Cryptacular stories

Soooo.

I'm north of Toronto, in Oak Ridges, sitting on the couch with my mother's laptop. Said bye-bye to Bjorn's bodycast today! He was so happy to get that thing off! Well no, he wasn't. He was expressionless but for a few choice [swear] words to the nice doctors. Now he is superparanoid about his exposed leg: "Don't touch me! It hurts!" Funny how people hold on for too long to what slows healing. Or rather, to what helps us to begin to heal, but what we must ultimately release to strengthen and grow. On a related note, Stefanie sent me this link about a Full Moon Release Ritual. (Thanks.) Anyway, so Bjorn opted to keep the cast as a wall decoration or something. ("Er sumptin'" is Liesl slang -- she's so cute and ALWAYS happy.) Bjorn is in the wheelchair and Liesl has been pushing him all over the place, sometimes at his request, sometimes at his inconvenience. He needs some practice, but for now at least there's no danger of him falling over at high speeds. I'm sure that he'll be burning carpet and doing wheelies soon. After 3 months of wheelchairing it, he'll begin rehab and relearn to walk. We can teach him to walk on water -- he'll not question it if we tell him it's the norm. That'd be saweeet.

Now my sister (Amber) is doing pilates. I will join her. Be right back. (2 seconds later) Okay screw that. Amber is an inch taller than the last time I saw her, and she says it's all thanks to pilatesss. I am just not in the mood for balancing my body on one leg, perpendicular to the floor. For dinner, I ate an entire pizza myself. I know.

I took lots of photos of Bjorn and Liesl -- and I would post lots of photos, except that I realized on the way to the airport that I'd managed to pack my camera, batteries, extra memory cards, battery charger AND the CD with Canon's proprietary photo software... yet somehow I'd forgotten to pack the usb cord. I could pick one up from the store, but I'd rather mock-complain about it. =D

Oh, that reminds me of a story! I'll wait while you grab a cup of hot cocoa and a snuggle buddy... Ready? Okay! Please follow along to my overtired recap of the previous many hours; you may turn the page when the chimes ring, like this: *drrrinnngg*.

I'm tired so this won't be much of a story. And I'm too tired to tell the story about why I'm tired. So I'll start with the Airport. Made it to airport by 10pm. Checked in at the automated web portal thing. Changed my seat from 04B to 28B (the last row in the plane) just for giggles and because I had the option available to me. Flight was delayed an hour. Called my mother to confirm my flight delay; reached the answering machine, left message in a whisper as the entire room was silent and listening to each other's conversations. Saw someone who looked very familiar, stared in shocked amazement until her friend noticed, but then I snapped out of it and saw that person was not who I thought, recentred, made fun of myself for recentring, reminded myself of the time I met a cool guy at the ferry to Nanaimo, then laughed to myself about adventures, then gave a mental note to myself to stop abusing commas in blogs. There were 3 people on standby but only 2 seats available. (I know this because I was one of the silent ones listening to others' conversations.) Also overheard a phone conversation behind me; a young woman was reaming out her dad (that just sounds wrong) for changing her computer settings and for loading antivirus software that ironically prevented her computer from loading properly. She was distressed, as she had classes as soon as she would arrive back to Montreal. I waited a few minutes until the tension dissipated and she'd stopped throwing things at the window, then I suavely asked (to the back of her head):

"Sooo, what's your Operating System?" (Typical geeky pick-up line.)

She: "Ummmm, I don't know."

Me: "Are you a fukking retard?" (No, I did not say that.)

I looked at her laptop, saw that she was using Windows XP, at which point I'd determined that we had no potential future together. *Lin-ux, linux-uxm lin-uxxx!* And also she was, like, twelve. And like, talked, like this. Totally. So I looked at her laptop, tried a few things, asked her about her dreams (she was going to choose sociology as her major! Her father wanted her to go to university, but her dream is fashion and fine arts) -- when I was suddenly inspired by the God of Predictable Cheese and gave an impassioned diatribe about the value of taking action for the Love of Knowledge [or anything else] and not for feelngs of indebtedness thanks to a misplaced sense of duty, and ended my lecture with that good ol' quote, "Do what makes you come alive! The world needs people who have come alive!" to a standing ovation. In my mind. But in the reality we both shared, the debut of my 'Empower Yourself' proselytizing binge was a sincere yet forced moment, and likely not at all moving. But it kinda was. Oh! Here's another bit of our converstion:

Me: "So, what do you like to do? Or, okay, you take sociology, but what do you like to do for fun?"

Her reply: "Sexual ethics."

Me: [Silence.] "How?...." [Look of.. something.. unreadable] "Oh, you mean, that's a sociology class... Gotchaaaaaa."

Me, ending my rant: "I think that a person must know what one wants to get out of school, and what skills one wants to develop, before committing oneself to 4 years of voluntary debt simply to 'get a degree'.."

She: "Thanks, I'm glad someone told me this now; this is what I need to hear."

Ah, tough love. And the next thing I knew, I was in the line to board the plane, and I never saw that girl again. (2 days ago, I know.) Airport romance. Anyway, on the plane I sat beside a guy named Cliff who is an emo-looking neuroscience ph.d candidate at McGill, who is good at pointing out fires in buildings as planes take off (I took a picture of the building burning but it didn't turn out), who carries an extra set of headphones for Sonya to use, extra chocolate for Sonya to eat and extra patience for Sonya to try. We watched the beginning of the Office Space movie until the credit card thing hijacked the screen. Cliff sat and laughed, watching bad latenight tv as I sat in amazement at the new music videos and danced a little. Chocolateeeeee. Man, there was quite some turbulance at the back of the plane, yes. I captured some video of the most turbulant moments using my camera. (My camera was the flight's blackbox, I joked. In the event of a crash, I would survive, and hold my camera tight against my body, to ensure its preservation.)

So much more that I forget, or that I don't feel like typing... and of course all of those forgotten moments are the most brilliantly fascinating moments, while the moments I remember and blog are the ones that fit most easily into my constructed little world. Oh, I design my world. Right now is the opportune time to crash and burn or make and break and find and shine.

Ridiculoso.