Creampuff Revolution

Creampuff: Rebel Without a Spoon

I was blearily going through my Bloglines feed tonight, catching up with all of you fabulous, prolific people, when I came across this Monday Baby Blogging picture at Alas, a Blog:

The gleeful look - the empty pudding cup - it reminded me of a long-forgotten story. 

It's a spring day and I'm in Grade One French Immersion. My incredibly mean and bitchy teacher Madame White gives each of us a big sheet of yellow construction paper and tells us it's fingerpainting time!  We are excited until we see that there is only one colour of paint and it's brown.  "It looks like dog doo!" whispers Bo Froberg, to general hilarity.  That Bo, man - he knew comedy.  Madame White brings the paint bucket around and spoons a big, wobbling, turd-like mass onto each of our papers.  Then, as we all prepare to "paint", she breaks the news that the paint we are using is poisonous and could kill us. So we'd better be careful not to get any near our mouths because we'd die and "our parents probably wouldn't miss us because we were all such brats". 

As if asking us to fingerpaint with dog shit paint that could kill us isn't enough, Madame White gives us each such a big dollop of paint that it's not really like fingerpainting anymore.  It's more like paint PUSHING.  So we're all pushing this smooth brown paint around on the yellow construction paper and I notice that the texture of this paint feels a little . . . funny.  It's not gritty like tempura paint, it's slippery and . . . oddly familiar.  So I wait until Madame is not looking and then I lean over my page. I sniff the paint. 

The paint smells like chocolate. 

I resume my paint pushing as Madame wanders my way, but the second her back is turned, I stick out my little tongue and take a taste of the poisonous brown paint.  And that is when I start shouting "IT'S PUDDING!!  IT'S PUDDING!!  C'EST LE POUDING!! LE POUDING!!" I frantically lick pudding off my hands, then move on to tongue my entire sheet construction paper.  Other kids around me start doing the same.  There are gasps!  There are cries of joy!  Everywhere, kids are eating pudding!

Basically, I started a Grade One RIOT.  Kids were lickin' the paper, lickin' each other - Cameron Musgrave and Chad Onyschuk found the original bucket of paint and started eating pudding by the handful and flinging it around - it was a pudding MASSACRE. 

Afterward, I had a long, pudding-smeared wait in the principal's office.  And thus, my career as a food outlaw began.

Creampuff Update

I know, I know - where have I BEEN?  Between all this pants-wearing, working for money, screwing my scarf up irreparably and sneaking peeks out the dining room window in case I'm missing free porn, el bloggo has been sorely neglected.  Here is the update:

Pants:  I still only have two pairs of work pants.  Yes, I wash them.  Yes, one of them is starting to chafe.  Though I do not get paid until next week, I feel I might have to make a trip this weekend to purchase further pants.

Working for money:  Rocks!  The people are cool, the coffee is free and I get to do fun little projects all day.  The only downside is that my computer screen is in a very public area, which means that my Hothead Paisan - Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist desktop wallpaper is . . . not okay.  I chose instead a verdant hill.  It soothes me - particularly when my pants are chafing.

Irreparable screwing up of scarf:  Well, I made the stunning tactical error of working on the knitting and trying to learn a new stitch the night that the right-wing fucktard I hate got elected Prime Minister of Canada.  Thank GOD Deuce and Jebr had brought cake over, or the night would have been a total wash.  As it was, I had to completely unravel my scarf and when I go to knitting class in a few minutes, I plan on telling the instructor that I had always INTENDED to make a dishcloth and yes, it would look great with a fringe.

Free porn:  Dear neighbours - you seem to have shut your blinds.  Was it my binoculars?  It was my binoculars, wasn't it?  Too much?

Aaaand . . . that's all the update this creampuff's got time for.  It's off to knitting class - where incompetents gather to cast off.  Photos of completed dishcloth with fringe to come.

Creampuff KnitFest

I had my very first knitting class the other night.  It was a blast and I learned three important things:

1.  Knitting is expensive and addictive.

2.  I like to cast on real, real tight.  So tight that I can't even knit the first row.

3.  We don't learn purling until next week's class (foiled!)

Also, judging by the hipster instructor, I'm probably not cool enough to actually hang out at the yarn store where I took the class.  I don't know that I could cultivate the proper "je ne care pas" attitude. 

I was going to off on a rant about how hipsters are the natural enemy of the creampuff, but that's not really fair.  I have a couple of very cool, funny, animated friends who lean towards hipsterdom and I love them and they put up with my stunning geekitude.  But this knitting instructor . . . well, first of all, the only reason I knew she was the instructor was that she was knitting a very beautiful and complicated-look sock when I arrived, while the other women there (one of whom looked like a young Jamie Lee Curtis) were just concentrating on not poking their eyes out with their sticks.  Then, when the class actually started, it was kind of like we'd all accosted the instructor on the bus while she was knitting and forced her to show us how. 

Now, I don't want to suggest that a person leading a class (or serving coffee at fucking Futures Bakery) doesn't have the right to be so disinterested and low key that they're practically in a coma.  But something about that attitude energy really triggers the jolly-yet-angry-fat-girl in me and makes me want to act like a COMPLETE FUCKING DOOFUS. 

People, I could not shut my mouth. I guffawed like an idiot every time Jamie Lee Curtis made a joke or, really, a noise of any kind. The cartoon-voiced mouth-breather next to me made a Betty Boop sound when she dropped one of her needles and I literally had to squeeze my legs together to keep from urinating with mirth.  As the class went on, I fought the urge to scream and stab the instructor with my pointy sticks - ANYTHING to get a reaction.  With Herculean effort, I resisted. I just kept telling myself "If you stab her, she wins."  Because I realize that the ultimate goal of any hipster is to remain cool, calm and disinterested while you flap around like an angry chicken.  An angry chicken jealous of her incredible knitting skill.  And I was not going to be that jealous, angry chicken.

To be fair, the instructor did warm up a little after awhile and the class really was lots of fun.  We all joined in laughing at the instructor's barely concealed impatience with the one girl who just was. not. getting. it. And we engaged in a lively discussion about natural fibers, during which I admitted my squeaky yarn was mostly acrylic.  I then felt the sting of yarn snobbery when the instructor and Jamie Lee Curtis mocked my yarn, which, I must point out, I bought on sale.  Dude, I know it's crappy-ass yarn - I'm unemployed!  I'm hardly going to drop a fortune on hand-painted alpaca ear yarn for my (almost) first project.  By the way, here my scarf is so far:

For crappy-ass yarn, I think it's kinda pretty.  Of course, it just occurred to me an hour ago that I'm actually supposed to have the full scarf knitted by Thursday so that I can learn "casting off" from Professor Bored McStragglyBeatlesHair.  Ordinarily, this would not pose a problem, but as you may recall, I'm actually WORKING, AT AN OFFICE starting Monday and won't have time for knitting fun until the evening. 

I DO plan, however, to knit all the way through the election results tomorrow night.  I want to believe that the shit won't hit the fan - that thousands of Canadians will weigh their three (or four, if you live in Quebec) shitty options and decide that "corrupt" is still preferable to "pure evil".  It could happen!  But if it doesn't, I may be forced to fall on my knitting needles.  Painful, sure - but best to take advantage of socialized medicine while there's still time.

Creampuff at the Office

Well, kids, it's finally happened.  After just over a year of working for art, fame, fortune and generally being a slave, a SLAVE, I SAY!! to the Muse, I have become re-aquainted with the odd and delightful notion of "working for money".  Starting Monday, I am embarking on a four-week contract doin' some freelance writing, editing and content management.  I am very excited about this opportunity to beef up the portfolio, work with some very cool people (in an actual office!) and be able, once again, to pay for groceries.  This job, however, does have its drawbacks.  I have been informed that in this job, unlike my current "work", I will be expected to:

1.  Show up every day.

2.  With pants on.

3.  Not refer to the women's washroom as the "ladies shitter".

I KNOW - tall orders.  I just keep reminding myself that I have worked in offices before, often for years at a time, with few disastrous consequences.  And really, any disastrous consequences I've experienced at the office were generally wrought from having been there waaaaaay too long.  Here are a few reasons why I think short-term contract work is great:

·         The contract is often not long enough for you to get bored.

·         You won't get voluntold to be on the United Way Executive Committee.

·         You probably won't be ushered into the cubicle of a sobbing friend who's just been fired and then have your boss tell you that you must learn your sobbing, fired friend's job in 2 hours before they escort her from the building with her stuff in a box.

·         That guy you hate?  With the eyebrows?  Yeah . . . you won't be seeing him again.

·         You won't become obsessed with some receptionist's stale box of Cadbury fudge fingers in the kitchen cupboard - you won't even know they're there!  Because people on short-term contracts don't open the kitchen cupboard.

·         People remember you fondly, 'cause you weren't there long enough to really chap their ass.

·         You might get a new security pass to add to your collection for use later, when you become an industrial spy or when you do an installation piece about the life of a temp (I have several of these).

·         If you don't suck, you might get a free lunch at the end.

In honour of my last weekday (for a whole month!) as a slacker-type, I was going to sit around in my pyjamas, eating ice cream and watching Buffy, but I find I am not in the mood.  The sun is shining, the birds are getting run over in the street and I have a long-awaited meeting this afternoon with a rejector to discuss why, WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME and related issues.  It's one of those meetings where I do care but feel I have little to lose by being direct.  I tell you, gang, I am looking forward to it.

Before I head out though, I'd better hit the ladies shitter.

Creampuff Loves a Carnival

Winter's been hosting the Carnival of Bent Attractions this month (some very good reading, people) and it's just been brought to my attention that the fine, fine folks at Alas, a blog, recently put out a call for submissions for the first Big Fat Carnival, which they'll be hosting February.

From Alas, a blog:

The Big Fat Carnival is a carnival for collecting some of the best blog posts regarding fat pride; fat acceptance; critiques of anti-fat bigotry, attitudes and research; celebration of images of fat people; practical difficulties of being fat; fat love (queer and otherwise); feminist views of fat and fat acceptance; the health at every size movement (HAES); and whatever else each edition's editor feels fits into the theme.

So to all you loud, proud, large and in charge creampuffs out there, round up your best fat posts (or write some new ones) and send them on over.  Myself, I can't wait!  'Cause where there's a carnival, there are mini-doughnuts.

p.s. I found this fantastic flamenco dancer painting on a site called www.bigbeautifuls.com.  I spent some time there, checking out all the other paintings and there is some gorgeous stuff.  Special to Katr - if you're on my computer later and bigbeautifuls.com shows up on the history - it's NOT PORN.  It's ART.  Besides . . . we all know where I'm getting my porn from these days.

Creampuff Does Some Monday Fish Blogging

Okay.  I've had the same Ben Harper song on repeat all ding dong day and I think it's time I took a break and did some Monday fish blogging.

If I had cute and/or self-loving cats like Winter and New York Ex, I would gladly join the Friday cat blogging movement.  But Katr and I have fish and we all know that cats and fish get along like me and Janeane Garofalo.  Cats (me) LOVE fish (Janeane), maybe a little TOO much.  Fish fear cats, and with good reason. (Pssst, Janeane - call me!)

We recently moved our two gigantic goldfish from a much-too-small tank to this palatial, 20 gallon hexagonal tank.  Note the classy ruins and bubbling pagoda; we do not discriminate against kitsch from any nation.  Once again, however, Katr vetoed my request to have a saxophone-playing skeleton as the bubble element.

Me:  But you LOVE jazz!

Katr:  No.

Me:  We could call him "Bones"!

Katr: NO.

I grudgingly admit that she was probably right.  These fish sure seem to love that pagoda.  I have yet to see them do a scene from Antigone near the Greek ruins but I swear I caught them in front of the pagoda performing a series of tableaux vivants from Intrigues in the Qing Imperial Court.  This is a vast improvement over their former pastimes in the small tank, which were basically: 

• Waiting for me to feed them;
• Eating;
• Diligently sucking on all the rocks for any food they might have missed; and
• Attempting to eat anything else floating around in the tank, including the products of digestion.

Sparkle (the lithe, bigger fish) and Oscar (the pudgy, waggly fish) are cute and sometimes, like right now, they kiss!  But they are not what you would call "learning robots" and I must say, their attempted crap-eating shenanigans provided endless entertainment.  You could actually see the single gear turning in their little fish heads over and over again: "Heeeeey! Food!  Right on!  I'm gonna snag a little bite of THIS yumminess and aaaaaaa!  AAAAAAAAAH!!  Ptui! Ptui!  I ate crap!  I ate crahahahahaaaaaap!  EWWWWwww . . . GOD, that was so disGUS - heeey!  Food! FanTAStic!  Let me just sidle up to this delicious morsel and AAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Ah, silly, crap-eating fish.  Good times. 

You know when you're having nostalgia for those crap-eating fish times, you've been listening to Ben Harper for a little too long.  Clearly, it's time for Shawn Colvin.

Free Porn for Creampuff

As some of you may recall, I am an incorrigible peeping tom and the layout of our building only encourages me.  From my usual perch in our dining room, I can see into the dining rooms, living rooms and, occasionally, bedrooms, of many other tenants.  I do not go so far as to keep binoculars in there - anymore.  But often, when I'm searching for just the right phrase or contemplating the mysteries of the universe ("Why is there so much pleather at the fat girl store lately?  Fat girls don't like pleather!  It chafes us! Maybe I should take a break from this thing I'm working on and write an angry letter to the fat girl store . . ."), I find myself gazing unabashedly into other people's homes.  Rarely does this practice yield anything exciting - until this morning.

So there I am, all innocent-like, wandering around our dining room in search of pants, as you do.  It's still dark outside and there are few lights on in our place, which is why I feel okay wandering about pants-less.  While I'm in the dining room, I decide to sit down and take a moment to organize some things on the table (in the dark, 'cause that makes so much sense).  Just as I get up to turn the light on, a flurry of movement across the courtyard catches my eye and I look over to the apartment of a new tenant on our floor.  This woman had some wooden venetian blinds installed before she moved in (I know, because the good-looking butch who installed them caught me staring lustfully at her toolbelt a bunch of times, often while still in my pyjamas).  The lights were on in the room and while the top half of the blinds was shut tight, the bottom half was open.  As if daring me to look right in.

At first, it seemed like there was only one person in the room (I could only see them from the waist down) and it also seemed, from my limited viewpoint, that this person was involved in some kind of vigorous cleaning activity.  I make similar angry cleaning movements myself, often accompanied by angry questioning ("What is ON . . . THIS . . . SPATULA??"), so I was about to go back to my tidying when the person near the window turned slightly.  Three things immediately became clear:

1. There were actually two people in the room;
2. They did not have pants on either;
3. Neither of them was cleaning.

Naturally, once I figured out what was actually going on, I did what any normal person would do if they discovered they were witnessing complete strangers in a private, intimate act.  I went and got my glasses.  And some trail mix.

As girl-on-boy boot-knocking goes, it was no great shakes.  From an "entertaining your neighbourhood peeping tom" point of view, I mean.  No imaginative positions (at least, from what I could see in the bottom half of the window), it just went on and on and at one point, I swear the girl was on the phone.  But still - I COULDN'T LOOK AWAY. 

The whole thing kinda reminded me of the scrambled porn we'd watch at sleepovers late at night on channel 74, if the sleepover hostess' parents had cable.  I remember we found the scrambled porn titillating, yet slightly boring - and also, because access to the full picture was denied, frustrating.  Unlike this morning, there was no stable window into the scrambled late night porn; lines would strobe up and down the screen, the picture was constantly in motion, you never knew where to look and yet, you couldn't look away, 'cause you never knew when you might see some - Ooo!  Nipple!  Nipple!  Balls!  Balls!  Balls . . .balls . . . balls . . . ba . . . Jesus, when are they gonna get back to the - HA ha BOOBS! Boobs!  Aaaand . . . back to balls.  Oh, straight scrambled late night porn.  Good times.

This couple across the way took me on quite a little trip down scrambled porn memory lane this morning as I sat there in the dark.  Eating my trail mix.  Realizing how this incident would just be too embarassing to blog about because my parents read my blog.  It was rather sweet, really, a reminder of more innocent times.  I felt as though I should leave them some kind of thank you card with a note like "Thanks for the memories! Keep on  . . . truckin'."  I didn't.

I DID, however, have a chance to deliver my thanks in person later this afternoon. I ran into the girl tenant in the hallway, while I was taking out the recycling.  We smiled and nodded hello to each other and I suddenly had this terrible urge to say something COMPLETELY inappropriate, like "Hey!" And then she would say "Hi . . ." and then I would say "Soooooo - saw you takin' quite a ride on the cock rocket this morning!" and then in the stunned silence that ensued, I would nod knowingly and add "Yep.  Cock . . . ROCKet."

Maybe next time.

In other, less porn-related news, the voting has begun over at Best of Blogs!  So if you're killin' time this fine Friday, cruise on over and check out the action.  And if you haven't had enough amateur porn, definitely visit some of the finalists for Best Sex Blog.  They . . . uh . . . make me blush.

But Creampuff Has No Strapless Gown!

Oh, wait - I guess they're not those kinds of awards.

Creampuff Revolution is a finalist in the LGBT category over at the second annual Best of Blogs awards!  Woohoo! Thank you to the gentle reader who nominated me!

It seems that popular vote plays a part in determining the winning blog in each category.  So when that gets underway, you KNOW I'll be gently encouraging you to cast a vote my way, if you are so inclined.  In the meantime, check out the BoB! The whole nomination process provided a great intro to all kinds of cool blogs, on all kinds o' topics .  I've been slow on posting the last couple of days 'cause I've been wading through said cool blogs (lingering ever so slightly over the knitting blogs - the obsession deepens).

So to anyone who's visiting for the first time - hey, thanks for stopping by!  These doughnuts are for you.

Creampuff Cleanse

As part of our vow to make healthier choices in 2006, Katr and I briefly considered starting out the year with a fast.  You know, a cleansing sort of fast.  A lemon juice, cayenne pepper, maple syrup kind of fast, you know, to really purify ourselves.  I remember a friend of mine, Garo, being on this fast several years ago and he swore by it.  I also remember going shopping with Garo at West Edmonton Mall while he was on the fast and wanting to punch his lights out because he was so tired and whiny.  Looking back, Garo's whining wasn't just the fast talking but still - it wasn't pretty.

My own experience with fasting (barring a strange starvation "diet" I imposed on myself in Grade 7 for about two weeks) has been minimal; I have, in fact, only sincerely attempted fasting once.

Back when I used to obsess about my weight in order to avoid actually living my life (oh, to have that time back, people), I was on the Protein Power diet, which is similar to Atkins - lots of protein, very low carb.  I was pretty successful on the Protein Power plan, unless you count the times I would freak out and spend the weekend eating my weight in pie (which happened about every three weeks).  After a rare period of pie-free activity, however, I found that my progress had "stalled" and someone on the Protein Power message boards suggested I might break on through to the other side by trying the Atkins "fat fast".

The fat fast is basically this: you eat 1,000 calories a day, with 75 percent to 90 percent comprised of fat. I KNOW - fantastic, right?  A thousand calories a day! That's hardly a fast at all!

I beetled off to the grocery store and stocked up on the required fat fast food items: macadamia nuts, cream cheese, beef patties, brie and spinach (I added the spinach myself - the all fat all the time idea kinda freaked me out).  Then I set out on my three day odyssey to overcome metabolic resistance.

Day 1:

Breakfast:  Beef patty, spinach, coffee.  So far so good!

2nd breakfast: Ounce macadamia nuts, ounce Brie.  Not hungry at all.  Love the fat fast.

Lunch: Ounce tuna, two tsp mayo served in quarter of avocado.  How delicious and fatterific.

2nd lunch:  Ounce macadamia nuts. Starting to feel faint and dizzy.  Better drink some water. And have another snack.

3rd lunch: Ounce Brie, more water. Still feel a little woozy. Maybe I'll lie down.

4th lunch (about 20 minutes after 3rd lunch): Entire bin of macadamia nuts. Entire brick cream cheese.  Rest of triangle Brie. All remaining avocado. Ounce spinach.

Dinner:  Pie.

Clearly, fasting - not so much for me.  If I can't make it through a day of fat "fasting", no way I'll make it through a week of lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup.  Fortunately, over the weekend, Katr and I discovered an alternative to the fasting kind of cleanse when we made up a pot of "stew" consisting mainly of cabbage and chick peas.  I'm telling you, if we could feed this stew to all the world leaders, there would be no war.  Because they'd all be in the bathroom 75 to 90 percent of the time.

5 ... Things about Creampuff

I've been tagged by the lovely Winter and am most happy to comply with her request to know 5 weird things about me.  As she noted, weirdness is subjective.  What I consider weird, others might consider repulsive, obsessive compulsive or merely embarassing.  History will decide.

• I'm intensely pyrophobic.  That, in itself, is not weird.  When discussing fave ways to die, no one I know chimes in with: "Hey, that's how I'd like to go when my time comes - trapped in a raging inferno!"  But I am always slightly hysterical around fire of any kind. On the rare occasions I'm near a campfire, I'm the one who gets the bucket of water when we're done.  Candles - romantic, sure, but ARE THEY SAFE?  I did not light a match unassisted until I was 22 and I only lit it because I was in a show and I HAD to. I can only hope the audience thought my hand tremors were a character choice.  This afternoon, when our Jiffypop set off the Screaming Klaxon of Death our building calls a smoke detector, Katr immediately turned on the fan, opened the windows and started to wave a magazine in the area around the smoke detector.  I, on the other hand, made for the door and burst out into the hallway, hoping that my oven mitts would make up for my lack of actual pants.  Fire - me no likey.

• When I play computer solitaire, I have to play until I win.  And then, when I win, the King of Hearts card has to be the last card that I place on the deck.  If I screw up and place the King of Hearts BEFORE another card, I have to start playing again.  I don't play computer solitaire anymore.

• I don't like bending over unless I know something really fun is going to happen.  This means that the top two drawers in my dresser are crammed to capacity and the bottom one is nearly empty.  It also means that everything in our fridge is at the front of the shelf, with acres of empty space in the back.  I fill the crisper drawers at the bottom of the fridge only under duress.  Things go in but they don't come out.  Well, a smell comes out.  And then Katr cleans the drawers.

• When I was a kid, there were certain vowel sounds that really bothered me, particular the "oo" sound, as in "moon" or "poo".  And so, I refused to say those words.  'Cause GOD, I hated that sound.  In fact, I kinda still do.  Anyway, my brother and I went to this day camp for a week one summer when we were little and the jovial camp counsellor, who'd clearly just discovered Brit T.V., told us kids that if we wanted to go to the bathroom, we HAD to say "Alex, may I go to the loo?"  Looking back, I'm sure that Alex was flexible on this rule, but I was not a child who asked a lot of questions.  Instead, to avoid using the word "loo", I intentionally dehydrated myself in the morning before we left for day camp and then all hot summer day, even going so far as to give away my lunchtime juicebox, just so that I wouldn't have to pee.  I have no doubt that my dislike of "oo" had a deleterious effect on my bladder.  If I'm wearing Depends by the time I'm 40, I will blame Alex.

• I am a lesbian - who is allergic to cats and hates camping.

Und now, I tag others:  ers, newyorkex, Melissa, Chezza - smoke 'em if ya got 'em. Noooo pressure.

Good times!  Now that's done, I'll return to my exciting Saturday evening of knitting (not purling), watching Buffy on DVD and listening to my girlfriend in the other room playing the kicky campaign tune "Heureusement, ici le Bloc!", which she downloaded from the Bloc Quebecois website because she thinks Gilles Duceppe is hot.