since you (haven't) asked

I would like to have a secret pen-pal.
I would like to know more Italian than nouns from the carbohydrate family.
I would like to switch from auto to manual on my lens with conviction.
I would like to touch my toes...comfortably.
I would like to get cookin' (french, vietnamese).
I would like to use a word like 'ace' with a straight face.
I would like to be able to move my life in only a couple suitcases.
I would like to consistently run again (...hahaha).
I would like to live in Paris, own two berets, and take up smoking.


But for now?


I am set on what I am doing. For better or for worse.

pomp

Having watched the last 15 minutes of the Miss Universe pageant I can finally define what I find is the most absurdly problematic part of that whole parade.
It's not the gowns. It's not the dance sequences. It's not the answers of a 'world peace' caliber...

It's not that while watching I almost forget I like myself.

It's the smiling. The incessant smile. The vacant smile. The nothingsactuallyhappeningbuttheystill smile. The pick me(!) smile.

It's in these smiles that I see the man behind the curtain.

exactly

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

a new summer skin. (to do)

1. Support local music.
2. Take more pictures.
3. Read more foreign press.
4. Find a new patio.
5. Find the love for this city I used to have.
6. Speak up.
7. Shut up.
8. Prove that every person is a storyteller.
9. Bring more green into my life.
10. Love.
11. Try liking jazz.
12. Watch the sun set, and rise twice a week.
13. Perfect my F chord.
14. Skip the pinot gris, and buy a book instead at least once.
15. Be happy.

In with the old

I buried myself in some old journals this morning.


It's nice to know from time to time that you didn't just appear when you woke up this morning - and that for better and for worse, the way you are is the way you've always been.

big

http://www.vfs.com/blog/2007/05/24/doc-team-winnes-cannes-contest/

This brings out a mix of things. Helen is gone, and this last couple months have been very hard on a lot of wonderful people. I am, on the other hand, so happy that these friends/family took this trial and turned it to create this. This triumph could not be more deserved, and I'm sure Helen would agree.

ALS is a devastating neurodegenerative disease, those living with the disease become progressively paralyzed due to degeneration of the upper and lower motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Eighty per cent of people with ALS die within two to five years of diagnois (in Helen's case less than two months)- unable to breathe or swallow. According to the World Health Organization, neurodegenerative diseases are predicted to surpass cancer as the second leading cause of death in Canada by 2040.

For every person diagnosed with ALS a person with ALS dies.

click to donate to the ALS society

Grace(land)

I used to have dreams about Elvis Presley. These dreams had little to do with smooth pelvic gyrations though...and more to do with...

well it usually went something like this: I'm sitting on the edge of a bed in a gaudy room, and I'm watching an old t.v. I hear Elvis (who in my dreams I always know) vomitting in the bathroom of this room, I don't ever get up to check on him. I stare at my diamond ring. I hear a loud thump from the bathroom. Histeria, reporters, paramedics, barbiturate overdose.

I had this dream every week as a kid for a long time, until I was convinced I was actually in the room beside where Elvis kicked it. I haven't had this dream in almost a decade.

I had same dream again last night...well sort of...




...this time I was the one in the bathroom.

ballocks!

Blogging privately for a while, but in an attempt to quell the outbursts (or the formation of some therein) I might as well start "sharing".


Today:
Balls. On my shoulder. On the bus. To work. Balls on my shoulder on the bus to work. (see figure 1.a)






Not to worry children, your extra quarter in fare payed to translink has not sunken into the abyss. Sleep sound knowing that you infact have financed a meticulously engineered plan to keep men able to get off around the clock. It's the gentle rocking when the bus curves off Granville st. that really does it...


*drawing is a dramatization of actual events, although cup-size...for both persons...may have been alterred for dramatic effect.