You’re going to have to bear with me, here. I had a good update planned – it was going to be meaningful and elegant and professional, without any swear words or obscure pop culture references or anything. It was going to be a Very Special Post. It would have made you laugh and cry and write letters to the editor. It would have changed lives.

Then I failed to wake up this morning. In fact, I am not entirely certain that I am awake now. If I’m not, I’m having a very bad nightmare. If I AM, this sucks ass. I am utterly unable to wake up. I fell asleep putting on my underwear. I zoned out while putting on lipstick, and now my mouth is sideways. You know how you sometimes fixate on a word and it stops looking like a real word at all? Well, imagine that but on my mouth. I don’t think my mouth is real. It’s too small, like a button. Did I always have a button mouth? Why does it look like that?

I will write that really awesome update later, if I ever snap out of this haze. I’m not having a very good Friday – I got in trouble with my boss, some woman in a yellow truck gave me the finger when I passed her, and my mouth isn’t real. This sucks.

Before the Thriller rehearsal tonight, Shan and I went to Wendy’s for dinner (we are classy but poor). As we were finishing up, I noticed a woman in the parking lot carrying a huge painting – it was enormous; probably 5 feet by 6 feet. Just then, a mini van taxi pulled into the lot beside the woman and her painting. The cab driver got out, and they spoke. The woman then put the painting into the back of the cab.

I pointed this out to Shan, and said (in my best imitation of what I assume a rich person sounds like) “Ooh, look at me! I’m a fancy lady, I buy taxi rides for my ART!”. We had a chuckle at my witty observation, and prepared to leave the restaurant.

Back at our scooters, I saw the cab pull out of the parking lot with the art in the back seat. I assumed the woman had walked around the cab and was in the passenger seat, but no – the cab pulled away, and she darted across the street and climbed into a silver car and drove away on her own.

The cab WAS just for the art.

Rich people are hilarious!

There are few things more terrifying than looking up and seeing the decayed, shambling form of a zombie Mon Calamari staring at you with watery dagger eyes from the window. It may, in fact, be a trap – but HE’S the one who set it. Darth Lola sprang to life just in time, and we sped away from the evil that was emanating from the window. Had I met his gaze, I am certain I would have been unable to move until it was too late – I’d be frozen in place until Admiral Andy shuffled down to his Toyota and ran me over with extreme prejudice.

I should have known I would encounter something eerie and unholy sooner or later, as the omens have been coming with alarming frequency to the point where I – normally the most unobservant of individuals – noticed that something was not quite right. The broken mirror. The black cat that continually crossed my path. The blood dripping from the ceiling and pooling on the linoleum, spelling out “redrum” and “never forget” with what looked like a dinosaur. The tidal wave of blood that came to a halt in front of spooky dead twins. I’m a man of science, so I could easily explain these away: the mirror broke because I am a klutz; the black cat is Cheddar; I’m a lousy housekeeper and you really SHOULD never forget the dinosaurs; the dead twins were actually escaped cosplayers from the anime convention that was in town a few weeks ago. What’s to fear when you have science on your side? Nothing.

This latest development, though – I don’t think I can ignore the signs any longer. The Admiral is coming for me, and no amount of grinding will increase my Disarm Trap skill enough for me to get away.

While I don’t necessarily miss the 37C weather of last week, this abrupt 180 isn’t quite right either. I had to wear a jacket this morning, and socks. I was actually cold on my ride in – I almost needed gloves. GLOVES! In AUGUST! Disgusting.

Bacon will make me feel better, though.

.. is a really stupid saying. WHY must the good things end? They are good things, so they should stick around longer. Clearly the good things are being appreciated by SOMEONE; shouldn’t that person or persons be entitled to all the good things the universe has to offer? It’s rude, really. Good things should NOT come to an end.

My free, secret, ultra safe (and ultra free) scooter parking at work is no more. I had a feeling this would happen – the more scooters that parked there, the more obvious we were. I had written permission from the building managers to do it, but now there are at least 4 of us who park there daily – and we’re getting in the way. Sometime this morning, signs went up saying scooters were no longer allowed to park there and would be towed. This sucks. I was really proud of my work building for this, because they were helping us be all environmentally friendly and super awesome and shit, but no more.

Now I have to find a new place to park. Ed’s been paying the $6 a day to park in the lot next door, or I could go back to the $84/m pass (neither option is very good; I *like* free parking). I might call the other, scarier lot to see if they offer discounted motorcycle parking. I’ve also been toying with the idea of getting a monthly parking pass, a real one – Ed and I could both park our scooters there, and when it was rainy and gross I could take the car. It’s just a matter of math, I guess:

$6/day @ 20 working days per month: $120 x 2 scooters: $240

$84/m scooter parking pass x 2 scooters: $168

2-zone transit pass: $99 x 2 people: $198 hahaha

Parking pass in the fancy building for 2 scooters on nice days; 1 car on crappy days: $230

The sketchy lot IS cheaper, which might be worth it if you aren’t too concerned with cement crumbling around you. I’ll call them tomorrow and do some more math. Hooray for math!

Stupid other scooters, ruining my good thing.

I may have forgotten most of the non-singing dialogue in RENT, but I definitely remember all the words to all the songs.

Last night Shan and I went to a preview of Fighting Chance Productions’ presentation of RENT at the Presentation House Theatre in North Vancouver (delightfully situated two blocks from our house, 3 blocks from the Sea Bus, and across the street from a 7-11 with delicious gummy candy). It was basically a dress rehearsal, and the director warned us beforehand that it was about 98% of complete – a few props weren’t ready yet, and a couple other things were being tried out for the first time – but other than that, all should be awesome.

And it was!

It was a fantastic show. The cast and crew absolutely did justice to Jonathan Larson’s vision, and the singing and staging were great. Shan and I both really enjoyed ourselves, and the rest of the audience appeared to as well – a standing ovation came at the end, and we left the theatre feeling like we had seen an awesome treat.

All of the singers were great, but a few really stood out for me: Joanne (Jenn Suratos), Benny (Kholby Wardell) and Collins (Nick Fontaine) in particular were just amazing both in voice and acting. Maureen (Jacqueline Breakwell) and Mark (Anton Lipovetsky) were great too, bringing the laughs as well as incredible singing voices to their parts.

There were a couple of minor performance issues, but as we were seeing a dress rehearsal it was sort of expected – a few missed cues (which Shan didn’t notice, but she isn’t familiar with the music – only a RENT nerd would have caught them), phones not ringing on time (which was more funny than anything else), a missed line (“playing Spiderman!”) and one slightly (more) chaotic performance of “Contact”, which is one of the more difficult pieces in the show.

They’ll be doing one more preview performance tonight before the official opening night on Wednesday, and the show runs until August 23rd. I really, really recommend that you check it out – not only would you be supporting local theatre and the first all-Canadian performance of RENT ever; you’d be seeing a really great show.

One thing that Shan and I both found odd: the live band wasn’t credited in the program. I don’t know why; they were great and a surprise – I thought it would be recorded music, but they had a complete live band playing above the performance floor. It was a very nice touch, and they definitely deserve some love – maybe they’ll be added to the program later.

The Nederlander Theatre on Broadway first started doing a ticket lottery, and it was so popular that it was apparently written into the contract for each RENT performance – a number of tickets are set aside and sold at a discount before each show. The tradition continues, and a minimum of 10 seats will be sold for $15 each night. Check the RENT in Vancouver blog for more details, and do yourself a favour by seeing the show. I’m very tempted to see it again, both because it is awesome and also to see if they managed to tame Contact.

As an aside, it is amusing to note that my crush on Mark Cohen is still strong and true: he’s always been my favourite character, and I have a crush on anyone who plays him (Anthony Rapp and Neil Patrick Harris especially) – Anton’s Mark was awesome!

What’s not to love about a show in which everyone wears Converse or latex? It’s like my own life, except for the AIDS and drugs and gorgeous lesbians.

Go see RENT!

I woke myself up this morning by a) scratching myself bloody, and b) being attacked by Lemon. It was then that I realized that I also had an incredible headache; the kind that makes you want to throw up when you move your head because you can feel your brain matter shifting around like your skull is some sort of cerebral washing machine and you’ve got an unbalanced load. It is not a good start to the week.

I don’t have time for a headache, though. I have a very busy day ahead of me: today I am storming the castle, potentially doing some confrontation, and going to the theatre.

I found out several months ago that a local theatre company was putting on a production of RENT. I was very excited – I’ve been a huge fan since I saw the original cast perform on Letterman (something that may have happened only in my mind, as I can’t find any reference of it anywhere) – but then I learned that the theatre they’re playing at is only two blocks from my house, so I did a little dance of glee.

Ed doesn’t share my soft wet spot for musical theatre, but I bought two tickets for the opening night thinking I could probably talk someone into coming with me. Shan took me up on the offer, so tonight we’re going to RENT it up. I’m terribly excited about this; I *love* RENT. In fact, RENT heavily played into a very important decision that might have completely changed who I am today.

In 1996, I got a fairly large (and ultimately ill-gotten) tax return from the government. I planned to do one of two things with it: upgrade my computer so I could stay playing these new-fangled “video games”, or take a solo trip to New York to see RENT.

I was really torn between these two things, but eventually decided to go the computer route. This led me into the seedy world of online gaming, Quake clans, and LAN parties – where I met Ed, ran away to Calgary, and got married. What would have happened if I decided my love of RENT was stronger than my inherent and deep-seeded nerdiness? What kind of person would I have been? Would I still be in Victoria, working for the government? It’s actually kind of eerie to think about – I could be a completely different person, and THEN what? You could be reading another vapid mommy blog RIGHT NOW! Instead of Fleshlight reviews, there’d be diaper reviews! Pictures of the precious fruits of my loins instead of the loins themselves! Cute little pastel calendars that plot the status of my womb growth! AHHHH!

I scared myself there.

This week is going to be a crazy one. RENT tonight, baseballs tomorrow, the first Thriller rehearsal on Thursday, bubbles on Sunday – I should be able to sleep by Friday, I think. I like having things to do.

If only I could figure out what to do about the confrontation.

Lola’s got pride!

leg warmers are for all reasons

If my Sunday goal was to make myself as uncomfortable as possible, I had an excellent day.

Ed and I went for a scooter ride. We had planned to go somewhere new and interesting, but neither of us were really feeling up to an epic ride so we went to an old favourite: Iona Beach in Richmond. The tide was out, so we wandered through the grassland area and ate blackberries. The grass was itchy, or so I thought: it turns out I was being eaten alive. We were there for less than an hour, and I came away with over a dozen bug bites for my troubles. I am itchy and grumpy.

But wait! There’s more! Like the genius I am, I completely forgot to put on sunscreen. When I got home, I realized the error of my ways via my two bright red arms and chest. I burned myself to a crisp, donated most of my blood to man-eating insects, and forgot to buy Diet Coke. I am thirsty, itchy, bright red and sore. OW!

At least it’s a holiday today. I think I’ll bathe myself in sunscreen and venture outside again.

BOOGIDY BOOGIDY! I'll scare your dad!

We’re thinking about moving.

It sucks – I love our apartment. I have good memories here. Sasha lived here. We pay a ridiculously low rent, all things considered. The location is fantastic. I haven’t thought about pushing any of our neighbours down the stairs in months.

And the street crime isn’t going to get any better.

Earlier this week there was a commotion outside and a police officer was talking to 4 or 5 people who live on the street. Ed and I went outside, and people were filing police reports – someone had gone down the street and took a boot hat to car doors all the way down the block. There were dents of various sizes on every car from the intersection to the end of the block, so the car owners called the police. Ed filed a report too, since the same thing had happened to our car earlier but we didn’t bother reporting it.

Stuff like this happens all the time. In the three years we’ve lived here, our car has been hit four or five times by lazy vandals – they don’t break anything; they just cause minor damage that still requires ICBC intervention for repair. We’ve actually been lucky – other cars have had windows smashed and things stolen, and then there were the Dumpster Olympics that caused a great deal of damage over the course of two nights.

It’s not going to get better. The police can’t do anything about it. It’s the same group of people causing shit when they’re drunk and bored, and we pay the price because we happen to live here. It sucks. I don’t want to move, but I also don’t want anything worse to happen to our car or scooters.

We’re not seriously looking, but if something ideal comes up we’ll probably go for it. I half-heartedly inquired about a couple of ads; two were icky and the third seems too good to be true. We’ll see. It sucks, but maybe it could work out for the better.

Fucking Aquaman.

Anyone know of any awesome 2+ bedroom, pet friendly rental units in the Lower Lonsdale area of North Vancouver?

“It’s like fucking a cantaloupe!”

Continue reading →

• Be outside
• Sleep
• Cook
• Have sexy times
• Have solo sexy times
• Dance
• Be a cat
• Wear pants
• Wear shorts
• Wear any kind of clothing at all
• Move
• Walk
• Think (via @trishussey)
• Breathe
• Walk to work
• Be close to anyone (via @seanhagen)
• Take transit
• Consider the ramifications of the theory of relativity
• Exercise
• Yoga (via @LKid)
• Think of original, meaningful blog posts (sorry)