For A BLT Sandwich

For the love of BLT sandwiches!!!

Since Saturday, I haven’t been able to feel anything. This Is Our Youth (i was stage manager) finished its run at the Havana Theatre on Saturday, and I filmed a program called “Silent No More – Stop Violence Against Women” on Sunday, in which I was sexually assulted in a date rape situation. I literally could not feel anything, emotionally. It was like I was inside a thick glove, and couldn’t feel happy or sad or anything, really. I felt the pain, but the tears were not happening. Something happened to me on saturday that made me just unable to feel anything. I guess I was just shocked that the run of the play was over.

Until today.
The first day of school. 3 years away from SFU and today I’m back.

Today, I ordered a sandwich from Raven’s Cafe(teria) at Simon Fraser University.
A toasted BLT on brown bread, with 3 circular slices of dill pickle on the side (they’re free).
I then went to pay for it at the cashier.

She did all sorts of fancy button pushing on the machine, talking on and on the entire time, saying, if I enter it this way, it’s $5.34 instead of $5.36 and you save two cents blah blah blah. I really wasn’t following her because on the menu my BLT was $4.10 including GST, and I had no idea what she was going on and on about. So, being me, I asked for a receipt (had to ask twice), to figure out what was going on, after the fact, so that I would have a record, in case I was being overcharged.

After I re-checked the price on the menu at the counter, it turned out that I WAS being overcharged, so I went back a couple of minutes later to get a refund.

Apparently, there are two types of BLT sandwiches, and it depends which counter you order from: the burger counter (toasted – the one I got), or the sandwich counter. The burger counter BLT costs $4.10 including tax, and the sandwich counter BLT costs $5something (apparently either 5.34 or 5.36, according to the lady, according to how she enters it into the till).

Who would’ve figured? Not me, that’s for sure.

So then, the lady says to me, “that’s why I asked you which one you got!” .
When she asked me this in the original transaction, I remember saying, “It’s a BLT”.

So THEN, she makes this consternated thinking face, and tries to figure out how in the world she’s going to refund the money because it’s already in the computer (I guess they don’t get food returns too often), eventually saying that she’s going to go ask someone in the back office, and for me to wait at the counter.

She disappears, and I wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And I tell two people that I’m waiting for a refund because they’re wondering where to pay for their food because there’s nobody at the till.

And wait.
I swear she was gone for 5 minutes.
Like, long enough to take a really luxurious bathroom break.

Then she comes back, saying that the lady in the back will try to change it in the computer system. So she takes my receipt, and starts scribbling on the back. “5.34 minus a dollar (something i don’t remember what she was writing down…i shall call it “X”) difference is a dollar (something I shall call this “Y”) but since I already gave you sixteen cents change that comes to a dollar oh-eight”.

At this point, it’s my turn to look at her with this consternated look on MY face, thinking, “why are you factoring in what change you gave me?” BECAUSE, of course, obviously, it doesn’t matter how much I originally gave her, as long as she gave me the correct change the first time and I paid her a grand total of $5.34. So I ask her to explain again. So she explains whatever her method is. To me, it was obviously not correct.

In my mind:
It should’ve been 5.34 (incorrect price charged) minus 4.10 (correct price) equals the change she owed me.
It should’ve been VEEEEERRRRY simple math.
She should be GIVING me $1.24.

What she was explaining:
5.34 minus the difference minus the 16 cents change i already gave you means that I owe you a dollar oh eight.

And then, she looked at me, and said, “You’re getting this? “
Me:”No…”
Her: “What don’t you get? You’re in school, right?” and proceeds to explain her whole method again, to my stupefied face.
As if I’m stupid. She explains it all again, as if it’s totally correct and I’m just not getting it.
Her: “You still don’t get it? What do you want?”
Me: “All I want…is to have lunch”.

So I took the $1.08 that she gave me (a loonie and 8 pennies, no less) and wandered over to where Steve was waiting.

And then I put down my sandwich on the table
And then I walked outside to the patio (empty)
And then I screamed, AAAAAAAGGGHHHHH to the mountains.

And then I came back in and apologized to the people that had stopped eating their lunch to look at me, checking me out to see if 1. I was crazy 2. If I was alright 3. If they should run for their lives.

And then I sat down, and promptly started feeling.
And the tears started flowing
And I experienced all the pain and trauma that had been shut off since Saturday.

And I couldn’t eat my sandwich.
Maybe I just don’t like being told I’m wrong and being made to feel stupid, when I know for a fact I am not wrong.

So Steve went up and sorted it out with her because I couldn’t deal.
Eventually, she came over to our table with the correct change, after consulting with somebody in the back room.

I couldn’t stop being very upset. All for a BLT sandwich. And the 16 cents that she couldn’t see was missing.

No, not just for a BLT Sandwich.
For the play that ended Saturday (great run, just stunned it was over)
For the experience of being sexually assaulted (an acting role, not the real thing)
Okay, maybe a little bit for the BLT Sandwich.

I think the pain of thinking about sexual assault for an entire weekend finally came out in those BLT sandwich tears and sobs. She just got to me, you know? And it’s like once I start crying, I cry about everything that I have needed to cry about for the past week. So it’s probably not even a sandwich issue!

It was like…a dollar something that she over charged me. I’m not poor enough that a dollar is life or death to me – it’s the principles of charging the right amount, and giving correct refunds that got me. I just HATE confrontation with a passion. I HATE being made to feel stupid.

Better Luck (Love) Tomorrow. BLT Sandwiches.

I will cry for 16 cents, but only if you know which buttons to push

And to top it all off, I just discovered that I spilt coffee on the course materials that I was planning to return to distance ed.
Fuck me.

In tears, I went to the furthest edge of the parking lots by residence, on the edge of a cliff, picked a couple handfuls of blackberries, and ate my BLT sandwich.

And wrote this.

And stared into the nothingness of the forest.

And now I feel very at peace.

Thinking back, the poor woman was trying to HELP me save two cents. Which is so cool now that I think about it…it just so happened that she couldn’t do math (but thought she could).

The one redeeming point of this story is that the BLT sandwich was really good.
Probably one of the best I’ve ever had.

Lucky.

Oh So Lost

Beverly has about as much of a sense of direction as:

A blindfolded cow
A sunflower in the dark
A deaf bat
A flock of Canadian geese that can spell letters other than “V”
A compass on an electromagnet
A bloodhound with a cold
A bee on fermented fruit juice
Fingernail clippings
A ping pong ball with backspin
Dory the fish

Coming home from Richmond in a car tonight after being on set for 14+ hours on the Fairchild TV special “Silence No More” about sexual abuse, I managed to get over the Queensborough Bridge alright. And then, I got lost. Very lost. VERY lost. I can’t tell the difference between streets and avenues in New Westminster. So I kept on driving. Couldn’t find Columbia Street for the life of me. Guess where I ended up?

CITY IN THE PARK. that big development of condos that went up a few years ago near Edmonds Skytrain Station. You know, the one with its own Choices Market??

I’m as bad as any man. I didn’t stop to ask for directions. Besides, there weren’t any suitable places to ask for directions! I was in the middle of nowhere…and I kept wandering into residential areas. I ended up consulting this map that i happened to have in my car. lucky. but the lightbulb in my car interior was burnt out because i recently drained my battery by improperly closing my trunk before leaving on a vacation. But i had a flashlight on my keychain. lucky.

I have about as much sense of direction as … ST Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. All I knew was that I had to get home.

1:22am, home safe and sound. At last. Oh man. I got up at 6:30am yesterday too! WIPED.

Women’s Clothing Leaves Very Little Room For Error

I say! Today I woke up looking great! All my lumps and bumps and excess rolls were in all their most beautiful of all possible locations. I slipped on a pair of jeans and they fit beautifully. My tush is pretty uh….kick ass.

Which leads me to write on the subject of present-day women’s clothing, and how little room there really is for…error. There is very little difference between looking very good in the sexiest pair of jeans one owns, and having a so-called FAT DAY. Hmm, about…

ONE INCH.

I mean, really.

That ONE INCH is why I constantly seem to be fighting off body-image issues. It’s not that I’m FAT, by any stretch of the imagination, it’s just that sometimes, I’m ONE INCH too big for my shirts and pants that day.

We put our women in such restrictive clothing as to make them look good, yet do not provide any form of socially acceptable shape control such as the standard corsets of old, leading to unsightly societal afflictions such as the proliferation of…MUFFINTOPS, namely.

Any shapewear we don is spoken about in whispers and confined to being the undermost layer – still slightly taboo. *SPANX*. The word travels far and wide that *SPANX* is the newest thing for lump-control. Corsets? Aren’t those just a little kinky?

And nowadays, it’s pretty hard to find non-ridiculous looking corsets. I know there are some very good Corsettieres in Vancouver, but really, if you walk down the street in a corset, it’s not exactly…casual wear.

Watching The Cosby Show is really rather illuminating. Back then, all their young-hip-cool costumes (eg. girls going out to a rock concert) involved Big Loose Button-Up Shirts and Even Bigger Jackets and Waist High Jeans. I would love to hear from you if you grew up in the Era Of Big Clothing.

I mean, Gain 5 Pounds in one of those get-ups and you’re still golden.

I am quite thankful, though, for the tasteful inclusion of STRETCH materials in clothing. Unfortunately, STRETCH-Y cloth makes the perfect excuse for making clothes even smaller and tighter. I am, however, glad that spandex makes the new wave of skinny-jean much more wearable.

I say it’s time that we bring back big Hoop Skirts and Corsets, not as uniform for women, but an option for dressing up, and Going For Tea at a friend’s house, or something. Really! I know women have been fighting the chauvinist establishment since we came to be, but victory is really about having options, is it not? I’d love to catch a bus in one of those dresses. We need to get more DRESSY and re-claim colonial fashions and tailoring talent that Gen-XYZ really has missed out on.

And sometimes, I like ending sentences with prepositions.

Fighting Candida albicans – “Yeast Defense”

**Edit, post-infection: I’m a sucker for “natural health products”. It didn’t work. Damn. Too bad. Went to get a dose of Diflucan. Next time i’m going to try tea tree oil.**

I’m just trying to fight my yeast infection naturally, this time. Without the Diflucan (fluconazole), without the Canesten, without the Monistat, because it scares me that last time I had a yeast infection, the Canesten just didn’t work, and I had to get a prescription anti-fungal. Here’s my story and how I’ve decided to try something different. I don’t know if it’ll work yet, but it’s worth trying.So, it leaves me wondering if there are more “nautral” treatments without using drugs, along with changes I need to make in my diet etc, because I suspect that a lot of my mood disorder and other symptoms in general point to systemic Candidiasis. Yuck. Anyone who has had a yeast infection (or multiple, like me) can tell you how gross it makes one physically feel in general in addition to the vulvo-vaginal stinging/itching/burning/discharge etc.Background: I just finished a course of antibiotics for a gum infection induced by part of my orthodontic treatment. At my monthly dental appointment, my dentist said that it was because my rearmost molar was getting pushed back into the gum while the tooth in front of it was getting pushed forward (as he wanted) because of this spring mechanism he was using. I don’t suspect diabetes, although I haven’t gone to a doctor to get tested. But I mean, logically this time it’s probably the antibiotics.SO! During the antibiotic treatment, my sugar/carb cravings started to get out of control. After the antibiotics, the yeast realized the parents were gone and held a major house party. And I, the host, developed some major addictions in the process. The sugar craving that had taken control of my mind (couldn’t think about anything else, really) got so bad that yesterday I felt like a junkie walking into my neighbourhood Safeway grocery store’s bakery department to buy one of those chocolate fudge cakes (half of a 8 inch round cake) which I consequently devoured within 24 hours. That much chocolate cake will make anyone sick, and is obviously not healthy.So today, I scoured London Drugs, Shoppers Drug Mart, and finally, CAPERS for a natural yeast treatment. Nothing at LD or SDM. Finally, at Capers, there was a selection and with the help of one of the employees there that worked in the supplements department, settled on “YEAST DEFENSE”, which contains Caprylic Acid (antifungal), Pau D’Arco (may be beneficial or toxic, jury’s out on this one), Garlic (that’s just plain good for you), Grapefruit Extract (can’t hurt), Chlorophyll (can’t hurt), and some probiotic bacteria (Lactobacillus acidophilus, L. plantarum, L. bulgaricus, and L. casei…definitely good.). 2 capsules, twice a day. the bottle contains 60 capsules, with a warning that if symptoms do not clear up within 7 days, go see a doctor blah blah because you might have something other than a yeast infection etc.In addition to these Yeast Defense capsules, I am taking “VegeGreens” (has probiotic cultures… mix with water), and I have decided to go on a low-carb diet for a while (no refined starches, no juice, lots of veggies, no specific brand name plan) and am considering going organic to avoid any other antibiotics that may be in the assorted meat/poultry/eggs. Yeast loves sugar (as any hobby beer brewer can tell you, even though they don’t brew beer with Candida albicans, haha i think they use Sacchromyces something something why I know that I don’t know), and I am on a mission to cut out as much available sugar as I can. Thus, goodbye eggo waffles, goodbye Ocean Spray fruit juice, goodbye Marmite on toast!I’m hoping it works. I know this yeast infection could probably be easily cured by a single tablet of Diflucan (90% success rate in patients), but I think it may be time for a lifestyle change on my part to reduce my symptoms of Candidiasis in general (even before antibiotics) – the constant sweet tooth, the bloating, migraines, irritability, constant fatigue, etc (i match 90% of symptoms described on any given checklist of Candidiasis, generally, before the antibiotic treatment) .Do bugs need drugs? Sometimes. Maybe not Candida this time. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Vanity Sizing on Women’s Underwear? Could it be?

So, today I went to buy a new bra, as my favourite old one (3 years?) is getting pretty stretched out.

I go to La Senza. A logical place to start, as my current favourite bra is getting OLD. I try on a couple of 34C’s. My usual size. To my surprise, I overflowed! Wow! Have my breasts grown? I don’t think so…

I became suspicious.

I left the store.

I went to American Eagle’s “AERIE” underwear store. I’ve never tried on anything here before. I tried on a 34C and a 34D.

As I expected, the 34D was overly large, but the 34C was perfect. So I bought it.

Could La Senza be VANITY SIZING their bras? I think they might be.