i've got you under my skin...

Today I brought my MacBook, also refered to as "my baby" into the local Mac dealer to have a power problem checked out. I left half an hour later with the assurances that they'd take good care of it for the weekend and call me to let me know if its missing me on monday. This will be a tough weekend for me without it and I am currently trying to plan ways in which I can keep myself busy without using the internet or photoshop. It will be a little tough I think. Maybe I'll clean my room.
How did I ever complete a 4 year BA without a computer?! ridiculous.

For the benefit of Mr Kite...

It was a beautiful day this morning when I woke up. The air was warm already at 8am, which is pretty unusual around these parts in late October. But this afternoon, a wind came up that was of southern alberta proportions. It was beautiful, I walked out to my car after school and stood there in the parking lot letting the wind whip my hair around and freeze the ends of my fingers with my yak wool jacket, zipped up to my chin.

As I mentioned before, I've renewed my love for Edna St Vincent Millay and yesterday I came across a poem of hers that I had not read before, but that I now love:



Recuerdo

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hilltop underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry,
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry,
We hailed "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

she's so heavy...

I have to get a blood test tomorrow. So I can't eat for the 12 hours preceding it. I realized this at 8:45pm tonight and I had yet to eat anything since 11am. So I hurried home from the cafe I do my marking in and had to come face to face with the reality that I have no food. Not in the, I have nothing to eat, category, more like "none of these ingredients go together to make food" kind of realization. So tonight for supper I am having icing, a carrot and a few pickled peas. time to go shopping.

i'll tell you something, i think you'll understand...

I watched Across the Universe with Jamie yesterday. It was AMAZING! One of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Usually when I go to the theater, I come out feeling like I spent far too much money on something that wasn't really worth it. Well, if I had the time, I would have turned around, bought another ticket and watched it all over again. Natasha bought the soundtrack last week and now its pretty much all i'm listening to.

This week has been fairly crazy full of things to do and places to go and people to catch up with, and yes, i am aware it is only monday. tonight i went out for korean with Stefan who was just in town for a few days. We found this little hole-in-the-wall place with amazing bbq and it is just across the street from one of my favorite pubs. I'd never seen it before. who woulda guessed.

I've been wearing my blue shirt, doing lots of marking and drinking lots of chai from Remedy. Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that the amount of caffine in their chai makes me sick. Really really sick. Its sad, because it tastes so beautiful and warm and now even one full mug has me regretting it an hour later. They do have a tamarind cider though that I'm curious to try out, so not all is lost.

Well, I needed to mark at least 3 papers tonight and I'm at paper #1 still, so I should get off the internet, but instead I'm wasting time on the internet.

Yesterday I was reminded of my love for Edna St. Vincent Millay. So I will leave those of you who have managed to follow this random line of thoughts with a poem from her tonight...

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!

i'm gonna love you, like nobodys loved you...

I feel like I bought a lot of stuff this week...

- a double disc Billie Holiday album
- a murder mystery game box to be played on October 31
- a madeline peyroux cd
- 3 chais and a lot of hummus from Remedy
- a new battery for my computer...only to find out that it is the power cord that needs to be replaced
- a power cord
- two rolls of love hearts candies

all this over and above my usual food expenses. maybe its knowing that i'll be out of a job in two weeks that has me feeling like i have spent a lot of money, or maybe its the loan that still looms over my finances needing to be paid. But all in all, I am happy with it.

Mostly, I'm really happy with Billie. I put her on Wednesday night and with a glass of wine in my hand, danced around the kitchen to her while I made my supper, did the dishes, marked more first year papers and chatted with Bethany about her broken foot. It was a good night.

and fell asleep in his brand new winter coat...

I am sitting at joel's house. I am processing photos and he is cooking. well, sort of baking actually. making pizzelles. wrapped around amazing filling and icecream and wine sauce. he is talking about how, when he is an uncle some day, he will have his nieces and nephews over at his house and make these pizzelles and call them breakfast tacos. he is also saying that generic RAM doesn't cost too much and that we have disjointed conversations sometimes. he has been referring to my musical tastes and saying that its like we're in a movie and he is john cusack and i am joan cusak. and he is giving me speeches that he thinks john would give to joan in this situation. he is burning maple syrup to his pizzelle maker and calling it an experiment and then sighing loudly and giving me a play by play of the "girltalk" concert last night.

i like my friends.

And when tomorrow gets here, where will yesterday be...

Yesterday I canceled my trip to Japan. I then bought myself a large Mexifries from Taco Time, followed by a dozen greasy wings at the neighbourhood pub. Giving myself no time to think, i ran off to the Weakerthans concert (which was fantastic) and then had a 12-hour day of work today. And now I am sitting here sorting through photos and my friend brittany - who is living in Tokyo - sent me a facebook message wondering when i am coming. And I think, for the first time, it really hit me that I am not going. That, in 3 weeks time, instead of boarding a plane to Osaka, I will be sitting at home. waking up to face two weeks of unemployment, boredom and winter. I have a bad cold. And crying only makes it worse, but as I sit here under my covers, listening to The Waifs, I can't help myself. I know that this money from the intended trip will come in handy in the next few months with all my living and planning, but right now, my heart longs to be preparing for a trip to see my friends.

In so many ways I feel like I'm coping out. If I really wanted to go, I would not have canceled. That if I were living life like I want to, I would throw caution to the wind and jump on that plane. I feel like I might just be letting my fear overpower me by not going.

But at the same time, I have so many other possibilities that open up for me in the next year by not going right now. How in the world will I ever balance these priorities when I want to do everything? Which dreams, which plans, which goals will I sacrifice for something else? Will it be worth it? And how in the world do you learn to sort out which decision is the right one when everything has both drawbacks and benefits?

I think I need to go to bed.

with your eyes closed, close your eyes...

If you own the Amelie soundtrack, please turn it on and put track 4 on repeat to provide a background to this blog post...




Things I have seen while driving this thanksgiving weekend:

...a line of bare trees so full of tiny birds that they looked as though they were covered with leaves

...a full grown moose breathing wisps of heavy steam into crisp autumn air

...rooftops dusted with snow

...the night sky devoid of any light pollution for 20 miles

...kids in a park tossing piles of yellow leaves into the air

...dust clouds swirling off gravel roads behind my tires and high into the air

...trees bent almost horizontal with wind

...white-blue factory smoke at dusk

...the streaking lights of highway traffic in the dark

...the vast emptiness of fallow land against the long blue horizon

encircle me i need to be taken down...

I have so many things going on in my head right now I can't even try and put things straight enough to write a coherent blog. I'm trying to prepare for a class I'm teaching tomorrow and feeling a little leery about. The last time i taught this group a class, I felt like I was swimming through quicksand. I'm nervous and unprepared. And also procrastinating because I fear that if I actually sit down and try to get something planned out for tomorrow, I will realize that I have nothing to say, nothing to share, nothing to teach and then I will have to deal with that realization. And so instead, my head is 1,000,000 places at once. Here is an excerpt from my mind in the past 10 minutes while I've stared at the open text in front of me...

Oh, i like this song...that book should be returned...is it out of character for me to alphabetize my cds...who am i kidding, i'd never get that done...i should go buy a nice bottle of wine tomorrow...i haven't played guitar in a long time...where did my piano books go...I wonder if Norah Jones will ever tour to edmonton again...I think I'd like to see her in Europe...How long would it take to lay all those cobblestones in the streets of Bath...I should check ticket prices...did i pay rent...I wish jeans were cheaper...west Ed is a tourist trap...i place my cheek against the glass and i can't see you in the light...the next time i take the bus i think i'd like to dance while i wait inside the stop that would make someone's day...remember get together the camera stuff....remember to pack...remember to eat...remember to breathe...my mind is falling apart...but my hair looks good today.

i just want back in your head...

I don't have much time before the premiere of "The Tudors" on CBC tonight, so this blog will be short, but I felt I needed to write.

Tonight I downloaded Tegan and Sara's new album. It's really good, but wasn't quite what I was looking to listen to tonight but one song was pretty much perfect. It's called "Back into Your Head" and when I read the lyrics, I loved it. I almost got choked up about it. Usually this happens when I feel like I'm at a place in my life where a particular song really speaks to my situation. But sometimes, regardless of what it has to say, I get overwhelmed by songs. This is one of them. Imogene Heap has a song that ends with "Music is worthless unless it can make a complete stranger break down and cry".

Inside this song, tonight, i found space to breathe and that's a precious commodity these days.