kissing girls (you shouldn't kiss).

I didn't think I missed Winnipeg all that much before I went home for four days between Christmas & New Year's Eve. So much Winnipeg has been sleeping on my couch that I felt like I was getting alot of the good and none of the bad- all I needed was a king can and a parka, and nothing really would've changed. In Toronto, I still go to potlucks, I still drink more hard liquor than a girl of any stature should be drinking (especially on weeknights), and I was still being mostly innapropriate but in different ways than before. Several friends were shocked when they'd heard that I was being mostly monogamous. I never thought I was thaaat bad, but I guess I was.

I was wrong when I thought I didn't miss Winnipeg. As soon as my size six feet stepped foot on what I believe's gotta be the only place with permafrost South of the soil of the North West Territories, I knew I was in for a real treat. I knew that it was going to be a welcomed vacation from.. well, a two month vacation.



It was. Shown here, Maddy (and I) were Queens for a Day when a dinner was thrown in our honor at the Hector home of six (soon to be seven) of Winnipeg's kindest boys. Not one of our most planned out potlucks, this thrown-together fete was celebrating great cause for celebration- the return of two pretty great girls from their new pretty great lives now elsewhere. Also, Tom's hair is looking great these days, and that's definitely another cause for celebration.



Stefan, beauty shown above, was a daily thing for me in Winnipeg. Mostly by accident, seeing Stefan always reminds me of summer. Camping? Probably. I don't know when the last time he had a shower was (I'm guessing it was before Burning Man 2008), but I think that's fabulous.. You know, for him.

There are a couple things I really missed about Toronto, though, that really made it worth coming back home. It didn't hurt that I brought a little Winnipeg back with me in the form of Kate Kidder & Jane Harrington. But I did miss a couple things liiiiiiiiiiike....



Coffee the morning-after-the-night-before at Ella's Uncle down the street (and breakfast at various hip-hot-spots across the way).



Spending the night before with new friends. I spent New Year's at a gallery space by the guy who's famous for throwing up on famous paintings with Laura-Louise & Alicia. I spent Christmas Day doing some throwing up of my own after a party thrown by the aforementioned. I've seen Russ Martin a couple times too, who (and whose hair) just gets better every time we see eachother.

Oh yeah...



Him too.

Seperated for seven days felt more like seventeen after spending much of the month of December with my new photog friend. Distance is good, though, I've since decided. He's good from both near and far, and the free camera lessons don't hurt either.

Kidding, sort of...

it be's that way sometimes.

There are so many things that are fucked up about this picture. Unfortunately, my "gentleman" friend's other ladyfriend on the right looks deliriously happy while I just look sad & pissed off.

Nina Simone, the High Priestess of Soul, sang "My Man's Gone Now" way back when. Unfortunately being a single woman for me probably won't end the same way as it did for her- with a lengthy relationship with the Prime Minister of Barbados.

...Maybe just a torrid affair with a certain Belizean beat poet? Oh wait; been there, done that.

Waiting around this weekend to find out what's to come with my quasi-pseudo relationship come Sunday, and his much awaited return from Winnipeg, is something I never would've done a year ago, so I've just recently decided to just... not. I hoping to be singing 'I Get Along Without You Very Well' instead of 'Little Girl Blue' come Saturday evening.

Chances are, I won't be.

death of a ladies' man.

Chelsea Hotel at Midnight



After evidently accidentally opening a hostel accidentally, seeming to be exclusively open & free for my fellow I-Need-To-Get-Out-Of-Winnipeg'gers, a night to myself is a rare gem. I finally started school today, the "real" reason for my big move to the big city, so I finally had an excuse to say no to the Communist's Daughter, Sweaty Betty herself, and the ladies of Henhouse without looking boring or like a bad house-hostess.

With Leonard Cohen on the record player, the sound of the needle dropping lulling me to sleep on the couch with a load of laundry polishing itself off in the distance of my one-bedroom, all-fabulous apartment, I am so tired yet so restless and totally unsure of how to live by myself. After two months here, only two weeks of it have actually been without-houseguest and with the last foreseen one departing tomorrow, I'm totally freaking out. I thought I was looking forward to being all on my own again, but to be perfectly honest it couldn't come at a worse possible time. On Thursday my gentleman friend is taking off for Winnipeg for work & back to his other love from my hometown; a lady that I'm sure is just lovely, but is really one loaf of Winnipeg rye that I quickly find growing stale. I don't wanna be no sister of mercy. I need you, I don't need you. I need you, I don't need you. And all of that jiving around.


I remember you well in the chelsea hotel,
You were talking so brave and so sweet,
Giving me head on the unmade bed,
While the limousines wait in the street.

...

I need you, I don't need you.
I need you, I don't need you.
And all of that jiving around.

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.

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.

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."