Tagged: Life
Winnipeg is the best place to be from
- by admin
which is something you don't hear often
not even from people from winnipeg
but it's true.
we're a big city still trying to be a small town
stuck being a small town with big-city problems
with shitty weather half the year
and a seething inferiority complex
in the middle of nowhere
(literally)
and we spend more time slamming
our sketchy mayor
our shitty transit system
and our winters
than saying good things about anything.
but our little frozen hovel
stuck out in the prairie
like a defiant 'fuck you' to common sense
breeds
amazing artists, writers, and most of all musicians
and a complex, intricate love/hate relationship
with the place we call 'home'.
this town makes you nicer
you smile and say 'hello' and make small talk in line at tim horton's
help out your neighbours or that guy
whose car got snowed in up the block
not because you want someone to reward you for doing it
but because it's the nice thing to do, dammit.
being stuck in the middle of the country
makes us much more appreciative
of what other cities have
oh you have efficient mass transit?
oh your skyline has buildings in it?
and up until a few weeks ago
oh you have an IKEA?
its size makes us all connected
everyone's had too much to drink at the king's head
gone to osborne village on canada day
seen a show at the west end
had a greasy burger at blondie's
been harassed the twoonie lady downtown
and we've all suffered from
missing a bus that came thirty seconds too early
or getting stuck outside waiting for a bus that came twenty minutes late
trying to strike a balance between two options
which are never in your favour.
living here makes you hard
we're sarcastic and cynical and critical
of everything
especially ourselves
and especially our hometown
which is why when someone else makes fun of it
they can fuck off
because that's our job
and unless you've spent your life
shovelling snow and dealing with overnight parking bans
hanging out at the toad people-watching on the weekends
driving to grand beach during the summer
and
complaining about all the things you could do if only
you were somewhere else
you haven't earned the right to bash winnipeg.
because you don't love it like we do
especially not as as much as when we say
"I fucking hate this town".
too much happened today, and nothing really at all
- by admin
had weird dreams which isn't unusual. if I told you guys half the weird shit I dream about every night you'd think I was crazy and be jealous that you don't get to have the same nighttime adventures I do.it's why I love naps. you always get the weirdest dreams when you sleep during the day.
whenever I'm sick like I am today I curl up in bed with my ipad and fall asleep to futurama or something like it and wake up still convinced that I'm somewhere else. except today my dreams were weird and I had to wake up before they were over and as I rolled out of bed I wasn't even sure I was awake, my head was so stuffed up.
it's one of the only good things about being sick, especially when you're sick and have to drag your sorry sick ass to class because you have to do a presentation and then this chick that you hate who constantly challenges everything everyone says feels the need to keep you up there defending your presentation for ten minutes when you just want to fall over.
I'm not saying all feminists are like this, but why is it all the ornery, nitpicky bitches in any class I've ever taken always self-identify as "feminists"?
seriously. all yr girl wanted to do was go back to my desk and keep my head down while she harassed every other presenter today about how they were wrong. then the class started talking about 'blogs as a medium' and people started talking about jenna marbles and I nearly lost it.
it was just one of those days.
the only solution was to grab a sammich and lie on the couch with The President and watch battlestar gallactica which I'm watching for the first time (shh I know) and it's so intense omg.
I was still feeling like junk later when tyrone came home and started making me soup and kat came by on a wave of rainbows and cuteness with half a homemade pumpkin pie which was perfect and delicious and so sweet and we watched joe kill it during the debate which made everything better.
now I'm on one end of the couch writing this and drinking the best coffee and tyrone is feeding me pieces of the cake that we're sharing as we watch more BSG and Ford is here purring and everything is great.
funny how a bunch of small things can make yr day go to shit
and how some other small things can make it better
it's almost the weekend and I'm excited.
the back brake went on my bike today
- by admin
try saying that five times fast.
I was biking home from work on Vikki and was feeling kind of wobbly which is weird because usually I'm 100% confident on my bike and tame those roads like nobody's business but something felt weird and as I was just about to turn onto Maryland off of Wellington Ave my back brake shattered.
needless to say it was a precarious ride home after that because the city of Winnipeg doesn't bother to properly outline the bike lanes on its streets so cars are constantly forgetting you're biking there or trying to cross the street when you clearly have the right of way and it's a bit scary when you're trying to cross Portage Ave and this idiot woman who <i>is looking in the bloody other direction than the way she is turning</i> begins to turn right into where you and your bike lane are in the middle of the intersection but thankfully one of us (me) was paying attention and nobody (me) got hurt.
that being said I won't be hopping back on the 'ol girl until she's all fixed up, though I can't blame her for what happened, she's been around since the 70's and is covered in rust and still has her original JAGUAR paint jorb and I ride my bike constantly, so it's to be expected.
can't say that it doesn't break my heart, though.
however I'm lucky that tomorrow Tyrone's going to grab me a new brake cable after work and I can restore her to her amazing glory, as was pointed out on twitter last week:
my very first boyfriend was a sweetheart
- by admin
no pictures of us together exist because that was in the time before smart phones and Flickr and we were all young and hopeless and thought that our memories would be all the reminders we would need.of course I didn't realize what a good guy he was, then. that's how it always goes. he cooked me dinners and would bike to my house during the summer vacation and take me for ice cream and let me borrow his PlayStation to play Final Fantasy VII because the only consoles I had for a long time were the SNES and the Nintendo 64.
one day he showed up at my house with a rose bush which he gave to my mom and she planted in the backyard in the far left corner, by the grape vines which grow grapes that none of us have ever tried.
needless to say, she loved him
and compared every boyfriend I had after to him, saying "I liked J better"
which I used to find offensive, but now I understand, because the only time she stopped saying it was when I started dating Tyrone, who treats me as good as if not better than he did.
except this time I like to think I actually deserve it.
see, my first boyfriend and I haven't spoken in years and I can understand why he would have wanted me to drop off the face of the earth, which looking back I wish I could have done. in the end, I wasn't very nice to him and I wish I could take those times back.
but I can't.
so I can only be happy when my FaceBook feed pops up with good news about him, that he's out there kicking ass and living his dreams with someone who loves him more than my juvenile self ever could.
so congrats, J. I'm glad you're doing okay out there.
started a new job today
- by admin
and my coworkers, the sweethearts that they are, took me out for lunch at my favourite thai place
where over chow mein and stir fry and fried rice my coworker blurted out
SO ALYSON HAS A BLOG
and I was shocked that she said it but not scared
like I might have been, once upon a time
to find out that my coworker had googled me after they decided to hire me
and she told me that she thought it was funny because I wrote a post about Smoke's Poutine
even though I can't find the post she was talking about
and I told her
"don't worry, I don't blog about work"
-because it's not professional to talk about the details-
"but I'm totally blogging that you said that"
and I did.
working between Christmas and New Year's is tough
- by admin
these cats are a good approximation of the
nothing
happening at work today
(I'm the one sitting in the bowl, obvs)
it's hard to pry yourself away from leftover food
leftover booze
presents that still feel new
and sleep
to make some mulah to afford to go all-out in a few days
again
for New Year's
this time of year is rough.
crazy neighbour moved out yesterday
- by admin
it's a post-Christmas miracle.I've been dealing with this crazy woman since I moved in two years ago, back when she harassed my old roommate for smoking outside on the front step (& having the occasional stoop beer with me). one time after chewing him out she baked him cookies which was weird, so we thought maybe she just had a crush on him or something.
see that's the funny thing about this chick. she had a way of chewing you out and making you feel like you were the problem, not her, and no good tenant wants to out themselves as potentially being bad tenants. so we stayed quiet as she would stop us going in/out of our suite and the building to let us know that our friends were too loud, we were too loud, our feet were too loud, whatever.then he moved out, Tyrone moved in, and she turned her sights on us.
on Halloween she stopped us each individually to say that she "hoped we weren't planning on having people over for Halloween", and that we should "get together at other people's houses" because her schedule is different than ours.
she showed up at our place one Sunday morning accusing us of having people over the night before because there had "been people coming and going until 3am" the night before, even though we had spent the night at a friends place and weren't even home.
the final straw(s) came when she tried to evict the woman living above her because her she could hear her cat walking around, and she took showers at 6am in order to get ready for work which woke her up.
she had apparently lived in our building for nearly a decade, switched multiple apartments, and still managed to harass and bother every tenant in the building regardless of how much noise they did (or didn't) make, and where her suite was. it just goes to show how alienated you can feel living in a building full of other people, all dealing with the same, private problem if you're made to feel like you're the only one at fault.
as we were returning from our errands yesterday she was standing in front of her door with her parents talking to them and I had to laugh at the dirty look she gave me, because in the end nearly every tenant in the building wrote letters to our rental agency. I wrote two. I wonder if she knows.
whatever. good riddance.
Up too late. Again.
- by admin
but who cares? I'm young and in love and I'm happy. I'm scoring A's on papers and writing midterms so hard I feel dizzy at the end of 'em. I have great friends, a boyfriend who treats me like gold, and a life jam-packed with awesome.tomorrow I start teaching seniors to use The Internet. that's all I'll say about my job from here on out (I'm working with people, y'know how it is) but I'm excited and scared and I think it's going to be such a great learning experience that I can't wait to sit down with my first savvy student and begin sharing my knowledge.
Winnipeg Zombie Walk & Half Pints birthday party this weekend. oh my.
life is good :)
had the best sleep of my life last night
- by admin
my parents bought a bunch of stuff back from their vacation which to be fair is all mom and dad vacation type things like body washes and candles and a cookbook but they also bought a bitchin king-size bed for their house (not from the states) so they gave us their old memory-foam mattress and for once it doesn't feel like my back is 90 years old for once and also Tyrone didn't roll over and squish me while he was sleeping like he usually does
or maybe I just didn't wake up when he did it because I had four Gravol chewables before going to bed and was groggy like I was drunk before falling asleep. lately I've been having mega issues sleeping, I just lie awake and think about really stupid stuff like what someone said to me that day or how much my textbooks will cost this year. basically nothing you care about.
for lunch I am eating leftover pork tenderloin which was cooked with a rub of fresh garlic paste, cilantro and cayenne pepper with dill roasted vegetables and a smoky cayenne mayo which I made all from scratch because I am clearly infallible and so perfect and can do no wrong.
this blog is now called SWAGGERVILLE
just kidding
Swaggerville is stupid and I don't think I'm the greatest thing since pockets. you know what I don't even want to talk about it anymore because every time I bring up the fact that it's stupid we can't just be proud of our team like a regular city people get upset and troll me all over FaceBook and Twitter, isn't there a corner of The Internet where I can hide from these fanatics?? Seriously guyse.
Tried to go see a play Friday night
- by admin
we didn't make itwas too busy hanging with these kids and Ty
and eating this
and smoking cigars with Rhondal
at first I felt like this
but we saw a cat on a leash wearing a Bombers jersey
so I felt better
and we went to Lo Pub to say goodbye to mrghosty which I wrote about here.
