Fly, snowbird, fly!

Sure, I’d love to fly south, but unfortunately I can’t because I’ve adhered to my chair thanks to an errant glob of wax soldered to the back of my thigh. That’ll be pretty later.

Yes, it’s that time of year again, when seasonably hypothermic Canucks (including me) make a break for the border and the warmer climes to our south. Which can only mean one thing:

Pedi-waxi time! Yay!¹

Normally, I love a good pedicure², but winter presents a whole pile of problems I hadn’t considered before.⁴ The main concern was that in the summer you wear flip flops so as not to squish the polish, which can take up to a day to really set. I did come up with a solution though that did not involve me suicidally wearing flip flops into the slush and ice: I wore my big-ass rubber boots instead. Worked like a charm, so long as I remembered to keep pressing my toes down. Awesome!

But, sadly, my glee at finding a solution to one of the more pressing issues of our time was vastly overshadowed by the pain and discomfort of part deux of the snowbird combo.

Remember the 40-year-old virgin? Steve Carell getting his chest waxed? Remember squirming in discomfort at his anguish?

Well direct that anguish at your crotch, and the tender, bendy bits where your thigh ends and your body begins. I know many of you are familiar with this particular form of torture and I think we can agree it’s a necessary evil for most to avoid disgusting-smelling hair-removal creams or—horror of horrors—shaving.⁵

It’s not a surprise that it hurts like hell—I mean, a stranger spreads hot wax on your skin, then presses a cloth on it and RIPS hair and wax away. How can that possibly be good? But at least you know it’s relatively quick, and the results are generally worth it. And I’m not talking anything fancy here—just a little tidying up along the edges so the kids at the pool don’t think the Yeti’s escaped from the Everest ride or something. A little off the sides. You know?

Apparently my aesthetician didn’t know. Even though I clearly stated that I wasn’t going to be doing any bikini modelling or porn starring any time soon, she attacked her task with a passionate gusto that I might admire in an Olympic athlete. Or a car mechanic. Or a civil servant.

Yes, I realized just a little too late that this lovely lady was the type who inevitably ended up with bald Barbies because she just had to keep cutting to “even things up.”

It’s like going in and asking for a sideburn trim and walking out with no sideburns, no beard and just an Addams Family mustachio left behind.⁶

I dunno, maybe I looked like the string bikini type to her.⁷ Whatever her deal, I’ll tell you this—she’s cured me of waxing ever again. Yep, no more candle’s are getting sacrificed for my beautification, folks.

Whatever your spa status, do enjoy your winter break if you get one. I’ll be sure to say hi to Mickey for you.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to take a call—some Ron Jeremy fellow wanting to make me a star or something?

Seeya in the movies!

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1. NOT.

2. At least while I’m having the pedicure. Afterwards it’s bloody awful when you’re trying to walk but you’re all full of lovely cream so you’re sliding around in your flip flops and every speck of dirt between you and your car finds the aroma of said cream to be absolutely irresistible and so they thrust themselves at your flip-floppity feet and, thus, by the time you get home your feet are filthy and sore from sliding awkwardly around your greazy³, silty shoes.

3. Props to Patrick Swayze and John Cougar. Mellencamp.

4. A major problem today being what to do with my child who was home IN THE BLISTERING SUN due to another SNOW DAY. Yah, I popped a vein or two over that this morning. At least I found out about the closure before I walked daughter to school—but not before we were all dressed and ready to go. I mean, seriously, the thought of checking for school closures never entered my mind at all this morning. Due mainly to the, you know, BLISTERING SUN.

5. Ugh—I’m scratching just at the thought.

6. I mentioned Sports Illustrated hasn’t been calling for several years now, right?

7. Which leads me to conclude that she needs some serious cataract surgery. Or a cochlear transplant so she can HEAR me saying NOT TOO MUCH.

One Tack at a Time… or Why I Haven’t Been Blogging

I just organized my thumb tacks¹ into the pretty ones I really like (neat purples and turquoises and corals and such) and the boring standard utilitarian ones you see everywhere (primary colours and greens and whites). I then put them in these neat hexagonal glass jars that are soooo cute. And I’m recycling because the jars are from a spice set I got a while back: as I empty the jars I clean them out. This takes a fair bit of time.² For months I have had little groups of colourful things (like thumb tacks) cluttering my workspace, just waiting for new homes in the charming-and-someday-to-be-cleaned jars. So, today, what I am really doing is organizing and reducing clutter and recycling and beautifying.³

And why not? It’s not like I have much on the go. All I have to do is finish a massive copy edit that has taken waaaay longer than I ever thought possible⁴, write several articles, chase other people to interview… You know—things that will eventually result in me earning money. The sooner I get them done, the sooner I get said money and can look for more work. There’s also that drafted novel that needs finalizing to go out to agents/publishers. And the new novel I’m four chapters into writing…

So what am I doing? Well, the boys in Cameron House had a charming term for it: fucking the dog.⁵ Wasting time. Making dining reservations for my trip to Disney next month. Sorting thumb tacks.

What is wrong with me?

As Ron Weasley put it, “She needs to sort out her priorities.”*

Sigh. One of my priorities is to blog more regularly.

Right after I find the coloured paperclips that go in the other (finally) clean hexagonal jar… They were on my desk yesterday…

Hmmm—this could take a while…
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1. The Canadian Oxford has thumbtack as one word. I don’t like it. (This in no way changes my deeper-and-gushier-than-a-BP-oilrig love I have for my CanOx though...)

2. Because the labels are practically soldered on, I have to soak the jars, then scrape them, then soak the jars again, then scrape them again, and since there are always dishes in my sink waiting to go in the dishwasher, the stuff that can’t go in the dishwasher sits on the counter waiting to be washed in the sink once the sink gets empty, which doesn’t generally happen till my daughter wants to have something in her thermos for lunch and I have to clean it so I make an extra-special effort to empty the blasted always-full sink—only then can I soak the jars. So when I say a fair bit of time, I mean several months.

3. I mentioned how sweet these little jars are, right? And hexagonal?

4. And I haven’t even gotten to the 450 footnotes—450! Fifty pages of 10-point, single-spaced, name- and number-crammed detail! And not fun detail like in my footnotes. Nooooooo.

5. Obviously this term is meant figuratively, but can’t you just picture terrified Cameron frosh losing sleep dreading a Welsh/New-Zealander-sheep-style coming-of-age initiation ritual?

6. Ron made this comment after Hermione said they could get killed, or worse—expelled. I might not get work done, or worse—I might have a mix of cool and uncool thumb tacks in the same jar. Sorted priorities, indeed…