Where are my jollies? I know it’s only the 5th of December, but usually by this point I am ripe – and have been for at least a week – with the spirit of the holiday season. Right now, I have nothing. Nada. Not one ounce of excitement, no lust for figgy pudding, and nary a trace of sugared plum dancing in my head. Where’s the fun? Why aren’t I soaked in it?

We’ve put up our tree already, and it’s very pretty. I’ve started buying presents for my friends and loved ones, and have already wrapped some. Usually any one of those acts would fill me with holiday glee, but not this time – instead of bubbling over with boughs of holly, I’ve got a whole lot of weary on my shoulders. I hope this goes away, because I love being excited about Christmas. I get almost ticklish with the anticipation of present-giving, and I have to keep myself from giving everyone their presents early because I’m so excited. Everything just seems like a huge chore right now – I have a list of things I need to buy for people, and instead of thinking about what fun I’ll have wrapping gifts and writing silly notes, it just seems like a huge hassle. Part of my woe is financial; I can’t even start this list until the 15th of the month and shopping will just be that much more annoying by then. I know that the few things I’ve asked for are pretty much unattainable because of our geographical location, and IOUs make me sad and wary because of the Christmas That Wasn’t several years ago. I know our Christmas might be pretty lonely this year because everyone we know has other plans and won’t be in town. I know I’m not getting a pug. I know I miss my dad, and his birthday is coming up which’ll make me even sadder. I’m tired and sad all over, and this just sucks.

I want my jollies back, please. This holiday apathy is just no fun at all.

They’re either filming something downtown, or we’ve been invaded by the US – there are stars and stripes all over the place and it’s a little disconcerting. I don’t mind a Yank or two – heh heh – but an entire invasion’s worth would be just too many soaring eagles and “Never Forget” mudflaps for my liking.

I promised the story behind my chemical burned nipple, so here it is. It’s actually not really THAT interesting, but as I couldn’t sleep that night because it hurt all over, I had to laugh at yet another one of those things that make the whole “Perilous Kimli” thing a little to factual to be just a cute nickname.

I did, in fact, get hair removal cream all over my left nipple. I was taking a bath and was kind of bored and hairy, so I decided to would put my bath time to good use by a) giving myself a facial, and b) using the rest of the Nair to de-hair my legs. It took some fancy maneuvering to get the lotion all over my legs while moving as little as possible and keeping my limbs out of the water, and for some reason I thought that if I were to lie on my back and stick my legs up in the air above me, I would be able to keep the cream from washing off while my face mask dried and the rest of me soaked.

Needless to say, it was a lot more complicated than I thought it was going to be. A big glob of cream dripped off my leg and onto my boob, and I .. didn’t notice. It wasn’t until I was done scraping the hair off my leg and rinsing out my muck-clogged pores (sexy takes work, you know) that I noticed an uncomfortable burning sensation on my boob. I looked down, yelped, and rinsed the goo away – but it was too late. The cream had burned nasty red marks and spots into my admittedly already-scarred nipple, and it HURT. It’s better now, but still not entirely pain-free. I wasn’t TRYING to remove anything from my nipples; I do not have hair there – I am just clumsy and kind of oblivious to my surroundings about 80% of the time.

I promised a fabulous prize, and I will gladly deliver. In fact, it’s sitting beside me ready to send out. But oh! What to do! Ali is well-versed in my accident-prone ways, and quickly guessed the right answer. However, I already have a fabulous present for her that is completely independent of the Delicious Juice Dot Contest. It hardly seems fair (although she probably thinks otherwise) to give her TWO fabulous presents, so I am instead going to offer up the prize to LOLA, who posted the silliest – yet absolutely plausible, given my track record – guess of the lot. Yay! Lola, email me (kimli at this domain dot com) your address (I swear I am not a creepy stalker) and I will send you a fabulous prize!

I have more to say but I am swamped in other people’s laptops that are drenched with viruses and other nasty horrible things.

Josh and Shan are all moved in, sort of – all their stuff is in their new apartment, it’s just not in any sort of organized state. It didn’t take us too long to unpack their truck (once I started bossing everyone around, that is – I may be bossy, but I get the job done); about 2.5 hours all told. We were going to go to Ikea after showering and changing, except Ed and I fell asleep and didn’t get up until almost 6pm. Still, we made our way to Ikea for meatbulbs and lightballs and home again in one significantly poorer piece.

Now I’m going to light some candles and sit on my butt for a little while, because my feet are very sore. No one is allowed to move anywhere anytime soon, ok?

I’m afraid.

Shortly after I made this post about the state of our dry cleaning, the bag disappeared. I didn’t want to ask any questions about it, hoping against hope that maybe Ed decided to finally take the items in and they would be cleaned and returned to me in the form of gloriously clean and pressed plastic-covered delights on paper hangers.

It’s been over two months now, and the bag has not yet resurfaced. I’m having nightmares about what could have happened to it – thrown in a ditch somewhere for hookers to enjoy; given to hobos to use as a sex rag; traded at the market for a handful of magic beans – but deep down, I know the answer. I know what happened to my dry cleaning.

Do you remember the book Flowers in the Attic? Do you remember the scene near the end, after Cory died and the escape of the remaining three, where Cathy has triumphantly returned to the house to look down upon her former tormentors? Do you remember how she sensed – and smelled – something horrible and evil in the house and knew that that her mother didn’t take Cory to the hospital as promised but rather left him to die and rot in a hidden room under the stairs?

One of these days, I’m going to catch a whiff of something unpleasant and I’ll know – just know – that Ed didn’t take the dry cleaning bag to work at all – he just stashed it out of sight in the hopes that I’ll never discover his horrible, selfish, evil deed – but it’ll be too late, and the wheels of revenge will be unstoppable in the incredulous and unintentionally hilarious final chapter.

Then, in the fashion of all VC Andrews books, it’ll be revealed that Ed is actually my long lost uncle who is actually my mother’s true love and – gasp! – my father! My beauty and artistic talent will see me through my incredibly privileged yet cruel life, but the vicious cycle will be unending as I will inevitably end up falling in love with my twin brother and we have to move to a haunted house in another city where no ones knows our deep, dark family secret .. or do they??

I just want my sweaters cleaned; I don’t have time for this much drama.

This is my impression of the woman who lives downstairs (two full floors below me):

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH! I LIKE TO TALK ON THE PHONE AT ALL HOURS OF THE NIGHT! I ALSO HAVE WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE THE LOUDEST VOICE IN ALL CREATION! BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!

She’s LOUD. Times a lot. From what I understand she’s very nice, but she seems to have no concept of “inside voice”. It’s boggling and extremely annoying when you’re trying to sleep – there’s nothing like being woken up before 8am on a Sunday morning by a very detailed one-sided conversation (the person on the other end of the phone isn’t getting much in edgewise) that literally echoes off the buildings and comes into our bedroom window crystal clear as though she were hovering outside our window yelling her life story at us in Israeli. I’m thinking about leaving a note on her door – a polite one, but one that explains just how incredibly loud she is when she hangs out her window to chat on the phone.

So hey, what the fuck is up with all this snow?

I know it’s environmentally friendly and the right thing to do and just plain good sense, but returning your empties to the bottle depot is just disgusting. I’m sticky and sweaty and I have that sour smell of old liquid that is really quite charming and I wish they would sell it in the stores.

I also have $14.20 in my pocket, which I’ll use to buy more things that will eventually have to be emptied, then returned. It’s a vicious cycle, but I suppose I get extra hippie points for doing it.

I had a fun morning wandering around Granville Island while waiting for Josh to finish his morning work project. I bought some presents for people and also for myself because I am awesome, then we met up and bought beer because I am totally a lush who drinks beer all the time. I’m presently a little angry though, because I called Ed about a dozen times to try and wake him up to no avail – only for him to call me at 1 friggin’ pm and say he just got out of bed. GRR. I wish *I* could be a big dumb sloth too.

K, time for more outsides.

Oh, the dreaded 5-Minute Sleep! I closed my eyes and settled in for some hardcore sleeping, but mere minutes later my alarm was going off and Limozeen was telling me to mix liquid and leather in equal measure because it’s midnight. I’m very tired right now, and today’s schedule isn’t going to give me any time for slothing: immediately after work we have to race home and get ready for Ed’s office party. I’ve been promised that we won’t be staying long at the party; just long enough for the free food and as many drinks from the open bar we (they) can pound back. After that we will pick up Josh (I was unable to secure him a date for Ed’s office party, being that it’s not my office and all) and head to some fancy lounge place to celebrate someone’s birthday, where I am utterly looking forward to feeling awkward and extremely out of place because people like me don’t go to places like that and it shows.

I’m tired just thinking about it all!

I am also utterly fed up with the whole No Starbucks thing that Vancouver has been experiencing lately, thanks to the contaminated water supply. I don’t so much care about the coffee, but I can’t have chai (bad) and I can’t have my lemonade (badder). I looked in my fridge this morning, and realized that a solution to my craving was at hand and didn’t require my driving to another district to find a Starbucks there: I would make my OWN drink!

Right now on my desk at work I have a pitcher of Passion Tea brewing, a bottle of lemonade, and even a small bottle of Valencia syrup right from Starbucks itself. All I need to do now is pay myself $4, and woo – tasty beverage! I am excited. No contaminated water will stop ME from getting my game on. I am far too crafty to be outsmarted by some stupid turbids!

Hey, look at this! Heeee.

I am dressed like an extra in a Cyndi Lauper video, circa 1984. In honour of my extremely dubious achievement, I have temporarily changed the spelling of my name to Kymli. Can’t stop messing with the danger zone, indeed.

I am disappointed to learn that once again, I am not famous. My hopes of stardom were briefly rekindled this morning when I learned that I was sought after for reasons unknown – obviously, I immediately assumed those reasons were of the “we want to make you famous” variety. Alas, it was not to be so and I am once again doomed to languish in obscurity until someone realizes that you can, in fact, market Mama Cass. I’m sure that’ll be happening any day now!

I’m getting the itch for some sort of adventure. Last night was a nightmare of domestic bliss – I cooked a chicken dinner for the men folk and washed the dishes while Ed did laundry and Josh dealt with the garbage and recycling. We are far too young and awesome to be mired in the American “dream” – you know, the one where I live with an ever-revolving series of half naked young men – and as such, I solemnly swear that we will have some adventure soon. I read something on the internets today about a guy who baked himself in a 100º Celsius oven just to see what would happen. Maybe we could do something like that! Or maybe something almost as painful – crossing the border this weekend to get some Mexican food and 7-11 beer! Yeah! Wooo! Adventure! Fuck domesticity and your white picket fence! Let’s get drunk and puke in the bushes!

Maybe we should just go buy a Wii instead.

I am getting cabin fever, though. I want to have Fun. As charming as it is to sit around the living room not watching TV because Ed is playing NHL 2K7 again and/or listening to endless (and I do mean endless) conversations about cars, I need a little more out of life. Anybody want to do .. anything? I’m fun, I smell good, and I never ever get lost.

Winter is fast approaching, and the cooler (and significantly wetter) weather has put a halt to my skirt-wearing for the year. Since I’m in pants day in and day out (much to my utter revulsion), I’ve been really lazy about shaving my legs. Why bother? They’re going to be covered in pants! Who cares if I’m gross and hairy? Why go through the hassle of shaving? Fuck your fascist beauty standards, man! Down with conformity!

I reached the limit this past weekend, though. The itchiness was driving me nuts to the point of scratching in my sleep, and my hairy legs were just not all that sexy to behold. Normally I would have what I refer to as a “maintenance bath” and just fix up all those areas of mine that need a little work, but thanks to the still-nasty water and the warnings advising against soaking in said water I decided to skip the bath and cast about for another solution.

Salon waxing was out of the question because I am both cheap and really quiet lazy, as well as not all that hairy. I decided I would try some Nair; the kind that claimed to smell like citrus and came with a handy bladeless razor. I’ve never actually used any kind of depilatory cream before at all because I was frankly never that curious about it, but the time was nigh for hair removal and I was rarin’ to go.

I slathered the goop all over my legs and waited for fun to begin. Sure enough, everything started to smell like burning hair tinged with citrus. I waddled into the bathroom (for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to start this project in the living room, while wearing a toga) and started to use the bladeless razor to scrape disgusting hairy slop off my body.

It worked pretty well, actually. I was terribly fascinated by the amount of hair sloughing off my legs, and kept inspecting each pass for hidden treasure. When it was all over, I was relatively hairless and a lot less itchy. I did, however, manage to make myself bleed using the bladeless razor because I am me and could probably filet myself with safety scissors.

WHY is our telephone guy telling me all about his groin? I don’t think I EVER signed on to hear the words “exploding groin” complete with vivid backstory come out of our telephone guy. I need to wash my brain out with lye and scalding turbid water. EWW!