Just me and my hairbrush

I used to be quite the social butterfly. My previous lives as a copy intern in the big city and a shopgirl in my hometown lent themselves well to painting the town red at least a few nights a week.

Since moving here, I seem to have metamorphosed in reverse. At the end of a day comprised of attending various community events, introducing myself and making conversation ad nauseum, I'm often content to keep myself company. Of course, once in a while it's a bit lonely, but from what I hear, you can't have everything.

However, someone recently decided to drag me out of my cocoon. Far out. Not only did this person have the audacity to show up at my house and insist that I not change into my p.j.s and crawl into bed with a book at 9:30 on a Saturday evening, she also insisted that I try out her karaoke system despite there being two whole other people (besides my lovely hostess) present.

Unfortunately, two other people were not enough to keep her distracted as I tried my best to melt into a puddle of perspiration and slide under the door in liquid form.

So I picked out a tune I figured I could handle passably and I sang. And sang. And sang. Five songs later and my very accommodating hosts couldn't have pried the mic out of my hands if they had tried.

See, the thing is, I actually love, love, love to sing. I love music and lyrics. I always have. When I was still in my stroller, I could identify a Michael Jackson song playing two stores away in the mall (seriously, ask my mom). I used to sit in front of the armoire in our livingroom and gaze into the mirror while dramatically crooning "Don't Give Up" by Peter gabriel to myself. My fisher Price tape recorder finally died with my mom's Celine Dion cassette inside.

In high school I took lessons for a couple of years but certainly wasn't the most dedicated of students (social butterfly, remember).

My instructor used to have me compete in the Kiwanis music festival. Every year he'd ask, and every year I'd say yes, because even though the day of, I'd be right back in sweat puddle form, he was so kind and encouraging that I hated to disappoint him.

And somehow, each time I managed to force my legs to carry me onstage and my teeth to unclench and let my voice out. And of course, by the time I got through my performance I felt all warmed up and ready to keep on belting out the tunes just in time to take my seat and sit quietly through the rest of the songs.

I finally stopped the lessons and competitions after, at 16, I found myself so nervous that I became dangerously close to losing my lunch in the parking lot just prior to singing. It seemed pointless to have to muster up that much bravery when I wasn't actually doing anything life-saving or world-changing.

Of course, the recent example of Susan Boyle proves that there are certainly people who should be collecting their courage and sharing what they can do with the world.

While I'm light-years away from being comparable to her, both watching that unforgettable clip of Boyle and finding myself super glued to my friend's karaoke mic, made me wonder how many people there are in these little towns, singing into hairbrushes, dancing like no one's watching (because no one is) or painting their own little piece of the Sistine chapel on the back of a cereal box.

A tale of two siblings

For this weekend's bi-weekly city visit I brought along some extra luggage in the form of my 18-year-old brother. On Saturday he wanted to go to the zoo and I wanted to visit the art gallery, so as a compromise, we checked out the Royal Ontario Museum.

Here he is, attempting to look cool and bored outside the ROM.



Not bad.

My attempt at this look was slightly less successful. "OK, just let me get my pout in place-Oooh! a dinosaur!"



However, rest assured, he later regretted his decision to look less like a huge nerd than yours truly, and attempted to hug a t-rex.



While we clearly would not survive Jurassic park, all in all, good trip.

Happy Earth Day my pretties

I highly reccomend watching The Story of Stuff if you haven't already, or you know, if you just need a reminder.




And you should all seriously consider ordering some solid shampoo from Lush.



I started using it as my newest environmentally friendly thing on Earth Hour weekend. It cuts way down on the number of plastic bottles I buy and makes my hair look and feel awesome! Seriously, people have noticed.

I guess it's spring

I wasn't entirely convinced that the Robins and Canada Geese weren't a little premature in their return to this area.
However, these pretty little purple flowers have sprung up all over the place here AND I spent half an hour on the weekend throwing a toilet paper roll at a mosquito that found its way into my apartment and kept landing just out of reach on the walls. So I guess I'm convinced. Not convinced enough to put my parka into storage, mind you.

What else did I do this weekend? Well, I'm glad you asked. Along with mosquito extermination and having a lovely visit with my parents and some sandwiches which they ever so thoughtfully brought from the best little sandwich joint in my hometown, I got to talk with this gentleman about electric trains for about 10 hours:



It could have been annoying since I typically like to keep my weekend assignments as short and sweet as possible, except for the fact that I'm such a sucker for enthusiasm. I love how passionate people can be about sharing their hobbies.
Even if that hobby is collecting toasters.

Sarahquarium

Living on the top floor of a house as I do, I have a fair amount of privacy. 

From my Rapunzel perch I have little fear of being spotted doing those things that just have to get done in the course of my day, such as prancing about and belting out Regina Spector tunes in my underwear and muppet fur slippers or eating bizarre and disgusting-to-others food combinations.
 And despite there being no curtains in my bathroom window, which is directly in front of my clear glassed-in, shower, the frosted glass on the bottom half of the window does a perfectly adequate job of protecting my modesty.

So last Tuesday when I stayed home sick from work, I felt perfectly comfortable lounging around in my jammies, ignoring the dishes and the mess of watercolours in my living room, secure in the knowledge that I was invisible to the outside world. 

Eventually I figured if I wasn't going to shower, I could at the very least, get some laundry done. This meant dumping out the contents of not one, but two large hampers chock full of my dirty clothes onto my living room floor/couch/coffee table. No sooner had I transformed my livingroom into the great Pacific Garbage patch of clothing than the doorbell rang. 

Thinking it was probably the food fairies downstairs, eager to show me a rainbow, or a white squirrel or the latest and greatest in pet coffins (that's right, they now make pet coffins in the basement), I sighed, zipped up my food-stained hoodie, and shuffled downstairs to answer. It wouldn't be the first time they'd seen me looking like I just rolled out of bed, or off of the mammoth hair rug in my cave.  

However, I was dismayed to discover upon opening the door...some guy. He blinked at me for a second before saying, "Um, you're getting work done on your roof?" 

I tried to appear friendly and coherent instead of completely nonplussed. "Oh, ah, yes? I think my landlord might have mentioned something about that. If you go around to the side door, the neighbours probably know more about it than I do." 
He quickly clarified that he just wanted to let me know there might be people on my roof. 

I mumbled something like "Oh, right, great, thanks." before turning and bounding back up the stairs, whipping off the hoodie as I went, thinking I'd do a quick change and tidy up the laundry hurricane aftermath before the roofers had a chance to climb up and peer into my second floor aquarium. 

Too late. Apparently by "There might be," he meant, there are. Currently. And by "people" he meant several large men. So after doing a comically speedy about-face, I spent the next hour or so held hostage in my own hallway.

I had just about forgotten the entire incident until a couple of days ago. I had just stripped down and positioned myself under the faucet for my morning waternap or "shower." I turned around to sleepily blink at the nearby treetops and found myself looking at a human head. A human head which was attached to a human man in a hard hat and a bucket that was rapidly lifting him up to Sarah shower level.

Fortunately as far as I could tell, he didn't look my way as I furtively finished my shower and leapt into my bathrobe. Although, it almost would have been worth it to see the expression on his face. Almost.

Anyway, as a result of all this, you can add one more quirky behaviour to that list of things I do alone in my apartment: showering in my swimsuit.

Miss me?

Since Sparta moved to the city, I've spent every weekend that I wasn't working dashing off to visit him. I've been having big fun catching up with friends, eating, shopping, dancing and dodging flea-ridden pigeons like there's no tomorrow, but it seems the nonstop revolving door of country/city/country/city I've been living has finally caught up with me in the form of symptoms that line up suspiciously well with those of pneumonia. Although I'm sure if I actually had pneumonia I'd feel worse.

Anyway, mom is heading down for a weekend sleepover and I'm sure she will use her magical mom powers and I'll be feeling better and back to tell you all about the man who smacked me in the subway station and my new solution to the issue of gropey dancing in no time.

Have a lovely weekend!