90% Chase

When Chase and I worked at the call centre, there was a little dude there who called his wife from the lunch room on every break. He rarely, if ever, spoke to an actual person, and he would always leave these really long, creepy messages on their answering machine. He would launch into these excruciatingly embarrassing speeches that went something like “I’m just starting my break. I just wanted to call and say that I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. I love you as much as the sun. You are my everything. I love you I love you I love you. I’ll call again at the end of my break. I love you.”

It was actually pretty sad, looking back on it, him leaving these long love messages on a cold, uncaring answering machine day in and day out. 

Anyway, sometimes, if Chase leaves me a message, he’ll launch into one of this guy’s monologues and, because I am a horrible human being, it cracks me up every single time. 

Last night, I drunk-dialed Chase (Lindsay is in town and I polished off a half bottle of wine at Phil’s place before I realized how smashed I was), and launched into my own version of Creepy Guy’s testament of love. At the time I thought I was a genius, but now it’s only partly amusing. I wrote it down in my cell phone as a reminder to post it, though, and now I feel obligated to share it: “I love you I love you I love you. I love you more than the sun. I need you more than water. My body is made up of over 90% Chase.” 

Feel free to use that if you’re ever writing a romantic letter to a loved one.

 

On a completely different note,  I heard a little girl on the bus refer to a cell phone as a “celephone” the other day. So cute! So logical!

I Pooped!

TMI DISCLAIMER: Um… If you don’t like it when people talk about poop, maybe it would be best to skip over this entry. For those of you who, like me, have no shame or who just aren’t that squeamish, carry on.

Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that I don’t use public bathrooms unless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, and only to pee. I never ever poop where strangers are also doing their business. It has nothing to do with the cleanliness of public restrooms, and everything to do with the potential audience. I don’t like to pee because I think people are listening and judging the amount of time it takes me to go. What if I have a really long pee? Will people think that I’m gross? What if it’s really short? Will they think I am weird?

I only recently started peeing in public bathrooms. I still hate to do it, but if it comes between peeing my pants and using a common toilet, I’ll choose the toilet every time. Sometimes, if it’s just me and someone else in there, I’ll get stage fright and I’ll leave the bathroom. Sometimes, I make a show of russling toilet paper and flushing the toilet before washing my hands and exiting even though I haven’t actually gone, only to run to another bathroom a few seconds later. Sometimes, if I’m sure the person didn’t see me come in, I’ll just turn around and run.

Pooping is the worst, though. What if people can hear me? What if I toot? What if it splashes? What if I they can smell me? I get bouts of IBS-like symptoms after eating, and still I refuse to use public bathrooms. Back when I was working at the call centre and Karen lived very close, I would borrow her keys and run to her place to use the washroom. It happened so often, my frequent trips to her house during working hours came to be known as “key breaks”.  Once, someone overheard me ask Karen for her keys and assumed that I was borrowing her car to drive myself to the hospital. She told Chase, who called me in a state of panic, assuming I was dying.

Now that I have moved to Toronto and my commute to work takes over an hour each way, I don’t have the luxury of key breaks. I don’t even have the luxury of a single-stall bathroom like I did at the call centre. It’s just rows and rows of cubicles as far as the eye can see. There have been times when I contemplated going home sick rather than poop in a strange bathroom, but I always managed to make it to the end of the day. Always, that is, until yesterday when I had to muster up all of the courage I had, and face the reality of the public toilet head-on. 

Luckily, yesterday the office was like a ghost town, and I was assured a pretty private washroom experience. It was still unnerving as hell, though. I brought a little can of air freshener with me that I’ve been keeping in my purse for forever for just such an emergency (a trick my friend uses), and I quickly sprayed a little before I started to doubt whether it was wise to mix the smell of poop and oranges. I also flushed the toilet at least five times, abiding by another friend’s rule of “don’t let that shit hit the water”.  There were a few moments of panic while my body was fighting itself, and I wasn’t sure if I was pushing or holding it in, but I DID IT!! I actually pooped in a public bathroom. I have never been prouder. Go me!! I pooped!

Getting Fresh in 2009

Chase and I went to Rob’s to party on New Year’s Eve. I had big plans to get drunk and rowdy¹, but I spent the majority of the night whining about being sick, and sleeping off a nasty cold. The highlight of my night occurred when I crawled into bed with my friends Rob and Steph after I realized that Chase was going to spend the night passed out on the bathroom floor. In the wee hours of the morning, I reached across Rob’s sleeping body and said “Steph, I can’t even feel you”. Then I put my hand on what I THOUGHT was her outer thigh, a few inches below her bum. Apparently, what I really did was pat her crotch and pass out with my hand cupping her vajayjay. Whoops.

The funniest (and funnest) part of this story is that Steph just went back to sleep. I wouldn’t have even known what I had done if she hadn’t told Chase about her late night molestation. I feel vaguely like a creepy old woman, but every time I picture myself absently patting Steph’s vagina, I giggle.

¹I can count the number of times I’ve gotten drunk and rowdy on one (maaaybe 2) hand(s).

Steph and I model with the xmas gift she gave me.

In The New Year…

THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2009

1. Moving to a new apartment and living like an adult again (no roommates, nicer stuff, and generally making a permanent home for Chase and I. I am envisioning many dinner parties and guests).

2. Dexter being 100% house-trained and mellowing out a bit.

3. Getting pregnant (toward the end of 2009, depending on pesky things like financial stability, job security, the desire to have children, etc.).

 

RESOLUTIONS

1. Save money

2. Continue to be more social (including joining more classes, clubs, etc.)

3. Lose weight

4. Update more

5. Craft more

6. Catch up, and stay caught up, with my friends and pen pals (especially with a Miss Nadine, who is long overdue for a fun package),.

7. Being more responsible and accountable in all areas of my life.

There Is Something Very Wrong With Me…

I was on the subway the other day, and three men walked on. Two were very attractive in a jock-y kind of way, and one was sketchy, tall, too thin, and had hair that was almost long enough to reach his bum. I checked them all out, and even though I acknowledged that the two jocks would be better suited to me, I knew in my heart of hearts that I’d sleep with the weird, skinny dude (if I was single, of course) before I even considered the other two.

It made me very sad.

Now For Something Completely Different

This video made me love Beyonce:

I can’t stop staring at her butt. I am a lesbian for Beyonce’s butt.

Three’s Company?

Ever since I agreed to move in with my fiance and a chick he has a crush on, my friend has been ranting about how my life is NOT a Three’s Company episode. As if that’s a bad thing. As if it wouldn’t be awesome living with Jack and Chrissy (I would totally be Janet), having my meals made for me by a hot guy who respected me enough not to sleep with my roommate… I should be so lucky!

If my life was a sit-com, it wouldn’t be light and fluffy like Three’s Company. I was telling Jeremy yesterday that it will probably be more tragic and twisted like Arrested Development. I waver between feeling like everything is going to be okay, and feeling like I’ve just screwed up my life in a very monumental way.

The minute I do something embarrassing or soul-crushing, I immediately think “at least it will make a good story!”. Between my living situation (move day is Sunday), and my new job (which I feel vastly under qualified for), I am sure I will have hundreds of posts for you in the days to come!

Further Proof That I Am A Bad Mom

I am a deep sleeper and I’ve snoozed through many a loud noise (fire alarms, smoke detectors, sirens, trains whizzing behind my house, etc.), but imagine my surprise when I awoke this morning to find this:

We started crate training Dexter, but switched to paper because there are times when Chase and I can’t get home in time to let the puppy out before he has an accident. You have no idea how horrible it is to see your dog freaking out, covered in his own poo. So instead, we tie him to the crate with a leash, leave the door open, and put some paper at the very back for him. The problem is, he’s learned to pull the crate across the room, and he’s gotten startlingly good at it in the past day or two.

Last night, he must have seen a pair of my underwear (that little pink blob between the crate and the blue blanket), dragged the crate across the room to get to them, wrapped his leash around a stand-up fan, and knocked the fan over. I didn’t arrange that photo at all – do you see how tightly his leash is wrapped around the fan? That’s how I found him. He didn’t even have the space to sit down.

I found out the hard way that Dex had peed in that position. I found this out because, as I knelt down to unhook him, I got covered in urine. And then Dexter, also covered in urine, climbed all over me. I am getting the willies just thinking about all that pee… I’m really going to have to find a better system for Dexter. Maybe keeping him inside the crate overnight isn’t such a bad idea as long as I set an alarm to take him out every 3 hours or so….

Does anyone want a puppy?

On Being A Bad Mom

Dexter has scared me off children forever. I’m a shitty pet owner – I can’t imagine what babies would be like. I knew that having a dog would be a lot of work, but when I agreed to get one, I thought someone ELSE would be taking care of his day-to-day needs and potty breaks. My job was supposed to be to love him and pet him every once in awhile, and my DH was supposed to clean up his poop and make sure he didn’t tear the apartment apart. Then, we got the dog; Chase got a job in another city and moved into a cockroach infested, half-renovated townhouse, and Dex stayed here with me.

Now I feel like my entire life is spent picking up poop, mopping up pee puddles, running up and down 7 flights of stairs to take the dog out, yelling “NO!” and “HEY!” every time he does something he’s not supposed to (which is every second of the day), doing laundry (I spend more time and money washing Dexter’s dog bed and blanket than I do on my own clothes), making sure he’s not eating the cat food, preventing him from humping me, getting up with him at least 3 times a night, and generally entertaining this dog. I can’t be away or make plans for the weekend. I can’t shower and leave him unattended without him chewing through at least one electrical cord, shoe, or pair of underwear (he’s taken to stealing my panties and hiding them in his doggy bed. Yesterday, I found FIVE PAIRS OF UNDERWEAR in his bed. I don’t even know where he got them, or when he had time to sneak them in without me detecting it! He’s like a puppy MacGyver!). He is a little beast. And I am a horrible, horrible mother.

He makes me so tired! And stressed! And there are times when I just let him do whatever he wants to do because it’s easier than yelling or hauling him outside or finding him something appropriate to chew on. Sometimes I let him run off with my panties if it means I get five minutes to myself. Tonight, he ate my watermelon and I couldn’t even muster up the energy to get mad. I just muttered “have at ‘er, fuckface” and prayed that fruit wouldn’t give him diarrhea because if it does, I will be the one who has to clean it up.

Then there are times (mostly when he’s sleeping) when I love him so much, I can’t help but hug him or cover him in kisses or spend a little extra time walking him or playing with him. Despite the fact that he’s absolutely insane and he never stops and I fantasize about drowning him in the bathtub… he’s an adorable little effer. I am clueless about animals and I complain a lot about taking care of him, but when it comes down to it, I guess Dexter is worth it. If I could go back in time, I would totally veto getting the dog but now that we have him, I could never give him away. I’m screwed.

Cockroach WHAT?!

I feel like so much has happened since my last post that it’s impossible to get it all in one entry. The long and short of it is that Chase got a job in Toronto (his first day was this Saturday and he’s already taken possession of our new place), and I am unemployed as of October 31st (which is, not coincidentally, the day we get rid of our “old” – my current – apartment). 

I was super pissed at first because I TURNED DOWN that interview in Toronto because Chase didn’t want to move, but now I am over it (mostly). Jeremy was gracious enough to show me how easy it is to use the transit system yesterday (and it does seem fairly easy – with Jer there, at least!), which was a HUGE hurtle for me, and now I’m just pumped for the change (SUPER pumped to be leaving the call centre!). 

I was even more pumped earlier today when Chase told me that our new apartment comes with free access to an indoor swimming pool, gym, and laundry facilities (although, I think the laundry is coin-operated). THEN, I became a whole lot less excited when I called tonight and he told me that my new place is sketch to the max right now.

1. The landlord was having the townhouse (I keep calling it an “apartment”, but it’s a four bedroom, townhouse) renovated, and the guy doing the renovations… IS STILL IN MY APARTMENT AT THIS VERY MOMENT. He is staying UNTIL TOMORROW. Chase and Jackie (Jackie being Chase’s friend from work, who also moved up there for a job, and who we will be roommates with for the next year) are locked in the master bedroom right now while dude sleeps downstairs. SKETCH.

2. There was food in the cupboards still.

3. My new place is infested with cockroaches. COCKROACHES!! I’ve never seen a cockroach in my entire life, and now I’m sharing an apartment with a whole herd of them. 

 

That explains why my landlord gave us the first month free, and why we don’t have to pay our last month’s rent until November. It also explains why the rent is so cheap. And why there are thousands of children always playing, unattended, in my courtyard. And the blocks and blocks of apartment buildings and townhouses in my area that all look the same.

Apparently, I live in the projects…. I am going to start carrying around some mace in my purse. Well, I would if I used a purse, and if I knew where to get ahold of some mace. Maybe I’ll just carry around a travel-sized bottle of RAID in my pocket instead, which I can spray into the eyes of any would-be rapists and murderers, and into the mouths of any cockroaches that try to nibble me in the night….

On the bright side, I can still live in a nice, clean, normal apartment for the next few weeks while Jackie and Chase deal with our bug infestation. AND, I get to keep Dexter for at least another 7 days.