Yes, but which one of you wants me MORE?

Well, I just sent U of T my "thanks but no thanks" email. Nothing has ever felt more empowering! Yesterday I sent Concordia my hug-in-an-email thanks-for-wanting-me i-love-you-so-much email and they wrote back within five seconds, a long and semi-rambling happy email that humanized them for me and made me so excited I had to do that wiggle-on-a-spot happy dance a-la-Natalie Portman (I don't think I've ever used so many dashes in one sentence before). You can request a demonstration, I did one for Derek yesterday. It's great not being able to eat due to excitement, rather than due to other less productive emotions. Yesterday I went to see an apartment at Bayfield, those buildings right behind Saugeen - it was a one-bedroom, up high with a balcony, a decent guy offering me a sublet, a guy SO decent that he doesn't mind Tycho... at first he wanted $450/mo. for it, but after a while he relented and said $400 would be fine. I thought it was a done deal but today I'm having doubts. Turns out phone & internet aren't included in that sum (though hydro & cable are, and he's leaving all his furniture and TV set and everything). I could probably live without internet (especially since I'll be a thirty second walk away from campus where wireless waves abound!) and the guy works for Bell so he says that with his discount I'll pay just $60 for the whole summer for a phone. So it'll be $415 a month, basically. I have been spoiled rotten with my $270/month at Woodward so I have no idea if this is a good price or not! Thoughts?

On an unrelated note, the termostat gauge of how much money I'm getting for free next year keeps rising (also contributing to the happy dance), but the problem is that none of that money kicks in until September, so I've got to muddle through until then! Maybe I'll just charge admission to my apartment to help subsidize. $5 for me to buzz you up, $10 to sit on the couch, $15 to sit on the balcony. Special package for $30: I'll mix you a drink and sing you love ballads while you sit on the balcony.

Really I'm just trying to make luxurious decisions like "Can I afford to go to BC?" and "Can I afford to buy a swimsuit?" which is nice compared to the "Can I afford to eat?" kind of questions.

Lack of blogging due to a decided un-lack of school work, but I can see the light at the end of the essay-lined tunnel now. Today it's supposed to get up to 18 degrees! I'm so eating an ice cream cone.

What happened on a Saturday night!

"Hello, Megan? Hey... yeah... it's Clive! You know, Owen? From the movies? Yeah! Well, hey, listen, I've been trying for years and I finally got your number. What? Oh, yeah, well my agent's cousin's chiropractor is friends with Wayson Choy's heart surgeon and, well, yeah. So anyway, listen, I'm doing this bank robbery thing here right now, and I'm thinking, if this shit goes down wrong and I don't make it out like I planned then I want you to know right now that I'm completely, madly in... What? You're not into dating right now? ...oh no, that's cool, yeah, I totally know how it is. Mmhmm. Yeah, well, I appreciate your honesty. Gosh, I feel like kind of an idiot though, you know? Well hey, if you're ever in L.A., look me up. Hm? Do I want your mom's number? Well, that's a little weird, but... why not?"

Look out Mom, I think I found Mr. Right-For-You!!!!

Appendix to the previous post!

Hottness Unite!

Sara: "Scott told me that I'm the hottest person he knows! Which is funny, because he's the hottest person I know. Isn't it incredible that the two hottest people met each other and started dating? Maybe we'll be supermodels together."

supermodels = celebrity wedding
celebrity wedding = megan gets to wear her suit again
megan gets to wear her suit again = happy megan

We're at Weldon right now. Stupid temptation of wireless internet!!!

Your subconscious is a laundry basket

FINALLY feeling exhilarated (instead of horrified) by the essays/writing/reading/exams that lie ahead in the next few weeks, and trying like mad to keep a grip on that... today the bookstore had all of their sale books on for another 50% off so I went a little crazy and bought some really cheesy coming-of-age-teenagery-goth-young-adult books, they're like Sourkeys for my brain, I know they're rotten but DAMN they taste good after a whole lotta fruit 'n veggies. so now I have a modest pile of "quick lit" (among all the immodest piles of library books) to spur me on to the time when I'll actually be able to read whatever I want, guilt-free. BUT i will NEVER reveal what pop garbage has been satisfying my late-night literary romps, it would be far too embarrassing, and that's why I've started keeping my doorstop copy of Les Miserables by my bed, as a cover-up in case anyone whose opinion of me has not already solidified ventures in here.

Avoided a dicey emotional moment at the mall today (grocery stores sometimes kill me, but only when the weather outside is right - or wrong? - such as today, grey and almost-but-not-quite snowing) by buying a) a portable radio and b) some booze. Everything a girl needs for a memorable night!

I just watched the Alistair MacLeod documentary on CBC (thanks B&A!) and it had me all misty, which was embarrassing because Tycho was perched on the couch and kept bopping me on the head with each sniffle. ANYWAY I remember Alistair from Humber, his east coast accent, tufts of hair in his ears, the way his vowels come out of his mouth all stretched and slow like he's being very careful about what he is saying to you because he knows it could change your life. I love him most for his apparent bashfulness, like he thinks he's just some rural fisherman reluctantly caught in the headlights of fame, and he can't wait until he's dismissed so that he can go back to his cabin to write. They interviewed Russell Banks in the doc., who said that Alistair writes without revising, because his stories are all perfectly composed in his mind, sentence-by-sentence, before they get put down. Russell said that it's like Alistair is building a wall out of stones on a beach, and where every other author would just dump all the stones in a pile and then start moving them around and splitting them up and re-arranging them over and over until they forced the wall up, Alistair just plucks up each stone one by one, turns it over in his hand, walks up and down the beach a couple of times, thinks about it, then sets the stone down in exactly the right place, and picks up the next one. It was a pretty incredible image, the way he described it. They also had all kinds of east coast authors reading from Alistair's books, which was so moving, because most of them would choke up as they read, which would make me choke up, which would make Tycho bop me in the head.

ANYWAY so I'm writing on No Great Mischief for my animals paper, hence all the MacLeodspeak. I just found out this paper needs to be eighteen (NOT eight) pages long, who knew? This has been a good blog experience on my end, though, limbered up the ol' finger joints enough to get some mad writing done in the next while...

oh yeah: shouts out to Derek who is officially a top choice for UWO's MITish grad program next year! Smart move, academy, reeeeeeal smart.

I'm looking for a saint...

An entire weekend has passed since The Great Green Beer Day, and I think the whirlwinds in my brain have calmed enough for a coherent post!

Fact: I did not spill a single drink on Friday! Although I think I accidentally boiled Derek's Sake in the microwave, because now all the food I zap comes out tasting faintly of liquor and bile... seriously, that stuff was disgusting... though if you look at the FAQs on that site, you will see there is no "How do I drink this without gagging?" question, so I may be a minority. I think I'll stick with good, old-fashioned beer with my good, new-fashioned drinking buddy, Missy... the beer tent was a big hit, especially because it was busting at the seams with people we didn't know, which gave us plenty of opportunity to reminisce about the first-year days when we'd know everyone in the bar, including the bartender who would have our drinks poured before we even knew we wanted them... it's sad, but I'm glad I can have a "remember the good old days?" conversation based on undergrad experiences. Such things are important, because my days in London are numbered!

The day, in brief... (not "in briefs") (although BOY UNDERWEAR IS THE BEST UNDERWEAR IN THE WORLD!)

The tent:

The best-ever drinking buddy:

The requisite "who the hell was that guy?" picture:

The hard-drinking roommates & co....

And what St. Pat's would be complete without an airplane ride with my #1 Saucy Sister, Sara...


Since then I've been moving & shaking... though it's been some uphill travelling. Has writing an essay every been this hard??? BUT delicious incentives have urged me to stop talking about my thesis and instead actually work on it, which has been fabulous. Who knew I'd actually enjoy writing? Heh. I used to... and I'm starting to again... especially because tonight on CBC they interviewed Lynn Coady who had fantastic things to say about being a creative writing graduate student, and that made me supremely, deep-down tingly excited. I vow today: I will one day be interviewed on CBC's The Arts Tonight!!! That will be the ultimate measure of success! You are all virtual witnesses to this vow!

Ah, done updating just in time to listen to Between the Covers. Best bedtime radio ever!!!

Which reminds me... Jen: my iPod is busted again! I'm sure you'll get a long and lamenting email about it soon... it's doing that stupid old thing where it works fine, but won't talk to iTunes unless I restore factory settings. SO I called apple today and shed some metaphorical tears along the phone line and managed to get the promise of a brand new replacement! I should have my new iPod in a week and a half! Hopefully they will remember to engrave it. This has all happened since Jen officially named my iPod "Lucky"... a little bit of bad karma, maybe? Tempting the techno-fates? Angering the Apple?

OKAY OKAY OKAY
they're starting the reading on CBC
must go zone out!

Operation "Make Arieh Proud!"

Oh man, I have the greatest day ever lined up for today... all the angst and turmoil of the last two weeks will temporarily settle to the bottom of the Megan Pond and I'll spend the day/evening/night enjoying the pristine waters of green-coloured beer in honour of St. Pat's! In an hour I go get Missy and we head to the beer tent at school (a tribute to the Best St. Pat's Ever in second year)... then this afternoon D-Roc (the french spelling) and I will weave merrily through the afternoon... then tonight: Baked Potato Party with Sara & Co.! The funny part is I don't even know the people who make up the &Co. part, but that will just make it more exciting!

Speaking of Sara... her boy has been away this week so we kind of invaded his apartment (well, Sara did the invading, I just tagged along, and it wasn't even an invasion in the strictess sense, because at least one of us was invited)... and we even vacuumed for him!

And Sara did some work...

And I also did some... uh... work... WITH THE KITTIES!!!

...who promptly ran away from me.

But I think it was a set-up, and Sara secretly told Chloe to get up on that door, just so that she would have to get her down, thus causing the taking of this Sexy Sara photo, which might come in handy should Sara ever need fogiveness from Scott for anything...


Okay, well, let it be known by the masses that I got up at 7AM!!! in order to work on my essay at least a bit before the day's debauchery begins. Now that all requisite justification has been stated, it's go time!!!

ps - listening to "It's All Gonna Break" by BSS ... hats off!

Good things come in small packages... even better things come in medium-sized packages from Waterloo

Tycho and I got a surprise in the mail today!
We were both very curious... and nervous... Tycho volunteered to be the first to investigate.



Turns out it wasn't a box full of catnip mice (Tycho's guess), but instead a package chock-a-block full of thesis-writing survival goodies! Chocolate, cookies, choclate, gum, chocolate... Tycho surveyed the haul while I wiped hot-mascara tears from my face. It was an emotional moment for both of us!

Tycho was the first to find the bottle of Bailey's. I have taught him well!

So I did what any good mother would do! I flexed my opposable thumbs and opened that bad boy up. We split it between us and went a little wild from the effect of mid-afternoon shots...

Tycho even showed off his mad break-dancing skills.

In the end, we both took a nap, secure in the knowledge that our Waterloo teammates have our backs... and that thesis completion is just around the corner.

The person you love is 72.8% water.

OH MAN
BLOGGING HAS RUINED ME

I think of everything in 'blogging' terms now ... like, missing the bus isn't just missing the bus, it's missing the bus and then blogging about it... and finding a twoonie on the ground and using it to buy hot chocolate and then winning a free muffin from the hot chocolate, that is a blog moment if ever I had one. Except... I didn't have that one, but I think it might be in my future. In fact, I'm almost certain. Someone somewhere right now is dropping a twoonie on the ground and the world is drawing itself into a single-file line that will prod me towards that twoonie, I'll pick it up with the dirty-fingernailed effort of trying to coax a coin off of a flat surface... I'll buy my hot chocolate, and I'll win! And then you'll all read about it on my blog because I'M BACK!

It's been a crazy, draining, meditative, movie-watching, essay-writing, ball-busting week at Megan Central, and I have been warming my hands on the memory of Montreal with Jen, and I haven't said much about it here yet... but it's sort of like when Jen moved to Toronto and I tried to keep the radio show going for a while after she left, but it was too sad, and too un-motivating without her... well, that's how I feel when I look at the Montreal pictures... and now I miss her almost as much as Mark did... so... to save myself from typing things like *choke* and *sob* over and over, I'll just recreate the week in a few choice photos (there aren't more because that would take so long to upload, and I promised my feverish brain sleep by midnight)...

I must just say...
There is almost nothing as deliciously good as going on a road trip to your favourite city with one of your favourite people to see one of your favourite bands play one of your favourite songs ten feet away from you.



A Brief and Selective History of Jen & Megan's Montreal (important items left out due to photo lackage: key loss... bagel consumption... van breakage-downage...)

We drank sketchy Montreal booze:


Washed our hands in not-so-sketchy Montreal bars:


And ate sketchy-but-oh-so-very-cheesey Montreal drunken poutine!


We learned about the Montreal Chill...



Which only sweetens the sweetness of the Montreal Cafes! I don't know how they get so much hot chocolately goodness into such an inconspicuous-looking cup...


We snuck into the Concordia bookstore to see how they fare against my own home domain at uwo... and by "snuck in," I mean "walked casually through the open door..." Conclusion: I can't wait until I have to shop there.


I also can't wait until my name is on this board!


I really need to sleep... things not to ask me about in the next three weeks: (1) thesis... (2) essay writing... (3) thesis.

I've been listening to a ton of CBC radio lately... this week on Between the Covers they're reading work by brand spaking new female Canadian authors! 10:40 pm every night! Listen!

ps - today's subject brought to you by my boss-of-a-lifetime boss Stephen and jonathan carroll's famous musings

On hiatus...

...until I get back in control of school! Keep checking back! There are many, many pictures to be posted!

In the meantime, here is a taste of Tycho's busy day:

Love!

Petrosexual!

Today feels like a blah day. Took me forever to get ready for school, and my hat is lost, and I miss Jen! It's hard to go 100% Jen for several days in a row and then go cold turkey! Anyway, I will do a proper MONTREAL IS AWESOME post later today when I'm not late for everything, but in the meantime... because today needs a boost... Tycho came through, as always, and entertained me with his antics while I waited for shower (translation: lay in bed not wanting to get up). He usually punctuates those first few almost-but-not-quite-awake moments I have by sitting in the window, behind the curtain, and sticking out his paw now and then to ding me in the head.... so today I threw one of his toys-on-a-string back there for him, to earn me some more sleep... LOOK HOW CUTE HE IS!!! damn I love the little guy.





Tycho is starting to accessorize:

ONE nice thing about today being grey and stormy-looking is that I might get a chance to use my new Montreal umbrella! I will have to steal it away from Pooh Bear first... man, remember the Pooh book where the 100 Acre Wood gets flooded and Piglet is trapped at Trespassers Will so he sends out a note in a bottle and Christopher Robin finds it and sends Owl out to look for Piglet and then Pooh uses an upside-down umbrella as a boat to go rescue him? That was a close one. At the end everyone has honey. Well, maybe just Pooh. Anyway, since then he has always kept an umbrella close by, in case.

I have decided to make Young & Sexy's "Oh My Love" my song for the week!

Montreal in six pictures or less!

What's left: all the gaps... plus: tonight (WunderBar), tomorrow (drive home + croisants), tomorrow night (Better Than Everyone). Sunday (london!)

staytuned!

i heart Jen!

(Jen hearts Megan!)