I'm sleepy. I probably look sleepy.

It's 5:52 on a Thursday night and if you didn't get it from the title, I'm sleepy. Today was a weird day where if you stepped outside barefoot, the ground was cold, the sky was gray, but the wind was ridiculously warm. You never felt like you needed a sweater, but you were scared that in case it started raining, you might need one.

Jasmine and I had a meeting with the Mayor of Parksville today (How impressive right?), we were there to discuss some marimba matters. We are going to hopefully be offering free/by donation use of the marimbas not this weekend but next at the beach on a hopefully sunny Sunday afternoon. We wanted to know whether there would be any limitations or city bylaws preventing us from advertising something like that. We also had a question about who and how we would go about starting a street dance/block party for the end of august. He gave us the name of one of the city council members and now I have another phone call to make!

I want this right now.

How are you guys going to be spending your long weekend? My long weekend is going to be spent on Gabriola for a wedding (we're the music) and then Monday we are heading to Richmond to busk and play around the Canada festivities there. I'm excited because they are all cool activities and hopefully I'll be getting paid from all of them :) I'm feeling poor right now and I'm just hopefully going to find opportunities to get paid. If ya know what I mean.

I've been talking to Cyrus about the trip at the end of the summer, and if I go (which in all my heart hopefully i do) I'll be going to Detroit and maybe Cleveland! Sounds too cool to me.

I'll try and keep in touch better, I've felt disconnected to you guys. Cheers! - Sarah

You Should Close The Door

Watching a TV drama in which one of the characters is shot, and her last words while laying in the ambulance holding the hand of someone else's boyfriend are: "I just bought this dress."

Met a real-life stay at home dad last night who was bitching about how his wife comes home cranky and demands to be fed, "like a lumberjack."

And two men who were discussing how their romantic endeavors were "opposite caveman," as in the woman has to hit them over the head and drag them home in order for them to realize that she is interested.

Today at work I saw the back of Cowboy Chris, the new accountant, whose dulcet tones has all the middle aged ladies swooning, even as they are commenting that it is best not to get involved with an accountant. Maybe because they are what the literate call misers and what the literary call scrooges. The idea of being interested in a person just because of the sound of their voice brings me back to  high school, when I fell in love with a boy who bought two cupcakes that I was selling for some cause or other. I swear he only said two or three words but it was a surefire "coup de foudre,"  I was thunderstruck. 

And I asked a girl I work with what she was doing for Canada Day and she said nothing at all. Because the last time she went out for the holiday she was so distraught by the douchebags that she kicked in a nearby Starbucks window and got arrested.

thinking about the end

Worked ten hours today. Some people I know consider any time less than ten hours to not be a real day at work but I feel like my feet have been run over by a golf cart. I think my brain turned off about 6 hours in. Which left 4 hours of headaches induced my non-stop smiling.

And Kat is stuck at the lodge- you know the flooding in Calgary is because of extreme rain in the mountains. So the road up there washed out and all the guests were flown out by helicopter. Except the food trucks have also not been able to get up so I'm picturing scenes of Armageddon up there.At least everyone she works with thrives on difficult situations (they might call it adventure). And I hope she's taking pictures.

So now I'm lounging, listening to the doors slide open and closed and the easy rain slap the sidewalk. Can't imagine Victoria will ever flood but I can see it being swallowed back into the ocean. When I was a kid someone told me the island was floating and for whatever reason I believed them. Maybe when the Big One hits we will be swept away on an icy blue wave.

she makes the sound the sea makes

Seems like everyone I work with is constantly experiencing hot flashes, to the point that I'll turn around to chat with Kathy at the next till and she's got her black lace fan out and in action.

And I`m just picturing what my grandmother has to say about the flooding in Calgary right now, she`s in a hilltop neighbourhood on the outskirts of downtown (downtown is right along the river, as are the neighbourhoods of the rich). Her arthritis must be killing. Stevie Harper And His Sweaters is reportedly going to do a tour of the city, how generous of him. Meanwhile I worked an easy 4 hour morning and picked some cherry tomatoes up on the way home. Grown on the farm that is owned by the ex-wife of the heir to the Rogers Sugar fortune. Her son lives in the chicken coop and has hair so long that everyone thinks he`s a girl from far away.

Trying to decide on things to barbecue at Mama Dee`s house tonight. I forgot it was the solstice until CBC put on Vivaldi`s `Summer' from the Four Seasons. Vivaldi's Summer always reminds me of winter but maybe the seasons are wacky in Italy.

And congrats on being famous Sarah. You can congratulate me on not being menopausal. And for spending the entirety of yesterday's Rain Day in bed watching movies and eating cereal. Such is life.

 

Gonna go have a shower because as Carter would say, I smell like toilets.

so slow, yet my days feel full.

Kindof felt good tonight, walked around the tuesday night market and a couple people came up to me and asked why wasn't the band busking, I told them because the people are roadtrippin' slash visiting croatia, but expect us bus in two weeks time. It felt good to be noticed in a sense, remembered.

Tomorrow I'm spending the day in nanaimo and I'm hoping to get a couple things finished up. I wonder if any  thing exciting will happen. Doubt it. But it's kind of how I've been liking it lately. Predictable enough, that I can just focus on the things I want to do without being scared or worried about anyone else or anything else. It's great.

To end this, I'm trying to convince my allumni chapter of Katimavik to do a super long hike, and people would pledge whoever is in it, so the money would fundraise katimavik programs. Hopefully it will work out.

That's it. Miss you.

In the deep of the night, at the edge of the unknown

So feeling a bit better today. Except I seriously need to crack my back. Realizing that I need actual things/ plans/ work to do in order to get out of bed in the morning was a bit weird to be honest. Like normally I feel no motivation to get something done unless I have serious time constraints or a very small window of time to get it done. Which means basically that people who are always telling me to "write a book" need to put a deadline on that shit. Like write a book, due tomorrow on pain of monetary penalty.

Today I got a letter from my aunt, because it was just my birthday and also because she has no other way to contact me. In the letter she wrote that she is coming to visit my uncle who lives in Victoria in August and she gives me his address and phone number. GUESS WHAT. My uncle lives precisely one block over from me. I walked by his apartment building every day on the way to catch the bus for the past 3 years. I have not seen this man in at least 10 years.
In fairness he is my mother's brother and that side of the family is a bit distant to begin with, just because the Little gene dictates that we be as awkward as fuck, and also introverted, and perhaps lacking in generosity. But come on, man.
Anyway when my dad found this all out he went on a muttering tangent about Uncle Andrew, which ended with the conclusion that Andrew should get me a job in government bureaucracy. Hate to sound ungrateful but that sounds terribly boring.

And of course on the family note, the new girl at work today was talking about how her 22 year old friend discovered that he had a tumor on his stomach that was the size of the moon, and that he had no idea and had to have all these surgeries to scrape it out- and I'm thinking of my own poor family's medical history and breathing into a paper bag the whole time. 

So tomorrow is my first day of working two jobs in one day- split shift style. I'm just going to act like 11 hour days are perfectly all right and good and normal. If I can convince myself that I will survive my chances increase, right?

Feeling a bit listless lately. Took me a bit to nail down the word that was exactly right. I got out of bed at noon today because there was no reason to get up earlier. I repotted all of my plants just now because they are all outstripping their containers. I am making soup because my throat has been sore for a couple of days. And coffee will wake me better.

Ok. Gonna go spruce up.

So kind as one. Ps HBD CMAN KUROSH

Hey you. I'm glad that you're going to be able to feed yourself now. This weekend is still the weekend, but it started Friday with the end of "Bike to Work Week" in Nanaimo and yours truly in the marimba band played front and ... to the left. It was fun.

Saturday was dedicated to making Cyrus a cake and that just ended.. well it ended weirdly. But want to see the cake anyways?

That being said, today was dedicated to cleaning up and reading this book I got out of the library a little bit ago. It's called "The kindly ones" by Jonathan Littell. He's originally a french author, but this book was so well received that it was translated in a couple languages, and blessed be the English speakers, i am one to read it.  It's classified as historical fiction and centers around/ is narrated by this former SS officer who was present during some of the major events of the Holocaust and War. It's interesting and I'm really enjoying it so far. But of course daunting, because you are forever reminded that it's a 900 page book and this weird sensation in your forehead just nags on and on, like that "really? I'm reading this? Are you fucking kidding me? ".

In any case, this thought was brought up in the first section that is still lingering in my mind. One line that goes something along the lines of,  "They took our right away to whether we wanted to kill or not. They didn't ask us, and it was a choice that was taken away from me and others." And it later enforced (and will probably will be a thousand times more in the book seeing it's in a War Time theme) where an officer is told that 1000 Jews will have to be killed in reaction of 1000 blah blah blahs being killed. The Officer just took this and it completely made him go crazy in "how are we going to do this?" type of thing. He was also drunk and apparently sick. But still. 

This is a super interesting thought concerning war, at least for me. Because I believe at least, that the majority of people entering in the chaos of war, don't really, like really know what they are getting themselves into until they get into that point of no return and bam! In a blind of an eye, you've taken the life of another away (for various reasons of course) and for the rest of your life, you are trying to disassociate yourself from that aspect of death. 

Which brings up this whole other point of, disassociating yourself from death. Ten minutes ago I just watched a couple minutes of this video concerning the illegal fur trade in China and how they skinned live animals. In this one scene, the raccoon dog thing, skinned alive, mustered up his last bits of strength to look the people in the eyes. It was chilling and now I'm feeling really unsettled. Really unsettled and I'm feeling the need to talk to someone about this (I just texted Cyrus to come onto skype whenever he has time) but in the mean time I'll use this as an outlet. 

I understand that death is just another aspect of life, I believe it should celebrated to a point, but respected? If that makes sense... I don't know. Point is, today I feel like dissociating myself from it. I want to close my eyes and just make it dissapear. But I know that's not healthy nor is it right. I'm flimsy with character and this is really tearing me up. People die each day (thankfully no one close to me) and I'm just trying to find that balance of how I life my life, how I eat my meat (or not eat) and how I regard the end of it all. Do you ever think about it? Ever freak out or have any tips to deal with it in general? I'm trying to find some answers but I'm afraid it will just have to be a personal thing is how I live my life and regard it's meaning.

In conclusion, I'm slightly freaking out. On the good news, I might be able to hit up VICTORIAAAAAAA next weekend. It's sunny here in Parksville here today too. 

Out.

you forgot your love, today

Sounds like you've been a busy young woman, Sarah C. I've been busy too, applying for and getting job, running up and down stairs at work, listening to my new co-worker's stories about travel and intrigue, scrubbing every surface of ye olde chambers house.
But I mean none of those things are particularly exciting. Besides the job thing. And yesterday I found a camera that looks like this on the side of the road.

It works, just needed a little bit of duct tape and a couple batteries.

Also, Kat left this morning for Lake O'Hara, where she will reside until October. She left me with a mixed cd, good for the summer. Same as last year actually. She also left me a photo that I took at night while riding a bicycle. Actually it was her birthday and she was wearing a sparkly pink sweater and riding her bike with her mouth wide open. It's weird to think I will never live with those two again.

Nothing special happening at work lately, except this couple came for one night and ended up staying for 5 nights. And they went whale watching every day, and were mostly disappointed. But on their last day they saw 26 killer whales. So I guess they were happy.

You have no idea how excited I am about this camera. Dirk says it has a really fast shutter- action shoots anyone? Here is a photo I found on the internet, apparently taken with this camera. Reminds me of Blue Velvet.