#@!&%~

You know those days where you wake up physically and mentally stressed because a) you have terrible cramps and b) your shitty upstairs neighbor McStompsalot woke you up at 6:30 (only a half-hour before you had to get up, but still) a.m.? And then while you get ready (slowly, now, 'cause you're cracked out from no rest), you drink a punishing cup of coffee, and make a second one to bring to work like you usually do, only the jar that you usually use (Ol' Reliable) is stuck fucking fast shut, so you rifle through the cupboards and come up with a bigger – dare you think, better – jar, and after stabbing yourself in your (bloodshot) left eye with your eyeliner and waiting for the tears to subside, you rip a hole in your sock (keep up: we're rushing, now) on your way to the kitchen, where you don't have time to eat anything except the way overripe half of a banana from yesterday; after you pour some milk into your new Awesome Coffee Jar, your stupid tired-blind hand manages to knock the whole thing right smack over (because it was too tall) as you reach for the honey (which, by the way, is some terribly weak clover business because they were out of the wildflower) and suddenly there it is, the fucking rub: coffee, everywhere: all over your stovetop, dripping down into the burner holes, soaking through your nutmeg holder to the poor meg itself, dripping off of every (more than a dozen) jar of spices you keep on the counter next to the stove, falling in sheets down the side of the refrigerator and soaking into your wooden cutting board, not to mention your potholder. Meanwhile, precious morning beverage is dripping furiously onto the floor and into the silverware drawer. So you look at the clock in terror, and whoops! You're supposed to be at work RIGHT NOW. It only takes you 5 minutes to bike there, but now you've got this fucking monkey wrench. So you chug the last 2 gulps of coffee from the New! Shittiest-Ever Coffee Jar, and grab the sponge (which, thankfully, is nasty anyway).
Takes you five minutes just to clean it all up, and you're almost 15 minutes late to work. The phone is ringing before you've got the last 2 of 3 doors up, and it's your boss. You try and sway her from coming in, but she tells you she's on her way. (At least she doesn't know you were late!) Resigning yourself to a morning of getting absolutely nothing done, you wait despairingly for her to arrive, almost cracking your head open because of a slimy stem on the ground (a banana peel stand-in – thanks, universe!) and helping customers who offer up kicky comments like, "Wow, these are way too expensive..." (thanks? sorry? fuck off?) and "omg, it must be like, so fun to like, play with flowers all day!?" (yeah, totally! That would be like, so fun.)

And yeah. i'll stop there, because really: this isn't even fun to write down anymore. Suffice it to say that my boss did come in, she did manage to drive me crazy for 5 hours, and the sound of her voice eventually made me want to smother her with a pillow. But really, this is nobody's fault but my own. PMS is a righteous bitch, i'm not afraid to say. And besides, i did get to bring home some amazing tulips, so i guess it's a wash.

a houseguest!

Today i am picking up my best friend from the airport!* She'll be staying a week, and we have a couple of super-exciting things planned (Cirque du Soleil, a visit to the Flower Fields), as well as some less-exciting things (heading up to see the seals, drinking way too many cups of coffee, riding bikes all over the place). Hopefully showing her around town will remind me of how sometimes i can actually like it here. Plus, now my house is stocked with exotic breakfast cereals and stuff like orange juice and frozen pizza– livin' the life luxurious, we are! Not to mention i finally had an excuse to dust the bookshelves and clean out the toaster oven. Crikey, that was a fright. And on the flip side, i am filled with remorse at my lack of awesome linens (unraveling bath towels, anyone?) or even a damned teakettle. But who doesn't love to boil water in a pot and eat from chipped ceramic bowls? No one, that's who.
*Note: by 'picking up' i mean taking the bus to, and subsequently from, the airport. Aren't you glad you're not my friend?

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In other news, we saw the new Alice in Wonderland last night. It reaffirmed my distaste for 3D movies (or at least, the new ones, with the huge polarized lenses as props), but it was also the first Tim Burton movie since Edward Scissorhands that i actually and truly enjoyed. It's just such a magnificently trippy story (although the plot here differed a bit from the books and/or the original animated version), and the computer graphics weren't overdone, which was refreshing. The girl playing Alice looked like a cross between Claire Danes and Sara Gilbert, Helena Bonham Carter was basically perfect as the Red Queen, Anne Hathaway still looks like an alien and can't act that well (sorry, but it's true), and Johnny Depp looked great but his performance was a bit all over the place. Someone in our group noticed that his accent kept changing, and his portrayal of the Mad Hatter was almost too... sensible.

At the risk of spoiling anything (don't think i will?), it also seemed like certain opportunities were missed in the story-telling: free will, morality, and personal identity definitely could have been explored a bit more. All of that aside, Tweedledee and Tweedledum were cute as buttons, and the Cheshire Cat may have been my favorite character. From the commercials i was convinced he'd be loathsome. Not so, thanks to Stephen Fry's voice and some amazingly ethereal animation. Hooray! Now, to see it once more, sans 3D.

A small gripe: where were my mome raths? Darling little things.

Evil people prosper over the likes of you and me, always.

es, i am blind.



Stole this idea from The Virgin, because i'm under a melancholy spell and don't have a single (non-depressing) original thought in my head today:

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Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to a gazillion people and include me. Try not to repeat a song title. It's harder than you think..

Pick Your Artist: PJ Harvey


Are you male or female: No Girl So Sweet

Describe yourself: Happy and Bleeding

How do you feel about yourself: Shame

Describe where you currently live: The Desperate Kingdom of Love

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: A Place Called Home

Your best friends are: Missed

Your favorite color is: The Sky Lit Up

What's the weather like: Is That All There Is? (a cover, yes, but so appropriate; secondary answer: Seagulls.)

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called?: Dear Darkness

What is life to you: The Mess We're In

What is the best advice someone has given you: Darling Be There

If you could change your name, what would it be?: Angelene

Your favorite food is: Water (or White Chalk.)

Your job is: Plants and Rags

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...Well! That was way funner than i thought it would be. Next time i think i'll do Siouxsie. Also, i love that we are instructed to answer "cleverly", then warned that it is "harder than [we] think". Not a lot of wiggle room, there. But honestly, if i was going to be clever, then my answer for favorite food would have been "Horses in my Dreams", because that is just too terrible. Decided that honesty is the best policy; surprised at how many answers had multiple choices! Thanks, Peej. For everything, always.

Too bad Corey Haim's gone now, because maybe he could have found this blog and then played this game and then realized that there truly is some shit in the world worth sticking around for. Like music. ("As far as i'm concerned, good tunes is good tunes, be it Disco, or Rock, or Polka, or whatever have you." – Name that movie! Need to watch that again, and soon...) But seriously: he was my first big celebrity teen crush, and i had it bad. i even used to buy the magazines (Bop, here's looking at you) with my saved allowance money. And you know, i don't even blame the drugs (even though they probably contributed). i blame the ego-feeding, the shallow fame, the obsession with celebrity that our country has been infatuated with for some time now. And of course people will argue that there are dead celebrities more 'worth' eulogizing than Corey Haim, but underneath it all we are all just human beings, so it really doesn't matter.

Hasta del fuego, folks. i promise to write a post soon about something important, relative, educational: rocket science, poverty, politics, genetics. Honest. But first i may have to inject some wheatgrass into my brain.

More prettier.

Because i appear to still be obsessed with rainbowthings, i've just purchased a kaleidoscope made of recycled DymondWood on Etsy for my co-worker's birthday present. Can't wait 'til it gets here! Originally i was going to get her a knife to use at the shop, but it looked cheaply made. There was also a mortar & pestle that i liked, but as i'm 99.9% sure that she never grinds her own spices, that was the end of that. The kaleidoscope is egg-shaped and brightly-colored, and although the jazziness inside appears to be of your basic variety, who gives? She can glance at it every morning on her kitchen windowsill and smile, and that's really all i care about.

(i bet this topic just has everyone here bursting with delighted interest– am i right?)

In other news, i came across this bewitching photo today on the interwebs. i must go here. Enjoy!


(Palais des Congrés de Montreal in–you guessed it–Montreal! Can everything be this colorful? Please?)