winnipeg is a boiling pot of cranberries.

My hair may look unwashed & untousled in this picture, and I may be hiding the food in my mouth with my hand instead of a big giant smile, but I must say that my first trip back to Winnipeg was a successful one. The first day back really set the tone for the trip; breakfast at the nook with some ladyfriends, my brother, and his ladyfriend followed by a bottle of B&B in Richardson park while sprawled out on a picnic-quilt, followed by mid-afternoon homemade wine & a gigantic joint at the 70's mixing bowl coloured apartment of some dear friends. Typical Winnipeg.




Luckily I escaped all my family's neuroses and craziness on Real Christmas by staying put in Toronto and celebrating with some newfound friends instead. I discovered that Santa really isn't real because all of my presents seemed to have appeared under my mom's tree in Winnipeg. That, or he got confused and thought I still lived there because I still have a Manitoba Driver's License. Santa, or mom & pop, really spoiled a girl this year. My suitcase is coming back much heavier and not just because of all the Value Village finds and Winnipeg beer I'm carting back for friends (....myself). Shout out to my dad for the new MacBook, my mom for the my wallet full of heavy cash, and my brother for the beautiful coffee table book on Polaroids. You guys rule.



And a clear & loud shout out to all the friends that called me, surprised me, made time for me, bought me drinks, gave me kisses, complimented my hair, had breakfast with me, and generally celebrated my first return home to the city. I forgot that I missed you so much. I don't think I'll be pulling a Homer Simpson & coming back to Winnipeg anytime soon, so it was good to see all of you. Much love. I'll be listening to the Venetian Snare's concept album about my hometown on repeat for the next few days, but maybe skipping over track #5, "Die Winnipeg Die Die Die Fuckers Die". I can't have nobody talkin' shit about my boyfriend.

one great city.

Typical Winnipeg.



The apartment was too hot to wear all of our clothes, but not hot enough for Stefan to take his long-johns off.

passion play (half-assed).

My friend Allan Lorde on asses. Homie appreciates fat in all forms than anyone I know & I think that's golden.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

oh me, oh my (dreams in my arms)

I forgot how nice it is to wake up next to someone I actually like, tangled up in limbs instead of tangled up in blue.

holy calamity (bear witness).

There are very few things I have in combination with bears; we both eat a fairly varied diet consisting of both plants & animals, we both have short, stocky legs, our courtship period is usually quite brief and there's always the shaggy hair. As of yesterday, I've got something new in common with Jellystone Park's finest. After Toronto's first (and hopefully only) big blizzard of the year on Friday, I have decided to hibernate until spring thaw. Thankfully, my gentleman-friend feels the same way.

Last night, we watched a marathon of 'House Party' on the Comedy Network- just enough Winnipeg to last me until I touch down in my hometown on Friday. Tonight, a late night at work didn't leave me enough energy to attend the Hannukah party I half planned on making the trek out to Thornhill for (an area more populous with Jews than Tuxedo- even their Sobey's is kosher), so I watched Law & Order in an oversized, overworn Notorious BIG tee instead and with it being midnight now, I hope to be asleep before 12:30.




Nothing could rouse me from my ambient state, except my new favourite breakfast spot west of the Nook: Saving Grace. I considered calling in brunch instead of calling in sick so I wouldn't have to rush my dark roast or his french toast with caramelized bananas this morning, but I could just imagine it.

"Sorry, boss! I've got to call in brunch. I'm afraid everyone in the neighborhood has it." You know, kind of like syphillus. Or an ironic moustache.

Photo credit to my friend Ren. You think he's checking his iPhone for text messages, but really he's taking pictures of strangers enjoying a morning-to-mid-afternoon of avocado, tomato, bacon & arugula on whole wheat while looking lazily into the eyes of their sweetheart from across the formica.

all's quiet on the inner city front.

The idea of a drunk blog post is in fact NOT as endearing as I thought the idea was last night. Good thing I recently learned how to delete blog entries. I know one of the approximate three people that read my blog has an iPhone and probably already saw it, but he also saw me in the state that led me to believe that a drunk blog post was a good idea so he doesn't count. I think the rest of you who read it are probably too poor, or too from Winnipeg, to own an iPhone. And that's a-ok.




What IS great is listening to Bruce Cockburn in bed all morning, especially with a big mug of Kicking Horse dark roast in your greedy little handss. I've gone into hibernation & thats a-ok too. There's more than enough heartland canadian folk music around to last me a lifetime, or at least a short Toronto winter.

what a wonderful thing love is.

I'm always confused when someone calls me by the wrong name. Not to sound self-centered or anything, but I thought that my follicles having a good three inches around on most of those around me would really give me some leverage. At the birthday party of a complete stranger on Saturday, a guy named Al I met in the kitchen on my way in insisted on calling me Lois instead of Lauren.

I'm still hoping he was going more for Lois Collier (b-movie heroine extraordinnaire) than Lois Griffin.

At work, there are two Laurens. Sales-lady Lauren (me) and stock-room Lauren (her). Come to think of it, she may be one of the only people I know personally whose hair may be wilder than mine. Working in the stock room and mostly out of the view of the general public and the Whole Foods Market recyclable bag toting, judgemental eyes of the Yorkville yuppies who frequent their local Williams-Sonoma, she is not restricted to the ponytail, the bun, the french twist, or the chignon that my hair has practically formed a mold to thanks to a recent 50+ hour workweek. At the time I took this job, I wasn't aware that it was not only my dress, my piercings, and my tattoos were unacceptable. Yes, I was told I was going to have to 'manage' my hair. Their words, not mine.

Lauren from the stock room, a U of T graduate who is currently 'figuring out her life' from behind a towering pile of immersion blenders and from under an assortment of silicone spatulas, has managed to be the only Lauren I've ever met who pronounces Lauren with an accent and can get away with it without sounding like a pretentious asshole. I realise the fact that she was born & bred in Toronto makes this even more surprising. After over a month at Williams-Sonoma, I've given up on correcting my associates when I hear "Laureeeeen-with-an-accent-egu-over-the-E! There's a man in electrics who needs the down-lo on the $4,000 Jura Z5 Espresso maker!" crackling in my headset. Sometimes, I sort of secretly wish that when I started my life over and moved to Toronto, I had introduced myself as Lauren-with-an-accent-egu-over-the-E.

But even re-reading that last sentance, I know I already sound like the pretentious asshole I assume most Laurens who pronounce their names with an accent are.

After two somewhat-major relationships and too many not-so major ones, I still to this day have fortunately never called the wrong name in bed. It's inevitable that if you're seeing or sleeping with a number of partners at the same time, you're gonna fuck up sometime and letting the wrong name slip is a pretty easy mistake. I've done it once or twice. As long as you're not in bed (or on the couch, or the kitchen table, or the washing machine..), I honestly don't think it's that much of a problem. The initial awkwardness will pass, and alot worse could have happened. This may just be because I come from a serial cheater of a father who is famous for his "it's good to have a port in every storm" theory and a couple theories about how your mistress needs to be at least two area codes away from your partner.

"As long as they're further than forty five minutes away from eachother, it's okay!" He once told me. I'm being serious. His only relationship that hasn't ended in a marriage since he was 25 ended because the woman lived closer than forty five minutes away from his then-mistress. I guess Kelowna and Penticton are closer than they appear on Google Maps. Their names were too close to call, and without seperate area codes to seperate their dirty text messages, he had nothing left to do but dump 'em.

I believe I am one of the only women in the Western Hemisphere that doesn't condemn a man for accidentally blurting out "Elaine" in lieu of "Eleanor".

This week, my current gentleman-friend (again, for the lack of a better word) is going to be meeting good ol' Papa Wilton & I for a relaxed dinner at the Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar, my weakness south of Queen St. West. It's not often that I offer up my dates to my parents on a silver platter, but this one is under 30 and can hold his liquour (for the most part) which is a pre-requisite in my family on my father's side. And because he's not my boyfriend, it takes the pressure off me to make him look or act better than he actually is- although to be honest, he's pretty damn great.

Now I can only hope, pray and quiz my father over the phone from the 416 to the 250 to make sure he'll get his name right.

Because like Superman and Lois Lane, we are just as strong, we are just the same.

i'll be your yoko ono.

The best part about my current gentleman-friend, for the lack of a better word, is that we can have really great sex & then I can spend all my extra spare time thinking up differant, hilarious ways more facetious than the last to make fun of the fact that he loves the Barenaked Ladies.

mothership connection (star child).

I was afraid that a visit from my mother would mean much of the same that went on in Winnipeg. You know, fights about my language, my dress, who or who not I was sleeping with at the time, the fact that I should throw out my knee high black suede boots with the puke stains from drinking too much behind Royal Albert Hotel and the salt stains from the Winnipeg sidewalks between late October until mid-April...

So far, other than a mild tiff about her tip calculation at Terroni, a really horrifying conversation about T.I. vs. Ludacris, and a quick veto of my hairstyle, it ain't going so bad.

I forgot that with my mother here, I can finally enter Holt Renfrew without looking like I was lost and misplaced it for Honest Ed's. I know she'll replenish my Chanel face powder that is on the side of the highway somewhere between Madison & Detroit, my fancy Kiehl's face cleanser that I used up just before my three week mark in the big city, and hell, she'll probably insist that I buy the refreshing toner with salicylic acid as well.

"The city has certainly not done wonders for your complexion. Are you drinking enough water?"

She may have scoffed at my answer, "No, but does wine count?" but hell, she knew it was coming.

I don't really give my mum enough credit, but after all, how bad can she be? She looks great in fur, she tells truly inspiring innapropriate stories after a couple glasses of pinot (where do you think I got it?), and gave birth to me.

And I think I turned out okay.

prairie fire that wanders about.

I need to get a haircut & a root dye-job soon or else everybody will, gasp, find out that I'm not really Marilyn blonde naturally anymore.

here, my dear.

"I'm going to be a gentleman tonight, baby. Don't worry about it."



Since I didn't/couldn't make it out to Martha Wainwright tonight for all-intensive recuperation purposes, I figured spending my night with Marvin Gaye would be the next best thing. I figured it was Time to Get it Together. I've got what seems like the entire gaybourhood partying in my living room (I'm fairly certain I can hear Mariah Carey, no joke..), so it's a good thing I've got Marvin's discography on iTunes (and about a bazillion YouTube videos of him) to keep me company.

I'd like to know who the fool woman is that's telling 'him to put his suspenders back on in this live version of "Let's Get it On" at the Montreaux Jazz Festival.



I'm always tempted to throw him down on the record player when company comes, but with so few of the people that come over being people I'd like to make sweet, sweet love with I usually just stick to Al Green or Syl Johnson if I'm in the mood for the soul of a black man (uh, always). They make me want to take my pants off less. Sort of.

I thought it was going to be hard enough to wait for the release of NOTORIOUS on January 16, but after some soul & internet research I have recently been in(ternet)formed that Jesse L. Martin (of Law & Order and Rent fame) and James Gandolfini will be starring in Sexual Healing- a biopic of Gaye's life to be released in 2010.

Although my current flame couldn't be with me tonight (and yes ladies & gentlemen, as of recently there is only one), I'm nowhere near lovelorn. I'm, for the most part, very happy with what's going on.

What's going on.. What's going on..

let's get it on.

I've simply got to stop dating* rappers.



11:05pm- "but yeah whenever i see andrew we rap about you, it funny".

Although I seem to date* an inordinate amount of men who spit rhymes more than tobacco; this one was obviously a mistake. I mean, just look at the spelling & grammar mistakes. I like to think that if someone was writing a rap about me, it would be really nice and flattering. Y'know, like something not using the word "bitch" or "cunt" or any other choice four letter words? I'm thinking Eric B. & Rakim's "What's on Your Mind?", not Ludacris.

I know homie's got all sorts of hoes in dif'rant area codes.

Rappers tend to have alot of love whether it be for their homies, their boo, their music, or their mamas. Thanks to a less-than-mutal breakup on my behalf, I'm guessing the Andrew character he was referring to isn't exactly writing hip hop love songs for this former shortie in his spare time. Whatever, the dude wore sweatpants on a regular basis. I just couldn't hack it anymore.

Instead of looking further into this, I've dedicated my evening to Eye Know by De la Soul. Featuring samples from one of my favourite Steely Dan songs, this song really does Peg, and me, proud.

Gets me three feet high and rising.

To this day, whenever a dude makes me a mix tape/CD/playlist programmed into my iPod, I always scan the song list for either of these numbers (...and to this day, no man has fulfilled that fantasy).

It's aiight. I've got plenty o' faith that one day it won't just be Steely Dan telling me "I know I'll love you better."


*Note: By date, I don't nessecarily mean date, if you know-what-I'm-sayin'. This is where those choice four letter words proooobably came in handy.
**Note: Definitely.

passin' me by.

Woke up, it was a Sunday morning..



There are few things this girl loves more than Sundays. Sunday in the summer-time in Winnipeg always meant meeting my best girls and boys for a bike ride & breakfast, comparing whose hangover is worse than whose and endlessly smoking cigarettes on the Nook patio. The perfect place to sit so we can not only enjoy the warm prairie sunshine, but also so we can check out the cute Wolesely-ites on their fixed gear bicycles. Okay, mostly so we can check out the cute Wolesely-ites on their fixed gear bicycles. Wellington Crescent would carry us to Assinaboine Park (Cough. Ass Park.)where we would drink afternoon beer and do yoga on the grass with the low rumble of a drum circle under a bridge in the distance (I always came home with the best grass stains.).

I may not yet have acquired a Sunday morning routine here yet, but give me a break, I've only been here a month. With three perfectly pleasant Sundays in Toronto under my belt before today, the fourth is shaping up to be simply delightful. With Joni & Janis keeping me company in bed instead of the usual revolving door of rappers, I am slowly but surely working up the energy to clean my apartment & eventually get out the door for breakfast.

In a city where brunch is the new black, my options are limitless.

On my way home this Sunday morning from a very long and busy turned blissful Saturday, I grabbed a coffee & a paper and made my to my own little love nest. In a sea of egyptian cotton soon to be smeared with newspaper print, I wrote in my journal, caught up with an old friend over the telephone, and wrote this blog. Between work & whatever else, I haven't been here much this weekend and I'm happy to say that I'm happy to be home. Home.

With four days worth of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on my PVR, my afternoon is shaping up to be perfect. Indulgent, even. I know I've got things to do; I've got somewhere between 4 and 6 rolls of film to be developed and I've got lemon curd clinging to every orifice of my kitchen but to be perfectly honest, I simply don't care.

Sigh, Elliot Stabler does it to me every time.

microphone mathematics.

Can you handle the pre-shah?

I have never been a YouTube person, and I probably will never be a YouTube person, but being in bed ill with what I can only assume is a modern day form of the Bubonic Plague has led me to explore the never-ending visual abyss that YouTube can provide even from under the covers. Unsure of what I wanted to watch, but very sure that it was not video upon video of drunk fucks drawing penises on their friends' faces, I looked up a very short-lived former flame. You all remember Leroy 'The Grandmaster' Young from Winnipeg Folk Festival 2006?

Technically, I met my old friend Leroy on the first night of the Calgary Folk Festival. I took the trip with my father as a bonding experience; I really just wanted to see Ani Difranco, he wanted to see Macy Gray. Since unlike the Winnipeg counterpart the Calgary Folk Festival does not feature the camping option, we stayed at the Fairmont.. Marriot.. Hyatt? Whatever the nicest hotel closest to the festival was.

Like camping with room service.

We lucked out because it was also the temporary home for hundreds of the festival's performers, and even better, the nightly festival afterparties. On a high from the fairly epic Broken Social Scene (ft. Miss Leslie Feist!) show that ended the first night of the festival, I was smoking a cigarette (or two, or three) outside the hotel before I joined my dad in my room for a drink (...or two, or three) when I met Leroy.

He was handsome, he was black, and he was everything I was looking for that weekend. He also turned out to be my ticket to what felt like endless booze-filled evenings spent partying with some festival favourites. Skipping to the end of the weekend, I was *this* close and very vocal about accepting his invitation to finish touring with him and then relocate to Belize but I decided finishing high school was probably a pretty important move, and after a very informative Wikipedia search, I found out he was 41. I was 17 at the time.

I remembered today that in that weekend together, several hours of footage was taken of me for a documentary that they were filming about Leroy that was intended to be titled "Sex, Drugs, and Poetry". Interview footage, footage of me dancing, footage of us making out... There's no way that all of it ended up on the cutting room floor. I am still, hours later, wondering if this documentary ever ended up being finished. After all, I haven't heard from or about Leroy Young in years. All I have left to remember him by is a roll of NSFW pictures from a crappy disposable camera that I haven't looked at in years (and can't even seem to remember where I put). Oh, and the footage of him on Youtube. Leroy was a true Belizean beatnik- he "had no time for time" which he used to tell me often. He wore a broken watch just to make his point. I sort of wish I kept in contact. Touring Belize with a cute beat poet could've made for an interesting GAP year.

Turns out YouTube ain't so bad. I still can't really figure out why they would reccomend a video called "Pedophile Beards" for me, sandwiched in the reccomendations section between Biggie & Bone Thugs...

But I hadn't watched this one in awhile and figured it was time. Featuring two friends (and another brief former flame of mine) of mine from Winnipeg, I leave you with Pip's Kid by Pip Skid featuring Elliot aka Nestor Wynrush, aka Black N' Roll, formerly aka Satchel Paige.. I still don't know what Ness is calling himself these days.



"Don't wear a condom, 'cuz it will break. This is what that shit will make: Babies! BABIES! Babies babies babies babies.. BABIES! Babies babies babies babies."

love will keep us together.

It is a known fact among most of my friends & family that there is no one I love more than my brother. Maya Angelou once said that "Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at." For us? It didn't take much work. Sure, we became better friends when he lost his holier-than-thou 'I'm never going to touch a drop of alcohol' attitute, and even better friends when he became a huge stoner and lost alot of his angry neurosies... Evan Wilton is a gem. After 10 years in the private school system most are lost into a sea of coke addiction & several moral crises'; I think he probably cut that class. Somewhere in the SJR mud puddle of conformity, he found some great solid friends and the most perfect girlfriend an 18 year old guy could have. I could talk about Maiya for hours; don't even get me started. Her rendition of the Doobie Brothers classic 'Listen to the Music' brings tears to my eyes. He owns a Dolce & Gabbana suit and looks great in it. His golf swing is spectacular.

Pulling in 80s & 90s in his final year of high school this year, I am so proud of my brother. Aiming for an education at UBC, he has really pulled his socks up and seems to have it all. In addition to good grades, he still to this day has the perfect naturally blonde hair that after almost 20 years, I've started to have to fake. After working in a marina parking boats for rich people this summer in Kelowna, he came back with the perfect tan that I can never achieve (sunburn is my middle name between June & September). He has more freckles than I can handle. He may still have a touch of acne, support the Conservative Party of Canada, and he may have gone out and bought Guns N' Roses new album on Sunday (when they haven't put out anything worth listening to since Use Your Illusion I and even that is a stretch), but hey. He ain't heavy, he's my brother. He's still well dressed, mostly thanks to me, and treats his girlfriend like gold, which after observing our parent's failed marriage he must've learned to do all on his own.



I'm glad I was around for a several very important occasions in his life. I was there for 17 of his birthdays, his first homecoming dance, his first time smoking pot, his first Winnipeg Folk Festival, his first mushroom trip, his first girlfriend, his first break-up, his first love... I didn't realise how much of an effect moving & missing his 18th birthday would have on either of us. Two weeks later, I still get a little teary-eyed when I think about how I missed the one occasion I could bring myself to go to a strip club- to this day, I've still never really been to one.




I haven't talked to Evan much since I left for Toronto. He hates talking on the phone, and I hate talking on MSN Messenger, but the internet helped us catch up on Sunday night. We compared stories of how bad our hangovers were (I won.), he talked about the Grey Cup and school and I asked about Maiya and if he had gone to the Nook recently. Even though we live hundreds of miles away now, that doesn't mean we still can't be best friends if we both put in a little effort. We're still close enough to count on eachother and lean on eachother, but we're finally far enough away that we can't tell on eachother. And I've been waiting 18 years for that.

feel good lost.

Update: After tea & soup with a new nearby friend and Devandra Banhart, I am no longer feeling as cynical (or sick) as I was when I last updated. I still haven't even attempted to keep down solid food, and didn't actually climb out of bed for good until 5:30, but one wasted day won't matter in the long run. A phone call from a dreamboat lifted my spirits enough to lift my ass out of bed finally. I can't for the life of me figure out how to delete a blog post, but I don't really care anymore. One (more)night of messiness isn't going to matter in the long run either.

tequila makes her clothes come off.

When I moved to Toronto, I made a pact with myself to not bring my 'messiness' with me. Bar-hopping and bed-hopping, it made for some really enjoyable and somewhat dangerous teenage years but, as of late, was proving to not be so enjoyable anymore. I vowed that when I moved I would grow the fuck up.

After more than three weeks in my new city, I thought I'd done pretty well... at least until last night. I had a plan last night. I hung out with my downstairs neighbour-cum-roommate Miranda and had a (couple)glass(es) of wine. Then I was going to bring housewarming soup to a fleeting friend who lives but three blocks away. Then I would decide whether I'd finish the night at the Drake, or if I'd join Miranda at this Media Art Jam thing at a warehouse in the Distillery District. Turns out a bottle of Jose Cuervo finished me off instead.



Going to a party where you only know one person is always iffy, but I've learned to handle this type of situation like a champ. Obviously, the key is alcohol. Had I stuck to my original plan of sticking to my tetra pak, I would probably have awoken with not only a significantly less horrible hangover headache but also some of my dignity. Even after brushing my teeth four or five times, I cannot seem to scrape the night from my tongue or my memory.

Don't get me wrong, the party was great. The crowd was.. interesting.. with most of the guests probably being over ten years my senior. This can go one of two ways. You can either end up being labeled the lone 19 year-old (which is not a good look, mind you) early on in the evening or they can find you endearing and fun.. Like the party favor the party ends up revolving around. Thankfully (?) last night it was the latter. I made some fantastic new friends, but I made the mistake of letting several men latch onto me for the last couple hours of the party. I made the even bigger mistake of letting one 'walk me home'. I made the gargantuan mistake of letting one (the same one) come inside. If I had known more good looking men here, my condition would've made for a fantastic drunk dial. I was pleasantly 'out to sea', my inhibitions were lowered... Unfortunately, so was my judgement.

Thankfully, in this day and age (or this day at my age?), you can skip the niceties of spending the night without sounding like a total and complete ass. This was my move back home. Why try for an uncomfortable, half-assed attempt at sleep at opposite sides of the bed with someone you just had mediocre sex with that you probably (definitely) could have done without and probably (definitely) won't see again, when you can pop a couple gravol (or lorazepam, depending on how mediocre it was), have a glass of water and sleep in your own bed? Hey, I just really hate morning-after small talk.

Granted, when someone I actually like gets up & goes home after the deed, I do feel slightly hurt and sometimes a little resentful. But that's less interesting to blog about.

Six months ago, I wouldn't have given last night's hiccup a fleeting thought the day after, or even the hour after. Especially since we 'technically' never made it to sex before I kicked him out. Today I feel sick, tired, unsatisfied, and generally... bad. This may also have something to do with a game of drunk texting table tennis around 5am that I happened to lose. In more than one way.

Not only did I lose my new film camera last night, I also lost alot of respect for myself. I used to tell myself I was evolved. Just having fun. Not hurting anyone. I can't tell if I wish I still thought that way or not. I'm going to be paying for last night for awhile. Some of the residual effects of the half bottle of Jose I consumed will wear off by nightfall with a path cleared directly from my bed to my bathroom but unfortunately there's still no miracle cure-all for the other effects of tequila that can't be thrown up.

Today is the reason breakfast at the Nook was invented. Fuck.

pavlov's daughter.

"Good mix of people, good food and more than 20 bottles of wine consumed."

After I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to access the "Bell Hotspot" at the local Starbucks (or one of the assumed 5 that are probably in a ten block radius), I checked my e-mail & found a gem from my father.

After a rather rocky child & early teenage-hood, my father and I have put aside (most of) our differences in the past two years and have moved onto being more friends than family, a relationship that seems to confuse everyone but the two of us. When in Europe last year visiting Maddy, when we ran out of money & couldn't stay at the commune we were supposed to, he put us up in a fancy hotel room on Grafton in Dublin & paid our astronomical room service bills (Cough. Wine bills.)after hosting a couple small soirees after drinking at several nearby bars. He took us out for steak when Maddy had been eating brown rice for months. He gave us advil in the mornings we saw him to nurse our hangovers.

On Sunday my dad turned sixty but he's certainly no closer to slowing down than I am. After just getting back from golfing in Portugal, drinking wine in Italy with his girlfriend, and hiking in Corsica, my father I assume will be heading to his estate in Kelowna soon to ski all winter with his ladyfriend who, by the way, is a real doll.



Don't get me wrong, my dad & I still have our differences, but to be honest he is a pretty cool dude. When I got my first tattoo, he laughed while my mother sat in the other room and cried. When I got my second tattoo, he just laughed even harder. For the record, he likes both of them. One day last summer I was talking on the phone about the Air Mattress Incident of 2008 with my best friend, which led to one of my piercings being ripped out, when I heard laughter coming from the other side of the door. He may be a snoop, but at least he finds me endearing. On our roadtrip moving me from Winnipeg to Toronto, he drove me through the States just so I could stop and get polaroid film & American cigarettes. We sang along to Loudon Wainwright III's "Daughter" and I'm fairly sure I saw tears well up in his eyes. I introduced him to Sufjan Stevens & Devandra Banhart, which he loved, and The Pharcyde, which he hated.

In the e-mail, my father told me about how he had a 'small soiree' at his condo on Saturday and got trashed. Sounds about right.

Turns out the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

The second picture, with my dad on the left, was taken in Ireland after eight (EIGHT!) bottles of wine with maddy, his friend, and I. Please note his wine teeth. In the first picture which was taken in Galway, Ireland, please note the fact that he is drinking beer outdoors. Love you, pops. Happy birthday.

old time rock n' roll.

"I love Bob Seger."



Four words that send this girl to the moon. A Bob Seger sing-a-long last night was fueled by some wine, a rye & coke sweaty-betty's style, a couple vodka & sodas, some more wine, more vodka, and some Jack. Sigh, We were just young and restless and bored. We found out that sometimes a dance party with only two people is the best kind of dance party. Working on our night moves.

Oh, and Ren? A text message this morning from me stated "How could I not publicly aknowledge those baby blues?". Some truly satisfying internet research has uncovered the fact that our good friend Bob's eyes are, in fact, brown. I apologize. I hope we can still be friends.

how ya like me now?

"Hey. Guy from freshwood. I hope it's okay that I took your number of your resume. Your just too cute to pass up the chance to say hello. Hello"
-Actual text message recieved Saturday, November 15 at 9:42am



Since when is it considered acceptable behaviour to obtain a girl's phone number from her resume?

Turns out all I needed to do to get a date (not that i've ever needed help in that department..)was move to Toronto; from Leon the Sears delivery man who delivered my stove (and then was hoping to be handy for another kind of delivery), to this guy...

On another note, I just spent this weeks grocery money on a Canon AE-1 online, my first e-bay purchase. I then, in turn, spent this weeks wine money on an inordinate amount of fancy cheeses at St. Lawrence Market. I'm so glad my priorities are in order.

looking for the perfect beat.

heather says:
the only reason her last boyfriend thought she was perfect was because he'd never seen a white person before.
heather says:
he probably thought she was some kind of mystical beast.
heather says:
you know, like fucking a unicorn.


it's hard to find friends like these in toronto. isn't this city supposed to be full of those who are bitchy & innapropriate? don't worry heather, i'm not actively looking for replacements.

what was up with my hair in that picture though? geez.

life before bike.

Just as I thought few better things could happen to me tonight, a friend of mine just paid me a very dear compliment. Who knew "I had so much fun colouring you green." could have such an effect on a girl. I'm nearly in stitches.

The rest you won't understand the context I'm sure, but that's okay. You just need to know that this formerly sorrowful girl is now well past sorrow and lookin' happily straight in'ta tomorrow.

Now if only ?uestlove would show up at my bedroom door then all would be good.

All would be reaaaal good.

paper airplanes so far away.

Just when I was having the teeniest, tiniest inkling regarding whether or not uprooting my life (or what was left of it after quitting my job and several boyfriends) and making the big move from Winnipeg to Toronto was the right idea, a love letter attached to a rock with an elastic band sailed through my living room window and landed about four feet from where I sat on my fur coat on the hardwood floor, curled up stealing the internet. No, I still don’t have a couch. It’s a good thing my collection of furs is so stellar.

Not only do I wish I knew who this secret gentleman caller is because the sheer act of writing a love note in the first place is so romantic & beautiful & underrated, but homie’s gotta have really good aim.

Now I’ve changed my tunes from Buck 65 to Charlotte Gainsbourg, I’ve changed my drink from rye & coke to chamomile tea, and I’ve climbed out of my (very) brief “woe is me” phase and am about to climb right into my warm bed with some paper and pens. Everyone loves to get mail, especially in such an unconventional way. The love letter looks great next to all of my polaroids & the smiling faces of my beautiful friends on my fridge As any blonde bombshell in history would say, “I must get back to doing my correspondence.” because if the smiles on the faces of my friends who will be receiving letters in a weeks time are anywhere near how big the smile on my face is right now, they’re going to be some happy Winnipegers.

Note: The love note in the photo isn't the one that sailed oh-so-gracefully into my living room. These are the times where I would kill to own a digital camera.

going to bed with the chickens.

Ingrediants for a really wonderful election party are as follows:

1. Always have a hot date. I went as a new friend's +1. His roommate was throwing the party & I was assured there would be fireworks. Low & behold, there was more than one type of fireworks that night. Yeaah.
2. Always have a theme. This time it was a soul food themed potluck. There were ribs. There were several kinds of collard greens. I made a casserole of roasted garlic-chipotle mashed potatos with green onions. The roasted garlic isn't exactly southern, but thankfully I had some jarred chipotle peppers kicking around my new apartment. Weird.
3. Always stick to the host's choice of theme. I, obviously, dressed as Monica Lewinsky. This was complete with slutty lacy lingerie under my blue vintage dress (that I was planning on wearing to be someone else until Ren discovered a strange white stain on the front- Perfect!) and a great pair of loafers from Value Village. My date went as Tucker Carlson from Fox News, complete with the bow-tie that I lovingly tied for him (How does no one else know how to tie a bow-tie? Except you, Russ. Obviously). While I wasn't exactly sticking to the theme with my tetra-pak, Ren, thankfully, brought along a 26oz. bottle of Southern Comfort; something I have not bought a bottle of since I was 17 and thought I was Janis Joplin. Unfortunately, that was a phase that was shortlived for a reason. Three or four shots of that stuff on this Tuesday night was more than enough to send me over the edge.
4. Invite those who really know how to party. Fortunately for me, I can make new friends with the best of them. This party was complete with approximately 30-40 of the rest of the best of them. You think people from Winnipeg know how to party? Or maybe I thought people from Winnipeg knew how to party... These folks knew how to party. We went hog wild. We sang "Auld Lang Syne" over & over, popping champagne & sharing it with our new friends and neighbors. There was confetti. There were red, white, and blue balloons released from the ceiling by a girl in an American flag bikini. Wait, there was a girl in a bikini running around?
5. Always have a girl in a bikini present. This is my new requirement for parties. Having the hostess running around in a bikini, swigging champagne while simutaneously cutting cake (there was cake!) made for not only great pictures, but a great time as well.

6. Fireworks. Always have fireworks. And sparklers. About twenty of us shuffled over to the nearest park after Obama's speech to set off fireworks and run around with sparklers. My fur coat came in handy as the evening was chilly, but a strong buzz (Cough. I was absolutely smashed.) & the hope of having some fantastic new friends & a new American president kept me warm.


The night ended up being long, sloppy & truly wonderful. The election brought hope to oh-so-many Americans, and I definitely wasn't lacking it at the end of the evening. Falling (back) into bed around 4am after a differant kind of party, I found myself smiling.


Even a blind hog finds an acorn now & then.

she won't stay at home.

If only these were more like the kind of boxes in my life right now:



Fifteen hours, eleven cardboard boxes, three rolls of bubble wrap, two rolls of packing tape, a suitcase and just about every Fiona Apple, De La Soul, and Wu Tang album ever made and I'm just about done packing. Twenty-eight hours from now I'll be hauling ass across the U.S. border; Mexico, here I come!

Kidding..

But it's sure a nice thought.


.

it's all good!

In the old days, I could count on my dates to stay faithful at the very least until the end of the night. Not like my dates could really count on the same from me, but that's to be expected. They know what they're getting into by asking me out.

Instead of accepting a second date invitation (Yeah, right.), tonight I am staying at home in bed with a bottle of wine & the Beastie Boys. All of them.

Jealous?

tonight it's 8-tracks and 6-packs while i hit that.

I don't think anybody is as excited for the NOTORIOUS release on January 16 as I am. Too bad I'll be living in Toronto and won't have admitted my true, secret love for Biggie to any of my new friends by then. I'll be attending alone. A bottle of red hidden in my purse as my date. The way it should be.

Last night I ran into a guy I dated on and off this year from Febuary until August on my way to yet another exboyfriend's roommate's rap show. We each had a king can in the alley behind the beer vendor in Osborne Village, something we used to do together quite often. The fact that he left before he had even finished his left me as emotionally unsatisfied as the near-litre of cheap beer left me feeling physically. Biggie's "Fuck You Tonight" meant something completely different last night than every other night before it. R. Kelly had no place or purpose in my bedroom when I got home.

Damn.

i see the lights of a city.

Coming home to Winnipeg is bitter sweet for me. After leaving my mark on most of Queen West this past week, I finally touched ground back in this sleepy, somber city on Saturday night.

For those of you who Facebook or my mother hasn't told, I'm moving to Toronto in two weeks time to take the Culinary Management 2-year diploma program at George Brown College. No summer vacation for me, folks. I'm in it for the long haul.

Moving away, it will be refreshing to leave the house without seeing a parade of my ex-boyfriends (and men I used to regularly swap spit with) or a band that is fronted by Greg Lowe.

But I have to be honest. There are some things I really love about this city and that I really will miss. Most importantly, I have recently found out that drinking king cans in the alley is not something they do anywhere but Winnipeg (how on earth has this trend not spread?). Drinking king cans in the alley in the hot, humid summer here seems like more of a hobby here than an action. It's what you do between acts at the pyramid to save money (Half the price for twice the beer? Heck yes.). More often than not this summer, it turned out to be what you did INSTEAD of acts at the pyramid.

I can handle only so much hipster pseudo-electronica.

You only have $3 to your name? You can skip the niceties of sipping soda on the Cousin's patio and take your favourite gal to the nearest back alley for a cold one. Obviously, that's where you come in, Brianna. You can keep the $0.15 change.

Over a pitcher of Halifax's finest with a new friend at a really tragic bar down the street from Lee's Palace, our meeting spot, I found myself feeling pangs of sadness when I detailed this Winnipeg pastime. What will I do when I live in Toronto? Plan that I'm going to want 950mL of shitty beer at 2:30 in the morning? Keep my fridge stocked? What will my landlord think?

Drinking a king can in the alley with a cute boy you just met gives you 23 extra minutes to judge whether or not you're going to grace him with your presence again (or in some cases, let him take you home). Alternately, if he doesn't know what you mean by 'grabbing a king can', he obviously has a screw loose. Or he hasn't lived in Winnipeg long.

I have so many questions. Since king cans aren't an option, will my neighborhood LCBO stock the 1.18L bottles of Molson Dry? Will some 'cool' Torontonian pass on the number of the illusive illegal dial-a-bottle? I give myself 'til mid-November to figure it out or I'll have to break down and ask my parents to ship a box of them with the rest of my furniture. "Careful with that box! That one is full of king cans!"

I will miss the Woodbine Hotel. I will miss pitchers of Two Rivers on the Cousin's patio. I will especially miss hangover breakfast at the Nook. Fortunately for me, Toronto seems to be the city that everyone passes through on their way to somewhere better. Me? I think I'll be sticking around for awhile.

To my friends in Toronto, old and new, I hope you'll stop by my new place in the next month for a bottle of wine.. or two. This girl can drink. Photo credit goes to whoever the genius behind www.winnipeglovehate.com is. Kudos, my friend.