Why Can't My Toes Just Get Along...

   Today I decided I was to be intrepid. I walked from the edge of mile end to downtown Montreal. Although I was wearing my clothes from the previous evening, I had thought to pack a pair of clean underwear for the night so I was feeling fresh as a fiddle as I embarked into the world of man. You might not think that an intrepid explorer would wear a high waisted skirt, knee socks and suede boots but that is what intrepid explorers wear.
   I knew the boots weren't walking shoes, but I was all "whuteva, I am a rockstar, the laws of physics do not apply to me". The boots are only slightly pointed and have a minuscule heel, but when you're walking for two hours straight, after a while its like your toes are being sucked into a vacuum.
   The toes begin getting aggressive with each other and vying for space. Silly toes, there is no space to be had. As much as a given toe can spear the one of its brothers until my foot is a bloodied stump, there will never be more room in my boot.
   I would say that the ring finger toe equivalent is the Richard 3 of the foot. Killing off his family until he is the last remaining.

Grumpy Cat Rules My Life

   I don't know if anyone out there has seen the grumpy cat video, I'm sure there are many so-called grumpy cat videos, but I'm talking about the grumpy cat to end all grumpy cats. This cat has been running my life for the past eight hours. I can't do homework, focus on my duties at work, make food or even go pee without grumpy cat getting in the way. Either I am seized with the urge to watch the video of grumpy cat, or look at one of the numerous screen shots of the grumpy cat video that I took this morning. Sometimes it is just the memory of the fun times I shared with grumpy cat that sends me into hysterics. Folks, this video may even be better than Kingsford Goes to the Beach (a heartwarming day-in-the-life video montage of the piglet Kingsford).
   I think part of my obsession is that grumpy cat reminds me so much of myself. I have never related to a living thing so much before in my life- usually the only thing I can relate to is rocks or moss. I feel as if I have been grumpy cat in a past life. The permanent look of displeasure and "what the fuck are you doing" is something I feel every flapping day. Every day grumpy cat, every day.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/tard-the-grumpy-cat-never-ever-ever-smiles_n_1917675.html

Knowledge is Power, the Lack Thereof is Me.

   Political activism scares me. No, let me correct that, politically charged conversations scare me. Actually, sorry, more accurately, information scares me. Thats why I could never be a mail man (insert Newman from Seinfeld: "when you control the mail, you control... information!").
   For realzies, I can appreciate the value of sparking change and the need for people to speak up and be the change they want to see in the world. I can also understand that I am part of the problem (insert Janis from Mean Girls: "There are two kinds of evil people in this world. Those who do evil stuff and those who see evil stuff being done and don't try to stop it"). I am also a part of the problem in that it is very apparent that all I do is sit around and watch movies all day.
   But actually, I am cool to not know lots of stuff about lots of stuff (pretty sure thats Tracey Jordan, 30 Rock). Maybe its the creative writer part of me. For instance, I don't want to know the scientific reason why the sun appears to set faster while its right above the horizon in the evening. Do you think John Keats wanted to know about that shit? No, he just wanted to write beautiful lines of prose that would make people cry for decades to come. 
   I don't know if I'll ever be able to make anyone cry because of the beauty of my verse (although I have definitely made people cry with my quick wit). But if I know too many things I won't have the same narrative texture (ew, see what I mean, I'm using words like texture now, I already know too much) that I am developing into "my style". Everybody has their own thing (kid on the public service announcement of my childhood: "My thing's sound effects; here's a T-rex *T-rex noise*"), my thing is sitting in my cave and writing/ pretending to write while I watch things on a screen. I value the hard work that people put in to changing the community, and if any of those people are reading this, hopefully they value the hard work that I am putting into this blog. 

My Athletic Bestie

   I think its safe to say that we all have those friends who are really talented and/or beautiful, sweet, hilarious, smart, outgoing, caring. They're so good at one or many things that you almost hate them but you can't because you love them. I have this friend who is by far the most multi-talented person I know and sometimes I think about her and am like "god I want to kill you and take all your talents, but I've known you forever and that would hurt your mom's feelings". Also I haven't done that because personal attributes are not the Elderwand and I can't just kill someone to get their things.
   This friend is a first year student at Trent, and I don't feel concerned about disclosing that information because one of her talents is physical prowess and she could destroy anyone with a creepy agenda. Apparently at Trent rowing is a big deal (sports or whatever, am I right?). So this means that a lot of people showed up for tryouts, and bear in mind that I myself have not had the motivation to try out for a team since grade six badminton. I cannot stress enough that before my dear friend went to tryouts, she had never rowed a day in her life. She made the team though, because she rocks.
   This is a claaassic move on her part. Its just like the time that she started karate as a child and had a black belt within five years, or the time when she was in my dance class in high school for a day before being moved up to the advanced class with her sister who had been dancing since she was a wee young thing, or like the time when we joined cheerleading together (psyche! I was on a team in high school) and she ended up winning MVP at the athletic banquet at the end of the year.
   I have high hopes for this rowing thing. I fully expect her to go to the Olympics as well as some other cool special rowing awards that is even more hardcore than the Olympics. I know that I probably sound like I'm super jealous of her, and I think it would be an insult to her skills to say I was completely not jealous. I'm a little jealous of her ability to develop such a great passion for new things and that she gets to meet new people and have life experiences. She is a champion of athleticism and I just needed to get that out there. She is also really cute and smart, but I don't want to turn this into a novel.

PS Also, that year that she got MVP for cheerleading I won an award too, Most Improved. Its true, almost as prestige as MVP. Almost. So close, but so far.

Love

   Know what love is? I will tell you what love is.
   Love is blindly following the advice of Google maps after night class to the wrong metro station, take a bus to the wrong stop, take note of some dead ends, and be forced to retrace your steps. But it doesn't stop there. If you really love someone you will express excitement upon seeing their kitchen stocked with twelve cans of chickpeas, many NatureValley bars, and a bag of tomatoes. There's more: if you love someone, not in the way the sun loves the moon, but in the way that phlegm loves the sinuses, you will spend a night on a twin-sized blow up mattress with them- the mattress you leant them two days earlier- in their room. And if you're serious about this lovin' the mattress will be the only thing in their room except a low-powered baseboard heater and a brown curtain that you brought for them on the metro and the bus and the dead ends.
   So now you will recognize love when it travels across the city for you. Be sure to grab it by the scruff of its denim jacket and hold on for dear life because chances are that if your love looks anything like what I've described there will be lots of pizza runs (literally) involved in your future.

Julie Andrews

   Do you ever have those days where you wake up and are like, "I wonder what Julie Andrews is doing right now"?
   Happens to me all the time.
   Like, is she currently sitting in her country chalet sipping a cup of cocoa (she no longer drinks tea because every single role she has ever played has come to make her despise the drink which she commonly refers to as "the devil's brew")? Personally, I don't even know where she lives, I would guess that its somewhere in Great Britain but I don't like to assume.
   Maybe she's working on her next children's book. Maybe she's fleeing Nazi occupied Austria. Maybe she is skydiving. We will never know. Actually, I'm sure we would know if it was the second one, because of the whole Nazi thing, and I think I speak for us all when I say it would be really troubling if that were to resurface. It would exceed bummer status.
   But back to Julie, for it is she who we all wish to know about. When you search @julieandrews on Twitter you get a protected account that follows thirteen people, has zero tweets and zero followers. This is most definitely not the real Julie Andrews as the true Dame would have one motherfucking hundred followers on Twitter. Thats what it would say: one motherfucking hundred.
   She has children to raise and fancy international music awards to host, music awards that are so classy that normal folk don't even know they exist unless they wikipedia Julie Andrews. We'll never know what she's doing right now, and her security team is probably so on the ball that we will never even know what she did yesterday. It saddens me that I have access to the knowledge of what angsty fifteen year olds are currently doing, but not interesting and critically acclaimed people like Dame Julie Andrews.

Death By Chocolate, A True Life Story

   I have this disease called IneedtoeatallthechocolateintheworldrightnoworIamgoingtodie or something like that. Its a pretty serious thing, because its like it has a mind of its own (if you're a big biology nerd like I pretend to be, you will acknowledge that this is seemingly an attribute of a real virus). This very serious, life-threatenng disease seeks to destroy all that I hold near and dear before I inevitably end up collapsed on some linoleum tiles somewhere, completely alone in the world, fondue fonding all over the floor as I curse the heavens and beg for forgiveness on my soul.
   This merciless disease first targets my ghostly complexion and knobby frame. As I succumb to the endless urge to eat all the chocolate in the world, I will grow from ghostly to greasy and knobby to lumpy. This will lead to a decreasing interest in maintaining my looks and hygiene, and my multi-thousand dollar, poster-child-for-braces mouth will decline to something resembling the Byron bog (provincial park just outside London, Ontario- known for its mulch and pete moss).
   Naturally all the relationships in my life will suffer. I only associate with attractive people, and if they're as shallow as me they will all ditch me once I stop shaving my arm pits (which I figure will be pretty early on, in the first stages of the disease). Next will be my parents who will retain love for me in their hearts but will tell their friends that their daughter is caring for abused donkeys in Africa and may never return. Last my sweet sweet boyfriend with a heart of something like gold but not quite so cliche will either gouge his eyes out or move to a donkey reserve himself to avoid breaking my heart. In reality it would probably explode rather than break because at this point the disease has really taken hold and my arteries are drowning in literal butter-- yes, there is butter in my bloodstream.
   Lets speed this up though, because this could get very graphic: blah blah blah lose a foot to diabetes, buy a lot of those extendable claw arms from the dollar store to minimize reasons for movement, get a subscription to the Cocoa 70 newsletter and write complaints each month that there isn't a meals on wheels type program for those too disease-ridden to leave their houses.
   Then comes the fateful day when I fall to the floor in a kitchen (might be a kitchen in an abandoned hotel somewhere because since my roomies ditched me I can't afford a real apartment). The floor is coated in a thick layer of non-descript syrup which I manage to suck on for four days after my fall. The pool of fondue that I slipped on has hardened around my body and what little energy I have is wasted on moving my stumpy neck around in hopes of lapping up some more floor syrup to stay alive.
   I die alone in this environment which the coroner will deem is 70% sugar, 9% sweat and 21% human failure.

Stale Bagels

   My apologies in advance about the heightened attention to murder talk lately. So sorry guys, sorry about talking about murder so much.
   Anyways, I think I have discovered what drives people to murder. I'm going to take the liberty of making up a statistic here and favour a guess that nine in ten murderers are driven to murder after sitting down to a nice toasted bagel, only to discover that the bagel is stale. This is presently happening to me, thankfully I have an iron will and refuse to be driven to madness by unsatisfactory grains.
   To those of you who have been tempted by a life of murdering only to avenge your stale bagel experience I say, resist! Resist now friends and murderers-to-be! A stale bagel is truly the devil's work and if you slather on enough butter you can make it through without killing anyone!

I'm Dying (But Not Actually)

   My most overused exaggerated phrase is probably to proclaim loudly and obnoxiously, "I'm dying!" Right now is one of the times when I want to yell it... Guys,

I'M DYYYYYYIIIIINNNNGGGGG

   This morning I woke up and my voice was gone. It has since returned, my voice is just a little strained. But after going to the gym my body feels like peanut brittle and my head feels like a stale gumdrop. I have a bit of a headache, which really makes me convinced that I am dying since I never get headaches. And my spine is always crunchy, but tonight it is an accordion (made of peanut brittle).
   I just want to roll around on the floor and say ridiculous things and watch "Marcel the Shell with Shoes on" and eat warm croissants. I always want something sweet in the evening (get your mind out of the gutter) though and dough counts, so that part is not that out of the ordinary. I also want fancy pants hot chocolate from Cocoa Seventy which is this gourmet chocolatier and everything there must be paid for in gold pieces.

English Major, Murder Minor

   Everyone in my short fiction class last night looked like a murderer. It didn't help that the class legit took place in the deep, dark night (8:30- 10:45pm), which furthered my suspicions because I thought those hours were more conducive to the murder lifestyle than to, say, the fisherman's lifestyle.
   They all seemed quite cheerful murderers - at least the ones seated behind me- which confused me at first but then I considered that that is probably typical murderer behaviour following a satisfying murder. I guess thats what happens post-murder: the murderer goes to class and sits behind the likes of me while loudly discussing Tumblr and Robot Chicken. After all, they can't go on murdering day and night, they have to do normal things to defer suspicion. A late night english class is a much needed escape for the modern murderer.

ENGL 260: Intro to Literary-- I am Going to Kill Everyone In This Room

The setting: a 70 person lecture room. My prof, a rambling east-coast CanLit lover, rambles about being from the east coast and CanLit. Forest Green Tee sits beside me, he is restless and fidgeting in his squeaky chair.
My internal dialogue is as follows:

I am a second year student. In Honours Creative fucking Writing. These shits are first year. Ok, don't be mean, you were a first year last year. They're probably all really kind and judicious people... I took all fucking 300-level classes last year, this shit is not for me. The point of an intro is that it happens before the real stuff. I have done the real stuff, I do not need this 200-level bullshit. I am a brilliant fucking writer. I am the fucking Dickens of my generation.

Interruption: A greasy haired goon wearing some sort of grunge-rock T-shirt begins two-centsing.

I'm sorry, who the fuck are you? I did not pay my weight in loonies to take this class and hear you talk. Its the first class. What even is there to talk about. You're not even talking about the syllabus or anything related to the course, you're talking about your favourite dead author. Shut up. Shut the fuck up you first year idiot. University is not your own personal therapy session. I don't care about your life. Can't you feel the collective "shut the fuck up" that each student in this room is screaming at you in their minds? I've read books in my life, but you don't see me defending them all right here and now as serious literary additions to the canon.

Interruption: My rambly professor begins to disagree with the grungy student in an equally as long winded manner.

Thank you sir. Oh wait... no... now you're going to just talk about random shit too. This is like a prime example of the pot calling the kettle black, thats what this is. Know why I am here? First and foremost because I need this credit for my degree; believe me if I didn't I would already have jumped out of a window. And thats saying something because there aren't any windows in this room. Who knows how much wall I'd have to launch myself through before I began to free fall through the air. Aside from that though, I'm here to hear about the syllabus. What have we actually talked about on the syllabus? Absolutely nothing. I could just go. I could just fucking leave. That would be cool.

Epilogue: I didn't leave. We used all the time in class, our prof never talked about anything on the syllabus.

Salm-on!

   Yesterday I made salmon. So now that I am a professional chef, I am starting to experiment with things other than microwavables. This makes me excited and insecure. Its like puberty all over again, all sorts of strange and curious ideas enter my brain, I get nervous and angsty about trying new things. Nobody gets me. I want to put leftover salmon in a spaghetti sauce. This is followed by the post puberty identity crisis when I realize that I am not unique or special; salmon sauce served with spaghetti is a thing. People do that. 

   Whatever. At least my roommates will think I'm cool. One is a vegetarian who knows nothing of the trials of scraping burnt salmon off of a teflon pan, another roommate is almost always either at her boyfriend's place for dinner or he is here making dinner for her, and my last roommate is a beautiful fix foot three goddess model who does not need to eat. So there! In the face of adversity I salm-on!