a prep course in cool

i call bullshit.
my english class was cancelled and i have no one to play frisbee with.

all of a sudden i have found myself with a block of time that is not meticulously scheduled.
blog time, okay.


jenna says that she reads my blog because she's hoping for some jenna&taryn stories.

so then i was reading back and i realized that i didn't really talk that much about the taryn&jenna phenomenon of the summer. and i think that has something to do with the fact that our summer wasn't a big blowout crazy madness shabang. it was subtle and unexpected and amazing.

mmk, righthip. this is how it went. i'm done work, i phone jenna. jenna is done school, she phones me. any moment of spare time? phone call. not even a text message, my friends. this is the real deal. then we would come up with a plan of action that would involve rollerblading or eating food or jumping on the trampoline or sitting around laughing. sometimes we would venture out beyond the regular comfort zone and go to rundle park or to myrnam or ikea or we would wander whyte ave aimlessly. yes, that's the general idea.

we even made a notebook to chronicle our adventures. few people are as cool as we are, that much is true. i try not to miss the summer too much because then it makes winter and school twice as hard, but this summer was amazing. basically, the weather was shitty the whole time and we were in sherwood park, but it's the people that make the place, no? basically, jenna made my summer. "the summer where all we have to think about is the right now. the summer that no one could have tried to plan any better."

oh and ps one time jenna punched me in the jaw and still doesn't believe me about it. we may have been too drunk to function as normal human beings (or we may not have been, i can't quite remember) but i know when i get hit in the jaw. and also, jenna was the one who dared me to smoke a cigarette. first and almost only. bad influence. and also, jenna was the one with a permanent address so she got a library card that i bummed off of her at every available opportunity. oh and also i do not get enough jenna time.

jenna is coming here soon and i wish it wasn't reading week so you guys could meet her instead of, you know, having lives of your own. although it probably wouldn't be too fun for you because it would just be us going "oh man! that was the awesomest time ever and we are so cool and we are friends and we are going to talk about all these people you don't know and places you've never been and make you feel left out!!!! we are so excited and having the best time ever and must overload on friendship and coolness!!"

but i am getting ahead of myself. pete is coming. he is on a plane right now. holy shit, he is on a plane right now.

Esse

Esse

I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of Metro stations flew by; I
didn't notice them. What can be done, if our sight lacks absolute power to
devour objects ecstatically, in an instant, leaving nothing more than the void
of an ideal form, a sign like a hieroglyph simplified from the drawing of an
animal or bird. A slightly stub nose, a high brow with sleekly brushed-back
hair, the line of the chin - but why isn't the power of sight absolute? - and in
a whiteness tinged with pink two sculpted holes, containing a dark, lustrous
lava. To absorb that face but to have it simultaneously against the background
of all spring boughs, walls, waves, in its weeping, its laughter, moving it
back fifteen years, or ahead thirty. To have. It is not even a desire. Like a
butterfly, a fish, the stem of a plant, only more mysterious. And so it befell
me that after so many attempts at naming the world, I am able only to repeat,
harping on one string, the highest, the unique avowal beyond which no power can
attain: I am, she is. Shout, blow the trumpets, make thousands-strong
marches, leap, rend your clothing, repeating only: is!

She got out at Raspail. I was left behind with the immensity of
existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river,
suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees.

-Czeslaw Milosz, 1954

be a fan, not a fanatic

hello february, my love.
you have returned from your eleven month sojourn and are back to grace my life with joy.

it's the oh six and we have gotten off to a decent start. my shot put testing was rained out, but then it stopped raining immediately after. and i only knocked down one hurdle during hurdles practice. yes. i judge my life based on two things.

1) track and field.
2) tim horton's.

a day that consists of no track and field is a good day. a day that consists of tim horton's is a good day. so by my calculations, today was a good day. not to mention that i bought nice vegetables and there was a flames game on tv. flames games are never on tv.

what else, what else. february. my active health prof gave us apples and carrots and grape tomatos and showed us cindy crawford aerobics. i got an a plus on some assignment in my physiology lab. i got a text message that said "i fall asleep every night thinking of you <3". i finished reading richard III. some money arrived in my bank account. every article of clothing i wore was clean. i didn't forget to take my vitamin (that actually only makes my dad happy).

i wonder when i stopped saying bio 30 and english 20 and stopped using alberta terms. it's become english 11 and bio 12. bc-isms. it doesn't seem important but when i think about losing those little parts of my albertahood it feels kind of sad. i wonder if that's how old people feel when they start using younger people slang for things, like they've lost some important part of themselves.

anyway. it's february, bitches.
rejoice.

and a big old ps. february 10. olympic opening ceremonies festivities. whether you are there or not, pete and i will be podunked and cheering for canada. can i get a what what. he doesn't know it yet, or maybe he does and just doesn't want to believe me. actually, he said something like "i guess it will be fun. i mean, we could clean your room and i'd be with you and that would make it fun." and holy fuck, where is your enthusiasm? it's the olympics, brotha. well, anyway. alie and i are enthuasiasts for it. what i should have said is whether you are there or not, alie and i will be podunked and cheering for canada. we have games lined up and we might riot in the streets, who knows. the rioting might come later, with some gold medals. fuck, it's not that hard to understand. olympics = start february 10 = rowdy.