I wake up in the morning feeling like P-Diddy

"I am never drinking again."

The words are merely a consoling salve for my throbbing head and my precariously lurching stomach but even as I say them I know that after popping half my Advil bottle, swigging a couple glasses of water and passing out before my stomach realizes it's been hit with something and decides to expel its contents, that in 24 hours I'll be ready to hit the bottles again like a clinically diagnosed 'insane' person.

Because only an insane person would decide to pair wine with a heaping side of Jagger et Red Bull. While my heart rate was zapped to full pumping capacity by the red bull and simultaneously hit with two alcoholic 'depressors,' I was busy enjoying life through my alcohol-tinged glasses where everybody is a fucking comedian. The world was colour coded in florescent rainbow hues and gravity was playing Grounders so I spend about half my time making sure the floor wasn't going to get up and walk away - so I thought best attach my cheek to it just to be sure. It's only while intoxicated does your idiocy seem completely ubiquitous; like there's a giant fucking elephant in the middle of the room and you and everybody else is in on the joke. Except the elephant's actually shitting in the room and it happens to be you everybody is video recording as you strip naked and try to glomp the nearest warm body, oblivious to the fact that the mortification will nearly kill you when it is repeatedly tagged on Facebook the next morning (as if it wasn't already going to be viciously tattooed to your eyelids unless you get lucky and die first from embarrassment) and shown to you in slow motion with the comment: 'oh, did you know who you were all over last night?"

And You Respond: I'm sure he'll come find me and let me know. (The neck abuse is usually a dead give away).

But in all seriousness, I really, really want to be able to formulate a legitimate argument to defend the appeal of alcohol consumption and to this day I haven't managed to do so without sounding faintly unhinged. Or like a raging alcoholic. But really, other than tasty, fruity concoctions, jello shots, shooters, and jagger bombs - so reminiscent of the Hubba Bubba gum flavour from my childhood that I have declared it a remedy for my nostalgia - that provide hours of off the wall entertainment, unlimited energy, extreme confidence, and the sex drive of a 16 year old boy, all drinking does is lead me to much physical, mental, and emotional suffering.

Only a drunken spaz (hello there) would instigate a trek through the rain in 5 inch heels at one in the morning through a Shoppers and a Metro (that's a 24 hour drugstore and grocery store respectively for those out of Canuck territory), or think it's a good idea to engage in drunken hand/foot tying in some sexually perverted hogtie embodiment, or would think it was a completely logical idea to screw on one's genital piercing with pliers and to completely maul a friend's neck. When one mixes natural impulsive idiocy with copious amounts of alcohol, bad decisions are formed and the lines of one's sexuality are blurred and your head produces images of you and the nearest pair of legs in sexual harmony that would send any rational mind to a state of befuddled histrionics. The rational mind would immediately send a strongly worded message to your body saying that in no way would it support this nonsense and would abruptly cut off all circuits of action. Of course, these signals are significantly dulled absolutely useless when one is drunk and so the irrational mind puts the body in situations that it cannot account for. The alcohol is all: Yep, this'll be epic. While the rational part of your mind is struggling to keep up like a fat kid running track, your body--without the help of the rational mind--is sweet talked into senseless stupidity by the intoxicated irrational mind, so when the rational part of you finally catches up, your already half naked and shackled in a prison in Tijuana. 

Bringing us to the morning.

When the Jagger and Wine catches up to the Red Bull and they float around all Lazy River style in my stomach in a contented, bubbling pool, my body can finally relaxes and enters a coma-like sleep. Pulling one's body out of this coma is a very, very dumb idea because you will inevitably suffer through the two stages of post-drinking*:

1. You are still drunk, but your brain no longer acknowledges this. You get up, your legs don't. You fall flat on your face. You try to recite the alphabet and fail. You try to go back to bed but are stopped when none of your limbs agree to move. You construct a makeshift bed by lying on the carpet and closing your eyes.

2. You are no longer drunk. All the alcohol you consumed last night is presently being processed by a seething, overtired and extremely cranky liver. Your head feels like a brick, your body like it is struggling beneath a woolly mammoth and your mouth tastes like the somebody crawled in there and died. Your bladder is threatening to burst but every time you sway towards ascension your head explodes and you swear some of your brain has leaked out through your ears. You finally manage to get up and are surprised at how far the distance is between your ass and the toilet seat and almost piss in the bathtub due to sheer frustration and then your stomach realizes your now conscious and expresses it's condolences at your headache and raises you nausea. Your stomach, a brewing, mutinous toxic concoction is threatening to rear it's way through your esophagus and your tongue is sticking to the roof of your mouth and every time you talk you're mentally signing over your autographed Tom Felton cds, your first born, and your shot glasses to God if He would just keep the contents of your stomach from making an appearance.
Hello Hell, how I've missed you.

*The length and severity of each stage is determined by the amount of alcohol consumed and the tolerance of the drinker.

But of course, I was circumnavigating Stage 2 when I had to leave for work and thus began the longest 4 and half hours of my life when on two occasions I narrowly avoided projectile puking all over two customers, the inside of my mouth was a piece of dry sandpaper and my attempts to talk were usually halted by the fear of my liquid 'party' coming back up to haunt me. I alternated customer service, bending over the toilet trying (and failing) to puke, and contemplating stabbing myself with the pen in my apron because at least they'd have to wheel me out of here on my back.

Hangover's are the body's vicious retribution. Work should never proceed drinking if you can help it - and if you can manage, when you are poising that bottle of tequila over your lips, remember that your body WILL get you back for tossing back half of the bottle in one sitting as your friend's supporting cheers goad you on. Remember that those same friends will be the instruments of sound that won't shut the fuck up and you will contemplate murdering if only to reduce the number of elephants stomping all over your head. Remember your tequila slam when you wake up in hell feeling like somebody is going at the inside of your stomach with a meat tenderizer and your skull is practically pulsing out of your head and you have to roll out of bed, go to work, and try to explain to people the advantages of buying a Pumpkin candle without throwing up your kidneys. Try, TRY to remember resembling, feeling, and throwing up shit right when you're about to tequila-it-up.

P.S. I'd say skip the tequila entirely, but we both know that in the moment, all your head is thinking is:

I can take it. The night is young...let's go shot for shot.

Things I Would Worry About in a Post-Apocalyptic World*

 *This is the kind of crazy island my mind vacations on when its avoiding thinking about homework.

A/N: And because listing is awesome.

With 2012 drawing closer to its final four months, it's dawned on me that in the case we are all to burn to a crisp or spontaneously combust or just left here to die when God comes to take everyone worthy to the land of eternal orgies and buffets--as the Mayans so helpfully predicted--, that I would not be prepared if and when I am left without shelter or all of my earthly belongings. While I've already resigned myself to sacrificing myself to the nearest hippopotamus in case the world comes to it's grisly end, I do have several concerns if I am taken off guard and happen to be one of those unlucky living assholes left standing in the middle of a wasteland like a douche, speechless with no items to my name, and the 'new world' is more of a living-off-the-land type thing where we have no choice but to live like our forefathers; the cave people once did. 

Most of your minds would initially jump to the basic three survival needs: food, water, and shelter - how are we gonna provide for ourselves and live sustainably without Xanax, McDonald's, and Dental? While my primary concern is less for my safety, and more for certain vanities and necessities that would probably be the catalysts for my early demise in this post-apocalyptic world.

1. I wear contacts, and am self-diagnostically (now a word) on the cusp of blindness. In movies, yes, you gotta put one sucker with spectacles to keep it all realistic, but do you know what happens to the people who have poor vision and the unfortunate coincidence of being born half-bat? THEY DIE SOONER. Contacts would be obsolete! And your glasses are useless because you can't keep your glasses from falling off if you're hanging by a tree to avoid getting your face bitten off by a mountain lion (and that shit actually happens in this century), and if you lose them, then you become the liability that's walking around with your hands outstretched shouting because you can't see anything. I would become bait for the tigers unless I could put myself out of my misery. On the plus side, it would give everybody something to chew on for the next two weeks.


2. Hair. So I've often thought about what would become of my hair when the water supply is reduced to creaks and streams and my showers dwindle to once every so often because I'm a loin-cloth, fur-bra wearing Amazonian and we're too busy hunting for grub to bathe. And then I realized to avoid bugs turning my hair into their new habitat and having to use sticks to comb it and it getting dirty and matted, I would have cut it off in sort of a fro-do. Which of course, would not look stupid but rather bad ass in a 'I can handle my shit, watch me kill this tiger', kind of way. And also, on a more unpleasant note, body hair. Our western civilization is programmed to run on a clean-shaven, hairless denial that we do not grow hair on our bodies apart from what is on our heads, eyelashes, and eyebrows. In reality, shit's gonna get ugly. I'm talking arm bush, mustaches, unibrows, the works. It will probably take another century and a half for men to get used to this shock of hair growth and accept our gorilla-drag appearance as a natural state and not some Stephen King-National Geographic program from hell. As for me, I would probably have to be persuaded not to strangle myself with my own beard. I would make a new life among animals who have a higher percentage of body hair than me, and luxuriate in a non-judgmental environment, perhaps becoming their sacrificial lamb on Thanksgiving.

3. Sex. I've often wondered if living in a post-apocalyptic world (my mind creating a outrageous picture of a desecrated, arid, Planet of the Apes-esque landscape with blood-red skies and endless, rolling hills*) would mean we would throw our egos and propriety to the wind and just copulate left right and centre like the animals we are - abstinence be damned, we'd make up for lost time and just be the civilization of epic sluttery.
Or would living in such a perilous environment where we would be breaking our backs for our resources make us less likely to want to have sex? Who has time to shag? Shoot that buffalo! And there's that whole lack-of-privacy business. Who'd want to fuck behind the bush with your tribe snarfing down fish and berries within hearing distance? Not me.

*Somehow the remnants of our city have been covered by mass vegetation, just work with it

4. Best put down your sandwich for this one, but I've always been curious about what women in the ol' hunter/gatherer society did when they got their monthlies. For thousands of years, women had no Always or Tampax to hide the effects of their period in a cleanly and civilized manner - for Christ's sake, they didn't have garbage bins. Or underwear. Don't tell me that once a month, they'd be walking around in a blood-drenched loincloth because I may just toss my cookies. How did they disguise and dispose of...y'know, the mess? They should put that shit in the history books. Maybe women just spent a whole week submerged in water so that there would be no evidence of it. But in a society where ye Olde Tampax factory has been blown to smithereens, one of my primary concerns would be to figure out how to deal with my period. Something tells me that I'll be constructing a vag-barrier of leaves but then what does it sit on? There's no such thing as underwear, or even respectable clothing (assuming that the 'apocalypse' has destroyed all of our previous belongings, all of our factories, plants, and most disheartening, all Walmarts) so we'd obviously all be walking around either mostly or entirely naked. Unless we manage to procure furs for winter although I'm planning on hauling ass to the California tribe because I will not go through a Canadian winter without hot chocolate, space heaters, or winter apparel.

5. The most critical of modern amenities - not having this item will undoubtedly cause the demise of me and a good chunk of the rest of humanity so my concerns are perfectly legitimate, thank you. Without cell phones, I fear that most of our existences will be rendered entirely worthless and there will be a giant mass self-extermination from text withdrawal. The inability to contact each other through the press of a button will certainly cause major confusion. People having always relied on one's contact list will be confuzzled when faced with the difficult task of actually communicating with someone - people would be forgetting names, stumbling over half hearted attempts at small talk, and hermit-ing themselves in their wooden huts. Without any occupation for those quick fingers, people will construct huge towers of sticks and entertain themselves with Jenga: Jungle Style. Meanwhile, people will be walking around yammering into empty coconuts and over time, their brains will turn to mush due to lack of stimulation and we'll be a futuristic, post-apocalyptic humanity of jelly-brain zombies who enjoy ravenously tearing off pieces of raw buffalo with our teeth, throwing our living family members in blazing pyres in fucked-up mating rituals, and brawling amongst each other over the size of our huts, who gets to find the berries, and which women will be forced to 'service' the tribe leaders.

We'll be a bunch of blind, hairy, bloody, rage-filled, nimble barbarians. The wheel of evolution turning 180, people will regress to the maturity and intelligence of our animal ancestors. Yes, we'd be handling our shit, APE-STYLE.

Note: I'd like to be taken out in the hurricane/blast of energy/alien probe/sun explosion/mass evisceration that wipes out most of the planet. Just off me mid-text, please.

GANGNAM STYLE

"Op, op, op, oppa op SEXY LADAYYY"
My friend got that in a text today. I think the world has lost its fucking marbles...
Response to Gangnam Style:
The world: This is so wrong.
Me: Then I don't want to be right.
 

Apparently It has gone viral. If you cannot appreciate the pure 'WTF' brilliance of this video, do not press the replay button at least once, and didn't find yourself contemplating putting it on your iPod but then shooting down the idea because 'how the fuck could you explain it to people?' and then give in and decide to put it on there anyways: then you need to take in a deep breath and appreciate the all the miniscule, fantabulously camp, Korean pop videos--featuring yellow suits, giant swan boats, cool ass shades, blatant homoeroticism and Asians doing dance moves that incorporate much crotch thrusting and fist movements making even the Twist look bomb--in life. And then you can die in peace because there is no way you could've held your breath for that whole 5 minutes.

Sex, Eyes, and Filters

One of the few snapshots I can still dimly recall from my childhood is of a party my mom and stepdad brought me to as a child (I have no idea why most memories from my childhood that have been permanently scarred in my mind are either sexual or depressing) when I was around eight years old. It was during the summer, and the adults at the party had been drinking all night and so by that time (it was probably between 10 and 11) the adults were impersonating eels, dancing on the deck to the beat of the hip hop/r&b song playing in the background. I watched as one of my step-dad's friends drunkenly groped his close female friend and she responded by laughing and moving closer. The beer bottle in his hand lit up like some really bad advert for unsafe alcohol consumption and I remember being afraid that his hand was gonna disappear up her skirt and I would have to witness this and I'll admit I was a bit frightened at the time that everyone was acting like possessed, horny versions of themselves and I think even then I was convinced that guys were untrustworthy and loose cannons due to an unsavoury combination of having an absent father, my subsequent lack of a proper male role model, and topped with my grandmother's unrelenting man-hating attitude that has become progressively worse over time. Voila: A recipe for a lifelong struggle connecting with men. It's kind of ironic though that if you replay this memory 11 years in the future, the bass-ackwards version of my kid self is the drunk woman letting my guy friend grope me in front of 8 year old children...except take out the '8 year old children' and switch out best guy friend, with 'dude from club' and you've got your mark.

I can still recall the innocence and simplicity of my little-kid mentality. Anything I was exposed to that had sexual or mature connotation went through this little kid filter in my head. It was like the adults would say penis! or sex! and my brain would hear peanut butter and friendship. Only in hindsight did I realize my handy little filter covered up some pretty indecent shit for someone my age. I guess it's good that I can look back and go, well maybe that wasn't something I should have been doing at that age--I mean, monkeys?? I jest. But there was that unforgettable incident on Turkey Day by the pool table. And then that childhood business where you discover what's up in each other's pants 'cos everybody's a fucking doctor and we want to know what makes boys different than girls. Sigh. Not one of my proudest moments. 

And neither was tonight. Like I've said before. I have problems. Review the list of things that makes me punchable and you'll find that my body's circuitry goes apeshit whenever I am on display but even more so when I'm on display in front of men. Never has there been a more apt depiction of my abject patheticism (now a word because I say it is) than the other day, when I was forced to do the long walk of shame past a group of guys chilling outside of a Harvey's. There must of been eight of them, all in their mid-twenties/early thirties from what it looked like. Of course I only took once glance at them before my eyes locked with the floor, my feet doubled their pace, and my brain went catatonic so that any rational thought in my head advising me to simmer down was overrun with perilous embarrassment. This was a 8.0 on the Awkwardness scale.* Only afterwards when I regained my thought process and then my righteous indignation did I construct the following letter to the group which may be a tad extreme but I was still feeling a little raw. -Understated-


Dear Group of Guys In Front of Harveys,

Let's just say that we both didn't amount to the full potential of our species. You guys devolved to the point of cock scratching and shameless grunting because you saw a bit of leg and I was not able to withhold my obnoxious wave that was intended to snap you out of your ape-imitations but only seemed to get you more riled up. What I should have done was squat over a camera and let you keep the souvenir, you pricks. I think it is a dangerous thing when you cannot keep your attention focused on your burgers and own conversations long enough for me to walk inside, get my own dinner, and walk out. Instead, all fucking 8 of you had to stop talking, turn around, and blatantly stare as I walked by. And then dissect me after. I'm sure my ass was too big, my legs too short, my boobs too small for you, was that it? I apologize for not stopping to chat, strip, and provide you with some night time entertainment for a reasonable fee, but I'd rather eat my pet duck, you motherfucking wankers. Could you not for one second, use your brain and not your dicks and maybe think I didn't want to be shot down with sixteen eyes? That I wasn't put on this earth for your perusal and dismissal? Yes, I was hyperaware of each one of you trying to eye-fuck the clothes off of me (I nearly spilled my drink because my hand was three steps ahead and was virtually punching all 8 of your faces and if I could, I would eye-kick your ass into your throats you slimy bastards. You've driven me to this level of frustration over something as simple as looking when you turned what could've been an appreciative glance (which is normal) to a full-on stare fest as if you were trying to mobilize the particles holding my body together and sure, I'll wear my ice queen crown proudly if it means I can get a burger without feeling like I was just fucked and hung out wet to dry. Now, if you can go home to your wives and girlfriends and make love to them like they're the only girls alive while replaying the slideshow of asses, tits, and legs you have stored up top from your fulfilling day of attempting to mentally will teenage girl's clothes into transparency. Not satisfied? Well, try your right hand, that might help. Fuck you very much. I hope it freezes off and dies.

Kisses,

Jade.

I sound like an angry lesbian who wouldn't touch a man with a ten foot pole but my problem is not that I am a definitive 'man-hater,' it's that I am a little picky. And maybe have anger management issues. And also if you run around anyone with a scalpel they won't want you near their bits . . I don't actually play around with scalpels - or with genitals, Good lord, where is this going--let me rephrase: If you run around anyone with a Metaphorical scalpel they won't want you near their bits hearts. Essentially, I'm saying my bitchiness is not helping my man-comm problems. And explains why I possess an air of someone who needs to be thoroughly ermm...well, done.

God, this is becoming a bloody an pop-my-cherry ad on effing Craigslist. I know people are all going: uh, she's gonna be a virgin forever, holy shit what a freak, but that's fine because that's exactly the point I'm trying hard to underline here: I'VE GOT PROBLEMS. And I can say this in all caps because I'm 99% sure that you probably do too and like I said before: only ass-shaped, lard croutons think their shit doesn't stink like the rest of the world's. And you may have had sex but you also may have herpes so I would get that shit checked.
So yeah, in fucking conclusion, my problem isn't finding anyone that's attractive or fuck-worthy but it's the fact that sex is usually an activity that involves letting yourself get close to someone and it's not something I am willing to do. I have trust issues. You can quote me on that.

*The Awkwardness Scale: A mathematical concept and relaxation technique devised by yours truly when my self consciousness began getting out of hand. When I find myself inserted in a situation that warrants my embarrassment, I vocally or mentally award it a number between 1 and 10 (or more, if the situation necessitates a higher score) that I believe to be an accurate sum of the level of mortification at that moment. For instance, me tripping in public on a subway platform would probably be around a 3.5 while me tripping in the middle of a major intersection with cars paused at the red light directly beside me would around a 7.4. Having a piece of lettuce stuck in my teeth does not hold grounds for true embarrassment unless it was not caught by me after lunch and instead remained lodged between two front teeth until after school when I catch it in the mirror and my mind instantly replays, in slow horrific detail, conversations which I had with more than a handful of people in which they undoubtedly noticed it and if they didn't then surely they saw it when I was grinning and laughing my way through my drama skit in which I seemed to be trying to emulate the smug, frozen grin of Barney but with the gleaming lettuce being all: 'LOOK HERE!' in my mouth. A higher score is usually dictated by: a) more people witnessing the experience b) the gross factor involved (bodily functions generally rate higher) c) the attractiveness of the witnesses and d) the retention factor - meaning how long is the witness/witnesses likely to remember what they saw? Is it something that they'll be telling to their coworkers and acquaintances as ice-breaking joke #1 for life? This rating can be successfully determined in a matter of seconds. And don't judge, you wish you had your own scale. 

P.S: Some people say awkwardness is a self-perpetuated emotion. Those people may be correct, but are still encouraged to take a number, eat it, and may then sit down on their own face.  

What Not To Do's: A Hypocritical/Hypothetical Mother/Daughter Conversation.

I think that people who talk about the stupidity of their adolescence weren't kidding when they said the best time to make mistakes is in your youth because it stops getting cute as you get older. Because my 19th year was like a 'What Not To Do' episode of healthy teenage experimentation. I was just thinking that it would be beneficial that I had broken so many obvious 'dont's' when I have kids because then I'll know either what to expect and what kind of temptations they would face. Then I realized that there's now a whole mess of things I can never tell my kids if I have any (because sex is required to have kids and I seem to be on the path of 40 years of celibacy at the rate I'm going). Because how do look at your kids and with a stern demeanor and straight-face, and tell them without sounding like the world's fattest hypocrite, to not drink to excess (well, if you want to black out--), smoke (gives you cancer), smoke weed (it zaps your brain cells), do hard drugs (self explanatory), have sex (before your 20, lols, like your moms), dress provocatively (do you know what guys are thinking?), stay out late (if you want to be fresh meat for serial rapists...), or give yourself away too easily (because they don't want you for your mind, baby) if you've thrown your parents advice to pot and gone about breaking every biblical commandment and oath before the age of 20?

Should parents be allowed to enforce rules that they themselves broke? Perhaps honesty and supporting advice with personal experiences is the way to go.
From Mother-to-Daughter:
"Drinking is a regular past-time to this day and while it's not a constant in my life, it definitely makes a party a lot more interesting, and so why not have some fun and go until you are plastered; I'll even pour your shot for you. Smoking? Well, it's your lungs, your 19, you think you're immortal, one cig won't kill you. Weed? Kills anxiety and as long as it's making you smarter, construct the Leaning Tower of Pisa out of ritz crackers if you feel so inclined, and baby, if it didn't make me feel like I was riding a horse around Saturn's rings sipping Mai Tais through a fork I would totally join you. Hard drugs - well if hard means you're floating through nirvana with a sex drive of 1 billion then yeah, your mama did hard drugs in an open environment and while she's not proud, she can't just hold it over your head and say na'uh. Sex, well, I didn't do it until I was an old bag and then my lady bits sang the Hallelujah chorus and got so excited and laughed and two eggs popped out and that's how you and your brother came to be... but have sex with someone you care about, gosh, have sex in spades with someone your trust not to screw you over and by fucking god, you better be protecting yourself hun, because I will NOT be a grandmother right now...Low cut tops, mini skirts? Hey, shorter the better, As long as your bra is nice, show those straps, play up your assets, you got better legs than I ever had, and come home at 11...the next morning is fine, just don't wake me up. And if you let the first guy to give you a compliment come home with you, leave him with a handshake, a smile, and a fake phone number. Trust me on that last one." 

Hmm....or maybe that'll just encourage them.

I Need Something Hard and 95% Tequila

Today was a day straight from hell. That is if some scaly, red gnome living within the fiery pits of Hades enjoys bringing about suffering in the form of furious precipitation, first days of school, and floor sets that involve picking up and moving all of the shit in the store to a new location, hanging signage of doom, and staying until 1:30 finishing it all...

Tuesday must have brought the ass-end of a hurricane coming up from the South because it rained like Zeus decided to piss for the first time in a millennium. I mean, this shit would have murdered Chicken Little. The subway station flooded (as did pretty much everything else), thereby forcing my friend and I to sprint through the downpour, looking like two drowned rats without umbrellas. Now I know people have bigger problems (I mean, we could have got the actual hurricane) but having your shoes, shirt, pants, and underwear soaked through when you are not in possession of a towel is when you have to look at your life and say 'fuck it.' Unless I am devoid of clothing and underneath a shower head, I have absolutely NO desire to be that wet again EVER.

So me and my squeaky rain-filled sneakers went to work and got to slosh around in them for the next 10 hours while lifting boxes, arranging candles and creams, putting together decorative fake leaf arrangements all while mentally wishing someone would stab me in the eye with an Exacto knife and put me out of my misery.
Then, as a giant, ironic cherry on top of my pot cake, after work I spent an hour waiting for my connecting bus to go home, during which I had the pleasure of meeting, talking, and growing hopelessly and irrevocably attached to a duck named Doug*, only to realize an hour later that my bus didn't run after 1:30.

*Alliteration pleases me to pieces, I don't know if you've noticed. If people use it unconsciously, I have to restrain myself from glomping them from sheer appreciative joy. There is a certain sensual rhythm to alliteration which explains why comic books just do it for me. I've gone back and forth whether to name my kids Barnabus and Betty Black. What kind of adults will they be if they don't have to rise above adversity?

But on the plus side, I'm only just sitting alone beside a deserted gas station, hoping that I don't get mugged by the dude who thought I was walking my pet duck, chatting to Doug, who is more interested in drinking the water from the tiny puddles in the road. Despite that, we bonded. I rescued (and chastised) him from his reckless suicide attempt where he walked off the edge of the sidewalk onto the road. He responded to my yells to move his fucking ass feathers by meandering back onto the grass but not before shitting by my feet. I had trouble parting with the little asshole I'm not gonna lie. I may have contemplated shoving him in my purse and kidnapping him so that I could have his company at home and build him his own bed out of old clothes and grass (he loves grass), I eventually had to walk the remaining 20 minutes home through a most delightful neighborhood. I got to walk by several places where people have been stabbed, shot, and sexually assaulted, through social housing, under the [Molester's Wet Dream] bridge, and through the mini fucking forest where rabid, horse-sized raccoons eyed me hungrily from within the foliage, waiting for me to trip so they could dine on my flesh. Cough. I might have been wielding my cell phone like a light sabre/sword in case of surprise attacks. You would think I hadn't spent many a night post-clubbing travelling home alone after 3am, more often than naught coming off the tail end of a fabulous buzz. Sobriety brings out the pussy in all of us.

Anywho, I get home, and then recall that I was scheduled to work at the same time as school the next day and I had to reschedule so I text my boss to confirm that I don't actually have to drag my ass in at 8. It's 3:25, and she texts me back at 4 saying she'll see me in 4 hours. Now I should really author a book on how to make employers hate me. I need to go to school to learn how to become self-employed because I really know how to impress the pants off of people, but I'm like a wham, bam, thank you ma'am kind of chick and the impressionable thing kind of wears off when I am forced into situations that are not exactly pleasant for me. And this is not just me being a whiny bitch, mind you, I REFUSE to break my back and gain grey hair over retail. If your paying me 20+ an hour, then I'll kick my own ass and swallow my tongue, but at 10.25, that won't even cover the cost of my casket if you drive me to an early death, so no. I won't over-exert myself.

But I totally do. See? I tell you what's in my head, but I'm the kind of person who will avoid saying no to a shift, I'll overbook myself, and not tell anyone until last minute, because I don't want to make waves. What I really want to do is go all Jason Statham on everyone's asses but I don't have a sweet ass ride or a hot British accent. Or a penis. But that's just sexism. So what happened was I slept in, missed my shift, and was late for school. I only got 4 hours of sleep, was trying to avoid passing out and failing and almost drifted off standing up and barely avoided head-to-shelf contact, had bigger bags than that Monopoly asshat underneath my eyes, and was really, REALLY not looking forward to explaining to my boss why I hadn't shown up for a shift. My reputation blown to smithereens, I do what I always do in these situations. Avoid, procrastinate, and avoid some more.

When I got home, I fall face first into my plate of pizza and sleep for the next 10 hours.

**72 hours later update: Still haven't talked to my boss. Missing Doug. Am plotting on how to get myself fired. And win the lottery. To buy all the pet ducks I want and start my own duck-raising farm where I can have hot, Brad Pitt (circa Thelma & Louise) lookalikes be my duck-rearing farm men. Whom I'll obviously pay handsomely. Ahem.

So It's Back To School Tomorrow...

All the parents are easing back and thanking God for the restraint they showed this summer in not locking their kids in the basement and calling it a month or refraining from blowing a hole through the carpet and selling their soul to Oprah for spare change to help get them the fuck out.  They are probably in very good humour now that their kids will soon be immersed in all that is holy and educationally glorious in this world and will no longer subject them to overhearing reruns of Sixteen in Pregnant, the Suite Deck (because now they're on a boat right?) of Zach and Cody or Jersey Shore, depending on the age of said munchkins.

The kids, now officially pegged as students from the September to June months, are packing their bags, text-coordinating their outfit and meet-up spot, looking up How To Pass Grade X Math on Google and updating their Facebook Status Twitter to let everyone know that the night before school is the steaming shit pile of all days.

I figured that it would blow my tradition to hell if I didn't have something to say on the Night Before School and so I decided I would pretend I was 17 going on 18 instead of 19 going on 20 and do what any high schooler would be doing: I ordered a pizza, watched back-to-back episode of Big Bang Theory reruns, painted my nails with Crackle! nail laquer and spent an accumulative 70 minutes looking for my ear phones  and important school documents - both of which remain lost - before finally sitting down to write a blog post in which I get to pour out buckets of complaints and twangst.

For me, school has always been something I dreaded. It was a looming presence in the form of a dungeon in which foresight helpfully supplies the visual of large beefy men wielding axes shackling me to ominous, spiky blackboards covered with spiders and forcing me to deliver a presentation to my entire school on Canada's entire history to the 20th century for days at a time in my bra and panties...Surrounded by brain-hungry zombies. And scary, vagina-burrowing cactuses. Cacti .Whatever.

No, to be honest, it's not that I 
a) hate learning
b) am an idiot or
c) have a disfiguring facial feature that causes me to become a social pariah and school laughing stock and as a result have no friends.

I have friends, I'm pretty easy going, and other than the fact that I frequently want to punch people in the face, I get along with most people[it's funny how that shit works]. But I've never had trouble socializing. Really. I just have trouble showing up to get half the work. I also have a paralyzing fear of public speaking. To the point where I'd truly rather hang myself with a cheese string than go in front of a class (regardless of how well I can talk to them one-on-one) and put myself on display. 

Now this goes back to my middle school experiences of being unfortunate enough to go through puberty before the boys in my class and therefore have my entirely awkward frizzy, pimply, spectacle-wearing experience mocked and ridiculed. Before that I was the spunky 13 year old who choreographed her own dance and performed it during her grade 5 graduation. I was the girl who convinced one of her closest friends to sing Summertime with me (a song I absolutely adored from my Fighting Temptations movie soundtrack that was originally sung individually by Beyonce in her pre-Crazy in Love days; but sung by two girls at summer camp simultaneously made the lyrics: "when we fell in love, it was the summertime" a lesbionic reality)  in front of three entire camps even thoughI had NO singing ability whatsoever. I was also the girl who would pelt you with toy trucks if you made fun of my friends, and who would organize a boys vs. girls pushing game which was our way of kicking each other's asses for fun on the playground and not calling teacher on each other if someone got hurt. I was a pretty top-shit kind of kid. I was not supposed to turn into the girl who would avoid talking to people, who fumbled her cue cards and stammered her way through oral presentations, who let bitchy girls wearing weaves trash the way I wore my natural hair, the girl who walked quickly, spoke quietly, and avoided conflict in order to pass by unnoticed. No, I wasn't supposed to become her. 

I'm not so much like that now. Grade 8 and a certain two friends pulled me out of my shadow and help me bitch slap it into submission. I was louder, crazier, and happier than ever. Perhaps I was even toeing the line between teenage rambunctiousness and just plain obnoxious. I gained a reputation as being an annoying part of a threesome (and who was late for everything, who always had something to say, and while getting good enough grades, tended to throw together half-arsed work at the last minute. We kind of were something to see. But it would still take years to slowly pull off the sticky, self-conscious coating that had latched onto my skin like a tween at a Justin Bieber concert. It took time to individualize my iPod music, to wear whatever the fuck I wanted (even if tank tops and jeans became my trademark outfit for years until I started working in retail), to walk with my shoulders back and my head tall - peacocks ain't got NOT nothing on me.

This is my outward reaction to being assigned a
presentation. Body begins self-destruct mode.

I have made progress, but the fear of public speaking remains. It encouraged me somewhat that one of our nation's top fears second only to death was public speaking. Mine is actually public speaking first with death falling around fourth - topped by being locked in an enclosed, air tight room with an African cockroach, a black widow spider, and a praying mantis, losing my vision, and being kidnapped, raped, and mauled by wild bears. Or humans, really, both would be equally unpleasant. People without this fear of course believe you are ridiculous. 'You stand up there, you read yer cue cards, and be done with it' they scoff with a condescending grin on their face. No you fucktart, I don't. Let's see how easy it is for YOU to speak in front of a crowd if I stick a golf ball in your throat and steal your pants and underwear you motherfucking cockpot. *breathes*

But seriously, me and oral speaking is like vampires and garlic toast, you just can't put that shit together. My heart rate increases dramatically, I start to sweat like a 400 pound man doing hot yoga, my jaw fucking dislocates and my entire body decides to light up like a  live wire and starts twitching like I just decided to go off a decade-long alcohol binge cold turkey. The combination of symptoms means my brain decides to pack a bag and vacation on another continent and so everything coming out of my mouth is utterly useless and I end up sounding like a beach whale trying to learn Spanish and my face gets hot and my heart climbs up my throat and tries to claw it's way out of my mouth and my legs are trying to run but are glued to the floor and my teachers' brow is looking all furrow-y and disappointed and from all the way at the front of the class I know for DAMN WELL SURE that I am not gonna be acing this so I visualize putting myself and everybody else out of their misery and just shooting myself in the head because then at least then the class can entertain themselves by sliding and frolicking in the remnants of my brain mush instead of listening to me drone on about mining and the environment and am I STILL FUCKING TALKING? 

And that's the way the cookie goddamn implodes. 

People can say I'm looking at school with a negative perspective, and I wouldn't disagree with them. But I would like to helpfully point out that being a student who is going into her 6th (nearly) consecutive year of high school, wouldn't I know from experience just how shitty it actually is? Most likely, the other person in this conversation has been out of high school for at least 20 years and whose rearview mirror is probably foggy and therefore cannot POSSIBLY conceptualize how close to fucking hell high school was for them. It may be easy to look back fifteen years when you've already put your swirlee and getting mooed at in the cafeteria and oh, that time you got your period on your brand new baby blue fitted track suit bottoms (personal hell, bro) in the middle of class...
It is not 'the best years of your life' and I don't know who was quoted saying that but that dude probably hasn't shown his face since then out of fear of being publicly stoned for being a misinforming prick. 


Think of high school like walking under a magnifying glass, so that every one of your faults; the space between your teeth, your arm chub, your proclivity for badminton, your unibrow, it's all on fucking display for the people around you to pick up and use as ammo for their sling shot. It's all about fitting in, and a lot of the time that means at the expense of others. It does get better in grades 11 and 12, but 9 and 10 are breeding grounds for tarts, wannabe gangstas, some of the most gory butchering of the English language known to man (Shakespeare can be heard weeping from his grave), and hordes of posturing, swaggering boys and lipsticked, trampy, extension wearing girls all swarming one another trying to simultaneously show up one another and get in each others pants. 

It may be a place of learning, but high school has to be the most unique, crucial, and telling experiment of social development in life...Anthropologists in a high school would be like racoons at a trash dump; they'd be falling on top of each other and schmoozing all over the shit they could uncover...We are at the most precarious stage of our lives. Our decisions - not that we realize it - will determine what we do and what kind of adults we become. The way we interact and socialize in such a small environment is like a microcosm of greater society, and even humanity in general. Of course, most of us mature a little bit (thank god) but still. We are all learning, growing, and discovering and influencing one another during our 10 month school year. We spend more time together than we do with our own families if you think about it. So positive or negative experiences should be acknowledged as more than a thing in passing; high school makes up a huge chunk of what our lives are about despite what we want to admit. So if your kids' high school experience is shitty, most likely his entire life feels like its in the toilet. It's not pessimism, it's realism.

I am looking at tomorrow as the LAST first day of my last year of high school I will ever have. Does that make sense? Third time's the freaking charm, right? Get in, get out with a minimum of stress, hair-pulling, and presentation-induced fainting. I'm ready to go. Wish me luck.