the way shadows colonize snow

on thursday (december 20th) i woke up around 8:00. i showered and then LRT'd downtown so i could drop off a few books (i had read "the old man and the sea" over the previous couple of days) and take out a couple more. then i LRT'd/walked down to 109th, where picked up a few groceries (a happy planet smoothie, an apple, some rosebuds) from save-on-foods and then walked to pura vida on 112th to get a gift certificate for emily for christmas. then i walked to the grandin LRT station and LRT'd home. i finished packing up some things, and met landon downstairs at my apartment. devotees of my blog will remember landon as the last boy i kissed. we’ve barely communicated since then, but that all changed when landon needed a ride down to southern alberta to watch jonathan k. in a play. so, we made plans to go visit jon together. i had hoped that seeing each other again would either result in:
a) more awkwardness than we had ever experienced, which, given our history, is a lot to ask, or
b) becoming good friends like we should have years ago.
so, given my hopes for awkwardness or friendship, my calculations were significantly thrown off when landon announced at my doorstep that he had invited his friend jessica to come along. he kind of said it, like, “oh, you didn’t know?” how could i POSSIBLY know? it was supposed to be a surprise for jonathan that jessica was coming, so jon didn’t know and therefore couldn’t tell me, and landon hadn’t told me earlier, so…? ugh. boys. anyways, even though it was a surprise, i was glad that jessica was there, firstly because i think her presence helped to diffuse any potential awkwardness, and secondly BECAUSE SHE IS AMAZING. i will write more about her radness in future blogs.

anyway, i drove the three of us to rosebud, alberta (a magical little tim burton-esque town of 100 people near drumheller) so we could watch jonathan perform in a play. jonathan's play was neat, and we all had a good time hanging out and talking and eating spaghetti. then we went to a "kitchen party" at jonathan's neighbour's house, where a ton of people from town came over and had tea and then played christmas music. it was really nice, but i can't deal with a lot of people, so i went out for a walk for myself in the moonlight. it was so, so quiet and beautiful. i love the moon and i love the quiet. when i came back, jonathan and landon and jessica went out for a walk, and i started to go with them, but realized i was mega tired, so i went back to the house to go to bed.

the next morning i got up at 8:30, showered, and went over to jonathan's (because i had slept over at his neighbour's, because it's a majorly christian town, and girls aren't allowed to sleep over at boys' houses). we ate some breakfast and hung out for a bit, but jon had class at 10:30, so we decided to leave for home then. we stopped in red deer for some hot chocolate. i think jessica mostly slept in the back of my car on the way home, and landon and i talked a lot. he is going to school right now in ottawa, and he's really on about eastern orthodox christianity lately. it was really great talking to him then, i think mostly because it seems like we are doing the exact opposite things in school right now: i am learning about culture and ritual and worldviews without learning about spirituality, and he is learning all about spirituality without focusing much on culture and ritual and worldviews. i wish i could get an education where all those things are combined. it really made me appreciate going to king’s, where all the students and profs just assumed that the spiritual side of life is real and unavoidable. granted, that assumption was with a christian slant, but it was still nice to have. i had one really great prof this semester, dr. palmer, who always spoke with the assumption that the beliefs of the people she works with are true. i just found that, particularly in my intro anthro classes, people spoke really dismissively of the beliefs of people from other cultures, and maybe without recognizing it, consistently used a generally middle-class, white north american agnostic (or even atheistic?) set of assumptions as the standard by which all other beliefs were measured. yeesh. dr. palmer even said that some academics are accused of "going indian" (or whatever culture they are working with) if they get involved spiritually with the beliefs of that culture. apparently it is seen as a pretty negative thing in the academic world. yikes. anyways, i hate the word "spirituality" in the first place, because i don't really think that there's a difference between things that are "spiritual" and "non-spiritual," but whatever. sorry i've even given that word weight by using it in this post, but i wasn't sure how to convey what was happening in those discussions without using it. anyway. landon and i had some really interesting talks. i dropped jessica off at her house when we got to edmonton. before she got out of my car, she asked for my phone number so that she could pay me some gas money for the trip sometime. i said something like, “phew, i’m really glad you asked, because i was trying to figure out how to trick you into giving me your phone number so we could hang out, but i was too nervous to do it.” landon told me to grow some balls. anyways, it turns out that both jessica and i wanted each other’s numbers so that we could be hang out friends. there was not even any trickery involved. more about that later. anyway, landon's mom picked him up from my apartment building. right away i went inside and had a nap.