Adventures of a Tofu Slut

Two of you started new jobs yesterday, and both of you are still alive and not miserable. Hooray! This is good.

Also good:

-The weather. Anyone want to take bets on how long it'll be before I start whining about it being too hot? But for the moment it's just perfect, and I walked home last night, and it was wonderful.

-14 more days until Kitchen Confidential on DVD!

-No major disasters while I've been in charge at work.

-The Dresden Dolls album I got for my birthday.

-Heroes, which fills me with eeeeeee! ( spoilers )

Despite having an overflowing shelf of to-be-read books, I couldn't resist the lure of books for travelling, and I went to the bookstore at lunch. Oh books, I love you so. They unfortunately didn't have the book I really wanted, and the other book I really wanted was still only in hardcover (so...no), but I did buy a few things, including another Neal Stephenson in trade (the first of the Baroque Cycle), because we all know what happened last time I tried to get a Stephenson out from the library.

*massages wrists*

I feel like all I've been reading lately is non-fiction, which is patently not true, but I am reading more non-fiction than I ever have. It's a different kind of reading. But right now, being in the middle of two non-fiction books, I'm craving a good novel.

(Speaking of fiction vs. non-fiction, James Frey. Heh. And this, What I plan to embellish for obvious dramatic reasons in my own forthcoming memoir. Hee hee hee.)

Other things I love today:

Rolling chairs
Green Day
Salt
The word 'twitterpated'
Orange post-its in the shape of daisies
Semi-colons
Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie
Stuart Alan Jones

I walked the line this morning in the heavy rain, which must have been what was left of the terrible hurricane as it made its way up here. Therefore I was especially excited to get home and find tea (tea!) from bureinato. Thank you!

You know what? You, too, can make someone happy with tea! Which is my attempt at not being a complete nag when I remind you to send out your August/September tea packages (if you haven't done so already, of course).

Also happy things:

--free opera at the Harbourfront
--West Wing Season 2
--only having to do 16 hours of strike duty next week because it's Labour Day

In conclusion, I have decided to steal my friend C's condo. Maybe I could just swap apartments. She wouldn't notice, would she?

In order to stop myself from whining about the snow YET AGAIN, I present a list of things which are of the good:

1. Four day weekend!

2. Which means this is technically Friday. Woo.

3. Craft fair with idella and starfishchick on Saturday.

4. Lunch with sarcasma today.

5. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead on DVD.

6. I broke down and bought Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell because it's too damn big and I had to keep returning it to the library, so I can start that this weekend.

7. hamstrings that no longer hurt.

8. One Man Lord of the Rings is coming back to town! (Sadly, not at Fringe prices, but still.)

9. I cleared one of the many piles off my desk.

10. I bought shelving for the bathroom, which is slowly getting put together, and once it's finished, I can get everything off the bathroom floor.

11. Which means I won't have to lean at a 45 degree angle to get at the mirror.

12. Which means I will stop poking myself with the mascara brush.

13.The broccoli, bok choy, red pepper and tofu stir-fry I made for dinner last night.

What's good with you all?

I've been in a weird headspace for the last couple of weeks. ( If only this could all be solved with a nap. )

Anyway.

On to happy things!

It's biascut's birthday today! Have a fabulous birthday! Er, ::checks clock:: I hope you had a fabulous birthday? Time differences are not my friend.

Also, I stayed home sick yesterday. Go stomach flu. Which wouldn't normally be a happy thing, but I was pretty much better by noon, and I spent the afternoon watching Popular and not feeling guilty about not being at work. Although I do feel slightly guilty about not feeling guilty.

And it's craft fair season. Whee! I went (as in, took the elevator downstairs at lunch) to the Moose Show last week, which only barely counts as a craft fair - it's mostly an artisan show, meaning everything is gorgeous and far too expensive for me. But it was a nice warm-up. This weekend is the fabulous Signatures fair, next weekend is the exclusive Out of Hand fair, and there are many others besides. Jams of the world, watch your back. I'm coming for you.

minervacat is making herself a hockey mix. I've exhausted my (surprisingly not as minuscule as I might have thought) store of songs - I even dredged the Hanson Brothers from the back of my brain - but maybe you all have something to add.

***

I became very suddenly obsessed with ayurveda yesterday, after having tea with my friend Shelley, who had just visited an ayurvedic practitioner. She was given a list of foods not to eat for 15 days (no soy! no broccoli! no lettuce or cucumber! there goes my entire diet), foods which are apparently blocking her energy systems and throwing her out of balance. The thing with me is that I don't really believe anything - I view pretty much everything with skepticism - but I'm endlessly fascinated with things that put people into categories, and ayurveda, with its description of people as Vata, Pitta and Kapha is very intriguing. Plus I'm always willing to try anything, even if I can't see how it would make a difference to me. Anyway, Shelley is going to let me know how she feels after her 15 days are up. I'm very curious! And of course I just put a bunch of books on hold at the library, because that's what I do.

After tea (and not cake, because everything in it, besides the flour, was something that she now needed to avoid) we wandered through my neighbourhood and ate wicked good spicy corn on the cob. I wish someone had told me how much better the street corn is than regular corn. Two years wasted! We walked past my favourite Indian buffet, and the host was standing outside in his usual position. I think I might go there too often - he recognized me and asked why I wasn't coming in to eat. Hee.

Other good things:

• Sports Night. Still. I watched "Dear Louise", "The Quality of Mercy at 29K", "Thespis", "Shoe Money Tonight", and "The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee" last night - it's the best five episode run ever.
  
• Tropical Source chocolate bars. Unbelievable dark chocolate.
  
• Pigeon-Hole, a great band out of Montreal. You should listen. Yes, you.
  
• Pie.
  
• Cute boys in plaid tuxedos. Even better, cute boys in plaid tuxedos who can sing!
  
• The wonderful weather. I know I'm in the minority here, but I love the fact that I can breathe in my apartment at night, unlike last summer.
  
• Clean underwear.

Bad things:

Listening to my co-workers harass the IT guy who came here to do something for me (three days after I called the fucking hotline, but still). I realize IT people are an infrequently sighted breed around here, but you do not need one to tell you how to resize your windows. Honestly. And now I can't decide if I'm annoyed at him for taking so long to show up, or feeling sorry that he got trapped. Or possibly I just think he's extraordinarily hot. ::fans self::

Good things all round:

1. We had cake at work yesterday. There is no day which cannot be made more bearable with cake.

2. I saw a very enjoyable movie last weekend -- Bend It Like Beckham. Much fun. Highly recommended, especially on a Saturday matinee. It's a perfect matinee movie.

3. I almost sort-of kept my March resolution, which was to be more social and initiate more social events (because if I wait for other people to initiate, it often ends up being things I don't want to do, like big-ass parties). Part 1 actually went fine -- there was a game night (sidebar: what is more fun than playing games? We played Deadwood (from Cheapass Games) and Personal Preference and it was brilliant), and brunch, and the birthday party, and a girly makeover night/goodbye gathering. Okay, there were also at least 2 things that I bailed on, but still, it's a start. Part 2 didn't really happen. At all. I did attempt to sign people up for a post-dance class dinner, but the right night hasn't happened yet. Hopefully this month, because I'm craving the green beans in black bean sauce. Still, I get half a point for this month, which makes me happy.

4. Speaking of girly makeover nights, it was so wonderful to see my friends last night. I will miss SJ; I really wish we'd had a chance to become better friends, but that's my fault, because I never know how to take a casual friendship to the next level. But she gave good makeover, even if my eyelashes turned into defenders of the fort every time she tried to get near them with an eyelash curler. [Sliding off topic here, it was fun looking all glam with the makeup, and I realized it's not that I don't want to wear makeup, it's that I don't want to have to go to all the effort of putting it on. Yes, that's right, once again the answer is that I'm just lazy.]

5. I missed the snow. Yes, it snowed yesterday, after fooling us with weeks of beautiful spring-like weather. Luckily (or is that "luckily"?), I have no windows at work, so I didn't have to witness the travesty, although I hear it was quite the snowstorm. By the time I went outside it was completely washed away, though, so I'm going to pretend it's still spring. [Ed. note: I wrote this yesterday before I left work, and at the time it was all true, but this morning I woke up to massive amounts of flaky white stuff, which was still falling when I got in to work. It's all wrong.]

6. Elaine Stritch!!! Yes, the woman "who puts the broad in Broadway" is coming to town in June. I realize that's 2 months away, but happiness at seeing Elaine Stritch deserves a decent amount of lead time.