Your urns smell like LewisCraft

Hey, what's up, internet? You scramble my brain but you're still alright.

I feel like I haven't been blogging fearlessly enough. My so-called blogger "dashboard" (woah!) says I have 12 posts on here, but several of those are abandoned drafts! I need to stop abandoning drafts for fear that they are boring or pointless. Many of my favourite bloggers sure don't let that stop them, and I don't mean that in the backhanded-compliment way it sounds! Some things are awesome because they are exciting, but not every single moment can be covered in neon rays of flashing wondrousness - some things are awesome because they are just real life and folks can relate to that.

Without further ado: My Day, Exuding REALNESS.

I tried to wake up at a decent hour this morning, because as I mentioned I am trying to get onto a sleep schedule that relates more directly to being alive when the sun is out. My BFF, who has been (and from here on out shall continue to be) referred to here as "Snoof", has been helping me out in this department, as I like her more than my alarm clock and therefore feel more excited to wake up and hang out with her than with a clock. Finally got up at 9:30 with minimal shouting from Snoof in the living room ("[Sequin Brown]! I'm alone in the living room with our coffees!!") and after a terrifyingly unhealthy breakfast of sour cream n onion chip remnants and Starbux Via instant coffee, I decided to listen to some Riot Grrrl music and work on a couple of paintings I've been meaning to tweak.

After that good time, plus a shower, Snoof took us out for ice cream to reward herself, and by lucky extension me, for having made several pages of notes for one of her many papers due in the next few days. After this joy, I got on the subway to go see my counselor, which is one hell of a transit ride out to the lovely 'burbs, had a decent session and hauled my arse back to the mainland to have a secular Good Friday dinner with my Mom.

We laughed, we caught up on life, mocked all the new developments in makeup application we noticed in Fashion magazine (honestly, roll-on foundation, spherical mascara wands and...vibrating mineral powder???) and drank zinfandel! Mom made some fabulous lasagna and brownies, 'cause we like things non-traditional that way. We surfed the net together, looking at really old photos of her parents and cousins that my uncle scanned and e-mailed her. I also introduced her to regretsy.com, which I figured she might get a kick out of if only for the entries where etsy sellers' spelling and grammar mistakes are picked on - she's a stickler for that sort of thing, and she likes crafts, to boot. "Fugly" seemed to be my mom's unofficial Favourite Slang Word to Use With Caution in 2006 or thereabouts, so I needed to hook her up with some fugly craft commentary.

This led us to gripe harmlessly about the new urns that "decorate" the front entrance of her (formerly "our") apartment building...they're big, they're gaudy and they're full of a combo of dried and fake plant matter that smells like spray glue and florist's foam. False pears and red spray painted pussy willows jut out at all angles and threaten to poke out visitors' eyes. Before I left, we spent a lot of time looking for the area on my totally unflattering but sensational sweater that I could have sworn had a polka-dotting error. Maybe I was hallucinating last time I wore it, but I really thought one of the shoulders had been knit with a few toonie-sized dots missing. I love my mom.

In closing, I noticed that being constantly connected through social technology like Facebook and text messaging makes me way more anxious and skews my already flawed sense of time. I find myself mentally rehashing sent e-mails and wondering where I went wrong if I don't receive relatively immediate responses. Because of this, I sometimes feel like a paper-bag puppet with extra-large googlie eyes: crinkly, ridiculous and wiggly.

Keep On Livin'

And I lived to tell the tale!

Here I am, alive and okay and plowing through some very fluffy Black Forest Cake which I have dubbed "breakfast".
I have decided that today will be a faux birthday, due to the nature of my activities: Wake up at quarter to one in the afternoon. Play with cat until she attempts to claw out my eyes with love. Eat too much cake in attempt to obliterate it "because there is no room for it in the frige". Take a moment to fart with glee. Go buy fancy cat food and potentially one of those SIGG bottles that everyone has (I'm tired of using a waxed paper cup or mug that can spill while working) with newly acquired Guilt Money. Go to friend's house for pre-planned debrief snuggles.
See? It's just like a birthday except it doesn't have to remind me that I am about due for a yearly physical, and I am not covered in ribbons and bows.

So yesterday was intensive.
I was filled with glee when my Best Friend of LIFE returned home from her East Coast March Break Extravaganza and we shared some knock-off-brand maccaroni & cheez and esophagus-melting coffee. Of course this meant that I left the house late to go see my therapist, who I have not seen since I broke my foot a year ago. So of course I was late, and she had already started a session with another client, so I waited for an hour, which I deserved because I am always late. I got to hang out with my therapist's lovely elderly mom and extremely friendly lap dog (She runs her practice from her home in far North Scarborough, hence the difficulties of me trying to maneuver my broken self on the TTC over there while I was wearing the "Shortie Walker" cast). We had a decent session, and she quesioned my motives for going to see my dad, to which I had no definitive response. While I thought about it blankly, she went to grab a frozen roast beef from the other room to thaw for her dinner. I am mildly worried about her response to my "new" job (last time I had a session with her, I worked at Sbux)... being that our focus in our sessions is on sexual abuse, she referred to me working at a sex shop as "the OTHER issue", and I kind of took offence because I am really proud of the transformative and educational work that I do, but we know each other well enough that I think we can have some good talks about it. A lot can change in a year. A lot can change in five years, too.

While my therapist thought it was not - to put it mildly - the best idea to go to dinner at my dad's, I freaking did it anyway, because I felt it rude to cancel 2 hours before I had said I would be there. I got dropped off at Fairview Mall, where went in to Sephora and put on some makeup, and then took the bus straight to my dad's. Although he didn't make food and had eaten dinner plus a few beers at his neighbours' place before I came, he had the kindness to pick me up a delicious beef roti and an ENTIRE black forest cake (not my fave, but it's cake), which I ate while he watched. My step-mother is still on Weight Watchers (I have at least a few entries worth of rants on the rediculous idea of "food points" that will come in the near future) and my dad is Diabetic now, so the remainder of the cake came home with me in the end, but I digress. The first 20 minutes were tense and eye-contactless, as it was just me and my dad, him chain smoking and avoiding eye contact while he listed his three or four feelings on "the subject", and me summarizing why I didn't really know why I was there, and that I was happy they were getting married but that I did not feel that it was appropriate for me to attend the event. When my step-mom arrived, the conversation got flowing, mostly catching up on the births, deaths and home rennos of the past 5 years, and the disproportionately important bonding fact that I now drink coffee. I felt lured in to the world of little neices I have never met, missing my step-sisters and hearing all about everyone's lives. I looked at pictures of their trip to Sri Lanka and saw so many beautiful smiling relatives I have never met. I stood strong on my NO vote to the wedding, though.

As often as possible, I took the oportunity to underline my Flamboyant QUEERNESS, which I hoped would open some doors to conversing about that. Not so much. They attempted to give me a stereo system, and invite me to an Easter shindig of some kind. My dad claimed that he is going blind (which he is not) and made a bullseye estimation of the cost of my glasses, and in the end, nervously handed me a hundred dollars and told me to "get some cat food and some new shoes". I thanked them. We left it at the statement that it was nice and that they would love me to come visit more, and that I "might do that". Hugs at the elevator, a long transit ride home. Crocheting to ease my fidgets, and also to someday beget a bangin' mermaid sweater.

Not sure how I feel about it all. Still had nightmares all night, but of a slightly different variety.
Time for scheduled friend snuggles, over and OUT <3