when I was little I had a different dream job

May 3, 2012 - 2:54am - by admin

I didn't want to be a Communicating Person or Social Media Queen or Community Manager or a Blogger or a Social Media Coordinator or anything else like that

I wanted to be a golfing farmer.

I basically grew up on Kildonan golf course and obviously was into golfing when I was younger, which was somewhat spoiled by the fact that when I was 10 years old my dad took my two younger brothers and I golfing and my middle brother hit me in the stomach with his club by accident and I got very sick and threw up all night

we had had chicken wings for dinner that night and for nearly a decade I couldn't eat chicken wings because the taste reminded me of throwing up

and I also stopped golfing.

it's funny how that works, my dad says, that teenage kids get 'too cool' to golf and then once everyone graduates highschool and starts to actually grow up and stop being 'too cool' for everything, golf becomes something that a lot of people get into.

but not me.

I'm not sure why, maybe it was the golfclub to the stomach incident which was lingering with me or the fear that I'd be terrible or laziness or a combination of all three but I found out that my work does an annual golf trip every summer and decided there was no time like the present to start hitting the fairways

(at least I remember the terminology)

so this evening I spent some quality time with my amazing dad and he took me out to one of the public 9-hole courses, Crescent Drive, to go whack some balls around and see if I was still any good

which it turns out I am.

after flailing about on the first two holes we caught up to a group of teenage guys who my dad dubbed the "weekend warriors" who clearly had seen me sucking on the previous holes and decided to be 'gentlemen' and let us play through them because obviously they wanted to see how badly I would do because, honestly, I was doing pretty badly. so I lined up and pushed my hair out of my face and kept my eye on the ball and whacked that sucker over 150 yards.

OH. YEAH.

turns out I don't totally suck at golfing, after all.

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today is my mum's 30th birthday

March 5, 2012 - 4:01am - by admin

just like it was last year.

my mum is actually from a teeny town in England called Stourport-on-Severn where she lived until she was eight and my nan and granddad decided to jump across the pond and landed here in Winnipeg. last week she came by for tea and we went for a walk and she showed me the house the first lived in when she moved here, which is just up the street from where I live now which is weird to me. she told me about moving here in february and how cold it was and how she used to count the mosquito bites she and my uncles would get during the summer because they don't have mosquitoes in England, you fools.

but my mum didn't always live here, she traveled around with my grandparents through Alberta and lived in a trailer in the rockies with mountains right out her front door and eventually went back to England in her teens. but she missed all her cool Canuck friends and Canada's wide open spaces and when she was 19 she got on a plane all by herself and left her whole family to come back to Winnipeg which takes the kinds of balls I can only hope that I grow someday because, wow, that must have been hard.



one day my dad saw a gorgeous lady with big hair at a social and they danced to the rock lobster and a few years later your truly came along. next came Mike and she had prepared all these VHS tapes with all my favourite shows and made a list of which episode was which so I would have something to do while I was babysat during her delivery but I slept through the whole thing like the a-hole that I am.

after came Alex and my mum is so sweet that she didn't even get mad when, while she was pregnant, I told her that if she didn't have a baby girl I was going to hate it. she knew kids (especially ones with names that sound like Shmalyson Shmane) are stupid.

before I moved out of my parents house I used to go upstairs in the evening before bed and harass her while she was trying to watch some show about renovations or selling houses or crap like that because for some reason it was fun to watch tv with her even though I don't think she liked it.

she used to watch Star Trek: Voyager and used to get into arguments with this boyfriend I had about whether or not it was one of the shittier Star Treks, which is is (sorry mum). but she likes all the Saw movies which is both weird and awesome and makes up for her lame taste in Star Trek series.

there used to be a time when I never thought my mum and I would be close, which I guess is normal for every child especially the crazy female kinds and I think there may have been a time when she wasn't proud of me at all and wished that she'd never danced to The Rock Lobster and had this shitty kid. but she did and here I am and now that I'm trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing in this big, wide world she tells me that she's proud of me for doing it, and how I'm doing it, which means a lot. because I'm really proud of her, too.

happy birthday mum!

I love you,
Alyson xoxox

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one day my dad started a job

February 3, 2012 - 8:51pm - by admin

and he worked and he toiled and he got stressed out and upset
but he never gave up
and he always stuck to his guns
and I've always admired him for that
no mater what

today my dad called me
and told me he'd been promoted
to the job he's been trying to reach his entire career
and I'm so proud of him

now I don't talk about the fam here much
but it's not because I don't love 'em
it's because they're so important
that I only mention 'em
when it's really special

so, to celebrate
here's an oldschool picture of me high-fiving my dad
who is so, so cool
and who I love till the ends of the Earth



congratulations Dad
I love you

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parents called me and said

October 28, 2011 - 2:04am - by admin

I had to go through Grandma's apartment
and see if there was anything I wanted.
anything I 'wanted'?

I struggled with this.

I think about her as the wrinkles in her face
the wave of her perm
her long nails
the way she held a tissue.

I want to remember those things.

that's what I want.

she isn't even dead
just
moved away
and I'll never see her again.

it kills me.

it destroys me.

I've trying to deal
I have to
what's done is done.

so
we went
and I saw a recipe box
and
printed in her neat writing
at the top of a recipe she'd written
'this would make a good meatloaf!'

it's funny
the sort of thing
that makes you break down

and cry.

I miss her so much
it's like a black hole in my heart
eating me from the inside out
I feel empty.

I miss her.

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Some ways I can make today better:

October 21, 2011 - 2:26am - by admin

Listening to my favourite Chilly Gonzales track.

watching more Boardwalk Empire



eating ice cream (but not this much or I'll get sick)



getting hugs from this fine gentleman:

and crying.

I said goodbye today
to someone who means the world to me
my heart is breaking
and all I can do
is tell you that I love you
and be glad that we still have each other
xo

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