a rough outline makes a great final plan.

A week or so in Paris. A few days in the south of France. A stop in Toulouse, et villes d'autres . Four days soaking in the sun of Barcelona, Spain. More time flies by in Spain. A few days in Portugal. Hop on a train to Italy. Pompeii, Naples, Rome, the list goes on. Vingt-deux anniversaire wherever. Have some fun somewhere for a few days.  That's all the planning I can stand.

who?!

One month of the 11th year, in the 21st century. Gone and past. Already, one month of soul satisfying. Un mois de grands projets. Who will you be next month, next week? Under the spell of the new moon? Come summertime, who?

from Yuri Norstein's "Hedgehog in the Fog".

real rL

Why is it that I go out, just to have my predetermined passé feelings of this city surface up all over again. Une petite drama, pour aucune raison. I'd rather stay home and pretend I'm a cartoon. Fantasize of all the things I'd do, if I were that very cartoon.

Perhaps I could take this life I live, and animate it so that whenever I feel wild, whenever I feel out of this world, I can just tune in. Nuances given a new view. Sit back and watch me whirl. Sit back and watch yourself for awhile.

Here I am. I don't look real. I don't feel real. Real is just a word that we made up to get along with ourselves. We call our language "real". But we also made it up, organized it from complete gibberish. Language is primarily used to confuse; to diffuse all the wrong types of news.

c'est un oui

i want to ride my bicycle, je veux prendre mon vélo. bien que, ne pas comme ceci. l'hiver.

 je vais en France. mai et juin.

(bientôt)

Demain est une nouveau jour pour pouvoir. Une jour pour aimer de jolie choses dans la vie.

Que est ce une faire?

Lire avec Walt. Oui, d'accord.
Danser la valse avec Walt dans ma tête?  Bien aussi.

Sortir la photo qui prend avec mon Pentax. Oui merci!

Plus trop!

une adventure!

from the night of the canoe with my fav' friend su. bundled up like idiots.

jardins.

influencé par "jardins sous la pluie"

Dans spécifique; Kazuya Akimoto.

As of lately I've been completely and utterly inspired by Debussy's Estampes.  The piece above is so beautiful. Akimoto was inspired by this song as well, I believe. I admire the textures created, specifically the swirls/ possible puddles of rain. The overall fluidity and motion is unworldly. Perplexing and almost fictitious. 

It's less than rare that I become so moved by music. But here I am. Waking up to these same familiar keystrokes, making a light breakfast for myself. Organizing and shuffling things around in my room with images of the gardens flooding my head. I tote it around, playing it while at work. And again with my Mum over a glass of sauv blanc & supper. Writing, reading, falling asleep..

I don't think I could exhaust my love for Debussy, ever. What inspires you each day?

take some time.

 

Messy & childlike, isn't it?

I spent my Friday night with a dear friend. She's full of lady-like attributes, and has the most generous family I know.  We got bundled up (t-shirt, flannel, sweater, jacket, double scarves, jeans, snow pants, sorel boots, big furry hat, double gloves) and embarked upon a winter journey down the frozen river. We stopped to lay in the snow for quite some time. I felt five years old, right there. We breathed in the arctic-like air, looking at the clouds overhead. Watching them move with the wind. I saw the man on the moon, through the bony fingertips of the trees of spring, summer, fall's past. It's hard to admire the residual love of the earth if all you are doing is hustling from one schedule to the next.


She led me from the river to a frozen creek. Mossy remains of (once again) another seasons flourished efforts. I was truly humbled by ice ledges, uncharted snow, and especially the underbelly of bridge number one. Imagine a canoe, upside down. You're treading water.  I physically felt as though I were under an unreasonably sized canoe, but reality was truly harsher tonight on my wandering mind than all the weather I've endured this winter alone. We avoided bridge number two deliberately, it emitted a strange chill, even from a distance..

To warm our hearts and hands, we dispersed paint materials at random. In time my arms were covered with candy apple red, splashes of sunshine yellow, blotches of sky blue, drops of grassy green.  There was no longer cool winter’s air to drill into my bones.

We talked of our favourite instances from Amélie, then I go home to imagine my life being discussed from a third person point-of-view. As if I were Riél from Montmartre. Pardon my horrendous French.

"J'aime petits déjeuners avec oeufs, je préfère écrire seul, promenades dans la nature, et surtout jour rêve."

not that tough.

"The road is dark, and it’s a thin thin line. But I want you to know I’ll walk it for you any time..

Well if you’re rough and ready for love, honey I’m tougher than the rest."

"having doubts"

that maybe the boss is wrong.

Concepts.

Recently I've decided to take upon a rather large but loving project. 

Large: It's going to be highly time consuming due to practicalities. Schedules, research,  having patience with myself and others rather than force are all going to factor in on the "finished" or endpiece. I don't have a date picked for it, but I also would rather it not linger and endure the long , dangling  by a thread-type route. However, I'm also not going to rush. 

Loving: Easier said than done. Ideally, my goal is  to encompass within this project all that I hold dearly to me. A muddled up mess of everything, disguised like it's a parcel to my overseas lover.

I don't want to jinx, spoil or put this project on any sort of pedestal by informing anyone fully what it's about, just yet. Maybe when it's anatomy is more definable .I say this for multiple reasons. 

A) I'm not fully sure what it's about myself. I don't ever want to be full of myself.     

B) I'm open to ideas. I have virtuosic pursuits but could always use a point in a better direction if I'm clearly about to derail.

C)  It's my baby. I've never been as fully submersed in something of this (potential) magnitude. I don't want to smother it, but I know I'll going to end up entirely enamored with discussing it ALL the time, and physically and mentally working on and towards "the end" will be my complete and utter obsession. 

Photos: From the archives. I took these photos on a road trip to the Okanagan Valley almost 7 years ago.

I'd much rather..

[Be scheming]

There's been a lot of it going on lately. Avoiding the frigid and great outdoors is pretty easy when you keep busy.

1. Book of concepts: The "plan" is to share one day soon.

2. Listography: Tête a tête, except with myself. 

3. Adam Bede by George Eliot.

4. Watercolour pencil crayons: Très amusant.

5.  Pentax Super ME: Trying to figure how to work this bb is worthwhile, but time consuming.  The instructional manual is from sometime in the eighties, and has burned a big hole in my brain, then filled it with boredom. Just like when I was tediously scouring over "The Communist Manifesto" for a midterm essay, except way worse.

you are what you eat.

breakfast & me.

little one

lazy sundays with my little prince seamus. i took this (almost) two summers ago. he hasn't grown an inch. off to get film. Le film est comme une fantaisie, d'accord?

Honey won't you hold me tight, get me through Grey Gardens tonight.

I'm being super stingy lately. Only eating while at work. Or if my Mom makes/ orders in something, I'll have that maybe. I go to McNally  and nibble on pecan squares and tonic water berry spritzers for a great $5.00 meal. Read a bit, window shop.  Don't buy a book unless it's under $10. Thrift for clothes, books, etc. Hardly that even. Used my Xmas gift certificates to their last pennies. Except for Tim Horton's, I'll probably save it for one day when I feel like waiting 20 minutes for a  honey lemon tea. I personally enjoy nothing more than staying huddled in. Protected from the demonic winds and wretched Manitoba drivers.

This winter has been pretty grey. It's giving me not the worst, but "could be better" vibe. I wish the  most opportune letter would arrive in the mail & resolve this heavy-hearted season, giving me a month, and a date with Charles de Gaulle to look forward to. I've never met you, but already I love you.

Tomorrow is a noteworthy day. Getting my 2nd film camera. Inheritance from my Granddad. First baby brokedown what seems to be beyond it's face value in restoration cost. I didn't know how to use that thing/ can't find the film that I printed. Most of them were of family members/ out of focus trashers. The rest can be found here. My multifaceted source of teenage outpouring. Recently have updated that site, but with little luck/ feedback. Said Granddad can be found in my gallery. Besides the possibility of thrifting (looking for Topshop knockoff garments), I'll be working for some 8 odd hours. After: drink wine, relax, nap, bath. Sounds perfect. Cloud 9 even.

topic: beauty

une belle fille

Linguistics is fascinating. I've been attempting to pick up a combination of the Greek language (beginning with writing/ saying the letters of the alphabet), and secondly touching up on my French. Touching up= starting from scratch.

I wish I wasn't a Grade 9 Français drop out. My teacher was absolutely irritating and I think she slaughtered the French language. She made us listen to ancient Paula Abdul tapes. After most French sentences, she would say "Is that Mmm-Kay there guys?" as a question of clarification, but the way it was personified and entwined into her overall personality rubbed me the wrong way. She threatened to "karate/ judo chop us" if our "group" or class's homework was late. Also, she hated my handwriting with a divine passion. Mme Fitzjohn; quoted as a CJH "fossil", your fashion sense was a little behind, but your efforts deserve an A+.

Back on the topic of linguistics. You can use a word like "beauty" once a day, week, etc, but is it's true/ deeper meaning ever taken into perspective? Probably not. I use words, forgetting their meanings all too often. This is a post to appreciate the beauty of the word beauty.

I think beauty is most importantly [held] from within. Beautifying the soul should be held in the utmost regards, and should be practiced daily as if it were worshiping a divinity such as Athena, Venus, Apollo, or Artemis..

"Assuredly all the gods are august and beautiful in a beauty beyond our speech. And what makes them so? Intellect; and especially Intellect operating within them (the divine sun and stars) to visibility......"
-Plotinus

BEAUTY

French: beauté.
Greek: ομορφιά.

noun ( pl. -ties)

1 a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, esp. the sight : "I was struck by her beauty" | an area of outstanding natural beauty.
• a combination of qualities that pleases the intellect or moral sense.
• [as adj. ] denoting something intended to make a woman more attractive : beauty products | beauty treatment.

2 a beautiful or pleasing thing or person, in particular
• a beautiful woman.
• an excellent specimen or example of something : the fish was a beauty, around 14 pounds.
• ( the beauties of) the pleasing or attractive features of something : the beauties of the Pennsylvania mountains.
• [in sing. ] the best feature or advantage of something : the beauty of keeping cats is that they don't tie you down. (HAH)


PHRASES
"beauty is in the eye of the beholder proverb beauty cannot be judged objectively, for what one person finds beautiful or admirable may not appeal to another."

"beauty is only skin-deep proverb a pleasing appearance is not a guide to character."

less than quatre

My heart and soul are getting a little heavy when I think of the follow series of events:

1) Starting my day with an expresso, strolling around Paris.
2) Getting lost and flustered, because I'm in Paris.
3) Enjoying myself leisurely and quite remarkably so, for a huge slab of the day. A slab that is equivalent in mass to an entire cheesecake.
4) Finishing my day with a bottle of Bordeaux, maybe two?



Who knows, who cares what else.

listography

For Christmas I got a Listography Organizer from my Mother. She went through some of the pages and filled in 1 answer she thought I would jot down (in the green pen). These are some of the "lists" I can't wait to fill out, complete the allotted tasks, and a few that made me laugh.

eep.

lush; a natural blush.

Once and awhile I become obsessed, engulfed, or swallowed in a fit of desire to have the style, features, etc, of a particular model. This is my current pursuit. Elena Perminova. Just what you need in a woman: long limbs, sass, and natural beauty. Hopefully a defining sense of humour and wit are included as well. It's hard to get the "full package" though, isn't it?

4 months

and I will be here.

For Sooz

When I like my friends, I try to make them a nice little birthday card.
And I sure do like my Suz!

aspire to be/ inspired by

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am in a thousand winds that blow,

I am the softly falling snow.

I am the gentle showers of rain,

I am the fields of ripening grain.

I am in the morning hush,

I am in the graceful rush

Of beautiful birds in circling flight,

I am the starshine of the night.

I am in the flowers that bloom,

I am in a quiet room.

I am in the birds that sing,

I am in each lovely thing.

Do not stand at my grave bereft

I am not there. I have not left.

-by Mary Elizabeth Frye.

a small descriptor/ impromptu script on you:

[something] that is both elegant and of elegiac proportions.
but mostly, it's effortlessly natural & raw.

By whim, I become aloft; whimsically entranced . I seek to absorb a broad spectrum of passions; full of bellowing guffaws, ha ha's and screams of delight (and many more not fit to share).

Last night, I shed tears. Oddly, the whole scene was not compiled like those (all too often) depicted and usual "female-type" hysterics or mannerism. Why exactly it occurred has me in some strange awe.. Oh, I don't know you, I don't know you at all.