Shark Punch.

Sometime I'm going to have to somehow upload a bunch of stuff I recorded on tape. Such as me doing a dramatic reading of Little Miss Tiny (by Roger Hargreaves) and The Hobbit (the abridged book-on-tape - not the Tolkien - version). They're fucking hilarious. And that's me saying that. You can totally hear my mother getting majorly pissed off with me because, apparently, I was more concerned with reading into a microphone and not getting ready for school or something. I'm glad I'm not my own child. I would have killed me by now.

Seriously, I'm not just saying that. I was the most annoying kid ever, and I'm pretty sure I'm one of the top annoying adults in my age group. I try not to be, but anyone who's ever been near me when I'm manic will know that I'm loud, shrill and boisterous. And the only reason I say those particular words is because I can't find any words that will make it seem like I pity myself. I don't want to be that person. At least, I don't want to be that person with you guys. You're welcome.


As a first world problem, it's kind of difficult for me to sift through my memories and find the funny ones, or find things that I used to want to do. This is because there are a lot of memories I'd rather skip over, because it's much like jumping the shark. If I misstep, the bad memories will bite my ankles and drag me underwater and rip me to shreds.
Again: I don't want you guys to read about the shit that I've been through. I'd rather be someone who is happy-go-lucky and doesn't dwell on the past.
Sometimes, though? The sharks are circling really fast and thick, and those are the days that I can't get through to myself to tell that little part of me that those things are in the past and that I can get past them just by punching them on the nose.

For those of you who find they can relate, I sympathise. I hope you have someone in your life who will let you sink into your memories, but pull you to safety and remind you that you're wonderful.
I'm extremely lucky that I have such brilliant friends. I love them with all my heart and I never thought that I would have people like them in my life.



I know that the sharks may jump up to get me, but I'll always have a hand to pull me out of the water if they grab me. They have given me the strength to know that even if they aren't there, I can pull myself out by thinking of the love we have for one another.

Those sharks are bastards, but you can punch them on the fucking nose.

Mental-scarring doesn't exactly pay well.

The summer that I was 14 going on 15, I spent a week babysitting in the wilds of Quebec.

The week started with me travelling to a cottage (that the family I was helping had rented) in the dad's awesome convertible. I realised about 20 minutes outside of Ottawa that convertibles are not only stupid cars, but also that, if I had been given the choice, I should have chosen to wear a bike helmet. Because it felt really dangerous. And not in a 'Hey man, this is dangerous in a totally cool way', but more of a 'Omigodwe'regonnadieifwegoover50mph' kind of way. I also wouuld have worn a helmet because my hair was basically a birds nest at the halfway point of the journey. And no amount of conditioner would de-tangle it. Not even the amazing-smelling L'Oreal Kids strawberry 2-in-1. With built-in de-tangler. It was horrible. I still have nightmares.

When we finally got to the cottage on the lake (it was real pretty, and had a long-ass dock that I was TOTALLY wanting to fish off of), I got settled in, and got down to babysitting. Which basically consisted of me sitting on some rocks down by the dock while the eldest kid collected toads in a bucket. The baby didn't need looking after because it had horrendous hayfever, I think. Or it was lazy. It basically just slept all the time and when it wasn't sleeping, it was getting ready to sleep while it ate. If I ever have children, I want a more active child, instead of one with allergies to the outdoors. That baby was really boring.

A couple of days went by without much to write home about. Well, there was a moth in my bedroom that I managed to get rid of without any drama.

But then after a couple of days of me wrestling with my birds nest hair and showering in what turned out to be a really poorly built cubicle (the water would drip through to the kitchen below after you were in it for more than 5 minutes, which is obviously not enough time for a teenage girl to shower.), I went down to the dock to help the kid with its toad collecting.
Then I saw a monster. A REAL MONSTER.

It was on the side of the dock and it was about to launch a nuclear attack on the kid I was meant to be protecting for what turned out to be $20 a day. I should have let the monster eat the kid, but damnit, I just couldn't.
Also, it had a friend who would have eaten me. So I took the most obvious action.
I told the kid to get off the dock. I didn't tell it why, I just said 'Get off the dock, Kid*. We need to get away from the dock and get in the house.

Kid: 'Whyyyyy?'

Me: 'Because your mom wants you inside.'

Kid: (screams) 'MO-OOOM! WHY DO I HAVE TO COME INSIDE?! I DON'T WANNA!'

The Mom: 'What? You don't have to come in! Stay out there for as long as you want so I can drink copious amounts of wine and forget that I'm in the wilderness where I am super, SUPER uncomfortable and terrified of every piece of nature around me! You're fine, sweetie!'

Kid: 'Why did you think my mom wanted us inside?'

Me: 'Because there's a giant monster on the dock, that's why.'

Turns out the kid was more bad-ass than I was.

Kid: 'Woah! Cool, I wanna see it! SHOW ME NOW.'

Me: 'Fine, but I'm carrying you, because you're not wearing shoes and I am. And it looks like it'll go for the toes first.'

Kid: (laughs crazily) 'Coooooooooooool!'

Me: 'No, it's not cool, because I only have sandals on. And that means my toes are the ones it's gonna get. We'll look really quickly and then run, OK?'

Kid: 'Whatever. SHOW ME THE MONSTER.'

So I carry the kid to the bit of the doc where I last saw the monster.

I looked over the side.

IT WAS GONE.

That's when the fear really set in. It was going to crawl up behind us and drag us, backward into the lake, I just KNEW it.

So I told the kid it wasn't there, and wasn't that lucky? It looked totally bereft, because it wanted to see a monster and get eaten, I can only assume.

I took one last look and that's when it happened.
The monster jumped up onto the side of the dock and its friend was with it. With eggs on its back. Licking its lips.

OK, maybe not the last bit. Lake spiders don't generally have lips, but these were the biggest fucking spiders I'd ever seen in my life, so far.

I picked the kid up in the quickest, most swift movement and sprinted down the dock, up to the house.

The mom was standing at the back door and had heard my strangled scream of 'RUN! RUN THERE'S SPIDERS EVERYWHERE!!!!!' and had prepared a flame-thrower and grenades for getting rid of nature. She said to the kid that she wasn't ever going outside again, and she suggested I do the same.

The best part of the week wasn't the monster evading though.

The best part of the week was when the mom finally allowed us back outside (like, 20 minutes later), and we decided that we should play basketball. There was a rusty hoop in the driveway and a ball that might as well have been filled with sand; the amount of bounce it had in it.

So we're playing a bit of pass the rock (no bouncing would ever happen)and avoiding tetanus, and the mom is given a perfectly good reason not to wear fucking slippers outdoors, in sand, on a driveway. Because she stood on a Garter snake. And it freaked her the fuck out. I have never seen a grown woman run that fast, apart from when my mum sees a mouse. It was one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed.

Needless to say, I was so happy that day that when I was asked if I wanted to go home a week early, because they wouldn't be needing a babysitter so much anymore, I jumped at the chance to get away from Shelob and her husband. And I also never had to see those damn lake spiders again. And the parents paid me $100 for five days work.

Mental-scarring doesn't exactly pay well (hey, that's the title of this post!), but I did buy a front-row ticket to see the Backstreet Boys' Ottawa concert. It was amazing and totally worth a week of hair that resembled a birds nest and spiders the size of a grown man's hand. The cherry on top of the crazy? Never having to babysit for that family ever again


I hated that family.

Mothra ate my baby.

Here's a question:
Why do moths fly toward light? They're nocturnal. If they wanted the light, why not just come out during the day? It would be easier to avoid them, that way. Those critters are nasty.

I mean, sure, they're incredible, but they're the spawn of Hades.
I'm sorry, but my ears are not made of your food, moths. They're made for making my face look less weird. Which is a real job.

And what's up with the moths that look like hummingbirds? They're awesome, sure, but they confuse the shit out of me.
Come on, are you a bird? Are you an insect? Are you some magical cross between the twain?
Neither. That's what you are. You're just confusing. I refuse to believe you're even a moth. Please stay away from where I live. I thank the beings above that you don't live in the same country as me.

I realise that this could constitute as moth 'hate-speech', but I really, really don't care.

If I can be super serious for a minute, I had a traumatising experience with a moth. That's why I hate them.

Here's what went down:

Back in, like, 1998, I was walking with mother and my dog, Mollie (an amazing Bearded Collie crossed with a Bouvier de Flandres, more on her later). We went to the playing field of the high school to let Mollie run free (which was probably illegal because of by-laws in Nepean, Ontario). I was standing under a flood-light (I'd most likely bought a book with me. On a walk. At night. I was fucking addicted to the Babysitter's Club books).
Then I suddenly contracted a really serious case of frivolous muscular convulsions. Because a moth had flown into my fucking ear.

I was thrashing about in the dewy grass, which had that creepy mist that you always see in horror movies, and my mum was just standing there laughing and my dog was going berserk trying to trip me up which was only making matters worse.

If you've never had a moth fly under your hair and basically into your ear, it sounds like a jet-fighter. Who sings opera. Badly. And louder. And more scarily.


Also, I can't say for sure, but I'm fairly sure it was this kind of monster:



But I could be wrong and it might just have been one of those little white cabbage ones.

I'm pretty sure it was the huge one.


----

Oh yeah. My friend just asked what moths did before man discovered fire? Were they content with the moon?

Yes. Yes they were. And they can go back to being fucking content with the moon.

Yeti vs. Not Yeti.

Geez, being a girl is tiring.
Seriously? Whoever thought girls were sexier for shaving their legs was an asshole. And all the other rituals we go through (to not get called Yetis) is totally lame. I'd rather be a Yeti, cuz then if I saw a human, I'd be all 'Ew, look how not hairy that thing is!'

And also, if I were a Yeti, I'd definitely have a pet marmot called Larry (or Larrina if it was a girl), and it would go around stealing people's razors so that all the people in a 5 mile radius would be just as hairy as me and then no one would tease me for being a Yeti and I wouldn't tease them for being shaved and gorgeous.

I'd live in a tree house and it would be awesome and huge, to accommodate all my Yeti needs. I'd have a huge walk-in shower/waterfall room full of amazing expensive shampoos, a humongous walk-in blow-dryer and all the anti-frizz products that I could wish for. Cuz living in the forest gives you major frizz. Expecially on the crown area of your head.

The only downside of being a Yeti? The shampoo bills. So yeah, in retrospect, it's cheaper being a shaven maven.

I once melted a woman's face.

I went through a phase (that I may or may not have completely finished going through, but we'll just see about that...) where I made theatre masks. I got one job out of it, and was offered another by the same person (a friend of mine who is a drama teacher at primary/elementary schools).

So there I am, trying to make some masks on a male head and I realise that it's too big for a kid's face. So I decide to use a female one instead.
I figured that if I wanted the eye-holes on the masks to be symmetrical and everything, that I needed to spray it black. With black spray paint.

That's when the face melted.



Oh yeah, I should probably mention that the heads I'm talking about are made of polystyrene. Not flesh.

I used to want to be a bunch of different things.

When I was little (and my craziness was kind of cute), I was convinced that I was going to be an amazing combination of all my favourite things.
In all honesty? I still do.

But truthfully, I don't think that's going to happen. For one, I'm not really a suitable age to be an Olympic gymnast. Rhythmic or not. I'm 26 for fuck's sake, and most of them are, like, 13 and super skinny and have extra elbows and knees and necks.
Also, the fact that I trip over my own feet when I'm sitting down, is kind of a hindrance. Most gymnasts (even the rhythmic ones who bounce balls and twizzle ribbons and throw clubs at people) are very very coordinated and not at all clumsy. Apart from when it comes to their Russian coach's expectations. Then they're all left-feet and nothing is ever good enough. They should have discovered me when I was 11. Then I'd have won all the medals. Ever.

If I'd had my way when I was little, not only would I have been a world-class gymnast, but I would have lived in the Amazonian rain forest. I would obviously live in a hollowed out tree, and make a living making tortilla chips and cougar jerky. And I'd have had a pet panther named 'Blacky'. If I had had this dream when I was the age I am now, the panther would be called 'Gerald' or possibly 'Frank'. Only because I no longer name things after the thing that stands out most about them.
N.B. I had stick insects called 'Sticky' and 'Twiggy'. I also had a hamster called 'Squeaky'.I'm that kind of person. PS- I also had a cat whom I did not name, called 'Kitty'. I got this naming gig all wrapped-up for life.

Blacky and I would have many wonderful adventures. Mainly tending our maize crops for our booming tortilla business, and shooing away the monkeys that would doubtlessly want a part of our fortune. They should have learned to farm and make tortillas for themselves. At least our tortilla business doesn't have any competition. And as we all know, competition from monkeys is stiff.

When the tortilla business was no longer so lucrative much fun and I had to turn Blacky into a blanket because the rainy season had set in set Blacky free (he totally didn't want to leave, because I make the best monkey jerky (he wasn't a fan of the cougar jerky, I don't blame him; it kind of sucked.) and I made sure his coat was in great shape, like, all the time), I had to turn to making my way home to my mother. I hadn't told her I was going to live in the Amazon. But really? If she had been that bothered she would have come to look for me. I obviously had left a paper trail as long as my hair (I had totally long hair in my imagination because my mother would always cut it really short and I'd confuse myself and think I was looking at a boy in the mirror.) and it led straight to the Amazon.

When I got home, I was immediately told that I had a job as a vet. I gave that all up, though, because I didn't like rummaging around in dying animals organs looking for a lost set of car keys. I then wrote a book about said dilemmas and it made me my first gazillion simolians.

After a brief stint on Broadway in Cats I was asked to be the singing voice for every Disney lady character ever. True story. In my imagination.

Oh yeah, and I got myself a zoo and all the animals were free to roam freely, and I might as well have just bought part of the Serengeti for all it was worth, because the lions ate everything. Apart from the giraffes. Turns out, they're the real predators.


So maybe these things haven't happened. Yet.
But I'm looking for happiness and to be content with who I am, so as long as I can run away to my imagination, where I'm not fucked-up and jobless, I'm fine.

Bugs and Shit

I spend a lot of time in my back garden. And there are LOTS of bugs in it. I love it.

Obviously, I don't quite love the idea of having bugs in my hair or up my nose. Or in my rectum. But the fact that they're the most intense creatures on earth (apart from my envy of women my age who don't have grey roots and therefore don't have to dye their hair so that people don't think they're just super-young looking 60 year olds) means that I want to get to know what they do to, you know, get by.

I should add: I spend time in my garden a lot because I smoke and I don't smoke in the house, EVER. This is probably good because there are obviously goblins in the house who have a nicotine addiction too. And I don't want them to give in to this filthy habit. So I'm actually doing a good deed by not enabling their baser desires.

I've seen a lot of cool bugs in my garden. Like a stink bug. And spiders trying to get it on (no idea as to the success rates but pretty sure they get it on). I even filmed some foreplay. Spider foreplay, not human. I'm not a deviant. You're sick.
If I knew how to post videos on here, I would. But I don't, so there.

Here's a picture of one of the stink bugs I found. I named him Buzz. Because he was totally a Space Ranger, and not at all because he was damn noisy.




So, yeah. My garden rocks. And I find cool stuff there.