So far, this morning has been absolutely typical, so I thought I might write about it so you can see how my mornings tend to go of late.

I woke up around 7:15. Now, that in and of itself, is somewhat shocking, as I did not go to bed especially early, and, I have never been the sort of person who wakes up in the morning earlier than needed (unless someone drops bricks repeatedly on me, or some other sort of motivation is provided.)

But since I've been in the new apartment with the east facing windows, and the subway station across the street, for some mysterious reason, I seem to now wake up around the same time that most of Toronto does. Also, I've been finding I seem to need much less sleep than I did before I switched careers. I think this is because I'm under so much less mental stress. I kind of like it. I've been having these nice, laid back mornings with lots of toast and coffee, and you know, it's not all bad.

At any rate, I woke up in a vaguely hung over state. Not too bad, but I could tell I'd been drinking last night, at least. Marie is dangerous, we should not drink together too frequently or I'll never have any money at all. The only thing I could think to do was make some toast, and take a bath. While in the bath, I shaved my hairy legs, and discussed politics at great lengths with the cats. Then I spent a good ten minutes chipping nail polish off my toes, which kept me way more entertained than I'd like to admit.

After all of this, I plugged back in my MP3 player, which the cats had clearly knocked over last night. I'm quite certain that it was the cat's fault, and that the damage was not done by the wobbly Leah of the night before.

I then checked some stuff on the computer, and threw on a skirt, button-up shirt, some purple socks, and my black boots and wandered down the stairs. I hit the mail box, and was thrilled to find a mini letter from my old Subway co-worker Matt. We were sandwich artists back in high school together, and somehow, I've kept up with him over the years. He'd sent a mix CD as well. Oh how I love my random pen pals.

I then proceeded onwards to Tim Hortons, where I acquired coffee, then to the convenience store, where I acquired some smokes, then to the drug store. At the drug store, I cheerfully selected a bottle of aspirin, some nuts, and some cranberry juice. I then tried to stop by the Internet cafe up the street (I dumped coffee into my optical drive last week, and it is not working, but I wanted to upload some photos from a CD). Sadly, the cafe was not yet open, so I went back to my flat, where I am not having a smoke, finishing my coffee, and typing this post up. I think I may head out shortly again for round two with the Internet cafe attempt.

And there you have it, a morning of terrible excitement with Leah.

By the way, the sky is that wonderful shade of blue that you normally expect to see in an Alpen town somewhere today. I wonder what it means?

I am, quite possibly, one of a very small set of people out there who's accidentally slit their wrist. No really. It was an accident! (Great, and now I'm having Rocky flashbacks.) All these thoughts flood into my mind... People coming to find me passed out in a pool of red blood on white sheets, dressed in black, a half drunken coffee, facebook up on my computer, and the American Analog Set playing on my stereo, with a slit wrist and a broken beer goblet.

"Why! Why!" They would sob. "She had so much to live for."

They'd even be more confused when my time of death was placed around 8AM on a Wednesday. I mean, who would kill themselves on a Wednesday just after breakfast? Only Leah would do such a thing. On my desk would be a hand-written copy of my work schedule.

"Was it just one too many day shifts?", They would wonder.

When they tried to look at my computer for clues, they'd be equally stumped. In my email inbox, they would find a lot of spam, updates from facebook, and eBill notifications.

"Was the phone bill just too much?", they would muse.

My browser would show ten billion tabs containing everything from craigslist, to ebay searches, to my bank account, to an online search for a quality piano keyboard. Not seeing anything telling there, they'd move on to my chat log to find that the last thing I had typed to someone was:

(18:49:42)  heinous@gmail.com:  I just acquired beer 
(19:20:52)  heinous@gmail.com:  have you actually left?

"Did someone never arrive? Was the beer too horrible? Would Leah actually kill herself over bad beer?"

They would find the cats napping next to me, not a care in the world. They would find that I'd recently pasted photos above the mirror in my bathroom of my family at the wedding in Indiana this June. They would see that I'd recently done my dishes, and repaired my shark's jaw.

Maybe my grandparents would hire the same private eye who they hired to find my missing uncle. You know, the one who disappeared over 20 years ago, with hardly a clue of what could have happened. (The Uncle, not the private eye.)

The private eye would conclude that it was definitely the work of ninja assassins from Facebook.

When the news hit my family and friends, Ruth would show up immediately, team up with Jo, and steal my body from the morgue. They'd throw a wake, and then have me bronzed, to be eventually mounted on the wall in Jo's studio. Not, of course, before Ruth and Jo went on one last trip in the Fiat to Indiana, my bronzed body mounted on the bonnet like a grotesque hood ornament. They'd take me to Smiths, buy me a slurpee, and take me training. They would probably accidentally drop me off the railroad bridge into the creek and have to fish me out with a tow rope and a wench. They would post pictures on the Internet.

Yes, yes that's what would happen.

I'm just going to skip ahead of what all has been going on in May. May was a stupid month anyhow.

( The June Trip to Indiana, Uncut )

I am going to whine, and vent now. You have been warned.

Today I was having a pretty good day. Got up early, got lots of things done, started unpacking and setting up things, etc. I started to catch up on Livejournal stuff. I saw Jo's post from yesterday. It wasn't a horrible post or anything, but somehow it hit me like a ton of bricks. Yesterday I did a massive chunk of moving, as it was my one day off this week. I rented a mini-van from Rent a Wreck (the East Toronto one, with Dave, by the way, is awesome). But that is all background context information anyhow. The point is, that Jo wrote a post after I left with the final load of stuff that I read this morning. Granted, it was all I could do to look at Jo as I was leaving that day, he had such a look on his face.

Anyhow, reading his post this afternoon pretty well has put me in a horrible funk. I just want to crawl in a hole and cry. I had to hop into a cab to make it to work on time, as I was so distracted in my thoughts. Then I realized I'd forgotten my socks and the shorts that I normally wear under my uniform, which would make any sort of bending over entirely scandalous. I was in such a bad mood that the manager for the evening took one look at me during the pre-shift meeting and asked me what was wrong. I just said that I was having a rather bad day, and he told me I could go home if I wanted to. I hugged him and left immediately. Normally I wouldn't do that. I mean hell, I'd just spent $20 on a cab and some socks from the convenience store, and wasted an hour, just to go home with nothing in my pocket at all. However, I was so relieved to go home.

Upon arriving in my hood, I bought some sourdough from the bakery, grabbed a book at the book store, and went to Home Hardware and acquired a tea kettle and a toaster. I need to eat, don't feel much like eating, and someone once told me that the cure for most ailments was tea and toast. I'm willing to give it a shot.

I wish there was a way that I could explain how much I wish that I was not having to walk away from this marriage. Sometimes I wish that I could fix the things about me that make it so that I can't handle being in a committed relationship for the long term. Sometimes the consequences of the way I wish to live my life really catch up with me, and I feel so bad for being the way I am. The problem is, I don't really think that I want to change the things I would need to change in my life, or compromise in the sort of way that I would have to. All the things that make me happy (usually) and give me my sense of uniqueness are the things that cause these problems over time. It doesn't stop me from being horribly sad though sometimes, and feeling really bad.

I guess I should make some toast and do some cleaning. That will make it all better, right?

If you want to help me move some stuff (It's not a huge ton of stuff, but there are two sets of shelves, and a wardrobe that needs to be disassembled and moved) via minivan today. Any takers can ring me at 416-559-6511, I'm starting around lunch time. I might even throw in pizza / dinner.

This morning, so far, has gone like this:

• Wake up, notice have migrane.


• Get some water. Noticing that I failed to drain the sink last night, so my work apron is still soaking in soapy water. Hang that up in bathroom and commence water filtration.


• Munch on pita and hummis.


• Go back to sleep for an hour, this time remembering to sleep under sheets.


• Wake up again, notice migrane worse.


• Stumble around house, desperately seeking advil. Fail to find advil.


• Run bath


• Remember that I am naked. Thusly, every time I walk into my living, I am flashing half of Toronto. Fetch towel to wrap around self.


• Try to hop into bath


• Hop out howling in pain.


• Add cold water to bath.


• Try to remember why there is clown suit and food storage barrel of mayonnaise on living room floor.


• Take bath, shave legs, etc.


• Boil water.


• Open freezer, remove ice tray, deposit ice cubes in coffee pot.


• Suddenly remember that coffee goes in coffee pot.


• Replaced ice cubes into freezer, and remove coffee from freezer.


• Spoon coffee into pint glass next to coffee pot.


• Remember that coffee goes in coffee pot, not pint glass....

Well, I think you get the idea of how my morning's goiing.

I did have a fabulous evening yesterday, after a horribly stupid shift at work, so that was nice. Everyone loves a good midnight picnic in the middle of a random football field.

I think the aspirin and coffee will help w/the migrane a bit, so yay for that. It started some time yesterday. Luckily it is pretty low key for now.

Yesterday I got up around 7:00, and pretty well did taxes all day until around 17:00, when I finally wrapped up. By the end of it all, my brain was leaking out of my ears, and I was drooling. I was found by friends much later in the evening, wandering aimlessly around Bloor Street in a tutu. Fortunately, I had Indian food that I'd picked up the night before to help me through the earlier part of the day, and good friends to help talk me back to realityville later.

I am so happy to be (nearly) done worrying about accounting for the business. I had a few invoices out this year that I'll have to deal with next year, but mostly, the accounting hell is over. I will not miss it. Especially with my horribly broken accounting system.

Fortunately, the tax payments (that I nearly went in debt last year to make) covered most of what I owe, and I'm left with just under 2K to deal with now. Paying the 2K would be easy under normal circumstances, but after a month of making extremely little money, combined with the cost of moving out, I'm definitely staying in the debt zone for a few months, at least, which I hate (yay commas!). I'm not sure how many people know this, but when I was 18-19 I filed bankruptcy. Yes, really. I was horribly out of control with debt. Most of the debt was acquired as I was trying to pay living expenses while I was in a school, that I didn't even want to be at, in LA. I sat down one day in 1998 and figured out my monthly expenses, including loan payments and whatnot, and discovered I was making negative money. At the time, partially due to my horribly inflated pride, filing bankruptcy had seemed like the only sensible solution.

Needless to say, I never, ever, ever want to have to do that again. I have pretty good credit in Canada, and I'd like to keep it that way. So I get to dance the low interest balance transfer shuffle for a couple months, eat potatoes, and hope the house sells for a reasonable amount. Wish me luck, I hate worrying about finances.

I got to thinking the other day, actually, as I was thinking about all this financial stuff, that while I always say that my lifestyle has a definite cost, that it is more than just figurative.

A: I have moved around a lot. I like living in new and exciting places. 25% of those moves are distances greater than 200 miles. Of that 25%, the average cost of moving is probably somewhere around 8K, each time.

B: I get bored with my career a lot. So I switch jobs and start over in low income brackets frequently. That means that even though I have had some high salaries in my day, by the time you average it out, I could probably do just as well working in a factory my entire life.

C: I have expensive taste. The problem with that, I think, is obvious.

But, it's not obvious that I have money on the brain, is it?

I just watched Death of a President. Wow.

I have to work in the morning, but I must post this:



That is all.

I woke up this morning, after a hefty night of drinking and karaoke, and did some morning things. Things like popping a couple advil, checking my email, taking a quick shower because the house was unbearably cold, and brushing my teeth. Upon brushing my teeth, I found a popcorn hull stuck in my teeth. I thought, "Hmmm, that's strange. I don't remember having any popcorn in a while."

Eventually it occurred to me to have some tea (I'm running a bit slow this morning/afternoon) and so I wandered downstairs to do exactly that. All the while, trying to get somewhat dressed, and get out the door because I really wanted to make it to the gym in time to get back and meet this guy who I'm picking up my new 70's era stereo equipment from. I started some tea, and noticed that there was not much in terms of food in the house, and also that somehow there was an empty box which had previously contained microwave popcorn on the kitchen floor. I thought, "How annoying that no one picked that up, and I could swear that there was at least one package of popcorn left."

After having my tea, I decided that I should clean up the living room, and the kitchen at least a bit before leaving, so that the house would not be an entirely hopeless disaster when or if my stereo delivering person came by today. Plus I needed to find my deoderant, which I was pretty sure was in the living room. Upon sorting things out a bit more, the popcorn mystery was cleared up. That happened when I noticed a pile of popcorn on the couch, and all over the floor, next to an opened DVD, my skirt and my bag. I thought, "Dear god, who was wearing my skirt and carrying my stuff, came into my living room, removed my skirt, made popcorn, and then failed in an attempt to watch a DVD. And why did they make such a mess while doing it? They must have been drunk!"

Any information on the identity of the mysterious skirt wearing person who probably had too much to drink last night, but evidently crept out of the house in the wee hours of the afternoon before I woke up, would be appreciated.

At this point, it's looking like I'm not going to have time to go to the gym, so I'm going to make some bowtie pasta with garlic, extremely decadent virgin olive oil (this stuff is so good, you could eat it with a spoon), cilantro, crushed red chilis, and parmesan. Yum. Then maybe I'll try to start sorting out what media I am sure is entirely owned by me from our book/dvd/video collection or something. Or perhaps I'll do more homework for the Hard Rock Cafe training.

Oh yes, by the way, my first night of training went pretty well. I really am impressed by how well thought out processes, training procedures, and everything is at the HRC. I think it's going to be a very cool place to work, and hell, I don't have to listen to Brittany Spears on repeat every day, so that is also good news.

Last night, I made a pilot hat out a HRC bandanna. We'll see if I am ok to wear it. It does technically fit the uniform requirements of pulling my hair somewhat away from my face, and still being a HRC logo bandanna or hat. Kindof.

Speaking of uniforms this is probably the first, and the last time in my life that I'll ever fit into a dress that is labeled as a size 4. I'm not sure what wacky uniform place decided that the dress I ended up with for my uniform was a size 4, but well, I seriously have never in my life worn a dress that was less than a size 8. Dear god, is the dress short on me. Oh, the horror that is the HRC waitress dress. I'm wearing shorts under it, that's for damned sure.

Time to check on my pasta.

Well, I suppose that I could hide. In fact, that would be more to my liking. But I have been making a concerted effort in my life to not run away from my problems as much as I used to, because I have it in my head that it is good for me, or some other such ridiculous nonsense. My head is generally full of nonsense."

( Big, dramatic, rambling post about massively life-changing moments follows: )

So I would write an informative, humorous, post all about the excitement of corporate Hard Rock Cafe training, but instead, I stumbled across this tonight as I was going through a stack of long-overdue-to-be-looked-at paper work, which mainly told me that everyone wants my money, quite a lot really. You know who you are, and you know where the cheese is:



Ah, Montreal.

Am quite excited to work at Hard Rock, it actually seems like a pretty cool company. Sadly, discovered I have to wear very unflattering dress. Sometimes I hate being female.

Today was my last day over at good 'ole Dunn's Famous Deli. I nearly didn't make it to my last day, due to the insane state of irritation that my chest mysteriously reached Friday evening.

My sinuses had become distinctly worse after returning from my trip from Erie. That was not a huge surprise, but I had finally decided on Friday morning that I should get a doctors appointment and just give in to getting some antibiotics to sort myself out, not really wanting to start my new job in a state of such serious illness. Friday night, I was coughing pretty bad at work, but I made it through the night. I then went over to Kori's for a bit, but was feeling progressively crappier, and crappier, until I decided I should probably just go home. So I trouped on home, and then pretty much spent the rest of the night having horribly, nearly non-stop, coughing spasms. That kind of dry, irritated cough where you're not really coughing anything up, you're just coughing because your lungs feel so fucking irritated.

I really actually got no sleep at all. It was like some kind of bizarre torture.

So Saturday morning I went down to the emergency clinic, where I was given an UFO-shaped, purple, inhaler and some antibiotics. At first she wanted to give me amoxicillin, and I started laughing (well coughing) hysterically. She upgraded my perscription to cefixime tabs instead. Armed with my first antibiotic dose and my inhaler of doom, I tromped off to work my double shift for Saturday. I was an hour late, and had had trouble contacting people, so everyone was a bit grumpy, and understandably so.

By the evening shift Saturday, I was doing really badly. Now having uncontrollable coughing spasms while working, to the point where I couldn't talk to people, or do my job properly. I was supposed to close, but the let me go early, which I also felt really bad about, because it was a very busy day, and I caused someone else to have to stay until close who really didn't want to.

All that is to say, it was amazing that I managed to go to work this morning at all, but the antibiotic did start to help, and the inhaler, and I managed to get something that was almost like a normal night's sleep (well, I woke up a lot, but I actually got several couple hour periods of sleep in, which has been not that different from my normal sleeping pattern lately anyhow.

I was feeling reasonably better in the morning, and so went on in to work. I'd feel pretty silly calling in sick to my last day, on many levels, and besides, I had stuff at work I needed to retrieve and so on. So off I tromped.

Today was just one of those oddly chaotic days. Not entirely stressful, but just, well, chaotic. Everything seemed to not be quite right.

The streetcar was late, and then it detoured up to Queen street coming in. After arriving, I had a giant plate of fruit, and a bagel with cream cheese. I started work. The bar was quite a disastrous mess due to the fact that I hadn't help close last night and that they had stayed fairly busy all day. It was somewhat busy when I arrived too. The majority of the servers greeted my arrival to the bar with demands of lemons and limes. After the 4th person asked for some, while I was doing some of the opening things that I absolutely must do first, I snapped and said something fairly snarky. As I was getting things opened and settled, the Orange Juice Machine and I went into overtime rounds with part 3 of our conflict (we have had many struggles since we've known each other, and I hate it). It ran out, so I removed it's bag and finished the orange juice I was making. Then, I had multiple disastrous attempts to get the new one in, because the bloody tube that delivers the orange juice via gravity flow kept randomly popping off the orange juice bag, flooding the entire bar with somewhat pulpy orange juice. Do you know how annoying, and difficult that sort of thing is to clean off a back bar? Oh how I hate it.

As the day progressed, we just kept running out of everything. Glassware, silverware, napkins, sanity, you name it. One of the waitresses thought that I had the tables in front of the bar, and I noticed customers sitting there looking confused. I ended up taking two tables, even though I wasn't supposed to, but hey, I made some money on a Sunday? Amazing! One of my complaints with Dunn's is that they would never give me tables by the bar, when I'm quite sure I could handle them. The servers can occasionally wait 2 minutes for a drink while I take an order or drop a plate, I think it is possible. But I digress...

I also had some people at the bar who were pretty entertaining, and all in all, managed to not be coughing constantly, assuming I stayed far away from the dishwasher and it's chemical steam. (Easier said than done when you're service bar is right there.)

Raj was very nice to me as I left, and I think that there are not too many hard feelings, which is good. I still don't understand fully everything that led to my decision that quit (and I don't mean my reasons, but some of the events and things that were said to me that led up to it), but at least people have managed to be adults about things otherwise.

In other news, Saturday, on my break, I purchased a completely silly mattress. No, it is not one of those Swedish foam ones that tries to suck you into itself (they kind of creep me out). The one I have does kind of do some nice feeling mold-to-your-body stuff, but in a more subtle, and somewhat more like, say, a really dense feather bed, kind of way. It was the most comfortable mattress that I tried. Sadly, it has a few other features that I am rather embarrassed about.

1. It is infused with green tea. Seriously.
2. It is heavily Eco marketed, which I find annoying.

Now, it is probably made of less horrible materials than some mattresses, but I'm finding this "Eco" marketing trend seriously annoying. I think the good thing that comes of it is that people maybe are thinking a bit more about the materials they are using, but it just seriously annoys me. I think I'd have to be drunk to properly explain why. It is a Latex mattress, with a 4in thick foam core. I've never had an mattress without springs (unless you count the futon), but I found I liked the way it felt, and I think I'll be happy with it. There was one that was pure rubber all the way through, but I didn't like the way it felt as much, and, it was twice the price, which would be hard to justify. The mattress has a good return policy, free delivery, and a hell of a warranty on it, so I'm pretty ok with my decision.

Lastly, I'm feeling a lot better, but definitely not 100% after having some antibiotics, etc. Should I drink on St. Patricks day? I know drinking is not generally a good idea when I am sick, but I'd feel unholy not to. Does Beamish count? *sigh*

Last night was a good deal of fun. At least, I'm quite certain I had fun. I'm not sure how bad of an ass I made of myself all told.

It all started simply, I was going to have a quick drink or two with the coworkers, and not go to Crocodile Rock, because the place kind of annoys me. We all tried to go down to the cheap martini bar down the street, but it was too full, so we all tromped back to Dunn's and had some drinks there instead (yeah, it was kind of lame). I had a bit of Stella, and then a shot of Jameson. After the shot of Jameson, it seemed like just a fine idea to go to the Crocodile rock. I'm taking all those nice things I said about drunken me earlier. Not sure why I got that much of a buzz of some Stella and the Jameson, but maybe I hadn't eaten a lot. I have been kind of having to choke down food lately, not sure why. Just nothing tastes good to me. Anyway, things got out of hand at the Crocodile rock. Between Adam and I we went through 3 buckets of Coronas whilst alternately dancing and playing "Never Have I Ever" with Virginie, Lauren, Diago, and Emily. I ended up dancing on the speakers. Badly. Drunkenly. Oh rotten, rotten, bad, bad drunken me.

After that, I just fell over a lot, munched on pizza, and ended up passing out at Adam's place. To make it more fun, I had to work this morning. Well, I pretty much always have to work in the morning, but you know.

Last night was still fun, I hope I didn't offend anyone too badly or do anything too stupid. I like drinking, but I don't like to be that sloppy. I didn't black out or anything, but it was sloppy. Gar.

In other news, it looks like I got a job serving at the Hard Rock Cafe's seasonal location! I think this is a good thing, because everything I have heard is that they are a pretty good company to work for, and they'll have better business. I was all gloomy thinking I wasn't going to get it because I found out that Jeff had already gotten his call on Wednesday. Fortunately the gloom only lasted for about an hour, and then I got my call, so then I was really happy. I think it would have been rather upsetting to spend that much time there with the interviews and still not have gotten it.

So yeah, looks like I'm working with Jeff again. Weird. He was one of the people with me during the interviews. I had seen the ad that they were doing open interviews a while back and was interested, and then I found out he was going. I was kind of hesitant to go at that point, thinking it might be a bit too strange for various reasons, plus I didn't (at the time) have a need to get new work or compete with him for it. I had asked him what he thought, and he encouraged me to go nonetheless. I had kind of decided maybe not to go, but then he asked me on that Monday if I still was thinking about going, and I had ended up going out to the interview with him and another ex-coworker of mine. All told, I'm pretty stoked about the job and I think it was good that I went. It will be fun to work w/Jeff again too. I'm not sure I've ever left a job, and found myself working with one of my co-workers from my previous job. Now I did leave SuSE, and end up working as a liason / person dealing with SuSE at IBM, so I was still working with all the same people, but of course, mostly not in the same office. But that is about as close as I ever came that I can think of. Heh.

I'm hopeful that my serving will be up to snuff.

In other news, I finally got around to listening to the newer KMFDM album. I was disappointed overall compared to Hau Ruck, which was an amazing album (in my sometimes but not usually humble opinion). I did think the lyrics were wildly entertaining. If you've heard the album, you'll know what I mean. I've been pulling a lot of music lately, now that I have my new toy! Yay! Recommendations welcome for new fun bands (they don't have to be industrial or even electronic, I swear) welcome.

Finally, I am going to Erie to visit Ruth this weekend. Yay! Yay! Yay!

Right, I should go to Yay! bed.

For some reason, every time I sit down to make real progress on dealing with old accounting stuff from my ex-business / pay bills / organize my damned life, I end up spending lots of time accomplishing absolutely nothing useful and spend lots of time doing exactly that. I know many people have this sort of problem, but it is starting to get bad.

My insomnia is as fun as ever lately. I think it has something to do with the time of year. Fortunately, February is past. Even more thrilling, it's snowing. Again.

February 29th is the most uber evil day of all time (excepting those even rarer February 30th's are surely even more cursed. Those poor bastards in 1712.) Anyway, I suppose I should mention that this February 29th, although a seemingly easy-going day at first, ended with me quitting my job, and drinking alone in a gloomy haze. Rather, I gave two weeks notice, because I could not actually afford to flat walk out, but it would have been fun. (The walking out, not the not being able to afford anything.)

On the positive side, no one immediately close to me died.

I am getting over my cold, for the most part, and was wanting to get back to the gym, which I skipped all last week, but now I have to hunt for work, so that's sort of curbed. Oh, the joy of hunting for work during the slow season. I really wish I hadn't had to quit just then, but it was necessary.

At any rate, the pavement will be fucking jackhammered by the time I am done with it. Granted, I haven't had a great deal of time in which to break out said jackhammer, but it's a high priority. I spent most of Monday in an unbelievably long interview process over at the Hard Rock Cafe. At least 100 people, maybe more, showed up for interviews. It was insane. It was also a staged, multiple interview, process. I was really grateful that I was there with friends, or I would have probably gone mad. The good news, is by the end of it all I did make it to the third stage. The bad news is, I still don't know if I'm hired. As cliche' as it is, they have good volume, are highly touristed, and it sounds like they actually are a good company to work for, all told. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one. There is also some possibility that I might get an interview with the good folks at Circa, but I'm not holding my breath on that one as much.

After the interview and a celebratory after interview beer, I went down by Booze Emporium and danced like a drunken person, and managed to squeeze in singing Spirit of the West's "Home for a Rest". Everyone was thrilled. Canadians can't get enough of that song.

Anyhow, besides Craigslist, if any of you Torontonians are aware of places looking for a kickass bartender, do keep me in mind.

Also, there is another new addition to my life that is filling me with joy and happiness. I finally got around to buying a bleeding digital music player. I used to have something set up on my phone, but the quality was crappy and I grew weary of it. But I am now the proud owner of a Cowan D2. It is wonderful. It natively plays OGGs. It even has a built in radio. With a firmware upgrade, it's highly expandable due to it's SD slot. I am very happy about this. Now I can blast music in the middle of the night and dance in my pajamas. Jo is not very fond of my late night music listening habits, so I'd pretty much quit. It is also so much nicer to have music to listen to on the streetcar. I must say my giant headphones look rather silly underneath my newly acquired skunk hat, however. It's sort of like having a skunk mullet. The skunky new addition to my hat collection IS awesome! I'll drop a photo some time. That time is not now.

Now is the time to have a beer, smoke one of Jesus' Mexican Marlboros, and get some sleep so I can enjoy my thrilling morning of purchasing cat food and dealing with the Metropass office before work. (I ran out of my imported smokes from the US.)

There were a lot of things I needed to do at home today. Thus, I boldly did none of them. Firstly, I woke in a panic, worrying that I might have left my ID, Jesus, and various other objects at my friend Kori's house the other night. I even sent her a message regarding all of this. However, upon checking, indeed, I didn't lose anything last night, not even my money. I was so proud of not-so-sober me in that moment.

I'd had a call from work the other night regarding one of my cash-outs, so I had to go by there in the morning, on my day off, which was rather irritating, but they really wanted me to. *sigh*

Thus, I resolved to get a lot of the sort of "running-all-over-town" errands out of the way, as opposed to the sensible ones such as dealing with taxes and accounting, doing my laundry, not running all over town while sick, etc. I did get a lot of stuff done that way. After spending more time and Dunn's than I really wanted to, I went to drop off bunches of clothing that I needed mended. Then, I went to North Bound leather to return the ridiculous latex stockings that I bought on a whim for store credit. I think I can find something much more fabulous in the next year assuming I ever have extra spending money ever again. While in that area, I noticed that Yonge street smelt oddly of sesame. I'm not sure if that really means anything, but I did notice it.

Then I went over to the Bartending School of Ontario to check out their job listings to see if they had any entertaining leads on anything, as I could, well, really use more money and less drama. Well, at least I thought that was going to work, turns out I picked the day they were moving offices, and the book was already at their new location (February strikes again!). So I trucked waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out on the Danforth to their new location, and finally had moderate amounts of success with that. If that isn't exciting enough for you, wait until you hear what I did next!

Ready?

Really?

I went to the bank and got them to issue me a new debit card. The wild and crazy fun for me never ends, I know.

After all of this running about, I felt deserving of some much needed crack coffee and socializing, so I went off and killed ridiculous amounts of time at Linuxcaffe talking to people and so on. Then, to finish off the day, I retrieved my boots, which I had abandoned, and finally headed back home. Dear god, I am glad that I have a Metropass sometimes.

Oh yes, and I did also manage to drop off some resume's too today, so that was good.

Later in the evening, I went out for a bit of Karaoke, which was fun, but tricky because my throat is still all screwed up, and Jo was in a pretty bad sort of general state of well-being (you would be too if your wife beat you with frozen fish), so we left earlier than I'd wanted to. Though probably this was good for my wallet.

I did have a nice conversation with Ruth-Ruth on the phone tonight, was nice to vent to someone, and, of course, someone as awesome as Ruth just makes it even better.

Now, I'm going to have a burrito, and try to fall asleep for once. Thanks for playing.

So you know, not only does February generally suck, but this February even has extra days of suckage, just to make things worse! I went to smallish party last night, enjoyed myself a bit too much ("Oh, there's a surprise", you say), and even though that should be ok as today is my day off, I still have to go to work because now there is a dispute regarding how much money was in one of my deposits. Grrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaat.

Oh, and yesterday I also managed to flood our house and break a wine glass.

Understand, I have always believed that Februaries were bad bad juju, and more likely than not, out to get me in specific. This ones seems to be no different from past ones, that's for sure.

I've been sick for about a week now. Also, I have screwed up my Metropass subscription. My wife left me, and my dog died.

But wait, that's really pretty normal stupid life stuff. Friday things got significantly worse, in that sort of shit-storm-of-epic-proportions kind of way. Things went really bad at my place of employment Friday, midway through my work shift. Let it suffice to say that I've never quite seen such posturing and melodrama, even in this industry, before. (If you know the restaurant industry at all, you know that is an exceedingly bold statement.) It was really bad. Really, really bad. Oooh, intrigued, are you not? Well, don't be, I think on this one you really just don't want to know. I am not personally hugely effected by the entire thing, but I was unwillingly involved in the entire drama-scene one way or another, which has me rather upset. Needless to say, people have been hurt pretty badly, and things probably won't ever really be the same at work for a long time. I'm hoping maybe I can find another place to work soon, right now (even aside from being sick) it is rather hard to be there, anyway.

Of course, Friday night drama aside, I was also sitting calmly in a restaurant later, when something wacky caused the police to barricade off chunks of Bloor street, and evacuate several buildings. I'm still not exactly sure what, but hey, in February, does it even matter?

All of this being said, I feel pretty drained, I was coughing really badly at work today, so I ended up taking off tonight after another meeting at work. I've been sleeping most the afternoon, and think that I'm going to get back to that really soon now. Wish me luck for the rest of the month, this one's turning out to be quite insane.

Speaking of insane, did I mention that during one of my insomniac episodes last week that I made a Facebook profiles for my cats? Kill. Me.

Hello out there, from insomniac Leah in codine-land. This is a test, but that won't stop me from writing some things. Let's see.

Today was a pretty good day, enjoyed my work break, on which I didn't get anything useful done. But, often, not doing any of the things you need to do is way more fun than doing them anyhow. I'm still feeling like crap, but work is still slow, so it hasn't really been an issue.

I also enjoyed watching the moon disappear today. I took 60mg of codine with hopes that I could sleep the night through without coughing all night as I am now in that final phase of recovery. You can see how well that is working, as evidenced by this 4:00AM post.

UPDATE

Is now 5:45 in the morning, and still not sleeping. Have added another 30mg of Codine in helps to get back to non-irritated throat sleep state.

And Jo is practicing the violin with a newfound enthusiasm that leaves me wanting to stab myself in the eye repeatedly with, well, any convenient object would do. Sorry Jo, I like you getting to learn the violin better, but there is something subtly irritating about violin practice. Perhaps it's because I went through it with my sister already, and only recently, and with therapy (yeah right, like I'd go to therapy) have I gotten past it. And it's not like I play a less annoying instrument either...

Er, where was I?

Oh yes, so I have acquired one very enthusiastic virus lately. Honestly, I'm quite impressed with it, it is a feisty little fucker. I can tell it's a virus, and not something else, because, for various reasons that I don't care to explain in great depth, I can tell quite accurately the difference. Also, the fact that I've been ravenous night and day is a good clue. It started by being a vague feeling of doom in the back of my throat, and by some throat swelling / sore throat sort of feelings. The next day, it felt a bit more like a beetle had crawled up into the part of the roof of my mouth where my sinuses connect in, and then had died there. Knowing it was headed for my sinuses, I started snorting salt water with reckless abandon, and swallowing drops of oregano oil. Yesterday, it had well and settled into my sinuses, and I was felling generally like killing myself. I continued to snort salt water, eat ravenously, and watch Western movies. (No really, Western movies are one of those strange, torturous, home remedies for sinus problems that really work, I swear.) Luckily it was my day off work, so I was able to attempt to get some sleep, despite a serious zombie-like insomnia that had descended upon me. Today the sinus problems seem to be somewhat in remission, but my nose is still running quite a bit, I'm sneezing, and coughing, and while I felt great earlier in the day, by the end of the day I felt as though every part of my entire head was inflamed. Even the bones. Fortunately, work has been slow enough that my work performance hasn't been effected in the least. I spent a good hour today playing with flowers, and then I counted how many tiles were in the bar area, and I boldly went for a cigarette break at 7, which is normally a bad time for that sort of thing.

Did I mention that the virus seems to lead to rambling as well?

Other than the virus, it has been a strange couple of days, and a good deal of things have been on my mind. The little gears are turning, but I haven't quite made any decisions, so there really isn't anything mind-blowing to write about here as a result of all of that. Just let it be known, "Lefou, I'm afraid I've been thinking."

"A dangerous pastime!"

"I know."

I hope this virus goes away soon, I keep wanting a beer, but I know I shouldn't have one. Virus' love beer. Looooooooove.

I think I managed to fight off whatever I was coming down with just long enough to see my dear friends off today. My apologies in advance, however, should this post turn out to be even more loopy than usual. Whhhheeeeeeeeeeee!

Yesterday. Was. The perfect. Day.

My friends Matt, Micaela, and Ruth and I all rolled out of bed, and got started with coffee, euchre, etc. At some point, I was presented with My Own Personal Jesus, (Thanks to Micaela), as well as a handy pen necklace. I must admit, the pen necklace is more practical, but you just have to love friends who understand that you need a portable Jesus in your life. We soon wandered off for breakfast and met up with Keri at a restaurant for food, where Keri presented me with a carved, wooden, penis-shaped, bottle opener. I was beginning to really wonder what I had done to deserve such wonderful gifts, and if my day could possibly get any better. Breakfast was delightful, I think we impressed the entire restaurant staff with the wooden pecker. After Matt and I soundly beat everyone in a a rousing game of Euchre, we all went to hang out at Payless Shoes, which was less that thrilling, but Micaela needed something cheap and less leaky than her current shoes.

Then we went to North Bound Leather where I could not resist the urge to try on a latex catsuit. I've always wondered what I'd look like in one. Now I know. Really really kickass. I'm not sure what Jesus thought. (At this point, I'd managed to rig up Jesus so that he was hanging around my neck along with my cigarettes, and the wooden, penis-shaped beer opener. If you're going to have bling, well, you might as well have BLING. On the way to North Bound, in fact, I was interviewed by someone for a school project. Oh dear.)

And getting into it was wildly amusing. Between Ruth and Matthew (who works there) we managed to get me greased up and into the thing, but not without amusing the entire store with wild yelps of "Stop grabbing my boob!", "Pull Harder *giggle*!", and so on. Wow, what an impractical item of clothing. Then, we managed to secretly purchase something Ruth had tried on for her Birthday, while she was completely oblivious to the whole thing. She was the only one who didn't notice, in fact. It was quite amusing.

After this, we all went and hung out at a tattoo parlor so that Jo could change out his earrings, where I started to feel really, really strange. Kind of, panic attack, throat closing, strange. We went home not too much longer after that, the girls all going to the house, while Jo and Matt went to the market.

You have to appreciate that.

Ruth and I sat around horrifying Micaela and Keri for hours with our stories and songs from growing up as part of the Charasmatic movement in small town America. Wow, I forget sometimes how much I miss having a friend around who actually intimately understands the horrors of my childhood in a complete, and perfect way.

I miss that. Then we all tried to watch phony sex ed videos, and took a group nap. Eventually the men arrived home, and cooked us dinner. We then proceeded to invent a drinking game called, "Comrades drink with me if you've" which was essentially a boasting game about past exploits, and and excuse to drink. Oy, I wasn't even planning to drink, but it was lots of fun. I think it has been a long time since I've laughed so hard.

Eventually we all passed out. I ended sleeping downstairs because Jo's snoring had reached some impressive levels of volume, and Ruth was taking up too much space on the damned bed anyhow. *sigh*

But really, what a perfect day. Too bad about the clusterfuck of coordination from the other night that I don't even want to get into, but I really needed to see my friends. I didn't realize how much.

Now I am going to go snort some salt water and try to sleep.