Come into my home and judge me!

People are being shown my apartment in less than an hour. I got the note informing me of this at oh, 1:30ish-AM. This afternoon, I've tried to clean up so that these people won't think I'm disgusting*.

Things cleaning my apartment is like:

1) Polishing a turd.

2) Putting lipstick on a pig.

3) Futile.

Ways in which I have "cleaned":

1) Used the delightful painting of 3 raccoons that Ben gave me to hide a pile of clutter hidden behind a chair.**

2) Stuffed all my clothing (normally strewn around my room in a delightful fashion) into my closet. 

3) Placed two clean, neatly folded towels on top of the little shelf in my room that holds miscellanea such as tampons, spare razors, mail, hair products, bras, a broken curling iron, and a spoon - effectively hiding this miscellanea and making it appear as though I store my towels in a neatly fashion albeit in the wrong room. 

4) Artfully arranged my shoes to distract from the box o' mystery in the corner of my living room.

5) Left a box of condoms on my bedside table to shock and intrigue, and hopefully distract from the other clutter there on. 

6) Left the notice to the rentalsman in which my crazy superintendent accused me of all sorts and tried (unsuccessfully!) to get me evicted, on the counter for reading material.

7) Left Ben's hoodie (obviously a man's) on my bed, just to fuck with said superintendent, since she is convinced that he lives here. 

*I'm kind of disgusting. 

** What? You don't display art leaned up against a chair?  

Things I've said to customers today:

"Oh you know, keep your ear to the nose."

"Rice fixes everything... but never for long, never for long."

"I'm not any good at math... that's a better deal right? It is. You should renew your contract."

"Well, do you like your wife, sir?"

"You don't need too much sales experience for a job like this... mostly you just have to be smart and have a good personality!"

You know I'm no good.

On Saturday, I was sitting on a deck in St. Andrews, drinking beer with my brother and Ben. I went to the bathroom and checked my phone on the way out. I wanted up-dates on the horror in Norway. There on my BBC Newsfeed came something unexpected, another deathtoll.


It does not show a lack of empathy, humanity, or awareness to still be affected by the death of one woman, a celebrity, when a major world tragedy occurred on the same day. I've seen too many self-righteous facebook statuses in the last few days to not mention that.


In this space, I am not equipped to write about a terrorist attack. I am barely able to write about the death of Amy Winehouse.


When I emerged out onto the deck again, I told Marty and Ben that she had died. I mentioned, eventually, how I was probably going to write something about her. Ben asked why.
I said "She was important."
"Was she?"
"To women of my generation, she was."




I couldn't articulate it at the time exactly what I meant, and maybe I still can't, but I mean it. For women of my generation, for thinking women, for women who love music and who identify with real emotion in it - Amy Winehouse was really fucking important. She wrote with honesty, with self-deprecation, and with such a precise style. Back to Black was so identifiably, unapologetically Winehouse, you know? And compared to other 2006 albums, it made so much more of an impact (inspiring a soul revival). She was this immense talent, made all the more rare by the fact that we could all see it slipping away from her right before our eyes.
As much we ate up the train-wreck, as much as we stayed glued to every erratic performance, we still thought deep down that someone with that much talent had to pull herself through - at least I did. I kept waiting for that next album. I kept hoping that the next gig would go smoothly.


I guess I kept hoping that our generation could be the one whose addicts survived.

Presumed success as a clothing memoirist...

As previously discussed, I have a shit memory for human beings. I do have an excellent memory however, for what I was wearing. 

What ever does she mean?

I know exactly what I was wearing the first night I met Ben (my Joan Holloway dress). 

I know what shirt I was wearing the first time I saw a dead body (Black, long-sleeved, waffle weaved), even though that was back in Grade 12. 

I know what sweater I wore (and what pair of shorts!) when I camped out at Reads the first day I was back in Fredericton during Christmas break the year I spent in Toronto, waiting for my friend to get off work. 

I know that I wore a tartan skirt to my aunt's funeral when I was ten years old.

I know what bra I was wearing the last time I splashed around in the middle of the night in the Wilmot kiddie pool, two years ago.

I know what ugly sleeveless sweater-tunic monstrosity I wore to my first day of classes at St.Thomas University (it was grey! It had a hood!)

I know exactly which dresses I was wearing both (!!) times that my ex-boyfriend broke up with me - my red "sailing" dress, and my black tea-length dress a year-and-some-months later as I was slipping it over my head.

It's probably normal.*

*It's probably not normal for people to break up with you when you have a dress stuck over your head.