Friday, February 25, 2005
A much-needed update
Alright. I’ve been remiss, again. This week has been busy, but I have at least TWO exciting things to tell you about.
The first is that I went camping last weekend – the long weekend here in Alberta, because we get “Family Day” which we’re supposed to spend with our families, reflecting on what a nice thing it is that our Premier gave us this day to hang out with our loved ones. They don’t tell you, of course, that you’ll have to pay it back by missing a long weekend somewhere else down the line, but whatever. February sucks enough that people are willing to take whatever they can get.
This February hasn’t sucked all that much, really. I mean, yeah, we had a few pretty cold days, but we had a lot of much nicer days where it was above freezing, so we really can’t complain about February. January? Sure – January was crappy. But February has been pretty decent.
That being said, I thought it would be a good idea to go camping with Rob on the long weekend. He already had it all planned, of course, and I’m not really consulted about these sorts of things, so I kind of threw my lot in with him and went cheerfully. I think it was the optimism that jinxed the deal, because if I go expecting the worst, I’m usually pleasantly surprised. If I go, however, expecting to have a great time, I will probably be disappointed somehow, or my expectations are set too high. It will probably take some time figuring this balancing thing out, since I’m either aggravated about things on the way out just because I’m going, or I’m annoyed about things because I’m disappointed with something that happens when I’m out there.
However, I will say this about the camping: The skiing was fun. I took my cross-country skis and went skiing with the dogs. There were extra dogs there (Rob’s friends have dogs), so when I went skiing with our dogs (the NoodleDog didn’t have a choice – he was hooked up to a harness so I could get him to tow me around), the other dogs came along. Barking. All the way. At me. All the time. The first day I went out (on Saturday), the NoodleDog didn’t like the idea at all. He barked at my skis. He barked at me. He refused to run in front of me like a well-trained sled dog. He ran across my skis several times, and around my back a couple of times, so I had to try not to get tangled up in his lead by whipping it around my head whenever he did that. It was a difficult time, and I was probably more exhausted at the end of it than if I had just gone skiing without the idea of dog power.
I did not learn that lesson at all. The second day, I hooked the NoodleDog back up to the lead and away we went. I skied over to the little hill that went down to the river (which I had fallen down the day before, of course), and started my way down. The dogs barked. And barked. And barked. And barked. And continued barking as I yelled at them “I’m not freakin’ Yukon Cornelius, here! Mooooove!!” and then fell down the hill again. I extricated myself from the tangle of skis and leash and dogs, and away we went! It was great. There were tracks from where I had skied the day before, which made it easier to ski along. The NoodleDog was cooperating, and ran out to the end of his lead and kind of helped me along. So rather than dog-powered skiing, it was more like dog-assisted skiing - I still had to do a bunch of the work, but he was there to give me an extra boost of speed and power. Like a turbocharger. Heh.
We skied along, quite a ways up the river, and it was good fun. However, when we turned around, Baloo (a Burnese Mountain Dog belonging to Rob’s friends) noticed I was going far too quickly for a normal human, and that I was probably having some fun, and that absolutely had to stop, in his opinion. So he cut me off and barked at me, inciting the other dogs to bark at me. It was alright when they all got distracted again and we were able to ski back to the campsite, but Baloo definitely earns his title of “Fun Police” – he doesn’t like it when the other dogs play, either.
So that was the highlight of camping. We stayed up late at the fire on Saturday night, which was alright. I had a good time until bedtime, anyway. Friday night, I was too tired to really do much (I had overdone it Thursday evening, of course, because that was Rob’s birthday and we had people over until late), and Sunday I was too tired and aggravated (by a certain SOMEone’s incessant drunken snoring the night before as well as a certain heated conversation about how much fun camping can be by yourself when he got in) to really enjoy the evening at the campfire, so I just went to bed after dinner.
I was not at all cold throughout the weekend, as you’d think I would have been. I’m prone to being cold, but Rob had the camper pretty much figured out. We had an electric blanket and an extra heater in the camper, so really, at nighttime, it was almost too warm. Plus, the NoodleDog was being a huge suck, and wanted to sleep up on the bunk with us the entire time. So add two people into a little space like that, a furnace and an extra heater, a feather mattress and a feather duvet, and throw a dog on top of ‘em, and it’s gonna be a little warmer than average.
The next exciting thing to tell you about is that I’ve joined a gym. Yeah, yeah. A gym. One of THOSE gyms, with memberships and the whole sales-pitch and everything. I joined the gym because my friend T and I are working out. Really! I know. I never do ANYthing like that. But this is fun, and she did a Fitness For Life program thingy last year and is in phenomenal shape. She’s shepherding me through the weight program and we’re going to be workout buddies – we’re going every day! The first day we went was Tuesday, and we worked part of our arms and shoulders, and did some cardio on the elliptical trainers. Have any of you used an elliptical trainer before? Well, they’re great. I had never been on one in my life, and she just turned the machine on, and basically, you sort of walk with these little poles moving at your side – it’s really kind of like cross-country skiing. And the machine is flexible enough that it allowed me to proceed at my own pace, so I didn’t totally die!
T has a whole program set up so we can work our whole selves out. It’s very nice, actually, and I think maybe I even already have a little more energy than usual. Of course, I could be feeling so energized because Rob is sick and we haven’t been doing anything in the evenings, so I can watch most of my TV shows again this week, which has been nice. Poor Rob, sure, but it’s nice to see the shows! Even stupid Lost, which sucked this week, because no one got eaten by the fucking polar bear, although a raft did get burned. Yay!
Anyway, all, Rob is on the mend, and I feel good about the whole exercise thing. Rob’s roommate is supposed to move out this weekend (cross your fingers) and I can FINALLY unpack. I get my cats back this weekend, too! All’s well with the world.
The first is that I went camping last weekend – the long weekend here in Alberta, because we get “Family Day” which we’re supposed to spend with our families, reflecting on what a nice thing it is that our Premier gave us this day to hang out with our loved ones. They don’t tell you, of course, that you’ll have to pay it back by missing a long weekend somewhere else down the line, but whatever. February sucks enough that people are willing to take whatever they can get.
This February hasn’t sucked all that much, really. I mean, yeah, we had a few pretty cold days, but we had a lot of much nicer days where it was above freezing, so we really can’t complain about February. January? Sure – January was crappy. But February has been pretty decent.
That being said, I thought it would be a good idea to go camping with Rob on the long weekend. He already had it all planned, of course, and I’m not really consulted about these sorts of things, so I kind of threw my lot in with him and went cheerfully. I think it was the optimism that jinxed the deal, because if I go expecting the worst, I’m usually pleasantly surprised. If I go, however, expecting to have a great time, I will probably be disappointed somehow, or my expectations are set too high. It will probably take some time figuring this balancing thing out, since I’m either aggravated about things on the way out just because I’m going, or I’m annoyed about things because I’m disappointed with something that happens when I’m out there.
However, I will say this about the camping: The skiing was fun. I took my cross-country skis and went skiing with the dogs. There were extra dogs there (Rob’s friends have dogs), so when I went skiing with our dogs (the NoodleDog didn’t have a choice – he was hooked up to a harness so I could get him to tow me around), the other dogs came along. Barking. All the way. At me. All the time. The first day I went out (on Saturday), the NoodleDog didn’t like the idea at all. He barked at my skis. He barked at me. He refused to run in front of me like a well-trained sled dog. He ran across my skis several times, and around my back a couple of times, so I had to try not to get tangled up in his lead by whipping it around my head whenever he did that. It was a difficult time, and I was probably more exhausted at the end of it than if I had just gone skiing without the idea of dog power.
I did not learn that lesson at all. The second day, I hooked the NoodleDog back up to the lead and away we went. I skied over to the little hill that went down to the river (which I had fallen down the day before, of course), and started my way down. The dogs barked. And barked. And barked. And barked. And continued barking as I yelled at them “I’m not freakin’ Yukon Cornelius, here! Mooooove!!” and then fell down the hill again. I extricated myself from the tangle of skis and leash and dogs, and away we went! It was great. There were tracks from where I had skied the day before, which made it easier to ski along. The NoodleDog was cooperating, and ran out to the end of his lead and kind of helped me along. So rather than dog-powered skiing, it was more like dog-assisted skiing - I still had to do a bunch of the work, but he was there to give me an extra boost of speed and power. Like a turbocharger. Heh.
We skied along, quite a ways up the river, and it was good fun. However, when we turned around, Baloo (a Burnese Mountain Dog belonging to Rob’s friends) noticed I was going far too quickly for a normal human, and that I was probably having some fun, and that absolutely had to stop, in his opinion. So he cut me off and barked at me, inciting the other dogs to bark at me. It was alright when they all got distracted again and we were able to ski back to the campsite, but Baloo definitely earns his title of “Fun Police” – he doesn’t like it when the other dogs play, either.
So that was the highlight of camping. We stayed up late at the fire on Saturday night, which was alright. I had a good time until bedtime, anyway. Friday night, I was too tired to really do much (I had overdone it Thursday evening, of course, because that was Rob’s birthday and we had people over until late), and Sunday I was too tired and aggravated (by a certain SOMEone’s incessant drunken snoring the night before as well as a certain heated conversation about how much fun camping can be by yourself when he got in) to really enjoy the evening at the campfire, so I just went to bed after dinner.
I was not at all cold throughout the weekend, as you’d think I would have been. I’m prone to being cold, but Rob had the camper pretty much figured out. We had an electric blanket and an extra heater in the camper, so really, at nighttime, it was almost too warm. Plus, the NoodleDog was being a huge suck, and wanted to sleep up on the bunk with us the entire time. So add two people into a little space like that, a furnace and an extra heater, a feather mattress and a feather duvet, and throw a dog on top of ‘em, and it’s gonna be a little warmer than average.
The next exciting thing to tell you about is that I’ve joined a gym. Yeah, yeah. A gym. One of THOSE gyms, with memberships and the whole sales-pitch and everything. I joined the gym because my friend T and I are working out. Really! I know. I never do ANYthing like that. But this is fun, and she did a Fitness For Life program thingy last year and is in phenomenal shape. She’s shepherding me through the weight program and we’re going to be workout buddies – we’re going every day! The first day we went was Tuesday, and we worked part of our arms and shoulders, and did some cardio on the elliptical trainers. Have any of you used an elliptical trainer before? Well, they’re great. I had never been on one in my life, and she just turned the machine on, and basically, you sort of walk with these little poles moving at your side – it’s really kind of like cross-country skiing. And the machine is flexible enough that it allowed me to proceed at my own pace, so I didn’t totally die!
T has a whole program set up so we can work our whole selves out. It’s very nice, actually, and I think maybe I even already have a little more energy than usual. Of course, I could be feeling so energized because Rob is sick and we haven’t been doing anything in the evenings, so I can watch most of my TV shows again this week, which has been nice. Poor Rob, sure, but it’s nice to see the shows! Even stupid Lost, which sucked this week, because no one got eaten by the fucking polar bear, although a raft did get burned. Yay!
Anyway, all, Rob is on the mend, and I feel good about the whole exercise thing. Rob’s roommate is supposed to move out this weekend (cross your fingers) and I can FINALLY unpack. I get my cats back this weekend, too! All’s well with the world.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
There’s always a reason – I just happen to have nine.
Well, it’s February 15th. It’s halfway through February. Even a bit more than halfway, because there aren’t 30 days in this shortened month, for which I am very, very thankful.
Why am I so thankful, you ask? Because this heralds the last few days of living with a roommate. Rob had a roommate before I moved in, and now that I’m moved in, the roommate has got to go. We had thought way back in January that he might be gone by now, but we were sadly mistaken. He will still be living in the house until the end of February.
I know I complained bitterly about this whole situation a couple of weeks ago, and it probably made me sound all cold-hearted and whatnot. It’s truly not fun to live with a roommate. I don’t know how any of you people do it, under any circumstances, ever. It’s a horrible idea. If you can’t afford the place you’re in, don’t live there. Find a nice, private cardboard box somewhere and live there instead. Maybe I’m so jaded because I’ve had some bad roommate experiences:
Roomate Experience #1 – The Make-Out Chicks
When I moved away to go to University, I went to Ottawa to live with my cousin and his wife in their nice townhouse near the university. I was 17. Young and foolish? Perhaps. However, the living arrangements changed after a year and I moved into a different townhouse with three girls. It all seemed innocent enough when we first made the arrangements, but the situation deteriorated rather rapidly. I lived there from September until November, it was that bad. September was alright, although usually all the dishes were dirty (come on, people, how many pots do you need to make KRAFT DINNER?!!) and the other girls would never run the dishwasher. Instead, when they needed a plate, they’d take out a dirty one, wash it in the sink, re-use it and then re-insert it back into the dishwasher. Additionally, a strange development occurred. One evening, when I came home from a late class, I went upstairs to the living area and sure enough, no lights were on. However, someone was sleeping on the sofa, so I figured I’d just get a glass of water (if I was lucky enough to find an unsullied glass), and by the time I had gotten the glass of water, I could hear giggling from the living room, and sure enough, two of the chicks were making out. It got worse from there – they were always in the living room, making out. I couldn’t watch any TV, and of course, I lived for the moments I could scrape together for some TV time. I moved out, with…
Roommate Experience #2 – The Non-Roommates
From the Make-Out Chicks place, I moved into an apartment with some people I worked with at the coffee shop. Enter Lisa and George – Lisa was a coffee girl, same as me. George was the owner’s nephew. The owner was Greek, and George’s parents were strictly Greek, and forbade their son from having anything to do with Lisa, who was not Greek. Sadly, Lisa was knocked-up, and George vowed to disobey his parents, move in with Lisa and furnish our new apartment. None of this happened. George was unceremoniously shipped-off to Greece, and Lisa had to live with her parents. The apartment I moved into was completely empty except for my futon and bedroom furnishings (minor). The apartment also had no heat, and had a lien against it. The Condo association it belonged to posted a notice on my door one evening, and demanded I pay them the rent I would otherwise have paid to my landlord (the unit’s owner) since he owed thousands of dollars in back condo fees. I had to get a space heater to try to keep from freezing (since it was November – January) and Rumble developed the habit of sleeping ON me for body heat. I paid neither the Condo Board nor the landlord, ultimately, and did a midnight-move (in broad daylight) after two months in this unheated, unfurnished, unpleasant place.
Roommate Experience #3 – The Boxer
After George & Lisa and the bad landlord, I moved to another apartment in the adjoining building. This apartment was nice. It had two girls living in the other two rooms, and the one girl whose room I was moving into was moving out with her boyfriend. It was a large room, and my cat, Rumble, was pleased to have more usable living space. Plus, the other girls were pretty nice to him and we all got along fairly well. However, summer wasn’t far off, and after a few months, they moved “home” to Toronto. They were only able to find one sublet – this guy, who was a boxer by trade, and a McDonald’s worker by dint of necessity. He actually worked “security” at McDonald’s on one of the busier Ottawa streets that had problems with bar people getting into scraps in the McDonald’s after the bars closed. Presumably, he was there to keep them from getting into it, but yeah, whatever. So he took a fancy to me, and I did not reciprocate. He was messy, loud, smoked in the apartment and was generally obnoxious. When I told him I was not his mother and he needed to learn to pick up after himself, he flew into some sort of blind rage, to the extent where I had to call the police to have him physically removed from the apartment. I then contacted my aunt, and moved into their house until I could get moved home to Calgary.
Roommate Experience #4 – The Diva
After Roommate #3, I stuck to living with guys I was involved with for a while, which didn’t work out either. After bouncing across the country and back, I decided it was time to get back to University and start studying again, so I did, which is where I met Lisa. Lisa was nice. She seemed great. We got along well, and had lots of fun together. However, Lisa was a bit of a princess, taking at least an hour to apply her makeup while sitting IN the bathroom sink, and after a couple of months in a place that was probably too expensive to start out with, she started to have some money problems. She broke the lease and moved back in with her parents. I don’t begrudge her that – it was the way in which it was done. I was left a series of notes, each increasingly more panicked and accusatory than the last, until finally, she was just gone. I’m probably not that easy to talk to, granted, and can be intimidating, sure, but Lisa and I were friends, so the lesson learned was never to live with a “friend” again.
Roommate Experience #5 – The Drunken Welshman
So rather than live with a friend, I solicited roommates from friends. Friends’ friends aren’t really your friends, but supposedly, since you share a friend in common, there may be some common interests and whatnot. Apparently, that is not the case, because I ended up with The Drunken Welshman, Nick. Nick moved into one of the rooms that had been Lisa’s (she had a couple in that place – it was a nice place, after all) and promptly staked-out all the bars within walking distance. He didn’t drive, so he had to walk to the bar to get drunked-up. Which he did with alarming frequency. I don’t think he spent more than two or three nights at the place when he wasn’t totally plastered. He was nice enough when he was sober, but when he was drunk, he was dangerous. He left things in the oven, for instance, on “broil”, and I was awoken on more than one occasion by the smoke detector freaking out about something having been burnt beyond a crisp. Once, I came up to check the oven and turn off the smoke detector (by hitting it with a broom) and found Nick passed out, kneeling beside the sofa with his head gently resting on the sofa arm. The final straw was that one evening, he brought home a new friend from the bar to drink with in my living room, and they left the back door open. I had two cats at the time (Rumble and Caspar) and they had been known to get out the back door, so of course when I realized that the back door was open at 2a, I panicked and went to find them. They had gotten outside, but hadn’t gotten far. I informed Nick that he was to leave his key in the morning and to never come back. At all. I nearly threw him out right then at 2a, but allowed him to stay the night, which I think was more than generous.
Roommate Experience #6 – The Conspiracy Theorist
After all of that, I had another one of my cousins move in, figuring if you can’t trust friends of friends, you should be able to trust family. Mike moved in and was trustworthy enough, but the experience of just having him live in the same house was draining. It wasn’t like I saw him all the time – he set up the downstairs room as a self-contained living quarter – bed, sofa, keyboard & stereo equipment was all set up in there and he rarely ventured upstairs to interact with me. Occasionally, he’d come up to chat or pay his bills, and that was about it. He rarely even used the kitchen, and had a little hotplate downstairs instead. However, he smoked vast quantities of marijuana and the smell was pervasive. Also, having smoked the vast quantities of marijuana, he became a little paranoid and believed firmly that the government was listening to his phone conversations and was probably out to get him. I should note that his mother probably had quite a lot to do with his ultimate state of being – she was and continues to be a horrible woman. I blame her entirely for her whole family’s misfortunes. Of all my roommates, even though he was still trying, Mike was probably the best of the lot. He stayed living in the basement until I eventually bought my own place and moved out – so nearly four years.
Roommate Experience #7 – The Pregnant Teens
So I was trying to save some money to buy a condo, and posted an ad in the paper to fill the two vacant rooms on the middle floor (like I said, it was a big place), and the ad was immediately answered by this teenage couple. They came by and saw the place and wanted to take it instantly and offered me cash. They explained that they were being kicked out of his boarding house because they had hooked up against the rules of the house, and sure enough, the chick was knocked-up. He worked at some labour job, and she was still supposedly going to school, and I took pity on them. I even helped them move in. After about a week, it became apparent they were going to be unable to pay me rent and continue to feed themselves (without constantly raiding my limited grocery supply), so I had a frank discussion with them and had them call their parents, coincidentally both sets of which lived in Drumheller. There were tears and hastily-formed plans, and I dropped them both off at the bus depot the next day, never having gotten any rent or security deposit after all. You’d think I would have learned something from that lesson, but…
Roommate Experience #8 – The Gambler
I was out one evening and ran into a sort-of friend I used to know a couple of years before. He had been a relatively successful guy doing something in the O&G field downtown – always had a lot of money, was always dressed nicely, seemed like he had it going on. He was down on his luck, lost his apartment, lost nearly all his stuff, was living in some flophouse somewhere, doing day-labour… Again, I took pity on him and said he could come and stay with me, get back on his feet, all that bla bla bla… He started working as a landscaper, and said he liked it. He worked two weeks, got paid and then called me from the bar to come and pick him up – he had blown all of it on VLTs. I told him he couldn’t stay at my place without paying rent and for his groceries, and he left. I never did find out where he went, but after about six or eight months, I donated all of his things to the Calgary Drop-in Center (the local shelter, basically).
Aaand that was that. I vowed never again to have a roommate. You can kind of see why. I mean, the worst one was probably The Boxer, since he was leaning towards physical violence, and The Gambler was pretty stupid as well since he had to have known my patience would run out as soon as he blew two weeks’ worth of pay on VLTs… Even the ones I didn’t detail as horrible experiences were annoying – for instance, one would always be sleeping on my sofa in the living room, where I wanted to watch TV. Or one would always ignore his alarm clock, which would ring for seriously an hour before he’d get up and shut it the friggin’ hell off. Living with my cousins was alright when I first moved out, but even they had strange habits and behaviours I couldn’t help but notice. They were all just annoying. I find that as soon as you add another person to my living space, I start to get annoyed. Then, small things I’d otherwise be able to ignore really start to get on my nerves, and sure enough, I lose it eventually. Oh, never actually to the roommate’s face, but I grit my teeth a lot and complain to friends and family to the point where they tell me to just move, already, and then I either do move or get the roommate to move out. I have a fair amount of patience, but when it’s gone, it’s totally gone and nothing anyone can say or do will change my mind about something.
So we can now add:
Roommate Experience #9 – The Divorced Bachelor Trying To Recapture His Youth
It’s not that I don’t like Jim. He’s a swell enough guy in small doses. However, living with Jim is like living with an uncle, or a friend of your dad’s. He’s old, and divorced. There is nothing he can do to change that. He has fine attributes – he’s friendly and clean. However, he makes strange and ill-placed comments, and like I said, just having another person in the environment throws everything off.
February’s end draws near. I’m going camping this weekend so that will be at least two roommate-free days! It can’t last that much longer, can it? I can make it! And if I can't, I'll tell you all about all my prison roommates.
Why am I so thankful, you ask? Because this heralds the last few days of living with a roommate. Rob had a roommate before I moved in, and now that I’m moved in, the roommate has got to go. We had thought way back in January that he might be gone by now, but we were sadly mistaken. He will still be living in the house until the end of February.
I know I complained bitterly about this whole situation a couple of weeks ago, and it probably made me sound all cold-hearted and whatnot. It’s truly not fun to live with a roommate. I don’t know how any of you people do it, under any circumstances, ever. It’s a horrible idea. If you can’t afford the place you’re in, don’t live there. Find a nice, private cardboard box somewhere and live there instead. Maybe I’m so jaded because I’ve had some bad roommate experiences:
Roomate Experience #1 – The Make-Out Chicks
When I moved away to go to University, I went to Ottawa to live with my cousin and his wife in their nice townhouse near the university. I was 17. Young and foolish? Perhaps. However, the living arrangements changed after a year and I moved into a different townhouse with three girls. It all seemed innocent enough when we first made the arrangements, but the situation deteriorated rather rapidly. I lived there from September until November, it was that bad. September was alright, although usually all the dishes were dirty (come on, people, how many pots do you need to make KRAFT DINNER?!!) and the other girls would never run the dishwasher. Instead, when they needed a plate, they’d take out a dirty one, wash it in the sink, re-use it and then re-insert it back into the dishwasher. Additionally, a strange development occurred. One evening, when I came home from a late class, I went upstairs to the living area and sure enough, no lights were on. However, someone was sleeping on the sofa, so I figured I’d just get a glass of water (if I was lucky enough to find an unsullied glass), and by the time I had gotten the glass of water, I could hear giggling from the living room, and sure enough, two of the chicks were making out. It got worse from there – they were always in the living room, making out. I couldn’t watch any TV, and of course, I lived for the moments I could scrape together for some TV time. I moved out, with…
Roommate Experience #2 – The Non-Roommates
From the Make-Out Chicks place, I moved into an apartment with some people I worked with at the coffee shop. Enter Lisa and George – Lisa was a coffee girl, same as me. George was the owner’s nephew. The owner was Greek, and George’s parents were strictly Greek, and forbade their son from having anything to do with Lisa, who was not Greek. Sadly, Lisa was knocked-up, and George vowed to disobey his parents, move in with Lisa and furnish our new apartment. None of this happened. George was unceremoniously shipped-off to Greece, and Lisa had to live with her parents. The apartment I moved into was completely empty except for my futon and bedroom furnishings (minor). The apartment also had no heat, and had a lien against it. The Condo association it belonged to posted a notice on my door one evening, and demanded I pay them the rent I would otherwise have paid to my landlord (the unit’s owner) since he owed thousands of dollars in back condo fees. I had to get a space heater to try to keep from freezing (since it was November – January) and Rumble developed the habit of sleeping ON me for body heat. I paid neither the Condo Board nor the landlord, ultimately, and did a midnight-move (in broad daylight) after two months in this unheated, unfurnished, unpleasant place.
Roommate Experience #3 – The Boxer
After George & Lisa and the bad landlord, I moved to another apartment in the adjoining building. This apartment was nice. It had two girls living in the other two rooms, and the one girl whose room I was moving into was moving out with her boyfriend. It was a large room, and my cat, Rumble, was pleased to have more usable living space. Plus, the other girls were pretty nice to him and we all got along fairly well. However, summer wasn’t far off, and after a few months, they moved “home” to Toronto. They were only able to find one sublet – this guy, who was a boxer by trade, and a McDonald’s worker by dint of necessity. He actually worked “security” at McDonald’s on one of the busier Ottawa streets that had problems with bar people getting into scraps in the McDonald’s after the bars closed. Presumably, he was there to keep them from getting into it, but yeah, whatever. So he took a fancy to me, and I did not reciprocate. He was messy, loud, smoked in the apartment and was generally obnoxious. When I told him I was not his mother and he needed to learn to pick up after himself, he flew into some sort of blind rage, to the extent where I had to call the police to have him physically removed from the apartment. I then contacted my aunt, and moved into their house until I could get moved home to Calgary.
Roommate Experience #4 – The Diva
After Roommate #3, I stuck to living with guys I was involved with for a while, which didn’t work out either. After bouncing across the country and back, I decided it was time to get back to University and start studying again, so I did, which is where I met Lisa. Lisa was nice. She seemed great. We got along well, and had lots of fun together. However, Lisa was a bit of a princess, taking at least an hour to apply her makeup while sitting IN the bathroom sink, and after a couple of months in a place that was probably too expensive to start out with, she started to have some money problems. She broke the lease and moved back in with her parents. I don’t begrudge her that – it was the way in which it was done. I was left a series of notes, each increasingly more panicked and accusatory than the last, until finally, she was just gone. I’m probably not that easy to talk to, granted, and can be intimidating, sure, but Lisa and I were friends, so the lesson learned was never to live with a “friend” again.
Roommate Experience #5 – The Drunken Welshman
So rather than live with a friend, I solicited roommates from friends. Friends’ friends aren’t really your friends, but supposedly, since you share a friend in common, there may be some common interests and whatnot. Apparently, that is not the case, because I ended up with The Drunken Welshman, Nick. Nick moved into one of the rooms that had been Lisa’s (she had a couple in that place – it was a nice place, after all) and promptly staked-out all the bars within walking distance. He didn’t drive, so he had to walk to the bar to get drunked-up. Which he did with alarming frequency. I don’t think he spent more than two or three nights at the place when he wasn’t totally plastered. He was nice enough when he was sober, but when he was drunk, he was dangerous. He left things in the oven, for instance, on “broil”, and I was awoken on more than one occasion by the smoke detector freaking out about something having been burnt beyond a crisp. Once, I came up to check the oven and turn off the smoke detector (by hitting it with a broom) and found Nick passed out, kneeling beside the sofa with his head gently resting on the sofa arm. The final straw was that one evening, he brought home a new friend from the bar to drink with in my living room, and they left the back door open. I had two cats at the time (Rumble and Caspar) and they had been known to get out the back door, so of course when I realized that the back door was open at 2a, I panicked and went to find them. They had gotten outside, but hadn’t gotten far. I informed Nick that he was to leave his key in the morning and to never come back. At all. I nearly threw him out right then at 2a, but allowed him to stay the night, which I think was more than generous.
Roommate Experience #6 – The Conspiracy Theorist
After all of that, I had another one of my cousins move in, figuring if you can’t trust friends of friends, you should be able to trust family. Mike moved in and was trustworthy enough, but the experience of just having him live in the same house was draining. It wasn’t like I saw him all the time – he set up the downstairs room as a self-contained living quarter – bed, sofa, keyboard & stereo equipment was all set up in there and he rarely ventured upstairs to interact with me. Occasionally, he’d come up to chat or pay his bills, and that was about it. He rarely even used the kitchen, and had a little hotplate downstairs instead. However, he smoked vast quantities of marijuana and the smell was pervasive. Also, having smoked the vast quantities of marijuana, he became a little paranoid and believed firmly that the government was listening to his phone conversations and was probably out to get him. I should note that his mother probably had quite a lot to do with his ultimate state of being – she was and continues to be a horrible woman. I blame her entirely for her whole family’s misfortunes. Of all my roommates, even though he was still trying, Mike was probably the best of the lot. He stayed living in the basement until I eventually bought my own place and moved out – so nearly four years.
Roommate Experience #7 – The Pregnant Teens
So I was trying to save some money to buy a condo, and posted an ad in the paper to fill the two vacant rooms on the middle floor (like I said, it was a big place), and the ad was immediately answered by this teenage couple. They came by and saw the place and wanted to take it instantly and offered me cash. They explained that they were being kicked out of his boarding house because they had hooked up against the rules of the house, and sure enough, the chick was knocked-up. He worked at some labour job, and she was still supposedly going to school, and I took pity on them. I even helped them move in. After about a week, it became apparent they were going to be unable to pay me rent and continue to feed themselves (without constantly raiding my limited grocery supply), so I had a frank discussion with them and had them call their parents, coincidentally both sets of which lived in Drumheller. There were tears and hastily-formed plans, and I dropped them both off at the bus depot the next day, never having gotten any rent or security deposit after all. You’d think I would have learned something from that lesson, but…
Roommate Experience #8 – The Gambler
I was out one evening and ran into a sort-of friend I used to know a couple of years before. He had been a relatively successful guy doing something in the O&G field downtown – always had a lot of money, was always dressed nicely, seemed like he had it going on. He was down on his luck, lost his apartment, lost nearly all his stuff, was living in some flophouse somewhere, doing day-labour… Again, I took pity on him and said he could come and stay with me, get back on his feet, all that bla bla bla… He started working as a landscaper, and said he liked it. He worked two weeks, got paid and then called me from the bar to come and pick him up – he had blown all of it on VLTs. I told him he couldn’t stay at my place without paying rent and for his groceries, and he left. I never did find out where he went, but after about six or eight months, I donated all of his things to the Calgary Drop-in Center (the local shelter, basically).
Aaand that was that. I vowed never again to have a roommate. You can kind of see why. I mean, the worst one was probably The Boxer, since he was leaning towards physical violence, and The Gambler was pretty stupid as well since he had to have known my patience would run out as soon as he blew two weeks’ worth of pay on VLTs… Even the ones I didn’t detail as horrible experiences were annoying – for instance, one would always be sleeping on my sofa in the living room, where I wanted to watch TV. Or one would always ignore his alarm clock, which would ring for seriously an hour before he’d get up and shut it the friggin’ hell off. Living with my cousins was alright when I first moved out, but even they had strange habits and behaviours I couldn’t help but notice. They were all just annoying. I find that as soon as you add another person to my living space, I start to get annoyed. Then, small things I’d otherwise be able to ignore really start to get on my nerves, and sure enough, I lose it eventually. Oh, never actually to the roommate’s face, but I grit my teeth a lot and complain to friends and family to the point where they tell me to just move, already, and then I either do move or get the roommate to move out. I have a fair amount of patience, but when it’s gone, it’s totally gone and nothing anyone can say or do will change my mind about something.
So we can now add:
Roommate Experience #9 – The Divorced Bachelor Trying To Recapture His Youth
It’s not that I don’t like Jim. He’s a swell enough guy in small doses. However, living with Jim is like living with an uncle, or a friend of your dad’s. He’s old, and divorced. There is nothing he can do to change that. He has fine attributes – he’s friendly and clean. However, he makes strange and ill-placed comments, and like I said, just having another person in the environment throws everything off.
February’s end draws near. I’m going camping this weekend so that will be at least two roommate-free days! It can’t last that much longer, can it? I can make it! And if I can't, I'll tell you all about all my prison roommates.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
TV-induced mood improvements
Alright. I apologize for the last post. It was down, and it showed. The whole post was ranting and whining so I’m sorry for that. I will try my best not to do it any more.
I’m feeling MUCH better today, possibly because I was able to get in some gratuitous stupid TV-time last night watching one of the worst television shows ever created, “Lost”. Now, this “Lost” show came on in the fall. I caught about five minutes of the premiere episode and abandoned it as irretrievably dumb. However, The Mac explained to me later on that the show contained, get this, a fucking polar bear on a tropical island that was occasionally picking off stranded passengers, so I rethought the whole abandonment and started watching it just in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the fucking polar bear. I was not disappointed.
I have, over the weeks, grown fond of this mildly retarded child of ABC’s programming intellect. I enjoy the stupidity of the passengers. I laugh at their truly ridiculous plight. I feel a certain attachment to the Locke character, who (before the crash) was without the use of his legs and confined to a wheelchair, but somehow in the crash regained the use of his lower extremities. He was able to take away a fantastic reward out of a catastrophic event. I’m happy for him. Plus, he’s weirder than all hell, so I kind of think he’s cool. I keep hoping various passengers will be eaten by the fucking polar bear, so that’s always something to look forward to. Really, this stupid, horrible show improves my life so much that it’s probably pathetic. Honestly, I have a lot more going on than this, but this is just so… much like junk food. It is kind of like the beloved but also-hated cheezie. They are terrible for you, have no nutritional value and will make you fat and lazy, but you cannot deny the sheer orgasmic pleasure of an excellent cheezie (there are also less-excellent cheezies in the bag – just regular cheezies – but you put up with them because you’re hoping for an excellent one).
Also, “Lost” has many plot twists. It’s as though the creators of the show sat around watching all the shows that had come before, wrote down all the plot twists and are now using a matrix to randomly insert them into the show. Plane crash? Ha! It didn’t JUST crash, it crashed in a place it wasn’t supposed to be, so no one will come looking for it. Disabled passenger with attitude problem? Ha! Now he has his legs back and is running around all weird and mysterious!! Bitchy attractive female passenger with obvious troubled past? Ha! She’s really a bank robber, and is secretly in love with the leader/doctor! Charming accented rocker? Ha! Former drug addict until Locke steals his drugs and makes him rehab!! Beautiful tropical paradise with lots of food and fresh water? Ha! Populated by fucking polar bears and a tribe of insane loonies bent on world domination! Troubled pregnant female character? Ha! Her baby is going to be the destructor of the universe, and she’s going to get kidnapped by the insane tribe of loonies!
It’s as though the matrix runs at a certain rate and you have to have a minimum number of plot twists per show in order for them to justify their existence in a programming world increasingly dominated by those horrible reality shows. See? We can compete, we really can! We’ll just make the show so breathtakingly fast-paced no one will be able to keep up with this stuff, even if they are real people doing real things in real life competing for real money!! You won’t want to miss even fifteen minutes of an episode or you’ll hate yourself and be wondering about it for weeks!
I have to admit, I haven’t watched all the episodes. I’ve watched a bunch of ‘em, sure, but there are things going on I’m not too sure of. Like this lost tribe of loonies, and this French woman who is clearly insane but who is probably pretty pivotal. And the question plaguing me late at night as I’m falling asleep is “where did those fucking polar bears come from, and what are they doing there? Why don’t they just swim over to the arctic where there are nice yummy seals and Inuits to eat? It can’t be THAT far; those things can really swim.”
Speaking of random thoughts, I was in the car yesterday, driving from THE house over to my parents’ house with the dogs, talking to myself in a nice gravelly low voice (so I wouldn’t feel like I was actually just talking to myself – come on, I know you all do that, so don’t judge). I said to myself “You have a sock addiction problem”, and that started the whole thing off.
I never, ever used to wear socks. I hated the buggers. I still kind of don’t like them, but at the same time, I am strangely compelled to wear them now. I had not worn any yesterday during the daytime, but as I was changing into my after-work wear (jeans), I put on a pair of socks and felt a strange sense of pleasure. My feet were, well, warm. These socks are the Wigwam socks that Rob gave me for Christmas so there is a sentimental attachment, sure, but these socks also rock. They’re light, but heavy at the same time. They’re warm, but not scratchy. And they are the most fantastic socks in the universe for sliding around on the hardwood floors. THE house has all hardwood upstairs. It’s cold on the un-socked feet, but if you have socks on, you can take a run down the hallway and slide about seven to ten feet or so. It’s fantastic! I love it, and it gives me great pleasure to slide up and down the hallways during the commercials when “Lost” is on.
I visited my parents and the cats last night. I found out, to my dismay, that Smudge now hates me and loves my mother instead. She’s actually afraid of me and runs away when I try to pet her. It’s disappointing, and I wonder whether she’ll ever forgive me for having her spayed. Not that she realizes what happened, of course, but just that I took her away from the super-fun house where she is endlessly spoiled, and she was hurt, and miserable when I brought her back. So it’s my fault, basically, that she was hurt. I don’t think she had ever really BEEN hurt before. I found her when she was about three or four months old, and I’m not sure whether she had a family before or was abandoned right away. She was pretty skinny when I got her, and had some mats in her fur, but she didn’t look beat up and she was never afraid of anything before. So she was probably just lost or her people didn’t care about where she was. No one claimed her, so they can’t have loved her. But this running away when I try to pet her thing is devastating because I love her SOOO much! She’s such a pretty little thing, and charming, and funny… She has decided that water is the most interesting thing, ever, and camps out by the sink watching the taps drip. According to my mother, she laps water out of the cup by the bathroom sink JUST in order to get some over the edge of the cup so it will run down into the sink so she can watch it go!
It was good and soothing to see the cats. Apparently, I needed it. Apparently, I will need it more in the future, because Rob says there is a possibility his union will go on strike or will be locked-out by the company.
This real-life plot twist makes me think. I’m a fairly conservative-minded person, I think. I believe in fiscal responsibility, fewer social programs and more civilian efforts on behalf of the groups they choose to support, no legislated morality (I’m not social conservative, but more libertarian conservative, I think), proper enforcement of laws and generally a good society. I don’t really like unions. The actual theory of a union is fine, but the way they have come about and operate today is pretty heavy-handed. They FORCE you to participate if you work at a unionized company. I don’t think anyone should be FORCED to do something like that (or, really, much at all, especially if you’re not breaking any laws). Unions set the dues and don’t remain fully accountable to their members. They can negotiate issues without the express permission of their membership. And when something like a strike is imminent, you don’t get to choose whether you participate. I believe it should operate more like this: If the company proposes a contract change, and the majority of the workers reject it as expressly unfair, then that majority of the workers band together and strike, those who don’t participate can take their chances and work for a lower rate. The company has a choice – either go through the hassle of trying to deal with a strike, reduced service levels and probably a lot of lost business and realizes the financial burden of hiring new staff and still losing a lot of business from sympathetic and annoyed customers, or it deals with the workers by negotiating.
As it stands now, the union may strike or be locked-out. The company’s service will suffer (don’t tell me it won’t, because it will), and they will lose a percentage of customers, whether they like it or not. In turn, the company will have to cut staff, which means fewer union members, fewer union dues, and more unhappiness all around generally. It sucks that the company doesn’t recognize this. I think they believe that technology will require people to stick with them, although consumers have enough choices now that they really don’t.
When you think about it, we’re all pretty lucky to have jobs, no matter what the unions tell you. Sure, you can make more money if you demand it and force the company’s hand, but it means you may have fewer co-workers, and you run the risk of being one of those who lose their jobs because the company has a finite amount of money to put towards payroll, or another risk is that the company overextends and has to collapse. Yep, those companies make a bundle. They’re run by people whose entire purpose in life is to make money. That’s their choice. They’re accountable to shareholders who want a return on their investment. If the company isn’t making enough money, the people sell their shares and put their investments elsewhere. It’s nice to think that everyone will share all their profits with everyone else. Dear Head Honcho: I don’t make enough just now to cover my new boat, so can I have some of your money? I don’t want to do any more work for it, just give it over, pronto.
To someone only making $10/hr, $15/hr sounds like paradise when you have a fun job with fun co-workers and a nice environment to work in. The same job, to someone making $20/hr, that $15/hr seems insulting. Why? It’s all perception. You need a certain skillset. You need a certain aptitude. You need qualifications in order to get the $20/hr job. You work your way up. You can’t all make $20/hr just because you want it. Say you have 100 people working at $15/hr. They all want to jump up to $20/hr. The company can’t put more resources towards that department, so you lose 25 co-workers. Is that a win? Sure, to the 75 who get kept, but to the 25 who get fired, it’s not a good deal at all.
When people were working in mines, under unsafe conditions, and the unemployment rate was 40% and you had to fight for a cup of flour at the local store (run by the mining company, of course), unions were an absolute necessity. I don’t disagree. But today is not that day. The TELUS Mobility building is not a mine filled with sulfurous air and collapsing tunnels. TELUS Mobility does not force you to earn only pennies a day which they then force you to spend on bread in their local store, thus indebting you to the very company that was supposed to be supporting your family. What is being argued over today is money. The TELUS workers have nice jobs. They make a fair amount of money, when it comes right down to it, for what they do. Don’t hate me, TELUS workers, just think about it for a minute. If you have safety issues, you have an avenue to deal with them, and insurance or worker’s compensation to cover your potential injuries. However, if you don’t like what you’re being paid, then find other jobs. The company would then be forced to raise their wages in order to keep people. The unemployment rate is approximately 6% these days, there aren’t people knocking down doors to steal your jobs. If the company can make more money transferring your jobs to another province, well, then let ‘em. Alberta will either have to make it more attractive for TELUS to employ people here, or they’ll lose jobs. Or other industries will snap you up because of your experience. Or you’ll have to find another industry to pursue.
Sometimes, an industry just has to die, or shrink. Hundreds of people once made candles for a living. When the lightbulb was invented, and candles were no longer the main source of light for a home, then they didn’t need so many candle-makers. Those candle-makers had to find other things to do. Like the fishermen of the East. There are a lot fewer fishes out there now, and if you can’t fish, you need to find something else to do. Our whole country is founded on the principle of people giving up their unsustainable situations to find new ones. What about the pioneers? Did they like the idea of traveling across miles and miles, far away from friends and family, to start a new life under considerably harsh conditions? Probably not, but what else were they going to do? Become bums in Toronto? What about all those coal miners? We don’t burn a whole heck of a lot of coal these days. They would had to have found something else to do. Go find some gold, or learn to transfer their experience to the oil industry. It’s called progress.
No one is exempt from progress. It’s a cruel process of life. Sometimes, you benefit like those dot com freaks from the ‘90s. Sometimes the industry shrinks and crashes, and the dot com-ers have to find other means of support, like being someone’s lackey. Industry is best friends with Fate and Whimsy, and I have a feeling they all sit around chatting late at night trying to find a way out of Economy’s stupid rules. Economy makes all these rules about how things will rise and fall, and Industry just ignores them as long as he can, until finally, Economy gets his friend, Market, and goes to kick the shit out of Industry. Industry is lying there, helpless, because Fate and Whimsy have buggered off, and has to call Government to help him out. Government intervenes, and convinces Market and Economy to stop it, but then makes side deals with both of them, which will ultimately cripple poor old Industry.
Basically, you have to be prepared to change. Change is always hard. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, and sometimes, it means you don’t see your cats for a month. But you still do it because you have to, because you want the benefits from change.
(Y'all, feel free to comment if you disagree on this stuff - dialogue is good!)
I’m feeling MUCH better today, possibly because I was able to get in some gratuitous stupid TV-time last night watching one of the worst television shows ever created, “Lost”. Now, this “Lost” show came on in the fall. I caught about five minutes of the premiere episode and abandoned it as irretrievably dumb. However, The Mac explained to me later on that the show contained, get this, a fucking polar bear on a tropical island that was occasionally picking off stranded passengers, so I rethought the whole abandonment and started watching it just in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the fucking polar bear. I was not disappointed.
I have, over the weeks, grown fond of this mildly retarded child of ABC’s programming intellect. I enjoy the stupidity of the passengers. I laugh at their truly ridiculous plight. I feel a certain attachment to the Locke character, who (before the crash) was without the use of his legs and confined to a wheelchair, but somehow in the crash regained the use of his lower extremities. He was able to take away a fantastic reward out of a catastrophic event. I’m happy for him. Plus, he’s weirder than all hell, so I kind of think he’s cool. I keep hoping various passengers will be eaten by the fucking polar bear, so that’s always something to look forward to. Really, this stupid, horrible show improves my life so much that it’s probably pathetic. Honestly, I have a lot more going on than this, but this is just so… much like junk food. It is kind of like the beloved but also-hated cheezie. They are terrible for you, have no nutritional value and will make you fat and lazy, but you cannot deny the sheer orgasmic pleasure of an excellent cheezie (there are also less-excellent cheezies in the bag – just regular cheezies – but you put up with them because you’re hoping for an excellent one).
Also, “Lost” has many plot twists. It’s as though the creators of the show sat around watching all the shows that had come before, wrote down all the plot twists and are now using a matrix to randomly insert them into the show. Plane crash? Ha! It didn’t JUST crash, it crashed in a place it wasn’t supposed to be, so no one will come looking for it. Disabled passenger with attitude problem? Ha! Now he has his legs back and is running around all weird and mysterious!! Bitchy attractive female passenger with obvious troubled past? Ha! She’s really a bank robber, and is secretly in love with the leader/doctor! Charming accented rocker? Ha! Former drug addict until Locke steals his drugs and makes him rehab!! Beautiful tropical paradise with lots of food and fresh water? Ha! Populated by fucking polar bears and a tribe of insane loonies bent on world domination! Troubled pregnant female character? Ha! Her baby is going to be the destructor of the universe, and she’s going to get kidnapped by the insane tribe of loonies!
It’s as though the matrix runs at a certain rate and you have to have a minimum number of plot twists per show in order for them to justify their existence in a programming world increasingly dominated by those horrible reality shows. See? We can compete, we really can! We’ll just make the show so breathtakingly fast-paced no one will be able to keep up with this stuff, even if they are real people doing real things in real life competing for real money!! You won’t want to miss even fifteen minutes of an episode or you’ll hate yourself and be wondering about it for weeks!
I have to admit, I haven’t watched all the episodes. I’ve watched a bunch of ‘em, sure, but there are things going on I’m not too sure of. Like this lost tribe of loonies, and this French woman who is clearly insane but who is probably pretty pivotal. And the question plaguing me late at night as I’m falling asleep is “where did those fucking polar bears come from, and what are they doing there? Why don’t they just swim over to the arctic where there are nice yummy seals and Inuits to eat? It can’t be THAT far; those things can really swim.”
Speaking of random thoughts, I was in the car yesterday, driving from THE house over to my parents’ house with the dogs, talking to myself in a nice gravelly low voice (so I wouldn’t feel like I was actually just talking to myself – come on, I know you all do that, so don’t judge). I said to myself “You have a sock addiction problem”, and that started the whole thing off.
I never, ever used to wear socks. I hated the buggers. I still kind of don’t like them, but at the same time, I am strangely compelled to wear them now. I had not worn any yesterday during the daytime, but as I was changing into my after-work wear (jeans), I put on a pair of socks and felt a strange sense of pleasure. My feet were, well, warm. These socks are the Wigwam socks that Rob gave me for Christmas so there is a sentimental attachment, sure, but these socks also rock. They’re light, but heavy at the same time. They’re warm, but not scratchy. And they are the most fantastic socks in the universe for sliding around on the hardwood floors. THE house has all hardwood upstairs. It’s cold on the un-socked feet, but if you have socks on, you can take a run down the hallway and slide about seven to ten feet or so. It’s fantastic! I love it, and it gives me great pleasure to slide up and down the hallways during the commercials when “Lost” is on.
I visited my parents and the cats last night. I found out, to my dismay, that Smudge now hates me and loves my mother instead. She’s actually afraid of me and runs away when I try to pet her. It’s disappointing, and I wonder whether she’ll ever forgive me for having her spayed. Not that she realizes what happened, of course, but just that I took her away from the super-fun house where she is endlessly spoiled, and she was hurt, and miserable when I brought her back. So it’s my fault, basically, that she was hurt. I don’t think she had ever really BEEN hurt before. I found her when she was about three or four months old, and I’m not sure whether she had a family before or was abandoned right away. She was pretty skinny when I got her, and had some mats in her fur, but she didn’t look beat up and she was never afraid of anything before. So she was probably just lost or her people didn’t care about where she was. No one claimed her, so they can’t have loved her. But this running away when I try to pet her thing is devastating because I love her SOOO much! She’s such a pretty little thing, and charming, and funny… She has decided that water is the most interesting thing, ever, and camps out by the sink watching the taps drip. According to my mother, she laps water out of the cup by the bathroom sink JUST in order to get some over the edge of the cup so it will run down into the sink so she can watch it go!
It was good and soothing to see the cats. Apparently, I needed it. Apparently, I will need it more in the future, because Rob says there is a possibility his union will go on strike or will be locked-out by the company.
This real-life plot twist makes me think. I’m a fairly conservative-minded person, I think. I believe in fiscal responsibility, fewer social programs and more civilian efforts on behalf of the groups they choose to support, no legislated morality (I’m not social conservative, but more libertarian conservative, I think), proper enforcement of laws and generally a good society. I don’t really like unions. The actual theory of a union is fine, but the way they have come about and operate today is pretty heavy-handed. They FORCE you to participate if you work at a unionized company. I don’t think anyone should be FORCED to do something like that (or, really, much at all, especially if you’re not breaking any laws). Unions set the dues and don’t remain fully accountable to their members. They can negotiate issues without the express permission of their membership. And when something like a strike is imminent, you don’t get to choose whether you participate. I believe it should operate more like this: If the company proposes a contract change, and the majority of the workers reject it as expressly unfair, then that majority of the workers band together and strike, those who don’t participate can take their chances and work for a lower rate. The company has a choice – either go through the hassle of trying to deal with a strike, reduced service levels and probably a lot of lost business and realizes the financial burden of hiring new staff and still losing a lot of business from sympathetic and annoyed customers, or it deals with the workers by negotiating.
As it stands now, the union may strike or be locked-out. The company’s service will suffer (don’t tell me it won’t, because it will), and they will lose a percentage of customers, whether they like it or not. In turn, the company will have to cut staff, which means fewer union members, fewer union dues, and more unhappiness all around generally. It sucks that the company doesn’t recognize this. I think they believe that technology will require people to stick with them, although consumers have enough choices now that they really don’t.
When you think about it, we’re all pretty lucky to have jobs, no matter what the unions tell you. Sure, you can make more money if you demand it and force the company’s hand, but it means you may have fewer co-workers, and you run the risk of being one of those who lose their jobs because the company has a finite amount of money to put towards payroll, or another risk is that the company overextends and has to collapse. Yep, those companies make a bundle. They’re run by people whose entire purpose in life is to make money. That’s their choice. They’re accountable to shareholders who want a return on their investment. If the company isn’t making enough money, the people sell their shares and put their investments elsewhere. It’s nice to think that everyone will share all their profits with everyone else. Dear Head Honcho: I don’t make enough just now to cover my new boat, so can I have some of your money? I don’t want to do any more work for it, just give it over, pronto.
To someone only making $10/hr, $15/hr sounds like paradise when you have a fun job with fun co-workers and a nice environment to work in. The same job, to someone making $20/hr, that $15/hr seems insulting. Why? It’s all perception. You need a certain skillset. You need a certain aptitude. You need qualifications in order to get the $20/hr job. You work your way up. You can’t all make $20/hr just because you want it. Say you have 100 people working at $15/hr. They all want to jump up to $20/hr. The company can’t put more resources towards that department, so you lose 25 co-workers. Is that a win? Sure, to the 75 who get kept, but to the 25 who get fired, it’s not a good deal at all.
When people were working in mines, under unsafe conditions, and the unemployment rate was 40% and you had to fight for a cup of flour at the local store (run by the mining company, of course), unions were an absolute necessity. I don’t disagree. But today is not that day. The TELUS Mobility building is not a mine filled with sulfurous air and collapsing tunnels. TELUS Mobility does not force you to earn only pennies a day which they then force you to spend on bread in their local store, thus indebting you to the very company that was supposed to be supporting your family. What is being argued over today is money. The TELUS workers have nice jobs. They make a fair amount of money, when it comes right down to it, for what they do. Don’t hate me, TELUS workers, just think about it for a minute. If you have safety issues, you have an avenue to deal with them, and insurance or worker’s compensation to cover your potential injuries. However, if you don’t like what you’re being paid, then find other jobs. The company would then be forced to raise their wages in order to keep people. The unemployment rate is approximately 6% these days, there aren’t people knocking down doors to steal your jobs. If the company can make more money transferring your jobs to another province, well, then let ‘em. Alberta will either have to make it more attractive for TELUS to employ people here, or they’ll lose jobs. Or other industries will snap you up because of your experience. Or you’ll have to find another industry to pursue.
Sometimes, an industry just has to die, or shrink. Hundreds of people once made candles for a living. When the lightbulb was invented, and candles were no longer the main source of light for a home, then they didn’t need so many candle-makers. Those candle-makers had to find other things to do. Like the fishermen of the East. There are a lot fewer fishes out there now, and if you can’t fish, you need to find something else to do. Our whole country is founded on the principle of people giving up their unsustainable situations to find new ones. What about the pioneers? Did they like the idea of traveling across miles and miles, far away from friends and family, to start a new life under considerably harsh conditions? Probably not, but what else were they going to do? Become bums in Toronto? What about all those coal miners? We don’t burn a whole heck of a lot of coal these days. They would had to have found something else to do. Go find some gold, or learn to transfer their experience to the oil industry. It’s called progress.
No one is exempt from progress. It’s a cruel process of life. Sometimes, you benefit like those dot com freaks from the ‘90s. Sometimes the industry shrinks and crashes, and the dot com-ers have to find other means of support, like being someone’s lackey. Industry is best friends with Fate and Whimsy, and I have a feeling they all sit around chatting late at night trying to find a way out of Economy’s stupid rules. Economy makes all these rules about how things will rise and fall, and Industry just ignores them as long as he can, until finally, Economy gets his friend, Market, and goes to kick the shit out of Industry. Industry is lying there, helpless, because Fate and Whimsy have buggered off, and has to call Government to help him out. Government intervenes, and convinces Market and Economy to stop it, but then makes side deals with both of them, which will ultimately cripple poor old Industry.
Basically, you have to be prepared to change. Change is always hard. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, and sometimes, it means you don’t see your cats for a month. But you still do it because you have to, because you want the benefits from change.
(Y'all, feel free to comment if you disagree on this stuff - dialogue is good!)
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Recent goings-on…
Alright. I know I’ve been lax in keeping up with the blog. Apologies to all. This update isn’t even very exciting, so I’m having a hard time writing it and finding much of interest to say. Don’t get me wrong, things are busy. Very busy. It’s been nearly two weeks since I had an evening to myself, but still, not that much that could be considered blog-worthy has happened. So instead, I will give you summaries of several of my recent thoughts:
1. On Religion and The Catholic Church
Ok. I was raised Catholic. I always went to church, even though I grumbled, and through a perverse feat of scheduling, had to attend church not only on Sunday mornings, but Saturday mornings for “catechism” as well, which is like Sunday school, only they get to ruin two weekend mornings instead of just one. I was baptized, confirmed and theoretically on the road to becoming a good Catholic who would tithe, preach against all the sins of the world and make all sorts of new Catholics for them to induct since contraception is against the rules.
I lapsed just after I was confirmed. Let’s admit it, I was on the road to lapsing from the time I could think and started to wonder where, exactly, this “God” dude was, and what his deal was with creating such a screwed-up world. Surely if there was a benevolent, loving God, s/he would create a world populated with good people, which has obviously not happened.
So I lapsed and was happy about it. I’m glad I lapsed. I’m glad I received the education I did, and yes, it was a good base from which to go out into the world and look at things. Fine. However, I certainly don’t believe in the Catholic faith. You’re all more than welcome to believe whatever you want, and I’ll never try to change your beliefs, so don’t go trying to change mine. I’m at peace with the universe – I don’t bother it and it doesn’t bother me.
Last weekend, Rob and I went to a Catholic church to see our friends’ child be baptized. It was big and new, and bright inside and physically different from what I was used to. The whole ceremony/procedure was similar, I remembered the words you’re supposed to say after everything, no problem. It was as if some deep, dark, buried part of my mind was reactivated. That, in itself, was not the most disturbing thing about the experience. The sermon or homily was devastating. On the way in, we were handed a petition against same-sex marriage, which is a hot topic in Canada right now since there’s a bill before parliament to legalize it.
I went away from the experience with several thoughts, one of which is that organized religion is actually one of the world’s greatest evils, which may be one of the world’s greatest paradoxes or ironies. I remembered Catholics as just people. I had no recollection that the faith was set up to be so close-minded. I’m sure that the sermons and homilies I heard as a child were just as bad, probably chock-full of references to living the good, obedient life or you’d go straight to hell. But I don’t remember them at all. The Mac says he never paid attention during the homilies, and I guess I didn’t either – I do remember repeatedly reading every last word about the apocalypse, though. When the homily came on, I’d flip to the back of the book and read all about how the world was going to end. Probably a fitting activity during those sorts of speeches, I suppose.
The problem is not with the idea, per se, because if it’s followed directly, then it’s not so bad. “Judge not, lest ye be judged” and everything. “People who live in glass houses…” and all. Honor your mother and father, don’t kill other people, don’t steal stuff, treat others the way you’d want to be treated yourself. Yes, I agree. All very nice platforms from which to operate.
However, this twisted, bizarre interpretation wherein everyone who doesn’t adhere strictly to the covenants should be summarily lectured, shunned, ostracized, jailed or otherwise forced to fall in line is just off the scale. This religion is bad. In fact, when you look at them, pretty much all organized religion is bad because it places people in a position to judge and it gives groups reasons to fight with one another about interpretations of minor issues.
Laws are laws, and they’re there to ensure that society keeps on going. You can’t very well have people cheating or stealing or raping or killing. Fine – I agree wholeheartedly. You obey the laws, which are there for a reason, and sure some of them seem kinda stupid, but you know they make the world a better place overall. Just because I feel I can drive carefully at outrageous speeds doesn’t mean that the guy next door can do it without running over someone’s grandmother, so you just accept that it’s not something you’re allowed to do by the very authorities we have all chosen to put in place. Laws are in place to keep society and its citizens safe. But the idea of morality being legislated? Makes me sick to my stomach. We need to turn away from morality being legislated and laws being set to prevent minorities from enjoying the same rights everyone else has. The lines between our own lives and the rights to them gets thinner and thinner, and we have to be more and more careful about how we step through this minefield of potential legislation.
I’ll say one more thing about this whole mess – no religion, no matter how many or how few people believe in it, should have any legal jurisdiction over any other person, especially those who don’t believe in it. Morality is choice – you choose how you want to live. Law is law. You don’t get to choose whether you break them, unless you want the consequences. Religion has no place in the issue. Whether you believe in a god, or a pantheon, or mother earth or anything else has no legal bearing on anything. It’s up to you, after a point, to decide how you want to live and why. If you need the impetus that if you don’t do things a certain way, you’ll suffer after you’re dead, then fine. If you don’t, then that’s excellent.
Why they even care what gay people do is beyond me. Theoretically, wouldn’t the religious people believe that all those sinners would get their just desserts after they die? The religious right can just stuff it, with their attempts to influence legislation.
2. On missing cats
I miss my cats terribly. I hear about how they’re doing, and about their capers from my parents periodically when I call to check on them, but it’s really not the same. I wish I could pick them up and hug them when I’m feeling rotten. I wish I could give them some treats and tell them how much I love them. I wish I could throw the rattley mice for Smudge and watch her pounce on them. I wish Tobey could climb up into my lap and rub his head on my arm, forcing me to pet him and tell him how good he is. I wish Rumble would tell me it’s dinner time, now, damnit, feed me! I wish Caspar was here to tell me he wants a hug by stabbing me in the leg with a well-placed claw (that doesn’t break the skin, mind you). I need some good cat attention.
The dogs are not the same. The dogs are bouncy and wriggly and hard, and are really too big to carry around (The NoodleDog is over 60 lbs now, and Cooter isn’t far behind at 45 lbs). Plus, the dogs have big raking claws and, as unclipped, those things will tear a furrow out of your skin like a bowie knife. Except bowie knives are sharper. Cat claws, being smaller and having less weight behind them, do on the whole less damage. Especially since they are retractable and they don’t scratch you unless you’re doing something foolish with them like teasing them when they’re in a paper bag, or you’ve pissed them off and have backed them into a corner.
3. On Everything Else
I don’t know why I have the doldrums, generally, but I do. I’m disappointed with how long it’s taking to get settled at the house (which is what I’m supposed to call it now that I’m living there, instead of “Rob’s House”). It feels like I’m on an extended stay to a relative’s place, where they say “our house is your house – make yourself at home!”, only you know very well you’re not supposed to use the good towels and you can’t really put your feet on the furniture, and you should probably be quiet all the time. I know this is just me, because Rob has done pretty much everything he can to make the place accessible to me. I don’t know why I feel this way. Oh sure, there are small reasons for small things:
- The washer/dryer are set up backwards. Seems like a small issue, sure, except the washer door opens to the left side upwards, which blocks access from and to the dryer. The dryer door opens from the left to the right and isn’t as accessible for opening when you’re standing in front of the washer, and the transference of clothing from washer to dryer isn’t happening for me as well as I’d like to see. Picky, picky.
- The living room is very dark. The lamps are pretty, sure, but they give off about three lumens of light each, and the room is big, and they’re both at one end. Consequently, if you’re trying to organize CDs alphabetically at the unlit end, you have to squint a lot and you’ll probably end up giving yourself a whopping headache.
- The bathroom is small and there is little storage space. I’m a girl, I have girl things. I have a hairdryer, toothbrushes (currently two, which is odd for me, but the way that worked out is because I was simultaneously living in two places at once for a while, and neither toothbrush is worn-out yet so I’m using them both, taking turns each day, in the hopes that I can wear ‘em out at the same time and get one new one to replace them), hairbrushes, hair clips, many little bars of soap, facewash, makeup, perfumes, hand creams, scented lotions (which are not the same as hand creams), scarves (for driving in the Tiny Car to keep my hair contained), medicines and various other sundry items. I had a bathroom in my condo, and it was full. I am now sharing a bathroom and Rob has his guy stuff, and my space is severely limited. Sure, I should cut back, but it’s frustrating when the thing you need was last seen in the bottom of an overfilled drawer and you can’t seem to find it now.
- Many of my belongings are packed in boxes. I have extracted the everyday living essentials, but have worked long and hard to amass a great quantity of stuff, most of which is now inaccessible and it’s frustrating when you need paprika, and it’s in one of those boxes in the middle of the pile, but you can’t remember what the box it’s in looks like, so you start rummaging, and then Rob brings you SOMEONE ELSE’s paprika to use.
- I can’t work the TV setup as well as I’d like. We’ve been out a lot and consequently, I’ve had to tape some TV shows I like to see regularly. Apparently you can’t tape from satellite without the powers of a lesser deity, so I’ve had to contract this job out to my parents. I ended up with one show missed entirely (they started taping pretty much one hour after it started, so I got the very ending, and then the hour of crap that was on afterwards), and one show was cut off halfway through as a special torture. Plus, their ABC network channel has a poor signal. We’re getting cable at the house this week, which is an added entertainment expense in the budget, but my sanity is probably worth it.
- The back entrance is difficult to work around. The back entrance is the main entrance we use all the time. There is room for precisely ONE person and ONE dog on that landing, and if you try to pack more than that in there, someone will probably end up falling down the stairs. It’s not so bad, but it’s just not convenient.
- Cooter continues to be destructive so we can’t leave him in the house. It’s nice out now, but it may be colder next week. See the “Cooter the Destroyer” post for further information.
- Rob’s roommate isn’t moving out for another month. This concept is so depressing that I can’t really talk about it too much or I’ll whip myself into a frenzy of insanity, but suffice it to say that I really don’t handle living with a roommate too well. Nothing personal against the guy, but I just don’t like the idea of a stranger in the house, especially one I didn’t choose as a roommate and therefore only have myself to blame for it. I’ve had terrible roommates in the past who seemed reasonable at first, so maybe I’ve just been conditioned to hate roommates, but whatever the case, I’m not at ease whatsoever in the house.
- I’m out of rye. Self explanatory.
These little things add up. I overreact and get myself into a little tizzy over them, thinking that they’re indicative of the way the whole shooting match is going to go, so I get increasingly freaked-out because of the way my mind works. I extrapolate a lot. I “read between the lines” when there aren’t any to read between. I know I do it, yet when I’m doing it, it seems like the most rational behaviour in the world to me. So there’s really no stopping it.
Further, I feel also there is no alternative. I mean, I can’t very well go and stay with my parents, can I? How ridiculous is that? And I don’t really want to be away from Rob – it’s not him, it’s the situation. I can’t move back to the condo, and I wouldn’t want to anyway. I need to just try and find a way to relax for a month (which is impossible), so I accept I’m probably just going to be a little depressed for a while.
Apologies to all who read the blog. I’ll try to give myself a good swift kick, or start drinking during the daytime, or find some sort of healthier outlet for my frustrations.
1. On Religion and The Catholic Church
Ok. I was raised Catholic. I always went to church, even though I grumbled, and through a perverse feat of scheduling, had to attend church not only on Sunday mornings, but Saturday mornings for “catechism” as well, which is like Sunday school, only they get to ruin two weekend mornings instead of just one. I was baptized, confirmed and theoretically on the road to becoming a good Catholic who would tithe, preach against all the sins of the world and make all sorts of new Catholics for them to induct since contraception is against the rules.
I lapsed just after I was confirmed. Let’s admit it, I was on the road to lapsing from the time I could think and started to wonder where, exactly, this “God” dude was, and what his deal was with creating such a screwed-up world. Surely if there was a benevolent, loving God, s/he would create a world populated with good people, which has obviously not happened.
So I lapsed and was happy about it. I’m glad I lapsed. I’m glad I received the education I did, and yes, it was a good base from which to go out into the world and look at things. Fine. However, I certainly don’t believe in the Catholic faith. You’re all more than welcome to believe whatever you want, and I’ll never try to change your beliefs, so don’t go trying to change mine. I’m at peace with the universe – I don’t bother it and it doesn’t bother me.
Last weekend, Rob and I went to a Catholic church to see our friends’ child be baptized. It was big and new, and bright inside and physically different from what I was used to. The whole ceremony/procedure was similar, I remembered the words you’re supposed to say after everything, no problem. It was as if some deep, dark, buried part of my mind was reactivated. That, in itself, was not the most disturbing thing about the experience. The sermon or homily was devastating. On the way in, we were handed a petition against same-sex marriage, which is a hot topic in Canada right now since there’s a bill before parliament to legalize it.
I went away from the experience with several thoughts, one of which is that organized religion is actually one of the world’s greatest evils, which may be one of the world’s greatest paradoxes or ironies. I remembered Catholics as just people. I had no recollection that the faith was set up to be so close-minded. I’m sure that the sermons and homilies I heard as a child were just as bad, probably chock-full of references to living the good, obedient life or you’d go straight to hell. But I don’t remember them at all. The Mac says he never paid attention during the homilies, and I guess I didn’t either – I do remember repeatedly reading every last word about the apocalypse, though. When the homily came on, I’d flip to the back of the book and read all about how the world was going to end. Probably a fitting activity during those sorts of speeches, I suppose.
The problem is not with the idea, per se, because if it’s followed directly, then it’s not so bad. “Judge not, lest ye be judged” and everything. “People who live in glass houses…” and all. Honor your mother and father, don’t kill other people, don’t steal stuff, treat others the way you’d want to be treated yourself. Yes, I agree. All very nice platforms from which to operate.
However, this twisted, bizarre interpretation wherein everyone who doesn’t adhere strictly to the covenants should be summarily lectured, shunned, ostracized, jailed or otherwise forced to fall in line is just off the scale. This religion is bad. In fact, when you look at them, pretty much all organized religion is bad because it places people in a position to judge and it gives groups reasons to fight with one another about interpretations of minor issues.
Laws are laws, and they’re there to ensure that society keeps on going. You can’t very well have people cheating or stealing or raping or killing. Fine – I agree wholeheartedly. You obey the laws, which are there for a reason, and sure some of them seem kinda stupid, but you know they make the world a better place overall. Just because I feel I can drive carefully at outrageous speeds doesn’t mean that the guy next door can do it without running over someone’s grandmother, so you just accept that it’s not something you’re allowed to do by the very authorities we have all chosen to put in place. Laws are in place to keep society and its citizens safe. But the idea of morality being legislated? Makes me sick to my stomach. We need to turn away from morality being legislated and laws being set to prevent minorities from enjoying the same rights everyone else has. The lines between our own lives and the rights to them gets thinner and thinner, and we have to be more and more careful about how we step through this minefield of potential legislation.
I’ll say one more thing about this whole mess – no religion, no matter how many or how few people believe in it, should have any legal jurisdiction over any other person, especially those who don’t believe in it. Morality is choice – you choose how you want to live. Law is law. You don’t get to choose whether you break them, unless you want the consequences. Religion has no place in the issue. Whether you believe in a god, or a pantheon, or mother earth or anything else has no legal bearing on anything. It’s up to you, after a point, to decide how you want to live and why. If you need the impetus that if you don’t do things a certain way, you’ll suffer after you’re dead, then fine. If you don’t, then that’s excellent.
Why they even care what gay people do is beyond me. Theoretically, wouldn’t the religious people believe that all those sinners would get their just desserts after they die? The religious right can just stuff it, with their attempts to influence legislation.
2. On missing cats
I miss my cats terribly. I hear about how they’re doing, and about their capers from my parents periodically when I call to check on them, but it’s really not the same. I wish I could pick them up and hug them when I’m feeling rotten. I wish I could give them some treats and tell them how much I love them. I wish I could throw the rattley mice for Smudge and watch her pounce on them. I wish Tobey could climb up into my lap and rub his head on my arm, forcing me to pet him and tell him how good he is. I wish Rumble would tell me it’s dinner time, now, damnit, feed me! I wish Caspar was here to tell me he wants a hug by stabbing me in the leg with a well-placed claw (that doesn’t break the skin, mind you). I need some good cat attention.
The dogs are not the same. The dogs are bouncy and wriggly and hard, and are really too big to carry around (The NoodleDog is over 60 lbs now, and Cooter isn’t far behind at 45 lbs). Plus, the dogs have big raking claws and, as unclipped, those things will tear a furrow out of your skin like a bowie knife. Except bowie knives are sharper. Cat claws, being smaller and having less weight behind them, do on the whole less damage. Especially since they are retractable and they don’t scratch you unless you’re doing something foolish with them like teasing them when they’re in a paper bag, or you’ve pissed them off and have backed them into a corner.
3. On Everything Else
I don’t know why I have the doldrums, generally, but I do. I’m disappointed with how long it’s taking to get settled at the house (which is what I’m supposed to call it now that I’m living there, instead of “Rob’s House”). It feels like I’m on an extended stay to a relative’s place, where they say “our house is your house – make yourself at home!”, only you know very well you’re not supposed to use the good towels and you can’t really put your feet on the furniture, and you should probably be quiet all the time. I know this is just me, because Rob has done pretty much everything he can to make the place accessible to me. I don’t know why I feel this way. Oh sure, there are small reasons for small things:
- The washer/dryer are set up backwards. Seems like a small issue, sure, except the washer door opens to the left side upwards, which blocks access from and to the dryer. The dryer door opens from the left to the right and isn’t as accessible for opening when you’re standing in front of the washer, and the transference of clothing from washer to dryer isn’t happening for me as well as I’d like to see. Picky, picky.
- The living room is very dark. The lamps are pretty, sure, but they give off about three lumens of light each, and the room is big, and they’re both at one end. Consequently, if you’re trying to organize CDs alphabetically at the unlit end, you have to squint a lot and you’ll probably end up giving yourself a whopping headache.
- The bathroom is small and there is little storage space. I’m a girl, I have girl things. I have a hairdryer, toothbrushes (currently two, which is odd for me, but the way that worked out is because I was simultaneously living in two places at once for a while, and neither toothbrush is worn-out yet so I’m using them both, taking turns each day, in the hopes that I can wear ‘em out at the same time and get one new one to replace them), hairbrushes, hair clips, many little bars of soap, facewash, makeup, perfumes, hand creams, scented lotions (which are not the same as hand creams), scarves (for driving in the Tiny Car to keep my hair contained), medicines and various other sundry items. I had a bathroom in my condo, and it was full. I am now sharing a bathroom and Rob has his guy stuff, and my space is severely limited. Sure, I should cut back, but it’s frustrating when the thing you need was last seen in the bottom of an overfilled drawer and you can’t seem to find it now.
- Many of my belongings are packed in boxes. I have extracted the everyday living essentials, but have worked long and hard to amass a great quantity of stuff, most of which is now inaccessible and it’s frustrating when you need paprika, and it’s in one of those boxes in the middle of the pile, but you can’t remember what the box it’s in looks like, so you start rummaging, and then Rob brings you SOMEONE ELSE’s paprika to use.
- I can’t work the TV setup as well as I’d like. We’ve been out a lot and consequently, I’ve had to tape some TV shows I like to see regularly. Apparently you can’t tape from satellite without the powers of a lesser deity, so I’ve had to contract this job out to my parents. I ended up with one show missed entirely (they started taping pretty much one hour after it started, so I got the very ending, and then the hour of crap that was on afterwards), and one show was cut off halfway through as a special torture. Plus, their ABC network channel has a poor signal. We’re getting cable at the house this week, which is an added entertainment expense in the budget, but my sanity is probably worth it.
- The back entrance is difficult to work around. The back entrance is the main entrance we use all the time. There is room for precisely ONE person and ONE dog on that landing, and if you try to pack more than that in there, someone will probably end up falling down the stairs. It’s not so bad, but it’s just not convenient.
- Cooter continues to be destructive so we can’t leave him in the house. It’s nice out now, but it may be colder next week. See the “Cooter the Destroyer” post for further information.
- Rob’s roommate isn’t moving out for another month. This concept is so depressing that I can’t really talk about it too much or I’ll whip myself into a frenzy of insanity, but suffice it to say that I really don’t handle living with a roommate too well. Nothing personal against the guy, but I just don’t like the idea of a stranger in the house, especially one I didn’t choose as a roommate and therefore only have myself to blame for it. I’ve had terrible roommates in the past who seemed reasonable at first, so maybe I’ve just been conditioned to hate roommates, but whatever the case, I’m not at ease whatsoever in the house.
- I’m out of rye. Self explanatory.
These little things add up. I overreact and get myself into a little tizzy over them, thinking that they’re indicative of the way the whole shooting match is going to go, so I get increasingly freaked-out because of the way my mind works. I extrapolate a lot. I “read between the lines” when there aren’t any to read between. I know I do it, yet when I’m doing it, it seems like the most rational behaviour in the world to me. So there’s really no stopping it.
Further, I feel also there is no alternative. I mean, I can’t very well go and stay with my parents, can I? How ridiculous is that? And I don’t really want to be away from Rob – it’s not him, it’s the situation. I can’t move back to the condo, and I wouldn’t want to anyway. I need to just try and find a way to relax for a month (which is impossible), so I accept I’m probably just going to be a little depressed for a while.
Apologies to all who read the blog. I’ll try to give myself a good swift kick, or start drinking during the daytime, or find some sort of healthier outlet for my frustrations.
