Weddings, Weddings Everywhere But Not A Ring To Keep

I miss planning a wedding. I really do. The Royal Wedding has come and gone and a friend of mine is getting married soon. It's all making me nostalgic for wedding planning and wishing my husband and I were getting married again, just so I could plan it all.

Picking colour schemes, venues, accents, decor, food and so much more. It's the ultimate fun project for someone who likes to do little bits of everything. After my wedding, my sister and I entertained the idea of becoming wedding planners, and I wish we had've gone through with that. It's probably the most fitting job for me in terms of what I can see myself doing well and enjoying right up until I retire. There are so many different ways to do a wedding, with different specifications and requirements and all to fit the unique personalities of the happy couple. For someone who enjoys all things creative but who is also very organized, almost to a fault, it's a dream job!

So....hire me as your wedding planner? Please?

Conversations With Howie

On my way home from band practice tonight, I got stuck downtown waiting for the bus which allowed for ample opportunity to be approached by strange men.

Just as I was about to put on my ear buds and listen to some tunes, a short, skinny man with red hair and few teeth approached me and said "It should be about 10 more minutes until the buses come."

Unsure of what to do, I politely thanked him for the update and hesitantly proceeded to raise the ear buds toward my ears and then...

"Are you a student?"

It became clear we were going to have a conversation, so I put away my iPod and chatted with him about what I studied, the fact that I'm job hunting and his life struggles. I wasn't sure why he was talking to me or what he may have expected of our interaction, but I sat there and listened to him, asked about different aspects of his stories and tried to enjoy the conversation for what it was.

Finally, the buses began coming into the square and as he prepared to depart, he told me that if I was looking for a job, I should go to the local employment help organization and tell them that Howie sent me.

So now I've made friends with Howie. Well enough that he wants to be a referral for me. We'll see what occurs when I go there and ask if they know Howie. Either way, this is a small city and I believe he frequents my bus route, so I imagine there will be many more conversations with Howie to come.

Isn't it Ironic? Isn't it?

After an articulate twitter post by @dooce about irony, I came to the realization that hipsters have a fundamental commonality with Alanis Morrissette. They both misuse the word irony, a lot.

However, Alanis was much more consistent with her misuses. She tended to use the word as though it meant 'bad luck' or 'wow, that sucks'. Rain on your wedding day? Meeting the man of your dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife? No smoking sign on your cigarette break? Those are all examples of shitty circumstances, none of which being ironic in the least.

Hipsters on the other hand seem to misuse it in all sorts of versatile ways. They use it similarly to how they used 'random' (which was also massively misused, by the way). They use it to denote the weird, strange or bizarre. They use it to describe any piece of art whatsoever regardless of what it is. The word has almost taken on the versatility of a swear word, meaning nothing and everything all at once.

As academically fascinating as this usage may be for all the linguists and social scientists out there, it's very frustrating that when it took me so long to figure out exactly what irony was (Alanis totally screwed me up here), it matters not that I now know the proper meaning and have the ability to use it appropriately in conversation. No one can recognize that I know my stuff. Because no one else knows it.

Irony has a very specific meaning. It is when the literal meaning is opposite to the underlying meaning. Sarcasm is a good example. A sort of sub-type of irony is when the opposite of what you'd expect to happen happens, but that's a tricky definition that is typically referring to dramatic irony which implies an audience. Though, if people keep misusing irony like they do...it might as well become meaningless and be stricken from the English language.

A Startling Realization

Growing up, I always felt the need to excel at everything. EVERYTHING. Especially things that other people could (seemingly) do so easily. Thus, when my dad bought a boat and tried to convince us all to enjoy water skiing, and then tried to show off as being a 'natural', I felt the need to be EVEN BETTER and get up on my first try from the water. Or when my sister became interested in acting, I had to join the drama club a.s.a.p. and eventually work my way up to being a lead in the school play. Or when my other sister started to learn guitar and then gave it up, I started learning and had to be better than anyone in the family at guitar.

This has been a long standing trend.

This crazy obsession with being the best at everything I do has forced me to do a lot of things, get good enough to declare myself the victor and move on to something else. But along the way, I began to just intrinsically enjoy all of these different things, and now I've got about a million interests and general ability in most things and a passion for all of them. Sounds pretty great, right? Wrong.

Now that it's come time to choose a career, I'm hopelessly stuck. This has become my own personal Buridan's Ass situation. I'm paralyzed with the plethora of options. I've come to the rather upsetting realization that I can't be a singer/songwriter/actor/writer/artist/photographer/psychologist/web designer/interior designer/editor/director/manager/yoga instructor/marketing guru. That's too many slashes! What's worse is as I was writing that, I kept being like 'done' and then going back and adding another and even now I can think of more but I dare not add them to my list of slashy occupations.

I can't do everything, and I can't do nothing, but I can't choose one. So, until I can figure it out...I'm in a band, sent a script to a film studio and am going to continue writing this blog. However, none of these things pay. Not yet anyway. I think that probably the best job for me would be some sort of manager of all things creative, but in order to do that I have to work my way up and start from a specific thing...that's too specific!

So...I'm applying for two jobs at the moment that I would like to get: a program assistant at a community development organization and a management trainee at the new Apple Store opening up in a nearby town. Hopefully both will allow me enough free time to pursue the million and one other things I like. In the meantime, I might get back into photography. It's been too long...

Day Off

As of Monday, I have completed my ENTIRE UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE! Totally a university graduate now. As a result, for the first time in 4 years, I'm free. So, rather than going straight back into job hunting, I decided to take a day or two off.

By day off I mean I got my taxes done (finally!), did some banking, got groceries and started cleaning. I know, not exactly relaxing, but in the process of doing all that, I was able to spend the morning with my husband, go for a walk and browse Value Village, The Thrift Store and the Dollar Store. Not to mention read a bit of the third book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. Which, I must say is quite novel, reading for fun that is.

I do have plans for the rest of the day, however. I plan on having a nice bath, reading some more and maybe getting some chocolates at some point. I also wanted to get ready for Easter and fill some egg-capsules, but the dollar store was all out of egg-capsules. Very distressing. Fortunately, there's another dollar store nearby. So, I may go out again and check out the other dollar store for egg-capsules.

In the meantime, I'm going to finish up the cleaning I started...or at least clean the bathroom enough that a bath would actually be relaxing.

Zehr's Too Much Non-Food in Grocery Stores

Today I went to the Guelph Home Show, stayed about 2 minutes and left to pick up some groceries. I don't drive and the bus system didn't really allow me to easily get to my usual grocery store, so I went to the one nearest to the bus route I'd be taking home.

Walking there was a bit of a pain since today it decided to snow with such verocity that I had to actively throw my weight forward to prevent falling over from the wind. Thus, as I approached the store, I had a solid covering of snow on one side of me and none on the other. One  astute observer specifically stopped me to tell me that I had snow all down my front that made it looked like I had been walking for a very long time in one direction. Really? You don't say? I suppose you haven't noticed the crazy weather we're having.

Moving on. I walked into the grocery store and it looked nothing like a grocery store. I saw cosmetics. Miles of cosmetics. So I turned and began walking...and walking....and walking....and nothing I passed resembled food. There was makeup, shampoo, lawn furniture, clothing, plates and just about anything you can think of that is not edible. When I finally arrived at the food, I realized that nothing was where it should be. Frozen veggies weren't in freezers (rather they were in refrigerated areas, without doors, like you would expect to find cheese and milk in), oriental spices were in the cookie aisle and markers were with the cereal. The end of every other aisle had a person with free samples. The bags to put produce in were only about a foot off the ground.

I was so profoundly confused, lost and alone in this massive everything-store. I just wanted some cereal, pasta and ingredients to make BLTs. That's it. I don't care that there are 40 thousand organic tomatoes. I want inexpensive tomatoes...and I only want a couple. I don't want ready-made sushi, nor do I want a premade salad. And I just barely understand what is meant by "canned pasta."

Then, I had a stroke of inspiration. Earlier this morning I had heard something about dried fruit being a great snack, and there was mention of dried cherries. I love cherries, and I'd never had dried ones before. So I looked for them. Surely this massive store that has every kind of every option available would have dried cherries. I got to the dried fruit cart and looked around. Apricots, prunes, raisins, mango....no cherries. The one thing that I thought I might want to get beyond the usual, that probably wouldn't be in my regular grocery store, wasn't here.

Sadly, I departed without dried cherries. Upon my departure, I was shocked by the cashier's ability to use the paypass on my VISA. I'd only seen vending machines with these things before. The ease at which the grocery store can access my money now is quite disconcerting. I don't like it. And I don't like the damn high-end grocery store with everything in it either. The store's so big, I got tired walking around in it. That shouldn't be possible. I would vastly prefer to go to specialty shops for the odd specialty ingredient when I want it (which would be almost never) than to have a massive superstore that has so much stuff that I get a panic attack just thinking about it.

One last part that really bothered me quite a bit and that is the primary reason I plan to never go to a high-end grocery store again. The people who worked there acted as though they were incredibly beneath me. Here I am, unshowered, no makeup and messed up hair and they treat me like I'm some high-powered executive that they dare not look in the eye. Some would say this is respectful and polite. I find it alienating and upsetting. It makes me feel bad. I don't want them to think I think I'm better than them. I'm not. It's ok to have a casual conversation with the grocery store clerks back at my regular store, and I feel like we're equals helping each other out. They help me find what I'm looking for and I can chit chat with them and hopefully say something that will brighten their spirits in their otherwise demanding and kind of crappy job. You get a sense of community and niceness that you can't get when people are bowing down to you. That's what struck me the most.

Adventures in Abandoned Factories

A few weeks ago, I was on Kijiji looking for a job and decided to check out the community musician section of the site. After sifting through a bit of the posts, I happened upon a band looking for a female singer. Intrigued, I clicked no it to read further.

Their criteria was that you had to like Tom Waits, Billie Holiday and the Ramones. I like all those things...but could not for the life of me figure out a cohesive way to integrate those styles. So I emailed them gushing about my love for Tom Waits, old jazz and a variety of other styles.

A day or two passed and I received an email back. They wanted to have an audition/jam session at night time and gave me the address of a part of the city I'd never been to before. I Googled it so I knew where I was going, and it seemed alright. Close to bus stops. Walking distance to downtown. The email was sent by, I kid you not, Zoltan.

Upon reading that name, all I could think of was that bad teen movie Dude Where's My Car? in which there's a creepy group of nerds in bubble wrap suits who enthusiastically yell ZOLTAN! to pay respects to their alien leader.

In the meantime, I was given a few songs to learn so we could 'jam'. I'd never jammed before...this was a foreign concept. I wrote music quietly in my kitchen by myself...sometimes I sang in the shower. But it was always a solitary thing. I was once in a band...but we only played one song and it was really awkward and weird. I was pretty nervous.

So the day came when I would be jamming with Zoltan. I got into a bus that I'd never gone on before, got off at what I thought was the right stop (it wasn't) got momentarily lost and then was able to get back on track. Looking around I noticed that though I may live in the West ghetto where everyone lives in a crappy apartment building where people do crack in the parking lot, this was definitely the East ghetto where everyone lives in a run-down house that has plastic wrap instead of windows and old, rotting 2x4s instead of lawn furniture. Finally I got to my destination and noticed that the building looked very much abandoned.

After a few minutes of peering in dusty windows and trying to open the locked doors, Zoltan showed up. Turns out he's from the former Yugoslavia so the name makes a wee bit more sense. He showed me inside the building, which was an old abandoned factory, and I met the other band member: Brian. Then I made the mistake of asking where the bathroom was. Zoltan looked around and laughed a bit nervously. He mentioned something about talking to the guy that owns the place and how it needs to get worked on. When we arrived at the bathroom, I was a little horrified. It looked like a prison cell, but dirtier than you'd expect a prison cell to be. Like, if they were in the process of destroying a prison cell. But I had drank excessive amount of water because I was nervous and wanted my voice to be in good condition. I had to pee.

I will leave out the gory details, but I'll just say this. I am never going to drink any amount of liquid before band practice.

After the bathroom incident, I was able to keep it together enough to go through with the jam session and it was incredibly fun. I was nervous, and that negatively impacted my abilities, but they seemed to think I was still good enough so now I guess I'm in a band. A band that practices in an abandoned old factory at night in the East ghetto, with Zoltan and Brian, the two most juxtaposed names in existence.

Someone's Living in the Stairwell

My apartment building is sketchy. That is a matter of fact (not a complaint). Sure, we've got tennants from every nation on the earth living under one roof and yes, there's some clearly insane individuals. Recently however, there have been a number of peculiar findings in the stairwell that leads me to believe someone lives there.

Evidence #1: Ziploc bags of cheese bits.
One day, I was leaving for school and to my surprise there were bits of cheese everywhere that had seemingly exploded from a Ziploc bag. From the smell, I would guess it had been there a while. This finding was a strange one, and it largely went overlooked as there are many strange smells in my building, as previously discussed on this blog.

Evidence #2: Smooshed muffin, in another Ziploc bag, stuffed with cigarette butts.
Possibly even more strange, a while after the cheese disappeared I noticed a bag with a muffin in it that had clearly been used as the communal ash tray. So, not only is someone living in the stairwell, but either there are many someones living in the stairwell, or the stairwell troll is a chain smoker...and maybe a little sadistic toward muffins.

Evidence #3: Toilet paper and a toothpaste box.
This is really where it begins to look like whoever is spending their time in the stairwell must in fact be living there. You don't tend to just hang out in a creepy stairwell with toilet paper while brushing your teeth. The upside though: the stairwell troll must be concerned about the impact their smoking addiction has on their oral health.

Evidence #4: A sweater.
I know it's been getting awfully warm lately, but it's still cold at night. Sweaters are still necessary, but not during the day. So, I think the stairwell troll has stashed their sweater in the stairwell to cuddle up with when they go to sleep at night.

Overall, I think this is overwhelming evidence that we have a stairwell troll. It seems to me that I should start bringing my camera with me whenever venturing into the stairwell so that should I happen upon the troll, I can take a portrait for proof.

Update: More to Come

I haven't died. I'm coming back. Just not quite yet. This week is going to be the busiest of the year, but afterwards I should have oodles of time to devote to blogging, social media and job hunting. OODLES.

Stories to look forward to: "Someone's living in the stairwell", "Adventures in  abandoned factories" and "Welcome to the Joke".

Cell Phones

Well, it's been a while since I last posted, and there have been SO MANY things happening...which I will talk about...later.

For now, I kind of want to rant about cell phones. I feel like people are far too dependent on cell phones and that being so glued to these devices, people rarely ever notice the world around them or take advantage of the opportunities surrounding them because they quite literally can't see them. Moreover, they're expensive.

However. Because the world has this obsession, I am severely excluded from "normal life" because I do not have a cell phone. Crazy, I know, but as I said, they're expensive and I have a landline which barely ever gets used as it is, so why do I need a cell phone? Well, as a result of not having a cell phone, there's about a million and one opportunities I'm missing out on. Employers could more readily get a hold of me to offer me a job (plus I'm sure they get a little shocked when they don't see a cell phone listed and assume I just don't want to give it to employers and end up disliking me and not calling). I could go out at night and not be terrified for my life. I could visit friends' apartments who's buzzers don't work. I could take pictures of things without having to lug around my big (beautiful) and clunky camera. I could text my husband while I'm getting groceries to get his opinion on the latest exotic food I want to buy. Or just text him anyway for little things here and there so we don't worry about each other.

Bottom line: there are SO MANY benefits to having a cell phone. More bottomer line: cell phones and their plans are more money than I spend on food for a month, and honestly, we can barely afford that. And which would you rather me do, buy a cell phone or DIE OF STARVATION?

So...I have decided that I will wait until I have secured a good-paying job. Save up for a little while, and buy two cell phones with a joint plan. One for me, one for my husband. Whether he likes it or not. FYI : my husband has decided to take the 'I'm cooler than you because I don't need a cell phone.' route. Which is very mentally healthy...and has caused a number of people to question their cell phone usage which as I pointed out initially is a good thing because people are far too dependant on their cell phones to a fault.

I guess the only thing I have left to say about this is that if some philanthropist out there wants to give me a pair of cell phones, that would greatly lighten the load!