Time Off Well Spent

It's my last set of days off before the tour season is officially over and I've spent them doing things that I either never do or never have done. All activities can be classified on opposite ends of the Amount of Energy Required for Fun spectrum.

At one end: With complete honesty, I hardly ever watch TV. Ever since I moved away to school I watched less and less because I didn't ever own a TV and actually preferred it that way. Not only did I save my retinas from additional damage, I also saved on bills! But! Last night and today, I did little to nothing other than lay on the couch in my jammies and watch the moving pictures box for hours on end. With snackies. I have to say that even my TV time has been well spent. Not only have I become reacquainted with John and Kate Plus Eight (henceforth referred to as J&K+8) and What Not to Wear, I've also seen the likes of washed up stars like former N'Syncer Joey Fatone and former Spice Girler Mel B in those ultra-annoying commercials for The Singing Office. Is this what even reality TV has come to? Instead of letting the bad talent come to them, they have to pair up two has-beens and send them 'round to corporate America to seek it out? Honestly, if I see one more commercial for that show and have to listen to the ridiculous banter between those two (and with Mel B's accent too - urgh) any more than I already have... Let's say it together now: LAME!

The best reunion with an early 90s star so far has got to be with Joey Lawrence of Blossom fame way back when. Ashamedly, Alex and I were watching Master of Dance (what! it was better than Dance, Dance, Who Ever You May Be (whatever that is...)) and lo and behold, there was an older Joey Russo (sans masses of curly hair) hosting another ridiculous dancing show. What I would have given to hear him say, "Whoa!" And PS: When did he get so HOT?

In other television related news, Sex & the City makes me crazy aka a needy, emotional nutjob, What Not to Wear makes me want to go shopping, and J&K+8 makes me want to have multiple Asian-Caucasian mixed babies. Eight of them, to be precise. My god, have you seen how cute they are? Why are you not watching this show??

And at the other end of the Energy Required For Fun spectrum: activities that actually need me to move. I took Annia to the spa for a surprise birthday manicure-pedicure session and it went a little like this:

Me: Okay, so I have a surprise for you!
Her: PING! *shows me her nails*
Me: *eyes widen*
Her: PING! *shows me her toes*
Me: *mouth opens* Ohhh! So you got your nails done! *big toothy grin to hide horror* When did you do that? *smile bigger to hide desperation*
Her: Yesterday after work - there's a place right by my office!
Me: Ohhhh! Well, then! Isn't that ...GREAT?! *smile smile SMILE*

So, I plan a surprise mani-pedi spa session and she gets the mani-pedi done all by herself the night before. WHY do great minds have to think alike? As we were sitting in the spa after grappling with the front desk ladies as to how to resolve our little situation (I got the mani-pedi anyway, she went in for a facial), I said: "I'm so pissed" and she said, "This is so us" ...and she was right; it was SO us. In the end, she got her first facial ever and I got my first mani-pedi ever. All were ultra nice.

We got dolled up for a night on the town that night and went out to super nice restaurants/lounges. I loved the cast-iron decor of Fire on the East Side, but boys! be sure to take your ladies out to Fuzion and I tell you, she will swoon. Come on, an old Victorian mansion in the heart of Toronto's Gaybourhood? And hello! the private dining nook for two? I can imagine using that space for more than just dining. It's at times like these, when I crave that Sex & the City lifestyle (ultra-glam) that I miss having someone like Mr. D-Bag around. He was all about the fancy dining places and I can just imagine that if we had managed to hold it together, we would have fit into the upscale life so well. At times I want the classy, rich man to take me out and wine and dine me, and at other times, I want to find a man to go traipsing through the woods and roll around in the mud with. Naked.

Speaking of Gaybourhood (no offense intended - isn't that what the locals call it?), I have successfully been to my first gay bar. Woody's. I think I was one of four females in the entire place (the other two being ladies that were part of the same party), and oh my dear goodness, there was a lot of c**k in that place. I mean on the TV screens specifically. There was hard core porn everywhere. Suffice to say, I thoroughly enjoyed myself there.

Since then, I've gorged myself at an all-you-can-eat Japanese place (so good! but so dangerous!), had two awesome runs/workouts to burn it all off, and watched a Canadian indie fim called Young People Fucking. Check it out. Be prepared to leave feeling pretty ...hormonal. To make matter worse, I've been listening to Usher's Love in This Club all day and now I want to ...well, you know. In a club. With a thug.

I leave you with this line from the movie: "But... respect is like, the opposite of liking someone!"

Off to Ottawa tomorrow!
6:54 pm

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Blog Me

I said to my teachers over dinner the other night (at a sugar shack in the middle of a maple grove in the middle of Quebecois countryside) that my job is a lot like being The Cool Aunt. The Cool Aunt gets to play with her nieces and nephews, have all the fun, eat junk food with them, take them out to neat places, and at the end of the day, the kids ultimately go back to their parents. The Cool Aunt does none of the disciplining, none of the teaching of life lessons, none of the real, hard work. With my job, I get the kids for a few days and take them around cool cities. I get to talk to them and do activities with them, dance on the cruises, laugh and make jokes, and sort of be the older friend who's not really a friend but at least isn't a teacher friend. I'm so totally The Cool Aunt. I get to be a different Cool Aunt every week too. Sometimes I'm more serious and sometimes I'm extra fun and fancy.

There's a lot of neat things about being a tour leader (that's why I can't shut up about it on here), but the one thing about it that I've always thought about is the element of anonymity it affords me. Every week I meet people who know nothing about me and I have a handful of days to make something up. Of course, I share all the neat information about myself and leave out the sordid details. After one tour a couple of years ago, a student on the trip found my blog and my goodness, that opened up a whole giant can of worms and that's why I try my darndest not to say a thing about the groups I take on tour anymore. I probably should have learned that lesson the first time when people at work found out about my blog the year before that, but alas, I'm just not the sharpest crayon in the box.

So when ex-boy Mr. D-Bag found the blog a couple months ago and told all his buddies to check out how crazy I was, I probably shouldn't have been as pissed off as I was. I thought my blog afforded me some wiggle room when it came to concealing who I am, but when Google gives you the link to this place as the first result when you search my name, I really shouldn't be deluded into thinking that I can say whatever I want here without anyone from Real Life reading it.

It's hard, you know? I can't tell the strangers I meet every week all the secrets and juicy details of my life. My closest friends are spread out over a handful of cities and with me moving around so much I can hardly find the time to write an email nevermind sit down and chat on the phone for a few hours. I wear my emotions on my sleeve (er- blog, I guess), what can I say? I have to tell my stories to someone and there's nothing like the nebulous blog-someone. I'd like to think that maybe I should keep the details on the delicate things in life a little more ...not so publicly available over the internets, but it's pretty apparent that I have little to no shame about sharing my personal life. I'm very much an open book kind of person. Ask me a question and I'll answer it, or sometimes I'll just share information that no one asked to know, like in the last post.

Sigh - you'll have to excuse me. Every now and then I go through a bout of uncertainty wherein I question how much of me is on here and how much is deeper, far away from this e-space. Then I wonder about what other people think when they read all this stuff because sometimes the Real Life Me feels very removed from Blog Me. Right away, the first thing I can tell you about Blog Me is that she's all dramatic and not quite as chill as Real Life Me. But the chill stuff doesn't make for good stories, so drama's all rage around here. Bear with (blog) me for a while, will ya?

8:38 pm

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Type Setting

I think it was fully appropriate that we were having a conversation about dating over a sushi dinner just before we went off to see Sex and the City at the movie theatre.

Me to him: Do you think you have "a type"?
Her: Other than M?
Me: *giggle*
Him: Har har. No, not really.
Him to her: Do you have a type?
Me: Yeah, assholes.
Her to me: Not as much as you.
Me to her: What? No way. *thinks* Yeah, I guess you're right.

For the record, no one I've ever dated was an asshole. The assholes are the ones I just sleep with.

Zing.

I think it's highly unfortunate that a joke like that is both funny and a completely accurate description of my life. It's true, I've never really had a 'type' when it comes to people I date. If you look at the real, significant relationships I've had, all my partners in them have been vastly different, save for a few similar characteristics: they were all sweet and wildly intelligent, which, to me means that they were more or less geeky and/or dorky in their own geeky and dorky ways. When it comes to the relationships I've had of the flimsy variety, the ones I possess raw, wanton, animal lust for have all been some variation of "cool". They're the musicians, the writers, the photographers, the unattainable HAWT, the well travelled abalone-ring handmade-hemp-necklace wearing types. They're also the ones who are no good for me and more or less treat me like crap. Except for Mr. D-bag from December who, except for those last two characteristics, was none of the above things and who, surprise, it didn't work out with.

And now to think of it, it has NEVER worked out with ANYONE. Sigh.

I date people who are just like me, and I want people who are the opposite of me. So, my 'type'? Apparently the type that doesn't exist, except for IN MY HEAD.

Next year, someone please make this into a card and send it to me on February 14th:
"Just wanted to make sure you're not hanging from your shower rod. Happy Valentine's Day!"

3:45 pm

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Don't Be A Stranger

I rode a handful of trains when I was in India. But, fearing that I was going to be like the Whiny Westerners they saw roaming the country in search of the Exotic East, my friends booked first-class tickets in the air conditioned cars to ensure my comfort. I was thankful, but I made sure that they never made that mistake again. Personally, I don't even like air conditioning and much prefer open windows. Moreover, the first-class cars proved to be boring; people were isolated into sections and compartments and no one talked to each other. They sat, ate their food in silence, and looked either out the window or straight ahead. The windows were tinted too, so I had a harder time enjoying the colours of the countryside. It reminded me a lot of riding the subway back home in Toronto: the epitome of feeling surrounded by strangers.

We had one short train ride where there were no first class tickets available, nor second class. "Goody!" I exclaimed. "We'll ride in the sleeper cars with all the people!" And indeed, it was quite the ride. The car was old and covered with faded or peeling paint, metal bars replaced the window panes. In first class people sat two or three to a bench. Here, at least five would fit onto a bench. I sat on the edge of one with others crowded around me, and my feet. A group of young men formed a circle around me and started taking pictures of me with their cell phones. At first I was weirded out, then offended, and then I relaxed. How often do they see Chinese girls dressed as Indian girls here anyway? Probably not very often. So I let them take photos.

Villagers jumped on and off the car at various platforms selling fruit, roasted nuts, newspapers, magazines, and sweets. People helped others get on and off with their luggage, they shared food and held each others' babies. Beggars came on and I gave them some rupee coins. People talked and laughed and sang as the wind rushed between the metal bars and cooled our faces. I saw the sunrise somewhere between Navsari and Mumbai. It felt rugged and exciting, like some wild adventure with friends.

Tonight, a little Indian girl struck up a conversation with me on the subway ride home. She was six, and kept peeking at me from behind her father's back. She asked about my friend and told me I was pretty. She asked if I was a teenager. Her father looked nervous. I laughed. "Well, I used to be a teenager, but that was a long time ago."

"So you used to be a teenager and now you're an adult?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." She was adorable.

She was just about to start Grade One and I told her that Grades One and Two were my favourite; being seven and eight were the best times of my life. I wanted to tell her about the rest of my school years, about high school and university, about being a teenager. I wanted to ask her name and tell her mine. But we had come to our stop. "You've got a lot to look forward to you know. It's going to be very exciting." She beamed. Her father picked her up and went off towards the elevator. As I climbed the steps to get to my bus, I thought to myself, "This is why I'll never stop taking public transit," and I felt a little less estranged from this strange, for me anyway, human race.

11:42 pm

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Ugh, That Is Like, So Romantic

It's like that time I met my ex-boyfriend: he walked me home only to sit in my room talking for hours on end and then we went to the grocery store at four in the morning to play with shopping carts in the parking lot and dance in the cheese aisle. He cooked me breakfast while I napped before work and then we ate while sitting in the sun on my front steps.

That was cute and sweet.

It's like that time a couple of months ago (not with the ex-bf): he came over to candles, wine, and ambient music in my kitchen. We rode our bikes to the bar, then to the park in the dark, climbed a tree and hung out while dangling over a brook. We traipsed through the woods with me on his back because my shoes were too dainty and Tunisian for the mud. We actually laid down in the middle of a baseball diamond and watched the clouds.

"Gawd, it's like you're dating."
"Ugh, I know."
"He's like your boyfriend."
"Ugh, I KNOW."
(But we weren't and he wasn't.)

It's like last night: we had Jamaican food in Chinatown, had a total party at the concert and then sat on the boardwalk with the most perfect view of the Toronto skyline across the lake. Then we went to the beach with blankets and wine and hormones and kept each other warm and slept maybe an hour the entire night.

"Aw, that's such a nice night!"
"It was way too romantic."
"Oh, totally."
"Yeah, it's actually grossly romantic."
"Totally gross. Ew."

Normally, I'm all for romance and I never thought the day would come when I'd actually be exasperated and say, "Ugh, I can't believe how romantic that was. Yuck." I guess that's what happens when you're not actually dating the person, eh?

11:25 pm