Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. And the commemorative coin set.

Things you have to have done in order to truly understand the Wahooty:

1. Smelled your dental floss. Hey, it's the only way you know your teeth are truly clean.

2. Done dishes that have been sitting in the sink so long that they smell EXACTLY like your dental floss on one of those not-so-fresh days.

3. Done dishes while rather intoxicated.

Remembered that there is no #4.

5. Been appalled by your own filth, and deathly afraid that someone will find out.

6. Planned a perfectly lovely evening, and had it turn out just exactly as lovely (if not more so) than you had planned.

7. Planned a perfectly boring evening, and had it turn out far lovelier than you expected it to.

8. Made the perfect dinner.

9. And drunk at least half a bottle of the perfect wine.

10. Oh hell...drunk the whole fucking bottle.

11. Worn heels and an evening gown around your apartment for no reason other than that they made you happy.

12. Watched many, MANY hours of Sex and the City. Often, while wearing heels. And maybe an evening gown. Or two.

13. Put on music for the sole purpose of dancing and/or singing around your apartment. Possibly put on shoes for that very purpose. Hey, the tap shoes get lonely. As do the jazz shoes. Shut up, you're not the boss of me.

14. Curled up in an armchair with a couple of furry things and watched a football game. Preferably with at least one of the furry things falling asleep. Snoring is a bonus.

15. Watched the sunrise over a mountain and a pasture full of cows.

16. Received cow kisses.

17. Had a mint julep.

18. Gone wine tasting and loved it. Even at a shitty winery.

19. Been to Virginia in the fall.

20. Had REAL BBQ. And sweet tea. And realized that one does not exist without the other.

21. Watched a TV show with someone several hundred miles away. And across an international border.

22. Wandered around alone at night and never once had it occur to you to be frightened. In fact, wandered. Just for the sake of wandering.

23. Loved MTV more than anyone has a right to. Even in Canada.

24. Left your home behind, only to find a new one.

25. Diagnosed your own health problems, and found the right medication.

26. And been right.

27. Seen how fucking cool it is to mix chemicals and create light.

28. Been in front of a captive, and captivated, audience.

29. Walked the Lawn at UVA. With and without clothing.

30. Been hooded at a graduation, while your parents kissed in the audience.

Rejoiced in finishing a list on a nice, round number.

Oh, there are more. Many more. But these are all I thought of tonight.

Chop Suey

Tonight I decided that I needed to go out to eat. All by myself, like a big girl. I just didn't feel like sitting at home all by my lonesome, so I might as well take my lonesome out on the town.

So I headed to a nearby pub. But when I got there, it was fairly full, with a crowd much older than I, and it just wasn't the atmosphere I was looking for. Plus, I had realized by that time that what I really wanted was fish & chips, so I headed to the bus stop so that I could relocate to my fish & chips shop a few blocks away.

I got there at 8:05.

They closed at 8.

D'OH!

Okay, so moving on to Plan C: catch another bus back home, and finally try the Chinese restaurant in my neighborhood that I have heard is actually quite good. The "Chinese Beef Lamb House" always looks and smells quite tasty whenever I walk by, and I've been wanting to try it, but am always hesitant to try Chinese places without the buffer provided by one of my Chinese friends. And tonight I was reminded why.

Once I was seated, they brought me a plate...napkin...

...and a fork.

They didn't even give me the OPTION of chopsticks. And yeah, I could have asked, but I figured it wasn't worth flagging down the waitress again.

Now, I'm no hero. I am not very good with chopsticks, because they are not standard issue in most of the Asian restaurants in the Virginia and Indiana towns in which I have lived. (The glaring exception being sushi restaurants, which I find funny because sushi is actually supposed to be eaten with the fingers as far as I know.) But I am a firm believer in the whole "when in Rome..." attitude, and I like to eat my Chinese/Korean/Japanese/Vietnamese/etc. food with the proper utensils. It is, quite frankly, part of the reason I go out for that sort of thing, because I can make Asian foods at home, but I don't have chopsticks (yet), and it's just more fun to eat the food the way it's meant to be eaten. And the only way I will ever get good at using them is to ACTUALLY USE THEM. It may take me a while to eat my bowl of pho, but dammit, I do it, and I've improved a lot in the last year. I wouldn't have been offended had they brought me a fork WITH my chopsticks, but they never even gave me a chance. C'mon, throw the white girl a bone!

So anyway, I eat my dinner with my stupid fork, and it's very, very tasty. But I find myself wondering if it's the real thing. Chinese restaurants are notorious for having two versions of everything - the real one, and the one they serve the white people.

I lived in Indiana for seven years. I've had enough greasy, bland, Westernized Chinese food to last me many lifetimes. Toronto is known for having fantastic Chinese food, and when I go to a Chinese restaurant, I want the same food that the Chinese patrons eat. If I'm smart enough to eat at a restaurant in which I am the sole white person, I don't want to be treated like someone who doesn't really want authentic food. Even my Canadian-born Chinese friends tend to be surprised when I like things that are very traditionally Chinese and very different from Western food.

Dude, I like food. I ain't fussy.

So I guess I'll never know if my cumin lamb was the real thing unless I take one of my Chinese friends with me and have them order it. But oooh, even if it was toned down, it was fabulous.

I almost asked for the check in Chinese, just to salvage a little pride, but I only know how to say it in Cantonese, and I'm pretty sure this is a Mandarin-speaking joint, so I would have just looked even more hopelessly Anglo. And if there's anything I hate more than being subtly patronized, it's the blatant patronization you get for doing things like that.

And dammit, I still want some fish & chips.

J-J-Jaded

My horoscope for today was:

You may sense a current of feeling that runs deeper than what you've been recently experiencing. On one hand, this can be quite exciting, for you are attracted to the intensity and may believe that you are getting closer to something very significant. On the other hand, you are fearful of losing yourself into this powerful flow. Discuss it with a close friend to get a healthier perspective before proceeding.

I've come to a realization slowly over the last 6 months or so. No matter how much I try to deny it, I have to admit that I've become pretty severely jaded. I'm not talking about that pouty, "I'm bitter!" veneer that so many single girls put up when what they're really thinking is, "I know he's out there...why won't he just get here already?" After several years of long periods alone, only interrupted by a series of unrequited crushes and an occasional relationship with an emotionally unavailable man (some of whom had very good reasons for being emotionally unavailable...others...well, just went ahead and hurt me without ever bothering to even attempt to explain themselves), I find myself in a rather unattractive frame of mind. Not only do I not want to get emotionally invested in anyone, but I find myself continually surprised to find evidence that men actually do have feelings.

That sounds really awful, but it's true.

Any time I'm watching some stupid reality show, and there's some will-they-or-won't-they romantic plotline during which they show the guy talking to some buddy about the girl and expressing a sentiment even the slightest bit deeper than, "yeah, she's pretty hot," I am actually taken aback. The thought of a guy actually caring about and having real emotions for a girl is genuinely foreign to me at this point.

It has been about 7 years since I exchanged "I love you"s with someone who wasn't a blood relative or one of my best girlfriends.

Sort of a Seven-Year-Retch, if you will.

During that period, any time I've been on the phone with my parents and told them I'm dating someone new, it has been immediately followed by, "there's no future in it, but at least it's nice to have some companionship." I can spend a surprising amount of time in a relationship that never had any hope of a future.

It's easy to believe men don't have deep feelings when you've had so little evidence to the contrary. Oh sure, I've been out on dates where I could tell I was charming the pants off of the guy, but those never went far enough to turn into genuine affection, and I'm sure they have long since forgotten about me. And yeah, there were one or two guys who kind of turned into stalkers, but I don't flatter myself - I know those had a great deal more to do with the mental instability of those particular chaps than with any attraction towards me. I catch myself thinking the same sorts of things I used to when I was in middle school (where you think the boy that likes you is just gross and the boy you like thinks the same about you in turn): what are the odds that some guy I like would end up liking me? That just seems impossible!

I don't like this about myself, but I also know that it's not something I can fix on my own. No matter how much my friends give me the speeches about how amazing I am and how some great guy is going to come to his senses and figure that out, the only thing that will ever convince me is when some guy does. I'm a woman of faith in many things, but this just ain't one of 'em. Here, I am a woman of science - I'll believe it when I see it.

Which brings me back to my horoscope and my new crush. Yeah, you read that right, I have promoted him to actual, full-blown crush status. We hung out last night, and spent about 4 hours just talking. He has far guiltier pleasures than I do, but he doesn't seem to feel the least bit guilty about them, which is refreshing. My current impression is that he's confident and self-assured, but with a healthy dose of humility. He likes to talk, and is incredibly honest and forthright, but he also listens very intently when I talk. The one thing I'm still trying to figure out is how attracted to him I am, but that won't be fully resolved until I've at least had a snuggle. And while I can usually tell when a guy is charmed or smitten with me, I'm not picking up any of that with him. He clearly enjoys spending time with me, because he has always been eager to make plans, but about the only tangible sign I've had of interest was when I was leaving last night, and thanked him for having me over, even though he had a bad cold, and he said, "No, thanks for coming over. I've been looking forward to this since we first talked about doing it last week."

That caught me a little off-guard. I mean, I know I had been looking forward to it, but he was too? I mean, he actually had stuff to DO all week. I was partly looking forward to it because it was the only thing on my social calendar. So now I've been thinking about him a lot (again, mostly because it's more fun than doing chores or working on the paper that I'm supposed to send to my boss by tomorrow night), and all day I've been having these fleeting flashes of...something. It could be that there's more than just crush potential there, but it could also just be that long-dead part of me trying to resurface. That occasional flutter in my stomach might just be that part of me that's sick of being alone, trying to take over and make more of this than it really is. I don't have the energy to analyze, and it wouldn't do any good anyway, so I'm just letting it percolate for now to see if it resolves itself. But this has been one of those weeks where my horoscope is pretty much dead on, and it says to discuss it with a close friend for perspective, and you guys are my close friends.

So go ahead, discuss.

Irony is the hygiene of the mind.

The U of T, in its infinte wisdom, has been inundating my building (or at least my floor) with posters lately. One surfaced in the washroom, explaining the fundamentals of hand-washing. Because I guess if you've managed to make it to the upper echelon of academia without ever learning to wash your hands after you pee, the only logical explanation is that you've never had a proper visual aide. Around the same time, they installed Purell dispensers just outside the washroom doors, and a day or two later a helpful poster appeared to explain, basically, that germs are icky (complete with a cartoon germ that has legs, antennae and, yes, WINGS. Must be one of them there airborne illnesses I've heard so much about).

I will save my anti-Purell tirades for another day, but I encourage you to read that last part again, keeping in mind that my building is officially named the Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Research.

Thank God for those posters - otherwise, the people in this building might never have figured out how to kill germs.

This week, a new set appeared. Four beautiful posters, all about efforts we can make to help the University be Green - reducing greenhouse gas emissions, using sustainable resources, recycling, and...

...going paperless.

Yin and Yang

This evening, I had two dueling streams of thought. So I present them as follows. I have done you all the courtesy of separating the streams into their respective topics, as I thought writing the whole thought process verbatim would have been completely incomprehensible. As it is, it is merely a complete waste of your time. You have been duly warned.

YIN:

I present my stream of consciousness while intermittently watching the MTV Video Music Awards:

Why is John Norris blonde?

AND WEARING EYELINER????

Why is NELLY fuckin FURTADO blonde? And apparently drunk. Apparently.

And what the fuck happened to Alicia Keys? Where did you leave the rest of your nose, sista friend?

Paris Hilton, you look ridiculous, you self-important bitch.

Britney!
Could you be more obviously lip-synching?
You look good for a mom of 2, but you are not in your fighting form. Seriously...I hear Weight Watchers is some good shit.
WOW with the uncomfortable/bored/pitying looks from the audience.
When FUCKING RIHANNA is laughing at you for not being able to sing, you know you've got problems.
You're a much better dancer than this, Brit.
That was, quite possibly, the LAMEST OPENING NUMBER THE VMAS HAVE EVER HAD.
Almost, but not quite, as lame as one would expect when they're having the fucking thing IN A CASINO.
What next - Atlantic City???

It should be noted that there is a gap of about one hour here while I was...um...indisposed. (read: talking to a boy)

Oh...OH....how I do love Justin Timberlake. But who knew he had balls? He just accepted his award from the cast of The Hills, then pleaded with MTV in his speech to "play some videos." And made some snide comment about reality tv. LOVE him. But also love The Hills. Such is the neverending paradox of self-hatred for every pop-culture junkie.

Mmm...I do enjoy the LeBoeuf.

But I don't enjoy the LeMoustache.

Any day now, Kanye West is going to be completely indistinguishable from Flavor Flav. And God help me, I love him for it.

Oh...OH...nobody told me he name-checks SNAKES ON A PLANE!!! Why, exactly, have I not bought this album yet???

Aside from JT, have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER who has actually won the awards.

Megan Fox, you look like a blowup doll. Seriously, it's distracting. I keep looking for the valve on her back.

Rihanna, SHAME ON YOU for laughing at Britney. You sound like ass. You are not dancing enough to justify that backing track.

Alicia Keys, your biceps and thighs frighten me. Sir yes SIR!
Ooh, but you are covering George Michael's "Freedom '90." That makes me happier than it has any right to.

How can you be nominated for "best new artist" when it's your THIRD ALBUM??? How's that rehab workin' out for you now, Amy?

Nelly Furtado has now officially morphed into Madonna circa "Lucky Star."

Oh, but I am having many impure thoughts about Justin Timberlake right now. Damn, if you boys only knew what good dance moves can do to a woman.

Still have no idea who won anything. But who really gives a shit anyway?

YANG:

I need help. I realized earlier today that I was nervous about an IM date.

Wait...I need to backtrack.
So I have previously alluded to a new friend who may or may not be a candidate for my new crush. We have tons in common - he is a teacher and a theater person and seems fairly passionate about both. Which is good, seeing as how these are two of my big passions in life. He is also close to his extended family and that's a very big deal for me as well, so it's nice to talk to someone i have that in common with.

Well, he asked me to go see a movie with him on Wednesday night. The movie? Superbad. Something I've been dying to see, and indicates we should have compatible senses of humor...isn't a damned date movie, which is good, because as a general rule, I HATE date movies. And we've kind of made a pact to keep things low-key and friendly to start off, so a date movie would have been weird anyway.

Now, up until this point, I have been feeling that on paper we are quite compatible, but I wasn't sure about in person. We'd only had one lunch together, which didn't exactly blow me away, but it took me by surprise just how much I found myself thinking about him afterwards. So I was excited and a little nervous about the movie - about what one should be in the early stages of crush development. And he showed up looking...well...adorable. He looked casual, but like he had Put Together an Outfit...all clean, and pressed, and good-smelling. And wearing his glasses, which made him look kind of like Ted Allen from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (who I have always enjoyed in a love that dare not speak its name kind of way). Of course, it was a movie, which doesn't lend itself to lots of getting-to-know you conversation, but we both enjoyed the movie...established we're dog people...a mutual love of Arrested Development...he gave me a ride home, and that was it. Once again, I was left wanting more, which is a good thing. At this point, I am thinking, yeah, this guy has some actual crush potential. So I send him a little "hey, thanks again for the movie" e-mail when I got home.

Spent Thursday obsessing over why he hadn't written me back yet, or called to ask if maybe I wanted to have lunch or something this weekend.

Friday morning, I get an e-mail back from him, saying, "Sorry it took me so long to get back to you..."

He seems to know exactly how long to go without responding in order to allow me to start obsessing over why he hasn't responded. I don't even think he does it on purpose, and luckily, I don't think he has any idea how dangerously effective it is in terms of piquing my interest.

So I get a little bored Friday night, and add him to my IM contact list.

Saturday afternoon, he signs on and notices this, and we chat. Blah blah blah...he's busy...film festival...gala premieres..etc...will I be around Sunday night? We can chat and maybe make plans for our next get-together? Sure!

So this afternoon rolls around, and I realize I am exceedingly nervous about talking to him tonight.

I PICKED OUT AN OUTFIT.

In case you missed it, this was an outfit for an ONLINE CONVERSATION. WITH NO VIDEO. I just wanted to feel all cute and confident. I also happened to want a mint julep. Luckily, alcohol seems to work in my favor when it comes to being charming, so it made for what I think was some rather witty repartee on my end. As usual, however, I feel as though I did more of the talking than I probably needed to. We talked for about two hours, during which I learned that he has a cat (who bears an eerie resemblance to Mup's evil cat), shares some of my evil fast-food weaknesses but maybe not my general foodie nature, and is WAY more tidy than I will ever be. This could prove to be a problem - I can deal with evil felines and fast-food addiction, but ain't no way in hell I will ever be tidy. Clean, sure. Lacking in parasites, absolutely. I could make my personal slogan "Wahooty - regularly shampooed and officially vermin-free since 1977!" But tidy? Yeah, not so much.

So we'll see. We discussed plans for a night in with a DVD on Friday. We have plans to reconvene online on Wednesday to discuss the details.

Yeah, he is definitely too organized. This can go one of two ways: I am too odd for him, or he is way too normal for me. Either way, it will only end in tears.

I'll keep you kids posted.

Martha Stewart is my hero.

Okay, the many joys of working at home are as follows:

1) A bottomless cup of coffee, made exactly the way you like it and very reasonably priced. Served in a handmade ceramic mug, no less (or maybe just if you're working in MY home).

2) Being able to run your Saturday errands on Friday, saving much line-waiting, crowd-navigating time.

3) Working in your PJ's.

3.2) Not having to put on makeup or do your hair, thus ensuring you can give Matt Lauer your full attention while he is interviewing (EXCLUSIVEly!) the girl who was kicked off of her flight for wearing a slutty skirt. (FYI, the skirt was quite slutty, but she had the legs to pull it off and I don't think it quite warranted being ejected from a plane.)

5) Getting to watch Martha Stewart. Now, I have always been a Martha fan. I'm sure that all of the stories about her being a raging beotch in real life are absolutely true. But I was raised by a mother who sewed, crafted, installed appliances, built decks, and put a home-cooked dinner on the table every night, and I happen to think that these are becoming lost skills. I am a big fan of anyone who encourages the homemade and teaches people how to do the things that their mothers might not have been able to teach them. When Martha went to jail, I wished I had money to invest in some of her stock while it was cheap, because I KNEW she would come back strong. And her current show is awesome - you gotta love that they gave a live talk show to someone who is a truly awful extemporaneous speaker. She is a LOUSY interviewer, and watching her cook or craft with whatever random celebrity guest she has on a given day always has a hilarious and surreal train-wreck quality that is deliciously awkward. Where else do you get to hear Martha Stewart talk about "absolutely beautiful North American beaver"? Genius, I tell you. And today, just when I thought I couldn't love her any more, they ran a promo for the new season scored to...

{drum roll}

Pour Some Sugar On Me.

Fuckin' Def Leppard, man.
Def Leppard + The Martha = mind-blowing TVgasm for the Wahooty.

Okay, back to work. Right after I run to Old Navy.

It's a question of obsession.

Someone is seriously messing with me today.

It was raining this morning when I was getting ready, so there was absolutely no point in trying to do anything with my hair, as any effort would be promptly undone by the humidity well before I even arrived at work. On a normal day I wouldn't care, but it just so happens that I'm supposed to be meeting someone for a movie after work. I don't know yet if said person has crush potential - there's enough that I actually thought about what to wear today, but not enough to wash my hair or shave my legs or anything - but I do actually care about looking cute until a verdict is rendered. And, while I left the house looking decent, I arrived at work looking...well...I believe the word I'm looking for is "asstastic."

After an emergency touch-up session involving the bathroom sink and squatting under the motion-sensitive hand dryer, I was feeling a little better. My hair is still up in a clip because I can't do a damned thing with it, but at least the bangs have lost their Farrah Fawcett/poodle quality. But now, for some reason, the VGLM has walked by my desk a few times today - something he almost never does anymore. I passed him twice in the hall, and both times there was quality eye contact/friendly smile action - something else that has been dwindling lately. It's as if he knows I'm in the market for a new #1 crush and is trying to make it as difficult as possible for me to make the transition.

Oh, and the New Hotness has also wandered by once or twice, after not being around at all last week.

So, to sum up, my hair looks stupid, I'm retaining water like a mofo, and the bad eating habits I've gotten into due to vacations and entertaining have left me...well...I believe the word I'm looking for is "gassy." Why do boys have to be paying attention to me today???

At the rate I'm going, Matt Damon should be stopping by any minute now...probably at the exact moment that one of my labmates decides to give me an atomic wedgie.

Holy crap...

...does Canadian Idol suck.

I mean...WOW.