walking even with the builder of the universe...

From Walden:


"beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes."

* * * *

"...if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

* * * *

"The cost of a thing is the amount of life that must be exchanged for it."

* * * *

"When I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to..The repugnance to animal food is not the effect of experience, but is an instinct...I believe that every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food, and from much food of any kind... Whatever my own practice may be, i have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals."

* * * *

"If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal - that is your success. All nature is your contgratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little stardust caught, a segment of the rainbow which i have clutched."

* * * *

"Only that days dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star."

Alone, alone, about a dreadful wood...

well, it seems that exam period turns me into a daily blogger, with or without an audience.

So, i am officially the queen of procrastination. three exams to go before thursday, and i have spent most of today reading the newspaper, baking goodies, daydreaming, watching the snowstorm ebb and flow outside, playing scrabble on the internet, looking up useless facts, checking my email, and occasionally reading over old ones. I found a gem of an email from this wonderful japanese guy i met in thailand, where, among other awesome things, he wrote:

"You have splendid sensitivity and good looks like a fairy"

how can a gal not be flattered by such compliments?

oh engrish.

oh asia...

“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.”

-John Lennon

bringin' back sweet memories...

so, i spent a good hour or two last night reading old emails from asia, up late and unable or unwilling to sleep. little bits of inspiration have come over me this week, probably because i finally have a bit of breathing room, what with classes over and my next exam not until monday. school simultaneously inspires and quashes inspiration; i am too busy for any thought-out-thoughts of my own, but also forced to devote myself to one topic for a length of time, which rarely happens when left to my own scattered and indecisive devices.

reading those emails brought a lot of things to the forefront. there was a lot of warm laughter, a lot of nostalgia, but also a lot of reality. distance makes the heart grow fonder, and often the sweetest memories are the ones i remember from traveling while i forget about the month of invalidity, of lying sweat-soaked on mysteriously stained sheets staring at dirty walls and dreading my next questionably sanitary meal, dreading my next violent bout of vomiting. and i forget those long days of loneliness when i would read book after book, write email after email, trying to fill the void where friends were lacking.

but the good memories are so very good. i feel like i don't have such good stories to tell here, because people - strange ones, boring ones, wild ones alike - simply don't reach out in the same way, and nor do i have the push to do so. i find it hard to reach out here, i find it hard to quickly match steps with someone, to relate. i also find myself turning a bit cold and hardened - perhaps it's all this snow. i was told that i recently seemed "bitter and not too friendly" towards a friend, and this has really made me think. this is not the person i want to be, and this is not how i was feeling at the time, despite outward appearances - in fact mostly i was feeling really happy to have a close friend around. but this is something i have recognised in myself lately: a sort of coldness directed towards the world, and a pendulum of emotions that come out as drastic ups and downs. i have been feeling something changed in me, some warmth is seeping out, perhaps because i don't have as many places to put it these days - only so much of your love can go to a single person, no matter how great that person is, and friendships are so important to me as a solid foundation for everything else.

i think what all this is pointing to is my need for a solid sense of groundedness. slowly but surely i am feeling more at home here, making small friendships here and there, but what is lacking is a commitment to this place. i think a lot lately about packing up my bags and flying off to some place or another again, to live that uncertain but ever-exciting life; and maybe i will, but i also feel the need for a change here, o an eventual return to my life in b.c., whether in vancouver or victoria, a return to that foundation of family and friends and those that are somewhere in between. or maybe just start trying harder to make that here, to get involved and be part of this place instead of feeling like a passer-through, a tumbleweed, a complete unknown with no direction home...

i wish i knew how to start that process in a meaningful way, and i wish i knew how to turn off this coldness that occasionally rears its head, but hey, life is for learning. i'm sure we all go through these phases of wondering where exactly our lives are at, where they are going, and what it all means anyway. oh life.

holidays are made for reading and remember things that are worth repeating...

so, i'm here in the thick of final exams, staring furiously at this computer screen, my prison. trying to write a take home exam about globalization, markets and states in africa, about the human development paradigm and the informal sector and gender inequalities and displaced people and so much more, all fit nicely into twelve pages. how can i possibly be expected to understand all of these complex issues (each of which we spent three one hour classes on) into twelve pages? it is not that it isn't interesting - it is - but just that it's such a vast topic and i am such a small little person.

well, ok, i'm also just tired of doing homework, but seriously. university is so crazy - we are given so much information that we must absorb in under four months, and then we move on to the next topic. obviously there are themes that run along like little mountain streams between classes, but still. Inequality and Development, in 3000 words or less. Society and Environment. Health and Development. Global Earth Systems. How can i even begin to understand anything, and why do we all try so hard to do so? we are not very humble animals, are we?

and all i can think about today is how i bought my ticket to vancouver for december 24th and how, now that i have done it, i am overwhelmed with how much i want to be in B.C., even just for a short while. as i mentioned before, i saw my parents and sister for a few days in november and was overwhelmed with how good it was to see them. there is nothing like parental love of the unconditional kind, and i missed it, despite the many idiosyncrasies of our little family unit. and B.C., oh B.C... i've been thinking a lot about the ocean and about the mountains. it's beautiful here, much more beautiful in an urban way, but it is no match for vancouver when it comes to scenery. and i love living here, i feel totally invigorated by its alive-ness and the thousands of young people who all seem so involved in their community. but i think i've been so busy and so overwhelmed that i haven't spent too much time thinking about home. and now that i get to have a visit i can't stop thinking about it. close friends! homecooked meals! reading (fiction!) in front of the fireplace! no fear of freezing to death on the way to the grocery store!

well, what can i say, the grass is always greener. probably when i land in vancouver i will miss the nightlife, the row houses, the french language, the cheap beer in every corner store. all the things that make this place sooo montreal.

also, i will miss my matt, whose entire family now thinks i am the most cold-hearted witch of a girlfriend, leaving their matthew out in the cold eastern winter to brave the holidays alone. which i guess i kind of am, but we all gotta look out for ourselves, right? isn't that part of the whole christmas spirit thing?

hm. well, maybe what i am most looking forward to is being done with these pesky exams. speaking of which...

raindrops on roses...

ok fine. i get the hint. no more politics.

some more hard issues...

so, in light of some rather contentious debates in my last class, i just want to put this out there:

what do you think about the idea of moral relativism? do you think that it is wrong for we in the proverbial west to say: "hey, female genital mutilation is wrong!", or "stop killing women for the honor of your family" or "get that woman to a god-damned hospital before she gets fistula, yo!"

i mean, y'all probably know where i stand, but i'd like to know what everyone thinks. to me the idea that as a woman, as a person i can't say that doing something potentially devastating, brutal, violent against the will of another is wrong is infuriating.

a guy in my class today actually compared female genital circumcision to that of male circumcision - i can see his point in the fact that this is done without consent, but to compare a procedure that is done in adulthood and takes away any and all sexual pleasure for the rest of one's life to a procedure that, as far as i can see, is essentially aesthetic seems a bit stretched. but then, i've never been circumcised. anybody out there that has been: any thoughts? i think the part that riled me up was that his intention was not to point out agency but to say that we shouldn't judge or try to change another culture, because this is their choice.

to me this seems irrelevant - to my sensibilities it is NOT a cultural issue, it is an issue of agency, of power, of human rights. if there is a single woman out there who does not want this procedure, who does not want to give birth alone, who does not want to be killed for the honor of her family then it is an issue of equality and of choice.

the way i see it, if i were a young woman living at any period in the past when the only options open to me were marriage and motherhood i would want support in fighting this. i would want this support whether or not i chose to take advantage of new avenues open to me, whether i decided ultimately to commit my life to motherhood and marriage or to a career as a friggin' brain surgeon or astronaut. because equality is the main issue here.

i am feeling today a lot of what i often felt in india: this gap between fury and confusion; this gap between my tie to indian women through gender, and my inability to understand their circumstances because of differences in background, culture, class. but even just as a human there is a tie in the desire for choice; for the power to choose how one lives their life, who controls that life, who decides what does and doesn't happen, and the power to live a life free of subordination and violence.

does this make sense?

i know i've gotten in a lot of heated debates about this before: whether as so-called westerners we should stand up for issues that go against someone else's "culture". my stance has often been that perhaps our role is not so much to go out there and say "you're wrong, i'm right", but instead to be there for support of whoever may desire equal choice, equal treatment. do we have a role at all to play?

to me saying that we can't stand up for an issue because we are not involved is the same as saying that men shouldn't fight for women's rights because it is a woman's issue, that humans shouldn't defend animal rights because we can't possibly know what they want. but isn't it an equality issue instead, and an issue of violence? shouldn't we have the obligation to stop suffering? can we ever know whether someone is suffering if they don't tell us?

and what of inequalities here in canada? how much representation do we truly have in politics? how much do we make in comparison to men? and if there are indeed still institutional inequalities then who are we to go off to sub-saharan africa to change someone else's culture?

well, i'll leave you with that. there are a lot of different ideas battling it out in my brain, so let me know how you feel.

what i'm learning at university...

today in class we discussed the grisly details of a maternal disease called fistula, a scarring and killing off of tissue around the pelvis because of obstructed and therefore grossly prolonged labor (ie a baby being forced against your pelvis) - usually more than 48 hours, sometimes up to 12 days. if this prospect isn't enough to turn you off motherhood, the actual effects of this condition are to create a permanent and constant condition of incontinence, urinary and anal; in other words a relentless stream of urine and feces coming out of you for the rest of your life. it can also cause something called "foot drop" where the deformity of your pelvis causes you to drag one foot. both of these symptoms usually result in a woman being disowned by her husband, sent back to her family and alienated by her entire community, often ending up as a beggar. Fistula is most common in girls under 16, since it is most likely to occur when the pelvis is not yet fully developed and therefore not big enough to fit a baby, and it will last indefinitely if not surgically remedied. it is not uncommon in girls as young as ten. this disorder is actually extremely rare in wealthy nations since a c-section can easily treat obstetric obstructions and thus prevent fistula from ever happening.

have i mentioned that my program is occasionally depressing? other bright topics this week were killings of women in pakistan by family members when they left abusive husbands, the long term and unforeseeable effects of carbon in the atmosphere, the huge ratio of men to women in many countries due to selective abortion and infanticide, the widespread chaos and destruction of ecosystems that exotic species are causing around the globe, germany under hitler, and the spread of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis as well as its prevalence among marginalized and impoverished groups.

is it any wonder i'm so cynical?

london, ontario

spent the weekend in london. ontario. it was one of those towns that feels oppressive in its shittiness, in its lack of life or community or culture, full of ghost-stores long abandoned and consistently bad restaurants. it was a pretty unpleasant place, but i got to spend the weekend with my family, including my 95 year old grandma. she is still looking good, though she is a little deaf which makes conversations tricky. ("HI GRANDMA, YOU LOOK NICE!!!" "Oh, no ice thank you dear") made me think a lot about getting old, and what it would (will?) be like. imagine being 95! she has no living siblings, her parents and husband are long gone, and of course most of her friends died a long time ago (but she still has all her teeth, as she will tell you). it seems so lonely to me, but i guess everyone has a desire to live, no matter what the circumstances. i wonder why? what is it about being alive that's so great? or perhaps conversely what is so frightening about death? will i accept my mortality by the time i'm that age? does anyone ever accept it?

ah well, i can't help but believe that it is unlikely i'll make it that far, what with the million different ways we've fucked up the planet.

ok, anyways, i'm done with the doom and gloom. onwards and upwards.

it was really nice to see my family over the weekend and it made me realize that i really miss the company of people i feel comfortable around. i've been so busy that i wasn't feeling it too much, but that warm fuzzy feeling of family was enough to make me very homesick (despite the usual madness that is the gray family together in one room). and not just homesick for close friendship but homesick for that feeling of being surrounded by people who know your history and understand your humor, your asides. i dunno, i think a lot of the time too my sadness is more for things in the past than for things at a geographical distance. being at university surrounded by undergrads makes me miss that excitement of my first time around, before i realized that i would indeed have to leave school at some point and that it wouldn't be pretty. i miss my rose-tinted glasses! where did they go??!!!

scattered leaves don't lie

hmmm...autumn is so beautiful. we had two days of strangely warm weather - last night i biked home at 9 o'clock at night in a t-shirt...and i was too hot! but today is a rainy bc-esque kind of day. but then i'm trying not to be too happy about hot weather in late october; chances are it's not necessarily a good thing nor is it a sign of good things.

i think taking a diploma in the environment is exacerbating my anxiety problems. sometimes i wake up in the middle of the night in a panic, trying to catch my breath. i dream of environmental collapse, of world war, of resource wars, of panic and tidal waves and all such things.

but then i try to put things into perspective. we talked about other mass extinctions and the resilience of life in class. even if we destroy ourselves and most of life on earth, there will always be some extremophile who persists and from the chaos life will emerge again. isn't that lovely? it's reassuring in a way, though perhaps not for humanity. but life! it's such an amazing thing. the universe is creative! (sorry, i'm in the middle of midterms. i can only think in terms of concepts i'm learning. not that i really understand them)

anyways, i'm not sure i have a point. but then, nothing has a point, the only point to anything is life itself, the creation of life, the extension of life! yippeee!

so, jenya tells me it's time to tell you all whether i'm still alive and well.

and i am. i feel like i've been living in a time warp - i can't believe it's bloody sept. 27th today, a day that marks the almost-one-month mark since i left vancouver for the shivery shores of the saint laurent (well, not that shivery, it's been hot and humid almost constantly since i arrived). i am certainly in the thick of things already - i am working 10 to 15 hours a week, taking five classes, trying to furnish an almost-empty (though not so much anymore) house, trying to visit with a few old friends (well, who am i kidding, eric and isa are my only friends here) and occasionally trying to find time to spend with my partner in crime. (we see each other less living together than we did when living in different cities, i swear!)

so yah. i think i'm happy, but i haven't really had time to sit back and think about it. maybe that's a good thing; maybe busy-ness is the key to happiness, or at least the impression of happiness. but you'll know if yer on facebook (which is of course everyone in the modern world except perhaps jenya and natalie...ahem) that i am also desperately missing my home. even though we could learn a thing or two about nightlife, music and just general joie-de-vivre from the quebecois, there is certainly no view that i've ever seen like the one you get from almost any neighborhood in vancouver. i miss the mountains, (real ones, not the hill that is mount royal) i miss the ocean especially, and even more i miss the people. but that's inevitable; it comes with the territory.

that said, this city is fun. terribly, sinfully fun. on sunday we went to see the medieval times folks at mont royal park... and let me tell you, you don't even know the meaning of the word nerd until you've seen pimply quebec boys, men and geriatrics dressed up in pseudo-medieval outfits (more like samurai/robin hood/god-awful-raver-from-the-nineties/gandhi) poking at each other with duct tape-covered weaponry and home-decorated carboard shields in front of a large portion of one of the most hip cosmopolitan cities in north america.

it was fucking awesome.

and of course there is the drinking. i've done a lot of drinking here, sometimes in dark hipster bars, sometimes in hostile francophone-only dives, and on saturday in some sort of mad metal-head nightclub. the latter was complete with a separate darkened room full of strutting big-boned men dressed all in black shoving and strutting together in some sort of bizarre metal-head mating ritual.

anyways, this town is keeping me busy.

well, it looks like i'll be going to montreal, for better or for worse. it's funny; i thought that once i'd made some sort of decsion then all this stress and anxiety would go away, but it seems only to be getting worse. now that i know i am (probably...) going, i am starting to look at the logistics, costs and bureaucracy that will be involved. yuck.

but i suppose once school begins, once i have a place to live, once i can actually live in the present again then i will (hopefully?) calm back down. (although that implies that i have some semblance of calm to return to...)

oh woe.

on that note, anybody else up for a move across the country?

oats and beans and barley grow

Well, all that talk of food and farming inspired me to start something new, something related to food and farming. So I've started this internship at the UBC farm that has proved, so far, to be fantastic. Free education, dirty fingernails, strawberries off the vine, and even a genuine farmer's tan. (farmer's freckle line?) It has also proved that I am indeed the Commercial Drive type - but I'm beginning to think that that is not such a terrible insult. Perhaps only a minor one...

Anyways, I digress. I'm doing a program called "rooted" which involves lectures, a fair amount of volunteering, education in organic farming and sustainable food politics, readings, and did i mention dirt under my fingernails? Apparently after all those years of refusing to help my parents in their extensive beautiful garden I have inadvertantly come to admire and desire the ability and knowledge to grow stuff. Especially edible stuff.

So I've spent a few of the past tuesdays hoeing rows, weeding peas and teenie-tiny carrots, planting infinite (and i mean infinite) heads of cabbage. Sometimes there are eagles, and apparently the occasional coyote is spotted. Soon I'll be helping at the saturday market, and perhaps if i'm lucky I'll get to play with the chickens.

Anyways, I thought i'd leave y'all with an interesting tidbit about the farm: It is the only working farm in North America located within city limits, and it is also estimated to be one of the most expensive farms ever. The farm makes an approximate sum of 75 000 dollars a year while the property is estimated to be worth somewhere between 300 and 800 million dollars.

if yer curiosity has been sparked then check it out at: http://www.landfood.ubc.ca/ubcfarm/

100 miles from nowhere

Vanessa and I went to see a really interesting talk last night with the authors of The 100 Mile Diet, two crazy cats who decided to try to eat locally, within a hundred mile radius from vancouver, for an entire year. I've been reading quite a few articles about these folks and they appear to be getting a lot of attention. They certainly had a captive audience yesterday.

I realized after having a long and rather silly argument last night about food habits, food politics, food security and food's future that food is something that I feel strongly about. I think a lot of people do, and I think this accounts for the incredible interest shown for the 100 mile diet. Something that struck a chord at the talk was that the authors mentioned suddenly having this never-before-experienced trust in their food, a result of seeing and understanding for the first time where their food was coming from and all the things that happened to it before reaching their plate. They explained that they had never before realized the extent to which they DIDN'T trust their food before.

This is something I have been feeling increasingly in the last while - an utter distrust verging on paranoia whenever I step into a grocery store. I sometimes wander continuously up and down the aisles without putting anything into my basket. "where does this come from? how many chemicals are in/on this? how many chemicals were pumped into the ground/ocean/sky to produce this? how many times has this been processed? how much nutritional value is left? how ethical is it to buy this product? and can i afford the ethical alternative? oh i give up, i'm going home."

It seemed so much easier when I was a vegan. I felt good about my food choices and about eating because everything seemed like a conscious ethical choice. I realize now that though I didn't consume animal products I still ate a lot of food whose environmental and social ethics were questionable. Now I eat eggs, I eat dairy, and I no longer have a set of rules that guide my food choices. I allow myself to often buy the cheaper non-organic cheeses, the non-organic milk, the chemical-laden produce. But I usually don't feel great about it, and I find myself lately spending more and more time at the ridiculously overpriced all-organic grocery store.

So what is the solution? I know that I personally will probably continue to buy mainly organic indefinitely, but that on my current budget it is perhaps not the smartest financial move. But the thought of eating in constant fear that my food is filled with carcinogens, that my food is unethical, that my food is a major pollutant, that my food is sometimes even cruel is also untenable for me.

One incredible story told at the 100 mile talk was in relation to the dungeness crab, a creature that is apparently native to this area and that is shipped across the world to china to be shelled and then shipped back to canada to be sold. This story left the audience fairly slackjawed, but i think there was also an overwhelming feeling of resignation in the room; a sense that this is all too possible a story. The world trade system seems to be one unbelievable story of common sense overpowered by profit after another. A truck full of carrots, for example, that travels across the continent only to be passed by another truck full of carrots coming from the first truck's destination and heading for that first truck's native place. Stories of local produce rotting on shelves because the same produce shipped from across the world is selling for a subsidized and totally unmatchable price. Local dairies in Jamaica going under because powdered milk (lacking so much in nutrition) is being sold for a fraction of the price. Where is the common sense, where is the concern for our environment, and where is the concern for one's local economy? Where is the sense of community?

And, as James and Alisa mentioned, where is the flavor? Where is the nutritional value? I have been flipping through a book called, rather apocalyptically, The End of Food. It mentions a number of statistics that essentially say that all the typical grocery fare that we consume has lost an average of 25 to 75 percent of its nutritional value, and almost all of it has gained only fat and salt. I'm not sure exactly where it has all gone but I guess the idea is that it has been bred out of most products in order to create produce and animal products that last last last through the thousands of miles they have to travel before being sold. And the authors continuously mentioned the fact that though this diet was difficult the rewards in terms of flavor and health were utterly worth it. Matt and I took a trip to the winter farmer's market a few weeks back and I can definitely attest to the fact that that local food was amazing. I brought home a tiny bunch of kale and collards that were the most amazingly delicious snack i may have ever eaten. I also had the fortune last summer of staying on an organic farm in Sooke for a few days where we were fed nothing but food from the garden. After spending a few hours weeding I was summoned for lunch in a homemade circular cob structure with beautiful glass windows and built-in benches, and the food, mainly freshly picked vegetables, was flavored only with a bit of oil and vinegar. So delicious. And I knew exactly where it had all come from, how it had been grown and even who had grown and picked it. Certainly no distrust involved with that meal. As James put it eloquently at the end of their talk, a year of local eating made their meals stories. So nice.

anyways, i'm sure none of this stuff is new to most of you that might be reading this, but i just thought it was all a lot of good food for thought, if you will.

heh.

everybody wanted to be maurice richard...

decisions, decisions and more decisions. it seems that they are never-ending; one is made and two more emerge from its monstrous belly. decisions seems to multiply exponentially, they breed like rabbits, divide like cells.

(do cells divide exponentially? oh who cares...)

i've begun applying for schools, but i still don't know exactly what i want to do with myself. is that bad? i told myself that next time around i would do things differently. I would go to school only once i had established a clear and focused plan. ha! i am beginning to doubt that i will ever have such a thing. so, well, school anyways? school for the sake of school, for the sake of curiosity and my sanity? is that really such a terrible reason? education can't be bad for me, can it? (well...let's not mention the financial part, mmm?)

and speaking of decisions: to montreal or not to montreal? there are forces pulling me in two directions and there are justifications and fears involved with both of them. montreal could potentially improve my ability to converse with the French and the Hip...it could also leave me lonely and lost and purposeless in a brand new city for the second time in a year. it could bring me great joy at the discovery of a side of canada that i've never experienced: maple syrup, frozen ponds and winter clothes! so new, so exciting! so costly. it could bring me constant parties, patriotism, and poutine! it could kill me.

oh yah, and i guess some dude i kinda like will be there.

i guess there's only one thing left to do. ye olde pros and cons list!

ha.

naw, i guess i'll just do what i always do: put it off until the last minute and then make a decision based on panic.

oh yeah, i went to saltspring. it was pretty, and nice, and warm, and people waved at us for no good reason. it was nothing like montreal.

each peach pear plum

off to saltspring, hoorah.

spent a listless week recovering from numerous real and imagined illnesses and pains. still don't feel quite myself: i think it's the changing of the seasons that's putting such a creak in my bones. poor young old me.

i'm looking forward to being out of the city for a few days. i think i may be in some desperate need of perspective on my life here; a bit of distance to allow me to examine each crack and crevice rather than flailing my beetle arms at the bottom of them. it's possible that that analogy is nonsensical, but, y'know, you get the idea. lots of flailing.

anyways, yah, perspective. i feel like i don't have a lot of prospects at the moment, and that perhaps it is time to jolt myself out of this complacent existence. time for something new, or something borrowed, or something blue.

no wait, that's not right.

ah well.

laments, numbers one and three

whatever am i gonna do with myself?

and where?

soooo...

so. spent a weekish in victoria last week.

victoria seems to be some kind of summery paradise in relation to vancouver. i stepped off the ferry into a virtual wonderland of cherry blossoms. everything suddenly became slow motion; my jeans and t-shirt became a pink frilly dress with a matching parasol. i danced among the falling petals with my dapper gentleman on my arm whilst singing a merry tune. this strange turn of events was compounded when we set off in a rowboat - Harmony and I, modest, blushing maidens, sat in the bow twirling our parasols whilst our pale young suitors showed off in the stern. t'was positively jane austen-esque. well, except for the cold rain, the scenery that was more industrial than pastoral, and the fact that our burly men spent more time teasing us mercilessly than trying to impress us. anyways, i guess it was jolly in hindsight. jerks.

it was an adventure, anyways, and i certainly enjoyed sitting by a crackling fire reading afterwards.

and now i'm back to work, which is certainly not too terrible. ayomi has finally begun to wholeheartedly accept me into her exclusive circle of friends. in the beginning we had a bit of a tense relationship: she would giggle and laugh with me like old pals until mama left the room and then bam! jekyl and hyde time. screaming, crying, glaring at me like i was some sort of mother-stealing monster. sigh. but now we're cool, we're buddies, we have lots of fun together waving at ducks and making gaga sounds, or playing peekaboo, or the all-time favorite orange-flinging game which fills babykins with a special glee.

but as much as i'm enjoying this job i know it's not something i can (or want to) do longterm. but what, exactly, do i want to do? i feel like there is something lying there in wait, hidden, that fits exactly, conveniently, all-too-perfectly with all of my various and unrelated interests. it's out there, right?

well.

off to work. anyone feel sorry for me?

raccoons and love birds

ah, spring. t'is here in all it's glory and who isn't loving it? crocuses have sprung from a dingy pot on my fire escape. who knew life was lurking there?

had a nice weekend. it began with a wily raccoon rubbing his adorable nose against my window. i took a video cause he was so terribly cute. awwww.

then i went to burnaby to visit eben. we walked to a tiny patch of trees that i can't bring myself to grace with the title 'forest', but it was peaceful nonetheless. a creek burbled by, and ladies in spandex 'halloooed' us. we walked for a while, and i realized it had been many a moon since i had escaped from the urban.

(ah, the politics of nature. been reading one of my prof's books lately about clayoquat sound. the cultural construction that is wilderness, the lies we tell ourselves as tourists. it's much more complicated than that, but, y'know)

anyways. i got to play with the hensby family bird who took a liking to my shoulder. and then on sunday i got to go to chinatown, wander the classical gardens, drink bubble tea till i felt ill, and peruse the dusty crowded shelves of many a kitchy store.

so yah. i feel pretty grateful for everything. spring, a lovely weekend, and so much more to come. maybe even some cross country skiing next weekend!

oh bjork.

some art-fart humor.

cynicism and greener grass

so. it seems that almost everyone i've talked to in the last week has had work woes. it has made me a bit depressed about everything, because, well, look at us all with our university degrees getting dicked around by a bunch of unappreciative slave drivers.

(well, actually, i love my job right now, my boss is a lovely woman and i'm totally appreciated. but i've definitely been in worse situations)

but yeah. what is it about us young educated kids with no direction, slopping around in the juices of the service industry? or perhaps the administrative industry? why can't any of us figure it out?

i guess it's just that none of us are really trained for anything specific. we have been educated enough to be bitter about minimum wage and menial jobs, but we are not trained to know what we want, or how to get it. what exactly did we think would happen once we pranced off with our bachelors of arts?

oh dear. i'm coming across as a bit of a bitter cliché.

i've just been looking into master's programs lately and feeling a bit...a bit... well, cynical. will yet another degree make any difference in my life's direction? in my level of success? of accomplishment? or am i just grasping at the university life-line in order to feel like there's just a wee bit of meaning to my existence?

sigh.

on the bright side, spring is coming!

a sense of place

So. went to a crazy party on saturday; three hundred people crammed into three stories of warehouse-art-show-extraordinaire, where there was little breathing space and a myriad of great outfits. in other words, it was incredibly intimidating. it is a well-known fact that i fear social situations, and social situations incorporating art and artists are by far the most terrifying. but i survived with the help of two tiny adorable friends, a lot of whisky, a tall dark and handsome doctor and an occasional squeeze on the bottom from some hyperactive social creature that i'm "not dating". so i survived and actually managed to enjoy myself, if just barely.

and once again i ask myself - why am i here rather than there? there is something about this city that overwhelms me. something about its scale, its social problems, its constant layer of dampness, its grey rain grey concrete grey skies, and the bouts of utter callousness that i encounter from time to time. of course most of these things exist in victoria, and if they don't it is not because victoria is this idyllic land but rather because victoria has different problems relating to a smaller-scale whitewashed capital city.

but there was something so hopeful and exciting about the show on saturday. something about realizing that there truly is this bubbling art community in victoria, that there is a big group of people working together and creating something really great. and this relates to something i miss deeply about victoria-that ability to see its community as a whole, an entity, rather than a bunch of isolated groups scattered across an enormous area. so far i haven't really experienced any of that excitement in vancouver, not because it doesn't exist but because i know so few people, and because i have yet to uncover the exciting creative communities that are there.

but yeah, it is just so nice to go back to that city where i have a real feeling of connection and place. that familiarity that chased me away is also what seems to be keeping a big chunk of my heart there while i simultaneously try to eke out some sort of real existence here. it makes things a little tricky. but i spent five years in victoria making those connections, going to university and growing up. so it's inevitable that i will keep it close to my heart, and its inevitable that my community there will be wider than the one i've managed to scrape together in my three plus months here.

i can't help but wonder what will happen when (if?) i decide to do my master's somewhere other than here (which is likely). will i become even more fractured, with bits of my life in cities across the country? with bite-sized chunks of my beating heart scattered everywhere that there is something or someone that i love? this is the blessing and curse of our generation, it seems: the overwhelming number of choices we have spread out in front of us. how can we ever choose from so many seemingly arbitrary options? how can we balance this freedom to move and change with the need to have a sense of place and community?

fading at the edges

so, i had this dream last night about starting over. quitting everything, dropping everything, starting from scratch. can we ever do that?

i thought maybe that's how it would be when i came home from asia; i would be a 'new person' (pshh...) and i could start a totally new life in a new city as whoever i wished to be. but somehow i seem to be as tangled up in my old victoria life as much as ever. going back in time, even.

and yet... i talked to some friends on the phone the other night and the conversation was full of awkward pauses, silences, spaces. what to say when our lives are so separate? what stories to tell when the stories don't include each other? and a fear has come over me that perhaps all those memories and friendships will go the way of those i made in highschool; that they will slip-slide away to be rekindled briefly and without much hope (though preciously nonetheless) on brief holidays.

but emanuel reminds me that the old folks always say (and the old folks are often weathered and wise) that the friends you make at university are the ones that stick most stubbornly throughout your lives. is this true even when we all go such separate ways? so far it seems true enough; i certainly can't seem to get rid of you guys too easily...

and of course, of course, i would never want to.

c'mon. i didn't mean it.

another little thing that's been on my mind: will we follow in our parents' footsteps and let friendships fade a little at the edges when (if) minivans, mortgages, mommy-ing-daddy-ing take over? will we too become too absorbed in our little life-bubbles to remember how important and healthy friendships are? will we become mundane little family automatons? egad. such a scary thought. i just keep thinking that if i ever have children i would love for all my friends to be a big part of their lives. i would love them to have all these crazy godparents teaching them about derrida and bubble-making and indie-rock and how to fashionably perch underwear upon one's head, and all those important life skills. you know what i'm saying?

ok, well, y'know. i'm guessing this stuff's all pretty far in the future. so i'll drop it for now. but y'all better not ditch me when i have 10 screaming hyperactive and mouth wateringly adorable red-headed children, you fuckers.

up quark down quark red quark blue quark

tried to read 'the elegant universe' last night. holy moly. i think it's time to go back to school, get some training in physics, start again.

i thought the graviton was a ride at playland...and... just... how can we all be made of these little theoretical particles, how can these tiny abstract things make up all the madness of life? it hurts my head.

sigh.

lost without a place to go crazy

such a nice birthday weekend. out dancin' on friday, to bodyworlds (eww) on saturday, made a delicious rebar dinner, watched march of the penguins, and then out to vij's on sunday (oh my goodness, deliciousness). t'was lovely.

and now it's back to real life after all the surreal perfection of the last month. it hit me this morning, crawling out of bed at noon, feeling groggy, useless, aimless, lost. wait! these blues were supposed to be gone! they were supposed to be the 'new to vancouver' blues, not the 'three months and counting' blues.

i am so torn between my need to accomplish something 'important' and my need to have time for myself and for my friends. and so far it's been the accomplishing that's been sacrificed - and it's making me a bit blue. i see so many people around me working on these amazing projects, creating something from nothing, doing fascinating creative stimulating things. and moi? i wander the streets, i write in my journal, i insulate myself from the world around me...

yeah. i feel stagnant. i can't remember the last time i worked on a project, the last time i created something or felt inspired. i know it can be done, and i know it must be done but i'm not sure how to balance my life in that way, and i'm not sure if i'll ever be able to focus on one single thing. my indecision causes me to do nothing rather than everything. my indecision will be my undoing.

so, who's gonna give me the kick in the pants i need?

norman's overwhelming tendency towards mushiness, and other stuff.

hey kids.

so, 2007, eh? well, i'd like to give a shout out to all my peeps near and far who made my year, my new year and my life so far so sweet. word.

but seriously. t'was such a nice new year's eve. a last minute lurch, squeal, turn, and i found myself back in victoria getting drunk on jarrad and kristy's strangely shaped ergonomic scandinaviarama of a chair. just like old times. and i looked around at everybody and i thought, gosh, these people. they're so god damn hot. and also so god damned special. that's right. you guys are god damned special. and don't you forget it. who else would make a dinner of yucca, pears, artichokes and grasshoppers? who else would lick each other's faces incessantly, or wear underwear and lampshades on their heads and then allow photographs to be taken? (well, besides four year olds of course...) who else would indulge my obsession with wearing just the right thing, and then later force me at gunpoint to remove my pants when i became bashful? who else would tell me jolly stories of public vomiting while i had a little vomit of my own in the loo?

so yah, the night proceeded, we made our jolly way to tippi's, we partied apocalyptically, we hid out in the breakfast nook, we all made out with each other at midnight (god you guys are hot), we danced our pants off, wore our sashes like good samaritans, got drunk off our asses (or was that just me?), and stumbled home late into the night. it was as every new year's eve should be.

t'was awesome. i'm still glowing, and still hung over.

and thinking of the year to come. seems like one great big blank slate to me. a little terrifying, actually. i have no plans whatsoever for the future, i have no idea where or why or what i'll be a year from now. but i have fucking hot friends. so, y'know, i got all i need.

(oh yah, and i kicked matt's ass at scrabble. the perfect weekend indeed.)