Still with the coffee.

I feel like everyone's talking about coffee, I have javanoia. (I held the #1 score on freearcade's javanoid for three days back in college. That's pretty huge. :P ) Too much of it, needing it, not being able to have it, quitting it, replacing it with tea, making your own, or going out for some, it's all I hear about. Is coffee brain a side effect of the coffee challenge or is it caused by the start of roll up season? (it's the first day!)

I'm looking forward to another fun winless year. The satisfaction I get from never having won is far greater than that of winning.


"Tonight, in lip balm news: a night of gloss pots!" Glossator has gloss-à-tour de force. Ha.

WHAT did I tell you?

Look at the time of this post. Just do it. Look. One guess as to why I can't sleep.

Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee.

Standing in a dark shower this morning, I had a stupid idea flourish from an intense lack of sleep. Not being able to calculate how many minutes I had actually slept, and how many were spent tossing and turning, the only thing I wanted (apart from a working light in the bathroom), was coffee. Lots, oodles, and tons of coffee. Partly inspired by Fry's decision to drink 100 cups in 48hrs, and partly inspired by two parties who are temporarily or permanently unable to drink coffee, I decided to see how many cups I could drink in one day.


A small black greeted me at Tim Horton's this morning, and then I ordered coffee. Large black.


By 10:30a I was reaching for my second Large black. Since I couldn't leave the office, I caved for the good-til-the-last-drop instant coffee. Anything that calls itself instant coffee, but smells or tastes nothing like coffee, can't be called coffee!! No wonder nobody drinks this crap. The rancid smell and putrid taste made me want to barf-every-last-drop, but alas, it all stayed in.


At lunch time, Timothy's handed me a monster's Large.


Disappointedly not receiving the jitters after all that, I switched to black tea at 2:30p. You MUST let it steep long enough in order for all the sweet caffeine fairies to come out and play..


The cup magically replenished it's supply around 4ish. The stars I was seeing at the time made it impossible to see exactly where the clock hands were pointing, but a missed 4pm hotel cancellation policy made it pretty clear it was almost quittin' time.


I picked up another large on my way home, which almost instantly froze to my hand. Who knew -10 could feel like "B.S.it's only -10, it feels like -55 to me!" with the wind..


Anyway, now it's 7:14p, and I officially give up. As I realize I "don't like my coffee shaking", I put down my empty Second (more like 9th) Cup, and throw in the towel.


"Put the pot down! Get Away!"... I just remembered I brewed another 5 cups. What the hell was I thinking? Now I have the shakes, and when I envision sleep, I don't see it happening for another day and a half or so. Oh. I have a packed day of activities tomorrow?? Oh wow.


My bladder and my stomach are in trouble.. not to mention my mind. I don't think it can handle a processing speed faster than 300k/h, and we're already racing past viper speed.


Yes, thanks wiki for upping my paranoia level to new highs , and confirming the coffee demons are EVERYwhere. Viper is also the name of a heavily caffeinated drink.. help!

The longest gloss story ever told.

I remember my first lip gloss.. It was Bonne Bell Strawberry Banana flavored, and I had switched the cap with my friend’s shimmery raspberry flavor. Not long after that, my best friend had a lifetime supply of Chapstick, so naturally, I moved on to that more nourishing lip care. A year later after seeing adds for them in countless American teenage trash magazines, Softlips was being sold in Canada. I had to try this new gloss, as I was curious to see what was inside this ultra-feminine packaging.

I was never the ultra-feminine girly girl myself. I grew up in a big house with five older siblings, there was always a smarter, more artistic, more athletic, or more outgoing sibling than me. As they one by one left the nest, I learned to stop comparing myself to others and just be myself. As it turns out, I like me! I’m a good hearted common sensed person, and I certainly don’t fit any mold. I figured out pretty early on that there could be a perfect balance between all things girly and a tom boy personality. I do have a point here. Lipgloss. It’s a marvelous thing, and seems to me, that it too forms a perfect balance between femininity and boyishness. We all want soft and kissable lips. I mean that in its truest form. When’s the last time anyone wearing goopy lipstick got one of those everlasting major lip smacking? Don’t try to find an example of such a time; accept that it was unpleasant to some degree for the other party.

Back to Softlips. I tried and was instantly hooked. From that point on, my friend accused me of being a glossaholic. I was attracted to the feeling it gave my lips, the soft endless tingle of that menthol bite. I’ve been trying to find it in other glosses since, and here is where the obsession takes off. Over the years I’ve spent (probably too much) on many brand names, no names, flavors, sticks, gloss pots, tubes, wands, creams, waxes, and I have yet to find the perfect one for my lips. A conversation with a friend a few weeks ago motivated me to start testing them and charting the results in a Google spreadsheet format. I put the little guys up against the big guns, with surprising results. I’ve been looking for new ideas of everyone’s favorites however, as I can’t possibly have tried them all. I will eventually tabulate the results into a more refined glossahol chart. As I keep testing, I am constantly fine tuning my lips to recognize specific glossahol qualities and pick out the impostor’s faults.

These tests are a-là-Moi of course, not scientific tests. I figured if there can be a self taught Chocolate expert with the most refined pallet, why can’t there be a self taught glossahol expert. I shall call myself, a glossator, which seems disturbingly fitting. According to Webster’s: "Glossator is a (n.) writer of glosses or comments; a commentator." I realize glossahol is not an actual term, but as you’ll soon notice, I make up a lot of words. (M-cabulary) Besides, what else can lip goop be called? It comes in such a wide variety of formats, it's addictive, I must have it on me at all times, and can't sleep without it. That's enough qualities to be called glossahol for me.

I'm quite excited to hear that other people out there share the same love of the lip-tingle as I do. This applies to you Burt's Bees beeswas lip balm users. You love it, don't deny.

Look for gloss results to be posted in the upcoming weeks.

M-cabulary End note: Spanakopita is NOT one of my invented words. It’s “a traditional Greek pie of spinach, feta cheese, and seasonings baked in phyllo”. Dolmades’ spanakopita gets my seal of approval here in Ottawa. That says a lot, so try it, I recommend.

The de-virginization of my blog.

It’s cold. There’s no easy way to put it. It’s not minus a thousand today, but it’s still “nostrils freezing shut as soon as you breath in through your nose” cold. Yesterday was so terrible. I was wearing long johns, knee-high wool socks, pants, a camisole, a microfiber long sleeved shirt designed to keep me toasty, an angora and wool blend sweater, scarf, mittens, a hat, hood, and the best purchase of this year, my Burton jacket, .. and STILL I wanted to dive into a pit of lava as soon as I stepped outside. The only exposed area was about 1/3 of my face, and it still made me cry because it was mind-blowing cold. COLDEST CAPITAL IN THE WORLD doesn’t seem to describe it. The fact that people still attend our winter festival is a mystery to me. I’ve been here four winters, and refuse to partake in any of it. Skating on the canal? Forget it. If I wanted to trip and risk accidentally freezing my eyeball to the ice surface, I’d open the freezer at my house, run, and smash my head into the ice tray. That way the rest of my body would still be warm, and no one could spot the embarrassed red-faced girl from a mile away. In fact, I’d even rather try and recreate that famous winter pole licking scene in A Christmas Story.

However I’m unusually chirpy today, which can once again be attributed to eating good food. Last night I had the most delicious, tender, and perfectly medium rare cooked piece of beef I’ve ever had. Imagine, this was at a work function! It was a much needed distraction from the longest sales pitch in history. It was a good sales pitch, but all in vain. I’m not in the market, and am getting good at tuning these out. I tend to get lost in my thoughts when I think about food anyway. This phenomenon is increasing in frequency, and I should find a name for it soon. Feels like nothing else matters but the chemical reaction happening on my taste buds, the world even turns black for a millisecond. Foodphoria? Hmm. I’ll stew that one over for a bit.

Meanwhile, Muggy is treating me quite well today. I’m up to my second refill, which is no easy task! This badboy mug (which was raffled off at work, just like every other little gifts brought in from hotel reps) can hold four times the amount my bladder can hold. Maybe Muggy deserves a manlier name for being so strong and hefty. Muggington comes to mind, but I don’t think giving the mug an English heritage makes it manlier. Just the opposite really.. Mugsko. That’s so it’s new name. Ukrainians are WAY manlier than the English. No offence and all.. it just has to do with the accent.

Other news: Dropping makeup TWICE in the toilet should have tough me a lesson, and for you, should be a lesson learned via others. Let this be your lesson. (cell phones apply to this rule.) Apparently it took me THREE times to learn to put the lid down, and the third will prove to be quite challenging. My most prized makeup item, mousse foundation – the best invention since Photo shop and Airbrushing - fell into the loo. I had hoped the glass jar would float, but I don’t think glass has floated since people stopped answering the messages in all those bottles polluting our oceans. I was foolish. The jar went to deepest loo crevasse, where poo is probably hiding, and where my double-gloved hands will have to try and reach in to retrieve. It gets worse. It’ll have to stew there for a little while until I return home tomorrow morning.

End Note to S-dog: The day you realize your lankiness is overpowering your curviness is never a good one. You hate the docs that told you to stop eating basically every food you ever loved. You have to learn how to walk on sticks. You miss what ass you used to have and you especially miss your big boobs (and your dude will too, even if he will probably never own up to it.) I get it, it’s shitty. I’m making you sangria tonight, we’ll reminisce while cooking you a gluten free supper.