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.