It begins.

And Here we go again. NYE is fast approaching, as is the anniversary of the worst two weeks of my fucking life.

Gonna be staying home this year. New years hasn't been the same for me since then. I usually end up feeling depressed and lonely. At least I know by staying I home, I'll know what to expect. Gonna watch some movies with my girls to remind myself that at least two good things came out of it all. If anyone is interested in joining us, feel free. I could use the company. I'm just not up for travelling this year.

Bear with me folks if I seem a little more jaded and bitter than usual. I might need a little extra support over the next few weeks. Maybe it wouldn't seem so bad if wasn't feeling like shit physically as well.

I know this is eventually gonna pass, the wedding anniversary went by with nary a blink of an eye this year, so that's gotta be something positive.

Meh. I fucking hate January with a passion. At least I have the Hip concert to look forward to. January 25th Baby!

Rocking the Cliches.

Time for a Christmas blog, it's about due. So for your reading enjoyment, my top five favorite Christmas movies.

Honorable mention: The Ref starring Denis Leary, Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis


This movie gets an honorable mention because it's ass-funny, but not quite in my top five, and I couldn't think of enough movies to come up with a top ten.

Denis Leary plays a buglar who takes a family hostage on Christmas, and discovers what a bunch of whackjobs they are, but by then it's too late to back out of the hostage taking. Nice clean family fare. Right.
Caroline: I had this dream...
Lloyd: Do we have to do dreams?
Caroline: I'm in this restaurant, and the waiter brings me my entree. It was a salad. It was Lloyd's head on a plate of spinach with his penis sticking out of his ear. And I said, "I didn't order this." And the waiter said, "Oh you must try it, it's a delicacy. But don't eat the penis, it's just garnish."
Dr. Wong: Lloyd, what do you think about the dream?
Lloyd: I think she should stop telling it at dinner parties to all our friends.

Five - Scrooged Starring Bill Murray, Carol Kane, Bobcat Goldthwaite, Jamie Farr



One of a gazillion interpretations of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", this was one of my faves as a kid, although I haven't had the pleasure of seeing it in recent years. Bill Murray plays the lead, an 80's type corporate go-getter television producer and all around jerk. The movie spoofs the various Christmas Carol type movies, including a scene with a Tiny tim that does backflips. Carol Kane is freakishly hilarious as the Ghost of Christmas Past.
All day long I listen to people give me excuses why they can't work. My legs hurt. My back aches. I'm only four.

Four - The Nightmare Before Christmas Directed by Tim Burton



Watched this for the first time tonight, what a cute movie. I'm thinking it could be a fun christmas eve/eve tradition. The people of halloweentown attempt to take over Christmas. This movie has a fantastic sountrack imo. And kids getting shrunken heads for christmas is always fun.

Three (tie) - The Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Family Christmas


Firstly, another Dickens interpretation, with Michael Caine as Scrooge, Kermit the Frog as Bob Crachit, and Stadtler and Waldorf playing a great Jacob and Robert Marley (did anyone else find that funny? Bob marley?). The second incorporates the muppet show cast, the sesame street cast and fraggle rock in a home christmas. Well worth watching if only to see the swedish chef drool over Big Bird, thinking he's a giant turkey.

Don't think that my love of the muppets biases me in any way here. I saw a Very Merry Muppet Christmas, and frankly wasn't crazy about it. The image of Scooter dancing in a go-go cage still haunts my nightmares, even if it was part of an alternate reality.

Fozziwig: Here is my Christmas speech. "Thank you all, and Merry Christmas."
Jacob Marley: That was the speech?
Robert Marley: It was dumb.
Jacob Marley: It was obvious.
Robert Marley: It was pointless.
Jacob Marley: It was... short.
Robert Marley, Jacob Marley: I loved it.


Doc: How do you do, I'm Doc.
Bert: Did you know that Doc starts with the letter "D?"
Doc: Yes.
Ernie: Yes! Yes starts with the letter "Y"
Doc: True.
Ernie: And true starts with the letter "T"
Doc: What is all this?
Bert: Where we come from, this is small talk.

Two - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation Starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Juliette Lewis, Johnny Galecki, Randy Quaid



Clark Griswold attempts to plan the perfect family christmas. Hilarity Ensues.

Clark: Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.

Clark: Hey. If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is. Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where's the Tylenol?

Number one - A Christmas Story Starring Peter Billingsley, Darren McGavin



Ralphie fights bullies, and dreams of a Red Rider BB Gun for Christmas. Have watched this movie every year since it was made. Can't get enough of it. Got a kick out of seeing Zack Ward, who played the bully on Titus years later.

Narrator: Aunt Clara had for years labored under the delusion that I was not only perpetually 4 years old, but also a girl.

Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] My father worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. It was his true medium, a master.

Shoulds and Shouldn'ts

I SHOULDN'T:

-Attempt to cut my childrens hair. Ever. Again. Oh, they're fine, but it's so short. Especially Tierneys. She's got this cute little flippy chin-length bob now. NOT, however, what I was going for. I'm just worried that I cut all the curl out of her hair. I hope it come back. Only pro hair-cuts from now on. I will stick strictly to the trimming of bangs.

- Call someone up and beg them to bring me cigarettes, no matter how much I want to. This is day 4.

- Do anymore Ebaying for a while. Just because. Got three items on their way, currently. But four more on my watch list.

I SHOULD:

- Revive my love of comic collecting. Yes, a little know secret of mine. I'm a reformed comic book geek. Okay, maybe not reformed. A 'lasped' comic lover. 'Reformed' implies that I had more than a passive role in falling out of said habit. No, I used to have a modest collection of about 2-3 dozen marvel titles, and it was a sad day that I sold them for grocery money. Just couldn't afford the habit for a long time after. And I guess I was a little scarred.

I got discussing comics on the forums with a friend, and it got me thinking 'why not?' I don't have a lot of vices -- especially if the not smoking thing works out -- I don't drink a lot, and I don't do drugs (often) so I'm not spending money on that. Other women buy magazines, I don't buy Cosmo, or The Star or Vogue or stuff like that... Besides, comics are like half the price, and have better stories. Hell, in the mental sense, I don't even watch soaps (or much TV at all) anymore, so this can fill in my desire for serial drama.

Incidentally, one of the aforementioned Ebay purchases was a lot of 38 X-men titles. For five bucks, USD. Shipping was a bitch, but all told, works out to about 75 cents an issue. Can't complain about that. I splurged for the airmail option so it will take about a week, instead of 4-6 weeks. I'll be ensconced in the Marvel Universe in no time.

- Call Lakehead university soon to see if they will be offering fourth year sociology courses in the fall, or even in the summer. Seriously considering the whole getting the Masters thing again. Oh it sucks to be torn between doing what I love (which right now is being in school and learning) and doing what will eventually get me out of the assloads of debt I am in.

- Call simcoe health unit for info on becoming a sexual health counsellor. I really think this is something that should be installed in every high school in North America. Like a mini health unit/counsellor, that can answer questions that one might not be comfortable asking in a health class setting... to brigde the gaps left by the sex ed curriculum. I got kind of a wake up call as far as the addictions counselling goes from my friend deb... Especially a point she made about not having any experience dealing with hard-core addiction, whether it be my own or someone elses. It made me kind of reconsider doing the addictions program

My mom keeps telling me that if I want to go for a professorship, I should just fucking do it... go all the way with it, Student debt be damned. Which sounds good for me, but I also would like my kids to know what it's like to live in a house with a yard before they are old enough to move into their own.

I'm already so far in debt. I'm worried that a general BA in sociology isn't gonna do shit as far as getting me a job... the longer i am in school, the longer I can put off paying that debt off, but at the same time, the larger the debt is going to get....

Gah.

Anyhoo... I'm not going to worry about it tonight. I have better things to do... which is a whole lot of nothing. Nothing is great :-)

Up to the J's now.

Laundry Day.

I've given up on matching socks. I'm willing to settle for common themes or elements.

Almost done the 'D's'

iTunes Update

iTunes update:

Up to the C's. For those of you on my MSN who saw Johnny cash and Junkhouse playing... that was a mistake... I was trying to transfer those on to my piece of shite MP3 player, and I clicked one too many times and it opened up the program. Since my sound was off, I wasn't really listening to them, so it doesn't count.

I've had to skip one song so far, Buck Cherry's 'Crazy Bitch'. It came on while my kids had a friend over. Gotta make some attemtpt to be a good role model. I'm thinking of deleting it anyway. It's pretty offensive, which is bad coming from me, since not a lot fazes me, musically.

teef

Bah, my appointment to get my wisdom teeth out has been postponed due to a scheduling screw-up. I was supposed to go friday, or so I thought but when I called today to find out what time, they told me that the surgeon wasn't going to be in Friday, that he was actually in today. The girl on the phone said they could fit me in today, but I declined. With an exam tomorrow and another on Friday, I thought it best NOT to spend the next two days doped up as all hell. Apparently the next time the surgeon is in is sometime around January the 26th. Which also sucks, seeing as I have the Tragically Hip concert on the 25th and my Parents 30th anniversary party on the 27th (shhh... it's a secret.. they don't read my blogs). This is an approximate date. If it turns out to be after the 27th, or at least a week before the 25th, then I'll do it in January, if not, I'll wait until after that.

I'm up to the B's now. So far so good. i've decided I need more Billy Joel. iTunes arranges by first name, it seems.

A little experiment.

Gonna see if I listen to my whole iTunes library over the next few days, in alphabetical order, without skipping tracks, staying in order, from 10cc (since as we all know, numbers get listed first) to Zero 7.

I'm currently on A Perfect circle (cover of Love Song and Diary of a Madman).

I'll keep posted to how far I make it.

Oh and I got my christmas shopping done today, with a week and a half to spare. Just stockings left now.

My weekend in rewind...

I'm gonna talk about my past week in reverse chronological order... go me :-)

Today:

Tierney woke up sick -- so she says -- so I call the school and tell them she won't be attending. By 10am she's running around and wanting to play and stuff, so I'm like, get your stuff on, you're going to school.

Got my laundry money and hit the bulk barn, picked up molding wafers to make little candy lollipops with the kids, maybe tonight, haven't decided yet.

Got home sorted laundry, watched some of the Muppet show. Just clean out my utility closet, and had to throw out a giant box of cat-pee contaminated halloween clothes. Bright side is, the cat didn't get the carpet, and now I have a lot more room in the closet with that box out of there.

Yesterday:

Woke up around 1:30 in the afternoon with a cold/hangover. Myspaced for a good three hours, because I was just NOT feeling at all productive.

around 4:30 I finally decided to get off my ass and wrap some christmas prezzies so they wouldn't all be sitting out in the living room when the girls got home. ran out of tape and tags so had to hit walmart before getting the girls.

Somewhere in this time my parents came over to drop off my car, as I couldn't drive it home the night before. They commented on the odor, and I told them about the closet. Mom recommended picking up some febreze.

Picked up the girls, came home, read some Ramona and put them to bed. Never got around to wrapping the rest of the presents.

Saturday:

Woke up around 8:30ish, and despite my best intentions, only managed to get out of the house around noonish, after running around gathering gifts for the friends I was planning to visit, consoling a friend on MSN on some personal matters, and gathering candy canes for those who were getting only cards.

Stopped by Lori's on the way out of town to pick Sammi and my goodies from two weeks ago. Lori had thrown her back out, so I didn't want to make her stand around for too long, plus I was already running about 2 hours late.

Headed down to Barrie and picked up Joe, with plans to go shopping together. It was nice, especially since we hadn't hung out together since Sammi's going away party. Three and a half month is a long enough time to let dust settle. So we're cool, and just friends. The party made it very clear that there was no future there otherwise.

Dragged the poor guy to Toys R Us, where we had two have spent a good hour and a half, if not two, while he laughed at me while I agonized over what to get the girls, and whether I was spend too much, and whether it would look like I was favoring one over the other. He also got to laugh at my hipocrasy as I criticized parents who spent too much on their kids, then proceeded to have a near-coronary at the check out. Meh. I don't get to spoil them too often, and I still spent less on the both of them than some parents spend on one child. Not to mention, the biggest gifts were bought with the money nanny sent them, so technically it's Nanny spoiling them, not me. :-P Still justifying, all the time justifying spending money. It's post-poverty flashbacks, from times when I had to justify buying gum.

After fighting the hordes at Toys R Us, I told Joe he could pick the next store, so we headed to future shop where he searched for a GPS system and I drooled over TV DVD sets. So many box sets. I had to laugh at the 'Jennifer Aniston' Collection. Who actually said "You know what would be handy? A whole bunch of Jennifer Aniston movies in one collection." They're not even the good ones. They're the crappy first couple movies she made during the Friends early years.

Finally got done shopping and dropping Joe off at home around 6:30ish.. again, about two hours later than I had planned, leaving me very little time to do the visiting I had planned to do... as it was, I had to cut out Jenny's place and Sam's place, but since they didnt' know I was coming, it wasn't a huge loss to them.

Got over to Jamies place so I could give sammi her toy and her holiday gift, and Jamie a card... me the social retard I am didn't bother to bring a card for his roommate Chris though. Sammi got me a new coffee maker, the sweet <3. Good thing I had refused to let Joe buy me one in the walmart. Narrowly avoided a potentially awkward situation as I was leaving Jamie's as his friend showed up. Because I was on the way out the door, I only had to deal with a slightly awkward hello. Still wondering what the reaction to seeing me was. tehehe.

Picked up some food and headed over to Erics place to drop off a prezzie and see a few minutes of Fatal Frame 3, which seems like a fairly freaky game, but I have a hard time getting excited over video games. Maybe it's just me.

Got home around 9ish to get ready for my parents party. As I'm getting all dolled up I realize I can hear a faint meowing, and I look around for Spartacus. Shaking the kitty treats, I realize that he's stuck somewhere. Utility closet. Must have snuck in there why I was grabbing the candy canes. Opened up the closet and there he was, along with a terribly foul odor.

Got myself sexy and went and picked up Dan and we headed to my parents place where we drank, mingled, my sister took a kajillion pics on my camera, and people sang bad karaoke, and I fielded numerous questions of 'Is that your boyfriend? No?! Why not?' Gah. Good times though, I'm a bad influence and let dan Drunk text message, still waiting to hear what the fallout from that was.

Friday:

Took the girls out to lunch and tobogganning. Spent twenty bucks on snowpants, to go down the hill ONCE before one child started crying because she got snow in her face and the other one announced that she had to go pee. Good times.

Went to the Kings Wharf to see the childrens production of Tom Sawyer. My nephew had a part in it as Ben Rogers, and I was surprised to a net friend in the production as well. We had gone out once, really sweet guy, but it wasn't 'there'. Picky picky I know. It was nice to go up and say hello again though.

During the scene with Tom Huck and Becky in the gold mine, after they find the Gold, when becky said her line about dying in the cave, my sisters BF's son, who is five, pipes up "Meh, They'll die rich." Too funny. Really good production. Again rekindled my interest in community theatre. Maybe next year.

Where I am coming from...

So many of you know me, some not as well as others. I know that after being on Myspace for almost a year, it's may seem a little silly to be posting what may seem like an 'introductory' blog, but I thought it might be a little fun for you all to get a little peek into part of the way my mind works, so I'm going to talk a little about my dreams and aspirations.

For the past couple of days I have been on here bitching about the big giant motherass assignment I had due on Thursday (the one that I handed in at 1pm today, THANK GAWD). I'm currently a student of sociology in my third year of University. I was originally a psychology student, but I have been taking sociology courses since my first year. In some ways the two disciplines are quite similar, and in other ways they diverge greatly. They are both studies of human behaviour, but psychology focuses mostlyon the individuals thought processes and behaviours, where sociology focuses more on interactions between people on the micro and macrosocial levels.

I left Psychology halfway through second year, because I realized that I had more of a passion for sociology, as well as enjoying the research methodology more. After the three years that I have been exposed to this discipline, it's safe to say that I am of the Social Constructionist mindset, with Marxist tendecies. That is to say, I don't beleive in anything. Or more accurately, there is very little I take for granted as 'natural' anymore.

People make the mistake of thinking that when someone says something is not 'natural' that you mean it is wrong. I try not to make value judgements as to what is right or wrong. I like to think more along the lines of what is 'harmful' or 'harmless'. Most of the time now, when I say 'natural' I mean congenital, something that is built into you at birth. There is very little I concieve as natural anymore, I tend to find evidence to the idea that pretty much every value, norm and idea about life we have is constructed in some way. I guess this idea I derived mostly from the courses on Sexuality, as well as sociology of the Family.

I think the problem that many detractors of Social Constructionism have is that it sounds so much like a big conspiracy, like people conciously set out to spread ideology. It's so much more subtle than that. Most of the norms we take for granted, for instance gender roles, are so embedded into our psyche that we are unaware of the socialization that is taking place. When you tell a little boy that he can't wear a dress because he is a boy, that's conditoning him to accept certain behaviours as masculine. It's not a concious thing though, because we concern ourselves more with teaching our children conformity, not in the name of perpetuating the construction of gender, but in the name of making life more comfortable for our children. It's not a concious thing. Social construction means simply that norms are created through human interaction, not handed down by some divine entity.

As far as my Marxist tendencies go, I say that because I do beleive that there is a dominant class, a power elite that works to perpetuate their own power. Why not? If I had a great deal of power, I would fight to retain it as well. I also beleive that some of the hegemonic assumptions that we live with day to day are perpetuated through certain agents of socialization, such as the media, namely the tool of advertising, for the benefit of major corporations. I could go on for days about this.

As much as I complain, I love my education, and I would love to continue it as far as it will take me. My ultimate goal is to specialize in media studies, one because it fits in so nicely with my pop culture addiction, and two, in light of the theories of social constructionism, it is interesting how this approach begs the question of art imitating life, or life imitating art. More accurately, life imitates art... but art tends to feed into hegemonic ideologies.

Anyway, yeah. That's a little bit of me. Sociology whore. I'm rambling... but anyway. I'm going to watch a movie I think... first one in weeks.

HUZZAH for the shopkeep!

Woot! Proofing and Formatting tomorrow then I am officially done, and I won't have to write about social theorists for at least another month.

So ends the final chapter in the oddessey known as 'Andie attempting to give two shits about social theory."

It's always the last minute I manage to pull the work out of my ass.

That's right. That's not fat down there. It's unwritten essays.