Quote of the Moment:

    "I think I'm just going to tell the extravagant story about when my boyfriend sent me flowers with a card telling my to pack a bag and my passport and then stole me away for a weekend. I mean, it didn't happen THIS weekend, but it HAPPENED, so I'm not technically lying...I'm re-using."
    "And that's definitely okay because it's saving the environment."
...

Hey, we all gotta do our part.

And speaking of doing our part, read ehbaba's latest post, and then stop shopping at FeetFirst. While they may put feet first, they definitely don't put customers first.

I played two different sports this weekend and now my body is furiously angry with me. I guess it's a good thing that yoga this morning was cancelled. Otherwise my body would be...what's the next step-up from "furiously"? Regardless, it was an awesome weekend. It was beautiful out and I love knowing that I took advantage of that fact. I was out doing my best (and that doesn't mean doing well) to field balls and to remember how to play baseball. I seriously hadn't played in almost 10 years, and it felt good to get back at it. I still don't think I throw like a girl, but having not played in so long, I think I'm okay with admitting that I hit like one...for now.

Beaten at my own game

A few posts back, I mentioned that "poo" was one of my favourite terms. Not only does it come up often in conversation, but it also serves as one of my favourite substitutes for curse words ("eff" being one of my other favourite substitute).

Irregardless, I was randomly challenged tonight, and I think I might have lost...

Hero Cookie - turd
me - poop
HC - doo doo
me - feces
HC - crapola
me - ka-ka
HC - FUDGE
me - steamer...cleveland steamer
HC - hershey squirt
HC - rocky road
HC - oh henry
HC - molson mud slide
me - skid mark
me - excrement
HC - buck shot
me - pellets
HC - What's happening?

Someone earned a pooey hero cookie tonight, and for once, I don't think it was me.
...

"Pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory last forever..."

Thanks for the chat.

How's this for caring?

A portion of my afternoon was spent leaving the same message more than once on a single answering machine. My messages were prompted by the message that had been left on my answering machine just moments prior.

*beep*
"You're a loser."
*click*

*beep*
"I just wanted you to know that YOU'RE a loser."
*click*

*beep*
"LOSER!!!"
*click*

*beep*
"LOSER" <--multiple voices as my co-workers wanted to help
*click*

I love Squiggly (as does half of my office) during the 9-5 hours. We have bags o' fun...Fun Bags.

It means caring

I wish people wrote more. I have this list of blogs that I generally like to peruse; some because the writing's good, and others because they're the lives of my friends. I love to read and to know that people still experience things in life. Short of having a different cup of coffee every 10 minutes with a different friend, this is a nice way to keep up with someone. I only wish that every one had the time to write more.

Although...sometimes I wonder if it's just me. Maybe I write too much. Maybe I read too much. In the end, I just want to share.
...

The below was absolutely, positively, unabashedly and unauthorized-ly stolen from Lexxy-Pie. A friend of a friend, and a hell of a writer. This post of his was understood, and I just wanted to share...

The ex-girlfriend, or Ex-Girlfriend, I saw her friend last weekend, and it was almost the same as seeing her, and I stayed up all weekend in a remarkably melancholic mood, one of those moods that just hit you and then a warm Saturday feels like a rainy Wednesday, know what I mean? It doesn’t have that Saturday feeling anymore, because Saturdays aren’t supposed to be that poignant.

She slept happily, which sounds weird, or like I’m trying to make a big deal out of something small to be poetic, but I’m not, so she slept happily, with a grin of satisfaction that I never fucking have. She slept happily, and that’s now a trait that I look for, besides a fine waist-to-hip ratio, which she also had. She slept at midnight, like clockwork, and I’d grab a book from the bookshelf in her closet filled with books I’m actually interested in. She read good books, or rather, she read books that I thought were good, and that’s now a trait that I look for, besides bangs and a sort-of disproportionately large head, which she also had.

I would pick a book, Douglas Coupland shorts one time (ugh), I think DH Lawrence another, and I distinctly remember some quick-read chick-lit novel about a fat cow of a woman, all of a sudden waking up thin and beautiful, and all I can remember is that she gave a construction worker a blowjob on the way to work because he threw a cat-call and she decided to answer, and I thought to myself, this isn’t so bad for chick-lit, it’s exactly what I would do if I woke up a beautiful woman, I’d be a complete whore.

I’d read with three-quarters of her body on top of mine, and by the time I finished she’d have rolled to the other side of the bed, a little sweaty but still happily, and she’d keep a hand or even a finger on me somewhere, like I’m her anchor, when I was really anything but, probably the complete opposite of what an anchor does, maybe a sail? Attached to nothing and with a big, gaping hole?

I would fall asleep at 5am.

She would wake up at 7am, shower, change her clothes, do her makeup and then walk over to the bed and look over at me and say, Honey, I’m going to work, what time should I set the alarm to? She knew I woke up at 11am, but always asked anyway. Sometimes I’d groggily awake and give in and say, 11am, have a good day, dear. Other times I’d wrap my arms around her and lock them, and she’d never try to fight, she’d never say, I’m going to be late. She’d lie there on top of me in her work clothes and makeup and just give up, like she never had a chance anyway, and I still wonder, if I never let go, would she never have left? Really? Like she’d just lie there on top of me for three hours? A week? Four months? Really? What kind of insane person is this, to let me hold her back from her job like this? An anchor, probably.

Other times, I would pretend I was asleep and ignore her. I don’t know why.

I would wake up at 11am, watch an hour of Judge Judy, Judge Mathis, then subway home. Work a little, hit the gym. At 8pm I’d be at her place, and we’d cook dinner, and we’d eat it with her brother and his girlfriend, who felt like our children sometimes, even though they were closer to my age than I was to her’s. And then prime time TV, or maybe a DVD, or maybe camp out at the bookstore for a few hours. At 11pm, we’d be back in her bed, and at midnight she’d sleep happily, three quarters of her body on top of mine, and I’d be reading Margaret Atwood or Murakami.

Last weekend, the friend of the Ex-Girlfriend asked, “Why’d you break up with her?” but not in an inquisitive way, she was really asking, “Why would you break up with her?” I never have an answer, or one that makes sense to anyone but me, anyhow.
...

Love never makes sense.

Do you have these in a size 7?

Gotta love the moments when you stick your foot in your mouth. Not always are the comments rude or offending, but still, it's something that you wish you'd just not shared. No names for the sake of trying to save a little face:

    "Hey dude, so I saw your ex-girlfriend last week. She's lost some weight and is looking really good!"
    "Yeah she had some weight she could afford to lose..."

    "So are we going to prom together or what?"
    "Oh right! I totally forgot to tell you--I've figured out who I'm going to prom with and it's not you."

    "Is your roommate hot?"
    "Yeah, she's pretty hot."
    "Well, what's she look like?"
    "Uh, well, I guess...well, she looks like you."

    "These glasses are nothing! What, do you wear them because you think they make you look hot?"
    "Well, do they make me look hot?"
    "...!"

    "What did you name your baby? A boy right? I think my least favourite boy name is "Kevin." Kevin's just don't seem to turn out to be very good guys."
    "I named him Kevin..."

S'all good.
...

I just spent about an hour adding my Japan posts as links to my sidebar in chronological order. It feels SOOOO good. Almost as good as spending a day adding labels that are the same size and that face the same way on all of my binders. Almost.

Sprung

Spring is so here it's practically summer already. The weather's beautiful the company's great, and I'm in love...

...ehbaba rocks my comment world.

A lazy morning, a drive, a stroll, and a dinner. Not too much, but more than enough.

Spoken like a true man

Slightly intoxicated, but not lushingly so...

Tonight, there was a little bit of boy-bashing. Dimps and I headed out to the Bier Markt and had a few drinks. We met up with BigSexy at One Down and had a few more drinks. BigSexy, outnumbered and out-spoken, was forced to listen to rant after rant after which he paused and, before finally speaking, chose his words carefully.

    "Ladies...I totally understand you and I've been saying the same thing for years; all men are jerks--except for me."

We toasted him for that.
...

I'm reminded of a post from oh-so-long-ago:

Today's Life Lesson
Never shy away from a good thing just because you're unsure of exactly how good it could be. If you shy away, chances are, it would've been the very thing you were waiting for. Chances are, it would've been better than you could ever have hoped it to be. And chances are, she was waiting for you too.

The Poo Story

Once upon a time, mom and I were babysitting my little cousin Mi-mi who was about 2 and a half, 3 years old at the time. We spent the whole day playing with him at home because he was oh-so-adorable we just couldn’t stop. When lunchtime came around, mom and I left him to his own devices in the other room so that we could each grab a slice of pizza from the kitchen. He was coming along fairly quickly with his potty-training (though still in diapers) so we knew that a few minutes on his own and he should be okay.

Not more than a few bites into each slice and Mi-mi suddenly appeared, toddling into the room without his diaper on.

    “Hi, Mi-mi, what’cha doin’? Where’s your diaper?” my mother asked. Mi-mi bravely paused for a second, and then replied.
    “Goo-goo,” which is what he calls my mom, “Goo-goo, I got poo.”
    “Oh, okay, let’s go to the bathroom then.”

Still munching on the slice of pizza, my mom reached down and offered her free hand to Mi-mi in order to lead him to the bathroom. In turn, Mi-mi reached up and put his hand into hers and handed her something. My mom took a quick look at what he’d handed her.

    “Oh...you HAVE poo...in your hand...”
...

Tell me that’s not adorable? Maybe also a little gross, but still adorable. He knew that poo wasn’t supposed to happen in his diaper any more, and he made an admirable effort to get it to where it WAS supposed to go...hahaha—wedding story or what? Mi-Mi’s only about 11 years-old now so he’ll be safe for a while longer.

I searched my blog to see if I’d already shared this story with you and found that I hadn’t. But even more unbelievable (since I love to tell this story) was the fact that my search for the term “poo” only turned up 9 results out of my whole blog. Out of nearly five-hundred posts, I’ve only ever used “poo”—one of my FAVOURITE terms—9 times. Sort of disappointing...not that I’m about to make a conscious effort to change that.

Song of the Moment: "Look After You" - The Fray

If I don't say this now I will surely break
As I'm leaving the one I want to take
Forgive the urgency but hurry up and wait
My heart has started to separate

Oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh
Be my baby
Oh, oh, oh
I'll look after you

There now, steady love, so few come and don't go
Will you won't you, be the one I always know
When I'm losing my control, the city spins around
You're the only one who knows, you slow it down

If ever there was a doubt
My love she leans into me
This most assuredly counts
She says most assuredly

Oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh
Be my baby
I'll look after you

It's always have and never hold
You've begun to feel like home
What's mine is yours to leave or take
What's mine is yours to make your own
...

Deliciously edible.

Quote of the Weekend:

    "My abs are so sore from piking so much."
    "I wish my abs were sore from piking."
    "Well, of course they're not sore--if you piked, you would have had to pike upwards."
    --FryGuy and I at the end of our weekend-long tournament @ men's height

Mmmmmmmm...fries.

Song of the Moment: "Choux Pastry Heart" - Corinne Bailey Rae

Sometimes you win or sometimes you lose
I don't wanna lose you
Don't even own you
I just wanna stay right here
Until never dawns
...

Those are actually only the last few lines, but every time I listen to the song, it's that last line that I always hear, and it's also that last line that I like most out of the whole song. It's just nice the way she sings it.

But speaking of never dawning...it did dawn this morning, and I watched it happen.

Why? Why the heck was I up so damn early in the morning? No, as usually in a situation like this, I did not wake up to the early rays of the sun, I greeted THEM as THEY rose since I'd been up the entire evening and night before.

I stayed up all night. Playing Mah-Jongg. For money. With my Grandmother. Ohhhh YES.

By the time we finally called it quits, my Grandma had trouble walking because she'd been sitting soooooooo long.

Bro - "Man is she tired. After I walked her upstairs to her apartment, she thanked me and shut the door...with the keys still in the lock in the hall."

But I gotta say, it was an indescribably good time. Indescribably because most of the fun was in Chinese and some might be a little lost in translation. Lost in translation because my Chinese sucks.

The night was joined in on by Ehbaba and BouBou, Skinny, and SuperSayan. Them, plus some good food, Mah-Jongg and Wii was more than enough for an all-nighter to make your eyes bleed...which some might have. :) How's that for indescribable?

Mmmm...corn

Too bad I can't offer you any...because while corn's good, the corn that's in my house is busy acting as an ice-pack...on my ankle.

*sigh*

I rolled my ankle yet again today. It's actually been at least a year and a half since the last serious time that I did this, but no time is a good time to do something like this to yourself. Phoo. The worst is that I was booked to play in an out-of-town charity tournament this coming weekend with my friends, and now I can't guarantee that I'm going to be well enough to go! It was going to be a great team and tourney too!

*huff*

Well, so that's the update on my life. If anyone's looking for me, I'll be at home, on my couch, with my bag of corn.

Would you like a crumpet Hero Cookie with that?

meh. For no particular reason except for the fact that I'd been reading backwards (as predicted) and came across a few too many random Hero Cookie adventures (even some when he used to be known as the Thunder Chicken) and remembered that I was ORDERED to pay some homo-age homage to him on my blog.

Speaking of Thunder Chicken, how's THIS for homage?

So, many weekends ago, the Thundering Hero Chicken Cookie himself arrived home on a random visit and ORDERED me to find him an AFC restaurant to eat at. What's AFC, you ask? Asian Fried Chicken, and according to the link he sent me it was supposed to be damn good and available in Canada as opposed to his current London, England roaming grounds. So, as the dedicatedly loyal friend I am, I found him 2 restaurants that served the infamous poultry. On that weekend, we picked the one with the closer address and headed out.

Just to make sure the place actually existed and would be open for our late-night arrival, I called ahead.

Me - Hi, I was wondering what time you were open until?
Guy with HEAVY Korean accent - Hello!
Me - Hi, what time are you open until?
KG - Hah?
Me - What time are you open till?
KG - Oh...2 o'clock.
Me - You're open till 2 o'clock?
KG - Open 2 o'clock.
Me - Okay, thanks... *I take a moment to weigh how good the chances are that he actually understood me* Wait, what time do you CLOSE?
KG - Hah?
Me - CLOSE. What time?
KG - Oh...10 o'clock.
Me - Ah hah. Okay, thanks!

And so we drive out before 10 o'clock that night to the address I'd pulled off the internet. When we got to the plaza it was supposed to be a part of, we were baffled--we didn't see a Korean Chicken place anywhere. We circled a few times reading the different signs lit-up around the plaza and nearly gave up to leave when...

Me - There it is!

And there it was. We'd missed it on the first drive by because the sign wasn't lit. We'd missed it on the second drive by because the windows were dim...due to the grease build-up on them!

At the realization of the reason for the place being so dim, I shot the Thundering Hero Chicken Cookie a look that said: "What the HELL are we getting into?!"

The second look I shot at the THCC was one that said "This was YOUR idea, hence, this is YOUR fault." I gave him that look when we opened the door to the place only to find that the first and best seat available in the place was the middle bench seat out of a minivan!

Oh man.

We ended up ordering 2 orders of the stuff--one of each type; one fried plain, one fried with sauce. We accomplished this communication with the guy behind the counter by having me walk up to the sign up on the wall and POINTING at the pictures of the chicken!

Choosing to sit on two folding chairs rather than the cushy bench by the door, THCC and I waited for our food. Despite his constant whines for liquid, THCC somehow managed to refrain from ordering anything to drink there. This possibly having to do with the fact that half the drinks in the display refrigerator were either dented or already open. We spent our wait time exchanging various "looks" and head shakes. One particular moment was spent restraining our laughter as another customer miraculously appeared through the grime to place an order and then plop down on the best seat in the house to wait.

As soon as we got our food, we burst out of there into the cold February air, only to dissolve into retarded giggles and exclamations of whose fault it was that we were in that situation in the first place.

It was, and still is, THCC's fault. Period.

However, as most Hero Cookie stories turn out, our adventure only ended in good. The AFC not only turned out to be edible, it was actually pretty darned good! Figures Hero Cookie could only eat 3 pieces of the 20 we'd ordered before he called it quits...some lame excuse having to do with jetlag... ;)

And there you have your homage...homo. :D

I am my own biggest fan

I never get tired of me. Hearing about me, looking at me, reading about me. I am my biggest fan.

Last night after my triumphant post, I proceeded to stay online and just re-read at random my old posts. At first, I was just curious as to what I'd had to say back then. But after a few more, I found I was having trouble quitting. I couldn't stop reading. I mean, I'm the one who lived it, who wrote it, and yet I couldn't keep myself from reading on!

I laughed, I cried, I held my breath in suspense. Damn I'm good.

But then, what else am I writing for, if not to hold onto the memories?

"You don't have to hold onto the pain, to hold onto the memories."

And I'm not. Sure, I re-read and cried over the hard times, but that's because there was just some damn good emotion out there on the page. Sometimes I still believe that parts of my life would make for a mediocre book for the masses. I'm a human too--isn't that enough to share?

Here I've settled down to accomplish some work that I don't get done during business hours because there are just too many distractions at that office o' mine, and yet all I can think about is clicking back to read more and more and more...

One of life's little triumphs

I ate lunch at a home not my own. I went out in public in an unsuccessful attempt to run an errand. I napped. I did laundry. I cooked. I ate dinner with family. I hung out a bit with Squiggly and Big G. I emailed. I MSNed. I watched TV with Sherman. I did laundry. I took Sophie out for a walk. I washed dishes. I finally climbed into bed.

And I did it all without a bra on. Ahhhh...a little personal victory on one very lazy day.