Easter Sandals.

Dear Loco Ono, consider this a public letter of thanks and acknowledgment; homegirl LOVES her easter sandals! Even though I was almost struck by a Cavalier driving idiot while en route to the Post via bicycle on Osborne and Stradbrook this afternoon, my enthusiasm was hardly curbed thanks to a laughter-filled shift at Fresh. Steve (brilliant coworker) had me in stitches from beginning to end and Cara (Sea Bass, friend) entertained me over copious amounts of coffee at our neighborhood haunt once I was released of the clutches of said job.

After a few days of making random conversation with grumpy/dissatisfied people from behind the bar at my job and on the street, I have drawn a few conclusions regarding the change in season and why people (including this face) are acting so berzerker of late. A.) There is something in the water (dead bodies and asbestos, so says The Sun, shocking!) B.) The position of the moon does in fact influence one's mood C.) Winnipeg's coupledom epidemic has multiplied at an alarming rate and become just that, an epidemic; it is bringing those without down (not to shit on any happy couples--I am psyched for you--it is just that if I have to witness one more couple spoon-feeding each other gelati on Corydon, I will die [until I become one of them and succumb to spoon-feeding my own phantom lover] for now I am okay with being bitter and silently chastising them through the windows of my workplace). Maybe it was last week's snowstorm that sent any previously established positivity spiraling into a downward tailspin, but the entire city seems to have their panties in a knot. I am over it.

On a more random note, this is the last paragraph I have read recently (referenced without permission from a work by J. Winterson):

"On more than one occasion I have been ready to abandon my whole life for love. To alter everything that makes sense to me and to move into a different world where the only known will be the beloved. Such a sacrifice must be the result of love... or is it that the life itself was already worn out? I had finished with that life, perhaps, and could not admit it, being stubborn or afraid, or perhaps did not know it, habit being a great binder. I think it is often so that those most in need of change choose to fall in love and then throw up their hands and blame it all on fate. But it is not fate, at least, not if fate is something outside of us; it is a choice made in secret after nights of longing". I am a charioteer in this game called Love and although I am only twenty two, my am growing tired of longing after a phantom.

ANYHOW, Spring has arrived in the neighborhood at long last and along with the abundance of aforementioned twosomes, all the usual suspects are coming out of the woodwork. Even Milly, the Corydon gypsy has been out and about; collecting tabs from cans and cursing to Hell any who drinks more than she sees fit at Bar Italia. I have yet to spot Smoochie (the Spring/Summer season fille de joie) lurking outside of restaurants in her thigh-high white Smoochie boots.

There is no real point to this post, especially considering the weak threat to stop writing in my last heavily reference rear wheel post. At this rate I should throw in the towel. I suppose I merely wanted to give my gal Lo a shout out of deep gratitude for mailing me a new pair of sandals along with a letter that made me cry. Thank you gem, you are aces. Congratulations are to be extended to the same said lady, Laura Beeston, on her recent acceptance to Concordia for Journalism. Shit, I don't know what is better: the prospect of completing one's Masters in Journalism at Concordia in the Francophone land of opportunity, or squishing grapes barefoot in France hand-in-hand with a Parisian lover. I trust that whatever path this girl takes, it will be one to write home about. Home is where the heart is, and gem, you have my heart.

Despite this melodramatic post of love and longing and life and overdue typewritten applause for a friend out of my reach, I am riding the crest of happiness once again. Just like that. Thank you Laura for being a constant and an inspiration when it felt like all else was lost and there was nothing left to write about. Thank you to my state of perma singledom for providing me with material to bank on, even if it is depressing as fuck.

Spring is here, and I am waltzing with the open sea in my new Easter sandals.
I miss you Loco, mucho mucho.

Madge 'Debbie' K. Shit.

Post script: here are some recent photos.

Queen of the Stone Age.

Today's title is dead appropriate seeing as I began and neared completion of The Wheel. Today was the day Korakan taught me how to build a back wheel for my bicycle. It was a daunting experience and for the most part, he sat on the couch and laughed aloud at my disastrous handiwork and gauche screwdriver antics. For a good two hours my nose and eyes hovered a quarter of an inch from the spinning rim while I tightened spokes in half-turns and inspected the dish with an air of piousness worthy of a nun. Learning new things is good. This is pretty much when down today, save for some minor details that are beyond my comprehension.



Ugggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I am throwing in the towel in the writing department for a while. My mind is bone dry of any and all material worth recording and all I can think about lately is Denmark and eating. Shit.

Madge.

Age appropriate.

Today was my birthday. I was taken out for all three meals of the day and it was fantastic. I ate a waffle, a pizza and bison filet mignon. I got enough practical items to make a forty-seven year old head-bob in approval. At one point in the day, Andrew (ex lover/reformed best friend who is finally home from Peru) turned to me and asked with sincerity if there were "any age appropriate gifts" that I had received. Yes Andrew, there were plenty. My brothers gave me records, Alex gave me a coffee table book and my parents gave me a back wheel (yet to be built).

Life has taken a turn down the slippery slope once again and I am not fighting gravity. Twenty two never looked so good.

She, orange. Me, red.

I see a few steppers out there looking sharp. Devendra Banhart and Natalie Portman have recently become a couple. If I can't bone him, I am glad she is.

In other news, today Rudy, Erin and I played soccer in Chinatown. Chinatown recently being referenced to as my town of birth, Rosenort, thanks to it's single Chinese Restaurant. High waisted jeans, athlete shoes, muddy ball, sweaty forehead, dropkicking the ball into my brother's car, practice, practice, practice, Rudy's laughter at my pathetic aim, river nature, dusty ball, Erin's skinny legs (bitch), more running, giant calves, more laughter. Spring was heavy in the air.

At one point on a family walk (we are unapologetically predictable on Sunday afternoons in the country) my mum made us stop mid-stride beside a ditch enroute to Grandma's house and listen to the rushing water. The sounds of spring. I drank copious amounts of merlot and coffee in and on various porches/stoops/gazebos and ate too many hamburgers. Classy joint.

Aunty Marj made the grave mistake of allowing me to fawn over and eventually perv on her trillion dollar camera at the birthday party yesterday. I camera-whored it up at my grandpa's three-quarters-of-a-century non-themed birthday party. Erin and I had a photo shoot in the entrace of the said old folks home and everyone thought we were crazy because of our chosen shades of lipstick. She, orange. Me, red. High fashions. Pluralized.

Here are a few snapshots of the grand affair. Since the party was sans theme (every party needs a theme) I opted to herd certain family members into the aforementioned entrance for balloon/head shots (to those of you not pictured, I couldn't enlarge certain photos, sorry; so shoot me). Again, everyone thought me insane, but in the long run it was a roaring success.

They will thank me later, I know it.























Fin, Queens.

Esprit de corps.

Somebody has a case of Spring fever.

Here is yet another batch of Eurotrash/Suisse pictures with which I am mildly satisfied. Plans with the baby Pinhole camera are coming along swimmingly. I went to Photo Central over the weekend and picked up some 120-100 T-max film and am ready to get outside to start shooting. I am experiencing genuine joy today. I was nice to sit on the patio at my neighborhood haunt; drink coffee, watch my skinny boy friends drink giant Hoegaarten's with single handed ease, laugh in good company, bike in good company, bike alone. Goodness abounds.

Still resisting the urge to flap, Madge.

Post Script: I thought these were neat.

a) Esprit de corps |eˌsprē də ˈkôr|
noun: a feeling of pride, fellowship, and common loyalty shared by the members of a particular group.
ORIGIN late 18th cent.: French, literally ‘spirit of the body.’

b) Esprit de l'escalier |eˌsprē dəˌleskalˈyā|
noun: used to refer to the fact that a witty remark or retort often comes to mind after the opportunity to make it has passed.
ORIGIN early 20th cent.: French, literally ‘wit of the staircase.’

Sister spring, Mother summer.

In my neck of the woods, when the phone rings after 11:30 in the evening, someone is dead/has died. My phone rang at 1:33 this morning and thanks to a bout of insomnia, my response time was lightening quick. "Who died?" "No one" "Thank God" "Are you okay?" "I am okay". The call, one transpired out of boredom and general inquiry on their part turned out to be rather enlightening on my own. In a breathy jumble, I found the words I had unknowingly been searching for for the past three months. I want the comfort in knowing that love--that loving and being loved--abounds. I want to wake up and rest assured as a self-aware and confident person; I want to know that I am a trusted friend and confidante.

This evening while standing on a deck barefoot watching Will BBQ the hamburgers we whipped up just minutes before throwing them on the grill, watching James inspect the growing pools of Atlantica in the garden with a stick, watching Bram cut MDF with a miter saw for his new dark room table, watching Marky eat scattered candy off the new table, watching heads bob in excited and muted conversation over the fence in Sam's living room, I felt good.

Rocking back on my heels to get a better view of everything, I just felt good. Good to be standing barefoot in a t-shirt on a Winnipeg deck, good to be laughing with friends new and old, good to borrow a free-range egg from the neighbors eating pizza on their own sinking porch, good to smell home cooked food, good to get childishly excited at the prospect of draining the fire pit, good to be alive in Sister spring, good to think of Mother summer as something TANGIBLE.

James and I took a quick walk to Foodfare to buy some cheese for our burgers and we both agreed it was a miracle we made it out alive once again. Winnipeg winters are not for the faint of heart. I dip my head sheepishly even as I type. While I managed to escape the first flakes and coincidentally the tail end, oddly enough this one proved to be one of the most difficult winters of my young years. Depression and reclusion nearly got the best of me after the turn of the new year, but those who know me best know that I operate on a fiscal year basis. The year truly begins in Fall and turns in Spring. Thus, 'tis the season for rebirth.

They (whoever they may be) say never to let the Man get you down. The Man took on many forms this year: Discontent, friendships that had run their course and the agony that went hand-in-hand with the severance; Melancholy, coming home from Barcelona with Kit and Rabbi and feeling like a vagabond over the holiday season; Deception, the act of deceiving a dear friend and accepting the fallout as my own; Separation, being left behind by gems moving onwards and upwards; so on and so forth.

With that said, all of these travails book-ended something good and whole, delivering me through a time of perpetual trial and error to the very moment of clarity that I had today, standing barefoot on the Mansion's deck. I am back. It is not as if I learnt nothing, for I learned aplenty. My love for photography became something severe and under the guidance of Scramwell and Creme, I hope to be up and developing by week's end. My love for food and cooking has also been nurtured and inevitably fed in the past three months. It is all I think about, really. My love for writing became much more than a hobby, it became a crutch and a friend when it felt like I had lost all others. These three hobbies alone were instilled within to be shared with others. All are potential career paths and if not, who cares. Lord knows the world needs more photographers, cooks/bakers and writers.

Despite everything, I woke up this morning to something from Drex even better than a fax. A letter penned free hand into a spiral notebook, complete with sketches of a chicken and his signature penmanship, scanned into JPG format and delivered to my email. The attached post script was a drawing of a man's face in the same said spiral notebook. Sheer brilliance that man. I have felt so inspired by my peers of late.

Over dinner a few evenings ago, the topic of Interesting Acquaintances came up and it was quite something to hear who was influenced and roused by who. I know one man who can build a wheel bare bones, three people who screen print effortlessly, at least six geniuses behind the lens, three party planners extraordinaire, two people who can fix shit ally bikes like magic, two brilliant DJ's, two people in French class, three dancers that make me weep when they move, two seamstresses that put Rosaline Rempel to shame, one man who can cook a feast fit for a king with one brick of tofu and a little bit of faith, one man who can sing me to sleep and doesn't even know it, at least ten insanely talented musicians, and so on and on and on. The list is endless. I have talented friends; the neighborhood has been a Mecca for creativity lately and I am into it.

I am back and feeling good.

Respects, Frances.