life

I hate my stuff

by heather anne14 Comments on I hate my stuff

I was sitting here just now looking around my house and realising.. I have a lot of stuff.

No, not stuff. Crap.

Useless crap.

I hate it all. Everything I own. Sometimes I think about how liberating it would feel if I only just collected it all, brought it outside, and had a magnificent bonfire. Let the memories burn away with the flames.

Occasionally I try to purge my life of unnecessary belongings which I feel are slowly throttling me, and as I go through it thoughts like ‘oh I can’t get rid of that, that’s when yada bla bla happened.’ Or ‘wow that’s such a great little trinket from when I went on that trip that one time.  I should keep it, better let it sit neglected in this dark box for another few years.’

I mean it’s getting ridiculous. I have clothes I haven’t worn in years, clothes I bought and never wore, trinkets from elementary school, and tons of books. Books from uni, books I read as a kid, books I hate, books I still have to read, cookbooks. There are binders, boxes, cables, wires for ancient computers, plugs for phones I don’t use anymore, phones I don’t use anymore.. I could go on. But you get the point.

Part of it is I don’t know what to do about certain things. Like wires and phones. What the hell do you do with them? I don’t want to just throw them out. I think there’s a way to recycle them, but I don’t know where or how. I’m too lazy to look into the matter so I just think I’ll do it later.

The worst is the sentimental things. I have a cardigan that my grandmother bought me when I was 11.. I am in my 20s now. I have always hated this cardigan and have never once worn it (sorry, Grandma. RIP.) Every time I think I should donate it I feel  this overwhelming sensation of guilt. Like my Grandma will somehow manage to be sad even though she’s been gone for years.

And I have a Furby. That’s right, a Furby.

If you don’t know what that looks like go ahead and google it. It’s one of those hideous little talking toys from way back in the day (although I think they have since made a comeback.) Every time I look at its stupid face I wonder why it’s there yet I never get rid of it. Annoyingly it still works, and every now and then someone accidentally tips it over and you hear it waking up, making its yawning noises, and asking to play. This happened the other day when my boyfriend stumbled upon it. I yelled out Noooooooooooo! very dramatically because once it wakes up it takes FOREVER to put back to sleep. My dogs started barking because of course they don’t understand what could possibly be making such inane sounds. I ended up sitting there for countless minutes like a pathetic minion holding my hand over the Furby’s light sensor so that it would sleep and shut up. All the while my dogs are barking their heads off and the Furby is singing “lalalalalala” to itself and wiggling its dumb ears up and down. I mean it’s been a while since I was in the 6-9 year old demographic. HOW HAVE YOU BEWITCHED ME, FURBY?!

I am moving in a month and a half, and when I go I want to go with a clean slate. I don’t want to bring all this baggage along with me. I am cluttered to the core.  So over the next couple of weeks I am going to have to learn to be brutal with my possessions. Even the thought that I won’t have any of this crap around anymore makes me feel lighter somehow. I don’t need things to keep memories, I should just write down the important ones instead of keeping them around in the form of stuff that piles up around me. I should learn to be a minimalist.

How do you deal with your excess stuff?

life, nonsense

The argumentative barista

by heather anne20 Comments on The argumentative barista

I had an interesting, and indeed, mind-baffling encounter with a barista at Starbucks today. I know what you’re thinking… how could an interaction with a barista possibly be considered mind-baffling? Surely you exaggerate!

And I’ll concede, my story doesn’t relate the experience of witnessing a dinosaur ordering a mocha, which would be absolutely amazing. Or anything else equally outrageous. But it is right up there. Let me tell you.

It starts innocently enough, I’m waiting in a stupidly long line brimming with other coffee-addicts also willing to drop five hard earned dollars on mediocre (let’s be honest) coffee. As I wait amongst the well organised herd, I pretend that this moment isn’t a complete waste of time by fiddling around on my phone checking all my very important non-emails. I inch closer and closer to the front of the line until finally I hear someone say they can take my order.

I’m at the university Starbucks, so I know I better keep it simple. They have a very hard time maintaining their attention spans long enough to make drinks correctly there. You’re lucky if you get someone who actually reads the letters on the bottom of the cup, usually it’s like playing the coffee lottery. Sometimes you win, but usually you lose.

“I’ll have a green tea latte, please. With soy.”

She proceeds to write that down and then passes the cup to the bar. Now I cross my fingers and hope for the best.

An irrationally long period of time passes which I feel will never end. I stand at the end of the bar awaiting my drink with at least ten other saps. All of us have been sucked into the void that is this university Starbucks, and it’ll be a miracle if we get our drinks before we’re dead. I see seven or eight barely-past-their-teens employees giggling away like little school girls, oblivious to the drink orders piling up and doing NOTHING. I wonder how this place stays in business with employees who don’t do anything, and hate myself for continuing to return day after day. Following that I cry a little inside when I realise that another twenty minutes of my life has been frittered away here in coffee hell, and I imagine I must look like some sort of doll devoid of substance to the passers-by who still have lives. Pity me, humans, for my life no longer has meaning.

But finally the light at the tunnel, and the reason why I’m suckered into coming back– my drink is called and placed out for me.

I walk over like a hopeful squirrel, and am thoroughly disappointed when I stare into my cup and see that it has been made wrong, yet again. I’ve been presented with a cup of steamed milk without any green tea in it whatsoever.

Sigh. I catch the attention of the barista who made my drink.

“I’m sorry, I ordered a green tea latte,” I say.

“That IS a green tea latte,” she replies in annoyance.

I let her tone pass, and continue.

“You forgot to put green tea in it, I’m afraid.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. This is just a cup of steamed soy milk.”

“Look, I know how I made the drink,” she says incredulous. “It’s a green tea.”

Fucking bullshit, I think.

“No, no” I say aloud, and rather irritated. “This drink would need to be a different colour to be correct. Green to be specific.”

Finally she takes the half second required to glance into my drink, and see despairingly that I’m right.

“Oh” she says simply. Not even an ounce of humour in her voice. “Well, what? You want me to remake it, I guess?”

You guess? Damn right you better remake that shit.

“Yes, if you don’t mind.”

She then proceeds to very dramatically pour the contents of the steamed milk out and then sighs as she gets started making the drink once more. Heaven forbid someone demand the drink they spent five dollars on. You’d think she wasn’t getting paid to do it, like I had asked her to give me her firstborn to sacrifice.

The worst part is I know I’ll go there again. Never learning, and doomed to repeat the same mistake over and over again in pursuit of green tea lattes.

life

Winter again

by heather anne1 Comment on Winter again

This was the view from my window this morning..

WinterI could hardly see anything when I drove into work today.. the road conditions are so bad. I passed at least seven or eight cars in the ditch, and when I finally arrived safely at work I had to shovel the front walk so that customers could get to the door. Not that there are many people braving the weather today (smartly).

Yesterday was warm and there was no snow at all. I guess this is about right for March in Calgary.

and it’s still snowing…

life, nonsense

I blame the mac

by heather anneLeave a Comment on I blame the mac

This past Thursday I had a test (all short/long answer questions) for one of my uni classes which had to be completed in the lab within a one hour time constraint. The class is scheduled to be, and usually always lasts,  for 1 1/2 hours. Why we were only allowed one hour to complete it is utterly beyond me… but anyway.

I show up to class (an achievement) early (another achievement) because I am ready to write this stupid thing and pass the crap out of it. My mindset was good, I was feeling the lure of a passing grade that morning. In fact I was in such a positive mindset that I could have barfed up some optimism and still had enough left over to be slightly obnoxious.

I studied for this test. So hard. Okay, that was a lie. I studied a little. And by a little I mean the absolute-last-minute-morning-of-the-test kind of studying. But I still knew enough about the material to wing it and do reasonably well. By my wager I had just the right amount of knowledge to pull off a nice B and feel relaxed about it.

So I’m sitting there in the lab, early, ready to go and thinking yeah, I can do this. I can pass this test! My god it’s an achievable thing. Just believe, just believe! I look to the prof in mildly tense anticipation waiting for her to give the okay to click the START TEST button. When at last she gives us all the go ahead I take a deep breath, and click. The questions pop up, and as I read through them an immense flood of relief washes over me because I know most of the answers. By some miracle, I have been given the knowledge to succeed. I sat there and thought thank you, universe! I love you.

Well let me tell you, that appreciation got me NOWHERE, and the promise of optimism is nothing but a facade to set you up for disappointment… I may be exaggerating a little here. But disappointingly..

I failed the test. Not because I didn’t know the answers, for I surely knew enough of them to pass. So how then did I fall short of success? Well…

I had to use a mac to do it.

That’s right, I am BLAMING the mac for my failure of this test. If the mac were a child I would send it to sit in the corner, or make it stand shamefully beneath a dunce cap for its ridiculous behaviour. I would even let the other kids tease it. I mean imagine my annoyance. I woke up early to read and study things I don’t care about in order to pass a test, and because of the mac, I failed anyway. Thanks a lot, apple inc!

Now before you think I’m trying to justify my failures by blaming apple products, allow me to explain. I have never had any unreasonable distaste for pretty laptops and snazzy products. I am not one of these anti-mac people who hate everything apple. I even have an ipod. So you know my grievances must be legitimate.

Before this test I had never operated a mac computer for longer than twenty seconds. I don’t even know how to describe what went wrong except that my test window disappeared, random useless windows APpeared, I couldn’t right click, I didn’t know where the minimize and maximize buttons were, random things popped up when I pushed certain buttons that wouldn’t go away, and on, and on. It was absolutely the most ridiculous thing ever. And the worst part is, I started getting so FRUSTRATED. I was fuming. I wanted to throw the keyboard across the room. Several times I imagined myself screaming aloud in unbridled  rage WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT! and then grabbing my stuff and stomping out of the room like some sort of crazy child having a temper tantrum. I was so mad it was comical, because no matter what I did I could not figure out how to make it function properly, like a PC.

This was me at the end of this horrific mac experience:

By the time the test was over I had only managed to complete maybe half the questions, and not even the important ones worth the most marks. When the prof walked by and kindly asked me if I had finished, I smiled bitterly and said “For better or for worse, emphasis on the worse.” And then I imagined burning the lab down so that I would have my vengeance against the computer that damned my grade.

I’m considering blaming apple products for all of my life problems in the future. It feels good.