Boo!

Scary thing I've learned this week.....life is a lot better when you're dealing with it on painkillers. I've been steadily drugged since the removal of my wisdom teeth last week and things that would have sent me into a rage or down a dark spiral of stress are being laughed off.

Perhaps it's not just the painkillers that are doing it for me, but a change in attitude about life after that bad news on Sunday. Once again I readjusted the ol' priorities and things are coming up rosy.

The best part of the week is watching people deal with the pretty bruise on my cheek and that look of concern and the dilemma of whether they should ask or not. The Co-worker felt sorry for me on the weekend (when the bruise was darker and I was still chipmunk-esque) and was going out of his way to be extra nice to me (which I appreciated) and rewarded him by telling random people -- like the football team -- that the bruise on my cheek was from him! (Yes, I am an asshole!) I thought this was hilarious, he didn't think it was quite as funny as I did.

So this morning I opted to try my day without painkillers. I lasted an hour after getting to work. Don't worry, I'm not getting addicted this is my last day to take them anyways -- I decided that I might as well enjoy the happy, stress-free feeling while it lasts!

oh yeah Happy Halloween!

Another day...

Despite everything it turned into a good day.

I wanted to make a quick road trip to the Paris of the Prairies last night after work but hindsight is proving that I made the correct choice.

I was a little choked that I didn't get to play basketball today because of a fuck up double booking the gym (I really felt the need to take some aggro out on the court -- oh well c'est la vie). Instead I spent the afternoon with the football team and realized that when I quit this job, I'm going to miss those guys. They're way too much fun!

I have a lot of thoughts swimming right now and I know I'm not going to sleep (that Starbucks latte at 9 probably didn't help things!) but there's a ton of shit to do before tomorrow morning and sitting in front of the computer typing isn't allowing me to get any of it done!

Yiikes.

Can't wait 'til all this shit slows down and I can seriously think about my three month plan!

Breakdown Day # 1369 (or something like that)

After yet another day of completely breaking down, curling into a ball and bawling my eyes out, I'm feeling oddly refreshed.

It's like I got it out of my system and the drugs are kicking back in, the swelling in my face has gone down and everything is ok.

I still want to beat that little kid that was in the car next to me last night who was laughing at my puffy chipmunk face, but I digress.

The kid was laughing at me as I was driving to the leisure centre for my first basketball practice and subsequently the first meeting with my new team. While they seem like a lovely bunch of women, with whom I'll probably have a lot in common with it was strange to be in that situation. I miss my old team. I played with most of those girls through high school and in the women's league in the years afterwards until I moved to the QC -- I even kept playing with them for the first year that I lived here!

Needless to say I miss them. I'm going to miss the ability to know where everyone is going to go on the floor and being able to read them. Oh well I'm just happy to be playing again.

But I think you're right....I think it's time to move. Now I just need to figure out how to accomplish that. I'm not one to do things impulsively when it comes to jobs and money, I need to have a plan. I'm giving myself three months to figure something out, that gives me just into the new year. I hope I can figure it out!

And in the mean time I'm sure I'll have a few more breakdown days along the way. Maybe my Mum is right and I do need to be medicated, but I just don't think I'd be as much fun!

The good, the bad and the bruised.

The good thing is I will never have to have another wisdom tooth extracted EVER again. Yay!

The other good is those drugs he gave me were fabulous, to the point where I don't remember much, except for the ceiling melting.

The bad is that I am so damn hungry and can't open my mouth far enough to chew anything -- the downside of having the final two teeth pulled on opposite sides and one top and one bottom!

The bruised is my chipmunk like face. But only one side of my face makes me look like a chipmunk. On the bright side my mother found my appearance extremely amusing the last few days. All I have to say is that it hurts to laugh.

Shout Outs

To the people who've pissed me off or been kind to me:

-To the woman that had sent me an email saying that, "yes I could rent her condo" in Hawaii for ten nights, as long as I responded to her within 48 hours. Less than 24 hours after receiving the email, she told me she had already rented it to someone else. Thanks for that!

-To my landlord who still hasn't gotten the heat turned on in this building, I love living in an igloo. Maybe I should just move further north and save myself the hassle? Wait, why bother I'll just live in the Shoebox and live without heat!

-To the prick that works at the radio station. Where do you get off asking me yesterday in the locker room if "I'm enjoying the view". At least I had a purpose for being in there shooting post-game. You didn't even have a mic, what was your excuse? Oh you just like looking at naked men, good for you!

-To the kind gentleman who's going to tear out my remaining wisdom teeth on Wednesday, please be kind!

-To the lovely woman at Starbucks on Saturday morning, thanks for taking that extra special effort with my cinnamon dolce latte. Totally made my 14 hour day better!

Name that smell

I know I need to move when I can literally make a game out of naming the different smells that emanate from this damn building.

Tonight as I walked in from work and a nice relaxing massage the smell once again assaulted my nostrils. The smell: dirty, wet gym socks.

Other times it has smelled like a dead, rotting body; bad curry; open sewage; and many other random yet horrific scents.

Definitely time to move. Although I wonder what tomorrow's smell will be!

I'm pretty when you're drunk.

I just finished reading an autobiography called Smashed. The story of a young woman's life of drinking from her first drinks at fifteen through the binge drinking of her college years.

I found it terribly intriguing because in some of her stories I saw myself. Drunken, unforgiving, and dangerously close to tipping over that edge. I realize now how truly lucky I am that nothing really bad ever happened to me and I put myself in a lot of compromising positions.

My early 20s were spent seeing how plastered I could get on any given day of the week. It didn't help that one of my girlfriends worked at what would become my favorite drinking establishment, if for no other reason than the staff knew me and my drink would be ready moments after walking in the door. There were a few scary nights and a lot of bad decisions were made because of that bar.

You realize your binge drinking is a problem when staying sober for 28 consecutive days seems like some sort of cruel and unusual torture. At 22 I did a self-imposed dry- out and somehow I survived it but it did nothing to curb the enthusiasm I poured into getting trashed after it was over.

The sad thing I realized while reading the book is now passing through my mid-20s, I'm still a binge drinker (my last two weekends in the Bridge City showed me that much!) The crazy thing is I know that I don't need to drink to have a good time but it sure does make that good time better, although sometimes it makes it a whole lot worse. At least I've gotten better about not getting myself into those compromising and dangerous positions.

The scariest day for me was the Blackout. I had gone to The Carpenter's to play in a slo-pitch tournament. The weather was miserable and we were the only team that paid the full fee so we drank the returned money in dollar beer. The last thing I remember is a tower of empty beer cans in front of me sitting in the beer tent. Then I'm waking up in someone's bed. After a few moments of deciphering the obnoxiously loud sound of Guns 'n Roses coming through the closed door and the faint light streaming through the window, I came to the conclusion I was in a basement, more specifically I was in The Carpenter's bedroom. Thankfully, I was by myself and my clothes were intact. The bucket next to my head indicated that the sour taste in my mouth and the soreness of my throat were most likely self-induced.

After glancing at the clock and seeing it was nearing 7:00, I began to panic. I called out for The Carpenter. When he stumbled into the room, asking me if I was ok, I asked if he could call my work for me and tell them I would be late for my shift that started at 8:30. He gets on the phone and calls my work, asking for Stan. Stan's not at work. I'm angry, confused and battling the worst hangover known to man. Stand has to be there he started at 6AM!! At this point The Carpenter started to laughing, "it's evening, it's nearly 7 PM". While I had assumed that I slept off my massive binge overnight it turns out I really just blacked out and literally lost 6 hours of my day.

I was still drunk into the late evening and had to wait to sober myself up to drive home. At least I made it to work on time the next day. I never could look The Carpenter's mum in the eye after she thought my vomitting sounded like I was dying. I used to laugh when I told this story and now I just think it is sad.

Drinking sure does make me a classy gal.

Looking for a place to go

My brain totally feels like it's in a holding pattern (perhaps it's frozen....yes that's right my Shoebox still doesn't have heat! Can you say slum landlord?)

Although I'm sure by now my body has adjusted to the lack of heat because last night when I got home from work I didn't even notice.

Everything just feels very blah and level at the moment. Just to spice things up I contemplated stepping out in front of that UPS guy as I walked to work Tuesday morning, knowing full well he didn't see me. But decided against it because it wasn't fair to ruin his day! (No don't worry I'm not suicidal - I'd call it boredom.)

In the mean time I guess I have a holiday to plan so perhaps that will distract me from my boredom for 20 minutes.

As a side note: I sure did look cute on the noon news today with my cream coloured toque! Gotta love stepping into the competitions' shot!

Aloha

Not sure how this happened but I just booked three flights to Hawaii for December.

That's ridiculous!

But I can hardly wait to go lay on a beach and soak up plenty of sun!!

Time for a change of scenery

I don't think I can live in The Shoebox much longer without causing myself some irreparable harm, be it physically, mentally and emotionally.

The Shoebox hasn't been bad. It has served the purpose for nearly three years; a roof over my head, a place to store my shit and a decent shower. There have been times where it's been a little dodgy. Like that summer that I had zero water pressure because the entire building was being serviced from a fire hydrant. Then there was the obnoxious neighbours that would ring my buzzer at three in the morning to have me let them in (they gave up when I stopped letting them in -- too bad it took me a few tries to figure that one out). Then of course there is the lack of heat I'm currently experiencing, then there was the non-working fridge when I got home from New York and had to replenish ALL of my food, days here and there without electricty, a crappy parking lot.....I could probably go on.

Looking at the list I'm realizing that maybe this place hasn't been as good (or even decent as I thought). In fact it's like I'm in an abusive relationship with my apartment. It takes advantage of me and I put up with it because it's what I know. It's within walking distance of work and is convenient to downtown. And it's not that BAD. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

I think it's the combination of The Shoebox being a shithole and my current lack of lust for the QC that has me contemplating this change of scenery. I need to move apartments so why not move cities while I'm at it?!

The only thing I'm worried about is my unhappiness is going to follow me wherever I move and I don't want to taint another city with the gloom I pack from here.

Everything has gone pear-shaped

Amazing how in less than a week life has taken on this Bizarro World quality that I hadn't envisioned.

Dealing with a relatives' crumbling marriage, drinking problems, living without heat, the start of an election and a bunch of other stuff that I can't even start to get into just makes me wonder if there is something out there that refuses to let me just be happy.

I still have to remind myself that there was some definite good this week, in Peaches leg movement. That takes me to a good place and puts things back in perspective.

Heading back to the QC tomorrow after my brief (two day) sojourn in the Bridge City. I know that I'm getting to that unhappy place again because of the amount of time I'm spending on the highway going back and forth. Perhaps it's time to get serious about looking for a job up in the City of Bridges and cut my losses down south.....I just don't know that moving back will make me happier.

YAY, Peaches!

I stopped in to visit Peaches tonight.

YAY! He's got some movement in his right leg. This was a truly amazing sight as it has reached 80 days since the accident. It's also nice to see such a big change after I've stayed away for just over two weeks.

I realized that I only went to visit him once in September and I think that was a good thing for me to do for me. He seemed a little disappointed in me that I haven't been up in awhile and almost seemed a little aloof with me. C'est la vie. I've been sick and busy with my own life.

We went downstairs to the gym and watched them practice wheelchair rugby. That looks downright violent. I also don't understand the rationale in a bunch of people with neck injuries ramming chairs at top speed and potentially jarring their necks. But it did look like a lot of fun!

Being there also made me realize how stupid some things in my life have become. There are so many other things that are important or that would be worth my time than the things I've been stressing on lately.

So I'm just letting it all go. Life is too short and far too fragile. Thanks for reminding me of that Peaches!

Shouldn't be like this....

It shouldn't be this hard, should it?
How is it that it still feels like I'm headed in the wrong direction but who's to know for sure when I don't know if I've ever been going in the right direction. One little falter in my step and all is thrown into doubt.

It feels like I'm spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere. Struggling to read the map for the right directions when I realize that all along it's not the map's fault that I don't know where I'm going but my shoes. Stupid shoes.

That's when I realize the fork in the road, isn't just a fork but a tree with way too many branches. And who's to know if you're going to travel down the right one or if you're going to stumble upon a giant knot.....

Once I stop spinning into the chaos and when I finally start spinning in the right direction, I think I will know. I think it will just feel right. My feet will know where to go, I'll just have to get rid of my shoes. Stupid shoes. After all it isn't meant to be this hard, is it?

All that's missing is the snow!

Just a few more degrees and I would be able to see my breath. Damn it's cold, I think I'm going to get frostbite. Have I mentioned that this is in my apartment?

Apparently my landlord thinks heat is over-rated and basically told me to suck it up and just run my oven as a source of heat. Wow. Oh and no water as of tomorrow morning, ending when.....not too sure. Makes me wonder why I pay rent?!

Maybe I'll just sleep at work tonight.

Work is less than fun lately.

The Inappropriate Boss strikes again.

I know that I'm old enough that I should speak up, especially considering that this has been going on for the past few months and it's bad enough that I feel uncomfortable at work. Unfortunately because of my lack of permanent status I am less than excited about speaking up. It's as simple as all that has to happen is for me to get scheduled less, if that happens, I'm fucked -- as working at the other place will hardly cover rent on The Shoebox.

So because I cannot speak up to my superiors yet, I've decided that if he can say inappropriate things to me in front of other co-workers then perhaps I can shame him into stopping -- the other good thing is I know I have at least two solid witnesses on my side for the one before the long weekend.

Here's hoping that the man has some sense of decency. I suppose if the public shaming doesn't work that is when I will have to take the next step and say something to management, and then probably start looking for a new job.

How does this shit still happen?

Bush league

To the guy who proposed to his girlfriend at the acoustic concert I was at on Thursday night, just a word of advice.....

When you go to the trouble of contacting the musician, getting him to agree to letting you get up on his stage and propose to your girlfriend, you also went to the trouble of writing out your proposal and clearly memorizing it -- BUY A RING!!!

Don't propose to a girl on stage in front of a crowd empty handed. That's just bush league. You've prepared for everything else why wouldn't you go that last step?!

If the girl was smart she would have told you no, on principle.