Ode to Joy - Trans-Siberian Orchestra Cover

Today feels like a good kind of day. I was up early to go out biking, and even though I got my ass kicked by Nicole (surprise, surprise), we still finished the course in 45 minutes - with her taking her sweet time waiting for me, while I laboured well in the back.

Saw a cute girl on the run as I was just thinking that I needed some kind of tangible sign that God didn't, in fact, hate me and want me to die using a cunning combination of slipping gears, hacking cough, back spasms and Hennigar's Hill. Well done, big Guy.

Sabres won in OT. Jays won in regulation. Argos signed Ricky. Raptors got the number one pick. Sweet Fanny Adams... if only the Leafs now do something right, it's going to look as if the Toronto sports scene won't, in fact, cause my blood pressure to rise again.

I had a banana. That's less exciting... but still. Mmmmm... bananananana.

EDIT: Eeeeewww... I just accidentally ate moldy bread. How the h*ll does bread go mouldy in the d*mn freezer?!

Jump - VanHalen

I'd always been fairly certain that a rhomboid was little more than some kind of shape that had significance and importance in, what, 2nd grade? And then once you'd learned that no one above the age of, oh, 12 has a clue what a rhomboid is anymore, I'd dismissed it as being superfluous knowledge and immediately replaced in with something much more vital - such as, say, the 3rd verse of "Barret's Privateers".

However, when she said "Jump" and then followed it up with "As high as you can" before concluding with "As many times as you can in 30 seconds" and "Oh - you may get a bit tired", I listened. And promptly sprained my rhomboid.

I must confess... I kind of just like saying rhomboid.

Regardless, with back to the wall - or at the very least, back towards me - I got as much exercise as my back would allow. Between tennis, hill climbs, walking, canoeing and even an intesne game of 20 Questions, I'm fairly stiff this morning. Legs and back are telling me that tonight will be filled with hardcore baseball watching and pork chop cutting.

Oh. And SSS died a quick and painless death. Go ahead: be surprised.

On a sidenote: Angela, Leah - You're both meanies. Colin, you're spared by lack of knowledge.

Walking on Broken Glass - Annie Lennox

Glass - which can be extraordinarily pretty to begin with - after spending a bunch of time in the water, becomes smooth, rounded and soft.

And like anything else that's pretty, you're left being very careful with it. There's conflicting feelings. You don't want to damage it, no matter how much you may want to take it. But you know that you're clumsy, and liable to drop it and watch it shatter into a thousand pieces.

Yet you pick up the glass, look at it, turn it over in your hands, feel how smooth it is and enjoy it. You keep it, because you can get lost looking into it. You know that you don't really want to leave it behind.

Amazing what you can find on a beach, or by the water.

If You Could Read My Mind - Gordon Lightfoot

Once again, I've decided to revert back into my code-type ways. Why, you may ask? HAH! It's in code, so you have to figure it out that way! Mwa ha ha ha!!

In any case. I've taken this random diagram of a human brain, and decided that I'd like to study it. It is, of course, late, so Im going to be plagued by fatigue a little bit, but that shouldn't stop me from attempting to apply it as necessary.

What we have, in the best kin terms, is an intermingling of green and red patches in the cortex nebula nervous system dealy. If we take the green to represent good ideas, and the red to represent bad ideas, we find that most of the 'bad' - or as I like to call it 'thought demons' - are located at the front of the brain. I think. It could be the back. Thus, I've decided that means that all bad decisions have already occured. That yellow bit is 'neutral decisions'. I don't like them, so they're being ignored.

Ergo - we've now moved into the 'Senate' function of the brain diagram - the sober second thought, which is telling me that if all I do is what I want to do, and don't stick by statements that you no longer agree with, even if you made them only days ago, then I should stay in the green.

Woohoo for Reading that one right.

You Learn - Alanis Morisette

Time for me to finally learn something I should have learned a long, long time ago.

Just Go with the Flow.

Rivers

The Remedy - Jason Mraz

Well... the cure is actually an awful lot of sleep, three people who are surreal at listening and avoiding any and all drugs, up to and including caffiene, alcohol and morphine. Instead, a couple of pots of Kraft Dinner, so much squash that muscles scream and setting up a trip to Newfoundland and a visit from a friend from New Brunswick makes me feel a little happier.

Ange and Colin have been, surprise surprise, instrumental in me not doing something incredibly stupid - well... stupider than a rain-soaked 18km bike ride, anyways.

In short... for the first time in what seems like forever, but in actuality is basically one year (almost to the day), I'm single.

My dear God... could the SSS actually be the way to go? Could Colin have actually been right, again?! He still owes me a drink though.

One interesting side effect of not carrying a specific torch for someone is that my code - that I love and so labouriously fret over - is gone. I'm just speaking plain English. How bizzare.

Man... these blogs are so bloody narcissitic. Or however you spell it.

Blinded by Rainbows - The Rolling Stones

The song starts "Have you ever felt the pain... that he felt upon the cross?"

This picture shows a drop of water falling. Behind the drop, drops, however many, there's a rainbow. It's a gorgeous rainbow, soft and pale, and it's a rainbow that meant more to me than even I thought. It's a rainbow that I long to touch, a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end that I literally held for such a brief period of time, a rainbow that I followed to the end as best as I could. What makes it harder to look at is that it's a rainbow that washed over stormy skies and happy ones, a rainbow that was over every hill and around every corner.

And I wish I could be mature and manly and hell, I wish I could stop crying right now, but GODS DAMMIT I wish the rainbow would either have been something I could hold on to or something that would have just vanished with the first glimpses of strong sunlight or dark clouds. It's unfair of me, perhaps, to demand so much of something so complex - such an exquisite blend of light and beauty. Something that brings both the paramount and detrimount of emotion. All a rainbow is, in essence, is droplets of water reflecting colours back to the eye. It's so pretty and mesmerizing that so often, people will stop whatever they're doing just to stare at it and sit in wonder and awe.

Skittles exhorts me to 'Taste the Rainbow'. Well - hey Skittles - what happens when you taste the rainbow and find that you like the taste more than anything you've ever tasted before? When you find that to have more of the rainbow you'd stare at the clouds... stare at the sky... stare at the ceiling just praying for more, even though you now know that it's a rainbow for a reason, and that sometimes, you just can't have what you want.

And no matter what... you know that you still want to chase that rainbow, because the pot of gold is just so alluring, so tempting, but so out of reach.

What do you do when you have rainbows that sparkle out from behind your own eyes, blinded by tears and blinded by rainbows? And how do you be a big enough person to still, honestly, want to do whatever you can to make that rainbow shine even brighter, when with every ounce of your being you feel like you just can't overcome it?

Im breaking out of my life of metaphors for just one paragraph: if you know that someone has loved you, adored you, dreamed about you for years, why would you dangle something in front of them that they can't have, only to jerk it back once they've just gotten a taste? Am I selfish for thinking that? Maybe. But it was 4:45am when I started writing this and it's almost 6:00am now, and if I've ever taken an hour fifteen to write this little before, I don't know when.

Don't Phunk with My Heart - Black Eyed Peas

Rivers is a little cross today.

Let's say that you're this poor bastard - alone, on the bench, in a no-name arena playing for a no-name team. But you have the dream that one day you're going to be called up to the NHL to play. We're going to give our player a name - he's Kris Fleuves. Now Kris is currently playing outside of the big leagues - he's in some kind of semi-pro league in Scotland.

However - one of his favourite NHL teams owns his rights, which means they can bring him up, if they so choose and he signs a contract. So here's how his life with this team - we're going to call them the Colorado Avalanche - goes. Let's start at the beginning.

In his first year playing for the Berlin IceBears, he's happy with his life. He has a comfortable place to live, enjoys the team and the coach. It's not perfect, but it's a happy life. The Avalanche draft him in the 2nd round and force him to make a decision: he can either leave to play with the team for one or two games, but jeopardize his career with the IceBears. He's tempted to leave for Colorado, but in the end, his teammate convinces him to stay with the foreign league team. He does.

Life continues on for another year or so, but Fleuves is finding that Berlin just isn't doing it for him. He quits the team. Colorado once again comes calling, but the agent they send is only after his physical skills, and despite hinting at contract negotiation, again Fleuves leaves with a bad taste in his mouth, and re-joins the IceBears. However, shortly after, Berlin ends up trading him. Kris, hurt and stung, leaves the Deutch Eishockey League and tries to start again with the Scotland Nessies.

Finally, he's given his chance. After spending the off-season plying his trade for the Gold Coast Barons of the Australian Hockey League, Fleuves recieves a very clear sign from Colorado that they're interested in having him join the team. Kris goes, tries out at an early-season event and thinks things are going well. With plans to meet again for another tryout, Flevues is pretty happy. However, then Colorado - AGAIN - walks away, and refuses to talk any type of a deal - be it short-term or long-term.

Fleuves, still with the Nessies, has a tumultous season. He scores a lot, but ultimately realizes that he's not happy until he gets his chance. So he takes a huge risk and leaves his relatively stable and content life with the Nessies and devotes his attention to playing for Colorado. At first, it seems to go well - he scores three times in their opening game, and then spends the next day talking things over with team management. They promise to come by soon and get to know Kris a bit better.

A week passes. No sign from Colorado. Fleuves travels to the team headquarters, travels with the team to road games, does everything in his power to at least get a sign out of management if they play on drafting him or not - but recieves nothing. Other than a 'We may call you later' message and misdirections from the GM's secretary.

Kris Fleuves is left with a decision: should he be patient, and keep hoping and waiting for his chance in the big-time? Or should he cut his losses, and either return to the minor league circuits or attempt to get a contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs?

He doesn't know. He's trying to Hold Fast, but his grip is slipping.

I am a Rock - Simon and Garfunkel

This, really, is the ultimate goal - only without the bizzaro white strappy underwear thing. Who wears that, really? I suppose with abs like that, he can wear whatever he wants. Admittedly... I wear whatever I want as well, but I only do so when I'm wearing ear-plugs as an accessory. I can only hear so many snide comments about my unique taste in colour blending.

Regardless. This summer, short of finishing my thesis and exploring and discovering Norway, I hope to actually develop and maintain a healthier lifestyle. Food, exercise, sleep patterns, emotions... the whole 9 yards.

Incidentally - the whole 9 yards as a saying comes from the military, when airplane mounted guns shot chains of bullets 9 yards long. Thus, to give an enemy craft the whole 9 yards was to shoot the ever-loving heck out of it, or 'give it your all'. The more you know...

Back on topic. Such exertions have included 130+ kilometers on my bike so far, a new regimen of squash games, and meals such as tonight's lightly braised pork served over a bed of mushrooms and green peppers with tomato sauce. Can you taste the healthy? For my 'late-night snack' I had apple juice and halved pears. In light syrup. The last time that I spent this much time preparing and thinking about health was when I was 2 months old and sleep and food were ALL that existed on my mind.

The long and the short of it is that right now, I've got the energy level of a dead molerat in winter. When do I start to get the benefits? When I'm 50? If this continues than maybe it won't matter that I'm still facing a couple of red flashing zeroes (Norway, thesis) because I won't have the gumption to make strides even if I could.

Hungry - Paul Revere and the Raiders

For the first time, really, since I moved off campus I decided to do something somewhat gourmet of my own. While dessert at the BBQ only whetted my appetite, and then the chicken guacamole wraps and asparagus, not to mention the chicken and veggies with cheese sauce from Shannon were amazing, they all shared one thing in common: it was because of someone else that I was happy and content, with my appetite temporarily satisfied.

Today - ohhh baby. Different story. I had a leftover red pepper that I decided to break my toaster oven in on. Rosated red peppers with terriyaki noodes, including carrot slivers, was amazzzzing. It's one thing to be at Meal Hall and have them slice, dice and serve it up nice - but to actually be moving and cooking in a kitchen again is enjoyable.

Now I just have to see how many of the recipes from Jester's I can remember... the short answer, I'm afraid, is few. Hopefully, though, patience will bring stuff back to me, and this time - by writing it down, perhaps - I'll actually be able to keep it within easy reach, not just in a happy little corner of my memory.

Now... what to have for dinner? And dessert?

Help! - The Beatles

Is this blatant theftery of an image from someone else's page? Of course it is!! But hey, as long as I cite (Ezmy) I should be legal - by the rules of the ever-incredible academic world.

So what, I hear you ask (if I listen REALLY hard to the voices in my head), could someone as amazingly charming, witty and gorgeous as I have to be freaking out over?

The same damn things as usual.

I biked 18km in the pouring rain last night, only to realize at around the 16km mark it was a really bad idea - and at that point I was already so heavily invested in the ride, you can't really call it quits. Then, as per usual, I went to the market this morning. Hung out with the tofudabeasts... and it was good, but strained. Again.

Two thoughts: One) Why can't I let well enough alone? Two) Conversely, what the hell do I need to do?!

So as Lennon said... "Help!"

Norwegian Wood - The Beatles

Time to start up a new and exciting blog. Admittedly, my old one at livejournal was pretty fun, but I decided that I just didn't like the layout options there as much. Now - really - are people going to read these things? I highly doubt it. Could I be wrong? Well - I was last time. So I may as well get rolling by just re-posting an old message from previous blog, but one that still applies and - if anything - has become more appropriate.

I've found myself sitting and waiting by the phone an awful lot lately as well. As Matt commented - I'm a teenaged girl. I'm relatively familiar with this already... but that doesn't make it any less exciting.

----------------From May 15th, 2006 ------------------

Here I go again, listening to songs and watching them apply to my life or take on new meaning.

BBQ Stain - Tim McGraw: The BBQ on Saturday went over very well, with all kinds of spectacular desserts - though, as usual, I just enjoyed having more of the main course.

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) - The Beatles: Norway isn't really known for an awful lot, in terms of what they've contributed. Vikings, the biathalon (thanks Robin Williams) and little cookies - though those MIGHT be Danish. Could be both. In any case, Norway's spies and songs are amazing, and while there was no 'sleeping in the tub', as the Beatles suggested, Lennon was still right on.

Stand Out - Powerline: A fake song, somewhat, but I was right - It wasn't a question of if, just a matter of time.

So Happy Together - The Turtles: No matter how the dice were tossed, it had to be. It just took its sweet country time.

Three Times a Lady - Lionel Richie: Since its Lionel, I have no idea what the lyircs mean. But the song title caught my eye.

However... as Colin said, one has to hope that its not The Little Old Lady from Pasadena (Beach Boys) just giving me a good race.