12.25.2007

happy x-mas!!!!



THE 'X' IS FOR XTREME!!!!

For the record . . . I am not crying at the end there, my sister cut the recording before I could turn to the camera and say something hardcore.

Also, if you listen really hard you can hear us screaming 'happy birthday Jesus' as we run in.

12.24.2007

Barefoot on the beach - Christmas eve 2007


In honor of the little baby Jesus, a polar bear dip will be held tomorrow at around 11 am at Willows Beach.

12.23.2007

The Beach


The beach was cool, but not as awesome as originally anticipated as it was raining.


There were slimy things on the beach.



There were also whip shaped pieces of kelp that when held in a threatening manner made one feel like Indiana Jones!

c0-existing

After 6 months of being alone most of the time, getting used to having people around is weird and sometimes embarassing. . . Like, forgetting to close the bathroom door whilst taking a midnight tinkle . . . I had no idea that my little brother's face could achieve such an interesting shade of red.

In other news, making fun of Harry Potter is amusing . . .

12.21.2007

Georgia O'keeffe

Today's adventure was brought to us by the vancouver art gallery. because I have never played nice with others and insist on deciding everything we do on this vacation.

http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/

Until today I was only vaguely aware of O'Keeffe's work, I knew that she was an american abstract painter and that she had painted a few flowers that looked like vaginas (because all flower paintings do). But walking through the gallery and seeing her work all together, and with more context, I started wondering why she hadn't grabbed my interest before.

There is something amazing about seeing a painting in person that you had admired in print, it almost feels more intimate. . . Her technique is amazing, I had no idea of just how amazing until I was able to get up close and personal with the canvases an see each brush stroke clearly.

seeing a larger collection of her work all together also helped me to better understand the work I was already familiar with, I always thought that the Bold colours and contrasts in her work reflected a boldness and confidence in the artist, but as I looked closer at the collection, I noticed, that while the colours are bold and the contrasts often stark, there is an undeniable bleakness that comes through as well.

I also didn't know that she worked in other mediums.

Her photography revealed more of the same bleakness of the paintings, but also a wicked and sarcastic sense of humor.

She also sculpted apparently, I wasn't as impressed with the sculpture, to me it read as a mere exercise or experiment of positive and negative space, and I guess that description is one that could be used to describe almost any sculpture, which is why my not being able to describe it any other way disappointed me.

Also currently showing at the vancouver art gallery, is a collection by London film maker Mark Lewis. His exhibit was outrageously funny and left me with a huge smile on my face. two of his works really stand out in my mind.

one was a 4 minute silent film that started focused on a large tree, then zoomed out to focus on the building behind it, very slowly the shot moves in and starts to focus on one of the windows. and the whole time you're thinking that this is either going to be very creepy or have some horribly tired statement about nature vs civilization or something. but instead there is a naked woman. . . I guess that could count as creepy, but it's done in such a way that makes it funny.

the other is called 'the pitch' and features the artist standing in a train station talking about Extras and the amazing work they do as people walk around him. it isn't until about half way through, when he started talking about making a movie of all extras called 'extra extra' that I started to realize that the goings on were a little too good to be true, and the people in the station are all hired extras.

Of coarse the Emily Carr exhibit on the fourth floor was visited, but I've seen it before so it wasn't as exciting. . .

There was also an original Andy Warhol there . . . I am not really a huge fan of "Pop art" but it was kind of cool (as with the Emily Carr and Georgia O'Keeffe exhibits) to stand in front of it and think that this thing that you are standing a foot away from was created by that artist's hands. . . but I only have thoughts like that because I am a huge dork.

12.20.2007

I Fufilled a Childhood Dream Today

The Vancouver Aquarium was fucking awesome, I was so excited that I couldn't help but run around wildly, and insist of looking at every exhibit at least twice.

not only was there marine life, but they had snakes, bats, birds and a SLOTH!!! I took hundreds of awesome pictures too.

Apparently animals like me.

I made friends with a sea turtle, who followed me as I walked back and forth in front of the glass.

The Anaconda, which hadn't moved in the twenty minutes that some little kid was waiting , lifted it's head and looked right at me when I walked up.

One of the birds, a green amazon parrot, was showing off for me and talking with me for a half an hour and then tried to follow me out of the exhibit.

And my favorite part of the day, and the part that totally made all of my dreams come true was when the littlest of the 4 white sided dolphins kept coming up to the window and touching it's nose to my hand and dancing and snapping with me. . . of coarse as soon as I turned on the video camera, she stopped doing cute things and just started looking at me.

We went shopping on Granville Island after that, I had lots of fun running around the market and checking out of the cool local artist galleries. I even got a chance to check out the Emily Carr art school (the student art displays were horribly pretentious and boring but it was fun none-the-less).

needless to say I am freekin-A tired. but there is no rest for the wicked. . . we're off to see a light show in the harbour and take a walk through the Van Dusen gardens.

12.18.2007

trashy romance, really how hard could it be? rofl

Today I took a leisurely stroll to the corner store where I perused the cheesy romance section looking for a half assed Christmas gift for my grandmother, who likes to read but would not know good literature if it came up and smacked her in the face. . .

new career plan: write horribly cliche book about a helpless and petite woman who meets a big sweaty naked man and make an honest living off of desperate old women who long to recapture the 'satisfaction' of their youth.

My characters will have boring old names like, Mable and . . . I don't know, let's call the guy Lenny . . . and they will have lots of sex in scenes that somehow avoid using words like, penis, or vagina . . . and you can forget about the clitoris, because in the perfect world of trashy romance, women can be brought to orgasm within minutes without any extra effort put in by their sexual partners. . . only for some reason the word orgasm is not aloud either.

What it really needs is a good opening line, something short and to the point that will get my reader's attention, and make a promise, or suggestion of things to come, of coarse, I will have no intention of fulfilling this promise, cause we all know that with trashy romance novels, it's all about the tease.

the favorite of today's slogging through this shit was the opening line from some 200 page piece of crap about a maiden and a warrior which read "she hadn't come" which sounded really dirty, but because we all know that orgasms never get lost in romance novels, turned out to be about some dude getting stood up at a secret meeting place.

Of coarse, even old people enjoy the taste of forbidden fruit, so Mable and Lenny, who will have decided that they are desperately in love with each other within minutes of meeting, will find themselves kept apart by some sort of external force.

Then there will be fifty pages or so of depression and longing, during which time they will concoct a plan to run off together on a pirate ship. But surely we cannot explore the awesomeness that may come from a story about a pirate ship, because the last fifty pages must consist of more unrealistic sex and passionate declarations of undying love.

Then maybe, just to spice it up, their will be more sex.

I think it will be a best seller.

Though, before I even think about the best sellers list, I need to think of a good pen name. . . because honestly, who the hell would put their own name on this stuff?

I wonder if there is some sort of way to find your 'trashy romance pen name', like how you find your porn name by combining the name of a childhood pet with the street you grew up on.

like, I don't know, combining the last name of your gynecologist with the first name of your great grandmother's best friend. surely that would create a name that would make you sound old, so that the women buying this trash would feel as though you could really connect with them.

Good Lord, one day, when I am one of those women, I am going to look back at this and cry.

12.05.2007

poor personal safety decisions

There are certain facts in life that one comes to rely on to get them through most situations the world presents to us.

These facts are compiled over the coarse of a lifetime, and stored in, what I like to call, the "personal safety decisions" part of a persons brain, some examples include:

Don't fuck with the bees

You can't beat gravity

Never pet a burning dog.

Skinny dipping in a lightning storm is NEVER a good idea.

. . .

You get the idea.

Today I learned a valuable lesson, and was able to add an item to my list. . .

Spontaneously rearranging heavy furniture on less than 2 hours of sleep is an activity that should be approached with extreme caution and with adult (possibly medical) supervision.

12.02.2007

gifts are grand!!!


Knuckle toes gave me a gift today!

it's a list book!

I love to write lists, lists make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. They give me a false sense of order in the chaos that I sometimes call my life. And, no matter how false that sense is, it is comforting none-the-less.

The first list in a new book is always important to me, so the moment she gave it to me I cracked it open and compiled a list of lists.

the most awesome part of this list book is the cover, as it reminds me that mother nature likes order too . . . every month like clock work she makes my cunt bleed and my emotions go crazy as if to mock me. . . hats off to you, and thank's for the pleasure, you cranky old bitch!