Front Lawn Fresh Cuts vol.XII

Last week I put the PRO in procrastination. If only to pull something minorly productive from all my dallying, it's time to share, once again, some of the cultural delights I've been indulging in when I SHOULD be working. So without further ado, a new edition of Fresh Cuts:

On the Playlist: the Shins' Wincing the night Away, the Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank — For the last month I have yet to remove these three albums (all on one handy mp3 disc) from the stereo.

On the Reading List: at the moment? Wuthering Heights. But a fresh shipment from Amazon and a stroll through Chapters's sale rack just expanded the to-read list dramatically (notables: Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, and Louise Erdrich's Master Butchers' Singing Club).

Current Obsession: There were a few weeks here when we watched nothing but Entourage each night before bed (three seasons in a row). Ari Gold was cussing in my dreams.

Design of the Times: Marimekko fans, find anything from trays to hot mits, shower curtains (left) and umbrellas in your fave fabric designs on finnstyle.com

Have an ’Art: Always on the lookout for affordable wall adornment, my heart leapt when I discovered the poster shop at thesmallstakes.com—a collection of beautiful gig posters from some favourite bands (see the Shins above, but check the site for even lovelier pieces).

She's Crafty!: Humoring a newfound urge to create, I've been working on crocheting a blanket. It's only right that they're called "granny squares" because those are the two things I feel like each time I sit down with my ball of yarn.

In the Kitchen: My (relatively) newfound like of cooking means a whole new genre of books to purchase! I just added I Like Food, Food Tastes Good to my Amazon wishlist.

Blog Log: magazine blogs are holding my of late. In particular, Blueprint and ReadyMade.

Countdown To: Exactly two months from today, two of my nearest and dearest are tying the knot. Can ya believe it?!

To Do List: The groom mentioned above has loaned me his GNC Gold card so I can get my hands on the components of a "colon cleanse." To be honest, I'm a bit nervous of what could come out of me, but I think it's high time I attempted to erradicate all my issues with my innards. ick.

why we do what we do

As Dean can fairly attest, I've been feeling a bit, hmmm, unmotivated in my work of late.

Writing at home is not only lonely, it also requires a great deal of self-discipline, motivation, and willingness to work at the risk of never getting a paycheque for your efforts. I possess little to none of these. Working on a deadline with a clear assignment is great. love it. Writing a story with no idea whether it will be read by an editor, let alone see the light of print is a whole other dealio. And this knowledge has me in a bit of a funk.

A really nice respite from my foul mood came last night when I met with a lady from A Rocha Canada, a Christian environmental group, to talk about eco-stewardship and our responsibility to care for creation. A half hour interview turned into a two-and-a-half hour conversation about faith and worship and social justice. I came home inspired and talked Dean's ear off until I realized he was already sleeping :) It is fascinating people that remind me why I am a writer—the opportunity to share their stories and glean their wisdom.

In other news, we decided to take a spur of the moment trip to Saskatchewan this weekend. We miss our adorable nephews and niece, are looking forward to sharing a bottle of wine with the inlaws and siblings, and cannot wait to see if Terra's belly is showing the baby yet!

the facebook curse

It starts out harmless enough. Someone approaches you, all friendly and low key and says, "hey, try this out, it's fun. No, really, you'll like it."

In my case there were two culprits: you and you. I can't believe I trusted these fellas.

You sign up and think, hey, this is neat. I can post pictures for free and write sassy messages to my best friends for all the world to see. They can post pictures of me and tag them so that I know everywhere my mug appears on the internet. I don't even need to call or email my friends, nor do I know what's happening in their lives, yet I feel very "in touch" and connected to them.

Then suddenly you're sending "remember me?" messages to your big sister's first camp boyfriend and the old nextdoor neighbour who tied you to a tree in the front yard when you were both four. Your real-life conversations turn from politics to the girl you knew in grade 3 who incessantly sucked her fingers who you haven't heard from since, but is fascinatingly interconnected with multiple people on various levels of your life today.

What's worse is, even if you commit to signing off for a week (which I have) your email inbox is deluged with friend requests, friend detail requests, tag notification and tag requests, group invitations, event invitations, messages on your wall, comments on photos and responses to your photo comments, and worst of them all: "pokes" (which no one seems to understand anyway).

And as much as you hate all of it, you sooooo want to see what so-and-so from highschool's kids ended up looking like, and who the heck they married. You may not have thought of that person in over a decade but it takes every ounce of will power to not check and see what that long-lost acquaintance has written on your wall.

By all means, if you have not already signed up for Facebook, hold steady, do not give in, it will not make your life better, it will only consume you.

70 channels of trouble

The Regier household got cable this morning.

Stupid Shaw and their stupid promotional deals.

They know just how to suck us in—one month free, no obligations. For the record I fully intend to cancel when my month is up because we all know I need no more distractions on the days I'm working from home (heck, on particularly bad days, even Dean's copy of Applied Bayesian Modelling would be enough to pull me away from the computer).

And of course the cable guy strategically left the TV on and tuned into TLC before he left... otherwise I'd never have known that What Not to Wear runs mid-morning, nor would I have discovered (thanks to TLC's crazy long commercial breaks) that Jeff Probst was co-hosting with Kelly Ripa. The morning went downhill from there. How do people LIVE with cable?

I'm hiding my remote control. right. NOW.

more and more on climate change

I'm feeling a bit sheepish— I've totally jumped on the climate change train and I'm beginning to wonder how much of it is my own social conscience and how much of it is just the result of hype.

I'd like to think it's the former, but either way I'm on. Hopefully I'm becoming a better person because of it, but the fact is, my lifestyle has taken a serious turn for the worst:

+ For one thing, I hesitate to take out a half empty garbage bag (in spite of stinky cheese contained therein) because if I wait until it's full, that's one less plastic bag in the dump (thankfully Dean's concience permits such acts)

+ I caught myself drinking cold (possibly day-old) tea yesterday because I read that stove-top kettles (what we have) use way more energy than electric (which my aesthetic sensibilities and lack of counter space won't permit me to purchase).

+ Guilt over how much time I spend in the shower was preventing me from shaving my legs—I remedied the situation today.

+ I now use turning off lights and turning down heat and putting on sweaters as an excuse to put off doing work.

Perhaps we should start weighing our ecological footprint against the boot print it puts places our good habits and hygiene?

bullfrogs and butterflies

Four days away with the Smith fam offered some (mostly unearned!) R&R: walks on the beach, trips to the gym, an anxiously anticipated shop (new Mizunos, yoga pants and *gasp* a dress), an entire season of The Office (I know, totally indulgent) and much too much food. It also brought us all to the same church at the same time. Five of us neatly in a row, something that hasn't happened in years. It was nice to hear the familiar blend of my dad's bass, and my mom's alto. Easter is a peculiar occasion—the most important in our faith, yet still totally baffling to me. It's good to be grounded in family while sorting through the significance of such an event.

Dean and I caught frogs one night. It was a perfect way to welcome in summer. It also elicited an endless round of a favourite old Sunday School tune (see post title) which Dean can't distinguish from "Baby Beluga" so the two have become one.

Things were slow at Hydro yesterday so I called it a day at noon, cleaned the apartment and piles of Island-dirtied laundry, then walked myself down to South Granville where, it seems, summer has been in effect much longer than it has on Spruce street; long enough for girls to pull out their flip flops and bermudas. I joined in their frappuccino-drinking and lazy-magazine-flipping and, dang, it felt good.

all things new

In the northern hemisphere, at least, and Vancouver specifically, it is so beautifully appropriate how Spring and Easter never fail to arrive on the same weekend.

I walked to lunch this afternoon, shades on face, jacket begging to come off, needlessly-brought-gloves tucked away in my bag, marvelling at how even the Oak Street pollution was masked by the smell of blossoms. The North Shore mountains nuzzled up behind glass sky-scrapers was enough to slack my jaw. (Don't tell Dean, but I'm having a secret love affair with my city.)

But it wasn't until I strolled home after a visit with one of my oldest friends that I really appreciated the newness of it all. God, it seems, is really into cycles. He guides the planet through them as be tugs the earth closer and further from the sun. Spring is when He shows us, again, the beginning of the cycle, and gives us endles fodder for lessons about rebirth and spiritual life. Today I'm appreciative of the the fact that He has given me just the regular kind of life, not to mention the eternal kind.

Happy Easter everyone.

Pretty

Lent is almost over and the shopping bug is starting to bite... I've been previewing some goods online :)

some gems:
Hayden Harnett, out of Brooklyn (no surprise there)

Camp on Perry, for a taste of the West Village

New spring jackets and frocks from Chloe (see left)

A whole fresh season of dresses from Anthropologie

A.P.C.'s Summer 07 collection

something tells me it'll feel good to hop off the wagon.

old fashioned update

You'd think working at home would mean daily blog activity, but the fact is, I feel guilty using my own time for this... Somehow it never used to cross my mind that blogging on someone else's dime might also be a mistake ;)

In any case, the result is that an unprecidented number of people have been asking me lately: "What ARE you doing these days?"

The short answer is, I'm at home freelancing three days a week, and I'm at BC Hydro two days a week ensuring our groceries and health insurance are paid for each month.

Sadly though, I usually get a blank stare when I say "freelancing," and people hesistantly start to ask me how my (non-existant) book is coming along. In my case, I'm doing lots of corporate writing (websites, brochures etc), a wee bit of arts writing (some band profiles and reviews), and an increasing amount of magazine writing (all manner of articles). The long term goal being to find a healthy balance between the soul-gratifying mag work and the bank account-pleasing corporate work.

Deano is working hard at getting some papers done for his two presentations in Copenhagen (in July) now that the data for his PhD research has come in.

work aside, Dean and I have been entertaining up a storm, trying to have people over whenever schedules permit, though Dean is good to enforce a twice-per-week-maximum on having guests :) We're still not settled as to where to go to church here, though we have been going to Tenth Ave alliance because we like the people are have gotten involved recently in their homeless ministry.

Yesterday was a lazy Sunday: Peace Portal Alliance church because D forgot his phone in Treovr's car, having lunch in White Rock with friends, then returning to the place where it all began (ie, the place where I learned his name was Dean and not NATE), Dolce Gelato on the strip for some wicked blood orange and mango gelato. mmmm.

voila, there's the update. your regular scheduled blog will return tomorrow.