Death by caffeine.

It would take 84.5 Grande Americanos to kill me.

Know your limits.

Songs about happiness, murmured in dreams

My first day on the espresso bar. I didn't even feel like crying when it was over. I just walked out of Starbucks and thought about how pretty the lights look downtown when it starts to get dark. There were blue lights in the trees (FYI: John K. Sampson is a 'faulty string of blue christmas lights'). Then I thought wouldn't it be more lovely if all the lights were turned off and the visible patches of sky between the buildings were smothered in stars.
I sat across from an interesting character on the train. Nondescript, well, business-like I guess. Then he turned on his mp3 player and he really got into the music. Head bobbing, shoe tapping, air piano and drums. He looked like he was so moved he was going to cry.
I would've given my venti green tea misto to know what he was listening to.

Diagnosis (The Weakerthans)

I have a headache.
I have a sore back.
I have a letter I can't send.I have desire,
it falters and falls down,
it calls you up drunk at three or four a.m.
to wonder when...wonderful.
All the cheap tricks I tried too hard not to pull.
Pulled along or pulled apart.
The diagnosis of a foreign frame of heart.
I have a story that I'd like to tell you,
it's littered with settings and second takes.
I have a feeling that hums with the street lights
and hides under ice in always frozen lakes.
My mistake to make you cringe.
Another greeting like a broken creaky hinge to oil
and push or pry apart.
The diagnosis of a foreign frame of heart.
Found a cure for being sure,
and, sure as anything,
I'll smile for my reckoning.

The dawn of Nintendo ushered in an era of inactivity, obesity and lonely equipment.

'gainst all odds

Exhibit A: Job 1, Day 1

Clinic assistant.
The coffee maker was the only machine that functioned properly all day. Legitimate problems with the copier, printer, heater, email, fax machine, courier, phones...
Yeesh. But it can only get better.

I work for the man now. Specifically, the middle man.
A paper pusher. But right now I feel like I'm just pushing a deck of slippery cards around in circles and I don't know whether ace is high or low.

You took my passion and perfected it.

Canadian Candidate

It did snow this morning.
I was standing on the sidewalk behind the 1 Street LRT station and this guy starts waving to me from the platform. Do I know this guy? I give him a little wave. Maybe he really wants a sample. He runs over and hands me a piece of paper. It's a print-off of some kind of election website, by the looks of it. "Send me an email!" he yells as he runs to catch his train.
I shoved the piece of paper in my pocket. I'll throw it out later.

Now, upon closer inspection, I see the paper says:
"A Canadian government message encourages me to know someone like you better for an eventual marriage"
and
"Let me be the candidate of your personal choice now if you are nubile"

You have to see this.

Sweater Weather

Think of me tomorrow morning.
It's going to be cooolllld. Maybe even snowing.
But I will be dutifully handing out samples an hour before the sun hands out its warmth.

Answer:

Nothing.
I was wrong to worry about being able to wake up at 5. The problem (unrelated to my taking NyQuil) was getting to sleep at all. Yeesh.

But on a happier note, I finished work an hour and a half early. Easiest promo ever.

Question

Endorsements aside, what happens when you take NyQuil at 10:30 and you have to get up at 5?
Hmm. I'm about to find out.

Steinbeck was wrong

"The hour of the pearl - the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself" is at dusk, not dawn. Not that I have anything against sunrises, unlike some people (Kristian!).
I just really like dusk.

the beast and dragon, adored

Well, this sickness has given me little in the way of insights. Sorry Serena. The only thing I have rediscovered is how much I hate the common cold. I knew it was coming by Friday because I get this horrid taste in my mouth that I associate with cheese and oreos. I gag if I think about it. Anyway, I'm heavily drugged.
NyQuil really works. Yay for product endorsement!

You can teach a child anything.

The Hazards of Sitting Beneath Palm Trees is result #1 when you google "Yuha coolers" (in quotes).
Hurrah.

I Love the Unknown

Then he asked him "Hey, where's this bus going"

and he said "well I'm really not sure"

he asked him "then how do you know where to get off"

and he said "the place with the most allure"

So maybe we didn't take a bus there but Vancouver sure does have allure.

espresso cubano

Today was fantastic because it involved the last day of a job I didn't like, the getting of a new job, the realization that I will make my time before I go to Vancouver for that TESOL course, two free cases of beer and the winning of eleven hammocks.

A Great Battle

Today - forced to stay indoors because of the rain - I slayed the monster that is my closet. That's right. It's not in my closet, it is my closet. It's this gaping mouth with doors, swallowing bits and pieces of my life. I thought I would never see them again. This post is to honor those little heroes who survived life in the monster...

Four tiny pieces of glass that I found in the pocket of my coat after Erin and I totalled her parents' car that slippery December day.

More glass in the form of those little fishtank marbles from Art30.

Pages and pages of copied notes in Icelandic.

24 Lanterns.

The biggest, ugliest button you could ever imagine.

A letter from a mute girl. I have always hoped that the "special horse star girl" part was referring to me.

$2 from the Old Times.

Scorecard from an epic game of dice when we were camping in May. Guess who won.

An odd assortment of patches.

Abiel's song.

So you'll be glad to know I attacked the monster fearlessly - I was throwing things out with wild abandon. The orange garbage bag was bursting at the seams, or it would've been if it had any seams.

And now, the monster has been tamed. A fully functional and productive member of my room.

A noble use of a rainy day if I do say so myself.

Newsflash

Top news at CNN: Man forgets wife at gas station

Fascinating, really.

This album cover really knocks me out.

Mmmm antioxidants

And now for a dog in a car!

Consider your growth officially stunted, Annika. I know, it is hard to resist the bold flavor and smooth taste...

new growth 

summer in 6/4 time 

the way i see it #23

"Chances are you are scared of fictions. Chances are you are only fleetingly happy. Chances are you know much less than you think you do. Chances are you feel a little guilty. Chances are you want people to lie to you. Perhaps the answer lies on the side of a coffee cup. You are lost."
-David Cross

These words bobbed in and out of my vison every time I took a sip of my overpriced coffee today. I don't feel lost or fleetingly happy and I definitely don't want people to lie to me. I was just thinking about how sad it is that now coffeehouse conversation needs to be prompted by some random quote.
How ironic is it that I was reading Adbusters in a Chapters, drinking a venti nonfat vanilla latte? I assure you I would support local business if there was any up here.

Reading Adbusters wasn't really a good idea. I used to criticize them for being all about the shock-factor but they now seem to be making progress- they're being more constructive.
But for what?
Is wearing socially responsible shoes going to really change things?
I don't know why I bother reading that trash. I'm not looking for hope.
I know Culture Jamming is not the answer.

But I was just feeling really odd today.
Disconnected, I guess.

Ten minutes before I was supposed to be at work- with no way of getting there - and I was just sitting at my computer, reading my email, not especially worried. At all.
After work I realized, again, I hadn't arranged a way to get home. So I started to walk with my bag full of leftover Yuha coolers.
Two hours later, I am home.

I thought about why I feel disconnected- why I am not connected. Simply put, I haven't connected with anyone today. Sure, there was plenty of conversation at work ("It's a new vodka cooler with 55% real fruit juice and it's not carbonated. We have mango-citrus, and orange-passionfruit-guava. Would you like to try both?") but there was nothing real.
I realized that I need that real conversation.

And I am so thankful for all the wonderful people in my life who help me stay connected.

I'll take you to the most beautiful beach you have ever seen, where the sand is like sugar, and the water is champagne... 

obedience vs. submission

Would you think I was questioning your intelligence if I pointed out the relationship between the title of this blog and my profile picture (taken in Mazatlan, at the Bruja, by moi)?
Really. How perfect is that?

Enough about how great my blog is...

It's Feelings Time!
I'm feeling a little sad right now. Only shallowly, however. I won't be going to San Fran this summer, nor will I be able to take that course in Vancouver in August. It's the too-bad-it-didn't-work-out-but-it-is-probably-for-the-best kind of sadness, not to be confused with I'm-sick-of-this-rain sadness.
On the contrary, I love this rain.
Heavy rainfall warning?
Bring it on.

times like these 

Idealist.
IDEAlist.
IdeaLIST.
Idea List.

I'm having trouble getting to (and staying a-) sleep lately. Four or five times each night I wake up and think crazy thoughts:
"Did that woman at the store yesterday really ask where the dried raisins were?"
"Is it weird that I am almost nineteen and I can't remember how the 'I' Before 'E' rule goes?"
- or -
"Why do I keep making new promises when I can barely live up to the ones I have already made?"

That's the Big One - the question that makes me feel ill.

Then I sink back to sleep until a song that slowly digs its way into my consciousness wakes me.
The song I love waking up to these days is Iron & Wine's cover of "Such Great Heights" by the Postal Service.

summertime and the livin's easy 

I hate comic sans

Really, I do.

thought process. 

Fancy Like Tokyo

So, here is a really late post of some pictures from my little trip to BC with Serena and Kristian. That was, what, a month ago? Ah well.

Scroll.

So our trip began with a mouthful of radishes and a renewed respect for Serena. 

.