Last night a DJ shaved my wife.

Seven months ago I volunteered to participate in a drug study at CAMH. It looked at the effect of genetics on anxiety and mood disorders.
Now the chemicals in my brain are returning slowly to their normal levels, and I feel like robot girl, learning how to manage her emotions for the first time.
I hadn't realized how much the treatment dampened my feelings. I did feel a little robotic occasionally, but in general I felt calmer and more logical. Like a Vulcan, but friendlier and without the ears and the sweet-ass nerve pinch...
Lately I've felt like a superball in a room full of kids who just ate birthday cake.
Here's hoping that things level off soon.

The Ballbuster.

I was a craigslist addict at one time. An apartment, a job, a free menorah, a terrible date and two rats later I've calmed down a bit.

Although I no longer consider myself addicted, I still check the site every few days for cool free stuff and activity ideas. I noticed that one of my favourite posters from the past, let's call him 'BB', was still posting. He posts in the 'strictly platonic' section, offering 200 dollars for 30 minutes worth of ball-kicking.
Let's call it Testetorture.

I wondered whether or not I was the kind of person he was looking for.
I like money. I like trying new things. I like feeling broad-minded and sensible, even if it is in an unconventional way.
I especially like surprising the people that know me.
I toyed with the idea of being dominant, of reversing gender roles. I pictured a brief, clinical brush with someone else's outsider fetish, and imagined myself as a distanced participant, able to coolly report on the experience.
I wrote him, and asked him a few questions.
Yes, I could bring someone with me. Anyone I wanted.
No, there was no sex involved.
Yes, there was a safe word to prevent him from being injured.
No, he didn't require any special script or costume for the scenario.
Yes, he had done it before, often.
For about an hour, I thought about doing it.
And then I decided against it.
I'm comfortable enough to inquire, curious enough to try to figure out what it might mean, but creeped out enough to politely decline.

Nobody Ever Tells You That it's Fun to Try

Do you remember Mag Ruffman?
She hosted a home repair show on the women's television network. I watched it as a tween, and was a little confused by it.
She was a funny, attractive woman who encouraged her viewers not to be afraid of tackling tasks around the house. She presented the repairs with detailed instructions, but added personal stories and jokes and introduced you to some of the people in her life. She made a few mistakes, and laughed at them or showed you how to hide them.
At the end of each show was a small segment in which she would get personal. The camera lens was misty and the setting romantic (either a bedroom or bathroom, I think) and she would assess her achievements in a jokey, flirty way. She might even have been eating candy or drinking champagne.
I remembered her while trying to fix the kitchen faucet this afternoon. I remember admiring her, but being puzzled at the sexy edges of her show. Was it an expression of her personality? A cute gimmick to add spice to a conventionally dry show format?
An attempt to glam up do-it-yourself to make it more attractive to women?
I find myself tackling minor repairs and adjustments in my life lately, and it's very satisfying. I realize how easy it would be to become totally engrossed in discovering how everything around me works. This seems to be an emerging theme with me. Sewing, silkscreening, knitting, computer basics, solo travel, basic repair/construction, all things that used to seem boring, frightening or impossible to me, now give me a great sense of control over my life.
Trying is my new hobby.

Tourist in Toronto - Mount Pleasant

On on of my last holiday free days, I decided to visit Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. I'm rarely in that neighborhood, but have always seen it through the windows while on the subway. I'd heard that the Eaton family and Glen Gould were buried there, and that the mausoleums were large and decorative.

Edie and I had some trouble navigating the wet, thawing snow.
Other than a few joggers and a few hundred squirrels, we had the run of the place. It was wonderfully quiet and not at all spooky. We could hear the water dripping off of the trees and our footsteps.



This gentleman, for some reason, felt the need to put a giant dollar sign in the middle of his giant cross headstone.

Tasteful!

After a bit of time checking out the grounds, chapel, and crematorium, and getting briefly lost, we headed to Mt. Pleasant Ave. to get some food and check out a toy train store.


Because of my interest in little people and tiny towns, I'd called a few stores to see if I could find a source for tiny plastic figures.
George's Trains seemed like a good place to look, and look I would have if the store weren't closed on Mondays. Instead, I had to be satisfied with the display in the window. Here is one cool scene:

The man has been pulled over and is being frisked by a policeman.

Next:
By the watertower, a spirited funeral is underway. Some of the mourners appear to be dancing .Or are they mourning...with gusto?



On the way home, we found a doll-house store. Yes, there are whole stores for doll houses and their accessories. Cans of Campbell's soup the size of a thumbtack, complete decks of playing cards, perfectly detailed pencils the just wider than a pin, and tiny, fake dinner and dessert spreads.

This photo of a kitchen set is the only picture I was able to sneak while being watched by the preoccupied staff. It must be difficult to work in a store where things are tiny and so easily stolen.




No, I didn't steal anything. I bought a pack of photographs.

Juno/Blueberry Girls

I woke up this morning intending to write a little bit about the film Juno, which I saw last night. But I got seriously sidetracked. While looking for a nice, pregnant belly picture for this post, I discovered that there are people out there with a body inflation fetish. I'm going to try to discuss this based on what info I was able to cobble together...
This community (and I think it's a small one) seems to be divided into a few sections. There is the hardcore body-modification set, who fill the area under their skin temporarily with saline or gas. You can look for pictures of this yourself.
There are the huge breast/huge belly fetishists who appreciate breast enlargement, pregnancy, and fake inflation (with some sort of suit, I assume).
And there is a group of people who seem to be into the more imaginary side of the fetish, morphing already existing images to make them appear inflated and drawing/appreciating inflation images in comics and culture. Right now I can't decide whether to be disturbed or amused. It seems to be the pleasure of watching a woman be overwhelmed by her sexuality, watching her helplessly become nothing but a pair of breasts and a belly. It's sometimes implied that she enjoys this, and has a need to be relieved of her juicy burden.
Now I've filled most of a page with inflation talk. I wanted to say that Juno was a great movie. Well cast, nicely shot, great soundtrack, reminiscent of Wes Anderson's films. I was a bit uncomfortable with the passive role that Michael Cera's character played in the whole pregnancy, but the film got me into a great discussion with my friend Edie about babies, goals, and what it means to be ready to have a child.
Onward to blueberry pancakes.

Tourist in Toronto - Pacific Mall

Work was kind enough to give us a week off, and I wasn't able to schedule a vacation for this week. So I thought I'd try to visit some places in Toronto that I've never been to. Some are not easy to get to, and some I've just not had the chance to visit. Yesterday I got the opportunity to go to the Pacific Mall, 'North America's Largest Indoor Asian Mall'. So on a day when I woke up planning to clean the apartment and rid my life of some clutter, I found myself visiting kawaii-mecca. The mall is full of electronics, anime and car hobby stalls, beauty products, clothes and imported food, and places selling all of that cute, useless stuff that I find it impossible to resist. I think I did pretty well. I came away with a few things, none of them especially useful, but at least...they're small. Two of my purchases were edible: a red bean/green tea kitkat and a perfect little french-style green tea white chocolate cake.
I picked up a Studio Ghibli Dvd with a few films on it, and some keychain/cel phone accessories. One of them is a character called Aokubi Daikon, who is a Daikon who runs away from home when he realizes he's about to be eaten.
Charming.
The coolest thing that I saw was a collection of metal palm-sized international airplanes, which you could assemble and set up at an airport, complete with tiny landing strip employees. The weirdest thing I saw were the sexy plastic dreamgirl statuettes, styles tailored to your preference, complete with tan-lines, stray hairs and pouty, sexy facial expressions.
Now that I've had my tea, and the Rats have had theirs, time to get on with reality.