Seizure Salad

hiatus

Haven't been posting regularly at all lately, concentrating more on the actual living than the reflecting on it I guess.

So instead of feeling guilty for neglecting the blog, I'll just tell all 3 of you that I am on a little hiatus from writing for now. To be continued some time...?

Seizuresalad

e.t.a: Oh, just went back and read the last post and I thought I'd update one thing...internet dating *does* work sometimes!  

;)

mea culpa

Not around here much lately, as you can see. Kind of expressing myself via Facebook, and updating multiple pages/blogs/etc for the band lately, I'm kind of blogged out. Sorry.

Feeling a little low and sorry for myself the last few weeks, for multiple reasons. After a year of feeling really good about being single and enjoying myself, I now am really feeling the partnered-ness of most of my friends, and the lack of partnered-ness in mine. I'm really kind of stuck on how people who are married and have kids have these publicly recognized milestones (weddings, baby showers, kids' birthdays, religious things (bar mitzvah/communion or what have you) that single people just don't get to have.

My band played our CD release party, and it was a big deal for me - I've worked really fucking hard at this for years, and I'm exceedingly proud of the thing on a musical and personal level. Although a few friends came out, they had all left before the end of our set. My bandmates had friends and family slapping them on the back and saying "of course I wouldn't have missed this!" type exclamations of love and support. I stepped off stage and there was simply no one there for me. I haven't been able to shake how disappointed I am about that.

I don't blame any individual person for not coming out, or for leaving early - for christ's sake, we didn't go on stage until about 12:30 which is just not really feasible for a lot of people. But I couldn't help but have a lump in my throat when I learned that my bandmate's brother rode his motorcycle from Kitchener (a 1 1/2 - 2 hour drive) to see the show.

Let's clarify that: not just to see the show, but to support his brother and celebrate his achievement.

I have hesitated posting this because I don't want anyone reading this who was invited to come and didn't to feel badly. As I said I have no anger at any individual person, things come up for all sorts of reasons, it's the summer - people are away etc etc. My disappointment is more of a generalized feeling of lack - lack of that inner-inner circle community of friends or family who would of course, not for a million years, ever miss my CD release party. One friend falls into that category but had a wedding to attend out of town, and made it very clear she was there in spirit with me, which was lovely. Really, what it boils down to is this growing suspicion that most of my friends didn't REALIZE how important this show was to me. That maybe they don't know me well enough  to know that.

Anyway, bleah. Almost hitting 'Cancel' on this post because it sounds like pure self pity but I am trying to think about and work something out by writing about this, so it stays. I have to/want to consider what it is that I am doing, or not doing in my life that is causing this feeling of isolation. Something prevents me from fully connecting with people sometimes, and it's not something I like about myself, it's difficult to look at. Coming home every day from work (sitting in front of computer) and hopping on the internet (sitting in front of different computer) to update band shit, fuck around on Facebook and read everything Stephen Fry ever posted certainly does not help.

Work sucks right now too.

OK, on y va, this is the stuff self knowledge and growth is made of. I bravely soldier on.

***************************************************************************************
Throwing my hat in the ring again with the Internet dating thing, and not terribly encouraged at the moment. I'd like to offer some advice to the male population out there who are looking for love in all the online places, if I may be so bold:

1.    Read my profile. Seriously. If it doesn't look like I'm here just to, as the kids today like to say, 'hook up' then don't email me with 'yo, yr cute - id hit that'.

2.    Have a profile picture, period. Then, have a profile picture which acutally shows your face. I don't know how many times I've seen a tourist type shot with some dude the size of an ant in front of mountains, a building or their car. Even if you don't think you're good looking, post a clear picture of your face, without fucking SUNGLASSES so that I can look into your eyes and decide if I think you could be a serial killer.

3.    Have a profile. With information. I actually will just pass you right by if you don't tell the world what music you like, what a perfect date for you would be like and all of that. Lots of guys seem to think being a vague as possible will help them, maybe? I can't count how many times I've read in the "About Me" section something like "I'm just an average guy, LOL, just looking for that special lady". I know I'm being harsh here, the whole thing is nerve wracking for everybody. But sweet lavender lord, just have some friend proofread your damn profile for you.

3.    Just a general observation - I am not encouraged by the number of people who list things like "the Miami Vice soundtrack" and "My Heart Will Go On" as their fav music. I'm sure there are many ladies out there for whom this is jackpot material, but I am not one of them.

4.    Observation - wow, there are a lot of Sagitarrius' (my sign), Scorpios, Leos and Virgos out there. Almost to the exclusion of any other astrological sign. Hm.

5.    The particular site I signed up with is the only one that I know of that is also an app for Facebook and those type of social networking sites. I really expected more, well, more people like me. Maybe I'm using the wrong service.

The Foot Flusher

There is a woman at work who flushes the toilet with her foot.

How do I know? I have been stuck beside her in a stall a few times and have curiously "observed" via feet-view only that she a) immediately upon entry grabs reams and reams of toilet paper, presumably to put on the seat before she wizzes and b) turns around after wizzing, and flushes with her foot.

I have recognized her by her shoes. I know who she is. I find her fear of germs sad, and the fact that she deposits all of the scum of Toronto during a garbage strike from the bottom of her shoe onto the handle for the next person to get on their hands.

There are a lot of germ-o-phobes where I work. I find myself sitting on the crapper fascinated by people who come in, wash their hands twice, wiz, wash their hands twice again and then open the door using a paper towel. You can almost tell which ones are going to be this way - they are often overly made-up, concerned with appearance and kind of prissy. I'd say 10% of the female component of my office falls somewhat into this category.

I have no analysis...I'm just sayin.

Hey! Check out some Leonids tunes.

It's harder to post, to keep up in the summer. Not sure why? Less introspective with all of this daylight?

The little band is finally done our debut e.p., and it's just about ready to be shown to the world. We are quite proud, the kind of proud that only comes from a lot of hard work. The promotion of the thing seems daunting - in this city (Toronto) it's such an uphill battle to get noticed. Especially when your band is a bit long of tooth and grey of hair...in this magical land of young punks with band names that sound like something you might shout at your friend across a parking lot rather than a descriptive... ah well. We're going with the 'seasoned veterans' angle, hopefully it works in our favour.

Spinning, hardly any. Knitting - pretty behind on 2 baby gifts for 2 of my best friends. My ADD brain is finding it very hard to do anything, anything at all right now for longer than 5 minutes. The only thing I seem to be able to concentrate on for any length of time is bread making.

I've gotten hooked on a silly TV show - True Blood. Romance and vampires, so of the moment - but I can't stop watching 4 episodes in a row on the internet. We seem a little culturally preoccupied with vampires at the moment. I myself remember getting a Scholastic book as a kid from school about movie monsters, and I was pretty obsessed with ol' Dracula after that. Maybe every het woman secretly wants a romantic, blank slate kind of guy to drain them of their life essence after glamouring them into lack of will...damn, put that way it sounds rather horrible.

Speaking of romance, I have been thinking about pitching a few e-book publishers of romance fiction for some stories. Once I found out there was a SF romance genre, I was all over it - thinking of things I can do to drum up some extra money to save up to buy a condo. It's just not happening with my ultra high rent...can't save a fucking dime it seems. Maybe I could get my shit together and write a few romance in space stories for bucks? Does this seem crazy? I started my research here and found it to be...pornographic! Holy doodle. The genre has changed since my mother's Harlequins my friends...wish me luck. Maybe if I ascend the ranks and get really well known, they can do a book cover for me with Fabio is a space-suit.

For once, the urge to write a blog post actually struck at a time when I can sit down and do it.

I live in a great apartment in a great building in a great neighbourhood. There is a shared courtyard between my building and a row of townhouses that face the street - basically my building's patios and the townhouses' backyards overlook each other in very, very tight quarters. So far so good - you can hear everyone's business all of the time, but people are generally very respectful.

Tonight though, someone is having a party that started this afternoon and is still going strong at midnight. I'm just getting a little weary of hearing people getting progressively drunker and louder right outside my window after 6 hours or so. Ah, wait - I think they've trundled off to the bar now.

I am in the middle of watching the excellent and beautiful movie Once, please run out and rent it right away if you haven't seen it. It is so good I'm crazily trying to savour it by stopping it every 15 minutes or so to procrastinate....I don't want it to end.

What a disjointed post...mainly I wanted to post the 'recipe' (and I use that term loosely) that I made for dinner tonight, to share and so I can keep track of it later. As usual I don't measure to take these as loose guidelines.

I've been making this peanut sauce for going on a decade, and I swear whenever I order something with satay or peanut dipping sauce in a restaurant, I always think that mine is better. This keeps in the fridge for 2 weeks or so, and is incredibly good to dip cold cooked chicken in. This recipe is equally good with cubes of fried tofu - actually even better than the chicken.

Thai-ish Peanut Noodles with Chicken and Broccoli

2 cups cooked rice or Vietnamese style vermicelli (follow package directions)
1 large cooked sliced boneless chicken breast
1 large handful broccoli, steamed until bright green and just tender

Toss the above with Peanut sauce:

about 1/2 cup natural peanut butter if you have it - the regular kind is OK too, but the natural is best for this recipe

about an equal amount of coconut milk

1/4 cup good tamari soy sauce

1 clove minced garlic

juice of one lime

dribble of toasted sesame oil

1 tbsp brown sugar

hot chilli sauce to taste (I use sriracha "rooster brand", about a tablespoonful)

Blend everything in a blender, keep tasting and adjusting until it tastes good and bob's your uncle.

... and garnish the whole thing with chopped cilantro, chopped peanuts if you have them, sliced green onions and a squeeze of lime.

___________________________________________________________________________

Damn, I haven't made this in a while and I forgot how good it is. Once you make the peanut sauce this is very fast to make too, the vermicelli is just prepared by soaking the noodles in water boiled off the kettle for 5 minutes or so. Nom nom.

Updates

I've been sorely neglecting the blog lately, life has been pretty busy. A big, big event at work that I was organizing just happened last week, and I breathe a pretty massive sigh of relief that it's over, and nothing exploded.

Although, I did have one really good embarrassing moment. We had our event in the roof salon of a very swank hotel. The room has an outdoor patio adjacent. Some guests were outside when I got word that the coat check was closing up shop, so I opened the door and stuck my head out to let them know. Unbeknownst to me, a thread from my dress (OF COURSE, exactly at the epicentre of my boob) got caught on the door frame, and when I tried to back into the room I was suddenly blocking the doorway with a 2 foot long thread connecting the door frame to my left boob. I had to un-hook myself from the door to let them back in. Fuck! Dress somewhat ruined - big run now across one half of the chest.

Oh boobs, sometimes you are just a pain in the ass. Sometimes.

The great communal yesteryear

Not much time to post lately, I've been blog delinquent. Work and life are conspiring to rob me of the rumination time needed to make the bloggy machine work.

I don't know why, but I've been thinking lately about a certain time in my life, about 15 years ago, when I experienced communal housing situations for a good 5-6 years. There was a period of time between about 1991 and 1996 when I lived in a series of big old Victorian houses with lots of roommates. Since then I've endeavoured, even conspired to try my best to live alone. Even in times of real financial difficulty, post-1996 I've made my way in little teeny bachelor apartments.

The roomates I had during that time were wonderful people - most of whom I'm good lifelong friends with, still. But the daily annoyances and demands and mess and politics sucked so much energy from me ... that time is when I learned for better or worse that I need a good portion of my time to be spent alone. Not just alone in my room, but alone in the house. Alone, like - naked singing Billy Joel songs at the top of your lungs alone.

It's such a mixed bag, the communal living thing. I do know that the most creatively ferment-y time in my life was during that period. It was a time where I discovered my art, my creativity, my great loves (it was a time of lovers, too). I met new people constantly - there was always something or someone brilliant and interesting just around the next corner. But I feel in hindsight that I was constantly trying to get away from the feeling that all of the strong personalities in these dwellings were tracing themselves over top of my personality. I felt, feel - like too much constant time living with other people diminishes me.

I do feel (almost abnormally) that I need really great quantities of alone time in order to face the world properly, with grace and openness. But I miss the creative ferment and excitement and thrill of that time, when you never knew who was about to walk through the door. A lot of really, really great people walked through the door. My ideal really, would be a semi-communal living arrangement with private quarters/bedroom  mixed with a communal kitchen and shared living area. Why the hell don't we develop more spaces like this? I've done some reading in the past few years about community living arrangements like this, where there is a mix of shared and private space.

By my reckoning, between 1991 and 1996 I lived with between 12-17 different people.  I remember all of them fondly and vividly and each one left something with me that is a permanent part of me - thank you all!

I still love you, pork

I'm sick of the swine flu, and I don't even have it.

I'm not on Twitter, but apparently Tweets about swine flu have reached something like 10,000 per hour. Crazy. Remember how SARS-hysteria shut Toronto down completely, and just about single-handedly ruined our tourist industry? The film production sector has still not recovered.

Joke: Will there be an outbreak of mutated swine/avian flu?  When pigs fly.

Ah ha hah...but seriously folks, who the fuck knows.  It's either the major worldwide pandemic we've been waiting for, or more premature hysteria, tomato tomahto. I'm feeling sorry for the pig farmers who are apparently the victims of the worst assumption of all, that you can get swine flu from eating pork.

Cuz you can only play your own damn band so many times

I like Max Webster as much as the next hoser, but the band's repeat appearances on their former frontman Kim Mitchell's Q107 radio show is making me feel a little stabby.

He even intro'd them this afternoon with a little rock trivia about the drummer (Gary McCracken) having sung A Million Vacations ... as if he was intro'ing any other band, *and not his band, the one he was ensuring royalty payments for by playing them on his own radio show*.

Not classy, and actually a conflict of interest. Bah humbug.