I’m better now, I think. Last night helped a great deal – I had quality Girl Time with Miranda and Kim. We didn’t do much of anything but talk and eat delicious Indian food, but it was what I needed to snap out of my Extreme Rage – it was so bad that chocolate cake didn’t help – and it was nice to just relax with friends. I hope to have more of that this weekend – I’ve got plans, but they’re so far buffered with long periods of nothing in which I can hopefully sleep or breathe or take a bath. I might even light candles, and listen to whale songs. Those are relaxing, right?

When I was at the dentist on Monday, I mentioned to him that I’d been having pain in my upper left mouth and that’s what drove me to come in. I figured that horrible things were happening in there, but he took one look at my tooth and said “yeah, that’s too high – let’s fix it up”. I didn’t much enjoy the feeling of the plane sander in my mouth as he was grinding, but it did the trick: I *don’t* need a new root canal, and I haven’t had any pain since then. Hooray for the dentist!

I am a creature of Social Media – I actually used Yelp to figure out which dentist to go to. I’m really glad I did, because they were kind of awesome and I immediately added a glowing review. I’ve been doing that a lot lately – adding reviews to Yelp – and it’s already paid off: earlier this week I made Elite Status on Yelp. I’m super excited; I’ve only been to one Yelp shindig and it was fantastic. I’m always jealous of Gina going to fun places for new (and free) experiences because she’s elite, and now I am too! Hooray!

Okay, I totally can’t concentrate anymore – iPhone 4 information finally came out, and I’m trying to decide what to do with my life in the next 24 hours: do I spend gobs of money, or ridiculous gobs of money? Oh, first world problems. You make me kind of hate myself sometimes.

I don’t rant about work nearly as often as I used to, because for the most part I’m in a good place now. Unfortunately, I’m having to work fairly closely with an asshat who seems to think I’m his personal assistant and it’s driving me to drink and wanton acts of destruction. I can’t give him the obvious nickname I have for him because it would be painfully obvious about whom I speak, so I thought hard about what to call him.

Then I realized that I really don’t want to be talking about this guy at all. It’s not for the sake of keeping my feelings to myself – I don’t censor, even things I should – but it’s more this guy makes me so angry that the thought of writing about his nitpicking bitchy pain in the ass condescending ways makes me want to throw up. I don’t want to dedicate any time or energy to talking about how much I loathe this person (who shall be called ISoS – Insufferable Sack of Shit – for this post only) or how I’d like to stand on a chair and punch him in the neck or how I really, really want to respond to all his emails pointing out the idiocy of the shit he demands of me (except I kind of do this already, and have been told to play nice). It’s not worth my time. HE’S not worth my time. This will be the only post in which I rant about the ISoS and how angry he makes me; going forward I will .. pet some kittens, or something.

Seriously, “I tried to do this via email but the changes weren’t happening fast enough” ? FUCK YOU! You’re not the only person I do work for, you insufferable jackass – and I DON’T report to you, or work under you, or appreciate the fact that you’re demanding changes to things that were already agreed upon by YOUR MANAGER AND I last week, before he conveniently left on vacation. I see what you’re doing, and I think you suck. A lot. Fuck you.

Okay, I’m done now. I’m going to scoot across town to Mix Bakery and buy some bread, all because I hate the ISoS.

I posted a review of an iDevice Kama Sutra app on the other blog that is much more entertaining (and less angry) than this blog post.

Urge to kill: more or less in check.

I feel like I imagine Ke$sha smells on a regular basis – sticky and sickly sweet, like melted candy that was stored in a dirty sock. In fact, if I had on fewer clothes and more makeup I could see where I’d be going with this, and it isn’t pretty. I *am* fairly cute today – hello, new favourite outfit – but I FEEL as though I went twelve rounds at a swinger’s club in the 70s without mopping up in between.

I woke up to the sound of a jackhammer deconstructing the road directly below my bedroom window, and my day has only gotten worse from there. I desperately wanted a shower to wash the night off, but oh look – no hot water again. I had to settle for soaking my head and massaging as many knots out as I could manage, but I am in no way clean; I just couldn’t bring myself to take an ice cold shower on what was an already unpleasant Tuesday. So, I feel like a trashy pop star looks. This doesn’t bode well for the rest of my day.

All grime aside, I am BEYOND DELIGHTED that my melodramatic hypochondria appears to extend to my dental health as well. My checkup yesterday was not nearly as traumatic as I had feared, and while I have at least three more appointments ahead of me (one to finish my cleaning and two to deal with my issues), I am no longer dreading it as much as I am resigned. It helps a lot that all the horrible things I had been imagining were completely false – in fact, for someone who hadn’t been to a dentist in 8 years, my teeth were not that bad at all. The cavities I thought I had? Weren’t. Yes, I do have a few areas that should be dealt with, but the gaping hole I imagined in one tooth in particular was nothing of the sort and I definitely don’t need a root canal on my root canal. The biggest problem in my mouth are the fillings that are older than dinosaurs and need to be replaced – they’re made of metal and contain mercury and lead and arsenic and all kinds of awesome toxic things. They’re gonna replace them with modern technology – maybe little computers with cameras and wifi – and then things will be super. It was a good appointment with some awesome dental people, and I left happy with a clean lower mouth. Hooray!

I am giving half-serious thought to camping out on Thursday night for the new iPhone. I’ve never camped out for anything before, and figure it would be kind of hilarious and also I’d get a new toy. What to do? I’ll probably chicken out and just order online, but I want it nooooow. Not on Friday or sometime next week, but noooooooow. I do not like to wait.

Have you been following my other blog? There’s a lot of awesome over there, I promise.

all the better to eat you with my dear

All your horror stories and encouragement last week has done the trick, and today at 3:30 I’ll be going to the dentist for the first time in many years. I am not looking forward to this, and a stiff wind will make me change my mind about going such is my reluctance to face the issue. I know I must, though, so I will try very hard to suck up my fear and get on with it. If you see me tweeting past 3:30 and it’s NOT about how I’m strapped in a chair with needles and pointy things shoved in my mouth, please feel free to call me names and imply that my mother is a whore. That won’t necessarily make me do the right thing, but it will be entertaining for me.

Yesterday I mentioned being on a Death Watch, and as nothing traumatic has happened, I suppose I can give details. When I awoke yesterday morning, I blurrily sat on the edge of the bed checking my email and petting a cat. I glanced at Ed’s night stand table to eyeball the time, and noticed what looked like feta cheese on top. Since I don’t recall eating Greek in bed, I inspected the substance – it turned out to be the remains of a crumbled Extra Strength Advil. Ed has a habit of carrying pills around Josh-style and emptying his pockets onto random surfaces, and over time a small collection of OTC headache medicine collected beside the bed. I assumed one of the three cats had tried to eat the Advil, found it horrible, and spit the rest out – no big deal.

Except it kinda was. I asked Ed to clean up the pills on his table, after which he went online to see if ibuprofen was toxic to cats – only a little, if by “little” you mean “instantaneous poisoning and death”. We immediately freaked out and started watching the cats for signs of poisoning while Ed called an emergency vet to see what, if anything, we could do. The news was grim: by the time they start showing symptoms, it’s already too late. We had no way of knowing WHEN the pill was eaten, and symptoms could appear 4 to 12 hours after digestion. It was a hellish couple of hours – we had resigned ourselves to losing one of our cats for a stupid, stupid mistake and there was not very much we could do about it other than take all three cats in and have a barrage of testing done because we couldn’t be sure WHO had eaten the pill.

As we forced all three cats to interact with us so we could check for symptoms, Ed went back into the bedroom to get dressed. He came running out of the room seconds later – he found the other half of the pill. It hadn’t been eaten by anyone! With a flashlight, he searched the carpet until all crumbs were accounted for as I let the whiny cats back into the bedroom (they hate it when doors are closed). We kept an eye on the cats for much of the day, but the coast was clear – no one had been poisoned, and the Death Watch was officially over.

I’m sticking with the original theory I came up with when I didn’t want to believe our cats had eaten something they’d been ignoring for months: I routinely put drinks on Ed’s night stand while I’m climbing into bed to play video games, and all my drinks suffer from the heartbreak of condensation. I opine that my drinks leaked onto the pills, getting them wet – and when they dried again, the structural integrity suffered. Throw some stuff and a cat or three on top of the weakened pill, and you get a soggy, crumbly mess that looks an awful lot like someone tried to eat the pill then spit it out as though it were poison.

Whatever the reason, Ed has learned his lesson – no pills tossed both willy AND nilly onto any surfaces. Our cats are fine and stupid, and all is good – just a little Sunday morning terror to put everything into perspective.

Yesterday I did a summer!

I have been both ruing and lamenting the fact that until yesterday, I had yet to do any summer: no beaches, no BBQs, no time spent in any sort of scandalous latex lycra. This sucks, and is quite unusual – but living apart from my usual cohorts means it’s not as easy to be dragged out for last minute adventure and misdeeds. This weekend, I was determined: summer would happen, OR ELSE.

With Ed riding Oscar and Lola laden with sunscreen and Diet Coke, we set out to meet the crew at Third Beach. Then, we summered. People swam, I roasted myself in UV rays, and there were hot dogs. It was as perfect a summer day as you can get, and it was glorious. I even remembered to make liberal use of the +45 lotion so I didn’t burn (much), and might even have some tan lines to show for my summer efforts. Hooray!

If the beach wasn’t summer enough, we then went to a pig roast in honour of Jen‘s birthday. We stuffed ourselves silly with pig, enjoyed some excellent company, and (this may have just been me) seethed with envy over Jen and Neil’s gorgeous dog and awesome home. It was a fantastic evening, and while we had to leave Kits to avoid the fireworks crowd, none of us were really ready to call it a night. We reconvened in Railtown then decided that while we were full of pig, we weren’t full of beer or dessert – we should go out!

So, we did. We tried to go to Sweet Revenge on Main Street which is open late, but anyone who wasn’t in Kits appeared to be there – no dice. We noticed that The Main was still open and had a live band playing, so this is how we ended up having Greek food instead of dessert late last night. The band was great, but it’s a little known fact that I actually really don’t like Greek food – it’s the one food genre I can honestly say does nothing for me – so I had a weird experience. It did not help AT ALL that all my food was utterly backwards – the potato and garlic dip I ordered was (intentionally) served ice cold, whereas the vanilla pudding dessert was blisteringly hot. What the fuck, Greek food. You are Messed Up.

It was nearing midnight at this point and we had been out for almost 12 hours – it was time to go home and feed the cats and unwind from an excellent summer day. I could use a great deal more of those, so I will endeavor to get off my ass and outside with some regularity while summer is still here.

Friday night was also awesome – we went to the Rogue Wet Bar in Waterfront Station for Gina‘s birthday dinner and was blown away by the food. Honestly, I don’t think I’d ever been that surprised by a place before – we went in expecting things to be okay at best, but found ourselves wrist deep in flavour and value. We will absolutely be back – today, if I can convince people to join me for 1/2 price Pizza Sunday – and it was a lovely evening in honour of someone who is fast becoming a very good friend.

Today, I have plans. I think I might be cleared to leave the house – we’ve spent the last two hours under a Death Watch, and I need to go outside after I wash yesterday off me.

I love my friends and having good times. My happy little hilarious world is the best place to be.

i always feel like somebody's watching meeeeee

I have raging, throbbing anxiety.

I need to go to the dentist. Pretty badly, I think – I can see .. things. In my mouth. Things that probably shouldn’t be there; things that would make a dentist say “tsk tsk” with dollar signs in his eyes. I’ve never had stellar oral health, and it’s bad enough right now that I KNOW I need to go to the dentist and I’ve started the process to make this happen instead of just thinking it really hard.

Dentists scare me. I haven’t been to a dentist in probably 8 years; that’s how much I hate going. I’m fairly certain I need a root canal, which is one of the many reasons I so very very very much don’t want to do this. It’s going to hurt, and it’s going to cost money. It’ll be uncomfortable, and there will be drilling. And needles. Multiple of each, because my teeth are probably going to require multiple visits to fix all the problems. I think there are bad things going on under my crown – they may have to pry it off. All of this terrifies me, and I DON’T WANT TO.

But I must. I don’t like having tooth pain. I don’t like being afraid to open my mouth; to think that terrible things are going on in there that will require sacrifice to deal with. I am a selfish creature; I don’t do sacrifice well. I am scared, okay. The dentist gives me nightmares.

Help? :(

I can’t believe it’s been a year.

I miss her every day.

I didn’t bother checking the mail yesterday because I wasn’t expecting anything exciting. Besides, checking the mail would have required pants and I was having a pretty lousy day already – pants would have just made things that much worse, and I was in no mood to cope.

Imagine my surprise, then, when Ed came home and handed me the package that had been sitting in our mail hole all day. I never have things shipped to my house – it’s not recommended when the devil is your mail carrier – and I definitely didn’t remember ordering anything from the return address. What could it be?

Inside the padded envelope was a smaller package tied up with string and a note: “Kimli, your secret is safe with me”. There was no name attached – a true mystery!

Inside the package was this necklace. That’s right – I got a mustache in the mail.

ESTHER LIVES!

i am from mexico; my name is esther gomez

My disguise is now more portable and fabulous than EVER! I have no idea who sent this to me, but THANK YOU! I will rock the mustache every time I want to hide from the public eye (which is often, because I am afraid of people)! :D

Yay mystery presents! <3 <3

Delicious Juice Dot Shoe Sale!

click to embiggen

All proceeds will go towards shoes I CAN wear without pain – Doc Martens and Fluevogs. I did keep two pairs of Converse that I couldn’t bear to sell, though – my purple satin with flowers, and the pin stripes. I might be adding to this list – there are two other pairs of Skechers I’m waffling on but know I don’t need, and a pair of new Etnies that satisfy the skater girl I never was. If you’re interested in any of the shoes (listed or otherwise), click on the link for details/pictures/etc.

A bucket and a sleeve of saltines are my new best friends.

Either a nasty stomach bug is going around, or a higher power is very angry at our collective group; giving three of us separate incidents of food poisoning in the last week. Yesterday for lunch I had a spinach salad that, in retrospect, had been sitting in the open for far too long. Soon after eating it, I began to feel queasy and since then, it’s been .. unpleasant. I won’t go into details because I am not disgusting, but eww. So, I’m working from home. You’d be surprised how little interest you have in building flowcharts when you feel like this.

Do you like shoes? Are you sized 7.5 to 9.5? Do you like ridiculous deals on new or barely worn items? I’m cleaning out my various shoe caves and getting rid of anything that isn’t worn on a daily basis, including my awesome and neglected collection of Converse. I just can’t justify keeping them when I haven’t looked or thought about them in years, so I might as well get rid of them. I’ll take pictures and offer them up here if anyone is interested – $10 for shoes; $15 for boots. Or cheaper, if you want. I don’t care. Make me an offer. Just get them out of my house.

Shoooooes.