So, I’m, looking at my desk right now – really I am surveying the damage. I have taken down three bottles of natural spring water, one bottle of Gatorade. I have a bag of random pills near my file holder and strewn beside the keyboard are the salt packets that accompanied my cheeseburger and fries lunch. I want you to guess what’s wrong with me. All I want to do is curl up under my desk, but the office is still suffering from the flood, and by suffering I mean the floor is still wet and there is mold growing everywhere.

Between the hours of 2 and 3:45 I really thought I was going to shrivel up and die but that has passed and my second wind – more like a second light breeze – is taking me through the remainder of the day. I can do it!

A good friend of mine is getting married tomorrow and I’m the MC. Last night we went out to celebrate her and it was a predictable mess. Is tequila ever really necessary? The bachelor party was happening really close to my house. We went by to take a look at them, and I gotta say, their party was lame. We pelted them with penis shaped water balloons.

The penis balloon pelting may figure prominently in my speech, in-so-much as I have managed to write one and Meredith (the chick getting married) is really on my ass about it. It’s not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of thing. I don’t want to offend the guest at the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse over cocktails. I’ll be fine, even though the last time I was an MC I barfed up my breakfast before the speech, sometimes I get nervous.

I got into bed at 4:00am. That’s what the clock radio beside my bed said. I got up at 7:20am. Feeling good, feeling great, how are you?
- posted by Debbie @ 4:46 PM |

 
So, today I can’t help but think of the passionate love affair that sprang up between me and guy who works at the Portuguese chicken place across from the YMCA. OK it was totally in my imagination, sill, it was hot. I’ve written him a letter, you know to say farewell and that we shall always have College and Dovercourt. I think I am going to paste it on his shop window the night before I leave for Montreal.

Dear Portuguese Chicken Guy,

I hear that you are a Jehovah’s Witness and that you attend Kingdom Hall once a week. While I don’t understand your “religion” I have to admit that I do enjoy seeing you dressed up in a suit on a weekly basis when I walk by your “church” bound for the YMCA. Your dedication to that organization must be your only flaw, because other than that you are, in a word, perfection.

The evidence of my burning passion is abundant. Sitting on the College streetcar with my hand pressed up against the glass, I gaze into your shop as I sail by silently with 40 others. I linger outside your window a little when I am on my way to some College St. attraction. I know you like to flirt and when I say that I like the sauce on the chicken to be like me, hot and sweet, I am sure you know that’s a hint. If all that evidence isn’t enough, surely you have noticed the flame in my eyes when I watch you slather breasts and thighs in the sauce of my choosing.

Alas, how would I stand out in your mind when neighbourhood girls and women from Ossington to Landsdowne flock to your establishment? And they are not coming for the chicken, although it is succulent to be sure. You are the subject of many daydreams and the topic of several naughty conversations. You cause giggles and smiles and women everywhere long to know what is behind those deep brown eyes of yours. It is clear from your sly smile that you are a bad man, so I guess the JW’s will keep you on the straight path, but should you stray, oh please stray in my direction. You don’t even need to give me free chicken, although, that would be the icing on the cake that is your rock solid body.

The universal desire for you may have something to do with clear indications that the good looks run in the family. A biological imperative, if you will. I say this because, frankly, even your dad is hot. I once asked him if I could marry into the family, you know, for the chicken. He just laughed, something tells me that he gets the offer on a regular basis.

Portuguese Chicken Guy, we could live together in harmony in your native Brazil. We could watch the sun set over Copacabana Beach, we could behold the giant illuminated Jesus hovering in the night sky, and we could linger in bed as the sun’s golden rays first touch Sugarloaf Mountain. The only river in Rio De Janeiro will be the river of love that passes between us.

I will soon be leaving Toronto to live in another city. But my passions will remain here with you, on the north side of College, a little bit east of Dovercourt, across from the YMCA.

Yours,

Debbie
- posted by Debbie @ 3:44 PM |

 
So, I quit my job yesterday. Even when your job is dissatisfying it is difficult to quit, unless you have one of those ‘take this job and shove it’ moments and you walk out the door with nothing but a coffee cup, your day planner and the intention to take legal action. I had to give notice to two bosses. Both men, but that is the only trait they have in common. I told my one boss at the café across the street over lunch. A ‘we need to talk’ lunch, a break up lunch, a please don’t flip out or cry lunch. Anyway, he took it OK. I explained my reasons – not all of them as we would still be there. My other boss said “I don’t like to loose you, Deborah.” I’ve been working here for two years and that was the second time he has ever said anything about my performance on the job.

Part of me wishes I could have left in a blind fury shaking my fist and screaming “This crap ain’t worth it” but, although it’s true in my case, I just can’t behave like that and those moments are only glorious at the picture show. In real life people just think you’re crazy and then you become one of those 1001 office stories that your co-workers tell their friends with responses ranging from “That’s awesome” in reference to the scene of it all to “That chick is nuts” in reference to the star of that scene. That’s a pretty tight range. No thanks, I’d rather be the office bombshell who is actually the smartest person in the organization.

So, I have a new job lined up at a new magazine in a new city. Montreal ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Well, that’s not true. Montreal is the North American capital of debauchery and the national mascot of sin, but I felt I had to talk as if I’m gonna take the city by storm. I may not run the city, but I can sin and use Catholic based swear words like the rest of them, so I think I’ll fit in just fine.

My last day here is June 24th. How am I actually supposed to work until that day? It’s past 11:30 and for some reason, I don’t think that making spa appointments, talking to my mother, and blogging are really the most important aspects of my job. However, my mother and I will be getting pedicures and perhaps manicures at a spa on Friday at about noonish. I administered that beautifully.
- posted by Debbie @ 11:45 AM |

 

So, I am avoiding getting into my own bed for one major reason, and I think it’s valid. There is no way I’ll be able to sleep. The heat has done a great job of leaching the energy right out of me, but in reality I have no right to complain. The person who invented air conditioning deserves some sort of prize. Cleary a super-genius, this mysterious person came up with a way to keep me cool while this spot on the planet is determined to heat up to temperatures here-to-fore unknown by Canadians.

I can’t sleep because I had a fantastic nap this afternoon and I think I took it too far. Really, I should have just gone down for a “Power 20” but instead I lazed in there for a good 90 minutes, maybe more. I guess I could get into bed with a book, but I have started reading “Cool: The Story of Ice Cream” by Marilyn Powell. God, it’s so bad, I think it may put me off reading AND ice cream – ok, I’m kidding…about the ice cream part. Ice cream, what a melt in your mouth topic, but she makes it almost as interesting as Stephen Harper’s hair. Powell’s book pales in comparison to my grade 7 journal, which is mostly about that cutie pie Dane Minns. Now there is a good read!

As the smog came damn close to killing me yesterday I have spent the entire day indoors (I’m going to start calling Toronto ‘Mexico City North’). I only left the apartment to go from home to car to Ikea to car to home. I swear to you, I think they actually sell children at the Ikea in Mississauga. At the front doors there is some sort of enclosed Plexiglas apparatus/fort thingy that they have actual children stuffed inside of, like they are on display, it’s weird. Ikea’s in-store marketing is amazing. I think it is designed so that real living children can unwittingly become part of the display. Random parents can look down and think, ‘wow look how cute that random kid looks trapped in a giant corduroy bean bag!’

Anyway, I guess it was actually Ikea and not the heat that bagged me. GRC published a paper in an academic book recently, I think I’ll read that again to restore my faith in prose. I already read it, but the last few weeks turned my brain to mush.
- posted by Debbie @ 11:52 PM |