The Master Cleanser

Sorry to those who hate this kind of crap (everyone, apparently). This will be short and sweet (literally, just like my cleanse!):

I really and truly and honestly and actually started the Lemonade Cleanse today. Wow. I've been saying this all summer, but the truth is that it's better to cleanse in the winter when there aren't as many organic fruits and vegetables available for daily consumption. We had so many veggies this year I couldn't bear to go 10 days without eating any.

Honest to God, that is the ONLY reason I didn't go through with my cleanse.

Yeah. Anyway, I'm only going on a 5 or 6 day cleanse because that's all the time I have. I am going to Calgary next weekend for a wedding; needless to say, not even in my wildest fantasies could I hope to cleanse through that. It's hard enough for me to not be the person that drinks the most out of everyone at a party. (Read that sentence again - I'm serious.)However, I figure it's better than nothing, even though the minimum is supposed to be 10 days.

Unfortunately, I got off to a bit of a rocky start because I didn't have my first glass of juice until around 3PM, so I'm starving right now. My mom is making tomato sauce and I would die for a plate of pasta right about now. Already. But I only ate fruit all day yesterday and then salmon and salad for dinner. Oh yeah, then I had two glasses of wine and two Spanish coffees. Whoops.

Anyhow, I am so excited to put my social life on hold. Now I have an excuse for not having to go out and spend every last penny of my savings having a bad time! Just kidding, I always have a good time, but I also always spend too much money. I'm saving up to own something.

Wish me luck. I'll need it.

Oh, by the way, I don't think I'm completely screwed in the job department. Not yet, anyway.

ARGHH!

Okay, remember that freak-out on the horizon? Well, it happened today. I tried my best. Honestly. I didn't really freak out, but I did speak out, (hey, that rhymes, that could be the vocals in some retarded song: "Don't freak out, speak out", uh never mind). Yeah, so I'm still employed...I may not have fucked everything up too badly...but I feel pretty devastated about everything.

Also, apparently I talk on the phone too much. Well that's a shocker. I already admitted that I'm a compulsive at work personal phone call maker. It's seriously part of my identity. Thankfully, I forgot my cell at home today so there weren't any concrete examples to work with. Thank God for small favours. Meanwhile, everything else is going insanely wrong for me. However, in my defense, the only people I talk with on the phone while I am at work are other people that are also at work. Duh. I'm not the only one! The only reason I bring this up is because it was brought to my attention that it's just "common sense" to know that personal phone calls at work are only to be made in emergencies. What-ever. No one told me not to make personal phone calls.

Good Lord, fine, I'll stop talking on the phone! As if it makes a difference to anyone anywhere seeing as I have basically no work to do, but I'll admit that it's bad form.

Cheerio, hopefully I don't lose my mind before this mess is cleared up! I have almost got one foot in job-hunting heaven!!

Mishmash.

Be warned: this is a hungover mishmash of weird complaints.

Also, I wrote it this morning but blogger wouldn't let me publish/save it. So I saved it to Word. I'm actually so pissed right now that I'm ready to write a whole new entry for today, but I was in a good mood this morning.

For the most part, I really don't understand other people and that aspect of our earthly lives has been a bit of a mystery to me since I became sentient, around the age of three. (I know that lots of people have these kinds of thoughts, but can't you shut up for just one second?) However, this doesn't stop me from trying, because I do care about my brothers and sisters and I'd like to get up or down or over to their level so as to be more helpful. Anyway, because I don't quite move along according to the same pattern as perhaps the norm, I have to do everything manually. And I do, for the most part, because I'm trying so hard to fit in here.

Like, I'm not living on the streets, am I? I don't run around screaming like a crazy person all the time, do I?

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. But nevertheless.

It's like in the old days, when things weren't automatic. Likewise, I am not automatic. I also don't believe I am truly from this time, and I think that in terms of my potential for usefulness, I may have been better off in a society that makes all the important decisions for people, and doesn't let them choose things like their career path or husband. Who can handle those kinds of decisions (and their consequences) without completely losing it? And shut up, people lose it over that stuff all the time. Maybe not in an outward manner that's visible to everyone like an AIDS junkie strung out and muttering at you on Hastings Street, and maybe some people that lose it do get it back, but still. It doesn't take much to wreck a person's life, or at least to alter it permanently in a negative sort of way.

With the tiny bit of wisdom most of us acquire over a lifetime, we are able to make statements like "I don't regret anything that's happened to me" and feel like we mean it, at that moment, but I think that we're usually still talking bullshit. I try to believe the same thing, very much so, but it would take at least a remarkably stoical capacity for making connections between events and probably plenty more to back this up, and it's really not very profound. Do you honestly mean that it would not have been a lot better if that crap, whatever it was, did not happen? Why? Please. That was our best attempt at wisdom? It's a weak beginning. I'm not saying there isn't an answer, but this kind of stuff takes work. We need to stop acting so damn proud of ourselves over figuring out next to nothing. Real profundities don't just fly in off the wind. It's like praising a baby for learning how to walk. That is precisely what is supposed to happen given tools like legs, food, parents...Nothing against praising babies, though, of course. They need that kind of encouragement to grow properly, and yes, parents should take pride in every accomplishment their kids make, large or small. But does it really make sense to go out for coffee with your mommy friends and say, in all seriousness, "My baby can walk. Can you honestly believe it? It's a miracle." For hours. )Oh yeah, I also can't stand mawkishness, especially when it comes to having children.) Well it's the same thing with self-righteously patting each other on the back for unraveling the simplest of life's quasi-mysteries. I've decided I'm not going to do it anymore.

(That being said, I have a HUGE problem with the fact that wisdom isn't valued as a virtue in our society. When the fuck did that happen? Especially in godawful Vancouver - I've got to flee this particular corner of the world. We can't even say we're good prairie people. What are we? Who are we? No one is even from here. We have no identity, no history, no personality - really sad deal we've got going on. For instance, the other day I heard someone refer to a 25 year old apartment building as "really old". It's all Metrotown's fault. Go stand outside the T.G.I. Friday's in Metropolis on a Saturday. Do it. Nightmare. It could send a suicidal person over the brink, so if you're that person, don't do it. But otherwise, do it.)

Of course I know about human rights and individual freedom, and if someone or some group set me on a fixed path at this very second like in The Handmaid's Tale, of course I'd freak the fuck out, but does any of it really matter? Really. Are we really moving forward, or even backward? If someone asked me what I thought of the modern age, the first thing that comes to mind is "it's what one might expect given our numbers". Even Vancouver, a city I have grown to loathe, and it's not even very big. I understand it is what I mean. It wasn't always like this. Communities used to rise up organically (or so I choose to believe) without being "master planned".

Yes, we used to live off the land and all was dandy, but that was before we got to be so many people. Even thousands of years ago, we exhausted entire cities. Look at Easter Island...although I choose to believe that has something to do with aliens, so scratch that. We had all of the same characteristics. We are actually destroying the planet now, but it's only because we can. If we could have, we would have done it long ago. I think that people that make statements about morality or whatever having gone out the window or reminiscing about the past like the world was some kind of Shangri-La way back when are idiots. (I do this.) We were anatomically modern one hundred thousand years ago. We were the exact same as we are now. This particular society may be dead dull, certainly, and we are alarmingly and ever increasingly dependent on computers, AND we have no idea where our food comes from, but at least we don't put two humans in a ring and tell them to either kill or get killed in front of thousands of people. (Literally, I mean - figuratively, well, who knows?) Nevertheless. I'm just talking about a little thing called progress. We're still the same people.

Of all the dead people I could quote right now, and quote badly, I might add, I'm going to pull out something that Kurt Cobain said in a MM interview he gave during a period of what I can only assume was relative calm. He said something like this: with all the ensuing problems that occur as a result of corruption and ineptitude he sees even at low levels, some of them being of a huge magnitude, he is amazed that the world can continue to function. Well, you know what? I feel the same way.

But it's all about the numbers. The concentration of numbers, really. I read in a travel book once that despite our population being what it is and the fact that we've marched over every square foot of land available, the world is mostly deserted. And it's true! Think of Russia. Africa. Australia. Canada! (Don't think of central Europe or the U.S., though. For once in your life, just try not to think of these places.) Thank God for uninhabitable land. And thank God for our oceans because if worse comes to worst, I'm hooking up with a frigging raft and hoping for the best. Anyway, "the world is mostly deserted" has become a personal mantra for me, because urban settings and the dreaded "urban sprawl" (remember The Sprawl trilogy? Don't even get me started on what's winning awards these days, and don't ever get me started on The Sprawl trilogy or you'll wish you were never born) saddens and frightens me.

Well, I have to go to work now. By the way, the sun is shining, I'm cute as a button, and I'm cheerfully eating focaccia bread and brie cheese with Perrier water right now. Honest, I'm happy as a lark. I just had to get a few things off my chest.

work: it sucks!

OMG: my feelings keep getting tortured every single day from 12-6 except Fridays. It's amazing I am still going through with this job thingy. Here are my coping mechanisms in a nutshell - just a warning, it's not funny but all of this is true:

1. Pen detailed accounts of rude encounters in my journal whilst locked in the bathroom. I'll get these people back one day. (By the way, that also goes for you, regarding whatever you did to me five years ago, or this summer, or whenever. Friends, it's all stored in my files, and I'll pull that shit out when the time comes. Believe it.)

2. Write things like "i can't handle this" and "fuck you, fuckface!" on yellow post-its and then shove the notes in my right boot. Left-over habit from my days at another job. I pull out the notes when I take my boots off, read them, and bask in a strange satisfaction.

3. Leave traces of my mess in all areas, particularly crumbs.

4. Make mocking faces through the wall where no one can see me.

5. Fantasize about the moment I just freak out and just lose it. Practice what I'll say, out loud, but whispered, in the car on my way home. One thing that I'm actually quite good at is delivering a brutal tongue-lashing. (I've had lots of practice.) It's not a skill I'm particularly proud of; in fact, I'm trying to give it up. Also, in the past I haven't hesitated to get into a massive email brawl. I used to chat brawl and message board brawl like crazy when I was in my teens. How do people think I got so good at arguing? I've given that up, too, though.

6. Call people compulsively all day long, a lifelong habit richly cultivated during my many days shirking my work at the beloved OSF.

That's all for now as I just remembered something funny. I was on the Skytrain this morning, and I witnessed an unfortunate looking woman in her early thirties, deeply engrossed in a V.C. Andrews novel. Oh yes. I hate to say that she was obviously slow, but she was obviously slow, as she was (very softly, but audibly) mouthing the words out loud as went along. All of this is humorous enough if you ask me, but somehow, it gets better: when she got to the good parts, (I can only assume), her eyes would go wide and a couple of times she gasped and giggled, only to continue with enhanced zeal. I couldn't fucking believe it. I watched her off and on for upwards of fifteen minutes: this woman did not give a rat's ass who saw her. Nothing and no one could have come between her and this V.C. Andrews novel. If only my cell phone was capable, I might have made a short video out of part of this and thrown it on to the old blog. I mean, how often do opportunities like this arise? Also, I guarantee she would never have noticed.

Another funny thing is how I am broker than penniless yet I managed to shell out an astounding $180.00 last night, out on the town, a town I hate, when I all I really wanted to do was stay in bed and read a book by Greg Bear. I am so serious it hurts. How does one spend one hundred and eighty dollars in a single evening? It was almost effortless.

I must have been rich in another life.

One last crumb: a young lad of 19 or so works with me on occasion, and once we were discussing the pitfalls of life "in the office". (How he is eligible to lament such a predicament is beyond me. I myself only became qualified very recently.) He brought up the movie Office Space, as people do, and I couldn't help but attempt a quip from an early scene, as it is one of my favourite movie quotes of all time. (In fact, I've already used it in this blog.) I'm not the best with this sort of thing, but no matter: he knew exactly what I was talking about and was able to deadpan Peter Gibbons' line for me perfectly (along with several others, I might add). Nerd!

Anyhow, in light of the avenue I've taken a regretful turn down, here it is once again:

"So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life."

"What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?"

"Yeah."

Dr. Swanson goes on to say "Wow, that's messed up", but that response doesn't really thrill me.

Damn. I should make that the ring on my cell phone.

Secrets. Feelings. Secret Feelings.

A couple of weeks ago, something terrible happened:

I couldn't find my journal.

My journal isn't like this crap. It's where I write all my secrets. Not secrets, like, about guys, or which friends I hate (all of them); rather, all the weird things that happen to me and all the intuition I gather when I go into a trance state - also, religious passages...stuff like that. So, understandably, I would say, I don't want anyone getting their filthy paws on it. They wouldn't understand. Also, I had a lot of things happen that I needed to record and now they're lost on the wind. I tried writing a few things down elsewhere but it didn't feel right.

Anyway, I found it! It was underneath the guest bed for some mind-boggling reason. I was just reading this morning when suddenly this sentence formed crystal clear in my mind:

It's underneath the guest bed.

To be honest, I wasn't that worried. I knew it had to be in this house because I remember that the last time I wrote in it was here, and then it went missing (like my car keys). However, I couldn't find it anywhere and I honestly looked. My own bed has 80 trillion objects under it and though I've sort of rifled around down there reluctantly a few times, I suppose the possibility of it being there still existed in my mind. I even looked for it again first thing this morning and I found an overdue library book.

What else?

My job is going all right. I just can't handle it when other employees, co-workers (colleagues, if you will) get all bitchy. It's like, "WTF bitch". Is that necessary? No. Never. Like I've mentioned in the past, I am hyper sensitive and could possibly burst into tears if someone looks at me funny. Anyway, someone was so rude to me the other day that I locked myself in the bathroom and fantasized about quitting and getting a job at a think tank or something. I know that when someone else is mean you're supposed to remind yourself that they are only hurting themselves and that their words can't hurt you because you're a good girl, but it's really hard. I'm not saying that I never act mean towards people because I do. However, I only act mean towards my loved ones, and I always make up for it. This may be the wrong attitude, but I think that's sometimes okay because you have to teach them a lesson, and they're being fucking stupid.

Anyway, people tend to tolerate rudeness, shortness, lack of courteousness and even plain old nastiness in the workplace (and elsewhere), but I have always had a hard time with it. Rudeness is all right by me when there is good reason. Under certain circumstances, I expect people to be rude and it's fine. But when there's no reason? How am I supposed to fix things? That's why I quit my last two jobs when it comes right down to it. I wasn't being treated properly. I quit for other reasons as well, but I would have stayed otherwise, most likely. My mom told me that you have to tough these things out so I guess I'll try my best.

STOP HURTING MY FEELINGS!!

Unless you're my friend, then go right ahead. Because I'll get you.

Pretty Much Anyone Could Do My Job.

Once upon a time, I hoped to have a job that actually required some skillz.

Now I take comfort in the fact that I can, oh, I don't know, drive, because not everyone can do that. At least little kids can't do it. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about my current job. It sounds kind of good...but it's nowhere near as difficult as waitressing. To be honest, I can say the same about every job I've done since. Gosh. Anyway, what can you do? I've resigned from caring. Whatever.

Yes I have an education. So what. I majored in philosophy. Check it out, I can even quote Aristotle. Here's a good one:





Take it from this guy, jobs are stupid.

I got an award for some shit.

Guess what? I got an award! And I quote:



ADRIANA,

B.C. Loan Reduction Program and
Canada Millenium Bursary Program

We are pleased to advise you that based on your application for student financial assistance in the 2004/2005 academic year, you are eligible for the B.C. Loan Reduction program. Effective September 13, 2005, your outstanding B.C. Student Load will be reduced by $2,504. For further information, including contact telephone numbers, please see www.bcsap.bc.ca.

It goes on to say other stuff, none of which I'm even remotely interested in, except for the part where they refer to this reduction as an award. So, if you actually read that blurb, you might have thought to yourself "It's 2006, Adri made a typo" (which never fucking happens, I'll have you know - well, it happens once in a while, say if I'm drunk, but my sister catches it right away because she's a perfectionist genius).

Yeah, well, no. That letter was dated September 12, 2005. It's just that I rarely open my mail because they're always sending me bills and I don't pay bills. Anyway, I found this letter sitting on top of this mountain of junk I treasure and I noticed it was from the Ministry of Advanced Education. I pay my loan bills regularly, unbelievably, (actually, they take it right out of my bank account so I don't have a choice), so I'm not scared of them anymore. I had no idea when I got the letter, as I have decades worth of unopened mail littering my habitat, so I decided to open it just for something to do.

Well, lo and behold! An award!

Anyway, this has inspired me to make a commitment towards paying off my credit cards so AT THE VERY LEAST I can use them. For instance, I want to buy an astrological bangle, and I think I need a credit card to purchase it online. God my life is stressful.

No cash for train fare, but at least I'm employed.

Yes, I have to steal money from the change jar just to ride the train, but at least my destination is work! You've got to give me credit for something. One day I'll get a paycheque. I just realized the sad truth, which is that I have to Greyhound it to Calgary for a THREE DAY trip (man that's sad) next month, but whatevs. Here's a list of things I need to spend money on once I get some:

1. Roots (the OTHER gift that keeps on giving).

2. A pair of black dress pants (I'm wearing "dress pants" from waitressing back in 2004 that are still dirty and ripped at the bottom from kitchen floors. No joke!).

3. A black dress skirt.

4. Patchouli (I know I said it smells bad but the truth is: I love it. I dabbed someone's patchouli on this grungy green shirt I own a few weeks ago and now I smell it compulsively because I love it so much. I'm terrified the smell will go away before I can get my own patchouli though I know it won't because the smell has the longevity of a cockroach. Thank God. True blue hippy. I mean, I'm still wearing those filthy pants, I'm a total pacifist, moon days thrill me to the core, I just don't have the same standards of cleanliness as everyone anyone else and I crave the smell of dirt. What more can I say?)

5. Credit card payments due since Christ strolled through the synagogues of Galilee.

6. Bus pass.

7. Greyhound ticket.

8. High heels. (Where do you get those?)

9. Pay my library dues so I can take shit out again.

10.Cigarettes. God love them.

I read through my last entry and I had a bit of a chuckle. Why? Because I'm completely fuc Because I made a point of informing the world that I'm "highly unprofessional on the phone" - the thing is that I think I have an awesome phone voice. It's really something out of this world, something that I can be proud of. I'm the type of person that's actually smiling sincerely while I kiss your ass. I've never had a situation I couldn't handle on the phone, even with impossible-to-deal-with crazy assholes. I should be one of those crisis-line operators. Anyway, during my three month review at my old job, the one complaint my boss had was that I can be unprofessional on the phone. I didn't get mad or anything, and the truth is that I do *know* what he meant, (ie, I'm not a robot, sometimes instead of acting completely fake I dare to be myself and be a bit playful) but you know, like, fuck that shit. This is why I have so much trouble giving a shit about anything.

So yeah, high five, I'm employed. That's me in the pink hairband.

Summer's Gone

Question: is it lame to tell people stories you've already written about in your blog, verbatim, if you know they don't read it? Are you somehow ripping yourself off? For the record, I wouldn't do it unless it was a big one (like if I was gonna get married, and my fiancee stood my up at the altar, I would dare to write about it in my blog AND tell people)--however, since I don't have any big stories so far it hasn't happened yet. As for the people that do read this blog, (most of whom I've never met in my life), well, all I tell them is shit they've already read about. Especially the people I've never met.

Oh, never mind. I'm just talking about keeping it real, people. Like stand-up comics: they wouldn't DREAM of telling the same joke twice.

Moving right along, since summer is over (not that I didn't sit around doing nothing for much of the season, and technically summer is not over, but I'm a contextualist, not a literalist. Just kidding, as anyone can tell you, I'm a literalist, not that any of this is relevant) I should get back to writing more regularly. For the record-keepers, I am currently an aspiring contextualist. It's a risk throwing technical terms around like this willy-nilly, but I'm ready to take it. Because I'm a literalist. For instance, I am going to entitle this entry Summer's Gone, but I can't help but remind you that summer is not officially gone. At least as of September 6th, 2006. Get it?

I do have a job now, I think. I'm on this trial run sort of deal this week in order for them to make sure I'm not a complete fool--there's no guarantee this is going to happen--and then hopefully someone will tell me what happens next. The thing about this job is that I shouldn't really talk about it lest I get tempted to speak the truth and reveal the fact that I'm morally opposed to the career path on which I am about to embark. Shit. Fuck. Anyway, the world MADE ME DO IT. Call me crazy, but I'd like to earn a living somehow, and since I don't write anything ever, I had to pick something. This wasn't as easy as one might think. I wouldn't say I'm without talents, but most of my talents are of the kind that don't exactly make one rich. Actually, they can, but it's rare - you're either rich or flat broke, usually the latter.

I'm talking about being an artist, my friends.

I pretty much suck at everything else:

1. I'm terrible in the office: anyone offhandedly asks me to do something secretarial like order from Staples or deliver the mail and I go apeshit inside. Most people think they're better than that, but I would sooner write the asshole a treatise on WHY I'm better than actually commit to the task. (Just kidding, I'll do it.)

2. I can't stick with a company long enough to move up the ranks because I advertently tell someone important to go fuck themselves (literally, and usually at the three, six, nine or twelve month mark, give or take a few days, weeks, months and sometimes years).

3. I refuse to wear shoes at work, which has caused problems, especially in restaurants.

4. I'm highly unprofessional on the phone because I just don't give a shit. For me, giving the tiniest shit perceptible to the human eye about the company for any purpose is akin to running a marathon. It takes months of preparation, enormous motivation, and the task itself is still a lot of work. Work I'm not willing to do.

5. Ummm...I'm guaranteed to be the most disorganized, messiest, dirtiest person in any work establishment, another thing working against me at the office. People reguarly call me a slob. Look up the definition of ecosystem: that's pretty much what I singlehandedly create within the area surrounding my desk by way of drink and foodstuff. God knows what else.

6. I'm addicted to the Internet, which prevents me from doing any real work. I blame lack of progress on idiotic policies that have nothing to do with me.

7. Asking me to be ready on time is like asking the sun to pick up its feet and skidaddle so that it's afternoon and people can start drinking already. As we all know, life doesn't work that way. So, just as the bars in Ireland flip the whole world a gigantic sauce guzzling bird and open their doors at 9:00 AM (or some similarly gasp-worthy time), I stroll into work whenever I fucking feel like it.

8. What, is someone going to give me a certificate of excellent attendance if I show up every goddamn day of my worthless life? Yes I fucking call in sick, and no, of course I'm never sick. Who the hell is actually sick? It's the least your degenerate company can do for you.

9. Me and a deadline, working together as a single unit. Wow. Don't even get me started.

10. Nothing terrifies me more than the 9 to 5. Millions of people around the world clogging up our freeways, streets and public transit, for a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon, all to fulfill some sick fetish for routine that I don't happen to share. What a way to live. So WHAT if everyone else gets their weekends and evenings off. To do what? Watch evening TV? Go grocery shopping? Stupid shit. I'd rather be a shiftworker at Pud's Dubble Bubble Gum Factory. At least I'd be able to go to the passport office and the bank. (And yes, I know that some branches are open Saturdays. Well thanks a fucking lot, but the last thing I want to do on a Saturday is wait in line at the bank.) I understand wanting to spend time with your kids if you've got them, but don't tell me there aren't a hell of a lot of childless routine fetishists. There are. Besides, men don't care that much about spending time with the kids and they still run this insanity world, don't they? Get offended, get over it.)

I'm going to open up a whole new can of worms: so I don't get off on routine, I'm a second class citizen? I like to mix it up a bit, I'm a degenerate bum with no direction in life? I don't know what kind of discrimination this is, but when I find out, I'll let you know.

Anyway, I do have but ONE talent despite all my ineptitudes that is in no way artistic. It might not seem like it because all I do is bitch, but I'm quite the talker. Like...as in, talking people into things. Persuasive. Friendly. Sales. Yeeah. That's why I'm going into sales. For at least a couple of years. Bad experiences make great anecdotes. The end.

Here we are in the back of a van in Osoyoos this weekend. Don't be fooled by that water bottle I'm holding: