I am dating Art.

Okay, I have submitted some prints for this particular show that span my experiences abroad and at home this year. I have chosen five or six to be [semi] exact. For sale, or not for sale; it is up to you. I would love to see some familiar faces gawking at my photography, heads bent just so, and I will probably be a little nervous because of it all. If my work is uninteresting to you, at least you can come and stare at other people's work--not to mention all the interesting people with the stovepipe legs and the leather jackets--as some form of conciliation. Isn't that the whole point behind art shows? The interesting people? I think so, anyway. Come, if you please. Gawking is encouraged and applauded.

Madge.

Devendra on the loose.

This just in.
Breaking news.
Earth shattering, really.

Natalie Portman and Devendra Banhart have decidedly called it quits. All the dream couples have went away. Rabbi you can have Jose, I will take our man Banhart. If only he would come to this town so I could seduce him with my wit and frizzy hair. If only.

Helen Helen Helen.

Dear Grandma,

Thank you for being a loyal reader (even when I swear). I am hubbering in front of this screen, thinking of you, wearing a ratty shirt that should have been washed and folded and forgotten days ago. Scrambled eggs with dill in a bowl is cradled in my lap and coincidentally warming me up. Just because I forget to email, doesn't mean that I forget [you]. Thank you for the wise words this week, I have been repeating "just relax and be kind" in my brain for days now. Thank you.

Sometimes during the off hours in the day when my mind wanders, I begin to dream of raising six kids on an acreage somewhere green and warm, tending roses and a ridiculously giant garden with a noteworthy meticulousness. Hair flying, some hymn or childhood lullaby being sung while bread rises on the kitchen counter under a tea towel.

I think of you; outside measuring baby feet in guilty footprints in the mud, heaping and instilling lesson upon lesson in the brains of your unsuspecting children even though you are mad as hell at the fire-headed liar who traipsed through the house with muddy feet in the first place. I want to be like you. I want to be like your daughters. I want to be like my mother. With your single email (yes, she emails) you have pulled me through a trying week and reminded me to be nice. Be kind, be patient, relax. "Love will find you", she writes and I sigh while reading. Your advice has prompted me to ignore the fact that this is the time of year where loneliness normally takes the wheel. In comes the thought of you driving your dad's truck for the first time as a twelve year old without a hot clue as to the difference between reverse and fourth, but you still did it. Braids swinging.

I am channeling everything I have, every feeling and intention into projects. Fruition is the word of the season. Between the upcoming art shows and Printmaking classes and gospel jamborees, between the late night dinners and bottles of wine, between the feet dancing on dust caked hardwood and trips into the bush with appreciative people, there will be no spare time to weep into pillow cases, twiddle one's thumbs, or grieve the thief who stole my heart. Who needs a heart anyway? My prince will come, yours did. Look at you now: grandchild number a million on the way, your recipes passing between eager hands like some welcomed plague, bodies sleeping under your handmade quilts, imagined scenes of your childhood playing out like a picture show in my head when I am sad.

Thank you. Teach me everything you know, quick.

With much love that only appreciates with time, Megsie.

For Loco, only.

Please don't cry on your bicycle Loco; you should have been here too. You were/are missed. Letter is in the mail (soon).
Tu me manques, Madge.

You will be a star.

So many things in my head right now. New ideas sloshing against Old memories splashing up against Giant dreams bobbing beside Uncontrollable fear. A merry flood of thought.

The outcome of yesterday concluded in me being shnuddery today. I was shnuddery and schlem and maybe a bit cranghkleegh to boot. Adjectives stolen from a dialect of German spoken by my parents' great-grandparents' great-great grandparents' was the only logical diction I could use. Regular English adjectives couldn't hold a candle to the weight my feelings today.

Break.

I just came from an art opening this night, and at one point in the night, I caught myself becoming enraptured with the reflection coming off the only framed piece in the show. Acting as a mirror to the scene unfolding behind my back, I stood and became engrossed not with the painting itself, but with the scene reflecting off of it's protective glass. I wonder how many people--art show attendees more specifically--experience what I just did: standing in a room, mouth agape, battling internally as to which standing position is more appropriate by gallery standards, and not seeing art for art in spite of it's position dead ahead of you. As lackluster as all that jazz is (and I don't doubt that majority of people feel insecure at art shows), watching a roomful of people doing the same exact thing behind you is so worth the art show angst.

I had to get out of the house. So I left, had the hilarious epiphany in the painting's reflection, left, rode home and some sweaty Elton fan cat called me on Portage. What a night. At one point in the evening this girl (I think her name was Sam, maybe), told me that Elton wore a floor-length floral tuxedo with golden platform shoes for the ENTIRE night without a single outfit change. "The crowd was better dressed than Elton!" she exclaimed with exasperation. Only in Winnipeg. I was huffing too loud from the crisp bike ride to add in a delightful Elton quip. So be it. I rode home and fell into the chair at the foot of my computer and dove into a McCain cake from the freezer. Sorry Janique, I couldn't resist for the life of me.

My friend Luke took these pictures of Ruth and I. I like them quite a bit. And I like Luke quite a bit. Thanks Luke, that was thoughtful.

Belly of the beast.

You are wide awake
You are everything
We've done wrong.

I need Phil Collins today. I need to write a song and be vulnerable upon shaky writer's legs and I need to call up Phil and ask for his honest opinion. I need to hear his sonorous accent and his mysterious intonation and I need to know. I just need to know. Phil obviously wouldn't be my first choice to ring up to sing a song to, but I have a few others who I would like to share some sort of exchange with at some point in my life. Joanna would be my number one. Joanna, as in Newsom. I think we could sit down in my living room, throw on a record, eat some pistachios and drink some wine. She might tell me some stories of her life on the road or how she keeps the calluses on her plucking fingers down to a dull roar from the harp. I bet she wears plastic gloves with Vaseline to bed. I would.

Yosh wrote a song called 'Meat for us' two winters ago on all the days of the week that didn't fall on Wednesdays. His organs partitioned his living room into four neat quarters and he wrote this and I love it. Sometimes he let me come over when he was writing and I would wash the dishes and mouth the words behind all of the organs. When I picture past happiness, that is what I see.

And we'll die here if we must
Why are you nervous?
It's only love.
And we'll do just like they said
There won't be any living.

Not a single head
Not a single head
Not a single head
Not a single head
Not a single head
Not a single head.

I had one of the hardest evenings of my life today. Not because I was upset (even though I was), it was more gutting than anything; humiliating, and final. Finality and defeat have been very difficult for me to swallow lately. Actually they have been hard to swallow my entire life. I know this is cryptic and dark, but I will be fine I think.

A proverbial book slammed shut with a mere two word sentence, sending plumes of dust and dashed hopes up my nostrils and straight to my heart. Someone told me recently that I am too gung-ho and my enthusiasm for things will also be my greatest downfall.

Fuck that
This one's for me.
Step outside
Open wide.

Last week I sat at a high wooden table eating kettle corn popped on the stove and reading poetry aloud. Our laughter filling the corners of the impeccable kitchen, a cat swirling a tail about methodically, like a ladle in a pot. Figure eights. Figure eights. Paul Simon's jungle beats were in the background and all I could do was look up from the book in my hands, read a line, "Beef tongue, beef tongue!" and laugh aloud, all the while feeling so grateful to have fallen into the person across from me. When I think of present happiness, that is what I see.

I wonder what I will be doing five years from today. I hope I am happy, confident in love and in another's; I hope I am full well. I picture a sturdy hand clasping my own, attached to my outstretched arm behind my back. My other hand lazily holding a glass of wine or maybe some good cheese. My back turned casually away from the clasping, sure, supportive hand, talking to a host of people in a gallery somewhere. My own photographs in heavy white frames lining the walls blurred in my peripheral vision behind the heads of the people I am engaged with. I have no idea who is attached to this hand of integrity, or when I will meet him. When I picture future happiness, that is what I see.

But for now, I am content merely crossing my arms among a host of people. I am alone. I am alone. I am alone. I am alone and I am okay with this.

Everything was illuminated.

Mama and Papa Pear decided to get hitched. I thankfully had my camera fixed against my face, the cool metal against my wine induced flush for the night's entirety.

Candy (my boss at Para Mix) got married this weekend to the lovely and dapper Phil. Phil looks incredible in suits; so much so they decided to finally tie the knot after a seven year casual engagement. As her employees and adopted team of daughters, we were psyched for yet another occasion to buy outlandishly expensive 100% silk dresses, wear towering heels and shocking hues of lipstick. They delivered and so did we. It MUST be said that my dear sister Erin took on the inhumane role of wedding planner and blew J Lo a la blockbuster "The Wedding Planner" out of the water. She nailed it. I got to be one of the lucky ones to watch Erin's plans come to fruition the day before the wedding while we set up shop on my parents manicured acreage in the country. A tent was erected, chairs slip covered and sashed, tables set with all the unnecessary cutlery and jazz, goblets buffed, chinese lanterns hung in a giant cluster at the peak of the tent, lights uncoiled and strung about. My family also nailed it. I am always so proud to be a Kroeker especially on days before big events when we just work HARD together, not because we have to, but because we love to.

It was a small wedding. Small enough that the bride and groom could personally thank people individually (giggling into the mic "who will be the lucky one?")-- a concept that I had never even considered as a Mennonite where circus production weddings are the norm. We dined and drank like kings and queens (some of us more than others) and we swayed to old time blues and ran between the illuminated tent and the illuminated gazebo and the illuminated house in the rain. Cigarettes dangled from lips the darker it got and wine glasses were carried by loose fingers stained with orange and red and pink and coral lipstick from messy applications. We were a yard full of laughing people, running around with half-eaten cakes and ladles full of sangria and little burning red dots lighting up the dark night, celebrating two laughing people. We must have looked ridiculous from the road.

The road. Cars filled with families of Doerksen's and maybe some Dueck's and a few Froeses' here or there idled passed our driveway, straining their eyes against the dark of night to make out who the people smoking and dancing like sinners were. Candles weighed down tables and the cheese cakes and cupcakes and truffles weighed down the dessert table and Star Grill weighed down our illuminated bodies. Everything was illuminated, and it was wonderful.

But before the wedding came the Bachelorette party. Seeing as the wedding was the following day, we opted to keep the festivities down to a dull roar and partake in all of our favorite things instead: costumes, a photo shoot chez moi, photobooth pictures at the airport, JJ, McDonalds, and wine. Seven laughing girls met Candy in the village donning various stick on mustaches, ruby red lips and bowler hats. After dragging Candy around town in the same ridiculous get up as our own, we flew to the airport just in time to pick up one of my best ladies JJ arriving just in time for the wedding from Montreal. We stuck a mustache and bowler on her too and took the stairs three by three up to the Photobooth. After pouring sixty some dollars into the photobooth and taking one million strips with Candy, we went to get some McDonalds and returned to my abode to eat and drink wine like gluttons. Sounds stupid, but it was one for the history books.

Enjoy dear ones. I know I enjoyed every moment.

Vice connoisseur.

New York, New York; Winnipeg, Winnipeg.

"Hi Richard, do you miss New York right now?"
"Yes, I do"
"Do you want to come over? We have found a little piece of New York within city limits. Come, now. We are listening to records. Bring some jazz, okay?"
"Cool, but I can't. I would love to, but I can't. I am stranded in the suburbs"
"Oh no"
"Oh yes"

Sorry to have missed you Richard. I am glad you came home from the city that never sleeps a wink, even if it is home that brings you down. We missed you. One of my bff's is housesitting a studio space turned scrappy apartment in the Bates building right now. We sat in low slung chairs draped in things with the windows open and smoked Camels as the cold air poured in along with the neighbor lady who just got back from Burningman in Nevada and was still starry eyed from all the wild things she saw. So starry eyed in fact, she didn't even notice us slipping her American cigarettes in our mouths and our necks ducking down to light them with a match. We sat and talked about our childhoods and memories of swimming in grain trucks and being casual about tae kwon do classes on Wednesday evenings. Time was so different then than it is now. Funny how the pace of life works.

Anyway, Leonard Cohen sang 'oooooh Mary Anne' and I rocked back and forth to the melody thinking the fast encroaching Autumn season is nice. We are officially on the slippery seasonal slope and I am going with gravity. Headlong.

Winnipeg may be no New York, but it has it's moments.

Humble Pie pt. 2.

Rabbi and I went to Miriam Toews' book launch of 'The Flying Troutmans' this evening. We stood shoulder to shoulder behind the Retirement cards and I ran into half my bloodline milling in the crowd. Mennonites love to support, and love to hate. Ridiculous. It was a treat to run into my uncle Pete and stand in line together as we waited to have our copies signed. Rebecca (Rabbi) couldn't stop laughing at how many people I greeted in passing. I eat that kind of stuff up; the kind of evening where conversations barely exist because I am too busy with my mouth agape, eyes darting above heads seeing what is going on. Small townie ticks like these keep me grounded. I like that, I hope they never leave. Any how, I was hugely impressed with the first ten pages of her novel that I devoured in bed while turning pages with one hand and maneuvering the borscht sent by my mother out of a Cheez Whiz jar with the other. Thanks mum, thanks Miriam. I am wowed daily by both of your talents.

Read it, laugh aloud in a line up. Read it over a cup of coffee at Chicken Chef in Steinbach. I know I sure as shit am going to.

Black and white.