ring in, ring in

new year. new agenda... my beloved red moleskines. they've done me well for the last three years...

there is much to say about 2011: mostly bad, sure, but brilliant at the end. i will try to say those things in the upcoming days. meanwhile. i'm going to try and find something champagne-like in the parental's basement. ring in 2012 quietly and happily at home with these magic people. xo.

saved my life

hey! i know this tune...



how creepy is that video?! awesomely creepy. light in the cheeks!!!

happy (HOLIDAYS!) monday!

ff

* hey girl! you're a moron for getting raped!

sigh.

way back, when i was in munich, natalya and i went out (with a pile o' peeps from the hostel) to the hofbrauhaus. temple of beer and lederhosen. an incredibly tourist-in-munich thing to do. i had two of their giant-pints. probably somewhere around equivalent to 3.5 pints? maybe 4? a lot for me, but nothing too bonkers... especially considering the stomach-full of rich rich german food i was putting those beers into. sure, i was drunk. but i still had my wits about me. we had a nice time, and stumbled back to the hostel with one other hostel-er while the others continued to party into the night. we got a little lost, but made it home just fine. natalya went to sleep.

i went to the bathroom and cried for about 2 hours. i was sick with guilt and shame. because i'd been so irresponsible! because i had let loose a little, and therefore put myself and (much more importantly) natalya in danger. think of the horrible things that could've happened! how could i have been so stupid?!

it was not a good night.

and we all know i am a 'sensitive soul' and that i maybe feel things a little more deeply than most. but. what that night was was the product of years and years of being taught that it would for sure be my fault if i or natalya had been attacked.

anyways... the article above covers the topic of maybe blaming rapists from raping rather than blaming girls/women for being 'stupid/careless/slutty/naive'... it maybe isn't a 100% perfectly written piece, but it (and others like it recently) have made me think a lot about my own deep sense of guilt and fear, and how maybe i should start to redirect them... just sayin.

but... MEANWHILE!!!

here's something rather beautiful for you to read! about love and acceptance and gender-identity and growth and change and mothers and fathers and sons and daughters... there's some sadness in there, for sure. but if you zoom right in on the family? one of the best stories ever. wow. yes.

* i maybe cried a little at the end...

favourite mistake

sometimes when i mean to go to tinyurl.com, i make a typo and i go here instead:

tinu

hi! i love tinu. i keep using tinyurl even though i don't have to, just so that i can, occasionally, accidentally, visit tinu.

saved my life

it's a kimrup!
a mashra!

kimbra is back yo! mashup stylez.



i wonder if i am the leader in kimbra-blogging in north america? probably.

happy monday y'all!

pup around the village

margene post!!!! HAHAHAHAHA! she is endlessly hilarious. no jokes. (all jokes...) man i love that dog.

ff

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

stereotyping is hilarious!

(okay. sometimes. a little stereotyping is hilarious. sometimes. and. actually, generally, i do have a sense of humour. i swear! sarah can tell you! this week i laughed at my own 'gary sinise' 'bless you' joke so hard i cried. twice. on different days. even though NO ONE ELSE found it even a LITTLE funny. it was. mega funny...)

but, sigh. i'm a bit put off by the trendy new viral video sh*t girls say. ugh. i kinda really hate linking to it at all... but. ugh. anyways.

i've seen a few friends on facebook post things like 'OMG! i DO say that! HAHAHAHAHA! best!!!'
but, um, dudes. almost every one of those lines can be said by ANYONE EVER! okay. anyone middle-class-y and western at very least...
and it's not that this video is the WORST THING and i'm SUPER MAD and it's MEGA SEXIST! it's just that i'm tired of the whole gendering of everything all the time to the maximum. i'm tired of the 'you are over there and we are over here, we're SO DIFFERENT HAHA!'.

gender-essentialism boooooo!

and on that note. here are this week's pieces for to think on:

* the brits are starting to get it?

* parents being jerks. **

*thanking bowie for his gender-bending rocking ways.

i do love bowie so.

read read read my lovelies. (because boys and girls can both be lovely... and feminist!)

** oh man. so many things about these videos that make me crazy. like. dude. your kids sure are horrid ungrateful little things. i wonder how that happened?! and. um. language, children! but. that's totes off-topic. so. shhhhhhhhh. nothing!

warm glow

i've been hunting the last two weeks for a work gift-exchange challenge: a used copy of a favourite kid's christmas book. challenge indeed! see, most of the books i loved most are out of print and crazy hard to find... i had ordered 'morriss's disappearing bag' on amazon, but then instead of shipping it, the seller canceled my order after a few days. jerk. i was all in a panic.

but. oh! then! yesterday! just in time!

i found the greatest thing at seeker's books on bloor!

remember this gem?! i had forgotten. i loved this book so so so much. and the person receiving this book has a little boy and a little girl... and he's from winnipeg, so there's a bit of prairie in their blood. oh. it is perfect. i'm so so happy about finding it. i almost started to cry in the bookstore cause my heart got so big so fast...

i can't wait to be home for christmas. i can't wait. it is the most magical thing.

saved my life

oh, the national. thank you thank you.

last thursday night jeff and i were lucky enough to catch the national live at the a.c.c. here in toronto. it was an amazing show. they put on a crazy good performance.

highlights included the lead singer wandering through the crowd, his long long mic cord being passed above the heads of all the people on the floor, and right up into the 'stadium' seats. he was singing at the same time, of course. walking on seats. and. them bringing owen pallet on stage to play a few tunes with them. chills... and. a killer pair of brass players - trumpet and trombone. such a great time.

so. here is one of their new songs. (the one owen pallet played along with... SOOOOOOooooo beautifullysadly!) and also an older song with a hilarious video. sigh. thank you.





happy monday!

around home

some fall-times that happened before at bikini village.

{hey look! three of my favourite creatures!}

holiday times at bikini village

finally! y'alls about to get hit with a few photo-posts. bikini village is in order! it is clean and decorated and photo ready! (or it was last weekend. it's a bit untidy again. maybe i'll do something about that today...)

 {we had a little drop-in thang. there was food and drink and peeps.}

{sarah jay brought me this most wonderful magic little tree! nightmare before christmas meets the grinch. sooooooo fantastic. she's the best.}

i love my home SOOOOO MUCH! finally finally finally. i feel like i am home in this place and in this city. it is the best. love love.

ff

straight into it kids! this week is exciting. we're gonna start with something pretty big.

*hillary clinton's LGBT speech

although it makes me sad that some of this even needs saying, it doesn't change the fact that it DOES need saying. and she's done a superb job of saying it in a kind, respectful, gentle way. although she is firm in her message, she allows room for the difficulties associated with great change. she doesn't just plow through with THIS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD THINK GOD DAMN! what a woman. thank you, hillary. thank you tahnk you for your wisdom and courage and conviction. (i know it's a rather long read, but please do give it a good going-through. this is so so so so so so important.)

and now! some fashion-thoughts.

this week there has been some buzz about models and weight in the fashion-land. coco rocha, canadian super-model-extraordinaire, gave a speech about the pressures of the modeling world. (read it! i think she's pretty great...) and there was some positive and some negative backlash. this is a good little intro into something i've been thinking about a lot.

along with this:

*h&m cyborg models

so jacob, canadian fashion retailer, has this add campaign featuring coco rocha. and the main premise of the campaign is that it hasn't been photoshopped. hoooray! this is coco as coco is!

and i think that's super. a great start. except. there's still a bit of a problem there for me. yes, i love coco, and yes she's a brilliant and smart model, and yes she is working towards some change in the fashion-land, and yes she looks fantastic not photoshopped and hoooray and gladness! but. she is still a MODEL. she is not the smallest in the world of high-fashion models, sure. she is 'older' for a model. (i think she's 25?) but MODELS, even the healthiest among them, are not what could be considered the average body. or even, really, normal. it's not that they're these broken sickly freaks, the lot of them. far from it! i've worked with lots of girls who i would consider to be incredibly fit and healthy and that is just how they are. they work hard, sure, but they're also genetically pre-disposed to be a zillion tall and a zillion thin. like my dear brother... same sort of build. (i've also worked with girls who are clearly unhealthy, and it's super sad and tragic to see up close... but that's a whole other post.)

and there's nothing wrong with that! these thin-magic-girls. i love that shape. i admit. i'm super into the model aesthetic. but to tell little girls (or women, frankly) 'look it's a real person!' but have it still be one of those super magical few... well... i'm not sure that that is necessarily sending a perfect message either. so i'm a bit weary of this campaign, for all its good intentions.

i guess, without getting too wordy about it, what i'd like to see is diversity. unphotoshopped. give me super models! sure! but give me, too, a girl who has hips. a girl who i short and petite. a plus sized girl. a girl in that average category BETWEEN 'model' and 'plus sized' (aka me! damn it!). a girl with a giant bosom. show me what your clothes look like on those bodies. that is the dream. i guess. because there are women out there making clothes look amazing on their bodies everyday. so you can too, fashion land. i know it's a different challenge. but i have faith in you! you can do it! you're mega-smart and powerful!

okay. glad we had this chat.

oh! and going back to the h&m thing. yeah! that's okay too... make a cyborg model. but honesty. be honest about it. and maybe try to diversify your cyborgs a bit too. and also. photoshop if you want! but TALK ABOUT IT! oh man. that's a whole can of worms i am too sleepy to go into, and i'm sure y'all don't feel like reading this for EIGHT YEARS! okay. done for today!

happy friday, feminist warriors! HAHAHA!

cph

today is the day, 34 years ago, that my ma and my pa officially started the greatest family ever in the history of time. that sounds excessive, maybe, to some of you. but that's cause you haven't met us. we are unreal.


anyways. the family got a great start with the birth of the chris. 
the parentals, they didn't know yet that he was going to grow up to be a super cool and supportive big brother. they didn't know that he would be a crazy talented athlete. and they might have hoped, but couldn't have been sure, that he would one day build his own greatest-family starting with a tiny-human-man who would be, no jokes, the most awesomest baby born.


all they knew, then, was that he had a funny-shaped head. but they loved him anyways. and thank goodness for that. 


happy birthday big brother. thanks for everything ever.

{if you google image search brother's name, this comes up. a premonitional drawing made by some small pre-chris in scotland. he was born to love bikes...}

saved my life

finally!

another gaga-fest of dance and costume amazement! PHEW! just in time for y'all to learn the dancemoves for grimas eve...  dancing starts about 10 minutes in?



happy monday!

ff

hi team!today is pretty busy, so i won't write much. mmmm. in fact. i can't think of anything in particular i HAVE to say.** so! just straight away to this week's mandatory readings:

* why the ladies be crazy?

* i told you, emma... spice up your life!

* happy great good news!

see? this week is pretty cheery, here in feminism. tra la la! light and fluffy and friendly! (except, maybe, for that first one... i suppose.)



** i actually have a LOT to say about siri's lack of female-related programming, but i think my brain might explode if i think too much about it. so i won't go into it. i won't talk about the sadness in my heart when i think about this 'female' 'assistant' who is made especially to cater to male needs like so many female assistants before 'her'... ... ... i won't say that it makes me sad to BE a female assistant, even though i work for awesome men, and i love my job... ... ... i won't say that i really wanna punch siri right in her beautifully designed interface... ... ...

i will simply say that if any of the people i assist needed an abortion, i would assist them in finding appropriate information. because as an assistant, assisting is what i do.

home

you guys are gonna flip when you see how amazing mine and sarah's apartment looks!

we're finally having an open-house (warming) for the holiday season, which means i've finally done all the doings i had planned. and  it is bonkers bread awesome. i never want to leave here ever. i want to live here foreverandever.

pictures soon!

saved my life

this weekend ruled. hardcore. it was a champion of a weekend.

there was an 80's party. there was dinner at a fantastic AND hilarious german restaurant. there was watching of 'another earth', which is really great and you should see it. (that brit girl? she's impressive. wrote it and starred in it, and is... um... about my age. sigh.) there was lots of relaxing and good company. there was a hilarious video of a polarbear. (WATCH OUT!!!) there were eggs and there was toast and there was coffee (including eggnog coffee in the shower).

and this morning? this morning my boss brought in the leftover birthday cake his wife made him. carrot cake. with homemade cream-cheese icing. and it was a layer cake with MORE CREAM-CHEESE IN THE MIDDLE!!! how is that not the best monday ever? it is. it just is. i ate that for 11am snack instead of my usual half tea cup of almonds. i maybe also ate a second piece for my lunch... screw you pasta salad!

and this week is gonna be nutso, but in a great sort of way. planning and scheduling and organizing. all good things. much business.

okay. anyways. to the real point.

this week's video! is so smart! this is how i see music. pretty much exactly. reading music? bah! not a thing! it doesn't make sense to me like this does. if you gave me a starting note, and told me to play along with the viola part i could. no problem. pretty much first time. it's brilliant!



the soft edges around the brass?! AHHH! VISUAL! i love it. and of course this particular piece always makes me think of the funeral scene/opening of beethoven lives upstairs. so. also wonderfully nostalgic.

okay puffins! happy monday!

(HAPPY FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT! TOO!)

ff.

guuuuuuuuuuuuuyyyyyyyys! guys. really. guys.

twice in the last few weeks i have gotten myself pretty worked up and shouting at friends. i'm not normally one for shouting at friends. unless it's about food. cause i do feel strongly about food. BUT. yes. the yelling.

first time was because i was having dinner with three friends - two ladies and a man - and the man was the only one who would allow himself to be classified as even a little feminist-sympathetic. um. wha? these girls. they are smart. fierce. funny. bold. sweet. passionate. driven. open. FANTASTIC WOMEN! and they, apparently, are anti-feminist. i tried to explain that, actually, i don't think they are. i think they just have an ill-advised notion of feminism. but nay. there was shouting and i got so mad and sad. sigh. LADIES!

second time i was shouting at a feminist man who said that any reasonable intelligent human would willingly classify themselves as feminist. right? NAY! i say! i mean, i WISH! but. see shouting-one! they don't. they don't because we are told that feminism is scary and gross and means having bad sex and being whiny and annoying and hateful and angry and blah blah. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

sooooooooooooo. the moral is. a) give your heads a shake, people! and b) friday is now feminism day. 

you had better read these articles, blog-readers. i will be one mega-pissed blogger if you don't. THEY. ARE. IMPORTANT! so seriously. read them. READ THEM OR ELSE I WILL SHOUT AT YOU! (read them because these people are maybe better at writing about feminism without using so many CAP LOCKS! and being articulate is good. too.)


* why boys should be taught about feminism!


* hey penn state... what gives? 


* secondary education... in sexism!


also, just, you know... to say. i have been getting cat-called and whistled at from cars since the age of 14 at least. probably earlier. and. in highschool there was a guy (who was one of the sweetest guys in school) who thought it was totes hilarious to slap me on the ass. one time he did it so hard that i was slammed forward onto a desk, bruising the crap out of my hipbones. he laughed, looking at his red palm, and said 'shit, that hurt!'. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! these are just a few examples of the CONSTANT displays of sexism that i have barely registered as being things because there are so so many of them being things all the time, and really they're nothing compared to the terrors of abuse that so many women experience. so. HOOOOORAY!

hip hip

hooray!

i've had a job for three months! and that means my probation is over!

today i had my unofficial 3 month review-lunch. and it was great AND delicious.

and i love my job. and i love my life. and i am a happy girl. because.

i have health benefits!

i have a salary!

i have cool and fun and kind and reasonable co-workers!

i get to do little logistic problems!

i have room to grow!

i get to plan a christmas party for kids and go present shopping for TOYS!!!

i have a great dog! (that lets me do stuff like this:)

i had an awesome ladies date this week with some of my favourite ladies seeing an amazing movie!

i have been spending time with a really cool dude!

i cleaned my kitchen last night and it is a magical dream!

christmas is on it's way!

and this morning when i woke up, this is where i was:

{it's a rubbish photo, but come on! i couldn't disturb the puppy! my left arm was under her, too. awwwwwwwwwwww.

i stayed in bed an extra 20 minutes because it was just so awesome. and i still made it to work on time! blamo! hazah!}

fash on

wooop woooop wooop wooooooooop!

i have so many magazines and journals and so little time!

how is a girl expected to read all these things and still walk her dog? i have subscriptions to: flare, elle canada, fashion, toronto life, canadian art, and the globe and mail which is giving me FREE WEEKDAY PAPERS! not to mentions the single editions i've picked up in the last while. love, zink, onethatican'tevenrememberthenameofwithgoldlettering... my style.com magazine SHOULD be here by now, but isn't. (grrrrr! arrgggg!) and i'm reading 1Q84. and my roommate just got her copy of worn in the post which i'm sure to peruse. i am not made for this much reading! but i do love it... sigh.

oookay. but. i did crack a few of those magazines this last week, and flare! may i say? two kickass editorials this month! check these out!!! (the scans are kinda rubbish... sorry. not doing the pictures full credit.)

{first editorial fashion edited by elizabeth cabral and photographed by chris nicholls}

{second editorial fashion edited by fiona green and photographed by chris nicholls}

yes yes YES yes! horses and eyebrows and birch trees! and crowns and texture and greyhound statues! yes please! yes! phew! i'm pooped from being happy about these.

saved my life

don't ask questions. just go see this.



i want to see it again. and again. and again. but also not ever again. but then also everydayallday.

also i am feeling glooms this monday. so. it works. glooms monday!

the villain is gossip

hey!

it's two of my favourite humans!

talking to eachother!

tavi interviews josh whedon for her online-feminist-for-young-women-magazine, rookie:

LLLLOOOOOOOVVVVVVEEEEEEE!

(seriously, though. best. ever. these two are champions. and. champignons. yay geometry!)

saved my life

this week is a super special double birthday edition of s.m.l.!!!

first for papahoops! happy birthday on thursday! watch some sci-fi and maybe go for a run! eat some cake!



AND! for our very-soon-to-exhist newest hooper! BABY HOOPER! welcome to earth, baby hooper. chris and janice, i suspect you'll be watching lots of this kind of tv soon!!! AHHHHHH!!!!!!



happy monday everyone! and happy births to all!

cedarvale

my wonderful magical path this fall. i love my city. i love my hood.

the tragedy of me

heavy sighs my friend.

things are rough.

see. here i am sitting at work. eating smarties. and i don't even really like smarties. i don't NOT like smarties, exactly... but they're pretty low on the list of candies that i'd go for if i had the choice.

i wanted to get a kitkat. from the box of leftover halloween candy that dale brought in to the work kitchen. i got up specifically to go get a kitkat. but when i got to the box there were only about 3 kitkats left. and maybe 2 coffee crisps. and, oh 3 or four aeros. and there were about 8 smartie boxes left.

and lame old emotional unhinged me... i thought:

'poor smarties!'

so even though i wanted a kitkat, i took some smarties. cause i didn't want them to feel bad about being the least favourite of the leftovers. being a leftover in the first place is hard enough, i'm sure, for a candy bar.

sigh. sometimes i think i'm broken.

meanwhile!

check out these tarts jeff and i ate the other night!!! they were from frangipane in my old dupont-hood, and they were FREAKING AWESOME!!! lemon meringue and what was supposed to be brandy-pear with frangipane, but we suspect was actually something-apple and frangipan. but who cares! it was delicious. the frangipane is really what mattered most. so. great work! eating is the best.

silver and sequin

the december issue of elle canada arrived in my postbox yesterday, and i am rather excited about it. i love me a holiday magazine... and the cover is super-great. reminds me of one of my fave flare covers from wayback in 2009 with daria. looksee! (i think i like this elle one more, even. i do love alana zimmer...)

and also. here's me with my new glasses and also my new wallpaper and also margene liking my face.

saved my life

oh heart.
explode explode explode.



happy monday!

just a little

one of the biggest problems i have is that there is SO MUCH that i want to know, and there is just not enough time in the world for me to know all of it. so instead i watch tv...

well, the other day i remembered this brilliant series published by the oxford univeristy press:
very short introductions!

oh how i love these books! i own the ones on postmodernism and poststructuralism. and i can attest that although they are a short introduction, they are not a simple introduction... this shiz be thick, yo! i believe dad can say the same after wading through the modern art title.

these are brilliant in so many ways. one. there are a zillion titles to choose from! okay. not quite a zillion. i think there's just over 300. but more being published all the time! and the titles are all over the place! you wanna learn about kafka? sure! hinduism? okay! dinosaurs? chaos?! you betcha! or perhaps:

and then! also brilliant because they are BEAUTIFUL! what a fantastic and lovely idea for covers. i want the whole set and i want to fill one entire bookshelf just with them, and call it an art installation. sigh.

anyways. here are some titles i'm particularly interested in right now:

  in other news, my cold is getting a lot better and i feel almost like a real girl again. yesterday i did all the dishes and cleaned my bathroom! best. saturday. also i got new glasses this week that i'm mad crazy about. pictures soon.

saved my life

um, hello please?!

my sister made this.

like. all of it. the music. AND the video.

pretty amazing.



happy tuesday!

saved my life

it's a little bit espooky... what with halloween a-comin'. but also celebratory on account of my booking my christmas-time flights today!



happy tuesday!

life with f.

oh dear.

living with a very well-educated feminist as a roommate is dangerous.

{tank girl. of course.}

that is it's dangerous for all those peeps trying to keep women down. bam! see what i did there?! yeah. you see.

except for a brief period in high-school (let's say grade 10ish) when i knew that feminism was a thing, but totes didn't know what SORT of thing it was, i have considered myself a feminist for all my adult-nearadult time. most of that time i was a passive feminist. aka. not REALLY much of a feminist at all. like 'yay women yay!'. but not much for content.

then things officially shifted for REALS while at murrieta's on that fateful night when all them men-guests were so disgusting and all them ladies were so drunk-in-their-tiny-dresses-and-falling-over-and-giving-lap-dances-for-charity-and-livingdolls-and-and-and... and i was supposed to work there. through it all. and after too many hours of that something broke in me, and i was crying in the back hallway. and i was officially angry.

now when i say things like 'i'm lucky, statistically, to have never been sexually assaulted...' i don't get sad. i get angry. real real angry. and so on. about so many things.

and with the roommate's help, i am starting to learn the language of feminism. the context. starting. there's so so much to know. but it feels good to have a place to start to understand WHY the anger, and WHY the actions, and, and, and...

anyways. watch out. it's only just the beginning. and. go listen to this!

CBC ideas podcast 'the new revolutionaries' re: the power of women and girls.

and. go look at these things!

emma's blog about having feelings about empowering women. YEAH! yeah.

feministe. blog about stuff.

shakesville. blog about stuff.

tiny. article in the globe and mail. about size. (not alllllllll brilliant, but mostly pretty great.)

saved my life

margene is like a baby dear, yeah?



happy monday!

wishes

if you lot had a whole pile of money to burn, here are two awesome things i would want for christmas:

1) stella mccartney spring 2012 pantsuit. because it is awesome. (photo from style.com.)

2) painting by gordon harper (currently showing in edmonton at the peter robertson gallery). why is this painting so awesome? because it is of a house on 109th street that was gorilla-art-project'd by josée! in our installation class days back in 2006! i love that house! i love it i love it! with its mint green boards...

sigh.

saved my life

live music... oh, sighing and swaying and maybe crying... i love love love live music.

last week i was lucky enough to get to see elbow perform at the sound academy. (same place robyn played!!!)

it was an awesome show, made even better by getting to watch brittish-joe glowing like a little kid on christmas morning. they're one of his very very favourites. and oh, he was giddy. wonderful.

so. elbow. thanks for the brilliant performance. (and good work telling off the lads.)



happy monday.

one

lock us in a cannery

montreal.
this past weekend.
was great.
it was too short, of course, and i was tired going in, and i am tired still and always (these days, sigh), but i'm so glad i went. thanks to ohmi for organizing the whole thing (like our adorable little apartment) and driving the whole way, both ways, even through the unpleasant friday-evening-getting-out-of-toronto bleh part.

i'll mostly tell the story through pictures, but here are some thoughts and things.

i got to see genevieve briefly at the puces pop craft/artizan/awesomes sale. so nice to see her. and her amazing amazing creations. i'm constantly lusting over her stuff on the internets, and it is so spectacular up close. look on her blog for the silver-turns-gold sequin dress. alas. it did not quite fit me... heavy heavy sighs, cause it is AMAZING. i did buy a kickass belt, though. see below. on the lamp... HORSE! if you can't own a horse, wear a horse. i always say... (sadly, i didn't get to wear wolfy on this trip. he came along. but then it was a million hot, and my outfit plans were completely foiled.)

the hoopers DO walk a whole lot faster than most other humans. like. approximately double-fast. i learned this. my poor travel-friends kept being so mad-and-tired at me when i'd be like 'come on! it's, like, an hour walk!' (and i was already adding time to what i thought it actually was...) and then it would be two hours. and i'd be all 'what the what?!'. oh right. hooper-legs aren't normal legs. sorry, everyone else.

seeing john. seeing john was the best thing. it has been about 5 years since he up and left edmonton and me-and-mads behind. i knew i missed him like crazy. i knew he was best ever. but. oh, how i had forgotten how best ever of the best evers he was. and still is. and, and... alan, too! but i've seen alan more recently. so... sorry. i must john-gush. it is so nice when that much time has passed (with almost no communication between us in our busy elsewheres) and it feels as warm and wonderful as ever. yes. and we had a lovely talk about the 'living beautifully/living now' thing. and the three of us together, johnalanerin, was a magic thing. don't even get me started on john's home and the preserves!!! you'll see. also. the yves st laurent rives gauches pink satin blazer that john had in his possession (on long-term loan). which fit me. very well. i thought, briefly, 'yes, this is great, this friendship... but. this jacket and i could be friends, too. and i could take it now and live without john, and that would be maybe alright? yes?'. but it wouldn't be alright without john, so i didn't. ALSO JOHN'S CAFE! oh gosh, go there. the coffee is best. BEST. best...

and then there was also brunch, and st joseph's oratory, and running into jeff on the street (?!), and drinks, and the atwater market, and macaroons, and, and... okay. go:

{our apartment, my outfit.}

  

{eating and drinking about. i want those dark wood floors...}

{don't worry. bigbang is back. and can you see? that girl's hair? best.}

{spotted around town.}

{puces pop. market. oratory.}

{oratory. a whole group of tourists were climbing under the 'don't go here' wire to get snaps taken with the pietapose. in the flowerbush. as you do?}

{my newest myrtle and pearls. love.}

{heavy sighs.}

{john. alan.}

{basil & lime. for example...}

{fall is best.}

{sunset on the road.}

{waiting for me when i got home}

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnndddddddddddddddddd.... i got me a qr code today! for fun. check and see if it works!