gross it is so muggy out. I walked to King and Bathurst and by the time I got there I had this sharp pain in my chest, from the smog I'm sure. At Spadina and Queen, the CN tower (a 10 minute walk away) was hazy, faded and hard to see.
gross gross.
in the summer, it is fresh air I miss the most.
oh also I've developed this sort of masochistic love of chinatown in the summer. so packed with people. so noisy. so stinky. so stifling. it doesn't get more Toronto.
wiki told me that
-They comprise the Gluto (Latin for Glutton!) branch of the weasel family. Love them already.
-They give off a strong stink; common nicknames include "skunk bear" and "nasty cat."
-they sometimes steal other animals kills: apparently one has even been observed fighting a black bear! That’s 27 pounds versus 400-500 pounds. Right on, reminds me of my late great weiner dog Gertie. So scrappy. They can even kill a moose...usually while it’s weak. Fine with me!
-They hunt when needed but are more than willing to feed on any dead or dying animal they find. Resourceful!
-cool: Their bodies can hold onto sperm for several months before letting it meet the egg... waiting until the perfect moment to be pregnant. If only.
-No natural predators. Humans aren’t natural apparently
-They're loners who like their space. I can respect that.
to the class:
"decide if you like your chairs, if you want to change, this is the last chance. are you sure you're happy. ok, starting now you're committed to those chairs for the next three hours"
it is then that someone sits down behind me, wafting my way a billow of b.o. in 'classic scent'
5 minutes later, the person two seats to the left of me runs out of tissues. sniff sniff. snort. I hated them even more knowing they wouldn't have to suffer the olfactory punishment imposed by the jackass behind me.
Farticles
Update: it gets better
Farticle Accelerator
oh gosh, so today is A and J's big wrestling dress up party. And I still have no clue what to wear! Turns out I have way more brown cotton than glittery spandex in my wardrobe- actually I have no glittery spandex. ok, so a kensington shopping trip is in order.
WWE diva? naw
the late british wrester Haystack? hmm
hogan is a possibility.
ok, lucha libre is the way to go I think. check out La Dama Del Silencio
oh my god, look at La Dama Del Silencio's biography, I really think it is real, they even have a mug shot!:
Juana Barraza was a serial killer in Mexico City. She'd pretend to be a social worker to gain entry to homes, choke out the victim with an object, and steal from their houses after their death. Barraza was a minor indepedent wrestlers as “La Dama del Silencio” (The Lady of the silence) and wrestled as a ruda. Barraza's murders had nothing to do with lucha libre and she was no longer wrestling when she was caught, but she's often portrayed as a murdering wrestler.
Barraza was arrested on January 25, 2006 for the murder of Ana María de los Reyes Alfaro, a 89 year old woman, and was subsequently connected to murdering 10 other women. The nickname "La Mataviejitas" (The Older Women's Murderer) was how the police referred to Juana Barraza, before they caught her. It's not a name she used in the wring.
Here is the lucha libre wiktionary, it is awesome.
I also like this (former)WWF lady:
Lesson learned: In the world of wrestling, all roads lead to spandex
I just don't know
it makes me think that Eddie Murphy would be an easy person to recreate at a wax museum.
ps aren't wax museums delightfully bizarre?
There is one in downtown victoria and everyone would agree that the torture chamber is by far the best part, non?
-foot number six found washed up on shore. drugs I'd guess.
-found by a woman collecting stones for an art project.
yesterday the fed-ex man (it's just one guy right?)showed up at my door not with a mysterious package labeled SOCKS for my roommate, but a box for me. I signed for it and ran up my squeaky loud stairs. Suddenly this sort of guilt adrenaline was pumping through my body. This flushed feeling like what have I gotten myself into.
but enough of my this isnt who I really am bullshit. it is. I'm the kind of person who writes a blog, and then jumps on the chance to get a free zune from a marketing company who asks me questions and approves me as a "Social Influencer". oh and I am a person who is unusually fixated on free things.
The zune, as far as I can tell, is microsoft's answer to the ipod. I have come to love gadgets, and I do love this one! oh also they included their fancy headphones, thank god, I was in desperate need of a new pair. clever too- music players are much more appealing when the music actually sounds good.
woah dudes, I got a free mp3 player out of this blog.
oh look here's me shaking hands with the devil
I can't explain it, but I love this blog which consists entirely of creative types taking pictures of their desk. Somehow it inspires me to sit at my desk and be creative or maybe even get work done.
After looking at that blog the other day, I decided to take a picture of mine.
So I just looked at my desk now and thought of that picture, and decided to compare. 
Sadly the desk looks like the second picture a lot more often than the first. On the other hand, flowers are more frequent than you'd expect. oh and yes, the map desk is pretty much my dream desk.
from the NYT (the readable version)
I love it, though it definitely seems like he ripped off, and here is his blog emo+beer=busted career
Question Everything. even this
Don't trust people who can't laugh at themselves.
You can't get snot off a suede jacket. Actually Lenny Bruce said that, but it's a quote that my pa repeatedly sent me.
ooops. I was just walking past this couple and the woman was eating some sort of snacky food from a foil bag which she just dropped to the ground when she was done. I looked at them and picked it up. they got a little sheepish, but then as I walked ahead to put it in the garbage can -not even 15 feet away- the guy clearly started scolding and getting angry at the woman, who was just taking it. They weren't speaking english, so this is just based on the tone of their voices, but oh boy do I feel bad. He obviously didn't care until my smug little act of picking it up. totally not worth it
For Lunch and Dinner for the past two days I have been making a variation of my favorite sandwich. stacked precisely in this order:
toasted walnut bread
avocado
cucumber
salt and pepper (big chunks freshly cracked)
tomato
basil
jalepeño havarti
toasted walnut bread.
I think of it as Hornby Sandwich (Heather, our feta wraps officially go by 'The Hornby Wrap')
Then it sits in my bag ready for lunch, and it's still crispy but a little soggy just the way I like it.
I tend to eat the same thing for weeks on end- my eating forecast has plenty of hornby sandwiches and honey shreddies on the horizon. I also desperately need to stock up on some tallboys.
And that, dear friends, is what I am eating.
oh man I love Jen Stark's work, apparently so does Banana Republic. They completely ripped her off.
She posted it on this site
from flickr
Heather and I once made a half hearted attempt at skateboarding. We bought these bottom of the line skateboards and all the cooler than thou skateboard dudes laughed in our faces right in the store as we were handing them our money. I took it to Toronto and played around a little on the side streets, but to tell the truth, the super loud sound they make on the pavement really unnerves me. so do vacuums. The final straw was the pretty bad fall I took while ride past an auto body shop. The whole shop full of mechanics were standing around outside and as I rode past and for seemingly no reason just went flying into the air and landed on my shoulder. I got up and acted like whatever, its no thing. I walked around the corner out of their view and did that whole lip biting, heavy breathing in thing. my shoulder still has a bit of the scar, which was retorn open during a much more brutal bike crash. I've taken the skateboard out a few times since then, but mostly the skateboard has become the worlds handiest furniture mover. We've moved entire couches through the annex with that thing
oh, the sketchy place.. I totally meant Suba, that second floor club that always has leerers and women dressed for 30 degree weather standing outside smoking all year round. Ive never actually been inside though. The Savannah Room on the other hand offers 3 dollar pints before 9pm, real cowhide barstools and improv nights- which I should check out. even without the sandwich board telling me so, I can always tell an improv night because there is at least one cocky overweight guy standing outside talking loudly, and a couple of guys pacing in the nearby alley, throwing lines at each other.
that is all
Stagflation- a period of inflatation during a period of stagnation.
So it pretty much sucks, but it sure rolls off the tongue. Adding to my list of favorite words!
you know those things in magazines where they compare two people or things based on a bunch of categories and who wins for each? huh? ya know? well I've pretty much been doing that with Toronto and Vancouver for the past 6 years. Here is the latest:
Toronto: epic summer Thunder Storms with heavy rain you can run around in
vs
Vancouver: Grey cold and drizzley, generally with no end in sight
clearly the wins goes to Toronto for this one.
As Alicia and I sat down to our pints on the patio of Ronnie's last night, the downpour began and we all had to run inside. The patio holds about twice as many people as the bar, so it was packed but since we had seats it was just fine with me.
Last night was one of those nights where I decide I can go out, but only for a drink or two and besides the bar is just around the corner.. then suddenly the hours are no longer 'late night', but 'early morning' and I'm walking home from across town with a can of Sponge Bob Spaghetti-os in my hand.
So a couple of days ago I made a Kensington run and returned home to realize that my shirt was inside out. typical. Anyway, it wasn't that obvious, but still I kinda wished someone had told me.
Earlier today I walked past this guy (waiting for a call at the pay phone, wow haven't seen that in a while) and his shirt was on insideout! I was too chicken shit and didn't say anything! He was all hipstery though, and I told myself that maybe it was on purpose, or he was too cool to care. So I stopped at the bank, came out and there he was standing at the cross walk. still didn't say anything. I crossed to the south side of the street and we were both standing there, waiting to to go East. I couldn't stand that I didn't say anything, and in an idiotic moment I started to yell out "Your shirt's on insideout!" only, as soon as I started I decided that was the worst idea I could think of so all that came out of my mouth was a loud bark of "Yoaa". Him, the cyclists, the pedestrians looked in my direction, I had my headphones on and pretended that music was playing and I had no idea what was going on, keeping my gaze forward waiting for the light. ohhh lame.
It's huge! woah man. It can open coconuts with its pincers! (man I love that word. putting it on the list)Holy shit, I have to use a hammer and nail! It likes to steal shiny things like pots and pans. They're born in the water but after a month they head for land... and then forever lose the ability to swim or breathe under water. Wouldn't it be cool if humans spent the first year of their life under water! Instead of strollers, we'd have little aquariums on wheels.
other things wiki told me:
-They mate "quickly and frequently"
-They are scavengers and are willing to steal from one another. hah, those buggers
-They live alone in underground borrows. Another nocturnal critter
-they live 30-60 years.
-If you get pinched by one it will hurt a lot. You should tickle their belly to get them to stop.
I wrote this at about 12:30 last night and didn’t post.
I’m pretty sure I just saw a prostitute finish off a blow job in the front seat of a car parked on College Street. College Street! Right by Spadina. Not a surprising area, but geez, even at midnight on a Monday it is never quiet enough for a discreet in-car bj. Maybe the dude didn’t feel like having to navigate the maze of one-way side streets (where I live), or maybe the working lady wanted to stay on a main road for safety reasons. Or maybe she didn’t want to have to walk all the way back to her spot.
Maybe it wasn't a blow job at all and she was just getting a map out of the glove compartment. Located in his lap. And that still wouldn’t explain the tell tale post bj swipe of the corners of her mouth.
And just maybe she wasn't doing it for money; they could have been patrons of the perma-sleazy Savannah Room which is just steps away from the car. But I’m pretty sure I saw her in a car with another man about 2 hours earlier.
gosh I love to speculate
It was just so damn conspicuous
aw shit. Bo Diddley died. this is one of my faves
how about those dancers! and a female guitar player, yeah.
dude was real cool.He has a song called Bo Diddley. I can get behind that. oh also later on he had a rectangular guitar.
good lord the smell of scalp is highly unpleasant. fucking tiered lecture rooms.
