SPEAK! as IF! Every! Other! SYLlable! WAS! of DIRE! ImPORTance!”

My costume today was fun! I dressed as Captain Kirk. Much like any other time you see Captain Kirk, my costume was a rerun. I say this because 15 years ago (the last time I dressed up for Halloween) I was Captain Kirk as well. Much like the real Captain, in my first appearance in the uniform I was thin and fit, but now in later years I have a bit of a paunch, and much bigger boobs.

One fun thing about costumes is that you can role-play a little bit if you like. Most of the day I just sat in my office being a mild mannered computer programmer, but then I left the office to go to the bathroom... I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and suddenly I was no longer Sarah J. M. - I was Captain James T. Kirk! I walked through that bathroom like it was the bridge of the Enterprise, and then I sat down on the captain's chair and fired off a couple photon torpedoes.
(Oh wow, just forget you read that)

I thought it was weird that even though Halloween falls on a work day next week, today was the day people wore costumes to work. I realized why a little later on, and it was because being filled with Halloween spirit is one thing, but also being filled with the Friday-afternoon-last-day-of-work spirit means that many of us who went to the office park's Halloween party decided it was more than appropriate to have a long island iced tea and a jello shooter.

I had plans to go visit Jenn tonight so I left the Halloween party early. The party was at Boffin's Club in Innovation Place, which has an exit right into an otherwise average looking office building hallway. I stepped out of the noisy club into the near silence of the hallway, and someone in a white jacket came out a few seconds later. I was about to walk through a set of double doors when the man behind me said "So what rank are you on the Enterprise?" I turned around and said "Captain" in a saucy voice. He said "Impressive!" Then I turned back to the double doors. The hallway on the other side was very dark, so I thought it might be locked. I pushed both doors but neither would budge. I pushed one more time for good measure and then I gave up and turned around. White jacket man stepped up beside me and pulled on the handle and the door opened easily. He laughed a little bit when he said, "After you Cap'n."

Ride 'em Shopping Cart.

I went to Superstore today and it was wall-to-wall people in there. Everybody tells me it is cheaper than Sobey's and Safeway, but I still spent $80. Maybe I saved $5.00 here and there but considering that I was in line for half an hour, I'd gladly have paid five bucks to have skipped that wait. One thing that I am glad I was there for was a guy I nearly ran into somewhere near the corner of socks and winter gloves.

I just put some socks into my basket and I rounded the corner into a wider aisle when suddenly out of nowhere this guy whizzed past me, wheeling by on a shopping cart. He was leaning over the handle while standing with one foot on the bar down near the wheels. His other foot was on the ground pushing him forward like he was riding a giant skateboard with a metal basket on the front. It is probably pretty typical behaviour for a 10 year old, except that this guy looked about 70.

He was gone in seconds, but I ran into him again a few minutes later - or more accurately he nearly ran into me. I was just browsing along and suddenly he skidded to a stop beside me to look at chicken breasts. I said, "That was some pretty fancy driving." He nodded and said, "Thank you, thank you... " he paused for a second to catch his breath and said, "I normally don't think much of what I see teenagers doing, but when I walked in I saw one riding his shopping cart around and I thought that was a guy who knew what he was doing." He picked up a package of boneless skinless breasts and looked it over, then added, "Not bad exercise either." With that he put the chicken in his cart and rode off into the dairy section.

October Winter Morning

I had a great sleep. I went to bed at 9:30 and except for one support call I slept all the way through the night - I also slept all the way through the snow. I woke up this morning to hear wind howling so I peeked outside to see what it looked like and all I saw was white.

We didn't get much, but what we did get must have melted for a while and then froze by morning. The roads were not just icy, they were ice.

We are pretty good at driving in snow and ice around here, but the first snow always makes us cautious. Even if we do have traction there is something about the first snow that brings out the good driver in all of us. This morning every one out on the road was driving on pure ice, and so we were all on our best behaviour - you have never seen such perfectly ordered lanes, people let people merge, everyone signalled, I saw several people waving their thank you's and you're welcome's and certainly nobody was speeding. All in all there were no problems that I could see - except that we were driving so slow my speedometer couldn't actually measure my speed.

This is the view from my windshield this morning at 8:30am -
the exact time I was supposed to be at work! By the time I got
to work my left leg was sore from constantly working the clutch.

Proper Sequence of Events

Being a transsexual and all I am always on the lookout for articles or videos that try to explain some of the differences between men and women. Most times whatever I may find is just interesting to me, but I have to treat what I found today more like a tutorial. All this time I've been going around doing things in the wrong order. Thank goodness this video is here to set me straight.

Incorrect Strategies

Written 9/24/2006

I had a date last night.
I said yes to an invitation to rent a movie. It was the third time I OK'd a date with this guy.

The first time I said yes we went for a noodle bowl. It didn't start well. He asked me what I like to do in my spare time. I said, "I think probably my favorite thing to do is to write in my blog." To this he interrupted with, "Oh I HATE blogs!" and then he carried on about what exactly makes blogs bad. Needless to say I wasn't impressed - I mean, I had just said that blogging was my favorite thing to do. Since then I didn't really talk to him much.

The second time I said yes he had asked me for coffee. I showed up at the appointed time and I ordered a peppermint steamer and I took a seat to wait for him. It's a good thing I had a book with me, because two chapters later my steamer was empty and so was the chair opposite. I just went home after that.

Late last week I said OK again. We were going to rent a movie. I wanted to watch The Grudge, so he brought it over. When he arrived... well... I hoped maybe third time'd be a charm, but it wasn't.

It is too bad he hates blogs. Otherwise he might have noticed that on mine it says that I am afraid of "smells, and situations with high smell potential". Armed with this knowledge maybe he wouldn't have brought a smell with him... in his armpits. I cannot emphasize how much I hate smells, so in this situation what could I do? Should I sit there and smell BO all night? I mean honestly, what other option is there but to shut up and put up with it? In the end I did what any smell-o-phobe in my situation would do - I sent him to the bathroom with a bar of soap and a washcloth. At the time I felt really bad over it, but now I think it's hilarious. I'm funny that way.

After he cleaned up we decided to play chess. When we started playing I was feeling apprehensive. Somehow the thought of a 'competition', even if it was in a board game was causing me anxiety. When I was a kid I played chess frequently, but even with all that practice I was afraid of looking stupid and losing badly. The game progressed fairly evenly, and I started to enjoy myself. When it ended I actually pulled off a win and I was feeling pretty good. He said he was really surprised that I had won the game, adding that women are not good at that sort of thing. He elaborated to say that young boys play strategy games, and girls play with dolls. To paraphrase, boys learn how to think logically and girls develop social skills. I was thinking this was an awfully outdated view to speak aloud, but even beyond the absurdity of the statement I was amazed that he didn't seem to remember that I used to BE a boy!

Sargon III on the Commodore 64
Eric and I kept track of hundreds of games played over
the years, but we always kept track in our heads, so we
always 'remembered' that the other was behind in wins.

It is interesting how it was presented that logical thinking and social skills were unrelated in the realm of human behaviour. He may be right. I know that as a kid I certainly spent a lot more time with a chess set than with dolls. I show questionable social skills all the time, but at least I won all three games of chess last night. Maybe he was just poor at chess, I don't know. I do know that I had made three dates with this same man, and it seems like his game was weak in that area too. Logical thinking and demonstrating social skills may be unrelated abilities, but when it comes to dating you need both. No matter how logical and strategic you may be, to date without social skills is like playing chess without the queen.

Walk with Heather 2 Weeks ago

Rolling Eyes and Cars

Sometimes my mom says things that make me roll my eyes. It is something I learned to do when I was 12, and it has been habit ever since. This morning I was at my mom's house and my eyes were in mid-roll when suddenly they opened very wide.

I was on the couch reading the newspaper when Mom took a break from her ironing. She looked at the purse on the floor near me and said "Is that your purse?" I was wondering who else she thought might it belong to when she looked out the front window and said, "Is that your car?"

I didn't answer because I was too busy thinking 'of course its my purse' and 'of course its my car'. I didn't know why Mom was asking questions with such obvious answers. Maybe because I hadn't answered yet she asked again, but rephrased her last question to "Is that your car on the neighbour's lawn?"

I know that Mom's neighbours across the street also have a red Ford Focus but it is a different shade than mine. I have seen them park their mini-van on their lawn and I reasoned they just happened to park their Focus there this time. I stood up, started to roll my eyes and was about to ask mom why she thought I'd park on their lawn when I looked out the window...

It WAS my car on their lawn...

When I parked on Mom's driveway I guess I didn't put the brake on, so my car rolled down the driveway, across the street and onto the neighbours lawn.

I rushed outside and walked across the street to retrieve the car. I hoped nobody was watching, but the woman who lives there was standing guard just inside her screen door. As I walked towards her I hung my head in shame until I got close enough to speak. I said I was really sorry and she just smiled and said it was ok. Then her smile slightly diminished and she added that it could have been a lot worse. I decided to just leave it at that, so I unlocked my door and just before I got in I glanced back at her...

She was rolling her eyes at me!