Tuesday, February 9, 2010

In Which I Win, Lose and Commit a Crime

Win! Or was that Lose?

If I were a man, my behaviour towards my apartment would be easier to reconcile as I have limited furniture and stuff in general, my walls are bare and I haven’t washed the floors in three months. In short, I live like a male college nerd, minus the nudie posters in the bathroom.

However, the times, they are a-changing.

You are reading from the blog of a soon to be owner of a couch. After 9 months of living solo (plus 3 months with my last housemate) I have decided to do something out of character and get some sort of seating that is not the queen size inflatable mattress in the middle of my living room floor.

To do it in my own awkward and slightly irreverent way, I have got a couch from a friend of a friend*, who I have yet to meet, and am buying his sofa, that I have yet to see. I’m putting all my faith in Jez that he’s not misspent my $350.

Also - I, on a whim, bid on a couple of paintings at a gallery on Saturday. I won!! Huzzah. They’re super cute and (me thinks / me thought) a bargain at $170 for the pair. Until I went online and found them for $75 each of 3 for $200, so that kind of sucks. (I got gub and neutron…gub is my favourite)

*This might turn out to be an urban legend couch…it happened to a friend of a friend of mine … true story!

Panic in the Laundromat

Confession: I am a lazy laundress. I don’t like the communal laundry room in my apartment building (2 washers & 2 dryers for 40 units!) because, frankly, I am a lazy, lazy person and I don’t enjoy scheduling a night to do my laundry. I would much rather toss in a load before work, forget about it for 2 days, then have to re-wash 4 times to get the smell of mildew out of my t-shirts.

BUT

It became necessary for me to do my laundry since I *almost* had to resort to the bathing suit bottoms for lack of clean drawers. Erm…almost.

I’ve worked out a system to minimise the cost of laundry day ($2 wash, $2 dry) and maximise the efficiency by staggering loads and using the dryer once for two washes. (Summary 2 wash = 1 dry). I just have to time it right, and since my preferred dryer runs for a looong time, I rarely have any issues.**

Last night, though, someone fucked with the system. And if I ever find out who it was, we will have a discussion about laundry etiquette before I mash his face into dirty underwear whilst making him wash his mouth with liquid laundry detergent.

I went down to do the swap, only to find my dryer usurped by a load of mans clothes. He stole my dryer, and by extension, my money. I found my clothes sitting in a slightly damp heap on top of the dryer.

I contemplated putting food dye or a couple of damp tissues in to teach him a lesson, but dismissed it as silly (I wouldn’t want to permanently damage my favourite dryer), so I turned the machine off. Put my second load into the vacant (!) dryer and gave the world the finger, with a message to pass it on the thieving asshole.

I had a slight attack of the guilts when I picked up my last load, so I turned his machine back on. Which gave me a thrill because he’ll wonder forever about that dryer and it’s lack of drying ability, hopefully leaving me and my damp clothes to a clean and happy (and dry) future.

** How OCD was that paragraph??

I dare say Old Cock:

On my walk to work this morning, I saw a real live, honest to Jiminy deerstalker!! I imagine that the man who was wearing this lovely hat is an English gentleman, as a Canadian man only actually stalks deer, in camo apparel lined with day-glo orange.

Swagger Like John Wayne:

A friend invited me to take a yoga class with her on Saturday, and because it’d been approximately 42 years since I’d done any exercise, I decided to go. Ohmygad, two days on and I’m still sore. I’ve been broken by Hatha.

During one part the instructor had us do this move: Squat and place our hands on the inside of our feet, so both the feet and the palms were flat on the floor. In this position, we were supposed to take a turn around the studio, because the Taoists think that doing this ungainly walk for 10 minutes a day is the key to perfect health***. I did a small circle, realising with alarm that I would most certainly be the last person to complete the circuit, so I did a teeny circle and went back to my mat (hoping that I did a passable job of faking it). The whole thing was (a) far too reminiscent of school gym classes (where I tried to fake it but always got caught), and (b) not very yogi at all of me, but I can honestly say that this girl doesn’t care.

***Google let me down on that, too. Suspect that she made the whole thing up, sadistic bitch.

-Anna