The Peach Pit

ThePeach is a good ambassador

2011-03-10T20:08:00.001-05:00

We had an important guest speaker at work this week.

He was kind of a big deal, from a fairly major company, and our company was very excited to have him with us for a few days. We flew him in from Miami. He was Cuban, mid-30s, and wore expensive suits. He was to give us training sessions on topics of great importance.

I’m not sure who decided I should be in charge of his welfare. That was a mistake. But somehow, the big important guest speaker was left in the responsibilities of…ThePeach.

My job was simple enough. For the two days he was with us, I was in charge of his leavings. Help him find his coat. Help him clean up after his training. Get him through security. Get him a cab. Simple enough.

Day 1 went fine. I was a pro.

Here’s how Day 2 went.

After his session, he peeked his head into my office and said he was ready to go. I helped him clean up. I helped him find his coat. I got him through security. I called him a cab.

When it was time to say goodbye, he leaned in. He leaned in.

I was not expecting this.

So I did what any professional would do and gave him a giant hug.

“Ok! Great to meet you! Safe trip!” I said, still hugging the big shot presenter in the Armani suit. I patted his back jovially.

He pulled away and looked at me with horror. His eyes bulged and he shook his head back and forth, repeatedly.

“No, no. No, no.” he said, stepping backwards.

“I’m Cuban. In Latin culture we cheek-kiss when we say goodbye.” He pointed at his cheek, slowly, to make sure I understood.

He was going for the cheek-kiss.

And I gave him a giant bear hug, complete with back-pats.

I hugged our guest speaker. This will always be his final impression of our company – the awkward chick who hugged him in the lobby, beside the security guard.

I’m really not cut out for the corporate world.

ThePeach

NO BABIES

2011-02-09T09:24:00.002-05:00

Everyone in my family loves BadInfluence, which is great. My grandpa asks about him every time I call him – and how is your BI? – my Dad always asks when we’re coming to visit – you don’t even have to come. BI and I can hit the town ourselves – and my mother likes using him as an example of everything I did wrong in my romantic life before BI – isn’t it nice to have a man who actually enjoys being with you, Peach? It’s a big relief you found someone who likes you. Remember FauxHawk? Remember? I was so worried for five years. But I didn’t say anything, because that’s what mothers do. They support their children’s decisions. Even if they’re the wrong ones.

Ah, family.

This also means, now that I’m 28, the family makes no show of trying to hide how much they want to marry me off. They’ve probably already purchased and stabled two milking cows and a goat to give away as a dowry. The last time I had lunch with my mother and I suggested we go shopping, she asked if I wanted to try on wedding dresses – just to see if I like any. And while she was thinking of it, have BI and I ever talked about what kind of ceremony we would want, and would we use a pastor or a judge to wed us?

Let me interject at this point to add that, while BI and I have been friends for a long time, we’ve only been dating for, like, a year. And we’ve both only had jobs for 8 months, are drowning in debt, and I’m still afraid to open most of my bills. Basically, the family is encouraging us to join together in blissful bankruptcy.

TigerCat isn’t so bad. She’s very practical. She stands up for me when the family gets all crazy-like. Which is why our conversations on facebook chat the last few nights have really…disturbed me.

Monday:

ThePeach: Wassup negro.
TigerCat: I’m looking at pictures of babies.
ThePeach:…I see.
TigerCat: Have you and BI talked about having children yet?
ThePeach: Um. Mostly we talk about how to prevent them.
TigerCat: But he wants them, right?
ThePeach: Eventually, I guess.
TigerCat: I want to be an auntie. Have a baby!
ThePeach: I’m drinking alone on a Monday night while I look at facebook. I want to say a baby is probably not a good idea at this point in my life.
TigerCat: I WANT TO HOLD MY OWN KIN.
ThePeach: Tell CockDoc you need a puppy.

And then, Tuesday:

ThePeach: Sup slut.
TigerCat: I’m looking at pictures of cribs.
ThePeach: How did that even happen??
TigerCat: Well, I started out looking at furniture for when we move and things kind of deteriorated from there.
ThePeach: Oh my god.
TigerCat: There are a variety of practical cribs out there at reasonable prices.
ThePeach: I am not having a baby!!!!
TigerCat: Just one?
ThePeach: NO BABIES.
TigerCat: Ok, fine. But you have to either get married in the next 6 months, before I move, or not for 2 years, because I need to be here to plan your wedding.
ThePeach: WHAT IS HAPPENING? I’m going to bed!
TigerCat: Ok, yes! Good! Go make me little nieces and nephews!
ThePeach: Tell CockDoc you need a puppy.
TigerCat: You might be right.

NO BABIES.

ThePeach

Part two: Rocco, the Caribbean grill-chef who unabashedly rapes me with his eyes

2011-02-08T09:22:00.003-05:00

Rocco is a Caribbean grill-chef who unabashedly rapes me with his eyes.

He’s tall, in his late 40s, and he looks stoned, even at 8am. He mostly stands behind the grill and tries to convince people to buy the hot meals, guilting them when they sneak away with a coffee and a muffin.

“Heyyyy. Why do you want a muffin when you could have Rocco’s spicy jerk chicken ratatouille?”

I think Rocco only knows how to make one thing: spicy jerk chicken. So this becomes the base for every single special.

“Heyyyy. Why do you want cereal when you could have Rocco’s spicy jerk kung-po chicken?”

He doesn’t come out from behind the grill that often. He mostly does, from what I can tell, when I come into the caf.

“Heyyyy, beautiful. Why do you want coffee when you could have Rocco’s spicy jerk thai noodles?”

“I just want coffee, Rocco.”

And then – the swagger. He’ll swagger over to me, slowly look over my entire body with his bloodshot eyes, and try to make dirty small talk.

“You’re looking very tanned, beautiful.”

“Ya, I just got back from Cuba.”

“Mmmm. I bet you look gooooood in the sun.”

“Uhhh.”

“I’m going on a pleasure cruise in the spring. *winks* Rocco likes the sun, too.”

“That’s…great. Wow, sounds fun. Ok, well I’m going to get back to work.”

*Rocco slowly runs his eyes over the curve of my ass*

“Don’t stay away too long, beautiful.”

“Ya, ok Rocco.”

And then I dart away, hips as straight as possible, because I know he’s watching my ass as I leave.

So, this happens pretty much every day. It’s not exactly comfortable for me, knowing that every time I grab a coffee a giant Caribbean man is probably dreaming of rolling me in jerk chicken seasoning and eating me alive, starting with the ass.

Now, you should understand that, because I work in a professional, extremely male-dominated environment, I make an effort to look asexual. I wear a lot of loose dress pants, and sweaters, and if the sweaters are tight then I put a scarf over top so that my jugs aren’t too prominent. I’m very careful.

But last week we had a snow day. Almost everyone in the news room planned to stay home. I knew I’d be one of the only people there, so I said fuck it and wore jeans.

Well, guess who else came in that day.

I went into the caf to grab a coffee, and Rocco was standing with Louise at the cash register. The two of them were discussing a roll of quarters when I came over to pay.

Rocco stopped talking to Louise and slowly ran his eyes over my ass, which was much more prominent in jeans. He put one hand on the counter and the other on his forehead.

“You….you look real nice, beautiful. You look REAL. NICE. TODAY.”

He slapped the counter and shook his head.

His eyes were still on my ass as I handed my toonie to Louise. She snatched it out of my hand with her jabby little fingers, glared at me, then turned and glared at Rocco.

“This guy and his compliments, eh?!”

Her scratchy voice broke Rocco’s ass hypnosis. He went back to the grill.

I went back to my desk and tried to sip the coffee so it would last me the rest of the day.

Obviously I failed. I was eye-raped two more times before I left.

ThePeach

Interim: ThePeach is sick; still a drunkard

2011-02-07T09:16:00.003-05:00

Part two of my tales out of the cafeteria is coming soon. But first I want to whine about being sick.

IIIIIIIIIM SOOOOO SIIIIIIIIICK.

I caught a bad cold from – where else – work. First I brought it home to BadInfluence, when I was just a carrier of disease instead of afflicted by disease. BadInfluence, like all men, morphed into a whiney child at the first sign of mild sniffles. Somehow, this behaviour evoked a strange pity and primal sense of duty somewhere deep in my brain. Big man is sick. Big man is weak. Woman must heal big man. Grunt.

So, even though I was coming down with the same bad cold, I didn’t notice. I was too busy running to the store to buy popsicles, zesting lemon into glasses of water and standing over the stove making a vat of homemade chicken soup.

And then I woke up Friday morning completely and utterly diseased. Throat swollen, sinuses bursting, nose exploding, body wracked with fever. The mild cold that I gave BadInfluence had grown and festered inside me for two days, un-noticed, getting angrier and pricklier by the minute, until it finally emerged as the she-devil, mutated spawn of the original virus.

Death seemed both inviting and inevitable.

So I did the smart thing and went into work. When you work on contract, sick days aren’t really an option unless you’re hooked up to an IV bag and a catheter at the same time.

It was a long day. I immediately took to the couch in a fit of deliriums when I got home and let BadInfluence mother me. He rented a bunch of old movies, bought me some Dristan, pumped me full of neocitron, and picked up the snot rags that were piling up in a circle around my useless corpse.

The next day was much the same. But I had a goal: to heal by 10pm, get dressed and go to Spaz’s party. Spaz was throwing a big shindig for the journo-friends and damn if I was going to miss it. It didn’t matter if BadInfluence had to transport me there by air-ambulance – I was going.

But by 8pm I was still desperately ill. I’d laid perfectly still for 24 hours. I’d pumped my body with fluids and cold meds. I’d used so much Dristan that I’d dried out the front cortex of my brain. What else could I do?

The answer was right in front of me.

This is not a metaphor. There was a bottle of wine on the coffee table.

So, I drank a bottle of wine. Then I cried, passed out, woke up and sent BI to the convenience store to buy me some redbull because the wine? The wine was a mistake. Now I was sick, fevered, drunk and incredibly surly.

But I made it to the party. I kept up a steady dose of two parts redbull to one part vodka, repeated every 30 minutes. BadInfluence kept a close eye on me and stepped in whenever I started making surly comments to my coworkers or looked like I was about to fall over and have a seizure.

I toughed it out, like a good little trooper, until 2am. My fevered body could handle no more party. BI put me in a cab and half-carried me back into our sicky apartment. He thought I would just pass out, like a good little patient, and sleep peacefully.

Nein.

This is when the redbull kicked in. I’m told I sang the entire soundtrack to Moulin Rouge while dancing topless in our living room. And then I tried to curl up and have a nap on the kitchen floor, and when BI tried to put me to bed I slipped out of his grip like a greased pig and sprinted around the living room – still topless, of course – waving my hands in the air and yell-singing “ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE! ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE! ALL YOU NEED IS LOOOOOOOVE-LOVE!” And then I passed out face-down on the couch.

I’m not sure if this story has a lesson or a moral. I’m not going to tell you not to drink when you’re sick and have a fever, that’s for sure.

I had a great time.

ThePeach

ThePeach breaks her own rules, part 1

2011-02-04T07:03:00.002-05:00

Ok, I’m going to break my rules already and blog about work.

Well, kind of. I’m going to blog about the cafeteria.

We have a cafeteria on the third floor of the building. It’s always quite busy, because journalists like to eat and most journalists don’t have time to prepare home-made meals. Plus the cafeteria serves (crappy, burned, stale) Starbucks coffee, which should speak for itself.

I go there a lot, mostly for coffee. I also went through a bacon sandwich and hash brown phase in the fall, but I quit that when my jeans stopped buttoning up and I kept getting these weird twinges in my left arm.

So, let’s say, on a typical shift, I’ll grab a coffee at 8am, 10:30am, wander in and eyeball the baked goods at 1pm but leave with a coffee and then go gnaw angrily on a carrot stick, and then grab another coffee around 3 or 4.

If you think that sounds like a lot of coffee (plus the two I need at home to get my ass out the door), I say you are WRONG. The fact that I get home from work after an 11 hour shift and collapse on the couch in a post-caffeine fit of tears and exhaustion is not a problem for my life at all. BI is really good at patting my knee consolingly and passing me my laptop so I can watch Grey’s Anatomy reruns and sniffle every time I see George. OH GOD GEORGE.

Not a problem at all.

It was even worse when I went through two months of starting at 7am, and immeasurably bad when I spent a week starting at 6am. I think I’m part of some kind of social experiment in my work place.

Anyway.

Suffice to say, I’ve spent a lot of time observing the cafeteria and the people who work there.

Take Louise, the register lady. Louise is, for lack of a better word, grizzled and hateful. She’s probably in her mid-60s, she’s small and scrappy – like a Mexican street dog – and she has a grating, nasal voice and beady little eyes. When I hand her a toonie each morning I’m not sure if I’m getting my change or if I’m about to get punched in the throat.

Every day that I interact with her is like Russian Roulette. Some mornings – rare, beautiful mornings - she calls me ‘dear’ and gives me a disconcerting grin. But most mornings she glares at me with those beady eyes and snatches change out of my hand like a New Delhi street-child.

The other thing you need to know about the cafeteria is that they have great tunes. They play a classic adult contemporary station up there.

I went to the cafeteria for my 3pm coffee one day last week. Marvin Gaye’s “Heard it through the grapevine” was pumping through the speakers. This is one of my favourite soul classics, so I did a little groove-thang while I poured splenda in my coffee. No one else was there except Louise, who glared at me, as per usual, from the register.

Also as per usual, when I went to pay she was missing from her station. I looked around, expecting her to pop up from behind the salad bar or scoot across the floor with her arms full of milk cartons.

She was nowhere to be seen, so I knew she was in the elusive back room of the cafeteria – the area behind the grill where the workers slap together sandwiches and de-clog the deep-fryer. It could also be the portal to a parallel universe for all I know.

I waited. God help you if you ever think ringing the service bell is a good idea. And that’s when I heard it: Louise’s grating, nasal, angry voice – SINGING.

“Heard it through the graaaape vine.”

It was more like a grunt, really, or the clearing of phlegm.

I left my toonie on the register.

She could keep the quarter.

ThePeach

Join me later for part 2, where I describe the Caribbean grill-chef who unabashedly rapes me with his eyes.

ThePeach vs. The Bitch

2011-02-01T06:44:00.002-05:00

My eyes were immediately drawn to a wine label when I was in a restaurant this weekend.

The wine was called “Bitch.”

The waiter said it was red, with fruity notes, and smooth on the palate, or at least I think that’s what he said but mostly I wasn’t listening because he had me at “Bitch.”

It was like god gave me a little gift.

ThePeach: I’ll have the bitch.
Waiter: Very good. The bitch is very smooth.
ThePeach: Can you hold off until after appetizers? I’d like the bitch with dinner.
Waiter: Very good. I’ll just leave the bitch on the table.

And it was the gift that kept on giving.

ThePeach: I think it’s time to crack open the bitch.
Waiter: Very good. Would you like to be the one to taste the bitch?
ThePeach: I would very much like to taste the bitch.
Waiter: *opens wine, puts one hand behind back, pours wine in glass.*
ThePeach: *gulps the bitch*
Waiter: And?
ThePeach: This bitch is excellent. You may pass the bitch around the table.

After dinner, the waiter came back for the bills.

Waiter: And how would you like to split the bitch?
ThePeach: I think we’d better split the bitch four ways.
Waiter: Very good.

The best part was that my bill then said “1/4 bitch.” You hear that, world? I’m only a quarter bitch.

After our grownup, fancy dinner, my friends and I rented “Ain’t Twilight Eclipse: A Porn Parody” and got hammered on redbull and gin while cheering like football fans as Jacob nailed some chick on the rez.

Just another classy night for ThePeach.

ThePeach

And in the spirit of honesty

2011-01-28T06:16:00.002-05:00

I have to admit that after I got up from my computer last night, I made the grave tactical error of deciding to put my wet clothes into the dryer before going to see BadInfluence.

And putting my clothes in the dryer reminded me that I really ought to pack for my weekend visit with TheHippie (love!!!!), since I would be leaving straight from work the next day, so then I quickly threw some underwear and gin in a backpack.

And then, only when that was done, did I visit BadInfluence in his office (a.k.a. my den. Ok. Our den.)

And by then it was 10:30 and I worked a solid 11 hours that day so when I sat on his lap I mostly fell asleep with my head on his desk. BadInfluence told me not to worry about it.

So I put on my pjs. Since all of my clothes were in the dryer, my only options were my grandma-flannel bottoms (with pink snowflakes on them) and a lacy see-through lingerie top.

So then I went back into the "office" and told BI to look: I was a hooker up top and a grandma down below. BI was aroused and confused. He managed to stay focused on the top half, until I gleefully pointed out that my grandma-pj-pants also had a hole in the crotch.

He did not like my suggestion that this was for easy access. I was put to bed. Sleep bed, not sexy bed.

I just thought I should be honest.

ThePeach

An honest note on writing and love

2011-01-27T21:44:00.004-05:00

Here’s the thing. I know I’ve been a terrible blogger, and I probably have zero readers left, and for that I apologize (to…no one?). But it’s been hard to blog lately. Really hard, and on a few levels.

First, I don’t know what to write about. I don’t want to write about work, because I will get caught writing about work and then I will be fired from work and then I will have no work. And then I will have to find work in the service industry, except I hate doing things for others and I hate most people so really, who am I kidding? I’ll have to become a whore.

And I don’t do much other than work. For real. The other stuff mostly involves watching Grey’s Anatomy and trying to figure out if I can finance a bigger mattress, because BadInfluence is really fucking tall, and a restless sleeper, and therefore I haven’t slept in months and I figure the only solution is a sleeping arrangement whereby we don’t have to touch each other. He rejected the separate beds idea, so now we have to buy a bigger bed.

Second, I’m boring now. Sad but true, bitches. I guess you probably got that idea from reading about the mattress, but I really have become so incredibly boring. I rent a lot of movies. BadInfluence cooks for me. We buy a lot of wine. Sometimes we have the sex, but it’s mostly love-making and who wants to read about how we look into each other’s eyes and grasp hands while doing it on the couch?

No one.

Third, and perhaps worst, I think…I’ve lost it. The writing ‘it.’ The it where I can see something on the street – a funny dog in booties, a woman struggling with her bags - and imagine the words to describe it. The it where I roll a phrase around in my mouth, moulding it and smoothing out the edges with my tongue, until it’s perfect, until the words make you forget they’re words at all, but become a place, a feeling, a story.

I’ve just felt so…uninspired. At work, I’m creative in different ways – directing readers to stories, writing headlines that make people want to read something, choosing art that can tell a story on its own. But writing stories of my own? I can’t. I don’t know how anymore.

This is not meant to be despairing. Just explanatory.

And, perhaps, hopeful. Because I’ve come to the realization that this cannot continue, and I must write even if it’s terrible and no one reads it. So, by god, I will attempt to keep writing in this blarg of mine, even if it takes a panic attack, three glasses of wine and half a McCain cake to get something onto paper.

I need the practice. Probably not so much the cake.

Update: Tonight’s Grey’s Anatomy is another GODDAMN REPEAT, so I will keep going.

Update 2: Now with microwave-melted McCain cake and a third refill of red wine.

Ok, here goes.

As I said, my life is boring. And, as I do most things, I blame BadInfluence.

Why? Because contented, undramatic love makes you boring. Why did I blog so much the five years I was dating FauxHawk? Because I was, for the most part, unhappy. He treated me like ass, and therefore I was bitter and I expressed this bitterness via words.

We had sex once every two months = blog post.

He found any excuse to push me out of his life, including making me keep my toothbrush hidden in a drawer after two. years. of. dating. = blog post!

Breakups 1, 2, 3 = blog post, blog post, blog post.

My trampages, as a result of breakups = blog NOVEL.

But now? Well, fuck me, bitches, but I am happy.

Every day, happy. Happy to come home, sit in his lap and kiss his cute little face. Happy to spend an entire day walking around the city holding hands, exploring coffee shops, hunting for houseplants and trying new wines with dinner in random restaurants we find.

Happy to get sloppy-hammered off new wines, take a cab home, accidentally tip the cabbie $27, and then fuck BadInfluence on the window ledge while creepy no-pants guy in the other building probably videotapes us. Whatever.

The point is, happiness does not lend itself to good writing. Look at all the really, really great writers through time. Most of them stuck their heads in ovens or waded into deep water with rocks in their pockets. And the rest drank themselves to death.

So what’s a bitch to do?

I can’t say just yet, but I can say that all this red wine and talk of window ledges has made me loving, so I’m going to go see what BadInfluence is doing, and worry about my writing crisis tomorrow.

Aren’t you happy I’m still a whore?

ThePeach

What I know about Paula

2010-11-22T18:18:00.004-05:00

I get a lot of wrong numbers in TheBigCity.

Ever since I changed my area code in May, I get these random people calling my phone. Sometimes I don’t answer and they leave confusing voice mails. Sometimes they text me in the middle of the night, or at lunch, or when I’m really busy doing other important things, like watching internet television or teaching the cat to fetch a ping pong ball.

All of the wrong numbers are looking for Paula.

Paula, who either has a number very similar to mine, or changed her number and didn’t tell a select group of people. Paula, who has needy friends who just really, really want to talk to her, say, at 2am on a Tuesday. Paula, who I’ve garnered a fair bit of info about through my random observations and mullings, just like I have about skinny, naked guy in the next building over.

Oh yes, we have a skinny, naked guy, much like the cast of Friends had an ugly naked guy, and I have to admit it makes me feel very urban to have a naked guy of my own. I haven’t yet tried to poke him with a series of chopsticks taped together and stretched across the alley, but that’s mostly because I’m fairly certain skinny, naked guy is whacking off to internet porn over there.

Seriously. His knees are usually up around his ears.

Here is what I know about Paula, based on six months of messages, texts and phone calls:

1. Paula has one really, really douchey friend

This guy is an asshole. I don’t fault Paula for not telling him she changed her number, or that he has the wrong one, or for running over him with her car if she decides to go that route.

Douchey friend likes to call in the middle of the night, repeatedly, until I pick up. This is how our conversations usually go:

Me: Hello?
Douche: Yo, Paula! We’re at the *indecipherable* and you should be here!
Me: Sorry, wrong number.
Douche: Yo, Paula?
Me: SORRY, wrong NUMBER.
Douche: This isn’t Paula, yo?
Me: NO THIS IS NOT PAULA. THIS HAS NEVER BEEN PAULA. YOU HAVE THE WRONG NUMBER AGAIN.
Douche: Do you know where Paula is, sweetheart?
Me: WRONG. NUMBER.
Douche: You have a nice voice there, sweetheart.
Me: *click*

Sometimes, when my phone is turned off, after he’s tried calling 2 or 3 times, he leaves me an enraged message.

Douche: YO PAULA. PAULA. WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU, SWEETHEART? WHY AREN’T YOU ANSWERING YOUR PHONE? PAULA, I’M GETTING REALLY ANNOYED HERE. WE’RE AT THE *indecipherable* BAR AND YOU NEED TO CALL ME BACK. OK. BYE.

Now that I think about it, this guy might be an ex-lover, or an obsessed psychopath, or both, and he plans to strangle her during non-consensual sex and then cut her into pieces so she can never leave him.

Run, Paula. Run for your life.

2. Paula has an ethnic, old-lady acquaintance

Sometimes an old Indian lady calls looking for Paula. At least, I think she’s looking for Paula. She could also be saying “caller,” or “hello,” or maybe “korma.”

Maybe she’s ordering Indian food. Maybe she’s ordering Indian food every time, and then she sits around wondering where her food is 20 minutes after I hang up. But why would an Indian woman order Indian food? That’s like me ordering in…poutine. Which I’ve done multiple times, actually, but regardless, I’m pretty sure she’s looking for Paula.

Here is how our conversations go. She usually calls around 5 or 6pm…which is totally dinner time, but I’m still fairly certain she’s looking for Paula and not trying to order Indian Special #6.

Me: Hello?
Indian Lady: Oh hello, hi. *indecipherable* *voice trailing off* Paula/Korma/caller/hello?
Me: …HELLO?
Indian Lady: Oh hello, hi. *indecipherable* *voice trailing off* Paula/Korma/caller/hello?
Me:…You want to sell me what now?
Indian Lady: Oh hello, hi. *indecipherable* *voice trailing off* Paula/Korma/caller/hello?
Me: Mom?
Indian Lady: Oh hello, hi. *indecipherable* *voice trailing off* Paula/Korma/caller/hello?
Me: I think you have the wrong number.
Indian Lady: PAULA/KORMA
Me: I’m sorry. Wrong number. I think? Mom?
Indian Lady: Sorry. So sorry. Ah sorry.
Me:…ok bye.
Indian Lady: ok bye.

This has happened at least six times.

3. Paula may be trying her hand at internet dating, and possibly having webcam sex with suitors

I mean, I’d do the same if my only friends were a douche and an old Indian lady. Get out there, Paula! Meet people! Just don’t give them my number.

Last weekend, BadInfluence and I went for a long walk through the city and wound up in an old Hungarian coffee shop. As we waited for the waitress, who looked EXACTLY like FauxHawk’s mother, to bring us our coffees and strudel, I got a text from a number I didn’t recognize, from a person who didn’t leave their name. I hate when that happens, because then, just in case it is from someone you know, you have to write back.

Although I was fairly certain I didn’t know this person, because none of my friends would miss an apostrophe, even on their death beds.

Here is an exact transcript:

Internet Sucker: Hey sweetness how are things at your end
Me: Hey who is this?
Internet Sucker: Don’t you suck forgetting me its jayson
Me: Who are you trying to reach?
Internet Sucker: haha we met on pof (editor’s note: plenty of fish) a while back you seen me on webcam also… ;)
Me: Sorry, you have the wrong number. This is ThePeach. Never been on POF.
Internet Sucker: I’m so sorry

That poor sucker. He bared his heart, and probably his genitals, and Paula gave him the wrong number.

Wouldn’t it be funny if “jayson” were my skinny, naked guy? I mean, SNG is so definitely stroking his penis in front of his computer over there. Seriously, I can see it.

Sometimes the stars just align.

What I don’t know is how the old Indian lady fits into all this.

She probably does just want Indian food.

ThePeach

ThePeach can still run like the wind. Maybe more like a gentle breeze.

2010-10-26T17:42:00.004-04:00

Good news, sexies!

I haven’t destroyed my body nearly as much as I’d thought.

Running has, oddly enough, become a fairly important part of my life in the last few years. I still loathe exercise, but there’s something about running that connects with me. I like the solitude of it – it gives me time to think, and clear my head, and sometimes even have insights and smart-person ideas that just don’t come to me when I’m in the fetal position on the couch. I wrote most of my thesis based on ideas that came to me during long runs along the canal in CapitalCity, for instance.

I love the routine of it. I love finding a route with landmarks, so that I can map out exactly how many kilometres I’ve run so far, and how many I have to go before I get home again. But I also like the spontaneity – finding new neighbourhoods, new parks, new hobos.

Running takes away the suicides and the lingering by the knife drawer habit and makes me loving again. Or as loving as I can be, anyway. When I come back from a run, after I’ve showered, I usually want to either accomplish things, or have sex and then accomplish things. BadInfluence encourages my running as much as he can without dipping into the dangerous zone of making me think he thinks I should exercise because I’m fat and he doesn’t love me anymore AND I’LL KILL YOU, BASTARD.

It’s a fine line.

I hate running on treadmills. Treadmills make me want to punch puppies. When I run outside, I get fresh air in my lungs. When I run outside in TheBigCity, once I get through the exhaust fumes and urine clouds, there’s actual nature to be consumed. And running alongside nature makes me feel like a person-person again, instead of a mole-person.

In short, running is important to me.

And like most things important to me, such as friends, family, nutrition and grooming myself, running has been abandoned since I started working at TheBigNewspaper.

Who the fuck has time for that racket. Really.

Today I hit a low point. I’ve been missing BadInfluence, and the weather has been ass, and the internets weren’t cooperating – have I mentioned that my entire job is running the internets? – and I’ve been super exhausted from another week of 7am start-times and 5pm end-times, and I basically hated life. My colleague brought his wife, baby son and a Tupperware container of Halloween-decorated cupcakes into the office, and I essentially ploughed down his family to get at the dessert. Elbows out, feet lifted high, like I was caught in a stampede.

Bitch needed sugar. Baby was in the way.

After licking orange icing off my face, I decided I should call it a day. I tramped home in my high heels, all hatey and sugar-coated, when the sun came out for the first time since Friday. I noticed that it was unseasonably warm for late October, which I now know is due to a massive “weather-bomb” of storms and possible tornados headed our way.

But still. Sunshine.

That’s all it took. I squeezed into my old running spandex (still fits, thank you stress for burning all calories I take in), strapped on my knee brace for good measure, and hit the sidewalk.

Ten minutes later I was running along the lakeshore and had my stride back.

The question now is: am I loving, or do I want to accomplish things?

I just put in a load of laundry. Maybe I’m done.
ThePeach

Buona sera, bitches.

2010-10-23T06:13:00.002-04:00

BadInfluence is here for a visit this weekend. He flew in last night so that we could have one quick evening together before I had to work the next day (hence the 6am blogging).

I decided to make the evening special, and I'm not just talking about wearing the push-up bra that makes my tits look like torpedos.

Although I did wear it, which in hindsight was not a great plan, food-wise.

Since BadInfluence was coming straight from work, and doling out plane fare so he could get here early, I decided to make him a romantic dinner. I lit candles, I played sextastic music, and I timed a yummy dinner to be prepared the second BadInfluence came through the door.

I decided to tap into my Italian roots and made creamy balsamic mushroom bruschetta, followed by home-made pizza. And lots of wine. Plus the torpedo bra that, seriously, made me want to fondle my own boobs. And I'm more of an ass-man.

So, BadInfluence walks in the door, and is greeted by bruschetta and my tits.

Guess which he went for first.

As he was trying to rape me I was trying to rape him right back, but with food. I forced him to choke down two bruschetta pieces before I gave up and decided that he would not pay attention to my cooking until he, you know, rocked my body.

Following a little couch exercise, I put the pizza in the oven. He followed me into the kitchen and still, I was surprised to see, had the rape eyes.

ThePeach: This is a three course Italian dinner.
BadInfluence: tits.
ThePeach: Bruschetta to start.
BadInfluence: tits.
ThePeach: Then pizza.
BadInfluence: tits.
ThePeach: *kisses BadInfluence* And then...you get a special dessert. *winks*
BadInfluence: You better not have a fucking tiramisu in the fridge.

The torpedo bra is available at La Senza for $40.

ThePeach

ThePeach still gets chased by hobos

2010-10-19T17:13:00.004-04:00

Just a quick update because I'm exhausted and horizontal on the couch right now after another 7am start at work. But I know I gave you all abandonment anxiety this summer, so I figured I should write something before you start dating people who remind you of your fathers.

So, I live in yuppie heaven now. It's cleaner(er), there's (a slight amount of) nature, I can see the lake (and into the apartment building across the street, where BadInfluence and I once caught what we're pretty sure was a dude jerking off at his computer. His shirt was off and we could only see one hand, anyway) from my window, and, best off all, I very rarely spot hookers or hobos (until I walk 2 blocks north).

Last week I had dinner with Spaz. We drank wine and stood by her kitchen island in her brand new condo, and talked about how we can't believe these are our lives. Just a few months ago we were haggard students living in CapitalCity, and here we are now, drinking (a $10 2L bottle of) wine, eating dinner in our shiny (so expensive my first rent cheque bounced) condos, talking about our (occasionally cry-fit-inducing) jobs. We're real, class-act, city girls.

Eventually our other friend joined us, we talked about work and relationships, finished the wine, and I stumbled home on foot around 1:30am.

It was a lovely night. I could smell the lake (and urine) as I turned down my street. And then on the sidewalk, right in front of my apartment doors, I saw...a hobo.

YOU DON'T BELONG HERE, HOBO!, I thought to myself.

DRAG THAT BUM LEG TWO BLOCKS NORTH!

He had wild hair, a red face, and a limp. I tried to scurry around him, but he looked right at me with his hobo eyes and took a deep breath, puffing up his chest to prepare for a hobo-yell.

"YOU STINKING AMERICAN JEW!!!!"

He waved his hands in the air and glared at me. Then opened his mouth again.

"YOU STINKING AMERICAN JEW!!!!!"

Wrong on all three accounts, hobo.

After a brief sidewalk stand-off, he limped along, and I walked into my building with a sigh of relief.

Then I drunk-dialed Spaz, our friend, and my work friend who, by the way, had to be up at 7am in the morning.

Class-act city girl. That's me.

ThePeach

Yuppie fail

2010-10-11T22:27:00.004-04:00

BadInfluence came to visit this weekend, and he brought GinBucket and MC to stay with us on our glorious new futon. Those of you who have been reading my blog for years and are primed to the word ‘futon’ may know where this is going already.

Spaz and I planned for her to come over Friday for dinner, and then we’d have one or two drinks as we waited for our friends and lovers (in reality it was an entire bottle of white, and half a bottle of gin, to the point where Spaz was playing Barrel of Monkeys with my cat).

Friday would be the first time I had guests in our new, beautiful apartment.

Let me backtrack a little. I also started working 7am-3pm shifts at work this week. Since I still have to look professional and not like yesterday’s whore, I have to wake up at 5:15 in the morning. You know what wakes me up every morning? The dulcet tones of the British media. You know why? Because 5:15 is too early even for CBC. Fucking CBC even acknowledges that no one should be awake at 5:15. No one. So I wake up to their BBC stream. This depresses me, even though it makes me feel closer to Cleavage. Connected through the radio, if you will.

My point is that I have to go to bed early. At 11pm on Thursday I looked over at the futon just in time to see the bastard cat release a torrent of hot urine all over it. A fucking jet stream of liquid SATAN. He made eye contact the whole time, so nonchalantly, all like “Ya, that’s right. I’m doing this. It feels great.”

11pm. On the only place to sit in my apartment, and where the lesbians were to sleep the next night.

I went through seven stages of grief. Six of them were weeping, and one of them was calling BadInfluence in a fit of rage to tell him it was his fault BEEEECAUSE YOU LEFT ME HEEEERE ALOOOOONE.

At 11:30, I began the scrubbing. I scrubbed like a little slave-girl until 1am. I was delirious from the fumes of cleaning products and piss. I dragged the mattress into the sun room, lit some incense, sprayed half a can of aerosol, opened all the windows, yelled at the cat, felt bad about yelling at the cat and patted his little head, spent the next 20 minutes blocking his attempts to bite my arm off, the little fucker, scrubbed my hands to get the smell of piss off them, and passed out for a solid 3-4 hours of sleep. Wicked.

I gave the futon another vigorous scrub the next afternoon, before the arrival of the guests. Then I flipped it over, put it back on the frame, covered it with blankets, sprayed more aerosol, and hoped for the best. Everyone said they couldn’t smell piss, but they could be lying because I look like a serial killer right now, all pale and dark-circled and muttering to myself.

This was my first yuppie fail of the weekend.

Part 2:

BadInfluence and I went to the big farmer’s market downtown on Saturday. I like how big cities go to great lengths to make you forget you’re in a big city so you don’t get depressed and start shooting people from your office window. I’m pretty sure that’s why they have farmer’s markets (food other than Indian takeout!), group yoga classes in courtyards behind offices (exercise! Relaxation! Being part of something other than the commute!) and the occasional caged-in tree on a sidewalk (wait. waaaait. I know what that is. I've seen one of those before...).

So we totally douched it out, white-person stylez, and went to the market to buy local veggies and meats. We felt very sophisticated yet earthy, choosing our peppers and picking out our steaks.

And there was music in the background, barely audible above the market chatter. Sweet, soft music. I looked around for the source.

And my eyes stopped on a midget playing a mandolin. A midget. Playing a mandolin.

He was sitting on a little crate.

I’ve gotten in trouble for this kind of talk before, so I’ll just leave you with the image.

Part 3:

Because we weren’t quite douchey enough yet, we stopped at the wine store on our way back from the market. I was looking at the $8 bottles, like a classy bitch, when the salesman asked me if I’d like to taste their vintage Trius.

I’ve never been one to turn down free booze.

He poured BadInfluence and I each a little glass, swirled them for us, and set them down.
I immediately dumped it down my throat, opening my esophagus like a snake digesting a mongoose. I daintily returned the glass to the counter. The salesman eyed me warily.

“Oh, sorry. Was I supposed to spit that out or something?”

Yes I was.

We bought our cheap wine and were on our way.

Part 4:

By this time, it was early evening. We thought about watching the sun set over the lake, from our awesome view, but instead had dirty jungle sex for two hours, the kind where people get thrown around and you come-to with slap-marks on your face. You know, romantic sex.

I do not regret this choice.

Part 5:

This was not part of our Saturday, but needs to be mentioned. We were having a wine and candlelight night before BadInfluence left for CapitalCity. It was very romantic, what with cuddling and love-chatter.

Until I said this:

“You’re not funnelling water into my ass. I don’t care how much you want to get laid tonight.”

The context is unimportant.

Isn’t this exactly what you imagined I’d be like as a yuppie?

ThePeach

I'm not dead - really

2010-10-05T23:04:00.004-04:00

It’s been more than five months since I last blogged. Blogging is kind of like exercise…easy to stop, and once you do stop, starting up again seems impossible, like too much work, and you’d rather use your free time to lie on the couch with a sandwich.

Oh hey, I also stopped exercising.

The thing is, my job at TheBigNewspaper has taken over my life completely. I eat, breathe and sweat TheBigNewspaper. I don’t really do anything else anymore – when would I? And I don’t want to blog about work, lest they find out about it and fire my young ass.

But today, on my 28th birthday, I decided to fuck it. Plus last night was too completely ridiculous not to write about it.

So, welcome back. My three remaining loyal readers must be very excited.

So, my summer. As you know, I’ve been in TheBigCity since May 1. BadInfluence came with me, until he had to fly to B.C. for four months for his own internship. Long distance was about as awful as you might expect. I visited him once for four days, and we mostly had sex in his sublet. I hear Victoria is beautiful, though.

Life with Cig, my 20-year-old pot-head roomie, went on as expected. She’d hit the bong at 4am, pump Elvis tunes, and paint pictures of moustaches. Like, I’d wake up in the morning and find giant moustache paintings drying on the dining room table. She also enjoyed not wearing pants, inviting her friends over for parties, and getting tattoos.

As for my internship, they definitely put me through the gauntlet. I got to do some reporting, which was awesome and fulfilling, but mostly I was a web editor. And then, halleluiah, they decided to hire me…as a web editor.

I got the news editor drunk last night and asked him if I’d ever be a reporter. He said no. He also told me I’m not a good writer. This was at my birthday party.

So, life dreams shot to shit, but at least I have a job?

In surprising life news, BadInfluence and I moved in together in September and I’ve become a total fucking yuppie. Like, we look at pillow covers in The Bay and buy Spanish classical guitar cds to play in the apartment while we drink wine and plan our thanksgiving dinner menu. Ya, I’m gross. And it. Is. Fucking. Awesome. Seriously, I like having the same man in my bed every night. And after he gives me a good tumble at night, he makes me pancakes in the morning. Heaven.

I never thought I’d enjoy being a yuppie. Turns out I just couldn’t picture it with FauxHawk, who would rather live out his years sitting cross legged in a tree fort, pretending to be 19. Does that even make sense? I don’t know, I’m pretty fucking hungover right now.

Who knew? I’m a secret domestic. And having BadInfluence around has increased my humanity levels by at least 70 per cent. Example, he packs me a lunch for work. Usually I just eat a bag of chips and down two redbulls, like a proper journalist. I have this ringing in my ears lately and I think the redbull has probably snapped some wiring in my brain. The guy I buy it from at the gas station across the street knows me by name. When I don’t show up for a few days he asks where I’ve been. Oh my god, I have a dealer.

Anyway, things in our yuppie heaven were lovely, and then journalism reared its ugly head and offered BadInfluence a job…back in CapitalCity. It’s just a month contract for now, so I told him I thought he should take it. It’s a great job for him, and it’s not like there’s a ton of them here. Only job I can get is running the interwebs, for fuck’s sake. So, he’s gone for at least a month and I am back to living like a hobo child. It’s been two days and the apartment already smells like rotten garbage and there’s a pile of cat-vom on the floor with my foot-print hardened into it.

I suppose I should get around to telling you about last night.

I went out with Spaz (she works here, too) for dinner, to start. We went to this Asian-fusion place, had a few drinks, and after catching up about our lives, got into the always cheerful discussion of our old, dying grandfathers and how much we miss our families. We both had tears in our eyes as she was telling me about how her grandfather was sad that she wouldn’t be there to decorate his Christmas tree this year…when our tiny Asian man-server walked toward us with the world’s smallest, saddest birthday cake.

Then he started singing – it was more like a whisper, really – in a slightly off-key, haunting voice.

Haaaaappy biiiiirffffdayyyyy to youuuuu….

Spaz and I were stunned. This was beyond words. This was a tiny, sad Asian man, holding a tiny, sad cake, singing the world’s saddest rendition of happy birthday. Spaz had no choice but to join in, her soft little voice clashing with his. She stared at me with horror throughout the whole song, just her and the tiny Asian man singing.

After he left and I blew out my little candle, we fell onto each other laughing for the next 10 minutes. Now we were crying for real. Holy shit, these things only happen to me, don’t they?

Free cake though. Yay.

After this we met up with some of our other friends and went to a bar where some of my friends/colleagues from TheBigNewspaper hang out on Mondays. When they found out it was my birthday, the tequila came out. This was the beginning of the end.

Four shots of tequila, 3 gins and two ciders later, I was telling the news editor that he should send a reporter I don’t like to Afghanistan, I lay my head on the table and cried about being a web editor, and I told everyone there that tequila makes my clothes come off. Then I took a cab home and left the cabbie a $12 tip because I couldn’t wait for the change.

After exiting the cab I immediately vomited in the potted plant on the sidewalk. Then I walked into my building, said hi to my doorman, got in the elevator, and pressed 22. At floor 6 I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I held my lips together with one hand. At floor 10 I vomited on the floor. At floor 16 I tried to mop it up with a piece of paper from my purse. At floor 18 I remembered the security camera in the elevator. This is the last thing I remembered that night.

I woke up this morning at 11am, fully dressed, with all the lights on. My head was cracking. I picked up my phone and saw I had written – but not sent – a message to BadInfluence that said “I’m tucked.” I think I meant fucked. My throat and mouth felt fur-lined. I stumbled into the living room and saw the cat puke with my footprint. Guess I didn’t notice that when I got in. Little guy. He wanted to puke, too.

I went into the bathroom and saw an empty box of gravol on the floor. Empty. How the fuck many gravol did I take last night? Two? Ten? FUCK. I could have OD’d…on gravol. How tragic would that have been? I can see the headlines. “Drunk whore tries to take gravol to calm her stomach; is found two days later on the floor with half her face eaten by her cat.”

I signed into facebook and one of my colleagues immediately messaged me.

Colleague: So some chick that was with us just randomly started kissing me at the table last night.
ThePeach: Send me an ambulance.
Colleague: She was really into it until she realized people were watching.
ThePeach: Please, ambulance.
Colleague: It was that chick you brought with you.
ThePeach: Wait. What?
Colleague: Ya, that girl *name removed to protect friend*
ThePeach: OH GOD.

So then I message my friend, who woke up to find her kitchen covered with shredded cheese. She was horrified to hear this revelation and has no memory of anything past midnight. None. I do not tell my colleague this, even when he asks for her number. Disaster.

So, then I dry heaved on the couch until 3pm. Then I decided to open the package my mom had sent me for my birthday. I eagerly cut open the packaging, and pulled out…this.

Yes, it is exactly what it looks like. What you see, friends, is a tshirt with a drawing of a little Korean girl holding a Siamese cat. What you can’t see is that the bow in her hair is a real bow. I thought I was hallucinating when I opened it.

My mom called shortly after to ask if I liked it. Lying makes baby jesus cry.

Then I had a 3 hour nap. Then I forced myself to get dressed and I met with my work friend for dinner. Then I came home and puked again, but this time in the can, like a lady.

Then I decided I should blog again. And here we are. It’s been five months, and my life is completely different from where I left you last time.

It’s funny how everything can change, but nothing really changes at all.

ThePeach

One Week: Purgatory, Chernobyl and Roti Thursday

2010-05-28T06:57:00.006-04:00

At the end of today I will have worked my first week at TheBigNewspaper.

Here is what I have learned:

1. The subway is fun. The subway during rush hour is not. The subway during rush hour in a heat wave is what I imagine purgatory might be (as opposed to the "Lost" sideways world where we all realize we died through our emotional connections to each other, and time is relative, and we convene in a multi-faith church that has doors to heaven, and where the FUCK is Walt??). Just riding in circles, getting elbowed by pushy old chinese ladies with carts and men in business suits, sweating on everything, trying to decide whether or not to move out of the way to allow people to get off at their stops or just stand in the doorway like an asshole bouncer of the yonge line = the grand test.

2. Even if you only have to walk 4 blocks from where your streetcar drops you off, don't wear your high heels to work. My feet look like chernobyl. They look like cambodian killing fields. They look like leprosy. I'm now one of those women who carries my shoes in my purse and treks to work in flip flops (I couldn't stomach the runners, I just couldn't. Maybe when I'm 40). I have actual holes in the backs of my feet. Red, wet holes that ooze body fluids while I air them out at night and then I wake up with my heels stuck to my sheets and have to rip the sheets off my feet and scream like a little bitch and wake Cig when my alarm goes off at 6am and then I have fresh holes instead of scabbed holes like I would prefer. It takes 3 giant elbow bandaids on each foot just to whimper my way into appropriate office shoes in the downstairs bathroom at my work. I work on the second floor and have to climb a flight of stairs everytime I go to the bathroom or buy a coffee = 45 times/day. Conclusion = I will be a double amp by July. How poetic.

3. The office has Roti Thursday. Every Thursday they order Rotis from this roti place around the corner, and they all get pretty excited about it. The order emails start circulating Wednesday, and all anyone can talk about Thursday morning is the merits of mild versus medium and garlic versus yogurt. My trainer was teaching me how to crop photos for the web when someone told him that the roti place brought back the mint sauce. His eyes actually welled up with tears.

I still don't think I'm properly conveying how obsessed my office is with Roti Thursday. When I first moved to the department I'm currently in, I noticed that the walls were covered with movie posters. Each poster, oddly enough, had an image of a brown dude in a chef's hat photoshopped into it. I would later find out he is the chef. So, there's a Raiders of the Lost Ark full-sized movie poster on the wall, except it says 'Raiders of the Lost Roti' and Indiana Jones is a brown dude in a chef's hat. Now, superimpose this theme onto evey movie poster you can think of ("Breakfast at Roti's," "A Roti runs throught it," Dude, where's my Roti?") and that is my office decor.

Tragically, I missed the order deadline for Roti Thursday. So I had to eat a ham sandwich.

Ah, I see that I will now be late for work. Perhaps I should shower. I'll just go wrap my feet in plastic bags and limp into the bathroom.

I hope my screams don't wake cig.

ThePeach

I've been a bad girl

2010-05-24T17:30:00.003-04:00

I’ve lived in TheBigCity for 24 days.

As a born and bred CapitalCity girl, I’m not supposed to like it here. We’re sworn hockey rivals, provincial versus national capital enemies, and god knows you can’t get a decent poutine anywhere in this sweltering cement jungle. Cheese curds, people! Cheese CURDS.

We’re told TheBigCity is impersonal, breeds stiletto-wearing snobs and men with douche-beards, and will rape you, shoot you, and leave your corpse encased in cement in a barrel in the bottom of the Queen’s Quay.

But I’ve always been a bit of a sadist.

I’m totally having a sordid, sexy, blow job in the bar bathroom affair with my sworn enemy. TheBigCity seduced me, sweet talked me into bed, and instead of feeling dirty I feel dizzy and maybe slightly drunk. There’s a lot of fucking patios here. My blood is now at least 30 per cent sangria.

I live right at ground zero. I trip over a passed-out homeless person every time I leave my 30-storey apartment building, there are hookers at one end of my block and a gaybourhood on the other, and I can spin in a circle and see at least seven cheap sushi restaurants on any given day. What’s not to love here?

I’m a ten minute walk from the most prestigious shopping district in the province (*credit card screams*), my jogging route takes me past one of the best skyline views in the city, and when I get sick of cement and exhaust fumes, a 30-minute streetcar ride east takes me to the beach or a 15 minute ride west takes me to the land of yuppies, farmer’s markets, and the heaven patio – where TheAmazon, BadInfluence and I baked in the sun last weekend and got hammered on beer and brunch. So what if I don’t remember going out for dinner that night, threw up on the subway, and was in bed by 9pm? Heaven. Patio.

Speaking of puking in public, I’ve also made my mark in a $5 martini bar in little italy after a romantical dinner with BadInfluence, and 3-storey bar inside a series of Victorian houses in the old student neighbourhood. I’m so classy, I’ll class the shit right out of you.

Speaking of BadInfluence, we had 3 weeks together in TheBigCity and we made the most of them, by which I mean I was drunk most days and I’ve eaten so many baskets of sweet potato fries that three people have asked me if I’m pregnant. Thanks, whores. Maybe after I finish this post I go for a little jog.

Yesterday BadInfluence left for his summer job on the other side of the country – literally the furthest point west he could possibly go. A mere 7 hour plane ride and 24-hour work schedule now separates us until September. Eff. It’s funny – FauxHawk and I were often separated because of his work, usually for months at a time, but this feels so much worse. Maybe because FauxHawk kept me at such a distance already that a geographical divide didn’t make much difference. Anyway, my point is my heart hurts. I miss my lumberjack and his beard. Non-douche beard, I should add.

Tomorrow I start my job at the big newspaper, and I’m already shitting my pants. I’m currently surrounded by news magazines and newspapers, trying desperately to come up with story ideas that won’t get me laughed out of the board room and lead me to take a long walk off the pier. But, like, what do you suggest to the editor in chief of the biggest national newspaper in Canada? Oh hey, have you thought about Afghanistan? Maybe we should do a story on the oil spill in the gulf. I hear something happened in Haiti a while ago. Oh my god, I need some immodium.

And luckily for my one remaining reader, my panic = the return to blogging. You’re welcome, loyal fan.

I’ll leave you with this anecdote. We’re having a heat wave today, and my 30-storey cement block is reminiscent of the oven chambers at Auschwitz, so I ventured to my neighbourhood starbucks for some relief. There are four starbucks within a five minute walk of my door, and I only had to visit three before I found a spot to sit. Ah, population. Anyway, I spent a lovely two hours sipping my pike’s place and reading about world events as I watched people cross one of the city’s biggest intersections outside my window. It was heavenly.

And then I heard a splat and something cold and slimy hit my bare back.

I looked to my left – a brown guy on his laptop was blinking his eyes, covered in tufts of whipped cream. Behind him, a blonde poptart in a black halter shirt put down her blackberry and wiped a dollop of whipped cream off her face. I looked to my right. A red-faced girl stood over what was once a frappuccino – from the taste of my back, it was mocha – and an explosion of whipped cream and frothy calories surrounded her. The floor, the walls, and the half of the surly Starbucks patrons were covered in her disaster. I left before things got ugly, quickly crossing the street to my apartment. When I got in the elevator, I saw that my hair was also covered in frapp. No wonder the homeless dude with the guitar did a double take.

I love this place.

Don't tell CapitalCity. He's sensitive.

ThePeach

ThePeach undergoes life changes; not menopause

2010-05-03T16:59:00.002-04:00

Herro. It’s been a while.

Here is a list of life happenings that have occurred since we last spoke:

1. I finished journalism school
I have a master’s degree now. No big deal.

2. I finished my thesis
This nearly killed me. There were a good two months where I didn’t go out, and a solid 5 weeks where I didn’t leave my apartment once. I stopped changing my clothes, preferring to don my “apartment uniform:” grungy old lulus and a baggy green sweatshirt. I stopped styling my hair, preferring to don my “haggard mom” wet bun hairdo. I stopped wearing makeup, preferring to don my “vampire hobo” natural beauty.

Add to this that I started living off a diet that consisted solely of microwave popcorn, asian noodles, spiral kraft dinner, coffee, and redbull. Not even sugar free redbull, as my liver had learned to metabolize this too quickly, but the full sugar, 10 million calorie, jolt your heart, can’t blink, motherfucking red to the bull.

And then I stopped communicating with the outside world. No phone calls, no msn convos, no emails. I even stopped checking my snail mail. I hope those bills can pay themselves.

All in all, I failed at humanity for over a month. But I wrote a 12,000 word thesis. On time. I have an eye twitch that may turn out to be permanent, I forget how to communicate and might have developed autistic tendencies, and BadInfluence may never touch me again (was I supposed to take off the apartment uniform after I handed in my thesis? I want to be buried in it), but my god I wrote a damn good article that is too long to freelance and about a topic that interests me and about three other people.

So worth it.

3. I moved to TheBigCity
Four days after I handed in my thesis, I woke up in a bedroom a five hour drive from my old home. This involved three days of manic packing, several teary goodbyes, and one tow truck to pull BadInfluence’s car off the side of the 401.

Yes, I am writing to you live from TheBigCity. I’m currently hiding in my bedroom on the 21st floor of a highrise in the thick of downtown, listening to ambulances scream by and hobos yell at pedestrians. I start my new job at the big newspaper in a month, my lease in CapitalCity ran out, so here I am.

It’s been slightly overwhelming. Good, but a lot to take in. I…live..here? I’m sure I’ll have lots more to say about this later. Right now I’m still trying to get over the shock of moving. I will admit that I already like TheBigCity a lot more than I thought I would, and I’m getting used to the noise, the ethnic people, and my roommate.

4. I have a roommate
Let’s call her Cig. Cig is 20 years old and works at La Senza. She’s south-asian and has “reincarnation” tattooed over her left tit. She told me that she had a fish named “Cigarette the Fish,” but I haven’t seen him yet, so I fear she may have killed it.

I’d lived here for all of an hour before she lit her first bowl.

Cig, as it turns out, is a massive pot head. The pot smoke wafts out from under her door all day, and from the balcony all night. I suppose it could be worse. She could be a coke head. And I do enjoy the pots, as you know. Just maybe not at 10am, when we share a wall, and I can hear her sucking on her bong. She enjoys the wake and bake.

From what I can tell, here is a typical day in the life of Cig:
10am: wake up. Light bong.
10am-10:15am: Suck on bong. Cough. Loudly.
10:15am: Fry a pan of bacon. Take it to bedroom.
10:25am: Eat bacon in room, watch episode of Dexter. Loudly.
11:15am: Offer ThePeach some pot. Peach declines.
11:20am-12:30pm: lie in bed. Loudly.
12:30pm: Shower. Put on a slutty dress.
1:00pm: Go to La Senza. Sell mesh thongs and fluorescent pink bras to preteens.
9:00pm: Come home, go to room.
9:01pm: Light bong. Suck on bong. Cough. Loudly.

And so forth.

I’m going for a drink with her tonight after her 9pm session. I’m looking forward to getting to know the inner workings of Cig. Does she have deep thoughts? Dreams and ambitions beyond working at La Senza? Can she tell me where the garbage chute and/or laundry room is?

Stay tuned.

ThePeach

About last night...

2010-04-12T14:50:00.002-04:00

We had a class party last Friday. It’s probably the last time our little journalism family would hang out all together. For many of us, it was also the first time we had taken a break from writing our theses in weeks.

So some of us really took to the bottle.

I think I peaked at about 1:45am, when I convinced GinBucket that we should climb the dividing wall in HotMess’s high-ceilinged apartment. She climbed up on my shoulders, then dragged me up, and then we were perched on a dividing wall, ceiling height, with a bottle of vodka and a lemon, for the better part of 30 minutes.

We finished the vodka. I – with all the love and tenderness in the world – whipped the lemon at BadInfluence’s head. Below us, Spaz chased MC around the apartment to get her pants back. MC screamed like a rape victim. BadInfluence drank from a bottle of tequila that had been in HotMess’s fridge for a year. GinBucket and I watched it all from a storey above them, like drunk God.

Things get a little blurry here. I think GinBucket flew. I almost lost a tooth during my graceful dismount from the heavens. There was talk of renting Saved by the Bell porn. I wanted a Happy Meal. I hit my head. I took something that may or may not have been a gravol.

Pretty typical night.

Here is an exact transcript from my text messages/phone calls the next morning:

11:12am. From GinBucket to ThePeach.
“ Why did I jump off HotMess’s ceiling? I can’t find MC’s aspirin. My life hurts. If I die it was nice knowing you.”

12:00pm. From ThePeach to GinBucket.
“I feel like I just crawled out of a grave.”

12:15pm. Phone call from Spaz to ThePeach.
Spaz: Do you think MC is still pissed about the pants? I'm worried.
ThePeach: I...can't see...where am I...
Spaz: I won them FAIR AND SQUARE!

12:30pm. From MC to ThePeach.
“Hey, just back from my pedicure. GinBucket’s still in bed, immobile. Did you have anything to do with her jumping off a wall?”

1:00pm. Phone call between MC and BadInfluence.
MC: I'm quite sure ThePeach convinced my girlfriend she could fly.
BadInfluence: I have no doubt. Brunch?
MC: Can't. Girlfriend's dead. Also, she's wearing your shirt.

2:27pm. From ThePeach to MC.
“I’m spinning in the breakfast diner. I fell last night and hit my head. Where’s my bacon.”

2:30pm. From MC to ThePeach.
“When’s GinBucket gonna get up and watch Jersey Shore with me?? Life, so hard.”

4:00pm. From FrogBoy to ThePeach.
“How was the rest of the party last night? I heard it got weird.”

7:15pm. From ThePeach to MC.
“Well. I just woke up. What day is it?”

The future of the media world.
ThePeach

How I write

2010-04-11T09:01:00.002-04:00

It’s thesis writing month.

Classes finished a few weeks ago, and now we’re supposed to spend April writing up/htmling up/voicing up/ingesting up the last year or so of our lives. Because I chose print medium, that means I have to write up a 40 page article suitable for publication in a magazine, which may not seem so bad if you’re not in journalism, where the average article is 500 words and still most people won’t read past paragraph two. So trying to write a compelling piece of journalism 20x that length is…a challenge.

I’m averaging 4 pages a day, which is quite good for someone with the self-discipline of a toddler left alone in a room with a 3-layer chocolate cake and instructions not to touch. For me, the battle is not so much in spitting out the words, as it is in making myself actually sit down and do it. I need a fire under my ass to accomplish the littlest of things – I need to see a live rat licking a 10-day old plate before I contemplate washing dishes. I need my power to be shut off before I pay a utility bill. And, my god, I need deadlines before I can write shit all.

This is why daily news suits me. There’s no time for procrastination, not when the deadline is 5pm and it doesn’t matter if you’re working on a news brief about a knitting circle or a 1000 word feature on conflict in the middle east – get your shit to print or get your ass back to the unemployment line.

There are textbooks for journalists, meant to inspire us and teach us the basics of writing for print. An essay that is featured in most of them is "Why I write," first penned by George Orwell and later remastered by Joan Didion. These just happen to be two of my favourite writers and two of my favourite essays. But I think we all know why we write...writers are all very similiar people - creative, wanting an outlet, expressive, somewhat introverted, brimming with neurotic tendencies, and one 9am gin short of alcoholism.

How we write, however, is different for everyone. This is how I write.

Without a deadline other than the general “end of April…if you can,” my days since April 1 go a little something like this:

7am: Alarm goes off
8am: Actually roll out of bed, convincing oneself that subliminal soaking of 1 hour cbc news during sleep is productive.
8:10am: Coffee #1-3.
9:00am: Open word document, flex fingers in anticipation of Pulitzer Prize worthy word-stuffs about to pour from brain.
9:30am: Stare at blank page. Heart starts speeding up.
10:00am: Maybe a shower will get me going.
10:30am: Maybe an hour on facebook will get me going.
11:30am: Call MC to see how her writing is going. Learn that she is done her first draft. Call Spaz to see how her webpage is going. Learn that her supervisor told her she’s brilliant. Call BadInfluence to see how his writing is going. Learn that he still hasn’t started. Feel better, put down phone.
12:00pm: Stare at blank page, tears in eyes. Question thesis choice, medium choice, career choice. Reread older sections, decide I’m a terrible writer. Life = wasted.
12:30pm: If I can’t be smart, maybe I can be hot: to the gym! Stairmaster like a motherfucker, sweat like a whore. Rock out to Michael Jackson’s greatest hits, stretch to the Twilight: New Moon soundtrack. Feel better about life.
2:00pm: OH MY GOD IT’S 2:00PM.
2:30pm: Eat everything in the house, consuming 5x as many calories as I have just burned. Lie on couch in shame.
3:00pm: Sister calls. Yell at her for disturbing my writing process.
3:30pm: Train the cat to fetch a ping-pong ball. Watch him take a nap. Take photos of his cuteness.
4:00pm: Message BadInfluence in tears. Hint that if he wanted to bring me a redbull and also give me a back massage, that would be ok.
4:01pm: BadInfluence shows up with redbull; concern. I’m affectionate for 4 minutes and then I yell at him for disturbing my writing process and tell him to leave.
4:05pm: Watching BadInfluence put on his jacket makes me feel loving; panic. I jump on his back while he ties his shoes and cling to him like a liferaft; whisper dirty things.
4:06pm: BadInfluence rolls his eyes and carries me to the boudoir.
4:07pm-4:50pm: I'm a good girlfriend.
4:51pm: Yell at BadInfluence to leave; shotgun redbull.
4:52pm-8:00pm: Write 4 pages.
8:10pm: Message BadInfluence. Tell him if he wants to come over and make me dinner, that would be ok.
9:00pm: Eat beautiful meal, cuddle, watch news. Love life; BadInfluence.
10:00pm: Panic about the drek I’ve just written. Reread it, make BadInfluence reread it, start rewriting sections, yell at BadInfluence for not being more stressed.
12:00am: Slink into bed, ashamed at acting like such a heinous bitch. Promise BadInfluence I’ll be nicer tomorrow.
12:01am: Yell at BadInfluence.

And that is how I write.

ThePeach

How ThePeach and BadInfluence spend Date Night

2010-03-21T16:40:00.001-04:00

My Friday was really annoying.

Actually, my whole week was. It got off on the wrong foot when the documentary I was recording on Monday, about a man who can’t afford vet care for his dog, turned into a doc about how the dog had to be put down. And I was there when the man found out. Not good karma. Not good.

Fast forward through a week of disastrousness to Friday night, and I’m drinking alone and writing a section of my thesis instead of drinking with friends, like the plan had been.

I lie. BadInfluence was there, too. He was drinking quietly on the couch and avoiding making eye contact with me while I screamed at my computer. He had come by earlier to be supportive during my writing process – a process which I hoped would be done in time to go out and meet our friends – and then take a cab with me downtown.

And it was going fine until my computer crashed as a result of a virus my mom had accidentally sent me in a spam email trying to get me to buy Nike shoes online.

Nothing would open. Then nothing would save. And then the computer went byebye and I lost a fair amount of the work I had written that night.

Insert epic shit-fit, a volatile temper tantrum of grandiose proportions.

BadInfluence wisely made no sounds and no attempts to touch me, lest I KILL HIM.

See, when I get really stressed and ragey, I become what I like to call “stabby.” It’s like, if I were some kind of rare jungle reptile, and if I had this cool evolutionary defence mechanism when I feel threatened, and that mechanism was to SHOOT SPIKES OUT OF MY SKIN IN ALL DIRECTIONS LIKE A JABBY BLOWFISH AND KILL WHATEVER IS TOUCHING ME, GODDAMIT.

That’s what it’s like. Stabby.

So, then I needed 2 more hours than I had planned for. And then it was too late to go out. So we watched Dexter and I sulked, the spikes under my skin trying to decide whether or not to explode and stab everything, including BadInfluence, right in the fucking eye.

That was not date night. Saturday was.

Bobba, my grandpa, had invited us over for dinner. God help us.

When he found out I was seeing someone new, he immediately wanted to make a proper inspection of the man in my life. I wasn’t too worried, seeing as how BadInfluence isn’t a) quiet, b) Jewish, so my grandfather would automatically like him more than FauxHawk.

Bobba spent all week planning the menu and selecting wines. He wanted a St. Patrick’s Day themed meal, so he made soda bread from scratch and somehow made corned beef. I was fully expecting him to answer the door dressed like a leprechaun, but no luck. Although he was wearing suspenders.

Bobba was excited to have guests. He was already fairly drunk when we got there, holding a glass of whiskey and making inappropriate jokes. I had prepared BadInfluence for this likelihood, so he didn’t bat an eye when the first thing Bobba did was make a joke about his height and then tell us he was serving cheese, and did you know too much cheese can make you constipated?

No biggie.

Anyway, they got along fine. Bobba talked about himself, and BadInfluence dutifully looked through photo albums and listened to Bobba lecture him on mulching techniques.

I got drunk.

After our Irish meal (by the way, Bobba is not Irish. He’s from Nelson, BC), I cleared the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher. I could hear Bobba and BadInfluence chatting in the living room. And then, in a lull in the conversation, I heard Bobba put his glass down. BadInfluence would later tell me that Bobba fixed his eyes onto his, menacingly. And then he spoke:

“If you don’t take care of her, I’m gonna kill ya.”

I almost dropped the stack of dinner plates I was holding. Amazing, a death threat. Maybe he was brandishing a knife at the time. I had no way of knowing.

BadInfluence recovered well, made a joke, and they moved on. I came back into the living room with the pie and we had a lovely dessert.

It was late by the time BadInfluence and I got home, and I was tired, so we decided to get drunk and order a movie. All the movies on Rogers sucked, so I flipped to the Adult section and we ordered a XXX version of “Friends.” It promised to be just like Friends, but with fucking. I figured it was the least I could do for BadInfluence after the death threat and all.

It was fantastically cheesy. Moanica and Shandler fucked on the foosball table. Russ and his lesbian ex Carolyn, and her partner Susie, had a threesome on the couch in Central Perk. Joe ate out Shandler’s mom in their leather recliner. Rochelle, Freebie, and Moanica had a foursome with ugly naked guy, who it turns out is not so ugly, and very well-endowed.

Call me dirty, but I love porn. It’s hilarious. And, if you’re very drunk on gin and water because you’ve run out of tonic, an aphrodisiac.

This has become a bit of a date night ritual. Last week we rented Dexxxter and watched Dexter Whoregan, hot red-head nympho, solve sex mysteries mostly involving chubby asian hookers.

Am I perverted? Maybe. Am I over-sharing? Oh, probably. Somewhere, MC is retching.

But do I know how to treat my man to a great weekend, or what? A little computer rage, a little temper tantrum, a little crying, a little stabby-ness, a little family time, a little death threat, a little corned beef, and a little Friends porn?

I should probably be a relationship coach. Maybe if this whole journalism thing doesn’t work out.

ThePeach

Just your average Tuesday, really.

2010-03-09T12:23:00.002-05:00

I woke up at 7:30 a.m. and gave the cat his AIDS medicine. He’s having an “immune system episode” as a result of my being too busy to remember to order him more medicine when he ran out last week, and so his little lip is all fatty and swollen, like he lost a bar brawl. So now he has new medicine, and an adorable little swollen face, and I have a guilt complex.

And that’s enough about being a crazy cat lady for one day.

After AIDS medicine, I had breakfast and tried to muddle through my readings for my gender class. Or, as I like to call it, lady class.

Here is a direct quote from one of the articles titled “The face of terrorism.”

“Evoking Bataille’s famous solar anus, bin Laden’s penis-head resembles nothing so much as a giant pineal gland dwarfing all potential for civilization.”

I mean…come on. This is just…no. I can’t even…nay. NO. NEIN!

At 9:30 I decided to go for a run. I’ve been trying to run 10km in under 50 minutes. So far I can do it in an hour, but I breathe like I’m trying to expel my lungs through my mouth. So, I need practice. The reason I’m trying to increase my speed is to prepare for my move to TheBigCity, where I imagine running outside will involve sprinting away from homeless people with knives and dodging syringes. So, ya. Speed is key to my survival.

Even though it’s the first week of March, I went in just shpants and a tank top. I figured I would sweat once I got started and heat myself up. Plus the sun looked warm.

Incorrect. I froze my box off.

It took all of 30 seconds for my arms to go numb, and I ran with them dangling by my side like I was paralyzed from the waist up. Which, essentially, I was.

My whole body aches now, which might be from building muscle but could also be from frostbite to all four of my limbs.

After the world’s hottest, longest shower, I made a gigantic ham sandwich and sat down to tackle more lady class readings.

“Gangsta Bush: white face with the desires and dick of a black man, proving his weapon to be longer and stronger than his bitch’s, bin Laden’s (fig. 34).”

NEIN!

So, I messaged TigerCat on facebook and we chatted about hot yoga while I ate my lunch. As she was describing her instructor’s crack-pot commentary (“put your head on your knee to evoke your pituitary gland”), I heard a voice and a buzzing sound in my hallway.

“Hello? Hello? Help!! *buzz*”

Like any good citizen, I ignored it for several minutes. TigerCat described how her instructor told her to bend backwards for good colon health. And then:

“HELLO! HELLO! I’M STUCK IN THE ELEVATOR! *buzz*”

Ah, shit. My apartment is right beside the elevators. No one seemed to be helping her. I couldn’t ignore her any more. Quickly, I tossed my half eaten sandwich on the counter and ran outside.

“HELP! HELP! *buzz*”

I faced elevator 1 and yelled into the doors.

“HELLO! I HEAR YOU! I’M GETTING VIVIAN!”

Vivian is our obese, surly landlady with what I suppose we could describe as a lady mullet. She works in an office on the ground floor. I opted to take the stairs. When I got to her office she looked up from her frozen dinner and scowled.

“Yes?”

“SOMEONE IS TRAPPED IN AN ELEVATOR ON THE 6TH FLOOR!”

Vivian scowled more deeply.

“Why isn’t she ringing the buzzer?”

“She is.”

Vivian ambled over to her walky talky.

“Jim? Someone is trapped in an elevator on the 6th floor.”

Jim is our superintendant. He has a man mullet and smells like he smokes contraband cigarettes in an air-tight locker.

Then Vivian nodded at me, which I took as my cue to leave. She followed me out and stood by elevator 1. She croaked at the door.

“STOP YELLING. I CALLED JIM.”

I strutted back up the five flights of stairs to my own apartment, feeling like a do-gooder, expecting a medal to be delivered to my door at any moment.

I sat back down at my computer and told TigerCat what happened. Then I went into the kitchen for my sandwich. Nay, my VICTORY SANDWICH.

The cat was crouched over it, a slab of ham hanging out of his greedy little AIDS mouth. When he saw me he bolted into my room, dragging the ham under the bed to eat in solitude.

I get no respect.

ThePeach

Three; fuck

2010-02-27T20:49:00.001-05:00

Another one of my ex-boyfriends is now married. That makes three. Three of my exes have taken wives. Have houses. Are adults.

I…have a cat with AIDS. Sometimes he bites my face.

Today I found out that the ex who is a medic in Afghanistan (*swoon*), who I had a schoolgirl crush on since I was 9, who I finally dated when I was 19, and who left me for some chick he worked with at Swiss Chalet at the time…is married. The ceremony appears to have taken place on a white sand beach in the tropics. And she is hot. Thank you, facebook. Always a pleasure doing business with you.

Add that to TheEx, who married his beautiful wife in a Fairmont hotel, and the weird conservative douche, who got married god knows where but I assume an ultra-Christian church somewhere in the bible belt, and that makes three. THREE.

Now, let’s be clear. I don’t particularly wish I had been the one to marry any of my exes. I’m not holding a torch for any of them, by any means. I’m also not angry. They’re all good people (except maybe the douche, but just because he was a vagina hair to me doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person), seem very happy, and I do wish them well.

Also, I don’t particularly want to be married any time soon. This marriage bonanza isn’t making me cry over engagement ring photos or stop using birth control to try to trap some poor sucker by the balls. BadInfluence, don’t worry. Your balls are safe.

What’s upsetting me about Weddingpalooza 2010 is the choices I have made in my own life.

I am getting a Master’s degree, and I’m going to work my dream job this summer, and my chosen career path is exciting and I can picture toiling away over articles quite happily for the rest of my life.

But I’m also 27, and I’ve chosen a life where, at 3am, I find myself climbing the roof of my friend’s house in my bare feet in February, high on life and gin and my epic beer pong win. I have chosen a life path where I steal splenda packets at every coffee shop in the city because I’m too poor to buy real splenda, and I’m like a pathetic, stealth little burglar. And every time I dig for money in my giant purse, I only find an errant splenda packet, which surprisingly doesn’t fly as currency.

I have chosen a life path where I will have a 20-year-old roommate this summer, because her apartment is cheap and nice and on a subway line. She works at La Senza and has a fish named “Cigarette The Fish,” which my cat will eat on day 1, and then I’ll probably be homeless.

I have chosen a life where my entire immediate family is currently celebrating the Olympics in Vancouver, and my mom didn’t even invite me because she knew I would be too busy. It’s a family reunion of Olympic proportions over there on the better coast, and I’m lucky if I even have time to watch Olympic highlights on the CTV webpage.

I was feeling pretty down after I discovered my ex’s marriage on facebook, and I thought about calling my sister in Vancouver to complain about it. But then she called me, and my heart warmed because I figured she must have known I was upset about something, and maybe we have a creepy twin-like connection where she just KNOWS.

Incorrect. Here is our conversation:

TigerCat: Hello!! How are you?!
ThePeach: Well, I’m kind of having a bad day. TheMedic got married, and now that’s three exes that have taken wives and I’m starting to question my life choices.
TigerCat: Oh no.
ThePeach: Ya.
TigerCat: That sucks. I’m sorry.
ThePeach: Ya. How was your day?
TigerCat: I went for a walk in the Olympic Village and I MET DANY HEATLEY AND MARTIN BRODEUR!!!!! I GOT A PICTURE WITH THEM!!!!
ThePeach:…shut up.
TigerCat: I DID!!!
ThePeach: Fuck. I’m jealous.
TigerCat: HEATLEY TALKED TO ME!!
ThePeach: Oh my god. That’s…I hate you. What are you doing tonight?
TigerCat: We’re seeing Blue Rodeo for free. What are you doing?
ThePeach: Well, the plan was to write a few assignments but now I might just kill myself instead.
TigerCat: I’m sorry. I wish you were here.
ThePeach: Ya. Maybe if Mom had invited me.
TigerCat: Ya.

Conclusions: my life is not ok at the moment. NOT OK.

Yes, I chose to put my career first. Yes, my career is going to be awesome. But…right now, my quality of life kind of blows sloppy ass.

I do want to get married some day, but to the right person and at the right time in my life. I don’t want to get married because I feel like my ovaries are drying up and it’s time to take a man, or because I’m worried about dying alone, or because everyone else is posting really beautiful facebook albums of their own awesome weddings and I’m worried that by the time I get married, facebook won’t even be used anymore, and THEN HOW WILL I MAKE PEOPLE JEALOUS, I ASK YOU?? HOW??!!

I suppose I will make people jealous because they will see how awesome my love is, and how simply happy I am, and maybe because my husband has a big cock and they all know that because I’m a whore that way.

But until that time comes, I am the person who climbs roofs and steals splenda and forces prednisone down my cat’s throat using a tiny syringe.

Weird that I haven’t gotten any proposals yet.

ThePeach

Things I've learned in my women's studies class: part 1

2010-02-09T10:02:00.004-05:00

I'm taking a women's studies course as my elective this term. The class is called "Gender, Sexuality and the National Security State," and I'm not sure why I'm in it. Everything is about "terrorists" (finger quotes!) and "white man supremacy" (finger quotes!) and lesbians (a real term, no finger quotes necessary).

After 6 weeks of class, here is what I have learned:

1) The security state is not a physical place. This is new to me. I thought it was like...New York. Or Iraq. Incorrect. It's a mental state. Or something. I'm still unclear.

2) The media are evil. Maybe worse than "terrorists." But are "terrorists" bad, or good? Still lost there, too. All I know is I, a sweater-vest wearing starbucks sipping member of the media, am evil.

3) Gay people are queer people. Aboriginal people are indigenous people. Housewives are communists. Communists are free thinkers. And maybe queers. AHH.

4) The female orgasm is a national security threat. I think that makes me a terrorist.

5) The antidote to terrorism is lesbianism. I think that makes me a terrorist.

To conclude: I am going to fail this class.

Help.

ThePeach

ps- here is a description I wrote of the class for an assignment for another class. I think it paints a pretty accurate picture.

Professor Pat’s eyes light up as she jabs a piece of chalk toward a girl in the front row.

“What did you just say?” Pat asks breathlessly.

The girl lowers her head, her cheeks blazing. The lights in the classroom reflect off her horn-rimmed glasses.

“The gaygeoisie,” she whispers.

“What?” Pat says, jutting her head down closer to the girl.

“The gaygeoisie,” she says more loudly. “Like the bourgeoisie of gays.”

“Oh my god!”

Pat opens her arms wide, like she’s about to grab the girl and lift her off the ground in a hug. She leans black and claps her chalk-covered hands together, just once. She laughs loudly.

“The gaygeoisie! I love it!”

Pat’s fourth-year women’s studies class is almost impossible to get into. Her reputation as queer-friendly, race-friendly, caste-friendly - and both painstakingly politically correct yet stridently subversive - has students lining up outside the classroom just to get a seat. Only 21 make it inside.

Blackboards scribbled with words like “epistemic ejection,” “homonationalism” and “official vagueness” line the room. Some words are underlined or circled twice, and connected by erratic lines to other words.

The students make quotation marks with their fingers when they speak.

“Queer white patriarchy,” a girl in a knit hat says slowly, her index and middle fingers curling.

“Necropolitics,” and another set of fingers.

“Terrorist attack.”

The semi-circle of students is a blur of short, edgy haircuts and dark-rimmed glasses. Six girls sip from environmentally friendly metal water bottles. Five have knit hats tugged over their heads. Four have visible facial piercings.

Everyone widens their eyes and raises their eyebrow when Pat talks about next week’s guest speaker. An ex-Black Panther will be talking to the class.

“She’s been to prison!” Pat says, her arms waving.

“She’s a feminist! She’s a communist!”

Pat grins and her eyes flash.

“And she’s queer.”

Her eyes quickly scan the room and land on the journalism student wearing a sweater-vest and drinking from a Starbucks cup.

“Not that you have to be queer to pass this course,” Pat adds.

She moves back to the list of terms on the blackboard. Her index and middle fingers curl into quotation marks.

“White National Subject.”

She chuckles and rolls up her sleeves.

“The gaygeoisie! I just love that.”

ThePeach has a week on the desk; meets some basic life standards

2010-02-08T11:55:00.002-05:00

I’m on the desk for our radio show this week. I don’t have to do anything until Wednesday. This means instead of spending the entire weekend and all of Monday/Tuesday chasing and producing my story, I can…live my life? What is…this? This weekend I saw a movie. A MOVIE. I went out for a drink. A DRINK! I did my dishes. Ok, BadInfluence helped. Clean DISHES! I even gathered three weeks worth of torn apart newspapers and put them in a pile. A PILE!

Anyway, I also had a scarily productive morning today. I woke up at 6:30. Here is the shit I accomplished before 10:30am:

1) Read the most important, newsworthy section of the newspaper: lifestyle. Today I learned that the couple that tweets together, stays together. I also learned that today Librans ought not to go to extremes and should spin criticisms positively. We have a workshop to criticize each other’s profile assignments in our writing class tonight. My horoscope is always so wise. So wise.

2) Read the 12 profile assignments. Was impressed with classmates’ mad skillz. No need to criticize, anyway. My favourite was the profile of Famous NewsMan.

Quote: “If I couldn't rival his intellect I took comfort in the fact that I might at least compete with his fashion sense. NewsMan was known for his fancy suits but this time I would surely catch him off guard. The recent retiree was in the comfort of his own home and I was armed with my classic pin-striped blazer. I rang the doorbell and he greeted me. Dressed in a full suit.”

Not much makes me laugh out loud at 7am, sir. Well done.

3) Convinced two more potential interviewees to let me write about them for my magazine article on the “real” Lagos, through the eyes of the workers. One potential interviewee has a lace thong of mine hanging in his bar. The other is room-mates with the Irish Bartender and heard me doing…things. Convincing was not difficult. Professionalism questionable. Let the writing of “All in a Daze Work” commence!

4) Failed yet again to sync my iPod with my two new CDs: Metric and the New Moon soundtrack. This is my 67 hundredth attempt. God hates my music. He’s trying to tell me I’m too old for Werewolves and angst. Threw my iPod at the wall in rage after failing again. Froze iPod. Had to google instructions on how to re-set iPod. Re-set iPod. I consider that an accomplishment.

5) Got Vivian the landlady to stop the motherfucking BEEPING in the apartment across the hall from me. All weekend it has been BEEPING constantly. Like someone’s alarm has been going off for three days, or maybe their smoke detector, or maybe their pacemaker. THREE DAYS STRAIGHT. I knocked on the door a few times and no one answered. I know someone new just moved in. Is he deaf? Is he…dead? Either way, Vivian made it go away. That’s all I need to know.

6) Went for an 8km run. Outside. I don’t even know how I did this almost every day last year. Last winter was even colder than this one, and today I still had to stop halfway through my run to hold my mittens over my burning ears and scream like a chick. On the bright side, perhaps I also burned off some of the deepfry I ate on Thursday. And Friday. And the chemical butter on Saturday.

7) Got my period (sorry boys), thus ending the most suicidal and dark phase of PMS of my life. I’m talking lie on the couch for 2 days weeping with a blanket over my face because I can’t face the world, refuse to go grocery shopping despite the fact that the only piece of food in my fridge is half an onion, but I DON’T DESERVE TO EAT, consider dropping out of school, consider stroking the knives, can’t wear pants, can’t stop eating Chinese food, why doesn’t the cat love me, why doesn’t anyone love me, why are my tits so MASSIVE (oh, there you go dudes), seriously, I look like a porn star except I’m CRAZY, this cleavage is out of control, maybe I’m with child, oh my god I’m going to have a baby, oh wait I’m probably just fat, oh my god I’m fat in the tits, google health cleanses, google Bernstein diet, google lipo, google antidepressants, watch six episodes of Dexter while I eat chocolate chip poptarts, P to the motherfucking M to the holy sweet christ S.

Anyway, I feel much better.

And that’s what I did between 6:30am and 10:30am.

I’m exhausted.

ThePeach

I asked for this.

2010-02-01T07:43:00.002-05:00

January 31, 2010: I miss the good old days, when only my ex-boyfriend's mother, or old one night stands from Lagos used to post comments.

I was agitated after the whole ex step father message debacle of yesterday. After some thought I just deleted the entire post so that the world wouldn't have to see my dirty laundry. Then I went out for dinner with my grandpa.

We had a great time. We went to a greek restaurant in the south end of the city and came out smelling like we'd sucked on garlic cloves for the past 2 hours. It was tasty, and it took my mind off my facebook woes.

When I got home, since I'd deleted my last status update, I made a new one:

ThePeach just had the perfect date. He picked me up, he brought me a dozen muffins, he paid for dinner, he talked local politics, and he dropped me off with a kiss. He's my grandpa. Can I bring him to prom?

Less than an hour later I got my first and only comment:

I am still hoping...
- FauxHawk's Mom.

Come ON. COME ON!! JESUS! FUCK! Seriously, universe??!!

Hoping for what, exactly? I think this can only mean one thing. Hoping that I keep waiting around FauxHawk to change his mind, and keep myself available as a uterine vessel for her grand-jews.

Appealing.

Fuck off. I need to do a mass facebook delete. All ex-lovers, ex-step-fathers, ex-step-aunts, ex-one-nighters, ex-almost -mother-in-laws, ex-almost-sister-in-laws, ex-almost-niece-inlaws, ex-everything need to get to stepping.

I'm only one person. One little person, at that. I have enough drama on a daily basis for 6 full-sized people, and each of them would have a great story.

My brain can't take much more.

Is 8am too early for a little boxed wine?

ThePeach

The joys of facebook, part 57.

2010-01-31T13:06:00.002-05:00

This weekend the watermain for my building broke and we had no water for a day. Imagine waking up on a Saturday morning, hungover like a sunburned Mexican in the street, stumbling to the kitchen with a handful of advil in one hand and a glass in the other, twisting the tap, and:

HISSSSSSSSSSSS

Just air.

Other perks included not being able to brush my teeth or shower or make coffee, and worrying that the cat would dehydrate and die.

I changed my facebook status to moan about my situation, and I got a few pitying comments from friends and my sister.

Then I went to the gym, showered at BadInfluence’s house, and got drunk at SpongeBath’s.

When I woke up this morning (with water, thanks be to jebus) I had a new comment on my status.

We have a spare room with a king size bed and your own bathroom with hot and cold running water that's yours if you want it. And .......I would love to see you again. My heart has been aching to have you and TigerCat part of my life again.
- CoorsLight

CoorsLight, my ex step father who hasn’t tried to contact me in over 5 years. CoorsLight, who ruined my childhood and stole my college fund. CoorsLight, who made me hate gingers. CoorsLight, whose father – my childhood grandfather – used to come over and watch me suntan in my bikini in the backyard, from behind a curtain in the living room, when I was 13. CoorsLight, who got busted for having child porn on his computer while he was raising us. CoorsLight, who stole my Nintendo and kept it locked in his bedroom so I couldn’t play it. CoorsLight, who kept porn poorly hidden around the house, so poorly hidden that by the time I was 9 years old I knew what a gang bang looked like. CoorLight, who changed the locks on our house so that I had to break in through my own bedroom window just to pack my belongings in a laundry hamper and go live with my Dad for the summer while him and my mom ended their marriage, which he had pretty much already ended when he started fucking his dental hygienist.

CoorsLight. CoorsLight. COORS fucking LIGHT.

Right on my facebook wall. For the world to see. His heart aches. He wants me to live in his house, which he bought with the money he stole from my grandparents.

If you’ve ever wondered why I drink, this is a pretty big fucking clue.

CoorsLight.

I miss the good old days, when only my ex-boyfriend's mother, or old one night stands from Lagos used to post comments.

Thanks again, facebook.

ThePeach

TigerCat has a bad night

2010-01-27T22:56:00.002-05:00

TigerCat is having a quarter-life crisis. She can't find work in Universitytown so she's jobless and bored, but she can't leave because CockDoc has one and a half more years of training. When she called tonight she was feeling a little...special. Here are some gems:

"Universitytown is a fucking vortex. Suddenly it’s three years later and I have no career and I hate my life. I feel like I’m waiting for something but I don’t know what. But I do know the longer I wait, the bigger my ass gets.”

“I just hate Universitytown and – ooh! I found a fox in my facebook fairyland garden!”

Poor sister.

ThePeach

ThePeach writes things; kills self

2010-01-27T07:06:00.004-05:00

Ola,

I haven't slept since Saturday, I spent the last 3 days straight in the radio room making a documentary, I'm out of printer toner, all I eat is crap cafeteria $8 salads, and I want to kill myself.

That said, I haven't updated in a while. So here's some shit I wrote. A profile. Names changed.

Oh hey I just ran out of time to shower. This is not a life, people.

ThePeach

***

The woman’s wrist is swollen, red and bent to the side. A small bump of bone pushes under the tight skin like a hill.

Dr. B.W. gently holds her elbow and tells his junior resident, Dr. M.H., to grab her fingers.

“Your only job is to tell us if you’re in any pain,” W. says to the grey-haired woman lying on the gurney.

And then he nods at H. and the two of them start to pull hard in opposite directions. W. lunges to the side, putting all of his weight into pulling this woman’s elbow. At the same time he runs one hand up and down her arm, feeling the bones move, guiding them back together. Finally he tells H. to grab the gauze and the strips of plaster.

She’s ready for her cast.

It’s 7 p.m., 12 hours since W.’ shift started.

W., 34, is an orthopedic surgery resident at the CapitalCity Hospital’s Civic Campus. He’s in his third year of residence, seven years into medicine, and two years away from a permanent staff position. At this stage in his career W. is a work-horse, pulling overnight shifts on top of day shifts, barely eating, rarely sleeping, and learning from his seniors while teaching his juniors.

He’s a middle-man, a resident but not an attending physician, a doctor but not a certified specialist, both a student and a teacher.

And as of tonight W. has worked 15 days back-to-back.

Long hours and juggling multiple roles can subject hospital staff to “unsustainable” levels of stress and burnout, researchers at CapitalCity University say. In a study released earlier this month, they warned that health care workers can suffer poor physical and mental health, conflict between family and work lives, and declining personal relationships. The study confirms that health-care workers are among the most stressed, overwhelmed and burned-out workers in the country.

But W. smiles and cracks jokes as he tenderly wraps the woman’s wrist with wet strips of plaster. The woman smiles back as W. runs his hands up and down the wet cast. He dips his hands in warm water and shapes the plaster like he’s molding a vase on a pottery wheel.

“I just accept this is how my life is going to be for the next few years,” W. says as he examines the woman’s X-rays half an hour later. His hands are caked in plaster and his shoes are stained with blood.

“It’s part of the price we pay for this short period of training.”

He runs his index finger over the white bones on the lit screen, the wrist now firmly encased in a plaster cast.

“See how the radius curves into the scaphoid?” he says to H..

“It looks good. We can send her home.”

His pager beeps. Someone else has broken a bone.

W.’ life is bones – realigning them, splinting them, sometimes removing them. He pores over their images, looking for cracks and bends in what should be smooth and straight. He snaps photos of some of the more traumatic X-rays and takes them home to examine them again and again – over dinner, while he studies, before he goes to sleep.

Tonight in the resident library he takes a photo of a spine snapped in two, the top piece overlapping with the bottom thanks to a skiing accident this afternoon.

The patient is only 34 years old. The same age as W..

“He’s paralyzed,” W. says as he frames the X-ray in the screen of his iPhone. He clicks the capture button.

“Poor bastard.”

W. admits he doesn’t have much of a life outside of work. He usually wakes up at 5:30 in the morning, skips breakfast and is in the hospital an hour later. He might eat a peanut butter sandwich for lunch if he has time. If he doesn’t have to work overnight then he cooks himself a light dinner in his bachelor apartment on Preston Street. He lives alone despite the nurses’ best intentions to set him up with eligible women.

“Relationships have come and gone and not all of them have understood,” W. says.

“It’s difficult when people aren’t used to the lifestyle we have or haven’t really seen it before other than on TV. They find it a bit of a shock.”

But his family and friends are supportive, W. says. He grins and says sometimes he has time to meet his friends at a pub to watch football, but only on his rare days off.

His mother and three younger siblings live in the city and they get together for dinner whenever they can. He says he’s always been close with his family – closer since his father died this summer after a long illness.

His pager beeps and W. strides out the door, back towards the emergency room.

H., W.’ junior resident, says W. doesn’t seem to let the stress of the job get to him.

“B. is consistently calm, cool and relaxed,” H. says of his mentor.

He adds that W.’ patients warm up to him very easily.

A few minutes later W. wraps a shoulder sling around a woman in her seventies whose tissue-paper skin hardly covers her bones. W. jokes that she gets a special sling because she’s a special patient. She bats her eyelashes.

At 9 p.m. W. has a few minutes between cases. He hurries down the carpeted hallway of the main floor in search of dinner and, more importantly, coffee. He walks briskly in his blue scrubs, eyes focused on the turn that will lead him to the Second Cup stand. He rounds the corner.

Closed.

“One thing I would change about the hospitals in Ottawa,” W. says as he turns around and hurries back toward the cafeteria, “is that there are no all night coffee shops.”

“But at least I can get a crappy cafeteria coffee. Maybe some food.”

He rounds the corner.

Closed.

W. chuckles and pulls a protein bar out of his shoulder bag. He tears the wrapper and pops one chocolaty end into his mouth.

“I guess tonight this is my dinner.”

Before he was a bone man, W. was a muscle man. He worked as a personal trainer for three years. He says he still goes to the gym as often as he can, but not as much as he’d like. The health of his own body is important to him. He knows he needs to eat more, get out more and rest more.

“If I saw myself as a patient I would certainly tell myself to get more sleep,” W. says as he chews.

“But it’s just not possible right now.”

His pager beeps. W. quickly swallows another bite and hurries toward the emergency room.

There are more bones to be set.

The joys of facebook; life

2010-01-10T12:11:00.001-05:00

I wrote a quick status update this morning on facebook. I’ve been working on some freelance articles and have been struggling with writer’s block (or “I’m lazy and obviously need to watch 12 episodes of The L Word”-block), so I wrote a joke-ish update about how much I’ve been procrastinating:

I've washed the dishes, cooked everything in the fridge, cut the cat's nails, gone through my banking statements, updated my ipod, organized my recycling...I guess it's time to start writing. Unless you think of anything else I should be doing. Is it too early for taxes?

Two people commented:

1) FauxHawk’s mother (“Yes, it is. Are you moving?”)
2) The Irish bartender from Lagos (“Visiting me?”).

All I need now is maybe an ex-boyfriend, or my own mother, or maybe Stella the stripper and the circle of awkward will be complete.

Seriously, facebook.

Seriously.

ThePeach

ThePeach is Truman; Scared

2010-01-07T09:53:00.002-05:00

Do you ever feel like your life is some kind of ridiculous television sitcom, and everyone is in on the joke but you?

Wow, that makes me sound like a schizo.

Seriously, though. Sometimes my life plays out in such perfect irony, such timely hilarious misfortunes, such metaphoric events, that I can’t help but wonder if someone is scripting it.

Take yesterday. If I were the sitcom writer, I could call yesterday “Better luck next time!”

Team B:
The day started with my 8:30am full day radio workshop. It’s a fun class, despite the workload. The first thing that happened is that we got assigned into production teams. There are three teams and about 24 students.

All week, MC had been giving me a hard time (in a loving way…I think) about how our class schedules worked out this year. Because our class is divided into print versus broadcast streams now, and because we each choose 2 out of 4 workshops to take in varying semesters, and because we take different electives and TAships, it works out that it’s possible to have zero classes together with some of our classmates. Like HotMess, for instance. I have barely seen her this year, and it hurts my heart. Liver is functioning better, though.

But this semester I somehow have every single class with MC. Every single one, including our elective and our TAship. It’s some kind of fluke mishap, and she jokes (jokes?) that she’s going to kill me after about two weeks. There’s only so many times she can lead me blindly to our classroom, tell me when things are due, and hold my hand throughout assignments. And listen to me whine on our walk to school. Oh yes, I’m going to be punched. For sure.

But in our radio class, since we work mostly in our teams, I reassured her that we would just be on different teams and it would be like we don’t have the class together because we wouldn’t see each other all day. This seemed to mollify her.

Until we got put on the same team.

Our names were picked out of the hat one after the other, so for a brief moment we both thought she would go on the next team. It’s what would have made sense.

Instead the prof thought for a moment, and then added her name under mine on team B.

I looked at her cautiously.

She had the wide MC rage eyes. She shook her head, teeth clenched, and said she was going to fucking kill me.

I giggled nervously.

Sources, part 1:
I’m working on two freelance stories for the major newspaper chain right now. I have a ton of interviews to do, and I used all my breaks yesterday to attempt to call my sources.

First, a word on sources: some of them are lovely, charming people to talk to, and go out of their way to get you the interview (and get their name in the paper).

Some of them are goddamn jackasses who make you jump through hoops and kiss their asses just to get a 5 minute phone interview about parenting styles. PARENTING STYLES, you stuck up asshole!! YOU ARE NOT STEPHEN HARPER, YOU ARE NOT EVEN IMPORTANT, JUST ANSWER MY GODDAMN QUESTIONS AND GET BACK TO MASTURBATING. God! Jesus!

Guess which kind I was dealing with yesterday?

Actually, no. First I had a lovely interview with a child psychologist in Montreal. It was quick, to the point, she was clear and friendly, and she agreed to have her photo taken. Cut. Print.

And then I started trying to get a hold of the family counsellor in Vancouver. I needed this specific family counsellor, otherwise I would have called someone less, oh, pedophilic sounding. Seriously, I have never felt more uncomfortable just from hearing someone’s tone of voice. In the three minutes that we briefly talked, he made me feel like I needed a bleach and brillo shower.

Here’s our convo:

ThePeach: Hello, Mr. Counsellor. I’m a reporter with the major newspaper chain. I’m writing a story on parenting. Is now a good time to ask you a few quick questions?
Mr. Counsellor: *breathes* I used to be a journalist.
ThePeach: Oh, wow. With who?
Mr. Counsellor: *breathes* …what?
ThePeach: Um, with who? Who were you a journalist with?
Mr. Counsellor: *breathes* oh…just…things. Print things. In English.
ThePeach: Oh…kay. So, can I just have five minutes of your time to quickly ask you some questions?
Mr. Counsellor: *breathes* Yes. But not now.
ThePeach: Oh. Would you like to set up a time, then?
Mr. Counsellor: How about 5pm my time?
ThePeach: Sure. I’ll call you at 5pm, pacific time.
Mr. Counsellor: *breathes* Bye.

Ok, so I had an interview set for 8pm. It would be a bit of a rush to get home in time for it, but I would do it.

I also tried to set up an interview with this major hotel. I talked to two PR people (bless their helpful hearts), and they assured me the director would call me asap. I kept my phone glued to my side.

Exercise:
Spaz, MC and I were super excited for our first cardio kickboxing class of the new year. I stayed on campus after my class got out at 3 so that I could just walk over to the gym later. I milled around in the journalism building, calling sources, checking facebook, and wondering if the cat had pooped in my bed.

At 5 we walked over to the gym, lugging our running shoes and stretchy pants.

Then we found out the class actually starts next week.

Like, jesus. Fine. FINE.

So instead we just worked out in the cardio room. I rowed and stairmastered. I hoped my ass was shrinking.

In the 40 minutes that I was separated from my phone, the major hotel called back.

By the time I got the message, the director had already gone home for the day.

Perfect.

Sources, part 2:
I rushed home after the gym to make my 8pm interview. I didn’t even shower off the stairmaster sweat, opting instead to just throw on a baggy sweatshirt and marinate. I scarfed down the tiniest and quickest dinner so that I wouldn’t hallucinate while I was on the phone. At 8 on the nose, I called Mr. Counsellor and got the world’s creepiest answering machine.

Ok.

I left a message. Tried again 5 minutes later.

World’s creepiest answering machine.

15 minutes later.

30 minutes later.

By 9:30 I realized that the fucker had blown me off. Jesus H Christ.

So I quickly ran downstairs to watch an episode of Cougar Town with MC.

In the 30 minutes that I was away from my landline, Mr. Counsellor called me back.

FUCK. FUCK!

I immediately called him and got the world’s creepiest answering machine. I left another message. Called three more times. Swore.

By this time I was exhausted. I spent the next two hours trying to start writing one of my articles, and intermittently calling Mr. Counsellor like a crazed ex-girlfriend.

At midnight I gave up and passed out. I set my alarm for 6am so I would be productive before I had to go spend the day TAing with MC.

Sources, part 3.
At 2am my phone rang.

I woke up with a start. So did the cat, who flew off my stomach in a fear-fit and galloped out the door.

I don’t even remember picking up the phone. All I remember is waking up at 2am to the creepiest voice in the world.

Mr. Counsellor: *breathes* Hi, Peach.
ThePeach: What? Huh? Mom?
Mr. Counsellor: *breathes* is this a good time?
ThePeach: What? Um? *looks at call display* Oh. Hello.
Mr. Counsellor: Your message said I could call you anytime. Your message said you’d be at your desk late.
ThePeach: …yes. But now is not the best time, as it is 2am.
Mr. Counsellor: *breathes* are you in…bed?
ThePeach:…perhaps we can schedule an interview for tomorrow?

I was actually seriously disturbed when I got off the phone. First of all, I had been in the deepest of sleeps when he called, so I was still confused. Then, in my semi-conscious state, I decided he was probably a sociopathic killer and was stalking me. I got up to make sure the chain was on the door. I hid in bed, convinced I was about to be ass-raped.

Just when my heart rate came back down, the cat dove back onto the bed, still enraged.

He flew at me like a rabid bat, biting any exposed flesh until 3am.

Eventually we both passed out and slept fitfully.

I woke up at 9am, the morning news blaring for the past 3 hours.

Fuck fuck fuck.

So, that was “Better Luck Next Time!”

Tune in later for “Ass-rape is no laughing matter” and tomorrow for “MC punches ThePeach in the face.”

ThePeach

Maybe the best thing ever; at least it wasn't Milo

2010-01-05T12:56:00.003-05:00

I was on my way to night class yesterday and I had just stepped out of the elevator in my lobby.

A blonde girl about my age was checking her mail, and she had a teeny little poufy dog with her, approximately the size of my foot. Before I could say anything, and before she could look up, he trotted happily into the now empty elevator.

“YOUR DOG!” I shouted as the doors closed behind him.

“WHAT??!!” she screamed, looking around frantically as I pushed the button.

Then the elevator started going back up.

Second floor, third floor…

“Um, your dog is in that elevator.”

“OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!!”

We pressed all the buttons. Spaz walked out of the elevator on the far left.

“What’s going on??”

“Her dog is in that elevator! Alone!”

Fourth floor, fifth floor…

“OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!”

Spaz and I started giggling. We couldn’t help it. We kept pressing the buttons.

Sixth floor, Seventh floor. Stop.

“OH MY GOD, WHAT IF HE GETS OUT??!”

She started sprinting toward the stairs.

“Wait!” Spaz said, pointing at the elevator.

Sixth floor, fifth floor, fourth floor…

Spaz and I are now falling into each other with suppressed laughter. The girl is wringing her wrists and pressing the button.

Third floor, second floor, ground floor…

“OH FUCK, WHAT IF IT GOES TO THE FUCKING BASEMENT??”

And then the doors opened. The teeny dog was sitting demurely in the middle of the elevator, perfectly calm.

Spaz and I screamed with laughter.

The dog trotted back out, his tail wagging.

“OH, THANK GOD!!”

MC came out of the stairwell at that moment and looked at us like we were lepers.

“What are you DOING??”

I gestured to the teeny dog.

“He had a little adventure.”

And then we went to class.

End scene.

ThePeach

Back to school: Day 1

2010-01-04T23:37:00.002-05:00

It's the first day of my last semester, and already I:

- slept through my alarm for 90 minutes
- got a threatening call from Rogers about my late bill payment
- tried to sign up for cardio kickboxing ($45)
- had my credit card declined trying to sign up for cardio kickboxing
- used a friend's credit card to sign up for cardio kickboxing
- ate Kraft Dinner. Entire box. Spirals. Sometimes a bitch has to treat herself.
- spent the entire day making phone calls for a story. No one called back until 5 minutes before my 6pm class started.
- Ate a small ham sandwich for dinner.
- shit my pants when my professor brought up how many "heart-breaking" factual errors were in our last batch of assignments. Can't be sure, but am fairly certain she made eye contact with me.
- did phone interviews all night.
- considered drowning my bitch of a cat when he howled through my entire interviews. Working from home. Not ideal. Here, kitty.
- don't have time for life.

Gah. Why. No. Stop the madness.

ThePeach

A Very Beatles Breakup

2010-01-03T16:58:00.002-05:00

If my relationship with FauxHawk had a soundtrack, it would be The Beatles complete score. Every song, from the early pop to the last Paul McCartney single.

I already loved The Beatles when FauxHawk and I met, but he is actually obsessed. His apartment is a shrine to the Fab 4, right down to the collector’s dolls on his bedside dresser.

Have you ever woken up to a plastic John Lennon? It’s creepy.

Our very first date (actual date, not the slimy bar hookup the week prior) consisted of getting drunk on his couch while he played the entire White Album and gave me the history to each song.

We’ve seen Paul McCartney live. I can tell you which song “My Sweet Lord” supposedly plagiarized. I know that “Across the Universe” was once the theme song for the World Wildlife Fund. I know how many takes Ringo needed to hit that last note in “With a little help from my friends.” He’s not a natural singer, that one.

But what do I do now with all this useless knowledge?

Answer: use it for evil.

A while ago I was listening to my playlist and started thinking that our breakup could be described solely with The Beatles lyrics. I think it’s fitting, in a ‘stab you with your own weapon’ type of way. It’s kind of like a new age poetry slam, but without the unwashed hair and latent homosexuality.

And I am very aware how incredibly lame this is, by the way. It’s cathartic, bitches.

So, here we go. Six months of breakup, from the phone call on Canada Day where he dumped me, to fucking with my head and not wanting to let me go and swooping in with declarations of love every time I started moving on (even though he was already moving on, fuck you very much), to today, when I told him that we need to stop being friends because it’s clear he just wants to have his cake and eat it, too.

I've arranged it like a convo between the two of us, one line per person. He starts. Giddyup!

You say yes, I say no.
Don’t let me down.
You say stop, and I say go, go, go.
Don’t let me down.
I’m so tired, I don’t know what to do.
All you need is love.
I’m so tired, my mind is set on you.
Love is all you need.
Goodbye, bye, bye, bye, bye.

When you told me you didn't need me anymore, well you know I nearly broke down and cried.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.
When you told me you didn't need me anymore, well you know I nearly fell down and died.
Nothing’s gonna change my world.

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces.
Something in the way she moves, attracts me like no other lover.
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here.
Something in her smile, she knows, that I don’t need no other lover.
Here comes the sun. And I say it’s alright.
I don’t want to leave her now. You know I believe and how.
Sun, sun, sun here it comes.

Why don’t we do it in the road? Why don’t we do it in the road?
What would you do if I sang out of tune, would you stand up and walk out on me?
Why don’t we do it in the road? Why don’t we do it in the road?
How do I feel by the end of the day (are you sad because you’re on your own?)
Why don’t we do it in the road? Why don’t we do it in the road?
Could it be anybody? I just need someone to love.
No one will be watching us.
I want somebody to love.

And when I touch you, I feel happy inside.
Happiness is a warm gun.
It’s such a feeling that my love, I can’t hide.
Happiness is a warm gun (bang bang, shoot shoot).
I wanna hold your hand. I wanna hold your hand.

(If you drive a car car) I'll tax the street. (If you try to sit sit) I'll tax your seat
But when you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out?
(If you get too cold cold) I'll tax the heat. (If you take a walk) I'll tax your feet
But when you want money, all I can tell is brother you’ve got to wait.
‘Cause I’m the taxman. Yeah, I’m the taxman.
Love is all you need.

You say yes, I say no.
Got to get you into my life.
You say stop, and I say go, go go.
Got to get you into my life.
Good bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.
I was alone, I took a ride. I didn’t know what I would find there.
Good bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.
Another road where maybe I could find another kind of mind there.
I’ve been in love before and I found that love was more than just holding hands.
Got to get you into my life. Got to get you into my life.
I couldn’t stand the pain. If I fell in love with you.

Trala! Congrats to anyone who made it all the way through. I feel like a dirty, earnest, emo hippy. I’m going to go have a shower. Maybe get solo drunk. Maybe have sex.

I am not your back-pocket, almost perfect, can’t let you go but don’t really want you, temporary stand-in.

Ka-pow! Time to get loaded.

ThePeach

FML

2010-01-02T11:07:00.002-05:00

My blog uses content-based advertising. Basically, they pick ads that match the kind of things I talk about.

Earlier today my ad was "How to keep a man in love with you."

Now it's "free knitting patterns."

Even the marketers have given up on me.

ThePeach

A good start

2010-01-01T12:12:00.002-05:00

Did I really...

Ring in the new year with a Cherokee Indian, get up on a stripper stage and let a stripper ride me from behind, get two lap dances from a stripper named Stella, make out with Spaz at midnight, eat and then vomit poutine, do shots of jack daniels in order to get a beaded necklace from a man with an afro, fall face first into MCs door, almost get kicked out of a cab from Spaz smoking in it, and wake up with a purse full of 50 hand-rolled contraband cigarettes?

And this is all I can remember right now. I'm sure more will come to me when I finally sober up.

Happy 2010. I need some advil.

ThePeach

Resolutions

2009-12-31T11:38:00.001-05:00

I used to wear red underwear every December 31.

It’s old wives tale that, if you wear red underwear on NYE, you will be engaged before the next year is out. When I admitted this to Spaz and MC last night over a bottle of red, they laughed their asses off and Spaz pulled a muscle in her neck. Rightfully so.

It’s hilarious for a few reasons, really. First, that I would subscribe to any kind of superstition. I don’t even believe in recycling, and I’m pretty sure that’s real. Second, that I wanted to be engaged at all. I mean…look at me. The idea right now of sharing my life with someone – forever – makes me break out in a stress rash. And I’m happy for my friends who are choosing this path, and jealous of their poufy dresses and shiny rings, but I have to admit that I laughed for approximately three days straight when one of my facebook friends posted a serious picture of her, her husband, and her newborn dressed up as Mary, Joseph and Jesus. I’m pretty sure that baby Spencer wasn’t a product of immaculate conception, honey. More likely a bottle of baby duck and an anniversary.

Ok.

But there was a while when I thought FauxHawk and I would get married. He was in his 30s, a doctor, serious about life, and I kept hoping that the day would come when he’d break out the bling and I’d start my jew conversion classes. And I loved him stupid amounts, and told myself that maybe someday he’d start acting like I was important to him, and so I wore the fucking red underwear every year and fantasized about our venue (outside tent, CapitalCity, late September) and first dance (In my Life – The Beatles).

Turns out I wasn’t the person FauxHawk wanted me to be, as I discovered just this week. That was a fun conversation. Sharing is caring. Keep me away from the knives and the shower rod.

But the person that I am, right now, isn’t so bad. And if you want to date someone who pays all their bills on time and cleans the toast crumbs off the counter every morning, then you need to keep looking because that is never going to be me. The only thing I pay consistently is the poutine delivery man, and I prefer to use my kitchen counter for rough sex (after which I do wipe it down, actually).

So, it’s safe to say that my goals are slightly different this year. And 2010 is going to be great, once I get past the soul-suck of my final semester of school. I’m moving to TheBigCity in June to start working at TheBigNewspaper. Yes, I have a bonafide job. And I’m going to travel, and I’m going meet new people, and I’m going to spend time with my old people who I love and who don’t base my worth on my ability to drive, and I’m going to maybe train to run a half marathon if I can get my lazy ass off the couch, and I’m going to fuck while I’m still limber enough to be contorted, and I’m going to leave crumbs EVERYWHERE because I just fucking love toast, ok? I love toast. Sue me.

So, I’m not sure what kind of underwear I should wear tonight to bring about this awesome life.

Probably crotchless.

Happy New Year, bitches!!

Love, love, love,

ThePeach

I like Coffee, I like Tea.

2009-12-30T10:44:00.000-05:00

The other morning I was making coffee in my sister’s French Press while she made some Chai tea at the other end of the counter.

I ground the coffee beans and shook them into the carafe. I poured in the boiling water and struggled with the press. The water pressure made it difficult. I sighed.

ThePeach: *pushes press* Do you ever feel like all the pressure in the world is against you?
TigerCat: *pours milk into tea* Well, you date a lot of really complicated guys, Peach.
ThePeach:…I was talking about the French Press.
TigerCat:…oh.

Just a little breakfast reality check.

ThePeach

Milo visits Santa

2009-12-24T10:56:00.004-05:00

For a class assignment I recently did something...awful. We had to write a participant observation piece about something we had never done before. Coming up with ideas our professor approved of was challenging.

Remember MC and the bus trip to Syracuse?

I was having the same problem. I had sent at least three brilliant (in my mind) ideas to my prof, all of which were rejected by her. Finally, as a desperate joke, I suggested I take my cat to get his photo taken with Santa and write about crazy cat ladies.

She loved it and told me to do it.

Joke's on me.

So, that's how I wound up bringing Milo to a PetSmart a few Saturdays ago to get his photo taken with Santa. It was godawful. I spent four hours hanging out with Santa, who kept staring at my tits and asking if I had a boyfriend. Milo still hasn't forgiven me for bringing him to the land of dogs.

If I made another factual error and get another B I will lose my shit.

Anyway, I decided to post the results for your Christmas viewing pleasure. All proper names have been removed.

Merry Fucking Christmas from ThePeach and angry Milo!

***

Santa looks friendly enough, but my little guy is having none of it.

Milo grips at my shoulders and then looks at me with scared eyes as I pass him over to the elf and she places him on Santa’s lap. He squirms and buries his face in Santa’s curly beard.

“Hey, buddy! Look over here!” the elf says from behind the camera.

But Milo just stares wildly at the door, his arms sticking out stiffly from Santa’s tight grip around his waist.

The elf shrugs and presses the shutter on the camera, capturing the moment.

You can’t hope for much more from a cat.

Twenty minutes earlier, my cheeks are flaming as I push a shopping cart into the CapitalCity PetSmart, my 3-year-old black cat howling from inside his little cage, which is jammed into the children’s seat.

PetSmart stores across Canada and the U.S. offer a “Santa Claws” in-store photo event the last three weekends before Christmas. Pet-owners can bring their animals into the store for a picture with Santa and a festive photo frame for $10, half of which goes to PetSmart pet charities.

I’ve spent three Christmases with Milo, but I’d never been tempted to bring him to get his photo taken with Santa. I’d often tried and failed to make him wear a miniature Santa hat, but cats – at least, my cat – are usually uncooperative in these matters. Once the hat was strapped on his head, Milo would flail his front paws spastically, batting at the offending item until he knocked it off. Then, he would grab it in his teeth, lie on his side, and kick at it with his back legs, a flurry of red velour and claws.

I always did this in the privacy of my own home, where my pet obsession could remain a secret indulgence.

Now, as I wheel Milo toward Santa in a store full of people, I’m on full display.

The average Canadian household spends more on pet expenses than they do on childcare, according to 2007 census data. The pet industry is a $4.5 billion business, with marketers and stores trying to appeal to the parental nature of pet-owners. The trend is known as the humanization of pets.

As a single woman in my twenties without kids, I’ve tried not to think of my cat as a child. Milo doesn’t wear clothing, he doesn’t eat off a plate and I have never called myself his “mom.”

But Santa photos seem like the first misstep.

The operations manager assures me I’m not alone, boasting that last weekend the store sold 55 photos.

“We’ll have lines, and dogs everywhere,” he says with a grin.

There are already dogs everywhere. Behind me, in the grooming studio, four large dogs howl as they get haircuts. I can hear barking from the training class at the back of the store. The yapping of two small Chihuahuas in matching Christmas sweaters cuts through the air.

Milo cowers in the back of his cage. He’s outnumbered.

Santa informs me that, in his experience, about 70 per cent of the animals who get photos taken with him are dogs. Santa usually works in the cat adoption centre, but today the middle-aged employee has donned a red suit, black boots and a bushy beard.

“Santa, your gloves!” says his elf Samantha, 19, as she throws a pair at him.

Often, larger stores will hire professional photographers, elves and Santas for the yearly “Santa Claws” event. But this CapitalCity PetSmart gets less traffic than some of the other five locations, so they assign their own employees to the job.

Samantha and Santa say they don’t mind playing the part.

“I’ve been hanging around animals my whole life,” Samantha says from beneath a pointy green hat. She gestures to her striped tights, her curled felt shoes, and her green jumper.

“I’m really friendly, and I’m willing to dress up in costumes like this.”

Santa adjusts his beard and shrugs.

“It’s something new to do,” he says earnestly, his eyes wide behind his wire-rimmed glasses.

“The animals mostly behave.”

But Luna the German shepherd isn’t cooperating. The friendly dog keeps turning around to sniff Santa, ruining the shot.

“Sit, Luna!” her owner pleads.

She grabs a squeak toy and holds it behind Samantha, who has the camera. She squeezes it.

Luna turns, her ears perked.

Samantha presses the shutter.

“You only get a few shots where they don’t look terrified,” Samantha admits later, as she rests her feet at the printing station.

“The parents love it, but you can tell the animals are hating life.”

Later, after I’ve sent my enraged cat home with a friend, I explore the rest of the store. There are aisles of Christmas gift ideas for pets. I’m seriously tempted by a set of strap-on antlers for cats or small dogs, but decide Milo had been through enough that day.

As I pass display after display of festive stockings and Christmas-coloured stuffed mice, I wonder if I’ve neglected Milo by assuming he didn’t care about presents.

After all, he’s just a cat, not a child.

Tell that to the mother of Oscar.

“He’s my little boy. He’s like my son,” she says of her yellow Labrador retriever.

Oscar is a model of obedience. He sits demurely by Santa’s feet and looks straight at the camera. His ears perk up when she offers him a treat.

“There we go,” she says proudly as Samantha snaps the perfect picture.

Oscar wags his tail as his owner shows me a wallet full of photos of the dog. She says she has commissioned three oil paintings of Oscar from a professional artist in Toronto.

“Let’s go and see what you want to ask Santa for Christmas!” she says to Oscar as they head toward the dog section, Oscar sniffing at the bags of food they pass on the way.

An hour later I see her beaming as she pushes a cart full of bags past the cashier.

After a lull in action, I check in on Santa. It’s been almost an hour since anyone came in for a photo.

As I round the corner toward the photo area, Santa’s head sinks lower toward his chest. His eyes are closed and his beard is crooked. Swathed in sagging red velour, he is dwarfed by the large green bench under him.

A tiny poodle in an argyle sweater trots by. The snap of the dog’s nails on the linoleum jerks Santa back to attention, and just in time.

Max the “skinny pig” is here for a photo.

Skinny pigs are a breed of hairless Guinea pigs. They’re smaller and more delicate than the furrier variety. Max is almost a year old and he looks like a miniature hippo, grey and folded. He’s wrapped up in a blanket.

“It’s his first Christmas,” his owner, 21, explains to Samantha, cradling Max like a newborn.

Santa holds Max gently as Samantha moves in for a close-up.

“Well, don’t you have a lot to say!” Santa coos to the chirping critter.

Later, Santa talks happily about his three cats at home and tells me Milo is very handsome. I’m doubtful as I look at the photo of the two of them together, Milo staring like a stunned deer into a headlight as Santa holds his bulky black body tight to stop him from running away.

I tell him I love my cat but that I was embarrassed to bring Milo to the store.

“I don’t want to look obsessed with my pet,” I tell Santa.

He laughs and tells me I’m in the right place for it.

ThePeach hits rock bottom; regrets all those holiday Lattes

2009-12-22T15:31:00.001-05:00

Today my credit card was declined in a No Frills grocery store.

No Frills, people. That’s literally the lowest grocery store in the food chain, just barely above the food bank and a squeak below Walmart.

Declined, trying to buy no-name eggnog and breakfast sausages for my sister.

Thank god I went to dollarama before No Frills, or Cockdoc wouldn’t be getting his Christmas present.

Tis the season to lie in the dark wondering what happened to your life.

Falalalala lalala la.

ThePeach

Confessions of a failed yuppie

2009-12-19T14:53:00.004-05:00

I’m in Universitytown for the holidays, staying with TigerCat and CockDoc.

I have really needed this vacation. If you’re wondering why I haven’t updated my blog in the past 3 weeks, it’s because I’ve been in the dark place again (it’s dark). All I do is work and lie on the couch thinking about my work and how poor I am. Throw in some instant noodles, microwave popcorn and cat vomit removal and that’s pretty much how I spent the last month.

TigerCat’s apartment is a beacon of festive hope in my dark place. It looks like someone put Martha Stewart in a small box, threw in some speed, shook the box vigorously for 15 minutes, and then set her free in the apartment with some garland.

TigerCat is currently unemployed and has directed all of her time and energy into Christmasing the shit out of life. She has baked over 500 Christmas cookies. She has handcrafted home-made ornaments for the tree. She has had the menu for Christmas dinner planned since October.

Enter ThePeach.

I rolled into Universitytown with a suitcase full of dirty clothes and mismatched socks with holes in them, zero dollars in the bank, and an apartment back home where the power is likely to be turned off before the New Year.

I’d forgotten how grownup all of my Universitytown friends are, what with their houses and their marriages and their sweater vests. I’m trying to fit in, but the results are…discouraging.

Knitting FAIL:
I have zero dollars and at least 5 people to buy Christmas gifts for. I got it in my head that a solution might be to purchase cheap yarn, learn to knit using youtube videos, and knit everyone a scarf in the one week before Christmas.

TigerCat took me to a craft store, I explained my situation to a store clerk, and she assured me I could knit a scarf in like six hours once I got the hang of it. Then she showed me how to knit, and I tried to pay attention but realized that knitting is boring, so TigerCat paid attention while I thought about writing, sushi, and the last episode of Glee.

Then I bought 6 spools of yarn and some knitting needles. Total price: $60.

The price of a scarf at Old Navy: $2

Not a promising start. No matter, I would knit the shit out of the scarves and gift everyone with a homemade token of my love!

TigerCat and I had an idea in our minds of how this would go. We would sit on the couch by the Christmas tree, sip tea, maybe bake some scones, and chat about niceties while we quickly knit perfect scarves. Just like old ladies in the movies, or old age homes.

This is how it actually went:

TigerCat: This is actually pretty easy!
ThePeach: FUCK.
TigerCat: Look, my first row.
ThePeach: FUCK YOUR MOTHER.
TigerCat: Look how tidy my stitches are.
ThePeach: *throws knitting at wall*
TigerCat: This scarf is going to be beautiful!
ThePeach: *tries to stab own heart with knitting needle*
TigerCat: And yours is…oh…it’s…do you want help?
ThePeach: I’ll kill you.

I had to restart approximately six times, and each time I cried and swore like I had tourettes. It took me two days to realize I was making the wrong kind of knots.

My first attempt at a scarf for my grandpa turned into a heap of frayed yarn unraveled in a pile beside the bed.

My second attempt looked like something you pull out of the bottom of a bathtub drain.

My third attempt had a hole you could fit your fist through.

Etc.

My final attempt had a five-foot long dangler hanging from the middle of one of my rows for no apparent reason. I knew I would actually kill myself if I started over again, so I just cut the dangler and pretended I never saw it. I hope it wasn’t a load-baring dangler.

It’s been three days, countless shit-fits, and 60 dollars. I have successfully knit approximately one inch of scarf. It’s the equivalent skill of the hand-print mosaic a five year old makes in kindergarten and gives as a mother’s day present, except I’m 27 years old.

I’ll give it to my grandpa on his death-bed.

Guitar Hero FAIL:
So, it turns out that when you’re a yuppie you spend your nights playing Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Band Hero, or some equivalent. This is what people do after the bar, before the bar, or in lieu of the bar. It looks like fun, and I've been anxious to try it.

Trying to hone my skill, I decided to play Guitar Hero World Tour with TigerCat and CockDoc one night. They put me on the drums to start, figuring it was a good place for me since I played the actual drums for like 13 years.

We lost within the first 7 seconds of the song. TigerCat smiled encouragingly as she held the microphone and said we should try again, maybe on beginner instead of easy. CockDoc strummed the guitar and said nothing.

We lost in 9 seconds.

I blamed the drums, saying it’s hardest instrument. So they put me on vocals, and TigerCat immediately picked up the drums with the skill of Phil Colins while I stumbled and cracked my way through Michael Jackson’s “Beat it.”

CockDoc strummed the guitar and said nothing.

The band still wasn’t up to par, so then they tried me on guitar while CockDoc deftly aced the drums and TigerCat sang like Gwen Stefani.

I wasn’t as bad on guitar, but I was still not up to the same level of skill as my other band members. What is this star power you speak of? What is this solo? Why is your tv bigger than my bathroom?

I went to bed discouraged, tripping on my knitting on the way.

Shopping FAIL:
Yuppies also like to shop in big-box stores like Walmart and CostCo. It might be for the prices, or it might be to laugh at the mulleted fatasses buying icing in bulk. I can get on board with that, so we went to Walmart on my first day in UniversityTown.

TigerCat bought all of the ingredients for our Christmas dinner at a quarter of the normal retail price. I got over-stimulated by the low prices and bought a pair of boots that don’t really fit and make me look like a cowboy. I also bought a club-pack of socks and some Halls throat lozenges. Then I got so overwhelmed that TigerCat had to take me outside and we left.

Today we’re trying CostCo. I’ll probably try to buy an 800-pack of tampons and then faint from excitement.

I’m scared.

Life FAIL:
Last night we got high and watched the movie “You, Me and Dupree.” It’s about a nice, young, middle-class couple and their hobo friend who comes to stay with them and winds up destroying their lives.

TigerCat and CockDoc kept looking at me throughout the movie. Like when Dupree admits he doesn’t have a license, when he can’t pay his rent and is living on a cot in a bar, and when he burns down part of their living room from lighting too many candles during sex.

I’m not sure what they’re hinting at.

Tonight they’re taking me to a holiday party for married people.

Maybe I’ll bring my knitting.

ThePeach

ThePeach enjoys LittleBird's bluntness; pain

2009-12-06T16:35:00.003-05:00

“ThePeach, do you enjoy pain?”

My friend LittleBird asked me this over a drink at the corner bar. I looked at her blankly.

“Seriously. Do you enjoy pain?”

She took a sip of her beer.

Why would she ask me that?

Is it because I’m planning on spending my Christmas holidays in UniversityTown, living across the street from FauxHawk, allowing him to cat-sit, and having platonic semi-romantic dinners with him?

Is it because I’m currently playing online scrabble with FauxHawk’s mother, because she won’t stop facebook stalking me, and she decided she wants to tutor me in the ways of the triple word score?

Or is it because I’m debating adopting my ex-ex-boyfriend’s cat, because he’s a stoner and neglects the cat we adopted as a kitten in the weeks before I left him for FauxHawk, and I can’t bear to see the cat suffer so why not add to my baggage and vet bills and live in a constant state of kitten wars as Milo and Potter duke it out for king of the litter mountain?

“Do you enjoy pain?”

I enjoy drinking. And gravy on top of anything. And lesbian sitcoms. And loose-fitting pants.

Pain? Feck.

ThePeach

MortalCombat is dedicated; hysterical

2009-11-27T19:56:00.003-05:00

As usual, most people in my class are suicidal this week.

MC, however, has managed to maintain some semblance of sanity in a time of end-of-term assignments, no sleep, and crying over soya sauce bottles that just won’t open. She is a beacon of strength and productivity. She gave me a box of KD and the will to live this afternoon.

I spent today lying on the couch, wallowing in the dark and twisty parts of my mind, and also watching “The L Word.” MC spent the day trying to come up with an idea for her participant-observation story for our writing class. She sent a few ideas to our prof, who would then immediately write back snippy answers about how uncreative MC’s ideas were.

After the prof vetoed another one of MCs idea, MC texted me tonight to ask if she could borrow some bus tickets. I told her to come upstairs and grab some. I paused the lesbian porn.

Enter MC. And the crazy eyes.

“I’m going to Syracuse tomorrow.”

She stared at me intently.

I’m sorry. You’re doing WHAT and WHY?

“I’m going to Syracuse tomorrow.”

I looked into her crazy eyes, open wide and bulging with intensity. I realized she was not joking.

“I’m going to Syracuse at 8am. I just bought a bus ticket. I’m doing my participant-observation piece on Canadians who go to the US to shop on Black Friday.”

Oh. Kay.

“Have you run this idea past our prof?”

Her eyes flashed with madness. I took a step backwards,

“NO. NO. BUT IT’S TOO LATE, I ALREADY BOUGHT MY TICKET. SHE HAS TO LIKE THIS IDEA. SHE HAS TO!!!!”

Oh. Kay.

“So, let me get this straight. In the 15 minutes since our prof vetoed your last idea, you booked a bus ticket to Syracuse and are now going to the US tomorrow morning at 8am?”

“Yes.”

And then the hysterical laughter started. I was hunched over clutching my ribs and gasping for air, I was laughing so hard. MC was shaking and gripping her knees, her long hair draping the floor. We laughed for about 10 minutes straight.

Then I looked up and MC was crying like a crazy lady.

“Why doesn’t she like me?? Why is our prof so mean to me?? I don’t know what I did wrong!! I go to every class! I even do the fucking reeeeeeadings!! And now I have to go to Syyyyyracuuuuuse!!!”

I ran up to her and hugged her. She sobbed into my shoulder.

“At least you’ll get to go shopping?”

“I don’t even have any American money!”

This brought on another 10 minutes of bladder-clutching laughter. I told MC she had better text me the next morning so I knew she was still alive.

“I’ll text you from the bus! It’s 3 hours each way!”

Then her eyes welled up with tears again.

Journalism school: don’t do it.

ThePeach

ThePeach is defeated by Soya Sauce; life

2009-11-23T23:53:00.001-05:00

I’ve hit new levels of pathetic.

Tonight I had a big seminar presentation based on two long articles. One of them was easy, one of them was dense. I stayed up until 3am trying to understand the dense one and making conversation points to bring up with the class. Today, 30 seconds into my seminar, my professor informed me that I was presenting on the wrong article, and one of them was not actually part of my assignment: the dense one.

So, that sucked.

But I shook it off. Forged ahead with the other article, cheeks blazing with shame. During my class break I sprinted to the coffee shop to get an anti-suicide cookie. They were out of cookies.

That also sucked.

When class finally ended I slunk home and decided to make my first meal of the day. It was 9:30 pm.

No big deal.

I sautéed my vegetables. Boiled my noodles. Got out the Soya sauce to douse the veggies in salt.

The lid wouldn’t come off.

I tried turning it both ways. Running it under hot water. Using a cloth. I even took a knife to the fucker and almost lost a finger. I grunted like a caveman trying to figure out how to make fire. I left it alone for a few minutes, hoping I was just imagining that it wouldn’t open. I started talking out loud.

“Why?” I asked the bottle. “Why?”

I jabbed it with a spoon. I tried another cloth. I twisted so hard I almost snapped my wrist.

“Why?” I whimpered. “Whyyyy?”

The veggies started going limp. The noodles were over cooked. I rammed the bottle on the side of the counter, hoping to loosen something. I turned it both ways. I screamed.

“WHY??” I sobbed. “WHYYYY???”

I turned off the frying pan. I turned off the pot full of soggy, bloated noodles. I lay on the couch and weeped for 35 minutes.

Spaz called.

Spaz: I called because I thought you might be feeling sad. It’s easy to get sad after night class.
ThePeach: AHHHEEEESOOOOOYSAUUUUCE *hysterical sobbing*
Spaz: …so you *are* sad, then?
ThePeach: *hysterical sobbing, muffled by pillow*
Spaz: Are you lonely? What’s wrong?
ThePeach: *hysterical sobbing* I…I…I…*hysterical sobbing* I CAN’T OPEN THE SOYA SAUCE!!!! *weeps*
Spaz:…
ThePeach: *weeps* I think it’s a metaphor for my stupid pathetic life.
Spaz: How long have you been crying?
ThePeach: *weeps* I’ve been on the couch for 35 minutes.
Spaz: Jesus. How many ex boyfriends did you text during those 35 minutes?
ThePeach: *sobs* TWO!
Spaz: Jesus.
ThePeach: *hysterical sobbing* Now I can’t eat dinner.
Spaz: Wait. You never got the lid off?
ThePeach: *sobs* no-o-o-o!
Spaz…HAHAHAHAHAHA
ThePeach:…*sniffle* It’s not funny! I’m staying on this couch until I die.
Spaz: Want to come upstairs and eat cake?
ThePeach: I’ll be upstairs in 30 seconds.

And then I spent another 35 minutes on a couch. But this time I had cake, and Spaz, and no MOTHERFUCKING SOYA SAUCE laughing at me from the kitchen.

It’s been a bad few days. School sucks, life sucks, money sucks, work sucks, and the cat bit my face this morning.

But it took a bottle of Soya Sauce to break me.

Fuck the condiments.

ThePeach

Good morning to you, too.

2009-11-09T08:26:00.001-05:00

Cats. They are vengeful little bastards.

I spent the weekend away and, when I got back, Milo was extra loving because he had been so lonely. He head-butted me with affection all night, curled up in a little ball on top of my stomach while I lay in bed, and purred like a monster while I slept. Wittle rat.

But I wasn’t fooled. I knew what was coming once the happiness of having me home again wore off.

Welcome to my Monday morning:

5:45am: Cat wakes up, drags stuffed mouse into the bed, starts pouncing on it on top of my stomach.
6:00am: Grows tired of mouse, but not of jumping on top of my body. Moves to my head. Gallops in place on my face.
6:15am: OH MY GOD A TOY MOUSE. JUMP JUMP JUMP WHIP IT IN THEPEACH’S FACE!!!!
6:30am: Howl. Howl. Howl. Howl. HOOOOOOOOOWL PAY ATTENTION TO ME.
6:45am: Resumes jumping on my face.
7:00am: Licks my face with raspy, smelly little cat tongue until I push him onto the floor. Immediately flies back onto the bed with agility of a furry eagle, as if his feet didn’t even hit the floor. Now he’s angry. Resumes howling. Adds biting.
7:15am: OH MY GOD A TOY MOUSE. ATTACK IT ON THEPEACH’S BLADDER!!!
7:30am: Bite. Bite. Bite. BITE. Gnaw.
7:45am: New tactic. Stands in place on my face, paws on eyelids, until I gasp from sensation of eyes being pushed backward into brain and flail about in bed trying to get him off me.
7:46am: I get up. Put on coffee. Cat gallops in circles around my feet.
7:47am: Open door to get newspaper. Cat sprints out the door, side-checking me on the way with such force that I almost fall over. Turns around once to glare at me, and then gallops like a demon stead through the hallways.
7:48am: GALLOP. ThePeach chases.
7:50am: GALLOP. ThePeach chases.
7:52am: GALLOP. ThePeach chases.
7:53am: Cat sprints back into apartment, hitting head on apartment door on the way in. Seems unfazed. Sits down by empty food dish and resumes howling. I feed him.
7:54am: Scarfs food like he just spent 2 years licking dirt in Ethiopia.
7:55am: Jumps into windowsill. Tries to hunt the cars driving by on the street below.
7:56am: Projectile vomits into windowsill.
7:58am: Curls up in a little ball on top of a cloth shopping bag on the kitchen table. Sleeps like angel.
8:00am: I call the vet to make appointment to have Milo put down before lunch.
8:02am: Chip cat vomit out of window tracks using a spoon.

Happy Monday!

ThePeach

Professionalism FAIL, part 3794

2009-10-28T14:17:00.004-04:00

I sometimes freelance for the lifestyle section of this national newspaper chain. It makes me happy in my heart, because they ask me to write about hard-hitting topics like senior citizen fitness, peanut allergies, and more senior citizen fitness. God I love old people!

Seriously. They're adorable.

My current assignment is to compile a parent's guide to the most popular toys this holiday season. I find this a little tricky, maybe because I'm at the bitter age in my life where the sight of children makes my ovaries dry out. I'm not sure when this happened.

My first choice is "Baby Ah-Choo." Not because I think little girls need dolls, not because the doll comes with kleenex, a thermometer, and what I believe is a tiny fake bottle of hand sanitizer, but because I want to put the fear of H1N1 in the little disease-spreading grade schoolers. I don't want to catch swine because some dirty child wants to wipe its hands on everything and lick door-knobs. So let's teach them proper sanitization.

With Baby Ah-Choo.

Anyway.

I had to make a conference call to the senior toy buyers at a major Canadian department store. While on the phone discussing nerf guns and dolls that crap themselves, one of them asked me a question.

Senior Buyer: You don't know the tv show Bakugan?
ThePeach: No, sir, I do not.
Senior Buyer: It's the most popular boy's cartoon out there!
ThePeach: I do not know of it.
Senior Buyer: You must not have any young boys, then.
ThePeach: No, sir, I do not.
Senior Buyer: Do you have any children?
ThePeach: NO. GOD, NO!!!
Senior Buyer:...let's discuss the Flutter-By-Fairy.

That one just slipped right out.

I'll have to watch that.

ThePeach

Relax

2009-10-26T10:39:00.002-04:00

HotMess and I went to hot yoga yesterday. Or, at least, we thought we did. Obviously neither of us read the schedule, and we accidentally wound up in a 90 minute extreme stretch class.

Oh holy fuck.

Of course we still had no idea that we had entered this new, fresh hell. 45 minutes into the class and we both had been holding our ankles over our heads for 20 minutes using special yoga straps (weird, why are we so good at this pose?), there are 9 inch bricks under our tailbones to fold us inside out, and we're both still waiting for the actual yoga to start.

Another 45 minutes later and we've both been holding deep birthing-style squats for 15 minutes, stretching our hip flexors and birth canals to the point of paralysis, and it's finally occured to us that maybe we took the wrong class. The hysterical laughter started, which is frowned upon in extreme stretch class, so then we had to try to muffle it. While in extreme birthing squat. I might have actually birthed one of my ovaries.

We should have known that we had walked into the wrong class right from the get-go. Usually our class is filled with 20-something yuppies in perfect yoga-body shape, all glistening perfect lady sweat in the 100 degree yoga room. When we walked into yesterday's class and lay out our matts, I was slapped in the face with an overwhelming yet distinguishable scent.

ThePeach: *lifts hips into downward dog, whispers* Why does it smell like balls in here?
HotMess: *lowers hips into resting child pose, whispers* Because the room is full of balls.

Men. Men everywhere. Old, topless men.

Extreme stretch:

Bad choice.

ThePeach

Lies, lies, lies.

2009-10-25T11:47:00.003-04:00

I went to the doctor on Thursday. Just the yearly check-up/weigh-in/speculum rape/syphilis swab.

As usual, the doctor and I nimbly circled around each other in the alcohol dance.

He asked me if I drank a lot.

I asked him what constituted “a lot.”

He asked me how much I drank in an average week.

I said I didn’t drink every week.

He asked me to guess.

I said maybe 10 drinks/week maximum, but that wasn’t every week.

He nodded like he believed me and then ordered a liver functioning test anyway.

Two nights later, I’m sitting alone on my couch, wondering how I just drank two-thirds of a bottle of red wine in under an hour.

See, I have this fiction piece I’m supposed to write for my writing class. I haven’t written fiction – real fiction, not a thinly veiled autobiography – in years. And even then, I wasn’t very good at it. Poetry, sure. Emo haikus, bring it. But real fiction? The thought makes my guts churn. I haven’t had an original idea in my entire life.

Add to the fact that we will be tearing through our final products next week in a group gang bang that our professor likes to call “workshopping.”

So, I thought a little wine might loosen me up and get the creative juices flowing. It worked for Ernest Hemingway. And Faulkner. And Thomas. Do not go gentle into that good night! Drink wine and write! I’m pretty sure that’s the point, anyway.

Instead I just drank all the wine and wrote nothing. I’d failed my drunken writing forefathers. And then I was drunk, alone, and in my pjs at 9pm on a Saturday night. So when the peer pressure text messages from my friends started coming in, I had no choice but to back out of my convictions that I would spend the night working, put on pants, and get thee to the bar.

So now, here I am. Sunday morning, I’ve still written nothing, and I have a massive red wine headache.

Being a writer is hard.

Those liver function tests should be back any day now.

ThePeach

ThePeach skips sleep; doesn’t skip talking

2009-10-20T10:15:00.001-04:00

I’m on thin ice with my thesis supervisor.

When she called me into her office for a meeting last week, I knew it wasn’t going to be good. The second I received her brusque email requesting a meeting that morning, I broke into a fear-sweat. My eyes watered with tears. My stomach lurched.

Time for a fistin’.

It had already been a rough week, what with the OSAP audit, the piles of work I haven’t been able to get to, and that nagging faintness that makes me do things like end my TA sessions 30 minutes early so I can go lie down in the dark and dry heave in peace.

So, if my life was going down the crapper, I knew that this meeting was going to be the black plunger that pushed me further down a drain of watery feces.

Ew.

Long story short, the meeting consisted of me sitting silently with tears running down my face while my supervisor calmly told me that I was a disappointment.

No big deal.

So today I had to drop off an assignment to her. I hadn’t slept all weekend in order to finish it, so I was feeling a little…oh…special.

I was in her office for a maximum of 45 seconds. Here is what came out of my mouth:

Supervisor: *giant plastered-on smile* Ooook, this looks just fine. Just fine. Good. Good.
ThePeach: *stares dully into her eyes* You look scared of me.
Supervisor: Um what?
ThePeach: *deadpan voice* You look scared of me.
Supervisor: …no…I’m just glad you’re back on the ball.
ThePeach: *eye twitch* Thank you for kicking my ass.
Supervisor: …well…I tried to be gentle about it.
ThePeach: *scary calm voice* Yes. You kicked my ass gently.

And then no one said anything and I decided to make my graceful exit.

I think that went really well.

ThePeach

The Peach watches the fat grow; blames external forces

2009-10-08T09:50:00.002-04:00

I haven't been for a run since school started over a month ago. This is a travesty. A travesty! I feel like a sluggish, lardy twat. Long gone are the lithe breakup-anorexia days of yesteryear. Gone are the days of leggings. Fleeting are the days of lulus.

Not ok.

I blame journalism school.

Is it possible that this year is even worst than the last? How can a program be designed to make us all want to kill ourselves? I slept 3 hours last night and I feel like I should get down on my knees and supplicate to the gods of mercy for their offering. Seriously, these are the kind of everyday, normal phone conversations I have with my classmates on a daily basis:

Yesterday:

*phone rings*
HotMess: Peach?
ThePeach: Oh hey, HotMess. How was your day?
HotMess: Well, I pulled two all nighters in a row, haven't slept since Sunday, haven't changed my clothes since Monday, haven't eaten anything except 7 RockStar Burners, and still managed not to finish my radio documentary and my prof thinks I'm lazy and useless. So I'm just kind of driving around the city and fighting the suicide. You?
ThePeach: I only had to pull one all nighter - last night - so I'm ok. You know, a little nauseous and dizzy and suicidal but nothing too bad. I'm currently wandering through the drugstore like a drunk in order to buy a jumbo bag of chips. I need fuel before I mark those undergrad exams. I also want these exfoliation gloves. Like I have time to exfoliate! *hysterical laughter* Are you going to sleep tonight?
HotMess: *weeps slowly*
ThePeach: Yeah. Me neither.

*phone rings*
Spaz: Peach?
ThePeach: Oh hey, Spaz.
Spaz: How come you weren't in class last night?
ThePeach: Oh, a girl in the newspaper section I'm editing had a royal fuck-up so our professor sent me an email in which he called me an unprofessional debacle, so I spent my night sobbing in front of my laptop and simultaneously doing the girl's interviews, and then I didn't get to start my own article until 5am, and I haven't slept yet, I just hoovered a bag of ruffles and now I'm marking undergrad exams. You?
Spaz: I spent my day contemplating my future as a writer after getting back our assignments. I'm leaning towards never writing again. Sorry about that email. Remember the time I cried for two days over a mean email from our prof?
ThePeach: Yeah. I do.
Spaz: Want to come cuddle with me in my bed?
ThePeach: Yeah. I do.

And this was just yesterday.

Maybe tonight I'll try to go for a run. Or maybe I'll just lie on my floor and let the heart attacks take me.

ThePeach

Another heart-warming father daughter moment

2009-10-07T00:51:00.001-04:00

My dad picked me up for lunch on my birthday. On the way to the restaurant he asked me about my love life. I think he felt bad about his previous insistence that, without FauxHawk, I would die alone. This had been his favourite suggestion for the past 3 months, and one he hinted at in all of our interactions. So I think this line of questioning was him trying to be supportive. Guess how that went?

Dad: So, any guys chasing you?
ThePeach: Uh…yeah. I guess. A few.
Dad: A few??
ThePeach: Well, yeah.
Dad: The boys like you, eh?
ThePeach: *awkward laugh*
Dad: They do, don’t they?
ThePeach: I…no? Yes?
Dad: See, everyone always thinks that boys just want the hot girls. The really attractive ones. But it’s not always true! Sometimes they want the smart girls, like you! That Master’s degree is going to really help you out, I think.
ThePeach: …

*whimpers* Daddy.

ThePeach

I like drinking.

2009-10-04T21:30:00.001-04:00

I woke up spread-eagle on a completely deflated air mattress at 10am. I slowly opened one crusty eye, felt yesterday’s makeup tear my eyelashes out, and looked to my left: Cleavage in the fetal position beside me. TheHubby on the bare floor beside her. Above me, TheHippie’s leg, dangling from the couch. I squinted and could just make out TheCorporate and QueenB passed out in QueenB’s bed. I was still wearing my bar shirt but not my push-up bra. I was still drunk.

QueenB stumbled out of the bedroom.

“Who wants breakfast?”

Me.

I cheerily scarfed down eggs and a muffin, full of drunken zest for life. And then we started talking about last night.

TheHubby fixed his eyes on me.

“Do you remember asking if you could puke on the lawn, and then trying to do it?”

Uh…no.

“Do you remember walking barefoot down the streets and yelling that you probably had AIDS as a result?”

Uh…no.

“Do you remember puking in QueenB’s bathroom for 20 minutes?”

That explains the sore throat.

“Do you remember passing out in QueenB’s bed?”

What? How did I wind up on the air mattress? Lies.

“Do you remember me trying to physically drag you out of the bed, and you whining about how comfortable you were and to leave you alone?”

Absolutely not. This did not happen. I do not black out.

That’s when Cleavage chimed in.

“I had to shake your shoulders for 10 minutes to keep you awake. You would not move.”

Pretty smug from someone who slept on the bathroom floor Friday night, spooning the heater.

And then QueenB spoke up.

“I got home 20 minutes later and you were spread eagle on my side of the bed. Not just in my bed, but on my side. So I told you to get the hell out and you ran to the air mattress like a scared little bitch.”

Well. That’s because I do anything you tell me, alpha-bitch.

TheHippy kept quiet through this entire humiliating exchange. But later, as she drove me to the train station, she made a confession.

“Don’t feel bad. I woke up on the bathroom floor at 8am with no pants whatsoever and no idea what happened.”

Oh thank god.

Anyway, after breakfast I had a little nap with TheHippy. She spooned me. It’s the only advantage of being the lowest bitch in our alpha hierarchy – I’m always the little spoon. I have to do whatever I’m told, but I get cuddled.

I woke up at noon, this time not drunk.

Oh sweet jesus in heaven. Here comes the dry heaves. I tried to remember just how much I drank. There were many birthday shots. 6? Probably 4 vodka redbulls. That explains the shakes. And god knows how many gins. 8? 12? 30? I’m sure I danced like a sweaty, epileptic munchkin. TheHubby said I aggressively grinded his genitals in a corner of the dance floor. God only knows who else got dry-humped. You’re welcome, TheBigCity.

So, the weekend was a great success. We consumed at least 40,000 calories each, mostly in cheese form. I drank myself into a blackout. Two out of 8 of us slept on the bathroom floor. Two out of 8 puked. Two wore shirts as dresses to the bar. One of us cried while standing in line for post-bar poutine. TheHippy and I discovered that we’re blood twins: we’re both O+, we both got our very first periods at Guide Camp, and after one night together out uteruses were back in sync. It’s starting to get weird, actually. We’re like twins who were separated at birth, but I’m the parasite twin who feeds off her.

But anyway, this weekend made me love life again.

So, maybe I’m a train-wreck. Maybe I’m a total fucking disaster, and I’m going to go to debt jail and be evicted and have my cat taken away by social services.

But I love my fucked-up, disastrous, train-wreck of a life.

And, apparently, so do you.

ThePeach

The dark place is dark on the train.

2009-10-03T19:52:00.002-04:00

Why is it that I only ever have time to update when I’m in transit? I shouldn’t even have time for this – I’m supposed to be failing, I mean marking, the assignments of the little nuggets I TA, while simultaneously rewriting my thesis proposal and having a newspaper story meeting via email. But Via Rail’s wifi is down, so now that I’ve had a celebratory nap and sandwich, here I am. With time on my hands.

Ok, I don’t actually need wifi to mark assignments or rewrite my thesis, but I’m using it as an excuse. Eat me.

I’m having a life-fail kind of week. I haven’t really slept in a month, my knockers are definitely shrinking, my apartment smells like garbage, and I might have to whore myself for rent money. If anyone will have me. The fact that my uterus is making me want to simultaneously weep and stab people in the face isn’t helping things. This bitch will cut you, and then hold your hand and ask you to tell me I’m pretty.

I went to the bar last night for a reprieve from the constant writing. I was so stressed about work that I smoked 4 cigarettes. Bad. Bad!! Don’t go into journalism, kids. It gives you cancer and probably the clap. We’re all whores.

Anyway, my Dad drove me to the train station today. He didn’t help things, either.

ThePeach: *opens apartment door* Hi, Dad. I’m just running a few minutes behind because I had to call a source. I need 10 minutes. And sorry about all the dirty dishes but I haven’t been home much. And if it smells like cat pee, it’s because the cat peed on my globe and mail yesterday. I threw it out but the smell is really lingering.
Dad: *scans room in horror* Jesus, Peach. I know you’re not so busy that you can’t take 10 minutes to clean up! What’s wrong with you??
ThePeach: Grad School is wrong with me.
Dad: Have you paid the dentist yet?
ThePeach: Fuck! The dentist!
Dad: Getting calls from creditors isn’t going to help your financial problems. Why are you such a train-wreck?? Get your shit together! Have you taken FauxHawk back yet?
ThePeach: *grits teeth* He. Doesn’t. Want. Me. Back. Father.
Dad: Of course he does. You’re just being stubborn. That ship is going to sail, you know.
ThePeach: I can’t…even…this is…too much…right now
Dad: Oh, shit. I forgot. Have a good birthday this weekend.
ThePeach: *hysterical weeping*

To recap: I live in a heap of my own filth, I can’t pay my bills, and I’m going to die alone.

And all this from a 55-year-old single man who is seriously contemplating growing his own weed.

So now I’m in the dark place again. I’m typing this with my hood on and my face pressed against the train window. I may or may not have cried in the tiny, aluminum bathroom.

But things are looking up. I’m on my way to TheBigCity for a reunion weekend with my women/husband. It will be TheHippy, Cleavage, TheHubby, QueenB, Workahol and TheCorporate – together again. I’m salivating with excitement. And at the thought of the $200 worth of sushi we will order for dinner, and that I will vomit up 4 hours later, after my 12th jager bomb.

I’m also really looking forward to taking this disaster out on the town. Let’s see who I can head-butt this time.

I leave you with this:

A comedian on the CBC radio show “The Debaters” yesterday, on why womanhood isn’t dependent on motherhood:

“Yes, my female body has the innate biological urge to procreate. But sometimes it also has the innate biological urge to put on sweatpants, eat a tub of ice cream, cry, and shoot people. And I manage to ignore most of that one.”

ThePeach

UPDATE: Life is amazing again. I love my friends so much. I just ate half the ocean worth of sushi. Last night I drank a 2L bottle of wine and then watched a porno called "Man Country." Tonight I'm going to the club to drink 5000 gins, dance like a rightous whore, and make out with everything with legs.

ThePeach is old; barren

2009-09-22T15:17:00.001-04:00

I had lunch with TigerCat and my Dad yesterday. I’m having a fairly stressful week, so when a baby started screaming in the restaurant, my reaction was to curl my face in disgust and mutter “take it for a walk. TAKE IT FOR A WALK.”

TigerCat’s reaction was to coo in the general direction of the child, and turn to me.

TigerCat: When are you going to have babies? You’re going to be 27 in two weeks, you know. When are you planning on having babies?!
ThePeach: Fuck off.
Dad: Hey now. Give Peach a break. She doesn’t even have a boyfriend.
ThePeach: Amazing.

Yesterday’s anal fisting was brought to you by my family and the progression of time.

But don’t begrudge my precious TigerCat. She brought me a dozen home-made muffins.

I’ve already eaten 8 of them, alone in my disastrous apartment, watching more of my viable time slip by.

ThePeach

You are not alone.

2009-09-16T16:24:00.002-04:00

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

FUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKK.

So, this week of school is going great. Last week tricked us, what with the no real class and the orientations and the patios full of tequila shots and hope.

This week is all about remembering that the goal of our program is to kill us all.

I mean, it’s only Wednesday and I’m already lying alone in the dark, just staring. I’m not sure at what. Maybe at a life that is suddenly full of more writing than I ever thought possible. Like my thesis, and 1200-word op-ed insight pieces, and WHY WHY WHY does there have to be a fucking federal election each year that I am in journalism grad school?? For the love of Layton’s moustache, cool your jets Ignatieff! I want to write about other things. Like kittens.

Anyway. Today was rough, but I take some solace in the fact that everyone else in my class is wandering around like a kicked puppy, their wounded eyes pleading for the lazy days of multiple unpaid summer internships.

I got home from my newspaper workshop and immediately collapsed on the couch with a bag of chips, a jar of peanut butter, and a globe and mail. I even have to multi-task during my nervous breakdowns.

I whimpered and texted MC.

ThePeach: How was your day? I just stress-ate an entire bag of chips. Now I’m starting on the peanut butter.
MC: I want my mom.

Week 1.

ThePeach

Oh, right. This.

2009-09-16T07:11:00.002-04:00

Right. School.

I'm two days in, and already I:

1. Don't have time to exercise. Let the back fat commence!
2. Spend all my waking moments consuming news. This time because I have to teach bright-eyed first years, and I should probably know what an Obama is.
3. Am down from a solid 8 hours of sleep/night to a fretful 5. The countdown is on. By next week I'll be at a red-bull driven 3.
4. Am literally down to my last dollar. Credit card is maxed out. Used the last monies to my name to order a subscription to the Globe and Mail. See #2. Now can't afford to eat. Packed lunch today = rice and a sausage I found in the back of the freezer. Will dance for nickels.
5. Have no time for life. The assignments are already starting to pile up, I just remembered that I have a thesis, and today I start my newspaper workshop. That sausage is looking pretty optimistic, as I'll realistically consume a coffee and a breath mint for lunch instead.
6. Had my debit card rejected at the dentist. 4 times, just to make sure I really had no money in my account. Do they have repo men for teeth? I have to go back tomorrow to pay them. I hope they will accept my cat, wrapped lovingly in yesterday's globe and mail.

To quote spaz: *whispers to self* It's all going to fall apart.

And now to shower and put on a sweater vest, because damn if I can't be a sexy disaster.

Send nickels.

ThePeach

Love; It's like a Hurricane

2009-09-11T18:30:00.002-04:00

I saw FauxHawk yesterday. He was in CapitalCity to see his family and wanted to stop by for a visit. Of course I said yes, because I’m a goddamn masochist.

We hadn’t spent any time together in a little while, so I was nervous. I started texting people about an hour before he came over.

ThePeach: FauxHawk is coming over. I think for coffee. I’m scared.
BadInfluence: Throw your coffee in his face.
ThePeach: Actually, I was thinking I’d just look super hot and throw that in his face instead.
BadInfluence: Just as painful.

Hotness is the only weapon in my arsenal right now. So I did my best to work it, despite the fever and face full of snot. But in the end it didn’t matter, because as soon as FauxHawk walked through my door my illusions of superiority melted and I just wanted to hold hands and tell him about my day. Goddamnit, love.

We watched some tv and chatted. It just felt natural to lean back on him and have him put his arms around me. I could feel his heart beating on my back.

The thing is, it’s hard. The breakup thing is fucking hard. We’re not right for each other. I don’t want to be a Jewish Stepford Wife, slopping my 2pm martini on the carpet while I tell my kids that Daddy doesn’t know how to love Mommy, and that’s why Mommy drinks. But we love each other, and we did for five years and that doesn’t just go away after two months and an Irish bartender.

So when FauxHawk and I see each other, it seems natural to fall into old habits. Don’t worry, nothing happened beyond the cuddling. Although, really, that almost seems more destructive than a meaningless fuck.

Anyway, eventually I extracted myself from Satan’s bear trap and met some friends at the bar for a much, much needed drink. I immediately poured several gins down my throat and became slurry drunk thanks to the approximately 47 benalyn pills I had consumed already that day. Later, some of us went back to BadInfluence’s house to continue the par-tay. I was feeling a little empty, and that’s when GinBucket broke out the guitar and started singing the most amazing song I have ever heard.

GinBucket: Love, it’s like a hurricane: it happens in Florida, it gets into everything.
Love, it’s like a monster truck: it fills up whole stadiums, but it crushes smaller trucks
Love, it’s like a marmoset: it may be small and cute, but sometimes it eats its young
Love, it’s like a trailer park: ugly but functional, the rent is cheap enough
Love, it’s like a garbage man: it collects waste and filth, it smells like rotting flesh
Love, it’s like an interstate: it gets you from place to place, but it’s littered with dead raccoons
Love, it’s like a newborn child: seems interesting when it’s young, gets pedestrian after a while
Love, it’s like a hurricane: it happens in Florida, it destroys everything.

I sat there in awe, gin in hand, while GinBucket sang what is essentially my new theme song. I might have fallen in love with her a little bit at that moment. But remember that I'm predisposed to people who can sing and play guitar at the same time.

Anyway, I eventually stumbled home at 4am, took two more benalyn, fever-slept until noon, and then met MortalCombat at Starbucks. We took our coffees down to the canal and lay in the grass, watching a little girl in a white dress chase ducks. We discussed life and love.

Love really is like a hurricane. But thank god for friend love. It keeps me alive.

And drunk. Which is so key.

ThePeach

ThePeach is back to the real world; does not like

2009-09-10T10:24:00.001-04:00

Ola, bitches.

I’m back to school this week and the return to the real world has had its ups and downs. The ups include seeing all my MJ lovers again and getting drunk on patios.

The downs are more interesting.

1. Another burn from Grandpa
I had brunch with my grandpa the day after I got back to town. I was feeling good – all tanned and awesome – and was excited to see the only good man in my life. We went to Cora’s, ordered our crepes and coffees, and my grandpa beamed at me.

Grandpa: I missed you, girl!
ThePeach: I missed you, grandpa! *shovels crepes into mouth*
Grandpa: You look great!
ThePeach: *mouth full of crepes* SHANKSH!
Grandpa: You fattened up in the face!!
ThePeach: *chokes*

Amazing. Just the look I was going for.

2. I have Swine Flu
Ok, not really. But maybe. Ok, not even maybe. But I do have the motherfucking cold of death and want to be dead. I can barely breathe, I sound like I swallowed a chain saw, and I have a fever. And the only cure is more cow bell. Seriously, though, there is no cure. I’ve been going to bed at 9:30pm and drinking litres of neocitron, to no effect. Last night I ran out of neocitron and stumbled to the Lebanese minimart at 9pm in booty shorts and a hippy shirt, dazed by fever. I stood in the middle of the packed little minimart, completely overwhelmed. The kindly Lebanese man helped me.

Lebanese man: What you need?
ThePeach: *wheeze* drugs.
Lebanese man: You sick, sweetheart?
ThePeach: *cough* drugs.
Lebanese man: Ok, I have the thing. *reaches behind a display of sanitary napkins from the 1970s, fish hooks, and flashlights* Here, good drugs.
ThePeach: *examines dusty box* Is this neocitron?
Lebanese man: Better. No name neocitron. Extra strength. It help you, sweetheart.
ThePeach: *wheeze* I also need microwave popcorn.
Lebanese man: *points* There. Under Beef Jerky display.
ThePeach: *eyes well up* You always have everything I need. You are amazing and I love you.
Lebanese man: How much drugs you already take, sweetheart?
ThePeach: *wheeze* I’ll also take some beef jerky.

Anyway, now I’m fully blitzed on cold meds and I have to go meet the class that I TA this year. Fuckin’ A!

3. Milo is great
The cat is not happy about living with me again. The little traitor fucking adores FauxHawk, who was cat sitting while I was in Portugal. The cat tried to scratch my eyes out when I took him away from FauxHawk’s, cried the whole way home – even after I fed him part of my Big Mac – and now spends all day sitting by the door, howling like a little bitch, and looking at me with sad eyes.

But the other day he really expressed his distaste about living with me by sprinting around the apartment with a full turd dangling from his ass, eventually depositing it on my living room carpet.

I’m trying to be patient. He is a child of divorce.

But I might have to have him put down if this continues.

Well, I think that’s everything for now. Time to go meet the first year students I will be teaching and spread the swine flu.

Help.

ThePeach

ThePeach Goes to Portugal; Epic Bender Ensues

2009-09-06T15:56:00.005-04:00

Oh holy fuck me sideways on a donkey cart. How do I even start to describe the past 14 days of my life?

I should have known that this entire trip would be a gong show from beginning to end. TheAmazon and I can’t spend a weekend together without someone fucking a cowgirl or winding up in the hospital, so I should have foreseen that this would not be your average backpacking vacation.

It started with our flight there, which was cancelled due to tornadoes in Philadelphia. Why not? So then we were put on standby with Lufthansa, a German airline, got seats with 20 minutes before takeoff, TheAmazon wound up sitting next to the hottest chick on the plane, and I got stuck with an old Austrian man. But he did get me drunk, so all was not lost. We landed in Germany instead of Portugal, transferred flights, I got bumped to first class (YES!!), and eventually we made it to Lisbon.

Our first few days were uneventful, save for drinking one too many pitchers of Sangria, scaling a 30 foot monument at 4am in front of what turned out to be a security guard, and finding out our hostel roommates were two Spanish Men named Manuel and Juan. Ola.

We did the good little tourist thing in Lisbon, and then decided to head south to the Algarve. We wanted to go to Faro, but we decided to stop in this small town called Lagos for 2 days on the way. We had heard it was a pretty neat little town, so a pit stop there seemed reasonable.

We never left.

Oh my god, Lagos. LAGOS!!! We accidentally stumbled about the hedonism paradise of Europe. First of all, it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. The water is aquamarine, the beaches are golden, and the backdrop is a series of tall cliffs jutting out into the ocean. The weather is perfect every single day. Thank god I packed my booty shorts at the last minute, because I didn’t take them off for 10 days. It’s flinging flanging hot in the Algarve.

We had no idea what we were getting into when we got off the train on our first day there. I mean, we could see that we had landed in paradise, but we didn’t know that we had landed in drunktown/fuckville. After a day spent at the beach, we decided to get dressed and head out for dinner. We were a little tired, so we decided it would be a quiet night. We made it two blocks from our little guest house before an Australian heartbreaker named Garreth stopped us in the street and offered us a free shot if we went to his bar.

We looked at each other. Well, what’s the harm in one free drink before dinner?

Next thing we know it’s 6am, an entire Aussie footy team has just done body shots off my ass and TheAmazon’s tits, TheAmazon has lost her shirt, and my g-string is hanging from the ceiling. Ok.

Not too sure what happened there. We slept for 4 hours, stumbled to the beach, and lay there until the world stopped spinning.

Multiply x 12 days.

Lagos is a strange little place. It’s a backpacker Mecca, where travelers from all over the world visit and then never leave. The entire town is run by Aussies and Brits, save for a few old Portuguese ladies who run the guest houses. You can forget you’re in Portugal until you go to the bathroom and have to squat over a hole in the floor with 3 other people.

Every single bar plays “Tonight’s Gonna be a Good Night” by Black Eyed Peas. It might as well be the Lagos anthem. And with happy hour all night, 2 for 1 mojitos, and free shots, every night really is a good night. The trick is not to resist. You have to let yourself become a part of the rhythm that moves Lagos, otherwise you need to get the fuck out. Drink until you’re blind, smoke like a 50 year old hooker, and enjoy the company of hundreds of other people who just want to drink, smoke, and get naked on the beach, up against the walls of the old town, in the clubs, etc. And for the love of syphilis, use a condom.

This isn’t to say we did nothing but drink. We went to Sagres to go surfing and nearly died in the violent waves. We walked 6km through a desert to get to the point of Piety – the most southwestern point in Europe – and felt like Jesus dragging his cross. We hiked through cliffs, swam in lagoons, and explored caves.
And then as soon as the sun went down we went back to being sloppy, drunken cunts. One day I woke up with a giant bump on the back of my head and no recollection of how I concussed myself. Another day TheAmazon woke up with a sprained ankle. I have a series of bruises from hip to calf on my left leg. Really wish I knew how that happened.

I adopted the town dog, a stray little monster with an underbite and crazy eyes. His name is Steve and I gave him bacon every morning. He loved me and I loved him until he bit me, the little fucker. Add rabies to the list, along with lung cancer and skin cancer. We made friends. Many friends. Some were special friends, like the sexy Irish bartender who bought me shots of absinthe and smirked as I flirted shamelessly.

“Yor a dorty gurl.”

Oh fuck me. It’s all over.

Turns out Irish accents make my clothes come off. Like, immediately. I can add that to the list, along with tequila, guys who can sing and play guitar at the same time, and anyone in a position of authority. Note: this list is not to be used for evil by any of my readers.

But by our last day in Lagos we were getting disillusioned. And not just because Ireland eventually burned me for a German whore (new favourite expression = pump and dump) and TheAmazon’s Aussie bartender decided she was no longer a lesbian.

On our last morning I sat on the curb, holding my absinthe-riddled head while TheAmazon shopped for souvenirs. A giant rat ran past me. How metaphoric.

The thing is, everyone in Lagos is running away from something. I was trying to forget my failed relationship, TheAmazon was trying to forget her hateful job, and everyone who works there has basically run away permanently. Nobody throws their entire lives away to live in perpetual sin if they’re not escaping from something back home. So the town has a bit of a dark edge to it. When you realize this it starts looking less and less like paradise. You start noticing the how all of the ex-pats have little guts and are prematurely aged from drinking 8 hours/day. You see the beggars with no feet. You see the fucking rats.

We left just in time, I think. My recommendation is to stay no more than 10 days.

That said, we were both wrist-cuttingly depressed to leave hedonism, which was only made worse by the 20+ hours we spent in transit on the way home. We were so grumpy on our first flight that I actually started yelling at the parents of one of the two screaming babies in our cabin. “BABY GRAVOL!!!” “BABY GRAVOL!!!” “FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!”

So anyway, to keep ourselves from getting arrested, we did the math. For real, it took us a good 4 hours. I give you…

Portugal By the Numbers:

Average Hours Slept per night: 4.8
Average Drinks consumed each per night: 11.8
Total Drinks consumed each over 12 days: 153
Number of times the word “cunt” was used per day: 37 (approximate)
Number of cigarettes smoked each per night: 9
International Man Bingo Winners, rated by performance:
- Team Event: Australia, with an average 8.25
- Solo Event: Ireland, with an average 8.5

I also give you: Strange Facts about Portugal!

1. When they bring you bread at dinner, they serve fish paste instead of butter. Like, it comes in the little plastic container, but it’s made of sardine. Being adventurous, I tried it. Bowels no likey.
2. The number 2 is pronounced “douche” in Portuguese. Therefore TheAmazon and I ordered everything in pairs in order to say douche as much as possible. Douche bus tickets. Douche tequila. Douche surfboards. Obrigado.
3. Bidets are everywhere. I used them to clean my feet after the beach.
4. 5 euro Portuguese hair straightners WILL tear out half your head of hair after 2 weeks of use. Bad choice. Good price.
5. At least 5 Indian restaurants on every street corner. Vindaloo while backpacking and averaging 11.8 drinks per night = not recommended. Bowels no likey. NO LIKEY.

So anyway, that’s pretty much my trip in a nut shell. Before I left I said I had 3 goals: to come back fat, relaxed, and with some serious perspective. I think I managed all three, although “fat” is questionable. But most importantly, moving on from FauxHawk is starting to seem less impossible. Like maybe I won't die alone after all. Or die of a broken heart. Also, I really hope he keeps his promise to stop reading my blog. Moving on seems more possible (eventually), but hurting him is still impossible. My heart still aches when I think of him.

One final note: Pauly Shore was on my connecting return flight from Philly to TheBigCity.

I love my life.

ThePeach

It's time for my Lisbion experience

2009-08-20T19:50:00.003-04:00

Oh holy jesus.

At this time tomorrow I will be flying to Lisbon. Scratch that. At this time tomorrow I will be sitting in the airport in Philadelphia, hoping that my baggage makes it onto my connecting flight to Lisbon. And by 8am on Saturday I will be in Portugal.

Ok.

*screams*

ASSVENTURE TIME!!!

In true Peach style I’m completely unprepared for two weeks in a foreign country. I have booked exactly one hostel. Our first one. That is all. TheAmazon and I figure we’ll wing it from there, head down the coast, and hope for the best. As of yesterday I had 4 dollars in the bank, but luckily my grandpa loaned me money so that I don’t have to traffic myself just to have a roof over my head. But still, my funds are what we might call “limited.” I didn’t buy any kind of travel insurance, which means I’ll break my leg on day 1.

I packed, at least. Mainly bikinis, shpants and medication for every possible poop scenario. Bring on the garlic seafood, sangria and dysentery.

My grandpa wants to be helpful so I let him drive me around to run some errands today. Have you ever gone shoe shopping with a well-meaning 82-year-old man trying to bond with you on a feminine level? What I needed was trampy black wedge sandals for the bar that cost under 40 dollars. I got them. Thank you Payless.

But first I had to endure 20 minutes of this:

Grandpa: *stares at walls of discount shoes. Scratches head. Randomly picks up pair of hooker heels in size 11* Now….these are…patent leather….very classic…
ThePeach:…I think they’re a little big.
Grandpa: *Picks up pair of metallic pink flip flops* Pink…is…a feminine colour…for a lady…
ThePeach:...I think I like a different pair. *tries on wedge sandals*
Grandpa: *bends over. Stares at my foot.* Black…will match…every outfit…

Eventually I just bought the damn shoes before he could try to ask me about my period.

I’m trying to clean my apartment as I pack since I’m going to be getting back to CapitalCity only a few days before school starts, and I’ll be overwhelmed enough without having to call the police to come kill the contents of my fridge.

I started by bringing down my recycling. I’ve been throwing all of my recyclables into giant plastic bags ever since the breakup, and the heap kind of completely took over my foyer. I had to sort everything today, and that’s when I realized just how downhill my life has gone since I got dumped.

The contents of my recycling included:

- 5 jumbo Tanqueray bottles
- 2 jumbo Bombay Sapphire bottles
- 2 jumbo Vodka bottles
- 7 empty wine bottles
- 6 2L tonic bottles
- 10 cans of tonic
- 20 cans of redbull
- 2 OJ cartons
- 3 pizza boxes
- 3 10-pack of microwave popcorn boxes
- 4 kleenex boxes.

Well. I think that says everything right there, doesn’t it?

I should have saved it and made it into a modern art installation piece. I'd call it "drinking helps."

I guess this is why I need this vacation. It’s been almost two months now since FauxHawk and I broke up, and I see this as the final phase. I’m hoping to come back tanned, fat, relaxed, and with some serious perspective. FauxHawk and I were together for five years, but now I have my whole life ahead of me. All two years of it before I die of liver cirrhosis. Seriously, did you SEE MY RECYCLING????!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!

Bitches, I bid you adieu. I’ll try to update from Portugal, but paying for internet access makes me cranky. So for now I’ll leave you with this google image photo montage of how I imagine my trip will go:

I'll start every day with a light breakfast:

Take in a little scenery:

Have sex with Christiano Ronaldo:

And probably also this chick:

Love, kisses, and inappropriate touching,

ThePeach

Enrich your word power!

2009-08-20T09:29:00.001-04:00

Addiction: noun.
e-‘dik-shen
1 : the quality or state of being addicted
2 : compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly : persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful.
3: pouring milk that expired one week ago into your morning coffee, hearing the distinct splash of a semi-solid chunk hitting the brew, and pretending not to notice because you used your last available grounds to make this pot.

Baby needs her medicine.

ThePeach

The bright place is bright.

2009-08-17T16:06:00.003-04:00

One hour until my revised article deadline. This burst of timely energy is brought to you by coffee and Mika, my favourite hipster artist.

I dare you to listen to this song and not be joyous. I'm trying to pump myself up for my last burst of writing, so I'm currently dancing around the apartment like a housewife on roofies, cradling my coffee mug and scaring the bejesus out of the cat.

4 days until I go to Portugal. Coincidentally, 4 dollars in my bank account. Must finish articles and receive paycheque.

Man alive! 50 minutes! Back to anaphylaxis.

How can I help it
How can I help it
How can I help what you think?
Hello my baby
Hello my baby
Putting my life on the brink
Why don't you like me
Why don't you like me
Why don't you like yourself?
Should I bend over?
Should I look older just to be put on your shelf?
- Mika

ThePeach

The dark place is dark.

2009-08-16T09:40:00.002-04:00

I’m in the dark place (that’s what he said).

My work situation is not ok. It has leprosy. It has AIDS. I’m one more email from an editor away from tenderly caressing the knives.

After I sent in my articles on Friday I was expecting to take a nice, long coma-nap and then drink my life away. Instead, all within the same hour, my editor sent back the articles and asked me to expand them by Monday (fuck!), my prof emailed me to tell me to redo the bibliography in a new style format (FUCK!), and my magazine editor emailed me with 40 more articles to edit by the end of the week (FFFUUUUCKKK!).

All of this on no sleep.

Save me, Allah.

My immediate plan is to dig a big hole and go lie in it. Like a dead body. Or Saddam. You’ll find me in 6 months with a full beard.

After receiving all of these emails at once, I just kind of lay on the couch in a daze for a few hours, waiting for the heart attack to take me to a better place. Do you think heaven has jungle sex? And poutine? I hope not, because I’ll be really jealous when I’m burning in hell.

I had to cancel a movie date with FrogBoy that night thanks to the gentle fisting of my 3 internships. Instead I stayed in and stared at my laptop, willing it to explode. At 11pm I figured food might be a good call, so I had a deep fry platter delivered to my apartment. I'm not joking. The anorexia portion of my breakup is now but a distant memory. On the bright side, tits.

I met my grandpa for brunch yesterday. He brought me 3 jars of peach jam. I’ll add them to the stockpile of jam in my freezer. My freezer currently consists of about 30 jars of jam, two bottles of gin, and a 10lb bag of corn.

I went for another run last night. CapitalCity is going through a heat wave and there was a smog warning, but bitch needs her ass to look edible in a bikini when she goes to Portugal in a week. How else am I going to have a Lisbion experience on the beach? Note to self: purchase more bikinis.

Anyway, my run was brought to you by the letter “I” and the number 2. For “immediate regret” and the number of times I leaned on the guard rail and dry heaved into the canal. Poor choice, Peach. Poor choice.

I meant to do more work when I got back from my run, but I was sneepy-sneepy. I guess 3 consecutive days of no sleep catches up with you eventually. So I got into bed at like 10:30 (on a Saturday. Wooo awesome!) and set my alarm for 6am. Oh right, I forgot that I’m a zombie now. At 1am, after lying in bed having a heart attack over my work for 3 hours, I finally turned on my tv and tried to trick my brain into falling asleep with bad tv movies. I found a terrible mid-90s Gwyneth Paltrow movie, which by all rights should have made me hit REM, but no dice. 2am. I finally caved. Dug out my old sleeping pills from a few years ago, back in the day when I hated my job so much that I required prescription drugs just to function as a human. I had to be up in 4 hours, so I cut the pill into thirds and swallowed only one jagged little piece (allusion! Look at me!). I got back into bed, saw a commercial for Kentucky Fried Chicken, and within 5 minutes was passed out and dreaming of buckets of dirty bird.

I woke up at 9am. I guess it takes 3 hours of CBC Radio 1 to wake a person out of drug comas. Fucking, bloody, douchey HELL.

On the bright side, today is the inaugural SANGRIA SUNDAY with MortalCombat!!!

That’s right, bitches. MC is back from South Africa and we have 3 months worth of gossip to catch up on. Which is why the plan is to park ourselves on a patio at noon and drink Sangria until we get sun stroke or alcohol poisoning or both.

And then I’ll come back home and edit 40 articles.

Drinking helps me.

ThePeach

Yay, Crazies!

2009-08-14T03:57:00.003-04:00

Ohai.

It’s 3:30am and I’m still working. I haven’t left my apartment once since Saturday and now it’s Friday morning. Not once, except to go for a quick run on Tuesday. In the dark. Alone. Because I’m a gremlin now.

That’s almost an entire week. Wow. Ok.

I just finished my first article on food allergies. Now I have to write the second one. Like, right now. Starting at 3:30am. And it’s a full-length feature. Awesome possum.

It’s not entirely my fault. I only got my last interview at 10:00pm tonight. The thing about journalism is that much of it is out of your control, and most people do not answer their goddamn phones or check their emails or are of ANY USE TO ME.

So, my deadline is noon. I can squeeze in a few hours of sleep, but I don’t trust myself to sleep first and write later. I’ll wind up waking up at 4pm in a sweaty pile of sheets and then use them to hang myself.

Ok. That was graphic.

I’ve had a lot of work over the past week. I managed to juggle my 3 internships for most of the summer, but they all took a simultaneous dump on me 7 days ago. After I finish these articles I have 40 poorly written pieces to edit for the magazine I work at. It takes me over an hour just to do one, mostly because people do not know how to use basic grammar or write a clear sentence or are of ANY USE TO ME. Also, my bad for forgetting about the magazine internship when I booked my Portugal trip, because the magazine goes to print on the 24th and I fly out of the country on the 21st. Oops. Shorry. Maybe if they paid me I would have a better memory.

Other highlights from working 3 simultaneous internships from home:

- Not a single clean mug or cup or knife in the entire house. This is because all I live off of is coffee (mug), gin (cup), and peanut butter on toast (knife). Today I realized the bread had mould, so I guess I’ll be eating the pb straight from the jar (spoon/spatula/IV needle). Made tea at midnight. Drank it out of a bowl.

- Not a single clean article of clothing in the entire house. I have actually worn my entire collection of old lady underwear, long after the sexy thongs and then the non-sexy thongs ran out. Tomorrow I may have to fashion some kind of loin cloth out of dental floss and paper towels. Wait, I’m out of paper towels. Fuck it, I’m wearing a bed sheet.

- The cat might be dead.

- Last night I ordered in poutine for dinner at 11:00 pm. And a can of orange crush.

- TheAmazon is in Mexico for work. I just sent her a text message at 3am and all it said was “You’re a Mexicunt.”

- Anyone I interview comments on how upbeat I am. Any family member or friend who calls me asks if I’m perched on the ledge of my balcony, contemplating swift death.

- My grandpa called while I was on a caffeine high and now I have to spend my Saturday driving to a winery with him. It’s 2 hours away. Oh fun.

- Oh hey, there’s the cat. How long has he been passed out on the floor behind a tv tray? I just poked him. Definitely alive.

Ok. So, anyone who thinks being a freelance journalist is the bestest job in life (*coughTheQuack) should no longer have any illusions. Look at me. LOOK AT ME. I HAVE THE CRAZY EYES.

I can't lie. I still love it. But oh fuck this bitch is tired and needs a vegetable and some fresh air. Maybe some human contact. Maybe some internet television. Heroes is fun. So is How I Met Your Mother.

Oh my god it’s 4am.

This is the state in which I will be writing a national instructional article on anaphylactic shock. The magic of journalism, bitches.

ThePeach

Poverty is Delicious: Part 2.

2009-08-12T14:14:00.002-04:00

I really do enjoy being skank-ass po’. I might make my ghetto food adventures a recurring entry.

The fun thing about freelance work is that the paycheques come very irregularly, if at all. So maybe I’ll have two weeks where I have money, and then I’ll pay all my bills and stock up on necessities like gin, Kraft Dinner, and peanut butter. And then I’ll go another 6 weeks with no income whatsoever. God help me if the rent is due during that time (it always is) and if the cat happens to need $250 worth of blood-work and $70 worth of prescription food (he always does, the little FAIDS bastard).

So, here I am, furiously writing articles about food allergies just to keep me out of debtor’s jail because I haven’t seen incoming money since early July, and bitch is hungry for lunch.

A quick check in the fridge shows that I currently am in possession of: mouldy pita bread, milk on the cusp of expiration, and some fresh basil. Also mouldy. Ok.

So, in times like this, you break out the reserves. Like the 10 lb bag of frozen peas that I keep in my freezer for scurvy emergencies and also to use as ice on my busted running knee. I have an identical bag of corn.

I also found an old can of tuna.

I give you: ThePeach’s Working Single Mother Tuna Noodle Casserole!

So named because I will probably feed my little bastards this exact meal in like 10 years, when I’m still earning the same amount of $ and have no mens to speak of.

Ok.

1. Cook some whole wheat pasta. Preferably macaroni. If, like me, you only have spaghetti, break it up into bite sized pieces.

2. While the spaghetti confetti is cooking, dump the can of tuna in a bowl. Add a can of cream of mushroom soup. Cream soups are the staple of any poor, single girl’s diet and no whore should ever let herself run out. I buy mine in bulk.

3. Remove the two 10lb bags of vegetation from the freezer. Whack them against the kitchen floor to break up the solid ice block they have surely become by now. When the bag of corn explodes all over the floor, like mine did, swear loudy and sweep the niblets under the stove. Deal with them in 3 months, when the smell starts.

4. Mix veggies in with tuna mushroom concoction. Add pepper. Add the cooked noodles. Top with bread crumbs. If you don’t own bread crumbs, toast some bread and mash it up in your hands. It’s very satisfying if you have rage. And, let’s be honest, if you’re single and poor you likely have a lot of rage.

TEAR THAT FUCKING BREAD INTO MOTHERFUCKING PIECES.

5. Bake at 350 for…well…I had a phone interview partway through the baking, so I really have no idea. 20 minutes? Before the burning starts.

6. Eat, bitch.

It really is delicious. And the cat got to lick the tuna can. Everyone wins!

Until he pukes tuna into my bed.

Then I lose.

ThePeach

FINE.

2009-08-12T11:10:00.002-04:00

Jesus, people. FINE. I updated my "who the hell am I talking about?" section. STOP THE PEER PRESSURE. It's over now.

Speaking of peer pressure, guess who came over last night and convinced me to smoke pot and watch episodes of How I Met Your Mother when I should have been working?

This is why he's called BadInfluence.

Ok, FINE. He came over and made me promise I would do work and stay sober, and then I wrestled the lit joint out of his hand and inhaled furiously while running away from him.

He put up a good fight.

ThePeach

ThePeach is a stoner; special lady

2009-08-10T14:52:00.004-04:00

Why, god? WHY did I ever think I could purchase $70 worth of pot and still have a functional existence? I’ve been stoned for like 2 weeks. What day is it? Where am I? Why are there two empty Swiss Chalet chicken containers on the floor beside my couch?

Please. Check me into pot rehab.

It’s been an interesting week. Wait, is today Monday? I work from home and I’m drunk most days, so every day is the same pretty much.

It’s been an interesting several days, I guess I should say.

The only reason I’m blogging right now is because I have to write two articles today and I need to warm up my brain. It took me two hours just to open Microsoft word. I’m so pooched.

It’s come to my attention that I might be more upset about my breakup than I allow myself to believe. I spend so much time working, and then binge drinking, and ultimately distracting myself that I kind of forget most of the time that the man I loved so much that it hurt broke up with me over the phone. On Canada day. While I was on the other side of the country. And because he called my cell, it charged me long distance. It cost me $12 to get dumped.

Anyway.

For the most part I think I’m doing very well. I live my life, have fun, accomplish stuff, and generally avoid depression and sadness. The only place my breakup has really manifested itself is in my apartment, which looks like a bombed Romanian orphanage. And I guess in my appearance, which looks much the same. Actually, I’ve been told freedom looks good on me, if only I would gain 5 or 10 pounds. Judging by the chicken carcass on my floor, I’d say I’m on my way.

I went to the bar with TheAmazon on Friday. I wore one of my favourite bar shirts. It was a little looser than the last time I wore it, which ultimately resulted in it falling off my body. I got a free drink out of it. Advantages!

Ok, time to focus in a linear fashion, here. This story has a point. Swearsies.

Friday was a rough day. I had been working for like 3 days straight at that point with no breaks. Not even for pot. I had been living off of microwave popcorn and coffee. I had experienced some minor man drama that morning, but I dodged the hurty bits and just focused on work. TheAmazon was flying in for a visit that night and I just needed to finish my research before she got there. And then, at 9pm, FauxHawk called to chat. You know, just a nice little catch up with the man who ripped my heart out. Being friends is yay. The conversation was pretty casual and cheerful, and after we hung up I congratulated myself for being so cool to him on the phone. I got back to work.

The computer screen was a little blurry. Weird. Oh hey, breathing is a little hard. Must be the coffee. And is my heart palpating? That doesn’t feel nice. Stop it, you.

Next thing I know I’m curled up in a little ball in my desk chair and crying like a pitiful tool. This lasted about an hour, despite my best attempts to stop the cry hole. I walked around the apartment. Negative. I washed my face. Negative. Showered. Shaved my legs. Weeped the whole time. Poured a gin. Nothing.

TheAmazon showed up at my door to find me crying, blasting the Amy Winehouse, swigging gin, and prancing around the apartment in leggings and a bra.

TheAmazon: *immediately sits down* Sit in my lap and tell Momma what’s wrong, Boo.
ThePeach: *sobs* Boo is sad, Momma!
TheAmazon: *pats her lap* Momma will help.
ThePeach: *sits on lap, weeps* My life is stupid and overly dramatic and no one loves me.
TheAmazon: I know just what Boo needs. You’re going to put on a shirt. We are going to the bar. We are going to dance with ugly men and let them buy us drinks. I am going to order tequila and lick the salt off your cleavage. You are going to let momma feed you poutine. Then we’ll come back here and cuddle and maybe I’ll fork your skinny ass. Sound good?
ThePeach: *sniffle* Ya, motherfucker.
TheAmazon: *slaps my ass* YOU CALL THAT ENTHUSIASM??!
ThePeach: YA, MOTHERFUCKER!!!

And we did exactly that. I woke up the next morning with a line of salt all the way from my jaw to my inner thigh. I might have accidentally had a lesbian experience, but I can’t be sure.

We drank and smoked that night until 5am. At 9am TheAmazon rolled over in bed and woke me up.

TheAmazon: Bitch, wake up. Get your credit card.
ThePeach: *coughs up half a joint* SHMEH*cough*WHAT? *dry heaves* WHERESH AMI *squints eyes* Momma?
TheAmazon: Boo, I have a plan.

30 minutes later we had purchased flights to Portugal.

OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. I’M GOING TO PORTUGAL IN 11 DAYS. OH MY GOD.

What…did I do? How…why…oh my god. I’m going to Portugal. With TheAmazon. In 11 days. I put it on my mastercard.

I think it’s safe to say that I need a vacation, but still. Wow. Impulsive. We’re going to backpack from Lisbon to Faro and stop in Lagos to fuck surfers. Or learn to surf. Or both, whatever. We have no accommodations booked. No real idea of what we’re going to do there. But I have a feeling it’s going to be the best experience of my life.

See, I’ve had an epiphany about the kind of person I am. (God, this blog is a whole lot of emo. Aporogies.).

I’m the kind of person who wants the experiences. All of them, good and bad. Often they go hand in hand. When I die (which might soon, at this rate), I’m not going to remember that I had no mastercard debt for one brief month in the summer of ’09. But I guarantee I will remember the wicked backpacking vacation I had in Portugal with my oldest friend, TheAmazon. I’m going to remember that I loved someone deeply, even if they sucked and broke my heart. I’m going to remember that I was totally irresponsible and drank too much and did more stupid things that just wound up hurting me in the long run, but I’m also going to remember how good it all felt at the time.

This is getting deep. It’s the fucking THC.

My dear friend ThePilot – another one of my oldest friends - was in CapitalCity for the weekend, too. We met up on Saturday and he took me to his adorable house in the country for dinner. We chased frogs. Shucked corn. He picked me a flower and put it in my hair. He reminded me that life is good.

We were sitting around his dining room table, eating pie and drinking coffee, when we started talking about how I’d like to move to Vancouver next year. I was still feeling kind of spent from my cry fit the day before, very hungover from the tequila, and pretty much like an unlovable wretch. ThePilot looked at me and said:

“I don’t know many women who would leave everything they know and go live on the other side of the country just for the adventure of it. That’s a compliment, in case you’re wondering.”

Well. Some people find my craziness intriguing.

Maybe there’s hope for me.

ThePeach

I'm a creep. I'm a weirdo.

2009-08-07T10:53:00.002-04:00

Ok. I’ll blog. Sorry for the delay. I bought $70 worth of pot this weekend and kind of lost track of time and space for a few days. Then I remembered that I have a month’s worth of work due today, so I’ve been working like a plantation slave since Tuesday. A plantation slave who creates textbook bibliographies instead of harvesting indigo and getting raped by massa’, but, you know, same thing.

So, I haven’t slept in 3 days, I have moderate to severe caffeine psychosis, and my work is due in a few hours. Perfect time to blog.

Also, I was worried that I didn’t have enough good camping stories to satisfy your eager little minds. It was a genuinely awesome weekend, but I don’t know if anything that random or hilarious happened. This is what I told ThePilot when he accosted me about my trip. Then I started listing some of the nice, normal things that happened over the weekend. Then I realized that they were not normal at all. Then I was scared that my sense of reality has become warped by my weird life.

Anyway. Here are some highlights:

1. TV lied to us.

TigerCat and I both craved Iced Caps on the drive down. We figured that we’d pass at least 6 Tim Hortons’ before we reached the camp site, seeing as how we had to drive through at least 6 crappy small towns in rural Ontario. But there were ZERO Tim Hortons’! ZERO! With each passing town we got angrier and angrier. Finally, as we passed through the last town, TigerCat slapped her hands on the wheel and muttered:

“What the fuck. I thought this was Canada.”

Then she just kind of stared blankly at the road and no one talked for a while.

2. Our tent lied to us.

TigerCat bought us an awesome tent on sale at WalMart. It was super cheap, sleeps 4, and in the picture on the front an entire family lounges comfortably in the canvas.

In reality, the tent was a hobbit hole. Our air mattress barely fit in it, we had to change one at time while lying down because it wasn’t tall enough to sit up in, and TigerCat and I slept basically on top of each other, like slaves in a slave ship (why does this post have a slave theme? I’m not a racist. Swearsies). Also, it rained on the last night. Our hobbit hole then transformed into a hobbit swamp. Not fun.

3. Kids are fun.
TigerCat, TheCrazy, TheCastrato and I all went to the beach on Saturday. It was a perfect sunny day and I enjoyed scandalizing the kiddies and their pot-bellied Dads in my whore’s bathing suit. We ate cookies and grapes and read our books until it was too hot to ignore the lake. The women ventured in while TheCastrato left to seek shade. The lake was refreshing but damned cold. We waded in just past our knees and then lingered there to acclimatize ourselves. And that’s when I felt a cold shot of water to my ass.

I looked behind me to see a grinning 3-year-old boy pointing a water gun squarely at my ass cheeks. He pressed the trigger and shot another stream of freezing lake water at me. Bingo: right to the ass. I looked the wee pervert in the eyes and said “stop.” He giggled. Pressed the trigger again. I looked around to see if there were any witnesses to potential toddler drowning, and I noticed the kid’s father watching us. Just staring, with his arms crossed over his burnt pot belly.

Perverts: it’s genetic.

4. Cooking is fun.
We don’t have a Coleman stove, but we do have a hibachi BBQ that we did most of our cooking over. On our last morning I was in charge of breakfast. I dragged the BBQ out of the dining shelter and the cooler out of the car. I found the package of bacons. Mmm. Bacons. The package was vacuum sealed. We neglected to bring scissors. Or knives. Fast forward 10 minutes of angry grunting and attempting to rip open the package with my teeth, and you find me squatting in the dirt, hacking at the bacon package with my grandfather’s axe. Great success!

During all this TigerCat was at TheCrazy’s campsite, boiling water to make coffee. Bless that child.

Next it was time to light the BBQ. I once again squatted in the dirt (like a slave?) and turned on the gas. I stuck the lighter into the grill and flicked the switch. I looked into the grill. Did the BBQ light? I couldn’t be sure, so I thought the best way to check would be to light it again. I once again stuck the lighter into the grill and flicked the switch.

TigerCat and I as wee tots, running through the grass on a warm summer’s day. My first bike – pink, with purple streamers on the handlebars. My first kiss, on the playground, from a boy in my class. These are the images I see when my life flashes before my eyes.

The flames shot about 6 feet in the air and knocked me backwards into the dirt. The violent sound of rushing fire could probably be heard across the lake. I gingerly patted my face. Eyebrows: check. Eyelashes: check.

I guess the BBQ was lit.

5. I’m one with nature.
Two more of our friends spent the night with us on Saturday, and we had a big campfire together. We chugged our coolers and beers, played guitar, and smoked some of my $70 worth of pot. We had singalongs which, in my high state, seemed like the most beautiful thing imaginable. We’re singing as a group! To an acoustic guitar! In the woods! I practically came in my pants when we broke into “Creep” by Radiohead. Oh, pot.

But with the drinking comes the urination, and we were a good 10 minute walk from the nearest shitter. Most people are adept at pissing in the woods, but I, sir, am not. I just can’t pee in anything but a toilet. It’s not just the actual mechanics of the squatting and avoiding your feet – it’s also mental. I cannot – cannot! – let go of my bladder in public. I’ve tried.

But this time something was different. Maybe it was the pot. Maybe it was the woods. Maybe it was the one-month dumpiversary since my breakup and my newfound strength. Whatever it was, I marched into those woods like a motherfucking star, found a log, took my pants right off, grabbed the log for support, and voided recycled vodka into nature. I did it 3 more times throughout the night. We all had our own pee spots. I liked mine. I had to climb down a bit of a slope to get to my log, but it gave me a sense of privacy.

The next day I realized that my private pee log was actually basically on the side of the major highway that runs past the campground. I was pantless and peeing on the side of the highway – four times.

That had to be a treat for anybody driving by.

I’ll leave you with this:

ThePeach

Into the woods

2009-07-31T15:42:00.000-04:00

Camping camping camping!!

I’m slightly excited.

TigerCat should get home from work any minute now, and then we’re taking off for Silver Lake. We have a car full of bug spray, a cooler full of meat and vodka, and a Tupperware container full of smokeable joy.

I’m dressed in my camping uniform: tight tshirt and lulu capris. Hey, there might be some burly mens the next site over and I’d like to at least showcase my ass. Why not fuck in the woods with strangers? Actually, our neighbours will probably be senior citizens and the only thing I’ll do in the woods is pass out in a pile of my own vom, but at least my ass will look good doing it.

Also, I packed a first aid kit for when I accidentally light myself on fire or cut off a finger using the axe my grandpa forced us to pack. Nothing a little polysporin can’t fix, right?

In exciting news, TheCrazy and TheCastrato have a site 3 down from us. Eeeeee! We’re probably all going to die. Or I’ll have sex with TheCrazy. She’s very sensual.

See you on the other side, bitches.

ThePeach

The Fattening

2009-07-30T13:22:00.001-04:00

My sister has just one goal this summer: to fatten me. It is her only wish. And she’s putting up a solid fight, despite my best efforts to remain a breakup waif. She taunts me with my favourite foods and jokes that she’s adding lard to my coffee, but she might actually be doing it. She’s a tricksy bitch, that one.

And she has many weapons.

I arrived in Universitytown yesterday afternoon to get ready for our weekend camping trip. I wanted to go for a nice, long run when I got here, but instead I met my sister for lunch at her hotel restaurant and allowed her to convince me that fries, artisan grilled cheese and ham, and chocolate bread pudding drizzled with fresh cream is an acceptable lunch. All I was able to do after consuming this meal was stumble like a drunk to her house and pass out for 3 hours, sweating cheese the entire time. When I woke up she was standing eagerly at the foot of my bed, asking me what I wanted to do for dinner.

She’s like a chipper caloric demon.

I told her I couldn’t even think about food, so we drove to dollarama to purchase more crap for our camping trip. On the way back we drove past an all-you-can eat- sushi restaurant.

Guess what happened.

I woke up this morning and tried to find the multigrain bread my sister swore she had left out for me, but it was nowhere to be found. The fridge was stocked, however, with muffins. Eff. After this I decided I really should finally go for that run. Maybe I’d run 12km. That would show her!

I opened the curtains and saw that the sun was glistening like crystals off the water in the pool in her courtyard. Eff. So I lay in the sun and tanned until I looked like a migrant worker. BUT then I swam laps for 20 minutes. SUCKA! I could have gone much longer, but an old man had pulled a chair up right beside me and was just kind of…watching…the entire time. Just the two of us in the pool. Me in my white string bikini, and him in his gold chains and oil-soaked paunch.

I came upstairs and showered, pleased with my 20 minutes of fitness. As I washed the memory of the greasy old man off of me, I contemplated what to do with my afternoon. Perhaps I’d go to Starbucks and get a grande and do some work. Skip lunch entirely, since I damn well knew that ho sister of mine would stuff me full of carbs and lard when she got home.

I stepped out of the shower and scurried to my bedroom to throw on my lulus. Suddenly there was a brisk knock at my door. I screamed. TigerCat walked in with wide eyes and a large smile. She was holding a brownie the size of my head.

“I just went to the market on my lunch break. I thought you’d like this brownie. Here, I’ll just leave it on this plate in your room. I have to go back to work now.”

Match point.

ThePeach

ps - spanx, seester.

ThePeach's grandpa offers relationship advice

2009-07-28T14:33:00.002-04:00

I had lunch with my grandpa today. He’s stepped up our visits to about one per week ever since my sister told him I was dumped. He’s trying to help in his own way, like by taking me for long drives to look at wild flowers, making me homemade jam, and sharpening an axe for me to take camping. That last one was nerve racking to watch – an old man shuffling around the garage with a fresh blade. Someone could have lost an eye.

Anyway, my grandpa knew I didn’t want to talk about my breakup, so he never brought it up. He just knew that I knew that he knew, and that was where we left it. I think he tried to bring it up once, in the car, but when he reached over to touch my arm he accidentally grazed my left boob and neither of us talked for the next 30 minutes.

Anyway, today was the day he finally cracked. At Montana’s restaurant. I had a mouth full of fries when he delicately put down his fried fish, looked me in the eye, and said:

“So. Did FauxHawk cut the cord, or did you?”

Oh jesus.

So then I had to explain my breakup to my 82-year-old grandpa as diplomatically as possible, in a Montana’s, in a LOUD AND SLOW voice. I’m pretty sure the line cooks now know that HE SAID HE WASN’T HAPPY ANYMORE AND I THINK HE HAD ISSUES WITH DETACHMENT.

My grandpa nodded slowly and sympathetically and then, in his slow lilting voice, offered me some advice.

“Just be careful not to rebound too much, sweetheart.”

I think my grandpa just warned me not to become a whore. Owned again.

ThePeach

Babysitters Club

2009-07-27T17:04:00.002-04:00

My romantic life might have leprosy, but I have managed to excel in at least one area of personal relationships: friendships. I don’t want to brag, but I might have the best friends that anyone has ever had. And this becomes more apparent when one gets dumped and the friends start coming out of the woodwork to put you back together and medicate you with jager. Ya, I’m feeling a little emotional right now and it’s probably 50% because of my uterus and 50% due to the 3 day bender I just experienced, but still. I love my bitches.

I haven’t been awake very long and it’s 4pm. Why is the room moving? My liver aches.

Where was I?

Right. Friends.

I’m somewhat disastrous in the best of circumstances. I don’t pay my bills. I can’t drive. I once left a bowl of tuna salad in the fridge for 16 months because it got mouldy, came to life, and I was scared to touch it. My sister discovered the tuna beast one day while she was looking for ketchup. By that point it had hardened into a solid black puck. She screamed and made me get rid of it while she watched with fearful, judgy eyes. I cried.

My point is that, in the best of times, I’m not sure how I get through life. And now, in a time of emotional upheaval, I pretty much need people to keep me from dying 24/7. I call them my babysitters.

On Friday I was feeling slightly overwhelmed about the world. Due to a case of the sads, I had been in bed for about 3 days. BadInfluence staged an intervention. He drove over, picked me up, took me to buy cat food so I could stop feeding Milo Kraft Singles, took me to the LCBO to buy my medicine, took me to Starbucks to take the suicide edge off, and then brought me back home and literally cleaned my apartment top to bottom. I’m talking shook out the carpets and beat the couch cushions. He had to sweep the floor 6 times. It’s kind of humbling to see your breakup mess through another person’s eyes.

BadInfluence: Why do you have three dirty sweatshirts in a pile in the middle of the floor?
ThePeach: To hide the crap underneath.
BadInfluence: *picks up sweaters* Why do you have approximately 37 dollars in nickels, ten crumbled receipts, and a mouldy coffee mug hidden under all these sweaters in the middle of your floor?
ThePeach: To hide the cat puke stain underneath.
BadInfluence: *sweeps aside the crap* How long has this puke been here?
ThePeach: Two weeks.
BadInfluence: I really kind of hate you right now.

And yet he scrubbed out the puke stain and put the loose change in a gravy boat on my dresser. Heart.

QueenB and Workohol came to visit from TheBigCity for the weekend. They took me out, fed me, stocked my fridge, stocked my liquor cabinet, and scrubbed my kitchen from floor to ceiling. Even the inside of the fridge. They had to go to the store to buy cleaning products and dish rags. What is wrong with me? I have a sickness.

We had an awesome weekend. We went out both nights and spent Saturday on a patio drinking Sangria and being surly. My two favourite things. I love going out with those two because they don’t take shit from anyone. They’re getting drinks bought for them by the hottest guys in the bar and then telling them to run along like good boys while I’m getting ass-raped on the dance floor by an Albanian with a pot belly. I finally detached myself after he grabbed my hips, thrust my ass onto his Albanian erection, and whispered: “Yeah. I know you like that. I have a big package.”

No thank you, sir.

My favourite was when we left the bar and went to get pizza. Some guy – not unattractive – came up to QueenB on the street and literally started serenading her with James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful.” QueenB glared at him, barked “ARE YOU HOMELESS?” and then marched away. Love her.

My bitches had to drive back home yesterday, but not before they left me with a fridge full of vegetables and every dish in my house sparkling.

I was sad again after they left. It didn’t help that I saw FauxHawk for lunch. I know. I’m a masochist. I don’t want to talk about it.

I was back in bed by 7:30pm with no intention to get up for at least 48 hours. And that’s when BadInfluence came back over with a stack of DVDs and the threat of a punch to the face if I didn’t at least put on sweatpants and relocate to the couch. So I listened to him and wound up drinking gin until 5am. He always knows exactly what I need to buck up.

The thing about breakup depressions is that, sometimes, they’re kind of hilarious. BadInfluence has seen some pathetic shit out of me lately. Like when he was helping me clean and asked why I have a line of pillows down the middle of the bed.

ThePeach: Um, you know…it feels like a person is in there with me.
BadInfluence: …*screams with laughter*
ThePeach: I hate you.

Yesterday was a gem. He was hungry so I looked in the fridge to find him a snack. I pulled out a tiny chocolate bar with exactly one small bite missing. It was sitting on a large plate. I guess it looked kind of pathetic.

ThePeach: Would you like a bite of my chocolate bar?
BadInfluence:…I think this is the saddest thing I’ve seen in your house so far. And I’ve seen a lot of sad things here lately.
ThePeach: *looks at the tiny chocolate bar on the massive plate*…*screams with laughter*

We literally rolled on the floor laughing for about 10 minutes. Tears were streaming down my face. Jesus. I really am pathetic.

I woke up this morning (ie. 2pm) with a headache like Lucifer himself was gnawing at my brainstem. I couldn’t even stomach coffee. I had to hold onto the side of my desk and take deep breaths just so I wouldn’t fall over. And then of course I checked my facebook. Oh, look. A public wall post from FauxHawk’s mother.

“Hi, Peach. I was very sorry to hear FauxHawk’s news. Please take care.”

And this is why I drink. And also a shining example of why no one over age 45 should have facebook.

My life is becoming a comedy of errors. I can’t even wake up at 2pm with a raging hangover – like any respectable person – and have a normal morning. I guess this is why I have a blog. My life is not normal. By the way, my readership has nearly doubled since I got dumped.

You sick bastards.

ThePeach

Signs

2009-07-20T10:50:00.002-04:00

It’s starting. The obsession. I can’t help it.

Ever since I went to Vancouver last month I’ve become one of those annoying people who can’t stop talking about it. Every time it gets oppressively muggy here in CapitalCity I say “ugh, it doesn’t get like this in Vancouver” to anyone who will listen. I can’t eat sushi here anymore because it tastes like stale corpse compared to the buttery fish of Vancouver. I even wear leggings around the house and think “if this were Vancouver, this would be acceptable attire.”

Fuck. I kind of hate myself.

But I can’t help it. Have you ever just connected with a place so easily and naturally that it immediately felt like home – but better? MortalCombat is going through the same thing with South Africa, where she is living for the summer. We can ache together when she gets back.

Now that I’m suddenly single after 5 years and have no attachments, save for a highly portable animal, there’s really nothing stopping me from packing up and hauling my ass back west after I graduate in April. The “plan,” a.k.a. FauxHawk’s life which he penciled me into to suit him, was to remain in CapitalCity until we died. He grew up here and has no desire to go anywhere else. He wanted us to get a big waspy house, raise little jew babies, and spend every weekend with his mother. And I suppose this sounded ok to me, but not ideal. Love makes you whack.

But now I just want to get the shit out of here. I’m young and I need more adventures. I basically have the most portable job possible. And now I have friends and family out west. Why wouldn’t I go?

Also, the mens are hot out there and Peach needs to get laid. Tossed around. Slapped.

Lately the universe has been giving me signs:

1. Mouthy family of disabled child
Last week I was in Universitytown and I went to Starbucks to guzzle coffee and relax with a book. I had been enjoying the silence for about 5 minutes when the loudest, most annoying family ever sat down beside me. The mother was really shrill but the daughter – the fucking daughter! – would not shut the fuck up. She kept yelling and creating a ruckus, and I just buried my face in book and fantasized about throwing my coffee in her face. I’m not child-friendly.

This lasted about 10 minutes before I looked up with the intention to glare them into shame.

The daughter had Downs Syndrome.

Well, shit.

She was also kind of really cute, except for her unibrow. She beamed at me and waved, and I waved back and mouthed “hi” silently.

“HHHHIIIIIII!” she screamed, scaring the shit out of me and everything with ears in a 10 mile radius. I’m pretty sure she startled an old man outside into dropping his cane and stumbling on the sidewalk, but I can’t be sure. Sometimes old people just trip.

Of course the shrill mother took this as an invitation to prop her head on her elbow on my table and start telling me her life story. Her daughter's name was Catherine. She was 5. She too lived in CapitalCity. They were here for a vacation. She worked in the civil service, but had a journalism degree. Oh, I had a journalism degree? Where did I work? She couldn’t find work in CapitalCity because she wasn’t bilingual. I wasn’t bilingual? Well, I needed to move or I would never find work. I needed to get the hell out of CapitalCity before it ruined me, just as it ruined her.

This is where her silent and stoic husband piped in.

“Go west. Move to Vancouver. You won’t regret it.”

Thank you, family of loud disabled child, for my serendipitous Vancouver sign #1.

2. Dreams
I’ve been having a lot of dreams about moving. Mostly about my future sexy Vancouver apartment, which I cannot afford but has great views. And large windows which my new sexy Vancouver boyfriend likes to push me up against.

Anyway.

Last night, though, I dreamed about FauxHawk. Of course, fucking brain. I dreamed that we were married and I was in labour with his baby, and right after I pushed it out I found out he was cheating on me with some latino girl. And he loved her. He was sorry. Good luck with the baby.

Then I dreamed that I went to Universitytown to visit TigerCat again, and FauxHawk and I agreed to meet up for a coffee at his place, and when I got there his bedroom was covered in bras. Huge ones. Because he’s been fucking big-tittied whores since we broke up.

I woke up at 6am completely pissed off. Fuck! Why were the bras so fucking big??

But then I fell back asleep and dreamed that I sold all of my possessions and moved to Vancouver and had an awesome apartment and awesome life. It was a peaceful dream.

So, in one night I dreamed awful, angry dreams about my ex and then peaceful awesome dreams about my new life.

Thank you, brain, for my serendipitous Vancouver sign #2.

3. Ricardo
The night before FauxHawk lovingly broke up with me over the phone on my last day of vacation in Vancouver (oh yes. Thanks for that, asshole), my mom and I had a really nice dinner at the Mediterranean restaurant across the street from her condo. It was right on the water in False Creek, the sun was setting over the Granville Bridge, and the entire sky was pink. I had just got back from climbing Grouse Mountain with TheQuack and was feeling pretty awesome about life in general. And then I saw our waiter.

Tall, dark skin, and the kind of deep brown eyes that you want staring into your soul while he fucks you retarded. A gorgeous, gorgeous man specimen. When he came to take our order I realized he was very Italian. Oh, swoon. And my mom pointed out that he specifically asked for our table, probably because he wanted to meet me. I still hadn’t showered after mountain climbing and looked a little mangy, so I thought not. Until he came over and smiled at me and I thought “Well…maybe.”

Take me, sir.

I was with my mom and I was still in love with FauxHawk, stupid Peach, so I didn’t try anything coy. Gorgeous Italian waiter would have to remain a figment of my fantasies.

I just talked to my mom this morning. She went to a party at the restaurant last night. I casually asked her if the hot waiter was there.

“Oh yes. He sure was. His name is Ricardo. I think he was wondering where you were.”

Ricardo. Ricaaaardo. Yep. That’s a name I can scream out while being pressed up against a sheet window. I think a gorgeous Italian waiter with dimples and an accent would make a great rebound lay. Yes? Maybe I’ll start looking up flights.

As long as I don’t have to bring him back to my mom’s.

So, there you have it. Three signs that I should move.

And fifty that I need to get laid.

ThePeach

Fatherhood: in Two Vignettes

2009-07-19T13:23:00.002-04:00

Un:

My Dad drove me to the vet last week. “Depressed” doesn’t even begin to cover my mood at the time. I loved my Universitytown vet and, more importantly, they loved Milo. He’s been going there since he was just a mangy fur-baby, climbing on the vet’s head and jumping into cupboards and galloping through the hallways like a wolf with two or three vet-techs chasing behind him.

They always gave him treats and a little bandana after every visit, which he would immediately rip off and destroy, and then attack me out of anger for making him wear it.
So, I was pretty upset at the prospect of finding a new vet for my monster. Plus, you know, the whole officially moving on from my life with FauxHawk part didn’t help.

I found a vet pretty close to my apartment. My Dad drove me so that I wouldn’t be that girl walking 10 blocks down Main Street with a cat in a giant purple carrier. He walked me into the office, took one look at the old man in the waiting room holding a half-dead cat under his arm, and said he was going to go for a walk.

I met my Dad 30 minutes later, and I had a very angry and now rabies-free cat jumping around in his carrier. My Dad was waving around some kind of pamphlet and talking really fast. It turns out, in the 30 minutes that I set him free in my neighbourhood, he had found a pot shop. I’ve lived here for a year and didn’t know one existed.

I took a look at the pamphlet in his excited hands. It was a seed order form. My Dad is now going to buy pot seeds and grow his own, maybe at his friend’s cottage.

Maybe to other people this would sound awesome, but I don’t feel like I’m at the point yet where I can ask my Dad for some of his home-grown pot.

Then he took me to Starbucks and bought me a different kind of drug, and took me back home.

Deux:

TigerCat and I have planned a camping trip for the long weekend coming up. It’s going to be ridiculous. I can’t even tell you how happy I am at the prospect of drinking in the woods and eating cheese dogs until I puke. I’ll probably wind up setting my hair on fire and getting poison ivy on my muffin, but I’m still looking forward to it.

The other day I told my Dad about our upcoming assventure. His response?

Dad: Do you need, you know, any stuff?
ThePeach: Um...stuff?
Dad: Weed, or maybe Hash. I can get you either. Not that I, you know, sell the stuff, but I have people.
ThePeach:…you want to sell your daughter Hash?
Dad: I’m just saying that I can.

When did this happen? When did he get this comfortable with me? I always suspected he was a pot-head, like that time I called him and he was watching Family Guy and talking about time travel. Or that time I stayed at his place and he came home at 1am with the reddest eyes I’ve ever seen on a living human and tried to make me order him a pizza. But he’s never been this open about it.

It’s kind of uncomfortable. I can’t decide if my Dad is awesome or if I should call social services.

Also, hash is a big NO. The first and only time I smoked hash I wound up having an out of body experience and came to in the midst of gorging on some strange girl’s birthday cake in my dorm. Like, I was sitting in the middle of her birthday party and polishing off my fourth piece while everyone just kind of stared at me with their mouths wide open. I avoided the common room after that.

Anyway, maybe I’ll call my Dad tonight and see if he wants to drive me to the grocery store. I’m out of toilet paper.

I’ve been using Kleenex for 3 days.

ThePeach

The best vacation in all the land.

2009-07-16T17:37:00.001-04:00

Let me preface this blog by saying how awesome my sister is for baby sitting me for the past three days. Sorry I showed my appreciation for your hospitality by leaving waffle batter all over your kitchen and keeping you awake until 4am on a week night.

I’m damaged. It gives me certain allowances.

On Tuesday TigerCat convinced me to come to UniversityTown to stay with her for a while. I was hesitant to return – again – to the land of FauxHawk, but TigerCat lured me with food. Like an animal.

She picked me up at the train station and took me to her house, where she had curry waiting for me on the stove. Tashty. Then the wine came out, and TheCrazy migrated over, and we all got drunk and watched yet more Vampire porn. It was much better than the night I had planned for myself in CapitalCity, namely crying alone on my couch, drinking a mickey of vodka, and singing show tunes to the cat.

I fell asleep in TigerCat’s guest room to the sounds of the lake lapping on the shores below my window.

I woke up, hungover, and wrote half of my freelance article. Then I met TigerCat and CockDoc for fancy lunch at the posh hotel where TigerCat works. I ate mass quantities of cheese and talked loudly about amputee porn, something I had discovered on YouPorn and was quite thrilled about.

Then I went for a walk downtown, reclaiming the city I lived in for eight years, three of which were before I ever knew FauxHawk existed. I saw two of my favourite Universitytown hobos and, to my delight, an amputee wearing short-shorts. She should consider porn.

I then had the most indulgent afternoon of my life. I had gotten paid for my last round of articles earlier in the week, so I finally had my breakup allowance. First I bought a lulu sweater and a pair of mesh lulu thong underwear, in the vain hopes that someday, somewhere, someone might see my lady parts again.

Then I bought tickets for the Harry Potter movie, which came out that night. I squealed with nerd glee as I put the tickets for me and TigerCat in my purse for later. I also salivated at the thought of all the chemical butter I would consume in a few short hours.

Then I got myself a Starbucks and read for an hour in the sun. Then I got a pedicure in the vain hopes that someday, somewhere, someone might want to lick my feet and slap me around a little. Maybe?

Then I met TigerCat for Harry Potter, which was so good that it made me have a nerdgasm. Then we went home and TheCrazy came over again. TigerCat had to go to bed, but TheCrazy and I got sloppy drunk and were soon joined by CockDoc, who brought out the pot and suggested that we make some waffles. The kitchen is now covered in batter and little bits of fried dough. We smoked, ate, and drank until 4am. We discovered a new game, which I will call “spelling body functions.”

For instance, if you had to spell the sound that a fart makes? Phhhhrrrrt? We also spelled the sound of poo, queefs, and the sound when you pull out after sex. Shlllrrr?

God. Pot.

At 9am I woke up, still half baked, and remembered that my article was due before noon. I carefully wrote the rest, sent it in, found out from CockDoc that we had kept TigerCat awake until 4am and she was not impressed with the state of her waffle iron, and went back to bed for an hour. When I woke up I had an email from my editor to tell me how much he loved my article and to give me a new assignment. A series on Canadian cheese. My job…I can’t even…I love…life. It’s the series I was born to write, baby! Also, he paid me $475 for the article I just sent in. I’m going to freelance until I’m too old to use my arms to type, and even then I’ll maybe get one of those setups where you can blow into a straw to spell words. I. Love. My. Job.

Then I emailed TigerCat to apologize for keeping her up, and asked her to please make me some Tuna Noodle Casserole for dinner as soon as she gets home. The perks of getting dumped are endless. I have the best sister in the world, maybe even across time.

Then I went outside and lay by the pool for 2 hours, crisping to a shade best described as “a fair negro.” I also swam laps for about 20 minutes, which constitutes my first official exercise since the heart break.

Honestly, has anyone ever had a better three days? I challenge you. I feel like I finally shook off the undead. It’s going to suck to go back to CapitalCity alone, but I do have my cheese series to look forward to.

Maybe I’ve turned a corner. Next up: whoring?

Foot licking optional.

ThePeach

Reason #3749 that I love my job

2009-07-14T14:35:00.001-04:00

I woke up at 11am still half drunk. I stumbled into the living room, tripped over about 20 empty Guinness cans and a stack of Nintendo games, and dry heaved cheeseburgers. I pulled a hooded sweatshirt on over my boy-short underwear and - half naked - made some coffee. Then I sat cross-legged on the couch, moved an empty gin bottle out of the seat cushions, picked up the phone and had a 20 minute interview with the Chief Medical Officer for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. Then I typed up my notes, which I will write into a story for my health and fitness series later. You know, when I’ve sobered up and maybe put on pants.

Then I burped poutine. Then I smelled myself and decided a shower was a must. Then I lay on the couch. I don’t plan to get up for at least 4 hours. Not until the gin-sweats cease.

Just your typical day as a freelance journalist.

I’ve already made space for my Pulitzer.

ThePeach

Undead

2009-07-13T17:41:00.000-04:00

Have you ever been so depressed that you can’t move? I literally can’t get dressed some days. I’m trying really hard not to be the sad, pathetic breakup person, but some days you beat the couch and some days the couch beats you. I guess the end of a 5 year relationship isn’t easy, even if everyone – including my grandfather – is relieved to hear about it.

I’ve been watching a lot of True Blood, a tv show about sexy vampires. ThePilot commented that he thinks I secretly wish that I was undead. I looked down at myself, lying on the couch, bone-thin, dark circles under my eyes, and responded “I think I am undead.”

But don’t despair. I’m not eyeing the knives or the shower rod or anything like that. I’ve accepted that this is just how it’s going to be for a little while. I think I can work “crazy.” I can make it hot.

Like this morning, when I had a brief fit of positive energy, put on a bikini, and danced to Katy Perry in my bedroom for 45 minutes. Immediately following that I had a 10-minute cry-fit, but then I made coffee and read Harry Potter on my balcony. Accio dignity!

And now I’m going to go get sloppy drunk with TheCrip and let him force-feed me cheeseburgers.

Because sometimes the cure to depression is vodka coolers and grilled meats.

ThePeach

An open letter to: Christ, Jesus H.

2009-07-11T18:44:00.002-04:00

Dear Jesus, or God, as it may be,

I would never think to question your all-knowing infinite wisdom and your ultimate guidance for a mere mortal’s - my own - life. I have never questioned your plan, in all your knowingness and power, to make my life as hilarious as possible. And I have never expressed anger or even dismay at some of the seriously effed shizzle you tend to send my way on a daily basis. Like my FAIDS cat, who just yesterday ate my leftover no-name kraft dinner while I wasn’t looking and then later vomited whole macaroni noodles onto my bed. I can laugh at this.

But if you could please, for the love of FUCK, stop sending flash rainstorms unto me every time I decide to leave the goddamn house, rainstorms that only last as long as I must walk – umbrella’less, because you lure me outside with sunshine, you coy little saviour – to my destination, and then leave me literally drenched, hair plastered to my scalp, clothes stuck to my malnourished body, in the middle of a GODDAMN STARBUCKS FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS WEEK, I would really appreciate it.

I get it, Jesus. I really do. I was dumped and now it’s hilarious to rain on me every time I leave the house. You really enjoy pathetic fallacy. So do I. Maybe you took English Lit in undergrad, too.

But every good artist knows when to quit, Jesus. And your rain shtick has become predictable. And I swear to…you…I am going to really lose it if I dart into the starbucks like a drowned rat one more time, wipe the stream of water out of my eyes, and see the sun come out.

While I have you on the line, please don’t send me another FAIDS cat. Or gynecologist boyfriend.

And please don’t strike me with lightening on the walk home.

In the name of gin, I pray. Amen.

ThePeach

One Week

2009-07-10T14:04:00.002-04:00

Well, I survived a week. It’s been pretty shitty, but I think my body is starting to heal. Because today, after a week of not eating…anything…I got a craving for some motherfucking Kraft Dinner. I could only eat like ¼ of the box (heh…box), but the important thing is that my body is once again craving chemical cheese.

Things are looking up.

Also, some of you might be wondering just what kind of crazy shit a drunk and single Peach has been getting up to now that she’s free of the chains of monogamy. I’m sure you’re excited to hear about the whoring, drinking, and gonorrhea that I’ll likely experience in the coming months.

Well hold onto your hats, bitches, because the craziness is already starting. On Wednesday I got sloppy drunk with a friend and we played Super Mario Brothers 3 – on original NES – for six hours. We beat the game. All eight levels, no warping allowed. Saved Princess Toadstool.

Oh my god. I’m never getting laid again, am I?

Hymen for sale.

ThePeach

The way you make me feel (you really turn me on)

2009-07-08T13:48:00.001-04:00

Michael Jackson just moon-walked the ugly right out of my heart. Temporarily, at least.

I’m really glad that I can still count on my semi-naked bedroom solo dance parties to cheer me up. I’ve just spent the last 20 minutes pumping the MJ and dancing around in my underwear like a freak. I have to say, my new breakup-chic body has some sweet dance moves. Although I guess eventually I’ll start eating again and that will all go to shit.

I’m an old whore, so maybe I love MJ more than some of my friends who might be reading this and thinking I’ve gone insane. My mom raised me on this shit. I was doing little kicky-dances and moon walks before the first grade. Shamone!

Yesterday I went for a long walk to get off the couch for the first time in 3 days. I brought MJs greatest hits on my ipod in honour of his memorial service. My eyes welled up as I listened to the little 10-year-old guy belt out “Ben,” and I smiled every time he shouted a “Woo hoo hoo!”

Today I’m a full-on dancing machine.

Last night I lay on the couch for 5 hours and drank wine out of a juice glass until I was drunk enough to face going to bed alone.

This seems like an improvement.

ThePeach

ThePeach wears pants; the pants

2009-07-07T14:26:00.000-04:00

I have to go out and run some errands down Main Street. I haven’t done laundry since…2007. I’m out of thong underwear. I cannot face restrictive pants today, so I am wearing lulus. With boy-short underwear. You can probably see my underwear line from outer space. I sat on the bed for a long time in my boy shorts, debating the pros and cons of jeans vs lulus in public. The lulus won.

Life is hard.

On the bright side, I had my first single girl triumph last night!

Single Girl Triumph #1:

Located the fuse box in my apartment for the first time, in the dark, switched the faulty switch, restored power to my kitchen, and salvaged the microwave popcorn.

I think I just achieved manhood. I’m ready for my penis now.

ThePeach

I'm not drunk. I'm sedated for my pain.

2009-07-06T17:32:00.001-04:00

I’m on the train. Apparently I spend a lot of time in transit. There’s a life-meaning metaphor in there somewhere, but I’m not quite at the hippy self-analysis phase yet, so I’ll let it lie.

Let’s just leave it at I’m on the train.

I’ve pretty much been baseline drunk for the past four days, so I’m a little confused about what’s going on or, really, why I’m on a train right now. Also, I discovered a really fantastic weight-loss method. I exist solely on a diet of coffee, wine and gin. Occasionally TigerCat forces me to eat, or I suppose I’d be dead right now. I’ve already lost five pounds. It’s not like I don’t want to eat…I’d just rather drink.

The awesome thing about breakups is that people don’t judge your alcoholism. No longer deemed a sickness but a coping mechanism, friends and even family are more than happy to pour you another and drape a blanket over you when you pass out on their couch.

I plan to milk this for as long as possible. My relationship with FauxHawk was five years long…I figure I can acceptably be a drunk until at least Christmas.

Baby needs her medicine.

While we’re on the subject of the things I need to live right now, let’s discuss money. I think the government needs to create a breakup allowance. Think about it for a minute. They give money to people for far sillier reasons, like those who are too fat to work. This should be an offshoot of basic health care. I am in pain. I need a lulu sweatshirt and a pedicure. I need a train ticket to Toronto and London and plane tickets to Halifax, Vancouver and the UK so that I can visit all my favourites. Unfortunately, when I checked my bank balance this morning I had negative 18 dollars. Negative eighteen. And I haven’t even paid rent yet this month.

It’s a good thing I’m not eating or I might have to roast the cat.

TigerCat drove to CapitalCity on Saturday to check in on me. She walked in, took a look at me, deemed me too thin, and went straight to the store to buy provisions. She came back with – I’m not kidding – bagels, muffins, grapes, cheese, a baguette, kraft dinner, two-bite brownies and cookies. Good sister. I ate the cheese.

FauxHawk and I are trying to be friends. It might be the worst idea ever, but I’m nothing if not a nihilist. Neither of us knows how to untangle five years of life together. His mom sent me an email forward today of jokes about marital disputes. Something tells me she doesn’t know yet.

FauxHawk was taking care of Milo while I was in Vancouver, so on Saturday he drove him down to CapitalCity for me. The cat hates me for leaving him and has been tearing through my apartment like a wolf ever since. He stops only to poop and glare at me.

FauxHawk stayed for three hours. We sat on the couch, mostly in silence, and he put his arms around me while I lay my head on his shoulder, in that nook just under his jaw where I seem to fit so perfectly. The same spot where I used to rest my head at night, my naked arms draped over his chest, feeling him breathe. We cried and listened to the sounds of the rain hitting the pavement outside. There wasn’t much to say.

When my sister showed up, FauxHawk had left, but I was still curled up on the couch. My shirt smelled like him.

Guess I’ll add it to the “burn” pile.

Other items that must go in the burn pile include the toiletries that FauxHawk left in my bathroom. I’m a little worried that, if I don’t dispose of them, I’m going to get drunk one night and try to eat his deodorant or something. You know the scene in the 90s movie “Down to You” where Freddie Prinze Junior has to get his stomach pumped because he drinks his ex-gf’s shampoo? That’s a low I’d rather avoid, thanks.

Yesterday TigerCat had to leave, but I guess she was worried about the deodorant, too, because she literally kidnapped me and brought me with her. She gave me ten minutes to pack a bag and leave food for the cat. I said I would like to do something random so she took me – wait for it – berry picking. I’m not kidding. We picked 4 litres of strawberries and a pint of raspberries. My hands are covered in scratches and there are still bits of hay stuck to my feet. Also, there was a…disabled person…talking loudly….in the row beside us the entire time. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Randomness: achieved.

After the berry picking, it hit me that going home with TigerCat meant going to Universitytown. I panicked and started insisting that she drive me home, but by then it was too late. Me and 4l of strawberries were trapped.

But TigerCat took care of me. When we got to her place she ordered $70 worth of Chinese food, cracked open the wine, invited over TheCrazy, and we watched five hours of the HBO series “True Blood.” By the way, HotMess – you know how we needed a new tv show that’s full of hot sex? Watch True Blood. I want my rebound lay to be with a vampire.

So now I’m on the train back home. I’m sad, but there’s a bottle of wine in my fridge and I plan to stream the remainder of season 1 of True Blood until I pass out.

TheCrazy, Tigercat and I were all huddled on the couch together when we opened our fortune cookies. TigerCat is going to go on a long trip. TheCrazy is fortunate to be so flexible.

My fortune: You need to get in touch with your inner feelings.

Good to know the universe still has a sense of humour.

ThePeach

From the Skies

2009-07-03T12:31:00.004-04:00

I’m somewhere over the prairies. My flight home from Vancouver left just over two hours ago and I have two to go. I didn’t sleep at all last night and there’s not one, not two, but three screaming babies sitting in my section of the plane. Infanticide never seemed so possible.

I’m much sadder than I thought I’d be to leave the west coast. I hate sounding like a hippie lesbian, here, but I honestly feel like a different person after spending eight days in Vancouver. I’m more myself. Maybe ‘myself’ is a huge, lazy BC pot-head, but that’s a life choice I can gladly accept. I’m moving to Vancouver, mark my word. One year. WeeOne and I shook on it and then lit a joint while watching the sunset to seal the deal. You can’t turn your back on pot vows.

My mom and I went to Granville Island for the Canada Day celebrations yesterday afternoon. It was hot and sunny and I was rocking my Beau’s Brewery tshirt. Ya, the same one I mysteriously woke up wearing after my last blackout drunk night in Universitytown. Happy Canada Day, I’m a fucking drunk and I will advertise it across my tits.

We went to an international festival, and the air was thick with curry and music. My mom spotted a palm reader and pleaded with me to get my fortune told. I don’t buy that horse shit one bit, but my mom was paying so why not placate her? I sat in the stool and let the old gypsy lady run her fingers over my hand.

“You are going to live a very long life. Very long. And no illness.”

Wrong, bitch. I’m going to die proudly of liver cirrhosis at age 50. Scatter my ashes over the 24 hour poutine diner.

“You’re not from here.”

Oh, did you notice my mother’s giant sun hat and fanny pack and assume we just got off a cruise ship? Good eye, gypsy.

“I can see that you’re very creative and emotional. You make a living creating things with your hands. Are you a writer?”

Can you feel my carpal tunnel?

“You’re going to be very, very successful with your writing. You will never have to worry about money. Don’t let anyone tell you to stop writing, no matter what. Things are going to start happening for you in 2010.”

That would be nice. Go on, gypsy.

“You’re a kind-hearted girl, and sensitive. You give a lot but don’t take much. You’ve been very disappointed by men. Very disappointed by love. A relationship is ending now, but he is not your soul-mate. He never was. You invested a lot in this relationship but it was never meant to be.”

You have piqued my interest, lady.

“I see marriage for you in three years. And three children – two boys and a girl.”

Oh fuck, god help the world. God help humanity.

“You are going to have one more relationship before you meet your husband. This relationship will be short but memorable. Your husband has blue eyes and you have so much in common. He really understands you. He really gets you like no one else has. You are going to be so happy. Your marriage will last until the end.”

Take that, mom.

“You are going to take a trip across the ocean soon. But not alone.”

Lisbion?

“Things are going to get better. 2010, it’s all going to fall into place.”

Then she patted my hand and I sauntered over to the next stall to buy some meat on a stick.

So, I guess this is how I’m going to tell you that FauxHawk and I broke up yesterday. Minutes before I went to Granville Island. My life has always been comically complicated, but now it seems the gypsies are in on it, too.

I should correct myself. FauxHawk wants to delay the breakup until I get back to CapitalCity. It will still be over the phone, but I guess it seems less harsh if I’m only two hours away by car.

So, right now – in the skies – I’m literally in limbo. When I land I’ll be single.

I’ve already done the whole devastated post-breakup depression thing with FauxHawk. I won’t do it again. When this plane lands I am going to move on with my life once and for all. 2010 isn’t all that far away, and if that gypsy is right then I have some work ahead of me. Maybe I’ll write a book. Watch for me, bitches.

I cried for a while after what we will henceforth refer to as “the dumpage.” (Heh. Dump.) But then I had a great day. My mom and I hit the sauce on a patio overlooking the ocean. Then WeeOne met up with us at my mom’s apartment and we got sloppy drunk on her balcony. I had my feet up on the table, my sunglasses on, and a gin in my hand. My mom took a walk to get more tonic and WeeOne and I smoked a joint and watched the sunset. When my mom returned we were dancing to Journey and celebrating life. We walked over to the cambie bridge to watch the fireworks. I got a little sad when the show started, but it’s hard to stay upset when you’re with the people you love, standing on a bridge in the best city in the world, and there’s gin in your water bottle. Maybe bringing a recently dumped woman to the top of a bridge in the middle of the night isn’t the wisest idea, in hindsight.

I climbed a motherfucking mountain on Tuesday. Like, an actual mountain. I made it to the top, and the first thing I did was text FauxHawk to tell him about it. I am the type of person who literally shouts my love from the mountaintops.

The plane is starting its descent.

CapitalCity is looking pretty bleak.

ThePeach UPDATE: FauxHawk and ThePeach are officially over for good. I'm single. And sad.

ThePeach goes to White Rock; Her Soul Sings

2009-06-28T13:51:00.002-04:00

I'm currently on WeeOne's couch in her beautiful White Rock condo. My mom and I took the bus down here yesterday and spent the day sightseeing, and then - like a gracious daughter - I put her on the bus home so I could spend my night getting high and eating cheese.

First off, it has to be said that White Rock is like paradise. The beach, the mountains, the trees...gah. I feel like I'm in "Twilight," but with more sunshine and less vampire. I may never leave.

Last night was the quintessential west coast night. It was everything that I love about life. I may have to move here.

It started by putting on some comfier clothes. WeeOne and I both walked out of our bedrooms wearing head to toe lulu. Perfect.

Then we walked to a wooded park and smoked some BC pot in the grass. Then we wandered over to her "thinking spot" to contemplate life and look at the ocean, mountains, and sky. We touched the grass and agreed that the world was beautiful. We danced home to the music in our hearts. Then we ordered sushi. Then we walked to pick it up in a light misty rain. Our hair curled. Then we walked back home and ate all of the sushi, moaning in pleasure the entire time. It was the best culinary experience of my life. Then we smoked out of WeeOne's new pipe, which I had helped her pick out at a smoke shop downtown. Then we listened to the rain. Then we watched 3 back to back episodes of Canada's Next Top Model and discussed fashion and time travel.

In conclusion, I am a BC cliche. It is wonderful.

ThePeach

ThePeach goes to Vancouver; is Mistaken for an Indian.

2009-06-25T02:46:00.002-04:00

Oh hey I’m in Vancouver.

I’ve also been awake for almost 24 hours and yet am not tired. Jet-lag induced insomnia is going to be fun. By the way I might write like a drunk. I feel a little crazy.

My mom recently moved here and I decided to come for a visit. I fucking love this beautiful city, even in the goddamn non-stop pouring rain. Packing a hair straightener was a futile choice. My hair is like a wooly yeti, but I’m going to embrace it peacefully. West coast stylz.

My first day was fun. My mom and I spent the day at Granville Island, eating like two fat whores. Then I had a 15 minute coma-sleep, during which time the caffeine from the 3 coffees I had on the plane and the 2 cappuccinos I had here made my pulse race so hard that I could actually feel it in my neck. I swear the sheet twitched. At one point, my pulse may or may not have synced up with the ticking of the clock in the spare room where I’m sleeping. It's like my body makes music now. Healthy.

My mom lured me out of bed with more caffeine and the promise of Indian food. We walked to a restaurant and ordered enough food to feed all the orphans in Asia. My blood content is now 40% caffeine, 40% curry, and 10% awesome.

The waiter – a nice Indian man – came over to talk to us for a bit about his Tandoori oven. No, I should clarify. My mother, who likes to randomly delve into weird conversations with total strangers, started talking to the nice Indian waiter about the Tandoori oven. The waiter started explaining how it adds to the flavour of the food, and then nodded at me and said “Well, you know what I’m talking about.”

I looked at him blankly as I shoveled lentil curry down my throat at breakneck speed.

“Well,” he said, “have you not been to India?”

“No, I haven’t,” I said between bites.

He looked at me with wonderment. “But you are Indian?”

Wait, what?

I told the kind sir that I am not Indian and he looked at me like he refused to believe it and then tried again. “But…you are Indian?”

You know, people often think I’m foreign. I have naturally really tan skin. I’m a darky. And I have dark brown hair and brown eyes, and my features are a little unusual because I’m an Italian/Ukrainian/Canadian mix. I often get people asking me if I was born somewhere else. When my sister and I traveled in Europe, locals thought I was one of them in every country we visited, from Croatia to Italy to France. It was kind of sweet as it meant we rarely got the tourist treatment until I opened my fat, ignorant Caucasian mouth. Just yesterday I was asked if I was Greek from the waitress in a Greek restaurant. That’s weird two days in a row, come to think of it. Also, I eat a lot of foreign food. Maybe too much.

But…Indian? Really? I guess maybe my hair is a little extra exotic looking, what with the rain-inspired fro. I mean…I guess I have a bit of extra colour. I spent a lot of time outdoors when I was visiting Universitytown. TigerCat has a pool.

I looked in a mirror in the Indian restaurant and was shocked. In dark light I could totally pass as Indian. Like, one from the north or something. Holy shit. I need to increase my spf useage.

Next up: Bollywood?

Watch out, Ruby Dhalla.

ThePeach

Saturday is for hangovers and hate-mail

2009-06-20T18:57:00.003-04:00

I’m not feeling so hot.

Last night started pretty tame. I went to see the movie “Year One” with Tigercat and CockDoc. It was funny, but more importantly I hoovered an entire large buttered popcorn by the time the previews had finished. I felt pretty portly and awesome as I limped out of the theatre, my face covered in grease and my popcorn baby gestating nicely.

And that was when I got a text from TheCrazy telling me that Saturday’s drink fest had been moved to that night, and to be at her place in 40 minutes.

Oh god. I had a bad feeling that 5 pounds of chemical butter and a bucket of gin wouldn’t mix well, but I’ve never been one to turn down an invitation to get fall-down drunk. I would persevere.

But first I had to wash the grease off my gluttonous face and greedy little fingers. I also put on high heels and lip gloss, the official uniform of drunk whores.

Once at TheCrazy’s house, I drank a steady stream of gin for the next 5 hours. I belted out some seriously hardcore karaoke with TheCrazy and TigerCat. I really let loose on girl anthems such as Alanis’ “You Oughta Know.” Perhaps I have angst. My friend TheBartender balanced a glass of whiskey on my head for 2 minutes while I did a little boob-shake dance. We all agreed that I had marvelous talents.

I drunk-texted FauxHawk, who is away at a conference on the east coast. I checked my phone today and here is what I sent: “We are going to a Sandals resort over xmas or else.” I’m sure I had my reasons. By the way, his response was "Halifax is aaaawesome!!!" Communication is the key to any healthy relationship.

At one point we decided it would be a good idea to go to TheBartender’s bar for last call. I somehow wound up with a $15 glass of sherry in my hand, which really makes no sense when you think about it. I don’t like sherry, I don’t remember ordering it, and I definitely didn’t have $15. I hope I didn’t steal something that I thought would be funny, but that’s likely what happened.

After this we decided it would be a fantastic idea to smoke at CockDoc’s house. Obviously I walked the whole way there without my shoes. There’s nothing classier than yesterday’s whore staggering home from the bar with her high heels in her hands.

I frolicked in the grass on the way. The dew felt nice on my legs.

Things get even hazier from here, but I know I made it to CockDoc’s, smoked, ate some pizza, and somehow made it back home afterwards. I probably crawled.

I woke up at 1pm when TigerCat phoned me to see if I wanted to get all you can eat sushi. I dry heaved, wiped the sweat off my face, and told her she better go without me. After I hung up I ran to the bathroom to puke, and then went back to bed until 3:45pm.

I woke up and swallowed half a bottle of advil. I looked at myself and noticed that I was wearing a baby-tee from TheBartender’s bar. It had a tractor on the front. I think he gave it to me at some point during the night, but I’m not too sure when I started wearing it. Mystery. I hope I didn’t change in public. I swore I would stop letting Universitytown see my boobs.

Dehydrated, spinning, head pounding, and sweating gin, I decided to check my facebook.

And that’s when I noticed the hate-mail.

As a journalist, the more articles you write the more hate-mail you get. There is always somebody out there who will be offended with something you have written. Sometimes I take it as a compliment that my articles are being read at all. But usually hate-mail kind of devastates me. I need constant positive reinforcement, as you may know. I need it to get through my day. And the thing about journalists is that most of us are completely insecure about our work. Once one of my professors – a brilliant writer with a long, successful career – wrote a fantastic article for the Toronto Star. Everyone loved it and was talking about it. It created a lot of buzz. And yet, at a party that same week (yes, my professors are awesome) that professor drunkenly and shyly asked me if I thought the article was ok. When I said yes, his face lit up with relief and he said “REALLY?” and then proceeded to say everything he thought was wrong with it.

So, my point is that even the best of us have small and tender egos.

When I got my very first piece of hate-mail this Christmas, I called Spaz and Mortal Combat in hysterical tears at 8am. They had to convince me not to jump in the river or quit my internship. I seriously considered not going back.

I’ve gotten a little better since then.

This week I have been writing a lifestyle series on baby boomer health for a national news organization. I’m in love with the work, and my articles get printed in papers all over the country. Oh, and they pay me by the article. It’s probably the happiest I’ve been.

You would think that an article on fitness tips for baby boomers wouldn’t garner any hate. But bitches be crazy, yo. One, in particular, went to all of the effort to creep me on facebook just so he could send me a message to ream me out. I might need to update my security.

His concern? That I was too restrictive in my definition of baby boomers. His message was angry and long. Here’s an excerpt:

“Please get your history correct, and not from the Bill and Hillary Clinton's of the world or your boss who is most likely a true Boomer (ex hippy) or the majority of your readers (seniors 55 to 69) or the people in charge of the company you work for ( ex anti establishment who became the establishment), and for a lack of a better word boomers are 50 to 69, basically the majority of this generation senior citizens 55+, they did not like the establishment in the 60's and they don't like being old in 2009. Maybe you could tell them the true history and maybe just maybe the true boomers 1940 to 1959 will realize they are only yet another generation.”

He also mentioned that I should take History 101.

I mean…for the love of fuck. Come on. Through facebook? On a Saturday?

I swallowed the other half of the bottle of advil and replied, because that is the professional thing to do.

“Dear sir,
Thank you for taking the time to comment on my article. The dates I used were given to me by my editor. I'm sorry if they offended you. I’ll be sure to pass your concerns on to my editor. ThePeach.”

So anyway, that’s how my day has gone so far. I managed to have a shower and put on sweat pants. There is no food left in FauxHawk’s house, so I might order in. Maybe sushi. I might have thrown up when TigerCat first suggested it, but she got me craving salty fish.

I have to stay in to do work tonight. It’s for the best. I made enough of a mark on the world yesterday.

I’m still wearing the tractor shirt.

ThePeach

Part of me was missing

2009-06-17T19:42:00.002-04:00

I'm in Universitytown for the week. I've loved spending time eating delicious foods and catching up with TigerCat, and getting drunk and having blackout sex with FauxHawk, but there was one reunion that beat it all. Hands down. No Question.

The Learning Channel.

I'm currently watching a special on primordial dwarf children. They just put a 1 foot tall child on top of a miniature horse. Then the dwarf rode the miniature horse in circles inside the stable. And then my heart exploded from happiness.

Welcome back to my life, lover.

ThePeach

He's just not that into you. And by you, I mean your story.

2009-06-11T19:11:00.004-04:00

Being a journalist is a lot like being a sad, stereotypical single girl.

- Some days you don't get dressed.
- You spend all day sitting by the phone, begging for it to ring.
- Constant rejection.
- You refresh your email every 3 seconds in the hopes that someone wrote back to you.
- When the phone does finally ring, it's your mom.
- When you get desperate, you're ok with letting yourself be used. I'm talking to you, PR.
- Everytime you enter your apartment, the first thing you look for is the flash of your answering machine. Second thing you look for is your cat/ice cream/box of wine.
- You cry when the bitch in your voicemail tells you that you have no new messages.
- You convince yourself that the man dodging your interviews might just be really busy/having a bad day/is out of town.
- You smoke, drink, and wonder how you got here.

I'm writing two large feature articles right now and it's making me a little loco. Haven't slept, am living off coffee and brown rice, and NO ONE WILL CALL ME BACK.

*screams!!*

Deadlines. Always a hoot.

ThePeach

Thanks, grandpa.

2009-06-10T13:49:00.002-04:00

I just got back from a lunch date with my grandpa at Mongolian Village or, as he called it, "Mongol's Grill." Lunch was fine...had myself a stirfry. And then...

Grandpa: You dropped a noodle on yourself.
ThePeach: Oh. Where? *looks down*
Grandpa: There *points*, where the cleavage should be.

I just got owned by my 82-year-old grandpa.

For the record, I have ample cleavage. I was wearing a sweatshirt.

ThePeach

A note on exes.

2009-06-08T13:57:00.003-04:00

Ah, exes. Nothing makes me want to cut myself like rehashing the relationships of yesteryear. And who doesn’t love getting drunk with your friends and stalking an ex on facebook/accidentally remembering that you have their email password/analyzing their wedding registry? Um…not me. This is a general example. Swearsies.

I’m a grizzled old whore, so I have a long list of ex-boyfriends in my repertoire. I like to pretend that most of them are dead or were a figment of my imagination or maybe some kind of drunk hallucination, like that time I drank seven Smirnoff Ice coolers in under an hour (I was 20, ok?) and could have sworn I took home Prince William. I’m not gonna judge what the royal sir was doing in Universitytown, and why he went home with a mere peasant like myself. The next morning I found out that I had actually gone home with my good friend Frances, the same girl who went to the bar with me that night to troll for men. She looks nothing like Prince William. I’m still confused to this day.

So, where was I?

Right. Exes suck. I’m not friends with many of my exes, something you may not find shocking from a bat-shit crazy drunkard with jealous rage issues. That said, I am still close with TheTool – who slept with a waitress in a bathroom stall in a restaurant while we were dating, but hey life gets crazy – and I’m still cordial and keep somewhat in touch with THEex, my first love who broke my little 17-year-old heart when he left me because, amongst other reasons, the drama of my crazy-ass family drove him into safer waters. I don’t blame him for this. My step-father had just cheated on my mom with a dental hygienist, the cops were called when I had to break into my own house to help my mom move out while he was at work, and my 13-year-old sister was banished to New Jersey to live with my aunt until she stopped being a thug. Have I ever told you the story of how TigerCat once somehow started a suburban teenage gang war? We moved not long after that. I dealt with my anger in healthier ways, like neurotic perfectionism and self-starvation. So, ya, I would have broken up with me too. I consider myself lucky that he didn’t mercy kill me.

Ok, what was my point?

Exes, man. So, my first real one was THEex. Then there was the rebound from THEex, who I dated for 9 months because I was smarter than him, his dad owned a steak house, and he taught me how to smoke pot and fuck. We are not friends, because I left him for a friend of his who was a beautiful man-specimen, worked at Swiss Chalet and always brought me free chicken, and liked to shower with me. God, I miss being 19. I’m not friends with the chicken guy, because he dumped me in a parking lot over reading week. Turns out he was showering with another girl from Swiss Chalet. It’s funny, but this breakup was probably the hardest one I’ve dealt with. And we only dated for 3 months, and I was 19, and part of the reason I liked him was that he brought me chicken. He kind of fell off the face of the earth after I assaulted him via the phone approx 4 days after we broke up (WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME ANYMORE??? *hysterical sobbing*). I’ve always wondered what happened to him, and then last month I found out that he is a medic in the military, currently serving in Afghanistan. My beautiful chicken boy in a military uniform? Cruel, cruel world.

Fucking exes.

It took me a while to get over chicken boy, during which time I trampaged with a few of my neighbours and this dude with a lazy eye but a sweet car.

Then there was the stalker. We dated for maybe 3 months but he stalked me for a good year afterwards. He was 6’7 and so skinny that he was concave. He also had an identical twin brother, which freaked me right the fuck out. He once “surprised” me by flying from his home in Edmonton to my family’s home in CapitalCity over Thanksgiving. 6 months after we had broken up. Awesome. He also threatened to kill himself when I stopped answering his emails. That was a few years ago. I wonder how he’s doing?

After that I dated the conservative mind-fuck, who judged me for having several past sexual partners but did it with me all over his apartment, my apartment, and a few public bathroom stalls. Have you ever heard a really conservative, family-values, god-fearing man talk dirty while you do it in a kilt? It’s funny. Then he dumped me because he thought I was a bad seed. That sucked, too. We don’t keep in touch.

So then came TheTool. And then after that crashed and burned, I moved onto FauxHawk, my sexy doctor man who thinks I'm a funny person with a quirky family. Keeper?

Five years later, we’re still good. But sometimes little reminders of my exes come along and bitch slap me in the mouth.

Like when I saw on facebook that THEex asked his girlfriend to marry him. During their year-long trip around the world. With what looks a lot like a Tiffany princess cut engagement ring. Coolio. In all seriousness, it’s been almost 10 years since we broke up and they both look very happy. And she looks like a good fit for him. I bet she never almost got arrested breaking into her own house. I raise my gin to you, THEex. Happy marriage?

It might have been 6 or 7 gins.

Finding out chicken boy was a medic in Afghanistan (*swoon*) was another little slap. God I bet he looks good over there. Do they have showers in Afghanistan?

The guy with the lazy eye and the sweet car died in a car accident last November. That was kind of awful.

Another trampage victim is now married with a 3-year-old daughter. Howdy.

TheTool is a lawyer.

Exes, man. As much as you move on and do your thing, they’re always a part of your past. Which is why I totally felt for TigerCat this morning when she emailed me to tell me her high school sweetheart is engaged. They dated for 4 years and broke up like…5 year ago? I don’t even know. She’s been with CockDoc for 3 years or something and they live together and are very happy. But still, there’s just something about signing into facebook and *BITCH-SLAP!* the man you used to love is engaged. Probably to a whore, but still. I should also mention that TigerCat is currently visiting CockDoc’s family in Victoria. She’s trapped in their house with this news.

I plan to visit Universitytown this weekend to gin the ouch out of her.

I’m not sure if this post had a point. I hope the take-home message isn’t that I’m a huge tramp. I don’t think that’s why I wrote this.

Exes. They suck.

ThePeach

Oh hey I'm crazy now: the continuing saga.

2009-06-06T01:03:00.004-04:00

Day 3 of the West Jet midnight madness sale. Still no flights to Vancouver.

There’s nothing left to clean in my apartment, my crappy non-cable is only playing infomercials, and I've eaten every solid food in my kitchen. So tonight I had to find new ways to occupy myself until the sale starts at 2am. I thought about solo binge drinking, but realized that the only alcohol left in my stash is peach schnapps. And I may be an alcoholic, but I’m not fourteen years old. I have standards, dammit.

So I decided to take a purer route and do some yoga. At 12:30am.

It gets worse.

We’re having a bit of a heat wave in CapitalCity, and my apartment stores heat kind of like a green house. So, even at 12:30am, my apartment is a sauna. Therefore, I did my solo midnight yoga wearing only a ragged sports bra and what I lovingly refer to as my “1984 Summer Camp Counselor” short-shorts. They’re baby blue, make my ass look like a giant bubble, and are frighteningly short. Frankly, they’re obscene. I have only worn them out of the house once, on Halloween. I went as a 1984 summer camp counselor.

(That's me, TheNurse and TheHippie, on our way to a Halloween party circa 2005. Awesomeness knew no bounds)

So anyway, there I was: it’s 12:30am, I’m doing a downward dog and sweating like a prostitute, my ass is a giant baby-blue bubble, and the cat is wrestling with – and eventually is defeated by – the mesh bag that holds my yoga mat.

Friday night, ladies and gentlemen.

That peach schnapps is starting to look pretty fucking tempting.

ThePeach

Oh hey I'm crazy now

2009-06-04T01:57:00.002-04:00

Day 3 of no work/no human contact/no reason to leave apartment:

I finally did my spring cleaning. At 2:00am. There's nothing quite like sweeping up cat hair, mopping the floors, and rearranging furniture in new pleasing ways in the middle of the goddamn night.

So, I have a clean apartment for the first time since...I moved in. The cost? Sanity.

I'm waiting for the midnight madness sale on WestJet, which starts at midnight mountain time, 2am my time. I guess there are worse ways to kill time than cleaning.

Unexpected perk: the fumes from Mr. Clean with bleach are more potent after midnight.

I'm like a gremlin, but instead of setting things on fire and killing people I perform household chores.

ThePeach

ThePeach is a good worker

2009-06-03T00:14:00.003-04:00

I’m supposed to be working from home now. I'm really behind on my deadlines, so it's imperative that I'm extremely productive this week.

Here’s how today went down:

8:00am: alarm goes off
8:02am: hit snooze
8:03am: cat expresses hunger by licking vigorously at my left armpit.
8:04am: ignore cat, put arms under blanket, turn off alarm.
10:30am: oops.
11:00am: sit down at computer for full day of productivity.
11:15am: eat a second breakfast.
11:45am: oh hey, TheAmazon is on facebook chat.
11:45am-2:30pm: look up flights to Portugal with TheAmazon. Discuss the trip we would like to take. Decide to refer to Lisbon as Lisbion from henceforth. Excited for a Lisbion adventure. Decide to book flights on weekend.
3:00-5:00pm: walk downtown to buy cat food and return movies to Blockbuster. Stop in two travel agencies to discuss upcoming Lisbiona bonanza. They do not help me, as I am master of the internet and already know more secrets than they do. I should probably work for budget travel.
5:30pm: Bored. Decide to make early bird special dinner.
6:30pm: Feel hefty. Decide to go for jog.
6:45pm-8:00pm: Regret choice. Hate life. Burp garlic pasta and try not to vomit in water fountain. Run like a greased pig.
8:00pm: Oh hey, Canada’s Next Top Model is on.
9:00pm: I should really paint my toenails.
9:30pm: I should really see what’s new on the internet.
9:35pm: Oh my god, they made a literal music video for Total Eclipse of the Heart. Watch three times. Send to friends. Discover a whole library of literal music videos on youtube.

10:30pm: Shit, I’ve really wasted my day. Watch Total Eclipse of the Heart two more times.
10:45-11:30pm: Actually do work.
11:35pm: Oh hey, TheNurse is on msn.

And now I think I’ll go to bed.

11:45pm: ...watch video one more time.*sings* And I've joined the glee club of the damned! (reference joke!)

I may need to disable my internet.

ThePeach

Today's lame movie that made ThePeach weep

2009-06-01T19:55:00.002-04:00

I've hit an all-time low.

This time, it wasn't even a movie. It was a re-run of Road to Avonlea. I can't afford anything more than basic cable.

FELIX OVERCAME HIS FEARS!! HE WON THE PROVINCIAL SPELLING BEE!! AUNT HETTIE WAS SO PROUD OF HIM, AND THIS IS SO RARE BECAUSE FELIX IS USUALLY SUCH A TROUBLE-MAKER! BUT HE SHOWED THEM. HE SHOWED THEM ALL.

So...estrogen is terrifying. Yeah?

ThePeach

Where's my housecoat at?

2009-06-01T10:39:00.001-04:00

Ola, senoritas!

It’s 10:30am on a Monday, and you know what I’m NOT doing? Fear-sweating in an office downtown, wishing I could pull my work-thong out of my work-pants-induced wedgie, and gargling with Starbucks.

That’s right, my month of legitimate internships is OVAH. And I’m celebrating by wearing pyjamas until noon, getting my life back in order, and sipping my coffee at a normal pace – like a respectable addict.

Although I must say that I really hearted my last week of work. The editors decided to try me out on the Arts and Lifestyle desk, and I managed to pump out 6 articles with titles like: “Archie Andrews to Marry Veronica Lodge; Betty Heartbroken,” “Why do we care about Jon and Kate Plus Eight?” and “Much a-twitter about celebrities.” Happiness, my friends, is being encouraged to write jokes into your pieces, being allowed to use your vocabulary for once (I used the word ‘titular’ – TITULAR!), and sitting with people who would much rather talk about season 4 of “Weeds” than bankruptcy protection plans.

And apparently they liked me, too, because I’ve been offered some freelance lifestyle work for the summer. Life = love.

So, now I’m back to working from home on my other two internships. You know, the ones I’ve completely neglected for the past month and am probably fired from, but have been too afraid to check my gmail to find out. On a sidenote, I’m sorry if any of you tried to contact me through gmail.

I have a fair amount of work to weed through this week, but that’s about all I have planned. I’m pretty stoked about not having to take the bus again. Or leave the apartment for a while.

In fact, the only reason I need to leave the apartment at all this week is to buy cat food.

…

Wow. The slope to crazy cat lady was so slippery and steep that I didn’t even know I was falling until I reached the bottom.

This can’t be good.

ThePeach

Chasing Beaver

2009-05-29T22:49:00.002-04:00

I just had a conversation with ThePilot, one of my oldest friends. He lives in a very small town, grew up in another very small town, and the result is: 1) An innocence you don’t expect to see in a grown man, 2) a very large internet porn collection, and 3) conversations like this:

ThePeach: Yo. How was your day?
ThePilot: I was thinking about doing nothing all day, but ultimately I spent the afternoon chasing beaver.
ThePeach:…literal beaver, ThePilot?
ThePilot: Be honest. You know me. What do you think?
ThePeach: I think you spent your day in the wilderness frolicking with literal beavers. Maybe you splashed in a bubbling brook. Skipped some stones. And the like.
ThePilot: You would be correct. But it’s more fun to say it that way. I plan to post it on facebook and see what kind of reactions I get.
ThePeach: Please do.
The Pilot: What good are virtual friends if you can't ruffle 'em up every once in a while
ThePeach: So, let’s back up. Why were you chasing beaver?
ThePilot: I didn’t start out chasing beaver.
ThePeach: No one ever does.
ThePilot: I was just out for a bike ride…turns out this area is crawling with beavers.
ThePeach: heh.
ThePilot: Side note time -
ThePeach: Yay!
ThePilot: How the hell did beaver become an allegory for sex?
ThePeach: ThePilot, it’s an allegory for vagina. Not for sex.
ThePilot: Thank you, doctor. Now, answer the question.
ThePeach: Well, let’s think about this. Wait, is this really how I’m spending my Friday night? Sigh. Ok, that’s out of the way, back to the beaver! It’s dark. It’s hairy (ew). OH. IT EATS WOOD!
ThePilot: Hmm. I think you might have nailed…I mean, you might have correctly guessed it.
ThePeach: Also, my vagina can build small fortresses out of sticks and moss. So there’s probably that.
ThePilot: I also would have accepted ‘it’s a nice piece of tail.’
ThePeach: The beaver has so many levels.

That’s right. I haven’t posted anything in 10 days, and instead of updating you on my life in any capacity, I’m blogging about the beaver.
ThePeach.

ThePeach vs. Public Transportation Part 2

2009-05-19T18:34:00.000-04:00

ThePeach: *puts bus tickets into fare-collector*
Bus Driver: *nods*
ThePeach: *fumbles like a tool trying to grab transfer from fare-collector*
Bus Driver: You have to pull harder.
ThePeach’s Brain: THAT’S WHAT HE SAID.
ThePeach: Yes, sir.
Bus Driver: *nods*

Another day, another dollar.

Oh hey. I’m still unpaid.

ThePeach

ps – Milo just sneeze-barfed onto my coffee table.

Fabulous News!

2009-05-15T07:12:00.002-04:00

Yesterday there was a midget in line right in front of me at Starbucks!! Although he could have been a dwarf...I never can keep those two straight.

In other fabulous news, today is my LAST DAY at the major radio internship. Thank you JESUS.

Oh hey, I have to work until 10pm though. 11 hour work day with no breaks? Joy to the motherfucking world.

ThePeach

I fully expected this.

2009-05-12T20:37:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was interesting.

I felt like things were looking up at my internship. Last week was kind of rough, but when I showed up yesterday the producer gave me a t-shirt and a tote bag! I get paid in SWAG! And everyone was in a really good mood and, let’s face it, I had sex on Sunday so the world was all lollipops and motherfucking rainbows. And it seemed like the producers liked the piece I put together for the show on Saturday, so life was grand.

I was so happy that I even changed my facebook status to reflect my cautious joy. HotMess wrote me a message in response. Here is our exact conversation:

From HotMess
May 11 at 9:50am
Glad to hear things have finally turned around! Also I heard your pork story on the radio Saturday. It was really good! Tonight are we still on for a little bbq or just box wine? Yesterday I got drunk alone again. And then ordered pizza at 2 a.m. Please save me. I think I have problems.

From ThePeach
May 11 at 9:56am
You don't have problems. You're my hero! Ya, I want to come over for sure. I bought sausages to bbq haha. Gotta support the pork industry. I had a good weekend. I watched FauxHawk do a duathalon and then we had sex. Today is awesome. Guess I should work now...

ThePeach
May 11 at 10:16am
Aaand we're back to disastrous. I was compiling the list of winners for our trivia contest and realized that I accidentally deleted the show’s message from voicemail and replaced it with my own name, and now nobody left their names for the contest because they thought they had the wrong number. And I have to tell the show’s host that she has to re-record it.Help.

That didn’t take very long at all. 10:16am and I’ve already created a massive catastrophe. Perhaps I should explain. The radio show that I work for has a weekly trivia contest, where people phone in with their answers and leave them on voicemail. One of my jobs is to check the messages and make a list of everyone who gets the right answer. It’s a national show, so we get a lot of calls.

Right after I sent my message to HotMess at 9:56am, I started checking the messages. 40 new messages. I got my pen at the ready. Intern HO!

Message 1: *click*
Message 2: *click*
Message 3: *click*
Message 4: *click*
ThePeach: Wow, a lot of people are just hanging up this week.
Message 5: *click*
Message 6:*click*
Message 7: *click*
ThePeach: Weird.
Message 8: *click*
Message 9: *click*
Message 10: *click*
ThePeach: Man, I miss the Fresh Prince of Belair.
Message 11: *click*
Message 12: *click*
Message 13: *click*
ThePeach: IIIIIN West Philadelphia, born and raised, on the playground was where I spent most of my days. Chillin’ out, maxing, and relaxin’ all cool and shootin’ some b-balls outside of the school…
Message 14: *click*
Message 15: *click*
Message 16: Ummm…hello? The…Peach? ThePeach? I thought this was the number for the radio contest? Why does the machine say ThePeach?
ThePeach: *SCREAM!!!!!*

Oh jesus god no.

Of course I somehow deleted the radio show’s voicemail. My fingers shook as I checked to see what outside callers were hearing when they dialed the number for the show.

ThePeach: *dials number*
Phone: *ring*
ThePeach: Please, god.
Phone: *ring*
ThePeach: Please, god, if you’ve ever loved me.
Phone:…THEPEACH!!…
ThePeach: FUCK!!!!

So, to recap, anyone who called the radio show to enter the contest only heard an awkward silence while I waited for the beep that never came and then the sound of my voice shouting my name enthusiastically into the receiver.

National radio, folks.

I’m really leaving my mark at this internship. Maybe tomorrow I can clog a toilet or light something on fire.

You get what you pay for.

ThePeach

ThePeach vs. Public Transportation

2009-05-07T20:08:00.002-04:00

I have to take the bus to my internship every morning. It's only a 10 minute ride and it drops me off right in front of a starbucks a block away from my office. So for the first couple of days I thought I had the sweetest deal ever. A quick little jaunt downtown plus a grande Pike's Place? Yes, this works for me.

But as the week went on and I got progressively more exhausted and grumpy, my bus ride became less of a sweet deal. I started noticing people's smells. Like the girl beside me yesterday who smelled like scalp. And then I started getting pissed off by people who spend the entire ride talking on their cell phones. Like the teenager on Tuesday who was having the following convo with someone:

LittleBitch: UhHUH, YAH. YAH. We were together for eighteen days.
...
LittleBitch: UhHUH. We, like, were so in love, you know?
...
LittleBitch: YAH. Don't woooorry, I'm going to, like, get custody or something. UhHUH.
...
LittleBitch: He'll probably take me back after I, like, have the baby. YAH.

I resisted the temptation to tell her she missed the stop for degrassi street. Little bitch.

Ok, so anyway...where was I?

Right. The bus was starting to suck a little. It didn't help that this morning it was rainy and humid and the bus smelled like a sock. Also, I was really exhausted and extra grumpy. I was listening to my iPod but even that wasn't helping. But then...I discovered something wonderful.

I call it "the in my mind super crazy underwear bedroom dance party." And it helped. See, I do this...thing...in my bedroom. I dance like I'm warped on qualuudes. In my underwear. While listening to bad pop music. It always cheers me up. And today I focused really, really hard and visualized myself dancing while I was on the bus, and - miracle - I no longer wanted to leave cut marks up my arms.

Ah yes. "The in my mind super crazy underwear bedroom dance party" saved the day.

...do I sound crazy?

ThePeach

Hello, sir.

2009-05-07T07:00:00.002-04:00

I don't know how to use the editing software. I'm out of groceries and am bringing crackers and a granola bar for lunch today. It's pouring rain and I have to get on a bus soon. My feet are bleeding from tramping around CapitalCity in corporate whore heels.

But it's worth it.

Because yesterday Jack Layton made eye contact with me and said "Salut!"

...santa?

ThePeach