Thursday, August 30, 2007

soooo relaxed.




Just got back from Whistler, where J & I spent my birthday. We only had 24 hours, but I think we packed a lot in...
There was a condo, which we got for nothing, thanks to some old family friends.
There was walking through the upper & lower villages, and re-acquainting ourselves with the town where we spent most of last summer.
There was ecstatic swimming in Lost Lake, which was my fave spot to hang out last summer, and which was just as refreshing as I remembered.
There was lots of playing with my new tripod and lens filters, courtesy of J.
There was a delicious birthday dinner and drinks, and running into a highschool friend that I'd graduated with many years ago.
There was a movie, The Nanny Diaries, which we watched at the tiny cute Whistler multiplex with a bottle of Bailey's, and left before it was done, slipping out for...
Post-movie drinks at Longhorn's and The Garibaldi Lift Co, wandering through the pitch-black park where we'd done our play last summer and even a lumbering bear shape ambling over a bridge and, luckily, away from us to the closest trash can while we beat a strategic retreat about 20 feet away. It's just not Whistler without bears.
This morning we stopped for breakfast at the cafe in Alpine Meadows where we'd spent many a happy day last summer as it was near where we lived- and the guy at the grocery store recognized Jon! That was both lovely and sad, as it brought home to me that this was not our home anymore, and we were only passing through. But what a great visit! And what a perfect way to turn thirty-three, in this amazingly beautiful part of the world.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Saturday, August 25, 2007

walking on the moon

It's amazing how evocative songs can be. I'm listening to the above-mentioned Police track as I type, and it will forever remind me of rainy days when I was 18 and living away from home for the first time, renting a room at Lin's house and working at Blackberry Books. Spent a lot of time in my bedroom (the one place I truly felt comfortable in that house) listening to music, especially a Police best-of CD. This song is still one of my favorite pop songs ever.
In other news, the Cleanse is going well at last. J & I have both lost weight, and the cravings have decidedly diminished. 2 more days, after today. I'm going to try and stick to the eating plan as much as possible, because it works really well for health and weight loss. But I'm going to have a few sugary treats on my birthday, for certain! 33 in 4 days...

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

cleansing

Wow. I was Little Miss Droopy-Drawers yesterday, wasn't I?

Well, the Evil Decongestants (let's blame the drugs) have exited my system, so I'm torturing my body with a 1-week cleanse instead! J & I are willingly depriving ourselves of cheese, chocolate, salt, sweet things, chocolate, fried stuff, wheat, refined and processed stuff, chocolate, alcohol, and did I mention chocolate? At least we're in it together. I actually love eating all this healthy, tasty (and it can be tasty, honest) food, but we both find it really hard to actually fill up on this cleanse. You're just hungry more. And a little bit headachey for the first few days. And filled with violent cravings. I remember the first time I did this cleanse (it's called Recleanse, & you can buy it at healthy grocers) I went to see a movie and by the end of it I would have chewed off my own arm if it meant I could then buy a tub of greasy popcorn. But I really need to get a handle on my weight and health, so here goes...

Although I was pretty moody & restless yesterday, I was healed by a nice visit with my mom, some great sex (I knew I kept J around for a reason!) and a surprise call from our lovely friends Sean & Michelle who were in town with their little girl. So instead of cleaning up the debris from our recent road trip, we headed over to Coquitlam and played music, sat around, talked... it's so comforting to know that even as we age and change, even as some of us marry, have kids- we can still find a true connection with each other. J & I don't have legions of friends- we're not super-schmmoozy like some people we know, but I am glad that our closest friends have been around for a long time. We could definitely work on being more social than we are, but the friends we do have are golden.

Monday, August 20, 2007

it's good to be clean again!


It's great to be showered & fresh-smelling again after 2 nights of primitive camping at its finest in Salmon Arm. JT & I were at the Roots & Blues festival for the first time- man, what a weekend! Even a raging head cold couldn't stop me from having a blast. Highlights:
  • seeing/hearing Mexican punk/ska group Los De Abajos & the fantastic Michael Franti (see above pictures) on the mainstage Friday night. Even though I was feeling sick & exhausted I couldn't stop dancing.
  • the wonderful 'workshop' performances we saw on the smaller stages Saturday & Sunday: Los de Abajos jamming with 2 Irish groups; heavenly Sunday morning gospel in the pouring rain with Jim Byrnes, Marie Knight, the powerful Ruthie Foster and others; 3 very different East Indian bands trading crazy tabla solos and making everyone dance even though it was so cold & wet on Sunday.
  • running into Cathy, Doug & the kids from Enderby- so great to see people there that we knew!
Lowlights included our 'campsite', which was a cordoned-off plot in a farmer's field with hundreds of others, including our neighbours with a crying baby. No showers. Dreadlocked festival-hopping hippies inhaling spliffs first thing in the morning. Tents with a blast radius of crushed beer cans all around. Fun for a couple of nights, but no more. Luckily J & I sprung for a new tent and inflatable air mattress (thank you, Superstore of Kamloops!) so we could actually move around inside and sleep in comfort. (J's old tent is very good quality, but tiny.)

Anyway, it was fun, but it's great to be home, especially as the rain she is still gushing down & I have had some kind of yuck reaction to the Neo Citran I took last night & it kept me up 'til after 4am. Has anyone else ever had this twitchy, irritable, prickly, restless feeling after drinking that stuff? Usually it dopes me right up but last night and even now I feel gross. Only good thing I can say is that I ended up writing 2 songs at 3 in the morning, after I gave up on ever getting to sleep. When I did sleep, for a short time this morning, I had a strangely unsettling dream about meeting my violin-playing friend Amelia in a Home Depot with her sister. I was thrilled to see her after so long, but she wouldn't look me in the eye and I could tell she was mad at me for some reason. I finally shouted "What is it? Is it just that you never really enjoyed playing music with me & you didn't think we sounded good together?" and she said "Yeah, that's it," and I hissed "I don't believe you. What's really wrong?" and as she came towards me, crying, I ran like hell out of the room we were in, snaking through the aisles of the Home Depot so she couldn't find me and dashing out the door. I woke up feeling awful. And I still do. Damn you, decongestants!
Also just saw photos of the Flying Folk Army in all their glory posted on Megan's Flickr site. We look so young and so happy playing our scruffy, anarchic folk that I want to howl. Jon looks so handsome in some of the shots that I realize how much more grey is in his hair now and how much weight he's gained. Not that I love him any the less for it, but I worry about his health so much. Megan & I on the other hand, look healthier (and thinner) now than we did back then, although we also look older.
It's just going to be one of those miserable days. I promise I'll get my sense of hope and perspective back soon, once the drugs have cleared my system. Bear with me, OK?



Tuesday, August 14, 2007

sigh.

I am fighting off a cold. My chest is slathered in Vicks Vapo-Rub, my sore back in Tiger Balm. I stink, in short. I ate lots of bad-for-me things for dinner, including a cupcake. Now my stomach looks as if I am ready to give birth. To a cupcake.
But my place is clean.

Purge-o-rama '07 or, I have way too many possessions

Take a pile of unwanted shoes...
and waaaay too many clothes...
and a bunch of papers and assorted rubbish:
and you get 5 garbage bags full! Fighting off a cold, I still managed to purge & clean, and it felt great, although it's only the tip of the iceburg.
My mother had a friend who, although she was in many ways a kook, was a master of simple living. She had various kids & grandkids, and a messy, complicated life, but you could have had a Zen retreat in her apartment, it was that spartan. I aspire to that, but I find it really hard to let go of things. Part of me would really like to be The Girl Who Had Only One Pair Of Jeans And A Simple But Classic Silver Necklace That She Wore Everywhere, but I love my clothes!
What brought this cleaning binge on was a full-on shop-a-thon my mom & I had yesterday- a little early-birthday fun at Park Royal. I got a simple but lovely Timex watch (takes a lickin' & keeps on tickin'), some mad sexy pointy red ankle boots that look killer under a tight pair o' jeans, and some assorted tops. So to assuage my guilt at so much consumption, I had to redress the balance by getting rid of some old stuff. It's a start.
Jon & I are both tired and lacklustre today- neither of us could sleep so we tossed restlessly like landed fish most of last night. After feeling amazing almost all summer I think a cold is coming on. I miss my long walks with Lotte and I have that late-summer gloom; although the weather has taken a turn for the better again, I know that Fall is coming. My birthday is always tinged with that melancholy, even when the weather is still hot & bright. This will be my Jesus year: 33 years young. What will 33 bring?

Saturday, August 11, 2007

waking up

I yanked myself out of bed a mere 3 minutes ago, having somehow woken myself up right at 8:30. It's almost like time travel when you've been miles away, immersed in a dream, and suddenly you're back in the so-called real world. Like your brain has traveled immense distances in less than a second. I still feel groggy but I'm determined to keep on waking early (for me) because the day is so much longer that way. Lotte taught me some good habits! Last night was my first one home in 20 days, so I slept like the dead.
10 minutes later, having woken up more fully: a funny thing I'll miss about Lotte- she was a great way to meet new people. I mean it, if I was single I'd have been walking the streets with her (even more than I was doing, I mean), trolling for hot guys. Because everyone has something to say to you when you have a little furry bundle on the end of a leash, wearing a big doggy smile with the delight of walking. My dad & June have met about 91% of their friends through the dogs. "She's like a goodwill ambassador," Jon remarked one day, and he was totally right. How sad it is that it takes a dog to let me make eye contact and smile at people on the street. But it's true.
Flying Folk gig today, the first in ages. At a fair in Burnaby, of all places. I'm firing up the camera as we speak- I'm going to record this for posterity!

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

the road not taken

The feeling comes upon me these days when I see a poster, or check out a friend's website, or go to a gig. You could have been there. I see my friends playing music with their bands and I want so badly to be there myself. Never thought I'd miss it so much when I was spinning from one rehearsal to another, a member of 5 bands, never making any money at it, always busy.
Let me clarify. I am so grateful & happy that my stage jobs let me combine my love of music and live theatre. I am even more grateful that I almost never work at a retail job any more, trapped in the web of minimum wage, going nowhere, gathering bitterness as I got older. I know that I chose to be here and that I can't go back , and that my life is better now and I am a better musician than I ever was back then, especially since I've started practicing again.
I just never thought I'd miss the band stuff so much. So let me put this out there to the universe: I never wanted to be touring in shitty vans, playing dead-end bars and dodging beer cans. But there's more than that out there. Please send me more work as a live musician. I don't expect to make millions, even thousands. I'll pay my dues. But send me some band work. I'm good enough, dammit.

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Night Market




Hungry for contact after spending too long with a needy, slightly depressed dog, I dragged Jon to the Richmond night market. I'd heard stories about the wonderful food there, and I was eager to try it... Well, the food was great, although 80 percent of it seemed to be varieties of meat-on-a-stick. But we also had: sticky rice, duck rolls, corn in a cup (yup. just what it sounds like.), mini gyoza on a stick, spring rolls... sated, we wandered the rest of the market, gaping at cheapcheap electronics, clothes for pets, Magic Bras (not made for my curvy Caucasian boobs!), LED lights of every sort, and, surprisingly, swords. Lots of swords. "It's basically the same 5 booths, multiplied over & over," I remarked to Jon. And that was true. But it was fun to finally check it out, although I think once might be enough.