My birthday is in one week, and I’m knee-deep in the birthday blues.

I don’t really like getting older. I do a pretty good job of masking my age to most people, but I’m especially good at lying to myself – not really out of vanity (okay, maybe a little out of vanity) but because when I take a good look at my surroundings – and at myself – I feel an unwanted twinge of embarrassment. How can I justify all these toys and video games and looking this ridiculous at my age? Shouldn’t I be .. more mature? More refined? More not wearing polka dots, docs and sequined leg warmers all at the same time?

Don’t get me wrong – most of the time, I think I am hilarious and awesome. I *like* who I am (on the inside) and I rarely if ever think there’s anything wrong with video games and sequins. It’s only because my birthday – a fairly significant one, at that – is looming that I feel any sort of wistful longing to be 23 again.

It doesn’t help that this past weekend I found myself wrought with jealousy and coveting – not because someone had a cooler scooter or fancier toys or greener eye shadow, but over some truly disturbing things: a dishwasher. In-suite laundry. Pre-approved mortgages. Prime plus two percent. A good night’s sleep.

I have never, EVER wanted any of these things – but there I was, all green in the eye and face and wishing that I could have them. I swear, I have never felt as old as the instant I realized I was looking enviously at a washing machine and heaving a longing sigh. Who was this reasonable mature beast, and what had she done with the real Kimli? If I’m already jealous of my newly home-owning friends, can a sensible diet high in fibre be far behind?

I know you’re only as old as you feel and for 11 months of the year I feel 12 years old, but right now I’m downright depressed at the thought of my upcoming birthday.

Is that a wrinkle I see?

I did some heavy thinking last night, and came to the (obvious to others) conclusion that I have too much stuff.

That makes me sound a lot more noble than my ulterior motives really are, but I’m comfortable with the white lie if you are.

The end result is that I am selling my beloved Squee PC. I just don’t use it enough to warrant keeping it, so I’m hoping it’ll go to someone who’ll love it as I did.

The specs are as follows:

• ASUS EEE PC 701 4G
• 4GB SS Drive
• 1GB RAM (upgraded from 512)
• 7” screen
• Weighs about 2 pounds
• Wireless, webcam, speakers, etc

I’m also throwing in a few extras: an 8GB SD card, an extra power supply, and the super fancy red leather case. I did install WinXP on it, but you can change that easily enough – one of my coworkers managed to get OSX running on his.

I’m asking $350 for it, and I will ship it places if you’re willing to pay for the shipping. Email me if you’re interested! I really do love the Squee PC, but I don’t need that AND a MacBook – something’s gotta go, perhaps to YOU.

I’ve told this story a million times before, both out loud and online – in fact, I think it was the very first article I ever posted on the internets. I can’t find it now (and I’m sure I’d be horrified at the writing – believe it or not, what you’re reading now is actually a vast improvement over my words from ago), so I’ll offer it up again for your amusement: the story of the time I told my entire high school to kill themselves.

In grade 12, I chose Journalism as one of my electives. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and once upon a time I intended to go into UVic’s creative writing program so I could grow up to be some sort of fancy writer person. That didn’t happen for a variety of reasons and I think I’m better off for it, but even back then the urge to share too much information with a captive audience was strong in this one. Journalism would allow me to write for the school newspaper, and people would read my words. Awesome!

Depending on who you asked, I was either fantastic or horrible at Journalism. On the good side, I wrote. A lot. We were a small class filled mostly with slackers who wanted to get out of taking PE, so not everyone pulled their writing weight. We had a lot of space to fill, and I was more than happy to churn out article after article to fill the holes left by my classmates. It got to a point where I was writing over 50% of the newspaper, which would have been a good thing if I had any skill whatsoever, and if not for one other little thing:

I can’t write serious to save my life. Sure, I could produce a thousand pages of somewhat entertaining drivel or opinion pieces from here til April, but it was a NEWSPAPER – not a blog (which didn’t exist back then in the early months of the Industrial Revolution). We needed news articles, not a mock exposé on the math teacher. We needed serious, hard-hitting journalism (at a 12th grade level) – scandals in the cafeteria! History about the school! Interviews with popular students! A glowing report on what the student council had achieved that year! (note: I wrote a scathing piece on everything the student council HADN’T done that year after they rewarded themselves with a ski trip funded with school money we had raised and got in serious trouble for it: my first backlash! Oh, the memories!). I was and still am no good at writing non-biased informative articles, and people started to get tired of my own special brand of often misunderstood humour.

My completely awesome Journalism teacher saw that I was getting frustrated with the constant outrage I faced from students and teachers alike (seriously, having your Teacher Advisor call you a “no-talent little bitch” can really damage your self-esteem), so he offered to let me try my hand at something new: editing the school newspaper. Previously, all articles were submitted to him for editing, then the whole class worked on the layout. I obviously knew how to write things; it was time for a new challenge. He handed the whole lot over to me, and I was on my way.

I loved being the Editor. I read each article submitted by my classmates and wielded the Red Pen of Superior Word Skills – I slashed and diced and made changes and rewrote sentences and, in one fateful moment, told the entire congregation that it was A-OK to commit suicide.

A classmate wrote a serious, heavy-handed article on suicide. It’s bad, she wrote. Don’t do it. I thought the piece was pretty crappy, but I needed something to go on the front page that wasn’t a recipe for Flapper Pie (long story), so up it went. I wasn’t satisfied with just leaving the article alone, though – I was the EDITOR. I wanted to EDIT it; to leave my mark on it so people would know that I, KIMLI THE EDITOR, had had a hand in everything that happened in our class.

The last line of the article was a little too convoluted for my tastes:

If you’re thinking about committing suicide, don’t, ask for help.

Where’s the punch? Where’s the drama? Even at 17, I was a die-hard fan of the dramatic pause. I changed the last sentence to read:

If you’re thinking about committing suicide, don’t. Ask for help.

A Pulitzer Prize winning line if ever there was one!

By now, I’m sure you’ve figured out what happened: mad with power, I removed the author’s second comma so I could replace it with a period – and then I forgot to put the period in. The newspaper went to print with the line reading:

If you’re thinking about committing suicide, don’t ask for help.

The newspaper was distributed to every student before someone caught the mistake. We had to recall as many issues as we could, and cross out the word “don’t” with a black sharpie. The principal came on the PA system and delivered a 30 minute impassioned speech on not killing yourself. The next day, our entire school had to attend an assembly on why you shouldn’t kill yourself. I was mortified and devastated – my desire to get my name out there worked a little too well, and EVERYONE knew who did it. I never edited the school newspaper again, and to this day, I am deathly afraid of the comma – I know firsthand the horrible power that innocuous little swoosh contains. My friends and family STILL make fun of me for my mistake at every opportunity, and if I hadn’t learned to laugh at myself, I may have taken my own advice.

Now you know (yet another of) my horrible secret(s).

I am starting to run out of horrible secrets.

PS: Don’t kill yourself.

For reasons I am not sure I fully understand, I have applied for an Enhanced Driver’s License. For an additional $35 (on top of the $75 I already have to pay for a new license), a 2-hour invasive interview and giving up my right to any sort of expectation of privacy, I will perhaps be issued a fancy microchipped official government ID that will allow me to .. walk or float into the US without a passport.

I made an appointment for next Monday, where I will be locked into a dark, windowless room and be asked questions by men in dark suits and sunglasses. I may or may not wear a skirt and go commando, just in case the opportunity to cross my legs suggestively presents itself. The questions I will be asked include things like:

• Are there outstanding criminal charges against you in Canada?
• Are you forbidden to leave Canada?
• Are you currently in jail?
• Did you renounce your Canadian citizenship?
• Were your parents spies?
• Do you understand the appeal of Nickelback?
• William Shatner: The greatest entertainer of all time. True or Totally True?
• Do you jaywalk? (this is a trick question – real Canadians don’t jaywalk; it isn’t polite)

This is going to be grueling and potentially devastating. What if I fail? I don’t think I could take the shame of  not being worthy of government survaillence around the clock. Not to mention the fear – the woman on the front of the ICBC EDL flyer looks a LOT like my mom. She may be smiling now, but I just know her other unseen hand is gripping a wooden spoon and will lash out to slap me across the knuckles if I don’t wash the dishes or bring a hammer or buy her a little man on a horse. I’m afraid. Maybe I should cancel this appointment.

I’m sure it’ll be fine, though. I mean, if I pass the rigorous testing, just look at the benefits I can look forward to!

• a convenient wallet-sized card that serves as your licence to drive and
  denotes your identity and citizenship
• a viable alternative to a passport for business or pleasure travel to the U.S. by land or water
• less expensive than a passport for entry into the U.S. by land or water
• latest security features to prevent fraud and identity theft
• makes family travel easier

See? If I pass, I .. won’t have to carry my passport when I drive to Seattle! YEAH! Take that, limited pocket space!

I love the “less expensive” line. Sure, it’s less expensive than a passport – except it’s only good for land or water travel. If I have to fly anywhere, I’ll need a passport. Mine expires next year, so regardless of my fancy mircochip status, I’ll still have to hand over the $87 for a new one. I haven’t flown anywhere in over 2 years, but what if I need to? You can’t not have a passport. It makes things very, very difficult when you want to leave the country and be inspected by 13 different security checkpoints.

Oh well. The government doesn’t seem to be doing anything with my DNA; what possible harm could there be in allowing them to track my every move by satellite?

I don’t bruise easily, but when I do, it hurts like an angry unicorn.

On Friday I got my arm caught in the pop machine at work. We have an old school vending machine, the kind with the door at the bottom you push in to collect your items. My hands were full, so I used my forearm to push the door in and fish out my precious Diet Coke. When the door swung shut, it pinched my arm just below the elbow – the hinge trapped my skin and I squealed and hopped around for a couple seconds before I figured out that pushing the door open again would free my arm. It hurt a surprising amount and while I didn’t tear the skin, it left a bruise and a Twitter update.

All was good until we came home on the ferry Sunday afternoon. As I exited the bathroom, my grip slipped off the heavy door and it came crashing back into me. The rounded handle hit me exactly in my bruise with so much force that it actually stunned me for several seconds, and my entire arm went numb. I staggered into the hallway like some sort of drunken monkey, and showed Ed my arm – the small bruise from the pop machine was now a huge bruise from the door, and it hurt like several nasty things. I kept rolling onto my arm in my sleep, and it would wake me up. My ride to work this morning was endlessly bumpy, and my bruise jiggled with every crater I drove through. I AM BRUISED! EVERYONE PITY ME!

Yeah, I’m kind of pathetic when I get hurt.

Other than my bruise, I survived the weekend. Operation: Surprise Mom was a success, as she had no idea why we were there. We didn’t really have much of an agenda – I offered to take her out for dinner for her birthday, but she didn’t want to go out so we just hung out in the dank basement and ate waffles. The original plan was to bring her our 27” television to replace her 19” set built sometime in the 1800s, but Chris had a better idea – he would give us the 27” TV he had in his living room collecting dust, and I could keep our bedroom TV for late night soft core goodness. Hooray! He dropped it off on Saturday morning, then Ed and I followed him back to his house on scooters so we could collect his motorcycle and go for a ride. The weather was really overcast on Saturday, so the riding wasn’t as glorious as it could have been but we still had fun and also a monkey-themed lunch with 30 shrimp.

We set mom’s new TV up on Saturday night after the hockey game, then marveled at channels higher than 13 than she was now able to view. We crashed early and slept poorly thanks to the horrible plywood, then spent a leisurely morning gathering our things before heading out at noon. Sunday’s weather was really nice, so we took our time riding back to the ferry and caught the 2pm sailing for home. Josh met us at the terminal on his shiny new motorcycle, and we rode back to the North Shore (with Oscar hitting 10000km along the way).

Overall, it was an exhausting but good weekend. I’m looking forward to not going anywhere for a while, though – as far as I know, I’m homebound until July when I travel to Victoria for my mom’s cataract surgery then Seattle the next weekend for Ali’s play. By then I’ll be full of angst and eager to travel, but for right now I want to sit around in my underwear, covered in cats.

I decided something important this weekend.  I am completely sick of going to mom’s basement and being utterly without internet – so I’m installing it at her house. So what if I’m only there 4 times a year or so? It’ll be so much less agonizing to visit if I have access to the outside world. In July I’ll be there for at least 4 days babysitting her. Internet access makes me much less homicidal.

Internet good.

Oh, and she used the bucket once that I saw.

I damn well learned my lesson last time, so before I start today’s post I would like to make a Public Service Announcement:

Suicide is not funny. It is serious business. If you or someone you know is thinking about committing suicide, please please please get help. There are excellent support systems set up in every corner of the world – in Vancouver, you can call the BC Crisis Center at 604-872-3311, or 1.800.SUICIDE from anywhere in BC.

Okay, that should keep the bad karma at bay:

Back in December of last year, I was alarmed to see mysterious black bundles with ominous antennae affixed to the Lions Gate Bridge. My inner conspiracy theorist was further dismayed to note that someone had taken the time to add police tape that said “ALL CLEAR” to each bundle. I did not buy it – all clear my ASS. We were going to get exploded. Any day now.

It’s 6 months later, and as you might be aware, we are not exploded. In fact, the black bundles were unwrapped this week, and this is what’s inside:

So you see, there’s no reason to worry. We’re not going to explode at all! And if you’re going to jump off the bridge, here’s a phone so you can tell someone you’re about to do it!

The instant I saw these, I laughed. I admit it; I’m probably going to hell. I can’t help it though – suicide and suicide prevention have a very special place in my heart due to that whole thing with the comma. When I told my entire high school to go kill themselves via the school newspaper, all I had to do was black out the offending (and unintentional, honest) sentence, listen to an hour long speech over the PA system about how suicide is not the answer, and attend an assembly about not killing yourself (your problems are temporary! Suicide is permanent!). I can’t even *begin* to imagine the magnitude of the fuckup someone committed to require the installation of anti-suicide phones – it makes my missing comma look like a playful kitten batting at some string.

Remember, suicide: not funny. I’m just a terrible person who finds humour in the most inappropriate of places.

However, accidental suicide is hilarious (yet tragic). Auto-erotic asphyxiation never fails to send me off into spasms of laughter because it’s just so .. so .. ridiculous. I’m sorry. It just is.

It also doesn’t help that I find the similarities between the Crisis Center logo and the ICBC logo to be striking and very funny.

Thanks to Josh (who I am told was NOT thinking about jumping off the bridge, he was just walking over it) for the pictures!

It’s my mom’s birthday today, and in her honour, I will attempt to explain just what is the deal with the pee buckets:

My mom’s apartment is oddly laid out. It’s technically a two-bedroom place, but is laid out in such a way that there is no clear living room – it’s shaped like a square donut. Because of this, we decided to make the second bedroom into the living room, and set it up accordingly.

She complains that we don’t visit enough, but we’ve flat out told her why: her place is incredibly uncomfortable for us. I’ve been trying to get her to buy a futon (or at the very least, a full-sized couch) for us to sleep on for YEARS, but she is cheap and doesn’t want to spend the money (that she definitely has). When we do visit and don’t want to shell out for a hotel, we make do: her bizarre apartment came with a sort of .. window seat, I guess. There’s an alcove at the end of the hallway that for reason I absolutely cannot fathom, has a piece of plywood across it. It’s too low to be a table or shelf, yet too high to put anything useful on top of it. There’s also no window. It is completely pointless, so we sleep on it. It’s not big enough for two people, but the alternative is worse: sleep on the floor with the spiders, or banish one of us (me) to the Love Seat of Doom: a 1980-era leather love seat constructed out of steel girders and rocks. It’s about 3’ wide and has deeply slanted arm rests, meaning you sleep with your legs hanging off the end and fuck your neck up for weeks. Sometimes the thought of sleeping on the love seat will literally bring me to tears, so Ed and I will attempt to sleep head-to-toe on the plywood so we both fit. I hate the plywood, but I hate that love seat so much more.

My mom is courteous in the strangest ways. She’ll call me fat, then urge me to take home food from her bakery and chocolate bars and candy. She will say she’s not buying us any presents, but will hand me some cash or buy me something I’m interested in when we’re out together. She refuses to buy grown-up furniture that she actually NEEDS and will provide us a place to sleep thereby making our visits much more frequent and less painful, yet she pees in a bucket to avoid waking us up in the night.

For some reason I am sure makes perfect sense in her own head (my mother and I are a lot alike in this way), my mother will not leave her room to use the bathroom when we are visiting because the light and noise might wake us up. Instead, she will use a bucket or pitcher in her bedroom, then dispose of the contents in the usual manner in the morning. It is SO WEIRD. I don’t get it. My mother is insane.

Happy birthday, you utter wackjob. Maybe I will buy you a new bucket for your birthday, assuming I haven’t talked myself out of our visit this weekend – I hate that fucking love seat.

Hey, left uterus. I can feel you trying to release that egg into the depths of eternal afterlife in my womb. If you don’t cut it out – or at least do it quieter – I am going to haul off and kick you in yourself.

Just a friendly warning.

I am officially ready for summer.

Ed and I went to Canadian Tire on Monday to pick up, among other things, two enormous box fans and a small BBQ. The fans were desperately needed to keep air moving in our apartment – it’s not even technically summer yet, but the cats have been lying around all limp and pathetic. We put one giant fan in the bedroom on suck and the other in the living room on blow, and thus created some delightful air flow. It be breezy, yo. Now, if I could just stop the ceiling fan from throwing me into fits of vertigo, I will be one cool vertical cat.

Building the BBQ, small though it may be, was surprisingly difficult. I’ve never actually assembled one before, or cooked with propane – in fact, I am a BBQ newb. Josh is usually on meat duty when the situation calls for it, but he’s away a lot and I really, really enjoy grilled meat so I figured it was time we got our OWN BBQ so I could have wieners whenever the urge hit me. We had some leftover parts, but it LOOKS like a BBQ – we just need to test it to make sure it won’t explode when we stuff it full of meat. If we survive, then it’s grillin’ time – we did groceries last night and picked up many delicious meats and spices. I can’t wait. Perhaps we will fire it up tonight to make sure we don’t die, and then eat some wieners.

I drew up a Trade Agreement this morning, and sent it to Ed: in exchange for my making a fancy tilapia dinner, washing the dishes AND dropping off the laundry tonight, he will give Oscar an oil change. I’m incredibly paranoid when it comes to things that could harm my scooter, and since yesterday afternoon Oscar’s been making some weird noises. I thought perhaps he had been knocked over, but there’s no visible damage .. yet something is rattling, and it’s freaking me out. Also, when we checked last night to see how much oil is in the Inconvenient Oil Window, there was NONE. Or at least, none that we could see. If we’re planning on scooting to Victoria on Friday (which is still the plan for now), then I will probably need some oil. I am a mechanical dunce, so I will stay in the kitchen where I belong while the menfolk do complicated man things, and I will make a lovely dinner and (pay someone else to) do laundry and everything will be super.

Or else.

Lastly, this is what I would look like if I were dead and sporting a fancy mustache uploaded the wrong file:

oops

THIS is what I would look like if I were dead and sporting a fancy mustache:

moustache rides: free

As you were, soldiers.