Hot People Admit Defeat

Alright - so you probably noticed a considerable lack of activity coming from this little corner of cyberspace. There are a few reasons for that.

But first, I have terrible news. Plan Ab-Tastic was a failure. I cannot say that my abs were rock hard by my twenty-seventh birthday. I can't even say they were on their way. I'm certainly not ready to post pictures. Sadness.

The good news is that I know why this has happened. The bad news is that I am solely and completely at fault here. In an effort to integrate myself into this community, a community I'm still reasonably new to, I took on a little too much. And by "a little too much," I mean that over the last two weeks, I've had commitments seven days per week. As a result, I've had little to no time for a. cooking actual food for myself, and certainly no time for b. moving my body any more vigorously than is required for playing the piano. Probably this has contributed to the anti-hardening of my abs, because if I want to be really honest with myself, my abs actually got softer in the last month and a bit.

Admitting defeat is harsh. I don't like it. However, if I consider the overall cost-benefit analysis, I think I gained so much more in terms of spiritual nourishment running around to rehearsals for eight billion different concerts and performances than I ever would have by losing the fat around my middle. So many people know my name now, and that was really part of the goal. I exceeded the legal capacity of my apartment with a party I threw for my own birthday. In the past month and a half I learned to play (quite well, also) 30+ reasonably challenging pieces on the piano - a talent I'd let go to seed when I was in university. So the time hasn't been a waste, even though I did waste a month or so of my gym membership.

And, really, just because I didn't succeed right away with this ab-tastic goal doesn't mean I really have to quit it altogether. I'm planning some trips in the spring and summer. Trips where I might be wearing bathing suits. Hrmmmm.....And I've also learned some valuable lessons about time management and saying no to things that I don't absolutely want to do. I am armed for the future, and a sweet-looking midsection is headed my way. Eventually...

Hot People Play Along (And if at first they don't succeed, they try, try again)

Ok - so, I just commented on THIS blog because I thought I was invited to, and then got a comment back saying I had FAILED at accepting the invitation properly. I was supposed to post a selection of search terms that people use on google that wind them up here, my little corner of the blogosphere.

Most are search terms that have to do with my name or the name of the blog, which are clearly people who love me and my writing so much that they haven't added my url to their favourites. However, there are a number of super-funny ones that I'll share here.

1. Shress - Any loyal reader knows what this is. If you don't, just know it's the bane of my existence. A post about shresses early on in my blogging career brings continued traffic. Related search terms: what do you wear under a shress, wear stilettos and take it up the ass, 11 year olds wearing stilettos

2. Completely Hairless People - It makes me giggle a little to know that some poor schmuck looking for others who bear his terrible affliction of complete hairlessness happened upon my nascent concerns about waxing "down there".

3. White Tights Male Dancers - Not sure what this person was ACTUALLY looking for (or if it was academic rather than recreational interest that spurred their search in the first place), but I'm sure they were upset to find, not the answer, but the ramblings of a sexually frustrated 20-something who kept getting distracted from the skill and story involved in The Nutcracker Ballet by the bulges in the male dancers' tights.

4. Why did people ware capes - This person was so upset not to find the answer to his question that he felt the need to admonish me for my verbosity (rather than brush up on his google skills). On the up-side, talkin' ass bitch is my new favourite insult.

So...there...hopefully this time I got it right?

Hot People Make it Fit

I went clothes shopping on Friday - I bought some new jeans. While I love having new jeans, it was still a giant disappointment to learn that while (according to my personal trainer) my workouts have been working for me (for serious, I can see abs...well...two of them), I'm STILL THE SAME EXACT SIZE THAT I WAS THREE MONTHS AGO!

But this is like a lot of things in my life - except I'm trying to squeeze my fat life into the same amount of time as I've always had. Because of my pre-work life was disappointing, from an extra-curriculars point of view, it seems as though I'm making up for eight years of lost time. I'm also told that "being involved" is a good way to meet people, and since I don't know too many of those around here yet...but perhaps I've gone a little bit overboard.

In addition to my gym and choir obligations, I have also recently joined a film event society, committed to piano performances for a local poetry festival (and may read some of my own works...eep!), and have started accompanying a high school choir. I'm currently seeking opportunities to join a Dragon Boat team, and have recently learned how to catch frisbees (which, at one point, I would count among my greatest fears - up there with eating grapes and engaging in small talk with strangers) in an attempt to play Ultimate.

Reading over this, I am somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer volume of activity I've engaged in. I am also, all of a sudden, not at all surprised that last week I found myself embarking on a 3 hour drive for a work function through moose country at 11 p.m. in an effort not to miss out on my social life. Perhaps you have to be just a little bit crazy to ACTUALLY work hard AND play hard. This might also be why I arrived home from a trip to Ottawa at midnight on Sunday night and slogged my way through work the next day with a smile slapped on my face despite my inability to actually form complete sentences when providing instruction to my patients.

On a work-related sidenote, though...I recently went to my first drug-rep-sponsored networking event. It is a bizarre, bizarre experience to be offered unlimited amounts of free alcohol while being pumped for business from a salesperson and being under the discerning and critical eye of your boss. Deeply weird. Especially when the discerning and critical eye of your boss is a little tipsier than you are.

At any rate, strange ethical dilemmas aside, I seem to be balancing my hard work with my hard play reasonably well. But it means a lot of late afternoon naps - which makes me wonder if I'm doing it wrong.

Hot People Win, Even When They Lose

I've been noticing (mostly because it is completely obvious) that the growing up/goodbye to my youth process has involved a lot of "one last debate tournament"s. I know, I know. Nerdz!

But for serious - debating has been an invaluable and defining part of my life for almost a decade (yipes, I'm old!). Many readers will know this, but my main focus is actually judging the debates, and I've gotten pretty good at it over the past few years. So this past weekend, I was strong-armed at the last minute by some friends to judge at a pretty major tournament. Although geographically, I found myself in Toronto, I also inexplicably found myself (metaphorically) in a place called, by those in the know, the bin. The bin is where the bad debates happen - the ones devoid of reason, organization or articulation, let alone any sort of panache. It's a place I haven't found myself in a few years, and I've gotta say, it put me into a bit of a tailspin.

First of all, I've had some...exchanges...with a few of the people in charge. It was almost as though they were holding something against me. Like perhaps I had written some scathing and untoward things about them on a public internet site or something...hmm...so for a while I thought it was just vengeance.

Here's where, in retrospect, it gets a little cringe-worthy and unattractive. Soon after I came to my senses and decided nobody could be so petty (right?...nobody would be...) as to seek vengeance for a blog post from months ago in which all parties (except myself) remained more or less anonymous, I started to have a small (Seriously, it was only tiny. And I definitely kept it to myself as well...) personal crisis about my skillz as a debate judge. There might have been some moist eyes threatening tears at a few moments. This is cringe-worthy for two reasons:

1. Who likes emo-girl traipsing around like a 17th century poet? I don't. I'm pretty sure I could have dealt with things a little more gracefully (although shit, I saw some bad debates this weekend). For example, I might have avoided referring to the complete injustice of my shitty weekend to everyone I met, or at the very least avoided opening every conversation with that topic. I might also have opted NOT to require everyone to list my accomplishments at top volume, in unison, before I unlocked the door to our accommodations and allowed them to enter.

2. It points to a greater problem with my life. When someone gets uppity because they've lost a debate, I go on an oft-ranted tirade about how the outcome of a debate round has no bearing on real life and nobody in real life is going to care whether you won your fifth round at the 2007 eastern invitational. Despite this firm belief, I've really made debating THE major priority in my life and I've done it for too long. Although my success in the field of debate judging (which, frankly, only a select few would even count as a REAL success) has served me well, it has been something I've cultivated to the exclusion of all other things and I think this is a little bit alarming. Like, I used to be good at other shit. I used to be an awesome lip sync artist (at high school dances, with my thumb-rophone), and I would kill at trivia contests (Reach for the Top FTW!) but I haven't done either of those things in like, forever. In conclusion, I really need to diversify my talent portfolio. Learning to be a french-speaking guitar hero is obviously already on the agenda...but I need to think of some other things to incorporate into my life so I can one day be awesome at them. Ideas? Anyone?

On the other hand, my relative abandonment of all reason and sense of purpose meant that, on balance, the rest of the weekend was pretty awesome.

First of all, I learned that I am effing amazing at playing damsel in distress (it helps when the distress is real). A number of dashing young men came to my aid. I think I only paid for half my drinks and I wasn't allowed to leave the dancefloor (in fact, I was forcibly removed from areas not technically dancefloor on a number of occasions). I also had one of the nicest and least "pressure-y to do more" makeout sessions I've ever had, and that was really refreshing.

Secondly, I drank my face off. The results of this were epic (although, recognizing that I already used my last chance to drink stupid amounts of alcohol, the hangover on Sunday was just as epic). I definitely danced like a rockstar that night. I also definitely fell out of a bunk bed. The resulting bruises (reflecting the pattern of the carpet) and rug burn are totally badass. My successful attempt at mounting the bunk bed ladder post-fall without the help of my two very concerned friends was just as badass. And I definitely spent the rest of the night spooning my friend's girlfriend to avoid a second fall.

In conclusion, while daytime Miss T wasn't very hot at all, I feel like my Saturday night was burning up just a little (at least, I felt sorta hot...). Now, how can I keep that fire ablaze?

Hot People Don't Have Visa Limits

Based on my friends' horror at my lack of makeup skillz last week, I decided to call in a professional. I got my colours done. For those of you who don't know what this means (I told one friend and she thought I was getting my hair dyed), getting your colours done means you have a professional...colour-finder?...tell you what season you are, and then they tell you what colours look best on you. The season thing kind of makes it sound a little voodoo-y, for sure...but my friend had hers done last spring and since then she's been wearing clothes that make her skin look slamming (she wasn't exactly leftover lima beans before, but she looks extra-smokin' now).

So I had my appointment and the lady told me, with such excitement, that I'm an autumn. Apparently, they're very rare. Awesome, I thought. I'm an autumn! I'm a diamond in the rough! I felt really special when she told me that. It also explained why I looked like I was dying every time I wore foundation - I'd been wearing the wrong colour. Observe (faces blurred out to protect my friends):









I am neither drunk nor deathly ill in either of these pictures...I'm just wearing foundation.

So you can see why I was pleased to learn that I could cover up my redness without also looking like the undead (Hot people look like the living living). Then she told me that autumns are hard to find clothes for. And then I remembered something about my Mom telling me I was a winter, and buying me all kinds of hot pink and ice blue and I thought, shit...this means I'm going to have to buy a whole new wardrobe. Balls. I'm already treading water in a sea of student debt with Ursula the Octopus Queen yanking me down with one of her slimy tentacles. Then the lady told me how much the makeup I agreed to buy would cost. I threw up a little in my mouth before she took my credit card. On the other hand, makeup makes me look smashing!

Just to pile on the debtor's remorse, I went shopping for sexy work clothes (new job starts in less than three weeks!) today. I took along my little swatch book that came with my consultation, and a list of absolutely necessary items. I had a budget of $200, not including shoes - but who brings along a calculator when they're going shopping?

The upside of the shopping trip is that three strangers complimented me on my dress/jeans ensemble, which I thought was kind of iffy when I put it on (it was, actually, a clever way to economize the fact that I accidentally bought a shress and forgot to take it back). However, the colour lady was right - autumns are hard to buy clothes for. My friend and I went to every store in town (I am very nearly being literal here), pulling out my swatch wallet (they give you a wallet full of little bits of fabric with the right colours for you on it!) and holding it up against the fabric of the item I wanted to to buy. YARGH!!!! The things I wanted weren't the right colour, and when I found the right colour it was too expensive. My Visa is now racked up to its limit...again, and I didn't even buy everything on my list. Jeez...being hot is expensive!

Hot People Get a Little Help from their Friends

I have great friends, who have been here for me through the whole process of singlification and I love, love, love them for it. They've also been really supportive of this whole hotness process and the blog that goes with it. Some have told me that I'm "hot already," but most of them really get that this whole thing is about pushing myself out of my comfort zone and airing my most hilarious dirty granny panties on the line in the process and they're cheering me on and encouraging me along the way.

Case in point - some of my friends were horrified to learn that I was anti-high-heel. They had noticed I rarely wore heels, but since the relative flatness of my soles did not come accompanied with pajamas to class (which, I shit you not, is regular attire for some of my peers), they thought little of it until reading the entry about my sad history with attempts at increasing my altitude.

"Never?" one asked. "For reals?!?!?!?" said another. And finally, "We're going to get you wearing heels!" one of them said. Normally, I would respond with a sound negatory - my feet are my business and I've already decided that hot people can wear cute flats. But since I'm in the process of a major life-change, I told her "Sure, it'll be good for the blog!" and we made a shoe-shopping date.

As we were shoe-shopping, we discussed the many rules of hot heel-wearing. For example, while chunkier heels certainly go a long way to keep your feet feeling like they're on solid ground, apparently, they make your thighs look fat. Obvi! And since I still eat far too many cookies , the skinnier the heel, the better! Also, pointy toes elongate your leg. Huh...who knew? So we decided on a cute black pair and we were on our way.

In order to mark the momentous occasion of heel-wearing (but really because we're all leaving school soon and we wanted to get our drunk on), we decided to get together at my place for some pre-drinks and close out the night with some dancing at a local drinking establishment. My mission for the night - Get these (sock-lines and all!):



Into these:

And keep them there for as much of the night as possible.

Because I can't dress myself yet (at least, not hotly), my friends decided on my outfit as well as my hair. I thought I could do my own makeup, but as it turned out, makeup was actually a three-person job. I've also recently learned that not owning a blending brush is an absolute travesty. I was proud that I knew what an angle brush was, let alone that I owned one - I guess I'm still a young grasshopper when it comes to hotness.

The result of this village-raising-a-child style makeover is that this:

Transformed into this:

In this last one, I'm crossing my legs in front because I heard that would make me look skinnier, or something. I don't know...what are your thoughts? Am I hot yet? I think I still need some work. For example, I've just realized that my only pose is hands-on-hips. Hot people offer variety, I'm sure. At any rate, the shoes are killer.

So after far too much to drink at home, we descended upon the downtown to a local public house where a musical group was set to be playing that evening. We got in for free in exchange for a picture of us to be put up on the establishment's website (which I thought was a good sign on the hotness front) and proceeded to the dancefloor to shake it to whatever the dj was spinning (interestingly, the dj was the dirty cook at an ill-fated soup café at which I once worked...strange career change, I thought). Soon enough, the band was ready for its set - at which point we discovered that this was not a college-rock type band, but a loud metal band. Not wanting to walk to another bar (because my feet were starting to get a little testy with me), I decided that I could definitely shake my ass to a little Enter Sandman and Here I Go Again, if not for its enjoyment factor (of which there was little), then at least for its kitsch factor (of which there was much).

Following that ear-bleeding session, we decided to head up to another rather large drinking complex that's quite popular with the kids in town, because the music there was reported to be a little more danceable - but on the way we met with a pretty awesome street performer, who took requests and played a lot of songs that I really like. When we first happened upon him, he was playing Bust a Move, which prompted me to do my one and only breakdance move on the street (this is something I pull out far too often when I've been drinking - on bar dancefloors, off bar dancefloors, the residence common room, outside Boston Pizza...). Although I have a sneaking suspicion that hot people can control their breakdancing urges, the street performer seemed to think it was good entertainment for other passersby, so that was good. It was good that I liked him too, because one of my friends remembered him from a fabulous birthday where he played a song for her and had a cute dog, or something and she subsequently refused to leave while he was still playing. We therefore spent the rest of the night hanging out with a busker, who was quite lovely and didn't seem to mind that we sang along, even though most of us couldn't remember all the words to anything.

The night did not end with as my friends had predicted, with an impromptu make-out session on the dancefloor with a stranger - but I did meet a pretty cool busker, and danced with a couple of nice young men on the street - although by then I had long switched from the new heels to the flats I had hidden in my purse. So my primary mission was a failure. However, I don't think this is the last time I'll face off with high heels. I'll break them (in) yet!