"Everything's Comin' Up Rooooooses!"

'scuse me while I stuff Ethel Merman back into the closet she crawled out of.

Things are looking up. I was really optimistic on the weekend, liking the job, but still bitter it doesn't pay as much as the old one (money comes with proven on-the-job experience; gimme time, baby) as I conjured a wishlist of things I wanted, et al.

Yeah, yeah, gimme, gimme, gimme. I wants what I wants when I wants it, dammit.

And I want glasses! I want my scooter to go VROOM and sound more like a bike than a lawnmower! I want a new camera!

Oh, WAIT. I have a new camera! The fuckers turfed my old one by rejecting the warranty, causing me grief and sorrow this past week, and someone forgot to mention they're giving me a NEW camera that I can buy yet ANOTHER 3-year warranty for, for $60. Fucking A! I'm goin' PICTURE-TAKIN' on da weekend.

And this weekend I'm working OT at Ze Olde Jobbie for spending cash to stuff in my piggy bank for new glasses. Know why? Tension headaches behind the eyes are WEARING PRETTY FUCKING THIN. Yeah! That too!

Plus, y'know, I wanna be a cutie ex-librarian hottie or something. I WAS a librarian, you know. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

But, yeah, I'd love me some new glasses and want some clip-on prescription shades. I'm going back to A&P Optical here in Vancouver because I treat my glasses like shit and their lenses have STILL failed to scratch after FIVE years. Fucking amazing quality. The "guaranteed" ones from Factory Optical have scratched way too easily. Though, I did ride my scooter's back tire over these. Long story. Not too bad, considering. I don't play nice.

But A&P's are phenomenal. And they have "free lenses" with any frame purchase right now, except they also have free anti-scratch, anti-glare, anti-UV, and anti-something-that's-slipped-my-mind.

Holy bargoon, Batman. I generally don't name companies I frequent in my blog, but they did awesome work and they're on Cambie Street, where construction's really bad from the RAV line being built. Go see Amy at A&P Optical at Cambie and 18th! They need bizness, and I need to keep my good glasses people for longer! :)

And then... THEN I'm souping up the scooter! I couldn't remember my scooter's name when GayBoy was pestering me the other day (his is Matilda) but then I remembered when I was on a hill a couple days ago: Pussycat. So when I'm going up a hill I always mutter "Faster, Pussycat! Faster!"

My ride's a 49cc two-stroke Japanese import (Yamaha! WOOT!)knocked off to reminisce the old Italian rides from the '60s. It's cute. Needs some love. It goes about 60 clicks. I want to shop it up to a 70cc ride. You can take them as high as 90ccs, but that's asking too much of little wheels like those. I want to have mine go as much as 80 clicks or so, because I do like to get around on it. I've done a lot of day trips. I'd love to take it down to Whidbey Island or Port Townsend in the States sometime soonish. Being able to hit about 80km would mean I could ride on more roads. It'd also empower me on bridges and in fast-moving traffic, both places I sometimes am left feeling a little too much like a victim in the making. Empower me!

I'd love to restore my scooter this fall. It's only a 2003, but the leg shield has cracked along the bottom, it's been knocked over, there're scratches, the seat's all faded out from the sun and scratched up from someone else's cheap fucking nylon rain pants, and more.

I'd need only about $550 before the seat, $700 with the seat?? (maybe, I dunno how much, really, to recover it, unless I can salvage one from a scrapyard), and I could completely paint it up and even swap out the spedometer for one that could read my speed. Know what I'd paint it? Army green, but metallic. I'd replace any rusted chrome, and I'd get the seat done in chocolate leather.

But that depends how much money I have for travel and stuff. Tricking out the ride's good enough. Aesthetics are for prissy mod bitches who can't find their friggin' Siouxie and the Banshees tape collection. Bite me. Hard. (Snicker, said like someone just jealous 'cos they ain't got the cash, right? Ha! But I think I look tuffer for not caring how fancy my bike's looking, and the political stickers help for credibility, right? :P)

And I want to tile the top of my kitchen table. I'm thinking either I'll cover it in green river rock with a slate-coloured grout, or I'll do some funky translucent green subway tile and grout that. This is the fourth incarnation for this table, which began its life as a $149 Ikea table my father put together after scoffing at what Ikea was suggesting could be called "screws". Size, it seems, does matter.

So, he drilled it with two inch screws and the thing hasn't moved yet in seven years. Great stuff. So, fuck it, let's take it up a notch. Rock, tile, whatever. It'll be the cat's ass.

That's it, Bertha. I'm done like dinner.