Month: November 2008

my relationship with pink isn’t a friendly one

Behind the scenes of the As Real As It Gets… “sweded” photoshop advertising poster for software-asli.com.

The raspberry red we bought from Home Depot dried a violent pink on the wall, the pink of a small girl’s pink velvet stirrup pants in the 80’s, even after seven coats. I swore upon seeing it the next morning, having forgotten overnight how appallingly bright it turned out. Gah. My eyes. Anyone’s eyes! Amazing what a bit of colour will do. Oi. Change the whole place, it does. Yes. Into a bad television set for brain damaged teenagers, all ironic and post-hateful and too cheerful for words.

I’m very glad we discovered this before we painted more than one space with it, though not so glad that we didn’t start with the spare room wall and not the kitchen. Small mercies duking it out with slightly bigger regrets. Who will win? News at eleven.

To rectify this horrible mistake, David and I spent part of our Remembrance Day with our heads bowed in the heavy crush of DIY sawdust yuppies at Home Depot. We had the paint retinted darker and bought a tiny tin of sinfully delicious red that we’re going to pour in before painting the next, more hopeful, coat. A final gasp for our currently blinding kitchen. Apparently Nicole is going to be over again today while I’m at work, hanging out with David who’s sick today, and painting. If that doesn’t work, I’m going to spraypaint it matte black, out of adorable girlish spite.

lest we forget

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Suicide in the Trenches, Siegfried Sassoon,
English poet and author.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

In Flanders Fields, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD
Canadian Army

twenty six years of driving through this same stretch of mountains

Can a thinking, remembering, decision-making, biologically accurate brain be built from a supercomputer?

Traveling through the Rockies, the scenery between Vancouver and Calgary is mind numbing. Rows upon gratuitous rows of overly splendid mountains reaching away into the distance, seemingly without end, every peak a new exploration into awe, every turn of the road a new, embarrassingly fantastic view. Eventually, especially in Roger’s pass, the brain begins to shut down, presumably in self defense. The beauty and scale of everything is just too big, too ancient, complete, and remote.

I sepia tinted one of my pictures in an effort to show how timeless it’s possible for these places to be, too. Even with the railroad in the shot, (especially, almost), there’s no way to pin down down the year. Every BC museum has pictures practically the same, essentially interchangeable. No matter when the picture’s taken, the mountains and trees remain identical, as if around the corner you might find a lost batch of men in long pants, dirty white button up shirts, suspenders and vests, their only set of clothes, hacking at the stone with pick-axes for four dollars a day, dreaming of settling down in a frontier future so long in the past we can’t imagine it in colour.

I’m only sorry it was impossible to get a proper sense of the overwhelming scale, taking pictures from the bus. Truly, you have to stop at a look-out, the highway is littered with them, and merely stare.

New research from MIT suggests that longterm memories may not be that fuzzy, but are just harder to find.

begone beige and never return

PARKSEASONS: virtual portals to spring, summer, winter, and fall.

One step away, every direction, pausing, humming, considering actions. Following traits instilled by searching to make better, drum machine, hard, punching the button to make it hit. Days without leaving except to go to work, stale bottoming out, standing still.

We didn’t finished painting yesterday, instead Nicole is going to finish it today with David while I’m at work, so when I go home tonight, it should be to a rather transformed apartment. (Getting the spare room done will clear out almost all the boxes we have left.) I’m quite looking forward to the change. Because so much of my life has been spent in transitory spaces, it’s been fascinating to delve into decorating and discover what it is I actually like to have around me for any length of time. Apparently I especially appreciate being wrapped up in warmth, colour, and a heady, baroque mix of internet modern and good antique design. It’s like I can’t own furniture that wasn’t built either in the last two years or at the beginning of the last century. Perhaps it’s a side effect of living poor, but as part of the future.

because strawberries taste like kissing

Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy Star Wars Tribute.

Today we’re going to be painting more, this time a sweet strawberry daiquiri colour, rather than warm pumpkin orange. (Nicole single-handedly finished the orange last night.) By tomorrow the room will be ready enough for us to move the bookshelves back in and begin unpacking the library out of the improbably towering stacks of relentless boxes.

We’re finishing the the kitchen the same colour tonight, too, which makes me powerfully glad. I’ve had a paint chip tacked to the wall for months, constantly reminding me of just how much stuff is always on my To-Do list. Having two big things swiped off in the same twenty-four hours will feel like a minor miracle.

Of course, now that the painting’s almost finished, I’m starting to look harder at putting my wallpaper up. I bought a wallpaper installation kit at Home Depot when Ray and I were there last night buying paint. All I need now is a packet of glue, some good internet instructions, and a steady-handed Saturday.

An A Cappella Tribute to John Williams.

under the floor are the rats and mouse

affirming

We held hands on the bus a lot our first day, as we travelled into unknown relationship territory, glad, fried, tired, and scared. As I said before, our trip back east was truly make or break. We would either come out of it with a lot of our problems fixed or we would come out of it as single people, ready to give up and go our own ways, understanding that we were just not that compatible.

Today we got up, and David made French toast for us while I processed pictures of our trip. Nicole came over, then my mother Vicki, then Ray, to share breakfast, to give presents, (I gave Vicki an orange keyhole scarf for her birthday), and paint the spare room. Our home is ours, and it is a social place, vibrant, with cozy pets and enough comfortable throw pillows for a small army of interior decorators to attack an encampment. (I have a bit of a problem, actually. I just can’t say no to awesome little pillows.) We are a we, stronger for having been forced together with no escape, stronger for spending some days inescapably without any contact. Whatever uncertainty we had was blasted away by the proof of our survival. There are a lot of reasons we shouldn’t be together, but not enough reasons or strong enough reasons to break us apart. Looking at him now, as he examines some of the terrifying things in the fridge that Karen left behind, while our friends are painting in the other room, helping our apartment become a home, and we all listen to my mad, wonderful ex-boy on the stereo sing and play an electrically wired cowboy boot, I’m glad he’s here. I’m glad I found him, and I’m glad I found me.