And Then I Lost My Shoe

i'm not going to lie. this has been a pretty shite week in general. from working twelve days in a row to ending a two-year relationship the last thing i needed was to lose my running shoes. but somehow i did. i'm pretty sure i still had them when i was near yonge and montgomery (where i had stopped to read my favourite historical plaque on the way to work) and i thought they were still there at the bank machine in the subway station but i am guessing, by the fact that i no longer own running shoes, that they were not.

i had to be at work at 7.40 today which isn't too terrible because i will leave early in lieu. i am going straight from work to the bus station, then kingston, and then the cottage, which i am very excited about. i was more excited when i still had all my footwear but apparently that was a dream that could not be fulfilled.

i'm going to list some dreams that i do hope come true today:

- the dream of a seat alone on the bus
- the dream of not getting berated at work for dairy-related mishaps
- the dream of sleeping through the night
- the dream of a reasonably-priced pair of shoes in yorkville

on that note, i am going to quit the procrastinating and actually get some work done. and by "work" i mean "the crossword".

and by "doing the crossword" what i really meant was quasi-interviewing my friend joe that i work with. this was the challenge i put forward to him: list three things you are totally indifferent about. i tried to answer it myself and its actually pretty hard.

if anyone can come up with a really good list of things that you are actually indifferent to, let me know. as it turns out, i have feelings one way or another about almost everything.

Last Day and Last Night

i went and saw gus van sant's last days last night. it really wasn't supposed to be my turn to pick the movie but somehow matt connived me into it. sneaky. on a day like yesterday, a film that ends with a guy killing himself was probably not the best choice, but at the time i really wasn't up for dancing penguins, and i'd heard that broken flowers has a disappointing ending. at least with a film about kurt cobain i pretty much knew how it was going to turn out.

it was my first gus van sant movie and i wasn't quite prepared for such minimal dialogue. there were a few particular scenes that seemed so random and drawn-out that my mind wandered. i remembered a talent show at rky where "the boys of tara and erin" decided to put on a dance routine. there was actually only one boy in the group (shawn) and he basically did a hoe-down while the girls dressed up like cowgirls and provided synchronized back-up dancing. we had picked the longest song we could find and kept up the performance for its duration. it started off pretty funny and then the laughs died. this was all part of our plan though! we danced until the whole thing was ludicrous and had gone full circle to the point of funny again. that was sort of how i felt during parts of the movie last night, particularly during the scene where the camera was focused on some grass.

there is a good chance that i didn't go into this film in the proper frame of mind. as we were walking to the subway after the show matt was discussing things like the contrasting imagery between the actors and their environment while i made poignant comments like "uh, that was the guy from dawsons right?" it was him, by the way.

its nice having a somewhat-regular movie night like this. i'd had a total garbage day at work. i got "talked to" for a variety of things that were not my fault (and some that may have been but its hard to tell) and it was nice to go out and not think about it for a while. although we did end up discussing other unpleasantries. at least in those cases my feelings were confirmed, not railed against. the highlight of the conversation last night had to be the line "yeah, i'd do something like that ... if i'd been dating hitler."

its only 8.30 and i am suspicious that today might not go any better than yesterday. but at the very least i am becoming highly motivated to find work that is less soul-sucking.

The Day All Hope Died

few things make you appreciate your girl friends like the actions of, and reactions to, boys. and i think there are times when i forget how important the girls are to me until days like yesterday.

melissa threw a surprise going away party for robin. she tried to incorporate all of robin's different groups of friends and it was a really nice and interesting group of people, although we did have to trek out to ajax for it! thankfully melissa gave us a lift so we had time to hang-out and putter around before the surprise took place.

i met them at the designated pick-up point after i got off work (nothing puts a damper on a weekend quite like having to go in to work on both saturday and sunday mornings). i was in a bit of a grump from work and a hideous conversation i'd had with a particular boy that morning but i was ready to sluff it off and get on with the festivities.

of course its never that simple. as it turned out, all of us (except for allie who is an ecstatic newlywed) seemed to be in the midst of some boy drama. it was a very 'sex and the city' car ride but i was doing my best to keep mum about my dilemma. that plan was a failure. soon enough i was crying telling my story, shannon was on the verge of tears from her own tale of woe, allie was offering her best support and shannon turned around from the front seat, looked at me and said "it's sad when all hope dies." the moment was SO maudlin and depressing there was nothing to do but burst into hysterical laughter.

things got better from there. "the day that all hope died" became the theme of our evening and we were able to have a good squawk.

robin was SO surprised by the party. she had been suspicious that something had been planned for the evening but never suspected that it would be in ajax at melissa's parents. as she came out on the deck she was initially confused by tim's head peeking out from the fence. she looked around as we yelled surprise, grinned, then promptly burst into tears (as you can see from the photos). shannon caught the exact moment her face crumpled on camera and it is the saddest thing you could ever imagine during such a happy moment. i will be able to post it when she returns from her jaunt out east.

tim and genevieve very kindly gave allie, taryn and me a lift to the pickering GO station in blue steel. that car is awesome, by the way. we weren't up for a massive night out like all the people that stayed at melissa's but we weren't quite ready to go home either. taryn and i decided to surprise ben with a little visit. thankfully he wasn't in his underpants when we got there but i think we were a distraction from the studying he was supposed to be doing.

their wedding pictures are beautiful and ben and allie have done very well with the gift certificates they received. ben has so many great qualities and i have to say that one is of them is that he is a fantastic shopper. he even managed to do william ashley well. and now i know what a mandolin is (thank you rat!).

the moral of today's story is that yesterday had the potential to be a disaster. it was saved by my friends who aren't phased by the odd burst of tears and who can make me laugh in the midst of a breakdown. tim and gen's comedic description of the male/female communication breakdown was awesome too!

its funny how progress can still be made on the day that hope died!