Shoes, shoes, shoes [and other stuff]

• I had an unsuccessful [but brief] hunt for brown shoes today. I don't see any Fluevogs or Fly London shoe styles that I want for the Fall. But, oh, the boots...
  
• Fur killed yet another mouse outside the apartment and I had to witness *yet again* her zeal in running back and forth with it in her mouth.
• During my vacation I got a bed frame, a chair for my vanity table, a chair for the living room, a set of shelves for the bathroom, two extra shelves for my giant shoe rack, and snagged another chair for the living room from a brief visit to my parents up north. It was very productive.
• I also spent a fabulous day roller blading on Toronto Island with D. I can roller blade now (although stopping is still a challenge). And the nude beach doesn't phase me. So there's some progress from last year. The day was marred only by my uncontrollable sobbing fit on the ferry ride home when I realized I would be late getting back to the city and had invited a friend over for dinner. I really hope my meds kick in a bit more. Two steps forward, three steps back.
  
• I also organized much of my stuff, unclogged the drain in the laundry room, and got the computer guy by to fix my Internet connection
  
• My garden produced so many tomatoes. It's quite exciting. Yes, that's how sad my life is : my tomato yield is what I want to tell everyone about.
• I got caught in a massive subway delay last week and ended up walking the 4 miles home.
• I was sure I had walked about ten. Mapquest set me straight on that matter
  
• I was a pound heavier the next morning. Moral of the story : exercise sucks
• In the past week I have been getting caught up on movies. I watched X-Men (all three), V for Vendetta, and Camp Out. I'm traumatized by the first four. The last one was a documentary about a gay Christian summer camp for youth in rural Minnesota. Amazing. I do wish we would hear more about the power and positive sense that communities of faith can have instead of always seeing spiteful people who claim to be the sole representatives of Christianity/Judaism/Islam
  

Time for Some Campaignin'

Okay this is a fun post to leave rather than the last piece of crap I spewed. I imagine most of you have seen it, but if not, it's a laugh about campaigning.

Waving the white flag

I really misrepresented my friend in the last post. I know that I had asked her not to tag me in photos and she didn't, and as soon as I sent an email she offered to remove the pic. And Stewie, you're right - I'm not fat, and for the first time in 10 years I'm not even overweight. I am much larger than my twenties though. And I am unfashionable. Apart from my belt.

The last post points to the fact that depression is still kicking my ass and I have lost all sense of perspective. In other words, I am a boring, whiny pit of need right now. I will come back when I feel I have a rational perspective on life and can not only right less self-pitying posts but am also inspired to feel that I can give your posts the attention they deserve instead of wanting to comment, "Life sucks. It really does".

Because really it doesn't. My life included.

HUGE rant

I am a private person. Oddly enough, I used to pose for photos all the time. I have albums of me grinning with friends from highschool and somewhere, in some friend's closet, lost in a shoe box, are photos of me sitting in my underwear on the hood of a car pretending to be a hood ornament. But now I won't let anyone take my photo, the reason being that I do NOT want to end up in a mass sent email or worse - on someone's fucking Facebook page. Instead of being limited to being seen by someone who was over at your house (presumably some sort of friend!) images can now be viewed by anyone. And what's worse is that I find that friends don't even ask your permission. I'll be on my profile on FB and see the notification "You have been tagged in a photo".

Can people at least ask permission first? It may seem weird, but not all of us are excited about our image being all over the place. I don't want people from my high school seeing me. Yes, it is mainly because I don't want them seeing how fat and unfashionable I became, but so what? I am so upset about this. Almost no pictures of me in my 30s exist, which is completely coinciding with scanners and digital cameras. I relented on the Vegas trip so that each person could have a group shot of us for their memories. We exchanged photos via email among the group that were there. That's my limit. This is the third time I've gone through this with the same friend. She's one of my closest friends so it's not like my friendship with her is at stake, but holy fuck, how many times do I have to ask to stop sending group shots out to people I don't know????

I'm going back to my policy of no photos of me ever.

Falling in love

I trooped off with my parents yesterday to see the brother who had just returned from China with my newest niece (2 years-old). She is so adorable. Her older sister (now 4) was also adopted from China. My mum and I had to job of entertaining my older niece which gave my sister-in-law a chance to bond with the new one. Not that it was much of a job - my niece is a lot of fun. And endless energy. I had to play endless rounds of 'store' with her.

It was a store which sold nothing but ball gowns and purses as I discovered when everything I asked to buy was met with, "No, we don't sell that here". Then every dress I tried on was apparently too small. Hard to tell what it fit like as I had to try and follow my niece's imagination. I got the hang of it when I emerged with the new dress on and said, "Perfect! I'll take it" and was told, "No. Pretend it's too small for you." My niece has not yet learned how to feed her aunt's ego. I will have to train her to say, "Oh but that is swimming on you. Try a smaller size." Like I said though, I learned to say "I'll go try this on. And what colour is this one?", followed by, "Do you think this fits or is it too tight?"

Thanks to a good friend of mine I also learned how to make congee. This is just not a food from my Scottish/Italian/Canadian background. Congee-making was my other task yesterday. My new niece was very happy to have a familiar food. She is tiny but with the amount of congee and pita she was eating yesterday, no doubt she'll grow quickly. I didn't try to hold my new niece as she is still shy around people and overwhelmed from all the changes in her life from the past two weeks, but her eyes followed me everywhere. I think she was calmer around me as opposed to my mum (who is my older niece's idol) simply because my mother is blonde and I have dark hair - which in its current dye job my SIL told me is the same colour as that of one of the woman from the orphanage.

I'm back to work tomorrow and dreading it.

Works for me

I have a cold sore up my nose. It's just inside my right nostril - thanks for asking. It was somewhat painful, very annoying, but it really wasn't visible. I love it. If I'm going to be plagued with cold sores when I'm run down, may they all be up my nose instead of prominent on my upper lip.

R&R

I am up north right now, enjoying time with my mum. We are hanging out at the local film festival and otherwise just sitting chatting and reading books. It's been over a year since I've had real time off (as opposed to a long week-end). Slowly all the hectic work schedue of the past year - including switching jobs with no time off in between - is seeping out of my psyche, and all the disappointments of the past summer are becoming manageable.

I have a wonderful house/cat-sitter staying in my Toronto apartment so I am not worried about the kitties or my things. Tomorrow I am driving mum and I back to T.O. where we will meet up with my dad who is returning from a trip. Friday I plan to sit in my garden and weed out all the plants before winter. Having a garden has been an unexpected joy for me this year. Sitting in the dirt and picking tomatoes is better than therapy.

Curse Shakespeare!

I really wish they would stop teaching Romeo and Juliet in high school. I may remember incorrectly, but doesn't Romeo see Juliet at a party, follow her home, and then start declaring undying love beneath her window? And this is held up as romantic? Let me tell you, if some guy I only saw at a party followed me home, the drama would end in the time it would take me to dial 911. Anyhow, my point is [and I do have one -] I think this play is responsible for stalker behaviour.

Indeed, I met some sort of would-be Romeo on the subway last night. It was about 11:30 and I was heading home from visiting friends. I was out-of-my-mind fatigued and just wanted to crawl into bed. Alone. There was a guy sitting near me. He didn't seem crazy or anything. Just another person on the subway. We barely made eye contact. I noticed that he was also getting off at my stop. Again, no red flags, no overtly strange behaviour.

We were walking towards the stairs when he complimented me on the belt I was wearing. It is a fantastic belt so this didn't phase me either, although I did find it a bit odd when he followed the compliment with "Is it a weightlifting belt?". Um, okay. No. It's wide, but hello? Suddenly I was thinking, "Oh my f-ing Christ - does my funky awesome belt look like a weightlifter belt?" Like I said though, I was tired and focussed on getting home.

He kept walking beside me. I believe he was still talking about weightlifting, but I wasn't paying much attention. He was still beside me chatting away when we reached the level below the final escalator to the exit. I didn't want him following me onto the street and seeing what direction my apartment was, so I stopped and turned to give him my attention.*

He was back to talking about what a great belt I had. This time he added, "And those jeans! They're great too. You're very... what's the word I'm looking for?...curvaceous ." Now suddenly the conversation was going in a way I wasn't comfortable with. At this point defensive tactics started to percolate in my slow, tired mind: must get out of this conversation as soon as possible and try to ensure that dude will not follow me and will not get upset in any way.

I was still getting a vibe though that he was lonely and had no idea how to talk to women not that he was violent.

I can't remember the order so I'll list the highlights of the ensuing chat before I managed to extricate myself from the situation.

• He spoke a mile a minute without pause
• He asked me my sign and then proceeded to tell me that it's a party sign. It's not
• He told me his sign (I didn't care. I'm not into astrology)
• He got me to touch his hair. I did briefly and regretted it. Don't ask strangers to touch your hair and if you do, make sure it's very clean
  
• He offered to let me touch his beard. I declined with, "Gross. No." I had gotten over the shock of being asked to touch his hair
• He told me how long he had been celibate for. Again, I didn't care, didn't want to know

I finally interrupted and made a hasty retreat when he surmised that I would 'really rock a two-piece swim-suit'. At that point I had decided that I would grab a cab if he kept walking next to me. I only live a block from the subway, but cabs are useful for quick getaways and round trip confusing tours.

As I walked away, I noticed that he went to go back on the subway, in the opposite direction. I realized that he had been watching me on the subway, waiting to see what stop I had. This unnerved me. However, the over-all incident didn't freak me out. He didn't seem dangerous. He was only lonely. He walked away saying something about how nice he was to women but how they never wanted to date him. If I hadn't been so tired, I probably would have enlightened him as to how creepy and wrong his approach was. Not in a mean way, but so he could gain some sort of insight into how counterproductive [and in fact repugnant] his pick-up moves were.



*I am always hesitant to walk away from someone if they aren't being blatantly rude or offensive. I feel like I should listen. This policy is now being revised.

following the same theme

When I was a librarian at a university, one of the biology profs and I were hanging out having coffee together. He lamented, "In the 60s I remember protesting with other students that no one should be denied a university education because of their socioeconomic status. That somehow became that nobody should be denied a university education."

True equality

No more of this having to be twice as skilled as a man to get half the pay. Step aside Dan Quayle! Good to know that you can now be a woman and be completely unqualified for a position of power.