Hard and fruity now. Soft and chewy later.

Yesterday was a remarkably good day. An old friend called me up and asked me to help prop shop for a play she's working on. We picked up another friend and the three amigos dollar store hopped around town.

If you've never experienced shopping for props, I shall explain. You have a props list of all the things that you need for the play. Usually these things have little relativity to each other. It's life or death as to whether you find the items and you need to get them all for as cheap as possible. It all makes sense to us, but to the poor dollar store cashier, all they see is a bunch of nuts running around yelling about bungee cables, debating which butterfly net looks more Russian, and weeping with joy when they find a rubber duck.

After laughing obnoxiously for far too long about suggestive candy bar descriptions, we set off to find a Y shaped stick to make a sling shot out of. It wasn't until I was looking for a loose branch that I realized how well maintained this city is. Even searching on a mountain proved fruitless. I ended up extending myself from a boardwalk, over a swamp in a bird sanctuary to pluck the winning branch from the reeds. Success!

It's a great feat going to bed smiling, but it's an entirely different achievement to go to bed laughing.

Go alone.

I only had to work 3 hours today. Fine by me. I strolled to work eager to snap a few shots of the lovely autumn leaves, but couldn't do so because I had to maintain a speedy pace in order to be on time. It was quite a lovely day all the same. My coworker suggested that I go downtown, buy a bargain book, and read by the lake. I thought that was an excellent idea. After my 3 hour jaunt at the old grind, I headed to the bus stop only to find out that the bus wasn't coming for another half hour. Instead of waiting impatiently as I usually do, I walked in the direction of downtown, planning to stop at a bus stop down the road and wait for it there. I ended up walking about halfway, a good kilometer and a half. I managed to grab a few pictures before crashing on a bus stop bench. I had barely eaten anything all day and my hunger hit me all at once. I survived the ride downtown without wasting away. I took a quick stroll along the waterfront, took a couple more pictures, then snagged a window seat in an empty sushi bar. I feasted on green tea, miso soup, and some variation of a dynamite roll, read the paper, people watched, then continued on my merry way. I passed a film crew who were shooting in the street then stopped in a book store and picked up a copy of Fragile Things. A collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman who I recently started following on twitter, not that that's important. I ordered a caramel apple cider from my usual coffee house, snuggled into an armchair, and cracked open my new book. There's something so satisfying about making the first crease in the spine of a paperback. Perhaps I only feel this way because I'm accustomed to reading used books. Whatever the case, I took note of the experience. I sipped my cider and read for about an hour. During that hour I looked up three times. Once to greet an elderly fellow who was sitting down in the arm chair next to mine, twice to observe a young man who was working with the film crew I had passed who came in to use the washroom, but as he was not a paying customer was demanded to sing an uneasy rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle" in exchange for the key to the washroom, and thrice for no good reason at all. The funny thing about the third time is that while absolutely nothing prompted me to look up, when I did, I met eyes with a boy who works at the coffee shop who as it seemed had come in for a cup of tea on his day off. I have somewhat of a silly schoolgirl crush on this boy, which is why I find it funny that I looked up when I did. Had it been 5 minutes before or after, I would never have known he was there. Fate? Probably not. But as the entire basis of my feelings for him are completely foolish, I'm going to say there was some sort of telepathic romantic energy goin' on. Like a homing device for boys I fancy was beeping in my brain. As I said, I was in there for probably an hour until I bookmarked my page, picked up my camera, and wished good day to the old chap next to me. I ran into a girl I went to highschool with at the bus stop. She lives across the street from my work, so I see her from time to time. We took the bus together, taking note of a speedy old lady who was sprinting across a busy street, dangerously close to oncoming traffic, in heels. Go Go G-ma! When I stepped off the bus, there was a beautiful pinkish purple sky winking at me. I took its picture and headed home.

I'll share the pictures when I get them developed.

Starts With One

A few weeks ago I went to Vancouver for a few days. After late nights, long days, greasy food, and one too many vodka slimes, my immune system took a vacation upon my return home and I caught a nasty cold that left me bed ridden for 3 days. As soon as I was well enough, I bounced back to work and filled up my schedule with many a rendez-vous. While I was watching my diet a little better, I still wasn't sleeping properly and my body let me know in full force that it had had it. I was able to make it to work all of last week, but I wasn't capable of much more. I spent all of my free time in my room watching Sailor Moon, reading Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, and thinking about my life. I think I did far too much of the latter. By the end of the week I had turned into a nostalgia-fested, mopey, recluse. Memories of "the better days" and bitter feelings of lost love came rampaging out of nowhere and totally annihilated my happy-go-lucky, sunshine attitude.
With exception to a hazy trip I took to the mall while hopped up on Dayquil, yesterday was my first day out of the house. I spent most of the afternoon with a close friend of mine and his significant other. While I quite enjoyed myself, I still couldn't completely shake whatever forlorn state had come over me. Yesterday was my friend's 19th Birthday. She had organized a dinner with all of her friends which I attended, happy to be out of the house and seeing people I hadn't seen it what had seemed like months. Still though, my thoughts were a total mess and I remained distracted by doom, gloom, and impending thoughts of eternal loneliness. I remained in this absolutely ridiculous mind set through most of today as well. I was miserable. I knew I was being absolutely impossible, but I just wasn't able to put anything behind me, even though nothing had changed since the previous week. Then, a coworker of mine entered the store. She has just recently gone through a breakup and has had a lot of stress at home, but when she came through the door, she was happier than I had ever seen her. I asked her why she was so smiley, and she said that nothing had happened. She was just having a great day and loving life. Then I asked myself, "Why can't I have a fantastic day, too?" I immediately perked up at the thought of it. Something fantastic doesn't have to happen to make a day a "good day." It can be good just because you want it to be.
I made myself a caramel apple cider, picked up my pay cheque, and strolled along the lovely path back to my home. (Don't worry, everyone I came across had pants on.) The weather was absolutely perfect. I was walking past the Middle School a block from my house, past the lines of cars filled with parents waiting to pick up their kids. A car pulled into an open spot. It was a regular customer who had been in the store earlier. She gave me a huge smile and eagerly waved hello. For some reason, I thought that was really cool. I'm just the chick from the coffee shop, but my mere presence was enough to make her smile that much. It was just, cool! I checked the mail. The first thing I pulled out was an advertisement for Irving Berlin's White Christmas in which my best friend will be singing in the chorus. Neat coincidence. The next thing I pulled out was a letter addressed to myself which contained a $150 cheque from the government. As I walked through the door, my sister informed me that my Dad, who lives out of town, was going to be stopping by shortly. What an awesome array of surprise happenings!
The rest of the day hasn't been anything special, but I'm all warm and fuzzy.This whole entry seems so cheesy, but I'm okay with that. I was in such a rut, and all it took to get me out was to see one person being happy.

You can go vomit now. I know this has been disgustingly Opera.

Mine is big enough, thanks.

Over the past few years I've become somewhat of a Francophile. One day I decided to change my computer's language to French in an attempt to immerse myself in the language. The only time I really had trouble was when I couldn't remember how to change it back. After an afternoon of fiddling in my control panel, following the icons that looked like they'd lead me to the languages, I eventually switched it back to English and that was that. However, ever since my Francophone adventure, emails have turned up in my junk mail written entirely au francais. It never occurred to me that spam came in different languages. I haven't bothered to find out what they say, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Another junk box mystery that I've never been able to solve is the gratuitous volume of emails I get concerning penis enlargement. These days, I find it amusing, but as a ten year old girl who didn't understand the male anatomy, I was horrified. Who was sending this? How did they find my email?  What's wrong with having a small penis? I've never received any offers for weight loss, soul mate searchers, or eager attractive women who will telephone naughty things to me for $5 a minute, so what makes these spammers believe that I am in need of enhanced genetailia? The subject lines vary from "Do YOU have a small PENIS?" to "Get 6 inches overnight!!!" to "MAKE HER SCREAM IN BED". I'm not bothered by the emails, like I said, I think it's funny, but I'd like to know how this started. Does everyone get these emails, or is someone out there spreading rumors about my manhood?

Expect the little things.

There are a few humble reasons that led to the creation of this blog:

1. I often have interesting thoughts (at least I find them interesting) and I often wonder if anyone is on the same page as I am

2. I work in a coffee house. I interact with hundreds of people a day. Some are downtrodden old souls looking for a cup of joe. Others are arrogant business-like people who order complicated drinks to show off their success. Most of them are just regular people who aren't particularly interesting. They all have stories, and I'm here to tell them.

3. Sometimes I see things that need to be documented and discussed.

I will kick this thing off by throwing a #3 your way.

I had missed the bus home from work and as today was an unusually warm Autumn day, I decided to take a stroll through the lovely park that winds its way along a creek, between various homes and businesses, and conveniently leads almost all the way to my home. I am just recovering from a cold, so imagine me with a dry cough, runny nose, and stuffy brain. It was a truly remarkable day for a walk. The leaves are in various shades of green, yellow, orange and red. The ducks are playing in the ponds. The quail are rustling in the fallen leaves, darting to and fro. I turn a corner, eager to see what more Mother Nature will delight me with, when I spot a true beauty. There is a middle aged woman standing in the middle of the path holding the leash of a sad, ugly looking mutt which is shamelessly going #2. In her other hand is a lit cigarette. The woman is wearing an over sized grey T-shirt, faded pink slippers and, my God, no pants. Now, I've seen a questionable array of shorts, but this woman was actually factually not wearing any pants at all. This isn't a secluded path. There were other people walking along there. Old women who's hearts' may stop at a sudden startle, young mothers pushing strollers containing wee, traumatize-able children, and people recovering from colds who don't need polluted air or public indecency lurking around the corner. 

I've got a couple questions. "Where are her pants?" and "What was she thinking when she left the house?" 

More to come.