things that aren't normal

1) why am i so obsessed with teen love?!? like, shouldn't i be way past the point of re-reading the scene in the e. lockhart ruby oliver books where the protagonist, ruby oliver, finally kisses her crush object, noel duboise, after a series of high school emotionally overblown, ramped up dramas? i'm an old lady! why do i get that giddy rush of hormonal, wacked-out impulsive bliss at reading a FICTIONAL kissing scene?!? how do i even have ACCESS to that emotional state anymore? isn't that the domain of teenagers and teenagers only and never a 30-something year old shall pass?!? why am i contemplating re-watching "veronica mars" season 1 again to rejoice in THE BEST TEENAGE KISSING SCENE OF ALL TIME?!? am i messed? how am i ready to potentially be a parent? how far am i away from being THIS:

and before you too-quickly leap to the defense of my inner-teenager, in the interests of full disclosure i should be truthful and tell you that i just added denim cut-off shorts to my "must-buy" list:


notwithstanding the fact that my legs are WAY thicker and stumpier than that gamine model's - WHO WANTS TO SEE A FAT, WADDLING, PREGGOS LADY IN DENIM CUT-OFFS AND A SUPER-THIN, GAUZY, AMERICAN APPAREL T?!??!

also, I REMEMBER WHAT HIGH SCHOOL WAS LIKE (kinda.) it was messy. lots of upheaval and social anxieties and situations rife with potential earth-swallowing humiliation. why do i like going back there? maybe cuz it was a simpler time. maybe cuz thinking about whether or not you've got the grades to go to university and handing in ONE THOUSAND WORD independent study project and feeling the dizzying swell of lust when your crush walks by (a crush that you will subsequently, in later, saner years, renounce with every fiber of your being) is way easier than having to call contractors to get quotes and thinking about your hefty mortgage and dealing with the protracted, shifting, testy realities of a long term relationship where you're preoccupied with building and sustaining a LIFE together. i dunno. maybe.

alls i gotta say is: bring on logan echolls. bring on noel duboise. bring on dexter from sarah dessen's "this lullaby"

2) past and passed
after 30-something years of having the two straight, lately, whenever i have to write "past" or "passed" i have to spend a good minute or two thinking about which one i should be CORRECTLY employing. that's messed, right?


3) the internet is NOT your friend when you're incubating a fatburger. all i do is stress that spumante is underweight and that i should be showing more and reading up on pre-eclampsia and preemies and not having enough amniotic fluid and it's enough to make you go crazy. like, who are these people who are incredibly ELATED AND FILLED WITH JOY AND HAPPINESS at the impending arrival of what (to me) is going to be a black hole of all my neuroses and worries?!??!!!

4) the fat little weirdo chronicles continueth
yesterday was a BAD BAD BAD eating day. like, epically bad. first off, allow me to say that i'm NEVER EVER EVER EVER going to eat the "big breakfast" at work again. it makes you feel like hell. it's pretty basic: 2 eggs, 4 pieces of sausage or bacon, 2 of those hash browns like what mcdonald's has, and 2 pieces of toast, for a ridiculous price like $4 something with an 8 oz coffee or tea. i LOVE those hash browns so i finally worked up the nerve to ask our frequently stressed and disgruntled caf cook if i could sub 2 extra hash browns for the toast. and he said yes. which means i ate FOUR hash browns. and then felt unbelievably thirsty, cranky, and stomach-churningly full for the next 3 hours. at least until lunch. just when i was starting to reach a state of gastrointestinal equilibrium, i went with the girls to hernando's hideaway, where i scarfed down 4 flautas - filled with spicy chicken. then felt like hell again. then went for a too-short massage then ordered A THREE PIECE MEAL DEAL, A SIDE OF MACARONI & CHEESE, AND A DEEP FRIED APPLE PIE from popeye's. that's SICK. no wonder i've been feeling unmotivated and groggy.

i haven't run in at least a week and i have no inclination to do so. i haven't done any yoga either so i'm generally a sluggish, sore, tense, linguistically confused, worrying mass of teenage lust.

it's bizarre.

dodgeball game tonight should hopefully set things back on course.

fin.

she dreamed a dream of time gone by...

we didn't get to go skating last night because of stupid xmas concerts of doom sapping all of the dotytron's energy and vim. but we had a good night nonetheless.

tonight is xmas concert #1 of 2. so as of friday evening, i have my regularly scheduled dotytron back in my life. we picked out his outfits last night. he was a bit of a nervous nelly this morning. luckily, i had a funny dream to recount.

edit: so i text the dotytron during the day today to recount my streetcar ride into work with our shared wall neighbour [male], hereinafter to be referred to as wall-yM, who is totally awesome and cool btw - even if my toto-loving sensibilities and his indie rock music sensibilities don't quite match up. ANYWAY i received this terse text message in reply: "all i have to say is: grade 6 lice outbreak - the day of the concert"

laughing, laughing, laughing, out loud.

last night i dreamed that i was at my alma matter, trent university, to see some dude i know speak. the dude i know is some guy who was friends with the old roomie - he, montreal I and old roomie were a team and i met them in my first year, their second year. he was really cool, super into entomology, and kind of koo-koo *does universal pantomime for loco* ANYWAY, also attending that conference was a grade school friend of mine, E (who i lost touch with in late high school.) and i was asking E if there were any cute guys in her program, and she said no, but there was LES WIZ. p.s. LES WIZ was a person. apparently a really flamboyant, possibly gay dude. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! i woke up howling. the fact that "LES WIZ" was a PERSON is infinitely funny to me. also, the fact that there was an entity called "LES WIZ" is making me laugh out loud. i told the dotytron he should do a musical production of "les wiz" at his school - just like "the wiz" but with many wizesesseseszz.

speaking of musicals (tangentially) - my colleague at work has JUST discovered susan boyle. it's kind of the best, actually. so the past few nights after work is "officially" closed she's asked my permission to play susan boyle. and it's always the youtube clip of boyle on "britain's got talent" - over and over! so best! last night we saw a little entertainment show segment that boyle has sold over a million cds in just 2 weeks - making it one of the best selling cds of 2009. the dotytron turns to me and says, "can you believe this whole susan boyle thing? i hope at least she's been kissed by now." awwwwwwww - isn't he the cutest? although, the awwww factor is probably mitigated by the fact that he followed up that heart-warming sentiment with, "i mean, even if you were a total fame groupie, you'd have to be pretty hurting to hit up some boyle." lol! (which i disagree with, by the way - i told him that being a recording star has probably put her amongst a wider sphere of potential boyfriends than she had in her village).

tonight i totally bogarted the leftover chicken kiev and ate it with leftover spinach salad.

over the summer i read jane and michael stern's "two for the road" - they're the couple that used to write my HANDS DOWN favorite segment in gourmet magazine (r.i.p.), "road food" which was about precisely that - regional, local, americana. stuff like friday night fish fry, and hoagies and grinders, and the best steaks or the beset onion rings or fried chicken or ribs or shoofly pie. stuff that speaks to an elemental part of me. this book tells the story of how they got their start and how they lucked into my dream job - criss-crossing the US for road food and writing about it. bliss! the food writing is top-notch. at least, i think it is. i mean, they can describe the food so that my tummy growls when i read it and i notch the pages and file them away for future reference - but i suspect a simple menu description of the food itself would do that. that's how much i love bbq and friend chicken and muffulettas and the rest. my food prof friend J said that she hates the sterns because she thinks they hate (or capitalize or fetishize) poor people. i'm usually pretty sensitive to that kind of cultural capital trading so i'm surprised i never picked up on it. i wonder if my love of the food blinds me to it?

john green's "paper towns" is one of the best books i've ever read. young adult, adult, whatever. genre does not apply. this is writing that is at once deeply intelligent and deeply understanding of the human condition. it's funny, winsome, smart, wistful - i can't say enough good things about john green! i'm obsessed! the book is ostensibly about quentin, a nerdish, bookish high schooler nearing the end of his senior year, and his difficult, distant, removed relationship with his neighbour, margot - also a senior in high school - but in direct contrast to him, she's the popular, dramatic, charismatic girl that every high school has - the one that everyone in high school knows, even if she's not the stereotypical high school queen bee. so i say that it's about these two, and you think it's a romance - but it's not. it's about the connectivities between people - it references walt whitman and physics and woody guthrie all in the service of different ways in which people connect and come to be who they are, how people come to grow and inhabit their own skin and how we live simultaneously through and for others. it's about relationships and the maturation of them - that coming of age that you do in high school where old divisions fall away and as you near graduation, lines get blurred in a bittersweet nostalgia for what you've been through together. i can't capture it in words. i made the dotytron read it immediately after me so that we could discuss it - it's so good. like, a touchstone piece of young adult fiction.

this is john green's blog: sparksflyup

he also does a video blog with his brother hank which is a triumph of all things erudite and nerdy: http://www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers

he's brilliant.

edit: i KNEW i shouldn't have written that twitter update this morning crowing about how this was going to be a good day. all day long i was looking forward to the moment when i could come home, heat up chicken kiev, and eat it with a spinach salad, then change into my jammies and work on my felted wreath. FAIL. i got locked out of my house tonight! NOT BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE THE KEY, but because my stupid lock sticks out just a little, teeny, tiny bit and then WON'T open, even though it's "unlocked." all this on the COLDEST NIGHT of life. so i called the momma and poppa d - no answer. the roomie - no answer. i used wall-yM's bathroom then felt bad about imposing even though they graciously offered me dinner and a warm place to stay. i asked monster truck neighbour on the other side to help me out but he couldn't do it. so i biked in the FREEZING cold and in my WORK CLOTHES [imagine: i had been SO pleased with my outfit today. it was nice. but NOT MEANT FOR BIKING IN] to H and J and sweet baby D's place where they graciously put me up and fed me yummy pasta. i almost got blown off my bike. the dotytron came to get me at 10pm. i KNEW IT. i knew even as my fingers hovered over the "g" key for "good day" that i was tempting the fates - BUT I DID IT ANYWAY LIKE A FOOL. never again!

fin.