priorities

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so i went salsa dancing on friday for the first time in my life. i mean i’ve danced to salsa music before but i’ve never actually gone salsa dancing.

what’s the difference you may ask unless you already know? when you dance to salsa music you dance alone and shimmy. when you salsa dance a strange man asks you to dance, hands you a dance lesson and spins you around a dance floor.

apparently i follow well.

i’m sitting there, at the table with the girl i’m with and she gets asked to dance and she goes and then disappears. she reappears with this tall, smiling man who holds out his hand to me. i say something like “i have no idea what i’m doing though” and he like shrugs or something and she tells me to just go.

so i do.

he taught me the steps and told me in my ear what to do and just kept counting the steps for me and when i said i would try he threw my favourite yoda line at me with ‘master yoda says do or do not there is no try’ and then he taught me a change and finished up with some cool spinning thing where i ended up wrapped in his arms.

arms i wanted to stay wrapped in.

unfortunately i don’t think his arms are available.

anyway i get back to my table and i say to my friend with a funny face fanning gesture that that was fun and that if i’m not careful i’ll get a crush on this man with the flashing smile and gentle manner and gorgeous coffee coloured skin. okay i wasn’t so detailed with her but i can hear elle asking. yes elle, tall enough for you and covered in the lean muscles that i love.

muscles i had to hold on to while dancing with them.

anyway *clears throat and drags brain back to the topic at hand* i tell her i cold get a crush on this man and she says with this knowing nod “it’s because he’s tall”

um what?

i mean sure i like it that he can look me in the eye and i don’t have to sit down. i like it more that his gorgeous dancing partner (see why the arms seem tragically unavailable) is TALLER THAN I AM! who doesn’t like when a boy is a bit taller than they are?

not me right.

but that had nothing to do with why i wanted to attach myself to him like glue.

it was his manner and his smile and the way he taught me without assuming i was incompetent and the firmness with which he held me without ever making me feel like i couldn’t do what i wanted and most of all that he was kind and happy.

tall?

what the fuck is up with some people’s priorities these days anyway?

don’t misunderstand, i can understand liking tall men i really can. in fact i understand it better than most because the rest of them are shorter than i am.

i just don’t understand why that’s all that matters.

i’ve seen women ogle a man and then say ‘but he’s too small for me’ when he was actually a few inches TALLER than she.

um what?

i can at least kind of dig it if you don’t want to date someone shorter than you are (although you’re missing out on half the poulation that way and many short men are amazing) but i can’t understand why you find someone hot when ALL they are is taller than you.

it took me five minutes to explain that it was his teaching style that got me because he was so good at it.

to her credit she did get it.

:)

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incidentally?

salsa dancing is the super fun kind of exercise that leaves you charged up but exhausted at the same time!

erk!

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so.

yeah…

i joined facebook.

this is a problem. it’s not as bad as it could be because it only takes a few minutes here and there and there is very little required beyond some clicking. that said, i joined yet another freaking online community and have moved another little piece of my life to a screen.

i can see it now “sass loved the internet but didn’t spend nearly as much time outside as she ought.”

course i did eat two meals on patios yesterday and it was stupendous. my shoulders turned a little bit pink for a few minutes and my body rejected it’s usually craved vitamin D supplement [i started taking cod liver oil capsules (tasteless and easy to swallow, if it stinks it's rotten) and for the first winter ever my skin didn't itch like i wanted to rip it off and i don't look like a lizard in the places that i shave my legs. highly recommended.]
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pyrhonik was randomly stranded in toronto and we got to spend the day together and then princess valium joined us for a while in the evening. he’s a very cool cat y’all so if he shows up in your town you should go and hook up with him.

pyr can i post pics?

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see how i assume he’ll read this? lordy lordy i’m rude.

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it’s always interesting to put a face to a name that you’ve met on the internet. they are *never* the same as you imagine them.

almost always there is more life in them. you can’t ever imagine someone fully until you spend time with them because there are always little details that you don’t know about.

they could whistle through their teeth all the time

they could hum

they could flip their hair constantly

they could fade out of conversations and observe them instead

they could be afraid of cats

they might be conscious of every move they ever make

who knows, there’s always something you’re not imagining when you meet someone you’ve known for a long time through a flat medium. actually that’s it exactly. life is another dimension.

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oh god, i joined facebook and i love it.

i’ve already got a drinks date for may 5th with an aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulllldd girlbud out of the deal!

i love the internet you know that? i have in fact been having a love affair with the internet since nineteen ninety three or so. that may be the longest successful relationship i’ve ever had after all that.

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oh god, yet another online community.

talk talk

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it’s funny what happens after you live alone and partnerless (there are not the same thing but are often related) for a long time.

for one thing you start to talk to yourself.

i wander around my enormous apartment (that needs more closets or shelving somewhere but i’m waiting for my dad’s input before i do anything. there’s no rush, i’ll be here for a while) and look for things that are SO MUCH easier to find than they were where i used to be.

it’s amazing, i have such a better idea where stuff is now that i have somewhere to put most of it.

not all, i need to purge.

so, sample search for something

“hrm where did i put that thing anyway…”

*wanders into living room and flicks on the light*

‘fuck that’s bright’

*looks around and doesn’t spot datebook*

“oh it’s in the bedroom after all”

*shaking head*

*wanders back toward bedroom and flicks off light on way [see dad, i did eventually learn to turn off the lights i wasn't using, amazing but true]*

‘no wonder i can’t date, who wants to date anyone who says everything they think out loud no matter how inane?’

everything in ” or ‘ was said out loud of course.

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but i laugh to myself because i start to understand my old roomie who dated her man for ten years before they even moved in together. they ran off and got married recently and it tickles me pink.

the thing is that these two had been living their own way for a very long time before they ran off and got hitched, they were set in their ways with a good dose of curmudgeon on either side. i should know, i’ve got a good dose myself.

i think that they needed that decade to get to marriage because of some amazingly weird and tragic circumstances and because they were both very set in their ways. not so much set. hrm.

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when you live alone you get to have everything your own way.

slowly but surely you fill each corner of your space with your own things… heck i have a friend with a collection of gorgeous yet creepy lifelike dolls stashed in her closet and another one who has to have a perfectly gleaming home at all times and one who has no furniture because she hates to shop and…

do you see what i’m saying?

the longer you live by yourself at your own whim the odder you get and the more unnoticed little habits start to appear. heck i’ve watched season two of bones episodes one through thirteen since this weekend and i’m likely to watch fourteen and maybe fifteen before bed (and start downloading the rest… god this show is GOOD) and you just can’t really do that kind of thing when you’re sharing your life with someone.

but see because i’m not i have more and more hobbies that don’t require a partner. add ever growing confidence regarding my own self sufficiency and physical well being unmatched since my teen years blended with a (bless you parents) willingness to do anything i like by myself and it gets hard to match up with someone.

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ETA: incidentally i did watch those two episodes before bed.  i watched them and i ate peanuts from the shell and made a giant mess all over the bed while watching television loudly at two something in the am.

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so, it’s not that my old roomie was set in her ways exactly, it’s just that she had a lot of ways and it required easing into this lovely marriage of hers.

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god they’re so cute together.

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it’s kind of fun to watch yourself go odd you know. it’s an experience everyone should have.

beehives

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wow i’m busy these days and i know that it’s fantastic to be this busy because it means that i’m working a lot and i have a lovely social life so yay me.  it also means i’m really tired because i keep burning the candle at both ends.

is it worth it?

mostly yeah until you get sick repeatedly from lack of sleep and then the sick makes you even more tired…

that said, things are looking up.

i’m booking enough hours in a week that once the cash catches up to the work i should be doing a lot better financially.  i’ve said this before though so it all depends if it continues.  hope so, i have a sunday class to quit.

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my poor leafs.

what a year they had.  starting out with a new coach and a new attitude and then being plagued with injuries and bad luck and a crisis of confidence at the worst possible moments and yet still i’ve had more fun watching them this year than i have in a long time.

sure they didn’t make the playoffs but they sure did learn how to play like they were going to.

last year all we saw was dump and chase and hit which, while effective in the ‘old nhl,’ is utterly useless in the ‘new and totally unwatched in the usa nhl’ and terribly unfun to watch.  and that isn’t even mentioning the improved quality of the competition on the ice this year.

last year as we settled in to the new rules i saw some serious changes in the game of hockey but this year?  when the rules are a little more settled and we know what’s going on?

stellar stuff.

stellar.

it’s unfortunate that the best hockey played in the last very long time is being played without benefit of a network in the usa.  hell they aren’t even on espn anymore they’ve dropped way down the dial to the outdoor life network.

course in 1978 nobody watched basketball so i ain’t predicting the future.

am i happy my leafs are out?

lord no, but i sure am happy with their direction.  i’m getting very tired of hearing about how the leafs need to ‘hire them some veterans and win a cup’ … um what?  isn’t that what they’ve BEEN doing?

how about building from within?  making a strong core of young up and coming players?  laying down a foundation?  how about what paul maurice is doing?

yeah how about that.

that’s what actually works, building a team until you have a team!

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now about my boyfriend mats.

okay fine since nobody told him we’re dating i should just say ‘regarding the captain’

so…

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regarding the captain.

would you people please leave the man the hell alone?  so what if he’s swedish, he’s still a leaf through and through and has been since he was six.

this man, widely recognized as one of the best hockey players in the WORLD would rather retire a leaf than switch to a team with a chance of winning a stanley cup and what do we do?  do we respect him and honour him and tell him he’s awesome?

nope, we tell him to retire and that he isn’t a ‘real’ leaf since he isn’t a good canadian boy.

um what?

are you going to tell alexander ovechkin that when he’s the captain of his team?  “uh mr. ovechkin what do you say to people who tell you you aren’t a real hockey player because you’re not canadian?”

what the FUCK?

500 goals, first player to do that in a leaf uniform.

yup, he’s not a leaf.

fans are assholes.

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hey mats?

can i fix your back extensors?

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in other news, i have to go shopping for maid of honor (matron? i am divorced right…) dress, anyone care to help?

:)

decisions decisions

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hello

my name is sassinak and i’m a bit torrent a-holic.

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yes, i know you’ve been wondering where i disappeared to if you’re one of the twelve people who still drops by here on occasion. not as many occasions as there once were and for that i apologise.

okay so yeah.

someone installed sound on my machine.  oh yeah, and then they said ‘that will probably play video too…’ and i said

‘yay i can get that episode of survivor i missed!’

what i didn’t say was

‘yay i can catch up on every show i was forced to drop due to timeslot wars in one day!’

heck, i’m downloading season two of supernatural right now.  i’m going to watch the last season of the oc this summer and i’m currently getting caught up on ER.

oh yeah, i’m a menace.  i’ve gone from zero to junkie faster than princess valium can hide the sims from me.  [don't ask, me and the sims have some heroin problems] {relax, the sims is a video game}

so i check my blog and i see that i haven’t written a post in a year and i think ‘okay just one more episode of the wedding bells and then i’ll write a blog post’

yeah, i am here to tell you that that does not work.

so, my apologies, i’ll try to do better once i get caught up on a few things…

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i have a dilemma and it’s a big one.

my friend shane is moving to vancouver *sob* and she is hoping to leave me a few of her clients.  at least one of these clients needs work that i don’t have the right machine for.

aka i have a reformer and she needs a cadillac.

i don’t really want a cadillac, it’s five grand and will take up my whole living room [okay i REALLY want one but i have reality] but i can get what’s called a wall unit and deal with almost everything this client would need that way.

this option is fifteen hundred canadian not including the specialised mat which renders the quote two grand.

now, i think i can swing that if i starve for another month or two but i can’t swing the mat bit.  the mat bit is okay because my dad can probably build me one for a hundred bucks.

so.

easy right?  spend your cash [that you don't have yet but it's theoretically coming] and live at the creditors’ door for another millenium but get some new clients and equipment that you need instead of going back to paying rent at the studio.

d’uh

buy the machine.

except… or but or wait or insert word that means you’re fucked here.

there is no air conditioning in this building.

i teach clients exercise and movement out of my home and it’s going to be a ’scorcher’ according to the pundits.  now i don’t want to do pilates when it’s a million degrees out and neither does anyone else.

i don’t WANT any air conditioning but i need some and i may as well get a decent machine that will last a few years.  a new one that does the 800 BTUs that i apparently need is going to run me around six or eight hundred bucks. [yes i'll shop used]

yeah.

and may is going to be SUCH a lean month that paying my rent will be hard.  june should be okay but may?  may will kill me.

so you can’t say buy one now and the other later.  this is an either or.

i don’t get more money that will let me buy an a/c until mid june at the earliest and that’s a little late for buying machines that go up in price all summer.

so yeah, i don’t know what to do.

it’s *fun* being self-employed huh?

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now, if you’ll excuse me, i have an episode of october road to watch…