blog move!

Just in case anyone bookmarked this, we’ve moved! Go to http://speeddate.wordpress.com and feel the love.

gender update!

I’m a girl now! Yes, I sure did check immediately after I posted an article all about my hair. I wanted to see if it would tip the balance. Apparently, I’m somewhat gender neutral, though. Only 57% woman. Ohh boyyys… that’s right, I’m more than fifty percent lady. Get in line!

I may not have much, but I have great hair

I love YouTube. Do you know what I did last night? I watched YouTube videos on how to do my hair like a forties pin-up. And then I did it. What did I even do before the Internet? Clearly, I didn’t do awesome things with my hair. 

I’ve also watched a bunch of videos on how to do a beehive. And YouTube taught me how to feather my hair for Halloween. Is Toronto ready for the assault of retro hairstyles that I’m about to unleash on it? Will men still date me if I make them help me put curlers in before bed?

All this is a reaction to the budget thing, you see. I can’t afford a haircut (once you develop a taste for the expensive haircut, First Choice just will not do), and I can’t afford exciting new clothes. So instead, I’m going to muck around with my hair and fall back in love with some old closet staples. But I’m actually kind of excited about it. I have a job I love, so even if I’m making half as much money as I did waiting tables, who cares that my jeans are so last year? And no one notices what the girl with the friggin’ BEEHIVE is wearing.

don’t they know spinsterhood is in?

I should make certain members of my family read this article. Since having hit the age at which my mother was not only married, but had popped out her first kid, I’ve been getting sidelong looks at family dos. I’M in no rush, and it looks like science is finally on my side (as opposed to when it’s about things like gravity)!

I’ve got ten years before my prime child-bearing years are up, anyway. I am all about procrastination.

belles and balds at the ball

Last night, Antonia, Joanne and I dolled ourselves up and went to the Capitol Event Theatre for the tenth annual Fireball. We danced up a storm–note: bouncing around to “Home for a Rest” and “Tub-Thumping” is disastrous for your average elegant up-do.

Speaking of hair, there was a noticeable lack of it on some of the male guests. I support men shaving their heads when male-pattern baldness starts to set in, because comb-overs are NEVER a good look, but there were so many cue-balls in evidence last night that I’m thinking it’s a fashion choice. Antonia referred to them collectively as Mr Cleans; we did some bird’s eye view spotting from the balcony. One specimen deployed questionable tactics to hit on me:

MR CLEAN: Are you part Asian?
ME: Yes, good guess!
MR CLEAN: (leans in and leers) I like that.
ME: … Ohhh-kay.
MR CLEAN: Do you have a name?
ME: No, I left it at home.
MR CLEAN: Maybe you could look for it at my place.
ME: Ohh, NO, that was TERRIBLE.
MR CLEAN: Really? I thought that was pretty good, on the spur of the moment.
ME: No, you need to retire that. Pretend this never happened.

The end of the night is a bit of a blur. I remember swearing a lot (just in general, not at anything in particular) in the cab on the way home, and apparently I bemoaned at some length my lack of a well-oiled gentleman to remove my bra for me (I… don’t even know. Antonia and Joanne don’t know where I was going with that either). And I did something either last night or in my sleep to completely throw my neck out, which means that for today, I, like Derek Zoolander, have been unable to turn left.

But you’ll be pleased to know that my half-assedly broken-in shoes did not give me blisters!

probably should have started breaking in these shoes sooner

As I previously mentioned, I’m going to a ball tonight! It’s a charity thing, and I’m not really anticipating there to be a glut of Prince Charmings there, but you never know. I’ll tell ya, I feel a lot like a Disney princess right now. I’m wearing boxers, a torn sweatshirt, and elegant heels while heating up some pasta and sauce. The glamour never stops, chez moi.

if I’m a guy, I’m missing some equipment

My good friend Peter has recently informed me that the Internet thinks I’m a man. Apparently, if you use this blog’s address in the Gender Analyzer, I come over all male. We had a brief discussion about whether or not the Internet thinks I’m gay because I talk about dating men; it pleases me that the criteria doesn’t seem to be hetero-normative.

And hey, I’m okay with it. I am totally in touch with my masculine side. I often joke that I got the testosterone that my brother left behind in the womb (he bats for the swishier team… what? I can’t joke now? I’m apparently a gay man too!). I like many things that are stereotypically reserved for the danglier sex–like action movies, beer, slabs of meat (heh), and power tools.

None of this prevents me from girling it up each and every day. I have an addiction to expensive cosmetics (Sephora is the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems), and I refuse to be seen in public without having curled my eyelashes. I adore dressing up in high heels and dresses (speaking of which, I’m going to a charity ball this weekend! Eeee!). I love Jane Austen and Margaret Atwood. I freely admit to having seen more romantic comedies than is probably healthy.

It just occurred to me that maybe this blog would come across as more feminine if I weren’t typing this while wearing boxers and lounging in a most unladylike fashion. From now on, please picture me writing in a twinset and pearls. And with perfect posture, naturellement.

if I could get a Vespa with a sidecar, does that count as a family vehicle? no?

Last week, I went on a lunch date with an ex-army guy currently studying at Trinity, who came from a ranching background out West. Now, I am no hippy, but I am something of a free-spirit, and I’m definitely a left-wing, atheist city girl. So you can imagine how well that went.

He pulled out the hoary old, “What are your three major goals for life?” I don’t really have an answer. Thus far, I’ve pretty much ended up doing whatever came next. I make minor course adjustments when it looks like I’m about to sail into a bunch of rocks, but other than that, the wind takes me. But my main thing is this: what would any answer of mine really prove in a dating situation? If our answers synch up, we’re in love?

I guess some people don’t want to waste time on dating someone who doesn’t share the same ultimate goals. Fair enough, but I don’t really see dating as a means to an immediate end. If there’s chemistry, you keep going. When you’re ready to start talking about being exclusive, that’d be a good time to figure out if he wants to head to the suburbs and white picket fences, while she prefers staying in the city and saving up for a Vespa.

Luckily, there was no chemistry, so this particular guy and I are spared that eventual conversation.

I don’t own Marilyn-esque shoes, anyway

I had originally planned to go to FastLife’s Halloween party as Marilyn Monroe, but a last minute mental picture of what I’d look like as a blonde changed my mind. So instead, I hauled out a bell-bottomed denim jumpsuit (nevermind why I own one), feathered my hair, and layered on some blue eyeshadow. I have a not-so-secret passion for the seventies.

Candice and I ran into a few guys from the beer tasting speed dating event. One seemed like he was about to get confrontational about me giving him a big old NO–this is purely conjecture, based on his belligerent, “Hi, remember me?”–but I derailed him with a cheery, “Oh, hey! How are you?” and a quick getaway. Quick getaways were the name of the game that night; I had to get Candice to rescue me from a handsy doctor.

My favourite costume of the night was definitely the lobster. He had Joseph (of Technicolour fame) as his sidekick and fine motor skills assistant. Sadly, I have no idea if he was actually cute under the plush carapace. There were a lot of cute guys there, particularly a Michael Phelps (sans medals) and an Indiana Jones (with whip!).

I had leeetle too much vodka while at the party, and then Candice and I went to Hemingway’s for a glass of wine, and that tipped me right over the edge. Then, naturally, we decided to try and get into Slacks in the Village. I don’t know if it would have worked if I’d tried to flirt my way in (I have very little polling info on whether or not my wiles work on lesbians), but we were sadly daunted by the lineup and lost heart. Church Street was rocking, though! The costumes didn’t measure up to Pride, but the street was packed with fabulousness.

a little TOO much Halloween fun

The problem with no longer being 21 is that hangovers last allll day. I’ll tell you all about it later; I need to regrow some brain cells and get back on speaking terms with my liver first.