Hello Winter

I feel like summer was yesterday, but this morning's snow-covered roofs I saw outside confirmed it was not.

I was talking with Vnss and I told her I felt like being a mom and being paid to blog. All I want to do right now are crafts, cleaning, cooking, rearranging things in the apartment, making things pretty. I had this thought about having a little girl and making dresses for her. Easy ones, since, I can barely stitch.

I didn't work all weekend. I surfed blogs looking for easy d-i-y projects. I made a fabric flower à la Carrie Bradshaw, except mine is made from dark purple velvet (which was not the right fabric for this project). Oh well, next time.

I've been having lots of ideas for projects and things I want to do that are sort of "professional skills" building, but I can't seem to put my finger on any of them. Do I want to start a lecture series? A publication? A one-time event? I'm not 100% sure about any of these like I was about starting the cinema journal last year. I need somewhere to channel this stuff!

P is coming back tomorrow!! I'm so excited!! I almost can't handle it!!

There are too many beautiful things in this world! So many things to share!

Spazzing out 24/7

I put my finger on a few things in the last few days.

I've been feeling generally overwhelmed since I started this program. It's a very powerful feeling. A mixture of fear, doubt, irrational, and some positive things but I can't remember now. That's what I mean. I'm in a constant state of forgetfulness and, as i like to call it, spazzing out. 24. 7.

I don't feel like myself in all this. I'm the one who remembers details. I'm the one who's always on time. I'm the one who makes plans. Not anymore. I don't know who I am anymore.

I don't like this feeling.

And another thing. I'm feeling very strange about communication these days. Most of my good friends are gone from this town, and I find most of the conversations I have in my day-to-day are kind of shallow. I mean, I suppose there's hope with a few people that something will come out of it.. but really, it's just one person, and she has lots of friends, so who knows if i'll fit it.

I feel sad that many of my favourite people are no longer around me, and that i'm not aware of their daily lives. More and more I'm beginning to feel that the only thing you can really be rooted into is yourself, because people come and go, and you have no control over that. And the happiness you get out of life shouldn't necessarily be totally invested in the people around you.

This is a very hard thing for me to say, because i've always believed and known that in life, it didn't matter where I was or what I was doing, as long as the people I loved were around me. Now I don't know what to think anymore... but maybe that's just the grad-school talking.

One thing I do like, is how all this graduate stuff if making me really excited about having a normal life. Cleaning. Cooking. Canning. Being healthy. Being happy with the simple pleasures of life. (Am I turning into a mom already!? uh-oh)

I've been thinking about going to yoga twice per week... that would be super intense for me. Since i've started, i've been walking around more, because my knees don't hurt instantly! I feel like my sanity is always restored when I do yoga. I could use more of that.

I could also use more P. He's in Peru. And although we wouldn't necessarily be spending time together right now, we would be having our little daily chats.

This bed is nice. I like how they prop up their pillows with those big decorative ones.



I really love beds in general. So comfy.

Cheese Please

Did you know fondue is delicious AND fun?

Here I am on P's front steps, ready to go to the market.



The boys walked at a brisk pace -- who wouldn't!? when cheese is involved.



A very serious search began and soon we found...



Cheese!



Definitely worth smiling about.



And voila! Delicious and fun!



Then there was chocolate fondue, what a life!

This week P is in Peru with some friends. It doesn't change much, I suppose it just means my next weekend will be free. Free for me to wrestle with the fourteen-hundred papers I have to write on topics I barely understand.

I should stop wishing time away... I did that a lot during the undergrad and it mostly left me with feelings of unsatisfaction.

I did however make a delicious baked-beef stew today; 3 hours of baking time and totally worth it.

Be here now. Mantra of the week.

He Calls me 'Puppy'

I just had an intense yoga class tonight -- stretching all kinds of legs muscles that should not be stretched. And during the final relaxation, I got a little misty-eyed. I have no idea why or what caused it, I just know that it felt special.

I've reached a point in my life: the point where I feel happy. Actually happy. The kind of happiness that made me have tears of joy (!?) for no apparent reason when I got home.

I spent most of my youth crying for different reasons. I remember having these 'I don't know why' conversations and feeling all the weight of those question marks. I spent that time trying to figure out why I was sad, why I couldn't feel happy, why, why, why.. Today a similar feeling of not knowing the sources of my feelings washed over me, but it was radically different. It didn't have all those other questions attached to it. It just felt beautiful. It felt like I could feel all the wonderful things in the world.

The only thing different about this yoga session from the other ones is that we made the corny 'Ohm' sound. The teacher said we could find some things to dedicate our 'ohms' (which are representative of our practice) to something or someone, so that we hold the tradition closer to our heart. The first thing I thought of when I thought of the dedication were three people in my life, then when I let the thought sit in my mind, I felt like the thing I really wanted to dedicate my practice to was myself, my well-being and my mother. The last time we did the 'ohm' I dedicated them to my well-being, my mother and life in general. I'm not usually into this esoteric stuff, but it felt like the only thing I could dedicate it to. Life. Why not?

It hit me how far i've come. This time last year I was having meltdown after meltdown about my relationship with P, because of my insecurities, and many more other reasons. I'm not ready yet to go re-read those posts, because i'm still not ready to accept that I was that person at some point in life. That I was desperate, that I didn't have perspective, that I asked so much of other people (my friends included), that I was holding everything so tightly I wanted to squeeze all the life out of it.

I've gone back and read a few posts about Vncnt -- the height of my desperation before last September. I look at those with a little more kindness. Sometimes they even make me laugh a little. For better or worse, Vncnt really taught me a lot about who i wanted to be (and who I didn't want to be). I don't think I could have ever dreamed of being here if I didn't live that experience with him.

P called me 'Puppy' this weekend. Affectionately, of course. We have lots of little names for each other, most of them he conjures up, but this one felt particularly right. I do feel like a little puppy around him! Happy and excited and giggly and smiley and a little bit too hyper.

It's really nice.

I'd be the one on the right.

When I grow up..

I still want to be interested in food, I still want to take the time to make healthy meals, I want to be active and in touch with nature, I don't want to think I know everything about anything, I still want to listen, I want to speak and mean what I say, I don't want to be a complainer, I want to make the time to take care of myself.

These are some things I've been thinking about this weekend. I've also been thinking a lot about how i'm becoming more and more like my mother. I remember when I was younger she would make cleaning up our closets and dresser drawers a weekend activity. She would move the furniture in our rooms to make them seem fresh and different. She took care to make the bed with 10, 000 pillows and put baby powder between the clean sheets.

I've noticed I've get great satisfaction from cleaning up the pile of clothes sitting in my closet, rethinking how to optimize my storage. I make my bed with the same care my mother took to smooth out all the wrinkles and make the sheets tight.

I know that I have no idea how children will change my life, but I really, really hope that I will still be able to do things with care for them and when they are around. I don't want to go to quick fixes most of the time. I want to connect with them through these activities.

The older I get, the more old-timey I'm becoming - wanting to make things homemade as much as possible. I don't think this is bad thing, but I'm still unsure of how I will be able to negotiate this with a full-time job later on.

Another thing is friends. The more time passes, the more I see how relationships become the center of people's lives. It seems like nowadays when I have free time, it's almost always spent with P. I love spending time with him, but it also makes me wonder: where my girls at? I want to keep my friendships even when I'm old and have a family, but this seems next to impossible when everyone is busy and far away.

I'm not saying I'm giving up hope, i'm just saying, I miss you!

Next Year

I just had a radical idea. There's part of me that wants to propose to P that we move together to Vancouver after I'm done my MA.

He has expressed interest in going back, since he was born there.

Right now I'm in the mood for an adventure!

There's a first time for everything

I just spent the whole day studying -- from 11am until 10pm with only a few breaks to eat.

It's the strangest thing I've ever done. Writing notes, making flashcards, checking to make sure I know something and if I don't making a note of it. Using our nifty blackboard (that was the best part)!

I feel very stressed and a little bit not stressed about these upcomings midterms. Everybody keeps saying: don't worry about it! But when I went to a study session last week and didn't know a fraction of what the other girls knew, I got worried.

I really wonder how much of this is useful.

Going with the flow either way though, and it kind of feels good.

I want to post!

I want to write something meaningful here so badly, but i'm barely staying afloat in school and too many lovely things are happening around me for me to keep track of!

This is pretty cool.



Slow down world!

(one breath at a time)

I've Finally Done It

I started talking to people. Randomly. Asking them questions. Starting to talk to them assuming they know who I am. One girl I wanted to talk to, she seemed nice and cool and interesting. I did it today. And I asked her name.

This is big for me. I'm breaking the ice, getting a little more comfortable, and it feels kinda good.

Furthermore, I'm really starting to like McGill. There was a protest outside today about the closure of this café called Arch café, which I think is the equivalent of Concordia's café-x (student-run, alternative goodies, organic coffee), so I hope that gets up and running again. Also, the libraries and all the quiet sitting space. Love it. And all the services are really fast! I finally found the farmer's market! Cute!

Things are looking up.

Except for this one thing: one of my profs hasn't gotten back to me about a reference letter I asked him if he would write many months ago... I'm going to freak out if this doesn't work out.

My mom keeps saying : okay, i'm going to ask the universe for this for you. And then she does, and usually it happens. So with her on my side, I'm going to do my own universe-asking and hopefully this stuff will get solidified soon.

In other news, yoga is awesome. Really much harder than I thought. I never realized how much tension I had in my legs. I'm working on stretching that out.

Love chairs

Adl (in email) : boo boop bee doo

(you see it?)



P (in email response) : I see it in you every day!

Wooo!

---

Heart -> melt.

Left-field

I just had a really strange thought. It's kind of a fear, but a very small one, and probably an irrational one. I just had the thought: 'sometimes P wants to do things that I can't do, that are beyond my abilities (eg. frisbee, team sports in general)' and 'I often want to do simple things (eg. take a walk outside) and after a few walks, his enthusiasm about them dwindles'.

The thought is about his search for adventurous and exciting things, and my preference for quiet, calm activities (which to me are never really the same, or boring, because I really like the idea that no moment is the same as the next).

Like I said, small fear, but I wanted to write it out anyway.

In other news, information science rules!

I stand corrected

There are cute/interesting pictures from the net to post.

Baby in an Eames chair -- Dream!

Four Day Weekend

I was walking from P's place to the metro with a hypersensitivity to sound and smell. The city is so smelly and noisy! Even here, in my bedroom in a quiet neighbourhood, is the sound of some electrical tool brrrr-ing from the alley.

I just spent the most wonderful weekend with P. After a few weeks of feeling mildly disconnected this weekend fixed all that. It also helped that I divulged my insecurities to him last friday. I said I felt a little alone lately. This is obviously not only related to him. I'm trying to be less 'dependant' on friends too.. which means I talk to them less, and see them less, which is hard, to say the least. But I have to stop making them be my safety net and my security blanket all the time (sometimes is okay, of course). After I told him, he immediately called me and we talked about it. I think the issue is more that i'm stressed about school, loans, and all that stuff (still no answer). In reality, I just want someone to sweep all this stuff off my hands and tell me everything will be okay, but I know things don't work that way.

I also have a lingering feeling that being at Mcgill now, and getting 20 emails per day, i'm going to miss something, the key to my future success. I used to check my email obsessively -- now I avoid it at all cost.

I'm looking into a yoga class and I love not having class on tuesdays.

I haven't been spending so much time on blogs, so no interesting pictures...

Snap!

This makes me want to keep my long hair, straighten it, ponytail it, and search for that bag day and night until I find it.

Introducing...

A little hint:

another little hint?

That's right! You guessed it! I'm starting my own graphic design business (for real!)! And what's the best part? The name: flâneriedesign ! How funny and awesome is that!?

The first image is the back of my new business card, and here's the front:



(it looks like the writing is too small to appear on screen - it just says my name, designer, email, telephone).

Here's what my invoices will look like:



I just spent a couple (too many to remember) hours making all this. I'm serious about starting this. I'm done with putting my passion on hold. I'm going to be PRO-ACTIVE!

Woohoo! I started putting together all the electronic files I have of past issues of magazines I've worked on, posters i've made, new things i'm making, all kinds of fun stuff! I'm really happy and excited. And thrilled at the fact that when making this stuff, I could just keep going and going and going and going... like the Energizer Bunny!

I've posted the sign for cards at Bummis, so for now the target audience is mainly babies, but hopefully that's going to grow into something awesome. Being creative is so awesome!

Woo-hoo x 2!!

Rarara

Okay, I've put my finger on something that really bugs me, and I'm not sure what to do about it. It's irritation mixed with jealousy towards P's mom. It was prompted by an article in Vanity Fair I was reading during our SC trip. It was Angelina Jolie waxing poetic about motherhood and parenting. I passed the magazine to his mom and she read the article. She didn't really comment on anything except one phrase where Jolie says something like 'when they become teenagers and they start closing the door, don't talk to them, listen. Because there's nothing you could say' and she responds: 'Angelina Jolie knows nothing about parenting if that's what she thinks'. The whole thing struck me because when I read the article and that sentence I thought 'yeah, that's awesome, listen to your child'. I didn't respond anything to her, but the irritation stayed with me.

She has very strong views on what makes a happy marriage, a happy childhood and a happy home, and who am I to judge? She's got all three. I mean, yes, her children are kind of exceptional and they all adore each other, but fuck, she had the luxury to stay home and raise them for a long time, with a husband making enough income to support them. I don't know if she realizes that that is not the case for most people. I don't know if I should feel flattered that she thinks I fit in that kind of profile, or angry that she has mistaken me for fitting in that profile.

I get rattled up whenever she talks about child rearing because although she has raised two well-balanced, successful, kind, loving children, I don't think there's only one way of getting those results. I feel like she's blind to their faults, but I guess all mothers are.

All this came about this weekend because I went to spend two days there with P and to see Eat, Pray, Love with his sister and mom. Her sister's friend was getting married on saturday so it sparked lots of discussion about weddings and how they should or shouldn't be. His sister was disappointed at the lack of traditional aspects in the ceremony.

I know I shouldn't, but I almost feel like telling people who think traditional weddings are the only way to go that they are crazy! There are SO many ways of getting married today. I would rather have a small and sincere wedding than a showy one where you don't feel like yourself, you're surrounded by people you don't really know, and you feel like you need to make a performance out of the whole thing. Today, my ideal wedding would be small enough to fit everyone on one big old wooden table (or two), lots of pictures, and lots of smiles.

I wonder if people hide themselves behind traditional weddings. If you follow the rituals, you avoid having to reveal anything about your personality, playing it safe... is that really the way to start the rest of your life?

Perhaps I'm judging all this too critically. Perhaps I'm letting my alternative views get the best of me. The only thing I hope is that if ever that day comes, I'll be able to compromise.

Another thing that kind of bugged me was her interpretation of Eat, Pray, Love. I think she's got it all wrong, focusing on the relationships (ex-husband, ex-lover, current boyfriend) instead of Liz's journey. What really burns my butt is when she insists on the fact that Liz is an extremely controlling person: I think 'should you really be the person commenting on another's control issues?'.

Rarara!

I know the best thing to do is let it go. And for the most part I can. My only worry is if this relationship with P grows into a long-term, family thing. Will she be invasive? Will I have to have awkward conversations with P about it? Will I be able to stand my ground? Will I be able to build a life different from the one she built with her husband if P is mine?

I know it's too early to think about this, but it seemed like the perfect occasion to do so.. wedding and all.

Think positive. Believe in yourself. Let go.



Love this coat-hanger.

Mad Men

On the plane back from South Carolina I picked up one of those airplane magazines which had a feature on two characters from Mad Men. I've only watched a couple of episodes from the first season, and if I had enough time, I would probably watch more, but all this to say, it gave me a vague idea about who these people were in the magazine -- enough to make me read the article. In the piece there was a pop-out quote, the ones that are in bigger font size outside the actual article. It was a quote from Don Draper saying something like : sometimes when you achieve your goals, you realize you didn't make them high enough. It resonated with me immediately, because I have very modest goals, I'm very cautious, and I don't dream big like some people do. It got me thinking about what my biggest goal would be. Do I want to be rich and famous and get recognized in the streets? No. Do I want to make a breakthrough in some kind of field? Not really? Do I want to have huge design contracts like re-designing the New York City Subway signage? No (because it's already perfect!).

I think I have found what I want to do. I want to design small personal projects for people or small companies. To work independently, or with a small team. And to have another job which is enough to pay the bills but not eat up all my time if it's not related in some way to this goal.

P just installed Indesign on my computer. I'm going crayzay!

How about that?

"Only in the love of those who do not serve a purpose, love begins to unfold."

This sentence hits the mark for me. This idea that your love partner is not someone who fulfills any need in you in one that I read about in Eat, Pray, Love and have put into practice ever since. She said something like 'I don't need Felipe for money, I don't need him for entertainment, I don't need him to travel, I don't need him for making babies (because she didn't want any), etc.' She concluded that the only thing she got out of her relationship with Felipe was companionship and love (but that would be later on). Now, am I crazy? Or doesn't this sound like a better way of going about loving someone?

It's easier to think about it in reversed terms: do I want P to love me because I'm smart? No. Do I want P to love me because I'm interesting? No. Do I want P to love me because I make him dinner? No. Because I pay for things? No. Because of my friends? No. Because I fulfill some kind of need in him? No. Because I make him feel good? No.

Basically all these things can suddenly change without notice, and do i want someone who will stop loving me if enough of these things stop being there? No. I want him to love me for reasons that can't really be expressed. That's how I feel about him. I do love him for reasons similar to the ones listed above, but the overarching thing is that I just do. I think this is were the 'loving someone who does not serve a purpose' is great, because things in life change a lot, needs and purposes included. So I think what ends up mattering is how much integrity each person in the relationship feels while being strongly connected to the other.

I'm not suggesting the old 'you mean like when Woody Allen waved across the park to Mia Farrow' scenario mentioned (with disdain) in Sex and the city, but I'm not sure I see something wrong with two people sharing only parts of themselves (ever changing) for the rest of their lives (ideally).

For example, at the beginning of our relationship, I felt I needed to know all of P's deepest thoughts and insecurities, because that's what intimacy is. Boy, was I wrong -- at that time, it only pushed him away a little bit. But now, I can have all the discussions I want, but I don't really feel the need to. So, if I expect to have a weekly dispensing of thoughts and feelings for the rest of my life, I'll probably be disappointed. P shares those parts with me sometimes. Other times he shares anecdotes, other times he shares other things, so eventually, I'll get to see every side of him, it's just going to take time. And if I want to spend my life with this person, what's the rush!?

I don't understand why we're programmed to want to know everything about someone in the shortest amount of time possible; to cram our noses so close to the window that we can't actually see the person, or much else either.

I'm open to other ideas about this, but right now, this one makes the most sense to me.

I love these pictures.

Clean Sheets

I've been reading this book, The Art of Loving. I like that it's a book that agrees with a lot of things that I think about (for the most part). It has some interesting ideas about human motivations behind love, different kinds of relationships, and the author considers to be the best, or more mature, kind of love. One nice phrase that stands out is :

Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love.

This rings a lot of bells in me. Especially since the time I came across that great quote by Katharine Hepburn (Love has nothing to do with what you're expecting to get, only what you're expecting to give -- which is everything). In keeping with this quote, the author writes: 'love is an action, the practice of human power, which can be practice only in freedom and never as the result of a compulsion."

I appreciate that he recognizes the act of giving as the expression of aliveness. I think our society views giving as 'giving up' something, when it fact, we all know how much better is feel to give than to receive. What are we so afraid of losing? In a sort of indirect way, I was always ambivalent about sharing things with people: friends, ideas, interesting articles, more recently interesting blogs, interesting artists, interesting films. I was afraid other people would like them! Why would I be afraid of connecting with someone on these things? Well, for friends it's clear, I didn't want them to want to be friends with my friends, or my friends to want to be friends with them. Clear case of insecurity. As for interests, I think it's because I wanted to hoard the things I thought were cool, to maybe feel some sense of separation from others, to feel like I knew about something special and they didn't.

Now when I think about it, I don't mind so much sharing ideas and interests. And I think i'm ready to go out of my way to share them with people (ie. follow-up on a 'yeah, i'll send you the link' conversation that happens in the wee hours between me and someone I barely know). Besides, there's too much stuff on the internet for me to know about.

Better to release it into the universe.

(and write certain things on paper... I had a great idea for an article title about archives... forgotten...)

No wait! It was State of the Archive, an article i'm thinking of writing in the future about archives and how they're high tech now (which I have no idea if they are, that'll be resolved in September!) But I like the play on state of the art, and the state of archives.

Yes, saved in the blogosphere. Like so many other thoughts.

Best Birthday, Ever

This year my birthday was low-profile, no muss, no fuss. I made a vague suggestion to P that there were some people I wanted to see, he made an attempt at a rencontre, but since there were so many things happening this weekend (Osheaga, farewell parties, other birthdays, etc) I didn't hold my breath for anything.

But boy, did I get swept off my feet. First, we spent a lovely friday night at our dear friend Arl's going away party. I caught up with Lé, whom I hadn't seen in many weeks, and saw some friends away for the summer. We went home and I went to work the next day. I come home, get dolled up according to his instructions (blue polka-dot 40s style Banana Republic dress to the rescue, with coral sandals), he met me at 6pm and delivered a bag of surprises. A new Strand bag! Mine was looking pretty shabby, so I was very pleased to get this nifty new one. In it P packed a few more items, a teeny box of chocolates, Elizabeth Gilbert's first book Stern Men, a sweet card, and the most incredible gift ever: a Bamboo drawing tablet like this



He said when he saw me having so much fun with his tablet, he thought it would be a good idea for me to have one to jump start my graphic design career. He also said he found an old version of Indesign that my (poor, little, weak) computer could handle.

I'm so excited and motivated! It's awesome. It reminds me of the story his mom told me about how she became a writer. She said: 'I wanted to stay home and raise the children, but I had always been interested in writing. Alain bought me our first computer so that I could write.' And the rest is history (she has almost a million books in print, actually). Anyway, getting this design tool from P kind of boosts my confidence. He said, 'see! now you're a real designer!' which was really sweet.

I think I'm going to contact Moment Factory again soon to see if I could intern there. I want to get my foot in the door of some design studios. I watched a documentary on Annie Leibovitz, that was really motivating too. It reminded me how much I loved Susan Sontag's On Photography so I bought it used right away. That a Barthes' photography book. I remember how it made me feel so connected to creative work.

I want to paint, and photograph, and arrange, and blog, and surf, and look, and bike around. Life is awesome. I want to remove all the pictures from my room, paint my walls a light shade of grey and make an assemblage of pictures in the living room. I also want this lamp.

I should stop wanting material things though... :s