wardrobe changes

It's a good Sunday when you can spend almost every waking minute in your pajamas. The only interruption was the spandexy stuff I wore for two hours when I went for a skate ski with a pal of mine. When I got home, I showered and climbed back into them.

My current faves are the opposite of the body-hugging quick-dry gear I wear for sports. I've been keeping my house pretty cold so I wear baggy flannel tops and bottoms (usually mismatched because my dresser is disorganized), and a fleece pull-over hoodie with the hood up to keep me warm while I sleep. This means I pretty much look like the Beast of Monsieur Racine:



(Which is one of the greatest kid's books ever. Why won't they reprint it?)

refined tastes

Sorry for the irregular posting. I've been in a bit of a slump. Not the suicidal ideation kind of slump; just the "holy shit, have I permanently fucked up my life" kind of slump. You know, the "lock yourself in a bathroom stall at work and sob desperately" kind of slump, the "burst into tears on the phone with your mom when she calls you at the office (fortunately after all co-workers have left for home)" kind of slump.

On the outside, I'm keeping my shit together; and you know, for the most part, I really am a pretty, um, happy person. But you know, sometimes I look at what's going on, what I've been doing, my lack of direction, purpose and meaning, and everything seems like it's built on this rickety scaffolding of bullshit. And oh yeah, there's still war, cruelty, stupidity and global warming.

On another note, I had a glass of wine last night with an old friend CS, who was visiting from overseas. He always complains that he's never mentioned on my blog, because he, like most people I guess, really loves to read about himself. Anyway, we were sitting around bantering, four of us, and eventually a new bottle was opened and poured.

CS: "This one -- this one is [grimaces with disgust and contempt like no one else can]."
PW: [certainly disappointed] "Well, it's lighter than the others."
CS: "It's not lighter. It tastes like a cat, smoking a cigarette, pissing itself."

(Which I privately categorized as "Idea #3 for a new tattoo".)

The Four C's

My friend Little Rock Arkansas and I joke about getting married all the time because we just KNOW that it would work. Sure, and perhaps unfortunately, neither of us is from the Island of Lesbos, but MOST marriages are sexless after a while anyway, right? We're SO ahead of the game, we'd just START OUT sexless, and keep the thing running on pure unadulterated love. (And hysteria?)

After a long couple of weeks cooped up inside dedicatedly tending to a family member who just went through a bit of slicing and dicing (surgery), Little Rock went with said recuperating family member to a local mall, to walk around a bit and then go see Blood Diamond.

Then she decided on a whim to use her time alone in the mall to go *engagement ring shopping* before wandering over to the theater.

You know, it's partly this perverse sense of humour of hers that makes my heart go pitter-pat. I mean, this notion from a woman who has dedicated her enormous heart and years of her life to working in Africa and in its warzones, and who has a pretty profound handle on trade and human rights issues in the developing world.

"What is the groom's budget?" the salesperson politely inquired.

"Well, I feel it would be kind of indiscreet to get into that just yet," Little Rock replied coyly. "Let's just see what you've got."

On the phone with me she announced, "So I found out about my ring size and what cut I like. Um, it has to be round, slightly raised, and really sparkly with a platinum band."

She went on, now in her breathiest squeakiest most carefree voice, the one that works because she is four billion miles from being a ditz, "I learned SO MUCH. But I forget what the four C's are... I think they're what, cut, colour, and, uh champagne? And maybe cute. Yeah, I'm pretty sure diamonds are supposed to be CUTE."

(We've decided, for the record, to get our rings from a gumball machine.)

Media Sainthood

I do NOT understand this sudden hagiography of Anna Nicole Smith. (I will not even link to any of it here, because for pete's sake it's all over the Internet -- where to start?)

What's happening kind of reminds me of that rant in the movie Heathers where Veronica observes in her journal that death made the biggest bitch in the school a saint and gave two numbskull jock assholes personality and soul. I understand forgiving people their foibles and mistakes, and regarding those who have passed on with a special tenderness, but the glorification of Anna Nicole Smith in death has really gone too far.

Let's be clear, she was *very simply* a self-absorbed vacuous drugged-out cuckolding gold-digger slut with massive boobies and a diet-pill-sized brain who got rich and famous because she was willing to do ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING to become rich and famous. So what?

Yeah, I know, parts of her life were really sad and hard. The thing is, most people on this earth have sad and hard lives and tons of them deal with it with a hell of a lot more style and grace. You can probably think of five, easily, right off the top of your head, RIGHT NOW. Or ten. Or twenty. Or hundreds.

I don't know about you, but I never thought she was funny, I just found her fucking depressing. (But then, I never found the wildly popular Jessica Simpson funny either -- the few glimpses I had of her tottering around her mansion in her strappy Prada wedges whining to that meat head Nick made me want to leave Earth for another planet: no hope here.)

I think what finally triggered this rant of mine (which I am already regretting writing at all) was coming randomly across an article about how Anna Nicole was restricting the amount of food her infant daughter was allowed to eat because she was obsessed with the idea of keeping her baby girl "slim" and "sexy". Even if it's not true, it's true in that allegorical sense; she really WAS that monumentally stupid, incompetent and superficial.

So to completely change the subject, here are some flowers I photographed up north one summer, and I think they look kind of like God (or whoever is responsible for all this) was in a Dr. Seuss-y sort of mood when he/she/it created them:



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Jesus, I've just realized I'll probably get child porn douchebags finding this site now because I've got the words "baby" and "sexy" in this post. So here's a special message for them: KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF THE KIDDIES AND GET YOURSELF PROFESSIONAL HELP. DO IT NOW.

I like you

This is going to make me sound like a horrible person but one year my partner (now ex) sent me a dozen long-stemmed roses at my office on Valentine's Day and I hated it.



I hated the spectacle of the box arriving in front of my other co-workers, I hated opening it, I hated women around me cooing about it, I hated the guys guffawing about how "someone was going to get lucky tonight". (I mean, please, as if sex was something I'd parsimoniously dole out as part of some corny transaction involving a cliché!)

I also, for the record, hated the roses themselves - no scent, no imagination or sense of humour evident in the selection of them as a gift. I would have rathered an absurd limerick scrawled on the back of a napkin, or a goofy treasure hunt, or bottle of whiskey.

At the time, it gave me this weird sinking feeling that he had no idea who I was - that he would ever imagine that roses on Valentine's would be a way to make me happy or express something about our relationship.

"Yes, but listen to me, you stone cold bitch," people might say. "It's the THOUGHT THAT COUNTS." To that I say "What thought? What THOUGHT went into that?"

Oh, and also, he paid for the roses with my money. (I don't even want to get into that part.)



(images courtesy of Heartless Bitches International)

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I remember a Valentine's Day from Grade 4 when I was nine. I was pale, freckled and very blonde with a home-done haircut: bangs sharply sliced halfway up my forehead, the rest falling like two blunt straight curtains to my chin on either side of my face. (You can understand how I'd be helplessly dazzled by the wild sophistication of "feathering" only a year or two later -- something my hair limply refused -- as I stumbled into awkward pre-teen awareness of "fashion" and "style".)

My elementary school was a big old brick thing built in 1896 with 18 foot ceilings and hallways with cement floors that were enamelled in untold layers of maroon paint and varnish. The halls and classrooms smelled like furniture polish, old wood, wool sweaters and industrial lemon cleanser. Everything echoed and all the rooms were drafty.

So on V-day, a typical, freezing day in the dead of winter, we all diplomatically exchanged little paperboard Valentines with everyone else (you know, those little punch-out ones where you just sign your name). I was looking through my bag of the ones I'd received when I noticed that on the one from Eric R was written in pencil, in his own wobbly boy handwriting, "I like you".

Mind you, I had no idea what to DO with that information at the time and who knows how he read my bashful silence, my turning beet red, and my total lack of verbal response, but I was quite touched, and looking back it's one of my fondest Valentine's memories.

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Oh, and check out this old classic (even though you can't send the cards, they are still pretty great).

is it just me?

"Is it cold in here, or is it just me?" I asked, addressing the open-floor-plan office full of co-workers.

"I dunno," quipped one smiling co-worker. "Why don't you ask the other toque-wearing, polar-fleece bundled, scarf-wrapped--oh! There aren't any!"

And:

"I can tell it's Friday, Roo, because you're staring vacantly at your screen and typing randomly with one finger. That's not even hunt-and-peck. And that hat-and-scarf thing you have going on is a nice look, somewhere between... let's see here... chemotherapy and lobotomy?"

pulling on the shoulder-length latex gloves

Sorry I've been kind of absent. I could barely sit down at a computer after getting that tattoo of a pony dancing over a rainbow eating chocolate cake farting musical notes that are turning into butterflies. Yes, on my sweet rump.

Truth is, I've been working on another project and it's turning me into a fat-ass thanks to the physical inactivity side-effect. The pony is already starting to look sort of like a manatee with hooves and a long flowing tail. (Kind of gross.)

Anyway, the next phase of the project will require the gloves I mentioned in the title, and before I get my hand (and, well, whole arm) in there, I'm going to take a break and go out tonight.

I've been invited to an Anti-Valentine's Party. Wearing red and/or black is optional. The friend who invited a little group of us seems unusually adamant that we all bring alcohol, even going so far as to highlight that ONE PART of the email invitation - REMEMBER TO BRING BOOZE - by putting it in 410-pt font, so I'm not sure what to expect.

So I wrote to him:

How about my pajamas, bathrobe and slippers? (That's what I usually wear when I drink a lot.)

And he replied:

If it's red and/or black, you can wear anything from body paint to whale blubber in ziploc bags to a Soviet flag - I'm not fussy. Just don't forget the booze...

See? He really wants us all drinking. Does he feel a need for us to "drink him pretty"? Paul, darling, you're already pretty. See you tonight!

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UPDATE: Man, that party SUCKED. Crowded but alienating. Drunk but uptight and humourless. Far as I can tell, only Paul was fun, but most of the time he was surrounded by women desperate to talk to him because he was the ONLY MAN in the entire place exhibiting even a shard of wit. We drank my bourbon and left with the full bottle of wine he was going to imbibe had I not brought anything; it was not the sort of party where it feels appropriate to leave things like that behind (if you can even imagine).

Better yet, he offered said bottle of wine to me at the end of the night saying, "Here Roo, you can have this to drink for your next dinner alone."

That made me laugh so hard I think he was a bit alarmed.

to a f**king good time today! this IS a good time!

Nice decnals!

Julian, make him do it right!

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NOTE: Julian is standing in the Walmart with a rum and coke. Later, Ricky drinks his out of a kitty dish.

I have the coolest art in the universe

My trucks arrived, and I just sent a thank you to Matt Hooker:

I opened it in front of a room full of coworkers eating lunch. They said "wow, that's different". I said "WOW WOW WOW I AM SO EXCITED I LOVE IT WOW HOLY CRAP LOOK HOW AMAZING THIS PAINTING IS I AM THE HAPPIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD" and they said "please stop speaking in all caps".

One of them muttered "she sure is happy". Then one of the guys said "yeah, that is AWESOME".

That's because it IS.