Multiple lives

I have three lives. Sometimes they overlap, but most of the time I feel like I need to choose between them.
In one life I live in Toronto. I have my great friends there, and I enjoy the city and all it has to offer. In this life I want to live there, wear impractical shoes and enjoy the company of the people I've met there. The problem with this life, is that it's hard to be so close to it, but yet so far away from it. As great as the thought of living in Toronto is, it's seem oh so far away.
I'm even more removed from my second life. My life in Calgary. Again that is the home of many great friends and memories. It's also where my family lives. The way of life is very different, but I often feel the pull of the West and think maybe it's time I return.
My third life is the one I deny, it's my day to day existence. Where I have a job that frustrates me, a boss who tends to infuriate me, and no social life at all. This is the life I'm trying to escape.

In my constant desire to leave my third life, I feel like I need to pick between the other two, at least for the time being. I can't decide, and have a feeling my job prospects will be deciding for me. I look forward to the day where I get to make a decision about where I live based on where I want to live, and right now it looks like that day is very far away.

I'm invisible, who knew?

Ever feel invisible? I remember being a dorky kid in the corner with glasses and braces and desperately wanting to be invisible, but I wasn't. Sure I was ignored a lot of the time, and sometimes thought I was invisible, I wasn't.
Nearly six months into my job people still don't know I work here. Nobody recognizes my name, or bothers to deal with me directly -- even if I've spoken to them.
This is understandable at a large paper with lots of reporters, but I find it strange and slightly insulting that nobody knows, or seems to really care that I'm here.

Maybe you can help me

It's no secret that many my faithful readers are smarter than me. So, to you, I pose a question - Why is it that people don't think Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's plays?

I've heard so many theorie about who wrote the plays that I don't remember them all, and I definitely don't remember why they say he didn't write them himself. As yet another theory to light I feel the need to know why. I hope you can help.

Please send heat

I don't know what it is about me, but I seem to be strangely attracted to places with heating problems. My first apartment in Toronto had almost no heat, thankfully my second one was alright. My current apartment is damn cold, and it's only October, and the heaters are crap - so I'll be cold and broke because I have electric heat. As I type this I'm cold, my office was boiling all summer and apparently I will freeze all winter, I was just told to turn the heat up to 20 on the thermostat, from 19.
The funny thing is, I've never been one of those people who's always cold. Typically, if I'm cold, it's actually cold.
I'm currently looking for jobs in Australia.

Magazine brawl

No, no this isn't a fight over which magazine is better, but a fight for who will get the better job. With the announcement that St. Joseph Media will stop publishing Saturday Night magazine, there are several editors looking for new jobs. St Joseph Media has said that they will try to re-shuffle staff within it's other publications; Toronto Life, Fashion, Wish, Gardening Life and Weddingbells. Hmm, I'm betting the fight will be over the jobs at Toronto Life. I'd think that going from Saturday Night to Gardening Life would be a step down, just like going from anywhere to the Wellington Times.

Regular jobs

There are some days where I wish I had taken a regular job. The kind of job that's somewhat easy to find and offers a certain level of stability. The kind of job where you get vacation time, benefits and maybe even a few perks along the way. The kind of job my parents would have liked me to take. But no, I did what I always wanted to do and became a journalist.

In journalism we will spend a countless amount of time as 'interns,' or just at full-time jobs that come with low pay, no benefits, no perks (well maybe a free movie pass now and then), and vacation time doesn't exist. In this field we are taught/told that we need to work hard to get where we want, and by hard it seems employers want us to give up our entire lives for our work. Of course it's cheaper to have employees who are on contract, and it's naturally cheaper to have employees that aren't paid very much. It makes me wonder why so many employers are content to just have employees rather than having employees who love their jobs.

Several of my journalism colleagues love what they do but often hate their jobs, I place myself in this category. My colleagues work very long hours, often during anti-social (overnight) shifts and will go days or weeks without seeing signs of life outside of the newsroom and their bed. Yet, most of the people I speak of are on either contract positions or internships. The concept of two days off a week, let alone a long weekend or vacation, is foreign to many of these people. We are all made to feel guilty for asking for a day off for an occasion, let alone several days in a row. How many nervous breakdowns caused by stress and sleep deprivation does one need to have to become a successful journalist? How hard do we need to work to show that we're worth a salary and benefits? Yet these are the jobs many of us covet.

I lucked out somewhat for my first job, but I do find myself guilted into wondering if I'm working hard enough/long enough, should I ask for this weekend off? When I watch my boss work 60 hour weeks, I wonder if my 45/50 hour weeks are good enough. How does this happen? Why don't those of us who are new to the workforce ever feel like we're working hard enough?

When I think about these things asI watch my friends lose sleep, weight, and their sanity I think a regular job would be nice. But I wouldn't be happy there, I'd want a job where I could express myself or something. But I'm sure I'd enjoy the paid vacation and benefits.

My pumpkin poem

I think I lose any cool factor that I had -- which probably wasn't much -- by posting this poem, but it accurately shows how strange/lame my life has become. This is what I put in the paper about the parade this weekend. I hope I still have friends left.

There was a parade to start off the day
The legionnaires came out to lead the way
The pipers and shriners were out in droves
Then the politicians came down the road
But it was the pumpkins that really stole the show
There were big ones and smalls ones, some were round, some were flat
They all came in carts and some even wore hats
All that was missing was a few acrobats
There were bands to entertain of all shapes and sizes
And music was played without any prizes
The high school band played on bales of hay
There were even kazoo players who came out for the day
The Red Hat ladies were all on hand
But where on earth was Grandpa’s Goodtime Band?
The wizard of oz was there without cause
But the parade went on without a pause
There were classic cars, tractors and more
A monster truck could’ve run over a store
There were kids in costumes handing out candy
But most importantly there were always pumpkins handy

My weekend

If you ever doubted that I live in a lame, country town, here's some proof. This signifies the biggest event each year in Wellington, Pumpkinfest.
I wrote a limerick about it for the paper, I'll post it soon.

Ouch and then some

So, I hear childbirth hurts. A lot. I just finished reading this story about a woman who gave birth to her 16th child. Wow. Her 16th child in 18 years. Did I say ouch. The mother also wants to have more kids, is she nuts?
This family also participates in one of my least favourite things. All the kids names start with the same letter. I normally find it lame, but in this case I just think it would be confusing.

Teeny Tiny TV

A new week and a new iPod.
Apple has always been inovators in making things that are innovative and small. Yesterday, they revealed the Video iPod. It looks like a regular iPod but you can download video and TV programs to watch them everywhere. The catch, the screen is 2.5 inches wide. No matter how clear the picture is, can you really see anything? Apple has made a deal with ABC for their programs to be available on iTunes. What fun would Desperate Housewives be in that small size? You couldn't tell how thin Teri Hatcher is, or how hot Eva Longoria's gardener is (fine how hot Eva Longoria is). And a mini-version of LOST would just be more confusing because you wouldn't be able to read the magical number sequence (4, 8, 15,16, 23, 42) when it shows up on screen, Hurley would take up the whole screen and the cute Hobbit guy would really look like a Hobbit.
This also brings up the question of don't we already watch too much TV? I know I watch too much TV and definitely don't need to be able to carry it around in my purse. If people were watching them on the subway it would be hard to distinguish them from the crazy people who are just laughing to themselves and not at a bad ABC sitcom.
Don't get me wrong, I love the iPod. Well, I don't have one, but I'd like one. But just a regular one that plays music, the photo one could be neat too but I don't have a digital camera either.
It makes me wonder though, in the land of the big screen TV will this sell? Probably.

Indescribable

I was in the same room as Paul McCartney yesterday, sure it was a really big, full room but we were both in it for like 2 1/2 hours.
I've been to a lot of concerts and normally I can give a play by play of what happened. This time I'm still in awe that I was there. He played the songs we all hoped and expected he'd play, Hey Jude, Blackbird etc, all mixed in with some Wings tunes as well as material from his new (and fantastic) album. I normally find the drawn out 'na na na na's in Hey Jude overdone in concert, but it was entirely different to be a part of it. It was crazy. I could've sat there all night watching McCartney on the stage made up of video screens. And for 63, he doesn't look a day over 40.
Some random lady bought me my key chain saving me $8.
All I know is that I can forever say that I got to see a Beatle in concert. Wow.

Funny night in a bar

It's been a long time since I've laughed that hard for that long. Here's a brief synopsis.
We showed up at the Horseshoe randomly on Sunday night and sat beside rapper K-os, he seemed very normal and we tried not to stare that much.
There was a run in with the worst gay man trying to be a straight man ever,Bob He picked out one woman at a table and called her beautiful, called another Steve, and claimed I hated him because he was leaning on top of me. Along with claiming to be straight he pretended to be from South Africa, he also did that badly.
Larissa was Larissa.
We randomly met the managing editor of a magazine (he was a friend of Bob) and I want to hit him up for a job.
Then there was the woman who had a transcendental experience with her ex-husband.
Wierd, funny but maybe you had to be there.

My favourite activity

It started off as a harmless trip to the used CD store. I was tired and wasn't really in the mood to shop for CDs, but I kept browsing the numerous racks to see if anything sparked interest. That's how it always starts. I found one that I wanted, then I couldn't stop myself. I just kept looking one CD made me think of another that I wanted. Eventually I walked out of Sonic Boom with five CDs and a goofy grin on my face.

Turkey Time

As the countdown begins for another drive across the 401 I realize that this isn't the normal weekend in Toronto. Normally I show up, have some drinks, do some shopping, eat and leave. This time, there's a turkey involved.
I'm not much for holidays as I've mentioned before, but I enjoy holiday food. This is my third Thanksgiving without my mom's awesome pumpkin pie, but I'm looking forward to this year's orphans dinner. Sunita and I hosted orphans Thanksgiving a few years ago, we cooked (ok, I cooked most of it) and cheated a fair bit, but it was a lot of fun, and really good. I'm looking forward to see what happens when we all combine our family recipes. I'm making a Maskell/Riva tradition that everyone makes fun of until they eat it. Coke salad.
It's a jello salad with cherries and pineapples in it, and a can of coke. The coke adds some texture to the jello and it goes damn well with turkey. Mmm turkey. Actually my all time favourite Thanksgiving food is stuffing and gravy. What's yours?

Go ahead, call me Scrooge

I openly admit that I'm a bit of a Scrooge. Not that I hate all holidays, just some of them, but I really hate the decorations. As Halloween, a fake holiday that I'm luke warm on at best, rounds the corner, all sorts of fall decorations and scary pumpkins start to adorn windows. There is even a pumpkinfest in the town where I work, so it's worse than most places. I'm not looking forward to pumpkinfest.
There have been many years that I enjoy Halloween, I've been to decent Halloween parties, and some creepy haunted houses, trick or treating was fun and I used to love the costume part. Now that I'm a 'grown up' I hate the idea of spending my night handing out candy so I'm going to hide.
I don't hate Christmas, but I do hate Christmas decorations in November. And I hate it when everything is decorated in green and red and covered in faux snow. Some decorations are nice, but I get angry when people and places go overboard. Don't even get me started on Valentines Day.
That's my cranky rant for the day.

It slipped my mind

My apologies. This blog has turned into crap. I keep trying to bring it up to a higher standard, one where it is smart and funny, yet occasionally self-indulgent, but it's been a slow process. I have moments where a good blog subject comes to mind, but when I have a moment to write it, that brilliant thought is gone. I need to write my ideas down.

Here are some brief thoughts and questions until I come up with something better.

No matter how much I complain about my job, at least I didn't run a half-marathon and then half to cover the rest of the event like a colleague at another paper did.

Pete and Kara got me hooked on Lost, like I needed another reason to watch TV.

Is it wrong that I have found the show 'How I met your mother' mildly entertaining?

Is it sick that I take an odd pleasure in knowing that my boss is worse with a comma than I am?

Latest Lame Lead

Wellington museums already expansive collection of canning labels will be one larger when it re-opens next summer.

That's right, that's news.