Wedding Lessons and Hangovers

Day 338

Yesterday I didn't write. I tried, I swear. After attending my friend's wedding and while I was still very buzzed I realized that the internet in my shithole hotel didn't ,that coupled with a mysterious bag I found in the room made me disgusted.

Yesterday's wedding was only the second wedding I have ever attended in my life. Here are a few things I learned from it:

-Getting dressed up is not terrible, it is interesting. Who knew that they made pantyhose that go up to your tits?! While getting ready my friend and I compared these devices that no doubt came from the de-evolution of corsets. Tip: Go with your friend and discuss these horrible hose so that after the dinner is served she will feel comfortable leaning over to share, "My girdle is full!"

-There is always the schmuck. Now, I learned this from The Wedding Singer but it is true. Last night's schmuck is known for coming over to my house (years ago) and drinking all of my grape Kool-aid while giving me a lecture about how I have the wrong type of air conditioner. He is even more famous for the remark he made to my girdle-wearing partner years ago when she was pregnant. He said, "Wow, now that your pregnant you have really nice tits!"

Not only did this schmuck somehow make it into the wedding party, he also grabbed the mike and gave a speech. He sounded like a used car salesmen. I zoned out halfway through and thought about how hard my friend and I had laughed just an hour earlier after we heard a story about how the schmuck broke his leg awhile ago. Later, my girdle-buddy was found talking to him. I went up to save her only to find out that she was bonding with him by pointing out how he was and is a huge asshole. I joined in the fun. Later, a few cocktails later, I told him that I appreciated that he was a true (not half-assed) asshole. His response, "You have nice tits."

-Okay so that guy that had a crush on you a few years ago will be there and he will be showing you his new tattoos which WILL involve taking off his shirt. And, when you first say hello to him he will tell you that he has a prince albert. And, he will try to grind on you on the dance floor and if you run away he WILL chase you and your sloshed friend WILL think it is just a joke and not come to your aid. Ugh.

-If you are attending a wedding of an old friend you will see people that you used to hang out with and you will (if you are lucky) look around and finally realize that you have super hot friends and thus you also must be super hot.

-I learned that the guy that you used hug and who gets tipsy and grabs your ass but you don't hate him for it because he is fun and friendly will be the best man, of course. He will look fabulous in his suit and you will want to hug him all night long. And just after you held onto him for way too long and your girdled friend is rubbing his man boobs his new skinny, tranny-look-alike girlfriend will beeline over. Later, she will scream at him and start crying and make a scene and you will feel superior to her and know that you were right to judge her as a bitch.

-The artsy friend of yours from long ago will be there with his awesome and charming new girlfriend and he will dance for a long time. When you tell him that he has moves he will say it was the cocaine he snorted before he arrived at the wedding and you will giggle but not really know if it was a joke.

-When you are walking to the second bar after the reception you will be next to the bride and she will be telling you how she is the bride and nobody can run her over with a car because that would be rude as she is a bride. Then she will giggle and apologize for being wasted and she will comment about how you will remember her being wasted and remind her of it one day. You will tell her that you are probably too drunk to remember anything that happens...but, you lied.

So that is a very brief summary of the main events and lessons from the wedding. Today I woke up in my hotel room after only a few hours of sleep and a hangover thus today's highlights aren't nearly as exciting and I come off as a dickhead in them but here they are in abridged form:

-I went out for breakfast at a cafe I used to frequent and the owner was so excited to see me that she picked up the tab for my bacon, cream cheese, and green olive hangover omelet. The bad news is that my friend I haven't seen in awhile showed up and I was a pompous, teasing jerk to him and I didn't realize it until hours later.

-I went to the grocery store with my father and he let me drive his huge truck that makes me feel ridiculously redneck and patriotic and powerful. I parked it and was about to run in when my dad started to bitch about how rude it was of me to park where he was in direct sunlight I got back into the truck. He then yelled, "Start the son of a bitch!" I told him that the two old ladies in the parking lot heard him. Instead of being embarrassed he was in hysterics. When I moved the truck the sun was still beating on him.

Other than that it is just a lot of me whining and looking at handbags in a store and chopping cucumbers. So I will say, until tomorrow...

Tip of the Day: If your arm itches don't think about how it could be that you were bitten by bedbugs in your hotel last night instead, think that it is all in your head or that your parents slipped you some meth in your beef stroganoff.

-Canadian Castaway

Gotta Run Before My Computer Rebels Again

Day 336

Okay so I just watched a commercial for realtors and thought to myself two things:
1. Realtors hugging their clients is inappropriate, right? Or is it now expected?
2. And I swear and admit this is true: I thought to myself why the fuck are they mispronouncing the name of the occupation. It is not pronounced, real-tor it is pronounced, real-a-ter. Then I realized my stupidity as I saw that it is spelled: realtor which, phonetically would have it pronounced: real-tor. Shit, I am stoopid. Who the fuck let me get into grad school. Sucker.

Tomorrow I will be attending a wedding of an old friend of mine. This means that I will be putting on a dress that makes me look like a disco ball and have to schmooze with people about what I am doing and what they are doing as if either of us care. Not only is the wedding outdoors which is a total slut. It is in a metropolitan area during rush hour traffic so all of the neighborhood can see me as a disco ball. But the worst thing of all is that it is being held by my friend who is a vegetarian. I can't wait to choke down fake meat product and pretend like I am full. At least I am bringing a big purse to hold jerky and napkins filled with vegetarian food to feed the birds.

Tonight I made a cold salad for dinner that involved garbanzo beans, cucumbers, olives, tomatoes and dog hair. Yeah, that's right, in my tiny taste test I found two hairs. But if you eat it in the dark you can't see the fucking dog hairs and it tastes great.

I think my computer is mad at me or hates my blog--probably both. A few minutes ago the cursor totally disappeared and even my panicked control-alt-delete didn't work. Not only am I pissed off I am now puzzled as I have no idea what "alt" means. Then my cursor stopped and I had to restart my computer three times. This means i need to finish this thing up and not keep writing. This may be a good thing as I look this blog entry over I am spending a whole lot of time discussing things I don't know. Man, self reflection should be called, self slapping.

Everyday on Canadian Yahoo there are news articles--well, that is if you consider celebrities wearing the same outfits unknowingly news. What I want to know is who are the people who notice these things. Do they literally spend their entire lives playing a game of Memory but with pics of celebrities? When these people grew up and the adults in their lives asked them what they wanted to be when they grow up did they lie and say astronaut?

Tip of the Day: Strive to live the kind of life that makes your ridiculous crushes actual options.

-Canadian Castaway

Canned Meat Museum Adventure Day

Day 336

Today was spent adventuring with my parents.

1st Adventure: my father's driving. Mother, "Umm, you are a nutty driver." Father: "No, I am an insane driver."

2nd Adventure: My father insisted that we stop for a treat on the way to the canned meat museum. We pulled into an A & W. My mother and I ordered ice cream cones and he ordered a float. When the girl who was working handed off two good-sized cones my dad declared that they were small. "Look at that skinny little girl making the ice cream cones. They should always have big fat girls making the ice cream cones and then you'd get more."

3rd Adventure: The canned meat museum. Turns out that there is a lot to know about the meat packing industry. I learned that there was a singing chorus of women that paraded around the country to promote pork products. I learned that there was tons of canned meat consumed during the wars (duh). I learned that Margaret Thatcher ate canned meat, occasionally. I learned that giant plaster figures posed looking at each other could have a soundtrack played over them and it doesn't really look like two people actually talking no matter how hard you imagine. Most of all I learned that suckers like me can't live without a variety of souvenirs that are basically marketing tools. I don't know what I will do with a canned meat magnet but I sure as hell needed one. If that wasn't bad enough I thought my friends absolutely needed canned ham magnets, they just don't know it yet.

4th Adventure: After the museum trip we stopped at a nearby restaurant and ordered the museum special which consisted of canned ham burgers. They were wonderful until 20 minutes after you consumed them and rode down a bumpy highway. For dessert I ordered the mysterious "graham cracker pie." Turns out the mystery is that the pie has a graham cracker crust, vanilla pudding and is topped off with meringue. Then I learned the most fascinating thing I learned all day: if meringue is just right you can put it in your mouth and squeeze it out your teeth and it is the most fun you could possibly have sober.

4th Adventure: My brother's car broke down and he wanted me to drive one of my parents two (driveable) cars to him, over an hour away. This started an onslaught of what I will call, What it Means to Be in a Family. Simply put, I was reminded that fights could tear a family apart and cause gang ups and HUGE guilt trips. Most of the time these fights dissolved without apologies. And sometimes, rarely, they end with one person hugging the other and saying, "I am not mad at you. I love you." And the hugged thinking, 'You are probably lying but I don't care.'

I have taken to writing postcards. Okay, let's be honest, I don't have tons of money to spend on buying souvenirs for my pals and I have some free time. Anyway, over my holiday break (translation: Canadian for vacation) I have spent quite a bit of time filling out postcards with curse words and TMI stories and sending them out to my friends. This is all fine and nice but I am wondering if the time I am spending watching TV and eating too much canned meat product (the time I am not writing postcards) should be spent dreaming up ways to validate the postcard writing fetish by putting it to use for my thesis.

My parents have driven me to exercise. No, it's not because they have rock hard abs or can run marathons--the only marathons they can do involve TV episodes. It is due to them driving me nuts. As my car died last year and I am borrowing one of theirs during my visit and today we all got into a fight (see above) and the use of their car was hung over my head I decided to strike out on my own. I made it up the hill they live on and tromped around listening to Skid Row in my new earbuds for twenty minutes--as long as it took for me to discover that my hair was wet due to my sweating and got kinda grossed out and then realized that I was tired. I am like the kid who bumps himself and only starts crying because he sees blood. Well, that and the fact that there were people coming up ahead and I didn't want to talk to them. Anyway, now I am wondering if I hung around my parents all of the time if I would be thin due to the fact that they drive me to exercise. It's either that or hard drugs but then again hard drugs make you thin. Hmm...

What I just said to my mother: "One day I want to make enough money so that I don't have to buy my underwear in a six pack."

Tip of the Day: Ate too many sodium nitrate-laced foods? Eat a bag of frozen vegetables.

-Canadian Castaway

On Tour...

Day 335

This morning I visited my grandmother. She has been losing it more and more over the years and we've all gotten used to telling her that her parents are dead. Today, I nearly lost it over the irony of when she looked at her walker and declared, "There is a screw missing!"

There is something about the county seat town and my father. Whenever we approach the city limits he declares that I am a "fucking idiot." When I bring it up later that he called me a fucking idiot he tells me that he only called me a fucking idiot because I was being a fucking idiot. Anyway today was spent with my father in the county seat. I love the sound of that, "county seat" tee hee hee. Shit, I am a fucking idiot. Anyway, so our first stop was a German restaurant. After my father ate "German Potato Salad" and sauerkraut and we got a mile down the road his comment was, "That place was full of a buncha drunks."

My father and I then wound up at the county museum. The most exciting part of the museum was that my father was in a wheelchair. Due to his MS he usually gets around with a walker but today his legs were quite horrid so I threw him in the community-use wheelchair to go through the museum. Here are some highlights:

I wheeled him directly into the men's room under his direction of, "Put me right in front of the piss bucket!"

When one of the wheels was sticking on a foot pedal my dad went on a loud, curse-filled rant in the quiet museum.

I would nearly crash his feet into stuff and get a small thrill just thinking about the ruckus that would ensue if he knocked over an ancient loom.

I rolled him into a position where his wheelchair was facing a buggy and took pictures as though they were playing chicken.

When we first went to the elevator we found it filled up with a wheel barrow and a walk behind mower. We squeezed in but when we reached the 2nd floor we found ourselves facing a dilemma--the door opened on the other side and we couldn't squeeze past the equipment. I wheeled the giant wheel barrow out of the elevator and then got my dad out. The door shut and I decided that we would leave the wheel barrow on the second floor to give the groundskeeper a little excitement in his day.

Tonight my mother and I sat outside and watched lightning from a passing thunderstorm and for the 20th or so time in my life she commented about how her and her dad used to sit out and watch the thunderstorms. I pretended (like the last 19 times) that this was the first time she was telling me this story. After she was finished she added, "When I am dead and gone tell that story." I will. But, I wonder if my children will take over the pretending it was the first time I droned on about my mother and her father and the storms. I imagine they will whine to me about having to hear it again and then I will realize that I failed at raising respectful children. Damnit.

Tip of the Day: Let your family push you around a little and then remind them of it later usually it won't be fodder for blackmail but it will at least make them laugh.

-Canadian Castaway

A Big Day and My Parents are Pill Poppers

Day 334

So, I have been messing around with the template of my blog. Turns out my blog doesn't have to look like a 13 year old writes it, well, at least not design-wise subject and grammar-wise I am pretty much an uncool 13 year old for life. While doing this change of template I came across my writer ego. A scary little beast that seems to come up every now and then. So, as I was customizing the damn thing I thought, 'Oh shit, what if this turns out like the time Facebook fucked with the template and features of its site and everyone got pissed?' Umm yeah, pretty sure I have WAY less people visiting this blog than Facebook has using their site to post pictures of themselves smoking and drinking or holding babies and putting updates about how works sucks up. Perhaps, I could add a photo and status feature though where people could post these things. But back on topic, seriously I thought my readers (correction: one reader, thank you I love you) would be pissed off if my blog looked better. I am as my father and mother have said, "Fricking stupid." But, there you have it, the ugly writer ego is the little voice saying, 'You are important! People love you!' I love that little fucker.

Being in my hometown I have noticed a few things. Tonight I noticed that my parents are pill poppers. They even went out to Walmart to get the type of boxes parents store art supplies in to house their pills. They have so many pills they have to write them all down on recipe cards and can call up the pharmacy and order refills giving only their first names as ID. The best part though is that my mother fills my father's pills so he doesn't risk messing it up. But tonight my father looked over at my mother and said, "Umm, I think you are missing quite a few of my pills here." After that I was thinking that I should look up the names of the pills and check out what they do to you, specifically the ones that my mother is fucked up on. But then I decided I didn't want to know, I'd like to think their madness is just who they are.

This morning I had the awful job of shoveling rock. I was stupid enough to think that if I didn't come in the summer I would get out of having to shovel (everyday over Christmas break I had to shovel snow). My parents have a driveway that is full of gravel, unlike their rich neighbors who have driveways that are paved. When it rains the rock washes out into the road, some of it even gets in the 86 year old neighbor's driveway. The other day we came home to discover that not only did the rain wash out the rocks I had shoveled back into place two days before, the 86 year old neighbor lady had swept up all the rock that had migrated to the mouth of her driveway into a pile at the mouth of our driveway.

My parents sent me out to shovel. Not only did I drip sweat, I imagined the 86 year old having no trouble doing the task. I looked over to her yard to find her tossing around tree branches with ease. If that weren't horrid enough there were plenty of people driving by looking at me. And boy wasn't it fun to have the random lady honk at me and to have the postman make a remark about it being a tough job and then proceed to drive through the rocks I had raked up. Tomorrow I am breaking all of my parents shovels.

I should be drinking booze right now to celebrate but instead I am drinking cold coffee and some odd Trader Joes snack food. I finally wrote and sent my 'Fuck you, I quit!' email to Canada Post today, as I had gotten on the schedule at the pub--a job I had last fall until we got shut down. I was so fricking thrilled the pub was fit to re-open, it may have been gross but at least it didn't make me want to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre just to take notes and get ideas. Anyway, I was so happy to finally put an end date on the postal job, this feeling lasted all day (well, except that part of the day that I bought that new flavor-changing gum and walked around saying, "It's just like in Willy Wonka, but it's not a whole meal!") until I got home from visiting a friend to find two emails from the pub. One email said that the new manager wants to call a meeting with the employees this week. I am out of town this week. The other email was just to let us know that the schedule had been retracted. Fuck.

Today I came up with a master plan: I want to have my mother go shopping and buy me all sorts of things that I use like underwear and facial cleanser. The idea behind this is that when she sends me a care package in the mail I won't get 18 pairs of socks, 3 tubes of mascara and hideous hot pink yarn. The only problem is that I haven't yet figured out how to phrase it. "Mom, so I was thinking you should go out and buy me all sorts of things I want because sometimes you suck at sending what I actually need," somehow sounds ungrateful.

Tip of the Day: Having pork every meal of the day is probably a bad idea but I have to do more research into the topic.

-Canadian Castaway

Growl

Day 333

So, I have an injury and a BAD attitude. Tomorrow I will share the details but for now I need some Metallica and Tylenol.

Tip of the Day: Too pissy to comment. I don't know, don't be an asshole.

-Canadian Castaway

Too Tired for Boring, Long Title Sequences

Day 332

Apparently, red wine makes me sweat, that or, the strain my body is facing trying to hold back from maiming my parents is starting to take effect. But, let's start at the beginning.

This morning I was woken up to knocking at the front door and my parents yelling, "Come in!" eight times. Then, from my bed, I heard a lady who is a distant relative of mine who has a harelip and a gambling addiction but a good heart go on and on about how afraid of my grandmother she was in the night. She works at the assisted living house my granny lives in. Turns out my grandmother had a flip out and went a little nutty, nearly maiming this woman's foot with her walker. I came out after the 20 minute or so mark and the woman hugged me and started to tell the story over again. Somehow my parents got her to change the subject and made her admit that she was going to the next state over not only to buy cheap cigars for her giant husband but also to go to a shitty casino on the way and somehow this led to a conversation about her car breaking down. Around then my coffee kicked in and I started to stare at the paralyzed side of this woman's face and realized that she can use her eye and then I imagined how she threw a frying pan at her last husband.

This is how things have been going around home. Well, that and the fact that my parents are at each other all of the time. My dad being grumbly and my mother playing the victim. But today there were two other elements to add to that mix.

1. I came across (translation: my mother found it in a pile of her crap and chucked it at me) a notebook that I had used as a journal in 2nd grade. I opened it up to find little details about my life in the exact same handwriting I have today. I was also reminded how I cannot draw and the worst part is that I didn't even draw in an obnoxiously elementary way, I just drew like an average boring idiot child--all boxed houses and stick-figure-esque people in huge dresses with yellow-crayoned hair. But, the spelling and details were excellent. It is fun to know that on my birthday my parent's got me a babysitter and my class went to a supermarket on a field trip. The whole thing was quite enjoyable until I realized that every progressive entry had more grammatical errors than the last. If I was truly getting dumber where does that leave me 20 years from then? Thirty? What is even more troubling is that I have continued this daily journal this long. At least, I stopped pretending like I know how to draw and I can't tell if my handwriting is getting any worse.

2. As an escape from my father whom I actually got into a shouting match with (sometimes I revert to a 16 year old version of myself around him) my mother and I went to the next town over for groceries. On the way over my mother mentioned that an old man I used to know now lived over there in some sort of old folks home seeing as his wife had passed away. She convinced me to stop and see him. I was worried that he wouldn't remember me. I haven't seen him in about 4 years and he is 91 years old. When I walked in I introduced myself and feared the worst but before long he was hugging me and we were both crying. Somehow, he had remembered that when I was in high school I became the infamous girl that he would describe to people as, "That girl could spill a cup of coffee on you and make you like it."

We sat and talked for a long time and he told us about how his wife died and how they had met and how he had made her feel comfortable enough to be herself and how he had never thought he was going to get married ever again and then she came along. This was the same couple that when one of them had went to the bathroom at the restaurant I used to work at the other would go on and on about how wonderful the other was. Never did either of them know that these wonderful words were being spoken. We sat and listened to him recount all of the times and circumstances in which they professed their love for each other and I stared out the window at what used to be her car. A car that he kept even though he couldn't drive. A car that he was right outside the window, where he could see it. There was also the full-page printed pictures of her that were all over the walls of his assisted-living home. I remembered at some point during all of this that I believed in love and he and her were the reason why. If I ever get married and pass on I would want my husband to look out at the car he bought just for me on a whim and tell people that he would be buried in the sweater I thought made him look wonderful.

But not everything was so serious, with the best people in my life it never is. He showed us emails that his friends in California had sent to him. He scrolled down as we read the Baptist and Catholic jokes. There was even one whose punchline was a picture of a scantily-clad woman. He showed me the bill for his housing and laughed at how much it cost. He said that he had won twice at the meat raffle at the VFW. He laughed with traces of tears on his face. But what shocked me the most and turns out to be the funniest thing to me now was how he spoke of many different people in his life. He stated exactly how old they are and when there birthdays were. On the way out to the car I confessed to my mother that I didn't even know how old she was. But, I will be damned if I forget to send a Happy 92nd Birthday card out this August 29th.

After that my mother and I went grocery shopping. The only exciting things at the grocery store were the huge ladies that made both of us feel not so fat. At home we ate pizza that we bought at a convenience store for eight dollars and now I am hiding out drinking wine and my parents are sitting in lawn chairs with the mosquitos and I am contemplating locking the doors. I think next I will go on facebook and start learning birthdays. Until tomorrow...

Tip of the Day: Be the kind of person who makes people cry in a good way when they see you.

-Canadian Castaway

Boring and Borderline Awful

Day 331

Once again last night I sort of copped out of a full description of the day’s events, but fuck it I am on vacation. Well, my Dad says that now that I am a budding Canadian I have to call it being on “Holiday.” Anyway, in the spirit of being on holiday and with the hype around Lindsay Lohan’s jail time I am writing this account of today and yesterday while watching Mean Girls. Let me just say right now that it is totally weird seeing Lindsay all fresh-faced and innocent looking without shitty chipped blue nail polish on.

Anyway, the account of today’s events is pretty lame, it was really one of those days when things are sort of boring and hugely awful. Last night I only slept about four hours. My friend and I shared her bed in an effort to be in the only air conditioned room in her apartment so, the night was spent pushing her off of me and having her tug the blanket. Anyway, I tried to ready myself for a day of visiting two of my friends who allegedly want to see me. One didn’t answer her phone and the other didn’t answer his phone and finally texted that he really had to finish something that sounded like a seating chart. So, I went home to hang with the only person who wanted to hang with me, my dad.

We decided on going to a store that is similar to Menards so that I could carry six 40 pound bags of water softener salt for him. Everything seemed wonderful and actually quite fun. My dad decided to try out air guitar and later laughed his ass off after he realized that he called me, “fricking stupid.” Then I made fun of his laugh and he laughed some more. We had lunch and it wasn’t terrible and then went on to the Menards-y where I found a pair of Levi’s and carried the salt bags. Basically, everything was going just fine…until we stopped at a McDonald’s.

My Dad uses a walker because he has MS. We pulled into the handicapped spot and on the lines next to the spot--the area usually used by handicapped people who are lucky enough to be able to go out use for their walkers and wheels chairs—had a motorcycle illegally parked in it. I made a comment about how rude it was that someone would park there. My dad told me to go on ahead into the McDonalds. When I entered some asshole hick guy approached me and asked if the guy with the walker outside was my dad and I told him he was and then he said, “He just bumped my bike.” Then I responded in the coldest , meanest voice I could muster, “He did not BUMP your bike.”

Then, after I got my father back in the car and the asshole pulled away, I thought of a million other things I should’ve said to the dickhead and started to get more and more pissed off. Then, I turned into a psycho bitch and apologized to my dad. “Dad, I am sorry I am being a bitch that guy just really pissed me off and I am hungover and tired and hot and I carried those bags around and I am just sorry, I know I am being a bitch.” His response, “Yes, you are being a bitch.” If that wasn’t bad enough when I later told my mother about the asshole incident she said, “If it were me I would’ve got my phone out in front of the guy and called the cops to report that he was illegally parked.” So, not only did I have to deal with the asshole guy, regretting that I didn’t do anything to the guy, and having my dad call me a bitch, I also had to deal with my mother coming up with a brilliant idea that was way more original than my ideas of what I should’ve done to the asshole.

So, other than that and a hamburger that was my day. Well, there was the interlude at the hamburger restaurant when my mother and I noted that this woman who came up to a friend's table kept talking on and on and the friend clearly wanted the bitch to leave so she could eat her tuna salad. But, the best part of the day was the nap I took. Although watching Mean Girls is coming in a very close second.

Okay, so yesterday I went to the candy store with a very large friend of mine. She then said something, quite loudly about how she is diabetic and buying candy. The man who was working (a friend of mine) and I burst out laughing. My fat friend then said, “What’s so funny? I am diabetic. That is not funny.” But, we kept laughing anyhow, turns out it was funny, quite funny.

After that I went to my friend’s house and guzzled chocolate martinis and held one of her bunnies and threw pizza crust into her yard. Then we pretty much just gossiped about how people who are a Taurus in the zodiac (not the car) are bitches and then went to bed. So really, my short blog entry from yesterday was short for a reason—nothing all that interesting happened, at least from how I remember it. Perhaps I should take some Ginkgo Biloba.

Tip of the Day: Don’t eat those chocolate-covered pretzels, they will leave stains that you will remember them by.

-Canadian Castaway

Oh Boy (minus the boy)

Day 330

Okay so here is the count:

2-chocolate martinis
1-blueberry beer
1-Chardonnay
3-pieces of the variety of pizza that drips down your arm.

So, that coupled with me being on my friend's computer trying to manipulate the ergonmic, broken-style keyboard is going to be my excuse for not writing more today. See you tomorrow. Wish me luck sleeping with my friend (literally, not the fun way). Hopefully, I will at least drink enough water to not be too hungover when I meet my friend and her baby. Frig.

Tip of the Day: Don't chase your friend's pet bunnies, turns out they don't like that.

-Canadian Castaway

Back Roads Gas Station Blues, Passive Agressive Shopper, You Don't Know Me, Huggy Greetings, My Girl?

Day 329

Today was spent shopping and eating. That's really about all I do now. On the way to a store my mother and I had never been to before we decided to take back roads. We ended up in a town that consisted of a gas station and around 3 houses. We stopped at the gas station. There was a sign on the door that said something to the effect of, "Bring in two books to donate and you can get one of our books for $1." Apparently, donating comes with a price. My mother went to the bathroom while I scanned the top supermarket novels of ten years ago and bought an expired candy bar and then we left, bookless. And to make it even worse when I opened my expired Abba Zabba there was a piss-colored liquid on it.

We finally made it to the store, despite my poor navigation skills--we ended up in the back entrance of the store that said, "Not an Entrance." The store turned out to be a wonderland of fat lady clothes. While I scanned the racks and pulled items to try on a ratty-looking woman who looked like she should be parked on a stool at the American Legion in a drunken arm wrestling (pronounced, "wrastlin") match watched me. Turns out she was a store employee. She basically ignored me and my mother and opened the dressing room doors for other customers AND she showed huge interest in that customers leg cast. I had to crawl under the door of the room to get in to the room I had to have when another lady who coughed everywhere stole the room that I found unlocked. Meanwhile, the American Legion woman didn't seem to notice I had to crawl under a stall to get a new change room or that I had my room stolen. My Midwestern passive aggression made me leave every single item I tried on for her to put away and even left some underwear in there so she may think I tried them on too. Here are a few other things that occurred:

-I tried on leopard-print pants. Scary idea.

-I refused to sign up for a credit card even if I could save 30 percent on my highest priced item.

-I tried on a few bras and realized that bras aren't just to cover your tits, they are to make them rise up and become the perky teenage tits you've never had. I bought two look out world.

-I purposely went through the "Employees Only" door without permission to use the bathroom.

-I stared at a lady who was shopping and laughed at how grumpy she looked. Turns out she had a cast on her arm. At that point I thought I had better leave before I ended up in a cast, especially considering all of the clothes I left everywhere.

After that stop we had a late lunch and went to Trader Joes. This was my mother's first trip to Trader Joes as she lives far from the store. After awhile of shopping around we were paused by the cookie section when another woman hit my mother's cart with her own. I waited for my mother to erupt on the strange woman with a huge gunt (gut+cunt) but turns out she knew her. My mother had taken care of this woman's father many years ago in a city far, far away. The woman and my mother talked for awhile and I loaded up the cart with junk. Then my mother said something about being out to shop with her daughter and pointed at me. The lady said, "Oh you have a daughter? I didn't know you have a daughter." I went over and said hello and then the woman said, "I met you when you were just a baby." I smiled but what I should've said was, "Are you on one too many Percocets? You just said that you didn't know I exist and now you are pretending you do know."

After the Trader Joe's excursion and the mandatory purchasing of cheap wine and beer that you can make into your own personalized six-pack (best idea ever) my mother and I dropped by my former neighborhood coffeeshop. Upon entering we saw three freaky men, one woman who tells really long stories but is nice and the owner of the shop. I have known the owner quite well for quite awhile as I was a regular customer and once went with him to purchase plants for the patio. But, I didn't think we were the kind of friends that required ten long, flamboyant hugs when I arrived. Turns out though, getting excessive hugs when you arrive and a genuine, "I am so glad to see you" is an excellent greeting when you walk into a room. The only thing is that I read on some inspirational message somewhere that you must be the change you want to see in the world and I am not feeling all that lovey.

At supper this evening my mother and I were joined by my friend and her six year old. Here a few of my favorite things from my encounters with the six year old I call my niece:

-Every time she wanted to speak she says, "Can I ask you a question?" even when what she had to say is a command.

-If she noticed that I let her win at tic tac toe she didn't say so, she just took the glory.

-At one point she leaned in and whispered, "Can I tell you a secret?" and grabbed my hand. "Sometimes me and my mom hold hands and when we squeeze it means I love you." She squeezed, repeatedly.

-When her and I were in the bathroom we had this conversation:

Me: What is your favorite thing to eat?
Her: Mac and cheese.
Me: Does your mom ever make that for you?
Her: No!
Me: Yeah, she's kind of healthy, huh?
Her: You wanna know a secret?
Me: Yeah.
Her: I think healthy food is BORING!

I think I need a DNA test, is it possible to be someones biological mother without actually having them come out of you?

Tip of the Day: If you believe in something hard enough and long enough it could become your truth. This is why I never give up on the: one day Craig Ferguson will tell me I am sexy and I'll say, "Ditto" and then everything will fall magically together and he will be the best kisser in the world and we will all live happily ever after.

-Canadian Castaway

Invisible, Sci-Fi Hideout, Poetics, "Friend"ship, Inappropriate Timing, Addict, Nastiness

Day 328

So this morning I was online and saw wanted my friend to Skype with me. I sent her a Skype message that basically read, "I am avoiding (insert list of people here) so I am on "Invisible" but I am really here. Skype me!" For a minute I felt bad that I was hiding out on Skype and other chat venues so certain "friends" of mine couldn't contact me with their boring, "Hello." Then I realized two things: 1. Other people probably hide from me on online. And, 2. Why am I friends with these people at all?

This afternoon I went to my favorite library. I tried a different spot than my usual spot. This spot had a good view of all of the creepy old men and an overgrown fat boy who flipped through CDs for over an hour while his butt crack aired out. The best part about my spot though was that it was near the sci-fi section and no one, except a not-creepy girl, came to look at the books near me. Isn't it weird that many people you know like reading sci-fi and yet you never see them actually reading it?

While at the library I read a book of poetry. It was incredibly weird. I AM the type of person who will walk around and judge people for being poets. But today, reading the book that I have to review, I remembered and embraced my inner poet. The kid I grew up being and reveled in the gritty stanzas and Sylvia Plath references. Now all I must do is find the right hook for the review. I was thinking about going the, "Poetry sucks. And, I hate to admit that I like it sometimes, like now." But, that sounds so boring and poetic.

Today I had to get a little witchy with a "friend" of mine. This "friend," whom I haven't seen in months, declined hanging out with me today because she has her period. I wanted to scream at her to take some Midol and suck it up or tell her that being drunk would help. Instead I shot her a snarky text message, "I am busy for the next full week." Tonight I remembered something she had said to me once on a road trip, she said, "You are never scarier than when you have your period or when you are hungry, and now you are both." Guess she hasn't yet seen how scary I can be when you ditch me for a ridiculous reason oh and btw, I can't hang out because I am brushing my teeth.

This afternoon I came home, poured myself a cocktail and took the book I am reading outside to enjoy a nice breeze and the shade. I gulped down my delicious cocktail, turns out that reading a book and drinking don't mix when the book is AMERICAN ON PURPOSE by Craig Ferguson and you are reading the part where he first realizes that he is an alcoholic. I thought about quitting either the book or the cocktail but I am no quitter.

I have an addiction problem and I am willing to take the step right here and now to confront it. Here goes: I am addicted to making afghans. The longest, most boring, pull your hair out and eat it sort of crochet project you can get into. I started a new one tonight that I have fashioned out of a pattern I found online for "gauntlets." No joke. Not only have I read and understood the pattern and it's cryptic: dc, sl, sc, and reps, I have modified it for a blanket. I looked at the top of the pattern to discover that I am now an "intermediate" crocheter. This basically means that I am in a life sentence to create things to give away out of cheap yarn. It is yet to be decided as to if this is a good thing or something that could consumer my entire existence.

So, tonight I found out, via Facebook, that another one of my fellow writing students has become a finalist in a contest that, apparently, many of us entered. Again, I was met with the fact that I wasn't happy for my fellow student. I know there is supposed to be camaraderie and cheering each other on. But, who is gonna lie, it sucks not knowing if you are chosen and with each passing day seeing your friends display their glory makes you want to punch them out not comment them a "Congrats!!!!!." The only consolation is that it is a Canadian contest so if I don't get in I will blame it on them not understanding my American-ness.

Tip of the Day: Jerry Seinfeld isn't really funny at all.

-Canadian Castaway

Testy, Butt Cream Hunt, Cheesy Friendliness, Are you Brittany?, Malt Cups VS Bench Presses

Day 327

Today I spent a long time taking a test. The pub I work for had its license suspended and one of the people who is in charge of us re-opening insisted that we take a test from another province because apparently it is more difficult than the one we had to take for certification to serve in our own province. After logging into the site for the other provinces test I found that it seemed more difficult. You had to complete exercises, assignments, case studies, a questionnaire AND do a final exam.

This province seemed to have it really together about getting servers trained to handle any situation legally. Well, it seemed that way until I realized that I could just click on the questions and just by sheer common sense answer the questions, exercises and assignments without the use of any tutorials they provided. Plus, it did help that one of my fellow employees copied and pasted and formatted all of the sites web pages into a word document that you could just search keywords on for anything you were the slightest bit unsure of. I wonder how awesome that province thinks there certification process is...suckers.

To celebrate my test I went out to buy some ointment that babies use on diaper rash but works well on any sort of rash. I cruised the local Wal-mart for over an hour looking for the baby stuff section. I checked the pharmacy area, the health and beauty area (c'mon shouldn't it be there), and the grocery section. Finally, after the sixth round around Wal-mart I found a baby section in the middle and back of the store near the electronics. As I was comparing butt creams a lanky high school-aged kid with a Wal-mart polo shirt on came up and asked, "Do you need any help finding anything?" I felt like the (rashy) butt of a joke. "I'm fine," I said, managing to suppress the, "Fuck you asshole, you think you're funny? What would you even know about baby supplies? Huh? I bet your mom still buys your butt cream, ass munch."

My mother is looking for a specific kind of cheese. You know, the kind of cheese that you have to look up on wikipedia to see if it is real or not. Anyway, after my Wal-mart fiasco I went to a cheese shop. In the cheese shop I found the cheese. But, before I found the cheese, a woman found me. A woman who loved talking to strangers and walked around the store with me at a distance that assumed we were not just friends but close friends, literally. Tonight I told my mother about finding the cheese and the woman. Her response, "That's how people are around here. They are friendly." It was at that moment that I truly realized I had lost my friendliness.

This evening I went out to meet an old friend from high school. I barely sat down before I began slinging the gossip and seeing what she knew about people we went to high school with having babies and getting fat. The only weird thing about us hanging out after years of not hanging out happened when I pulled into the parking lot. I no more than got into a parking space when two ladies in the parked car next to me gave me a friendly wave. I waved back and stared at the driver wondering if it was my friend and if she had brought a guest. The woman next to the driver was a big fat lady who very well could've been someone from high school who just got over four pregnancies and a meth addiction but it wasn't (at least I don't think it was). When I got out of the car the driver of the friendly vehicle came around the back and asked, "Are you Brittany?" Weird.

On the ride home tonight from dinner I got a call from my friend. Turns out he and I were both going places: he was going to the gym and I was going to the local convenience store to get a malt cup.

Tip of the Day: Don't put lotion on just before you are going to type.

-Canadian Castaway

Me and Julia and Julie and Little Things

Day 326

Tonight I watched Julie and Julia, again. The first time I saw this film was in the theatre. That day I saw it with my parents and we had gotten into a huge fight that caused more than one of us to leave the theatre more than once. But, after I came out of it I was inspired. To me the movie was about just doing something with your life and not looking back. Doing something that seemed totally out of character and far from easy. I guess you can say that movie inspired me to write this blog. I know, I'd like to think I am an original thinker and not one of the thousands who have started blogs since seeing that film but really, I'm just one of many. I guess my story of moving to Canada and living in a dorm setting for the first time at age 25 is unique. But, maybe not. I guess it really doesn't matter because I am doing something with my life and not looking back. Maybe not looking back is a good thing when you write a snarky blog of the variety that you would be embarrassed about when you grow old.

Anyway, so this time through the movie I noticed something else besides the doing something with your life part of it. I noticed the part where the women in the film have happy marriages and men who love them and are there for them. Then I realized three things: 1. I may never find this sort of love. And, 2. Luckily, this sort of love is probably a myth so I don't have to feel bad about not finding it. And regrettably, 3. Despite the fact that it doesn't exist in real life I am still going to look for it because I am a hopeless romantic. Or, as the Bouncing Souls used to say, "I'm a hopeless romantic and you're just hopeless." What they left out is that hope is a bitch so being hopeless may be a very good thing.

The other parts of my day are quite boring such as: I discovered a rash on my back, I painted my fingernails silver, I killed like 6 bugs with a shoe and a screaming war cry, I helped prepare a pot roast, I ate the pot roast, I had my brother Skype with my parents for the first time (they flicked him off and pretended to beat each other up), I thought about all the shit I am not doing with my life, I had two phone conversations that essentially meant nothing, I went to two different stores with clothes in my size and realized they were all hideous, and I avoided people on chat.

So, I will leave the blog entry at the above for today and hope that it isn't utterly boring. But, I don't know as if that really matters much as I have no idea if anyone reads this damn thing anyway. Goodnight possible reader that might just be me, I hope you have wonderful dreams about wonderful men like in the movies and wake up tomorrow not remembering the specifics just the warmth.

Tip of the Day: Don't think about the veins in your pork roast just give them to the dog and eat the non-veined part.

-Canadian Castaway

Today and Yesterday

Day 325

Actual conversation that have occurred in my parents' house today:

My Mom looked up from the newspaper and said: "A six year old choked on a hotdog and died."

My Dad said, "That happened here too awhile back, some little Mexican girl choked on a hotdog and died."

"Yep, she died," said Mother.

Other than the above and listening to a conversation about whether or not a furniture truck was a furniture truck, whose house it was pulling up to and deciphering what was inside, my day was spent shopping. I have a wedding to go to and nothing to wear. Here is a quick tour of the shopping that occurred:

"The Fat Lady Store:" This store is exactly as my mother describes it. It is a store for fat ladies. Thus, I walked in eating an ice cream cone. Turns out the employees, all fat ladies, were on lunch break. It was perfect. But, I would like to rename the store: "The Fat Lady Store for Fat Ladies Who Dress Terribly."

Lane Bryant: This is the mecca of fat lady shopping. Thus, they should have something for every fat lady. The other major LB positive factor is that they carry high quality clothing. Apparently, all other fat lady stores cater to or assume that fat ladies are also trashy and only buy ugly-floral printed smocks to match their bingo daubers. The main thing about Lane Bryant and me is that every time I go in there I am excited to find something that is somewhat stylish and fits but this never happens so I act like a diva and spout sarcastic comments about everything and fat people in general. The thing that always gets me though is that the employees try even harder to help me. Today's poor victim of my debauchery even stated, after my apology for my rudeness that I wasn't nearly as rude as yesterday's customers. The ladies who work at LB should be given honorary Psychology degrees and raises according to the APA guidelines for therapists/counselors base payment scale.

Dress Barn: The Dress Barn is a place I always used to make fun of, actually, on the way there I was making fun of its name. I decided to go in with my mother so that I could have more things to make fun of. I didn't suspect that I would walk out of there with two dresses. I guess I should be happy but I don't even have one single new joke to poke fun at the DB. The only jokes I have about Dress Barn now are self-deprecating. Damn you, Dress Barn.

ShopKo: This store is basically a souped up K-mart. I always get horribly mad when I look at and try on their clothes because they are ugly and ill-fitting and cheap. But today I found a pair of shoes on sale that resembled a pair of pink shoes worn by my doll from childhood, Cricket. The best part of this store though was seeing all of the high school kids working there who would shut up as we passed and put on faces like they weren't just cussing and telling a story about their drunken friend who did something whorish.

So, that was pretty much was happened today, minus my dad bitching at me for everything you can think of. Let's see what I can remember from yesterday...

The beginning of yesterday had me and my friend shopping and eating. Apparently, this is all I do and I am not even getting all that good at it. I am continuously buying shit I don't need and spilling food on my shirts. Anyway, after that I went to the bar I used to work at to find tons of regulars I used to know quite well. One of these regulars that is always trying to get her husband to come home decided to park it at the bar and order a Mai Tai. Before long the entire bar was drinking Mai Tais.

Later my friend and I showed off our mustache-shaped necklaces by holding them up to where our mustaches would be if we had grown them ourselves. Turns out though, when you hold up a fake mustache to your face and try to talk everything comes out in an English accent. And--much to my surprise--the accent wasn't annoying it was actually quite funny.

Later on a group of people showed up. These people consisted of a guy I once made out with and his new girlfriend. Also, there was the best friend of the guy who I made out with and who upon hearing that I would be in town had responded, "Great, now we can smooch." And, if all of that wasn't bad enough there was another guy with them who when he saw me said, "Do you give free rides?" And, after all of that, I didn't get a smooch.

Before that odd crew showed up, two different people I know who now have babies showed up. They all gathered around and talked about motherhood and how many more kids they wanted to have and what different pregnancies were like. A few old men came by and scared the babies and the Mom's in the room hushed them and the chatter continued about eating and sleeping habits of children and how they grow up so quick and for the first time in a long time I had nothing at all to offer. Nobody ever tells you that when you grow up and you don't become a mother you will have nothing to say sometimes.

In the later part of the evening there was a woman sitting with a couple of people whose blonde-haired 3 year old was wandering the bar patio trying to get attention from everyone. At first I thought the kid was quite obnoxious. I realized that the kid was just a 3 year old stuck in a bar full of adults way past his bedtime and I felt sad. My friends and I started to play with him and he gathered a few quarters. When anyone would leave the patio area he would try to give them one of his quarters. As I was leaving he came racing up to me and I had already prepared my "No you keep it" speech but he didn't offer me the quarters like he had done to everyone else to me he said, "Hug?"

I realized the best part about having been gone for awhile is that when you come back everyone is truly glad to see you. Other than that things are largely the same which isn't just odd but it is sad in a way that is hard to describe and I know that's a cop out. But the funny thing you don't expect is the amount of times people ask you when you are leaving again.

Tip of the Day: Don't let the dog breathe on you.

-Canadian Castaway

Buying and Singing

Day 324

So, it is only a little after 1 am and I am exhausted. Instead of doing a super half-ass job of recapturing today I will just leave a few details as previews:

Old men scaring tiny babies.

Salad made by a man I have a crush on.

Things largely stay the same.

People actually being glad to see me. Weird.

A little fella named Dominick who screamed, "I don't want to be angry anymore!"

The odd sensation of meeting the now-girlfriend of someone you have made out with on a pool table.

"Are you giving free rides?"

Of not-motherhood.

Mustache necklaces and the accents that accompany them.

How many times do I have to tell people the date I leave?

Mai Tai bar.

Karaoke comeback sensation.

Okay, so there is a tease of what I will detail tomorrow. Stay tuned...

Tip of the Day: Itch.

-Canadian Castaway

A Few of My Favorite Things...

Day 323

Today was a day of my true American-style consumerism and a few other of my favorite things. Once again it is getting very late so I will make this short. Here goes, my favorite things:

This morning I slept in. Well to be more exact I slept in until my phone rang. It was my father calling from the living room. Now, it's not like we live in some mansion. He could say my name at a reasonable volume from the living room and I would be able to hear it. Maybe he was playing hotel. Hopefully, I don't get a bill with my room charges and for all the Count Chocula I have eaten.

A friend asked me what was the thing I most look forward to doing or seeing while I am home. I told him this, "Driving down a country highway, listening and singing along to rock and roll music on the radio." Today was filled with this activity and everything was wonderful until I realized that I was driving a car with very dark tinted windows. The same car that I got pulled over in for the window tint twice in one weekend last July. I tried to practice things I would say to the potential cop and came up with, "This is my parents car and they think de-tinting the windows is ridiculous." I made it all the way home without getting pulled over, so all of my speech planning was for nothing, or was it? Guess we'll see in the next few days...

I went to the bank in the next town over and cashed a check. After that I realized that I had not had any coffee at all and it was nearly mid-afternoon. I raced over to my favorite coffee shop in the world and the guy that I have had a crush on since high school was working. And, another of my favorite things, he knew that I wanted just a dark coffee despite it having been 6 months since my last visit. He took the two largest sized cups and had me point to what I wanted. I groggily watched him get the coffee and realized that I still have a crush on him. And then I even ventured a, "I'm so glad you are here."

A few of my favorite things also happened while I was at the coffee shop:

-The coffee kicked in.
-I chatted with my bodyguard and told him exactly what I thought of him and he didn't get mad.
-Facebook photo uploader actually worked.
-And, I had a few new ideas for stuff that I am writing.

Then came the consumerism interlude of the day. I went to Target (a luxury Canada could definitely use). While there I bought 4 pairs of shoes for only 20 bucks. And a few other items for a super low price. The experience almost made me want to call off going back to grad school in Canada altogether, there is nothing like the rush you get from shoes on sale. But, I'd still find something to complain about anyhow, so I may as well go. Plus, I would start to take the Target experience for granted.

To round out the American consumer experience I went through a McDonald's drive thru. Despite the fact that I forgot to tell them I didn't want ketchup and despite the fact that the person working couldn't do a 1/2 Diet Coke and 1/2 Dr. Pepper soda for me it was delicious and went well with the rock music blasting as I went down the highway.

For supper my parents and I went to Perkins. There I discovered a secret favorite thing. My parents always act ridiculous around servers. My mother gets all meek and stupid and my father gets boisterous and cracks jokes that aren't funny. I used to be and still am embarrassed by it. But now I can appreciate and am addicted to the total what-the-hell-are-they-gonna-say-now moments of it all.

We followed supper up with a trip to Wal-mart where I oogled the low prices and even though our bill came to over 100 bucks I rejoiced in the glory of getting a cartful not just a bagful for that amount. And for the first time in my life I considered buying one of their "I (heart) U.S.A." t-shirts.

At home I got to play my mother in Rummy and not get my ass kicked. All said it was a day filled with my favorite things. And now I am spent in so many ways. Time to cuddle up with my new shoes and dream of ketchup-less cheeseburger value meals and U.S.A. apparel.

Tip of the Day: Get it.

-Canadian Castaway

Two Days Ago, Yesterday, and Today The Semi-Abridged Version

Day 322

I just realized that I copped out on from not only yesterdays details but also from the day before yesterdays details. So here we go on a little catching up adventure through time:

Two Days Ago:
This day was my best friend's boyfriends Half Birthday but we forgot all about that. Turns out though, he had a pretty awesome Half Birthday. It all started out with my best friend making breakfast burritos but not just any breakfast burritos, they were breakfast burritos whose meat was diced up breaded pork. By noon we were at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Turns out that crocodiles everywhere look fake and women who smoke and walk around wearing furry bedroom slippers DO belong in the zoo.

Later the Half Birthday boy and I ended up at a café. I went in to use the sink in the bathroom and noted that the toilet had brown streaks of shit on it. Not only was there a person who knocked on the door and was waiting to use the bathroom and rushed inside after I had left, after I went back to the table the Half B-day boy also declared that he was going to use the washroom (Canadian for bathroom). Surely both the bathroom user after me and my friend had thought that I had unloaded a slippery one in there. Why does this always happen? Why do innocent people get blamed for shit crimes they did not commit? Damnit, am I going to have to start cleaning other people’s messes so I don’t get blamed? Or am I going to have to start shitting in public because if I am going to get blamed anyway I may as well be the culprit.

At night we went to see a series of plays that were written based on the work of 4th graders. One of the best parts was when there was a poem about something with a tale and another character was introduced and the actor said, “And I am (some wacky kid name) and I am (whatever the fuck the tailed-character’s name was) sister. That means that we have the same mom and dad.” Another play had a nerdy character going on his first date but saying he had a girlfriend. The waiter at the restaurant said, “You have a girlfriend?! But you are 32!” Apparently, at 32 there is no excuse for someone to only be boyfriend/girlfriend. The “girlfriend” took one look at gassy nerd and said, “I dump you.” One of the final plays was a letter to Obama in it the kids demanded that everyone except terrorists should be allowed to immigrate to the U.S. Their only real claim as to why immigration should be allowed freely was that “…less Mexicans would be arrested.” They signed the note Mrs. So and So’s 4th grade class. But before that send off they had written, “And if you do not meet our demands we WILL have you kicked out of office.”

All in all my friend couldn’t have asked for a better forgotten Half Birthday.


Yesterday:
On my last morning my friends and I went to a neighborhood coffee shop to get a coffee to go on the way to the airport. I waited outside the coffee shop with my cartoonishly large luggage. Also outside the café was a couple and their two dogs. The dogs barked at me and then calmed down. Another person approached and the dogs barked again and pulled at their chains. The dog owner then said disinterestedly, “Don’t take it personally.” Many more people and dogs walked by and got barked at before my friends re-emerged with coffees and they got barked at as well. But, the dog owners stopped saying, “Don’t take it personally.”

When I arrived at O’Hare I was greeted by a McDonald’s employee who handed me a glorious Egg McMuffin. I found a seat and merrily wrote postcards through several announcements regarding delays to the flight. What I loved the most though was watching the woman across from me and her 20 year old daughter. The mother was the type that would huff and puff at every plane delay and go up to make complaints. I had thought, ‘Who the hell lives their life like that? Geez, she’s a sad person who is ridiculous.’

The plane finally did take off and was a very turbulent ride. I watched the woman across the aisle from me white-knuckle it with a nervously bouncing knee. She held a Kindle in her other hand pretending only to herself that she was reading calmly Steinbeck and not at all worried that the wing was going to fly off. I sat there and listened to my I-pod and imagined the wing flying off. Anyway, when we landed I whipped out my cellphone, called my sibling who was picking me up and immediately started bitching about how awful it was that the flight took forever and I couldn’t get off the plane. It wasn’t until today that I realized I was like the mother in the airport except I wasn’t a middle-aged divorcee, yet.

I spent the rest of my day with my sibling eating burritos and drinking beers. In fact, when our parents finally found us they snuck up behind us at the bar. For a former alcoholic and a woman who doesn’t drink too much (but probably used to) seeing your offspring having what is obviously not their first beers of the day much be a little rattling. But they got over it quick when we joined them at a table with a view of Wipeout on a large screen. A woman got smacked in the face and my dad squealed and laughed while our table neighbors looked like we’d just kicked a baby. I was home.

Today:
Wow, so I finally get to write about today and now I can’t really remember what happened. Let’s see…

My dad is maybe being pursued by an angry man due to a failed E-bay transaction.
I took a shower and saw a black bug which I killed with shower cleaner. After I picked up my clothes I saw two more of them scamper away before I could cleanse-kill them. I pulled on my clothes and went running down the hall screaming to my father that he had cockroaches. He told me to open the cupboard door and I did to find an article from the local paper about Earwigs and their local invasion. Then he made fun of me for screaming down the hallway and for killing bugs with cleaner.

Yesterday I had found a gift card for Wal-mart in my brother’s old room, turns out it had 10 bucks on it. So today I went to Wal-mart and found a couple postcards, some nail polish, face cleanser, a soda and a 15 cent notebook and I still have $1.45 left. And then I remembered how much I love shopping in the U.S. In Canada the same stuff would’ve cost me $20.

This evening my parents and I went out to eat at a local small town restaurant. The same restaurant my brother had called me from a few weeks ago telling me how hilarious the salad bar was. Tonight I experienced the full ridiculousness of it. I went up to the salad bar and it was just soggy Iceberg lettuce and processed cheese and things that were supposed to be bacon bits but didn’t taste like bacon and several kinds of creamy dressing. The thing he left out though was the containers of unidentifiable salads. There were about six containers and each one contained a different item like coleslaw or vanilla pudding but the thing was, was that you couldn’t tell at all which was which they all looked like vaguely white globby things.

When we got home my mother and I went to the basement area. Before I had left for Canada I had boxed my belongings and stored them on two metal shelves down in their basement. I started going through the boxes and finding stuff to get rid of, my goal being to get rid of half of my belongings. Despite the broken water glass I had to clean up and the fact that a box packed full of VHS tapes came crashing onto my toes I got rid of tons of things. I just hope that I don’t forget there is broken glass in the garbage when I take it out and I also hope that I don’t need an x-ray and a cast on my foot. Oh well, if I get all cut up from the glass and need a foot cast I can at least get both things in the same trip to the doctor and save on gas money.

Well, I am exhausted and will add to this account tomorrow if I can think of anything else that happened.

Tip of the Day: Try to love your parents and if you can't, take a break.

-Canadian Castaway

Homelands Arrival

Day 321

So, I can barely open my eyes and it doesn't help that I got some juice from a Noxzema cleansing pad in them. All day was spent in transit and culminated in going home. Well, going home and remembering who my family is when my dad burst out laughing when we were eating supper in a restaurant. Okay so they had Wipeout on and some huge girl just got hit in the face. As I wiped away the tears that spewed from my giggles I remembered that there is nothing in the world that makes me laugh as hard as my family does and I felt at home.

Sadly, I am off to bed before my eyes crust shut with sleep. I promise tomorrow I will write of beefy adventures and meat markets and beers and baby-bearing bellies, and coffeeshop non-welcomes and parents discovering their children sitting at the bar and haircut disasters, and of course, Wipeout. Until tomorrow...

Tip of the Day: Tell your family you love them but make sure to poke fun at their newfound bellies.

-Canadian Castaway

Goodbye Chi-town

Day 320

Okay so I know this a total cop out. What can I say? There will be updates tomorrow evening regarding the zoo and the theatre and such. But for now, goodnight my puppets, I love you almost as much as I love to listen to David Bowie on repeat.

Tip of the Day: Sometimes you should go to bed early but shouldn't at the same time.

-Canadian Castaway.

And Continues...

Day 319

Still in Chicago which as it turns out is called the Windy City because of an old cartoon about its politicians being full of wind. Anyway, last night we saw a series of 30 plays in 60 minutes. Here are a few of the highlights:

A line of people eating applesauce.

Actors spraying audience members with squirt guns directly in the face.

Actors smelling audience members. This activity they did so close it was almost like I actually got some if only I could remember what that is like.

A doll with a lit cigarette in its mouth. This made me wonder if the doll's mouth was actually made to fit a cigarette-sized object or if the hole was made by a pen.

A woman with her shirt up over her head getting hit by ping pong balls in the chest.

And finally, my favorite of all: A voiceover reading something that sounded like very tame Willa Cather stories but was really about a rabbit spraying semen on a grandmother's neck as told by a child. If that wasn't enough, during the voiceover an actress was onstage taking bites off a banana all throughout the reading and if that wasn't enough she would take a bite and let the live rabbit on stage take a bite and then she would take another bite.

So, the big outing of today was the stop to one of Chicago's street fairs. This street fair featured burgers and a washed up band from the 1990s. We missed the concert but ate burgers and cheese curds while listening to the music that was playing before the washed up 1990s music. The local School of Rock kids were playing 80s songs and even snuck in a Smashing Pumpkins number (fitting seeing as we are in Chicago). The best part though was watching this 3 year old boy on one of those bicycles that don't have pedals that tiny kids ride today (back when we were young we would ride souped-up trikes). The kid was just tearing around wearing his little Cubs hat and trying to miss his brother who kept trying to hit him while he was on the bike.

We went to another play this evening and while we were waiting for it to begin the old guy next to me leaned toward me and said, "Is this it? Did it start?" I laughed and a little while later he said, "You know I could be at home watching a Cubs game right now." I asked, "Who are they playing?" "Dodgers," he said like a reflex. "Do you think they are going to win?" "No," he scoffed also on reflex. And this is one of the main things I love about Chicago, the fact that everyone in the North has an allegiance to the Cubs even though they never win. It's a similar concept to growing up Lutheran, you go to church even though it never turns out all that awesome but you always hope something great will happen and make all your dedication seem worthwhile.

There is so much more to tell like Skyping stories and what happened at the second play but I am literally writing this while lying down and typing sideways so I will save it for tomorrow.

Tip of the Day: There is a certain way to hail a cab that looks glorious if you do not possess the gift of being able to do it that way then hang out with people who do.

-Canadian Castaway

The Chi-Town Adventure Continues...

Day 318

Today is jampacked with stops to make and food to make and plays to make it to on time. The sauce for dinner is being made. My contribution to this evenings dinner: I guess I can do the dishes.

Last night we realized that yesterday I had been to the Jewel Supermarket three times in one day. So far I have only been there once today. But it was our biggest haul yet. We brought home enough ingredients for me to watch my best friend make breakfast burritos and make a silly video tutorial of how to make coffee while only mumbling the words, "cocksucker motherfucker" on repeat. Again, my contribution was the dishes.

We went to a neighborhood called Wicker Park today. When I was in Chicago four years ago it was a neighborhood that I really enjoyed. Now all of the indie coffeeshops are being replaced by banks and American Apparel stores. The only good news was that the giant bookstore and the record store were still there. At the bookstore we looked for a cat that we didn't find and read aloud from a Nancy Reagan book. After my friend finished the opening lines I asked him if he was bored and he said he was and I said, "Good, otherwise you wouldn't be my friend anymore." The record store had us diving through the 99 cent a CD bin. At one point we both pulled out two different copies of the same Cranberries CD. Apparently, they made a CD after the one that had Zombie on it. Weird.

On the bus ride back we saw a woman weaving between traffic holding a sign that read, "Too Ugly for Prostitution." And the guy seated across from us pulled a dog out of a cheap gym bag and the dog looked like a bat.

So, sometimes you meet someone and judge someone as a boring asshole. Shut up, you do it too. Today I did that and it turns out this person I judged as the most boring person in the world is actually very funny and wonderful. I am super glad he isn't a boring asshole but every time I laughed at his jokes or admired him for something he had said I felt like I was the asshole or whatever is beyond assholedom. Man, the world would be so much easier if you could make sweeping generalisations.

It is very late and I must go to bed or at least try to sleep in the heat. More tomorrow.

Tip of the Day: Buying paintings of Cyndi Lauper is ALWAYS a good idea.

-Canadian Castaway

The Chi-town Adventure...

Day 317

So, it is the early afternoon in the not so windy but definitely hot city. I haven't been awake for too long but have found a break to get in a few words. So far today a few events have occurred. Here they are:

Instead of going to the semi-expensive coffeeshop to eat breakfast burritos with the flamer owner who we love chatting with because he is a bitcher we decided on the cheap Swedish breakfast place. When we walked in to find the place was blue, very blue, and hot and one of the lights on the "chandelier" was a metal shop light. Every unoccupied table was dirty and the waitress was sweating, smiling, and pulling the cord of an ancient ceiling fan. In other words, it was perfect. We opted for a counter seat. The last time my friend and I had breakfast in a crappy diner at the counter we got into the biggest fight of our friendship but I didn't mention that.

The breakfast came with an unpronounceable meat. The meat was very pink and in little clumps like a sausage with the type of casing that you don't want to know the origin of. And, it was delicious. We ate at the counter that was made for shorter people like used to roam the earth when that place was built many decades ago. Across the counter from us was a wall covered in the lids of pots like they were valued pieces of art and a photo of three women who likely lived out their lives slinging the mystery meat and getting looked at by men with potato grease dripping from their fat, cracked lips. The breakfast was amazing and I could eat that unpronounceable meat all day long.

After the breakfast we went on a little walk and wound up at a thrift store that used to be a glorious theater. Inside we milled around looking at the couches, Southwestern-print, floral-print, and Country-print. Next we moved onto the clothes sections and looked at glassware and then at the exact same time we both dropped our mouths in shock, started laughing and walked toward the same object: a painting with a woman on a black background. The painting wasn't so bad until you got close enough to see that the wispy shocks of yellow paint on the bottom was actually a kindergarten scrawl that read, "Cyndi Lauper."

We laughed and laughed and eventually left. But, we didn't make it 10 feet from the shop before we charged back in to the soundtrack of The Pixies. A few years ago my friend and I had seen The Pixies together and he had gotten nearly kicked out for dancing. Anyway, we slapped down the 15 dollars and carried Cyndi out of there as ours, like anyone else would've bought it in the next few days, or years.

After that whole scene we brought Cyndi back to the apartment like a trophy, scaring my friend's boyfriend. I went off to the supermarket to buy bodywash and go to a bank machine and then off to a Payless to buy sandals. It was during these activities that I realized the main difference between Canada and the U.S., walking down the streets in Canada is for the most part like walking down Sesame Street. Everyone you meet is friendly and smiling. But here, its more like walking down the streets in the movie Gran Torino. When people ask me what my culture shocks were in moving to Canada I say that they were little tiny things. But what is funny is that nobody asks me what my culture shocks are in coming home.

So, last night I attempted to re-cap the events of my traveling in a short list that I was going to expand upon today. To be honest, I am not so good at looking back at yesterday both because I don't have the energy to recapture it and also because I am super forgetful. But here are a few juicy details I didn't include:

After my early morning wake up I went out to the curb to meet a middle-aged Persian cab driver. We pulled away and I told him where I was going and that I was catching a bus to get a plane (long story) and that I was in a rush. He then decided to take a side street with very few stops. He told me that everyone says he is the fastest and cheapest cab driver in the city. We whizzed by a forest on either side for quite awhile with him telling stories about how deer are spotted there. I wonder if he had any idea how long it would take him to stop going at that speed and I imagined us not only killing Bambi but, being killed by Bambi. When we finally got back into the city he kept up the speed, the van bouncing at every bump perhaps 30 seconds after we flew over it. Then we hit a red light and I looked over to spot an undercover cop in the next lane but, apparently my driver had already seen it as he was rehearsing a speech he would give them in the event of us getting pulled over. He didn't pull us over but the appearance of him led my cabbie to describe how he deals with cops and how they never ticket him despite him being pulled over all the time and breaking the law.

So, after I luckily survived the cab ride I waited for a bus that would bring me to an airport 3 hours away. When the coach pulled up a little man who looked like a slightly overgrown and older version of Santa's helpers popped out. As soon as I got back on the bus he popped it into gear and began singing, "Here we go into the wild blue yonder..." in the voice of Gene Wilder from Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory. He made other silly remarks about the chemical toilet and sang the whole trip. At one point I leaned over to a man who didn't look unlike Prince Charming and whispered about the bus driver, "He's a magical man. He agreed with me in the nod children use when they see something amazing and want to keep it a secret. When we got to our destination he gave the weather report and then noted, "I hope you all have SPF 30 and floppy hats."

When I got to the proper airport gate to my Midwest destination I noticed something. 2 out of every 3 people were fatties (myself included). Later, when we boarded I noticed that the airline must find this hilarious as all the fatties were seated together, including me and a woman whose ass should've paid for half of my seat. The skinnies were all sitting in the same rows, all sleeping soundly in their abundance of space and in the comfort of not touching a strangers thigh against your own for three and a half hours.

Tip of the Day: If there is a coffeeshop with the name of the city you are visiting stop there it is guaranteed to be interesting, even if it's in a horribly boring way.

-Canadian Castaway

And the Journey Begins...

Day 316

I have been up traveling since 3:45 am. I am now many, many hours, miles, and stories later back in the U.S. visiting a friend in Chicago. Here is a preview of the tale that I will write tomorrow as tonight I will have to pass out soon as it is a miracle that I can even type.

-Terrifying cab rides at top speed over bumps into the darkness while speeches were rehearsed.

-Deserted bus stop and mysterious hippie van.

-Cryptic tweets that resemble poetry of a mad woman.

-A jolly and magical bus driver and the not so jolly, not so magical bus ride that followed...for four hours.

-The American airport that didn't have a McDonalds.

-A long flight filled with fat people. In flight entertainment audio and video: a saga.

-Looking around the plane to see who was scared upon landing.

-Picked up by my best friend's boyfriend whom I have only met once and spent the day with him.

-Giant hotdog which was actually 2 hotdogs covered in a bricks worth of cheese.

-Teaching an acquaintance a new card game and then accidentally beating him at it so bad that he hated it.

-Finally, meeting up with my estranged best friend who has gained enough weight to look healthy and made me a bed and gave me two pickle spears.

And that was just the preview. I hope to provide all of the compelling details tomorrow. Goodnight all weary travelers.

Tip of the Day: Getting there is half the fun, the other half is bitching about the getting there.

-Canadian Castaway

Sober and Alert, Weathering, Dad Talk, Asshole with a Pink Mane, My Need, Need Number 2, What? No Tylenol PMs?! Fuck You, Farewell Canada

Day 315

I am writing this at an unprecedented time: 4:05. Usually when I write this blog it is past midnight and I am nowhere near coherent or sober. Today though I will be going to bed at 8 pm due to my having to wake up at 4 am. I guess you can compare as to whether or not the sober and awake blogging is better than the semi-coherent blogging. Hopefully, both don't suck. My bet is the sober blogging is superior but, many well-read writers are substance abusers so...

I always think that people who talk about the whether are boring. Guess I can be boring. It is too damn hot today. Seriously, if I am going to work up this much of a sweat I had better be getting some, not just peddling around campus. I feel rashes coming on. The thing that worries me the most though is that where I am going for the next three weeks is at least 20 degrees (in motherfuckin' Fahrenheit, I still refuse to learn Celsius) plus at least 45% more in humidity. I can't remember why I wanted to go home. Oh yeah, because there is an abundance of meat and people who think recycling is a myth.

Today I was talking to my father on the phone. Here is my favorite part of our conversation:

Me: I need to ask you for a favor.
Dad: What could it possibly be now?
Me: Could you pretend to not like Mom's Shipwreck hotdish when I am home?
Dad: Why would I do that? That is my favorite thing that your mother makes.
Me: Yeah, I know, but I hate it and I don't want to eat it.
Dad: No way, that is deceitful. Maybe you should be the one who lies and says that you like it.
Me (faking I can't hear him): Hello? Hello? He-llo?
Dad: You can't laugh when you are doing that or I know you are faking.

Today I woke up to a torrent of emails from the secretary of my program regarding a scholarship that I am applying for. She had apparently not been told about it and started to call around about it and send out emails to the faculty. I went into her office and did that thing where you get mad at someone for trying to help you but you've already got it figured out and then you feel super guilty about it. I wonder if she was prolonging the guilt this afternoon when she offered to personally walk a reference letter to the appropriate office? Because it totally worked. I wonder if I found one of those magic lamps with genies in them if I'd ask to be less of an asshole or if I'd ask for a pony with a pink mane?

Also this morning I spoke with my friend via Skype. She is in another country (you know where you are betch, you are the only person who reads this thing). She was sitting in her office and holding up her milk and juice containers so that I could see the foreign writing on them. I read one aloud and she laughed at my mispronunciation. After a few minutes it dawned on me; I should have my own youtube channel devoted to me reading the labels on foreign packing. I could be a celebrity and go around the world on potato chip bags and OJ cartons. I read an article that spoke to the billionaires of the world and tip number one was finding a need and filling it. I've found my need.

After I met with the woman who is supposedly a judge on the scholarship that I applied to. (Umm yeah, she asked me why I had four people writing me recommendation letters and then looked down at the guidelines and said, "Oh, I guess it says three or more...") I went to find my friend. I went to his building and he wasn't there, bummed I started leave only to see him coming up the pathway. One side of his face was all puffed out like he was one of those adorable chubby-cheeked babies that you wonder if they will grow up to be fat or anorexic or both. He informed me, and I also inferred from the giant box of Advil, that he had a tooth problem. He said that he broke a tooth last year and has been suffering ever since due to his fear of going to the dentist. Then I found another need I could fill: I could be a sneak attack person hired to knock out people who are too afraid to go to the dentist and drag them there.

I went to the drugstore to get some Tylenol PMs. Because that is what Americans without Ambien prescriptions do when they need sleep. I went to the local drugstore to find that they didn't have Tylenol PM. I started to panic when I realized that they didn't have Advil PM or even the shitty generic PM. This tiny Asian pharmacist came over to ask the guy next to me if he needed help and before he could finish, "I'm fine, thank you" I piped in with, "I do!" I asked her where the Tylenol PM was located and she gave me a funny look. Then we both scanned the shelves and she went over to her computer to look up the ingredients in Tylenol PM. She asked me if I had a headache and if that is why I couldn't sleep. And it was the way she looked at me, all confused like, that made me simultaneously want to say yes even though I didn't or, "No you dumbass, Americans pop these to sleep don't you know anything in this backass country?! And stop looking at me like I am an addict!" I just picked up the generic bottle that read, "Sleep Well" and went on my way without comment.

Well, that is all for my sober blogging. Hopefully, I will get some rest and be able to wake up at 4 to catch a cab to catch a bus to catch a plane to be greeted by my best friend's boyfriend whom I've only met once and then catch another bus. Damn, traveling sounds fun. Not. More to come from the homeland and the city that they say is windier than it ever actually really is. (love the awkward incorrectness of ending a sentence with "is.")

Tip of the Day: Don't go back to smoking because telling people you are a quitter is much more fun than telling them you are a smoker.

-Canadian Castaway

Huge Freak, Math Dept. Weirdness, Post Post Party, Bedtimes and the True Self, Crabs and Followers, Tall and Boring, Hotdogs, Wine, and Not Me

Day 314

This morning I had to say goodbye to Hank and realize that I have become a freak. Hank is the African Violet I won at drag queen bingo. He is a diva plant who owns me. I carried him and pushed Elliot (my bike) up the hill to the Math Department today. The whole time yelling at Elliot to stop swerving and telling Hank that we were almost there. Never did I grow up thinking that I would become a mother to a bike and a plant that I would talk to like they are human beings.

When I arrived at my friend's office in the empty bowels of the Math Department. I was telling Hank, "Now be good for him, Hank. And, don't love him more than you love me." My friend was all very understanding and yet giggly about the whole thing. Then we went on and on gabbing about gossipy things like hateful lesbians. We laughed and bitched and all of a sudden this blonde girl (who could've been a lesbian) came out of the darkness of the hallway and left. I wonder if she heard all the talk about how my friend doesn't do shit when he's at work and how I call people cunts.

I worked at Canada Post again today. But somehow it was different. I mean the people were still idiots and a-holes and my coworker called a customer, "disgraceful" but there was change in the air, a calm. It wasn't until the middle of my shift when I realized that it may very well be the last shift I work at that dump. I could just not come back after my trip, I'd thought. And I didn't even for one second think about how I would miss it there, in fact, to celebrate my potential quitting I took off 45 minutes early and had sangria with a friend.

I am doing this experiment in going to bed early. For the trip I will be taking shortly I will have to wake up at 4 am. Since I normally go to bed around 2 am and cannot sleep on planes or in cars this could be quite an issue. I am hoping that I will not be a witch to my best friend's boyfriend who is taking a week off work to accommodate me and is even meeting me at the airport. Would it be weird to text him to make sure he knows that I am a bitch and traveling for 10 hours is only going to make it much, much worse and that he should leave me a 5 foot circle of space at all times and never, ever give me anything that could be used as a weapon? I wonder if he'd reconsider me staying at their place. Shit.

There are always crazy homeless people on the bus. The great thing is, is that none of them are ever alike. The guy today was shirtless, wearing shorts and eating Jalapeno chips and making polite, albeit loud conversation with strangers about the weather in different parts of Canada noting too many times that he likes being hot instead of cold. What I wonder is if the strangers noticed that he was scratching his junk the whole time. I tweeted about his potential crabs (yeah, I tweet now) in the hopes that the people sitting on either side of me would notice that I was tweeting about it. They didn't but, maybe my 11 followers will. Yeah, 11 followers biotch. Well, at least I thought this was awesome until I realized that a follower of mine has over 400 followers.

Dear Santa,
If I am a very good girl will you get me 1,000 Twitter followers?
Love the formerly naughty,
-Emily

So I thought my favorite show, Toddlers and Tiaras, was on tonight turns out it isn't on until tomorrow. Instead on the T n T channel there was a show called The World's Tallest Kids (or some such shit). At first I was super excited about this and watched the tall kids with amazement until I realized that the whole show was just tall kids. And somehow, just tall kids is super boring.

I am supposed to be at my going away party tonight. A party that wasn't planned at all until last night. And obviously no one even asked me about my new sleeping schedule. I told the organizer that instead of eating hotdogs and drinking wine I had to do laundry, write scholarship essays, and go to bed early. She texted me back that everyone was coming because they thought I would be there. When I got home I logged onto Facebook and found a string of responses stating that people were to show up and make merry these comments hardly mentioned me. As if writers wouldn't get together at the opportunity to eat wieners and drink cheap wine due to their loyalty to me.

Tip of the Day: Vacuuming bugs is fun.

-Canadian Castaway

Writing Program Lesson, Scarring Co-worker, Going Postal, Sinking Whiner, Rat Tail Fake Boy, Scotchery, Beyond Bitch

Day 313

Writing Program Lesson #23: If you mess up a ton on things and hear about it from your advisor it is actually a good thing. If there was nothing wrong with what you are doing you would be wasting your money on grad school or you'd have a bad teacher which effectively means you are wasting your money on grad school. But damn, it'd be nice to hear that you are amazing and perfect and astounding and wonderful and charming and not a sucky hack.

Today was pretty much spent in the Canadian version of hell: working for the Canada Post. Not only is my co-worker like three speeds behind me in the pace of working she also never listens to a word I say. The only good part about her is that she is highly inappropriate with customers without even realizing it. Not only does she answer her cellphone in the middle of helping a customer on the work phone, which by the way was a doggy insurance company calling, she also makes insane comments. My favorite comment of the day was when this guy came up to the counter who had severe scarring on his forearm and the first words out of her mouth were, "Look at your scar. You must've been a wild child."

Nothing much else happened except for me threatening to go postal in front of the customers. I swore a lot, rolled my eyes a lot and sighed loudly at a goth girl who took a long time counting her change. It must've been a threatening sigh as the black-eyelinered bitch started apologizing. I realized two things: 1. I had a bad attitude today. And, 2. I am convinced that this attitude came from putting up with the idiotic questions of customers like, "What do you mean there is a 4 dollar minimum? How about you just charge me for two dollars?"

After work I experienced the after-work hangover that is only cured by watching The Simpsons and Family Guy. By suppertime I had complied a list of nearly 20 things I need to do before I leave town. Instead of doing any of these things I was whining to my mother about having to do things like clean the sink. I actually told her if I ever get my own house it will only have tiny sinks in it so that I don't have a lot to clean.

I went to dinner and sat by a guy who is really fake with people but I feel like I got my comeuppance for his flippancy by saying, "You should really grow a rat tail you have the face for it." If that wasn't enough to ruffle him, I had everyone at the table saying he had a rat tail compatible face. That's what you get for not being real with me, sir.

After supper I completed half of the things on my list. I cleaned dishes and sinks. I wrote essays and sent emails, including an email I sent to my bodyguard with my essay attached for him to copy edit and the message full of bribery and begging. He responded and said it was great. Hopefully, this is true and he isn't just sick of reading my stuff, with it's extraneous apostrophes and comma overkill.Oh well, he wished me luck. But now I owe him a bottle of scotch, at least I told him it was cheap scotch as part of the deal. I wonder if he would've found more errors had I said expensive scotch?

I know I am a bitch but sometimes I wonder if I am beyond bitch. Tonight I deliberately avoiding a friend of mine on chat. It is mostly because I feel like I cannot chat with her and be myself because she takes everything personally and out of character and we wind up fighting or, we talk about boring shit that is a waste of time. But, I just logged onto facebook to get my karma whack in the eye as she has just sent out a message inviting people out for wine and hotdogs for a going away party for me. Damnit, it's like she knew I was a bitch and she is being super friendly to make me feel like shit.

Tip of the Day: Tarter sauce is no longer a condiment, it is a recreational drug.

-Canadian Castaway

Hanging Out, Zodiac and Crush Gushing, Douche Bag Replaces Crush, Love Song, 4th From Afar, Thoughts of Home

Day 312

Today I basically didn't leave my room until mid-afternoon and even then I just went upstairs to my neighbor's place. She invited me in and we gabbed for awhile about her joining a dating site for the first time. She showed me a pic of a really nice guy that she went out with the other day. Then we searched around and read people's profiles and judged them. Turns out out of the 35 guys we looked at I wouldn't have dated any of them. At first I found this funny.

I told my neighbor about this guy who I have a crush on and how I am trying to not make it a big deal and how he is so nice and everything. Immediately she started to stalk him online and came up with nothing. We gabbed for awhile longer and looked up our zodiac charts. After awhile I thought I had over-stayed my welcome but she genuinely said she wanted me around. So we bullshitted some more and laughed at how ridiculous Aries and Leo people are. I told her my dad is a Leo and my mother an Aries and we laughed some more. I told her how I am strongly attracted to all Aquarians. And for awhile I didn't feel completely ridiculous for believing in the zodiac. Then we gushed about how I could ask out my crush.

Finally, I left her room, checked my email and went to supper. She and I ended up on opposite sides of the same table. She made a noise and flipped her eyes. I looked over and saw my crush coming into the dining hall and my neighbor and I exchanged a smile. When he sat down near me sure enough he did that thing where he laughs at my jokes just like I had told my neighbor he would. I couldn't look him in the eye but he laughed. And then, after a lull in the laughter, he turned to his seatmate and asked him to help him break up with his psycho girlfriend. I began to eavesdrop and found out that my crush has a girlfriend that he is too chicken shit to break up with because he is afraid of her. I didn't make any more jokes after that or laugh when I overheard him try to joke, "Good man, I'm glad you are backing up I wouldn't want to wind up in emergency."

I am past the point of being bitter now I am just really baffled that anybody finds anybody in this entire world worth seeing. For something that is allegedly so rare how come so many people are dating and in happy coupledom? I am not going to go saying, "What's wrong with me?" or blame everyone else for being undesirable anymore. I am not really sure what I am going to do. I am starting to think I should dress in all black and go to videostores everywhere and re-label the Romantic Comedy sections as Fantasy. But in reality, despite every single guy not being what I want and probably because of my sick obsession with romantic comedies from the 80s I still believe that love is possible, I've just added a "not probable" to it. Who can deny it would be nice to have someone to sing The Cure's Love Song to and mean it?

Tonight my parents called me from a grassy area next to a gas station and asked me if I would like them to "ooh and ahh" into the phone when the fireworks went off. And tonight when I scrolled through my facebook updates I noticed that many people had drunken patriotic messages and pictures of fireworks. Turns out the pictures and the phone calls aren't as good as the real thing. And I can't deny, especially with my newfound (and freakish) patriotism, that I wouldn't have minded looking up into the sky waiting for the big boomers.

So, tonight I will go to sleep thinking about my upcoming visit to my friends in Chicago and then off to my home state. It will be really nice to see my grandmother again, I wonder if I'll have to introduce myself. I wonder if Chicago still sucks. I wonder if staying with my best friend for five days will bring us closer as friends or closer to homicide. I wonder if going home will teach me more about myself or just make me fear moving home. But mostly I wonder how many different kinds of meat my mother will lovingly prepare for me and how many bottles of tequila we will kill together.

Tip of the Day: Reading is a good idea.

-Canadian Castaway