he made me a tape of bootlegs and b-sides

wednesday was my first day of classes. exciting! the classes i have this term are: archaeology, socio-cultural anthropology, native issues and insights I, northwest coast societies from an anthropological perspective, and introductory cree. woo! later on, meghan and i ate at julio's barrio (because no one we worked with at the museum had ever been there, and they wanted to go. unfortunately, none of the rest of them showed up) and then walked home and painted watercolors and watched "high fidelity." (as a side note: i really do apologize for not citing my sources in MLA style. i know i don't capitalize, but citing sources correctly is a bigger deal to me. anyway, my screen on this new computer won't let me make italics, etc., and i don't know html. sorry.)

on thursday joel alexander and i met at 8 for a free pancake breakfast put on by the u of a students' association. i thought we would have to wait in line much longer than we did. we only waited for about 5 minutes. then we ate our breakfast in the native studies' tipi and then we hung out in the chem building and played with dry ice. i had some more classes. no crushes in them. later on i went for hot chocolate downtown with kaylin and we had a good talk. i think we always have good talks. then we went to see blake's band play at the starlight room with another band called "art brut." they were pretty amazing. i think i would have enjoyed the show if i hadn't been so tired/hungry, but i think blake enjoyed it enough to cover everyone. i don't know if i've ever seen someone so happy.

on friday i woke up really late, which was okay. i only had one class - my cree lab - but i will have more labs starting next week. i went to the doctor and she things i have asthma. another great quality i can add to my nerd list. later on i went to a meeting for the u of a rowing club. tryouts start tomorrow, and i am pretty nervous, because i can't really jog or do work-out-y things. i'm pretty decent at rowing, but i hope i don't get cut because i suck at push-ups. ugh.

on saturday i had soccer practice with a women's intramural team i might play with this fall. they seem neat and right at my level, which is nice. a lot of the girls are mexicans, and they give cute cheek-kisses to each other and yell in spanish a lot. cute. afterwards my parents and my sisters and my sisters' boyfriends and i went out for lunch at chianti's to celebrate my birthday. my mom and my dad gave me a rotary mat and a rotary cutter and a big clear plastic ruler (quilting/sewing supplies) for my birthday. woo! now i just need a flat, uncarpeted surface to cut my fabric on. later on, kaylin and i went to the sleeping bag drive-in at the u of a. it was supposed to be outside at QUAD, which would have been unassailably cute, but since it had rained all day, the movie was inside. it was still kind of cute anyway. kaylin and i brought lawn chairs and each cuddled up under blankets we had sewn ourselves. the movie they showed was "blades of glory." meh.

today emily and i hung out. i got some pictures developed so i could hang some new ones on my walls. we also went to michael's and then checked out the open house at the city arts centre. there are lots of neat programs on there this fall. you should check them out. afterwards we made multigrain chocolate chip cookies together. later on, i went to dr. e's because she was having a little party for a neat lady she knows. i saw linda and matt and dr. zinck, all of whom i haven't seen recently. i mostly hung out with bri, who, as always, was really great to talk with. then i finished collaging my scribblers, and now i am going to sleep.

oh! also, colin and i might be friends again. i can't say for sure, but it looks promising. that might be my most exciting news.

heyyy brother

so... i drove to calgary on friday. kelseydawn and i met up with a girl who worked for ghost river rediscovery, and who gave me a letter from the guyanese girl who wrote me a letter just before i left guyana (i wrote about it a while ago - if you're a new stalker or just a friend with a bad memory, go back a few months and read it). we spent the rest of the day hanging out on kensington and 17th ave., watching arrested development episodes on dvd, watercoloring, and eating tacos. the next morning we got up early and drove to canmore to go caving at "rat's nest cave." apparently, the cave has pack rats, which was surprising to us because we had believed alberta to be "rat free." also, "dutch elm disease" free. these beliefs, i suppose, developed over years of driving west out of lloydminster and seeing the "prevent dutch elm disease" signs. also, a boy in my high school class used to call saskatchewanites (?) "ratlanders," supposedly because WE didn't have rats. anyways. a surprise.

i had been caving before, and kelsey hadn't, but this time was pretty different from the last time i went. a couple of times we had to clip onto ropes to avoid falling into 50-foot holes, and we also did a 60-foot rappell at one spot. we crawled through some pretty tight spaces, but this cave had more tight vertical crawls, whereas the other cave i've been in had a really tight long horizontal crawl. kelsey and i tried to photograph ourselves enjoying the activity, but the combination of:
1. terrible lighting,
2. terrible photography skills, and
3. terribly unphotogenic girls
made for some pretty terrible pictures. we had a really good time, though, and it's really nice to have someone to do pseudo-"adventurous" outdoorsy activities with. we think our next activity might be dog-sledding in canmore.

after caving, i drove back to edmonton and hung out with joel alexander kelly. i sure do like that boy. we ordered pizza and watched "the life aquatic," which seems like a pretty mediocre night but after almost a year in relative isolation, it was really nice to do city-ish things with a real friend. later on we went to see jenni play at the velvet underground. i really like illfit outfit's new stuff, i've decided.

on sunday emily moved out of the apartment to a new place, and i actually got furniture and a place to call home for the first time in a year. new brown bed! new brown sheets! new brown curtains! thrilling.

on monday i had orientation. i am so excited for school. i signed up for a bunch of clubs and got a bunch of cute boys' phone numbers. part of that sentence is a lie. later on i collaged the front of some of my scribblers.

today i got my hair cut. i also saw richard, my favorite homeless man, waiting for the bus outside the movie studio. i talked to him for a bit, which was pretty exciting because i haven't seen him in over a year. i've been working on mix tapes for the last few days. also, i finished handsewing the 4 pink moose onto the outside of one of my grey bags.

tonight i think i'll be staying here

after this weekend, i was pretty much convinced that life couldn't get any better, when it threw me A WHOLE BAND MADE OUT OF JASON SCHWARTZMAN. i'd rather italicize that, but my computer doesn't let me and i don't know HTML. anyway. kelsey made me a mix cd this weekend, and it had some coconut records songs on it, and i fell in love with them without knowing the band is almost entirely jason schwartzman. swoon. i will write more on my magical weekend later.

post script to last night's post:
1. one of the things becky said that i really enjoyed/identified with: "but i e-mailed him back, because i enjoy adventure and excitement." this was an e-mail to a boy she maybe shouldn't have e-mailed. i know how it is, becky. we both have pretty extreme emotions and i think we both like to play with them, with the same enjoyment that most people get out of extreme physical activities.
2. michelle told me some more adorableness about reece: "we were marking kids together for Mission Impossible and he was talking about how "manly" his Sr. was "he hunts, rock climbs, fishes...he's like the manliest guy ever. And me? I read books." he's so awesome!!!

there was a time when all i wanted was my ice cream a little colder, and a little cream soda

i should be in bed but i wanted to write about the awesomeness of my day before it leaves me. my awesome day didn't really start until 3:00. also, this may have to be in point form.

1. i drove to the south side of the city, and stopped at michael's (the craft store, not a handsome boy's) to buy a spool holder and some paintbrushes
2. then i picked up kaylin from her work, and we drove to
3. pick up becky from HER work, and we ALL drove to
4. camp nakamun! it's the first time i've been there in about 5 years! we visited:
5. michelle powles, who was as delightful and irreverent as ever and is like having a built-in MST3K robot in one's life; and
6. reece c., who has been my and michelle's long-time favorite "nakakid" ever since we discovered he had the same first name as my camp name.
7. kaylin, becky and i got to camp just as the best night of the week, TALENT SHOW NIGHT, was starting.
8. we also managed to get there on DONUT NIGHT! how lucky! we had some terrible camp juice: a fun memory but a taste which still lingers in the back of my throat and the roof of my mouth.
9. reece remembered me AND gave me a hug, and i told him to find me on facebook and he said, "i don't use facebook. i don't have many... 'personal' friends." a-dorable. i would have a for-real crush on him, if only he wasn't 17.
10. on the way back from camp, we saw a moose running through the field and across the road, as well as a porcupine!
11. driving and just generally spending time with becky and kaylin was great. great great great. they are some of my favorite people AND they are two of my oldest friends. that maybe seems short, since i didn't go to school with either of them, but becky and i have been friends for 8 years, and kaylin and i have been friends for just a little bit less. that's a long time.
12. kaylin and michelle and i have plans to collage our scribblers together before school starts.
13. we dropped kaylin off at home, and then bexxx and i went to see jenni/illfit outfit play. we were pleasantly surprised to see jon and scott kobewka there. i didn't dance at all, which was a little disappointing, but being at a show again with becky was really nice, and jon is rad and i am glad we got another chance to hang out this summer. we are supposed to be friends now but he is a boy so i don't know how good he'll be at that. anyway, i am excited for potential mix tape exchanges with him.

it's not the milk you seek; it's the sun you need

remember that pair of brown chucks that was missing one shoe? the peeps at foot locker called around all over canada, and they found ONE full pair in my size and they ordered it for me. so, this post will hopefully be short, because i have to go pick them up. woo!

more good news is that my credit card insurance company sent me a cheque in the mail for the amount of my stolen red ipod. but here's the deal: i bought my ipod when i bought my new mac, and it was on this deal where you could get a new ipod (below the value of $229) for free. so, the ipod i got was about $315, so i ended up paying $70 for the ipod after they sent me the rebate. but now, i have a $315 cheque, and i don't really NEED another ipod, because i still have my big one. hmm. decisions. should i buy a new little ipod for little trips? should i buy books? should i drive as far as i can on $157 worth of gas, and then drive back? the world is my oyster!

i'm back in edmonton, but here's a little summation of the remainder of my v-town trip:
-i cut out a LOT of fabric
-i sewed some of said fabric into log cabin squares for a quilt i am making for myself. some of my favorite fabrics include 2 pinecone fabrics, a brown fabric with cattails all over it, and some pretty japanese flowers.
-i sewed some more fabric into bags and wallets. i had to do it all then because i wanted to use my mom's serger. i still have to do the fronts of the bags and wallets, though, and that will take a long time. the one i am working on right now is for a grey corduroy bag, and i am hand-sewing four bright pink moose (mooses?) onto it with a blanket stitch. it's pretty ridiculous. i think i'll put a duck and some cattails on a brown bag, and a bison on the plaid bag, and then who knows what else. world = still my oyster.

i went longboarding with dustan one night. it was really, really nice. sometimes i like having new friends, because it's nice to learn about people, but sometimes i like having friends like dustan, where new stuff isn't all that important but memories are what keeps the friendship alive. we played a game that i have been wanting to play with a different boy recently: we would just drive around and alternately point out a memory. i always feel like vermilion isn't really my home, but it turns out i have a lot of memories there. also, i wanted to hang out with brina, but i didn't get a chance to, because her sister just had a baby. i didn't even know she was pregnant.

emily and brad came over on monday. for some reason, emily was thinking about these old computer games we used to have, and then she found them, so i spent a night playing "ecoquest." this was partially because my dad but a ban on me sewing after he's gone to bed, because my machine makes too much noise and keeps him awake. i think it speaks volumens to my nerdiness that my family's computer games are limited to "ecoquest," "spelling blizzard," and "the island of dr. brain." yeesh.

yesterday evening i met up with karen, bri, bethany, joel, lisa, and marney to watch this boy who used to play in illfit outfit play a couple sets at a church. i like hanging out with those peeps. i like that my summer's been bookended by one of his shows and two illfit outfit shows. hearts for symmetry!

i can feel so boring for someone so interesting

today i was cutting fabric and my mom told me, "i like this one. it's not pretty but it's interesting... like you." ouch.

when i got back to edmonton, the first thing i did was go to see "superbad" with emily and meghan and meg's boyfriend nick. it was supercrude, but michael cera is adorable. "samesies"? how could i not love it? the next day, emily and brad and i went to see "the simpsons movie" at city centre. not terrific, but i'm glad i watched it with those two peeps.

at karen's on sunday, i somehow rolled my ankle really bad. i think the ground was a bit uneven because there must have been a large planter or something sitting there a while ago. anyway, i kind of fell out of nowhere and looked really ridiculous doing it, but it really really hurt and still does. i have bad ankles because of dance/soccer, and they haven't been so bad lately because i haven't really played much soccer for the last two years, but now they're totally messed up again. ugh. so, i've been in vermilion for a couple of days now, but haven't gone longboarding yet because of my dumb ankle. however, i have been keeping busy. i bought some fabric to make myself a quilt, and i visited my grandma and gido at their new place at the lodge. i should be working on my bags and wallets for nokomis, but i don't really feel like it. i couldn't find any more of the lining fabric i really like, and it's hard to start on those projects without the lining fabric. boo.

i talked to trent and dustan. trent was same old new trent, so we didn't talk long, but i had a good talk with dustan. we might hang out tomorrow. he asked me to be his date for esther and joel's wedding in october, which is nice, because i didn't get invited. i told him i would go, on the conditions that: 1) he didn't have a beard, and 2) he wore matching socks with no holes in them. then he said i could have 5 conditions, but i didn't have to list them all at once. that's pretty generous of him. most of the time that boy makes me crazy, but about 10% of the time, he's one of the best friends i've got.

then mom just rolls her eyes. she says, "you'll find that special guy," but to herself she cannot lie...

i got back to edmonton on friday. i've mostly been unpacking and reclaiming the apartment. also, i bought some watercolor stuff and have been painting every night with my sisters. i am really, really terrible, but it is nice to do. today was karen's birthday party, and i bought her some watercolor paints and a few brushes and cheap paper and a little paint tray, and then i sewed a little red corduroy pouch to fit everything (except the paper) into. i was pretty happy with it, for something that was done 2 hours before the party. it has some brush pockets all the way across the front, and then the tray fits in a big pocket across the back, and the tube paints fit in their tray inside the pouch. also, i cut some of the paper into postcard-sized pieces so karen could paint and send postcards, because that's what i've been doing and i like it.

but the big news in my life is not watercolors. it is that in the span of ONE HOUR today, i found out that two girls i am pretty good friends with are getting married, and another from my king's soccer team got married already (to another girl - is that legal in alberta? i don't know...). one of the girls getting married is mischa, who i hung out with after i got back from guyana and who did not have a boyfriend at that time. i will have to find out more about this. but i bet this boy is good, because mischa is smart and good with making decisions. then again, i do recall mischa once handing in a rough draft of a sociology essay we worked on together, with one of the sentences have SIX "not"s in it. yikes. the other marriage is andrea, one of my best friends since high school and with whom i had an enormous fight in university, and did not talk to for over a year. now we are good good friends again, and tonight she asked me to be in her wedding party. in new brunswick! wow! exciting. and a really special honor. i like that some of the people i am closest with are the people who i've gone at least a year without talking to because of anger/hurt. so. weddings. exciting, because they mean dance parties. not exciting, because i am an old maid.

i thought i should probably write about a few semi-exciting things that happened this week:
1. i saw a black bear, a marten or a fisher, and a coyote.
2. i picked blueberries and raspberries with meghan, and we even got some yellow raspberries! they are just like red raspberries, only kind of peach colored, and a little bit sweeter and less tart. neat!
3. i am done work in one hour, and then i am driving back to edmonton!
4. i cried today, and i am glad. i haven't had a good cry for a long time.
5. jen showed us just how slippery a banana peel on the floor can be. i never thought it could really be that slippery. i thought that was just a made-up fact for cartoons. nope.

i'm only waiting for the proper time to tell you that it's impossible to get along with you

so. i have decided that my annual september kickball party at hawrelak park will ALSO be a mix tape exchange party. just so you know. you are invited. it will be on the afternoon of september 15. you should start working on a mix tape or cd (whichever one you make should depend on what you want to receive: i think mix tapes are more magical, so i am going to make a mix tape and get someone else's, but if you can't make tapes or have nowhere to play them, make a mix cd, and then exchange it with another cd-er). make some nice cover art. invite your friends. write it on your calendar. don't forget.

sucking freezies in the rain

i am extra, extra, extra grumpy lately. that is all. no, wait, it's not. i got some really nice mail from dustan and joel recently. thanks, boys! also, i got two surprisingly nice e-mails from trent. we'll see how long that lasts.

my tambourine is still shakin'

yesterday my mom called me while i was making something, and she suggested that i drop out of the university program i'm registered for and take an art or design or sewing program at red deer or something. man, i wish. but... i am not confident enough in myself. so i decided to stay in my program, but i DID register for a mixed media course at grant macewan starting in late september. exciting!

i made millions of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies this weekend. i made a bunch of garment tags, and they look soooo good. i sewed some wallets. i made some mittens. i did some laundry. i fell in love with the cuttlefish, who i learned a whole lot about on "the nature of things" last night. i am a busy busy bee.

4 more sleeps until i move back to edmonton!

i wanna hear the same song twice

after lunch, the jen that i work with brought in a sublime album, and asked us if we knew how to skank. heh. maybe she's "wannabesk8erjen"! only kelsey will get that. anyway, it was enjoyable. i like having ska revisit me every once in a while.

also, sam told us that last night she "was playing too many cards and so [she] missed [her] bingo." ha. i love it up here.

pop! goes my heart

on tuesday i went to high prairie so i could: 1) buy blank cds and iron-on transfer paper; 2) go to robin's and burn cds/hang out one last time/pick up my sewing machine; meet meghan for our regular tuesday night brownie at egan's (usually we have one at trivia, but it's done now); and 4) play soccer. hanging out at robin's was even more fun that usual, and we didn't even really do anything except burn cds. goodbye, friendship! he is moving to red deer to be an instructor at the college, i think, and so i won't see him very much any more. but we will try to hang out sometimes, because we like doing arts and crafts and music sharing together. megs and i shared our brownie and then i went to soccer, and it was more fun than i thought it would be. a bunch of new boys showed up, and we just messed around and then played world cup. robin and i won world cup, but i think that's because we got lucky/the other boys playing weren't really soccer players. but they WERE boys, and robin and i WERE on "the girl's team," so i think that counts for something.

on wednesday i got a ride back to joussard with meghan and some other ladies i work with. megs invited me over to her house, and we had chicken fajitas and then we went quading and blueberry picking in the forest. then we watched a movie called music and lyrics. it was not really great, but drew barrymore is always adorable and we liked the music video that hugh grant was in. plus, girl sleepovers are fun and i don't really do them anymore, so it was nice.

on thursday i made garment tags for my wallets/bags, using the iron-on transfer paper and white satin ribbon. they turned out so, so well. i am excited to start putting them in my stuff. also, my "service engine soon" light came on in my car, which would be bad except for that i had an appointment that day for the mechanic anyway. perfect! i took my car in to the guy in joussard, and then i stayed at meghan's again. we went quading again, and picked tons and tons of blueberries. then we made some blueberry muffins, and started watching a pretty lame movie called premonition. our movie selections are quite limited, because the joussard store only has about 100 movies, and meghan has seen most of them. and the ones that she hasn't seen, she has to filter through and figure out if they are ones that her boyfriend will want to see with her. she and i can't watch those ones. boo!

the reason i had my third panic attack last week is because i got a message on my edmonton apartment phone, saying, "hi, i'm looking for caylie ... nair-uh. i'm an investigator with the human rights commissioner. if you know where caylie is, can you please have her give me a call." yikes! so i panicked all weekend, thinking someone was suing me or something. but it turns out they were just questioning me about a complaint that was made against a former employer. whew.

a lot of times, i feel like my life is the song "empty cans" by the streets. everything and everything and everything goes wrong, and then one thing goes right and then everything starts going right again. anyway, this time, the one thing that went right is that my typewriter's broken keys just magically started working again. i spent a whole day typing letters, so maybe YOU can expect one in the mail! maybe not. don't get your hopes up. i got a bunch of letters done, and i got to mail a whole stack of them yesterday! i love love love walking to the mailbox with a handful of letters. it might actually be more satisfying than receiving mail. that doesn't mean that you should stop writing me letters.

i got a lot of crafting done this weekend also. i worked on a wallet for sam and one for joel's friend natasha, and i crocheted a few pairs of mittens (i am trying to get rid of all my yarn - if you want a pair of rose pink or royal blue or soft green or brown or maroon or olive green mittens, just let me know.). i cut out some fabric for some more plaid bags, and i also finished a beige kite wallet. also, i went to robin's for a bit yesterday and he taught me how to paint with watercolors. one of my goals this year is to learn how to paint. i got off to a... pretty poor start, actually. i think my problem is that i just want everything to be brown.

we've been sitting in your backyard for hours, but she won't even come out and say hi

on thursday i drove into town for soccer, but robin was the only other person who showed up. we had an "end of our friendship talk": "thanks for coming over and crafting...," "i wish we had gotten around to...," etc. he was a little mad that i didn't say goodbye to him last tuesday at trivia, but here's a newsflash: i never say goodbye. i make it a point to slip out of places before i have to say goodbye. in guyana, everyone was waiting around at rockview lodge for my plane to come in, but they had to go back to bina hill for lunch. i hoped super hard that my plane would come before they got back. isn't that terrible? thankfully, that's what happened, and i managed to avoid the hassle of goodbyes. i hate introductions; why would i like goodbyes any more? anyways, we say we are going to be friends when he is in red deer and i am in edmonton, but are we really? answer: probably. probably more than i am friends with people in my own city. mostly because we are both pretty good about e-mailing/calling/snail mailing.

i have had, like, 3 panic attacks this week. i will write more about the most recent one later (the first two were about having my room broken into).

a broken home and some broken bones is all he'll have to show

i made myself some multigrain oatmeal chocolate chip cookies last night. jealous?

on wednesday meghan and i went to the high prairie rodeo. i'm glad she likes rodeo as much as i do. for those who don't understand the attraction, here are a few pictures of the most enjoyable events:
mutton bustin' (kids under 10 try to ride a sheep. most are outfitted in a hockey mask. i told meghan that if i have kids, i am going to put them in mutton bustin'. she said she could see me having kids specifically for that purpose.)
calf scramble (kids under 10 are put in the arena, and a calf with a ribbon on its tail is let loose. kids chase it down, get knocked over, and the kid who finally grabs the ribbon gets a prize. in high prairie's case, it's a bike.)
wild pony races (i don't quite understand what the rules were for this one. i think it went something like this: teams of 3 young boys had to all try to get on and ride a wild pony. the rules were confusing because no one was really successful.)

also: sometime next week i am going to buy tickets for the canadian finals rodeo (it's at rexall place, and performances are at 7 p.m. on november 7-10, as well as at 1 p.m. on november 10 and 11). if you want to come, let me know. it is hilarious and adorable.

you got a reaction, didn't you?

so, i found out what happened to my mysteriously absent ipod. someone freaking broke into my house and stole it. i am still not sure if the bathing suit was stolen (my hypothesis is that some pervy teenage drug addict stole the ipod for drug money, and also took the bathing suit on the way out for pervy boy reasons. but maybe i flatter myself too much). last week, i was confused because i came home from work one day and one of the inside doors leading to the tea room was open. i had left it closed (because earlier in the summer, lee gave me a talking-to about making sure it is shut), and lee had been gone to lac st. anne all week, so i kind of just assumed that one of her kids or grandkids had come in to drop something off (they sometimes do things around the house for her, like take out her garbage and stuff). also, this solar-powered light was sitting next to my sewing machine, and it hadn't been there before, so i just assumed that someone had brought it in. but then when lee got back from lac st. anne, i told her that someone had been in the house and that some of my things were missing, and so she asked around in her family if anyone had been inside the house. no one had, so she looked around a bit more, and saw that the screen of the window to my room had been cut at the latch so it could be unlocked (my window leads to the tea room, not to outside). frick. scary. but i might be able to have the ipod replaced through my credit card's insurance. we'll see how it goes.

yesterday my work put a float in the high prairie parade. i think we might have won something. we had some spruce trees and our little tipi and a firepit. meghan and i walked alongside and handed out candy. this year the parade was way faster than last year's, so we mostly ran the whole way. holé. we were pretty exhausted and i was dying of cramps, so we went home after work and had naps. then we went to the final week of trivia at egan's (i'm not sure how we did - we left early) and then we went to the dance at the stampede. i decided vermilion's fair is way better than high prairie's stampede. at vermilion, you pay $5 a day, and you get into the midway, the beer gardens, the grandstand show, the tractor pull, the chuckwagon races and all that other horse stuff, the midway, the petting zoo, the exhibit hall, and the trade fair. at high prairie, you get into the midway for free, but it's $10 for the beer gardens/dance, $20 for the rodeo, and that's all they have. boo! anyway, it was nice to dance, but it wasn't as fun as the vermilion beer gardens.

some other sad news from the weekend is that i found some beautiful beautiful shoes at southgate mall. they are all-brown roll-down chucks. i tried on the one on the shelf, and it fit perfectly, so i asked to buy the pair, and the boy could not find the box with the other shoe! eff! beauty evades me...

east bound and down

in addition to losing my bathing suit, i've also lost my new red ipod. i feel like i'm taking crazy pills. i don't usually lose things for real, so when i do, it makes me totally crazy. i don't know where my ipod could have gone. i always keep it in this little box thing right next to my door, and i rarely use it because i always use my big ipod. eff. so, i am still feeling crazy and grouchy and depressed.

i went to edmonton/vermilion this weekend. i drove to edmonton on thursday. i got breadsticks and cinna-stix from domino's and sat at home by myself and cleaned up my itunes. on friday i bought a new bathing suit (the same one as i had before, but this time it was on sale and only $20. thrilling.). i cleaned up my itunes some more and went for an interview at second cup (but have since decided i don't really want to work there because i don't want shitty hours and everyone who i know who has worked there has totally hated it). later on i went for a walk by myself and hid a couple of tapes in the city. i checked for one of them yesterday and it hasn't been taken yet. i kind of doubt they ever will get taken. whatevs. i had a good time hiding them.

on saturday jenni and i drove to vermilion for the fair. what a day. we saw some baby chicks hatching and we played with the baby kitties and we saw some baby goats and puppies and stuff. then we watched a bit of the tractor pull, and then it was too too hot so we went looking for freezies but nowhere in vermilion sells them. we opted for some slurpies instead. then we went home and i drove my dad into town so he could work the gate. he was singing to the road hammers' song i put on, and it made me laugh pretty hard. then jenni and kelsey and i watched "driving lessons." i think it was pretty cute. then the three of us went longboarding in town, and it was so, so awesome. vermilion has really rad roads - wide, fairly freshly-paved roads with hardly any traffic. so good. then we went back to the fair to watch the fireworks, and we saw jonas and trenty. i was happy to see trent, but he was still crazy-jerky-trent, so we didn't hang out that much with him. afterwards, jenni and i went to the beer gardens for some dancing. the past two years have been really lame, but this year, the band was surprisingly enjoyable. not great, but definitely better than the last couple. we danced, and lots of people commented on jen's hair, and i hung out with brina and some other girls from high school. we went home around 2. i would have liked to have stayed longer, but jenni had to work in the morning in edmonton the next day.

on sunday we woke up around 7:30 and i drove us back to edmonton. we stopped in vegreville for breakfast groceries, and then i drove jenni home. i went to my apartment and napped for a wee bit, and then i met jonathan kobewka and his friend justin at the royal alberta museum. jonathan and i have known about each other for about 6 years, because we counselled camp together at nakamun, but we had never really hung out. anyways, the museum was super fun and the bugs in the bug room were neat, and then we went to the sugarbowl to eat. it was nice to hang out with them. then when i went to drop them off at justin's car, jon said, "i really want to hang out again. but... probably not this summer." ouch. then he got really awkward and said, "i mean... sorry... that was really rude. it's just...." ha. i told him it WAS rude, but whatever. i have two weeks at the end of the summer with absolutely no commitments at all, but i know other people are busy. but maybe he thought that i really wanted to hang out for an extended period of time, when really my version of hanging out with people is just riding the bus with them or something. whatever. i am grumpy now and all my friends are jerks. and where's my ipod?

i went to nokomis today to show them my bags/wallets in person, and they said that if i make up 4 bags and 5 wallets, they'll buy them outright! not even on consignment! wow!

my bff just got promoted! way to go, kds.

i e-mailed nokomis a little while ago to see if they'd be interested in selling my wallets/shoulder bags. they are! wow. so we'll see what happens now.

recent good news:
1. my student loan was approved within about a week and a half of me submitting it. wow!
2. megs and mega-hot-boy and a few more people and i came in second place at trivia last week.
3. i am driving to edmonton tonight, and might get a job at one of the second cups on whyte for the fall.
4. people actually want to buy my wallets and shoulder bags!
5. new wes anderson/jason schwartzman movie coming out in september.
6. something else. i forget.

recent bad news:
1. i lost my effin' bathing suit. where the hell is it?
2. student loan interest is ridiculous.
3. my best friend screens my calls. ouch.

kaylin just got into the social work program at the u of c's edmonton campus. she's been waiting to hear about it for months. i am really proud of/excited for her. she deserves it so much, and she's going to do such a good job. plus we will get to go to school close to each other and wear cute school-y sweaters and get hot chocolates and study together. yessss.

this used to be our town

i finished reading generation x on thursday, and then i read life after God this weekend. i liked the latter a lot more. i have two new options for books: girlfriend in a coma or one that i will write about in a bit.

on saturday our museum put on this big open house event so adults/locals could see our historical village (usually we only put it on for school groups in june). it seemed like it would be a pretty stressful day, but it all turned out to be quite enjoyable. the weather was perfect and there were just enough people so that the day was worthwhile but not overwhelming. plus i had some life changing stew and bannock. i talked with this man who used to be a fur trader. he asked me, as everyone always does when i am up here, if i planned on being a teacher. i said no, because my mom said i would be a terrible teacher because i wouldn't be able to handle the system, and because i am so introverted and i wouldn't be able to handle being around people all day every day. anyways, he said he is really introverted too, and he recommended i read this book called the introvert advantage. then the next day, i saw a special on the news about the very same book! strange. anyway, i took it out from the library today, and i am finally going to figure out why i can't connect with anyone ever. other visitors to the village that day included a super neat teacher who we kind of know and like (and who found one of my and robin's postcards at north country fair and wrote us back!), a lady from vermilion who used to teach with my mom, and the mega-cute boy i talked about in the last post. sweaty palms!!!

after work on saturday i was pretty exhausted but i went to robin's to talk about a new craft and have milkshakes and watch a movie. the milkshake made me super sick but i stayed anyway to watch stranger than fiction because THREE people have recommended it to me this month.

yesterday i read and crocheted and then i went to megs' for the evening. i longboarded in joussard a bit, because it is good, smooth, flat pavement all across town. then megs and i watched shopgirl, which as a whole was mediocre but was made excellent by the presence of my celebrity crush jason schwartzman. dreamboat. he was pretty adorable in it. you should watch it.

i am coming home on the weekend for the vermilion fair, and possibly some hawrelak park-ing. exciting.

my sister left for portugal yesterday. she will be ukrainian dancing there for a month. wow.

they aks me how i do it, and simply i reply, "this is why i'm hot"

part i: i met this mega-hot boy last year at the high prairie rodeo. he is one of meghan's friends from high school. anyway, this summer, megs said that he is dating some 30-year-old girl.

part ii: when i was in edmonton a few weeks ago, emily's boyfriend brad said he knew someone who knew me. he asked if i worked with a girl named meghan, and then he said he knew a guy who knew meghan who also had met me.

parts i + ii = part iii: the 30-year-old girl mega-hot boy is dating is brad's sister. meghan and i laughed pretty hard about this, especially because brad defensively told me, "she's 28."

i started reading some douglas coupland. i've been avoiding him until now because he's so damn trendy, but megs and i were in the library yesterday and wanted to avoid going back to work, so i took out some books. reading will cut into my crafting time, but maybe it will help rescue my vocabulary from its current state (the best describing words i can come up with are "awesome" and "real deadly," often spoken with a bit of an accent).

also, northern alberta has been real deadly as far as crushing goes. when i'm up here, i mysteriously find myself attracted to boys who drive half-tons and know all the words to old clint black songs. boys who have a somewhat steady labour job and all their fingers and don't drink too much strike me as keepers. yeesh. good thing i only have 5 weeks left here.

here's a picture of the moose bag i made. i like it.
also, i have a new celebrity crush.

solar-powered laser beam guitar

megs and i went to peacefest in peace river this weekend. i wasn't sure that i wanted to go, but i'm super glad i did. here are some moments that deserve mention:
-the "pirate guy," who wore a pirate cap and lots of beads and had pirate-y facial hair... and wore crocs.
-the slutty little 17-year-old girls who somehow always managed to be around me and megs, and who we witnessed wriggle out of their underwear right in front of us and then who then tried to throw it onstage, only to have it get caught by the wind and land on the fence separating the crowd from the stage. they panicked, and then tried again, and it still landed short of the stage. heh.
-the orange freezies. man, i just can't get enough.
-country bands, especially the road hammers. i didn't think i'd like them all that much (emerson drive and aaron prichett played too), but they were all super fantastic shows, and jason mccoy is such a dreamboat. i really like the feel of northern albertan country shows, as opposed to city shows/festivals.
-dancing

guess what i got paid $13/hour to do today? bead bracelets and drive megs into town so we could mail a package. tomorrow we are going to bead more bracelets. i can hardly even handle getting paid to make crafts. actually, we are kind of doing slave labor. our museum has a really shitty gift shop, with garbage that will never sell (like a $400 dreamcatcher), so our supervisors are letting us spend our hours at work making crafts from museum supplies to sell at the gift shop. sleazy? awesome? a little from column A, a little from column B.

i am working on shoulder bags. if you or anyone you know wants to buy them, they are $40. right now i have an apple green one with a black bear on it, and a brown plaid one with a beige moose on it. hot.

i got mail from dustan and bri and landon this week. thanks for not forgetting about me, friends!

yesterday megs and i played trivia at egan's with some of our regular team and a few extras, and we actually won! wow! most surprising/ironic was the fact that i am pretty sure i was the only person in the pub who correctly answered a question for which the answer was "the kama sutra" (the question was phrased something like, "the mixing of raw sparrows' eggs and something something was offered as a remedy for impotence in which ancient sanskrit text?" - so, i'm not a horny bastard, i'm just logical. because come on, how many ancient erotic sanskrit texts are well-known enough to be mentioned in a pub's trivia contest?).

when kaylin and i hung out a few days ago, we were walking by my apartment and we saw a pigeon next to the sidewalk. kaylin wanted to take a picture of it pecking at the ground, because her parents just bought her this neat camera that takes 8 pictures over 2 seconds. neat! anyway, just as we got close, the pigeon flew away, right in front of this boy driving by in a suit on a vespa with a wooden crate tied to the back. he was a little startled, and he looked at us because that's where the pigeon came from, and he gave this funny little smile. i liked that moment.

i went to a wedding dance with meghan in joussard on saturday night. it was fun to dance, but the dj was pretty terrible, and there was a lot of drama. but i danced in heels, which is i think the first time i have ever done that outside of ukrainian dance, and i didn't even break my ankles! wow. i am growing up. plus i got to wear my brown polka-dot dress. woo!

i sewed some shoulder bags yesterday. i am not happy with the first one, and i think i am going to keep the second one for myself. ugh.

my guts hurt and i almost threw up last night. boo.

pack up your bags, bells!

i think the best week i've had all summer was this week. first off, it started with canada day! then on monday, my mom and dad and i drove down to drumheller to visit the royal tyrell museum. dinosaurs sure are rad. plus i learned that north america used to have camels and lions and stuff, before the last ice age or something. wow! maybe i knew that, but i had forgotten. my very favorite part was the giant beaver statue. i guess there used to be super-huge beavers here, but they are all dead now. beavers are swiftly becoming one of my favorite animals.

after the royal tyrell, we drove to fort mcleod and stayed at a bed and breakfast. they had some giant pinecones.

on tuesday we went to head-smashed-in buffalo jump. it was pretty neat, and laid out really well. plus this super cute native boy came up to me and asked if i had any questions, but his cuteness made me nervous and i couldn't really think of a question because, hello, i work in a native cultural arts museum and i already knew what most of the artifacts were. frick. i get nervous around cute boys so i end up with all the creepy ones in the world having crushes on me. anyway, then we drove through longview (where i stopped to get my favorite beef jerky!) and by eden valley (one of the reserves i worked on a few summers ago) on our way to canmore.

my dad's brother has this super unbelievable condo in canmore, so we stayed there a few days. i bought some super hot boiled wool from this amazing quilting store in town, and i am going to use it for appliques for my wallets. i also bought a quilt pattern, because i am going to make another one for myself soon. i went in the hot tub at the condo a whole lot. kelsey came over from calgary on thursday, and the four of us went whitewater rafting on the kananaskis river. it was just a "beginner" trip, but it was so, so enjoyable. we vowed to never go canoeing again, because rafting is so much more fun/easy. it was apparently the nicest day they've had for rafting in the last two years. kelsey and i might go back to canmore later in the summer to go caving and rafting.

later kelsey and i went longboarding. it was really nice, but it's pretty hilly where we were, and we are too sucky to go down even slight declines, and too weak to go up even slight inclines. so basically it all just turned into a street lugeing session down a wide quiet residential road hill. i think i am going to buy some protective gear and do that more often.

yesterday i came back to edmonton and kaylin and i hung out for a bit. we went to watch the street performers at churchill square. i like that she is as introverted as me, if not more.

c-day

dear dairy,
i bet you are dying to know what i did on canada day. here's the condensed version:

-i played nintendo in the morning and throughout the day
-my parents arrived at the apartment at about 11, and we walked over to the legislature to watch my sister ukrainian dance (i never really believed people when they say that they're doing something to make their families and friends proud, but man, when emiline was dancing, i nearly cried. i was so proud. plus i cry at everything.)
-i met angie at the steps of the ledge, and we walked through the gallery (it's the only time in the year that members of the public are allowed to walk through it! thrilling!)
-a few minutes later angie and i met bri on the steps of the ledge, and we walked through the gallery again and then walked around the ledge a bit to see our awesome mace and "the magic spot."
-bri and angie joined me for my traditional "canada day burger" - a burger with white onions and red ketchup. festive!
-i walked from the ledge to the second cup on whyte ave and gateway. i met michelle there and we walked back to the ledge and had screamers and sat on the lawn. we were both surprised at how easily we picked up our friendship, which for four years has lay dormant, especially given the fact that we are both such awkward girls. i like her.
-i walked back home and my family and brad went for supper at the high level diner.
-we all went home afterwards, and i played nintendo while i waited for the fireworks.
-my dad and i walked along saskatchewan drive towards the bridge that i watched the fireworks from last year, but it seemed really crowded, so we decided to watch them from dr. e's apartment on the same street. bri and matt and linda were there too, all of whom i have spent at least one canada day with, which made the day feel a little bit more like tradition.
-i missed kelsey.

come in action 2... can you complete the mission?

megs and i have been spending the last little while on the CTV website, looking for fax numbers for press releases and celebrity-crushing on all the news anchors. then i got sidetracked and found myself looking at the different wishlists that CBC/facebook has registered for the "great canadian wishlist" or whatever. and here are two things i want to say about it:
1. right now, the top three groups are:
-"abolish abortion in canada," with 9199 votes,
-"i wish that canada would remain pro-choice," responding to the first group, with 7627 votes, and
-"for a spiritual revival in our nation," with 4349 votes and a fairly obvious assumption that "spiritual" is synonymous only with "christian."
ugh. usually i love canada, but all of these are stupid enough for me to hate it, if only for a few hours. i won't get into my thoughts on abortion, but i can easily say that the subject would never in a million years make it into my number one wish for a better canada. what the hell, everyone. (also, in case you're wondering, the current #4 group is, "restore the traditional definition of marriage." gah.)
a couple of groups that i like, but still wouldn't vote for as my number one wish for a better canada, are "i wish tuition fees would be either lowered or eliminated," "a canada where no one must choose between paying rent and their medication," "better transit, less pollution," and i'd support the "make poverty history" groups/campaign if there was a hell of a lot more focus on the poverty in our own damn country. yikes. sorry.

anyway, while i was looking, i came across this website. maybe you agree with abortion, and maybe you don't. anyway, either way, the shirt is interesting. i like how it encourages dialogue in a really non-threatening manner. i like how it is so not in-your-face. it is so quiet. i think it's rad. and just in case you're wondering... i've never had an abortion.

today we've been getting quite a few faxes of evaluation sheets for our school programs, and one teacher commented, "kaley was especially good at managing the children's questions and behaviours." woo!

yesterday was our last day with schoolkids! whew. today we drove around and hung up advertising posters. we all went for lunch together, and we were trying to kill time at the end so we wouldn't have to go back to work, so jen kept asking us ridiculous questions, like, "who's worn candy underwear before?" sam's response was, "what!? so, you eat them after you wear them?" haha. we laughed pretty hard. sam is so awesome. i like that she doesn't think before she speaks sometimes.

i found some canada post stamps of canadian architects, and the set includes stamps of douglas cardinal, who just happens to be kaylin's favorite architect. i bought some of the stamps for her. i hope she likes them.

i booked a rafting trip for myself and kelsey and my majah and fajah for next week. fun!!!

so, i have some bad news. kelseydawn's car is broken, which means she can't come up to edmonton for the annual, traditional g.yra-s.elgrove canada day celebrations. it's my favorite day of all days, and i am pretty bummed that i can't spend it with my favorite person. so, maybe if you have some canada day celebrations planned in edmonton and you wouldn't mind a third wheel, maybe you could invite me out. hey? hey? or else i will just spend the day by myself, which i think i would enjoy equally as much. like the time i spent new year's eve alone in my apartment. sad and awesome at the same time.

robin and i worked on more postcards last night. i am going to leave them around edmonton on canada day. i wish i had more time to make more. also i thought that maybe we could make a few postcards with buttons sewn onto them by hand, and then we could make little embroidered fabric patches with buttonholes and button them onto the postcards so people could put them on their own stuff. yeah? then we went and watched shrek iii. i am not a huge huge shrek fan, but it was okay. oh, also, i got locked out of my house somehow last night and lee's son helped me break in through a side window. i always forget how much i like breaking into places and sneaking around.

that's real deadly

i worked on saturday! from 10 until 4! i can only handle short sentences right now! with exclamation marks!

dr. e and her son neil came over to visit me for the weekend. i showed them around the museum when they arrived. we went into high prairie for supper at egan's and to buy groceries. we came back to lee's and watched a bit of a movie that i am not even going to mention because it is embarrassing how many times i've seen it in the last two months. we were too tired to finish it. on sunday lee made us a huge breakfast, and then we went to hilliard's bay and shaw's point for a walk in the forest/a picnic/ice cream. nice. then we bought more groceries in high prairie and they made a delicious supper. then we crafted a bit and went to bed.

there is a powwow this weekend in alexander (just west of morinville). jenni and i went last year, and i think we are going to go again this year on saturday. this is an open invitation for anyone who reads my blog to come with us. i think we might go saturday evening, for the 7:00 grand entry.

oh! i forgot! remember tyler, the toothless boy from a reserve down south who wanted us to "be together"? yeah. he called me again last night, at about 11 p.m. faaaack. dr. e says i should just tell him that things have changed since the last time we talked and that i am happily involved with someone else or something and hopefully he will understand that he shouldn't be calling me anymore. gah.

here's a nancy drew wallet i made for myself a few weeks ago. i love it!

also, you should check out the chicago tapes website if you haven't yet. i don't really have the best music catalogue by some standards (kelsey!), but i really want to do this, and i feel like some of you (joel? angie? michelle?) might be into doing this too. so i think we should. maybe we could work together? i could do the stencilling and maybe cover art stuff or something? you could make the tapes? i don't know. let me know if y'wanna.

this is a picture of robin, me, and peter being ridiculously cute and sewing our crafts at the north country fair.

i sewed some little pouches and robin and i filled them with cute things, like plastic turtles and little candies and safety pins and buttons and stickers. we put them in pairs, and one pouch out of each pair had a little card that said, "everything in this bag is for you. the other bag is to share. thank you for everything." the buttons were my favorite part. we hope that people will sew/stick them onto their clothes to match the person they shared with (the buttons also have a sticky part so you could actually sew them on, or just, like, scrapbook with them or whatever). i think i want to do some simplified versions of this craft, with just buttons instead of whole pouches.

then we sewed the pouches onto some colored cardstock, onto which robin had typed, "this is for you" (pointing to the first pouch), and "this is to share" (pointing to the second). we put stamps on the other side of the cardstock and put robin's return address on them, and we hope people will write us back and tell us who they are and who they shared with.

we left the cards around north country fair this weekend. we went out early this morning for a walk to see where we could leave some, and we left one on some benches near the exit for the fair. then, when i was leaving the grounds a few minutes later to come to work, i saw a lady with a harley davidson headband and an orange sweater walking away with our card in her hand! she had a really neat expression on her face, like a little bewildered and secretly happy about what she had found. i think. so worth it.

every morning we have to unpack these big blue plastic bins full of exhibit material, and display them in the tents and tipis. every afternoon we have to pack them up again. every day i work on the woodland cree tipi exhibit. i have a super-specific way of packing the artifacts up so that they fit perfectly into the 4 bins alloted for the creepi (it's what we call the cree tipi). last week when i was gone, aaron packed up the creepi, and then this week, she bought me a doughnut so i wouldn't freak out on her because she packed them so terribly. i hadn't realized i was such a nazi. but if being a packing nazi brings me free doughnuts, a packing nazi i shall be.

the bravest thing i have is hope

i brought my new typewriter home last night. it worked perfectly. i was really exhausted, so i went to bed at 8:30, and i was going to type a letter to brittany before i fell asleep. i tried to type, and it wouldn't work. somehow in the 2 hours between when i first tried it and then, my typewriter broke itself. the letters "c,d,e,p," and the numbers "3" and "0" don't work. i guess i will have to stay friends with robin as long as "c,d,e," and "p" remain part of my alphabet. but the good thing is that it is an electric typewriter, and because the letters/numbers are kind of in a row, i think that it has to do with the wiring or something, which seems like something that could maybe be fixed. i hope.

today is my dad's birthday. happy birthday, dad! he always wants me to post a picture of his horses on my blog, but i am too lazy to sort through my e-mails to find those pictures, so here is one of him with a backhoe. thrilling!


some of my favorite people are playing some of my favorite music on saturday, june 23, 2007 at 105 ST and Jasper Ave. you should go if you are in the city. joel alexander is playing in toy singers at 2:00, and jenni is playing in illfit outfit at 2:30. what attractive people! what attractive sounds! go on behalf of me, please.

i went to robin's last night before soccer so we could plan a neat craft that we are making for the north country fair, which is happening this weekend. i will post pictures of our crafts when we are done. i am excited for them. also, we found out that his mom's sewing machine works! that is good news. also, i am buying a typewriter from my boss today! now robin and i don't have to be friends anymore, because i won't have to use him for his typewriter and he won't have to use me for my sewing machine. just jokes, robin. i will still use you for your good craft ideas.

soccer was okay, but the ground was super wet so it made the ball slippery and unpredictable. i didn't like that.

megs and i played trivia by ourselves at egan's, and we did the best we've ever done before. wow!

don't show up so on time, and don't act like you're so kind

guess who showed up on my doorstep last night. tsb. a.k.a. trent shubert band, a.k.a. just trent shubert. wow. if only i had known earlier that missing someone and then writing about them on your online journal could bring them to your doorstep, i would have been consciously doing a whole lot more missing. unfortunately, the doorstep he showed up on was the one at my apartment in edmonton, so i didn't actually get to see him. boo.

i am making a super mario world 3 wallet for emily's boyfriend brad. i put the SMWIII logo onto an iron-on transfer, and the rest of the wallet is bright red and blue. it is pretty hot. all the best wallets i've made so far have been for boys i am hardly even friends with. sorry, real friends, for making you shitty ones! i'll make it up to you somehow.

i got a nice little letter from brittany in the mail yesterday. it was really simple and short with a little drawing she did in pen on the front. i love it. i am going to commit to sending more simple mail. i always feel obligated to write interesting things on interesting paper and include interesting trinkets. no more! well, maybe sometimes. but i have avoided sending some of my favorite people mail this summer (this includes you, karen. sorry!) because i have run out of money to pay for the postage for the big packages, and i didn't want to send something small. i will start sending small things. in abundance.

today i am running our archaeology program with the kids. i think i will really like archaeology in university. i am usually pretty impatient, but i am also incredibly patient with things that most people have no patience for. i think that's an essential skill in archaeology. last summer, i spent every night for a whole week sorting multicolored seed beads into separate colors. why? i could have just bought the beads separately. i didn't even end up using them. i just like sitting and being quiet and keeping my hands busy. so. archaeology. maybe i'll love you.

am i too flirty? do i like what you like?

i forgot to write some important things about this weekend:

1. when i was going into my apartment building last night, i am pretty sure i saw sheldon elter, a.k.a. my celebrity crush, go into the mac's downstairs. you may know his name from métis mutt, the play he wrote/performed at an i.s. conference at king's a few years ago, or from his semi-brief stint on canadian idol last season. he's from peace river. dreamboat. don't laugh. i'm a little deprived of crushes up here, okay?

2. i talked with debbie and rawle this weekend (the peeps from guyana who are staying in calgary until later this week), and they told me that some kids from yupukari village loved ASPYR (the after-school program i started at annai secondary school) so much that they started one in their own village! wow! that makes me feel really good and excited and proud.

3. i walked around the u of a a bit on... someday. i forget. anyway, i've been longboarding there but i've never explored as much as i did on that day, and it turns out there are TONS of awesome places to go. they are so smooth and wide not too steep and i hope i get some chances to go this summer before all the students come back (also, kelsey: bring your longboard up if you come for canada day. you could even come the day before. hmm?). also, on a semi-related note, i know a boy who kind of made out with girls between classes (that's not exactly the story, but bear with me), and at first i was a little confused but now i realized it is genius. on mondays and wednesdays i will have two hours between classes. what better way to pass the time than to secretly make out with someone i only kind of like? genius. so i was kind of checking out longboarding/secret-make-out spots around campus.

happy father's day!

i forgot to tell my dad "happy father's day!" this morning, which kind of led to the raisin-choking incident mentioned in the previous post. so, to make up for it, here's a list of things i like about my dad:
-he's a real-life cowboy. that is so hilarious and awesome to me.
-he's surprisingly good at raquetball.
-his "legacy": his collection of orange leatherbound diaries dating back to 1983.
-he's smarter and funnier than i give him credit for.
-the way that he travels is interesting. i like that he can just go off on trail rides or sit in a cafe and meet/talk to half a dozen people. he's got mad interpersonal skillz.
-he earnestly wants the best for me and my sisters, even if he's not always fantastic at conveying concern or giving helpful direction.
-it's really interesting to me that he's worked at minco gas for the last, like, 30 years. at least since i was born. it seems so contrary to his attention deficit disorderesque nature.
you're a real gem, gunny.

i'm hot 'cuz i'm fly, you ain't 'cuz you not

a boy i know just sent me this link, and you need to check it out, because it is fantastic:
the brown dress project
wow. i need to start doing stuff like that. i love it. and brown! what a great choice.

okay. on friday i hung out with jenni-jen. we met at michelle powles' second cup. that is the first time i have seen that girl in a lot of years. but we are going to make it up to each other by hanging out next year when we are both at the u of a. i can't wait. she is one of the funniest girls i know. if you know her, you already know that. also, she is smart and irreverant and a good dancer. heart. anyways, jenni and i were starving, so we went and had delicious cajun chicken tortellini at some place on the west end. goo-ood. then we went to michael's to buy craft stuff. i didn't buy anything, and she spent too much money on stamps. i know how that is.

i messed around on my new 'puter for a while until emily and brad came home. then the three of us drove to vermilion. i realized i have been spending too much time on my new computer when i went to reach for the mouse when i was driving the car. eek. in my defense, i've mostly just been trying to put my pictures and music onto the computer.

so: the ride home with brad and emily: fun. i drove and they sat in the back and were all kissy and stuff. i like driving with vermilionites because they enjoy listening to my vermilion-edmonton playlist: wynonna's "no one else on earth," clay walker's "what's it to you," and a little bitta hanson. yessss. brad even enjoyed it! what a guy.

brad is a self-professed emo kid. i think he out-emos me in the tight tight clothing, cd collection, and haircut departments, but i out-emo him in the crying department. i cry at everything, all the time. i cried this morning because i was choking on a raisin at breakfast (my dad made me laugh), and i almost had to throw up to get it out, but i haven't thrown up since i was 12 and i was unwilling to give up that record. i was crying more about possibly breaking the record than possibly dying. you know how it is. thankfully, i beat them both. high fives, self!

brad helped me figure out how to get my music off my ipod! amazing! i could have done it for free, i think, but i paid $9 for a program that'll transfer all my songs and my playlists. i am so so happy.

i am realizing just how working at the museum is affecting my thoughts: when i was sitting in the backyard at home, i watched the cat playing in the garden and wondered how valuable his pelt would be, and what someone could use it for. sorry, gus!

our yard is so nice. i never really noticed that before, probably because everything was just freshly planted when i lived there. it would be a nice place to live, if my dad wasn't constantly making noise or coughing or asking a string of questions at 7 in the morning, every morning. sorry dad, but you know it's true.

the prescription medicine that i cried about last week turns out to actually be worth every penny. it was for my allergies, and they are hardly bothering me at all anymore. wow!

you can stand under my umbrella

emily's boyfriend brad just gets more and more amazing every day. here are some great things about him:
-he gives her cards for special occasions! and he even writes things that he MEANS on them!
-he is excited about having a super mario world III playoff with me sometime.
-he added BOTH my parents as friends on facebook! (before you think my parents are creeps, you should know that i directed them there so they could see my guyana pictures)
-i think he knows a lot about music, but he is really rad and non-elitist about it. i like that he gets excited whenever rihanna's "umbrella" comes on the radio.
-he's super comfortable and friendly with my whole family.
three gold stars, brad! three gold stars.

yesterday emiline and i went to pick up my little red ipod, and then we went to the u of a bookstore to try to find programs to transfer my songs from my big ipod to my computer. no luck. then i met joel alexander at the u of a. i waited for him at pembina hall, which is where most of my native studies classes will be. i am so so excited to start school. while i waited for him, i watched out for crushes, because i've been figuring that school will be a good place to find crushes. BUT every boy that i saw had terrible shoes, and terrible shoes are a pretty reliable indicator of terrible people. or at least, of terrible crush material. finally, i saw a boy with good shoes! but he turned out to be joel. boo. we ate lunch at "the good earth" (where i think i might apply for a job for the school year) and then he showed me his lab at the u of a. he spends all day making things glow in the dark. well done. also, we played with some liquid nitrogen. what a thrill! then i went home and played with my new apple toys. then lizzy and i drove to the mongolie grill (i would have walked, but she doesn't like to) to have supper with dad, emily, brad, and karen fernhout. so many good people in such a small area! wow! also, i saw this boy who i used to work with at silvercity. he is kind of becoming a girl, i think. he was wearing a shiny black button-up shirt with poufy sleeves over a shiny white tank top. he has the nicest hair i have ever seen (kelsey - he's that boy we saw a couple of times a few canada days ago at the ledge. remember?). he was a nice boy. we kind of kept making eye contact but i didn't want to be rude so i kept my eyes down a lot after that. afterwards, we all drove back to the apartment to park our cars, and we walked over to the jubilee auditorium to see this canadian comedian russell peters. my family totally loves him. i don't know if i've ever gone to see a comedian perform on stage before. it was really fun, and i'm really glad that k-fern was my date. i think we could have done without some of the crudest jokes, but the rest was really enjoyable.

i am hanging out with jenni today. jealous?

we make the best of what's around

i am pretty sure i have superhuman powers. today was the SECOND day in history that i KNEW i would see one of my ex-boyfriends when i was walking down towards whyte ave. and i did! wow! how did i do that!?! in a related vein, i sure have been missing trenty like mad lately. last night at trivia, one of the song clips was a dave matthews song, so i think that started the missing, and then on my way to edmonton today, i listened to a whole bunch of dave, and got to a whole bunch of missing. we had fun, fun times. i wish he wasn't so crazy/angry now. here is a list of some of my favorite trenty memories:
-playing badminton with him, my family, and kelsey at the gym in vermilion
-hanging out in his dad's apartment in vermilion, which was the only building in town to have high-speed internet at the time, where he was constantly trying to kiss me and kds
-getting in fights every time we took the #4 westbound to WEM
-the terrible/adorable "bee mine" and "i TURTLEY need you!!!" valentines he drew for me.
-late-night michelina's and dave matthews in my room at king's
-obnoxiously loud 2-person dance parties in my room at king's
-playing game boy in the back of sociology 201
-"badger boy" and "grammar girl"
-his dreams about going on "quests" on the forest with his dog
-his sweaty upper lip and panic attacks when he had to talk in front of people. or in front of one person.
we can't really hang out or talk anymore without him being a huge jerkface to me. but i miss how interesting he was. no matter: this just clears out space for all the new interesting crushes i am going to have when i start school in september.

i'd like to extend a warm welcome to the three newest additions to my life: my lovely new imac, with whom i am currently enthralled; the university of alberta's free wireless internet, available at my house; and the new chip in my car's windshield. in a few hours, i will also see the addition of a little red ipod. woo!

i was pretty grumpy last night. i mean, even grumpier than usual. i've been trying to go to the doctor's for about a month, and yesterday i finally got to go, and i ended up with a $100 pharmacy bill for two lousy prescriptions. faaaack. well, now i know my parents weren't joking when they've encouraged me to find jobs that pay benefits. ugh. i cried in my car and called my mom and decided not to go to calgary this weekend because i can't afford it (i know, i know, i just wrote about getting a new 'puter and an ipod. but i'll get a $229 rebate for the ipod, and i'm going back to school, so i really do need a computer). i am pretty bummed i won't get to see kds, but i'll get to see her in a few weeks, hopefully. anyways, i went to robin's afterwards while we waited for trivia to start, and i had some chickpea and rice soup he had made (i picked out the yams - i HATE yams) and i looked through his fabric box. those things made me feel a lot better. plus we skipped soccer, because it was pretty yucky out, but nobody really turned up anyway. plus he told me some stories about his trip to regina this week and his crush stories, and i was glad to hear them, because i feel like none of my friends have crushes anymore. just serious boyfriends/girlfriends/common-law partners, etc. boo, everybody! crush talk is just about my favorite thing ever. that's one of the reasons i'm so excited to see karen in a few hours. she always has such good crush stories. also, i like her a lot.

megs and i played trivia with her mom and a few of her mom's friends. as usual, we were terrible, but we DID enjoy some free dry ribs that we acquired by coming in last place last week.

my new favorite definition of "metis" is "cowboys and indians," as suggested today by one of the boys from gift lake metis settlement.

there's this really neat lady who must be related to a bunch of the kids from the area up where i live, because she came to supervise the school program today, and that's the third time i've seen her at our programs (she was there for 2 last year). at the end of my program, i asked if she had visited us before, and she said yeah. i told her i really appreciated seeing her, and i liked how supportive she was of our programs, especially because so many people really don't like having "white" girls present first nations'/metis culture to first nations/metis kids. she said she really loved coming, and that we were doing a good job, and she gave me a hug! so nice. she is a neat neat lady.

the grouard dating scene

today, one of the girls at my work told me, "caylie, you should date calvin. he shot three elk this week." baha. living in northern alberta is so hilarious.

dear edmontonians,
what's with the mass exodus to north carolina? the newest convert: one of the elephants from the valley zoo. she's apparently moving there to get some. zoo officials want her to settle down, start a family, you know. what does north carolina have that edmonton doesn't? certainly not north america's longest continuous stretch of urban parkland. yeah. but apparently it does have the best beach in the united states. so says msn.com. so, i don't know. it's a tough call to make.

we have some grade 1 students from a french immersion school here today, and they are unbearably adorable. how do they speak two languages so well!?! wow!!! a credit to my 7 years of french classes in school: i can understand most of what they say. a failure of those same 7 years of classes: i can hardly string together the words, "i like my cat" in french, and can certainly not say anything with any shred of a decent french accent. when i was in guyana, i decided that i am going to try to take some french classes from the u of a sometime soon, or else try to do that french immersion exchangey thing that is so popular with university students. but i will have to wait two years, i think. learning cree in school next year will be hard enough. i don't want to mix them up.

craft-minded girls, you make the rockin' world go round

i need a man in my life. not because i need some sweet lovin'. because i need my car washed, and i am too lazy/cheap to do it myself. males seem to be more easily irked by dirty cars, and more easily moved to wash said cars. so, if you see a lonely boy around, looking for a car to wash, send him my way. you can have him back afterwards.

the race is on

usually the younger grades from the reserves north of here are my favorite groups that come to the museum. the kids are adorable, and i like that they are always so excited to learn my name and then say, "hi, caylie! hi! remember me?" when i've presented a program to them in the morning and then again in the afternoon. sometimes they even call me "auntie caylie." so cute. like i've said before, most of them have mouths filled with cavities. usually even if i don't know where they're from, i can usually guess if they're from a reserve north of grouard based on their teeth. i'm not saying that to be disrespectful or funny or anything like that. i think it's an interesting fact and something to remain mindful of. i think i'm somewhat aware of health issues that plague aboriginal communities, but it's heartbreaking to see some of these causes and effects show up so early in kids so young.

anyway, yesterday we had a grade 2/3 class from a reserve north of here, and although the kids were adorable, it was kind of a bad day. here's why:

i know that being a white girl working at a native cultural arts museum will put me in a precarious position. i've been accused of being ignorant, racist, and being "the white man trying to take [the first nations'] culture." in some ways, i understand their frustration. but yesterday, while we were trying to do programs, one of the girls i work with heard some of the adults in the school group refer to us negatively as "white girls" in cree. the girls i work with are jen (a "white" girl who has lived up here her whole life, who is dating a cree boy, and who understands a bit of cree - she was the one who overheard the women), meghan and erin (both métis girls who look "whiter" than i do, and both of whom know and use a considerable amount of cree phrases), and aaron and sam (who both look aboriginal, but i think sam is the only one who is treaty). when the women got to aaron, they said, "finally! a brown face!" and went on to complain that the rest of us shouldn't be working there. like i said, i can kind of understand their frustration, but what really got to me was when i asked the group of children if they knew what i was talking about when i said, "the europeans." they didn't, so i said, "basically, it's the 'white' people" - to which one of the young girls replied, "oh, the enemy!" yikes. that's a scary thing to think about. the thing that's craziest is that the people who were hurt the most by this whole ordeal were megs and erin - the two girls who are métis but look white. megs' mom is treaty, and i'm not sure if her dad is actually status or not (but he is partly native), and i don't think she speaks cree fluently but she and her family use a lot of cree phrases at home. and erin's family is of the historical métis vein (i mean, from the historical definition of métis, not the current version), and she's lived in this area for the last 4 summers, and knows a good deal of cree phrases as well. i think they were pretty hurt that they were assumed ignorant based on their skin color. i've been learning a lot about race and racism this summer, and i guess pretty much everywhere i've lived/worked since university. i certainly learned a lot about it in guyana. i've been growing to understand that a lot of the hurt comes from within one's own race (ie. african-americans are deemed "too dark" or "not black enough" by other african-americans; métis or non-status are judged to be "not indian enough" or "not brown enough" or "not traditional enough" by other aboriginal people), BUT even so, a lot of the anger is directed towards "whites" (at least, that's what i've gathered from one book, a few t.v. shows and a couple of real life experiences). hummm. i think i've always just taken my skin color for granted. i've understood racism was a problem, but it has never really affected my life like it has recently. and to be honest, it's not even affecting my life all that much. but it is so hurtful and so fascinating at the same time. a boy i know used to be patted down almost every time he went to rexall place for an oilers game or a concert. was it because of his aboriginal facial features and his long dark hair? i, on the other hand, was allowed to bring a can of peaches (in LIQUID!!!) onto one of my flights when i was coming back from guyana. how did that happen? how much of a role did my skin color play in that?

if you're middle class and white, you should make an effort to live somewhere for a short period of time (a couple of months, maybe) where you are a visible minority. i think it'll be eye-opening. i think it'll be good for all of us.

anyway, i am heading off to my university-student-esque lunch of half a bowl of kraft dinner and a nutri-grain bar. i'm reaquainting my body to living on a grocery budget of $5/week.

yesterday my mom and i had a pretty intense conversation on the phone regarding nancy drew. i've only seen the preview once, but i'm pretty sure the people who made the movie didn't know much about nancy. she was not a dork! she was not old-fashioned! she was a cunning, collected, strawberry blonde beauty, with a dreamy boyfriend, one slightly overweight blonde best friend and another boyish bff. yeesh. get your facts straight, everybody. nancy was like, the best friend i had in elementary school. if i don't defend her reputation, who will?

kelsey got a new digital camera yesterday. maybe "got" isn't the best word to describe it. maybe "found on the ground near her house" is a little more accurate. maybe "found a camera that is very likely her landlord's" is even more accurate. way to go, kelsa.

sometime in the last week i heard that one of the guys involved in that plot to terrorize JFK airport was a former MP in guyana. good thing that news didn't come out a couple months ago. my parents would have freaked.

on tuesday i went to soccer, and for a while there was just me and this other 19-year-old boy there. he kicked his ball and it hit the top of the chain link fence, got a hole, and deflated. sad. two kids, no ball. but then some other boys came and we played a bit. the mood was already ruined. i went to trivia afterwards with megs and her mom and another lady. the answer to one of the questions was "guyana," which i knew, because i lived there! wow, thanks, international experience. i can already see how well you are serving me. i think we came in last place again, but one of the girls we know who works there gave us a coupon for free ribs. who needs knowledge when you can take pity and have the same benefits?

i bought a computer and an ipod online on tuesday, and the computer is supposed to arrive TODAY! wow, canada post! you never cease to amaze.

emily got a hot new haircut and has a great boyfriend and i have neither. i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little jealous. oh well. i have a sewing machine and a pretty tight relationship with canada post. i'm pretty sure hoardes of girls are envious of me.

i crafted on saturday night. i worked on wallets for some people i like.

on sunday i went to robin's so i could type some letters on his typewriter. also, we are friends. that is a good reason to go to someone's house, yes? but my main business there was letters. i typed in the hot hot sun on the back deck. he typed on his computer and his mom thought that typing on typewriters and computers at the same time was cute, so she took a picture of us. it was great. then i taught robin to crochet. he had a little bit of trouble with it. he will have to practice harder. but it was a noble first attempt. afterwards i went to see spiderman 3 by myself, and then i went to eat supper by myself. i sure do like doing things by myself. i mailed my letters and then came home. i worked some more on wallets afterwards. i will write more about them another day, after the people i've made them for receive them.

i called kaylin's house but she was not home, so i talked to blake. i really like him and i'm glad they're married. here's a fun fact: my kelseydawn and kaylin's blake went on a date a long time ago. i vaguely remember a picture from that night, in which kelsey is wearing a poufy navy blue dress. but maybe i made that up.

also, kelsey: i finally saw the preview for nancy drew. i think it will probably be good, but i'm really not sure they captured the essence of nancy. they don't know her like i know her. so be prepared for me to be a little bit grumpy around 9 p.m. on june 15.

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.