Vancouver Bound

Hey kids,

I know I've been a lousy absentee blogger lately. This full-time job, full-time school and single mom combo is killing me. The semester is almost done and miraculously, I'm still standing and managing to pass these courses. But every girl needs a break, so I'm taking one tomorrow night. My friend and I are hanging out in Van--I booked a nice suite in a 5 star hotel (I get discounts) and I got mailed a 2 for one coupon at my favourite spa in Yaletown, so we've got facials lined up on Saturday...good thing too, because we will be partying on Friday night and we'll need to detoxify!

After that, I have two more papers and a couple of exams to get through and then one more easy semester of film studies all the time, and that's it! Graduation! I never thought I'd see the day. Boy am I glad to be getting out of school. There's a girl in one of my classes who's 18. I realized the other day that she was only one the first time I went to University. A horrible, horrible realization, especially since I'm way too immature to be old enough to be this girl's mom!

My kid the Skaterpunk

Alright, I don't do the shameless cutesy parent thing very often, but humour me--how funny is this pic?

Dance, Dirtbag!

The Break-Up

We met when I was eighteen and it was love at first sight. Since then, we've shared everything--our ups and downs, our fears, our deepest secrets, our greatest hopes. We could always count on each other, and through the years, we grew closer. Our trust could not be broken.

But lately, I feel like something has changed. There's something missing. We don't communicate anymore. I don't feel understood. And though it kills me to say this...

I think I might have to break up with my hairdresser.

I met her when my high school boyfriend dragged me to a Supercuts so he could get his hair cut for a school photo. I had been to several high-end salons that month, trying to get my hair cut super short, but all of the hairdressers I went to refused to cut it--they wanted me compromise and get a long bob, or come back in a week after I had thought about it. I'm not one to ponder a haircut. I wanted it short and I wanted it done now. So while the boyfriend was getting his hair trimmed, I walked over to the other hairdresser in the place, sat in her chair and said, "Can you cut it all off?!"

Her grin lit up the whole room. Well, actually, it was probably the flourescent lighting that lit up the room, but we had a connection. I could feel it. We had chemistry. She understood what I wanted, and she was willing to give it to me. That kind of hairdresser doesn't come along every day. It was magic. She snipped away furiously and we talked non-stop. I told her all about my boyfriend and she gushed about what a cute couple we made. Halfway through the haircut she turned my chair away from the mirror so I'd be surprised when she was done. I knew it would be ok. I trusted her. She took her time, avoiding the dreaded razor and clippers that so many lazy hairdressers are quick to reach for when cutting short hair. We laughed hysterically about boys and tv shows. Finally she was finished, and she spun me around to face myself, minus the 8 inches of hair I'd walked in with.

It was perfect. It was short like Mia Farrow's and it made my eyes look huge. My boyfriend just about fell over. And the best part? It cost me only ten bucks. Supercuts, remember?

I continued seeing her. When I dumped the high school boyfriend she said, "He was never right for you," but she liked the sound of my new boyfriend. She really GOT my hair, and she was always excited when I wanted a change. When I arrived at her salon, she would aways say, "I was so happy when I saw you on the appointment list and I have some pictures of haircuts I think would be amazing on you!" The weird part? We had always chosen the exact same pictures. It was kismet. We were perfect together.

She became quite popular and her client list grew, and over time she moved up and on to newer and better salons. Sure, it would cost me more, but a good haircut from someone like her was worth it, because I always knew I'd walk out thrilled.

But then I moved to the Yukon, and I would only get to see her every six months or so. You would think the distance would have taken a toll on our relationship, but somehow it just made our love stronger. She would plan haircuts for me that were so well-thought out that I wouldn't have to visit another stylist the whole time I was away. Whenever I grew my hair from short to long, she styled it so perfectly that I never had that in-between look.

One day I came home from the Yukon and called the salon where she worked, and the unimaginable happened. The receptionist told me she'd left. I begged the girl on the phone to tell me where she'd gone, but she would only tell me that my beloved hairdresser had fallen in love with some guy and moved to Calgary. How could she do this to me?! How could she leave me?! No note, no phone call...nothing. My heart was broken.

For three years I suffered through inferior haircuts. Ok, sure, some tried...I had some good times with a few hairdressers, but none of them got me like she did, and I always felt a little dirty after each cut, like somehow she would know. None of them had that magic we had together. I grew depressed, knowing that no one would ever really understand my hair like she did. It was devastating.

Then one grey and gloomy afternoon, I was walking past a near-deserted mini-mall in town, and as I passed a salon there, out of the corner of my eye, I thought, "My God--it's her!" Could it really be true? How could she have been in town without me knowing? It seemed too good to be true. I steeled myself for disappointment, and then I opened the door to the salon. The little bells on the door twinkled and she turned towards me and we both screamed in joy!

"They told me you'd left and fallen in love and gone to Calgary!" I cried.

"No, I've been here the whole time! My boss canned all the staff and hired a whole team of Aveda graduates and then stole our client lists! I had no way to call anyone! I will never let this happen again! I tried to find you but you aren't listed in the phone book!"

I was on top of the world. Fate had brought us back together. We nearly cried catching up--she was shocked and thrilled to learn I'd had a child and had returned to university. I was blown away to find out she'd finally left her live-in boyfriend who kept dragging his feet whenever the M word came up. Life was good. Everything was finally as it should be.

Except my hair.

I don't know what happened in those three years we were apart...maybe it's too painful for her to speak of-- maybe her old boss's actions killed something inside her--but she had become obsessed with layers, and convinced my hair looked great with them. The worst thing ever began happening...I would look fantastic in the salon and then an hour later, when I tried to style it myself, my hair would look limp and ordinary. Sure, I still love seeing her. We still talk, we still have that connection, but she really likes my hair short and she really likes these layers. In the entire time I've known her, I've never had to put limits on our relationship. I never had to say "not too short and cut it out with the layers." But now? Now I'm not so sure.

I've been avoiding her. A few months ago when I was getting my hair coloured at Aveda, I even cheated on her a little and let the stylist cut a quarter of an inch off my hair to get rid of the split ends. I'm riding a slippery slope, I know.

My hair is past my shoulders now. It needs a cut. I'm thinking something shoulder skimming and kind of blunt with slightly long bangs that I can comb to the side if I hate them. But how can I communicate this to her? Can our relationship survive this?

I'm not sure I'm ready to find out.

If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit next to me!

That line is just about the only thing I found palatable in Steel Magnolias. Today it suits my mood. I feel like a bitch. A complete and utter bitch. Not because of anything I've done recently, although certainly I've repeatedly had to stifle the urge to hurl myself at various morons and prevent myself from angrily gnawing their flesh apart with my teeth, or at least resist my desire to give them a sound dressing-down. No, I feel like a bitch because I have let myself get run-down and the universe is apparently out to get me. I know, it's so boring to read people's complaints, but c'mon, it's me! We're friends, right?

So here's what's bugging me. I have an inner ear infection. Do you know how embarrassing it is to be 35 years old and have to call work to take the day off for an ear infection? Because, you know, I'm really four. I should have just told them I had lice, and then they wouldn't want me there for the whole week. Anyways, it's making me feel dizzier than usual and everything is muffled and I can't quite decide if this is what makes me feel like I've gone crazy, or if I really have gone crazy. I mean, honestly, how many crazy people are actually that self-aware?

What's worse though is that I wrote a ten page essay while feeling like this, and though I'm prone to self-criticism, I am almost certain that I just handed my professor a piece of what the French call "ordures." I don't know how I'll be able to hold my head up in class, given that I'm embarrassed and dizzy and one side of my head is heavier and about to start oozing something nasty.

To top it all off, despite my current state of crappiness, I decided to press on and attend my mid-term exam for my Gay Lit class this afternoon. I was on fire, whipping through a fabulous essay about performative behaviour and how society's rules do not apply to a culture forced to invent itself due to its rejection from the mainstream (or something like that) and my cell-phone rings. My emergency cell-phone, which NEVER rings, because generally, there are never emergencies. It was my son's old kindergarten. Not my favourite place in the world, by the way, since I think the Principal is a condescending cow, but guess who it was on the phone?! Seems that my little angel decided to bolt from his babysitter, and he grabbed his skateboard--sans helmet--and rode on down to his old school to have a little pow-wow with his old pals. The babysitter was in hysterics, the kindergarten wouldn't release my son to him because they didn't know him, and only I would be allowed to get the kid. So, I apologized profusely to the professor and left. And now the exam which should be behind me is still in front of me.

Merde.

Happy Halloween

It's monsoon weather out there, but my spawn is die-hard and he and his cohorts in creepiness are determined to score as much candy as possible tonight, so I decked them out in face paint, fangs and rubber boots and sent them on their merry way. Hopefully I'll have VERY spooky pics to post later. I know there's nothing more mundane than a mother going on about how ADORABLE her child is in his Halloween get-up so I'll spare you until I have photographic evidence to prove it.

You know what I love about Halloween, though? I love when you open the door to find freaky grown-ups in costumes pushing their terrified children to the door. Nothing says Halloween better than a sobbing two-year old in a pink bunny suit.

Don't give up on me!

I know--I suck. I just haven't had time to update in a while--life is a little insane around here. I plan on doing something dramatic or humiliating any day now, I promise, and I'll be sure to let you all know the gory details as soon as possible!

Oh, any Mike Doughty fans? I finally bought Haughty Melodic and I love it--it just puts me in the best mood--had to dig around for it and finally found it in the last store I looked at under punk, which I think is kind of weird. I've been playing Ted Leo's Tyranny of Distance and Shaking the Sheets to death and made the mistake of buying one of his self-titled album (bloody expensive too) but it's way too early experimental and I'm not big on shitty sound and reverb for effect, so I haven't listened to the whole thing yet.

The Fabulously False Confessions of Katie Pom-Pom-Hands

So, to begin with, let me explain the Katie Pom-Pom-Hands thing. I was recently in a heated debate in an online forum I like to think of as my brain's second home, and feeling as if I was expected to be a bigger cheerleader for something than I am I declared, "I'm sorry I wasn't born with pom poms in my hands!"

Later a funny friend (who I will refer to as Insane Creative Muse) wrote to me, "You were SO born with pom-poms in your hands!" And suddenly I imagined myself as a kind of female counterpart to Edward Scissorhands; a forlorn pasty brunette with bits of fuzz stuck to her through the magic of static cling, staring sadly at her great big giant red wooly pom-pom hands.

And thus, Katie Pom-Pom-Hands was born. Clearly I have too much time on my big giant red wooly pom-pom hands.

So, just for fun, I am going to share with you all the online conversation I had in which I finally came out to my friends as pom-pom handed.

***Katie Pom-Pom-Hands Comes Out***

Poster friend #1: How do you type with pom-pom hands?

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: I use my toes. Please, don't mock me. Last time I cried, I wiped my tears with my big giant red pom-pom hands, but they didn't dry properly and now they smell moldy.

Poster friend #2: And you wonder why you're stalked by mimes...

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: It is a mystery.

Poster friend #3: Mimes love pom poms!

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: They ARE very useful if you're expressive. And mimes do like expression. Maybe I need to rethink my mime aversion. Maybe the love of my life, the one man who can accept me and my big giant red pom-pom hands, is out there, hiding behind a sad white clown face, wishing he could say the words to let me know how he feels. Maybe he feels too "boxed in" or "trapped" somehow by his emotions. Oh great. Now I'm crying all over my big red pom-pom hands again. Can someone please spray some Febreze on me?

Poster friend #3: oh, god, Katie, I am losing it big time over here. I can't stop laughing, even though it's so Very, Very Sad.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: I am glad my tragic obstacle in life amuses you so, Poster friend #3. I would punch you in the nose, but it would probably be too soft to hurt.

Poster friend #3: ooph! Aw, that was sweet, Katie. More, more, more!

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: You are truly sick, my friend. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and visit my friend John CornCob Feet now. He understands my pain.

Poster friend #4: Careful KatiePPH, if those pompom hands are made from tissue or crepe paper, you have to worry about the colors bleeding if you cry all over em.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: No, they're wool, Poster friend #4. Something terrible has happened. I went over to John's and he'd been attacked by crows last night. His poor feet.

Poster friend #5: OMG, I. am. dying. here!!!

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: You're dying?!!! Think of John and his poor nibbled corncob feet! I really can't get over the selfishness of you people!

Poster friend #3: I hope that wool is well processed. It could shrink and felt and you could just have itchy little tufts. Be careful, Katie PomPomHands! Be very careful!

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: Finally, a little concern. It takes a village, people. Poor John Corncob Feet. He could barely hobble to the door when I went over there, and I can't turn the knob with my pom-pom hands.

Poster friend #5: I can see where that would be hard to do, Katie.

Poster friend #4: I'm glad that your hands are more substantial than tissue or crepe paper. I had visions of you with two sodden rolls of colored toilet paper on your arm stumps if you ever went swimming. On the other hand, you can wash and dry your dishes without a dishcloth or towel.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: You are all evil. I have to leave for a while. Auntie Jemima-Jello-Legs is here.

(Later that evening...)

Katie Pom-Pom Hands: I'm back. Auntie Jemima-Jello-Legs is such a hooooer. She drank a bunch of vodka earlier today and when I answered the door a bunch of frat-boys were on their knees, licking her feet. She's what we like to call "loose."

So I guess I never really told anyone except Insane Creative Muse until now about my big giant red pom-pom hands. I guess I just wanted you all to accept me, and think I was "normal." But what is normal, anyways? How do we define that?

This is something I have lived with all my life. Kids at school growing up were merciless. One girl used to shake my hands, but she'd hide gum in her palm. In high school one boy I liked pretended to kiss my hand and then he lit it on fire. It smelled horrible for days and then all the kids chanted, "watch out for Katie Burning Smelly Pom-Pom Hands!" I was ostracized. Even my piano teacher told me I was useless.

I was terrified that my son would be born the same way, because you know, I ate a lot of lamb when I was pregnant. God help me, I know I shouldn't have, but it was a craving!

Fortunately he turned out fine. He has been wonderful. He helps me wash my hands (cold-water hand wash with gentle detergent only) and then he air-dries them with my hair-dryer. This is a huge responsibility for a boy his age--if he doesn't do it right away, the hands get moldy as you all know. One time he accidently dried one of my hands on the hot setting. Oh God, at the time it didn't seem so funny, but now I think of it and just laugh and laugh. My right hand/pom-pom shrunk up to the size of a golf-ball and the other one was still the size of a volley-ball! I panicked a bit but then I called a knitting hotline (it's really hard to dial a phone with your toes) and they told me to rewash the hand and then stretch it out. The poor kid will never live that one down!

Poster friend #5: In this case...you piano teacher had a point.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: See what I'm up against? I knew you wouldn't accept me as I am!

Poster friend #6: Katie, you need to do something to raise public awareness of your...uh, differently-abledness. We should make little red rubber bracelets that say something like, Give a Hand to Someone with PPH. Or someone could even come up with a slogan that's actually catchy.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: Rubber?! Are you all too good for wool, Poster friend #6?!

Poster friend #6: No, I'm not too good for wool! I love wool. In fact, I wear it all winter. But I thought you may want to capitalize on the rubber bracelet craze while it's at full throttle.

Poster friend #5: I have lots of bulky red yarn. I could braid some bracelets for all of us, Katie PomPomHands.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: I am overwhelmed. You guys!

Poster friend #6: We just want you to know that we care, Katie.

Katie Pom-Pom-Hands: Is anyone here allergic to wool? I just want to hug you all!

And lo, Katie Pom-Pom-Hands admitted the truth and faced her greatest fear and she discovered that her friends didn't care that she had big giant red pom-pom hands. They just cared. They loved her, and her big giant red wooly pom-pom hands, and she knew she was the luckiest pom-pom handed girl in the whole wide world!

The End.

* Disclaimer: Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Void where prohibited. Some assembly required. List each check separately by bank number. Batteries not included. Contents may settle during shipment. Use only as directed. No other warranty expressed or implied. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment.

I have a paper due tomorrow

It's a very important paper. So of course, because the paper is due tomorrow, and because it's important, and because I hadn't started it yet, today I:

1. Cleaned my kitchen, and reorganized all my cupboards.
2. Went downtown to do a bunch of errands.
3. Went to a medical clinic where it's first come/first serve in order to get a referral for massage therapy. I did not come first, therefore I was not served first.
4. Sorted out my closet, separating clothes by season and colour and then drove a bunch of things to Goodwill.
5. Took all my cans and bottles back for a refund. $4.15!!!!
6. Flossed my teeth. Twice.
7. Called my mom.
8. Called my friend who I never phone because every phone call with her lasts an hour and consists of her screaming, "Oh my fucking God, like you won't fucking believe this, oh my God," and me saying, "mmmhmmm....wow...yeah, mmmmhmmmm, whoa, wow....mmmmhhhmmm."
9. Called the loans people to find out why my student loan STILL hasn't arrived and spent 45 minutes on hold listening to instrumental versions of "My Heart Will Go On," while I screamed, "You %@!*$@#!!'s!!!!!"
10. Watched America's Next Top Model and Lost.

So, I'm kind of screwed now, I think.

Some humiliating revelations about me...

1) I try to avoid it like the plague, but if for some reason there's nothing else on tv and I watch Extreme Makeover Homeowner's Edition, I always wind up weeping.

2) I have never mastered chopsticks. The utensils, not the piano piece, but I can't play that either. Do you know how embarrassing it is to be the one dork in a Chinese restaurant who has to ask for a fork?

3) There are a couple of BeeGees songs that I like. I know. You don't have to tell me how wrong this is.

4) Whenever I see ice skating during the Olympics, I spend the next hour pretending to do double axels in my living room.

5) I also voluntarily watch American Idol and its Canadian counterpart, and then I sing "Stop!" by Sam Brown for about half an hour after each episode and curse the show's age restrictions. I coulda been a contender!

5) Ever since I saw an ABC afterschool special in the 80s about a bunch of "popular kids" who make over a homely classmate who winds up being the prom queen, I've been addicted to cheesy movies in which a girl is made over and winds up winning everyone's heart. I mean cheesy. Like Pretty Woman. Or even worse, that piece of crap Freddie Prinze Jr movie where his dorky sister makes over a girl he likes--she looks like Winona Ryder with glasses and a bad haircut--but wow, a little lipstick and some mascara and (it's a miracle!) she's suddenly a knock-out! And come on...that scene in Breakfast Club when Molly Ringwald teaches crazy Ally Sheedy about the power of brown eyeliner? That's gold, baby. I have a disease. I was channel surfing and actually slowed down to see homely Mandy Moore turn into pretty-but-fatally-ill Mandy Moore in A Walk to Remember. I need help.