More Reasons Why Toronto Sucks

Here are more reasons why I should get the hell out of Toronto ASAP:

* Having some bitch yell, "WATCH IT" at me as I bumped past her idiotically huge back pack on a packed subway train during rush hour. Seriously?! TAKE YOUR PACK OFF BIATCH AND THEN YOU WOULDN'T BE TAKING UP THE SPACE OF TWO AND A HALF PEOPLE.

* Anyone who has ever stood in front of an empty seat on a packed streetcar/subway/bus. IF YOU SIT DOWN, ONE MORE PERSON CAN GET ON!

* Standing under a semi-enclosed canopy on TTC property while waiting for a streetcar, and having three assholes light cigarettes, RIGHT UNDER A NO SMOKING SIGN! OBVIOUSLY YOU DOUCHES ARE UNABLE TO READ PICTURES!

* Having to write a letter to my building owner demanding he pay to repaint my car seeing as nobody has done or said anything about it in the four weeks since it first happened. LET ME SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT IF I THROW PAINT ON YOUR CAR!

* And this guy. If he wins the mayoral election, I'm moving to Arkansas. Because the red necks there have more class than he does.

I think I'm getting an ulcer.

We're Still Friends

The Comedian and I attended our first NHL game together on Saturday - Leafs vs Sabres at the HSBC Arena in Buffalo. It was a pre-season game, but a live game nonetheless!

Blondo and her hubby came with us. A bonafide double date! Mr. Blondo is a big Leafs fan as well. Blondo and I figured since we'll be hockey widows, at least we can suffer in our misery together.

I warned The Comedian that I am a Sabres girl and that my team was gonna KILL his team!!!

He was a very good sport about it all. Even when I did the Running Man for a victory dance after the Sabres' third and winning goal.

I'm glad we can love teams that are mortal enemies, and still be best friends. :D

Afterwards we ended up in Blondo's basement for drinks and cards. We turned a modified version of rummy into a drinking game. Our poison was shots of Amarula. The person who loses the round would have to take a shot.

Since The Comedian was driving, I was his drinking designate. And let me tell you, even with my expert help, he is tragically terrible at cards.

The funniest moment of the evening came from Blondo. She wanted to read us the label on the back of the Amarula bottle. She said she had discovered something about it the day before that she wanted to share with us.

She began reading about the mystical properties of the Marula tree, the fruit from which is used in the drink.

"It is a drink that is flavoured by elephants! Can you believe that? What do the elephants do to flavour the drink? I think they must pee on the trees!"

We laughed at the idea of the elephant pee seeping through the soil and into the roots of the tree and flavouring the fruit which ultimately ended up in the shots we'd been drinking.

The Comedian interjected with, "Maybe the elephants just favour the tree?"

All of us stopped and thought about that.

"Are you sure you're reading that label correctly?"

She grabbed the bottle and peered at the label. And then she looked up at us and turned a bright shade of red.

I grabbed the bottle from her and confirmed it. A drink FAVOURED by the elephants!!! Not FLAVOURED!!!

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!

Mr. Blondo pointed out that she had been so convinced of this, she even posted it to her Facebook status the day before. I think we laughed for about 10 minutes straight.

I love my BFF (Blondest Friend Forever)!!! :D

Apparently I Hate Myself

I could not fall asleep last night. It took me until about 3am before finally passing out.

And in the short four hours of sleep I did manage to get, it was filled with nightmares about my presentation being a complete disaster.

I woke up with a mammoth zit on the side of my chin. At least that took away some of the focus from the scabby mess that is my bottom lip.

On the bright side, my presentation got two thumbs up.

I'm *this* close to collapsing at my desk.

T-minus ten minutes until home time. I get to leave early today because 1) I didn't get my lunch break and 2) one of my managers is having an end of summer BBQ at his place for our department.

I will try very hard not to get completely bombed off one glass of wine. I still have a long drive ahead of me later to see The Comedian.

TGIF!

Cold Sores and Ring Worm

I have a big presentation tomorrow that I have been working on all week.

In honour of this, my lip busted out in a cold sore which has left me looking like someone punched me in the mouth. I can see everyone staring at it because it's just freaking huge and a bloody mess.

I also managed to convince myself that I had ringworm.

A few days ago I was sitting at my desk, working on my presentation and tearing out my hair because the phone would not stop ringing. As I was on a call, I noticed my left arm was super itchy.

I looked down and saw this (FYI, this is a Google image, and not my actual arm):

I recognized it immediately as I studied this in the many years of biology I took in university.

So of course I googled it just to make sure and yup, that is the classic clinical presentation of ringworm.

How on earth would I have contracted ringworm? Did I catch it from my cat? Did I catch it from The Comedian's dog? Did I eat too many mushrooms? How the hell was I gonna get this treated? I still haven't found the time to get to the lab for blood work that my doctor ordered three weeks ago.

The phone started ringing again, and again, and again. Then it was time for lunch which I just ended up eating at my desk because I had to keep working on my presentation.

I looked at my arm again and saw that my ringworm was gone.

I guess it was just an impression from my MedicAlert bracelet that usually ends up sticking to my arm, right around that same spot.

Yes, I know. I'm insane. But can you blame me?

My Rock

I took The Comedian to a matinee performance of Rock of Ages yesterday afternoon. It was his first time seeing the show, and my fourth!

I'm happy to report he absolutely loved it!

Afterwards, we hit up a local pub for some dinner and drinks. I had the foresight to create a Facebook event and invited a bunch of my GTA peeps to come out and meet The Comedian. And I'm happy to report 10 of my friends showed up!

I joked that we should have set up an individual autograph and photo session for everyone who showed up. Because yes, my friends came out for him, and not me. Which is fine. I am happy to share the spotlight with the man I love.

We were all laughing, drinking and eating when all of a sudden, I couldn't breathe. My throat closed up and I was certain in that moment, I had reached the end of my life.

The room started to flip as I gasped for air. I went into panic mode. My heart started to thump really fast and I could feel adrenaline coursing through every vein in my body.

And suddenly my throat opened up. I'm sure the whole process took a matter of seconds, but it felt like minutes.

No one noticed anything was happening until I asked for some water. The Comedian took one look at me and I could see panic in his eyes.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm not sure. I couldn't breathe for a moment. And now I have a sharp pain in my throat."

I showed him where it felt like someone was sticking me with a knife.

"Do you want to go to the doctor?"

"I'm not sure. I don't know what's happening right now."

I drank more water and tried to calm down. My heart was still racing and my throat felt tight. The sharp stabbing pain was happening intermittently.

After a few minutes, the pain subsided, but my throat was still tight and I was feeling lightheaded.

"I think some blue cheese snuck into our nachos."

You see folks, blue cheese contains the same mold as penicillin. And I am deathly allergic to penicillin.

The Comedian wanted to throw me over his shoulder and run me to a hospital. I assured him that I wasn't getting any worse. The last thing I wanted to do was spend an evening in the ER waiting to be seen. I figured as long as I was still breathing, I would eventually get over whatever the hell I was reacting to.

For the next hour I was okay-ish.

And then the throat pain came back viciously. It was no longer intermittent, but constant.

At this point I had to cut the evening short. I apologized to my friends for having to leave. They all hugged me and wished me better.

The whole way home on the subway I was feeling like something had sucked my life force out of me. I even fell asleep at one point. My body was shutting down and I had no idea why.

Once we got back to my apartment, I immediately changed into my pajamas and crawled into bed. The Comedian stayed right by my side, asking if I needed anything, or if I wanted to go to the hospital.

"I'm staying tonight."

"You can't. You have to work tomorrow morning."

"I don't care. I'm not leaving you until I know you're fine. If something happened to you and I wasn't here to help you..."

I saw a tear slide out from his eye.

All together now - AWWWWWWW!!!

But really, wow. Seeing how worried he was about me made me feel like no matter what happened, I would be okay.

We snuggled and watched TV for the next couple of hours. I ended up feeling almost 100% back to normal. I assured him I was fine and that he should go before it got too late.

It was almost midnight by the time he left. I got a text from him around 1:30am saying he'd made it home safe and sound.

I still don't know what the hell happened. I hope it never happens again. But if it does, I know I will be fine, because I have him by my side.

$5000 Photo Shoot

I finally went through all my wedding stuff last night. I threw out the champagne glasses we used for our first toast as husband and wife, a commemorative mug that had a wedding picture and the date printed on it, a pewter sculpture of a man and woman embracing, a "2006" ornament, a mini-license plate from the Vegas M&M store depicting two M&Ms getting married, a mini white limo toy which represented the limo we took to the ceremony, the rose that was his boutonniere and the roses from my bouquet which had been perfectly preserved in a shadow box.

I got to all the photos and was about to start tearing them to pieces when I decided I had spent way too much money on those pictures to just rip them up. In total, the wedding cost me about $5,000. Please note, I did say it cost ME, and not us, because I was the breadwinner in that marriage and had shelled out the cash (and plastic) for the whole shebang. (Man, my ex had a really sweet deal - a wife who never pressured him to hold a steady job, and never made him feel bad about it either. But I digress.)

And aside from the expense, I looked pretty damn hot in the photos. I loved my hair and my dress and I looked like I was glowing. As much as my marriage sucked and made me miserable, the one shining moment was the actual wedding day. I truly was having the happiest day of my life.

I decided to keep some of the pictures. I carefully tore him out of each one and kept my half. I also decided to keep the DVD of the ceremony, only because the Elvis who married us was really awesome and I got to sing with him at the end.

Here is the art piece I created in the shadow box that once held my bouquet.

I really like how it turned out! It has been placed inside my hutch, out of sight to the general public. Maybe one day when I'm famous, I will auction it off for charity. The opening bid will be set at $5,000. :)

The best part of all this happened just a few minutes ago when I took the garbage bag down to the dumpster.

I heaved it up and into the bin. There was an amazingly loud pop as the bag hit the bottom of the dumpster. I heard the champagne glasses and the mug shatter into what I can only imagine was a million pieces.

A fitting and final conclusion to Jan. 8, 2006. WHOO!

Cobwebs

I just spent the last hour deleting 1380 emails from my ex-husband. I stopped to read a few here and there and all that did was trigger feelings of anger, shame and hurt. Even with three years of space, the feelings were just as raw and intense as when they first happened.

Which is why getting rid of that shit is a good thing.

I kept about 80 emails that pertain directly to our divorce and a few that are outright blackmail on his part. He still owes me $500 from the divorce, as per the court order. I'll never see that money, but at least I have proof that he acknowledged the debt and I tried several times to collect. The blackmail emails are a nice insurance policy should he ever try to pull anything in the future. Which, knowing how completely psychotic he can be, is entirely within the realm of possibility.

I also really need to go through my closets and drawers to make sure anything related to him gets thrown out. I still have quite a bit of stuff from our wedding, although I had torn up my wedding scrapbook into a million tiny pieces about a year ago. That was therapeutic to say the least.

The Comedian is coming up for the weekend for the first time, and I want to make sure he doesn't inadvertently come across anything to do with my ex.

I am so ready to start this new chapter of my life. I can finally see the light.

Metamorphosis II

Remember this post?

It took 3 years, 1 month and 28 days but I've got a Relationship Status back up on my Facebook profile. It now says "In a Relationship with The Comedian".

And when it's on Facebook, it *must* be true! :)

It took a loooooong time to get here. There were many, many dark and lonely days. And there were many, many times I had truly believed I would be alone for the rest of my life.

But somehow, we found each other. It bends my brain thinking about all the choices which had to be made that would eventually lead us to the moment when we would finally meet.

I'm so happy this part of my life is finally set. Now I can get on to other things like becoming a rock star, developing a perfume line, starring in several reality TV series and total world domination.

I just hope I don't get hit by a falling piano anytime soon.

L-bomb

The Comedian and I spent Saturday remembering those who were lost in the 9/11 attacks by visiting the 9/11 Memorial Walk on the shores of Lake Ontario.

There were 27 Canadians who were lost in the events of 9/11 and the City of St. Catharines set up this memorial to honour them and those who had close ties to Canada. There were trees and benches dedicated to each of these people.

We sat on one of the benches and looked out across the lake. It was a picture perfect day. I reflected on how lucky I am to live in Canada, far removed from the atrocities that have occurred and continue to occur daily around the world. I counted my blessings - my job, my health, my family, my friends, and now The Comedian. I said a silent prayer for those souls who were taken 9 years ago.

Later that evening we visited my friend who owns a church in Welland which he has renovated into a bed & breakfast. This was the first time I had the chance to see the finished space. It was spectacular to say the least.

There were several friends in attendance whom I hadn't seen in at least 2 years. We sat around chatting and having a few drinks.

At one point, the conversation turned to the ever morbid topic of wills and funerals. What is it with my friends? This was supposed to be a FUN evening.

My brain shut down at that point. I was already in a sombre mood from the memorial walk and I had also found out that the mother of a former student of mine had passed away the day before.

I nudged The Comedian and indicated I wanted to leave.

We got home and got ready for bed. I was exhausted both physically and mentally from the day.

I reflected on the day, on the conversation and how short life really is. I decided I had to tell The Comedian how I felt about him. I didn't want another moment to go by without him knowing.

We had just got under the covers and all snuggled up against each other and he turned out the lights. I could still see his face from the moonlight coming in through the window.

I took his face in my hands, kissed his lips and said, "I love you."

He smiled and without hesitation said, "I love you baby."

I kissed him again and we drifted off to sleep. I don't remember dreaming that night. But I do know it was one of the soundest nights of sleep I've had in a long time.

Signs

I am *this close* to quitting everything here and moving to St. Catharines for good.

My wallet and iPod were stolen out of my purse last night, some time between 5:00pm and 7:15pm.

I realized it was gone after having dinner with a former colleague of mine. We were at the subway station and I went into my purse to get my transit pass and my iPod. My iPod was gone. And as I was digging around in my purse looking for it, I realized my wallet was gone too!

I will say I'm lucky that I wasn't attacked for them. However, it still fucking sucks.

I had EVERYTHING in there except cash. Well, I had $10 AUD I've been carrying around since my trip last year, which I keep forgetting to exchange. And a cheque made out to me for $80. It had my driver's license, my red & white health card (For my American friends, losing a red & white health card sucks large, just ask anyone who lives in Ontario.), my health benefits card, my Starbucks card, my Chapters gift card, and all my reward cards like Air Miles, Aeroplan, Shoppers Optimum, SCENE, Hallmark, Carlton Cards....

I am so shocked this actually happened. I have lived in Toronto for over 10 years and I've never had anything like this happen to me. I have always considered my city to be a safe one. It's a little cold and unfriendly at times because apparently most of the people who live here are dickheads, however, I have never been afraid of getting anything stolen. Which is probably why I walk around with my purse unzipped. I'm in and out of it a lot so it's a pain to zip and unzip and zip again.

By the time I got home, the shock wore off a bit and I started to get really fucking mad. I felt so violated. I can only describe it as if someone had stolen my underwear off my body, sniffed it, licked it and masturbated into it.

I called my bank and my credit card company immediately. They were nice and kept apologizing this was happening to me. I told them it wasn't their fault, but I appreciated the sympathy.

The bastard used my credit card right away. Got $70 of gas at Canadian Tire. But the joke was on him when he tried to charge $1,400 at Future Shop and the card was declined. I was nearly maxed out due to a few large purchases, including 4 tickets to Rock of Ages for next week.

I then called The Comedian to let him know what happened. He immediately freaked out and wanted to drive up here to look for the bastard. So cute, but so futile! I did however, express some fear in that this jerk store now has my address. Which if he's pissed about my credit card being declined, maybe he would come and rob my apartment, or steal my car - he knows I have one because there was a copy of my car insurance policy in there too.

Yeah, don't ever tell your boyfriend something like that cuz he will freak out even more. He was all ready to construct a transporter and beam himself to my side. I told him it's unlikely that would happen because these kinds of thieves are snatch and spend, not diabolical geniuses (such as I).

I assured him I would be fine and then got on with calling the police and trying to figure out what I had that needed to be cancelled and replaced.

I was doing a mental check list of what I had and was registered online when I thought about my Starbucks card. I'd loaded it with $10 about 2 weeks ago when meeting up with Anne Shirley.

I logged in to see the balance and much to my surprise, it was at $3.04! I cannot believe that bastard actually stopped for coffee after stealing my wallet!!!!!! Like seriously?! He needed a coffee break from his difficult life of crime?!?!?!

I wanted to punch someone in the face with a brick at that moment.

I spent about an hour on the phone with a very nice police officer filing the report. I had to go through every single piece of everything that was in my wallet. Along with all my ID and reward cards, I had a silver crucifix in my wallet that my cousins had given to me in 2004 after having been in a car accident. I had to approximate the replacement value. I wanted to scream, "THERE ISN'T ENOUGH MONEY ON EARTH TO REPLACE THAT!!!" But I guessed $50 seeing as it was made out of real silver.

I asked him what I should do about driving without a license as I have a doctor's appointment scheduled for this morning.

He told me not to speed and if I did get pulled over, to give the cop his name and badge number and say he told me it was okay to drive.

Ha! I told him my speeding days were over from my ticket a few nights before. He asked me what I did and where it happened. After I told him the whole story with the crying fit and everything, he told me it was extremely nice of the officer to have lowered the ticket and said it wouldn't have any effect on my insurance. Good thing I decided to pay the ticket, inspite of the great opposition most of my friends had to the idea.

After I finished up with the cop, I packed my stuff quickly and headed out. I had told The Comedian I was going to text him when I left, but forgot to. I got stuck in some awful traffic around Burlington so I whipped out my Blackberry and saw two frantic texts from him wondering what the hell happened to me over the previous hour. He's so cute. :)

At any rate, I got in late last night and now I'm up early for my doctor's appointment. I have to get my doc's hand up my junk to make sure I'm still okay from that last weird pap I had last year.

So between getting the speeding ticket and my wallet stolen and paint all splashed over my entire car from the painters in parking garage along with a cracked windshield (Yes, that happened just after the wedding The Comedian and I attended. I didn't blog about it because I was still riding high from the wedding. And I had stomped around and yelled about it for a few days which got it all out of my system.), I've just about had it with this city.

Now I just have to figure out how to get the fuck out of here seeing as I have no ID and a car I really shouldn't be driving.

And I hope that thief gets a horribly itchy STD sometime in the near future.

Brakes

Commuting from Niagara to Toronto is effing expensive. Hey Via Rail, I think more people would leave their cars at home and take your train if it wasn't $735 a month to ride the St. Catharines - Toronto corridor. Seriously!

My best option would be driving to the Burlington GO station and riding in from there. That comes with a $240 monthly price tag. I'd have to catch the 7:30am train to get into the Tdot by 8:30am. That leaves me enough time to catch the subway to the office - well, depending on whether or not the TTC is running normally at that moment. Seems that since I started my job in June, the TTC is broken more than not.

The prospect of doing this commute has really boggled my brain and it's starting to burn my skirt. If I were to do this every day, I would not be able to do anything after work, because I will have to catch my train at 6pm, to get home by 7:30pm. And then I'm sure I'll be tired and will only want to eat dinner and then go to bed. I won't be able to take dance lessons anymore. I won't be able to meet up with friends for a couple beers. I won't be able to go to the movies. I won't be able to do anything.

GAH!!!

Yeah, as much as I want to be with The Comedian full time, I don't think I'm quite ready to give everything up just yet.

I am revising my plan to go down there on Thursday nights and come back up on Sunday nights. That way I can still take dance on Mondays and Wednesdays and oh you know, see my friends.

I hope this doesn't kill me - or him.

Speed Limits

I spent part of the Labour Day weekend with my good friend Fried Beans, in honour of her 30th birthday. Welcome to Club 3-0 kid!

On Sunday, The Comedian and I were over at Jelly's house for a BBQ that was held pretty much in his honour. I am certain my friends love my boyfriend more than me now. Jelly has never thrown a BBQ in my honour. But that's fine. I will ride his coattails of popularity and reap the benefits of food and drink!

We had to be inside for the day because it was bloody cold out! But Jelly's husband was a good sport and manned the BBQ while the rest of us, including Blondo, her hubby & kids, were inside drinking booze and laughing our heads off.

Blondo was getting drunk a lot quicker than the rest of us, which is always entertainment in itself. At one point, Jelly brought out a book she has from 1913 which was about sex education. (Don't ask me why, but whenever my girlfriends and I get together, we always talk about sex, babies and vaginas.) There were funny diagrams - one of the male anatomy minus the penis - and lots of virtuous advice on how to maintain one's morality.

It was amazing to spend the afternoon with my best friends, their husbands and children and my guy. That scene was exactly how I've always dreamed my boyfriend and my BFFs would be with each other.

On Monday, we went to a local parade with his mom, sister, brother-in-law and kids. Afterwards, we went over to his sister's for a BBQ, and again we stayed inside because of the cool weather.

His brother-in-law gave me the official tour of the house and then said, "Now that you know where everything is, you just go ahead and help yourself to whatever you'd like." He made sure to show me the location of the beer fridge. :)

We ate, we talked, we laughed, we played with the kids, and then I fell asleep on his shoulder while sitting on the couch watching the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon.

After waking up and thanking his sister for the hospitality, we went back to his place to watch the end of the telethon and for me to pack up and get ready to hit the road back to the Tdot.

I cried my eyes out watching Jerry Lewis perform the final song "You'll Never Walk Alone". He was so emotional he could barely choke out the words, which of course made me cry even harder. The Comedian had tears in his eyes as well.

To lighten the mood, we flipped on Comedy Central and they were running a Roast marathon. We were laughing so hard we cried (again)!

I guess all the crying is probably what pushed me over the edge when it came time to leave. It was 11pm and I was standing at the door hugging him goodbye and all of a sudden I started bawling.

We spent the better part of the next 2 hours discussing our options for spending more time together. Between the tears, we decided we want to move ahead faster than we originally planned. So it was decided that I would start researching commuting options from St. Catharines to Toronto.

I managed to finally peel myself from him at 1am and started the long trek home.

Luckily there was no traffic so I managed to make really good time back to the city. I was flying along at around 130km/hr for most of my trip. I was also crying for most of my trip.

I got to the Allen Express, which is about 5km from my apartment, and I remember thinking to myself there's a speed trap at the southern end of the express way where the speed drops from 80km/hr to 60km/hr.

So I slowed down, but since I generally do 20km/hr over the limit when I drive, I dropped my speed from 100km/hr to 80km/hr. And two seconds later, I saw a cop walking into my path with his hand raised.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I'm pulling you over for speeding. Give me your license. If your driving record is good, I will drop the fine."

He showed me the radar gun which read 83km/hr. I started crying and handed him my license. I pulled over into the parking lot where his and another cruiser were sitting.

As I waited for my punishment, I cried even more. This wouldn't be happening if The Comedian and I lived in the same city. This wouldn't be happening if I wasn't so tired while I was driving. This wouldn't be happening if I hadn't spent the better part of my drive home bawling my eyes out.

The cop came back with my license and yellow ticket in hand.

"Your driving record is clean. Now at 23km/hr over the limit, it would be a $120 fine and 3 points off your license. But I am dropping it to 1km/hr over the limit and a $17.50 fine with no points."

He handed me the ticket and my license and I cried harder and apologized profusely.

"It's okay. Have a good night. Drive safe."

And for your amusement, and much to my chagrin, here is my very first speeding ticket ever. :P