More information than you require about my beard

I'm growing a winter beard. I can't remember when this beard began and I can't say for certain when it will end, but the goal here is to grow my longest beard yet. One that will keep my face warm over these winter months.

As my beard grows, I become increasingly obsessed with its intricacies. I think about my chin, hidden within that mass of hair. It might sound silly, but it's easy to forget that the chin is even there sometimes. I know from previous experience that when this beard finally says so long to this world and finds its resting place in the bathroom wastebasket, I will look in the mirror and think to myself, 'Is this tiny thing really my chin? So small it is.' But for now the chin remains concealed underneath my winter beard.

Occasionally I will pluck a hair or two from my face to gain a better perspective of the beard's true length (roughly two centimetres as of this writing). I'm intrigued by the different types of hair that the beard is made up of. Most are simply long, straight, and brown. Some are so blonde that they are nearly white. These mostly hug the lips around the moustache and soul patch regions. There are others that actually are white. These are easy to spot, within the crowd of straight brown hairs. They give away that I am not as young of a man as I once was.

However, my favourite of the types of hair found on my face is also the rarest. These hairs can only be described as being pubic-like in appearance, only miniature. Jet black, curly, thick, and stubby, they rarely grow longer than a centimetre and thus lie hidden within the greater beard. When I discover one on my face, I will obsessively comb through the beard searching for it, feeling it with my fingers, making sure that it is still there. Eventually, I'll be overcome by the urge to actually see this freakish hair. So, it is plucked for viewing. I examine this strange hair. I roll it around between my index finger and thumb, noticing how it feels not like a hair, but like a thin piece of wire and I wonder why it grew on my face. Then, I slightly regret the fact that I have forcibly removed it from its home. However, there is little that can be done now, but to dispose of this hair and wait for the next of its kind to appear.

dance dance institutions

Overall, I'd say that dance bars tend to have the worst names of all commercial establishments. There are two dance bars in Edmonton that are among two of the terribly named that I have ever seen; Rehab and Prohibition. Get it!? They're named after things that they aren't!!!! I was thinking today that I should open a bar that also takes its name from the same concept. Would you drink and/or dance at a place called Dignity?

Winter? Winter! Winter.

As I have recently returned to the Prairieland, I am beginning my first winter truly deserving of the name since the winter that spanned 2004-2005. That quite a few winterless years.

Part of me believes that the cold won't actually come. The West Coast and it's soppy winters have seeped deeply into my bones and blood and prairie winters almost seem like a tall-tale meant to scare off the ignorant. But no. If I search back into my memory, I remember that all that ice, snow, and wind is coming fast on my heels. This little sprinkle that we've had today is just the knocking at the door of a long term guest.

Once I've affirmed the reality of the winter I begin to romanticize it, which I feel must be a defence mechanism of most who live where it's great, white, and north. Really, there is something beautiful about a world blanketed in the purest of colours. And those calm snowy night walks when your own footprints seem to be the only blemish in the perfect streetlight-lit pale orange world. As well, to make it through the season has the effect of making a person feel slightly above those who have not endured the cold. But is it these things that I like or just the idea and memory of these thing? Time will answer that question, I suppose.

Now as I find the cold to be fast approaching I must accept it. Perhaps, I will find myself revelling in it. Maybe, I will buy a toboggan or relearn to skate. Definitely, I will find myself fully appreciating the mild, wet winters that I have 'endured' the past few years and shed the wussy skin that I have grown. All of this, courtesy of winter.

a bottle and a high-five: both thrown

One of my first days in Edmonton, as we walked to our local alehouse, a bottle was thrown at us from a passing truck and narrowly missed. When something like that happens it's hard not to think to yourself, 'we are not wanted here.' Happily, things have gone on quite well and without a hitch since. Just yesterday a homeless fellow insisted that we slap a high-five and later an odd man randomly struck up conversation with me about the Magpie that was eating crumbs at the hotdog stand and I felt like such a part of the community.

The Winner Takes It All

I am packing up the apartment. Among my things I came across this list:

I believe that I had been compiling a list of the greatest bands ever. Don't be fooled by it's short length; the list is completed.

new home, etc.

I have found a new home in the city of Edmonton. Through some familial connexions I have lucked into a basement suite in a prime locale with ridiculously low rent. This bodes well for my new hope that Edmonton will be the unexpected place where dreams come true and everything tastes like candy or t-bone steak.

Speaking of unexpected, today I saw the movie Ice Age: 3D with a three year old. After the movie he hit me in the crotch. I doubt that he comprehends the full power of even a little fist to the crotch just yet.

Tomorrow there will be a plane ride to Victoria for a last island visit for a while. Back to work at my terrible job on Monday and then three more weeks until moving time. Other than the tag-team tasks of packing and cleaning I am quite eager to get moving.

clothing optional

If there is one this that the hippies got right, it was Wreck Beach.

At said beach roughly three years ago a young man - who at the time I believe to have been under the influence of psychedelic drugs - said to me:

"From now on, I'm only buying things from naked people."

Much time has passed and that man is sure to be in a very different mindset now, but when I was recently at Wreck Beach I thought to myself, I think that he was on to something.

.I.

I've got a dirty kitchen in a messy apartment. I purchased a new record, which is actually two records, by the band Deerhunter today. I've been finding books of fiction to be difficult to read recently. I want non-fiction. I want facts, not daydreams and imagined schemes! I am beginning to get stoked on being schooled in Edmonton. I am not looking forward to the effort of home-hunting, packing, moving, and unpacking. I am looking forward to the road trip between Vancouver and Edmonton that it will involve. I am glad to have the chance to spend much more time with my nephews and the adults that they live with. I am beginning to feel 'at home' in Vancouver, which is sort of a real kick in the crotch seeing as I am leaving so soon. I do not look forward to the inevitable prairie winters. I am hoping for some hot prairie summer days followed by thunderstormful evenings. I do not wish to mow lawns for subsistence anymore. I spend a lot of time thinking about where in their yards people could cultivate nice gardens instead of water-guzzling grass or callous concrete. I should be cleaning my abode. I am enjoying these new records, though I knew I would as I have unlawful e-versions on the computer. I should be playing my drums with other musical people. I will try harder to do so in Edmonton than I did in Vancouver. I hope that I will find time to do so between studentry and workmanship. I do not like that the jobs of my special lady and I force us to have such divergent schedules. I quite enjoyed our morning together, drinking coffee and rummaging through record bins. I should try reading something by Orwell, who's fiction is very non-fictiony. I think that might get me back on the fiction train. I should really start cleaning.

Would she make it up?

A chatty woman was telling me that her dog - one of those cute white little mop-things - is able to jump over their 4 ft high gate. I thought to myself, "I'd like to see this dog do a jump!", but feigned a polite yet disinterested interest and bid her a good day.

Dishing the shit on bread.

I've been eating too much bread...and too many chips of both the potato and the nacho variety. It makes me feel logy. Well, I've decided to start eating well again. Not that I've been eating all that poorly, really. Just too much bread and chips and that makes me logy...and prone to grumpy states. Also, the bread that I've been buying is lacking in quality. Full of things for warding off the molds. I don't need that shit! I put my bread in the fridge and that keep the molds away just fine. Simple bread, with easy to pronounce ingredients; yeah, that's the shit for me. But if I cut down the bread intake my stomach will say, "Hey, where's the food?" so I'll say, "Digest this celery!" or, "Can you handle some fucking legumes?!" or something like that and then my stomach will say, "I can dig it." and if my stomach had hands we would probably slap a high five.

Good news that acts like bad news

I put all of my eggs in a basket and it seems that the basket's bottom has fallen out. I had a plan and that plan didn't work out. Luckily I also had a back-up plan. However it is proving to be tough to accept that plan B is now plan A and the previous plan A is now broken yolks on the floor. As well, some of those broken yolks aren't mine. They belong to some who I think is quite sweet and lovely, so I feel bad for dropping her eggs.

I'm back in purgatory. The place that I am is temporary. I am soon to be on the move again, much too soon. It looks as though I will be enduring some prairie winters. At least I'm finally grad school bound. That is a great thing, even if it doesn't feel that way right now.

drum's not dead

I've spent a significant lump of the day hitting the skins (albeit, fairly quietly) in my lovely apartment home. Having had the old kit in storage for the past few months, it's been quite nice to reacquaint myself with it - and with sultry rhythms.



Hello rhythm, Goodbye blues.

drink a beer without using your hands

My girlfriend just bought a pair of Blundstone shoes that are smaller, scuffless duplicates of my own. We were inspired by the new fashion trend sweeping South Korea (the better of the Koreas) called 'Couplelook'. I think that the next step for us is to get the 'I'm with stupid-esque' matching 'I love so-and-so' hoodies (or bunny-hugs, if you prefer), followed by matching beer hats.

Hospitable Neighbours

I live next to a hospital now. I live next to the emergency room of a hospital. Sometimes there are sirens to be heard, but not as often as I thought there would be and they are easier to ignore than you'd expect. Today the main noise emanating from the streets is men yelling 'HEY!'. The unpacking is done and the monotony of being jobless and poor is beginning to set in. It's sort of like being on a crappy vacation where there's nothing to do. Nonetheless, things are quite nice here and I'm happy to be sitting on my couch, looking out through my dirty windows at the imposing main tower of Vancouver General Hospital. It's a good place to be.

friend's fucked-up faces

Oh Victoria, why do you suddenly got to be so sweet to me? An evening of viewing paintings of punched and pummelled faces and I'm slapped upside the head by good times, good friends and some very good puns. I'm feeling somewhere between bitter and sweet.