I'm living "The Office."

This is my SECOND blog for one day. (see below for first.)

I just lived an episode of "The Office".

The president of the company came back and told us that he'd found a gift for the secretary's 5 year anniversary in his desk. He'd forgotten about it for 2 weeks. He told us we all had to go up to reception to award it to her. So the 8 of us go into reception and she is on the phone looking disturbed. She doesn't even glance up at us or acknowledge our presence at all. We all know from previous conversations with her that she is in the middle of getting divorced and remortgaging her house to pay her husband off to get rid of him.

So she was on the phone with the bank because she was having problems getting the money. We are all standing around watching her try to remortgage her house while she completely ignores us. After a 2 or so agnozing minutes, the president says we'll come back later.

We go back to our desks and El presidente lingers around waiting. He is in a chit-chattting mood and makes a remark about my legwarmers. (I'm sure you are all picturing me on some kind of flash dance outfit).
He said, "Weren't they fashionable way back when?"
I say, "Yes. These are the same pair I wore when I was 11 years old actually."

He says, "When was that, five years ago?"

I say, "Triple it and you are closer."

"26?", he says and I realize my math skill suck. "32.", I tell him.

He says, "No way. I want to see some ID." He's not saying that to be jokey or flattering. He does not believe me and suspects me of being a liar with my pants afire.

I say, "You want to see my driver's license?"

He says, "Yes I do." and then thoroughly inspects it. He informs me that he would not have put me past 26. That's a very specific number.

Thankfully, the secretary comes back at this point to see what we all wanted. He shoves the box at her and says, "Sorry it's 2 weeks late. You already know what it is because you picked it out for yourself, but open it anyway."

Since we are all at our desks, she has no choice but to stand out in the open, in the middle of the floor, all by herself, while we all watch her open an unwrapped cardboard box. It's a clock.

She says, "It's a clock." President says, "Just like you picked out."

Vice-president man takes it from her to inspect it. "That's a good clock. Very nice. Nice choice. Look, it has a barometer."

She informs him that it is useful to her for when she makes soap in her sparetime. Apparently, barometric pressure affects soapmaking.

He says, "So you just will stick this clock in the soap?"

She says, "Ha ha. Yes. That is right." Not seeming entirely sure wether or not he was joking. I wasn't sure either actually.

It only lasted a few minutes but it was painful. Five years and you get a stupid clock for sticking in soap.

Note to self: you suck.

In my personal google calendar, all I have marked are work holidays and my period.

I guess that's pretty much all anyone has. Wait a second, that's not true at all.

Tom Cruise diary:

Oct. 3- Holiday

Oct. 7- Period

Oct. 17- Be a total mental wierdo like some kind of cult-leading freak with cameras in my teeth so I can take photos of the disbelievers of xenu: note to self: move cameras to another body part, getting tired of smiling all the time.

Why am I writing about Tom Cruise for Xenu's sake? If you have not followed the link, PLEASE go read about Xenu! All hail Xenu!

Anyway, I'm sure some regular person's calendar has more than Tom cruise and I.

Regular Man Diary:

Oct. 2- Meet with JB re: Henderson account. Wear tight red underwear to feel sexy and confident.

Oct. 5- Give presentation re: connective solutions for flexibility in contractual databases. Drink heavily to sustain the feeling of wellbeing.

Oct. 9- Golf with Larry and JB. Bring hookers.

Oct. 13- Wife's birthday and period. Work late.

Oct. 16- Flight to Bangladesh to oversee factory fire.

Oct. 31- Halloween. Dress up like a big fucking asshole.

Or something like that...

Took an extra dose of St. John's Wort today and now can barely keep my eyes open. Is it wrong to eat 2 lunches?

Oh ya and Happy Halloween. Look out for the Great Pumpkin.

Who's the real beyatch?

On the train this morning, a woman sat across from me with a walkman. I don't even mean discman, I mean walkman. Tape cassette player.

Now, I'm no music snob (I am) but C'MON! Tape??? I relished in the ease and convenience with which I could manipulate my ipod settings. She tried to hide her cassette player behind her bag. I smiled to myself, with satisfaction, at the voluminous choice of my personal music collection I had at hand. She glared defiantly at me as if daring me to call her on her inferior audio equipment.

Here's the thing though, she could have rocked that walkman. She could have paired it with some massive headphones and painted it with pink and black polka dots and carved "I love Bon Jovi" in the casing with a protractor and I would have been jealous. Jealous I tell you! But she didn't. She just sat stiffly, staring down at her lap, fiddling slightly with the volume dial, darting her eyes angrily up everyonce in a while to see if anyone was mocking her; her thin, pink, sparkly lips set in a grimace.

Why even bother? What could she possibly have cared to listen to? What is it with those sorts of people with their half-hearted music listening? I imagined it to be some sort of self-help tape. "How to Not Live Your Life Hating Every Moment of It." or "Failing at Everything?-You're Not Wearing Enough Make-Up Lady!" or "How to Get Married, Become a Manager, Give your Dog a Make-over and Get to Heaven for Less than a Dollar a Day." Something to that effect.

I'm being so hard on the lady.

Tomorrow: I will look out for some man to slander. It's all about the love.

But seriously folks, it's Halloween and I haven't even thought of what to get dressed up as. Maybe that's got something to do with the fact that I have nowhere to go even if I do. I could just sit around the house dressed up like a pineapple smoothy or Linus Van Pelt on a bad acid trip or Ernest Borgnine's Corpse but what fun would that be? I have no party to go to! Waahhh. I have no friends to start with, probably because I am such an arse. I could crash a party but I'm not hip to all the good spots in this town. I will stay home and perform voodoo instead. Like I do everyday. Same old, same old. Sleep, eat, work, do voodoo.

Do you enjoy knives?

I was looking for an extension of my contract and then I found one, and heaven knows I'm miserable now...Well, not really. I dunno. Money is good for paying rent. This job is good for providing ample time and privacy for blogging and reading about samurai...I suppose I should be grateful but there hasn't been sun, in what feels like a year, and the coffin lid of depression seems to be creaking it's way toward closing.

So i'm employed (barring any psychotic episodes that would get me fired) until at least the end of march. That means we can heat our place and eat everyday too! Not just one or the other!

Coffin lid of depression.

Went for a walk at lunch to help activate dopamine and what-not. Still really like Montreal. It's a fab city. Even if I don't technically live in it anymore. It has a really good feel. It feels honest. I'm not sure how to explain. You know when it's snowing big fat flakes of snow and people are prancing around in their fancy attire that is entirely ill-equipped for the weather; hobbling on their high-heeled boots or freezing their asses in their skimpy leather coat, pressing their cellphone to their red ears with frozen, ungloved fingers...and then some supercute guy or gal walks by with the ugliest toque ever and a huge parka and mittens and they are smiling because it's good? Toronto is the gonad in the heels and leather, Montreal is the one with the toque.

Sorry for being a hater Toronto, but that's what you get fer wearing your stupid high-heel, calfskin boots.

Maybe I should start a whole separate blog on Toronto vs Montreal. Any true canadian will now have visions of blue maple leafs and red c's with a white h's in the middle.

Can a person get insanity due to an uncared for cavity? I will go check now. I looked for 2 seconds and got fed-up. Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippo instead!

Today is the first day in about a week where I haven't got the wobbly feeling in my forehead like I'm about to go mad. Like there is volatile jello, bubbling in my forehead that will seep into the rest of my brain and make me lose all sense. Fever? Sinus infection? Anxiety? Alien DNA? Fucking insane? All of the above and a mon chi-chi?

Sometimes, I go to the wikipedia entry with all the names of Simpsons episodes just so I can trigger the episode in my head.

Creeeaaakkkk.

Rats off baby.

This is my unsolicited advice for today: If you liked the Duran Duran in the 80's and you haven't listened to them in a while, go do it. Even if you have to just sing it in your head, rediscover D x 2. Rio, New Moon on Monday, Planet Earth, C'MON! It's still good.

1. Fashion your hair into a mullet (bobby pins will do the trick).
2. Put on something shiny.
3. Highlight your cheekbones and apply pearly pink lipstick.
4. Cut off the tips of an old pair of gloves(then put them on. it's not just the gesture of cutting that counts, like some kind of 80's voodoo.).

Now play air synthesizer to Duran Duran. Pretend to be Nick Rhodes. Look serious and pout your lips and look around while you pretend to play all the synths that surround you and twiddle knobs on your special synth driving computers. Go on, you know you want to. Shout out stuff like: "Good thing my model girlfriend is waiting for me backstage with champagne after I finish playing keyboards in my great band!" or "Too bad all other bands don't know how to make a decent video like we do!".

For a couple of weeks during the moving strife and sinus infection and such, I had to force myself to eat. Rare for me. Now I'm making up for lost time. I can not stop eating! Rats off to me. And instead of coffee, which did not agree with me in the least, now I am addicted to tea. I'll tell you what though, tea and chocolate soy milk do NOT mix well. I'm sorry, they just don't.

Yesterday I was dressed like someone who heals their cats emotional troubles with crystals. I wear things to work that I would not, in a trillion years, consider wearing otherwise. Speaking of healing with crystals; this morning on the train, I sat across from a woman like that. I couldn't see her sweater under her coat but I am positive it had cats embroidered on it, or there was at least a pewter cat pin. Now, I love cats. I LOVE them. I just don't need to hand stitch their images into my clothing. ANYWAY, I have no problem with cat sweaters or the people who wear them. Rats off to them. Let's face it though, it does indidcate a certain personality profile.

So, she was reading some sort of cheaply bound, photocopied, print-out book on healing. With little quotes in the sidebar like: "Expect all your needs to be met. Expect answers to all questions. Expect abundance at all times." Pfft. Ya right.

She was underlining that which she deemed important, which just so happened to be everything. Why underline everything? Does that not somehow negate it's intended effect? Was that not a question posed by Hyposocrastotleclese? "Does overuse of the highlighter not null it all to hell?" I think is the exact quote. Maybe she just liked drawing lines to show it had been read. Her lipstick was fuschia like a blooming, hothouse orchid.

This morning, I just wanted to stay home and finsh putting up my spice rack. I wanted to listen to music, open the drapes to see the river and tidy up the place in my pajamas, all the while appreciating the fact that I am in my own little detached home. Cold and damp is not my care! Lack of neighbours is the thing. Yes indeed. Rats off to me!

It's really serious.

Gawd. I am so in 1998 today. I just finished reading ,several years late, Girlfriend In A Coma. It's been said by everyone years ago I'm sure, but damn. Mr. Coupland, you have gone into my head, discovered my main problem in life the universe and everything and wrote a book about it.

It's both a little exhilarating, somehow, to be able to share traits with others in your generation and yet, a little shame producing also- to be such a tool of your environment or whatever causes the likeness. Everyday, from waking to sleep, lives the nagging, paralysing feeling that I have sooo much I could be doing and yet...nothing. I do nothing. SO much to offer. And nothing. It's HORRIBLE and I know I'm not the only one. My compadres feel it. Why are we smart, creative, sensitive, insightful, original and completely and utterly incapable of releasing it. We cannot manifest. Will it take the end of the world like Coupy suggests?

Also, I can't get Le Tigre out of my head. Hot topics is the way that we run. The book and the song probably came out on the same day. I'm in a time warp.

1998. Bit of a piece of crap year.

As were most of the 90's let's face it.

I tried to take note of how many Morrissey lyrics were quoted in the book but lost track, as I was more interested in the story.

Sing to the tune of your choice- Library, library, I love you. You give me books for free and ask nothing in return, sauf que je les retournes dans trois semaines.It's bilinguiscious. Like Mr.T. and not like me. Uh-oh. Rhyming. First sign of mania.

So, instead of creating and challenging each day, I eat, electronically archive various bits of paper trails of financial transactions, eat some more and sleep. All the while berating myself for my sluglike lack of contribution to things as a whole. No offense to slugs.

Whine, whine whine you say. I KNOW!!! But continue I shall it seems. Doomed to forever see the wasting of potential and effect no change. I know if you don't understand you just CAN'T understand. "WHy don't you f'ing DO something about it you little knobhead?"- you ask me.I DON"T KNOW!!! I DON"T KNOW!!!! AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile, these cornnuts taste good. Is is corn-nuts or cornuts? Cor-nuts. Corn-uts. Cocornougatnuggettuts = coconut-covered, nougat nuggets with a cornut inside. I will eat the world.

You wanna piece o' me?!!

PMS, PMS, PMS.

KILL, MURDER, STAB.

Stereotypical but true.

Last night after work, with only 4 minutes to catch my train, and a maniacal need to pee, I run to the station bathroom. Gare centrale and only 2 stalls in the lady pee-room. I say "shit, shit!", as there is a line-up of 2 people, and run out, thinking I don't have time. Then I reconsider and run back in. The last woman in line is just going into the stall and she turns and looks disaprovingly at me as she closes the stall door.

I wait, tapping my foot for a bit. I mutter under my breath, "C,mon, c'mon."

One woman is clearly still doing her thing but the other woman (the one who gave the look) has flushed the toilet, pulled up her pants and zipped. Now she is just standing there-I can tell by the angle of her feet. Silence. She is taking her time to piss me off. Little does she know though, that I am insane PMS woman.

I kick the wall once to relieve some stress as I start really panicking about either pissing my pants on the train, or missing it entirely and getting home 45 minutes later than I want. Another 20 seconds or so pass and finally she comes out. I rush past her and speed pee. I come out as she is drying her hands and on her way out the door she says to me,"You shouldn't push people around."

WHAT THE FUCK??!!! She is teaching me a lesson for being in a hurry and being impatient? How about look at your own motivations darling, and consider why you need to passively-aggressively stick it to someone. You can't pee well under pressure? You work in a massage parlour giving hand-jobs to stinky, divorced, middle-management losers and have no other way to exert some sort of power or control over your life?

My self-righteous and hormone fuelled indignation is peaking and rather than turn around and bite out her eyeballs, I wittily(not at all) hiss,"I'm not pushing anyone around. Fuck off."
"You fuck off, bitch." she replies as she makes for the door."
Continuing to hurriedly wash my hands (hygiene first ladies and gentlemen!) and without even turning around I yell, " Why don't you come back here and say that you fucking whore!" Ya that's right. Why don't you come back here and say that you fucking whore.

I had a taste for blood and I ran out of the bathroom, glancing briefly at the feet of the woman still in the other stall who is probably thinking she best stay where she is.

I exit and whip my head left to right, searching with my laser-rage vision for her tall and lunky (probably strong as hell too), frizzy-haired self. I see the top of her head running like hell down-some stairs and completely off my friggin' rocker by now, I run to the stairs with phrases like: "You want a piece of me?!!" or " You messed with the wrong lady, mother fucker!" and "Don't start what you can't finish you pathetic, chicken-assed cunt!" running through my head.

Luckily for me(and her, but probably mostly me) Mr. T yells out my name and tells me to hurry to catch the train. My pulse was still pounding in my ears on the train, partially out of rage and partially out of disbelief at my own insane behaviour. She probably was NOT expecting that to happen. So am I a total jerk? Normally no, (although some might dispute the hell out of that) but during that whole incident, yes. Yes I was a jerk. What can I say? Although I have mouthed off a few (many) times, I have never been in an actual fight.

I still think she deserved a punch in the puss.

Incorrigible.

RIP, drunken leprechauns.

I feel as though the vice-grip that has been clenched around my cerebral cortex has been released. Like the spike of fire that has been lodged into my neck has been removed. Like the hundreds of angry, drunk, leprechauns, golfing in my forhead have all dropped dead and....wait now, I don't really feel like I have a bunch of dead leprechauns in my head so scratch that last analogy. Anyway, I feel better dammit.

After MUCH hard work, we are moved in and I daresay that I am happy. YES that's right. H-a-pee-pee-y. It's quiet and pretty and all ours. Fucking life eh? One minute you are in hell, the next, you are sitting at your table looking out of your wall of windows at the water with nothing but the sound of the river's current and some ducks, thinking: "Well fuckballs! This as a distinct improvement!"

So, things have become easier to appreciate. On the commuter train ride(my second ever) I was able to admire the scarlett and orange leaves and the drizzly blue mist. Listening to Grandaddy on my iPod (thanks goes out to my sister for donating her old one to me!)as they repeat the line in -He's Simple. He's Dumb. He's the Pilot. "Could you love this world if this world won't love you?". I've confronted that question alot the past, well, past few years actually. Good things have happened, most namely the T and Quebec but hell, there has been alot of crap. This is the first time in quite a while that I've felt the universe doesn't hate me.

I could even appreciate my fellow travellers on the train. I thought to myself: we are all still kids in bigger bodies, wishing we could go back to bed or stay home and play. Usually, when in a crowd, I am thinking only how much humanity reeks of idiocy. Felt different today.

Maybe I won't become a crazy, violent street person after all! I won't end up pushing around a shopping cart of flaming acorns and hurling them at anyone who dared to look me in any one of my eyes (Which I would be believing I had 5 of {how's that for a complicated verb tense?-if you are reading this my Paris dwelling friend, try translating that into french for some grammar fun!-}).

So PARTY AT MY HOUSE! WIHOOO!!! By party I mean - going to bed at 9:30.

Balls and beards.

Holy balls, does packing ever suck. Wah wah wah. That's all the time I will give to that becuase it is consuming every waking moment recently and I'm SICK of it. Bloody life drama.

So, apparently, the office across the hall has some sort of association with, or allegiance to, Russ Meyer. Seems like all the women who work there are 7 foot tall amazonian proportioned women. 4 inch high heels, blindingly blond hair and the biggest boobs they can bob around on their pointy-toed legs. Sound like your dream office? Then you are a creepy creep. They are always in the bathroom admiring themselves in the mirror or outside smoking - admiring themselves in the windows.

When I look out the window I can see ships going along on the St. Laurent. They move so slowly. I've always kind of wished that working on a ship (not a bloody cruise ship, just a regular old cargo ship) was a more viable option. Considering that I have no desire to be a highly-harrassed, female pioneer in male-dominated work-forces, get seasick, and enjoy not being away from my peeps for months on end, I'd say it's pretty much a write-off as a careeer choice. Still, I have romantic notions of brisk, over cast days in the middle of the ocean, out on deck as I gaze into the distance, smoking my pipe, the salty wind dampening my beard. Wait a minute: I seem to be a man in this fantasy. So clearly, the whole thing just doesn't work.