coffee with andrew. rice to be made.

I made it to all my classes today. This essentially means that I have accumulated two gold stars on this weeks calandar. Baby steps away from slackerhood, baby steps.
My brother is sitting on my bed playing jazz on his laptop. It's good to have a guy around with good taste. We like the same kind of jazz, him and I. He came over after school and we've been hanging out. We grabbed some vegan brownies and mochas downtown and we're about to embark upon making some fried rice and veggies. My mother, father and sister will be over shortly, and will perhaps join us.

My sister is in town to set up her art at The Spill on George street. Her paintings will grace the coffee bar and it will be lovely. I hope she got it all done. This is her first solo showing, which is a big deal in the life of a young starving artist. At least, such is what I've heard.

Alright. I need to clean the dishes that remain in my sink (thanks to my lovely roommate for doing the first load!) and then get cooking. Later friends.

I slept through the morning,
but I wont sleep through class.

Yep, this weeks commitment is to every single one of my classes this week, prepped and ready to go. I'm rather tired of doing school half assed just because I can.

Actually, that goes for most things in my life. I'm rather sick of doing things half-assed just because I can, what's the value in that?

Wow, it appears doing my laundry on Friday night has set off a Domino effect... my room is clean, my slacker student days are by the wayside...
What's next?... Early to bed and early to rise!?

Somehow I doubt it. ;-)

radio land.

Hey! Tonight (and every Saturday night) is my radio show Reading Between the Lines, and if you're so inclined... you have the technology to listen. Tonights show will be a bit of a departure for me. I'm a sucker for short poems, but tonight, the ballad takes all.

In cleaning my room last night I rediscovered an old book of Robert Service's poems... so tonight the likes of Dan McGrew and Sam McGee will grace the radio waves. All reports point to Johnny Cash filling the music aspect of the show. In the spirit of things, I think I'm going to tell my bear stories... all two of them!

If you're a local, it's 92.7 fm. Flip on your radio at six pm.

If you're not (and I guess most of you aren't) get streaming here at six pm. That'd be three pm in B.C.

Also tune in at seven for Signs Signify, my friend Karolyne's show.
Then definitely listen in at nine for noise from the ineffable Dahn, with his show the New Noise.

I frigging love radio. I repeat: I frigging love radio.

when books make babies.Five hours later, my room is finally clean. It hasn't been clean since well before Christmas. Note this grainy webcam photograph. My bed is made, the cat sits pristinely on it. My bookshelf is organized (and how!) and my desk, in the foreground is immaculate. I'd like to thank the academy...

Normally my room doesn't get this bad, but this time I think I've isolated the problem.

My books breed.

It's that simple. My laundry gets done every week and a half or so out of pure necessity. The dishes that pile up around my room get washed every couple of weeks. But the books? They just scatter themselves ever more haphazardly around any space I inhabit.

My roommate, Desiree has socks that multiply. I have witnessed this over a period of days in our bathroom. A small colony of socks now thrives on the floor there.

But me, I am responsible for the spread of all things pertaining to books and paper. I walk in the door and drop everything. I drag books around the house and leave them in odd places, where I theorize, they make babies... otherwise known as pamphlets.

However, I, Meag, have discovered the key that will save my room from its seemingly inevitable status as a future disaster area. I consider my bookshelf, now organized into sections, no longer conducive to the proliferation of literature around my room. Literary population control is the new Swiffer.

Am I naturally organized? Not a chance. And all this cleanin' an organizin' has got me tired out thank-you-very-much.
So goodnight, all you Home-Ec gods and goddesses.

flawed.

I found one of these 'Repent Sinner' cards last year on East Hastings St. in Vancouver. Hundreds of these cards have been picked up in western cities in Canada and the U.S., all in the same handwriting.

A brief thought on the word 'repent'. Of late it has been such a dirty word to me. Something spewed at me by crazed evangelists in Toronto. Something passed to me on tracts that I take offense to. I've lost touch with what repentance is. What it feels like.

But last night as I ate some grilled tofu, I was thinking about it. I was ranting actually. I rant sometimes. I was telling Rick about being sorry for my inaction. And wanting to leave that, and grow and act. Then I paused and said: ... 'I repent of my complacency'.

And there it was. Out in the open.
I'm sorry. I asked forgiveness from God. I am forgiven. I turn from my sin and take steps toward something better.

A trite tract denies my journey, the difficulty I have in bringing myself to the point of being on my knees. A fiery evangelist doesn't draw me to that act of repentance. The angry preachers on Yonge street can shove it for all I care. It's really only God who brings me to that point. Repentance is too beautiful, too raw a message to be hurled onto the street in impersonal, monosyllabic barks.

Maybe the word 'repent' has been abused beyond redemption. But it's a process I strive within.. where my flawed self collides with an unfathomable God, day in and day out.

And there it is, out in the open.

An open letter to spring... and lawn-gnomes

Today I sincerely wished that spring would come. I never used to wish for spring.
Winter used to be my second favourite season, after fall. Spring was my least favourite season, mostly because it was wet and a little sparse on holidays.

Today, however, all I wanted to do was get out and plant a garden. It'll be another couple of months until I can plant some flowers. Any of you locals who want to help with my garden come spring, please do.
I'll even teach you how to make the flowers grow.

Dear Spring,
Come soon. But not before I have a chance to repaint my bike. -love, meag.

ennismore, the holy land.

Yesterday I went to my hometown (read, wee hamlet) of Ennismore to vote at the local Catholic parish, St. Martins. I saw old members of the Ennismore clans... the Sullivans, O'Donaghue's, Gallants, Perdues and Galvins. I read their names on parish plaques. Ennismore is a funny little place. I got recognized by the president of the Rotary club because when I was twelve or thirteen I had won the local speech competition. I haven't seen the man in five or six years.

I doubt the speech was that good.

God on the grates.

I spent the weekend in Toronto. First to see Broken Social Scene and then to hang out with dear friends who I lived with last year at Lifeteams.
I had a couple of unexpected experiences over the weekend. One was unexpected refreshing that came from my conversations with Andrew, Faye, Amanda and Iona. We sat around a table having coffees this morning and filled in on each others lives. I was so stupid thankful that I have friends.

The second part hurt more.

I never could get used to poverty. I try... because it's not practical to weep on Bay street, but I can't numb myself. I think this weekend I realized (all over again), that poverty kills me inside because God wants it to kill me inside. Because poverty kills God inside.

Without that sick feeling that I get in my stomach I would turn my head and be indifferent. Instead... well this weekend I saw panhandlers and all I could think of was Christ. That he loves all these people and we're letting them freeze to death.
Then in my head, every squeegee kid is my brother. Every bag lady has my mothers face. Every man drinking out of a paper bag is my father. Every kid huddled on a grate is like God shivering.

Guys, how can I impart my heart in writing? How can I TYPE this sickening conviction?

I will not stand and do nothing while people freeze on grates in Toronto, and sleep rough in Peterborough. I can't. Nor can I merely weep and congratulate myself on my depth of feeling. Nor will I deem it more important to buy soy steamers, concert tickets and new books of poetry while my fellow humans waste away. To HELL with my greed, and my warped sense of what makes me happy. If God has placed me in a rich country, it is so I can give until it hurts, not so I can buy CD's.

Me? I stand convicted. I am sick of talk.
Hold me to this.

I ride the Greyhound bus.

I'm about twenty minutes away from getting on 'the pooch' to Toronto. My knapsack is packed, I am showered and seriously ready for a Canadian music experience at the Coolhouse. Broken Social Scene, here I come.

I have a love relationship with the Greyhound bus. I ride it everywhere. Between the city bus system, the Greyhound and the Go transit system, I really have no need of a car.

So, I to the station, book in hand. Bag packed with mushrooms and branflakes for easily accessible vegan snacks on the road.

don't bother waking me.

I'm the kind of tired you feel in every limb. I feel hazy and fuzzy on the edges of my thinking. My eyes keep involuntarily shutting. Given a rock to lay my head on, I would sleep for a week.

All that being said, that's not the best way to show up for a shift at The Bridge.

I will never go the the drop in centre tired like this again. I showed up tonight and had nothing to give, so I pretty much stared down the clock for six hours. It cheated the kids who go expecting me to be energetic as usual. That was my mistake this evening. I showed up too tired to work.

I got home at midnight and just finished cleaning the kitchen with Des. The kitchen is clean... hell is an ice rink, and I'm more tired than I was four hours ago. It's been a great day, and the big smoke beckons me tomorrow. Toronto, and the world of public transit await me tomorrow.

Again, adieu dear readers.

Cold coffee.I'm sitting at my desk drinking cold coffee. I learned to like my brew that way back in middleschool, when I realized that I often get distracted mid-cup and leave it to get cold.
The distracted habit remains, as does my affinity for the result. Warm is better, but cold is fine by me.

Well, I had an eye appointment today and I have been informed that I may soon be a member of the Twenty-Something Bifocal Squad. Nothing says cool like a swank pair of bifocals.

I spent the rest of the day speedwalking around, mostly between Trent Radio and downtown, to record my show for Saturday night. The show this week is called 'Modern and Normal' and I'm reading from Karen Solie's collection by the same name. Spliced in are some sweet tunes by Of Montreal. It's worth listening to, so check it out Saturday at six at 92.7 fm.
I will be in Toronto for the better part of the weekend. On Saturday I'm going to go see Broken Social Scene with my roommate, and then on Sunday I'm meeting up with Faye, Amanda, Andrew and the ever-awesome Iona from Lifeteams. A wee little Ontario reunion. It's funny, this is the first time I've thought about it long enough to be excited.

Even after an espresso at Dahn's, I'm still extremely tired. I have a job interview tomorrow. And a meeting, and a class, and two hours of training at the radio station, and then a five hour volunteer shift. I love it.

Goodnight friends.

of stairwells. and sliding.
Well, at around six this evening a downpour of freezing rain graced my fair city, canceling city buses as well as taxis, and forcing cars to wait it out on the shoulder. I was at Trent at the time. I ended up with a unique Canadian experience on my hands: frozen in, on Campus.

I was at a little summit discussing the use of live animals for educational purposes on campus. (an invigorating experience to say the least). I was with Dahn, and we ended up meandering (read, sliding) across campus to the Otonabee college caf, where an emergency dinner was being held for the stranded students. A crowd of vaguely disgruntled twentysomethings eating pizza held little interest for two small-talk weary vegans... so Dahn and I slid around the property until buses started running again.

I've got an affinity for little things like that. Snow days, rainstorms and blackouts. It's funny because interruptions often end up facilitating a deeper sense of community because it forces a group into a sort of makeshift liminal experience. The routine is briefly arrested. Control is briefly wrested from our hands. And suddenly tonight we have a community temporarily thrown together on one common ground, we can't get home.

So we eat pizza together, slide around and fall on our asses and help each other up. We talk to strangers. I saw students tonight crashing at their friends dorm rooms, who confided to each other that they hoped to be better friends at the end of the night. They didn't see me in the stair well as they walked past.

I sort of wish I could turn the power off every once in awhile. Or order some hazardous weather to get people to talk to each other again.
When it happens we wake up.

chapped lips.

I've spent a considerable amount of the last two days outside. It's pretty damn cold out. In Canada once the mercury drops low enough it gets too cold for snow. It dipped to minus twenty last night, during my wanderings of town. My lips and cheeks are chapped.

Yesterday at church I sang a song. It was this little hallelujiah chorus that I sing when no one is around and I'm pretty sure only God is listening. I've got the chords and some general stuff that I refer back to but aside from that I just make it up as I go along, and sing whatever is on my mind. So I sat on the floor in the loft of sadlier house and just made it up. It's sort of wierd to think that I'll never sing it the same way again. I never write down songs.

Last night after wandering became too cold I sat in a little pub called the Rusty Snail and read Job until reading by candlelight made my eyes sore. I read maybe twenty chapters of it and the idiotic thing is that I think I understand it less, not more than I did before I started. I wonder vaguely what's changed in me since the first time I read this book, when I was maybe sixteen or seventeen? I finished it then with a sense of awe and wonder, that has remained with me for the subsequent times I've read this book.

Now I read it and I spew doubts and impetuous questions.

So last night I sat with dim light on the thin, worn pages of my bible and pounded God's door down with questions that Job had too much faith to ask

...

After launching his complaint against God, and Gods response, Job ends up being floored, saying ²"I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you. ³You ask, `Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?' It is I. And I was talking about things I did not understand, things far too wonderful for me.

And somehow... right now I can't seem to bring myself to say the same.

portraits.




These are the results of a late night sojourn downtown. A family album of sorts.

everything's perfect from far away.

I just got in from my shift at the Bridge. My house is quiet and my roommate isn't home. It's about one in the morning. And I think I would like nothing better than to pull on my headphones and listen to music until I fall asleep with my head on my keyboard.

So today, my love fell on my hometown. I don't know why. It started last night when I was sitting in the window of a coffee shop on George street and watching people go by for a couple of hours while the sky faded into shades of darker blue. I cupped my mug in my hands and whispered prayers for panhandlers and bus drivers and bankers.

My city is quite beautiful in the evening. As it got darker the traffic lights lit the puddles and mixed colours with the neon lights from the shop windows.
One of the first times I fell in love with Vancouver was at night. It was driving across the Lions Gate bridge, on my way into the city. The bridge is lit at night. I think that at the time I was singing a song to myself and I fell silent because the sight of the bridge and the mountains and the city lights was so unbelievable.

This a factory in my city. I was silenced by it this evening.


I think I've reconciled myself to stay. Maybe not forever, but for awhile anyway.

close shaves.

I desperately want to shave my head. Which is something I want to do everytime I desire some sort of intangible change. I have shaved my head three times.

...

Last years head shaving occured on the night I arrived back in British Columbia from the Christmas holidays spent in Ontario. I had no clippers, so I used kitchen scissors to cut off my then chin-length hair. Then I took one of the boys razors and shaved off what was left. Afterward I felt cold, but somehow more ready to begin the year. I stared at the mirror and ran my hand over my bare scalp before sweeping my hair up off the bathroom floor. When everyone finally arrived back home, they were a little amazed. Jimmy just took off my hat and held my head saying 'Meaghan, Meaghan, Meaghan' over and over.

...

The second time I shaved my head was for my highschool prom. I think I felt guilty about being swept away by this seemingly quintessential highschool experience. So the morning before, I shaved off my hair and showed up like that. I still have the photos.

...

The first time I went bald was in the foyer of my highschool. On a bet. This was at the time when I was making plans to leave my parents house after school ended. I secured a summer job in British Columbia, and shaved my head the next day.

I sent around a cup and collected money for the cancer foundation, and made a deal with some of the younger boys that if I shaved my head and raised money, they would too. I sat on a bench with a garbage bag thrown over me and I felt a bizarre lightness and twinge of loss as the buzzer touched my skin and my black hair fell around my feet.

...

And this time? I think for whatever reason, the hair will stay on my head. It's longer, I'm older, and I guess the timing just isn't right somehow. For the time being, my skull will remain covered. Close shave indeed.

shattered.
shat·ter (shăt'ər)

v., -tered, -ter·ing, -ters.

v.tr.

1. To cause to break or burst suddenly into pieces, as with a violent blow.
2. 
   
1. To damage seriously; disable: His health was shattered by the disease.
2. To cause the destruction or ruin of; destroy: The outcome of the conflict shattered our dreams of peace and prosperity.

v.intr.

To break into pieces; smash or burst.

n.

1. 
   
1. The act of shattering.
2. The condition of being shattered.
2. A splintered or fragmented condition. Often used in the plural: a rare piece of porcelain now in shatters.

[Middle English schateren, from Old English *sceaterian, to scatter.]

...

I was at the university the other day, waiting for a bus back to my apartment. It was too cold to wait outside so I did what most students do when the mercury slips below minus fifteen or so, and moved inside the sliding doors by the Trent bookstore to wait.
As I walked inside I heard my boots crunch. I looked down and was immediately thankful that I was wearing Docs rather than my cloth sneakers. A window, (the unbreakable kind) had been smashed and glass littered the floor. Three quarters of the fragmented glass were still holding tenuously to the window frame. The rest was scattered at my feet.

I was by myself, so I stooped down to pick up a shard. I slipped it into my coat.

Five minutes later the bus drove up, but the vibration from it caused all the glass that remained in the frame to cascade onto the floor in one fluid motion. Bits of glass covered my shoes and snagged on my bootlaces as I crunched over it and out into the cold air to catch my bus, with the bit of broken window clutched in my pocket.

...

I guess I'm too sleepy to save planets.

Tired people don't sleep. Instead they get up early in the morning, after two hours of sleep to go to hamlets like Bewdley to watch their brothers play minor hockey. Then when they get home that night they watch ridiculously funny movies with their friends instead of sleeping. They also drink stupid amounts of coffee.

Well, at least that's what I do.

I am honestly more exausted than I have been in ages. I feel it and it makes my head fuzzy. I'm having issues thinking linearly. I'm a little non-linear to begin with, it's just that I forget the last time I had a decent nights sleep. I suspect I've had only a couple of hours sleep in the past three days or so, and it's beginning to bite me in the face.

So at the early hour of 1:30 a.m., I think I'm going to go to sleep. Actual sleep. I may or may not make it to the Thirdspace tomorrow. God knows. I don't. I have a bad track record of waking up on time for anything that starts before about two in the afternoon, and church definitely starts at eleven-ish. Too early for any guarantees.

Goodnight friends.

to be grateful. I'm thinking about today, and I am grateful.

I was at the university today to try and get my student loans in order and it wasn't nearly enough money to even cover my rent. I was upset. So I stormed out of there angry, and then on the path five angry minutes later, I slipped on some ice and fell on my ass.
I looked, and my hand had an inch and a half long cut in the palm that was bleeding profusely. Suddenly everything clicked a little. While I got my hand bandaged up I realized that I am one of the richest people on this planet. I am grateful for that, and for the Chaplin-esque reality check I was unceremoniously granted.

I made chili today. The chili was good. I bought the ingredients and made it with my own two hands. The kids at the youth centre who ate it were nourished by it. We just ended up sitting and eating supper together because we were all hungry. Thank God I have food, and that these kids and I have a chance to connect over soup and bread. I am grateful have the means and the strength to make good food.

Today I thought about change, and protest. I attempted to read a book that disturbs me. I raged inwardly over pain. I sinned. I repented. I sinned again. I tried to change the world a little. I am grateful that I can rage. I thank God that I struggle.

I prayed for someone today and then something good happened. I am grateful that prayer changes things.

Guys, we can laugh and bleed and hurt and be angry. We can grieve and love and eat. We can fight and breathe and kiss and gnash our teeth. We can experience things that are so damn beautiful that they hurt. I want to teach every person on this planet to say 'thanks'. I want to shake every person who ever walked through a day without thinking.


These are my thoughts this morning. This is my thanks.


Amen.

Betty Crocker got Nothin' on this Vegan. (foo!)

So here's a secret. I like baking about a billion times more than I like cooking.

It's not even that I don't like cooking. Heck, I like cooking a lot. It's just that I find baking astronomically more fulfilling than cooking. In a race between fresh bread vs. great soup... I pick fresh bread.

Today I am making food. It is food making day. It's funny too because I need to have started... oh about twenty minutes ago (oops) because I'm baking. Why would I spend three hours on sidekicks and twenty minutes on the actual main dish? Because baking is more frigging fun. It's cozier. It's got a lot of heart and soul put into it. It is my culinary 'I love you'.

Plus I'm better at it than cooking. 'Nuff said.

Brownies anyone?

paper birds.
Last night I couldnt sleep. I'd go to bed and lie awake worrying about mundane crap. I'd pace awhile and sleep again only to be washed over by this deep, almost unbearable feeling of homesickness that brought me to tears. God knows what I'm actually homesick for. So I stayed awake and petted the cat. I made my bed and prayed, and stumbled across the fourth psalm. I read it over and over, scanned it until my eyes were out of focus. Then I fell asleep.

I dreamed the strangest dreams. I remember one.

I was by the ocean, in a cove. The sun was shining and there were lots of people around. Friendly people mostly, I knew all of them. This was, I understood, our summer home. We all had docks and cabins and we were all sunbathing.

I was swimming out in the deep water and I saw it coming, black and thick and stretching across the water. I saw the oil freighter mashed against rocks a mile or so further out and the oil was creeping in my direction. I swam back to my friends dock and started screaming. I don't know if I was yelling in tongues or in english but it was about birds. I was suddenly so angry that this meant that all the birds would get covered in thick, black oil and die. I yelled and my neighbours saw the oil and they tried to set up barriers like fishnets for it but it didnt work. And the coast guard was laughing at us and my neighbour fired a gun in the air because she was so upset. But when the gun fired everything suddenly went quiet.

And all the birds lifted out of the water and flew up and over us inland. And as they flew they turned into paper cranes and that flew so close to us that they ruffled our hair. And the paper birds gave us paper cuts as they brushed past us flying to safety.

A meal of garnishes at a victorian wedding.

Well, it's hard to be a vegan at an all you can eat buffet. I felt a lot like 'water, water all around and not a drop to drink' .
While the rest of the world happily gorged themselves, I made a tidy meal of walnuts, dried apricots, gherkin pickles and parsley garnishes. Ahh, the joys of cruelty-free living.

The occasion of this atypical feast was my great aunt's wedding. It was a lovely wedding if there ever was one, and she made a lovely bride in a stately purple lace victorian gown. The groom donned a top hat and both of their Reverend sons officiated the wedding. When it came time for the 'You may now kiss the bride', my cousin grinned and said 'You may now kiss my mother'.

I laughed. Loud.

Then afterward while I was sampling parsley, a old man tottered up to me and said
'Now you're the lovely girl with the hearty laugh aren't you?'
and I laughed and said I guess I was. He brimmed up a little and said I reminded him of his wife, and then he scuttled off and brought her back to introduce her.

People are so funny.