I submitted my topic a few weeks ago, and I wrote almost a thousand words yesterday. Two thousand more to go, and I will be back here for your entertainment pleasure. In the meantime, check out the video about candy mountain to keep yourself busy, if you haven't already. It never ceases to make me laugh.

said by my only true online friend

"OMG, never trust people on the internet".

Sometimes I just don't know what to do with the whole online thing. But it can be so enlightening.

Hellooo Mommy!

The other day my mom called and, I kid you not, it showed up on my call display as "Mommy". This was not on a cell phone, nor any phone where you can pre-program numbers, just my landline, which displays whatever the registered name is.

Initially, I thought I had to have imagined it, but sure enough, I just checked, and it did indeed say "Mommy" in the display.

Meaning that any time my mom calls anyone, it shows up as mommy. What a way to confuse people. And I thought I was crazy.

Corn, corn... abort, ABORT!

I watched Charlotte's Web last night. I know, I'm such a kid at heart.

I also absolutely love Dakota Fanning. How she can be so fantastic and handle so many movies just blows my mind. I would love to meet her someday, she has this face that just radiates intelligence, and she is just so damn cute, I feel obliged to watch her movies.

So of course, when I got my hands on a copy of Charlotte's Web, I was all over it. I sat in my room, alone, and watched it. Lame, maybe. My roommate likes to watch girls/children's movies in smaller doses and since I subjected him to Enchanted last week, I figured I had better keep this one to myself.

But it was good, in spite of my immense fear of even seeing spiders. And at the end, I totally cried. It would have been pretty sad if you had seen me right then - sitting in my room, watching a movie I already know the end to on my laptop alone, crying my eyes out over a spider. I know.

And then, I had nightmares about spiders all night. Huge ones, having thousands of babies, and me jumping in a river to get away from them. Sometimes even children's movies are a bit much for me, it seems.

Belated April Fool's

I used to work in the office of this place that gave horseback riding lessons. Every year on April Fool's Day, the "guys", as we called them, would come running in with some crazy scheme trying to convince us of something. This year, we were having none of it, we were ready.

That afternoon, we got a frantic call from them out in the field, where they were bringing the horses back in from grazing. "Get the supervisor, one of the horses just started going crazy jumping all over the place and I think it's dead. We need to call the vet immediately!"

I put him on hold, kinda roll my eyes and grab my supervisor. "It's Jamie*. He says one of the horses is dead, and he wants to talk to you."

She rolls her eyes too. I had worked there for three years, and never had a horse died while I was there, period, let alone while I was working on April Fool's Day. We try to look out the window, but can't see as far as he would be. She gets on the phone.

"Alright Jamie, we'll be RIGHT THERE. To see the dead horse. Jamie, I'm not calling the vet. If I call the vet he will charge us. It isn't funny to joke about this kind of thing"

He pleads with her to take him seriously, and she finally hangs up. He calls back immediately. "You really, seriously, need to call the vet right now." We decide he's been persistent enough, and the supervisor goes out to see what's going on. Sure enough, the freaking horse was dead. I think it had some sort of aneurysm - I can't remember, exactly. Either way, there was nothing we could have done. It's pretty rare that something like that would happen - old age, maybe, but this was completely unexpected.

As horrible as it was, I don't think anyone could believe that of all the days of the year for this to happen, it was the one where no one would possibly believe it. And I think it taught the guys not to play wolf next time.

Holidays with Lisa

I did something kindof bad this week. As I may or may not have already mentioned, I am supposed to go on a trip to Cancun in a couple of weeks with two girls. But, we haven't bought the tickets yet (one of the others is sick with mono and we want to wait before we do it, figuring at this point we might be able to swing a last-minute deal anyhow), and I am pretty short on money right now - I'm on a month-long break from work (paid work, anyway), and I'm stretching to last me another 3 weeks until my trip.

So I thought, instead of borrowing money from someone (which I wouldn't normally do but, as I am graduating and all that, several people have insisted I go and offered to lend money, and I know I could pay it back by the end of May), I should apply for another credit card and just, see if I get it.

I know, I know. Do not follow me as an example. In my defense, I have never carried any debt ever except for this year, and this year, I figured, it's the last year of my life I will ever be able to take serious time off and focus on my studies (and I have no more tuition bills to pay), so why not?

I know, still bad. Anyway, they sent me a card today. $1000 limit. That's a ticket and spending money. Awesome. Feel free to hate me.

Calling to activate was another story. I'm used to my bank, where it's all automatic. On this one, they make you talk to a person - who tries to sell you peace of mind, at a monthly insurance rate. Yeah, lame.

I know I don't want it already. No way. I tell him I have lots of people that will pay my credit card off if I become severely debilitated. He offers me a trial month. I tell him no, I did that once on a card and I still have it and I'm totally hating on that company. He says it will be easy to cancel. I tell him I don't really like talking on the phone and I especially don't like customer service lines, so I won't want to call back. I can hear the smile in his voice, too. But he keeps trying to sell me shit. Finally, he asks if he can tell me about another "opportunity". We banter, I finally tell him there is no way he is going to sell me anything, and he sends me on my way, "a thousand dollars richer". Or so I like to think.

It was "you're"!

How wrong is it to reject someone based on reasonable grounds, but then secretly feel glad about it just because you can't stand the fact that they misused the word, "your"? Really wrong?

It just feels so right.

Sweet rejection

So I met a couple of my girlfriends for drinks after our last day of class yesterday, and what a spectacle that turned out to be.

First of all, it was partially because one of the girls totally likes this guy that I despise more than I despise anyone, and we wanted to hash it out. But it got worse.

He ended up being at the bar we were at, avoiding all eye contact. I can't imagine he would know what to do but he was definitely with another girl so I didn't want to say much. The friend I was with had her eye on him the whole night though.

Then, to make things worse, she ran into a guy who is friends with - get this - her boyfriend. (Let me add, this isn't a close friend, not close enough for me to know she had a boyfriend, so don't judge ME on this one). The guy and his friends ask to join us, and I quickly realize it is to hit on me and the third girl with us, who also has a boyfriend.

Third girl quickly averts the advances of the guy next to me, and I didn't actually catch that he tried to hit on her or I would have called him on it right there. Then, he starts to work on me. He had some great lines:

"I'm normally very shy, so if I see you around school I might not come talk to you" (translation: I am drunk and have faux confiance, and I may or may not remember you after this but if I do you can be certain I will try to contact you".

"If you had to choose between someone very fit or a master chef, which would you choose?"

"Outside of intelligence and personality, what do you like most in a man?" " Um, looks? Is there anything left outside of looks?" (I continuously "guessed" things and then was like, oh wait, no that qualifies as personality)

The highlight of the night was when he asked me, "If you had to choose between someone cocky who admits it, someone cocky who pretends to be humble, or someone humble but less confident, which would you choose?"

I, of course, said humble, with genuinely cocky as my second choice because I just can't stand people who are fake. Third girl agreed, my friend was still staring at the guy across the room, whose hand is now on the ass of the girl sitting next to him.

The guy then asks, which one do you think I am?

The first thing I think is, "I think you're insecure," but I decide I probably shouldn't say this. He wants me to say humble. I don't think he is humble. I don't really think he has enough going for him to be cocky, either, though. He's kindof a douche, doesn't know how to talk to girls, is pretending he is normally shy but that the alcohol has saved him, which is also totally not attractive. I go with, "you look nervous".

And for a second, I see his true personality shine through, and he is a cocky freaking bastard who thinks he's better than everyone in the room. "Oh my God, you are the cocky one pretending to me humble! That's horrible!" "I know," he says, "but don't tell anyone". "Why would you admit that? That is the worst of all of them! Not only have you been being fake the entire time we've been here, but you have been lying about it." I'm shocked, not only because I didn't quite read him, but he is so full of himself it's disgusting, and he has no reason to be. He's not attractive, he's not interesting, he doesn't have much of a personality going for him, and he says, "well, I was only lying for the first hour!"

Like I'm actually forgiving about lying. I despise people who are fake. I have way more respect for people who are who they are and make no mistake about it than people who change and you never really know who they are. He also pulled out this gem: "I'm just being socially acceptable".

At this point, douchebag across the room still has his hand on this girl's ass, so I clink glasses with the girls and go, "drink up, girls, because it's time for us to go!"

We grab our jackets, and get the freak out of there.

As an afternote, he had already looked me up on Facebook before I got home. It was hilarious because he kept claiming to forget names, and yet I could hear him memorizing my name, so I knew he would add me. He actually said my name slowly out loud, it was pretty obvious. And then he pretended like, "if we ever catch up on Facebook...."

First date with my family

Around Christmas every year, my family on my dad's side has a bowling-and-dinner party. Everyone has a blast, and it usually serves as an initiation for all new "significant others" in the family. It's typically pretty brutal, but once the said boyfriend or girlfriend survives it, they never want to break up because they feel the need to stick around at least to take part in the whipping of the next poor soul to date someone in my crazy family. This year, of course, was no exception.

I really don't know what would qualify as the highlight of the evening, and for this I apologize, because this post may meander a little bit.

There we were, about 25 of us seated in a (secluded, thank God), part of the restaurant. The "cousins" showed up late, so my poor cousin and her boyfriend were seated with the parents - a horrible scenario to be in, because they are particularly bad. There's not just good cop and bad cop; there is crazy cop, drunk cop, what are your intentions cop and I will embarrass you if it's the last thing I do cop.

The cousins are a bit better, we will harrass the poor guy but we know whatever we do is coming to us someday, so we have to behave a little. So the night starts out at dinner fairly tamely, the parents are somewhat behaving (asking immense amounts of questions, confusing him by trying to make him contradict his answers, asking his intentions and then likely accusing him of other intentions, none of which is actually serious but still moderately hilarious), and the cousins are doing things such as shouting his name loudly from across the room and then pretending it didn't happen, so that each time he looks around he thinks he is going crazy. Also, they re-named him after my other cousin's boyfriend (I think her boyfriend may have come up with that himself, actually), so he was mostly getting addressed by a name that wasn't even his. You get the idea.

The climax of dinner was when he made the mistake of revealing that he is capable of singing (he plays the keyboards in a band), and they started asking him to sing. In front of everyone. He looked completely bewildered but, not wanting to back down, reluctantly agreed. I kid you not, his first day with my family, and he sang "Piano Man" by Elton John, in a restaurant, in front of about 25 members of my family in addition to the rest of the customers. After about a verse, my entire family joined in, and it is still by far one of the most hilarious moments in my life. Picture this: you like a girl, she finally introduces you to her family and they insist you sing a song in front of all of them? Yeah, I know. Don't ever ask why I'm screwed up. And it wasn't the only time they made him sing that night, either.

Then we went bowling. Now, bowling is also an adventure. No one in my family actually cares about the rules, winning, or even completing the game. Most of our scores are fairly low, breaking a hundred, maybe, for the best players. The poor boyfriend, of course, plays like any normal person, and scores 223 - around a hundred points better than everyone. From the beginning of dinner he was saying he wasn't good (and really, was he?), so they end up taunting him endlessly about how he destroyed everyone.

To make it worse, my dad got this dancing and singing Christmas tree, which they decided would be the prize for the best bowler. So, they presented it to the new boyfriend, and then made him dance and sing along with it. I know. I'm going to hell. But it was freaking hilarious.

Finally, the insanity was over, and we were all hugging goodbye. My dad hugged me, and then went, fists first, to hug someone else, and ended up punching me in the face really hard. I swore - loudly - and then didn't know what to do because it was obvious I had sworn and I had just been punched in the face, so there I was, doubled over, half laughing, half ready to cry, because it hurt like a bitch, but it was really funny, too.

And that, my friends, is what a typically first date with my family is like. We always try to prepare the poor suckers but really, even if I told you, would you actually believe me?

My door is currently open

Something I'm starting to find really frustrating is the fact that my cat knows how to open my door from either way. The handle mechanism doesn't lock in all the way so you can always push it open, even when it looks fully closed, and as my cat has discovered, you can open it from the inside too, if you put your paw under it and pull it open.

This wouldn't be so frustrating except I often close my door for privacy and, although my roommate would always knock (or at least shut the door behind him!), the cat does not, and my door is constantly open because, well, she is a cat after all - anything a door is shut she wants to get through it. If only I could train her to close the door behind her, then everything would be great. I don't see that happening anytime soon though.

Phone-sitting

I've been "phone sitting" for a friend on holidays for the past week, and it has led to some interesting calls. The most recent one was particularly interest-inducing, it was the gas company, and they left a message on his voice mail while I was in class.

You have one new message. First message, sent today at 6:27pm from phone number 000-000-0000:

I almost hung up before she finished reading out all the zeros one by one. But I thought, maybe he was calling collect or something and I should probably listen. No such luck.

Hello, this is the gas company. We have not received your payment for this month's invoice. This must be resolved today. Thank you.

I kid you not. No name, no phone number, no outstanding balance, nothing. I have no way of responding to this. For past calls (and yes, it's happened), I explain that he is away on holidays and that I will be taking care of it. Usually no problem. But how do I respond to this? I drove to his house, looked for a bill, found nothing (for the record, we're close enough that that would be acceptable and that I would have a reasonable idea of where the bill is kept - I'm not some sort of snoopy stalker). I can't call. They didn't technically say they were going to disconnect the service. It was somewhat of an idle threat. If I didn't resolve it yesterday, they could do anything today. I'm sure I'll be getting a call from his friends staying there if they suddenly have no heat, though.

Zero. zero. zero. zero. zero. zero. zero. zero. zero. zero.

April Fools!

Every year on April Fool's day when I was a kid, my dad would run to the window and shout, excitedly, "hey, look, a rabbit!" or something equally inconsequential. And every year, we'd run to the window like maniacs only to be taunted for falling for April Fool's!

Not that I'm not a fan, but I think I'll keep it on the L-D this year. I probably won't really even see anyone major enough to want to play a prank on anyway. I thought of my roommate, but I don't think either of us could ever be bothered.

However, one of the funniest pranks I've ever seen play out has been when I was 13, we had this wonderful French teacher that drank water at her desk, all day every day.

When she was out of the room, one of my close friends dumped out her water and replaced it with vinegar. We were all sure she was going to smell it long before she drank it, and I'm sure she was eyeing us suspiciously as we all were listening a lot closer than usual.

Thankfully there was a sink in the room, because I will never forget the look on her face as she realized what had happened and ran for it. The entire class (her included) laughed until we cried; in retrospect, it was kinda fortunate she had a sense of humour.

So enjoy your pranks, however elaborate they may be, and if you have any cool stories, feel free to share. I'd love some ideas, maybe get my dad back someday.

Soundtrack of the day

I think if you listen to these songs you will truly understand what is going on in my mind at any given time on any given day. Ignore the lyrics, I think they are probably all about sex. Sexy, tongue-in-cheek and likes to sing about lobsters. Yep, that's me.

Yoav - Club Thing

Mark Ronson feat. Amy Winehouse - Valerie

B-52's - Rock Lobster

Incidentally, apparently a "rock lobster" is actually a crayfish, which is not actually a lobster. But I just really like the word lobster.

[p.s. After typing this last post, I decided to check out Youtube to see if they had any clips of the song "Club Thing". Except I accidentally typed "Club lobster". There were no results.]

Still truckin'

So after that last post I lay in bed for about three hours.

Around 2am, my roommate stumbled in drunk with a couple of friends, clearly unaware that I was in the apartment.

I hear him announce, like he is giving a speech, "okay guys, here's the deal - I only have one pillow, and one blanket, so you each get one."

They banter loudly for several minutes.

Finally, I stumble out of my room, one of my many pillows in hand.

"Boys, if you be quiet, I'll give you an extra pillow."

"Who is THAT?" The other two were quite shocked to find out a girl was in the apartment that they did not know of.

"Oh, that's just my roommate. Lisa, this is Derek. He will be asleep on our couch in the morning. Kris is also here."

He decides to pass on my pillow, pointing out that they may get sick during the night, and they promise to be quiet.

This morning I woke up to coffee in bed. Sometimes it's not so bad living here.

Need sleep

I woke up this morning to a car alarm going off. Immediately followed by someone honking their horn. It is now 11:30. The same horn has honked three times. In a "I am parked out front and can't be bothered to come in and ring the buzzer so I will just lay on the horn" kinda way. If this person honks one more time, so help me I will march down there and kick the shit out of their car. What part of "there are several hundred people living around this parking lot" do people not understand??

Timeless advice

• Singing makes for excellent stress-relief. So does dancing. Especially with children.
• Baby powder is a reasonable solution for basically anything. Oily hair but no time to shower? Put baby powder on it. Shoes smell like feet? Baby powder. Feet smell like feet? Baby powder. Unsuccessful attempt at home waxing that resulted in a large amount of wax stuck to your leg? Baby powder. Oh, and it's good for babies, too, so I hear.
• Speaking of random useless factoids, spraying hair spray onto ink stains before washing them usually removes them.
• You can do what you want, or you can do what other people want, but either way you are going to please the same amount of people.
  
• Integrity is irreplaceable. Make sure you have it, and that you surround yourself by other people that have it.
• A boyfriend can never replace all your friends.
  
• Give to charity, whether it be time, clothing, money, or otherwise. It will benefit you more than you'd think.
• Same goes for random acts of kindness. I guarantee if you replace every time you honked angrily at an unruly driver with a good deed for someone who deserved it, your level of happiness would increase tenfold.
• Everyone is just trying to succeed at the life they are living. Don't blame them for it.
  
• On average, my level of satisfaction with the decisions (both major and minor) that I have made quickly has been about the same if not better than the decisions I spent copious amounts of time deliberating on. Don't piddle away your time overthinking things, just do what feels right.
• If someone doesn't bring out the best in you, they aren't right for you. You don't deserve to be changed.
• Be carefree for as long as you can manage it.
• Nothing beats hysterical laughter at something that really isn't funny at all.
  

Girl power

Back in the day, I was slightly anti-women.

Seems silly now, but my experiences with women, for the most part, were moderately negative. Not so much with relatives or anything, but the girls at school. It seemed to me they were all quite nasty, talking behind each other's backs and playing cruel games for popularity - I never wanted to confide in them because everyone I know would know by the end of the day.

Then I met boys. Boys, it seemed, were my saving grace. They cared. They listened. They appreciated having a women's perspective on everything. I could trust them with my secrets, and I loved it.

In little time at all, I had eliminated the bulk of my female friends. I had a few, sure, but they were more activity friends and less close friends. This lasted for most of high school and the bulk of my university career. It was easy in high school; none of the guys had the guts to ask me out anyway. In university I had a male best friend which, in retrospect, scared most of the guys away.

Eventually I realized that male best friend was a bad idea. Soon after, I realized that, at this point in our lives, guys aren't looking for a female friend. They are looking for a girlfriend. Or nothing at all. But it's all or nothing. Consequently, when that friendship ended, so did a lot of my other close friendships, as I started finding I was rejecting far more guys than I ever had before, and that I had very few friends that actually wanted to be my friend.

One day, I decided, I had made a mistake. I missed girls. I wanted to do girly things. I wanted to dress up for no good reason. I wanted to watch Disney movies and bake and talk about how ridiculous it was that no guy could just like me platonically. I wanted to talk someone's ear off without thinking they were only talking to me in hopes that I would sleep with them. And, I cultivated new friends. Now my friends are 90% girls, and I would not give them up for the world. And I know they will always be there for me when the chips are down. Sure, I still don't like cattiness or gossip - and I can't stand it when I overhear a group of girls going, "Oh my GOD, have you SEEN Katie Holmes' new hair cut? It is SO CUTE!" but I remember that I have much better friends now, and they make me laugh, at ridiculousness. They embody the true meaning of being a woman.

P.S. I just want to say, it was very difficult to go this long without making a joke. So, I will finish off by sharing my all-time favourite compliment, which I was reminded of earlier today. It was directed towards a fairly strict riding instructor, who typically wore her hair in a ponytail but one day wore it down. One of her clients walked up to her and said, completely sincerely, "Wow, you look much less harsh than usual today!"

When I stopped laughing I spent the rest of the day telling people things like, "hey, you look much less fat than usual today!"

Sometimes a compliment isn't always a compliment.

I'm lost without Lost!

You know, I'm not really one for tv. In fact, I don't actually even own a tv. We had one piece of crap for like 4 months, then it got demoted to a table, and now we just hook up my lcd monitor to the dvd player or our laptops if we ever want to watch movies - but it's not hooked up to even the free channels, something people find shocking but I've never really considered doing it. Anything I actually watched would just be time filled, there is nothing I particularly want to watch.

Time's are a-changing, though, it seems. I've gotten hopelessly addicted to Lost. I'm not one of those people who are big on whatever happens to be popular, either. In fact, up until now, the only show I really really liked to watch was Weeds, which hasn't been on for quite awhile. I'm also a fan of Flight of the Conchords, but I've only ever watched it on DVD. But Lost, is a whole other story. It's practically an addiction. I need to see it as soon as it's on. I go watch it at other people's houses every single week.

It all started on Christmas Day. I went to my father's house, as we always do around noon on Christmas day. One of the first things he said (I'm hoping it was after, "Merry Christmas!" but I can't totally remember), was, you need to see this show. I've never, ever been told by my father to actually watch tv, so I figured, this was going to be big. We proceeded to spend the entire day watching the first season of Lost. In fact, I spent the better part of my Christmas holidays watching it. I got so obsessed, I had to cut myself off - I was having nightmares and had no free time. So, I did what a true gen-Yer would do, and read the summaries of every episode for the entire second and third season, watched the finale for the third season, and then just started on the fourth season. I estimate I saved myself about 34 hours of my time.

Now, here I am, seriously needing a fix, and it turns out they aren't broadcasting another episode until April 24. APRIL 24! I could hardly wait until last Thursday. And then NOTHING? I should cut myself off until 2009 and then just watch it all at freaking once, because I don't know how much longer I can carry on like this. And if they don't answer all my questions by the end, I will be SERIOUSLY bitter, because I hate when they leave it to the audience's imagination. In my opinion, any piece of art that does that just shouldn't waste my time, because I've got more than enough imagination for the both of us, and if I'm going to imagine the ending, I might as well imagine the whole thing. It would probably be better that way anyway. Except for Lost. It would be really nice if they did this one for me. Really nice.

Lisa wants her truck back

Normally I pride myself on being an easy-going, agreeable, patient and tolerant girl but right now, at this very moment, I am just about at the end of my frustration rope (commence venting now).

I have been lending my roommate my SUV intermittently to do deliveries for his work - he owns a very small sedan so it allows him to pick up some extra work to pay off his debt without actually shelling out for a larger vehicle, and I don't really mind because driving his car from time to time saves me a little bit on gas and also gives me a chance to drive standard, something that isn't worth going out and buying another car for, but I do enjoy from time to time.

HOWEVER, and this is a big however, after the first day or two he asked if he could clean out my car. Now, you probably don't know me, but if you did, you would know that my car is home to basically 80% of my possessions. You could find basically anything in my car. I keep everything in it. Everything. Plus a lot of useless stuff. So when he asked, knowing he is putting equipment and such in the car, I agreed, figuring it would give him a bit more space. I told him to throw all the junk in boxes and don't throw out any receipts, and that was that. I figured he would clear out the back seat and trunk so that he had space.

I was a bit incorrect in my calculation. Or more, he was a bit more overzealous in this activity than I expected. When he said, "clean out," he meant everything. EVERYTHING. My garage door opener is no longer on the sun shield. All objects of sentimental value are gone, banished to this box. My steering wheel cover, which I didn't particularly like but was a gift from my brother? Gone. And I won't be able to get it back on without help. My fish sticker that my friend's niece gave him and we decided to mount on the overhead light button? Gone. I had the number for a towing company that helped me out once, and a valentine from a friend on my garage door clip, and who knows where those things are.

There is not a fucking thing of mine left in my truck, let alone the insurance papers in the glove compartment. You know, I like my truck clean just like the next person, but he took EVERY OUNCE of sentimentality out of the car for me. It won't feel the same putting it back. I'm going to have to reorganize everything. IS NOTHING SACRED? Does no one have any respect for sentimentality anymore? Is everyone so convinced that cleanliness is important that they don't even stop for a second, and think, maybe this person had these things this way for a reason? A pile of receipts, shoes, clothing, tools, and crap in the trunk, I get moving. I just never bothered to take it out. But my fish sticker? Not cool. Not cool at all. I'm going to be humming on this one for awhile. And I have no defense, because, well, he asked me (venting complete).

One-track mind

So I was reading this online article on sexual health, and I think I have something on my mind because this banner appeared that said, "education" and I definitely thought it said, "seduction".

How does the internet always know I'm single?

Lisa, find your hottest single friends here!

Oh I'm sorry, do most people need an internet program to tell them who their hottest single friends are? BECAUSE I KNOW! Telling me is like rubbing it in.

On another note, it seems my roommate has gotten us a treadmill. Either that or he has started bringing his work home with him. Regardless, he is going to be fixing a treadmill, because that is one broken down piece of shit.

I'm not totally sure how I feel about it because on the one hand, it would be cool to have a treadmill and I can't afford the gym membership I semi-desperately want, but on the other hand, it's huge and will take up a whole room, and seeing as we only really have three rooms (mine, his, and everywhere else), it would be a little bit crowded. Actually, I have basically named every nook in our apartment so it seems like we have a lot more rooms than we have (living room, dining room, gym, apparently, on the other side of the dining room, kitchen, front room, cat room/large closet, washroom, etc.), but in reality, they are more like corners, and having a gym requires dividing our dining room in two, so that it would basically be the size of our dining room table.

I've spent a great deal of time reflecting on my use of the adjective, "cheap-ass" and have decided it probably should have been written, "cheap-assed". But I'm not going to change it. I just wanted to let you know I noticed, and I care, but not enough to do anything about it.

Weather girl

Well it's 6:57 and the sun is shining, and I can feel the warmth penetrating my cheap-ass paper blinds that I've never bothered to upgrade. This can mean but one thing! The seasons are changing. That's right, we are switching from winter to summer! (Spring no longer qualifies as a season in my books - it lasts a week, tops. Fall is defined by leaves falling).

Anyway, my prediction is that by April 9 it will hit 10 degrees at least once. Usually it's actually warmer, but this year I am anticipating it to be less warm. I am more accurate than freaking Environment Canada, The Weather Network and the Farmer's Almanac combined! Well not really so much as those services are all grossly inaccurate, and I create new forecasts combining their forecasts, but I will tell you this. People who know me, call me to check the weather. Probably because they know I've already checked it, but that's irrelevant. The point is, it's almost summer. Summer will probably go back to winter from approximately May 8-May 21. But then it will come back again, and last til late September. (or in the case of last year, late October - 28 degrees on Oct. 29, anyone?).

The point is, I can feel it. This is not temporary. We are getting our spring, and soon it will be summer. Enjoy it while it lasts. Oh, and clean out your drains. Apparently there is a little bit more water kicking around than usual.

The cactus table

"I left some mail out for you the other day, did you get it?"

"I have no idea. The dining room table? Oh wait no, the cactus table."

"The cactus table?"

"Yeah, you know... the table with that cactus on it?"

"That's a cactus?"

"Oh wait... it's bamboo... the bamboo table."

"I kinda like the sound of 'cactus table'"

"Me too. I'll buy a cactus and then everything will be resolved."

" The cat is really going to hate you."

This song is in your head, in your head

So anyway, my roommate and I have a list of songs we are not allowed to play around each other. Typically songs one of us is addicted to and the other can't stand. I can't remember the names of the ones I don't let him play but on my list of forbidden songs is the following:

The Cranberries - Zombie

Peter Bjorn and John - Young Folks

With an honourable mention to anything by the Spice Girls and Phil Collins, which I am allowed to play in small doses. When we first moved in together I was obsessed with Phil Collins (okay, I still am), and I got all these spiteful Facebook wall posts from his friends commenting on my overplay of everything by Phil Collins.

But, I digress. My roommate is pretty tolerant of my other musical tastes, keeping in mind, I love pretty much everything. From the 60's to present.

So I came across this dance remix of Zombies, his most hated song, last night. And I turned it off before he got home. But I couldn't stop singing it.

"Lets go get dinner," he said.

"OK, but you are going to hate me."

"Why's that?"

"Zombies, zombies, zombies bies bies!! Wait. Yes, you HAVE to hear this version"

I proceed to dance around our apartment for the next three minutes singing at the top of my lungs as he shakes his head and tries to block it out. My dancing is ridiculous enough that it's hard not to watch. The song is ridiculous enough that it's hard to believe someone wrote it.

Check it out here:




So basically, I have to listen to the music I really hate for a couple weeks. Or act really cute to get my way. But it was so worth it. I implore you to serenade everyone you know along with this clip.

more on this later

in your head, in your head.... zombie, zombie, ZOMBIE BIE BIE!

Enchanted by Enchanted!

I watched Enchanted tonight. For the second time.

And it was funny, I absolutely loved it the first time, and raved about it for months. Seeing it again, I loved it every bit as much, and it was almost like watching it for the first time. I laughed just as hard at every joke and my heart filled with joy at every lovey-joyful moment.

Even my roommate, as much as he will deny it, loved it. We were laughing to the point of crying. All throughout the movie, even the serious parts, he would burst out laughing at the thought of bees flying past confused construction workers and into Patrick Dempsey's apartment to do some serious cleaning.

The characters are all so endearing and sincere, I don't know what to do myself. And the dufus prince. Don't be so melodramatic. I don't know what that means, but I will make sure you are never queen again!

And the seriously unbelievable sexual references. But you'll have to see those for yourself. Either way, every character is lovable, the women, the men, the talking squirrels. You won't know what to do with yourself. Kids movie? I don't think so. This is one everybody is going to love. Even the boys that are, as the little girl put it, "only after one thing". But no one seems to know what that one thing is.

Free blog entry with purchase of $29 glasses*

Change your view for just 29$*
Complete eye glasses for only $29.

Front page of the paper. Awesome, I think. I need new glasses. I look through the advertisement to see what the star at the end of the statement means. Nothing.

That's right. Times are a-changing. Now, it's acceptable to merely place a star at the end of a statement to indicate that there ARE stipulations, without actually saying what they are. Or even indicating that the star means there are stipulations. It's implicit.

So here I am, loathing the world, because I know the glasses are probably only $29 if I buy 14 other pairs of glasses at full price, and I refuse to even take the time to call them and find out what the catch is. Because it's just a way of getting people to come in. And I refuse to give in to that kind of advertising.

If you have a deal, you have a deal. But don't deceive people. Put the damn stipulations in the damn advertisement, or don't have any at all. But don't put a star and think that it's good enough. It just makes me bitter.

Resembling the mailman

At a party the other night, my dad commented that I looked exactly like our mailman, at which point I announced, "and I really love delivering mail!"

I'm not totally sure people realized we were joking.

The complexities of marriage

I've been giving it some thought, and if I ever get married and decide to keep my own last name, I want one of those hats that says, "The future Mrs. (his last name)". Except with my own last name. Because it would be way less funny if it had his last name on it.

Telemarketation: the act of scaring away telemarketers

I'm responsible for responding to someone's work cell phone while he is away on holidays. There is the off-chance that there could be some sort of work emergency and not everyone has my contact information in the event of something like that. However, it is also used as a personal phone and consequently I expect to receive a few confused personal calls from people who don't know that he is away.

Today, I got a moderately strange call.

"Hi, could I please speak to the person responsible for the gas bill?"

"I'm sorry - which?"

"The gas bill"

"Um, he's not available right now, could I take a message?"

"No, I'll call back.

At first I thought, I probably should have said it was me, knowing she is going to call back and get me and I will probably end up paying the bill for him. However, it occurred to me that if it was HIS gas company, they would have at least known his name. Hell, even most telemarketers have SOME name to go by. So it sounds like this is just a cold, unwanted, call. And no, I'm not above angrily chasing away telemarketers on someone else's phone. Here's hoping she waits at least two weeks to call back, eh?

I like my rum and pepsi straight and unmixed

I don't know what it is, but it seems like I can never just go to the grocery store and buy groceries without incident like a normal person.

Today I went to pick up some laundry detergent, which basically means I can still go through the express line, but I have about 8 things I really don't need.

In other words, I had detergent, a case of pepsi, two easter eggs filled with Ferrero Rocher chocolates, chocolate milk, and a lunch combo.

The guy in front of me gave me space to put it on the cashier's stand and started a conversation with me.

"Yeah, you'd think I'd be smart enough to buy the heaviest things on separate trips but nope, I'm not."

"What's with the pepsi, anyway?" he responds, "you can't drink rum with that."

"I know, I know," I say, with an audience of 5 or 6 people at this point, "but I prefer that straight."

"Yeah I guess pepsi is better straight."

"Pepsi? I was talking about the rum!"

So basically, it's 11am, and the entire grocery store thinks I'm a raging alcoholic. Just another average day in the life of Lisa.

Interestingly enough, the cashier didn't seem to want to see me go. But that's a whole other story, I think, which I would title, "Lisa doesn't understand why she gets hit on more unshowered and disheveled, when she has yet to consider brushing her teeth or hair on that particular day, than on any given day that she actually gets dressed."

"I like to call our cat the monorail because when she climbs up the side of the doorway, that's exactly what she looks like."

Our cat has way too much time on her hands.

The problem-solver

"What's that beeping?"

"I don't know, an alarm of some sort."

I search through my purse to find a pedometer I impulsively bought for around $3 last week. Apparently something set its alarm off and now I was going to have to turn it off.

I push all the buttons. Nothing. I hold each of the individual buttons down. I start coming up with combinations, pushing them and then holding them down. Nothing works. I consider throwing it out the window. No way, I paid $3 for this! I try to unscrew the back that holds the battery in. The screw is far too small.

Finally, I put it inside a mitten which I put inside a pencil case filled with stuff. Problem solved. Or so I thought.

Eventually (read: the following day) I needed the mitt, pencil case, and whatnot. I try the smallest screwdriver I own, which is intended for glasses, but achieve nothing. I place said pedometer in the middle of a box I am filling with clothes to give to charity.

That night, I am lying in bed and I hear a beeping sound. Dammit!

I put the box in the closet.

Today, I decide to clean out my closet. I try to find a place in my apartment where I will be unable to hear it. I consider throwing it out the window. I still recall paying $3. I put it in the linen closet, wrapped up in a towel. It will be there for awhile.

Quotes of the day

"Did your kids take your last name or his?"
"His, that was my gift to him."
"What did you get?"
"Well, kids."

"That's not a car, that's a hole with pieces of car around it."

"Hey, you didn't roll your eyes when we mentioned her name this time."
"I know, and now my eyes hurt."

What it feels like for a girl

I have always prided myself on being what I refer to as a "tomboy girly girl" but I think I'm going to start leaning a bit more towards the girly side after the events that took place this week.

Twice, I have been blatantly referred to with a male reference that would not normally be used in a case which involved a girl. What the hell?

Earlier this week, myself and a male co-worker were walking towards some equipment we needed to do some work on when we passed two men also working on the property.

"How you doing, fellas?"

Alright, alright. I'll give you that I do things normally reserved for males. I'm tough. But a fella? I don't think so. I look fairly feminine. I am certainly not ugly or overly masculine. I have long hair, and a pretty-looking face. I was wearing pink boots and mittens.

Then, to add insult to injury, we were pulling into the same facility a few days later - we typically have to explain to the parking attendant that we aren't charged for parking - and we were waiting at the gate for the girl working to check with her supervisor before waving us through. I am in the passenger seat, but she can see me. I'm approximately 4 or so feet away from her. She gets on her walkie talkie and says, "I have two guys here that need to get in to work on their equipment - can I let them in?"

Two guys. Not two people. Not a couple. Not a guy and a girl. Two guys. This isn't like when someone says "you guys". No one ever refers to a group of girls as "some guys". You can say "those guys" or "you guys," but never have I ever heard someone say, "I'm friends with two guys" and be referring to one or more girls.

I need to start buying better push-up bras.

(said within earshot, outside her closed bedroom door, as it occurs to us that she could have come back while we were not paying attention)

"Maybe she is here"

"That would suck"

"I don't know, you tell me."

A day in the life of an undergraduate

12:50pm: Decide waiting for more hot water to become available for my showering pleasure is more important than making it to my 1pm class. Text buddies to inform, will arrive at end of class.
1pm: Realize prof will be at 2:30 seminar I am attending with buddies. Decide to go anyway.
1:15pm: Shower. Get things together.
1:45pm: Leave for lunch.
2:25pm: Head to school
2:40: Arrive at school, late, but not too late. Walk into seminar. Realize I am the only non-prof there. Sit down anyway.
2:50pm: Friends arrive. No longer look like a mix between a huge loser and the most loyal student in the department. Relieved that prof for earlier class has not shown up.
3:10pm: Wine and cheese becomes available. Realize profs are all over it. This makes it fair game for me.
3:20: Professor for a course which I skipped an entire semester of recognizes me. Does not know from where. Has a good idea. Have had half a glass of wine.
3:30: I am now good buddies with every prof I have ever had. Gotten several compliments on my French. Evil past professor likes me now. Wants me to sign up for masters. He decides I am a student from a local community that worked a lot and never came to class. I decide to tell him I worked a lot and never came to class, but that I am not that student. He is satisfied. Now on second glass of wine.
3:35: Prof from earlier class shows up. I don't make eye contact. I decide if she talks to me, I like her anyway, in spite of the fact that her course is terrible. I decide I will say I am sick if she questions me. I find master's student to corroborate my story.
3:39: Prof does not acknowledge me. She should be impressed I am doing extracurricular studies anyway. Every other prof is looking at us with shiny eyes, because they are so glad we like our language studies enough to pursue them outside of class. I am well liked enough in the department to save my reputation, anyway. Every prof knows my attendance record sucks but my marks don't.
3:40: Place starts to clear out, my conversation partners start to disperse. Commence conversation with master's students.
4pm: C'est le temps à partir. I am a little tipsy. I share this with my buddy in the washroom. She is too. I have a midterm in 25 minutes. I haven't started studying, and I am kinda giggly.
4:10: I decide I will resolve this with a cookie.
4:12: I eat cookie and decide the class should tutor me for the next 10 minutes. I divulge that I have been drinking and I find German quite hilarious right now. They inform me the test should be fairly easy and teach me the basic concepts.
4:30: I am now more sober, and write the test with ease. As far as I can tell. I decide I should drink with the department more often.

Officially ending my relationship with mannequins

So, I went to a tanning salon yesterday.

I know, I know. I'm so vain. Half the time I am sitting there thinking, wow, these people are so vain! Wait... I'm here too! Dammit!

And no, I'm not one of those people that justifies it by saying I do it for the vitamin D. Bullshit, take a vitamin or spend 15 minutes outdoors. You know you are doing it to look good. I tell myself I do it because I feel better about the way I look and I also enjoy the heat and relaxation. It's as if I'm on vacation for 8 minutes at a time, and I like it. I don't do it excessively, either.

Anyway, I signed up for this 3 visits for $3 at a new salon to try it out. I've been going at the gym and I still have piles and piles of unused minutes (they had a fantastic deal awhile back), but I have moved and the gym is just really far away now, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

So time number 3 comes around, and the lady, who is obviously a manager, informs me that I have zero minutes left.

"Oh of course," I say, "I'm still on my 3 visits for $3 thing".

"Actually, you only have 7 days to use those three visits, the receptionist would have told you when you signed up."

"Well she didn't," I respond. And I always listen for catches like that so I don't miss out. At least then, if I don't do it in time, I knew what I was getting into.

"Well, they definitely told you. We train our staff extensively and they tell every single person who signs up. Sometimes people only hear what they want to hear and they don't hear them say that part, but we always tell the customers."

So now it's an attack on her ability to train her staff. They definitely didn't tell me. And she's accusing me of not listening, like I'm some moron. I'm pissed.

"We also have it written on the sheet you signed when you signed up," she says.

This is probably true. I didn't read the contract, I let the clerk summarize it. I have lost. I still want her to know her receptionist didn't inform me.

"Ok, if it was on the contract that's fair, I didn't read that, but she definitely didn't say anything about it or I would remember."

"If it was Stephanie or Michelle, which it probably was, they definitely told you."

She doesn't believe me. I won't be returning. Great business sense, isn't it?

10 reasons why mannequins are better than real men

1. They are good listeners.
2. They don't talk back.
3. Their looks will never deteriorate.
4. They are sharp dressers.
5. They will never leave you.
6. They have an air of mystery.
7. They don't eat much.
8. They don't mind if you wear comfy clothes all the time.
9. They are always smiling.
10. They aren't allergic to your pets.

Yes, I am still going on about the merits of mannequins.

Why.....why???

ALSO, because I feel it necessary to bombard you with three posts on the topic of mannequins, I would just like to say, I noticed the SAME TYPE OF MANNEQUINS in Ottawa today. You know what that means? That means they are everywhere!

What gets me though is, they are not any more realistic than normal mannequins. The proportions may be slightly better, but their faces are insane! And who are we kidding, anyway? People are more likely to buy clothes that look attractive! If the clothes don't even look good on a model, they definitely won't look good on an average person.

Anyway, here's a photograph of the mannequins. Coming soon to a store near you.

On second thought, if they can make this guy look good, one would think their clothes would look good on anyone. I'm actually finding this mannequin rather attractive. It's unfortunate that he has no genitalia.

afterthought

In case you happened to be wondering, for whatever reason, the mannequins which I was photographed accosting (by my mother, no less) were all suffering from hair loss. Strange, because I'm pretty sure their target audience is like 25-35 year old women, but whatever. Well, maybe. Bald is sexy, right? Oh, and the other thing is, I'm kinda notorious for liking older men. Maybe it was meant to be.

I'm not sure what exactly this reveals about me...

At the prospect of my dating a mannequin...

Roommate: You always go for the same kinda guy!

Me: Hahaha... balding, stylish, doesn't say much?

Roommate: Tends not to move for weeks at a time, easy to clean, no genitalia.

Beware of deer

Beware of large bucks chasing does into the highway at night.

Rules to travel by

We made the trip to Quebec City today. I haven't been in awhile, but here are some tips if you are ever considering it:

1. Remember in advance that unlike Gatineau, close to Ottawa, everything here is not necessarily English. There are not English menus available. There aren't piles of English people available to explain what haché means. Unlike Hull, if you don't know a word by now, you are probably moderately stuck at understanding it. This does not include heavily touristic areas where everyone can speak English.

2. Buy gas at the gas station before lunch, not after. We actually ate at a truck stop. I think it was called Big Truck Stop. It was fantastic. We bought gas at 1.08 before going in. By the time we finished, it was 1.23 a litre. Not cool.

3. Beware of deer. I don't have to tell you this one. There are progressively more terrifying and gender specific beware of deer signs the entire trek. It starts off with sets of 2 signs next to each other, that make it look like does wander into the highway and then the bucks follow them. Then there are actual images of cars hitting deer. Finally, it settles on just female deer. No wait males. Females. Males chasing females. You get the idea.

4. Don't speed in Ontario. Usually I follow this rule for Quebec. Within the first 45 minutes of our trip we passed at least 10 police cars pulling people over. No exaggeration. Within the first 30 minutes, I had my first speeding ticket in 4 years. Approximately 5 minutes later, I almost had my second. Apparently when the first guy said `slow down` he meant to below the speed limit.

5. Don't travel with my mom. Just kidding. I totally love my mom. But, you know, she has the most obscure requests. For instance, we go to a Tim Horton's. I order a café mocha. It doesn't change (as far as I'm concerned - I hate the word mochaccino) in French. My mom wants a tea. But not any tea, tea with a tea bag, in spite of the fact that they usually sell steeped tea. With three creams. On the side. Weirdly enough, they got the order perfect, in spite of my limitations in French grammar. As my mom pointed out, that's impressive even if you order completely in English on a regular day.

6. Ask if you figure that 99 cent deal is way too good to be true. Seriously. I had myself convinced it said '99 cents off' but I thought, I'll just check... and sure enough. Best deal on pajama bottoms ever.

Follow these rules, and you will be set for at least day 1. More to follow.

Why I'll never be able to seduce my way to the top

"Wow Lisa, is that shirt like, low-cut enough for your presentation to this all girls class ?"

I looked around. He had a point. I actually just wore it because it was comfortable. But if, in fact, I was wearing it because I happened to have a presentation with a peer evaluation [which I did], he made a good point. Girls don't like slutty. And on any given day there is, at most, three guys present in this course. Today, there was only him.

"Oh no Todd, I wore this one all for you [insert scandalous wink here, possible accentuation of cleavage]"

Todd and I both know it doesn't work on him. Somehow, in a fourth year university course on French Caribbean Literature with approximately 17 students, I managed to encounter someone I've known since I was 12. Who isn't a French major.

Plus, he has a girlfriend. And we were in musical theatre together in high school, so there are no surprises here.

Fiasco also known as presentation ensues, and afterwards he smirks at me.

"So, was I hot enough for an A?"

"Oh, I don't know about that..."

Next time I'll have to wear a skirt.

My Pet Robot

So I'm back at home today. With a few hours of free time, I figured I'd get some vacuuming done. If you have read my past posts, you know that means pushing a button and then laughing at the cat-vacuum cleaner dynamics in full swing, as I have an iRobot vacuum cleaner, basically the coolest invention ever.

Within about ten seconds, I get the "I'm in trouble" bell. I push the button to see what the damn thing needs. Please clean Roomba's brushes, it says. It actually says that out loud.

Fuck that, I say, and push the button to continue. As I walk back into my room, the robot goes straight into the kitchen and hits the cat's water dish as hard as it can, spilling water all over the floor and itself. It then proceeds to stop, and turn its trouble alert on for a second time. Please clean Roomba's brushes.

As I clean its brushes this time around, I try to recover from the fact that my freaking Robot just actively misbehaved when it didn't get what it wanted. Finally, it was on its way, and within another 5 minutes it managed to open the not-fully-closed bathroom door, and shut the door behind itself. I'm not one for internet lingo, but seriously.... WTF?

I released it and sent it on its way once again, after which it was content chasing the cat around the apartment. Oh, and my floors are now clean.

Socks of the day

These match. They are both Tommy Hilfiger!

No speaka dee Engrish

I have two close friends in my program with whom I take most of my classes, and often we laugh because we all have different first languages, and all speak three languages, which occasionally makes for some interesting dynamics.

One of their favourite stories, however, is the time I was trying to describe a play in English, my first language. The word was not coming to me, so finally I said the closest thing I could come up with. "You know, one of those things... a piece of theatre?"

"You mean a play?"

"Right. Une pièce de thèâtre"

"Aren't you the English one?"

"Really, who knows anymore?"

Password envy

I once got a call out of the blue from someone I hadn't spoken to in about 5 months.

"Hey Lisa, what are you?"

"What?"

"What are you? I'm trying to login to my computer, and I know you set the password last year, and the password hint is "What Lisa is," so, what are you?"

"Uh, awesome? Gorgeous? [I like to talk myself up] I don't know, I could have said anything. It was last year. You haven't logged in since last year?"

"No."

"Sorry, I really don't know. Nice?"

"Nope, alright. I'll keep trying. Talk to you later."

Half an hour later, I get another call.

"You're a DUCK!"

"What?"

"I asked my roommate and he was like, don't you always say Lisa looks like a duck? And he was right!"

Sure enough, it worked. It's a good thing someone remembers how much I get made fun of.

Unofficially, Post #100

So I just took the longest half-block walk to ever have existed.

As you know I'm staying at a friend's, and he has a dog that loves to play. Usually when I'm around it's limited to car rides, running around in the yard, and throwing toys, but today, I could tell, he had something different in mind.

He gave me this look. I don't know if you noticed, but there is 18 feet of snow on the lawn, and although I'm usually pretty easy-going about going in the yard when you are watching me, it is so not happening today, and there is no way I'm going on the driveway.

I stood up in understanding, and he jumped around in circles, mentally shouting, Eureka! It's walk time! Lets GOOOOOOOO!!

I found a car door high enough up off the ground to open (not the front door, alas) and retrieved my snow pants. This was going to be interesting.

What didn't occur to me was that the path was going to be less plowed than the roads, and there is snow up to my waist. Not the kind that is strong enough to hold you up, either.

It was taller than the freaking dog, a large old english sheepdog that towers over most dogs. The path is behind the house but we walked around on the road to get to it, approximately one house down. By the time I actually got behind our house, I was panting and sweating like I had just run a marathon, and there was NO WAY he was finding a place to go to the washroom here. I didn't think I'd even make it back if I went much further, at least not without snow shoes. So, I guess he will be digging a spot out on the lawn, because at least it has sides.

Always the romantic..

"You smell good."

"Like Vaporub?"

"No, like aftershave. But I hope you know, the smell of Vaporub is going to remind me of you for the rest of my life."

Walking in a winter wonderland

As I'm sitting here I'm staring out the window at a fence, trying to remember how tall it is, because it is almost gone.

Yes, I am in one of those cities that has been experiencing apocalyptic weather over the past week (and the entire winter). Well, apocalyptic is more in jest - everyone has been saying that. I, however, believe that the apocalypse will cover more than just part of North America. But who am I to judge, right?

It's our own freaking version of The Day After Tomorrow, if you've ever seen it. Not that I remember the plot or anything. I just remember there was a lot of snow and some kids were stuck in a school. But you get the idea. Snow. Piles of it.

A friend of mine runs a snow removal business and their clients' snow banks are so high they are having difficulty getting more snow on top of them - this was before the 50 or so centimetres we received this weekend (49 to be exact - and if you are loathing my Canadian-ness right now, that works out to 19.29 inches according to Google, my favourite measurement converter).

God, this is bad. It's my brother's 16th birthday today. At the other end of the city. And according to the news, if you get stuck, you are on your own, because there is no one available to help you. That's harsh.

I'm fortunate enough to own a Nissan Pathfinder. But it doesn't have snow tires. And it has a tiny volvo parked behind it that I will have to move to get out of here. The snow bank in the actual driveway, which was plowed a few days ago, is higher than the bottom of the car. Most certainly. And I am home alone. Because as I mentioned, my host runs a snow removal business. He may never come back.

Alright, alright. I need to get my act together. Wish me luck.

Need any help with that?

My staff have a favourite story to tell about one of my first days managing them. Some of them have worked together longer than I've been alive, so we all had to do a lot of adjusting and getting used to each other that first summer together.

I had higher expectations than I probably should have initially, although now I know them so well I know exactly what to expect from them.

This particular day we were doing an equipment delivery. It was me and 3 grown men, plenty of muscle for moving our shit around.

I directed one of them to untie the equipment while I checked something on my car. Once he was finished, himself, this huge guy, and I all went to pull it off while the other guy watched from the ground.

We started to struggle pretty hard, which was somewhat unbelievable considering there was 3 of us. so we kept pulling, until we all realized our guy on the ground was laughing hysterically.

We turn around and look at him.

"What are you laughing at??"

He continues to laugh.

"You know those are still tied on, right?"

To this day, he says it was the funniest thing he's ever seen.

Calling in sunburnt

One of my favourite stories of calling in sick is with my cousin, who used to work for me here and there to pick up some extra money on his time off from school.

I have a lot of casual employees because my work is often weather-based, and the day before the shift, while he was working for me, I had asked him to work the next morning. Because it was my cousin, I forgot to confirm with him, but I knew he likely would have called me to let me know if he absolutely couldn't so I was counting on him.

That night, around midnight, my phone rings.

"Hey Lisa, it's your cousin... I just wanted to let you know, I can work tomorrow. I'll be there at 11."

I notice he is slurring his words. "Where are you calling from?"

"The bartender's phone. She's pretty cool. She's giving us free drinks."

Whatever. It's my cousin, I know he drinks, as long as he can work, it's cool, right?

Not so much. The next morning I receive a call about an hour before his shift.

"Lisa.... it's your cousin....... listen, I think I got a bit too much sun yesterday, and I don't think I'm going to be able to work today. I'm dehydrated and I have a headache, and I just feel awful."

"Cousin, that is a hangover. Lots of people work with them. Suck it up and come into work!" (I'm sympathetic, really.)

"No, no, really Lisa.... I'm not hungover, I swear, it's just the sun, I didn't drink very much last night, I just got too much sun.... I need to go back to bed."

Later that day, I was eating dinner at his family's house when I happened to mention the phone call from the bartender's phone the night before and that I knew full well he was hung over.

"Oh man..... did I call you?"

Home sweet home

You know, I haven't been home a whole lot lately, between work and crashing at a friends close to work, I just haven't been around much.

Still, I surprised myself about 10 minutes ago when I referred to my apartment as, "My roommate's place".

It seems it has begun to belong to him and not me. But he is still my roommate.

Foot in mouth

OK, so apparently guys don't like it when girls say romantic things like, "It's okay, I'm not really visually stimulated anyway."

Not that I would say something like that.

Printer follies

Yesterday at around 12:15pm I tried to print an assignment that was to be handed in by 1pm. My printer decided to have a bit of a meltdown in the emotional sense and refused to print anything at all because I didn't start it off with enough paper and it would not accept more paper once it realized this fact.

Overly long story short, 20 minutes later I am using someone else's printer and then frantically driving to school at the speed of light (or at least slightly higher than the speed limit), where I managed to submit it in the knick of time.

Anyway, about an hour ago (just over 24 hours after I sent the original document to print), my printer spit out the whole damn thing while I wasn't paying attention.

Am I the only one with a printer that needs this much discipline?

Phone confusion

I was woken up this morning to the phone ringing repetitively downstairs.

A few minutes later, a knock at my bedroom door.

"Your phone has been ringing off the hook, I just thought you might want to know."

"Uh, my phone is in here. That's your phone."

"Oh. Well they sound the same."

"Your cell phone and your land line?"

"Well, I knew the landline was for me."

We both really have trouble with this whole, phone-answering thing.

20 minutes of reflection

With the snowfall yesterday morning, we opted to cancel a few of our staff in the morning - it was slow, and since we work outdoors we try not to subject the staff to crazy weather if we don't need to. Sometimes they are receptive to this, other times I am met with disappointment, so I typically dread making those phone calls, never knowing what to expect. The girl we were canceling is a friend of mine who had just been booked the day before, so it could have gone either way.

"Hey, it's me. I'm just calling because I don't think we are going to need you for today - it's still snowing pretty hard and we may close down altogether in an hour or two."

"THANK GOD!" she said, with a sense of urgency, "I had no idea when I was going to do that French assignment. I'll stop by to drop off the money I owe you, though. See you soon!"

I was relieved to know it wasn't a problem and 20 minutes later, she showed up to drop off the money I had lent her earlier in the week.

"By the way, when I said 'thank God' earlier... I actually meant, 'that's no problem at all, I will just have more time to work on my assignments.'"

Oh how I love delayed tact.

Bringing awkward silence to a new level

[about 20 minutes into a conversation between three girls]

"Guys, I have big news. But I want you to be more supportive than my parents were when I told them."

I wonder what she could possibly be doing that her parents wouldn't understand and agree that we would certainly be supportive.

"I'm gay. Just kidding. I'm going to run a marathon."

I don't think we knew what to address first, the fact that she managed to convince us for about 4 seconds that she was gay and her parents were against it, that she made a horrible joke about homosexuality, the surprise that she was going to run a marathon or the shock that her parents were not supportive of her running a marathon. However, we successfully overlooked most of the facets of that statement and went with unquestioning support of the marathon.

The best headphones ever

"Wow, these wireless headphones are fantastic. They sound exactly as if I were playing my music out loud."

They were watching the hockey game - loudly - and had set me up with earphones so I could continue to listen to music instead of feigning interest in the hockey game while actually planning out what I wanted to do after the hockey game is over.

5 minutes later, the game had quieted down for a commercial and I thought, these headphones are too good to be true. As I took them off, I realized everyone was looking at me, and sure enough, I had my earphones plugged into the wrong port.

Now they are connected properly but, you know, the sound just isn't the same.

Stress

You know you've been stressed when you open the fridge to grab a bag of milk, and not only is it still in the grocery bag it was in when you bought it, but there is a box of fabric softener sheets in it as well.

Hunger

I've been known to get a little bit touchy when I need to eat but sometimes I forget just how much.

It's one of those things where, once you get to know me well enough, you know that at a certain point, it's best to just stand back until I have been fed, or risk suffering my wrath - typically some form of demanding we eat immediately.

As one friend put it, "by then, I don't want to get too close - I just want to feed you with a slingshot or something!"

He does have a point.

Me and manual labour

"Did you need a hand with anything?"

"Not unless you like manual labour."

"What do you have to do?"

"I'm going to take this ice pick, and this axe, and chip away about 3 inches of that ice over there."

"And you intend to do this by yourself?"

"Yes."

5 minutes later, while he is chipping all of the ice away, and I am looking pretty useless, he laughs to himself. "I can't believe you were going to try and do this on your own!" "I'm a determined girl." "I hope this isn't your permanent job." "Oh no, I'm a student."

I leave out the part about intending to do something like this once I graduate anyway.

Finally we are finished, and he teases me a bit more - something about trying to pick up guys by letting them watch my pathetic attempts at physical labour. He catches me chuckling and I admit that he knows me far too well already.

Hours of operation

"What time am I working until today?"

"I don't know, what day is it?"

"Wednesday."

"8pm."

...My management style at its best.

Singleness

I was reading this article titled 10 Reasons It's Great to be Single, because sometimes articles like that thoroughly entertain me. However, the only thing I found particularly entertaining about this one was at the top, directly underneath the title:

Related Content:
Asexuality
How to Find a Husband

Harsh, eh? God forbid single people would just like being single!

If you would like a genuinely funny article, check this one out with comebacks to the question, "Why are you single?" Always makes me smile. Partially because it is a well-written article. Partially because when I originally posted it on facebook, it was followed by a hilarious debate of comments between guys who just wanted to date me, and a number of ridiculous but serious comments from various people including several guys, several of my female friends, one of the guys' moms, and one guys criticizing the seriousness of the other comments. I would reprint it, but once it started to get really out of hand, a few of the best comments got deleted by their authors.

Terrible at multitasking

We were looking for an address in the middle of nowhere and my friend kept swerving over the line as he drove.

"Do you want me to drive?"

"No no, I'm just thinking."

"Do you think better on the left side of the road?"

We're going to Candy Mountain!

"This had better be freakin' important. Is the meadow on fire?"

I have a close friend named Charlie, and this is basically how I intend to speak to him for the rest of time. Make sure to watch the whole thing.



"Shun the non-believer! Shun!" "Shuuuuuuuun-ah!"

Broke into the old apartment

I truly hated my last apartment.

Hate would almost be an understatement, it was a dive to beat all dives, it was just plain horrible.

We thought it was a great deal at first. Huge living room and balcony, 2 large bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, great location overlooking the river, could it get any better?

Seriously, does that not sound fantastic?

Until we moved in. We lived there 6 months, and during that time, there was 2(.5) floods in our apartment, and a major flood in the building. Everything that produced water in our apartment leaked. The .5 flood was a pipe in the kitchen that we caught early enough to have a bowl under so it doesn't really count. Flood #1 was our shower, which leaked into the wall and the hallway flooring, completely destroying the parquet. A week after we moved in. When did they fix it? Literally, the day we moved out. They actually had the nerve to ask us not to step on it as we moved all our furniture out of the place.

Flood #2 was in the second bathroom. The toilet leaked. Badly. The wall around it is basically ruined, and we essentially did not use that bathroom for the duration of our stay there.

The balcony was used as storage, as the solid cement "railing" was too high to actually see over, and the spiders out there were terrifyingly huge.

There was absolutely no ventilation, the kitchen had no natural light, the place was a haven for thieves, and it constantly smelled of... I don't even want to know.

For a month in the summer they drilled on the cement balconies for no apparent reason. No matter where the drill was in the building, it sounded like it was in my room, or at the very least, directly outside my window. I work 11-11 most of the time. It started every day at 7.

Once they had a scheduled power outage. It was supposed to be 9-5. It was actually more like noon-10. There was absolutely no emergency lighting - apparently windows to the sun and moon are sufficient in their minds. I was afraid to go out at 2pm because it was so dark in the hallway I was afraid I would get mugged - we had to take flashlights with us all day!

Finally, we moved. And on moving day I said good riddance. Everyone asked how I could not be even a little emotionally attached, and I wasn't. I hated everything about it but the fact that I was finally on my own. I also liked that it was parked next to a beach, but that had nothing to do with the place itself.

Months later, my roommate shocked me by saying he missed the place. "It had character," he said, "and you could do anything you wanted there." This was true, though I was absolutely sure they would charge us for something. The previous tenants had left it in awful shape and there was no inspection since it was a lease take-over. He was right, though. Now we live in a gorgeous place with carpet, white walls, a dishwasher, washer, and dryer, and no spiders. Other than a few flaws, it is very pleasing. But we can't through pieces of the floor at each other. And we can't paint equipment on the floor in the living room. Nor tromp through all the rooms with our shoes covered in mud partially because we don't care, partially because we don't want to get the dirt already on the floor on our feet. I remember I used to wear flip flops indoors at all times. I guess it really did have character.

Divorce frame

I remember one time around Christmas, I was waiting in line with a friend and about a thousand people crowded around us, and I started admiring this photo frame that resembled one I had bought my parents a few years ago.

I started excitedly recounting the story of the frame.

"Remember that time in high school, we were shopping for an anniversary gift for my parents, and I had picked out a frame that was very white and fancy, and you said it was more appropriate for a 25 year wedding, and I said that I didn't they would make it that long anyway, so we picked a different one, and then my parents got divorced?"

After the lady in front of us in line stopped laughing hysterically, I think mostly at the way I had told the story as if it were a story that I remembered fondly - and in some ways, I did, I stood there, with no real explanation, because how can you explain that kind of indifference?

Need a doctor

I'm pretty sure I have cholera, or the plague, or something. Tuberculosis. Something obscure, that there's pretty much no way I have.

I need a doctor. Badly. The worst part is, I technically have one. But I am really uncomfortable with him and I have no faith in his ability to diagnose me. I mean, not to be picky or anything - I really don't think I am. But I've gone in to discuss medication that they have put me on there, to be told that they have never given me that medication and they don't know why they would for those symptoms. To the point where I had to produce a copy of the prescribed item with their name on the bottle to prove it.

I've also had back problems so bad that I could barely stand up for more than 10 minutes, to which they informed me that I was fine. And he once asked me, "Do you date?" to find out if I was sexually active - which was fairly awkward until I realized what he was actually asking me.

That essentially sums up the only 4 times I've been to a doctor in the past 12 or 13 years, so basically, I'm better off on my own than going to this place. As a last resort, an emergency clinic or hospital.

However, I am here, and I am more ill than I am letting on (in spite of being very dramatic about the whole thing), and it's not an emergency, but I worry, and I have nowhere to go. So I am here. I am speculating about unrealistic illnesses I could have because I want to believe that all I have had is a cold. And the flu. For a month and a half. When I typically only get sick for maybe two days, once every couple of years. But the idea of waiting two hours in a clinic to be assessed by someone who is probably more competent than my doctor but I will likely never see again, and will probably just put me on something I could pick up at a drug store to ease my cough, is not particularly appealing.

On the bright side, a French doctor's clinic about 25 minutes away in the other end of town has said they may be able to take me on as a patient. They said they will call me back. In a week. If they have space. Here's hoping.

Recycled phone numbers

About 5 months ago, I canceled my phone plan. I usually do at the end of each summer, as I work a seasonal position where I use about 1200 minutes a month, and my regular phone is on a discounted work plan so it's hard to switch it back and forth. Plus, then the staff can't call my phone at 7:30am on a Saturday 2 months after we closed down operations because they think the weather might be good enough to warrant re-opening.

Anyway, one of my friends who worked for me a couple of times in the summer called me about a month ago. "I just found out the hard way that you no longer have that number," he said, "some guy answered and it was very confusing."

I imagine this is likely because I used to let other people answer my phone all the time, but anyway.

At the time, we laughed, and I seriously considered calling the guy who had my old number assigned to him, knowing that if he is getting calls now, he will be getting hundreds of calls come early May. And some of the staff probably won't believe him if he says he has no idea who I am.

Since then, I've heard of more people calling this guy. My mom, for instance, among others. People program new numbers in their phones and never take them out, I guess.

The question now is, do I call this guy, and suggest that he changes his number while it's still not too much of a hassle? Or do I ignore it, knowing he is going to be really pissed off in a couple of months that he got the most called number ever? He may not even believe me, and then I will feel like a jerk for calling. And maybe it won't be that bad. However, if I were him, I would want to know. What do you think? Would you want to get a call from the previous owner of your phone number telling you that you might want to change it? Or would you just think they were crazy?