I am in ur bedz, stealing your zzz's

Everyone must read and enjoy this website! Enjoy it like cereal: every morning, with some milk. I am campaigning to get Tycho on it. So far I've learned that my captioning skills need work, and that I don't know how to resize photos. Check out at least a dozen of the photos on this website before you pass judgement. And when you do pass judgement, only tell me about it if it's to say "OH MY GOOD YOU'RE RIGHT SO FUNNY!" Any other opinion will be disregarded, fingers-in-ears-and-humming-show-tunes style.

it's been a while, so here is a brief recap of STUFF THAT HAS HAPPENED!

Stuff #1
That's my stoop! And those are eleven people! And after this picture, I shepherded them all into my bedroom, where... we played Taboo. You may be disappointed by the end of that sentence, but don't be! Taboo is full of excitement and anticipation and movement and ... sweat... with that many people crowded on a bed, things are bound to get a bit hot.

For the rest of those photos, you will have to join facebook! Mwahahahaha!!!

Stuff 2.

Completed my duties at the L-shaped desk of the Irish Centre, since the regular dude I was filling in for is now back from Ireland and has reclaimed his captain's chair. I only mention that the desk I worked at was L-shaped because that was a "first" for me - having one wing of the desk computer-and-jar-of-pens-and-pencils related, and the other wing for all of my papers and folders and pictures of Tycho and various effects of organized chaos. There seemed something so grown up about that kind of system. The wing of the L that stuck out from the wall faced the door to the Centre, so if anyone came in, they could have a chair across for me at the desk, and I could feel all secretarial and important! Sadly, no one came in the entire month that I was there, except for my boss. But still! Secretarial and important! Such a rush!

Maybe it's because my job with the Irish Centre is now under renovations, or because I'm realizing that I've hit the theoretical halfway point in my MA degree, or just because I've always got to have something to worry and obsess over, but I've been thinking a lot lately (much more than is necessary!) about the whole WHAT TO DO LATER question. More school? "Real" (ugh, hate that term) world jobbing? Seat-of-my-pants global exploration? Once in a while I try to pick apart the knots in my stomach by actually looking into concrete possibilities, which is what lead me to find this video:

I can't decide if I really want to work at the CBC, or if I just really want to want to work at the CBC. Is it always good to stick your hands into something that you love, and that other people seem to be taking care of just fine? I spent most of Sunday on a greyhound bus (see number three) and heard Stuart McLean explaining his zigzagging path that finally lead him to the CBC, and for a while that filled me with relief. Zigzags are definitely ahead for me and if I knew I'd end up writing stories for CBC radio, I'd zig and zag until the cows come home! But I guess the point is that you don't get to know such things until after they've happened. I also have this idea to be some sort of staff member on a cruise line. I picture Breaker High, with a salary, and lots of breaks to hang out on tropical beaches. Sometimes I get so worried about all of this biz-natch about What Next that I work myself into a really ridiculous state of anxiety. I just don't like all the variables that factor in.

BUT ALL THE SAME, this summer is distracting me nicely from my neuroses most of time, which brings me to NUMBER THREE

I went to Whitby this past weekend to give my best girl (pictured, middle) a bear hug before her departure to lands unknown! Scotland, Poland, Belgium, Germany, and then the real kicker: Ghana, Africa, where she will work with Unite for Sight to bring vision to as many people as she can! It's like the Iron Chef, only... the Iron Eye Doctor. I could go on, but she will probably do a better job of reportage... and if you keep an eye on her blog, maybe you'll be treated with travel updates now and then!

OTHER NEWS

* My attempts to become a pool shark are slowly paying off. I am getting more and more consistent, and not just consistently bad either! I always felt like my university experience has been just slightly compromised by my lack of pool skills, and it's a relief to finally remedy that situation. There is something about leaning on a cue in a low-lit bar and looking sternly at the pool table that is just so cool...

* New favourite place to drink smoothies: Cafe Planete on Mont-Royal, where my dearest friend Christina is chief barrista (is that how you spell that?) and where I can tap away at my writing with scheduled breaks for gossip and gorging.

* Apparently it got up to 40 degrees today with the humidity. Luckily I was tripping along in my hot-day clothes without much worry, but it did occur to me that weather like this must be pretty awful for some people. And also for Tycho! He splays out on the cool wood floor as though it's his only hope of avoiding heat stroke. If only V wasn't allergic, and then I could take him over to her air-conditioned pad for play dates to give him some relief! For now, though, the best thing for it is to take him out on his leash, because his disgust with the heat is trumped by his love of eating grass. Buddy!

This post is dedicated to Jen, whose infinite knowledge of music/good travel deals/MCAT facts/ophthamology is unmatchable

Lesson from Tycho: if you can't get yourself to the beach, get the beach to yourself! With all the litter that he tends to scatter over the floor when he not-so-daintily digs himself some real estate in the littler box, Tycho has effectively created himself a beach scene in the bathroom, where he spends most of his time. Here he is, cooling his hide in the "swimming pool":



The growing number of bug bites on my legs are proportionally matched to the increasing amount of fun that is going down in the M-dot these days. I've spent so much time in various parks and mountain trails over the past few days... including after-dark time, like on Saturday night, when a small party of us tried to make our way down the mountain trails with the remains of a birthday BBQ strapped to our backs, and only our combined cell phones' glow as light... it was one of those excursions that can now be classified as "a fun adventure," but might just as well have turned out to be "a really terrible idea." But we made it through the dark, dark woods and back under the safety net of street lights and and road signs without incident!

I'm so excited for this summer... on Sunday night I was sitting with a small crowd in a bar on St. Laurent (which is one of those a-buzzin night life streets), with my elbow on the railing that divided our spot with the sidewalk, waving down fellow Concordians who happened to stroll past and feeling so good that if I could have channelled Tycho at that moment I would have expressed myself by dropping to the floor and wiggling around on my back. And things just keep getting better: tomorrow Derek arrives, Claudine's finished thesis is celebrated, and the weekend kicks in with jazz, picnics, and a board game party hosted by yours truly. Plus: only a week to go and I'll be done my office-desky work at the Irish Centre, which, honestly, is a fact that stirs both elation and nostalgia. Elation because it's not easy to sit in that office, plugging away at officey jobs, while the huge picture windows display the outside world in all its thirty-degree sunshiney glory... nostalgia because I am notoriously good at missing things that aren't even over yet, and I think I'll miss the daily structure and sense of gratification that having a regular job gives me. But I've been straining against every seam since school ended, and having more time to myself will only mean good things in the writing department, so rock on!

To those keeping track, my pool skills are improving! I've taken a single lesson, and already I'm a shark. On Sunday I sunk two balls in a row and they were both ones I was supposed to sink! Really, though, I'm just in it for the innate coolness of standing around, leaning on a pool cue.

On an unrelated note, I heard on the CBC today that if you put together how much each individual hair on your head grows in a single day, it would add up to thirty-five meters! Derek says if I believe that then MIT taught me nothing about the media. But it was the CBC! And it was the six o'clock news! I refuse to believe they are capable of factual error or manipulation. This report came about because of the Fifth International Congress of Hair Research happening right now. I think it's harder to believe that such a congress exists than that there is thirty-five meters of action happening on your scalp today!

The Age of Growing Older

So last time the D-man was here in Montreal, we were getting ready to go out and meet another couple for dinner at a restaurant, and D observed how "grown up" that felt... like we had graduated from the stage of sloppy, spontaneous dinners to that of carefully arranged rendez-vous' with other busy people. (Of course, all of that "grown up" feeling was a bit eroded when we got to the restaurant and saw the giant and very well-endowed mannequin sporting short shorts in its street window). Anyway, lately I've been doing things like throwing dinner parties, and going to see my acting friends perform, and working in an office, and having glasses of wine with dinner... all which seem like very grown-up things. This is good because lately I've been causing myself some anxiety (I always find a way), this time about a mystical place called the "real world" that supposedly exists after school is over and the next thing begins (which might happen as soon as a year from now!). And it has recently dawned on me: a lot of my night tremors about the "real world" come from the fear that I won't know how to make friends in it! I'm so used to rooting out friends in a university setting ... I know how it works, and I'm good at it! I mean, you start a university degree, and it's like all your friends are already there, just waiting for the magic to happen! There are invitations to parties! And gossip clusters in the TA office! Drinks after class! Air guitar every other day! Society meetings and conference planning and literary discussions! Do all of those things exist outside of university? Of course they do! But try telling that to my 3am brain that always starts missing things before they're even over! Stupid 3am brain. I guess the thing I always forget is that the friends I have now, in university, aren't going to vaporize the minute we fall exhausted onto the floor after defending our thesis(es). They will last for a long time! Especially my posse of ladies! Last weekend, said posse spent all of Saturday afternoon and evening guzzling smoothies and eating baked goods and introducing each other to great movies (as in, OH MY GOD YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THAT?! WE'RE RENTING IT RIGHT NOW!!!), and at the end of it all I came home with a belly full of love... love, and brownies...

Me after my first tentative sip of the coconutty, supersweet, deliciously cold Megan vodka special:

Ah man, enough nonsensical ranting... I really just wanted to put up this picture of Tycho hanging out in his apartment, but felt like I had to pad this post with some actual text. But anyway, here he is! Look at him! So chill and polkadotty.


This summer in Montreal is off to a great start, and it looks especially good from where I am perched right now. Thesis is garnering support from influential corners (namely, my supervisor), office job is going suspiciously well (I still feel like I'm constantly on the verge of forgetting to do something really important), I'm going to a BBQ on top of the mountain tomorrow evening and the weather is supposed to be fiiiiiine, then Sunday is more time with the ladies (see above), and, best of all, D arrives in Montreal on Thursday! I feel like it could stay Friday night forever and I would be happy, with so many things to look forward to... but I know it won't last forever... especially because the shenanigans of this week have left me so tired that I feel like my eyes are on fire. Jen, I need some help with my eyes! They burn!

Speaking of Jen, she made an incredible discovery that is seriously messing with my whole perspecitve: visit this website and experience the joy!

Oh yes, and if any of you want a copy of the chapbook, let me know! They're $12... I wish I could give them out for free... but apparently it's important to "break even." I'll sign it for you, though! :)