A Secret Revealed...

The Vampires Return! Just in Time for Halloween...

Ewww, I just came back from the doctor's office. There was a one hour wait just to get in to see her (and yes, I had an appointment), then I waited ten more minutes before she came in, then was poked and prodded in some very uncomfortable places. Then when I was allowed to get dressed she tells me I need blood work, and to ask the nurse at the front for my blood orders once I'm dressed.

The nurse told me to have a seat in the waiting room and she would be right out. Twenty-five minutes later she saunters out with about 6 pieces of paper for me and tells me to head down to the lab. Sigh.

So, down to the first floor I go to collect the husband who is sitting in the main floor waiting room watching all the freaky-deakies around him. We make our way to the lab where they proceeded to take eight tubes of blood! Yes, eight. Then I had to go pee into the world's tiniest sample cup.

As I was walking out I had to grab onto the husband to keep from falling over. The lack of eight tubes of blood, and the stomach contents of one miserable plain cake donut does not a happy (or balanced) girl make.

I've eaten since I came back to the office, but blech. I feel like a piece of (non-sexual) ass, wrapped up in a puke afghan, and sprinkled with headache flakes. Ewww.

Chicken? Who, Me?

I have been quite the little pain in the ass lately when it comes to guitar lessons. I'm not intentionally trying to be a pain in the ass, it just seems to come naturally to me. And it's not that I don't like the guitar lessons, because I do. In fact, the more convoluted, ridiculous questions I ask, it seems the more excited my teacher is to teach me. I guess an eager student makes you want to help them learn more.

Anyways, the reason I have been such a pain is because after a few months of learning some basic stuff...I got scared. Scared of what I'm not entirely sure - but I was scared nonetheless. And terrified might actually be a better word for it.

It seems that once I actually had to prove that I was practicing and learning stuff, I became shy. I know...you're thinking - this loudmouth? Shy? Does she have split personalities? Well of course I'm not shy, and as far as I know, myself and Mistress Evil-Pants are the only two around here ;)

But once I didn't have an excuse for going "Uh, what? How do I do that again? What's a fret?" I became nervous. So much so that I actually refused to play a couple times.

After one of those particular lessons I confessed to my teacher that if my dad knew that I had chickened out during a lesson he would have kicked my whiny, crazy, chicken-shit butt all the way into next week. So what happened at my next lesson? My teacher actually picked up the phone and called my dad. Of course, once I realized that's what he was doing I begged him to hang up the phone and forced myself to play. (Funny how a threatened phone call to be scolded by my dad can still freak me out at 27 years old.)

Since then I've been getting a tiny bit better each lesson.

About a month ago we decided to learn Christmas songs - just to break it up and give me the chance to try something new. That went over very well. I love Christmas and all the songs that go along with it, plus I love to sing, so I've been having a ball at home, playing Ramona and singing away.

But yesterday, oooooh, yesterday I got to start learning What Child Is This? But I was learning tabs, and I got to play without a pick, using just my fingers.

It.Is.Awesome.

Seriously, to me music sounds so much more beautiful when it's softer, and a Christmas song is the perfect time to practice that. Last night I spent about 2 hours practicing, then got up this morning and practiced for another half hour before work. I'm already excited about going home tonight and pulling Ramona onto my lap again.

Yay for guitars!
Yay for Ramona!
Yay for patient teachers!
And Yay for me!

Man...I Am So Mushy Lately

It amazes me sometimes the way love can overwhelm me. Overwhelm me like I can't believe how good it feels to love someone so much, or how much it hurts to have someone taken or not love me back, or how it feels to have someone else love you or be in love with you.

I often tell people that I love them. Even people that I maybe haven't known for any great length of time, but rather only a few months, because I do.

I have never, once in my life, uttered the words "I love you" when I didn't mean it. Never. A male friend of mine once said that I throw those words around too casually, to which I was astonished. How could I be "throwing" those words around if I really meant them? He confessed that he only felt someone deserved to be told that after a relationship had been firmly established, over many years and ups and downs. Telling people he loved them was an awkward thing.

I, on the other hand, feel that it should be shared whenever the mood strikes me. It is often said to friends in a sing-songy voice - sometimes after they have said something particularly sweet, or made me laugh in a way that only they can make me do - that I'm overwhelmed with feelings of love for that person and I will say "Oh man, you are so funny, I love you!" I always mean it, because I really do love that person - and at that moment in time they did something for me to think it was appropriate to let them know.

Being in love, the delivery is quite different. Besides the obvious times when people say "I love you" - when they're leaving for work, when they're on their way to "the deed", before they hang up the phone - I will often be overwhelmed with those feelings while I'm listening to them talk, or watching them do something, cooking, reading, etc. and have to tell them.
They can be in the middle of a sentence, telling me about something exciting that happened to them, totally oblivious to the fact that I am so awestruck by what an amazing person they are - and as I'm listening or watching I'm thinking "oh wow, I love you" with such intensity that I can't always say the words. Sometimes I just watch with a little smile on my face, thinking how lucky I am to have them in my life and to feel the way I do about them.

There are also times in my life when I wish I didn't love people so much. Times when I've had to cut myself off, times when my heart felt that it would break from the pain of losing them - those times when I wish so much that I didn't know them at all, because the pain of losing them is too much to bear. Of course, I always realize that the fact that I met that person at all is a gift, and that even if they have to leave my life, I'm still lucky to have loved them.

I have been feeling all kinds of intense love lately, love that makes me so happy and so sad at the same time that I'm not really sure what to do with it. For some reason my "love senses" have been drastically heightened...

Ouch

I recently told my dad about something going on in my life, which to me, should have made him relieved and excited for me.

But earlier that same day I had also confessed something to him that wasn't so great. Something I wasn't particularly proud of, and that he had always tried to warn me about, but that I had done anyways. I could see the disappointment on his face when I told him, which to me is almost worse than him being angry.

However, since I've told him the other news, he hasn't talked to me at all. At the time I told him the good news, he hugged me and told me "that's great babe, I love you". But then that was it. He walked out of the room to get ready for bed because he was getting called for work in the middle of the night. That was over two weeks ago. He hasn't called me or talked to me since.

Friday I called him from work to say hi. He told me that he had been off work the entire week. I asked him why he hadn't called me and he said he had been watching my brother in his volleyball tournaments and had been busy with meetings and "stuff" all week. Finally I asked him if he had had time to think about the good news I had given him. He said "uh, yeah." That was it.

Sadly, I think the disappointing news I told him earlier is affecting how he feels about the other. The odd thing is that my mom has called me twice - which is very unlike her - to see how things are going. It's almost as though they have switched places.

I can't even put into words how I feel right now. I was pushing the thoughts about it away, until Friday I realized how much it was bothering me. I'm finding that his lack of happiness is making this thing less happy for me, which makes me hurt so much.

As one of the people that I love and respect most in the world, him being supportive and loving me is extremely important. Obviously he still loves me, but his lack of enthusiasm is taking more of a toll on me than I realized.

I am at a loss. I've never been in this situation with him before.
I don't know what to do.

Hi

I'm around - just braindead and exhausted.

I'll blog properly soon, I promise.

Love you all.

A Rare Saturday With The Husband

Saturday I spent the whole day with the husband. Not really so weird, right? Well for me that is a pretty rare occurrence - as in, I can't actually remember the last time that happened. That is just so sad. By the time he rolled out of bed at 10am I had been up for hours and drank 3/4's of a pot of coffee already. I was bouncing off the walls to go somewhere.

I jumped in the shower, got out, pulled on some jeans...and that was as far as I got. I sat down in front of the computer and checked my email while the husband showered, then sprawled on the couch to watch some lame show on TLC. Fifteen minutes later he's ready to go and I'm in crash mode dressed in a short pink bathrobe, jeans, and my hair up in a towel, still laying on the couch.

Finally I dragged myself to the bathroom, slapped on some makeup, did the hair, went into the bedroom to finish getting dressed...and...crashed again. Finally I just yelled at the husband so I could explain the situation; the conversation went like this:

Me: Um, I don't think it's going to be possible to go anywhere today.
The Husband: What? Why?
Me: Well, I don't seem to be able to finish getting ready.
The Husband: Why? What's wrong?
Me: Well I laid down on the bed and now I'm too tired to finish.
The Husband: Well what do you have left to do?
Me: Put socks on.
The Husband: That's it? (said in a somewhat exasperated tone)
Me: Well...yeah.
(sounds of the husband coming down the hall to the bedroom)
The Husband: Oh Ali... (he's doing a lot of eye rolling and smirking)
Me: Well...I can't find any socks!
The Husband: Here's some! (he grabs some sitting right beside me)
Me: Can you put them on? (I fling my foot into his face)
The Husband: Oh fine...

In actuality, his putting my socks on led to some...uh, relations - so I guess I wasn't that tired after all.

So when we finally left the house we spent the afternoon shopping, having lunch, walking around, trying on bras (me, not him), taking pictures and that was about it. As we were leaving one store I started talking about Dairy Queen. He agreed that if there was one on our way home we could stop so I could get a blizzard - lucky for me, I already knew there was one about 2 blocks away!

As we're in the drive-thru line waiting on our stuff, this old woman - I'd say about 78 - comes out of the store carrying an ice cream cake. As I watched her walk at a snail's pace across the parking lot, I started saying to the husband how easy it would be to just run by her and grab her cake. He kind of laughed, knowing my sense of humour, and brushed it off.

But I kept thinking about it while I watched her walk. I was saying stuff like "Seriously, it would be so easy to roll her, she's barely moving!" and "I really want a piece of her cake - stay in the car while I go take care of business!"

I was laughing, but at the same time thinking how easy it would be (seriously people, I must have some issues that I need to work through, but please know that I would never actually "roll" someone for their cake).

So as we're sitting there laughing, the old lady gets to this concrete median that she somehow has to get over. About 15 feet away from her are these two punks, smoking and watching her. I said to the husband "watch this, one of these kids is going to get to the cake before me!"

All of a sudden one of the punks starts walking towards her! I grab my door handle thinking that this punk is going to do something to this woman, and I'm all ready to go flying across the parking lot and kick some ass. But as we watch, we see the woman hand the cake to the kid, then she slowly swings herself over this divider wall. Once she gets to the other side the punk hands her back her cake and she toodles off while I'm sitting there with my mouth hanging open.

How low am I? Two 17 year old punks are helping this little old lady out and I'm making plans on the easiest way to roll her for her cake! Oh man...what a twisted girl I am.

And the Title Goes To...Ali!

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to partake in UFC, or Ultimate Fighting Championships for all you UFC virgins.
Essentially it's two guys in a ring, beating the piss out of each other, where anything goes, and basically whoever is left standing at the end, wins, therefore dubbed "The Ultimate Fighting Champion".

Sounds barbaric. But strangely...like something I would love to do.

I may not have any professional training, and I may not be the biggest person out there, but I do have a high threshold for pain, I'm surprisingly flexible, I am fairly ninja-esque (perfect for getting out of tricky situations) and I have brought grown men to their knees before. And though I'm generally happy, I tend to have a surprising amount of pent-up frustration, and I love to wrestle and fight.

Given a "fair" fight, size and reach wise, I'd like to give it a try.

Of course, there are rules, but most of it is just common sense - things that could genuinely cause permanent damage in your opponent. Here is a list of UFC rules, definite no-no's"

1. Butting with the head.
2. Eye gouging of any kind.
3. Biting.
4. Hair pulling.
5. Fish hooking.
6. Groin attacks of any kind.
7. Putting a finger into any orifice or into any cut or laceration on an opponent.
8. Small joint manipulation.
9. Striking to the spine or the back of the head.
10. Striking downward using the point of the elbow.
11. Throat strikes of any kind, including, without limitation, grabbing the trachea.
12. Clawing, pinching or twisting the flesh.
13. Grabbing the clavicle.
14. Kicking the head of a grounded opponent.
15. Kneeing the head of a grounded opponent.
16. Stomping a grounded opponent.
17. Kicking to the kidney with the heel.
18. Spiking an opponent to the canvas on his head or neck.
19. Throwing an opponent out of the ring or fenced area.
20. Spitting at an opponent.
21. Engaging in an unsportsmanlike conduct that causes an injury to an opponent.
22. Using abusive language in the ring or fenced area.
23. Attacking an opponent after the bell has sounded the end of the period of unarmed combat.

Now, I can't see myself having a problem with any of these, except maybe number 22. You can't use abusive language? Why not? You can literally beat the crap out of someone, but if you call him an ass-munch he'll be offended? What kind of cracker-ass rule is that?

Hmm, I'm thinking about running this idea by the husband - I'm sure he's sick of me beating up on him all the time ;)

Oh frig...

Apparently I have been quite the little bitch today.

Not intentionally of course, though I was in a particularly cocky mood this morning. But this afternoon I just started feeling like crap - both physically and mentally. There have been a lot of things going through my mind and I seem to have offended some people in my office with my sarcastic mouth and lack of happiness.

Never mind the fact that I spent the drive home (and the last 15 minutes) bawling and then feeling badly for being such a "bitch", but now I'm actually feeling guilty for letting things that have nothing to do with work interfere with my mood at work. Like that could actually be helped.

Anyways, to those who are not impressed with me at the moment, I'm sorry. Sometimes it's just hard to not wear my heart on my sleeve...or on my face, or in my tone.

Sometimes being a girl sucks.

Office, Sweet Office

Finally! After months and months of painting cleaning, co-workers in and out, and arguing - I finally have my office the way I want it!
A few months ago you may remember that we had a "painting day" on a Saturday. On that day I chose this dark grapey, purple colour. Since I'm one of the corner offices I have 3 huge windows so even though the wall colour is dark, my office is always nice a bright.
Last week we had some "shuffling" in the office and near the end of the day on Friday - after some intense pouting and eye-batting - I managed to convince the boys to carry out the extra desk and computer that were inhabiting my workspace.
This allowed for me to re-arrange my whole office, since I now had the whole thing to myself. Thank you boys!

My collection of notes, cards, pictures, drawings, phone numbers and trinkets - displayed right beside me, where I can always see them.

Now who wouldn't love a funky office like this?

Dear Creators of Skinny Jeans,

I feel it is only fair that someone advise you of your terrible misconception when it comes to jeans.

Granted, there are many fits and styles available to the masses; low rise, hip huggers, classic fit, relaxed fit, boot cut, etc. I am, however, a little concerned that you feel the "skinny" jean is in any way, shape, or form an acceptable genre of denim leg covering.

I mean, let's be honest, the average person can't squeeze their ankle into these pants, let alone their thighs or ass. In fact, in order to fit into these pants you should probably be along the figure shape of skeletal, which for most of us, doesn't happen until we're dead. And if by some small miracle you manage to actually squeeze yourself into a pair of them ante-mortem, and you weigh anything over 87 pounds, you look like a complete beefcake.

The 100 pound girls are shoving their finger down their throat at the mere thought of having to put on a pair of these jeans. Most people just end up looking like they have been squeezed into life size sausage casings.

So, in light of the fact that approximately 5% of the population can actually fit into skinny jeans (and that half of those people are currently in treatment for eating disorders) I beg of you to stop the injustice of skinny jeans. Either that or try to live with yourself after seeing all the 112 pound "porkers" squeezed into these vile creations, it's your decision.


Sincerely, Ali a.k.a. I weigh more than 87 pounds

A Post About...Nothing

I seem to be experiencing a temporary (at least I hope it's temporary) lack of brain power when it comes to writing a coherent and entertaining post.

This could be the result of several things, such as:
a) I have been sleeping terribly the past few weeks so my brain hasn't had the proper rest periods to recharge.
b) My crankiness at my current writing ability...everything I write sounds like a 4-year old wrote it lately.
c) My obvious laziness at trying to come up with a great topic.
d) Maybe I have just run out of things to say.

Regardless, I hope my brain starts working again soon...this sucks.

It Just Kind of Snuck Up on Me...

This morning I wasn't expecting much...you know, I thought it would be your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill kind of day...

But it wasn't long before I was given a little surprise...

Hmmm, what's this now?

Oh, really? That kind of a day?

Yay! It snuck up on me, but today is a happy, happy day!

*************************************************************************************

Just a quick synopsis, since it's only 9:15 am, and how could I be having such a great day already, right?

Well my doctor's appointment went well yesterday (except for my doctor's usual lameness - but I expect it now, so I'm okay with that), this morning I was up at 5 and at work by about 6:20. That made me happy because though usually I start at 8, I really wanted to be here early to make up some of my time from yesterday. So yay! For once I was up and ready to go quickly

Once I got in the office I opened my coffee - mixed to perfection!
Yay again!

I opened my email and sent my timesheet off to my boss - oh man, this is such a big yay! It was due yesterday, but when you put it into perspective that last month I was 7 months behind on timesheets - it's amazing!

Next I had an email from Zig, which he had passed on from the vice-president of our company, giving kudos and glowing reviews to all who had worked on a recent issue of a particular magazine he had taken to a huge conference and trade show. Apparently he had the best reviews about the magazine that he's ever had about a magazine in 28 years - and it was one of my magazines - crazy, huge, amazing yay!

Then, to top it off, one of my other magazines recently featured a company from here in Manitoba that is one of the largest and well-known companies in Canada. Turns out that the company is so impressed with the magazine and our feature on them that they are thanking us for our fantastic work and want to order a few hundred more copies to send out to their own branches. Seriously, so many yays today!

I hope you are all having as wonderful a day as I am so far!

Happy day to you!