Brought to you by the letter D

D is for disaster, Darren* and dope. Dumbass and dickweed and dumbhead also.

You like my little rhyme :)

Anyways.... I was in his shiny new office this afternoon. Ooh preamble to story. Yesterday or the day before, I went by his shiny new office with windows and a door and he was complaining how cavernous and lonely it was so I sniped at him, "oh excuse me I only have to share a cave-icle with junior staff!" and walked away.

So today, I was sitting in his shiny new office talking about actual work stuff. I think he doesn't like when I come to see him because I always give him a list of things to do. At least I friggin' have the courtesy of going downstairs to see him in person when I want/need something unlike him. He just drops an email. Jerkwad. Anyway, when he saw that I got to what he thought was the penultimate item on my list (shortly after he flicked an elastic at me), he cupped his hands around his mouth and said, "can I buy you dinner some time?"

I said, "no, we're done, thank you very much" and walked out of there. He tried to stop me by saying that I had one more item but that was for blondie and I had just forgotten to check off the box. Friggin idiot. I looked HOT today. So hot that some random woman stopped me on Yonge Street to tell me.

"Girl, nice shoes!" I said thanks but secretly wondered if this was your crazy religious woman freak who tries to convert people via clothing compliments. But no, she was genuine crazy. After I told her they were on sale at Sterling, she proceeded to tell me that she couldn't pull them off because she doesn't have nice calves. "But girl, you have good calves. Those shoes make them look all long and straight and.... mmm you look good! Did you used to be a dancer? Yeah honey I can tell!"

That's how good I looked. So I guess I can't truly fault him for being sucked into my awesomeness. He is a very weak man, after all.

I sent him this email when I left work. He probably won't get it for a few days.

I deleted your phone number but this is a little too long for a text anyway.

Please don't ever ask me out to dinner at the office again. You have made it very clear to me that you only want one thing from me and your offer of dinner is so transparent that even I can see it for what it really is.

Flirt with me all you want while we're at work but at least let me believe that you are attracted to me for my brain/personality/professionalism/incredible organizational skills and not just my body.

What's that Sheryl Crow song? "Lie to me, I promise I'll believe..." I think I at least deserve that much.

End ridiculously long boy rant.

*Names and faces have been obscured to protect my paycheque.

My head hurts

I handed in the second draft of my schmesis this morning so I took tonight off and saw Angels & Demons. I really enjoyed it but now I'm feeling a bit guilty for not doing any work. I suck. I'm going to see a dentist on Thursday afternoon because I have started grinding my teeth. It's getting so bad that my ears hurt. Usually it's my left shoulder so this teeth this is really new. I might try to book a massage this week as well. Sigh. I need someone to come over and rub my face.

Overworked and unpaid

I want to kill myself. It will all be over soon and I can see the end of it but I don't want to do this anymore. The thing that surprises me most about this period in my life is how little support I seem to be getting from my friends. Maybe I should just ask for help but I have never been very good at that. I just figured that somebody would say, "hey can I bring you some dinner?" or "do you want me to help you run some errands?" but no. Not a single offer of help. Well, that's not true. One of my friends offered to read it but she did an arts degree and MBA so I doubt the damn thing would make any sense to her. I did ask a former coworker to check over my data for me but she said no. I was pretty surprised about that. I guess if you've never done it you have no idea how insane it really is. This is by far the most work I have ever done in my life. I don't think I have ever been this stressed and I have done some things. I know that I'm alone in the Universe so I don't expect to be taken care of. But I'm surprised that nobody has even though to offer some support. So no, I'm not asking anyone for help. I feel very lonely and isolated right now.

What the...?

My body is demonstrating signs of stress in one very unusual place. I need some chamomile tea. For my navel piercing. Has anyone experienced this before? Ugh. I need sleep and a vacation. It's time to start the defense countdown. 32 days til I'm freeee.

The Bucket List (only it's not a bucket, it's more like a Shawshank)

I wrote a facebook note today. Here it is:

Okay girls, it's time. It's time to make the list of things to do after the defense is over. And I'm talking serious things that you can check off the list not crap like "go on a safari" or "learn a language".

Here goes...

1. Go to a movie. Two movies even. At the drive-in!
2. Start watching Entourage. One season per weekend.
3. Buy a condo
4. Lie on the grass all afternoon.
5. Mop the floors
6. Go to the beach and worry if I'm wearing enough sunscreen
7. Pilates class. Oh how I miss you pilates class.
8. Dump my filing cabinet in the recycling, alphabetized tabs and all!
9. Dance. In public. Preferably after getting dressed up and hammered on random shots
10. Spa day: massage, mani, pedi and some waxing which y'all don't really need to know about
11. Take a class (yes I'm serious) not for credit (I'm thinking photography or culinary arts at GBC)

Your turn.

One of my fellow grad studentettes* replied with this:

I'm too lazy/brain too fried to make my own list right now so I'll just steal/elaborate on yours lol

1. Go to drive in with EB. Also rent and watch Twilight.
2. Watch rest of Lost seasons, Season 1 of The Wire (Xmas present, not watched yet) and Madmen (borrowed from Baby Mama in April??) - also not watched
3. Buy a couch... Read more
4. Spend a solid week walking around various neighbourhoods of Toronto I love but have spent no time in this summer. Before winter comes...
5. Clean out closet. Take clothes to Value Village. Replace with new fall "work appropriate" clothes from Buffalo/Niagara.
6. Go somewhere with a beach and someone to make me drinks and sit on ass for week.
7. Start rowing again. This may wait til spring.
8. Burn all thesis files on computer to disk, delete from computer, make computer run faster. Shred printed work and papers.
9 and 10. Yes please.
11. Sign up for train conducting school? Also at GBC

*Some details changed to protect our identities.

Waxing philosophical/thesis procrastination

What if getting married and having kids and grandkids is the only really meaningful thing we can do in life and I'm missing out on all of that because I'm too scared and/or selfish?

What if I didn't learn that because my parents didn't understand it and couldn't pass it on?

I don't want to have children. I'm too selfish. I like shoes and silence and space.

I need a drink.

Jolt

I know I don't normally blog in the morning but I had to write this down. I woke up with a jolt about 20 minutes ago thinking, "what day is it today? I know I have to be somewhere but where?" After a moment, I remembered that I don't have to be anywhere but the girls are coming over in half an hour or so and we're leaving for Port Elgin. I haven't showered, had breakfast or packed and the house is a disaster. Argh.

I need

A man. Or a butler. Or a nanny. These are the things I would like to do but won't because I feel guilty about not thesising:

1. Clear the 4 cups off my desk and put them in the dishwasher.
2. Clean the bathroom. More specifically the toilet and the shower stall. The floor and the tub can wait.
3. Fold and put away the mountains of laundry in my laundry basket and on the back of the couch.
4. Tidy up the kitchen. Oh those pesky sesame seed bagel crumbs.
5. Mop the floors. The dog was here and he's drippy when watering himself from his water bowl.
6. Vacuum.
7. Buy some groceries so that A's parents don't have to feed me every other night.
8. Take out the recycling.
9. Take out the garbage.
10. Iron. Ah, who am I kidding? I wouldn't do that even if I had an entire month off. I'll just walk around looking wrinkled.

One thing I am looking forward to: going away this weekend with three other grad students. One of the girls has in-laws with a house in Port Elgin. We're taking our laptops, printers and journal articles and the plan is to spend three days working and bitching and moaning and complaining. I hope it doesn't fall through because I really need a change of scene and to get out of this stinky city.

Oh wait, that's not the stench of piles of garbage on the street because of the strike. That's the whiff of BS coming off my thesis. We don't call it thesis feces for nothing!

Excruciating

Last night, I dreamed that I tried to set myself on fire. I think this thesis thing is making me insane.

My fb status update today was:

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This just sucks. Grad school. Thesis. Late nights. Tuition fees. Journal articles. Search boxes. Ref Works. Inter-library loan. Burning eyes. Sore neck. Tense shoulder. Aching back. No new shoes. Missed movies. Canceled plans. Tears on the page. Bruises from banging a highlighter on my forehead in the hopes of speeding up the process. Someone shoot me with an elephant tranquilizer so I never have to wake up.

Withdrawal

I have puppy love withdrawal. I missed him before I even left. We spent the day with my buddy and his mom's dog and it wiped us all out. I was sad to come home tonight. I got all misty in the car. Okay, I'm lying. I cried. Gah.

My first husband

I left the dog with the other wheatens today and went with my friend to have dinner with her brother and his girlfriend at Fionn McCool's on the Esplanade. While there, my friend struck up a conversation with an Irish man at the next table. At the end of the night, just as we were leaving to get the dogs, he announced to his table of friends that I was his second wife. I just didn't know it yet. It was funny. He is a 54 year old detective in the "interesting" and busiest part of Toronto. I have nothing in common with him. In fact, my friend and he had much more in common: a love of Irish history, music and trivia. But it was nice to have an older man tell me that I am lovely :)

More puppy crap

We walked and played a lot today. Slinky came by to play too. We went to the park and threw the ball around and almost played with the other dogs. There were a lot more dogs today than there were yesterday. And then we walked to the grocery store and Slinky bought dinner and then we came home and she cooked me dinner! It was great. Puppy is finally tired so I think I'm doing something right. Although he has been very poopy the last couple of days. I'm not sure if it's all the twigs he has been chewing on in the park. Even when I throw his ball, he goes running for it but then finds a branch and pounces on that instead. At least he's having fun. I feel bad that he's so matted and dirty. I'm tempted to take him to the groomer so that we don't have to deal with his scruffiness and smelliness for the next three days. But that stuff is not cheap. Anyway, it's so great to see big good looking men with cute little dogs. There was one guy with a tiny little boxer puppy. Man, was she ever cute. She had his eyes :)

Tired puppy

I am one tired puppy! The dog seems pretty tired too. I took him to the off-leash area in Allen Gardens today because he clearly did not get enough exercise yesterday and it's fenced so I felt more comfortable

pee break

Okay the puppy didn't really want to pee. He was just asking for some attention. I get that.

Anyway, I felt more comfortable in the fenced off-leash area at Allen Gardens compared to the off-leash area in his usual park. He got to run around and play with other dogs. I was hoping he would be more tired than he currently is but maybe he's just naturally spazzy. I'm exhausted and would love to go to bed now but I need to let him out again tonight so that I can hopefully sleep in a bit longer tomorrow morning. I think I woke up at 5 am and couldn't go back to sleep.

It was a long and somewhat ridiculous day. D for Disaster coworker guy sent me a kind of douche bag email last Friday. The subject line was "not for internal affairs..." and his email said "are you doing tonight? if you are not interested in going on a date..then maybe we could pivot for each other – divide and conquer."

I want to be friends, or at least have a good relationship, with this guy because we have to work together so closely but he is making it difficult to be professional around him. If I am being honest with myself, I do miss hanging out with him and talking to him a little bit. Anyway, I extended an olive branch and invited him out to walk the dog. He suggested dinner but I ignored that part of his email. Anyway, we texted back and forth a bit and he said he was working late but would come to the park when he was done but I didn't hear from him. So I texted him at 8 pm and said that we were back home and maybe some other night. He was still at work and ended up calling me and we had a conversation about his original douchebag text message.

He apologized for not saying those things to me in person, or at least over the phone and said that he still has mixed feelings towards me. That sometimes he misses me but he doesn't want me to have to deal with those feelings. I told him that, as far as I am concerned, he made his decision and there's nothing further to discuss because I don't want to spend time with someone if he knows it isn't going anywhere. Let's face it, I don't need another Grey in my life. But I said that I would like for us to be friends and that I would be with the dog all week so we could get together some other evening after work. We'll see what happens.

The dog is lying on the couch and looks like he is passed out. It's about time!

Lonely

I can't believe I'm actually lonely. I'm sitting here, pretending to work on my thesis, next to the dog, and I'm freakin' lonely. What the hell is wrong with me? Sigh. Maybe I'm just feeling down because it's Monday night, I'm tired, stressed and it's extremely quiet in here. There's just the sound of me typing, the dog breathing and the fridge. And some traffic. I'm not sure why the quiet bugs me here. Maybe because I'm not in my own home? Last time I was here, the TV was in the living room and, despite not getting cable, I could turn it on and get whatever the antenna picked up. The dog seemed to like the noise and it didn't seem quite so intimidating to be here by myself. Not that I'm by myself. The dog is pretty good company when he's not being a hyper spaz.

It got so bad that I phoned Grey. I actually picked up the phone, dialed his number and did not have a conversation with him. He was working as usual. I attempted to have a conversation with him but he just wasn't having any of it. I shouldn't have called. Obviously I know that. I'm just retarded. So then I cried a bit and the dog came and put his head in my lap and stared up at me with his huge black eyes. That helped. I feel like an idiot. Maybe it's just hormones.

Thesis panic

Holy fuck. Pardon my language. But I have a buttload of work to do. I'm not sure I can finish my thesis before my time in this program expires at the end of August. I am extremely anxious. I'm meeting my supervisor at 10 am. We're going to have to talk about a final drop date for this thing.

On a happier note, I get to puppy-sit next week. Oh, except he's not a puppy anymore. I'm pretty excited about that. I might ask to work from home next week so that I can focus on the thesis and not stress too much about getting home to let him out.