So much awesomeness

The amount of awesomeness of this summer is well.... awesome :) I just got back from a great time in Grand Bend with Jocelyn. We drank a lot of cheap wine and bar hopped around including a stop on the Virgin Mobile party bus to drink a pile of free RedBull and make long distance calls on their free-to-use phones. We also used our charm and stunning good looks to enter all three bars free of charge and smuggled in our own booze to avoid paying $6 for watered down drinks. Total amount spent: $10. Fabulous.

I can hardly contain my excitement for this Friday! Graham and I are heading to Miami for the long weekend. We've got a great hotel near South Beach and a list of exciting possible agenda items. Sun, sand, great bars, duty free booze... i'm eagerly anticipating a fabulous long weekend :)

Following what should be a debaucherous weekend of serious partying will be something a little more wholesome but certainly not any less anticipated: APRIL'S WEDDING! I can't even beleive it's so soon. She's been counting down the days for months and I can't wait to be a part of this wedding. I couldn't think of two people I'd rather see married :)

And shortly after this, I'm off to Costa Rica on my half pleasure trip, half humanitarian effort for the long anticipated Eco-Adventure Tour. 11-days of sightseeing, hiking in the rainforest, and helping the people that live in the self sustaining community of the Durika Village is bound to be amoung the highlights of my summer.

And I certainly can't forget the newest upcoming event of this summer: Dave Chappelle on Aug. 21 in Toronto. Tickets were purchased this morning :) Incredible.

Oh and perhaps this sounds trivial to add to the list but my new cell phone is also included in the awesomeness. The old Siemans C61 and I had a great time together but I think the beer bath and the sandstorm put it over the edge... It's officially retired. I had the pleasure of welcoming a new Samsung P207 into my possession on Saturday. I think we'll be very happy together.

In a word, this summer is.... awesome. :)

Busy vs. Bored

After only 2 months, i'm already becoming delinquent at updating this blog. And my excuse: i've been really busy. Yes, that old cliche. But its very true, I assure you.

After a 6 day "business trip" to England involving two days of sightseeing in London and Windsor and a lot of wine consumption on the company's dime, I came back home to more non-stop activity. After being home less than 24 hours, I left for the weekend with Tina and headed up to Rondeau for our annual road trip to see nature-boy Scott. And it's been a rather chaotic week with long days at work, fun parties at night, shopping trips to spend other people's money and a small pile of interviews and job offers!

A wise friend once told me that she'd rather be busy than bored. I couldn't agree more. I would much rather live my life bouncing around from one thing to the next rather than sitting around idly twiddling my thumbs. But after any period of excess activity, that only-child symdome in me kicks in and demands some time to just relax.

8:00 a.m. has come far too early everyday this week. I'd love to sleep in. I'd love a nap. I'd like to finish the book I started on the plane. Tonight's agenda: nothing :) And for once, I'm actually kind of happy about that.

florescence

I like Photoshop :)

Life is Goooooooooooood

Normally I'm a pretty bitter and cynical person. I'm usually the one to add that hint of pessimism to a conversation and make gagging noises if anyone talks about anything too warm and fuzzy. I rarely look on the bright side of things and I've lived my life with an "expect the worst, hope for the best" sort of attitude.

But lately, things have changed a little bit. I think I made Shank nauseous with my excessive use of the word "fantastic" in our msn conversation earlier tonight. And today, I found myself humming on my walk into work. HUMMING!

Yes, its official: I'm happy :)

A Proud F*cking Canadian

Canada Day passed with the regular drunken shenanigans this year. Despite a rampage of post-its covered in swearing and sexual inuendos with distinctly Canadian references, we didn't do anything that was terribly Canadian this year. But the weather held true to tradition - black skies, hurriance winds and a raging thunderstorm. Oooooh Canada.

An online poll last week asked the question: "Do you think Canadians are patriotic enough?" My initial response was a resounding "YES!" but when I actually started thinking about it, I wondered if that was really true. If wearing a post-it that says "I love Moose Cock" or "Jack Layton is hot" and drinking copious amounts of rye and ginger is Canadian, then I'm the most patriotic girl this country has ever seen.

I really am proud to be Canadian though even if I didn't show it in a very significant way this weekend. Every time I see Peter Mansbridge on The National or I hear the Hockey Night in Canada theme song, I want to stand up and break into a lively a cappella version of "Oh Canada!" Okay, maybe not.

In any event, Canada Day at least makes me feel patriotic. And if nothing else, it gave me an excuse to raise a glass and say "Happy F*cking Canada Day!" over and over and over....

"Pickles are Destroying my Life"

If you ever think you're fucked up, just watch this. Guaranteed, you'll feel better immediatley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S89Y4shxtE&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eedge102%2Ecom%2Fstation%2Fblog%5Fwtf%2Ecfm

An Obituary for my Favourite Lube Shop

It's a sad day. My favourite Oil and Lube Shop in Waterloo has been permanently closed. It was the only place I ever went to to have my oil changed in my car. I liked it. It was familiar and nice. They always had pots of coffee there for you to drink while you waited. I'm sure the coffee was about 9 hours old and it usually tasted like shit but I thought it was a nice gesture.

The staff was always nice to me. They never treated me like some dumb girl who knew nothing about cars. They gave me updates on my cars filters and things and showed me the new oil on the stick. They never ripped me off or tried to up-sell me. We had nice chats about the regular cliche small-talk topics like the weather or current events in the area.

Once one of the grease monkeys that worked there asked me out. I had to decline though. I had a boyfriend. But I felt special after that. Pretty ballsy move to ask out a girl who's name you don't even know.

The saddest part about all this is that there's no reason for the closure. The sign says "due to uncontrollable circumstances." WTF does that mean? It seems suspicious to me. Maybe after 20 years of changing oil, you just need a drastic change of life. Who knows?

I'm sad it's gone. Because that means I'll need to find a new place to have my oil changed. And maybe they won't be nice there or have free coffee or boys that ask me out.

Yes, it's a sad day. RIP Fast Oil and Lube. I'll always remember the efficient and caring way you changed my car's oil. The old 1996 Cavalier thanks you. From the bottom of her rusty heart.

I'd rather write when I'm happy

Today I spent a lot of time reading some other people's blogs. I noticed a trend. People post a lot of stuff about heartache and angst, stress and boyfriend/life related issues. And I don't know if I'm some wierd freak, but I really enjoy reading it. Even tales of heartache seem to inspire me somehow. They make me want to write more. I guess it has something to do with the way people are able to capture emotions so accuratley through words. It's interesting, and brave, what people are willing to put out there in public about themselves.

Certainly when I was dealing with my breakup (aka divorce without marriage), I wrote I lot of horrifyingly depressing poetry. But I wrote it by hand and hid it away. It was cathartic. It seemed to help somehow. But I would never unleash that angst onto the world. I don't even want to remember I ever felt that low.

I'd rather write when I'm happy. Maybe that makes me a coward.

Never Underestimate the Stupidity of the General Public

...and by general public, I mean me. After much angst and serious soul searching yesterday, I posted a public apology for thoughtlessly making fun of a variety of foreign names I considered funny. This apology was provoked by a rather hateful comment posted by a certain Jaffar Ali Jaffar. Turns out, it was actually Graham.

Now if you read this comment, you might wonder how the hell I became so gullible. You might call me a sucker and wonder how I naively beleived this to be from the real Jaffar and not be skeptical, for at least a few seconds, and consider that this post might be from someone I know playing a mean trick. Well, I have no rationale for my stupidity.

It really caused me serious anxiety. I actually spent a significant portion of last night feeling like a cold, insensitive bitch. Anyways, I have a sense of humour about it all and definitley laughed when I found out that Jaffar was not actually going to seek me out slay me with his blade of mercy. Jesus. How did I actually think that was from the real guy?

And once again, I perpetuate that dumb blonde stereotype quite nicely.

Graham, you're a jerk. :)

Reconnecting With My Artistic Side

This was my attempt to create some sort of anti-consumerism message through photography. I'm not sure I suceeded but I do like the way the pavement looks.

I miss being artistic. This technical job of mine is killing my creativity. I think it's time I reunited with a little friend I call the 35 mm SLR :)

Laugh More Now

I was randomly reading some of my old poetry I wrote and in amongst a lot of angsty, depressing stuff about losing faith in human beings and feeling hopelessly depressed and dejected, I found this little statistic:

"The average child laughs 400 times a day.
The average adult? 15."

400 times a day? Wow. If only I laughed 400 times a day. I'd even estimate that 15 is on the high end... unless we count the "pee-your-pants" hilariousness of Saturday night.

Finding this made me feel old. I've been feeling old a lot lately. It seems like fun is going to come to a grinding halt any moment now as I enter into what's supposed to be "adulthood" and "responisbility." Ugh. I hate those words. Being a child and laughing 400 times a day certainly sounds more enjoyable.

This also reminds me of a quote I heard once that said something like, "You don't stop playing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop playing."

Screw full time jobs and responsibility. I'm just going play and laugh... maybe i'll shoot for 410 times a day.

I should really be more sensitive

Just wanted to post a public apology for my insenstive post "My name is not Randy." I have since edited it and removed reference to anyone's names "I consider funny." I really meant no offense to anyone. Fahd, I'm keeping your name up there as the winner though. Prize is TBD ;)

Apparently a lot more people than I thought Google search their own name. And I thought I was being unique. hahaha

Anyways, feel free to post insensitive jokes about Miranda or any variation of MacDonald. Hell, why don't we toss in some blonde jokes too?

The night's I'll never remember

It's good we take friends out with us when we drink. Otherwise, there would be a whole pile of stories and circumstances we'd never remember. There's nothing quite like the post-party discussions of what exactly did occur the night previous and peicing together everyone's blurry, fragmented memories.

Take Pub Golf night for instance: wtf actually happened that night? We may never know. Cathy, how you ended up with my entire purse of belongings with my keys around your neck, will remain a mystery. I'm still recovering from a variety of drinking related injuries to this day.

There's a large gap in my memories of last night even. However, I'm sure some stories will be surfacing soon...along with the worst picture of me of all time. (Coming soon to a website near you)

In the end though, even if half of these great times are lost somewhere in the drunken oblivion of my subconcious, there's one thing I do always remember: That was a grrrrrrrrreat night.

Thanks for a great party last night guys :)

Sitting

A degree of nothingness
is important:
to sit emptily
in the sun
recieving fire

That is the way to mend
An extraordinary world
sitting perfectly still
and only
remotely human.

Grand Bender

Boats. Oh, how I love them. Especially 31 foot yachts in Grand Bend. It was a perfect weekend to spend in Grand Bend. Saturday was apparently the nicest day of the summer and I couldn't agree more. Waking up, eating a giant bowl of Cheerios and then proceeding to lay in the sun with a drink in my hand till mid-afternoon is better than anything I could ask for.

It was a perfect beach day for my first official swim in the lake. Despite the fact that I was expecting beyond freezing temperatures with possible ice chunks still adrift in the lake, it was actually quite pleasant. Sharing my one beach towel with Graham was not.

I ate a cheeseburger and fries. For some reason that seems all the more acceptable in a beach town like Grand Bend.

I'm unshowered and feeling the filth of two days sweat on my skin, but I feel gloriously relaxed.

Great weather, fabulous boat, good company... I couldn't be happier.

Glorious Green

Love this picture I took in Cuba this year. Makes decent desktop background - if anyone wants it, it'll cost ya $10 :)

Miranda's Mirandafest

The other day I thought to myself, "Self, you haven't google-searched your name in a while." Usually searches for "Miranda MacDonald" don't yield anything too exciting. In fact, half the time, I just find real stuff about the real me: my name listed on the Dean's Honour Roll, old news stories I wrote, etc. Nothing of interest.

However, this time, I found something fun. I found ANOTHER Miranda MacDonald! She's a radio host from Scotland! And on her website there was a section where you could send her a comment. So naturally, I jumped at this opportunity.

I didn't expect her to reply really. But she did and encouraged me to listen to her radio show online (which, incidentally, plays all Celtic music) and call her radio show and say hi should I ever be in Scotland.

Its weird to think there's another person in this world with the same name as me. I liked to think I was unique. Guess not.

My search also came up with something else interesting: Miranda's Mirandafest page. This rather boring looking site actually contained some really interesting information about Miranda and every variation of the name. I learned about:

The Miranda Rights
Miranda as the Fifth Moon of Uranus (I don't want to hear any jokes about this one!)
The origin of the name Miranda
The town of Miranda in Spain
Nicknames and variations of the name Miranda

Etc, etc, etc.

I encourage everyone to search their own name. If nothing else, it was a good way to kill some time at work.

My Name is Not Randy

I've always wanted a nickname. I keep hoping that one of my friends will create one that sticks. Cathy sometimes calls me Mir, but she's the only one. Tina and I had some creative nicknames for each other when we were kids but we're likely to threaten violence should either of us bring up these names in public.

Lately, Graham and the rest of the guys from 21 Ezra have taken to calling me Randy. I made the unfortunate mistake one day of telling them that the actual abbreviation of Miranda is Randy. Of course, they all found this quite amusing and i've been unable to convince them to stop calling me that. However, it's kind of grown on me.

I also recently started calling myself Miranda Wackdonald. This is something I made up while intoxicated no doubt. I thought I was really clever. It only took me 22 years to discover that Mac and Wack rhyme.

I like to play this game at bars sometimes. It's a name game. When I have no desire to meet anyone, I just make up a different name every time someone asks me. Once, I actually told someone my name was Randy-Rae and they beleived me. I've even tried such names as Winter, Lauralee, Polina, Ariel and Mary-Jane. Most people never believe my name is Mary-Jane... probably because I can't say it with a straight face.

Really though, Miranda is a nice name. I've never hated it.

Am I a Hyper-Optimist?

Absolutley not. So why did I call this blog Some Kind of Wonderful?

It's the title of this moderatley lame Huey Lewis song (as I'm sure you're aware) and it happened to be playing at the time this blog was created.

I know it's lame but I like this song. It's happy and fun. Simple and honest.

Yeah.... it's a great title. It makes me smile.

Finally.

Finally. After much delay and procrastination, I've started a blog. High fives for my stellar initiative. Its been a mere 12 months in the making.

Lots of people think blogs are stupid, my mother included. But I don't care. I want a place to just write again. I forget what its like to just write for the sake of writing. I've actually sort of lost touch with my own handwriting. Spending countless hours each day typing on a keyboard and staring at a computer screen has seriously destroyed my ability to write with a pen and paper. Sometimes I actually forget how to form certain letters. Yes folks, it's that bad.

And its not about just writing, its about writing what I WANT to write. For four years now, I've been writing stale, academic essays in strict and relatively uncreative styles. I forget what it's like to just write freely again. I miss it.

So here it is ladies and gentlemen, my first blog entry.