My room is finally clean and I'm hoping my life will follow suit

Today I spent the day cleaning, except for the part of the day I spent eating breakfast with my friend Mizziann Chewbacca (the names are getting really hard), the part where I was watching soccer and the part when I was doing the Waka waka dance in my room, while trying not to associate it with Fozzie bear. The point is, I did a lot of cleaning, but it was worth it, because I now feel like I'm living like the human that I claim to be, instead of some sort of rodent. The other point is that nothing at all of significance happened today, which makes it difficult to write a blog.

Luckily, over the past few months I've been periodically take pictures thinking, "This is good blog material". They aren't. But, on a day like today, I'll take anything, so here we go.

1. Squished Muffin

This is a wholegrain blueberry muffin I bought and then put in my bag, then squished it. Somehow I thought it was picture worthy and that a blog would write itself around it. I was wrong. It's just a squished muffin. It was delicious though.

2. Substitution policy
This was the most intense substitution policy I'd ever seen. Somehow, I don't think they like substitutions. However, the food was not that great and the waiter reminded me of a robot, so I think they probably shouldn't be so definite about the substitutions, because they're just not that awesome. I don't have much more to say than that, hence me not blogging it when I first took the picture.

3. Very strong/hungry squirrel


This squirrel had 3/4 of a Tim Hortons roll that it carried from who knows where. That struck me as odd and impressive. It was probably the greatest day of that squirrels life. However, that's way too many carbohydrates for a little squirrel, so he's probably increasing his risk of future insulin resistance and type II diabetes mellitus. So, actually, it's a little sad. But then again, free roll, so good job little guy.

Well, that's what I got today. Happy song is Waka waka (It's time for Africa) by Shakira, because my roommate Oysters O'Jomand enjoys it greatly and it's pretty catchy. I'm pretty sure she's dancing the Waka waka dance in her room all the time. That amuses me, hence the happy song status.

...Fishy? (Sorry, I can't remember the title)

In the last couple weeks, I've become concerned about the whole "blogging every day" plan. I thought that it was impossible to run out of thoughts, and I was right. However, it is easy to forget bloggable thoughts by the end of the day, leaving me with mediocre thoughts like "well, I ate a hot dog a couple days ago, people probably want to know about that." So I blog them, all the while knowing that they don't, but that I have nothing else to write because of the short term memory issues.

It's sad that yesterday I wrote all about my dreams of a poor lobotomized pet fish, only to realize today that I'm already living his life, except not a fish, which is good because I live in air, so were I a fish, I'd be both forgetful and dead, which would be significantly worse than my current situation. The point is, my memory is so bad that while writing about fish memory, it didn't even trigger me to think that maybe I'm already a lobotomized fish. Mostly it made me think, "Fishys are fun". Then it made me think, "Crap, what was I just writing. Wait, who cares? Happy song."

So about the blogging everyday. I thought that maybe the response I needed was to stop the everyday blogging, but then I thought, "No Sharon, you're not a quitter, except for when you are, but you aren't right now." But what I do think I need to do is change my goal from "...until untimely death" to "...for 1 year". I think 1 year is reasonable. Then I can space it out, if I so choose. Obviously it's with the stipulation that if untimely death occurs first, I'll probably stop then and not wait for the year.

I think it's okay to change the rules at this point. It's like when I was a teen and I would say, "I'm never going to drink, or at least I don't think I will at this point, but in the future, I might change my mind." I really did say this once to my grandparents, who, I like to imagine, respected my absolute lack of resolve. I think it's fair though, I don't need to make decisions for future Sharon, she can make her own decisions. It's not like you see her making choices for me. If past Sharons got to call all the shots for future Sharons, all the power would be in infant Sharon's hands, and I would probably wander through life putting anything within reach in my mouth and still wear a diaper for convenience. But I don't, because that would be ridiculous. The point is, I won't blog forever either, just because 27 year old Sharon thought that would be a bright idea. I will try for the year though, because goals are fun.

Speaking of goals, my goal today is to clean my stupid room, but I'm not posting another picture because of the embarrassment. I will, however, promise myself that if I don't clean it tonight I'll post a picture tomorrow to shame myself into doing it. I suspect life would be easier if I didn't have to be a sneaky parent to myself. Also, it would be easier with a clean room. I also might have more crayon drawings then, because messy rooms inhibit crayon drawings. I would explain the mechanism, but actually, I won't.

Happy song...Don't Forget, by Brett Dennen. It got me through the fall, when I was so busy that I was generally concerned about passing out in the street on my walk home (I didn't though, which was good). I like to imagine that I'm singing it to myself, because as much as it feels great to have other people believe in me, it's not a sufficient replacement for me doing it for myself. I suggest you do the same.

Sleep is totally underrated...

Today I am tired. I woke up to discover that I have officially run out of clean clothes to wear and had to work incredibly hard to put some semblance of an outfit together. By the point that happened, I had run out of time to dry my hair and was happy when I left my apartment to discover it was raining, because, that way, people could think that I was caught in rain, when, in reality, I'm just lazy and bad at time management.

So, obviously, number one on my list of things to do when I came home was laundry, which I did while watching "Funny Face" with my friend Byla Rong. I should note that our aim had been to watch a romantic movie, and believed that we couldn't fail with Audrey Hepburn. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten about the 30 year age difference between Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire, which really didn't create the illusion we were hoping for. Yes, I know he has rhythm, but it's just not enough to make it not creepy. Also, it's never a good sign when the male lead's looks are improved by a false beard. Wardrobe's decision to dress him in a number of Mr Rogers style sweaters also really didn't help matters much.

Anyways, the reason I mention my laundry is to illustrate why this post might not be up to the standards you've come to expect, because my brain seems to have temporarily left me, hopefully not for Fred Astaire, because, as mentioned earlier, he's old (and, umm, dead...is it insulting to call deceased people old, or is that particular insult nullified by death? It's so hard to keep track of all the rules around that stuff...). So, I took the elevator down to get my laundry out of the dryer, and when I got down I realized that I'd forgotten my laundry basket. I live on the 14th floor of an overly superstitious building, so the 13 floor trip is not insignificant, but I trekked back up to retrieve my basket. Then I went back down to get my laundry and realized as I left the elevator that I had forgotten my basket again. So, I traveled the 13 floors up and down again. In total, it took 6 elevator trips to get one basket of laundry, and the entire time, my feet were dressed like this:

The moral of this story is my brain is fried and I shouldn't be allowed to dress myself. But, as I've mentioned frequently lately, my goal is to write every day, come rain or come shine. And, now that I know my brother Shamus is watching my every move, just waiting for me to slip up, I'm working even harder to make sure that there is something, anything, posted each day, because he is good at catching me in lies.

When we were kids, Shamus liked to make brownies, and I liked to eat brownies. It would have been a match made in heaven if he didn't also like to eat brownies, creating a competition for resources that, technically, he was entitled to win. I did not care for this, but, since he was bigger and stronger, I had no method to convince him that his brownies should actually be my brownies. Luckily, what I lacked in brawn I made up for in craftiness. Oh, and also, sneakiness: I can tip-toe like nobody's business. So, at night, when no one was around, I would sneak into the kitchen and steal delicious brownies. But, Shamus has a photographic memory, so, obviously, I couldn't just take a brownie without him noticing it was missing. I was good at geometric reasoning though, so instead of cutting a square brownie, which would be easily missed, I would carefully cut a strip of brownie off the end. That way, it would add up to the same amount of brownie, but its absence would be imperceptible to the human eye.



This system went on for months, and as I got cockier, I stopped worrying about how much brownie I took, because my strip system was so perfect that he could never discover me. Then, one day, I went to the kitchen for a scrumptious brownie treat, and just as I was cutting it, Shamus jumped out from behind the kitchen counter and screamed "I knew it!"

To help you to fully understand the amount of terror I felt in that moment, I'm going to completely lie about the rest of the story...

The shock of him jumping out caused my hand to shake so violently that I accidentally cut off my pinky finger. There was blood everywhere. It was horrible. Then Shamus said "You deserve this. How dare you steal my delicious chocolate treats?" and chased me out of the house with a broomstick. As I bled into the gutter, I thought "Never again will I let Shamus catch me off guard." And that is the reason that a post such as this is able to exist.

Can one quack lugubriously?

After last night's post I was talking to my brother, Shamus Van Nostrum, and he told me he was just waiting for me to slip up and miss a blog post, and then, kablamo! (he didn't actually say kablamo!, but I assume he would have, had he thought to at the time). So, my resolve to post everyday has been further strengthened, which is why I'm starting this one at 5:30am, because I'm not sure when today I might have time to actually write one. I figure, if nothing else, I have this paragraph, which is already pretty much awesome, because of the 2 instances of the word kablamo! (wait...3).

Oh, I also have a picture. Remember how I don't know how to work my cellphone? Well, in one of my many attempts to share the picture of my magic mug with the world, I tried to e-mail it to myself. Having never e-mailed from my cell, when it didn't arrive, I just assumed I'd messaged a random Sharon with my mug picture and would never see it again. But, through the magic of internet it arrived later last night, which makes me kind of wonder where it was hanging out for those hours in between. So, now I can share a slightly better fuzzy picture of my mug teetering precariously off my bottom shelf. As you look at it, remember that this is how it landed after falling off my desk and bouncing off the floor, but also be careful not to let it blow your mind.

So, this part of the post is no longer 5am, in case you're wondering. This is the midafternoon, "Hey, let's blog while I drink my coffee to keep me up for the rest of the day," part of the blog.

I spent my day at a school teaching small humans how to eat healthy. At the beginning of the day, I was given the all important job of helping them cook, of which the most important task was ensuring that no little fingers were lost, and if that was unavoidable, then to at least ensure they were not eaten. I'm happy to say that, despite little training, I was successful.

It had been a long time since I'd been in an elementary school. I was surprised to hear that they listen to the same a cappella recording of "O Canada" at the beginning of the school day as we did approximately 2 decades ago. I'm not sure what exactly it is about this particular recording that they think will engage the nationalistic spirit of our youngest citizens, but it still doesn't quite do it for me. Except, of course, for the addition of a punctuated "Ca-na-da" at the end, which is helpful to remind me which country it is I've been singing about for the last minute and a half ("What? I thought we were singing about Grenada. But that Canada thing does make the north reference easier to understand.")

They also had a list of synonyms for the word "sad" on the wall. No "happy", no "angry", just "sad". As a daydreamer who throughout a year in a classroom would read anything posted on the wall about 10000x on average (are you aware that "chemists do it in tubes"?), I have to imagine that an entire list of words meaning depression could really mess up a 12 year old's psyche. I'm not sure if the focus on improving the children's ability to express sadness was driven by a need to more accurately prescribe antidepressants, or whether the high schools had asked them to better prepare them so that their emo poems might be less repetitive to mark.

Example:

Pre-Project Sad Vocabulary:

I'm so sad.
No one understands me.
That makes me sad.

Post-Project Sad Vocabulary:

I'm so devastatingly miserable.
No one understands me.
That makes me lugubrious.

Forgive me if I misused the word lugubrious, not having been a part of Project Sad Vocabulary I've never been fully trained in the proper way to use it in a sentence. But, I was part of: Project When People Come to Farms They're Oinking at Cows and Quacking at Horses, We Seriously Need to Fix That. It has served me well when conferring with barnyard animals in my day to day life.

God wants me to drink coffee Q.E.D.

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but blogging everyday is not easy, especially while juggling a life full of random hurdles. But, I'm a stubborn person, and I said I would write everyday, so that is what I shall do.

An example of my persistence: when I was in grade 4, a teacher told us a story about a 6th grader trying (and failing) to read the unabridged version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and said no 6th grader could ever get through the book. So I, always one for a challenge, found a copy of it and started reading, determined to prove that I could do in grade 4 what no 6th grader could handle. I read about 12 pages, and all I can remember was that it was about some sort of expedition or something...I don't really know. All I do know is that I thought "Where the hell is my monster?" and put it down forever. Oh, wait, that's not a good example of my persistence.

Actually, it's strange that I was upset about the lack of monster, considering this was only a few years before I couldn't sleep for fear of Raptors eating me in the night and shortly after the phase in which I would hide in terror when my brothers put on the soundtrack from Ghostbusters 2 (The song "(Your love keeps lifting me) Higher and Higher" caused pretty severe panic attacks for a disturbingly long time after that movie). I'm lucky the beginning of that book was so excruciating, because I probably wouldn't have slept for most of my childhood if I managed to get to the monster.

A better example of my persistence would be the day that I decided I needed a new bookshelf right away, so I walked to Canadian Tire in a snowstorm to purchase one. When I'd found one, I thought, "This isn't too heavy, and the walk isn't so far...I think I can do this." I was a thousand kinds of wrong. Actually, that's a lie, because I did eventually make it, so, I was at least one kind of right. But, regardless, it was pretty ridiculous.

I hadn't reached the corner outside the store before my arms felt like they were on fire. As I mentioned, there was a snowstorm at the time, but despite the very real potential for frostbite, I have never been more certain that I was about to spontaneously combust than I was on that walk. Because of this, I had to stop approximately every 5 meters to set it down in the snow...until about halfway through the trip, when I realized that the box had disintegrated on the bottom and everything was falling out. So I had to flip it over, and continue in 5 meter spurts, until it was clear that the other side was going to lose it soon.

This was the point where I nearly fell into the fetal position crying on the side of Sheppard Avenue, which is not the cleanest of street sides. The one reason I didn't is I realized that the box would completely break and all the pain and suffering would be in vain. So I started running. Well, more like rapid waddling, but the point is, I had come too far, and I was going to get that MF home if it was the last thing I did (such a statement felt quite real at this point because I was fairly certain death was coming soon, due to the aforementioned combustion). Long story short, I made it (that's right, it's an actual for real story about persistence...and you totally thought I was bluffing again). I ended up temporarily leaving it outside, hoping that any thief that might wander by would assume it was garbage. I was lucky that it would be hard not to mistake it for garbage by the time I got home. Now I have a beautiful shelf with slightly watermarked edges. Yay persistence.

Thinking of that shelf, I'm glad that I managed it that day, because it was a key player in the closest experience I've ever had to magic. I love coffee. But that is not the magic of the story, just an important thing to note. Ever since I started drinking coffee, I've had my latte mug. I don't know where it came from, but when I moved out of my first apartment, it was one of the random leftover dishes that seemed to belong to no one, so it ended up belonging to me. Since then, it has gotten me through every late night paper, every exam period and the majority of my post-exam hangovers. So, you can imagine the pain it would bring me if I were to break it one day.

I think it's obvious that this story begins with me dropping my all important latte mug. Actually, I knocked it off my desk. Then I tensed every muscle of my body as it managed to bounce off the floor, flip over and land upright teetering on the edge of my shelf. The statistical odds of this happening have not been calculated, as far as I know, but I'm going to guestimate that it's 1 in eleventeenzillion. Below is a diagram of the fall and a picture of the mug after it landed.


Yes, I'm aware that my mug picture is more sketchy than that photo of Bigfoot, but at the time I only had my cell phone camera, which is not that great to start out. To make matters worse, I don't actually know how to get photos from my phone to my computer, so I ended up using my webcam to take a picture of the picture, which was difficult, because the phone kept on reflecting my computer screen, so I had to carefully turn off the screen with my mouse hovering over the capture picture button, but if it took me too long, my cellphone display would shut off and it would all be for naught. The point is, stop creating magic mug conspiracy stories and start spending more time teaching me how to work basic technology.

Blogging everyday is hard...

So, the whole blogging everyday thing works when you're bored and procrastinating, but it's hard on days like today in which I actually want to finish work and then go out and have fun. The way I see it, I have two options: I could drunken post tonight or I just post something I wrote in the past. I chose the second option.

Luckily, I'm a pack rat, so I found a plan for world domination that I wrote back in high school. One of my many plans. I actually used to be very focused on world domination, until I realized that once you're at the top, there's not much else to do except worry about other people killing you, which I don't enjoy, so, over time, I've learned to focus on new hobbies (by which I mean, you should support my blog, because it might be the one thing preventing me from crossing over from mild-mannered ginger to evil despot).

In high school I really liked gel pens, so it was originally written in a few different colours, and for some reason I chose hot pink for the bulk of the writing. Perhaps it was to force spying adversaries to have to read it a very slowly, so that by the time they reached the end I would already have knocked them out with a vase and hog-tied them in my closet. It was a smart plan, but will make it difficult to transcribe without going blind. You're welcome.

Sharon's Ultimate Plan for World Domination

Step 1: Breed Hedge Hogs
Through the acquirement of as many hedge hogs as possible, I can create an army to destroy all who oppose me.

Step 2: Train Hedge Hogs
By teaching the hedge hogs math, I can unleash their mathemagical power upon the world for all to tremble beneath. They will also be trained to bite peoples ankles, making them a constant annoyance to my enemies.

Step 3: Change Name to Liza-Jean and Infiltrate Yokel Society
After entering an unsuspecting yokel town, I will quickly gain their trust by teaching them wonderous new methods for roadkill preservation and preparation. With their trust, I will be able to manipulate them easily using their natural fear of those who are different to have any who question my rule eliminated.

Step 4: Have Hedge Hogs Dispose of Yokels
Once all foes are gone, it will be dangerous to have such an easily controlled group of gun owners around.

Step 5: Fully Establish Status as Despotic Leader
By constantly reminding those around me that I "own their ass" and introducing myself as Queen/Empress/Supreme Ruler Sharon, I will quickly convince everyone of my power and they will treat me accordingly.

Step 6: Enjoy a Milkshake in my New Civilization

...Well, I'm not blind, but it doesn't quite have the same charm when it's not written in technicolour with little stars and spirals doodle in the margin. I'm still going to post it though, because of the aforementioned "having a life" today. Don't worry, it doesn't happen often.

Drunk.

Day three of blogging. I promised myself when I started this that I would do it everyday, so, here I am, blogging. On day three. I think I can do it, I managed it with my journal for awhile. I said "I'm going to force myself to journal every day," and I did, even when it was entirely unnecessary, like the night where my entire entry was: "Drunk." Actually, I think it was one of my better entries. Quite insightful.

Since I don't really have a good blog topic but I don't want to fall out of the habit so early, I'm going to just write about my day and see what comes of it. I woke up this morning and did a bunch of stuff that I now forget probably involving coffee and showering. At some point I decided that dressing would be a good idea if I wanted to emerge from my apartment at some point, which is about when life became difficult, mainly because yesterday I decided that laundry was not worth my time. A fine decision, but it didn't leave me with many options as I stared into my closet.

I eventually decided to wear a black skirt, but, due to recent weight loss (new apartment with hardwood floors + socks = incredible calorie burning dance parties + many new bruises) combined with no discernable source of income, most of my clothes are a few sizes too big, and this particular skirt was already a size bigger than needed because I bought it on sale ("cheap over-sized clown skirt...score!"). So, it almost fits (read: can stay up...kind of), but not quite enough that I couldn't guarantee that if someone decided to pants me they would meet even token resistance.

Although I've never encountered anyone trying to pants me, even when actually wearing pants, it's an important daily consideration, because I know the first day I don't think about it is the day I'm going to be the victim of an unexpected pantsing. You may be thinking, "What would be the point in attempting to pants someone in a skirt?", to which I say, "Good point." But the Boy Scout in me likes to always be prepared, even when I'm not quite sure what my hypothetical assailents motivation could possibly be (fine, you caught me, I wasn't actually a Boy Scout, but the Brownie motto, "Lend a Hand," has never once helped me avoid an embarrassing pantsing).

After much cost-benefit analysis of my outfit, I was finally ready to hit the world . And I'm pretty sure some stuff happened there. Ooh...there was cake at some point, cake that I ate with my hands off of a paper towel, which I think just makes it more delicious because it was all like "Haha, you can't eat me because you don't have plates or utensils" and I was like "Think again, m.f." Actually, that cake probably explains the coherence of this post, cause my blood sugar is a little wonky now. Totally worth it though, if only to show the sucker who's boss (it's me, by the way, I am boss).