me = criminal, apparently.

Hey! So last night, the stenciller guy who I'm writing a story about and I went out around 2:30am and he showed me the basics of laying down a stencil. It would have been nice to do it up in a more high-traffic area, but seeing as we were doing this just as the bars were letting out and we both live just off Whyte Ave, we very rebelliously hit some Canada Post boxes on University Ave instead. Whoo!

As you can see, the stencil was a very moustache-exaggerated Tom Selleck. I went back today to take a pic in the daylight; this one was mine, and is on a box on the corner of 108 St and 76 (I believe) Ave. Awesome? Totally. I was actually pretty surprised at what a fast process the whole thing is--so speedy, in fact, that it hardly seems like breaking the law at all. Basically, you make your stencil (out of acetate, as in those sheets they print overhead material on) in the comfort and safety of your own home, and after that, all you need is a newspaper to transport the stencil in and a can of black spraypaint. Hold the stencil up, take a look around, and five seconds of paint later, you lift the stencil and put it right on top of the paper you're carrying (a See or Vue works best) and just fold it loosely in half, so the stencil can dry discreetly without touching itself and getting stuck together. Once it's dry, repeat. Yay!

Actually, it was fun, and I might take the guy's offer to come along more often, and maybe even try and make a few stencils of my own. It's getting pretty crowded out there already, though.

Hmm, what else. Oh yeah--remember that crazy pinched nerve in my neck that was making my legs go buzzy? Yeah, well, I finally got freaked out enough by it that I had to go to the U of A's emergency room and have it checked out. It was pretty scary at first; the news that both my parents have diabetes caused a knowing glance to be shared between the two doctors present (the first, apparently, couldn't figure out what the fuck was wrong and had to bring in backup), and, quite terrifyingly, they spent a lot of time wondering if I'd suffered a minor stroke somehow, and I had to do a bunch of movement exercises and reflex and speech tests. Yee.

Luckily, it turned out that I'm not losing the use of my legs to diabetes or suffering the after-effects of a stroke, but rather, my problem might just be stress. They attached great significance to the fact that this thing started happening almost immediately after I began working as much as I have been lately, and possibly also to the fact that I now spend almost twice as much time as I did before hurting my back in a terrible office chair that was probably found on the side of the road while Ron was moving one time. So they figure I'm just carrying so much neck and back tension right now that something is impacting the nerve root near the base of my neck. The prescription? Nine (!) Motrin IBs taken throughout the day for a week, and Robaxacet to taste. And go see my family doctor (whoever he is; it's literally been years), because I'll probably need a CT or MRI to make sure there's no actual nerve damage going on. Oh, and find a way to ease my job stress. Ha. Anyone want to trade off?

Anyhow, I'll keep you all posted if I turn out to be dying, and you guys can fight over who gets my fake fireplace with the built-in eight-track and record players.