Everytime I feel like Alice.

I decided to change my blog a little bit after I added some bloggity tools to The Bottom Rung. Probably inspired by The Grrl and her creative blogging, I now feel like I should put a little more efford into my blog and maybe more people will want to read it? I don't know. But changing the title and description makes me feel better.

My next step is to design a banner for both blogs. I'm not sure if I'll keep Everytime I feel like Alice because I don't want people to think my name IS Alice... The line came from a very intimate psychedelic story I wrote two years ago and there are many lines in the story that echo from within like: my body below, my spirit rises. These semi-coherent ramblings probably have no affect on anyone else except myself. But Everytime I feel like Alice always makes me feel like I'm falling spiralling down a deep hole (a rabbit hole as it may be).

Ever fall asleep on mushrooms?

Anyway, Datura is coming to visit tonight and I look forward to a nice reunion with her because I haven't seen her for so long. Since she has been neglecting her blog, I no longer feel bad for writing about her goings-on.

She has been spending a LOT of time Barrie. Personally, I think it's unhealthy for anyone to spend that much time in a place like Barrie, especially a spiritual artsy fart like Datura, but she is seeing a Boy there and liking it, so I guess we can let it slide for a little wee bit. Other than that the job hunt continues as she tries to infiltrate the Jewish community with her artistic abilities (ask her about it yourself).

Never trust a girl with a teacup chihuahua.

This is the first weekend back to normal here in Parkdale. Reilly has gone home to Calgary which is no doubt feeling some of the NHL excitement of the Oiler's making it to the finals. I feel no rivalry between Canadian teams and I'm proud that they're up for the Stanley Cup.

Wow, I can't believe I just blogged about hockey.

Anyway, I had one of the longest, un-interrupted, most facinating, emotional and vibiest conversations I've ever had on Friday. I visited The Grrl at her house in Little Italy and I got to meet the illustrious and super fucking adorable Crispin. She is lovely and more than I can describe, and I think we're all very lucky to have her in our lives whether it's her in the flesh or her colourful blog.






I don't have a scanner so I took pictures of those last week, but I couldn't find my USB cable so I couldn't upload them faster. I'm a portrait artist, but I really really really want to do other stuff. I just can't help that I love drawing people. It's easy for me. Esthero was the most recent one and one of my very few colour portraits because I'm terrified of colour.

But on Saturday, my mom gave me something that's sparked some inspiration in me and go ahead and laugh, but I'm seriously going to give this a try. When I first started to draw seriously, I drew Sailor Moon. This was when I was 9 years old, Sailor Moon was everywhere in Hong Kong, and I got swept up in the fervor (SM didn't come to North America til a few years later and they never got the translation right so it ended up being a fucking joke and I never watched it here).

Anyway, my mom found a whole box of Sailor Moon cards at a garage sale and bought it for me because I had given my collection away to my friend Lydia's little sister years ago. I was going through them and this collection is way better than the one I had.

So on Saturday night, I spent the entire evening drinking Coke Blak with Ryan and sorting my Sailor Moon cards. Coke Blak, btw, isn't available in Canada yet so we had to order it off eBay, and it is fucking delicious. It tastes like coffee+coke, which may be difficult to imagine right now, but if you ever get the chance to try it, I think any coffee lover would enjoy it. I wish I had more! I can't say that it made me feel terribly different (unlike Red Bull that makes me feel like I'm a cocaine), but I definately stayed up later than I should have considering I hadn't slept til 3:30 the night before.



I sorted them into five different piles: First Generation, Generic, Matt, Special Edition and Cartoon-y. I'm not an anal-retentive neat freak or anything, but I love organizing my stuff. My bookshelf is alphabetical and categorized and now so are my Sailor Moon Cards. First Generation sailor moon cards were based on the original drawings in the comic book (I have five Chinese translated copies, but I can't read them!), which look like they were done in pencil, black ink and paint rather than the generic animé style that you see on TV. The drawings are a lot more detailed and delicate and the colours softer and more vibrant.



I've always been a big fan of Japanese design and these old-school Sailor Moon cards really inspired me. So, I've decided that I'm going to try to use one of these cards as a guide in my next painting. My last painting was a disaster, but I think using a Sailor Moon will help make my next attempt more comfortable.

My NEW Blog

Yes, I've created a new blog. This new one will be where I can bitch about work and shit, and it's also geared towards advertising kids who are trying to play with the big boys (like me!). I'd encourage all (3) of you to check it out and post comments and help keep the ball rolling in there - show em how it's done! Although I will link that blog to this blog, I won't be linking it vice versa because a girl's gotta have some privacy right? In any case... it's a new project, and hopefully it will keep me distracted from my depressing life as an unpaid intern.

Bitches tryin' to cheat me!

I took Reilly to Dufflet yesterday - a very Torontonian trendy thing to do - mostly because I was craving chocolate cupcake. Unfortunately, we walked past the tiny storefront and upon arrival, two Queen Street Day-Time Urbanites (you know the kind with their stiff pastel skirts and and tiny cardigan sweater and tiny round-toed flats - basically both wearing the same outfit in different colours) were in front of me buying three birthday cakes.

True to Sex-in-the-City tradition, they wanted to have a sweet indulgence and was trying to choose a snack. One of them pointed to the cupcake and I quickly said, "Oh, that's the one I want."

OK, correct me if I'm wrong, but according to the International Covenance of Dibs, WAS THAT NOT DIBS?

Anyway, the fat bitches bought it (undoubtedly out of spite) and ate it outside on Dufflet's only outdoor table (where we ALSO wanted to sit). Reilly and I settled for a chocolate cheesecake square and a really delicious lemon cream tart, and we sat at the diner bar at the window, sitting directly behind those fat bitches while they ate my chocolate cupcake.

They weren't actually fat, but I hope that cupcake goes directly to their theighs.

Only after the fact did Reilly come up with the brilliant idea that I should have licked the cupcake. I asked the boy behind the counter if he would've kicked me out for that and he said no, it would've been "AWESOME". I totally agree, and will keep that tactic in mind for the future. Stupid fat bitches stole my cupcake!

Min_o's Guide to Whatever

What a glorious four-day weekend that ended in a big haze of smoke that left me still a little dizzy in the morning on the streetcar ride to work. I don't usually frown, but I could feel the sides of my face succumbing to gravity this morning as I made my way downtown. Late. Again.

Reilly arrived on Thursday night and I got to pick him up at the airport with a sign: jesus WITH AN H. If I were a better prankster, I would've just written: JESUS, but instead, I was worried about insulting all those wholesome looking old Calgarians on CanWest 108 so I kept the sign folded til I spotted Reilly's riot of red curls and I held the sign up for all of 2 seconds, long enough for him to register, but not long enough for anyone else to read it. I'm a fucking pussy.

I also dotted the lower-case J with a heart to keep it light-hearted.

I hadn't planned anything special for Reilly's arrival as I did not know his conference schedule. He's in town for a psychiatric conference at the convention centre. The only one he attended thus far was on hypnosis on Saturday, but he didn't actually learn how to hypnotize anyone, only how to clinically check a person's level of susceptance. I think I just made that word up.

Datura and our friends from Beeton, Wes and Amanda came down to meet Reilly and we saw The Ghost is Dancing at the Drake Underground. They opened but were so obviously better than The Coast and Tokyo Police Club who bored us to death. They were lucky to have The Ghost is Dancing open for them because they can pump up any crowd. This time, instead of balloon hats, they wore tinfoil hats, arm bands and leg warmers, which were on sale at the merch stand for free or best offer. To summarize the night, which was too hilarious and in-the-moment to recount, here are some key words: YOU ARE POWER and lesbian sex in the Pizza Pizza washroom. Yes, just another trendy night in Parkdale. There sure are a lot of platinum dyed cougars at the Drake upstairs.

Sunday, Ryan and I whipped up some William Sonoma style French toast that tasted more like bread pudding, and while Datura went back to Newmarket, Reilly, Ryan and I took advantage of our "first" visit to the YMCA by swimming and playing monkey-in-the-middle (or as they call it in Calgary - PIG-in-the-middle). I tried to sit in the dirty whirlpool, but the angry looking older Greek woman who came in made me uncomfortable so I went to sit in the sauna with two African women who spoke a language I didn't understand. It's been a long time since I've been in a sauna, but I found it really difficult to relax because it's like your skin's going to melt and your head's going to explode and your lungs are going to burst all at the same time. I tried to do some yoga-style breathing and posturing, but to no avail. We then played some basketball, but I realised that my basketball skills have not progressed past grade 10 gym, and I dribble like a girl.

On Victoria Day, we decided to take Reilly to see Niagara Falls, just because... meh. Nothing else to do! If the weather was nicer, we wanted to take him up north somewhere like Jackson's Point for a picnic, but it wasn't worth the drive in the miserable weather. Highlights of Niagara Falls: Hamilton IS the asshole of Ontario, funnel cake, and all-you-can-eat buffet. We were back in the city well before dark, and missed the fireworks because the boys wanted to watch the end of the hockey game. I was really disappointed because I had rolled a celebratory hash joint as a farewell salute to my winter dopey days, and instead we had to smoke it in the dark while looking into the black lake below. Ryan discovered a very very masonic fountain at Exhibition Place - one that most people would overlook due to its tackiness and almost random super-obvious symbolism: a winged angel on top of a sphere held up by a pyrmid of sphinx.

Hurrah for national holidays! Thank god I don't work retail! Too bad I don't make any money at all!

This side of insanity,

There was an all-staff luncheon yesterday where they served us cold Chinese egg noodles (the yellow kind) with tiny pieces of chicken and one very tiny spring roll in a white paper box (very trendy in big corporations). And one big can of Coca-cola. I think Coke may be one of our clients? I don't know, but I'm drinking more coke than I have since high school. It's giving me really bad gas, but I can't fart in my cubicle because I share the space with Jeff, the other intern. Jeff and I get along because Jeff isn't done school yet which means he is not in competition with me. Yet. I'm a lot less shy here at Cossette than at First Light because I can't really afford to be shy anymore. I NEED a job after this because right now, my mommy's helping me with expenses, but I can only accept that for so long. I even joined the National Advertising Benevolent Society (NABS) today as a volunteer not necessarily because I care about all the over-worked and out-of-work art directors and copywriters out there, but mostly because I've embraced the idea of networking.

Of course, that probably gives you the impression that I'm some kind of smooth operatahhh, but I'm actually still super shy. I don't think I'll ever stop being completely shy, except maybe one day when I'm so fucking successful and important that I won't give a fuck anymore, but even then there are always people more beautiful or more successful who will make me feel like a little field mouse again.

I am reading The Art of Happiness by Dr. Howard C. Cutler and based on the teachings of the Dalai Lama. These are the four basic principles:

1.	The purpose of life is happiness.
2.	Happiness is determined more by the state of one’s mind than by one’s external conditions, circumstances, or events—at least once one’s basic survival needs are met.
3.	Happiness can be achieved through the systematic training of our hearts and minds, through reshaping our attitudes and outlook.
4.	The key to happiness is in our own hands.

I know the skeptics out wouldn't buy this for a second, but in my limited experience with these such self-help-ish books, it's up to you to take what you want from it. With The Artist's Way, I found I became a much more open and creative person, willing to take on any creative task without the usual fear and anxiety I used to. With the Art of Happiness, I'm starting to become more open with people by being able to identify with people based on what we have in common rather than focusing on what makes the other person different. This is why I'm less shy these days. For some people, meeting new people and creating new relationships is easy, but for some like me, it's not. And if I need a goddamn Dalai-Lama-approved handbook to help me, then fuck it, what have I got to lose?

To top off my spiritual highs (and lows - yes, there are still lows), I've been trying to meet up with The Grrl. We have tentative plans to be very serious together. Hopefully we will find time to hang out and I'll finally get to meet Crispin!

Cubicle Depression

Fortunately, I haven't been asked to pick up lunch or serve coffee - yet. But working at an advertising agency - at least this agency - is not as glamorous as I imagined. But I do have my own desk, phone and computer. I have not wasted any time in personalizing my voicemail message, getting a new wallpaper for my desktop, and placing my Little Penguin buddy on top of my computer. This is the first time I've ever been given my own personal workspace that I don't have to share with other people. But I am right next to the photocopier, so I get to see all the creatives when they pick up their work. I haven't really talked to anyone yet, but I have four months so I'm in no hurry to throw myself at anyone.

So far, I've been writing reports. I pass the time by constantly cleaning my e-mail box or going to the washroom. I'm starting to wish I smoked. Again.

They keep sending me these marketing/advertising news e-mails and our agency is never mentioned! They praise Ogilvy & Mathers, John St., DDB, Saatchi & Saatchi, but I haven't heard anything about my agency yet. And we're supposed to be the number one agency in Canada. Perhaps we're so big that we're slaves to our big-headed clients like GM, McDonald's, and General Mills. I met a girl the other day whose entire cubicle looked like the cereal aisle of a grocery store.

I'm fucking bored. Anyone got a cigarette?