Talkin' shit about a pretty sunset

Everybody loves sunsets.

This is, in fact, true. Never will you find a nay-sayer―between sunsets on beaches, sunsets over snow, and sunsets even from a cramped car, they're a universally-percieved sight of natural beauty. Sunsets are for first kisses, capping off a long, fulfilling day, or kicking off a night of things that can only really happen in the dark. If you ask a person if they would like to go watch the sun set from some comfortable location, they will almost always oblige. Bunnies, rainbows, sunsets, and love.

But what goes up must come down, which means the day is dawning on another realm, all of it a part of the beautiful balance that is nature. See, sunsets are nice. But it's predecessor, in my opinion, really holds the power.

Sunrises are saved for the more grandoise. I've seen a lot of sunsets, and they've all been nice and lovey-dovey and pretty, and I can't take away from that. But every sunrise I've watched (and I'm certain I can recall them all) has been symbolic of something ending, something beginning, something special. I don't mean just waiting at the bus stop on a goddamn early school day, no, that's just the opposite, it's the norm, it's godawful. But when you really sit and watch the sun rear its perfectly-spherical, luminous head, it sinks in.

Perhaps its this time of year, and being home that's giving me a bad case of nostalgia. I vividly remember the night of my grad―three years ago next week. I'll refuse to gloss over and say that a perfect night was had by all, because that was far from the fact. I divided my night jigging to Cyndi Lauper, and later, singing love songs to a toilet bowl at the Agricom. We couldn't decided on the after-grad destination, and spent the latter part of the eve peeing in Boston Pizza's, and miscommunicating with a limo driver. When we finally returned home, we rolled down the tinted windows and stepped out with bloody, blistered feet and bam!, there was the sun, saying hello, last night is over, you are done. I remember looking around at my friends and playing some reality-t.v. like game show―who, in one year, five years, will make the cut of the Real World, which friends will really "keep in touch" like they say they will (for the record, from that car ride, three). I remember watching the sun rise from an untouched acerage, and thinking of beginnings, and endings, and not much else. A Night to Remember, but that was just the grad's theme. A whole different world to wake up to, that's what it really meant to me on that late-late-night, that too-early-morning.

Then, another time. 

Last year in the gorgeous Gorge in Washington State, with two of my best friends from home, and one new friend, watched the sun rise as we packed up our campsite after a long, aptly-titled Memorial Day weekend. A weekend ending with goodbyes to places, to our campsite and our tent that we didn't once sleep in, to all the music played on a stage framed by nothing but blown-wide-open skies. We'd soon head in the car home together, and then I would solitarily head away by myself to my new home, my first summer away. I wondered what it would be like to spend it without the friends I'd had forever.

Last night, well, by now, two nights ago, I drove an old friend with a past home after a long night out. We reminisced, and as that familiar luminous body rose, I remembered the last time we'd driven this road. The last time, it was when two people became something more than friends. We'd climbed a bridge and conquered it, singing from the top to no one who'd hear that it was ours, that we were a "we." The other night seemed the same. We drove around familiar circles, and when dawn struck we were left to wonder if that was all really in the past, or if the past was playing into the present―into the now, into the new. It all seemed too recent, too real. As the car door shut and I was left alone in what was by now near to broad daylight, I drove home in dead silence, music not too crowd my wandering mind. 

What has happenned, what is to come... real sunrises mean beginnings, endings, but nothing in between. 

unnecessary news: news that's totally unessential, but perfect for those awkward parties and first dates

DegrasRiRi?

Oh Canada, get ready, because you just might make the spotlight on Perez for the next fifteen minutes.

Apparently Chris Brown's ex-pillow-cushion has been canoodling with a Canadian who plays someone with a visible physical impairment. Via People via Eye, may I present to you: Rihanna and Jimmy Brooks Aubrey Graham.

"The two of them were stealing kisses here and there the whole night," says the source. 

The singer's group danced until midnight, when the new pair left together. "They were very cute. Both of them were in really good spirits..."

This marks the first time Canadians and the Carribean have been associated since Cool Runnings. Next week: Chris Brown releases old photos of Rihanna making fun of people in wheelchairs.

Let's All Hate Coldplay (but please, please don't)

Just like that pussy kid who always turned the other cheek, Gwyneth Paltrow's bleary-eyed activist husband renags: "SUE ME MORE!!!". Via Twitter via Pitchfork via Coldplay's website via NME (next project: link trees?):

"Some people are suing us at the moment, and although it was initially a bit depressing, now it's become really inspiring. You think, 'Right, if everyone's trying to take away our best song, then we'd better write 25 better ones.' And so just at the point where I was thinking about getting fat and becoming complacent, I've been finding more inspiration. Now we've got more to prove than ever before."

So that's it. Coldplay sorta rips off someone's stuff, which is legit (all music takes its "inspiration" from something else, it's just a matter of making sure it's an expansive idea instead of some obvious carbon copy). Someone else gets pissed because Coldplay will always be more succesful at ripping off their shit (and probably because their girlfriend gets all sappy about that bloke Chris Martin) than they ever were at making it in the first place. That someone sues Coldplay. Chris Martin and those other three guys miraculously don't have the ability to get angry, instead, they turn it into some wonderfully charming observation about the colours of stars. Coldplay makes eight billion dollars. Your girlfriend leaves you for a singer-songwriter who plays open mic nights and probably has a shitty construction job but is full of emotion and other effeminate qualities. "Someone" out there is now broke, single, and worst of all, p3wned by Chris Martin.

The Globe and Mail Online Gets a Makeover

They make a video. Nobody cares, except for whiny commenters who express their complaints, because everybody knows that change is bad.

Good morning, good morning!

Unemployed? No more health benefits?

Ease up. Pfizer wants to help you.

They won't give you a job, nor pay off a year's rent, but they're willing to help out with another bare necessity―with free one-year subscriptions to, among others, everyone's favorite peppy little pill―Viagra.

It's funny, but it's also feasible. Ya dee ya da, recession, reschmession―sex always sells. You can't stop people from having sex when they can't afford theatre at night (in fact, they'll probably spend more on birth control out of fear of bringing a little bundle of financial burden into the world). Sex shops are selling out―not selling out like arena artists begrudged by those who read Pitchfork, the other kind―and getting their best business from all those who're getting some. (In March, I did a story for broadcast on Queen West's Condom Shack's resexssion successes―they said this years been their best by far. This means we, as a society, are either getting sluttier, or cheaper. Or both.). But it all kinda makes sense. It's cheap, easy entertainment. Well, just not easy for all... hence the help of Viagra―friskiness that's fun and frugal!

mmm.... stiegl.

Mama Kass finally settled down and got herself a job.

Well, and by "settled down," I mean I now get to drink Jager out of the asses of pinatas, serve six-litre pints of Honey Brown in vases still stamped with Home Sense tags, and sell beers and bratwursts I'll never be able to pronounce. And, uh, get paid too.

Meet my new home, weeknights, weekends, days―whatever. 'Cause if it all goes as planned, well, by the end―I won't really know the difference.

(If you're in town this weekend, drop by. It's disco pirate party time. It's a bar, duh. But friends get a 25% discount.

...and yes, there will be hot tubs.)

SUM 301: Supplementary readings list

in my summer, every day is a (lazy) sunday.

Eggs benny on a thursday at noon, books without deadlines, decaffienated tea because I only realy have to be half-awake anyways. I sit on soft surfaces, only beds, couches, pillows, and carpets. It's all soft, no reads harder than hard news.

My routine is thus, I sleep, I eat, I run, I read, I do yoga, in whatever order I please. I work, but really that's just hanging out with a drink my hand in a wunder-ful place. 

See, the pace is slower here, and the only place I really need to go is upstairs. Outside's still too cold today, but when it warms I can simply take my routine outside and let the sun work its ways on my skin, my hair, my insides, too.

Shit-dis-stuburbing

... well, my mom thinks it is at least. For good times "out west,", but really just east of Edmonton..

• Learn an instrument. Preferably one that is stupidly loud and could not possibly be allowed in a condo, particularly one that's good for rage management. Drums will do.

• Develop a good score-keeping system for Jeopardy. My baby bro, newly accepted into college, with an IQ that makes him a certified genius and more books under his belt a year than I in my lifetime, has come close at beating me at my game ofmastery. But hasn't prevailed yet. Alex would be proud.
  

• Go Walmart-ing. Slightly cooler than go-karting, this activity is when you raid various local Walmarts and new, improved Walmart Supercenters (!) in search of one specific item. Yes, I'm sure it has ruined all local businesses; yes, it is definitely a cult. But they have in-store McDonald's! The way I look at it? Makes me think of that commercial for some credit card witht the two ladies pushing shopping carts: 
  

"So, how much did you save back there?" 

"2 bucks" 

*Stifles a laugh*

"And how much did you save?"

Tonight's mission? Season eight of ER. (Fun fact: I have never watched an episode of ER).

• And when all else fails: Ice cream will do.

prayers for the prairies.

Welcome back to the wild wild west.

...well, minus the wild part. So far Sherwood Park has been, as usual, quaint, pleasant―words sometimes considered synonyms for drab, and dull, but that's a matter of perspective. The pace of the place is, to say the least, a small adjustment from the days of jaywalking the city, but once it sinks in, it doesn't hurt so hard.

Sometimes life out here's like a scene from Full House―with seven people in one house (NOT including a dog named after brand-name amonia), I'm prone to assume the role of Stephanie, the poor middle child who's life is sooo unfair. And as for sleeping in, well, that's not an option when your sister tap dances above your bedroom at 8 a.m. But being woken up my a human sound instead of a machine (I'm talking about YOU, cranes at St. Michael's!) is sorta comforting, as is warm, streaming sunlight that won't be blocked out by a neigbouring condo at 11:01 a.m. (makes afternoon tans tough). 

The suburb's the suburb, it's not worth glossing over. I could spend my months here honing in on what they don't have―which is plenty―but while I'm around, I mine as well take on what they do have to offer. Parks-a-plenty, free and fresh gourmet, old friends, family, and, of course, a room of my own.

Me and the local geriatrics ward Some of the fam who I love very much!