{life}

The alarm went off sometime before 6 AM. I pushed snooze, but got up anyway. I worked on some stuff and drank some coffee and then I checked the forecast and put on three sweaters and my parka and my pink mittens and my black boots {the ones with the buckles} and my yellow toque and my biggest, thickest black scarf. If there is one thing I have learned in my 25 years of living in Saskatchewan during winter, it is for pete's sake, bundle up. 

It was only a fifteen minute walk to Brad and Theresa's house, where I arrived with red cheeks and cold knees and spent the morning brain-deep in plans and laughs and the best mocha I've had in a long time. We wrote lists and made decisions and thought of good ideas and it was so fantastically productive. And then we just sat around by the fireplace and talked about life.

I was walking home later, all wrapped up again in my many knitted layers and listening to ruminative music in my earbuds, and I just couldn't stop smiling. Partially because I was thinking about a funny story, which you should absolutely remind me to tell you the next time I see you in person, and partially because life is just so straight up lovely sometimes.

{mashed music}

When I left high school, I was like, "YES! NO MORE HIGH SCHOOL!" But then I realized that I'm still in high school. Only now it's called The Internet.

There are cliques and sports and music lovers and dramas and people falling in love and people falling out of love and gossip and socializing and a little learning and kids hanging out behind the dumpster, spreading rumours about the popular people. Eternal high school. Get Psyched.

But the cool part of high school--and the internet--is that sometimes you venture down a different hallway and you maybe peek into, like, the photo lab or the chem lab or someplace like that, and discover a little group of people doing their own thing. Like, last night Barclay and I discovered the part of the internet where people sit on Youtube and make mashups of songs already on Youtube. They're just sitting there in their nerdy little circle of friends being like, "I wonder what would happen if I put Van Halen with Abba?" And then they do it and it's sweet. There's nothing original about their creations, but it's kind of cool anyway. I appreciate it.

Some of our favourites: {If you know of any good ones, leave them in the comments for me to watch. I love mashups.}

{lessons on racism and not yelling at strangers}

I was standing in front of that statue in Vic Park, the one that birds poop on and no one looks at. I mean, I was looking at it and I'm sure other people have, but most people don't go on walks to look at things; they go on walks to get places. They go on walks with their heads down and their shoulders rounded and their eyes straight ahead and their hands curled over their purses. And in winter, they just don't go on walks at all.

And anyways, I was only looking at it that day because I was trying to think of a word. I'd been walking and thinking and then I'd realized that I'd forgotten a word, a very good word that I'd like to use in conversation someday, and now I was standing there in the park looking at the statue and trying desperately to think of it. What had it meant? Where had I heard it? Synonyms? Antonyms? I squinted my eyes at the stoney figure until he blurred and blended into his surroundings. That word. That good word. Climacteric? No. Skungy? No. Apodictic? No.

"THAT! Is Sir John Alexander Macdonald!"

I jumped and spun. The voice was harsh and old and loud and seemed to come from my left shoulder. It was an old man. Plaid shirt, pack of cigarettes in the chest pocket, frowny face, big, thick glasses, bald. One of his arms extended in the direction of the statue and it waved around seemingly of its own volition as he spoke.

"HE!" {The old man shouted the first word of every sentence he spoke. For emphasis, probably.} "HE! Was the first prime minister of Canada! HE! Served nineteen years as our prime minister!"

I studied the old man. I smiled politely. I tried to think of that word. What was that word? Catachresis?

No.

The man was not finished. "HE! Was born in Scotland! AND! HE! WAS! NOT! BLACK!"

Now he was finished. He had to be; he was completely out of breath. A woman walking by eyed the red-faced senior citizen who was at this point all but jumping up and down, arm still flailing like a pool noodle. She looked concerned for me. I probably looked concerned for myself. I was confused. I forgot about forgetting the word.

"Why does it matter what colour he was?" I asked.

He softened a bit. "It doesn't," He said. "But if he had been a black man, they'd never have made a white statue of him. This statue is black. And Sir John A. Macdonald was NOT! BLACK!"

He went on his way then, before we could really get into a good discussion about the characteristics of bronze and historical inaccuracy. There's got to be a good life lesson in here for us somewhere though. Something about racism or just straight up not yelling at strangers in parks.

Oh. That's probably why people don't go on walks to look at things.

{the wooden sky}

The thing about a good live show is that it makes you feel like you're not in your own city, or in your own country, or in your own skin. It's like running away without going anywhere--but when you come back from where you haven't gone, everything is still right where you left it. The Wooden Sky played last night at The Artesian and it was, by all accounts, that kind of show. My friend Becky and I got there early and claimed the best seats in the house (balcony; front row, middle) because we take live music way too seriously. It's just the way we are, and we don't feel too bad about it.
The opening band was called Wildlife, and they were from Ontario, and they wore matching black outfits with yellow bandannas on their biceps, and they looked and sounded like a screamo band trying (mostly) really hard not to look and sound like a screamo band. But they had these shining moments where they'd surprise me in one way or another, and their drummer was really fun to watch, and there was this one song that sounded like something Modest Mouse could've written, so I forgave them and thoroughly enjoyed the set.

The Wooden Sky, however, had nothing to forgive. These guys put on such a beautiful show, start to finish, every single time. It's a fantastic amalgam of shivery violin parts and goosebumps and old-timey piano trills and carefully crafted rhythms all led by Gavin Gardiner's gravelly country voice.
I spent the entire set with my fingers crossed beneath my chin, whispering, "Play Something Hiding For Us in the Night... Play Something Hiding For Us in the Night... Play it... Pleeeeease...." And they did. It was their last song of the night before they unplugged their instruments and climbed off the stage right into the thick of the crowd to take advantage of the gorgeous acoustics in the Artesian. When the last strains of the violin had bounced off of the last pew in the old church, the crowd exploded in a standing ovation and then gradually made their way back into their country, back into their city, back into their skin.

{so you can know me better}

In my college days I had a friend named Stephen, who always said everything he was thinking. If my hair looked bad, he'd say, "Your hair looks bad." If I sung off-key, he'd say, "That was terrible." If I did something well, he'd tell me, "Even though you aren't very good at that other thing you were trying to do today, you're really good at this." In a world of insecure people flat-out lying to each other all the time just for the sake of feeling good, it was a weird kind of refreshing. Besides, compliments mean more when you know someone wouldn't give them unless they were deserved.

We ended up writing a four-person musical together with our friends Becky and Derek {pictured above, behind Stephen and I}, taking it on tour, and spending a ridiculous amount of time in a van driving across the prairies together. To pass the time as we drove from Calgary to Winnipeg, or Edmonton to Swift Current, we'd sing at the top of our lungs in four-part harmony and host an imaginary radio talk show for Becky's camera. {I found the recordings on my computer yesterday, and listened to an "episode" in which Stephen "interviewed" Batman [Derek].}

Maybe you had to be there. We thought we were hilarious.  

Anyway. I've been in a bit of a schmaltzy mood since finding the recordings, and that made me get out the memory box from under my bed. It's full of cards from friends and love notes from Barclay and ticket stubs from concerts and stuff like that. I dug to the bottom of the box, back to the stuff from 2006 and found something I'd forgotten about entirely: my life story, as written by Mr. Stephen Haiko.

Good graish. I'm so glad I held onto it. He "interviewed" me in the mess hall one day between classes {or maybe during a class; oops}, and I remember thinking it was a joke and wondering how he was going to fill a page with the little information I gave, but the next day he handed me a four page paper on my life, complete with details about my dad's stint in the mafia and slightly leaky information he'd gleaned from my friends.

Blogging is such a funny thing, because, you know, it's me in my own words. So I thought I'd share some of Stephen's words. I won't type out the whole thing for you, just some choice excerpts to help you understand me better:

Life Story. Suzi (Elena) Christensen. Interviewed March 5/06.
Suzi and I got to know each other this year through two ways. We both worked in the little canteen in the student lounge selling five cent candies, candy bars, and sodas. She's very unorganized and forgetful. As many times as we tell her to put the lids back on the candy, she manages to forget every time. It's not that she doesn't listen, she just gets excited about more important things, like people. We also went on tour raising money for the school to replace carpets in the dorms and windows in Dickson Hall. Our group, along with Derek McDonald and Becky Gault, was called Watchmen X.

This is all true. I'm so forgetful and unorganized, and it was absolutely my fault that all of the five cent candies were hard and dried out. But also Stephen's fault sometimes.

Also notice he spells my name "Suzi". This is because I went through a phase where I thought "Suzi" was a cooler name than "Suzy". Which never mattered anyways because my name is and always has been "Elena".

Suzi's parents are Joel and Liz Christensen. Joel's parents are Martin and Arlene. Liz's parents are Glen and Enid Hanson. Glen was very musical along with the rest of his brothers so it seemed natural that they do music together. He played accordion and sung. They formed a group and called themselves  The Hanson Brothers.

Also true. I grew up listening to The Hanson Brothers before you even knew they existed. Only my Hanson Brothers yodelled and sang old hymns. And were about 105% awesomer than your Hanson Brothers.

Suzi has two siblings: TJ and Elise. TJ is twenty and has down syndrome. Suzi and him were best friends growing up. Elise is only fourteen. They have the same mannerisms and walk. 
Joel is a farmer and a school-bus driver. He even had a short stint with the Mafia but Liz was scared for him so he dropped out. The family would have had to go into hiding but the mob boss was busted for possession of illegal drugs and locked up in the slammer. Liz teaches Suzi things like housecleaning and how to deal with boys. 

Yep. Somewhat. At least, the part about TJ and Elise is true.

Suzi's early memories of childhood are swimming in mud puddles with TJ and peeking in the basement at her Christmas presents even though her parents told her not to. One Christmas Suzi's dad built her a beautiful doll house. There was even a little picture frame with a picture of Jesus inside.
Suzi started spending a lot of time with her friend Micah Groth. Early in his life Micah had married the color pink. He had a pink tarantula and also carried around a pink highlighter. Once he brought a telephone to show and tell... Suzi got in trouble quite a lot, being sent to the principal's office thirty-seven times. Suzi did not mean to be bad, she just didn't think about things before she did them.

Also mostly true. And then he goes on to talk about my high school years and says a bunch of things that he found out from someone else that ended up being partly true and partly not, and then he misspells all of my favourite bands' names. It's quite long; I'll spare you.

She learned guitar and began to write her own songs. Now, as a college freshman, she is still writing music, usually while sitting through theology class. By this time, she should have a large collection, but many doubt as to whether her songs really exist. She won't play them for anyone, ever.

I laughed when I read this. It's true; I have a massively thick binder full of songs about absolutely every single event that has ever happened to me. And no one will ever hear probably any of them. Isn't that so wonderfully mysterious of me? The truth is, they're just not good. So.

He spends a page after this speculating on my relationship status and eventual marriage and then finishes the whole thing with an acrostic poem about me.

Silly and good
Used to Frontier
Zebra girl
Indifferent to Structure

So now you know all about me.

{metric & stars}

I was standing next to a really loud, really drunk girl. She was clutching her purse tight to her neck and screaming at the top of her lungs, "I LOVE YOU, EMILY HAINES! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!" over and over. When she noticed me, she grabbed my arm and leaned heavily into my shoulder, a concerned look on her sweaty red face. "I'm sorry for screaming in your ear," she screamed into my ear. "I just love her. I love her so much. Isn't she just the best? I LOVE EMILY HAINES."

I nodded happily, forgetting my usual exigency for personal space. The enthusiasm of the small crowd was completely contagious; everyone in the room seemed to know every word to every song. We'd catch each other's eyes and grin when the next song started and it was another favourite. Music is fantastically unifying in that way; we were all best friends for three hours. I wrote a little review of the show over at The Rooster, an online community magazine for Western Canada. If you want, you can read it here.

{a playlist and some trivia to get you psyched}

This morning, I am waiting for a baby to be born and cleaning my house. Metric and Stars are coming to my town tonight, and I have free box seat tickets {THANK YOU BETHANY JEFFERSON}. I am absolutely ready to sing along at the top of my lungs and yell "I LOVE YOU, EMILY HAINES!!!" in between songs. Because I am an embarrassing adult.

If you're going, and you need to get psyched, or if you're not going but you'd still like to get psyched, listen to my Get Psyched playlist here.

And, for five points, answer this trivia question:
WHY is it so extremely cool that Metric and Stars are playing together on this tour?
Answer is HERE. 

{making friends online}

A friend was telling me the other day about a commercial she remembers watching when she was younger, one of those safety/awareness/prevention kind of things. It began with a girl chatting online with a stranger, and ended with her dying.

Well, I met Jessie Thetford online, and she hasn't killed me yet. {Not one of my best segues, I know.} In fact, not only did Jessie end up not being a greasy 40-year-old serial killer, she ended up actually being the real-life friend of a friend of my sister-in-law's, which is pretty outlandish considering we live 2,310 km from each other {google-mapsed it}. I'd say, "It's a small world after all!" but that's not all that true. The world is huge, you guys.

She's an {exhaustingly talented} artist from New Mexico, and she has this cute little blog that I love and she recently opened an Etsy shop with some amazing prints in it. I have the little llama named Tangerine {which, as you can see, is hanging above my computer until I find the right frame for it}. Click the screen shot below to check it out, or visit her blog and tell her "hi". She's a nice and lovely person, and she'd like it.

{all the whos down in who-ville}

I am so done with ugly sweater Christmas parties. They're the Jim Belushis of Christmas parties. Even the thrift stores have caught onto this, and now ugly Christmas sweaters, which I will wear one time for this lame party, cost more than cute Christmas sweaters, which I will wear all fall, all winter, all spring, and quite a bit of the summer.

Because I live in Saskatchewan.

But the point is not that.

The point is that we did not throw an ugly sweater Christmas party this year. We took over Liz's uncle's house (he's in Africa or something) and, complete with elaborate hair-dos and lots and lots of food colouring, partied Who-style. {And then we cleaned up really, really well afterward so that he won't ever know.}
If you want to see ALLLLLLL of the pictures, click these words and scroll down.

{people of winnipeg}

If this guy was the weather man on my news station, I would absolutely tune in every night. He tells you exactly what's coming with the exact right amount of urgency, and shares some good survival tips too ("ORDER YOUR PIZZA!").

Incidentally, my city was hit with this storm yesterday, and it was just as bad as he said it would be. Credibility.

 Also, this is my favourite bit from the comments section below the video:

{the best thing i have ever witnessed or ever will witness, probably}

I don't overly enjoy grocery shopping.

I heard once that the handles of the shopping carts are germier than public toilet seats. Is that true? Do you think that's true? Because if it is, then the grocery store is just one huge bathroom, right? I mean, I'm not trying to be neurotic but...I just am.

And if you think about it long enough, you will be too.

But the point is not that. Not entirely, anyway.

The point is a little bit that, and a little bit other things.

It's the huge carts and the tiny aisles and the spending of so much money for one week's worth of food and the freezer section and the dumb magazines by the checkout. It's accidentally selecting the leaky milk jug and the carton with the broken egg, and it's forgetting to bring your cloth bags and that coupon for a free pack of yogurt that expired yesterday.

And still, I go. Obviously. Or else everyone in my household would die and that would ultimately be worse than grocery shopping, bacteria-ridden carts or no.

So it was that Monday afternoon found me at the grocery store pushing a full cart to my car and thinking, as usual, about germs. It was then that I witnessed the best thing I have ever witnessed, or ever will witness, I think.

There was an old man with a waxed moustache, white-haired and bespectacled and hunched, pushing his cart to his own car, as slowly and deliberately as if it were a cement block instead of milk and bread and eggs. A few steps back, just as carefully and painfully, an old woman with a cane and a small cloth bag made her way to her car. I saw him notice her, and I saw him smile. I thought that was cute.

And then, an amazing and magical and fantastic and beautiful and weird and awkward and sweet thing happened.

The old man began to sing. To the old woman. At the top of his lungs.

The song was  "Hello! Ma Baby", an old Tin Pan Alley song that I recognized from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. He belted out the first two lines before forgetting the words.

"Hello! Ma baby, hello! Ma honey, hello! ma ragtime girl; send me a kiss by wire, baby my heart's on fire!"

Here, he paused, turned, looked at her, one hand on his shopping cart. She blinked at him. He smiled broadly, considered, continued anyway.

"Blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah! Blah blah blah blah blah blahhhhh--"

I stood there, just a few feet away, grinning like an idiot, both hands on my germy shopping cart. At this point, she must have realized that he didn't know any more of the words. She smiled at me, sheepishly. She leaned on her cane, she let the bag rest on the ground, and she started singing too, in harmony with his cheap scats.

"...Oh baby, telephone, and tell me I'm your oooooowwwwwwwwwwwwn!" 

My heart went off like fireworks.

There was a moment of silence then. She picked up her cloth bag. He nodded. "That was wonderful," he said. "You have a beautiful voice."

"Well. I know I shouldn't quit my day job," she said quietly. I think that was a joke, because she looked too old to have a day job.

I, the only audience they had in the empty parking lot, clapped for them. Then we all loaded our groceries into our separate cars and, presumably, went home.

Best grocery shopping trip ever.

{art bound books}

This morning I found out that the Dunlop Art Gallery here in Regina is hosting an art journal project.

The gallery supplies a blank, 6x8 sketchbook which you fill up according to one of the ten given themes and bring back within a year. Paint, draw, doodle, sketch, write, stamp, drool on it; they don't care. The sketchbooks will then be put on display in the art gallery, to be treated with a bunch of respect and admiration by all of the gallery's pretentious art seers for years to come. It's free to participate; all you need is a library card and some good ideas. And your work gets to be in an art gallery--which basically makes you an artist, doesn't it?

Yes. It does.

Plus, the creative muscles in your mind need a little stretching, don't they?

Yes. They do.

You might not know this about me, but this is the kind of thing that makes my blood fizz. Within half an hour of knowing this project existed, I was at the Dunlop checking out my own Art Bound Book, nodding enthusiastically at the lady helping me out and saying, "This is great! What a good idea!" over and over.

So. If you live in the area: GO GET YOURSELF A BOOK.
If you don't: definitely check around and see if you can find an art gallery or library in your area doing something like this. Or move here.

And then click on the links below for some sketchbook inspiration to get yourself going.

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{a list: good songs with violins, trumpets, and/or cellos in them}

I mentioned yesterday that I made a list of songs I like with violins, trumpets and/or cellos in them, and Jen asked if she could see it. So I thought I'd make a playlist out of it on Grooveshark, and you can listen to that by clicking here.

It's not extensive, and some of the songs only have trumpet, or only violin, or just a bit of cello, but it's a start if you need some strings and horns in your morning. And, I mean, don't you? To make you think about sad and beautiful things? So you can lay down dramatically on the floor in the middle of your kitchen and pretend that you're in the middle of a hopeless break-up scene?

If that's not the right way to start your day off, I don't know what is.