about me!

All of this is completely true.

I was born in a brick hospital in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I was raised in Burnaby, a biggish suburb, then grew my brain young and drunk and poetic in East Vancouver for a time.

As a kid, I listened to opera and Lawrence Welk until, at age 9, I discovered there were other stations on the radio. I became obsessed with the daily showdown between Olivia Newton John’s “Heart Attack” and whatever was challenging it. The first cassette tape I bought was Olivia Newton John’s Greatest Hits. I almost bought Laura Branigan’s self-titled album. I still, when asked, will state that I want to be a rock star when I grow up. I also want my own radio station.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning with “Xanadu” in my head and it is impossible to shake free. More often I wake up in the morning with “Spanish Flea.”

Often I rhyme unintentionally. I used to write a lot of rhyming poetry.

In the summer between grade 5 and 6 I grew 8 inches straight up. I also grew pimples and a dry, rasping wit.

In grade 7 my teacher told me my sense of humour was one of my greatest qualities. At the time it felt like a back-handed compliment because in grade 7 what I wanted most of all was to be beautiful. My grade 7 teacher tried to convince me that math is beautiful. I think people who understand math are beautiful.

I really am bad at math, I’m not just pretending so the boys will like me. The worst day of my university career was the day I learned I would have to take – and pass – Quantitative Methods of Political Analysis to earn my degree. The second worst day was when someone translated the course title and told me it was really Statistics. The word statistics makes me itch.

I am often itchy.

My father used to work for a food manufacturer and would bring home cases of slightly dented cans of food at a deeply discounted price. I quickly became addicted to the canned chili – shortly thereafter my father retired. I ate chili from a can for the first 6 years that I lived on my own. I had to fund my habit by selling fingernail-clipping mosaics on e-bay. Note: The best way to eat chili from a can is with two layers of cheese (grate madly, stir it in, grate madly) and as many tortilla chips as you can handle. I can make delicious chili from a can in 3 minutes no matter what time of day, how dark it is or how many beers I have consumed.

I like ducks a lot because they exist purely for the purpose of entertainment. What the hell else does a duck do? Clean the world of its stray breadcrumbs? I like squirrels because they keep busy and don’t waste time complaining. If they forget where the nuts are, BAM they just go looking. They don’t stand around whining that they have no nuts. This mix of efficiency and entertainment would also be an accurate way of summing up my brain, if you were going to do so.

I don’t like Nickelback or any of the bands who sound like Nickelback. People who don’t signal when they’re driving used to really piss me off but now that I don’t drive as much, people who don’t think pedestrians count as humans really piss me off. I still remember what it’s like to drive so if it’s convenient for you to turn in front of me even though I have the right of way, I’ll let you go. You’re welcome. One of these days, the people who don’t keep to the right on the sidewalk are going to feel my wrath and it will feel like itsy, bitsy needles poking into their non-peripheral-vision eyes. You can’t all be from the UK.

P. Diddy cracks me up! And I totally think he should get back together with J.Lo.

Here are the rules about white creamy foods: sweet ones are okay. Savoury ones are not so okay. Except for flavoured cream cheese.

I like cheese now but I used to hate it. I have never liked blue cheese because it is rotten. Same with yogurt. I thought I liked cheese too much so I tried to give it up for 3 weeks. That’s when I started th’cheeseblog. But then I started eating cheese again. But I kept writing in th’cheeseblog! But then I gave up cheese again. But then I started again. But re-naming th’cheeseblog would be too much like work.

I like shiny things. If we are walking down the street and suddenly you are walking alone it’s probably because I have stopped to stare at earrings in a store window or on a poor, hapless passer-by who is now struggling to free herself from my steel clutches.

My feet were size 10. Since carrying around 40 extra lbs of baby + etc. I am now a size 11. God help us all.

I remember things. Ironically, on account of my terrible math skills, a lot of the things I remember are numbers. I used to work in a place where numbers were associated with names and I still, when I hear certain numbers, think of peoples’ names. When I see people on the street that used to have numbers associated with them, I can still remember their numbers. I kick ASS at Concentration but am sort of hit and miss with Trivial Pursuit.

My lucky number is 9 but my favourite number is 17.

My favourite colour has always been purple but I think that there’s a fair bit of orange in me clawing its way out.

I am legally partnered with Saint Aardvark the Carpeted. He is both the uber and the leet at our house.

On July 1, 2006, our son, Trombone was born. In Canada, this is a holiday. I feel giddy sometimes, knowing my son will always have a long weekend for his birthday. Next to life, I think that is the greatest gift a mother can give her child. You can read the gory details of his birth here.

Our second child, Fresco, was born April 20, 2008. This makes him a Taurus, but just barely. His birth was pretty unremarkable but I still wrote it up because I am losing brain cells by the minute looking after a toddler and a baby and who knows what I’ll be able to remember in a few years.

We also have a catt. His name is Seamus. We haven’t taken a picture of him in 2 years.

Someday, he will die. And then I’ll get the dog I’ve always wanted.

email me, if you like, at torturedpotato at gmail dot com. I like mail.

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