small things

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so i keep coming back to this incident a few weeks back with that guy in the bar and the resulting comments and the email experiment and it’s results and the taste that incident leaves in my mouth is actually getting fouler the more i think about it.

i think i might actually have preferred him to have never answered my email and for him to have just been another single guy who isn’t into me. in the long run that would have been easier to take for a lady who is already reeling from so many trust betrayal issues among the men around her.

i mean for fuck’s sakes people just how hard is it for a guy in a relationship to actually admit it? to be honest about it? [this applies even to almost separated and freshly separated people… tell the goddamm truth please!]

from the commenters on my blog one would assume that it isn’t hard at all because all you men are saying he shoulda owned up to having a partner at home long before he did.

from my experiences in the real world one can assume that it’s well nigh impossible for a man to admit he has a partner at home, and this guy had so many opportunities.

and lest you think that i am harping on this one experience let me assure you i’m not.

i will tell you that it’s getting so i’m almost afraid to flirt with the people who flirt with me because i’m so afraid of the perpetual disappointment.

“oh look madge, another nail in my disappointed in the men around me coffin”

‘oh that’s awesome midge, you needed another one like i need another cigarette’

“now madge you know you’re supposed to give up that habit”

‘yes dear, the way you’re giving up on believing in men?’

“shut up”

*great aunt beatific smile*

i can’t do it, i can’t stop believing in men when this world has people like othercat and cortex reaver and and and in it. it’s just i meet SO many docs and so few othercats that it’s getting harder and harder to believe in y’all.  [and if you think i just mean about dating? think again]

heck, i used a man as an example of a good man to a woman and she just stared at me because that same man had totally fucked with her head and then failed to mean any of it. in fact he proceeded to do several unintentionally cruel and terribly hurtful things to her.

a fact which is making it a little harder for me to keep blaming someone from my past for his transgressions against my emotional well-being.  except not really, i’ll still never trust either of them the same way after all.

but still and all, if someone i respect can fuck it up that badly…

ya know?

so i start thinking about it, and i start to think about the men i might have wronged or misled in my life and i can make a pretty sizeable list but that list has one essential thing in common.

all of those fuckups happened before i hit twenty-five years of age and it seems to me that twenty-five is a legitimate watershed on this kind of crap. if you’re still fucking with people’s heads and you’re over twenty-five?

grow the hell up.

or at least leave me out of it because you know what?

i just cannot take it any more. one more little kick at the can and i might start to believe all those bitter women out there preaching that all men are scum.

okay fine, we all know that i won’t because i’m too inherently optimistic but geeze, it’s getting harder and harder to be a nice guy y’all and a little help would be nice.

so funny, if anywhere in that half hour, even on the way out the door [“so sorry gotta go meet the wife byeeeeeee”], that man had told me he was attached i would look back on that half hour with him as a great pleasure.

instead i think of him as yet another disappointment.

one little sentence… such a big difference.

.

in a continued string of small and large disappointments i went out and found the perfect reformer for my business and made a deal on it and arrangements for the manufacturer to pack it and then her cousin bought it out from under me.

can’t blame her at all, he offered her more money and she doesn’t have to get it to sacramento… but damm i tried so hard not to get my hopes up and up they went anyway.

in case you’re wondering? the same machine new (which therefore ALSO incurs taxes when it crosses the border) is forty-six hundred and sixty dollars (okay i added two little things that add up to like two hundred bucks) PLUS SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY fucking dollars in canadian sales taxes.

her machine before shipping? 3500usd

the same machine new before shipping? 5310usd

so yeah, i’m delighted about that one.

.

and then, after i write the vast maority of the sulky post i take my cranky ass off to teach and torture their feet (amazing how groans of pain can cheer me up… wrong, but amazing) and then dash home and dump the car and dash to my last client and teach him and thank god today is over and i walk out still cranky and?

it’s snowing.

giant, fat, gorgeous flakes that land on my eyelids like kisses.

and suddenly all my cares are petty and small and all is well with the world.

doc doc goose

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[this post was started a while back, right after ‘ssup doc actually. so mention of dates may be confusing]

i am amazed at the reaction my post about my friday evening shenanigans got. i mean fully amazed. and along with that i found a copy of mr. right, right now in my laundry room.

so i read it, in about an hour… and was i ever glad i didn’t pay for it. i mean seriously e. jean carroll called me doll like every thirty two seconds. do i look like someone you would call ‘doll’?

nope, not even when i’m dressed up like barbie (hallowe’en natch.)

anyway she had a little bit of actual useful advice.

i can hear y’all now “nooooooooooo don’t take it seriously! it’s a DATING BOOK” but nonetheless she got a couple of things right and she ferreted out a few interesting actual facts.

first of all, like it or not we decide just about everything about anyone we meet in the first thirty seconds, this is in fact sociology and anthropology and she quotes some scientists and studies about human behaviour. what we need to learn is to trust those instant reactions because millenia of evolution have honed our ability to select based on ‘smell’ or ‘instinct’ and generally (they’ve done studies for serious) going against your instincts is bad news.

i have to say my own life bears this out… and it in NO way applies only to dating. you click with the women you make friends with don’t you? [hee i remember how i met princess valium, in a bathroom in fact]

second, drop all ‘how to flirt’ advice you’ve ever gotten because that makes you false and unnattractive. if you’re nervous? BE NERVOUS! if you’re being your actual *self* then whoever you meet be it friend or date has a shot in hell of deciding for real if they actually like you.

for serious boys and girls what the fuck is the point of pretending to be someone you aren’t? so they can fall for someone who isn’t?

.

holy shit, i just ran into the hot guy from the gasworks and he’s STILL HOT! wow that’s amazing, it’s freaking half my life ago and the damm man is better looking then he was then.

i think it’s the lack of heroin in his eyes.

really amazing what a sparkle does for a guy especially when he’s already hot. being glad to run into me, taking my number and threatening to call me for beer and catching up?

doesn’t hurt either.

shut up i don’t think i’m dating him but it sure will be fun to catch up.

[this was long enough ago now that i can tell you he won’t call… and i’m still delighted to have run into him.]

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so mr ‘ssup doc emailed me back tonight, to wit:

my email:

From: sass
Sent: January 8, 2007 2:08 PM
To: doc
Subject: dates

and not the fig newton kind.

you know if i go out and get some newfangled datebook with whole pages for days i might not be able to properly fill it. care to help?

-sass

his reply:

sass — sorry bout the non-response. as you may have guessed however there was a reason — the oldest of all reasons — I am not a single fella. and, although I have attempted plenty of negotiation on the point, it remains a closed relationship. just kidding, there was no negotiation. I trust you wisely invested in the superior datebook regardless and I remain available for any non-date datebook-related inquiries. although perhaps I will see you at the C’est What where I often take my datebook on dates, as you know. nice work on all the wordplay.

cheers

doc

 

isn’t it funny that we never thought of that?

no one in the comments and not me in the post suggested that the man had a lady at home. which, in retrospect, is totally obvious. but here’s the thing, why do they do that to single girls?

don’t they know how mean that is?

once a girl ‘drops’ into conversation that she’s single shouldn’t you ‘drop’ i’m taken into yours? i mean shouldn’t you?

.

fuck i can’t believe how hot d still is. like wow.

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so ms. e. jean has some work for you to do. the first week? you have to get over men. stop paying attention to them, caring about them, wanting them, flirting with them or even letting them into your head. go little bird, live your life and DETACH from men.

[what if you have a fuckbuddy?]

week two? unleash your inner goddess… to wit:

1. sleep ten hours a night

2. pull up your bra straps (seriously girls that one should be a no-brainer)

3. stop torturing your face… splash it with water, a little cleanser if it’s actually dirty…. pat dry.

4. drink margaritas “a woman needs fun or she looks bad”

5. eat something red, green, purple, yellow, blue, orange, chartreusy, dark green, black/brown/beige every day. every day.

6. get a stability ball for your desk.

7. throw out the people in your life who make you feel bad.

8. live in the moment

9. go rock climbing, golfing, batting caging, or whatever but do something fun and good for you

10. throw out all your ugly clothes

11. take delight in your own attractions

and that’s just week two.

i gotta say, this woman annoys the fuck out of me because she calls me doll and tells me a bunch of crap i already know but you know what else?

she’s got a point.

be your self… just be your BEST self instead of your good enough self.

.

but i still say taken people should really be more clear about it don’t you?

 

update

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okay kids, get ready…

getcher dancing shoes and your silly hats and those things you blow into that make a raucous noise…

do your warm up stretches…

okay ready?

I GOT MY APARTMENT!!!!

*snoopy dance of joy*

*dance of ridiculous happiness*

*frisson of rent terror*

*snoopyDANCING!!!*

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me neighbour and i actually jumped up and down like teenagers when the message played out through my apartment.

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i really don’t have anything else to say but that, i just know that y’all are wanting to know that

.

i do have a request, regardless of whether you think you know who i’m talking about or not please fail to be specific, it’s a privacy thing… i’ve consented to be out in the world but the people in my life have not.

once you start commenting on this blog or start a blog of your own it’s different.

.

i liked this quote a lot… enough to rewind it thrice and write it down:

“…well i have never been one to believe that there’s gonna be some knight in shining armour, he pulls up into my driveway and sweeps me off my feet but, you know, i really, i really never thought that it was gonna be this hard either.”

kitty – brothers and sisters

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i have spent hours on the net looking for a decent price on a balanced body used reformer and the closest i can come is one for 1700 that’s TWENTY YEARS OLD! [and in california of course]

i can find demo models for around 3400usd but the closest one is in calgary on february third and i would still have to get it here (might be cheaper though since i won’t have to pay duty and they have to pack it for shipping anyway…)

this is HARD!

in case you’re wondering? the one i want new, and unshipped, is 3495usd (3695 if i get the footbar i want) and that’s not even counting the SHIPPING on a ten foot long block of wood and metal.

fuck.

who knew these would be so hard to find…

anyone who has any suggestions for finding the stuff? please pass it on.

[mom you’re kind of an expert… here’s the site (i want the extra long one) and the info, see if you find anything good:

balanced body reformer

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i get to have my first ever mine all mine housewarming party. that and the beautiful view for my kitties is making me really happy.

that and the gorgeous space *g*

don’t even get me started on how nice it will be to have an actual apartment with an ACTUAL EAT-IN KITCHEN!!!

AND WINDOWS!

and it’s NOT in a BASEMENT!

*further snoopydancing*

.

i need a couple of new clients to swing this, better get hustling.

.

i still have nothing to say but y’all are updated :)

.

*crashes on couch*

eye

.

oh my god i’m dying.

it’s MOSTLY my apartment see but it’s not SURELY my apartment and i’m dying. i know that if i don’t get it i’ll find something even better (hah!) but i really want it.

so i called the super and i left a message and said that i knew she wouldn’t hear until today but that it was her day off and could she get someone (the other super) to call me and let me know anyway.

she calls me at three am (thank god i leave my ringer off!) and tells me that she put the application on their desk on tuesday and that they’ve never turned down an application she’s put on their desk and that it all looks great so she’s sure it’s fine.

so it’s mine right?

right?

i can take a deep breath?

hah. there’s still the management company who could say no if they want to.

.

i talked to my property manager and told her that i thought i had found a place for march first but that i wouldn’t hear back until sometime this week and i’m sorry it’s not quite enough notice but i might not leave until april first either and incidentally i used january’s rent to pay last month’s rent and i promise to pay you in the next week regardless.

and she was so awesome. she told me i could go when i wanted and earlier if i needed to. she said that it’s no problem and that she wishes me luck and i could pay whenever.

she knows me, she knows i would never leave that rent unpaid longer than i said i would. and i have the cash now i just have to get it to the bank.

so that’s a load off the old mind anyway.

.

a few of my clients are away until march (well two and i lost one until she finds some money) which is financially awkward but really convenient for arranging a move.

.

please call me already and tell me my beautiful space in a ravine is mine.

please?

.

othercat is getting better, his eyes are quite good and he’s in excellent spirits.

doctors are predicting a full recover.

weirder? gabi knows someone the exact same thing happened to!

he and i are going for lunch and then i’m taking him on errands.

.

i thought a boy was into me and he isn’t.

it’s okay but i dug him.

for a change i watched the situation rationally and used logical clues instead of caring emotionally. although i enjoyed the email experiment [comments section but read the post first] last week i am gratified to know that my gut instinct that it was a brush-off was correct.

i mean it’s nice to know at least that i can listen to my gut

.

call me already dammit!

.

now all i have to do is find some machines (ideally a balanced body reformer – extra long and a cadillac wall unit) and someone to pay for them or lease them to me. god leasing, that at least is a full write-off and my newfound business manager found me a tax guy so maybe i have some money coming.

hope hope.

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elle i’ll get pics as soon as i move in okay? they’re doing a full reno and you don’t want to see the ugly green carpet

.

gotta go, brunch with the oc!

take care of each other…

spinning

.
well, it’s time to move.

the rent at the Pilates studio is going up by twenty-five percent and i am now spending several hundred dollars every month to pay someone else’s rent and i just don’t see the point of spending a minimum of twelve hundred dollars every month to use a studio that isn’t mine, equipment i don’t own, timeslots that don’t belong to me, all the while living in an apartment that’s smaller than othercat’s living room.

so i’m apartment hunting, which i despise, and spending all my free time looking at apartments or online or in the renter’s news or or or. . .

not to mention visiting othercat at the hospital. go read his blog if you want to know what i’m talking about.

so i finally found a place that looks like somewhere i can stand to live for awhile AND teach in without the machines driving me crazy. not to mention the couch getting in the way of the machines.

unfortunately, because i’m self-employed i can’t prove that i make enough to pay the rent. consequently, othercat needs to function as my guarantor or i never get to move.

so i found a place and the papers are mostly signed and i need to bring them a cheque and an othercat to sign some papers and then if they like our mutual credit i get to move to rosedale valley.

oh god i want it a lot.

it’s actually large and filled with windows and it faces a lovely mansion and a tree covered hill. not to mention the two or three parks within walking distance and the two subway stations that are LESS than six hundred meters away [six hundred to rosedale and four hundred to yonge/bloor, i measured in my car the other day.]

yes, of course i’m excited.

but today i’ve learned that excited isn’t all that i am.

for about three days now i’ve been having trouble sleeping (okay that’s been for a few weeks) and i haven’t been able to catch my breath and i have this weird feeling like my heart is racing.

interestingly, if i take my pulse it’s steady and regular and if i take a deep breath it doesn’t hurt or fail in any way to work it just doesn’t mitigate the feelings at all.

some of you are nodding in recognition already.

today i noticed as well that i’m talking too fast and acting a little frenetic and it dawned on me; i’m anxious!

in fact, i’m freaking out.

i’m terrified that something will happen and i won’t be able to make the rent (it’s skin of my teeth and will cost me more than about three months of the year at the studio than i’m renting space at and about what a decent month costs me now, but a good month will make me a lot more money) but i’m still delighted to be fixing my expenses at last.

i know that my parents won’t let me screw othercat and that if they lived in canada they would guarantee for me which is slightly comforting. massively less comforting is the idea of asking them for help.

anyway i think i’m afraid that all my clients will suddenly decide that they hate me [yes, irrational i know] and dump me and all my group classes will fire me and the doc will stop referring and my clients will never refer me anyone else and and and.

geeze i’m a bit losing it.

so i get it why i haven’t been sleeping but seriously body if you slept better you’d feel better and be less anxious. it doesn’t help that i’ve been burning the candle at both ends for a couple of weeks in spite of myself.

heck my last restful weekend involved a sewer snake and a new toilet and the one before that involved a two day hangover.

this one looks a little more likely to induce rest and once i hand over my thirteen hundred and fifteen dollar (parking) bank draft i’ll probably feel better about the whole thing. i think i’m really most worried about the first few months because i have to pay rent at the new place AND at the studio in march.

which, you know, brutal.

not to even get started on how concerned for othercat i am. i’m not allowed to worry because that’s counter-productive but i’m sure stressed out about him. this is a really shitty thing that’s happening to him and i really hope that he gets his vision back.

all in all it seems i’m freaking out a little and i’m trying really hard to stay calm but it isn’t working.

not to mention? can’t climb until february at least so i don’t even have a method of release…

*deep breath*

this is hard.

on a lighter note it took me several days to recognize anxious.

know what that means?

yup, i’m very rarely anxious.

:)

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my apartment has windows and lovely window sills that will give the girls heated bums when they sit to stare out at the trees and all the animals running amok in the wall of the ravine that we look at.

.

amok, what a great word.

.

the ravine that we’re on the fifth floor of.

*sigh*

.

dear universe,

may i please have this apartment? and if i can’t may i have one that’s better instead?

hrm i don’t know if there’s a better one for my purposes.

.

dear universe,

please make othercat okay.

thanks

.

dear universe,

could the leafs please make the playoffs?

.

that is all [hubris(tm)]

‘ssup doc?

.

i just had a strange and wonderful evening with my friend flower. wonderful because, well, it’s flower and i like her a lot and hanging out with her is always at least good and usually awesome.

so we went to c’est what this evening for beer because we both needed a drink and that place has stellar beer choices… well at least good ones. volo is actually better.

anyway, i get there and she’s sitting at a table and we hang out and basically it’s all good except there’s this steadily growing table behind us that’s getting louder as it’s getting more filled with folks.

and then the manager or the host or whatever informs this table that they asked for a table for six and that there’s fifteen of them and that this is a problem and they get uppity and he loses the argument and leaves and then they spend like the next ten minutes getting louder and louder about how he’s obnoxious and what kind of bar doesn’t want it’s beer drinking customers actually in the establishment and and and…

[in their defence he approached rudely, in his? they were assholes]

and i say to flower ‘well i certainly don’t want to listen to their loud assed conversation that’s drowning out mine and she laughs and we discuss leaving and then realise that we’re having fun except for the loud people and we move to the bar.

at the bar there’s a cute young man who appears to be studying lines so i make a comment and pretend to try to read them (cause i’m rude like that you know) and he says he wishes it was lines but it is in fact considerably more boring and is in fact legal transcripts.

.

this is where princess valium stops reading and says ‘dude, he’s a lawyer, run’

.

and then we start chatting and somehow our datebooks come up and we end up in this [there is no way to make this sound fun but it was] playful argument about who has the better datebook and why his is better than mine and and and.

now me i think i’m flirting and i think he’s flirting back and all is going well and flower says ‘why haven’t you given him your business card?’ [out loud where he can hear] and i go ’cause he hasn’t asked for it’ and the conversation goes on for a while and then he gets a call and he has to go.

no big right?

i get up and go to the can and come back and he’s flipping my date book shut [you had to be there, this wasn’t nearly as rude as it sounds] and informs me that he’s left me a treasure to find or some comment like that.

he makes his apologies, tells us we’re fun and that if he didn’t have an appointment he would stay and hang out with us and literally shakes my hand like four times. not hers, just mine.

and foolish me thinks maybe there’s a trail of bread crumbs in my date book or something… and in fact this is what he said on the last page of the year [good thing i started at the end]:

“get a better datebook

– first initial, last name”

um what? what’s with all the flirting and the shaking my hand a million times and telling us you don’t want to leave and leaning into me for half an hour before you go?

i’m so fucking clueless about boys that i cannot tell flirting from random conversation with strangers. in my world we had a fun and challenging conversation where we learned that our brains could spar while our faces smiled… in his i was just some girl at a bar to talk to while he waited for a phone call.

how the fuck do you tell the difference?

and why the fuck would you leave me a note like that? isn’t leaving a girl a note an advancement of flirting? isn’t there supposed to be some like exchange of digits or something?

.

what’s actually ironic about this?

i know his name and what he does and remember his firm name enough to recognize it and in less than one minute flat i could actually find his info.

in fact i wonder if it takes that long.

jeopardy music plays

*googles his name and lawyer and toronto…*

*gets a million people*

*puts his name in quotes*

*spots him, first and second in google*

*checks watch*

yup, less than a minute.

i think that makes it more strange not less.

.

was i supposed to have to google him? isn’t that stalking?

.

funny, i think if he found my blog and commented that wouldn’t weird me out… but emailing him at work is weird as fuck.  why is that i wonder…

.

don’t misunderstand, this incident in and of itself is meaningless, it’s a near miss in a bar.

nobody cares.

it’s just that when you put it on top of this near miss and that near miss and the other near miss and the married and taken men who chase me and the single ones who run the other way?

it starts to make a lady feel like she has no idea what flirting is… and when a lady doesn’t know how to flirt how on earth is she supposed to have fun with the opposite sex?

and frankly? the opposite sex is a HELL OF A LOT OF FUN.

i just don’t understand the game anymore, i wonder if i ever did or if i always sucked at it but because we were all so young we dated anyway.

i know i’m not supposed to let it get to me and i know it’s all about living the good life i have and i have everything i need and yet… it gets to me.

there goes another one…

.

la la happy new year la :)

this doesn’t feel anything like new year is supposed to feel. it isn’t snowing, there’s no ice on the roads and people are walking around in their shirtsleeves.

how the hell are we supposed to have winter if it’s nine degrees ABOVE zero?

i know that it’s odd for such a thing to affect my feelings about the time of year but it really does. i just cannot get it through my head that it’s the new year. i mean it’s freaking warm out.

what’s strange about my little failure to trigger is that i thoroughly enjoyed christmas AND i’ve celebrated new year’s eve in places significantly warmer than this and still felt like i was celebrating a new year.

perhaps it’s that i knew that back home it was snowing.

perhaps it’s that i knew that where i was the weather was right.

either way i’m just not feeling it this year… well i was feeling hungover on monday but that’s from all the sugar in the champagne and chocolate fondue (with fruit natch) on new year’s eve. interestingly i was drunk but not drunk enough to explain being awake at three am LAST night with that same headache.

not to fear, a pair of tylenol threes and a glass of water took care of it enough that i could sleep badly for about four huors and a touch of pilates this morning took the rest of the edge off.

so long as i stay in tonight and get some sleep i should survive without incident.

i don’t ever really know what to do about new year’s you know? i just want to drink beer and hang out with my friends but then i make the mistake of drinking that champagne and overindulging on sweets and i’m miserable for hours the next day.

it’s like it’s just not worth it… and yet… champagne at midnight, it’s what you do!

i guess next year i’ll just get a couple of bottles of prosecco and drink that all night instead of getting killed by the mixing. tragically i’m pretty sure the sugar content in the chocolate fondue isn’t helping any either.

please don’t tell me to drink more water when i drink, i already DO.

guess it’s time to admit i’m 35 and i can’t drink like i did when i was 25. that’s kind of a relief.

as for resolutions, i have made my standard one which is ‘to have more fun’ but that feels incomplete this year and it hasn’t for the last five.

i feel like something is missing or lacking and i have to figure out what it is. i don’t think that making a decision at midnight while drunk is the right way to do it mind you, but i do think that there’s something positive in the whole resolution thing.

i mean after all neurons that fire together wire together right?

so the habit of making positive decisions is a good one. what isn’t so good is the guilt habit that’s really being reinforced.

i know very few people in the universe that stick to their resolutions and in light of that i’m not sure they’re that healthy to make, i mean all they do is make you feel guilty for failing again…

right?

right?

except maybe wrong. i mean every time you quit smoking you get closer to kicking the habit for good right? so maybe resolutions are like that?

hrm.

this year i resolve to make a new resolution next year

happy new year kids, stay safe!