another highlight:

my neat rowing friends erica and claire are/will be living in edmonton this summer! erica has been living in halifax and going to NSCAD, while claire has been living in china and going to school. i sure like them both a lot, and i am excited for vanilla cokes and arts and crafts talk with erica and quiet crafting nights specialized for extreme introverts and NDP-appreciation conversations with claire.

organized and in control

a quick update:

-i was in edmonton last week for training. i was feeling grumpy and yucky all week. here's why:
1. dustan, who has been one of my closest friends for over 10 years, called me just before training to say that: a) he was getting married, and b) that we couldn't be friends anymore as a result of (a). i thought he was joking. guess not. i'm pretty mad/hurt, even still. i'm not sure if i'll get over it. i guess i always imagined we'd be at each other's weddings. i even imagined us being in each other's wedding parties (his sister had men as "bride's attendants" and women as "groom's attendants," instead of only bridesmaids and groomsmen. i guess i always thought we'd both do the same). fuck it. oh, i forgot to mention that dustan was at training all week because he's working at another one of the provincial historic sites. we didn't talk once all week. it felt like a week-long slap in the face. i guess i just don't buy into the idea that you can turn friendships on and off like faucets. but it seems like a lot of people i know think you can. or maybe it's just that i'm a really dislikeable person.
2. i don't like big groups of people, and i don't like being around new people. and training was a big group of new people. panic attack.
3. i was period-y, which means i was extremely irritable until tuesday morning, and then completely exhausted after that. it is pretty debilitating.
4. possibly as a result of the dustan thing (although this happened both before and after), i keep having recurring dreams that my friends get in big yelling fights with me and don't want to be my friends anymore because i "make bad decisions." so i have been feeling extra lonely and vulnerable, because that theme seems to be permeating my awake life and my asleep life.
5. i had to miss my last aerials class for training. boo.
6. i ordered high speed internet for our trailer but it isn't working. the connection is messed up and we have to wait until may 28th for a technician to come, and i bet they'll charge me a ton and say it was all my fault. so i have been stealing wireless from someone in our trailer park whose username is "brad is gay."

but. there have been highlights:
1. hanging out with jessica at good earth cafe, and then walking with her to liam's (and walking back by myself). i think that she and robin are the people who think most similarly to me. it is comforting to be around them. also, jessica gave me a copy of some lyrics to a song she wrote, as i had requested to read them. i sure do like her.
2. hanging out with emily and going to visit jenni and shamira and their new baby kitties in their new apartment.
3. eating wok box (i had butter chicken - i am still not into any other kind of asian food), watching "rearview window," and crying on my sister's couch about dustan, all in the company of my new-ish but destiny-occurring friend nathan. i like the way our friendship is. i am excited to watch it grow.
4. hanging out with jonathan immediately after hanging out with nathan. actually, they kind of overlapped - nathan and i picked up jonathan downtown and then we dropped off nathan. jonathan and i went back to my sisters' and sat on the couch and i told him all about the dustan story (and cried again) and we just talked and talked. jonathan is one of those "big talks" kind of friends, but that day neither of us had energy for one of those talks, so we just chilled. it was nice.
5. crafting with natasha. that might have been our last crafting time at her current location. those crafting sessions have been one of the few regular activities i have had this year that i've always really looked forward to. she is moving to seattle soon. i am also looking forward to seeing how our friendship evolves. maybe we will become letter-writing friends. maybe visiting friends. i don't know. so many possibilities. but we will not just shut each other off. that is not the way that friends work. also, she gave me a typewriter that is pretty much identical to the one i have now. the only differences are that the letters are slightly larger on this one, and the keys are shaped a little differently and are grey instead of black. but the cases are the exact same. so now i have one for my place here and one for at my parents'.
6. letters from caitlan and robin waiting for me when i got back from edmonton.
7. i have lots and lots and lots of ideas for my work, and i've pretty much been given the go-ahead to follow through on them. one idea involves doing costuming for the children who will come and visit as school groups. another involves making up "story bundles" for the really small kids who visit. ask me about that sometime - i think it's pretty neat (that one wasn't my idea, but i think i will take it on as a project).
8. oh! i nearly forgot! this is probably the biggest one. i got my $6000 cheque for my internship at the smithsonian institution's national museum of the american indian! so... i am officially in. my 10-week internship will start on september 21 and go until november 27. i've already booked a place to stay, and it seems really perfect for me. i don't want to post details on the internet, but you can ask me about it if you want and i'll tell you all about it and send you links for pictures. adventure city!
9. i love my computer. i bought a macbook at the end of the school year, so i would have it for the summer and for my internship. i also bought the student version of CS4 design premium (primarily so i could do my cree books, which i haven't started yet because no one has confirmed funding and i've been working on other things), and i've been watching tutorials on all the things that are possible on the programs. AND i am in love with macbook's "spaces" and "exposé" applications. swoon. who needs friends when i have exposé and spaces? they make me feel so organized and in control!
10. work starts at 10... so i never have to get up earlier than 8:30 (although i often do). i could even wake up that late if i'm at my parents' the night before work and have to drive in from there. i am going to continue pursuing work with hours like these.

natasha's right - i will just write about the recent past, and hopefully eventually get around to writing about the slightly more distant past when i have time.

so. i moved away. in april, alyssa and i packed up all of our things and moved out of the apartment emily, alyssa, and i have shared for the past 6 years. alyssa moved into the condo my parents bought last year, and will be living there with emily for at least a year. after sorting through about 1/10th of my belongings (ie. actually determining whether i should take each and every item to the garbage, ecostation, reuse centre, recycling, donate it to goodwill, or keep it), i eventually just indiscriminately shoveled everything into plastic bins and put them in my parents' basement. neither of my parents are very pleased with this arrangement. oh well. a few choice items survived the mass packaging, and are keeping me comfortable at either my old bedroom in my parents' house, or my new bedroom in my trailer in elk point. both of these are parts of my homes for the summer.

i took a job working as a museum interpreter at fort george and buckingham house near elk point, alberta (which is about 55 minutes north of my parents' place). i like being in rural areas for 1/3 of the year, and i like being near boreal forest (we're actually in parkland, just south of the boreal forest, but it's just a 10-km drive to spruce and pine foresty goodness), and i like doing museum work. and i like working for the provincial government. so it's all a pretty good deal. plus, the government provides free housing for its workers there, which is essentially like adding about $500 to every monthly paycheque. right now i share the house with a dude named cameron, who is significantly younger than me. but he's easy to live with, so that's good. he very graciously allowed me to have the largest bedroom, which has an extra twin-sized bed in it (which means that you are more than welcome to come visit me there sometime!), as well as an en-suite bathroom. good deal. i've been stealing wireless internet from one of my neighbours in the trailer park, but i've ordered high-speed internet from telus, so hopefully i will be legit soon. the biggest frustration with the house right now is that our fridge is broken, so we can't even store leftovers from suppers to take to work the next day for lunch. in guyana, we didn't have any refrigeration, so i know what a pain in the ass it can be. and if you don't know, you should unplug your fridge for a week. gah. but it's okay being up there. i'm not totally in love with it yet, but i think that might have to do with the fact that it's still so brown and yucky in the forest. when things are greener i think i will like it more. i like learning about the forts and alberta's history. apparently workers like me are encouraged to learn "historical skills" while at this job, so during slow times, i might learn how to finger weave or skin a hide or something. i'm more of a craftster, but there are some other neat skills i'd like to learn if the opportunity presents itself.

i need to go to bed. i am at my sisters' right now because my coworkers and i have training in edmonton over the next 3.5 days. so if you read this and want to hang out, give me a call on my cell! i will write more later.