Love, Angel, Music, Baby (- Babies and Angels)

I’ve been waiting for this day for a while now; not only am I done midterms until after reading week, but the Oscars are a mere ten days away (!!!), and tonight is TV bonanza night wherein Jess and I discover whether or not Meredith Grey survived her encounter with the choppy Seattle waters. Contrary to what certain people say, Grey’s Anatomy is rather suspenseful in many respects, and it is extremely possible that Meredith will kick the bucket tonight; a very small part of me hopes that she does die to prove my correctness. February is officially one of my favourite months; the days are getting exponentially longer (the sunrise this morning could actually be enjoyed while I munched on some breakfast!), and it’s jam-packed with my two favourite things to top all my thousands and thousands of favourite things: love and music. In my life, there always seem to be a couple of recurrent themes that I ponder at any given moment, varying from how colours mix together, to the merits conventional evangelism. Delightfully enough, music and love have been intermittent throughout this month, making for a good month indeed. Sunday night was Grammy night in Hollywood, and I was quite thrilled by the musical gong show, despite missing much of the ceremony while out at a feminist play with Caitlin (it was a seriously strange play, but written by a tormented soul, so I was correspondingly informed that I should appreciate it more).


I love that my whole family gets into the Grammys; my parents watched it upstairs in their room because they’re sleepyheads, while Jess and I watched downstairs in the family room, and throughout the show we yelled our excitement and thoughts on the performances and award recipients across the house. Quentin Tarantino announcing a nominee list in an at least slightly wasted state was almost a musical feat in itself; I’m pretty sure that he got up to 100 dB. Additionally, performances by Gnarls Barkley, Corrinne Bailie Rae, Mary J. Blige, and The Police made the night particularly memorable. We saw Sting and Annie Lennox in concert a couple of years ago, and he’s decidedly better with his old band than without them. Other mentionable musical events this month include new music from Acrade Fire, Bloc Party, Jann Arden, Sondre Lerche, The Shins, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and Nickelback (haha)! (Arcade Fire is playing SNL next weekend, too; I’m definitely taping that episode.) The release of CYSI Vol 2, which you really must have the CYSI Mail Service deliver, has also added to the month of February, and facilitates much dancing fun with Jess. There are a ton of new favourite songs contained on this release, including one about children of December. People born in December are the coolest people of all. FYI, I have come up with a new dance move which is actually the best thing ever. It’s really embarrassing to perform for other people, and thus I can’t show anyone but Jess, but you can trust me on this one.


My parents have been to a gazillion concerts as of late, and although I’ve been pretty jealous of their enjoyment of Alexander Escavado, and Emmylou Harris, Van Morrison, they give me hope that I can be just as much of an audiophile in 30 odd years (my mom turns 50 in a month; this is exceedingly exciting). For my entire life, I’ve been anomalous in terms of my maturity levels. Since I can remember, I’ve always liked pondering, discussing, writing, and getting involved in rather serious issues, be they political, spiritual, or intellectual. However, at the same time, I’m one of the nuttiest and most eccentric people I know (around really close friends and family; only Jess has seen the extent of my hardcore ridiculousness). Thus, growing up has been strange for me. I don’t really want to lose the harebrained side of me, and I feel as though I’ve known who I am in terms of my tastes, passions, concerns, callings, and beliefs since grade 8 (that was such a good year). Not to say that I haven’t had loads of growing up to do in the past decade or so, but it’s been an odd manner of maturing. I’m quite certain that I’m forever going to be an oddly intense, serious, and silly individual who has no interest in “traffic,” and I kind of like knowing that. I really, really love children and elderly people, above any other group of people, and this is in part because I relate to them most, I think. Children appreciate the small things in life, whether the colour of their favourite milk glass, or the insanity of Mary Poppin’s carpet bag. They know how to be spontaneous and creative, and aren’t afraid to be emotional. Most elderly people seem to have learned that life can be tragic and harsh much of the time, but know from experience that people and situations can be redeemed. They’ve realized what the important things in life are, and have a strong sense of who they are. I aspire to be a child at heart with an old soul.

As for the love theme in February, yesterday was obviously Love Day. At my house, this involves Jess and I making up horrifying love stories for each other (Jess is in love with Elvis Stojko, and enjoys hooking up with playas) while my parents are adorably cheesy and even more vomit inducingly affectionate, though this year Valentine’s festivities took place a day early as my dad is in Calgary playing various “unChristian" card games with his friends, among other things, for teacher’s convention. My grandma made us her world famous Valentine’s Day cookies, and I wore clothing in various shades of pink and red. “Rob” got Crystal flowers, which was so very sweet of him; only a truly magnificent person would get Crystal flowers for Valentine’s Day. Plus, I bought $18 worth of heart-shaped Belgian marshmallows on Tuesday (that’s a lot of Belgian marshmallows: mmmm…) and have been slowly munching on my considerable stockpile. There’s an awful lot of anti-Valentine’s rhetoric, but I really think it’s kind of silly. Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be commercialized if you don’t want it to be; it’s only a superficial day if you let it be. It is silly only to tell the people you love loads and loads that you love them loads and loads once a year, but one day to do this especially, and to have fun with it, strikes me as kind of wonderful. Also, I think that St. Valentine was incredibly cool, and certainly deserves a day in semi-commemoration of his love of God, and love deserves at least one day where we think of it especially. After all, life at its very best is all about loving God, loving others, and loving life.

Providentially, I’ve been reading 1 John for the past two weeks. Yes reading four chapters in two weeks is kind of silly, but my devotions have been taking it slow recently; we’ve been reading 10 verses a day, but they’re such good verses with so much to unpack! 1 John is definitely a good book in the Good Book. John, or who we think was John at least, talks about love in such a great way, and his writing rings so true, and gives me much cause to think. I could talk about love for ages and ages, and would likely bore everyone, so I’ll restrain myself, but suffice it to say that reading John’s thoughts on a temporally appropriate subject makes me smile. Onto an unrelated topic, my family’s going to see John Mayer in April. We love John Mayer sooo much, and have been huge fans ever since Heavier Things. My mom recently signed us up for his fan club, so that we could reap the benefits of being official Mr. Jessica Simpson aficionados, and resultingly we had first dibs on tickets to the concert. WE’RE SITTING IN THE SEVENTEENTH ROW. ON THE FLOOR. Words cannot express my excitement! John Mayer is supposed to be simply awesome live, and I’ll be done exams by April 28, so it should be a perfectly lovely night out. I can’t wait until the end of April!! I’m hoping to find a job working with children, and plan to do a great deal of camping, longboarding, and adventure-making this summer. My parents are going to NYC too (they’re such copycats), so I’m so stoked for them!

Another exciting upcoming event is reading week! Crocheting, catching some films, a party or two, lunching with friends, sunrise walks in the river valley, baking, making movies with Andrew, and reading await. Plus, my family has the long weekend for family day, so we can have extra fun; we’re watching Half Nelson tomorrow when my dad returns home from his Cow Town bonanza, and a weekend spent with Jess promises to be great fun. We’ve now compiled Jess’ grad outfit, and it’s so deliciously pretty! Jess caved, and chose the shoes that I liked and she didn’t, and her dress is BCBG Max Azaria (the best dresses of all time!). My smarty-pants sister is going to be über-gorgeous at Grad 2007. Also over reading week is the C&C missions trip to Jamaica, which I’m so excited about for all of my friends heading over to the Land of Rasta. Crystal is taking my horrifically disgusting money belt (pictured coming through my belt loops in NYC on the left), and has promised to search high (haha… high… Rasta…) and low for a crochet Rasta hat for me. I’ll be praying for you guys and can’t to wait to hear all of your stories! I’ll miss hearing from you all for an entire week. As an aside to my small group members, the C&C Courier comes out very soon, and you know what that means; we must chat after you return from Jamaica-ness! In other news, my dad is officially the best dressed teacher of the dozens of staff members at his school, according to his students. The girls of our family are rather proud of this. We’re kind of intense about how my dad dresses, and frequently purchase random articles of clothing for him that are lovely and fun while on shopping escapades. At last, all of our attention to his wardrobe had paid off! I’m about to head off for a walk outside to make the most of this wonderful weather (clearly the groundhogs were correct!), but I hope that all of you are having splendid weeks full of love, music, and all other good things! I love you!


Joyful Things Recently
- journaling
- the fresh layer of snow
- 1 John
- CBC Radio
- cookies, cottage cheese, and chocolate rainbow ice cream
- the way my halogen lamp lights up my eyelashes like bulbous Christmas lights (you too should notice this)
- being an expert money-saver
- heart-shaped marshmallows
- blankets
- my new Weimeraner calendar
- new music videos
- eating out with friends
- my $3.99 daffodils
- walks down Saskatchewan Drive
- feminist plays
- cooking (I’m getting kind of good at it!)
- watching sunrises and sunsets from the gigantic windows at work
- green tea with honey
- having a clean room
- discussion of Aboriginal issues in Poli Sci
- CYSI Vol 2
- incredibly wonderful professors
- Jess’ grad dress!!!
- my new dance move that involves jumping whilst letting my arms flail about (simply awesome)
- Grey's Anatomy, The Office, and The OC
- pranking Crystal/Rob
- my teddy bear being washed
- Pokey and Gumby figurines
- making people blush by bringing up romantic things
- Charles Bukowski
- articles about music and the emergent church
- playing Slaps with Jess
- Motorcycle Diaries on DVD

Bands to Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Check Out
- not the Beastie Boys
- Architecture in Helsinki
- Julian Nation
- Rosie Thomas (BFF of Sufjan and Denison!!!)
- Jens Lekman
- Sondre Leche
- Damon Naomi
- Purnice Brothers
- M. Ward
- Philip Glass


P.S. Charles Bukowski’s poetry is simply incredible. He writes things in a way that no one else can, or at least no one else dares to.
P.P.S. Journaling is totally my new favourite activity. Like blogging, except even more self-indulgent and wordy (hard to imagine, I know!). I write at least a few times a day now, and it’s so freeing and delightful.
P.P.P.S. I put up a massive Nacho Libre poster on my wall today that my uncle bestowed upon Jess and I. While it sounds corny, the poster is actually beautiful; I love Mexican wrestler masks. And Jack Black.
P.P.P.P.S. An election is coming soonish! I can feel it in my bones! Yaaay!
P.P.P.P.P.S. I have a new Compassion child, named Daniel José Jaminez Romèro. He likes soccer, his grandpa, and playing group games! He's pretty much my Colombian twin except that he's 5 years old (pictured above; sooo cute!!!!!!!).
P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Most postscripts ever! I love hyperlinks.