yee haw

Off to the wild, wild West. Although it can be said that I have a penchant for Southern drawls, I'm much more interested in the warm, warm weather and Freshwind Texas conference that I will be attending in Dallas. Two minivans, ten 20-somethings (me and the band...how Penny Lane a la Almost Famous do I feel?), a two-day drive each way.

All this two days after I (finally) found an apartment to settle into...

Hate to disclose that my rambling rose is gonna meet her Waterloo
I'll let her play but she can't get away 'cause I know just what to do
Anyone knows you can train a rose to be a clinging vine
So from this day hence there'll be a picket fence round that rambling rose of mine

no umbrella

"We all, to some extent, take that shining something in us that felt magical and passionate as children, that something that later swirled amid the confusion of sexual passion and our longing for heart intimacy - we take it and push it through the loneliness, ache, and turmoil of life - through various stages of disconnection and hardness to another abiding place: a kind of resignation. There is something inside of us that says, 'This is the way it is. I had better learn to deal with it.'"

- Brent Curtis, The Sacred Romance

buried treasure

Well, it's true.

Sitting room.

Bedroom.

Kitchen.

Bathroom.

Thanks to everyone that prayed for me over the past...month. It's been a long haul, but it was worth it in the end. Credits go out to Mel who told me that "three's a charm", Linda who has been letting me sleep on her floor for three weeks, Andrew who hijacked me to go apartment hunting in the piss rain on Saturday afternoon, my mom and dad for telling me that things would be OK, Ron for giving me afternoons off and internet access for the search, and www.viewit.ca.

Housewarming party to be announced soon.

Oh, and if you're able-bodied join me on Friday evening for a moving fiesta of epic proportions. My father, Nik, Dan, B, and Kate are off the hook because they've helped me move, like, fifteen times already.

Bonne Fête à Moi

ON THS DAY IN HISTORY

1865 American Civil War ends
1886 President Cleveland marries in White House
1924 The Indian Citizenship Act
1997 McVeigh convicted for Oklahoma City bombing

AMER. REVOLUTION
1774 Parliament completes the Coercive Acts with the Quartering Act

AUTOMOTIVE
1970 McLaren crashes

CIVIL WAR
1815 Philip Kearny is born

COLD WAR
1954 McCarthy charges communists are in the CIA

CRIME
1985 Duo-serial killers' spree is put to an end

DISASTER
1921 Flash floods ravage Colorado

ENTERTAINMENT
1912 Universal founded

LEAD STORY
1953 CORONATION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH II:

LITERARY
1977 Raymond Carver quits drinking



OLD WEST
1823 Ashley's fur trappers attacked by Indians

PRESIDENTIAL
1886 Grover Cleveland gets married in the White House

ENGLAND
1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II

VIETNAM WAR
1965 First contingent of Australian combat troops arrives

WALL STREET
1985 R.J. Reynolds buys Nabisco

WORLD WAR I
1915 Austro-German forces attack Russians at Przemysl

WORLD WAR II
1944 United States begins "shuttle bombing" in Operation Frantic

EARTH CHANGING
1980 Sarah Aubrey Hunter was born

Rage Against the Machine

"To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;

To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates."
- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Which seems pretty dramatic a quote in reference to an apartment hunt, but it just popped into my head. Today I fell hard for a pretty little one bedroom right beside High Park. Hardwood floors. Large windows. First floor (yes, Dad, first floor...which means you won't have to carry my oak wardrobe up three flights of winding staircase...again...).

God's been briefed on the issue and now all I can do is sleep on it and wait.

ch-ch-ch-changes

I'm pretty sure I've effectively killed my readership by remaining incommunicado for so long. However, if there still happens to be a few of you out there, here is a brief, visual update (for the ADD-generation).

My desired neighbourhood, High Park.

My lovely, temporary roommate, Linda Cho.

My new boss, Ron Baxter Smith.
A Certain Someone, Andrew Gazaneo.

The concert I'm attending this Saturday, Imogen Heap.

So, let go, so let go
Jump in
Oh well, what you waiting for?
It's alright
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
So, let go, yeah let go
Just get in
Oh, it's so amazing here
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

- "Let Go" (Frou Frou)

well suited

"The Wanderer above the Mists"
Caspar David Friedrich

So. I am employed. Not only that, but I've been employed by a good family friend whom I've known for years (bonus), who works in photography (bonus), and who needed a job to be filled by someone with my exact skills (bonus). Oh, and it's downtown.

As Andrew would say, "PTL."

Spring and autumn have always been seasons of change for me. Autumn usually more than spring (what is it about September that seems so volatile?) but this year spring has been giving me a run for my money. I long for the moment when the gears will shift somewhat-permenantly, to be able to take a moment to breathe, to dream, to write, and, perhaps, unpack my storage box.

"I doubt sometimes whether, after all, a quiet and unagitated life would have suited me: yet I sometimes long for it."
- Lord Byron

"You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone "born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God."
(John 3:8)

"The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind."
- Bob Dylan