Impulsive

This time last week, I was watching an outdoor play that was a 6-hour journey from Vancouver. What a crazy thing to do! To get in a car and drive all day (massive props to Mom for driving, since her daughter STILL doesn't have a license), and by evening we were there watching the show, hugging our talented friends... and by the next day we were home again. The entire trip took less than 24 hours. 

Which was followed by a 3:30am wake-up on the following day to get to the airport for a 6am flight to Toronto, so I could run a 5k race with a friend of mine. Two impulsive trips in the space of a week. (You can see lots of pictures of my travels and adventures here on Instagram.)

Toronto was amazing. The sun shone. I crammed a lot into four and a half days. And then, with my bank account dwindling, I flew home to some unsettling news: no Fall teaching job for me, due to (another) impulsive decision of mine: to accept a part in a musical in another city. I'd be away too long, and the music school, which patiently bore my many absences last year due to my theatrical career, changed their Leave of Absence policy (probably entire due to my shenanigans). I am now out of steady work until November. 

We all love to post memes and hashtags urging us to #FollowYourDreams; telling us #YouOnlyLiveOnce. It is part of our (my) privileged-as-fuck culture to do so. There is a part of me that is so happy and surprised that people want me in their shows, that wants to follow these opportunities wherever they lead. And there is another part of me that sits here, in my dream home, the home that the teaching job pays for, and wonders
                                                                                    
                                                  what the hell did you do? 

I lead a charmed life. I have the luxury of having no dependents, so I can take these kind of risks. I know that I would have been angry with myself for turning down the risky performing job to keep the safe job. 

And yet. 

I don't want to be scared that I can't make rent over the next 60 days. 

I don't want to go back to "scraping by" instead of having a decent paycheque. 

I don't want to be replaced at work.

What I really want, I know, is to have my cake and eat it too. And sometimes, that just isn't possible. 

Sometimes, being impulsive is a gift, but sometimes, it can get you into some scary situations. 

I'll let you know how this works out. It will work out. I think. 

What do you do when interesting opportunities turn up? Do you follow the safe bet? Or do you follow your heart? 

Impromptu Road Trip

Sometimes you decide to take a last-ditch, last-minute trip to celebrate the end of summer. Neither of you has much money to spare, but you jump on the ferry and borrow someone's car on the other side and drive to the capital. There is eating and walking and lots of laughing. You might all decide to walk the one whole block(!) to the beach to catch the last of the sunset. 

Then there is bedtime in a small apartment, with three of you bedded down in the living room. One of you snores. Loudly. Not coincidentally, only one of you gets a single wink of sleep all night. 

The next morning, you and your love will stumble to the beach again and search for sea glass, clutching your coffees like a lifeline.

Why is Victoria such a great place to find
beach glass? I have no idea. 

You will find the best and cheapest breakfast place, right on the water, and the rest of your party will stumble in, and plans will shift and change, and soon you are heading to the river in two cars in the intense heat. 

Of course, you are not the only ones who thought that tubing on the river during a heat wave on a holiday weekend would be a fine idea.

The first place is sold out of tube rentals(!), but there is a second place. Fast forward through the yucky stuff: lineups, waitingwaitingwaiting on the asphalt in the heat, figuring out how much time we have left before someone needs NEEDS TO BE HOME, packing hot bodies in a smelly van to drive to the river. Nothing matters but hauling your tube to the water and AHHHHH! you're in. 

Even then, nothing's quite how you imagined: the water is still high but the current is sluggish so the breeze blows you backwards and it takes forever to float downstream to the rapids. But who cares? There is beer, and swimming, and lazy conversations. It's hard to capture this spectacular place, seeing as only one of you brought a phone. And- whoops!- guess what? Ziplock bags aren't waterproof! Someone's phone takes an impromptu bath!  

You finish later than you thought, of course. So two of your party race away, and you and your love linger at the ice cream store that sells homemade cookies, cupcakes, and other treats. You eat ice cream for dinner #1.

Dinner #2 is at the crazy little Mexican restaurant in Nanaimo. There's a lineup, and it's only open 'til 8, but the wait is short and the food is great, although it's so hot you might as well actually be in Mexico. And guess what? Even though you couldn't make ferry reservations and you're sure you won't get on... You drive to the ferry anyway and bliss! There's no lineup at all! You will get home earlier than you hoped, and a good thing too, because by the time you hit the sack you will have been up for over 36 hours. 

Sleep deprivation catches up to someone. 

And you learn- again- that nothing ever goes quite according to plan, but that the way it went was actually better than you had planned, and you need to let go of always wanting to be in control of things. And he learns- again- that maybe making a few flexible plans isn't always a bad idea. You learn and you grow and you squabble and you laugh, and you have happy, imperfect holiday time together as the summer draws to an end. 

The Last 2 Minutes: An Unexpected Trip to Ottawa in 31 Short Hours

It really was a jaw-dropping sense of I can do this that flooded my whole body just over a week ago. 
I got an email saying that my upcoming Wednesday class was going to be pretty bare-bones, so I didn't really have to be there. I had nothing happening on Tuesday... Could it happen? I think my heartbeat actually sped up as I contemplated flying to Ottawa to be part of the Ottawa International Animation Festival with my partner, to pitch our animated show, The Adventures of Little Ali Fox at the Pitch This! competition. He'd bought his ticket weeks ago, knowing that I couldn't come because of work. 
I checked available flights. They were expensive, but still available. I emailed my boss and impatiently waited for her response. 
The next day (finally!) it came, while I was at work. I could go! I bought the plane tickets on my phone, on a break, and then I waited impatiently (again) until the moment where I could call my boyfriend and say "So guess what..." 

And off to Ottawa we went. On borrowed money, on stolen time, we got on a plane on Tuesday afternoon and-

But wait. First of all, you've got to know that Jay's and my time-management styles are... pretty different. I like to get to airports EARLY...

Or wait. Back it up a few hours earlier, when we realized that neither of us had printed out the "pitch bible" we were supposed to bring with us to show to all those animation executives we'd be pitching to. And it was 1:30pm. And our flight was at 4:15. And we had No. Fucking. Printer. Paper. 

So instead of getting happily tanked at the airport waiting for our flight to be called, I'm rushing down the street to the little printing shop on Commercial Drive, grinding my teeth while an Italian grandmother mulls over the cost of getting a book printed. Finally I thrust the memory stick into the printer's hand and seethe visibly until the data on that stick is returned to me in printed form. I meet Jay outside Shoppers at 2:30 and we take transit to the airport. By the time we're through security it's after 3:30 and our flight is just boarding. 

Thank god for credit cards (gone are the days of free airline meals, unless you're on a long-haul flight I guess). Thank god for being on a fairly new airplane that has Westjet Connect so we can watch movies and even get on the internet for a while. Thank god for earplugs so I can turn those movies up LOUD and block out the noise of: 
The toddler in front of me
The toddler behind me
The 4-month-old baby beside me and
The small dogs in carry-on bags across the aisle from me (I am not even kidding.)
Actually, it was in all honesty not as bad as it sounds. Everyone was trying to be good, even the toddlers. Mostly. There was zero turbulence. Jay was 5 rows back but we waved and smiled every once in a while. The flight was shorter than advertised. 
So we tumble off the plane at ten to midnight and Jay actually finds us a bus that's still running (yay OC Transit!) so we save tons of money taking public transit into town. And as we near our stop, we see an appealing pub that begs to be visited and lo! They are still serving food at 12:30am, so it's double Jamesons and platters of brown, deep-fried things for us. And so to bed. 

But it's Wednesday where we really excel, because I don't think two humans have ever crammed quite so much into one day ever before. 
We manage to get to the Chateau Laurier and transfer the correct slide show presentation for our pitch two minutes before the cut-off time. 
We visit the Byward Market and nervously sip coffees.
We meet the man who mentored us over the past month as we prepared our pitch. Hi Phil! 

Getting ready to pitch our show.

We do a few final run-throughs of our pitch and then... the fastest ten minutes ever fly by as we do our presentation in front of 4 executives from various companies. It goes really well. 
We spend a relaxed 40 minutes exploring and having lunch, and a fraught 20 minutes where I run to buy more memory sticks for Jay to give out to other execs he's pitching our show to, and Jay gives up on me and heads back to the hotel and I catch up with him, furious and sweaty, to thrust the memory sticks into his hands minutes before his first pitch appointment. 
I go for a 6k run that takes me to the Rideau Canal, which is rich with childhood memories for me, and then over a bridge into Quebec and back over another bridge and back to the hotel to meet Jay. (Due to the last-minute nature of 
my trip I didn't actually buy a pass to the festival, and so it fell to Jay to do all the Fast-Track pitching events, which is basically like speed dating except instead of trying to sell yourself you're trying to sell your show. He did marvelously.) 

Rideau Canal! Home of many happy childhood adventures! 

Giant soup-contemplating pigeons in Quebec. 

My first-ever multi-provincial run! 

Some more decidedly odd public art. 

I meet up with Jay and we decide to rent bikes and ride down the canal to rent some kind of boat. We rent bikes two minutes before the place closes for the day (are you sensing a theme here?). This is magical. Ottawa is surprisingly warm, and very beautiful.We actually find a place that lets you keep boats out until 7:30 pm (which is nuts, because it is fully dark at 7:30 pm), so I persuade Jay that we need to rent stand-up paddleboards. It is now around 5:45. We spend a beautiful hour splashing around on Dow's Lake and the Rideau Canal before getting back on our bikes and going to a nice waterside restaurant where I am so tired that I start to weep gently into my meal, but it is nonetheless very nice. 
And so back to our pension, where we have to sneak our rental bikes into our room because we are keeping them overnight and there is NO WAY we are risking locking them up outside. And 6 hours of sleep. And then I kiss my lover at a bus stop at 5:20am and fly back home. 

Ottawa was amazing. I would actually love to go back there as a tourist. Jay has been hard at work schmoozing and pitching back at the festival, and although we did not win Pitch This! we have made some really great connections there, and learned that our little project has a lot of potential. Apparently it is a pretty big deal that we were one of ten semi-finalists there; we were so green that we didn't even know what a big deal it was until we got there. 
Even though we had some tense moments, Jay and I were in heaven the whole time we were there. It's the first time we've ever really had anything even remotely resembling a holiday, and we made the absolute most of our 31 hours together. It was very hard for me to unwind myself from his arms and get on a bus to the airport on Thursday, let me tell you. 

Now it's all a little bit like a dream. We'll see where things go from here with our show, but it's far from over. In fact, I think the adventure's really just beginning. 

Sea Glass

This weekend I have no special plans so I decide to get on the ferry and see a friend from Wells perform his one-man show at Emily Carr's house. 
Which is an excellent plan in and of itself, but really, the whole short trip becomes about being outdoors as much as possible, the wind and the sun punctuated briefly by the show (which is great, and makes me miss Wells a lot). I sit gulping ice water before the play begins, having just walked as fast as possible to make it there in time. Emily Carr's house is very tidy and sweet in that overstuffed Victorian way, and I feel like a sloppy little bull surrounded by flowered china; long hair messy, bare-legged, overheated. But I enjoy the show, and I enjoy saying hi afterwards, although I am happy to forego the post-show drinks at a pub with people I don't know, and instead I stroll home through downtown, savouring the sounds, the tourists, the shops. Happy to be alone. 

Holly and I spend both days on the beach at Beacon Hill, combing the sand for sea glass. It becomes a mild addiction. When I got there on Friday she'd been talking about us going on a hike with some friends of hers, but when we wake up on Saturday and begin talking about our day she says "I really just want to go back to the beach," and I am delighted. 
We weave our way to the beach, stopping off at the Moss Street Market along the way. I try and puzzle out why Victoria contains so much more magic than Vancouver. Is it just because I'm a visitor, usually there when the sun is out, or is it something deeper? Holly agrees with me, and she lives there, so I may be on to something. 
We walk past old houses with stunning gardens, until Moss Street spits us out by the sea. And then we hunker down in the sand and dig through it with sticks, with our hands, and find smooth bits of sea glass: common brown and amber; white glass that looks plain but will reveal many subtle shades when we take it home; green, which ranges from olive to delicate sea-green. There are happy cries when we discover Holly's favorite, which is cobalt blue glass. It's one of the rarer colours, and it is usually tiny. Our eyes grow eagle-sharp. 


Dogs race by. Sometimes they shake the water out of their coats too close to us, but they are so delighted with life that it's hard to stay mad. 
An older woman stops to see what we are searching for. We start chatting, and I mention that I'm just visiting for the weekend. "Are you at university?" she asks me, and I laugh and say no. With my hair in two braids and my messy clothes, I must look about 20 to her. She says that she has some stress in her life right now, but walking down here near the water has been relaxing. She doesn't say what the stress is, but tells us passionately not to rush into marriage, children, and all that. "Do what you want," she exclaims, and I don't have the heart to tell her that my child-bearing years are mostly behind me, and I can't have kids anyway. 

I leave the island with a yoghurt container filled with glassy gems, and a beautiful little jar I found in an antique store that cost two dollars. Back at home I sort the glass: green ones in the little jar and clear ones in a glass bottle. 
Today I wake up and long to be at the beach, even though it is cold and I have chores and taxes to do. 
Soon I will find more little glass jars and I will escape to the beach again to search the sand for buried treasure. 

Capital Times

This town. No, not my town. Victoria! I can walk for miles there and still want to walk more, even when my feet are complaining. I am so excited to get there that I take the 7am ferry on Friday morning. 7am, people. This requires a heroic wake-up call of 5am, although it doesn't seem so hard to get up when it's for fun. One ferry trip and a bus ride later, and I am downtown. My pal Holly is working until the afternoon, so she gives me the keys to her place, I dump my stuff there, and walk. And walk. Window-shopping (and not buying, so hard) and taking pictures until my friend is free to join me. And then we walk some more. Beacon Hill Park, its beach, Ross Bay Cemetery (where a number of Barkerville notables are buried), back downtown... Holly is taller than me, and an even faster walker. My 5am wake-up catches up to me but still we walk, exulting over daffodils, tulips, lilies. This city has embraced spring utterly.
That night we go to the theatre (Holly works in theatre, which is how we met). We see "Winners & Losers" by Theatre Replacement, which is actually a Vancouver company. An east Vancouver company, to be exact. So there we are, shmoozing with Vancouver actors after the show, all of us over in Victoria for various reasons. Then it's off to a late-night spot for some snacks and home to the condo for prosecco, peanuts, Dire Straits and gossip about boys, love, and life.
Next day is the same, except with a later start. Walking, eating, photographs, more walking, theatre. Every so often we just grin and sigh happily. The weather is incredible, the food excellent, the company lovely. I know that Victoria is like Seattle for me in that it's an alternate-universe Vancouver: an escape from my city that's eerily like it in many ways but because I don't live there I don't take it for granted and I only see the good parts. And that's fine. We all need escapes like that. And friends to share them with.

Mis-Propane Radiation

This morning I'm stoked to head over to Galiano Island, where my mom is cat-sitting for the week.
The transit choices seem to be: Get up and get there super-early or
Get up later and arrive right on time (if you're lucky and the bus is on time. Being a good Virgo, I get up super-early. There's a cold snap happening; it's crisp and sunny and cold. I arrive at the terminal and enjoy my cappuccino and oatmeal in the morning sun. For over an hour.
Then, just as I'm getting ready to gather my things and board, the announcement: "Due to high waves, the ferry will NOT be stopping at Sturdies Bay this morning." That's it. No alternatives, no apologies. Just a refund, and the knowledge that the next ferry (if it runs) isn't 'til after dark tonight. 
I take the bus. Again. I phone my mom- she's sad. I pay-in total- eleven dollars to do a round trip right back to where I started from. Three-and-a-half hours later. 

When I was watching tv at the ferry terminal the closed captioning on the news reported that some Canadian senators are guilty of "mis-propane radiation of funds". This day feels misappropriated. Or mis-propane radiated. It's a free day: I want to do something unpredictable and fun and maybe slightly slutty. Like take the skytrain to the airport, buy a ticket somewhere and just...take off. Or call someone hot and suggest an impromptu roadtrip. Or go hiking and have a deep conversation with someone. But there's no money, no car, no hottie. I kind of have to hang around in case the ferry's running tonight and I decide to try again. So I go home to my brother's house and walk the dog instead. Halfway home from the park he does what he always does and loses interest entirely in his muddy, slobbery toy so I pick it up with a grimace. As we walk home along a busy street I glance down and realize that the thing I am carrying for the dog looks exactly like a large sex toy. 
Mis-propane radiation. Out there in the sunlight I am content, with a small top-note of melancholy. 

Not today. Maybe tonight?

Kona Kronicles part 2

What an adventure it's been! Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time. Thanks to my new German friends Maria and Sylva I got to explore a huge chunk of the Big Island on our 2 roadtrips together. This place is amazing in its variety- drive 2 hours and you can go from this:

200 year-old lava flow north of Kailuea-Kona

to this:

Akaka Falls, on the east side of the island

There's also grassy ranchland, green Canadian-looking farm country, steaming volcanos and coffee country. Not to mention stunning beaches, of course!

Hapuna Beach

Now I know why everyone was so insistent that I have a car, and if I return it'll definitely be with my licence, and hopefully a friend as well. 

It's all the little things that are so great as well: waking up at 6:30 every day because that's when the sun appears (as quickly as it disappears around 5:30pm), buying local bananas and coconuts from a roadside stand:

...and watching sea turtles sunning themselves on black sand beaches: 

(I've also nearly bumped into one of these guys every time I've gone swimming)

I've watched people leaping off the edge of the world:

A brave soul jumps from South Point, the southernmost point in the USA

and seen waves smashing against rocks so hard that I was drenched in spray.

Laupahoehoe Point, on the east side of the island. A beautiful spot with a tragic history. 

But of course, this was only 2 days out of ten. A lot of my time has been spent shopping, eating, and exploring on foot or on my bicycle.  And reading on various beaches. It's been all I could have hoped for, really. I hope I'll be back some day.

Roadtrip

A conversation then ensued, on not unfamiliar lines. Miss Bartlett was, after all, a wee bit tired, and thought they had better spend the morning settling in; unless Lucy would at all like to go out? Lucy would rather like to go out, as it was her first day in Florence, but, of course, she could go alone. Miss Bartlett could not allow this. Of course she would accompany Lucy everywhere. Oh, certainly not; Lucy would stop with her cousin. Oh, no! that would never do. Oh, yes! 

-E.M. Forster, A Room With A View

There was a moment, while I was unpacking my things in the hotel room that first night, that I had a twinge. Here we were, two related, unmarried spinster ladies brushing our teeth and folding our underwear; already tired at 8pm! I was holidaying with my mom: how un-cool! Would this trip be a disaster? Then I shook it off. My mom is no Cousin Charlotte and I am no Lucy Honeychurch (in more ways than one since I am far too old for one thing). This roadtrip was a chance to spend some time together before I vanished up north for the summer. I chose Seattle because it is in another country and therefore exotic, but it is less than 3 hours' drive away and therefore easy to get to.

Oh Seattle! Being there is like being in an alternate-universe Vancouver: there is a market, and an ocean view, and mountains, and delicious restaurants... they are so alike, and yet there are differences too. More brick buildings (a shame if The Big One hits Seattle, but so lovely in the meantime). More visible history. Less soul-destroyingly boring condos. Better liquor laws. Neighbourhoods that feel vibrant and funky and have managed to keep Big Business at bay. I was trying to quantify the different vibe but all I could come up with was that people in Seattle seem to have a true appreciation for the finer things in life: food is crafted with care, cafes are lovingly decorated, buildings are painted inside and out, communities are cherished and nurtured, the arts are supported. I know that I am seeing it through the rose-coloured lenses of a quick pleasure trip, but that's how it feels to me.

Anyway, the two spinster ladies got along famously, and if we did have an alarmingly uncool tendency to fall asleep around 10pm clutching English mystery novels... well, we had an excuse: we walked between four and six hours a day. And Seattle is not a flat city. I had a little guidebook which suggested various neighbourhoods we should visit, and every day we picked a few and trekked around them. I think we basically did a marathon, but we stretched it over 3-and-a-1/2 days with lots of food stops. My mom is the kind of person who looks as if a good wind might topple her, but I mapped one of our days of walking and it was over 10k. She is also totally game for trying out my vague suggestions: "I remember eating breakfast about 7 years ago at this great little Mexican place in Beacon Hill- I think it's the one that's mentioned in this newspaper. Can we try and find it?" "I think there's a park at the end of this road. Can we check it out?" "I read about this play that's about Scottish soldiers in Iraq. Shall we see it?" And she'd smile and nod, and off we'd head to Beacon Hill/Golden Gardens Park/the Paramount Theatre.

We also stopped in at Delancy and Essex, which I'd read about here. In fact, we bookended our trip with 2 visits there, because: succulent pizza! Seductive cocktails! Little cauliflour-and-pine nut-toasts! Lovely ambience! and the second time we met Molly Wizenberg, who owns both places with her husband. It's a little bit weird, meeting someone whose blog (and book) you've read, because you feel like I know all this stuff about you and yet of course, you don't really know them at all. But she was very sweet, and it's nice to know that down south in Alternate-Universe-Vancouver there is a little pizza place and cocktail bar that is just as lovely in real life as it sounds in print.

The elegant Essex.

My hands-down fave community in Seattle is Ballard, and I like to think there's an Alternate Universe Alison who's just opening a little bar or bookstore there (okay, enough with the alternate universe stuff, it's getting a bit creepy).

This? Oh, just one of the many reasons I didn't lose weight in Seattle.

I like to think I know a little bit more about Seattle now, and I certainly know enough to want to go back, and soon. 

Golden Gardens Park, Ballard.

It's funny, finishing this post now, because I'm back up north, have been since Saturday. When you travel very quickly from one place to another, totally different place, time has a funny way of playing tricks on you. I was still in Seattle this time last week, but it seems like a small lifetime ago. I got home from the States, finished packing and moving out, crashed with my long-suffering mom for 2 nights, got epically drunk with my brother, took the Greyhound early Saturday morning (still dizzy and nauseous from the cocktails), and... arrived. I'm cat-and house-sitting for friends this week, which means I have cushy digs all to myself for a while. I've been unpacking, catching up with friends, enjoying the unseasonal warmth, and getting more exercise in a few days than I ever get in Vancouver. Work starts tomorrow. I look out at the mountains and the bog, and marvel that I was somewhere so different just a week ago. 

Bro & sis-in-law have left town again, so I'm back at their downtown pad with these guys:

"Breakfast. NOW."

"I only lie on the floor when I'll be right in your way."

It's a nice life. I need the space and solitude to get some big assignments done for school, so this 4-day Easter weekend away from home is a godsend. I have the peace to get my work done, and having a dog around means that I have to take breaks from work and get out in the spring sunshine. It's all about balance, baby. Being right downtown among the water and the parks and the coffee shops is also great. (I know, we have all of those things in abundance in my neighbourhood too, but it's nice to experience some different ones). I got up at 8 this morning, walked the dog for half an hour, came home and ate breakfast, and worked for 4 hours on my arranging assignment. Then another dog-walk, followed by internet browsing and blogging. I have a band gig late tonight so it's nice to be mellow this afternoon.

The end is nigh, at least where school is concerned. If I can get through this week then there will be little else to worry about in the way of assignments. I only have a few exams and although of course I'll be studying I'm not worried about any of them. The luxury of doing well all year is that I don't have a lot of last-minute cramming to do. I'll be getting ready for my move up north once school winds down, and taking a short road-trip with my mom. We only live hours away from Seattle, and I haven't spent any time there for years. We'll be going to this restaurant and this bar which are owned by my favourite food blogger. We'll be roaming the halls of Pike Place Market, which pops up, wildly altered,  in my dreams from time to time. Basically the whole 3 days in Seattle will be about eating and long walks, which are me and Mom's two absolute favourite things in the world. (Here's hoping that the long walks cancel out some of the eating!) Oh, and we may try to find a museum or a play or a concert to take in as well, if we can fit it into our busy schedule of walking and eating.

It's almost 5 o'clock. Almost time to leave my little piece of paradise downtown for the wilds of East Van and some Turkish Gypsy pop. Happy Easter.

getting high

As the friend who took this picture wrote me: "What a year it's been already!" He's absolutely right. So far I've:

• danced for hours and made new friends
• had a perfect, lazy snooze-in-bed day the day after I danced for hours (technically the same day, actually)
• been invited to play a really cool gig
• gone snowshoeing up a mountain and looked down on my lovely city, still half-shrouded in morning clouds
• ate Lemon-Buttermilk pie
• took a mini-roadtrip with a pal to visit friends of his, where we played music and boardgames and went for a late-evening ice cream excursion
• been for several long walks with my mom, and another roadtrip today with her as well.

Phew. I think I'll take the rest of the year off! Kidding. Hopefully I'm just getting warmed up...

I have to give a huge shout-out to my mom, who isn't mentioned in this blog as much as she should be. Which is how she would probably like it, since she's a modest sort who doesn't really approve of blogging. "Why don't you just keep a journal?" she has asked me in the past. (Because I'm an attention-seeking egotist artist, Mom.) She has been my rock these last few months, giving me rides, money, advice and support. Sometimes I look at her and I can't believe that one day in the not-too-distant future, she'll be too old to go for 2-hour-plus walks with me. I am so lucky that my family is blessed with health and longevity. My mom often sometimes drives me crazy, because that's what mothers do. But we have rediscovered a sweetness together in the last month that has left me feeling grateful and lucky.

My loooonnnnng vacation has shrunk to a couple of days. My little Christmas tree has to come down tomorrow. I cling to the last lazy hours while hoping for excitement ahead; the eternal conflict in my soul between peace/comfort and challenge/excitement.
I've already climbed a mountain this year. What's next?

For me, Oatmeal was one of those things that I read about for years that was a fearful let-down when actually tasted. This was the "porridge" I'd been reading about for years? This mouth-burning, grey-brown... mush? I turned up my nose and quoth "nevermore".
Over the years, I've re-acquainted myself with it a few times. Week-long cleanses that involved eating whole grains in the morning, that sort of thing. An uneasy but cordial relationship. Most recently it made a cheap and healthy breakfast while I was on the Barkerville spring tour.

My sweetie's under doc's orders these days to get his cholesterol down, and what magic food does that, you may ask? Well, apparently oatmeal and cinnamon are both great, and as an added bonus, oats are supposed to help burn that hard-to-budge belly fat. So guess what yours truly is scarfing up for brekkie from now on? (Getting J to eat it may be harder, since he hates porridge, but I'm slowly converting to a fan of the stuff.)
Here's my secret:

• Use good grains. For me, that means Red Mill brand grains. I use the 8-grain wheat-free variety, but I'm always open to recommendations...
• Salt can make or break a bowl of oatmeal, say the old-timers, so I always add a pinch. Today's online opinion, however, seems to conclude that it is unnecessary.
  
• Here's the clincher for me: I always add a generous serving of nuts, raisins and banana for flavour and texture. I like those items to be hot and cooked, so rather than adding them at the end I throw them in as the grains cook up. Sunflower seeds work well as the nut contingent.
• Yesterday I was unable to find any, but when I next shop for food I will probably buy some raw hazelnuts to chop up and sprinkle on top of the oatmeal when it's done.
• When it's all cooked up (about 7 minutes, yo. Quick!), I sprinkle cinnamon on top. Then I add a scoop of plain yoghurt and a squirt of honey or maple syrup. I will probably start putting fresh cherries on there as well, since this is the season. Tasty goodness!

I guess touring will often send you home with a renewed zeal for healthy living, since being on the road is seldom healthy in any way. Forget the nouveau rockstar "I'm travelling with my nanny, my yoga teacher, my therapist and my organic chef" scene. All four of the redboots crammed into a Volkswagon station wagon for 5 1/2 days. Competing for space in there were 2 amps, an accordion, a fiddle and a double bass! I am still in shock that we fit everything (and everyone) in. If we hadn't had a roof rack, we actually would not have succeeded. We relied on the kindness of family and friends for accommodation along the way, and boy, did they ever pull through for us! Amelia's Uncle Julian stocked the bar, fed us mountains of cheese, stayed up partying until 3am and cooked us giant greasy breakfasts for three of the 5 nights we were away. Russell's mom gave us fresh fruit and sleep when our bodies needed it most. And we had a crazy dance party at my friend Betty's house in Duncan, complete with wine and cheesecake. So as you can see, we were treated like kings, but like kings who have iron constitutions. Copious amounts of liquor, late nights, cheese and grease can take their toll. You can see pictures of us performing and cavorting here.

So anyway, this week/month/rest of my life is about clean living. Oh, and apparently it's also about adjusting to the fact that while I was away, plumbers re-directed our plumbing so that all the taps in the bathroom have been reversed. Hot is now cold and vice versa. Yes- wait for it- even in the toilet. You haven't lived until you've felt your bum warmed as you... nevermind. I don't know who they're hiring for this job, but I suspect they're discount plumbers. Thank god we're off to house-sit in North Van at the end of the week. We'll be living it up over there for a month while the plumbers bugger everything up back home.

The Tour: better late than never...

Things about touring:

You will feel like this at first. Especially if your first venue is the Chilliwack Humdinger RV Show. You may wonder what you've gotten yourself into. Three 30-minute shows a day for people who, well, buy RVs.

2) You will eat a lot of food and most of it will be bad for you. This is a side effect of being in a van with 4 energetic man-boys who are over 10 years younger than you and metabolize way faster than you ever did. Skittles, 7-11 Taquitos, chips, Mike 'n Ikes', burgers as big as your head...


3) Your view a lot of the time will be this:

Five people in a large white van; each staking out their own nest within. You will buy fuzzy slippers and a blankey for the long drives. A power adaptor that plugs into the cigarette lighter so that you can use your laptop whenever. You will bring and buy movies but never use them because you don't want to miss any of the jokes and conversation floating around you. Why touring with boys is good: silly in-jokes, lots of laughs, adaptability, Meat Loaf on the iPod, random goofiness. Why touring with boys is bad: sweaty foot smell, nonstop junk food, messiness, FARTING!!!

4) You get to curl your hair EVERY DAY!!! And wear a fake hairpiece!!! Green eyeshadow!!! FEATHERS!!! You haven't felt this girly since grad.

5) The world narrows to a sharp, small focus: Hotel, Van, Theatre/Community Arts Centre/Legion/wherever you're performing that night, trailer (to unload and load all the gear and costumes), backstage, Van, Hotel.


6) You are reminded anew what an amazing place you live in. Even in the dead of winter there is beauty. And history. You'll see mountains, moose, snow, rivers,


7) And best of all, there are new friends to be had, good shows performed and hundreds of kilometres travelled.

Big thanks to Richard & Amy of Theatre Royal in Barkerville, BC for being great bosses/fellow cast-members. And to Aaron, Elliott, Thomas and Marcello for being awesome van-buddies, cast-members and new friends. My earlier post was totally wrong: I spent almost no time alone on this tour and I had tons of fun!

Boys Are Smelly.

We have left RV Land and are officially On The Road. I ride in a large white van with 4 boys (I can call them boys because they are all younger than me), We all get along well, but the van smells of sweaty socks and, occasionally, farts. Some of the sock smell can be attributed to me, though.

Today is our first day off and we are spending it in Kamloops, so I'm having flashbacks to the Train Show I worked on up here last spring. I have had a little orgy of shopping: a new suitcase, a fleecy blanky for our long van rides, fuzzy slippers (ditto) and glorious books! Kamloops has a wonderful used book store I'd like to give props to as it gives me great pleasure every time I come here: At Second Glance Books, you rock. I got 2 novels, and a memoir of 2 stewardesses in the swingin' sixties called Coffee, Tea or Me- how could I resist? I also jogged today and walked miles, so sitting and blogging for a while feels lovely. My favorite Japanese restaurant in the world is closed today (sigh) but I will make do with another one and so avoid McDonald's , which I went to in despair last night because nothing else was open.

Touring is limbo. You don't have to make the bed, cook dinner (or breakfast or lunch), or do anything other than your one job (performing) and travelling. I know that I have other work to do, but it is so easy and seductive to be lulled into indulging myself and for now, I'm going to go with it.

On Tour. Again.

Touring gets harder when you're older. That is, unless you've graduated to the private jet, or the incredible tour bus that sleeps 15. I haven't.
I get to sing my heart out at the Chilliwack Humdinger R.V. Show. Come and watch me die a little three times a day!!!
Well, at least if things get really bad, it's Sunday tomorrow, so I can go pray here:
Yes folks, that trailer really does say Transport For Christ on it.

I'm feeling a little bloated right now, so I'm drinking over 2 litres of water a day to flush out my system and stay healthy. It seems to have worked, because a cold that I got on Tuesday has already almost gone. However the abundance of truck-stop, gas station, food court and Tim Horton's food is definitely not so good for the waistline. Yesterday I went to Safeway and bought every non-perishable healthy food item I could think of (no fridge, you see): healthy powdered soups, those rye crackers that taste like cardboard, an avocado, smoked oysters, tahini, oatmeal...
Today I sat on our stage at the RV show food court and watched everyone in sight devour burgers while I spread avocado bits and tahini on a cracker and ate the lunch of the virtuous.
We have one more day at the RV show, then it's off through the mountains and on the road for real. I get along well with everyone in the cast, but I can still see that I'll be spending quite a bit of time alone for the next few weeks. Actually, it's kind of restful. And at least our current hotel has a pool, hot tub and sauna. Might as well enjoy that while it lasts...

Lessons From the Road

You will eat junk food, despite all your good intentions. Vending-machine Skittles, red wine, rich cheese. You will visit health food stores but end up buying expensive bags of rice chips and organic dark chocolate... folk band hippie junk-food, but still. Vegetables will become an afterthought. At night before you go on stage you will stare at your image in the mirror with distaste, pluck at your ill-fitting outfits, vow to do better. You won't.

Your days will be spent covering staggering distances, distances that would make your English relatives blanch and shake their heads. You will be on the road for six hours at a time and you will be thankful, remembering other tours where six hours was an easy drive, a short day. As you don't drive, you will end up staking a claim on the back seat of the mini-van, the seat no one else wants. You'll let the others jockey for position in the gold van, which contains all 6 of you, your luggage, and a double bass. The bass will stretch the full length of the vehicle and you will envy its implacable solidity.

You re-learn that fatigue strips away civility, and you discover things you do not like about yourself, and about others. You will fall silent in the face of stronger personalities and become a little bit invisible; you will hate yourself for it, but after a while it becomes easier not to speak up. You will discover that your ego is a dark monster that broods and makes you tired of feeling like second fiddle. Even the word fiddle will make you fume; in your mind everyone loves the violin and no one notices the accordion. The fact that the fiddle player is one of your dearest friends makes this harder, not easier. You will spend the night of the best gig of the tour in a haze of envious pique that feels like poison, and spend the rest of the tour learning to let go of ego and play music as generously as you can. Some nights you can almost do this.

The best time of the day will narrow to the span of the night's gig: just before it, during (of course), and a few hours after. This is when you come alive. Before the show the singers will coddle their voices with tea while the band warms up with red wine and vodka. This is a key to the many differences between singers and instrumentalists. You will play in restaurants where the 10 people in the room are doing their best to pretend you don't exist; you will play to audiences so rapt that they will give you reason to keep playing.

You will drive past munching deer, slinky coyotes. Look down on a snowfield high in a mountain pass and see ribbons of fresh animal tracks. You'll greet stretches of highway like old friends: I remember you! Suck in your breath as you pass yet another semi flipped over on the road, cough nervously as your bandmates whip round corners, overtake large trucks. The features that make this province so beautiful- mountains, rivers, valleys- are the things that make it so lovely and so dangerous to travel.

Onstage and in the back of the van you do battle with envy, exhaustion, insecurity, boredom. You also laugh, share moments of incredible electricity while playing music you love, and sometimes remember why you chose to do this in the first place. Only 6 days: can you imagine what a real tour would do to you?