paper vs. plastic

About a month or so ago, there was this article in the New York Times about the rumored plastic bag fee/tax. To reduce the negative impact of plastic bags on the environment, cities have been proposing plastic bag bans or fees for use.

Wanting to learn more about it I came across www.reusablebags.com. There is a wealth of information on there! It's kind of overwhelming, actually. The most interesting to me was their article, Paper Bags Are Better Than Plastic, Right? Shockingly, the answer is "not really".

But this is all a non-issue because why use paper or plastic when you can use a Bomo-Bag?!

a year later

It's been one year and a handful of days.
I'm sorry to have neglected you. I've got some very exciting news. Stay tuned.
But for now, have a listen to some Magnetic Fields.

parentheses

In the last week a number of people have commented to me about how I like to cook. How misleading this blog has been! Here is my refrigerator on a normal day:
















I can't remember when I took that picture. Actually that day was particularly bad. There are maybe some vegetables in there right now, but also more booze. I don't even really drink at home. Everything is misleading!

Today for dinner I had some cheese and crackers, olives and grapes. I love Cerignola olives. I won't tell you how many I've eaten because it's too embarrassing. More embarrassing than that picture of my fridge.


if something in the deli aisle
makes you cry
you know I'll put my arm around you and I'll walk you outside
through the sliding doors
why would I mind?

a day in space

think about lying there when you're a hundred
a hundred and ten or whatever
looking back on your life and thinking:
well, what did I actually do?
what did I actually achieve?
"oh, I saw the pyramids"
big deal!
you can apparently see those from space anyway















It's been awhile since I've posted. It's been even longer since I've posted anything other than pictures and song lyrics so I thought I would write a bit for a change. Actually, I have a side-project in the works and was waiting to unveil it but it might not ever be ready so here I am, just as I am.

It's another New Year.

During the latter end of 2007 I read You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers while listening to a lot of Ballboy. The book was just alright and some might say the same about Ballboy, though I can't seem to get enough of them. However, I don't recommend the combination. I've been thinking of the feeling that they left me with. At first it made me want to go somewhere, everywhere, really quickly. So I did. I got on a plane and I went to a lot of places. Then I came home tired, broke and emptier than before I had left. Now I look around at my life and think: So what? You can see it all from space anyway.

Your life has been lived a hundred times. A thousand times. It's not all that great, really. Don't take it so seriously. Don't handle it so delicately.

I began to feel simultaneously bored and boring, which is another deadly combination. It's not nice thinking your life, and the lives of those around you, aren't that great.

It's another New Year. I've made some resolutions, resolutions to be greater. It's not going so well, but it's only January.

loop duplicate my heart

I found a reason for not going out tonight
I'm making out tonight
with my computer :

i am a faulty string of blue christmas lights

hey I found the safest place to keep all our tenderness
keep all our bad ideas
keep all our hope
it's here in the smallest bones, the feet and the inner-ear
it's such an enormous thing to walk and to listen

i love you (but you're boring)

Once upon a time I stepped on a screw. It poked through my sneakers and stabbed me. Just barely. Because tetanus is a scary condition, I went to the hospital to get a tetanus shot. They took a urine sample for a pregnancy test even though I told them that despite having just been "screwed", I was in no way pregnant. I had three x-rays taken of my foot and was put on antibiotics for a week. It was barely a pinprick. I'm currently trying to get copies of my foot x-rays because I am a bit narcissistic, but until then, here are some other pictures from the day of my wound.



















I haven't been very creative lately. Or at all interesting. But hopefully you love me anyway.

line three, I forget

Today a friend turned another year older. I baked her a little cake. It's hard to gauge in the picture, but it's only 6 inches in diameter!



I work at a university. Sometimes I overhear the young people talking and I think they sound so silly. I am sure, oftentimes, I sound silly to people older than me.

I am thirty-three.

Sometimes I remember where I used to think I would be at thirty-three. It seems so silly now that I'm here. Not there.

Anyway, at dinner we clinked our glasses, cheers, to my friend. I love that noise. The clink clink clink. Good times.

let's take a look at these crow's feet, just look
sitting on the prettiest eyes
sixty 25th of Decembers
fifty-nine 4th of Julys
you can't have too many good times, children
you can't have too many lines
take a good look at these crow's feet
sitting on the prettiest eyes

it's tragic, yes it's true

hey eleanor, it seems your heart's on your sleeve
and it's the reason that you want to leave
so if you're going to go
just go, just go

we've come to understand that the letter in your hand
it came from a boy who won't be your man
it's tragic, yes it's true
but don't let it ruin this town for you

eleanor, it seems that train's going to leave
and you'd better hurry if that's what you need ..........(cftpa)
but if you still don't know
don't go, oh honey don't go







There is something really exciting about living in New York. I used to have to sometimes jump up and


down to dispel the energy. Now I just kind of bounce. One day I will have to leave, but for now, I have great friends who tell me: Don't go.

a hiccup in your happiness

the start is the hardest part
to step inside and announce a newly broken heart

I often get the hiccups late at night.
When I've been out.
And have partaken in some drinking.
Last night I learned a new trick.
It's foolproof!

take a deep breath.
without exhaling, take several more small breaths until you can't inhale anymore.
let out the air in equally small increments until you are empty.

it hurts, but it works.

I had gotten the hiccups on the way home from seeing The Ballet at Cinders. Cinders is the cutest gallery ever! There I discovered my new favourite artist, Kevin Hooyman. Browsing his website I found this:

but please don’t despair, Louise
today will end and your heart will mend, if by degrees

and it hurts even more than you thought
and it feels like forever just now
but one day you’ll look back on this
as a hiccup in your happiness.

I can't inhale anymore.

speaking of outer space...

I went to Iceland.





We spent one afternoon at 12 Tónar. Their hospitality and expresso making skills compelled me to spend an exorbitant $60 on only two CDs. I purchased self-titled albums by Apparat Organ Quartet, who are currently providing my soundtrack tune (The Anguish of Space Time) and are pictured on the wall above my head, and Benni Hemm Hemm, who are playing in New York soon with Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. Go see them!

Yesterday was the summer solstice. In New York the sun rose at 5:24 am and set at 8:30 pm. In Reykjavík the sun rose at 2:55 am and set at 12:04 am equaling over 21 hours of daylight. Crazy!

operator, get me sweden

Use any methods you require to get her on the wire
I know you understand me you've heard it all before
Because you are this earths' long distance love ambassador

I went to Stockholm!






Our apartment is one of those buildings. Maybe the yellow one second from the left? I forget.


It was kind of eerie because it never really got dark. We could go sightseeing at night, even. It was nice except for when I would wake with the sunrise every morning at 4 am. Then it was kind of shocking.

These pictures were taken around 9 or 10 at night without a flash!



Remarkably, the Swedes seem to like food in tubes:

I bought some tubed "bacon ost" but haven't tried it yet.





Not wanting to show up empty handed, I knit a sweater for the son of my swedish friends. I used the pattern for the Shawl-Collared Jacket from Baby Knits For Beginners by Debbie Bliss. It was the first time I've knit anything without deviating from the pattern. I even bought the yarn specified. But even then I still had to buy a sixth ball of yarn. I must be a tight knitter. It was my first garment, but I think it turned out not bad, right? The kid's freaking gorgeous so I'm sure anything would look good on him. I think next time I'll try to add pockets.

This was knit with Debbie Bliss merino aran (colour: 325300 black, 6 skeins) on size US8 needles.

fun park fugitives

from our heads down to our sneakers
we're natural born thrill seekers











I told you I'd eat it.

I wish that I was beautiful for you

On Saturday I went to Brooklyn and took a lot of pictures for a friend. Then she took this one of me:

(for the gender confused. hee.)

and I wish that I was beautiful for you
I wish that I could change things with a pill
for a quick fix modern tonic that would change me with one swallow
I would kill
watch folks line up to pay
to stare at me all day
but I’d turn them all away if that be thy will
one tiny little innocuous pill
but a wish is just a pin in a swimming pool of needles

Sometimes life is easier when certain aspects of it are blurred.

breakfast in new york

key tags: New York 1, Toronto 0

saw you going crazy on the dance floor

take this job and shove it

there's a choir behind me
egging me on
placing their bets and
hoping I'll do no wrong

One of my old co-workers has decided to quit his new job and travel Europe. My boss is finding this incomprehensible. How can his star pupil want to throw his career away in this manner? It's inconceivable. Or isn't it? My boss's voice went up two octaves when I told him once that I was thinking of doing more or less the same thing. The quitting, not the Europe bit, though that would be nice, too!

Anyway, I was thinking of this again the other night. I went to a showroom party thing (?) for a company that makes bedding. All these beds draped with beautiful sheets and duvets and pillows. Who uses that many pillows anyway? And waiters walking around with trays of hor'deurves and booze. And a live band! Two bands! I even got a little loot bag when I left. Oh private sector, stop taunting me!

If I could do life all over again, would I be who I am? Would this job be my job? Probably. I am scared of taking chances with my career. I am a sucker. But I still wish I were doing something else.

I love textiles. I would love to make things all day. I would have liked to make bedding, maybe. I like blankets.






my beginner’s luck is wearing thin
I’ll need to rely on skill if I’m going to win

hello kitten

songs with handclaps are the cat's meow.



via PostSecret

How can it be so funny and so sad at the same time?
(I, er, didn't write that, by the way. I'm freaking fantastic!)

you have a blue iris with a hint of burnt sienna and it wrestles my hate to the ground

new year. new blog.

Life has gotten all Bridget Jones on me. Nine days in and I've already forgotten my resolutions.