Goodlums

It is a beautiful day. The sun is out, the snow is fresh and the sky is blue. But also along the lines of beauty is my mood in general, the world through my eyes. I have just finished Cool To Be Kind by the boys of the Extreme Kindness Crew, and my faith in goodness is restored. Lost in a jumble of cyclical development discourses, I have been using my intention to "develop" as a source of arrogance, and inaction. I am stuck in this notion of development being impossible without a radical overhaul of the world system, and I don't like radical activism, but at the same time feel like I'm doing something better than other people who aren't in development. The boys have put goodness in my hands again, and made me a more humane than I've been in a long time. And while I'm still not ready to give up my hope of saving the world, for day to day life, goodness is pretty good.

Hier

Yesterday was perhaps my favourite so far this summer. I woke up late, and did some self maintenance before meeting our new found fabulous fabulous friend Ray for lunch. He took me out to Zenya, this delightfully chic and tasty sushi restaurant high up in a building on St Catherines Street. Tres delicieuse! I wandered around the underground world of the Bay and the Eaton's centre, and emerged in Little Italy (with help of the Metro) at about 4pm. I had a visual meal of the Jean Talon market, and sat on a little terrace with a cappuccino and A Prayer for Owen Meany. I wandered back along St. Laurent Street to my house, where I found Brennan on the balcony. We ate grapes (what you never thought you'd miss by not living with your parents, until you realized how expensive they are...except in Montreal) and discussed our extreme singledom, after which I had a nap. Brennan woke me at 8, and we went to Ceramic Cafe to paint pots and giggle. The night was topped off with an adventure with Roz and Bren to le Parking, a multi tiered discotheque in the Gay Village. Thursdays is straight friendly night. I was in bed by about 3, and up early this morning ready for the 12 hour shift ahead of me at the deli.

The nice things about days like yesterday is that once you've had one, they're easily repeated.

Love Kate

C'est la vie et la vie est belle

Life is so good. I live in Montreal, I volunteer at the local community kitchen delivering meals to elderly and handicapped, I live in an amazing apartment with two wonderful friends, I have a job at a Hungarian deli about 5 mintues from my house on St. Laurent, I play on a rugby team (maybe) and have access to a balcony, a fire escape and perhaps a roof patio (still working on that). My friends are wonderful, and their friends are wonderful (especially Adam our Filippeno nanny), and we're having a wonderful time. The atmosphere is relaxed (it takes us hours to get out of the house once we decide to go) and the food is good.

Kate always asks me "what was the best thing about today", and here there are too many to count. Yesterday, we had pain au chocolat with coffees from the nearest Portugese bakery (I picked up the coffees in my pyjamas!), while reading the french newspaper. We walked to the Bus Depot to pick up Jess's bike, which we assembled nearly all by ourselves! At one point a ridiculously goodlooking frenchman stopped to help, but alas, he was virtually hopeless, so we had to take over. We found a coffee maker (working) at a garage sale, and then on the way home ran into Terrance, who Brennan happened to tell that she wanted 100 Years of Solitude and couldn't find it anywhere...he had a copy and gave it to her! Then, we ran into Dave, who helped us eat gherkins and came home with us for slushy rum punches. Bren and Jess made individual pesto pizzas with avocado, Jess (Jess's boyfriend...hahaha) arrived. We kept going with the slushy drinks, and Adam arrived with a pineapple. At that point we had 6 of us on our balcony, and those of us that hadn't had too many rum punches feared for our lives. Brennan bailed because of an overreaction to weird Victoria connections (the movie store guy I was obsessed with is also her kickboxing instructor who she's obsessed with!). We drove to Jonah and Zev's, in the Ghetto, in a BMW convertable (refreshments-scotch mints provided), where we smoked a bowl. We relocated to Adam's other apartment, smoked a joint, and watched Super Troopers. We left, with our pants stuffed with toilet paper (we'd run out at home). Like I say, Life is good.

Much Love,
Kate

Scarborough Sea(n)

I went a bit squirly yesterday from reading too much, and feeling trapped in Scarborough, in F6. The world has been so bleek for the past few days, not in relation to me, but in general. I am extremely happy, but worry for the future of humanity. I felt that I needed an adventure to break the negative intertia, but couldn't come up with anything to do besides read Tom Robbins (but I was too squirly from reading already) or watch tv (which makes me more squirly if I'm feeling squirly already). My inability to come up with an appropriate adventure made me feel even more claustrophobic.

In polar opposition, however, today brought the perfect adventure. Sean dropped by, on bike. (***side note: I love things that weren't novel in Victoria, but here are decidedly novel. Bikes for example). I rode once around a campus block, and loved it. We found another bike, and set off with picnic through the valley to the lake. I'd never been before, and I don't quite know why not. Being from Halifax and Victoria, Sean and I did our best to pretend that the lake was an ocean and the breeze was salty. The sea gulls helped the illusion. We picnic'd beside a bronco on the beach and went home via the Quick Stop mart searching for Cyclones.

I don't know what the best part was, being near water, biking, the search for cyclones, simply the idea of adventure, or Sean's company. Perhaps, in true University student post-modernist logic, it was a combination of all five factors. Thanks Sean for encouraging adventure.

Holla Back

What is really Fabulous Fabulous is how Fabulous Fabulous has taken off. I love it. It's always been my goal to penetrate and integrate. Legacizing, and I'm only 20.

Listening: Be Careful of My Heart, by Tracey Chapman

Reading: Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, by Tom Robbins (thanks Sean)

Breathing: carefully

Thinking: 1000 thoughts a second, as per the usue. Wouldn't it be nice if they were useful?