Saturday at Lake Louise

I found my happy place in the afternoon when I was sailing down the men's downhill track and looked around me, and thought "I'm on the men's downhill!". I am so lucky. (P.S. You have to be careful when you're in your happy place at 30 km/h or whatever and before you know it you have a faceful of snow and you're glad you have a helmet on your head...)

p.s.

Tomorrow I get four wisdom teeth pulled. If I don't come out of the anesthesia, Audrey you can have all my books, Mum you can have my CDs and everybody else, I'll be watching you so don't do anything I wouldn't do... I am so scared this is ridiculous. I have to get a grip. I was telling the secretary at work and then I had to leave and go to my classroom because I was so nervous I felt like I was going to pass out. Geez.

Dear Madonna

What are you thinking? You are using your name for evil, not good. I happened to stop and read one of your children's books the other day in the bargain bin at the Scholastic sale and it was crap. Then I heard a new release from your new dance album today, and lo and behold, it was ALSO crap. What is this - "I don't wanna hear / I don't wanna know / Please don't say you're sorry / I heard it all before". Hmmmmmm. It's true, I HAVE heard it all before! Gah. And don't go saying "I'm sorry" in a million languages, we don't forgive you. And Gwen Stefani started doing Japanese before you... I know you are the queen of pop, or whatever, which is why it is so hard to write you this letter.

You know that if your name wasn't Madonna your album would get totally trashed, right? But for some unknown reason you keep trying to rap and make up new dance moves. I'm sorry Madge, it's time to move on. Have more babies, or work for the U.N. (it worked for Ginger Spice) or keep kissing Britney Spears. Cos what you're doing now isn't working out for anybody. The thing I'm most sad about is that you used to be the star of a Tuesday night dance party at 77 Gerrard Street now and again, but I'm afraid that's over now. We'll miss you. Peace.

Can't Make a Sound

Clichéd as it is, the only way I can say what I'm feeling without going into too much detail better saved for close conversation, is to put this song up. It's pretty lost, and so am I... I didn't ever mean for this blog to be sad like this but there you go.... sorry?



Can't Make a Sound
Elliott Smith

I have become a silent movie
The hero killed the clown

Can’t make a sound

Nobody knows what he’s doing
Still hanging around

Can’t make a sound

The slow motion moves me
The monologue means nothing to me

Bored in a role, but he can’t stop
Standing up to sit back down
And lose the one thing found
Spinning the world like a toy top
Till there’s a ghost in every town

Can’t make a sound

Eyes locked and shining
Can’t you tell me what’s happening?

Why should you want any other, when you’re a world within a world?

I just wrote the most depressing post ever and then I deleted it because in the big picture I guess I shouldn't complain... god I hate thinking about stuff. Turn off brain, turn OFF.

It's hard growing up...

When you realize that in five days you are getting your wisdom teeth pulled, and you have always had a phobia of dentists and doctors in general - they make you cry - you have never had surgery and you wonder if it's socially acceptable to bring your childhood stuffed pig with you. Then you realize you don't have enough money to drop $1500 up front and you have to and you have to figure out a way to make this work. I'm not ready for this. I don't WANT to be ready for this.

It sucks being tired all the time because when you really want to go out with some friends and have more than a few drinks and all you can do is yawn and wish you were in bed you feel a million years old and kind of sad. Tomorrow I will sleep in and tomorrow night will be much livelier. I wonder if I will go boarding on Sunday.

My first day boarding in the Rockies. EVER!

Oh, and what a day it was. It started out with a ton of fresh powder from last night, and then around lunch it started to snow again, hard. Which made it kind of hard to see but it was just THICK and any time you felt like you were going to land, you just sort of gooshed into this pillowy goodness, it was sooooo sweet. I'll be back in seven days, don't you worry!

Ah, the memories...

Somehow I don't think I look much different than I did then... hmmm... should I be concerned???

A Hike for Two

Here are some pictures of our "little walk" outside of Canmore last weekend, at the Grassi Lakes somethingorother. Now that I have a vehicle I can get out there - the mountains, doesn't matter which one - almost every weekend. I'd like to set that as a goal for myself, because it was refreshing, invigorating, peaceful and exciting all at the same time. The air is crisp, the water crystal clear and the people few and far between. We only saw a few other hikers and then some ice climbers (crazy) on our travels. It was a nice contrast to Toronto of the week before.

Now, in keeping with my resolution, I head off to Sunshine (Banff/Lake Louise) first thing tomorrow morning for my first ski in the Rockies since last spring's day at Marmot Basin. I'm pumped. I'd better go wax my board and pack a lunch, I'll post pictures later if I think to take any!

Don't Trash the 'Stache

So today I got my ENORMOUS Jack Layton poster for my balcony. My balcony happens to face the parking lot, so it's not exactly getting a lot of exposure, but it makes me happy when I park, and hopefully it makes a few other people think twice before they vote for some Conservative jackass. Like everybody else in Alberta. Geez. Look at this FACE! How could you not love him?


Also, buy this t-shirt.

Where is my home?

This has been an odd trip. I find myself here, in this city which I loved at one point, still loving it, but feeling kind of lost and disoriented.... Some close friends make the effort to call me back and hang out, some not-so-close friends do the same. And then there are others who I simply haven't connected with yet and to be perfectly honest I find it all kind of depressing. I am sitting in Belinda's apartment on my own for the second morning in a row, wondering how to fill the hours. This doesn't seem right somehow.

Maybe this is a New Year's thing... am I supposed to look at the year that has passed and analyze what it's amounted to, what is to come, where my life is headed? Who knows. Last year was just a series of changes... I moved a number of times, I needed friends, I needed to be alone, I fell in love, I changed school boards and jobs, I bought my first place... and now that things seem to be settling down for a bit, I wonder where I'm supposed to go with this. I don't necessarily feel like Calgary is the place I'll stay for a long time (plus I'm sick of trying to justify being "Albertan" (HA) to my family and friends in Ontario) but for now it is where I am, and I like it. After 5 long dreary grey days in Toronto with sirens screaming and tension in the air as tight as the steel cables that hang from cranes all over the place, I'm looking forward to going back to the sunniest city in Canada where the mountains rise up and the people actually talk to you... I'm not saying it's better, it's just different and right now it fits better. That being said, I always felt my friends were here, in Toronto. I'm not feeling like there's a pressing decision to be made here, but I've been thinking about this for a long time. Where do I belong?