actually alive - summary and part i

the shortest summary: the week before this last one was plagued by enormously powerful screw-ups caused by good intentions. it might have been fueled by my not feeling well, which lasted until this week, and it brought about deep despair and intense emotional distress and anguish for gd and myself. we did learn a lot through it, we're in an amazing place right now.

[there's a very cool reason for the sudden rekindling of interest in jewish history, philosophy and rituals]

work's mostly excellent, though i'm a little concerned that big junior's becoming more defensive. i'm super-excited about the art / poetry projects that are moving along right now, and things have heated up with the slam team's preparation because we only have a month left before we head off to victoria.

huh.

---tuesday 26th:

• general feeling of well-being before bed, perhaps brought on by my having fed the blogging-ocd demons
  
• good sleep
  
• fighting about not taking advice when asking for it, eventually resolving it
  
• introducing gd to shane koyczan
  
• good progress at work
  
• shirtbreak [what was i on about?]
  
• javascript binding trauma - seriously, binding in java is unnecessarily complicated
  
• too much halva
  

...

satisfaction at the end of the day, marred by a pinching nerve as i walk out to the gym? after almost fifteen minutes with a jump rope i rushed to the bathroom, and wobbled out sweat and woozy. i tried to continue training but after a couple of rounds i was a disaster and i showered and went home. i'd continue to feel awful for the next few days.

i slowly did the quickest shopping i could on my way, caught a bug with my eye while thinking that if i'm not in cape town then it simply becomes far from fair.

good dinner marred only by our fighting over music and raising children.

---wednesday 27th:

slow morning, stretching, mango shake, figuring out how to watch music videos (from youtube, mainly) on the ipad (vevo and youplayer apps), and ordering a bluetooth keyboard for it. more of the pinching nerve. that prompted the purchase of dr kelly starrett - becoming a supple leopard. i picked it up on ibooks, intending to put it on the ipad but forgetting that the ipad's registered to a gd's account.

fortunately, i'd discover later that apple allows us to share purchases if our devices are registered to the same computer. a lot of unhelpful forum posts and bullshit later, but my usual complaint that apple keeps its shiny shit obfuscated (like how to use a mac's touchpad properly) isn't that surprising.

thought for the morning: those who play the loudest music usually have the worst taste.

i made it just in time for the bus to the beach club, read my new book most of the way. the beach club wasn't much to look at and the music was particularly shitty; having to keep out of the sun because i'm currently undergoing laser hair reduction kinda ruined the company event for me. at least the main speech was quick (and interesting. and i learned that i'll be out of the country for the next two events), there were vegan braai* options even though they were terribly marked - and the salad had egg yolk in it :(

* they brought in a team of south africans to handle the barbeque.

i learned an important lesson about the people i work with: a lot of them won't wear the company apparel because it has the word "geek" on it (demonstrating that they're true nerds), but think that wearing apparel advertising the products they work on is cool. let me tell you something: women wearing porn site t-shirts? sexy, not very classy, but sexy. guys wearing those shirts? creepy. and it doesn't matter what you look like. you don't look like a producer, you look like a (literal) wanker.

at least most of my team are rum drinkers.

the sumo suit competition was cut short when a man passed out in the suit and landed badly. eventually an ambulance came to pick him up. the ordeal was pretty surreal. he seems to be okay now, whoever he is.

i found a bench in the shade and took a nap for a while, i got up with a sore back, dazed and needing to pee. on my way to the washrooms i was intercepted by one of the security team. who knew my name and had been informed that i trained at tristar. we had a really good chat about jiu-jitsu for about five minutes and he threw me some tokens for free drinks.

afterwards, i picked up a drink and realized that my team had all disappeared. i did some exploring and found a dancefloor playing decent music, and hung around there until the bus arrived.

there's not much like a long ride on a bus with shitty suspension when you need to pee (for the second time).

...

buying tickets when tired and with alcohol in your system? #@$!. i'd been thinking "oh, i'm not training tonight" and forgetting that i wasn't going to be training anyway. getting gd excited for a night out and having to cancel on her because we had a team meeting? that's fucked up. that was the beginning of three days of overwhelming misery, during which i learned that there'd been some things bubbling under the surface that needed some serious addressing.

stupid levels of guilt and can't-think-straight, a better talk after gd got off work. the refund policy for the tickets was ambiguous and confusing at best, and i almost gave up on trying for it.

team meeting: important strategies and team planning and freaking out about the fact that the first slam of the season was almost upon us.

back home: relationship therapy, essentially.

---thursday 28th:

in spite of the emotional discomfort, it was a good start to the day minus the back issues. there was slam team weirdness. i purchased bill hicks - arizona bay on itunes having been inspired when introducing gd to tool - aenima. i can't believe i've never heard that material before! it's really funny.

not a bad morning, and i managed to get my movie tickets refunded. i needed to go to the bank during lunch: the highway had a gas station smell, and somebody in the line at the bank had awful body odour.

after completing a big project and saying telling him i'll explain what i did, big junior responded with "i'm not stupid, i can read code".

...

kc gave birth! i found that very exciting news, i'm extremely pleased for her :)

i was also pleased to hear that gd's no longer working at her gym any more, it was hurting her and she can afford to pay for classes now. that was the good news: the upsetting news was that we'd both completely forgotten about godmother's summer party and my reminder only caught me two hours before it started. i was feeling stressed and dark still from the day before and now i was feeling like every #$@!ing day there was something else. i just wanted a little bit of a routine and to get some training in and spent time with gd.

[to be continued...]

the rush - part iii

[... continued]

---friday:

i woke up sleepy, gd had a migraine and the team was giving me a bit of a headache myself. i called up the laser hair clinic, and was annoyed by the receptionist's questioning of my judgement of whether or not i can tell if the line of my beard has changed in the manner i described. she then gave me a choice of seeing the same technician or a different one, when the latter would most obviously make things awkward and uncomfortable.

:S

i met up with the girlfriend of the guy who's taking over my lease; the presentation of their deposit and figuring out that we don't have any more paperwork to take care of took much longer than i would have anticipated. i can't say that i'm positively impressed by their inability to take more cash than my deposit is worth and return the change because their software won't allow it. that's just dumb.

in general friday was a disaster because i ran out of junk food. the only things in the vending machine were kind of alright, but nothing satisfying. although, in retrospect, i guess not much satisfies me when i'm spending all day staring at source code.

the success of the day was in killing bugs while trying to do other things. i was deadly tired and was trying to avoid another cup of coffee... suddenly it was 4.30pm and i was trying to keep focus with doof sounds when the manager pulled out the bottle of ouzo i'd brought and we all had a few sips. what timing!

i cleaned up a bit, chatted with my mother and left feeling relaxed and ready for a weekend!

the entry to the weekend would have been a little lighter had my walk home not been past an angry-looking asshole dragging his dog on a tight leash, and the aggression i felt reminded me of a drunk guy who'd awkwardly flirted with gd on wednesday night and upset both of us.

i love hurrying to wait twenty minutes... especially as i was exhausted, and desperate to shut my brain down. instead, i had a large cup of coffee and called gd (we hadn't had a chance to talk yet, so that was good), and when rabbit finally arrived we had a decidedly productive and positive poetry session.

it would have been that much more enjoyable had i not had to suppress my rage at finding some asshole's gum stuck to the TOP of my seat; and i'd only moved to that table to get away from the tinny noises from some kid's cellphone which were annoying the crap out of me. that's quite the generation i was loving just then.

i came home, poured myself a rum and we connected gd's apple tv to watch bill plympton's cheatin' on vimeo. i've been waiting to see it since i backed the kickstarter last february, and omg was it worth the wait! it's a wonderful movie, and if you're not sure why you should watch it then take a look at reel.

i ate too much ice cream. by the time i was ready to call it a night i'd been asleep at the wheel for a while and i was suffering a bad case of rls.

---saturday:

after a struggle to get up, i put on paul simon - graceland, grabbed a cup of coffee and got stuck into our team's indiegogo campaign. it's been the motivation i've needed to take my game to the next level. i think i mentioned that before but i'm too tired to check right now. i sent an email to vector explaining that i'm deeply disappointed and that we won't be continuing to work together - we'll be seeing each other on thursday at godmother's, i hope things will be cool with him.

it was a beautiful, sunny morning. i took my pants to the dry cleaner's but the woman shook her head sadly and refused. i did some shopping on my way back, and as i walked out the store i watched a tiny child doing the kiddies' drunken swagger to the exit, and as i turned around caught sight of someone searching amongst the cashiers. i managed to connect the two quickly enough that i didn't need to drop everything and launch myself after the little one, the thought of which made me uncomfortable primarily because i can't speak french well and communicating "danger" and "i'm not going to hurt you" are not even remotely accessible to me when i need them. the mortified look on the man's face tells me everything i need to know about how easily parents can fuck up regardless of whether or not they think they're immune.

[continued...]

drained - part iii

[... continued]

when i walked into the gym a guy i'm friendly with was behind the counter, and he's taken it upon himself to right the wrong that is me having ordered a custom shirt when i moved to the advanced mat in jiu-jitsu and still not having received it. it turns out that the other guys were all blowing me off, and that the order had been cancelled. he was kind enough to use his employee discount and give me four shirts instead of the money back; he used his discount again later when i paid for my new fighting shorts. i'm really pleased with all that.

kickboxing was good, but i was breathing even worse than on tuesday! that was crazy :(

i ran into mti, and explained to her that the reason nothing's happening with the comic is because... nothing's happening with the comic. i've told her i'm hunting for new illustrators, and i really hope i find someone soon :/

badger gave me a ride to the supermarket and i bought some emergency supplies, i came home and ate while watching steve jobs: one last thing. the biography was way more in-depth but it's nice to actually see the footage.

---friday:

it was my second day of stomache troubles. otherwise, i enjoyed a good, relaxed wake-up. completely obsessed with the razors edge, total earworm.

...

örmagörd, i'm like a little kid - i was rocking out while brushing my teeth and ended up with swipes of toothpaste on my chest :$


...

having left my umbrella at work, i was forced to use my poncho. i'm very glad i have that poncho.

i made some progress towards transferring my apartment lease, and bought myself a keyboard for work because the ones the it department provides suck. i sat with one of the guys cooperatively debugging and had a hard time keeping my eyes open because i was so tired. after we were done, he spent an hour introducing me to the magic of twilio.

i briefly spoke with my toronto cousin, had an awkward moment in the elevator when i realized that i'd responded to a stranger's "have a good weekend!" with a "thank you", and ended the week with some hard work. i practiced role models on the metro - which seems a bit creepy - and met up with gd at p.m. for way more sake than i was ready for and a delicious, delicious meal.

we headed over to côte-des-neiges to a russian restaurant for kgb's surprise birthday party. we drank a lot and danced a lot and the borscht was brilliant after i scooped out the blob of cream to the waiter's dismay and disgust.

gd and i had a wonderful time. our tipsy revelrie felt sooooo good and i was sooooo grateful that it was weeekend and sooooo grateful for how the week had played out, but i wasn't so excited about chasing it all with a blood donation the next morning.

i fell into bed, absolutely wasted.

---yesterday:

i woke up with cotton wool in my head and mouth. it was a perfect cool, rainy morning and i was warm and toasty and foggy and sleepy and the belly discomfort from the previous days was gone and i was sooooo comfortable and i was enjoying my dreams and there's nothing i wanted less than to drag myself away from all that.

but i did. i clambered out of bed, got ready as fast as i could (not very fast) and left a little late for the slam team meeting. i arrived there and was met with a silent, empty room. i fired off messages to the rest of the team and eventually one of the flatmates appeared and reminded me that our usual host is away for the weekend.

i thought about that on my way back to the metro. since i've been at work i've been so overwhelmed that everything *not* work has been on autopilot. i knew my teammate was away, but didn't connect that piece of information to whether or not we'd be meeting.

wow :/

at least there was time to do the shopping i needed to do. it was inconvenient to be walking around with both a sweater and a poncho, the latter going on and off every time i left or entered a building, but i picked up a decent iphone case, and i found a good pair of under armor shoes to replace the ones that screw up my feet.

i would've picked up a lightning cable from the apple store if it hadn't been so pricey. i picked up a knock-off from walmart later instead.

i had a quick lunch / snack at home, which would have included baba ganouj had that not been taken over by a very serious mould, chatted briefly with my mother while setting up twilio (and forgetting my password, which would drive me nuts later), hunted down all the rental assignment forms and rushed out to get them printed.

...

a girl begging in the metro was particularly aggressive.
"sorry," i shrugged.
she took a step closer.
"how about two dollars?"
"sorry," i said as i shook my head.
she took another step closer.
"one dollar"?
now she was way too close for comfort.
"why are you sorry?"
i stared back at her.
"why are you sorry?"
"because i'm not interested in giving you any money."
"you could have just said 'no'" she snarled as she stalked off.

and you could have not bothered a total stranger, and not harassed him for trying to be polite in an uncomfortable situation.

...

printing the assignment forms was quick and painless. i stopped in at walmart to buy the cable, and by the time i got to my apartment there wasn't time for coffee and i'd only had my first cup in the morning. the guy i'm assigning to rocked up a little late with his girlfriend. nice kids, but *damn* they took a long time to fill out the forms!
by the time i walked out it was 6.30 and i was running late for the 7.30 movie and was exhausted and hungry and feeling bad for making gd meet me at the cinema after she'd had a hard day at work.

i then had to wait a ridiculously long time for my meal in the food court. then i sat down and the people at the table next to me were watching videos on their phones at top volume. then gd walked in, suffering real back pain.

[furious part i]

we went to see the movie anyway, clearing things up a bit on the way in. we'd missed the first few minutes, but it didn't matter too much. guardians of the galaxy is GORGEOUS. total sensory overload, funny and fun and we'll definitely be seeing it again.

[furious part ii]

---today:

after sorting things out we went to bed exhausted, i dreamed insane dreams and woke up with a stuffed nose.

[furious part iii]

we took a while to clean up, literally and figuratively, i was introduced to the pixies and getting a bit more sleep was good. we went to midi 6 for a desperately needed lunch, then headed downtown to brave the crowds and pick up an ipad to replace gd's computer. i mentioned my new iphone and the amount it's improved my quality of life - gd's pc has been driving her nuts and it's so old and dysfunctional that there's really not much we can do with it.

by the time we returned home it was 5.30pm and we still had tons to do. the evening has been spent setting up the ipad and introducing gd to its wonders, posting, grocery shopping, doing laundry, eating wonderful home-made vegan pizzas (groundless beef and daiya cheese), being admitted to a lone soldier's veteran club, and wondering where the time has been going while my task list hasn't been getting any shorter. and now it's almost 1am.

DAMN. i needed a restful weekend :(

drained - part ii

[... continued]

l'artère sent me an email that was distinctly lacking in professionalism, asking (months down the line) if i had paid up my event bill... which i had. not impressed.

i did some stretching, then joined gd in watching premium rush, which just seemed like a sorry excuse to put together cycling and new york city. not exactly mind-blowing.

trying to get to bed early became falling asleep after 1am.

---wednesday:

it was a rainy morning but a good one nonetheless. having forgotten my lunch, i walked into the supermarket across the road where i'd ordered commensal meals the week before. i get that the manager can't speak english, but when i asked in french for him to speak slower it really grated my cheese when he simply repeated himself at the same speed. it took me an awkward moment to figure out more or less what he was saying.

for lunch i decided to try a little indian restaurant nearby called "pushap". seriously? i just found my new favourite indian restaurant, and it's right next to my office. which means it's right next to where i *used* to live.

godsdammit.

their thali is insane. and it's only $5!

...

in the afternoon i discovered that i'd been attempting to solve the wrong problem... i'd been given the impression that the feature i was implementing had worked once and been broken, when in fact it had never been implemented. that meant that i'd been working in the wrong problem space, and my efforts moved from backend to mobile frontend. mobile frontend is a nightmare, and what remained of my week was spent trying to get ios and android phones to use html5 the way the standard is defined: when apple and google have specifically gone against the standard, the documentation becomes utterly useless and trying to work off it is a solid waste of time :(

i was stupidly tired after work, it was too warm for a sweater and too rainy to be outside and i was too slow for la panthère verte where i managed to offend the girl trying to be helpful because she switched from english to french and i misunderstood that she was actually explaining what i'd asked her to :(

it was a great poetry evening, though, and the only thing that wasn't cool had to do with team politics. that's something that really shouldn't be a thing :(

...

i was so excited to come home and find my syndicate scanner iphone case! and so very, very disappointed to discover that the iphone 5c's volume buttons are incompatible with iphone 5 cases. what kind of a design decision is that?! it's so absurd, why would nobody mention the difference when selling 5/5s accessories?! fortunately, my letter to vistaprint's support was responded to with a full refund, and that did a good job of reducing my frustration and relieving me from my sense of ignorance.

...

hot coffee: you don't need to see more than half an hour to get a clear picture of how messed up things are and how bad it is that we all jumped on the "frivolous litigation" bandwagon. george w., you never cease to disappoint.

...

i wrote "unnecessary stress" but i haven't a clue what that was about.

---thursday:

dreams: day and night in a dive bar in the middle of nowhere, then festival fields with a three-ferrari grand prize and plenty more on display

it was cold and raining when we woke up and we were warm and cozy under the blankets. i finally cleared all the dishes and bought a couple of ac/dc albums: back in black (because i owned it) and the razors edge. i don't understand how it's possible that i've never heard the title song from the latter, because now that i have i understand why it's the title song. holy shit.

at the beginning of my lunch hour i walked in to the bell store where i got my phone intending to purchase a case with the store credit the salesman had promised me, but he wasn't there and the guy i dealt with gave me shit even before he looked up my information. he was a complete ass and i walked out in a bit of a rage. the perfect frame of mind to be calling my building manager in. those idiots couldn't grasp that i'm offering them a tenant and the money that goes with having a tenant in an apartment they're complaining is difficult to fill.

my code was fine but my machine was down. i noticed one of the guys playing counterstrike global: offensive, it looks just like i remember cs, and i guess that's the next gaming purchase...

i received a call from hema quebec, but because the french don't pronounce the "h" i thought the poor girl was saying "emma" and that made me make her repeat it for a while before giving up :/

after all that frustration, i figured out the html5 quirks and received a call back from the building manager to say that they were finally acquiescing to my (imo very reasonable) demands. i did some git wrangling until i finally tamed the beast and then took a bit of time out for myself.

[continued...]

drained - part i

örmagörd. i can't believe it's sunday after 6pm as i begin writing this, and i haven't had a chance to breathe the entire week nor the entire weekend. i've been super tired and busy and i really, really need a rest. to be clear, the weekend's chores are far from over :(

---sunday:

after saturday night's blogging, 1.30am to bed, followed by a good sleep. more blogging and chores - including trying and failing to take a good photo of me for the slam team's fundraising efforts. on our way to midi 6 for breakfast i remembered to take pieces of chalk, and i took *just* enough to cross out "A LIE" from
BEAUTY IS
A LIEand replace it with
BEAUTY IS
SUBJECTIVE
BLINDNESS
IS A CHOICE"
i felt much better after that.

midi 6 was great, and our second attempt to take a photo of me was a fantastic success!

my beard was all scratchy and called for an emergency shave. airplane sent me some work he's done recently and it's EPIC comic work! more blogging and chores, then suddenly not feeling good at all.

gd and i don't agree on the current ebola situation, and i'm siding with these people. the ad preceding the video was for dr pepper, though, with the doctor moving through a hospital treating patients with soda. that's messed up.

my mother surprised me by calling using facetime - it must've been about 3am her time, and she was testing it out. apparently she's more of an "early" adopter than i am :P

we watched some being human, i felt a bit better, the weekend ended.

---monday:

as opposed to a photo of me from the end of last year that garnered a lot of likes, the approval for my new profile picture has actually been flattering :)

i got up early, did a ton of dishes and buggered about with google play music and somehow left late in spite of my best intentions. i tweaked my latest poems, which i'm *really* pleased with, arrived at work and spent the morning focused.

arguing with my building manager: that awkward feeling when you're talking to someone who obviously didn't think about what they just said, it was incredibly stupid and you don't want to sound condescending because you need them to do you a favour :/

i booked a hotel room for gd and i for the cfsw! very cool, we got a king-sized bed for the same price as a regular discounted room :D

work: there's little more worrying than when shit SHOULDN'T work and it does. i began a big refactor, and i wrote down "constants fudging" but i don't remember why.

i rushed out in a hurry to meet gd and get to godmother's for dinner, which was absolutely delicious (in particular the veggie burgers). yang was there and we were all cool for the first time in a while. we went on a yeh! mission afterwards, then returned home to construct shelving that gd bought for our bathroom.

it's unbelievable how much difference it makes not having all sorts of shit around the sink.

---tuesday:

light rls during the night and too much internet time were followed by a garbage and dishes morning.

on my way into the building i ran into a friend of newk'd's who's just started working for my company.

the morning was filled with javascript closure binding issues - completely mental - and was *really* bad timing for me to install a version of our software that has a major bug in it that made testing my changes a nightmare.

it's amazing to me that when i walk out looking for privacy and quiet in order to be interviewed for a future job, i'm blasted by trucks, bells, horns and wind. the thing about the interview is that it's a personal connection that i tapped back in february and it took until now to score the phone call; i felt obligated to hear these guys out. and it's a really, really interesting opportunity, so i explained that i'm committed for the next while and that i'll be in touch when i'm ready.

it's nice to have options!

airplane suggested that i listen to the make comics podcast, and the first episode i downloaded basically told me not to work with the kind of people that i've been working with :S

the afternoon was spent dealing with closure binding and ogg vorbis oddities, and once i was done i *needed* kickboxing. the class was a killer, primarily because i was working through breathing difficulties (allergy season?), it was humid and i was dizzy and i ended up hurting my hand because my new gloves aren't good for pads and bags. so i need to sell those, now, and buy bag gloves. i'm not happy with that at all :(

badger and i continued our argument over israel / gaza, and the jolly moroccan joined in. it took a while for me to realize that he wasn't referring to israel's actions as criminal, rather it's existence. so that was the end of arguing with him. as far as i'm concerned, even though a lasting peace in the middle east is impossible, we can still ease the palestinian suffering. and i believe that israel's the only player that can do that, and that it should.

badger and i went on a loblaws mission, i was harassed by spiders (one in the car climbing down to my lap, and a couple on the way home). i'm not a fan of spiders.

[continued...]

not so much resting or relaxing - part vi

[... continued]

giving bad project estimates means forcing bad choices. i sent my manager two estimates, the first a day to a week and the second a week to a month. i know i'm right about those estimates, but i knew he'd have to go for the quicker option which is going to prove a wasted effort whether it works or not :/

after a week of stressing i finally picked up my new visa, and was impressed by the activation experience. i called, keyed in the card details, and was done. no need to speak to anyone, no time wasted. :)

...

some days i think regex is a tool of the devil, and some days i really like it. friday was a day i was really grateful for it.
i left the office just in time to catch the metro (for the second day in a row), with my hours eerily precisely making thirty-five. i was done, exhausted, and i'm still wondering how i ever managed forty hour weeks. forty hour weeks suck!

gd and i had both been getting excited to go to a friend's rooftop barbeque, and we were on our way out the door when disaster struck in the form of her back giving out (agonizing pinched nerves, i don't know what expression works). she wanted me to go and i was torn between going and not leaving her alone, which resulted in a pseudo-fight which resulted* in a night in with takeout thai food that i must admit wasn't a bad alternative.

* i feel the need to clarify that there were no losing sides on this one

hunter x hunter's 2011 reboot is now on netflix, so we watched an episode. gd seemed to enjoy it, but the subtitles thing made it hard :(

so that was the end of a very long week.

---yesterday:

i woke up and shaved beneath my chin for what i hope is one of the last times ever. it was a stunning summer day and while the laser is pretty damned painful the process was quick and clean. and not too expensive, as just before i paid i realized that purchasing a year's worth of treatments is not nearly as much value for money as pre-paying the expected number of treatments. aside from an initial burn, i had no reactions and the lingering smell of burning hair was probably the worst part. at least the intense pain was quick.

slam team: another productive meeting, but time flew by and we were all hungry and tired after three hours of performing and critiquing. i was frustrated because my netbook is practically comatose and i had to use my phone for everything (at least my new phone's not a bad experience), and when i got home (in the late afternoon) i wasted time trying to boot from a flash drive to reinstall ubuntu (apparently impossible) and trying to synchronize a backup folder over dropbox instead of using said flash drive. i was just tired and in stupid-mode, and i was aggravated by the fact that saturday's supposed to be my gaming day and i got no me-time in at all.

i did give the osteopath's exercises a go, though. i feel that just walking properly is making more of a difference. money well spent either way.

i had a long chat with my mother and then with gd about her work and about converting her to judaism**, which reminded me that i really should install mezuzot here.

** perhaps i'll post about our attitudes some day.

gd and i then made the evening ours and headed off to the imax to watch lucy. and the circle is finally complete.

not so much resting or relaxing - part iv

[... continued]

i stopped at la panthère verte on my way to meet the slam team, there was a long line all the way to the door and the woman in front of me took more than five minutes to place her damned order - was she high? or just stupid?

it was almost too hot and humid for poetry, but we had a productive evening and i was pleased to receive very positive feedback on my two new pieces! (cattle farming and role models)

afterwards i came home, hid myself away for the equivalent of meditation, jumped in the shower where i almost crapped myself when gd unwittingly recreated the famous scene from psycho. afterwards we had a short discussion about naivety and innocence regarding reading people, during which i finally managed to express myself properly on the subject and gd now understands that i'm not as blindly trusting as the impression i managed to give her.

these are important things.

...

another late night when i was already tired.

---tuesday:

tuesday is our new garbage day, which is less convenient than mondays. i updated the ads for subletting my apartment and even paid to bump one of them up. i just tried to do that again but i don't see the options any more. ui fails are so pathetically lame.

it was an all-good morning in spite of a few fails, like dropping a container of toothpicks and using cold water while a shower was in progress :P

on my way into work i stopped by the supermarket next door to ask them to bring in commensal meals. the cashier who called the manager was super awkward and between that and the otherwise stifling heat i ended up sweating profusely while the manager "sir"ed me and agreed to place an order. boy, was i glad to get outside!

tuesday was vacation management day; i've obtained clearance from the company and bought our tickets to the cfsw. hooray!

odd things about working with porn: sitting in a boardroom meeting and watching a presentation of new software with a video of a woman giving a blowjob playing on the giant screen.

i spent the first hour of my lunch hour organizing things with the collective and going out to buy lunch; the second hour eating the lunch and playing another case solved while waiting for the power to come back on. at least the microwaves were operational, even if all our computers went down. i'm not sure i agree with the priorities, but it's not really my problem.

there were achievements made during the afternoon but by 5pm i had sore eyes and desperately needed a nap room.

at 7pm i went to kickboxing for a really tough class. not only did i handle well, but our coach tweaked our kicks and they've significantly improved! also, my legs are definitely tougher after the last few weeks of abuse. i'm pleased :)

when badger arrived we argued about what's going on in israel - the argument was unpleasant but short, but someone else in the same room overheard what we were saying and stormed out in a huff. oops :$

i returned home to find gd not feeling well. i had commensal chilli for dinner and was halfway through when i realized that the 13g listed on the container is per serving, and there're *four* servings in each container. oh! i'm sure i was covered, then. who only eats a single serving, in that case?!

laundry, bed. not as late, but i had to be up early in the morning...

---wednesday:

oh, 5.30am, how i've missed you! and the pinched nerve that i hadn't felt on tuesday.

the osteopath hour was interesting, but i walked out of there with my nerve still pinching which wasn't what i expected. having said that, i walked out having learned that for years i've been walking with pathetically bad posture. it doesn't *look* like bad posture, but my lower abs are so underused that i compensate with my upper body and my neck is compensating for my upper back. so now that i'm aware of this i've spent the past few days walking around with my pelvis thrust forward and my shoulders back, and aside from feeling self-conscious about my "strut" my lower back pain's gone and my neck's relaxed.

huh.

i have exercises i'm supposed to be doing, but yesterday was the first time i actually had a moment to attempt them. i've gotta make this a habit...

...

i found heaven at 7.30am in a smelly gas station restroom.

as i walked out of the medical facility i felt a slight pressure in my bladder, and by the time i'd crossed the road i was having a full-scale peemergency. it's like the manipulations she did on me forced a system purge - i can't tell you how grateful i was for that gas station!

...

i was hoping to rest before work but there was no time. i needed to set up for "epost" for my paychecks and their forms are so frustrating that i ended up late for work.

suck.

it was a long day, i was mostly focused, and i was dead tired by the end of it. i was running almost exclusively on coffee fumes. i had some calls to make when i arrived home, and that was when i realized that my iphone's microphone was totally buggered :(

dinner was delicious, we watched the boondocks and i fell into a deep, deep sleep.

[continued...]

gearing up - part ii

[... continued]


gd went to bed early and i sat down to watch hackers. i didn't realize that the netflix version is the director's cut! there's so much of that movie that i've never seen before*, it's all quite important and the overall experience was thoroughly enjoyable. i've loved that movie since i saw it on the big screen, and up until now i never realized how much it's influenced me: note the rollerblades, the outrageous clothing and the truly excellent soundtrack!

* or perhaps had simply forgotten, and it's not the director's cut? i can't tell.

...

note to self: don't log in to imdb and start rating movies and making lists before bed...

or ever...

---wednesday:

my bank account's hit rock bottom, and i'd been waiting for an SOS infusion from my mother just in case my permit was delayed. i woke up to an email informing me that it still wasn't transferring.

i was half asleep as i made us breakfast, which has become a thing. i desperately need to reset my body clock! anyway, i stretched with gd, continued rating movies on imdb, then went back to bed. the re-sleep was AMAZING, the difference night and day [sorry]. i ran shadowrun online's daily mission (i haven't won one yet) and agreed to help uncle hate out with an excel file, then headed out to the bank to figure out what was going on.

the idiot at my bank branch - a guy who messed with me a long time ago because he didn't trust my identity - informed me that the idiot at the other bank branch had given me incomplete information for an international transfer.

amazing! how very professional.

so i walked across the road to an excellent indian restaurant and scanned and sent the correct details while i waited. the vegetable briyani was terrific and i honestly can't believe i ate so much, i was *really* hungry!

...

in the rush to enter a train on the way back home i almost got pushed into a closing door, luckily for me the driver stopped the doors before they closed on me and for half a minute i glared at the asshole who'd been behind me :@

...

i didn't quite rest but had no time or headspace for the coding i needed to do. i left for the slam team meeting having achieved precious little.

it was a gorgeous day on mont royal. did i see a policewoman wearing black and white camo pants? what the hell?!

it was a good team meeting, i learned some interesting things and suffered inspiration overload. i've got sooooo much to write it's ridiculous.

...

i came home, and i don't know what i was expecting to do for the rest of the evening but whatever it was disintegrated in the furious flames of a crazy fight with gd. it was the kind of fight where we each thought the other had had enough and was ready to split up, it was a horror show and it astounds me that it ended with two very worn out, very loving combatants.

we're weird.

and while neither of us want to ever experience that kind of thing again, we both know that these are just obstacles on a long road together and we can only hope the rest of them will be a little more minor.

---thursday:

yesterday morning was good and slow. the money had transferred successfully, so that was a load off my mind, and i attacked my task list item by item, finally looking at the first stages of my collaboration with airplane. his first page is gorgeous! i'm delighted by that :)

almost as much as by receiving news that my permit's been approved ^_^

[continued...]

conserving energy - part ii

[... continued]

thursday:

we woke up to a cooler morning, which i spent studying, then napping, then studying again. in the afternoon i went to the gym to work on the bags because i wouldn't be able to make the class, and i spent about ten or fifteen minutes half-crazed hunting my wraps and certain that they were here somewhere and that i was just botching my search rolls. only it turned out that gd had accidentally taken them with to her gym, but fortunately she'd just finished there and we met at the station.

the hour or so that i spent at the gym was good, i worked hard and learned a thing or two from the guy who once made me paranoid about ringworm, who was pleased to learn a thing or two from me in return :)

it's the first time i've showered at the gym and the experience was pretty comfortable, even though i'd continue sweating for a while afterwards and needed to shower properly when i got home. note to self: don't go to the gym without a protein bar, especially when you're no longer living next door.

gd and i watched the end of reincarnated and i was left with the same complaint about the difference in quality between the music on the soundtrack and the actual album he released. we both agreed that while he comes across as a complete buffoon, snoop's at least honest. he really doesn't have much to say, but he's certainly entertaining.

gd received a gift of turkish coffee from one of her clients and it's the shit! a pity for her that she can't sleep after drinking it :P

we had a slam team meeting but i was the only one who showed up so two of us did some creative collaboration and we've had some interesting ideas. we were far more productive than we would have been with a full team, i suspect it'd be smarter for us all to meet in twos and threes separately.

i had serious munchies by the time i left, and being vegan with midnight munchies is a tragedy. i stopped in at a pizza joint where the guy's eyes popped out of his head as he yelled "pizza without cheese?!", and i eventually found a&w's végé burger which i could order without cheese. they still managed to surprise me by putting mayonnaise on it. mayonnaise?? without mentioning it? who the hell puts mayonnaise on a burger?!

i was still hungry when i got home, gd had made beets which i turned into a mess and she sorted me out with a grilled cheese before we started watching bad grampa. we finished watching the movie last night, and i have to say that watching bad grampa .5 first made the actual movie that much more interesting, shocking and clever.

---yesterday:

it was even cooler than the day before, i was sleeping wonderfully wrapped in blankets but i forced myself to wake up so that i could make gd her breakfast shake. i couldn't get back to sleep, so i played a lot of tekken and watched a bit of underworld, which i've been meaning to see since it came out. it's pretty cool.

i wasn't stressing until i spoke to my mother - who's stressing on my behalf - and made a call to the bank to discover that they haven't heard anything of the amount that my mother transferred to me at the beginning of the week. they've told me to wait patiently until tuesday before panicking, and seeing as my bank balance just went below zero i found that so very comforting :/

i spoke to copywriter for a bit, he made some absurd suggestions about what i can do to stay on the continent if my job doesn't materialize and it took a while to explain to him how immigration works. when you're born an american citizen, these are things you never really need to understand...

i lost an hour to running around looking for a supermarket or health store in the area where i could buy commensal frozen meals. apparently there's an actual restaurant location a few blocks in the other direction, so i'll have to check that out.

desperately hungry and feeling out of time, i stopped in at midi 6 for their vegan option, which of course i enjoyed. i came home to study but found my brain non-compliant, so i ended up doing chores instead. it's not like there's a lack of those at the moment :P

i wasn't up for boxing, so i ran again. quite well, and although my legs were sore when i returned they've settled since and i'm feeling pretty good at the moment.

gd and i shopped, i made dinner and we sank into the couch to finish bad grampa before going to bed.

---today:

i didn't fully wake up in order to make breakfast, and so i managed to get back to sleep and dream about renting out space i don't actually have, leaving me with a sense of disappointment when i got up. i'm glad i've finally posted this, i've tidied a little bit more and i'm about ready to face my day.

i've *just* received a request to rent my apartment... for one night. in the middle of september. *DAMN*, that's unhelpful!

---how far are we from a star trek reality?

looking back - part ii.1

alright, we're down to this week. i can handle four days in brief, right?

---sunday night? this part's a little confused:

bad boys (viking) -> starship troopers (sgt. zim) -> john dies at the end (dr. albert marconi). i guess i've gotta see that last one, i'm glad i've read the book.

gd and i had a fight about one of her pet peeves. we had another major one last night. it's amazing how worked up we can both get and yet still end up resolving things in a way that we're both happy. we're both intense but we both stay rational in spite of our emotions, and we both keep finding ourselves surprised by the results.

---monday:

waking up at 5am with a pinched nerve making my butt hurt.

taking gd to the clinic, accidentally pantsing her in the waiting room.

having coffee with godmother at atwater market, joined by gd. we all agree on the fact that us looking for another apartment before i start working is a bad idea, but that my moving in to gd's apartment is a good one. godmother was shocked when gd sat down on a bench she'd thought was higher and yelled "omg, i just swallowed my vagina!". by the time she found another way to express the sensation it was too late, and after saying goodbye we found ourselves giggling uncontrollably.

we did some shopping and while i did the dishes we discovered that we both love shpongle. awesome!

i accompanied gd to studiotec where she trained with one of her bosses and his boyfriend. there was a woman waiting for her turn who kept saying "i don't think i can handle that", looking at me and laughing as if i would obviously agree with her. i don't know what kind of support she expected, if you're too unadventurous to try something new then i have no respect for you. i wanted to ask her how long she'd been merely surviving but i bit my tongue and did my best to ignore her.

i was tired and gd's quick shopping took too long for me. suddenly it was 5pm and i'd done precious little, it was too late to pay l'artère and i went home to knock items off my task list before another team meeting.

you know when you're trying to make an online payment and you worry that at some point something's going to go wrong? well, my payment to revenu québec crashed my browser as i clicked "submit". i'd have to wait two days to make sure that it hadn't gone through before trying again...

i lost time on the couch, got up to write character sketches for mti, packed perishables to take to gd then rushed out late for the team meeting. it was a good meeting. there was an awkward moment where someone was discussing hallucinations and i was worried i was the only person who could talk about hallucinogens positively, but then the moment was broken as two of the others shared their opinions on the subject. we'll be fine.

on the way to the metro with rabbit and her boyfriend they convinced me that fisher king is a good choice.

i ate junk-food for supper, then went to bed.

---tuesday:

after a mixed bag of dreams i awoke with gd at 5am to a nightmare situation. i may have mentioned before that the working conditions of a stylist in montreal are pretty close to those of a sweatshop, and she was sick and they don't get sick leave. a lot of what she described made me angry, and we argued back and forth until eventually she agreed to call her boss and explain that she couldn't get there.

apparently, she made him feel so shitty about his no-illness policy that he didn't want to speak about it, so she got a day off and the morning was perfect* after that.

* well, it could have been better if she wasn't sick, but it was as perfect as could be aside from that.

i was slow on tuesday morning, trying to knock off more items from my list. obviously, being in a hurry to print something at the ups store *demands* being held back by old ladies who can't handle credit cards and are so useless they have to have their pin codes written on their cards.

i was shocked by how expensive printing a single black and white page was. i think the girls behind the counter were offended by my expression.

on the metro, an old, creepy guy playing games on an ipad complimented me on my bugs bunny shirt.

as i left the metro, i was feeling strong, suddenly energized and walking tall. i met with an ex-co-worker for coffee on a nice side of mont royal i'd never been before. i was shocked to learned how he'd been fired - they'd called him in for a project meeting, so he had to ride his bike through horrific weather for most of an hour, only to surprise him by letting him go. that's ugly, until tuesday he still had no idea why they fired him and i explained to him the political climate and why his actual work had nothing to do with it. i also offered to give him a reference whenever he wants, he's a professional and a pleasure to work with.

i returned to l'artère to pay the big bill, and mindlessly occupied myself with another case solved until i got home. i then tried to help my mother with her phone. i then renamed myself.

i skipped the first kickboxing class in order to get something done. i carried my microwave to gd's in my hands.
of course, the only person to offer her seat on the metro would be an older, larger woman :/
and of course it would start raining as i stepped outside. fortunately it was a only a few drops before i got home and the skies opened.

i had excess frustration to train off, and walked out of the gym after an hour feeling good about a dude stealing some of my taekwondo moves and me almost getting my left wheel kick sorted out. i wasn't feeling good about the fact that it's sweaty season again, nor that my breathing was strained again. although i suspect that that might have been caused by my starting to get sick.

how nice to be rained on when carrying groceries with a flash drive and a charger in my pockets. i'm so glad gd had left an awkward little umbrella at my apartment...

dinner: an incredible mix of steamed veggies, a regular salad and quinoa. this steaming thing is great! and cooking with blue pilots project - flight for everyone just made the whole day better.

[continued...]

supertongue montreal introduction - part ii

[... continued]

we picked up lunch at la panthère verte, then walked up to the mountain. we didn't get very far, but we did get to enjoy a bit of a trail, the larping and an incredible hippie stage at the tams. the vegan brownie we'd picked up earlier was orgasmic, and distracted me from my sore feet.

we arrived at l'artère just in time for the workshop, the sound man was watching r.a. the rugged man - definition of a rap flow which i think is cool. the workshop was primarily for two kids horseman brought along, but halogen and rabbit's boyfriend participated too. it was kinda fun, and we got one kid to overcome some serious shyness which made it all worth it.

we needed fifteen paying guests in order to break even, we had almost forty who'd promised to come. of those, only about four or five actually arrived, so instead of fundraising we lost a lot of cash. apparently the choice of location was a mistake; it would have been nice had someone mentioned that BEFORE we proceeded.

#$@%.

it was a fun evening regardless, we used randomly generated scores and everyone had a good time. i disappointed myself by going up with a piece that i hadn't prepared on a microphone we were all struggling with after having had half a beer on top of my exhaustion. i could and should have done better.

a particularly amusing moment: we'd arranged the slam so that every poet would get six minutes to divide between the two rounds however they chose, and the pretentious guy decided to use all six minutes on his first piece. AND HE WENT OVER. so for his turn, our host decided that all the other poets would go up and slam for the 46 seconds he owed us. genius :)

a few of us discussed my choice of a pseudonym, and fisher king was proposed. i initially rejected it, and so they just called me by my surname. that felt strange.

on our way back to gd's to pick up supertongue's gear i asked her why she'd declined to participate in the workshop. it turns out she doesn't take criticism well, and instead of making or ignoring the corrections i'd sent her she'd just given up. that sucked.

we didn't really have time for dinner, i accompanied her to the bus and let her convince me to leave her in the line and take myself to bed. we'd survived a crazy three days and our next mission is finding her a job in montreal so that she can move to a place with a bit of soul.

looking back - part i

(last week) wednesday:

of course it was chilly and wet when i rushed out of starbucks to join gd in looking at some apartments. we saw three really nice ones, then returned to my apartment for my meeting with the illustrators.

i'd set the meeting up based on bnw's availability, so i was really angry when she messaged me to say that she wouldn't be coming because she'd already made another "more important" plan. i've realized since that trying to work with her is a mistake, and it's better that we just stick to being friends.

otherwise, the meeting was great! we came up with a good plan and we all seem to be on the same page.

...

i apparently wasn't feeling well at all on wednesday night.

---(last week) thursday:

after a good, late sleep, i woke up to a video chat wherein i was introduced to a friend of gd's who's a bit of a recluse and a total conspiracy theorist. nice guy, but a little out there...

i put together the infrastructure for our comic collaboration, then went to look at a beautiful, far-too-expensive apartment next door to gd's. gd and i had an argument on the way back, ff kept rescheduling our meeting and i was already stressing about the looming weekend, so i was irritable and frustrated and incapable of coherent thought for a while.

i decided to try taking a nap, and i did feel a bit better afterwards.

i called up my building manager and was totally disappointed by how callous they are towards good tenants who need to leave before their leases are up :S

it was miserable and tense and hot and rainy when i left to meet with ff, and two stops before hers - about 100m or so before the second stop before hers - our train ground to a halt and we'd be forced to evacuate the metro.

seriously, if you're going to evacuate? DO IT QUICKLY. we were stuck in our dark, hot cars for about ten or fifteen minutes, which gets pretty claustrophobic when everyone's impatient and it's hard to breathe. even harder when some idiot farts. they evacuated from back to front, so we got to witness a line of smartphones lumbering past, filming the rest of us as if we were a zoo exhibit.

i stepped out into the pouring rain with no sense of direction, and eventually sat down in the subway across from the metro and waited for ff to bus it.

our meeting was good, she was happy with what we'd all agreed upon the previous night, and her sketches were excellent! we didn't need to sit for too long to cover everything, and then she was off and i returned to pick up gd from her gym.

i went back to my apartment for dinner and to sort out some papers. gd was on her way home from shopping and we were talking about something on the phone when the scariest thing happened: mid-sentence, i heard her suddenly gasp and then the call dropped. it would take a minute before i could get hold of her again and she'd inform me that she'd simply dropped a whole bunch of things, including her phone, but i was imagining the worst and that was terrible :(

the slam team was meeting at casa del popolo, and the weather was cool and cloudy and dark; with no wind it would have been perfect! it was too loud there, so we went to halogen's instead and our first meeting was quite enjoyable.

---(last week) friday:

i arrived home late, and went to bed early in order to be ready to pick up supertongue at 6.40am for a wild weekend.

of COURSE i'd spend the next few hours suffering from rls, it was a sleepless night and i eventually got up feeling pretty wasted. and walked out into a miserably rainy morning, not quite ready to face the day.