Still sending out resumes, still waiting for replies. I think part of my thus far unsuccessfulness is due to presentation. So next time I drop off a resume I'm totally going to wear sparkle pants while pulling a donkey with the words "HIRE SARAH" painted onto his coat with vegetable dye.*

What else is new? I am looking for a really great shade of lipstick. I do not understand cosmetics. When I finally began buying makeup, back in Grade Nine, I got the palest possible cover up, which made me look like the dead twin in Flowers In the Attic. Except huskier, and coupling an orange turtleneck with overalls while whining for chips. After applying this powder to my face, I went on the hunt for suitable lipstick. Lacking funds, I borrowed my Nanny's.

My Nan was a great woman, and hot as hell in her day, with a bone structure you could cut a roast with. She was very fashionable, and always dressed to the nines, but who in the hell knows where she got her lipstick from. It was this nauseating Pepto Bismal shade and I smeared it onto my lips in at least seven layers to get the full affect. I would go into how I completed my look with about five tonnes of blue eyeshadow, but I think you've all heard enough and can properly conclude why I was a dateless loser back in high school.

Anyways. I like to think I'm doing better these days, but that doesn't make up for the fact that I mostly don't know anything about makeup. Although I think I've moved past the Stealing Cosmetics From the Elderly stage. I was at Shopper's Drug Mart the other day trying lipstick shades. The lipstick I normally get, Blush (I think?) by Revlon has been discontinued and I've been trying for weeks now to find a decent replacement. Everything seems to wash me out too much though. That and I'm still tempted by the names, smells and prices of Bonnebell. Because at heart I am probably a fourteen year old girl.

I kept noticing the Shopper's Drug Mart lady fluttering around in my peripheral vision, sort of checking in on me from time to time, likely to make sure I was not pocketing discount mascara or watching me struggle with testers or just looking incredibly confused when confronted with foundation powders. (Do not even get me started. I had a bit of an incident with Ivory lotion and cream 2 in 1 whatever stuff tonight at Walmart. That is not even it's official name, but ... really, I was too busy being distracted about how I'd just become an Oompa Loompa thanks to the tester.) Anyways, the woman finally came up to me and recommended that I try testing the lipstick on the tips of my fingers, as they are generally closer to the colour of the lips.

This would probably work for most people, but unfortunately, the tips of my fingers always look like I've been dipping them in fruit juice, or possibly, eating lots of ketchup chips. Still though, it's probably a lot more effective than looking puzzingly at the lipstick shade for twenty seconds, envisioning myself wearing it for a good millisecond before I get distracted by other thoughts... like fun hats or dinosaurs I might want to ride. **

So I am still on the quest for colours and cosmetics that will work for me. Any suggestions? what do you guys use?

*Or maybe a snappy limerick? Like, "There once was a girl with blonde hair, Who had a hot derriere, She needed a job, Not to live like a slob, Thank Christ she's got a pair." That should really be the verse inside my Christmas cards. ***

***Honestly, usually I use the tester on my hand, but I think that my skin is too anemically challenged for anything to look all that decent. In the meantime, my saviour has been "Love Thy Lips", a really awesome lip balm I picked up in Tlell many moons ago.

*** Yes, I have not yet sent my Christmas cards. But just like the knitted, decorative Christmas sweater I am right this minute wearing, it is never too late for Christmas.

Labels: Musings, Suitcase of Memories

God, I wish my fridge opened into another dimension populated by strange dog-like demons who spoke to me. Life would be so exciting! Maybe I would finally have someone to play Boggle with.

So lately I am loving Regina Spektor's "Hotel Song". There are worse things than suddenly breaking into song at your place of work with the lyric "a little bag of cocaine" ... I think. I've been finding Regina pretty hit and miss though. Either I love her stuff (Hotel Song, Samson, On the Radio) or the very sound of her voice hitting syllables all over the place makes me want to burst my ear drums with jagged chopsticks.

I've also been digging Seu Jorge's "Life On Mars" cover (think The Life Aquatic ... the guy who sings David Bowie tunes in French Portugese. Christ, Sovereign.) and "Ping Island Lightning Strike Rescue Op", which I might have mentioned last post. I figure it needs a mention again, because if y'all aren't dancing to that song like it's 1978 and you're overcome with the rhythm of the night, then you are MISSING OUT. And are no longer cool. And no one will sit with you at lunch in the caf. And Todd Valento won't ask you out for Spring Formal, and you will stay at home that night with your mom watching Wheel of Fortune, slowly adding layers of fat directly to your thighs with the aid of Doritos and emo tears.

But then again, what do I know. I didn't roll with a lot of guys back in high school because I spent most of my time between the computer lab, library and my basement room when putting pants on and not sleeping proved much too hard, so my prom date was Tanya Martyn. We were the most stylin' prom couple ever. My one bitter regret is that we didn't make prom King and Queen. On a sidenote, I remember when I first got my license I would drive the Buick to school ... a giant grey boat that really should've belonged to someone sixty times my age so that they could drive it recklessly around the elementary school ... and I would gaze out of it from the window in my Creative Writing class, longingly, desperately, sensually. I'd usually end up missing my afternoon class because the pull of my 1992 Buick would eventually have me running outside in slow motion, slipping behind the wheel and rekindling my love affair with Taco Time.

I am not sure why my Prom Date story lead to that Buick memory, only that I've gone far too long on this blog not mentioning either of those awesome events and .... really. Five years later, I think it's time.

Anyways, I must go prepare for the coming of Gozer, but I promise to update more often. Or at least make some vague attempt to stop making empty promises.

Labels: Film Geekery, Suitcase of Memories

So I turned 24 the other day and all is grand.

Pat and Phil got me a birthday cake, made out of about fifty thousand pounds of pure chocolate, and when I blew out every single last candle* Max burst out, "OH MY GOD. YOU'RE SINGLE."

Thanks, Max.

I got some pretty awesome presents, although my birthday isn't really about getting presents. (It's about cake.) Jamie sent me a kitten hat, which has been the number two item on my Birthday Wishlist** since forever, and Melissa got me Donnie Darko AND the best enchilada dinner ever, a new mug from the Pottery Lady from Mac, a necklace, eagle scarf and velvet bag (for my tarot cards) from Pat and Phil as well as .... A LOOM.

That's right. I got a freaking LOOM for my birthday! I can't even begin to express how awesome that is. I was thinking that instead of leaving notes on boring old paper for people, I might just start like, weaving them. "Gone to the store for milk," or "Susan called"... that sort of thing.

I was also thinking I might weave some tapestries featuring fluffy kittens chasing balls of yarn, and sleeping golden labradors snuggling in baskets. I think i'm going to try and incorporate everything that Northern Reflections has ever offered on a sweatshirt. And it will be AWESOME.

Honestly though, and all joking aside, I am excited and touched as hell to have received it.

Finally, I thought 24 was a good age to bring up the picture of myself where I'm at school ... without pants on. I appear to be wearing just the leotard, with a turtleneck combo, as if the extra material around my neck is going to make up for the fact that I AM NOT WEARING PANTS.

*All in all there were 26 candles because Melissa and I bought a special "2" and "4" candle from the Co-Op. "Whose turning 42?" the cashier asked and Melissa said, "She is," gesturing to me. And the guy nodded like MY BEING 42 WAS TOTALLY PLAUSIBLE. I couldn't think of any way to react to that, other than to jump across the counter and gouge out his eyes with Melissa's car keys, and I didn't think that was very civil so... I've learned to let it go. With the aid of alcohol.

**I had this great kitten hat when I was 3. It involved pom poms. I think it may have been the best hat ever made in the entire history of the 20th century.

Labels: Sarah Land, Suitcase of Memories

Many moons ago Melissa and I would curl up on her living room couches, drinking cans of Pepsi like every can consumed brought us closer to enlightenment, or at least enlightenment in regards to energy needed to really stick it to Bowser in the last level of Super Mario World. There was nothing quite like screaming obscenities at graphic turtles while twisting around in our chairs like if we moved to the left fast enough, Mario would too, and totally miss that ill-timed bomb coming straight for him. JUMP MARIO. FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, JUMP.

When we were fifteen we weren't just awesome in regards to levels completed. We were also really good at spending summer afternoons lying out on her backyard trampoline, taking long walks around her property, writing our names with white out on big rocks linked with the words "Friends Forever!" ... only white out is a really tricky writing tool so it looked more like "Fnincl Fcr3ven!" Like, when we share our love, we share it in all the languages of the universe.

We also watched a lot of movies during those days, and one of our favourites was Father of the Bride. Watching Steve Martin plan his daughter's wedding would often spin into us planning our own eventual weddings which usually featured Leonard DiCaprio as our mutual groom. My wedding was usually set to occur in a big field, which is something I picked up once from a particularly insightful Archie comic, wherein Betty fantasizes about a field wedding. All of my bridesmaids would wear different shades of blue and purple and there would be about 8 of them. 8 bridesmaids. (These days, incidentally, I am hellbent on having a wedding in the forest. In my head, the whole affair resembles the big Ewok party at the end of Star Wars. )

Anyways, I have a point here. We've spent years and years talking about weddings and discussing what all our lives will be like, me and Mel and Sarah E, when we're married and we have families and we've found some awesome guy who we'd like to spend our lives with. I'm still searching because Nathan Fillion just won't return my calls, but Sarah E and Mellers have both found these awesome people, these nice, caring, smart guys who know how to dress like it's not 1998 and their favourite pants come in snap on form for easy access.

Which is saying a lot for Northwestern Ontario boys. No offense, Northwestern Ontario, but y'all adore your snap on pants.

But it's crazy that both of my girls are getting married in the same year. 2007, you are going to be nuts.

Melissa and Duncan are getting married!*


*I could have just written that sentence from the get-go, but really. I had to tie in that Father of the Bride reference so you guys wouldn't be like, "They met in France? Huh?"

Wow. Two weddings. I better start polishing my interpretive dance skills if I'm going to properly express everyone's love through the gift of jazz. ... hands, squares, walks -- I like to take a little from every area in the pantheon of rhythm.

Labels: Family, Suitcase of Memories

I usually sort of hit and miss at Christmas -- it's always a toss up on whether or not it's going to be an awesome Christmas featuring say, Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins on cd, and possibly also, nesting boxes featuring painted gold suns that kind of make me inwardly seizure with joy. Or, on the opposite side of the coin, a Christmas that involves me running out of the church in the middle of the candlelight service to vomit all over the back stairs.

Either way, how classy.

There was the Christmas my entire family came down with the flu, so I ate microwaved frozen pizza for dinner and showed our miniature schnauzer Katie all of my awesome gifts from Santa, which were found mysteriously tucked away in a plastic bag beside my parent's bed. Katie was pretty impressed. Seriously.

When I was a kid, being The Mary in the church pageant was the equivalent of being like, Barbie, or a Princess, or possibly the Jem part of Jem and the Holograms. Although -- and I'm not entirely sure here -- Mary probably didn't have magical earrings that turned her into a pink haired pop sensation. It was a truly coveted position that I was bound and determined to one day rock with my fancy bowl cut, and possibly, my Land Before Time unitard and tight ensemble.

But every year, when the time came to choose The Mary, I was turned down. Much like the Miss America runner up, I would turn to the winner and hug her awkwardly, while delicately storing away my rage for things like, Bumper Cars or Cross-stitching.

Until finally, one year, THEY CHOSE ME. I. I WAS THE MARY. I was super excited. I donned a white dress, and I held the creepy Plastic Jesus and I sat with my legs wide open because I don't know how to sit like a lady. In the picture that I can't find (but will find and post here when I get back home) I look vaguely mentally unbalanced, grinning as though the prettiest smile is the biggest smile, cradling that Plastic Jesus like any minute he's going to come to life and say, "You're the best depiction of a Mary I have ever seen in like, 2000 years, Sarah Sovereign."

However, all reigns must come to an end and eventually it was time for me to pass on the Plastic Jesus to someone else.

Only I wasn't ready.

Only, no one could be as awesome a Mary as me. Seriously. I KNEW THIS.

So the next Christmas pageant, in my red dress and my beautiful bowl cut, I ran up to the stage, where last year I had sat so proudly, and tried to wrest the Plastic Jesus out of the new Mary's hands.

Except, I was kneeling over the open vent, and the air coming up blew my red dress up, so that there I was, in a life or death battle over the ownership of the coveted creepy Plastic Jesus... effectively mooning the entire congregation.

Labels: Suitcase of Memories

I haven't played the Game of Life since 1997 when Mellers and I used to gather in my Nan's nightmarish red-carpeted basement, but there was a time when it was my favourite game. (These days my favourite game involves an old school Nintendo and irritating overusage of the Power Glove line from The Wizard. Also, lest we forget, a whole wealth of MS-DOS games of which Hero's Quest is like pixellated gold.)

I used to always hope for the Victorian House, and my preferred career was as an Artist who was paid $100,000. I was constantly hoping to land on the twins square, so I could have twin girls who would have blonde hair and blue eyes. One twin, Elizabeth would like books. She'd be introverted and shy, but really smart, which is something that her boyfriend since middle school, Todd or Tom or something would really appreciate. The other twin, Jessica, would be more extroverted. She'd enjoy parties and help her sister solve the mystery of the magic pen at summer camp.

For those of you who live under a rock and don't know what the Game of Life is, your gamepiece is a little plastic car which you drive throughout the game pieces, collecting money for retirement and gathering life experiences as you go. Like... discovering a new planet, helping out at the Special Olympics or discovering that the black abysmal pit of your soul has been lying all this time. You really don't like AFI. Underneath it all, you secretly learn to scream Wouldn't It Be Nice in a car while driving down the highway, possibly on your way to see Step Up, paying really close attention so you can emulate all the dance moves in your living room later while wearing a sparkling gold leotard and copious amounts of face glitter.

Finding out what my eventual future might be was my favourite part. This time around I was a Salesperson with a $100,000 salary who lived in a mobile home. I like to think that this is because I was attempting to cover up for the fact that I was secretly embezzling funds from Walmart and using them to pay for mafia dealings in Western Europe, as I was the Top Secret Leader of an underground mafia family. ... Of ... of angry Canadians.

When we opened the box we also discovered that... I had made cards of my own way back in 1997. These homemade cards were entitled "Husband Cards", and you could have your choice of one of four super awesome spouses: Steve Urkel, Michael Jackson, Eric Von Detten (this was Mellers' request) or .... Leonardo DiCaprio... accompanied by a poem.

Even though this kills me a little inside, here is that poem:

"Leo, Leo you're so fine
No one can have you
'Cause honey, you're mine!"

Followed by a bunch of lines of "Mmmmm LEO.", like he was a delicious snack cake whose insides were made of Tigerbeat and J-14, with a smattering of fact sheets listing his favourite colour and how his favourite aquatic creatures were dolphins.

Labels: Suitcase of Memories

The house is a disaster. My mom's packing, going through boxes left over from when my dad moved from Schreiber, and I'm moving out today. (Or at least moving the biggest stuff, thanks to Paul!!!)

Last night we found a big box full of photographs -- most of which I haven't seen since I was small, spanning some of the best years of the 80s, and featuring an alarming amount of camel toes.

Labels: Suitcase of Memories

If I were in charge of the world,
I'd cancel death and dentists,
Big fat brothers and also,
Bradley Sovereign.

If I were in charge of the world,
There'd be very, very short winters,
More puppies and cats and
More gym classes then french classes and math classes.

If I were in charge of the world,
You wouldn't have Bored,
You wouldn't have Stupid,
You wouldn't have Mosquitos,
Or "Don't be late for the dentist"
You wouldn't even have dentists.

If I were in charge of the world,
There would be way, way bigger malls, and bigger ice cream sundaes,
All rated movies would be parent approved
And a person who sometimes forgot to listen to her mother,
And sometimes liked to kick her brother,
Would still be allowed to be in charge of the world.

- Me, Grade Four

Labels: Suitcase of Memories

Thank you, Patrick Swayze. Your lyrics make me feel all warm and loved inside. She's like the wind. Through my tree. I don't know how you thought of coupling your words together like that. You truly have a gift. Thank you for sharing your gift of song with the talentless people of the world. "Through my tree." GOD HAS TRULY BLESSED YOU WITH RADICALLY AWESOME LYRIC CREATION.

So this weekend I went to Schreiber with Sarah E and Brad. Sarah E and I went through all of my old stuff. I learned some things I'd forgotten about myself as a child. For instance, I was a huge loser who lived mainly in a fantasy world. We went through roughly five boxes of my childhood writings. All of these writings reinforced my idea that I was born to blog, because if I didn't have all y'all to tell every mundane detail of my life to I might have to resort back to writing letters to fictitious characters I made up in my head.

Case in point, my letter to Melissa Edwards. She was a character in a novel I wrote back in Grade Five / Six. Dear Melissa, the letter began, I have horrible news. Aunt Madeline has been murdered most foully! I believe you are the only one who truly knows why this terrible misfortune has befallen dear Aunt Madeline, and I can only surmise that you should have let others know the awful secret that you have been keeping for her for years, the one that ultimately lead to her ghoulish murder! ... and it goes on in that vein for some time, never revealing what the horrible secret is.

I wrote all the time when I was a kid. I have notebooks piled with all of my writings -- fairy tales, murder mysteries, ghost stories where I took many, many paragraphs to describe interesting tidbits like what the flesh looked like peeling off the ghosts ethereal form. I wrote tons of letters I never sent to people, most of the time letting my pure dork shine through on paper. For fun, sometimes, I'd make my own boardgames. The most hilarious being a game dedicated to Elizabeth Simcoe, a diarist who traveled around Canada in the late 1700's. Elizabeth Simcoe, seriously. How bloody obscure.

Because my parents are moving I'm getting their old World Book Encyclopedia set. I am so excited you just don't even know. When I was a kid I'd get absolutely fascinated with certain people / historic periods / places and I'd research them. I'd take the information I learned and I'd put them into journals, adding photographs, illustrations and references. I was endlessly enamoured with Anne Boleyn, the Bloody Mary urban legend, Greek and Norse mythology, dragons, Elvis Presley, the Condor, Italy and the Tasmanian Tiger. Aka, I was a HUGE DORK.


And this was all pre-Internet, so everything I learned I learned via libraries and the World Book Encyclopedias. Among the written treasures there were also half-finished novels. I wrote a short novella in the style of a castaway's journal -- a castaway who somehow found the means on her small island to build a mansion. When the ship came to take her away she decided she didn't want to go, and lived the rest of her days in island solitude. I also found the short play I wrote for my Grade Eight class. I couldn't even read it. Honestly. I don't think I'll ever live that particular embarrassment down, especially considering I got up on stage, promptly forgot my own lines and froze completely. RUINING THE LIFE OF ALL DRAMA LOVING GRADE EIGHT'S EVERYWHERE.

I actually got rid of a large portion of stuff -- there is just no place to put the entire bulk of writings and exceteras I collected over a decade plus. Of some of the exciting stuff I did find, however: the Joey McIntyre doll I must have stolen from Mel back when we were ten, (Sorry Mel, you were right all these years.) green slippers knitted by my Grandma, two books given to me by my Grandma (Jane Eyre and Little Women; I seriously think Jo March and I lived on the same damn wavelength.) and a letter written to me by my Grandfather five days before my Grandma died. "We both send our love," he wrote, "and I'm hoping Grandma can come home for part of the time soon. I think she's getting better." Saddest thing ever.

(I also have further adventures to discuss, but this entry is long enough so will write them later. You will love them. The whole seemingly random Patrick Swayze reference will make sense, as well.)

Labels: Suitcase of Memories