World's best line:

If I ever heard [those] words tumble from a mouth, I would pop off and make a cup of tea, just so I could come back and drop it in horror.

Seriously, that's good. Thanks, Jon Blyth.

Letters.

It's been a while since I've done anything here but a work colleague looked at my site this week and I realised that I've had around 8 months off (and erased all 3 years of writings) and I've not done jack all. Opinionistas just started back so I guess I had better as well.
It's time to get writing because I've had a few post floating around in my head.

So now, some letters.

Dear evil waitress in the awesome Thai restaurant on Cambie Street near my office:
If it is February and if I am waiting for my Cashew Chicken to go and if I have my winter (read: bulky) coat on and if I have my fuzzy fleece gloves on and if I have my hands in my coat pockets, it does not give you the right to ask if I'm pregnant. I mean REALLY. It was winter for goodness sake! My hands were in my pockets! Skinny bitch.

Dear business man on the 601 bus to Ladner today:
I'm glad I had to wake you up so that I could sit next to you because it was the last seat and you were taking up two of them and that's just greedy and everyone was just too damn Canadian/polite to do it themselves. The reason why I'm glad is because you smelled good. All clean. Like soap. Mmmm.

Dear utter pillock driving the black car:
who, while I was standing at the bus stop on Cambie at 49th after teaching a class and so I had 2 shoulder bags filled with student projects and so I was tired because it was 11pm and I was cold because it was the second week of March but I was wearing pants and warm socks so atleast I wasn't too cold, *asked me if I wanted a ride somewhere* BECAUSE HE THOUGHT I WAS A PROSTITUTE. Look, I wasn't even wearing a short skirt - or sequins - or stilettos. Why me? What, did I look like a junkie? (Well, I probably did, since it was after an evening class.) And then AND THEN you had the nerve to get mad at me because I didn't want 'a ride' and muttered to yourself as you squealed your tires and tore off, apparently to compensate for your dick size. If you're trying to source a blow job by recruiting graphic design teachers from Langara, you're either an idiot or desperate. I'm thinking both in your case because your penis must be so incredibly small.

Dear thirteen-year-old girl that gets on the bus at Ladner and gets off at the reserve:
Put. On. Some. Clothes. It's 40 degrees outside and you're trying to look all cool and Lolita-ish by wearing ragged short miniskirts and flipflops. It's a bit much. I did that shit in Junior High, but it was in the south and it wasn't really that cold and we all just wanted to show our cute legs. You have cute legs too but they'd be cuter without goose bumps all over 'em and that blotchy red/white stuff that happens to cold caucasian flesh. It ain't appealing. Up here, we're in the country that has the Arctic Circle and it is just stupid doing that. Stop it, please.

And that is all for today.

holy mother of god!

I'm in Lethbridge for the weekend and here is the weather report.

Me? A buttercup? Not bloody likely.

Today has been a day where I don't want to talk to people and I most certainly don't want them to talk to me. And what happened? Complete strangers kept talking to me - in all parts of the city.

The first instance was a early twentysomething guy who came up to me and introduced himself while on the bus at the ferry terminal. 'Hi! I! Am! Jeremy!' I replied that it was nice to meet him. He then sat down across from me, gave me his newspaper for some reason or another, and told me some rambling story about his father. He was developmentally disabled but still completely charming and cheerful - I needed it after getting my first morning ferry in weeks. His mom kept trying to lure him back to her by saying 'Jeremy, the sun might be coming out!' It most certainly wasn't but I could see what she was doing. I told her it was fine and that I didn't mind. It was nice seeing someone happy on that bus while the rest of us were as gloomy as the gray skies above us.

Just after the Jeremy incident, a woman sitting behind me said 'Here - do you want something to read?' and then offered me her People magazine. Of course I wanted her People magazine, who wouldn't?! I thanked her and started reading about Britney Spears, welcome entertainment for my bus journey.

Then while on my next bus, a guy kept asking me if I could tell him when we got to Broadway. My replies of 'We're on Broadway' were ignored because he asked me about 4 times. I gave up after number three.

The final instance was as I was walking down Commercial Avenue, a busker, well, perhaps one wouldn't deem a tweaker playing the spoons a 'busker', and perhaps one wouldn't call what he was doing 'playing' - more like rattling - as I walked by, he exclaimed 'Hey Buttercup! You have a polkadot umbrella!' I couldn't help but grin. I've been called a lot of things in my life and 'buttercup' is most certainly not on that list. I should have given him a dollar.

It was a day where I was tired and feeling a bit antisocial, or as we say on Galiano Island, 'a bit Galiano', but it ended with me feeling happy that I was in a city where people aren't scared to speak and where even if I am in a grumpy mood, other people aren't so I had better hurry up and get out of it.

and yet another reason why I shouldn't breed . . .

. . . because I'd obviously cause them problems in a Canadian school.

totally solar-powered

I've just spent the past 2 hours rereading the final half of Harry Potter. I've been wanting to relive it because I read it so fast the first time around, eager to see what happened (it happened as it should have and was a perfect ending). Did I mention that I was on the deck? In the sun? It's a beautiful late summer/early autumn day today. Crystal blue skies, warm sun, light cool breezes and just a hint of the change of season. The arbutus trees are bright red and peeling, their leaves are waxy and shimmering, the ravens are swooping around the cliff (I totally love hearing the whooshing of their wings flapping overhead). We still have a few flowers blooming, despite the monsoons over the past week so it's still cheerful for a bit longer.

I had woken up this morning feeling utterly crappy for no apparent reason and now I feel great. It's amazing what sunshine can do for a soul. I'm making a mental note to do this more often.

Why not?

After many starts and stops, I think this blog will continue, as if there is anyone left reading it? I already tossed all the archives so it's not as though there's much remaining anyway.

I went to a lovely impromptu dinnerparty at mysterylinda's house (there's about 700 Lindas on this island, we have to differentiate somehow) and we started talking about blogs and such. MysteryLinda and I were trying to explain to a blog-virgin why you do them, and the cool thing was that we had completely different reasons. She was helping her readers access her but this blog for me isn't that at all, or at least I don't think it is. If you're reading this, then you're probably one of my close friends and you don't need to come any closer, thank you very much. What is this need to write about the things in my life, such as a particular bus ride or the mouse that Harry ate or something wonderful (or annoying) that Mr X did?

I don't know why I like to read other blogs either, many of which have to do with kids, and no, I'm not in the least bit pregnant nor do I ever plan to be, but I do know why I like this medium. Is it voyeurism? Perhaps it's that I feel that I am talking, regardless of who is listening. Kind of like when you're alone and then you notice that you've just said a random word that was part of your inner dialogue out loud but it was more to yourself than to someone else. OK, no, not that, that's just embarrassing. Forget that idea. I think that I am thinking of the sense of getting things out so that they don't bubble up inside you, regardless of the audience.

I look at Mr X and wonder what it's like to not talk much. When I lived on my own, both in North Carolina and England, and boy did I ever love living on my own for all those 15 years, I would occasionally have a day or two where I didn't talk to anyone and boy when I did, all the words came rushing out like a wild vocabularic torrent of thoughts. Beware you recipient. My mom used to jokingly, yet somewhat seriously, ask at the beginning of her phonecall: 'when's the last time you talked to someone?', and she wasn't talking about therapy.

I often have ideas pile up in my head, usually about interesting articles that I could write or cool projects for students to do. I've started writing some of them down (oh you future students, just you wait! You've got some cool things coming your way) and it does feel good to do so.

So why blog when we don't know the audience?

Perhaps a better question for me is: Why not?