Hot or not

Isn't my sister gorgeous? I gave her a little photoshop makeover and think she looks fab. I am especially fond of the boil/giant zit on her cheek and her exquisite unibrow.


Faunty wanted me to let you know she thinks she looks much better in person. (So do I, but that's a secret).

At least it pays

I had a job interview today for a boring corporate desk job that I don't really want.

I got it. Training starts tomorrow.

I'm down to my last $20, so that's a bit of incentive to test it out. Any wagers on how long I'll last at this one?

Pirates: part three

My hitch hiker, who reminds me of the pirate version of Jonny Depp, called last night to let me he made it to his next destination in one piece.

He also let me know that although he is a professional hitch hiker, he found a listing for a job near me and is considering applying for it to be closer to me. I'm not sure if I find this more creepy or flattering.

I have a tiny (and embarassing) crush on him, and it would make a funny how-we-met story if anything were to happen, but I'm getting a little worried. I hear pirates make pretty crazy stalkers.

Pirates: part two

I'm worried about my little hitch hiker.

I called the RCMP to see if anyone had reported seeing a frozen body on the highway, but luckily no one had. I hope he's safe, warm, full and asleep.

Stupid kind (or Pirates: part one)

It's storming today. There's snow and freezing wind blowing all over the place. I had just dropped a friend off at her house and was headed home (around 11 p.m.) when I saw someone walking on the side of one of the roads in town that turns into a highway.

I've never picked up a hitch hiker, but it was so very cold out. Walking from my car into Tim Horton's was enough to make me feel like my blood had frozen solid, so I had to stop. I offered to take the hitch hiker, who turned out to be a 37-year-old Italian/Swedish man, anywhere in the city, but he wanted to continue on his journey.

I didn't want him to die on the side of the road, so I offered to take him to my house and get him something hot to drink, a bite to eat and a warm blanket. He, having no better options and wanting to warm up, agreed. I had him wait in the car while I grabbed some things for him and told my mom I was dropping him off on the highway and would be back soon.

I took him to the highway but, maybe because it was so late or so stormy, there weren't many vehicles heading the way he wanted to go. He got out of my car and started to walk. And as he headed down that cold windy road, I thought about how easy it would be to lay down in the snow and freeze to death. And if he did, I would never be able to forgive myself.

So, after realizing I had - hopefully - just enough gas to take him to his next destination and to make it back home, I picked him up again.

We talked about how his parents died when he was a teenager, how he has no family and no roots anywhere, how he gets bored with all the places he goes and how he believes the earth and all that's in it couldn't have existed without a creator. We talked about how he always hitch hikes during the winter because his birthday and Christmas holidays are in December and he needs some way to celebrate them.

He told me about how he jumped off a barn roof with an umbrella when he was a kid to see if he could fly. He told me how he sometimes spends the night in mall entryways or bank vestibules. He told me how he scams free food from MacDonalds when he gets hungry and how he's travelled all across Canada, the U.S. and Europe, hopping from one job to another and one place to another.

I feel this odd kinship towards him, like my soul recognizes his. Like we are the same person, just in different circumstances.

He's going to call (collect, of course) when he gets to his next destination, just to prove that he's still alive.

My ADD dream life

After a very awkward interview that included me burning my tongue on some very hot tea, I am now a bonafide freelance writer. I get to do all kinds of fun things and will be getting paid to write the same kind of stuff I blog about.

(Sorry Michelle and Samantha, but I can't be more specific about the job without giving away my identity.)

I won't get many hours with this job, but it's the foundation I wanted for my reformed life here. I get so bored of regular jobs, that I'm thinking of getting three or four easy part-time ones (like working at a coffee shop and a bookstore), getting more into volunteer work and taking another university class or two. If all goes perfectly, I'd move into a place of my own and get back into yoga and painting.

Finally, an interview

I finally called about a dream job that I've been salivating over for months.

I talked to the Big Important Guy today after about an hour of staring at the phone, sweating and being terrified. Once I finally managed to dial, the call went well and we have a meeting tomorrow afternoon!

The Big Important Guy said he'd "love" to hear my ideas, so I'm nervous and excited. And still sweating.

My little sister has 29 of these bobble-headed babies.

Today she and I came up with names for each of them. It was great fun, but not quite as fun as the time I rediscovered how to post pictures on my blog.

The little entrepreneur

My littlest sister, 9, has started up a business in our home. She turned her room into a spa and is charging for services that include massages, manicures, pedicures, waxing, makeovers and hairdos. Her massages cost $1 a minute, so she's certainly not losing any money with this venture.

She is also selling leftover Halloween candy and is allowing people to do homework or read in her spa for free. She has a list of services, prices and the hours her spa is open.

Now that she has a home business and all her Grade 4 school work and activities, I'm feeling worse about not being able to find a decent job. But at least I don't have far to go to get a massage :)

At the big newspapers, reporters don't get to write their own headlines. The person laying the story out on the page is in charge of the headlines because it can be tricky making a headline fit in the space that's allowed. So pardon me if I can't think of clever headings for my posts; it wasn't part of what I signed up for.

In the last three weeks I have applied for three jobs and gotten none. Maybe that's because I'm remarkably unqualified for the jobs I'm interested in. And maybe I'm only interested in them because I can't have them.

I'm going apply for a few more lofty jobs, including one fancy government job making history.

If nothing works out, I may have to break out my crap-jobs resume soon.

Ode to Oranges

I ate five oranges yesterday. They were so fantastically delicious. There aren't any left now and I miss them and their popping flavour.

I read an orange juice ad that said: "Oranges were candy before candy was candy." That made me appreciate them even more. Sometimes when there are no oranges and no candies in the house, I settle for chewable vitamin C tablets, which are almost as good.

One time when I lived in a mountain resort town where we never locked our doors, I got a cold when I was supposed to be working (painting condos). I called in sick to work and hopped into the shower. I was just getting out when I saw my kind-of-creepy boss coming up the driveway.

Since I was in a towel, I ran and hid in my room. He knocked and when I didn't come to the door, he opened in and came in, calling for me. I remained in hiding and he left.

He had left cough syrup and a box of oranges just inside the door.

It only took a few days to gobble up all that orange goodness.

50 more things

1. The photographer used to have terrible allergies.
2. I felt bad for her, but happy for for my healthy non-allergic self.
3. I spent the past week miserable from a surprise allergy I've just developed.
4. A few years ago I found out that I am deathly allergic to the drug that's found in Tylenol (acetominiphine or something like that).
5. I had an out-of-body experience when I took that Tylenol Cold and Flu lemon tea mix.
6. I've never broken any bones, except for my big toe.
7. My dad and I were moving our ping pong table and one of the corners landed on my toe.
8. I'm not sure if was actually broken, but it sure hurt.
9. I've had quite a few near-death experiences.
10. For example, one day I nearly died three times in ten minutes. It was winter and the counrty roads were really slippery.
11. I was behind a truck carrying a bail of hay, when the bail tumbled off the truck and landed about two feet from my head.
12. If I had known how heavy bails of hay were at the time, it would've been scarier.
13. I kept going and couldn't stop at the next intersection I came to. I just barely managed to stop in time to avoid being hit by another truck.
14. The driver of that truck was going slowly, so I got annoyed and went to pass him. I was parallel to the other vehicle, when my car started to fishtail. My car spun around, just missing the truck, and ended up turned around in the other lane, as if telling me to go home.
15. I did go home then. That was definatley enough excitement for me.
16. My family started decorating for Christmas today.
17. I made shortbread cookies to make the atmosphere more festive.
18. There wasn't any white flour, so I had to use whole-wheat flour. Faunty thinks my cookies taste like biscuits.
19. I am a terrible cook.
20. One time I mistook salt for sugar when whipping up a batch of cookies.
21. I'm not very good at playing practical jokes, because I can't do them without laughing.
22. These lists are really hard to do.
23. I'm buying most of my Christmas presents from the World Vision and Foster Parents' Plan gift catalogues. I'm going to buy medical supplies, farm animals and warm clothing for the less fortunate around the world.
24. I don't really care if that's not what my friends and family want for Christmas.
25. I think people have way too much stuff.
26. Sometimes I'm judgemental. (See above).
27. I found a job I might want.
28. It's in the career that I've been thinking of quitting.
29. The editor is going to have to make a lot of promises to get me to work there.
30. My littlest sister thinks I'm the Tooth Fairy.
31. Last Christmas my sisters and I slept in the living room, waiting for Santa to show up.
32. I'm not convinced that Santa is made up.
33. I like when badminton birdies get stuck on the garage and I have to climb on the roof to rescue them.
34. I went cliff jumping off a mountain into melted glacier water.
35. I screamed the whole way down.
36. I climbed to a glacier in Switzerland.
37. I slept under the stars on an air matress in the Sahara.
38. I always hated piano lessons.
39. I also hated figure skating (too cold) and swimming (too much water up the nose).
40. I let out a huge snorting laugh in the first yoga class I went to. That Om chanting can be creepy.
41. I have had wildly inappropriate crushes on pretty much all of my male profs.
42. My really smart friend thinks she and I will both end up being profs because we hate working and like school.
43. I had to get a whole bunch of blood tests done years ago.
44. I was in New Brunswick at the time, so the results came back in French.
45. I still have no idea what all those papers said.
46. I'm getting bored writing this, so I won't be offended if no one reads it.
47. I always win Risk when I get the pink soldiers.
48. I cheat playing Dutch Blitz.
49. I have cold hands.
50. C'est fini, finally.

Too much information

1. I am wearing a pair of jeans that are missing a button.
2. I am far too lazy to sew a button onto them.
3. I am also too lazy to find a belt.
4. That's why I'm using a skipping rope as a belt.
5. I moved home three weeks ago and I am living in three bedrooms.
6. There's the spare room, my old room (which became a library in my absence) and the photographer's old room.
7. I've always wanted a personal trainer.
8. Because of a few car accidents I was in last year, now I have one and my sessions are covered by my insurance.
9. I do not like having a personal trainer.
10. I have the skinniest un-muscley arms I've ever seen.
11. My sister, who never exercises, has perfect arms.
12. One time I bit her bicep.
13. That was only a year ago.
14. Faunty and I saw a singing, dancing and acting talent show.
15. The contestants were so terrible we had to watch the whole thing.
16. Then we had our own talent show.
17. We were nearly as good as the daily dancer (dailydancer@blogspot.com).
18. Sometimes Faunty makes me laugh so hard I have to really concentrate on holding my bladded.
19. This does not bode well for my future.
20. In high school I would have contests with other girls to see who could eat the least each day.
21. The days I won, I was so proud of my self-control.
22. There were a lot of days I would only eat a rice crispie square and an apple.
23. There were also a lot of days when I would eat an entire batch of cookies.
24. In hindsight, it's not really surprising that I developed an eating disorder.
25. I've been healthy for close to two years now.
26. That's about how long it's been since I've been in a destructive relationship.
27. I spent $20,000 to earn my degree and quit my career after four months in my field.
28. I don't regret it for a second.
29. I miss school.
30. In my first semester, a professor told me for every drink I bought him, he'd give me two percent on my final mark.
31. I thought he was kidding, so I joked that I could just blackmail him to get a good mark.
32. He wasn't kidding.
33. I didn't write the final exam.
34. Instead, I took a failing grade in the class and took a year off from school.
35. I hate how my glasses fog up when I come in out of the cold.
36. A few mornings ago, I shaved my armpits.
37. I had a nice patch of 5:00 stubble in the evening.
38. That's why I like waxing better than shaving.
39. I had a friend who used Nair on his head because he thought it would be easier than shaving.
40. He got a chemical burn.
41. I'm jealous of all the cool toys my littlest sister got for her birthday.
42. I forgot to watch Grey's Anatomy this week because my littlest sister and I were snuggled up watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
43. I'm trying to sell my car but no one wants to buy it.
44. I never wanted to have a car.
45. I went on quite a few dates with this impossibly attractive guy.
46. He was boring and we had nothing in common.
47. I didn't find that out for a long time, because I did all the talking.
48. My favorite snack is butter, sugar and flour all mixed together.
49. Faunty is watching friends reruns and I have to join her.
50. I wouldn't have made it to 100 anyway.

My new acquaintance

I went to a pretentious English student's lecture series this afternoon because my newest non-single friend was presenting a paper she wrote.

Afterwards another student came up and asked if I had been at a New Years party at a beach with her 10 years ago. I said I hadn't, but she was sure she had seen me that night. "I was on acid and you were an angel with pretty hair," she said.

What a way to make a lasting first impression.

The last of my single frinds is no longer single. She's gorgeous, smart, talented and opinionated, so guys are usually quite intimidated by her. This one took almost a year to work up the nerve to ask her out.

While I wish her and her nice, cute, English-masters-student boyfriend all the best, I will miss my Saturday night date to the theatre and the symphony.

I've decided it's time to start dating again if for no other reason than to have a supply of interesting fiascos to post about.

There are no prospects yet, but I am accepting applications:)

Eliminated again

You know why I don't like football? Because we never win and because it gets depressing sitting a sports bar watching our team fall down.

Maybe next year will be better.

Wide open future

There are no good jobs anywhere. I applied for two jobs today, but I don't really want either of them. I registered for a few university classes for the winter semester as a backup plan in case I still haven't found a job by January.

Remembering

I made a promise to a Holocast survivor a few years ago.

After being rescued from a Nazi concentration camp, he came to Canada and tried to forget the things he had seen. He sometimes gives talks about the war and his experiences because he wants others to remember how fortunate they are. I went to one of his talks, which he turned into a question and answer period, and cried the whole way through.

He talked about seeing a soldier grabbing a baby away from it's parents and throwing it on the ground, smashing it's head in. He watched as Nazi's used steel wool pads to scrape his best friend's skin off. He managed to stay alive because the Nazi's needed people to carry bodies off to be buried.

I saw him in the hall after he had finished speaking. He was frail, his eyes were red and he gave me a hug that spoke of his misery. He made me promise to remember, to care and to be his voice when he is gone.

Spolied

One of my friends and I like the same kinds of clothes. Because we often go shopping together, a lot of the clothes I have in my closet are also in hers.

She is just a little taller than me, so everytime any of her clothes shrink or whenever she gets tired of them she gives them to me. A few days ago she gave me a garbage bag full of jeans, cute skirts and soft sweaters. It's almost guaranteed that her clothes fit and that I'll love them. It's fabulous having a personal shopper who passes on all her best finds for free.

Why Faunty should stay home with me all the time

Someone* played a cruel trick on Faunty while she was out.

She's been quite an absentee parent when it comes to her needy little dog, so he's gotten quite shaggy. Someone, who will not admit to any wrongdoing, decided to do something about the problem and got out the puppy razor.

Now her dog has a very silly-looking mullet and is so embarrased that he's been hiding out under the computer table.

*This someone may or may not be the same person that attempted to give Faunty's shoulder-length hair a trim a few years back, but ended up making her hair so short she couldn't do anything but spike it.

The candidates

A girl from the little town I recently escaped from said this to me a few weeks ago:

"I really liked this amazing guy, but I broke up with him because this other guy - who happens to be rather boring, but that's okay because I like his relatives - seemed more like he would want to marry me. Now we're dating and I have our entire future and career paths planned out." Cute.

I hope they get to live the long dull life they've always dreamed of.

I'll never understand why people make decisions like this. Is it really so bad to be 20 and unwed?

Because my computer won't let me post any pictures and because Jen is always changing her template, I decided to fix mine up too.

Can someone explain a very simple way to make a list of linking sites?

***

The technical difficulties continue.

The best I can do with this is to get __.blogspot.com to come up in the links sections, but it doesn't actually connect to the other sites. I don't get it.

This is what my template looks like (with more "divs" and arrows). Is something missing, or how do I find blogroll code?

Begin Links Section
div class "sidebox"
div class "sideheader"
Links
div
div class "side"
Replace this text with Blogroll code or list of links
div
div
End Links Section

Trading spaces

For quite a few years, my parents have been wanting to sell our house and move closer to my little sister's school. But our house is so big, the people who've come to look at it in the past have thought it really is too much house for them. Also, it's not in the best location.

Our house isn't on the market now, but a woman called my mom earlier today to ask if we would consider trading houses with her. Her house is exactly where we want to live and it sounded perfect from the way she described it.

We went to see her house this afternoon and it was so disappointing. It's 1/2 the size of our house, is 30 years older, has hideous basement and is painted a puke yellow.

It's only worth as much as our house because of where it's located, but we're thinking about it because we really want to live in that area and be so close to the places we drive to everyday. Living there would save us $300 a month in gas, but it will be a sad trade if we decide to go with it.

Bettering herself

Faunty is taking cooking lessons from my mom. Today's special: macaroni.

Jobs and more jobs

Should I be a legal assistant, a fitness techician, a coffee server, a pilot's navigator, or a police clerk? These are all the interesting job postings I've found and the navigating one is the only one I'd have to go back to school for. There are too many choices and none that seem perfect.

I'm thinking of talking to the editor of a fun paper here to see if he's interested in running a column idea I have and I'm considering talking to a local non-profit organization about a kids' book, but I seem to be lacking ambition. Maybe on Monday. Or maybe not at all.

In other news, I got called back for another shift on the movie set. The film is about a seriel killer and we were filming in a backyard in a rough neighbourhood. The crew dug a body-sized pit in the middle of the yard and buried a girl who was pretending to be a corpse. It was creepy but kind of neat.

Yummers

My little sister - who turns nine in a few days - let me take her trick-or-treating last night. I say "let" because in going with me, she knows that means I'll be eating tons of her candy.

It was snowy and very cold last night, so people felt bad for us and were very generous. Our living room table is covered in mini chocolate bars and little chip bags. The snacks are so tasty it's almost worth getting fat.