mucking out

incidentally, britney spears looks freaking adorable with her head shaved.  will you all just leave her the fuck alone please.

that is all.

.

okay, i’ve collected SOME boxes. and by some i mean enough that everyone says ‘wow that’s a lot of boxes’ and i know damm well it’s MAYBE a quarter of what i need.

i know this because last time i moved i had ‘enough’ boxes THREE times before i really had ‘enough’.

these boxes? will maybe (MAYBE) hold my book collection [they're wine boxes and perfectly sized for books]. cause yeah, i am in love with books and refuse to give them up for anything.

even the bad books that i would never lend to anyone that i care about… even those.

i just can’t give them up.

i keep thinking that if i just cull the ones i wouldn’t want my kids to read (my imaginary and non-existent and likely never appearing kids but nonetheless) that i could clear a large pile of space on my bookshelves.

like those terrible books i could hardly finish (lord of the rings anyone??) or those awesome books that are so much like studying i can’t finish them (green mars anyone?) or the most boring and repetitive book of all time, zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (fine you liked it, go you, i have two copies, want one??) or or or

even those.

i can’t do it. i know that there’s a pack rat mentality at work, i know this whenever i look around my apartment at all the old papers i haven’t sorted or put away.

i see it in the old tape collection that i can’t bear to part with and the old notes on networking from when i was still a computer nerd. not to mention old textbooks and t-shirts from swim meets when i was nine.

don’t get me wrong, i’m not hopeless, i finally tossed my HIGH SCHOOL notes a few years ago and i did in fact recently toss the old geek stuff. heck i gave away my uber-nerdy books to people who might need them because really i need a copy of ‘unix system administration’ like you need a hole in the head.

note the theme. i can GIVE stuff away no problem but tossing it? gosh how can i bear it? [and yet can i give books i consider terrible to charity? can i?]

how can you?

goodwill and planet aid and people with aids basically save the packrats life. no they really do. it’s a lot easier to part with old things if you know they’ll go somewhere useful.

i’m quite grateful to my tendency to move across the country because it means that i have a lot less stuff… it also doesn’t hurt that i’ve been basically poverty stricken for the last fifteen years (okay there was like two years there where i wasn’t) and thus i haven’t aquired much crap.

but still.

i have a ton of shit.

i have a ton of shit packed into an apartment the size of most people’s living rooms and i don’t have enough boxes.

i, by an order of magnitude, do not have enough packing devices. i have a source for them on the weekend and that will get me about halfway but i need to find those great boxes that are bigger than the ones i have. the ones you can put actual stuff in.

large things and bulky things and just generally things that don’t fit in the wine boxes. and these i am not having much luck with.

not to mention?

i FUCKING HATE packing!

ask my parents. hell when i moved to vancouver i packed the NIGHT BEFORE!

my poor parents were left with the detritus of that one and let me tell you they did not appreciate it. i’m better as an adult when there’s no one to help me or pick up after me but still, i am the great staller.

i can stall and stall and stall… you would not believe some of the things i’ve come up with to avoid packing. well you might, you’re reading one of them…

vd

.

oh god

it’s vd day again.

and funnily enough i’m not angsty about the fact that it’s yet another hallmark holiday that i’m celebrating single. i’m really not. i do not in fact care.

however.

ah yes there is nonetheless some angst.

i am now moving in EXACTLY two weeks and one day. alternately i’m moving in two weeks less two days but that’s very unlikely because the current tenant is letting them in to fix the place but not to give it to me. (it’s the renter’s sister, there was a death)

the landlord won’t give her money for those days so she won’t surrender the keys although she will let them in to work. as long as the place is fixed in time i don’t give a shit about a few days here and there.

except i do.

i can’t WAIT to move. just cannot.

of course i haven’t started packing yet, have you not MET me? [shut up, reading my blog for a year counts!] {besides, if i pack in a place this small i can’t live so i’m having a nice easy packing marathon the friday-monday before i move and then i’ll live out of a duffel until i go}(i’m such a liar, i’ll take a stab at it on the weekend and get a few things done and most of it will happen on tuesday evening and wednesday all day and last minute thursday morning.)

i’m so tired of this apartment and this building and the people fucking and peeing and shouting and smoking outside my window.

i’m tired of the people here and being cold all winter and having a kitchen floor that feels mounted on a block of ice.

i’m especially tired of how hard it is to find parking in the summer and the incredibly small nature of my apartment.

my apartment is so small that lsd said it felt like it was hugging him. (yes that’s a testament to my homemaking as well)

my LIVING ROOM in my new place?

yeah, bigger than my whole apartment is here. hell my new kitchen is bigger than my kitchen and my bathroom put together are now. [bedrooms are nearly identical but my closet is bigger now]

i have an entranceway!

i have windows and UTILITY CLOSETS and uncounted kitchen cupboards!

i have a parking spot and bicycle parking and more than two washer/dryer pairs.

i have elevators and great floors and HIGH CIELINGS!

but then i look at this little spot. this darling little one-bedroom with the fantastic floors and the most amazing natural light in the afternoons that it really does feel like it’s hugging you.

i admire the enormous bedroom closet and the tiny kitchen with all the storage space possible.

i see how there are somehow enough windows in here even though it’s a basement and i mourn.

i mourn because they’re tearing it apart and ripping out the wall and turning it into a bachelor with weird closets and i cannot fathom why they are doing it.

i am the last person who will ever live in and be cocooned by this wonderful space and that is a tragedy.

someone else was supposed to move in here. another broken human who needed a cocoon to rebuild themselves with. it wasn’t supposed to be just another overpriced room in toronto. it was supposed to be just another overpriced one bedroom dammit.

i’ve left a pleading message with the property manager to spend five minutes in here when my stuff is out of it and to really just get what a great little space it is.

i hope she does it.

===

UPDATE:

she isn’t tearing out the wall, it’s a silly rumour someone started and she says they wouldn’t consider it because the space is great how it is.

YAY!

smorgasborg

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i had a funny experience recently while chatting with a man that i know. i was joking around about some matchmakers that have taken an interest in my life and i told him that he had better be careful because if we were seen talking they’d be after us to go out.

and then i commented that he had nothing to worry about because he has a girlfriend and he said ‘no, i just moved out actually’ and i made sympathetic noises and asked him about it.

it turns out that after several years together he’s moved out for what i consider to be excellent reasons and is now single. what’s funny about this is what i did next.

i immediately compared myself favourably to her (in other words: ‘i’m not like *that*’) and found myself touching his shoulder.

yeah, without missing a beat or thinking twice about it i started flirting with him. makes me wonder if i’ve been flirting with him all along and i just sort of didn’t notice.

i’ve definetely thought his girlfriend was a lucky lady but i hadn’t realised i was going to throw my metaphorical hat into the ring until it landed!

i mean hell the ring isn’t even built yet and there’s my hat sitting in the middle of it!

now i have to go chasing after my hat and tell it to settle down and act like a lady and just generally to not be so boy-crazy and there it is sitting all pretty in a ring that’s not even there.

silly hat.

.

in other news, i bought a reformer.

on ebay.

i know, i didn’t see it coming either. the girl seems really nice and she’s sending me some extra parts and everything.

yes, of course it’s balanced body.

.

speaking of ebay, that shit is heart stopping!

i mean i sat there and i watched my reformer until there was one little tiny minute left to bid and then i couldn’t wait another second and how i wish i’d waited thirty more and then the numbers were flying and the dust settled and *i* am the proud owner of a genuine pilates reformer.

what the hell.

you would not believe the heart racing rush involved in buying thousand dollar items on ebay, just would not!

in some ways it would have been fun to lose the auction just to get some more of this adrenaline rush.

*reads what she just wrote*

*writes strict personal ebay rules akin to her ‘the sims’ rules*

wow wow wow i’m fried from that auction (it just ended forty minutes ago) and i have to try and have a nap. hah that’s funny.

like i can sleep right now.

.

i actually slept.

.

it’s funny this week, a lot of good things are happening around me and to the people that i care about.

my friend shane and i toasted the karma gods today… boy i regret that a little, that sort of hubris can get you in trouble…

.

regardless, i have a hat to catch, if you’ll excuse me…

dear pile

.

you were right.

irony: you probably won’t read this post.

but still, you were right. you said it way back in like august and i just didn’t listen. that i knew you were right was not relevant to the tale at hand, i just couldn’t do it.

couldn’t find the time.

well, i found the time. finally.

so here’s the thing, since august when the sun started to go away i have been feeling steadily more lethargic and tired and whiny.

i’ve been craving fat and protein and thick, dense food. i’ve been eating for two even though i’m not pregnant. i’ve been eating more than my already prodigious appetite can explain.

and it hasn’t been making me feel good.

in fact, it’s been that eating that you do that sucks. the kind where you feel like shit about it because you’re eating crap and you know you’re eating crap but you don’t even feel like making real food because it’s too much work.

and then my neighbour, the lady across the hall, told me her trick for getting vegetables into her diet. the trick i’ve been searching for since i started feeding myself.

the one where you DON’T throw out the vegetables after they rot in your fridge.

yeah, that one.

she buys frozen stir-fry vegetables and tosses them in with her pasta about five minutes before the pasta is ready. yeah, we know it’s bad for the pasta.

but it’s not that bad and you know what? i’ve eaten like three bags of frozen vegetables in the last two weeks. i’ve made them stir fried and boiled and cooked with pasta.

i’m finally eating my vegetables and i’m not throwing them out rotten.

i could kiss her.

anyway there i was getting the vegetables but still feeling kind of shitty, just run down and tired and wanting carbs and fat. carbs and fat , carbs and fat, carbs and fat.

and i’ve been FEELING fat too which is RIDICULOUS if you’ve seen me fat you know. i am NOT fat. and i know it. [a little chubby sure but that is not the same as fat at all]

but i’ve been feeling it.

anyway finally i got a bit of incentive because of. well you know what? nobody cares about yet another boy i think is cute that isn’t into me. so one night i’m lying in bed and i’m tossing and i’m turning and i can’t fucking sleep as usual and i’m feeling fat and i have the munchies.

and it hits me.

pile’s challenge:

thirty minutes or cardio, twice a week.

so i get up, at three in the morning, and go look at the pool schedule and i realise that i can’t read it because they’ve fucked up the pdf. so i pack my swimming shit anyway.

i get up, i go teach my 6:30am client and i rush over to the JCC and i do a happy dance because the pool is open and i swim for half an hour and jump out and shower and go off to teach my class.

well damm, that was easy.

so i grab a schedule on the way out and fucked if there isn’t lane swim AFTER my friday morning class. well well well.

thirty minutes of cardio twice a week.

and i’m already feeling better. in fact? the SAME day i felt better and it’s just improving. already i want less food, well not less but i feel better about it and i want healthier things.

i’m sleeping better and i have MORE energy.

pile? thanks!

.

point of interest here, i started this post in december and i’m finishing it now and since then i’ve fallen off the cardio wagon a couple of times and gotten back on and each and every time i’ve wondered why i keep falling off.

it feels so good to do it but it’s such a  pain to get there somehow.  it’s cold out and then my hair is wet and it freezes when i go outside which i find sort of amusing because it reminds me deeply of my childhood with swimming.

i’m still having a lot of trouble with food and what i’m craving but again i notice that the cravings improve the second i get a little exercise.  this is particularly telling right now because i am still not allowed to climb and my ankle still isn’t better.

i’m not sure when i’ll be allowed back in the gym but i’m not too upset about it because i think i’m going to change gyms anyway.  that said, it’s hella hard to keep your fat-eating muscle mass happy when you aren’t allowed to do your weight lifting substitute.

i guess i could weight lift but i really, really hesitate to start something new when i’m off-balance because of my ankle.

really i just need to up the cardio to about three hours a week and STOP EATING FRIED FOODS!!!

but the fried foods taste so good and i’m spoiled because when i climb i can eat what i like and still get hotter.

dammitall, this being injured stuff is hard on the dress sizes…

but you know what?  pile was still right and a couple of hours of cardio every week really does make a body feel better…

for serious!

now to stick to it….

consequences

i’ve been thinking about something lately as i watch the decline of common courtesy on the roads. interestingly as people get less and less willing to let people into their lane the congestion gets worse and worse. wish they’d notice that.

i’ve given away my copy of heinlein’s friday again or i could properly reference this but regardless he was heard to write that the signs of a dying society are dirty public restrooms and lack of common courtesy. this was actually a bit of a recurring theme with him.

at first i thought that was silly. that was too easy a thing to predict a dying culture wasn’t it?

except no i don’t think it was. manners are a lot more than holding doors for a lady (i think that comes from fashion… try opening a heavy ironbound ironwood door in a hoop skirt and corset) and saying please and thank you.

they also include letting people in in traffic if they signal and act polite. tossing your rubbish in the bin instead of the street. turning down the music late at night simply because you know they’re trying to sleep.

i mean i could go on for an hour about all the things that ‘common courtesy’ entail but then i would start getting depressed at the decline of the society that i live within. i would start to think that it’s hopeless and that i’d better find a way to move to the moon and fast.

but then you know, we’re not all the way there yet.

some people are still polite and some people are still considerate. a few people even think about the consequences of their actions.

so few people consider the ramifications of the actions they perform. they think only of what they want or need at that particular second and never even remember to look into traffic before stepping into it.

a lovely gentleman i met recently told me that he thinks it’s because we’ve lost our slowness. that time spent sitting on the back porch and watching the tumbleweeds after dinner where you think about your day.

‘gee i hope i didn’t hurt jim’s feelings when i said that to him earlier’

“got to remember to check on that horse in the morning, her trot looked a bit off”

‘wonder why the wife isn’t singing while she does the washing up tonight’

“i sure enjoyed that chat with the pharmacist, perhaps i’ll visit there again”

‘dangit! forgot to clean mah gun!’

“sure is peaceful and quiet out here”

“i wonder how aunt lil is gettin’ on, best be writin’ her a letter”

:)

whatever, just thoughts about life and the things that happened in it that day. the ramifications of the things. the taking notice of the bits that might have slipped by otherwise.

and he thinks that because all anyone does now is think about themselves and fill up their time with activity that we’ve lost the power of reflection.

and i think he’s right.

i think that’s exactly what’s going wrong in the world, all this rampant egotism and celebrity worship leads to several billion people who don’t give a fuck about anythign but themselves.

how can that be anything but heavily toxic and fatal to our planet?

we live in a culture in which greed is given greater respect than wisdom or joy. where time is rendered irrelevant and following a path or healing or spirituality or teaching is less important or worthy than one that involves raping the planet and making buckets of money.

and still it comes back to consequences. no one ever thinks ‘but if i jump into traffic here going 50km/h slower than anyone else and force that suv to slam on the brakes then the guy in the minivan that’s tailgating him but fighting with his wife will rear-end him and then…’ because that isn’t easy. that’s the hard way to think, the one that involves anticipation and thinking ahead.

the one that involves sparing a small percentage of your thoughts to considering the effects of your behaviour on others. try it sometime… wait instead of cutting someone off. say thank you or please instead of NOW!

pay it forward, treat others as you would be treated. smile and use common courtesy. heck make common courtesy COMMON again!

that is all

:)