Wednesday, August 27, 2003

warning re: tiling one's floor: Wear kneepads. Or wrap towels around your knees. Or something. Because my knees are a bit bruised up and it's still summer so people will see my knees and may think to themselves, hm, her knees are pretty bruised up, what kind of shenanigans has she been up to? And I'll think back in my head, No! I was just tiling my bedroom floor! And they'll be all, Oh, tiling the bedroom floor, is that what they're calling it these days? And I'll be left standing on the sidewalk having conversations in my head while examining my own knees and implicating myself in knee-related sexual acts. It's all in your head! But I don't think it is. I know how people think. People are Dirty.

Anyway, I tiled again today. You know, since the fetish has sunk in and all. I had some tiles left over so I did the front entrance way (which was looking sad) and then remembered that I hadn't tiled my closet. So I tiled that. And then there was nothing left to tile and only 4 tiles left. And I was sad. But my knees were not.
I tiled my bedroom yesterday! The way I've been going on about it, you'd think it was the accomplishment of the summer. And you'd be right. Yes, that and understanding French. It's a fun fun life, it is. Ah, but the thing is that I've had these wood-look laminate tiles sitting on my bedroom floor, halfway under my bed since mid-November. Yeah. I just didn't have the time to think about expending the effort it would take to haul stuff around and out of my room to lay floor tiles down. But, yesterday I was inspired. What inspires tile-laying, I cannot tell you, but it hit me! I even took all the books off my gigantic bookshelf so that I could tile under it. I was in full-on perfectionist tiling mode! I measured, I cut, I got my fingers sticky with tile glue! (ooh, that smacks of innuendo, don't it?)

Anyway, I'm developing a floor fetish. It's like getting a new pair of shoes - I can't stop looking at them for a few days and squealing with delight. Not *actually* squealing, of course, but more of an internal hopping up and down and yelling 'yaaay' in my head. Though I have been going around saying, "wow, floor tiles make such a big difference. And I did it all myself, etc." But seriously now, the floor was dirty maroon painted plywood with a few rugs thrown over it in a sad attempt to conceal the ghetto flooring. Gawd, my eyes have been re-opened to the extent my ass-sitting can get to.

Yesterday I also made an amazing fish curry. And Jeny got kicked off Canadian Idol. Banner day it was. (haha, no, i actually kinda liked jeny and her weird newfie psychotic stare.)

Monday, August 04, 2003

Another good thing about being home is not eating cafeteria food every day. I can feel my health returning despite this nagging cold (which will die very soon. die.) Wow, vegetables that aren't drenched in some kind of sauce! And, what's this? Flavour? Spices? Hurrah! I've made curry two nights in a row.

Of course, I also bought good ice cream. But c'mon now, if you're going to eat sugary stuff, ice cream is the best thing you can choose. So say I. At least it's got a little nutritional value. I was eating these cookies at the cafeteria in Moncton that were really good tasting, but probably each cookie was the equivalent of a a bag of store-bought cookies. The grease came off on your fingers. Yeah, so with those eliminated from my life, my body has begun to feel better. It's just hard when you see an unlimited supply of cookies (we didn't pay for our meals - we had a pre-paid food plan, so the cafeteria was pretty much just an unlimited buffet.) to say "No, I don't want a cookie. No, I don't want another cookie." Well, for me it's hard. So now I am back to Normal. Phew. All I want to eat is real food that I make myself. And my oven isn't working, so I can't bake cookies ;)

Speaking of things not working/falling apart... When I got home on Saturday, I noticed that half the kitchen ceiling was hanging on by a thread. Yes, and water was sploshed across half the kitchen too! Wow! Nothing says Welcome Home like major house repairs! Apparently this happened on Friday. So the landlord came over Saturday afternoon and they hacked away at the *fully rotten* wood boards in the ceiling, trying to figure out what had happened. Turns out it wasn't a slowly leaking pipe. It was a slowly leaking washing maachine! Yes, somehow the woman upstairs didn't realize that her washing machine had been leaking for, oh, probably a year, and was sitting in a grand puddle of water! It's a bluddy wonder the machine didn't come through our ceiling... seriously, it could've. eesh. So, I get to have cheap-hire repairmen trapsing in and out of the house for at least two weeks. At least they're going to fix the dripping faucets in both kitchen and bathroom. Maybe they'll put in new windows that actually keep the cold out. hahahahahahaha. ah. ha.
Okay, so I got warmed up with that lipstick post.

I speak French! It's awesome! I could understand all the French announcements on the train back here! I could understand French programs on tv while recovering from that (painful and 3-hour late) 18-hour train ride! It rocks. I'm on my way to bilingualism, people. And if I don't live up to that Promise to Self, you can chastise me. Please.

I highly recommend immersion programs such as the one I went on (especially if they are free and supported by your country's government.) It was totally intense and I was tired every day and had no free time or time to myself, but *whatever*, I know French. Well, I'm at an intermediate level of French and can speak and comprehend waaay better than before. The writing and reading isn't the problem, it's the quick thinking bit. Yeah, so I'm much better at that. It's cool to actually be able to perceive the change upon return to Montreal. So I must continue in my French-learnin' ways, having come this far.

I'm not going to write in French today though. Je ne veux pas maintenant. C'est humide aujourd'hui et je suis paresseuse. Oh non! J'ecris en francais et j'ai dit que je n'ecriverais pas. Oh well. At least I didn't put in any of the all-important accent marks.

Agh, I just caught a glimpse of a pile of lipsticks sitting on my desk. I'm not going out tonight, but they call to me "Robyn, robbbbbyyyynnn, choose one of us and go out with lipstick on. pleeeease." Do I need to purchase some kind of Kaboodles-like hot-pink and electric-blue plastic box/make-up organizer? The thought hurts me. But it is necessary, I'm thinking. I'd much rather get a fishing tackle box and convert that instead. I daren't risk having to go to Wal-Mart to find such a specialty item as the former. And gawd knows that I exceeded my lifetime maximum Wal-Mart visits while in Moncton. Seriously, it was close (ish) to where I was living in Moncton and we went to get our photos developed there. A lot of people really love Wal-Mart. I can see why, but any love I have for it quickly dissipates after, well, after being there for 3 -7 minutes (depending on who comes into my field of vision and what they are buying. levels of horror. Levels. of. Horror.)

I have heat delerium, perhaps. It's been humide all day and then it rained like crazy, like the sky was a giant showerhead, but the kind with the big holes that kind of has bigger drips rather than those needle-like jets of water. agh, i hate those.) And now the sun threatens to come out. And I have a cold. And a lot of lipstick.
in lieu of a proper post about how i'm finally back from Moncton, NB, and how my brain is all screwed up with English-French, I'm going to comment on the following thing I noticed upon return home:

I have a helluva lot of lipstick.

You know how sometimes when you get back from, say, a month away from home, and you realize that, oh, what you thought was your System of Organization is actually just a series of piles of miscellanea, so you attempt to really organize. Or something. Part of my attempt to organize was to address the situation on my "beauty shelf". This is a shelf containing various creams, lotions, hair accessories, nail polish, and a few jam-packed vanity-type cases (you know, the kind you get free from Clinique. Yes, all my friends are furnished with them, courtesy of moi. (another good thing about being home is having my dictionaries (English-english, not french-english), so that i can look up words like bluddy courtesy. why is it spelled like that?) anyway, i have a lot of lipstick.

lipstick is important though. yes. this is why i have at least 30 different lipsticks. oh, i don't like all of them, but i keep them anyway. And even the ones I do like, I forget about in favour of New and Different lipsticks. It's sad. poor lipsticks. And you know I don't even wear lipstick every day. I don't even wear it every night, for that matter. Why? Because I'm constantly searching for the perfect lipstick. The one I *can* wear every day and every night. Hence, all the lipstick.

Do you see how I have laid this all out with logic and grace? Everything can be explained somehow when you think about it. Everything.

Further to this argument, I have sensitive skin, so this makes life even more difficult. There are some people who just get bored of lipstick and can wear any lipstick at all, from the cheapest drugstore brand to Chanel (mmm, chanel lipstick... it's like, $32 Cdn, I kid you not. I've never bought it, but someone gave me a free tube they got free in a giveaway. Yeah, it was hot pink, but it was Luxury for the Lips. One day I will buy my own Chanel lipstick and it will be perfect. I just know it...). Anyway, my sensitivities manifest in dry lips. Which is, seriously, the worst. Lipsticks that do that to me should die. Yet I keep them, hoping that maybe it's just me and my body-chem will, oh, change to accomodate that perfect cherry hue. I blame teenage magazine reading for all this.