I have a lot of stuff. That’s kind of an understatement, as I don’t only have a lot of stuff but I have lots of KINDS of stuff. I don’t just have small toys, I have rooms full of them. I don’t just have a jewellery collection, I have more than I could possibly wear in a lifetime of fancy occasions. I don’t need all this stuff – but perhaps some other people might like some of my stuff.

I’m mulling the idea of having some sort of garage sale for jewellery and accessories. I have a fairly massive collection of gorgeous stuff that doesn’t get worn as often as it should, and I’m sure someone could give them a good home. This could even be a group thing – I’m sure I have friends with thing they don’t need. Thing is, I don’t have the first clue on how to have a garage sale. I don’t actually have a garage, I don’t know what stuff should cost, I don’t know how to advertise .. I’m pretty useless here. Ideally, I’d like to set up a market-style sale in which people don’t sell crafts but high-end stuff – more than a flea market, less than an estate sale. Do these things exist? Would there be any interest in either buying my stuff or selling your own? Doing it online is just a massive hassle, so it’d be a local thing. Help! how do I make this go?

downtown!

Yesterday while riding Lola to pretzels then work, I saw the saddest thing ever: a young couple walking their two pugs to Tim Hortons for coffee.

It’s sad because THAT SHOULD BE US. I want to live in Mount Pleasant. I want matching pugs; I want a partner who loves our matching pugs. I want to be free to walk to Tim Hortons at 9:30 on a Wednesday morning for coffee and donuts without a care in the world (as far as I could tell from my scooter). I want these things very badly.

Seeing pugs on the street still makes me slump with sadness. I haven’t forgotten my longing for a pug, and it hasn’t gone away – I am still sad on a regular basis that I don’t have a dog. It’s not even the injustice of not having a dog, though .. I miss having an animal that’s MINE.

Tomorrow will be two years since Sasha died, and I still miss her every day. She was my best friend, and she was always there for me. She loved ME and merely tolerated others, and I miss that so much that I still cry myself to sleep when I’m feeling unbearably lonely or sad.

I know we still have three cats, but it’s not the same. While I do love them, the relationship is different – Big Cat belongs to Ed, and everyone else is just a temporary distraction. Small Cat loves everyone, but would be just as happy to sleep on the couch for the rest of time and not move. Loud Cat is definitely coming around and he gets more fun as his personality expands past “grumpy pain in the ass”, but .. it’s not the same. Sasha was loud and ornery and pushy, but she was also fiercely loyal, cuddly, and .. mine. I miss her. I miss having my own animal. It’s what I want, even more than a pug or all the kittens in the world – an animal companion that I had the same kind of connection with; who made me feel as though I could handle anything as long as I had them by my side. I know it’s silly and goes dangerously close to the idea of familiars and spirit animals and my own personal Guenhwyvar, but .. it is what it is.

Will a pug fix the hole in my heart? Another cat, another calico? I honestly don’t know. All I DO know is that I am lonely and I need .. something. Anyone have a something I can have?

i even miss this

I am scolding people through email for breaking a non-rule with political undertones, and I am finding it very awkward. Why can’t people just overtly break hard rules? It is much easier to give people shit than it is to gently let them know they did something that could be taken the wrong way.

I much prefer punching to finger wagging.

If you’ve ever spent any time on OKCupid looking through profiles to see who is considered a good match for you, there’s something you should know: they’re holding out on you.

OKCupid holds back the profiles of beautiful people until you yourself are considered e-beautiful, and THEN they’ll allow you to see the chosen ones.

No, seriously:

rude. very, very rude.

A friend of mine has been trolling OKC for a while now, looking for a potential mate. They received this email because they are smokin’ hot – hot enough to be considered attractive on the Wal-Mart of dating websites. I’m totally jealous, actually – I want to see these more attractive people. I wonder if they’re lonely because OKC keeps them hidden until you’re worthy, or if they just spend all their time with the other beautiful people, talking about how great it is to be beautiful. I imagine they all gather in a fancy boardroom, where butlers serve melba toast and ice water and a tasteful string quartet in the corner plays odes to their beauty while poets frantically thumb through a thesaurus trying to find the appropriate words to describe the magnitude of exquisiteness laid out before them.

If you’ve ever wondered why the people you are matched with are ugly as sin, there’s your answer: because you, yourself, are ugly as sin. Thanks, OKCupid! Now that I know I’m ugly, I will stop hoping that a gang of men straight out of a Tom of Finland book will come whisk me away for a triple-decker sandwich and instead be grateful for any crumbs of affection that come my way, be they from polyamorous wizards with an Alliance guild of overweight lovers in kitten sweatshirts or Atlas Shrugged-reading “tantric masters” in fedoras and trench coats.

It’s so ROMANTIC!

You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs smell the stinking of the chickens. And you think if you save poor Catherine, you could make them stop, don’t you? You think if Catherine lives, you won’t wake up in the dark ever again to that awful stinking of the chickens. Brave Clarice Kimli. You will let me know when the chickens stop stinking, won’t you?

I don’t think my own personal trauma would make for a very good movie. For starters, there’s very little cannibalism – and I don’t even know what I would call it. The Air Freshening of the Chickens? The Hosing Down of the Chicken Cages? It’s easy to make the lambs go silent, but how do you make the chickens not smell like death and terror?

No matter what time I leave the house in the morning, I am stuck behind or between trucks full of chickens. I hate them, because I know what happens next – the chickens are being taken to the slaughter house to become delicious meat, and I feel bad – bad for the chickens who are about to die, bad because chicken is so very delicious, and bad for my nose because the stink is HORRIFIC. I can’t even describe how bad the trucks smell; not even with the significant vocabulary prowess at my disposal. I have to hold my breath when I ride near the Death Trucks, and even then it doesn’t help – I can taste the stink. My only option is to speed the hell out of there and get as far away from the poor chickens as I possibly can, and then think about kittens and rainbows and going vegetarian for lunch. It sometimes helps, but not a lot. There is trauma. Silence of the Lambs-style trauma. Well, except for all the murder and stuff.

I would like a vacation, please.