the rush - part ii

[... continued]

it's monday morning and i have a busy schedule to prepare for... but i've got to finish at least some of this, and last night i felt absolutely horrible. i'm feeling much, much better now.

---wednesday:

at 5am i woke up and had a flash of inspiration - i had an idea a while back and with the tools that i've been exposed to at work i now have a good way to do it!

it was a nice morning but a dispassionate one. i spent it managing tricky fixes and realized late that i'd forgotten to put my lunch in the fridge. fortunately it was okay.

on wednesday i received a mandate to run loadtesting: i've been doing that since. i like breaking things "the right way".

my shoulder and neck began hurting. a man in the bathroom standing right behind me to take a drying towel raised his head to smile at me in the mirror, which was super-creepy. i had pre-performance nerves, but i had no time pressure as it was my first day since i started that i'd gotten enough hours done before 6pm; the power of a short lunch :)

i was on the metro already when i realized that i'd left the tripod at home. when i got to le dépanneur café i found a really dodgy substitute and for the first half of the evening i didn't trust it to hold, so i held on to the camera with my hand and it shook every time i cramped up :(

i was not impressed by my team. i'd asked them to record video using their phones so that we could get different angles, and they couldn't be bothered.

my performance wasn't fantastic, but it really wasn't bad. things were rather awkward though, because our host left rabbit out of the evening and we're all to new and inexperienced to know that we can and should be shouting "hey! what about rabbit?!" :$

kyra shaughnessy sang a few songs. she's AMAZING (and you can hear her for free). brandon wint and nasra adem's poetry was beautiful, too, though there were some pieces i just couldn't connect with.

the guy working le dépanneur café was entirely unwelcoming.

i made a note about "gd and i talking properly" but while i suspect that our conversation involved the nature of reality and the importance of written words and memories it's been too long to recall :/

we stretched a bit and i sent off some thank yous for the event and suddenly it was 2am...

at least google play music works on ipad!!! even if you do have to search through iphone apps to find it.

---thursday:

it was a good, slow morning. i was nominated for the ice bucket challenge.

i arrived at work late and felt slowed down. it bothered me that the cleaners were taking care of our little coffee / microwave room at lunchtime, their timing could have been better. i spent my extended lunch hour working to set up a new website for the throw poetry collective and connect all other services and things.

i was very busy with taking pride in my work; i came across something that was written badly (using sync functions in node is not a good idea) and spent ten minutes rewriting it... only to discover that the undesirable behaviour had side-effects that the previous developers were using and so fixing it broke everything.

#$!@.

oh gods, a guy one cubicle over was being a total douchebag about als awareness when one of the girls was talking about it. it was a struggle to keep my mouth shut.

kickboxing: a tough training session, my first holding my hands up muay thai-style and my biceps were burning. towards the end i developed a serious stitch that was prolonged and extremely painful.

i got home and learned that my mother's bank account has been emptied by hackers, and after we talked about it we're convinced it was an inside job between the bank, her mobile provider or both. it was a freakishly sophisticated attack and there really wasn't much she could have done to protect herself. except maybe use a bank that double-checks suspicious activity with as much fervor as it double-checks legitimate activity.

i was exhausted when i got home. i caught up with SxS, did some small things online (like completing the first volume of saga for gd) and went to bed just after discovering that my laser hair removal treatment wasn't done along the line *i* shaved. i'm going back this evening for a redo, i can't believe how dumb the technician is.

[continued...]

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...]

not so much resting or relaxing - part ii

[... continued]

on my way back to work my phone was bugging out again. i could hear well but nobody could hear me. that's very, very frustrating; now i know how ghosts feel in stories.

at least my back was feeling better. i left with sasquatch and we talked all the way to lucien l'allier where i got off to walk to gd's friend's tattoo parlour / gallery for a vernissage. i arrived early, grabbed a mountain dew (i'm developing again, it's a thing) and chewed the fat with a couple of interesting people. the performance was decent, the music mostly beautiful.

vfmp joined just before the music started, gd arrived just as it finished. we all went to p.m. together, with gd embarrassing me a little on the way. some things are meant to stay private! anyway, dinner was delicious but after i'd been singing praise of p.m.'s vegan-friendly options, after we'd begun eating, i suddenly registered for the first time that my favourite tofu meal might have a light coating of egg around it. it was all awkwardly downhill from there.

of course we went to yeh! afterwards.

...

due to a peemergency, gd and i hurried home soon after that. we started watching a vlog of supertongue's and ended up arguing about whether or not her offensive religious views will be tolerated in our house (she's planning on coming over at the end of the month). she's become a fundamentalist atheist and what she has to say about other people's faiths is aggressive, absurd and uninformed.

it angers me when atheists extol the virtues of science without understanding that science has no basis from which to judge the subjective. you're not objective, anti-religious crusaders, you've just fallen into a different ideological trap. faith is healthy, religion is bad, and you need to leave people be if they're not interfering with you.

"wow! your logical arguments have convinced me that my god is a fantasy!" said no-one, ever.
there's no need to be a jerk. don't do unto others what you don't want done unto you.

---last saturday:

i got ten hours of sleep that i *really* needed. i dreamed anything from awkward family reunions to a cross between aliens, hannibal (from the tv series) and resident evil (our hostage was dressed as a power ranger).

i read the latest four posts of the last halloween, and it just put me right back on team abby! shit just got real.

i spent some time organizing slam poetry events. i'm now an official part of the collective and it's nice to be appreciated :)

having excitedly talked to gd about battlestar galactica, i bought the first part of the mini-series from psn. while it downloaded i played some good tekken and then some ffix; i didn't win the battle i'd been fighting quite like i wanted to but i'd attempted it so many times that i just rolled with it. while i played i lay in a way that stretched my back and i think that helped considerably.

the afternoon was overheated but good.

[continued...]

on the job - part ii

[... continued]

today:

my sleep was perfect and desperately needed, with crazy dreams i can't recall. i got up slowly, twice, spoke to my mother and rushed out for a meeting with the throw poetry collective. i arrived just on time and the meeting was interesting and motivating; also, résonance's chili on rice with its sour cream made of cashews and their latté with home-made almond / coconut milk made for a great lunch.

after two hours of that i visited godmother for coffee. on my way home vfmp and his boyfriend cancelled their plans to go see shakespeare in the park; i understood, seeing as the weather was a bit iffy, but wanted to go anyway. later, when gd and i were getting ready to go it started raining and then suddenly it didn't seem like such a good idea after all :P

saturdays are supposed to be gaming days for me, but i got in about ten or fifteen minutes of ffix before gd returned home. they weren't very good minutes, either :/
i then invested a bit of my soul responding to my unfunny south african comedian ex-friend... it's not a regular duty calls, this is a case of an otherwise intelligent jew with an audience who's clueless about what's going on and is spreading lies that cause anti-semitism. the world is really sucking right now.

my short nap didn't cure my exhaustion, but it made the rest of the evening manageable.

...

we watched the rest of safe, which is an intensely fun film, and finally put stickers on the magnets gd bought so we have a useful tool for keeping track of what we need to do when we get home or before we leave. now that i've posted, it's 3.30am and it's just started raining and we're going to bed.

on the offensive - part iii

[... continued]

---i posted an ad for my apartment in the morning, with gd's guidance for the french translation, and contacted the office to hear that they'd finally sent off my permit application. at least i'm finally waiting on the people i *should* be waiting on...

i met up with rabbit at midi 6, had lunch before moving to a nearby coffee shop while we planned and schemed. i've got a good sense of what's been happening and i've pushed her to be a little less compromising on her role as captain. we talked plans for sunday's slam and then merch ideas into the ground.

the "god shot" espresso was interesting, but i won't be drinking it again.

we did a little bit of poetry crit, and then rabbit had to leave - just as gd was returning from studiotec.

...

someone had suggested to gd that she might be pregnant. she's certain she's not, but neither of us would be unhappy if that was the case. that's a great place to be, i think :)

...

hannibal is a good series, and i think so even though i'm not invested. it's dark and sneaky, most of the characters are pretty convincing and in general it's fun to watch and think about.

i posted pre-boxing, then hurried out to make the class on time. warming up felt like being in a sauna, and i worked as hard as i could but halfway through my arms started failing. we ended the class with a really tough session on the bags and conditioning... it was all i could do to muster enough strength to finish the conditioning, and i was so weak and dizzy that i sat in a corner nibbling on a clif bar until i could get up without wobbling.

i did a quick shopping run, washed some dishes and had the full salad alone for the first time in a long time. i returned to gd's and vegged out in front of loads more hannibal, and then we went to bed.

---yesterday:

what's up with the sexism here? is it just more noticeable than elsewhere? gd was telling me an aggravating story about a stupid taxi driver she'd encountered, and i was as upset with her for not reporting him as i was with him for being an asshole.

i ran into a friend from the gym on the metro, and she convinced me to copy my ad from kijiji to craigslist if i want to find a replacement quickly. so that's what i did when i got home... instead of getting some sleep, which i needed because i was still pretty tired. also in lieu of sleep was my running off to print flyers and take them to l'artère. on the way i'd manage to wash my feet with rain water... flip-flops. not so good for my arches, not so good for keeping my feet clean, and not so good for keeping dry.

i had a tasty but not-so-protein-y lunch while trying to clean up my netbook, finding a whole bunch of things that i need to expose gd to before trashing. i stepped out into a gorgeous, sunny afternoon to meet up with vector and introduce him to my comics. some of the introduction was simple, some of it difficult, but he's suggested a little rewrite to the beginning that makes a whole lot of sense, and he's really excited to be a part of the project. even if i just end up with him, things are looking up!

after a couple of hours with him, i went home and chatted to my mother. after settling on a plan to keep me afloat while i wait for my permit to be authorized, she made a comment about wanting to switch back to blackberry because her iphone's emailing is screwed up and i decided to give her some support.

$%#@!!!

she's had a very frustrating time with her iphone because the professional idiots providing tech support for her isp are utterly incompetent. their antiquated mail servers are incompatible with iphones, and so i helped her configure her gmail account so that she can use it and still keep her old email address. setting up gmail for that wasn't a problem, but connecting her phone to her gmail account?

firstly, an alert saying "network error" is NOT the same as one saying "device not authorized, use https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha". i would love to find all those responsible for that special little gem, grab each one by the collar and slap them silly.

secondly, iphone's inability to allow gmail users to send using aliases is stunningly backward and primitive. we only found this workaround today, and between skype screen sharing and talking my mother through each iphone step the process of setting up her email has been a long, drawn-out and rage-inducing nightmare. it might have taken five minutes if i had her phone and passwords in hand, but at the end of the day i want *her* to be able to do this shit herself and iphone, famous for its simplicity and ease-of-use, has failed abysmally.

so we've taken a break and we're going to try again tomorrow or something. in the meanwhile, at least she can receive and reply to emails correctly. that's something.

[continued...]

vegan ice-cream soothes aches and pains

oh, man. my upper arms are sore, i think i may have strained them. i've trained twice this week, and both times i was tired before i even began. i've been careful about my caffeine intake, so i don't think that's the problem...

---wednesday:

i sat at starbucks and worked on my comics for an hour, making interesting and satisfying progress. i did some shopping and was on my way home when i passed a house where the dog was standing at the gate barking incessantly. there were neighbours around, and none of them were doing anything about it. i walked up to the gate and proffered my hand. i tried to make myself as non-threatening as possible, but the poor dog continued barking and slowly backed away until he disappeared around the corner, at which point i got up and left. if i'd been one of the neighbours that would have been the point at which i walked up to the front door and hit the buzzer with the same frequency as the barking.

*bzzz*
*bzzz*
*bzzz*
*bzzz*

until the owners came out, at which point i'd ask

"can you hear that?"
"can you hear that?"
"can you hear that?"
"can you hear that?"

and then shout at them for neglecting their dog who's in obvious need of some attention. your dog is outing you as assholes. you should see to that..

---boxing was high powered in spite of my feeling weak. i bowed out of impact and beat the crap out of the bags instead - having to be careful with my neck does inspire a fair amount of frustration that needs release, i'll admit - and watched as the big dude from two weeks ago took weak-ass punches from some new guy. why a new guy is allowed into the advanced class is beyond me, but i called the big guy out for not telling his partner to go harder. while he manned up with a sheepish grin on his face, the assistant coach saw what was going on and walked over to demonstrate; i don't think he'll be messing around again anytime soon :P

one of the guys bought my sparring headgear, so that's done. at least someone's going to get use out of it, and the extra cash in my pocket certainly doesn't hurt.

---yesterday:

i awoke in the middle of the night with my neck at an unfortunately awkward angle, i got up to stretch it out and returned to bed with a strange, itchy little welt on my left bicep. i was half-asleep and decided to deal with it in the morning, by which time it had disappeared. what the hell am i supposed to do with that experience??

there were odd dreams, some about normal experiences, then an exhibition of augmented reality tech followed by standing in a line for a club playing "fringe" with the bouncer saying "i hope you guys like country music"; a bald black man put on a an amusing fake afro ruby-rod-style and then i woke up.

...

i accompanied gd on her first steps to getting her divorce formalized: she separated from her husband years ago and he's remarried since, but that's in a different country and none of her paperwork here has been filed...

[arguing about the weather with montrealers requires safe words]

we went to several places, and on a number of occasions i experienced the weirdest phenomenon: strangers walking straight towards me only to go around me at the last moment... when i wasn't standing in their way. what the hell is wrong with people?!

i had a meeting with vector scheduled, so gd joined me for yeh! (i took too much, but their sorbet is so good i handled it like a champ) and we milled around a book store for a little while. i find myself in book stores lamenting the senseless waste of paper and the immense stupidity of selling digital copies at similar prices. can we 2014, please?

vector and i had a good meeting, we went over what we'd already discussed and refined a couple of ideas. later he'd send me his sketches - the dude is talented! shit, if things with the present four illustrators don't work out i'm going to propose he works with me on my comics!

speaking of comics, i'm excited because airplane's finally ready to start scripting his own comic. this is going to be awesome ^_^

---i was thinking about the angry girl from last week's sexism arguments and something that gd suggested: it makes sense that she's a man-hater if she approaches every man with suspicion, brutal judgement and penis-shrivelling tactics. self-fulfilling prophecy, the only guys who would sleep with a girl like that are desperate or callous, regardless of whether she's physically attractive or not.

---the afternoon reminded me of a poem i once wrote about feedback. only it was very different.

kickboxing was decent, though i was sore and tired and at the end was dizzy and slightly nauseous. i learned that my shoulders are positioned badly when i kick and that my feet are badly aligned for anything other than side kicks. that's not good.

for the second night in a row i felt dehydrated after training. i was going to meet with the slam team but only rabbit and i were ready... we talked about it, and it seems that the team is in dire need of leadership; i'd happily take on the mantle if i wasn't the last in and therefore the most likely to rub everyone the wrong way. we're going to have to be tactful. not my strong suit.

...

rice dream's cocoa marble fudge just joined so delicious in making an unbelievably strong case for non-dairy desserts! they're not good substitutes for dairy ice-cream, they're better than. if you like ice-cream, you need to try these brands!

---we got a decent night's sleep last night, and i woke up with alter bridge - zero stuck in my head. i showed gd my high school yearbook photo, and found myself retelling the story of the only time i've ever classically bullied someone. who was a real bully himself, so i don't feel so bad about it.

two of us ran into him in the washroom, dragged him into a clean stall, grabbed his legs and dunked his head into the bowl - only bumping him once accidentally, and fortunately not too hard. i flushed once or twice, we laughed nervously in the face of the absurd, and escorted him back to his class. the top half of his body was soaked, but before the teacher could say anything i gave him a very serious look and said "please excuse him, sir, he's having a very bad day."
which did the trick, and the incident was never formally addressed.

signing, writing, seeing

tuesday:

i ran out to print, sign and scan a form to get the ball rolling... finally! after two weeks of silence. today i signed another couple of forms and if i'm not mistaken the lawyers are going to be taking it from here. so that's very cool. in the meanwhile i'm going to put as much of my expenses on my credit card instead of my debit card, because my bank account is getting down to the wire and i should, theoretically, have received my first paycheck in time to not be in trouble...

i sat down at starbucks with my coffee, opened my kindle and grimaced at the low battery warning it flashed me. fortunately, it held until i was done.

when i came home i drafted a poem in response to high school shootings, which is looking pretty good so far, had that fight i posted about and went off to the gym.

so i guess i'm no longer really doing mma as such... just boxing, kickboxing and muay-thai. and yoga. i need to do yoga. the kickboxing class was pretty good, though i saw stars for a lot of it and scored myself nasty bump on my knee. at least i have someone to buy my head protector now that i'm no longer sparring.

i prepped a salad and took it to gd, where we had the talk i posted. we watched an episode or two of community before going to bed; i'd forgotten just how insanely brilliant the first season is! it's definitely worth re-watching.

---yesterday:

it was early when gd's alarm went off, it was cold outside, and raining, and cars were driving past the bedroom window. i can't tell you how wonderfully cosy i was under the blankets and how little i wanted to get out of bed :(
it didn't help that my butt was hurting again.

it's still hurting.

i wanted something i could turn my brain off to, and steve byrne: champion was almost it. only it was so offensively stupid and ugly that i couldn't make it through twenty minutes. i might have smiled a couple of times, that was about as funny as he got. i chased that with tekken, and got my ass kicked for a while before i had to leave to meet rabbit.

i headed to l'artère, and spent the next hour or two talking, criticizing or organizing. we finally figured out the logistics of the slam we're going to run and arranged the resources we need to get the job done properly :)

we visited a friend of rabbit's for a spell, then went to a vocal workshop she'd invited me to. the workshop was interesting and fun, i learned a lot and i was very glad for monday's singing lesson because it seriously helped :)

i stopped at harvey's for a burger on my way to gd's, and arrived in time to catch an interesting film, la marque des anges - miserere. i've heard the name gérard depardieu, but this is the first time i've actually paid attention to him as an actor. i can see why he's a thing.

i suffered a bit from rls for a short while, but it fortunately didn't last too long and i got to bed at a reasonable hour.

---today:

we had a nice, slow morning. i had an argument about #YesAllWomen which i'll discuss in its own post. gd was upset because she's trying to contact bureaucrats who don't answer their phones... i explained to her that this is not a local problem, but an international one :S

i was exhausted and we napped a bit, that bit not being nearly long enough. we ended up running late, one of the reasons being that i needed a quick trim before dressing nicely to sign the papers. it *is* nice having one's own stylist!

i dressed nicely, and it was so warm that i returned sweaty after about ten minutes in total. i can't wait to get there, figure out the dress code and buy summer-comfortable clothes. the code they described was remarkably unclear.

i started watching growing op and stopped after about fifteen minutes of "meh", then watched two episodes of chobits. chobits is cute, but weird. i don't know how i feel about it but i might watch a few more until i see where it's heading.

---google's prototype car? good job, google. good job!

if you don't want to waste time and money on business / management literature, read this instead.

big moments - part ii

[... continued]

the slam:

there is something incredibly special about having a group of friends supporting you so large that they take up half the place. every time i got up i felt like i had the home advantage, which was powerful, heady stuff!

the first piece i did was the slam. i turned the third line humorous by doing it in the voice of the caterpillar from disney's alice in wonderland, and pulled out all the stops with the rest of it. there was a lot of finger-snapping and laughter, and i stepped off to crazy applause.

the satisfaction from that moment turned to confusion when the judges all scored me really poorly. so poorly, in fact, that i was surprised later to hear that i'd made it into the second round.

the feature poet was perry visionpoet divirgilio. he's almost as big as his words, it was fantastic listening to him!
follow him on twitter
follow him on youtube

for the second round i took a bit of a risk. i took the microphone off the stand and crouched down next to it, eye-level with the audience. i deepened my voice and, having all the time in the world for such a short piece, slowly performed signs in the dead of night.

the first few moments were awkward for me as the first lines got a lot of laughs, and i'd been hoping to set the tone an octave darker. but i felt like the rest of it did the job. i finished, paused, stood up to put the microphone back and walk off the stage. not as much applause, and the scores... well, they were worse than before.

i guess the judges just didn't dig me. i felt a bit better about things later, when one of the other poets came up to tell me that what i'd done was really powerful. at least that.

so, to summarize: it was a wonderful evening with amazing performances by most of the competitors. i'm extremely proud of what i did even if it didn't get me onto the team. those who did make the team were all amazing, especially rabbit who took first place.

and aaa had come for the first half and left without any drama, so that was cool too :)

[continued...]

layers and stages - part ii

[... continued]

sunday:

oh, the rain. the endless rain :(

the workshop for the slam finalists was quite fun, it was nice meeting all the other poets and some of the exercises weren't bad at all. i kinda messed with the program because i had to leave early, but they were accommodating enough to switch things up so that i could get feedback on one of my works before leaving.

did the others really use works they might actually perform? seems silly to show your hand to your competition.

...

the places along the way where i would've eaten dinner were either closed or out of vegan options, and i didn't have time to go shopping. i stopped in at home to pick up the french materials that vfmp had loaned me, scarfed down a frozen meal and went to vfmp's. i would've stayed longer than the minute or two if i'd known that the next buses were going to take forever - i would've known that if i'd looked at the "sunday" schedules instead of the regular weekday ones. that made me feel silly.

i had a stick of liquorice in my jacket which i was very good about not eating because gd likes it too; i wasn't paying attention and she finished the whole thing without me, looking very ashamed when she realized what she'd done :P

i was too tired to move, and passed out on her couch to an episode of angel and the inexplicable universe with neil degrasse tyson. neither of them were particularly engaging.

---monday:

being able to sleep in was amazing!

i spoke to the recruitment agency, and things weren't looking good. i spoke to SxS, and while things aren't so good for him right now it was nice to catch up and introduce him to gd. it looks like we might meet up soon, too.

gd went to see her dentist, which is right next to my starbucks so i sat there working on my comics until she was done. which was a long, long time. it was during that time that my throat began to get scratchy and i started coughing a bit, which would slowly but surely progress until i developed full-blown sinusitis. it's not clear if it's an allergy thing or not, but what is clear is that this is not at all good timing.

once gd was done and i'd eaten something, we went to the further supermarket and found the vegan cheese we'd been seeking the day before. i called up a recruiter who's a contact of hers to introduce myself, then phoned the tax authority to see if i'd be able to pay them yet. gd was in hysterics as i tried to reason with the agent, eventually reaching the conclusion that i'm going to have to call once a week until i'm allowed to pay them. and the interest for not having paid them on time.
the bureaucracy is astounding.

muay thai: i partnered with a girl who's much shorter than me. we worked well, but everything was more difficult for both of us. when i say well, i mean really hard and my body went all rubbery when i started the boxing class afterwards. i was partnered with army brat, who i managed to upset so severely that at one point she didn't want to continue to work with me. on the one hand i felt bad, but on the other hand the second she got angry she actually got off her ass an worked.

we ended the class amiably, and i can't figure out if she was exaggerating or if i was really being such an asshole. i hope it's not the latter, i'm going to do my best not to be that guy :/

i chugged a triple-liquid dinner when i got home (protein shake, orange juice and tonic water, each downed separately) then slowly moved my developing sore throat to gd's. that was when i listened to my voicemail and heard that the company i interviewed for last week wants me on board.

fantastic! only the other company that i really, really want to work for was only supposed to get back to me tomorrow, so at 4am her time i called up my mother for advice on how to delay things.

...

gd may not be vegan, but she's 100% vegan-friendly. her vegan étagé is absolutely delicious! ^_^

---yesterday:

we went to sleep after watching orgasm inc. - it's a great documentary and highlights just how disturbingly bad we are at defining "normal", the baseline for all medicine and psychological treatment. it's all sad and ugly.

i slept well but my throat infection was in full swing; then gd had a rough morning so the day wasn't terrific from the get-go.

i spent an hour or two posting, worried about how to not accept the job graciously, then hopped off to meet with vector to discuss turning one of my poems into a short movie. we bounced ideas off each other until we were both enthusiastic and excited, and he's now done with his studies so he has time to begin implementing. nice!
we were both intrigued to hear tracks from nine inch nails - hesitation marks playing at starbucks.

i shaved, overdressed (!) and went to the offices to discuss my contract and take a tour. everyone's really nice, the initial terms on the contract were what i was going to ask for and everything, including the dress code, is to my liking. i even got along well with the egyptian security guard while waiting to be shown in.

i walked out with the unpleasant feeling that not taking the job would be disloyal after all that.

...

gd's recruiter-friend's partner called me up to discuss my status and what i'm looking for. he has plenty of work for me, but nothing that can wait for a permit application.

a couple of weeks ago i got bloodwork done, and i called them up to see if the results were in.
"yes, sir - they came in the next day."
i love how they let us know - i would've checked sooner but they always say "up to three weeks" :(

...

kickboxing: the jolly moroccan makes for a tough partner, impact with him was killer and i received tons of important corrections from our trainer. i was quite impressed with myself because my breathing and my cardio were just fine in spite of my throat hating me.

i hurriedly prepared my self and a salad before going to gd's. she's having serious back trouble so we watched stand-up for a bit and then went to bed.

layers and stages - part i

i'm not feeling great, but only because i've developed a throat infection. the weekend almost killed me, but out of kindness and i think i'm pretty much recovered. also, there's excellent news on the job hunting front to counter the bad news.

---thursday:

i ended a call with my mother when gd arrived at the door and i went to let her in.
"are you saying gd's more important than me??"
don't make me choose, mom. don't make me choose. :P

i'd decided that it was time to relax for a couple of days and not do anything too productive. i introduced gd to tekken, which was marvelously entertaining and exciting! she enjoys it AND has potential ^_^

we went to kickboxing together. she only joined me for the beginner's class, but i did the advanced as well. our regular instructor is back and worked us really, really hard for three hours. i'd forgotten how tough his classes are! the work on the bags alone actually took a couple of days to recover from.

i've still got my "robo mojo", he tells me. he was pleased to hear that i've ordered a shirt with "ROBOCOP" on it.

gd was quite upset during the class, but that's because she now knows what kickboxing is *supposed* to be about and realizes that the level where she usually trains isn't as good as it gets. i'm really happy she enjoyed it and will be joining us again :)

...

arguing with gd is thoroughly validating. we're on the same wavelength and we're both happier talking things out. we're also both naturally excited so we don't take it personally when the other seems aggressive.

...

we went to p.m. for dinner and it was great, only the "vegetarian" dish we ordered did have some egg in it and that taught us to be explicit with every item on the menu from now on.

i was totally bombed on our way to gd's, apparently attracting jealous attention on the metro as gd held me while we sat waiting for our train :)

---friday:

thursday night was sleepless and i had a rough awakening only to go back to sleep at the first opportunity, literally walking in to my apartment and flopping onto the couch for a death-nap. i don't remember if that was before or after speaking to the recruitment agency, who wanted me to see if there was some sort of "arrangement" we could come to with my previous employer. the answer was a resounding "no". i'm not doing anything that's not legit anyway, i'm trying to secure my place here.

...

i played ftl for a bit, coming so close to success and having my ship destroyed when the rebel flagship had only three bars left. that was so frustrating!

but not as frustrating as a misogynistic posting by dirk diggler. i've actually written a rant about the incident that i'm trying to convert into a performance piece, but i'll post it here soon in one form or another. the post is "pro-life", and when i spoke to him privately about it his arguments not only didn't make sense in context, but rather made a perfect argument for pro-choice.

shitty parents shouldn't be forced to breed. and women should have sovereignty over their bodies.

...

i went downtown in the rain with the single purpose of acquiring more breakfast shake powder. i had a big lunch when i returned and gave up a lot more time to combot training than i'd intended. tekken tag tournament 2's combot training is actually excellent training for any tekken player. just saying.

i had just enough time to shave my beard and rush over to gd's work to pick her up. we found a nice little indian restaurant, then went back to her place for a pre-party nap. the nap didn't really happen, first because we got silly and spent ages making each other laugh and second because my rls started up and my feet were driving me up the wall.

---saturday:

gd had to work in the morning, and so i waited in the line for stereo alone for half an hour. the wait was pretty boring. there were loud, brainless hipsters in front of me and i wished dearly for the ability to tune them out... to no avail.

my intention had been to buy a ticket then walk to vfmp's boyfriend's place to rest a bit more as they were only going to arrive around 3am. unfortunately for my plans, the story at the door was that in addition to the tickets being insanely expensive - $60! - door sales were limited to the first hundred people and i wouldn't be able to leave without giving up my spot and not being able to return.

at least they let me in with a protein bar in my pocket. in addition to the covert charge being so expensive, there was no liquor license and the regular drinks on sale - mineral water and orange juice - were set at six times the price. seriously. $6 for a small bottle of orange juice. at least they had vending machines which didn't expect a tip on top of that :/

the warm-up set was phenomenally good, and the guys arrived for the tail end of it. the main act came on: kaskade. some of the tracks were good, but overall the experience was a bit... boring. we had fun anyway, we danced a lot in spite of the not-so-bouncy beats, enjoying each other's company more than anything. granted, the people were all cool and the vibe was nice, but none of the experience was $60 nice. i've been to amazing parties here that charged $10, had much better music and crowds and served alcohol.

just sayin'.

...

at around 6am i was feeling really sleepy and i took my yawns and sore limbs and heavy eyelids for a ten minute power-nap.

a couple of hours later we all decided we were done. we got to experience that wonderful moment where you walk out from the darkness into a bright, beautiful morning which i haven't had in a long time.

we were all feeling slow and stupidly tired. we missioned to vfmp's boyfriend's place, spending the next few hours relaxing, eating delicious vegan fake-eggs and incredible choc-chip cookies; everyone passed out watching firefly except me and i got about half an hour of sleep all told.

i headed out into warm weather, got home and had lunch, a much-needed shower and tooth-brushing. i had some shopping to do and left my apartment just as it began drizzling... the drizzle turned to rain turned to storm, and i took shelter in the starbucks with a soy latte. i finished just as the storm passed, went to the supermarket and returned home to witness the following scene: our neighbourhood kids in an intense battle in the streets, some on rollerblades wielding plastic lightsabres and some with oversized water pistols.

thank you, canada :)

...

i went downtown to pick up gd from work again, and we stopped at masala palace next to snowdon metro for a quick, excellent meal before going to vfmp's for game night.

...

we were all - not just me and gd, who'd had a really tough day - quite tired, and gd and i had some very serious communication misfires while i tried to explain thunderstone to her. the thing that i appreciate most is that even when things got really bad we were both trying to fix everything; while it wasn't the greatest night ever it also wasn't bad overall. even forgetting something important when we left and having to double back with the taxi didn't mess with our mojo.

we're awesome, people. we're definitely, definitely awesome.

---sunday:

we went straight to bed and slept until sunday afternoon. we both sorely needed that! we had breakfast and played tekken, then did a round of shopping so that gd could attempt a vegan version of a dish she loves making. shopping in her area is a treat, it's very village-y and cool.
lunch was a quick affair, and i introduced her to bbc's sherlock before leaving for a poetry slam finalist pre-competition workshop.

that's as odd an idea as it sounds.

...

oh, the rain. the endless rain :(

[continued...]

i don't even. part ii.

[... continued]

---sunday:

i enjoyed a good wake-up, though it was a rainy day and i went through it to the walmart to pick up a yoga mat. pulse had been talking about the importance of colours, and i was amused to hear that if i want to focus on my upper back i should go with green. i have a thing for green, so that's no biggie. there was a single yoga mat left in stock. it was green, odourless (i'd been warned about chemical mats) and apparently eco-friendly. so that was easy! as i walked to the check-out i received a message informing me that pulse had gifted me a $25 discount on yoga supplies from some online source.

why was the world making it feel like my birthday?

there was a problem at the check-out with the card reader. i was so offended when, after a couple of failed attempts, the cashier grabbed my card and began rubbing the chip as if we were in the nineties. i *told* her it was the reader, not the card. before she could do any damage i thanked her for her efforts and found another counter. my card passed through first time and i left with an image in my head of the first cashier as a kid blowing into a nintendo cartridge.

i went supermarket shopping, forgetting to make change for the laundry, then hit the gym to train. i was specifically going to meet the guy who joined us for yoga last week because i didn't have his number and the instructor was coming in later than we'd agreed. he didn't rock up at all, and instead i worked on the punching bags. i worked really hard, really well and for a long time; so long, in fact, that i didn't leave myself the time i'd intended to return home, shower quickly and return with my new yoga mat. suddenly the instructor had arrived and i'd only had a few minutes' rest. we began the yoga class.

my arms and legs were kinda tired after all the work on the bags. that made the exercises particularly difficult, but i pushed through and was as satisfied as i was sore by the end.

i had a short time between yoga and horseman visiting, really just enough to shower and eat and maybe rest a bit. instead of the latter, when i got home i found a message from aaa waiting for me. oh, i thought. we're going to have the talk.

i called her up and was surprised when instead of the talk, she was inviting herself to the slam! oh, shit. i couldn't think of an inoffensive way to end things in that context, so i remained polite and unenthusiastically told her i'd see her later. i started stressing about the potential drama, already planning to take gd out for a drink after the slam to explain everything, and was discussing the situation with supertongue who's a bit of a drama expert. she told me that i *had* to call aaa back, and i'm really glad i listened!

because i took a moment to compose my thoughts, called her back and told her how i feel. i was relieved to hear her say that it wasn't just me - so i wasn't being an ass! very sweet. we agreed that dating isn't working, but that we both like each other and hanging out is cool. it was actually the nicest "we're not going to date any more" talk i've ever had and we were both laughing for half of it. that was cool, i immediately felt much better, and just then horseman arrived for a tekken session.

we played the new tag tournament, it was a lot of fun but not as competitive as usual. both our games were off but it didn't matter :)

as we left for the slam i stressed about getting dressed, and halfway there i recalled that i'd intended to shave. shave! my beard was looking a bit scraggly. and pulse's comment about presenting my poetry with respect still ran in my ears. but there was no time for that. there was just time to grab a quick bite at la pantere verte and arrive to sign up.

i'm sorry, said my buddy as he greeted us at the door: we've changed the way registration works this week... didn't you get the memo? all the slots are taken, the only thing open is the open mic.

DAMN! i was so disappointed! i signed up for the open mic and made sure he understood that if there was an opening for the slam that i wanted it instead. a slow hour would pass before he could inform me that someone had dropped out, which was an enormous relief :)

we sat down with pulse and gd, were joined by bnw and had a really good time! i was really excited when pulse gave me some insider information that the guys at the company i've been interviewing with are just as excited to have me join them - i don't know if she's exaggerating because she's being super-nice but i'll take it ^_^

we enjoyed ourselves until aaa showed up, at which point things started getting a little weird. i was sitting between everyone and the stage and pulse, gd and aaa were sitting in a row with aaa next to me; i kept thinking "past, hopefully future and present" and both myself and gd, who was being respectfully considerate, were having trouble deciding where to look at any given time.

then the evening began. i was wearing my syndicate shirt, amusingly showing "follow me until you die" to the girls because my back was to them; i was uncomfortable specifically because i couldn't keep an eye on things.

some of the open mic pieces were pathetic, one of them was a surprisingly dramatic improvement by the guy who i hated on the open mic when i judged. still not amazing, but he's at least heading in the right direction :)

...

the slam began. the first guy up was someone i quite like, though his piece left a bit to be desired. my name was announced, and i whisked my bundle of nerves up onto the stage.

1. i should've raised the height of the mic. i'm an idiot.
2. i needed more confidence. my piece deserved more confidence, and now i feel like i let it down.
3. in spite of my shaking and lack of power, i blew the first dude away, was received with heartwarming applause and the mc was so impressed he joyfully fist-bumped me as we passed each other.
4. the judges seem to like it! certainly better than last month.

everyone at my table was thrilled when i sat down, and i turned to look for the scores. as i did so i felt a pair of hands on my back - i stiffened, knowing that it was a victorious "pat on the back" from aaa and sensing that it was a lot more sensual than it should've been. that was our first physical contact after three dates and an ending, and it was totally unappreciated... especially with gd right there! after that i noticed that something was going on between gd and pulse, and a few minutes later they'd disappeared. my phone began to vibrate with messages from gd and there was far too much for me to say in such a short space - as soon as the first round was over i phoned her.

when i heard her voice i was both touched and terrified; i apologized profusely and we agreed to have coffee in the morning to talk it all over. on my way back to the table aaa passed me to say goodbye. her work was done (she didn't say that, obviously), she needed to go.

#$@!. couldn't she have left first?!

...

during the break vfmp and his boyfriend showed up to take the girls' place. much less dramatic :P

mc june went up as the feature for the night. his hop-hop's all french, but even though i could barely follow the words - never mind the poetic meaning - the man was enthralling. the performance was amazing, powerful, obviously clever, and his beatboxing partner who joined him at the end was just brilliant.

moments before the feature, i was informed that i'd made it through to the second round. score! i was thrilled ^_^

i'd prepared the quebec immigration song for the second. i'm really, really, REALLY lucky that i was called up towards the end, because after hearing the first two poems i knew that it wasn't nearly strong enough. fortunately, i still have advice memorized and i decided that it would have to do.

about a minute before my name was called i felt something in my chest harden. it was something akin to anger; a sense of purpose, and rightness. my nerves were blasted away by it and i jumped onto the stage, reset the mic's height and cleared my head.

oh - my - gods. i have never commanded an audience before, but i now know what it feels like. i stared into the darkness and emptied myself into my words, each one flying out precisely. there were laughs in the right places and finger snaps, and the response when i finished was overwhelming. what unbelievable elation and pride! what a reward for finally getting my shit together on stage!

i took fourth overall (when that was announced there were actually a couple of boos, and not from my table ^_^ ) and a couple of the established poets not only made an effort to catch me to introduce themselves but one of them was excitedly talking about us hopefully going together as a team to the nationals. i hope, i hope, i hope that i've made it into the finals next month!!!

...

it was pouring with rain when we left, bnw and i headed to the metro together and stopped halfway at a cool bar to dry off with a couple of drinks. we had a fun time telling hysterical stories and discussing the evening, and when the rain relaxed and we'd finished our drinks it was time to go home.

---from the moment we said goodnight, i couldn't stop thinking about gd. i was practicing speeches in my head and fretting about all the things that could possibly go wrong, planning apologies and explanations well into the night.

all this was wrapped in ecstasy, a very real high off the evening that was so strong it was shocking!

---monday:

sleepless before a date with destiny [i wrote that on the way there]. i picked up my laundry, it was the most beautiful, warm, misty spring morning that would turn into a hot - over 20 degrees hot - sunny day. a fantastic day for extremes, i thought, and i couldn't imagine how right i was at the time.

gd's name is the french version of a character out of greek mythology; i wasn't sure if looking up her story was a mistake or a treat, but it was definitely educational.

...

we met at her metro station, and walked and talked for a while until we found a good place to eat. a sweet, cozy diner-type deal, there wasn't anything vegan on the menu but the waiter managed to sort out a huge, delicious off-the-menu special anyway. the coffee was good and we were having a lot of fun, though a lot of our discussion was decidedly inappropriate and the waiter wasn't embarrassed to chime in every now and again because he could hear everything we were saying. i would've been offended but the attitude was totally good :)

we took a semi-romantic walk down to atwater market and around the area, then to her apartment. we talked for ages there too, culminating in a first kiss that,

quite frankly,

i will never forget.

[continued...]

distractions - part ii

[... continued]

about halfway through the night i registered that the boxing ring was set up in an emptied swimming pool. awesome!

the first fight was a bit weird, because after all the show of the pre-fight ceremony the guys barely moved. i expect people who weight 40lbs less than me to be quicker and more intense than me, not slower.

in one of the fights a combatant was doing a kind of mma hand-waving thing that's entirely inappropriate for muay thai. his opponent was so much better than him that in the middle of a round he made fun of him by doing the same hand motions. it was bizarre.

one of the fights was a kid we've all seen at the gym but who none of us have seen sparring. he trains with his shirt on, so we were all shocked when he stepped into the ring looking like he'd been drawn in a comic book. huge pecs and tiny waist, but he'd obviously been skipping leg day. friends don't let friends skip leg day.
his opponent was obviously high level and super-aggressive, and i was blown away by how quickly this dude recovered, figured his shit out and proceeded to dish out punishment. he didn't look like he had it in him!

one of the fighters i was really looking forward to was the guy who took our class a couple of weeks ago, and we were disappointed because while he did a good job, he barely used his legs! it turned out later that his opponent was so tough that after one or two kicks he understood that they'd be totally ineffectual and so he focused on the guy's face. that's hardcore, it's not like there could have been a significant weight difference.

the jolly moroccan: he had a good fight, but i was expecting fireworks. it was exciting, but not as exciting as i expected :(

the last couple of fights on the card were great, and really brought the night to a close on a good note.

...

i travelled most of the way home with one of the guys i train with, and we talked non-stop until parting company. i ate and watched freaks and geeks, then went straight to bed.

---today:

i slept late and woke up still really tired. i broke another glass this morning... one of the new, thicker ones. dammit :(
at least it didn't shatter.

i started posting and suddenly found myself running late for my date! and of course, there's nothing like running late and then just missing the metro. fortunately, even with the combined transportation delays i was only fifteen minutes late.

---the date:

it was immediately apparent, and i mean within a second of seeing her, that she's not my type. we met at myriade, a small connoisseurs coffee shop near guy-concordia, and the coffee was AMAZING. after sorting mine out i sat down across from her and we began chatting; for the first few minutes all i could think about was whether i should be cutting the date short instead of wasting our time. after a few minutes, though, i started trying to find her attractive (nonsensical, i know), because i really, really wanted to. to justify that, neither of us noticed the three hours that flew by as we discussed psychology, society and culture, the academy, performances, politics and language... she's interesting and engaging and awesome!

i hope we can be friends, and by that i mean that i hope i'm wrong about the look she gave me when we said goodbye - a look that i read as a hurt "shit, you're not into me". i feel really bad about that.

---otherwise, it was a beautiful afternoon and well spent! i didn't have much time to rest before the poetry slam, so i settled on watching the guild while hurriedly eating. season 7 is available on netflix! sweet :)

the crap news, though is that the filling that's been giving me trouble since the dentist had his way with it? the one that i haven't been able to eat with? well, i felt and heard something crack today, and now it's sensitive to everything. *LONG STRING OF EXPLETIVES DELETED HERE*

...

i rushed off to sign up, arriving late but in time. i met a couple of other poets and we entertained each other non-stop. horseman, newk'd, newk'd's girlfriend and friend showed up soon after everything began, and i must say that it was quite a relief to have support :)

---i went with preacher. apparently my performance was spot on, except for the very last word... it's like they keep shouting in the gym: "finish strong! finish strong!" - fail :(
but shit happens.

i didn't make it to round two, unfortunately - i guess the judges didn't like my style, but what was really moving for me was the rest of the audience's reaction; to know that there were people that i actually managed to touch to the point of yelling and cheering mid-performance, and to get such a warm response from random strangers afterwards was amazing! ^_^

i could yell "i was robbed" until i was blue in the face; i know how hard it is to judge and how subjective it is, and i'll just have to hope that my attempt next month manages to blow them away.

---newk'd and girlfriend and i went to aux vivres for dinner, eating and talking until they kicked us out. i've spent a little time on another case solved, and now that i've posted i'm going to hit the hay. i need to get cracking on my interview preparation in the morning.

---this article on time management covers me and distractions.

this old lecture on vegans and heart disease is still relevant. long, but full of interesting information. if you want a summary, though, eat ground flax and take b12 supplements.

on parole: sound check - part up

[... continued]

after all that, i still wasn't feeling good but i was definitely getting back in the saddle. i spoke to horseman and bnw, who'd called while i was mentally unfit to talk, and bnw had some fantastic news for me! she's finally feeling settled in her day job, and she's back to sketching. even better news is that her english has improved enough over the past six months that she's willing to *read* my script; which is terrific because i really shouldn't be drawing too much. anyway, we're meeting on the weekend and i'm really excited about that ^_^

---nuit blanche:

i didn't want to miss out on nuit blanche (i wanted to make up for last year's disaster), so i downloaded the guide app and made a list of possible attractions. when i arrived downtown i found myself hungry for the first time all day. the food court i was aiming at was closed, to i took the metro to p.m. and had myself a good dinner. horseman and a buddy of his arrived in the area just as i finished, we met up and walked to the museum of fine art.

the first piece we encountered was astonishing; it was hard to believe it was painted and the effects were as surreal and mind-blowing as the content. we walked through all the open exhibits, some of which were severely dull but some of which were stunning. and a good time was had by all :)

horseman's friend is also into hip-hop, though i'm never quite certain what it means when someone's introduced to me as an mc; regardless, he demonstrated some of his rhymes and they were pretty intense! when i offered a piece in response, however, he was humbled, which left me embarrassed. i think i'm pretty good, and it's certainly very cool and flattering to have fans, but his stuff was good in a very different way and the last thing i wanted was for him to clam up :(

i tried to explain to him that it takes all voices, i hope i got through to him.

---we arrived at the mccord museum for one of the poetry slam events, one of the guys running it was the guy who picked me to judge last month's collective slam. they were running an all-night workshop with recitals every hour, free tickets to the museum exhibits for anyone courageous enough to step up to the mic. i was in need of caffeine and the coffee stand wasn't ready, so we all did a quick second cup run and returned just in time to sign up.

i was nervous, getting up in front of a crowd of strangers. in retrospect, it might have been more appropriate for me to throw the quebec immigration song onto the fire, but i was saving it for next week so i went with advice because i felt it would give a good sense of the possible to the initiates.

i was surprised to be given seniority (first slot after the two organizers), i considered myself unproven as i kinda messed up online dating when the guy had first heard me. my breathing felt constricted and for the entire time my feet were rooted to the floor, but i kept my pace slow and focused and apparently i gave the best performance.

i cannot describe how validating that was! i was actually embarrassed when horseman and his buddy loudly praised me; i won't tell you the appreciation didn't add to my elation, but i did feel it a bit unfair to the others who had almost all done a good job of their first times!

overall, i was really impressed by the event and how much attention it garnered. and i was only there for half an hour. and the opportunity to practice before next week's slam was definitely needed!

---the main events around place des arts were beautiful, but we were all too tired to play. it was snowing and the main dance floor was just as decent as igloofest, there was a whole lot of crazy stuff to see and just a stroll through it all was an experience. the guys split just before we arrived at another slam event location, but it was too late anyway as they'd already closed their doors for the evening. i walked through to a kinetic art exhibit inside place des arts, it was fun but after a quick mill around i decided to call it a night.

a night in which i went from totally buggered to excellent! i got home, posted, and eventually got into bed around 6pm. i don't know what the hell took me so long, but i fell asleep so quickly that i only registered random dreams and waking up.

---i'm addicted to another case solved. there's a review here that i mostly agree with, but i think that they've done a terrific job of using freemium. paying for shit is attractive, but not paying for shit forces you to chill out, to take breaks and to develop different strategies for progressing. for example, i never waste "bought" tools on newspaper cases unless i'm definitely going to solve them, and there are "free" tools and abilities (like a once-per-turn sponge) that help with that. and if i need cash to purchase furniture or tools i will keep doing newspaper cases until i have enough. it's all gravy :)

i was holding a glass this morning and bumped it against a cupboard. it exploded, with shattered fragments littering the floor. i'm really glad my feet have toughened since leaving cape town. i'm going to be very careful when purchasing replacements to make sure that i get heavy glass, this is the second i've had to toss in as many weeks :/

i had a long chat with my mother, then headed to godmother's for coffee. the temperature was -8 but it was really beautiful and the day was lazy, relaxed and unstressed. that's the first time i've felt like that since leaving cape town!

i came home, made lunch and watched a couple more episodes of freaks and geeks. i've finally had a chance to catch up with SxS, which is good because i'm finally armed with useful information about my current status. now i'm going to read. i'm almost done with the first harry potter in french, and a friend has just sent me (and a couple of other people) a copy of his book to read before he submits it to his publisher.

vigorously groggy

shit, i was feeling fine aside from my sinuses and chest, now that i've been medicating (off-the-shelf) they're slightly better but i'm exhausted and half-stoned. come on! s'not right. i'm actually doing nothing but being sick today. that's kinda weird, being employed and taking a sick day.

---friday:

some of the night was peaceful, some unfortunately restless and frustrating. i didn't have far to go to get up for early training, but my chest was still buggered. i worked with vfmp for about an hour and a half on uppercuts, which to my great relief and satisfaction he eventually got, and then he started drilling me on the jiu-jitsu moves he'd shown me the last time. the progress i'm making is *so* slow! and it's such a head game. towards the end we rolled a bit, and were treated to zahabi himself stopping us to give us pointers and make sure that we'd internalized them. that - was - AWESOME ^_^

i got home to face job hunting stress... i had some emails and applications to sort out, and felt so overwhelmed by it that i sat down to watch a bit of comedy and learn some french instead. a bit later i received a call from one of the girls from my french class whose husband had recommended me for a job opening, and after investing an inordinate amount of time re-entering my data* i made a point of applying for a bunch of other jobs there as well.

* why can't all the companies using taleo's hr system let me use the same account? it's such a ridiculous mission filling in the same damned forms with the same damned information every single time :/

...

i have finally registered for the french exam at the end of the month. there's a lot of work to be done. i'm a bit nervous.

...

evening boxing: my chest was much better until the end of the class, and my ankle was mostly fine. i was partnered with army brat, who took her dancing / boxing crossover technique to a new level when she unwittingly shot her right foot into the air for a half-pirouette in the middle of a punch. i was laughing, but tears were actually streaming down her face from the combination of laughter and shame!

my previous assessment about the boxing coach not liking me any more proved wrong. he was giving the beginners in the class a lecture about sparring and when it was over he made it clear that we're cool. i managed to get a smile out of the guy, which undid the inadequacy i was feeling for having disappointed him.

...

everyone who was supposed to come for the house of cards marathon either cancelled at the last minute or arrived late, so i had enough time to shower and eat after getting home late myself.
that show is unbelievably cool and clever. just like downton abbey, it's excellently written and the finesse is greatly appreciated! we got through three episodes and i'm totally into it now.

...

after everyone had left and i was about to get into bed, i received an email from the accountant. the amount of money the israeli tax authority owes me wouldn't even make a dent in the more than NIS 20,000 they're demanding in late fees! this horror show keeps getting worse...

...

if i'm flossing and can taste the hand soap flavour, did i just wash my own mouth out with it?

---saturday:

i read wired's zappotopia article before trying to sleep. privately funding a tech / burning man scene in vegas is really interesting stuff! i turned off the light, and instantly the rls nightmare started. it would be over an hour of suffering before i finally passed out and slept well, and a few hours later i got up to a sore nose and dry hands.

happy days :/

it was a gorgeous morning, my health notwithstanding, and i met army brat and the guy from the week before for light sparring. the guy discovered that there's an all-levels sparring class every saturday morning that's precisely what we need, so now that i've initiated army brat we'll be joining them.

---i didn't leave myself much time to eat and rest before heading out to pick up the rental car. i drove home, prepared my gear, then went to pick up k-twang's friend and go through to mont saint sauveur. relying on google maps on an iphone when driving to saint sauveur for the first time was a big mistake! and the province has a sardonic sense of humour when it comes to highway signage.

driving in quebec in winter: the other drivers are not a problem. the weather conditions were fine. but what the hell, quebec? not only are the signs utterly unhelpful on the rare occasion that they exist, but the road lane markings on the highways are practically invisible at night. wtf?!
aside from getting quite lost on the way there, taking two hours instead of forty five minutes*, the weather was just fine for driving. i'm really not comfortable driving in quebec, i had a couple of embarrassing incidents that would never have happened in cape town because i'd have been more focused on actually driving. the first was going too fast over a speedbump that had been partially covered over with snow, and the second was hurriedly switching from reverse to drive before coming to a complete stop. fortunately neither of those did any damage to the car, but they did make me feel stupid.

* still faster than the bus. but not easier.

anyway.

saint sauveur's late-night skiing special was excellent! the slope conditions weren't fantastic but they were still fun, the dj's they installed at the lift played funky beats and the only thing that wasn't great was that my ankle limited me a bit. it was fine for regular stuff, though it took me a few runs to relax, but the first time i attempted to switch i felt the torque and knew that i really shouldn't try anything demanding.

...

the slopes closed around midnight but we were done by around 11pm. the ride home was uneventful, though it took forever for the windshield to defog, and i got back too late to use the metro. there was a trance party happening downtown that i really wanted to go to and i was feeling up for it, but i didn't want to take the car*, a taxi at that hour was way too expensive and the night buses would have been a mission. i must have deliberated for over half an hour before finally deciding to call it a night.

* i thought that finding parking would be difficult. i've been informed since that that's not the case.


---yesterday:

i don't know what the hell tilt got a parking ticket here for, but before going to bed i walked up and down the street to try to find some sign that didn't suggest that weekends are cool. i finally decided that rather than risk it i'd get up super early and return the car instead.

...

a coughing fit in the middle of the night was so bad that i felt my jaw unhinge. that was ugly and scary.

...

my alarm freaked me out when it went off, but i'd been so deep in my dreams that even after returning from dropping the car off i fell straight back into them.

thought for the morning: being allergic to kleenex would really suck.
[or blow, as moonflake kindly suggested]

---i got up later feeling better but sounding worse, and went to godmother's for a chat over great lentil soup and a delicious bagel. one of the things we talked about was my joining the british airways frequent flyers program, and what a pity it was that i didn't do that before going to cape town. i was bummed that they hadn't kept any of my flight data on their systems... i spoke to my mother who'd kept my boarding pass stubs and was explaining to me how between the one stub i did keep and the luggage tag i should be able to reclaim the miles, and was becoming disheartened when i couldn't find information on the website explaining what to do with them.

but lo! suddenly, as if by magic, a form appeared before me asking me for an e-ticket number. which i located in my email, entered, and suddenly had all my points. so they *do* store previous flight details! i wonder why they wouldn't let me view my history, then?

anyway, i'm rather glad i didn't have to do any more.

---i did laundry, and was inspired by a lone sock someone left on the machine: laundry rhyme.

i went to the pharmacy to pick up cold medicine, quickly ate at subway and did a super-fast shopping run. somehow that took me an hour, which meant that i was late for my date! and then i just missed the metro :(

no matter, i arrived before she did. and it wouldn't have mattered much if i hadn't! i cannot imagine what could possibly make a girl think that using someone else's photo for a profile picture would be a good idea. i promise you it's not something that goes unnoticed. she looks nothing like the picture, which put us on extremely odd footing, and the more we spoke the less i felt that this was the same woman i'd spoken to online. although making the mistake of having a first date with our attention focused elsewhere had concerned me at first, in this case it turned out to be a blessing. she's not unattractive, mind, i'm just blown away by the attempted ruse and simultaneously amused by the fact that there's not going to be a second date and we're probably going to see each other once a month now.

...

my introduction to the throw poetry collective:

"are you going to compete tonight?"
"no, i'm just here to scope out the competition."
"great! you can judge, then."

that's certainly one way to do it! i had a lot of fun. whenever i gave low scores and everyone shouted "higher!" i just wanted to shout back "stop judging me!", but overall i think everyone agreed that the judging was fair. there were some awful attempts, especially the open mic, but there was some great stuff - one of the better poets (in my opinion) happened to be a particularly sexy girl, so there was this perpetual internal debate over whether i was really scoring her performance or if it was just her...

anyway, there were some wonderful surprises. but the guest poet? AMAZING. titilope sonuga projected a stream of beautiful works into my consciousness and left us all in stunned silence. she has a couple of pieces on soundcloud...

i'm very glad that my coughing wasn't too bad. i only needed to cough twice and i managed to suppress it until there was an appropriate moment.

...

i left absolutely inspired. i needed the fix! i'll definitely get up on stage next time :)

---today:

i got home at a reasonable hour to go to bed but felt an urge to play fallout instead. a couple of hours flew by and i thoroughly enjoyed them!

i medicated before going to sleep; i slept well, but woke up with tender, stuffed sinuses. i spent an inordinate amount of time responding to dating messages, played some tekken, and did very little else. i'm off in a bit to vfmp's for dinner and more house of cards.

---love 'em or hate 'em, this month's wired article on monsanto is a must-read. fascinating stuff!

norway's olympic response is awesome.