two dialogues that shouldn't happen (but did) at work

guy1: hi, i'd like to update some information on your system. the person who is listed as my daughter, is actually my common-law.
me: we'll fix that right up so you don't look like a ped.
guy1: ...

guy2: hi, i'd like to update some information on your system. i'm listed as female, but i'm not.
me: yeah, you sound pretty masculine. lucky for you we do free, quick and painless sex changes. you have nothing to worry about. it'll be over before you know it.
guy2: ...

note to self: shut mouth

clarissa minus 2. it's the new math and i'm getting it

the weekend has been quiet, though i had to call the neighbour this morning at 6:30 to turn down the happenin' tunes. all i could hear (through my earplugs) was thump thump thump thump. i was half asleep and i couldn't tell if it was my heart beating through a megaphone or if there were giant bunnies getting busy.

i had my eyebrows waxed for the first time yesterday. i didn't think i had enough eyebrow to worry about, but i thought i'd give it a shot anyway. it was quick and painless. but man, i wonder what my face looked like when she ripped off the cloth.

walking around in london, i always get some drunk guy or some punk trying to be a smart ass to get some kind of reaction out of me:

do you think red heads are sexy? (and then wink or wave or grab his crotch)
hey nice skirt
my pleasure
hello (i mean, please!)

if i'm asked a question or if someone says hi, i always respond, because, for whatever reason, i worry they'll get angry. more often than not this is fine, and sometimes they're even surprised. but last summer i was walking through victoria park and this drunk guy was hanging out with his drunk friends and waved at me and said "have a good day." i said thanks and waved. and then he stopped me, told me his name was two, showed me his cell phone to prove his name was two feathers and then continued to inform me of the following:

he needed a date for some event. he didn't know where to find a woman because...
he was from "america"
he asked me: why i colour my hair, was i busy saturday night, did i believe that his name was two

when i told him i had to go because my boyfriend was sick (which was actually true at the time), he told me i didn't have a boyfriend. that he could tell by my eyes that i was single. then he asked for my name (i said clarissa - it's my standard. drunk men can't pronounce it, get frustrated and forget about it), my phone number (i said, oh no i don't think so) and told me i had a beautiful smile. i think at that point i just started to walk off.

anyway, loooooong story slightly shortened, guess who i bump into on dundas street while on my lunch break last week? two! still drunk,

2: how you doin?
me: fine thanks (smiled)
2: i love your smile
me: that's great (walked off)

i'm learning, but very slowly.

current music: the decemberists, picaresque. i've listened to it about 7 times in a row, and i can't get it out of my head. very good stuff. they make songs about lords and ladies and barons listenable again.

crazy week for poor old me

my friends andrew and geoff came down from toronto this week, and hijinx ensued. monday night drank, played poker, drank some more. tuesday went to work late and hungover. blah. wednesday night ate cheese fondue and then chocolate fondue and drank at the barking frog, then moved to molly bloom's and drank some more. then andrew and i dropped our mad scientifix on the dance floor to stevie wonder's superstitious. what a great song. it was some good craic, but i'm ready for a quiet long weekend.

the phones are quiet at work today which is nice, but the day will drag on...on the upside the people calling in are great. one guy told me he hopes the easter bunny is good to me, and another woman called me sweetie over and over again. too cute. much better than someone yelling and threatening to sue.

current music: johnny cash, greatest hits (pretty cheesy website)

i've been reading too many mcsweeny's lists

while bored at work, top 10 words you can spell upside down on a calculator assigning the numbers as follows -- 1 = I, 3 = E, 4 = h, 5 = S, 7 = L, 8 = B, 9 = G, 0 = O -- and excluding plurals and the suffix -less:

shoe
boob
goes
goose
hose
shell
goo
hog
oil
blog

rotating around the sky fire

i think everyone has years that they agonise about. turning 20 was my first nightmare. i thought that when i turned 20, all my memories from 19 under would suddenly disappear, that i wouldn't recall anything from highschool. a former professor/friend of mind said that forgetting high school wasn't a bad thing and i felt better.

i then freaked out at 24 and 27. not for any reason that comes to mind, just a random panic. and now, i'm 29 1/2 today. how gross is that? i really don't feel almost 30. shouldn't i be more mature and accomplished? and married and have a car and a house? my friend nathan says it's just a number, just 30 rotations around the sky fire. i'm totally agonising about it, and at the same time, i know it's silly. i'm always being told that i don't look my age. when i was a kid i knew age was just a number, and now it's a big, flabby, wrinkled, spinster monster with coke-bottle glasses and knobby cardigan sweaters. sigh.

i watched a very cool show on scream the other day called ghostwatch. it was a bbc pseudo-documentary broadcast on hallowe'en 1992. it was presented as a real news show with well-known bbc newscasters spending an evening with a family who claimed their house was haunted, and it ended up being the first tv show blamed for post traumatic stress disorder! it was never aired again, and just recently became available on dvd. gallons better than the blair witch project (which i won't even link, because it sucked so bad), it really follows in the steps of war of the worlds (check out mercury theatre to listen to it).

disco inferno

work is going allright. my boss was pissed off at me last week, and that was less than pleasant. it took a week of being a totally innocuous, shoot-the-shit employee to smooth things over. it's not a perfect job, but it's a job, and i'd like to keep it. and i also want to ask for benefits, so i should try not to rock the boat.

my roommate is reading dante's inferno, and we were trying to think of who to cast in the film version. this is what we came up with:

director / dante: roberto benigni
virgil: umberto eco
beatrice: monica belucci
satan: tim roth/gary oldman/ralph fiennes -- for satan's three faces
count ugolino: robin williams
archbishop ruggieri: billy crystal
charon: jack nicholson
minos: brad pitt
phlegyas: christopher walken
the fallen angels at the wall: the remaining members of monty python.
the angel who lets virgil and dante through the wall: bill murray.
cerebus: benji

more black comedy than divine comedy. it would have to be an all-star cast in any case. i'll gladly take suggestions!

well, i just got out of the shower, my hair is wet, and i'm getting cold.

here's a gratuitous shot of jude law:



current music: the streets, a grand don't come for free. oh, and if you haven't heard it, you have to find johnny cash's cover of soundgarden's "rusty cage." it's sublime.

swedish yummies

for the past week, i've been keeping a frozen dinner in the freezer at work and yesterday, when i finally decide i'm in the mood for it, it's been taken over by jack freezer burn. so, i head over to nooner's. nooner's is the kind of place where no one likes to eat, but everybody does. there's one special there that i love though -- swedish meatballs and roasted potatoes. i walked in the door and lo! i could smell meatballs. does my nose deceive me? i look at the menu and lo! once more, i see my special special. i then pump my fist at my side and exclaim "yessss." yeah, that's what i did. i couldn't believe it myself. i'm so embarassing.

i had a dream

i had a crazy dream last night that there was this evil conglomerate that wanted to create a fast acting virus. so they captured all of the olympic swimmers and shrunk them to the size of little bacteria to carry the infection so it would kill the subject quickly. what they probably did was threaten the swimmers that they would leave them as bacteria unless they did what they were told. so they had to spread this virus so they could be turned back to normal size. in the dream there was also a board game i was playing with my sister and a pirate ship. i had a sweet bike and a really nice power suit as well. but i don't know how they all fit into the "plot." i have a lot of weird dreams, but i think this one would make an awesome B movie starring christopher lambert or chuck norris as an evil scientist. tia carrere would have to be in it as well.