swingin'

you follow.
you don't know how to ride a bike, so you follow.
you forget how to cross the street, so you follow.

not sure where you want to live, so, you follow.
perhaps it will be an adventure. perhaps a very bad idea full of regret.

you're not sure how to dance. so you join a swing dancing class.

after years of teachers' comments on your report cards saying you are a born leader, and womens studies classes teaching you what they teach you, following in a dance class should be something that feels unnatural, or just plain wrong.

for me, it's just not so.

since, by this point in my life i seem to be a born follower, i fit in nicely.

the class is full of mostly beginners. there are more girls than guys, so sometimes tonight i found myself sitting out. then i'd get paired with a guy who was just as useless as me. i found myself searching for the one or two guys in the room who knew what they were doing.

and when i found him, right before class ended, it felt like the universe made sense.

they say that once we all get the basics down, it's the woman (the follower) who gets to make the dancing look pretty and frilly (naturally). girls in class (though tonight was only the first 'real' class) have skipped ahead to the frilly and come wearing special shoes and billowy skirts.

for now though, all we have to do is follow. and like i said, i'm damn good at it. the hard part is finding someone strong and experienced who will lead.

it sounds so wrong, but it feels so right!

back step, triple step, step step, triple step.

ta-da!

bicycle diaries

"I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like ..."

-- Queen



but it friggin' terrifies me.

i write this, perhaps out of guilt for taking the piss out of a coworker the other night when she said she couldn't ride a bike. the reason we gave her such a hard time is that she actually said she forgot to. please tell me you see the hilarity in that statement. leave me a note at the end of this if you need clarification.

so, where was i? ah, yes. it terrifies me. perhaps i can trace the terror back to the first time i rode one. (i seem to be able to trace a lot of my trauma back to the ages of 3 - 6)
the first time i remember riding a proper bike, aside from my cabbage patch powderpuff bike...

it was called 'blue angel.' i don't think that's the name i'd given her, it was written in pink and white on the side.

the way i remember it, i was about six years old. the bike came from a neighbour, or garage sale or something. it was as beautiful as the name made it sound. it had a banana seat. oh how i have to this day longed for another bike with a banana seat. but that's beside the point. i remember riding it, sans training wheels, and almost immediately crashing it into the curb of the parking lot i was in.

i don't remember who was there with me. if anyone at all. but i remember being in more pain than i had ever been before, and very worried that i was no longer a virgin.

i'm not sure if i ever rode that bike again. the next one i remember having was pink. it had streamers on the handles and coloured thingies in the spokes that made the coolest noise when i rode. it had silver fenders and training wheels. i think it was called 'rapido'.

then i remember a teal one my dad bought me. my best friend and i spent a summer biking around our neighbourhood, trying desperately to get lost.

when i outgrew it, we sold it to my cousins and he replaced it with a black and green one. fluorescent green. i pretended i loved it. i pretended the fluorescent green was cool, cause it reminded me of green day. but i was lying to myself and to him. and when it got stolen from in front of my house, i didn't care. i was relieved.

that was grade seven.

i made my way as a pedestrian, rollerblader and busrider for years. car-driving terrifies me just a little bit more than biking.

about five years ago, nanny bought me a fabulous bike from the old woman across the street from her. now that i think of it, it was like a grown-up version of blue angel. same colour, anyway. no banana seat, but the seat was big enough for an old lady's rump and that suited me just fine. there were fenders, like rapido. no hand breaks-- i had to pedal backwards to stop! the best part: the basket.

the novelty wore out though.

i tried rescuing it when i moved to the glebe, with the thought that i would cycle to work every day. i'm not sure that she was road-worthy anyway.

my most recent bike is apollo. ryan got her from someone. he says she owed him money anyway. so he fixed apollo up for me when i came to england in february. he expected me to be able to ride it, i think. but, much like the coworker i laughed at the other night, i was shaky and nervous, and didn't exactly enjoy myself.

i wasn't much different six months later:

August 16

I am a terrible driver. Terrible. I am afraid of being hit. I am afraid of hitting others. But that’s just me on a bicycle. You can’t imagine what I’m like in a car.

Luckily for everyone, Ryan and I don’t own a car. Just two bikes. Unlucky for me, it turns out I’m in rotten shape, and cycling to Tesco’s after work tonight was quite the feat.

The way there, I was loving the relatively new experience of cycling. (though it was a bit of a time squeeze for us to go after I got off work at 7:30, I really wanted to go to Tesco's since they seem to have the biggest selection of organic stuff. )

Seeing as I have no sense of direction, all I had to do was follow the leader, unfortunately, Ryan’s not the type to wait for the little green man, so often I found myself lagging behind.

The way back nearly killed me. £30 of groceries in a knapsack while biking up hill—not my idea of a good time!

today, on the other hand, was my best bike experience ever. the ground was flat-- no hills. we were on a bike trail-- no cars (nothing to be afraid of).

but i got a little cocky at one point. i was very annoyed at the group of women who were taking up both the left and right-hand sides of the path. i found myself critisizing. 'this is the EASIEST biking i have ever done. these women must be COMPLETELY out of shape. GOD. speed up!'

i later found out they had been biking for 8 hours straight. all the way from glasgow to raise money for cancer.

i made up for my awful thoughts by cheering the riders on as i rode home and they rode to the finish line.

and for the first time ever, i rode with no hands.

maybe it's not so terrifying afterall . . .

the best story

a year ago, to the day, i was on a plane headed for b.c.
headed for the unknown, and as cheesy as it sounds, towards destiny.

(with a real cheap flight, considering it was september 11)

i boarded the plane that would lead me to a future i could not have imagined. one of adventure, and travelling and taking chances. and of love.

yes, i am feeling sentimental, because a year ago today, i got off the plane in b.c., into the arms of the strange english boy who did two things right, after we met: he made my bed and he phoned the next day.

and everyone who knows me, knows what happened next.

the strange english boy took me on the best date of my life. we ditched his smelly mates and we went for a long night of dinner and wine and the best conversation with a near-stranger that i had ever had.

the day after that, he left.

i walked him to the corner just before his cousin's place (her appartment was just down the street from where i lived, so i will forever be grateful to nancy-louise for her choice of locale) we hugged, kissed, said goodbye and turned to go our separate ways. my stomach did somersaults has we walked away from each other. a few paces away i turned to look at his cute english bum, only to meet his gaze. as i kept walking, my heart sunk and tears pushed their way out of the corners of my eyes.

i was sure i'd never see him again. how practical would it be, really? he was off to b.c. to climb some more mountains before heading home to the u.k. he left with my business card and a little note on the back to tell him what a pleasure it was to meet him.

no obligations, no strings attached, no expectations.

but, he emailed a few days later. i emailed a few days after that, and it continued for a month before i invited myself out west to meet up with him.

of course, in the month that passed, when i wasn't busy emailing him i lived at the rock gym, training so that i wouldn't make an arse of myself once i got out there.

my parents were furious. my friends, however, seemed thrilled. the beautiful girls at 114 glebe avenue drove me to the airport, and unlike my parents, expected to see me again. my mom was convinced this guy was going to lure me out to the mountains to kill me.

and now, he has whisked me away to the scotland. (so i guess in some ways, mom was right).

a year later. after trips to and from each others' countries, and two months of glorious treeplanting shit, and ups and downs and downs and ups. i am here, in edinburgh, and i couldn't be happier.

ryan, if you read this (and, i have, on occasion, caught you reading my blog) i apologize for posting the sappy details of everything up here for whomever to read. (though, i have left the best bits out)

but i'm not really sorry, because this story; my story; our story, is a good one. the best one.

wales. cymru.

every sign everywhere is written in both english, and this funny-looking ancient language called welsh. lots of lls, lots of wws, and if i understand correctly, both the double d and ll make the f sound. so does ff.

the language is fascinating. though, during my week in wales i think i attempted to pronounce one word aloud, (there's this strange nasally thing i don't think i'd ever be able to truly master) my brain was racing trying to make connections and understand this nearly-lost language. 20% of welsh people can speak welsh.

Jennifer: from a Cornish form of the Welsh name Gwenhwyfar, Guinevere

Guinevere: Old French form of the Welsh name Gwenhwyfar, which is composed of the elements gwen meaning "fair, white" and hwyfar meaning "smooth". In Arthurian legend she is the beautiful wife of King Arthur.

pies and cappucinos to go... i mean, take away

'you got any mince pies 'er stuff?'

a fat man on the other side of the counter asks me.

not that this is in anyway characteristic of the folks i serve as an employee of The Old Bakehouse, just a little example.

i've been in edinburgh for exactly a month. i'd love to say i can't complain, but i can. i work at a cafe 40 - 50 hours a week. doing exactly what i swore i would never do when i first left the service industry. and doing exactly what i said i wanted to do when i got to scotland.

'i just wanna work at a little cafe,' i said. and here i am.

a lovely little cafe, it is. art gallery downstairs. internet access. greeting cards for every occasion.

but serving is hard. harder than planting trees? certainly not. harder than sitting in front of a mac making tv guides?

i reckon it is.

ˈɛdɪnb(ə)rə

been a while since i've updated this thing. partly cause i was sick and tired of bitching about treeplanting (though right around the time i stopped writing was right around the time i started enjoying the craziness-- go figure), and partly cause i wasn't sure who was reading it.

both things are besides the point now, i guess. i reckon.

i reckon that now that i am in the united kingdom, i am going to be doing a lot less thinking, guessing, or knowing, and a lot more reckoning.

i reckon we just got an appar-- a flat... in edinburgh.
i reckon it is the best flat that ever did exist.
i reckon we move in in a few days.

random update or something

i've seen hail in may
i've been out planting in a tanktop while huge chunks are falling from the sky

a few days ago, my crew boss and i spent three hours digging the truck out of snow

i've seen bears, lots of bears not even frightened off by barking puppies

i've seen men dressed at women and women dressed as men, messed up on mushroom tea and pot cookies at prom (how i wish i could upload the party pictures)

we moved camps again, this is our third camp. when we got there, the entire property was filled with cows. the trucks scared them away, but they left behing loads of patties-- big, stinky patties!

life is good, for the most part. i still have moments when i think of how great it would be to leave. to get on a bus and take my sweet time getting to ontario. then taking my sweet time finding a job in scotland. but even after a bad day, i go home, and there are other people there who have also had bad days. and there's a campfire, and awesome people, and awesome food, and all of a sudden leaving isn't even an option any more.

today is my birthday.

we have the day off because all of our trees are popsicles.

i am wearing a tank top and shorts.