habit

friday night and i like the way you move.

ok its supposed to be saturday night, but a pox on me for even mentioning that song in here.

ok not a pox, thats too harsh. but...maybe a mosquito bite.

its the kind of hot where even though i feel tired in my eyes i have a sneaking suspicion that sleep will evade me for most of this night. i foresee a shitload of tossing and turning. crapola.

i walked by anita's today and was completely miffed to see that her plants that she got that i also got are in bloom. ive had mine up for like ten days already...and nothing! barely a bud. then i find out that im supposed to be watering them any and every day where theres no rain. dude didnt tell me that when i got them! and i even told him that i am a complete novice and need total guidelines. luckily its been rainy much of the time since i planted. very lucky.

what a crazy day. in the end this is what i accomplished:
-finished mega dishes load thats been on my counter long enough for me to forget what i cooked in one of the containers that made it dirty. true.
-arranged with travel agent delivery of ticket and payment.
-took out garbage, two bags full.
-arrived at work ten minutes early.
-worked. blabbed about trip muchly. peter wants me to devote an entire roll of film to girls in bikinis, just for him.
-stayed for part of meeting and then bailed to make it to passport office in time. boss johnny asked me to stay and i doubt anyone else would have actually gotten me to just by asking. but he's my favorite...and he's who hooks me up, and i respect him so i did.
-arrived at passport office at 4. left passport office at 5:45. thing will be ready on the 28th at 7:30 in the morning. i leave on the 30th at 7:30 in the morning. good thing i got it in today.
-arrived crosstown at my wax appointment and the woman who worked at the place was awesome. its totally out of the way, but i will likely go see her again. even tho she couldnt speak any english. she was really cool and honest and fast and good. and i dont know how she did it but im barely red and bumpy at all.

when i got home from the mall i couldnt believe what i saw. the downstairs delinquents have a new addition to their front lawn: a rather large kiddie pool. it takes up practically the entire lawn area, and its pretty hilarious. but my landlord says that another tenant has already complained about it.

kelcey came to pick up the hip tickets and when i was down there talking to him i was again disgusted by the accumulation of cigarette butts everyfuckingwhere. i mean, clean your shit up you rock wanna be skateboarding alcoholic party hound motherfuckers. so i asked them to clean it up and use a can, and they agreed. even rock wannabe skateboarding alcoholic party hound motherfuckers know whats good for them. =) i think they think they are pushing their luck with the pool so were prolly just somewhat pleased that i said i thought it was awesome.

so like i said, big day. what did i eat? i pretty much said fuck it. i had a half piece of raisin toast. i had an amazingly delicious sammich at work: an open face baguette with balsamic dressing on it layered with avocado, tomato and melted swiss cheese on top. holy lord it was killer. should totally be on the menu. fresh baguette is the shit.

ok. gonna go organize. maybe i'll friday five first. or friday four, anyway.

know what? friday five blows this week, its all shit you already know. i have sooo much to do tomorrow, and all by 5 45 pm, when anita and i will sit down for a sushi scoff-fest and then head off all to the nines (or at least the seven-and-a-halfs) to see cabaret with pam.

have a great saturday. relax for me. i wont till i sit down for that dinner. =) but it feels good.

its such a good night for salad.

expos just took their 8th victory in a row. fuckin a. i love me some interleague. especially since for the first time its not vs the red sox and yankees. amen.

oh. and it turns out those private bath huts ARENT where i'll be staying. it seems i didnt scroll down far enough and that our place is wayyyy more eco than that. as in possibly sand as the floor eco. as in no private bath eco. as in we think its just a big tent eco. still has a hammock though. thats the first thing i checked. gonna be an adventure. bring me those sunsets.

=)

--cant see my tracks, youre scent way back--

im so bringing yield.

a hammock on the porch. white sand that doesnt get hot. sounds good for some sun salutations.

and a freakin PRIVATE BATHROOM in the hut. oh mama.

and the fruit. ohhh the fruit. i am so excited for that.

will i resist trying the fish? it might be hard and its fresh from the caribbean and when will i get the chance to try it again. but then again....its fish. stay tuned.

massage therapist. yesssssssssss. full service dive center. crazy. i keep laughing out loud because i get so excited. it looks so fucking beautiful. and me with a fucking box camera. ay carumba. chantal has a good one though.

if i werent me i would hate me right now. but its been forever since ive been to a tropical place. ok not forever, but more than a decade i think. if i could i would buy chantal a pony. a pina colada will have to do.

me tired. me happy. me see you later.

fuckin a. i cant even believe it, but im going to mexico. for a week. in 9 days. hanging with chantal. for very very little money.

every morning i will wake up facing the ocean. no pavement. just wooden steps and sand. am i dreaming?

i was so jet set today. i got clearance at work and then started with the phone calls because wouldnt you know it, my passport expired on the tenth of june. NOOOO, couldnt expire on the tenth of JULY...had to be now. so i gotta pay large (well 155 bones large anyway) to get it on the fly. had to get new photos taken, and get them signed by a professional who has known me for at least two years. tomorrow i gotta bring all that shit in to the passport office and get the wheels in motion. crazy crazy. i so couldnt focus at work, what with the ulcer of getting organized and how far i am from it turning in my stomach.

going shopping was definitely a mistake. especially since i wound up buying a black shirt-dress for cabaret saturday night....and found out that anita is planning to wear a near identical outfit, and we both have nothing else to wear and so we are cheesy ass twins. meanwhile i bet pam is like more naked than covered. whatever. =)

i also think that im gonna bus it down to visit my friend in mass for my days off this week....i kind of want to get that done before getting on an airplane because the psychosis is there though MUCH milder than october. its just that whenever i officially become the owner of an airline ticket i also become officially positive that i will die as a result of said airplane. my record goes against that, but it does little to disway the fear. i guess thats why phobias are phobias.

meanwhile im ok...but i can already feel that weight in me somewhere. so time at a house with a mega garden and hot tub and friends and dogs and a whole new environment im not used to will do well to chill me out and keep me occupied and not paranoidly thinking horrible thoughts. oh, and jorah will be there too. thats a plus. =) i know my dad is gonna let me have it: 'stephanie. you're going to mexico! what the hell do you need to go to the states for??' oh papa. if im gonna indulge myself, i may as well go full scale.

it was crazy today. my hellphone would ring and it would be my travel agent (ooh la la). then it would be chantal. then dad would call. then id call chantal. etc etc etc. someone will be at the cancun airport with my name on a sign to bring me to the hut. hello, rock stars r us? im ready for my my solo. this is too much. me and chantal just laugh. unexpected shit rules. unless its happening on a plane im on. but that wont be the case. =)

i bought boring dark brown hair dye and dyed my hair back to something close to my natural hair color, and i have to say...its only about half an hour old, but i love it.

gorgeous day today. what i ate:

falafel pita with a bunch of veggies and hummous. ok, falafel is fried, but gimme a break.
beet salad
garlicky potatoes (total grease in action. but so tasty i couldnt resist. at least, i didnt resist)
two pieces of brown toast.
a bunch of diet coke and some coffee with skim milk on ice.

what i ate yesterday:
lipton sidekick honey garlic noodles
tofu sammich on killer bread with guac and grilled veg and no mayo
veggie quesedillas

i am so not behaving.

im kind of worried that i might have my period in the yucatan. that would SUCK.

waxing goes down tomorrow evening. maybe i can squeeze an eyebrow shaping in somewhere. i REALLY doubt it.

what did i do yesterday? i dont even remember. oh yes...the joyous domestic crap so not worth elaborating on because its annoying enough having to do it in the first place: laundry, a shitload of dishes, plant watering and spraying and placing in the sun.

i havent spoken to lina since about december but i want her to come stay here, for both of my out of town excursions. i should call her tonight. i asked joel but he wasnt down, and i was going to ask sue too but anita says her sister be in town till july 1 and that theyd wanna be hanging together with the mothership. theres noone i trust at work and i really would prefer someone actually physically here all the time, as opposed to anita just feeding the buggers, which she kindly did offer to do. i hope something comes up.

so i think that i will specifically be on playa del carmen. the time there is one hour back, and its currently 80 degrees. oh nelly. chantal and i were wondering where we pee. or shower. we dont know. too funny. what we do know is that we will create a new record for most pina coladas consumed.

and i just found two restaurants owned by a canadian couple that have vegetarian goods that are rumored to be kickass. and i want to swim with dolphins. and this mayan culture sounds intense. gonna be good learning.

ok im lost on that playa site. later skaters. manana, amigo.

=)

--oh oh la playa--
(orlando cabrera's batting song)

woopsie, i done missed a night. again. well what the fuck. its summer.

today started in about as good a way as a day can start. it might have been the best ever start of a day in recent history of the world.

my phone rang. it was chantal. she woke me up but i understood this: 'steph, im going to this wedding on a beach in cancun. everyone is staying in beachfront huts, and i got a two bed hut for me and a friend, but my friend cant make it. you should come. i'll see if i can use my frequent flyer points for your airfare. for a week.'

you can see how when i woke up i thought i had totally dreamed it. i didnt. check this shit out, yo. eventually i spoke to chantal and called united...the verdict is out on the frequent flyer point thing. the flight round trip would be like 1200 dollars, so theres no way i could afford it any other way. and even if she can pull it off with frequent flyer points, im not certain i could get the time off work.

but how in fuck could i turn that down? thats too incredible of an offer to decline. chantal rocks the fucking casbah. i think over the last ten years maybe ive seen her 7 times in total. this would give us the chance to hang for 7 days straight, and on a frickin beach and touring mayan ruins. its like the fucking price is right. and i dont have to kiss that bacteria laden wrinkly cheek.

i went out and picked up some stuff including diet rc cola. i think of pepsi and coke, rc is my favorite. its just so super cola-y. it wins. and i found out today that the rc stands for 'royal crown'. how cool. i had no idear.

when i got back, dr phil was on oprah. they were talking about losing weight, and how people get fat because they allow their lives to be set up in a way where weight gain is possible. this struck a chord in me because i think i have gained in the past months, and i know my eating pattern has been completely emotionally controlled...its rare that i eat purely out of hunger.

i tell myself that i used to smoke to signify the end of the meal, to send a message to my body that i was done, and now that ive quit...there is no mark to the end of the meal. but the truth is, i eat to fill the void in me. of loneliness, of boredom, of sadness. i chew it away. and i know it, but its really really hard to stop. what gets me to control my eating is mostly becoming addicted to working out...which i am not at the moment. if i am obsessively working out, i am way more careful. lately i am fully out of control.

well, no more. i am so gonna buy dr phil's book. i always think he is dead on with his directives. i am going to start going public with what i eat in a day. become accountable for it. face up to it. and i will do that here. here's today:

--falafel in a pita with hummous and tahini. side order of pickled beets.
--bag of light microwave popcorn
--slice of crappy plain pizza at the ballpark with 2/3 of the cheese ripped off
--the majority of a box of snackwell chocolate cookies. argh.

was totally out of control with those cookies, and its my own fault. i allowed them to be near me by buying them. buying them was the only way to eat them. i wont do that again.

if i were really coming clean id post my weight in here....but i dont know that im ready to do that. im VERY sensitive about body image and even though i own a scale (a cool pink 70s one) i dont think ive been on it since i got it last summer. but i have to state exactly how much i want to lose, and i can only do that if i know exactly how much i weigh. maybe i'll weigh myself tomorrow. yes, tomorrow.

sorry to play weight watchers in here, but its my journal and if i can use it to benefit me im gonna. hello food diary. the more i out myself with the bad habit of overeating and eating unhealthily, the more i have to face up to it...and thats good. i'll behave my way to success. dr phil, you are the shit.

i see dr phil is getting his own show. someone gonna have to be taping that shit up for me on a regular basis.

after that it was off to the ball game. i got a very bad feeling when our starting pitcher left the game in the first inning after getting pegged in the arm with a hit. that is NOT good. sure enough within two innings it was 2-0 royals. i felt even worse when frank brought fucking pavano into the game. that fucking moron faced four batters: two of them hit doubles, and two of them he hit with pitches! i fucking lost my voice screaming at him. 'SIT DOWN PAVANO' 'PACK YOUR BAGS PAVANO' 'PAVANO....EARLY RETIREMENT IN OTTAWA' etc. he brought the score to 4-1 royals. he SUCKS and i wanted to kill robinson for bringing him in.

long story short, after pavano the expos pitching was downright killer. 2 hits, 9 strikeouts....good stuff. and we won, yet another comeback victory for the spos, yet another very happy stephanie, five game winning streak...and the braves lost to boot (GO DETROIT!) so we gained on them and are all alone in second place. i fucking LIKE IT.

it was an active ball game to be in the crowd for. one of the royals took this lame swing and missed, and the bat went flying out of his hands into the stands. dangerous. everyone was fine though...and then the royal bat boy came to get it, and the ump was telling the guy to give it back. all 6000 of us started booing like crazy, and they let him keep it. fucking right. nearly took his head off.

then what should have been a double play by the expos turned into only one out because the runner from first went out of his baseline to fuck up vidro's throw. which he did, so the dude was safe at first base. frank came out and was giving the 2nd base ump all the shit in the world, pointing at the dirt around the base which was fucking total solid proof of the dirty running, and the crowd got behind him and was cheering and booing madly. it was great.

love that shit.

and i come home and know there is the one hour glory of THE MOLE sitting on my videotape, ready for me whenever i am ready for it. mama like.

mama go watch.

take it easy yo. wish me good beach karma. imagine that. im not even willing to really, so i dont get disappointed. but imagine that. i havent been on a tropical beach since....about ten years. unless you consider jones beach tropical. =) oh, to be by the ocean....

--hold on to the thread...the currents will shift--

i done been exhausted and have spent a very minimal time online these last few. this is a result of sleep deprivation and nothing else. friday night, in fact, i didnt sleep longer than twenty minutes. remember what i was saying about the telephone being crucial to my existence. fucking thing strikes again.

you gotta wonder about patterns. should one really put stock in them and try to gain lessons from them, or merely chalk them up to coincidence? is it life mocking you and testing you, or is it life showing you the way you are supposed to go? is that the question? and if so, if so...who answers? who answers? sometimes its hard to tell whether i should laugh or cry, or be surprised anymore.

but i am good. slow moving is new to me and im a doing it. skepticism and care are running the show. and most importantly: i just dont know. i dont know. i dont know.

yes folks, its the cryptic hour! sponsored by kraft dinner.

is that a rusty staub bobblehead in my bag, or am i just glad to see you? well.......its both! wooo! we got to the ballpark at about 10 after 12, and i jumped out of the car and got in the crowd lined up while dad parked the car. good thing i did...because i got me a bobble and dad didnt. so much for having two sets....i swear, there were some families walking around with like 8 of them and you just KNOW these kids are gonna go home wiht them and bust them into a billion pieces by sunset. i considered giving one or two the flying elbow and doin the ol grab and run...but then i remembered what a classy dame i is.

the game itself was fucking killer. first of all, our seats were the shit. they were row kk, so i figured that would be about 11th row. but the section started at JJ!! we were just beside the plate on the third base side and we could hear the ump talking to the platers and such. it rocked. i loved it. second, my brother showed up and my dad was totally surprised and a good time was had by all. my bro hasnt been to a game in 4 years and it was cool to be answering his questions like 'whats BB' (base on balls, a walk) or whatever. the guy ate FOUR pogos. FOUR. can you imagine?

javi fucked up the first inning. we were down 3-0 after the jays at bats. NOT good, and not what you want in your so called ace. so you can imagine the joy when our lead off batter smashed a home run to make it 3-1. but you cant imagine the joy when jose vidro smashed one two pitches later! back to back homers to start the game?? it was kickass. and we kept fighting back to win in the bottom of the ninth. mike mordecai, who drove in the winning run, jumped in the arms of brad wilkerson....we swept the blue jays and have won four straight. i LOVE when the players show their emotion. that was a MOMENT. it was awesome. great great game.

after it phil split and me and dad went to blockbuster and rented training day and the last castle, and went to his pad to order chinese food and chill out. i really really dug training day. denzel is such a kickass actor...there are some people i watch onscreen and never forget that they are tom cruise or whoever they happen to be. but denzel makes you believe he is who he is playing. great story twists and ethan hawke was real good too. im kind of iffy on the ending, but the lead up to it was quality enough so that it didnt really tarnish my opinion of the flick

the last castle was decent too....but a little heavy on the post sept 11th reverence of the american flag...just a tad obvious and over the top. but it starred robert redford, james gandolfini and an actor from general hospital. strange combo for a cast and it worked. i did fight sleep off twice during viewing, but bellies full of chinese and eyes with less than like 14 hours sleep for the last 4 nights combined will do that.

something i muchly approve of happened last night. i was trying to nap at about 10 30 at night. i was watching jerry maguire, a movie i bought at the street fair and my doorbell rang. i went down and it was the woman who lives with the two pricks right below me. the people i called the cops on. and she told me very nicely that they were having people over, 6 in the apartment in total, and that there would be some music and chatting. and i was like 'thanks so much for telling me'. she said she hoped i didnt have to work the next day and i didnt. but even if i did i wouldnt have cared. because for the first time since they moved in they have shown me some respect. it took me callin in the uzz-fay, but who cares. i was really pleased.

i dont think i talked about the street fair in here yet. it was cool, and my favorite part of it was the montrealite (pronounced montreal-e-tay) booth, selling montreal tshirts that only a montrealer would understand. i bought one of the orange julep and a waitress on roller skates, but when their website goes live i think i'll get the one that says:

taber
nac

on it. because it would be awesome to hear people read that shirt and say that word not knowing its a french canadian curse word. plus its just a good word to say in general. it was hard not to get the one of my angel that is from my home page....and one day i likely will. i just love my city and these tshirts are the shit. oh look! their website IS live. excellent.

if you go to the tshirt section of that site and put your mouse on the stop sign one....well, someone in this city made it their personal project to go around to stop signs and doctor them to say a r t like that. in french 'stop' translates to 'arret'. the person went around taping over the r and e and i loved it...i think that was last summer. thats a cool one too. i think the money goes to high school dropouts and trying to keep them in school....great art, great shirts, cool cause. me happy. and the one with the big orange is the one im wearing right now, in baby blue.

and if you click on the black and white staircase...well thats the looks of my neighborhood, although my outer staircase is just straight up, not a purty spiral number like that one. but you get the general idear.

me not so happy about the basil plant that i bought. it was big and healthy and bountiful...and in two days its suddenly completely finished. it just keeled over and croaked. i done got ripped. not so good.

it was super sweet to have a sunday off. and its super sweet to hear mr ed vedder singing on mr tom petty's 'american girl'. even when he is just fucking around and having fun and not trying to be moving with his vocal and rumored to be hammered his voice is the best instrument on the fucking planet. love love love. thats all i have on this topic.

in a rare and vulnerable moment, i am also going to send love to the boston red sox, whom i normally despise, loathe and smoulder in envy of. but today they smushed the atlanta braves, allowing for the expos and only the expos to gain in our division. every other team lost. gotta. love. that. and the kansas city royal losers are next in town. very very promising.

double quotes tonight.

--it was kind of cold outside
she stood alone on her balcony
she could the cars roll by
out on 441
like waves crashin' on the beach
and for one desperate moment there
she looked back in her memories
god it's so painful
something that's so close
and still so far out of reach

oh yeah, all right
take it easy baby
make it last all night
she was an american girl--

lordums. sure she wasnt canadian?

--got all these questions...who the fuck am i ever gonna ask?--