Deep Fried Sunday

You're reading it right; there's no typo there. I don't mean the delicious deep fried scoops of ice cream smothered in corn flakes and chocolate and caramel sauces with various toppings such as crushed pecans and wildly coloured sprinkles (although that would more than make my day complete).








Like seriously, U.S. of A., what is UP?











Equally horrific, I mean this past Sunday, pretty much all I ate was deep fried foods, and now it's Wednesday and I still can't feel my heart pump properly.

Boyfriend and I woke up early as per usual, and decided to get our chores out of the way immediately and head out for brunch afterwards. I hate the breakfast part of brunch. Who wants eggs when you can have a burger? Not me! What is this, salad on my plate?? Fries, my good man, I said FRIIIIIIES!!! (I hope you imagine me roaring this when I write it like that, because that's how I felt.) And the burgers at Brad's (the brunch place. For any Torontonians reading, look no further than 325 Roncesvalles.) are not just any burgers.

They come topped with charred eggplant, avocado, bacon and cheese. Okay. They don't just come like that, Inspector Gadget. You have to ask the server for it. *Guilty silence*



So that brings us to about 11:30 AM. Well, as it was a stunning day out on Sunday, practically the first nice weekend day of the year, we opt to go patio hunting, nice and early so we can get a spot. After shopping around in Kensington Market, we find ourselves a nice little place called Waterfalls, an indian tapas restaurant with a patio perfect for people watching.

A couple of friends show up and before you know it, it's eatin' time again!

POW! Onion bhaji'ed!

BAM! Chicken tikka!

CRUNCH! Caesar salad with tandoori chicken!! (Not so bad, just wanted to post so you can see I am capable of making one healthy decision).


Late afternoon rolls around and friends are not ready to pack it in. It is just beautiful out. Well, why not hit up The Foggy Dew on King St.? No reason, as far as I can see! We make our way over there and secure another great spot on a large patio. Boyfriend is hungry again. He did not partake in our extensive "snacking" at Waterfalls.

He goes back and forth for a little while and then decides on "Chicken Fried Chicken Sliders". I can't even find a good enough picture. They sort of look like this:



Except they don't come with vegetables, there are THREE of them, they come on biscuits instead of buns, and a side of chicken gravy for dipping. Boyfriend immediately tosses the biscuit off of one, puts the fried chicken on another piece of chicken, and makes himself a double decker chicken fried chicken slider. Dipped in chicken gravy.

Side note, Boyfriend has stomach of a 6-year-old girl. So after a couple of bites of his Frankenburger, he invites the rest of us to help ourselves. I politely decline. These are the same people that have seen me demolish the above. But then one of them agrees and takes a bite and starts gushing about how delicious it is!! I can't let this go on. I can't. Must..have..taste.. Must..eat... GAHHHHH!!!! (*eats all the rest of burger. dipped in chicken gravy*).

Mmmmmm... I'm hungry.

Wide Open Spaces

Whenever Marty and I go on long drives, he has to drive because I get bored and fall asleep at the wheel, and this is disrespectful towards other drivers trying to "get there alive".

His only other option is to let me drive after drinking 3 coffees, but since that entails singing Dixie Chicks at the top of my lungs (or rapping) for 5 hours straight, he tends to go with the former. I pretty much know all the words to every top 40 song for the last 15 years. It's a gift (...or is it a curse?) No, it's a gift.

We drove back to Ottawa recently to visit the fam, about a five hour drive.

For the first hour or two I'm pretty chatty, so this distracts from the unavoidable outward-bound traffic from Toronto, on a Friday evening. Then I start dozing off because Marty will only listen to old grendpa music, like Pink Floyd or Tupac. The kind of songs that no one under a 100 years old knows the words to, and when I get bored I sleep to pass the time.

Once I fall asleep, Marty will inevitably do something to wake me up: Indian sunburning (is that racist? Sorry, The Indians. I don’t know any other word for squeezing two hands on someone’s arm and rapidly moving back and forth in opposite directions in a painful manner.) or worse yet, filling his mouth up with one of those disgusting black licorice candies and breathing right in my face.

I. Hate. Black. Licorice.

Won’t let me sleep, ehhhhh? Nobody tells ME what to do! So now my new thing is whenever he pulls up beside a car, I start pretending like I’m running beside them. I’ll share this with you in case you are ever in my predicament. It’s not a happy, fun, “let’s-play-a-game run”. I mean like a balls-out race, pumping my arms as fast as I can and looking over my shoulder to see if they are gaining. Are they? Throw in a menacing look or snarl (but only for a second, keep your eyes on the prize)! Have a bottle of water or other drink handy? Chug it down like you’re dying of thirst (don’t stop pretend running with your other arm. If some rolls down your face, do not, and I repeat, DO NOT, stop and wipe it off. It adds to the intimidation.) Once in a while, make eye contact with your competitor, if you can. The key in Pretend Race is believability.

After two races, Marty will be begging me to go to sleep. But you know what? I’m PUMPED! I see you, The Girl in the Blue Hyundai. It’s on.


P.S. It has occurred to me that I should probably refer to Marty as something else, as he more than likely doesn't want any clients to know about his black licorice breath. Henceforth (don't mind me, I'm reading World Without End by Ken Follett right now, and also my friend is dating a prince, so I'm feeling very "days of yore" recently), Marty shall be known as The Boyfriend.


kthxbye.

Weather Patterns

Of course rain would ruin one of my favorite days to party out of the whole year: Cinco De Mayo.

The entire 25-degree work day was spent emailing mi amiga about the fun things we were going to do: walk around Kensington market and eat burritos, hit up a patio and order sangria in the sunshine, watch as the latino community came out and sell their wares in droves... It was a dream come true.

Anything that allows me to escape reality and pretend I'm somewhere spanish-speaking is a dream come true. Last weekend, I went to a communal Indian birthday party at the Liberty Grand, which looks like a resorty-palace. For a couple of hours, I pretended everyone was Mexican and I was in Cabos. ¡ARRIBA!¡ARRIBA!...and Namaste.

Pure bliss.

I'm pretty sure I just offended a huge percentage of the world but since I can't decide if its the Mexican population or the Indian population, I'm going to go with both, so they can cancel each other out. I'm very diplomatic, Méxindia.

Anyways, of course my arch-nemesis, The Rain, showed up the second I set foot out of the office and kept on for the rest of the evening, effectively destroying any chance of plan follow-through. We still went out for tapas, but it wasn't the same. In my mind, and I'm sure others will agree, "Down South" means endless sunny days, without a cloud in sight.

But that's total horseshit.

I lived Down South for about a year. Sunny days exist, that's for sure, but for a pretty good portion of it, at least in Honduras, rain ruined many a plan for me, and one time, my dear friends, it caused this unlucky girl to fall into a sewer.

Sewers in Puerto Cortés aren't the beautiful works of art you see here. There's no lid to cover the grossness that lies beneath, nor do the sewer contents run deep below the streets, hidden from view. They run about 3 feet below street level, under the sidewalks. And by sidewalks, I mean giant slabs of concrete strategically placed over the sewer drains. Some of the slabs are broken, or caved into the sewer, so the grossness can be clearly visible at times. And by grossness, I mean people use these holes as garbage cans, so on top of the crap that's already swimming through the drains, there's huge mounds of mushy decomposing garbage that never gets picked up. I hope I'm painting a vivid enough picture for you.

Moving on.

One day, there was so much rain that school was cancelled.



That's me in 2006!

We (being me and my friend/roommate Tamara) keep thinking it's going to stop, but it rains and rains and we are finally desperate enough to brave the waters and head to the grocery store to pick up emergency supplies.

We have to walk one block north because we live on a slope and no cab is foolish enough to drive on these roads.

We end up picking up our emergency supplies and getting in a cab back. This cab is foolish enough to drive on those flooded roads. He drops us off right beside our house, where that picture above was taken.

The car starts to fill up with water in the back and we toss him the money casually, pretending like his car is not going to need thousands of dollars worth of work.

In our haste to leave and pretend we have no idea what is going on, Tamara hops out and I start handing grocery bags to her over my head. One step out of the car and I'm in floodland, baby.

So I try to step out carefully, as close as possible to the house, because that's where the most leverage is. The cab drives away, and in trying to avoid being splashed by the cab, I lose my footing.

And fall into a sewer.

The entire ground was covered in water and it was impossible to see where the sidewalk started, ended, or had cracks. I can still feel the soft, decomposing garbage on my nightmare feet.

I shriek to high heavens, because I am literally submersed in raw sewage. Try to imagine this happening to you. Just try. Yeah.

Clambering to safety as quickly as possible, I run into the house, yanking off all sewage clothes and screaming non-stop. It's all very cartoonish, but really happening. I head for the shower.

It does not work.

It. does. not. work.

Not having water was typical in Puerto, but this was basically the most awful time possible. I use some of the drinking water, but in a flood, there was virtually no way to get any more, and I couldn't really use all our drinking water to take a bath....Or could I? (no, I couldn't).

My genius mother had packed about 1000 wetnaps in my bag for just this type of emergency. How might she know I was going to trip and fall into a sewer, you might ask? Well, I have had a pretty long history with falling into things. You wouldn't have to be that intuitive.

After being almost disinfected (or rather, almost running out of supplies) by 893 wetnaps, that antibacterial stuff you don't need water for that I can't remember the name of right now, and my tears' water, guess who decides to show up for a visit?

Why, running tap water, of course!

Not a good day, friends, not a good day.

PEZ!

How terrifying is the very concept of PEZ?


Marty bought me a Betty Boop PEZ candy dispenser because I hadn't seen one in forever and thought they were taken off the market for obvious reasons. (Because they're terrifying.)

While PEZ candy is delicious, I can't help but wonder what kind of marketing executives thought of the concept of popping candies out of nearly decapitated toys...

(doodle-oo! doodle-oo! doodle-oo! That's the dream theme song from... emmmm... Wayne's World? OMG I'm a hundred.)

"I got it, I got it. We fill the insides of the cartoon character's bodies with candy, like a fuckin' mule, see? Then the kiddies got a toy to play wit' and a treat."

"But how are the kids supposed to extract the goods, Boss?"

"What am I, Joe? A fuckin' engineer? Ha! Fellas, get-a-load-a this guy. You better come up with something by noon, kid, or Imma break ya fuckin' head off."

...The Eureka moment must have happened right then and there in Joe (Pesci)'s brain.

GAHHH DAMMIT. OK. The problem with "research" is that, more often than not, my theories get shut down by "The Truth".

With my exceptional Googling prowess, I just found out that this handsome devil, Eduard Haus, created the idea of PEZ.


This guy. Created a candy that children had to break the head off of their beloved toy to acquire, then ingest via neck sucking. That, coupled with the fact that he's like infinity years old, automatically makes him perverted.

Who you giving side eyes too, Eduard?

Mexican Standoff

A hypothetical/daily situation between Marty and myself might go like this:

Marty: Can you get me a glass of water?
Me: Can I watch Million Dollar Listing?
Marty: That is the worst show in the history of Television.
Me (in my best Uma Thurman impression): Well, well, well, it looks like we have ourselves a Mexican standoff, then, don’t we?

But by the time I’m done my sexy sentence, Marty has already gotten his glass of water and is sitting back on the couch, watching Pawn Stars.

Marty: Do you even know what a Mexican standoff is?
Me: A tradeoff…? (I say this with a barely perceptible inflection towards the end, because I may be right, in which case, I want it to sound like I knew all along. But if it’s completely far off, I want to make it sound like I was asking so I don't look like an idiot).
Marty: (blank stare) Maybe you should look phrases up before you use them publicly.

So now, partially because I’m a little bit mad that I don’t know what’s going on with Chad/Madison/Josh on the TV, and partially because I want to use the phrase Mexican Standoff correctly for years to come (fyi, I’m Chinese, but I like to pretend I’m Latina. Has nothing to do with this story, but just for future reference, I like Latino things.), I leave the living room and hop on the Google train.

This is what Wikipedia tells me:

A Mexican standoff is a slang term defined as a stalemate or impasse.

“Stalemate”? “Impasse”? Like, what are you even talking about WikiStupidia? After numerous Mexican runarounds on the internets, I finally gather that it means an equal opportunity confrontation.


I’ve never been in one of those things. The reason for this is I change sides all the time. I'm the type of girl that would give up your name, address, and birthdate (for good measure) to avoid an unpleasant line of questioning. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up, now. What do you mean, 'I have to go with you'? Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. His name is Martin Cyr..No, spelled with a C. Yep, just like that. He lives at my place and will be home in about an hour so you can get him then. Can you just give me like 15 minutes to get my stuff please? Yeah, sure I can call you when I'm out. Hey, what are friends for, right?"

I’ll give you a classic example of the old Switch Sides.

When Steph (I told you about her) and I were 15 or so, and allowed to leave school property at lunch, we used to hang out across the street on the grass lot by the gas station.

Steph, being the less timid of the two of us (if you can believe it), would ask adult strangers to please go into the gas station and buy packs of cigarettes, while I stood with her and tried to look cool, with some of our other friends.

Obviously, no respected adult in our white-picketed community would do this, but every once in a while some self-deprecating loner would walk by, eager for the attentions of pretty, young ladies.

On this particular day, we caught the attention of two portly trucker types. They can't believe our outrageous boldness, and we all have a good laugh together. We're friends!

"Sure, what kind?" The fatter of the two asks. We're in!

"Oh my God, you guys are so totally THE BEST!" We gush.

The very second our friends walk out of the gas station, and are about to hand over the goods to Steph, they are intercepted by a young, well-dressed couple.

"Stop it right there." The woman says, pulling out her police badge.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

The guys are immediately pulled aside and given a stern talking to, right in the view of at least 100 sets of impressionable eyes.

Even in our young mindsets, we know whose side we have to take if we want to get out of this situation alive. We eavesdrop to the best of our ability, but basically these dudes are being charged big time.

The woman comes over and protectively coos over us as if we're the victims, and we are just soaking it all up, agreeing with everything she says and looking at our two former friends with wide-eyed innocence as if they're the stain on our otherwise perfect society.

Finally, the police/young couple/our only source of protection leaves, and we are left standing with the two guys. Instead of looking like two huge friendly teddy bear types like we had previously thought, the guys are looking like they want to sell us for meat. Not the slutty kind; the eatin' kind.

"Look," one of them says. "I know you were just scared back there, but the truth is, we're in this together. So it's only fair that we split the cost of this fine. Do you think you guys can come up with $500?"

$500?!?! That's like my whole life. The most expensive thing I own is No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom CD. CDs cost like 20 bucks back in the day.

But before I have to start even mentally selling off my prized possessions, Steph retorts, "Fuck. That. We're not paying you shit, assholes. You guys shouldn't have bought us those smokes. You heard what that cop said. That's illegal; we're only 14!"

Aaahh.. from the mouths of babes.

In March

At the end of each month, I'm going to attempt to recap the miscellaneous adventures and going-ons I had that I didn't write about for whatever reason.

First of all, I smashed our car. Well, technically I guess you could say I smashed "Marty's car". Well, why the Hell is the parking path so narrow? It's like my new apartment challenges me to fail. You win, new apartment. Big man.

Anyways, luckily for me, I was on my way to meet a very smashed Marty at Canoe, a very nice restaurant in Toronto. How can you be mad over $50 steaks and wine that the douchebag waiter says "isn't sold anywhere"? And also, you're stupid drunk?

Side note: what kind of waiter says that? "you can't get this anywhere?"

"Really?" Cat retorts, "Even if I go to Tuscany to the winery where this was made?"

"Yes. Even then I doubt it."

You're so cool, Canoe Waiter.

Anyways, the next morning, Marty is left with a hangover, a smashed car, and the inability to be mad at me, because there's nothing worse than bringing up a past argument, and we already went over this all last night.

*******

Another funny thing that happened was I made lifelong enemies with the staff at Futureshop where Marty and I bought a new tv, ps3, and God of War (see you later, Sunlight).

Look. Is it a big deal to ask for a discount if you are spending thousands of dollars in a store? Is it a big deal to then poll the floor staff on what they think the package is worth ("the ticketed price", they say), and then ask each individual staff what they could do for me (which was nothing every time) whenever my salesgirl turned around? What about when I escalated the matter to the store manager, who in a fit of desperation to get me out of the store and redeem the dignity of his staff, gave me his own discount? Is that a big deal? HM?

In any case, the next day, I realized I lost my phone and the culprit was Futureshop. I call and politely describe who I am and tell them my plight.

"Ohhh.. um.. right, right, yeah I totally remember you. Um.. hold on a second." (HOLD.) "Yeahh, we don't have your phone. Sorry." (CLICK.)

But she didn't even ask me one thing about the phone! Now, I'm not saying that they did find my phone and are doing all sorts of terrible things to rack up bills for me on it, but I'm not saying they're not, either. I guess we'll find out at the end of April.

*******

Once in a while, I like to get dressed up like a fancy lady and do something I can't afford. Most recently, it was a benefit for WaterCan, hosted by Aveda. The ladies there were on a league of their own, bidding thousands of dollars at the live auction for some guy to clean up their backyard. Cat and I are trying to be cool, Daddy-O, and this works for a good chunk of the night... until goody bag time.

"Oh.. these are for us? Why, thank you, sir. Catherine, let us make way to the ladies' room. Excuse us, please." (curtsy)

Once we get into the washroom, we're like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, minus all the sexin' for money. "FULL SIZE AVEDA LOTIONS??" We shriek in delight, until the toilet flushes and we curtsy on out.

On our way out, I swear to God, this happens: An older, portly gentleman tells us he is the one of the producers for Sex and the City, and our group of friends looks perfect for a new program he is developing. We're still trying to be cool, but let's be honest, the closest I am going to be to Sex in the City is that camping scene in Brüno - "Vee are sooh like ze sex in ze seety gehls!!" That's me.

We humour this Crazy Old Man (I say humour, but really I was already mentally packing for LA) for a while, as he is pitching his new show. All of a sudden, this woman comes running down the stairs. "Harold!" She shouts as she hurries toward us, "Ugh, Harold! What the hell are you doing? Are you playing Producer again?" She gives us a look that she has clearly given many a group of young women before. "I'm sorry, he does this all the time. He just wants to talk." He laughs and shrugs, like a boy who just got caught. He is no producer for Sex and the City.

Afterwards, we head of to a nearby lounge, where a well-suited Bay Street crowd frequents. We break out the camera and play what I like to call "Supermodel Documentary Hour".

The next half hour or so goes like this:

"OH. MY. GOD. You look sooooOOooo good."
"No, you look so good."
"No, like seriously? Seriously, that colour is ahmaaaazing."
"You don't even understand how beautiful that dress is on you."

(The male half of our party roll their eyes and exit bar due to embarassment.)

"Wow. Like just WOW."
"I can't even believe how beautiful we look tonight."
"Right?? Look at this picture. Just look at it. Perfection."

I should inform you that not even one girl is in the bar. Not even one. Every single man in the bar is watching at us and laughing as we take glamour shots, in "candid" poses like Gazing Wistfully at the Candle, or my personal favourite, Somebody Said Something Hilarious:



This is basically what every single one of our 800 pics looks like.


Then two of our girlfriends come to meet us at the bar. The first words they scream in greeting: "OH MY GOD!!! HOW AMAZING DO WE ALL LOOK TONIGHT??"

Highway to the DangerZone

Today I flew a plane. Like a real airplane that goes into the sky and has people in it.

My instructor, David, looks like Jude Law's less balding but more Russian killy-like younger brother. Except I couldn't pinpoint exactly who it was that he resembled, so I spent the entire briefing (which, by the way, was done with a plastic airplane toy and a map. Like.. thanks. No one is safe.) trying to figure it out. When he notices I am not paying attention, he politely stops and stares until I bring myself back. But then he goes on talk about yolks! I haven't eaten one thing today and I'm starving, so now the only thing I can concentrate on is a goat cheese/portobello omelette.

So when he stands up and asks if we are ready, my only two choices are:

1. Reveal that I'm sorry but I've already forgotten every single word that he said and look like an idiot. Is this even an option? Please.

2. Pretend like I just learned how to fly a plane by looking at a plastic toy moving around a map and risk everyone's lives.

Obviously I choose the latter, because it's just me, Marty and Jude Jr. and I don't even know that guy. Plus, I had made arrangements for someone to check on Taiko if we hadn't returned by afternoon. I'm very diligent.

Right away I know I'm in over my head when Jude says, "Okay, here is the fire extinguisher. I'll assume you both know how to use a fire extinguisher and I don't have to go over it with you?" I nod, but the minute he turns around my nod becomes a frantic negative head shake at Marty, who rolls his eyes and says it's fine. I have no idea how to use a fire extinguisher, but if Marty says it's fine than that means he'll save us if there is a fire and there's no need for me to know. LA LA LA LA LA

He asks who wants to go first and although I usually want to go first all the time and bulldoze my way to the front of the line, I beg Marty to go, thinking that maybe I can sneak some peeks and cheat my way through plane flying.

In my fantastical mishmashed cerebellum, I imagine the plane to be extremely spacious, with all of us being able to sit in the cockpit and have drinks, laughing over velocity jokes.

Apparently, I was not very thorough with my researching and this turns out to the plane:

Yeah, there will be no sneak peeking here. I can't even see one thing they're doing from the back seat! Ok, that's a lie. I'm sure I could have seen what Jude Jr. was showing Marty, but we were flying over Lake Ontario and it was so pretty that I forgot that I had to fly in 30 minutes.

Marty got to fly right by the CN Tower! Look how close he is!

When I realize that we are about to land, my sense of dread returns. Like seriously, I have to fly a plane. Imagine you had to fly a plane. That's pretty much what it was like; I'm a very normal person.

When we do land, we get to hang out on land for only 5 minutes! 5 MINUTES before I have to reboard, but this time sit in the front seat and fly this mechanical beast.

The plus side is I get to wear this amazing headset:

But it's also very distracting, because the two things I am thinking now are:

1. I must CONFESS!! That my LONELINESS!! Is killing me NOOOoooOOoooW, don't you know I still believe? That you will be here... and give me a siiiiIIiiiIign. HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME!

2. That Marty and Jude can hear me breathing through the headset, so I stop breathing, taking in precious droplets of oxygen only to confirm that yes, Jude, I'm clear on how to fucking take off, okay? (But I'm not at all.) I might actually pass out from lack of air and nerves, but I can't have this stranger thinking I'm a mouth breather.

While my brain is working overtime trying to figure out how I can breathe extra quietly, this is going on in front of me:


BEEP BOP BOOP BLIP BLIP DOOP PAP DING! "Golf, Golf, Poppa, Québec - do you copy?" BEEP BEEP BAP BOOP BIP BOP BAP!





Through strategically-placed furrowed brows and knowing nods, I manage to convince Jude that I know what I'm doing through trickery. He murmurs his approval when I level off, complete my turns and complete the altitude exercises, but I can see he has his white-knuckled hands on the equipment at all times.

By the time we are ready to descend, I'm thinking about how I can casually throw up out the window we are not allowed to open without anyone noticing. I've thrown up casually numerous times before, sometimes in the middle of serious conversations. You just keep on, man, you just keep on.

Jude is trying to get me to land this MoFo and I really have not even the slightest clue as to where to start. I tell him I'm not feeling well. He asks me if I'm sure (it's hard to tell, because I look very beautiful.) He eventually lands the plane because I refuse to touch anything anymore and I'm just staring out the window in response, while our plane plummets towards the airport and we are getting dispatched repeatedly to veer to the left.

All in all, it was a fun day. Marty decided to go forward with his pilot license and I will happily ride as a passenger from now on.

Mongoose to Stink Beetle

Martin, boyfriend/best friend/general partner in crime, signed me up for a flying lesson. Next Sunday afternoon, weather permitting, you might hear a banshee shrieking through the heavens, as my Cessna (that's pilot talk for "small plane") spirals out of control over downtown Toronto.

I can't drive a car very well. I can't even run very fast, or I trip over my own feet. I have literally been in about six car accidents, all my fault but one. The only thing I do worse than take lead on transportation is let someone else do something fun while I wait. Even if it's something that might make me actually shit my pants, I'm pretty much going to be the most annoying, sulky person in the world if you do something fun and I don't.

Marty is totally bad-ass. I know him from high school, but I was a junior back in the day and he was a senior, and a boy three years older than you in high school may as well be your grendpeppy. He came to my high school for final year, with his bleached blonde spiky hair on a shiny new skateboard (prerequisite if you want to survive as a boy in late 90's high school) and slightly grungy plaid. He lived across the street from my best friend, Steph, whose garage was The Place to hang out when we were 14. We had hit The Jackpot. He smoked cigarettes AND drove a beat up Golf... in red, ladies.

I'm just going to take a quick second to tell you about Steph so you can grasp the kind of kids that we were. Both of us were Baby Geniuses and would correct teachers all the time if they made grammatical, spelling, or general historical errors. But we wanted to be awesome and did whatever it took, which in high school, means pretending to not be Baby Geniuses. It meant that whenever we walked to the principal's office for whatever reason, like dropping off the attendance sheet, we would hang our heads down low to look like we were about to get suspended. Or better yet, if we were called to the principal's office (over the entire school intercom!) we would roll our eyes and say "again?!" when really, my mom just wanted to let me know that she just checked the juice boxes and they had expired. OKAY, MOM! GAWD!!! Moving on.

Knowing him now, I feel terrible for Young Martin. He'll do anything for people, even if it makes him look like a total douchebag, which we did (obviously). I would walk the ten minutes over to Steph's house every morning, so we could coerce him to drive us to school together, even though taking the bus would have taken me less than 10 minutes. Strength in numbers! Being far too nice, Young Martin would relent after only making a few excuses (we would need at least 10 before we would even consider stopping our dual "Aw, come on..." harmonization).

Back then, I didn't give a shit. We would get to school and girls would ask us things like, "what's the new guy like?" and we could casually toss our hair back and say," Oh, Martin? He's cool." (Long, dramatic pause to show reluctance about divulging a secret. Lower voice to whisper.) "He's from Germany, you know, so he's just adjusting, meeting cool people. Poor guy, must be hard to leave all your friends like that."

He's not even from Germany!!! He was from like two hours away. But it's not like they were getting rides to school from him so they would never know what was what. Anyways, the year came and left with no major developments, and eventually, Steph and I got into witchcraft (No. Just no. I'm not ready.) and Marty graduated and moved out East.

Fast forward to a number of years later.

In short, I befriended the very friends Marty had back in high school, he moves back, I think his ears are cute, we go out a couple of times, I move indefinitely to Nicaragua, we miss, he shows up in Nicaragua when my indefinite plan becomes a definitely not happening plan, we hang out a bit there, we hitchhike across Costa Rica, the weather sucks, we come back to Ottawa, move to Toronto due to boredom and now here we are. There's a lot more romance and adventure in our relationship but I'll leave it at that. <3

Another cool thing that happened over the weekend was my amazing friend Cat got these passes to a high end makeup convention and got me an entirely new makeup collection. All MAC, thank you very much. Now, when she told me she was going, I put in my order for some beautiful, neutral, societally-acceptable colours. Makeup is extremely exciting to me; the higher end, the moreso. When she gets back with literally thousands of dollars of makeup, we lose our minds together. The fact that they are the discontinued colours, and all in bright pink, greens and reds makes no difference, although it would have been a bit nice to know before I threw out my entire makeup collection in anticipation. I went to Costco on Sunday in complete Clown Whore get-up and didn't even care because I was such a fancy lady with all my new MAC makeup. Like seriously, green liquid liner to pick up bulk paper towels.

Cat is one of Those Girls. Tall, blonde, becomes friends with everybody and gets you the best every single thing. These are the best kind of girls to align yourself with. She is but one of the best friends I have in the Those Girls category.

The first is Lisa. When Lisa met up with me in Amsterdam back in the day, the first thing she said to me, having not seen me for a very long time, was "Dude, what the fuck happened to your face?" I had broken out in a terrible, terrible (MON DIEU, QUE TERRIBLE!!) rash all over my face and nowhere else. It meant she would have to work extra hard, which isn't that hard when you are 6 feet tall and always look like you just stepped off a Parisian runway.

But the real testing starts when I lose my contacts (I lose everything) and I have to wear coke bottle glasses for the duration of our adventure.

And then my sandals snap and I'm stuck limping behind her long and graceful gazelle-like strides like some science experiment gone horrifically wrong. Just picture it, it's awful.

T'were I alone, my experience in Europe would have consisted of a lot of sitting around in hostels, pretending to be interested in futbal and scheming up ways to trick people into hanging out with me. Instead, we got guest list into every club, all sorts of freebies, and I had the best trip ever. Thanks, Lisa <3

I am not a tough girl.

Today, on my way home from work, an enormous whale of a woman nearly knocked me into the subway tracks and destroyed my life. Well, there was no train coming, but you get the idea. I give her this look like, "Excuse my beautiful beauty!?" She looks back but just keeps on walking, like it was my fault I couldn't dodge out of her way fast enough as she bulldozed past the entire walking area. Like I'm the asshole here. Like I forced her mother to mate with an ogre.

This is so unfair! On public transport, I say please and thank you, I give up my seat to old people, and I turn down my ipod to whisper level so no one is disturbed by Lauryn Hill's beautiful rendition of Joyful, Joyful from Sister Act. 2.

And YET. Yet, all the crazy bag ladies, the Googley-eyed, and the ne'er-do-gooders of Toronto seem to gravitate towards me, and always on public transport.

Anyways, I'm embarassed to report that nothing happened past giving Turkey Sub The Look. And let's be honest, it was only to the back of her head. I wish I said something, and in my mind, she got the verbal beatdown of a lifetime, but in real life? Not so much.

I am not a tough girl.

I can attribute my lack of toughness to two historic events that shape who I am today: a complete and utter wuss. Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage... (That's me pulling you to the early 90's.)

When I was about 11, my parents went away, leaving my 15 year old sister, Olivia, in charge of me and my then 7 year old brother. Obviously, she throws a massive party in true Kid n' Play fashion. All the boys are wearing high tops and wildly coloured baggy jeans, and the girls are clad in black, have drawn on their beautiful eyebrows/lip outlines. The smell of hairspray, cigarettes, and Love's Baby Soft is rampant.

I'm allowed to hang out. I'm in Heaven. My brother, unfortunately, is told to stay in the walk in closet in my parents' room for the night. I know that nowadays, this sounds like abuse, but this was the 90's, man. Everybody was rolling down the streets smoking indo, sippin' on gin and juice. Well, not, like everybody; not, like, me. I just sat there and marvelled at my newfound grown-uppityness.

All of a sudden, Hell breaks loose. I don't know why, but for some reason, every single person has to leave the house. There's, like, a fight outside or something. Olivia and her bff, we'll call her Carrie (because that's her name), both the types to not take shit, divide and conquer, my sister emptying the main floor and her friend clearing out the basement. Where I am. I am freaking out, but obviously this has shaped out to be the best day of my life.

I'm following Carrie around because she picks up a BAT, like she's about to throw down some crazy, and I'm petrified. What happens next, when I reminisce now, must absolutely go down as The Most Embarrassing Moment of Carrie's life. She is screaming and threatening fully grown teenage boys in my basement. With a bat. I'm standing beside her in my best Tough Girl impression, and I throw in a "You got that?! Party's OVER, ok? OK?" as if I'm going to do anything about it. I'm 11, my glasses cover 90% of my face, my outfit consists of spandex bedazzlement, and everything I know about Tough Girls I learned from Brenda Walsh. I had purple and green elastics on my braces and a rainbow coloured retainer.

Everyone eventually leaves, but even in my preadolescence, I know as soon as the words leave my mouth that I am a massive Tough Girl failure, and I have to repress this memory (which I have until now).

(Cue Venga Boys)

I'm 16. I'm coming home from ELECTRIC CIRCUS. 'Nuff said? Okay, for those of you not in the know, Electric Circus was a live dance show hosted by MuchMusic from the late 80's to early 2000. A common outfit for a male "EC" dancer might be a blue top hat, no shirt (just yellow glitter), and oversized fleece pants in hot pink.



This is real picture of my friend back in the EC days, although I didn't know her then. I only post this because, for one, I can't find any of myself, and two, as someone who has an exclusively holt renfrew wardrobe now, she is completely unrecognizable. She's wearing a tablecloth here.

On this night, I opted for a more demure look: pigtails (?!), bellbottomed jeans that I made myself by cutting up two perfectly good pairs and sewing them into ONE, and a red sequinned top. Eeyeah. Moving on.

So I get on the bus, and I see this girl who used to go to my high school, Shelley Collins (whose name has only slightly been altered for protective purposes). She was the type that got up in the middle of geography class, hyperventilating, and no one knew why. Geography is not that difficult, Shelley. It's France, it's there, it's not going anywhere. After years of unwarranted hyperventilation and cruel high school torment, Shelley transfers to another high school and no one sees her for years. Until now.

She's beautiful! Shelley is like a character right out of a straight to DVD movie produced by magnanimous forces Aaron Spelling and Jackie Collins combined. Her face is tearstain-free and she's dressed in typical, suburban fare. Not like me. I smile at her in acknowledgement (we weren't friends) and keep walking to the back of the bus. Because I'm so awesome.

About 10 minutes on this bus ride goes by before Shelley comes by and sits beside me, with a smile like she wants to be friends. Now, while she may appear to be sane at that moment, there's no fucking way I'm going to become friends with a potential hyperventilator. Sorry, reasonless hyperventilators of the world.

Anyways, as necessary niceties are exchanged, I can see that this is no ordinary social call, and Shelley's eyes have a bit of the crazy and she's talking really fast about high schools. Oh my god. She wants to fight me. Fight. Me. She thinks I was one of the people that made her crazy, but this is not me!! I took Calculus in high school; I was always friendly with both The Amazing and The Terrible!

I stop the niceties and ask if she is okay, because it is so obvious that something is not that I'm just getting creeped out. She takes a deep breath and says this: "I'm going to beat up your brother."

?!?!??!?!

WHAT?? My brother at the time is 12! He listens to Savage Garden and plays Pretend Butterflies with me when we're bored (I'm sorry, Will. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry.) On a side note, I may have slightly miscalculated the activities and dates/ages. Pretend Butterflies is just a game where we tie blankets around our necks like Superman, but instead of playing a socially acceptable game like Pretend Superheroes, we opt to become butterflies. It's weird. I know this now. We may have been 4 and 8 though when we did that, which seems much more appropriate that 12 and 16, so let's go with that. (But it's not true.)

Back to Shelley. After I breathe a sigh of relief that no one can hear but my own blackened selfish heart because I realize that my face is safe for now, I work on convincing her to not beat up my preteen brother. I FAIL. I'm still not even sure why she wanted to, but by the time my stop came and I had to cut her off to go home, she was still dead set on me passing the message that she was coming for him and to watch out.

So yeah, Will, if you see Shelley Collins, watch out. She's going to beat you up. I'm sorry I forgot to tell you for almost 15 years, but she's coming for you, okay?

**********

So now you can clearly see how these near death experiences have scarred me for life. You are probably thinking one of two things:

1. If I stopped dressing like such a dickhead, maybe these things wouldn't happen to me.

2. Why does my brother seem to have a passing role in the events in such a weird way? Being locked in a closet and threatened by a paper bag inhaler??

Well, as for my dress code, these brushes with death still happen to me when I'm wearing my normal clothes, which nowadays do not involve bedazzlement or multiple sewing-togethers.

And for the record, my brother turned out totally normal.



He's nocturnal and about to go on a tour of South East Asia with his punk band Germ Attak. One time, he got locked in the catacombs underneath Paris for 8 hours straight in the pitch dark. That's totally normal, right? Yeah, yeah, it's cool.

First Post!!

So I've been staring at this blank screen for about 45 minutes. I'm trying to impress you with my creative mind flow but I don't really have anything specific to write about these days. My time of shoving microscopic but very absorbant towels and a Swiss Army knife (both of which I've never used in my life... Thanks for the tips, Internets.) into backpacks measured by litres are over. For *why* backpacks are measured in litres doesn't make any sense to me. Who's bringing freely poured juice on their travels?

So here's an intro to me as a person rather than events going on in my life.

These are my parents posing in a glamour shot with a live 8 lb. king crab minutes before eating it.
When I was younger, instead of having an imaginary friend, I had an imaginary camera crew. Every time my parents would put a plate of cold jellyfish, thousand year old eggs, or the part of cow's stomach that kind of sort of looks like seafood (but you know in your heart it's not) in front of me, I would open my eyes wide, raise my eyebrows and slowly turn my head to the left, also known as Camera One, for a direct face shot of my horror. This is long before the days of The Office, or even Home Alone.


I still catch myself doing this sometimes. Trust, you do NOT want your boss catching you making Macauley Culkin faces to your monitor. The rest of the day gets very embarassing.

The funniest part about it is that they would try to convince me to eat these things by telling me the prices of them. For what reason would an in-depth analysis of B.C. abalone stocks peak the interest of a 6 year old child?

This is my dog, Taiko.














Taiko is more like a roommate who doesn't pay rent or clean up after himself, and always eats all the cheese. However, you get invited to all the good parties because he's so cute and everyone wants him around, so you put up with him.

Taiko is a very mild-mannered roommate who spends 90% of his time sleeping or stretching. You'd think that you could let him off his leash and play a nice game of "Let's stop here and sleep/stretch together" but this is not the case. He is a terrible walker. The minute his leash is off, Taiko runs like The Dickens and you're stuck chasing him in your heels as fast as you can, with tears freezing on your face, and asking strangers to please throw themselves down on the street in front of your barreling wolflike dog to stop him for you. Like a crazy person.

On that note, what does "run like The Dickens" even mean? The only Dickens I've ever heard of is Charles Dickens (and since when does anyone call him The Dickens?) and no matter how I try to picture it, no sense can be made. That being said, I have no idea what Charles Dickens looks like, so for all I know, he looks extremely fast.




Okay I just Googled it (my thirst for knowledge is vast, you see) and I only think he looks medium fast. Judge for yourself. I could outrun you, The Dickens.








Anyways, the other day I was walking Taiko at the ungodly hour of 6:45 AM, when about 20 feet in front of me is a large grey furry thing. It kind of looks like a rat, but cat sized. Taiko looks pretty mellow, so once it scurries under a car and out of my sight, I proceed. Bad idea. Taiko lunges his face under the car, pulls out a grey furry thing and starts shaking it and slammimg its head into the concrete. I am screaming, like at the top of my lungs, and the sun hasn't even risen yet. When I finally yank him away, the furry thing is lying motionless on the sidewalk and I speedwalk away from the scene of the crime. I know it sounds bad, but what can you do??

On my way back, I'm walking on the other side of the sidewalk and I see a woman about my age crouched over looking at the furry thing.

Because I've caught my breath by now (and I won the Drama Guild Award back in high school for my acting finesse), I casually ask, "what's that?"

The woman looks like she is about to cry. "It's the possum I see every day on my way to the gym."

A POSSUM!?! What am I, living in the Green Forest??

"Oh my god!" I exclaim. "That's awful!" Meanwhile, I am holding Taiko behind me because, as he is the most expressive dog I've ever seen, she will see immediately that he is laughing hysterically at my antics. He did not win the Drama Guild Award back in high school.

At this point, I notice Crazy Woman standing by her door, with her arms folded, looking at me like "Cynthia, you are so fuckin' retarded." probably because it happened right outside her house and she saw the whole thing. She doesn't actually say anything though, to my relief, and just looks like she hates me (obviously I will take her hatred over her blowing my cover and effectively destroying any chance I have of making a new friend. Can you imagine? "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT 'THAT'S AWFUL'?? YOU KILLED IT NOT EVEN 10 MINUTES AGO!! I SAW YOU!" I would die.)

Then I realize she's not looking at me like that because she's in the know. She's looking at me like that because last week I screamed at her and her two small children to jump in front of my rabid looking, unleashed dog and catch him for me.