house wife.

now i might just sound paranoid to you… but there are dust bunnies bigger than a washing machine leering menacingly at me from behind my bedroom door. at what point they turned into teenage mutant dust bunnies is beyond me, but i know one thing for sure- this ain’t no pizza party, april o’neill.

realistically speaking, household chores are something i do when i ‘get around to it’. luckily, i don’t tend to let things pile up for too long before i go bananas and clean my entire place. [this excludes dishes and laundry, two things i really slack on.] the problem with living alone is that you have no scapegoat, nobody else to blame when you find mushrooms growing unintentionally below the kitchen sink or a missing child ensnared in a spider web in the bathroom.

i’ve often times thought of inventing an imaginary room mate to take my frustrations out on- ‘DANG IT, BRIAN! I thought i told you to RINSE your dishes after you’re done using them? and how many times do i have to tell you that the bed is NOT an appropriate place to eat crackers?  AND WHILE WE’RE BEING HONEST WITH ONE ANOTHER- i want you to get off my damn couch and find yourself a job! i’m tired of paying all the bills around here, only to have you stain my bathroom with pink hair dye and leave the cap off the toothpaste. I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE, BRIAN! I’VE HAD ENOUGH!’

as appealing as the idea of an invisible room mate might be, i foresee the arrangement bringing one sided arguments and broken plates. so, i continue to live alone and slowly come to terms with the fact that i am the one responsible for the crumbs in the bed and the mold in the sink.

but you know what? by most other peoples standards  i’m a regular martha stewart. i cringe when i think about having people over or guests ‘popping by’ when my apartment isn’t in a respectable state. i get very self conscious about the little things- ‘oh don’t mind the litter box, i really need to change it’ or ‘oh no, this isn’t a walk in closet…it’s actually my kitchen.’  i take a certain amount of pride in my nest and i wouldn’t want somebody to be [overly] uncomfortable while they are visiting.

every so often i enjoy really going all out and giving my place the full treatment. it feels good to step back, covered in dust and sweat, and  really look at how much better your home looks when it’s clean. the satisfaction stays with me for the next few days like a residual high [that could be on account of the ancient dust i stirred up while moving things, who knows?] that i bask in every time i walk into another room and revel in the lack of dust and hair. i sit back and think with a deep sense of satisfaction ‘come on, amigos! ring my bell! drop me a line! tell me you’re ‘in the neighborhood’… i’d love to have you come and put your little heiney on my freshly vacuumed couch!’

every night this past week i would return home from a long day at work, play a game of leap frog over random items strewn about my place and sigh to myself, thinking ‘that good for nothing, lazy, son-of-a-bitch brian…i guess if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.’  cause sometimes, the biggest mess you’ve got to deal with is your own.

citrus…worst invention EVER.

… ugh, citrus ANYTHING is the worst… it tastes like poison- just sayin’. i now have an opened bag of citrus flavored gummy worms for the first bidder.

the view from here.

before i go any further, let me clear something up. i, nicole armstrong, stand five feet two inches from the ground, or 157 cm. that is precisely the same height as ashley olsen or someone named bobby vernon, who looks a lot like a vampire, in my opinion.

i’ve always been called short. as a child, i was taunted by other kids, telling me to ‘grow’. luckily i was never particularly bothered by this, as i suffer from the two legged version of ‘small dog syndrome’ or ‘the napoleon complex.’

not sure what that means? well let me give you the long and the short of it. (har har har!)  here is what wiki had to say on the matter:

Napoleon complex is an informal term describing an alleged type of inferiority complex which is said to affect some people, especially men, who are short in stature. The term is also used more generally to describe people who are driven by a perceived handicap to overcompensate in other aspects of their lives. Other names for the term include Napoleon syndrome^[1] and Short Man syndrome.^[2] It does not appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)^[3] The Napoleon complex is named after French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. The conventional wisdom is that Napoleon compensated for his short height by seeking power, war and conquest. However, Napoleon was actually of average height for his time period and misconceptions may have been due to an incorrect conversion of his height. Historians have now suggested Napoleon was 5’6 (1.68 m) tall.^[4] Napoleon was often seen with his Imperial Guard, which contributed to the perception of him being short because the Imperial Guards were above average height. In psychology, the Napoleon complex is regarded as a derogatory social stereotype.^[5]

the truth is, i’ve never seen myself as a ‘short person.’ i can look at another person who is the same height as me and recognize their smallness, but never my own. but not a day goes by when someone doesn’t refer to me as ‘the little one’ ‘midget’ or ‘twelve year old’. if i ever meet somebody i’ve chatted with on the internet, they always say the same thing- ‘wow, i expected you to be a lot taller!’.  well yeah, when you see me from the shoulders up in front of my webcam or holding my dwarf dog, i might appear average sized. but don’t be fooled, below the shoulders, i’m just a midget sitting on a stack of phone books.  however, i just looked into the average height of a canadian woman, and apparently its only 5.3, so i’m not really that far off and maybe the rest of you ladies are just freakishly tall. my my, how the tables have turned!

but i’m not going to hate on my more heightly friends [yeah that’s right, i make up words. all short people do.] because without you guys, i wouldn’t be able to reach the top shelf. yes, that is an actual issue i face on a regular basis. this world is one built for tall people, whether you recognize it or not. i don’t know what almighty deity i have pissed off along the way, but they’ve got a sense of humor, and now everything i ever need is placed cruelly on the highest shelf. but believe me, i’ve become industrious. i’ve perfected the art of balance and i can make a mean pile to get my grubby little fingers in the cookie jar, rest assured.

being wee also has it’s other advantages. i can fit into things nicely- bags, boxes, secret places, hiding places, childrens rides or  clothing sections, trunks of cars… you might call it ‘cramped’ , i choose to call it ‘cozy’. it also comes in handy when apartment hunting, places with impossibly low ceilings don’t mean a thing to us!

however, there are disadvantages to everything in life, even in being able to get into the movies with a childrens ticket. one of those downsides is that pants that are all  long enough to make a second pair of pants from the excess material. i think short people should get discounts on clothing because we don’t require as much fabric! it’s not fair that i am paying the same price for someone who might wear an xl when i require LITERALLY half the material. most clothing stores carry ‘regular’ or ‘tall’ pant lengths, nothing for us walking below the ‘average’ line. there is even a store called ‘tall girl’, though why they’d require an entire store when every store in the mall makes pants for giants is beyond me. i also feel unsafe even when tightly secured on rollercoasters. i get mistaken for a high school student more often than i would like to admit and in turn, the age group i get hit on by is usually 18 and under. a lot of clothing ‘cuts me off’ and i end up looking stumpy. the list is short, but sometimes a normal life seems like a tall order for someone of my stature. (har har har)

in short, i guess i am. though, i believe ‘short’ is a state of mind- a feisty, magical state of mind that can zip in and steal your candy before you even knew what happened (everybody knows that the most stealthy ninjas are little folk)  i guess it has nothing to do with a physical height, rather how well you can adapt in the tall mans world… and how well you can train them to do your little, tiny bidding. *insert evil horse jockey laugh here*

layer upon layer upon layer of autumn goodness.

i will start by saying ‘WOOFUCKINGHOO! LAYER WEATHER!’ this morning, i left my house into the pouring rain wearing a tshirt, new gray cords, a hoody, a jean shirt/jacket and a hat, and i was happy as a clam despite the fact that it was raining sideways. this marks the beginning of a love affair i have every year that lasts about 2 months. in this short, blissful time, i can get away with wearing hats and gloves and scarves and hoodies under light jackets. i can leave my house in boots for form rather than function. it’s still warm enough to not panic when i leave the house in just a hoody, yet cool enough to bike to work and not arrive looking like i’ve just stepped out of the shower.

it’s absolute bliss until winter comes and fucks it all up.

the only thing i love about winter is my winter clothes. i have 2 adorable jackets and the GREATEST guess moon boots known to man. i have a plethora of hand knitted scarves, hats and mittens. i am just the cutest damn thing in my winter wardrobe. unfortunately, all the best winterwear in the world couldn’t make up for the fact that i HATE winter, i HATE the cold/being cold and i HATE having wet feet. i hate shoveling and i hate slipping and i hate getting soaked by the slush coming off of jerk cars when i am walking on the poorly maintained sidewalk. i especially hate the consistently delayed ttc service when it’s minus fifteen and i am running late for work.

HELLO, PERFECT WEATHER!

i used to be angsty.

reading my old blog entries is embarrassing. the first one i can easily find [pretty sure i have a livejournal floating around out there from before, possibly] dates back to september 2nd, 2003. [wow, 7 years. jesus.] i have maintained it consistently since then- it’s now got 6528 entries and  124,968 reads. a lot of it is me referring to myself as a pirate, denouncing shitty friends, being overly dramatic [surprise surprise!] filling out surveys and talking about singing dashboard songs in the caf the arts highschool i went to in waterloo. i was such a little shit. (plus what was with those tiny eyebrows? seriously…)

reading these old entries is so surreal, when i read them they feel like yesterday but a thousand years ago at the same time, like reading about someone elses life that kind of comes to feel familiar. i feel like i’m snooping. some days i don’t know whether i am happy i’ve had the last 7 years of my life documented so thoroughly or not. recalling the points i was at in recent years and reading about how out of control i got sometimes makes me uneasy, i wish i could just go back, sit myself down and tell myself if i just calm the fuck down, everything will work itself out, the friends that i was so worried about won’t be more than a passing thought and that man who treated me like such shit when i lived with him and his girlfriend will kill himself in about 5 years. and no matter how tough times seemed, i always got through somehow.

now here are some photos of my younger self. left to right- dana and i in highschool with my crayon hair and my tie, myself at about 17/18 with my first fake dreads, myself at 18 looking like a vampire, myself at 18 or 19 looking like a raver.

‘Can’t i just do what i want? really. i am 18, i don’t want help from anyone any more.’ september 17, 2003.

i believe the term is ‘curvy’.

and trust me, i’m just getting used to being ‘curvy’ myself. you see, i was always thin. not OVERLY thin, i was by no means a waif. i grew these hips any child could pass through a few years ago, and when my drug use slowed, the rapid growth of my ass was in full swing! while i’m being honest, i might as well put it out there- i spent a really significant chunk of my life frequenting ‘all night dance parties’ and indulging in many of the up[per]s and down[er]s they had to offer. and let me tell you honey, after dancing weekends away and not eating until sunday night- this body was PERFECT. but when i stopped really going balls out and punishing my body so extensively every weekend, i began to see the appeal of the bottle.

drinking is a whole other world full of empty calories, drunken street meat and being too tipsy to dance it off without spewing. this was a place i knew nothing of. add to the six pack the fact that i have never ever paid any attention to the nutritional information on the wrapper of ANYTHING in my entire life up until recently. 80 879 calories was just another way to say how delicious this bag of deep friend brownies was going to taste! but more and more in the past few years, i’ve noticed squish in places that were squishless before, dimples that aren’t on my face, and stretch marks to remind me of all of this. i saw my pant size go from a 5 to a 7 to a 9 [and recently, back down to a 5 or 7 depending on the pants, woo hoo!]. for the first time in my life when i looked into the mirror i hated my body, but i was too miserable about it to actually DO anything.

sometimes i get discouraged when i look at the size of my thighs, or when i try something on that used to fit and i look like an elephant trying to slip into a size 5 ball gown. i held onto a lot of stuff, justifying my overflowing closet and 2 dressers by telling myself ‘i’d fit into them again’. eventually i came to terms with what my body had become and  and i started purging the smalls and extra smalls to make room for the mediums [and in some cases, the larges]. after i stopped working at a mall and living off of cinnabon, 2L of coke a day and mcdonalds i saw a lot of the weight coming off. when the weather got nicer and i acquired a bike and a job 3 km away, it seemed to be that extra little push in the right direction and i’ve felt better about myself in the past few months than i have in a few years.

the image of an ideal woman has become so distorted it’s sick. newsflash! women aren’t meant to be rail thin & runway models aren’t the ideal body type- their jobs are to serve as walking, breathing coat racks because proportionally they match. women are meant to be soft and curvy and… well- feminine.  sometimes i go into stores and browse the racks chalk full of 0’s and 00’s and i think to myself HOW THE FUCK DOES A NEGATIVE SIZE LIKE THAT EXIST OUTSIDE OF ASIA OR THE CHILDREN S SECTION?  i realize i sound like a hater right now and i’m sorry if i’ve offended any of you slender ladies, i know that being uncontrollably thin can be just as much a battle as being uncontrollably fat. i know a lot of very feminine, naturally lean women who carry it incredibly well because it’s their natural body type, not because they’ve puked up their lunch for the past few months.

on a much needed shopping trip today, i downsized all my beloved large v neck tshirts to mediums. i also purchased 3 new pairs of pants in sizes 5 and 7.  today i feel confident in these numbers and measurements and in the way i look and feel. my thighs might not be any smaller and my backside might still be alarmingly large, but the important part is that i’m coping and that they still make pants big enough to fit over my ass.

http://marketingblog.experience.com/2008/11/no-skinny-chicks.html

that’s a link to an article basically talking about the womans image in advertisements and how fucked up it has become, if any of you care to read it.

impulsive miss.

so i dyed the side of my hair hot pink last night…. 3 am what?! i think i actually kind of like it. i will letcha know tonight.

an ode to my bed.

i can’t stand when the fitted sheet on my bed untucks itself and i wake up on a bare mattress- it makes me feel like i’m sleeping in a bed they’d find a dead hooker in in some shitty movie about some seedy metropolis.

neurotic and overly dramatic , yeah. i know. but after yet another morning spent waking up to a bunched up bottom sheet in between two bodies that were now sleeping on a BARE mattress, i had a 9 am meltdown and exclaimed that i have had ENOUGH of shitty bedding and i was going to request new sheets for christmas!

my plan was met with light hearted criticism when i was informed that bedsheets were a lame christmas present request. um, what? come again?  am i getting old or am i just missing something here?

what could POSSIBLY be lame about the steadfastness of a high thread count ?  or of dressing your bed in cotton imported all the way from egypt- the land of mighty pyramids, snake charmers and aladdin?  and what could be a better gift than drifting off to sleep every single night wrapped up in the sweet caress of jersey bedding?

In case that may have sounded like a rhetorical question to some folks- the answer is NOT A GODDAMN THING.

i mean, the last few years gifts from my parents have included bedsheets, socks, underwear, a microwave, a toaster, a dvd player, a vacuum, the movie UP, tampons and blank cds… apparently i didn’t get the memo confirming that asking for anything past the window treatment section of the sears wishbook was still acceptable at 25. had i known this, i would have requested a transformers tent with a matching sleeping bag to dodge being a grown for a few more years.

this entry is a bit boring , i know. you will have to deal- i worked through the entire weekend and spent my evenings in bed with books which all equates to less time than usual spent in public. and if one thing fuels my rants, it’s the stupid people i cross paths with on a daily basis. it feels like the middle of the week and tomorrow is day 6 at work…. all work and no play makes nikki something something.

books & stupid idiot hipsters.

i will start by saying that the book to the left over there- despite the fact that it’s called ‘11,002 things to be miserable about,’  might well be the funniest thing i’ve read in quite some time. my personal favorites thus far include- mange, david hasselhoff, unreciprocated oral sex, bifocals and the day after christmas. believe it or not, i was in a pretty rotten mood this afternoon and this book was part of what cheered me up (along with a brand spankin’ new copy of  ‘when you are engulfed in flames’ by david sedaris, a giant crossword puzzle book, a ‘keep calm and have a cupcake’  bookmark and gingerbread ice cream).

the truth is, few things in life make me happier than a good book and i’ve had my nose buried in between paperback covers since i was old enough to read. i feel a deep sense of disappointment (that almost borders on loss) when i finally reach the end of a book i’ve become engrossed in… i feel completely at home on paper. i look forward to getting into bed and reading until i fall asleep every day, i don’t have any tv channels to depend on to waste my time, and truth be told, i can’t stay awake when i’m in front of a television, anyways. i find myself lending out favorites at the risk of never getting them back just so i can have someone else to talk to about how amazing the story was. yes, i realize how insanely nerdy that is, and i’m okay with that. but the satisfaction i get from knowing i’ve passed on a really, really good book to someone is stronger than the satisfaction i get from talking about some trendy, bullshit band or “artist”.

i guess that’s because it’s easy to appreciate music or art because you don’t really have to devote much thought to them to be able to bullshit people into thinking you’re really ‘into something’, at least not for any extended period of time. now don’t get me wrong- i love music. i love art. i am not saying anything negative about passionately enjoying either. what i am referring to is the air of pretentiousness that comes with both of them and how your ‘indie cred’ is determined by how many obscure bands or artists you can name off.  with a book you actually need to sit down and take it all in for at least a few hundred pages, and that means taking time off from posting about your most recent bowel movement on twitter and hanging out in crowded little coffees shops talking about your blog [har har har] with your friends. yes, i might be a tad bit cynical- sue me! i’m just tired of all these pyseudo intellectuals walking around wearing big glasses and shitty clothes from the 70s making everything legit about being an artist, a writer or an ACTUAL intellectual into some hipster fucking joke.

back to gaying out about literature!

i didn’t do a whole lot of reading for many years because i didn’t really know what i liked to read anymore. i would listen to peoples suggestions and feel discouraged that i found chuck klosterman to be a pretentious, self absorbed know it all and douglas coupland to be more boring than a funeral. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME? why couldn’t i too be consumed the sheer genius of the harry potter series or lord of the ring/flies?!  however, all hope was not lost because about 4 years ago i started to really get back into reading and started to find patterns in the types of literature i enjoy- gritty fiction, bios, true crime, hilarious books about peoples real life experiences, social commentaries, books about religions and weird cults and whatever and pop culture stuff. [if you’d like any suggestions about awesome reads, hit me up. i’m always more than happy to point you in the right direction]

if YOU are interested in finding new authors but you don’t know where to begin and people think you’re the type of person who would enjoy reading about witch school or hobbits, you can check out www. gnod.com. you  put in authors you like and it will give you suggestions, sort of like itunes genius, but bookier! you can also use it for music and movies, i’ve discovered some awesome bands that way. as far as bookstores go, there is an awesome used bookstore on ossington between dundas and queen called frantic city. books are cheap and they have a great selection. and recently i discovered the wonderment that is the book section at value village, i ended up coming home with 5 new gems.

now it’s time for a bath, book and then bed- what a wild friday night!

(and  in case any of you are wondering, i am currently working on midnight in the garden of good and evil by john berendt and it is absolutely stellar)

just kiss it!

just kiss it! this was too cute to resist.