Wednesday, October 31, 2012

{AN ARMY OF REALLY SHORT GHOSTS: a true and scary story for your halloween}

Photobucket It was a dark night. I don't remember if it was stormy or not, but I know for a fact that it was dark, because it was night. I was in grade seven, and it was a school night, and it was midnight, and I wasn't asleep yet because I thought it was uncool to go to bed before midnight. Seriously.

I'm so glad that "coolness" is no longer more enticing than "sleep".

But the point is not that.

The point is that I was crawling into bed after a three-hour phone conversation with my best friend and, having discussed all facets of all of the current issues {friends, boys, and school}, was very tired, and very ready to sleep.

I laid there for a bit, and then started thinking about ghosts.

There was a girl in my class when I was in grade five who always talked about them. Always, always, every day. She'd said they came out at midnight, which didn't bother me then, because I didn't know yet that staying up that late was a cool factor determinant and went to bed pretty faithfully hours before. I'd said she was making it up. She'd said she'd seen them. I'd said there weren't any in my house. She'd said they were everywhere. I'd said I didn't believe in ghosts; she'd said that that made them mad. I'd said that if they didn't exist, they couldn't be made mad. She'd said they were going to probably murder me in my sleep for saying that.

At recess, on the brightly lit playground, dangling from the monkey bars and feeling especially invincible, I'd usually retort with something brave and mean sounding like, "WELL GOOD. THEN I WON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOU TALK ABOUT THEM ALL THE TIME."

But then, at home in my dark room, I'd hide under my covers every time the house creaked, and run screaming down the hall to my parents' room when my frayed nerves just couldn't take it any longer.

In grade six, the girl laid off the ghost stories just slightly, and by grade seven I was sleeping a little better. I still didn't believe in ghosts, but alone in my dark room at 12 AM, I sometimes thought about them.

Anyway.

So I was laying there thinking about ghosts, the clock read 12:04, and the room was getting stuffy and hot. I couldn't sleep, even though I was so desperately tired. I pushed back the covers. Something caught my eye.

A glowing pair of eyes, staring up at me from under the blankets. 

I screeched like an injured cat. Every hair on my head stood on end and my body leapt out of bed almost involuntarily, before my brain could register anything about what was happening.

If you're thinking "pet", you're wrong. We had no pets in the house. If you're thinking "nightmare", you're also wrong about that, because I wasn't sleeping. I was more awake than you've ever been in your entire life. If you're thinking "ghost", then you're thinking what I was thinking, and you'd have been right where I was, on the other side of the room trying to calculate a way to get to the door and down the hallway without having to pass the Ghostbed.

Cowering in the corner of the room, wishing my body had bolted in the opposite direction, I strained my eyes to see into the inky dark. We lived on a farm; there were no streetlights to light my room even a little at night. I could hear coyotes howling in the distance. {Coyotes sound like ghosts, did you know that?} I became aware of a presence to my right and my heart leapt clean out of my chest. The eyes were there, embedded into the wall of blackness, hovering about three feet off the ground, and there were more than two of them. 

IT WAS AN ARMY OF REALLY SHORT GHOSTS.

Now I ran. Past the bed, out the door. My parents' room was down the stairs, through the living room, through the kitchen, through the dining room, around the corner. It seemed impossibly far. I stubbed my toe on the stair railing, I slid down the last few stairs on the heels of my feet, I banged my elbow on the fridge as I flew past. I saw glowing eyes in my peripheral; they were literally right on my tail.

Literally. Right on my tail.

Literally.

I stopped, two feet from my parents' bedroom door.

I looked down.

You know when you're so relieved that you just start sobbing?

My mom came out of her bedroom then, and I told her what had happened and she thought I was maybe sleep-walking or completely out of my mind. And this is the part that I hesitate to share because of obvious reasons... But I feel like grade seven is far enough in the past that it's not so shameful {?} to admit that, somehow unbeknownst previously to me, the little smiley faces on my Boxer Joe pyjama shorts glowed in the dark. And that when you stand in front of a three-way mirror in the pitch dark in glow in the dark polka-dot pyjama shorts, somewhat hysterical and quite tired, the effect is a teensy bit similar to a wee little army of really short ghosts.

So.

Happy Halloween.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Photobucket I used to be adamantly against smart phones. "Robots!" I said. "They know too much!" I said. "I don't have that kind of money!" I said. But, you know mostly the thing about the money.

And then, in a weird little twist of fate called a Christmas present, I became the owner of an iPhone. 

I still think they know too much, and am a little weirded out at the intelligence and abilities of the little computer I carry around in my purse, but I can't leave home without it. I mean, it might be a huge conspiracy, someone trying to rule the world and get a camera inside the homes of everyone in the world and get everyone's bank information and, ultimately, control of our Starbucks gift cards... but I'm past caring because it's all just so dang convenient and fun. 

But the point is not that. The point is look at the sweet apps you can download {for free, most of them} to enhance your already ridiculously privileged iPhone existence! Or, for today at least, here are four of my favourites.

1. Photosynth 
Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket This one is a camera app for making panoramas or fish-eye shots, capturing a lot more than you could with just your iPhone's built-in camera on its own. It's actually really easy to use once you get the hang of it.

2. Songza
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I use this one every morning. You open it up, pick your activity, pick your mood, and it plays a custom playlist of good music for you. It's fantastic and free and I've found some wonderful new music with it.

3. Starbucks Photobucket Every coffee shop should have an app like this. You can store your gift cards on it and scan your phone at the point of purchase instead of rifling through cash or whipping out your debit card. It has a billion other features too, including a filtered search engine (for if you're specifically looking for a Starbucks with wifi, or if you only want to find stores open past 6 pm, etc).

4. Cinemagram Photobucket
This app is ridiculous. And I love it. It's Instagram's weird uncle. Instead of taking a picture, you take a short video, and then you decide which part of the video you want to animate and which part you want to keep as a still. I love it, even though it's awfully creepy.

What are your top four?

Thursday, October 25, 2012

{my own head}

Photobucket Life is just the right amount of exciting around here right now.

I'm trying some more new things and learning some more new things and exploring some more new places and meeting some more new people and remembering to get the right amount of sleep and drinking a tad more coffee, but not too much. That's a good combination.

It's fun when you start to figure out your own head; how it functions, what it needs, what it can do, what it can't, when you should push it, when you shouldn't. That's probably the first step to becoming a rational adult!

I'm on my way.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

{free shipping}

Free shipping in the society6 shop until Sunday. 
Click the picture, if you want to.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

{how royal canoe simultaneously wrecked and made my day}

Today was going to be a ridiculously good day. I was going to walk down to the bakery, spend some time in the sun, go for lunch with Kiersten, teach some piano lessons, and then finish off at The Exchange with Royal Canoe.

Obviously, the show was the main thing. Have you heard these guys? They happened in Winnipeg, of all places. I don't even know what genre they are; it's like they've collected the discarded scraps of convention and technique and sound from under the tables of varied hip-hop and indie and pop artists and sewn them seamlessly into their own giant patchwork of an album. They're mad. It's fantastic. Their live show? Anticipated to be the musical highlight of my month. Case in point below: the video that made my day. Watch all the way to the end for goosebumps and just ignore the guys in the balaclavas if you're prone to nightmares. However.

This morning I woke up to snow and the realization that the show was actually scheduled for November 23. Not October 23. And then the further and worse realization that the one in November has been cancelled. I almost crawled back into bed {for a year}. Dear Royal Canoe: Why are you doing this to me? Please change your mind.

As for tonight, I guess I'll just listen to their Extended Play album that I downloaded from Noisetrade {check it out and get it for yourself here} over and over as loud as my iPod will allow and cry into my cereal. And there will be no milk, because it's too cold to run out and get some.

*This post was also published on The Rooster today. Jump over there and read it again?

Monday, October 22, 2012

{lab rats and fondue}

On Saturday night, Liz and I kidnapped our friend Bethany from Boston Pizza, where she was having a quiet birthday supper with her family. Liz blindfolded her and led her to my waiting car where she was greeted by two lab rats who were trying to take over the world and wanted her dead.

Because I figure, if you're going to do the whole "kidnap your friend and take her to a surprise party" thing, you should do it with a wee bit of, like, flair. Or something. I'm only a little ashamed to admit that I spent Friday evening home along talking to myself in helium voices and recording it on garage band. Only a little. You should've been there.

Video Evidence:
I'll save you the ten minutes of tinny Jeopardy music and Bethany saying, "I don't know!" over and over {it was pretty cute, but I feel like she's been through enough} and just tell you that she got the answer right, saved the world, and arrived at the party safe and on time.

I'm thankful for silly friends. Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket {PS: The guy mentioned is just someone Bethany and I both know from our childhood. He wore a puffy yellow vest every time I ever saw him and was a tad obnoxious. In his defence, he was in grade 8 when I met him, and what grade 8 guy is not a tad obnoxious? Guy: if you ever come across this and somehow figure out it's you, no hard feelings, ok? I edited out your name because I feel like Bethany would be a little mortified if I didn't. I feel like Bethany's going to be a little mortified anyway. Oh well.}

Saturday, October 20, 2012

{free music for your saturday}

One of my favourite places on the internet is a site called Noisetrade.com. Musicians of all genres put tracks {and sometimes full albums} on there for you to come along and download for free. And it's completely legal. And you're not making your favourite artists mad because they're the ones putting their stuff on there. You enter your email address; they send you a download code, and that's it.

I could spend hours just scrolling through until I either see someone I recognize, or someone who looks interesting. I'll click on random albums and listen for a bit and then, when I love them, hit the download button. My iTunes is so full right now, and I love it. It's like someone opened a free buffet restaurant on my front lawn. I'll take this one, and some of this, and some of that, and--YES! this...

The only, only thing that might bug you about it is the fact that you have to scroll through so much music without really knowing what you're looking for. If you're too lazy busy for that, allow me to keep you updated on my downloads and where you can find them for yourself. {Just click on the picture if you want the music!}

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Thursday, October 18, 2012

{fog}

I love watching fog roll in. It's the closest I think I'll ever get to being completely awake and sound asleep at the same time. Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

{thinking about death, again}

Photobucket My friend's little sister was murdered this past summer; today would've been her 23rd birthday. I'm not going to go into the details of it all, because I wouldn't even know what or how to tell you and it's not my story to tell, but I wanted to share a tiny bit of my friend's Facebook status from this morning. Just a sentence, actually:

"Happy 23rd birthday to my beautiful sister in heaven...I wish I could do something to make you feel special today, but I guess all my chances have been used up."

I guess it just got me thinking about all the chances I've been given in this life in regards to other people. I've written about death before {here} but that was more about, you know, my death. I always hear the phrase live like you were dying thrown around, but I've never heard live like all your family and friends were dying. People ask, "What would you do if this was your last 24 hours on earth?" but not, "What would you do if this were your best friend's last 24 hours on earth?"

I know. This is weird. Just go with it.

I'm not trying to negate the importance of taking care of your own soul, making sure you're ready to go and all that. This is just a different thing entirely: I'm talking about making the most of every single big or little opportunity to encourage, love, care for, reconcile with, honor {etc} the people you're on this earth with.

It's not a new thought, at all. It's just something that really hit me this morning. It's something that I think my friend did really well for her sister. It's something I want to do really well for everyone I come in contact with. It's something that you don't do by accident.

Thoughts?

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

{later, summer 2012}

PhotobucketToday, I feel like I could lay down in the middle of the floor and stay there until April. I could count the stipple chunks on the ceiling and faintly mouth the words to the slow, grey music on my iPod. Wrapped in five thick sweaters and my yellow knit toque like a big, bulbous butterfly in its cocoon.

Kind of over the top, I know. That's me.

I just don't know what to do with myself. Do I go outside? I should. It's not that cold. But it's cold enough. Where is everyone? Midterms. Work. Snugly metamophosising in their own cocoons. Where's the sun? Nowhere.

Fall and I are like grade six girls. Best friends one day, mortal enemies the next. I tell her I love her but I badmouth her to our mutual friends when she's not around. She hugs me with a warm breeze, the kind with apples and pumpkins in it, but when my back is turned she grabs me by my hair and shoves my face into a pile of snow {where'd that come from?}.

Catty. Rude. Best friends forever.

Whatevs.

Monday, October 15, 2012

{reptile world}

Photobucket I really, really, really like gross and weird and dangerous animals. I'm not a cat person, or a dog person, or even a hamster person; but I love toothy sharks and gigantic tigers and venomous snakes. I think they're cute. Like, in a slimy, scaly, misunderstood, poetic kind of way. Like, I would hug a boa constrictor if I didn't think he'd 'hug' me back. You know? They just have so much more personality than puppies or gerbils.

I mean, I wouldn't want any of those things in my house, or living in the little river down the street, because most of the time I don't love being eaten or mangled, but I still get pretty excited about seeing them in real life.

And so it was that Barclay took me to Reptile World.
Photobucket REPTILE WORLD, guys! {This is him trying to look pumped about paying eight bucks to stand in a room full of spitting cobras and deadly pythons.}

I was very excited about it.

We got there just in time to watch them feed the snakes and alligators, one by one. You don't even want me to describe that part to you, but it was fantastic. The burmese pythons were my favourite. Those things could swallow you completely whole if they wanted to. Exhilarating.
Photobucket There was also, among many other scaled things, a 600-pound alligator named Fred, who'd been adopted by Reptile World when a woman tried to smuggle him into Canada on an airplane in her carry-on luggage. {As a baby, obviously. But still. Silly idea. At best. If she could only see him now...} Photobucket The only other people at Reptile World were little boys with huge eyes, perched on their fathers' shoulders, cautiously peering around each corner and gasping out loud at the contents of each cage. I guess it's not that common of a romantic date destination. Whatever.
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Friday, October 12, 2012

{a horror story from 2003}

I liked camp. 

Growing up, I mean. I liked being at camp. I liked packing a bag and sleeping in a cabin with a billion other girls and I liked eating camp food and I liked camp drama and I liked campfires and I even liked the camp swimming hole, which was actually just a big leech-filled mud pit. 

{Everyone always got leeches on their legs when they went in there, but I never got leeches on me because I was special. I was leech exempt.} 

But the point is not that.

The point is that, you know, I liked camp. I went to camp starting when I was eleven, and I kept going to camp until I turned sixteen and was too old to be a camper and had to be a cabin leader instead. 

So, anyway, a favourite late-night activity at this particular camp was a game called Find the Leaders and it was exactly what it sounds like. And it just so happens that not only was I leech exempt, I was really really dang good at Find the Leaders. My trick: find some tall grass, lay down, fall asleep, wake up when the bell rings. It's the perfect spot because everyone expects you to hide in or behind buildings, trees, the hills looming from the shadows by cabin 8. No one combs meticulously through the field behind the mess hall. Unfailing wins.

And so it was that one breezy july evening found me asleep in a bed of tall prairie grass, the open sky stretched out over me looking as though it could swallow me right up in a single gulp. 

That was the night I almost died.

I'd been there for about thirty minutes or so when I woke up. I was confused, at first. I remember becoming gradually aware of the grass rustling nearby but not completely knowing what the sound was, the way that you sometimes don't hear or don't understand your alarm clock first thing in the morning, or it incorporates itself into your dreams. There are sometimes cougars, I thought. I held still.

Voices then, and a sigh of relief from me. Because, you know, cougars can't talk. 

"Be right back," one of the voices said. A boy's voice. And the rustling came closer, stopping right beside my head. I debated: should I move? The boy would find me then for sure, and I'd have to go play the garbage can game in the mess hall until all the other leaders were found. If I held my breath and waited, I could go back to sleep soon. On the other hand, I didn't want anyone stepping on my face. Did he see me already? Why was he just standing there? He'd probably seen me. Rats. I was just about to make myself known, when I heard it. 

ZZZIP.

Zip?

And then the sound of...running water?

Realization. Gasp. Horror. 

I knew then that I definitely hadn't been spotted. And I knew for sure that it was already too late, that I couldn't move, because how would you like it if you were relieving yourself in in a field in the dead of night in what you think is complete and perfect privacy when a 16 year-old girl jumps out of the grass right in front of you and scares you half to death? 

And also because he was standing on my hair.

So, I did the only thing I could do at that point. I shut my eyes and prayed he wouldn't see me and held my breath and hoped that he wasn't peeing in my general direction and pretended to be asleep. 

That's all you can do at a time like that. 

Thursday, October 11, 2012

{lomography}

Photobucket PhotobucketThe day before we left for the mountains, I got a package in the mail with a Lomography La Sardina camera inside, courtesy of Monica at ciaochessa.com {click that, she's a fantastic photographer and I love love love her blog}. I was excited out of my brains because, you know, FILM! and FREE! and JUST IN TIME FOR VACATION! and all that.

This camera is kind of a blast because it comes with a removable flash {with interchangable colour filters} and makes it really easy do fancy things, like shoot multiple exposures. It's also pretty funny looking, which I appreciate. {You might recognize it from the video I posted yesterday.}

We were tentative and skeptical at first, but now I just want to glue the thing to my head and take pictures like a maniac. Endless, you guys, endless possibilities. These are a few of the pictures off our very first roll.
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Wednesday, October 10, 2012

{video scrapbook: canmore 2012}


This weekend, Barclay and I took off. We needed a break, but not from each other.

We drove for miles and miles, slept at a lodge on a pretty little lake, climbed a whole mountain, ate so much food, swam, hiked, hung out, visited reptile world, listened to music...etcetera. Holidays are great. If you don't make time for them, your head falls off. 

Figuratively speaking.

Friday, October 05, 2012

{teeth marks on your forehead and stuff}

PhotobucketI forgot to show you all this picture from that time I joined the circus. I thought I should now though, because I'm all about being real about my life and how it's not all perfect and glamourous all the time; sometimes it's putrid lion breath and acts of astounding bravery for very little money and teeth marks on your forehead. You know?

Thursday, October 04, 2012

{blankets and capital letters}

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It's 1 degree Celsius here right now. I'm under a blanket, drinking coffee, listening to really chill music, running around the internet, taking care of business. I know in a couple of minutes I'll have to get up and do the things that need to get done in the real world, but for right now I'm a snuggly little bundle in the middle of a patch of light lace streaming in the dining room window.

How does anyone get anything done when the undersides of blankets are so cozy?

Anyway. I just wanted to tell you that I've decided to start using capital letters in an attempt to be a good role model. It's one of my October resolutions.

Other October resolutions include winning the McDonald's Monopoly game and being nicer to dogs and eating more spinach and not staying under this blanket the whole time.

Wednesday, October 03, 2012

{extra pants}

PhotobucketOn saturday, we {Leah, Jared, me} threw a party at Jared's house for the bands playing the festival here in town. I dreamt, the night before, that no one came.

But then in real life, 70 people came.

Like whoa.

The first to show up were the guys and girl from one of my favourite bands, Said the Whale. I immediately reached into my purse and turned my cell phone off, remembering that my ring tone happens to be their song Goodnight Moon right now. Awkward, you know?

Another band showed up, and then another, and then another. I shook hands and directed people to the bathroom and got cheese for the burgers and handed out business cards and laughed at jokes and ate some food and played a pitiful game of catch with some rapper I'd never heard of. At one point, I found myself sitting across from a guy who'd clearly had a rough night and didn't seem completely present.

He was from a band I was only vaguely familiar with and had crazy, red hair that stuck almost completely straight up. He kept running his hands through it and then looking faintly disgusted and wiping them off on his pant legs. I noticed he was wearing mismatched socks.

"Your socks don't match," I said, trying to make friendly conversation.

"No," he said, looking confused, "I don't know whose socks these are, actually."

"Oh?" I asked.

"No," he said again, "I'm not sure whose socks these are. I crawled up into the rafters in some banquet room at our hotel late last night to take a little nap, but when I woke up, it was 10 in the morning and there was some awards ceremony going on below me." He ran his hands through his hair again, examined the grease on his palms. "And I didn't know where my socks were. And I didn't know where my pants were. I had to wait until the ceremony was over and everyone was gone. And then I went and got these socks from somewhere. I didn't have extra socks."

I nodded. "Well," I said, "It's good that you had extra pants."

I know that that was a dumb thing to say.

He nodded back though, and looked thankful.

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

{rush}

i've mentioned before that one of barclay's all-time favourite bands is rush. they played a show in the next city over on friday, so of course we were there. the music was, obviously, fantastic, and seeing neil peart do his thing live was a TREAT, and i'm a sucker for a high budget lights show, so...it was fun.
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