Life and Times of AlieMalie

I know this is something I’ve done previously, except for the fact that it was just 6 weird things then and now it’s 7. But that’s ok, 7 is my favourite number and well, I just like making lists. About me. Because, hello? I’m an egomaniac. And John? For pointing that out last night and then challenging me to challenge you, I hereby challenge you to do this post over on your blog since you’ve been neglecting it and by default us by not blogging regularly. So, thanks to Ian for allowing us to tag ourselves. John, get busy.

1. I am a freak about produce, the fruit/vegetable kind, and can spend endless amounts of time finding just the right selection. This talent has not gone unnoticed by friends and if they’re having a party or dinner that involves fresh produce? It’s always my job to bring it. I used to work for an agricultural lawyer where one of my assignments was to go through 3,000 photos of grapes and sort them by spoilage by date. We had grapes that had been sitting in warehouses for MONTHS and let me tell you, grapes are not pretty when they haven’t been refrigerated for 3 months. We also used to get samples of what some of our clients grew: fresh oranges, coffee beans, asparagus, sometimes we got some wine. Anyway, when it comes to buying fresh fruits and veggies, I have a whole slew of requirements that normal people would probably laugh at. Grapes must have stems that are still green and plump because that shows that they were picked more recently than those with brown shriveled stems – even if the grapes may look good. Also? They must pop in your mouth – no squishy grapes for me. And contrary to popular belief, asparagus is perfectly fine at any size, but it MUST be fresh, no brown on the cut ends and must be standing in water. Also, try soaking the stems in garlic/lemon water overnight and then throwing them on the grill with some steaks. THAT is the perfect way to eat asparagus. Wow, that was a long number 1.
2. I have a weird homing device built into my brain. It is exceedingly difficult for me to get lost, no matter where I am and almost never need a map, even when I’m in a city that I’ve never set foot in previously. If I have a general idea of where something is, I can almost always find it without guidance, if not, a quick glance at a map to orient myself, and I’m good to go. The only times I use a map is when I’m navigating a subway system and for decorating which leads us to 3 …
3. I have an obsession with maps with regards to decorating my house. I have them everywhere on my walls.
4. When I see a squirrel, I never say squirrel in my head, I always say écureuil, french for squirrel. It takes conscious effort on my part to think up the word in english.
5. I’m ambidextrous. Yes, I’d say my right hand does win when it comes to being dominant for the most part, but I don’t have trouble writing with my left if need be. There are other things, however, that are almost always relegated to my left hand: I nearly always use my left hand to eat with. Also, I have never been able to do a cartwheel with my right arm leading, it’s always the left, always always always. And I do a mean cartwheel/round-off. And though it’s a direct result of being a violinist, my left arm/hand is stronger than my right – even when I broke my wrist in 9th grade, my left thumb pinch had more force than my right.
6. I’m a bit superstitious about things. Case in point, if a black cat not known to me crosses my path, I get a little freaked out and will obsess about it for a couple of days. If something bad happens in the near future after the black cat has crossed my path, I’ll blame the cat. This has gotten so bad in the past few years that if need be, I will walk out of my way to go around the path the cat has taken or will turn my car around and find a different way to wherever I’m going. However, if I know the cat in question, I think nothing of it.
7. I only eat the fortune cookies if I agree with them or like the fortune they contain. I figure, if I don’t eat them, they don’t count.

As for tagging, hrm, let’s see. We’ve already gotten JOHN, how about Brianne, healingmagic hands and Julia? There we go, have at it.

I’m walking around the strings room this afternoon, picking up instruments to tune as the kids are finishing their unpacking and carrying on mindless conversations with each other before class starts when I hear one of my violins talking to a cello about what concert they really, really want to go see:

Cello:I’m waiting for Justin Timberlake to come to town, I can’t wait.

Violin: I really want to see ELO.

I stop dead in my tracks, stop tuning and listen more carefully.

Violin: ELO is an awesome band.

It’s been confirmed, the kid said ELO. My heart proceeds to skip a beat. Holy smokes I have a 5th grader who knows about ELO! So I casually turn around and look at the kid in question.

Miss Malie: Who’s ELO?

I’m trying not to betray my excitement so I figure if I act like I don’t know who they are, the kid won’t get freaked out about my inner nerd-hamster RANDOMLY! BOUNCING! UP! AND! DOWN! LIKE! A! REALLY! BIG! DORK! Apparently, I totally succeed in masking my boing! and the kid proceeds to inform me that it’s, DUH! The Electric Light Orchestra.

I think I scared him though, because I whirled around and, very loudly as I’m wont to do when I’m really happy and excited, announced to my coteacher that THIS KID! RIGHT HERE! knows about ELO! OMG! And then I had to crush his dreams to tell him that the band that brought him his favourite song, Mr Blue Sky, is no more.

On a completely unrelated note, I am totally craving a chocolate covered Belgian waffle like the one that I had in Amsterdam. Did I ever mention that waffle around here? No? I think I forgot to take a photo of it too because I was too busy trying to regain my composure while walking down the street in public after I’d just had an intimate moment with a damn waffle. Let me tell you, peoples, it’s another orgasm in the mouth. Really. I need one. Or two. Or seven. Is it a bad thing that I’m mentioning orgasms and children that I teach in the same post? Thank god for pseudonyms.

So that whole no insurance thing … it’s not too cool when you go off to Houston for the weekend, freeze your butt off in the rain for eight hours, and then go running around the RenFaire for the day in wet jeans because Alie thought that one pair of jeans would be enough since it was only a 36 hour trip and didn’t take into account that the weather gods had other things in mind than clear blue sunny skies.

Cue Alie getting sick.

Then enter stage right a cold front blowing into town on Wednesday night – which did lift my spirits for a bit because it has gotten a bit chilly here and I love cold – and bringing with it the dreaded allergies that send my sinuses into orbit. It’s times like these, when I get sick over a weekend or, even worse, a holiday week, that I know it’s pretty bad. And with a fever to boot. I haven’t had a fever in ages that I can remember, probably since I landed myself in the hospital on my return from Australia with the lovely giardia bug that had infected Sydney’s water supply. Oh, that was a bad one, I was convinced I was going to die. DIE.

Anyway, this is just a self gratifying pity post. I’m ready to be over this. And when someone comes up with a vaccination for sinus infections, please, please, please let me know.

So it’s American Thanksgiving today and I think I’m going to cheat a bit and put up a less substantial post than normal and list a few things I’m thankful for.

1. Travel. This year has, hands down, been the year of the trip for me. If you go back through the months, I think January was the only month where I didn’t GO somewhere. But I might be wrong, in fact, I probably am, but nevertheless, each month has had either a major trip abroad or a series of little trips. Coming up? I’m going to Missouri in December. That’s a bit of a surprise for me, but it’s for a good reason.
2. Friends. Especially meeting some really awesome new ones. It’s no secret that my trip to Europe with the Texans in May and June ended a few friendships. In fact, it ended my friendship with the person I’d have considered my best female friend, so in the past few months I’ve been actively looking to find new people to hang out with. Lucky me, a trip up to Austin in August was a gold mine. And then there are the supremely awesome blog buddies I’ve hung out with this year, too.
3. Blogging/Blogs. I suppose 2 leads me to this one as some of the people I’ve met through this blog have become very good friends. Not only that, but I’m able to get a lot of these infernal thoughts out of my head so they stop driving me crazy. See the last couple of weeks worth of posts for examples.
4. Teaching. I didn’t make a big deal about it when I got the position, hell, I don’t think I even mentioned it here or even to quite a few of my friends, but in September I got a job teaching after-school strings to two groups of 5th graders and I absolutely love it. They have their first concert coming up and if I’m not careful, I think my heart might explode from the pride I have for these kids. Even better? After a crap day or a shitty weekend, they always have something to say to cheer me up or make me laugh. They are simply the best.
5. Family. Or being mature enough to realise that I am not attached to them 24/7 or in need of telling them absolutely everything about my life. Being able to detach myself from them has made me much happier in my relationships with them. Granted, there is always work to be done in any relationship, but the fact that I can talk with almost all of them in a friendly way makes me really happy. This has been a long process in this family.
6. I don’t know how to label this with just one word so you’ll have to bear with me. This year I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m pretty – but not totally, yet – comfortable with the fact that I don’t do things the normal way. It took me 6.5 years to get my BA which used to grate at me every. single. day. in the past, but now? Whatever. I had some great trips that took up that extra 2.5 years. I’m not in a relationship. I don’t have a normal 9-5 job – I don’t have health insurance because of this (this is where the “but not totally, yet” comes into play). Even so, I really like my life. I like the opportunities that having a screwy schedule has afforded me and I like the people it has brought me into contact with. And frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. For being able to say that, I’m really thankful.

Hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving and that my Canadian friends, well, have a really awesome day, too.

Well, this weekend was nothing if not interesting. A few weeks ago the friend I traveled to Michigan with invited me to go to the Renaissance Faire in Houston with her. Apparently another friend of ours had a birthday yesterday and he wanted to spend the weekend doing some majorly geeky activities. When I was in Austin a couple of weeks ago, I’d mentioned this faire to the boy and his friend (two boys I met in Austin in August and saw later in their home town on the way to Michigan and Toronto and then again in Austin a few weeks ago: I clicked with one, the friend is seeing my Michigan friend, got that? I know it’s kinda confusing), and asked if they had any intention of going. Answer was no, probably not, though they encouraged me to go seeing that I’d never been to one and they’re all sorts of fun. Anyway, this past Wednesday my buddy informed me that actually, her boy was coming fer sure. Joy. Seeing that his best friend is the guy I’m interested in who threw me for a loop in Austin, it meant there was a pretty good chance that he was coming too. Damn, I need a name for this boy. I’ll think on this … Anyway, since the boy is pretty much the biggest fan out of all of us of these sorts of faires and his best friend was going, I decided it’d probably be a good idea if I got a rain check – and this will be hilarious in a minute – and stay here at home so I can keep myself relatively sane. Anyway, a rain check, holy cow. Unfortunately, my Michiganer friend would hear nothing of this and, well, even though I said I’m tired and exhausted and don’t want any more trips for a while, I did want to leave home because I get bored here within five minutes of being back. Surprise, my town is lame. And also? As much as I try to kid myself, seeing the boy again and being in a smaller group where I could get more one on one time? Go ahead, twist. my. arm.

Le sigh. I must admit when it comes to this boy, I feel rather weak in the knees. Anyway … off we went Saturday morning where I was subsequently informed that, hello? It’s been confirmed that the boy is coming. Cue Alie freaking out because even though I wanted to see him, couldn’t stop thinking about him, I really had managed to leash my emotions regarding him and the issue he has at the moment and put them in a cute little box on the shelf under lock and key. But when someone busts open that box and lets it all out again, it’s difficult to collect it all and put it back in – especially when you know that within 8 hours you’ll be seeing the person it concerns in the flesh. Lordy lordy. So it was an interesting drive to Houston. We picked up another person who has no clue about any of the goings on regarding Michiganer and me and the two boys, so I had to put a cork in it for the majority of the trek to the faire, but once we got there, I pretty much disintegrated into a bunch of mindless, unanswerable questions about what do I do? How do I act? What do I say? Just how cool is cool enough but not too cool? HOLY FUCK. And then I had a glass of wine, set up my tent, had another glass of wine and sat around the camp circle staring at the clouds.

I was starting to feel pretty good. I managed to get myself under control: these were mostly my friends, I was ok, I’m an adult and I can deal. DEAL, yo. I will live. And then they arrived and it was, again, everything and nothing I was expecting and hoping for it to be. And you know, I’m starting to like this feeling. At least the everything part. We click. We talk. We have some crazy amazing conversations that just flow and meander. The nothing part? Meh, as I’m sure you can figure out, I could totally do without it because it leaves me a bit blue, but given the circumstances (and no, I’ll never divulge what they are on the blog because it is not mine to say), it is what I have to live with for the time being. Hello, Alie is as cool as a cucumber for the foreseeable future. Argh. Patience is not my forte, but I’ll be living my life and keeping a friendship with him.

Anyway, we set up the boys’ tents and proceeded to walk around the camping area to explore since once the faire closes at dusk, there’s a major party that starts in the campground. We saw people dressed up in all their Renaissance finery: elves, lords, ladies, centaurs. I’m still a little confused as to how some people get the idea that a centaur or an elf is from the Renaissance, but whatever, it was entertaining to see. We moved on and stumbled into the camp of the fire eaters who were a lot of fun to watch. By this time, we’d lost most of our group and had no idea where our two friends were. Also? It had started to rain pour. Good thing we’d put up those tents when we arrived. As we were walking back to our camp, conversation turned to recent communiques and events and as we hadn’t finished talking by the time we reached the tents, but it was pouring and we were wet and perhaps a little happier than normal due to the consumption of delicious beverages, we darted into his tent to keep talking.

Now, I can talk with this boy for hours on end as has been demonstrated on more than one occasion by now. About an hour into the tent and conversation, the tent collapsed due to the sheer amount of rain we were getting. See? I guess I really did get a RAIN check. Anyway, obviously we couldn’t stay there so we moved to my tent. But my tent? It was a sieve. It had a mini river running through it towards the bottom of the slight hill we were on, and once we got that taken care of, it was ok for about 30 minutes ’til the rain just started pouring down from the heavens making the walls of the tent virtually nonexistent. Looking back, it was great, cold, wet fun. So, two tents nearly demolished – it was time to suck it up and sleep in the car. heh.

Sunday was spent recovering and packing everything up and then heading into the actual faire. By the middle of the day, we’d again managed to lose everyone and set off on our own to explore. Since he’s been to a couple of these previously, he was able to show me the really good stuff without having to slog through the really cheesy things, which was really nice because let me tell you, some of those things were really cheesy. Conversation was good, as always, and lots of fun was had.

So, there’s still just Alie and a boy who’re friends. He’s figuring his life out, trying to sort out things that simply take a lot of time and we have fun when we see each other. There’s nothing concrete between the two of us, we enjoy each other and have a lovely friendship.

For now, I think I need a bigger box to put all my memories and stories into.