charlottetown

after visiting erica in halifax, i took a shuttle bus to charlottetown. levi picked me up and drove me back to his place. we had lunch at some italian place near the harbour, and i spent the afternoon talking to cassidy on skype while levi worked. in the evening, levi cooked a really incredible meal on the barbecue: wings, ribs, asparagus, red peppers, corn on the cob... delish.

the next afternoon we left on a mini vacation. levi takes forever to get going in the morning, so we didn't leave charlottetown until 3:00 or so. we stopped at a gas station restaurant in new brunswick for supper (i had whole wheat blueberry pancakes, because they seemed like comfort food since i was super sick with a cold), and then drove to a little place in nova scotia for the night. i won't mention the name of the place or the town, but it was pretty brutal. the signage marking out the directions to the place was terrible; their pillows were the plastic kind they use in homeless shelters; and - this is the craziest part to me - they put the dust ruffle on the bed as the quilt. good lord. i went to bed as soon as we got there, because my cold had gotten so bad (there was mucus accumulating in my eyes) and my skin ached and i was exhausted. levi stayed up and drank with the owners.

the next morning, again, we didn't get going until much later than i would have liked. we visited peggy's cove, mahone bay, and lunenburg (see here also). i had been to all three last summer but levi hadn't been to any, so i think he liked seeing them. the drive was nice and felt comfortable. we went for supper at a place overlooking the harbour in lunenburg. the food was good but the meal was a little tense, thanks to my companion's dislike for our server. yikes. we had hoped to find somewhere to stay in lunenburg, but it turned out that there was a seafood festival on that weekend, so everything was totally booked up. we ended up staying in bridgewater or something, about 20 minutes out of lunenburg. i was just happy to go to sleep. still sick, but getting better.

the next day was rainy. we had hoped to go bike riding - levi had even bought a bike rack before we left charlottetown specifically for this trip, and we had bikes with us - but neither of us felt like riding in the rain. we drove back to charlottetown, taking the ferry this time instead of the bridge, which i love. i wrote letters on the ferry while levi napped. when we got back to charlottetown, i tutored cree on skype and wrote letters, and levi went out to music trivia with his staff. i went for supper by myself at a place that caitlan and i had had some incredible rice dish at last year, but found that the restaurant had changed their menu. boo. i had butter chicken instead, grumpily. later on in the evening, i went for a barefoot walk in the rain and mailed some of my letters and had a nice texting chat with jessica.

the next day i just bummed around the house some more and wrote letters. i also skyped with hao and cassidy, and both conversations were really fun. levi took me out for supper and convinced me to try lamb, which i for some reason had never tried before, and i loved it. this was the second time in my life that i had meat with blueberries, and both times were within the span of a month. it's something i'm going to put together more often. in the evening, levi went out with his staff for a going-away party for one of them, and i stayed home to tutor cree online and write letters. i liked the arrangement just fine.

the next day, i packed up all my things, wrote some letters, and borrowed one of levi's bikes for a quick ride along the harbour. i wished i had done that every day i was in charlottetown, because it was lovely. i also wished levi and i had had a chance to bike together, and to play catch in the park like he had promised. oh well. just before i had to go, levi surprised me by getting his staff to pick up a birthday cake for me (it was my 26th birthday on the tuesday). we ate very, very sweet cake very, very quickly, and then levi drove me to the airport.

the whole visit was strange and if you ask me about it i'll tell you more about it, but i won't write about it on here because i know that snoops make their way onto here occasionally and i don't feel like indulging them. it left me feeling strange with a lot to think about, and i was shocked to find myself tearing up as i was saying goodbye to levi. summarily, i don't think i'll be going back to charlottetown for a long time, if ever, and while most of me is okay with that, there are parts of me that are... sad? confused? angry at myself? i don't know. i like doing this sort of emotional exercise, but it's sometimes difficult to sort through. oh well. i got what i needed out of the trip (and it's not what you might think), so i'm glad i came. i love learning, and i definitely learned a lot.

i spent three full days and four full sleeps at erica's in halifax. this is what we did:
september 7th: we made friends with history at the Halifax Citadel, a national historic site of a neat stone military fort. we tried to buy groceries on quinpool but everything was closed. it turns out haligonians are very serious about labour day. as a result, i had to buy canned soup (to help with my cold) and a bag of plain chips (to fill up my stomach) from a convenience store. also, since erica had just moved in to her place, she had no pots or pans, so i had to cook my soup in a little enamel cup. we watched "bottle shock," which i had wanted to see for a little while but which ended up being sorta mediocre.
september 8th: erica needed to go do some things for school so i went to a tea shop and put together a puzzle while drinking an iced tea on their patio. my friend julia sent me a neat letter earlier in the summer that was written on the back of a puzzle, and i had to put the puzzle together to read the message. fun!!! so during the day i put together three puzzles (with erica's help) at various tea shops and wrote letters on the back of them. i bought some food on spring garden (erica was doing a cleanse so she didn't eat anything) and we walked over to citadel hill so we could sit in the sunlight and i could eat. i also ate a blueberry pancake cupcake. mmhmm. it was white cake with blueberries, and two layers of icing: maple and blueberry, both buttercream. hopefully edmonton will pick up on that flavour before i get back. erica went out that night and i stayed in so i could tutor cree and talk to cassidy, both over skype.
september 9th: when we woke up, erica and i watched tokyo! because we are both in love with michel gondry. he didn't disappoint. you should watch it too. i also ate a nice breakfast of strawberries and yogurt and raspberry whole wheat muffins while we were watching the movie, and that all felt good because i like to eat good things in the morning. in the afternoon we went down to the harbour so i could get some soup, and then we took the ferry to dartmouth and went to the value village. that's pretty much it. oh, and i was super sick with a cold pretty much the entire time. boo.

you may or may not know about my mildly epic train trip across canada at the beginning of september. here it is:
september 2nd: my parents took me to the viarail station in edmonton around 10:30 p.m. i boarded the train at 11:30, and my parents have a hard time letting go, so they walked me all the way to my car and then snooped around my cabin before each hugging and kissing me six or seven times and saying goodbye. after putting all my carryon stuff into my (tiny! but cosy!) single cabin, i snooped around all the nearby cars for about half an hour as the train pulled away from edmonton. i fell asleep pleasantly surprised by how comfortable the bed (which folded down from the wall) was.
september 3rd: we passed through saskatoon and winnipeg. prairie, prairie, prairie. i love the prairies the best but i was a little tired of seeing them. in the dining car on this train, they insist that everyone eats in groups of 4s. it was mostly non-canadian seniors on the train, so conversation was easy enough, although i would have rather eaten alone. the food was incredible. really. between meals i either napped (my first night's sleep wasn't fantastic - the noise of the train was hard to deal with. plus i was too excited.) or went up to the dome car to watch the scenery and listen to my ipod/read "conversations with god"/write letters. i also had some nice conversations with one of the only non-seniors aboard the back half of the train (the front half apparently had a lot of student-aged people sitting in coach, but i didn't go up there because i am not a big visitor in the first place. however, if i HAD gone up there, i would have seen a girl i know through caitlan (we all went to cathedral grove together last christmas). i ended up seeing her as we got off at the stop in montréal (she was staying, and i was heading on to halifax).
september 4th: northern ontario! lakes! forest! quiet! maybe i will spend more time up there sometime. maybe jessica and caitlan and i will build our introvert cabin up there. i worked on my cree books (which are coming more slowly than i had hoped) and i think they are pretty cute. i talked more with the non-senior citizen boy i had talked to the day before, and it turns out that he is preeeetty interesting. his high school activities were football, choir, drama, and the robotics club. he once made a giant venus flytrap robot (16-foot moving jaws, that could apparently pick up a human!) for a high school play. he invents things and has patents for them. he kind of reminds me of stéphane in "the science of sleep," just in the way that he creates things. neat. i think his spirit is gentle and good.
september 5th: i disembarked from "the canadian" (the train between edmonton and toronto) and took a less comfortable commuter train to montréal. there, i bumped into carly, one of caitlan's friends who i had met last december when caitlan and a few of her friends and i went to cathedral grove for a day. apparently we had been on the same train for the last 3 days, but i had been in the back and she had been in the front, so we never saw each other. funny. in the evening in montréal (which easily had the nicest train station in the country, as far as i could tell) i boarded "the ocean," the train that would take me to halifax. my room was considerably bigger than the last train, and had its own shower, but i didn't find it as comfortable as the first. that may have mostly been because: a) the blankets weren't as cozy, and b) the bed was set up so i had to sleep perpendicular to the train's sides, rather than parallel (like the first train). i didn't get much sleep the night before, so i pretty much just ate supper and went to sleep. i slept through most of québec, which was kind of a bummer but i hope to spend some time there sometime in the indefinite future, so i'm not too worried.
september 6th: my train arrived in halifax shortly after lunch. i took a cab to erica's. i'll write about my time in halifax in my next post.

one of the best parts about my last week of work had nothing to do with work at all. i had a 2.5-hour phone conversation with a boy i went to high school with, who texted me out of the blue with big life questions. i think our conversation was healthy for both of us. i hope we'll hang out/talk more in the future. i also had some super nice skype conversations with nathan; the same boy from high school; and hao, the boy i met in guyana. i am glad for skype. it helps me stay on the good side of the fine line between solitude & loneliness.

i had a three-day weekend on august 26th-28th. i spent the first day of that in vermilion, and the second two in edmonton. i:
-ate breakfast with shannon at café mosaics
-bought black tennis shoes from urban outfitters & underwear from american apparel
-bought Opa! for lunch & met Jordan at the park near the farmers' market
-napped for a bit at my sisters' condo
-went longboarding with nathan. we didn't longboard for long, though. we didn't feel like it. instead, we bought our respective favourite drinks at our respective favourite coffee shops, and then walked around the legislature. he showed me some of his drawings, and i really got a chance to appreciate his intentionality. in his whole sketchbook (i don't know if he calls it that or something else, but whatevs. his book with drawings in it), there is not a single scribbled out part or page torn out or anything. it seemed remarkable so i asked him about it and he said that he sometimes spends hours planning what he's going to do, and very intentionally makes a decision about what he's going to do before he does it. that's neat. and not the way i operate at all. at the end of the night i sort of forced him to let me copy a bunch of his music onto my external hard drive. i got a ton of great stuff, most notably including 300 billboard hits from the last 6 or so decades. so good.
-ate breakfast at high level diner with dr. e
-met with a professor at the u of a (to get help with my sshrc application)
-tutored cree
-went for vanilla cokes with jessica at dadeo

on the 19th or so i FINALLY finished working on natasha's dress. i started it in february and despite some minor glitches (ie. the wedding getting called off), natasha and i both managed to pull our way through our agreement (my dressmaking in exchange for a painting by her). so, i threw the dress in the washer and dryer (which i knew was safe, because i had washed the fabric before i cut out the pattern) to get out some water spots from the iron... and it came out totally ruined. faaack. there were dark spots EVERYWHERE, as if someone had splattered hot butter or something all over the dress. not very flattering. definitely unwearable. so i e-mailed natasha to tell her what had happened. she was very gracious, but that still didn't stop me from bawling (and THAT was probably aided by my PMSing). since the dress was ruined, i decided to try whatever i could to get the stains out, because i really had nothing to lose. my first few tries (handwashing with no soap, machine washing with detergent) didn't work, but i eventually tried some of the "oxi-clean: baby" that was left over in the trailer from the girls last year... and it seemed to work. so after about 8 rounds of handscrubbing the dress with oxi-clean and throwing it in the dryer (WITHOUT a dryer sheet, which appears to have been the problem), the dress is finally wearable. good lord. i hope natasha loves it. she asked me to put pockets onto it, because we both love them on dresses, and i think they make the dress 10 times more adorable. hopefully she will post a picture of herself wearing it when she picks it up (oh, natasha: i left it at nathan's because i won't see you when you get back). and i am looking forward to getting the painting she's making for me. woo!

i had three days off (tuesday-thursday) last week. this is what i did:

monday night after work i drove to my parents', where they made me supper. then my dad and i took his truck into town and we parked at the hospital, where we visited my kind-of grandma doris. then we got the bikes out of the truck and biked around vermilion. i've never really realized how awesomely flat ALL of vermilion is. i don't like hills. they are okay to go down but coming up is just too much hassle. we also stopped in and visited my grandma and gido, who are pretty much the cutest couple of all time. i came home and talked to natasha on skype, and worked on sewing a wallet. i'm convinced that boys will have crushes on me if i make them crafts. this hypothesis has yet to be proven true.

on tuesday i drove to edmonton. i walked to the u of a from my sisters' condo, and spent a few hours photocopying/printing stuff, seeing if i could get my moccasins fixed (i can't), and meeting with professors regarding my grad school application. then i went for a chocolate cupcake with strawberry icing at flirt, and later i met jessica at her house. we had tea and one of our typical chats, which usually leaves me feeling like bursting with love and shouting about it from the rooftops. that day was no exception. i walked her across the high level so she could go see landon's show at the hydeaway, and i walked back to whyte to meet erica at dadeo for vanilla cokes. unfortunately, she forgot about me. ha/boo. i got myself a vanilla bean hot chocolate and walked back to the condo.

on wednesday i tutored cree for an hour, and then went to whyte, where i bought an adorable jumpsuit at nokomis. it's cuter than it seems in this picture. i hope. i bought some cupcakes for myself and bri, and later in the evening i went to her house and we ate them and then went to the phoenix range. she shot a revolver, which is sooo her style. i shot a 9 mm. i like the revolver more, but i picked the 9 mm because it seems lighter, and my arms get so sore from being tense and holding the guns up. after that we stopped by some pool place to see patrick, and then went back to bri's to talk for a bit. bethany also showed up, holding postcards that i had sent the two of them a few days earlier. it was nice to see both girls and talk to them. i don't get to do that as much as i would like. they also both made fun of the topless jeep i was driving (which belongs to my dad, but emily has been using it for the summer. however, she took my car to calgary for warped tour, because jeeps are bitches to drive on the highway). i'm just glad natasha wasn't around, because i'm sure she would have scorned me ten times as much. little do you all know that i've been driving jeeps and pickups since high school. my family didn't even own a car until i was in grade 11 or so. anyway, before i went home, i bought this cardigan (in paprika/brown) to go with my jumpsuit. i am hoping the ensemble can pass as "business casual" in d.c., because i don't have many clothes that are business casual and that's what i'm expected to wear. gah. levi called when i got back and we had a nice talk and then i went to bed.


friday started out badly. first i ripped the crotch seam in my new jumpsuit. i was squatting next to my backpack and it tore. eff. i have never thought of myself as a crotch-seam-splitter. i guess i am. then my button fell off my wallet. then i went to go start the jeep and found that i had forgotten to turn the lights of the night before, and the battery was dead. faaack. alyssa graciously drove me to whyte, where i met shannon at café mosaics for breakfast. i don't really like many breakfast foods, but man, their granola/fruit/yogurt is INCREDIBLE. after that, i took my car in to get an oil change, and was told there was a mouse nest under my hood and that i needed a new filter or something. meh. it was only $20, so i wasn't too upset. then erica and i met for lunch at dadeo, and had a fantastic and fun time. erica is super creative and very bright, and i love love love hearing her talk about art. she is just so good at what she does, and very thoughtful about what she's doing. i'll be staying with her when i'm in halifax in september, and i can't wait.

!!!

august 2nd:
caitlan's mom drove us to north vancouver, where we caught a bus for deep cove. we went canoeing for 3 hours. i liked riding the wakes of passing motorboats and seeing purple starfish and being in the sun. i like that we are comfortable with long periods of not talking to each other, but just being around each other. or even asking for space when we need it, and not being offended by the request. we had some gelato and then bussed back home for a nap. we watched "persepolis" at caitlan's, which was maybe a little too intense for me to absorb in my exhausted state, but it was nevertheless visually and conceptually intriguing. in the evening, caitlan's whole family (parents, sister, grandmother) and i went to go watch her brother perform at an improv show somewhere downtown-ish. i usually don't like improv much, but this show was actually pretty funny. i liked listening to caitlan laugh at her brother in parts where no one else was laughing. they are twins and they have a neat relationship. afterwards, caitlan's dad drove us home. on the way, we stopped at a gelato place that has 300 flavours! i got some green apple sorbetto. caitlan got apple cinnamon gelato because all the cinnamon gelato was too frozen or something.

august 1st:
caitlan and i got up early and went to the farmers' market in east vancouver. that was when i started feeling really sick with my cold, so i wasn't in the mood to buy and carry around fruits and vegetables. on the skytrain afterwards, this funny group of, like, spanish soccer players or something got on the train and before, during, and after their ride, they continued singing this cute little high-energy song all together (with drums and tambourines and i think maybe even maracas or something). it was kind of indescribable. caitlan used some good words to describe the mash up of genres, but i can't remember them now. it kind of sounded like this. all you really need to know is it was cute and made us smile.

we took the seabus to north vancouver, and found a great little place to make our own fruit salad at lonsdale quay. strawberries! raspberries! pomegranate! watermelon! grapes! oranges! blueberries! pineapple! after that we took a bus to lynn canyon to go swimming. the water was a little too cold for us to swim in though, so we mostly just waded around for a bit. caitlan went to sit down on some rocks and a mid-30s man standing near me started talking to me. the rocks were too slippery for me to get away quickly without risking falling into the cold water, so i was obliged to converse with him. it was standard, unmemorable small talk, but what WAS memorable was this: as we were talking, i ducked my hands under the water and squirted some water through them (a "water clam," or "water lamb," as you may refer to it) just in front of me. i did it subconsciously, mostly because i like how it feels and i do it whenever i am in water. the guy was apparently amazed, and asked how i did it. i tried to explain it, and he was sort of able to do it. i guess he felt inspired, though, because he proceeded to encourage me to try to make a loon sound by blowing on my folded hands. i tried numerous times but couldn't do it, which i suppose gave him the authority to take my wrists in his hands and blow on my thumbs, thus making the sought-after loon sound. eek. i washed my hands in the river and tried again myself, but when i still couldn't do it, he took my wrists again and blew. what!? also, during this whole conversation he was playfully splashing me. don't splash me! you are a stranger and it is cold! then he said, "i have to swim over there" and started swimming away, splashing me a lot with his legs in the process. i'm not sure if it was flirting or he is just a poor swimmer, but i took the opportunity to carefully traverse the slippery rocks away. success. since the water was so cold, caitlan and i decided to scramble around the mountain a bit barefeet and in our bathing suits. that is one of my all-time most favourite things to do, so i'm glad we got to do it, even just for a little while. we walked back up the canyon and bussed back to lonsdale quay. we had some more fruit salad and some cookies, and then went to a theatre and watched "ice age III: dawn of the dinosaurs" in 3D. we hadn't meant to watch it in 3D, but at that time that was all that was showing. it definitely wasn't as good as the other ice age movies, but it was still cute.

after the movie, we to a park just west of lonsdale quay so we could rest. i was feeling pretty garbagey because of my cold by this time. later we went back to the market and ate some delicious indian food, and i had a tea to help me feel better. it didn't help. we went back to the park to wait for caitlan's boyfriend cam, and as i laid out my hammock on the ground, some photographer man snapped a shot and then asked us if he could take a few more for a tourism magazine he was contracted to do photos for. we said okay. i felt a little foolish doing the same thing over and over, but i will be glad to have the pictures of the two of us when he e-mails them to us. cam showed up soon after, and he and caitlan played guitar and violin, respectively. man oh man. the music they were making was so beautiful i felt like crying. seriously. i hope that if i end up moving to vancouver for school, i can have many more moments like that, listening to caitlan and some other interesting people make music in a park on a hot day as the sun is going down. i usually don't like that shit. but caitlan is not usual.

just as we were feeling ready to catch the seabus (which was operating on a half hour schedule rather than a 15 minute one, due to mechanical problems), the photographer man came back and asked us if we'd be willing to wait around for another 15 minutes for this one photo he had been waiting all night to take. caitlan declined, saying that if we missed this seabus, we'd have to wait another half hour, and we were too tired to do that. he said that this shot was the most important one of the contract, and was to be put on the front page of the tourism magazine he was working for, and said that he'd drive us back to burnaby if we'd stay. since it's a 1-1.5 hour transit ride back to caitlan's, we couldn't decline. it actually wasn't too bad. the only time i like having my picture taken is when someone tells me exactly what to do. that way, if i look bad, it's their fault and not mine. he told us exactly where and how to stand, and which way to look and all that. phew. i like being told what to do. he showed us what it looked like afterwards and i liked the picture. i will be glad to have a copy of that one too, but apparently we will have to wait for it until after the magazine has been published. he drove us home and we were not murdered or followed or anything like that, so it was a good deal despite our teachings to never go for rides with strangers.

july 31st:
robin and i had a nice and quiet morning together. around 11 we went to pick up a boy named matthew, who had been one of the participants in robin's month-long project. we dropped matthew off at the airport and then went for lunch at "the foundation" on main. then we went for cupcakes with robin's other project participant erin, and then picked up all of erin's baggage from her apartment and drove her to the airport. then robin and i went to granville island once again. sometime in between all that we also went to the regional assembly of text, which is kind of a dream come true. in the afternoon, we went back to the theatre and watched the rest of "(500) days of summer." i liked it. we went back to robin's afterward so i could pack, and when i was ready, he drove me to the skytrain station. we stopped for pizza first, and then had a nice hug goodbye. that boy.

i took the train to production way station, where caitlan met me. we walked quietly back to her house. i was feeling very tired so we went to sleep right away (it was around 10:00). since it has been so hot in vancouver (like, between 28 and 35 degrees), we slept out on her back deck under an arbor of grape vines. awesome.

dear nathan: don't read this and the next couple of posts. i just mailed you some letters and have one more to send, and they talk about all the stuff i blogged about. so don't read these posts yet or the letters will be redundant.

july 30th:
my mom drove me to the airport at 9:00 so i could catch my flight to vancouver at 10:15. i got stopped at the screening place, i think probably because of the epi-pen i had in my carry-on (i try not to fly with checked baggage whenever possible). i guess the lady who found my epi-pen was in training, because some other lady stood over her and for 15 minutes made the first lady unroll and re-roll every single article of clothing i had in that bag. gah. i wouldn't have minded so much, except for the fact that the lady checking my stuff didn't change her latex gloves before she touched all my stuff, which meant that she transferred everybody else's germs on to me. which may explain why most of my trip was plagued by a bad cold. yeesh.

i took a couple busses from the airport to UBC. i spent my first hour or so on campus at the Museum of Anthropology, taking a few guided tours and crushing on bill reid. at 2:00, i met with an advisor from UBC's anthro department regarding their master's program in museum studies. after that, i met with a professor who i hope will be my advisor if i am accepted into the program for september 2010. it looks like a really incredible program. most of the classes are held at the Museum of Anthropology. the museum itself seems to be really cutting-edge (that sounds so lame, but i can't think of a better word to use) in terms of classifications, physical/figurative repatriation, bi-cultural education, and making the collections accessible to the public for research. woo. cross your fingers that i get in. i'll be applying in january.

after my meetings, i bummed around the museum a bit more until robin picked me up at 5:00. he was in vancouver doing an art project, which i wrote about in an earlier post. we went to granville island and ate a little bit (iced tea, donut, fruit salad, couscous...) and then went to a cute stationery store. then we went to a theatre to see "(500) days of summer." unfortunately, 45 minutes through the movie, the power went off, so we were all issued free passes for another day and sent back out into the un-air-conditioned streets. robin and i went to uncle fatih's for cheap, delicious pizza, and then we went home. robin graciously allowed me to sleep in the bed, which meant that he had to sleep out on the couch in the living room with the noisy kittens. thanks, friend.

july 29th:
i left work a few hours early and drove to vermilion. my mom made me some hamburgers and then she drove me to edmonton. i met up with nathan and we went longboarding along the north side of the river valley. strangely, i had never been along most of those paths, much less longboarded them, but it was AWESOME. nothing compared to calgary, but still better than the little saskatchewan drive runs i had been stuck with before. it was sunny and beautiful and most of the pavement was smooth and nathan was fun and it made me wish i was in the city for the summer.

after that, i met jessy at the second cup on 106th and whyte, and we talked for a bit and then walked to her house. we had a nice nice talk. later on claire came by with an abundance of gifts from shanghai, including a book on crafts to make for babies, some adorable mini cupcake wrappers, a pad of message notes, and a mechanical pencil that has, "On system, on the wings of the wind. The bird flew high in the sky." it was good to see them both. claire and i rode the bus and LRT back across the river together. i like spending time with my introverted friends. i like mass transit. i like the two together. i walked back to my sisters' condo and went to bed.

highlights from the week of july 23rd to 29th:
-vermilion fair: eating mini donuts with my dad, swooning over my magician crush who was performing at the grandstand (seriously, if you don't like magic, you have no soul), visiting my grandparents, eating baby potatoes from my parents' garden, watching "becoming jane" with my mom (i still hate jane austen), eating at a&w with my parents
-writing and mailing letters to two crafty girls in washington who i am hoping to become friends with
-having a 2-hour skype conversation with nathan
-working on the illustrations for my cree books. they are going soooo slowly, but i like them.
-watching "the boy in the striped pyjamas" and "night at the museum" (the latter with my coworkers, before i was interrupted by mad cramps)

hmm. the past week and a half has been pretty dull. let's see...
-i had fun skype chats with nathan, natasha, and claire. i usually don't really love phone calls in general or skype itself, but i have been feeling pretty lonely here and it was nice to hang out with them that way.
-i posted this ad on the washington d.c. craigslist (in "strictly platonic"):
"craftster seeking letter writing partner - w4m - 25
I will be moving to D.C. for 10 weeks this fall. I would love to hang out with someone semi-regularly while I am there, and in the meantime, we could get to know each other by sending letters through the mail.
Show me your favorite parts of your city! My favorite hangouts include communal arts-and-craftsing (à la "the science of sleep"), conversing over tea, leisurely walks or bike rides, visiting museums, and (occasionally) watching movies.
I can't tell you much more - that will have to wait for the first letter I send you!"
i got a couple of nice responses, and i've already written them back with real letters. but i also got a mean jerk who wrote, "Have you ever considered discovering a place by yourself? You seem to be posting an ad to Craig's List, because you will be in DC for ten weeks, and need someone who will be temporarily useful to you." i wrote him back, trying to explain myself, but he told me to hire a tour guide if i wanted to see the city, and that i must think of myself as "daddy's little prize" for thinking it might be nice to write letters and then meet and hang out. he said a bunch more jerky things but i won't write about them. but, come on. why would someone do that? i can't understand it. oh well. i didn't write him back after that. and i still think it's a nice idea to write a stranger for a few months and then meet and hang out in person.
-my friend robin's art project, titled (something like), "the only thing i know for sure is that while i am looking for you, you are looking for me," ended. you can read about it here and here. basically, he found two people who were strangers to each other, and put them up in their own accommodations in vancouver for the month of july, and they had a month to find each other in the city. they didn't know anything about each other, except, well, what the title of the project says. they were also required to keep track of all the things they did to find each other. unfortunately, while the girl did a ton of neat things to leave a trail of where she was, the boy did nothing. boo. i felt bad on behalf of robin, and on behalf of the girl, and on behalf of myself because i was so looking forward to see what they'd each do and how they'd find each other. i won't give away how they found each other. you'll have to read the blogs yourself (start from the bottom!).
-i wrote a ton more letters.
-i went to the powwow at onion lake with my roommate/coworker nathalie.
-at my work, we had a saskatoon festival, which i kind of imagined/hoped would turn out like the strawberry social in "to wong foo thanks for everything, julie newmar" (ie. three flamboyant drag queens transforming a small community; everyone dressing in red & pink (in our case, blue and purple)). it didn't happen that way, though. it was mostly just old people buying pie.
-jordan was in the area for a family reunion, so he met me at my trailer after work and then i followed him to the community hall where the reunion was taking place. it was actually really fun. we kicked around a soccer ball a bit, which felt good because i hardly ever do that any more. then we sat on the grass and talked for a long time and ate candy, and then we went inside the hall for the dance. the music wasn't fantastic, but we had fun dancing to a few songs before i left. that night was the night when that crazy storm swept across alberta, and although we didn't get any trees down or cement falling on anyone, the lightning and thunder and car alarms going off still kept me up.

highlights of the last 11 days:
-canada day! it's my favourite day of the year! that's mostly because everyone is on the same team. on most of the other holidays, there seems to always be people fighting against the holiday or bitching about it in some way or another. people think halloween is too pagan, or christmas and easter are too christian, and nobody really knows what to celebrate on labour day and things like that. but canada day is awesome because pretty much everyone is in a good mood, and out doing fun activities in the community. also, every canada day i can remember has been nice and sunny. so, this canada day, i spent the morning waiting for and then walking in the elk point parade. my coworkers and i handed out 2-for-1 coupons for our site. (we handed out over 250, and only one came back. ugh.) just before the parade started, a CF-18 or some other fighter jet flew super low directly over main street and did some twisty turns. i LOVE fighter jets! seriously, the only thing that makes me as giddy as fighter jets doing tricks is magicians doing tricks. i get so so so happy, so fast. after work, i drove to my parents' house. i would have liked to have gone to edmonton, but i am so sick of driving and only had one day off afterwards, so i couldn't justify it. plus, last year i watched the fireworks with jordan from on top of the legislature, and i knew i couldn't really top that this year. as a consolation, bri and i made fun plans to eat cupcakes, go to hawrelak, and go to the shooting range sometime before the summer is up. she and i have ended up hanging out every canada day for the last 3 years or so, so we kind of think of it as our special day. it was sucky to not see her then but i will be glad if we make our hangout happen. at the end of the day, my parents and i drove into town and watched the fireworks from the fairgrounds. it wasn't spectacular, but it was nice.
-i wrote a TON of letters. like, i mailed 15 in one day. and these are full-lengthers, folks. watch for yours in the mail.
-i received a couple letters. thanks natasha, jess, and kelsey!
-i ordered 5 new sets of mix and match stationery. one has already come in the mail, and the rest will be coming soon. they're so cute!
-i went to the stoney lake rodeo with my coworker/housemate cameron. it was nice to get out of the house. i made brief eye contact with the lawnmower guy (from a few posts earlier, remember?). eek! we didn't talk, though. phew.
-my coworkers and i went to edmonton for work to get some behind-the-scenes tours of the ukrainian village and fort edmonton park. i love this stuff, seriously. it was crazy rainy that day, though, to the point that i couldn't see the cars in front of me or behind me when i was driving on the whitemud. another highlight of the trip was some deee-lish chicken and gnocchi soup from the olive garden. i love soup.
-visiting kelsey in calgary. since she had told me a few weeks ago that she would be moving to belgium for a year, we decided a visit was in order. the drive was kind of a pain in the ass, but the hangout was super fun. we longboarded, ate cupcakes, ate delicious food (chicken vindaloo! mueseli pancakes with blueberry vanilla compote!), had good discussions over tea, crafted, and watched "project runway" episodes on youtube. she also gave me a bike (she had two), which is not much of a looker but will be super fun to have up at my trailer. finally, i borrowed a ton of movies and books from her, and i'm excited to get to them all. oh, this picture is of the canada day hamburger she made me (out of sculpey? i'm not sure what, actually. anyway, i have a tradition of eating a hamburger with white onions and red ketchup every canada day. thanks, kelsey. the picture also shows the icelandic-style yoked wool sweater i made for myself this year. i'm working on another one in green. i love them!).
-switching from music to podcasts on my ipod. i've downloaded a couple podcasts onto itunes over the last year, but have never really gotten into them on a regular basis. however, it has gotten to the point that i am so sick of my music (because i only listen to new music every 4 years or so, and last year was one of those years so i have 2 more years left of old music) and so desperate to learn things (i get mentally antsy when i am out of school) that podcasts seemed the ultimate alternative. i mostly listened to "how stuff works" podcasts on my way home from kelsey's, but since then, i've downloaded a bunch on history, social sciences, and french language lessons. hooray!

sucky things about the last 11 days:
-mostly, the only sucky thing is that i am not at my best mentally/emotionally, largely because of my social situation. i think i function best when i am able to talk out the way i am feeling, and have someone understand and agree with me. since my geographically closet friends are 300 kms away, i am not really getting that ever. all my thoughts stay inside and i just kind of go crazy. at least when i was up north i had meghan and robin to talk with and craft with and hang out with. i sure hope i can make a good friend or two when i am in washington.

i forgot to mention these two things:
1. remember this blanket? when my mom and i went to rutherford house, we took a tour after our tea, and there is an adorable science-of-sleep-esque blanket on hazel rutherford's bed! instead of red with white stitching, it is white with red stitching. it has funny cute little animals all over it. sigh. i've been meaning to make myself a quilt like that for a long time. maybe when i have a home...
2. i'm bored of all my music. recommend some for me!

there's no home for you here girl, go away

highlights of the last three weeks:
-going to elk island park with emily (although we didn't see any bison, AND we watched a baby grouse get crushed by a big mean truck)
-watching fargo, de-lovely, the secret life of bees, akeelah and the bee, the illusionist, frost/nixon, capote, and seabiscuit (all of which i have been meaning to watch for quite a while, and most of which i got for free from the library!
-crafting lots (still working on hand-stitching the binding onto my quilt, another knitted yoked sweater, and the beaded 1790s-style moccasins and voyageur's shirt for work. the voyageur's shirt, although a total pain in the ass to do because the handsewing is so finicky, is pretty neat. all the pieces are rectangles!)
-reading life of pi, the boy in the striped pyjamas, and one or two others i've forgotten already (i rarely have the attention to read, so it's nice when i am able to do it)
-going to edmonton and tutoring cree (for $50/hour!), having afternoon tea at rutherford house with my mom, feeding the ducks & geese at hawrelak with my mom, and watching emily's aerials performance (which included a pretty incredible performance by natasha's former roommate kim)
-taking my grandparents to my cousin's husband's parent's (got that?) 40th wedding anniversary
-writing lots of letters and getting a few back (notably: robin, erica, kelsey)
-canoeing with my coworkers and a funny 84-year-old man named pat from elk point bridge to the landing at our site (along the north saskatchewan)
-going to the saddle lake powwow with my coworker nathalie. i had never been to saddle lake before, but i liked it and would like to go there again sometime. it's a big reserve - one guy we talked to said it had about 6000 people. ho-leh!
-paying the entire cost of my residence (which includes breakfast and supper daily) in washington. it's a relief to know that it is paid for, and i won't have to worry about carrying around a cheque for three weeks while i travel beforehand, or for some reason not having enough money at the end of the summer.
-hearing that the city of edmonton paid for the new tire my sister had to buy after we hit a pothole on the way to aerials class a few weeks ago and put a hole in the tire
-finding out that i will receive $4000 from my faculty to write and illustrate the cree books i had proposed in early april
-booking most of my flights, rail tickets, & accommodations for september 2nd to december
-booking and planning a 5-day mid-summer vacation to vancouver. i will write more about vancouver when the time comes.
-my best friend is making some exciting changes

yucky parts of the last three weeks:
-my best friend is making some exciting changes. the most blogworthy one of these is that she is moving to belgium for a year. aaaaaarg. so. yes, i encouraged her to do it in the first place. and yes, she has been 300 km away from me for the last couple of years and we still only manage to see each other every 8 months or so, and the last year has been even more seldom than that. and yes, i am really really glad for her. i am not even so afraid of her going, because, as i have pointed out in numerous conversations in the last few months, not much ACTUALLY changes when people are apart for long periods of time. i am just afraid that if she goes, she will have no reason to ever come back. i may be insanely jealous of her too.
-i got a $50 parking ticket for parking my car "too far away from the curb" at the downtown library. i was parked for less than 5 fucking minutes, and the cube van in front of me extended at least as far out into the road as my car did. but my back bumper was apparently 80 cm away from the curb, and it cost me $50. fuck you, city of edmonton. use it to fix the damn potholes that are all over the city, hmm?
-i went canoeing from devon to edmonton with my dad and sister. usually that is pretty fun, but this time, it was super cold and windy the entire time. i felt like we would never make it home. there were whitecaps on the water from the wind, and we just had to paddle steadily through the wind to get down the river. i don't like canoeing because i like paddling. i like canoeing because i like sitting in a boat in the hot sun and eating snack foods and floating with a few people i like. that's it. i don't like getting up at 5:45 in the morning to drive to edmonton, and then paying $50 each to work hard and freeze and then get a sunburned face despite the cold. grumble grumble grumble.
-i have no one to craft with.

on saturday i had a day off. just one day off, which wasn't long enough to go back to my parents'. instead, i stayed at the trailer in town. i knew i had to mow the lawn, because one of the requirements that went along with us staff members staying in the trailer is that we had to make sure the lawn was mowed regularly. apparently, last year's residents didn't do that, and neighbours phoned the provincial government (which owns the property) to complain. eeks. i didn't want that. but no one had been able to find the key to our shed until the very end of may, so our grass was getting pretty long.

i got out of bed and threw on some clothes, keeping my glasses on because my allergies have been making my eyes crazy itchy lately and i have to take eye drops every 4 hours (the preservatives in the drops prevent me from wearing my contacts). i looked gross and felt gross. i got the lawnmower out of the shed and tried to start it. it wouldn't start. i kept pulling on it. it didn't start. i checked the gas. there was some in it, but it still wouldn't start. i noticed some guy, around my age, walking across the trailer park towards me. i thought i heard him yell something, but since i hoped it wasn't to me, i ignored it. however, he came up to me and asked if i was having problems. obviously, yes. he checked the gas and added some more from what we had in the shed. he asked if i had any oil, and i said no. he asked if i could drive a standard. i said no, and hesitatingly asked why. he said that if i could, he would get me to drive his car over to the gas station to pick up some oil. i said i had my own car and that i could take it. he asked if i wanted him to come along, and since i didn't really know what to get, i said yes. while we were walking to my car, i asked him what the deal was with his car, and he said he couldn't drive it because he had been charged with a DUI and had had his license taken away. ugh! (i think that DUIing is one of the most appalling things that people can do.) on the way there and back, i was really careful about indicating just how introverted and unappealing i would be to him (hints like "i really like crafts" and "i just like being by myself during the summers" would do the trick, i thought). when we got back, he put the oil in the mower and tried to start it and it worked. i was about to thank him and start mowing when he said, "so, uh, do you want my number in case you have any more problems with your mower?" it was a pretty reasonable question, and i couldn't think of any reason to say no, so i very hesitatingly (that word will come up several more times) said okay, and headed inside to get a pen and paper. he wrote it down and i started mowing, and then he asked, "so, do you want to watch a movie tonight?" again, hesitatingly, i kind of stammered and said, "um, maybe, i don't know, i'll see." and then he didn't really move away or anything, so i stopped and wrote down my phone number. ugh! i felt like i didn't have a choice. i mean, a) he had helped me, and b) he is my neighbour and knows where i live. i would rather get a phone call than a door knock. he turned away and i finished mowing my lawn.

i went inside to take a shower (because i am so allergic to grass and anything that grows and lives), and before i had even gotten a chance to get dressed, he called. he asked me what i was doing, and since i didn't want to offer up the imagery of me wearing only a towel, i kind of mumbled, "nothing." he asked if i wanted to learn how to drive a standard. i couldn't think of a good excuse not to. i knew that he was probably desperate for company (i found out through the course of the day that he's a 30-year-old rock truck driver in cold lake, and moved here with his parents from newfoundland about a year ago to work), and equally desperate to go for a ride in his new car, which he was unable to drive himself because of the previously mentioned DUI. it was nice to learn, but i was terrified i would smash his car, terrified he would make a move on me, annoyed by his mixture of clubbing/nickelbackesque music, irritated by the FIVE cigarettes he smoked while we were in the car, and a little surprised that the directions he gave me led not just around this town, but all the way to a town half an hour up the highway and back. while we were there, he insisted we stop at a movie rental place to pick up some movies. after he had picked one out, he asked me, "what do you want to watch tonight?" i said, "well, i've got this book i want to finish tonight" (which was true), "so i'm not sure i'm up for a movie tonight." he didn't really acknowledge that i had said anything, and 20 seconds later, repeated his question. ugh. so i picked out "valkyrie," because i was remotely interested in seeing it and it seemed like the only movie that i would like that he would like too. and i wanted to be sure that if we did end up watching a movie, that his attention would be as glued to the movie as possible.

i dropped him and his car off at his house, and as i was getting out, he said, "so, you're going to come over and watch that movie later?" again, i told him i wanted to finish my book, and that i had 150 pages left but that i'd call him at 6:00 to let him know how close i was to the end. at 4:45 he called and asked if i wanted to come over for a steak supper with his family. eek! he knew that my roommates weren't getting home until 6:30, and he knew that i hate cooking, and he knew that i didn't really have any other plans beside reading. so what could i say? i hesitatingly, again, said okay, but told him i wanted to read until his dad got home and supper was ready to eat. after i hung up i dropped a ton of cuss words loudly and then read a bit and reluctantly made my way over to his trailer.

his family's yippy dogs were running and barking all over, his parents were dressed in sweatpants and lying on the couch, and he came to the door wearing the "i am canadian" sandals he had been wearing earlier. we ate supper and both he and his dad smoked two cigarettes each during the meal. then he asked if i was ready to watch the movie. it was 6:30, and i didn't see a way out, so i told him i'd watch it but that i had to go home right after to finish my book. i thought we'd go watch it in the living room. but of course, that didn't happen. he stopped in his room and sat on his bed in front of the t.v. stand that sat to the right of it. i didn't move past the door. he looked up at me and kind of laughed and said, "what?" i said, "um, are we going to watch it in here?" he said yeah. for fuck's sake. i sat down on the end of the bed closest to the door, furthest away from the t.v., and leaned against the wall. he got up and shut the door "because of the glare." during the movie he smoked 5 more cigarettes, and halfway through, asked, "do you want to lay down? my back's kind of sore." the first unhesitant sentence i said all day was, "nope, thanks, sitting like this is most comfortable for me." he laid down anyway, and i curled my knees up to my chest and kept a solid few inches between us at all times. before the end credits even started rolling, i bolted out the door and said thanks and goodbye. i was very careful not to use the words, "see you later."

i was frustrated that nearly 6 hours of my day off had been stressful and not restful at all. thankfully, i haven't heard from him since.

but... i felt like i got back at the world karmically today, or at least improved my ability to assert myself. my coworkers and i went for supper at a local restaurant, and when we ordered, the waitress asked each of us, "caesar or tossed salad?" which seemed to all of us to indicate that it was included in the meal, as it is in many restaurants. i said caesar, only because it took less words than saying, "none for me, i don't like salad." i'm already reputed to be a picky eater, and i didn't want to have to bring more attention to that. so when i got my salad, i ate all four croutons and three pieces of lettuce, and left the rest. when i went to pay for my meal, they charged me $16.95 for the elk steak and $4.50 for the salad. at first, i reacted by saying, "what? for real? you guys are charging for that? i totally didn't want it. well, whatever." but then i thought it over, and decided that i never really DID want it, and that the waitress' wording was deceiving to me and everyone at my table, and i didn't eat much at all anyway. i told the lady at the till, "you know what? no, i'm not going to pay for that. i didn't want it, and i hardly ate any of it anyway. i'm just going to pay for the steak." she looked pretty taken aback, and then she got aggressive, saying, "what, it's my fault that you can't read? it says right there on the menu that the meal only includes steak, vegetables, a baked potato, and garlic toast." i told her calmly that it wasn't anybody's fault, but that i still wasn't going to pay for it. everyone i was eating with kind of passively agreed that we'd all understood the salad was included in the meal price. she compromised and said, "well, i'll charge you each $2 for the salad. that's fair." i said no again, that i wasn't going to pay for any of the salad, and that i certainly wouldn't be back there again. yikes. she sure wasn't happy with me, but i didn't end up paying for that stupid salad. three people in my group paid half price for their salads (because they ate them all), and one guy didn't even mention that he had gotten a salad. what a fucking ordeal. so i'm sure i've made some enemies, but whatevs. it felt good to assert myself after that ridiculous day with the lawnmower guy.

i was in edmonton on may 23th and 24th. i wanted to go specifically to go to the powwow at the butterdome, which i keep missing every year. i made it this year, though. my mom and i drove from my parents' to edmonton, where we picked up my train ticket to halifax for september and then headed over to the powwow around 2. mom left for a walk around 3:30, which is roughly the same time becky met me at the powwow. we hung out for a bit until she had to leave. jordan and i had planned to go for supper at new asian village, but he called me earlier in the day to say he had some vegetables he wanted to plant and "didn't want to waste the day." nice wording. so i went to pick up some chilli chicken to go for myself, and came back to the u of a campus, where i met jonathan and nathan. the three of us waited around for jordan, who, as far as i understood, still intended to meet us around 6. by 6:15, he hadn't shown and wasn't responding to texts, so the three of us went to the powwow. the grand entry started a little late, and jonathan seemed pretty transfixed by it, so i mentioned to them both that although i wanted to go see the 7:20 showing of "night at the museum: battle of the smithsonian," i wouldn't mind staying at the powwow if they were enjoying themselves. the consensus seemed to me to be that we should stay longer, but mysteriously, at 7:20, right when the movie was about to start, they both decided they wanted to leave the powwow. we went for a walk and nathan said his neck was really tense and giving him a headache, so he thought it was best if he went home. it was totally understandable, but it made me feel pretty grumpy that jessica semi-ditched out on me (she got the days mixed up, and actually was working that day because she thought the powwow wasn't until the next day), and jordan didn't even bother calling to ditch out, and now nathan was ditching out (nathan, i know that you will probably read this. and i know you weren't ditching out. but the combined ditchingness of the past month, together with the ditchingness of that day, only left room for feelings of aloneness and not understanding). soon enough, jonathan ditched out too, saying he wouldn't mind hanging out for a bit but he didn't want to watch the movie. i didn't really feel like hanging out, because my head hurt and my feelings hurt, so i told him so. he went home. i drove back to my sisters' condo, but no one was there and i didn't have a key and my head was hurting and i was on the verge of tears, so i laid in the back of my mom's car and tried to sleep. then jordan called and asked if i was still going to the movie. i was grumpy and told him i didn't know, since everyone had ditched out. he said he still wanted to see it. so we went. i cried in his truck on the way there because i felt so yucky. i'm glad i saw it. i still felt yucky, but it was partially masked by feeling excited about going to the smithsonian.

some other things:
-i finished reading "three day road" by joseph boyden. i always forget that i like reading. everything i do goes in cycles, and if i am not into the reading part of a cycle, i am really not into it. but if i am into it, then i devour books. i got a library card this week and ordered a bunch of books from past "canada reads" contests. now i am on "life of pi," and "king leary" is on hold for me at the library.
-last saturday we had a special event at our site, and i got to shoot a musket. neat. other than that, i spend most of my time at work beading and sewing moccasins. i'm trying to make a number of historic costumes for the kids who visit our site.
-i watched "capote." you should watch it too.
-my friend robin went to europe. i am jealous of everyone else's travel plans. it is easy to forget that my own are pretty exciting too.
-i saw bri and patrick at the sugarbowl when i was in the city. it was nice. i like them.
-i am close to being done natasha's dress. hopefully she'll be around this weekend so she can try it on. if not, i'm finishing it at the size it is and keeping my fingers crossed that it fits well.
-i finished my knitted yoked sweater. i'll post pictures soon. i started a new one in a greeny colour.