Prompted by my unemployment: I may begin operating on vampire time when gathering groceries from Jim Pattison’s Pantry. It’s not that I’m intimidated by my celery stalker: I find her insufferable to such an extent that I’m willing to go out in weather like this under the cover of night to avoid interacting with her:
I HAVE A PASSION FOR AVOIDING PEOPLE.
Continue reading “There’s even an emoji for that: 💯”It’s only been a day since I last posted, and already it’s time to gather around the campfire for another tale brimming with Y2K references.
Submitted for the approval of The Midnight Society, I call this story…
The Tale of the Celery Stalker
*tosses Coffeemate, aka midnight dust, in the fire*
Continue reading “Are You Afraid of Seinfeld?”Effective today, I am an unemployed bum without a bum.
Two weeks ago, the boss sent an email to all mechanics asking if any of us were interested in a seasonal layoff. The selling point was that we’d be eligible for employment insurance. Around this time of the year last year, I was working ~20 hours a week. I often came into the shop to do something other than fix bikes, such as organizing the nuts and bolts in the tiny drawers: it was bleak. Why have a repeat of that?
Before booking it from the shop, I made the boss pinky swear to rehire me in four months. He had a splinter on one pinky finger, but the other one still had loyalty coursing through it. Our right pinkies intertwined, manifesting an unbreakable contract.
I have a long list of arts and crafts projects I want to do. This sabbatical should give me the time to build a toddler, ie. learn how to crochet, finish sewing my first pair of pants before it’s shorts weather again, and tone up my glutes.
I spent almost the entire summer wearing shorts with an elastic waistband, thus postponing the realization that I’d lost weight. This has bumped up my power-to-weight ratio and also robbed me of whatever butt I had.
There’s very little meat on these bones.
Continue reading “The door hasn’t closed.”Once upon a bright and sunny day in 2018, Yann and I found ourselves before the door of a residential building in Arles-sur-Tech, France. I had the key — previously hidden behind the green shutters of the window to the right —in my hand. I had yet to meet the person to whom this lodging belonged. This stranger had hung the black Reynaud-Bray tote I’d abandoned at the Toulouse-Blagnac airport a few days earlier off the doorknob to make it easy for Yann and me to know which place to rob.
In a conversation with a friend about “the good old days”, I recalled the dopamine hit I’d experience when my second grade teacher hot glued a strip of satin cord diagonally to a sheet of paper to denote I’d hit my reading goal for the month. Complete all ten months, and I’d have all the colours in the rainbow (plus two?). To little Laura, this was the equivalent of getting paid to do something I already loved to do.
Now we’re mostly chasing something intangible: a digital symbol, whether it comes in the form of a star, heart, thumbs up, or an up arrow. We wait for these digital symbols to be transmitted via our little $800 rectangle screen.
My latest ride, uploaded to Strava, titled “Gathering of Juggalos” (alternative title: Burger’s Wienerfest), has received six Kudos so far. That’s six thumbs up: that’s four more thumbs up than I’m able to give myself. My incentive for this ride, though, was to be surrounded by the flesh versions of those kudos-givers. I activated Gracious Guest mode and toted a few cans of Bubly, chips, and popcorn (because Alexa isn’t a “chip guy” guy) to Burger’s trailer, just off the Lochside Trail. Burger was BBQing tubular meat and soy for those who spent their day for Truth and Reconciliation on their bikes. I rolled into the lot wearing a red nose, which was given to me by the roomie’s lady, who often keeps one on hand.
HELLO FELLOW JUGGALOS.
⭐❤️👍⬆️
Continue reading “Chasing that happy medium.”
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