I went to get a new sports bra because I could no longer handle being stabbed repeatedly in the chest by my current one, with it’s rogue underwire trying to kill me. I went to Victoria’s Secret because I like how they have a bra expert or boob professional on at all times (young girl with a measuring tape). They also have doorbells in the fitting rooms so you can summon the measuring tape child while you have an insanely ill fitting bra, with pockets of flesh escaping in every direction and need her to access the massacre of Betty & Veronica situation. She will then scurry around to find you another one that will actually not suck your will to live. There was one she brought me that was a weird space age bra. She explained to me how to put it on then I spent the next five minutes trying to understand the front clasp then zip technique. When she came to ask how it went I told her it didn’t fit when in reality I had spent the whole time trying to figure out how to get it done up. I realized then why they had a bra specialist on at all times, you practically needed a fucking degree in engineering to get that damn thing on. It then got me wondering as to who these people were that sat around designing these breast supporting intelligence puzzles. I wondered if I was being filmed as part of a study on the average intelligence on a person who shopped at Victoria’s Secret and perhaps I had just brought the mean average way down. Anyways, regardless I did not buy that bra because it was too hard. I bought on that slid over my head and had hooks, two things I understood. Hurrah!

I told everyone I met my soul mate the other day, but I want to tell you the whole story. I had to go see a specialist in Carleton Place (it’s a blood thing, nothing to panic about). I got my number and waited in the waiting room, oddly surrounded by Harlequin romances, until being called into the Doctor’s office. The doctor let me in, shut the door and then casually turned to look at me and asked me what I did in life. I was completely caught off guard by that question. What do I do in life? I don’t know. I tell strangers I’m a writer usually, just for fun. I told him where I worked. He asked me about a particular product to see if we carried it at my work. I texted someone in grocery to find out. I told the doctor that we were wearing the same boots, yay! He looked at me and said, no we aren’t. “Yours are a fucking rip off and mine are the real deal. Yours are made in China, mine are not,” he told me. He dropped the papers he was holding and said shit like a thousand times. I was getting a little turned on. He then asked me if I had kids or plans on having them, I said no. He then asked me to marry him. I told him I was married so he told me to leave his husband and marry him. I think I said ok. I appreciated his confidence and boldness. We chatted more and he told me he really liked me and instead of coming back to get the blood work done he would get me in now. I think he swore again at something then asked me to run away with him to Australia. I think I said ok. Then he sat at his desk looking a little tormented. He turned to me and said, I really like you, so instead of making you come back to get your results I am going to give you my personal e-mail. In a month, just shoot me an e-mail and ask me to give you the results. I watched as he wrote his gmail address on a prescription pad and hand it to me. I thanked him very much as I left the office and felt like I had just had a kind of hot date with this doctor. Oh did I mention he was probably in his late 70’s or early 80’s? Yeah, his confidence and potty mouth transcended his age. When I went down to get my blood done I got a text back form my colleague with all the details of the product the Doctor wanted to know if we carried. So I wrote all the info on my business card and asked the nurse to deliver it to the Doctor who had propositioned me with marriage. They laughed and promise to bring it to him. I left the hospital wondering if I had just met my soul mate, it was a weird, hilarious feeling that stayed with me for quite awhile. I have yet to e-mail him but if I do and you never see me again, he has taken me away to Australia never to be seen again…

When my co-worker and I went to Chicago a couple weeks ago we had a moment on the plane where we realized we needed to talk about our hotel/sleeping etiquette because we would be sharing a room. My co-worker confessed, reluctantly, that she was a snorer. I was surprised but reassured her I always have ear plugs on me, no problem. I told her I saw her snoring and raised her the possibility of me shitting my pants if I ate gluten. She laughed because I think she thought I was kidding…

My roommate and I went to a bar the other day. We watched a server drop off the meals to this one table, one of which was in a bread bowl. I looked at my gluten free friend and said, remember when that bowl looked liked something fun to eat? Now it looked like a bowl of diarrhea.

We also went out to the market last weekend. I cleverly brought no purse just my debit card in my back pocket. We went to a couple of bars trying to see where the fun crowd was. We went to Pub 101 because we hadn’t been there since University and when we got in the bar it looked like the age of when we had been in there last, was still their current clientele. So young! The guy asked for ID from everyone around us except us. When we got in we realized we practically looked liked overdressed Mom’s in a sea of 18 year old underdressed Barbies. So we decided to try the Whiskey Bar because we had also had some hilarious memories of being there in University and there was a line up which meant there were people inside, yay! When we got to the front of the line the bouncer asked us for ID. I laughed and said I didn’t have any (because I actually didn’t) but it was okay because I was obviously not 18. He said he wouldn’t let me in. I looked at him and said, listen you look familiar, you are from my hometown therefore you know we went to high school together and there is no way I am underage, got it? He said there was no way he was letting me in. I was so mad! As we walked away I told my roommate all the reasons how there is no way I could be 18!! I have grey hair for God’s sake!! Bags under my eyes!! I have a saggy body that no 17 year old in the world could ever have!! That guy was just being a power tripping diiiiiick!! Anyhoo, next time we went out I brought my ID and no one asked for it once confirming the fact that I do in reality look like an old person.

I went away to Toronto last weekend to visit my friend who was moving away. It was a quick there and back trip. I had planned before I left to be back Sunday night in time for going to nineties night at Barrymore’s with my roommate. So we pre-drank at the house and took a traveller for the walk to the bus. I only ever take the bus late at night either on way to bar or on way back (this was my second time ever) and I am telling you, taking the bus is the best people watching fun a person can have!! There was a guy in the front telling us all kind of weird jokes. The rest of the bus laughed, mainly at us, because we had the joy of dealing one on one with this guy’s odd antics. There were people keeping to themselves, people joining in on the conversation and stupid good looking people that looked like Jax from SOA distracting us from fun mental health joke guy with the cowboy hat on. So much fun. Anyways, so we got downtown and lined up into Barrymores and started getting concerned as we seemed to be the youngest people in line. We then realized it was 80’s and 90’s night. The guy directly in front of us was in his fifties or sixties and was doing stretches while wearing zebra print platform shoes…he was STRETCHING before going into a club and wearing animal print PLATFORMS…we decided to give it a try anyways. We got in, they made me check my leather coat (not real) which I wanted to hold onto. Then when I went to get a drink they had no good rum, cider or anything that didn’t suck so I had a shitty rum and coke and then they didn’t accept debit so my roommate had to pay for it. Ugh. We walked up and down the stairs at Barrymore’s because I had had a lot of anxiety about going back and dealing with my stair nemesis. I had been kicked out of Barrymore’s 2-3 times in the past for tripping on the stairs, one time was because they were wet and I honestly just slid a bit but if you argue with bouncers saying you are not drunk, you come off as seeming like a belligerent drunk, so it never works. After going up and down and not tripping, sliding or falling down them I felt confident I had won this round. We went to the dance floor where it was a sea of what looked like soccer Mom’s wearing baby doll shirts (hopefully dressing for nineties nights?) drinking red wine… I decided to announce we were the youngest vaginas there and that we should go. My roommate agreed and we quickly left.

We decided to go to Babylon next door which ended up being stupid fun. Mod night on a long weekend was amazing. They had cider on tap, an interesting mix of people and awesome music. I was wearing the most non breathable clothing known to mankind (corduroy) so after two hours of non stop dancing and singing my hair was matted to my head and I was my own personal sauna. It was like hot yoga but wayyyyy more fun and with alcohol. It was more spiritual for me to power dance to music I loved then quietly watching sweat drip down stranger’s bodies. A guy outside the club asked me what I did in life (again?) I asked what he did to redirect. He said he was a writer so I said me too. I said I wrote comedy (this is my going out persona, in my head I pretend to be Tina Fey or Amy Poehler, I was two seconds away from saying I was on SNL but I thought that was less believable). He said he wrote philosophy so I went ohhhhh you must be unemployed! He said he indeed was and then I laughed uncontrollably back into the club. If I relied on my writing for a career I would also be unemployed so I was laughing just as much at my situation as I was his. Anyways, we danced another couple hours, best form of exercise ever!

Chicaaaaagooooooo

I just kept saying it like Oprah would have. I half imagined that I would see Oprah in Chicago, like she would greet me at the airport, hand me the keys to my new car and then take me on a tour of the castle she lived in then show me her favourite things. She did not. I was disappointed.

My work sent my coworker and I to Chicago for a holiday show and meeting. We got a flight from here to Toronto which had the rockiest. landing. ever. Everyone was holding their stomachs, a few people grabbed their spew sacks and I decided this might be the first flight I ever puked on. But we didn’t, yay! My coworker said she never understood why people clap when the plane lands, especially after a terrible landing like the one we just had. I said I always clap because we flew through the air in a giant, heavy, metal tube and didn’t die! I always clap for not dying!

We only had a half hour before our next flight so we raced to find a glass of wine, downed it, complained about the price and selection and then ran to where our plane was boarding. As we got there I saw all of our Ontario regional co-ordinators. So just as the glass of wine hit my empty stomach, I decided to dance over to them, sing to them a song about our workplace and introduce myself to one of the gentleman as the terribly annoying asshole that always e-mails him with the stupidest requests. He was very kind about it and told me I was not annoying at all but I insisted that I was. Then it went kind of silent so I casually moon walked out of there. We filed onto the plane only to figure out that the regional co-ordinators were sitting diagonally to us and we would have to be careful what we said the whole flight. At one point, my coworker, lets call her Sue, was telling me about the time she took her daughter to the hairdresser and was totally devastated when her daughter expressed the need to get an EMU HAIR CUT. I laughed so hard that the co-ordinators turned around to see who the crazy drunk cackler was. It was I, they didn’t look surprised. I was creating a fantastic impression of myself for these people. An emo haircut I corrected her. Emo, not emu.

Sue fell asleep and woke up 15 minutes later saying she couldn’t believe she had slept through the whole flight and then I broke the news to her that she most definitely had just had a power nap and nothing else. I watched some of Horrible Bosses 2 which I look forward to finishing some day as I was laughing out loud at the parts that I did see. The flight attendants told us they packed the wrong plane and there would be no food available on the flight. Perfect, as all I’d had to eat all day was a smoothie and wine. They didn’t even have snacks besides pretzels so I decided to just starve to death as opposed to risking crapping my pants. Flying into windy Chicago it was by far the worst.landing.ever. Everyone on the plane was green, holding their stomachs and had the barf bags out. It was so bad. It was absolutely gut wrenching. Anyways, we made it without spewing, barely. Hurrah!

Every time we got into a taxi in chicago we asked the taxi driver the population of Chicago. The numbers ranged from 300 000 to 8000 to 2 million. It was a running joke. We laughed so hard every time they answered confidently with a totally different, made up answer.

It was this trip that made me realize that my co-worker and I were obviously sisters or something in another life because as soon as we finished the show on the first day we both looked at each other and said it was time for wine. We had all the other girls come hang out in our room that night. Sue said the more I drank, the more I became a one woman comedy show with my language getting gradually more colourful. The next day we had a meeting, packed our things, shopped near the airport (bought a leather jacket!! Not real leather…) and then headed to the airport. We checked into our flight only to realize that our tickets were booked for 6:45 am and not 6:45 pm. The attendant then went on to tell us that all Air Canada flights were full except for one going to Montreal but we would have to spend the night there and get to Ottawa in the AM. We just looked at each other wondering how the fuck this happened, what the fuck were we going to do, holy shit this is such a fuck up! So I took my phone out and took a selfie of us and the Air Canada attendant because that is all I could think of to do…document this terrible moment. He graciously then offered us a direct flight on United for free!!! But it was leaving in a few hours so we would have some time to kill. Amazing!! He saved the day! I have documented evidence of what he looks like! Which sounds creepy. Time to celebrate with wine!

We went to what seemed like the only restaurant in the whole Chicago airport and ate some food and drank a bottle and a half of wine. We stayed there for over 2 hours chatting and mainly drinking. This is when I discovered I may have been a little bit of a light weight with red wine. When we got up to leave and go catch our plane I heard myself utter, I may be too drunk to fly. But then I pulled myself together and made the most of it. As we walked/danced up to the United desk a guy was yelling at the attendants there and getting very mad. He turned to walk away but as he did he came up to us and asked us how a fucking airline can lose your fucking luggage and I started dancing while singing MAGIC and doing jazz hands. He got frustrated and left but I felt I diffused the situation like a champ. I imagine all the passengers were officially getting concerned as I sang and made witty observational remarks about other passengers while waiting for the plane. When they started boarding the plane I moon walked to our seat at the very front! The flight attendant told me that I did not have a place to stow my luggage and I told her I would put my luggage between my legs and just squeeze really tight to hold it, like doing keigals, I yelled. She took the piece of paper she was holding and covered her face as she started to laugh. She eventually told me she would have to stow our stuff with her purse. I gave her my stuff and then yelled that I also had a bag with my new leather jacket in it!! When she came to get it I said, don’t worry It is not real leather, I can’t afford that. The guy sitting next to us turned around and said, you guys are going to be trouble, aren’t you. We both nodded and said yes. They brought the cart around and we bought wine, because thats what we needed, more wine. I tried multi tasking and threw a full glass of wine over my new Rolling Stones sweater I had just purchased a few hours before. That was annoying. Anyways we made it back to Ottawa, pretty hammered and decided we were the perfect travel partners ever! Yay work trips!

Hot Yoga

So I tried hot yoga yesterday. Here is how this happened. Firstly, I have wanted to try it forever because the people that do it are obsessed with it (and toned!) and because my boss has mentioned it to me a couple times to try it with her. So last week when she mentioned it and I said I would go next week, she rolled her eyes and didn’t believe me. That shit pisses me off. I didn’t want her to think I was flaky and said things that I never did. Fuck that, I do what I say y’all. So the next Monday I switched my shift around and showed up with yoga gear. We were going. I was a little worried about it because after not being at a gym for over 2 months, I was worried about being out of shape but I was also extremely concerned about how I would handle the heat. I am not even comfortable in a sauna let alone in a hot room doing weird stretches with a thousand strangers. We got there and I felt immediately intimidated, especially because the class cost $20 which was my last spare change in the bank and I couldn’t believe I had spent it on that and not beer. Ok no. I was intimidated by all the hot, toned yoga bodies and my soft, overdressed body gracing the toned people’s presence. But then when I entered the room and saw how packed it was going to be and how hot it was I definitely had a moment of panic. Could I do this? Will I die? Will I pass out? Will I vomit? Will I be never leave this room of death ever again?

To sum up the experience I found the whole thing pretty disgusting. I know you are supposed to quiet your mind and go inwards but I kept staring at the back of a man sweating so profusely his river of sweat was invading my territory. He was excreting so much sweat that I spent most of the class trying to figure out what he had for lunch because I smelled oregano and garlic so I assumed it was probably Italian? There were moves that I couldn’t even follow and when they did something I knew I had no right even pretending to do, I stood up and casually drank water while occasionally rolling my eyes by accident. Yoga has changed a lot. It used to be about the gong, the fountain, the om symbol, all about the atmosphere. Now it’s about who can shed the most liquids into a pool that slides around in a room of 30 people. It felt weird, uncomfortable and as I ran out of the room at the end, absolutely revolting that I was wading through people’s sweat. I thought to myself, the only way I would consider that room clean ever again was if they burnt it down and built it again.