Evening, Tuesday, August 19. Who can come? Book off now. Please?
edit:
ALSO
Everyone is being so un-posty lately!!! C’mon!! What’s happening? I guess I’m not being very good either. OK. I promise. A FULL BANFF REPORT to come!
douglas adams rules my world May 28, 2008
We’ve all done such a good job of keeping this blog up and burning that I thought I’d add some recent thoughtgales to kindle in your presence.
May hurts. So far. I’ve decided it is simply an extension of the now adjectivized April – nondescript and neverending chunks of time that do not seem to follow the same constants as the other chunks. I have filled my May timechunk with far too much work and school resulting in having to schedule a time to go to the bathroom and to pack provisions if I want anything close to a minimal level of blood sugar, but I’ve developed an interesting nap talent where I completely drift off and have the most ridiculous dreams, ultimately shocking myself awake when my brain overfires trying to deduce reasonable explanations for why Robert Redford would store his shoes in a giant sushi. It’s an awesomely intimate experience with my subconscious. I can feel my brainwaves oscillating at dreamspeed when I am neither here nor there, like letting my feet float in the slumbercurrent while I simply sit and watch. It is very strange and out-of-body-y. Maybe it’s a compensation mechanism for having no new House episodes until September. I swear the default plot device in that show is hallucinating – no complaints, they always pull those episodes off at an Oscar-worthy calibre, but, just saying… .
In other news, it has become a huge inconvenience to live in Richmond. The strip malls, the long, unwinding roads, the houses of unnecessary size… I cope by thinking of all the limbs and children I’d otherwise have to shell out to live in a Vancouver closet however it has become apparent that two or three hours per day on the bus (spanning Richmond, like trying to exist in April or May progressively), can really do a number on one’s will to live, with or without limbs or offspring.
School I enjoy. I enjoy German in the morning, hurting my face and acquiring an accent as my brain untangles itself. English is mysterious, in that it is absolutely exactly the class I wanted an english class to be: simple mechanics of writing well while maintaining individual style. My teacher is Korberesque, which would naturally be a horror but has turned out instead to be helpful in that she knows how to construct a good paragraph and how to pick out unnecessary details in a thesis, but I am far more articulate and logical and can pick out things a story is trying to actually convey and interpret them without yuppie pop-culture references and the vocabulary of a fifth grader. Sociology is a notch below stellar, but it ties in with Psychology and Anthropology and gaining the breadth of a connection is my eighth favourite thing. Anthropology is interesting things being explained by an Englishman. There is no other way.
My Phoebe tendencies were perpetuated today, despite a customer recently telling me that I looked like Jennifer Aniston. I enlisted the help of an ATM for cash to buy myself my breakfast/lunch/dinner combination of the day and accidentally requested a receipt. Now, I generally have an idea of what I get paid and what I spend but after the receipt flew out of some beepy orifice, my precision was proven to be goatlike. Either I have a mysterious third job, or I have five hundred extra dollars in my account. Or, it was someone else’s receipt that they left behind. Only, the time on the receipt was 11:12, the current time, and everyone else was still in class. I was only not in class because I had finished my test and oral exam early. I decided it was not to be worried about since perhaps the ATM was like the 70th Avenue B-Line stop, claiming it was 2:30 am at the height of day.
I still wasn’t convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, so when I went to the bank to deposit my teaching paycheck, the balance was again, mysteriously askew. I wasn’t going to bother the teller about it, since he had been frazzled by the previous customer and I work in customer service and can sympathize because clearly he would be dealing with the dark forces of phantom money deposits, which does not sound like something as simple as checking in the back room. I went home to check online, and it was no decimal error in my interest deposit or duplicate payroll deposit or the remnants of a secret dead family member. It was a transfer, from account number 1710092 at my branch. I Nancy Drewed through my parents’ bank statements, and none of our family’s accounts even start with 1.
So, either one of you guys won the lottery and I’m getting my share or I’m the main character in Douglas Adams’ last and unfinished book.
HOW AWESOME IS MY LIFE?!
Of those I know not well: Greek man May 14, 2008
Working at the pool I get a lot of strange people each with their own quirk, nickname and a staff memo.
The two big ones are Vaseline lady and greek man.
Known to the lifegaurds as Greek man or George, greek man is an older man who comes to the pool for the 4:30-5:30 evening swim. He is short with a big belly and thankfully a more modest speedo. His pool activites consist of sweating in the sauna, complainig about other people in the pool, standing on the steps of the hot tub and riding the jets in the shallow end.
If you do not know, jet riding is a term lifegaurds use for the old men who use the pool jets to massage their junk. Yeah its really gross, some even lift their leg onto the pool edge to get a better angle or use their hands.
The problem with greek man is he isn’t obviously getting off on the jets so when he asks for the pool jets to be turned on and then stands with his crotch in the jet we cant really accuse him of anything and no one really has the guts to say something, though a head guard once told him not to “massage his genitals with the jet because it makes other people uncomfortable”. Apparently he just stood there stunned like he had no idea anyone knew what he was doing.
Every once in a while a staff memo shows up in the guard room. The latest one said Greek man was banned from the pool. Why? We all knew it was partially because of the jet riding but the official reasoning was that he complained too much and took attention away from the other people using the pool.
It will be strange and a lot less creepy to lifeguard and not have him in the shallow end looking at me whenever I look in his direction. I managed to master making sure he was not drowning without looking at him directly and I know this skill will come in handy when other creepy old men come to the pool.
coming soon: my ode to the vaseline lady and spawners (sex in the pool)
Missed Connections w4m (Salmon Arm) (Platonic) – Another “To Those I Know Not Well” Response May 12, 2008
You are around 5′7″ with short brown hair. We met at National Portfolio Day 2006 waiting in line for Concordia. You said you were from Salmon Arm and told me you had greyhounded in that morning in order to get to Emily Carr on time. It turned 4 o’clock before we reached the front of the line. We could have skipped to see Kansas School of Art, whose table was vacant, but we were chatting. You showed me your photography portfolio. The colours were vivid. One was of a cat’s face. You told me about how you bussed across Canada and how you didn’t sleep for three days. Once we were turned down at 4 o’clock, we went downstairs to the Charles H. Scott professional gallery. I didn’t like the life-size photographs of people jumping. You talked me into them. Then I had to leave for the 98 b-line. I didn’t get your name. I wish we were facebook friends. Did you ever go to Emily Carr? Last night I drove through Salmon Arm around 3am and thought of you. And then I thought about writing this post.
Production Companies. May 9, 2008
I was in the kitchen fashioning myself a decadent London Fog in the usual manner of drama and geist when my mother told me I should have my own TV show. Now, this does stand next to people telling me to do stupid things with my life like being a lawyer or any similar job you can throw a dart at and I won’t shed interest on no matter how many zeros are promised in my paycheck, but I was glad she said that. Even if she didn’t, I’d say she – or someone – did, so I could justify a nonmainstream dream with the assurance that I have what I think it takes.
Not only do I know I have the necessary persona, I have a bunch of friends with equal parts ability and understanding to sacrifice their sanity for a drop of humour and, access to a camera.
What I’m saying is, pursuing a regimented career to gain respect and authority is limiting when you can simultaneously explore the (antipodean!) painfully obvious talent we have to entertain (we could cripple american late night shows, and with a grain of salt, Monty Python). We have to put something together this summer (QED) or I am breaking up with all of you and killing myself with a Sun Hammer.
