We have a winner

I am all about winning things online. I am what you call a contest-whore. Sadly, most contests are only open to US residents (if we ever move south of the border, oh the things I will win) but THIS ONE has a few that are open to les canadiens as well.

You should go there and win stuff, and thank me later.

Hola senoras y senors

My Spanish class is full of nutters.

There's this guy who totally speaks fluent Spanish, but can't spell a word of it.

There's this cute little Asian girl who wears one silver hoop earring, like a pirate.

There's this brother-sister combo who come dressed in slacks and a tie, skirt and a sweater. School is serious business.

There's this guy who comes in twenty minutes late, using a cane to walk and with a bandaged right hand. His face is covered in wounds maybe a day old, and he is sweating profusely. WTF?

What happened to other people, normal people, people who put their pants on two legs at a time?

In other, unrelated news, my birthday present from Joel finally came in the mail. It includes, among other things, this hilariously pessemistic mug.

The prodigal returns, and with no good excuses

Where have I been.

Sorry again for the radio silence. Somehow when I'm on vacation and I have all this free time, I can't convince myself to do anything productive, or even anything useless-but-interesting (i.e. post here). Fortunately for you, dear stalkers (by which I mean boo and September), I start school again tomorrow which means I'll be back on some sort of regular schedule, AND means I'll be doing things, and doing things = blogging about them.

After two weeks of rolling around on the floor singing 'Jingle Bells,' my free time was brought to a swift, brutal halt with a very busy weekend. Friday morning I did registration for the Heart and Stroke Big Bike, which (if you don't know) is a giant, 30(ish)-person bike. People ride it. The proceeds go to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, I presume. I really just did a lot of writing numbers down.

Friday evening, we visited my parents to check out my mom's new hot-car, and then I teased up my bangs and put on my best green eyeshadow, and Joel and I went out on the town. To a friend's house. Where we watched an episode of Jem and an episode of He-Man interspersed with commercials for Glow-Worms and the Brooke Sheilds doll, and then watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off on a BETA player. Not even VHS, people. Beta. There was a great deal of crimped hair, and more neon than I'm really comfortable with. I wore spandex in public.

Saturday we had a massive-assed garage sale.

People came and carted away our junk, and gave us money for the privalege of doing so. This guy tried to talk me down to $15 from $20 for a boxful of 40 books, but my books are my children and 50 cents/book is a steal. I made him cough up the 20, but I sense that he's going to turn around and re-sell all those books for $5, in which case he's making a killing and I don't feel bad at all.

Saturday night we went upstairs to eat Chinese food and speak English with our landlord while fifty of her Chinese in-laws ate and drank and gambled and spoke Chinese. It was both exhausting and delicious.

Sunday we visited my in-laws to celebrate all the birthdays that fall in April and May, as well as anniversaries and Mother's Days, and I murdered at bocce ball. And I know that bocce ball is probably one of the least athletic pasttimes that still involves moving, but all these people do is sports, so I'm pretty damned proud of myself.

Today I cleaned the house head-to-toe and did all the laundry so I don't have to think about it once school starts, and then I made enchiladas for supper (which is something I hated as a child because I had terrible taste in food, but seriously people, enchiladas are effing amazing).

Consider yourselves updated.

In which I link you to my own blog.

Best berfday present ever.

The beast emerges from its lair

So, all I do during finals is bitch about how busy I am, and how I can't write you a proper post because I'm studying and writing papers and whatall, and then as soon as finals are done I promptly drop offline for a week. What gives?

What gives is that I've been lying around in my robe reading fantasy novels and drinking wine straight from the bottle, and I didn't think you cared.

I did get out of the house yesterday, though, to celebrate the 26th anniversary of my birth. This shall henceforth be known as the Birthday In Which People Bought Me Flowers and I Consumed Too Many Calories. Serious, I don't think I've ever gotten flowers for my birthday, and then this year, blam!

That is THREE sets of flowers. Also, Joel made me breakfast and my landlord and favorite baby took me out for lunch and my parents made me wings and potatoes and caesar salad and pie for dinner. I am a lard.

Speaking of lards, now that finals are over (for me), I've started cooking again, so that we can eat more like this:

and less like this

Ok, maybe kind of both.

Also speaking of lards, rather round-a-boutedly speaking, Facebook has been running this ad for some diet or other, along with this picture:

Does this woman's abdomen not look vaguely androidal to you? Sort of yellowish and plastic? Come on, now. If I'm going to be shamed about my body, I want it to be by another REAL (albeit photoshopped) body. At least grant me that.

Ok, that's it. Maintain radio silence until I do something else interesting.

How do you get here?

The hilarious Karen over at Verbatim has been filling her readers in on what sort of Google keywords have led people to her site, so I thought I'd scootch her idea and give you a little taste of how people are finding their way unwittingly to these very cyberpages.

Google search terms that have led here:
- cursing symbols (it's called 'the finger')
- difficult to undo pee (I suppose it is)
- balance my karma (that is not one of the services I perform here at The Buoyancy)
- city of abbotsford bylaw chickens (I am an expert on these)
- handless maiden and incest (durrrrrrrrrrr, what?)
- what's in my lunchbox (citruses?)

So now you know! If you ever forget how to get here, you can just Google in 'handless maiden incest,' and I will be on the bottom of the second page. I checked.

Because I clearly have something else I should be doing.

Wicked. Blogger lets me write in secret code now. That was in Telugu, my last post, although I'm not sure it'll have stuck after I turned off the 'transliteration' button. They should make it like 'italics,' so that I can make certain words in...Hindu, or something. To emphasize them.

తోటల్లి హిలరిఔస్ నాన్-ఇంగ్లీష్ experiment

అవేసోమే. ఐ స్పెఅక్ ...ఐ ఫోర్గేట్. బట్ సోమేతింగ్ ఇండియన్. బ్లాగర్ లెట్స్ మే టైపు ఇన్ నాట్-ఇంగ్లీష్ నౌ. ఐ వండర్ ఈఫ్ ఇట్'ల్ల్ స్టిక్ తో థిస్ అఫ్టర్ ఐ చంగే ఇట్ బ్యాక్ తో ఇంగ్లీష్. గుఎస్స్ వే'ల్ల్ ఫింద్ ఔట్.

The Swami speaks

Joel and I went 'grocery shopping' because we were out of milk, and pretty much the only thing we eat these days that isn't giving us cancer is cereal. Since it was the day before my first of three finals, I also bought four varieties of exotic cracker. As I am now a cracker swami, I will fill you in on my learns.

Cracked Pepper and Olive Oil Triscuits

Peppery and good. Ok, maybe you aren't like me, and don't like your tastebuds seared off with flavah flavah flavah, but I like all of my crackers to taste like the salt that's left on the bottom. So these = deliciousness. Also, they have that Triscuit-y way of tasting vaguely good for you, like they're made out of hay, or something.

Walmart-brand tiny Ritz-like cracker/cheese-like-substance sandwiches
These are just as disgustingly good as I wanted them to be. They taste like those little cheese-and-cracker snack paks you can get at Superstore, 5 for 78 cents, or whatever. Except without that little red stick that always breaks, and without all that bothersome spreading.

Incidentally, I also bought the Walmart-brand fig newtons, because I wanted something semi-sweetish to be putting in my mouth...Nyet. Do not do this thing. They are cakey and disgusting. They will lure you in with their low cost and high bulk, but spring for the extra 7 cents and get the chewy deliciousness you want. You do not want these.

Crispers - Nacho flavor

Firstly, when things say 'nacho' flavor what they mean is 'artifical cheese' flavor, which I'm totally fine with because I'm not sure how well all the jalapeno-and-ground-beef-and-cooked-tomotoes would transfer to cracker, but at least be honest. Secondly, you are not a cracker, Crisper, no matter how hard you try. Who do you think you are fooling with your 'Baked, not fried' business? We know what you're not saying. Yeah, 'baked in a vat of oil' is right. Still, you are very high on the deliciousness scale, and you come in a re-sealable bag. We are friends.

Walmart-brand Jalepeno-Cheese Ritz-like crackers

These had the potential to be the biggest let-down, if only because I looked at them and thought, Jalepeno-cheese crackers, that HAS to be good. I will slit my wrists if these are not good. So, you see, quite a bit was riding on them being good. The first one, though, tasted just like a regular old Ritz. So, damn. But turns out they are whatayacall, cumulative-flavor. Four or five crackers later, and my lips were zinging nicely. Looks like I will live another day.

I was not built for daytime sleep

I took a little nappy mcnapnap after my final this morning, and have spent the last half hour playing scramble and trying to drag myself back into the land of the living.

One down, two to go (finals, I mean).

How much do I suck at stuff?

Ok, have I seriously not told you about my freakishly low blood pressure? So, one day in bio lab we were measuring our blood pressure for...something. And healthy is 115/80, and mine is 96/64. Which essentially means that my blood isn't moving. Also that I should eat more salt (p.s., I made both those things up. Probably I should drink more water).

So today, I went to give blood, because it's IN YOU TO GIVE, people. And every time, I think, 'Should I tell them that I have the lowest blood pressure in the world, and also that I'm a fainter?' But then what if they don't let me give blood? Also, you think someone would have written on my chart by now 'Lowest blood pressure in the world. Also, fainter.' But apparently no one has.

So they do the whole prickety-prick thing with the finger to test for anemia, and I have loads of iron, and this time I make it all the way over to the little cubicle where you fill out all those awkward questions about who you've had sex with in the last 3 months/6 months/30 years, and then I have to look around and catch a nurse's eye and wave her over because whoops! There goes the world.

So they laid me down and gave me juice, and the worse thing about coming out of a faint is that they wont let you sleep, and you're confused and pissed because they keep telling you to keep your eyes open, but your eyelids are so heavy.

So, damn. I still have all my blood. But hey, it's sunny out today!

Babies are everywhere.

Ok, I just held my first ever less-than-a-day-old baby (except for my sister, but I was 2, so it hardly counts) and she is everything tiny and perfect and her fingernails are sesame seeds.

And now this woman is blogging through her labor! I mean, ok, you're on your 12th child and it's probably not that big a deal anymore. But YES IT IS!!

The world is a crazy place.

Silver lining?

Our landlords went off yesterday to have themselves a bitty baby girl. Squeeee! While they are busy increasing the population, Joel and I are looking after their bitty dog.

Now, me, I like me a big dog. I like them all huggable and thick, kind of like this:

See? 'Durrrrrrrrrrrr.'

On the other hand, bitty dogs are great in that A., they make Joel look comically oversized,

and B., when they shit on the carpet (twice, even though the second time you were gone for less than twenty minutes) they have tiny, marble-like shits that you can practically flick across the room at each other. Not that we did. For reals, that's gross.

I fixed it.

Turns out the whole not-eating thing was directly related to the whole not-moving thing. Proof? I walked up to the school today to hand a paper in, and then I went to the gym and half-assedly pedaled a bike for a while. By the time I got home I was so hungry I could hardly stand. I ate supper, and then, like, 2 hours later I was playing scramble on Facebook (I know), and suddenly realized that my stomach was eating itself AGAIN, and I almost passed out on the way to the microwave.

I AM TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OLD! I should know how to feed myself.

In other news, in one week I will be done all my finals, and in two weeks I will be twenty-six. And probably still not able to gauge how hungry I am and how much food I should eat to keep myself from dying, but that's beside the point. The POINT is that as soon as finals are done, I'm going to polish off that bottle of wine that I'm currently abstaining from in order to retain my few brain cells, and I'm going to read the stacks of fantasy novels my aunt bought me. I know. But I want to spend my last week in my mid-twenties (26 is late-mid-twenties) half-drunk and immersed in wraiths. Or something.

In complete other news, have you ever seen the music video for the Dave Matthews song 'Everday'? Clickety-click, friends. This video makes me happier than just about anything I've seen in a while.

What? What do you want? You want to read the paper I wrote today? You want to read my awful philosophy final project? Trust, you don't. Be glad that I'm rambling about nothing and making you watch awesome videos, and not forcing you to read that pile. You OWE me for this one.

My stomach is broke

Something is wrong with my body. I used to be able to eat a bag of chips without batting an eyelash. Remember that, former roommates? Remember when I would make cookies, and then I would eat half the dough before it was cooked, and then I would eat half the cookies that came out, because they are only hot-and-fresh once, and so each batch would end up being only, like, six cookies?

And maybe it's because the only exercise I get these days is my furtive typing, and all the hilariously intense games of Dynomite I play when I just can't take it anymore, and so my body has decided to fight its own battle by refusing to take in any more calories (read: digest any food) because I eat half a box of Ritz Crisps, or whatever, and I'm nauseous. Serious, I feel like I could last for DAYS on a single bowl of cereal, which would be awesome if A. I lived in a third-world country, or B. I was too busy to eat, or C. my house wasn't full of study-friendly snacks in anticipation of impending finals, or D. I hated eating.

None of these things is true.

All I want to do is snack myself into oblivion, and then make nachos, but I can hardly manage half a bagel. WebMD was no help - there was no 'is never hungry and is in fact often over-full' on the symptom checker.

Maybe I should get up of my damn chair and go for a brisk walk.

Because nothing else of import is going on in my world

Our landlords are now five days overdue. Shari has a FIVE DAY OLD CHILD living inside of her. Acks!

In other baby-related news, Jared fell asleep in my lap today. My ovaries sighed in unison.

Everything is relative

Joel went to bed at 7 because he wasn't feeling well, and it's now 11, which is 4 hours later, but he usually goes to bed at midnight, so 4 hours later would be 4 in the morning, which is why I feel exhausted and deranged, like I've been up all night drinking wine from the bottle.

We should conduct an experiment

- Do you think busty girls are always getting food down in their shirts?

- I think that question has scientific merit.

- Because I'm not bosomy at all, and I'm always getting food down in my shirt.

-...I think that has less to do with breast size, and more to do with eating habits.

Because sometimes the muse gets drunk

I would just like to take this moment to discuss the inarguable nuttiness that is Dave Matthews' 'The Warehouse.' You just know that they'd come up with a hatful of awesome song fragments, but couldn't figure out how to extend any of them into full-length songs, so they just sort of stitched them together into this long, rambly, beautiful mess. From its coma-inducingly-long intro to its Dr Seuss lyrics to its...wait, is that a cowbell? Of course it is. Because if there's one thing this world needs, it's more cowbell.

Bless you and your zany brain, Dave Matthews. Bless you.

Because I love.

I know. I neglect you. But I have nothing to say!

Erm...today I was talking to Joel on the phone, and if the other person hangs up and I keep talking (it happens), the phone just echos what I said back to me. So Joel and I are all, 'Ok, see you in a bit,' and then he hangs up and I say 'Bye' and the phone echos back 'Bye' and I think, 'Man, Joel sounds just like me!'

Arrum...I was looking after Jared again, and he was fussy so I was pulling things out of my purse for him to handle and wave around and bang against each other, and when Dan came through the door Jared was sitting the middle of a pile of pursephenalia - my hand lotion, my glittery lip gloss, my chunky blue bracelet, my compact mirror (not the one with the make-up in it). He's going to grow up a bit of a fem-bot.

Our landlords are going to pop a baby any minute now.

I kick ass at Scramble. Also, I totally suck at it and certain people (named Anna) are killing me.

Easter candy is half-off, except at Zellers where it's only 30% off. Effing Zellers.

I got my first box-o-books from Curled Up With A Good Book, who is going to pay me in books to read those books and review them. It's win-win. There's one called Freefall with a rather, shall we say, ripped gentleman in nothing but jeans and dog tags on the cover, and the whole cover is done up in reddish orange. Joel holds it up, saying 'This'll be a winner.' I'm sure it will.

I've been over-zealous with the inter-library loans, and I feel compelled to read things when the library has them brought in specially because I asked, and final papers are coming up due this week and next and final exams are the week after, so I don't know where I'm going to squeeze in all that reading.

I ate too much pizza.

H'okay, time to settle in. Papers to write and all that. If you want to challenge me to a game of Scramble, I promise I'll be online.