April 2006 Archives

while enjoying the luxury of wandering around town with christopher during a vacationy thursday last week, a quick trip to the photo store turned into a superamazing surprise. we'd just finished dropping off his film at one lab when we walked over to the another photo shop in the neighbourhood so he could buy some film and i could drool over cameras i wasn't likely to buy.

the girl behind the counter asked if we needed help. christopher asked if they had any Holga CFNs in stock, as the display model wasn't in the case. she said yes and gestured towards the shelf on the wall. then there was this small pause and, in my memory, everything slowed down like in a movie. chris looked at me strangely for a moment and then said to the girl "okay, we'll take one", which made me think "huh? but he already has three!" after a second or two, i realized that he wasn't buying it for himself, but for me.

i was completely stunned. and thrilled. and grateful. but mostly thrilled. we walked back to the car, with me mostly speechless. as we stood there beside the hessmobile, i put the box on top of the car and was amazed to realize the Holga box was the exact same colour as my car: competition blue! i took it as a sign that my having that camera was totally meant to be.

of course, now that i have six film cameras and no money to have medium format or b&w film scanned at the lab, i cancelled my MP3 player order to go out and buy a scanner the very next day. i got my first roll from the holga back last night and spent the evening scanning it in. after some trial and error, i think i've finally gotten the whole process sussed out. i'd probably have been annoyed it took so long to get just twelve photos scanned, but i was too caught up on how GORGEOUS the photos had turned out to be mad.

for someone who was so scared of 120 film, i'm ridiculously excited to get out there and shoot with it until i can't stand it any more. thank you so much, christopher. you've opened a whole new world for me.*

conventional wisdom states that unhappy people make for more interesting bloggers than happy people. the corollary to that is single bloggers produce more content than bloggers in relationships. for the first time in the history of this website, i'm currently find myself in both of those latter categories.

this is very bad news if you come here looking to read anything new or interesting, i'm sorry to say.

in an effort to keep up my end of the implied contract with you, my loyal and long-suffering readers, this post is dedicated to catching you up on the fact i'm dating someone on a steady, mutually-exclusive basis.

i'm not a super-mushy person (at least verbally - you should see all the mush in my head). call it paranoia that if i start to talk too much about how happy i may be or how much i like someone that, suddenly, it will end; or, maybe it's just really annoying when people are all ga-ga over their significant other ALL THE FREAKING TIME and i don't ever want someone to think of me as that kind of sappy, love-struck idiot. so, i find myself in this strange state of being beyond happy that there's this really great guy who thinks i'm neat enough to date, but by all outward appearances, i'm so casual about it that you'd think we almost didn't even know each other. well, as your mother should have taught you: don't judge a book by its cover. there's more than enough schmoop, you just won't have to wade through it. after this post.

that being said, you may be wondering about what makes this particular man so special as to have made it through the rigorous vetting process men need to survive to get a piece of the hotness. a nowhere near all-inclusive list of his qualifications:

- he is tall.
- he has yummy stubble and changable facial hair.
- he has style.
- he is funny in my favourite way.
- he is probably the most amazing photographer i know.
- he is a fantastic kisser.
- he teaches me something almost every day.
- he is a gentleman.
- he has gorgeous hands.
- he makes me feel beautiful.

there's so much more to say, but i think this is bordering on gag-worthy enough as it is, so i shall refrain from further exposition.

we now return this blog to it's semi-regularly scheduled whining about being tired, busy and wanting a new job.

i'm on vacation! i'm going to the island for a few days, back mid-week, but you probably won't even notice i've gone anywhere.

be good, bunnies!

i'm very excited that these three photos of mine were on tv last night. in the next day or so, you'll be able to go here and view flickrmoments3 to see them.

today is my friday and i couldn't be more thrilled. i almost don't mind the insane amounts of crappy work i need to do before i can leave work today. it doesn't hurt that i have a dinner date with jamie and colene to eat yummy indian food. mm, samosas.

of all the items on the long list of things which bug me, not much tops the helpless, impotent feeling i get when i can't help someone i care about. when i don't know what to say to make it better. when all i can do is hug them and hope all the good feelings i have inside for them transfer into their heart and ease their mind.

i wish i knew what to say. i just want to make it better.

i was updating my calendar-slash-social diary this morning and there was so much stuff i'd done between leaving work on friday afternoon and returning this morning that it took me a good few minutes just to remember where i'd gone and what i'd done.

let's see... friday evening was very full. i had dinner and watched some of 'the office' with christopher before going downtown to attend a girl's night out (with: jen, jen, jen, mel, mel, col, gill, rose, kimli, kirsti and others i didn't know). after that fun party broke up at fairly early hour, i decided that i'd check if meghan was at the pub, which she was, so i stopped in to have a drink and a chat with her on my way home (dante, the lackluster new year's eve date, was there. it was the first time running into him since that night. he was all pouty that i'd never called him back, but he still asked me out to lunch. ohwell), which was good. i never get to see her any more unless i go to the pub.

saturday, i got up earlish and managed to do four loads of laundry before noon. then chris called all grumpy at printer problems and said he needed to get the hell outta dodge, so i picked him up, we went shopping for supplies and then spent the day vegging out watching more of 'the office' and eating yummy food. i drove him home at a practically decent hour because we both had to get up early sunday for...

the camera show! after an early start and a public transit commute, i was at my first-ever camera show and swap meet. it was AWESOME. i spent way too much money, but i got three new-to-me cameras (Olympus Pen EE-2 half-frame, Olympus XA rangefinder and a spectacular trashcam, Biauma B-1) and a bunch of cheap, expired film to put in them. afterwards, the gang all took off for commercial drive for a yummy, cheap lunch at a greek place. then we all went our separate ways for the day.

after hanging at christopher's for a bit, we came back to my place to watch more of 'the office', then we took off to the awesome vietnamese place on west 10th for a very late dinner. after stuffing ourselves, we then went to marpole to meet up with jen after her shift. we three wandered around the very clean and brightly lit 24 hour porn store and then had some bubble tea (my first -- it's YUMMY!) and chatted until midnight, when i realized i had better ditch those two so i wasn't a complete wreck today.

i drove them both and then myself home, where i promptly fell into a night-full of crazy dreams before my alarm started bleeping five hours later. ugh.

so, tonight i have to do all the stuff i didn't get done on the weekend: aircare for the car, return and exchange some clothes i bought last week, clean the floors, do the dishes, buy some food for lunches. luckily, i start my vacation on thursday, so it's a übershort work week for me. yay!

yeah, i know. bad blogger. i have a great excuse though... well, okay, i have no excuse. between the fear of internet usage at work and all that having fun after four, this little box has been sorely neglected. aw, screw it. it's my website. if i want to treat it like the red-headed step-child, i can. so there!

talking about family, while having dinner over at christopher's last night i started thinking about some of the things i must have missed out on by being an only child. his brother, mike, was there as well and it was somewhat unsettling to look and listen to this person who is so similar to chris in so many small and subtle ways, but also so patently different. i wonder if people with siblings even notice these similarities and disparities after living an entire life near them. to know that there is someone (or someones) out there who, quite literally, came from the exact same place as you but turned out so unique... it's got to be weird. it's weird for me to even contemplate.

i almost wish there was a way for me to re-live my life with a sibling or two, just to have the experience. alas, i know no different, so i'll just have to live vicariously through others.

that being said, i'm pretty sure i didn't miss all the teasing and the beatings. then again, i get enough of that from my friends, so maybe i haven't missed anything at all.