Funkin' my way into the new year

Last night I got home after my Christmas with Phantom which involve thai food, presents, the greatest fort ever made, candy, scratch and win, the best use of stairs ever, movies, tv, and sleeping. Mmmmm. It was so nice. If it weren't for my persistent cold it would have been perfect.

And now I'm preparing for my first New Years without my best friend Helen since 1997-98. It's actually very upsetting. Helen's birthday is January first and we have always spent it with each other and our friend Craig (who we've both had brief relationships with). This year Craig is off volunteering accross Canada and Helen and I just couldn't get it together. So there goes the trad. Oh well.

So I'm entering the New Year with an odd affliction. My feet have been asleep for eight days. Since I saw Matt. Now, he may have put a strange voodoo curse on me or my nervous system is playing a cruel joke of it's own. Wierd. The lady at Telehealth seemed to think I may have had a stroke. So I'm gonna go to the doctor, cuz this ain't right.

Well, 2004 was a good one. I didn't really go anywhere or do anything all to exciting. I worked with some amazing kids, wrote a lot of essays, went to two Ani concerts, embraced my feminism, had my first "cops-get-called" party, moved into my own house, got a chequing account and a credit card, took some topless photos, laughed a lot, danced a lot, cried a lot, successfully completed my first M.C gig, had happy birthday sung to me by a naked Mark Brown, and saw two burlesque shows. Ain't nothin' wrong with my year.

Bring on 2005. The year I decide where I'm actually headed with my University career and I turn twenty. Yikes.

Mbatu O'Malley

I've been hella sick for the past couple of days. Just drained and achy and sleepy. I've watched much television and the occaisional film, snuggled with my Chihua and learned how to knit. I had a disappointing encounter with Napolean Dynomite today. I actually turned it off half way through.

The most exciting thing that happened today was the fact that I ran out of wool. Yes, after years of crocheting I have ventured into the world of knitting and it's all very exciting. My knitting style has been described as stabby, but I think I'm getting the technique a little more under control.

Anyway, tonight I'm on my way to Goo-loph for a little Christmas with my Phantom. Blogular reviews shall abound.

Cold Cold Cold in my Hole Hole Hole

Phantom is off and away for his up North Christmas and I'm here wrapping presents for the fam. By presents for the fam I mean that my dad has commissioned me to wrap the presents that he bought for my mom and my brother. Yeah.

I spent all day today cleaning and getting ready for tomorrow's trip to St. Catharines. Woot. Maybe I'll run into Kate on Boxing Day. That would be excellent and impressive.

I'm not in such a Christmassy mood. I don't know. I spent all day watching Christmas specials and still nothing. And now annual gift man is coming and I'm just not feeling it. Under past Christmas standards, tonight I should be at my Grandfather's house in St. Catharines hanging out with my cousins, trimming the tree, writing a note to santa with my brother and then sharing a bed with him while reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas".

But now my Grandad lives in a home, and It's a little wierd to be sharing a bed with my thirteen year old brother. We sort of got forced into having this "grown up" Christmas. With all of my Christmas references tied up in that house, it doesn't seem like Christmas is happening at all this year. This is only the second round of Toronto Christmas, so I guess I'm still working on it.

Merry Christmas everybody! Drink ho-cho and dance in the shiny piles of presents.

'Strip 'til You Drop' or whatever the hell it's called

Today was fulsome and excellent. Matt woke me up and I immediately headed out to meet him. The stupid snow teamed up with the stupid bus to foil our Lemony plans, but it was all for the best because by the time I got there my feet were soaking wet and I desperately needed tea and some food. So we ate, we discussed, we exchanged presents. Mine is very exciting.

I finished up the lasts of my Christmas shopping today, which was satisfying. All I want to do tomorrow is lie around. I briefly fell asleep around five before I headed over to my good friend Simon's house for a little Christmas reunion.

Simon and I have been friends since kindergarten. Around grade four I used to go over to his house every day after school along with our two friends David and Derin. We were nicknamed "The Group Home Kids" by Si's mother, who we lovingly called "Big Momma". Once highschool hit I used to go over, but Derin and Dave drifted into other crowds, and Simon went to a completely different school. So tonight for the first time since grade ten or eleven the four of us got together and it was absolutely amazing. It was awesome to be back with my boys. I was always the only girl in the bunch but man could I keep up with them.

It was so satisfying the way we all just got back into our conversational groove where Derin laughs, Simon and I just riff off each other, and Dave throws in an innapropriate comment now and then. Tonight we got on to the idea of solving the homeless problem by creating a homeless theatre troup. Our favourite production idea was "A Chorus Line" set in a soup kitchen. The song "God I hope I get it" was altered accordingly.

Everything was the same. Only this time we were drinking beer instead of tea, and talking about our respective partners. Yes, now we're all legal and we all have sex. Thrilling.

The top two quotes of the evening include:

"I don't even get to whack my whetstone?" - Simon

"I'm an outdoor pornventurer!" - Dave

Really the whole homeless conversation should have been recorded.

Ride That Sleigh

I got to ride the bus to the castle today sitting with my 3 year old friend Galen. He told me that all he wants for Christmas was a brown pencil and a hockey stick. Yes. He was also ridiculously impressed by my ability to pretend to eat an eyeball. I'm good.

The castle was fun. We watched an odd little musical version of Cinderella. It's funny how some children's theatre tend to rely on outdated pop culture to get a laugh. This show had the Macarena, a dance number to the Austin Powers theme and other various obscure references. The only thing that really bothered me was that I feel like if you're going to do an updated production of Cinderella you might try to make it more positive for girls instead of including a song about "oh god I hope he marries me". It just seems odd.

I got a half hour break at the castle so I got to wander around. They had a Harry Potter Lego thing going on, which was kind of exciting given the news about the book release this July. They had a massive Hagrid, and all three kids all lego-ular. But they had the kids in this little display in the basement and it actually kind of freaked me out. Harry, Ron and Hermione were all standing on a central platform, with a dementor (on ropes and pullies) hovering to the right, and a robotic (really creepy) Peter Pettigrew on the left. There was also a mirror on the way out that was somewhat Erised-like but when you looked into it you saw a crappy built Dumbledore. It was all very dark and the creepy soundtrack was playing the whole time. Bah. I hung out in there for quite awhile (because I like to pretend).

Now it's time for holiday stuff to get going. Tomorrow my Phantom leaves me and I start the visiting.

Guilt Bum

*Alternate Title: I HATE the Hard Rock Cafe (and all it's affiliates)*

So I guess it serves me right for blogging about how things were generally going well. I mean, things are still okay, I'm just considerably more sad than I was when I wrote my last post. But today I was not afflicted with the red, itchy, puffy eyes so that's a plus.

I haven't eaten any homemade food since I got home and I'm starting to feel disgusting. But it's not my job to clean their kitchen and pay for their groceries, so I guess I just have to keep eating what they bring me. My stomach is displeased.

I am much with the Harry Potter excitement. I may have to schedule summer jobs around line-up times for the book. Mmmmm book. I got two excited messages today about it.

Tomorrow I'm going on my field trip with my tiny friends. Right now it's feeling more daunting than exciting. I have become known to them because of this hippo song that I taught them in the summer and yesterday I worked the afternoon with the school age kids and spent half an hour in the kinder room and had to sing it six times. We'll see how I do with eight and a half hours. I'm becoming worried with my current inability to sleep and it's almost certainly devastating effects on tomorrow.


Happy Solstice Charlie Brown!

Double Bacon Geniusburger, and Just a Little Drunk

Ah home again. Christmas in my house was drastically altered last year as it was the first time that we didn't go to my grandfather's house (he moved out). After spending every Christmas of my life there, all of my memories and traditions are all wrapped up in the norm of grandad's house. I had it down like clockwork. I like things to stay the same. I maintained my traditions and basically freaked out if they were altered.

Now everything has changed and I'm more indifferent than ever. It's really strange. Creating traditions is a tough business. This year is even more whacked because my mom is in Mexico until Christmas day. So far the newest traditions seems to be "create a big disgusting mess in the house and get Bex to clean it up after exams". Yup. This was continued with the tradition of "get Bex to take the Christmas stuff out and trim the tree by herself". Also with the "eat only take out because Bex refuses to clean a kitchen that became unliveable before she came home". Bah.

Otherwise, the shopping is going okay. As per usual I'm spending too much money and am completely unsure of which family members I'm really responsible for buying things for. Yikes. Tomorrow I'm off to the bank to get my first credit card (yikes! Internet and hotel rooms here I come!)

So far I'm having a better holiday though as I am not debilitatingly depressed this year. I'm getting prepared to embark on visiting friends and on Wednesday, my one day of work at the childcare! We're going to Castle Loma to see Santa! What could be better than a bus full of three to five year olds!

Fondling Probsty

In one of her frequent celebrity gossip searches, today Jess came accross some interesting, scandalous and hilarious news. After joking about how a successful Survivor tactic might be to flirt with Probst, we found out today that Probsty and Julie are having an affair! Okay, so she didn't win, but isn't time with Probsty the prize they're all really striving for?

I'd post the link but I have no idea where this information came from. I just know it interrupted our studying quite abruptly!

Jew Dice

Exam weeks are a beautiful thing. They are something about school that I will sorely miss when I'm done. They're just these magical weeks where you don't have to be anywhere except during five little two hour windows interspersed over 14 days. You intend to learn, but there are so many other things to do!

Exam weeks give you liscense to do all the things you couldn't do during the semester like have parties, go to bars, grocery shop when you can't sleep, bake cookies, clean, and watch a ridiculous amount of television. They are the only weeks where staying up until four and sleeping until two don't seem like a problem, and you can stay inside all day and not feel all logey.

As my exam weeks come to an end I'm incredibly satisfied with how they were spent and what I have accomplished. I'm hoping my marks aren't too horrendous. I walked out of Shaky-Con (Shakespearean Contexts) tonight feeling like my marks may not be perfect, but man did I read a lot of Shakespeare. That's more Shakespeare than I read last semester!

I just finished cleaning my room (as to impress my little brother tomorrow, and later on, my Phantom). I still have a lot of decorating to do. I have a stack of pictures to put up, and a few posters at home that I still need to bring, but I'm on my way. A little more furniture would do me good.

So it's twenty after three in the a.m. and I've just finished wrapping presents for the ladies of the Box. Jess has hiring comitee tomorrow morning at 8:30am so we're getting up at seven to make waffles with whipped cream, strawberries and kiwi, open presents and have ourselves a little Christmas morning. It seems I'll be having many alternative Christmases this season. There's one in particular I'm looking forward to most.

Too bad everything costs money though.

let the morning time drop all it's petals on me

I'm so restless! Last night was the most normal sleeping pattern I've had in the past two weeks. I got a full eight hours from 12:30am to 8:30am and now it's 3:42am and I'm still up. I think I'm just naturally inclined to stay up until four and sleep until two. It seems normal.

Canada's Next Box Model

After watching the finale of America's Next Top Model, we've been inspired to have our own version tonight. We will dress up, do hair and makeup, and strike a pose. Since we have a photographer in the house we're going to take pics and then judge them. Since none of us are impartial perhaps we'll have to post the best ones and have some informal voting. Hmmmm. As soon as someone teaches me how to post pictures they'll be up!

Sexam

Whooo-mow! That's done. Only one more. Shakey-Con. That's gonna be a toughy. I just finished writing my sex exam. It was okay. I didn't rock ass as hard as I wanted to, but I still feel pretty satisfied. My favourite question was as follows: (paraphrasing)

Choose the satement about semen that is the MOST true:

a) swallowing the semen of a partner proves you love them.
b) sex educators encourage swallowing semen
c) a tablespoon of semen contains 13 grams of fat
d) none of the above

The answer of course is d, for the rest are so ridiculous which to respond in a Frink-like manner.

But alas tomorrow shall be filled with The Tempest and four essays by people who think they know everything about The Tempest. Mmmmm Calibanilicious.

Immanuel Kant was a real piss ant

I'm off to my first exam of the day. Yes this is the day of Philosophy and Sex. I (ironically) screwed myself for both of these exams as I didn't study on Sunday and Monday as I had planned. This made yesterday rather hellish, and I can't see today being much different.

My sex exam is 60% out of the textbook, that I have read 0% of. I have five hours this afternoon to get my shit together, but I don't know if that will be enough to accomplish anything beyond reading the chapter summaries and doing practice questions. Maybe that's enough?

I'm off to a good start this morning anyway. I got up and went over my Philosophy notes for two hours, and had some protein-y eggs for breakfast. Plus I just read an amazingly sweet e-mail from my favourite Phantom, so I'm a little more cheerful as I leave the house to be beat up by theories of knowledge and existence. Here's hoping I can find a solid standpoint!

I Identify as a Blog

I just came back from a Visioning meeting for the Women's Resource Centre on campus and one of the topics we discussed was a name change to be more trans-inclusive. So I came up with "The Women And Transfolk Resource Centre", or TWAT Centre. I thought it was good. But it doesn't acknowledge that some transfolk identify as women, so it's still exclusionary. So then I thought, "The Women And Trans F to M Centre" (Female to Male), or TWAT FM. I thought we could have a radio jingle to go with it. But no, not good enough.

So then I thought since the WRC is in a little alcove, or crevice in the University Centre that it could be the "Anti-Patriarchy Crevice" with the tag line "Don't stick your tool of patriarchy up my bum!". I thought this was perfect because everyone has a bum no matter how you identify! There was a lot of laughter, but the names didn't fly. One day they'll see.

You can Whack my Bush Anytime Probsty!

Well Tederick definitely called the winner of Survivor Vanautu this time around. But man was I good at calling how Probsty was gonna get those votes to Californ-eye-a.

My favourite part of the Survivor finales is finding out how Probst is going to get from the island to the live location. I love it! Throughout this entire Survivor I was never more excited as I was when Probst started bushwhacking.

Yes, Tederick may be able to call the winner, but I am able to call Probsty's moves. Tonight I called that he would take a plane, and that there would be a map with a red line tracing his whereabouts and man was I pleased when that came to be! The jumping out of the plane was an amazing twist followed by the motorcycle which upped Probsty's hotness points like the mercury in satan's rectal thermometer.

His transition tonight was more exciting then this entire season of Survivor. That Probsty though... he keeps me coming back. How could I not be enticed by his valiant attempts to peak my interest. Oh it's been peaked. Yes Probsty... you've peaked me again.

NO DRINKING!!!!

First time out to a bar in Guelph. The Albion: the hippy activist bar. I knew tons of people there. I had an excellent time.

Tally:

1 two hour exam (7pm to 9pm)
1 shot of SOHO
1 beer
2 whisky sours
1 sex on the beach
2 items for three dollars from Sun-Sun's
1 cup of mint tea
1 blog
1 bed

Do I... Do I put it in me?

My blogless roommate Jessica often has moments of brilliance. During the great Haiku craze of 2004 she wrote one herself and I promised to publish it for her. So here goes:

Church

Can't keep the noise in
Old ladies scorn me later
But Jesus doesn't mind

Dante Boscoooooooooooooooo!

It just ain't Chanukah without a couple of grated knuckles, some oil burns, some candles and a house full of people. Tonight was great. After all of my struggle with Ben's Bar Mitzvah this was a good night to feel like, yeah, I'm a Jew.

We baked and fried all day. People arrived at six and I gave a story of Chanukah spiel around 6:30 where we lit the candles. We had sixteen people there and half of them had never been to a Chanukah party or experienced anything Chanukah-esque. So we ate, we played dreidel, we listened to klezmer, a jew mix from World on a Plate last year, and the traditional Sharron Lois and Bram Chanukah album. Classic.

Everyone left around nine leaving us to watch family guy with wine in hand. Excellent. I still haven't studied, but after six glasses of wine I'm feeling far more relaxed about my exam tomorrow. Ahh exams.

Can't Sleep. Need Nog.

So at 4:30am the phone rang. It was a crying Jess friend so I woke her up and handed her the phone. Then I went back to bed to read my Anthro text book (it's more productive then counting sheep). I heard someone go to the bathroom at 4:45am so I went to see if it was Jess and to make sure everything was okay. It turns out it was Tama. So we started talking in the hallway and Nomi and Mea (our house guests) ran upstairs and we all yelled and giggled about the fact that we were all awake. We talked on my bed for awhile about what needed to be done for the party. Then Mea excitedly suggested that we go grocery shopping.

So at 5am we got in the car in our pyjamas blasted Klezmer as loud as we could and headed to the Ultra where we purchased nog, canes, a-sauce, s-cream, po-tates, and various other party necessities. There were about four other people in the store not counting the disgruntled employees.

I took pictures and got ridiculously excited about ridiculous food items. When we got home we snacked and talked of toys past. There was laughter, french songs, and a song about a lesbian barbies dancing. Fun was had. Jell-o was made. No studying took place.

So now it's 6:25am and I'm blogging and not sleeping. my alarm is set to go off in three hours and people will be arriving in eleven hours. I better be damn efficient because I made WAY too much cookie dough! You're all getting cookies for Christmas!

We all know where the rainbow goes...

I feel like there has been a severe lack of Pot of Gold commercials this season. I'm not sure why. For me the Marine Land commercials tell me when summer is coming, and the Pot of Gold commercials tell me when Christmas is coming. So how the hell do I know that Christmas is so close if no one is singing that damn song?

eyes as wide as snow

I'm never going to get to blogging about the weekend until maybe the weekend. I'm in a very bizarre headspace right now. I just cookie-baked from 6pm until 2am. That's too much cookie baking. I cut myself off because I had one of the worst dizzy spells I've had in a while and I was just sitting there staring at dough. My eyes clouded over and everything. Not good.

Today was domestically delicious though. I woke up around one to a blaring "Deck the Halls" which I promptly went downstairs and did after a cup of tea. We put out our Christmas tree today, right beside our "Happy Chanukah" banner. Then we cleaned the entire house. I also ended up putting Christmas lights outside, which I've never actually done before. I felt all capable-like. Then with the baking.

We're having people over for a Chanukah party tomorrow. Probably like 20 or so. I have too much to do and I don't know how it's all going to get done. I have an exam on Saturday that I really need to do well on, but I haven't started studying. That's a real problem considering tomorrow the roommates are gonna need me.

Anyway, I just have to say that I have disregarded grammar entirely. I got all paranoid after Texas Gary's blog, and then I just decided that it's 2am and I don't care about grammar. Bah.

Make it Yourself WIlliam H. Macy!

So tired. So much to blog.

I had my first exam this morning. It was at 8:30am. I'm pretty sure that's the earliest I've been on campus all semester. Yikes.

The frustrating part is that I was involuntarily up until four last night and I had no time for napping today, so I'm extra tired and useless.

My house is getting all holiday-ee. We've got the menorah blaring and the fake Christmas tree to set up. Yes we are adorable. Tomorrow the plan is to study, bake cookies, and clean. Very domestic. Hopefully all goes well. We spent twenty bucks on sprinkles at the bulk barn tonight, so they'd better be some damned spectacular cookies. I plan to make many and spread them around the neighbourhood by means of small festive tins. I'm most excited about the gingerbread Maccabees.

Don't wanna get caught with my hand in the blog jar

Yesterday I slept in and rushed out of the house with as an energetic sleepless Tama bounced around me. Yikes. Then when I arrive at my first class of the day, I was informed that my prof was sick and therefore not coming. Which is all well and good except that it was the last class and now we don't know what to study for the exam. Jerk.

So I debated going home and showering, but instead I ended up taking a TWO hour nap in the Bullring. And not even on a couch. I was chairin' it up in the old chair box. It has resulted in a very sore neck.

The best part of yesterday was that I got my third all-nighter paper back and it turns out that I am the most brilliant woman on earth. On the paper that I wrote between 12:30am and 8am I got.... 88%!!!! What?!!!? Yeah I don't know how that happened. That entire time I was just struggling to remind myself to blink. But I even got an e-mail from the prof congratulating me on my brilliance. I should just never sleep. I would be so cool!

So now I have to come up with what I'm going to say as an MC tomorrow. I warn you now, it ain't gonna be funny. It may be self-depricating and jazz-handy, but mostly just plain not funny. How do you introduce your family members to people who obviously know who they are? I mean, do I say things like "And here's my mom Karen. Teacher... Mother... Jew." This shall be interesting indeed.

Fat Girls Don't Get to Wear Pretty Dresses

I spent four hours in dress shopping hell this afternoon. I am demoralized and grumpy.

It's after two in the morning and I still have to pack my bag for tomorrow. I'm bringing everything I need this weekend home to school tomorrow including a banana bread that I baked tonight.

Tonight has been odd. I feel like I've done a lot, but there's still a lot to do. I'm all restless and stressed about this weekend. As of right now I have nothing to wear and nothing to say, and as I understand it the M.C. is often heard and seen by most of the guests at a Bar Mitzvah. Oh god. Usually I'm the one sitting there and making fun of M.C.s. Phantom says that's my shtick and to run with it, but I dunno. I can't really bring myself to write a joke.

This is going to be the jazz-handiest M.C. job of them all.

I'll do my best to post on the homefront, but it will have to be sneaky as I really don't intend for the fam to find out about this blog after the annoying response to the last one.

Has Anyone seen my Ragged Dick?

Ahh 11:30 am and it's all over. I missed my volunteer hour at the poon shack so I could leisurely eat instant oatmeal while altering the margins on my pages so that I fit into the limit. So sneaky. My original plan was to change to 11.5 font, but apparently there is a big difference. Ah well.

And now I'm off to class on five hours of sleep. I'm trying to decide if I have the will to shop or not. I definitely need a dress, but do I need to get Christmas presents right now as well? My current plan is that if I find the perfect dress downtown, then I will do my downtown shopping and return home. If I end up having to go to the mall though there is no way I'm going to shop and then drag stuff around with me. Nope.

El Cracko

It's 4:30am. The paper is sort of done. I'm one line over my page limit and I have to find some quotations that will turn my sweeping generalizations into hard hitting points, but otherwise it's done. I don't have to be at school until 12:30pm tomorrow to hand this mother in so I figure I'll have enough time to get up and fix it in the morning.

Oh man exams are not gonna be fun this time around.

NO! Skipper Bob!

It's one in the morning. I have three quarters of a page written of my essay and I just spent the last two hours watching the Real Gilligan's Island. Why do I waste my life?

I just couldn't get away from it! And when Skipper Bob fell with all the heart problems and then came back to say goodbye Jess and I actually teared up! And then laughed hysterically because we were tearin' for Skipper Bob. But he was such a nice man! It's not even over yet, we have a tape set for two more hours because we want to know what happens but just couldn't bear to wait it out!

The real issue is going to be tomorrow when the new episode of TRGI conflicts with the new episode of America's Next Top Model.

I blame Jessica for this.