fridays' children.

Last night I stayed up until daybreak with Shannon, talking and eating tomato sandwiches. So I spent most of today sleeping. I'm tired now, but not really that inclined to sleep.

I took a trip down to Jeffs Cards and Comics today, and purchased enough cool models to have a Sisters of Battle army. I was pleased. I now am left with a net worth of five dollars and nine cents. I'm still pretty pleased.

And to cap it all off, I worked my shift at the Bridge. It was a good shift, kind of exausting as usual and with a minor threat of a fight hanging in the air, but I had great conversations and the night went by pretty quickly. I thank God for that place, good stuff happens there. It's not an easy place to volunteer, the kids are often troubled, broken and just trying to get by. But I have such big hopes for them and their lives. Such great hopes.

I think I'll try to get up early tomorrow and organize my life. In the meantime, I'm going to move the crap on my bed to a convenient location on the floor and sleep. Goodnight.

On Catherine the Cat, who has run off with my heart... and my incurable commitment issues.

I have accidentally fallen in love with a cat at the Lakefield humane society. This is a picture of her.

So now I'm thinking of adopting her... with the issues in mind of whether or not she will get along with Kitten, and with my own possibilities for travel in my young life dwindling more with each passing day. Dear commitment issues and wanderlust... quit plaguing me.

In the meantime as I type this my roommate is scoping out houses in Peterborough for us. I guess I'm getting used to the fact that I'm going to be in Peterborough for a long time... with distinct possibilities of permanency. Insert involuntary shudder here. I love Peterborough more than words. But the thought of a permanent residence ANYWHERE scares the shit out of me.

I am so transient. And my friends are still so transient. But I think my 'home' is more often found among a community of friends rather than a location... and my friends will move away. The thought of not having the possibility of buggering off if I get bored or if my friends all leave is scary. I don't want to be bound by anything... not a house or a job or a friend or a cat. But at the same time I'm coming to the realization that I must be bound if I wish to do much, like go to school, or work with kids, or forge deep relationships with the people in my life. I relinquish some of my freedom for these things. I just have a hard time convincing my heart that it's worth it. My friends pepper the globe at this point, and there's so much I want to do.


So, I'll sleep on the possibility of belonging to Catherine the Cat... and the prospect of the commitment and semi-permanency that seems to be creeping into my life.

vegan cheese and wool-free knitting

I'll tell the truth, vegan cheese doesn't come close to tasting like actual cheese. Knitting without wool is a much more fruitful venture really. Next I want to knit... a hat! A vegan hat that will be loved by friends and sheep alike. I'm not giving up on vegan cheese though. My dear roommate, Rick and I went shopping for food today and I located some truly vegan fake cheese (most kinds have a milk product called casein in them). The test will take place on a toasted tomato sandwich. I really hope it tastes better than actual cheese. Oh well, at least it wont taste like suffering... (oooooh! snap!
Shrug. I'm going out to dinner tonight with Des, Rick, Topher and maybe Dahn. Hurrah for links. And also hurrah for the veggie burgers that will most likely be consumed tonight at kelseys... rumour has it that they can be made vegan and that will taste good.

I think if I wrenched it out kicking and screaming... I'd have a deeply meaningful post to make today. But at the moment I don't have the heart to. So enjoy my natalie dee supplied sheep, and my ramblings about uncheese adventures. Much love all of you.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Food. And... Dinner.

I love food, can't help it. It's great stuff. I had hummus and avacodo sandwiches for supper. I like supper.

I checked the parents fridge, christmas breakfast is cranberry tofu scramble and falafel. Uh... I also love breakfast.

And then there's tomorrows dinner. Tofurkey and fixin's. Thank you God for the creation that is tofurkey. And for my mom, who cooks it joyfully.

Brian, Thom, Des, and Rick are all in the mix tomorrow at supper. What a party. I'll post again soon. In the meantime... goodnight.

I am listening to hear where you are.

There is something to be said for honesty.

Last night my friend Chris and I walked into a a bright building from the dark outside, the effect was painful, my friend and I both winced and shielded our eyes from the too-bright lights until we could re-adjust.

Real honesty is like that.

I'm a piss poor liar, really. So I don't try to lie much. I might lie more if I was good at it, but something in my face gives me away, so lies dont really get me anywhere.

But honesty is about far more than avoiding lies, isnt it? There is a greater honesty, which requires vulnerability, where a person actively seeks to be truthful. To reveal themselves and their thoughts. When I am dishonest, it is in that greater part of honesty that I fail. I often do not venture out to be truthful, it's easier to stay silent.


...


May we all seek to be painfully honest.

I believed in squid.

I just wrote my last exam, and ran out of time on the last half. To be honest I don't care. I loved the first question, so I spent too long on it.

I'm sick of only writing when I've got a deadline or an audience, so tonight I guess I'll write. Maybe I'll do my favourite thing and 'write polaroids' or vignettes of things I see on the street. I'm fixated on putting moments into words. Nobody said I've 'got it' yet... I'm still working on getting it right. But even today I saw two or three things that I thought... God, that's beautiful, (or terrible, or frightening, or sad, or wonderful) ... and I really wished that I could just take the moment and capture it like you catch crickets in the summer.

I found out today that they have images of a live giant squid now. No one had ever photographed or even seen a live giant squid until now, the only evidence that they existed was in their bodies which would wash up on shore. I'm saddened.
There was something great about the fact that giant things like forty-foot-long sea creatures could exist and never have been seen by humans.


I'm going to go clear my head in the shower. After that I dont know what.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

the car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel
and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
and a dark wind blows

the government is corrupt
and we're on so many drugs
with the radio on and the curtains drawn

we're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
and the machine is bleeding to death

the sun has fallen down
and the billboards are all leering
and the flags are all dead at the top of their poles

it went like this:

the buildings tumbled in on themselves
mothers clutching babies picked through the rubble
and pulled out their hair

the skyline was beautiful on fire
all twisted metal stretching upwards
everything washed in a thin orange haze

i said: "kiss me, you're beautiful -
these are truly the last days"

you grabbed my hand and we fell into it
like a daydream or a fever

we woke up one morning and fell a little further down -
for sure it's the valley of death

i open up my wallet
and it's full of blood

I am popular with chickens... mostly because I don't eat them. Nor do I pillage their eggs.Yeah, in my vegan journey I think I just definitively cut out honey. This is an odd step, as it also means that I need to be conscious about stuff like beeswax... so long 'burts bees' products.

I really am liking this whole vegan way of life actually. It's been about a month. If I can do something for a month, I can do it, period. This fills me with joy... and vegetable based energy.

I find myself awash in a sea of ethics from time to time. I mean, there are so many philosophies and ways of life and activism kicking around that I don't know where to start. How can I be a responsible citizen in this world? One step further, how can I change it?

Christ is the foundation of all my ethical choices. I think He's at the root of my desire for change. It seems to me all of my most raw passion stems from Christ, and then I'm sick to my stomach to sit complacent with that passion in my chest. What I end up with sometimes though is a lot of passion with little practical outlet... so, what do I do? At the moment, I pray, volunteer, vote and avoid animal products. The writhing passion that burns in my stomach isn't really satisfied with just that.

Which leaves me pretty nervous to be honest. The stuff I do now is pretty respectable, and I guess it might even look like enough... but if it's not enough to satiate this hunger for something greater, then I guess there's more I could be doing. But the thing is, if I do more... sooner or later it's going to start to cost me more than a couple of hours and the sacrifice of some eggs. If I start to give of myself until it costs me something... then what? What does that even look like?



ramblings yeah, but I'm trying.

I have a twenty sided dice.

Uh... so here's the deal. I have three words... 'sisters of battle'

I just got in from my shift (and a lovely drink afterward with kerri and carlo) and after shaking off my boots I just sat on my hallway floor for fifteen minutes staring at the intricate parts of all the little models that I have now. I am so excited to paint them... I could croak. I am going to have a warhammer army! I am officially that geek.

Thank you Dahn and Dan, for the awesome models. 01001001. tIq. 011110010110111101110101. which is a combination of binary and klingon that can be roughly translated as 'I heart you'

I have been examined.

Exams don't scare me. Bees do a little.Yeah, I just wrote my politics exam. I wouldn't come close to saying I nailed it, but I'm not dropping out of university either. I got to write a bit about Machiavelli (I think he needed a hug) and globalization... in my last essay question I almost played a round of the 'righteous adjective game' ... where you make up for a lack of knowledge in an essay by using an obscene amount of righteously indignant adjectives.

ie: The effect of an increasingly globalized economy on smaller nation states is crippling, debilitating even. Their ability to have a completely autonomous domestic policy is incredibly reduced.

uh... yeah. Study... and... don't do that.

My room is messy.

It's four in the morning. I should sleep. But I'd need to make it over to my bed. There might be too much stuff in the way to do that effectively.

It'd be inexcusable to sleep on my keyboard though... so I guess I'll find a way to make it over there. Goodnight.

An all-nighter.

My laundry is done, because I pulled an all nighter and then realized that since the laundromats open at seven, I should bust into the cold air and do my laundrywhile I was still awake and had some quarters.

It was an odd all nighter. I read a bunch of Nietzsche and prayed a lot. I had no reason to stay awake, except that I couldn't sleep. You know when your mind just gets going?

I couldn't stop, so I just read until my eyes couldn't focus anymore, and then I wrote. I wrote prayers and letters and poems and scrapped most of them before I could see the shreds of orange in the sky outside my window. Then I grabbed a fist full of change and went to the laundromat. I dozed off to dryer sounds, perched crosslegged on a washing machine, and didn't dream.

... Thank you God for philosophers, laundry and coffee. Thank you for this morning.

and the bag still sits.

Uh, my laundry still isnt done. In other news... I found some clean clothes at the bottom of my closet, and as a result I am wearing ripped jeans and a bright red shirt.

This is a little ridiculous. Laundry happens tomorrow... yes it does. No, really it does.

I got me a radio show and a hipster haircut.

It's a poetry show too... Man, I am THAT university student.

Listen tonight at six to Trent Radio, 92.7 fm.... heck, listen at seven and again at nine too. If you're out of town, get the live streaming.

So today I accomplished little, I got my hair cut, I am pleased with it, and I'm commited to growing it out for awhile. the unruliness of my hair was exclaimed over at the shop... apparently I have a lot of cowlicks. Teehee.

Anyway, tonights show is going to involve the reading of T.S. Eliots 'Old Possums Book of Practical Cats' ... better known as the 'cat poems' ... and also the subject of Cats
That's right... the musical.

No broadway catsuits here though, just fantastic poetry, and a little babble about story... one of my favourite things to think about. Peace

laundry.

I'm off to the laundromat. This time is for real. (cracks knuckles)

My opt out cheque isnt here... I'm worried, I really need the money, otherwise mom and dad are getting popsicle stick presents for christmas... and I'd rather not resort to pipecleaners and cotton balls if I can help it.

Second shift at the bridge tonight is in the works. It should be fun, I need to get ready now though, being as laundry takes a couple of hours and I'm resenting the lack of laundry machines in my apartment. At least I'll read some of Crime and Punishment, that'll be fun.

four years later.

I'm out this particular door in about twenty minutes, then it's history 170 tutorial. It's one of my favourites.

In other news. I am four today. It has been four years since I prayed on a couch at the Bridge Youth Centre that Jesus would be in charge of my life. I was fifteen and scared shitless.

So now I'm nineteen, almost twenty and still in a process of giving Jesus control of my life. I know that some of my readers think that I'm full of shit, but it's honestly the best decision I have ever made, and I dont regret it.

It is hard, and I dont regret it.

Christ gives me hope. He makes me whole, we're all pretty broken.

Later guys, I'm going to get ready for class.

I couldn't handle the raw.

Thom and I quit raw food. It was hard and we got hungry. We made tomato lentil soup, and we cooked the lifeforce out of it.

I just finished my show on trent radio. It turned out pretty well, I actually went without the ineffable dahn's help tonight. I managed alright... the show was on rural poets, the poetry was good.

I also hung out with Dahns sisters, jess and kate. They were rad... ten and seven... unstoppably awesome.

In other random updates, last night was my first night working at the Bridge Youth centre, it was pretty fantastic... I connected with a couple of kids, played four intense games of air hockey (unbeaten baby) and a friend who I met up with there is coming to church with me next week. It's wierd to be there in the staff shirt... but it feels good. I'm really excited to see where this all goes.

Alright... uh, read poetry, eat veggies and listen to Trent radio... everyday.

I tso finished my sessay.

Well, that's another one in the dropbox. I pulled it off, heck... I even edited it.

I work at the Bridge tonight... hurrah, I am officially bridgestaff. And... well... at the moment I'm going to sleep for an hour before I get ready and eat some vegetables.

Thom and I are going rawfoods vegan for a week to see if it's as funny as it sounds. He an I occasionally do these mad foods challenges, sometimes they even stick. So the ethical food mantra of this week is don't cook the lifeforce out of food! Yeah! Patchouli!