You're Smart, You Know That? 5:33 p.m.

It's happened to me, more than once, to have someone turn to me, look rather honest and say, "you're really smart, you know that?" Not in some many words. More awkwardly, or quickly or something. But more or less that. It happened to me today.

Does it happen to everybody? Not because I'm interseted in knowing whether I'm smarter than other people (I am, but I'm also stupider than a GRRREAT many others), but because I'm interested in the kind of people who make these confessions, accusations of intelligence. Is it about complicity? "We're smart, but not everbody is. We've got something in common."

I think it's about complicity. I think it's the secret handshake of my intelligence bracket (it's a spectrum, I know, but the purpose of conversation...): not smart enough to exist exclusively in subtlety (booze doesn't help), but smart enough to know when they've got company. Bonjour.

Aw, A Heart-Shaped Potato! Or, How I Still Don't Get Irony 11:02 a.m.

So we were barbecuing the other day and my boyfriend Joe came across a heart-shaped potato. Then he surprised me with it. Then I took pictures because I thought it was so damn cute. Then I got excited about framing the picture. Then I realized that his t-shirt had a big swear word on it. Then I sighed because ALL of his t-shirts have swear words on them. Then I thought that the swear word might make the photo ironic instead of cheesy. Then I realized that I still don't get irony.

because i'm in the mood... 5:44 p.m.

i do not purport to stand unaccompanied, my finger on the pulse of an otherwise un- or ill-defined generation. i do not pretend that my language is my own. i have no knowledge but experience and that tenuously borrowed from twenty-one years, only seventeen of which were spent sober. i have a proposition. i propose that the great fears of centuries past (death, war, poverty, disease) have failed to properly impress themselves upon those i would call my countrymen, were it not for breasts, progress and urban sprawl. i settle for peers. drowning in comfort, marching to the impossible beat of technology, we resign ourselves to fears much more pedestrian: mediocrity, addiction, divorce, retirement. and how to blame us? having been born into the unmitigated generosity of a previous generation...and video games, unapologetic spawns of the devil, relieving children everywhere (albeit predominantly north-american) of any latent life-defining phobia they might still possess. the unlucky few who've avoided twenty-first century bliss have, in the past, been dealt with with by many consumables, most recently celebrex. and my thesis, you ask? i have none. this is but another self-concerned rant by another spoiled brat in a generation of would-be poets without proper pain or focus.

stallers 5:36 p.m.

i would like to begin by stating that my general opinion on women is that they are by far the more intelligent, interesting and well-adjusted half (51%) of the species. i would like to continue by saying that, that being said, sometimes i just have ask myself "what the fuck?"

i work in an office at yonge and wellington and drink a lot of coffee. this finds me making frequent trips to the WC. and every single time i bust open the swinging washroom door i hope to find the place empty. i think it's fair to say, that save for the occaisional fetishist, no one likes company in the b-room. but because there are 40 women in my office and three stalls, there is invetiably another human being going about their business while i attempt to go (at mine).

i call them stallers. these women who sit in stalls, silent, waiting for me to make my exit so that they can go (about their business) alone. the thing i find exceptionally curious, is how long they'll wait in silence and how many of them there are! i figure that the point of the exercise (stalling) is to avoid having to share with any other member of the office the fact that you're taking a shit. and the details of that shit which, i presume, if you're bothering to stall, aren't particularly savoury.

word to the stallers: shoes are your identifying feature. based on your shoes, i can deduce your height, age and fashion inclinations. and because there are only 40 of you, you'repretty easy to peg once back in the corporate space, where i can connect your shoes to your face. what's worse, being identified as a staller, or admitting that you have to take shits?

advice to the stallers: courtesy flush! while you're still sitting (and i know this is getting detailed, but i feel it's important) about to embark on the dark mission, flush the toilet and go with it. we won't hear you (this works best in business bathrooms with industrial flushing mechanisms), it'll smell significantly less and even if we sort of hear and it sort of smells, you're allowed to take shits! it's okay. we all do it. we all need to do it. and for those of you who aren't having regular post-meal bowel movements, you've got bigger things to worry about than judging those who do.

stallers disband! shit freely my women friends!

a day on hold with rogers: capitlism and efficiency 7:15 p.m.

i spent the day on hold with rogers. and by day, i mean two and half hours. and by rogers, i mean the assholes to whom i pay $200 a month in useless charges which are consistently itemized in a language other than english and subtotaled using formulas my mind has not the means to comprehend. i don't like phone companies.

i work for a phone company. and it's entirely possible that the policies i assist in implementing are as frustrating to my customers as rogers' policies are to me. which brings me to my next point: does capitalism really breed efficiency?

viki: all capitalism does is breed efficiency. but the question we need to ask ourselves is: do we want our world to prioritize efficiency over the quality of human experience? an obsession with the bottom line leads to a society which serves the interests of imaginary flows of capital above those of the people.

sashimi (the dog): arf. wag tail. lick toes of master. the question we need to ask ourselves is: where is the food?

kate: the problem with macro efficiency is that is breeds micro inefficiencies. where are we seeking efficiency? in financial models of broad scope. it is decidely efficient for ted rogers to hire morons to staff his call centre, because it keeps his labour costs low. and it's likely that somewhere in the heart of the great red beast there is a spreadsheet which measures levels of customer resentment, the likelyhood of lost revenue because of policies that are designed to a person the run around until they don't want to run around anymore and just charge the damn thing to their visa and have a beer instead. i'm having a beer. the cost of efficient customer/customer service interactions (i.e. giving reps the training and power to deal with situations as they see fit) is definitely greater than the cost of crediting the customers who are willing to wait to speak to supervisors, and more dangerous as well. i waited nearly two and a half hours on hold today, which, from my individual perspective, is as far from efficiency as you could possibly get. this efficiency that our economic system is allegedly breeding minimizes not human hardships, not human irriations, not human frustrations, but is rather designed to maximize the amount of money that makes it to the top. there is also a distinct lack of competition in the canadian telecommunications sector, but that's a matter for another rant.

the pizza is here.

organized sports and fucking mobility 7:40 p.m.

organized sports are good things to bring mothers to, they like seeing you run and be sweaty, be part of something friendly. i'm on hold with sony ericsson customer service because it's my last ditch hope of getting a k790a. i loved that phone so goddamn much that i cried when i filed the police report: it was stolen. along with my bank card, driver's license, the prada purse my russian boyfriend's mother gave me for no occaision in particular. all of it gone. the prada purse can't be replaced (by me, at this time, anyway) and was really of little use, unless you consider the pedigree.

fuck pedigree, i'm not a fido commercial (i'm a sony ericsson commercial). i drink beer out of bottles, smoke cigarettes that were half-smoked yesterday and sleep in nightgowns. i ain't got pedigree. but god-willing i'll be a pedigree-less-middle-class-white-girl(woman-on-a-good-day)-university-drop-out with a sony ericsson k790a, which i swear, will be in a museum someday. it's that nice. i'm still on hold.

back to organized sports.

dating is an organized sport, i think. it's pretty organized and sportful...wait...not on hold anymore!

sony ericsson customer service says "buy it off our website or from you provider, those are your options." it's like the parent that offers "stand in the corner or clean your room. we're giving you options...lots of them, the choice is yours."

it's $400 on the website and much more from my loathesome provider. i don't want to stand in the corner.

i'm not a sony ericsson commercial, i'm a samsung 420shit commercial.

fucking mobility.

in some grand procession of ignorance 10:35 a.m.

to tease out the truth in something takes a long time. it is difficult for everyone, but particularly hard for me, i think. imagine that ideas were paintings. if you were me, you would feel as though you were an inch from the thing, your body pressed close and casting a shadow, your proximity preventing you from making sense of the small pocket of colour on which your eyes were fixed. there would a wobbly memory of something similar you had once observed, under the same conditions. you would recall, without intention, the sound and tone of the other voices you'd heard. the voices that sounded most like those of your parents, of your first love or of a favourite teacher would be remembered best: their patterns speech, their choices of words, their taste. amidst the commotion you would do your best to piece together an understanding. you would appeal to the voice you respected most for guidance: you would swallow foreign impressions, unfamiliar sentiments. you would strain with your own eyes to see more or more clearly and you would fail. but amidst the commotion, the conviction of your borrowed words would be enough to find you passing the test, moving on to the next piece in some grand procession of ignorance, burdened with the definite guilt that some young thing might hear your voice trustworthy.

six reasons i won't leave the house 5:26 p.m.

(1) my clear pastic mouse flashes in red, epileptic fury and it is alive, requires attention (2) the futon remembers the shape of my laziness and the smell of my anxiety (3) i cannot bite my nails in public they way i'd like to: i would be embarassed (4) there is no soundtrack to my life outside these walls (5) the doorframes know my height and respect it (6) i am comfortable here

Strictly Rambling: The Umpteenth Installment 10:45 a.m.

Breakfast was bizarre today. Left over Lebanese, a one 1L bottle of coca-cola, two cigarettes and counting. I spoke to my friend Uday, a newly hired trademark something or other. He moved to Ottawa, says it’s cold there too. Also mentioned that the job couldn’t be better. He had a reading day today, which meant he was still sleeping when I called at 930. I accused him of wasting my tax dollars. He responded that he’s funded by fees, not me. So much the better then, I guess. I love that saying, although I’m never certain of using it properly.

I’m sitting on the fire escape of my downtown apartment, wishing it were New York noise that I’m hearing. It’s raining funny furry leaves and I’m not sure where they’re coming from. Laptops are such fragile creatures, I hope this one isn’t bothered by the precipitation.

My roommate’s been MIA for a few days now. I suspect she’s still recovering from Freedom, of the party persuasion. Or enjoying her last few days in love. He’s leaving soon, first to Detroit and then Australia.

Someone on the television is talking about making us pay to see doctors. Twent-five dollars per visit, because we’re apparently incapable of appreciating the cost of health care without shelling out a few bucks. There is an aphod on my screen. A lunch date is impending. I suppose I should wash myself, clear the Styrofoam containers from the coffee table. I like the song on the new Ivory commercial, it reminds me of something…

j'ai trouvé benjamin rodger - en cachette! 10:40 a.m.

ce matin, in our mailbox. stuffed into a standard number ten wearing gaudy white glasses and a button-down print shirt. he didn't smile, hasn't been sleeping well. neither have i. tells me things have been hard at work. gossip. i can relate. this side of the atlantic, his letter finds me sick with anger, nails bitten to the quick, wondering what i could've done differently. envisioning, the gavel having silenced the whispering room, a procession of preachy syllables emerging from the judge's mouth: "tem-pest-u-ous, but not en-ti-re-ly un-sym-pa-the-tic, en-ig-ma-tic some might say... ." i resist a full accounting of our crooked days and ways, remembering instead the hours we painted, cried, were naked, broken, beautiful, reckless, drunk. details enough, i say. details enough. what's that i hear? you'd like something more? a confession, so as to properly condemn me before my peers? have it, then: i am unabashedly promiscuous, incorrigibly filthy, an unapologetic lush. i dominate conversations, leave dishes unwashed, fall asleep without undressing. i am fat, unworthy of sympathy, arrogant but easily wounded. more? i am incapable of frugality, essentially unreachable by phone, prone to rants and sudden changes in mood. i am not and have never been an honest vegetarian. or an honest socialist. i am weak-willed and easily flustered. i am completely out of touch with popular culture. i have yet to recover from childhood. satisfied? shall i go on?