there was a junior high aged kid at the museum yesterday, and he reminded me so much of any/all of the harbaks. and then i had a dream about the harbaks last night. crush city.

also, today there was a kid whose dad was chaperoning the tour, and they both had these matching black button-up shirts with flames all around them. hil-arious. so oren zachariasesque.

megs and i drove to slave lake last night after work, because she needed to buy a birthday present for her boyfriend. she bought a tim mcgraw cd, and we listened to it in the car on the way home. i decided that country singers are way rougher than rappers. one of the songs on the album was about this teenage kid stabbing his abusive stepdad and throwing him in the river. i can easily name about 4 other country songs, just off the top of my head, about murder (reba mcentire's "the night the lights went out"; the dixie chicks' "goodbye earl"; garth brooks' "papa loved mama" and the long version of "the thunder rolls"). yeesh. wouldn't want to be caught in a dark alley with one of them cowpokes.

my allergies are taking over my life. i had to wear my glasses today because my eyes hurt so much. i remember michelle powles once said something like, "i bet that kid's name is arthur, and he has a bunch of allergies" based on the way he looked. now i associate allergies with nerddom. i can't even pretend anymore. glasses? allergies? i am hopeless.

dear everyone,
i just found out that the smithsonian institution has a postal museum. wow! dream job! i love mail! i kind of like museums! i will have to apply for some internships.

i think i literally have a chip on my shoulder. yesterday at soccer i went to take a shot and robin was defending me and i think his elbow went into my left shoulder. it still hurts. it even woke me up a few times last night.

after soccer i played trivia at egan's with megs and jen again. we didn't do so well again but i surprised myself with some of the answers i did know.

whatelsewhatelsewhatelse. did you know that i like wearing snug shoes? it's a fact.

my car's odometer turned 200,000 yesterday. yeesh. don't turn into a piece of crap now, car!

i think i am realizing more and more that i am something of a shit disturber. it's not much of a surprise, i guess.

finishing the write-up of my weekend:
i talked to kaylin on the phone. i think her lot in life is to have jobs that treat her like garbage. boo. she might not come with me and kds to vancouver in august, but maybe emily will come instead. that will be fun. anyway, i like kaylin and i can't wait to craft with her all the time next year.

the nancy drew movie is coming out on the exact day that i am going to go see kds! wow! so perfect. i think it will be kind of a letdown, though. kelseydawn and i also might go whitewater rafting in early july in canmore. let me know if you want to join us.

here is a picture of the whale wallet i made miss jenni:

i hope it got to her. i don't know if it's very cool to wear your own band's stuff, but whatever. if the challengers can do it, jenni can too.

i made myself a small shoulder bag out of apple-green corduroy. i beaded a killer whale onto it. it is okay, but not spectacular.

we had some super cute little kids from gift lake come to the museum yesterday. it seems like all the little kids from the reserves/settlements north of here have really bad teeth. most of them have cavities all the way across the fronts of their mouths. i'm gon' marry me a dentist and then trick him into moving up here and fixing their teeth up real nice-like.

i got a letter from the u of a, saying i got accepted into their "international house," which is just one of their residences. i can't decide if i want to live there or not. definitely not if all the students are first- or second-year undergrads. but it might be neat if they are a bit older. we'll see. i also saw that the u of a is doing the "one-pass" thing this year, which means i can get a 4-month bus pas for $90! wow!

i am bored of myself now. sorry.

on friday night i watched the news, and they had two interesting stories:
1. a canada post truck went through a guardrail west of edmonton and scattered mail all over the side of the road. crews are picking up the mail. sometimes i like my mail arriving fast, but sometimes i wish my mail had more tumultuous travels.
2. a rodeo in b.c. cancelled two of their events because animal rights groups have been protesting against cruelty to animals. i'm all for treating animals and stuff well, but come on. i don't think anyone i know treats animals better than cowboys/ranchers/farmers. just talk to my dad. he loves his horses more than he loves his kids.

also on friday i talked to kelseydawn. she got the wallet i sent her. i put it in the mailbox on tuesday night, and she got it by friday! wow! and it wasn't even xpresspost or anything! just normal, cheap postage! i am so impressed with canada post. i should quit my education and start working for them. that's an organization i can get behind. i also got a letter from dr. e. thanks, dr. e! i will write you back soon!

on saturday i went canoeing down lesser slave river. i canoed with erin, one of the girls i work with. everyone else on the trip was people who work for northern lakes college in different communities (we museum workers are employed by northern lakes college at the grouard campus). it was really beautiful and we didn't have to paddle too hard. it took about 5 hours, which was a little bit on the long side of perfect. last canada day kds (that's kelseydawn) and i canoed from devon to edmonton, but we had a slow canoe and we are girls with skinny arms, so it took us 8 hours. about 4 hours too long. anyway, the timing for this one was good. and i met this boy named tim, who another girl from AFL had essentially dumped darcy to date (a few years ago). haha. the neatest thing of the whole day was this: just before we loaded the canoes into the river, we drove by this open field that was surrounded on three sides by forest. in the middle of the back part of the field, there was a giant yellow chair. and then to the left of the chair, leaning against some trees, was a red door. wow! so neat! why is that there!? who did that!? i want to leave neat things like that! which brings me to: wandering books. this is something that my crafting friend robin did, and i am going to help him make some more and we are going to let them loose in calgary and edmonton. neat, hey? maybe when i am hanging out with any of you later on we can make some of our own and release them.

on sunday i just crafted and crafted and crafted. i wrote a letter to dustan, and i made him a little patch.


everyone is leaving work! bye!

mosquitos were really bad at soccer last night. everyone on the field had about 30 on their backs at any given time. i played in my new cleats and they are so light and awesome. i ate barbecued vegetables with robin and peter and we talked about new craft projects. i am going to help robin make peter a wallet. don't tell.

so, cody, one of the boys from sucker creek who is part of that rap group i wrote about a while back, got stabbed in the neck this week. another one of the boys from s.c. got stabbed at the same time. last year, six of the boys that age got stabbed (and sucker creek is a community of only a couple hundred). darcy told me that i "took a long time to adjust" on the reserve, and that's why he wouldn't rehire me this summer. yeah, i guess it is hard for me to adjust to yearly teenage stabbings. i think that all the boys are doing okay, though. i will write more about cody sometime. he is so neat and heartbreaking and amazing.

welcome allergy season! here's a fun quiz to see how well you know my allergies.

(pick one of the following)
i am allergic to:
a) pollen
b) spruce
c) cats
d) dogs
e) horses
f) hay
g) bandaid adhesive

if you picked any of the above, you're right!

i made some more cute crafts last night. i lost the stationery that kelsey gave me and i hope i can find it tonight. i got real live mail from dustan and michelle! wow! thanks, friends!

i am giving museum tours today, which means i can wear a cute brown skirt instead of my ugly 1880s costume. AND i won't smell like campfire at the end of the day.

some are not antisocial enough

yesterday it was pretty cold, so i skipped soccer. robin let me use his typewriter and i typed some letters. they are boring. sorry to the people who will receive them. then megs and jen and i met at egan's to play trivia. we came in last place. but we DID have one of the youngest/smallest teams, and that affects things, i think. i mailed my cute crafts.

today was our first day of programming with kids. we had the kindergarteners/grade 1-ers from grouard. they were super cute. most of them are métis or treaty, but none of them really knows it. while we were walking down to the village, one of the little girls said, "i'm not afraid of indians. i've seen one before." haha. i am trying to teach them to say, "first nation" or "aboriginal" or "indigenous" or even "native" instead. it's not working. another little boy had some slip-on shoes that had this graphic that was che guevara and a skull and crossbones together. i don't get it. i'll have to ask him about it. more little kids after lunch. my supervisor said she is really impressed with how i am with the kids. that is nice to hear, because i sure haven't felt confident about that for a while.

don't you wish your girlfriend made crafts like me?

on sunday i just sewed and crafted all day. for about 4 hours, i worked on sewing costumes for our historical village. and i'm gonna get paid for it. imagine! getting paid for something you like doing! well, i never...

sunday was my one-year anniversary of breaking up with darcy. which means that i have been single for one year. this is the longest i've been single since i was 17. i made myself some paper maché and origami to celebrate. no, i didn't, but that would have been genius. happy one-year, self!

on the news, CTV interviewed a little girl who was at a petting zoo or something. underneath her name, they put the byline "likes pigs." i want to be interviewed by them just to see what they'd put under my name. "usually uses apostrophes well." "likes brown." i just don't know.

i called karen and we shared surprisingly parallel stories regarding our respective crushes. i like her.

okay. rain's done. tipi time.

it's party time, and not one minute we can lose.

it is still rainy.

on saturday, britt and i went to see the new house that she and jeremy had bought. it is still being built. welcome to adult city. then we went back into grande prairie. we went to future shop and wrote giant messages on the giant computer screens. i think i have trained my brain to think in haiku, because all my sentences were either 5 or 7 syllables long. magic. special thanks go out to CTS class with kelsey, and the I.S. conferences with joel and all the other left-handed S.A. members.

i bought an adorable brown dress with cream polka dots. i will have to find some boys and trick them into asking me on a date so i can get all dressed up and cute. also, i bought a bathing suit in the same pattern. i didn't mean to. i hope i don't wear them both to the same party. that would be embarrasing.

i finally just bought "the science of sleep," because i've already spent a million dollars renting it and i figured that should end soon. so if you want to watch it, let's have a date. yes?

i drove back home. i worked on the crafts that i can't tell anybody about. lemme tell you, they look gooo-oood.

it is nice and thundery outside. usually we miss all the good storms because we are on the end of the lake, and all the interesting weather goes around us, but not today. even though there are no windows in the museum, i can hear it storming. neat.

okay. on friday, i got to drive the rest of the museum girls (erin, meghan, sam, jennifer, and aaron) around to the museums in kinuso, sucker creek, and high prairie. thrilling. evidence of us all becoming total museum geeks: we all commented on how nice sucker creek's beaver pelt was. ugh. but it was pretty fine quality. also, since lee is an elder for sucker creek, she was featured in the museum. neat.

after work, i drove to grande prairie. i stopped in sexsmith to pick up brittany. she was at the church, making movies with her pastor husband and the junior high kids. oh, youth group. i miss you yet i hate you so much. we drove in to grande prairie so i could buy some cleats. i bought some cute black adidas ones with pink trim. the advantage of being endowed with the body of a 10-year-old boy is that i can buy kids' shoes for cheap. hooray me. i had a surprisingly good time with brittany. we rented "the science of sleep" - my fourth time watching it in a month. it is so good. plus i realized that i don't really care about plots at all, only interesting characters and frequent small doses of cuteness. exhibit a: all my favorite movies: the science of sleep, ghost world, rocky horror picture show, the breakfast club.... i bought some crafting materials at walmart. we ate at mcdonald's with jeremy (britt's husband) - a mediocre meal; a high-quality conversation.

i am not done talking about my weekend. but i think i might have to go set up the tipis. that is, if it has stopped being lightningy and thundery out.

i'm more of a niles girl.

i started making some really cute crafts last night, and i'm really excited about them because they are turning out just how i wanted, but that's all i can say about them because i am making them for people who do/might read this. i will post pictures after i've mailed them.

yesterday that boy tyler phoned me and asked if we could "be together." i think that maybe a "tactful portrayal of disinterest" series of courses should be added to the alberta curriculum for high school girls. like, "tps 10, 20, 30." i told him i didn't think i was looking for anything like that for a long time. i think he still didn't get the hint.

hey! the ben calf robe society is putting on their annual powwow at the butterdome in edmonton this weekend. if yer not doing anything on saturday the 19th, you should go check it out. grand entries are at 1 & 7 p.m. go!

also, national museum day is may 18. eat some cake and make a toast to your favorite museum employee (which may or may not be me)! and go to the royal alberta museum in edmonton - i think admission is free that day!

i watched csi: miami with erin on monday night.

on tuesday, we set up our tipis and tents and exhibits, which meant that we spent the whole day outside. nice. then i went into town and found some grey corduroy ON SALE. i've been looking for some everywhere, and hadn't found any until now. whew. then i went to robin's house because we were going to talk about craft projects but we ended up just eating supper with his mom and talking about racism. then i played soccer with the boys for about an hour. i am getting good again. by "good," i mean, "not so bad as i have been for the last couple of years." not really "good" at all. but i played pretty smart and didn't get too tired, so that's nice. then i bought groceries and then i met megs and her mom and some other adults at egan's bar for their trivia night. it was fun and i hope we do it every week.

today i drove one of the college's trucks to joussard, and megs and erin and i helped louise cut and gather spruce boughs (for the floors of our tipis and tents), bannock sticks (meghan made me a special one that is extra-long and has finger grooves), and sphagnum moss. it was nice to be outside again. but now lunch is over, so i have to go unload all that stuff.

i am just your neighbour and a liar. by the way, do you have zoe's number?

we just had some kids from high prairie here for some storytelling. meghan and i did a session on the métis sash. the boys tie them around their waists; the girls tie them around one shoulder. one little girl tied it first around her shoulder, and then doubled it back around her waist. "i tied it like this because i'm a tomboy." lovely. another kid told us, "my dad's ukrainian and my mom's a duchess." i think she meant her mom is dutch.

there's this awesome guy in grouard who goes around town with his metal detector, looking for valuable historical artifacts. i saw him out near the bay on the weekend. he keeps all the valuable stuff for himself, and brings us all the leftover crap. like, bottle caps, scratched up/rusty old coins, miscellaneous metal items...

i got lots of free food this weekend. lee's family had a big get-together, partly for mother's day and partly because a little girl in the family was getting baptised. i met a neat costa rican girl who is living in edmonton now and working at organic roots and i think we are maybe going to be friends. i mostly just stayed home all weekend. i crocheted, finished beading an ant onto a coral shirt, embroidered a moose onto some green cord, read barack obama in my hammock at the lake, watched douglas coupland's "souvenir of canada" and "the science of sleep." i have such a crush on that movie. also i watched "luna: spirit of the whale." i also have a crush on that whale.

make us it make us hip make us scene

welcome back to my blog, joel alexander.

i need to edit and expand on my museum fact from last friday, because my brain wasn't working. "shaganappi" actually means rawhide rope. it's usually cut from the outside edge of a hide that's been stretched and scraped and fleshed. it was often used to make tools - people could attach a stone blade to a piece of wood by dipping the rawhide into water (it would get soft and expand), then lashing it around the blade and the wood handle. as it dried, the rope would tighten and become hard.

so, last friday megs and i both experienced the second most ridiculous experience in our lives. we went to see some sucka crizz-ack boys play a rap show at a tiny community hall in joussard. we were the only white people there (megs' parents are both metis, but she looks whiter than i do, so for all these intents and purposes, she's white.). the reconstructed weezer sweater i had on probably didn't earn me enough scene points to, like, at least hit zero on the scale of credibility. strange that i can feel more comfortable there than amongst the edmonton music scene. there were a lot of hot dogs - people kept going into the kitchen and taking hot dogs from a big pot. we watched one guy eat five. yikes. three of the boys were brothers from sucker creek, who make up my favorite family on the reserve. i took one of the boys to leadership camp a few years ago with AFL. i really really like them. the youngest, william, came up to me after their first set and said, "hey. i know you." i said "yeah, i'm living up in grouard. i heard you guys were playing a show and i wanted to see you." he asked, incredulously, "how did you hear about us all the way up in grouard?" ha. grouard's, like, a 20 minute drive from joussard. adorable.
they only had about 10 songs, and they didn't know all the words to any of them, but they played about 5 sets anyway. apparently joussard was their "first stop in a tour around the lake." haha. awesome. the boys dedicated a song to their kookum (grandma), who had arrived at about the third set. there were significantly more f-bombs and references to guns and knives than i would EVER include in a song i dedicated to my grandma, but she seemed supportive nonetheless. neat. i really hope they do end up doing a "tour around the lake," because i really want to see them more. they are such neat boys. also, i am excited to go dancing/to shows with megs when we go back to edmonton for school, because she is fun and unpretentious and i like those things.

recognize it, pimpin' as we ridin'

i'm convinced that nothing can bring the same satisfaction as a pair of sharp, stainless steel scissors.

i saw this crazy french guy named jacques on the news two nights ago. he went to king's when i was there. he was on the news because they were talking to him about rent increases in millwoods. anyways. he is a crazy guy. he's middle-aged, and always gave long-winded french-accented wrong answers in class. he wore a bandana around his head, and a leather jacket. once, at the very beginning of the school year, the students' association (including me) was welcoming people to the school or something. i made some off-the-cuff remark to him regarding his age and his leather jacket. we have been mortal enemies ever since. good to see you're doing well, jacques.

this white guy named david helped us put up our tipis yesterday. he's married to a cree woman, and they've lived in a tipi for about 4 years total. now he lives in a normal house, but they use solar power. it was neat to talk to him about it, and talk about my experiences with it in guyana. i am going to have a solar-powered house when i am an adult.

i didn't want to go to soccer last night, so i made a deal with myself that if it was raining at my house at 6:30, i wouldn't go. it was a pretty good deal, because it seemed pretty likely that it was going to rain. nope. it ended up being bright and sunny. i grudgingly drove myself into high prairie, and actually had a really fun time playing soccer. i don't feel nearly as out of shape as i did last week, so that's pretty positive.

my package got to jenni in less than 3 days! i heart canada post. i know you don't believe in them, bri, but i beg to differ.

so, i think that the girls from the museum and i are going to go to a native rap concert in joussard tonight. some of the boys i knew in sucker creek are putting it on. i hope i don't get beat up. it costs $15, which is perfect because that's exactly the amount sam won last night in a hula-hooping contest. what!?!

so, this weekend is mother's day. i never buy my mom anything, partly because i am a bad kid and partly because she hates trinkets. but here are some neat things about my mom:
-she's one of the most compassionate people i know
-she's one of the only non-catholic staff at the catholic school she teaches at, and i think that speaks volumes about her character
-she likes sewing and making crafts and being by herself, and she hates cooking
-i've never seen her/known her to be drunk, and i've only heard her cuss a handful of times
-she's passionate about education and children
-she teaches her schoolkids that the pioneers weren't the first people in alberta
-she makes good blueberry crumble
-she laughs so hard sometimes that she can hardly breathe
-she's spiritually sensitive without being hokey or creepy or pushy
-she's unpretentious
-she's a good hugger
happy mother's day, mom!

oh! today's museum-y fact: have you driven the "shaganappi trail" in calgary? "shaganappi" means "rawhide."

how can i ever save the world on cup-a-soup and student loans?

yesterday after work i was driving home, and i passed a hitchhiker carrying a hockey bag on his back. i turned to see who it was, and it was that tyler boy. i slowed down and picked him up. he told me he was having a pretty rough day, and that he had been kicked out of treatment. he was trying to get into high prairie so he could bus back home (to the blood reserve, i think). i told him i'd take him to the other side of the bridge near my house. then it looked a little cloudy, so i told him i'd drive him to highway 2. but as we neared the highway, it started to rain, so i decided to drive him all the way into town. he was really appreciative. he kept saying things like, "you're one of a kind. not many people would pick up a native person." that made me feel really yucky inside, partly because it's true (i've never picked anyone up before), and partly because i can't imagine feeling that way myself. i mean, like, sub-human or something. it's total bullshit that there are people in our country who have to feel that way about themselves. anyway, inevitably the conversation turned to, "so, do you have a boyfriend?" (i say inevitably because it seems like this conversation never happens with nice, middle-class, educated, sensitive, financially secure boys who i might actually have something in common with, but always happens with boys i hardly know and would have a really difficult time connecting with. not because i am a super hot babe and boys ask me out all the time. because they don't.). faaaack. no, tyler, i do not have a boyfriend, but don't let that give you any ideas. i took him to the bus stop, but it was closed and the next bus wasn't coming until about an hour later, so i dropped him off at the library so he could use the internet. i wanted to be encouraging so i gave him an illegal copy of sean da paul that i'd bought in georgetown, and i wrote, "take good care of yourself" or something. he said, "oh, i have something for you too." he gave me a beaded bracelet he had made with his name on it, and he put a big silver ring with a fake diamond on my finger. o-kayyyyyy. i gave him a hug and said, "i can't promise you anything, but if you need anything tonight if you don't get on the bus, you can give me a call and i'll see what i can do." bad idea, caylie. so, he called at about 11:30 last night, waking both lee and me. i said, "uh, sorry man, but i can't really do much for you tonight." he said, "it's okay. i didn't think i'd be able to stay with you because of the way i feel for you." arg! okay! well, see ya! good luck! part of me feels really really bad for him and i wish i could do more to help. and part of me is so mad that i can't ever just be friends with boys.

anyway. today we are setting up the tipis and tents. we saw a bunch of pelicans flying over the bay, and a cross fox hanging out near our site. i smell like campfire. it was cold in the morning, but the sun has come out. i like setting up the tipis. the ground is really soft from the rain, so the pegs are easy to put in.

here's my museum fact for the day. it's not really a museum fact, but it's about the pelicans who live around here. this is how they fish: a group of them forms a circle on the water, and then all at once, they scoop their beaks down to catch all the fish. kind of like how killer whales hunt. at least, that's what i've heard/seen. maybe it's not true. you might just have to wikipedia it for yourself.

i can't decide if i am going to go to soccer tonight. i've already been to high prairie every day this week, and my leg still hurts. but... it's really sunny and nice out, and i don't know if it's fair to deprive myself of the good weather.

just need to admit that i want sugar in my tea. hear me?

in the last week, i've found out that TWO of my best friends from high school have bought/are buying houses with their significant others, and another girl who i've been friends with since high school is pregnant. i am such an old maid.

separate's always better when there's feelings involved

yesterday morning all the girls here were kind of bummed out on behalf of me because of my potential-but-then-cancelled-visit. funny girls. the afternoon was fun though. our supervisors made us all come up with themes for museum tours, and then we had to present them. i did mine on "how fashion helped create canada's first currency." i hate thinking about doing tours, but i like doing them once i'm actually in them. i think i'm pretty good at them. i'm a decent public speaker and i'm enthusiastic and i make lots of super lame jokes. this job was made for me.

i decided that maybe since no one will come visit me, i will bring my museum to YOU. so i will try to include some information or trivia in every post from now on. what a lark! so today, my fact of the day is this: fur traders used to trade something called "greasy beavers," which were beaver pelts that had been worn during the winter on the upper thighs, and then sold for a good price because the guard hair had been worn off (guard hairs are the longer hairs that would have to be taken off so that the short, soft underhair could be used to make felted hats). de-lish!

so, last night i went to play soccer. my first touch on the ball, i pulled something in my leg (i never took bio, so i don't really know what i pulled). it's in my upper leg, and it hurts like a biatch. i don't even really know how i did it. so basically, i ended up playing keeper for the next two hours in the rain. brr. i couldn't run at all, and i couldn't really even squat down either. we went for drinks afterwards and some of the boys (who, as i've mentioned before, work there as servers/the general manager) ranted against bad tippers. i am a bad tipper. yikes! not hanging out with them again!

your sister's bangs, she cut them herself.

after work yesterday i was supposed to meet that boy tyler, but erin was going to high prairie and i asked if i could catch a ride to buy groceries (because i had been there on sunday but had forgotten my money/cards at home). so i drove away from the museum without seeing the boy or telling him that i wasn't going to show up. i got about a mile away and my conscience was destroying me, so i drove back and saw him and told him that i couldn't hang out because i was going to town. the truth. so we still might hang out and i'd really like to be supportive of him but life isn't like that and boys don't think single, 20-something girls can just be supportive and that's it. ugh.

anyways. i bought groceries. there's a party in my fridge, and i'm invited. i watched csi: miami and ate pizza and crocheted. i wrote a letter to jenni and i am going to mail it with the mittens today.

i am pretty bored at work today. there are some neat things we are talking about (like styles of learning, and how to incorporate experiential education into our tours), but i am not very into it. i got an e-mail from landon from last night and he seemed all ready to come visit, but i didn't get it until this morning and by then he had realized that probably wasn't the best idea. boo. that's the closest anyone has gotten to actually visiting me up here. oh, well. i might go hang out with brittany jane in sexsmith sometime, because i want to go to grande prairie this weekend or next to buy cleats. and it is super super super nice to actually have friends up here this year. i like driving with erin and hanging out at the lake with megs and crafting with robin. i think the last few years (up here, in guyana...) have been training me to live in relative isolation comfortably. i really want to live in the northwest territories and northern coastal b.c. sometime soon, so i need to get some practice in being forgotten about. thanks for facilitating that, friends! just jokes. but not really.

my dad might come on the overnight canoe trip i am going on in june, if he can tear himself away from branding cattle. you are such a rugged outdoorsman, dad.

soccer tonight! i hope it doesn't rain!

believing in the country of me and you

the bay and the lake are massively flooding and it is AWESOME. like, i'd say the shore of the lake where i live is pushed back about 3/8 of a km since last year. driving over the bridge between the bay and the lake, it feels like i am at the ocean. i will try to take some pictures tonight and post them soon.

yesterday i talked to debbie on the phone (one of my guyanese youth who's in calgary, remember?) and i asked her where micaela lives (that's who she's staying with), because i wasn't sure if it was calgary or canmore. she said, "um, she lives not far from the grocery store." so cute.

okay! my crafting date yesterday:
i went to this boy robin's house at about 11:30. he is living in high prairie with his mom. he just finished his master's in fine arts. he is quite a bit older than me - maybe late 20s or early 30s? i don't know. anyway, i helped him with this neat project he was working on as part of this art swap. i guess a bunch of people/groups all submitted different ideas for an interactive art project they'd wanted to do but hadn't done yet, and then they got to pick someone else's idea and then do it. so the one that robin got was supposed to be for a group of people, but he is not a group of people. anyway, this group was supposed to divide into smaller groups and write/get other people to write fortunes. ideally, there would be about 200 fortunes. then each fortune would be sealed in an envelope and they'd all be put in a pile at this art show and people could take a fortune and open it up and take it home, and maybe put it up on their mantle or throw it away or give it to someone they like or paste it in their diary or whatever. and there would even be blank envelopes and paper so people could leave a fortune for someone else if they wanted to. so... there was just the two of us, so this is what we did:
robin had already made a stamp that said "fortunate one," and had stamped about half the envelopes with that. then he just handwrote that on some more, and i handwrote on the rest, so that they would all be different. then we cut up some fortunes that he had already made up, and we put one in every envelope and licked them shut. then we still didn't have 200, so we wrote some more. we handwrote some and we typed some up on a typewriter, using some homemade cotton paper. i gots to gets me a typewriter soon. i've been wanting one for a long, long time. some of my fortunes were edward estlin-inspired ("forgetting if, remember yes"; "there's nothing as something as one"; "buds know better than books don't grow"; "whatever we lose, like a you or a me, it's always ourselves we find in the sea"); some were anti-grammar-nazi-inspired ("don't worry about a misplaced apostrophe"; "only capitalize the words YOU think are important"); one was rushmore/"marginalia"-inspired "write your own thoughts in the margins of library books. use pen."); one was an-email-i-wrote-to-landon-last-week-inspired ("your life deserves an exclamation mark: !."); others were random ("live today in italics"). i think i am going to start writing out fortunes and just leaving them places. i need to get some pretty paper and a nice brown sharpie, i think. so neat.
robin also told me about some other projects he's done. one was where he made some books and left them in cities like calgary and new york, and they had directions inside them on how to get back to him (kind of bookcrossing.com-esque). the other project was ridiculously cute: he set up chairs and couches and reading lamps in the library of his university, and kept them up for a week during midterms for "naptime." students were invited to come in and take a nap, and they'd tell him how long they wanted to sleep for and he'd write it down and then wake them up in time. apparently about 400 students came to see what was happening, and about 100 actually napped. he kept the whole place really really quiet and everyone talked in whispers if they talked at all. then, when it was time for him to wake them up, he'd gently nudge them and say, "hey, it's time to wake up. there are some cookies and juice right here when you're ready for them." isn't that adorable!?! they'd be so happy! i am going to quit school and quit life and arts-and-crafts full time.

so, that boy that i met at the powwow has been calling me and i think he's coming to my work later today so we can go for a walk when i get done. yikes. i really don't want to. i only like awkwardness when i am in control of it. but i am so bad at conveying the notion that i am not interested. i think i will say i am sick or something. or that it's too cold. or that i need to get home to watch oprah.

don't turn off the lights.

i just found this on a link from postsecret:
the letter project
awesome. i will probably ask him to write me a letter. because no one else does. sigh. BUT... if YOU want a letter, you should e-mail me your address. because something is probably already in the mail to you already, or will be very soon, unless i don't have your address. i heart mail!

precious, suspicious, and charming, and vicious

facebook told me that michelle powles has a boyfriend. what!?! i always thought that whole family was awesomely asexual. maybe that's just how i dealt with powlesian rejection. good on ya, michelle.

kds, i think i am going to come to calgary on june 15-16. cover up the spill in the extra bedroom, and pump up the air mattress. i want to visit with debbie and rawle before they return to guyana. also, i like you and i want to have root beer floats and watch movies and make kites that actually fly. or just buy kites that will fly.

the weather was cold and rainy here all weekend, but i did do a lot of crafting. i am averaging, like, 0.8 pairs of crocheted mittens a day. i'm a machine, i know. also, lee gave me her camping table for the summer, which i set up in the sunroom and now i have my very own sewing table! it is perfect and just caylie-sized. i sewed a lot yesterday and saturday. i am almost done one apple-green bag and one tan-with-brown-spots bag, but i need to think of some appliqué shapes to put on the fronts. any suggestions? my sewing machine is so rad and i would marry it if that were legal.

i mailed a letter to dustan q., but no mittens. i don't think we're back on that level yet.

i went crafting with a boy from my soccer team. i will write all about it in another post, maybe later today, if i have time. we made lots of neat things and talked about a lot of neat things and i am happy about all of those things.

i made chicken and fried rice yesterday. the guyanese would be so proud.

hi everyone. ie. mom and dad and kelsey. and maybe karen.

it is rainy. i like rainy days because all the earthworms come out. i like seeing them but i don't like accidentally smushing them.

i played soccer last night in high prairie. it was rainy and cold. i really need to buy some cleats. i wish my body didn't feel so old lady-ish.

i made joel alexander a maroon mitten. the other one is coming tonight, hopefully. then i will make bethany b some brown ones. then i will mail them together.

i talked to debbie and rawle (from guyana) today on the phone. they are in calgary for 6 weeks. i hope i will get a chance to go down there and see them, and therefore visit kds. maybe our kites will fly this time.

we are making friendship bracelets with acrylic yarn at the museum right now. how historically accurate.

i told the girls i work with about my ghost river training and guyana experience. i think it's the most i've told anyone about it. it was nice to share.

back to tea and bracelets.

a few years ago, in third year university, i had the best year of my life (up until that point). i was in love with life and i danced a lot and laughed a lot and i would have to pull my scarf up around my face when i was on the bus so that other people wouldn't think i was crazy because i was smiling so hard. the only bad thing was that being so happy was a little worrying, because i had never felt like that before and i didn't know what i had done to deserve it and i couldn't help but wonder when it was going to end.

i'm that happy now, but not worried about when it's going to end.

work yesterday was okay. the staff is all girls, which is actually pretty nice. i hope we will hang out as a big group and in smaller groups, and i hope we will find cute things to do and teach each other. some of them like to canoe, so i hope we'll go out to the bay sometimes on nice afternoons.

the best thing about yesterday was soccer. i drove to high prairie and crocheted in my car while i waited for some other people to arrive at practice. when the first two people showed up, i went over and asked if this was where they were having adult soccer practice. it was. they introduced themselves, and i introduced myself, and then i avoided introductions after that. i forgot how intimidating it can be, to be a small-town girl playing soccer with a bunch of strange young men. the intimidation wore off really quickly though. we just scrimmaged for 2 hours, and it was so, so good. it's that whole "friendship through osmosis" thing that i like so much. we just made jokes and played (even though we are all super out of shape) and i even scored a couple of goals. i have some massive first-practice-of-the-season blisters on my feet, and my whole body aches, but it feels so, so good. i think we're planning on playing every tuesday and thursday. thrilling! nice to be outside. nice to play soccer. nice to meet people my age up there. plus i think i have a potential new crafting partner. his name is robin and he just finished his master's in fine arts. he specialized in ceramics, and he makes handmade paper, and he said i could maybe help him with a project he's doing (it has to do with writing out 200 fortunes and then submitting them to this art gallery, where they'll be arranged together and people can take a fortune from the pile). neat! and i think everyone goes for drinks at this one restaurant in high prairie (i think the robin boy said his brother, who also played with us, is the general manager there or something) after practice, so it might be nice to just hang out. and get wasted. just jokes.

i like living up here because i eat really, really healthy. the only liquids i have in the fridge are fresh orange juice with pulp and organic 2% milk. for breakfast i have granola and fruit and yogurt. for lunch i have multigrain bread and ham (okay, maybe ham's not all that healthy, but it sure is convenient). for supper i have spaghetti or multigrain bannock or sometimes i eat chicken or steak. i like that i live so far from a restaurant, so i pretty much have to buy all my food as groceries, and then make it myself, which means i eat better here than i do in the city.

the forcast is for rain for the next two weeks! i can spend all my time inside, doing crafts! then i will be all crafted-out when the sun is shiny, and i can go outside then! what a great time!

so. all my other coworkers are cree boys who are studying medicine or law at the u of a. just jokes. they are all girls. eff. the crushing part of me will have to lie dormant for another 4 months. in other news, i am planning on going on not one but TWO canoe trips within the next two months. and i get to go for free! hooray!

tonight i'm going to high prairie to see if i can play adult soccer with some people who live there. i don't have any cleats or shin pads or socks here. three cheers for bare feet!