third week in DC

on sunday i went with my edmontonian friend mary to her friend lydia's apartment near U street. we had a really fantastic conversation about native studies (lydia did her master's on aboriginal incarcerations in canada, and mary's mom is a prof in native studies), with a pretty great view of the city from lydia's balcony. i had to leave early, though, so i could meet some of the other interns at the eastern market. from there i walked to the air and space museum to see if any good imax shows were playing (since interns get in free), but none were, so i took the metro back to union station where i bought a strawberry smoothie. i came home and napped before tutoring cree and going to an all-house meeting with all the girls and managers at my residence. hot topics included internet connections, flushing etiquette, and hand sanitizing procedures for when flu season starts. yeesh.

on monday at work brian jungen gave my department a tour of his new exhibit. neat. in the evening i met another edmonton intern at ben's chili bowl for a brief hangout before she went back to canada.

on tuesday the interns had a tour of african art museum & the smithsonian castle, led by the man who does the mounts for artifacts. it was pretty adorable how passionately he talked about displaying things in the best way and least invasive way possible. i skipped out on the rest of the afternoon and went to the natural history museum, where i watched an IMAX called wild oceans. it wasn't as good as the dinosaurs one i saw a few weeks before.

on thursday i ran over to the hirshhorn right after work and waited in line for an hour (passing the time by eating my ham sandwich and banana supper) to get tickets to the talk tim gunn was going to be moderating on anne truitt's work. i was surprised when i got in (the line in front of me was pretty long), and even more surprised that my coworker/co-interns (who had all left work before me) did not get tickets. oh well. i basked in tim gunn's glory for the hour and a half that the talk lasted, although even he could not convince me that truitt's work was "genius" or "all about life" or even worth giving a second thought to. i get pretty irritated when art world people insist that "the art should speak for itself." that works fine for people who know the whole history of art and movements and theory and stuff, and who therefore understand where a piece fits into that chronology and how it works with or against other pieces. but for the rest of us, we need a little bit of context to understand why anyone in their right mind would think painted rectangular columns are "genius." all of the panelists at the talk refused to talk about the meaning or processes or inspiration behind the art. they offered some anecdotes from truitt's life, but as far as making the art accessible to the general museum-going public, they did a pretty shitty job.

on saturday i went to dupont circle at 10:30 for cupcakes with one of my letter-writing friends, but she didn't show up. boo. the place IS hard to find because its signage is virtually non-existent, and she was running way later that day than she intended, so... no hangout. i came back to the neighbourhood later in the day with another letter-writing friend, and we walked around and went for italian food for lunch. i spent the evening with a third letter-writing friend: we got ice cream on E street, walked around, & watched "capitalism: a love story.

second week in DC

to start off my second week in DC, i ate breakfast with mary and a few other girls from the dorm. then i went for a long walk by myself around to the big touristy spots in DC: i walked down pennsylvania ave., walked past the white house, went to the lincoln memorial, walked by the washington monument, went to the museum of natural history and saw an awesome exhibit on ants (they're incredible!), watched a 3D imax on dinosaurs, and walked home in the rain. the maps and the movies make that distance seem really short. it's not. i finished the day by talking to my mom & dad on skype.

during the week i tutored cree online, visited the natural history museum's collections with the other interns, saw an exhibit on an amtrak train at union station about disney's "a christmas carol" (which included some of charles dickens' belongings, as well as neat videos on the process of making the movie. and all on a train! fun!), met up with brian jungen a couple of times so we (ie. the cultural interpreters and education department) could learn about his work for when the exhibit opens up and people want tours, went to see the pains of being pure at heart and the depreciation guild at the black cat with two of the other interns at my museum, watched "night at the museum: battle of the smithsonian" AT the smithsonian in imax (come on. how could i not?), and tried to make responsible dietary decisions (ie. choosing strawberry smoothies over cupcakes or giant pretzels. luckily, there's a good smoothie place at union station, which is just 4 blocks from where i live).

first week in DC

on the first day of my internship i met the intern coordinator of my museum and the 5 other interns and we got a tour of the museum on the mall (where i'll be interning, along with 2 other girls) and the one in suitland (where the other 3 girls will be). my museum is actually one of three under the same name - mine is on the mall and has about 1% of the collection on display; the one in NYC is smaller but has lots of live performances and is there because the original owner of the collection required that some stay on display in his hometown; and the suitland site is where the rest of the collection is held. we went on a tour of the collection storage, and it was pretty incredible. there were thousands of amazing artifacts from aboriginal communities all over the western hemisphere. my top favourite artifacts are the boats: birch bark canoes, skin kayaks, reed boats, etc. so incredible. anyway, during our tour of the mall museum, we joined in on a little party that was happening on a balcony overlooking the mall and the capitol building. i felt like we were on the first episode of a season of project runway, and heidi klum and tim gunn were about to come out and tell us about our first challenge.

i spent the next few days getting paperwork figured out and getting settled in my internship. i've been placed with the cultural interpreters, so my tasks are to work with the education department's teaching collection; get trained on the family activities and start presenting some of them; and to come up with a presentation on an indigenous community of my choice. on my second day, i found that the teaching collection (about 400 articles, separate from the museum's real collection) was not as well organized as it could be (ie. each artifact had its own excel sheet, but there were no accession numbers on any of the articles AND there was no searchable database linking all the info), so i spent most of my first week making up a simple database and then entering all the data from the separate sheets, so that my coworkers can search the collection by material, culture group, social usage of the object, type of object, etc.

on my second saturday in DC, i went to the national zoological park and saw giant pandas, flamingos, giant tortoises, and lots of other neat animals. i got a milkshake at the johnny rockets at union station and silently reminisced about times kelsey and i would go to the one in west ed in our west ed phase. i ate supper in the residence cafeteria with a girl named mary, who is from edmonton and here through the same program that i am (but at a different museum). i usually eat most of my meals in the cafeteria by myself. i think the other girls in the residence might think i am a serial killer because that's what people think about other people who just like being alone ("yeah, she was strange. always kept to herself."). whatever. anyway, mary and i met up once in edmonton before we came here, and there's a good chance we'll hang out in edmonton once we return, and she's very bright and i like her company when she's around. she invited me to watch "dirty dancing" with her and some of the other girls in the tv room, sort of as a way to help me get to know new people. ha. i said yes, because i wanted to get out of my room. the DVD player wasn't working, though, so we ended up watching a VHS of "sliding doors" with gwyneth paltrow. it was an interesting concept, but not a very good movie. i sort of rage out at movies that have relationships i don't believe have any real foundation. this movie was full of that.

first days in DC

i left the montréal hostel around 8:00 a.m. on september 18th so i could get to the train station in time for my 9:30 train. jonathan met me there to say goodbye and to give me a cd he had made for me on "timelessness and time," a theme i had requested (based on a line from an edward estlin poem) when he had asked if he could make a themed cd for me.

the train was scheduled to leave montréal at 9:30 a.m., stop in NYC at 8:00 p.m., leave NYC around 10:00 p.m., and arrive in DC at 1:30 a.m. the next day. i was dreading spending 11 hours straight sitting on a cramped train, but the ride from montréal to NYC was probably my best train experience so far. most of the ride went through the adirondack park reserve along lake champlain, which i think i can safely call the most beautiful part of my entire train experience. it would be a nice place to live, i think. at any rate, if you are ever wanting to go for a little train ride, i would suggest this one. it is inexpensive ($68 from montréal to NYC!), and the seats were super roomy and comfortable. i switched back and forth between napping on my two seats and working on my cree books on my laptop (there was a plug-in next to my seat, thank goodness) while watching the scenery.

i got into DC at about 1:30 a.m. on saturday the 19th, and was exhausted. i got a cab to take me the 4 blocks from union station to my new residence, because i was just too tired to walk with my huge backpack on my back and my little backpack on my front.

i slept well, and spent my first weekend in DC visiting the national postal museum and buying stamps there; wandering around a few streets north of the mall (and being relieved to find an american apparel - with shockingly friendly and unpretentious staff (edmonton's AA staff: take note!)); checking out the café at my museum and eating duckling (for the first time - and it has immediately become my favourite meat. it's like red + white meat, together. unreal.) and wild rice johnny cakes with blackberry compote (which, unfortunately, have all been replaced with the new autumn menu); taking the metro to go buy laundry detergent; napping; skyping with cassidy; and trying to find somewhere to buy a coffee mug on a sunday so i wouldn't have to use the styrofoam cups provided at my residence. the only place nearby that was open & selling mugs was the my obama shop in union station, and a fox though he is, i just couldn't bring myself to buy a mug with his mug on it. (the next day, i ended up finding a starbucks (even though i hate the place, i knew they would what i wanted & i didn't want to spend more time looking around) and got a brown mug & brown water bottle. thanks, starbucks. i learned a few days later that there's a starbucks that i could have gone to at union station, which has cute washington cherry blossom mugs that the other didn't have. oh well.)

post script: as you can probably tell by now, i really only have one pose for pictures, and it has been featured in 3 of the last 4 posts. this is partially because i am highly unphotogenic and this is the only pose i can bear to see myself in, partially because i hate taking photos and having photos taken of me, and partially because i am a terrible photographer and have no one else around to take my picture. from now on i am just going to take photos of my surroundings and just photoshop myself in, because my "look" hasn't changed at all since 9th grade (except for the brief - and cute! ...in my opinion - style i fondly refer to as my "lesbian cut," circa late 2002-2005).

montréal/overwhelming you with hyperlinks

in the early evening on tuesday, september 15th, i flew from charlottetown to montréal. montréal is FANTASTIC in that its metro system connects fairly simply with its international airport. i get irritated every time i have to pay $15 for a shuttle from edmonton's international airport into the city. anyway, the fact that i didn't have to spend that much just to get from the airport to the hostel made me like the city immediately. jonathan met me at the hostel and we walked to his new apartment, where he made supper for us. it was nice to talk, but i was tired and didn't stay long.

the next morning, i took the metro to old montréal. i wanted to buy a cupcake before exploring museums with my montréal museums pass. i ended up getting sort of lost, and a friendly man helped me with directions. i said i was looking for a cupcake place, but that i should probably eat breakfast first. he suggested i try olive + gourmando, which was the same place he was going to be meeting someone for lunch. i went, and it was pretty incredible. you should go if you're in montréal any time soon. i just had a fruit salad, which is my favourite breakfast food, but it was one of the best i've ever had. then i went to the cupcake place across from the notre dame for a cupcake and a macaron, but neither were very good. after that, i took the metro to the biosphère. it was neat but not as neat as i had imagined. i also got a tour of their eco-house, and my tour guide for it made a few comments to me about language and how english people are assholes to the french. i guess i always knew that that opinion existed, but maybe because i'm from the west i never really realized how strongly people felt it. after that, i went to château ramezay, which had some GREAT artifacts on canadian history as well as a neat temporary display on the history of the bicycle. kelsey, i wish you could have seen that exhibit. for the most part, the museum was one of the best i've ever seen, BUT i was surprised to see a turtle shell rattle and something else (i think it was a pipe and pipestem put together, but it may have been a shaman's mask) that i was fairly certain should not be displayed for cultural sensitivity reasons. hmm. i then checked out the sir georges étienne cartier national historic site before heading back to the hostel. i had a nap because i had a massive headache, and then jonathan met me at a metro station and we went to schwartz's for supper (at levi's suggestion). the food was mediocre (despite its reputation for being a "can't-miss" spot in montréal) but it was fun to hear about jonathan's new crush.

the next day, i went to olive + gourmando again for breakfast, and then visited the biodôme and the mccord museum of civilization. both were pretty great. the biodôme's tropical forest made me miss guyana's rainforest, but my most favourite part was seeing the puffins and penguins. i LOVE puffins! and penguins! mccord had a great gift shop (as a repeat museum employee, this is something i quietly critique every time i visit a museum) that had a lot of good books, postcards of artifacts from their collection, and high quality crafts made by local artisans. i would have liked to see the redpath museum too, but the massive headaches that i'd been getting every day for the past couple of days hadn't let up, so i went back to the hostel in between the two museums i mentioned for a nap. jonathan met me for supper after i visited the mccord, and after we ate we went back to his place so we could watch michel gondry's portion of "Tokyo!" (which i had purchased from hmv earlier in the day). after that, i went home and packed and went to bed so i would be ready to catch my train to DC in the morning.

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.