harm reduction chair

Remember when I wasn't ever busy and only worked like 20 hours a week and my only hobbies were blogging?

Is this the longest stretch of time I've ever gone without updating this? Possibly. I'm filled with good intentions of getting back into it. FILLED TO THE BRIM.

here's a video I made a couple of months ago that's good voice work on my part. YOU'RE WELCOME.

I made it in a few hours for the Second City training centre's weekly video competition based on the word "potato".

Hey, guess what! I left the country!
Yeah yeah for the very first time ever in my life I crossed the border into the united states. Hey today is the 4th of July. That's their day.




this is me at our first rest stop after crossing the border. I was pretty excited. Goddamn that's a long drive to NYC, hey? I don't know how some people do it super fast. Speeding, I guess. We did it long.

I have a new stranger roommate coming tomorrow. The last time a stranger moved in it was Yulie, so I have high hopes.
It's too hot to clean but I need to clean so badly. It's hard with everyone coming and going, but once this roommate is officially in we can start making it like a real proper home. HOPEFULLY!


Hey look, it's Sass aka Joey aka my old Toronto bud who is currently living in NYC. In this photo she is my boyfriend and we are in the secret garden of the air b n b my team stayed at.


my good-looking improv team and I did our show at 10:45 on Sunday morning. We had a small house (some of our buds came to our show. thank you, buds!) but did a solid set. I was actually really pleased with how we did. It was nice having a low-pressure time slot and a clock that was counting down our 30 minutes. I relaxed.

It's dumb how much my nerves and lack of self confidence ruin my life. Working working wooorking on it.


I feel like I'm getting better looking these days. I would say forsure it's because of my curling wand, my interest in dressing slightly better, and possibly how I've lost quite a bit of weight (though I get defensive on that point because I don't like the idea that one's weight dictates one's level of attractiveness).
But for sure the number one thing is how I'm less nervous of everyone. I'm just more happy in my own body and brain. That's a thing that's obvious and appealing, I think.


new (old) computer that I bought for $300 because I spilled tea into my macbook pro. I kind of love this guy, so far. And he doesn't feel too fancy for me!

work tonight and then rehearsal tomorrow and then we remount THE BOOK OF MORON my Second City conservatory graduation show.
I can't believe how much I've not written about on here. Upsetting.
Anyway, I'm done conservatory now and we HIT IT OUT OF THE PARK with our grad show. I'm very pleased with what I got in the show in the end (despite some rough patches in the process for suuure).
awhile ago I wrote a list of things I wanted for myself in the show:
-scene where I am an engaged and realistic actor
-scene that showcases how dynamic and energetic I can be
-scene where I get to play a big and playful character

I get to do all that and a bunch more. And I get to support some fuuuuucking hilarious performers in their work. What a process. What a time this has been.

Anyhow, if you're around tomorrow (July 5th) at 11 p.m. come to the Second City's mainstage and judge for yourself. You might as well, really!

If you don't follow me on twitter then you're missing out. That's what I do instead of blogging. I'm a big fan of twitter.

 This weekend is the first of COTTAGE of the 2 cottage weekends Dollface and I have planned for ourselves. I am very, very excited. I feel like I've earned all of the relax time I'm going to enjoy this weekend. Hahahahahaaaa earned.

typed on a new machine

I'm in a better mood!

uh ohhh uh oh I have a new computer that I'm in love with.
I'm learning how to edit videos! funnnnnnnn ohhh so fun oh so funn fun fun.

Also, I made some super good soup today. All I eat and like is soup.

I wanted cream of broccoli but not with cream because I've given up eating for new years. Just kidding, I'm eating sometimes.
But I want to eat less bad-for-me stuff and way less stuff and become super skinny like a model. Haaaaaa.
(the worst part about people on diets is all they ever do is talk about diets. it's because they're hungry!)

Anyway, soup is amazing because it's just cutting things up and putting them all in a pot and it's so easy to heat up later and is a one-pot meal.

I'm not one for instructions and measurements in my cooking really, but I'll tell you what I did for today's soup because it is VERY GOOD.

MOSTLY BROCCOLI SOUP

1 onion
all the broccoli you have (even the peeled cut stalks, obv.)
half a zucchini
some elderly mushrooms (haaa or any mushrooms)
2 potatoes
4 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup dry quinoa

lots of cumin
lots of italian seasoning mix
lots of salt
pepper
dried rosemary
(you can put whatever savory spices you have in here, pretty much! I did whatever I wanted at the moment.)
(also you can put other vegetables! I would have put peppers if I had any

cut up all the onion and put it in a big pot with a lot of butter (I don't know, 2 tbsp.?) and some olive oil and then cut every other vegetable up small-ish and put it all in there, too. It's good to kind of sautee the stuff, especially the mushrooms and potatoes maybe? it also doesn't really matter. that cooked for awhile I guess.
then I put the minced garlic in too and some water, like, enough water, ya know? Like so that it'll cook in the water. and then I put in all the spices and then I decided quinoa would be good so I put in the quinoa and more water and I then I just simmered it for awhile on very low. And then when everything was soft I put almost all of it in the blender. Fucking pureed that. But not all of it because I like a few chunks, but if you don't like chunks then blend everrrrrrything.

then cheddar cheese on top! Of course!

anyway.
WHY THIS SOUP IS SO GOOD.

it tastes like a good broccoli soup but has the added bonus of quinoa which is suuuper good for me. Also, the other vegetables give it a nice roundness, I think.

I'm so super tired! I keep staying up waaaay late for good reasons. Good reasons like important conversations or hanging out with the best buds.
Good reasons don't make me less tired right now!
Work tonight and then a couple days off, which should but nice and also filled with improv mostly. I'll never mind that.

ah, Henry, let's set the date already!

Ever wonder if I would be a deliciously good-looking bride?

Everyone fussing around me!

oh yeah, I for sure made like I was engaged while we were at the wedding show on Sunday. I went with Mrs. and her future step-mother-in-law and a couple of our other friends and I thought, "hey, this would be more fun if it were about me" 

HAHAA classic meredith. 

I made up a lot of things about my fiancé, Henry. By the end I was pretty sure he sounded nice enough and we'd be happy together. The best was when thinking about all this on the way over I said, "can he be British?" and Mrs. heard "can he be frigid?" so we decided he'd be both! 

He's also very particular, that Henry! 

Got into a conversation with a guy who runs a DJ service about how my DJ friends would insist on doing the music for my wedding. He was a good sport about it.
I just about registered my wedding registry with The Bay because they'd give me a travel mug! Overwhelming!

I tried to gather some ideas to bring back for Violet, who is actually engaged (congratulations!!!!), but mostly it was all really pretty gaudy stuff... 



I did think she needed these $1000 cakes though. ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS?? ARE PEOPLE INSANE?
(sooo pretty!)

I like the flower one on the far left. Oh really, I like flowers? It's funny because in real life I never even notice flowers but flower-prints? Aw yeah, all up in that.

It was a terrible, terrible day to be allergic to gluten. So many cake samples. I would have eaten that up to bits... Ugh.

We watched the bridal fashion show and my favourite was the swimsuit wedding gear! (ughgughhh)
also, the grossest, most revealing line was by "Shkank"! How fitting! It was so, so unappealingly sexy. And all of the dresses featured removable skirts and overlays and stuff, so you could get more naked throughout your special day!!

Aaaanyway, I'm very excited for Violet's wedding because I will live vicariously through her. I hope she has an expensive fancy wedding! I'd never have an expensive wedding!
They're lawyers!

I was thinking about how I have to MC Mrs. and Arrow's wedding and how the only things I like to talk about are:
a) babes
b) dirty jokes
and
c) bad words
and how Mrs. family is mostly made up of Ukrainian priests.....
yikes!
I'll have to learn how to be ladylike and couth in the next couple months, I guess!

Also, I bought a computer off ebay yesterday and I AM VERY NERVOUS.
Also, I am doing my passport application. So I can travel around forever whenever I want. (just kidding I have to stay here to work more to pay off my computer and christmas and all of that.)

Aw man, I love costumes. Let's make a movie where I play a bride so I can wear a wedding dress! Dress up! Dress up!
(Mrs. can I borrow your wedding dress later to wear in a movie? hahaa costumes)

GOOD WIFE TIME. bye dudes

(oh also, I've decided to lose a bunch of weight, dye my hair really red again, put together my demo reel and become a super successful actor.
or I may just have a baby and move to the country and have tangles in my hair all day. 
I'm going to figure out a way to do everything. Good thing I'm still a young guy. Or at least look like a young guy!)

I miss Yulie.

worn-out phrases and longing gazes won't get you where you want to go (no!)

Yeah okay, I made that dress yesterday. I thought it was going to be a skirt but then whoops it was a dress. I don't mind when things like that happen. Sewing without a pattern means usually everything ends up mangled as I am not a skilled seamstress in any way. I can't even explain to you how limited my skills are, I just bluff my way through it and make stuff up.


I am pleased with myself about it though.

I felt a bit like a (sexy) square-dancer in it but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Also I wore my cowboy boots with it. I still really don't have a decent pair of stilettos. I own pretty much every other kind of shoe imaginable though.



I wore this out last night to the Raptors red party at Muzik and I have a bunch of pictures from that for you later I guess since I'm not getting around to it right now, but it was pretty funtimez for sure. EXCEPT it closed down around midnight. What are we, Cinderella??
I should have asked for some drinks to go!


I think Kaya was into my dress.


Yep.
Hahaaa I have a new favourite song it's Obvious Child by Paul Simon I played it at Dollface's (where all these pictures are taken and whose dog this is) one time and fell in love. The drumming especially for surely. Anyway I was dancing around like a maniac to it last night over there and Kaya was just standing in the way like a stubborn pig it was pretty funny. Kaya and I are tight.



So awhile ago a guy sent me an email which contained (among other things):  "though you won't be single for long because you're quite attractive" or something like that.
I found that irritating because I'm generally single. And I don't consider it to be that much of a bad thing. I get to scope babes, which I like. I get to have crushes, which I like. I guess I am looking for a great relationship but I also have no patience for lame people/relationships. I'd definitely rather be single than just date anyone. Lots of great people are single because lots of relationships are dumb.
I don't want to feel like everyone's thinking "wow she's been single forever I wonder what's wrong with her"
I'm a catch for sure. Not even kidding. I give backrubs.
Wow I should never write about my feelings on relationships and things, I'm just begging for rude comments about how no  one would even want to date me anyway.










Sunday I want to go to Comedy Bar for the Oscar Party that Poppy is helping to put on. I want everyone to come with me. Who's in??? Fancy drinking and making fun of long awards shows!!?



Oh yeah, hey guys, you can download Sweet Thing's new single with is called Dance Mother on their website! I find this song especially amusing since the album version says "dance mother fucker" and the radio (clean) edit is "dance mother mother" (I think?). This is exactly like on Glee when they sang Golddigger and it has the N word in it and instead of "she ain't messing with no broke n---" they said "she aint messing with no broke broke"
Awesome.
Sweet Thing are so nice. Also I like picture of them on their website, they look like little lovelies.


I think I'm getting carpal tunnels. Not a big surprise considering how much time I spend masturbating.
And by masturbating, I mean, going on the internet. Wow that sentence is awkward



I also always compute from my bed/couch and I don't have a mouse and stuff so my arms are used all weird-like for so long. And I've been editing a lot of photos and stuff today that's always a bit rough. I'm dumb I should get a mouse. I should also get a wireless router.



No one has complimented my new banner!

I just found out that I'm working 5 days in a row next week. This may not be a big thing for most of you but MAN does it make me happy. I'll be able to buy groceries! And even some cat food, you're welcome Ruth Buzzi!

stuffed up and pretty sluggish

Prune told me that she went through these pictures of Saskatchewan in my flickr and she wept uncontrollably. She hasn't been home in about two years probably, so that's understandable.
It's hard to explain to someone who is not from the prairies how wonderful it is there.







My little cousin (actually my cousin's son. families are strange. it seems like he should be closer related to me. I frequently forget that not everyone in my close family has my last name. they should.) got a Darth Vader (sp?) kite for his 11th(?Ugh I'm a bad relative) birthday and at the time he didn't seem too enthused about it but it proved to be much more exciting when actually used.
And it took us about a year to wind all that string back up after letting it out allll the way.



I like that on family picnics we don't feel the need to all always travel as a pack or stick together or follow each other around.






My mum disappeared for awhile and then reappeared across the creek and traveled back towards the cars then crossed back. She was yelling up to us on the highest hill and we couldn't make it out until my aunt (whose birthday we were celebrating) figured out it was "I waaaaaaant caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake"



So we went back down and had chocolate cake with raspberry coulis and whipped cream. Obviously.


This little cousin is a show-off and a attention-hog and knows that she is sooo cute and reminds me of no one if that's what you're wondering.

She definitely ran off with my camera a couple of times, which was alright, kind of funny.

In this picture I demonstrate why it is no surprise that Toronto airport security assumed I was pregnant (not asked, assumed). Thanks clothing choices and classic maredeath belly like I've had for years and years should be working on that. Okay starting now I am. (maybe)(kind of love it of course)











This baby is pretty cute, if you like that sort of thing which I don't I definitely don't want babies right now all the time. Nope.
She knows way too many words for her 18months but she's not all that talkative, more stoic and thoughtful, pretty sweet.. yeah.
She calls all cats 'Thistle" because that's her cat's name. It seems to me that 'cat' is easier to say than 'Thistle', but that's just not her style.





I still have about a billion photos from this picnic. I do kind of want to post them. Running out of steam. Still definitely have not retrieved all the photos off my harddrive. Probably overwriting them right now as we speak. Ugh I annoy myself.



I've been taking lots of new pictures but I don't want to put them on my comp for fear of wrecking the stuff I should be rescuing. I wish it weren't this much work.



Had a really nice dinner with the Mrs. last night at Sheba (College just east of Bathurst) Ethiopian restaurant. Actually, it was the company that was the great part, the meal was only so-so. We usually hit up Nazareth on Bloor but I wanted to go somewhere near my house and Sheba did not even begin to compare. Nazareth really is a lovely place and ridiculously cheap and comfortable, so it's hard to get that great. But it was much more expensive, less customer friendly, less welcoming, terrible elevator music, etc.
And the service at Sheba was sort of odd and they brought us the bill before we were done our drinks and cleared our water glasses instead of refilling them. Mrs. even had her package of iron pills out waiting to be taken and they didn't get us more water. It was awkward and the restaurant wasn't closing or busy or anything. Weird.
And kind of unpleasant.

But, yeah, seeing and catching up with Mrs. was very fun and we spoke of motivation and successes and ambition and social climbing and being unable to fake anything.
Innnnteresting...







Working the next few days in a row. Thank god. I'm broke!
The problem with skydome is that it's days off at a time and then stretches of working every day. Hard to get another job that works around that.
I still need to. I know.

Wow. Wowwww.

Wow. I am amazed by my own amazing level of amazing stupidity.
Holy hellfire I am dumb.

I definitely deleted my entire pictures folder off my hard drive.
I have no good explanation for you on how I could possibly have managed this.
I also have no good explanation for you on how I still do not have a back-up of my files. Except money, I'll blame that one for this. Although Shambers pointed out that I could use my ipod as an extra drive. Fuck.
I do have most of my photos uploaded to flickr in large sizes, but not a bunch of important ones, like how I still haven't gotten around to all of Saskatoon this time around or the ones of Christmastime. And I love Christmastime!

I was in shock at first and just about cried but I called Shambers and he laughed at me and then told me about data recovery software. And then helped me out over gchat about it. He used the term "LOLZ" a lot.
He is a lawyer so I assume that is legalese for "I would never mock your stupidity".

So I still don't know if I'm going to be able to recover everything or not. It's looking like yes, but I don't want to jinx it. Also recovered without any order and without original file names and recovering basically everything else that ever existed on this computer. If I hadn't have been in such a panic about it I probably could have figured out a more ordered way of going about this.

Surprisingly I'm still in a good mood about things and life. I didn't even swear or hit anything/one.
Congratulations to me! Stupid and passive!

pls fix my computer going on the internet

I have the biggest bruises right now. On my bum. From falling out of the hot tub.
No really. They are big.


See? That's not even all three of them. Fun timez!


Ugh. Went and worked out with Dollface today, for this first time this week. (I worked out a bit at my house but I don't push myself like I should when I'm on my own) Was not feeling it today. No sir. But even not fully committing is better than not doing it at all. Or something.
Now I'm eating soup and rice crackers and brie and getting mad at the internet not working like I'd like it to. Mother effer.


I just about blew a gasket at work yesterday. So, so very close. And very close to quitting.
The whole system there is effed and this year is worse than any other.
And my one co-worker was bossing and complaining to the nth and not being a good worker on top of that (I don't mind bossing so much if you're also a great worker).
And then when I objected to her bossing and whining she repeatedly told me what a bad mood I was in. Went so far as to ask me if I was getting my period. Nice!
On top of that I made $130 and since we had to split all of our tips at the stand I ended up leaving with about $75. Yikes.
Then on top of that my co-worked tried to get us to leave our stand fully unlocked and not signed off on in the interest of leaving early. When I refused, she flipped out.
Then on top of that my co-worker blamed having to do re-counts on me when if fact she had inverted numbers I had counted.
I know that complaining about people, especially co-workers, makes people wonder if it's actually me that is the problem.... but I can't help it! I wanted to punch her in the face! So badly! So so so so badly!
And I'm pretty sure I'm a good worker.
The dome used to be my favourite job ever. But the system has gotten so badly screwed up, it's pitting everyone against each other.. I'm really not sure if I'm going back next season. Luckily there's only a few more games and then a big big break.



In other, better, news - I had a pretty fun hang the other night that involved Cool Lager (favourite too bad I lovesit) and watching My So-Called Life with a babe.
I know.
You are so jealous of my lifestyle.

OMG My So-Called Life.
Nothing I write could ever even compare. The subtleties and warmth and love and kindness and heartache and cleverness that show has.
I'm not even joking a little bit. I think it's wonderful and painful and beyond true. I'm still in awe of it and I've seen it all about a billion times.
I think I should just pull an "Office" and just remake MSCL in Canada. Obvious best idea.

I do not want to go to work today! Or tomorrow. Or Saturday. I don't know how people work five-day weeks. It seems very silly to me.
I blame my mother for a lack of interest in work.

OMG THREE MONTHS UNTIL CHRISTMAS I'M NOT EVEN JOKING!

I had the most intense stress dream about Christmas last night. It was painful. It was my birthday (Christmas eve) but I hadn't bought anyone any gifts so I had to go the mall to go shopping but I kept accidentally leaving the mall and driving away and then realizing I hadn't bought anything. And I couldn't go to my own birthday party because I had to go shopping! So frustrating. The worst was that I woke up at one point and was all "thank god that was just a dream" but then I went right back into it!
Which is unfair because that never happens with good dreams.

**********


I wrote this yesterday before work and tried to post it but the internet was being dumb. Speaking of which:
So this laptop seems to only want to connect to the internet via airport, and completely ignores when I plug the internet directly into it. So I steal internet from whoever in my building hasn't password-protected their internet, but it's very touchy.
I know that my internet works because I plugged it into my old computer to check. And I even think that when I first brought this comp home I plugged my internet into it and it just worked...
So WTF? Why won't it work now? Is there something I don't know????
(Pls help me on this if you can? Thnx??)

Also, guess who I ended up working with again last night?!?
Yep, same co-worker! Holy fun times. It wasn't as bad as the night before but still annoying. I made something ridiculous like $215 in tips (completely unheard of for this season. Like off the heeze) but ended up leaving with $185 on account of she didn't make nearly as much as me. But it was still GOOD and I still needed that money like you would not believe.