It reminds me of middle school. In middle school, when kids would annoy the substitute teachers, they would punish the entire class. Their logic in doing this was that while only a few kids were annoying the subs, the rest of us weren't doing anything to stop them. I always resented this, because I certainly couldn't do anything to influence the behaviour of the rest of the class. If I could influence their behaviour, my life wouldn't have been such a living hell.

They seem to be doing the same thing by blaming the community leaders (who, incidently, aren't elected representatives or anything) for the violence in the community. Whenever you have a group of people who are forced together rather than chosing to be a member of that group, just as there are some people who can't influence the behaviour of anyone, there are some people whose behaviour can't be influenced by anyone.

Why do old men always hike up their pants at the knees before sitting down?

They're talking about the Nova Scotia election on TV. Right now, the tories are in the lead, and NDP is in 2nd place. I realize that it could still go any way, but a tory government with an NDP official opposition is an interesting concept.

All I want is an mp3 of Johnny Favourite's Root Beer and Licorice. And it doesn't exist on Kazaa! WTF?

I have a zit in the most annoying place. It's on my lower eyelid, right where the eyelid skin turns into normal face skin. It looks like the kind of wart that a witch would have, and because it's on such delicate skin I can't squeeze it or apply too much zit cream. Applying my sexy light-diffusing concealer helps, but when I'm wearing full makeup I apply this concealer all over my lower eyelids to hide my disgusting permanent dark circles, so the zit is no longer de-emphasized.

I have to buy stuff to drink. I don't have much to drink. But drinks are heavy and there's a humidex of like 35 out there.

And I ruined my khakis yesterday, and I wanted to go shopping for more today but I overslept. It's just as well though, this isn't a good week for trying on light-coloured pants.

Every rant against same-sex marriage seems to be a personal affront. I want to get married one day. I do have a candidate in mind, and we've already established that we do not want to produce children, and we do not want our relationship to undergo any religious consecration. But it is very very very important to me, for reasons that I can't yet completely articulate, that our union be called a marriage. Every time I hear people ranting about how marriage should only apply to a religiously consecrated union whose purpose is to produce children, it feels almost like hate speech.

And I'm very lucky - the candidate I have in mind happens to be of the opposite sex! I can only imagine how this feels for people who are marrying someone of the same sex!

For those who say that only religiously consecrated marriages should be called marriages and other marriages should be called "civil unions": Since you seem to want the two to be called differently, how about we call anything that involves a marriage certificate a marriage, and if it has a religious element it gets the further designation of "religious union"?

For those who are fretting over churches suddenly being required to perform same-sex marriages: are religious institutions currently required to perform marriages that they find are incompatible with their creed?

An issue that I'd like to see addressed: if, on the off-chance, the current draft bill is overturned, what do the opponents of said draft bill suggest we do about all the existing, perfectly legal, same-sex marriages? The government can't just unilaterally declare two people unmarried!

On Friday I did a bunch of ab work. I did a total of about 100 situps focusing on each muscle in the six-pack, and then some yoga postures that crunch your abs. I'm still feeling it today. It's a good sore, but it's so sore I can't do situps. I'm sucking my stomach in because that's more comfortable for my aching muscles.

GAH! I've become one of those annoying people who talks about her exercise!

So apparently divorce agreements are starting to include clauses on very specific elements of parenting. The problem with this is that kids change, circumstances change, kids gain the ability to make decisions for themselves long before they reach age of majority. Then what happens? So one parent is in charge of medical decisions. But then the kid grows up, becomes sexually active, and feels she can confide better in the other parent about her birth control needs. So one parent has the legal right to take charge of the child's religious education and the other has to comply with those decisions. So when the kid decides he doesn't want to go to church any more, would the non-decision making parent be in trouble for not forcing him to go? So the children aren't allowed to sit in car seats with airbags until they reach a certain height. Suppose one of them is an inch below that height, but she gets carsick if she can't sit in the front. And I have no idea what this height might be. Suppose it's 5'2", and the kid stops growing at 5'1" and want to learn how to drive. What if the non-custodial parent is in charge of educational decisions, and then the kid wants or needs to change schools?

Supposedly this is helping to focus on parental responsibilities, but it sounds to me like it's just taking more rights away from the kid. Ideally they should have a clause that the kid can overrule or amend any aspect of the agreement for any moderately good reason.

I've just been hit by a sudden wave of contentment. I have three days off. I have immediate access to the entire internet, more TV channels than I've ever had before, a fridge full of food, and all five Harry Potter books. Every morning I will get one or two fresh newspapers at my doorstep. Anything I might possibly need to purchase is a block away. At this exact moment, I lack nothing.

And now for another Brilliant Idea The Would Be Impossible to Implement:

Imagine a system where every firearm will only work for one person. Some kind of high-tech fingerprint/DNA/retina scanning device. Then imagine that every firearm leaves a distinct fingerprint on the bullets. So any fired bullet can be traced back to the person who fired it.

I hope someone out there with better legal knowledge than I have is paying very close attention to this. I think it is getting very very close to hate speech if it hasn't crossed that line already, and someone should be ready to pounce when it does. I also hope someone with excellent legal knowledge is pondering ways to remove Canada's obligation to provide Catholic education under the BNA, because if one of these things isn't overthrown soon Canada is going to be in a very sticky constitutional position - we're going to be legally obligated to provide public education in a religion that has been deemed hate speech and, depending on how far they go, is subject to censorship.

Speaking of going to hell, I understand the example shown here with no difficulty whatsoever, if I encountered it while reading a newspaper I think I wouldn't even give it a second glance, and I think I know which committee produced it.

The only sign I saw that one of the biggest concerts in history is currently going down was these four scruffy guys on the subway this morning. Although they seemed to have perfect sight, hearing, and command of English, at every stop they would go "Is this Sheppard? How far to Sheppard?" At least they had the decency to entertain us in between by spontaneously breaking out into early Beatles hits in perfect four-part harmony.

I'm not going to the concert. Half a million people is too many. Instead I'm going to relax at home and play with food. I've decided, just for variety, that today I will eat nothing that could be considered a main course, but everything I eat must be wholesome. So I'm having triscuits dripping in melted Gouda, steamed veggies with lemon dill sauce, Italian bread, salad, nectarines, and whatever else I decide to buy.

Mad props to Sheila Copps for being the only person in Canada behaving like a candidate in the Liberal leadership race!

I don't get it. Why would a confirmed serial rapist be carrying a condom? And if he does, in fact, use condoms, why would he only be carrying one?

In the grocery store. I go into a self-bagging lane. Usually I hate self-bagging lanes, but this one had a much shorter line. I make the guy give me extra bags, and proceed to double bag all my purchases. This old lady at the other belt stares at me: "So THAT'S how you double bag!"

WTF? She's 80 and she couldn't figure out how to double-bag? That was my first time bagging other than at self-checkers which have their own bagging racks, and I was all alone. She was with a gentleman who I will judgementally call her husband. So they are two people with at least 150 years of life experience between them, and they couldn't figure out how to double bag? With two people?

I am feeling so much hatred and anger and frustration right now that I can't sleep.

Basic human respect, that's all I ask. Whether I'm wearing a suit or jeans. Smiling sweetly and treating me like you're SURE my intentions are good but, you're terribly sorry, you just CAN'T do anything to help me, is not that hard, and is infinitely preferable to treating me like I'm trying to rip you off by doing a normal business transaction, or that my money is worthless just because I'm younger than you.

I have full security clearance, my services has been billed for as high as $100 per hour, and my professional decisions could affect the course of people's lives. So don't fucking treat me like I'm an awkward bratty 12-year-old trying to scam free stuff just because I'm trying to purchase products and services.

I'm tired. I crave croissants and don't have the stuff to make them with, and it's super humid outside so I don't know if going groceries is a good idea right now.

Five days of work, and then I get a nice long weekend. And I my current project is big enough to keep me occupied for at least three days and it's not nearly as annoying as it could be.

I think my father would be offended if he knew that I don't find work to be complete and utter hell. His analogy of work is "Do you eat to live, or do you live to eat?" He got confused when my answer was "neither". I mean, food isn't my life, but I'm not going to just wolf down bread and water when there are much more enjoyable foods out there. Same with work. It's not my purpose for living, but I'm certainly not going to pretend it doesn't exist and make no effort to adapt my life to it.

I made faux long island iced tea. Instead of adding LIIT mix and lemonade and lemon juice to coke, I just added LIIT mix to Pepsi Twist. It tastes about the same but looks different.

I am going to see Prisoner of Azkaban when it comes out next year, because, unlike the other Harry Potter books, it doesn't have any major spider scenes. Coincidently, it doesn't have any major Voldemort scenes.

This raises the question - how long before people are allowed to give spoilers for Order of the Phoenix?

I was treated like a teenager by a store today. I hate it when that happens. It ruined my day.

Why the fuck would a store allow an exchange but not store credit? Is store credit not just a slightly belated exchange? Exchange is when I give them one item and they give me another item. Store credit is when I give them one item, they give me a piece of paper, then another day I give them the piece of paper, and they give me another item.

It's so fucked up. They had a 2 for the price of 1 deal. I tried on many items, and bought two items for that were marked at $40 each. When I got home, I realized that I had accidently purchased a size medium in one of the items instead of a large, doubtless a mix-up from all my trying on. I took it back, but there were no larges left. And when I asked for store credit, they acted like I was trying to get them to give me a free item to which I'm not entitled. But they were the ones who were handing out free items in the first place! According to their signage and pricing system, I was entitled to 2 items of a value of $40 each. So why act like I'm trying to rip them off when I ask for store credit for a value of $40, but there would be no problem with exchaning it on the spot? I felt like throwing the shirt at them and saying "Here, take this, you obviously need this more than me."

Last night, as I lay in bed, I felt safe. This had me worried. You see, I felt safe up for my entire life until the moment I met mi cielito. At least I thought I felt safe - the moment I first embraced mi cielito I really felt safe for the first time in my life. What I had been feeling up until then was unsafe, but I didn't recognize it because I felt that way all the time. This made it difficult for me to recognize risk, because I felt equally safe walking along a dark street at night and curled up in my little bed at my parents' house.

Then mi cielito came along, and I was safe for real. The only problem is, I only felt safe in his presence, so I felt unsafe the rest of the time, whether walking along a dark street at night or curled up in my little bed in res. However, this did make me extremely cautious when alone, and any potentially risk behaviour would be reserved for when I was with mi cielito and feeling safe (this, of course, had the added advantage that if I tried anything foolish, at least I'd be with an escort).

Then, last night, I felt safe. And I was alone. What could this mean? I hadn't felt "safe" alone since before mi cielito materialized into my life. And this "safe" had really been unsafe. Had I lost the ability to recognize safety again? What was wrong with me? I fretted about this for a bit, and then fell asleep.

I forgot all about it until just now. There's some kind of fratboyish party going on next door, and they had just started spilling out into the hall as I was about to take my garbage out. I saw all those loud drunk cleancut boys in their khakis, and felt that it wasn't safe to go into the hall. Unsafe.

That means that last night I felt safe. Alone. And safe.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. It has never happened before.