Sunday, November 6, 2005

29 profound loves. Slow dancing Being snowed in Starry skies Cinnamon toast Pashminas Tanned feet Nessun Dorma Callused hands Road trips Blueberry muffins Trailing your fingers in the water while someone else rows Tulle Drowsy babies Winning the blue pie wedge in Trivial Pursuit Down duvets Newsstands Sausage rolls Strawberry leaves Fountain pens Ice machines Southern writers Kites Big sunglasses Firefox Beta for Mac Dahlias Little black dresses Ballet flats Boys My future husband 11:59:51 PM    well, yes, but...  [] 29 profound annoyances. Nausea in the middle of the night Sleeplessness Whiny adults Suze Orman Linkin Park fans Men who pull their pants up too high Sears poses Gilbert Gottfried Sales Tax Crappy speakers Meg Ryan Noisy refrigerators Patchy wireless PBS donation drives "In previous episodes..." Figurines Heavy metal album covers The incompleteness of Technorati Smarminess Oprah Winfrey Jokes about Canadian dialect The guitar solo in "Five Days In May" Morning mouth Umbrella thieves The sound of my alarm Overly-heated houses Sequels Aspartame Chipped front teeth 11:43:07 PM    well, yes, but...  [] more things. more stuff. Challenge #2 from Dick... I drive... ...myself to distraction. If I have time to myself... ...I dance around my house to music and sing at the top of my lungs (my ultimate catharsis), I walk around downtown and people watch, I cook an experimental dinner, or I sit in a coffee shop and disappear into my own thoughts. And I blog. You wouldn't know it but I'm very good at... doing mental math calculations political debate getting random stains out of laundry mimicking accents throwing a deadly-accurate right hook harmony I'm no good at... Anything to do with stocks, bonds, funds, shares or financial advising Chin-ups Small talk Sleeping Crying publicly Baking bread A book that changed me... One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) -- magical realism is a wonderful thing Tristram Shandy (Laurence Sterne) -- absurdity should be embraced at all costs A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers) -- structure? unnecessary! Ulysses (James Joyce) -- let it meander if you need it to The Bible -- for real. Movie heaven... The original Muppet Movie -- heaven only knows why, except that it speaks of an innocence I miss. Amelie -- ahhh! The Shining -- disappearing into creepitude... Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House -- delight! The Thin Man movies -- oh, to be Nora! Blazing Saddles -- do I need to explain? Dr. Strangelove -- brilliant. American Beauty -- oy! Say Anything -- Still waiting to meet my Lloyd. To Kill A Mockingbird Comfort eating... hot wings salmon sashimi wonton soup french fries -- with skins on! risotto with parmesan and asiago fresh salsa pomegranates coronation grapes When I was a child, I wanted to be... Anything from a journalist to a ballerina to a singer to a nurse. And a linebacker for the Dolphins. But mostly just happy. All my (spare) money goes on... This is a trick question. Spare money? Please share if you find some! At night I dream of... Anything and everything. No limits. My favourite building... This is an impossible question to answer. I see beautiful buildings everywhere! I tend to love old things, though. The more crumbly the better... New Orleans, Prague, St. Petersburg, Paris... you name it. I need to get there. My biggest regret... Not trying harder when it counted. And one instance of falling in love. If I wasn't me I'd like to be... Someone who makes less mistakes. My favourite work of art... Van Gogh's 'Night Cafe' or Mary Cassatt's 'La Toilette'. The soundtrack to my life... Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Van Morrison, Stephane Grappelli, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Harmer, Woody Guthrie, Joni Mitchell, Mahalia Jackson, Ryan Adams, OutKast, Al Green, Black Eyed Peas, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, songs my friends write, Blue Rodeo, Willie Nelson, Billie Holliday, Django, Sarah Vaughn, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Dusty Springfield, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel, The Philosopher Kings, Feist, Bob Marley, ACDC, Mozart, Chopin, Erik Satie, Debussy, and a million more... The best invention ever... Hockey, baby. Hockey. Coffee Cocoa Butter Flip Flops 11:19:14 PM    well, yes, but...  [] sundaythoughts. It's not raining, y'all. I left the house without wrapping myself head-to-toe in Saran Wrap. It's excellent, to say the least. Granted, the clouds are moving in like rats descending on a scrap in an alley, but for now, we're dry. And when I look out the window at the mountains, all this precipitation has evidently amounted to something wonderful for the ski hills nearby. I'm (once again) at the coffee shop and (once again) sitting opposite Kristy, who is working on her personal finance course, towards her business degree. We just did a semi-interview (we're so famous, we were just hanging out, and BOOM!) with a guy who is writing an article about the Web and New Media. It was interesting to realize a) how ignorant I actually am about New Media even though I have a little niche in the blogosphere; and b) how reluctant I actually am to trust anyone or anything as far as the dissemination of information goes. I assume that nearly everyone has an agenda or a bias. I suppose that's just the evidence of a solid journalistic filter, but how sad is it that I won't even dig into certain topics online because I don't believe anyone can just relate truth without molding and shaping it to fit their worldview? Is it even possible to leave your opinion out of certain topics? Should you even try? What is truth, anyhow? I also won't write about certain topics for that same reason; I figure my opinions on things are so ignorant at times as to be problematic. I've always found it better to leave editorial to more informed people -- or let the ignorant ones babble on without my contribution or approval. I get called a chicken for taking this stance, but I always have to return to the old chesnut: better to keep silent and be thought stupid than open your mouth and prove it. Granted, there are topics on which I will go to the wall without fear of backlash, because I know what I think and could care less if anyone takes exception to it. But is that good? Should I be so arrogant? But still... I need to think about my trust levels and how I am going to start dealing with them -- and how I am going to get the information I should want, and should have, and should be processing on a daily basis. What is the point of having the Web if we are not using it critically and appropriately to become more informed? But organizing my thoughts is usually about as fun as organizing a closet. Aren't there people that do that for a living -- organize closets? There should be people who do that for a living, too. And I don't mean therapy -- my emotions are somewhat more linear in terms of organization -- I just need someone to implement some sort of mental filing system for me or like, shred half my mental documents to make room for some new ones. I think I've achieved critical mass. But. At the end of the day, who are your most trusted sources? Where do you go to find information without a bias in any direction? Are you comfortable with bias if the bias is one you share? And is that just a more complicit form of ignorance? And when does information become essential for the world to know? Are there things that shouldn't be reported? Are there things that are never reported? Gosh. 4:09:21 PM    well, yes, but...  [] 30 things. Definitely stolen from Dick Jones. I was born on one of the most disastrous or dramatic (depending on your take) days in history, April 19th. Among the nightmares? Well, the date also gave birth to: a Colombian guerilla uprising, the April 19th Movement; the "shot heard round the world" that heralded the start of the American Revolutionary War; the Toronto fire of 1904; the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Poland, 1943; the Waco Fire that ended the lives of the majority of the Branch Davidian cult in 1993; the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995; and a major Phillipine air crash in 2000. The next day brings the Columbine murders by Klebold and Harris and the birthday of Hitler, while the day before offers the San Francisco Quake of 1906. Ouch! The week in general brings the Tiananmen Square protests (April 21); the beginning of the McCarthy hearings in the US (April 22); and last but not least, the Chernobyl meltdown (April 26). Every year, on my birthday or in the days surrounding, people cry on TV. I'm used to it. And yes, my brother was born on September 11th. I have played the following team sports on actual teams, though there is no guarantee as to the quality of my play: field hockey, volleyball, and soccer. I have failed only two courses in my academic career: Symbolic Logic and Math. I am the youngest of two. My name was to be Erica Cecily, but listening to my grandfather yell 'Eureka Sicily!' repeatedly changed all that for my parents. Meaghan Cassie would have to suffice. Among my favourite poets are D.H. Lawrence, Philip Larkin, Emily Dickinson, W.B. Yeats, Langston Hughes, and Dylan Thomas. Favourite authors include Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, James Joyce, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Dorothy Parker. Oscar Wilde is far and away the person I quote the most. I am a fan of the Vancouver Canucks, the Seattle Mariners, the Seattle Seahawks, the New England Patriots, the Green Bay Packers, and bless their hearts, the Canadian Olympic Hockey Teams. I would love to drive across North America, with special attention to the Eastern seaboard and the US South. My favourite piece of music is 'Djangology' by Stephane Grappelli. I drank my first cup of coffee when I was 7. My first cup of tea was probably earlier, in my grandfather's lap. My primary goal in life is to make people feel loved. My secondary goal in life is to fall in love once more and stay there. I have been in love three times. I hold a B.A. in English and Political Science, split between two universities in two provinces. The largest crowd that has seen me perform was 4,000 people. I smacked Jason Sehorn's ass completely unintentionally in a store once. It did not improve his play. My life motto: Dum spiro, spero (While I breathe, I hope). I don't fear death or pain, though I don't run towards them intentionally, either. I do fear watching people I love experience either one, though. I only own three pairs of shoes. And eight pairs of flip flops. If I had to choose between marrying a man who wrote well, a man who sang well, and a man of incredible fitness, I would choose the singer every day of the week and twice on Sundays. I am 5'3". My ring finger is a size 5. If I could buy one thing tomorrow, it would be a pair of black boots. And that will only happen if the money magically appears beneath a toadstool as I leave my home. I have a birthmark in my eye. I have had no less than 8 doctors tell me that my tonsils were the largest they'd ever seen. And yes -- I most definitely still have them. I once gave someone a concussion with my elbow in a game of touch football. My favourite word is "bliss". I don't wish to have a gravestone or memorial of any kind. My most prized possession is my grandmother's wedding ring. Given the chance, I would definitely be on Jeopardy. 12:21:42 AM    well, yes, but...  []

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