a flaming k for a flaming kimli

Flaming!

I can’t be the only person out there with zero interest in Eat, Pray, Love – can I? I’ve never read it, but I know the general idea and I find it kind of repulsive: a rich white woman fucks off for a year to “find herself” and goes on all sorts of endearing adventures while eating, praying and loving. Sure, the general theme of the book is “open up and find love” – but why does that have to come with an astronomical price tag that 99% of the population can’t afford?

I can write inspirational bullshit too, and maybe even sell it to a publisher. Thing is, no one is going to give me a huge pile of cash so I can run away from life for a year to find myself, which is what happened with the author of this book: her eating, praying and loving was all funded in advance by her publisher. I’m sure that if I could drop everything and flit around the world on someone else’s dime I’d have some deep meaningful exchanges too – but it’s not realistic and kind of insulting to the regular folk. I have nothing in common with this woman except a uterus, and I’m supposed to take heart in her adventures and come out the other side a complete person? Um, no. Send ME on the adventure; maybe I’ll come out a better person too. Let ME live in Bali, and India, and Italy for a year. What would I be like on the other side? And more importantly, who would play me in the movie version of my book entitled “Drink, Fuck, Fight: One Woman’s Search for Adventure and Gay Porn Across the Planet“?

I admit that I don’t do chick lit, and I don’t understand a lot of things that are popular – I just can’t see why people are so caught up in rich white woman find-yourself porn. Don’t you think that ANYONE would be different if someone handed them a huge wad a cash and said “you’ve got no responsibilities for the next year other than to FIND YOURSELF – see you later”? Some people might even be able to eloquently tell the story afterward, too.

Maybe I’m unique (but I doubt it) in that I’d rather try to fix my own life than read fanciful ways in which someone I can’t relate to fixed theirs. After all, I can’t go to Italy to experience the joys of pasta – I’ll have to do my soul searching at The Old Spaghetti Factory instead. It comes spumoni ice cream!

Seriously, though: “Drink Fuck Fight” would be a best-seller. If there are any publishers out there wanting to give me an enormous advance to fund my trip to South Korea (the competitive video game hub of the world), Tokyo (Japan is awesome), Finland (Tom is from there) and London (I’ve never been to Europe) in exchange for my writing about it (as if I wouldn’t be blogging by the minute anyway), please email me via this website and start thinking about casting the film.

totally a best seller (click to embiggen)

There is NOTHING WORSE than spying on someone masturbating in the privacy of his own (filthy) home, only for him to a) not finish b) not do it right c) not be any good at it.

Last night we went to Yunn and Barry’s awesome Yaletown place to hang out and be disrespectful towards others. We all got very excited when we thought porn was being filmed in a penthouse suite across the street, but after several agonizing hours with no sweaty threeway action, we determined it was just a saucy photoshoot. We kept a watchful eye on all of Yaletown for most of the evening, until someone was finally seen doing something naughty – there was penile manipulation going on across the way! Sort of. For starters, it wasn’t very interesting – the guy seemed bored by his own hand. We took turns providing commentary on his activities until he gave up and left – without pants on – for over an hour. I was quite worried about him, and thought about sending out a search team but he finally he came back and tugged at his meat a few more times before giving up again. All in all, it was a sad attempt at masturbation – he wasn’t into it at ALL. We were far more excited than he was, and it was a depressing end to our night – we wanted fireworks! Happy endings! A crusty sock; a wadded up tissue! ANYTHING! Alas, it was not to be.

I am hoping my Sunday will have far more penis in it, but so far nothing is going my way. I think the bubble bash is a wash due to the rain, but I was waffling on my resolve anyway. Still, I have hopes that something entertaining – flesh-based or otherwise – will make itself known to me: a rainy Sunday is no reason for nothing!

It’s not like I woke up early one morning at the start of summer and thought to myself “self, it would be totally awesome if you completely ignored your blog for, like, DAYS AT A TIME” or anything – it just feels that way. Most likely only to me, but still. I am a neglectful monster. The internet should have me taken away.

So, what’s been going on around here? A whole lot of everything and nothing, all at once. Work is indeed better, both by design and by the amazing mental power of my own ostrich-like confidence that everything will turn out the way I want it to. I’ve been scooting a lot as usual, but the heat makes the ride less refreshing and more like riding through pudding. I haven’t managed to go to the beach beyond that first trip several weeks ago, but I’ve been keeping myself busy with friends and various things that go boop and beep.

What are you doing this Sunday? If you are free, I implore you to consider coming down to the Art Gallery at 3pm. Someone on Yelp is attempting to arrange a Bubble Bash, and we all know how I feel about bubbles (hint: I fucking love them). I’ll be there with all my bubble paraphernalia, blowing strangers until I run out of juice. I don’t care if I’m the only one who shows up; I haven’t had time to arrange a bubble picnic yet this summer so this will have to suffice. Sunday! 3pm! Vancouver Art Gallery steps, facing Georgia! BUBBLES!

It’s not at all like I’ve been doing nothing with my time – just last night, I invented Death Metal:

What did you do with YOUR Thursday night?

THE FUTURE IS AWESOME!

Reilly went above and beyond the call of duty yesterday, and scored me an iPhone 4 while standing in line for his own. You’re allowed two per customer and he was only there to buy one, so he bought the second for me and delivered it to my office. YAY! Reilly is super!

I set it up last night, and have been tinkering with it all day. I also did a mass purge of applications; scaling down to 185 from an all-time high of 215. I spent a good amount of time rearranging my icons and folders (again) to make it it a little easier to locate items. Once all that was done, I took a giant leap into the terrifying: I jailbroke my phone so I could install MyWi and My3G. These two apps will allow me to a) turn my iPhone into a wi-fi hotspot, allowing me to tether my iPad to it from anywhere and b) use Facetime over 3G. The second is really just a novelty, as I don’t really talk on the phone let alone have any interest in having someone watch me do it – but the first was the entire reason I bought the setup I have now. I have the 6GB data plan that I’ve never come remotely close to using up, and now that I can tether the iPad to it .. the potential is limitless and kind of awesome.

I am tickled several shades of happy about this all. I wasn’t expecting to get my hands on an iPhone 4 until the end of August if at all – Reilly is totally my hero of the month. Hooray for awesome people!

I named my phone Atomic Broccoli.

What?

I have decided that I am no longer stressed out. Not because it’s a special form of hell, or because I am having some sort of breakdown, or because it’s just plain no fun – no, I’m refusing to be stressed out any longer because it’s DOING REALLY BAD THINGS TO MY SKIN.

Seriously, I am tired of having wrinkles AND zits. This sucks, so I am done with it. My hair is also suffering – where the hell did this FRIZZ come from? So, no more. Everything is super; therefore, my skin will clear up and my hair will stop making me wonder what I look like bald. Hooray! I should write a book about the Power of Positive Thinking and call it something mysterious like “The Answer” or “The Ticket” – I’ll get on Oprah and make MILLIONS. I’ve found my phase 2!

I AM in a fairly good mood, though. I slept relatively well, no one looked in my windows to see me naked, and I am completely adoring the fact that Ed has been riding Oscar for the last couple of weeks. He’s waiting for his exhaust to come back from somewhere, and instead of being without wheels I convinced him to ride the Vino instead. It delights me to no end to see both of my scooters parked together when we go out. I’m still technically trying to sell Oscar, but it’s kind of really awesome to have a back up scooter to go to when one is under the weather. I know this is pretty spoiled of me, but it’s SO HANDY. I’ll enjoy it while I can – there’s nothing worse than wanting to go on an Adventure only to have Ed not be able to ride because his bike has a problem AGAIN, so this is doing a lot to keep my rage at a minimum. I am not difficult to please – I just want everyone to be able to drop everything at my whim and play along. That isn’t too much to ask.

I reverse engineered a crappy Chinese toy at work this morning, and I am feeling powerful. Fear my screwdriver!

I can’t *not* stare at this every time I get into the elevator at work:

"kind" indeed

It’s depressing as hell. I wish the building people would do something about it – there’s no reason for that one elevator to have padding up 24/7, especially when people love to vandalize it – but they won’t, so it stays. Hooray for humanity! We’ve come such a long way.

i'd rather be up there

I had excellent intentions to sleep in this morning, but the knock on my window before 8am and two guys looking in at my naked quickly put a stop to that plan. Apparently window washers do not celebrate BC Day, and are outside my third floor suite with squeegees and a hose. They were likely more embarrassed than I was about my nudity, because I was mostly asleep when I realized they could probably see a mile of tit or two – their muttered conversation of “well, they KNEW we were coming today” meant little, because a) no we didn’t and b) it’s a holiday! Who cleans windows at 7am on a holiday?

Lemon is championing us ferociously by growling at the window washers. It is cute.

Aborted sleep aside, it is a holiday up in these parts and I am not at work. This is good, because I’ve had a Weekend of Adventure and could use this one more day to collect myself and maybe sit on a beach for several hours slathered in sunscreen and sand. In addition to the relaxation, this activity would be free – it’s been a very expensive weekend thus far, so free would be good. We’ve been to the Eatery, Playland, Incendios, Granville Island and Rogue Wet Bar since Friday, and while I am stuffed with ridiculously good food I am also poor now. I regret nothing, except maybe the Eatery (so. much. mayonnaise.) and going on the Gladiator at Playland. The rest of it was full of awesome.

I wish I could have gone to Pride, but I am no good in crowds. Every year I make plans to go, then .. don’t. It’s not for lack of love for either rainbows or gay sex, but I know I’d be vastly uncomfortable in the masses and it would be full of sad. Ironically, the fix is simple – be IN the parade. I could definitely get behind being a part of the celebration in some capacity – it’s on my bucket list – and yes, I know it’s ridiculous but so like me to hate crowds so hard but long to be on display in front of them. I am complicated, but I am okay with that.

Last night Shan and I went to see the closing performance of Hair, done by the same group that put on Rent last year. It was part of my birthday present – two tickets to that thing I like – and it was awesome. I hadn’t realized that the stage version was so different from the movie, and I was pleasantly surprised at all the wangs and boobs on display – so much naked! I don’t think I could handle being a hippie, though. The clothing kind of freaked Shan out – so many patterns – but I was dismayed to note that the stage costumes weren’t really that different from the things I currently have in my closet. I’m getting a lot better, but there was an extended period of several years in which I wore things that could easily be described as “hideous” for both fun and profit: SOMEONE had to provide colour, so it might as well be me. I still have the occasional bout of paisley, but seriously I’m much better now.

I’m going to be listening to the Hair soundtrack for weeks now. Sorry, Ed. MANCHESTER ENGLAND ENGLAND ACROSS THE ATLANTIC SEEEEEEEA AND I’M A GENIUS GENIUS I BELIEVE IN GOD AND I BELIEVE THAT GOD BELIEVES IN CLAUDE THAT’S ME

I am glad July is over. Bring on August!

I spent a ridiculous amount of time yesterday morning reorganizing my iPhone folders into what, at the time, seemed like a perfectly logical system:

so logical!

it makes perfect sense!

.. naturally, I can’t find a goddamn thing. I don’t *want* to spend hours rearranging things again, so I’m going to suck it up and live with it at least until I get my new phone (I never did get around to doing anything to get myself an iPhone 4 on launch day; I couldn’t be bothered to .. you know, do anything about it. I’m on about 8 waiting lists; I’ll get one when I get one) since it’ll just alphabetize everything anyway (will it? it did last time, and it filled me with rage). There’s got to be a logical order for things that isn’t alphabetical – I’m sure it’ll come to me in the shower one day. In the meantime, don’t ask me to look anything up. I am all but useless.

Tonight I am going to watch hippies sing and dance! Hooray!