Ten things that I saw last week:

panoramic pictures of the tattoo shop

Sepia in the morning.





Black and white in the afternoon.





I just figured out, after two years, that my cellular telephone can take panoramic shots. Oh the pictures I would have taken had I known...

I also found like ten hilarious videos I do not remember making of two Christmassssessss ago. My drunk family telling stories and bowling together. They're pretty amazing.

I have this.

And I know it's ridiculous. But late at night when I'm half asleep you can not convince me otherwise.

It's a very specific alien that I'm afraid of:

The ones from the Alien quadrilogy? Not scary.

The ones from Close Encounters of the Third Kind? TERRIFYING!

The one from the Predator movie? Meh

The ones from Signs? Pretty scary. That movie freaked me out for years. And still does. It just seemed so real...the scene where the lady is filming a birthday party and the alien walks by, that's on the news? You know? AAAH freaks me out so much!

E.T.? Not scary at all.

The ones from Independence Day? A little scary.

The ones from Flight of the Navigator? Not scary at all.

The ones from Mac and Me? If they were bad guys instead of cute good guys they'd be horrifying, but I actually love that movie.

The ones from X-Files? OMG SO SCARY!

The Killer Clowns from Outer Space? Awesome. I mean, I wouldn't want to meet them in a dark alley or anything but I love them.

It's so bad that there's this ridiculous YouTube video hoax thing where these guys pranked their roommate about aliens and then they saw a real alien in his room? You know that one?...I had nightmares for a week after watching it. And I just went to YouTube right now to find it and got freaked the hell out by the little avatars of all the 'alien hoax' videos.

I'm looking over my shoulder as I type and my tummy feels funny.

It doesn't help that Stephen Hawking is all "Hey, it's a mathematical probability that they're out there and they hate us." (See here and here and OMG I CAN NEVER WATCH THAT DOCUMENTARY OR I'LL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN)


Ugh I just braved 40 more heart attacks to get this for you guys. It's so stupid but AAAGH.



I think I just have an excellent ability to lose myself in a story. It's why I like reading so much and why stupid alien movies and stuff scare the crap out of me...it could totally happen!

Um...yeah. I think that's enough.

(img via learn something every day)

I've finally learned...

Img via Ben Crick

"the cake is a lie"

Hey MTV

Hey MTV you bunch of assholes, what kind of a sham was that fucking twitter contest anyway?

Okay, let me start that again, this time with less swearing.

LiLu, or @LivitLuvit on Twitter...she deserved to be the MTV twitter jockey. She had the most votes on the twitter thang and the facebook thang, and she's a social media pro.

Did you hear that, everybody? She had the most votes.

Twice.

And she didn't even make it into the top five.

Can you say rigged contest?

So MTV, I'd like to say fuck you very much. And if you had something on your channel that wasn't total garbage, I would boycott it, but since it's all crap anyway, no skin off my back.

You fucking suck. From,

Pretty much everybody on the internet. In the world. Especially those of us who have participated in and/or fell in love with TMI Thursdays for years. (It's a lot of people, y'all.)

Peace.

p.s.

I hate you.

yeti and jose

the pie filling on the pie

So yesterday I was all like "What should I do? Go outside? NOT LIKELY", being a total summertime grump. And then Ryan was like "Hey, let's go to this very popular swim hole place near-ish to our house." And I was like "I dunno...." and he was like "...and then we can get pie ..." And I shushed him and said "You had me at pie".

So basically I was bribed out to this swimmy place. Kind of. I also sort of wanted to go because, you know, summer...water...bathing suits...day off...etcetera. I haven't really done any of that yet.

We arrived. There were greasy torsos as far as the eye could see. The kids immediately leapt off the highest rocks they could find into the water, with me barely having enough time to shout "WAIT UNTIL I CHECK IT'S SAFE" and peering over the edge, looking for rocks or sharks. They were fine.

Thirty seconds after that, Ryan had whipped his shirt and shoes off and was having jumping contests with the boys.

I stood around, casually leaning on giant boulders on the side of the rocks, keeping track of every person who may have looked at me. I eventually took my t-shirt off, you know, to blend in. I kept my vans and denim skirt on though. Bikini top and skirt.

I brought my Holga with me. And a book. You know, for something to do. But immediately realized I didn't want to read. It was too weird. The only other person there with a book was this portly man with a lot of grey chest hair, who was lying on his side in a vaguely seductive-esque pose. And I think he was "reading"...by which I mean "pretending to read but staring at 18 year old chicks".

I watched the boys jump off stuff for a while.

Then I watched big boys do shots of something and then jump off fucking ridiculously high cliffs for a while, closing my eyes every time they hit the water so I didn't have to see somebody die. (Don't worry, nobody did.)

"Are you gonna jump in, Nova?"

"Uh...I don't know yet."

"The water's warm! It's not bad!"

"Yeah well I don't really like swimming very much."

"What are you doing?"

"Um...just...standing here."

"That sounds boring."

"Yeah."

I took some rad photos with my Holga. I think. We'll see. Maybe. Last time I dropped any film off at the only place in town that can develop them, they threw my photos in the garbage! WTF? The lady said it's because I dropped them off in January and they can't babysit people's film for so long, and then she said that they were probably all over-exposed or blank or something...but anyway long story short WHAT THE HELL? And I WANT MY PHOTOS. So yeah. Hopefully next time it all works out, you know, for me.

But when the film ran out, because it turns out I had it set to take twelve photos per roll instead of twenty like I thought I had, then I was all out of distractions.

So I went for it.

I took off the skirt and the shoes and stood on the rock beside Ryan's seven year old. From inland a little bit it looked like nothing. Especially with little kids leaping fearlessly off of it. But standing there I could feel my vertigo, my fear of heights and my fear of swimming in weird deep water (which was actually only like fifteen feet deep or something) kick in. My heart started racing irrationally.

"Calm down", I told myself. "It's fun. The water will feel awesome. You're so bored anyway. Just do it. Everybody else is doing it. Quit being a chicken."

I had to finally ask the seven year old to count us down and jump at the same time as me.

3, 2, 1, GO!

*SPLASH*

HOLY MOTHERFUCKER THAT'S COLD

It was so effing cold I couldn't catch my breath. Ryan was swimming nearby and I was trying to shout angry things at him about how he's a liar and it's freezing, but it came out all gaspy and weak.
you *GASP* lied *GASP* aaah! *GASP* I *GASP* can't *GASP* catch *GASP* my *GASP* breath!

I tread water as hard and fast as I could for a good two minutes just to warm up, and then it was okay. But seriously, I don't know why I believed the water was warm. The water is never warm when people tell you it is.

We swam for a bit, stood up on slimy rocks in the middle of the water, I got touched by two fish and didn't panic, and I had fun.

The pie afterward was just the icing on the cake. Or...the apple pie filling on the ... pie?

Something awesome.

Thoughts on...no, reflections...whatever. Very rambly.

It's one of those days where I'm not sure what to do. Go outdoors in the summertime heat? (not likely) Stay inside and read a book? (That's more like it)

Write?

Ah, writing.

1. Writing

I read once that those who only write when they feel like writing are hacks. Real writers have to work hard and do it every day and they hate it but they love it. Today I'm going to force myself to spend hours throwing words out of my brain. It really is difficult to get started but I always look back at what I've created with pride.

Especially stuff I've edited. Check this one on my other blog that I barely use. I like this. I should actually post more on that blog...it's meant to be like a "look what I can do" in case I want to show publishers or agents more of my work...so far it has, um, not much. Of anything.

Since school ended I've been telling myself to write more. But then I had that transcription job on top of working at the tattoo shop full time, so any "free-time" was more like "Guilty time I should be spending on transcribing that video that was due two days ago".
I'd say I worked on those videos ten to twelve hours per week. And I was kind of slow at it, so I was maybe making just over minimum wage. But hey, at least it was convenient. (?)

2. The transcription job ended suddenly.

A couple days ago I received an e-mail:

Also, just to let you know first.

I will leave UVic the end of August, as I want to have a full rest...after all the work.

Once you have done the last video transcription, please hand in the invoice to me.

My supervisor is around this time, so once I get the invoice from you, the check should arrive sooner this time.

Sorry again for the delay.

And thank you very much for your great work.

I really appreciate it.

The girl I was working for has English as like a third or fourth language I believe, and so I had to write back and ask for a clarification...did this mean I was out of a second job?

Turns out it did. She's leaving town because her research is finished. BAM. Just like that. So I completed the final video and turned it in yesterday and...um, yeah. Now what?

3. Now what?

Thanks to my awesome first job, I'm not worried about the financial implications of losing ten hours or so of work a week. It all worked out juuuust fine.

And now I have these spare hours.

I knew this research was going to end, and I had a feeling it would be around now so it wasn't really a big surprise. What I didn't expect, though, was the crazy melancholy that filled me when I got on the bus leaving UVic yesterday after handing in my final invoice.

I have no more homework.

I have no reason to go back to UVic. Ever.

That was it.

I didn't realize how much it meant to me to be tied to that place. And now...no.

But then again, my life is really great right now without stupid UVic all up in my business and when I think about it, using my brain-power, I know that I never really want to go back to that life.

4. The A-Z of what I'm excited about right now:

A- I'm going on an airplane soon!

B-I have the best boyfriend ever!

C- Completely avoiding my ten year high-school reunion.

D-dead bodies...I'm going to the bodyworlds exhibit soon!

E-early mornings can be for relaxing, not scrambling to get work done!

F- FREEDOM to do what I want, especially creatively. No more wasting brain space on giving presentations or worrying about deadlines.

G-I love the German guest artists/friends who are coming in August. YAAY!

H - Having a computer that actually works. Thanks Gerry.

I - I can't wait to try the iron-on t-shirt transfers Sarah gave me...they really deserve their own blog post though.

J - Just being able to go with the flow a bit more will be awesome...no more "oh I have too much work to do"; I can be more spontaneous, which is what I prefer.

K - Being nore kreative. See that? I used a 'k' instead of a 'c'. Wow! I'm really good at that. (Oh my gosh, so kidding. SO KIDDING guys.)

L- More lomography! Using that Holga is so much fun.

M- I'm daydreaming of another trip to Mexico in the near future.

N - Not going back to school in the fall for the first time in a bazillion years. (although I might go back-to-school shopping anyway because... *sigh* notebooks)

O - I'm using my office for what it's meant for these days, not as a storage locker for books and receipts and dead computers anymore.

P- Ryan painted both the bathrooms in our house fun colors last week. Very fancy!

Q - Que hay un nuevo lugar en que se venden tacos mexicanos (pero vegeterianos)

R - Reading as much as I want and renewing my love affair with the library!!

S-I get to hang with my oldest younger sister in Alberta! She's great!

T - True Blood- watching dates with my man once a week.

U - Gaining some understanding and perspective of myself and who I am outside of 'what I do'

V- Having a new Vancouver friend to visit (although we're gonna miss him here!)

W - Writing. A lot.

X - Come on, nothing starts with X

Y - Yeah I should get a sweet haircut soon. Undercut? I think so!

Z-I think we're gonna hit up the Calgary Zoo next week!

I don't know, I feel cautiously optomistic about the next few years. Beyond thirty though, I have no idea.

It's like thirty is a ... landmark age? A cut-off for something?

Before thirty I'm "in my twenties" but thirty? Um, hello adult.

Then again, I thought the exact thing about twenty five.

Anyway I'd like to have something to show by the time I'm thirty. Something tangible.

I guess I have that whole 'diploma' thing, which is kind of hung in its cardboard blue frame-thingy it came with. I shoved one end behind my bulletin board in my office. Maybe I should get a real frame? Anyway I guess that's something to be proud of. Instead I kind of want to shove it under the bed and say, "Yeah yeah, finally it's over with. Now what? What's next?"

"What next?" indeed.

Aaaand yeah. That's where I'm at. More fun bloggy things coming soon. I promise!

want

Las Dos Fridas by Frida Kahlo.

I'll settle for a print I guess.

Peek a boo!

I see you!

That's a photo of me last night, pre-gaming for the Die Antwoord show in Vancouver at some pub somewhere awesome on Granville street.

On my hand, you will see the complete directions from the Ferry terminal to the bus to the sky train to the hotel.

In my eyes you will see SO MUCH EXCITEMENT for the show.

Even though the trip was really quick, it was completely fun. Every single connection, and we're talking bus, bus, ferry, bus, sky train, find hotel, meet up with friend, find the show...it all went as well as it possibly could. We got to hang out with Chris


(he works sometimes at Tattoo Zoo...the shop I work at, and sometimes at Sacred Heart in Vancouver) and a very nice friend of his. We had beer on a patio. We saw an otter playing on a dock. We stayed in a cool hotel.


We got off the island for a day. We saw a show we really wanted to see.

Hahahahahaha seriously they were so awesome. You can't tell from this video because A) they're performing a dance remix of a song which is totally ridiculous, and B) it's a youtube video so you can't really get the whole ambiance and energy thing, and C) You can't see Yo-landi's hair and gold teeth because of the hood ... just take my word for it. So. Much. Fun.

On the way home, between busses we accidentally got lost at the new ginormous WalMart grand opening here in Victoria. What? We had to use the bathroom/were curious, as it has been in various stages of construction for years. We followed the signs that said 'pedestrian access', walked up some unfinished wooden steps and...were suddenly on the roof of the building.
Not to worry though, there was an elevator big enough to park a car in that we took down to the front door...and the platform to get to this random elevator was built entirely of plywood...on the roof? It was strange.

Why open when you're not even finished construction?

Anyway, inside, it looked like a newer busier Costco, but with two floors and less class. It was HUGE. They literally (probably not literally...but definitely figuratively) have everything there; including a walk-in-clinic (yes a fucking Walmart walk-in clinic) and a bakery employee who wore her apron and hairnet into the bathroom stall and was in there like, FOREVER while I was waiting which is totally gross and that's why I'm telling the world. DO NOT TRUST WALMART EMPLOYEES TO NOT WEAR THEIR APRONS INTO THE STALLS AND THEN GO BACK TO MAKING FOOD.

We didn't actually explore the store or anything, we just used the washroom and booked it into the labyrinthine parking lot surrounded by a ghost-town of half-built stores (where we literally almost got lost).

Even using the bathroom was an extreme adventure.

Um yeah, and then we came home and watched T.V.

The end.

Good days off, guys. It was fun.

Zef $ide, Die Fokken Antwoord!

It's my two hundredth blog post. Watch out.

So I thought I'd make myself a really cool image to go along with this momentous occasion: my two hundredth post.

First, I used Old English font, and lined it up all nicely. It was cool and all but it kind of seemed like it was missing something.

I racked my brain. What could go with Old English?

Old English...England...old tyme...medieval times...

(snaps fingers dramatically) I GOT IT! A tribal dragon!

So, using my rather professional paint program skills I placed a sick dragon beside the words.

Yeah, much more radical.

But, you know what the picture was missing? Something to celebrate somebody's heritage. I mean, personally I'm not Scottish or anything but a Celtic knot would really make the picture come alive. It's pretty simple, actually. And small. I thought that if I could make the dragon holding a Celtic knot in it's claw, then it would really finish it off nicely.

Yeah. Awesome.

Except...I think that I need to show how Canadian I am. Maybe in the other claw I'll put a maple leaf. So like, it totally represents me, you know? And where I live. So like, I can show people and they'll be like "Oh, she's a Canadian."

I should also stick a banner with Ryan's name in there somewhere.

Yeah! Sweet!

Now all it needed was a little ICP-style juggalo makeup and a tongue ring on the dragon to make it look tough, and voila:

Fuck yeah.

Anybody wanna let me design their next tattoo?

Mister deer makes a second appearance this week:

Not cool, guys. Not cool.

This guy, I think it's actually mister deer's teenage son, was so close I could have touched him. It took me a good twenty seconds after he started bounding away that I should take a majestic photo of a close-up deer. Unfortunately this was the best one I got.

BLAST

There's a pub near my work with the world's craziest hand dryer machines.

And yeah, maybe I was there the other day.

And yeah, maybe we closed the shop down a little early to go for a beer. What? It was TOO HOT out and we were bored and the boss came with us so it's okay.

So anyway, I've thought that these hand dryers were the bees knees since the dawn of time, more or less, and decided that day, after a beer or two (in the heat which equals like forty beers), to take some photos of my arm. In the bathroom. Under the hand dryer.

I made sure nobody was in there with me first, because...awkward!

Yeah. Now that's a blast of hot air. Best hand dryers ever!

deer family

Yesterday morning I burst out the front door as usual: fiddling with my iPod, tugging my shirt down, still trying to get my shoe all the way on my foot, holding out a hand to feel if it really was raining or just another grey grey day. I always do this. I leave leaving to the very last second. Especially when Ryan's actually around in the morning. Usually I have to leave before he wakes up, or he's just getting home and falling straight into bed from his graveyard shift at the residential group home for disabled adults, exhausted.

Yesterday he was up and we were having coffee together. Probably holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes. You know, regular boyfriend-girlfriend stuff.

So of course I was ... not late, exactly. Just...so close to being late that I had to speed-walk most of the way to the bus stop and hope I don't see it drive by when I'm like thirty steps away like it always seems to do.

I put my earbuds in my ears, and put the songs on shuffle. Please be something good, I thought. Sometimes I let the iPod give me the soundtrack to my day, I'm not allowed to change the song. It's a game where the music determines the mood of my day and creates my own personal music video.

Stevie Wonder. Yes!

Just then, I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye. I thought it was probably just the super annoying kid from across the street who goes through our recycling box (?) and "Plays" with his dog right outside our bedroom window every time Ryan is trying to sleep. (By 'plays' I mean 'holds a stick in the air and yells get it. Get it. Get it. and the dog barks and barks.' It's super awesome.)

I turned and looked, with my best glaring face on.

No, not the neighbor kid. Instead it was...A DEER FAMILY!
I froze. And then said "HOLY SHIT" out loud. That's how surprised I was. And scared.

No, wait. Not...scared. I'm not scared of deer. That's ridiculous. In fact, when I worked on the bee-farm they made me carry a whip to hit the deer who were eating the strawberries with and yeah, I might have whipped a deer or two. And chased them with quads. Which they are not afraid of for some reason. I practically ran one over one time. It was just like "WTF?" and looked at me like I was the crazy one. Which I was.

Anyway...I was...surprised. And so I shouted swearwords of surprise. And they were also like "WTF?" and just kinda stared at me.


And then I did the most rational thing ever. I took pictures of them while simultaneously phoning Ryan to tell him about the deer and how I was scare...no, SURPRISED by them.

In the meantime they moved on, because apparently deer are too cool to hang out with someone as cool and calm as I was.



Ryan was largely unimpressed with my phone call. He was laughing, and I'm pretty sure it was at me, not with me.

After the deer turned the corner back towards the woods behind our house, I kept walking. Stevie was over and it was Radiohead. The day turned greyer and the mood was melancholy beautiful. I mean, yeah...I saw deer after hands holding and coffee. And I was wearing the radical new hoodie Ryan bought for himself but then realized it was a woman's hoodie after he got it home and it just happened to fit me. And it's grey which is my favorite color to wear.
So yeah, it was a pretty alright kinda morning.

About half-way to the bus stop, my bag started vibrating. (That's what he said) The call display said 'call if found' which is code for 'my house', you know, in case I lose my telephone, right? SMRT.

I thought it was gonna be Ryan, but when I answered I got a... SURPRISE.

Me: Hello? (smiling)

Caller: (weird voice, kind of like bullwinkle the moose) Hello, is this Nova?

Me: (laugh) Yes.

Caller: Hello Nova, my name is mister deer.

Me: (double laugh) How'd you get this number?

Caller: I just phoned to tell you not to be scared of me and my family!

Me: (laugh more) Oh! Thanks for calling.

Caller: You're welcome! I have to go now, but remember, don't be scared of me and my family!

Me: Okay! Thanks!

Caller: Bye. Don't be scared of us!

Me: I won't! Bye!

And I couldn't stop laughing to myself like a crazy person all the way to the bus stop. Hope nobody saw me!

fireworks are hard to take pictures of