My brother lent me his longboard because he hit a car using it, rendering the board riderless for a month. I finally took it out last night for a spin. It makes me feel small and fragile. I stomped on the end to make it fly up so I could catch it like a good sk8r should.. and.. because it's not a light board (my estimate is 30 lbs, and 4 ft long). it slammed my thumb back painfully.

I basically spun around inside a closed tennis cord. Some boys in grade 4 or 5 whistled at me. I am old enough to be their mother. Gross. I can go around the court fine counter-clockwise, because left turns are easy for me to make. I stand un-goofy-foot I suppose. That means I lean forward to turn left. Leaning back of course, is harder, so I always end up turning more left than right.

As I came back, the road had new appeal. There are a lot of cars on Renfew, where I live, but during the car passing intermissions, I dropped the board down and puttered up the hill. Very nice! Carrying it is a bit of a hassle though. I think I would want a regular sized board if I ever got one.. I'd use it to skate from the skytrain station to work, like this other yuppie programmer dude I sometimes see.

Waking Life

I just saw Waking Life

Some notes to jot down before I forget:

1. Why haven't we achieved anything past the Greeks? The answer can be found in another question: Are humans more lazy or more fearful?
2. I miss Joel
3. I miss crickets chirping and the smell of night, and serious little girls who still can't wrap their tongues around words quite right yet.
4. Most of us are either tragic victims of a) not enough life or b) an overabundance of life. I'm a! I'm a!
5. No editing this post allowed.
6. Time keeps us from discovering God. We're all living in 50 BC, and time is a mask.
7. Dreams and reality are one and the same. There is nothing different about the action of the molecules in my head during a dream, than in 'waking state.' The only difference is that my body's actions are suspended during a dream.
8. If that is the case, we all have so much potential
9. I work as a drone, but that is just another route up a pyramid where all sides become a point.
10. We *are* all pretty dumb because we're lazy and / or fearful. I don't want to be an ant, interacting with my environment via my antennae. I want my mid-life crisis to happen right now.
11. Sometimes I too watch myself as I go about my daily activities, seeing my life as an old lady looking back on it.
12. Sometimes I too listen to people and feel like I am cueing them to speak what I want to say.
13. I wonder about the collective subconscious of the world.

The cat came back

Last night J came back, and it was like the prodigal son coming home. 5 months. He watched as I packed hummus and alfalfa sprouts pitas and we talked about all the crazies we've dated in the past while. We'd both dated bi-polar, messy people. His was a practicing witch goth. He nearly moved in with her.

We pressed our heads together in my kitchen and just grinned. I looked at him, and he'd smirk, and I'd burst out laughing and he'd go 'wha-aat!,' and I'd have to look away, only to look back a second later. We went to Karaoke with his late-30's friends in a cheery cowboy bar. Angela (34, and a nurse and sugar mommy) and John (22, likes to be chased with a bullwhip), the couple I got to know best, had humped three times that night while J was at their place, and he poked fun at them all night.

I sang Sarah McLachlan first, which sucked. Wanting to impress the crowd more than that, I sang Barbie Girl at the end of the night. One of the regulars jumped up and sang Ken's part for me, and even the Barbie-like waitress and her friend joined in.

A had brought origami and we folded little critters that hopped and humped all over the table, and paper airplanes that zoomed nearly into other people's beer. We made those little folded games that you manipulate with your thumbs and index fingers, and there is a little answer inside you choose after a few rounds of opening and closing the paper. Mine had final answers like 'lick your elbow,' which J got. A's was X-rated, and all the numbers on the outside were 69, en seule, 3-some, etc. I got 'ladies first.' I then made my paper eat Angela's paper. "I'm going to turn you vanilla!' said mine to hers in an Elmo voice, and all 3 of them burst out laughing.

30-somethings sure know how to have a good time. They also sell homemade tamales on wreck beach.. Angela and John make them, and Joel sells them.

Of couse, tons of stuff has happened to each of us and we caught up on all the largest things. J went home to Ontario for 2 months and hung with his kids. He now wants to start a company on Saltspring Island, if his contact calls. He came home with me after, and caught that gigantic wolf spider that's been under my heater the last few days. Agreed its the biggest he's seen. Body the size of a large peanut; legspan of the top of a coke can. I screamed girlishly as he chased it around the room and finally brought the mayo jar down on one of its legs.. but the spider itself was on the outside!

So the flyswat was clamped down on one of its other legs, so that the mayo jar could go over its body. Guys who fearlessly catch big hairy spiders make me :)~~

We snuggled all night. Despite his manly spider-catching abilities, he holds on to me like a child to a mom or a girl to a guy, his head lower near my shoulder, his body wrapped on mine (like a spider's web around prey?). It feels nice to have a body wrapped around mine for a change, rather than mine wrapped around another's. I'm afraid we fit together perfectly, in the energy we bounce off each other in public, and how we make fun of each other. In the familiarity of knowing the other's mannerisms and reactions. In the way I can identify with his metrosexual tastes, but balance them with my tomboy quirkiness. I've missed his amazing smell, his electric toothbrush, the gold pirate hoops in his ears (now upgraded to a single silver one) and his non-threatening candour.

Yes, he has me in a spell, and I will never cease to be happy when he comes back after a long absense. But I know deep down inside that...well..perhaps its best left unsaid in such a positive post.

I had to leave at 7:30 for work, and we walked hand in hand to the skytrain. I thought I'd never see him again in my life.

Most beautiful night.

I have *never* seen Vancouver as beautiful as it was tonight..

Blading the Seawall till just past sunset...

The new, smooth pavement.. allowing you to concentrate on the view that much more..

Tipsy bonsai tree silhouette, lighthouse, still glassy water, light grey buildings caving in on marina..

Smells like camping

And just got in the door and had coconut gelato for dinner.

I *love* living on my own :)

Fireworks Finale.

The power of the pen is scary or liberating, depending on who holds it. I can make you love or hate someone, by framing them in a certain light. I'm ambivalent about how I'm going to portray this character, but I think I'll take some artistic liberty and forget about the past.

Over the past few years I've been meeting and making contact with my little grade 7 clique. The last one, Claire, I never thought I'd come across again. But I found her online, and we met up last night for the fireworks finale. She was a homely, mean-spirited, troubled kid back then, and now she is pretty, successful, and sweet. How this happened I do not know but I'm glad and amazed.

I waited at Burrard station. She was late. I watched as the fireworks-bound crowd streamed by. Where do all those cute guys hide during regular nights? I wonder if everyone is wondering why I'm standing in front of the Hyatt alone? If she doesn't show, will I walk to the beach alone, or go home? Will I be mad if she doesn't show? Probably, but more out of embarassment and self-pity, which are unnecessary, so if she doesn't show I'll make a conscious effort to shrug it off.

Finally she pulled up in the promised yellow cab. She was just as sweet and demure as she had been on the phone. No underlying cattiness under the sweet voice. No more angst. I had forgotten we were watching the 'works from her friend's apartment across from English bay. The friend wasn't answering the buzzer. Other people arrived and said they were going to the same place. I felt underdressed. What a sophisticated crowd.

It turned out they weren't going to the same place. Colleen still wasn't answering her door on floor 22. We knocked on her sister's door, beside her, and then went to the floor below, Steve's. I found it weird yet fun how all of Colleen's neighbours were her friends. On Steve's balcony we asked the neighbours in the next balcony over if they could see anyone on the balcony above us. And could they please ask her to unlock the door.

Colleen greeted us by saying she felt sick and wasn't expecting company. I felt like an intruder, but we stayed and she fed us paralyzers and red wine anyway. Her apartment was *beautifully* decorated. A japanese onion paper divider had each of its little squares decorated with stones, shiny things, photos, magazine cut-outs. Delicate ferns sat on her monitor. Her printer was decorated with stickers and a big round ceramic owl head served as a coat hanger. Two cats hid somewhere. She also had a spice rack and a doorway curtain made of large white translucent O's. When we left, I gave Colleen a hug and she told me I was pretty. I was sort of embarassed. I'm not used to hanging out with girls that much, but I find that they greet with hugs (I hardly hug my friends anymore) and compliment more. They also giggle more. I found I had to fake giggle a bit to keep up.

We hung out at Steve's on floor 21 a bit more. He owns the biggest DVD collection I've ever seen. Then we walked a few blocks to Claire's other friend's, Jamie's. Jamie is a cute, soft-spoken yet mischevious redhead with a more modest, down-to-earth place filled with mountain bike, paper mache masks, and hippie awning over her bed. She told us she kissed a lesbian back at Celebrities because she felt sorry for her.

We set off to Celebrities after the fireworks dust had settled down. Plans changed and we went to Roxy. But plans changed again because Claire forgot her ID. So we went to Speakeasy. We sat around one of the round tables in the middle of the room, perched precariously on barstools. Claire bought us two rounds of Paralyzers. Two guys, friends of Jamie's, stopped by, and I was conscious of just how much attention sitting at that middle table attracts.

It was 2 am and I hadn't planned on how I'd get home. So logically, I decided to crash at Ross's place. I felt a bit bad, because I don't want to use him. I'd already been there the week before. Claire and Jamie actually walked me all the way there, so I invited them up on behalf of Ross. I knew he wouldn't say no to three chicks saying hi (Ross likes girls a lot) even if he had already gone to sleep (which he had). We got up there, and of course, Ross was noticibly quiet, as usual. He can be talkative around the right people, but he has *never* been talkative around new ppl I've brought to his place.

I find it really cute how he's more self-conscious, and puts on more of a show around new, cute girls. His best friend pointed out how he strutted past the girls in the table behind us at a restaurant in Seattle. My suspicions proved correct later on as I soared into bed as soon as he hit the light. "She's cute," he said of Jamie. "I'd bang her." I laughed and mentioned how she'd been hit on all night.

Today, Claire told me that Jamie likes me a lot, and I told Claire both she and her friends are really sweet, and that Ross thinks Jamie is cute and would bang her. LOL! Big mouth I have. So that was my night. I just felt like typing out the full events of a night for once, instead of just summarizing it in this blog.

I think my bum is sore from sitting all day. But:

The work party was banging tonight. I just keep meeting more and more and more people and everyone knows everyone. Imagine 600 ppl pre-screened to be both smart and pleasant to be around, and put them all in the same building. Heavenly!

Texas Poker, Blackjack, Russian Roulette, Musical Chairs, Dance-Off, Scallops wrapped in bacon, Brie and smoked salmon on french bread.. and lots of smiley faces whose names I didn't really remember. Introduced myself to Lance, a raver who won the dance-off.

A and S started with $200, like me, and A went down to $40 but both went up to $1200 early in the night when I checked in with them. I ended up with about $40 more than I started with.

I wish I could remember all the funny things that happened today.. all I remember is I laughed throughout the whole day.. at one point running through the halls with Jayson and Alex on break, pretending we were a S.W.A.T. team on a secret mission for muffins. The building is sort of like a maze, so we did appropriate swat formations at all the corners and crept around like dorks.

Then in chat, I typed '..greet' as my macro but my macros were off. (It's supposed to automatically write 'Welcome to Chat my name is blabla how can I help you today...') So I covered it up by typing.. 'Greetings' right after. Yesterday I wrote something like 'Do you have a chewing account?' instead of 'checking account.' When we get on the floor, I hope its half as fun as training is. I will miss having my whole training class around at once. Especially R and K. They better not split us up!!! :'(

R is so clean and his face stuff smells so nice. His washroom is now cleaner than mine. I was in an altered state of consciousness this morning as the light and wind played with the blinds, awesome music poured out of the speakers, my neck was being rubbed and a me-shaped imprint was being made into the comfy mattress. Oh, and a fan blew wind at us. Blisssssss.

I want some cool music and pretty dancing blinds too. I also know I'm done with Davis now. Going to the R-Spa always helps me decide right away whether I want to continue a relationship or not. And I usually come away saying 'not.'