top ten ways to talk about sex on the internet

okay, i know there are lots of ways to talk about sex on the internet. but not if you're a kid and the chat room you're in has a very strict phrase filter. so in honour of my very last night as an extraordinary monitor, i thought i would share a few of them with you.

1. i want to eject milk stuff in to you.
2. i want to bit you in certain places.
3. please lets go up and down on our hips.
4. tin dollars for a blue ow a job.
5. your breads can I fee them.
6. should we take our clothes off so I can vacuum you goods better.
7. i want to play on your ball.
8. put your something in my something.
9. fees my pin a is gently.
10. may I sit on you and go up and down.

ahh, kids... so romantic. and so polite! i'm going to miss those little buggers. but honestly, i will not miss them half as much as i'm going to miss all the other monitors... especially my super kick-ass team: abdi, oliver, tyrone, duc, ben, nasir and karthi. if you guys ever resolve that cult brands argument, or figure out how the world is actually going to end, or manage to get that league-wide game of marvel ultimate alliance 2 going, let me know.... sigh. i'm going to cry. on the upside, i'm off to tbay tomorrow to start my christmas holidays early! don't be hatin'.

LLTL!

top ten cute things about briscoe

1. he has his own chair at the table during family meals.
2. he loves it when you rub the inside of his leg.
3. he makes a really good inside spoon, pillow, and occasionally blanket.
4. he likes to lick people's ears (especially mine).
5. when you show up at his house, he runs around and brings you all his toys to show you.
6. he gets jealous when someone is sitting in his spot on the couch.
7. he makes perfect pathetic-puppy eyes.
8. when he jumps up on heather, he is the same height as her.
9. when you bring two tennis balls to the park for him to play with, he spends the whole time trying to pick both of them up at the same time.
10. you can tell when he's been drinking out of the toilet because there is water all over the bathroom.
    

my top ten favourite sytycd performances

so i'm warning you up front, if you don't like this show you might as well just skip this post. it's okay, i'll still like you. i mean, i guess.

1. benji and donyelle hip hop (season two) - this was the very first performance i ever saw on sytycd (i missed season one due to some very poor decisions on my part) and it basically made my head explode. it made the judges' heads explode too. i just love to see skinny little white boys hitting it hard.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. lauren and neil contemporary (season 3)- i'm not usually a big fan of contemporary, and i pretty much can't stand mia michaels. all those touchy-feely routines with girls in flowy dresses throwing themselves at the floor to some song by the fray... doesn't do it for me. especially when there's some obviously audience-manipulating made-up back story to the piece that inevitably makes the judges cry ("this is me meeting my dead father in heaven!" "this is about a breast cancer survivor!") but this performance is not like that. i'll admit a lot of why i like this routine is the song. and the goggles. i also think lauren should have won that year, but i obviously have very different tastes than the average american.
   
   



3. katee and joshua hip hop (season four) - i always think it's a little unfair to the other dancers when a couple gets a nappytabs hip hop routine, especially in the first show. their routines are always super accessible, have a very specific backstory (i know i said just hate audience-manipulating back stories, but it's different when nappytabs choreographs... okay, fine. maybe i just hate it when mia michaels does it), normal person costumes and current popular songs. how is someone dressed in a poodle skirt and doing a lindy hop supposed to compete with that? and then everyone loves them for the rest of the season. i swear joshua won season four the minute he danced out of that shirt.
   
   
   
   
4. allison and ivan contemporary (season two) - anyone who watched this season knows exactly why i love this performance. this was the moment that little b-boy ivan grew up. end of story.
   
   
   
   
5. mark and courtney contemporary (season four) - i loved courtney and gev together, and originally i wanted to post the rhumba they did together, but when i was looking for it i found this one and remembered how much i loved it. mark is so weird, and in this performance he totally brought courtney over to the dark side (or i guess their freaky choreographer sonya did, but whatever).
   
   
   
   
6. lacey and danny samba (season three) - lest you were beginning to think this list would be all hip hop and contemporary. i am not the world's biggest lacey schwimmer fan, but you've gotta admit, the girl can fucking samba.
   
   
   
   
7. asuka and vitolio waltz (season five) - this is the only one on the list from season five, which tells you how excited i was about it. this year is shaping up to be better, but i really haven't seen anything that has blown my mind yet - it's all just good. anyway, in this performance asuka is like a little disney princess, and normally that would make me very jealous (yes, there is still some deeply hidden part of me that wants to be a disney princess) but in this case it just makes me love her more. and i can't embed it, so you'll just have to go watch it here.


8. danny and sara tango (season three) - sara the b-girl was my favourite dancer ever on sytycd. then she had to go ruin it by getting a job dancing back up for avril lavigne. anyway, this performance has been known to convert even the most hard-core skeptics into sytycd fans. i guess it's pretty clear why.
   
   



9. sara and jesus contemporary (season three) - if it was sexy, fuck-me boots sara that won over the boys, it was cute little ragamuffin sara that won over me. plus they used music from the triplets of belleville which is a really, really great movie.
   
   



10. kherington and twitch hip hop (season four) - i loved kherington and i think she was totally ripped off on this show. i mean, she was voted off before comfort? how is that even possible? i guess she did okay for herself, going on to be in that fame movie that i haven't seen yet (i know, you're thinking "how can she claim to love movies about dancing and not have seen fame!?" i ask myself that very question every day).
    
    



11. mark and chelsie hip hop (season four) - i'm adding this on at the end cause i think that erin might kill me if i don't include it. and how can you not love a performance to "bleeding love"? i mean, i hear even hockey teams use it to pump them up for big championship games.
    
    

things i love that other people hate

i am confessing to it all. i mean, you already know how much i love tv and bon jovi... you might as well know the rest of it.

1. driving - most people i know fall into two categories: 1. people who have cars and complain about having to drive everywhere. 2. people who don't have cars and are somewhat smuggy about it. it's pretty much patently uncool to love driving. but to me there is nothing better than being alone in my car with the sun shining and a dr. pepper in my cup holder and good tunes on the radio that i can sing along to at the top of my lungs. i even like being stuck in traffic. yesterday i was stuck on the qew for two hours slowly making my way to hamilton and no word of a lie it was the most fun i had all week (well, before i actually got to hamilton and got to eat wings and play with briscoe). they played "i wanna sex you up" on the radio and i sang along and tried to figure out what books on tape the people in the cars all around me were listening to that made them look so depressed (probably the lovely bones).
2. filling out forms - i guess this isn't really surprising, considering that the form is a pretty close cousin of the list. putting things in place makes everybody happy, too! especially if it involves little boxes in which you must print clearly in black ink.
   
3. kelly clarkson - there is no earthly reason why i should like kelly clarkson. she was on american idol, she sings the kind of watered-down pop-rock that i hate, and she clearly has issues with her pant hems. but there's just something about her chubby little face that i just can't be mad at. i remember when she first won american idol and i was way less secure in my own awesomeness and i totally jumped on the clarkson-hating bandwagon while secretly listening to "miss independent" over and over again (probably in my car) and then later surreptitiously turning up the radio at work whenever "since u been gone" came on and then saying that someone else did it. god, i'm glad i'm so much more secure in my own awesomeness these days.
   
4. cheez whiz - there is no comfort food more comforting to me than cheez whiz on an english muffin. no i am not joking about this. yes i know it is neon orange. and yes, people will ruin it for me by making it super creepy and posting pictures of it on the internet:
   
   
   
   (and yes, this was actually the only picture of cheez whiz on an english muffin i could find on the interwebz. and no, i don't make mine with little olives for eyes.)
5. starship troopers - everyone hates this movie until they actually see it. but i swear this is the most fun you will ever have watching a movie, ever. there's nothing to not like about it! the evil aliens are all bugs, and hating bugs will never go out of style. doogie howser is in it, and so is the chick who played joey's girlfriend on a couple of episodes of friends. there's this amazing scene where rico and zander brawl while "fade into you" by mazzy star is playing in the background (i know, i know, it's no "song 2," but it's still pretty incredible). blanche devereaux is their biology teacher! and, i'm sorry, did i mention the bug killing? and as we all know, the only good bug is a dead bug.
   
   
   nph is doing his part, are you?
   


6. facebook - i know, everyone's on facebook, but no one ever admits to really liking it, do they? but seriously, anything that makes internet stalking any easier is a win in my books.
   
7. dan brown - okay, i know i am not allowed to like dan brown. hell, i don't even think i'm allowed to say his name (it must be written in my book contract somewhere). and yes, i know, he-who-shall-not-be-named writes some pretty appalling prose. he is exploitative and manipulative and the shit that happens in his books is so ridiculous it makes you cringe and he is everything that is wrong with the world and i can't stop reading him. i mean, i read deception point in one six hour stretch. i didn't want to. oh, how i did not want to. it was six am, and i wanted to go to sleep. but it was like my page-turning hand had a mind of its own. he-who-shall-not-be-named, how in holy hell do you do that? and can you teach me? please? i'm willing to sacrifice my artistic integrity. and some goats, too, if you think it'll help. i'm clearly already going to writers' hell, anyway.
   

top one awesome video of the day

1. this.
   
   

movies i will not be seeing this holiday season

i cry at movies. no, no, no, you don't understand... i cry at all movies. even the ones i'm not supposed to cry at. so movies that i am supposed to cry at basically devastate me for weeks. seriously, the schlockier the movie, the worse off i am (after watching titanic, my dad thought it was hilarious to call me up and play the soundtrack over the phone to me just to hear me break down all over again). so i've made it a policy to avoid these movies, for the sake of my own sanity as well as the sanity of those around me. i've gotten some heat for this in the past (if one more person tells me i should totally see marley and me, i will stuff their mouth full of kleenex) but believe me, it's for the best.

1. brothers - i love jake gyllenhaal. i love tobey maguire. i even kind of like natalie portman. but i have to change the channel when the trailer comes on. i don't think there's one scene in that trailer where people aren't either crying or yelling. plus they've got that u2 song in the background... manipulate me even more, why don't you?
   
2. precious - i know this is supposed to be an uplifting story about a girl who overcomes extreme adversity and whose spirit perseveres and blah blah blah... at least, this is what all the promo shit is telling me. but you know what? i looked up a plot summary on the internet and i've gotta tell you, nothing about it sounds uplifting. i'm beginning to think that "uplifting" is just hollywood-speak for "make you think everything is going to be okay and then stab you in the heart when you're not looking."
3. the blind side - not that i would see this anyway, because i really don't like sandra bullock much, but as soon as i hear anything about a movie being "heartfelt" i basically squeeze my eyes shut and pretend i'm somewhere else. i'm beginning to think that "heartfelt" is just hollywood speak for "the only thing you will feel in your heart is it breaking" see, i'm onto you, hollywood.
4. the lovely bones - this book sat on my bookshelf for a really long time before i decided not to read it. i'm generally more rational in my approach to book-reading, but that one looked like it was just going to pull all the wrong strings. and if the book could scare me off like that, you can imagine how i felt when i heard there was a movie coming out.
5. old dogs - okay, fine, this one won't make me cry. except maybe for shame. seth green, seth green, what are you doing? oh wait, never mind, i know... you're sensing your destiny.

ps. i am totally going to go see fantastic mr. fox. this was my absolute favourite roald dahl book when i was a kid, and wes anderson is my absolute favourite director, so... yeah, i know, i'm probably setting myself up for a huge fall here, but what can you do? i'm expecting the royal tenenbaums, with foxes. and george clooney.

a list of things related to this photograph

1. these might be the last eggos left on the planet.*
2. i'm still going to eat them anyway.

*i know it might sound made up, but the eggo shortage has been reported here, here, and here, and i also saw it on the news on tv, and even stephen colbert was talking about it... and unlike the internet, i know that tv would never, ever lie to me. and contrary to what some people might think, i so don't believe everything i read on the internet, and even though that post about the great-white-shark-eating shark was obviously totally fake, and was so badly photoshopped that even a five year old kid could tell it wasn't real, that doesn't mean that great-white-shark-eating sharks don't actually really exist somewhere. i mean, it's not like we've discovered every single species of every single living thing there is in the whole entire ocean, and that's according to real live scientists. so theoretically, there totally could be a great-white-shark-eating shark hanging out in an ocean near you, or, you know, there could not be... but are you really willing to to take that chance?!

a list of things related to this photograph

1. see that little track of red lights in the background? that is my beloved behemoth.
2. we waited in an hour of traffic on the 400 and then another hour in line in order to ride it in the dark during the halloween haunt.
3. going to halloween haunt is a little like going to a high school dance. but with roller coasters.
   
4. it was cold, the girls in front of us in line were blowing smoke back into our faces, and at one point it started to rain a little.
5. we were probably the only people in line who weren't high or drunk.
6. aside from the drop zone and one sort of lame haunted house, this is all we did while we were there.
7. it was totally worth it.
8. it was 99.5% worth it for the ride, and 0.5% worth it for this: after waiting for about 45 minutes in line, we watched a guy jump the line a few people ahead of us. no one did anything about it, which we thought was weird since they seem to generally be pretty crabby about people who try to pull that sort of shit, and everyone in line was kind of grumbling about it. so we wait a while longer, get up to the front of the line, and the guy gets on the train just ahead of us, sits down, gets ready to be buckled in... and then they kick him out. it was one of the more satisfying things i've witnessed in line for a roller coaster. or anywhere, really.
9. i totally should have bought a pair of those light-up bunny ears.
   
   

six things i can't believe exist

you know, among other things. war, famine, head cheese, blah blah blah.

1. the windows seven whopper - seven patties, one for every depressing new windows release. i'm sorry to say this is only in japan, because i know some seriously masochistic peeps who would like nothing more than to try to squeeze that through their arteries.
   
2. boong-ga boong-ga - also in the "only in japan" category. i honestly don't even know where to start with this one. um, it's an arcade game. it features a giant ass and a "finger" you can stick in it. according to the brochure, it's "a fun game of spanking the people who make your life miserable." these people include ex-girlfriends, ex-boyfriends, gangsters, mothers-in-law, gold-diggers, prostitutes, child-molesters and con-artists. it's, uh, supposed to relieve stress. you know, for those people who think sticking a finger in their mother in law's ass would be relaxing.
3. wake 'n bacon - okay, i am far happier talking about this delightful invention. in fact, i'm kind of sad i didn't think of it myself. it's an alarm clock that wakes you up with... wait for it... bacon! the fat kid inside of me wants one of these so badly, i might actually be drooling a bit.
4. palm beach sugar daddy ken doll - in this case, a picture is worth a thousand words. or a thousand jaquard-patterened jackets and light pink polo shirts.
   
   
   
   i have to admit, i basically just want that little dog. he and riley 2 would have so much fun! playing around in the backyard, sticking their little heads out of lola's passenger side window, curling up together on my futon and watching the littlest hobo.... okay, seriously, someone get me a puppy before i end up jauntily dragging my stuffed animals down bloor street on the end of a leash.
5. walk-in botox treatments in thunder bay - seriously? thunder bay needs a walk-in botox clinic at the mall? last time i was there, most of the girls i saw at the mall couldn't even be bothered to change out of their sweatpants before leaving the house. you're telling me they're so concerned about those crow's feet that they can't even wait for an appointment?
6. great-white-shark-eating sharks - yes. that's what i said. great. white. shark. eating. sharks. palm beach ken had better watch where he's swimming.
   

daily dose of listalgia: list pwnage

i cannot take credit for this list. it was created in response to this list i made back in 1995 and posted here a couple of months ago. i happen to think mine is much funnier. but he gets his point across.

top ten american chain restaurants i wish we had in canada

this list is inspired by our recent trip to niagara falls, where we were super excited to find an ihop, even though their website doesn't list any canadian locations. and despite the fact that it took us twice as long to walk there as we thought, and when we got there we found out that the heat wasn't working, we still had some pretty amazing pancakes.


trying to keep warm at ihop

as deeply uncool as it might be, i sort of love american chain restaurants. especially the ones i can never get to. maybe it's just the whole wanting-what-you-can't-have thing... i mean, vanilla coke just seems to taste so much better south of the border than it ever did when we could get it here. or maybe i just watch too much american tv with their delicious fast food commercials, and being the extremely suggestible person that i am, i get too angsty when i can't have that burger on tv RIGHT NOW. either way, these restaurants would do well to follow ihop's very classy example and come on over to our side. or at least to niagara falls. i'm trying to use my powers for good here, people.

1. dunkin donuts - yes, i know the incredibly irritating rachael ray is in some of their commercials. and yes, i know dd is basically the same thing as tim hortons. but a few years ago i spent some time in new england, and without a tim hortons around, dd became my go-to coffee place (although they looked at me like a freak when i tried to order a double double). i've also heard a rumour that there are some canadian locations (the "rumour" being a billboard i saw on the way to the airport in montreal). until i see proof of this, i won't really believe it. it's not like they've changed their slogan to "north america runs on dunkin."
2. zaxby's - zaxby's is a chicken joint whose commercials claiming they are "indescribably good" are all over peachtree tv (which i have been watching a loooooot more lately now that they are re-running the office). i can probably describe it, actually: "deep-fried." yum. their only locations appear to be in the southeastern united states, which somewhat explains why they have their very own nascar team.
3. carl's jr - this is another one to blame on peachtree. carl's jr has totally manipulated me with their super sexy ad campaign. i mean, their burgers look pretty amazing, but they look even more amazing when being stuffed into the beautiful mouth of padma lakshmi. seriously, have you ever seen a woman have sex with a hamburger? it's totally hot. and delicious!
   
   
   
   they also have ads featuring audrina patridge and paris hilton, but i'm going to pretend i don't know who those girls are and therefore am not going to talk about them on my blog.
4. golden corral - i have heard rumours that this place totally kicks old country buffet's ass. although judging by the people i've seen eating at old country buffet, that would be a pretty old, fat, depressing fight. and it would take place in a vat of nacho cheese. ahh, buffets.
   
5. in-n-out burger - in-and-out burger pretty much has it all: a cult following, a starring role in the big lebowski, references to bible verses on their utensils, and customizable burgers that allowed for the building of this monstrosity:
   
   
   
   100x100
   
   they also have a secret menu that includes being able to order things "animal style," which apparently includes burgers with the mustard cooked right in. i'm pretty sure this is exactly how animals eat burgers in the wild.
   
6. olive garden - according to popular culture, olive garden is the most uncool restaurant in the history of restaurants. every time i eat there, i think of will ferrell in old school talking to his therapist about their "lovely" meal at the olive garden where he spent the entire time wondering what the waitress's underwear looked like. or that episode of will and grace where their super lame suburban friends keep talking about the olive garden buffalo wings: "you know how i like food that's spicy, but not too spicy?" not to mention that it's michael scott's favourite restaurant. so by admitting my love for their breadsticks and unlimited pasta bowls, i am pretty much kicked out of the cool kids' club. but if you read this blog, you already knew that.
7. white castle - if olive garden is the screech of the restaurant world, then white castle is the zach morris -- thanks mostly to harold and kumar (and, of course, neil patrick harris). i'll admit i have been known to drive a couple of hours out of my way just to get served a slyder in the back of a gas station by a girl wearing pajama pants. and i'd do it again!
   
   
   delicious little teeny tiny burgers
8. chick-fil-a - i don't really know anything about this place, except that their commercials feature cows trying various guerilla tactics to get people to "eat more chicken." also, these same commercials feature a peppermint chocolate milkshake. i don't know what their chicken is like (it looks fairly normal), but i can't imagine ever going wrong with a peppermint chocolate milkshake.
9. coldstone creamery - one of the most epic fails of my life was having to leave my chocolate devotion to melt on the bottom of a garbage can outside target on a recent trip to duluth. but seriously, those things are enormous. especially when you try to eat them after stuffing your face with taco bell.
10. sonic - sonic is a drive-in. a for-real drive-in. back home, there was an a&w drive-in in windsor that was one of the first places outside of the city that i drove to when i first got my license. my friend meghan and i sat there and ate our burgers and onion rings that were not brought out by girls on roller skates, which i vaguely remember being disappointed about, and listened to mixed tapes (in 1993, they probably included either, like, the violent femmes or blondie) and talked about how, since there was a high school and a community college and a hospital all within eyeshot of our car, you could conceivably live your whole life in that half a kilometer or whatever it was. but i digress. drive-ins are awesome. according to the sonic website, they are also a "no pressure ordering situation," which is good for me because i generally suffer in high pressure ordering situations. seriously. that's why i always just end up ordering the number 1.
    

awesome things about the halifax airport

1. free wifi
2. saying goodbye to your mom at the pay-for-your-parking machine because she isn't quite sure how to use it.
3. ... uh, friendly security people? chatty, at least. probably why the line was about 50 people long.
4. did i mention free wifi?
   

i'd write an "awesome things about the montreal airport" on my stopover, but i'm not paying $9.95 just to tell you that their seats are comfy but their starbucks is closed.

top ten things that have changed about halifax... and one thing that hasn't

ever since i've been back in halifax, i've been trying to think of an apt metaphor to describe my relationship with the city now. the best i can come up with is that coming home for the first time is like seeing an ex-boyfriend for the first time after a breakup. on the surface, maybe not a whole lot has changed, but with a person you have known so long, so intimately, even a pair of mittens or a new way of wearing their hair sticks out.

1. there is a giant-ass parking garage out at the airport where there used to be a big pit of construction. this can be disconcerting for someone just getting off the plane. i thought for a minute i was back in toronto.
2. athens restaurant is now called "the central grill". now i know that a restaurant closing is really nothing new, especially in a city like halifax that seems to have eating establishments closing and re-opening every day, but athens?! really? that place had been there since the dawn of time. you didn't want to work for them, but they had the best breakfast, and their walls were painted with murals of ancient greece.*
3. there is a turning lane on spring garden road where everyone turns left onto brunswick. well, there was always a turning lane there, but now there are lines! painted to tell you where to go! how convenient.
4. there are also bike lanes painted on south park street. so i guess now as a cyclist, you can have your very own little dedicated lane in which to get doored.
5. there is a new top 40 radio station called "the bounce". there was a lot of things i wanted to say about this, but after looking at their website, the only thing i want to tell you now is that one of the questions on their faq page is "what is a text message?" do what you want with that.
6. the holiday inn across the street from my old high school is now called the atlantica hotel. and they've taken down the fence in the middle of the boulevard on robie street, which they had apparently stuck there to keep hordes of high school kids from crossing the street where there was no traffic light. and presumably scaring all the guests at the holiday inn, who knows.
   
7. my mom has a macpass. for those of you who are not familiar with the macpass, it allows you to cross the bridge without having to dig for quarters to throw in the toll collecting basket thingie (does that thingie have a name? i never thought about it until now). of course, mom doesn't tell me she has a macpass. she just barrels towards the gate at top speed, right past the toll collecting basket thingie and straight into the gate, or at least, what i think is going to be straight into the gate, and i'm screaming and grabbing onto the holy shit handle and thinking my mom has gone completely bonkers, when at the last second the gate swings up and we pass through scot-free, my mom cackling evilly at as the blood slowly returns to my face. yep. macpasses. good for saving your change and freaking out your daughters.
8. there is a huge sign in the middle of university avenue announcing you are at dalhousie university. i guess they didn't think the huge sign on the corner of coburg and oxford announcing you are at dalhousie university was enough.
9. there is a new, awesome venue on gottingen called the company house that likes to have book launches. i knew nothing about this venue before showing up there, and was expecting some kind of hole in the wall space with no heat and maybe a cooler for beer. but this place was beautiful. and they had propeller on tap, which made me feel at home more than almost anything else so far.
10. jess isn't here. which makes me feel less at home than almost anything else so far.

... and i promised you one thing that hadn't changed:

1. while listening to said brand new top 40 radio station, what did i head, sandwiched between the new rihanna (which i have yet to decide if i like or not... i really wanted her to come back with something more umbrella-like) and the black eyed peas? the casino taxi jingle!! haligonians, i dare you not to sing along...

* upon further internet research, it appears that the central grill is actually owned by the people who own athens, and that athens itself has just moved down the street to the old hogie's spot, which i think was the quinpool restaurant or something after that, and then something else... anyway, i missed this the first time around because when you go on google street view, the entire front of the restaurant is blocked by a giant canadian tire truck. nice work, google street view team.

things to do in halifax tonight

1. come see me, zach wells, and wayne clifford read at the company house. followed by al tuck playing some music. it's going to be awesome.
   
2. i guess you could work. if you were really lame. i'm looking at you, shawn.
   

things i saw in montreal

well, i'm home in halifax, which is an entirely different blog post in and of itself. but i'm home by way of montreal, where i spent last night reading at drawn and quarterly bookstore with kathleen winter and rebecca rosenblum. it was kind of a crazy, whirlwind trip, and i've never really spent much time in montreal other than on other crazy, whirlwind trips, so i am in no position to comment in any way on the heart and soul of the city or anything like that. i can merely report on what i saw.

1. a woman ahead of me in line at the bookstore paying for her entire $43.50 bill in quarters dumped onto the counter from a ziploc bag. (the clerk, after looking up at me apologetically several times, actually rejected one of her quarters by saying "c'est americaine." really?) on the plus side, i did finally manage to buy the most recent-ish (recent-ish = most recent in paperback) ian rankin novel, despite its rebus-lessness. i paid for it with a credit card, by the way.
2. a hotel room with a murphy bed. if i had been in better shape this morning, i would have tried actually putting it up (apparently it turns into a table, which i don't quite understand) but while i was curled up in bed nursing my hangover, i did hear a thud come from rebecca's room next door, and i'm going to guess that curiosity got the better of her. i just hope she took pictures.
3. a woman painting her toenails in a starbucks. it made it a little hard to swallow my peppermint mocha (ps, yay, peppermint mochas are back!), but at least she wasn't clipping them at the same time. also, she would have looked better in lincoln park after dark. everyone does.
4. a cab driver making an airline reservation on his laptop while driving on the highway. this would have been way cooler to see if it hadn't been my cab driver. but alas.
5. barbecue sauce used as salad dressing. although technically, this was in brockville on our way to montreal. but it's on the list because i am always interested in new and exciting ways to use condiments.
6. green olives stuffed with almonds. call me uncultured, call me provincial, but i have honestly never seen this done before. and here i was, quite happily eating the goat cheese stuffed black olives instead of the green ones, which looked like they weren't really stuffed with anything (kathleen put together an amazing spread of food for the reading, which made me wish i hadn't stuffed my face with sushi five minutes before getting there) when i heard someone say "those green olives with the almonds in them are really good." if i could remember who that person was, i would kiss them.
7. a disproportionate number of white people with dreadlocks.
   
8. the inside of the bathroom at drawn and quarterly. this is only made interesting (and therefore list-worthy) by virtue of the amount of time i spent seeing the inside of said bathroom. which was a lot more than i should have. what i am trying to tell you is, yes, i got trapped in a bathroom at my own reading. the lock was really, really stuck, i swear! i eventually got myself out by pushing the door in instead of pulling it out, which, if i had done that in the first place, would have solved all my problems, and i wouldn't have had to come out of the bathroom to a bunch of concerned faces of people who had heard me trying to bang open the deadlock with the heel of my boot.