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.