Friday night: I don’t remember. I just know I woke up Saturday morning Extremely Sad (until Nick also woke up and reminded me we were going to Playland, and the Sad went away). Did not enjoy the Sad.

Saturday night: Dreamed that I had to give Justice back to the rescue I got her from. Catch: I didn’t GET her from a rescue… so who knows where that dream came from. Worse, the foster home they had for her was a (well meaning but totally useless) trainer who was fucking her up even worse. Woke up feeling completely morose, but managed to improve my mood by cuddling with the dog.

Sunday night: Dreamed that I was on a plane with Nick, and there was some sort of terrible accident and half the people on the plane were sucked out, including Nick. FUCKING HELL. Was extremely discombobulated this morning. Required cuddles from dog AND Nick to get back on proper footing.

I’m rather frightened by what I’m going to dream tonight. How are we going to escalate this? Eeee.

Luckily, I graduated shortly thereafter and immediately ran away to another country for a while so that everyone would forget.

So anyway, milk. I tend to limit dairy, including cheese, ice cream, white sauces, etc. Yogurt, on the other hand, I tend not to have a problem with. Apparently it has to do with the bacteria. Whatever. It doesn’t make me ralph or clear out a room, I’m a happy camper.

And then cereal: I like cereal, but obviously putting milk on it is no good as vomiting is not my idea of a good time, and I don’t want to have to leave the country again so that people forget my humiliation. I often eat cereal dry, as a semi-healthy snack (I tend to buy boring cereals, like Cheerios and Special K). It’s handy while playing video games for example, as I can just reach over, grab a handful, and voila. Cruncy treats. It’s like granola, without the INCREDIBLY HIGH SUGAR CONTENT. (Most granola? Jam packed with sugar. Damn them! Granted, so is most cereal… I attempt to choose wisely.)

You see the connection here? The obvious marrying of two wonderful products? Why yes, you do!

I’ve started putting yogurt on my cereal. Or more accurately, cereal on my yogurt. It’s the only sensible thing to do. Milk makes me sick. Yogurt does not. And eating straight cereal, while a tasty snack, lacks some of the intended moistness. Yogurt is moist! Yogurt can totally do this job! YOGURT IS UP FOR THIS CHALLENGE!

I might have spent too much time thinking about this.

Anyway, there it is: What I’ve been reading. In particular, “Wench” was fascinating, “As Young As We Feel” was fucking terrible, and Harlan Coben remains my deliciously guilty pleasure. Take that as you will.

And yes, all but the two cancer books were on my Kindle. I continue to effing love it SO MUCH IT HURTS. For one, nobody on the bus can tell when I’m reading terrible Warcraft books. *cough*

So this morning, shockingly enough, I woke up with a migraine. Crapmonkey, I can’t afford to miss work, but … well, there is death in my skull.

Whatever, curled up with the dog and slept. Had managed to wake up and was trying to convince myself that I could go into work, and … the building fire alarm goes off.

Okay, so I’ve lived in apartments of some sort pretty much all of my adult life. There were a few houses in there, but mostly apartments. Plus, I’ve always worked in office buildings. So I’ve heard my fair share of building fire alarms. None of them — NONE OF THEM — were anywhere NEAR on par with the sheer horribleness of the sound of this alarm.

I admit: I’m a “wait til I smell smoke” kind of fire alarm girl. I’ll keep an eye on the situation, poke my head out into the hallway, and look out the window. But especially when I lived on the 9th floor… eh, I’m not really into trucking all the way down if I don’t have to.

So I wouldn’t be surprised if this particular alarm was designed to stop people like me, because JESUS CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT NOISE. I already felt like I had skewers sticking into my temple, that alarm turned them into BLUNT SPOONS DIGGING INTO MY SKULL.

And of course, it’s not just me: Justice is home with me, of course. Justice, the dog who is wigged out by odd sounds. Justice, the dog who has a panic attack at the garbage truck. Justice was not pleased with this noise. AT ALL.

Ok, so we’ve got: Migrainey Donna, Terrified Dog, and WORST ALARM EVER. Yes, okay, I get it — we’re going outside. With the rest of my neighbours. And their dogs. Effing hell. Well, still better to be outside than in. Just to be safe, because there was a good chance we’d have to pass very close to another dog, I muzzled her up. This isn’t something we usually do, because she’s very, very manageable under normal circumstances. I only ever use the muzzle when going to the vet these days.

Yeah, this is not one of those normal circumstances, muzzle it is. Luckily, we were able to duck across the street pretty away from the 20 or so dogs in front of the building. Justice was displeased.

Sure enough, nothing terrible. Fire truck showed up, alarm was turned off, and we trotted back inside. I poked my head out to see if I could find out what was going on, but the best I’ve got is “false alarm”. Awesome.

The result of said adventure is that I feel like I’m going to die, and the slowly fading migraine is RIGHT BACK WITH A FUCKING VENGEANCE.

I’m going to go pretend I don’t exist now.

It started on Friday night. Friday was the wrap party for Nick’s game, ModNation Racers, which you should all buy on May 25th. If you have a PS3, anyway. Hell, even if you don’t. It’s THAT FUN.

The wrap party was fun. It was at the Canvas Lounge, with is uber classy and made me feel like a real grownup. Within moments of walking in the door, we’d been handed two glasses of champagne that had … some sort of flower in it. Huh. Ice sculptures of ModNation characers held dozens of shot glasses, and I’ve discovered something about “custom” shots: Most good shots have already been invented and named, so when you try to make up your own custom shot… it’s probably not going to taste as good as the ones that already existed.

Still, I did a few shots, and am proud of myself that I can do shots WAY better than I could when I was 20. Hooray for killing off my taste buds over the last 10 years.

I may have been a little tipsy.

Best of all was the absolutely amazing performance by two lovely ladies of The Underground Circus, doing a gut-dropping aerial routine on what is apparently called a “Triceau”, according to this page. Basically it was two extremely flexible women spinning, rolling, bending, flipping, and twisting through a crazy metal structure made up of three hoops, about 10 or 15 feet above the ground.

Pretty fucking cool? Yes, yes it was.

We didn’t stay too late, being old and boring and such, but decided to walk most of the way home along Railway St, until it dumped us back out onto Powell. Somewhere around there I noticed that my feet were so sore I couldn’t think straight, and we jumped in a cab for the last km home. For the record, walking two km in heels hurts. And those were my comfortable heels…

Of course, come Saturday, I put them right back on. Saturday was the infamous Jeremy’s wedding, and what a hoot it was. Of course, first we had to get there.

So, when planning out my day the night before, I’d thought “Ok, wedding starts at 2pm, in Richmond. If I leave at 1:15, that shoudl be plenty of time.” And sometime between that plan and the next day, I had a full brain failure. Around 12:45, I was hopping in the shower, thinking I had TONS of time. Around 1:30, I was still happily doing my hair, in no real hurry. Around 1:45, my brain kicked back in and I realized no, I was not “on time”, I was HALF A FUCKING HOUR LATE ALREADY.

Luckily, I was ready at that point, so I grabbed my bag, my boyfriend, and my car keys and hauled ass down to the parking garage. Fucking hell. We arrived at almost exactly 2:30 — good to know, my original estimate of 45 minutes was dead on, and ran toward the chapel. Ok, sauntered casually, I can’t run in these stupid shoes.

On the upside, we got there before the ceremony started. Just. Jeremy’s lovely bride was outside, and as I had never met her before, I introduced myself as “the douchebag who can’t read a clock”. She was gracious and funny, and shooed us in ahead of the bridesmaids, and Nick & I scored a nice spot in the back row where we could be embarassed in anonymity. Or at least I could — Nick thought we timed that perfectly, with the minimum “sitting around waiting for things to start” time possible. Uh, you’re welcome, honey.

The ceremony was great — exactly what I’d expect from Jeremy. Or Dr. Seuss. The necessary parts were necessary, and the vows? The vows were hilarious, and I gotta say — it’s the first time I’ve seen wedding vows refer to the bride as a b…eautiful woman, when rhyming with “rich”. Yeah, you could say that Jeremy has definitely found the right match for his sense of humor.

The reception had promised things you’ve never seen before, and it didn’t fail to meet expectations: A photobooth is getting to be pretty common fare, but this one included props — Nick & I got some pictures with him in an eyepatch, and me in a pair of stunning oversized sunglasses bedecked with rhinestones. I need a pair of those, I think. But much more awesome was the sumo suits and the bouncy balls. Effing awesome. And the food? Oh my god, the food was amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a tasty meal at a wedding before. I don’t even LIKE food that much, and this was worth raving about.

We didn’t stay too late, I had to be up ridiculously early (well, for a sunday) the next morning, and by then had spent another 8 hours in heels — we went to Ikea on the break between the ceremony & reception, and I MEANT to bring spare shoes, but with the whole “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN I’M SUPPOSED TO BE IN RICHMOND IN FIFTEEN MINUTES” debacle, I didn’t grab them on my way out.

On the upside, we were a pretty stunning looking couple in Ikea. We stopped by Rona, too — I broke Nick’s good screwdriver last week and figured I should replace it — and got a few nice comments from people. Why yes, I always break out the fancy dress for the hardware store. Don’t you?

So, we got home around … 11ish? Something like that. I pretty much immediately passed out, so that I could get up bright & early on Sunday to head over to my dog training facility to lay out my soaps in an appealing manner. Ok, I’m still working on my table layout. I need more levels. And perhaps some flashing lights or a free pony with every purchase. Whatever. Still, pretty happy with how it went. It was a little slow, I think the location is hard to find. It doesn’t help that Google Maps seems to think you can turn onto Vernon St from the 1st St overpass (west of Clark.) It’s also not accessible from Home Depot, the train tracks are in the way. But it was a fun day, I made a little cash, discovered that lemongrass is a VERY popular scent (I can’t blame them, I freaking love it too) and made a nice donation to HugABull, too.

There were many, many pitbulls in attendence, including one very wee puppy, and omg love. SO SILKY. Like seals! I’ve always said no pitbulls, because as much as I love them and would like to change peoples opinion of the breed, they come with a bad stigma and having one dog everybody hates is enough, but … omg, want!

I did NOT wear heels for the fundraiser, but still spent almost the entire day standing up — I had my nice camping chair to sit in, but I prefer to stand up if I’m talking to someone about my awesome soaps. (AWESOME. SOAPS.) Ow. I got home and attempted to pass out for a few hours, but Justice was being wiggy and didn’t really let me. THANKS, DOG.

Overall? Epic, busy, amazing weekend. Thanks to all who made it happen, especially Nick.

Tonight, I go see Amanda Palmer’s new musical act: Evelyn Evelyn. I’m … actually kind of uncomfortable with her response to the disability community’s issues with Evelyn Evelyn — I won’t get into that, there are plenty of places to read about it other than here. I’m not saying one side is right and one side is wrong, or that there IS a right and a wrong, just that I wasn’t particularly comfortable with her response to the whole thing (the whole thing I didn’t even know existed until she wrote about it on her blog — I find most feminist blogs piss me off, so I don’t read them.)

So.. I’d decided against going to see Evelyn Evelyn. At least, until I won a free ticket. Yay, free ticket! I do still love AP like crazy, and hell I still carry my “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” bag every day. My decision not to go wasn’t a boycott, just a mild discomfort and unwillingness to drop cash on something that makes me slightly uncomfortable. But free ticket is free, so… woo!

That’s all I have to say about that, except this: “The Venue” has got to be the dumbest name for a venue ever. Seriously? Who named this place, Abbot and Costello?

I hope my feet survive!

So, they got a trampoline a few months ago, and it’s many funs, at least 17 funs. Last time I was out, I taught Carol Ann how to do somersaults — how does a kid make it to 8 without having done a somersault before? Anyway, she’s figured those out now, and so we’re working on getting her to be able to do flips on the trampoline. Of course, the only way I know how to teach something is to demonstrate it, and therefore did many, many trampoline flips. What’s the big deal? I used to do these ALL THE TIME when I was a kid, my best friend had a trampoline and we’d spend hours flinging ourselves around all crazy-like.

Right. Except that was TWENTY YEARS AGO. I’ve been having a bit of pain in my tailbone lately, and holy fucking hell does it ever hurt today. I hope it’s just bruised, because ow ow ow, my ass! My precious ass! It goes along with painful joints and an extremely stiff neck. I took a muscle relaxant this morning, and it helped in that I can turn my neck, but I’m still sitting extremely still to avoid aggravating anything else.

Shit. I thought thirty was young?

In other news: Dressew was out of white elastic thread. Tonight, I try shirring, but with black elastic thread instead. On a white blouse, intended for the VSteam Masquerade Ball. Damnit.

Well, fuck it, I have a week left to finish my outfit, and no time to hunt down white thread. If the tension on my sewing machine wasn’t terminally effed, this probably wouldn’t show. Alas, the tension on my sewing machine is indeed terminally effed (note to self: get sewing machine tuneup) and so … it’s probably gonna look speckled. On the upside, I’m told that you need to mess with the tension to make shirring work properly anyway, so maybe mine will be perfect. (And yes, I’ve adjusted the tension manually so many times as to be intimately familiar with both the tension switch AND the stupid mini screw on the bobbin case. It needs a tuneup.)

So right now, this is my life. I sew, I curse, I remember I don’t know how to fucking sew, I sit there and go “Shit, I hadn’t thought of that… well, fuck. How do I do this?” I google, I curse, I change my mind, I hit up Value Village, I google more, I sew, I curse, I rub my back, I rip seams, I drink a lot of diet coke, I watch 5 seasons of How I Met Your Mother in mere days, and I celebrity-crush over Neil Patrick Harris. What?

So, I hide and very quietly mutter my need for a “yearly”. “A pap smear?” the annoyed receptionist replies. Oh good, she knows my “lingo”.

So anyway, here I am, sitting mostly naked figuring out what I’m going to wear to said ladypart exam. (Shh!)

Normally, I would be all chaste and demure. There’s nothing like telling your doctor how you like to take it three ways from sunday while you’re dressed like a choirgirl. Then again, my doctors office is in Yaletown, I suspect they get a lot of the yuppies who are very talented at crunching numbers while choking on cock. That’s a requirement, isn’t it?

But today, I’m going for something new. No sweet little black satin panties for me. Fuck that. I’m tired of blending in, being one of them. Today, I’m wearing mens briefs with monkeys on them neon pink elastic. These mens briefs, to be specific.

Hooray for monkeys!

And now off to be poked in the vagina by someone who makes a lot more money than me. Just another Wednesday…

So, I have this huge aversion to saying things I don’t mean. I put disclaimers on everything, I very rarely make “absolutes”. I rarely say “I never”. Even my views on Team No Babies were always worded in an, “I could change my mind, but I doubt it” sort of way. I had a bit of an annoyance at work a few months ago when I refused to say “I will make my targets!” because … I didn’t know if I could, it wasn’t something that was fully in my control anyway, and I’m not going to commit to something that I doubt will happen. This led to a discussion about goals vs. integrity, etc leaving me feeling a little picked on.

And part of that is because I hate being wrong, and I always have, but I had an epiphany about where my aversion to absolutes came from.

When I was 20, I ended my engagement 4 months before I was due to get married. First, we’ll ignore the idiocy of wanting to get married at 20 — in my defense I was, well, 20 and I maintain that the brain doesn’t start to kick in until 25, and doesn’t solidfy into something that makes sense until… actually, I’m not there yet, I’ll let you know when it happens for me. But when my ex fiance & I broke up, he went a little mental. (Sorry, Tyler, but … well, you did.) Like, police in my kitchen mental, but that’s besides the point. Anyway, one of the points that he repeatedly made about why I was a horrible person for leaving him was that I’d promised I’d be with him forever.

Well, of course everybody knows this is a ridiculous argument, and I suspect (hope, at least) that even Tyler knows that this was a ridiculous argument, but … he was 20, too. (I might make it sound like Tyler was the only one off his rocker, and while I’m obviously biased, even I have to admit that I didn’t handle things particularly well either.) But, it’s very difficult to counter such arguments when you are 20 and in the midst of a bad breakup, and so I just ended up continuing to feel like a shit, albeit a shit who no longer had a crazy fiance who made totally illogical arguments while sounding completely logical.

I totally suck at illogical arguments. As it turns out, “That’s crazy!” is not a good counter-argument, nor is “Fuck off, you nutter”. I generally went with. “Sorry, I was wrong.” Turns out, forever? Only lasts till roughly early 2000. Now you know.

Anyway. Since then, I have had a huge aversion to making absolutes. Not because I think he was right — again, it’s a ridiculous argument — but because I don’t want to be put in the situation of having to defend myself against ridiculous arguments. So, I avoid hyperbole if it’s something I might be held to later, I rarely say “never”, and I don’t make promises that I’m not reasonably certain I can back up. Heck, I’m not even very good at making tenative plans. (Just ask Nick — what do you MEAN you don’t know what you’re doing next Thursday? FIGURE IT OUT!)

So I’m not saying that my “never say never” policy is bad or not, it is what it is, and it’s interesting to me to figure out where that comes from. I don’t mind it much, because to me, that makes an absolute mean something — if I say “never” … I mean it. Not the generally understood “standard disclaimers of never” apply, but no, really, never ever. So… I don’t say things like, “I will never leave Nick!” because I can’t guarantee that: What if I woke up tomorrow and found out he’d been murdering kittens every Monday night? That’s not the sort of thing I’m cool with. I mean, I’m not really a cat person, but there’s a limit, right?

Honestly, I can’t see my life without him, but I’m not psychic. My crystal ball only shows what my face looks like upside down. As of yet, I don’t know how to interpret that into what will happen to me in 10 years. Unless I’m destined to turn into Jake from Family Guy. I can’t think of anything that would ever cause me to leave him (well, aside from the kitten thing above), but maybe I’m just not that creative.

So… I’m realistic. I rarely say never. And I think it’s because I had ridiculous arguments when I was 20 about statements I made that bit me in the ass later.

I am constantly amused by the “rules” we invent that we live by while rarely having any idea where they come from.

Who knew that I had anything more than a cynical, pessimistic, overly negative bitch in me?

My new tattoo! This is possibly my favoritest phrase ever. I spotted it on a craft project on Etsy months ago… and of course, can’t find the original source anymore. Thank you, anonymous Etsy person.

It’s only 8 hours old, so the skin is still pretty red, and because I have fairly sensitive skin, it’s even moreso where the tape was. But it calmed down enough for me to be willing to show off.

I love it. It’s actually straight, but the curves of my back make it curve in interesting ways depending on how I move my shoulders. Very nifty.

Many thanks to Jessica Pare of Eastside Tattoo.

Something wonderful happened today: I got a really awesome tattoo that makes me feel good about life. How about you?