Yes, I may actually be a Gypsy.

Ok, so after 1 interpol concert, 1 country bar, far too many drinks, a really long bikeride, 3 days of packing, a bunch of tears and a 16 hour bus ride.. I am now in Williams Lake BC, getting ready to start my tree-planting adventure. I'm going to be here, and have access to the internet (god-bless the local library for having "guest passes") for the next 8 days approx, give or take a few. So I'll be able to update you guys on what it's like (at least at first) and tell you whether or not I have decided to become a full blown hippie. Which I doubt, because I ate this organic apple on the way up here and suffered mightily for it. I believe in pesticides.

I left last night at midnight with Susan and we arrived around now.. It was actually not so bad, a lot better than I thought it was going to be. 1/3 of the bus was treeplanters coming from Ontario (!) so it was nice to hear all the excited chatter and whatnot. They all seem like a particular, and peculiar, and frighteningly similar (see: me) type of people. I think I'll be ok out here. Susan says it's 90% mental.. and that since I was pretty much 100% mental, I would be ok. I think this may be a job where obsessive compulsive disorder may come in handy. That, or a distorted sense of reality. Like the ability to laugh at the fact we're actually staying in a logging town, where the fruits of our labour are eventually turned into deck furniture. Sweet.

Alright all, I'll attempt an update now and then. Otherwise, please consider Poshlust Inc. on hiatus.. and adventure.

Testing Out Camping Supplies..

I think these are just about the best hats ever.

Periphery Happiness.

I haven't had more than 4 hours sleep - and they're limited directly between the hours of 4am and 8am- in about 3 days. We've just moved somewhere around 500 students out of residence in two days, and I still have a modicum of patience and a hint o' sanity left. And boys rooms are really gross and yucky, even when they think they're clean. You know, ps, in case you were wondering.

Jared left today for Calgary and leaves Friday for California until August to drum his little heart out. It was horrible to kiss him goodbye and say "See you in August". It might as well be friggin' January it feels so far away. And it's not exactly like the communication lines between upper mainland BC and Cali are stellar. Especially not when all I'll have for the most part is a tin can and some string. *sniffle*

But.. some happiness is pending. I depart on Wednesday for wilder, if not warmer climes, to Fort St. James BC. I suppose that answers your question dear Anonymous - I'm not going back up into Northern Alberta, rather Northern BC. Fully equipped with tent, boots, sleeping back, anti itch, super socks, crank up lamp and a bear bell, I'll be tree planting from April to hopefully start of August. Another great Canadian adventure for yours truly. I kind of hope it evens out my environmental karma - rape the landscape through oil and gas one year, replenish via treeplanting the next. I'm looking forward to being back outside. It was so wonderful last year, hard work and horribleness and rain and sun.. anything but being in a climate controlled building.

I'm looking for suggestions on reading material... (that's an appeal to you folks..)

This is actually the funniest thing I have ever seen.

And I hate both Will Ferrell and Child actors.

On the other hand..

How can I not smile when Jared does this with the playdough to make me laugh?

There is something..

about this time of year that always makes me so .. slow. Sad is such a clinical word now, it should be all capitals and double d's and such. Just that feeling that I can't say that I try too hard to push away, I leave the sheets too long from the wash, the dishes too long from the sink. I have glasses of water everywhere and they all taste like nickles and are always colder and more pleasant.. and thereby disappointing.. than I thought they'd be. Everything gets covered with dust and such and it gets in my eyes at night when I can't sleep. I have to say parts of me enjoy it, don't want it to dissipate and be replaced by contentedness or some medicated okay-ness.

I read that I am privileged. Funny yes? I don't know why it bothered me, except that they writer seemed to offer such disdain at my luck and fortune of birth and work and ethic, to laud so much experience on not being privileged. It is as though privilege should automatically bring such happiness and offer us a get out of jail/life/experience free card. It made me laugh. I have the best of both worlds, experiences I always want to offer but are dismissed out of hand because I didn't have to have a student loan.

I have to say, contact with S. has left me confused and somewhat enlightened. It is funnier still reading his blog, knowing are that chances are he'll read this - what a silly world talking to others to space to nothing to talk to each other, but actually at each other. Like Nin in Under a Glass Bell, insisting on shouting at each other across rooms and doors and disgusted with the actual presence of each other. I was always confused at how it ended, now I know it was a whimsy and affliction of irrationality and silence that is so common to me and known to most, deliberately withheld knowledge that led to a failed test. What excitement it is to watch somebody fail and do your job for you, such success. *shrug*

I wonder if I ever was myself with him, or even here in blogland, yet enamored and still the distant and cold person I thought he always wanted me to be, or thought I always was, or thought he liked before and I was too surprised with the changes in myself to keep them in front of him?

Oh damn I hate this time of year. With the melancholy and SADD it brings up the memories of those I loath to remember the most.

Picture of the Day

Axel Erlandson underneath one of his own arbosculptures. Pretty cool.

1234 Leslie Feist I Couldn't Love You More...

Guarenteed to make you smile.

Cause that means there's a LOT of guys named James Bond out there.

Perhaps I am missing something, something that I'm hoping you guys will clear up for me. We were watching "Casino Royale" last night, and I have what may appear to be a silly question. Are the 007's all the same guy that we're expected to believe (despite incarnations as Roger Moore, Sean Connery, Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan) by suspension of disbelief.. just look different from film to film? Or are they just a bunch of guys that MI6 hires that just HAPPEN to have the same name, prediliction for martinis, women and danger, but are different? I'm lost. Help.

Is it just me...Or are the British and French just so much COOLER?

Or are these dogs KINDA like the slow dancing girls in beer commercials?


Vitalic - "Pony Part One"



And is this WAY better than the "Sunscreen" song by Baz Lurhman?

And so.. he goes.

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ” - Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut died last night in New York, at the age of 84.

Weeks Without Words.

We went for sushi a few times. When Jared is busy with school, Sabine is pretty much my date everywhere. Uh, which happens when Jared isn't busy too. She's the best date ever. Like below,
when we went to see Jared play and then went to Denny's.

Ok - beeramid and beer tent, and Ben and I trying to focus the camera. Lots of fun at noon, and Sabine gave herself a chocolate peanut butter mustache that same day due to too much Sleemans.

This is Jared waiting for 5 hours with me in the emergency room when I broke down and started crying and swearing in the shower when my rash got too horrible to bear. You can't really read it, but my little chart says "Patient reports red itchy rash over 90% of body save face etc." yeah. Etc. Thank God my "Etc" wasn't rashy. They gave me this awesome super antihistamine that was ALSO an anti anxiety drug and made the trip to his parents for Easter not NEARLY as nerve wracking.

Hmm.. there is no way to really describe what the rest of my couple weeks has been like unless I employ phrases like "academic holocaust on my brain" or "carb loaded paper writing binge" or even "delirious 1/2 drunk sushi farting binges". Yup. That about sums it up. Or, like Jared said last night "Isn't academia a nut?" Yes it is hunny, yes it is..

This is ACTUALLY my life.

1. I have a rash. I ate something that I didn't know I was allergic to, and broke out in pinpricks of excruciatingly awful, painful, itchy, nonstop spreading rash. The only place that it hasn't spread it my face and petunia, god bless. At least then I can blame my turtlenecks and long pants on the unseasonably cold weather we have been having and not the fact that I feel like an itch wrapped in an itch wrapped in the pox.
2. I'm spending Easter with my boyfriends parents, who are shy and sweet and lovely and I have nothing in common with except that we've all seen their son naked. And that's not exactly a talking point that you bring up over the Easter ham. And I'm so nervous that I'm getting even itchier, and the antihistamine slash anxiety medicine (I swear Jared talked the emerg doctor into giving me the combo to keep me calm) isn't working and I just look like a pincushion. And not even one of the cute ones that your mom used to have with all the satin chinese looking dolls holding hands in different colored pajamas around the edges.
3. While doing dishes to get ready to go, in my itchiness I'm ready to friggin' cry, and suddenly I'm standing in 2 inches of water because the water pipe connected my sink to the big pipe has fallen apart and now the only comfortable pants that I have are soaked up to the ankles in sour soy milk water and the remnants of pasta floating between my toes.
4. I have two essays to complete. Actually, one and a substantial ammount of editing. Editing that is further required because among the sour soy milk and pasta, was also my essay, which has been washed clean of any and all possible marginalia, editing marks and remarks by my proffessor and actually FLOATED into the middle of my kitchen.

*scratch*

Intent to Skew

"With a 28mm lens, the closer one gets to a subject, the less real-looking the person becomes. Can this extreme point of view force us to consider the surroundings of the subject? Artists Kourtrajme and JR photographed the residents of Clichy Montfermeil with an intent to skew. Famous for riots and anger, the neighborhood’s inhabitants are distorted by a lens that records humor, laughter and sometimes a lighter side of existence." - Veer

I've posted this on the side with that new handy YouTube viewer. All of the pictures have something to do with Clichy Montfermeil - either the Film (the first one) the riots (the second) political response (the 3rd) and so on. It's a neat set up. Click which you want to watch, and it pops up inside the blog at the top of the page. Neat. Check it out.

Raging.

I've that feeling, when you step into a hot bath, and right before you realise it's scalding it feels for a brief moment completely cold. And then you shake and shiver and yell. I'm so.. angry! I have no idea why, I just know that if I could, I would seriously hurt somebody. That feeling, when you just wish that somebody would cut you off so you could remove their front teeth with your knuckles, or trip somebody on the escalator. It's akin to feeling sexy for me I think. That feeling of rushing, of pulling, removing, determination. I think mayhap I need to take up squash or something.

This Gym Rat Drowned

Time - 11:36
Listening- Cold War Kids (Hang Me Out to Dry)
Watching - Jared play bond on the Playstation
Wearing - Jeans and a black tank top and my heart necklace, 4 day old hair
Eating- Rice Crispy squares.. nests..

What a great weekend - despite the fact that I drank way too much red wine, too many martinis and ate WAY too much (I'm going back to the gym tomorrow) - it was fabulous.
Friday night I went out with Ian for a lovely time at both Lux and the wonderful new Tzin (the old "Hole in the Wall" cafe on 104th.. wow) wine bar. Which, by the way, I'll be hitting up again on Tuesday night with the ladies. Really amazing little place - the wine list is divided "With Skins" and "Without Skins" (red and whites) and are paired (for the drunken idiot in all of us who wish to appear so stuck up to match our food and wine) with little colored dots. It's fool proof and hipster thick. They only seat maybe 20, but it's worth it to rub shoulder to shoulder with the pretties. And I accidentally touched one of the owners butts. It was pretty awesome, and not accidental at all.
Saturday night I posted my sad sack butt by the front door and did guest sign in for the dorms. It was pretty ridiculous. Despite my motherly admonitions, they still managed to sneak some neredowellers into dorms.. who proceeded to pee in the lint trap of the dryers on the 6th floor. Adorable aren't they? I particularily like the fact that one of them was wearing a toga made out of a daytona 500 print bed sheet. You can't help but laugh.
Sunday I had lunch with the ladies and staff and then coffee with Sabine in the afternoon at Starbucks. Jared didn't make it home until late, so we had a late late dinner and watched The Twighlight Zone. Which we usually watch on Saturdays. We decided that should we ever have offspring, we won't tell them that we spent Saturday nights inside watching The Twighlight Zone. I'm pretty sure that makes me look lame.