I got an email from DJ this morning, in response to my “Have a Happy Period” post. I had seen this letter before (I have an aunt whose online time is spent solely forwarding chain emails), but it is hilarious.

No, I don’t buy into the fact that women go crazy when their period comes. I do believe that some women are deeply effected by the hormonal changes, yes we can be sadder or angrier or … whatever. But I really, really REALLY hate the whole “Oh, she’s in a bad mood! Must be that time of the month!”, as if all women become irrational and mentally unstable during one week of the month, or that we would all be happy sunshiney fairies flitting about through rainbow fields in My Little Poney land, absolutely no reason to ever be upset… until THE CURSE!!!!!!!!!! comes along, and then we all turn into crying, raving lunatics ready to kick all men in the balls and blame them for everything. Yeah, I hate that.

Back in high school, one of my friends had a boyfriend who was very much like this (they’re married now… it’s weird to think that they started dating in 9th grade and they’re still together). He was always telling “dumb broad jokes” or talking as though women were an inferior entity. It was as though he actually believed women were dumber, irrational, babymaking housekeeping machines. I guess in 9th grade, you’re basically parroting your parents’ views, I don’t know. I haven’t really been in contact with them for years, so I have no idea if he’s the same way now.
Anyway.

We were in a couple of the same classes through high school. I consistently got better grades than he did, to the point that I was tutoring him for one of our History classes. One day we were in the library and I was trying to explain something to him, like 900 different ways, and he was just.not.getting it. And he was telling me that the info I was giving him wasn’t true (HOW CAN IT NOT BE TRUE?! IT’S HISTORY!!! Okay I understand that History can be inaccurate but what I mean is that I was telling him that the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713 – there’s not much to be argued there) and I was getting a little grumpy. “Jesus, C,” I say. “It’s right there in the book! It’s just a date! Jeeze, why are we arguing about stupid crap?”… and then he said it.

“Oooooh, you’re grumpy! That time of the month?” a ha ha ha ha ha.

As fact would have it, I wasn’t. No, I was just exasperated with an idiot. And THAT? Got me even more angry. I said, “Tell me you didn’t just say that.” Clueless, he responded,”Yeah I did… you’re in a pissy mood. You must be on the rag!”

In front of God, the librarian, and everyone, I yelled back “What’s your excuse, then? Sperm retention headache?!”

Ahem.

I re-watched the movie Secretary last night.
Have you seen it? If you haven’t, be warned that it’s probably not your standard family fare — it involves self-harming, and some other pretty… adult themes. Plus Maggie Gyllenhaal peeing her pants. But the story, the psychology behind everything… that’s what fascinates me. How two very broken people can come together in a way that may not be seen as “normal”, but it makes life normal for them.
Yeah yeah, maybe you think it’s weird. I think it’s a brilliant film. Not to mention James Spader and his perfectly lined-up Papermate pens kind of gives me a little… frisson. Ahem.

(I hate HATE that advertising campaign).

Anyway, I occasionally wonder, around this time of my life, whether it’s possible to need drug rehab for overuse of Midol. Well, Midol, Excedrin, Rub A5-35, and copious amounts of chocolate, if I’m perfectly honest (except no chocolate this month or last, what with the Dark Days of Lent upon us).

And with that delectable thought in your head, I shall leave you.

I yanked this from Carly, even though she didn’t tag me, because I have nothing better to do really really love memes! So here we go!

4 Jobs I?ve Had in My Life:

- Store clerk/cashier: Through high school I worked at a local department store. Started as a clerk stocking shelves etc. and moved up to cashier. I managed to save enough to pay for (most of) my first year of university.

- Children’s summer library program coordinator: for 3 years in university each summer I ran the local library’s summer reading club for kids. I loved it and loved working in the library. The next 2 summers I was a literacy tutor in the same library. When I wasn’t tutoring or doing stuff with the kids I was working at the desk. I loved it. Have I mentioned how much I loved it? I think if I ever want to go back to school I am going to become a librarian.

- Hotel night auditor/front desk clerk – this was after my 2nd year of teaching, the summer before moving to Halifax. I loved working nights, didn’t love people who were rude. Which was basically 9 times a second. My favourite was someone who was really mad because there was no ice machine on her floor, and I said something like “Um, I’m sorry, but there is a machine on the floor directly below you, at the end of the hall…” and they went off on me: “I didn’t go to {community college} for two years to be talked to this way by the likes of you!” And I was thinking “The likes of me has 2 university degrees, but um, yeah okay”.

- Library clerk: Again. I worked through university at the uni. library, checking out books, shelving books, etc. I loved that job too, except for the part about being in the haunted library until midnight every night while basically no one was ever there past 9 pm. So hearing all the creaky sounds and things constantly freaked me out. It paid for my groceries and when the library wasn’t busy and I’d put all the books away I had time to study.

4 Shows I DVR

- Big Brother (do not judge me. I hate this season, but I’m still watching it).
- Medium
- Lost
- Dr. Who

4 Places I?ve Been

This one’s kind of sad, because I’ve never been outside of Canada, except for once:

- Minot, North Dakota, when I was 12. Our parents took my brother and I there over the May long weekend. We got to shop at JC Penney! That was a big deal to me, because we’d been seeing the commercials on the American TV stations for YEARS and there we were actually IN a JC PENNEY! WOOT A WOO!

- Alberta: We lived there from the time I was 1 until I was 5.

- Newfoundland: Rob’s family is there. It’s the newest place I’ve been to.

- Quebec: My mom’s from there. Extended family’s there. We’d spend 2 weeks there every other summer.

- Cape Breton: My dad’s from there. Extended family’s there. We’d spend 2 weeks there the summers we didn’t go to QC.

Oh crap that was five!

4 Favorite Foods

- Lebanese food. Grape leaves, tabbouleh, everything. Love love love it.

- steak, medium rare.

- peaches/pears

- cheese

I tag no one and everyone. Let me know if you decide to do this!

Car update: The mechanic was able to fix the starter motor, BUT, he’s all “YOU NEED NEW TIRES AND YOU NEED (some part I don’t know what it is) AND I AM NOT RELEASING YOUR CAR UNTIL IT’S FIXED!”

Well, he’s not so much saying that he won’t release it, just that if we don’t get that part, our car will fall apart when we are driving it and we will be dead. Since we don’t either of us like dying, we’re gonna have to get that done. Meh I hate money (I hate that money or the lack of it gets in the way of us living our lives). Oh well.

We need the car fixed up anyway. We’re planning a visit to Rob’s parents this summer. Since it’s more expensive to fly there than to drive, we’ll be driving, which means 8 hours in the car, 13 on the ferry, and if we’re going to be spending that much time driving, we will need a car that works properly.

Last time we travelled there, we had to bike over to the library to access our blogs or anything (Oh and Sheri was a terrific guestblogger, by the way). This time, Rob is planning on somehow convincing his parents to sign up for the Internet, and we are going to bring the lappy and some sort of mobile router. Not sure how well that will work, but at least we’ll be able to read the online newspapers without them being net nannied (seriously, the library there blocked everything).

Since I only had 2 comments on my last post (not complaining, usually I get zero) and neither one quite answered my question correctly I am gonna go ahead and answer the question myself, and then do a little drawing and see who wins the prize.

1) The challenge was: *Whoever can tell me where the title comes from and what it has to do with this post gets a prize. Like a real prize. (the title being “come around and talk it over”, the post being about how one of my friends only ever calls when she wants something).

2) The title is actually the second line of this song:

(I love how the lead singer sort of looks like Jerry Seinfeld. Also he is wearing a very fetching blouse)

The song is called “Your Love”, by The Outfield. What does this have to do with my friend being a user? Well, hang on. It’s a stretch, but bear with me here:
One of the lines of the chorus is “I just wanna use your love tonight”. My friend wants to use… well, not my love, but my friendship.

See?

Okay, now for the drawing. I don’t have photographic evidence because all I did was this: mainja and sheri are the two contenders. Mainja was comment #1. Sheri was comment #2. I phoned one of my relatives (I won’t say who because I want her to remain an impartial judge and I don’t want her getting all Famous on m’blog).

“Hey, relative, pick a number between 1 and 2″
“What?”
“Pick a number between 1 and 2″.
“What for? Why between 1 and 2? Isn’t it usually like, between 1 and 10?”
“No reason. And yeah usually it is but today it’s just between 1 and 2″
“Well if it’s for no reason, then why am I–”
“GAH NEVER MIND!”

(I’m not patient today)

SOOOO, then I went to my back-up plan. Random.org has a random integer generator. I plugged in the numbers… and it came up with…

So, there you have it…mainja, you are the winner! email me or something, to give me your address, and I will send you your fabulous prize!
And if you don’t want me to have your mailing address I will keep your prize for myself!

Ever have one of those friends who doesn’t really stay in touch, unless she needs something? No? Only me? Well okay then
(just kidding– I’m assuming that some of you can relate though, to friends who cavalierly take advantage of your goodwill).

Anyway. I have this one friend who I haven’t actually heard from in … oh, I’d say since right before Christmas. Somewhere around there. Today I got an email out of the blue. “Hey, wanna come to this work thing with me? I know you’re on break, and it’ll be so much fun! You’ll love it!” The hidden condition, though, was that I would have to drive, because her husband’s car is in the shop and he’s using hers. No mention of her helping to defray costs either, which would be considerable, because to get where we were going, we’d be crossing the bridge and taking toll highways etc.

I wrote back that I was really really sorry, but my car’s out of commission, too, so I was going to have to take a pass at perusing the dental hygiene trade show booths with her. But if she ever wants to just hang out, go to dinner, a movie maybe, I’m totally down with that.

I will bet you nine thousand dollars** right now that I won’t be hearing from her again for another three months. Read the rest of this entry →

Some years lately, especially the last three or four, Winter hasn’t been especially harsh. Not much snow, not too cold, no biggie. This winter, however, has been… well, wintry. We have had, so far, about 11 days where my work was shut down because of weather — this is not counting winter storms we’ve had just about every second weekend. So it was absolutely no surprise that today was freezing. Well, actually, below freezing; -14C (if I have my math right, that’s about 7F).

Still though, FIRST DAY OF MARCH BREAK! So yay! I slept in til like, 9 am (three hours more than usual so YES it’s “sleeping in”) then got up and did some knitting and ate a peanut butter sandwich and just basically vegged. Played Guitar Hero (I totally ROCK ‘Message In A Bottle’). Watched a couple of episodes of Big Brother (wow is that show ever over-edited for TV… of course how are they going to include all the blowjays and the multi-person makeout sessions on national television?). By that time Rob was up and about so we had some snuggle time on the sofa and then I decided I was going to go check the mail and put some gas in the car.

I drove to where we pick up our mail (it’s a convenience store/post office about 2 miles I guess away from our house), went in, picked stuff up. And then? The car made a sound like a strangling chicken when I turned the key. Huh. Weird. I tried again. Same grinding, strangling sound. I took the emergency brake off and tried again. Same thing. Then a man who was driving by stopped and yelled out his window at me “That’s your starter! It’s not gonna start again” and drove off. Oh. Okay. I know nothing about cars so the yelled advice of a stranger was fine by me.

Went inside, called home, asked Rob to get my dad’s number off my cellphone and give him a call (he works around here) so that he could come pick me up. Then I had to push my car into a space, since I had taken off the parking brake before. So I’m pushing, and a guy comes out of the building where the post office is, and says “Hello, madam, may I help you?” in a very supercilious voice, and actually kind of did that Mr. Burns “excellent” finger thing. But there’s no way I was going to turn down the help so he helped me push it back the four feet into the space.

I said “Thank you so much! That would certainly have been much harder without your help.” to Burnsie, and thought that would be that, he’d go back inside the building, our brief acquaintance would be just that… brief. But no. “So are you stuck here?”, he said. “Well, no,” I answered. “I have a ride coming”. “Oh, I’m waiting for my ride, too”. “Oh yeah. Well, I’m just gonna get in my car and warm up”. “Oh, do you want me to wait in your car with you?”

What? Um. WHAT?

“Actually, you know what? I think maybe I’ll just walk home… I live right over there,” I gestured vaguely in the general direction of my house. I thought he’d maybe go back inside, and I could walk a little then either come back to the car or… I don’t know what exactly I though. I was creeped out, not thinking all that clearly.

“I could walk to your house with you”.

Wait a second. This dude just told me that he was waiting for his ride; now he wants to walk home with me? NO THANK YOU.

“Yeah, uhmm… no that’s alright. I’ve uh… I’ve gotta go now… thanks for your help!” and off I toddled. And he walked to the end of the parking lot, and watched me walk down the road.

In the freezing cold.

Wearing my PJ pants, tshirt, sweatshirt, and shoes with no socks.

For a bit over two miles. In below-freezing temperatures.

Usually a two-mile walk is nothing but by the time I got home I was unable to speak clearly, my teeth were chattering so hard. “arjgdlsaRRRRRRRGHOrovoagoidsagoidgneo”, I think are the exact words I said to Rob when I walked in the door. He of course wanted to know why I hadn’t just stayed there or at least called to let him know I was planning on walking. When my face thawed out a little I told him about Mr. Burns and he then wanted to go find that dude and give him a good “talking to” but I reminded him that we didn’t actually have a car, and there was no way I was walking back out there to find him.

I did eventually go back (by this time my father had gotten Rob’s messages — he’d been in a meeting — and came and picked me up; no I didn’t walk back) and managed to start the car. However I know that if it is the starter, there’s no way I’m going to keep having that kind of luck so I drove it straight to the mechanic’s. Who isn’t there all weekend. We might get our car back on Tuesday or Wednesday. And it’s going to cost us the money we had put aside for something very special.

Oh well though, at least I didn’t have to go live in Mr. Burns’ mansion with him!

I just went through the links on my sidebar and removed a few. Not because I hate you, but because if you haven’t updated in over six months, I’m gonna assume you’re gone. I also changed a few URLs because some of you have changed domains. And I’ve added a couple of people who have been commenting/ I’ve been reading but have been too lazy to add up til now.

Whenever I do this, I’m always afraid I’ve deleted someone I shouldn’t have, or forgotten to add someone I should have. Let me know if you’re in either of those categories, m’kay?

Have you ever had a papercut? I’m going to assume that most of you have. Papercuts. They suck, because stupid PAPER can cut you, which is a little bit humiliating in my opinion, and they’re so quick and deep and painful. Painful painful painful painful. And I get them all. the. time. because of work where I’m handling paper constantly.

So last night I one-upped myself on the papercut front. I was making a semi-redneck chicken dish for supper and I decided I needed a piece of tinfoil.
Yeah, you guessed it. Papercut. Only with tinfoil. Not like, the cutting edge on the tinfoil box… but the edge of the foil itself.
After nineteen thousand swears (“Fuck you, tinfoil!”), plus some crying, I finally found a bandaid but now I can hardly use that finger… and I walk very warily past the cupboard where the tinfoil is.