The Grieving

I feel like I'm going through some sort of grieving process. I mean, I have spent the last 4 years being in love with The Guy. And now I have to let it all go. It's only been two days and it still smarts. Actually, it hurts like hell. I get angry, I get sad, I feel shellshocked, I feel lost, I want to contact him (and I have), and I want to ignore him (and I'm trying).

This upcoming weekend we were supposed to see each other all weekend. It's an annual event that he puts on and I've helped with it, and this year would have been perfect because Friday is a holiday in Canada, and I have the Monday off, so I was looking forward to it. However, with the bombshell dropped on me that he's seeing someone and that someone will be at this event all weekend, I just can't do it. So, that makes me sad that I'll be missing out on this charity event that I've been an integral part of for awhile now. He wants me to be there and says it won't be the same, but that he understands why I can't go. I wonder how the weekend will go. I wonder if I'll hear from other people involved in the event, like his friends or his mother. I wonder what he'll tell them to explain my absence.

Anyway, the sadness comes in waves. He's only the 2nd person in my life that I've ever felt these strong feelings about. The first one was back in 1998 and it took me four years to get over, and I can't do that again. I'm hoping that I know myself a little better now and that it won't take me that long to recover. However, the 1998 guy was totally different from this guy. This guy was so much closer to me, we shared so much more, and so maybe that'll make it even more difficult to move on?

I'm trying to choose to be happy, but at the same time I need to acknowledge this heavy heavy weight that I'm feeling on my chest. It's there and there's no denying it. So even though I'll try to put up a brave front and act normal, I am also having a very hard time just doing the simplest things like walking up the stairs. Work is kind of a write-off, but I'm trying. I could try to exercise but that's already an uphill battle as is, let alone with this to deal with.

Anyhow, thank you dear reader for listening!

Heartbreak Make me a Dancer

"Love, stop bringing me down..."

Well, I knew the day would come, and it has. The Guy is dating someone. And it isn't me. He broke the news to me earlier this evening. I took it okay, but of course as the night wore on, it sunk in more and more and now I'm completely devastated. It's not like I didn't expect this would happen eventually, but I guess there was that small glimmer of hope inside of me that one day it would be me.

I feel dejected and that I never get the guy. He's only the 2nd guy in my entire life that I've had strong feelings for. And the first one was also unrequited. Maybe it just isn't written in the stars for me, I don't know.

I've done a bit of crying, a bit of feeling sorry for myself, and hopefully I can get over this sooner than later. I felt like all the air has been let out of me, and it's hard to bring myself to do anything right now. Although, blogging about this seems to be helping!

So is this Sophie Ellis Bextor video. If only I looked as fabulous as her while going through heartbreak!!

Books: Stories I Only Tell My Friends

First of all, you need to know that Rob Lowe is number one on my list of celebrities I'd love to sleep with. Like Miranda said in Sex and the City, "Yesterday, today, and tomorrow..." Like a fine wine, Rob Lowe has only gotten better with age. Though I'll take him when he was at the height of his fame in the late 80s, running around being a bad boy and making sex tapes.



He touches upon all this in his memoir, Stories I Only Tell My Friends. I read this in a matter of days, as I could not wait to get home every day from work, crawl into bed and pretend I was laying in Rob Lowe's lap and having him read all his stories to me. The stories themselves were also fascinating, from when he met Liza Minelli as a child to acting with Janet Jackson before she was Janet Jackson, to hanging out with Charlie Sheen and his brother Emilio Estevez, working with Tom Cruise before he was Tom Cruise, and so much more!

I'm not a huge non-fiction reader, but I think because of the topic, I was truly enthralled with this book!

Movies: Bill Cunningham New York

Alexis and I met the hardest working man in a movie theatre in all of Vancouver today. The location: the newly renovated and magical Denman Cinemas, located at the Denman Place Mall down by the beach on Denman Street in the West End. This theatre has new seats, new sound system, and bargain movie prices, including cheap Tuesdays and a Monday night special where for $10, you get admission, popcorn, and a drink. What!!

So the guy who sold us the tickets, proceeded to take the tickets. Then he hustled over to the concession stand and sold us our popcorn. Then he hustled back to the front counter, because that's where I had to pay for the popcorn since that's where the only credit card machine was located. Inside, we saw him roam the theatre, checking the lights, and eventually fussing around up in the projection room working the movie reel. I assume he also cleaned the bathrooms, vacuumed the carpet, and cleaned up after the show was over. I'm surprised he didn't make a cameo in the movie.

So, the movie. If you're a fashion fiend, you will absolutely LOVE it. Bill Cunningham works for the New York Times, riding around on his old school bicycle taking photographs of people on the street and what they are wearing. He's been at it for years, and even Vogue editor Anna Wintour makes an effort to try and get photographed by Bill. .



The documentary is inspiring, heartwarming, heartbreaking, and in short, fascinating. It was thrilling to see someone so passionate about something and just going out and doing it. He's as comfortable taking photos of hoodlums on the street as he is at high society dinner parties or exclusive fashion shows. Some may not think he's changing the world, but to him, he believes in fashion and thinks it's the armour we wear to fight off the realities of everyday life.

See It!

Kylie Aphrodite Les Folies Live in London!

They aired it yesterday in the UK on TV, but it's edited down so it's not the full show. That's okay, I'll take what I can get right now until the official DVD release comes out.

Here's the opening number and it's magical!!!

Movies: Super 8

Last week I went to watch Super 8, which was a fantastic throwback to those movies I enjoyed as a kid, like E.T. or The Goonies. In fact, if JJ Abrams were to write a love letter to Steven Spielberg, then it would come in the form of this movie. It's a place where the kids are smarter than the adults and though it has some Cloverfield mysteriousness and suspense to it, it is much more vintage Spielberg than anything else. Super 8 is pretty darn super!

See it!

Books: Wall and Piece

Banksy's book Wall and Piece is coffee-table book-esque in that it's a great document of his work and you can flip to literally any page and be amused at what you'll see. It was this book that drew me in when I was wandering around a bookstore in Toronto. As I flipped through the photos, I found myself laughing, contemplating, and being impressed with this graffiti artist turned global phenomenon. His work has become art, but at the same time he shits on the concept of what is art.

Books: Bossypants

Just read Tina Fey's book, Bossypants. It's the perfect light summer read to get your book club started. Grab that bottle of wine, laugh over her stories of growing up, working for Saturday Night Live, raising her daughter, and making fun of the idiots of the world. It's nothing groundbreaking, but you know she can write and it's done well here.

I liked her line about how gays aren't trying to convert people, "that's Jehova's Witnesses you're thinking of." Like, right!? It could be any religion really.

There's more but I don't want to give it away, should you pick this up. Funny and intelligent, like the woman herself!

Blowjobs May Have Helped

The estrogen in me could sense the high levels of testosterone permeating the city of Vancouver yesterday before Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Whether it was all the men wearing their hockey jerseys or the organic beef burger I was munching on from Fresh Local Wild, I was definitely titillated.

By the by, Fresh Local Wild is one of the many food trucks that are now inhabiting the streets of our city selling various and copious amounts of choices in terms of cuisine. From their name, you can tell that the food they are peddling comes from local sources and is relatively fresh and wild. My organic beef burger was indeed delicious, and it did make me wonder where they managed to find wild cows. Jokes, jokes. They were once situated by Pacific Centre mall on Granville Street, but now they've renovated and relocated to across the street from my work on the corner of Burrard and West Hastings, complete with a built-in sitting area (seats 4 max).



Luckily it was a beautiful sunny day yesterday, so I could eat outdoors if I wanted to. Of course, since I am now once again hanging out with my Crazy Coworker (I confronted him, we cleared the air, it's okay now - that can go into a different post), he insisted we go back indoors and eat the burger in his office. Well, alrighty then. Because we get so many sunny days in Vancouver.

Anyway, it definitely was the perfect day to win the Stanley Cup. Unfortunately, it wasn't the Canucks who would win it. Oh well, everyone is disappointed. I found myself at Lukasz' place watching the game last night and he lives in the heart of downtown. Five cans of beer later, I was pretty much gonzo, and so were the Canucks. They were down 3-0, and there were only 10 minutes left in the third period. So, I packed up my things, bid everyone adieu, and hustled my way out of the downtown core.

When I got home, I passed out on the couch, but not before seeing the final 4-0 score and the rioting aftermath taking place down near where I had just been.







There's more photos all over the internet, you just have to google or open up your local paper since it's making headlines. Here's some from CBC.

It really is a shame to see that some people chose to go this route and ruin it for everyone else and make our city look like a giant dumbass. Especially after we had the Olympics last year and everything was so amazing and people behaved so well. Now we have this to smear our city's name? Meah.

Perhaps I should have posted that ad on CraigsList earlier in the day offering up free blowjobs for guys during the hockey game. Perhaps that would have helped relieve some of the tension that was building. Perhaps that would have prevented the violence that did occur. It's all my fault!!!

And where were YOU?? Why weren't you handing out free blowjobs on the corner of Robson and Georgia?? Hmm?? Instead of people trashing hummers, they could have been GETTING hummers!

Well at least now we know for next year!

GO CANUCKS GO!

Tony Awards 2011

Fine, so the Canucks didn't finish it off last night, so we have Wednesday to look forward to.

Go Canucks Go!

In the meantime, I am still on a high from the weekend's Tony Awards. It is seriously by far the most entertaining awards show out there, at least to me. I wasn't bored at any point of the broadcast and it just all flew by too quickly (whereas other awards shows tend to drag and drag and drag).

Alexis and I watched together over chilli and pink wine, the entire time commentating, laughing, gasping, guffawing, and marveling like Broadway theatre nerds!

From the hilarious opening number by Neil Patrick Harris (despite the Brooke Sheilds fail)...



...to Daniel Radcliffe singin' and dancin' his way out from the Harry Potter shadow. He literally blew the roof off, along with the rest of the cast of How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying!



I'm always a glutton for Sutton. Here she is in Cole Porter's Anything Goes tapping and trenching like there's no tomorrow:



I prefer Neil Patrick Harris' hosting talents over Hugh Jackman's, unless of course Hugh hosted with his shirt off the entire time. This duet they did was cute and wonderful!



I personally thought Patina should have won for her role in Sister Act, though you couldn't really tell from this performance how good she is. I guess Sutton Foster winning was the next best thing, though I still haven't forgiven her for doing Shrek The Musical.



Here's a performance from Catch Me If You Can. Needs more Aaron Tveit. Just sayin'.



The big winner of the night was Book of Mormon, and rightly so. They ended up showcasing one of the more tamer numbers from the show, but it was still funny and amazing. It's definitely a must-see show! Go if you can!



There was also a lame number from SpiderMan, a special presentation of Sondheim's Company, performances from The Scottsboro Boys and Memphis, and of course, all the touching and some off-the-cuff speeches.

Finally, the closing rap from Neil Patrick Harris was genius, brilliant, on the fly, and I love the mic drop at the very end! END SCENE!

Go Canucks Go!!

The city of Vancouver is on the verge of losing its mind with tonight's Canucks vs Bruins hockey game. I saw last Friday's game at a crowded restaurant in the gay village, having nabbed the last table an hour before gametime, which relatively speaking, was late. Most people go to their respective bars and eateries and camp out there all day saving a table for their friends. I tried to find a spot in the bustling Yaletown area but even showing up 2 hours before the game started was not enough - pretty much every spot was taken, with no seats left anywhere. At least, none that was in viewing distance of a television screen. I wasn't even going to dare head down to the CBC headquarters to sit amongst the throngs of people lining the streets watching on the outdoor big screen.



It's a fun and exciting time for the city, for sure. The Canucks have never won the Stanley Cup before ever, so tonight is going to be a huge night when they do beat out Boston, because I do believe that they will do it!



I'm not a huge hockey fan to begin with, but I know my hat-tricks and shut-outs and the basic rules. I was into Mens' Hockey games during last year's Winter Olympics. Now, with the Stanley Cup, I understand that it's a huge deal and so of course I jumped onto the bandwagon once Vancouver made it into the playoffs.



So who's your favourite Canuck? I know my friend Iris (along with a thousand other people!) are head over heels in love with Ryan Kesler.



Me? I'm torn between Maxim Lapierre, who scored the winning (and only) goal in the last game...



...and Kevin Bieksa, who can body check me anytime he wants!



Go Canucks Go!!

Thursday Night Drunks

So here's the premiere of the new Katy Perry video for Last Friday Night!

It reminded me of the other night when Alexis, Chris, and I went out for a few cocktails. Doubles were on special, so of course we obliged. Three (but really six) drinks later, plus a few tequilla shots, and we left the lovely 1181 bar and crossed the street to check out Junction, the newest gay spot in town now that The Odyssey has closed its doors. It was busy, but the music left much to be desired, so we only had one drink and then tried to make our way over to Numbers, which is usually the last stop on nights like these. It's where everyone goes at the end of the night after they're done at the other places and they go here on their way home just to check it out and maybe dance to some gay tunes. (You know this place is always playing Cher at some point in the evening.)

So, we arrive at the door, and the bouncer guy looks at the three of us who are probably swaying back and forth at this point, and he basically tells us he won't be letting us in. What!!! Denied entry at Numbers of all places? Wow, that's a new low, and I like it! This will be my goal from now on, every time I go out! "So you had a good time the other night? Yeah but did you get denied at Numbers?!"

Anyhow, here's some Katy Perry with her own Sasha Fierce alter ego - Kathy Beth Terry! So much amazingness in this video!

My Big Fat Indian Wedding

So a few weeks ago I went to my very first Indian wedding. You'd think that living in Vancouver, and growing up with tons of South Asians, that I'd have already gone to one of these legendary functions, but alas no... So leave it up to my coworker to invite me to my first one ever, and now I'm hooked!

I went with my friend Jennifer, who was an intern at my office and also knows the groom (my coworker). We trekked all the way out to Surrey, and it took about an hour to get there on transit. Not too bad. We were disheartened to see that we had to get to the transit system by 12:30am in order to catch the last train, otherwise we'd have to fork out $$$ to cab back into the city.

We arrived promptly at 6pm, just like it said to do on the invitation. Mistake #1. Apparently there's something known as "East Indian time" which we were informed of upon our arrival. There was us, and there were the servers and workers scurrying about getting ready for the big reception. We had skipped the Sikh ceremony earlier that morning because it was even further out from the city and we couldn't make it.

Anyhow, we were told people probably wouldn't start showing till about 8pm. The bride and groom didn't even appear until 9:30pm, we discovered. So we sat at a random table since there was no seating assignment, and we were promptly served some snacks and food. We of course tried to eat the snack, but had no clue how to do so. The plate came with chickpeas, fried shells, and a cup of liquid. We snacked on the chickpeas and shells, and sipped on the cup and commented that this "drink" had quite a nice little punch to it.

The server had to come over and teach us how to eat this dish properly. Apparently, the chickpeas were to be scooped up and put inside the fried shells (which you had to poke a hole into) and then pour the sauce (not a drink!) into the shell. And that is how one eats Puri. Whoops!

The food just kept coming. There was fish, butter chicken, this giant plate of pakoras...

...which later on found its way into my right coat pocket. (There were several drinks that led me to this point...)

Oh yes, the open bar. Let's not forget the open bar, that we kept going to time and time again to refill our cocktails. There were performances from 3 different dance groups, including the one pictured in the photo at the start of this post. And of course, there was the dancing to the bhangra music. Here I am with the groom:

And here I am with Jennifer, my lovely ex-intern. There were 700 guests at this wedding, and she and I were the only two non-brown people there. Everybody else was South Asian. Really? We are the only 2 non-brown people you know? What!?

We somehow managed to make it on the last train back to Vancouver and ended up at a gay dance night at this bar, where I ran into some other friends who ate all the pakoras out of my pocket.

I woke up the next morning somehow in my bed. My dress shoes were covered in grass clippings because I suppose I was running up and down people's lawns the night before on my way home after getting out of the cab two blocks away from my house. I did find some lovely Indian desserts squished in a napkin in my coat pocket, but I definitely lamented the loss of my pakoras, cursed my friends for that, and then checked my phone to see all the poor souls I happened to drunk-dial in my intoxicated stupor.

Thumbs up to Indian weddings! Can't wait to get invited to another one!

Britney covers Madonna

It doesn't even compare to the original, but it's enjoyable. It's Britney covering Madonna's "Burning Up" :



Download it here. (Click on the Hulkshare download button.)

Kylie: Live in 3D

And I cannot wait for this to hit cinemas, and I hope it comes to North America for us to see on the silver screen!!

Katy Perry: This Friday Night sneak peek

I cannot wait for this video!

Meeting My Publisher

So during my last day in Toronto last month, I met up with my Editor. Did I mention that I have a children's book coming out in Fall 2012? Yes, I'm very excited about it! The publisher is based in Toronto so it dawned on me at the last moment during my visit there that I should try and meet up with my editor and to see the publisher's office!

Here's the building, it's brand new and located down by the waterfront:

It was so cool to be there! I felt like a kid in a candy store, just snapping photos of everywhere. The receptionist must have thought I was insane! Here's a photo of their snazzy lobby! I felt very Carrie Bradshaw being there!

My editor herself was younger than I expected. She was around my age, it seemed? Anyhow, she reminded me of my friend Susannah, so that was cool. We sat and had tea and chatted about the book - MY book!!! She has JUST found an illustrator for it, which I thought had already been decided but apparently no. So, she showed me some of the illustrator's previous artwork and I was quite taken with it. I really didn't know what to expect. I was worried it would come out looking very cartoonish or just plain ugly. But having seen the artist's work, I'm confident that it will come out looking beautiful! Or at least I hope it does!



She is a Quebecois illustrator, and you can check out some of her work here.

And here's a photo of the inside of the office. They've got shelves and shelves of their kids' books that they have published. I'm assuming mine will be up on those shelves someday soon! Can't wait!

Robyn - Call Your Girlfriend!!!

Cat Hugs Teddy Bear

Could watch this all day. In fact, I have!

Movies: Bridesmaids

It's true, believe the hype. Bridesmaids is a good solid movie, with enough laughs to start up your summertime goodness. If you need something to help you kick off the season, then definitely go See This!!

Movies: Hall Pass

Needs more Applegate.



It's an okay movie that is perfect if you're nursing a heavy hangover.

Movies: Limitless

Good movie. It's about a writer who takes a drug that helps him focus, and access all parts of his brain, unleashing unlimited potential. Of course, there's consequences and fallbacks, but it's a good storyline and somewhat inspiring to me, telling me that I need to stop being such a lazy fuck and just get on with life already.

See It