It's come to this.

If I tell my Mom I just got home from grocery shopping she'll ask me whether I met anybody. Ditto for having come from the doctor's, the bank machine and my laundry room. If I so much as leave my apartment for any reason, it raises my Mom's hopes that she might one day get to be the mother of the bride.

Obviously, my mother is an optimist. I admire her faith despite almost insurmountable odds, one of those obstacles having been my unwillingness to ever interact with the opposite sex again, even if it meant hiring an official spokesperson every time I need an oil change.

Today however, I found myself walking behind a happy couple and feeling wistful, and that's really all it took. For just one moment, I wanted to hold hands with somebody. Go for a romantic dinner. Kiss passionately. And then not call, because I'm really not ready to be annoyed on that level again for any reason.

Meeting anybody is almost an insurmountable odd. I don't play sports, and refuse good advice like spending time where men are. The most recent recommendation was the local climbing centre. Now how in God's name would my ass hanging out of a harness as I beg to be lowered to the ground going to do anything for my love life?

I'm settled on online dating. I know there's still a stigma attached, but not having sex for an entire decade can also hold some negative connotations. I met my last two boyfriends online and despite rather spectacular endings, everything else was uneventful.

Of course, one of them did break-up with me because his God wouldn't allow our relationship but it seemed normal at the time. And I made sure to tell him sincerely that I felt alright about the whole thing because when it came down to a competition between his God and myself, at least the playing field was fair. Unbelievably, that was only the second time I was accused of blasphemy, in all seriousness.

So that's the plan. You know I'll keep you posted.

Inventory.

My friend Heidi of http://www.completelybarkingmad.blogspot.com/ wrote a post a while back about what to do with the running shoes she's miled out. Keep them? Toss them? She had one pair she wasn't sure what to do with, and considered leaving the pair in her husband's car -- just in case.

At the time, I thought this was a brilliant idea because I know Heidi's husband and could envision how thrilled he would be with the extra cargo, stored indefinitely or until he and Heidi come across a flash-triathlon. Unlike flash-floods, the flash-triathlon can be deadly, what with the spandex and all.

Miling out running shoes is not a concern on my horizon right now, although I did mile out my container of 95% fat-free Cool Whip and you better believe I got on top of that situation. However, I can completely relate to the vehicle as storage unit mentality.

My car currently contains the following items:

• One Christmas gift bag containing pink bubble bath, a tea towel with an embroidered reindeer and a generic card. Thank you Secret Office Santa.
• One roasting pan, with lid.
• The Sears catalogue. Summer edition.
• A blender, in two pieces.
• Five DVDs belonging to a friend.
• Nasal spray.

In my defense...I totally needed the nasal spray last week and I plan on removing it from the storage box just as soon as I can. As for my other belongings, I'll have the last laugh when my morning commute calls for a margarita and pot-roast. Just wait.

Are we on the same page?

Big meeting today at work. The kind of meeting where every passing minute causes one more tiny area of my brain to begin bleeding. Hands were shook. Asses covered. The words, "key-decision makers," were abused so horribly, that one section of Webster's Dictionary has taken out a restraining order against my department. This meeting had only one redeeming quality, and he sat three chairs over from me.

I love my co-worker to pieces. He makes my working life bearable, and carries the heavy boxes so I don't have to. However, when he went to Vancouver and had drinks with the latest consultant brought on by management to simultaneously save the world, build relationships and masturbate the vice-president, all my co-worker said about the experience was that Nick* seemed a little arrogant at first, but was indeed a hell of a nice guy, and he supposed the arrogance came from Nick being some kind of multi-millionaire, running three different companies.

I pictured some grey-haired dude with a paunch and an expensive little belt defying the laws of physics. I pictured rheumy eyes and at least 17 references to golfing during his presentation. This is not what happened.

Nick is over six feet tall. Dark hair. Blue eyes. He looks like Michael Scofield from Prison Break, if Michael had hair and Italian in his background. He can't be older than 35, and his voice was like fine leather covered in sex and chocolate.

He wore no wedding ring.

My co-worker left for a conference shortly after the meeting, but when he gets back to the office I'm taking him out to the parking lot and kicking his ass.

When you know one of your best female friends is single, and you meet a young, hot, multi-millionaire with no wedding ring you holla at a girl. You at least tell her to put on some lip gloss before a meeting, and possibly encourage her to brush her hair.

If my co-worker were a woman, leaving out all Nick's details would be indefensible, but now I realize he just needs more training. And I need a meeting in Vancouver.

**Naturally Nick's name has been changed because this posting may be embarrassing when we get married, especially after revealing that my first fantasy I had of Nick and I together was Nick buying me a house.

Don't Inhale.

There is a war going on in my office, and the insurgents are winning. Actually, to be fair I think I'm the insurgent at this point. It started innocently enough, in the ladies bathroom.

Despite there being only three men amongst 25 women in our department, both sexes have just one stall. Because we have no sink in our kitchen, any dishes get done in the ladies washroom. That's really not the point to this story, but it's disgusting and I wanted to point that out.

Until three weeks ago, our washroom containing one stall, one sink, one window and a stack of dishes was as civilized as could be expected.

My biggest complaint used to be the ladies who would charge the hallway door to the washroom, while the occupant tried to take care of business behind a stall door. The outside door has a flimsy lock, allowing some modicum of privacy.

Pressing a hand gently on the door leading from the hallway into the washroom is enough to indicate whether the bathroom stall inside is occupied, without busting the lock. But this doesn't work for most of my colleagues. Instead, these women throw their body weight at the door, shoulder first like they're serving a drug warrant.

This causes the door to bang, pop and shudder, and the flimsy lock to clank in protest. And if I'm the occupant in the bathroom stall the sudden assault on my position also causes my bladder to seize and retreat somewhere behind my ribcage, mid-stream.

This was an annoyance, but I could manage with some simple Keigal exercises and self-hypnosis meant to get me peeing again. Now I have a whole new problem with the ladies washroom.

There used to be a spray-can of deodorizer atop the toilet tank. The spray smelled like oranges, and all was right with the world. Sometimes, with the bathroom window open and a little squirt of that spray, I would walk into that godforsaken little space and actually want to inhale. It was good times.

Then an email was sent out to the department. Apparently, one person had a negative reaction every time she went into the washroom and she would cough. It was decided by the powers that be that the spray would be removed. This was no small undertaking.

Before the email went out alerting us to the dangers of the spray, facilities and maintenance were called. Two burly looking men came to our washroom and did a site inspection. The only possible source for the cough was determined to be the orange blossom spray, and action was swift.

A follow-up email was sent out to the department. Should the need arise to mask any unpleasant odours, the person with the cough thoughtfully provided a book of matches that would sit atop the toilet in times of need.

By this point I had already began taking two flights of stairs in order to reach another washroom. I'm quite fond of my newly adopted bathroom. I prefer the very end stall, and if I pee at noon the sun will have been shining through a skylight and the toilet seat is cozy, warm and welcoming, unlike the washroom upstairs.

The burly men of facilities and maintenance were called out a second time. Apparently, a complaint was filed stating the washroom smelled like sulphur and there was a concern for safety. I shit you not...er...you know what I mean.

A serious discussion took place to ascertain why there were matches in the bathroom, and why someone would light one in the middle of the day. Could somebody be sneaking cigarettes in the bathroom? I almost felt sorry for the office manager as she tried valiantly to explain the alternative reason for having matches in a ladies washroom.

To make matters worse, the original complainant still has a slight cough. Another email was sent to the department, informing us that all hand soap, dish soap, paper towels and lotion had been removed from the ladies washroom until the exact source of the cough had been located and eradicated.

Facilities and maintenance followed-up up with a warning about keeping the window in the washroom open, as there are alder trees outside that can cause allergies. Another email made the rounds informing us that the window would be closed going forward, in an effort to alleviate possible allergy symptoms.

And the office hypochondriac coughs on. She hasn't had this much attention since...well...ever. Never mind getting her a throat lozenge -- plans are already underway for all female employees to be issued a small shovel and some newspaper. We're all going to be digging holes in the woods, as long as we watch out for the alder trees.

Ode to Lucille.

I drove a white 1993 Corsica named Lucille for six years. Car experts say Lucille should have passed on long before I ever got behind the wheel. In fact, they make it sound as if Corsicas have the lifespan of sea-monkeys, but Lucille was a very special car.

Lucille once ran over a boyfriend's foot. I know what you're thinking, and it was completely without my help, thank you very much. He had just finished telling me that despite how much he loved spending time with me, and how my personality was amazing, and how he was so attracted to me it was ridiculous -- I just wasn't up to his standards to be girlfriend material so he was going to keep looking and he hoped we could keep seeing one another while he did so.

He got out of my car, heading to his vehicle parked directly in front of me. I put Lucille into Park. I swear, Lucille was in Park. But then she rolled.

I know it's common for a vehicle to roll a few inches after being parked, but I've never known a car to roll with such...vision. As he stood between our two vehicles, Lucille rolled over his left foot, but somehow stopped short of kissing his bumper.

Naturally I was so horrified by what had happened I resorted to powdering my nose in my driver's side vanity. One can never be too matte in times of crisis.

I didn't see him much after that, but I do remember him yelling about what my stupid car did to his foot, which annoyed me. Obviously Lucille wasn't the stupid one.

Several years later, Lucille was not doing so well. She always had a flair for the dramatic, and if I neglected her care and maintenance in any way she would usually let me know about it by stalling in an intersection during Calgary rush-hour, which actually constitutes about seven hours in the morning and seven hours in the evening. If you want to get anywhere in Calgary, you have a 15 minute window somewhere between 2:07 a.m and 2:52 a.m.

The three different times Lucille stalled in various high-traffic and high-visibility intersections of the city, I know she was just trying to get a message across. The message being she had a sense of humour more twisted than her owners, and that she liked the sound of redneck SUV and F350 drivers all screaming obscenities in unison.

One thing I could never understand was why the rednecks would sit in their mammoth vehicles and honk. Even though it was a ways down, I'm sure they could still see the small white car had it's hood up and a set of lights blinking in the back.

I'm sure that despite having to squint through a 3-martini lunch haze they could see that the bitch inside the vehicle (a word commonly screamed out of a driver's side window and used to describe a female holding up traffic in Calgary, with the second most popular word rhyming with "dunt,") was frantically talking to somebody on a cell-phone so obviously help was on the way.

But why honk? Did they think Lucille would be embarrassed into spontaneously firing her engine? Or perhaps Lucille had just gone to sleep and repetitive honking could serve as some kind of automotive wake-up call?

As some comedian once said, what I should have done was get out of the car, walk to the car immediately behind me and offer to honk while he sat in my vehicle. Perhaps the engine would start if we just took turns.

For all of Calgary's talk about being a friendly, down-home city not once did anybody offer to help me push, take a look at the engine or see if I needed any other assistance in getting out of the intersection. Instead I was always left terrified and shaking, and absurdly grateful that nobody shot me, what with Alberta being a republican state.

Anyhoodle. The time Lucille saved me from having to go camping was different. For weeks, she hadn't been herself. It was as if she didn't have the energy to throw a tantrum, but little things were breaking down.

Her driver's side door no longer opened from the outside, the inside or with a key. To get into the vehicle, I would wait until nobody was around and climb into the passenger seat, hoist myself onto the storage box between the seats, and then flop into the driver's side, slightly out of breath.

Some days her temperature gauge would swing really high, and then be fine for hours, as if she were battling a fever. She kept driving though, and I had run out of excuses to give my boyfriend as to why we couldn't go camping the long weekend in July.

My excuse should have been that I hate camping with every fibre of my being -- and I'm a very fibrous person. Human beings evolved to live indoors for a reason. I have never seen the appeal or the relaxing nature of abandoning every creature comfort known to woman kind, driving several hours and spending 72 hours working 10 times harder to do the things that would take seconds in your own home. Like peeing in privacy and comfort. Or cooking a meal. But mostly peeing in privacy and comfort.

The site we were going to had no running water or bathroom facilities. My boyfriend's father, who had arranged the trip, thought there might be one outhouse for the entire campground, but couldn't be sure. If I ever wanted to experience a complete and sudden shut-down of my central nervous system, using that outhouse in the July heat would certainly be the way to go.

I was dreading this trip the way some dread being buried alive, but my boyfriend had made it clear that by not going I would prove that I hated his family and didn't care at all about his feelings. At all. So there was that.

We left Calgary and had made it almost to the outskirts of the city and with another four hours of travel time left to go, Lucille's engine light came on. And stayed on. We pulled into a service station and added oil. The light still shone like a beacon of hope.

I put on my very best disappointed face and suggested it may not be safe to attempt a four hour trip outside of the city on rural roads where the cows are not known for their mechanical abilities.

I really did feel bad that my boyfriend did not get to go camping with his family, as we only had the one vehicle and he didn't drive. My conscience was convulsing, but my bladder heaved a sigh of relief. Holding it for three days could have been uncomfortable.

That was the beginning of the end for Lucille. The diagnosis was terminal. Transmission. She had only weeks left. The mechanic assured me that I had done all I could, but paying to fix the transmission would be paying more than she was worth. And then he tried to charge me $800 to fix the driver's side door. Bastard.

With a heavy heart, I drove Lucille to an auction. She drove bravely, and her engine light didn't so much as flicker. She was sold to a couple of guys for $300, minus the auction fees. I recall the auctioneer describing the driver's side door as "sticky," as she passed through the sales line.

I bought a new car. It doesn't have a name. That was ten months ago, and I thought it was the last I would hear of Lucille. Until now.

I got a letter from the the Alberta government, and the department responsible for abandoned vehicles. Yes, there really is an Abandoned Vehicle Disposal Program that has it's own government department. Apparently it's a big problem in Alberta. (Recycling anything hasn't really caught on there).

The letter said I had two weeks to pay all of the impound and towing fees dating back to six months ago, when a white 1993 Corsica was found abandoned on a lonely stretch of backwoods highway. My heart broke.

I wanted to believe that I was giving Lucille a better life. I fantasized that a kindly retired mechanic had bought Lucille and taken her home. The kindly mechanic lived in a small town outside of Calgary, where nobody ever honks. His wife had been complaining she had no way to run to the general store to buy flour to bake pies with, and so the kindly mechanic bought Lucille for his wife, and for pie, and for the Canadian way of life.

Now I felt I had sold Lucille into the slave trade. Or a sex-ring. Or worse. She deserved so much better than to be dumped by the side of the road.

There was no way I was going to pay for it though. I faxed my bill of sale to the Alberta government and they've sworn they won't come after me. They'll be going after the bastards who bought and used Lucille and then threw her away like garbage.

Rest in peace Lucille. I love you.

Please put it away.

I don't pretend to be a fashionista. In fact, I go so far as wanting to punch anybody pretentious enough to add "ista" at the end of perfectly normal words. As long as my ass or my ankles aren't hanging out of my pants when neither is supposed to be, then I am a reasonably happy woman. Same for the boobs and the belly. I'm not Amish, but to me a good outfit covers and flatters. Or on a bad day -- covers. Some days that's all we can hope for.

Bringing me to my point. I don't ask for much. I don't even hope for much. I'm a natural-born pessimist so when something goes wrong I'm usually the loudest peanut in the gallery, swigging a drink and saying, "Well...I saw that one coming." But, even I never saw Shelley* coming.

I have to see Shelley every day. I don't work with her, but she's a fixture in my daily routine. Shelley enjoys her track suits, and God bless her for it. I love the elasticized waistband too. I'm wearing PJ pants right now and this type of freedom is why wars are fought. These are not the track suits Shelley wears, however.

Shelley's suits are...restrictive. Her pants, while covering, are tight enough to reveal...oh, how do I put this...her va-jay-jay. I can see that Shelley doesn't wax through her track-pants, and through her underwear. If I can see her grooming habits don't think I can't see what kind of underwear she's got on. These are cotton track pants. Do you know how tight those pants have to be to put me in such an awkward situation? Do you??

I'm faced with Shelley, her va-jay-jay and her pants at least three times a week. That's how much she loves them, and that's how quickly a perfectly good fashion concept can go off the rails for women.

Shelley is a sweetheart, and I love talking to her. I just have to be very careful to keep my eyes from drifting. Like, ever.

*Naturally I changed the name to keep from anybody getting sued, and by anybody I mostly mean me.

I'm like a circle.

I've been trying to decide whether I should be writing with some kind of angle. Some bloggers write exclusively about their passions -- their kids, their pets, purses, gardens or TV shows. I have no such angle. Or passion. My greatest passion in life so far is...well...me. So that's the angle I'm going to go with.

Over the years, I've proven a source of great entertainment for my friends provided I was single and engaged in some sort of social life. I could always be counted on to have something profoundly ridiculous happen to me.

While shacked up with my last boyfriend I became very boring, and I thought my life was supposed to take a turn for the mind-numbing. Isn't that what happens when you're settled? I was so settled I practically disappeared.

Now that I'm back, I know people who are salivating at the possibilities. Surely it's only a matter of time before Bambi ends up on a date with a Corvette-driving, born-again midget. It's happened before. Frankly, I'm looking forward to it too, because now I have a place to record the ridiculousness for posterity.

Pledge now.

I'm recovering from a cold that could rightfully inspire a telethon. Or perhaps a charity walk. If I could just breathe through my nose I would be collecting pledge forms and selling white wristbands -- white like the Kleenex I've been clutching for five days.

Today somebody suggested that it's unfortunate I'm by myself. Wouldn't it be nice if I at least had a cat I could come home to?

Sweet Jesus on a cracker. How would a cat make me feel better??

I've never been a cat person, but I know cat people. One friend wears cat jewellery, cat t-shirts, sets her life by a calendar with photographs of cats in action (and by action read: sleeping, sitting or staring) and she forwards me emails with pictures of kittens and cutesy sayings.

I'm not sure why she feels I would want to open an attachment containing a litter of kittens strapped to tiny plastic musical instruments over top the heading, "We Be Jammin," but there you have it.

Nobody has ever heard of a seeing-eye cat, bomb-sniffing cat, search and rescue cat or even arson-detecting cats. I know cats are useless, and I also know they're capable of evil.

I lived with a boyfriend who had two cats, and now I have a new deal-breaker. I developed a tenuous friendship with one cat, as we both lived in fear and horror at the tub of feline lard that was my boyfriends shadow.

Neither cat knew it's own name, so I won't bother with their names now. I will say that my boyfriends cat hated me with every ounce of it's being. And it weighed a significant amount. Luckily, the feeling was mutual.

It would hiss and spit. It would bite my head if I was foolish enough to rest it on my boyfriends shoulder while watching TV. It seemed to sense my disgust at the softly wet chewing noises it would make as it licked at it's crotch for the umpteenth time. And so it would lick it's crotch for the entire duration of whatever TV show I was watching -- even the hour-long dramas.

It was able to situate itself on the sub-woofer just below the television, so should I be able to drown the noises coming from the cat I could always see it's head bobbing, one paw delicately raised in the air.

If I thought I could avoid the cat, it would piss on my belongings. Purses, shoes, boots, sweaters, yoga pants and mysteriously, one make-up compact all lost to toxic cat-piss.

When I left my boyfriend and moved to another province, I claimed it was because I wanted to be closer to the ocean, closer to my family and friends and better situated to start my MBA. All true, but there was one more reason. I just wanted to get away from his goddamn cats.

And now I'm grateful I can wheeze and hack in peace and privacy. I need more Advil. Come on people - let's get those pledge forms coming!

Shaking the dust off...

I have a long list of activities I've started and stopped, conversations never finished and hobbies left abandoned in the hall closet. (If anybody would like to purchase a slightly used pair of roller blades with the brake worn away, please let me know. Also one slightly used fitness pass for aquasize. And a bathing suit. And one deck of tarot cards. Call me.)

To most of these, I say "meh." Others I thank the good lord the madness stopped when it did, but there are a few that keep me awake at night wondering how I could have been so stupid to have just let go. A random sampling:

• My three-day stint as a member of the Junior Varsity Rowing Team. Thank the lord.


• Anything involving the words, "So I totally think eating less than 1200 calories a day is doable." Also thanking the lord.


• Choosing to say, "We should probably head back," one moonlit night to a guy named T instead of, "I love you and I think I want to have your children provided it's by C-section and they're raised at a Swiss boarding school until the age of 18 but they're welcome to come home for a family photo at Christmas. Take me right now." So stupid. T is now a dentist.


• Thinking I might ever want to make my own greeting cards. Meh.
  

My level of motivation in life at any given moment can depend entirely on questionable factors. What time in the morning am I expected to be there? Seriously?? Did I shave my legs? Is anybody going to see me? What exactly will I get out of it? Does it taste good?

All very serious questions, but one thing I should never have let lapse the way I have is writing just because I want to.

Not writing since university makes me feel stupid, so I'm fixing that right now. I can't promise it will be memorable, or even grammatically correct -- but I won't let go again.