turkey sex and abbatoirs of human depravity...

i went to see barbara kingsolver talk on monday night about her book 'animal, vegetable, miracle' which, despite its super-cheesy title is actually one of the best books i have read in years - it is a combination of some of the things i love the most: great storytelling, food politics, food culture, family, friendship, and asparagus! also, there is a great chapter all about turkey sex - a highlight, i assure you.

this was the third talk i've seen this year (i think?) - the other two were Holly Dressel, who is an activist, a writer and an organic farmer who talked about GMO's and Monsanto (she was wonderfully no-nonsense and well-spoken), and the other was Stephen Lewis who talked about AIDS in africa in a rather extravagent manner (he described the situation in one country as an 'abbatoir of human depravity' - i'm not quite sure this makes sense but it sure sounds dramatic).

one thing that all three talks had in common was how horrifically embarrassing the question and answer periods were. i'm sure anyone who's ever experienced one of these knows what i'm talking about. yech. the stephen lewis talk was exceptionally bad, with every single person coming up to the microphone to blab on and on for ten minutes about themselves, LIKE WE CARE! get to the point, dude. except usually there isn't one. one girl went up to the microphone and said something along the lines of: "stephen lewis, i want to be a doctor. i applied to oxford, yale and harvard, and not ONE of them let me in. ummm, can you tell me why?" stephen lewis looked rather ill by the end of all this, and ready to run off stage screaming. holly dressel was a bit better; she refused to be polite to the audience, and got in a fight with one girl who accused her of being against all modern medicine by being against GMO's. barbara kingsolver merely interupted the crazy man who was telling some long and totally irrelevant story about some homeless dude ("let me just read you a few pages of his manifesto") and said, rather diplomatically: "hmm, let me anticipate your question and answer it, and then we can move on."

oh humans. they're so annoying. i feel sorry for anyone who has to stand up there on the stage and attempt to respond to something that is not really a question at all, but rather an excuse to talk about oneself to a captive audience and a sort-of famous person.

well, anyways, the talks were all quite inspiring, even though i found stephen lewis a bit over the top.

hmm, well, question and answer periods. i guess from now on i'm just gonna get a seat near the exit and be prepared to flee.

now onto me. i'd like to start out by saying that i miss you all very much, and i sometimes daydream about going for walks with you along the seawall, or having coffee with you in a cafe in your neighborhood. catching up over a nice hot cappucino. mmm.

i'd like to follow that up by saying that i have noooo idea when this fantasy will take place. i have zero plans for the fall, or perhaps i have too many plans. i am alternating each day between staying in montreal, moving back to vancouver, moving to toronto, and taking an internship or volunteer position somewhere overseas. i have been offered a sort-of-internship by an NGO in Kartataka, India, called Vanastree. It is an environmental collective whose focus is on promoting food security through seed-saving and organic home gardens, and it is associated with a bunch of other NGO's in South India. (see www.vanastree.org). Anyways, this seems right up my alley, and the woman who runs the organization is also trying to get me to work with another organization for a couple of months doing some GIS and field work, which would be pretty cool. But of course it is totally unpaid, and well, i'm still trying to work off the loans i have accumulated over the last year. and i'd also really like to do a master's before the end of the decade, which will also cost some money. and there is also the issue of being in one place for a while. i have moved from victoria, to asia, to various couches in b.c., to vancouver to montreal, all since 2005. that is a lot of moving, and it sometimes gets a bit lonely. i am not the most outgoing gal around and sometimes i would rather just read a book at home than make the effort to make new friends. i have met some wonderful people here but i still miss vancouver, where more and more people i love seem to be congregating. and the master's program i am most interested in seems to be in...toronto. bleh.

so yeah, i seem to have two competing selves; the one who has an incurable wanderlust, and one who is unabashedly domestic and longs for a sunny and permanent home, a career, a cat to curl up on my lap, and maybe even a little vegetable garden. none of the aforementioned things are easily had when you move cities/countries every year. so yeah, there are exciting things and there are comforting things, and i'm not sure which ones will win out in the end. just know that you are each and every one missed muchly. and to those in b.c.: i will be back sooner or later.

all i really wanna do...

i am listening to records, sitting by the window, slowly sipping lukewarm coffee from a pretty mug. it is reassuring how much pleasure the scritch-scratch of a record player can bring me, a blue sky, a drawn-out morning.

the sun has been shining here almost non-stop for the last few weeks. it is lovely. we spent much of saturday at the park, sleeping in the sun. it was actually the first time in as long as i can remember that i had two days off in a row completely my own. though that is not completely true, as i am applying for a bunch of internships, all of which entail essays, all of which are different, all of which are due at alternating points between now and july. and i have been working six days a week since mid-april. so a day to lay in the sun, napping, was true joy. yesterday i spent just as i wanted, too; tidying my room, reading the newspaper, going out for coffee twice.

life is very strange these days. there has been a lot of change, so i am feeling a bit out of sorts. and my future is a blank page, a void. i don't think i've ever been so unsure about the future - i have absolutely no idea what september will bring. i would love to get an internship, but the competition is fierce and the funding limited, so i am trying not to set myself up for disappointment. i am saving money, and i keep dreaming of italy, greece, france, brazil, mexico, india... but as much as i would love to wander sunny streets for months on end, i know too that i would come back in exactly the same place i am now. which is a good place, but also a rather muddled and broke one. it is nice, though, this uncertainty, and exciting. anything could happen!