The Week that Was

I have been trying to figure out for the last three days how I was going to capture the events of the past week in my blog. I drew charts and diagrams, made notes and lists all in attempt to determine how best to present the latest collection of Jill Stories. The problem was that each day seemed to branch out into several sub plots and triggered memories of stories from the past. In the end, I decided to separate the stories by day, and to delay release of each post so as to not overwhelm my readers. I will start with Wednesday.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

It was finally here. After months of meetings and preparations, the 2006 RSH Conference was finally underway. Wednesday was the first day of sessions but I had only booked Thursday and Friday off work. Aside from the opening speaker on Wednesday morning, Dr. Richard Heinzl, founder of Doctors Without Borders Canada, I knew I wasn't missing much. That evening however was dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory with a Murder on the Menu performance. I arrived early and helped out with the set up. By 6:00 the delegates started to arrive. I was quite surprised to see that there was actually a number of guys showing up. My experience has been that volunteer work in general, and RSH specifically, is more popular with women, especially the middle aged to older variety. I said a silent prayer of thanks when a Brad Pitt type walked in. Tall, dimples, and good style. Things were starting to look more and more interesting that evening.

I seated myself at a table with my old boss from The Agency, along with my former client. They were talking business and I got a pang of nostalgia for the days when I was part of it all. It was another instance of me being transported back to 2004, about the third one that I noticed that week. The murder mystery actors started filing in and chatting with the guests. It was set up to play out like a live, interactive version of Clue, complete with characters such as Viktor Klien, Pearly Blancs, Professor Plumber, Miss Flamingo and Sargent Poupon. Pearly, a 70s love child who had consumed far too many pharmaceuticals as a teen, was distributing props at random. I was the recipient of a pair of round frame sunglasses. Mr. Brad Pitt received a pair of aviators, which he tried on and wore very nicely.

The performance was pretty interesting, the actors were great at staying in character. Near the end of the night, each person gave their alibi to the inspector. I don't remember how it worked into the storyline, but Viktor Klien announced that he had a talent for spotting celebrities. He found Liza Minnelli and also made the guy who I picked as Brad Pitt stand up, but he called him David Beckham. Then he pointed at me. I was super excited and nervous at the same time. I just hoped I was someone good! As I stood up he introduced me as the star of Bridget Jones' Diary and Cold Mountain, yes, I was Renee Zellweger! I played it modest and took a gracious bow. Here I was, a stranger to 95% of the people in the room and my first introduction to them was as a Hollywood starlet, not a bad start. Next was Pearly's turn for an alibi. Again, I don't remember how it worked into the story, but she announced that she was going to need a little help from her friends, which was a cue for all the people who had received a prop from her, to come up, put their arms around each other's shoulders and chant, "All that we're saying, is give peace a chance" while swaying side to side. I was so in my element. This was fabulous.

After dinner I decided to check out the hospitality suite. The suite was a cozy room with food and an open bar just for the conference people. Each night we had planned a different activity and that night was a Texas Hold'em tournament. I had no interest in the poker game, but instead focused my attention on a Michael Buble look-alike. Black suit, white shirt, good shoes--nice. I pointed out my observation to someone else who informed me that his name was in fact Mike. I watched his hands as he drank his beer and talked with the other guy delegates. No rings. Yes, at that point the conference just got WAY more interesting. I could hardly wait for Thursday.

Apartment Stalking

Okay, some people go "Apartment Hunting" in the regular fashion. Not that I really know what that would be, because I've never done it before, never mind in "regular fashion" (and really, what do I ever do in "regular fashion" anyway?). Still, I imagine that it involves looking places up in some sort of publication and then making the appropriate arrangements to go and see the places. Today, Lisa and I went through the renter's guide and the Saturday classifieds, circled some promising looking places, and then ate dinner. At 8:30 I announced that I had a desire for something with chocolate. The best sources of chocolate also happen to be in the same neighbourhoods as the apartment listings we circled. So it was decided. We would go, at 8:30 pm on a Saturday night, and do drive-bys, or as we decided to call it, Apartment Stalking.

Naturally, there is a particular style one must sport when Apartment Stalking. The idea is to be stealthy. We both decided this meant wearing our newly purchased leather jackets (which we bought together last weekend, with the excuse, "hey, I don't have to save for a house anymore, I can go shopping again!"). I also wore my trademark pink hat. Stealthy indeed.

First stop was described as a loft on the corner of Academy and Borebank. This one excited us because it was in ritzy River Heights.


Next stop was Grosvenor Ave., which had a number of good looking candidates. I took Lisa's picture in front of one of our favourites, The Ritz.



Now Lisa is really into these old character places. Me, not so much. To me, "character" means no air conditioning, old and finicky fixtures and appliances, creaky floors, and not very open floor plans. I am worried that this is where you find the granola crunchers of the city. This is another reason why it is best that we have decided not to live together, but just close enough so that we can visit often. What did appeal to me though? The building on River Ave., just before it turns into Wellington Crescent (arguably one of, if not the most exclusive streets in Winnipeg, Wellington runs along the Assiniboine River).


One of the places (not the one pictured above) listed on Wellington featured valet parking and a doorman. That's where I SHOULD be, although I'm not sure if Truck would much appreciate a stranger parking him (oh yeah, the exorbitant amount that they want for rent has absolutely nothing to do with why that place didn't make my list).

After what we called a successful evening of stalking, we headed to Baked Expectations on Osborne for "something with chocolate". We were feeling good about our literal steps to the next big thing in our lives.



Yes, I think the next chapter of A Jill Story has begun. I have been waiting some time for it now. I call it:

Living Like Rockstars

It's my new theme. It means music, fashion, glamour, travel, and the swankiest little place my modest salary can afford for me to rest my head at in between all the fun.

Rock on.

Welcome Back, Mom and Dad

My parents came home on Friday. On Tuesday I got Tracy to text message them about my green vest.

"Mom, do you know where Jill's green down filled vest is?"

Reply:

"Probably in the house somewhere. We're in Yorkton."

Thanks, cuz all this time I had been looking in the shed...or wondering if I had left it in Saskatchewan...

Fortunately, things started turning around by Wednesday. It warmed up for starters, so I no longer needed the warm vest. Once Friday rolled around I just wanted to get home, away from the small fires on my desk, and eat a hamburger. I also had an assignment from Abby to watch Office Space (no I have never seen it, but this really should not surprise you). Like I said though, My parents came home and had a different idea. After three weeks of being on the road, my dad had a craving for pizza. He is quite particular about his pizza, which meant there was only one place he really wanted to go--Casa Grande. He phoned to make a reservation, found out he wouldn't be able to get a table until 7:30.

"Can you wait that long, Jill?" my mom asked me.

This is nice, I was thinking. I didn't think they'd ask me to come. "I guess," I said. "I just wanted a hamburger."

An hour later when it was time to leave I got my jacket and shoes on, stood at the bottom of the stairs looking expectantly at my dad and said, "well, are we going?"

"Yeah, you've got keys?"

Keys? I was confused. Why would I need keys? I was going out with them, surely they were going to let me back in the house upon our return. Then I glanced outside at the driveway and the pieces came together: Truck is last in the driveway. "Ohhh, that's the catch, I'm driving."

Casa Grande is a tiny traditional Italian restaurant, complete with the red and white checkered table cloths, candles in Chianti wine bottles on every table, red brick walls, and Italian accordion music. They used to have a jukebox that I loved playing with. This place is a family tradition. We've been going practically since I was a lil' bambino. Dad knows the owners well, and we always get the same waiter, Terry. They have a full menu of great sounding Italian pastas and other dishes, but we always go for the pizza. Mom and Dad shared the Super Extra Large Casa Grande Special, I got the ham and pineapple--large that night so I could bring home leftovers for Tracy.

I relayed to them all the happenings of the past three weeks. We were thankfully able to laugh about how I managed to forget to let Elmo in, twice no less. Yes, I was happy to have them back.

At the end of the dinner one of the waitresses stopped by to chat with Dad. She came back later with shots of Sambuca for all of us--courtesy of Frank, one of the owners. It was good stuff. I could only laugh to myself and think, if only someone had told me on Monday that by Friday I would be doing Sambuca shots with my father, then I probably wouldn't have had to look for hearts in my chicken noodle soup.

On the drive home I played my Billy Joel Live CD for my dad--my latest prize from the radio while they were gone. He tried to claim it for himself. My dad has these loud and annoying (I think) sneezes, so of course he had to start on a sneezing fit. I also found myself getting frustrated with the Firebird in front of me who seemed to be out for a Sunday cruise (You have a fast car, drive it properly, I always say, which is something I probably get from my dad. It drives me crazy when I see him in myself). Yes, it had been a long stupid week, but I could see that things were coming back to normal. Yay. Welcome back, Mom and Dad.

A Foo-y kind of post

For you to feel alive
For you to feel alive
For you to feel alive
For you to feel alive

AHHHhhhHHHhhh

--In Your Honor, The Foo Fighters

This is my theme song for this moment. Everything about it is perfect, especially my favourite part of the song at the end where Dave Grohl just lets out a long releasing scream.

It feels

so

good

to sing along.

My brain hurts.

Who let you in anyway?

No, you may not have that last piece of me. I don't care if you promise to pay me back. I need it right now.

Of course you need it now, but you will just have to wait. Get in line, take a number, fill out the required paperwork. You can expect an answer in five to seven business days. I don't work for you on weekends.

Is that the light at the end of the tunnel I see, or it another freight train coming in?

_______________________________

I don't intend for any of that to make sense to anyone but me. Don't you ever have a bad day or string of bad days but then you go to vent to someone and once you start listening to yourself your problems sound so trivial and petty? Who cares! You still feel crumby about it! So no, I am not going to go all blah blah on here about the who and the why and the lack of/too much of whatever. I'll be fine.

A few weeks ago I had a bad day (they must be in season or something). Usually I look for encouragement/solace in the lyrics of a song. On that particular day I decided to browse the greeting card section of Shopper's Drug Mart. I highly recommend it. Sure, your friends all want to make you feel better, but sometimes they just don't know what it is you need to hear, and you're not about to tell them what you really want them to say, so why not let Hallmark tell you! I did. Here is the card I, as my own best friend, bought for myself:

Outside

(You are fabulous)

Inside

(If you ever forget that, please read this again.)

Feel free to sign it! I will sign yours.

This also made me smile

I know that to you it looks like soup and something green left on the spoon. I suppose that is all it really is. Yesterday, I was finishing up eating this hot and tasty bowl of herbed chicken noodle soup after a long, weary and cold day when I noticed the piece of celery on my spoon was shaped like a heart. Really, it was. I don't care if you don't see it. I don't care if you think this is the dumbest thing you have ever heard. I just wanted to put this in here for me. I suppose that is the point of today's blog. Me. Take a selfish moment.

One more thing: Mom, please come home. I don't know where you put away my green, down filled vest and I am cold.

Why Me

Why do I blog? Vince and Rob started me on it. I resisted for a while but I eventually saw it as a good way to keep people informed about Jill happenings. Now that I've been doing it for a while I have come to realize blogging is a way for me to both escape and confront reality.

There has always been A Jill Story, the medium for sharing it has only recently changed. When I was 17/18 I made being a story girl part of my identity. I had apparently entertaining guy stories that my best friend enjoyed listening to. She also shared these stories with her mom and dubbed the adventures "Jilly Stories". Whenever we got together she'd ask, "Any new Jilly stories?" I could not for the life of me figure out why she (and others today even) wanted to live vicariously through me. Still, I tried to always have new material for her. I don't advocate living your life for the entertainment of others, but it may have given me a little extra motivation to take action when I could have done nothing. The result was a list of treasured stories with titles such as Rob Security Guard, Cancer Boy, Customer Service Kelly, Jet Setter Stephen, Canoe Boy, The Client, My Other Favourite Bus Driver, and The Summer of Terry.

Now don't get the wrong idea here, these guys are not "notches in my lipstick case" (Pat Benetar reference). The stories are mostly innocent and don't go very far. The point is, they were adventures starring me. I will always think of those guys as favourite characters I had the privilege of being able to interact with for a time (should you be intrigued by any of these stories I'll happily share them with you, if only for the excuse to put on my nostalgic dreamy face. Sigh.).

Today, I have a different and much more varied audience and my purpose for sharing has changed slightly. I actually blog as a way of playing "Let's Pretend". One of my favourite TV programs, if you haven't figured it out already, is Sex & The City. The show revolves around Sarah Jessica Parker's character, Carrie Bradshaw. Carrie is a columnist for The New York Times. Her column, Sex & The City is based on her life experiences as a 30-something single/dating woman in New York City. She narrates the show by sharing her column with you. A Jill Story is my place to pretend that I am Carrie Bradshaw, living my life and sharing it with my loyal public. My focus isn't quite the same; I just try to offer some useful perspective on life. As I go through my day I often find myself forming my next blog in my head. The details don't always make it to this page, but the exercise helps me to remember to make each day an adventure, a story worth telling.

While it is fun to pretend that you have as much impact and as many loyal readers as a New York Times columnist, I also mentioned that I use my blog to confront reality. Well, maybe not confront so much as simply acknowledge it. I think that my favourite posts are the ones where I share embarrassing stories and admit to my imperfections. My mistakes are part of who I am. I do dumb things. I say dumb things; I am an odd girl really. At my worst, I am over-dramatic, neurotic, naive, scared, scarred and human. I don't discount that there are many wonderful things about me. It is these things that probably draw you here to read about my latest adventure. But if you are going to love me, admire my character, or insist upon living vicariously through me, you'll have to take the whole me. For those of you who can do that, I whole heartily thank you. You mean the world to me.

I hope that some day I will read A Jill Story and see progress in my character the way you would see the heroine of a novel (or dramatic TV show) grow and change. My life got really exciting for me about two years ago (nearly three now). I hope that it will always be blogworthy. The question isn't really, why do I blog? It is, why do I have this yearning to tell a story? As far as I can tell right now, I fear that if I lose the desire to share my story, it means that I have really stopped living, and that would be the saddest Jill Story of all.

Everybody Loves Jill

Don' t ask me how I find this stuff, but I do. More fun links with my name. Call me a narcissist, but hey, you're reading this.

Who loves Jill? Jack does of course, and here is proof courtesy of a lecture on logical reasoning from Stanford University.

Trigonometry meets love meets Jill. Jack and Jill's relationship becomes more interesting when you apply derivatives! (Math, my old flame, you just keep coming back.)

This is my favourite self-indulgent reference of all. An entire song for me.

Everybody loves Jill (x2)

She's got a red heart

She wears on her red sleeve

She drinks her red wine

With her favorite red cheese

Here are all of the lyrics. To download the song (it's fun and catchy) look for Everybody Loves Jill by Cowboy Mouth.

What a girl wants

A guy friend of mine just entered the possibility of a new relationship. I was talking to him last night about it. It was great to hear how excited he was about the girl and the prospects. He's a great guy (I only associate with high quality people) but it was interesting to hear that he too gets anxious and unsure about what to say or do. I usually only get the girl's side of this story.

I told him just to make sure he doesn't play games. He assured me that he wouldn't but then asked if I had any other advice. Off the top of my head I couldn't think of any, but since then I have compiled a list of dos and don'ts for him, or any guy out there.

Be a good flirt.

Be playful but kind.

Be thoughtful. It's all in the details.

Always be honest (with her and yourself) and respectful.

Remember that of all the things she could have been doing, all the people she could have been hanging with, she chose you -- imperfect, quirky and shy YOU. Always feel honoured by that.

Say what you mean and mean what you say. In the dating stage a girl will remember exactly everything you tell her. That includes every dumb joke and every sweet expression. Be careful of what you say because if you don't mean it, it will come back to haunt you both later.

Show interest by asking questions. Pick a few good ones from those e-mail quizzes everyone circulates.

Don't be afraid about feeling awkward. It's cute and endearing, and way more attractive than over-confidence.

If you decide it isn't what you wanted after all, be truthful. I read a quote today that said "The truth may hurt, but silence grows like a cancer". Every girl who gets jerked around by a guy will inevitably tell twelve other girls her dramatic and tearful story, resulting in 13 more bitter, guy hating women. Jerks really ruin things for the nice guys.

This doesn't really apply until later, but I wanted to throw it in there: I think many problems can be solved (or prevented even) with one of the following phrases:

1. I still love/ like you just the way you are
2. I missed you
3. You don't have to worry
4. You mean something to me (Note, when in doubt, use all of them)

That's all I can think of right now. I know they are pretty general rules and you probably already knew most of them anyway. Love is a funny game but you can learn a lot about yourself from it. Take risks because anything is worth doing in the name of love.

Good luck, buddy. You deserve it.

My life is a stereo

I drop my purse at the door and tell Rob to load me up. He promised me margaritas tonight. The past week had seen a lot of disappointment, frustration, and boredom. While the weekend before I spent soaking up the hot sun, today I was piling on the layers to try to shake off a chill. Fall showed up today. Even though I love almost everything about autumn, I'm never really ready to say goodbye to summer. I keep going for one last taste, smell, listen, but the harder I try to hold on, the more unsatisfied I become.

"You're so dramatic," my sister said to me today. I laughed and told her she was right. It's how I can see the story in something as mundane as a paperclip. It certainly makes life more interesting too. They say that everyone thinks their life should be made into a book. I never imagined my life as a novel, but more of a TV show. I think about this again as I sip the cold, foamy green beverage from my "Jilly" cup. I'd spice it up a little, but the characters are all there. You'd fall in love with them all.

Rob is playing one of his very good mix CDs. All it takes are the first few notes from Big Wreck's That Song to throw me into a state of nostalgia. It can take me right back to the summer of grade 11, singing along with Lindsay from the back seat of Rob's mom's Grand Am.

So I always get nostalgic with that song
But in my room it's forced
It has to be in some car across the street

And I always catch the back of
your head in a crowd
Just don't turn around
It's never you and you'll
ruin those memories

And those photos are great if I catch em with the
side of my eye
But if I stare
It just turns into you and me
We're just standin there

Chris, one of my oldest friends comes over and sits beside me. He's disappointed that I have not been blogging. "So what's up?" he asks. I don't get to see him very much anymore, but the conversastion still comes easy. I guess I haven't changed that much, he still knows what lights me up. The Foo Fighters keep coming up because we're both big fans although for surprisingly different reasons we discover.

Later, Rob, Chris and I walk across the bridge to meet the rest of the party at Dylan O'Connor's. I'm not excited about the destination as I know my all time most unfavouite band, the Dust Rhinos are playing there, but the journey is a nice one. It's Jill and the guys again, me in the middle, Rob to my left and Chris to my right. Our shadows on the sidewalk make a perfect V. I'm laughing, not really cold, and feeling like I'm where I'm supposed to be.

Hey, don't write yourself off yet
It's only in your head you feel left out or looked down on
Just try your best, try everything you can
And don't you worry what they tell themselves when you're away

It just takes some time, little girl you're in the middle of the ride
Everything will be just fine, everything will be alright

Hey, you know they're all the same
You know you're doing better on your own, so don't buy in
Live right now
Yeah, just be yourself
It doesn't matter if it's good enough for someone else

The Middle--Jimmy Eat World


I was avoiding reality for a while, trying on something else. I believe life is much more interesting and productive when you take ownership of it. Don't wait for something to happen, don't rely on fate. Fate is an opportunity and you get to decide what to do with it.

I found my way back, and I have a lot to say.