life is like a permeable shower curtain

 aren't shower curtains supposed to be impermeable? why can we not find plastic shower curtains anywhere?

1. getting up early was rough - i was still in dream-fugue for a while after our alarms sounded - but getting mr smear out of bed was even rougher. at least, after the initial shock and resentment, things were okay.

2. accompanying gd to the dentist for the second part of her root canal, and taking mr smear for breakfast. i tried to get some work done while he read. the vegan breakfast looked great, but was mediocre at best. i mean, at least he ate the "eggs", which were more curry than eggs, and he doesn't really like curry. but we both had too much of the pickled garlic. a tiny amount was too much, and haunted us both for quite a while after.

pg's folks walked in while i was in the middle of my team's daily, and didn't get the hint that i was in a meeting and couldn't say hi, which was amusingly awkward both for me and my teammates. i had a very nice chat with them afterwards, though.

then gd joined us, met pg's introduced herself to pg's parents. gd had walked into the coffee shop carrying a broom, and pg's mom asked her where she was flying 🤣

3. we caught a bus home, getting off early and paying the hardware store a visit. we picked up a shower curtain. then we stopped by a nature store, and mr smear found a bag of panda's dubai-style vegan chocolate. which i've been wanting to try for a while. i also needed something to calm the garlic-ness.

it was great. i wouldn't pay huge sums of money for it, but it was great.

4. mr smear joined his last two online classes until the end of the pesach break, i tried to work. "tried to work" is the theme of the day, because i - was - a - wreck. i was tired, unmotivated, and everything was a struggle.

also, physically uncomfortable. and i snacked constantly.

i did finish reading ghost in the shell during a lunch break. it's fascinating. it's very clever. it's got 80's israel and mossad references that are as amusing as they are darkly disquieting.

i made mr smear outline a map of israel and hunt down major cities. he did a disappointingly half-assed job of it.

5. after mr smear completed his chores - he's been helping gd a lot lately - we took out the recycling and took a short walk to see if we could find a bath mat. correction - we took a short skip. i introduced mr smear to sheng wang's bit about skipping a while back and he's taken it to heart. also, it's hard not to smile as i let him drag me into it, because otherwise he gets too far ahead of me >D

we first discovered that gd had somehow missed an entire row of frozen vegan dumplings at the store. then we went to a supermarket and found the garbage bags gd and i like (this is how we know we're getting older). mr smear and i tired and failed to find the watermelon ice-creams we love so much, even at a weird new commercial ice-cream store. i mean, an entire store devotes to the ice creams that are sold at various kiosks.

finally, we went in to a container store. i didn't have much in the way of expectations, but we found a nice bath mat!

6. we came back home just in time for dinner. we watched strip search's fifth elimination, and then mr smear decided that we should try having the dubai-style chocolate with marshmallow. i thought that sounded ridiculous, but i decided to give it a try anyway. i didn't want to overpower the chocolate, so i took a bite of chocolate and then nibbled the marshmallow until the proportions were right.

a short while later i came back to reality. i'm glad i gave it a chance.

7. i used the "new" shower first. i preferred the overall experience - it's more comfortable than the bath in the awkwardly triangular master bathroom - but the water pressure's not as good. then mr smear got in the shower.

just before he was done, i checked in on him and found a large puddle of water outside the shower. immediately panicking, i checked the sides and i checked above, and i couldn't see the source of all the water! and then it hit me - literally - the water was spraying straight through the polyester shower curtain.

gd called it - we now know precisely how the bottom of the wooden doorway rotted.

8. after gd and i had a chat with my mom* - lots of drama surrounding my sister and nephew and my niece - gd and i had a chat about gd's friend, who's life-long battle with reality has left him suicidal. gd's really upset, and i explained to her that she's not doing him any favors by pretending that she's okay with what he's doing or planning on doing.

* i'd called her earlier, and my godmother was with her. i was waving to my mom, and then suddenly she was in the frame, and i think we were both equally uncomfortable. thank god gd wasn't with me.

it's not early by any stretch of the imagination, but i'm just finishing up a cup of tea and then going to bed, with a feeling like it's early.

these are strange days. the politics of this war and the noises from all sides of the media are distracting, confusing, and messy. we're doing really well, considering, and we're doing much better than a lot of people here, but my gods these days are taking a psychological toll in a middle different ways.

sshhhhh... he's napping

sunday 15th:

a pretty good sleep, coffee and brunch with my uncle on a perfect misty including a lovely stroll on the promenade and followed by a great walk in the green point park

invoicing, shopping, relaxing
the great washing machine failure

slowly ending the weekend with books and a little gaming

monday 16th:

Getting Stuff Done (mostly making appointments), certified copy magic (the police do it quickly for free), autumnal green, one more thing (before SARS demands biometrics), a long time leaving, washing attempt one, the bank (a bad time to whisper codes in french), noticing mr smear needed a bath, the pharmacy, a quick supermarket run, desperately hungry on the way home, dropping pringles on the way to washing attempt two, working into the night but i think i (or my network connection) irritated the woman doing the remote installation

tuesday 17th:

4am working until night terror time, exhaustion and frustration starting the day

waking up to a busy mr smear, who was turning both ways, the rush to the fascia release specialist, who happens to be our neighbour who was brought into the building by the woman who left our apartment a few months ago, who we were referred to by the chiropractor who we were referred to by the abdominal specialist; at the same time gd was advised to take up pilates days after we found a pilates physiotherapist next door when we accidentally got out on the wrong floor of a building

the raw vegan experience: family unfriendly, active-wear wearers, and although the food was delicious it was - as always - misrepresented. a slice of bread with a pile of food on top is not a sandwich

the rush to the therapist - with a quick stop to drop something off at the tax consultant and make an idiot move her car after she'd blocked off the sidewalk - an encouraging session and mr smear's first proper encounter with dogs (he loved it)

coming straight home, being woken (groggy) to let the technicians in; two days without a washing machine and it turns out it was a faulty socket, an afternoon with an inexplicably unhappy mr smear and gd's agonizing recovery

indian pickup lies enraging me

wednesday 18th:

mr smear crying a lot, but it's never clear if it's for real

meeting the bull (our landlord), a very different experience dealing directly with him, furniture shopping and praying nobody got TB, or fleas, buying a high chair
not just a landlord but an MMA man, work, getting soaked taking clothes to mom's dryer, a little GoT

thursday 19th:

big waves, a sour start to the morning, a disturbing computer issue, pre-breakfast second-hand furniture: the sacrifice of dealing with dishonest, bigoted, creepy people; the delivery (scraped floors and two missing nails from the hinges), rearranging and angry lunch and being tired and exchanging rugs and mr smear on my shoulders for the first time and more rearranging and a big shopping and mom's visit and a little work and protoplasm's visit and a little more work before crashing

friday 20th:

remembering how to stand at work, an emergency egg-run and not wanting to live anywhere else, trying to work, a pharmacy run, prepping for dinner, finding parking with my mother, a lovely friday night dinner with krybabie and co, upsetting his wife about her daughter's resemblance to his sisters, managing to get mr smear home without waking him but needing to change him on arrival

saturday 21st:

tired and busy, returning the borrowed dining room set and rushing lunch unnecessarily and late coffee at my aunt's

sunday 22nd:

a good night's sleep and a restful morning
promenade coffee and oversized sparkling water
john carpenter's cigarette burns
a successful waterfront mission, having my mom over for dinner
GoT, putting everyone to bed and preparing for customs handling on all the stuff pg's been storing for me these past few years

monday 23rd:

becoming frustrated at some ungodly hour when mr smear refused to be put in his crib; my original plan was to be awake all night but that's not looking like such a good idea until we get all our basic needs squared away

hyper emotional wedding video viewing

getting shit done (and enjoying an entertaining cup of coffee) while wait for gd's physio, finding the tailor, the closed restaurant resulting in a spar lunch

the chewbacca excitement and resulting bad-fit disappointment, the positive return experience from takealot (later cancelled), the i'm-not-giving-any-more-details-over-the-phone call from my new bank

backgammon reintroduced
woman down
a long night compiling

tuesday 24th:

not an easy night, waking up to a gd without internet access, the baby centre and baby brain, mr smear's vaccine, newport deli breakfast
therapy and loving dogs
a walk to the doctor
passing out for a quick rest then getting stuff done
getting mr smear to sleep while picking up documents from my mom
GoT and a great dinner
money delays and amusement
pleasant work, foot massage

wednesday 25th:

2am bedtime together, probably not a good idea

pampers pants: a couple of minor incidents followed by a wet bed and a soiled stroller later, we now know what we now know that plenty of other parents have already said online. pampers SUCKS. they have products with micro-beads, gels that leak, badly sized tabs, and dangerous chemicals in certain products that literally burn infants. how do they get away with this? the hot coffee thing?

early up (with difficulty), the chiropractor (though i'm almost certain the relief won't last), formally opening a new bank account

nap time, an outing for diapers but forgetting the diapers, interviewing a maid, the walk / run and return outside for forgotten diapers (again)

dinner interrupted by a major diaper leak which escalated into an unproductively traumatic night

thursday 26th:

waking up hot and bothered
a nap
bank card pickup
turning around in woodstock
lunch downstairs, a quick walk
work, feeling sick, time out from work, dinner and a walkthrough, passing out on the couch,

friday 27th:

transferring to the bed at 2am and a few difficult wakeups with mr smear

waking up with a jolly mr smear just before the maid arrived
running late to the physio again
coming home to a clean apartment and the latest data from nutritionfacts.org

mr smear's first orange, the tailor, coffee, and the fish

the salary fee: my employer chose to pay me as a service, for which paypal takes an enormous fee. according to the agent i spoke to, salaries are meant to go through as transfers to friends or family... fortunately i managed to get my new employer to redo the transfer. thanks, paypal, and thanks government controls for making this harder than it needs to be. at least i now know how effective direct visa transfers are, so next month will be better.

a nap, getting ready for shabbat dinner, and a lovely evening at my uncle's with my sister's and cousin's families

saturday 28th:

a decent night but mr smear waking up early; bringing him into our bed where he was quite chilled until i was ready to get up, when i discovered that he'd filled his diaper and for the first time in a while when it counted it hadn't leaked everywhere

a serious back spasm to start a beautiful saturday morning, a pleasant experience switching out my rentacheapie car
driving back into the mist
nap day + visiting mom
letdown stress
call-a-pizza (solid salad) and GoT and letdown and mr smear's nightmares

sunday 29th:

a rough start, but a good rescue and brunch with airplane; successful furniture shopping with my mom, a rush to prep for dinner
delicious kale soup and bagels, another diaper dis-ass-ter
GoT

monday 30th:

another day of difficulty getting up, then aggression followed by wallowing in depression
the adelphi stalker, hardware non-advice, more breastfeeding complications than a mere winged insect

where did the afternoon go? (as usual)
mom's birthday visit, sealing windows, dinner and GoT

trying to figure out what to do for work

tuesday 31st:

learning how visual studio's unit tests are simple and extremely useful debugging tools (no need to install / uninstall services and attach processes), actually being engaged and working through to 3am

(witnessing mr smear's cutest moment, turning over and ta-ta-talking in his sleep)

sleeping in a little after the maid arrived, quick shopping followed by a quick return followed by some relaxing breakfast business

the "quick" outing to the waterfront, then the cape quarter, then canal walk; finding half of what we were looking for, experiencing the full range of road insanity along the way, mom's visit, rushed dinner, mr smear's refusal to sleep and later cramps

wednesday 1st:

me&you mobile being extremely unprofessional, some more solid hours playing with visual studio unit tests, another 3am night

another busy morning (although considerably more sleep than the day before), the physio, the first preschool call, scheckter's raw - delicious, but not particularly filling and i think i offended the guy at our shared table with my derision of "juicers", back home to go out again, the doctor, the pork pill confession, money puzzles followed by a long work night

thursday 2nd:

calling it a night at 4am
no rest for the wicked, busy morning and a fun hour with the therapist: she seems to be losing it, but her dogs playing with mr smear was totally awesome
a couple of short naps that barely made a difference, an attempt to take a walk to enjoy an incredible sunset that was overtaken by concern for a man on a bench who looked like he was going to die there (but he was too mobile for the emergency services to "waste their time")

mom coming over for a quick visit, helping us put mr smear to bed and giving us a chance to eat dinner and watch GoT

a long night of hard work

friday 3rd:

3am to bed, early up to rush to the chiropractor; fantastic job, but immediately compromised by my having to hold mr smear for gd's treatment

hurrying home, urgent napping, a stressful afternoon working through what i would later realize was me getting sick, missing mom and rushing off to dinner alone, initial awkwardness, a really nice dinner, back to work

saturday 4th:

3am, sleeping like a log and waking up with a horrible sore throat and feeling utterly wasted; whatever illness i've been cooking having been brought to a boil

acupuncturist, plant (shared new parent table), the waterfront, home for a short nap, an attempt to go for a walk but the cold wind sending us to my mom's where i passed out for a while

pizza burn (jalapeño) and lots of ginger (ale)

sunday 5th:

early morning furniture shopping (win! in spite of the dodgy salesmen), baby shopping (win! in spite of the sick kids), terrible drivers and smokers are assholes (a new father under the no smoking sign in an enclosed space next to the baby city entrance and his daughter), a lovely lunch (and the quebec city couple at the table next to us), home for a breather and then off for a walk to enjoy the gorgeous afternoon, the kid's park, smoothies, bumping into the quebec city couple again, another short walk through a different, even cooler park

no energy for date night, a relaxed evening being inspired by the first half of michael moore's where to invade next and then suddenly feeling terrible again and crashing urgently

monday 6th:

mr smear having a decent night but me struggling with sinusitis, waking up to a beautiful morning soured by the realization that the asshole contractor still hasn't done anything about our floors

the good handyman, a slow morning trying to rest, reading a bit, struggling with mr smear (trying to clean an angry, writhing boy is impossible), a shopping mission ending stressed by human traffic, back home to try out our new drying setup - why does anyone use a tumble dryer?! we have a spindle and an electric clothes dryer and they're not only cheaper and better for the environment but they're a far sight more effective and convenient

some GoT and a big dinner and trying to nap before work

tuesday 7th:

but waking up at 1am unable to breathe, about half an hour trying to reset my sinuses and then three hours of work

sleeping in (thanks to the cleaning lady), the asshole contractor making us REALLY angry by leaving early after jerking us around for two weeks; getting him to come back (and being amazed that he's using sandpaper instead of a sander), heading off to the department of home affairs for a surprisingly pleasant encounter and a deep sigh of relief, truth coffee baby talk, mr smear cancelling our trip to the company gardens by passing out on the way

big shopping, settling into our apartment which is really beginning to feel like we're serious about it (even if money's still tight, we're definitely getting more comfortable and are starting to need less urgently)

gd's big dinner just for me, completing where to invade next? (warmly recommended, great documentary), and making some important advances in spite of a sinus headache

wednesday 8th:

on the whole, a pretty shitty day in spite of the lovely weather. the varnish job. mr smear's heavy allergies. the physio visit, the ultraviolet gym inspection. coming home to walk and not walking. sleeping on the floor by the crib. still not walking, the second varnish job and the "no you're not smoking cigarettes on my balcony". the walk cancelled due to sunshine and wind. mom's place stopover, rearrangement stress and mom visit (and pharmacy delivery), the relentless mr smear and an uncomfortable gd and finally getting to work on sore legs

thursday 9th:

around 3am, after realizing that i was on the verge of passing out, mr smear woke with a fever and it would take over an hour and a half to get him back to sleep

things we didn't learn in school: sealing rooms against cold and wind causes breathing problems and mold. extraction fans in bathrooms need to be running both while the bath or shower is taking place and for at least fifteen minutes after leaving the room.

scraping another section of the floor right after finally getting the damage repaired, a mansplaining note, a power nap, waiting for the contractor to fix another issue that he caused and not only did he not show, but the caretaker had the audacity to say to me that we're giving them problems - no more nice and polite, that snivelling drunkard will learn to watch his step with me

gd's first (from scratch) soup, the bananas of wrath, the apology nap, the long good night mr smear with my mom's assistance, the superette run and getting mr smear into bed, dinner and GoT

friday 10th:

working hard but not getting very far, a couple of tough wakings but sleeping *really* well

my first cardio in over ten months: not bad, much needed, difficult to remember not to push too hard

a big lunch (gd's new soup), an afternoon spent absent-mindedly working and trying to take mr smear for a walk in the cold wind and struggling with him after his nap and GoT (okay, we finally know why the world was upset about the wedding) and managing bank accounts and credit cards and worrying about forex

saturday 11th:

a good night's sleep, introducing my wife to yakko, wakko and dot on a saturday morning. my gods, the animaniacs get even better as we get older!

the rush - part i

it's been a busy, trying week. and a long, busy weekend. most of it's been spent focusing on my poetry, and taking my game to the next level. which means buying a domain name, and getting ready to publish a short collection of poetry. it all feels like a big deal.

---monday:

fighting the snooze. working hard. sending a wire transfer to pg for half the amount i owe her as a show of goodwill. not taking any steps toward transferring my lease because i didn't have the deposit yet.

i made good progress at work, but it's all very slow going. that's kind of the story of the week: i'm really fortunate that i'm not on any official project yet because that gives me time to deal with the ridiculous state of the software i'm working on. it's been a week of research and refactoring, in particular learning just how limited mobile html5 implementations are.

my first code review: overall, very positive, very nice. unfortunately, i managed to upset big junior a little; i was worried that our difference of opinion on coding style would become a thing but it hasn't.

i worked late, again, and at around 6.30pm officially signed off and logged my hours. i spent another fifteen minutes drinking coffee and perusing facebook with my headphones on, when suddenly i registered that my manager and boss were laughing at me for "working late". that didn't feel good, but it was all in good fun and i'm fairly certain they trust me.

boxing: high powered training with a beginner who's a fast learner. it's all about focus, relaxing, breathing, and it's amusing to me, "robocop", to be instructing someone else in these points.

the surprise of i-forgot-my-membership's-expiring right when i'm paying other big amounts? not so nice. fortunately, the next day i'd sort it out and working for my company gets me a 37% discount on a year's all-access pass. hopefully i'll get about two-thirds of what i paid back when i pass my probation period...

aaaand i've reached my credit limit. i've been on the edge the whole week, i *need* to get through to next week's paycheck...

i got home early-ish, had a good dinner and watched being human.

---tuesday:

so much to do, so little time...
garbage, dishes, and email (with some good news from pg about israeli social security). it was a beautiful morning, i left earlier than usual but still later than i'd like...

... gd had accidentally bought cookies that weren't vegan, so i spent the morning pushing them on my co-workers. that seemed to go down well :P

there's nothing like trying to give a software demo to a boardroom and having it fail, only to discover later that the software cannot be run on a machine that has a remote desktop connection. huh! what was cool was learning that microsoft has a remote desktop app for the iphone that works *really* well.

i keep forgetting to put sunscreen on when i leave the office, until i get outside and it's too late for me to go back up and come down again.
i decided i needed to start the credit check in spite of not having the deposit in hand, so i handed the building manager the notice of assignment and paid for the check. i was hungry when i hit the supermarket and found myself in an odd frenzy over rice crackers.

i'm getting comfortable practicing my poetry performance in public.

it was good timing for picking up allergy meds, but shitty timing for developing a sore throat when i had a performance scheduled for the following day. i worked hard until late, eventually giving up on mobile html5 implementations. the worst part of their failures is that they're bloody deliberate.

kickboxing: crazy class, feeling tough most of the time. badger brought me an hd video camera in lieu of coming to the show herself, and tried to record my technique as a demonstration but our instructor kept moving in front of the camera. she introduced me to all the features i'd need and showed me how to set up her decidedly nifty tripod, after which i returned home for another good dinner, loads of talking, and discovering the hard way that my computer and the hd camera are not willing to talk to one another.

[too tired to continue writing.]

[continued...]

spreading thin - part i

forgotten wednesday:

while i ate lunch i finally watched the rest of hancock; it's a fun film with an interesting premise.

yesterday:

after all the drama, gd recovered a little and the peaceful evening we'd been praying for actually came to pass. we watched the first half of detachment, it's gripping stuff and neither of us wanted to stop watching even though we were going to have to get up early in the morning.

...

it was a gorgeous morning, gd had something she needed to do at her work and i found a bank branch conveniently close to do some things i urgently needed to do. i had a lot longer to wait than we'd anticipated, during which time i caught up on emailing and discovered the humble dymamite bundle. which is available for the next twelve days and has a whole bunch of stuff i want.

we had an hour or two before gd's osteopath appointment; on our way back home we passed a traditional chinese ceremony with dancing dragons (or dogs, gd says they're dogs) being performed on the sidewalk. it was a beautiful ceremony, the dancing was awesome and the costumes were magnificent - they even blinked, which lent them a jarring sense of realism. the ceremony took up the entire sidewalk, and ended abruptly as someone pushed through them with a wheelchair. i don't know if that action cut it short or if i had been about to end anyway, but while it's not cool to interfere with wheelchair access it's also not cool to disrupt something like that. there are only losers in this story. just saying.

i had a sudden craving for freshly baked bread, so we walked past atwater market to pick some up; what we ended up with was delightful, but choosing was such a tedious process! why they don't label their breads is beyond me, and when you're not interested in dairy products it's rather difficult and frustrating to get people to list ingredients because most people don't even think about the butter or cream or cheeses that they put into foods as dairy.

i went with gd to her appointment and waited for her to go in, finding a copy of devra davis - disconnect on the waiting room table. a lot of people are paranoid about cellphone radiation, but i've heard enough from reliable sources to be suspicious. a brief search led me to an article on the author's disconnection from the scientific method, and if you care to look through it it should quickly become clear that the author is either unethical, or incompetent. science is NOT about fitting data to your beliefs.

the rooms were right next to gd's friend's tattoo gallery, so i went there thinking i'd plug in my netbook, charge my phone and get something productive done. the little dog is so irresistibly pettable, though, and so i ended up just playing with her while her owner worked on the most fantastic forearm tat! everyone who's worked with her knows how good she is, to the point where this guy is just paying for her to use his arm as a canvas in whatever way she sees fit. there's something pure about that, in my opinion, and the concept she went with was gorgeous.

gd arrived feeling significantly better, and we had time to talk a bit and play with a balloon - a very simple pleasure - after which we walked to the metro station and travelled to her doctor's appointment. well, we *would* have travelled to her doctor's appointment if the metro at snowdon hadn't shut down suddenly. from being on time to running late, gd began panicking and i convinced her that waiting for service to resume wasn't a good idea so we went upstairs to find a taxi. we still made it with a couple of minutes to spare, but adding stress to the day really hadn't been necessary.

i left her in the waiting room to go sort out subletting my apartment. printing the documents was as cheap as i remembered, which means that the girls who served me the other day were being assholes.

i met up with the new tenant and we entered the office. filling out the forms took a while, and it hurt having to pay $150 for a credit check when she's paying the rent in cash and she's only going to be there for a month, but otherwise the women in the office weren't unhelpful and on monday we're going to be handing over the keys. now i just need to stress about moving all my stuff.

and figuring out where my ipod is. it's gone missing, and i don't know in which apartment i should be looking :S

i returned to my apartment and received confirmation that pg's account had been hacked and accessed by someone in san francisco, so i spent the better part of an hour going through all our email to make sure no passwords or codes had been exchanged. passport and id scans, yes, but there's not much we can do about those :(

i came home and, in light of the previous experience, convinced gd to set up two-step verification as well. setting it up for an android device really isn't as complicated as it feels, for some reason nothing on her phone worked for a while after activating the security and then suddenly it did again, and i don't know if installing the google authenticator app made a difference.

a surprise call from kgb saw us hurriedly eating* and then walking to drinkerie to meet up with kgb and his fiancée. we had a pleasant evening**, leaving well after 9pm when there was still sunlight, and came home intending to sort out which pieces of gd's old clothing to get rid off. that never really happened, we were both far too tired.

* and finding a small stone in a commensal frozen meal. that was weird.

** except for the bit where kgb informed me that megaman's found another job and is looking for workers, i had to explain to him why i'm not interested. i was surprised that we hadn't had that conversation before...

[continued...]

self destruction

tuesday:

kickboxing was killer. i received a nasty, tender bump on my shin when i was checked at the beginning of the exercises, i've iced it since but it's still not good. the really slow guy was in our class and i was really happy that i barely had to work with him. i've got a lot - a LOT - of tuning to do, our instructor told me that i was doing great before he left and that i've regressed considerably. that kinda sucks...

... he called on me to demonstrate one of the stations - told me to protect my head and proceeded to hit me pretty damned hard. i'm not sure if my forehead being tender is from that or from the following evening's sparring...

gd and i had dinner while i introduced her to freaks and geeks (yay! an excuse to watch it again) before we resumed watching rick and morty. this series is astoundingly smart and crazy!

---wednesday:

comixology: i eventually ended up purchasing qui a besoin de la lune? and neil gaiman and charles vess - stardust. since then i've read the first issue of the wheel of time (great rendering into comic form!) and the third volume of kill shakespeare, which is gorgeous and very, very clever.

...

i dreamed of having to land a plane remotely, which, i thought, is just like what psychologists do; suddenly i found myself transported on board, but the seats were somehow constructed around the center of the fuselage and we were spinning around with a deep drop in the middle, i had to somehow navigate my way out of there without falling...

...

wednesday morning was chilled, i spent it clearing emails i've been meaning to get around to. for weeks. and months. that included going through pictures from pg of all of my cds and dvds to figure out what i want her to keep and what she should give to scrapper to sell on my behalf. that's been a lot of work.

gd and i watched the video for solar roadways and got into a heavy argument about the nature of humanity. and the differences between our perceptions of reality. this went on for some time, eventually ending well but hitting some stressful points for the both of us along the way.

...

my nose was still running and my legs were very sore from training the night before.

...

the cleaning lady arrived, which led to some funny moments as she and gd ganged up on me on a couple of things; one of which was my treatment of the plant that pg left me, because i was following her instructions to the letter and i thought they were doing well. apparently the vase needs to be cleaned at least once a year.

---retarded people shouldn't own dogs. sorry. we passed a woman with down syndrome on the way to gd's place and gd wasn't the only one on the street to be disgusted by the fact that she's walking her fourth dog in a year. she keeps killing the poor things, obviously not maliciously, and nobody's doing anything about it. gd tried talking to her but she's, well, handicapped. she couldn't be reasoned with.

---i agreed to sort out gd's computer, which was running xp and was so filled with malware that it was barely functioning. we spent a stressful hour or two trying to figure out what she needed backed up before formatting...

the weather has flipped from winter to summer in a single day, and the afternoon was warm and sticky.

after i was supposed to have finished eating i suddenly found myself absolutely ravenous; between that and being stupidly relaxed after a massage from gd (she's really, really good with them and i needed it after the kickboxing) i was precisely NOT ready for the boxing class, but i forced myself to go anyway.

i arrived early enough to spend twenty minutes or so kicking my legs into gear and stretching, doing some good bag-work in spite of my runny nose. the warmup started and i hopped to it with my jump rope (sorry), figuring something out with our coach's assistance (he was being nice?!) and deciding that if half-way through the warm-up i was having difficulty raising my arms then i couldn't hope for a good class to follow...

... but i was wrong. i worked with the assistant holding pads for me and did so well i quite impressed myself, and on the last exercise on the bags when everyone else was giving up and bowing out two of us didn't hear "time" being called and carried on until someone came to stop us :P

i stayed for sparring, and went three rounds. i wasn't amazing, but i definitely wasn't bad. i'm glad i managed to keep up and i felt as good as i felt exhausted by the time i left.

it was shirt and sandals weather, and that's how i went shopping. my body was so stiff and sore that it was almost as hard to get to the supermarket as it was to get back. i felt old, and very slow indeed.

gd was supposed to come over but her back was still hurting her, so i had most of a salad and then headed over there.

---yesterday:

the moon was full and appeared far larger than usual, its light followed me through the dark streets to gd's. i was totally bombed even before i arrived, and we watched episodes 8 and 9 of rick and morty while i thoroughly enjoyed a vegan grilled cheese.

...

i slept incredibly well, though i still woke up sore and slow in the morning. i had a worrying headache but i assumed it was just my sinuses still and not related to my tender post-punches head.

[an amusing moment meeting a family friend of gd's and her saying precisely the wrong thing]

we'd finally organized a copy of windows for gd's computer but it couldn't be read... then it struck me that ubuntu might be a good option for someone who doesn't really tax her pc very much.

what a pleasure installing it off my thumb drive! almost everything she needs was a breeze to configure, and in some cases - like input languages - i managed to set things up in a far more usable way than windows would ever let me. the only complicated things is updating grub, which i'm not prepared to do until i have the time to focus properly and not make any mistakes...

feeling pleased and really hungry, we went out to midi 6 for lunch. the asian waitress has never heard the word "vegan" before, and started explaining to us that there's no difference in the menu between weekdays and weekends.
not "weekend", i said, and we sent her off to the kitchen to find out if i'd be able to eat. eventually we came right, but i do wish they'd add their option to the menu already...

we walked out into proper summer, sated and happy. we said goodbye at the metro station and i came home to fall onto the couch. my death nap was interrupted by the balcony door banging in the wind. then horseman called to say he was on his way. i wasn't sure about that until i'd gotten some coffee in me, after which i felt much better.

we played tekken and i gave him a speech about his life choices. because that's what friends do? for months he's invested himself in finishing high school and has given up on the last exam. it's statistics, and the reason he's given up is because he can't make sense of it. which is fair, because it's a bullshit subject. i just hope he gets over himself and then the exam, because the longer he waits the less chance he'll have of finishing.

statistically speaking, of course.

---i've spent some time thinking about organizing poetry evenings during the summer while the throw poetry collective's dormant, an idea which rabbit instigated. i asked horseman what he thought about it and he added a surprisingly good idea to the mix: he's working with youth from the projects and we could bring them in for a workshop each month. now we just need to secure l'artere and figure out how to get to break-even, then we'll be good to go.

---i was far too broken to train yesterday, so i finished going through my discs that pg's holding. just before heading out to gd's i received a message from the office saying that the legal team is putting together my permit application. i think this means that things are progressing well.

...

on my way there i remembered something important about poetry: if it's not accessible enough to please everyone to get high scores, then it doesn't deserve them. so sayeth shakespeare, or at least that's how he rolledeth.

...

gd put together a delicious dinner and we had so delicious ice-cream from dessert: we're in agreement, soya ice-cream is better than dairy. it's a texture thing, the taste is about the same. every ice-cream should be available in soya! just sayin'.

we finished season one of rick and morty. it's so profound! i think the world is better for it.

---today:

i spent the night in total discomfort. this morning i woke up feeling accordingly shit, but once again felt much better after some coffee. i wasted half an hour or so at the walmart on my way home, looking for items that they didn't have in stock, then crashed on the couch reading comics.

aside from reading comics, eating and breaking glass, today's been about posting and relaxing. now that i'm done with the former i'm going to spend some more time doing the latter.

---i keep finding myself surprised by the surreal nature of my relationship with gd. it's weird how perfect everything is, how good we are for each other! i keep finding myself feeling elatedly grateful and worrying that there's an imbalance somewhere. and then she convinces me that's all's right with the world.

huh.

ear-poppingly fast

my entire system is on holiday, which isn't particularly helpful right now but it's a result of enjoying an unbelievably good weekend. which began on friday. and will hopefully end by the time i've written this :)

---friday:

thursday night's sleep wasn't as bad as wednesday's, but it wasn't amazing either. i woke up approximately two minutes before my 5am alarm sounded, and i had to get my shit together quickly if i was going to take advantage of the amazing snowboarding conditions.

i totally got my shit together :)

i'd loaded my kindle with some really good discrete mathematics books, and used my time on the metro and the buses to pour through them when i wasn't getting a little bit of shuteye (the back half of the bus on the way there was filled with happily snoring people, it was really cozy).

what a ridiculously beautiful early morning! it was cold, but absolutely stunning.

the bus took the shorter route that i remembered from last season, which was nice but weird. [or maybe it's because i've only taken the early afternoon buses this season? hmmm...]

the entire length of my walk from the bus to the slopes i struggled to keep my earphone cables from pulling, and when i arrived i realized that i'd closed my inner jacket on top of it. d'oh!
then when i went through my gear to get ready, i discovered two other sets of spares that i'd packed for the previous times - i was wondering where my other socks and sports shirts had gone! d'oh!

some metrics that i wrote down before heading out:
up since 5, it's almost 10.
-16 celsius. 2 hour bus ride instead of the usual 3, plenty of snow and it's still all smooth (unless that's because it's icy, i remain optimistic).
enjoying my first coffee of the day, half of the two french conversations i've had so far made me out to be a complete asshat, and the other involved figuring out how to get sugar into my cup.

as i finished writing that i got milk inc - inside of me [hah! i've never seen or heard the full version before now] stuck in my head and that set the tone for the next few hours. which were awesome, my ankle handled switching just fine, the conditions were great and i really enjoyed myself.
the running nose i was sporting wasn't out of the ordinary, so that was good too.

when i returned to the cafeteria for lunch i was pleasantly surprised to find vegan friendly pasta options! their pasta stand is new, not overpriced and delicious, so my packed peanut butter sandwich (i'd consumed the hummus one as second breakfast) could be relegated to evening snack :)

---once upon a time i had a calculus exam on the sunday morning after infected mushroom and yahel were playing the ostrich farm near eilat (my first trance party in israel, i don't think i've told the story here and i probably should), so i took my books and kinda studied during the after-party on the beach.
on friday i was refreshing discrete maths on the slopes in preparation for a job interview. feels about right, like fifteen years have passed and nothing's changed!

except this time i think i might pass :P

---so the conditions before lunch were excellent, but they were nothing compared to those after lunch! a snowstorm hit, and the rest of the afternoon was absolutely perfect ^_^

except for my shitty ankle giving me trouble, but fortunately it was mostly okay and didn't interfere with what i was doing.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: SWITCHING
not exactly like a pro, but good enough to catch a little air with confidence. launching over a steep drop at high speed is an insane rush, and landing opposite makes it even crazier! so that was this season's goal - next season i'll be attempting properly stupid things in the snow park!

i do hope friday wasn't the end of this one, though. i want more...

---it was strange to be leaving for the bus while the sun was still up. it was a gorgeous, golden sunset, i picked up tea from mcdonald's and brilliantly burned my lips due to my impatience...

the discrete i went through on the bus back was a bit of a headache but i discovered that i do recall some fascinating shit from my first degree. i also napped a bit, which i desperately needed...

i got home, found two envelopes that looked like my french results, showered, scarfed down a frozen dinner and left to meet fp for a second date. for the first time this season i wore my iron fist sweater, which on the way there was too warm and on the way out not warm enough :P

we met at brutopia, which was far too loud so we walked to kafein. a bit of a dodgy dive but the electro was excellent and we had a great time.

---saturday:

we slept at her place, and it was early afternoon when i eventually went home. my sinuses had been griefing me on / off and my legs - omg, my legs were *so* sore after the snowboarding and i hadn't thought to stretch afterwards :(

the first thing i did was check my french results... nope, those are tax forms. dammit!
i caught up on comics for a bit, then decided i was too exhausted to think and tried to nap. but i wasn't tired enough to nap. i needed to go shopping before the fights so i took my netbook to starbucks on the way. i churned out a couple of exciting panels (it's weird how much effort can go into a single panel script for a translation work), quickly ate at subway when i realized i wouldn't have time to make dinner myself, shopped, chugged a protein shake (i don't dig subway's veggie patties) and then went to the sports bar.

across from me on the metro was a father holding an instruction manual trying to show his kid how to transform his optimus prime toy. i couldn't stop smiling, i wanted to take a photo but it didn't seem appropriate.

i arrived about forty minutes late and i was *still* the first there! there was general hockey madness going on, i missed most of the prelims and that included alex garcia who i really wanted to see. vfmp and his boyfriend (they seem to be good, so that's cool) joined me just after ufc 171 was underway.

overall, it was a really exciting night!

*** UFC 171 SPOILER ALERT ***
diego "the dream" sanchez was really entertaining! apparently he was suffering from food poisoning, i'm not sure if that explains his french stewart face as he entered the ring but the reason we were laughing was his pre-fight trash talk, the only thing missing was finger-snapping and when he was announced we all heard "the queen" instead of "the dream".
hendricks vs robbed lawler (you see what i did there?) was so exciting that i actually found myself yelling at the screen. that was some crazy, crazy shit!
*** END UFC 171 SPOILER ***

---sunday:

i enjoyed a decent night's sleep, i was supposed to get up early to join godmother for breakfast but it took me an hour of snoozing before i was able to drag myself out of bed. and then i missed the metro, and the bus... delaying everyone's breakfast and scoring myself a ten minute walk in the beautiful but icily cold and windy morning air.

breakfast was great, but ended on an awkward note because godmother was shocked that i'd even think of contacting the recruiter for my shitty interview to tell her that they could learn a thing or two from the company i'm currently interviewing for. by the time i got home i was ready to send her a message informing her that she was right, that is a bad idea.

i spoke to pg, who found your first snow hysterical and accepted my poetic license (the cookie thing never really happened). so that was cool :)

i entered a debugging nightmare, which wasted a lot of my afternoon. i think it's time to familiarize myself with eclipse's debugging tools as opposed to abusing the console.

i was contacted by a most intriguing girl from the dating site, who's so much so that i'd like to meet her regardless of romantic intentions. fp's now all up in my head-space but this girl seems like she could either blow me away or become a good friend. that's a weird thing to think based on a profile, a message and a phone conversation, but there you go...

i'd been thinking of fp with reservations, but a lot of those reservations melted away when she came over last night for dinner, invader zim and firefly.

---today:

it's 3.20pm, i've done nothing but post for the past couple of hours. i really need to grind now.

t minus three days

i got up relatively early today, did some career research and sent a mail to pulse's connected friend, then went to pick up my jacket (which had just been cleaned, so it was too damp to wear immediately), find out about our building's parking and purchase tickets for friday night's boxing fights and the muay thai fights that the jolly moroccan is featuring in. i spent the next couple of hours reading before horseman came over, we talked for an hour or two and then i headed to the gym.

---a couple of weeks ago when i rented a car and parked it outside? i'm now familiar with the town of mont royal's by-laws, and i'm bloody lucky that i didn't get a ticket. turns out one needs a special permit to park in the street at night regardless of what the signs say, and during the day, unless otherwise authorized, a car can only remain parked on any street for four hours at a time. they explicitly state that as long as your car doesn't remain on the same block for more than four hours it's okay - that if you move your car back and forth every four hours you can stay all day. wtf?!

anyway, the good news is that obtaining authorization is as simple as calling in the car's details to them, so as soon as i have the car this saturday i'll make a phone call and then relax about parking until noon the following day. awesome. especially as it's "white night" and i probably won't be getting much sleep after i get back to the city ;)

---the muay thai class was taken by a substitute, and it was a really, really good class. by good i mean it was hellishly tough but productive in that we learned and practiced some ridiculously useful knee technique! the rounds really felt like they were going on forever, though, and for those of us who didn't flag or slow down it was a truly hardcore experience. later, when the substitute saw me leaving he commented on my good performance and that felt almost as good as finishing the last round had :)

the only bit that sucked was that i reset from a push kick badly and simultaneously felt and heard one of my toes crack. it's an ice night tonight :(

between classes i sat talking to one of the girls in french. everything was going smoothly until i mispronounced "comics" in a way that sounded like "designed penises"; everybody went into hysterics while i sat there, embarrassed, not understanding at all what was funny about it :$

i was paired up with one of the gym's veteran mma big boys for boxing, and that made for a very good class indeed! we worked well together and impact was just right for both of us :D

---i've added another previously unpublished poem to my memorized collection (that makes eight in total): your first snow. this one's inspired by pg's first snowboarding days and has been idling on my phone until now...

return to the poutine routine - part ii

[... continued]

i wanted to meet up with tpj at the sherlock holmes museum pub, but i'd forgotten that it wasn't on baker street. whoops! so instead we ended up at the beehive drinking stout that wasn't particularly good. it was nice to see him and we had plenty to talk about; it was almost too late when i left for the heathrow.

*and* i didn't know which terminal i needed to be in. i guessed 5 correctly, though, and i made it through security just in time. security was a breeze again! i don't know why they get such a bad rap.

there was a long delay on the ground, but as long as i was on my last flight i really didn't care. after watching world war z, i finally got around to seeing elysium! what a fun film, thoroughly entertaining... but i cannot fathom how anybody who's not south african could possibly enjoy it. i *would* have enjoyed it on the big screen, but i certainly wouldn't have felt it worth the price. maybe i'll watch it again when it comes out on netflix.

i got in a little sleep and some epic dreaming, breezed through the airport and came out on the other side of immigration feeling so ridiculously relieved! godmother had yang pick me up, which was really nice, and i returned to a clean apartment for a much-needed shower; i did some emergency shopping, gobbled down a frozen meal and was so jet-lag exhausted dropped out of consciousness in a heartbeat.

---there's something queer about yang: he was telling me about an upcoming party that he'd previously sent me an invitation to. an open-to-the-public party in a nightclub downtown. the next day i mentioned that i might want to join him and he informed me that he hadn't actually extended an invitation, "not to sound offensive". wtf?!?!

---friday:

in the morning, pg delivered the tax-related documents i needed and i put everything together for the accountant. she also invited me to see pearl jam when they play england - that would be awesome! i wonder if it's in the realm of possibility...

i sent in my resume for a couple of jobs, and spoke to bell regarding some worrying things on my bill. they explained everything and even reversed technically legitimate charges in good faith (they may have been legitimate, but were understandably unfair), i was well impressed :)

i had been planning on going to newk'd girlfriend's community center poetry slam event, but when i realized that i'd gotten the date wrong i agreed with vfmp that jiu-jitsu and boxing followed by glitter sounded like a good plan. let me be clear - the only reason i agreed to watch a movie like that was because every time i'm shocked by his boyfriend not having seen culturally critical films his response is "well, have you seen glitter?!"

i renewed my tristar membership for six months, hoping that i wasn't being too optimistic but satisfied that the difference in cost between three months and six months isn't really significant. i returned home to snack and nap, and unintentionally bit down on an unpopped popcorn kernel: i found the offending tooth! and it's *not* the one the dentist suspected, so good on both of us for not proceeding.

i walked into the gym and into a lecture from the top muay thai instructor who wanted to make sure that i'd been careful with sparring after he'd seen what the beast did to me. my boxing coach was right there, so i flashed him a grin and asked "are you hearing this?"

jiu-jitsu was good, i seem to have gotten a handle on a lot of stuff; the rolling afterwards, though, required all-out power and my partner and i kept stalemating. after him i rolled with vfmp, but by then my arms were exhausted and so after i gave up we practiced some techniques instead.

my return to boxing: i know now that after my christmas tale the coach had excitedly told others how impressed he was with me, but from the moment i stepped into the class we were back to the verbal sparring. it's kind of sweet, kind of annoying. anyway, the class was fun and he left us with so many exercises that the entire class treated it as a group effort. i think i was the only one who failed to complete the 400 sit-ups, push-ups, burpees and squats (100 each). but that's mainly 'cause i wasn't feeling well, jet-lag-wise.

i don't know why i got home so late. i also don't know how i'd managed to score skin irritation on my chest and arm from the jiu-jitsu when i'd been wearing long sleeves; i think i might need to wear a regular training top underneath my long-sleeves. i "hurriedly" showered and went to vfmp's; i write that in quotation marks because my body refused to operate any faster than slow-motion. it was like all of my muscles had turned to jelly, but i was feeling great so i wasn't complaining :)

i *did* need two beers to watch glitter. it wasn't nearly as bad as crossroads, and as far as motivation goes i now have currency with which to purchase vfmp's boyfriend's film-time for movies like the fifth element :)

forgetting that it was friday night, i arrived at the metro at a time that would have been fine on a saturday night... fortunately it wasn't too cold, the twenty minutes waiting for the bus could've been worse.

---saturday:

i slept in, enjoying a slow and mindless morning. i went with godmother for coffee at the mall, after which she had stuff to do and took so long i worried i'd been forgotten and abandoned... she appeared just in time for me to be able to consume a quick lunch and head out for the slopes. i had a bit of a headache, but i really didn't want to miss such a perfect day - i was totally right! the weather was absolutely stunning and the snow conditions were excellent ^_^

...

that awkward moment when, after cringing and asking him to please be a bit more gentle with my board, the bus driver upbraids me for how i've been transporting it and explains why and what to do in the future. turns out he's a snowboarder. win!

(apparently the flat gets preferential care to the edges on bouncy metal surfaces. who knew?)

...

as i got off the bus an old woman with a heavy bag slipped on the ice, and slowly and awkwardly fell, softly (hopefully softly enough) hitting her head on a wall. i quickly dropped my board and helped her up, i hope she was okay...

on my walk to the mountain i couldn't stop thinking that the small voice that thought i should take the day easy is a dickhead - i would have missed the most perfect weather! we had bright sun and soft blues, it was relatively warm, very picturesque and absolutely lovely. i made good use of my couple of hours and my switching is getting quite decent ^_^

---i returned from the final slope feeling so incredibly fortunate and grateful! i was almost sure that nothing was broken, but my right leg was really hurting after the worst wipe-out i've ever had. "the ones that hurt are the ones you don't see coming" appears to apply to snowboarding as well as boxing. that one could easily have hospitalized me: on the final section on my way down there were two people that i decided to go around, but what i didn't see until it was far too late was that they were standing in front of deep moguls made of solid ice. i couldn't slow down in time, and i bounced - probably three or four times - and when i finally came to a stop and had figured out which way was down, i realized that i could easily have snapped my neck. i didn't even notice until i locked up my board that my foot had completely pulled out the binding (explaining why my ankle's screwed), and until later that i'd suffered minor injuries to all my limbs, my lower back and my jaw.

no matter how fortunate i felt, the walk to the bus was an eternal half hour of grimacing and grunting in pain. i spent the twenty minutes waiting for the bus trying to keep things mobile and stretching, worrying about all the bones clicking that i'm sure aren't meant to click. the hour or so on the bus was all about stretching and flexing, and the walk through the stations and then home was agonizing. the intense relief of climbing into a hot bath was unbelievable, and i'm very glad i remembered to ice things for a while before limping into bed.

[continued...]

resting for snow

i was planning on posting and then heading out to snowboard, but in addition to the time being inconvenient i really do think i should rest a bit more and take care of some chores so that i can enjoy it even more tomorrow.

pg called me to ask me about something and i found myself injecting french into my hebrew: score!
hearing her say "as usual" when i asked how she is made me happy, because for the first time that she's said that to me i know that her "usual" is actually really good. she's upbeat and positive, and i'm really happy for her!

---the pro-palestinian propaganda machine calling israel's policies "apartheid" is ridiculous, if you disagree then *please* listen to someone who knows a little about apartheid. on a related note, the american studies association's resolution is incredibly disappointing. i'd have thought that an academic group might do some real research before arriving at a conclusion.

...

i find it weird that i've loved skunk anansie since the 90's (like everyone, i guess), and yet only recently heard because of you for the first time...

happy weekend, everyone.

musical chair

pg just reported back on the alter bridge performance in vienna, i'm not a little jealous. that prompted me to purchase the two most recent albums of which ab iii is definitely awesome and fortress seems to be the kind of album that grows on you.

on a related note, after watching wayne's world the other day i've had the tia carrere cover of private life - touch me stuck in my head. there's something about the sound i like more than the original, and it's sad that there's no available recording on the internets.

challenge

there i am, sloshing home in my too-warm winter boots because it's raining and i don't want soaked footwear, carrying two heavy shopping bags and grateful to six months of boxing training because i'm now strong enough to hold an umbrella *and* heavy shopping "in the holster" for a while without taking a break (and manoeuvring the umbrella against the wind, of course). the entire walk home i cursed the fact that it's not cold enough to be snowing yet...

for all of you who think i'm crazy for loving the cold weather, tell me this: do you need to take an umbrella out when it's snowing? NO, YOU DON'T. do you need to worry about wetting everything when you step inside? NO, YOU DON'T.
come on winter, BRING IT ON!

...

just as i got back to my building, i noticed for the first time what's written on the umbrella pg left me that i've been using for the past six months:
MERDE
IL PLEUT
too damned right. what crappy trick-or-treat weather!

i should be posting more - part i

truth be told - as always - i've just been too tired. like really tired, like exhausted to a zombie state. particularly because i'm seriously in need of recovering and instead of resting i've continued to train hard. plus, i strongly suspect that the meds the doc gave me are working but at the cost of weakening my system. tonight's the last night, i believe they've done their job and i should be good to go by the weekend.

on a related note, i was discussing my shortness of breath with an "expert" (my kickboxing instructor) who claims that he's trained with someone who beat his asthma by training hard. quite frankly that makes sense, if i'm not training while sick. and i'm pretty sure i won't make that mistake again.

---forgotten notes from monday:

i suddenly realized i haven't been reading my rss feeds in ages - i have a lot of catching up to do. my first time going through parc station and not being on my way to work felt strange. i have arrived at the conclusion that i'm a windows person. also, that if i have to choose between real privacy (which is a right, not a privilege!) and the convenience that storing all my shit in the cloud provides, i'll go for the latter. it's shameful that the american government has become so un-american regarding freedom and rights, but i'm not going to let paranoia distract me from things i actually care about.

i needed a pre-muay thai nap and i didn't have time for one. i managed anyway. huh.

---tuesday:

oh gods, waking up super early for french classes :(
in theory the decision was to make my afternoons easier and more flexible, but in practice (granted, probably only this week) it's meant returning home and sleeping until hitting the gym :P

watching the puscifer - what is trailer pre-coffee wasn't a good idea. it did get me to purchase a bunch of the project's tracks and get me excited to see what happens.

props to the man on the metro wearing shorts at -3 celcius: that is a statement.

the french class is definitely good for my confidence. it may not be the level i need, but it's a good kick in the pants and the teacher's pretty good at mixing it up and customizing.

i arbed around downtown looking for halloween outfits, ate lunch underground and passed out when i returned home.

---beginner's jiu-jitsu was cancelled... because only two of us showed up and we both passed the exam! LEVEL UP ^_^
my passing the exam was a big achievement considering i had to demonstrate everything on the nightmarishly flexible girl. i definitely earned *my* spot :D

next step: not feeling totally useless on the advanced mats. the two of us were not being amazing, it was only after the class was over that we realized that we both needed to be good with the forward roll. there's something crazy about having firas zahabi himself clapping me on the shoulder and telling me "not to worry, you'll get it".

anyway, i'm not able to tell anyone in the gym that our performance was un-bear-an'-bull because i'd probably get slapped. [the move we were learning is called "bear and bull"]

---kickboxing was satisfying, although i used my right leg which is still healing and while i didn't do anything extreme that still wasn't a good idea :(

i left with a bit of a belly ache but i was desperate for food and hadn't gone shopping; chinese it had to be. i decided that i deserved a celebratory double-dinner and i thoroughly enjoyed it :)
during the feeding frenzy i suddenly broke out in sweat. what the hell?! all i could think of was how strange it was to feel so good and so broken simultaneously.

...

on the way home i wondered at how quickly i've acclimatized to zero. bring on the snow already!

---wednesday:

i dreamed of a successful move to somewhere near ottawa; something very political. then
my mother was driving and the road
follows a cliff with no barrier.
she drives on the edge to scare me
and it works
i freak out and i'm upset telling myself
i will not forget i will not be her passenger again
ahead a missing bridge that we'd need good speed
to clear
but she ups the stakes and brakes
and i woke up as the car plunged into a deep black chasm. what the hell, brain?

second day of classes, still late because i don't get the metro at rush hour even if i did pick a better route. one of the girls arrived after we'd all sat down and with her a smell of... yeast infection? i don't know, but it was a very loud "down there" smell and i surreptitiously kept my nose in my coffee mug as much as i reasonably could.

...

it's strange being teacher's pet.

after class i went straight home to lay about. i watched a lot of kiss of the dragon which i'd remembered enjoying but which made me go "meh". then i got in touch with aota and we sorted out my telephone contract - bell not only made the process simple and painless, but my contract's so good that after we were done aota set herself up on the same deal :)

as a side note, i'm glad that i now officially have a credit rating and it's positive :D

another side note: i have unlimited calls "nation-wide". aota and the representative both laughed out loud when i asked if that means all of canada or just quebec.
"we haven't seceded yet!" said aota.
"not only will you be able to call all of canada, sir, but you'll also be able to call quebec!" quipped the agent.

...

i chatted with pg and i'm very glad that she's doing well. she's enjoying her work and the lifestyle it affords her and she seems happy; we chatted over text and i laughed a lot. even though our breaking up was good for both of us, i do miss her.

---i went to muay thai even though my body was feeling stiff and sore, and during the warm up i developed shin splints. that was really annoying, i proceeded as gently as i could and fortunately the class was a) easy on the legs and b) exactly the class on clinches i'd been waiting for.

surreal misogynistic moment: working with a ridiculously sexy girl and doing a hip throw that involved me thrusting my hip (nothing else, you pervert) into her groin, looking down into her shirt (unintended, but enjoyed) and then throwing her to the mat.

what followed was the unsexiest thing ever: rotating partners to practice all the clinch techniques we'd learned. i've never been so drenched in other people's sweat before and i suffered a lot of chafing around my collar bones and neck - i had to half-shower before boxing (fortunately i'd brought a spare shirt) and i still spent the class worrying about ringworm.

the boxing class was pretty good and ended on a very satisfying note. after a long time talking about it, i finally got to do conditioning with the girl who terrifies everyone: firstly, i can't describe in words how hard she hits. after months of conditioning i'm now pretty damned tough, and even her soft "preparation" shots hurt. her big shots? holy shit! she knocked me down a few times before she decided to be merciful, that decision slightly embarrassing me even while i was grateful for it. one of her shots felt like my liver had touched my left shoulder. it was intense.
then it was my turn, and after a few warm up shots to establish the correct amount of power i caught her with a perfect liver shot... she was hurt, and although everyone (including her) had a good laugh about it i still felt bad.

her usual partner came up afterwards to thank me for giving him a break - i'll happily take over next time too :D

[continued...]

the storm - part ii

[... continued]

saturday:

side note: there's nothing like walking into airflow in an enclosed space and having a man approach you coughing openly.

it was a gorgeous day - heck, the entire weekend's been amazing weather - and i waited in the sun for newk'd and his girlfriend. we went to see the cory arcangel exhibition. it was divided into two parts, the first part being a mix of video game / movie madness that half impressed me and half assured me that this is someone who has way too much time on his hands. the second part was absolutely incredible, the "light side" if you will of that very same mix of superhuman patience and a bizarre attitude towards the nature of digital reality. it was totally mesmerizing and i'm very glad i went!

we strolled around old montreal, stopping for lunch (i had a cheeseless pizza that was pretty good) before meeting up with horseman and heading to a proper pub. we talked and drank non-stop and it was not only entertaining but we had some sodding good ideas as well, and somehow all ended up in an alley outside doing fun freestyling exercises for an hour or two before finally calling it a night.

my brain was overtaxed and i got home in a zombie state.

---today:

around 4am i woke up freaking out, thinking that if i don't quit i'm going to develop an ulcer. i managed to get back to some fitful sleep, then got up to plan things until i could put my mind at relative ease.

i did the laundry and had to consciously ignore some aggressive unneighbourly behaviour, then suddenly realized that i'd forgotten to sort out the mortgage! that turned out to be in my favour, because later on pg would get in touch and agree to handle the payment herself! [she's doing that literally right now, i'm *so* excited that this shit is getting sorted out ^_^]

i spent the afternoon at starbucks working on my comics and then returned home to receive horseman for smoothies and tekken. he's damned good and gave me a run for my money - it's always a great pleasure to discover other serious fans :D

i visited godmother for a pleasant dinner. yang's had his wisdom teeth removed and was in surprisingly good spirits.

i returned home and watched the other two thirds of the girl who leapt through time: what a wonderful movie!

it's taken me ages to post this, but i guess it's better to be dealing with the mortgage / mortgage insurance issues before going to bed. i sense i might sleep much better tonight.

current increase

well! after a month of feeling absolutely horrible, i just got back from working on my comics and doing some shopping and i'm feeling powered up and positive! i think (and pray i'm right) that i'm finally back to health. hooray! ^_^

on a different emotional note, lately i've been listening to karnivool - deadman a lot and i find its correlation to my breakup with pg extremely eerie. it's been seven months, and i'm in the weird space of being comfortable enough to really start dating again while still being uncomfortable with the fact that life took such an unexpected turn.

the reality is, as it always appears to be, that it was for the best. for both of us.

selling out - part i

big news for the week:

1. the apartment sale has gone through, the keys have been handed over and all that's left are niggling details. awesome!

2. tensions in the office are low, either this whole mess was the right thing to stir up or i'm enjoying the calm before the storm. bottom line: right now i'm feeling more appreciated, i'm getting things done and i'm worrying less.

3. i've discovered a well of supportive friends in my hour of need - the need to learn french.

4. i feel like i'm at the end of being sick. i'm still tired, but that's probably because i just don't sleep enough.

---wednesday:

i started dinner late anyway, i didn't need ps3 to force me to upgrade in order to provide me some entertaining accompaniment. while waiting for that i installed the "voice translator" app on my phone, and i gotta tell you it is SERIOUSLY impressive!

...

lots of variety in my dreams. i woke up to a few bills that needed to be paid, not least of which being my rent. i apologized for being a day late and was told about the building manager's policy which is actually really considerate - not only do they not mind rent being a couple of days late, but they're only too happy to make allowances for families living on the edge of their salaries and who can only comfortably pay rent in installments.

i don't have any idea why, but wednesday was an alanis morisette day. it was chilled, but i was a bit cross-eyed by the end of it. during the day i spoke to a fellow gym-buddy and he informed me that he was just as sick and for just as long as i've been, and that whatever it is it's been properly making the rounds. yesterday i heard that newk'd's girlfriend was as bad as well...

arguing with megaman over tools: apparently one button when you begin a task and one when you complete it is too much for a software developer to manage. *facepalm*

i left the office when i was tired, bored and unable to connect to the internet (for work). just before i left i put in an order to a tel aviv florist and the site crashed as i pressed "submit order".

---i was quite surprised when they phoned me directly to ask what had happened - it must have been around or after midnight! when i finally got it right, i was shocked to see the order go through and receive confirmation without my actual payment. usually when one opts to pay with paypal one is linked through to a page that lets you log in and pay immediately; with these guys, they receive the order and then bill the sender's email address. in my case, i didn't want to pay with that paypal account!

i was complaining about the fact that paypal won't let me transfer funds between accounts when aota remarked that i could simply charge myself for goods or services. what?! brilliant. so that's what i did. which only serves to reinforce my opinion that limiting a paypal account to a single country and not allowing direct transfers is bloody backward.

i'm glad to report that pg received her flowers (thanking her for all her assistance with the sale) and was happy with them, but i was offended by her certainty that they were exclusively my mother's idea :(

---on the way home there were two other tristar members on the metro. i've been in the same car as the one guy before and he totally ignored me even though we take classes together; this time when i looked at him and smiled he raised his hand high to give me a thumbs-up. that was amusing, we continued to not look at each other and everything would have been fine if he hadn't stopped in the doorway as we walked out to shake me by the hand. we still had another train to catch together, and we still had nothing to say to each other.

my inner ear was hurting most of the day, and as i returned home i worried that i'd developed another infection... fortunately, that seems to have gone away.

wednesday was laundry day, and some bastard was hogging the machines :(
the day was vastly improved with soup godmother had sent me home with on monday - that woman's soups are insane.

after a how i met your mother binge i was too tired to make proper dinner so i just did a smoothie. it was a laziness thing, but i had to wash even more dishes afterwards so i'm not sure that was a good trade-off.

---i don't know what got me so nostalgic, but i found myself reliving (in my mind) a night at the gallery with protoplasm in the february of 2000; it was me celebrating completing my diplomas and celebrating three totally sober months by getting fantastically hammered. of all the weirdness of that night, the only thing i wasn't clear on was whether that was the night they'd set up tekken 3 on a projected screen above the dancefloor... i recall playing panda. and playing badly. i double-checked with protoplasm and it appears i'm not making things up :P

---thursday:

dreaming: a cross between a large canine and a prairie dog found its way into my lap. it was particularly vicious: i was face to face with the creature and could not let go of its neck for fear of being mauled. nobody would help, and the longer i held him the more aggressive he became.

the apartment sale:
finding out that the tenant missed a water bill from half a year ago wasn't as surprising as the fact that municipality let it slide until now. speaking of the municipality, why the heck would they lie?!?! i called them up and they told me they'd contact pg to get it all sorted by phone, then phoned her to tell her the only way to get anything done would be for me to send a fax.

seriously?

...

the day before i'd been describing a bad service experience and creeper suggested responding by sexually harassing them over the phone. on thursday i was explaining a system to someone and he overheard, overly-loudly asking "what's a cronjob? sounds dirty!"

...

i've been holding on to an idea about ebook sales for many years now and i'm always complaining that nobody's done it yet - i was discussing it with aota and she made a really insightful suggestion, bringing it into the realm of practicality without large investment and providing me with something very interesting to do if i do get fired :P

---although i've declared that i won't be managing the team anymore, nobody's said anything to the developers and i'm still being tasked with interviewing. i joined megaman in talking with an older guy applying for a job as senior developer. at first i thought he'd be replacing me... his resume was loaded and he talked a very big story, which made it all the more disappointing when he was presented with one of megaman's standard questions and he completely floundered. at first he couldn't handle the problem definition, and he followed through by demonstrating an incredible inability to think on his feet. wonderful for my ego, not so wonderful for our talent shortage.

the bit that really killed him, though? after his less-than-inspirational performance i asked him about his attitude towards comments.
"there are no comments in my code," he proudly proclaimed.

what a fool.

---thought for the week: it suddenly occurred to me that the way megaman behaves he could be on acid all the time. except that if he was he'd come across more intelligent.

i joined aota and newk'd for some hardcore shopping and dinner at her place with her daughter and newk'd's girlfriend. it was an enjoyable evening but i got home around midnight again.

---friday:

extremely complex dreaming. i woke up to a surprise, i'd be interviewing potential interns and the call would start before the time that i usually leave for work. that surprise turned out to be a bonus as i could chill and do my own things in the background; the other surprise wasn't as much fun. in all the excitement i'd completely forgotten that i have a driver's exam on monday!!! i'd be in slight panic mode until this morning.

favourite resume moments:
1. a candidate who described himself as "junior data ninja". he was rated "outstanding" by his previous employer - does that mean that nobody ever saw him in the office? or, as nystire suggested, that he can insta-kill a database?
2. a simple personal summary consisting of "i am the lion in shark tank". total winner!

[continued...]

infected with a need to rest

it's been a fascinating 48 hours.

---sunday:

i woke up with a sore throat and a headache. it was to a great email from pg informing me that the caretaker had finally gotten his shit together and she'd made sure that the lawyer had everything she needed. i chased that news by watching trigun while doing laundry: i'm totally digging vash! and i was pleased by the "the future is an open ticket" bit.

i wasn't feeling good at all so i double-checked the clinic times and headed over. they lie! it's not so walk-in on a sunday, i was on time and they apparently didn't have time for me. for next time, call first :S
to sweeten the day, the bus back was hot and really smelly.

i napped with ted videos playing in the background, eventually getting up for tekken. it was that sort of a day, which i don't have very often, where i was wholly occupied with doing nothing of value. i got up to deal with a full kitchen sink, and glanced at the microwave to see that it was 7.15. that's when it hit me: dinner at godmother's at 7.30!

brilliant.

i called to let her know i was only then on my way out, and somehow managed to get there only ten minutes late. dinner was delicious and most of the evening was very pleasant... just the last bit, as i was saying goodbye yang did something stupid that upset his mother and he went full asshole after she flipped.

*facepalm*

that kid disappoints me so much sometimes.

...

i got home to find the heating's on - acknowledged. trigun and rum with hot chocolate made me feel good, good enough to get off my ass and read through the sale contract. i haven't read hebrew legalese in a while, and was amused to find myself sending a list of minor corrections. duty discharged, i went to bed.

---monday:

at 1.30am my alarm sounded to tell me to call the mortgage bank. the next half an hour was consumed by metadreaming of tekken characters recursively kicking and shattering my dreams. it was colourful and exciting! i eventually got up at 2am, unable to convince myself that i didn't need to make the call.

it was relatively quick and painless regardless of my body's protests, but half an hour later i actually had to get up and make tea to deal with the 'orrible sore throat that began to act up after the call. it would take a while for me to get back to sleep :(

...

i woke up my usual time, and my throat had gotten worse. the weird part is that as bad as my throat felt, it was overall-health-wise the best i've felt in weeks! i didn't feel that oppressive exhaustion, that completely demoralizing weakness. i mean, i wasn't feeling fantastic either, but relatively speaking i could've danced for joy!

---first email of the morning: the buyers have signed the contract and it's on its way to me now. hooray! what an incredible relief ^_^

---first stop: the clinic. once again: why tell me an hour when the waiting time is two? i grabbed a cup of coffee and tried to figure out where my appointment referral was (i'd left it at home, which was actually the less awkward of the two alternatives), then returned to do some serious waiting and deep air sharing with the other sick people. my throat felt a bit better after the coffee, fortunately that didn't fool the doctor who diagnosed me with bronchitis. well! i've never tried that before! he also sent me to be tested for mono, but i strongly suspect i don't have that because i felt so much better today.

as i walked out i stopped by the receptionist for a stamp; she spoke to me in french first and i expressed my desire to learn how to speak it. "i'm sorry, i only spoke in french because of the last person who talked to me. i hate french! it's such an ugly language."
holy shit, that's an unpopular sentiment in this province... and she said it loudly in front of all the other patients! i made the international shushing sign, which she conspiratorially made back before stamping my form and wishing me a good day.

i rushed home to pick up the referral and rushed back*, arriving half an hour late for my appointment which would have been delayed by almost exactly half an hour. wonderful! so i pretty much walked straight in to the odd, tiny little room in the back... short story shorter, the doc was more interested in discussing south african politics than he was in examining me. apparently my skin is fine for a 42-year old**.

* on my way back:
i thought the crusty on the three-wheeler was staring at me as he breezed past, but as he approached and sped through the four-way stop i registered that he's handicapped and wondered how he was able to so deftly steer himself onto the highway using only one corner of his peripheral vision.

granted, he did enter it going in the wrong direction.

** for non-regular readers, i'm ten years younger than that

i headed to the hospital for bloodwork, which would take hours. fortunately they have a "nutrition ward" (other places just call it a cafeteria), and they were out of veggie sandwiches but made me a veggie bagel instead. it was delicious! it was a real work of food art. very cool. i chased it down with odwalla (now i've heard of it since i've read jobs' biography) and soon after made it to the drawing station.

"do you have a problem with needles?"
"only if you wiggle one around when it's already in my vein."
i speak from experience. the nurse was really good, the only thing that freaked me out a bit was her drawing the needle out so slowly that i could hear air hissing. i don't care enough to understand the physics of that, something about injecting air into veins killing people in movies raises my hackles. okay, maybe i do care enough. fine, i was just being a big gullible baby. i admit it.

i eventually got home six hours later, did a quick run to the pharmacy for my antibiotics (oh, shit, i forgot - good thing i decided not to put rum in my smoothie thirty minutes ago!), then returned home to catch up on office emails. i passed out after a few, then did some more after a nap. the more i read the less i understand of what's going on there without me.

---evening notes:

1. am i really watching breaking bad again? second season, i've heard it's the worst one.

2. i'm blown away by how ugly ios7 is. i mean, like, wow. i think that it's shameful for a company with apple's design core to fail at what it's supposed to do best.

3. this dark chocolate / banana / peach / kiwi / vanilla protein shake can't possibly be as good for me as it tastes.

4. kids doing forty six and 2. absolutely enthralling! watching these children doing something so fantastic inspires in me a profound sense of hope; no matter how much shit the youth of today see and do, they'll also be exposed to such wonders and opportunities as we pre-internets could never dream of. ignoring the pseudoscience, i think puscifer - indigo children is where my goosebumps came from.

hibernation or bust - part ii

[... continued]

today:

gaming night went on until 3am. in spite of my physical health i enjoyed the evening and i think it was worth it, but i really was feeling like shit. i got a ride to the night bus home and was waiting for it when yang called to tell me what an incredible party i'd be missing, and i was in such a bad way that i didn't even care. all i could think of was "am i really sick? has my training put me in real jeopardy?"

i had sinus and throat trouble sleeping and eventually took a tylenol, which led me to overheat and wonder if i was experiencing a breaking fever.

...

my morning (early afternoon) involved long chats with my mom and with dirk diggler, pg and the caretaker. i didn't have energy for anything so i sat down in front of tekken and the rest of orange is the new black, the finale of which is incredible. what an emotional roller-coaster! what superb writing!

...

what the hell am i eating? i neglected myself all day, so i ran out to the supermarket to get my shit together. i stopped by the pharmacy to give back a whole bunch of meds i no longer need.
"i read that i should return these things to the pharmacy for disposal, but i'm not sure how serious i should take it. is this a thing?"
"yes, sir. it's a thing."

this evening has now been successfully destroyed by my obsession with posting, and i'm now about to make dinner and do nothing some more.

---urchin finally got in touch with me a couple of days ago and i'm still floored: not only is her cancer now in remission, but she's been told that she can have kids if she wants and her on-off boyfriend appears to have figured himself out and they've moved in together. i am *so* pleased and pleasantly surprised ^_^

---someone introduced me to a wonderful little comic by kostas kiriakakis called a day at the park. i humbly beg you to read it, it's beautiful.

---phonebloks: take a look. once upon a time, about ten years ago, i pitched this EXACT idea to a couple of friends with money (i had none) and they were certain that the idea was doomed to fail. it's nice to be validated by the universe, but it would be even nicer if i'd be the one to capitalize on even half of the great ideas i've had. life and its priorities.

*sigh*

hibernation or bust - part i

well... damn. i haven't posted this whole time for a number of reasons, the prime one being that i've been feeling awful. i've been told that it's normal to be exhausted around this time, that it's a circadian rhythm thing because of the speed at which the seasons are changing. but i was sick. and then i trained. and that could have combined with a consistent lack of sleep (in part caused by last-minute apartment sale details) and motivation. whatever may be making me feel this way, i feel like i can self-diagnose with chronic fatigue syndrome and i hope that that's just the hypochondriac in me talking shit with a loud voice.

granted, i *do* feel a bit better now after a day of actual rest.

---tuesday:

it was a cold night and i needed the duvet, but i had a headache and i was exhausted and i suffered a long, uncomfortable night for not sorting that shit out. then my lawyer got me up early with urgent tasks. i really, really wanted to call in sick, but i'd be taking a long weekend off and i didn't feel that that was the right thing to do.

...

oh, human bodies. i scratched the back of my head and couldn't determine the damage. it's okay now (days later) but for a while i was worried about infections :(

---work: the cavalry arrived! a couple of executives came over to oversee operations; darn became super-enthusiastic and almost-cooperative in an attempt to impress them but there's a general sense that his little act is transparent even to the visitors.

i had a job to do on tuesday that would have been incredibly menial and time-consuming had notepad++ and its regex engine not come to the rescue. it's unusual for me to actually find regex helpful, so i was really stoked :)

little victories: the office provided a healthy, delicious lunch instead of the pizza that darn and megaman have been forcing on us, and everyone seemed pleased with the change! while we ate, my brain dropped through to the floor when i discovered that i'm managing a software developer who used to feature on the local pro-wrestling circuit. he has lots of funny stories to tell and explained a couple of fundamental things about the scene; it was fascinating!

the rest of the afternoon was kind of pleasant, but i was tired and feeling a bit chilly. i went home early enough for jiu-jitsu but napped instead, did some shopping and headed out to kickboxing. that was alright except for an odd moment when i managed to hit myself in the eye. my head was not in a good place :/

---SO! once upon a time i used to play a lot of tekken (3), and a week or so ago i found a cheap copy of tekken 6 on ebay. i bid, i won, and on tuesday my copy arrived in perfect nick and with a sweet note attached.

in the days since, i have been playing a fair amount. i am impressed that 6's timing is consistent with 3's, and the scenario mode is, surprisingly, a lot of fun!

---i had the presence of mind to sort out my duvet, i watched a bit of the adventures of tintin while eating, then crashed...

---wednesday:

... or not. there's nothing quite like getting out of bed at 1.30am to argue with a mortgage bank hotline agent. so much for catching up on sleep :(

i got up early to catch pg and then returned to bed - it was sooooo difficult to get out from under the duvet on a chilly morning! i still felt terrible when i got into the office, the only positive was a (non-vegan) muffin to go with my coffee that kind of made me feel better.

---oh, darn... you asshole. the previous afternoon i'd called a meeting with the entire dev team for fifteen minutes to ensure that everyone knew how to work with our build automation. after we all assembled and just as we were beginning, darn strolled up to cancel the meeting and let everyone know that he thought it was a waste of time. ignoring the fact that he didn't have the authority to do that, why couldn't he have said that at any time before the meeting took place? he really got under my skin. he made me so angry that even now while i'm recounting the incident i'm becoming agitated.

the awesome vegan pizza ordered for me for lunch would have tasted even better if not for that.

other fun parts of the day included fighting with the web developers because they don't respect our naming conventions (and they use "new" and "old", which is a pet peeve of mine), losing over an hour to a problem that had nothing to do with the code i was looking at, and being told "don't waste your time on the coke" right before having the can explode all over my white hoodie.

as i left for the extra-long jewish-holiday weekend, i had a quick chat with the cto that put me in better spirits. playing some more tekken when i got home completely the spiritual rescue, and i was ready to do the jewish thing.

---it was an absolutely perfect evening, and i met up with aota and her daughter and we entered the sukkah. there were some awkward religious moments, but overall it was a pleasant evening. a couple of the guys had been in cape town recently, one has trained at tristar, and one is trying to go vegan for political / ethical reasons. i wasn't bored.

but i'll be damned if a little bit of alcohol didn't put me in the mood to relive my origin story while recounting it to aota.

on my way home i finished reading kill shakespeare: what a clever and entertaining story! i do declare that shakespeare himself might have been proud of this one :)

---thursday:

i played tekken until i was ready to pass out. i actually got up at 7.30 and was already feeling a little better. it helped that one of the visiting execs sent me an email apologizing for not meeting with me before the holidays, it sounds like our appointment on monday might not be about me being out of favour.

...

how about that? it suddenly occurred to me that i'm celebrating sukkot (tabernacles) in quebec...

...

the first day of my extra-long weekend began with my putting pg in touch with my apartment's caretaker to try to pay the man. i cannot believe that i've been chasing after this guy for months to give him money. hopefully this story ended today, after much harassment he's promised that she'll get everything i need by the end of the day... which will essentially be on the day the contract is signed. talk about cutting things close :S

i replaced my headphones and had a quick subway lunch: falafel?!?! the employees are still having a hard time getting to grips with the different ways of pronouncing it. interestingly enough, it's apparently so successful that in one week they're far enough over their projections that they're running out of stock - vegans! changing the world one meal at a time :P

i did some serious shopping at walmart, the primary targets being a blender and frames for my comiccon art. i came away satisfied.

i played a little tekken and then hit the gym for a bit of sparring. fighting with reggae in the background was cool and weird at the same time. having said that, i was not having a good sparring day.

i returned home to do the laundry and unlock the tekken "arcade addict" achievement (ya think?!), and the dryer took such a long time i missed the wrestling class i wanted to go to.

...

question: how is a monster energy drink a "natural health product"? oh.

...

jiu-jitsu: one over-enthusiastic armbar can mess up a whole evening... the guy i was working with had a height advantage (he's much shorter than me) and just couldn't control himself. he really hurt me, and it's taken two days for my elbow to go from frustratingly sore to merely uncomfortable :/

i followed that up with another sparring session, only the guy i sparred with was far more competent and all i walked away with was a severely bruised ego. i mean, shit, random people came up to me afterwards to try to console me and that just made it worse :(

at least after training i had my first great smoothie experience: either i have a latent talent for blending, or it's really that easy to make something decent :D

if finished watching the adventures of tintin and decided that spielberg did an excellent job of it. it's just as much fun as the comics and captures the attitude of the artwork in spite of the obvious differences.

---friday:

another early wake-up to deal with the apartment sale. followed by a long discussion with aota caused by megaman making a fool of himself in an email. followed by a distinct inability to get out of bed. i needed a slow start to the day and orange is the new black's tenth episode ("bora bora bora") was a good option. it was so intense that i'm going to want to watch it again sometime...

the weather was nice and sunny, and i went shopping at the further supermarket. i shambled rather than walked. i returned - slowly - and made myself a lunch that could have been a dessert; it was healthy, yes, but it tasted so good!

after a little more tekken i headed off to starbucks to get some sketching done. i don't know why i can't be productive at home, i guess it's the distractions :$
anyway, i hammered out a decent page and returned to nap, play some more tekken and go to training.

now, i know that training while not feeling good isn't wise, but while i was exhausted i wouldn't feel any worse than that until later. so i can tell you that i am exceedingly glad that i went to box on friday night! our instructor wasn't around, but a couple of the guys were up for sparring. while i didn't exactly level up, i did manage to lose two levels of "cowardice" in the ring. confidence-wise, it totally made up for the previous night's little tragedy. hooray!

in fact, the first guy i sparred with confided in me that he could feel the difference each round :)

what started off as good post-training exhaustion soon became bad exhaustion, but i really wanted to play thunderstone with vfmp and co. i grabbed another subway falafel and a coke and headed on down.

[continued...]