I miss Harry. I mean, it's only been about 24 hours since I laid hands on The Deathly Hallows and It's already been ages since I finished reading the darn thing and I subsequently already miss Harry. Desperately. It's awful.

In other news, it's been well over a week since my birthday, so I thought it was time to take down the flash animation. Gave you a laugh, though, didn't it?

I finally got to watching Weeds this week. What a funny show. I'm biased of course, because when I was growing up I got weirdly into Fried Green Tomatoes, and by extension (which is another way of saying subsequently, which I already said) Mary Louise Parker, but it's still objectively a good show. Still following me? Impressive of you.

The bowling party was okay. Fairly small, seeing as how I have few good friends in this city any more, but okay nonetheless. I sucked though. Barely broke 100. Once. Mind you, I think my sister threw a 35 over the course of a full game, so by comparison I did okay. Spent my actual birthday cooking dinner for my family, which probably seems weird, but I like cooking. Plus, it was the only way to really ensure I got the dinner I wanted. My family is weird. And when I say weird, I mean deaf.

I miss Harry.
Jen

Today is my birthday. I'm just sayin'.

There are a lot of things I need to stop doing. Fidgiting, for example. I need to quit that. And watching scary movies. I gotta quit that shit too.

I hide it pretty well, but I’m REALLY bad with scary movies. Scary TV shows and books, too. I’ve always been this way. Want to hear some illuminating examples? Oh, you’re gonna!

First, and maybe mostly significantly, when I was about seven my parents rented Nightmare on Elm Street. (It’s the one where the girl has the centipede in her mouth and Johnny Depp gets sucked into the bed and his blood shoots up in geyser form toward the ceiling, remember?) I had nightmares about that movie for YEARS. Like, more than ten years. Like, if I’m really being honest, I still have them every once in awhile. Even seeing it again in high school, and noticing how NOT scary it is didn’t really help. Once you’ve developed this kind of mental problem, it’s hard to shake, I guess.

Now, you’d think this would teach me that me and the Scary Scary aren’t really meant to be bosom buddies, but no. I was such a weird kid. I’d actually hang around at the corner store looking at the VHS rental boxes for movies like Halloween and Children of the Corn and just the boxes themselves were really upsetting for me – even of the cheesiest of cheesy ‘80s movies –but I couldn’t stop reading them. I’d pick them up thinking I’d just look for a second and then I’d spend half an hour in the store, making myself crazy. Then I’d lie awake at night for HOURS, with the lights on, because of a 50 word blurb on the back of a movie box.

These are true stories, people. And they just get better.

When I was in high school I went on a cottage trip to a Muskoka island with my then-boyfriend and a bunch of kids from my class, and everybody wanted to watch Scream. I’d learned by this point that watching Scream was not going to be a good idea for me, but they insisted, convincing me that the movie was going to be “smart and funny” and “making fun of horror movies” etc. And I listened to everything my friends said when I was seventeen, so we watched. Or rather, THEY watched. I only made it through the Drew Barrymore first ten minutes before I had to leave the room. Long story short? My boyfriend had to stay awake with me ALL night reading aloud to me from an Enid Blyton novel, which was the least scary thing we could find in the cottage.

Books are probably the funniest things I’m scared of. When I was about nine, I took a Dracula book out of the library – a coffee table book featuring pictures from the Bella Lugosi movie – and the stupid, dated thing scared me so much I decided I couldn’t have it in near me. I tried hiding it under the bed, putting it in my closet (in the dirty clothes hamper), hiding it in my sister’s room… etc. Eventually, I discovered the basement freezer. Bad books, when shut up in the basement freezer, seemed somehow less menacing. I mean, I could have stopped reading them, right? That’s what you’re thinking. But NO. I went the more complicated basement freezer route.

Why? Because I’m obviously insane.

I can’t tell you what comes over me. MANY people have made fun of me about this over the years. I’ll be watching TV like a normal person, and I’ll flip past Jaws or Poltergeist or something, and I’ll KNOW it’s a bad idea to stop. But sometimes, I just do. And then I’m generally stuck watching ‘till the end, and lying awake until morning waiting for the ghost/ serial killer/Bones from Telefrancais to come and get me.

In part, it’s that seeing just a short glimpse of something, or reading just a scary little bit of something is often worse than knowing the whole story. Things working out in the end is a story-telling convention you can pretty much count on, and if you’ve seen or heard or read a bit of something upsetting, and you’re an easily-influenced lunatic (like me, apparently) it can be better to wait out the eventual happy ending than quitting at the worst possible time. Or that’s what I tell myself, anyway.

I write all this because it’s now almost FOUR O’CLOCK in the morning and I can’t sleep. I’m not going to tell you exactly what I watched to freak myself out this much because it’s way too embarrassing (and objectively not even scary) but nonetheless, here I am. And I have no basement, and therefore no basement freezer, so there’s pretty much nothing I can do but wait till morning.

I am such a dummy. You’d think natural selection would have picked me off by now.

Drrrrrr.
Jen

So here I am, doin’ the Toronto thing. It is SO WEIRD to be here. For one thing, everything is familiar, but in a really odd, “I totally forgot about that” kind of way. And I mean everything. My new apartment is really close to both The Green Room and Future Bakery, both so very high school. And then there’s the weather. It’s just like being a little kid again. Or a trapped teen. Whatever.

Some of this memory lane stuff is pretty fun, actually. Some, not so much. While living in Kingston and Vancouver, for example, I sort of relaxed about talking to strangers and panhandlers and the like. Before, when I lived here, I’d just ignore them. No eye contact, like they didn’t exist. But in Vancouver especially, I got used to talking to them a little. At the very least, answering their request for change with actual words, which seemed a lot more polite than the whole ‘they’re invisible’ thing. And I’ve sort of kept it up since I’ve been back. Alas, I’m learning that here, it really is better not to. Not to engage, I mean. It seems to elicit all sorts of unpleasantness. Major bummer, because it seems really rude to pretend that someone who’s just spoken to you doesn’t exist. Ah well.

Speaking of rude… what is with all the dirty dirty cat calling in the city? Seriously. It’s so disturbing. This morning, while out for a twenty minute coffee walk, I was harassed by no less than FOUR different men. That’s one for every five minutes I spent out in public! Three things to note about this disgusting phenomenon:

1) I was fully clothed in jeans and an oversized men’s Maple Leafs hoodie.
2) I’m pretty sure the excessive nature of the heckling is directly related to me being, as I always say, not quite white. (The pigs who were heckling me sure weren’t white.)
3) Ignoring them doesn’t seem to help, AT ALL. In fact, it seems to make it worse. The more I ignore them, the more they seem determined to force some sort of response.

What IS this? And why does it happen here and not in Vancouver? And not in Kingston? And what is happening inside these men’s heads that makes them think this kind of thing is okay? I mean, It’s funny in a Seinfed bit, but not in real life. And it makes me really mad too. Because WHY? WHY do these jerks think it’s okay for them to harass me (us, anyone)? It’s NOT flattering. It’s just creepy. Not to mention really unfair. Walking up Bloor today, a city worker (or so his reflective orange vest and truck implied) hissed something at me that was so vile I can’t even put it in here. Not even as a joke.

So… ew. Toronto, in this regard, is not very nice at all.

But enough complaining. Other things about the city are fun. Honest Ed’s, for example, is hilarious. I love it. (Poor old Ed. He just died, you know.) I’m also enjoying the fact that there is a library in my neighbourhood (not to mention a million coffee shops, grocery stores, drug stores, and subway entrances). I walked down to the UofT English department recently, and the hike isn’t bad at all. AND I hear the department is moving up to Bloor St., so come September, it’ll be even closer. Harry Potter mania is in full swing at the moment, which I LOVE. And hangin’ with the baby is also fun, though exhausting.

That’s it for now. It is three days till my birthday. I don’t need any presents, but if you’re seriously keen to get me something, here is a short list of things I need/would like:

• A cordless telephone.
• A french press.
• Wine glasses.
• Knives. (For chopping, not throwing.)
• Big prepared canvasses. (For painting.)
• A CD player/digital radio.

But seriously, what I want most of all is to hang out with you. (If I know you, I mean. You rando voyers shouldn’t expect a hang out.)

Later gators,
Jen

Moving sucks. Moving especially sucks when you're doing it totally alone, but I'm managing. Fear not. I'm sorry about the last post. It was so emo, wasn't it? Thank you to everyone who sent hilarious and cheering messages in response. Honestly, things are fine. I was reading over a few of my recent posts lately and I was struck by how often I wrote that things were "sad" or “hard”. Ignore me. I am silly. Things are fine.

Well, MOSTLY things are fine. One sad thing did happen. D called to say that 7 of our 9 fish died yesterday as a result of the heat. Isn’t that awful? Poor little mopers. And poor D. He was so broken up about it. He had to give them a burial at sea. Only George and The Ugly One survived. Monty, Bob, Bubbles, Bumbledore, Judge Wopner, Princess Fancy Pants and Anderson Cooper all kicked it.

R.I.P little fishies! Swim free!

So, that’s one legitimate sad thing. I’m sorry to even mention it, but it seemed significant, so even though I resolved to make this a positive party post, it looks like pet-powers had other plans. I just used a lot of words that start with “p”. Did you notice?

There's lots going on and lots to tell, but it'll have to wait. I’ve just been so busy buying furniture and getting screwed by Bell Mobility and trying desperately to control my hair. Ontario sort of smells (literally), but I’m hoping I’ll get used to it.

Love,
Jen

P.S. I’m going to the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition on the weekend. And tonight I’ve been invited to a Steers and Queers Party as well as Patio Thursday. So at least my social life is picking up.
P.P.S. My birthday is only two weeks away. Bowling/karaoke party? What do you think?