I HOPE YOUR NEXT YEAR IS...

May the next year be filled with the wildest of adventures!

EAST VAN LOVE.

I have been away from home now for two and a half weeks. It has been a whirlwind tour of late nights, old friends, movies in parents’ basements, and far too much food.  In all of this, from the West Coast, to Toronto, to small town Ontario, back to B.C, I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the holidays. But now, a bag of dirty laundry and an ever-expanding waist line later, it is time to go home.  I can't wait to get back to my little East Van house and the crows that fly over it every day at sunset. 

AND YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

Ya, I said it.  LOVE!

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

I have been doing so much of this.
It.  Is.  WONDERFUL!

TORONTO SNOW AND SUCH.

I have spent the last few days in Toronto.  Being my first real encounter with the city, I came here with all of the preconceived notions that West coasters have about Toronto.  Vancouverites seem to either love it or hate it here, and to be very honest hate is usually the first word that comes out people’s mouths when talking about Toronto.  I guess because of this, I thought my feelings might be less than warm and fuzzy towards the city that is famous for being less than warm and fuzzy.  On the contrary, my last few days have been wonderful.  Mind you I am on vacation, and everything seems better when you are on vacation, but still, my days here have been spent with the most lovely of company doing the most lovely of things.  How could I be less than content with 3 days filled with old friends, new friends, great food, good wine, art, subway adventures, solo midnight strolls, sleep, picture taking, couch time, my love, coffee and snow.... oh how I love the snow!

123 LOVE!

So it has been awhile since I've made a button and sent it out into the world.  Sometimes life gets in the way no? To make up for my lack of buttons, posts and such, I have made 50 of these love buttons and plan on spreading them around the city of Vancouver and then Toronto over the next 3 days.  So if you find one lucky you! Share it, blog about it, but most of all be reminded to go forth and LOVE!

ONE MONTH UNTIL THIS.

Nothing says Christmas like a kitschy Mary illustration.

LO SIENTO BITCHES.

"I am Sorry" cards have gone the way of the Dinosaur no?  Like letter writing, or card giving, or mail sending in general, sorry notes just aren't what they use to be. These days a sorry comes in the form of an email, or text message or (and this one is my favorite)  a facebook wall post for all the world to see. To me this puts the act of saying "sorry" on the same  level as say telling a friend you will be 5 mins late for coffee, or inviting some one to join your Fans of Chuck Norris FB Club.  Now don't get me wrong, I love THE technology.  While writing this post I've received two lovely text messages, I am Gmail chatting with someone I adore, all while checking and returning emails and updating my facebook status.  I am not a technology hatter by any means, just a lover of the act of giving and receiving messages in good, old fashion ways.

I have a teacher this semester who feels the same way.  Or I am assume so, because if you are late for his class you have to bring a sorry card for each of the other students the following week.  I think this is brilliant.  Being me, I was late for his first class, and again being me I brought " I am sorry" buttons instead of" I am sorry" cards the next week.  Old fashion act, new way of going about it.  Progressive sorry note giving?  

Here they are, cheeky as all hell... bitches!

FOR AUNTY CINDY.

Now and always, so very, very sparkly.  Love.  

BELATED BOO!

Because I LOVE Halloween, dressing up, and anyone who chooses this day to reference gems of the cinematic variety.

SHINY THINGS.

I love birthday parties.  This weekend it is my best friends birthday and as is customary in our family the festivities will start on Saturday and not end until the following weekend.  We have birthday weeks around these parts and agree that it really is the only way a birthday should be celebrated.  Excessive?  Perhaps.  Extravagant?  Yep.  A week of love, food, fun, friends and honoring the wonderfulness of every second spent together as friends?  Most definitely. 

THE RAIN IS HERE.

It is official. The rain has arrived in the fair city of Vancouver.

While doing homework this afternoon I actually spent the majority of my time scheming ways in which I could find myself somewhere sunny this coming winter.  I then started to really think about the rain in this city and how I really feel about it.  To tell you the truth, I don't think the rain is that bad.  Now don't get me wrong, sun and everything that goes along with it are all great, but rain has its advantages too.  I could list the obvious such as getting more things done, the creativity that seems to coincide with wet weather, or the fact that movie watching becomes that much better when it is cold and miserable outside.  That said, I do believe the best part of the rainy season commencing is that it is always just in time for Halloween.

Rainy nights  + a bottle of wine + Halloween = drunken costume making.  PERFECTION!

As per usual I will be some sort of animal this Halloween.  This afternoon I am thinking maybe I'll be a fox...

THE PERFECT WILD THING.

I have been given a lot of nicknames in my 26 years:  Bear, Lion, Eagle, Lobster Girl... all quite strange....I understand.  

These titles mean different things to different people in my life.  I love each name for the places they have come from and the stories that go along with them.  Oddly enough all my nicknames are animals.  They all conjure up magical and wonderful images in my head with all their crazy, diverse wildness.  I love them all equally.  What I love even more, is that each name serves a different facet of my personality, my life, my "ness". 

Today someone told me that I was my own perfect wild thing.  I do believe it is one of the nicest things that has ever been said to me...

IT"S TIME.

Wild doesn't even begin to describe midnight tonight.   

http://wherethewildthingsare.warnerbros.com/

WHAT'S IN A LETTERS?

 Sometimes, certain letters are more significant than others...

FOR MY TYPOGRAPHY CLASSMATES.

For all of us who will spend the weekend looking at this sentence over and over and probably over again, this button is for you.

BRING BACK THE MIXTAPE.

Tomorrow I am driving home for the weekend.  There aren't many occasions that I love more than Thanksgiving.  The first long weekend in awhile, the sweater wearing weather, the family, friends and food without the craziness of Christmas surrounding it.  Thanksgiving is wicked.

In typical pre-road trip fashion, I spent the morning not accomplishing the dozens of things that need to be done before I leave, but by filling my ipod with hundreds of road trip worthy tracks.  While the gazillions of 0's and 1's made their way from my computer to my portable music device, I couldn't help but reminisce about the days of the mix tape.  The selection process, the decisions needed to determine track order, the fact that one tape could take an entire afternoon to create.  I do believe that the mix tape is a lost art form which held a certain quality that my ipod won't even possese.

Obviously more procrastination needed before I start my day, I've come up with what would be the perfect mix tape for my drive home tomorrow.  Think sunny afternoon shadows, mountains and highway stretched out as far as the eye can see, and a love for both the new and the old.

SIDE A:
Bob Dylan                        "Don't Think Twice"
The Avett Brothers           "Swept Away"
The Black Keys               "I'll Be Your Man"
Fleetwood Mac                "Never Going Back"
Kings of Leon                  "Soft"
Neil Young                      "Long May You Run"
Fruit Bats                        "Singing Joy to the World"
John-Rae Fletcher           "Big Talker"
The Arcade Fire              "Keep the Car Running"

SIDE B:
Prince                           "Kiss"
Ghostland Observe.     "Dancing On My Grave"
Traveling Wilburies   "Got My Mind Set on You"
LCD Soundsystem      "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House"
Hot Chip                      "And I Was a Boy From School"
Stevie Wonder             "Signed, Sealed, Delivered"
Madonna                       "Like a Prayer"
Salt and Pepper           "Shoop"

DandeLIONS.

Autumn in Vancouver means a lot of things.  Amongst these Fall pleasures is the change from abundant yellow, into billowy white of the dandelions in our front yard that barely see's the mower throughout the summer.

I love Dandelions.  I love that a weed that could be construed as so insignificant is capable of such transformation.  I love that something so delicate and slight is so prolific in numbers and its ability to survive.  I love that there is a lion amongst all these subtleties.

ROAR!

I BUILD BIKES!

I love to ride my bicycle.  LOVE it.  Now I am not one of those, get from point A to B, wear a helmet and reflective clothing kind of cyclelist.  On the contrary,  I meander.  I tend to do most of my methodical peddling on the sea wall where I can roam freely with the ocean by my side.  While listening to my ipod, I ponder the many facets of the world around me.

I love the sea wall and how I don't fit into any part of it.  I do not have a small dog by my side while on the Yaletown portion of my ride.  I do not partake in such horrible activities as aerobic bootcamp while in Stanley Park.  I am not one of the lovely old men who paint the same oceanscape day after day in English Bay.  I am not one of the decicated cricket players, in immaculate white who plays so diligently every weekend.  Still this juxtaposition of worlds, this not fitting in, makes my rides along the sea wall so intriguing.

AND I, AND LOVE, AND YOU.

I have been know to obsess over things.  The current obsession is music with banjos and harmonicas.

Listen to this and be amazed:  http://www.myspace.com/theavettbrothers