She looks so pretty, but she is so cold

Winter is one of those words that evokes a whole bunch of different and often contradictory images for me. Some of the things I think of are awful: blizzards, temperatures that are 30 or 40 below, really short days, ice on the roads and sidewalks, etc. If I'm honest, those are the things I think of first. Winter and I have never been friends. But there are also some things that winter makes me think of that are quite lovely: Christmas and all the attendant decorations, warm blankets, frost on windows, perfectly clear blue skies, staying inside and watching the snow fall. As the cold is setting in I have to keep reminding myself of these good things about winter. This picture is a really great example of how beautiful winter can be. The thick frost on the tree branches outlined against the clear blue sky is exquisite. It's kind of like a giant version of the lacy patterns frost makes on windows. It is also an image that makes me profoundly cold just looking at it, but I don't think there is a way to get around that. Winter in Alberta is going to be cold. At least if I'm going to freeze to death for 6 months of the year, it is pretty outside.

Cold and Grey

from The Grey Islands
John Steffler

scoured sky. wind
and open miles.
all morning we climb the bright
hills cresting across our course,
pitching us up, sledding us sideways
down, wallowing, walled in water.
                     quick. near us
and gone,
              slim birds flit low, banking,
twisting, skimming the closing troughs,
and I feel it,
                 know it a laughing
fact: the harder your hungry eyes bite
into the world (the island cliffs pencilled
in blue haze, and there, Nels pointing:
whale spray!
                 huge flukes kicking at the sun), the more
you spread your arm to hug it in,
the less you mind the thought of diving under,

eyes flooded, gulping dark.

...

what can we do in such elements?

rock hills only recently
softened with green, some moss
and boggy hollows

vast migration of cloud

the wind in invisible glacier
wearing the island down

I keep warm burning
bits of a house

the work of people who tried to live here.

...

not man's time here,
sun's time.
rock's time.
I begin to feel it.

days blink by - light
and cold flowing over - tide
breathing smoothly, evenly, I

slip between half-seconds, flash
light-beam pinball-style, do
ten thousand vanishing things
in a breath.

...

jagged island
island of noise.
the sea serious as ever, breaking
all that it touches.
wind tearing itself to pieces
pounces with all its weight, stops, flattens
grass again. tramples the waves.

the mountains cinder grey
cinder jagged
handsome as animals
hunt the passing clouds.
gathering trouble.

...

warm sounds: the gas lamp's
loud hiss

the stove snaps and flutters

outside
the wind
the cold wash of gravel and sea

John Steffler's The Grey Islands is one of my favourite pieces of Canadian literature. It was probably reading excerpts from this work in the second half of my Canadian lit class that sold me on Canadian literature. This is how my Can lit textbook introduces this work: "This mixture of prose and poetry describing a pilgrimage to the islands that lie off the east coast of Newfoundland's norther peninsula is the story of an individual seeking solitude. 'A way to corner myself is what I want,' he explains on the first page; 'Some blunt place I can't go beyond. Where excuses stop.'

I realize that I live in the middle of the prairies and as such am completely landlocked. Despite this I not only love these excerpts because they capture one of the qualities that I love most about the east coast, but because they capture a huge element of the Canadian relationship with landscape and weather. This is something I've been contemplating a lot lately since it is part of what I want to study in grad school. With the arrival of winter this week though (snow yesterday) I've been reminded of it anew.

I took this picture a couple weeks ago over the Thanksgiving weekend. I like how grey and flat the sky is and how much the red of the berries pops against it. It captures the cold perfectly. My mom looked at it and said it kind of looked like a piece of modern art, and she is right. That's probably part of why I like it as well.   

Getaway Car

Getaway Car

Ash Koley

Who let the cat out? Who's in charge here?

What's the latest? Am I supposed to be here?

Have you met him? Have you met her?

He's the greatest but she thinks she's better

Who let the minutes hold you hostage?

Who said their better when they haven't started?

I meant to tell you but you looked too tired

I meant to tell you but the race had started

Who shooting this pilot?

It'll never get made

Who wrote this song?

It will never get played

I've been here for so long I might as well stay

It looks as though things are never gonna change

And if the moment's hard to find

Or the perfect place to hide

I'm building me my very own getaway car

So introduce me while I'm floating

My smile feels tired and I think it's showing

Please excuse me, the water's shallow

I hear what you're saying though it's hard to swallow

I'll fight the currents, treading water

Why sink or swim here when nobody bothers?

They never tell you if you look too tired

They never tell you 'til the race has started

Who's shooting this pilot?

It'll never get made

Who wrote this song?

It will never get played

I've been here for so long I might as well stay

It looks as though things are never gonna change

And if the moment's hard to find

Or the perfect place to hide

I'm building me my very own getaway car

It feels like a play on and overcrowded stage

Every face in the crowd whispered words getting loud

Let the song set the stage, let the voices change

Cue the choir, let the violin sustain

Who's shooting this pilot?

It'll never get made

Who wrote this song?

It will never get played

I've been here for so long I might as well stay

It looks as though things are never gonna change

And if the moment's hard to find

Or the perfect place to hide

I'm building me my very own getaway car

Ash Koley is one of my latest musical discoveries. Plus they are Canadian (and you already know that I love me some good Canadian music). This song is off of their Blue EP and I have been listening to it on repeat for several hours now. Itunes describes Ash Koley's music as "spirit-lifting pop music that's occasionally festooned with moody fringes" and although this particular tune leans more towards the moody side of that equation, it is generally a pretty summary. This song kind of captures a certain mixture of desperation and concession that often infects my heart and mind.The music video does a perfect job of capturing that mood. I love the homemade quality of it. This is the exact kind of song I would want to sing while walking down the snow-filled, dead-of-winter streets. Something depressing or frustrating would have just happened and I would be determinedly facing the freezing cold in order to walk out my frustrations. Yeah. This song just makes a lot of sense to me right now.

Ten Things...Poetic Expression

I've been in a rather poetic mood lately. Reading it, writing it, simply existing in it. Poetry has become my refreshment. It is the thing that restores my soul at the end of a long day, or in the midst of a crisis. I figured that since this is the case I would share ten posts inspired by poems with you.

1. I call you mystery
2. The Bee
3. La belle dame sans merci
4. Prelude
5. It is worth our while just to be living
6. It's (Finally) Close of Day
7. The Road Less Traveled By
8. An Autumn Rain-scene
9. By Any Other Name 
10. Intricate Beauty

In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
...
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
(from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock")

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is one of my all time favourite pieces of poetry. I totally understand the utter terror that Prufrock experiences at making any sort of decision or taking any sort of action. Decision-making is not my forte. Even once I make a decision I am forever second-guessing myself. I wish that I could just make a decision and stay completely at peace with it, but I never do. No matter how certain I am of something when I choose it I will inevitably be bombarded with doubts later. It doesn't help that my moments of clarity and blinding insight into what I want to do with my life tend to conflict with one another. I will be certain that I want to pursue a particular path only to change my life a couple of weeks (or days, or hours, or minutes) later. Decisions paralyze me because of this. Even small choices, like what brand of shampoo to buy, stress me out. In the long run does it really matter what brand of shampoo I have? Maybe a tiny bit (after all some brands are really not all that effective...), but not enough that I should be left standing in front of the wall of shampoo at the grocery store for 10 minutes. If something like that baffles me, then you can imagine how terrifying I am finding the process of deciding what to do after I graduate. I made a pretty big decision today that is kind of related to the whole planning my life bit and even though I know that I made the right choice, the doubts are nagging me and I am starting to freak out that maybe I was wrong.

Part of the problem is that I just want everything. I don't want to have to choose. I wish I could be a wildflower. It doesn't matter that this little guy decided that half of his petals would stand straight up while the other half folded out nicely. In fact, it made him all the more interesting and photo-worthy. I, on the other hand, am just a mess who needs to figure her life out.

Intricate Beauty

I have a class this semester that I routinely regret taking. Every time I go to class I wish I had taken something else. However, the texts for the class are so wonderful that I am almost glad I took the class for that alone. I have this class to thank for introducing me to the beauty of Anne Michaels' writing. I think I have talked about my love of poetry on the blog before, but I truly do adore it. One of the things I love best about poetry is simply dwelling in the sound of it. I love poems that simply must be read out loud. That sensation of simply existing in and with something so beautiful is wonderful. It's also the sensation I love about art and music. The book we are reading for this class is Fugitive Pieces and although it is a novel, it is so poetic that it has completely enthralled me. I could happily spend an entire day luxuriating in the writing. Michaels' phrases beg to be read aloud. The words are exquisite and sensuous. The emotions are deep and often painful, but they are excruciatingly beautiful in their intensity. Emerging from the book feels like emerging from a deep deep sleep. At first I am not aware of the world around me, and it takes a long time to fully come to grips with reality. It leaves a undefinable but lingering sensation like a second skin, like the echo of a dream, that haunts me for the rest of the day. I completely adore this. This is why I love art. This is why I love language.

I love these little tiny pink flowers. They are a kind of visual poetry. Each one is beautiful on its own, but all together they become something even more striking.

Man's Best Friend

Photographing animals can be hard, but when you get that perfect picture it is totally worth it. These are two of my favourite photos of dogs. Incidentally they are also two of my favourite dogs in the world. The top photo is my parents' neighbour's dog, Chester. He is adorable. And he remembers who I am whenever I am there, so I feel like he is my little buddy. The bottom photo is my roommate's dog, Cato. I met him for the first time when I went out to her parents' farm with her last month. He is huge and fluffy and friendly. I wanted to bring him home with me. I really do love dogs. I grew up with cats, and I love our cats, but dogs tend to be friendlier and I really like animals that will hang out with me.

Today was a really long day. I didn't get a lot of sleep and I had a lot of classes and I worked tonight and just have all of this stuff that I'm thinking about so it seriously feels like it has been a week and not just a day. Sadly, it isn't over yet either since I'm working of finishing an assignment for tomorrow's class. I would really appreciate having a dog to curl up with right now.

Please stop putting words in my mouth

It bothers me when people put words in my mouth. This afternoon I was in the kitchen making lunch and a bunch of other people were around, just eating and talking and such. Then one of the neighbours came in (this is normal because I live in a dorm, just in case you were wondering why my neighbours wander into my apartment) and offered us cupcakes. I said "I can't eat cupcakes" (and, granted, my tone of voice was a bit hostile because of general stress and annoyance in my life right now). Then this other girl who was visiting my roommate says "What she meant was 'Thank you very much, but I don't want one' "). My jaw literally dropped as I thought to myself "No way did she just say what I think she said. Seriously. How can you assume you know what I meant, particularly when my actual words contradict your assumption? Uhm, no. What I meant was what I said. Please do not attempt to correct me. Particularly in that condescending way. Seriously. That is how people talk to children. "Did you mean 'May I have a cookie'?" It seriously made me super angry. I had to just walk away, but I was fuming. In fact it still irks me. Clearly it bothered me enough to inspire an entire blog post. But seriously, just let me speak. And stop putting words in my mouth.

I thought a photo of a script was appropriate for this particular topic of conversation. This one is Competition Piece by John S. Wells. I've never read it. I just borrowed it from my roommate to take a picture of it specifcially for this. Yes, that is how much this situation bothered me. Not only did I write an entire post about it, but I also deliberatly took a picture for said post.

All I want is everything

     Ella is looking at her oddly.
     "What's the matter, Morag?"
     "I - don't know. Sometimes I get - well, scared. I don't feel all that normal."
     Ella shrugs.
     "So - who wants to be normal, anyhow?"
     "I do," Morag says with passionate conviction. "Oh Ella, I do. I want to be able to talk to boys the way they want to be talked to. Only I can't seem to get the trick of it."
     "Boys like that are schmucks," Ella says furiously. "But yeh, I know what you mean."
     "You too?"
     "Yeh. I went out with this guy a coupla weeks ago, and I thought Now this is It. Here is your opportunity, oh Ella bella. So what did Ella the schlemiel do? Did she tell him how masterful and handsome he was? Not she. Oh no. She began talking in her winsome way about Marx's theory of polarity. Why? Why? I'll never see him again."
     "Well, then, why?" Morag is laughing, but not in mockery.
     "I don't know," Ella says gloomily. "It just seemed so phoney, somehow, all that whole mutual flattery bit. And why should I pretend to be brainless? I"m not brainless."
     "I know," Morag says. "And yet I envy girls like Susie Trevor so much that I damn near hate them. I want to be glamorous and adored and get married and have kids. I still try to kid myself that I don't want that. But I do. I want all that. As well. All I want is everything."
     Ella strikes a theatrical wrist to her forehead. "Engrave it on my tombstone."
(Margaret Laurence The Diviners 210-1)

I'm working my way through The Diviners right now and absolutely loving it. I've had a bit of a prejudice against Margaret Laurence because of The Stone Angel. I dislike that book. Because I've had unfortunate experiences with it the two times I have studied it I kind of swore off of Margaret Laurence. I know that this is a bad policy as an English major, but I tend to subscribe to it nonetheless. Thus, when I got my reading list for the novel course I'm taking and The Diviners was on it I groaned inwardly. However, I am rapidly falling in love with this book. It is incredible. I came across this section today and couldn't help but laugh. Morag and Ella are about 20 when they have this particular conversation, so they're not that much younger than I am now. It just captures how I feel so perfectly. One moment I am so glad that I am single and have the freedom to pursue whatever I want, wherever I want. But then something happens (usually it's when someone I know gets engaged or celebrates and anniversary or has their significant other do something really sweet for them when they are having a bad day) and I feel like I am missing out on so much. It's annoying as all get out. However, I think it is kind of the curse of the ambitious woman. As much as we like to think that women can now have it all, it is hard. And yet, I still want everything. In moments of frustration I say with Morag, "All I want is everything," and reply with Ella, "Engrave it on my tombstone."

The picture is from the same coffee shop in Toronto as the coffee I posted a few days ago. I was sitting there by myself in this sea of tables and was totally okay with it. In fact, I felt like taking a picture of it. At other points in my life I would not have been okay with that. Although I probably would still have taken a picture. I like that this picture seems to capture that sense of waiting for someone.

Ten Things...Black and White

Sometimes I wish life was black and white. It would be so much easier. I'm dealing with a lot of stuff right now that lives firmly in the overwhelming world of technicolour and is confusing me to death because of it. I wish there was someone who could just look at me and tell me what to do. Sadly that very rarely happens. It's funny, I spent a lot of my youth wishing that people would stop telling me what to do, but now that I'm an adult I wish there was someone to tell me what to do.

I really love black and white photography. There is something notstalgic and romantic and artistic about it that captivates and inspires me. So that is what this week's Ten Things is dedicated to: the wonderful world of black and white photography.

1. Inspiration in Black and White
2. The Siren Song of the City
3. I often thought how proud I'd be in a boat like Gideon Brown
4. The Old Stones Whisper
5. Simplicity
6. Rain, rain on my face
7. The Cracks, They Start to Show
8. Literary Aspirations
9. An Elevator Kind of Day
10. Discovery of Tea

ps - I also love black and white movies and wear a lot of black and white.

Coffee and Cigarettes

Coffee and Cigarettes

Michelle Featherstone

I gave up coffee and cigarettes

I hate to say it hasn't helped me yet

I thought my problems would just dissipate

And all my pain would be in yesterday

I poured my booze all down the kitchen drain

And watched my bad habits get flushed away

I thought that that would keep my head on straight

And all my pain would be in yesterday

But it's true

I'm still blue

But I finally know what to do

I must quit

I must quit you

I thought that if I didn't go out and play

The sadness would get bored and go away

I thought that if I didn't go astray

That all my pain would be in yesterday

But it's true

I'm still blue

But I finally know what to do

I must quit

I must quit you

I sold my guitar and my piano

I thought that it was these that kept me low

I thought if only I could try and change

That all my pain would be in yesterday

But it's true

I'm still blue

But I finally know what to do

I must quit

I must quit you

I must quit

I must quit you

I just discovered Michelle Featherstone's album Fallen Down last week and I am in love with her melancholy, beautifully written and sung songs. This song in particular is just incredible. I've had a long and exhausting week which has left me in a rather low state of mind. Or rather, it has left me bouncing between the extremes of laughing my head off and bawling my eyes out. (Isn't it odd how both of those phrases involve bodily injury?) Anyway, this song just suited my mood and a conversation I was having with my best friend. Not that I need to quit my best friend. That would just be silly. It's just interesting how desperately I hang on to bad habits or relationships that cause nothing but drama and injury to my heart. I guess it's just that I would rather be dealing with familiar pain than risk unknown difficulties. I tend to be that person though who hangs on to things way longer than I should, way longer than I need to, and way longer than is healthy. I don't mean this to be a huge "my life is a disaster" post, because it certainly isn't. Just saying that there are some things in my life I might be better off without. Quitting is hard though.

I took this picture in Toronto a year and half ago or so. I adore it and have been waiting for the right moment to post it. When this song came on on my itunes tonight this was the exact picture I thought of and I knew that I had my blog post for tonight.

Now I'm hunched over a typewriter, I guess you'd call that painting in a cave

Another Travelin' Song

Bright Eyes

Well I'm changing all my strings

I'm gonna write another travelin' song

About all the billion highways

And the cities at the break of dawn

Well, I guess that the best that I can do now

Is pretend that I've done nothing wrong

And dream about a train that gonna

Take me back where I belong

Well now the ocean speaks and spits

And I can hear it from the interstate

And I'm screaming at my brother on a cell phone

He is far away

I'm saying nothing in the past or future

Ever will feel like today

Until we're parking in an alley

Just hoping that our shit is safe

So I go back an forth forever

All my thoughts they come in pairs

Oh I will, I won't, I do, I don't

And I'm not surprised

But I never feel quite prepared

Now I'm hunched over a typewriter

I guess you'd call that painting in a cave

And there's a word I can't remember

And a feeling I cannot escape

And now my ashtray's overflowing

I'm still staring at a clean white page

On and morning's at my window

And she is sending me to bed again

Well I dreamed the dark on the horizon

I dreamed a desert where the dead lay down

I dreamed a prostituted child

Touching an old man in a fast food crowd

I dreamed a ship was sinking

There were people screaming all around

And I awoke to my alarm clock

It was a pop song, it was playing loud

So I will find my fears and face them

I will cower like a dog

I will kick and scream

I will kneel and plead

I'll fight like hell to hide that I'm giving up

Whenever I am writing a paper this is the song that pops into my head. Specifically the section about wrting on a typewriter, staring at a blank page and crawling into bed as the sun rises. Yes, there are some slightly sketchy bits in the song, but it's upbeat enough to listen to while writing a paper at 2 in the morning and some of the lyrics are fantastic. Since I am currently slogging through the whole paper at 2 a.m. process I figured this was an appropriate time to share it here.

The pictures are from my most recent trip to Fort Edmonton. I love typewriters. I actually really wish I owned one. One day maybe I will.

Crunchy Autumn Leaves

There is almost nothing that has such a keen sense of fun as a fallen leaf. (Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, J.M. Barrie)

I dearly love J.M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy (as evidenced by my post about fairies). This semester I am lucky enough to be studying this novel in one of my classes. The copy that I have for the class also has Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and naturally I read it as well, not because it was required but because I'm not about to pass up the opportunity to read more of the development of the character of Peter Pan. For those of you who don't know, the character of Peter Pan first made an appearance in Barrie's novel The Little White Bird in 1902. In 1904 the play, Peter Pan, was performed for the first time. In 1906, Barrie took the parts of The Little White Bird that centred on Peter Pan and compiled them into Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. Then in 1911, he published a novelized version of the play entitled Peter and Wendy. I've seen a stage performance of Peter Pan and have read Peter and Wendy several times now. This semester I read Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, so now all I have left to hunt down is a copy of The Little White Bird and then my exploration of Peter Pan will be complete. One of the things I find so delightful about Barrie's writing is his turns of phrase. He is a master at evoking child-like delight and wonder and fantasy. I enjoyed this personification of autumn leaves skipping down a park pathway immensely.

This picture is from Sunday afternoon when I wandered around my parents garden for a bit taking fall-like pictures. It was quite delightful. One of my favourite things about autumn is walking through crunchy leaves on a crisp but sunny day. Delightful.

PS - I hope those of you who are in Canada had a delightful Thanksgiving weekend full of turkey, friends, family, and long naps. For those of you who aren't in Canada...I hope you enjoyed your non-holiday Monday.

Smells good...or not

This is a picture of the lovely reed diffuser in my room. It is hazelnut cream scented and amazing. The reason I thought of this particular picture (which I took one night while I was writing some god-forsaken assignment at ridiculous hours of the night) is a story from work tonight. So, there was a new bottle of hand lotion sitting on my desk (which I share with the other proofreaders so stuff does randomly appear on it) and it was some brand that I had never heard of, but it looked pretty. And according to the label it was supposed to smell like spiced cocoa butter. This sounded excellent in theory. I love cocoa butter and I love spices (we're talking cinnamon, nutmeg, etc.) so this seemed like an ideal combination. I smelled the lotion in the container and it seemed pretty heavenly. That is when I decided to put it on my hands. And that is when I discovered that it actually smells pretty awful. And now my hands smell like this weird lotion. And I made the mistake of rubbing my itchy nose with a freshly lotioned hand so I am stuck smelling it all the time. Bleh. On the bright side, that was the worst part of my day and it is simply an amusing anecdote. That's pretty stellar considering how much I was dreading today.

Fleur de papier

Don't these flowers look like they are made of paper? This is a close up of the same hydrangeas that I posted a picture of here. I've been looking at this picture off and on since I took it and wondering what kind of post to pair it with. Well, this afternoon I was listening to "Lune de papier" by Andrea Lindsay and that gave me the inspiration for the title, so I figured I would just go with it. Andrea has a gorgeous voice and this song has such a captivating, entrancing melody that I fell in love with it as soon as I heard it. Definitely worth checking out.

It's (Finally) Close of Day

The Red - Blaze - is the Morning -
The Violet - is Noon -
The Yellow - Day - is falling -
And after that - is None -

But Miles of Sparks - at Evening -
Reveal the Width that burned -
The Territory Argent- that never yet consumed -

-- Emily Dickinson

Today was incredibly draining so I don't really have the energy to put together a hardcore post tonight. I am so excited for it to be over. I adore this poem by Emily Dickinson though, so I thought I would share it with all of you. I took this picture a couple of weeks ago while I was walking to the grocery store. Evidence that it is not crazy to always carry a camera with you. I know it is kind of grainy/blurry, but I kind of like that about it. I find that it almost makes it look like a painting instead of a photograph. I think that's kind of cool.

Ten Things...Let the music do the talking

I adore music. Lately I've been discovering a whole bunch of new bands courtesy of some mixes I've picked up through various websites (mostly little chief honeybee and ModLife) and absolutely loving the experience of steeping myself in this new music. Sometimes there is simply no way to express what you are feeling, and then suddenly a song will come on that captures things perfectly. Sometimes it has lyrics and sometimes it doesn't, but I can almost always find that perfect song. Here are ten posts where I have let the music do the talking in one way or anthoer.

1. October's got those orange eyes
2. Let the Rain
3. Is Anybody Listening?
4. This is Calm
5. So many people are looking to me to be strong and to fight but I'm just surviving
6. She the Ocean
7. To Heal a Soul
8. Glockenspiels make me happy
9. Oblivion
10. Loving on Canada

Corners of my mind

Do you ever try to visualize the inside of your head? This can be a challenging and occasionally terrifying process. I almost always picture my brain as a room. Typically it is kind of a messy room. Some bits of it are nice and organized with filing cabinets and curio drawers, but other parts are just stacks of papers and books and random objects that cover desks and the floor. And there are niches, little corners, everywhere where things accumulate and are fogotten. The problem with this kind of set up is that when I start getting stressed out it gets messier and messier until my thoughts just fly around my head in a never ending frenzy. And then I feel like I can never turn my brain off. It's like I'm trapped in the room, flying all over the place, smashing my shins on furniture and whacking my shoulder on the corners. This is exactly how I have felt the past couple of days. There is way too much going on right now. My brain won't turn off and let me rest. Every time I try and sleep all of these thoughts start jumping up and down screaming "Notice me!" "Pay attention to me!". It is making me sleep-deprived and rapidly giving me a headache. I should note that I am not always like this. A am actually a relatively organized person. I love filing. I alphabetize my CDs, DVDs and books (by author, and then within author they are ordered chronologically by publication date). It's just that as the semester progresses and life gets crazier and crazier I tend to lose a bit of my grip on organization. Plus my brain is just never as organized as my outer life.

Thinking about how much grief the corners of my brain are giving me made me think about architecture (the one advantage of having a disorganized room up there is that I can make these strange leaps in logic). I love architecture. I actually took drafting and design when I was in grade 10, but had to drop it after that so I could take choir. Some days I wish I could take it again. Anyway, I took this picture on the footbridge that connects Goldbar park with Rundell park. The straight lines stuck me. It's just so structured and organized. Oddly that is everything I just said my mind is not. Maybe that is why it appeals to me right now?

October's got those orange eyes

Broken Horse

Freelance Whales

October's got those orange eyes

But somehow I still lost sight

When you lifted the lid off of my pumpkin head

And kissed me goodnight

Should it be a thorn in my side

We never quite broke that horse

She slept in the cul-de-sac rye

Seven miles from my front porch

Bundle up and come with me now

Down the road to the burnt down barn

We could make a blanket of coats

And breathe our souls into the neighbour's front lawn

But oh God that look in your eye

Trouble that does not search words

It sprung from the biblical vine

And are waiting to return to the dirt

The stiches in your winter clothes

Your cello bows

We stole your hair to make them

We're sorry for the iron shoes

We nailed to you

And stuck you in the rain

Then you sprinted away

Sprinted away to where I don't know

God's moving in your bloodstream

Where the crossbeats aren't so slow

You swept all the red from my cheeks

I didn't hear you come back inside

And light up the gas in the den

And stand there in the thin winter light

But oh God that curve in your spine

A question mark

A doctor's sign was framed by the windowsill

And you saw something I did not in the night

You saw something I did not in the night

The stitches in your winter clothes

Your cello bows

We stole your hair to make them

We're sorry for the iron shoes

We nailed to you

And stuck you in the rain

And then you sprinted away

Sprinted away to where I don't know

God's moving in your bloodstream

Where the crossbeats aren't so slow

I first discovered this song a couple of weeks ago via one of little chief honeybee's Monday Mixtapes. I adore her mixtapes. They have introduced me to so many new artists that I am now profoundly in love with. The opening lines of this song seemed rather appropriate for October 1.

This is another picture from last weekend's trip to the river valley. I like how the leaves are just starting to turn red and orange on this particular branch. Plus the light was just so profoundly amazing for photos.