THIS PAST SATURDAY I WENT TO THE BEST CONCERT OF MY LIFE.
And yet I feel tongue-tied trying to communicate how absolutely earth-shatteringly awesome this experience truly was.
As such, everything inside of me is screaming USE YOUR SWEARS USE THEM ALL USE ALL THE SWEARS.
But I won’t.
So it’s hard.
But the question remains – how do I get you, dear reader, to feel that same exhilaration I felt stepping into that club?
How to make you feel that same energy, coursing the length of my body?
Tingling the ends of your fingertips? The dips of your earlobes?
Tickling the backs of your knees, slipping down into the folds of your shoes?
To hear the murmur of the crowd, a beehive of anticipation?
A vibration.
How do I make you crackle and snap with the electricity of it all, the flash of the lights, and the intensely, indescribably, intoxicating sounds careening off of the stage, permeating every last crook and cranny of the sweat-slicked, pulsating room?
How do I make you dance until your blistered, blisters cry nay command you not to stop, never stop, your mouth a perma-grin, a high school smirk stained with salty secrets, and the knowledge that all of this is so good, and all of this will never be so good.
So if I cannot do this, I will just say – GO TO HOT CHIP.
Go.
…
Elsewhere in the cosmic kitchen:
Zen.
Brunch.
Weirdo.
Cat.
View.
…
Tell me where you’ve been to Nowhere that you shouldn’t do Tell me what you’re good for I can tell you something too.
It’s Friday friends! Put on your smoking jacket, pour yourself a snifter of brandy, and take a load off. Today’s fry-up will take care of the rest.
Dancing queen.
DUDES.
Do you have gangnam style?
I DO.
No joke, I love this song so much it is destroying my life. Because you see, while I cannot STOP listening to it, I also cannot JUST listen to it.
Oh no.
Whenever I hear the blasted tune I must, MUST boogie down for all of my life.
A couple of days ago I actually tried to make a video of just me dancing to the song, but then I scared the crap out of my cat during the first take and then on the second realized I looked CRAZY breaking it down.
So no video folks.
JUST KIDDING – I would never do that to you! Here it is:
So now you can take my word for it when I say that I am a dance maniac and no one can stop me.
NO ONE.
Further proof: when I was in Russia partying my wretched vodka infused-butt off until 5 in the morning every night, I had a Russian chick come up to me and ask me: “Excuse me, but – where from?” “Ya Canadka,” I responded. “Potomu?” (Why?) “Ohhhhhh,” she replied back. [motions to my dancing] “VEEERRRY interesting!”
And I thought her country men and women were the craziest dancers I had ever seen!
So yeah. MANIAC.
Fall is here. Ring the bell.
Autumn is nipping at our heels here on the West coast of Canada. And it sure is lovely.
Last night the sun was a ball of flaming red fire, and the sky was a melting mixture of pinks, oranges, and yellows – like a solar Shirley Temple for the thirsty space traveller.
Because the weather in the morning has taken a turn for the cooler side of things, I was forced to call my bluff and finally go and buy some tights.
In the process, I picked up some other fall must-haves, including these sweet, sweet kicks:
Joe Fresh baby – it is a truly wacky (said in the voice of Michael Kors) store at its worst, but goodness knows if it doesn’t know how to score me a deal at the best of times.
I am also crunching fallen leaves like a loon – going out of my way to get every last one of them. A man walking to skytrain a few paces behind me this morning actually burst out laughing after watching my manic trajectory down the sidewalk.
But hey, JUDGE NOT RIGHT?
There are worse things I could be doing than stepping on crinkle-cut leaves.
Goodness knows.
Clean eating, clean living.
I have cut out all processed foods from my diet, and most grains and sugars.
Urg, I feel like such a broom admitting that for the next eight weeks I will be paleo-ing it (with the best of all the other paleo brooms) but alas, it is the case.
So remember – NO JUDGING.
Now, I must stress, this isn’t anything to do with losing weight.
This is an attempt to regulate my (pretty well documented) sugar addiction, and I figure it’s a pretty good way of making sure I cut out all junk food from my diet.
Now, the paleo diet traditionally means no grains; however, because I am running a half-marathon on the 30th of this month, there is no way I can do this, as that would be ridiculous and foolhardy. So instead, I am eating less than what I would regularly consume, and then will cut them out completely once I am finished the race.
So far I have completed four days and I am surprised at just how easily it has been. No chocolate. No candy. No chips. No brake-down.
What’s even better is I have been cooking up a storm, and I am so, SO excited about coming home and preparing amazing meals. This, along with curbing my sugar intake, is definitely the best result so far of the program.
So bring on the next fifty-six days – I WILL OWN YOU ALL.
…
What’s shaking in your neck of the woods lately? Let’s dance and you can tell me all about it.
Here are two conversations M and I had this weekend:
(P.S. I am still laughing)
[Scene One: Earls restaurant, patio. Saturday night, drinks and date night]
Me: You are a very good looking man.
M: [unintelligible gibberish]
Me: [laughing]
M/Me: [both continue laughing/trying to make each other laugh by making crazy faces]
Me: I’m trying to figure out what race you would belong to in Lord of the Rings. I used to always go with human – you’re a good shoe-in for Aragorn. But you also have quite a bit of hobbit in you. And elf. And dwarf.
M: What about orc?
Me. Yes, definitely orc. And uruk-hai.
M: Goblin?
Me: [thinking] Nah. Never goblin.
M: [nodding, playing with his wedding ring. Then, thinking to himself] Preeeeecccciiiooouussss….
Me: Oh goodness, of course. I have no idea how I didn’t think of that. You definitely, definitely have some Gollum in you too.
M: Hmmm…
[pause]
Me: [pretending to be all nonchalant] So, um, what race do you think I belong to?
M: [not taking a beat] Sauron.
Me: Hahahahahahahahahaha…ohhhh noooooo….
M: Not what you were looking for?
Me: You know I wanted you to say elf.
M: I know.
Me: I KNOW I’M LITHE AND BEAUTIFUL.
M/Me: [continuous laughing]
END SCENE.
[Scene Two: Driving home from restaurant. I cannot stop taking photos of the sky – the sky which I have been yammering on about all day long.]
Me: [taking a photo] ZOMG THE SKY IS SO BEAUTIFUL.
M: I know.
Me: The sun is SO huge, and the way the clouds are clustered that way is just magical. It seriously looks like the gateway to heaven.
M: It does look like heaven.
Me: I know I’ve been talking about it all day, but I honestly can’t get over how amazingly phenomenal this is. It literally takes my breath away. Even just looking at it is making me choke up…I really feel like I’m going to cry.
M: I have a feeling your period may be on its way.
Yesterday I worked a thirteen hour day. Coming home, I was completely knackered.
This is what I thought about as I rode the metro back to my home:
Such a fantastagorical tale had never been known.
Such was the way of these things.
Reading a bit like a history of popular culture in the early 20th century, and a tiny bit like a teen trash comedy, the combination was meant to amuse and articulate. Perhaps, most terrifyingly of all, it was the clearest representation of the inner workings and thought processes of two individuals.
One of them had come to a realization that he was often too pessimistic for his own good; he sometimes sought humor in disappointment as some kind of weak balm.
This would have to change. And it did.
Genuine excitement should not have to be manufactured. Riding on a jetski at 60 mph – for example – really has a positive effect on this. You cannot help but feel exhilaration, your mouth open and cheeks flapping with the force of the wind as you carve your way up an arm of BC’s mightiest river.
Twisting and turning you see how far you can go before the mechanical power under you can, shuddering, hurls you into the wild, flowing water. You cannot feign emotion on such a contraption, taking those risks.
SO – how to make life more like that? How to seek out, in everything, a sudden charge of passion and fury. What triggers those flags in my mind to suddenly send me rushing headlong emotionally at something or for something. I don’t need a cause to believe in so much as I need a credible dialogue, a wild formulation, a mysterious agenda.
Just think, the first people who ever read the Principia by Newton or Galileo’s letters must have thought they were reading some Clive Cusslerian escapade of fantastic proportions… and yet we now know it to be real.
But does that make Cussler any less exciting than Newton? Or just more poorly written?
(Definitely the latter.)
Also, should belief be THE defining reason for goodness?
I don’t think the best stories are always the truest ones. I like the ones that hover at the very edge between what-might-have-been, the possible, and the barely possible.
In this space we stop our minds from only formulating those images that we can understand and see, and make things that have never been made and will never be made, except inside the limits and demarcations of our own fancies, the thrum of our birthing brains.
Do you ever get the urge to just shout at the top of your lungs, “AIN’T LIFE GRAND?”
Sometimes I get so giddy I feel like I am about to explode.
There are times when I feel so overwhelmed by the magic and love that is my life that I’m practically moved to tears. Seriously, I’ll be sitting on the chesterfield next to Mr. M and all of a sudden – BAM! I’m choking out words (nay – garbled syllables) in an effort to communicate just how much he and our life together mean to me.
And our little cat? Well sheesh. Nymeria slays me in such a way that I am pretty much a puddle of liquid infatuation anytime she is near.
There are just so many stupendous things coming down the pipe over the next couple of months: M starting a new job as a full-time teacher; two radio show gigs in September; an interview with BC parent magazine about my work with Big Sisters; the United Way Speakers Bureau Series of which I am a speaker (also on my work with Big Sisters); the Hot Chip (!!!) concert with Ms. A; and of course the Surrey Half-Marathon.
On the running front, I have been like Atalanta’s long-lost sister over here.
On Saturday I ran 16km in the morning, and that afternoon M and I (along with his sister and brother in-law) went for a 7.5km hike. Despite a little soreness in my left knee I was feeling great (albeit very, very hungry the next day. Actually, I think I’m still a little peaky from the day’s activities.) The next morning I went for a super slow recovery run, only to be locked out of the house upon my return, as I hadn’t brought my house key with me and during my (short!) absence my darling husband had elected to go for a sunny morning stroll to pick up the NYT crossword and delicious breakfast goods.
I took this a chance to practice my meditation techniques. And to laugh like the loon on loon tablets that I am.
Anywho, moving on, this evening after getting home from work I ran 7 km in 29 minutes.
Then I did three sets of chin-ups/pull-ups (max I could do at a time was 6 for chin-ups) and three for pull-ups, and three sets of twelve push-ups.
Rant and Roll 