Monthly Archive: April 2007

Texturized

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Tue. April 17, 2007

My hair had been bothering me for a few weeks now. I hadn’t had a cut in about three months. I think not getting a cut was mostly a matter of laziness, but part of me was thinking that I wanted to grow out my hair. I wanted a longer hair style. For the past few years, I’ve always had it cut short, but I was growing weary of the same look all the time. That’s why I was attempting to grow it out to facilitate the change. Thing is, after all this time, it became unmanageable and quite poofy.

Anyway, I dropped by the hair cutters after work. When it came to my turn, I asked the stylist for her opinion: should I cut it short like I always do, or is there something else she could do? Well, she told me that if I want it long, I’d have to grow it out more. However, she could texturize my hair and clean it up a bit. I agreed. In the end, she didn’t really do much, but she managed to cut it in such a way that I can do a couple of things with it. When she was done, she kind of put my hair down, giving me a look that I wasn’t used to. Have a look:
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So, you know, it’s not that I hate it: it’s just different. I’m not entirely sure I’m ready to go to work like this. Luckily, I can style my hair sort of how I usually do it.

I guess my mood tomorrow morning will dictate what I do.

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Just another day on the commute

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Tue. April 17, 2007

On the train this morning, as it pulled into Yonge station, the driver announced that we would be holding at the station for a little while because there was a train right ahead of us. I thought that it was a bit unusual for them to announce such a thing–they usually don’t. However, I gave it little thought before closing my eyes again and entering my own world again.

Moments later, the driver made another announcement, saying that we would have to wait at the station because there was a bit of a security mater that had to be taken care of. “That’s odd,” I thought. I looked out the window to the platform, which was rather empty. Off in the distance, I spotted a police officer scurrying off in one direction. He was too far off for me to really put much thought into what was going on. A few seconds later, I saw a second police officer on the platform rushing towards my end of the car. I cocked my head up, trying to focus my senses to figure out what was up. However, when I did, I withdrew immediately. I figured that I didn’t want to up the panic level of anyone in the car. I mean, no one knew what was going on. The thing is, with the Virginia Tech Massacre happening the day before, I have to admit that my mind was immediately playing out horribly unlikely scenarios. I turned up the volume on my iPod and tried to drown out the thoughts. Moments later, the train doors closed and we were on our way again. All that worry was for nothing.

Just another day during the commute.

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Meat, music, and scantily clad women

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Sun. April 15, 2007

A little while back, Jenelle sent me a link to a local churrascaria that she wanted to try out when she got back into town. I was pretty intrigued by it because, hey, who doesn’t like all-you-can-eat meat (besides vegetarians…). Anyway, my friend and I went to check it out last night.

I was first to arrive, so I tried to get a table. I spoke with the hostess, but she told me that there would be an hour wait to get a table–this, despite the fact that half the restaurant was empty. I just went outside and called my friend. I was ready to go elsewhere for food. When he arrived, he went in just to see if he would have more success. Somehow, he ended up getting a table, which sort of pissed me off to no end. He tried to calm me down saying that someone probably cancelled–they wouldn’t turn down paying customers. Yeah well, horse shit.

Anyway, we started eating and the waiters started coming around with big skewers of meat. There was a live band, which was cool, but made it hard to talk to my friend. In the middle of the meal, all craziness broke loose when two young women came out dancing in these scant costumes. They looked like those Brazilian show girls that you see around on the news before Lent starts. Kind of Vegas-y, you know? They were dancing around, and all I could do was smile. I mean, it was totally unexpected. They grabbed some people from their tables, and they were all partying it up (probably drunk). The music was deafening. About 10 minutes later, it was all over, and all I could think of was “what the hell was that?” Heheh.

The meat servers did their thing. The food they served was alright, but the good stuff was usually done before they ever got to our table. There was supposed to be this rotation of meat. However, he didn’t even get to see a full cycle. I mean, we saw the rump steak 3 freaking times, but didn’t get any lamb until it was late and we were stuffed. One time, one waiter came around with chicken hearts. I read good things about it and wanted to try them out. He went to the table beside ours first, and wouldn’t you know it, that table took every last heart off his skewer. Damn it!

So, after a while, when we were stuffed, we asked for the bill. We were discussing what we thought the cost would be and figured that it was worth $20 each, but expected there to be some sort of markup. We estimated about $55 or so. When the bill came, he opened the thing first. Upon seeing it, he made this face that I couldn’t identify–I didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing. I took a look and I swear I thought there was some mistake. I tried not to freak out, but I think the server noticed my eyes bug out. For the two of us, the total came to about $110. DAAAAMN. OK, so we paid and got out. I didn’t know what to think and it took a good while for me to process what had just happened. We agreed to move on to a tea house to discuss.

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You know, for $55…I could have gotten a whole lot more value. I suppose that explains when so many other groups of people seemed to be around forever in the restaurant. Sure, the entertainment is reason to bump up the price…but damn. This is what we get for not checking the menu out before heading in, you know? While at the tea house, we were bitching so much about what happened, but of course we really should have known.

So, I guess it means that my outing budget has been wiped out for the next little while. Gotta save! Mistakes like this do not help.

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June, the fearless

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Sat. April 14, 2007

Activist Callwood dies at 82

I will be wholly honest and say that normally I wouldn’t have paid much attention to the passing of someone like Callwood. First of all, I really didn’t know who she was. I’m not one of those revolutionary activist types that keeps on top of these things (though maybe I should be, but I’m probably too selfish for that to ever work out). I would not have recognized the name at all until a few days ago.

I was watching The Hour (damn, when did I really start wanting to watch the CBC? Probably worth delving into another time…), and George was visiting her in her home. She was already close to death, but didn’t seem like it at all. She came across as lady who had seen it all (and she probably had) who still had much wisdom to impart to the world at large, and so still had to live on in order to do so. However, the whole interview felt so unreal. From what I recall, for most of the interview Strombo and June’s discussion revolved around her death. I mean, why shouldn’t it, no? However, there was such a matter-of-fact-ness to the way she was talking about it that it was almost like she had stripped death of any of its power. It’s like she grabbed the reaper by the nuts and told him that he will have no say over the rest of her life.

So, more than anything, I was so struck by her fearlessness. What freedom! Even though I don’t know much about her, that short 10 minute interview told me enough to know that June must have been a truly remarkable woman to be that fearless.

And now, she’s gone.

This is a quote from her interview (borrowed from the Star, borrowed from George…)

“What you get is a life. A baby is a miracle. You open a baby’s fist and they’ll close their hand on your hand and hold on. What they’ve got is a life to live as best as they can. That’s what you get. You don’t need anything else if you’ve got that.”

ETA: Well, it’s a little sad that I’m only learning about her work now, but at least the newscasts are informative about her.

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Month 3 Progress

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Thu. April 12, 2007

I have been ridiculously lazy as of late. It could have been a factor of just being discouraged after not seeing numbers move much. I’ve been trying to get back on the fitness horse, but it’s not an entirely consistent ride. Regardless, I think I’m down another 2-3 lbs from the last month.

Though this morning the numbers were higher than usual. I blame the salt content in what I ate last night. I’ve noticed that meals with high sodium levels often cause spikes the morning after, so I’m not concerned at all. If I keep going at this rate, I hope to reach my interim goal by mid year, and that’s just fine with me. The trend remains downward, so all is well.

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This chair is toasty

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Thu. April 12, 2007

When someone sits in your chair right before you, don’t you hate it when the first thought you have is: “man…this chair is toasty”?

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Inevitably crossing paths

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Wed. April 11, 2007

After writing about time compression the other day, it was a bit of a serendipitous thing to run into Rahul on the streetcar this past afternoon. I worked closely with him and two others on orientation week back in 2004. Since then, we sort of lost touch because we were off-stream. That is, when I was in school he was busy working, and when he was in school I was working. As it turns out, he works very close to where I work. It’s just luck that we hadn’t run into each other after all this time.

Anyway, we picked caught up pretty quickly. We reminisced about times past. I felt just as scatter-brained as ever. I mean, I usually get that way when talking to people I haven’t seen in a long time. Frankly, I tend not to sound intelligent: perhaps stoned, which might explain one of my coworker’s observations. A lot of the conversation was spiked with me interjecting: “Wow…that was so long ago.” I tried not to be loud, but, I suppose I didn’t care too much who heard our conversation. Well, I didn’t until he asked: “Are you still into ______?” Oh Lord. He asked about the fandom. Out loud. On the streetcar. All I could do was say, “eh…wow…that was so long ago.” He said, “I remember you insisting we watch an episode on my laptop!” All I could do was grimace.
“Wow…so long ago.”

*sigh*

Anyway, we started talking about his job. As it turns out, he really promoted his project management skills based on our experience with orientation week. Sure, he had other events to list as well, but really, that was the big thing. As a result, he got a good job as a project manager. In my case, I only gave that job a few lines, and only on the second page. So, of course, it really didn’t play into any job interviews that I got. After speaking with him, I think it’s a bit of a pity I didn’t play it up more. I could have gotten a non-coding job. Seriously. How great would that have been? I don’t intend to stay where I am forever, you know? Well, it’s something to think about when it comes time to consider where I want to take my career.

I’m sure I’ll see him again at some point. We plan on eating lunch together at some time in the near future. It should be great. I think this is sort of what I meant about the past not being so far away even though it really is. No matter what happens, you will always have connections to your past, and inevitably you’ll end up crossing paths with people who you’ve interacted with at one point or another.

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Holler

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Wed. April 11, 2007

I left the office to pick up a quick lunch. As I crossed the street, there was this woman going the other way who seemed to be adjusting her long scarf. She seemed to lose control of it and the wind carried it in front of my path. I ignored it and maintained my tunnel vision as I crossed the street. As I passed her, she seemed to say “hey!” I was kind of surprised, but kept on going. She yelled again, “hey!” I looked over my shoulder to look at her. It was a beautiful tall red-haired woman in a long coat with a silk scarf. I scanned my memory trying to see if I knew her in any capacity. I couldn’t come up with anything. She continued to yell out “hey!” I continued to look at her with a bit of a confused look. I think she was sort of waving to get my attention. Hell, I don’t know. I’m still wondering who the heck that was.

So, OK, that leaves me with a few thoughts. Maybe she was calling for someone behind me. Though, I think I was the only one walking the direction that I was. Is she someone from university or possibly high school? I can’t think of anyone that fits the profile. Besides, it’s not like she was calling my name. She wasn’t “hollering” at me. AS IF. Things like that don’t happen to me. Hahah. Was she just angry that I walked into her scarf or something? No clue.

To tell you the truth, it’s kind of funny to think of what might have happened if I did ascertain why she was yelling at me.

Guess I’ll never know.

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