{SCHMALTZ DAY: lots of birds}

it's schmaltz day. 

a day for reminiscence of the sappiest kind.

this week's schmaltz:

one time, barclay and i went on a road trip and there were a lot of birds.

i felt as though someone had photoshopped the sky--

and i rolled down the windows and tried to capture the moment as well as i could. 

i need a real camera, obviously, because there was a point where the sky was almost black with birds and this makes it look like the sky was a just bit grainy with birds.

i can't fully emphasize to you how many birds there were.

THERE WERE SO MANY BIRDS.

but the schmaltzy part is that this was the road trip of the weekend he met my parents for the first time and talked to my dad about maybe possibly dating his daughter. which, for the record, i did not know guys did anymore. the asking the dad part, that is. 

chivalry. schmaltzy, i know. 

that was also the weekend we started dating, a wee bit more than three years ago.

may i just say: wow. 

wow about the birds and wow about barclay and wow about time and how fast it goes. 

{rain on car windows at 110 km/h - part II}

my brain is starting to tick along again, the way it's supposed to. 

tomorrow, maybe, my eyes will uncross.

we've done a lot of rainy highway driving in the past couple of weeks;

more than 24 hours, all added up.

that's one whole day, and isn't that nuts? 

we've seen probably twenty rainbows, i-don't-know-how-many blurry trains, and a funnel cloud. 

at one point in the trip, we were just listening to music and i was looking out the window and i got a little bit... i don't know, a little bit astounded, i guess. 

astounded about the colours and astounded about the clouds and the landscape and astounded about my eyes' and brain's collective ability to correctly interpret and appreciate the wild art gallery we were driving through.

i love being astounded that way. i think it's good to be astounded a couple times a day. there is a lot to be astounded about. enough to easily last you until you're an old, old person--you shouldn't even have to ration yourself.

it's kind of sad to me how people get used to this amazing, free stuff and have to shell out billions of dollars to get astounded anymore.

so anyways, then i started talking too much and pointing out all of the things that astounded me.

poor barclay.

i talked so much that i ran out of throat and began to sound a little bit like a teenage boy.

i think that i can't fully experience anything quietly. 

i've been trying to get better at it though. 

it's hard.

i made you a playlist for if you ever find yourself highway driving in the rain and have the same problem as me.

{if you're reading this in a reader, you'll have to click through for the music.}

{rain on car windows at 110 km/h}

i can't really show you my mind stuff today. it's all sorts of places and it's a tad muddy.

i don't mind mud. 

so, i'm going to wander down the street and see what's there.

i have to say: sometimes i wish it was both socially acceptable and not extremely dangerous to take a nap right smack dab in the middle of a busy street. i'd be up for that. 

when i was younger, i used to park my car on side roads in the middle of the night and lay on the hood and pretend like i was the only person alive. 

and it was pretty easy, because out where i lived, the only lights were the stars and the only sounds were the crickets and coyotes. 

sometimes i wish there were coyotes and crickets and stars where those skyscrapers are.

{midnight bloggins}

it's night. it's 2:01. my alarm is set for 4:30 am {YIKES that is happening in 2 and a half hours}. i started working on a wee project at like 8 pm and i have been unable to walk away from it.

i'm debating at this point whether to just stay awake and finish or what, because you know how when you get asleep after being awake for a long time and then you wake up but you can't, fully, because your body won't? it's like that. on an even grander, more confusing scale.

the problem is that this project involves a lot of lettering, and i'm afraid that if i try to push through, i'm going to start writing strange dream-esque things instead of the things i'm supposed to be writing. and i'm doing it in pen because i'm daring and bold, so i can't really afford to write "armchair" instead of "amaretto".  you know how it is.

i just accidentally clunked myself over the head with my laptop.
bedtime, absolutely.

{this is how you grow up}

i'm glad to now have an older brain. this morning i woke up and remembered a lot of things and knew a lot of things and just in general thought of a lot of things and i think that it's because my 24 year-old brain is an upgrade from my 23 year-old one.

that, or i had a really good sleep last night.

i decided, since my brain felt so polished, to think about some important things and, in general, came up with some good stuff, i think--some ideas, some resolutions, some solutions, some other things.

in honor of my advanced 24 year-old brain, i drank my coffee without any cream in it this morning. if you know me and you know about how my coffee is always mostly cream, you know that this moment is actually more Occasion than moment.

this is how you grow up. you do it in years but also in Occasions and lots of changing ideas and thoughts. and i guess that's cool, but it's also a bit scary.

but it's roller coaster scary; not axe murderer scary. so you'll be ok afterwards.

thanks for all the sweet birthday wishes yesterday. they all made me grin.

{24}

if years were hours, i'd be one day old today.

and i'd be the only newborn baby with a driver's license and a husband and all my grown-up teeth. 

my mom would be so proud/mortified.

but life goes pretty quick, as it is. 

{it's raining, it's pouring}

i'm down sick again today. it's raining like crazy and i'm snug in my giant zebra blanket that i borrowed from my mom about 5 years ago and still haven't returned.

i started doodling raindrops in my notebook and then i got the itch to paint them. which is completely stupid because i don't paint. if you know me, you know that.

which is also the reason that i don't actually have any paints to paint with. rats.

so i laid on the couch for about half an hour listening to imogen heap; looking at the ceiling, looking at my sheet of raindrops, looking at the computer, looking at my fingernails, looking at the ceiling, looking at my sheet of raindrops, looking at the computer, looking at my fingernails.

a thought:

i can't believe i've never thought to paint with my nail polish before.

{SCHMALTZ DAY: jamboree}

it's schmaltz day. a day for reminiscence of the sappiest kind.

here's this week's schmaltz:

this is barclay and i singing a wee set of songs at a jamboree in...2009, i think. we were fairly freshly engaged and both sets of parents were right in the front row. precious, right?

one of the songs we sang: 

and another, minus the high female parts that are in swedish:

{this song also ended up being the recessional song at our wedding that fall.}

we just like music a lot. playing it, listening to it, listening to each other play it. our most recent favourite activity involves me at my piano teaching him to play the old complicated classical pieces on his electric guitar. we try to go as fast as we can, and it's kind of exhilarating, in a music-geek couple kind of way.

schmaltzy, i know.

{music on the brain}

x + y = z

if x = music
and y = summer
then what does z equal?

outdoor music festivals, sunny walks to the library to sample new music, and singing/playing for weddings.
stinking bliss is what z equals.

and this is me pretending to pay attention during band practise while sneaking myspace quality pictures of myself in the piano mirror with my phone.

{whale shark poop}

i saw my heart yesterday. it looked like a ghost. 

{i get to have an echocardiogram once a year. it's a kind of date with my insides.}

then i took my cousin to the art gallery.

i'm not completely sure that it's ok to take pictures in an art gallery.

what's done is done though.

i'm in a little bit of a hazy soup brain mood. i might possibly actually be dreaming, and then i might wake up tomorrow morning which, in my dream, is now, and this post won't have even ever been written. in that case, i'll write it in the then. 

either way, you are reading it now, and that is the point.

but, actually, the point is not that.

the point isn't anything. 

because the point has been swallowed up whole by the great whale shark that is my soup brain, because the point is swimming away through the shadowy waters, because the point has been digested and is at the bottom of the soup brain sea. 

i can't help it.

{i don't want to be a space clock}

 i went for a walk yesterday,

because there are a lot of really pretty sheds in my neighborhood.

i was taking crappy cell phone pictures and i was thinking, as i often do while walking anywhere without a roof, about the possibility that gravity could reverse itself and i could float off into the sky and die alone, hanging out there in space like a broken clock on the kitchen wall of an abandoned home. 

but yesterday, i had a sort of reassuring realization:

if gravity were to reverse itself, i would not simply "float away", not like a bubble or a balloon would. 

there would be no moment of panic, no searching around me frantically for a hand to grab, no time to "swim" to my house and take shelter there.

no.

i'd fall up into the sky like a brick dropped from a grain elevator.

i'd shoot spaceward like a firework-- 

and the ending would be the same. 

and i'd have no time to be afraid.

maybe this sounds awfully morbid, but i feel much better about going for a walk now. 

{SCHMALTZ DAY: up out of the sandbox}

it's schmaltz day. a day for reminiscence of the sappiest kind.


here's this week's schmaltz:

this is my friend, lish, and i riding a sand alligator. you'll notice that my face is the perfect picture of consternation.

this picture was taken right smack dab in the middle of a pretty crappy weekend. i don't remember all of the details, but alligator riding was definitely the high point of it all. schmaltzy, i know.

here is a fitting song for today because of it being named "alligator".




i invited tegan and sara to my birthday party along with imogen heap. i hope someone shows up or i'll just feel like a big lonely poop.

{it happened}

my two least favourite musicians/bands IN THE WORLD are simple plan and natasha bedingfield.

it has been this way for years, and it's pretty non-negotiable. there are contenders {shania twain, nickelback and all their sound-alikes, that girl who sings the song about how she doesn't know how we're going to build a castle now but she'll stay until the sun goes down, katy perry, miley cyrus, lil wayne and a lot a lot a lot of others}, but simple plan and natasha bedingfield are the worst.

as 7th heaven is to tv, and the last song is to movies, natasha bedingfield and simple plan are to music. if you don't believe me, go to youtube and seach for natasha's song about babies and simple plan's "welcome to my life." or just trust me.

yesterday, i was driving home from a thing, and flipping through the radio "just to see", as if someday there might be something worth listening to on any station other than cbc, and LO AND BEHOLD.

i paused on a station playing a hilariously bad song about someone who says 'good morning' when it's midnight and whose heart heart heart is so jet lagged heart heart heart is so jet lagged heart heart heart is so jet lagged.

i could not contain my cheshire grin when the radio dj said, "...awesome. the latest from simple plan, featuring natasha bedingfield, that was jet lag..."

wot?

flabbergasted. i never thought i would see the day when the bottom fell out of rock bottom and mainstream music would plummet into whatever is under that.

{tweeting at imogen heap}

yesterday, i discovered grooveshark. not "discovered" as in i didn't know it existed until yesterday when i stumbled upon it. "discovered" as in i knew it existed and didn't care until yesterday when i gave it a shot and was completely side-swept by the fantasticity of it.

wot? red squiggled? 

come on, blogger--how is fantasticity not a word? it's my favourite one!

but the point is not that.

the point is that the discovery of grooveshark led to a thorough listen-through of the one imogen heap album i don't own {imegaphone} but which i did have at one point in time. the listen-through completely took me back to then and this morning, june 7, 2011, i was running through a forest in june 2007 listening to getting scared on my little lime green mp3 player and, indeed, getting very scared now. 

and maybe that was the most convoluted way to describe it, but the point is that i love an artist whose voice alone is a time travel machine. i'll be 96 years old and still running through the forest listening to imogen heap.

anyways. all that led to me making an imogen heap playlist on grooveshark and then that led to me jumping over to twitter and inviting imogen heap to my birthday party. i guess i've developed a strange little obsession with tweeting celebrities.

but celebrities are people too. and they're on twitter where i can tweet at them. i can't help it. 

here: 

{the way that people are.2}

{click on images to make them bigger}

{the way that people are.1}

{oh also}

being saturday, it's also the day i'm guest posting over at hollyknitlightly.com. we're playing mad libs, and there's a surprising video cover of a britney spears song. so you should probably head over. 

CLICK HERE.

{THUMBS UP EVERYBODY FOR ROCK AND ROLL}

it's saturday. a day for getting things done, a day for friends and family, a day for a birthday party in the evening, and hard work all afternoon, and red river cereal and hey rosetta in the morning. ah. most likely a fantastic day.

a day for living life to the fullest.

so today, in the spirit of saturday, i hand the mic over to a very inspirational young man--to inspire, and to encourage. he knows you can do it.

{before watching, open a seperate window in youtube and play this song in the background.}

{problem}

i'm really bad at keeping in touch with people, because i'm tired of the phone.

i like doing two activities at a time, one that involves my mind, and one that involves my hands. the problem with the phone is that it involves your mind AND a hand, but not in a way that your hand is necessarily busy, just in a way that your hand is taken.

it's like missing an arm. i can't handle it. i don't know what to do with my free hand. i walk around the house, up and down the stairs; i sit, i stand, i attempt to cradle the phone in between my shoulder and head and wash dishes; i give up when the noise from the running water drowns out my conversation. i get distracted by the paintings on the walls and the books on the shelf and the patterns in the laminate flooring.

the conversation dies.

i had rigged a hands-free phone system of sorts last year, but it started to give me a headache.

rats.

there is a growing need in my personal life for a tele-transportation device of some kind, or a cheap jet.

{SCHMALTZ DAY: my waterfall}

it's schmaltz day. a day for reminiscence of the sappiest kind.

so here is the randomly selected photo:

this is my waterfall and i.

i think i have more pictures of us around here somewhere...

i spent a summer living in the mountains, working at a little cafe attached to an old coal mine. i had a lake in my backyard and mountains in the front and often went kayaking or spelunking or exploring or something when i wasn't serving up soup and coffee. i had miscellaneous adventures involving air mattresses on white water rapids, and wrecking old trucks, and climbing ice walls with no ice on them in the middle of the night, and a particularly frightening bike accident.

and when i wasn't doing any of those things, i was climbing all over my waterfall, a book or my Bible or a notebook in tow. i even wrote a pretty cheesy two-page poem about the water "breaking apart and falling together, seamless like skin", and also about the ants who lived there at the edge of it. schmaltzy, i know.

i was going through a phase, or something. that was back before emo was screamo and {i think} it was ok to be all melodramatic about waterfalls.

what?

{google smarts}

i know everything.