Here's my dog asleep and awake.

That's his sleepy face. Aww.

---

It's my birthday! I am officially 29! Ding ding ding. I dyed my hair brown for the occasion, but some of the red REFUSED to come out. And only some, it was weird...so now I have brown hair with some red bits. But it kinda looks cool, like I did it on purpose, so I'm fine with that. I'll show y'all a picture when it's not 7am with me in my jammies.

Things I Love Thursday

 I love making you guys barf all over your computer screens because we are so sweet!

I also love...

The Bloggess's "put a bird on it" story. Part 1 and the exciting conclusion. Ah, Portlandia!

Native Mongolians see their portraits for the first time.

Men in pin-up girl poses. 

On the Pink Floyd pig!

How to be a hipster, part 3. See part 1 here and part 2 here. They are hilarious! And humbling. I'm like seventy percent hipster, according to these rules. SHIT.

When you make animal noises at animals you are not talking to them.

Finding balance. 

Chuck Palahniuk tattoo! I may have to copy this idea.

Draw a stickman and see what happens! 

 ---

This reverse map pinning idea by Evan Cook! Found via eyeteeth. I want to do this!

---

Watch this German guy totally trash daddy long legs. Yes, the spider. It may be the funniest internet video I have ever seen in my entire life.I have watched it six times.

Strawberry nails!

I'm So Jealous!: How To Deal With The Green Eyed Monster

Stamping out the persistent myths and misconceptions about tattoos. Note: DO NOT READ THE COMMENTS unless you want to be thrown into a fiery all-consuming rage.

All about airports around the world.

Sleeping suspended. 

The ballerina project.

Sounds of The Simpsons.

I want this travelers notebook for next time I go somewhere. Except maybe probably not in leather.

How to steal like an artist.

What school lunches look like in 20 countries around the world. This is SO neat! There are a few examples from each country. Some look freakin' delicious! Hello France!

Tamimi - Giraffe Manor. If I don't get to stay here within my lifetime, I will be so angry!

How to surround yourself with writing inspiration.

A Dexter themed dining room. Of course. 

This blog featuring photos of terrible tips servers get. Hilarious.

The seven ages of mandelion...I love this!

What photos look like when taken with film that expired in 1959. Pretty cool, actually.

Keith Davis Young's photography. I mean really, where did he find all those vacuum cleaners?

In your face!

Spoiler alert: he's okay!

So...you know that thing where you're two thirds of the way through getting a huge surprise "you wanna do it now?" tattoo and then the phone's for you? And then it's something serious and you aren't sure if you should get up or keep getting tattooed?

I had that yesterday.

Me: "Hello?" lying on the table, Kyle just tattooing away.
Ryan: "Hey. Don't worry, everything's fine."
Me: "What?"
Ryan: "I'm at the hospital. I was in a car accident."

Okay everybody, if you are fine, but have been in a car accident and are at the hospital, this is the correct way to notify somebody. Tell them you're okay BEFORE you tell them you got in an accident! I seriously appreciated that he spared me the heart attack, you know? 

So what happened was Ryan was on his way to work yesterday, just minding his own business, stopped at a stop light, when WHAM! Someone hit him from behind, going full speed. He never even tried to hit the brakes, from what the witnesses say.

He hit him so hard that even though Ryan had stopped three or four feet away from the car in front of him, his car was propelled forward so much that he crashed super hard into that car too. He doesn't remember this at all, but apparently our car is like a freakin' accordion, and the firemen had a hard time getting him out of there because the doors are fucked.

He was taken away on a stretcher, and woke up in the hospital. The first thing he said was "Is everybody else okay?" which is so Ryan, he's amazing. The nurses laughed at him because the next thing he said was "I need to be out of here by Thursday to pick up my kids!"

They were like "okay we know we're slow, but we're not that slow."

So anyway, he called me after they did all their tests, x-rays, etc. because he didn't want me to rush out of my tattoo appointment for no reason. He took a taxi home, and was there when I got home later on.

I'm not as heartless as this makes me sound, of course I asked him if I should come down there! But the thing is...we don't have a car now, so um...we would have ended up taking the bus or a taxi anyway, and it would have taken me around 45 minutes - an hour to get there. It was just logical that I didn't go.

Kyle was like "okay I'm still trying to do a good job here, but I'll stop fucking around and hurry up so you can get home."

I actually think I hurt myself a bit getting home, I definitely feel it this morning in my busted feet...I wasn't thinking about walking slowly and carefully, I was thinking "I HAVE TO SEE HIM NOW"  and I have a sore throat and stuffy nose too?? What the? That has to be Ryan's fault too, right? haha

So long story short, I got a fucking bad-ass tattoo, Ryan has torn muscles all up in his neck and back, we have a lot of paperwork and car rentals, etc. to do, and yesterday was a lot more exciting than I had anticipated it being.

***UPDATE***

The on-scene policeman didn't write down the other driver's information (THE FUCK?!) so the insurance guy is all like "We can't say who was at fault." Um...HE WAS STOPPED AT A RED LIGHT. HUH?

--- Anyway here's my tattoo ---

be the duck

My 29th birthday is coming up ladies and germs, and seeing as I'm like AGES older than the majority of you, I thought I may impart some wisdom.

I have been thinking about this for a couple days, sparked by an immensly immature and passive-aggressive Twitter war I was sucked into. Which is a big no-no in the first place, because you can never win an argument on the internet. Nobody wins, you just go around in circles forever, getting frustrated and angry when the person on the other end is not worth your time.

That's lesson number one, everybody. Don't let internet things get your goat, it is never worth it. Do not respond. I repeat, do not respond. You can smash your mouse against the wall if it makes you feel better, but don't feed the bears! At the tattoo shop we've adopted a saying: Be the duck. Meaning, let it all roll off your back.

Basically though, the thing that got me was that a 20 year old girl told the internet that "someone" is pathetic for being happy in a "dead end job" and the internet should feel sorry for "them". She later denied it was about me, which is her typical M.O., bitch about someone without using names, then get busted and cowardly deny it.

Now, of course my first reaction was to be angry, but now that I'm thinking about it, I shouldn't let her ignorance bother me, right? I mean, what does she know of humanity? She is judging me based on a very limited worldview. I would like to talk to her about it in ten years and see what she has to say to me then.

Literally one of the most important things I have learned over my 29 years is that everybody has a story. Everybody is interesting if you take the time to get to know them. And I do mean everybody. The nine year old you used to babysit, the seventy year old man talking to himself on the corner...

Everybody has a different path, and if you judge them on their choices or lifestyle it is probably because you don't understand where they've been and what caused them to make the decisions they make. There is no wrong way to make a life, as long as it is balanced, healthy and that the person in question is happy.

In my case, I've found happiness in simplicity. I have the time and mental space to do other things around my job, and during the work week I am basically getting paid to hang out with my friends. Um, to me that is awesome. I know plenty of people in careers who are bored stiff, not making much more money than I am, and slowly drying up and dying inside.

I am one hundred percent content in my life, with the exception of having to take the bus every day and having hurt feet. :) But how many people can truly say that? I am very free right now, I can do what I want when I want. I'm not locked into contracts, I'm not married to someone I hate, I am happy.

If you find yourself in my position, with somebody telling you that you're not good enough, or you are a loser or should do more with your life, then just remember that a fancy career and money do not buy happiness! And that is true. One hundred percent. Take it from someone who used to be "the rich girl" who lived in the biggest house in our town. I left that place and became a dirt-poor semi-homeless hippie. On purpose.

Do what makes you happy and never listen to life critics. Usually it means they are unhappy with themselves in some way and are trying to drag you  down to their level. Stay above it. Let it roll off your back.

Be the duck. 

diptych: me and the dog

Not for the religious, not for the easily offended.

Richard Dawkins' The Root of All Evil? The Virus of Faith.

part 1

part 2

It's official, I never want to go to Jerusalem.

***

I'm blogging every single day of October with Blogtoberfest, just so's you all know. Not that that's really any change, I seem to be doing that anyway. 

rightside up, upside down

You should hear him breathe when he's on his back like that. Hahahaha. Cutest.

***

I'm blogging every single day of October with Blogtoberfest, just so's you all know. Not that that's really any change, I seem to be doing that anyway.

lately...

Reading: I just did a library smash'n'grab yesterday. Basically, every once in a while when I have nothing to read at all I just grab like ten books off the library shelf that seem like they might be interesting. Here's what I got yesterday:

Right now I am reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, just because I'm curious why it's been popular since 1937. So far it seems a bit bossy, haha.

Watching:

Last night Ryan and I went on a date to see the new Kevin Smith movie Red State. Holy moly it was intense. It's no Mallrats, that's for sure. Here's the NSFW trailer if you're interested. Basically it's about a psychotic bunch of religious weirdos who hate homosexuals. There's all kinds of awesome actors; I recognized people from True Blood, Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad. John Goodman was especially bad-ass in it.

Last night it was a one-time one night only type screening, and we got free t-shirts!

Yeah I don't know where I can wear that without everybody just assuming I'm pregnant but whatever. (If you can't read it, it says "There's babies in the attic.")

Ryan accidentally put mine on, it was a night just full of hilarity.

Listening:

I found a Spanish podcast that is absolutely perfect for me. It's simply called 'spanish podcast' by Mercedes Leon who is clearly a Spanish teacher for foreign students, and she is awesome. Each podcast begins with a little skit (that she kind of creepily performs herself...all the roles, laughing at the jokes, etc), and then she breaks it down for like half an hour. She goes through all the vocabulary, the grammar, etc. But it's all in Spanish and uses big intellectual words, so it's not dumbed down at all. It's like taking a university Spanish class. You can get it for free in iTunes if you're interested. There's like 250 episodes there.

Eating: Ryan made a casserole for us the other day and I realized it had probably been five or six years since I've had one. They feel so homey and cozy to eat!

Loving: that my real good friend Jen came all the way from Alberta to hang with my crippled ass. It was so nice to see her! :)

Also, my real cool cousin who lives in Vancouver just started a blog of her own and it's already rad! Not like when I started out and wrote all awkwardly about the cleanse I was doing and then quoting Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey. Trust me, it was painful to read.

Thankful for: Winning so many darn blog giveaways lately! I keep getting good mail, it's so exciting! This week I got a real cool stripy toque (Canadian word, look it up) and a freshwater pearl bracelet from a wedding accessory store! As Jen (pictured above) said, it looks rather incongruous on me. But whatever. In the picture the hat is folded up a little at the bottom, it doesn't really look that weird.

Looking forward to: my 29th birthday (I wonder if I'll be looking forward to it next year), reading a lot of good books, getting my chest tattoo finished soon (hopefully) as well as a couple others I've been planning for some time now, being able to walk to the regular bus stop again and maybe even taking this guy for a w-a-l-k. I miss it so much!

From the look on his face, so does he!

guy I love Thursday, a diptych

The A to Z of ... YOU!!!

Bet you weren't expecting that one! Surprise! That's right fellas and ladies, I took your precious meme and turned it upside down. This isn't about what my least favorite chore is or what I eat for breakfast...vaccuuming and oatmeal btw...nope. I'm feeling philanthropic at the moment, and thought I'd give back to this wonderful blogging community.

I follow eighty seven bajillion blogs, and here are 24 of my favorite moments or features from a few of the awesome blogs I love. 

Just to cover my ass here, I'm gonna tell you guys s-l-o-w-l-y and clearly and bigly that all these videos, photos and excerpts are coming from the blogs mentioned, so basically I did not create any of the content in this post. Please go visit each of these people, they are amazing. And if anyone's bummed that I'm using their stuff, please let me know! I don't want any hard feelings, I'm just trying to be nice here. Geez. Relax. 

ONWARD AND UPWARD! 

---

THE A TO Z OF ... YOU!

Amalie's (still) Untitled Blog - when she dressed like an evil prima ballerina. So. Awesome.

Benjamin and Elise - That time it snowed in New Zealand, they were so excited about something that I'm generally very blase about, stereotypical Canadian girl that I am.
 
Conspiracy Inc. - Allan's black metal birthday party...I love when people aren't "too cool" to dress up and paint their faces. Really though, you should click through and see the other partygoers! LOL!

Delightfully Tacky: Elizabeth's posts on her adventures in the brave were what got me really interested in blogs in the first place. That was a few years ago, and she is still killing it with her cool gigantic hair. :)

Eep, I'm a Blogger! Other than the amazing blog title (haha) she also does some pretty good "stumble sunday" posts that rival the best TILT posts I've seen. I'm a big fan of huge lists of interesting links.

Freckled nest: LA's post on her dog Tom nearly killed me with cuteness. 

Gala Darling's recent animal encounter! I can't believe a lion licked her hand! So jealous!

Hue and Hum - the awesome custom shirts "lady hue" makes are so great! I would love one that looks like Sgt. Pepper would wear it. If he were a real person and not just a concept album, of course. Here are a couple of my favorites she's done so far:

I Go By Katie: all her photos. Everything in her life looks so clean-cut and well-lit. And she always has photos in her posts, which I love. Everything is illustrated so well. See?

Jess of The Doe or the Deer: has mastered the art of instagram+blogging. Normally I just skip over instagram naval-gazer posts, but hers have a certain je-ne-sais-quoi to them. (You can click through to see their original posts.)

Kris Atomic - "Kendal Calling Photo Diary" - pics of an outdoor concert in b+w.

Little Chief Honeybee: well, everybody on the whole internet is abuzz about this, but Kaelah's new mobile business is so cute!

Mary Rebecca's Blogging Worldwide series, in which she shares lists upon lists of amazing bloggers, separated geographically. You can find people in your hometown, or people across the world. Really cool idea.

No Ordinary Rollercoaster - when Ben went to Ethiopia. I loved his very honest North American perspective on everything that was happening.Especially when he talks about the traffic, LOL!

I’ve never been more certain of my own demise or disfiguration than I was in the cabs and bus-cabs on the way home from the market today. I had fourteen adrenaline rushes, I aged seven years, I had two hours of post-traumatic stress disorder, and I spent thirty minutes planning out my next cab requirements so that I could mentally prepare with a Gravol cocktail with a Xanax chaser.

Our City Lights: Diana's bed.

Pencil Box: Katie is painting a wall in her home using a gigantic paint by numbers pattern right now! 

Q ... come on, no blogs start with Q!

Rockstar Diaries: um...their dog reminds me of someone I know!

Suzy Krauze and the Skyscrapers: the first time she vlogged it was so cute my brain exploded.

Time won't wait for me - Kristin's most recent post on an adult patient in the Operation Smile recovery room in wherever she is now in India...it brought tears to my eyes. I love what she's doing, and I love her way with words...and there's a tie for the 't' section, because I also look forward to reading Caitlin's blog To Make Love Stay on Thursdays. Her TILT posts are some of my favorites!

Um...I don't follow any "U" blogs. so here's a cute picture of tank and I this morning. Yes, this is how I'm blogging: on the floor, 20 pound dog head in my lap. Not pictured: big ol' cup of coffee.

(hello)Vanny - all the 8-bits posts. Again, it's just tons of cool links to random stuff.

Write In Color - basically this entire blog is amazing. It's kind of in the 'self help' category of blogs, but is so beautifully written that each time Melody posts, I feel giddy.

"The most tender thoughts, though carefully cultivated and privately adored, once exposed to the public, may become subject to our intrinsic capacity  for self-destruction. So I urge you, as did Emerson and Silverstein, to remember the independence of solitude. Listen to public opinion but don’t let it destroy you" 

X-actly where did you think I would find a blog that begins with an x? 

Yes and Yes: the true life series! Sarah Von interviews people with interesting jobs or life stories. Some of them will blow your mind! Some of my favorites are: I worked in a sex shop, my sister was dead for 18 minutes, I was a phone sex worker, I'm athiest, My family was in a cult, I was a lady cab driver, and I live with hill tribes in Thailand.

(Coffee and) Zombie Movies (haha I was reaching for a 'z' okay?): Chelle's illustrations KILL ME. She is so good at expressing hilarity in her drawings. Like, I'd put her up there with Hyperbole and a Half, guys. So it's serious. She actually drew my blog's header too, so we're like, practically best friends now.Click through to read the amazing stories these belong to:

Bonus Chelle post: the "I just made duct tape into a purse" song. It's very catchy.

---

And that is it, my friends. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Blog Crashers!

I asked Hannah to talk about two things I've been meaning to write about for months: the blanket octopus or chinese foot binding in the 1800s. Both are disturbing topics in their own ways...find out which one she chose!

Definitely go here and see her blog, she vlogs like ... awesome. And she's a funny girl. I like.

And...if anybody wants to vlog about chinese foot binding in the 1800s, and then let me post it here on my blog, that would be great. Let me know. 

ridiculous country music songs

 ***I originally posted this on Desirous of Everything as a guest blogger - you should go there***

I am from a small town in Alberta Canada.

For those of you who don't know what that means, this is how I remember it: farmers, real cowboys, oil sands, "rig pigs", house parties and underage drinking, "family values", the best bush parties ever, Hutterites, jocks vs druggies, fighting, racism, money, drugs, freezing cold winters, knowing your neighbors, knowing everybody's business, community gatherings, people constantly having babies, a working steam train, drama, obesity...

People always say it's the Texas of Canada, but I've heard Austin is awesome so I don't know if that's fair to Texans.

There's some cool stuff about small towns too, for sure. My step-dad is the mayor, for example. That's pretty cool, right? And a lot of people I love and care about like living that way, which makes it indismissable for me. It just really wasn't my bag. I have always been obsessed with obtaining absolute anonymity on the streets, maybe because I'm so shy or a snob or something. I really think I'd thrive in a London or a New York City, where nobody knows my name. Kind of like a reverse-Cheers-type-scenario.


Anyway, one thing I regrettably gained over my five or six rather formative years in a particular small town, was an extensive knowledge base of country music. But wait, I'm not talking about the "cool" country music. No no no.

I'm talking about POP COUNTRY. 

Yeah. That's right, your ol' Nova "Rella" knows all the words to probably every Shania Twain song ever written. Terrible, isn't it? It's not my fault! The only radio station in the whole town played top 40 country, and it was the only thing the bars in town played unless one of the metal kids got to "guest dj".

When my friend Sam, who is from London, asked me if I'd ever heard country music before, and was it a "real thing", it blew me away that not everybody learned line dancing in gym class! (Electric Slide? Cadillac Ranch? Anybody?)  Not everybody knows the lyrics to Fishin' in the Dark...which I have on my iPod at the moment actually...full disclosure! Whatever, that song is kind of awesome.

Anyway, the point is, rather than hanging out in old barns listening to people blow on jugs with three x's painted on the sides and pluckin' banjo strings like I should have, I was repeatedly exposed to songs about achey breaky and/or cheatin' hearts, what guys do all the time, and um...sexy tractors 

What, you think I'm joking? Well, for those of you international readers who don't know the crazy ridiculous phenomenon that is "pop country" here are the three VERY popular pop country songs that are so ridiculous I can't even...I don't even...

Just listen!

shitty advice, $1

I did, I paid the man. He said so many people were taking his picture that he should start up a facebook group. He probably should. He told me to always do what others expect of me, and to amputate my feet, and never follow my dreams. And then my bus came so I had to cut him short.

diptych: wooden sunglasses and some prescription drugs

FINALLY the sunglasses I won through Kaylah's blog have arrived! I've been holding my breath for weeks! They're a rad pair of tumbleweed's custom made red and wood glasses. They fit like a dream and make me look pretty darn cool.

And the drugs are for my stupid feet because it turns out they're not broken but I have plantar fascitis, aka inflammation of the plantar fascia, this weird bit of tissue in the bottom of your feet. It takes months, and sometimes years, to heal. And yeah...it hurts enough for me to have thought I broke bones in my feet.

Lesson I learned the hard way:  TOMS shoes, Vans shoes, Converse, and other flat shoes with no support...they are great. I love them. They look cool and feel comfy. BUT you should never ever wear them for extended periods of walking. Never wear them for sports or dancing. Please, everybody, invest in good shoes or insoles for your "bad" shoes, even if you feel kind of dorky. Because there's nothing cool about having something wrong with you that's most common in 60 year old men and obese people, crying in the back room at work, and crawling from the couch to the bathroom because you can't walk. Take it from old lady Nova, it sucks ass.

PSA - a satellite is falling to earth!

So over brunch the other day (because we're fancy), Ryan told me about this satellite that's apparently going to fall down to earth. Things enter the earth's atmosphere all the time, but they just burn up and whatever, it's cool. This thing though? Is not going to burn. It's going to make it to land, and it's going to crash. It's about the size of a school bus!

NASA is unable to predict when and where, exactly you guys, but it's probably today sometime. They'll know where about two hours before it kills us all lands safely in the ocean, hopefully. Click here to read about it.

I love the bit at the end that tells you not to try and sell pieces of it on EBay, because what has our society come to?

But really guys, you shouldn't touch it. You all know what happens when you touch things that fall from outer space...you may turn into a horrible mossy plant man!

(Sorry it's in Spanish, all the English ones had been taken down due to copyright infringement.) This is an act from the 1982 awesome horror/comedy movie The Creepshow, starring Stephen King who touches a meteorite and turns to a plant man and eventually kills himself. Yeesh.

What? It could happen!