If it wasn’t for the fact that I get no cell service, access to Diet Coke is sketchy at best, and it’s kind of expensive .. well, I could pretty much live here.

ferry shenanigans

being creepy all over reilly

only authorized short people allowed

We stopped in Coombs on the way to Ucluelet, then at Cathedral Grove (which is way cooler in November, but still pretty):

so green! suck it, alberta!

ed is one with nature

The wedding is at Black Rock Resort in Ucluelet, and it’s kind of breathtaking here:

just outside the lobby

the view from our balcony

Our room is awesome. The bathroom is the size of most Yaletown condos, and it has both a soaker tub and a standalone rainfall shower thingie. We’ve only been here for 6 hours, but we’ve already had a bath and a shower each (we are dirty folk). There’s a little kitchenette in the room, so we stocked up on a few groceries so we have snacks available – and I don’t know if someone warned them I was coming, but there was a full tray of delightfully frozen ice cubes waiting for me in the tiny freezer. It’s such a simple thing, but I appreciate it SO MUCH – I love ice cubes. Lovely, lovely ice cubes. You make my Diet Coke so delicious!

Tomorrow is visiting (for those with families; we are merely handsome spectators) and setup, then on Saturday .. people get married! I know I have a fancy bridesmaids dress to wear and all, but I’m giving serious thought to just showing up in one of the bathrobes made of kittens from our room – SO COMFY. I don’t think Shan will mind; she’s already talking about marrying the robe instead of Josh (which could get awkward if I show up wearing the groom).

It’s been a long day with several more to come, so I’m going to do some naked relaxing while I can. I’m going to be on the go basically until next weekend – we leave the island on Sunday, and I start my new job on Monday. I’m excited about everything between now and November – I should probably try to get some sleep.

look at all these fancy times!

Off to watch a couple of yahoos get married! Of all the yahoos I know, they are amongst my favourite!

Will more than likely blog from Ucluelet in between tacos!

That might be a euphemism, but I’ll never tell.

When my wallet gets too heavy (what with all my fabulous wealth), I sort through all the coins and put the big ones in my vacation fund and the pennies in a bear’s head. It’s an old Kraft Peanut Butter jar from a million years ago when they used to come in bear-shaped glass jars that you could use as a piggy bank when it was empty (or otherwise, if you’re into that sort of thing). For as long as I can remember, I’ve put all my pennies in this jar and used it as a door stop. It moved with me from Victoria to Calgary, back to Vancouver, and all around the mainland. It’s been filled and emptied before, but it takes a long time to fill so it hasn’t really done much in a very long time.

With news that the penny is finally going away, (and with the jar being full), I decided it was time to take it to a coin counting machine and start the collection anew. I gathered up all the loose pennies in the house and bagged them up (along with the 34 rolls of wrapped pennies from the last time we thought to do anything with them), and set off to Safeway.

if i had a penny for every penny i put into a jar ..

The bag was heavy as hell, and would have made an excellent weapon. I decided to scoot to Safeway; a decision I almost immediately regretted once it began to rain and I almost fell over from the added weight of the pennies. Still, I made it to the store in one piece and hauled everything over to the CoinStar machine, and started dumping them in.

take it all, you filthy whore

My coin flow is both fast AND furious:

my!

It was kind of like playing the slots in reverse – I was the one causing the machine to make the jackpot noise; not the one winning. It took almost half an hour to get all my coins in and it was terribly noisy – people stared. The machine is almost never used, so everyone was curious as to what I was doing to make so much noise.

Eventually, all my pennies were in (and two dimes, apparently) and it totaled them all up:

CASH VALUE

I took the slip to the customer service counter, and received a (small) wad of cash: out of $36.17 in coins dumped into the machine, I pocketed $31.87 (the machine took $4.30 in fees). Not too bad for a bunch of coins sitting around collecting dust, but I probably won’t do it again – the machine takes a sorting fee of 11.9 cents per dollar which is expensive if you’ve got real money to sort. Pennies are dumb, but if I had a giant bag of loonies or twonies I’d just sort it out myself or take it to the bank. Still, that $31.87 will buy me a lot of Diet Coke. I am easy to please!

I’m kind of getting a kick out of my weekend sewing projects – I don’t know how long I can keep it up (there are only so many fabric bags one person needs), but it’s a fun way to spend a naked Sunday afternoon.

I’m a little grumpy about how this week’s projects turned out, though – for the life of me, I cannot measure myself properly. Once again I ended up with a skirt that would fit many people, but this time I forged ahead anyway because I was too annoyed at the prospect of another failure. I eventually got extremely creative with following the recipe; adding things that were not required and inventing a lining made out of an old dress – but the end result is something I could probably wear in public without getting arrested:

ed does not love me enough to model the skirt without pants on

It’s an extremely lightweight white cotton circle skirt with green polka dots, hemmed with bright pink bias tape and topped with a wide elastic waistband. It turned out pretty good once it was finished, but it’s still too big. I can wear it, but I’ll be the one in the corner hiking her skirt up every two seconds in a somewhat moot attempt to remain decent.

I wanted to add contrasting green/white pockets, but they’d look funny on a circle skirt. I’m kind of in love with the idea of brightly coloured skirts with contrasting hems and pockets, but first I need to find a skirt pattern that I would actually wear but isn’t a circle. I think I may look into the noble square, and see if we can’t come to some sort of agreement.

I did try one other project yesterday, but I failed it spectacularly. Ironically, it’s supposed to be the easiest among all the patterns I have, yet I fucked it up really badly. I seem to be in the “advanced beginner” stage – I’ve made a couple of relatively complicated (for an idiot, like me) things, but the very simple “cut here and sew a straight line” stuff is totally beyond me.

I am a Lady of Leisure for three more days – let’s see how much trouble I can get into.

It’s been two days, and my legs still hurt from walking around in those heels and I don’t think this glitter is ever going to entirely wash out, but I Went Clubbing.

Sort of. I mean, I was in a club and clubbing was happening all around me, but I stayed in a corner and tried not to look as though I had been accidentally transported in from Puritan England circa 1575 and was truly wondering what sin I hath committed that would cause my God to cast me unto the fiery pits of this tiki-themed hell.

Shan did tell me I could leave if I was anywhere near as uncomfortable as I looked, but I managed to stick it out for almost an hour. I didn’t dance – I only dance when it is wholly inappropriate to do so – but I did WATCH, and also narrated what I was seeing on Twitter in the style of an old Wild Kingdom broadcast:

• The plumage on display pales in comparison to the intricacies of the mating dance – it is here, in this primitive den, where life begins.
• In the distance, a lone bird cries out and is immediately cross-faded into the throbbing beat of the night.
• A pair of creatures pair off and begin to mate, grinding their organs against the tiki-themed bamboo pillars that festoon the seething pit.
• They’ve multiplied! The cross-faded loon has lured more potential mates to the floor and the game begins anew; strobe lights marking faces and serving to both highlight and disguise the weaker specimens in amongst the prize females dripping with precious jelly.
• Young males, bedecked in traditional “bling”, dance in a circle with one another; perhaps attempting to entice the female with disinterest.

I was both frantic and somewhat saddened to make my escape – the study of humanity at its most hip and/or primitive was fascinating, and in all honesty if I had ear plugs (it was fucking loud) and had my laptop, I would have stayed. Seriously. I really, really wish I could have live blogged what was going on in front of me – there was SO MUCH HAPPENING:

• Couples with curfews pairing off well before midnight and engaging in enough public foreplay that poor Lani Two Skirts had to run away, embarrassed by the not-at-all-discreet groping going on behind her
• The young Jewish gentleman doing a dance I have named The Nixon all by himself in a circle, oblivious to anything or anyone around him
• All. The. Vaginas.
• The $10 drinks people looked honoured to buy
• How very, very, very OLD we all felt

I realized much too late that for all the effort put into looking our sluttiest for the evening, we completely missed the mark. I had tried on every dress in my closet before, with the help of Renee and Heather, deciding on the one that showed a truly obscene amount of cleavage; pairing it with some saucy high heels and ridiculous accessories – but it was all moot: Club Slut is absolutely nothing like Everyday Slut. I am fluent in Everyday Slut – it’s the kind that gets me dirty/shocked/occasionally admiring looks when I walk down the street because my boobs are buoyant and plentiful – but Club Slut requires you to be chastely covered up top, but paired with a skirt that barely skims the mons pubis. This is not something I would ever do – my breasts may be for everyone, but my pubic mound is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

I do wish that I was able to relax and enjoy Shan’s stag with the rest, but I was so far out of my element. If I’m ever called upon to Do Clubbing again, I’ll be sure to bring my laptop so I can properly document all that happens around me – all I could think about (other than escaping) was how awesome a blog post it all would have made. Next time! Except I hope there isn’t a next time – I hate clubbing. Seriously.

You know, I never got a stag party. I wonder if I could have one ten years after the fact .. all my ladies like LAN parties, right?

When I explain just how hard it was for me to do the Right Thing for Myself at the cost of disappointing someone else, my therapist is likely going to a dance on her desk with dollar signs for eyeballs.

I ejected myself out of space today. It was really hard to do, because I really liked the people I worked with .. but it was also the right thing to do, both for me and for them. It was right for them because I am too senior for what they need, and the longer I had to deal with a scheduled lunch break and being in the support queue the more likely I was to become grumpy and petulant and not at all fun to be around. And it was right for ME, because I’d never be able to get to the salary I wanted while working there, I definitely did NOT sign on to spend 40% of my time answering the phone, and I want – need – to be challenged daily; not held back because I’m going faster than anyone thought possible (I did warn you about that).

I have been agonizing about this inevitability since the end of March, and I mean agonizing. I second-third-eightyseventh-guessed myself so many times my head spun, and I’m sure those close to me were sick of my moaning over what should have been an easy decision to make. I’ve got an almost pathological need to keep people happy, though, even at the cost of myself – I’d rather be sad and dignified in my martyrhood; nobly sacrificing my dreams so I don’t inconvenience others.

Isn’t that an enormous crock of crazy emo shit?

I’m all for needless melodrama, but sometimes the line must be drawn heeah.

I was offered my dream job (I have several dream jobs; this is the non-naked, non-video game one) this week, for an enormous increase in salary. I accepted it on Wednesday, and this morning I resigned from the place I was working in Burnaby. I’ll be back downtown, starting the Monday after Josh and Shan’s wedding. I am nervous, elated, excited, hopeful, and a little bit sad – I really liked working with the people in Burnaby, and would have taken several of them with me if I could.

I don’t know what the future holds for me, but for once in my life my title will have no slash. I don’t need to do two jobs just to do what I love; I just .. get to do it. And y’all have NO IDEA how much that means to me.

This is my science, but I’ve got everything to prove.

tryin'.

Him: Do you think I packed too much stuff for camping?

Me: It doesn’t look too bad .. you may not want to bring the cat toy, though. And the sewing machine. Leave the sewing machine.

Him: Then how am I supposed to sew? It’s a STAG party, damnit!

I fucking love my wall:

MY WALL IS SO AWESOME!

I am pleased.

There’s a lot to be said for a random day off in the middle of the week – by noon today, I had:

• Survived an invasive appointment that had me out the door at 7:30am
• Gotten gas mere inches before the Mazdabator tank ran dry to strand me in the ass end of South Burnaby
• Purchased a flotilla of Diet Coke and discount Easter candy
• Stocked up on 80lbs of cat litter
• Bought a goddamn cuckoo clock
• Refilled my prescription for crazy pills as written by the OLDEST MAN IN THE UNIVERSE
• Whipped up a fresh batch of henna
• Added way, way too much ground clove to the henna
• Vacuumed the living room
• Did a load of laundry
• Emptied the dishwasher and put in another load
• Burned my scalp when applying the clovey henna
• Ate leftovers

I’m now sitting at my desk wearing little more than a shower cap and a smile; writing words all over the internet and finishing up a flow chart for fun instead of profit. I have absolutely no plans for the remainder of the day (I should probably rinse this henna out at some point), a startling amount of Diet Coke within reach, and an itch to simultaneously sew something awesome and play video games at the same time. I have to assume that attempting to scratch both my itches at once would end in disaster and injury, so I’m going to pick one and go with it until I’m bored, then start the other. Random Thursday Off is for Good Times.

I have made an Important Decision, and I am at peace with it – details coming soon, I think.

Also, this is hilarious and you should watch it because it made me choke with the funny.

The thought has occurred to me that the excessive horrible pot smoke from next door might be medicinal in nature. I’m really only basing this theory off two things: a) I’ve never, ever smelled pot as awful as this before and I’ve heard – perhaps erroneously – that medical marijuana is gross, and b) once for half a second I got a glimpse of someone who smelled the same, and he didn’t look so good. Maybe he wasn’t just old and pasty. Maybe he has painful diseases, and smokes the nasty pot to cope with them. Maybe I should be more compassionate towards my fellow man, and care less about the fact that half my house reeks.

Maybe fuck that.

I kind of don’t care if the guy is wasting away in his living room – I AM REALLY TIRED OF EVERYTHING STINKING LIKE HOBO POOP. It got better for a few weeks, but now is back with a vengeance at all hours of the day; not just late at night. Plus, the weather is getting nicer – so if I try to open my bedroom window to get some fresh air in to counter the pot, they’re out there smoking cigarettes and even more pot. I can’t win, and I’m getting really angry and paranoid and hungry. I don’t much know what to do about it, either. We’ve tried talking to them, and they’ve made it clear that they don’t care if we can smell their smoke. I’ve emailed the strata, and didn’t get a response. I’m having visions of being swabbed at the airport and detained because all my belongings are coated three inches thick in THC leavings, and they’ll throw me in airport jail where there’s no Diet Coke and I’ll get yelled at. I do not want that. At ALL.

So frustrated. Also, freaking out. Today’s Special: I was very bad at math and somehow managed to COMPLETELY RUN OUT OF CRAZY PILLS and I can’t get through to my useless doctor to book an appointment for more. Because this is totally what I need right now: more crazy. BRING IT ON!*

(*: please don’t bring it on. I can’t handle much more stress right now.)