Hot Chocolate from my Juan cup.

A few years ago Shevy went to New York and brought me back a souvenir cup with the name JUAN, needless to say that it is my favorite cup for hot chocolate.

My "to do" list today is rather daunting! However, the other day when I was pondering my tremendous amount of laundry I thought to myself, "what would I give for a day to just work around the house," and today is one of those days, and I dread it!

So I've switched my mind set, I am going to enjoy myself.

I finished writing my Christmas card, not too much work, finished making the C.D's and need to get that mailed, or organize to give it to people.
I need to pick out music for the retreat I'm leaving for at 2.
Clean house, do laundry, pack stuff, clean car etc.

Yeah it's going to be a packed day.

Especially when I also want to go to the library look up some music, write in my blogs, look on craigslist, bake cookies, go to the other library...ya da ya da.

misty

Misty.
When my hair is dotted with little drops of water walking from the car to the house to the store to the bedroom.

My life has changed in the past month that I haven't written.
(changing changing changing changing changing)

Have you ever looked in the mirror on a particularly self conscious day and realized something about yourself that you never noticed? Then, for the next little while, you obsess about that thing, making it more than it is, letting it take you. Now when you look in the mirror all you see is that. The thing you never knew before that one day when you were feeling particularly self conscious.

I like being comfortable. I like my clothes to be comfortable and neato. I like to have time to lounge, read, sip, etc. I like watching the rain. I like sitting in my big chair and listening to "It Hurts to Be in Love," super loudly and focusing on not moving or thinking for the entire song.

I can trick myself into thinking that there's this huge part of me that wants to travel, to pursue a financially stable career, to own a Marc Jacobs piece, but that's just like looking in the mirror and seeing a tiny thing that takes over.

I know myself. I know who God gave me. I love my identity in him. I'm still learning more, and always will be, but why trick myself into believing something else along the way.

The world is good at that, tricking people.

I love knowing that I'm not surrounded by a concrete jungle that never sleeps.
I love knowing that there is extreme beauty almost everywhere I look.
I love my friends and family.
I love Kuma.
I love pursuing my dreams and not being afraid of them being too small.

All I want is a comfortable home, a loving husband, beautiful kids, beautiful friends, close family, to teach piano, and to pursue my art through the Holy Spirit (wherever that leads me). There's other things too, but these are my dreams.

Sometimes we're forced to dream bigger, but I really want to be a mom.
Sometimes we're forced to make more money, but I want to teach.
Sometimes we're forced into stability, but I want to make art.

more later.

p.s I had a dream that Zooey and Cady were opening a sushi bar, and I got to meet Zooey and she had braces.

quick review

I have lost two inches to my waist.
I have read more fashion magazines than what is healthy.
I have taken a liking to mens sweaters and highwaisted pants.
I have been working at my aunts store (my best friend's closet) Thursday through Sunday.
My boyfriend has a second interview at Urban Outfitters today.
I love being in the city again.
I woke up with a horrible migraine (more on this later)
I may or may not be playing at open mic night tonight.
I have a new appreciation for the likes of Marc Jacobs, and the woman behind Jimmy Choo.
I've been dead tired the last three days.
I fell asleep while getting ready this morning.
I'm buying my brother-in-laws car.
I'm getting an iphone tonight.
My sister and her husband are moving to Saskatchewan.


My sister and her husband are moving to Saskatchewan.


My sister and her husband are moving to Saskatchewan.
My other sister had her baby.
My brother is the next Andy Kaufman.

So, as I was saying, I woke up with a horrible migraine. It was one of those ones where you can't move your head in any direction, and you have to keep your right eye closed. Now all the people who have ever had a migraine are thinking as they read this, "I know what you mean," and all the other people that haven't had a migraine are going, "I've never had one but they sound horrible." This leads me to wonder, are all migraines the same, or are they a strictly personal experience. We may have the same symptoms sometimes, but could we ever honestly know for sure if it was the same feeling? I don't think so, but I'm also naive on the subject and am welcome to any insights on this very unimportant matter. It would be rather nice if it was a universal feeling, migraines, that way if you did get migraines you'd belong to this universal club of people that migraines, and we could all relate to one another so swell, because we'd know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were infact feeling the same thing...
I should take a nap.

Anyways, I had piano history this morning at 10 AM, and as I was getting out of the shower at 8:45 AM I was in a huge amount of pain, the migraine and all etc. So I thought, ok, I'll wait until the medication kicks in and just sit her on my bed with a towel on my head, with my right eye closed, and not move my neck, and see if in twenty minutes I am better. That way if I was I could still throw clothes on and make it to my bus which would take me up to piano. Instead I fell asleep sitting there, and woke up at 10:45 still wearing the towel turban. I am the poster child for glamorous....joking.

"Oh darling! I feel faint," she says as she fans her face and collapses into the velvet chaise lounge, angled every so slightly towards the bay window, which over looks the garden and the hedge maze.

Tal and I had a discussion the other day about music, more of a debate, that I think would make an interesting screen play. (I am typing this with one eye closed, waiting for this headache to part)

I just finished writing out 75% of it, and realized it may only be interesting to me, so I deleted the entire thing.

Last night Tal and I went library searching for Audrey Hepburn movies. We specifically wanted "Wait until Dark," and, "Charade." We came out of the libray with, Charade, Annie Hall, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Eugene Levy's Guide to Home Safety, and SNL 25th Anniversary. I figure that was like a gold mine.

On our way home we invited Caitlin (cady) and Ben over to watch Charade or Annie Hall with us. Pudding was 79c for four cups at Superstore so I bought both butterscotch, and chocolate and made a pudding pyramid to go along with a our splendid array of movies.

We ended up watching Annie Hall because I'd been telling Cady about it and she'd never seen it, and Ben had never seen a Woody Allen movie. They liked it, and I discovered something about myself.


Not only am I Carmen Loretta, daughter to Eugene and Catherine, granddaughter to Hal and Loretta and Carly, and Lynn, girlfriend to Tal, sister to Isaac, Allie, and Theresa, employee of my aunts store, co-leader of Plugged in, piano teacher to several students, etc. but I am also Diane Keatons child, who discovered at an early age that she could not handle the limelight and left for a life of adventure, and that's why I feel such a close connection to her.

"Oh darling, my fan, please, I'm dieing in this heat," she says as she sips her lemonade on the veranda whilst watching her daughter with the young man that had come to do her riding lesson.

I've been reading fashion magazines like crazy, because I realized that although I may really enjoy putting things together, labels really don't mean very much to me. Meaning I don't really know them that well, and have never really cared to know. But now that I'm working in a consignment store where women who really do care a lot about labels are leaving there clothes with us to sell, I figure, it's important that I know the difference between a few of these designers.

All this to say, I was reading Harpers Bazaar, and what I got from it was, basically everything that's been in since 1951 is in again. You can do anything. I guess because of the recession, the biggest designers, with the exception of a few like Dolce and Gabbana, and Versace, decided to create very wearable timeless classic items, that would be wearable, and wouldn't have an expiry date. This is fabulous news to me. I've never cared about fads, or trends, because I find them frusterating, as soon as you have enough money to take part in one of them, they're over and you're new scarf is passe. But if fashion is all about quality and timelessness, then I'm in. That means essentially, whatever is glamorous, casual, put together, casual, leather, faux leather, fur, faux fur, bright, subdued, eighties, seventies, nineties, sixties, or fifties, is doable. This opens up tons of options, which makes me happy.

Anyways, that's a little bit of where I am right now.

AH!

mood swings
irritability
depression
anxiety
angry outbursts
confusion or fuzzy thinking
tearfulness
fatigue
insomnia
overeating
cravings, especially for salty or sweet foods
alcohol intolerance
acne
hives
abdominal and pelvic cramps
bloating
weight gain
headaches
menstrual migraines
breast swelling and pain
edema (visible swelling, particularly in the hands, feet and legs)
asthma
sinus problems
sore throat
worsening of chronic conditions like arthritis and ulcers
difficulty with coordination, being more prone to accidents
dizziness, decreased balance
heart pounding (palpitation)
nausea
fainting

fabulous! fantastic! good.

Yay! Life is fabulous!

So, as you may or may not know, visual merchandising fascinates me. I'm always totally impressed by an amazing window or store display. Marketing also makes me happy, how you word things, act, etc, actually plays a role in what people think about a certain product, whether or not they will buy it. I love it.

So, also as you may know, my aunt is opening up consignment store on 16th and Cambie,(six blocks up from the City Hall skytrain station on the Canada line)and I get to play a part in it. I am going to be working there Thursdays - Sundays, and I get to design the windows and store displays!!!!

I am very very excited, also very nervous, because as much as I love it I haven't had too much experience. I am thrilled though because it really is a once in a lifetime situation.

Now I have an excuse to look up all the visual merchandising information that I want, and for it to not be wasting time. This also gives me a way back into the city. Hopefully I'll be able to move out there and work full time eventually.

Merchandising is a fabulous creative outlet, I'm always so stoked to see what people will think of, what themes, colours, details that they use. It's amazing.

I lost seven pounds.

On the social front, last weeks games night was a success. Pretty funny head bandz game that we played for HOURS! Also MARGARITA NIGHT is on Friday, and I'm getting pretty excited about, I still don't know what I'm going to wear. I really do have an awesome group of friends who make my days so happy!


Another thing that just made me super happy, was that Tal and I settled into the couch to watch some home and garden television, and it just happened to be on the movie channel, and it just happened to be play ANNIE HALL and it just so happened to only be about 15 minutes in!

So the dilemma is I have piano history, grade 10 piano, I have 8 piano students at the moment, coming up with a window design for the store opening, researching designers, plugged in (grade 7 and 8 group at the church)!!!!

My day planner is like a golden scepter.

I really can't express enough how happy it makes me to be able to be in the city four days a week. It's so inspiring to be around that many people...all the time. I can't wait to see what else life has in store.

I'd love to...

I'd love to fill you in on all of the beautiful things that are emerging in my life, but I'm just too tired.

I'll let you know tomorrow.

Goodnight.

Tropicalia - Margarita Chic

My baby and I are old geezers.
Move out of the way you whippersnappers, it's Margarita night, and don't you know it.
"Don't you forget your sassy shirt Tal," I'll say.
"Of course not Carmen," Tal'll reply back, "I always dress Margarita chic."

'sup

I found 'sup magazine... well actually viva-radio showed it to me. But I looked up their website, and you can basically read all the articles there. I love the Internet for that.
The new york times is all on the Internet.
The Vancouver sun is all on the Internet.
etc.

So 'sup magazine is pretty rad..I thoroughly enjoyed reading it http://www.supmag.com/

In general I'm very happy with my life. nothing to complain about. I love the idea of getting out more, seeing the city more, doing more art, reading more, becoming more knowledgeable and all that jazz.

I keep thinking two years three years down the road, which is my biggest downfall. I always want whats coming, and never what I have right now. So I have to work on loving what I have...RIGHT NOW!

which is life.

these are the days.

The sound of the dishwasher running
and rinsing.
The carpet against my socks.
The sound of my squeaky hiccup.
I'm home at midnight.
There's still 16 and a half books to read sitting
on my dresser
and on my floor.

Vancouver Half-life

GLORY DAYS
Hey.
So lately I've been feeling that city itch again.... Not for the same reasons this time. Just for the inspiration that the city brings into art and so forth.

I think though that this time will be better. I won't leave Mission for another two years or so. I'll work on my book, teach piano students etc. Tal will go to UFV for a couple years.

Then we're thinking...(obviously this is all in the future and there's a lot of ifs)that Tal could finish his degree closer to the city! That's when we'd....move I suppose.

By then we'll be at a better age and we'll hopefully have a little more money..and street smarts.

In the mean time however.
My aunt has opened up a shop (a consignment shop) at 16th and Cambie, and I'm going to be working there part time to help out with selling and styling and what not.

So this allows me to have my life in two cities. I'll get the small town security of Mission, and the big city art life of Vancouver. This thrills me. We'll see what happens next.

five books at a time.

From now on I will only allow myself to get five books out of the library at a time. It starts to stress me out when I have 28 books out and they're due two weeks from now and I'm only done two of them.

I figure five is good because that gives me a couple extra in case the first couple of books don't hold my attention.

Right now I'm studying early music (Gregorian chants etc.) ... It's all part of getting my ARCT... and it's been really interesting. I just started and we're just looking at the 400s and it's crazy...which inspired me to start reading more than just what's come out right now.

I really enjoyed literature in grade 12 but basically forgot a lot about what I learnt, because I did art through all those classes and didn't pay attention.

Soooo I found a list of books I am going to work through. I will make my pilgrimage down to the library with my gross amount of books to return and start fresh with this massive list.

Side note.
I listen to viva radio in case you haven't already heard, and I found this show on it called, "Believe it! Achieve it!" I'd already heard of it, but I had never listened to a whole show (they're only like 20 minutes long). It's this guy Troy who interviews congressmen in the USA. It's terribly funny in both senses of the word. One it's just so sarcastic you can taste it, and two, it's terrible that he actually organized interview with these men and then basically wasted their time...but it is incredibly amusing.

I realized that I hadn't written anything in my blog about going to PORTLAND and my 19th birthday so I thought I'd write in note form a little of whats been going on in the last five days or so.
- picked my mom up from work at five p.m last Friday and drove all the way down to Portland (five hours or so)
- toured around Portland...Loved it, except there's nowhere to eat because it's all bars....soooooooooooooooooo we found this Thai restaurant..and I'm not the biggest fan
- checked out lots of art galleries (bought cheap art that I am in love with check out emilyblackapple.net)




- went to Powell's books which is a used book store which is a whole city block wide...and deep (beautiful)



- went to MAC and found out that it's really cheap there
- loved that there was no tax on anything
- stayed at this crazy trendy hotel
- loved Portland

the next day was my nineteenth birthday...it was a family birthday in Langley. and i felt really honored...I'm planning something with my friends later (Cady's birthday is...today actually so we might do something together..?)

I can drink in public.

Then I came down with a cold/fever.

So that's just a little bit of explosive goo from my brain, to catch you up on things.

it feels luxurious.

Sometimes it depresses me to have a bubble bath at eleven am, and sometimes it feels so luxurious that I can't help but love it.

Sometimes cleaning the house feels like a huge daunting chore, and sometimes it feels like a dirt devil and a half an hour.

Sometimes 25 pages of music history homework seems like open books and frusteration, and sometimes it feels like adventure.

Sometimes practising piano seems like a 2 hour back ache, and sometimes it feels as beautiful as it looks when someone plays the harp.

Sometimes cleaning my closet feels like a huge cavern that has to be wiped out every square inch, and sometimes it feels like shopping.

Today I read more laws in Leviticus and Numbers, cleaned the house, had a bubble bath, invited Tal over for french toast, sausages and eggs, practised piano, worked on history, discovered lots of interesting facts, cleaned a room, made fajitas, and who knows what else will happen.

Viva brazil keeps me going through the day. It has to be the happiest music there is.

Today was one of those days where cleaning the house was quick, my bubble bath was luxurious, breakfast was scrumptious, practising was fun, history was an adventure, and cooking was beautiful.

ideas. projects. inpirations.

AHH.
I have so many ideas that I want to see come into affect.
I'll elaborate on two.

First and foremost.
I have this idea for a piano method book for beginners that I think is kinda fun. It is a method book and children's story book mixed together. So the characters venture into this music world, and meet a bunch of characters who in turn teach them early beginner music concepts through story. It's really interesting and fun coming up with ideas, conflicts, solutions, all the while trying to pack as much theory, and creative music concepts in a long the way. It's a huge project. Slightly overwhelming as I have no idea how to get from idea to manuscript to self publishing, to marketing etc.

Right now I figure getting it all outlined, seeing if I've added every concept I want to add in the first book, making revision after revision seems like enough. Once I've outlined the whole book that way, I'll look into how I want to illustrate it and publish it.

If I look at it all at once idea-manuscript-illustration-publication it's like Mt.Everest. I just have to think small little steps. So today I outlined the "pre-reading" section. What is going to happen concept wise...as well as story wise. It's really fun when I look at it in small sections. Then I can accomplish small things.

I even wrote out a syllabus out for myself ex. what I have to finish by December 10th, broken down into three sections (now till December 10) and the sections broke down into weeks, so I can keep on track.

It's hard working from home and not getting lazy. I don't want all my ideas to go to waste, I have to do something or they will just sit there.



Anyways, that's idea number one.

Number two is more of a hobby.
I want to start my own podcast. It's sort of frustrating when you have no idea how to do that technically. I want to podcast interesting music in play lists that have different emotions and genres. I want them to be around an hour in length, and put out a new one once a week. I want to put it on to itunes.

I've been reading tons of blogs on how to upload your podcast onto blogs and itunes and such, and now it actually comes down to creating one, editing it and clicking upload. So we'll see where this goes.

ONE more idea for good measure.
Photography. I want to photograph Mission B.C in it's best light and create a series. I left Mission a couple of months ago thinking it was the worst place to live in the world for an artist, and now I'm back and I love it. It's a perfect place for an artist. So now I want the series to be a sort of, "I'm sorry," to Mission and let it know that I still like him/her and that I recognize it's beauty.

identity and identity

There's the identity I've created, and the identity the creator created.
I love the identity the creator created, but am often stuck in the identity I've created.

Truth is there's a part of me that is proud of the identity I've created. Which is wrong, but hard to let go of.

Part of me loves the identity the creator created, and the other part still wants the old identity.



In a book I was reading the author said that a lot of people in full time kingdom work will try to always pick the more selfless road, because even if the selfish road was a more intelligent decision, it will undoubtedly lead to destruction.

My created identity, is most definitely the more selfish road. If I am walking a path to become more selfless, why would I be debating over which identity I should give my face to today?

Sometimes this walk gets complicated, and I get weak, but I know that He is the redeemer of my soul, and that without Him I would be wandering around aimlessly in my created self, trying to fill my life with whatever pleased me, and in the end find nothing but a bottomless pit of want.

The hard part is in our society, when finding, "your true self," is such an important part of mental development. I guess that the identity that God has given me is in fact, "my true self," but I've covered it up with so many masks that I like and have created to make some sort of mosaic identity on top.

If finding your true self in society is finding where you fit and where you belong, it makes more sense to take off all of the masks that we wear to find the true center, the core of an identity, then once we've achieved that to put on the masks of things that fit that core person. Yet, it seems that society does it backwards, to find ourselves we pile on a whole bunch of things (hobbies, clubs, etc.) to find out where we fit, and once we do we devote ourselves to it.

Boggling.

Help me to live in the identity You've created. Amen.

Viva Radio

Viva Radio is the absolute best internet radio show you will ever find. The most eccentric. The best. The best. The BEST.

sow. invest. obsess. etc.

The pastor today at my church talked about how in the Bible so often you hear the words "sow," and, "harvest," and the truth is most of us aren't farmers, and to relate better to these analogies the words, "invest," and, "results," might be easier to relate to.

That's not what I'm writing about though.

I need 20-25 students (piano students) to be financially stable. I have 9. It's easy for me to get really anxious and to start obsessing over my finances, over what I can do to rake in money, etc.

Soon, my whole brain is CONSUMED with the deception that the MOST IMPORTANT thing is MONEY!

He keeps asking me (God) what's more important, HIM or money, and I know it's him, and I've tried surrendering all this...BUT IT'S SO HARD in our culture, when we're raised thinking the most important thing is to be financially stable. We're even encouraged to pursue stable jobs and put aside our dreams so that we can be financially stable. To afford a huge house, to buy a nice car, to put our kids through college so they can do the same thing.

"It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own wall all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn't the first time we've been warned. If we use our freedom this way, we won't inherit God's kingdom.

But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard - things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bring this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good - crucified.

Since this is the kid of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare for ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us in an original."

Galatians 5:19-26

All in favor say, AYE!

god bless my little cluttered head.

One day a religious expert on Moses' law came to test Jesus' orthodoxy by asking him this question: "Teacher, what does a man need to do to live forever in heaven?"
Jesus replied, "What does Moses' law say about it?"
"It says," he replied, "that you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, and with all your mind. And you must love you neighbor just as much as you love yourself."
"Right!" Jesus told him. "Do this and you shall live!"
The man wanted to justify (his lack of love for some kind of people), so he asked, "which neighbors?"
Jesus replied with an illustration: "A Jew going on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho was attached by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes and money and beat him up and left him lying half dead beside the road.
"By chance a Jewish priest came along; and when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Jewish Temple-assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but then went on.
"But a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw him, he felt deep pity. Kneeling beside him the Samartian soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his donkey and walked along beside him till they came to an inn, where he nursed him through the night. The next day he handed the innkeeper two twenty dollar bills and told him to take care of the man. "If his bill runs higher than that," he said," I'll pay the difference the next time I am here."
"Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the bandits' victim?"
The man replied, "The one who showed him some pity."
Then Jesus said, "Yes now go and do the same."

This story is really common, almost everyone's heard it. But what if we took this a step further and actually applied it to our lives.

I like to think that I'm pretty accepting, but often there are things revealed to me where I'm not. Where I'm more judgemental than loving, more hard hearted than I would like to have been.

Each human is a human. There's no human that is better than the other. The world blinds us into thinking that some are different, a cut above, but we're all the same. All of us have our so called, "unique," interests and hobbies, and we have our circle of people that are easy to love and our circle of people that are hard to love.

Everyone has that one person that annoys them. The Jew and the Samaritan in the story were enemies. What if we showed compassion and love not only to the people that were in our circle of acceptance, but to everyone else as well.

The world has it's way of thinking we'll find peace, but it won't happen until every person loves EVERY other person, not just he people that are easy to love.
Jesus says that everyone can love the people that they love. It's easy to love people that are your friends, what about everyone else?

slick rick the ruler

i can't help it.
i love him.
i've been getting more and more into oldschool stuff. and my boyfriends boss at American Apparel turned him on to Slick Rick's mona lisa.
Tal turned me onto that.
and now i am a slick rick enthusiast.
mona lisa
sitting in my car
memories
hey young world
star trek

too good.

these long rainy days at home. are. amazing.

every morning people get up, and then most of them go to work, school, etc.

i wake up. make some coffee. sit on the couch. write in my journal. learn more about the creator of the universe. write in my blog. find more piano students. bake cookies. have a shower. invite someone over to talk. play some music. write some music. teach piano. eat dinner. see TAL.

it's a nice day. a nice feeling.

before i was
waking up at 7. leaving by seven thirteen. getting to work by a series of public transportation vehicles. spending money i didn't have on coffee. taking two sips of my coffee, then starting work, then finding it hours later, cold in the back room. wish i hadn't bought the coffee. sorting clothes. sorting clothes. selling clothes. selling clothes. dressing mannequins, undressing them, dressing them again. taking a break. not knowing anyone. spending money i didn't have on my break. waiting for pay day. blah. leaving work. going home. doing the same thing again the next day.

now i actually have time for my art, my music, and my teaching. i'm doing a benefit show on saturday. i start teaching for the year next week. i'm taking another music history course. finishing my grade 10 piano (for the second time).

it feels like myself here. so close to the mountains and the trees. living in a rainforest. waking up and looking out of the skylight. surrounded by peace.

there are sometimes that i wake up and long for the security blanket that a job was for me. that longing for knowing exactly what was going to happen each day. but nevertheless this is the job for me. not knowing exactly whats going to happen throughout the day, and teaching for a few hours at the end of it.

god is so wonderful. it's really amazing how he's pouring into my hourglass all the things that i need to survive, providing opportunities for me. showing me where my spirit could be healed and transformed. these long rainy days at home. are. amazing.

Gatekeeper Feist

New song.

Clumsy - Jeffrey Brown

This is a very honset story about a romantic relationship start to finish. The back sleave reads, "Clumsy was drawn between April 20 and July 14 of 2001 and depicts events that occurred between July 3, 2000 and June 27, 2001." Having this little bit of information makes the story so much better.

It is incredibly cute, and easy to relate to if you've ever been in any sort of romantic relationship. Everything is covered, every little embarassing story, as if this story was taken from a journal, or from sketches taken during the relationship.

The two characters live in seperate states and the graphic novel is mainly set when tey are together at each other's homes on visits, but some of the small sketches are done over the phone.


I have nothing really horrible to say for the graphic novel, I thought it was fabulous, however the drawing was very sketchy, very unpolished. Now I've thought that maybe because it is called, "Clumsy," that it is okay for the drawings to be lazy. Then sometimes I really see the art in the characters body shapes, and yet other times I'm just frusterated, because I can't read the font, or really understand what the character is doing.

However, it is still worth reading if you are a graphic novel fan.
8/10

The Madame Paul Affair - Julie Doucet

Julie Doucet is a fabulous artist, as well as graphic novelist. She is known for her award winning graphic novel, "My NewYork Diary," which is fabulous. This smaller book, "The Madame Paul Affair," is just as excellent.
Every story feels very autobiographical, as though all the stories come from her every day life, which fascinates me. The autobiographical novelist, is the most interesting to me, because it's so ordinary, but it also feels like you're looking much deeper into someones personal life, like in Clumsy by Jeffrey Brown.

One thing that really stood out to me in "The Madame Paul Affair," was that her speach bubbles, are set behind the heads of the characters, which does two things, it draws your eyes to really look at the characters face, to read what they're feeling, it also is like symbolism for being inside their head. I really find that quite interesting, and it works to draw me into the story.

The story is a slightly strange story about an apartment that she lived in with her boyfriend "Andre." It's laid out almost like a cheesy mystery, which always gets me, regardless as to how cheesy it is!

The art is very typical of Julie Doucet's style, which is comforting. After this I'm onto reading, "My Most Secret Desire," which is another one of Doucet's

9/10

Blankets - Craig Thompson

This is a graphic novel of a young boys first romantic relationship, and the only twist is that he's been raised in a very right-wing baptist family.
Therefore he has all sorts of preconceptions and ideas that may or may not be true, all sorts of rules that he's following, and he's only five.
While he is a child, he is very unhappy, not really understanding why or how people follow all these rules, and basically figures the only reason he's following them is because life will be better in heaven. When one Sunday School teacher thwarts this dream it's like she sends him on a downward spiral emotionally.
Finally he meets the girl, and starts to discover who he is.

This story was really interesting to me, because I was raised baptist, and could really relate to a lot of the stories and feelings that this guy went through (I forgot to mention that this was an autobiography, shaped like a fiction). It was easy for me to remember all sorts of situations that were identical to that of Craig Thompson's.

This is a really good book for anyone, but especially good if you were raised Christian, as it may shine a light on whatever it was you were questioning as a child.

9/10

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

Once you learn the Nadsat language all by your oddy nochy, it's really a horroshow book to viddy.
If you viddied the film at the sinny, then you know the vesch.
Need a glossary?
grahzny - greasy, rookers - legs, nogas - feet, crasting - breaking in etc.

This book did take awhile to get into considering you had to learn a whole different language of slange (nadsat) before it made any sense. Here's an excerpt,
"They had no license for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against prodding some of the new veshces which they used to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other ceshches which would give you a nice quiet horroshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels and Saints in you left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg"
and so it continues...

Anthony Burgess was really quite ahead of his time. He was writing A Clockwork Orange before hippies, and LSD was commonplace, and while this novella is simply packed with the stuff, ten years later it would actually come into reality.

The clothes, the music, the slang, it was all predicted early on by Anthony Burgess...

This story of an incredibly violent teenager being brain washed into being good, and then released to his old self, may seem too violent, or too harsh, but the truth is that Anthony Burgess himself witnessed an extremely violent evening that included the raping of his wife in the first world war, which was the catalyst to write a novella questioning violent nature and humans position in it.

It really is an interesting book 10/10

Catastrophe Waitress - Belle & Sebastian

My goodness! I can't describe how happy I was when I finally heard this tasty album.
I have a permanent smile.
The semi-retro sound mixed with multi-instrument indie madness is enough to make anyone happy for a day.
You can relate to every song. Every story, every guitar riff, every piano solo, it all is completely relatable.
I love honest work, and this is very honest.
I'm in love.

Black Hole - Charles Burns

What a fabulous graphic novel!

The back of the book wrote,
"It was like a horrible game of tag...It took awhile, but they finally figured out it was some kind of new disease that only affected teenagers. They called it the, "Teen Plague," or, "The Bug," and they were all kinds of unpredictable symptoms...For some it wasn't too bad - a few bumps, maybe an ugly rash... others turned into monsters or grew new body parts...but the symptoms didn't matter...oncce you were tagged you were "it" forever"

Yea, so it sounds a little cheesy, but it has been recognized in many graphic novel anthologies for two things, one, it's very creative thought provoking story, and two, for it's beautiful black and white drawings.

I got into graphic novels a few months ago and have been on a reading rampage, everything from Art Speigelman to Julie Doucet. I first delved into them because I had been doing some pen and ink drawings, and thought that I could draw inspiration from the drawings in the graphic novels, shortly thereafter I fell in love with the way that a graphic novel tells a story. It's not just a story with pictures, or kids stories, it's an incredibly creative way of sharing a story or personal thought, relating to pictures. It's fabulous.

At the beginning of Black Hole, I was a little turned off by the idea of teenagers in the, "mid 70s" that scene has been scrutinized by authors, and playwrites for at least a decade, and I was sick of it, but Charles Burns is able to portray a very realistic portrait of teenagers in the mid 70s without blowing things like drug use, or ex-hippies out of proportion. I quickly put aside my feelings and fell in love with the story.

This is definately worth reading, and I'd give it a 8/10.
Happy READING!