Interview with a Blogger

I got this fun meme from abigailroad. She is involved in the "interview a blogger" game - which i think sounds like interview with a vampiere, and i think you all know how i love
a)blogging
b)memes
c)talking about myself

Here's the jist...

Basically, one blogger asks another blogger five questions, and they answer them.
If anyone wants to join in, just email me, and I'll ask you five questions.

The following are the five questions that she has asked me, and I've tried to answer..here we go.

1. If you could have a night of hot, passionate lovin' with any rock star, living or dead, who would it be?

now, this is an interesting question... a real puzzler. Who INDEEEED would be worthy of my sweet sweet love making? The regular skeezy rock stars come to mind....like Steven Tyler (ick) or Mick Jagger (double ick) or Tom Jones (i'd consider that one...). but there's really only one rock star who is near and dear to my heart...who makes me swoon, who makes my heart go pitter pat and my loins to flame...and that man is....Maynard James Keenan.... front man for bands such as TOOL and A Perfect Circle and soon to be released...some day... Puscifer.

i always loved the way he sings, so much emotion and passion... and you have to think that there's so much more to this guy that he's not telling us because he's very private, and keeps to himself, stays out of the limelight etc etc etc.... but then when i saw him in concert for the first time - he had such amazing stage presence, and he wasn't even front and centre with a spotlight! he was behind the guitars, next to the drums, with minimal lighting... and for one song he played guitar - which is doubly hot, and i leaned over to B-rad and said: "I love you, but if Maynard asks me - i'm totally his... i want to have his babies"

i have to believe that Maynard would be the type of lover who - on the outside - would appear as if he could care less and give two shits about a person, but in private would be very giving and attentive. someone who emotes that well in performance must be able to emote in private too.... god, he's hot.

2. What TV show or movie are you embarrassed to admit that you watch regularily?

i do hate to admit it, but recently - since we've had cable... i just can NOT stop watching the Surreal Life. I don't know why, but the goings on between Vanilla Ice and Ron Jeremy are fascinating to me... and WHAT WILL HAPPEN between Janice Dickenson - Super Bitch, and Hunky Jose Conseco? it really is like a horrible train wreck, and because they're so UNCelebrity, i just can't look away...

3. At what point in your life were you the most happy?

i can't remember my entire life... so i'll have to go within the last 10 years or so... and i have to say - that although i'm aware this will sound hokey and cheesy, my happiest moment was at my wedding, as i'm about to walk down the aisle and my dad gives me a kiss on the cheek, i turn the corner and see B-rad standing there and our eyes met. That instant. That moment... THAT was the happiest moment of my life.

4. If you were given a million dollars, and had to give it all to one charity, which charity would you give the money too?

this is probably the hardest question. There are so many charities that i would support if i had the huge amounts of funds to do so. But, seeing as i MUST give away the entire million to one charity, i pick the Cancer foundation. Specifically Breast Cancer... and the money would go to research, but also for survivors...for makeovers, for prosthetic breasts, for whatever it takes to make them feel like women again.

5. Caesar, Greek or tossed salad? Fries, rice or baked potato?

Easy, Caesar salad and fries.

blurb

Sorry for the lack of posting lately, i have been holed up in bed up to my eyeballs in snot and i've been sneezing so much that i feel like a bobble head doll.

i wasn't even able to enjoy my EARNED DAY OFF because i was too snotty to realize that there was an entire world outside my bedroom.

here i am, at work, a zombie.
But at least i'm a pretty zombie.

Ode to My Feet

For Paige Stanton J

They are the platform of my life;
they lead me forward
they cause me to dance
they run when they need to
but walk when they can.
Perhaps they are unloved and shy
embarassed by blemishes
unsure of the Red Wine
Safely tucked away in warm sleeping bag socks
They wish for Sun, but do not dare.
neglected and weather worn
they have braved the cold winter

The Reviews are coming in...

Woo! Check it out, my first rave review. I'm blushing....

hm.

i wonder who the 1000th visitor will be...

a tale of a haunted house

a friend and i were comparing scary stories about ghosts and whatnot...this is my story:

My parent’s house is in the middle of the street with neighbors on both sides, at one point long long ago it used to be a small house, and eventually was added on to be a store, then added on again to be the house I lived in. At some point in the early 20th C there was a fire in the small town that i'm from that destroyed the houses on both sides of mine. (I haven’t been able to confirm the fire, urban legend etc.)

We moved into the house when I was 14 and I moved to Calgary when I was 23 so all these events between those years….

It’s an old house and it creaks and whatnot. When I was about 15 I had some friends over for a sleepover, and one of my new friends swears she saw a woman in a white nightgown on our stairs.

Sometimes, when you are walking from the kitchen, through the dining room to the living room, there are corresponding footsteps above you – which go through two walls.

My brothers and I have all heard, at various times, a baby crying

At one point my sister in law was living in our basement while she was in school (before she married my brother) and she says one day she was in her room studying and a shoe came flying at her. She came out of her room to the ‘rumpus’ room where I was watching tv with a friend and asked why we threw a shoe at her. We didn’t. So, flying shoes happened in our basement.

Also, one night after having a terrible nightmare – my sister in law awoke to see what looked like a figure of a man sitting on the edge of her bed. It was dark, so she couldn’t really see any features, but she was terrified. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the man was gone.

One night I was sitting in my basement watching tv. There was no one in the house but me. I heard a male voice behind me say my name as if asking a question. I turned to say “what?” – thinking it was one of my brothers. There was no one there. There was no one in the house! I left – I went to a friend’s house and didn’t come back until my family was home.

My sister in law and I moved into an apartment for a year, she married my brother, then I moved back home and took over the room in the basement. While there lots of crazy things happened. My stereo would turn itself on in the middle of the night. My TV would turn itself on and off whenever it felt like it. My Alarm clock would always blink as if the power went off – but it didn’t go off anywhere else in the house…

One time, a friend of my brother’s was walking off the steps of the deck and stopped and shuddered. My brother asked him what was going on, he said he felt like he had just walked over a dead body. (For reference, the Deck was on the north side of the house. The room in the basement was in the Northeast corner.)

My youngest brother has actually seen a boy – about 6 years old – sitting in a chair with his arms around his knees, laughing.

One night, in my corner basement scary room, I woke up to realize I could not move. It was as if my whole body was paralyzed… and I felt like there was a huge weight on my chest. I was panicking – I could feel there was something scary going on…but I could NOT MOVE! Just like in the movies. It was horrifying. I had to, literally, summon all my strength to finally jump out of bed and RUN all the way upstairs to my parent’s room, I was 22. I woke my dad up and told him there was something in my room. He didn’t ask any questions, he got straight out of bed and ran downstairs. My dad is a Mormon Bishop (something we can talk about another time) and I realized that this was NOT the first time he had dealt with some kind of presence in that room. He went to my room and blessed it and basically told whatever was there to get out. I found out later from my sister in law that he had done the same thing for her a few times which would explain the “straight out of bed” behaviour. When he was done, it was if the room felt lighter. I was able to sleep – but I didn’t want to stay there.

I went to “Witches Brew” one of Sakatoon’s Occult shops on Broadway and I spilled my guts to the lady there and told her everything that was happening in my parent’s house. She said from the sounds of it there was some kind of a family there (the lady on the stairs, the crying baby, the male figure/voice, and the boy on the chair). She told me how to go about getting them to leave and sold me a Sage wand – telling me to light it and smudge each room on each floor of my house in a counterclockwise manner. She also told me to be sure that in each room I light a white candle and let it burn out, because when you cleanse a room you basically create a vacuum. If you do not fill the room with positive energy (the white candle) it would fill with whatever was around it – and in my scary house’s case I wasn’t taking any chances. The thing about sage is, that it smells vaguely like pot…. The thing about Mormon Bishop’s is that they frown on things of an occultish nature. So. I waited for my parent’s to go to the cabin at the lake, and I cleansed my house BUT GOOD. There hasn’t been a problem or incident since then…

So, in a way, I’m a witch. :D

3 things Meme

Three names you go by:
1.Laura
2. honey
3. madam diva

Three parts of your heritage:
1. Canadian
2. Dutch
3. English

Three things that scare you:
1. teeth - yeah, i know...it's weird...but only when they're NOT attached to a mouth
2. incurable contagious diseases
3. global warming.

Three of your everyday essentials:
1. cofffffeeeeee
2. water
3. B-rad

Three things you are wearing right now:
1. Nixon Watch
2. rings
3. glasses

Three of your favourite songs at the moment:
1. Freewheel - Duke Special
2. Candyman - Christina Aguliera - in know, but it's so damn catchy...
3. Youong American - David Bowie

Three things you want in a relationship (other than real love):
1. Truth
2. Cuddles
3. Laughter

Two truths and a lie (in any order):
1. I was a medal winning figure skater
2. I believe in the power of Energy
3. I am in love.

Three PHYSICAL things about the opposite sex that appeal to you:
1. Eyes
2. hands/wrists
3. Shoulders

Three of your favourite hobbies:
1. Knitting/crocheting
2. Reading/writing
3. Listening to Music with B-rad

Three places you want to go:
1. Hawaii
2. P.E.I.
3. England

Three things you want to do before you die:
1. Sing for a huge crowd who are screaming my name!
2. Love my job
3. have a baby.

Three ways that you are stereotypically a girl/guy:
1. you should KNOW when i'm upset
2. I need to talk about it, sometimes for hours
3. i can be mean, but i don't like to be.

Pavlov's Laura

i have a conditioned response - it's very Pavlovian...

whenever i put handlotion on... i inevitably have to pee...which means that while i wash my hands, i wash away all the handlotion. This happens almost every time.

Can we build it? Maybe.

This past weekend, the B-rad and i played in our backyard for the first time since we took possesion of the house in November. It was very exciting for both of us...as for the past 5 1/2 months the backyard has been tucked away under 25 feet of snow.

We were surprised with the knowledge that the previous owners had a dog. a big dog. that leaves big dog poops all over our grass. BLECH. that wasn't such a happy surprise.

i think finding a chest of burried Spanish Dubloons would have been much cooler.

Anyway, we went out into the city and made a purchase that instantly lifted our spirits at having found old moldy poo in our yard... we bought a patio set! (This is where the Halleluja Chorus would be playing if you had a direct link to my internal life soundtrack). Having a place to sit and hang out on our deck is so exciting. And that's the bulk of what we did all weekend. Sitting, chatting, bbq-ing... being able to sit back and relax with a beer and have a chair to sit on...and a table to set the beer on!!!! THRILLING BEYOND BELIEF!

it was at this patio that B-rad and i penciled out (or rather, red penned out - cuz that's what we used) the plans for our new and improved deck! Currently our deck comes off the kitchen and has stairs leading down to the yard on both sides. I put forth the idea of adding another level to the deck going up so it is right under our bedroom window - and hell, if we're going to do that we might as well cut a big hole in our bedroom wall and make a door there going out onto the deck. "Great idea" said B-rad... but why stop there?

We decided not only to add a second level to the deck, but how about a fireman's pole from the top level to the ground! Well, if we're going to put in a fireman's pole, we might as well put in a rope ladder and a tire swing. Also, a hammock. We discovered, without realizing it, that we were designing a Grown-Ups Jungle Gym!! And why not? Maybe, we'll add a Captain's Wheel, or a twirly slide!

We are so dazzled by the fact that we can do...whatever...we...want! And i want a fireman's pole!

It's pretty exciting.

now comes the financial planning, so you can expect photos of the finished product sometime in late 2011. :)

Whatever. The planning part is the fun part.

Goodbye Mr. Vonnegut.

Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday of brain injuries resulting from a fall in his home.
He was 84.

He was a great writer, a touch odd (what great writer isn't?) and his novels and short stories were alway cleverly written and humorus.

Slaughterhouse 5 was the first thing that i had read by this author. One of the first novels i read out of high school. I was impressed by the entire book - how he took something like POWs from WWII and added things like time travel and aliens... and that's okay.

Breakfast of Champions is another book i really loved. It challenged what i thought i knew about what a novel should be. There are numerous appearances in the book by the author, himself - breaking the 4th wall and speaking directly to the reader, as well as some interesting drawings and the memorable character "Kilgore Trout" who is reoccuring throughout Vonnegut's writing...as well as a certain photograph.

If you haven't read either of these books - you should. Breakfast of Champions was also made into a movie starring Bruce Willis; apparently because he loved the book so much and wanted to see it realized on film. It's not too bad, actually. But read the book first.

There is also a wide spread rumour that Mr. Vonnegut was the author of the memorable commencement speech that was turned into a pop song by Baz Luhrman in the late 90s..."Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen". i don't know whether that's true or not. But, it's still good advice regardless.

Anyway, i hope he found what he was looking for in an afterlife. I know he wasn't to big on organized religion. Rest in Peace, if that's what you're up to Mr. Vonnegut.

a photo entry...

Here are a few photos of some stuff to look at. The Captions are under each photo.



B-rad and i came across this awesome patch of ice that was just Hanging over the dead stalks of whatever was growing in that field. It was amazing.


20,000 Leagues Under The ice....



i actually did this one almost 10 years ago, in 98. i wonder if i could still do it.
i probably could.


Mandala Collaboration
drawn by B-rad, Painted by me.
COPYRIGHT 2007




Garden Gnome - in G Minor.
Painted by yours truly...

priceless.

i just wanted to share with you a little online conversation i had regarding a post i wrote about the incorrectness of my blog address on another website.... Enjoy....

Unfortunately, my blog site was typed incorrectly...

8:49pm Saturday, Apr 7

Previously, my blog was typed in my profile as: "http://iamthediva.blogpsot.com" this is incorrect.... but Gina told me about it, i fixed it. Now it's typed correctly, iamthediva.blogspot.com

Funny thing is, though, that when you go to the INCORRECT sit, you get: MEGA SITE OF BIBLE STUDIES!! what?
SayyyyWhaaaat??????

That is probably the farthest away from anything that my blog could be like....

here's an example from the incorrect site:

GOD LOVES YOU. JESUS STANDS AT THE DOOR OF YOUR HEART, KNOCKING. IF YOU WILL OPEN THE DOOR, HE WILL COME IN.

THOSE THAT BELIEVE THEY ARE SAVED—BUT LIVE IN DISOBEDIENCE AND REBELLION TO THE BIBLE, REFUSING TO DO THE WILL OF GOD—DECEIVE
THEMSELVES.

i mean, HOLY MUTHA SHIT!!! SO if anyone out there has tried to get to my blog through this site, i apologize that you got sent to this bible study page. I don't even BELIEVE in the bible, let alone create an entire site devoted to how you can study it and better apply it to yourblah blah blah blah blah.SO....Real site? phew.
14 comments

Gina wrote:
hahah laura...that is the funniest thing i have heard all day! my fav. part is "holy mutha shit" and "i don't even believe in the bible"priceless!

Laura wrote:
YAY! problem solved. i'm in for ink. Well, i'm in for coming with you anyway...

Melsie wrote:
of all sites for you to be hooked up with! I needed a good laugh! Thanks!

Savia wrote:
Brilliant!

Laura wrote:
that passage kinda makes Jesus sound like a stalker, don't you think.... "HE IS STANDING OUTSIDE YOUR DOOR....HE IS WATCHING YOU SLEEP.....HE CALLS YOU ON THE PHONE AND HANGS UP...."

Savia wrote:
So that's what all those hang ups on my answering machine were!

Laura wrote:
Creepy Jesus.

Savia wrote:
How can you trust anyone who can't stay dead? Zombie Jesus.

Laura wrote:
ZOMBIE JESUS!! He's a Magical Zombie who turns water into FUNK!

Savia wrote:
Aw, jeez. Now you're making me like him again.

Laura wrote:
Couldn't you just see him in a funk band?

Savia wrote:
Yeah. He would have all the moves and no one in the crowd would go hungry. Unless they didn't like fish.

Laura wrote:
hell! He can MOONWALK on water.

Savia wrote:
Lalalala

Rock The Boat...

Your Hidden Talent

You have the natural talent of rocking the boat, thwarting the system. And while this may not seem big, it can be. It's people like you who serve as the catalysts to major cultural changes. You're just a bit behind the scenes, so no one really notices.

What's Your Hidden Talent?

Interesting. I don't really think of myself as the boat rocking type, but maybe i am.

oh dear...

i did a dumb thing...

Stupid, Laura, Reallll Stupid....

what did i do?

Well, i drank about 4 cups of joe this morning - forgetting that the water in my building would be off between 10:00 and 12:00. so... an hour and fifteen minutes to go...

stupid, Laura, realllll stupid.

UPDATE 11:51 am:
aaaaahhhhhh...i'm going to BURST!!!!!!!

Terrified and lovin' it...?

It's been a wild and crazy week. Starting the new job and all. I really have to admit that i've been in a state of BRAIN FRIED-edness over this job. Hence the lack of any kind of post. i've tried - i've gotten as far as opening the 'post' screen and staring blankly at it for a few minutes before shutting it down....

Work. Daily i have small heart attacks and doubts "Can i really do this?" and everytime i calm myself down and say "Yes, Laura, You can do this."

It's just that it's been such a whirlwind of late. The office was not ready for me when i came, so i have no phone until sometime this week. And this is nobody's fault - i was hired right in the thick of what seemed to be one of the office's biggest events. So people were understandably busy and sidetracked. Hell, i would be if i was in charge of what they were in charge of (Well done, by the way - it was great) but things are slowly starting to sort themselves out...

One of the things i had to do in my first week was take a road trip down to the Queen City to learn all there was to learn about my job. However, things did not go as planned and i essentially wasted a day. There was nothing learned... other than the Mayor of the Queen City is pretty funny. Having done nothing the day there was a definate PUSH to learn all i could the next day before making the trip back home.

by the end of the day, i was exhausted. Literally exhausted. i had no idea how draining that kind of a day can be on a person. Trying to remember every little detail because when will be the next time i'll be there to ask?

i'm at the point of being completely wasted when it comes to talking about work. B-rad was really great, asking about the trip, about what i learned, what i did in the hotel, what i had for suppers....etc etc etc.... finally, i had to say to him: "y'know, i just don't want to talk about work anymore, ok? i just want to go to bed." i felt bad because i know he was just trying to be supportive, but my brain was toast.

It's all very overwhelming - Don't worry Laura, you can do this - and i know all it will take is a few weeks to sort of get my sea legs so i can do this without hurling. It's a complicated situation when your boss is in another city, and so you sort of have to train yourself. But, i'm still - after all of this - happy to be there. I really think it's going to be FAB. it's just a little scary right now.