chicken loves you.

I am now a blonde!

Truthfully, I started the blonde journey because I thought it might cheer me up. So far, it has: it's fascinating how hair colour really does affect your attitude towards the world.

But see, there's a reason I love my hairdresser. And it's not just because he's been a buddy for a decade.

I had to stage my hair up from black; last time I was in, we bleached it out to a pukey orange and put purple and pink in instead. This time, it was ready to strip out to blonde, so we "bleached the snot out of it."

When we washed the bleach out, it looked great: nice and bright white.

Charles asked if I wanted to put a toner in it.
"Sure," I said. "But it can't be anything that looks too natural."
"Yeah," he agreed. "I know what you mean. You don't want a blonde trying to look too natural."

Hair dye and cut? $100.
Having a hair dude that totally understands, without explanation, why you don't want the blonde to look natural? Priceless.

True sign my father is aging: he got a hearing aid the other day.

Equally true sign that he is not, and probably never will be, an old fart: it's Bluetooth-enabled. He's been answering his cell phone through his hearing aid.

Setting aside the fact that I had no idea he had a hearing issue ("I'm a good guesser, and you're used to me being a silent listener," explains the dyed-in-the-wool psychotherapist), I find his new toy totally hilarious and awesome.

Also, because I hate myself, I finally got a Twitter:

http://twitter.com/DoubleEmMartin

So uh, follow me, or whatever. So you can get all my hot twats.

Yeah, so this week life was starting to look up.

Then Coren just called. While he was at work some asshats broke into our car, smashed up our windows, and basically trashed the thing in order to steal shit out of the car.

All they got was an ancient, busted-up tape recorder that doesn't even work anymore. Congratulations to them, they got a worthless item in exchange for wreaking a huge amount of damage that we can seriously not fucking afford to fix right now.

But the car isn't driveable as is, so we'll have to fix it. And we really can't afford that right now, especially with all Coren's immigration costs looming and his work being so slow and tips being bad, and me having to cut back on my freelancing, and soforth.

I'm so furious.

For those who remember my trip to Alberstan in 2006 -- the trip where I roleplayed media in a live warzone roleplay exercise with the Canadian military -- you may be interested to know that Albertastan now has a reality show.

It's called Combat School, and it's showing on the Discovery Channel.

Look it up. It's fascinating I think for outsiders. For me, it's almost heartbreaking. I recognize a couple of the people so far -- two Opfor guys, and at least one civilian roleplayer, maybe more.

I can't explain it. It tugs at my heartstrings. I loved that place, that environment, those people. I loved being there. Seeing the FOB again almost makes me want to cry. I wish I was there, sleeping on those surprisingly comfortable military cots, rolling around in those LAVs, waiting for a tank to pass so I can hit up an outhouse.

It's strange how sad this is. Exhilerating to see it again, albeit in TV format, but it makes me miss it. I've been all "Wow, that's the town where they killed the mayor!"

What's going on outside today?

I'm not sure I currently have the tools with which to understand what's happening out there in a proper context.

Is this... the thing they call spring?

Am I the only one who finds putting perfume on animals a little... odd?

I took Aveline for a very quick groomer appointment today. She had some bad hair mats near her tail that cropped up seemingly overnight last week. So they managed to get them off without buzzing her (the last time, she was shaved bare for a single strip down her back). Took about five minutes, no big deal. All is well and good, right?

Well, she came out of the groomer office smelling like fruit. Sort of like a cat-friendly Glade version of vanilla, oranges and strawberries. It's been a few hours now and she still just reeks of it.

It's not necessarily an offensive smell, but it creeps me out. Avie isn't an especially stinky cat -- so why does she need to smell like a cheap air freshener?

A colleague shared this blog of ultimate win with me:

http://www.stuffjournalistslike.com

Seriously you guys. Seriously. I know most of you are not journalists, but it is my experience and belief that this list is 100% accurate, from vending machines to weather stories.

There is quite seriously nothing in there that hasn't made a meaningful impact on my career thus far, except for perhaps the "throwing shoes" thing, which is fairly journalist-specific.

This is basically the desk of everyone in the newsroom except for me. I found a yellowed copy of a paper from 1999 on one of my coworker's desks there once, slipping out from under a pile.

And this, sadly, accurately summarizes my feelings on the situation at our paper and others.

I haven't followed the whole Blagoevich fiasco beyond what crops up on CNN, but after watching the ex-gov's little pre-impeachment speech, I suspect that he is conducting a truly epic IRL trolling of the state of Illinois. Sooner or later someone will connect his IP to his real identity, and much lols and cat macros will be had across the state.

Or at least, I have no other way to explain what the hell his deal is.

I love this. A posse of high-powered Hollywood casting agents suggest their casting picks for the "inevitable" Barack Obama movie. Some of their choices are superb: I like Tony Shalhoub as Rahm Emmanuel, Ed Norton as anything Tim Geithner, and Warren Beatty and Annette Bening as Joe and Jill Biden.

But some of the picks are a total head-scratcher to me. Will Smith as Barack Obama? Really? Because he's black? You can't tell Barack Obama's story without honing in on the fact that his life was indeed shaped by being a "skinny kid with a funny name" and, while we're at it, sort of a goofy, awkward face too. And I think most of us can agree that Will Smith, long acknowledged as one of the hottest guys on the planet, is not a scrawny dude with an awkward face.

None of the Hillarys are right, though. Susan Sarandon would be the worst -- you'd be looking at her the whole time in full awareness that she was Susan Sarandon -- and of them, Dianne Wiest would be the best pick in my books.

For Barack himself, only Harry J. Lennix really looks the part to me. I'm not familiar with his work though. But he seems to have the long face going for him, and he's also a Chicago guy. And Michelle, I pick Viola Davis, with Sanaa Lathan a runner-up -- Gabrielle Union is too obviously hot, and though I think Michelle is a unique and quirky beauty, "hot" isn't really her thing.

I just found out today that Elton John actually read my review of, um, Elton John's concert. And apparently he thought it was "very good." He highlighted some comment I made about how sometimes he seems like he's from outer space, and said, "I'm not really that weird, am I?"

This made my entire week.

In exactly 33 minutes, I will officially be on strike.

Sigh.

I'm planning a killer picketing outfit for tomorrow though!

All hail the great Dr. Eng at Woo Medical Centre on St. Mary's.

Truly, he has saved me!

I actually was so overcome with positive emotion tonight that I called up the clinic and left this huge thank-you message on their voicemail. Maybe it was a little overboard, because really, all he did was prescribe a drug that's commonly prescribed for such purposes, but... the first two docs didn't do that, and already it's like, salvation.

I'm still being made to stay off work until next week, but I am going to be able to review Elton tomorrow night, and probably take back some light work starting next week.

Hallelujah!!!

ETA: Proof how well this shit works -- I just realized it's been over 7 hours since I took my last double-dose of prescription-strength Advil. Previously I was counting hours until I could choke it down again because it had worn out long before I was due for another dose (4 hours).

Sweet!

So in addition to the prescription-only Advil Liqui-Gels and the Novocaine mouthwash (upgraded from the first set of do-nothing mouthwash I got), I now have a five-day supply of prednisone!

Apparently this is hard-core stuff. Also apparently, it will bring down the swelling in my throat, which will remove a lot of the pain, make it possible to eat and talk again, etc.

Call me crazy, but I took my first dose five minutes ago and I already feel like I can speak easier and swallow without wanting to cry myself to death. It may just be placebo effect though, because realistically it still hurts like a bitch.

( Cut for those sick of whinery. )

I am in so much pain right now.

It's unbelievable.

So, I found out why I've been feeling so bad, especially lately.

I probably have mono!

At work, a couple of coworkers raised the spectre that I may have mono. I went to the walk-in, and the doctor (who was wonderfully patient, professional, understanding and took my concerns seriously, what a joy) agreed that it may be a likely possibility.

I had some bloodwork done that will come back tomorrow, and the doctor will give me a call with the results.

YAY!

He gave me a prescription for an analgesic mouthwash. The problem is that my throat is so swollen that I can't even gargle it properly; it doesn't get much past the back of my tongue.

Because I deserve it:

I bought a new acoustic guitar this week. I've actually never owned an acoustic guitar. For that matter, I haven't even played guitar in about four years, and my beautiful old semi-hollowbody jazz guitar is missing two strings and has been collecting dust in the corner for years.

My calluses are completely gone. It hurts badly to play for more than ten minutes at a time. I've forgotten oh, 80% of the chords, how to play decent rhythm, and both hands' fingers are terribly rusty.

Still, I'm over the moon about it. Sure, I buy myself treats all the time... clothes, dinners out, video games, whatever. But this is the first larger purchase that I've made since starting at the Free Press, and it feels unbelievably rewarding. I wanted an acoustic for a long time but could never justify spending the money on something that was solely a hobby.

Even more rewarding was that instead of having to bargain shop, I was able to play all the acoustics in the shop and buy the one I fell in love with on the spot, even though it was $200 more than the other brand-name guitars.

I have to get my calluses back, pronto. But it's been giving me immense satisfaction to see the case (new case! new tuner!) sitting in my living room, even if it makes my fingers ache just to look at it.

Aveline was in the windowsill, engaging in her favourite past-time of swatting at errant bugs that waggled their way in through the hole in the screen.

But today... one was a wasp.

She is now hunching in the corner shaking her paw and looking very forlorn. :(

I keep trying to tell her that yes, I know it hurts, and yes it sucks, but that it'll be okay soon, but she just keeps licking at it and looking very sad and upset.

Yes, I anthropomorphize. And I'm okay with that.

The process of buying a property is driving me slowly insane.

But.

The one thing that makes it worth it, the single thing that makes this entire annoying process tolerable, is watching the cat sun herself on the windowsill.

Our old suite had no natural light. Zero. My window looked over a small, dark yard, and was then confronted by the brick wall of another apartment building. When we did get light, it was diffuse, distant, not warming.

The new suite (same building, just around the corner) faces west and is flooded with sunlight in the afternoon. It's bright and hot and pours in through the windows. And my cats, despite having not seen a ray of sunshine in four years, have instantly recognized it as the miraculous cat heroin that it is.

The soporific effect of sun on cats is a wonder to behold. As soon as I roll up the shades in the morning, there's a two-cat line-up waiting to flop down on the sill and sleep a sounder, floppier, more total sleep than I have ever witnessed from this pair.

As I write this, Aveline is in the second hour of a marathon windowsill-nap, stretched out, facing the sun, body so loose that occasionally a tail or paw or cheek slides off the sill like butter. Furry, furry butter. If I touch her, she's fiery hot and, apparently, in a state of total zen and nirvana.

Honestly, I feel like the best thing that came out of the whole damn condo mess was giving the girls a chance to experience that. They seem so at home in the sun.