carrie carm: full of charm.

corner of East Cordova and Main: power passes slowly, but pisses like a race horse..

2012-02-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

Here is what was on the corner of East Cordova and Main in November 2011.

Below is what it looked like last week.

hot chocolate with Katie

2012-02-10T15:00:00.000-08:00

I met Katie last year, in June. I pulled her hair, as you do when you meet someone at a krav maga workshop, and she punched me a few times. Katie has been doing krav maga for a while, though I didn't know it at the time. I had fun. Punching people is fun. Kicking people is fun.

We went out for fancy $6.10 hot chocolate at a place called Mink. We both had a Caramel Mermaid, or maybe it was just a Mermaid.... I can't remember. I'm not good at Timely Blog Posts. This was a few weeks ago. Maybe even a month ago. The hot chocolate was pretty good, though I feel if I am paying $6 for a drink, there should be some weed cooked into it, or alcohol stirred in. I had the dark version, Katie had the milk version, and it had caramel in it, and a sprinkling of sea salt on top.

We talked about things like temp agencies, living wages, the destruction of one's self-esteem after a long period of unemployment, travelling, and how she makes her own cola soda -- which sounds rather delicious. We both like arts and crafts type things.

It was snowing that morning. On my way to meet Katie, I discovered that someone in the neighbourhood had cleaned out their stuffed animal museum:

The animals were still there the next week. Mickey was missing, Bugs was lying in the gutter, and the Pink Panther had abandoned his buddies and made it all the way across the street:

Sneaky.

Some of the stuffed objects disappeared the following week. The snow melted.

Finally, the elephant was left all alone.

Then he vanished. Now there is an odd assortment of furniture where the abandoned stuffed delights used to be.

coffee with Katie, virtual edition.

2012-01-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

Modern times make it possible to have coffee with someone without being in the same room. The day after I posted my coffee with Katie, she sent me this text:

Looks gross, tastes great.

coffee with tom & trina

2012-01-20T20:49:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I had a meeting downtown. It's been a while since I had to be somewhere on time while Dressed For Success, and that morning was fun, like I was putting on a costume for my performance as Successful Working Adult: suit and makeup, fretting over my hair, and using my business lady bag instead of my everyday bag.

Being a consultant with a particular expertise is so much better than interviewing for a job. Nobody asked why I wanted to do this work or where I saw myself in five years or encouraged me to tell them about a time when I had a co-worker I didn't like and how I handled that situation. They showed me what needed to be done, I said it looked like no problem and exactly the kind of thing I like to do, I would provide them with a quote once I looked over the files, and that was that. It was awesome.

And after the awesome business lady meeting, I was feeling all giddy and potentially prosperous and DOWNTOWN GETTIN SHIT DONE, so I used some modern communication techniques to arrange coffee/lunch time with my man and my sister. We decided to meet at Nelson the Seagull, a café in my most favourite fucked up neighbourhood, the Supreme Grand Chancellor of of all fucked up neighbourhoods, Gastown. All the tables were full and I thought we might have to go somewhere else:

Those "kids that are clearing out"? Not just sweet young hipsters, but actual toddlers. Maybe older than toddlers. Blonde. Cute. Contrary to Trina's advice, I did not flash my boobs. Tom and I just stood around looking distressed until a couple and their kids packed up and left.

Then we had coffee:

Which was amazing. Such good coffee. These were cappuccinos, but Tom assures me that the regular coffee is just as good. Brewed to order.

They have delicious sandwiches. Well, the sandwich I ate was delicious.

They also make their own almond milk. Trina had a latté made with it. She said it was the best almond milk she has ever tasted.

The décor of this place is charming and lovely and there is a bizarre amount of open space. A cavernous café, really. The washroom is absolutely massive. We were sitting near an old library card catalogue holder that had shipping tags hanging from random card drawers, and the drawers had messages and notes inside them. The catalog was titled:

and I'd like to know more about the broken hearts repair club, but there were no explanations nearby. Maybe I will ask what is up with the broken hearts repair club next time I am there.

Then Tom went back to work and Trina and I went to look at the city from way up high.

Since no one seems to be using that parking lot, may I suggest a rooftop garden in its stead?

And less than a week later I realized that there was no way I could work on the project and still maintain my sanity. All part of my "may 2012 be my year of intense failure" plan. Onwards and upwards.

things I saw on my bike before the snow came.

2012-01-19T12:07:00.002-08:00

It's been snowing in Vancouver, so I have been using that as an excuse not to ride my bike. Here are some pictures I took before the snow:

There's a public swimming pool near where I live. In the summer, it's filled with sunburned, screamy children and sunburned, screamy moms. In the winter, the birds take over.

I took this picture a few days after I took a shot of the exact same place, before it became a barbed wire, high security zone. I contemplated asking the men why this area was being protected so fiercely, but decided not to, as sometimes the wondering is much more interesting than the knowing.

coffee with katie

2012-01-06T11:46:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I went for coffee with Katie. I met Katie in the autumn of 2004, shortly after moving to Montreal. She was my next door neighbour in a crappy little apartment building called Château Clark. There were drug dealers in the basement and a lot of very angry, screamy people scattered throughout the rest of the building.

Sometimes we would sit on the shared balcony in the sweltering hell of summer (Katie and I were the only ones who had plants on our sections of the balcony) and drink beer and eat food and smoke things and talk about the neighbours, particularly the old man across the street who never seemed to move from his chair, the hot dude across the hall with the terrible taste in music, and Olive, the baby in the next apartment building over with the gigantic head.

Now we both live in Vancouver. We met for coffee at Prado Café on Commercial Drive, a place I have been to a few times before. I like it there. On that particular Sunday, there were only a handful of shiny silver Macs facing the doorway. I had a cappuccino and she had a latté. The cappuccino was not even close to being as delicious as the one I had with another former neighbour; and though it was still good, it was bitter at the end. We talked about jobs and school (she's gonna git herself a PhD one of these days) and gender stereotypes and violence and relationships and concepts of home and depression and how hard it is to ask for help, sometimes.

rejection is one thing. being ignored is another.

2012-01-05T05:46:00.000-08:00

In the past few months, I have had some extra time on my hands. Unfortunately, a lot of this time has been sucked away by My Chronic Despair, or Reevaluating Every Choice I Have Ever Made In My Life, Ever.

I do not recommend this reevaluating thing. It can go to some seriously weird and highly uncomfortable places.

I've reexamined past job applications, correspondence, grades, essays, creative endeavors, relationship choices, scholastic choices, dreams, diaries, financial decisions, philosophies, religious beliefs, body modification/fashion choices... I've been spending a lot of time in my head.

Thinking about stuff.

I've wondered why some people respond to emails, announcements, applications, invitations, and ideas while others do not. Rejection is one thing. I can deal with rejection. It is unpleasant, but at least it is an acknowledgement of an attempt. Being ignored? It's horrible.

I know that I am in a weird time cocoon, one shared by many, with varying spots on the continuum of warped sense of time: the unemployed, the underemployed, the ill, the bereaved, the retired, the lonely, the depressed, the child waiting impatiently to grow up......so I know I need to be patient. Time means different things to different people. What might feel like being ignored is actually not being ignored at all. Sometimes I mean to get back to someone, and then time deforms, and I have forgotten, and a good intention turns into complete inaction.

I was attempting to joke, a little while ago, about how I can't believe it's been almost four full months since my last contract ended and how all of my plans for fitness and other projects have fallen by the wayside. And someone asked me that question that is dreaded by many:

Well, what have you been doing with your time?

Easy to answer when a stranger/acquaintance asks, though I do refrain from pointing out what a rude question it is: "Wow. And who do you have to justify your existence to? Oh right, you have a job, you are working and therefore do not have to justify your existence."

This question is even worse when asked by a loved one. I can be flippant with near strangers, but not so much with the people who are intimately involved with my life. My defense mechanisms go on hyper snarl/hyper-curl-into-a-ball-and-cry. Disturbing combination.

I've been very busy trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with me because I'm looking at all this evidence that says I have talent, I have skills, I GOT CHOPS YO but nothing is working.
I have been maniacally checking my email every 3 minutes.
I have been willing the phone to ring with a request for an interview.
I have been slipping into madness.

All of these things require a lot of time.

You know that saying about how the definition of insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting different results? THAT is what job searching is like. Similar to romance searching, it's putting yourself out there over and over and hoping to connect.

The repetition is terrible. Variations on a theme. The feeling that you are doing the same thing over and over and over and over: you want something so badly, and you are putting on your best clothes and hiding your neuroses as best you can, and you are smiling and nodding and yet still trying to be yourself -- and you think it actually might work one of these days. You gotta just keep on trying! Hang in there! It will all work out!

So, are you curious? About what I've been doing with my time? Especially now that it's been a full 4 months since I've worked outside the house?

I could show you all the cover letters I've written. How they are all different, crafted individually for each unique application. I could show you the log I keep of my job search and (ahem) networking attempts. (But do I tell you how after each event, I feel like even more of a loser and am often angry at the amount of money I had to pay to feel like a loser? I prefer feeling like a loser for free, really.)

But I can't show you all the time it takes for me to compose a cover letter. I am not a fast writer, so when I read things like "you shouldn’t be spending more than 20 minutes, tops"* a little chunk of my self-esteem disintegrates. A cover letter can take hours. Days. It's been taking more time the longer I am unemployed. (Could there be a connection there, somehow? Hmmm.) Ok, once I whipped one out on my lunch break, back when I was still working (Gasp! I was even looking for work while still employed! It's like I actually want to have a job. Or something.) but that didn't land me an interview, either.

Or maybe that was the interview I screwed up, the one where I wanted to give into my base urges and run screaming from the room after the first question completely stumped me.

I could tell you about the afternoons that have slipped away from me, where I suddenly become alert again after a few hours of staring out the window, or at the wall, or at the ceiling. But I am ashamed and ascairt of those times, so I won't talk about them.

I could tell you about all the writing I've done.
But I can't show you.
Because I've erased most of it.

I am a master of self-sabotage.

I am a bit of a smart ass, so I can write a cheeky cover letter, but I don't think people like to work with smart asses. Though my job log from 2004 will show you that some of my smart assier attempts at finding work did result in call backs: "Sorry, we have no jobs right now, but YOU ARE SO FUNNY and we'd love for you to stop in just so we can meet you!" Unfortunately, those calls came right around the time I was moving to another city. Or after I had moved already. And they were applications for minimum wage survival type jobs (lower stakes, where I felt I could afford to show my sassy self.) I lost my funny somewhere after 2004. Can I blame Québec?

So this is what I'm doing in the next few days, the first days of 2012. I'm tying up loose ends. I'm responding to letters that I have let sit for 5 months. I'm riding my bike instead of whining that I can't get to it in our messy storage area (no longer messy, hurray). I am going to hit up some placement agencies and temping agencies. I will continue to be ignored, because that's what happens and I can't change that, but now I'm aiming for more rejections than silences. Successes will come in time, but right now, I'm interested in rejection. Upping my numbers. Achievable goals.

Let 2012 be the year of trying and failing. I want to fail more. At least with failure, it means that I've tried, instead of just living inside my head. I look forward to more bruises and scars (physical and metaphysical), maybe even some gaping wounds, more rejections, more adventures, and less time on the internet.

*if you click on that link, it will go to an advice blog. I wrote into it, seeking advice, and I was ignored. Even my job searching problems aren't interesting enough to be answered. Bah.

here are some things I saw when I went on a bike ride the other day.

2012-01-04T22:55:00.000-08:00

More pictures of trains in my neighbourhood are here and here.

This is underneath the Second Narrows Bridge, aka The Ironworkers Memorial Bridge. Its official name is the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, for the 24 workers who died while it was constructed. I call it The Suicide Bridge, or Z's Suicide Bridge (the brother of a friend jumped off of it about a year and a half ago.) I pointed out the odd lighting of this photo to Tom when I got home -- the sun was close to setting so I thought it would be a lot darker -- he shrugged and said it was probably due to the random shit quality of an iPhone camera.

This is under the same bridge. Random doodles everywhere under that bridge. While I was taking pictures, I could hear something rustling in the nearby brush, and unfortunately my imagination told me it was vampires waking up, so I had to get out of there, fast -- I mean, the sun was setting, so that's only logical, right?

Smashed TV under the bridge! Shenanigans!

corner of East Cordova and Main

2011-12-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

Something interesting always happens on the #4 bus here in Vancouver, no matter if it is heading east or west. The truly exciting times happen during the part of the route that goes through Gastown and the Downtown East Side (DTES, because people in BC love their acronyms, possibly because it is an acronymed province. I wonder if people in PEI also tend to speak only in acronyms?). That's when verbal fisticuffs often turn to real fisticuffs, and strollers and wheelchairs and huge garbage bags filled with empty bottles compete for seat space.

A woman sitting next to me once showed me a poem she had just written, inspired by me. I do not remember the poem, but I do remember feeling extremely uncomfortable.

When I worked outside of my house, I would often be on the #4 bus at the same time each morning as a young dad and his 2 year old daughter: she would spend the entire time on the bus squirming and emitting a hostile, high-pitched whine. I didn't mind, and in fact was deeply sympathetic: she was merely expressing the exact same feelings I have about early mornings.

Another time, a very friendly and talkative junkie found a $20 bill on the floor and was so excited at his good luck that he tried to give me a $2 coin, saying he'd been raised to always give a little when he got a little.

I think it was maybe a year ago that I started to notice, while on the bus, that on a small patch of blank wall space at the corner of Cordova and Main there was an ever-changing art display. One week there would be typical graffiti tags. Another week there was a poster taped up. The next week there would be a beach scene painted there. Someone else (?) added a crude drawing of a drowning figure in the beach scene. Another week, the wall would be painted white and stay completely pristine. Another time, it looked like random geometric shapes had been stenciled there. Fractured portraits. Word poems. Glorious abstracts.

Is it a group effort? Is it random people? Just one person? Does some frustrated business owner keep on painting it blank, or are the times that it is blank -- is that art, too? How often does the art change -- weekly? Bi-weekly? Completely randomly?

I took the above picture over a month ago, and it doesn't seem to have changed since then. I was hoping to post a bunch of pictures of the ever-changing random art space, but... no obvious changes since the last time I went by, which was a few days ago.

But I'm still keeping watch.

relax! it's just a class war. also a wee feral kitty.

2011-12-06T05:57:00.000-08:00

I live on the _________ side of the tracks.

2011-12-04T05:45:00.000-08:00

other photos of trains can be found here.

coffee with caroline

2011-12-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

I went for coffee with Caroline the other day; we used to live in different halves of the same duplex. She was excited to introduce me to Revolver Café, near the corner of Cambie and Cordova. I've walked by this café many times, but have never been tempted to go in, most likely due to the wall of silvery Macs with glowing Apple logos facing Cambie.

Walking into a café where there is a seeming legion of patrons glancing up from their glowing laptops -- it makes me nervous, and makes me think of every sci-fi movie I've ever watched. Hmm, well, maybe I'm thinking specifically of Gilliam's Brazil and all those random cables running everywhere and watching everyone... everybody's face taking on that ashen, electronic glow...

Revolver is popular. And crowded. And cursed: I don't understand waiting-in-line mentality. Hey, we're waiting in line, let's make sure the line snakes all around in weird directions and blocks the door instead of filling up this blank empty hole of space right here.

The decor is lovely (wee wooden booths). The service is fabulous. The coffee is fantastic. Their 5.5 ounce cappuccino is $3.50, and if I were a wealthy lady, I would have had a series of these bastards, like shots of tequila. Line them up and watch my hands shake! Feel my heart palpitations! Smell my acrid breath! They also have brewed coffee, brewed per cup via space age funnels and beakers. You can also order coffee brewed three ways for $9. I have no idea what that means.

I think it means I'm not a coffee aficionado, and I'm okay with that.

Caroline told me tales of her sister's wedding from the summer. Family gossip. Christmas plans. Job hunting strategies. I complimented her on her cool new Joan Jett-style hair; she asked me if the earrings I was wearing were little knives. She asked if I wanted to get together to write cover letters, and I didn't know how to say HELL NO THAT SOUNDS HORRIBLE without sounding rude, so I kind of mumbled something vague and non-commital instead.

I mentioned I was going to be working for a friend at a local craft fair, then she suggested when I wasn't working that we should walk around the craft fair together, and again I didn't know how to say HELL NO THAT SOUNDS HORRIBLE so I said "yeah, maybe" when I should have just handed over a copy of Section 5.3.7 (1-3) of the Laws of Carrie:

Certain activities are considered solitary:
1. composing cover letters (soliciting feedback after letter is composed is fine, but the actual act of writing should not be shared, due to various necessary writing process quirks such as crying, yelling, laughing, shadowboxing, muttering, staring mutely at a piece of paper or computer screen for hours at a time)
2. exercise (a shameful act that should have no witnesses, ever)
3. shopping (see parenthetical explanation for 5.3.7.2)

I don't know if this is street art. Street doodling?

2011-11-30T05:49:00.000-08:00

I prefer doodles over nothing at all.

I volunteered for a thing a couple of weeks ago and here are some words and pictures about that. also a video. today it's a multimedia extravaganza aren't you lucky.

2011-11-28T05:56:00.000-08:00

Sunday, November 13, 2011: Canzine West at Ukrainian Hall, in the oddly bucolic neighbourhood of Strathcona, in the decidedly unbucolic city of Vancouver, British Columbia.

By the power of Facebook, I became a last minute volunteer and sat at the Broken Pencil table, a Canadian magazine that supports independent arts, independent publishing and zines in particular. (Zines are hand-made, hand-constructed 'magazines'.)

Broken Pencil was offering 3 back issues of the magazine for $5. I paid my $5, but when I was looking through one of the issues at home, I discovered that someone else had already gone through the whole thing with a pair of scissors, cutting out various words and images -- to make their own zine, probably. I wonder who had been cutting it up. And why they surreptitiously slipped it back into a pile of uncut magazines. How subversive. How annoying.

The first time I went to a zine fair was in 2007: Expozine in Montreal. Expozine is a lot different from Canzine West, and apparently quite a bit different from the original Canzine in Toronto. I quickly became claustrophobic at Expozine: too many people jamming the aisles, too much time trying to get the attention of the vendors who seemed much happier talking to each other than to customers.

Here, not so claustrophobic, which is probably a bad thing -- if I was organizing something like this, I would want lots and lots of bodies coming through that door. More bodies are also a good thing from a customer's point of view, as there is less heartbreaking to have to deal with when you don't buy something from a vendor. Being the only person at a table examining someone's creative output and then moving on without cracking open the wallet is heartbreaking on both sides of the table, I think. Just different kinds of heartbreak.

I am a silent bleeding heart.

The downside to being a volunteer was that damn red curtain pictured below. Behind the curtain, there were zine workshops, readings and a literary death match. In between events, the curtain would open to reveal the stage, then the curtain would close for the reading or the workshop -- ostensibly so that the vendors and customers wouldn't be annoyed with whatever was happening on stage. But it was like that shitty little curtain that separates first class from coach on airplanes. I wanted to see what was behind the red curtain, dammit! Segregation sucks!

So I didn't get to make my own zine, or hear any readings, or hear anyone else do the short story Literary Death Match thing -- not that I was physically prevented from doing so, but there was something a little creepy and exclusive about having to head behind a curtain.

The upside to being a volunteer:

I didn't shit away my Sunday by watching terrible movies on TV
I had a delicious sandwich and coffee at a nearby café which is completely adorable and whose name I cannot remember
I received a free copy of the latest Broken Pencil. It was pristine -- no one else with scissors had flipped through it.
I met some people who seemed quite nice
I chatted with my pal Val

And it was sort of funny to observe people completely ignore me once they found out I was just a local and my table mate was an actual Real Live Person from Toronto Who Actually Works for Broken Pencil. Well, maybe not so much "funny" as "oh. you cannot immediately discern what may benefit you from being friendly to me so you choose to ignore me. you people and your damn agendas."

Last year's version of Canzine West had a lot of arts 'n' crafts, but I didn't see so many this year. Arts 'n' craftsters don't belong at zine fairs, according to blogger and zinemaker Maranda Elizabeth and some of her readers. Maranda wrote a couple of thoughtful blog posts critiquing Canzine/Broken Pencil; Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here. Laura Roberts also wanted more zines and less crafty stuff in her 2008 Expozine blog post -- 'french panic' in the comments section is me (what I used to call myself when I had a different blog in a different city at a different time).

Here's a short video Tom and I and the aforementioned pal Val(erie) made at Canzine West 2010.

Canzine West : Festival of Alternative Culture from Tom Weston on Vimeo.

Last Friday, we had salmon burgers, grilled apples, and spinach for supper.

2011-11-25T17:43:00.000-08:00

I put some cinnamon on my grilled apple slices and declared them delicious.

Sometimes Tom tries to help me out with my "weight loss program" by buying dangerous foodstuffs and then putting warning labels and duct tape-based obstacles in my way.

But I am a clever lass and often discover workarounds.

i see art everyday

2011-11-23T12:19:00.000-08:00

a list of irritations for november.

2011-11-08T10:04:00.000-08:00

1. People who blog/tweet about how broke they are.

2. People who blog/tweet about how broke they are while blogging/tweeting about trips they are taking.

3. The internet.

4. Cover letters.

5. Sit-coms. Their soothing predictability is both maddening and comforting.

6. Job hunting advice. This is exacerbated by random conversations with hiring managers I know in real life: "I never read a cover letter unless something is odd about the resume." "I never look at applications from people who are overqualified."

7. Hats. Not hats that you wear on your head for purposes related to warmth or fashion, but metaphorical hats: "As a business owner, So-And-So wears many hats and acts as her own accountant, marketing professional, administrative assistant....". This is particularly dreadful when people presenting themselves as professional writers use this cliché. Stop with the hat metaphor, people. Please read William Zinsser's On Writing Well. And Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.

8. Being asked out for coffee by a friendly acquaintance, getting all excited and 'woowoo, someone wants to hang out with me, how awesome is that' and then realizing you weren't asked out because you are you, but because of someone you know or are related to. Almost as bad as being stood up. Or meeting a blind date and watching their face fall in disappointment when they realize YOU are their date.

9. Shoe shopping. I know, as a female, I'm supposed to be all "OMG I LOVE SHOES SO MUCH I HAVE DOZENS OF PAIRS BUT I JUST CAN'T HELP MYSELF OH SQUEAL SQUEAL SQUEAL I LOVE SHOES SO MUCH" but I am not. My feet are delicate. It takes me months (sometimes years) to break in a pair of shoes and there is much blistering and bleeding and scarring along the way. I currently own exactly ONE pair of shoes that don't give me blisters or gouge deep bleeding grooves in my heels. I've had them for 6 years and they need to be re-soled. Again.

10. Telephones. Particularly when a certain municipal government party phones every single day for the past 10 days. I am looking at you, Vision Vancouver, and your daily harassment leading up to the election on Saturday. When I lived in Montreal, the local New Democratic Party candidate's 'helpers' phoned our place up to 3 times in a day. I voted for the separatist party that year.

11. Email. Or lack thereof, after completing a #4.

12. Running out of coffee beans.

13. That voice in my head that hisses demeaning insults at me each time I sit down to do #4.

14. Lists.

if you are ugly or fat, you don't need to apply. maybe also don't apply if you are suffering from anxietys.

2011-11-08T09:47:00.000-08:00

looking for work is not a pleasant task. sometimes it is important to take a break and check out what is happening on craigslist.

some things that recently arrived in the mail

2011-11-04T18:40:00.001-07:00

I went to the art gallery and got some culture and stuff.

2011-10-30T20:04:00.001-07:00

One thing I do not like about art galleries: overly long, overly pretentiously pedantic descriptions of the art work. More ones like this panel, please.

The Vancouver Art Gallery is doing a self-retrospective: how the art gallery came into being, how the collection developed, etc. There were some archival documents on display. Well, copies of archival documents.

Andy Warhol's Mao. 1967. Screenprint. This is copy #14 of 250 prints.

Chuck Close's Phil Manipulated. 1982. Pigment on handmade paper. I don't know how to explain how cool this piece is. This photo doesn't really show how textured and painstaking and very very cool it is.


George Segal's The Execution. 1967. Plaster. There was a volunteer orientation or some sort of tour going on, and I learned that whenever an art gallery wants to feature a retrospective of George Segal's work, he INSISTS on this piece being there. He considers it his most important work. I don't know enough about him or his work to agree. Or disagree.

There was a photo shoot going on at the art gallery.

You can't tell from any of the photos here that this model has incredibly blue wolf eyes.

You also cannot tell from any of these photos that the wolf-eyed pretty model was also very nice. Also that she is wearing sweatpants underneath the dress.

After the art gallery, we ate Lebanese food. Tom tried the Turkish coffee. It looks good, but was too sweet.

this is why I've turned my radio off today and why I often start screaming during interviews with celebrities.

2011-10-26T15:43:00.003-07:00

Dear actors, musicians, writers, artists, poets, creative people in general:

When you say, during a media interview, that you never dreamed of attaining whatever amount of success you are currently celebrating.......... I don't believe you. You make your money by being creative, yet you apparently never ever EVER had any thoughts of one day being interviewed on national radio, or international television and print, or winning a Grammy/Oscar/Tony/whatever?

Here you are, famous, "beyond your wildest dreams". You've never dreamed or imagined space travel or time travel or other worlds travel or having adoring fans or being celebrated for your creativity? What sort of incredibly dull and lame dreams do you have? And how do you channel all that dullness into interesting and creative output?

Your pants are on fire.

Snorting with derision at your ridiculous lies,
Carrie

Here is a random sampling of songs from my personal library that you could play at your wedding if you want. I've listened to all the lyrics. Trust me, they are totally appropriate.

2011-10-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

The fellow I live with has lately been earning grocery and rent money by shooting and editing wedding videos. This is not his dream job, but it's interesting to see how the skills he developed as a forest firefighter in the wilds of Northern Alberta can come in handy when dealing with some high-maintenance individuals.

Yes, there are bridezillas.
And groomzillas.
And guestzillas.

There are also some very easy-going, very nice people getting married out there. Mazel tov.

But a lot of people apparently don't listen to the lyrics for the music they choose to have their first dance to, or for the wedding video they are paying big bucks to have produced for them. So here is my helpful list of songs to be played at a wedding. Video editors of the world, you are welcome.

Helpful advice: the Björk song should be played as the bride marches (stomps?) down the aisle. Not that I've got the heebie jeebies over patriarchy/ownership-based traditions or anything.

Punk Rock Girl -- Dead Milkmen

I Don't Wanna Grow Up -- Tom Waits

Crazy in Love -- Beyoncé and Jay-Z

Good Times Roll -- the Cars

Grinding Halt -- the Cure

Love Will Tear Us Apart -- Joy Division

Declare Independence -- Björk

Baby (You've Got What It Takes) -- Dinah Washington and Brook Benton

Fantastic Voyage -- Lakeside

Don't Go Breaking My Heart -- Elton John & Kiki Dee

It's So Nice to Be With You -- Gallery 

So Alive -- Love and Rockets

Grounds for Divorce -- Wolf Parade

Jolene -- Dolly Parton or the White Stripes [both receive my official stamp of approval]

High Tide or Low Tide -- Bob Marley

Sometimes Always -- The Jesus & Mary Chain

Oh Goddamnit -- Hot Hot Heat

Can't Get You Out of My Head -- Kylie Minogue

I Wanna Take You Home -- Langhorne Slim

Mystery Hole: please if you don't want to follow the rules don't buy a ticket thanks

2011-09-20T06:25:00.000-07:00

Here is a postcard that did not have the proper postage but the post offices got together and decided to send it anyway. Well, done, United States and Canada. Well done.

For more on West Virginia's Hole of Mystery, I recommend checking out Erin's tell-all right here.

the bookmark I made for a local art show.

2011-09-16T05:52:00.000-07:00

Here are some images of the bookmark I made for OCW Magazine's The Bookmark Show; it will be on display at the 17th annual Word on the Street National Book and Magazine Festival.

More specifically, it will be exhibited on Sunday, September 25, 2011, from 11am to 5pm at Vancouver Library Square (350 West Georgia).

My buddy Laura Bucci will be at the Word on the Street festival too: she'll be in the Family Tent, armed with her button maker and a whole whack of very cool collage material. Visit her there and make your own collaged button, absolutely FREE. To see a glimpse of the cool stuff produced at Laura's button-making workshops, take a peek here and check out her gallery of vintage inspired imagery here.

The bookmark below is a collage extravaganza, made from a 100% acid-free library card pocket, a due date card, chiyogami (washi) paper, a Japanese dictionary, a French vocabulary card, some rubber stamps, ink, and glue.

It's six bookmarks masquerading as one and attention has been paid to the back sides as well as the front sides.

It's called ode to an unemployed librarian.

The rules said it had to be 2 inches by 6 inches, so I had to chop the traditional library card pocket into two smaller chunks.

write a letter, get a letter. that's the theory, anyway.

2011-09-14T14:45:00.000-07:00

When it comes to postal correspondence, I keep track of when I write to someone, and I also keep track of when I receive something from someone. I can look it up and realize: holy shit, it's been four months since so-and-so sent me such-and-such, I better get on that. Or: "It's been over a year since that person left a message on my blog asking to get a letter from me. I wonder why s/he hasn't written back.... someone probably died."

I find it safer for my sanity to assume that other people are going through wretched times than to think that I have been deliberately snubbed. Ignorance is bliss.

But false postal promises are not a common occurrence for me. I am still disappointed on behalf of my husbandperson -- he still hasn't received either one of the CDs he signed up to swap for a couple of months ago, and because of one of my blog-related lamentations, a nice stranger contacted him and promised to send a CD to make up for the ones he didn't receive ............ but the nice stranger hasn't gotten around to it yet. Or, someone close to her died.

Or, maybe all these people have procrastination problems like the ones I have. Judge not, for you judge yourself, etc.

OR: [edited a few hours after original post] The promised CD(s?) from a nice stranger is indeed on its way! Thank you kind nice stranger and reader of this blog -- yes, you know who you are -- my attempt at levity was in no way meant as an insult to your wide open, kind heart!

If you want to get a letter, maybe you should consider writing one to the stationery company Crane & Co. They promise to write back -- their address and invitation to write (and possibly win some lovely Crane stationery!) can be found through this link right here. They seem to be having some website problems, as all of their blog posts are dated September 10, 2011, so I don't know when this invitation to write and win actually went up.

Contests that have no end date are a source of irritation to me. Other things that irritate me that are postal related:

1. The phrase "pen pal" or "pen friend". It's like calling someone "my gay friend" or "my Asian friend" or "my Mormon friend". Let's just be friends and not qualify it. There is also something just a little too cutesy and dismissive about "pen pal".

2. The phrase "snail mail". It rhymes, it's cute, I get it. I just don't like it. It strikes me as pejorative, even though I know the folks who use it don't see it as pejorative. The fact that mail arrives at all still seems miraculous to me, but I am often surprised when systems work. Also surprised when they don't work. Life is full of surprises, for me.

3. When "stationery" is spelled "stationary". I understand that proper spelling is not a priority in the lives of many. But when people who actually MAKE the stuff spell it like that -- hellfire and brimstone, people. Pick up a fucking dictionary. This pisses other people off, too: The Missive Maven recently brought this up, and the Crane & Co historian also had to vent about it (sometime last year, I think, but the blog is still wonked out as I write this, or maybe it's just my browser.)

Speaking of The Missive Maven, she sent me some of her very cool postcards a few months ago after I left some lamentable comment on her blog about wanting to buy some items from her Etsy shop but feeling I should use up some of my own stash before adding to it. Hoarding runs in my family, and I'm developing a paper problem, not to mention a problem with spending money on stationery that should be going towards shoes or underwear. Or my imaginary vacation fund. So she sent me some, free. She's lovely. Her blog is lovely. The letters I have received from her are lovely.

And, despite my generalized irritation when it comes to the phrase "snail mail", my curmudgeonly self has to admit to liking it when mixed in with a mortality reminder:

You can buy these postcards and other epistolary cool things at missivemaven.etsy.com