Monthly Archives: May 2013

30

May. ’13

Diet Tips for Drunkards

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I like to play this game: Would you rather have lunch with Rob Ford or Justin Bieber? Obviously, Mayor Rob Ford…right? I don’t hate him as much as you people, my fellow Torontonians, as his shenanigans have increased traffic flow to my little blog with google search terms like:  Ass-grabbing, fat mayor of Toronto who ate the gravy train while smoking crack and eating KFC.  My fertile imagination could never fathom creating a character so amazing.  I would actually love to hang out with Rob AND his bro for an afternoon of drinking beers, eating wings, and shooting the shit. Good times. So much fun would they be, unlike the Biebs who would probably pout and slouch in his leather diaper pantaloons, scratching the scabs off his stupid tattoos and never looking at you in the eye whilst he complains about his greasy chicken fingers. He is 10 gallons of menstrual berry douche water poured into a 12 ounce can of Red Bull. I have an irrational hatred of him that far exceeds your somewhat rational disdain of our corpulent mayor.

So judgey wudgey are people. So what, a little a crack. Obviously he’s not doing so much of it that is it detrimental to his physique. Seriously, people, do you really care that Rob Ford’s brother, Doug, was a hash dealer in high school? WHERE DO YOU THINK THE HASH YOU HOT-KNIFED IN GRADE 10 CAME FROM? Your mom? No, it was distributed from the drug lords in South America to the good citizens of your hometown, the people who ran small businesses like car washes, chicken shacks, and nail salons (watch some Breaking Bad, people) and then funnelled to enterprising youth like Doug Ford who sold it to ALL of you so you could get high in a kitchen party on Saturday night. And guess what? He didn’t have to get up at 5 a.m. to deliver the Globe and Mail like you did to make thirty bucks a week. THAT is what I call smart hockey.

I saw this picture on Reddit last week of Rob Ford and his jubilant politico cronies that made my heart cry with Jesus-like compassion and yes, even love. Look at those bitches clapping and laughing like the prom scene in Carrie and then to left there is Rob, all alone, sullen and out of place…I just want to take him under my soft, downy wing and wipe the stress sweat from his forehead and introduce him to Smashbox Photofinish green primer from Sephora and take him to my favourite restorative yoga class where the smell of lavender essential oil candles cuts out the wafting fetor of SBDs. And THEN we can go out for a bucket of chicken because fuck yeah, KFC is awesome:

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I want to squeeze all the so-called evil out of him!  I do so much love a fat man. AND I don’t care what y’all with your righteous lawn signs say about bike lanes and no casinos, I think he had a valid point on both of those issues. Casinos bring in both revenue AND Tony Orlando! Also your visiting relatives from Minnesota will have something to do like play slot machines while you go biking on the Martin Goodman trail to Cherry Beach to get a quick blowie in the high grass. Which brings me to the point that bicycles are all very well and good for subversive traffic but if you are going to share the road with cars and trucks, you better follow the rules of the game, Pinko.

Here’s a quick rant before moving on to diet tips: As much as we want our city to be green and bicycle-friendly, it is not designed that way. The weather is shite most of the year and guess what, granola bar? There are cars and trucks that need to go places. Also as part of our transit system, on some of our busiest roads we have big lurching, slow-moving manatees, otherwise known as streetcars, that clog the arteries of traffic. Why does this antiquated system still even exist? This is not Tennesse Williams” New Orleans, this city is bigger than Chicago.  They are awkward and mismanaged. When they are stopped you can’t pass them, when one breaks down, they all go out of service, lined up and hogging an entire lane of roadway. As a driver of a car, you have to be stealth like a ninja to get anywhere downtown. But noooo…they want more bike lanes to add to the combobulation of traffic because cars bad, bikes good.

I used to be a courier and rode a bike for a living. Never once in those days did I think I was equal to a car. One false move and I could be hurt or killed and so I rode DEFENSIVELY, with the understanding that drivers in vehicles have blind spots and other important things to focus on than my dumb, pimply rashed, lycra-clad ass. The other day, while I was driving in back of a streetcar on Queen Street East, just west of Broadview during rush hour, the fat fucking manatee streetcar hissed and farted and if you’ve ever seen Toronto streetcars, you know this is the special sound of a streetcar driver stopping the car and running into a Tim Hortons for a slash and then picking up a coffee which is by all means their right and no one should begrudge anyone of a donut, but it also means you can pass the car and go on your merry way. So I went into the right lane AT THE PACE OF YOUR GRANDMA IN HER WALKER, and slithered by the streetcar and then stopped at a crosswalk where people were crossing, I am not a dick, I did not run them over. I hear a knocking on my car and a cyclist rides up to my left and yells into my open window; “You cut me off!”

“I’m sorry I didn’t see you,” I said, which was true as I was watching out for pedestrians in front of me.

“You cut me off when you changed lanes, you should check for cyclists!” The cyclist is one of those ubiquitous sinewy middle-aged men who buys trail mix at the Carrot Common, you know the type.  He  participates in triathalons even though he has sloping lady shoulders and is probably a shite swimmer. He is laughably dressed head-to-toe Tour de France ensemble while his ugly navy blue suit waits for him in his office at his boring finance job. The only joy he and his shriveled testicles get is biking to work, obviously. Here’s a pro-tip, Captain Gear Geek, when you are out riding with the big boy cars, how about slowing down with the traffic when it is coming a halt and ANTICIPATE what the car in front of you is going to do which is obviously to pass a stopped streetcar. This whiny little asshole enraged me to the point where I wished I had knocked him over crushed his $5000 bike with my dainty Scion tire, but he sped off, weaving through traffic and over the bridge before I could even form the letter “F.” Entitled white man privilege motherfucker.

End of rant.

Last week from my Facebook newsfeed, I worried less (as in not one fucking iota) about crack-smoking Rob Ford than I did about GMOs and Montsanto and the Frankenfood causing diseases with all the pesticides, etc.  I read all the stuff people were posting and really began to get freaked out. Wheat is one of the scariest deviations of genetically engineered food out there. I am not an alarmist type but this really bothers me. So I decided to cut out wheat for a few days last week to see how I would survive. Also what the hell, I will give up other things like fructose corn syrup. And Oreos. And cut back on cheese. And who am I kidding? I’m ON A DIET because I have a much-anticipated wedding to go to in 8 weeks and I need to fit into something in my closet and I want to look hot on Instagram in the context of an old lady cougar. I’m going to be wearing my disco shoes.

I hate when people talk about their weight and diets, it’s so boring. Hearing people go on about how many weight watchers points in a burrito, gluten allergies, master cleanses, etc, makes me want to force feed them globs of lard after I have duct taped them on top of a medical scale. When I was a teenager, I had cultivated an eating disorder that lasted a few years until it got tedious and unrewarding and I realized no one else really cares what you weigh, in fact they like you better fat and happy. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR DAILY CALORIE COUNT SO SHUT UP.

Because of my teen anorexia, a few rounds of disco diets in my twenties, and following the Zone a couple of times post-babies, I am awesome at dieting. It’s not rocket science and I read up on all the current new “facts” and it’s just hilarious. You are no longer just a plain old fatty anymore, instead your diet is causing “inflammation.” LOL! I just figure if you give up a bunch of shit that you were normally eating, then you will lose weight but no, they have to constantly put out new spins so you keep buying the latest books.

“You know giving up alcohol is key,” said Jesus (not that Jesus, my Jesus, Jesus of the Junction) when I told him I am relinquishing wheat for the sake of humanity and not having to wear Spanx in July. Jesus trains with a kick boxer and watches his carb intake like a little girl.

“Fuck that, Jesus, I give up alcohol for a month every January and sometimes in August and I can tell you, I will lose a quick couple gallons of water bloat but I will make up for my misery in ice cream. I need to focus on a cause and make myself believe I am doing something for the greater good like creating a better environment for our children and their children’s children,” I explained, trying to be earnest about my one woman wheat boycott, “Not drinking is dreadfully boring and inevitably leads to binge drinking and then a melancholia that can only be described by the Smiths in the song ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.”‘

“Alright then, you have a point,” Jesus conceded and then went on to talk about himself and some 24 year-old girl he’s been banging who he met at the gym, apparently she is on some Paleo fuckery diet and went from a size 10 to a 4 eating like a cavewoman, woohoo! He is such a perv to be dating someone 20 years younger but I listen to what he has to say and pay enough attention to realize that dried up berries probably fermented into alcohol that our hairy relatives enjoyed and therefore this diet will work for me.

Here are some pro-tips on how to lose weight and keep on drinking like that crazy mofo Rob Ford, he should go on it with me.  I HAVE MY VICES AND I AM GOING TO WORK AROUND THEM SO HERE WE GO:

1. Your liver is not a mulit-tasker, it’s a man, it only processes one thing at a time. In order to avoid metobolic mix up, don’t eat when you drink. Plus you will get drunker faster. Win win.

2. A Caesar (or Bloody Mary if you are an ignorant, deprived American) makes a nice light lunch.

3. Don’t drink fancy cocktails made out of sugary mixes like margaritas and Bellinis, otherwise you will drink your way into Type 2 diabetes and that will be the end of that.

4. Instead, mix vodka with club soda and lime.

5. Drink a bunch of water every time you have a cocktail.  Hahahaha, you will totally forget to do that so leave a bottle of water by your bed and try to remember to drink it before you pass out.

6. Beer also makes a nice light lunch but don’t drink that shite  cloudy wheat beer because GMOs….and it’s crap.

7. Remember that drinking lessens your inhibitions and makes you break open the Goldfish GMO crackers when you pass by the pantry. Do not do this! Eat a carrot! Pro tip: If you encase a walnut in a Medjool date, it tastes just like a brownie…sort of. Close enough.

8. If you have a hangover because you drank too much and you must have a greasy breakfast because you are dying, then skip the GMO toast with the eggs and bacon and eat maybe half the home fries, this way you will avoid most of the “inflammation” that white carbs cause. By the way, inflammation is just a fancy term for bloat but makes you feel less ashamed. “I am inflamed because of all the GMOs,” you can legitimately say in order to avoid the cycle of self-loathing and feel like a victim of environmental toxicity instead of merely a pig.

Maybe that is Rob Ford’s problem:  He is simply inflamed with GMOs. When you think of him that way, he is much less of a monster. All of us are inflamed, just some of us are more so. To paraphrase Morrissey: Some pigs are bigger than others.

Put that in your crack pipe and smoke it.

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23

May. ’13

The Plight of the Remainder Man

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So yeah, my birthday came and went and I didn’t dry up as expected. On the eve of the big day, the gods delivered an exploding magnum of sweet menses nectar that I welcomed with a fist pump: “Yesssss!!! Still full of fossil fuel!” Only to be shot down by my friend, Ask Yahoo: “Your period is like a geyser? That’s a sign of menopause, ho!”  Whatevs.

As you may know, if you are on my tail of tales, I turned 50 on May 11.  I was all freaked and couldn’t even say the number, it came out like “fuh” then graduated to “Fuhfff-tuh” but now I am saying it every where I go like I have Tourettes.  On my actual birthday I began to own the whole ragged mess.

“I’m 50!” I blurted out to no one in particular as I sat in the ladies’ washroom stall at The Only Cafe.

“Fuck yeah,” the feet waiting outside in front of me said, “My mother is 50. She looks fab and she can still ride a bike.”

“That’s awesome! And I can still wipe my own bum!” I said, walking out of the stall.  It turned out that the feet in front of me was one of my daughter’s friends, age 19, who was at the bar to see her play a solo show.

“Oh my God,” she gasped (not really, but it’s my blog) and she really, honestly, truly did say: “You don’t look 50, I thought you were about 35.” What a dear, sweet, stupid girl. I thanked her and gave her a hug, smothering her with my expired mom tits and went back to the bar. It was a good birthday, once I started pronouncing “fifty” properly, my friends and family spoiled me rotten, buying me lunch, dinner, beers, a golden skull, good old money, and my beloved Elizabeth Arden’s PREVAGE, holy cow. But I don’t like to milk a birthday. There’s nothing worse than a grown-ass adult who makes a big production of their birthday like they are the second coming of a newfangled Narcissist Jesus. Hear’s the rule, people: Over the age of 10, NO MORE LASER QUEST FOR YOU!

Anyway, this is just a segue to what I really want to hash out, analyze, make pro con list, confer, deliberate, and bore you to the point where you yell at me: JUST MARRY HIM ALREADY, like I have a choice. As I have blathered on about before, I have a “Remainder Man.”  He is that platonic-ish male friend I have mentioned who parks his trailer in my driveway and buys me beer and wings AND who I have known for many, many, many years, who I may or may not be actually in love with, but let’s discuss. Thankfully he doesn’t read this blog so we can yap about him freely, but I’m going to refer to him as R-Man to protect his identity just in case because he has a wide circle.  This is going to be messy and disjointed so I’m just going to do this in list form and you just follow along or close your eyes and think of England or check out Perez or whatever:

1. R-Man did not call me on my birthday, which is fine, he is a man and birthdays are filed in their brains right behind bullshit and boring chore lists. But he did call me the next day which was Mother’s Day which was by far and away a more thoughtful and sweeter gesture, no? He took me out that afternoon as a Hangover Helper and we drank copious sums of cleansing ale.  He told me about how he was at another dude’s 40th birthday party (I know, right? It’s the men that need all the birthday cuddles). At the party, R-Man was talking it up to all the ladies as that is the R-Man’s modus operandi, he flirts like a fucker on fire, and his girlfriend ended up punching him in the mouth. Of course, that is what a crazy jealous bitch will do and I completely get it, been there and used my acrylic finger nails to swat at some dude’s face once, but you cannot change the stripes of a tiger. Just saying. Also she really needs to go. I hate her with a venomous passion.

2. R-Man’s tiger stripes amuse me. Over the years I have learned his checking out other women is like his Tourettes and sometimes he will mutter “vagina” in public when there is a lull in the conversation. This makes me laugh and laugh because I am actually a 12 year-old boy trapped inside a 50 year-old lady meat costume. But maybe this means we are just like bros and we should go huntin’ and fishin’ and pee standing up together.

3. Whenever R-Man walks into a room, I feel so happy that if I had a tail, it would wag vigorously. Now hold on, is this just platonic like dog love or is it romantic? My heart does NOT do that beat skipping thing which might be over-rated. Now that I am old and know better, is that fluttery feeling just a flight or fight reaction to some sociopath that you really need to stay away from? And if my tail wags, is my pussy far behind? I’m just asking, I don’t know.

4. R-Man is 5 years younger than me but that will even out in old age because he has more afflictions than I do. In reality, if I marry him (shut up!!! just thinking out loud), I will most probably still enjoy a few golden years as a widow, rockin’ the seniors’ home with my bubble gum pink hair and neon green stretch pants, drinking kir royale in the lounge. I’m excited for that.

5. Back to R-Man’s girlfriend just because I think it’s bothering you that he has one and that I am big ho for stealing him away WHICH I HAVEN’T DONE YET. First of all, this is not a Brangelina scandal waiting to happen. No one can “steal” anyone who doesn’t want to quit a bitch. Don’t kid yourself, 99.99% of all couples you see walking around in Canadian Tire purchasing garden hoses are fantasizing about using that thing to somehow escape through the water tank and then run like the wind into the sewer. R-Man and his girlfriend live in separate places, and they break up like it is a casual activity. What are they doing tonight? Oh, just staying in, maybe ordering a pizza, watching Homeland, then breaking up. Or maybe instead of pizza, get takeout from that new Indian place except that butter chicken gives him diarrhea.

6. Lots of things give R-Man diarrhea and while I wouldn’t say he is a picky eater, he is particular. For me, that is somewhat of an all around deal breaker, but we can work it out. He wouldn’t do anything as asinine as going on a “Master Cleanse” but he does obsess about his weight. I swear, I have never had a conversation with him where he doesn’t tell me at some point what he weighs and what he weighed before the current weight. It’s really annoying, I don’t want he wants from me because it’s usually just within a range of four pounds and we have just eaten a pound of wings and washed it down with 3 pints, oh my god, girlfriend, who cares? But everybody has things that exasperate the other person, right? Some things you just need to let go but I swear if he brought a scale into my house, I would smash it down from the roof, just watch.

7. R-Man is the most boisterous person you will ever meet. He will walk into to a bar and yell out HEYYYYYY, everybody in the beach knows him and they are all tickled to see him, he’s got the kind of name you want to shout out. Although I have a special nickname for him that I say in a baby voice, that’s kind of cute right?  He is a classic extrovert but with his moon in hermithood. He has some primitive cabin that he escapes to for his alone me-time which only makes good common sense because otherwise he would just be a buffoon all the time. I like a loud man, but even more I like a loud man who knows when it’s time to shut up. I have noticed that quiet dudes are the controlling, sneaky ones that you need to watch out for. There is never a dull conversation with R-Man but!!! BUT! He has a temper on him. And when you think that age might have mellowed him out, something sets him off, and it’s usually road rage, and then The Fury comes out. Road rage is one of my pet peeves. Why do people get all crazy Jekyll and Hyde when they drive? You wouldn’t yell and honk if you were walking in a mall and had to slow down for a lady with a stroller so why get so enraged when someone in front of them takes their time to make a left turn or merge or whatever. Even if some taxi driver pulls a douche move, just settle down, and guess what?  You’ll get from A to B without having to scream expletives. Calm the fuck down. I like it better when I drive. I guess that’s the solution, just don’t let him drive.

8. R-Man and I took a road trip a few years ago to Sudbury to pick Freddy up from camp.  It was the funnest day ever, there was no road rage at all, just a lot singing along to The Smiths (we love the Smiths!!!) at the top of our lungs and then many stops after drinking Red Bull and urinating in the woods together. We both like to go pee outside even if a proper toilet is available. The first time we bonded was on the same day we met in 1998, we played some random softball game (don’t even ask who what where or why because I have no idea) one afternoon and had some beers, then we both peed in the parking lot in back of my mom van, the Mercury Villager aka The Great White Whale. Maybe we have some kind of primal connection that occurs in the animal kingdom when bodily fluids are excreted and a little bit of oxytocin comes out in the pee-pee, and why wouldn’t it? It’s biology, yo!

This is all the rumination I can handle for now, obsessing about a dude only leads to despair. It’s probably best that he remains Remainder Man as dreams have a knack of just not coming true…sigh…and time is against me now.

In the meantime, let’s just dance, omg, these girls are so funny:

OLBwlDo

 

 

 

Posted by . Categories: lady boners. Tags: , , . 1 Comment

09

May. ’13

A Hooker’s Guide to Writing a Resume

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I think we can all agree that job hunting is the worst thing ever. I’ve been on an aggressive blitz this week for the past couple of weeks and I can tell you, I’d rather walk naked through an Abercrombie and Fitch CEO board meeting than write a resume and cover letter. Why is it that I can write a blog, tweet a tweet, and tell you all about my precise level of moistness for Idris Elba but I can’t even bullet point a single skill I obtained as a real estate ho? I don’t even know the proper job title is. I forget how to string words together. And I would rather give good old fashioned blow jobs under a desk than create a profile on LinkedIn. I just can’t with that site.

On Monday I had a phone interview where I paced back and forth on my back deck like a wild cat while I answered the questions. This is why I can’t have an office job, I can’t sit still on a chair. Even when I write these blogs that take up half a day, I’m moving from “half lotus” to “boat” and then to my own personally patented yoga position that I call “snake laying an egg-” don’t ask.

After stuttering and forgetting the word “customer,” I managed to get a second interview where I had to go to the actual place which is in Etobicoke, which means I have to QEW it, which is the highway where all the exits have like sounding names. “Islington” and “Kipling” look exactly the same, at least to me. I got off the wrong one, of course, got lost, then got very sweaty, and arrived ten minutes late. It didn’t matter, I had to wait 40 minutes for the interview because the woman wasn’t even there! And then when she arrived, I had to follow her to a remote office, even more sweaty, dry mouth, and out of breath because of 3 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS, I answered a bunch a questions clearly and concisely, with only an occasional nervous bit of too much information rambling. The interviewer woman, who was probably 35-ish, did NOT get my sense of humour so I was able to keep it dignified. HOWEVER, at the very end, she asked for two forms of ID which I was told to bring and I actually had because I am nothing if not always prepared.

“What do you need it for?” I asked, thinking it is a good sign.

“We need to run a police check,” she says.

Fuck. This has happened before when someone googled me, which of course is not a police check per se. A woman with the same name as me got arrested in Toronto three years ago for terrorism during the G20 shindig. It turned out her crazy husband was the one building bombs in their swanky Forest Hill home, unbeknownst to her, but she still went to jail and made headlines. People thought it was me even though her first name is spelled “Kristen” not “Kristin,” but you know how thorough folks are with details ಠ~ಠ….not. Oh well, hopefully the police don’t use google. And if I get this ridiculous job, it will be blog fodder galore, I promise, maybe it will even have its own anonymous Tumblr. A police check takes a couple of days and then a THIRD interview, she said. It’s jaw-dropping really, I’m not going to even tell you where it is because most of the people who work there look like they are from the island of lost misfits so if I don’t get it, I’m going to volunteer to be the next experimental monkey that gets launched up into space.

If I could really be me, and not the boring version, and could write a resume my own special way, it would go something like this:

1. Data Entry Clerk at Pratt & Whitney Canada. This is the summer job I had at my dad’s company during university for 3 years. I still remember my badge number, 27642, because I had to type in hundreds of times a day, along with payroll and shittons of mysterious engineering data that went into a giant box of a computer that was the size of an ensuite bathroom. This was the 80s, you could probably fit all that crap in an iPad now and all the women that worked in that department are probably dead from carpal tunnel-related cancer. There were twenty ladies in the department, a hummer of hens, all clucking their dentures while they clacked on the keyboard. And smoking all the while. Women can sure multi-task. Martha, Shannon the Crazy Bitch, and I were the summer students whose papas swung us these soul sucking jobs. Martha and I, forming an impenetrable love club, kept our spirits up by gossiping, and Shannon kept jealously accusing of being “lezzies” like we cared. Martha had the best stories because she had a bazillion boyfriends and she was a total sex goddess. She liked me because I made her laugh so hard that no sound would come out so we would stay out of trouble that way, her laughing silently and me squirming in my seat imagining what it was like to bang a Jamaican man on a dance floor.

We lived for the two weeks in July that was called “Plant Shutdown’ because it was then we had to work the four to midnight shift and not have to go in at 7:00 a.m. with our dads. One of us would get an Oldsmobile (ALL the Pratt & Whitney drove those!) and after our shift at midnight we would hit the local brasserie and drink until 3 a.m. Good times.

But the best EVER time was that Tuesday we got out extra-early at 6:30 in the evening because the big clunky computer spontaneously farted out an explosion, and she had the brilliant idea of taking the Oldsmobile over the bridge and into the CITY which was Montreal, FYI. Her Jamaican boyfriend, Winston, was taking a summer class at Concordia, and was shacking up in an apartment in NDG with his cousin, James. We could go over there, order Chinese, drink some beers, then head back home at midnight and her dad would never know she hijacked the car downtown.

Here’s how it went real time, play-by-play:

7 pm: We arrive at Winston’s apartment.  Winston is a BIG STRAPPING black boy on a football scholarship, hotter than hot, of course.  Martha gives him a big goopy kiss. James, his skinnier but also cute cousin, is also from Jamaica is speaking Patois to set the mood. It should be noted that it is July and they are not wearing shirts and they were sweat-ayyyyy. They had already ordered the food. They give us a beer and some egg rolls. Oh yes, and of course, a big giant doobie is passed around.

7;10: Still eating and not yet finished the first beer, Winston puts on some reggae music at maximum volume.

7;15: Martha and the cousin James are “dancing rub-a-dub” which looks like this:  The guy is standing against the wall and the girl is grinding her crotch on his upper thigh. Hands are everywhere.

7:20: I am grinding my crotch on Winston’s knee. His fingers are sliding around in my ass crack.

7:25: Martha’s clothes are on the living room floor and she is in another room. With James.

7:30: I am stark naked on the couch with Martha’s big giant Jamaican boyfriend on top of me, pulling his pants down.

7:31: Okay, now I am freaked out. I HAVEN’T EVEN FINISHED MY BEER AND THERE IS A NAKED BLACK MAN ON TOP OF ME. How did this even happen so fast? This is what happens to me when I smoke weed, I get paranoid. I manage to slither out from underneath him and he is a perfect gentleman, he hands me my clothes. I apologize and flee like a scaredy cat. Believe me, I wouldn’t do that now.  Flee, that is.

7:45: I am at my friends’, Kingsley and Mark, apartment a couple of blocks away, and telling the tale what just happened in the timeframe of a tv sitcom and oh, how we laughed. Also, as it turns out, I am wearing Martha’s bra inside out.

SKILLS:  Knowledge of DOS, data entry, and Rub-A-Dub wizardry

2.  Busser at Le Select Bistro. This was my very first job in Toronto. I had to bus tables, make cappuccinos, and keep the bread baskets full. Everyone, the owners and the customers, thought it was cute to have hanging bread baskets over the tables and I would constantly get yelled at by the customers: “THERE ARE CRUMBS IN THE CREAMER!” Where I wanted to say: ‘IT’S FROM THE FUCKING BREAD BASKET, MORON!” But I didn’t, I politely apologized got them some “fresh” cream, all right.

SKILLS: Revenge

3. Assistant Manager at Parachute in Yorkville. This was a store that sold the quintessential eighties fashion victim-style clothing. It was one of the funnest jobs I ever had. In fact, I’m going to lazily link from the archives to a whole blog post I wrote about it, it’s that epic.

SKILLS: The fine art of fag hagdom, how to pose in the mirror like a supermodel

4. Receptionist at a head shot photo studio. I do not remember the name of this place! I remember my boss was named Joe Black! I remember I was reading Martin Amis’ “Money” when Carole Pope came to pick up her photos in and said; “Martin Amis is so nasty and that is why I love him!” I remember trying to process that statement and not really understanding how anyone could like anything “nasty,” I was that dumb and naive. But I was starstruck so I pretended to agree. Carole Pope was one of my all time lady heroes.

Skills: Satire, also I got good at quitting jobs.

5. Bike Courier for Sunwheel Bicycle Couriers. I delivered important documents in the era pre-fax machines for a year with gusto and tenacity until one day, I crashed into the back of a parked truck climbing up Yonge Street because I wasn’t looking. I bashed my head and stabbed my leg with a wheel spoke. I finished my deliveries, bleeding and concussed, riding a bike with a wheel shaped like a Pringle chip. Like a boss.

Skills: North and South, East and West, developing an innate knowledge of where toilets are located.

6. Shopgirl at Holt Renfrew.  I sold pantyhose to rich Forest Hill and Rosedale women, who, when they got a run in their stockings, would always bring them back for a replacement. I know, right? You’re thinking what cheap cunts, HOWEVER, the pantyhose industry is a diabolical business because a single pair at Holt Renfrew cost $7.95 and they would only last a day. Do that math and then tell me these ladies are cheap. I wore Donna Karan opaque tights for $19.95 and they NEVER ran, in fact, more than 25 years later, I still have 3 pairs. So I pushed these babies to these grateful women and was top in sales during the winter season.

Skills: Up-selling, talking the talk, making animal sculptures out of spent pantyhose

7. Painter. I painted with this dude who did Marbalux faux-finishing in Italian wedding halls.  What a hot mess. I did that until I was 8 months pregnant and then I couldn’t bend over. I actually loved that job and learned a lot, no joke. Painting is all about patience.

Skills: Fucking use a good quality primer, fucking never use alkyd when latex will do, fucking use actual painter’s tape, not dollar store masking tape for a clean line, fucking take down the light switch covers, fucking wrap the brushes and rollers up in cellophane so they don’t dry up, and fucking don’t sit on someone’s white sofa when you have hunter green paint still wet on your ass.

8. Stay at home mom.  I had two babies and raised them to be fine upstanding teenage citizens. Both of them are really smart and I drank like a longshoreman while I breastfed them, hahahahahahahahahaha.

Skills: Herding, hoarding, humility

9. Real estate sales. Helped people buy and sell homes. That’s where I started this blog, hoping to help my career and promote community and neighbourhood spirit. Instead I went off on a tangent and ended up telling you stories of how I a rub-a-dubbed a Jamaican man one hot summer night, hahahahahahahahahaha.

Skills: Resume writing

REFERENCES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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02

May. ’13

Bring It On

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It’s May, as if you didn’t already know that, but it’s also my birthday month. Yes, I get a month this year because it is one of those b-days that end in a ZERO. I am not going to lie, I AM FREAKING OUT. I can’t even say the number, it comes out like “fuh-” and then stops. Help me. I need to work through this crippling dread so I can own that number when it actually happens on May 11. So I’m going to write out a pro and con list of what it’s like to turn fuh and feel free to add some of your own in the comments, I need you’ll more than ever.  FUHHHHHHH!!!!!! Please don’t put me out on the ice floe just yet!!!

1. Con: I do not enjoy people conversing about menopause. Yes, surprise, I am the person who will talk bodily functions from head to toe, diarrhea sandwiched by dandruff and toe jam, in all the grossest detail, but I can’t handle the hot flash jokes. For the record, I am not sure if had one yet or just have middle-of-the-night drunk sweats since they seem to happen on mostly weekends. “You would know if you had a hot flash,” I am assured by a locker room buddy, Deb, who by the way, is rocking her mid-fuh’s without trying too hard unlike another woman of similar age I know, a real estate agent, who gets puffy hair extensions and sports the second coming of acid wash(!)  jean suits(!!) that even a twenty year old shouldn’t be wearing…barf, just barf, it depresses me to look at her, hanging on to her fugly heyday that was 1985. But Deb makes me happy to join the fuh club. Menopause happens, you can’t stop the train. But I have a big beef with the term “perimenopausal,” that fancy word used to describe the onset of menopause. Your mama simply called it “going through the change” when she drew the curtains shut on a sunny summer day and laid down on the couch with a wet washcloth over her head. My friend, Flanders,who loves to remind me that she is 6 whole months younger than me, has told me for literally 15 years that every physical thing that is happening is because I am “perimenopausal.” See, I’ve typed it twice and you can’t see it but my spell check cries bullshit and is underlining it in red, so appropriate. You either have a tampon stash or you don’t, it’s that simple. What is this “peri” crap? It’s a made up term for women to feel even more badly about themselves and buy more pharmaceuticals. Fuck that perimenopausal shit, by that logic we are all peri-dead then. Ugh, fuh.

2. Pro: Age is wisdom. Why am I so afraid to say the number when my forties was the most painful, tumultuous decade of my life? Why would I want to hang on to that number? Going through my forties was like going through a second adolescence only with financial worries. It was a learning curve on a very dark highway. Everything I thought I knew to be true and right was tested by my own misguided self sabotage. Seriously, what a dumb ho I was at 40, walking around like I knew it all. Maybe the next decade will be filled with the wisdom of self acceptance. Bring it on, fuh-fiffffff…. I still don’t want to say it.

3. Con: Getting old sucks a big scaly dick that needs moisturizing. For women though, not so much for the menfolk. Those silver shards of hair that peek out around the temple are cute on a dude but not so much on a lady. Also jowly things forming. Also a beard. Also going blind and slighty deaf. Also attack of the middle pudge. Also what is that new flesh fold in the back there underneath the ass cheek? Fucking fuh.

4. Pro: I am at the tail end of the Baby Boomers, cusping on that lazy, bottom feeding Generation X crowd. The Baby Boomers, because they are so vain and ambitious, are trailblazing the way to eternal youth blasting their Botox needles through the forest of free radicals. God bless them and their  prolific nip/tucks and injections. Yes, some of them are over-done which is a good thing, their weird puffy faces make a little neck waddle look charmingly human. We can learn from their mistakes and apply the rest in moderation: A little squirt o’ Botox to soften the eyebrow scowl (and helps with the migraines, I am not kidding), a little Juvederm to caulk in the those puppet mouth lines that when left to deepen, turn into gutters filled with drool when walking towards the wind. Just a tiny bit here and there and that’s how your face can rock the aging process. Not so bad, fuh!

5. Con: I read a head-line on a tabloid at the grocery store saying “60 is the new 40” with Kris Jenner on the cover…I know, foul…but still, I love when people make proclamations like this and put it up in a bold font. You can almost believe it’s true and continue to surmise that if 60 is the new 40, then fuh must be the new 30. The thirties were my mojo years. By the time I hit 38, I was in my prime. It was good until it got bad. So if 60 is the new 40, then I’ve got another rollercoaster ride ahead of me and I don’t think I can take another decade-long chapter of crippling existential angst fuckery. 60 is 60 and fuh is fuh, and that’s all there is to it…why must we get all caught up in journalistic subterfuge? Just stop.

6. Pro: This woman, no comment necessary:

susan sarandon over 50

7. I don’t know if this is a Pro or a Con but my mojo has come back. I don’t what happened, but I attribute it to this restorative yoga class I take on Tuesdays. Flashback ten years, summer of 2003, when I was FORTY, I fell on the sidewalk trying to get on my bike after consuming shots of tequila. There was a loud crack as I hit the pavement landing on my ass, I had the wherewithal to break the fall with my right hand but I ended up cracking my tailbone and breaking my wrist. I didn’t know it though, and walked around broken for two weeks trying to learn how to drive my new manual transmission Mini Cooper, why does it hurt so much to shift gears? I told you I was a dumb ho when I was 40. I finally went to the hospital and they told me that while I was most certainly a dumb ho for not coming in right away, they could have just set it in a cast then instead of having to operate and reset it with a pin, it was a good thing I was drunk when it happened because drunk people fall better than sober people as they are more “relaxed.” Oh how I laughed but I was too embarrassed to tell them about my tailbone because that was what made the loud cracking sound. ALSO, I had heard the only way to fix a tailbone is for an osteopath to shove a hand up the ass and manoeuvre it from there. Not happening.

After the fall when the cast came off, I started taking yoga which is a Pro, as yoga is so much better for you than running on a treadmill like a ridiculous gerbil going nowhere. I have done Hatha, Ashtanga, and Bikram, but a couple of months ago I tried one called “Restorative” where you hold a pose for 10 minutes. And they are all done on the mat with props and booster pillows. It is like an awesome nap where you don’t feel like much is happening but lots is happening, the chakras are in full flow mode. There is one pose where you sit with your knees splayed out and the soles of your feet hold a block. You fall forward and your forehead rests on the block. After a minute, your lower spine starts to burn and get somewhat uncomfortable and then you imagine it is blocked energy getting released and as you breathe into it, things start to loosen up. I’m serious, my broken tailbone loves this activity, it’s like I sprayed a whole can of WD40 up my ass, and it’s ready to bust some moves! An awakening of mojo has occurred since I started this class and I guess it’s a Pro until it becomes a Con. And it will. If I learned anything from the Journey of the Forties is that nothing ever stays the same. Everything is in constant change. Rolling, rolling, rolling.

In the meantime, this came on my laptop screen:

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IDRIS ELBA! OMG! OMG! OMG!

So I love my butcher because meat, but also because he tells me what tv shows to watch. A couple of weeks ago it was “Hung” which made me want to be a lady pimp (jokes…not really, still holding auditions). This week’s viewing suggestion was “Luther” a BBC series about a crime detective…ugh, barf, I hate crime shows, I can never follow the plot, even “Charlie’s Angels” was too complicated. But what the hell, that particular butcher has that sort of power over me so I downloaded it even though I thought bleccchh, “the new James Bond’ my eye. I am now Queen of Torrents which I probably should keep to myself, and I love to watch stuff on my laptop…it is so intimate. My screen is all dotted in sneeze spittle but I don’t care, it’s my portal into the wild world of interwebz and how I communicate with you.

So yeah…LUTHER IS AWESOME AND IDRIS ELBA IS TO DIE FOR! And this is the funny thing, I have seen Idris Elba in “The Office” and “The C Word” (no, I have never seen “The Wire”), and I didn’t bat an eye or put my hands down my pants even just to scratch. But watching ‘Luther?” I took to the bed after watching the first episode on the now tainted family couch…that’s me in the cover photo with ma boo sitting on my lap…and I watched the rest of them with my wagging tailbone under the covers. Oh my god, those little white beard hairs! I love him so much it hurts. In a good way. PRO!

So yeah. Fifty …Five Zero #YOLO. Bring it on.

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