June 2009 – An experimental week without Facebook and Twitter

I declared last Sunday, on Facebook, that I would be going on Facebook hiatus. I didn’t say for how long, but in my mind, I’d be quitting FB and Twitter cold turkey for one week. I am 5 days into this experiment. I find myself resisting that URL address bar like an unsmoked half pack in the back upper corner of my closet, kept for emergency use only. Nagging at my mind every couple minutes. But mind you, I don’t smoke. Never have. I know my addictive personality well enough to not bother trying. Just thought it was an appropriate simile for habit breaking. But I haven’t faltered yet. Those links are everywhere, though. EVERYONE trying to be someone is on Twitter, to the point of ridiculosity. Well, not really…just businesses, oddly enough. CKNW, CNN, BBC Science, BBC Health, Daily Planet…(my personal favourites) …and there was that one week where everyone hopped the bandwagon at the same time. T’was an odd week.

But I couldn’t have picked a more interesting week to go FB/Twit free. I just couldn’t break the habit of thinking that my thoughts all needed to be expressed and thrown into some intangible online world, that, excepting global nuclear meltdown circumstances coinciding with the time of my death, will exist beyond me, providing that inactive accounts don’t get deleted after a certain period of time, and there isn’t a massive server crash affecting all the backup copies of my accounts…etc. SO…I took to writing down all my thoughts on index cards. GOD do I love index cards. For some reason of kinaesthetic x visual learning it works for me. And here are some of the thoughts that rampaged through a manic mind going through withdrawl. Actually, happily, this week seemed like one of those rare weeks that I wasn’t overly manic or depressive. Actually, no. I take that back. I may have thrown a temper tantrum on monday. But after that things seemed to clear up, mood wise. Hopefully it lasts a little longer this time.

From the index cards:
June 23 1700h: Fascinating that so many things – economic phenomena etc. can be described/explained by little lines on a graph. Really cool.
June 24 10ooh: How the hell did I injure my knee? Left inside tendon/ligament thingy sore upon awakening. Did I sleepwalk?
1110h: There are a lot of funny looking asian men in ECON103.
1230h: I really enjoy talking to professors in office hours.
1345h: Correction: I enjoy talking to ungrumpy professors in office hours.
1400h: For every short and cute asian woman that exists, there exists an equally short, not-so-cute-asian man.
1415h: When you can’t figure me out: The secret to women is that we say things we don’t mean and we mean things we don’t say. But not all the time.
1415h: Today I feel very happy and calm and content.
1710h: I am quite possibly…floored. On gradebook, if “MT” stands for midterm, I just got 34/34, i.e. 100%. WTF?! In CMPT120! And so far I have 100% in the course! This has Never Happened Before. Not even close. Never.
1734h: Just discovered my flash animations don’t work on the CSIL computers. Not pleased.
1756h: The secret to not being frustrated and irritated all the time…getting laid.
June 25 1000h: Farrah Fawcett died. Cancer. Brings out my fears. And Jon and Kate Gosselin are divorcing. Not that that matters to anyone except their kids. I hope deep inside that all people who die are at peace. I hope the suicide bombers and war criminals, and serial killers given the death penalty are all at peace. I hope the man who believes he will be rewarded with 72 virgins in the afterlife gets just that. If that’s the best thing he had going for him, I really hope he gets it.
1315h: I just get so fucking agitated at jerks like the guy who made a left turn from behind me while I was halfway across the street during my pedestrian walk light who then told me to look for traffic. It’s my walk sign, fucker! Concentrate on your own fucking half baked fucking driving, idiot!
1350h: playing piano really gets me unagitated. New “easy piano” piece yeah that disney song “A whole new world” from Aladdin. Love it and it’s just so beautiful and takes me away to a different time and place and imaginary life. Need to get a piano of my own so i can stop renting rehearsal space.
1425h: Low F + high GAC chord. Quite a nice way to end a song.
1700h: I had a breakthrough at singing class today. Lowered larynx + space + focus. Singing the exercise “Me-lia”. Letting go. Throwing it away. Fuck yeah. And going to McD’s inbetween rehearsing and class and thinking to enjoy fully and be present doing anything because it might be the last time I do that thing – gosh Steve cried last week when he ate a chicken nugget, having not had one for so long, and thinking that it might be his last. So I went and bought chicken nuggets today to remind myself to live. I couldn’t bring him any, though because he’s fasting, preparing for his colonoscopy tomorrow. And then I came home to find that Michael Jackson had died. What a day. What a week to choose to be facebook & Twitter free.
June 26 1117h: Watched Confessions of a Shopaholic and it wasn’t good. I am disappointed because I had been looking foward to that one for quite some time. Movies and people that try too hard to be funny are rarely really funny. The Make More Money scene ended up on the cutting room floor. All the essential bits of the story that made it a charming and funny story got cut out of the script. Nobody is sympathetic towards a woman who spends too much money (GUILTY!), but somehow the book made you identify so strongly with the protagonist, and the movie just did not succeed. Director needs lessons in directing comedy.
1440h: Been at Burnaby General Hospital since 1230. Steve’s colonoscopy today. yay. One year since we’ve been here for one the last time and we’re still where we began. Not pleased. Hopefully some answers.
1700h: +1 Medication for Steve. Prednisone. At least it’s cheap. + Humira starting ~2 weeks pending all clear from upcoming “urgent” MRI. Apparently the colonoscopy looked very different from last time. Some serious side fx on prednisone i hear. fuck.
1745h: Found out Lorena Gale (Priestess Elosha on BSG) passed away on June 21st. Shocked and saddened. Cancer. Found out Google, Twitter and Wikipedia etc crashed yesterday from too much traffic/too many edits. Again, I re-iterate. What a week to be Twitter and Facebook free.
1800h: Realized that I have this lifelong pattern of disillusionment with stuff. Note to self: write blog entry about disillusionment.
2143h: Made myself a little jar with little 1/8 index card chips inside with things to do when I don’t know what to do. Will pick one each time I find myself not knowing what to do and be just one minute more productive. Each task can be completed within one minute. I like this jar already. Note to self: write blog entry about this jar.

Dim Sum with Grandma

Well so this has turned out to me one of the happiest days of my life. I went to lunch with my grandma by myself. No translator, no Chinese speaking relatives to save me when I hit a vocabulary pothole and couldn’t figure out how to complete my sentences…

I did it. And now I think I am going to cry. I talked with my grandma, and though we didn’t get to anything deep and philosophical, it’s a start. And she refused to let me pay for lunch.

Having a Conversation with my Chinese Grandmother

So my conversational Cantonese is such that having a conversation with my grandmother strikes fear into my heart… Which is really quite sad, because she’s a really lovely person and she holds all the stories from an age that is passing.

But the point of this post is that I had a conversation with her in Cantonese today over the phone. She has a spare key to my car (my only key was stolen in september) and I have been afraid to make the call since then. It’s just really embarassing and frustrating not being able to communicate with someone you love. But I made the call and I am going to meet her now.

It’s funny how she has been able to survive in Canada for ~30 years since immigrating with only a minimal knowledge of English. I mean at some point she passed citizenship and she shops at safeway so maybe she knows more than she’s letting on.

Anyway, I overcame an irrational fear today and am going to keep trying to speak more cantonese. Many of my more recent acting projects have required me to speak chinese, so one helps the other and vice versa for me.

I want to keep on learning languages. This is my list so far…

English – fluent of course
Cantonese – some conversational
Mandarin – a very little
French – up to grade 12
Farsi – intro course this term at SFU
Japanese – intro course spring 09 at SFU

Finding Mr. Right

I was reflecting, this morning, on the whole THING. You know, the thing that consumes a fair chunk of our lives and minds and time and money and emotional turmoil from the time we turn…oh about 11 years old. Be it love, lust, sex, a fling, a thing, a relationship, a good shoulder to cry on, a good belly to laugh with, a good heart to love with, or maybe even a *gasp!* commitment, one of the things we inevitably and eventually wonder is if there exists, and if we will stumble upon, Mr. or Ms. Right.

On the occasion of being married a little over 7 months:
I wouldn’t trade you for anyone else.

And being able to think that thought with every fibre of my being tells me that I’ve found him.

How easy is it to find Beverly in Vancouver?

I wondered how difficult it would be to find me, Beverly Wu, if one were to Google “Beverly Vancouver”?

So I tried.

I am on page 3 of Google Search results, for a little review of Tony’s Beef Noodle I did a few months back.

Now when Google indexes this little blog post, it should be really easy to find me.

It’s just that I often introduce myself as Beverly…with no last name. So if we had a really great conversation at some event, on the bus, at a store, or just wandering around, and we didn’t exchange business cards, email me so we can keep in contact. beverly@beverlywu.com.

I have no interest in keeping my life away from the prying eyes of the CIA etc, for those among you who are entirely too paranoid about your lives and incessantly warn me about mine. I live, and then I will die. And if I need to disappear, I will. So for now, I am quite interested in logging my activities as this “Beverly Wu” person while I think and exist.

My purse, Stolen at Blenz on Sept 16

It just pisses me off, you know? I had just gone to blenz on a whim because the network at harbour sfu didn’t seem to be working properly and I was in the middle of my Persian class, and then somebody up and stole my freaking bag/wallet/phone etc!!!!! NOW I AM REALLY ANGRY. they took advantage of the fact that i was participating / concentrating intensely on my eLive class, and just took my bag in broad daylight, that was HANGING ON MY CHAIR. i hope they go to hell.

A list of things that were stolen…

my favourite pencil sharpener

toothbrush that had been used once, opened that day. half tube of toothpaste.
driver’s license
wallet

BUS PASS!!! i hadn’t bought a bus pass all year. September was the first month i actually sprang for a 2 zone. What a joke.

NEW iPHONE!!! that was going to be a birthday gift from Steve, that HASN’T EVEN BEEN PAID FOR YET (it was going to show up on my next bill)

BOTH MY DAYPLANNERS!!! needless to say, i am lost. no idea when any of my appointments are, and i was just starting to enter a really busy time.

KEYS TO THE CAR!!! whose insurance runs out today. And now I can’t renew the insurance till i get my parents to send over a copy of the key.

A TUBE OF LIPGLOSS!!! The second tube of that type of gloss that i had bought in 2 weeks. the first tube i lost the night i bought it.

Absolute Spa gift card (from Laura, a wedding present). I was saving this for something special…dilligently not used it for 5 months, for a day that i really needed it. Sears gift card (also a wedding present) was also stolen.

SFU printing card. Just got the damn thing, and put 10$ on it.

my tweezers. Just put them in my bag that morning.

i can’t even leave my house right now to go to a rehearsal that starts soon because i have to wait for steve to get home.

and i had a BAD migraine yesterday. wrote off the whole day.

faceless, cowardly. nothing i can do about it. if you ever read this and you took my bag, give it back to me right now. there is enough contact information for me on the web to get a hold of me. fuck you i forgive you but i am still angry at you.

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.

Haven’t heard from me lately? Here’s why.

I haven’t been out of town.
I haven’t been on a honeymoon.
I have been scatterbrained.
I am learning how to be married.

I have been stressed out.

I have been depressed.

I am learning to grieve.

I got married on April 26th this year.
A couple of days later, two important family members passed away on Steve’s side of the family.

April 29th onward, we’ve seen doctors at least 6 times, including starting physiotherapy for his AS (ankylosing spondylitis, a type of arthritis), getting a CT scan and a colonoscopy for what the specialist is now pretty sure to be either Colitis or Crohn’s disease. We found out that the “abscesses” flare up any time there is irritation in that general area, including taking the Colyte laxative stuff before the colonoscopy. So he may have been taking antibiotics that were MAKING him extremely sick, for nothing, since it might just be inflammation and not bacterial. And oral thrush! Stupid antibiotics. Steve lost 20 LBS in about 2 weeks, proving for all you body conscious women out there that ANOREXIA WORKS LIKE YOU HOPE IT WILL!!! That scared me, when he and I were about the same weight. Not cool. Now he’s on a new drug, Pentasa, which is helping control the inflammation in his colon. It’s starting to make a difference and he’s not getting diarrhea anymore, hence no more abscess-y looking things. Then we went camping on the long weekend. And remembered to bring the new meds but not the old ones, i.e. asthma inhalers for when we sat around the campfire and by 12am he was having difficulty breathing. So we went home to get them.

It’s like pills pills and then more medication.
Pentasa 3x/day for lower colon
Indomethacin 3x/day for arthritis
Daily inhaler for asthma
Nystatin 4x/day for oral thrush
Probiotic pills for re-populating his colon
*I AM leaving this post for a minute to THROW AWAY the rest of those dastardly antibiotics….DONE.*

The house is a mess.
I’ve been finding it hard to get out of the house.

I signed up at fitness world, only to realize that they charge $700 to join the gym in addition to monthly fees. I cancelled within 10 days. I should have thought it through, ie. check out the community center gym that’s down the street, but i was a bit despondent that day…just needed to do SOMETHING.
I had a major migraine yesterday that made me so nauseous that I threw up on the side of the road. I’m better today. You know what? When I have migraines, it does something to my inhibition system, I’m realizing. Every time I have a headache, I seem to shop compulsively, spending money that I usually would not. I feel drunk when I get migraines – I can’t even talk properly to the cashier. I think I gave her too much money, which confused her when she tried to give me change. That or she gave me an extra dollar back. I can’t really be sure. And the light/sound/smell sensitivity is frankly AWFUL and painful.

I missed an appointment with Joyce today. Sorry Joyce. I accompanied Steve to the physio this morning and forgot about our meeting, even though i wrote it down on the fridge. I’m more than a little scatterbrained, maybe from yesterday’s migraine or just stuff in general.

My barely fledgling acting career is on hold. I emailed my agent last week to leave their agency (whom I was with since I was 19…I need a new start anyway). I took a look at the self submit sites for the first time in a couple months yesterday, and the thought of getting back into it seems overwhelming. I need new headshots, but I’ve gained a bit of weight from overeating and being pretty sedentary and I don’t want headshots until I find some motivation and take a couple of refresher classes. I’m not even sure I want to act right now. That’s fine. I’d like to go back to university and take a few solid semesters of just learning foreign languages. I’ve applied for fall 2008 semester, so it’s in SFU’s court to let me know if i’m back in. I don’t think grades will be a problem. I had a solid 3.3GPA before I left SFU, and the only class I failed at VFS was dialects (unfortunate that 2 missed classes is an automatic fail, but it was because I decided to do a little film called Food For The Gods that will be on TV may 25th, and screened at a festival this saturday, so i’m pretty happy about that. I would like to take a more extensive dialects class though because it’s something that I really like doing and that I wish I didn’t have to miss)

The thought of seeing friends is overwhelming. There are only a very few people that I feel like talking to right now. Facebook is overwhelming. Email is overwhelming. Doing normal things is overwhelming. Give me any list of Clinical Depression symptoms, and i’ll say yes to 10 out of 10. But what can doctors do? Send me to the psychiatrist. Put me on meds? I hate therapy. I am not at risk for developing any illicit drug/alcohol dependencies because I know what they do to people. Yes, I would say that before all this stuff happened recently, I was depressed too. No I have not seen a doctor about it. Some days are better than others, and on the worst days…

You’ve probably heard of Kubler-Ross and the 5 stages of grieving, blah blah blah. We got a pamphlet from the physiotherapist written up by the Arthritis Society detailing how this relates to self or loved one getting diagnosed with chronic illness. Good pamphlet. Important pamphlet. I’ve put everything we get from the physiotherapist in protective sleeves in a fuzzy pillowy red 3 ring binder that a family friend made into a photo album for us for our wedding. It’s an awesome binder.

But today I feel okay. Yesterday was awful. But today is okay. I’m going to put one foot in front of the other today. I’m going to put away the dishes. I’m going to do some laundry. I’m going to write a couple of thank you cards. I’m going to go for a swim later on tonight. I’m going to go watch Indiana Jones (which involves seeing people, but they’re people I like, so that’s a good, unstressful thing.) I talked to a friend. I cooked a little. I watched TV a little.

And if that’s all I can muster up for today, then I’m going to be okay with that.

I am not mad at the state of our medical system anymore. I am frankly SUPER GRATEFUL that we have health insurance. Any of you out there who haven’t bothered to apply for BC MSP even though you’ve been in BC for over 3 months, JUST DO IT. If you are low income, IT’S FREE. (you know who you are…ahem i filled out your form for you a couple of weeks ago, you! And the rest of you!). And it takes less than 10 minutes to fill out the form. Here, I’ll even give you the URL: http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/msp/forms.html

<!–RANT–!> Because, if you need an ambulance, are you going to have $400 to pay for it? A single hospital visit costs $200+ dollars. A doctor’s visit costs like $50 or something. What if all of a sudden you BURN YOUR HAND? Or God forbid, some sudden acute illness shows up and you have to go to the hospital/see a doctor 10 times? You might as well live in the United states and work minimum wage with no health insurance.

Don’t think the province you were born in (ie. no longer live in) is going to foot your medical bill. There’s just no excuse for not applying. You were supposed to do it the day (or soon after) you landed on BC soil and you wanted to stay here. <!–END RANT–!>

Never mind. All that matters is today I’m okay and Steve is okay, and we’ve been granted another day to live.

Sigh…if only life were like “Enchanted”

I’m getting married in 6 days. We watched “Enchanted” tonight, and wow! What a wonderful escape from real life. It’s all the best things about Disney movies combined into one lovely fun thing. Love, romance, an evil queen, and fantasy. Still love Amy Adams – she’s got this knack of creating wholly lovable characters who don’t know how to be negative (see junebug)

And then the movie finishes and real life returns. I’m still getting married in 6 days, and Steve is still sick. He’s in pain all the time, and on good days he can walk a little. Like to the car. I wish we knew what was wrong with him, but his appointment with the specialist isn’t until April 29th…3 days after the wedding.

I hope he gets better soon. It’s really hard to see him suffer like this. It’s almost impossible for him to get up and do stuff…like cook. And go to the washroom. And we’re trying a gluten free diet to see if that helps, so there’s not really a lot of stuff he can eat now.

You know, you never picture your wedding day to be one of great pain. But it probably will be. 

And that is why i love Disney movies. Sometimes you really need that escape for even just a couple of hours.

Eggs and Eggo Soldiers…

So there I am, reading Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell, when one of the characters makes something for breakfast called “eggs and toast soldiers”. She mentions that she makes a perfect 4.5 minute soft boiled egg. I have never timed the boiling of my eggs, so I was determined to give this 4.5 minute egg and toast soldier thing a try.

Is it 4.5 minutes after the water boils?
It it 4.5 minutes from the water being put in the pot?
Do you put in the eggs when the water is cold, or after it boils?

You see, personally, I put the eggs in cold water, then heat to boiling, boil for ~1 minute, turn off the heat, and come back in 15 minutes or so to eat my perfectly hardboiled eggs (translucent yellow (just solid) yolk, no grey).

I tried the dunk them into boiling water method, and 4.5 minutes from there I pulled them out. One out of three eggs turned out properly. The other two suffered temperature shock and cracked, leaking out egg white in a rather grotesque fashion.

I made blueberry waffles for the inaugural soldier dunking.

The one good egg was, to my dismay, still a bit undercooked – the egg whites near the yolk were a bit curd-y and runny. But the yolk was hot-ish, so I am crossing my fingers, hoping not to be turning and retching in my grave tomorrow with Salmonella poisoning.

It’s pretty good, the overall effect. Eggs and Eggo soldiers.

Tomorrow: 4.5 minutes of boiling, placing eggs in the cold water to start off.

I know I could just Google “soft boiled egg”, but no, I will not.  Sometimes it’s just more fun to bushwhack through a jungle forest.

My Inner Criminal

Such an interesting quiz on Facebook (the Likeness Unrated application) – basically it was to rate the following options from “most likely to commit” to “least likely to commit” (the following is not my particular order…why would I tell you that?)

Buy Drugs
Drive Drunk
Shoot a cheating lover
Sex for money
Shoplift
Arson
Rob a bank
Sell Drugs
Cheat on Taxes
Steal A car

ANYWAY, the point of this blog is that by considering that list, I found out that “Driving Drunk” was pretty low on my list. I didn’t believe myself at first, but I realized why. I have always, even as a child, been DISGUSTED by people who drive under the influence. I have absolutely ZERO TOLERANCE for that.

I remember being at a banquet as a child, celebrating the 50th wedding anniversary or something of somebody or other, when a Chinese man, who hadn’t actually drank THAT MUCH (but was obviously intoxicated…one of those asians who can’t hold their liquor!!), a CHURCH DEACON whom I respected very much, left the banquet, and drove himself and his wife home.

I couldn’t believe my eyes, or his, either. His eyes were glazed, reddish, he was red, obviously slower response time, not as coherent as sober, and he left the banquet to drive home.

I’m brimming with anger writing this. It was so many years ago and I was so young, but it still makes me ANGRY, because I was at the age when I was too small and shy to say anything to that man.

I am very lucky not to actually have anyone in my acquaintance, ever, die as a consequence of their own or anyone else’s drunk driving. Most of the people I meet knew somebody from their high school or whatnot, that died or killed others because of drunk driving.

If you have one or two drinks, wait a couple hours. If you have more (or are alcohol intolerant and one drink makes your head spin) and choose to drive, my anger towards you is such that I AM LIKELY TO SHOOT YOU POINT BLANK IN THE FOREHEAD. Since I don’t live in Texas and own a personal firearm, I will throw rocks at you instead, or chain you to a tree overnight (or until you are sober), and then punch you in the nose or wherever it hurts most.

Some New Year’s Resolutions

Let’s see if I stick to these. I heard some nice statistics on the news yesterday – only 12% of new year’s resolutions are kept by the end of the year…

Mine for 2008 (next checkup date: January 31st 2008)

Mastercard: good to have, easy to use, no money to pay it off. What a shock today when for the first time I found out I didn’t have enough money to pay off my MC. Oops. I guess I did a little (lot) too much shopping… RESOLUTION: I will seal my mastercard in a small envelope in my purse, to be used only for emergencies (ie, stuck in nowhereland and need to cab home)

Extra 10 Pounds: the chubby look doesn’t suit my small 5′2″ frame, and looks strange on camera. Current Weight: 123Lbs. Goal Weight: 113 Lbs. That will keep my BMI at 20.7, which is still well within normal weight. Hopefully that doesn’t make my boobs go away, I rather like them. RESOLUTION: take advantage of Steve’s gym. Do more yoga. Drink water. Dance to my heart’s content (ssssalsa!) because dancing is the funnest exercise around.

Acting: i’m done film school. yikes. now it’s all up in the air. RESOLUTION: Get my voice over demo done ($500). Get new headshots when my braces come off. And most importantly, prepare well for every audition. Warm up thoroughly. Go into every audition with the goal of getting another audition. Be happy doing my art.

Worrying: self explanatory. RESOLUTION: REMEMBER THAT IT’S ALL GOING TO BE OKAY. IF WE GET BOMBED, EVERYTHING’S GOING TO BE OKAY. IF I DON’T BOOK ANY ACTING WORK IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY. IF I CAN’T GET MARRIED IN APRIL IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY. IF PEOPLE HATE ME IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY. it’s going to be okay. if things are bad, they’ll get better.

And most importantly, if things are good, enjoy it. stop worrying that it won’t last.

There. Beverly. Do you think you can keep your resolutions? At least 12%. How about 20? 30? 50% of resolutions and i’ll be a success story.

i love low expectations.

If Google AdSense could write…

My fiance Steve recently applied for a replacement PIN code for his Google Adsense account, because his websites, besides being useful in themselves, are actually starting to generate a very small income.

The AdSense support page says to contact them again if PIN number does not arrive within 3 weeks.

Mind you, the first request led to nothing. No PIN code ever arrived.

This time,

His PIN took 3 weeks, to the day, to arrive by postal mail.

The following is what I think they’re really up to…

——————————————–

Dear Steve J. Hannah,

We at Google AdSense received your request for a replacement PIN number approximately three weeks ago. Please be patient as we have just sent your new PIN number to your specified postal address.

We feel that it is our duty to inform you that your request sat in our administrative assistant’s desk inbox for two and a half weeks while she played online poker at http://partypoker.com. Due to her inexcusable noisemaking (disappointment, mostly) in several languages, we have released her from her position here at Google AdSense, and have replaced her with an automated monkey and typewriter. This letter was generated on the monkey’s 6,837,200,020,047,895th attempt.

Please do not hesitate to contact us at the non-existent contact email on the Google AdSense homepage.

We look forward to continuing our profitable ventures in internet advertising with you.

Sincerely,

Automated Slave monkey 37

for Google AdSense

EUREKA! THE CURE FOR HICCUPS!

I believe that I may really be onto something…a major scientific discovery…

A cure for hiccups!

A few weeks ago, in a rehearsal for our grad musical theatre production, Caleb (a classmate) walked by with a clothespin promoting the benefits of said clothespin over the fleshy bit of nose right between the eyes for re-invigorating mental alertness/awakeness during another long rehearsal day.

I happened to have a case of hiccups. I am a hiccupper. I get them every few weeks, and when I get them, it takes a long time for them to go away.

I tried his clothespin-for-mental-alertness trick, and discovered a side effect…

MY HICCUPS DISAPPEARED.

I thought it was just coincidence.

But then I had hiccups again today (just now actually), and thought of the clothespin trick…you know, what the heck, maybe it might work again.

I searched around the laundry area and found one, attached it to my face…

and…

I heard a hiccup.

And then,

Nothing.

And they haven’t come back yet.

EUREKA!!! I’VE FOUND IT!

I dream of…music.

please, somebody, break out into spontaneous harmony with me. please. please.

if you can hear it, i need to sing with you. i repeat, i NEED to sing with you.

i dreamed that i was just planning to go to the mall, and in the parking lot of said mall, i saw many old friends, most of whom i do not see or communicate with on a regular basis anymore. and so we agreed to all have dinner together. and somewhere along the line, we ended up in a recording studio that looked a lot like a movie theatre.

we sang in up to 8 part harmony, spontaneous vocal jam style. mostly barbershop style tags, but all new stuff that i’ve never heard before.

and i really want to sing it/hear it in real life, because it sounds great in my head, but they disappear when i wake up.

i want it to really happen again.

so if you see me, start singing.

I’ll join you.

That’s really all i want for Christmas this year.

Yes, I had an apartment fire.

That was weird. It was ~12 something at night, monday night/tuesday morning. I was about to go to sleep, but still craved fruit of any kind. Since I had gotten home from a weekend of camping, I hadn’t had a chance to shop for fruit, so in the midst of opening a can of lychees that were originally intended to go with soho lychee liquor, my roommate said something to the effect of,

“ummm….UMMMMM…Beverly can you get some water?”

to which I lackadaisically said something to the effect of,

“uh…sure, in a minute. What do you need it for?”

to which she replied,

“umm…there’s something on fire.”

WTF.

OMG.

One of her candles, which were on PLATES OF ROCK, somehow caught the actual wax on fire or something and was now proceeding to melt down, past the PLATE OF ROCK, to the plastic roll-y cart thing on which it all was set.

What to do?

Get water quickly, dammit.

Got the water. Gave her the water. It didn’t work. Got more water. Gave her more water. Didn’t work, but actually made it spread.

She asked for plates. I got her plates. Didn’t work.
I got more plates. Didn’t work.

Got baking soda. Didn’t work.

The above methods of extinguishing by suffocation didn’t work because not only had the liquid wax melted and lit itself on fire, it had proceeded to MELT THE SHELF IT WAS ON, and so the fire was taking in oxygen from UNDERNEATH THE SHELF!

All of a sudden we were looking at dripping plastic and dripping wax, both of which were on fire – in other words, we were looking at what appeared to be DRIPPING FIRE!

So weird.

And then fire started dripping onto the carpet. Oh no. Oh no. No, please, not the carpet! Not good. Yeah and the rest of the fiery shelf was threatening to implode any moment.

We got the curtain out of the way and opened the sliding glass door.

At this point, we concluded that this was getting unmanageable.

I went out to the hall and PULLED THE FIRE ALARM!!!

I went back inside and called 911 to report a fire!

Soon after I hung up with the 911 people, my building manager shows up, ready to fight the fire. I told him I called 911.

He said,

“What? You shouldn’t have called 911! That’s going to cost me $850!! That’s why I’m here, I can deal with it!”

WTF.

Anyway, some other helpful neighbours showed up. One with a fire extinguisher, which did the job nicely.

And then the FIREFIGHTERS SHOWED UP! Weeee! But too bad for them there wasn’t anybody to save or even a fire to put out because it was out by then, thank goodness.

Then they had this little beepy thing that checked for hot spots in the carpet.

Then I had to give all my info as the tenant.

Then they turned on this big fan that ventilated the stairwell all the way up and through my apartment.

The fire dept. said that it was a good thing that I had called, because if in the case that the fire extinguisher hadn’t shown up in time and the apartment had caught light, it wouldn’t be good. 10 floor apartment, all WOOD. S’mores, anybody?

Scary, but more funny than scary. I mean, it’s not really funny, really, but when was the last time YOU saw dripping fire melting through the shelf onto the carpet?

Didn’t think so.

I’m still a little scared of going home.

Welcome to the loneliest night.

It’s great to be here guys, it’s really great to be here.

everything all means shit when you can’t share the best memories of your day with the person you love most.

Ode to tonight

oh the schismic-chasmic divide between his acting life and acting my life
separated by two to four inches from the desired floor by an overcrowded elevator

the cables broken.
[the h word]

a small glassy-gummy pill juicy keeping pleasures unknown
not dividing the senses not allocating them to their rightful sunswept corners weaving instead

the strands clinking.
[the h word]

object to communication, the key! land ho!
sideswiped by the lotos-eaters we ride crashing through our eh’s, be’s and see? d’ya see?

anymore no. i don’t
[the h word]

Beverly and Steve are engaged!

a picture of my engagement ring!

Last friday (November 24, 2006) Steve picked me up from school, and laura called me on my cell so while trying to find somewhere to have dinner, we ended up driving sort of aimlessly. eventually we ended up near queen elizabeth park, so he asked if i would like to go for a walk since neither of us were particularly hungry. so we got up there, by the blodel conservatory, and he started reminiscing about when we were in film club and the time we went up to that same place after our movie had wrapped up filming and after a late night denny’s breakfast to watch the sunrise. and then he smelled a sunflower that happened to still be blooming in 0 degree weather and asked me if i remember when the sun rose and we were taking pictures of the sunflowers that day more than 2 years ago…eventually he said “i have something for you”…and he got down on one knee, opened the box and said, “will you have this?”…of course I am at this point bawling and laughing so hard at the same time….and then he asks “will you marry me?” to which i say, “yes, of course!” and then we stood there laughing and crying <–(me) and hugging and kissing and then we went to sun sui wah for some peking duck yum yum, and fellowship @ church after that. and then we went to watch casino royale with a couple of his friends…and then at like 2am when he finally dropped me off at my place i realized i had forgot to bring my keys with me so i was locked out and didn’t want to wake anyone up, so i ended up crashing on steve’s couch for the night which was really nice because the next morning we woke up and made pancakes for breakfast