Three recent but otherwise unrelated things I am feeling great about at this moment

i. self-possession Last night I was coming up the driveway to my building after walking to my sister's for dinner (and Bring It On) and this weird guy started talking to me. I know I've written before about how uncomfortable these awkward hitting-on situations make me, and how badly I traditionally handle them. And I was listening to my iPod, so the first assessment is always, Do I take my headphones off for this person? I unwisely chose to, and I got this:

Guy: Hey, do I know you? I thought I recognized you from somewhere.
Jocelyn: No, I don't think so.
Guy: Hey, do you live around here? I thought I knew you. Can I ask you your name?
Jocelyn: No.

And then I took out my keys, and I went into my building, and I pulled the door shut after me, and he wandered off. It was AWESOME. I might have been kind of mean, except I didn't feel guilty; I felt assertive, like I had managed, for the first time in my life, to avoid being made uncomfortable by a weird guy.

ii. bus-adventure I had to get a Criminal Records Check done today before I can start my new job. In order to do this, I had to go to the RCMP headquarters, which is actually not that far from my house. So I rode a bus I had never ridden before, the 8, and I got there and saw a bunny in the parking lot, and then it turns out I have never been convicted of any crimes! Score!

The 8, this new bus I just discovered, actually goes all the way from Kingsway Mall to Mill Woods Town Centre, and if you are from Edmonton you know that that actually represents a great distance. Since I was already riding the bus to go home, I decided to just stay on it to go to Mill Woods. It was exciting, Internet! It turns out that it is actually a really long bus ride! In Mill Woods, I went to the fabric store, and then I came home. Altogether, it took 4 hours.

I told James about my trip and he emailed me back: "You're such an explorer." Like Coraline!

iii. unrestrained fangirl gushing I don't mind admitting to you, Internet, that I want to be Sarah Vowell when I grow up. Not only is she the author of several great books, but she is also on National Public Radio, AND she was interviewed in a documentary I saw about the band They Might be Giants, AND she wrote the forward to the book I have about bomb shelters (Waiting for the End of the World). Basically, she gets to do everything I want to do, to write about everything I want to write about, and also to be in animated movies that I am less than crazy about. And she apparently pals around with people like David Sedaris, Dave Eggers, and Nick Hornby.

Anyway, I am currently reading her book of essays The Partly Cloudy Patriot, and it's great. I'm not that interested in American politics, except in a sort of bewildered outsidery way, but Sarah Vowell makes me understand how smart Americans can still believe in their country. There is one essay in this book, "The Nerd Voice," which you absolutely, absolutely need to read, Internet. It manages to articulate something that I have never been able to state as clearly as she can, although I've pondered it many times: that George Bush somehow managed to become president instead of Al Gore, in spite of the fact that he is, clearly, a moron. (The reason I have always insisted on, which also accounts for the popularity of Ralph Klein here in Alberta, is this: people, illogically, DO NOT WANT A POLITICAL LEADER WHO IS SMARTER THAN THEM.) Not only that, but it also manages to explain what this fact has to do with Revenge of the Nerds, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Internet, and Abraham Lincoln paper dolls.