Golden Girls Gone Wild

I had an email from my mother this morning, who is currently doing a spot of travelling in far away places, to tell me she landed in Tokyo safely and that it was 26 degrees Celsius and humid. I don’t know about you guys’ mothers but mine always likes to keep me abreast of the weather situation, at any given time, wherever she is, just in case of emergency. She’s British you see, therefore she still has this inbuilt wonder and appreciation of any weather that isn’t apocalyptic.

I have visions of being on some game show like, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” and the question comes up, “What is currently 26 degrees and humid?” and I can glance at the choices and confidently smile and say, “Well Regis, if I’m not mistaken, ‘David Hasselhoff’s sweaty ball sack’ actually clocks in at a rather tepid twenty FOUR degrees, therefore, it would have to be C) the weather in Tokyo!” and everyone would gasp and applaud, fully impressed that someone should know something so absurd and Regis would be all, “Ah, I assume you have a retired mother visiting Tokyo?” and I’d be like, “Sure do Reeg. And coincidentally, she’s the one who told me about the Hoff’s sack!” and we’d all laugh and nod knowingly and ideally I’d get $250,000 (and some soothing salve for my mind after its imagination of Hasselhoff’s balls.)

My mother’s a touch eccentric to begin with and she likes to travel, so when she emailed me a few months ago and said, “I’m so tired of the rainy weather this summer, I think that Pat and I will take a little trip somewhere to escape!”, I didn’t think much of it as she and her best friend Pat are always going on little weekends here and there since they’ve now both retired.

One year they splashed out and went to Greece for a week, returning with tales of heavily moustachioed Greek men who called them “ladies” and plied them with Ouzo while they stayed out till ALMOST MIDNIGHT!

“Where are you going?” I asked, when I next spoke to her on the phone.

“Well…” she said. “We’re spending ten days in Tokyo, three weeks in Australia and a week in Hong Kong!”

So that was her idea of a “little trip”. For the record, my “little trips” normally involve a weekend up in Grand Forks to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas till I pass out then waking up with a bra on my head. And realizing “That’s not MY bra!”

Anyway, she was excited because Japan’s not like anywhere she’s ever been before and she wasn’t sure she was ready for the culture shock. To be honest, I’m not sure Japan’s ready for the culture shock of two sixty-something year old ladies trying to figure out the intricacies of sushi and vending machines full of secret alien substances. I’m sort of half hoping for entertainment’s sake, that she comes home dressed as as schoolgirl and sporting a Hello Kitty backpack.

Why Sleep is Important

I’m a laid back sort of person for the most part, but sometimes, especially when I’ve been a crazy insomniac for a lengthened period of time, things just mess with your calm demeanour out of pure spite. Like today I got visibly pissed off at some chocolate that wouldn’t melt fast enough. The audacity of that damn chocolate, man. I mean come on, I had COOKIES TO FROST! I wanted to EAT those stupid cookies.

I stood there over the stove prodding it with a wooden spoon (the chocolate not the stove - what would be the point in that?) and…it just stared back at me like, “Yeah?????”.

So I started muttering at it. Things like, “Oh. Oh, so let me get this straight, when you’re in my jeans pocket for more than two minutes you melt into a shitty brown pool of goo and smear all over everything but I lay you over a pot of humid, steamy, boiling water and you’re all ‘oh, hi, nice day, how are you?’ and display no sign of melting? You fucking fuck.”

It succumbed in the end. The cookies were good. Would you like one?

Also, did you ever wake up in the night with a jolt, because you heard an unidentifiable sound that you know wasn’t a regular floor creak or a car driving by outside and you’re all sort of freaked out and afraid to peer out of the covers in case you encounter some huge black mass with glowing red eyes, malevolently staring back at you, bending its crooked, bony finger back and forth beckoning you, with an evil, rotten-toothed grin on its face, sort of like Shane MacGowan's evil, psychotic, less-talented, incinerated twin, and you strain your ears to decide if whatever bastion of pure, undiluted evil that made that sound might still be hovering with psychotic intent waiting to snap off your head with its decaying incisors as soon as you pop your head out and so, as a deterrent, you put the pillow over your head and decide denial is the best policy but you can’t get it out of your head that maybe that foul deviant is wielding an axe just feet above your neck, and it might be better to be forewarned about such a thing, so you reluctantly decide to take action using the element of surprise to your advantage, so you take a deep breath and fast as lightning you move the pillow and the blanket off your face and sit up really fast, and yell something undeniably forceful like, “Please leave now, nasty, smelly creature of the undead or I will be forced to dig out my Bee Gees collection!” to totally catch him unawares (because I’ve heard that yelling combined with catchy disco tunes scares evil away) and when you do…there’s no one there?

That happens to me a lot.

This is why you should eat your vegetables and not be an insomniac, kids. Evil nightmares and long sentences.

1010

Big Mama Cass asked me to do a meme and since I’m all about the Mamas & Papas and Friday’s all about memes, I agreed.

* Wait a goddamn second…didn’t Mama Cass choke on a sandwich or something? Could Big Mama Cass be an imposter?!?!

Anyway, the meme is about ten honest things you might not know about me and since I’ve done this meme I think 500 other times before (ok maybe four times or something), I’m not at all sure there’s anything left you don’t know about me, making me feel quite fucking violated, thank you very much.

*On Fridays swearing is allowed. I make the rules.

So without further ado, scraping the bottom of the barrel for the last time - THE TEN.

1) My preferred manner for eating French Fries is with salt and vinegar sprinkled on liberally then dipped in mayonnaise. If you are offended by this you can just suck it up because I have awesome taste, motherfuckers.

2) My least favourite sound (apart from Bono in his private jet bleating about saving the environment – hypocrisy much, Bono?) is the noise the TV remote makes when it hits a hard-wood floor from a height. That noise makes me want to drill a hole in my own skull.

3) I have a big thing for retro wallpaper. The more screamingly offensive it is, the more I tend to like it. The brighter the colour and more geometric the pattern the more I want it. Basically if you could put the sixties and seventies together in a big, nasty, eyeball-boiling, melting pot of colour-clashing awesome and stir it with a magic spoon, the result would be my idea of a good time.

4) I have never had fondue. Sue me. Other things I’ve never had and ultimately don’t want: foie gras, a lobotomy and Bret Michaels.

5) I adore the smell of Kiwi shoe polish. Seriously, it’s one of my favourite scents anywhere. It makes me want to do bad things. It’s just sublime. They ought to hand it out at UN summits and War debates and make everyone kiss and make up and kiss each other's bottoms and things like that. If you ever want me to do anything you want, just bring me a monster tub of Kiwi polish and I’m yours, baby.

6) I do not own a cell phone. When I did have one all I did was send obnoxious texts because I’m too anti social to call anyone. Other things I don’t own: A Twitter account, a Facebook, a MySpace, a naked sculpture of Britney Spears pleasuring a donkey or an iota of common sense.

7) When Criss Angel claimed he could levitate us right through the TV the other night, I laughed my ass off, then I decided to try it. I even loudly offered to give Criss Angel a "stupendous BJ" if he succeeded because I knew he was full of shit. I mean I wouldn’t put YOUR mouth near that guy’s baby-stick. Naturally, (thankfully!) I didn’t levitate but I did call him a "repugnant elephant-fucker" just because I can.

8) I recently scored 149 on the MENSA IQ test. Those things are bullshit. It was the same day I locked my keys in the car at the supermarket. Irony? I think so.

9) I like to play pranks on people but they always go hideously wrong. For example, recently I pranked Soda & Candy and unintentionally freaked her out big time, then I pranked Some Guy Chris and almost gave him a heart attack. Sorry guys. Haha. Kind of.

10) I like the name “Vladimir”. If I ever get a male cat I’m calling him Vladimir, for sure. That’s a bad-ass name for one’s pussy.
Well, that was fairly lame. I was running out of things to tell you. I mean I’m fascinating and all but there’s a limit. Pfft.

I’m now tagging ALL OF YOU to do this. You know, if you want…

For some previous things you didn’t know about me see here and here. There are others but I can’t be bothered looking for them, so try not to cry, I know it’s disappointing.

Have a sexy weekend!

The Large and the Small Of It

I went to Costco last night to purchase a new camera after I accidentally dropped mine on the floor last week and sent it into a non-recoverable coma and put myself into deep mourning. That camera and I have been everywhere together and taken all manner of dull, interesting and downright vulgar photographs - none of which featured my naked boobular region, so don’t go thinking it. 

Sure the old guy was clunky and slow despite its SLR goodness and yes, maybe it did only have four poxy little megapixels which ensured graininess when enlarging anything but it was part of its rustic charm. And what if it WAS six years old and horrendously out of date? I loved it! RIP clunky Olympus dude.

But the time had come, I guess. One must move on. So I bought this tiny, spunky, back-talking little Canon whore with 12 megapixels and a cavalier attitude. A little sexy two-tone, pinkish coloured minx that fits in my smallest bag or pocket. It’s only a point and shoot camera but at least I can take pictures again. You know, once I figure out what the hell all the buttons and menu items are for. If there are too many coloured lights and buttons and knobs and things, I go into a sort of stimulation overload type of seizure.

I’m used to manual settings and complete control so it’s extremely possible that this highly automatic, pouty little vixen will mess with my psyche in the worst way till I figure out what I can override and what I can’t. And if I can’t, I’m going to sulk. And probably rethink my position on this not swearing business. I hate figuring out new technology. It makes me feel retarded.

This is riveting isn’t it? I can see why you come here!
The point that I was actually wanting to make and failing, was about Costco and its hypnotizing array of larger-than-life produce. Can anyone really consume sixteen giant muffins? Who buys those paint can sized tins of Heinz ketchup? When did coleslaw come in a bucket?

Why does that last sentence sound nasty?

Of course, someone else out there is wandering around Costco in a haze going, “Who buys those blocks of cheese the size of a Florida Condo?” and the answer would be, I DO! Because you can never have too much cheese. One day someone is going to open my fridge door and be confronted with a whole wall of cheddar and I’m going to sit back, smug congratulatory look on my face, going, “BEHOLD MY GREAT CHEESE ACHIEVEMENT!”

And that’s the day I will have reached my sanity goal.

570

Sometimes you find yourself somewhere for the very first time and you feel like you belong, like there’s some sort of cosmic force pulling you toward it like a magnet. Even though you’ve never been there before, it feels almost like home. A place secure and serene, yet with no walls to hold you in or keep the world out. You may never live in that place, but that place will always live in you. You don’t find these locations often but when you do, they carve a hole deep in your psyche - persistent worms of inspiration and clarity, like it was always meant to be.

There’s a lonely two lane highway that snakes through Eastern Alberta and into the rugged folds of Saskatchewan. I’ve only been down that road once but it’s a road that reeled me in with its gentle magic and has never let me go. It represents peace in a mind so often filled with non-peaceful thoughts. This is a road which winds for a couple of hundred kilometres through sun-soaked fields of scorched hay and stretched cornflower-blue skies, where you might never pass another vehicle the entire route. Where you’re more likely to encounter grazing antelope than another human being. It’s as though beyond the confines of the road, the real world doesn’t exist. It’s a road dripping with the lazy drone of bees, the lilting creaks of birds and the sweet melody of a silence devoid of man.

Somewhere, amidst all that emptiness, I really feel alive. Small yet significant. Still, yet soaring like a kite. A cool balm of soothing tranquility for a bruised mind. All my problems evaporate into that hot, blue nothingness, leaving behind a slowly rising mist of hope.
It’s a road to nowhere in particular, yet, somehow, a path to everything that’s possible.

You might never get to drive along its remote surface, thick with cracked paint and potholes that hold a thousand stories, but it doesn’t matter because there are lonely roads everywhere just like Highway 570 and when you find one it will always take you where you need to go.

*&$#^9@

You’ll all be delighted to know I am trying to swear less. Even though I considered framing and worshipping Words Words Words' comment that I am the Michelangelo of swearing, I am making a valiant effort to sound like I don’t spend most of my time hanging around the docks with drunkards and truck drivers. Which I don’t. In case there was any doubt.

Those guys hang around ME. For swearing tips!

I don’t actually swear that much in real life. I swear way more on this here blog, because it’s a shameless hussy that brings out the devil in me. But it’s not pretty to hear a lady say bad words and as I am a lady I am trying to cut down on it. I wouldn’t want those tasty, sexy little words to lose their emphasis because I over use them. If anything, I'm not decreasing swearing so much as increasing its effectiveness, no?

* I'm listening to Tony Orlando's "You're a Lady" for encouragement. It includes the classic, poetic line "You're a lady, I'm a man". Thanks Tony Orlando. Thanks for noticing. I secretly heart Tony Orlando, the smooth bastard. OOPS, sorry! That one slipped out (that's what SHE said!)

I’m not stopping altogether. For example, I’m not about to drop a sledge hammer on my big toe and scream, “GOSH THAT SURE HURT QUITE A BIT!” No, in severe cases like these I’m going to use every reserve swear word in the swear bank that I’ve been saving all month, even particularly foul ones I only utter on special occasions. I might even invent a few.

I thought about starting a swear box but I’d only use it to buy chocolate and Diet Pepsi – the DP cancels the chocolate, I read it somewhere – and besides I’d have to make a swear scale because not all swear words are equal. An irritated “shit” ought to cost less than a rousing “fuck” don’t you think? A “c*nt” is worth about five bucks. See, it’s so potent I didn’t even want to spell it out!

I’m still going to say “goddamn”. I like “goddamn”. It accurately conveys a person’s dissatisfaction with the job at hand. I’m cutting down on swearing, not blasphemy. Blasphemy is my goddamn middle name.

Maybe instead of a swear word I’ll make a bleeping sound like on network TV. Or carry a gong around with me and smash it whenever I want to yell the eff word. Who knows? The world is my flipping oyster.

Naturally, on days where I'm particularly disgruntled (like Sunday through Saturday) you might get a mercy "fuck" out of me, or even a "pigfucker!" if I'm really feeling evil. I wouldn't want to forget how to use them after all.

I know what you're thinking too, don't think I don't. You're thinking, "Maybe you should think less about cutting out the swearing, Veg and think more about cutting out the 'rambling like your life depends on it!' thing."

Well, screw YOU hippy.

Vegetable Contemplation

People have their own dreams of what they want their lives to be.

Maybe it’s success at work, to drive a better car or have a pool built in their yard. Perhaps they want four kids and a house in the country. Maybe they want a penthouse apartment in the city and annual vacations to the tropics.

Sometimes they want to work in soup kitchens or animal shelters or grow their own crops.

Me, I was never conventional in my hopes and aspirations. I never wanted a big house and a mortgage. I never wanted kids or the sort of responsibilities that tie people down. I never wanted a sports car or a ridiculous fur coat. I laugh when people say “Money can’t buy you happiness”. It might be true, but I admit, money sure helps.

Despite this, I’m more concerned with freedom than with money, although I’d like enough money to acquire the freedom, it goes without saying.

Because none of us are free and it’s a shame. We’re a slave to work and stress and other things that get in the way of fulfillment and happiness, because we have no choice. I saw a recent statistic that stated that something like 76% of people disliked, hated or were indifferent to their job. It hurts my soul that as people, we are resigned to spending all day working for someone else, to afford to live our lives when we’re wasting so much time.

I always wanted freedom. As a child I’d roam the countryside on my bike, loving the open space. As an adult nothing makes me happier than an empty beach or open blue skied prairies or vast red expanses of desert brush. Road trips make me joyful. I love to see old diners and old cars. I love to feel the sun on my face.

I like that my ties are to people rather than things. My feet itch so badly to keep on moving. I’m not sure they’re ever going to stop. I don’t have that nesting urge. I don’t like to be in one place too long.

I’d like to split my seasons between the Florida Keys, the Arizona/New Mexico deserts and the Canola filled prairies. I want to avoid winter. I want to swim in lakes and oceans and eat outside by firelight. I want to travel around seeing little places and travel overseas to see bigger ones. I want to paint outside by the ocean and drink cocktails watching the sunset over some distant desert mesa or Mexican vista. I want the person I love to be there too because this dream is worthless alone.

I want to wake up in harmony with the world and myself. I want to do a job I love and contribute something meaningful to society and not just earn a pay cheque.

The things I want aren’t big things, they’re just hard to acquire, but they shouldn’t be.

Really I just want endless summer.

And one day I am going to find it.