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Dream of the Dolphin
a.k.a. Confessions of a Post-Graduate Pity Whore |
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Free Story!AAAAH!Yup, life still nuts. Bookstore's nuts, since thanks to the whole Chindigo ordering fiasco we got all the new books for the entire months of May and June last Friday. Dress rehearsal for Carmina tomorrow. Had a lovely post on magic in the city thought out, but it's now too late to post it.So instead I'll close with the Pygmy Shrew ( 11:33 PM ) Sarah Jane ~ Monday, May 24, 2004 What, Badgers Weren't Enough?Bananaphone.(thanks Kada) ( 11:27 PM ) Sarah Jane ~ One WeekIt's been one week -- okay, a little more than a week, but it sure as heck doesn't feel like it -- since the cutting of the hair. Dad pointed out that things seem to be going faster and faster these days. He's right.First off, the hair -- it's surprising how many people just didn't notice. My parents included. Most people say it's because I wore it half-up in a clip most of the time, and they just never paid attention to the back. Some people noticed and had big reactions. Some people didn't care. And some people demanded to know why the hell I'd go and do something like that. But reactions aside, I'm really happy with it. I can do things I never could before (like babushkas -- only now that they're out of style, of course all I can find are hideous neon ones. When the hell did neon become the "in" thing again, anyway? Did we learn nothing from the 80s? Maybe I'll go to the Scottish shop and splurge on an Elliott tartan handkerchief. It also has this tendency to go into ringlets underneath. I'm talking huge, bona-fide Victorian sausage curls. Which makes it very bouncy. And though it still gets in my face when the wind blows, it no longer tangles over it and I can just brush it back, which is fun. Anyway, enough about the hair. I've been to see Shrek 2 twice already -- once with Karina, Alice, and Jana, and once with the sibling. I want to see it again, too. It was much needed fun in an otherwise hectic week. I'm now re-certified for First Aid, which would have come in handy for some of the Gallery Drama at Bio. There was a boy at the rubbing stations while Nancy was working them, who got a bit overexcited when lifting up one of the doors to see whan animals left the tracks he was rubbing, and he let the door go. Onto his head. The doors aren't that heavy, but they're good enough to give you a decent conk on the head if you stick your head under one and let go. The kid was a bit stunned but wandered off, and was fine -- until his mom called him back and started running her hands through his hair looking for a bump. Cue Drama King. The kid has an acting career in his future. In a snap, he went from perfectly fine to, at the top of his lungs "OH MY GOD, I HATE THIS PLACE!!! I'M NEVER COMING HERE AGAIN!!!" Nancy went over and said something (I was at touch tables), to which Drama Kid responded "NO, I HATE ALL OF YOU!!! THE DOOR TRIED TO KILL ME!!!!" Now, most parents I know, had their child dropped a small door on his head, would be mildly concerned but either amused or embarrassed by their child's histrionics. Not this mother. She was livid. In Nancy's words, "she had flames pouring out of her eyes". Nancy promptly hustled them back into the office to get Drama Kid an ice pack, whereupon the enraged mother demanded we "do something about those doors". I kept my snippy comments about idiot warning labels buried deeply in my own thoughts, and did my best to keep from laughing. Sometimes we get truly awesome kids in the gallery, like Ben, who spent an hour with me on Saturday talking about bees. Sometimes we get Drama Kid and Action Mom. It's hit or miss, really. Oh, and choir practice is coming along nicely. We're doing Carmina Burana in the first half, and the second half is a bunch of stuff with us backing up this fabulous professional gospel soloist, and it's turning out to be so much fun. Our concert is on June 2nd -- check out the poster -- if you live in or around the city and you'd like tickets, let me know. Oh, and remember way back, when I was talking about the carpet of cilla? Click on this: 
( 10:41 PM ) Sarah Jane ~ Friday, May 14, 2004 Well... I did it.Before & After 
Before you start asking if I've gone completely crazy, this has been coming for a while now. For over a year, I'd look in the mirror at where my hair fell when I had it up and think "wow, I really like the way that..." (turning so that my back becomes visible)"...oh." It's been coming. Karina said that when it's time, you'll know. And I knew. As I said, there were reasons.
Best decision I ever made. Sandra was phenomenal. She listened to exactly what I wanted, and knew exactly what to do to get it. True, she charges about twice what House of Lords does (I'll be eating Sarah's $2 falafel until my next paycheque), but she's totally worth it, and I'm adding my recommendation to Chris's. All right, so she did try to talk me out of it. A lot of her business is extensions and it was hard for her to take all my hair off. But she did. And did it well. And somehow, having a Bichon named Lexy sleeping in my lap for the whole thing made the experience WAY less stressful than it could have been. There were a few "dear god, what am I doing???" moments. But I have no regrets. I'm very happy with how it came out. Yes, of course I'm growing it back out. I'm too much of a fairy-tale girl to have short hair for long. But I really, really love the new look. 
( 1:03 AM ) Sarah Jane ~ Sunday, May 09, 2004 DekeingWow... Blogger deked big time...Anyway. This weekend has been great, if somewhat insane. I finally, finally got Thursdays off, and as a result, have almost got my room clean. After nearly three months of getting home around 9 p.m. or later every night, it needed it. So this Saturday, Karina and I set off to Kitchener for a newsgroup get-together/collective birthday party at Erin Kenny's house. Which was absolutely phenomenal. It's funny, but the people Julie assembled on her newsgroup really have transcended... something, and bonded. It felt very much like one of my family reunions. Only without the fighting. Oy, family stuff is... interesting right now, but subject matter for another blog. The day began with Karina coming over to assemble a pasta salad with me. Then, pasta salad and Gweny Day cookies in hand, we set off for Kitchener, Enter the Haggis blasting all the way. There was much singing done in our car on this trip. And yeah, since both of us were tired, we ended up setting off closer to 4 than 2, as we had planned, we were on the road nonetheless. We were fine until we got to Guelph, at which point I was having serious words with my bladder. But Karina, not being my father, was happy to pull over at a service station. We realized we had a problem when the next service station sign came up, announcing that the next service station was 32 km away. I was seriously entertaining the idea of pulling over at the next heavily wooded area, so we decided to pull off the highway at the next exit and find the nearest coffee shop. This was deke #1. We pulled off, all right -- and ended up in some industrial complex. Many factories, all closed, nary a Timmies in sight. At this point, I was sitting in that pose with my toes pointed, pressed into the seat back, trying to get as far off the seat as I could because every bump was sending a wave of pressure I could feel down to my toes. We reached a housing development, which was so new that there hadn't been time for any coffee shops to go up near by. I was seriously scanning for trees at this point, but Karina said "hey, model home. Want to try there?" What else could I do? I said yes. So deke #2 saw me rushing into a model home of this housing development where I was greeted by an overly cheerful woman in a power suit. "Hi!" she chirped. "Hi," I said. "I'm really sorry, but do you have a washroom I could use? It's kind of an emergency." Smile instantly dropped from Power-lady's face, replaced by a look of frosty distain. "It's up the stairs. Take off your shoes." I must say, it was a very lovely bathroom. Pressure relieved, we deked back onto the highway and resumed our voyage to Kitchener. We were fine until we ran into this point on Erin's directions:
(this is a wierd little LEFT HAND deke -- pay attention or you'll miss it) Realizing we had achieved premature dekeage, we had no choice put to pull into a Costco and phone for help. There was much laughing, but we did get back onto the expressway. We thought we were home free until we attempted to pull into the Midas parking lot we were supposed to use and ended up in some strangers driveway. If nothing else, we are now expert dekers. But it was all worth it, getting to Erin's house and the newsgroup family. I haven't had that much perfectly relaxed, comfortable fun with a group of people for a long time. There was a lot of chat, some frantic balloon volleyball, and a joke about phoning Julie that was really funny until Peter, who'd been sitting quietly on the couch next to us, pulled out his phone without our knowledge and phoned the Czerneda house. So we ended up passing the phone around, everyone getting a chance to talk to "Porta-Julie". Which was great, all things said and done. It's telling that we left feeling that we had just gotten there, when really, several hours had passed. All I have to say is that there are some friendships for which I will be forever grateful. I thought the weekend couldn't get better, but Jenny came today. Hers is another such friendship. And I got to see my parents as we took Mum out for Mother's Day. So really, it was a weekend in which I was surrounded by people I love. It doesn't get much better than that, really.  And oh, for those wondering, Erin and I made it into the small choir in Carmina Burana. :o) ( 11:40 PM ) Sarah Jane ~ Wednesday, May 05, 2004 Oh Yeah!It's now reached the point at which my life feels something like a runaway train, and I'm doing my best just to hang on, cause if I fall off... it'll be bad. But not for much longer -- I finally got my Thursdays off! Yes!!! Thursdays and the first bit of Friday, and I've almost got a weekend again! Okay, it starts in the middle of the week... but still! Three days of reception work a week I think I can actually stand. And I'll be able to rest! I haven't had a day off in two and a half months, now. I REALLY need this.And things, despite their runaway-train qualities, are actually going pretty well. I'm down to a tolerable number of days in the job I don't like, and I'll actually have time to write again. Okay, so scratching my cornea wasn't fun, but that's almost healed. I still love two of my three jobs. I got the Peter Pan DVD and spent a gleeful night last night watching it. I'd forgotten just how much I love that movie. I have a feeling it's going to become one of my sick day staples. Okay, the apartment situation is still bad. It's been almost three months now since our landlord said he would "try to fix the sink sometime this week". We can't use the kitchen sink, and have been doing our dishes in the bathtub. There's a point at which you start crossing over from bohemian into just plain sad. And this is a little more "starving writer" than I care to go. Any Torontonians out there know how to change a washer (and have the tools with which to do it)? But to balance that out, I decided on Monday that I would win the tickets to Alegria contest the MIX was running, and I did it this morning. Hurray! And tonight I go to audition for the Coro Piccolo part in Carmina Burana. With any luck, my good day will last till then. :o) ( 11:55 AM ) Sarah Jane ~ Saturday, May 01, 2004 Aw, Come On!The universe hates me. This was me on Thursday: "Hurray, I'm better! Ow, my eye!" I swear, I can't get a break. The MINUTE the sinus/chest/throat thing moves on, I manage to scratch one of my corneas taking out my contact lenses. Apparently I'm not going to be able to look straight-on at anything for the next two days. And let me tell you, it's hard to hold a conversation with somebody when your face is turned away from them. Don't get me started on walking through crowds. Do you know how much people take cues on where you're going to move next from the way your head is turned? Cause I do.Eye-scratch aside, Thursday night rocked. It would have rocked more with Karina, but it rocked all the same. Enter the Haggis is still the best live show I've ever been to. I've been to a lot -- Great Big Sea, Loreena McKennitt, Barenaked Ladies, Peter Gabriel, and while Loreena McKennitt is the reigning queen of sheer awestruck-ness at a live show, I've never had more fun than I do at Enter the Haggis. Seriously, people. Go to the site. Listen to the music. Buy the CD. This band is fantastic. ( 9:00 AM ) Sarah Jane ~ |
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