I got on the wrong bus a week ago. I stepped off green grass onto the bus, and in the 20 odd pages that my attentions were away from the window, the scenery changed. It wasn't until I got near my stop that I looked up and realized there was snow everywhere. Not just little bits here and there, but blankets enough to leave footprints. I had taken the bus to winter. Step on in one world, step off into another.

I must say it was one of the best ways to move into winter. No slow crawl into the frozen months. It was more like a magic trick. A dark cloth was spread over the world, a little misdirection here and then ABRACADABRA. The cloth is removed and everything is magically and drastically change.

I'm not the biggest fan of winter. Yes there are good things about it, but I feel the cold generally out ways the benefits. But I do make peace with it. I accept the things that it does have to offer and pay winter's exorbitant price for them. So today I performed the peace ceremony. It involves baking the seasons first batch of ginger snaps while drinking something warm and listening to my new winter album. This year is the The Wilderness of Manitoba's newest LP (ironically a band from Ontario). I am ready to face off against the winter months with a gingersnap in my mouth, a cup of tea in my hands and sweet voices in my ear.

She

I bought it for the beautiful cover, but I didn't expect to enjoy it this much. I love when potent poetry and philosophy surface in an adventure/philosophy story. What better way to dissect life than to look at it's exaggeration.

"Though the face before me was that of a young woman of certainly not more than thirty years, in perfect health, and the first flush of ripened beauty, yet it had stamped upon it a look of unutterable experience, and of deep acquaintance with grief and passion. Not even the lovely smile that crept about the dimples of her mouth could hide this shadow of sin and sorrow. It shone even in the light of the glorious eyes, it was present in the air of majesty, and it seemed to say: 'Behold me, lovely as no woman was or is, undying and half-divine; memory haunts me from age to age, and passion leads me by the hand - evil have I done, and with sorrow have I made acquaintance from age to age, and from age to age evil I shall do, and sorrow shall I know till my redemption comes.'"

A portrait of She-who-must-be-obeyed. The best and most lovely description of the book. The explanation on the back cover was almost wrong and captured none of the books appeal.

"So I lay and watched the stars come out by thousands, till all the immense arch of heaven was sewn with glittering points, and every point a world! Here was a glorious sight by which man might well measure his own insignificance! Soon I gave up thinking about it, for the mind wearies easily when it strives to grapple with the Infinite, and to trace the footsteps of the Almighty as he strides from sphere to sphere, or deduce His purpose from His works. Such things are not for us to know. Knowledge is to the strong, and we are weak. Too much wisdom would perchance blind our imperfect sight, and too much strength would make us drunk, and overweight our feeble reason till it fell, and we were drowned in depths of our own vanity. for what is the first result of man's increased knowledge interpreted from Nature's book by the persistent effort of his purblind observation? Is it not but too often to make him question the existence of his Maker, or indeed of any intelligent purpose beyond his own? The truth is veiled, because we could no more look upon her glory than we can upon the sun. It would destroy us. Full knowledge is not for man as man is here, for his capacities, which he is apt to think so great, are indeed but small. The vessel is soon filled, and, were one-thousandth part of the unutterable and silent wisdom that directs the rolling of those shining spheres, and the force which makes them roll, pressed into it, it would be shattered into fragments. Perhaps in some other place and time it may be otherwise, who can tell? Here the lot of man born of the flesh is but to endure midst toil and tribulation, to catch at the bubbles blown by Fate, which he calls pleasures, thankful if before they burst they rest a moment in his hand, and when the tragedy is played out, and his hour comes to perish, to pass humbly whither he knows not."

"If a lamp be in his reach to light him through the darkness, he must needs cast it down because it is no star."

Regarding man's endless ambition and its insatiable nature. My favorite line plucked from a multiple page discussion (much too large to post, though one of the best parts of the book) on the benefits and disadvantages of mortality and immortality.

Lady Grey

It's official. My bike gets check out way more than I do. Stopped at a light, compliment given, conversation on the awesomeness of my bike ensues. Locking up my bike at the bank, compliment given, conversation on the awesomeness of my bike ensues. Passing someone on the street, compliment given, conversation on the awesomeness of my bike ensues. Waiting for the canon salute at the legislature on Remembrance Day, compliment given, conversation on the awesomeness of my bike ensues. Locking up my bike at work, expletive compliment given ("f***ing killer bike" from a cute girl no less), no conversation on awesomeness of the bike though. Sitting in Stella's eating breakfast and I see outside a group of 3 men looking over and touching her. Spinning her wheels, examining her 1950s leather seat. Etc, etc.

At least I am meeting and becoming the envy of the cyclists of Winnipeg. I have decided to name her Lady Grey.

Today I learned what a pollywog is, discussed the racism of some of my childhood literature, smoothed some ruffled feathers, reveled at a few surprisingly profound pages in my current novel, made a child laugh and biked bundled up through a night of lightly falling snow. Among other things of course.

I have a special place in my heart for fairy tales (and the work of Tom Gauld).

MURDER! MURDER!

I recently heard the story of Stravinsky's first performance of his "The Rite of Spring". His idea of spring was not rebirth, but violent change. A new growth ripping through the husk of the old. Labor pains of summer. The performance itself created a riot among the audience that drew blood. The police were called.

HELP! POLICE! STOP THEM!

I witnessed it's death. The strangulation of life. I stared across the street, mouth agape with incredulity. I could not move a muscle from behind the counter, only behold the life being taken. I gawked as the man reached down with a heedlessness as callous as his gardener hands and wrapped them around the stringy green neck of a beautifully purple flowered head. A mangler, a strangler, a goon. I held my breath for what seemed like an eternal moment as if my own neck was the own being throttled. And then, with a quick tug, the brute separated the neck and head from the rest of the body. The air in my lungs escaped with a small sound of helplessness as the ravager of summers lady disposed of her head with its purple locks in a bag as black as her potted earthen remain left on the sidewalk. Life cut short. Let her live on! Let her live longer!

OH THE HUMANITY! OH THE HUMANITY!

There is a serial killer out there ceremonially killing off all signs of summer. Walking to Melissa's I came upon another victim. The scene of a grisly murder that had taken place earlier lay before me as if from a slasher film. My heart shattered and hacked apart by the sight just as the pieces of it's once tall and strong body. What once was one unified whole stretching towards the sky now lay as a hundred splintered slabs covering the grass like a grisly carpet. A massacre. A slaughter. A dark pagan ritual sacrifice to Jack Frost.

Now outside my window, the wind tossed, jaundice castoffs of the crooked as a crone trees rattle along the streets like the sound of rickety cartoon skeletons. I hold out hope for an Indian summer. I'm not ready for theis season to be buried.

I want to ride my bicycle...

My lady has her makeup on. It makes her look so pretty. Not that she wasn't beautiful before. Her chrome frame has caught her fair share of eyes. The new cork grips just make her even more lovely. So I took her out on the town tonight. Nothing but the clicking of her gears and the sweat on my back. Gliding along the streets of Winnipeg with the breeze feeling pleasantly cool against my skin, we had ourselves a time. Now all I need for her is a name.

This was the perfect night cap to a nice slow day. I didn't start work until 11:30, letting me take time to enjoy a leisurely paced breakfast while listening to the new Starflyer 59 album. I love slow days for how they result in more time being allowed towards good meals. Fresh garden tomatoes appear to have been the days theme.

9am breakfast - Over medium eggs, grilled tomatoes and homemade apple rhubarb jam on rye. Americano and grapefruit juice.

10pm supper - Mini garden tomatoe and basil on cheddar pizza and a blonde Lefe.

Optimism

Not A Bad World, Is It? - Ed Ruscha

Despite the business and craziness of the day, I enjoyed it.

I feel like I came out of a battle unscathed.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

- Ghandi

I would never consider myself an ambitious person. It bothers me sometimes. Not to say that I don't have aspirations, I've always just been more of a relaxed, accepting of my situation kind of person. Ambition is supposedly the quality of all great men, so if I lack it what does that make me? If I was more ambitious, would things be different for me? Perhaps I've read too much Ecclesiastes, or I'm too accepting of my lack of ambition to strive to be ambitious. To be ambitious about being ambitious if you will. I have no concrete conclusions to this rumination except for some vague verdict that at least a little more ambition couldn't hurt.

It feels like fall is coming on rather early. I'm not sure that I have a problem with that.

New Westminister

I now have internet hooked up in my apartment, which I am pleased to say was not missed a great deal.

I guess the bigger news out of that statement is that I moved out. Yes, finally, at 27. I don't say that without a twinge of embarrassment raising its bright prickly head. So now, I call the east Broadway area home. The question I have been asked most concern the move is, "are you excited?" Honestly, no. Maybe it is that I knew I had the apartment many months before I could move in so it ebbed away before the move, or that the sense of relief of the event finally happening was greater. I think more that it just above all else felt natural. I feel calm. I have been enjoying the century old wood floors, white walls and large windows that make up the stage for my hours away from the world.

I know, general social conventions state that this should have happened quite a few years ago, but, I never felt that my wings were in any way constricted at home and so never pushed very hard. I had no impulse to escape a family, or a small town or rules like many people causing them to move at the soonest available moment. I have not used my lack of a superior to sow wild oats, or step across previously placed boundaries to test praxis. I never felt restricted in stretching my wings before, but I did seek solitude. To sit alone in my apartment with nothing but a cup of tea and my thoughts to keep me company has been a great joy. A different type of freedom I guess.

A rainstorm at sunset tonight made the sky a beautiful orange colour. For at least half an hour I watched the sky lose it's jack-o-lantern light through my tall, drop streaked windows. Alone. Content.

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I'd been pondering over this freedom/solitude motivation since I moved in. I came across this video on one of the blogs I check often (can't remember which one). It only seemed fitting to include it.

It's been too long. Let's get back on this bike and ride.

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If growth is the only sign of life, and change the forerunner of growth, then I must be living. Lots of changes environmentally and internally. All for the better. I feel like a coiled spring of opportunity, waiting to unleash in a burst of creative kinetic energy.

Shot a roll of film recently. My first since last fall. Much too long a wait, but very telling in certain ways. Quite glad to see how many photos turned out.

Love the colours in this one. Vibrant vibrant technicolour.