Labels: Musings, Photographs, Travels

From December of 2007:

Today I went offroading. True offroading, like the sort of thing you see in truck commercials, zigzagging in a tipsy Raider all over the rugged country side. I am pretty sure we should have had a manly theme song accompanying our steep climbs twisty turns over slippery peagravel. Melissa is an awesome driver, cackling with glee as we soared over bumps, jostling around like the inside of maracas. Red, 1987, speedy maracas.



It used to be that I did things because I was afraid of them -- challenging them with passiveness, or taking them headon to tackle my fears, but these days, I'm not entirely sure why I do the things I do. I don't know if it's to prove anything to myself or to anyone else -- maybe I just feel the need to take a little bit of every experience and horde it for myself, create stories from new great events, build memories of the thing I've done, rather than the things I've seen, knit myself into the fabric while it happens, instead of hearing about it later, or reading it somewhere in a book. I can't see myself growing roots just yet, settling, simmering down. I feel like I've only really just begun.

From the end of November, 2007:

Today I :

- Pet Melissa's golden rat, who curled up on my chest like a content little cat. I want to get a rat of my own and name it Sarah. I think this would be hilarious. Which, in other news, I guess now is a good time to tell you that Melissa has a golden rat, whose name is Samson. Like from "Dazed and Confused". At first I was a little creeped out, because I have a strange phobia of rats and their little sharp rat feet and squirmy long rat tails, but after gradual pettings I have realized he is possibly the greatest rat in all the land, and given him free reign to do adorable things... like climb up on my shoulder and wander through my hair.

Or as this picture demonstrates, my uhm, bosom.



- Wore a construction hat. Hottest thing this side of Exucon. My head is not as big as I thought it was, which bodes well for hat shopping. Particularly because I am going to single handedly bring back the beret.

Or not so singlehandedly, since they are selling tons of them in stores now.

- Learned some cool lab things. The other day I was fitted with an i.d. bracelet for training purposes ... only I forgot to remove it, and so have been walking around for nearly two days wearing my name around my wrist. This will be great if I suddenly experience a concussion, though. Which is possible because I run into a lot of things.

- was really tired. Which is why I'm up at midnight again, I guess.

- Accidentally mooned all of downtown. I need to find pants that fit me, or I need to just give up the fight and walk around pantsless. It's the QCI, and really, I can't be the first person whose ever tried to introduce a pantsless, accepting world.

__________________________-

I never posted these, mainly because they were saved somewhere in the annals of my laptop computer, but it's weird to see perspective. A lot of things have changed for me in the past few months, and still, many things have stayed the same. Living with my parents can be challenging, but then again, so can algebra, and honestly, I would rather be putting up with mother-daughter squabbles involving the state of my closet or drinking the last cold Diet Pepsi than attempt to do anything that requires a knowledge beyond grade two math.

On Monday, I mowed lawns. You can all prepare yourselves to react in shock, because I have never mowed a lawn... much less a lawn meadow. I kept putting in self-propelled and then freaking out because the lawn mower took on a MIND OF IT'S OWN and wrenched itself out of my hands and started like, gunning towards the pansy bed with next destination: A CHILD'S PLAYGROUND. Or, no. No. But still. I worked with Brad that day, and let's be honest, he did the brunt of the work, as he is hardcore about his lawnmowing. He kept using his Tae-bo muscles to lift the lawnmower off the trailer, kind of nonchalantly, like any second he was going to whip out a '57 Chevy and lift it with the LOWER HALF OF HIS JAW.

Monday night, I got really, really, really sick. The kind of sick where you kind of collapse where ever you are, and NO ONE is going to move you. With that kind of sick, you don't care who it is. Jesus could like, come on down with the hopes of hanging out, maybe watch a little bit of Oprah, and you kind of have to be like, "Unnnhhhhhhhhhhh", which roughly translates to "No. I think I'm going to pass out in the hallway for a good four hours and groan incontrollably and irritatingly about how sick I am. Maybe next time, Jesus."

Labels: Sarah Land, Travels

I am sitting in the kitchen listening to Billy Baldwin try to act. Yesterday was a big Vitamin D filled day, with walks downtown to all my favourite shops, more resume dropping off (things went well this time and I didn't stutter or destroy anyone's workplace with my lack of grace) and a trip to the museum with Jamie.

Different museum than last time -- this one is in the middle of downtown in a grand, white old building. I have been wanting to go inside from the first moment I set eyes on Chilliwack, and it was ... well. It was disappointing kind of, but I think that was mostly because I didn't encounter the ghost of an old British gentleman or become tantalized by a mysterious riddle I accidentally stumbled across inside an antique grandfather clock, which I then had to solve with the help of my two best friends Bess and George. (By the way, for those of you who didn't get my Nancy Drew reference, the thing I remember most about the books when I read them was that Bess was always described as liking to eat, and the ghost writers would spend a whole lot of time trying to politely word themselves around the fact that Bess was kind of a fat ass.)

I was most excited by the sweeping stairway at the museum, which has a big white balcony and huge pillars and an adorable old woman who runs the front, who was so cute I kind of wanted to shrink her down and carry her around with me in my pocket. I think it would work out really well, because she could bake miniature pies and give grandmotherly advice and kill infidels with lasers. *

Jamie took a picture of me on the front stairs, but unfortunately I am awkward and never know how to pose in pictures of myself. Here I am wondering what to do with my shoulders.

The grandness of the building also made it possible for us to pretend that Jamie was a stately politician, possibly running for President (because apparently, historically, we are suddenly American.) ... in a navy blue sweatshirt. Either way, I would totally vote for him. Actually, I'd like to think I'd be awesome at aiding campaigns. I'd be great at making posters and using the word "Awesome" in positive ways and writing things in giant letters across my breasts while walking around town.

*Because all old women have lasers.

Labels: Photographs, Sarah Land, Travels

The other day I rocked the mic with Jamie in Vancouver, where we visited the museum and I pointed at all the tall buildings like I'd been encased in a block of prehistoric ice for millions of years and had never seen a skyscraper.

I love museums, but sometimes museums are also kind of a let down. I'm not entirely sure what I expect to find in them .... but somehow I'm always left feeling a little gypped at the end. I think I'm kind of expecting giant animatronic dinosaurs and an experience similar to the holodeck, where I can immerse myself totally in history and have a brief, yet torrid love affair with... Dr. Moriarty. ... Because he is a looker. And then, afterwards, I can TRAVEL THROUGH SPACE.

Still though, there was a lot of fun to be had. I saw a mummy, which was creepy, and got all excited by the Haida hats displayed in glass cases. ("I know those hats!") The museum mostly had rooms set up according to decade, some of which focused mostly on fashion, and others that had rooms set up as they would have looked in the 50's and 60's. The 60's room was awesome, mainly because it looked a lot like a place I would live in now. It's possible I am living in the wrong decade .... or not, considering how much I enjoy my Mp3 Player.

Afterwards we walked around the park, inappropriately touching any statue we could get our hands on.

Labels: Travels

Me overlooking a bridge in a park that looks a lot like the one Sarah recites her play lines in in Labyrinth.

Labels: Sarah Land, Travels

Many exciting things to report! Things like Gen coming, and organic fruits and vegetables and seeing my very first starfish squid thing!

Yesterday me, Melissa and Mac headed out to Queen Charlotte City to pick Gen up, stopping along the way at the Bayview Market to perfect our glazed stares in the presence of religious bread, as well as many other things like: devouring coffee at the Dress for Less, buying super exciting encylopedia volumes from Reader's Digest dealing exclusively in the realm of mysteries (I practically leapt onto the book when I saw it, apparently convinced that everyone else on the Island has a secret, desperate yearning to learn more about the Crystal Skull and the ghost of Anne Boleyn. Seriously though, you can't have it because IT'S MINE.) , and freeze frame jumps in front of the ocean incorporating Le Tigre. (Pictures to come, maybe.)

We also stopped at a Thrift Store to witness the unholy union of an unsettling doll and what is possibly a vase or a cup or a sacrificial goblet.

The weather was pretty awesome, so after dinner at Oceanview and Melissa got thoroughly crapped on by a seagull ("natural decoration") we all sauntered on down to the ocean front to stand on a crooked overlook. To get to the overlook you had to attempt your most awesome balance beam routine ever, so it's great that we've all been practicing, and then you climb rickety little steps and get used to life on an angle. There we toasted Gen's arrival with a little bit of pirate rum and used our most gutteral and therefore, incredible, versions of "yarrrr" and "aye".

Today was also grand. I woke up at 10:00 ready to take on the day, possibly to a techno soundtrack -- the sky was blue and the green field outside my window was shining. IN FEBRUARY. That sentence in capitals is just never going to get old.

I am actually suddenly rather tired though, and potentially ready to sleep through the town alarm again (the first time the sirens went off ever, Melissa came upstairs and told me all about it ... I vaguely remember nodding sagely and asking her to wake me up when it was all over.) so I will continue on with stories tomorrow! In the meantime, FLICKR!

Labels: Travels

Melissa dared me to go pantsless on the beach today and about ten seconds later I was standing next to a bevy of shells and washed up pebbles in my underwear, doing a slow run across the sand like David Hasselhoff in Baywatch, but not nearly as unbelievably handsome.

If a dare involves me removing pants, you DON'T HAVE TO ASK TWICE.

Luckily no one was around. Or ... or at least no one that I saw. Hmm.

Yesterday Melissa and I went to Port Clements for groceries, which was exciting mainly because the supermarket there carries President's Choice brand. President's Choice is a brand we would've avoided like the plague in the big city, but here, eating it is like eating a little bit of home ... except like, if home tasted vaguely like chemicals and paste.

Today we did a little bit of shopping, a little bit of pantsless running, devoured many gallons of espresso'ed coffee, and belted out every lyric of Landslide. ALSO, I had my first driving lesson.

We have a 4x4 Standard truck named "Pearl" and she is both amazing and ridiculously good looking. She's a large, manly truck. If she were a real woman she'd wear gym shorts and big burly flannel shirts that really accented her facial hair, or tshirts emblazoned with, "Strong enough for a man... but made for a woman." and she'd grunt a lot, both when answering questions and asking them. "Unnnghhh?" She'd say, and then laugh gruffly and answer her own question. "GHHG," and everyone would nod sagely, contemplating her wisdom. Usually her conversations would involve things like power tools and two by fours and close shave razors and she'd know all the words to the entire Michael Sembello catalogue.

I got behind the wheel, accidentally turned the brights on, stalled that beast about seven thousand times and drove along Cemetery Beach Road dodging trees and hapless pedestrians. I learned all about the clutch, and changed gears and yelled things like "SPRING BREAK!!" from the driver's seat while shooting my fist out the window in the manner of GIRLS GONE WILD ... BEHIND THE WHEEL!!

I'm still learning though so Melissa took over the rest of the ride. Braking still freaks me out and I'm positive I've broken the truck every time it stalls but... I drove standard!

Labels: Nayture, Travels

Here I am, world! In BC, although not the part of BC I am eventually going to end up in. I am staying for a short period with my parents in Chilliwack, before heading off to the likely overcast skies of Masset.

Jax is doing well, although I have cleaned up more cat poop in the last week than I ever thought I would or, nay, ever wanted to. It's taking him a bit of time to adjust, particularly in the area of "YOU CANNOT SCRATCH THE NEW LEATHER COUCHES.", but he is slowly getting it with the charming stubborn retardation that makes my cat so special. Everything would be peachy if he would just understand the exact relocation of his litter box.

It's raining here right now, and we just got back from a dinner party wherein I ate the best damn Apple Crisp this side of the Crowsnest Pass*, but Brad and I both felt rather outside of the conversation because we are socially retarded and couldn't stop thinking about playing Super Mario All Stars after dinner because we are 12 and adults are boring. Finally the host turned to us, just as I was swinging back and forth in my chair to watch with extreme fascination as the head in my reflection got bigger, and then smaller, and then, oh my God! Bigger again! and said, "Did you guys want to leave?"

Brad sort of spazzed out, "OH YES PLEASE." as though he were in the throes of the rudest seizure ever, while I kind of made some passing assemblance of politeness and said, "Well, we don't want to be rude." .. which was actually sort of cancelled out by the fact that I was already grabbing my purse and pushing my seat back.

Anyways, I have tons of stories which will be shared soon ... lots of trip pictures and clever anecdotes about waitresses in small town diners. Particularly the one where the waitress dropped my straw, caught it half way, cupped it in her grubby hands and then turned to me and said, "Did you want another one? It didn't actually touch the ground so..." and then placed it back into my drink.

... Actually, that's pretty much the story right there. And sadly, outside of the Humpty's we dropped in on in Swift Current, that is the cleanest, tastiet, most hygenic restaurant we ate at during the entire journey.

*I am making jokes in regards to local references because I am a British Columbian now and this is how I roll.

Labels: Travels