i want life and every word to the extent that it's absurd

i am at work today. ugh. i don't get paid overtime ever, but we can bank hours, so i am working 6 days a week for most weeks this summer, and then taking semi-long holidays in between. which is nice during the holiday parts, but not so nice during the working parts. anyways, it is 7 hours at work where i can crochet and make wallets and maybe maybe do some actual work. i am working on compiling some information about the alberta junior high/senior high curriculum, so we can develop appropriate programs for the museum/village for those age groups. i like doing things like this, as well as working on the exhibits. but i think i might like doing personal crafting more.

yesterday i spent a little bitta time crocheting some mittens for dustan. they are green. i sent courtney a pair of mittens in the same color, and she got them and said, "thanks for the second pair of emerald green mittens." i had forgotten that i'd given her a pair in the exact same color just before i left for guyana. oops. bad memory. how embarrassing.

later on robin came over and i helped him make a wallet for his brother. it turns out that peter actually broke his leg in our game on thursday. eek. so i bet a new wallet will make him feel a lot better. the wallet was made out of the brown plaid corduroy that i am so in love with, and it has three beige spots on it and a navy blue (blue!?!) zipper and blue bias tape. i would not have chosen blue, because i hate blue, but i'll admit that it looks pretty good. hanging out was really super fun and i am sad that we only have a few more months to craft together, but it's okay because when i move back to the city joel kelly can reassume his role as my favored male crafting partner/apple juice drinker/crush-talk listener. start thinking of craft ideas now, joel. maybe lewis would like a wallet? hmm? or a pysanky? hmm?

oh, here's another thing. maybe (probably) you are sitting at home with an envelope already addressed to me, but you can't think of what you want to send me. here's an idea: you should send me a soundtrack of your life, or a soundtrack of our friendship. yeah? on cd or cassette. it doesn't matter. i know i like making friendship soundtracks on tape best, but you might like doing them on the 'puter. put whole songs and/or parts of songs that tell about you/our friendship onto the tape. make yourself a copy. it's cathartic. i will maybe even make you one back, but you'll have to wait until the fall.

in case you were wondering about my allergies: they are still making me crazy. i had to wear my glasses again today. but last time i wore them, the people at work told me i looked "nice" and "academic." thanks, nerd goggles.

an important part of thursday that i forgot to write about: on the way into soccer, i saw whole whole bunch of blue and white balloons floating over the highway that goes through high prairie. i was really happy and i thought that maybe some neat, creative person had left them there to make people happy. but then i saw that it was just part of a sale at the car dealership nearby. that made me a little less happy. but then, at the end of the game, i drove back through town and the big bunch was gone, but i also saw two blue balloons sneaking away together. maybe they were tied together. maybe they were just friends. i don't know. they floated up up up. i watched them for a bit. then i drove away.

touring the facility and picking up slack

yesterday we had a soccer game against slave lake. i didn't really want to go, because a) my allergies were kicking my ass, and b) i hate being "the girl" on the field. but i went anyways, and i'm really glad i did. the field was better than the one we usually play on, and the grass was the perfect length to hold the ball just high enough that you could get a good foot on it, and the wind was just right and it was a little bit mosquito-y and hot but still nice. and i didn't have to play the whole game. playing 90-minute shifts and practicing 2 hours a week, 6 days a week in university kind of sucked all the joy out of soccer for a while. but now the joy is back. i didn't play spectacularly, but it wasn't the worst game of my life either. and we won! i played fullback. usually i play centre de, but they put our best players there, which was a good decision. i really like being in the back. same with canoeing. i like seeing what's going on.
bad parts of the game: peter busted up his leg, and robin got really lippy in the first half and was beaking off with some guys from the other team. i was almost tempted to walk off the field because i really hate when boys are like that in sports. but robin got his shit together in the second half and apologized for being "that guy," so that was good and i appreciated it. it's northern rural alberta rec soccer, for goodness' sake. but still, i remembered how much i love playing soccer with rural boys. it's nice that guys can be really good players, but maybe they are home for the summer or whatever and they just want to play because they love the game. it's never really like that in the city. boys get so competitive and assholey in the city. don't take yourselves so seriously, boys. anyways, i still have fun with those boys and i am sad that i only have 3 months at the most left with them.

it's hot out. hot hot hot.

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!

sunned-eh.
i crocheted some mittens for kaylin. i drove myself to the lake and sat on a bench on the beach. i was the only person in the park, i think. there were no cars in the parking lot and no people on the trails or on the beach. so rad. i read a bit of "dreams from my father" by barack obama. i walked on the trail and off the trail in the forest. i yelled a bit so the bears would know i was coming and not be surprised by me and try to eat me. i like making noise in the forest and i like being quiet in the forest. i think i am going to try to go out there more often this year. i bet erin will be up for it. we can sling up my hammocks and make a fire and cook bannock and meat and play barefoot and swim and read. it will be so good.

i drove home and ironed some material that i am going to sew. i found a mouse in a mousetrap in the sewing room. i was a little bit sad but a little bit glad that he will not be getting into my food. i ate some delicious tandoori chicken left over from friday or something, and marvelled at how awesome leftovers are. remember, guyana, no fridges? but here, you can eat the same thing you ate a few days ago! with no ants or salmonella! high fives! yeah. bedtime.

today i came into high prairie. i somehow didn't realize until saturday that my job starts tomorrow and not today. so i bought a new address book and some scrapbooking paper, and now i am going to go home and recover the book. i am a thrill a minute. also, i took out lee for lunch. hot date.

so tomorrow i start work, and i know two out of five of my other co-workers, and i bet the other three will be hot; long-haired; well-educated; creative; sensitive; athletic; balanced; culturally-, politically-, and socially-aware single cree boys between the ages of 22 and 28. yep. i'd bet money on it.

saturday!
i crocheted some maroon mittens for jenni, so that she will give back my green ones. and because i like her and i don't want her hands to get cold.

i went to the grouard powwow. megs couldn't come because her family was tearing down their house, but i did see a few familiar faces and i did give my number to a double-A hockey player with no front teeth from the blood reserve who is attending the kapow'n treatment centre in grouard. awesome. he seemed friendly enough. he seems pretty committed to fixing his life up, so that's rad. also: i do not have a crush on him. so don't think that. okay? he said he does some traditional crafts, so i might get him to teach me some.

i daydreamed about the kind of regalia i'd make for myself if i danced. i declined an invitation to round dance with the boy mentioned above. i saw my favorite dancer (he's an older grass dancer from driftpile, and he is sooo rad). i received a yellow plastic bowl in the giveaway. i drove myself home at about 11, and was delighted to see the northern lights dancing as i had hoped.

i like being around people who respect dance so much. i like that no one says, "i can only dance after i've got a few drinks in me." i like seeing people who dance for themselves and to honor the people and things that they love. neat.

get up off the floor and shout! there's a lot to shout about!

i'm writing today in separate posts, because i know it's daunting to try to read a giganto-post. so:
friday, april somethingth.
i went for breakfast with jenni on whyte. nice, as usual. i packed up. i left town. i thought about driving through swan hills, because it's a pretty nice drive out that way, but i wanted to go by the burned forest just this side of slave lake, so i took my usual nakamun-esque st. albert-legal-westlock-slave lake-kinuso-driftpile-sucker creek route. so beautiful. is it a surprise to any of us that "best friend" and "boreal forest" start with the same letters? is it really? no, it's not, because the boreal forest is AWESOME. best-friend-awesome. i listened to the new tape that dustan q. made for me. well, most of it. then i listened to a "greatest hits" tape of his songs that i made a few years ago (made because i got tired of carrying around all those other tapes). although all his stuff sounds the same, i like listening to him in my car because he has pretty much the same range as i do and so singing to his songs is my favorite. it made me miss high school/early university, and the snail-mailed, one-sided conversations (in the form of those tapes) that littered my adolescence. good times.

i got in to lee's at about 6. she wasn't home, but i found the key and unloaded all my stuff. two of her kids phoned, and i talked to them both briefly (i know most of her children reasonably well). one of them said, "welcome home!" nice. i told them that i had felt a bit apprehensive about coming back, because lee was pretty sick last year and i didn't want to be an extra burden to her. both her kids told me she was so excited to have me back, and that she'd been saying for the last month, "my girl is coming back!" so cute. one of her daughters told me on saturday that i was extending her life by giving her something to be look forward to. so... that's pretty special. also, the same daughter told me that lee has never lived in such a harmonious household (her husband was kind of a jerk, and she had a lot of kids). it's pretty neat for both of us, that we can just sit in the living room together and crochet and drink tea and not talk, and she can be vivacious and i can be grandmotherly. so neat.

bed!

two more important things before i leave:
1. brad (emily's... something. unofficial boyfriend? official boyfriend? i don't know) is rad. yesterday was her last day of university EVER and he gave her a big bag of m&ms and a card! with REAL words, that he wrote HIMSELF. and lots of them! what a great boy. good catch emily, good catch.
2. i got a tape from dustan in the mail yesterday. it has been sooo long since i got one of those. of course, they all still sound the same, but i don't think any of the songs are about me anymore. kind of sad. kind of nice. it's true: band boys ARE only looking for the next thing to write a song about.
bye, emminton! take care of the ducks and the geese for me!

i kissed landon last night. i am so awesome. but i like writing about my days in chronological order, so you will have to read about all the things i did yesterday before you read more about that hot topic. or you could just skip to the bottom. whatevs.

yesterday morning i packed up all my stuff in vermilion and loaded it into my car. i have a lot of stuff, but a lot of it is for camping/crafting. i went to the hospital in town to say goodbye to grandma nancy. gido bill was there, and he had his hand on her knee and they were talking to some other old people. adorable. i didn't stay long because of their company. one of the things i was worried about most in guyana was that something would happen to one of them while i was gone, and i wouldn't get a chance to see them again. i am so glad i had this week to see them, and spend some good time with grandma.

i drove myself to edmonton. i love that drive. i stopped at our old place in innisfree and walked across the road and down a short path to the lake. i miss that place so much. my dad told me that it has only been in the last couple of years that he's started to see vermilion as "home." i still don't. i know that innisfree's not really my "home" either, but i just love those 80 acres and the lake. jenni and i went there last summer for a little bit. it is so beautiful. i still don't feel like a vermilionite, despite having lived there for 8 years. i' gon' make me some money and buy that place back.

in edmonton, i stopped off at king's for some visits. i talked with claire (my university soccer coach), who might be leaving king's this year to pursue life. i visited dr. zinck, and informed marvin bravo that he lost the title of "my favorite jamaican" to seana paul. sorry, marvin.

i went to the apartment and checked my e-mail and saw that landon had written. yessss. we kind of made plans to hang out later. i also got an e-mail saying i wouldn't be able to take this wicked awesome course called "aboriginal edmonton" during my first semester of native studies, because i don't have the pre-requisites. but, the course is only offered every two years, which means that i will miss it if i don't take it now. eff. it looks so good, and it kind of seems ridiculous that they won't let me take the course because i don't know which bill regarding the Metis was passed in 1938 or '39. come on. i have a terrible memory. even if i learn those things in class, i will forget them almost immediately.

i drove myself to hawrelak park. i juggled my soccer ball for a bit. i'm getting my juggling skills back but kind of sucking it up on my rainbow kicks (those are the ones where you use your back foot to roll the ball up your front leg, and then flick it over your head/in front of you). sometimes i'm pretty good at them. not yesterday. i went for a long walk by myself on the horse trails. so nice. the weather was perfect. then chris sims met me at the park, so i went for another walk with him. then emily and brad met up with us, and we all fed the birds together. i love feeding those birds. a really neat thing that happened was hearing a goose swim through some of the half-melted ice on the pond. the ice was kind of slurpie-consistency, and when the goose swam through it, the ice made this beautiful sound that was kind of like muted chimes or something. so neat. i drove back home and walked to remedy to buy myself some tandoori chicken for supper. i came home and ate while i watched a bit of "high fidelity." john cusack. sigh.

at about 10 p.m. i walked my fine self across high level bridge and downtown. i saw landon/jenni/mel?/liam at kaylin's, and then they went to eat while kaylin and i went for a walk. kaylin is pretty sick, and she had no voice at all. so cute. it was nice to walk around with her and talk but mostly be quiet. i like having quiet friends. i liked that i had to listen very carefully in order to hear what she was saying. we went to meet jenni & co. at coco di. we ordered waters and didn't stay long. we walked kaylin and jenni back to kaylin's, so k could go to bed and j could get her bike. landon drove me home.

i have a pretty big crush on landon, and i have for a long time. i am moving away today and he is moving far away soon. he is young and i am kind of young and we are both going to change lots. but kissing is still awesome. so that's basically how the crush ends. that boy is so fun and neat. i hope we are friends when we grow up.

pack up your bags! it's never too late!

i mostly cut out fabric yesterday, because i won't have a mat or rotary cutter at lee's. i'm pretty excited about the chocolate-brown plaid corduroy i bought at fabricland. i'm tempted to never cut it up, and instead just ball it up and cuddle with it at night. because that's what you do with good-looking things, right?

i went to see grandma again yesterday. i took her for three walks around the hospital. i decided that maybe when i am in edmonton in the fall i will see if the cross cancer or the stollery or the u of a hospital has any volunteer opportunities to take people for wheelchairs in walks. i love walks! and my grandma liked having me take her for walks, so maybe other people would too. plus, it is nice, because conversation is optional and therefore unforced and genuine. we sat and we talked about sewing for a bit. she said, "caylie, when i was younger, my sewing machine was NEVER off. i would always be doing something." i like seeing bits of my grandmothers in me. that's a special thing, i think.

my mom made blueberry crumble after supper and we watched "johnny tootall" on t.v. while i cut out more fabric. man, nathanial arcand is such a dreamboat. my neighbour is an arcand. i bet they are related.

grouard powwow on saturday! exciting! it will be nice to see people i like, and to hear good music. maybe this year i will summon enough courage to dance in an intertribal. maybe lee or megs or erin will dance with me. i really wanted to last year. it's pretty hard to be a dancer and then not dance when music is around. anyway, the kids will be adorable and the grandmothers will be beautiful and the young men will be strong and energetic and the old men will be strong but maybe a little less energetic and the scent of sweetgrass will take me to a good place and the "fif-teh fif-tehs" will be abundant and the mild tension between whites and natives will be subtley noticeable and inevitably i will say something inappropriate to someone and the northern lights will dance (hopefully). i can't wait.

i took my dad’s jeep into town yesterday. jeeps are so awesome for driving and parking in town, but i forgot how not-awesome they are on the highway. anyway, I went to visit grandma nancy in the hospital. her heart has been hurting lots lately. i gave her some pastel-colored balls of yarn and a crochet hook. she seemed pretty delighted with them. i told her that i went on a date last week with a cute boy who knows how to sew. her eyes got wide and she said, "oh, isn't that something. you hold on to him." haha. too late, grandma, too late. somebody brought a little puppy into the hospital, and she gazed at it with heartbreakingly wistful eyes. sigh. i told her i was moving up north again to live with lee, and she said it was probably very nice for both me and lee to have someone from another age group to hang out with and take care of each other (it is). she's been feeling really exhausted because of this whole heart thing, so i asked her if she wanted me to push her around the hospital in a wheelchair. she said, "oh, that would be lovely." i pushed her through the halls to the alice keith nursing home, and i saw darlene haverslew and diane ellard. she had never seen the nursing home, or at least, that's how her memory serves her, and she kept commenting on how nice it is. a neat old man who she knows stopped us to talk, and he kept on saying how great they treat him there. that was definitely a good thing, because gido bill would, i think, move into a nursing home soon, but grandma so defiantly resists. she complained about how drab the hallways in the hospital were, so i told her i'd smuggle in a can of paint so she could sneak around the hospital at night and paint the walls. gleefully, she said, "oi, yoi yoi. i'd splatter it all over!" later, she was marvelling at how i could find my way around the hospital, and said that she gets lost very easily. i told her that she could walk around and leave a trail of berries or paint behind her. she laughed. she is so adorable and frail and heartbreaking. she is still as funny as every, but her body and her mind are deteriorating pretty rapidly. talking about splattering the paint made me think about the story "the yellow wallpaper." i hope she doesn't go completely crazy, like that woman. sigh. as we came back to her room, i saw that auntie lorraine was waiting there, so i dropped grandma off with her. one of the nurses said that auntie sheila was in the hospital and needed a ride home, so i dropped her off. sometimes i'm amazed at the super-patience i can sometimes manage to exhibit. i think it's been passed down from mom and grandma marjorie. certainly not from dad. anyway, i turned into super-patient mode when i picked up auntie sheila. you know, the calm, controlled voice and the ability to not let things get personal. it turns out that i didn't even really need to. she didn't comment on how terrible my hair looks or how ugly my clothes are. she was actually pretty grateful that i gave her a ride home. nice.

after the family reunion at the hospital, mom and i went to lloyd so i could buy fabric. and HOW. fabricland had a wicked-awesome sale on, and i bought a bunch of corduroy for less than $4/m! what a thrill. i will be sewing all summer.

i came home and slung up my big hammock between two trees in the front yard. i played soccer by myself on the lawn and climbed some of the trees. when i lived here, the trees were too small to climb. now they are awesome and big and strong. i think i am going to be doing more of that today, because it is great. i am kind of wondering if i made the wrong decision about where to live for the summer. i love it up north, because the lake is wicked and being so secluded is awesome and my relationship with lee is so special, but... i'd really like to spend more time with grandma nancy right now, and my parents' house/yard is better than ever... ugh. and this is why i continue going to school. so i can avoid real-life decisions. it's not so much real-life that i hate; it's all the decisions. ugh. i am no good.

today i have to pack, and decide which craft boxes i will take with me and which i should leave here. it's a tough choice: sewing/fabric vs. crocheting/knitting vs. painting/stencilling vs. miscellaneous/collaging. i might just cave and bring them all, and just forget about bringing clothes.

also, some guy has his motorhome parked in our yard. he's friendly enough, but... it's a little weird, and i want my yard to myself today.

i am still sick. ugh. it is a beautiful day outside but all i want to do is stay inside and eat soup.

on sunday i met angie and justina and sarah and a boy named andy at the university bus stop, and we took a FREE, HYBRID ets bus to the earth day celebrations at hawrelak park. it was less enjoyable than it should have been, thanks to my sickness, but it was still neat. highlights included riding the bus (which seemed to have no shocks), hanging out with angie, talking to people at a school/organization called "caraway" and asking if i could volunteer with them next year, eating kettle corn, and learning about the new reuse centre that is opening in edmonton in the summer. neat! then i went home. i still felt sick. i watched the tenacious d movie, and later found out evan had also watched it at the same time. wierd.

yesterday i... can't really remember what i did. felt sick, mostly. (*edit*: i remember now. i spent the morning at the whyte ave medicentre, and found out that the chest pain i've been having for 5 years is not heart trouble, but likely stress-related. hooray!) i hung out with evan, currently known as "brad," at hawrelak park. wierd? a little. fun? definitely. he picked me up in a giant red pickup truck. what!?! i laughed super hard at it. sometimes we don't get along at all but sometimes we have really good conversations and do really fun things. yesterday was all about good conversations and a nice walk in the park. then i lrt'd downtown to meet mischa for tea. i really like her. i hope she will stay in edmonton for quite a while. i was going to hang out with k-lin and/or jenni, but k and i were both sick and i wanted to get back to vermilion before dark, so no hanging out happened.

my grandma is sick. i think i am going to go visit her and sit in her room and crochet.

first things first: happy earth day! i just read that calgary is the world's cleanest city (according to forbes), and saw that edmonton did not even make the top 25. it kind of makes me feel like how i would feel if a boy i had a crush on made out with my younger sister. it's a little humiliating. a little demoralizing.

anyway. another fantastic day yesterday. i remembered that the strathcona farmers' market was happening, so i invited joel and theresa to meet me there in the afternoon. i walked along saskatchewan drive and met them there around 12:30. the market was adorable, as usual, and i bought some delicious things: raspberry jam from a friendly old man, some strawberry honey, and some spicy thai lemongrass pesto. mmm. we went for milkshakes/coffee at block 1912. i tried to convince theresa to move to edmonton. i vowed to go visit winnipeg again sometime in the next couple of years.

then i went to chapters on whyte and killed time before my coffee date with emma newman at 3. it's ridiculous how many coffee dates i've been on this month. i guess it goes with the territory of coming back home from an exotic adventure. anyway, hanging out with emma was great. i'm pretty sure we would never have been friends if we hadn't played soccer together at king's, but i'm glad we are because she is so bright and crazy and motivated and awesome.

i walked back home and tried to nap but it didn't really work. i made some pasta to go with the lemongrass pesto i bought at the farmers' market. i drove to karen's house and we went to sherwood park to watch marney play a concert with some boys from jenni's band. i talked with karen's cousin, who made me feel very interesting. it was really really nice to just cuddle with karen in a church pew, like old times, and to find out that we are still pretty much on the same page spiritually. i think i needed that.

afterwards, k-rock and i went to the "theresa meinders appreciation club" party at matt and dave's house. oh! first we stopped off at karen's house so i could pick up my car and so we could eat some cookies and juice and peanut butter sandwiches because we were both starving. i saw melisa and mctaggart there, which was super nice. i like those girls. anyway, on the way to matt and dave's i was a little apprehensive because a) i am antisocial and usually hate parties, and b) i am a little bit tired of the inevitable post-university-graduation-conversation that has been popping up more than usual lately (ie. "what have you been up to?" i need to come up with a condensed version, like, "graduated in english, worked on reserve, dated boss, disaster, worked in homeless shelters, got depressed, moved up to the same reserve to work at a museum, moved to south america, came home, crafted. moving back up north for the summer, then going to school in the fall to learn about injuns*." maybe i could get business cards printed up that have my name and contacts on the front and that little sentence on the back. then i could avoid conversation entirely.). anyway, it turned out that i had nothing to worry about. the party turned out to be perhaps the most enjoyable social gathering in a dwelling-place that i have ever attended. everyone there was people that i knew well and liked lots! most of them already knew what i've been up to since king's! here are some particularly enjoyable moments:
-having dave give me a tour of the house, and being told that he has "a whole drawer full of dead things" when i saw a toy snake in his room. he wasn't kidding! he opened the middle drawer under his bed, and we proceeded to spend 15 minutes looking at skulls, snake skins, feathers, and stuffed birds. that boy is so awesome and ridiculous.
-talking with joel and laughing pretty uncontrollably at the fat turtle-lip he iced, acquired when wrestling with his younger brother lewis. he was unusually grumpy and unusually drunk, both of which were simultaneously enjoyable and troubling to me.
-ordering pizza! so simple; so awesome.
-talking with bri, and feeling reassured that if "satan has a hold" on me, at least he "has a hold" on a whole bunch of other king's graduates. also feeling not so bad about doing trashy "experiments" sometimes.
-having close friends who would willingly, nay, FORCEFULLY, eat the remnant cheese i pick off from my pizza. also, making a deal with matt to have pizza fairly regularly at the native studies wing next year, where even more picking-off-and-sharing-of-cheese can take place.

man, i forgot how awesome we all are. hopefully everyone who stayed in edmonton this year will be around next year, and the few stragglers will be convinced to move here soon. i don't know if edmonton can even handle such a high concentration of awesomeness. wing nights! open mic nights! recycling! grammar editing! dance parties! i can hardly wait.


*please don't get offended that i say "injuns," at least not on behalf of indigenous north americans. when i say it, it's meant as a dig at manifest-destiny-esque european ignorance. mmkay?

coming home after 1:00 a.m. TWO nights in a row!?! it's like i just turned 18.

i've decided that there is a cosmic rulebook somewhere that says, "if you are a boy, you have to hurt cayliedawn's feelings." so that's nice, because now i can stop taking things personally and remember that everything that happens is just according to the rule. sweet.

yesterday i felt yucky in the morning so i just stayed at home and played nintendo. i went to estee's fabrics to see if i could find some grey corduroy for a bag i am making for jenni, but it is spring and everyone has their heavy materials put away. boo. then i was kind of going crazy in my apartment, but luckily jenni called and asked me if i wanted to walk to cjsr with her and liam. okie-dokes. after that, we drove to west ed to see jessica at hmv. we shared a delicious cinnamon bun served by an abrupt young man at cinnzeo. i dropped jenni off at her home. i went home and tried to nap but still felt yucky, so i charged up my ipod and then left my house around 6 to walk to/around downtown. i had to go to the bathroom so i stopped at shaw conference centre and there was some volunteer appreciation night going on. some funny old ladies were trying to sell some crafts, and there was an old man wearing a hat that was made to look like a wolf's head. what? then i headed to HMV in city centre, but as i was passing kaylin's apartment, someone ran up to me and touched me on the arm. it was becky mcclelland! strange. stranger: her boyfriend had seen me from across the street and said to her, "that person looks like you." and becky said, "that's not me. that's caylie!" the mcclelland girls and i have a little bit of a history of people mistaking us for each other. so that was nice, to see becky and meet her boyfriend.

after HMV, i got a b.j. for free. i stopped at the booster juice at city centre. i told the boy (who was really friendly and young and skater-ish) that i wanted an orange creamsicle with fresh orange juice. he burped really loud in front of me without turning away. i told him that i deserved a discount for that. he saw that he had no fresh orange juice (at bj's, they usually squeeze orange juice in the mornings and then have it on hand all day, so they don't have to clean the juicer late at night), so he said that in light of the no-fresh-o.j./burping, he would make me a smoothie for free! hooray! and THEN, while he was making it, he started singing sean paul! best b.j. experience ever!

i went to kaylin's afterwards, and the two of us went to second cup and talked. nice. then we went back to her house and played with her kitties and looked at her books. their place is pretty neat, even though it's a little messy right now because of moving.

we went to see illfit outfit. lots of great people were there; most notably, karen fernhout! i have not seen her in a long time. nice to hang out and dance and have band crushes together. nice to dance with marney, also. nice that emily and brad came - we are finally starting to be hang-out friends, after 3 years of living in the city together! it was a really ridiculously fun time, and i got really ridiculously hot and sweaty. ew. i'm glad i had a chance to dance, though.

i am going to the farmer's market. goodbye.

i've decided that my day-to-day life exists on a continuum, with "drama" on one end and "crafting" on the other.

it's been hovering towards the "drama" side lately.

i've decided facebook.com has not reached its full potential until there is an anti-facebook sermon somewhere in the world, preferably in the southern united states.

in other news, i think i have a cavity. thanks, guyanese diet!

i am going to buy some corduroy.

yesterday i went for thursday-night-wings with jenni-girl! which traditionally turns into thursday-night-stomach-aches-with-jenni-girl. who's jealous?

p.s. this is me unofficially re-opening thursday night wings. an official ceremony will take place in september. you are invited.

i went to calgary for a few days. it was great!

i bussed there on greyhound. i've heard red arrow is a mazillion times better, so maybe i will take it next time. i didn't really have any complaints with greyhound though. i bought my ticket 14 days in advance and got a big discount! like, 40% or something. good on me. a boy about my age sat in the seat next to me, and kept trying to talk to me, even though i pretty obviously didn't want to talk (i was pretty tired and just not feeling sociable at all). i kept turning my head to the window and closing my eyes and saying, "i'm tired," but he still kept talking. apparently he plays soccer with all the vermilion boys, so maybe he thought we were "connected"? ugh. anyway, he kept talking and talking and talking, and then he finally said, "hey, if you want me to shut up, just say so." i guess the head-turning-away and eyes-closing had not been obvious enough. so i said, "yeah, i think i'm gonna sleep now." so he stopped talking for a bit. later, when i was in calgary, i saw that he had added me on facebook. what!?! maybe... don't do that, okay? yes.

anyway, the rest of calgary was much better. kelseydawn and i did a lot of fun and cute things. i might forget some, but here are some highlights, in mostly chronological order:
-the location of her house is SO convenient. we could just walk to kensington and downtown. perfect.
-watching TMNT in theatres. the movie as a whole was lame, but there were some really cute parts in it. plus, michelangelo has been my longest-standing crush, so it was good to see him again.
-getting one malaria pill with relatively little hassle (but being charged a ridiculous amount). i had forgotten my malaria pills in vermilion, and you're supposed to take those ones for 4 weeks after you return home. i didn't have them, but i didn't really want to risk getting malaria, so i had to get one. one. ugh. luckily, we went to a thrift store that was right next to a medicentre, so i stopped in to get the prescription. then i went to the pharmacy and got my one pill - which cost $14! eff you, western medicine. so... that was kind of sucky, especially because i rarely ever lose/forget things. whatevs.
-teaching kelseydawn how to crochet.
-watching some really good movies (borat, the science of sleep, rushmore, rad) without having kelsey fall asleep, as usual. if anyone hasn't (or has, i guess) seen the science of sleep and wants to watch it, let's do it! i am up for it.
-being inspired by rushmore to make "punctuality" and "perfect attendence" shirts for ourselves (this hasn't gotten past the inspired stage yet).
-going to the telus world of science. we watched a documentary on whales (not enough killer whales in it), saw an exhibit on toys from the 50s and 60s, and got a million kid-germs from touching all the exhibits. hooray!
-making kites! that didn't fly! we made some cute kites out of colored tissue paper and wooden dowels. we took them across the street to the park below SAIT. we tried to fly them. we would run super fast but all they would do is swirl around really fast behind us and then dive into the ground. boo. we laughed pretty ridiculously hard though.
-going longboarding at a quiet little park and sitting and watching some ducks. i love ducks and geese in the spring/summer. so cute.
-maybe there was more but i forget some of it. it was just 5 days of funness. then i bussed home.


here is the awesomeness that was yesterday:
-bussing back from calgary without any talkative boys sitting next to me.
-registering for classes at the u of a next year. so exciting!!! i am going to be taking: introductory cree, native issues and insights i and ii, northwest coast anthropology, aboriginal edmonton, archaeology, socio-cultural anthropology, research methods in native studies, and urban aboriginal issues. neat!!! i decided not to go with a course overload as i had originally planned, mainly because i am too lazy to ask permission from the faculty to do it but also because i have a mazillion things i want to do next year and i should probably just let myself do them instead of filling up my life with class. i'm awesome!
-picking up my new sewing machine. !.
-napping.
-going for a walk by myself at hawrelak, and seeing all the geese and ducks. heart! it was really nice because there were very few people there (like, 4 or 5) because the weather was not so good. i had wanted to play around with the new soccer ball i bought, but, again, the weather was icky so i didn't.
-hanging out with landon a.r.! why weren't we friends a million years ago!?! we've been at all the same stuff at the same time all our lives! almost. what happened? anyways, i had fun. and THEN emily and her something-friend brad found us and we all went for supper. i like them! emily's so great and dumb and funny and i like her a lot. and brad is neater than i thought he was. i never thought he was not-neat, but now i think he's extra neat. i like that he's smart. go for smart boys, -nyra girls. i told emily today that he may be the second best &nyra-boyfriend ever, after trentington. that is, pre-post-caylie TSB. before he went all, well, like he is now. anyway, emily and brad are great, and i am planning on living vicariously through them this summer, with all their cute plans to go to the ledge and hawrelak and some shows and being all cute and crush-y. jea-lous.

dear dairy,
i had the best day of all days today! first, when i woke up, i talked to kelseydawn on the phone (because i am going to see her tomorrow and needed to know if i needed to bring anything in particular. and the answer is yes: a bathing suit and a longboard, not to be used together. yay! i like that our swimming/longboarding skills match. as in, we are both mediocre at both. bff.). i like her lots. then i went to the tory building at the u of a, to pick up some "consent of department" forms for some anthropologt classes for next year (i start registration next week). i loved being in the halls! i love school so much! i can't wait! also, i ran into alyssa just when i was getting out of the elevator. weird. then i went to pembina hall (where the native studies offices are) to pick up some more "consent of department" forms, and the lady at reception told me to talk to matt, who turned out to be my "shadow" matt blimke! i knew he worked there, but it was nice that he was the person that i needed to talk to. he gave me a tour of pembina hall (it is amazingly cute, and i can't wait for classes there next year), and i met some neat people. one of the ladies i met was working on a master's thesis on a prayer book by bishop grouard. grouard!?! that's the town i am working in/worked in last summer! as part of my museum job, we give tours of bishop grouard's mission! crazy! (he's a neat guy, by the way. he was a catholic missionary who served the area between edmonton and alaska for over 60 years, doing most of his travelling by foot. he spoke 7 languages - french, english, and five aboringinal languages. so neat. he translated the entire bible into cree syllabics. he did some really neat paintings in his churches, using all-natural dyes. he was a good guy, i think. ALSO! he had the first printing press in alberta - he brought it over from france, where he was originally from. AND - get this - it is rumored that the first book ever printed in alberta was done on his press - in an indigenous language (i would guess cree, but maybe not)! how's that for some neat history!?! good on ya, grouard. anyway. i digress. back to my wicked awesome day. i left pembina hall and lrt'd to northlands coliseum, where a sewing and crafts show was being held at the sportex. i was tempted to go in, but a) $12 is too much to pay for admission, and b) i am kind of creeped out by quilting ladies. maybe because i know i will become one soon. so, i got back on the lrt and went to bay station. i listened to sufjan on my ipod on the lrt. i love the lrt. i love turbulence on airplanes because it reminds me of the lrt. from bay station i walked to the second cup on jasper ave and i had a vanilla bean hot chocolate made by the fantastic kaylin betteridge. she was too busy to talk much but she looked cute in her brown apron. then i walked to the ledge to drink my hot chocolate. ledge = maybe my favorite place in the city. i drank my hot chocolate pretty fast because i needed to get back to the university for... wait for it... this is why i need a form of cyclical writing...

before i went to the university, i walked on the edge of the ledge wading pool. there was no water in it yet but i just like walking there. and i found a toonie!!! the world is comin' up caylie! i walked back across the high level bridge (east side - also maybe one of my favorite places in the city) and went back to the university for...

...bannock and tea in the native studies department! at first i felt awkward because the room was full of people i didn't know, but then one of the ladies i had met that morning invited me to get something to eat. so i did, and then i started talking with the grouard lady. then i saw a girl named jill, who had worked for AFL in sucker creek for two summers before i was there! then matt blimke came in, so i had TWO friends! and THEN i saw a girl named amanda, who had gone on a ghost river rediscovery internship (just like mine to guyana, only hers was to dominica)! wow! so many people! nice to talk with them all.

then i walked back to the apartment to pick up alyssa. mom and dad think emily and i exclude her a lot of the time, so i tried to engage her by asking her to go make-up shopping with me. what!?! i haven't bought/worn make-up in 5 years, and even then it was the first time in about 5 years before that. anyways, in guyana, i just decided i wanted to feel better about how i look, which included not looking like a drab, tired housewife all the time. so we went to west edmonton mall to buy make-up. ew. i am embarassed for myself for saying that. okay, but first, we stopped at a sewing place on 142nd and I BOUGHT A SEWING MACHINE!!! yes, i did. congratulations, self. i don't have it yet - i am going for a little tutorial next thursday, and i'll pick it up then. thrilling. AND the machine was A HUNDRED DOLLARS LESS than i had originally seen it listed for in lloydminster. yeah!

so... sewing machine, make-up, then i dropped alyssa off at josh's and went to see miss jenni at her house. i sure do like her a lot. she looked all... not-fashionable, which is a rare thing for her, i think. we had a nice talk and tried to remind each other that satan does not have a hold on either of us. things are really coming together for her, and i guess for me too. that's exciting. i hope she stays in emminton for a long while. i like having good people in my city. i wish kelseydawn would leave calgary and move here. i love edmonton. also, matt blimke told me he loves edmonton. i like that. our city is so neat! we have really good recycling! is anyone listening!?!

i said goodbye to jenni. i went home. i showered. i had a bitta tea, i played a bitta nintendo. i picked jenni up from the riverdale hall and we went to pick up supper at planet organic. we listened to some mediocre soca and some fan-friggin-tastic sean paul. we picked up kaylin and blake. we went back to riverdale hall or whatever. illfit outfit played a show. things i liked about it: my crush. jenni being all cute. the EPs. things i didn't like: all the underage kids making me feel all grandmothery (in a bad way) and not cool. i wanted to dance but the lights were too bright, and the kids were too... highschooly. i picked up a neat magazine in pembina hall, so i read that a bit. i drove kaylin and blake home. i went home.

eff. i am tired. in a few hours i will see kelseydawn!

i'm the best!

so... i am back in alberta. i WAS back in alberta on saturday, but dial-up internet ensured that no one would find out until now.

the 28-hour trip home from georgetown was okay. i watched "happy feet" (maybe the story of my life), "freedom writers" (also, maybe the story of my life), and "for your consideration" (not really at all the story of my life) on the planes. a japanese man sitting next to me tried to recline my chair for me (and i DID NOT ask him to do it) and then asked to use some of my lip balm. EW!!! i bought a couple of books by barack obama. crystal and i were overwhelmed by the access to free toilet paper, and were tempted to steal and hoard some (it's every man for himself in the rupununi). i went to tim hortons in toronto with my new friend catherine during my 8-hour layover. air canada paid for crystal and me to stay in a hotel for a few hours in toronto. i cried when i said goodbye to crystal in the toronto airport. i am glad to be home.

we had easter dinner yesterday at our house with my grandparents. they are so crazy. they've been married over 60 years, and they were all hand-holdy and cute. my grandma sang the hat song that she always sings when she comes over ("i had a hat when i came in, i hung it on the rack. i'll have a hat when i go out, or i'll break somebody's back."). she got really excited about the food my mom prepared (wide-eyed: "meatballs! they're my favorite!"). she got really really ridiculously excited when i gave her some of my yarn to make some afghans (she had run out of all her yarn, and she likes to crochet all day to keep herself busy. all over the house, she has these 2' x 3' crocheted pieces she tries to pass off as "afghans." good try, nancy). she cackled like a witch when i gave them to her.

i made a few shirts yesterday. one is blue and coral and has a stripe and three moose on it. the other is all coral but i am beading a brown ant onto it. i think tomorrow i am going to make a green one with maybe some red caiman on it or something. also, i started working on a bag but i have to buy some red lining for it today or tomorrow.

breaking the hearts of young edmontonian men everywhere, i regret to inform the interweb that i will be moving up north at the end of april to work at the museum i worked at last summer. sorry, boys. you'll have to wait another 4 months. for everyone else: i will be in emminton fairly regularly, so chill out. we will do fun things. we will fly kites. we will go to the ledge on canada day. we will go to elk island park and hawrelak park and go to mediocre restaurants (that's for you, jenni) and eat ice cream. we will go to the vermilion fair. i will run up a $300 long distance bill from up north. you will not come visit me. not a single one of you. thanks. it ain't no thing.

oh! there's a powwow up north at the college i'll be working at on saturday, april 28. if you'd like to come, you're more than welcome to come up with me (although you might have to either bus back or get a ride back with my dad). let me know.

i am an egg

the day before i left the rupununi, the north rupununi junior wildlife clubs held their annual festival at bina hill. i was only there for the first day, but it was pretty packed with neat activities: a costume and banner parade (as usual, pictures are on facebook, and more will come when i get back home), cassava grating races, cotton spinning competitions, archery, volleyball... the best part was the costume parade. the kids made AMAZING carnivale-style costumes using only wire/branches, newspaper, and spray paint. new craft ideas!!!

saying goodbye was hard. i am so excited to be home, but it's always hard for things to end. i will miss the youth a lot. one of the girls told me she would miss me a lot, and i said that there would be new interns soon to take our places. she said, "they won't be like you." i said, "what, grumpy all the time?" she said, "no. they won't gaff with us like you did." so that made me feel good. the two best parts about guyana, for me, were long walks across the savannah and just messing around with everyone in the back. listening to the boys sing bob marley. making kissy noises back at gilbert. complaining about b.h. (a multi-purpose phrase the boys started using to describe bina hill as well as pretty much anything else, thanks to its similarity to the word "bitch.").

this part will sound egotistical; i don't mean for it to. one thing i've learned in guyana is that i can have what i want. i mean, i've realized i'm interesting/intelligent/ambitious/attractive/educated/balanced/experienced enough to have the things i want: the kind of job i want, the kind of husband i want, the kind of house i want (namely, the kind of elaborate craft and sewing room i want), the kind of life i want. last time i dated, i stuck with the relationship for a long time even though it wasn't everything i wanted, just because i thought it was the best i could get. now i know better. i hope that if you don't know that about yourself, that you learn it soon.

i am in georgetown. i will be home in 4 sleeps. count 'em. 4.

i was woken up today at 5 a.m. by a cockroach running across my face. wtf? how did a cockroach get inside my mosquito net? i can only assume it was a final farewell from all the animals who have visited my bed over the last 6 months: roaches, centipedes, ants, wasps, mosquitos, flies, spiders, and i think even some lizards. next time, roaches, maybe you could just send a letter. or if you can't write, maybe you could get your friends together and stand so that your bodies spell, "fare thee well, caylie," and then when i flick the lights on you can all yell, "surprise!" except that you can't yell. maybe you could all wiggle your antennae at the same time and i would know you are meaning to yell "surprise." also, we don't have any lights or light switches here, so you would just have to wait patiently in formation as the sun rises. thanks, roaches. thanks.

freedom from myself and from the land

i went for a long walk to the anaconda pond by myself today. it was maybe the last time i'll get to do it, because we'll be pretty busy tomorrow doing wildlife festival, and then i fly out to georgetown on monday. anyway, the walk was great because:
1. the rainy season has started, so the entire path was under about 2 inches of water. at first i walked along the side, on the mushy savannah grass, but then i just decided to walk in the water. good decision. the ground is usually very very hard and very very hot, but this time it was very very soft and the water was just nice and warm.
2. i saw two snakes! i've been wanting to see snakes my whole time in guyana, and i hadn't seen ANY wild ones until last week. in the last week, i've seen THREE! the first one i saw today was a little one, about 6 or 8 inches long, right close to my foot. it was black and yellow. the other one was bigger: about 3 or 4 feet long, and about 1.5 inches fat. it was the same color. it was about 2 metres away from me when i first saw it, and it slithered across the savannah grass and up a tree. neat.

it hit me today: the debilitating emotion that always comes when goodbyes are near. i hate it. i don't think that people understand that the reason i am reluctant to start friendships and hang out with people is not because i am an antisocial bitch; it's because i just end up loving people and places so much that i can't handle when relationships end or i have to leave places i've grown to love. my heart literally aches for days (i developed a persistent ache in my chest in second year university, and i think it's related to emotion/stress) and i just cry and cry and cry. ugh. i am excited to get back home. i am NOT excited to leave.

the long-haired amerindian boy mentioned a few posts earlier wrote me a couple of e-mails today. arg. firstly, he called me "cayl" - don't ever, ever do that. secondly, his spelling was atrocious. you just ruined any chances you might have possibly had there, boy. it's official: i refuse to date any boy who doesn't know the difference between "its" and "it's." same goes for "they're/their/there" and "your/you're/yore." in other boy news, i told the guy who invited me to a cricket world cup game in georgetown that i had flown back to canada early, and therefore couldn't make the game. he seemed nice enough, but i just a) didn't want to put myself in a potentially bad situation, and b) didn't want to have to stumble through conversation for SEVEN HOURS, which is apparently the length of the cricket world cup games. i hope i don't run into him when i'm in g-town. yikes.