second last

                                         Since taking this course and thinking about edmonton in a  number of different conceptual ways, I get a kick out of quizzing my boyfriend's parents, becuase they grew up in edmonton and both attended the u of a in their early twenties, just like meeee and their son, my bf. His mother has a masters in english and his father a phd in education. Since starting their family theyve lived and worked in spruce grove.  Last night, over dinner at earls tin palace on Jasper and 118th, i asked his mom, Joyce, how she views edmonton. and she came up with one word: reserved.
"reserved how so?"
"Calgary is much more flamboyant, they like to flaunt their wealth, but edmontonians are much more reserved, and those who do have money.. its a quiet wealth."

it went on, like this, she talked about how her and her husband were going to move to calgary becuase it seemed more "fun", but by the time they were starting their careers they werent looking for that type of fun anymore. She said calgary's flamboyance is most likely due to strong american influences. those dang  flashy yankees! (i thought that last part, she didnt say it)

what i didn't say to her was, "how interesting that your outlook and views of edmonton are always in relation to calgary. "

I agree with her that there is a sort of reserved air about edmontonians. Like a quiet pride. or a sort of sophistication. i asked her if she thought edmonton was more cultured and she said "it's a different type of culture". which i also agreed with.
i had a pecan maple chicken spinach salad it was large and delicious and it's nice to have people that buy me nice dinners in edmonton, the city of reserved champions!

conducted rhythms

mike davis' dead cities made me sad. really? three types of lice will be the only mourners at our funerals? and then bobcats come down and eat their cousins. and finally the bridge falls. but that's a nice touch, to have such a magnificint invention as a bridge, be the last to crumble symbolizing the restart of civilization. very nice. especially in connection with our discussions of the high level, bridges as place for suicide, and bridges as connecting spcieties, binding us toegther. such rich language! geomorphing is also a nice word.
so now i don't think i am sad. perhaps, mildly contemplative/slightly hungover/passively dehydrated is a more correct diagnosis. of how i feel. i have gotten into a habit of saying "i feel like.." before everything i say. it's is, oh, most deffinately annoying to whoever is around me a lot, which basically is one person, that i live with so, being around em is inevitable, but whatevr i say, if it has the prelude of "ii.... feeel.. liikee...." no one can argue. because hey, you know, no one can argue with how someone else feels.
i feel like i want a giant bed made of pizza with chicken finger pillows.  see what i mean? ridiculous.

i've neevr seen a 'not in my backyard' sign, but i feel like , if placed in certain areas, it could be hilariously ironic!

i tried to find a picture of a sign but found this instead. weird illustration style. what does it mean? that girl is a b. and takes after her mom or soemthing? kids say the darndest things? kids grow up too fast and repeat with they hear adults saying? that boy has toxic waste in a toy truck? where are their parents? what year is it? where am i?

pepsi max v. coke zero

which cola is better? i fear i'll never know...

ah actually, i think i like pepsi max better....  ugh
 i wish i could conduct an authentic one on one interview with charlie sheen. i watched young guns last week, with the rat pack, with emilio estavez and charlie sheen..   yeah it was pretty funny. pretty good movie.  i'll imdb it right now..  1988 what a solid year of production! directed by... christopher cain, who also did "the pricipal" - a film where james belushi is a really hard ass principal! haha cinematic gold!

dowload this gem for the peyote scene alone!

through this class, i wouldnt say i appreciate or look at edmonton any differently, but i would say that it's more prevalent in my thoughts and associations now.   often things will happen and i think about being haunted by the ghosts of edmonton past.  huh? that didnt make sense.     well, in the last post i mentioned i was in vancouver in feb. and while there i went out with strnagers, adn then later found out there were all expatriates of edmonton, all of them! and we were at this bar and there was a musician playing and i looked up through the haze of pbr and realized it was a guy from edmonton playing. and it was really cold and everyone said "you brought the cold with you heyuck heyuck" which i dont know about that one... but. even when i leave town i unintentionally surround myself with it. these coincidences probably would have gone unnoticed if not for this class always pushing notions of space and place into the forfronts of my cranium


a suggestion of food to try in edmonton disguised as talking:
tonight im going to order in karma, its pretty good. i recommend it. but maybe pick it up, dont get it delivered. becuase it seems not as good or greasy or soemthing when it gets delivered.  104th and 99 ave, i do believe is where it's located. get the paneer nan bread its like indian pizza
i watched a bollywood movie in FS 412 and it wasnt nearly as outrageous and fantastical as i would have hoped. but it did make me want some karma
last semester my fs 410 class all on the japanese directors ozu and naruse made me want to eat sushi all the time!  young guns didnt make me want to eat anything. i watched another western parody starring billy crystal, a little film you might know as City Slickers. aaaaaaaaahahah  so macho. billy crystal is okay, he's no bill murray thats for sure.  or  whos that other guy that was in duece biggalow? ah he's not even comparable,

I can feel spring about to burst forward like the rabbit bursts out of the dragon's mouth at 1:01

fair bière

   I spent most of Reading Week in Vancouver where the only problem with the weather was one evening of snow. Everyone coming out of the bar was so overjoyed by the novelty that at least thirty people we lined up on the street throwing snow at cars (which depending on who you ask may be illegal). Sometimes I wish I was Superman and could move the planet closer to the sun, making Edmonton a city like Phoenix. I know it probably isn't as simple as that but let's suspend some disbelief and linger on the sentiment. That being said, I would prefer to be  confined in school when it is cold rather than when it is warm.

I've discovered this week that I might have a sixth sense for disease. The sacrifice of being away during Reading Week is that I didn't study for midterms and had to be cubically confined in Rutherford until closing nearly every night this week. If there is any large reform in education, let it be the inclusion of physical activity in studying. It really isn't healthy sitting in one space for hours, where your only intake is Subway and Cookies by George coffee. Getting back to my point of germs, I think that disinfecting wipes should be readily available everywhere at the school. Think about the horrors of door handles, keyboards, computer mice and tabletops. You know they don't wipe these things down. Your mittens wont protect you, exactly how often do you wash them? The lack of sanitation is coupled with the weather. We're all stuck indoors, bumping elbows and coughing into the air like infection factories. It's not easy to put the blame on anyone in particular but maybe we should get the campus fuzz to threaten quarantines on our more inconsiderate peers.

Things seem to be getting more optimistic. More and better shows are popping up, we're past half way done the semester, and soon student elections will be over so the eyesore posters will be gone. I don't plan on voting (I'm graduating) but it's nice to know people care about stuff. What I've started doing is counting down the days exactly: seven more weeks, twenty nine more days. Think about it like that if you're having as hard a time as me.

Lookin'

                                     After that neat talk by trever anderson and his truly neato film about the high level bridge, and looking at Journal Edmonton's blog with her map pages , i feel inclined to....  post this picture , but first i'll explain it.
my friend, after graduating with a poli sci degree and being on unemployment, got a job doing research for the conservative party. and commissioned me to paint a peice for his office. and i thought uuhmmm conservative... yuppie.... legislature...... and came up with this. I never thought to think about the attachment we all have with this bridge, as an icon, as something that links and seperates, as a suicide launcher.   i had a strange relationship with the hiogh level while painting it because it was hard to make all the bars look accurate, which is what i was trying to do. but anyway.. and now that feeling is gone, as with the money i got paid, and it is just a thing i walk on to get home when its not too cold outside. as are all good things in life .. (sneakers).
.

 36" x 30". acrylic
the little guy at the bottom is pretty cheesy, i know, but the guy who i did it for is a folk singer so, the hobo-esque figure, has a soft spot in his folky heart. also excuse the plastic wrap on wall behind.  i should have cropped the photo. i should have done a lot of things ..  (sneakers).

also I really liked it when trever said, today, that having limitations is healthy for art making.
my biggest limitation in life is money, specifically, the lack there of. i dont think its very healthy.

(sneakers?@?@?!!?)
.

The high level's lil bro!!!!!!!!!!!! ahahah :(
i took this for my map assignment.
good thing we have reading week..
so we can all read hustler
and not be subject matter for the sequel to that film we watched today abotu jumping off bridges

not bad

so far english three eighty is not bad. not bad at allll......    i am surprised with having the authors of course texts come in to talk with us, that is a treat.

it's hard to come up with anythings.

we are trying to concentrate on our relationship with the city. but what about teh relationship edmonton's rabbits have with the city? or, the squirrels. did you know that underneath that poorly crafted and completely annoying "temporary" sidewalk that is ominously permanent, that runs around that newly constructed and incoherently located daycare playground, runs a glorified rodent super highway. it makes complete sense! we should all salute the ever-resourceful squirrel and his urban compatriates.   but, actually not the rabbits. they hop into my backyard adn get confused and the next morning i see the frantic prints of an animal going into dead ends of paths and trying to leap into the snowbanks but leaping out again. but i never actually see them. so they are probably ... i think problems can arise when people try to over intellectualize lived experiences.
(of animals in edmonton or humans)
have you ever been in the handicap stall and then someone in a wheelchair coems in and they actually need that stall, and you dont...   ahhh that's a bad feeling. its like someone catching you trying to take a nap in their bedroom. or something.
everyone i tell about the edmonton queen is really excited. what is it abotu drag queens that people find so delightful? maybe everyone has seen Priscilla queen of the desert, becuase, hooo doggy, that movie is delightful! its probably a lot of things. that people think  equals fun

ahh yes friday. the day of fries. i identify with hamza and yehat's love of the weekend. i feel like i could have a good time with those soul brothassssssss even though. i would be a nerd and embarass them if i tried to order ethiopian food probably. then redeem myself by playing a gucci mane remixes album. ????

here is a great suggestion to those who do not know, padmapper.com   if you are moving, this site is the "bomb". its a google map that compiles all kijiji craigslist amazon whatever and you click around and look at ads the easy way. its how i found my place now.   and it is fun to chose a different city and imagine where and how else you could live.  oops! ah retract. statement.   just  love for ed

elevator hopper

                                tuesday night i went to a friend's house for a dinner party style hang out because our pregnant friend was in town, it really was like a triple date. its funny, because us three girls have been buddies since kindergarten and all that, and our bf's are so different but they are forcibly meshed together because they have to becuase their girlfriends/wife...yeah. so in conversation i mentioned i have to write a blog for school and then 10 minutes later my blog starting blasting through the speakers. metalhead dan (striker) found my blog on the net, copy pasted it into text to speak and then hooked the laptop up to giant speakers, so my blogs just blasted out in a computerized man's voice with a german accent. you can choose the accent. hahahhhhh......... boy, was my face red!

i don't know why i think i can go out on week nights and then do school the next day. because i cant god dammit! last night, what with the freezing rain and all, i pretty much skated home down jasper from last night at 2 am.  buffalo underground, it just opened where that gay bar play used to be (q-history). minorities in edmonton are celebrated, i saw this last night. that place is huge i suggest checking it out, there are lots of dark corners and it smells like subway because there is one next door. aaawww yeah

i loath doing housework
there is a squirrel that lives in between the roof and ceiling of the house i live in. someday i will take a picture of the house i live in right now because it's pretty weird. i might even use the word....  zany.

i was taking an extended vacation in asia last year and a man said "oh canadian, vancouver or toronto? ha har har har" and i said no. its edmonton like this, and i drew a map of canada on the back of his receipt book and then marked the famed t dot and van city then starred e town. then a boy came up to the bar and he loved the map and drew a star on saskatoon where he was from. and the night whithered away into day light as we all drew maps of canada.....!   sort of. i believe, that night, that i was walking up a hill to my bungalo and a man in a security suit jumped out of the bushes and was like "mam! there are snakes!" and walked me through a clearing with a flashlight and a big stick to bash snakes. then i got an ear infection. as is life!