Saturday, July 30, 2011

{itchy}

i've been doodling circles lately.
and i want to go to new york. 

sometimes i get an itch. 
sometimes it's an itch to go somewhere {such as the library, or upstairs, or new york}, and sometimes it's an itch to do something {like draw circles, or walk around the block, or listen to that song again}, and sometimes it's an itch that i just literally need to scratch {read: bug bite, annoying clothing tag, poison ivy}.

some itches are more expensive to scratch than others. 





we talk too much
we talk in circles

we set sail
with no fixed star in sight
we drive by
braille and candlelight

true progress means
matching the world to
the vision in our heads
we always change the vision instead

we set sail
with no fixed star in sight
we drive by
braille and candlelight

-thrice

Friday, July 29, 2011

{we're skippin breakfast and goin straight to launch}

if i were the all-caps type, this whole entire post would be capitalized TO THE MAX.

as it is, i will just tell you straight up: i'm yell-talking at you and making lots of extreme hand gestures. 

first, watch these: 





one time, i went repelling off a mountain in montana with jannaya. she got her bangs caught in a carabiner on the way down and just kind of hung up there for a while until they cut them off. and that's probably the closest i've ever come to doing anything like this.

so i was thinking: let's all of us climb a mountain and jump off?

check with your loved ones and get back to me.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

{SCHMALTZ DAY: why i'm a wuss + music videos}

so i'm a wuss.

i really like calling myself a wuss, partly because it's true and party because it's fun to say and type. it's one of those words. "belligerent." "skungy." "discombobulated." "wuss."
do you think that, in the same way the certain people like country music or rap music or rock music or whatever, certain people also like certain words?
it might be true.

anyway, i'm a wuss because barclay had to go away for a week {for work} and i was completely lost and distraught the whole time. like, i tried not to mope, and i mostly didn't whine, but internally i was a dark and stormy emo kid. like, if i'd written a song or a poem during that time, it would have been largely about the state of my lonely heart. like, i'm pathetic. schmaltzy, i know.

he came back last night, and it was a beautiful reuninon. when i unveiled my mermaid hair he said, and i kid you not, "not trying to sound, like, weird or girly or whatever, but your hair kind of looks...magical."

and then he made a speech about how if my hair was a music group, it would be more like the band rush and less like a cheesy metal band that uses too many dissonant chords all the time. if you knew barclay, you'd know that this was a very, very high compliment. that boy loves his geddy lee.

in fact, right now i just asked him how to spell geddy lee and i got some random trivia about how geddy's name is actually gary but his aunt or grandmother or somebody is yiddish {or something} and when she said his name it sounded like "geddy". now you know, too. just sharing the wealth of musical information. this is why i hate for him to leave.

in short {i know; with me it's never short}, i am busy today and yesterday and tomorrow and probably saturday and won't be turning out much in the way of "quality blogging". though i will poke my head in and say "hey" or "look at this" occasionally.

for example, here are some music videos i dig:

this one makes me dance against my will.



this one makes me cry sometimes.



this one makes me cry all of the times.



this one, you will either love or you'll hate or you'll be like, "what?" which, i guess, are all the usual options. but i'm tellin you, you have to give it a fair chance. aaron weiss's lyrics are beautiful and his dance-flailing is spectacular. plus, this video cracks me up. do i have a strange sense of humor?



and just so you know, barclay is still telling me rush trivia.

oh PS:
click HERE to vote for chess to win blogger idol. click on her name to read her entry, which has the sweetest little shoutout to me! go chess go!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

{mermaid hair}

and so i dyed my hair.

oh, oops. i didn't start at the beginning. i started at the end. but the beginning really is a better place to, you know, begin. so:

i don't know if you know this, but there is a certain crazy freedom in getting over it. in getting over other peoples' opinions of you, getting over comparing yourself to other people. because all that really boils down to being afraid that you're not good enough for people and trying way too hard to be good enough for people and you should know: that's a really crappy way to go about living your life. 

i'm a paranoid person. i'm constantly afraid. what if there are robbers behind the hollyhocks in the back yard? what if the house blows up? what if the airbags in the car inflate for no good reason and break my face? 

barclay is constantly laughing at me; he's not scared of that stuff. his life is about 83% less stressful than mine because he hasn't even thought of the possibility that the house might blow up {even though it totally could, you guys}. 

he's only scared of things worth being scared of--you know, like if the earth opened up underneath his feet and there was a large dragon or something in there, he'd be scared. i think that's awesome. i want to be like that. 

because fear is debilitating. it rips your legs straight off your body. and i just don't feel like being scared that i'm not good enough anymore. it's not worth being scared about.

and this might seem like a really little, silly thing to you, but to kick off not being scared, i dyed {some of} my hair. 


it wasn't, like, this big dramatic "i'm a new person! i'm going to dye my hair!" it's just something i've always wanted to do {since grade 6} but worried about doing because i thought i might look funny. but i found the link to this site from srsly liz a few days after my "get over it" talk with julia and thought, "now's a good time for that. besides, it's just hair."


and because barclay is out of town {for work, rats!} i took some cheesy hair model pictures for him.
which you get to see...now.


sorry for the crappy web cam photos. i wish i had a real camera, so you could see all the colours. i'm SUCH a mermaid.


so who knew? not being scared is funner than being scared. 
and i'm not really talking about hair dye.

Monday, July 25, 2011

{get get get get get over it}

benjamin gibbard is singing to me over craisins and blueberries, and i'm feeling lay-down-in-an-overgrown-field-making-daisy-chains contemplative.

i'm contemplating getting over it.

i don't know how to go about saying this without sounding all mushy and weird. so just, like, picture me saying all of it with a big stupid grin on my face and laughing a lot in between phrases. picture me listening to uppy music while i write and snacking on craisins.
because i totally am. {i'm always, always snacking on craisins.}

ok. so i realized, probably in grade 2, that i was ugly. one of my foster sisters pointed it out before i left for school and i'd honestly never even considered it before then. i was standing beside her in the bathroom and she was curling her bangs the way that we all did in the nineties and i was brushing my teeth and she started laughing and i started laughing too even though i wasn't sure what we were laughing about. turns out, we were laughing at my dumbo ears, pointing gracelessly out from underneath my neon pink hat that i loved so much.

i kept laughing with her until she'd finished spraying and fluffing her bangs and left the bathroom, and then i ripped the hat off my head and pulled my white-blonde hair down around my face so that those flappy pancake ears were out of sight {where they stayed for 14 years before barclay coaxed them out of hiding, assuring me that he liked them}. i was pretty perplexed. i'd never considered the idea that anything could be wrong with the way i looked. i spent a lot of time that night examining myself, and discovered other things about my face and body that i suspected were defects. these were confirmed soon afterwards, as the other kids at school began to notice them, too. i don't know if you know this, but kids are very vocal when they notice things.

this was really unfortunate, as i was well aware how much "pretty" counted for in society. i had barbies. i watched tv. i occasionally flipped through mom's magazines. "pretty" was everyone's favourite attribute, with "funny" and "athletic" following closely behind. but i was not pretty.

so i tried to be funny. i told jokes and made faces and laughed a lot; but i was just loud, obnoxious, and annoying. the guys told me to shut up and the girls gave me that look that girls often give other girls that says something like but not necessarily, "you are putrid scum." i was not funny.

so i tried to be athletic. my baseball coach had to have a "talk" of some sort with my mom--something to do with how unathletic i was. i rode the volleyball and basketball benches through junior high and gave up completely by grade 10 after my volleyball coach told the team right in front of me that if i played, we'd "lose for sure." i always got picked last--i hated gym class. i was not athletic.

so i read a lot. i listened to music a lot. i doodled a lot and pretended a lot. as i grew older, i dreaded going to school a lot. i dreaded the guy behind me in class kicking my chair and saying, "hey ugly, move your big head so i can see the board. hey ugly. ugly. ugly." i dreaded overhearing the older girls in the library discussing my teeth and my hair and my body while i stood a few feet away as though i were invisible and deaf, as well as astoundingly imperfect. i dreaded the boys avoiding me like the plague while all my pretty friends dated and flirted, and i dreaded their constant whispers and the passed notes encouraging me to kill myself.

i'm not trying to whine. i know this is pretty common in high schools and junior highs. kids are rude, to put it nicely. it's why i spend a lot of my time hanging out with 13 year-old girls. i don't want to be that careless adult who just thinks bullying in schools is a harmless phase. i want kids to feel loved, and i want them to know how to love other kids well.

because i'm noticing a lot lately how that stuff--the words and the looks and the notes--can live inside of your head for a long time. they can glob together into an angry giant, feed off your memories, knock your good sense out and take over the steering wheel.

so anyway. the thing is that i was talking this over with a friend the other day, and confessing to her that i still think about these things too much and that i still see myself as that annoying, clumsy, horribly ugly girl from frontier, and she said something great.

she said, "i think, at some point you just need to get over it."

and at that moment i was all snarky and thought, "yeahokwhatever." because i'm not really sure how you just get over something that has been driving your brain around like a demented chauffeur for 17 years.
but i wandered around inside of that thought for a while and realized that that's really the only thing i can do.

i've forgiven, i've realized that most of these things came from kids who didn't know better and were probably even more insecure than i was, but i just wasn't sure what i was supposed to do about the leftover sinking feeling that maybe they were right. you know, the part where you look in the mirror and go, "yep." and you can't see anything except the ears, the teeth, the hair, the whatever else they told you was wrong with you.

the answer: just get over it.

look in the mirror and see what's actually there--not what you've been told is there for years and years. and realize that no matter what's there, it's ok because that's not the most important thing anyway. 

and THEN.

and THEN i realized that the same basic principle applies to every kind of pity party.

i'm so guilty of pity partying.

i kind of think we're a society that loves pity parties. we love wallowing. we focus on how we've been wronged and we let past hurts of all sizes and strengths grow like weeds in our brains. how useless and ugly.

fact is: you're fine. you'll be ok. i don't mean it didn't hurt, i don't mean it, whatever "it" was, didn't suck. but it's over now and you have two options: stay here, or move on.

let it drown you or get out of the water.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

{mermaid hands}

the instructions on the hair dye say to wear gloves. 
and, you know, all instructions happen for a reason. they really do. they're not superfluous.

so sometimes, i have to do what the instructions say not to do so that i know what the reason is. i think this is a problem. i need to try to remember the whole "not superfluous" thing.

but, in this instance, i don't mind a little dye on my fingertips. in fact, i think it makes me look a little bit like a mermaid. i imagine mermaids have purple, pink, and blue fingertips.





























{i tried to photo-document my mermaid hands as artsily and creepily as i possibly could.}

Friday, July 22, 2011

{for the bored}


you look bored. you look like this:


like you're in a hazy fog of bored, bored, boredom. 
just reading blogs and clicking the refresh button in your email window over and over again. 
well i've got nothing for you today. i'm not bored, but i'm also not in a bored person helping mood. 
i apologize. 
here: i'll exert myself the teeniest bit and give you another five blogs that i like to read. 

for reading if you like mothers and their babies and who live in colorado and who are genuine and stuff.

for reading if you like mothers who are soon to be mothers of more children than they already have, and who just love harry potter and also take fantastic pictures.

for reading if you like the best music in the world but you need someone else to show you just what that music is and who sings it, and also if you like pretty things but have a hard time finding pretty things for your own self.

for reading if you like hannah. and really, who doesn't?

i know. two blogs. i can't remember which one i found first and they're friends and they're both so dang nice and real. so. for reading if you like nice and real. 

Thursday, July 21, 2011

{SCHMALTZ DAY: my first apartment}

this morning finds me listening to emo pop punk from the nineties and early thousands and painting with nail polish. i've said it before, i'll say it again, and probably once more later: music is a time machine.

i'm back in my very first apartment; a tiny, two bedroom shoebox of an apartment on 9th and lansdowne. i live there with four other girls and we're all debt collectors. we drive to and from work together and talk about all of the death-threats we've received over the course of the day. i've made six friends at work, so that's good.

i live off of kraft dinner and sidekicks and i spend copious amounts of time on my air mattress in my shared bedroom writing stuff and listening to thrice, motion city soundtrack, and bright eyes. we don't have the internet. we don't have cable. we don't have much furniture. we don't close the windows at night, and i use them to come and go, as i don't have a key.

i have a friend whose boyfriend is friends with a girl whose friend owns a venue that brings in decent bands, and we spend most of our nights seeing shows there and then wandering around all over across bridges and through parks and down darkened streets. we don't cause trouble; we just like exploring.

i get home at 4:30 am sometimes, and leave for work at 5 am all of the times, but i'm never tired because i take a power nap when i get home from work at 2, while my roommates watch movies i don't care about.

i'm actually quite inconsiderate and loud and obnoxious, but i think i'm fine, and i think everybody else is inconsiderate and loud and obnoxious.

the future freaks me out.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

{who wants to be a poodle? i don't.}

i obsess.
when i like something a lot, it doesn't just bounce off of my consciousness and float back into the dank recesses of my brain the way that peoples' names and historical dates do.
no way hose.
it's like when you're camping and a tick gets on you and burrows in and gives you that disease that ticks can give you. it's more like that.

i get obsessed with ordinary things. houses, power lines, the word "dank", blogging, thesauruses. anything that burrows in behind my eyebrows and, for whatever reason, sticks.

last Christmas, the seriously marvellous hannah gave me a new tick--it started with this children's book:


it's a fantastically stupid book. i mean that in a good way. the drawings are strange and sometimes make no sense, and the story reads kind of like a ridiculous dream. this is the way that children's books were meant to be, i think.



























throughout the course of the story, you learn, obviously, 13 words: bird, despondent, cake, dog, busy, convertible, goat, hat, haberdashery, scarlet, baby, panache, and mezzo-soprano. there is also a very odd driving scene involving an ostrich, a ballet dancer, and an angel with a tambourine.


so anyway. thus began an obsession with children's books.

hannah's birthday was in june, and i thought a children's book such a fantastic gift that i decided to get her one. because gifts that you love to get are sometimes the best kind of gifts to give.

so i searched until i found this gem:


the writing in this one is not the main thing--though it is a cute story about a poodle who doesn't want to be a poodle.
it's the PICTURES. 
the PICTURES are AMAZING. 


it's illustrated with fabrics and papers and ribbons and newspapers. it's the kind of book that you can't quietly look through when someone else is present, because every time you turn the page, you're like, "OH! LOOK AT THIS!"


you kind of get the feeling that the book is homemade, especially for you, and you have the only copy.
that's a good feeling to get.

so, MY birthday came around, and hannah got me THIS book:


at least, i think it was hannah. it came yesterday in a fairly ambiguous package with only my and the book company's names on it, shipped straight from chicago, where i don't know anyone. but there are a million reasons why i'm sure it was her and that is really besides the point anyways.

i was on my way out for a walk, and i noticed the mystery package poking out of my mailbox. i opened it and glanced through, and then i stood there in the smoking hot sunshine and read the whole thing, because i just couldn't not.

it's a book all about why you need to know how a punch in the nose feels in case someone asks you if you want a punch in the nose and how you should make a sad face if you see a crocodile and how easter eggs are all alike on the outside but the same on the inside. and, say, my mum-in-law's name is ruth krause, much like the author's. so. that's cool.

the last book i received for my birthday was from someone besides hannah. it was from jen instead.

jen, whose blog is set to private, so i can't link to it here. jen, who is having a baby in october. {this is a very big deal to me. this is going to be a very spoiled baby. i'm making him a poncho.}

she gave me this book:


you'll notice my name on the front. i know, right?

the long and short of it is that jen has always been one of those amazing women in my life who makes me feel like a million, nay, a zillion bucks.

she reads my blog faithfully and at least once a conversation gives me one of those girly playful arm slaps and says, "you need to write a book!" which is one of those phrases that makes my heart get all fluttery and makes me feel just, you know, just completely... well i blush, anyways, and i grin, because it's one of those things that i'd love to do but am not sure about yet, and every vote of confidence is a really sweet thing.

so anyway, she went waaaaay back in the archives and stole a wee poem i doodled on some scrap paper about the sow bug infestation in our basement last may. then she sent it into one of those companies that make memory books {heritage makers, i think it was in this case}, and "published" my poem. 




and she kept one to read to her baby! if i was one of those emotional fools who tear up over everything...
which i totally am and did.

another thing i got for my birthday this year was a gift certificate to the paper umbrella, where they have a children's book illustrated by rob ryan. whose paper cut-out work is ridiculous.


food for my obsession.

so: any good recommendations?

Sunday, July 17, 2011

{dutch babies}

morning, you.
i'm just puttering around the kitchen, singing along at the top of my lungs to that song by foster the people, and making this {hopefully}:

i found it at jessie's blog, llama's and lace, and i hope it turns out as good as hers looks. 

either way, it's super easy and i really always love a good excuse to sing loud in the kitchen. so. happy sunday morning to me.

et tu.







plus here's the song for in case you want to copy my morning move for move:


Friday, July 15, 2011

{my life lately, according to twitter}

well ok.

today i'm sipping a rapidly cooling raspberry mocha and searching grooveshark for songs that are either wildly depressing or crazy upbeat. i feel emotional, for no other reason than that being emotional is fun for me. this morning, and most mornings, i want to be exquisitely sad or eccentrically happy. which, really, makes me more eccentrically happy than exquisitely sad, because if i was truly sad i probably wouldn't take so much pleasure in it.

i'm rambling. here's what i've found so far for emotional music--alternating way up and way down.


{google readers, you have to click through!}

in other news, i took a giant bite into a jalepeno pepper yesterday thinking it was...i don't know what. something else. when barclay came home, i was all red and watery-eyed and miserable. i took several pictures of myself on photo booth. they are Gross.
{note the capital "G".}


elena krause
OH IT BURNS OH IT BURNS I HATE MYSELF FOR DOING THAT OH IT BURNS

this is yet another reason why i'm growing so fond of twitter: you know when you're alone in the kitchen and you have something to say/scream and no one to say/scream it to but if you say/scream it out loud you feel like a crazy person plus the neighbours might call 911? yeah that.

twitter is the, what you call, the antecedent.

no. antidote. twitter is the antidote.
everyone: get twitter.



elena krause
listening to . these guys are probably the best friends i've ever had that didn't know i existed. them and 
53 minutes ago via webFavorite Reply Delete



elena krause
in fact, one time i accidentally called my husband "jimmy eat world". i don't know how that happened. dumb tongue.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

{tea + life}

the mall is ok. they only play horrible music and everyone's in a mega-hurry and stuff, but there's a david's tea there too, so it's ok.

if you're a germophobe like i am, you enter through the revolving door, pushing it with your elbows and praying that no one will try to squish in there with you. it happens sometimes, though, anyways, and then you pretend that the warm breath directly on the nape of your neck is, you know, not.

it's ok. it's ok. it's ok.

you're kind of crazy, you know that?

but the point is not that.

the point is that once you're through the revolving doors, you're fine. you go straight, you ride the escalator to the top. you step over a spilled smoothie from the booster juice around the corner, and you wonder why that girl under the five layers of eyeliner is glaring at you but try not to dwell on it.

you take your first left and it's only a few steps. it's like a secret garden in the midst of a 500-child daycare centre. the air is either a few degrees cooler or warmer than in the rest of the mall--in a good way. everyone is relaxed and smiling. mother mother's new disc is spinning over the sound system. you're greeted by a girl with dark-rimmed glasses and long brown hair. she hands you a sample of the gelato lime iced tea.

so enough about you.

the other day, as i stepped into the oasis in the desert that is david's tea, the brown-haired girl met me with a smile and the usual tea sample. then she held out a tea tin: "smell this. it's spicy chocolate rooibos."

i did. it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't very good--i wouldn't ever drink it. i was honest with her. i always am. she can take it.

she reached behind the counter and pulled out another tin. "k, don't love it? smell this one. it's banana chocolate rooibos."

i breathed it in, grinned. "mmm...i like that one. a lot."

she laughed. "that's usually what people say. funny thing is, they're the same tea--you smelled the same tin both times. they're actually changing the name from spicy chocolate to banana chocolate permanently because it's selling better."

it's pretty astounding how much your idea of what you think you're going to like actually influences your sense of smell and taste. it's probably true of all your other senses too.

and in that case, it's easy to see how positive people generally have better life experiences. the more things you think you're going to like, the more things you will like. it's pretty much a magic formula.

so, i guess the rule is: decide beforehand that you're just going to like everything. and then if you honestly don't like something, don't worry about it.
but the point is not that either, actually.
the point is that this same day was the day i was introduced to chocolate rocket mate tea. chocolate and raspberries. and it's so amazing i'm going to die.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

{keeping a conversation alive is harder than keeping a plant alive and that's saying something: a paper rant}




{this paper rant is in loving memory of amyschmamey. because i lovingly remembered that she asked me to do it. you should click on the link and say hi, because she is a gem.}
{{here's a link to all the past paper rants from my old blog, in case you weren't around for them}}

Monday, July 11, 2011

{help, i'm alive}

for about the past half hour, my heart has been absolutely pounding.

bass drum subwoofer giant fist on the front door kind of pounding.

you're probably thinking that something exciting is going on, or that i'm scared, or that i just ran for a long time.

nope.

i'm not really sure what this is about: all i've done so far this morning is eat brekkie and pack a lunch for barclay.

is there something exciting happening where you are? maybe my heart is pounding for you.




{google readerists: click through for song}