I got paid today!!

I like sunny days with paychecks. Looks like it's going to be a fun weekend anyway...

Currently my bike is getting fixed. The back tire became screwed up, so the old man is fixing it right now! Went riding on the mountain the other day, even though it was muddy and rainy and I got that wet strip up my back.
Bike fenders are for wuss's (sp?).
Weird that I don't know how to spell wuss.

And finally that annoying show The Apprentice is finished.
Is there anyway the Trumpster could be worse at reading cue cards? Or at showing emotion? Or not seeming like someone's sick idea of the 21st century robot??
Everyday he looks more and more like a wax version of himself. Or Lenin...
His hair sort of looks like Blair's from The Facts of Life; I wonder if he liked that show? He seems more like a Silver Spoons kind of guy, or maybe even Different Strokes.

Hey wait a sec... the Trumpster looks like the dad from Different Strokes... does that mean he is going to adopt some troubled teenagers and turn that into a reality show?
Could be a mix between that Hilton chick's show and The O.C (that's as troubled as prime time gets)...
If only it were true.

Pull out all my hair time

Job hunting sucks, plain and simple.

It feels like a Monday

I really admire people who can take the metro and bus to work everyday. I know I may have to one day and I am not looking forward to that day.
Those modes of transportation seem to bring out the worst in me, and really I would just fear for everyone else's safety.
Once, this guy completetly cut me off as I was in line for the metro exit (busy that day). The guy just cut in front of me, like I wasn't even there.
I said hey and pushed him (not too hard) and he just glanced back at me like, "who cares.."
So then, as he was walking away from me I spit on his back.
Okay, now I know that isn't the greatest behavior, but I wasn't in control. Some inner "metro" demon had taken over me and forced me to get back at the asshole. I couldn't beat him up, or challenge him to a fight. He was quite a bit taller than me, so all I could do was spit - it just happened to be aimed at his back.

Buses are worse in the winter when there are old, old ladies getting on the bus through the back door. And people with babies pushing you, students with their precious knapsacks, and perverts trying to touch your ass without you noticing.

I will take walking and biking anyday. I will send out this prayer for the people who have to deal with the metro and bus everyday:

Dear Transportation Gods,
Please take care of all the lowly workers out there, who are forced to rely upon your services.
Help them to be nicer to each other, so that there will not be any disturbing incidences of spitting or hitting or pissing (you never know).
When they are packed in like little worker sardines, please help them to imagine they are on a beach drinking tequila.
Give them strength, and an empty metro car here and there.
Amen...

Now time for me to go for a walk in the park.

Horse Bicycle

I had so much fun last night. My husband and I took my bike to the park for a test drive. My friend gave me a bike that someone had left at his work.
I hadn't ridden a bike since I moved here, but I was so ecstatic to have a bike again.
It's a great bike too, and I've put a basket on it. Now I just need a helmut and I will be safe.

But riding on the mountain at night is so much fun. I smiled so much my face hurt. There is something extra exciting about the dark and of course soaring down the paths with no feet!

I can't wait to take the bike out again today... isn't it weird how a bike is the one present that always makes people happy?
I'm almost happy it's raining too, because I need to see how good it works in rain. I'm gonna try to figure out a way to attach an umbrella to the bike. That would be so awesome...

There are so many cd's that I want to buy... especially the new Kelis one, but is it better to buy cd's or clothes... or shoes or purses??
I haven't done a shopping spree in a long time, so I can't wait.
(a little distracted for a sec)

I feel so much more mobile now that I have a BIKE!!!!!
(big grin on my face)

Now we just have to get one for my husband and we will be unstoppable. We joked about riding to Regina one day, and I really hope that's a joke.

My dream vacation is actually a train trip across Canada... the train is so nice and the scenery would be so beautiful. If not on the train, then in one of those camper things. I love camping, in highschool we went camping almost every summer. Not necessarily my family, but if a friend's family would go they would invite me along.
My favorite camping memory is walking up a quiet path after a nice swim, in a light drizzle listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik on my headphones.
Just something about the music and the scenery and the peace.

Maybe I should clarify what I mean by lonely...

I have friend's and interests, and have had several jobs since I moved here, I also went to McGill to take a few extra classes. So, I have gotten out and been around the block.
But through all of this, I have always had this feeling of isolation. It has to do with everything always being new, and never getting to be the expert on anything about this city. Even if it has been a few years, I have really only scratched the surface of all there is to Montreal. I feel like an alien all of the time and at home, some of the time.

If you have ever been to small town Saskatchewan, you would see how much of a culture shock moving here would be.
In all of the 22 years that I lived on my block, we had new neighbours a maximum of ten times.
Things don't change all that often in small-town western suburbia.
We moved once when I was in grade ten, and it was down the street.
My aunt lived on our block for a while.

I think my point is that now I am getting used to having a million different neighbours and that they are constantly changing. Needless to say, it's hard to keep track of the students who keep moving in and out of our neighbourhood. I just smile at evryone now, just in case someone is my new neighbour.

So, when I was talking about being lonely, it is more a lonliness of the soul... that sounds like a hallmark card, "here's a kind thought to help the lonliness of your soul."
Yuck.
I have also found marriage to be an isolating thing. I never wanted to get married and then found myself married. It's a long story, but all I know is that marriage is so much stranger than I had ever imagined. Mostly in how other people treat you. Suddenly you are not an individual, you are a pair. And now you are only supposed to rely on one person for many things, instead of like when I was single and I was allowed to rely on all of my friend's and family.
Also, there are always the few friends who refuse to accept the marriage and you grow apart. Or else they think you have changed and treat you like an old married couple.
That's the part that is most isolating, is the assumption that because you are married your life is an endless amount of fun and satisfaction.
I guess that is why I never believed in marriage for myself.
At least now I can warn others...
(ha,ha)

Most of the time I feel happy that I have made this great change in my life. Moving across the country with no family or friends can be seen as very brave...

or incredibly stupid.

But all that matters is that I am accepting of both kinds of experiences in my life.
Brave or stupid...

just as long as I am experiencing something and not hanging in an endless void, which is a little bit the problem these days.
If I was back home I would probably find it easier to remedy this isolation, but here I am over-whelmed by the possibilities.

Sometimes it just feels like too much and I wonder how some people can move to a new city every couple of years... seems like needless torture to me.

Maybe I have clarified what I mean by lonely or maybe I have just confused myself...

the sun is setting now and I have to go watch it.

Every rose blah, blah, blah

Why is it that getting married and moving to one of the largest cities in Canada has made me more lonely than I have ever been in my life??

Sometimes I find myself longing for my single life in small town Saskatchewan...
and that just seems wrong!

Thou shalt not steal

When I was very young, me and my best friend went around our neighbourhood early one summer morning, and picked every flower on the block.
You could say it was an impulse that went overboard.

We had really only decided to start in one yard.
Her yard.
Her dad grew these really beautiful, prized flowers on this tree. The tree's branches were a burgundy colour, and the flowers were a delicate, pale pink.
I really loved those flowers, and I hated my friend's dad because he never let us go near his flowers. He was the sort of dad who had a lot of neat things that you couldn't touch, look at, or think about.
Her whole family was like that. Her and sister would make their hallowe'en candy last all year (a thought that astounded me, as me and my sister raced to finish our candy), and their mom had this really great collection of Coke memoribilia that took up a whole room in their basement.
I always thought they were so weird because they had so many things that were only for looking at. My family was all about texture and touch. My mom hung dried flowers on the walls, and we were allowed to play with any and everything.

Anyway, me and my friend had only wanted to pick the flowers in her yard.
Until we realized how fun and easy it was, then we were unstoppable. Maybe that was my first taste of forbidden fun, but I don't even remember the picking.
It was all a blur, running, and picking feeling the stems snapping between our fingers.
We went through every yard. It must have been VERY early in the morning because somehow noone came out and caught us.
Soon we had a plastic bag filled with flowers and our entire block was devoid of flowers. There were flower beds, and bushes and trees, but not one single blossom.
(Have I mentioned I LOVE flowers?)

Once our bag was filled and the frenzy was over, we looked at each other and felt this sinking feeling in our stomachs.
Oh my god, we were dead.
We were going to be killed.
My friend's dad isn't the only one who took special care of his flowers. Our whole neighborhood was an ad for groomed suburbia.
Instead of paying attention to their drinking, money or spousal problems, everyone on our block tended to their yards, as if they could grow the plants over their problems.

At this point, my mom began to wonder why I had been so anonymous all morning. Usually I would be running in and out of the house, or laughing and talking with my friends.
But she hadn't heard anything out of us, which of course made her suspicious. She went looking for me, without my knowledge.

I felt my parent senses tingling and I knew me and my friend had to get rid of the evidence, so we quickly stashed the flowerbag under my neighbour's trailor which was parked in his driveway.

I felt numb for a while, because we were scared we would be found out. And bitter because I never got to enjoy one single flower.
The only thing I got to enjoy was our neighbourhood waking up to no flowers anywhere.
People were angry and had noone to blame it on... they tried to pin it on random teen gangs, but I don't think anyone ever really believed that.

Later I found out that my mom had found the flower bag while she snooped on us, and she had thrown it away. She knew we would be in big trouble and so she covered for us without us even knowing.
The weird thing was that I had a feeling she knew. It was just the way she looked at me, sort of with a whole new respect. Like she never realized how nervy I could be, or how deceiving.
I wonder if it's a good thing or bad thing to find that out about your kids.
On the one hand you can see that they are individuals, and on the other hand you hope they aren't psychopaths...

One day I told her what we had done, and she told me what she had done.
I had a new respect for her when I heard how she had covered.
Very decent.

I hope I'll be a cool mom...