#10- The belfry. Its purdy.
#9- The two dollar taco place...the best freakin tacos. the guy makes them up right there, they are fresh and spicy and he has this restaurant just for the love/fun of it.
#8- Its a good mix of hippies, yuppies, anarchists, cyclists!, fancy theatre goers, and bikers! We have community gardens galore and even a Compost Education Centre, believe it or not.
#7- Grafitti! Even when that jerky slumlord boarded up their building...whatta we do? paint/grafitti/create art!
#6-The Thin Edge of the Wedge....my americano haven and favourite local food spot. I also love watching the gathering on Biker Nights....and seeing all the beautyful harleys.
#5-As much as it can be sketchy....i feel safe here. At night I've gotta walk tough downtown sometimes, but once I get to fern'hood I sigh with relief.
#4-Logan's...the local pub. i was there tonight and it is always a fest of reconnecting with people i haven't seen in ages. plus they have strongbow on tap.
#3- The Hootenany...sunday afternoons, especially in the summer...a mix of old drunk musicians and a super diversity of us twenty something fiesty folk. Hosted by the ever entertaining Carolyn Mark
#2- Fernwood free boxes...people offering up the things they are letting go of. especially on moving day it can be quite the free thrift shopping experience
#1-Its home. My orange curtains and feline friends tried other parts of town but it just ain't the same.
Friday, December 24, 2004
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
the only person you can count on is yourself
i don't even know how to describe these present days
the veil of disillusionment has been lifted
i feel raw and grounded in reality
but it is bittersweet and has some sharp edges
my heart finds familiar memories in my days living in montreal....i didn't really know anyone there at that point, living at my folks and not being involved in any community there...just working. i had one hell of a time though, wandering montreal, eating at santropol, movies at cinema du parc, tam tams, st. dennis, st. laurent....sorbet on duluth...all on my own.
i'm stubbornly independant it seems...i wasn't gonna miss out on the beauty of montreal just cause i didn't know anyone there....and mind you it is perplexing...i can sit on a city bus anywhere else in canada and make friends at the drop of a hat, but not montreal. montreal is the land of solitude for me.
these days seem far different at first glance. i am surrounded by ever-growing beautiful social network, i have a good job, a spiritual community, a funky apartment.....so different from montreal. but this week has just been filled with that feeling of...no, not lonliness. i rarely feel that. am i heading into a period of solitude? perhaps.... it feels though more like i'm heading towards a period of intense self-care. finally putting myself first. i don't think i've done that since montreal now that i have this verbal rant.... yup. its time.
on one of the saddest days of my life, the day of the funeral of my sisters partner, about 10 years ago...she and i were driving to a gathering after the funeral. classic toronto black ice was pulling cars off of the highway one by one. we barely made it into a gas station....blown away at the surrealness of the day. i remember after she got the gas she told me...
viv...the only one you can count on in this lifetime is yourself...you need to always be your own best friends...and always have the skills to survive on your own.
cause you are the only thing you've really got.
i don't know if she remembers this. i thought i'd never forget it, but i think i did for a while. she didn't mean that one would always be let down by people, but moreso that you really don't know how life is going to manifest. creating community and love but without losing my relationship with myself. that day i knew that i would need to be able to always be my own best friend.
and i did.
and i will do.
the veil of disillusionment has been lifted
i feel raw and grounded in reality
but it is bittersweet and has some sharp edges
my heart finds familiar memories in my days living in montreal....i didn't really know anyone there at that point, living at my folks and not being involved in any community there...just working. i had one hell of a time though, wandering montreal, eating at santropol, movies at cinema du parc, tam tams, st. dennis, st. laurent....sorbet on duluth...all on my own.
i'm stubbornly independant it seems...i wasn't gonna miss out on the beauty of montreal just cause i didn't know anyone there....and mind you it is perplexing...i can sit on a city bus anywhere else in canada and make friends at the drop of a hat, but not montreal. montreal is the land of solitude for me.
these days seem far different at first glance. i am surrounded by ever-growing beautiful social network, i have a good job, a spiritual community, a funky apartment.....so different from montreal. but this week has just been filled with that feeling of...no, not lonliness. i rarely feel that. am i heading into a period of solitude? perhaps.... it feels though more like i'm heading towards a period of intense self-care. finally putting myself first. i don't think i've done that since montreal now that i have this verbal rant.... yup. its time.
on one of the saddest days of my life, the day of the funeral of my sisters partner, about 10 years ago...she and i were driving to a gathering after the funeral. classic toronto black ice was pulling cars off of the highway one by one. we barely made it into a gas station....blown away at the surrealness of the day. i remember after she got the gas she told me...
viv...the only one you can count on in this lifetime is yourself...you need to always be your own best friends...and always have the skills to survive on your own.
cause you are the only thing you've really got.
i don't know if she remembers this. i thought i'd never forget it, but i think i did for a while. she didn't mean that one would always be let down by people, but moreso that you really don't know how life is going to manifest. creating community and love but without losing my relationship with myself. that day i knew that i would need to be able to always be my own best friend.
and i did.
and i will do.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
my love/hate relationship with friendster
things i hate about friendster:
1. you only get two choices for gender identity....ummm...hello, have you looked at who likes friendster? i swear outta my 35547 3rd degree friends at least half o' them don't fit easily into two categories of gender.
2. people picking me up. does my profile say i wanna date? no, it says friends! the first time it was charming, but after the third person, its getting downright weird.
3. people make profiles for their cats. (i mean, i have time on my hands, but not that much time!) 4. people make profiles for their dogs. (no lady and elliot do not have profiles, and yes you can laugh at me when i get bored enough to do so)
5. its so fucking slow it doesn't let me update anything.
6. shameless self promotion.
7. the "popular searches in my network section"....like any of my friends(ters) are looking up
"hipster quiz" or "gothic hair styles" or "getting over a breakup"....like i'm gonna believe that any of my friends are gonna look to friendster to find out how to get over a breakup!
8. it creates a whole new type of "aquaintence"...the friendster....the not quite yet friend...maybe this is a good thing...helps us computer geeks get friends!
9. it makes me look like a hypocrite for bitching about computer addicts, when look at me! addicted to checking my 'friendster' everyday!
things i love about friendster:
1. i've tracked down so many long-lost people in my life.
2. a much purdy-er alternative to my junkmail over-run hotmail account.
3. people make profiles for their cats. (i've gotta admit the first time i saw that a cat had 227 friends, all of them being cats i laughed for 15 minutes straight until my jaw/belly/bladder hurt).
4. people make profiles for their dogs. (okay there are some ridiculously cute dogs and dogowners out there)
5. all the little emails have pics of my purdy friends faces beside them.
6. shameless self promotion!
7. i get to be a total geek after hanging out with my lovelies, i get to send them little testimonials with snippets of our nights....taking action on the sigh and grins after a good gathering.
8. testimonials. we need to attest to why we adore our friends more often.
9. its a mighty easy way to develop crushes on strangers.
1. you only get two choices for gender identity....ummm...hello, have you looked at who likes friendster? i swear outta my 35547 3rd degree friends at least half o' them don't fit easily into two categories of gender.
2. people picking me up. does my profile say i wanna date? no, it says friends! the first time it was charming, but after the third person, its getting downright weird.
3. people make profiles for their cats. (i mean, i have time on my hands, but not that much time!) 4. people make profiles for their dogs. (no lady and elliot do not have profiles, and yes you can laugh at me when i get bored enough to do so)
5. its so fucking slow it doesn't let me update anything.
6. shameless self promotion.
7. the "popular searches in my network section"....like any of my friends(ters) are looking up
"hipster quiz" or "gothic hair styles" or "getting over a breakup"....like i'm gonna believe that any of my friends are gonna look to friendster to find out how to get over a breakup!
8. it creates a whole new type of "aquaintence"...the friendster....the not quite yet friend...maybe this is a good thing...helps us computer geeks get friends!
9. it makes me look like a hypocrite for bitching about computer addicts, when look at me! addicted to checking my 'friendster' everyday!
things i love about friendster:
1. i've tracked down so many long-lost people in my life.
2. a much purdy-er alternative to my junkmail over-run hotmail account.
3. people make profiles for their cats. (i've gotta admit the first time i saw that a cat had 227 friends, all of them being cats i laughed for 15 minutes straight until my jaw/belly/bladder hurt).
4. people make profiles for their dogs. (okay there are some ridiculously cute dogs and dogowners out there)
5. all the little emails have pics of my purdy friends faces beside them.
6. shameless self promotion!
7. i get to be a total geek after hanging out with my lovelies, i get to send them little testimonials with snippets of our nights....taking action on the sigh and grins after a good gathering.
8. testimonials. we need to attest to why we adore our friends more often.
9. its a mighty easy way to develop crushes on strangers.
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
the madwoman on the corner
i'm on a new kick...after hiding away on this here island, i'm interested in finding out where all the people who were in my formative years have gone to. i'm slowly uncovering ex's, old crushes, the boy who sat next to me in science class, the girl that i took the bus with every day but never knew. i'm not contacting everyone but am enjoying surprise spurts of info about who is who and what now.
i was procrastonating and looking up people from my hometown on my friendster thingy and came across a couple boys that i went to high school with. they were both a little bit awkward in high school, one was tall and lanky one was the chubby boy. and it just about made me jump outta my chair to see them happy, buff and GAY! oh lordy....somehow i feel relieved. feel a little sense that everything is gonna be okay....i barely remembered these guys names...its not that i'd been worrying about them all this time, but seeing their now confident faces has just made me so relieved. its not that they were buffed and gay per say (thought i must say they both looked studly nowdays) but that they were happy.
i live right near a highschool and every day i see the parade of kids heading to school as i drink my morning coffee. awkward boys with pants a bit too short cause they are growing too bloody fast, chubster girls, the trendy girls, nouveau gangster boys. i worry about them all. cause teenagehood is fucking hard.
i wanna yell out the window to them....please don't be so fucking cool, remain humble....don't worry about being awkward, you'll grow into yourself...someday you may be happy and gay.... i swear someday you'll love yourself....
i don't become the mad woman on the corner trying to save their souls, but when i walk by the school i just try to smile extra big at the one's that remind me of myself cause usually i can see that they see the reflection too.
i wanna track down more people. i don't much care to find the well off white boys and girls cheerleaders jocks and all the people that hung out at the trophy case. i wanna find the goths, the geeks, the queers, the musicians. not that i was really any of those things during high school, but i feel more and more humbled within my own life seeing how other people are thriving, creating, surviving, making their place in the world.
i was procrastonating and looking up people from my hometown on my friendster thingy and came across a couple boys that i went to high school with. they were both a little bit awkward in high school, one was tall and lanky one was the chubby boy. and it just about made me jump outta my chair to see them happy, buff and GAY! oh lordy....somehow i feel relieved. feel a little sense that everything is gonna be okay....i barely remembered these guys names...its not that i'd been worrying about them all this time, but seeing their now confident faces has just made me so relieved. its not that they were buffed and gay per say (thought i must say they both looked studly nowdays) but that they were happy.
i live right near a highschool and every day i see the parade of kids heading to school as i drink my morning coffee. awkward boys with pants a bit too short cause they are growing too bloody fast, chubster girls, the trendy girls, nouveau gangster boys. i worry about them all. cause teenagehood is fucking hard.
i wanna yell out the window to them....please don't be so fucking cool, remain humble....don't worry about being awkward, you'll grow into yourself...someday you may be happy and gay.... i swear someday you'll love yourself....
i don't become the mad woman on the corner trying to save their souls, but when i walk by the school i just try to smile extra big at the one's that remind me of myself cause usually i can see that they see the reflection too.
i wanna track down more people. i don't much care to find the well off white boys and girls cheerleaders jocks and all the people that hung out at the trophy case. i wanna find the goths, the geeks, the queers, the musicians. not that i was really any of those things during high school, but i feel more and more humbled within my own life seeing how other people are thriving, creating, surviving, making their place in the world.
Thursday, December 02, 2004
drunken emailer...
i have a problem.
whenever i have a few too many, i enjoy doing a little emailing before i retire for the evening. sounds harmless, yes, but its not. alcohol induces bad spelling, misjudgements, sentimental excess, bizarre subject matters and a lack of memory of writing such emails. i usually remember that i did so, but it takes all day for me to recall who i wrote to and what i said. recievers of such emails may not know that i was drunk...perhaps just that i am weird.
i would really like someone to invent a computer breathalizer for me....needing to have a certain level of soberness to be able to turn the 'puter on. i don't know if anyone else has this problem, so i don't think its a real money maker.
i guess drunken emailing is better than drunken phone-calling.
you don't have to hear people laughing in your ear.
whenever i have a few too many, i enjoy doing a little emailing before i retire for the evening. sounds harmless, yes, but its not. alcohol induces bad spelling, misjudgements, sentimental excess, bizarre subject matters and a lack of memory of writing such emails. i usually remember that i did so, but it takes all day for me to recall who i wrote to and what i said. recievers of such emails may not know that i was drunk...perhaps just that i am weird.
i would really like someone to invent a computer breathalizer for me....needing to have a certain level of soberness to be able to turn the 'puter on. i don't know if anyone else has this problem, so i don't think its a real money maker.
i guess drunken emailing is better than drunken phone-calling.
you don't have to hear people laughing in your ear.
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