Guess who just got A JOB?
Guess who just got a job with THE GOVERNMENT?
Guess who just got a job with the government AS A WRITER?

Hint: It is not me.
Hint: Okay, it might be me.

What Shaun And I Did For Our Anniversary: Played World of Warcraft. Or, more accurately, he taught me how to play and sat there patiently while I got scared by lynxes and fell into lakes and such.

In truth, though, I actually kinda like it -- I respond well to both rewards and repetitive tasks, and this game has plenty of both. I have a Blood Elf Hunter named Beezus, and I made Shaun name his warlock "Zack Warris". I am hilarious! I've made it up to level 9 and now I am the person who randomly yells things like, "Beezus! Quit aggro-ing those skeletons!" and "Ahhhh! Beezus, run!"

It is pretty fun and man, I did not know so many hours could pass so quickly.

I can hardly believe I'm typing this but today is my one year anniversary with Shaun. It seems insane.

I've been reading over old LJ entries, from when we first started dating, and it makes me feel all mushy, like this one, from my birthday, and especially this one from that horrible day when Beezus tried to run away from home (such a bad kitty!) I wouldn't say I fell in love with him that day, but that was when I knew that I could love him, and that I'd be lucky to.

And now I do love him, and I think every day about how lucky I am. And I feel even luckier because for some crazy reason or badly functioning brain synapse, he loves me too.

I want to say that he lets me be myself, but that's selling him short. The truth is, he lets me be all my selves: my smart self and my sort-of-stunned self, my silly self and my serious self, my brave self and my scared self, my self that gets teary at Sex And The City episodes, and my self that tries valiantly to carry home a case of beer even though I have arms like spaghetti.

With Shaun I can be all those selves. And maybe more importantly, I can be my better self. I'm better with him. He makes me better and he makes me want to be better.

It's been a year and I still feel like I'm having the best vacation of my life.

Ohmygoodness, I love these photos so much:






They are from a series called Ghosts, by Josh Poehlein. I think they're done by actually scraping the surface of the print. I find them so ... haunting, which I guess is the point. There are more on his website!

Some awesome spam I just got:
Spears and Hilton combine with Sex "to make eye-catching headline"

It's like, meta spam!

Also, I never used to like trail mix, but I think now I've discovered the secret: you gotta eat a bit of everything (or most things) in each bite. I'm the kind of person who usually only likes to eat one type of food at a time, so I would eat trail mix by eating all the different bits separately: first a peanut, then a raisin, etc. And so I didn't really find trail mix all that appealing. But today I ate a whole handful in one bite and it was delicious! The nuts and the dried fruit together made it feel kind of like a healthy peanut-butter and jelly sandwich.

I'm sure that's old news to most of you, but a revelation to me! Who knows how many other foods I've been missing out on?

I'm so glad my sweetie is home from New Brunswick! He and his mom picked out many cute and hilarious souvenirs for me, including: a starfish magnet, a mini lobster trap, and a dolphin that says 'Caraquet'. All together now: awwwww.

We spent the weekend doing some productive things (getting groceries, returning a million beer bottles) and also some non-productive things (checking out a new coffee shop, wandering around Riverdale Farm). It's funny -- I almost feel like my weekends are MORE precious now that I'm unemployed, since they're the one time I let myself forget about the fact that I'm unemployed and verging on desperate.

Still haven't heard anything back about the job, but they promised to call either way so I'm not too discouraged about that. Still, I'm anxious to know for sure. Continuing to keep my fingers crossed in the meantime.

Ok! Well, I'm pretty excited that the new 2009 Ikea catalogue is out BUT I am doubly excited that their new television campaign features 'poppers' and one of my favourite dancers from So You Think You Can Dance, Robert Muraine. I really love it.

Watch the video here, if you enjoy super awesome dancing and also furniture.

I'm so excited that thisisfurious lives in Toronto now! It was so fun hanging out with her and scarfboys yesterday, and drinking beer and seeing their cute apartment. Good times, good times.

My sweetie left on Friday for a week in New Brunswick, and I miss him already. He left me 'beer money' though, so at least I can drown my sorrows. How great is he?

Also, I have always really liked Miranda July but her website promoting her book No One Belongs Here More Than You just made me die of happiness.

Shaun and I have been talking a lot about websites lately, especially bloated ones this one, that are all style and no substance. They cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and take weeks to build, but serve, arguably no real purpose -- other than being a placeholder on the internet, to promote the company or brand identity. Except how many people even really bother visiting them unless they're already looking for information about Corona? (And if it's information they're looking for, a flash site that takes five minutes to load and navigate through is probably not the most efficient way to go ANYWAY.)

Websites like that make me feel sort of exhausted (not to mention basically crash my computer), so the low-tech-ness of the Miranda July site REALLY appeals to me. Awhile back I had planned to put my Beezus comics online and I got overwhelmed (not to mention exhausted) by all the perceived technical requirements behind it. But this website makes me rethink all that. One of the things that people seemed to like about the comic were how basic they were anyway, so I feel like a very low tech website would be pretty appropriate. I dunno. Just some thoughts!

In further career counselling annoyances, I was doing some internet research on the workshop my counsellor signed me up for, and have found that it's TOTALLY NOT RIGHT FOR ME. She billed it as a general 'career exploration' workshop, but it's not. It's for people who have decided on a course of training or further education and want to make sure that it's a good idea for them. Like if I had decided to go back to school to become a veterinarian, I could go to this workshop for two days and take tests and find out if I'd make a good veterinarian and if going back to school was the correct course of action or if I should just try to figure out my transferable skills, etc.

Anyway, NOT RELEVANT FOR ME.

Did I mention this is actually the 2nd time I've tried going to a career counsellor in Ontario? Yeah, I also went when I first moved here, (to a totally different location) and they decided that the best thing was to put me in a counselling service for 'youth with barriers to employment' -- barriers like criminal records, substance abuse, requiring housing assistance, etc. YUP THAT'S ME.

Needless to say I will be abandoning this course of action, stat.

Today I went to see a career counselor.

She told me to read The Secret.

I think that's all I need to say about that.

Oh yeah! I got my hair cut!

Before:




(Ugly hair = depression)


After:



(Nice hair = happiness!)


Bonus Picture: LOOK HOW FLUFFY MY CAT IS

I can't even tell you guys how much I love this:

Also I am listening The Weakerthans 'Reunion Tour' and holy shit it reminds me of this fall. Every day when I'd leave work I'd put on the song Civil Twilight and stare out the streetcar window at King Street - wet and getting dark and filled with people going home, just like me.

It's *almost* enough to make me miss work.

In honour of tomorrow being the 4th of July, I think I'm going to try to make a blueberry cobbler - using this recipe which I believe even *I* could not screw up.

Speaking of cooking, does anyone have any suggestions of things to eat which are cold? All I can really think of are salads and sandwiches (I'm not crazy about cold soups). The other day I made a big pasta salad (from my old days of living with snowmit, with green apples and brick cheese and mixed greens). It was great and we ate it for two days. I want more stuff like that. It doesn't even have to be a no-cook thing (I don't mind the cooking part), but I want something I can cook when I'm feeling energetic, and then throw in the fridge and just eat cold when I'm NOT feeling energetic.

I was supposed to get my hair cut today and I was SOOO looking forward to it, but it was cancelled when my stylist called in sick. (Day after Canada Day...I'm going to go ahead and guess "hangover"). Now it's rescheduled for the 8th which happens to also be the day I have to have my biopsy. I guess it will be good to have the haircut to look forward to, instead of just dreading the doctor's.

In other news, I can't stop reading these Stephenie Meyer teen vampire books. A few weeks ago I was obsessed with the idea of WERECATS (I even made up a song about them), and now I'm on to VAMPIRES. I think I am becoming A GOTH. Ha ha ha!

Guys I feel like a complete moron but I have no idea how to use PayPal. I'm supposed to invoice someone with it, so I signed up for an account, but I have no idea HOW to invoice someone, or, more importantly, how to get the money once they pay my invoice.

I am a total NOOB I know, but I am finding the Paypal site surprisingly unhelpful. GRRRR.

Today is my first day of being unemployed!

Verdict so far: pretty good.

TOMORROW IS MY LAST DAY OF WORK HOLY SHIT.

I had my exit interview this morning, and I quite like our HR manager so I had a lot of mixed feelings. I talked about some of the things I liked about the company, and she talked about some of the things she liked about *me*, and even thanked me for making her feel so welcome and respected when she first started at the company (she replaced another HR manager who was ADORED by all and apparently that meant some people who missed the other HR Manager were jerks to her? People are so annoying.) Anyway! I walked out of her office with very mixed feelings.

THEN I took a call from a contractor which ended up lasting 45 minutes and being the second call ever to make me cry at work. I mean, I do a lot of customer service, so I'm used to assholes. I can totally handle people yelling and being upset about stuff and even saying mean stuff to me. What I can't deal with, (and both times I've cried at work have been EXTREME versions of this) is when they will not settle for anything other than YOU resolving their issue, to their liking, RIGHT NOW. They will not accept any other alternative solutions, aka escalating the situation, sending them additional info via email, suggesting they call the Canada Revenue Agency, etc. It's like you're being held hostage on the phone -- you just keep saying the same things over and over and you're clearly just spinning your wheels, but they won't let you go. I get the idea of wanting all the money you think you're owed, and I get the being upset about it, but I DON"T GET not being open to reasonable means of resolving the issue.

(I also feel like if I worked in retail, and was face to face with this person, it would easily be considered harassment. But I also don't feel like I can exactly hang up on him either. Although in retrospect, I probably should have -- what are they going to do, fire me?? Damn me and my sense of personal responsibility.)

Anyway, the thing that got me the most was that my boss (whose office is right behind me) was overhearing this whole conversation and refused to help me in anyway. I managed to get the guy on hold at one point, and not only did she refuse to take his call, she would not give me any advice on how to handle him, and in fact, all her suggestions were things that I knew would only infuriate him MORE. Because she gets these ideas about teaching the contractors a lesson or something, when they're being dicks, but her way of doing that is basically hanging me out to dry. I'm so fucking sick of it.

Anyway, I'm sorry for all that pointless detail! My only real point is: Thank you, today, for proving to me that I am indeed doing the right thing.

Now to find a new and better job.

I am trying to be productive tonight and do a bunch of cleaning but so far all I've managed to do is re-arrange my bookshelf and paint my toenails and dance around to 'Escapade'.

Relatedly does anyone know how to get the smell of cat pee off a door knob? (Don't ask.) Bleach? Lysol? Some sort of baking soda paste?