Tamara and I gave fashion advice to a transexual in the changeroom at the Gap. I don't think any more needs to be said.

I've been going through a box of old mementoes that I found while organising the laundry room. I was meant to deal with it when we moved in - it was stuff stored in my mum's basement in her old house. I'd forgotten all about it until I cracked it open the other night and it was pretty weird to see most of the stuff.

There were a pile of old letters that I'd gotten from old classmates when I moved to Port Coquitlam from Dawson Creek. I didn't remember getting nearly that many letters. I guess I must have been a better penpal than I thought considering how many people were writing to me. My lack of memory of most of the information in the letters or the circumstances they referred to, like "thanks for the amazing talk the other night" really freaked me out because generally I have a great memory for details. I couldn't even remember who a couple of the people were that were writing thanks to their use of obscure nicknames. I eventually puzzled it out then thought, "she wrote to me? were we really that close?" Apparently I even had penpals in both France and Austria (which I vaguely remember) who wrote to me in French and German. And they wrote often!

As great as the memory trip was I ended up putting most the letters in the recycling box because I just can't keep carrying all this stuff around with me. I kept a couple out to show to friends I keep in contact with so we can laugh over them together. The blackmail photos of the mall/rocker-bitch hair are also keepers.

Also amid the piles of paper were a ton of certificates of various academic awards I got in school ranging from the French 12 award to something from Grade 2 congratulating me on doing well on a spelling test. It was all kept tidily in a Duran Duran folder, no less. Again, it's cool to look through all of it but do I need to keep any of it? Gah!

And I haven't even cracked the box of letters from old boyfriends. Wish me luck...

I went to see Duran Duran on Friday night, which was pretty awesome. I loooooved them when I was around 11-13 years old. My whole room was plastered in posters and I was planning to marry John Taylor as soon as I figured out a way to meet him, and have him wait for me to be old enough. The concert was really fun, although our seats sucked. Next time, if I'm shelling out for someone I really want to see, I'm going to shell out more and get some decent seats. We rented binoculars, so we could see them okay on stage, but it would have been much better to be closer.

I discovered that John hasn't aged as well as I thought he might have. I actually wonder if he's had surgery because his face doesn't just look older, he looks way different. And Simon really can't dance. People say he never could but I didn't notice it back then. It's pretty damn apparent now.

But the show was really fun, and they played almost all my favourites (except The Reflex - maybe they're just sick of it). Since I never got to see them in their heyday, it was pretty awesome to get a chance to do it now.

I spent a very sleepless night last night doubled-over with cramps. And most of the plans I had for today have gone out the window due to the pain. Dammit! I really didn't expect miracles from my surgery but I did really hope that I'd be done with the 3-5am crampathons. I'm taking fewer drugs than I did previously, so that's a plus, and I know it's very soon after the surgery to know the full effects, but I gotta admit, it's pretty disheartening.

Valentine's Day is a really lousy holiday. It's a lousy day for singles and it's a lousy day for couples because of the pressures put on them to perform perfectly to their particular partner's needs. Aside from all the usual stuff about how the whole holiday has evolved into the conspiracy of flower and greeting card corporations to pad their bottom lines, Valentine's day can do a lot of damage to relationships. It can make you completely re-evaluate the stability and happiness of your relationship based on how your partner performed at the tasks (implied or expressed) that you have assigned to him/her for the day. A holiday should not have the power to mess with the value of everything else in a relationship; to make all the preceeding romantic dates or kind gestures seem less meaningful. And I am a total romantic but I am seriously considering saying "fuck it" to Valentine's day. It's just not worth the anguish.