technically speaking, i was fired on the 19th. that's because of the whole banner fuck up with my med insurance, etc that happened right before thanksgiving. only i'm just finding this out.

why was i fired? computer glitch that has collapsed my whole house of cards. of course this begs the question...so i'm going to work tonight, why?

there are many terms for this kind of behavior of mine. saint/sinner. sucker. idiot. the guy who hoards the stapler in the movie "office space." i guess there's also "actually gives a shit" and "person who hates the system so much that they'd go to work for free just to completely and utterly annoy the people who have to figure out what to do with all those clocked in hours that have appeared on their computer unexplained." freud would have called this...uh...something to do with my parents, only in german. all probably fitting terms. especially the translated in german bit. everything sounds more severe in german. not just german...but german for sure.

i'm now trying to come to terms why exactly my face has broken out...it's not like i don't know the answer (period in t-minus 3 days)...i'm just not able to comprehend, at this moment, how much i owe in medical bills thanks to the ol' insurance cancellation trick (if you are thinking over 10 grand...you are close!) and what reality show do i need to win in order to raise that cash...which means anything minor that happens in my life (flood, fire, face breakouts) just can't get processed.

yeah i was kidding about the flood and fire being minor events. thought i'd clear that up before it happened to me.

the gift of life. some days it's like that sweater you got for your birthday that you hate but can't bring back and have to wear it every time you see the person who gave it to you in order to avoid major ass conflict.

"so where exactly do you think we are?" [scrubs]

i'm not quite sure, really...

in canada, i'm famous.

that being said...in illinois? i mean wtf does it take for the university to fucking put this on their homepage? yes, the "university" is "my father" blah blah fucking blah. call freud up next time and he'll explain it all. or, i guess, channel freud, being that he's dead and all. anyway this is the interesting bit -- accessibility gets more attention from industry than academia. there. i said it. i'm really starting to believe it more and more every day.

and that being said...i hate having to post narcissistic things to bring attention to the field. you'd think i were religious from the way that i have an anxiety attack when i do anything that smacks of pride. so that last bit about illinois? i feel like an asshole for saying "hey, wtf -- is anything i do good enough for you people?" and by "you people," i'm referring to the university administration...not individual departments. instead...i get a dramatic email about how i'm "just a grad student" from them. that is true...but i am also NOT a teaching assistant. maybe they could have emailed me to get the right department to verify this bit?

and that being said...i moved all my books to the creepy col wolfe building so i am now forced to work there. it reminds me of the office christine and i shared back in the ncsa days in CAB...it *is* just around the corner. and that's probably a good thing.

probably.

ok, how about this: every time a doctor gives me grief about my period, the terrorists win!

actually...no...there's the damn opiod's connection with the middle east. so it's more like every period that i live through without any pain killers shows that i love america.

god dammit.

so every month that passes, i'm getting more and more concerned about what i couldn't say but could only write down on a card for chris to read. yeah...it's the menstrual psychosis thing, the extreme high followed by the extreme low in a short period (haha) of time. the weirdest thing is the recurring dream i get after the crash...the geology lab architecture dream.

so dr b...why are we not analyzing THIS? surely it's more interesting than why i don't like mondays.

and why is tivo giving me such grief? why am i letting it give me such grief? and can it really be possible that my period is starting again? and did you know that instead of percocet more doctors are comfortable prescribing methadone as a pain killer because of all the percocet/oxycontin debacle? i can see it now...me, hanging out at the meth clinic...for cramps.

i'm hard core.

and, no, i can hardly get a damn doctor to prescribe advil to me let alone percocet. but maybe if i picked up a heroin habit real quick i could get some methodone. does this make ANY sense at ALL? it's amazing that i haven't picked up a serial killer habit real quick.

and fuck you blog censors. i'll say whatever i fucking want on this.

Multimedia message

i know. wtf, right? why did i post this? i just liked the ice cream image on the bathroom condom dispensor. mom?????? can i get an ice cream cone???? marketing people...

"need to talk to your kids about sex? then bring them to the montreal airport bathroom where you can talk about it with friendly images that kids can identify with!"

christ, no, i don't think that's what they were thinking...but it made me laugh anyway. i've heard worse.

so quebec...what's with your metro system? you walk into an entryway and instead of seeing anything resembling what looks like a subway and/or other kind of transportation system...you see a set of stairs...that leads into a food court. so i went back outside, figuring i went into the wrong set of doors...no...so i go downstairs and, yeah, i'm in a food court and this giant underground mall that reminded me a lot of taipei, only there you did at least have some signs here and there that you were going past shops but headed towards a subway stop.

so i'm walking around, asking as many retail workers as i can find in case i can find one that understands that i'm looking for this fabled transportation system. finally i get to a station stop...kind of. i'm expecting that there will be some kind of machines where, oh, one could buy a ticket. nope. just a desk. and it seems that where i was trying to go was one stop away...yet cost $2.50! shit i could have walked if i weren't in period hell pain. even with the pain...$2.50!?! and that wasn't roundtrip. then it turns out that i'm not even going where i thought i was going.

where was i trying to go? well, it seems that the conference people wrote me a check in canadian dollars from a canadian bank (or banque) that my bank in the us is gonna be SUPER happy about (how many weeks/months do you think it will take them to clear that check when it takes them 13 days to clear my direct deposit checks from university payroll? so since it's my last day in canada, i thought that i'd go to the bank that issued the check and see if they can do a direct deposit into my us account and/or recut the check in a more accessible format like travellers checks (cheques) or an international money order. nope. same as everywhere...you have to open an account and there was no fucking way i wanted to open a checking account in another country and then wait for 40 days for the check to clear and try to transfer that money to some other format...%($#*%(#(@*$(#@

anyway, it was a total waste of 4 hours and then i got caught in a rain downpour. so while i was getting soaked, i took pix of the cool and what has to be amazingly expensive xmas lights that are on every fucking tree in this fucking city. and i ran into this guy who works in the hotel and was laughing at my taking pictures of city stickers and signs who gave me ideas about the coolest picture taking places in the area -- earlier we'd had a conversation about how "mooning" and the fact that we have homeless camped out down the street from the white house is such an "american" statement and that seattle was pretty close to montreal in look and feel. this after my asking all the staff why everyone was wearing a red posey today (tomorrow is canada's version of veteran's day and they are dealing with the first generation in a long time of children remembering their parents who were recently killed in a war, lost in the iraq disaster.

and i'm so fucking glad the us house and senate is out of republican control. fuck, i think the whole world might feel that way. and my moods are way out of control and it doesn't have anything to do with the us house or senate that i know of...i'm really, really, really tired of my period. and i'm really, really, really sick of it meaning that i've had to miss out on fun things, like everything at the conference that wasn't my talk.

my latest art project is completely disgusting and could, possible, land me in a whole heap of trouble coming back through customs tomorrow. and, no, it doesn't have anything to do with the canadian flag...oddly i haven't seen any of them for sale anywhere. but i'm not really in a souvenir part of town...more like the expensive stores that i can't afford to even enter. maybe i'll find some bulk flags on sale at the airport tomorrow so that i can play the fun with customs game..."do you have flags in your bag?"

the rules of speaking engagements

the rules of speaking engagements
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

so today i gave a talk on accessibility to a pretty sizeable crowd (and no one did the "oh, i must be in the wrong session" faux-confusion maneuver to escape so i actually had the same audience members from start to finish. and i felt good about the talk. i felt completely relaxed and in the groove and you know? for fuck's sake...i felt proud of myself for the first time in a long time. i got a huge number of compliments for my "passionate" and "laid back" speaking style and one of my room assistants told me that he forgot to give me my five minute warning because he was so into what i was talking about and showing in my video clips. and i got a few invites to collaborate on grants...and i was interviewed by the canadian press (canada's version of the associated press) and, damn, that was cool...

what's going on? the canadian press guy even asked me how i'm handling my newfound fame.

fame. i want to live forever. i'm gonna learn how to fly. high.

now, more than ever, it's time to graduate.