I miss you in ways that I cannot even fathom, though I am acutely aware that the you I miss is not the you of today. 

I am often struck with thoughts of you at the most arbitrary times. 

Are you happy? 

I hope that you are happy. I hope that your life is filled with love, friendship, and laughter. I hope that you wake each morning full of joy and anticipation at what the new day will bring. I hope that you go to bed each night feeling unconditionally loved. And, on a purely selfish level, I hope that you sometimes miss me, too.  

Exit strategy

Did I ever tell you, dear interweb, about the morning after a particularly awkward one night stand when, at a loss upon departing, I merely stuck out my hand and offered a particularly enthusiastic shake?

If not, I should totally do that sometime.  

I'd like to think I'm no longer such a judgmental asshole

One time, while in the car with my mother, we drove past some homely looking people selling odd metal sculptures by the side of the road.
Laughing to myself, I said, "imagine being related to those people."
My mom then responded, "there is no need for you to imagine being related to those people due to the fact that you are related to those people."
It turned out that they were my second cousins.
True story.

Highway dreams

There is a lonely sweater that hangs on the chain-link fence that separates the highway from the service road. It is fire engine red and mustard yellow, and all sorts of other colours that should never be found together on the same article of clothing. It has been hanging on that fence for well over a month now, waving at me each day as I pass it by on my way to work. 

Sometimes I think about pulling over, onto the gravel shoulder of the road, and taking the sweater down from it's wiry resting place. I think of all the things I could do with that sweater, although there is really only one thing that appeals to me: I'd give it to a friend, letting them know exactly where I'd found it and exactly how long it had been there. 

Highway sweater, I'd call it. "Happy Birthday," I would say, "I got you a highway sweater." 

Motorboating without an engine

It was the third time he'd reached into my shirt and grabbed my breast with his cold, slobbery hand. I jumped a little, glared, and was met with a large toothless smile.
"It's official," I sighed. "Your son takes after you."
"Hey! I have never touched your breasts," he declared.
"Well, at the very least, to date you both share the same sense of humour."

It was barely a week ago that the child in question had spent a mere minute scrutinizing my face before eagerly proceeding to motorboat my cleavage, offering up a suave half-smile once he'd finished.

"Clearly I need to start wearing shirts that have better coverage," I sighed.

And then he wandered off to ask another adult what flunitrazepam is

When I deciphered the words blaring over the speakers, I rolled my eyes, braced my left hand against the oversized, white truck I'd been diligently scrubbing and took a minute to wipe away some bubbles that had found their way on to my nose. 

I can tell that I'm getting old because songs about booty holes (and the subsequent showing of them) no longer thrill me the way they once might have. Instead, I find them mildly disturbing and shake my head at the lyricist's questionable use of poetic devices. 

The sun was relentless and I was beyond tired. I'd slept for a total of five hours in the two prior days and wanted desperately to curl up in my bed and simply die.

Just then, from over the roof of the monstrous truck (I can only assume its owner was trying to compensate for something), water proceeded to rain down on me.

"Sorry," someone yelled, although the laughter in their voice clearly indicated that their apology was not entirely heartfelt. 

"You do not have to apologize every time you do that," I sighed. "We are having a car wash and being sprayed with a hose is an expected danger when participating in this kind of event." I'd heard several apologies already for accidental spray-age and had subsequently spent most of the day trying to avoid saying the words "you", "got", "me", and "wet" within the same sentence (especially in that order). Anything perceived as remotely sexual was predictably followed up with a, "that's what she said" from one of the boys. "Not to you, she didn't," I had told them on more than one occasion. 

Earlier that morning, one of the boys had informed me that he felt he had at least a 50% chance of engaging in sexual relations with me at some point in time in the future. "I can assure you," I said firmly, "that, at best, you have a .00001% chance, and the number is only that high because I am not entirely sure that you don't have access to flunitrazepam."

FYI: Every other post from here on out will somehow involve babies

"Your baby just gave me the finger," I said flatly.

"No, he didn't. My baby does not know how to give someone the finger," she'd said. "He doesn't even know that his hands are attached to his body yet."

"Lies. Just look at him right now! His middle finger is clearly extended towards me!" I'd exclaimed. 

She took a moment to look over towards her son before rolling her eyes at me. 

"Babies do not know how to give people the finger," she'd sighed. 

"I just think it's unfair that your baby is free to be as uncouth as he desires and yet I have to put twenty-five cents into a jar every time I let the f-bomb slip in his presence. That is practically my favourite word and you've taken it away from me. If I had a baby, I would totally let you swear in front of it. Actually, I would charge you twenty-five cents every time you didn't swear in front of my baby," I told her. 

I then took a minute to glare at the baby. He was leaning back casually in his car seat with one hand resting casually behind his head and the other extended straight out towards me, flipping the bird. 

Babies, Babies Everywhere

I felt weird, sitting there, holding a little person that was actually related to me.
In recent months, I had practically become a baby expert. My days were filled with work, more work, and babies. Where I'd been awkward and fumbly with the first baby, I was now relaxed and confident. I no longer took offense when the tiny human in my arms started to wail. As it turns out, crying is something that babies do frequently, often indifferent to the giant cradling them. Instead of apologizing and looking helplessly towards the closest parental unit (either that baby's or my own), I now knew that the fastest way to quiet an unhappy baby was to bounce and sway. Bounce and sway. Oh, and it also never hurts to pat them gently on the back because, it would seem, that babies are almost always passing gas in one form or another. My cousin watched on approvingly for the first few minutes of my interaction with her daughter and then she turned her attention entirely towards my grandparents and mother and proceeded to catch up on a year's worth of news.
It is still weird to think of my cousin as a mother, even after holding undeniable proof.
The entire week following our visit, my grandmother dropped what she considered to be subtle hints about how lovely it would be if I started to produce progeny of my own.
"Grandma," I sighed, "are you not satisfied with one great-grandchild for the time being? I mean, if you really want me to, I can go out and take care of business right now - but wouldn't you prefer I wait until I have both a dependable significant other and a study job? And would you really want your next great-grandchild's father to be the kind of man who does not question having unprotected sex with a complete stranger?"
I will not relate her response to you word-for-word, Internet, but what it amounted to was that she wanted another baby now.

Things Learned While Cleaning Toilets

It would seem there is an unwritten universal law that, if you are going to have an intense bowel movement in a public setting, you must do so in the handicapped stall. Perhaps this is because the handicapped stall offers more space to maneuver, or perhaps it is because each handicapped stall offers a metal bar, securely fastened to the wall, which one can grip and bear down on while dropping an atomic sized bomb.

Please kill me. Please kill me now.

I've done something to anger god. Severely.
That is the only explanation that I can come up with. Why else would my sister have returned from the Middle East with a sudden new interest in techno music? There is simply no other reason.
9:30 AM, her first day back in the country and she decides to welcome the dawn of a new day by playing techno. This may or may not be worse than the time she had the song Aïcha, by the Arabic Artist Khaled on repeat for four days, non-stop.
Don't get me wrong, there is a time and a place for techno music. It's just that that time is when you are high on Ecstasy and that place is somewhere that is far away from me.

Dealings with a two-month-old

She plopped the baby down in my arms and proceeded to sit beside me on the stairs.
Surprised, my newfound charge and I both stared unblinkingly at each other with a hint of suspicion.

I speak to the baby exactly how I speak to adults, which seems to amuse both his parents and casual onlookers endlessly. In fact, the only difference that immediately comes to mind is that, when addressing the baby, I occasionally drive my points home by tickling his ribs and blowing raspberries on his stomach. To date, I have yet to find myself trying to win an argument with a fully matured individual in a similar fashion.

Later, while in my care, the baby voices his displeasure at suddenly finding himself with a wet diaper. "I understand that you are currently perturbed, but I think you would find your angst would be somewhat abated if you would only stop gouging yourself in the eye," I tell him, as I locate his diaper bag and look around for a flat surface on which to change him. "Equally," I add, "you would find that if you ceased flailing around so excitedly I would be able to change your diaper much more efficiently." The baby ignores my words, choosing instead to smile and coo at me for no apparent reason. "I do not understand you," I state flatly. "I think we will get along much better when we are actually able to converse and I can simply buy you material objects to gain your affections." But the truth is, in spite of the many times when my mere presence seems to offend him, we get along just fine right now. And though I am loath to admit it, my heart melts just a little every time his parents refer to me as "Auntie Megan".

A Sentence or Two

Watching Madonna's new video for her song 4 Minutes, I am inspired to go out to a busy parking lot and do some fancy dancing on top of cars - not to mention locate the nearest giant clock so that I can dance in front of it while wearing a flesh-toned body suit.
04.04.08

My dad woke me up at 2 AM to ask me if I'd ever heard of Talk Like a Pirate Day.
06.04.08

"Wow, really? That's so exciting that my nipple just got hard," I said.
"Nipple? Just one?"
"Yeah, righty. Lefty has much higher standards," I explained, though I felt that this should have been self-evident.
16.04.08

I once made pulled taffy in grade three, and, to tell the truth, making it again is something I have thought about at least once a year ever since.
24.04.08

I never had baby fever before everyone around me, it would seem, started procreating like it was an Olympic sport.
3.05.08

Facebook tells me that several of my friends think I am likely to succeed and would make an excellent mother. However, it also tells me that they are less than confident in my sense of fashion and my thoroughness when it comes to bathing. Thanks, Facebook!
14.05.08

And then I ate a cupcake

When I first saw the giant wooden pole on my front lawn I thought, finally, my parents had decided to help me realize my dream of holding a giant Scottish festival, featuring a caber toss competition, in our backyard.
Alas, my dreams were quickly shattered when I saw several Hydro trucks dropping off similar poles next to all their dilapidated carriers of power along my street.
'So close,' I thought.

Hey there, cupcake.

I made cupcakes this past weekend as part of a fund-raising effort - well, a fund-raising effort in a round about way. I think they turned out pretty well, as did the fruit floral arrangement things that I also made.

I am not high

Okay, that is a lie. I am a little high. Or a lot high. Maybe medium sized high.
My parents went out of town for a funeral this weekend and I decided it was the perfect time to break in my new bong. Also, I tend to clean when I am stoned and I thought, since the house was looking a little dirty, that it may just be the incentive I needed to tackle some housework. Really, if you think about it, I am doing my parents a favour by partaking in recreational drug use. I am being completely selfless; thinking only of others. Sacrificing my own personal well-being for the sake of the family.
About twenty minutes ago, while laying down on my bed, I accidentally stuck my big toe in the top of my bong - which was resting on my floor. About five minutes later I would forget this and proceed to stick my mouth where my toe had just been. I should probably mention that I'd been outside just minutes before, barefoot, trudging through god knows what. On this trip outdoors I encountered a snake. Screaming, I briefly looked behind me to see if the dogs would come to my rescue, which, of course, they would not. When I looked back, the snake was gone. 

I spent the next twenty minutes standing there debating whether or not I had actually seen any snake to begin with. "But marijuana does not make people hallucinate," I tried to reason. When the snake did finally make its reappearance, I pointed and yelled at it. "I knew it! I knew it!" I screamed. "You are real! You do exist!" My screaming was quickly interrupted when the snake started to slither towards me. It was at this point in time that I squealed and ran into the house, tripping up the stairs as I went.