Tag: Music

There was a star danced, and under that was I born

Hey kids,

I’m going to apologize right off the bat for a post that is going to be a ridiculous mishmash of thoughts, ideas, pictures, and song.

It’s like a “we need to eat these leftovers before they go bad” casserole, over here.

I’m throwing anything and everything into this dish. So just let me know if you need some ketchup, or BBQ sauce, or what have you.

I’ll be on it.

It is Monday after all.

And, do you know how I know dear readers, that today was in fact a Monday?

I’ll tell you.

You see, this was my breakfast:

Corrrrrr....YES.

And this was my lunch:

MAH NOMS.

Not exactly the healthiest of choices, heavens no, but certainly one of the tastiest. I know I’ve written about these apple fritters before, and I just need to reiterate one more time just how fricken stellar they truly are.

And because they are the size of a small cat, they pretty much count as two meals in one.

I know, I know – NOT HEALTHY!

But oh, so delicious.

Because I’m running around at work like a running around working thing, today at lunch I made an effort to pry myself away from my desk and go for a walk.

When I’m not laughing myself into six pack abs trying on the absolute barmiest outfit combinations I can find, I like to torture myself by modelling all the beautiful pieces of clothing I will never be able to afford.

Sometimes I stroll through Holt Renfrew at a snail’s pace, staring into the Prada showroom, devouring all the couture gowns that hang off of the mannequins, or are draped over banquettes and loveseats (or the arms of a wealthy patron.)

I tell you, it’s a pretty interesting sensation to ride the escalator behind someone whose bloody SUNGLASSES are worth more than your entire ensemble.

It’s also a little scary.

Today I tried on this skirt from Club Monaco.

Sparkles! Pleats! LOVE!

I must say that I kind of really loved it.

AND, it was sixty percent off – though by no means cheap (even still after the discount), it had pleats and sparkles, which are pretty much my favourite things ever when it comes to clothing accoutrements, so I think I will have to go back tomorrow and purchase it.

As long as I don’t find something even more sparkly and pleated in the interim.

(I’m a bit like a hummingbird in that way. My attention span can be quickly taken over by -Ooerrr…SHINEY THINGS!)

Speaking of moving from one thing to the next without absolutely zero transition, please,  PLEASE, listen to this song by Sarah Slean, about which I currently cannot get enough of:

I have been a dancing woman since getting home today, listening to it on repeat.

(I don’t even know how many times I’ve listened to it while writing this post. I’ve completely lost count.)

If I was currently using my ipod at the gym, this would be the only thing on my running playlist.

It actually makes me so happy I feel like crying.

And I know that’s pretty cheesy and all, and sometimes I feel like I oscillate wildly from one emotion to the next, and I do regularly find myself so overcome by events that transpire all over the world (pretty much to the point of paralysis), but I am also aware of how much beauty I have in my life, and how fortunate I am in so many ways.

Despite of course, having two-toned hair from my (continually craptastic) dye job.

The seal is for marksmanship and the gorilla is for sand racing.

Seriously guys, what is wrong with me? How am I so, SO bad at this?

Yikes.

In the meantime, however, let’s just keep dancing.

And eating apple fritters.

And sparkling. Like stars.

Until the day we supernova; fade away.

Psycho killer, well qu’est-ce que c’est?

So kids, it seems as though spring has finally sprung all over the West Coast. Check out these amazing planters my father in-law put together for us.

Darth Gruyere strikes again!

It’s weather like this that makes me want to pull on my shorts, lace up my Asics, and just race around New West until my legs give out, my lungs deflate, and my veins run dry.

Okay, that might seem a little ridiculous, or even borderline severe. But when the weather is so darn perfect, it’s hard not to slip into excessive use of hyperbole.

(It’s like the hardest thing in the world times one million!!!)

Erm.

Right.

So yesterday morning I went for one of the most kickass runs of my life:

I ran a 10.5 km in 44 minutes.

And it was brilliant. Smashing. Phenomenal.

Everything about the run felt natural. Felt good.

Nay, great.

It was as though everything in my body was working seamlessly. My strides were just that much longer. My breathing was just that much easier. On the killer hills, my legs felt just that much stronger, and on the way down, I recovered just that much faster.

I’m wondering if the fact that I’ve stopped listening to music has anything to do with the fact that I’ve been having such stellar runs of late.

I used to joke about how I thought a serial killer would get me as I raced around listening to my jams at full blast, but most (most) of that was said with a heavy dollop of sarcasm.

(Although there are some stretches of forest paths that I’ve run where I wouldn’t be surprised had I at some point met with my demise at the hands of an overzealous, accident-prone trail biker, somewhere in and around those pine-strewn creek beds, due to the fact that I normally ran with everything turned up to eleven.)

But I digress.

The simple matter of the manner is I’ve stopped listening to music and I’m kind of digging it.

I like the quiet.

I like to hear the sound of my breathing, the crunch of the gravel under foot; the birds chirping, an anemic lawn mower sputtering into life; the cheers and jeers of a far off baseball game.

I used to rely on songs to pump me up and keep me going on the longest stretches of my routes. For both of the half-marathons I ran last year, I had specific playlists, designed to let me know whether or not I was going to make the finishing time I had set for myself.

Top tunes included Robyn, Franz Ferdinand, Gossip, Blondie, and Lady Gaga.

Hey, don’t judge me, you Judgey McJudgerssons! Good pop is good pop. And my running legs don’t discriminate.

But it seems as though I’ve reached this point in my running career where I feel as though I don’t need music to get me through the longer distances.

Of course, we’ll have to wait and see once I start tackling the really big stuff when I begin my training for the Victoria marathon.

Heck, I may be eating crow (and these words) as I complete the race bopping about to Rihanna and Timbaland.

But at the moment, I am running clean. Musically.

(Oh yeah, I’m not doping either.)

The only one detractor from my run yesterday was the fact that I felt a little conspicuous, due to the fact that I still had copious amounts of hair dye plastered across my face.

But heck, now that I think about it, maybe that’s why I was running like the wind.

I didn’t want anyone to see me. Or at least, any more then were absolutely necessary.

Because of this insecurity, I wasn’t the normal “social” runner that I usually am – waving and nodding to my fellow long distance lovers, and thanking those cars who are nice enough to stop for me (and you know, obey the law. Seriously, you might be surprised how often stop signs are blatantly ignored.)

Hopefully the running gods will take pity on me and forgive me this one transgression.

I’m pretty sure my home girl Atalanta will turn the other cheek. She and I are tight.

What did you all get up to this weekend? And what music do you listen to while you run?

And if you don’t groove to the tunes while running, I’d love to know the reason why.

Down in London town, I’m dancing by myself

Hi Friends!

Well, it’s all come to pass.

We have a sparkling, new, beautiful shower, and I managed to successfully attend a concert for the first time whilst flying solo.

Kaiser Chiefs are top-notch groovemeisters, so I pretty much just showed up, danced like a mad woman for an hour and a half, and then hit the road.

Oh my god, I can't believe it.

(The four glasses of wine I consumed before heading downtown may have had something to do with how easy the whole thing seemed. I’m normally a two-glass max kind of gal, so take this as you will.)

The one thing I will say was that I was a little bummed out about the fact that they hardly played any of their new material (or really anything from their catalogue post-2008.)

I've never been this far away from home.

They have so many fab songs other that those featured on Yours Truly – Angry Mob and I had been eager for the chance to hear them live.

For instance, I was gutted that they didn’t play Man on Mars, a tune that I have been pretty much listening to on repeat for the last two weeks. Seriously, it’s the first thing that finally managed to knock The Decembrist’s Calamity Song off of my top jam list.

Ch-ch-check it:

Ricky Wilson told the audience that Vancouver was their last stop on their tour, so they were probably pretty exhausted and burnt out and didn’t want to take on anything too taxing.

But overall, I must say I had a great time period, and there is always something to be said about going to a concert where you (and every other person in attendance) knows every lyric to every song that is played.

I’d give it a solid 8 out of 10 cats.

Ju-on girl dancing her heart out!

On my way home, sitting on the metro, I was trying to concentrate on anything other than the dull ringing in my ears, when a very young man sat down next to me.

The fellow was just a little too eager to strike up a conversation, so my spidey senses immediately started tingling.

Because I am a crazy weirdo, I did what I am often do in awkward situations – make them even more awkward (this time by speaking in a really terrible accent.)

This is hilarious to me, but probably insanely disconcerting to the other parties involved.

If I could muster up the appropriate amount of compunction I would, but then I always ask myself, what’s life without a little flare? A little intrigue?

So, egging myself on, I sometimes try out mein deutsche, and other times moya ruski.

This time I was from jolly old England.

Bah.

[adjusts monocle.]

Unfortunately, the dude was totally undeterred.

Even after I told him I was seven years older than him, he still asked me out.

Youth these days, I tell ya.

Either deliver my paper on time or get off my lawn!

I will give him props for gumption and guts, but needless to say, I will not be seeing him again.

(Until my next late night train ride, goodness knows.)

The next morning, I was moving a little slower than usual, due to the after effects of my solo dance party, finishing the bathroom, and the eleven kilometre run Mr. M and I completed during the previous day’s afternoon.

I figured the best thing to cure my Sunday sluggishness, was homemade crepes with fresh fruit, nutella, walnuts, whipped cream, and tea, devoured on our porch, basking in the warmth of the (long lost, and now finally found) sun’s rays.

Yum.

Edit: for one bloody day at least! It just makes me want to yell out: Come on Biscuit you can do it!!!

Erm.

I mean spring!

Come on spring, you can do it!

But at the time, it was, for lack of a more poetic descriptor, absolute bliss.

Bliss!

Then, M and I tore about our place, vacuuming like a vacuuming things, dusting, washing, scrubbing – wiping away all the dust that had accumulated over the course of our reno, encrusted in our corners and nestled in all the often missed nooks and crannies.

Seriously, nothing is as good as clean feels.

A friend of mine remarked, after reading my post from last Friday, that I would probably pick up a ton more traffic to my blog if I posted photos of myself doing mad cleaning in my underwear.

I’m not going to lie – I briefly considered this as I tore about our place, but in the end I decided it just wasn’t worth it.

That, like my English accent, should not be encouraged.

Not without copious amounts of wine, anyway.

Isn’t that right, guvnah?

I predict a riot

Today I arrived home from work and M asked me to help him clean out the shower’s grout lines.

Now if that isn’t sexy talk than I don’t know what is.

No?

Not sexy?

Well then. Colour me surprised.

Anywho, I wasn’t about to say no, seeing as how he’s done such a bang up job with the overall project, but I wasn’t exactly keen on the thought of grout retraction – I had a long day (and equally long week) and I was wearing one of my favourite “spring” work outfits and I didn’t want to muck it all up.

Although my overall tip top impression of my get-up took a bit of a hit when, after remarking that he liked my hair style, M told me that I was reminding him of “you know…that character from Kids in the Hall…you know the one. The one with the ponytail.”

Erm.

It’s unfortunate to say, dear readers, but I do know the one.

And it’s not good.

Not good at all.

For those of you who aren’t acquainted with Darill, please consult the below video:

Not exactly the apex of coolness.

Not exactly the look I was going for. But thanks for playing “man for whom I’ve pledged my troth for the rest of my life”!

Egads. Can’t a girl catch a break?

So after I told M that I don’t know where my self-esteem would be without such positive reinforcement on his part, I sucked up my pride, and stripped down to my unmentionables, and got down to business.

ON REMOVING THE GROUT! Get your minds out of the gutter!

Don’t think I don’t see you over there, you with your head circling that sewer drain!

Seriously though – I won’t go into much depth on the subject, but suffice to say, I absolutely love doing household chores in my undies.

Like, LOVE it.

(My neighbours I’m sure think I’m bloody bonkers, so I always close all the blinds before doing a really big clean. Then I proceed to skulk around my darkened home, brandishing cleaning supplies, vacuums, mops, and garbage bags.)

I worry that I just a couple steps away from becoming a Matthew Good music video here folks.

Anyway, I’m getting dreadfully off topic here.

What I found interesting about the process of working in the bathroom, was how  just the simple, repetitive motion of removing all that clay was actually a really good exercise in winding down, and of letting the events of the week go.

Clear out the grout – clear out your head.

(I won’t lie, knowing just how stellar the finished project is going to be was also a solid motivator for not only doing the work, but doing it well.)

Almost there. We just need to grout the tile, but it looks sooooo pretty!

So now that’s it’s done, I’m able to do what I was hoping to do as soon as I arrived home – put on some of M’s old clothes, chillax to the max, and eat all the junk I bought earlier on in the day.

That’s right folks: chocolate covered marshmallows. WITH SPRINKLES!!!

NOM.

Amen.

As a brief postscript to this post, can I just wax eloquent (briefly I assure you) on two things?

The first is how the television show NUMBERS is so uncomprehendingly awful. And Mr. M LOVES to watch it, despite the fact that he too cannot stand anything about the program.

It’s almost as if he’s developed some crazy perverse, car crash fascination with the whole show.

I, on the other hand, I cannot understand how anyone can watch it, perversity or not. The writing is so bad it drives me absolutely batty.

But then again, I’ve been known to watch some pretty polarizing programs myself, so who am I really to judge?

Hmmm.

Nah, I’ll still judge.

The second is that I am finally getting the chance to see one of my all-time favourite bands on Saturday night.

I’ve got a date with the Kaiser Chiefs, and I am getting my mad dance skills prepped for a night of top grooving.

The only cricket in my soup bowl is that I am going to be going solo.

Have any of you gone to a concert by yourself before? If yes, let me know, and send along any tips you may have.

I’m really not so fussed, but still a little nervous.

If it gets really bad, I’ll just show up in my underwear.

And start cleaning.

Five things I just don’t get

There are some things that just don’t work for me, no matter how hard I try.

I’ve written here before about how I worked (hard, mind you) for the last eight years to bring Radiohead into my life, but to no avail.

Seriously, as much as I love this video of Thom Yorke dancing to Single Ladies, I just cannot for the life of me accept the majesty (or whatever adjective you believe best sums up their brilliance or transcendence) of their music in my life.

 

We are like oil and water.

So without further ado, here are five things I just don’t get.

1.)  Beer. Seriously. For the life of me, I cannot do it and do not understand how anyone could enjoy drinking it.

I miss me a two pound glass of wine every so often.

Like Radiohead, I made a valiant effort to make it a part of my life, particularly during the early years of my undergrad. It seemed like every post-class pub gathering-cum-night out inevitably meant a (seemingly) unlimited supply of amber coloured, frothy, frosty, pitchers of ale – I figured if I was going to survive in these social situations I better learn to enjoy it.

However it seemed as though the more effort I made, the more it did nothing for me, save give me brutal cases of the “urgh-I-can-taste-what-I-ate-for-dinner-last-night-burps” and then make me need to use the loo every twenty minutes or so, after I (begrudgingly) found my way to the bottom of my first glass.

Not cool man. This aversion to malt, barley, and hops (the much less successful Simon and Garfunkle follow-up to Scarborough Fair) made me feel like a giant square (and I got to relive this shame over again, and ten-fold worse at that, when Mr. M and I lived in Jolly Ole England. Bah.)

What I wouldn’t have done to just once have had comrade in arms to turn to me and say, “Hey – anyone want to order the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu and split it me?”

Why yes. Yes good sire, I do.

2.)  Peep toe boots.

SERIOUSLY?

I don’t understand. I don’t understand how this makes any sense, to anyone, ever.

NO.

WHO BUYS THIS CRAP? And why? How do they think it looks good? WHY do they think it looks good?

How do they think it could ever possibly be practical?

This for me is like, that craziest, weirdest, most inane fashion trend ever.

It’s winter. It’s freezing. What the heck are you doing wearing shoes that have holes in them? I almost feel as though the fashion industry is trolling the entire female population of the world to see how far they can actually push the sanity envelope before the shoe (har har, no pun intended) drops, and people start to call shenanigans.

(Or at least, I hope this is the case.)

Plus it just looks FRICKEN bonkers.

Writing this out I feel as though Otto, from A Fish Called Wanda would agree with me:

 

3.)  Cricket.

What. The. Heck.

I don’t actually know if anyone truly understands this sport.

For colonial inspired athletics, I’ll stick to rugby.

I'll take it!

4.)  Soft cheeses.

Brie. Camembert. Blue. Roquefort.  No. No. No. NO.

Swiss raclette - the antithesis of snot cheese.

For many years cheese (of any kind) played zero part in my life. I didn’t eat it on anything (including pizza – for real, I would order pizza sans cheese because I disliked it so much.)

Slowly but surely I came to see the error of my ways (falling in love with a Swiss mister certainly had something to do with my transformation) but to this day I cannot do any soft, rindy cheeses.

They seriously slay me.

They make me feel as though I am eating feet flavoured snot.

And no amount of shaming (I know what you’re thinking! Stop looking at me!) will change that.

Urgh.

5.)  The English Royal Family. I do not for the life of me understand the fascination with royalty, particularly the obsession of those who live outside of the United Kingdom.

Sure, I get why those inside the UK may like them – it’s a way to cling to an antiquated representation of the power their country once had on an the international stage.

Okay, I know that sounds super harsh, and I’m sorry. (But, it’s true.)

But for people who live either in the commonwealth, or (even more baffling) those who don’t (particular in countries that were exploited, subjugated, and brutalized by the Brits) to actively support an institution that symbolizes imperialism, hierarchy, racism, classism, and well, general intolerance – the mind boggles.

If I need to take the queen – I’ll take her as a member of Kids in the Hall:

 

BONUS:

6.)  Gene Wolfe. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure no one else gets him either though.

So folks, I’ll pass the question on to you: What can you not get, no matter how hard you try? Please share (but I’ll take wine if you’re buying.)