I figger that most people have at least one big lie.

The lies are usually both major and insignificant – they don’t hurt anyone or break any laws; they’re just great big lies that have been around for so long they’re generally accepted as truth. I have one, and so does Ed. In fact, many people we know have lies.

My lie is pretty common knowledge – my name isn’t really Kimli. I mean, it is, but it’s legally spelled differently – “Kim Lee” vs. “Kimli”. I’ve been using Kimli as my first name for everything since I was 14 or so, with the exception of the things I need a legal name for. I think I’ve told the story before – things start to blur when you’ve got almost 6 years of content on the internets – but when I was a wee bairn I discovered that my “middle name” wasn’t supposed to be a middle name at all but the second half of my first name. To dispel some of the confusion, I changed the spelling of my name to make it all one word and I traded in two vowels for one. As far as I’m concerned, my name is Kimli. The government, however, says otherwise – but who cares what they think, anyway. It’s just the government.

Contrary to popular opinion, it is NOT a lie that I am an Internet Superstar – I totally am. It says so on my business card.

Ed’s lie is just as silly – his birthday is not really May 31st. It seems although he was born in the wee hours of June 1st, his mom started labour on the 31st and wanted that to be his birthday. So .. it is. It’s on his birth certificate and everything. His birthday celebrations are nothing more than frosted cakes of LIES!

We have three friends whose names are not their names – each of them go by a middle name instead of their given name. Oh, the intricate weaving of years upon years of LIES! It’s shocking, the number of people who hide behind a safety net of pure deception.

What’s your big lie?

Dear fucking jackass downstairs neighbour:

I would like to bring several things to your attention:

• Before 5:30 on a Sunday afternoon is not “late at night”
• Legally, we can bang on any old piece of furniture we like until 10pm
• Coming up here and swearing your head off at us is not the best way to get us to feel sympathetic to your side of the story
• Likewise, calling us “fucking assholes” makes me much more inclined to make even louder, more intrusive noises than perhaps being quiet
• Asking why we can’t build furniture during the day in the middle of the week when you’re not home is really, really stupid: we also have jobs
• Your smoking downstairs is a thousand times more obnoxious and toxic than the 20 minutes of hammering we just did
• You think we’re bad? Try living below the fucking idiots in the penthouse
• You’re a disgusting asshole, and fuck you

So. Angry.

Last week I got bored, and decided to put some colour in my hair. I tend to make most drastic decisions about my appearance when I’m bored – so far, boredom has led to numerous tattoos, several piercings, and many hair colours not found in nature. Sometimes these changes work out very well. Other times .. not so much.

I got a Do-It-Yourself streaking kit that promised to give me sexy highlights wherever I want them – framing my face to brighten things up; peaking through layers for a subtle change; spelling dirty words on the back of my head to piss off people taller than I am. I took a cursory glance at the instructions, but decided to forge my own path because they are not the boss of me and I do what I want, not what some company decides is the best way to use their product. Oh yes. I am hardcore.

I prepared the goopy solution and set about combing streaks onto my head. I envisioned a new me; a vision of sophistication and beauty that would open doors and leave drooling, stunned masses in my wake. It was going to be totally awesome.

Of course, things rarely work out the way I think they should. Instead of lovely highlights and a dazzling new head of confidence, it looks like I spent the better part of a week wearing an open can of root beer as a hat. Complicating matters are my inch-long white roots that were avoided because the instructions (okay, I followed SOME of them) were full of dire warnings about avoiding roots while streaking (good advice at all times, really) – my head is five or six different colours, none of which are particularly flattering or suited for the look I’m going for, which is “not a skunk”. I’m a mess. I need a haircut, too. I would really suggest you avoid looking at me if at all possible, because I am quite offensive to the senses.

It is Friday. The weekend holds fewer plans than usual, which is nice. One of the things we’ll be doing is Experimenting – we’re going to take Bjorn Jr. (my tablet PC, named after the person who gave it to me) around town and see how many different ways we can use it to freak out the squares. Portable internet! The future is totally awesome!

Water-proof shoes, when I remember to wear them, are totally awesome. I don’t think my feet have ever been this dry!

Wonderment at dry feet aside, I am totally ready for spring. Everything is perpetually damp and steamy, and I forget what the sun looks like. I think bringing Sally out last weekend was dreadfully premature – she’s soggy and sad, parked on the street like that. Tonight we’re going to bring her back up onto the sidewalk and wait to see if it’ll ever be nice outside again. I have faith that it will, but my faith and my patience don’t really see eye to eye. Spring needs to come NOW. I am truly tired of wearing pants.

I signed up to go to Northern Voice a couple of months ago. Unfortunately, when I registered for the conference I conveniently forgot that I am utterly terrified of meeting new people and also of crowds. I’m attending by myself, and I’m freaked right out – I don’t know anyone! I’m afraid of people! Why did I do this to myself? What if no one talks to me? Oh god. All this hyperventilating is making me dizzy.

Internet, force me to suck it up and go to the conference so I don’t chicken out and stay home hiding under the covers where, most of the time, there are neither crowds nor people I do not know.

Then there are the days where you just have to laugh helplessly at yourself: I’m about the leave the house to ride my scooter to my job in Yaletown, armed with my Nalgene bottle, pinstripe Converse All-Stars, and a MacBook.

I made it, ma! *snort*

Last night while herding cats back into our apartment, I noticed something strange – there were words carved into our front door. I immediately leapt into Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist Mode, wondering if the idiots upstairs had exacted revenge on our door by carving some (undoubtedly misspelled) bad words or insults into it. A closer inspection of the door told me this wasn’t the case – the words had been there for a very long time, and in fact had been lacquered and coloured over in an attempt to hide the words. The cover-up worked adequately enough, since we’ve lived there for six months and this was the first time I really clued into the fact there were words there and not just scratches. Now that I knew there was a message though, it was time to once again go all CSI up in my bidness.

My first go at deciphering the message was to take a piece of paper and rub a pencil on it to make the words stand out. Only problem: no pencil. Okay, let’s see if this method would work with a highlighter! Conclusion: nope, that doesn’t work. Do I have any crayons handy? I’d long since thrown all my crayons at Steve and didn’t have a single one handy. I did have pencil crayons, but they were all in storage and I was feeling lazy – it was almost midnight. What to do?

I eventually decided on manual translation. I stood at the front door staring at the words until I could make them out, and at long last I was able to figure out what it said.

The message was totally worth the effort, too. If I hadn’t spent 30 minutes of my life Nancy Drewing the words off the door, I would’ve never discovered the following Confucius-like verse:

Boo-Boo’s Place
OH YEAH and the
Loonie!

For some reason, I am less than satisfied.