{today}

Today was a day for brainstorming, thinking of a thousand possibilities and dreaming elephant ocean universe big and doing the opposite of narrowing down.

It was a day for a giant, sugary, whipping cream-capped mocha with equally sweet friends in a cozy coffee shop. It was a day for aimless wandering and having the time to stop and listen to an elderly violinist with cold fingers and a warm smile.

It was a day for long, meandering conversations and short, squirmy baby snuggles and gulps of crisp but not-too-cold winter air. For traffic lights and comfort food and slippers and piano music and smiles for and from strangers and thank-you prayers.

And as lame as it sounds, it was a day for staying home on a Friday night to sort my iTunes library and make sure everything has it's correct song title, artist, and album art. Because if that wasn't done first, I wouldn't have any fun going out tonight anyway.

{mindless entertainment}

I spent last night listening to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (K448), reading a paper titled "A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Perception of Emotion in Music: Psychophysical and Cultural Cues", and looking up words in the dictionary that I've been wondering about for a while now.

And then I watched 5 straight episodes of a geeky nineties TV show because I thought some mindless entertainment was in order and when you're flat on your back with the flu, what else are you gonna do?

Then, just now, I heard this quote on the radio: "You use that word, 'entertainment' as if entertainment were a thing that when we go to we don't have to think. Well, in fact, you can't be entertained unless you're taking in information, unless you're shaping it in your mind, unless you're judging it." (David Thomson, author of The Big Screen)

I scribbled down the quote on a sticky note as fast as I could, turned the radio off, read it again. I grimaced, inwardly. Because isn't that kind of a scary quote?

The fact that there is no such thing as "mindless entertainment"? The fact that I am 'learning' as much from an intelligent 19-page university study as I am from Boy Meets World? From the news, from every blog I read, from YouTube, from Facebook, magazines, advertisements...? So many opinions and world views and value systems that I don't hold to, that I'm taking in in much the same way that a drowning man takes in water instead of air. Yikes.

I mean, the concept isn't entirely new to me, it's not new to you, and I know it's not new to the people paying Beyonce 50 million bucks to be the brand ambassador for Pepsi: People are so easily influenced.  But still, it jarred me when I changed the word influenced in that sentence to taught. I'm not just being rubbed off on in the hallways, I'm willfully sitting in a classroom, taking notes, passing classes.

You give a lot of power to the people you allow to entertain you, "mindlessly" or otherwise.

{2012}

As my flu was settling on me yesterday, I laid on the couch and flipped through Instagram photos from 2012. There were a little over 500 of the colourful little picture tiles. A coffee date, an art project, a show, a trip.

I know people are often ragging on Instagram for being an evil tool of narcissism and for keeping people from just living their lives without worrying about pausing the moment to take a picture or think of a witty caption {and that's true sometimes, I guess}. But how cool is it to be able to sit back after a year has passed and see at least one moment from each of those 365 days?

{awards and stuff}

I woke up this morning with the flu, so it's 10 something AM and I'm sitting here in my pyjamas hardcore glaring at my coffee because I want it so bad but every sip turns my stomach like a washing machine on the hurricane cycle. The only reason I'm not going back to bed is that I'm waiting to find out who made the shortlist in the Canadian Weblog Awards.

In my high school growing up, we had this awards ceremony at the end of every year called Colour Night, and it was basically my most and least favourite night of the year. Most before, least after.

It started in grade seven. I went to my first ever Colour Night, thinking that I might get an award. For my part in the school play, for being a nice person, for my good grades, for having a good attitude during volleyball games, I don't know. Something. My class had 17 kids in it, the grade above me had 6. Chances seemed good. And what 12 year-old doesn't want a trophy?

But, you know, the athletics awards only went to the kids who were actually athletic, and even though I was pulling off 90s on my tests, there were these two girls and one guy who were just that much more studious, and the nice person award went to my sister and the drama awards went to the older kids who actually had speaking parts.

I wasn't totally discouraged. Next year, probably.

But I went through the whole of high school going to every single Colour Night and never getting called up on the stage once except for a participation medal here or there. Which was fair enough since I completely gave up on even trying partway through grade 10. My volleyball coach told me I sucked and my baseball coach told my mom I sucked and my basketball coach didn't put me on the court even once the whole season, and I submitted a yearbook cover but they used someone else's and I completely choked on the night of the school play, and my grades went down like a sunken ship and even though I tried to be a nice person, they kept giving that award to my sister.

{She seriously is a nice person, though. DESERVING.}

I'm not whining, because it's not a big deal; I have since learned that recognition and praise from others isn't the most important. It isn't even important at all if you're not living your life in pursuit of it, and if you understand what actually gives your life value and meaning.

However.

They are still fun to get. Plus they let you know when you're on the right track in some area or another. Not a bad thing.

The results just came in. Yes. Made the list. 

Going to bed.

{playing}

Barclay got me a bunch of sweet coloured gel pens for Christmas.

I have not had coloured gel pens since grade 8. I hadn't thought of them since then. They don't sell them at my local pretentious art supply store.

I think adults think of art and art supplies much too seriously sometimes. You go down to the art supply store and the lady asks how long you've been into such and such and you stammer about how you're not "into it", yet, but you'd like to be and what would she recommend and she tells you how she's been into it for thirty years and you need to take a class to really understand it and here are some brushes and papers and miscellaneous tools that will cost you exactly three arms and a leg to pay for. And then you spend all that money and try it out and discover you can't make anything look the way it's supposed to. Rats.
The way I see it, you can look at art like that. You can take the classes and be the professional and be really respected when you go into your local pretentious art supply store to pick up new paints. You'll probably learn a lot and be really good at stuff I'd never even thought of before. That's solid.
Or you can play. Like, for fun. You don't have to be serious or naturally artistically inclined or even good. At all. You can buy stuff you've never used before simply because it's on sale at Michael's and you can put on a record or a TV show and visit with a friend while you throw paint at paper and doodle all over it with gel pens.
Both are valid and good and right. And even if it turns out looking dodgy, at least you've enjoyed yourself and stretched some creative muscles.

That's the way I look at art. I'll never be an Artist. But I will always enjoy playing. {PS: As per usual, I put these as iPhone cases and small prints in the soc6 shop. Free shipping till the 13th!}

{reflection}

I think too many times, I've seen a place I wanted to get to and just assumed that, by simply wanting to get there, I'd be there. Soon. Eventually. Next week. And then I get confused when I realize another year has gone by and I don't even remember where I was going.

So last night, Barclay and I decided to take a pen and a notebook and a table at a coffee shop and write out some goals and aims and thoughts for 2013. We've never been big on new year's resolutions and all that, but this year we were talking about life and intentionally living it and decided that, much like grocery shopping or travelling or baking, if you want to remember to get/do/educe certain things, you should write them down.

We arrived at the coffee shop and ordered some drinks, but got distracted on the way to our table by a bookshelf with clearance stickers all over it. The complete collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes was there, all of it, for twelve dollars. We abandoned our mission, bought the book, and went home, where Barclay read aloud to me until I fell asleep.

 You see? This is exactly my problem.

I'm distracted from things that need to be done by the things that are much more easy and fun.
{That rhymed, so you should probably get it tattooed on your forearm in a swirling script.}

The moral of the story is probably something about reflection and intentionality. Sigh.

{my fish-eyed friend}

I have no desire to be a 'real' photographer. There are so many of you, and you do it so well, with your cameras that cost as much as houses and weigh as much as horses. But I'm afraid of brides, and I don't like looking through the lens and trying to figure out how to make something that will impress someone else. I like picture taking in the same way that I like writing or doodling or playing music. I like the process of trying to get what I'm seeing in my head out in some physical form. Without worrying too much what the "right" way of doing it is.

That's why I love these little plastic Lomography cameras. They have enough settings and buttons and switches and flashes and filters to keep things interesting, without ever once making me feel like I'm doing something "wrong". I can take a million exposures on a single frame and I can leave the shutter open as long as I feel like and I can shoot in a dark room or outside in the middle of the day and it's all good. Plus, you have no digital view finder window to see if what you're doing is working. Surprises are my favourite. {Pictures from my La Sardina here.}

I got the little fisheye friend pictured above for Christmas this year {last Thursday, because we always celebrate way late}, and I've already shot a roll and gotten it developed. {Too excited to remember how expensive film developing really is.} These are a few of my favourite things...

1. multiple exposures + spinning the camera
2. looking straight at the sun 3. extreme close-ups 4. leaving the shutter open for as long as i feel like it 5. making ghosts 6. just letting the camera do its thing Oh! Ps! Erin wrote a very informative piece on the film pictured above. CHECK IT OUT BEFORE YOU BUY ANY.

{December of 2012}

December of 2012 was like a velociraptor in a Santa Claus suit. I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way, even. I just mean that it kind of snuck up on me and bit my head off.

There was some travelling, some visiting, multiple baby showers, a few Christmas parties. A friend got engaged, a friend died, a friend announced a pregnancy, a friend had a baby, a friend took me out for coffee. Frantic gift making and buying and wrapping. Family Christmases and sweet people I hadn't seen in far too long. So much laughing, so much plan-making, so much talking, so much crying, so little sleep.

And just like that, this chilly Monday morning came and brought with it the sweet relief of routine. The 5:30 am alarm clock ringing in my ears, three quarters to pay for parking downtown, grocery shopping and a doctor's appointment, my laptop and quiet music and a tiny beam of sunlight in my coffee.

{banana slippers}

"Auntie Suzy! I'm a banana! Am I a pretty banana, Auntie Suzy?"

{memory}

Our niece, Skye, turned 3 yesterday. It's such a strange thing, watching a person start from scratch. You're there as they discover their own hands, the day that they figure out how to roll over, when their body and brain sync up enough to figure out the art of crawling, walking, running. Language. Fine motor skills! Personality!!! Yikes.

As she gets older and we get to know her better, she becomes funner and funner to buy/make presents for. It's moved from, "What do babies in general like?" to "What would Skye like?" 

So this year, obviously, we were really excited for Christmas...and for her present we decided to make her a wee memory game. Barclay cut out little wooden squares and we used the technique from this video to transfer pictures of Skye's parents, cousins, grandparents, aunties and uncles onto the pieces. {Then we painted the backs with blue sparkly paint, because Skye's allllllll about the blue sparkles.} We were pretty proud of how it turned out, and Skye caught on to it right away, because she's the smartest three year old EVER.

{happy new year}

 {I forgot to say Merry Christmas, so Merry Christmas, too.}

I'm curled up under my covers watching the battery on my laptop drain. Wiggling my toes to keep my feet from falling asleep. Trying to be introspective without getting too mushy about it. Listening to the saddest music I can find because it makes me happy. I think.

Wading through Facebook statuses and blog posts and snarky tweets about New Year Resolutions. Considering.

Everyone seems to be either really mad at 2012 or completely in love with it. Excited for 2013 to be even half as good or aching for a new year as though that will put some kind of emotional wall between them and this past one.

And so, of course, I start thinking about the new year and the old year and what's changed and what hasn't. I scroll way back in this blog to January 1, 2012 and read:

...i want to be absolutely, honestly, seriously content with where i am, and who i am, and what and who i have. i want to sit in it like an oversized beanbag chair and enjoy just being here instead of running around, up and down the stairs looking for things that aren't even in the house.

2012 might be easy. it might be hard. good or bad or weird or fun or short or long or whatever. but i'm sure i will be much more able to face whatever it is it's going to be if i don't have my heart set on what i think it should be.

they say not to wish your life away. "be where you are".

You know how sometimes you pray that you'll learn something or that you'll grow in some way and then life gets tricky and you don't know why and then you realize that maybe it's just your prayers being answered?

So 2012 has been a year of answered prayers. Lessons learned and at least a little growth. I think.

And here's to 2013. I don't hope it's easier. I hope it's stretching and hard and beautiful in the way that those things usually are if they're handled well. I hope I grow and learn. I hope I'm strong enough to ask for lessons and then, when they come, to be a good student.

anyway, happy new year and all that jazz, you know: may you run out into the wild 2013 with your arms flailing above you and your eyes wide open, happy to be on a good, level path if you've got one, but ready to hang-glide off a cliff if that's what's in front of you. or whatever. and stuff.