{Ramona West}

{J. Crew}

{Yves St. Laurent}

I have been thinking of spring, and elastic waisted dressed that are forgiving, high heels that elongate my bratwurst style middle and a purse that could theoretically be filled with sunshine and/or life’s natural antidepressant – Skittles.

Are you dreaming of spring yet?

It really should be said that bagels are not the most photogenic of baked goods – at any stage. They go from looking like pancake batter to a bowl of psoriasis, from dry looking monster slugs to shiny boiled bread. It is only in their last moments that they lay in beautiful full baked and browned glory, transforming from yeasty pimpled teenager to sleek bronzed beach babe.

Hence, there is a distinct lack of bagel photos here. But fear not what is lacking in pictures is made up for in the extensive directions below! I would seriously recommend trying your hand at these – they were simple, easy, and though a little bit of a time suck they really are worth it. I would couch my encouragement in one simple suggestion: pace thyself.

I made the mistake of starting these late on Monday night, my baking day, and what I was thinking I will never know. Jared came home to me meticulously weighing dough on the only scale I could find (a vintage postage scale) and attempting to look up “the windowpane test” (bah humbug – never found it in time, and mine worked fine) on a flour covered Mac. I was up this morning at 5:30am trying to finish 1/2 a batch to photograph and have ready for Wednesday’s post. That smile you see in the following photos? Pure, caffeine induced delirium.

These bagels however were well worth it – crisp, delicious crusts, just enough of the homemade yeasty scent, crisp sesame seeds and a whole lot of delirious love. I’m going to freeze 1/2 and watch J, (who begrudgingly got out of bed as I leapt up and down on it this morning yelling “Look at my bagels, bitch!”) eat the rest.

{This Recipe is adapted from the Peter Reinhart Bagel Recipe.  Any changes are noted.}

Sponge
1 teaspoon instant yeast
4 cups unbleached  bread flour (or high gluten flour)
2 1/2 cups water, room temperature

Dough
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
3 1/4 cups bread flour* (or high gluten flour)(originally called for 3 3/4, but I bailed after the first 1/4, my dough was perfect)
2 3/4 teaspoons salt

(This recipe also calls for 1 tbsp of malt syrup or 2 tbsp of malt powder. Given that I already have an allergy to wheat, adding any further guarantee of watching the Bachelor from the comfort of our washroom seemed unnecessary. From what I can tell, there isn’t much missing here as the bagels tasted phenomenal. Phenomenally dangerous.)

To Be Fancy: Sesame Seeds, Poppy seeds

To make the sponge, stir the yeast into the flour into a large mixing bowl.  Add the water, whisking or stirring only until it forms a smooth, sticky batter (like pancake batter). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for approximately 2 hours, or until the mixture becomes very foamy and bubbly. It should swell to nearly double in size and collapse when the bowl is tapped on the countertop. (Mine never collapsed, and I put it near a warm oven and it took about an hour and a half to reach the desired consistency.)

Once the sponge is ready, add the additional yeast and stir. Then add 3 cups of the flour and all of the salt (and malt if you choose to use it). I sifted the flour and salt together because I’m a bit retentive about distribution. Thanks Mom!

At this point the recipe instructs you to stir with a dough hook, however being too poor for a Kitchen Aid and unaware of any pirates for hire, I used my hands. Stir with hands until the ingredients for a ball, slowly working in the remaining 3/4 cup flour to stiffen the dough. (As mentioned, I only used 1/4 cup of that.)

Knead the dough until firm, approximately 10 minutes. The recipe says that it “should be firm, stiffer than French bread dough” however, I have no idea what that means, so I went with the other directions, that it should be “pliable and smooth” and “satiny but not tacky”. I tested this by running it across my face and thinking about sleeping on a slip. Science!

There should be no dry flour – all ingredients should be mixed in and nothing should be flaky or chunky. The dough should pass the windowpane test and register 77 to 71 degrees F. (See the link. I had no idea what this meant at the time, I just kept kneading the dough until it felt like a nice pillow…) If the dough seems to0 dry and rippy, add a few drops of water and continue kneading, add flour if it’s too tacky.

Divide the dough into balls – I weighed mine to 65 grams each, and they were the perfect size later. Put these on a cookie sheet and cover them with a warm damp tea towel and let them rest for about 20 minutes. When this is done, take each ball and roll it into a sluggy worm shape, about the 2/3 the thickness of (shocking) a bagel. Put one end of the slug in your palm, stretch it around the back of your hand and place it on top of the other end piece. Roll your hand back and forth on the counter to seal the bagel together. Put these on a pan lined with parchment paper and lightly oiled, cover with plastic wrap, let sit for 20 minutes.

Let the pans sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes.

In order to see if the bagels are ready to be “retarded” (I know, awesome.) do the “float test”. In a bowl of room temp water, drop one of the bagels and wait for it to float. If it floats within 10 seconds, you’re good to put them in the fridge (just pat off the wet bagel and put it in too), and if it doesn’t wait another 10 minutes, and try again. Once they float – put the trays in the fridge immediately.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F with the two racks set in the middle of the oven. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop your bagels gently one by one into the boiling water, and boil for one minute on each side. (I boiled my bagels in batches of five in a really large pot, and this was a really manageable batch to deal with). The longer you boil your bagels, the chewier they are going to be. I got mesmerized by an A-Team trailer, so one batch boiled for at least three minutes. Whoops! Still delicious.

When the bagels are boiled, put them back on the parchment on the baking pan. Put the bagels in the oven for five minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees and continue baking for another five minutes. (I took them out at five minutes, lightly brushed the tops with an egg wash and sprinkled sesame seeds on top before replacing for the remaining time.) I didn’t actually bake these for five minutes – more like 13-15 minutes total, and judged entirely by the color of the bagels.

Take them out.. let them cool.. enjoy!

Inspiration: Objets Trouves

These Polaroid scarves from Objets Trouves are really incredible. While out of my price range, I will still lust after them. Given that I generally forget all accessories … everywhere, and barring that, slop some sort of sauce on the rest, “lust” is where it ends. {via UO}

We really didn’t know what to say this February 4th. We tried to say all those things you should – I love you, I can’t believe it’s been three years, I can’t believe the things we’ve done, I can’t believe we moved across a country, travelled across borders, I can’t believe we haven’t killed, maimed or blinded each other, intentionally or accidentally….

A good friend and I spoke yesterday of  the pictures that we paint of ourselves here, how they are sometimes so perfect and sweet that even our failures are brush stroked into rosy hued optimism and funny quips. How in blog land we rarely talk about the rages, the betrayals, the pain, the heartache and the strife that evades even the most skilled writer or narrator. Sometimes, there are not enough words (or there are too many) that could protect the careful identity that we craft here for ourselves and still reveal our true lives and loves and pains.

So while Jared and I tried to say the things we should on the fourth, we found ourselves more aware of the things we don’t. The things we don’t talk about – the fights, the gulps, the vomit, the spit and the anger, the sulks, the exhaustion, the tears, the screams and the slams. They are the things that we quash under our “funny couple” routine, the things we wrestle with across the dinner table, the things that three years sometimes resolve and sometimes fortify. Yet amidst all the things we don’t say here and all the things we don’t say in our lives, there lives a space between fights and slams where we learned to stop saying another thing this February 4th.

We stopped saying “I don’t believe…”

Because we do.

Real Food

{This is the second month of my 12 Resolutions – you can read about the start (and fail) here and here! Recipes will be coming out on Wednesday mornings, to coincide with my work schedule, the fact I only have time to cook and photograph Monday mornings, the limited sunlight in my living room/kitchen and the only time the people downstairs aren’t making whoopie/beer can pyramids/shame/me crazy.}

I try my best to be a healthy person. I get salads instead of fries, I don’t drink pop, I like steamed veggies. (lie. I hate them.) But sometimes I fail. Like last friday, when I worked all day with no lunch or dinner, then proceeded to eat a burger, ceasar salad, two beers, a box of popcorn, a package of peanut butter m&m’s, a package of skittles, 3 ceasars, another beer and a cup of hot nuts.

Fail.

Needless to say, when I came out of my self induced carb coma I figured the first recipe in February should be one that erred on the side of “real food” (see: something that didn’t come from a bar, heated box or movie theatre). I was highly skeptical of these brownies (black beans? two cups? really? really?) until I was tricked into eating them like a two year old, 1/2 a bottle of wine into a ladies night. (Unlike a two year old..)

And they are amazing. No word of a lie. They have the consistency of cheesecake, and I’m pretty sure they taste like a cross between delicious and a mouthful of angels singing James Brown. You’d never be able to guess that there are beans in them, which is kinda great, and also what tricked me into eating 1/2 a pan of them. As C. pointed out, you can now say “I need some protein” and grab a brownie. Bliss.

Thanks to B. for both tricking me into eating these and giving up the recipe with perfect modifications.

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup unsalted butter
2 cups black beans (washed lightly to remove starch/salt)
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. strong brewed coffee
1/4 tsp salt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups brown sugar

Preheat oven to 325`F.

Line baking pan with parchment paper, oil it if you like. (I didn’t.)
Melt chocolate and butter in microwave or on stove top (double boiler style.) Stir to melt chocolate completely. Taste, and set aside.

Place black beans, vanilla, and a few large spoonfuls of the melted chocolate mixture into food processor. Blend for about two minutes, until smooth. Taste, and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix melted chocolate mixture, coffee, and salt. Taste, and set aside.

In another bowl, beat the eggs until light and creamy. Add the sugar and beat well.

Add the bean/chocolate mixture to the coffee/chocolate mixture. Blend well. Taste, and set aside.

Add the egg and sugar mixture, saving about 1/2 cup. Mix well. Pour the batter into prepped pan. Beat the reserved egg mixture until light and fluffy. Drizzle over the brownie batter. Use a toothpick to pull the egg mixture through the batter, creating a marbled effect. (This is where the crispy top comes from.)

Bake for about 45 minutes to an hour, or until toothpick comes out clean, center is cooked and edges are crispy.

Do not undercook.

Place pan in fridge until completely cool, overnight is best.

*These are best kept in the fridge and served very very cold.. Mmmmm…*

little boxes

{me}

Everything in it’s place. The boxes in my day planner, the months that hang on the wall. The blocked off sections for to-do lists and appointments, reminders and resolutions. When it all goes tickety-boo, I am a happy girl. Barring being happy, I at least know where all the time went wherein I wasn’t happy, or planning to make myself happy, or putting “happiness and sunshine” on my short term goals list next to “hem pants”.

There is something about the best laid plans here. There is a quote that infers my boxes are shoddy, the plans tentative at best and the rest…”flexible”. There is advice here about learning to go with the flow, about knowing your limits and other sensistive mumbo jumbo that I prefer to steamroll with a few good hours of self flagellation and hard work.

But this week, the universe gave me no choice. The boxes caved, the plans were erased, the limit was reached and frankly, my legs gave out from underneath me in abject protest. I started the year with making a resolution a month, and each of them came with a caveat – that if I didn’t succeed, then I’d at least fail. Watching my little plans melt into oblivion this week one after another, January sucker punched me in the gut with a fist full of hot fail.

When I sat down this evening and peered into the boxes I had left, I expected to be disappointed. Instead, each one was filled with a little surprise – brunch with friends, an afternoon cooking with J, unexpected windfalls and gratitude nestled between laughter, heart to hearts and chats at the touch of a button. Somewhere along the way I booked a vacation, saw a movie and mailed a stack of letters.

As a result, January’s resolution is still on the way. It’s in a box, waiting, right next to the box o’ fail. And as of January, I’m ok with that.

Sprint

{me}

It was a bit of a week last week, filled with a lot of slamming doors, long silences, 63 hours of work topped off sore feet, bruised feelings and teary faces. For a while we forgot that we were both running towards the same thing, and instead focused on the fact we kept knocking each other in the ribs with our mad flailing elbows. So today we played hooky – we turned off the phones, we didn’t answer the door, we just… hid. We churned out 3 lasagnas, 2 dozen momos, and a really good talk that felt like a finish line and a starter pistol at the same time. So we’re tying up our laces today for another sprint, and this week we’re holding hands.

Music Monday

{via}

flat out.

{via}

Oh no, I’m still here dumplings. I am just running as fast as I can, trying to get through the next 3 days until my day off on Monday. I’m sorry it’s been so quiet – when I get home I just can’t bring my self to blog. You see, at 11 pm my fingers don’t work, as the kitchen can attest to when I put in an order for “Nachos – No Jalepenis” last night. *chuckle* All my love, have a fabulous weekend, things should return to lesser shade of crazy next week. xo

Music Monday

Well, at the very least I now have my dance moves for the next month of Saturdays. Sorry things have been quiet around these pages darlings… things in the works.. things in the works… xo

bon weekend

{me}

Cupcakes, have a lovely weekend. I’m off to work, sleep and dance with my lady friends. Jared is away in Tatamagouche this weekend, so I’m left to wallow in plates of 1/2 eaten food and photography manuals. Bliss. xo

to targets.

{Kenneth Noland}

{This post is Part II of my New Years Essay. To read part one, jump over here.}

In my living room there is a great wall of books. And behind the rows and rows of books of great and ill repute, there are slightly smaller and thinner stacks of journals. Moleskines, plain and black, some bulging and some slim, are lined and piled and hiding behind better stories than mine. They are filled with pressed flowers, spare pearls, polaroids, drawings, pages washed clean with tears, pages with words that gouge into the next three. There are moleskins still stained and gritty with sand from India, one that smells of the perfume I wore in the galleries in Washington, one filled with the wonder of being so in love, some that stop halfway through and never pick up again except with crossed out lines and smudges.

There is no way to tell their chronology except by the list that occupies the first few pages of each journal. In an effort to have a consistent way to start each new, fresh and dauntingly perfect black book, I began copying a list into each one. It was a list of things that I wanted to do in my life, amended, appended and added to each journal, items crossed off and dated upon their completion.

I’ve gathered all my crumbled post it notes, soggy napkins and journal pages up in front of me tonight baby loves. I’ve laid them out, arranged them here and there, took out “drive to Alaska”, “have a baby” and “make my own candy canes” as items not contributing to this years resolution.* I’ve looked at the little things I want to do, the big things, and I’ve boiled them down to a choice few that will take me through this next year, and hopefully contribute not only to what I want to do in my life, but who I want to be.

Without any apology, these are not BIG things. There is plenty of time in the months and years ahead to do big things, to lay big plans, to make things happen. What I hope is that with these small choice things being completed month by month, I will become the braver person who can do those bigger things without hesitation. Hell, if finally making a good lemon tart and sewing a summer dress gives me the courage to book a ticket to Africa/Russia/Mississippi, there is no harm done here. There will be 12 months of 12 Goals, carefully chronicled along with my regular shenanigans. **

(*nervous stalling* Did I just use a capital G on Goals?)

Ok.  Here we go!

{January} – Tricked you. This one is a surprise! January’s resolution is definitely underway, and has been for about 12 days. I’m really excited about this one – lets just say that it helps me with my goals of reconnecting to a community, supporting and fostering other artists, being honest about my love of writing and a place to exhibit it, and tie that sucker up with a big bow of “looking my best” in all areas of my life. And surprisingly, this one has little to do with Interpretive Dance.

{February} – Try one new recipe a week/photograph and blog it! This month is a twofold resolution. First and foremost it’s about reconnecting to how much I love to cook, and consciously being aware of what and how we eat. We’re both really interested in taking the time to sit down at a table, talk, enjoy our food and each other. We have an incredible amount of talent, food resources and inspiration around us here in the Maritimes, and I want to be able to take advantage of it. What is perhaps equally as important to me is sharing the love of food that my family, and largely my mom, has cultivated in me – which is where sharing it with you comes in! Committing to reviewing and publishing it means that in some small way, I get to have you at my kitchen table with me.

{March} – Take one intentional photo per day for 30 days. This is a “Don’t know until you try” resolution. I love my camera, love it so much that I want more. Flashes, lenses, new bodies. But in order to justify purchasing another camera or more equipment, I want to know that my abilities will extend to meet whatever technology I put in my hands. It’s been a long time since I took the time to actually learn a craft more than haphazardly or fleetingly. Photography is something I love so much, and use so little with intention.

{April} – Sew, and wear, two pieces of summer clothing. My grandmother that passed away this summer was a maverick with needle and thread. We all have gifts of quilts from both her, and her mother (my great grandmother) constructed with everything from old woolen jackets and air force uniforms to the softest cotton sheets. These quilts keep you warm in ways that only grandmothers and their craft can. I want to construct something for myself, perhaps nothing with as much weight or significance, but something that stitches me to them and their abilities in the same way.  This is a small step to knowing and feeling my history, and carrying it with me – light or heavy.

{May} – Commit five random acts of art in my town. This task will definitely fill the badassery quotient in this years resolution plan. (And will be further defined once we reach May). I have moved so many times in my life, and sometimes, other than the people that I’ve met in the places that I’ve lived, I feel like I pass from city to city and town to town without leaving any indication that I was there. It must be that as I get older I’m looking to leave some sort of flaming Z in the wall of the places that I go. Yes, I referenced Zoro. I figured a resolution involving random acts of art  was the place to do it.

{June} – This one is also to be announced. It’s a bit of a venture, a little  bit of a reach, a tiny bit scary and more than a little bit time intensive. But it is also delicious, and I’m really really excited about this one.

I’m going to leave it there for the time being, lest you all suffer from blogscrolleritis and swear never to return to cheer me upon the journey. But this is where I’m starting! I’ll publish the others in the next little while, though I’m going to leave wiggle room for change… in the event whatever I sew rips down the hiney or my oven implodes.

So sweet tarts – there is the start.

Here is to targets!

*Unless I were to attach the modifiers “in the face of bears”, “and push a watermelon through the eye of a needle” and “become irreparably single” to my resolution “be braver”.

**Have you seen the flickr stream lately? Apparently I’ve turned into an 18 year old gurl. I played beer pong. WTF. I collect books. And stamps. And sometimes dust from when I don’t leave the house on a regular basis. And I found out I’m really good at beer pong, a fact that had to be related to me later due to little to no recollection of said game.

to aim.

{via}

I’m not sure when it happened, but it appears during the course of ensuring our kids would be taught how to write a cheque and how to use a condom, we stopped teaching them how to write. We teach them how to spell, we teach them both print and cursive, we teach them which witch is the right witch. We teach them all about the logistics of shooting an arrow, without ever teaching them the importance of aim.

I do not mean that there is a lack of inspiration, of passion, of style and depth to the writing that is produced, there is more passion than I have comma splices. The quiver is full of sharpened arrows of metaphors, similies, framing narratives and style sheets ready for scattered deployment into short stories, essays and poems. It is the determined voice, the sure words and the beautiful logic of aim that I want, it is the intent over the style.

I had the pleasure of having a genuine asshole as a thesis advisor. For years previous to that thesis work, he’d hand back essays  I’d worked myself into delirium over with one single red mark on the front. “Thesis?”.  I’d work, slave, edit, print, re-edit, put myself and my heart into these essays without ever stating, and sometimes ever knowing, what that force was directed by or to. Thesis statements, he instructed, tell the reader what they should expect, it tells them what the writer will attempt to do, it tells them what the writer will prove and it will tell them, if they look closely enough, who that writer is.

That professor helped me see the value of structure, the value of stating your intent and your passion as one unified voice, in one unified statement. He taught me that without a guide to reflect back on and true your course by, you were lost. That no matter how eloquent your words, how strong your passion, how beautiful your similes, that you were aimless. I think that this is what being taught “how” to write really does – it steadies your hand and guides your motives not just on paper, but in life. It teaches a critical thinking that ensures cheque writing and safe sex become not the target but another arrow in your arsenal, guided by greater intent and purpose in your heart and mind.

So, in 2010 I chose to start not with a resolution but with a thesis statement, guided by body paragraphs and soul alike. In this year, dear bloggers, I will seek to be braver. I will do the things that I want to do, instead of believing that I can’t or worse, thinking I can so never trying at all and forgoing that accomplishment. I will take risks, arrows will fly at targets only previously imagined and usually quashed. Above all else, I will live with the grace and consciousness that comes with knowing I may fail at each and every task I undertake; but I will fail with aplomb, I will fail with style, I will fail with laughter and I will fail knowing that I tried my hardest.

I have a shit load of arrows to accomplish this with, in fact, I have 12 of them. 12 resolutions, one for each month, and they are most certainly not culmulative – at no point will I be cooking and blogging/vlogging one new recipe a week while taking music lessons and learning to cha cha. Some of them are big, some of them are small. But they are all sharp, they are all true, and they are aimed with a startling amount of ferocity and faith that only resolutions can possess. In the next couple of days I’ll let you in on them, but for now….

Here is to arrows.

Here is to aim.

xo

January Mix Tape – All for Aught

{Download here}

Darlings, in place of the New Years Resolution post that is tortorously and painfully coming along, I offer you the “All for Aught” Mix Tape, to celebrate the end of last year and the beginning of this one. The music, thankfully, has nothing to do with either. I will however reassure you that each mix will indeed include something from Otis Redding.

I know.

Thank me later.

xo

to another.

{me}

They ended the night, and year, sitting in the bathtub together – the only clean place left – feet slung over the side. Through the door they could see the scattered remnants of a party; bottles of Guinness, glasses of wine, plates of food, twinkling lights and balloons. She tipped her head to the side and rested it on his shoulder, smiling at the party hat perched on the sink.

“Well,” she sighed, “That was interesting.”

He kissed her on the temple and laughed under his breath.”Yes, it was. Here’s to another one just like it.”

xo babies, to another magical, insane, heart wrenching and soul expanding 365 days. May it be beautiful, and bring you joy.

all the way home – a slice

Dumplings. Despite a few tense moments yesterday, I’m home again. It was a truly wonderful holiday, filled with so much laughter and food that both my cheeks hurt from smiling and my stomach from eating. My brother made a surprise appearance a whole day early (a big difference when it’s the 24th of December vs. the 25th) sending my mom into veritable paroxysms of holiday cheer. My mother, wielding spoon and whisk alike delved into creating an incredible 5 course French meal, filled with beef bourguignon, salads, escargot… Insanity. My sister and I worked on the 604 clue Globe and Mail crossword over wine and homemade amaretto sours, laughing and enjoying what little time we do get together. We trudged through the ice storm to get beaver tails and Starbucks, and shopped shopped shopped. It was bliss, it was good, it was home. Cupcakes – tell me about your holidays!

looks like home.

in a flurry

{here}

I am blissfully, suddenly, wonderfully home. I am stuffed with good food, bad coffee (Why mom? why?) and have already spent an unadulterated 3 hours watching Jersey Shore with my sister. (Best line ever? “C’mon. I am a bartender. I do great things”)

After an incredibly insane 18 hour day on Tuesday, I shuffled my fat, swollen happy feet home from the pub. My boss  kissed me on the cheek and bought me a tequila that I had to dribble over my shoulder and down my back to keep from the other very small town Christmas tradition of driving under the influence into people’s living rooms. With shoulder blades smelling of a bad date and feet three sizes too big I crawled into bed for 2 hours, and god bless her, got a wake up call from the bar telling me to get up and catch my bus. Only in a small town can you get a wake up call from the bartender still doing her paperwork on the night before Christmas Eve, happy as a clam and drunk as a mussel in vodka.

I slept my way to the airport and stumbled my way onto a flight with a very sweet Newfoundlander intent on discussing (alternately) his sisters recent nuptials, our newly discovered shared love of Freddy Mercury, and his graduate work in neuroscience. Given that I had just discovered by unhappy accident in the washroom that I was sporting aforementioned tequila ridden jeans, I was happy he was talking to me about anything other than the permeating stench of Mexican mouthwash on our tiny flight.

But I am home hombres, I am home. I am about to join the masses in the quest for that last elusive perfect gift, and enjoy my first meal of sushi in months. I’m going to sign off for the holidays, to revel in this feeling with every fiber of my being. Happiest of Holidays, Merriest of Christmases, Holiest of Holies. All my love to each and every one of you. xo

a slice – in words

{there were no photos taken this weekend. Regardless, there were moments so full of life and goodness, that it warrants recounting. That, or I figured I’d draw them. Obviously that didn’t pan out.}

There would be a photo of a girl kissing a boy goodbye in a snowstorm – It doesn’t seem to matter how many times we part ways, it kills me every time he goes. Jared left for home this weekend on a very important and incredible mission – to attend and play at his first CD release. It only slightly mitigated the extreme sadness I had as I watched his bus pull away for the third Christmas in a row now, with no foreseeable end in sight. But knowing that he was going to do something so incredible, to have tangible in his hands the hard work and love and passion that he puts into the universe – it was worth seeing the taillights disappear one more time.

There would be a photo of three women, the last of us here for Christmas, laughing hysterically over chinese and red wine – There is nobody left but those without family, those with jobs, those with nowhere else to go. Last night three of us, the last three of us in a wide circle with intangible, loose, or no connections at all, met for chinese. We talked about our lives, our loves, our laughter and each other for hours, picking at food and at memories with tentative fingers and easy smiles.

There would be a photo of a girl in a chair, and in tears – She handed me a Kleenex, lamenting the stress of the holiday season, at the fact I’d soon be alone in my home at the holidays again, if even for a while. She leaned back, with all the wisdom of her position and asked if it was possible that being alone wasn’t just a state of being with nobody. That lonely could be a sad and frightening truth of being with somebody.

There would be a photo of a storm – A storm that totally blanketed my house, my loaned car, the roads, and for a while, all sound. A storm that lulled me into sleep after fits of anxiety, of listening for errant sounds, of wondering about locked doors and ridiculous scenarios brought about by watching 3 episodes of Criminal Minds in an empty house. When will I learn?

There would be a photo of beat up black flats and a worn hardwood floor – There was so much work this weekend. At some point I was so confused as to why I was so tired – then I realized I’d slept 7 hours in the past three days. But the work was accompanied by the stunning realization that I love being a waitress. I love the dark wood, the hard floors, the booths, the beer, the cook who puts aside salads with no croutons for me to eat on the run, the bartender who knows I can get my own beer, the regulars who are easy to love and hard to cut off, the feeling of exhaustion and happiness as I slide into a chair at the end of the night to cash out. It is not saving the world. But it is saving my sanity.

The Week in Review

I had a feeling that this week would be a little bit of a whirlwind, and boy was I right! I drove a friend into Halifax on Monday, and the sprint to the finish began. We indulged in an Antigonish institution and went to Mother Webb’s, which I can only describe as fairly identical to the rib joint in Tarantino’s “Planet Terror”. Terrifying. We shopped for irreverent and hilarious Christmas gifts (see: cacti) and wrapped up the last of the office Christmas parties by watching Dave Gunning play a really adorable Christmas concert. We played “Christmas Card Prison Camp” where I made Jared do 56 Christmas cards with me in an hour (hilarious addendum: we thought the cards were blank, but they include a highly religious message…whoops). We did what all fairly secular people do this time of year and indulged in Combo #1 at Wong’s Chinese and a gift exchange, as J. leaves tonight for home and his CD release. We topped it off with good wine, bruschetta and much laughter with friends at a table in the window, watching the snow fall and the season close in. Sprinting though we were, it was a beautiful week.

Music Monday – So Cold!

Oh my goodness, this song is for all my frozen little friends back home, where it hit -59 degrees celsius this weekend. Would that I could wrap you all up and feed you mulled wine until you were warm again. I miss you all!

(ps – Micheal Cera will keep you warm with laughter yes? NSFW!)

the smallest slice

Hello dumplings. Photo opportunities were rare this weekend, what with a blizzard, a first aid course and two octogenarian Christmas parties to serve at the pub. But, I returned home on Sunday night to a beautiful living room filled with little twinkling lights – so voila. How was your fin de semaine puppets?

A Month of Wednesdays

Hello lovelies! I realized due to some schedule conflicts (see: alarm going off vs. staying in bed) that I haven’t been keeping up on Wanted Wednesdays. I have a little bit of amazing time off today, and since we just finished the season finale of Glee (I cried like a baby. Jesus.) I thought I’d show you (coincidentally just in time for the holidays) all the things I’ve been lusting after of late. Have a beautiful weekend, and I’ll see you on Sunday for a Slice! xo

{the harbinger co.}

{a bedspread like this, from here}

{this amazing wallet}

{this fabulous skirt}

{a good graphic tee}

{a picture book}

Field Notes

{via}

Sold.

In the Weeds.

{via}

What feels like a very long time ago, I went to a friends cottage. Near to the end of the dirt road there was a little beach, with a dock you could jump off of.

I remember running as fast as I could to the end of the dock and jumping off, cutting downwards. Our little whippet like preteen bodies would glide through the water, slicing straight down to the very bottom. Your body would hit the warm water, cut through it, your hair would rush upwards into the warmth,  your feet would sink down into the cold. The water spread up over you, green and murky, sliding like a summery mantle.

The last thing you would feel would be your feet plunging into the bottom of the lake – mushy sand filled with algae and reeds, sharp shells and flat rocks. Depending on how hard you jumped, how straight you held your arms to the sky you could sink knee deep in it, flailing and grasping your way back to the surface

No matter how many times I jumped into the water that summer, I never got over the feeling of panic as my feet sucked into the lake bed. Gulping water, staring up at the green tinted sun, flailing my arms and pushing against soft, mucky ground to get back to the surface;  I would undergo the same torturously slow swim back to the sun each time. My kicks were disjointed and misdirected as I tried to kick and scrape muck off my legs at the same time, sucking in water and distress with every movement. Each time as the warm water washed back over the top of my head, my shoulders, my hips, and finally my toes I would be greeted by the same beautiful laughing, gasping wet face of my friend beside me, treading water.

My hands, my toes, my legs felt covered in mud this week. I felt sucked in and flailing, gulping water and sobbing in the back of my throat as I tried to make it work. Running like mad, pitchers of beer, uncomfortable shoes, unpaid bills – going and going and going. I felt shells scraping my feet, the coldest, hardest mud sucking at my toes, the tightest sharpest reeds wrapping around my calves. I used to think that if I was ever drowning, I would just start drinking until it was dry and somebody saved me. I couldn’t drink fast enough this week.

Wednesday night, I pushed open the door to the kitchen at the pub one last time. I grabbed the last pitcher of beer, and I waded through the mud to the last table. I looked up, and around the last table in the thickest mud with the most reeds and the sharpest shells, were my friends. And they were laughing, and they were reaching to me. Cold hands wet with cold beer grasped cold forearms wet with wiped tears, and they pulled. And for the first time since I got here, I felt the warm water. On my shoulders, on my back, on my hips and on my toes as I sat down and happily remembered how to tread water.

Inspiration – Simon Page

{Simon Page via NYTimes}

I’m really loving these International Year of Astronomy posters by Simon Page. The colours are just so saturated and perfect, the design so retro. Heart.

a slice.

Hello Lovelies! J and I dashed through this weekend at absolute breakneck speed, managing to have a truly incredible time. I have to clarify – though I’m working insane hours and generally feeling a teeny bit bonkers, I am ok. Jared and I have discovered that it’s pretty much feast or famine when it comes to work here, you’re either going at 100miles an hour, or not at all. We spent the weekend learning exactly how to accomadate eating/sleeping/seeing each other given that fact, and are quickly getting a routine down.

A routine that included a bowling date! The lanes here look like they have been time warped from the 70’s, everything is blue and orange plastic and the shoes are atrocious, but it was so much fun. We walked into the alley in the middle of a children’s birthday party, complete with black light bowling and screaming cake eating soulless hellions. They left barely five minutes later, we got the adult lighting back (a good thing since I hadn’t previously noticed the ranch sauce spilled across my crotch from work until we hit said light) grabbed a couple beers and I proceeded to school Jared in the way of the granny bowler.

Saturday night we danced our faces off at Moustache Pony, Sunday we attended the first of  the staff Christmas parties at the Pub. The amazing thing about having so many jobs is the fact that J and I will be able to attend not one, not two but four Christmas parties this season. However, not even dollar eggnog and rum could entice us to stay last night (well, entice us to stay after having four of them, just to show good cheer) when we crawled home through the beautiful 16 degree weather we’ve been having and crashed into bed.

It was a good weekend to remind J and I of the importance of little things – of sitting and eating with friends, watching ridiculous films early in the morning when we can’t sleep, being on time for something so little but so important to the other, of the glee inherent in watching David Bowie and Bing Crosby together… Small things that seem to fall by the wayside when you’re running out the door at 8am and returning past midnight. Chickens, it was good. xo

windmills? Really?

{via}

Plague and overemployment have hit our house with a fury heretofore unknown my darlings.

I’m working from 8am to 5pm at the dr’s office and slinging beers from 5 to 11pm  at the pub, (God bless the town I live in – they are next door to each other) which surprisingly leaves me very little time for sanity, proper nutrition, and Glee. I believe at one point last night I sat down at a table and may  or may not have let out the teeniest little sob. And I ate one of their chicken wings. And like all good windmill makers in that situation, those gentlemen tipped me well.

Unfortunately, around about the same time I commenced upon the task of running myself into the ground, Jared got sick.

Like, sick. Everywhere.

When I finally crawled into bed last night, and lay my weary head down upon a smear of still moist vomit, I got up, changed the pillowcase, wiped off my cheek, and went to sleep.

Which is why I will be MIA for a little bit longer my darlings, though I miss you and all your stories terribly. I will be MIA  because I am working long hours, eating badly, and sleeping in vomit. (Is a “I’m practicing to be a supermodel” joke here misplaced? I can’t tell anymore. So tired.) xo

Music Monday

Though not a new one, definitely what I’m grooving to this morning. xo

Hair She Is.

{life}

I have come to terms with my appearance, and am generally speaking fairly happy with it. I made peace this summer with my slightly equine smile, and while I would prefer to be achingly translucently thin, I am not upset by the fact my cup over-floweth and trickles downwards to spill, somewhat despondently, over my waistband.

While certain parts of me have followed a particular love/hate cycle, I am, and have always been, exceedingly vain and pleased with my hair. I have an unabashed love affair with the tangled mop of relatively thin but abundant strands that sit, usually piled, upon my head from day to day.

I have treated it badly; I have cheated on hairdressers, I have held wet strands of jello like hair falling from my scalp over the kitchen sink after a bad bleach job. Somebody should have taken that poor abused shoulder length mop to the halfway house of hot oil repair, but it stayed.

It stayed through the tumultuous virginial period of going from my naturally pale blond locks to an epic deep auburn bob. It stayed through dozens, litterally dozens, of fruit salad like boxes of Feria “Black Cherry”, streaked through with shocking strips of “Raspberry Beret”. It rushed with me to the salon, damaged and orange under a cloche hat after an attempt to go from “Black Cherry” to “Midnight Blue” with one fell swoop of bleach, landing clumped and sad somewhere around “Calico Stray Cat”. It stayed, like a hopeful partner, untouched, untreated and uncut in California blond territory for years, until a particularily bad breakup prompted a date with my neighbor (a woefully unskilled but adventurous best friend) a pair of kitchen scissors and a box of “Dark Chesnut”. After mending the same broken heart with the same broken man, he took me to a salon to restore my crown of blond hair, creamy and white, beige and righteous.

So it sat, untouched and swearing that this, this was the last time, even through that final breakup, until I tricked it last year into a stunning, shocking and entirely too high maintenance red that made me feel beautiful and wild and strange. After settling down with J, a man who is only too happy that I still have hair, I begrudgingly and it happily returned to a dirty blond, waiting for the next whiff of bleach to entice my nostrils, stealing itself for the next heartbreak, the next upheavel.

This summer, as I prepared to embark on an adventure that I was not ready for, not looking for, and frankly, so incredibly scared of, I realized for the first time I wanted to change my hair – not out of angst, or sadness or madness, but for fun. I walked out of the salon with pink and blue and purple hair, thick and shiney and fun and wild, laughable and so entirely not me that I could be anyone that I wanted. To embark on an adventure that wasn’t me, as not me.

Being as vain as I am, and as poor as I am, such high maintenance hair required a dual effort on behalf of Jared and I. Being as vain as I am, and as poor as I am, is how I ended up standing in the shower, naked as the day I was born and as fuscia from head to toe as some mythical creature born of Narnia and raised in an alternative strip club.

We had decided between us that it would take four hands to really tackle the bright pink fringe with Manic Panic dye, arming ourselves with scads of saran wrap, tin foil, dollar store paintbrushes and hair clips. We carefully painted, clipped, massaged and pinned my hair into My Little Pony locks of awesome, one painstaking section at a time. After dutifully waiting the prescribed ammount of time, and flipping the remainder of my hair in a Cindy Lou-Hoo style top pony tail, I doffed the tinfoil and jumped in the shower.

Dear sweet Joico in Heaven, it was a disaster. FUSCIA water streamed down my shoulders, staining my breasts pink, my nipples violet, the fine hair on my arms retained a patina of powder-puff, my earlobes hanging cherries of psychedelic hue. My fingers, attempting madly to scrub at the mess pooling around my now more than blush feet, had turned a perfectly scarlet shade of ridiculous. Screaming and cursing as I peered through now definitely rose colored eyelashes, Jared peeked into the stained shower and turned my screams to hysterical laughter.

“You,” he gasped, “Look maaaggiiic.”

Over a week the pink wore off my skin, was filed out from under my fingernails. The stripe down my back faded, and my torso returned to it’s usual pale and un-magic state of porcelain. Our grout is still the color of a highlighter, and the shower curtain will never be the same.

Last week I ducked into the salon to sit for 5 hours under 2 lbs of powdered bleach, returning once more in color and spirit to a dusty, beige blond. I am content, for now, again, in knowing that the stories that my hair holds in its past are much like my soul – they make me who I am, even if you can’t see them. Magic.

An Open Letter: To the Brothers of MacPherson

Dear Douche Nozzles.

I will, with some reticence, keep this as simple as I can. Perhaps it was one too many concussions on the football field, perhaps it was that extra keg stand, perhaps it was just one too many rounds of clap killing antibiotics that made you and your brothers go soft in the head. Regardless of the reason you behaved so abominably last night (and the fact that I am indeed being far too generous with any assumption of your intelligence as you went to “Shake Hands with the Devil” that night at the theatre assuming that Romeo Dallaire was a Shakespeare character) you need to be taught a lesson. You are never too old or too cool to be spanked, and gentlemen, consider this letter my fucking knee.

It was bad enough that you showed up late to your reservation, perhaps a bit worse that you chose to quibble with the location of your seats, squashing you and your table of 15 into the corner farthest from the kitchen and bar. To be honest, given the color of your language and the stench of the ditch weed you’d previously been smoking before gracing me with your presence, having you sequestered in a corner where the only senses you could assault were my own was probably a blessing.

It was worse when you all acted like newly minted 18 year olds, insisting that I repeat each item on tap for each group of your self aggrandizing frat brothers, as if I didn’t have anything better to do after already working for nine hours that day. But I plodded through, gave you my three token boy jokes, made you laugh. I even stood up on a chair with the butter knife attached to a broom handle to change the TV to football for you.

As your group of mongaloid knuckle draggers began to dwindle and, I can only guess, stagger through town whacking women on the head and dragging them back to your communal cave, three of you decided hell, “I’m only in Supply Chain Management! I still have to find two pennies to rub together to make a cohesive thought in my sloping forehead. I might as well just stay here, harrass what is obviously a tired waitress, and continue to drink bad pitchers of beer.” (Though I’m sure in your mind that only translated as “Me thirsty. See titties. Stay here.”)

So, despite my thorough attempts to encourage you to do basic math and pay your fucking bill, I left you and your fellow onanists to play with each other in the corner. I checked in with you regularly until, stupid me, I had to deal with another group of poorly trained young adults tossing potato skins at each other and drinking Coors Light. (What is WRONG with you people?)

And you left. Without paying.

Brothers, a pox on you and your entire hall. I hope that each and everyone of you suffer the indignity of severe erectile dysfunction every night of your life, left as limp and sad in your hand as your unpaid bills in mine. I pray that you try to return to the only pub in town when I’m working so that you may suffer the wrath of my very tiny, very angry fists upon your protruding brow ridge. I hope that you are driven to distraction by the sound of your own pea brain rattling around in that giant pre-historic skull of yours.

But I am not without grace you disgusting ass sniffing dick weeds. I do want to thank you. In fact, I want to thank your mothers for ostensibly smoking, drinking and sticking their thumbs in your soft spots and causing you to be so blind as to tell me not only where you live, and leaving your phone number for a reservation, but to inform me that one of you not only used to work at the pub, but may be working there this Saturday. When I will be waiting to go positively medieval on your pimply jock strapped asses, and attempt to doll out the same embarrassment, disappointment and sadness upon you that I felt when I had to take money out of the ATM at the end of the night to cover your bill.

Do not think for just one moment that I will hesitate to put you over my knee and spank you for your bad manners and questionable personal hygiene. Assholes.

xo.

ps – To the other sweet young men from various other halls in the pub that night who tried to make up for your bad behavior by scrounging through coat pockets for extra change – May you be blessed with many large breasted women and free chicken wings for the rest of your lives. You are sweet and kind.

Just the Tip

Truth be told, I feel a little deceitful, like a girl walking around with tic- tacs in her Wonderbra and Bump Its in her ponytail. But mostly the tic tacs.

Ya’ll really liked the nipples hey?

I can’t lie, it was almost the best part of my trip. The other best part was coming home to tell you about it.

It’s a busy week here in this sleepy little town, I’m learning about electronic taps (pretty much the worst idea at a pub ever – the power goes out and so does the beer? That, my friend, is what causes riots, not a lack of clean drinking water) healthy hepatic functioning and a good dose of Arabic. No matter which way you look at it, the trifecta of blogicide.

I did want to stop in quickly and welcome new readers. I promise more nipples and bad metaphors a plenty. What more could you want?*

xoxo

*more nipples.

a slice.

Happiest Monday darlings. We’ve returned windblown and smelling like the ocean from beautiful Cape Breton, secure in the knowledge that there really is a reason they call this “God’s Country”. We drove out on Saturday with my mum and dad, all four of us completely shocked at how incredibly stunning it is. We stopped in Baddeck on the huge and beautiful Bras D’Or lakes for fish n’ chips and visited the Alexander Graham Bell Museum; and I have to say, the man is incredible. (We also visited the incredible “Baaaddeck Yarns” – c’mon.. how awesome is that?) We took a ferry to Ingonnish, stuck our hands in the Atlantic Ocean and ambled along the beach, snuggled in the chilly ocean wind and drove along switchbacks filled with woodsmoke and magic. It calmed my heart and made me smile with my soul.

ps – To completely ruin a heartfelt post, Alexander Graham Bell did extremely hilarious breeding with sheep. He had drawn some conclusion that there was a relationship between the number of nipples on a sheep and their propensity towards bearing twins. So he bred sheep ostensibly for twins, and ended up with a whole town of sheep full of abnormal amounts of nipples.

they’re coming!

{via}

Lovelies – my family is coming. I’ve been cleaning and arranging and thinking about bribing our hillbilly neighbors and generally ensuring that I’m a neurotic mess. I’m so very excited to see my Mum and Dad, we’re taking a bit of a road trip this weekend, so they’ll be much to report back on Monday! Thanks for understanding! xo

“a love affair”

I’ve had a Billykirk bag bookmarked for about 2 years, as one of those bags I will have “when I am grown”. When I have more money than a waitress makes, when I have more important things to carry in my bag, when I have a nice pen… Those totally conditional adult markers in your life. Watching this incredibly beautiful video of Chris and Kirk Bray only further confirmed that it is something worth waiting for. xo

Monday Monday…

Hello strumpets! Many decisions made this weekend – one in fact to replace Monday Must Have with a Music Monday. Due to the cash flow slowing to a torturous drip, we’re looking for more economical ways to be happy, be fun and enjoy the incredible place we’re living. More on this later. I’ll keep Wanted Wednesday’s around, because lets face it, a girl has got to dream.

But for today, please take a listen to the incredible Clare and the Reasons and say a special thanks for MySpace, one of the last true bastions of free music. xo

The Movember Mix Tape

{via}

The Movember Mix Tape – Some tunes to put hair on your chest. And then smoothly remove it. xo

Wanted Wednesday

{AESA}

Yowza. This are so talismanal and awesome, I’d feel like a warrior.

Monday Must Have – Bereitschaftstasche Bags

{Bereitschaftstasche}

Chiropractically, I should probably consider downsizing my purse. I have an enormous sac that seems to accumulate “stuff” which usually results in me lugging around dozens of tampons, three apples, tonnes of Band-Aids, two books and a miasma of tangled pens, jewelry, sunglasses assumed long lost, receipts and ok, that one time there was an airplant stuck inside Monocle Magazine at the bottom.

That being said, I feel I would be able to downsize slightly if given the chance with these incredible German leather bags. The name “describes a practical and robust bag for transporting a choice of important instruments”, a category I feel may not include a crushed snack pack of Teddy Grams covered in a patina of smushed lip chap.. Beautiful.

a slice

Hello boys and ghouls! Hope your Halloween was a howling success! We had a fantastic time, thouroughly enjoying the first time in at least 5 years that there hasn’t been snow on Halloween. Not only was there no snow, but it was 15 degrees! I have a feeling that that weather may be what is keeping this super-sized spider outside our living room window in flies. He’s so enormous, to scale that photo for you his body is about the size of a quarter. We have named him Peter, and Jared greets him every day by remarking on the size of the “junk in his trunk”.

J and I dressed up as a slightly funereal Don and Betty Draper, though by the end of the night we were copping to sexy undertakers. *chuckle* We went to an enormous houseparty (100 people at the height of the night!), drank good beer and I managed to complete one of my life goals – getting up on stage and acting like a bad ass. If there is a video dear bloggers, rest assured you will see me rapping Jay-Z’s “Show Me What You Got” with a 7 piece funk band post haste. After all, if on Halloween Betty Draper can’t drop it like it’s hot, what’s the holiday for? *

*aware it is not a holiday. Yet.

show me what you got.

{via}

I’d just like to let y’all know that by some strange twist of fate, I will be singing – nay, not singing – rapping – at this evenings Halloween house party with the illustrious funk band “Mustache Pony”.

I will, somewhat hilariously, be dressed as Betty Draper.

Bloggas, think of me. Perhaps, if you’re of that persuasion, say a prayer that I don’t fall on my perfectly coiffed ass and spill Colt 45 on myself.

campus colors

I still can’t get over the colors of fall on campus… It makes me think of leather boots, blazers and riding crops. Beautiful.

Wanted Wednesday – Give it to me straight

{Tiny Toadstool}

Alright my lovely keg standers – give it to me. Is this adorable and slightly funky (think oversized black cardigan, pointy black flats) or so Oktoberfest that you can’t help but think of lederhosen and two different kinds of jugs? I love it so, but I’ll take your advice, I swear.

Monday Must Have

{via All Modern}

When I miss home, it is more the feelings that I miss than the places exactly. The coffee shop that J. and I would bike to in little Italy had these beautiful Miller/Eames chairs, the smoothest little pieces of architecture you’d ever slide into. It was a Sunday ritual that we’d bike there, early, slowly and laughingly, meandering and quiet. It is not the coffee shop that I miss, not the amazing espresso or the cannoli, but that feeling when you slipped backwards into this chair. It was the feeling of Sundays, of hand holding and love and warmth. I miss those chairs and the spell they cast over your heart.

I came across them while browsing All Modern; the lovely and most talented Anabela over at Fieldguided is having a phenomenal giveaway. Make sure that you check it out and put your name in, everyone needs a little more beautiful in their life. xo

a little slice

It was a pretty quiet weekend lovelies! I worked Saturday and then had a few drinks with J. at the pub, Sunday we walked into town in the spectacular 16 degree weather we had, and then had a lovely dinner with friends. The night was lovely, there is something about sitting around a table of homemade food with good, smart, funny people that makes me truly believe that that is where wealth lay. Though having good vanilla ice cream never hurts either. How was your weekend dumplings?

for being there.

{via}

sometimes there is not much more to say than thank you. And most of the time, thank you doesn’t quite cut the mustard. to each of you, for your phone calls, your emails, your comments and above all your words.. thank you. for reminding me that i am stronger than that, tougher than that, for telling me that yes, it sucks and you are there too, for kicking me in the ass – thank you. in less elegant words, would that i could kiss you each on the side of the mouth,  whoop in your ear and break into the electric slide. y’all fuckin’ rock my world.

Fill ’em up!

{gone to pot}

{quote}

to be hopeful.

{via}

There is no post that I can write that can properly convey the lump that is in my throat. There is no way to look at you and turn my pockets inside out, bow my head, put a hand over my eyes and let tears leak through my fingers. This is a post that I wish I could put in brackets – I know that things will change, I know that I will be ok, but right now – this is what is slipping through that space between my knuckles and running down my wrists.

I walked through the grocery store last night twice, once to pick up everything I needed, and once more in reverse to put 75% back on random shelves as I was pretending to look at something else. Slipping cheese behind the apples, putting soy-milk in with the corn pops, porkchops with the frozen juice. I added everything up in a notebook standing between tampax and toilet paper, painstakingly calculated the 16 % tax.

I looked at my hands, at my notebook, at my cart, at my things, at my purse, and it was all I could do not to sob. Since when is this where I pictured myself? Since when did I think that at the age that I am that I would be standing crying in front of cheap panty liners wondering if they’d be more cost effective than buying eye makeup remover pads? Exactly where was “dodgy deli meat” in my life plan? When did I forget to learn how to cobble a life and three square meals for us out of a paycheck that was in total, (to the  ironic penny) the ammount of tax I had taken off my last paycheck before I left?

There hasn’t been a night of late where I haven’t had a bankers ledger running through my mind, shifting money here, paying bills there, planning and scheming for saving ten dollars here, five dollars there. Constantly plotting for when I can get another job for the evenings, so that we’re covered for rent and can have our cupboards full too.

When did this stop being fun? When did “I’m broke” start meaning so much more than just not having any money, but referred to the actual state of my heart when I look at my bank statement, night after night? I remember when I would laugh about having no money, laugh about scrounging change and digging in coat pockets. Exactly when did being broke refer to my fractured ability to provide for my tiny little household?

I have this constant feeling of late of having made incredibly bad choices. That if only I had gone right to university. If only I had a degree that was somewhat more functional at making me money and not just the worst drinking partner in the world. If I had just not bought those boots a year ago. Choruses of ‘if only’, and ‘had I only’, and ‘I should have just’ cloud my brain and drown out the silence as I lay in bed balancing mental checkbooks and mania with a stupid hopefulness that it will turn around.

The truth is, we’re going on luck. I was lucky that somebody hired my pierced, pink haired self to do anything but work at Wal-Mart in the stock room. We’re lucky that if I don’t go back to school and I just keep working, we won’t have to move home. We’re lucky that right now, our fridge is full and we have each other. These are not things that I have forgotten or discounted or misplaced amongst the wealth of sadness I’m feeling. They are, however, strange and impotent salves to smooth over the incredible burns that reality is brandishing. When I have time to think about it, I think that this is not where I thought I’d be in my life right now.

This is the worst, when the tabulating and shifting and pandering stops. When the ‘could haves’ fall away, when I can’t see the electricity bill in front of my eyes as if it were there, when I’m not planning each meal down to the late bite. It is the worst when I have time to think about what I’m doing. About what I could be doing. About what I’ve done. And how when I think of all of those things in a moment of silence, I wish for all the mental math, ledgers and bills to come rushing back. Because the only answer I get to that question seems to be the same as paycheck at the end of the month. Nothing.

Despite. Inspite.

We throw blog parties, and we hope.

Ladies? Anyone?

eep! I need to have a little virtual blog party. I am in need of a laughing, screaming, dancing evening where we squeeze each others shoulders and step on each others toes in  blatant and ecstatic acts of spontaneous electric slide.

will you come?

what will you bring?

xo

the slice

That’s all she wrote folks. Honestly, there were little to no photos taken this weekend, save a few of the second great hair dying fiasco, which will be posted about later, I assure you.

Jared and I both took the weekend off of .. well, everything. We run on fairly opposite schedules, and rarely get a lot of time to spend together. Saturday morning Jared informed me he’d taken the whole day off to spend with me and I just about collapsed in paroxysms of shock and awesomeness. We went to the farmers market, meandered to the grocery store, we ate olive and feta croissants. We went to a party and left early, giggling, like responsible teenagers, huddled in the pizza parlour at midnight eating bad pizza and watching wrestling. I made apple/pear/vanilla/cardamom pies, knit and laughed more than I have in a long time. I went to yoga and we took naps, and though frankly unremarkable in the picture taking department, was exactly what I needed.

How did you spend your weekends? What lovely things did you do?

xo