No sleep for the wicked

Guess what time I finally got to sleep last night? 4:00am! It's a perversion of all that is good and pure.

After posting that palpably bitter blog entry last night, something unexpected and delightful happened. I made poo. I had already made an excellent poo earlier that day while I was at work. I had attributed the work-poo to the orange I consumed the night before while Luke and Cathy were over watching Battlestar Galactica. The poo was firm, plentiful, and pleasing. But hark, the twitching sphincter sings! So I grabbed a book (Watermelon by Marian Keyes), and made yet another firm, plentiful, and pleasing poo. That must have been one hell of an orange.

My book was really good. And seeing as I was wide awake, I sat down on the couch and read for a little while. I ended up reading the whole book. I was so not tired! By the time Claire had ended up with the right guy and was proceeding to live happily ever after, I was realizing that it was 3:45am. This was an ugly moment. I still wasn't tired, but I knew I needed to wake up in about 3 hours, and that the least I could do was try to get some rest.

I turned out the lights, climbed into bed. Still wide awake. Couldn't sleep.

Eric was asleep...but The Boss was awake, if you get my meaning. So I got The Boss to make Eric wake up and do the sex with me. It was rather excellent. The Boss outdid himself this time. The result being that I passed out completely afterwards and got in a 3 hour nap before having to get up and go to work.

Eric, on the other hand was wide awake and couldn't get back to sleep until 6:30am...and then the alarm went off half an hour later. I do feel bad for him. We both woke up groggy and upset and despairing and walking into things. He seems to be in quite a good mood though, and I'm too tired to be really bitchy about much of anything. So this was possibly a good thing. Though I doubt it.

I will end with a sleepy poo haiku. A haipoo, if you will.

Sweet slumber denied
Restless wand'ring - who's that there?
Welcome poo, my friend.

Miles to go

It's 11:30pm, and I can't sleep. I feel helpless and frustrated and like all of tomorrow will be ruined. Time was when 11:30pm was laughably early, and the party wasn't due to begin for at least another hour.

Okay, I exaggerate, I was never that cool.

But I got into bed TWO HOURS ago, and I am still awake. Awake and bitter.

I don't deserve this. I had determined today at work that I would go to the gym, no excuses. I was pumped, I felt fat, I needed to DO something about it! I got home, changed into soft formless comfy clothes, and waited for Eric. I read my book. Slowly, my energy faded. I became over-content on the couch. I didn't really want to get up to go anywhere, especially not the gym.

Eric got home at around 5:00pm, saw that I was content with my book on the couch and wisely left me alone. He made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and we ate our snacks together. Then I snuggled into his arms on the couch and drifted off to sleep.

I woke up a half hour later with a mild headache and a definite grumpy feeling not to go to the gym, and I said so. Eric agreed lovingly, and suggested we go for a nice walk instead. Seeing as he had agreed so lovingly, and I had already reneged on my plans, I also agreed lovingly, and went to change my clothes. I put on my bra, zipped up my jeans, and went to brush my hair while I decided what top to wear.

I looked in the mirror. This was my undoing. My torso looked like a plastic bag full of water with a goldfish in it, except there was no goldfish. I moved experimentally, and just like the bag of water, there was a slight delay, and then disturbed jiggling. It was so so depressing.

So long tormented story short, I quickly made up my mind to go to the gym, and even had a disgusting orange protein shake. I worked out quickly and efficiently, and actually did a good job killing my triceps. Then I picked up an aerobics class schedule and decided to go completely OCD crazy about going to the gym, and committing to developing one of those adrenaline addictions I'd heard about, where you keep going to the gym to get that rush. Or is it endorphins? I don't know, it's 11:30pm and all I know is that I was completely ripped off of a perfectly planned and well-deserved good night's sleep.

I want to eat a steak.

Sick beyond reckoning

I had a shower last night around 10:00pm, during the Amazing Race. I shampooed, I conditioned, I face-washed, I bodywashed, scrubby scrubby scrubby. I even ran the razor down my my legs and underarm stubble. I was fresh as a daisy, shiny and new, like a virgin with a waxed yoohoo.

I sat on the couch, wearing my white comfy bathrobe, with my hair wrapped up in a white comfy bathtowel. Hubby went to have a shower also.

When he returned, we sat on the couch together and watched the Amazing Race, both of us fresh as daisies, shiny and new, like virgins.

Then something seized my attention. "What's that smell?!" I wondered.

My first horrified and doubting thought was "...is that my yoohoo?" But this smelled NOTHING like ANYBODY'S yoohoo might be expected to smell. Plus, I just don't have issues like that with my yoohoo. It was like moldy cheese that had been consumed along with feces, and then vomitted back up where some FRESH moldy cheese had been added in, and left to waft in the wind.

I was tired. I thought that maybe I was imagining it. Those antibiotics were probably just screwing with my senses. But that smell, that disgusting wet putrid smell, kept on gently ebbing and flowing back and forth in front of my nostrils. I shifted my weight, and moved around my robe, to see if a stronger waft would come out at me, indicating that there was something terribly wrong with my body. No such indication.

I finally glanced over at Eric during a commercial break, nervous that he had smelled it too, and thought it was my yoohoo. What did I see??

HE HAD HIS FINGERS BURIED IN HIS TOES, DIGGING OUT TOE-PASTE!

I gaped at him in horror. "Is that smell coming from you?!!!" I shrieked.

His jaw dropped, he gaped back in horror. "You can smell it?!!?!!" he gasped.

He jumped to his (clearly rotting) feet and ran away. I sat immobilized on the couch, wanting to die. He started babbling... "Oh my god, I'm sorry. It smells SO BAD!! I peeled off my toenail and I held it up to my nose - like this! And it was SO DISGUSTING! But I didn't think you would be able to smell it!!"

I screamed back about how I could totally smell it for the past 15 minutes. And he went on to reiterate how he had been basking in the raunchyness, secure in the delusion that I couldn't smell what he was smelling. I screamed back that I had been sitting two feet away from him. And he demonstrated several times by holding the offending estranged toenail up to his nose "I sniffed it - like this! And it was SO GROSS!" And I screamed back at him to STOP DOING THAT.

He then sat down in the hallway in his underwear with a pair of clippers and a paper towel, and he removed several small piles of black toe-paste from under his toenails. Then he clipped his nails extremely short, and got back in the shower - under protest - to wash his feet again.

This confirms all theories - boys are disgusting, they have germs, and they smell.

I will end with a despairing haiku.

I was fresh and clean
Then his foot stench raped my soul
Why me? Why me? Why?

I am Carol Chan

I haven't changed my name yet. I had totally planned on taking Eric's name after we got married, because Carol Chan is very very common. Have you ever Googled Carol Chan? None of these people are me. Neither are these.

My Chinese name is also very common - Wei-Yee. Again, none of these people are me. And since "Chan" is the Chinese equivalent of "Jones" in terms of common-ness, my name is basically the Chinese version of Jane Jones, only I don't look anything like Angelina Jolie.

But somehow, I'm now in no rush to change my name.

Carol Johnston sounds pretty good to me. My issue is whether to let go of "Chan" completely. Because my middle name will still be "Wei-Yee". So I'll be "Carol Wei-Yee Johnston". Which isn't bad...just a little unexpected.

Maybe I'll incorporate "Chan" into my middle name. Like:
First name: Carol
Middle name: Wei-Yee Chan
Surname: Johnston

Or, because in Chinese the surname comes first...

First name: Carol
Middle name: Chan Wei-Yee
Surname: Johnston

Carol Wei-Yee Chan Johnston
Carol Chan Wei-Yee Johnston

Princess Consuela Bananahammock.

Hahaha! Oh, Phoebe.

Then there's always the idea of changing BOTH our names to a hybrid name - Chanston. But I'm not that progressive, and I don't even like the way it sounds. So nix that.

And just today, I got an idea that I can change my name to Johnston completely, and then get the Chinese character for Chan tattooed somewhere on my body. Eric loves tattoos, so he loves that idea. I'm a little worried that like the other Chans in my family, the tattoo will stretch out with age and develop a double chin.

What should I do??

I will end with a pensive haiku.

What's in a surname?
Desperately, I cling to mine
Am I a Bad Wife?

LOTR makes me covetous

Last night we watched Lord of the Rings - Return of the King the extended edition on dvd.

I wish I had:

• Anduril, forged from the shards of Elendil's sword, Narsil
• An Army of the Dead
• A prophecy fortelling that I will be killed by no man
• A choice between the immortality of the elves and the mortality of men
• A Mithril shirt
• A Phial of Galadriel, containing the light of Earendil, so that I can strike fear into the hearts of the Enemy's servants
• An all-seeing Eye
• Legolas sex-slaves
• Aragorn sex-slaves
• Eomer sex-slaves
• Faramir sex-slaves
• ....Eowyn sex-slaves

I wonder if:

• Aragorn and Arwen ever had a big fight after they got married, and whether she threw in his face the fact that she had given up the Immortality of the Elves for him
• The men ever actually did sexual things to each other - they really act gay
• Frodo lived in seething shame for the rest of his life because he couldn't actually throw the ring into the fire
• Frodo ever got an infection from where Gollum bit his finger. I got an infection on my finger, I think he would have too - Gollum was way dirtier than my cleaver was.

We have gained 55 pounds since the wedding

I'm totally not kidding. This is 10lbs additional weight each since November. It's so sad, I can't even describe it. We bought a scale not long ago, and were horrified at the results. Practically nothing I own fits me properly anymore, it all rides up because my bodyfat is pulsing and undulating and pushing the material where it ought not to go. I've been joking around about my weight gain, but the truth is that I've basked in a fair amount of denial. This scale has thrown reality right up my ass, and it hurts.

Eric is also very sad. He begged me not to post this news on the blog, but I feel it would be dishonest not to. Lying by ommision. His favourite Mexx pants don't button up anymore, and he has taken to hiking his shirt up over his "belly" and pushing his abdomen out. Then he walks around the condo stroking the mound he has created. The sick thing with Eric is that he actually gains weight quite gracefully, and he carries it well, and still looks sexy. I look like a little Chinese girl gone horribly wrong. In any case, a sense of guilt and regret hangs in the air as we eat biscuits and play videogames.

When I saw my mother two days ago, she pat my tummy and told me I'm a bad and naughty girl for getting fat. She's trying to shame me into losing weight. Then she said that after I get well from my sinus infection, I have to commit to a program and lose weight, and implied that if I don't, she won't love me anymore.

In an aggressive move yesterday, I did a pilates video for my abs. I'm getting the hell rid of this fat! Booyah!!

In other news, I made chocolate-buttercream-filled vanilla cupcakes last night.

I can't taste anything

Being sick isn't cool, and I'm not SUPER sick or anything. Just sick enough to prevent me from doing anything fun for fear of making it worse. My fever has finally subsided, and I finally got some antibiotics, but my plugged sinuses still haven't opened up. As a result, I can't really smell anything, I can't really hear anything, and I can't really taste anything. I'm basically relying on sight and touch alone.

The best way to describe my sense of taste at the moment is that while I can't taste the food, I can feel the taste of the food. So for example, right now I'm eating an orange and I'm feeling the juicyness, and I can feel my mouth reacting to the tangyness by salivating out of my cheeks, and plus I can actually taste a hint of orange. So it's like a muted taste experience.

This altered sensory state makes me nervous, because of Eric and food. When I was growing up, my mother loved to throw things out of the fridge. It was one of her favourite hobbies. We would have leftovers that were two days old, and she would gleefully toss them. I'm sure I never came within 10 feet of spoiled food even once while I was living under my mother's roof. One time I bought a small jar of mayonnaise and used it once, like just a little bit off the top. The following week my mother took it out and said (in Chinese) "Can I throw this out yet? I think it's gone bad." The woman is crazy.

In contrast, Eric once bought a giant package of ground beef from Costco. He put it in his refrigerator, and then the next day, the refrigerator broke. Their landlord didn't get it fixed for like a week. Eric desperately divided the giant package of rotting meat anyway, and put it in the freezer. Then about 5 months later, he brought the frozen rancid meat over to my house and asked me to make spaghetti and meatsauce with it. I defrosted it, and it totally stank, and felt really slimy. I told Eric we couldn't use it, it was horribly bad, and he insisted that we try, and that maybe the sauce and spices would cover it up. I enlisted my housemate Gloria's help, and we ganged up on him and threw it away. Then he got upset that it had gone to waste. The man is also crazy.

I'm kind of afraid that he will feed me something rotten, and I won't notice because I can't really taste anything. He bought some sandwich meat early last week, and we still have it. He says it's still good, but sandwich meat totally sketches me out. I think that you need to use it well within a week, otherwise you'll get a tummyache. He has also kind of touched it all over and taken it out of the deli packaging and put it in a Ziploc bag. I don't know why. But yesterday, when I realized we didn't have leftovers for lunch today, he suggested that we have sandwiches with the sandwich meat. I gently refused, and so today I have turkey kielbassa sausage slices and crackers. He also packed me some cheese, but I totally can't taste the cheese. I can sense the saltiness of the kielbassa in my mouth though, which is cool.

Yesterday, we got new groceries, and I cleaned out the fridge semi-Mom-style. So I should be okay. But if I get food poisoning, you'll know why.

I will end with a haiku.

Senses on their backs
Clumsy, fumbling with my tongue
That sounded like porn

I Hate Public Transit So Much

I've been taking the subway every day to training this week. I go from Bayview/Sheppard to Yonge/Bloor. That's one subway switch, and thousands of stinky people! Stinky people!

People you see on the subway are significantly more pungent than people you see elsewhere. The subway is an underground festering cesspool of filth and bacteria, writhing, breeding, oozing. I hate the subway more than most things.

Here are the two most scarring experiences I had on the subway with stinky people this week:

1) One morning, I got on the Yonge subway for the "long" stretch of my journey, and grasp one of the metal bars. Somehow, I got stuck in the middle of a circle of young men, all speaking a language I couldn't identify. I caught the words "Espana" and "Italia" here and there. I don't know what they were talking about, but I know that they stood very close to me, in a ring. And I know that they laughed a lot in ways that suggested there was a lot of moisture escaping their mouths and seeping into my hair. Like "HHaa HHaa HHaa" and "Chhhee Chhhee Chhhee". And their odours combined gave off a musky spicy sweaty aroma. After they left, I felt oily.

2) I got off training at 3:00pm today, and was excited as this meant that there would be fewer people about, and I would likely get a seat for the subway ride home. I did indeed get a seat for the ride home. Next to an old man who looked clean at first glance, but in fact smelled like sausages. I don't know if this means he burped, and his breath smelled like sausages, or whether he's a sausage chef and his clothes smelled like sausages, or whether he simply had freshly grilled sausages in his pocket. But I was horrified, and at the same time reluctant to give up my hard-earned seat. I should point out that I actually love the smell of sausages. But I don't expect the source of the smell of sausages to be an old man on the subway at 3:00pm. After he left, I once again felt oily. I just got home and had a hot shower.

I ate Manchu Wok today, and it was disgustingly delicious.

Sleeping with Eric

Hahahaha...did you think I was going to post something about doing the sex with Eric? You're silly. Silly and WRONG!

Our new bed arrived yesterday! We ordered a Sealy Posturpedic KING SIZE bed last week from Sleep Country Canada, and two rather clean delivery men brought it yesterday. It was complete heaven. I never once had to touch Eric at all during the night. Even if I had wanted to, I would have had to skootch over really far! I'm content with staying on my side.

The issue of getting a new bed came up several weeks ago when Eric had trouble sleeping for two nights in a row. The problem wasn't so much that he was having trouble sleeping, it was more how he chose to deal with it. He decided that a good way to try and induce sleep was to launch himself into the air, perform a quarter-turn, and land on another side of his body. Continuously. Eric is not a fat man by any means, but he is also not a skinny waif man. His muscular form came crashing down, limbs flailing on our small double bed over and over again until I started screaming profanitities. The honeymoon was officially over. The sexy and intimate novelty of sleeping close together on a double bed had finally worn off. We decided we needed the largest bed our room could accomodate.

We ended up with this king size monstrosity, and our room is basically just one huge bed. It's good times. I highly recommend king size beds to all people. My cousin Loy (who doesn't currently suck, by the way) and his wife actually went one step further and got separate duvets for their king size bed, so they don't even have to share blankets. We'll have to see if we need to do that too...I kind of think no, but it's definitely something to keep in mind.

In other news, I dined at Sukiyaki for lunch today, and nothing tasted like socks.

I will end with a pre-meditated haiku:

Posturpedic bed
UniCased and flexible
You! Stay on your side.

Grossest soup ever

I've always thought it was difficult to screw up soup. There are certainly soups I don't like (cream of mushroom, anything with cheese melted in, etc), but I'm sure other people enjoy them.

I'm on training this week. I'm downtown at Yonge and Bloor in the SAP Training Centre. I've been here before, and SAP training courses have a few perks:

• Free drinks and free snacks
• Lipton Cup-a-Soup in the student lounge
• Free lunch

We get vouchers for lunch down at the food court, and we can use the vouchers at:

• Sukiyaki
• Mr. Souvlaki
• Manchu Wok
• Druxy's
• Lemon Grass
• Soup It Up
• Bacaro's Italian Eatery
• Roasty Jack's

Yesterday I went to Lemon Grass, and I got a great thai chicken with rice thing, with shrimp spring rolls. The shrimp spring rolls were lame. But otherwise, it was a tasty choice. Today, I opted for Soup It Up. I got clam chowder and an egg salad sandwich. Sandwich was excellent. Soup was horrible. Really horrible. Eating it gave me the feeling of the smell of sweaty socks steeped in half and half cream. It was gross to the max. I didn't even try to finish it. Instead I came back up to the student lounge and I made myself a nice packet of Lipton Cup-a-Soup.

Class is about to start again. Better go. I will end with a spontaneous haiku.

Soup It Up is gross
Slurp the poison down your throat
Taste the sweaty bile