Friday, November 16, 2007

Six Weird Things

Listen, Kieran and I have had a craptastic couple of weeks. I haven’t been able to write about anything without my grumpiness seeping through. So, I needed to come up with something to distract myself because wallowing in grumpiness is not what anyone needs, especially me. In an act of mild desperation, I decided to tag myself with the rusty old “Six Weird Things About Me” meme. This turned out rather well, because it took me a while to come up with my six things and it took me a good couple of days of mulling it over to come up with my list. And…what do you know? I provided myself with sufficient distraction! Figuring out what makes you weird is a constructive form of therapy. Who knew?

1. I kinda maybe believe it’s possible that the moonwalk was faked. [cough] This could be because I’m sometimes gullible and naïve. But really? I think I just like a well-crafted conspiracy theory. And what gets me with this particular conspiracy theory is that there was the motive. The Commies were winning the space race and the Americans had to save face so, you know, maybe they got some dude to bounce around on a Hollywood sound stage and put up an American flag in a box full of sand and read from the Bible and make a suspiciously poignant and articulate speech and now the tapes of the whole thing are conveniently missing. I’m just saying it’s possible, is all. And, besides, it would be cool if it was true and one day the real life version of The Cancer Man revealed everything on his deathbed and it blew apart our collective understanding of North American society.

2. I hate listening to people eat. In the same way that fingernails on a chalkboard drive most people mad, the sound of chewing drives me mad. I’m actually pretty sensitive about this because I know people can’t avoid chewing food several times a day in order to survive and, therefore, it’s basically ridiculous to allow something so normal and recurring and unavoidable to bother me. But the thing is I’m not actually allowing this to bother me; I simply can’t help it. I have weird, hypersensitive hearing, okay? There is, in fact, a whole list of noises that are unbearable for me, including the sound of fabric ripping (this is the worst—I’ll actually clap my hands over my ears and start shrieking, in manner of Rain Man), the sound of cutlery scraping plates, the sound of anything chafing against foam. Fortunately, these things tend to be pretty random and don’t pose any problem to my daily functioning. As for the chewing thing, I think it’s just that no one actually likes the sound of chewing, but most people can’t actually hear those sounds, while I can hear it all. If I had to sit in a room full of people eating CornNuts, I’d freak out and could easily be coerced into revealing any number of secrets so long as it meant the infernal crunching would stop. (All that being said, please don’t feel weird eating in front of me.)

3. I can’t watch nature shows because they make me cry. A lot. Even when nothing sad happens. This all came to light after the March of the Penguins fiasco, wherein I practically had to be stabbed in the arm with a needle full of valium to ease my hysterics. The moment the first penguin waddled over the horizon, I lost it and started sobbing. Two hours later, I was curled in the fetal position and had used an entire box of tissue. The penguins! They were waddling so…earnestly! And they were so cute! And they were in the Artic! Aggghh—everything is vulnerable! And, OH GOD, life is as fragile as a penguin egg that accidentally rolls out from under its daddy’s belly flap and cracks in the cold.

4. I believe in ghosts. Actually, it’s my experience that everyone believes in ghosts to a certain degree at least. It’s just that, in the sober light of day, people forget that the night before when they were getting something out from the space under the stairs they felt a chill and things suddenly seemed eerily silent so they whirled around and even though there was nothing there, they decided to get back upstairs rather briskly anyway. I’ve just decided not to bother dismissing that kind of thing anymore. Plus, I’m a little bit addicted to being deliciously scared, so telling people I believe in ghosts prompts them to share with me their ghost stories and then the floor will creak and we’ll look at each other sharply and everything stops for a second while we test the air and I love/hate that. (No really, tell me your ghost stories! Leave a comment or e-mail me at blueyonbelly[at]gmail[dot]com.)

5. I have a freakishly accurate long-term memory and can remember events from my early childhood in great detail. However, ever since I got a concussion while skiing, my short-term memory is for crap. So, while I can vividly remember the details of the evening when, at the age of three, I realized my imaginary friends (Katie and Boom Boom—snort!) weren’t real and would not be making it to dinner, I have to ask my husband four times a day for our voicemail password. It’s likely for the best that most people can’t remember their imaginary friends phase because, I have to say, it’s a little weird to realize that you were once a BABY who did things that babies do.

6. I have a terrific sense of direction that doesn’t happen to fit into the normal “sense of direction” paradigms, thus leading certain people (my husband) to believe I’m lost when I’m not. For example, I can’t read maps at all. At all. Not even maps of my hometown, where I could find my way around blindfolded and drunk (there may be empirical evidence for this). The other problem is I can get confused between east/west, north/south and likewise right and left. Especially when we start getting into “my left or your left” territory. Confused as in there’s actually something wrong with me to the extent that, in university, my osteology TA used a black marker to write “L” and “R” on my hands before the lab final because I consistently and unnecessarily lost marks for reversing my lefts and rights (when identifying bones, you have to determine which side of the body it came from). (Perhaps the fact that I studied Forensic Anthropology and could tell you creepy things like how to determine a time of death or which bone in the human body has the most pleasing texture could be Weird Item 6.5) (The radius, if you must know. I like to press my index finger into the smooth recess of the radial head, okay?). All that being said, I rarely get lost. If I’ve been somewhere once, even decades before (see item 5), I will be able to find my way around with confidence. In the two-dimensional world of maps and the verbal world of lefts and rights, I’m lost. In the three dimensional world of trees and hills and buildings, I know exactly what’s going on. This may eventually lead to the demise of my marriage, as some of the most explosive fights Kieran and I have had have been over how we define whether we’re lost, leading to conversations such as the following:

Kieran: According to the map, I think we’re supposed to turn right here.
Me: But that means we’re going towards the mountains. That doesn’t make any sense to me. I think we should keep going straight.
Kieran: Straight? I don’t get it. Show me on the map.
Me: Um…well, um, I don’t know. Just trust me.
Kieran: What are you basing this on? Turn right. Turn right. Turn right. Turn right.
Me: FINE.
[Ten minutes later] Me: We’re going the wrong way. I’ve been here before one time when I got lost with my dad. See that green barn with the tree in front? I’ve seen that before. If we turn left at that barn and go down the gravel road, we’ll pass a stream and then we can turn left again at the big boot and we’ll be back on the highway.
Kieran: I’m not doing that. You’re insane. We’ll never get out of here if we turn down a gravel road THAT’S NOT EVEN ON THE MAP.
Me: Trust me. I’m turning.
Kieran: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. SHOW ME WHERE WE ARE ON THE MAP.
Me: I can’t. Trust me, I was here ten years ago with my dad.
Kieran: THAT DOESN’T MAKE ME FEEL BETTER.
[Ten minutes pass. Kieran is near catatonic with rage.]
Me: Look! The big boot is still there! See?
[Kieran glares, unimpressed.]

And now I tag blogging newbie Stacked Heels. Mwah!

PS For fun, I’ve resurrected my Ugly Photo Meme post, which is the first meme I ever did. Also the most fun meme that’s gone around in a good long while.

Posted by jeci at 20:06:47 | Permalink | Comments (7)

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

I Have Decided to Become a Practicing Normal Person

These last few days, I’ve found being sick to be more unpleasant than usual. And not just because it hurts to breathe, blink, or use my neck muscles to support the weight of my skull. No, it’s because I don’t get to be sick and disgusting in the privacy of my own home. Instead I had to go and get sick while we’re staying with Kieran’s gran. A couple of days ago, I had to stay in bed all day. What I should have done is sleep. You know, the way people do when they’re sick–pop a Contac-C and submit to a series of mildly hallucinogenic naps. Instead, I lay there fretting, growing increasingly more anxious about my situation. I was holed up in a room in somebody else’s home! Suddenly a bunch of stuff was out of my control and I was in somebody else’s home! I was doing all the stuff I try to avoid in a house guest situation, like sleeping late, or shuffling around in my pajamas without showering for several days, or, worst of all, feeling headachey and anti-social.

I had no idea if any of those things bothered Kieran’s gran. Certainly, my own grandfather, a dyed in the wool curmudgeon, would have instantly become apoplectic if I shuffled into his kitchen in my pajamas at 11:00 in the morning. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had pneumonia and needed to be transported to the hospital. If I wanted a ride to the hospital, I should have set my alarm and gotten myself out of bed at a decent hour and maybe on the way to the hospital I should get a decent haircut so that I wouldn’t look like such a ragamuffin in the Emergency Room. Grandpa was constantly delivering speeches like this, his voice a rising crescendo of outrage, his true feelings belied only by the fact that he would be rushing to get his coat and car keys while still managing to gesticulate wildly with his cane. But Kieran’s gran? I had no idea how she felt about people sleeping in and all those things we people do when we’re sick. And it was driving me mad.

It’s the People Pleaser thing. I don’t know if I was born this way or if I became this way, but it’s a sickness unto itself. Being a People Pleaser is a pretty effecient way to drive yourself to exhaustion. Partly because of the neurotic exertions to which you’ll go while trying to appease the real, potential, or, hell, imaginary needs of the people around you. Because sometimes people have needs but they don’t SAY anything and, Oh God, the PRESSURE and you just start inventing things they might need so that you can cut them off at the pass. Like I said, it’s sick.

But the real problem with People Pleasers? We attract Vulture People. Vulture People feed off of People Pleasers, pecking and picking at them and watching them dance around to feed their own insecurities. Walk around mumbling apologies when someone else steps on your foot and the Vultures begin to circle. Next thing you know, you’re dancing around like a marionette on crystal meth while the Vulture on your left yanks the string of implied disapproval and the Vulture on your right yanks the string of backhanded comments. It’s just like dooce said here, if you allow certain people to exploit your good will, they totally fucking will.

I’ve gotten better over the years. Better at identifying the Vultures and giving them a wide berth, better at saying no to them, especially when their demands become too ridiculous. But every now and again I come across a sneaky Vulture who’s dressed up in normal people’s clothing and I get sucked in again. That’s what you get for being pathologically polite, suckah!

So as I writhed in a feverish mass, listening for sounds of disapproval from downstairs and repeatedly wondering if I should just get up and do something productive, just in case Kieran’s gran wasn’t delighted with my ability to remain in a near vegetative state for great lengths of time, it occurred to me that I’m not just sick of the Vulture People and their shit; I’m sick of my shit. I needed to sleep, not work myself into a lather over the fact that someone else may or may not be upset with me over a situation that’s out of my control. (Not to mention that the someone else in question is not even a Vulture! And if living in fear of encountering Vulture People isn’t sad enough, allowing that fear to bleed over into your healthy relationships certainly is.)

Heaven knows I can’t control the Vulture People of the world. The Vulture People wouldn’t be Vulture People if they had any sense of boundaries. So, while it’s useful to be aware of my boundaries in general, it’s a waste of energy to come up with creative new ways to outline my boundaries for the Vultures, and an even greater waste of energy to be frustrated when they don’t respond. What I can control is me. It’s possible that I may never be able to overcome my knee-jerk desire to grovel when someone else sighs heavily. And if it is possible to overcome my own nature, I’m not entirely sure how one does that. Since I don’t have some kind of Insta-Therapist on speed dial, the solution I came up with was to fake it until I make it. This strategy worked in my professional life, so why not in my personal life?

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I had to force myself to stay in bed and lay there pretending to sleep. Because that’s what a normal person would do. I was like a toddler who didn’t want to stay in bed even though it was for her own good, only instead of playing with Megablocks, I wanted to go make sure everything was okay. So I stayed in bed all afternoon against my own wishes. And guess what? Nothing happened. If Kieran’s gran was annoyed, I’ll never know. And because I’ll never know, I’ll never have to care. Look how pleasant and simple it is to be normal!

Leading a normal life: 1; Neuroses: 0.

You can bet your ass the next time someone steps on my foot, I am going to give them with a feigned look of mild irritation and wait for them to apologize to me. The possibilities are endless here, people. God, I might even SLEEP the next time I’m bedridden.

———————————
*Aside: How many cherry Halls is too many? My mom always gave us Vicks instead of Halls, leading me to believe that perhaps Halls were too potent because of that medicinal burst of eucalyptus and that Mom was making a deliberate choice that was in our best interest. Like giving us real juice instead of Tang. I was going to read the package, but it got all ripped when I opened it. Am I killing myself with the Halls? Oh, God, why didn’t I just get Vicks? No, really. Feel free to bypass my little breakthrough, but somebody tell me the truth about Halls.

No, wait. Don’t tell me. Normal people don’t worry about this stuff.

Well…unless there’s a real chance of poisoning myself, in which case I want to know after all. Otherwise, let’s all pretend I didn’t just fret about abusing over the counter non-drugs.

Leading a Normal Life: 2; Neuroses: 0. HA!

Posted by jeci at 22:03:37 | Permalink | Comments (8)

Monday, October 29, 2007

Ugggghhhh–OW. Sigh–OW. Uggggghhh–OW.

I don’t know why being sick feels so inconvenient right now. The flu has had no bearing on my daily routine of wandering downstairs in my wilting pajamas to simultaneously surf the Internet and watch daytime television, occasionally interrupting myself to sigh heavily to express my wish that this whole job search process would hurry up. (Yeah. It turns out that leading the life of a housebound invalid is not all I’d dreamed it would be.) Except now my sighs remind me that my throat feels like it’s lined with shards of broken glass. And the fact that I’m sitting reminds me that I am not lying down.

Also? Being sick while on sabbatical means I don’t get the satisfaction of phoning my boss to let her know that my permeable immune system has earned me the right to sleep in. Because for me? Getting to croak into my boss’ voicemail that I would not be in the office and would therefore be ignoring the braying alarm that had just yanked me out of a sweaty, feverish sleep was pretty much the most job satisfaction I ever got. As I would click the alarm into the OFF position with smug finality, I would sigh with justifiable contentment because I had inadvertently found a way to beat the system: laryngitis. Now having laryngitis just means having laryngitis. Sigh. (Ow.)

Posted by jeci at 18:42:22 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Hiccup

How was that for a false start? Yeah, well. MY MACBOOK STARTED ON FIRE.

Okay, that’s an exaggeration. The MacBooK’s power cord spontaneously combusted. But, the MacBook is fine apart from the fact that the battery is dead and I’m unable to resuscitate it. We, however, barely survived the incident due to the fact that I was struck dumb by the whole thing. Not dumb as in mute, but dumb as in idiotic. We were sitting in bed, watching a download of Friday Night Lights when I noticed a very bad burning plastic smell, followed by a sinister popping sound. “The cord is on fire.” I said, mostly in awe.

“Unplug it. Unplug it. Unplug it. Unplug it.” At which point I reached for the smoldering end of the cord, about to grasp the tangle of exposed wires.

“FROM THE WALL. UNPLUG IT FROM THE WALL.”

So I managed not to electrocute myself or to start the bedspread on fire. So that’s good. What’s not good is that there are no power cords in all of Vancouver. They’ve been recalled. Funny that. So no blogging. No Scrabulous (Dav’s dying to beat me). Worse: Job search interrupted. For a few days. Until then, then.

PS I can’t seem to get carriage returns from the phone. Enjoy the uber paragraph. Sigh.

Posted by jeci at 00:17:45 | Permalink | Comments (6)

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Saying Goodbye to The Man

The thing is, I don’t have a job right now. Well, technically, I do. I’m on leave from my old job while I see what the Vancouver job market has to offer, which gives me the odd luxury of being picky despite my encroaching poverty. For once, I’m assessing the job market in terms of what potential employers have to offer me. No benefits package? Pbbbfftt! I’m still covered by my old benefits, so I think I’ll pass. A significant cut in pay? Uh, let me think about that: NO. I must say, it feels rather grown up. Although, in the interest of honesty, it should be noted that I hadn’t thought of things this strategically when I arranged for the leave and instead did so in response to a debilitating bout of existential panic.

So, I’m looking for work. I’m checking out my options. And I won’t be bending over for The Man, thank you very much. So. In celebration of my new found unwillingness to bend over, I’ve made a list: Top Five Worst Jobs of My Life.

5. Canada Safeway Cashier: This job paid minimum wage, offered no benefits, and had a ridiculous company-wide policy of not giving staff more than 18 hours a week. This put my monthly salary at $360 before taxes and union fees. Yes, union fees. I don’t know what kind of union negotiates a maximum of 18 hours a week, but I’m guessing a union that’s failing miserably and/or corrupt. But the real sticking point with this job was how seriously they expected you to take your cashiering. We were asked to study the produce codes outside of work, to come into work half an hour early to tour the produce section, and randomly administered written exams on the codes every week. If you didn’t get at least 80% on that damn exam, you were taken aside and given a stern lecture and a warning to improve. We were all given a “Top Banana” pin that we were required to wear on our uniform (a POLYESTER DRESS with PUFFED SLEEVES). If you got 100% on your produce code exam, you got a fruit or vegetable charm to hang from your Top Banana pin. OH HAPPY DAY.

4. Dairy Queen Counter Girl: This job was like a scene out of Mean Girls. Part of the problem was that this wasn’t the Dairy Queen from my hometown, but was from a neighbouring town, so all the other girls knew each other and weren’t especially interested in making me feel included. Specifically, they took delight in excluding me. I once got locked in the walk-in freezer for over an hour and either no one noticed I was missing or cared that I was missing. I actually suspect they knew I was locked in the freezer and wanted to be cruel. Eventually, I gave up on knocking and yelling for help and dejectedly sat on a milk crate, shivering and refusing to cry while I waited to be released.

3. The Art Store Job: For this job, I answered phones and took catalogue orders for an art supply store. This entailed dealing with flaky artists over the phone all the livelong day: “Oh, hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeee. I’m doing this frog project? Papier maché frogs? It’s going to be, like, a FOREST of papier maché frogs. No. A CITY OF FROGS. It’s a STATEMENT. About society. And frogs. Purple frogs! PUCE FROGS! What do you have in a puce acrylic? No, oil! No, water colour! Wait, what kind of paint do you use with papier maché? Oh you know what? I just remembered I don’t have any money.”

2: Office Depot Cashier: Depressingly, I had my university degree at this point, which rubbed a certain amount of salt into my wounded idealism and naïve expectations of the world. Office Depot seemed to have a special breed of obnoxious, snotty customers who were quite insistent that you know how busy and important they were and that it was because of their incredible stature in the business world that they were buying a leather desk chair. I was informed of my stupidity on numerous occasions. Never when I had done anything stupid, mind you, but when some pompous ass wasn’t getting his/her own way. For example:

Customer: What’s taking so long?!? What are you, STUPID? Are you RETARDED? I MAKE $100 AN HOUR. I DON’T HAVE TIME TO WAIT FOR PEOPLE LIKE YOU.

Me: I make $7.50 an hour.

Customer: …SO?!?

Me: They don’t pay me enough to give a tiny rat’s ass about you.

Customer: [blinks]

I did get in trouble for this, although my manager was pretty forgiving due to the fact that I was one of the only people who could answer the phones AND ring in orders at the same time. See? I didn’t got to university for nothing!

1. Joey Tomatoes Waitress: Joey Tomatoes is the Italian cousin in the Earls chain of restaurants. Those from Western Canada will be familiar with the Earls franchise and its notoriety for exploiting underage girls by way of not quite officially requiring them to wear skimpy outfits. After my first day, my smarmy boss took me aside and urged me to wear a shirt that was more “formfitting.” (I ignored his suggestion.) He also liked to remind the girls pouring beers to “give good head.”

Beyond a willingness to be exploited for your looks (typically borne of a complete lack of other options), “Earlitude” was of the utmost importance. We all dashed around in our formfitting shirts, grinning like sharks and bleating “Hiiieee! It’s so great to SEE you! How are YOU today?” to anything that moved. In order to create the illusion of a fun-loving atmosphere, every time someone ordered the jambalaya, you had to yell “Jam-BA-LAAAAAAYYYYAAAAA!” for all the restaurant to hear. And all the other waitresses would roar back, “JAMBALAAAAAYYYAA!” This was generally terrifying for customers, and you would have to nervously twitter while you waited for them to stop clutching at their heart so you could take their drink order.

Customer birthdays were equally horrible. You would have to really ham it up before giving them their complimentary cake: “It’s your BIRTHDAY?!? Welllllll, you know what we do around here on BIRTHDAYS!” And then we’d all have to gather around in some happy-clappy circle and sing a song. In a fake Italian accent. “Whatsa madda you? [HEY!] You lost anodda year? [HEY!]” And so on.

This job came to an abrupt and fiery end and is the closest I’ve ever come to being fired. In fact, on the morning of my last day, I left believing that I had been fired. I mean, the smarmy manager had actually tried to fire me because of my “bad Earlitude.” You see, Skeezy McSmarmypants had “heard that I never went to any of the staff parties and after work get togethers” and “it just didn’t seem like I was a going to work out.” I was sick of him, sick of the restaurant and the stupid yelling and singing, and really just bone tired. I mean, I was working two other jobs in order to survive. I didn’t have time for after hours Earlitude. Something snapped and I just lit into his ass. Dude was stunned when I stood up to him and his jaw kind of slowly unhinged and we stood staring at each other for a long moment before he started stammering that he’d think about giving me a second chance. I turned on my heel and stormed out, mostly because I didn’t want Skeezy McSmarmypants to see that I was about to cry. Although my standing up to him was evidence of my developing backbone, the whole incident deeply upset my people pleaser nature. I went home, cried on my roommate’s bed for a while, then gathered my spirits and went out and got myself a new job: “Customer Service Representative” for Blockbuster Video. The future looked bright indeed.

 

Posted by jeci at 18:53:05 | Permalink | Comments (11)

Friday, October 5, 2007

Blue Yon Belly, Baby!

THAT’S RIGHT. Blue Yon Belly is back!

Wait. Back?

Yeah, well. Here’s the thing. I maybe had this blog before and didn’t bother telling anybody, partly because I didn’t know if it was gonna take, and partly because I didn’t know what I was doing, and mostly because I was shy. Eventually it did take, but then it seemed like this whole thing to be all, “Hey I have this partially completed, fairly random blog I didn’t tell you about for a year!” And by that time, there was a bunch of people I didn’t know who had stumbled across me in the ether who started popping by regularly (hey guys!) and in a way, things were just nice the way they were. I guess because the people in the ether weren’t obligated to read me in the way perhaps my family members or friends might feel obligated to read me, so there was no pressure on me to amuse. Which was exactly what I needed at the time because I was in this pressure cooker of a writing job with deadlines and turnaround times you wouldn’t believe. And while being very busy and important can have the heady effect of making you feel very busy and important, it can also make you feel like there’s all this PRESSURE to be this PERFECT WRITER. NOW. So I wanted a space to be an imperfect writer (and, while we’re at it, an imperfect wife/daughter/sister/friend) whenever I damn well felt like it. Then I went on sabbatical and biked across Canada, effectively taking the longest vacation of my entire life and decompressing a whole hell of a lot, and none of that seems relevant anymore. And here we are. We writer types are fickle, see?

So! Blue Yon Belly is back! It’s Blue Yon Belly 2.0! Those who’ve been here before will notice Blue Yon Belly has had a makeover. It’s kinda got a whole “1986/1987 School Year” feel. I call it “Nouveau Trapper Keeper.”

And, despite the makeover and its (possibly) wider audience, Blue Yon Belly’s fundamental purpose remains the same. Not only does blogging remind me I like to write, it reminds me to actually write. Something. On a page. That gets typed and saved and everything. I don’t know why, but unless I write something somewhere, I won’t write anything at all. But if I blog about something–anything–no matter how mundane, then I can write all kinds of things.

On a possibly related note, blogging also helps to cure my natural tendancy to mope unless distracted by something shiny. And, while I’m pretty good at laughing at myself, I’m even better at it when I try and get everyone else to laugh with me. So, all in all, blogging just keeps me in good spirits and reminds me of who I am.

Lots of people say things in their “About” pages regarding their expectations for respect and reserve their right to operate their blogs on their own terms. I’ve actually yet to receive any hate mail. I’ve long assumed this is because hardly anybody reads me. But, all the same, if you say disrespectful things in my comments, I don’t suppose you should be surprised a) when I delete you and b) when I don’t care what some immature and hateful stranger has to say. If you find yourself considering whether to stalk me, well…what the hell? SEEK PSYCHIATRIC CARE. Speaking of stalking, I know a lot of you know my name and life history and jeans size in real life, but I would like my blog to remain relatively anonymous. As in, I would really prefer if prospective stalkers and other folks suffering from psychiatric disorders that compel them to find and hurt me are not able to succeed in their endeavours (and for entirely different reasons, I would prefer that former and prospective employers stay out of Blue Yon Belly’s sometimes sloppily written backyard). I go by “jeci” round these here parts. Or Jay will do, if that’s more comfortable for you. But let’s shy away from birth names and last names and GPS coordinates and all the rest, shall we? However, feel free to broadcast my jeans size so long as you’re willing to lie. I mean, it’s not easy being a size 26, but if you want to rub that in to the whole world, YOU GO RIGHT AHEAD.

All righty then. On to the next chapter!

PS I wonder which family member will figure out my blog title first? Bonus points if you can provide the full sound byte and English translation (ever the family mystery, non?).

 

Posted by jeci at 22:58:40 | Permalink | Comments (8)

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Beyond Shame. No. Beyond Beyond Shame.

Greetings from Denial Land! What…moving? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not moving in 30 days. I don’t need to pack. It’s so pleasant here when things aren’t in boxes; why introduce that kind of chaos into a peaceful situation? There’s really no way this kind of procrastination could bite me in the ass. NO WAY. I’m being SMART people. S-M-R-T, SMART.

And to demonstrate how irrefutably smart I am, I will tell you about the horrible stench we allowed to take over our apartment. (And, no, it wasn’t me. Shut up.) We went to the farm for my mom’s birthday on the weekend and we came back to a stench. A horrible, horrible stench. A stench that had legs and possibly even a tail. A stench so horrible that I became convinced that something had died, like maybe the cats had killed something and it had lived long enough to crawl under the fridge or the stove before dying and emitting its stink. I even moved the stove and the fridge in search of a mouse graveyard and found an alarming sea of cat hair, but no dead mice.

On Day 1, we took out the garbage, we changed the cat litter, we opened all the windows. Nothing. The Stench had had a few too many beers and decided to crash on the couch for “juss wun night, I PROMISH. I love you guyz man. Hiccuh!” On Day 2, I cleaned out the fridge. Nothing. The Stench looked at me warily but he still didn’t bother rolling back the futon and just kind of lazed on it all day eating chips. On Day 3, I moved the appliances and cleaned up enough cat hair to have to change the vacuum bag halfway through. Nothing. The Stench had moved in and was comfortable enough to wander around in his underwear, lazily scratching his nuts while staring into the fridge and complaining about our being all out of beer.

And then today. Today, The Stench crossed the line. Today, The Stench had wandered into the hallway, stained boxers and all, and made a racket, caused a stink if you will, and I was afraid that the neighbours would start to complain about The Stench bothering them.

The Stench had to go.

I was, truth be told, mortified. We had become Those People. Those People who are such slobs they stink up the apartment building and everyone complains that they never take out their garbage and hiss “How can they live like that?” while holding their noses and shooting accusing glances at their door. As soon as I got wind (heh) that The Stench had been in the hallway, I readied myself to kick The Stench to the curb.

Oh, readers. I’m so embarrassed. We are much, much worse than Those People Who Don’t Bother Taking out the Garbage. We thought that The Stench was uninvited, but it turned out that we had just forgotten that we had invited him. We are…we put…we FORGOT. Okay? WE FORGOT. A certain couple may have had a fancy dinner party a week ago and may or may not have gotten drunk off of their own homemade wine and FORGOTTEN about the roasting pan full of chicken juices we left in the oven after we transferred the bird to a platter. And while I had thought to look UNDER the oven, I hadn’t thought to look IN the oven. We aren‘t Those People. We’re THOSE PEOPLE. (Who? The ones who had their babies taken away by Social Services because their house was so filthy. Ohhh, THOSE PEOPLE.)

Come on in! We may look normal! Hell, right now you could EAT off of the floor under the fridge, which may or may not be normal, but whatever you do, DON’T GO NEAR THE OVEN. That’s where we keep the liquified rotting chicken fat. There’s a chance you may find that unpleasant. If you’re one of those fussy germaphobe types that is. Or a person with a functioning nose. Whatever.

I actually cried. Sure, a little of it was an involuntary reaction to the acrid smell of rotting flesh. But mostly? I cried tears of genuine horror. And defeat. And scalding mortification. Never have I felt such a failure at the Game of Life as when I found that roasting pan full of DISEASE AND HORROR in my OVEN.

Posted by jeci at 06:59:27 | Permalink | Comments (5)

Friday, April 27, 2007

I Stink

As part of my new “Jeci Who Will Do Her Best to Remember That She Is a Latent Lunatic Who Must Treat Herself with Kid Gloves” regime, I am not going to stir the pot of my churning anxieties by musing about all the changes on my horizon or waxing nostalgic on the series of grand mistakes that culminated in my having a meltdown on my 31st birthday. For now. No, for now I’m going to remember that it’s the little things.

Little things like how bad you smell. Not only has it taken me 31 years to discover my latent lunacy, it’s also taken me 31 years to discover my latent B.O. problem. While I’ve had the Most Temperamental Skin in the World since the onset of puberty, apparently I was spared the puberty double strike of Bad Skin/B.O. Until now. (Memo to body: Are you confused? Or maybe dyslexic? It’s 31, not 13!) It would appear that I have been able to mask this problem by routinely slathering my armpits with carcinogens. You see, a while ago, the paper ran an article about the 10 most carcinogenic common household items and antiperspirant was one of the items (deodorant is either okay, or at least not in the top 10). (I’ve searched the Internet for the electronic copy of this article and can’t find it, so you’ll just have to believe me.) I actually dismissed this news with a confident wave of my hand, saying something like, “Pbbbfft! Oh, that one’s no problem! You know, I’ve never really needed antiperspirant anyway.” Which was true, at some point. I know in high school, I used to wonder what the point of deodorant/antiperspirant was since I hardly ever sweat and didn’t really smell when I did; but I wore antiperspirant anyway just in case I DID stink but couldn’t tell.

It turns out that I certainly CAN tell when I stink, which is almost ALL THE TIME now. Always erring on the side of paranoia when it comes to cancer (and believing myself to be genetically blessed with armpits that sweat rosewater), I confidently made the switch from antiperspirant to an all natural, calendula something or other deodorant. Now either deodorant is the most gravely misnamed product ever to hit the supermarket shelves, or I have a problem. I’m not the genetically blessed delicate flower I thought I was, but am a sweaty man beast who can only be quelled by a thick layer of white carcinogenic paste!

Husband has repeatedly assured me that I don’t stink and that he can only smell my hair (and then he leans in and smells my hair and now he is becoming increasingly obsessed with my hair). And then I think that Husband only thinks that I don’t stink because he likes my pheromones anyway, which becomes obvious when he won’t let go of strands of my hair and presses them into his lips. (It’s getting to be a little like that Cripsin Glover character in the Charlie’s Angels movie.)

In the end, I asked (interrogated) my best friend the last time I saw her (numerous times) because I knew she would tell me the truth and wouldn’t be tricked by the pheromones streaming out of the ends of my hair. She said: “But I thought you didn’t sweat! Why did you switch to deodorant? Is it because you saw that article about carcinogens in the Journal? No you totally don’t stink. And you’re too paranoid about getting cancer.”

WELL. Obviously, she doesn’t know me AT ALL.

Anyway, either I’m getting more used to the more natural smelling me or I’ve finally found a deodorant that lives up to its name, so you needn’t fear running into me on the street or anything. And, perhaps ironically, my increased gym activity seems to be helping because that means I now shower twice a day and that seems to head off at the pass any encroaching funk. And SHUT UP. All super feminine dainty women like me shower twice a day just so they don’t get mistaken for some kind of yeti.

Posted by jeci at 00:38:56 | Permalink | Comments (6)

Saturday, February 3, 2007

My Old Job: An Obituary/Tribute Essay

Since I have secured a new job and subsequently had a heart-to-heart with my boss wherein I had to honestly explain why I was unwilling to stay in my current position a minute longer than the requisite two weeks (“Well…truth be told, yesterday when I was away from my desk, it was because I had to go cry hysterically in private”), I feel it’s fair game for me to say that my work environment was toxic. That my disappearing for an hour to sob in the privacy of a bathroom stall was not regarded as unusual and was, instead, greeted with a commiserating and empathetic “I know. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to do the same,” from my boss is a pretty good indicator. And while I would love to sink my teeth into this topic, delving deeper is probably ill advised. Suffice it to say, the last year has been hell on Earth for everyone involved and I am not the only one who suffered a meltdown (three out of a team of six).

Anyway, even if there are work spies reading this,* that my particular area was deemed toxic by employees and employer alike is not news to anybody. In the past few months, in an attempt to address the situation, our group has been sent to several “team building” workshops put on by various and sundry motivational speakers, none of whom did anything to challenge my perception that corporate workshop facilitators are manic lunatics from the same alien race as Tom Cruise.

The first workshop was a full two days, conducted by a woman who looked like a parody of a Russian figure skating coach: brassy dye job, blue eyeshadow, stripes of blush over leathery smoker’s skin, and both days she wore 80s era outfits with hefty shoulder pads and some kind of animal print. Her frumpy appearance was incongruous with her boundless energy and her habit of clapping and exclaiming with rabid glee, “Yaaay! Good for YOU [insert name], GOOD SHARING!” every time someone responded to one of her questions. She also responded to each personal revelation by oversharing information from her own life so that by the end of the first hour, we knew that her father never loved her, she had gone through a bitter divorce in the early 90s, and had, at one point, declared bankruptcy and lost her condo only to rebound by making, “scads of money” and marrying a man who knows how to “push her buttons.”

The purpose of this particular workshop was to get our “colours done.” Somebody somewhere has broken down the 6 billion some odd personalities of the world into four colours: blues (empathetic, sensitive), golds (organized/Type A), oranges (adventurous, outgoing), and greens (logical, analytical). The goal of the workshop was for us to use our individual colours to weave a “plaid.”

I am pretty sure this type of thing is designed specifically to torment people like me who are compulsive people pleasers suffering from a conflicting congenital cynicism.

Highlights of this workshop included: Watching a video of the fish throwing people at Pike Place Market and preparing a presentation on how having fun increases productivity; me getting a stern lecture on how I couldn’t be both blue and orange, nor an extrovert and an introvert, and having to pick one of each**; my co-worker being forced to don a tiara and wave a glittery “blue fairy” plastic wand and give us examples of how her “blue” personality is a gift (sadly, readers, I tell you this with no hyperbole whatsoever); and a dramatic demonstration wherein Oversharing Figure Skating Lady broke a single stick across her purple leopard print clad knee, but when she bundled the sticks and tied them with blue, orange, green, and gold yarn, the sticks could not be broken.

If I’m honest with myself, I must admit that most of my contempt for this workshop stems from being publicly rebuked for having equal portions of seemingly conflicting personality types.

The other workshop of note was the Laughter Workshop. Yes. A workshop to teach us how to laugh. I actually liked this facilitator because he was so good-hearted and well-intentioned that he was oblivious to how his unbridled enthusiasm was often overwhelming for many of us. You have to feel at once sorry for and touched by a man who wears a happy face tie and clown nose and bounds into a room full of hateful co-workers to force them to laugh together. You know, in the same way you at once love and are anxious about a joyful labradoodle with muddy paws who’s been set loose on a cocktail party.

Anyway, I say forced to laugh because that’s what it was. First we had a five-minute warm-up, where we had to clutch at our stomachs, saying/pretend laughing “Ha-ha-ha” (in a tenor), “Hee-hee-hee” (in a falsetto), and “HO-HO-HO” (in a booming bass), and finish each round of fake laughing by waving our hands in the air, jumping up and down, and shouting “Yaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy!” This was followed by several different laughing exercises that included having to waddle around the room like penguins and tittering, pretending we were chickens and “Bok-bok-bok” laughing, and grabbing our bellies so that we could feel them shaking like bowls full of jelly when we chortled “Ho-ho-ho!” like Santa Claus. The exercises culminated in knee slapping and a crescendo of “Ah-ha-ha-ha! AH-HA-HA-HAAAAAAAAA! BWAH-HA-HA!!!” laughing.

Of all the things I could say at this point, I will instead say “Goodbye old job.”

————————–

*I am not being paranoid when I refer to “work spies,” as the public service actually has a department whose duties include reading e-mails and the like, which I found out when I had lunch the other day with one of that department’s employees.

While we’re on the subject, Dear Work Spies: That time I Googled “Pete Burns pussy lips,” I was not being pervy, but was instead trying to see Pete Burns’ botched lip implants and the resulting pus-filled blisters and only realized how “pus-sy” and “pussy” lips are interchangeable after my unfortunate search results appeared. Please remove any resulting red flags off of my account.

**Note that Oversharing Figure Skating Lading was not a trained psychologist. Also note that I filled out the questionnaires honestly and that’s how my results came out. This sort of blurring the lines is, apparently, unacceptable in Four Colour World. (I chose blue and introvert, for the record.)

Posted by jeci at 22:34:37 | Permalink | Comments (6)

Sunday, January 14, 2007

New Year’s Resolution 1

Resolution No. 1: Hey Loser! Do Something About the Ongoing Laundry Crisis that Has Been Raging in Your Closet Since 2003

Earlier today, I found two sweaters in the bottom of my hamper that I have not worn since I was at McGill. McGill. In Montréal. I do not live in Montréal. I did, however, live in Montréal from 2003 to late 2005. I think I remember wearing those sweaters sometime in the fall of 2003. We then moved from Montréal to Alberta, bringing with us dirty sweaters that I haven’t washed the ENTIRE TIME WE’VE LIVED IN THIS APARTMENT.

Let’s let the shame and horror of that last sentence sink in. Two years and one month (excluding, of course, the YEAR PREVIOUS TO THAT).

Don’t get me wrong; I am very much in the habit of wearing clean clothes. I just haven’t penetrated the mountain of laundry deep enough to get to those damn sweaters. For a while there (like, oh, well over two years), I forgot I had those sweaters. And they would have been very serviceable for work, which is the real tragedy, since I have a limited supply of professional clothes.

It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when laundry was done efficiently and on time. And that time was when we had in-suite laundry. Then we moved to Montréal.

In Montréal, the laundry machines, though numerous, were in the underground parking. Being that we lived in the area commonly referred to as the “English Ghetto,” and there was at least one known crack dealer in our building, not to mention that guy who peed in the elevator every Sunday, AND someone else who was in the habit of entertaining prostitutes in the laundry room (which I never witnessed—thank the Sweet Baby Jesus—but they left their used johnnies behind the dryers) (and Delilah Givin’ a Haircut am I glad we don’t live there anymore) and ANYWAY I was too skirred to go down to the laundry by myself. Husband was managing the Starbucks on Ste. Catherine’s, which was very busy all the time, being Ste. Catherine’s and all, and he was never home to escort me down to the laundry. And that explains why I didn’t get to those sweaters before we moved. (And that paragraph sums up nicely why we didn’t stay in Montréal.)

But since then, there’s been no excuse. Quite frankly, by the time we left Montréal, I’d just gotten used to having a mound of laundry bursting out of the hamper and was in the habit of only washing things that really needed to be washed for daily functioning. Spare blankets, sweaters, the ugly towels…they’ve all fallen by the wayside.

So today I did what any self-respecting 31-year old would do: I gave my laundry to my mom and asked her to do it for me. I like to think of this as not so much a regressive step as admitting I have a problem and asking for help. In my defense (if there is one at this point), I only gave her the items that I’m never able to get to in the laundry triage, including those sweaters, dammit. Also in my defence, there’s only one machine in the whole building and it takes coins and I don’t always have enough loonies and quarters to do everything.

But. BUT that’s no excuse. Because IN THE NEW YEAR, I will always have a roll of loonies and a roll of quarters and will be far more persistent in pursuing the machines when they’re already in use, even going so far as to use the aggressive and territorial “leave-my-basket-on-top-of-the-washer” tactic as necessary.

There. So now that you know about the sweater thing, don’t you feel so much better about your own life and the state of your own household? Consider this a public service. To that end, you may also be interested to know that I haven’t vacuumed behind the entertainment unit or under the futon in over a year because they are too heavy for me to move by myself. I’m sure there’s enough cat hair under there to form a new cat, but I can’t see it and guests can’t see it, so whenever I’m doing housework, I pretend like I didn’t just see me ignoring the cat hair under the futon again and move on to something more pleasant like…not vacuuming.

Posted by jeci at 02:42:59 | Permalink | Comments (4)