I'm considering taking this blog up again and recommencing posting...

I'm not sure if I have anything interesting to say...

I'm not sure if that matters...

hmmmm.

I still don't know which way this will go.

Channeling Marilyn

I hate skirts.

I normally never wear them. However, before moving here for the summer I was warned by numerous people about the hot and humid summer weather awaiting me. So I brought skirts; in fact I brought very few pants for work. And of course, Murphy's Law being a major player in my life, it's been grey and chilly most of the time. So I haven't really even needed the skirts. But I have to wear them.

Not having the habit of wearing skirts, I am not the most graceful person in a skirt. I've already ripped one trying to do something that can only be done in pants, or so I learned that morning. And I try to walk too fast. Pantyhose does not help. Right now, there is one skirt that causes me extra headaches. As I walked to work one morning, my skirt kept twisting round and then my pantyhose started creeping down. I was on a major downtown street, so there was no hope of doing any kind of adjustment until I got to work. So I walked to work with progressively shortened strides, hoping that no one noticed that my my skirt was 90 degrees off-centre. It brought back memories of a similar experience, where Merrill and Charles very patiently put up with me geisha-walking three very LONG blocks in southward-bound pantyhose and a narrow skirt that kept twisting around.

Today I didn't have to deal with twisting skirts. No. Instead, due to unfortunate convergences of gusty wind and inclines and all kinds of metereological phenemona I don't understand, I did a couple of Marilyn Monroe impressions this morning. You know the immortal picture from The Seven Year Itch, where she's standing on the grate in the white dress with the skirt blowing up around her ears? I had 2 of those moments on the way to work. Two! I was then paranoid for the rest of the day, and clutched at my skirt every time the wind picked up.

Well, my laundry's done and so is this story, so I'm off to bed. I'm off to another concert tomorrow night. I love cheap tickets for students...

Apparently I'm all about the food.

Well, that was over sooner than expected. Both the mope and the weekend.

I came out of my funk on Thursday and things have been going fairly well since. Had a very good day at work and a great evening on Friday. Learned lots of new things and saw a wonderful concert - a brass band, a violin concerto, and lemon gelato, all in one night. Yay!

Saturday included lots of sleep, a jog, and a long distance phone call before heading over to a friend's place for a delicious supper. The meal was "Snackbar cheeseburgers", a tribute to our regular Sunday suppers in France, when the residence cafeteria was closed and the closest source of food was the Snackbar in the empty lot across from our building. The Snackbar consisted of a trailer, from which the sole proprietor/cook/server prepared wonderful burgers (bien cuit, s'il vous plait, no undercooked ground beef for me), served in baguettes and topped with shoestring fries. These days, I have chicken instead of beef, and no fries, but they're still delicious.

We then walked to a downtown park to enjoy Sarah Harmer in concert and had a good time, despite the rain and the chill. She performed in a short skirt and sleeveless shirt - I have no idea how she managed not to freeze to death. Although I think her knees were knocking due to the cold by the end of her set. But she performed fabulously.

I then returned to the apartment to make an appearance at my flatmate's kegger, and another flatmate was patient enough to be my teammate at the foosball table. Yep, my eye-hand coordination is still non-existent. Just checking. Needless to say, we lost, but my teammate was a very good sport about it. I received another confirmation that I'm old when I realized that I couldn't follow a conversation with any of the drunk people I encountered. Which I took as a sign to head to bed.

Sunday morning started off with a two hour amble around the market which is only a 10 minute walk away. Bought some fresh vegetables from the vendors, who were unfailingly courteous and friendly. The market is quickly becoming one of my favourite places here. I also splurged on some cheese, and enjoyed wandering in and out of the little shops. I came across savon de Marseille!! Hooray! And cheap vegetarian samosa! Baked, no less! Does life get better? I later made a second foray for groceries, this time to the big grocery store. This shopping trip was much less enjoyable than the first, but needed to be done. Thus provisioned, I made an ad-hoc vegetarian curry. With this as a reward, I managed to get myself out for a jog, albeit a short one, and quite enjoyed it, despite the rain. I then enjoyed my curry under the suspicious eye of my flatmate, whose most flattering description of my supper was "gruel". He did, however, generously offer me some chai tea, which was an awesome treat. He also introduced me to a most decadent concoction of cookies 'n cream chocolate dipped in peanut butter. I didn't need to know about that.

We settled on the couch to watch Star Wars: Episode II. Having once been in a relationship with an ardent Star Wars fan for almost 3 years, it's now weird for me to see anything related to Star Wars. I came across a Star Wars pack of M&Ms in April, and it was a jolt to realize that I hadn't had to think about Star Wars in months. Normally, with Episode III having come out last week, I would have seen all of the trailers multiple times, and seen all the documentaries on the upcoming film. But it had completely fallen off my radar. It's amazing how quickly people adjust.

Today has been a little busier. I got up and went for a jog, and headed for brunch with some friends. There was a toddler and an infant in the group, and I had my usual effect on babies: their faces crumple and they start wailing. Good thing I don't want kids, otherwise I'd be massively worried. We then headed to the downtown mall to do some shopping and take advantage of some sales. I got tired after a couple of hours - between the jog and all the walking around on hard concrete floors, my legs were done in and I was ready to curl up at home. So I headed home with my loot and arrived in time to help one of my flatmates with his poli-sci paper, which I've been doing for most of the night, in between study breaks watching CSI. And hey! Speaking of Star Wars, because I was earlier ... if you haven't already seen it, check out StoreWars . It's a hoot. Or maybe that's the residual Star Wars fan-by-association in me speaking.

So I think that's about all the news from this weekend. Apparently I spent most of it eating, or shopping for food, or thinking about food. Perhaps I'll find a new topic of obsession for next weekend. I also spent a bit of time looking for a store that sold a copy of "Runner's World" - it's apparently a bit hard to come by in this part of the world, but I eventually found one. Didn't buy it. Don't ask me why. I'm finding their website pretty useful so far, so I think I'll postpone actually paying for a magazine and killing a tree until I really need to.

I finished training at work last Friday, so tomorrow is my first day out in the wild. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. So I better get to bed and get some sleep.

Excuses, excuses

Before, I was just being negligent. But now, I officially have a good reason not to blog. I'm off to crawl into a dark hole somewhere and pretend that the world doesn't exist. Or maybe that I don't exist. Nothing serious. Nothing that a good fit of moping won't cure.

See you on the other side.

Secrets

Postsecret

Thanks to Matt Good's blog for pointing me to the above blog. It's fascinating...

I promise to actually write a substantial post at some point this weekend.

Claire

Thanks Lauren.

I'm not sure whether or not to be worried . . .


You're a car key, and not only do you unlock the
car, you help everyone get where they're going.
Important to many but often misplaced, you have
something to offer that everyone wants. Just be
sure you don't let yourself become nothing more
than a means to an end.


What sort of key are you and what do you unlock?
brought to you by Quizilla

---

Isis Indeed, you are 70% erudite, 75% sensual, 45% martial, and 45% saturnine.

This Egyptian supreme Goddess is certainly the most influential deity on subsequent cultures. She was the ideal figure of womanhood, usually compared with the Greek Goddess Demeter or her Roman version, Ceres. Isis was one element of a Holy Trinity, the remaining two figures being her brother and husband Osiris and their heroic son Horus. She was the Goddess of Magic for her brilliance, as well as the Goddess of Love because of her tenacious devotion. She is often shown with wings, curving to caress coffins and sarcophagi of many a king. In certain papyri she is shown with her falcon wing headdress, covering her ears. One of her sacred symbols is the sistrum, a musical instrument that was believed to ward off evil spirits. Isis' sistrum was carved bearing the image of a cat and was representative of the Moon. Isis was the High Priestess and an omnipotent magician as well as the only being ever to discover the secret name of Ra. She invariably carries the ankh, the symbol for eternal life. Her name is, by the rules of numerology, adding up to the number “2” and she just so happens to be depicted on the tarot card “Key 2 – The High Priestess”.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 26% on erudite You scored higher than 24% on sensual You scored higher than 22% on martial You scored higher than 22% on saturnine

Link: The Mythological Goddess Test written by Nitsuki on Ok Cupid

I am going to die here . . .

I am the world's most oblivious pedestrian.

I was running errands after work today, and I nearly got hit by some kind of traffic at least twice. And those are just the times I was aware of. I walked down one of the busiest streets in town; the sidewalk crosses several of what I consider to be driveways or entrances to parking lots. Here, there are pedestrian lights at these "driveways", which I'm still getting used to. So there are times when I'm lost in thought as I walk and I just keep walking without even thinking to check the light. To top it off, when I was 3/4 of the way home, I was actually waiting for the walk light at a major intersection and once I started to walk, a bike whizzed past behind me a scant 2 seconds later. I hadn't even registered the bike on the road. Now technically, if the bike is on the road it counts as a vehicle and it has to stop for the red light, which bikes apparently don't do here. But the point is that I never even noticed the bike, not even peripherally, until it passed me.

I can't even blame this on a walkman or anything because I wasn't using one. I'm just naturally clueless. Which doesn't really surprise me because I've had problems with traffic in major cities before. My Australian roommate in England got so frustrated with me when we were passing through London.

Maybe I should get one of those electric dog collars, and rig it so that it gives me a shock as I approach intersections . . .