of all the things that do not belong in my bed

One of the nice things about being a single lady with firm principles is that I get the whole bed to myself. I can flip over, kick the covers off, flip over again, yank the covers back on, punch the pillows, get rid of some pillows, add some pillows, again and again until day breaks without the worry of disturbing anyone. Sometimes, I can read a book literally all night long. LITERALLY. (And you know how I feel about the word literally.) I don't think any of those things can continue to happen if I gain a bedfellow. (Also reason #8 why my dog can't sleep on my bed even though he's a grown-up now.)

So anyway. Here I was, settling in for a night of reading until the wee hours of the morning, When Suddenly. I felt a wee tickle on my thumb and there was a speck in my peripheral vision. I was not immediately alarmed, as I commonly get specks in my peripheral vision, and I proceeded to re-locate the speck so I could follow it out of my line of vision and be done with it, until the next one comes along. (That's how I get rid of them. Floaters, I think is the scientific name?) Scanning to re-locate... scanning...

YOU GUYS. IT WAS NOT A SPECK. IT WAS AN ANT. ON MY THUMB. IN MY BED.

How To Proceed When One Discovers an Insect in One's Bed

Step 1: Immediately vacate said bed. Freak out for a bit. (Quietly, mind you. Be respectful of others in the house.) Turn on light.

Step 2: Shake out hair and clothes, scrub at skin to ensure Insect is not currently residing on one's Person.

Step 3: Silent, hysterical laughter while inspecting ceiling and windowsills for potential Insect Nests whence Insect may have sprung.

Step 4: Proceed to area with a soft space upon which One will spend the remainder of the night. Under no circumstances bring any bedding from original Bed to the new location. Who knows how many Insects are festering therein. Collect assorted pillows, blankets, etc., from elsewhere in house. Fashion a make-shift bed.

Step 5: (Optional) Lifting with One's legs, heave dog kennel (with Dog inside, bewildered) out of original Bedroom and stumble therewith to Temporary new location. Take care to avoid crashing into doorknobs, walls, and such.

Step 6: (Optional) Accidentally awaken One's Mother via Steps 4 and 5. Mother will then tuck One in to make-shift Bed, draw the curtains to block out Ambient light, kiss One upon One's head, and retire to her enviously, fortuitously Insect-Free bed.

Step 7: Sleep fitfully, if at all. All noises will be too loud. All specks, all bits of fluff from blankets etc. will be Insects. All shadows will be Monsters.

Step 8: Upon morning's merciful Arrival, wash everything and then vacuum everything also. Scan with intense precision all corners, crevices, and objects Insects might be inhabiting. Shower, lest the source be some sort of Nest in One's Hair.

Step 9: Take a really long Nap.

the easy solution involves a hammer

So my new mouth guard and I have a terrible relationship. After I nearly barfed when they made the mold of my mouth, I thought, Hey, it probably won't get worse than this. As usual, my optimism was horribly misplaced.

WHY MY MOUTHGUARD IS THE WORST
1) It tastes like perfume, no matter how many times I soak it in stupid vinegar water.
2) It doesn't go soft and gently encase my teeth like I paid the big bucks for it to do.
3) It causes my lips to slowly part and then remain parted so as to become dry and cracked by morning.
4) It makes my face look like a duck.

Nutshell: boo mouthguard.

don't even get me started

Dear cocoa:

I realize you have many friends, many passionately devoted friends, but I'm going to say this anyway. I HATE YOU. I hate you for several reasons. I'm going to make a list of these reasons.

1. One time I opened a can of you, and thought you looked delicious, like hot chocolate. So I took a spoon and scooped some of you into my mouth. YOU DO NOT TASTE LIKE HOT CHOCOLATE. I'm fairly certain I nearly died from the shock and also from how dry you made my mouth.

2. You keep too many secrets. For example, you are up to your ears in caffeine. ALL THE TIME. But you are full of sneaky caffeine, hidden inside of brownies and cake. You pull the same dirty trick over and over. No more secrets, cocoa! I'm on to you.

Those are actually all the reasons. I thought there were more, but mostly because I am SO ANGRY that you sneakily snuck in to my dessert tonight and the volume of my anger made it seem like a million reasons. Damn and blast, cocoa.

and we were all on it

I'm fairly certain I nearly died earlier this week because I got mad at traffic and decided the rules didn't apply to me anymore. The scene evolved thusly: I was driving home from Harrison Hot Springs. There was absolutely no traffic on my drive there earlier that morning, so I was confident there wouldn't be any on the way home, either. All was well until I got to Abbotsford.

"Why don't I have a listen to the traffic station," I said to myself at that time, turning on the radio. How smart I would feel, discovering if there were any accidents or delays so I could adjust my route accordingly. It turned out that was a smart decision, because lo and behold, there was an accident on the highway I was on, in the direction I was going, several exits ahead of where I was.

"I'll exit early," I said, quite pleased with my intelligence, "and take a different way and miss all the traffic!"

But hey, guess what. Everyone else was also listening to the traffic station, and everyone else decided to exit early, and if you're not taking the highway home from Harrison Hot Springs, there is only one other road you can go on. AND WE WERE ALL ON IT.

There was a point somewhere in Langley when I was stuck behind a Wide Load hay truck or something. It was going so slowly that I'd morphed from Good Driver to Angry Driver with my body positioning. (When Angry Driver is at the wheel, I slouch down and put my left foot on the dash beside my steering wheel, and rest my left arm on my knee. Coincidentally, the same position as Casual Driver.) Then the Wide Load hay truck decided to do the rest of us a service and kind of pull over, but not quite, so it was halfway in the lane and halfway on the shoulder. The two cars ahead of me zoomed past it, and I started speeding up to do the same.

It wasn't until I was ever so slightly over the yellow line that I noticed another truck heading towards me, in the opposite lane. What I should have done then was slow down and stay in my own lane, and wait for the oncoming traffic to cease so I could pass the stupid slow hay truck. But I was TOO MAD. I wanted to go FAST. So I kept going! I veered some more over the center line and it wasn't until the hay truck was immediately to my right and the oncoming truck was immediately to my left that I began to wonder if there was enough room for the three of us.

And there was! But there probably shouldn't have been. Probably I should have died. From now on, I should pay better attention to stuff when I'm mad. Or else I have a Ministry of Magic Car! Now you're all jealous.

on this episode of "just get over yourself"

I'm in a post-move funk. Yesterday, I realized that I'd reached my cap in regards to Living With Other People, and I longed to be By Myself. (This is not a comment on my family. I have a great family. It has more to do with the fact that the Rug of Independence I was standing on has been whisked out from under my feet.) I moved a bunch of stuff into my room, and started emptying bathroom shelves in anticipation of putting all my crap in them, but I have SO MUCH STUFF. I keep thinking, "In my apartment I had the perfect place for this." I was eating my cereal with a tiny spoon and my mad face on as I munched awkwardly small sized bites, remembering that all the spoons at my apartment were the perfect size for cereal.

How do I get rid of this? Campbell River is over for me - my apartment belongs to somebody else, and my stuff is dispersed among thrift stores, random people from craigslist, and my garage. I live here now. I need to snap out of it and make a list of all the things that are wonderful about being back at home. But you remember that one episode of Friends when Ross was trying to decide between Julie and Rachel, so he made a list of the bad things of each of them, and no matter how many things he had on the list of why he shouldn't waste his time with Rachel, all he had to put on the Julie side was, "She's not Rachel." (Only he said "Rachem," and we all know how that turned out.) There are so many things that are good about this place. Lots of things I love and am glad to get back to. But it's just not the same.

the worst at meeting new people: episode 503

I think that living on my own has caused me to lose the ability to converse with people. Witty banter and polite small talk have DIED INSIDE ME.

The scene: taking Charlie out for his business. (Also cleaning out my car, finally. I am very proud of that.) Minding my own beeswax as I nonchalantly walk towards the gate for my building.

Some dude: Hey, you can see the cruise ship going by.

Me: (since I don't know this dude, and he's standing on his fourth-floor balcony so he could be talking to ANYONE) Huh?

SD: There's a cruise ship going by. It's beautiful! Can you see it?

Me: (figuring that he is talking to me, straining my neck to see the ship; since I'm on the ground, all I see is buildings) No.

SD: Oh, it's really neat. You can see them go by all summer.

Me: (realizing with a sinking feeling that I've been sucked into conversation with a stranger about something I can't see) Oh, I didn't know they went by here.

SD: (incredulous) The CRUISE ships?

Me: (defensively) I'm new in town. I don't know anything. (FACT: this is a lie. I say that to excuse myself when I don't know about something I'm supposed to know about. It works always.)

SD: I was new two years ago, I see them all the time.

At this point our painful conversation seems to die, so I watch Charlie for a minute and wait for the dude to say something else. There is silence for a moment, so I go inside. BUT THEN, I think I hear him say something! Something that could be, "My name is blah blah, what's yours?" but since I was already on my way inside, I IGNORED him! What is WRONG with me. Couldn't I have let Charlie sniff the grass for a few moments longer just to be SURE he was done talking to me? I am so bad at normal human things.

and now i have to drink all the rootbeer

Today sucks. If I could, I'd punch today on the nose, but the way things have been going I'd probably break my hand on its stupid face. I won't go into details, but to sum everything up I present to you a picture of what happens to a girl who lives on her own with a bottle of pop that seals itself mysteriously over night.

I didn't even close it that hard, but I tried a million things to get it open and now my hand hurts and I'm even MORE mad than when I started. I was going to use the knife to open it, but figured that if I stabbed with all my anger it would probably slip and cut off my thumb.

let's make it the worst ballet ever. then let's make it THREE HOURS LONG. then let's kill everyone.

Holy crap, you guys. I am so traumatized right now.

16. Oklahoma (1955) - Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones. I finally wrenched myself away from Bloodhounds of Broadway and decided on Oklahoma. You know, since everyone is always talking about it like it's the best thing in the world. It's about a bunch of people in Oklahoma, and a girl and a boy who like each other but make things difficult for each other.
          I liked it until the good guy (Curly) went into the bad guy's (Judd) house and tried to convince Judd to KILL HIMSELF. I guess Curly didn't get the memo that he is supposed to be the good guy? And then, Judd disclosed himself to be a big creepo by talking about his pictures of naked women and how he's tired of the pictures and wants a real woman. I knew he was a bad dude as soon as I saw him (I said to my dog, "He's a bad dude."), but from that point on I became uncomfortable. You know how there are problems in movies that are like, "Aw shucks, this is really unfortunate. Oh well, I'm sure they'll fix things by the end and everything will be fine!" And then there are those problems that are PROBLEMS that even when it's all over, nobody will ever really be okay again? That's what I started envisioning Oklahoma to be. At that point I realized that maybe it wasn't the movie I thought it was.
         Then there was bizarro-world ballet sequence, which I'm sure was supposed to be neat but just added to the creepiness that beset me. Like, why are they all acting like dolls? WHERE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE? And then bizarro-main girl (Laurey) is about to marry bizarro-Curly, until she discovers that it's JUDD! And she tries to run away but everyone blocks her in and nobody will HELP HER! And then the music is like the normal music but creepier and plinky! This is the worst ballet I have ever seen. It's so terrible and scary. And why is it so LONG? How long do I have to watch people not helping her escape from creepy, evil Judd??????? I hate this movie.
         When bizarro-Curly FINALLY tries to save bizarro-Laurey by shooting Judd a billion times in the chest and Judd doesn't die, and instead MURDERS BIZARRO-CURLY, I decided to stop watching. This movie is awful and unnecessarily disturbing. That'll teach me to watch a different movie from the best movie in the world. I am going to watch Bloodhounds of Broadway to cleanse my musical palate and also my brain from being so creeped out.

a prickly cactus, a barbed wire bulldog

I talk about poo and wedgies in this one. And mostly complain. Just FYI.

After much effort, I finally found some runners. Like every other kind of store, Campbell River doesn't offer much in the way of athletic shoe stores, so I was losing hope until I went to this one place that had runners with purple on them. That pretty much decided it for me, plus they were in my budget. (Not having bought runners in about 10 years, I found that I had to up my budget dramatically from my initial idea, but these seemed fairly reasonable compared to all the rest.) When I emerged from my apartment with Charlie on our afternoon jaunt, it felt strange to take steps! Almost like my feet weren't actually stepping at all, just kind of hovering. They were heavier than I was used to, like being dressed in battle gear, but it felt good. Like I was an athlete!

Then Charlie pooed in someone's driveway, and yanked the leash out of my hand so it fell in the poo. When I picked it up, it got on both sleeves of my jacket and also on the poo bag holder. Then I discovered I had a wedgie situation, but there was nowhere secret to go to remedy that. Then, even though I thought I dressed appropriately for the weather with my windbreaker and a long sleeved shirt, the sweat-switch in my body flipped on for every single one of my pores, and suddenly there was a sweat-layer sandwiched in between my skin and clothing. Maybe I'm the only one who is like this, but when I get sweaty I hate everything until I can become less sweaty, but I was still several blocks from home. In poo-covered sleeves, with a wedgie.

I came home and gave my dog a bone with cheese to occupy him while I sit in my room and become less angry.

jump on the wind's back

Sometimes I feel as if I'll never grow up. Before I moved, I thought that moving would force me to act like an adult, but I think I was mistaken. I still don't pay my bills on time. I still don't know what RRSPs are, even though I'm apparently paying into one from work. I still don't eat vegetables, despite the fact that I keep buying them optimistically. Every evening I do a massive clean of my kitchen, washing all the dishes and the counters and making sure everything is tidy, but then I have to do it all again the very next day and I'm starting to wonder what's the point. I go on the internet until too late at night and then I have to drag myself out of bed and do the whole thing over again. I'm doing all the same non-grown-up things I did before, I'm just doing them in a different place.

Some unrelated stories spawned these depressing thoughts.

1) Just after I finished cleaning my kitchen tonight I was pouring chicken and sauce from the crock pot into a container, and it all splooshed out onto my clothes and the counter and the floor. Of course, I should have done that before I cleaned. WHY HAVEN'T I LEARNED THIS YET. (Then I was trying to use "No-Sew" goop on a different pair of pants because I didn't want to sew, and I got the glue goop all over my hands and my chicken-juice sweatpants. Naturally.)

2) I stumbled across a really funny British show, and watched all 4 seasons obsessively in one weekend. Almost immediately, it occurred to me that one of the main characters slightly resembled a boy I liked back in my university days. I hadn't thought about him in a long time, but suddenly I was thinking about him every time I watched the show. I just sent him a "hey, how's it going" email, and now I am compulsively checking my email every two minutes.

I am twenty-five. When is this all going to change? When will I get my grown-up crown?

i'm too sick to come up with a title

8:15am -

The sun is cracking through the clouds. This is good; I was worried I'd have to stumble to the doctor's office in the dark. Usually I'm at work at this time, so I can't remember what the sky normally looks like at 8:15 in the morning. I feel like today is going to be epic and strange, and all my students and the staff are going to be all, "OMG WHERE IS SHE?????" but honestly, probably that will not happen. More likely the staff will see the TOC in staff devotions and inquire as to who she is in for, and then say, "Oh." The students will eye her as one would eye an unknown animal when they walk in the classroom, but then become accustomed to her and like her better than me. :( (That's the grade sevens, only, though. My older kids probably won't even notice it's not me.)

I'm dressed in my go-to-doctor's outfit under my covers in bed. It's cold outside.

11:00am -

I thought the clinic opened at 9, because apparently I was calling a different clinic inside a different Wal-Mart than the one I intended. I inspected the toothbrushes in the toothbrush aisle that was beside the clinic for 15 minutes and then figured out I was too early, so I drove around Campbell River for 45 minutes because I didn't want to go back to my apartment. The skies were lovely this morning, you guys. Then the doctor told me it was viral, and I just have to get over it. Then I went shopping, and this is what was in my cart:
- raspberry pop tarts
- eggs (for making lemon pudding)
- 2 cans of juice
- 1 can of soup
- a big jug to make juice in
- a new kind of tea
- honey for said tea
- echinacea

I'm eating a pop tart right now. It may have been a mistake. Just like the cheesies yesterday were a mistake also. I shouldn't be allowed to go shopping when I'm sick.

3:00pm -

I've been busy - I watched a movie, and then had a nap. I actually had a nap during the movie, and then thought I should relocate the nap to my bed, and once I was in bed I wasn't tired anymore. Then I finished my book, and if I was at work my work day would be over now, so I feel like I should do some prep for tomorrow. I mean, I definitely need to do some prep for tomorrow, because I have no idea what I'm teaching my grade eights in the morning, or what we'll do in Socials in the afternoon, so I need to do some stuff.

And thus concludes my first ever sick day as a teacher. Ta-da. (That's what I say to my students when I've finished teaching them something. It makes everything very exciting.)

Dear Howard Keel: I hate you.

Today I am sick. Well, I've been sick for a while. Yesterday, I did a bunch of dishes and then I had to take a nap. This morning I woke up and swallowing felt weird. Tomorrow, which is Monday, which is a work day, I am going to the doctor and then going back to bed. I called in my first ever substitute teacher! It's very strange.

Anyway. After I did some prep and stuff at school, I went to Save-On and this is what I had in my basket:
- 2 bottles of Gingerale
- 3 cans of soup
- sherbet
- yellow cake mix
- cheesies
- caramel rice cakes and also plain rice cakes

 Meanwhile, I watched another musical. I hated it.

7. Kiss Me Kate (1953) - Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel. This is another with the plot of a musical within a musical, except this one spends way too long with the pretend musical. Usually they show snippets, but this one shows a whole act, which got really boring. It's about this ex-husband and ex-wife who do Taming of the Shrew in musical form together, and in the midst of it they fall in love again and then fight again and then fall in love again. I didn't really like any of it.
     What I disliked was Kathryn Grayson's singing voice - it was wobbly and opera-ish, which I do not care for. Plus, I do not think I will ever watch another Howard Keel musical again, even though I have two others waiting for me. He seems to be synonymous with misogyny; in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers he was a big fat jerk, and in this one he actually SPANKS and humiliates her on stage, all because she got mad at him after she discovered that a nice note he gave to her was actually supposed to be given to his OTHER girlfriend. So yet again, he is completely at fault, and yet the woman takes all the blame. BOO HOWARD KEEL. (I should have known, though - the title screen of the DVD had an image of her over his knee mid-spank. I said, "Uh oh," but continued on nonetheless.)
    Skip this one. Howard Keel sucks. And if you wait the whole movie for him to blow up in a horrible, stage-related accident, you will be disappointed.

shoulder the sky, my lad

I feel like I screwed a bunch of stuff up, and also had to fight twenty-five turkeys for four hours. We had "Miss W Needs Chill Out Time" time for about five minutes near the end of Math, where I turned off the lights and they had to put their heads down on their desks so I didn't flip out at them. I'm trying to be creative and innovative with consequences and making them aware of their choices and stuff, but I don't think it's working.
Whenever it comes to be around Christmas, I always get super melancholy. I get a tingly feeling in my fingers, which is a precursor for a feeling of impending drama, which is always left unfulfilled except for the fact that it makes me a bit sad. I'm waiting and waiting for something dramatic to happen, and because it's dark outside all the time I expect it to be something bad dramatic, but it never happens so I am left always waiting still. I don't really know how to explain it.

at least i survived and got free pizza

Today I had fifteen parent-teacher interviews. Fourteen of them were fantastic, and I heard, "You're doing a great job! We're on your side!" fourteen times. Then at the end a parent said their child said, "I asked her to explain it again and she just explained it the same way! That wasn't helpful at all!" and now I think I'm a terrible teacher and why do I have this job and I'm letting all my kids down. I'm a little bit discouraged right now.

set a fire in a blackberry field

I am so cranky right now. I was completely fine this morning, and then I was going to plan my outfit for tomorrow and realized that I couldn't find my black skirt, so I looked on all my hangers to see if I had stuck it underneath another shirt or something to save hangers, and then I pulled all my clothes out of my closet and wardrobe and STILL couldn't find it, and now all my clothes are in a pile on the floor and I am too angry to clean them up. Having a messy room also makes me angry, so every time I look in my room I get angrier. I ended up going to the store to buy a new skirt, because even if I left it at home I was excited about wearing it TOMORROW, and if I have to wait until I go back home to get it nothing I wear will feel good because I wanted to wear a specific thing. Then I have only had one favourite pair of socks my whole life, and today I had to throw them away because they spontaneously erupted in holes. Then I wanted to watch an episode of The Office with my second cup of coffee, but the DVD kept freezing and it wouldn't let me fast forward past the freezing, and it didn't fix after I tried the old pull it out and blow on it trick. I was going to take the DVD out and break it in half in righteous anger, but then realized that DVD's can't feel pain so it would only make me more upset and the DVD wouldn't understand or be hurt by it. Now I have to go to school and meet all the parents in the entire school, because it's the dedication service.

I think this probably stems from staying up last night being worried about zombies.