call me crazy

OK, so I read a story about a woman who dated a psychopath. Not one of those stabby psychopaths that boil bunnies or anything like that. It was just a man she dated for 4 years, who was adoring and convinced her to buy a cottage with him and took care of her because he loved her so much, but said at the end of one day that he was done with the relationship, a day after the last payment for cottage renos. I did a mental catalogue search of the men I've dated over the years, to see if they had any of the signs.

And I discovered that I might actually be a psychopath. I mean, I do basically know right from wrong, but I don't always have guilt about certain things when the social norm would. I blame other people for what I do wrong sometimes, don't make long-term plans, don't have long-term relationships, am manipulative, am self-centred... There are more, but I don't really want to expose all the bad behaviours I have. Just... if you look at a checklist, it's possible I have many/most of those traits.

This would actually be somewhat comforting, being defined as a psychopath. It would give me a good excuse for never getting married.

substance abuse

I've alluded to the fact I'm working more than usual the last while. It's just what I need to do to get stuff in order and done. I hate it, though. I don't like sleeping for 5 hours, if I'm lucky, and eating one meal a day. Can't wait for next Thursday.

The thing is I've also done extra stuff to ensure I don't have a second to myself. I'm volunteering for OLIO Festival on Friday night and there are a couple of afterparties I'd like to check out, meaning very little sleep. On Saturday I'm volunteering for the Vancouver Specials tour and hoping to get to the houses before they close. I'm also trying to not have to resign from one of my on-call jobs because my availability is so sketchy. (Note to self: lie the next time someone asks you your availability. Honesty results in phone calls and emails.) And I have to put in extra hours at one of my jobs to catch up from illnesses/days away/the Olympics that have accumulated since March.

To combat this jam-packed schedule, I've turned to artificial means to see me through. Not drugs, at least not illegal ones. I'm on The Coffee. But it isn't really having much of an effect. I chugged a tepid milky, sugary coffee this morning and I'm still feeling a bit sluggish. I was going to take one of those iced coffee packets from Sbucks (and by take I mean drink), but then worried that much coffee in my bloodstream might cause my heart to explode out of my chest. Still... I would like to stay awake until my workday ends later tonight...

I still don't see myself carrying a coffee mug around, drinking The Coffee daily or even weekly. The amount of cream and sugar required to make that stuff palpable makes it less coffee, more melted coffee ice cream.

vacuous information

The last while I've been working more than usual, trying to juggle a few jobs with increased requirements and time on the job. Perhaps due to my lack of sleep/proper nutrition, I find myself filling up on crap. Not food-related crap; cultural crap.

I've always been a bit weird about pseudo-entertainment news programs like Entertainment Tonight and TMZ. When I don't want to think (which is pretty much any time I'm not at work these days), I turn to these trashy "news" sources to keep up-to-date with things that, in the whole scheme of things, don't matter. By and large, these people aren't doing anything more significant than what I do. They just have a lot of money and stylists and cameras fixed on them all the time.

One thing I've been following unconsciously is the dating drama of the Jonas brothers. This probably started ages ago when People was readily available in one of my workplaces and Miley and Nick broke up the first time. I can't pinpoint it exactly. Their publicists were just *so good* at getting them into entertainment news that they always seemed to just *be* there all the time.

I was surprised to hear these boys have (had?) promise rings, showing their commitment to their virginity. Like Brittany Spears. And Jessica Simpson. Like being pure means just not having sex. I keep hoping a sex scandal will come to light and another child star can fall. (I don't know why I want complete strangers to become tarnished. Perhaps jealousy. Perhaps it would be nice to see people in the spotlight appear to struggle through life like the rest of us. This is why I feel for LiLo.) And I have every confidence, if it's going to happen to a Jonas, it's going to be Joe.

See, the problem with Joe is he keeps dating famous girls. And he inevitably does something dinkish to end these relationships, which means the other person, being as famous if not more, has the same access to the media. When he broke up with Taylor Swift by cell, there was no way that wasn't going to get out. Because she's so charming, she totally made him look like a jackass. (No idea if he is. He is, however, the least talented of that family.) Today Demi Lovato mentioned how disrespectful it is that he's brought his latest girlfriend (some girl from Twilight) on the tour the brothers asked her (read: agents) to join. Is it necessary to have your girlfriend with you constantly for months at a time? No. Is it a good way to piss off your ex-girlfriend, whom you have to work with every single day for months? Yes. And, yet, this 18-year-old Disney talento is behaving significantly better than the 21-year-old dinkwad she dated. So I'm really rooting for Joe Jonas to, literally, fuck up.

If not with this latest girlfriend, then the next. Let's see... The next one has to be a singer, right? That's his pattern? Singer, actress, singer, actress...

Why do I even care about this? Why can't I sleep more so this won't be in my thoughts ever again? How the hell am I going to work 13 hour days for another week?

collection

My, my, it's been a while. Blaming summer and the weather is all well and good, but, really, I haven't felt much like writing anything for quite some time. And I don't even really feel like writing now. Vanity pushes me, though, guilting me. Someone must care that I haven't written, mustn't they?

September always seems like a new start, much more than January or the fiscal new year (May?) or any other time. It's the time to hunker down and ready for winter, holding safe the collection of memories gathered over the last months, meant to sustain the dreariness of the winter. Have I collected enough? Yearly, I realise around March that I haven't and the doldrums set in and I wrestle with them until the temperature or sun or spring buds get close enough to tag them in.

The problem with September also seems to be that my body refuses to let me have a fresh start. The start of school meant a late summer cold, and the trend followed me into university. And now I have a cold. I dislike it because it messes up my work and leaves me playing catch up more than I already do. I'm downing 16 Vitamin C tablets to try to boost the cold out of my body. Vitamin C makes me grumpy.

But once this cold is done, I can go back to juggling four jobs and trying to see friends until something happens. I've planned a trip to Chicago and am excited about that. I'm hoping to get to Seattle in November for a weekender. A visit to my parents', too. Hopefully these will top up my collection so I can get through to spring intact.

who to blame

While searching the database for film records at work, I stumbled upon some Friendly Giant records from 1978. The record that stood out had poetry by Jerome, the Friendly Giant reading from a book, and Rusty playing harp. Made me wonder how formative CBC was to me with that kind of highbrow exposure.

We watched a lot of CBC when I was a kid. When I was home with a 24-hour flu, my mom let me watch morning CBC until noon, at which time I could watch American Sesame Street on the PBS station from Detroit (their after school spot) and drift off to sleep with flat gingerale on the coffee table beside the couch. Saturday afternoons involved a bath and sitting with my dad during Hockey Night in Canada while our hair dried and we waited for dinner. I loved the home repair show led by a woman on a soundstage called Do It For Yourself, the only how-to show I'd ever seen that didn't have a woman in front of a stove or ironing board. I used to tape record songs from Good Rockin' Tonite and Video Hits to make mixtapes, and later did the same when we got our VCR. On our annual Christmas pilgrimage to visit my grandparents in Edmonton, my sister and I would wait for songs we knew to play on the radio, always excited when Bob & Doug McKenzie's "12 Days of Christmas" or Barry Manilow's "Let's Hang On" came on so we could sing along.

I suspect the same is true of my friends. A large number were either big CBC viewers/listeners when they were kids, or really are now. How different would we be without that exposure?

But then I realise that those people all around me. People who don't know what it's like to finally FINALLY get a full recording of the best song of the week on cassette, to hear Knowlton Nash's voice, to feel the rush of learning new French words in a town with only one French speaker so they could try it on him. I know these people are around me because they turn up their noses when I mention where I work. "Oh, I never watch/listen to the CBC. There's never anything good on it," they say. I immediately know we have nothing in common.

Isolationism forces you to be resourceful and to absorb whatever you can get. The CBC is what I absorbed. And I'm pretty protective of it when people diss it.

Some days I can't even believe I get to work there. Because it's kind of awesome.

on being successful

Today is a life-changing day.

This morning I tried to toast an English muffin in my toaster oven and, instead of toasting it, the toaster just sat there. No little orange light to show it works. No heat. No nothing. Eventually, after poking at the on/off handle for 8 minutes it finally started glowing a bit. It made me a little nervous that it doesn't work unless I beg it to, and even then there's no guarantee it'll work. Sometimes I need toasted things.

So I planned to pop by the shop today and see what my options were. The one I have is probably about 20 years old, judging from the fake wood paneling design (got it from a yard sale when I left home after high school). I figured I'd be able to find a sleek one that I can toast stuff in and broil fish in if needed. It wasn't hard to decide on one.

This is not very exciting news. This isn't what I'm excited about.

Next to the toaster oven section was the slow cooker section. I've been meaning to buy a slow cooker for almost 2 years, but have been trying to find one that I can live with. I didn't want a 6qt one (too big) or a 4.5qt one (too small), wanted it to be programmable, and wanted it to keep stuff warm for me in case I wind up late getting home (which seems to be the norm). Finally, finally, I found what I've been looking for. And it was on sale. And it can cook a 5lb roast.

You know what this means? I'll be living on pulled pork sandwiches as soon as cabbage season hits. (Coleslaw is infinitely superior to all other toppings/accompaniments when talking about pulled pork.) And I can finally cook from the slow cooker cookbook I've had on my bedside table for the last 10 months.

I can't wait to come home to a hot meal without having to cook it or hire someone.

project(ions)

Depending on the weather, I go through phases of productivity. When it's nice out, I try to be outside as much as possible. When it's grey and miserable, I just want to cocoon and bake and sew. (Really, I shouldn't bake right now, as I'm trying to cut back on things with flour and sugar, and baking is kind of all about the flour/sugar.) With the weather being so hit-and-miss lately, I'm not sure anymore what I should actually be doing, so I just wind up working instead.

A couple of nights ago I wanted to see if I had any patterns stored away that might be fun to sew. Since all my sewing stuff is stored in the same place, I also figured I'd go through some fabric and see if I had any denim lying around to throw an A-line skirt together. Instead I rediscovered a bunch of fabric cuts that I got over the last few years, but never did anything with. And now I really need to draft some skirt patterns.

Around 20 cuts of fabric between 1 to 3 yards each. All ridiculously cute. All that I want to wear right now in some form. I can't even begin to tell you how cute it is. So cute.

One of the larger cuts is one of my favourites. I'm glad I had the foresight to buy extra of it, though I can't recall what I was thinking when I got it. And, just like that, it's become a throw-on dress with about 2 hours of work. I want to wear it all the time, like little kids who wear their Spiderman pyjamas all the time. It has pockets. (Have I ever gone on about how much I love dresses with pockets?)

It's taking everything in my power not to cut into another piece of fabric until I get through a couple of other projects I wanted to get to first. But the one cut is so amazing... And the top version of this dress would only take an hour... Who will stop the insanity?!

For people who don't sew, I'm sure this is all quite riveting. I know how much I love hearing about someone's hobby that I have no interest in. Really, it may be a cry for help, a sign that I might need an intervention. I want to do nothing other than sit home and sew stuff for myself. Work cuts into sewing time, leaving my house means I can't sew anything, friends commenting on stuff I made just fans the flames.

In short, I need to win the lottery so I can stay home and sew all the time. And then when that gets boring I can go on fabric buying trips. Just for me and maybe friends who like to sew, too. Gosh, wouldn't that be fun?