In honour of it being the general time of year that we celebrate fatherhood in all its variations, I thought I would write something about my dad. Doing so presents to me the same problem that I have when I go into card stores to buy him a Father's Day card, which is the following:

Things my Dad Doesn't Do:
1. Golf
2. Fish
3. Yard work
4. Mr. Fix It stuff around the house
5. Teach his kids to throw a baseball
6. Watch sports
7. Fart
8. Go to his kids soccer games
9. Care about cars
10. Help with homework
11. give 20 bucks to fill up the car
12. Teach about the birds and bees
13. Kill spiders

What I'm trying to say is, my dad isn't really a dad at all. So all those cards with pictures of old men fishing on them aren't exactly accurate. Neither are the sappy ones saying "you're always there for me", because - well, he's not.

I'm not complaining or looking for sympathy. I knew from a young age that my dad was "eccentric" (which is really the nice way of saying anti-social, strange and an addict). He moved out when I was very young and I've never really had a consistent relationship with him. The only time I remember us talking, REALLY talking, was when he took me out for sushi for my 11th birthday (I hated sushi, but he wasn't really paying attention when I told him that) and tried to teach me about the String Theory and the Butterfly Effect. My dad is brilliant - like, a legitimate genius, but always looks at me like he wishes I was some sort of book. Books he knows what to do with. Kids, he doesn't.

So back to Hallmark, shall we? I've almost exhausted all of my possibilities. The card that I finally come across has a picture of a little girl on her dad's shoulders, reading "Loved the View, Love You" and inside, "Still Do". It was simple and acknowledged our relationship without pointing out everything it isn't, wasn't and could never be.

Do I wish someone was there to tell my first boyfriend to have me home by 10? Sure. Did I desperately want someone to help me with my soccer drills in the field behind our house? Of course. But my dad is who he is; although I can't really say that we're close, I understand and accept the role that he's played in shaping who I am. Growing up without him, I learned to play sports, fix a car, build a shed and take fish off of the hooks without needing to call a man to help me. Maybe that's a good thing.

At any rate, happy father's day old man. You may have not known how to be a dad, but you've always been my father. I hope you know that I understand.

My (Brief) Romp with the Gardener

Anyone here seen "Desperate Housewives"? Are you familiar with the young gardener, who began the affair with Gabriella that eventually tore apart her marriage?

If not, allow me to introduce you. His name is Jesse Metcalfe. This is what he looks like:
And he happens to be in my "Top 5 Celebrities to Fuck Talk To Over Coffee" List. Tonight, not only did I talk to him (he came in with a little ho-diddy blond to have a drink at the bar of the restaurant I work at), we also had a genuine conversation.

Jesse: Putting his hand on my left shoulder to get my attention. Hi there - would you mind calling me a cab? I need to get back to my hotel
Me: I'd be happy to.
Me: lets out an audible, girly, giggle
Jesse: Oh - by the way, my name is Jesse.
Me: I know! ummm, I mean - thanks! They'll be here soon.
Jesse: Cool, great.
Me: planning on what we would name our children together as he walks away

He put his HAND on my SHOULDER. I don't care if it sounds like I'm 15 years old - it totally made my night worth while. Who minds going to work when your workplace has suddenly become a mini-celebrity hot spot? Not I, my friends. Not I.

PS - Steve, I REALLY REALLY love you.

My Thoughts On Shared History

My best friend Adam has had the same phone number since we were in grade 9 together - almost 9 years ago. It's amazing that something can last for so long. When I think about it, 9 years is also about the amount of time that I was in love with him for - totally unrequited.

Want to hear the story?

It started, for me, when we were in elementary school and our moms randomly became friends while attending our respective games at the Calgary Soccer Centre. I was playing, I believe, for McKenzie and he was playing for Midsun (both community teams in city-wide leagues). We would both be moving into the Calgary Celtic Soccer Club the following season. We were both about to be attending the same school for junior high. I looked over at him, and thought that he looked just like Jonathan Taylor Thomas. I smiled. I had a mouth full of braces. He was wearing his track suit. I had a grape slurpee (how do we remember these mundane things?) I was in love.

At first, it started out well for me - after a particularly steamy round of truth or dare at his 12th birthday party, I managed to garner myself a kiss on the cheek. We dated for 2 days - I went to his house and we watched the movie "Clear and Present Danger" together, holding hands on his couch. We would talk on the phone for hours every night. He tried to teach me how to play the guitar. Every time I saw him playing soccer in the neighborhood, I would camp out under a nearby tree and watch the game with just enough disinterest to convince him that I didn't care about him TOO much.

We fought a lot in junior high - he would comment on the fact that I didn't wear a bra. I would make fun of whatever girl he had his sights on, out of jealousy. We started hanging out with different crowds, crossing paths once in a while, maybe for a few weeks, or the occasional game of pick up soccer, but never finding the same friendship that we had started with. I had "boyfriends", a string of awkward adolescent relationships with boys named Colin, Ian, Alistair, Daniel, Justin, Mike. I had my first love and my first heartbreak. All the while, I loved Adam, truly loved him. I would go to sleep thinking about him at night and light up when I saw him at school during the day. I have never loved another human being before, or since, with the same ferocity as I loved him then. I have entire diaries filled with entries about him. Maybe everything is amplified when you're 14. I thought that my life would begin and end on the day that he inevitably realized that I was his sould mate, and he would finally kiss me like I always believed he should desperately want to.

It wasn't until the summer before high school that we found each other again. It was a small change, at first. We started talking on the phone, which led to all-night talks in his backyard tree house, to blueberry pancakes on sunday mornings and renting stupid movies and eventually becoming so close that we pretty much shared everything. He was my rock, and although I dated several guys in high school, my relationships came and went without much fanfare because I was, essentially, still waiting for Adam. I loved him more the closer we grew, and spending the night curled up next to him on the couch when I was too tired to go home was like the most beautiful sort of torture for me. We would do anything for each other, yet he was never able to give me what I really wanted from him. It was hard to hear him say that he wanted to find someone "just like me" one day, without realizing how in love with him I really was.

He was, appropriatly, the one who drove me to the airport when I left for Queens. In first year (though I was dating Marcus at the time) I would drag my phone out into the hallway and talk to him every night, sometimes until we both fell asleep on the phone. Several times he told me that he loved me, but never in the way that I wanted it to be. I continued to long for him desperately all the way into my 3rd year. I never thought I would get over him and be able to love someone else completely.

I don't even know what changed, really. Something was different when we spent an amazing weekend together in Calgary that year. I felt as though we were hugging for longer, spending more time close to each other, finding excuses to touch, to joke around. There was a palatable chemistry, an understood attraction between us. We would lock eyes for seconds at a time and I felt as though something might snap from the intensity. I knew that we would kiss (for the first time!). I knew that he wanted me. And I knew-even three years into a relationship with marcus-that I wanted him too. He planned on driving me to the airport by himself. I was in totally over my head, felt like I couldn't control what was happening. We held hands at the pub, in a way that was different from all ways before. He drove me to the airport and parked the car. He took of his seatbelt and looked at me. I felt like I had been waiting for 10 years for him to look at me that way. He touched the side of my face with his hand. I wanted to kiss him so badly. He pulled me towards him .. and I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it to Marcus, who adored me (and who I adored) I couldn't do it because maybe it wouldn't be everything I hoped it would be. I couldn't do it because the man sitting in front of me was not the boy I had fallen in love with. I couldn't do it because I knew that there was someone out there who could love me more completely. Who wouldn't make me wait for 10 years. Who would find me incredible and irresistable and would chase after me and crave me and want to know every thought and feeling in my head. I got out of the car. For me, it was over.

I've seen him a few times since then, and have never discussed what happened between us. The tension is gone, the attraction vanished. I look back on my 10 years of total devotion and don't even recognize myself - the feelings seem so alien to me now. I called him tonight, just to say "hi", my fingers sliding effortlessly across the keypad in a way that was memorized years ago. His voice makes me smile, but there's nothing more I want or need from him.

I guess people change in ways that they can't imagine. I'm so much happier with myself now that I don't feel incomplete without him - and now that I have someone who is truly crazy about me, for me. I don't have to jump through hoops for Steve or be anything other than exactly what I am. Maybe that's why I love him so much. Or maybe it's because he doesn't look like JTT (what was I thinking???)

Sunday Morning

A few girlfriends and I had brunch at the Hot House Cafe in St. Lawrence Market this morning - it was incredible! We all wondered how we had lived in this city for so long and not done this together. Even better than the all-you-can-eat buffet was the fact that Front Street was closed for what could only be called a Festival of Dogs ... HUNDREDS of dogs, some decorated with bows, some wearing hats, some wearing soccer jerseys. Dog shows, dog exhibits, dog venders and dog meet and greets. Did I mention hundreds of dogs?

I thought I had died and gone to some sort of special heaven. I was nearly speechless as I sat on the curb waiting for my friends and met dog after dog. (See below)



And here's some pictures of the girls and I:

Me, Michelle and Elizabeth
Victoria and Carly

Have a great sunday everyone - I know I did!

Why English is hard to learn

I selfishly used to think- usually in the middle of a boring spanish class-that it would be beneficial if the entire world could just learn English. I mean - I learned it without even trying! But what I now know is that English is one of the strangest and most difficult language to acquire. Take this as an example (I found it fascinating!)

Why English is Hard to Learn
1. We must polish the Polish furniture.
2. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
3. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
4. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
5. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
6. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
7. I did not object to the object.
8. The bandage was wound around the wound.
9. The farm was used to produce produce.
10. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

Wild, hey? I guess it keeps me from taking things for granted.

Have a good wednesday, all

(just about) Street Smart

I was walking to meet Steve and a few friends on Friday night, from College Street down to Front. As I was crossing Queen, I waited at the light with three girls who looked like they were headed out for dinner, and overheard this conversation:

Girl 1: "Make sure that you keep your purse real tight against your body girl."

Girl 2: "I heard on Oprah that you gotta keep your zipper in, so they can't open it from the back"

Girl 3: "I ain't got nothin' in my purse that you gotta worry about. No cell phone, no money, nothing. Just kleenex"

Girl 1: "I tell you, I tell you - you gotta keep an eye on your purse. Zippers too. It's not like mississauga where you can just walk around"

Girl 2: "Amen to that"

And then we all crossed the street and they disappeared into the Queen Street crowd. I was like that when I moved to downtown toronto in September. Scared to ride the subway, scared to leave my house at night, scared that everyone who made eye contact with me was going to rob me blind. But I've (accidentally) left my purse, with keys, a wallet and a cell phone on a subway platform and got it back with everything, even the CASH, intact. It changed my view that I was unsafe in this city. Now, I feel pretty confident navigating around downtown. I've learned which places are safe, which places are sketchy, and which 7-11s have creepy people standing outside of them asking for your change. I've walked home from the restaurant I work at to my house after midnight and felt pretty safe. Toronto may be big, but it's not so bad. It was funny thinking of how far I've come with my "street smarts" ... though, to be honest, I still clutch my keys between my fingers so that I can attack anyone that comes too close to me. I guess deep inside, I'm still a big wuss. Now I'm just a big wuss who's doing okay in a big city.

A Life Less Ordinary

It's amazing how content I have been lately with ordinary. My days are perfectly ordinary; I catch the street car at 8:30, do some work until about 5, go home, do laundry, watch TV, talk to Steve, head to bed. I'm not bored. I'm not stuck in a rut. I'm just doing what I'm doing.

When I was younger, I used to write my goals for the year on the last page of my diary, carefully folding it over and writing "for my eyes only" on the back. My goals were simple. At 12, I wanted to do a good back handspring, keep my bedroom clean and kiss Adam Ford. At 16, I wanted to get the best marks in my grade. Last year, my goal was to get into my B.Ed program.

Right now? Nothing. That's what makes it so ordinary. I actually don't really have any goals, other than "have clean underwear" and "pack lunch for tomorrow". Like, seriously - I'm in a self-improvement lull. But it's no so bad. Maybe I like being me just the way I am right now. How often can we say that? "I am perfectly happy with myself in every respect". Everyone is always trying to be younger, faster, sexier (well, okay - of COURSE I'd like to be sexier), better better better. There's not a lot of peace in that. So here I am, saying that I am trying VERY HARD to be happy with my ordinary life.

In other news, I blew up the staff room microwave this morning. I thought I would nuke a couple of those mini peanut butter packets so that they would spread all warm over my toast. But instead, I caused an explosion so intense that it forced the microwave door OFF. It was just before lunch, too. Everyone had to walk to the other building to heat up their leftovers. So yeah, you could say that it's been an interesting day.

Life is simple. Simple is good. I have a clean room, beautiful weather, a good job, a smart boyfriend, a cool set of rollerblades.

(ADDENDUM: I just went catalogue shopping for office supplies, again. This good mood, therefore, may be totally elevated by the fact that I just bought 8 felt-tipped pens for myself. By 6pm, I could be a grouch again ... not that I'm ever a grouch)

Love is in the Air

My romantic astrological forcast for tomorrow is as follows:

"Your relationship is quite romantic, but it may not conform to other, more conventional ideas of moonlight, roses and violin music. So be it. You know that your connection isn't run-of-the-mill -- it's extraordinary."

So be it indeed. I can't help but to agree wholeheartedly - whether or not I always like it. So in honour of my not-romantic-yet-extraordinary relationship with my not-romantic-yet-always-unconventional-boyfriend, I've decided to post a little photo stream that I like to call

"The Many Faces of Steve Johns"










I have no comments except that I love my boyfriend very much; clearly evident by the hundreds of stupid photos I have of him stored on my computer.

Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head

It's raining today, and will be "heavy at times" according to the weather man. I don't mind the rain in the spring - I love how fresh it makes everything feel.

In honour of a *very* rainy day, here is a rain fact for all you Vancouver haters:

In 2005, Vancouver got 1016mm of rain. New York City recieved 1014mm of rain (not to mention all of the additional snow), which means that NYC gets more precipitation annually than Vancouver. Seattle only recieved 918mm of rain all year!
People think that it rains every day in Vancouver, but that's not necessarily true. It rains *hard* during the winter and is often misty without a lot of direct sunlight, but it's not like we live under some perpetual rain cloud. So you all can go hate on a different city.

I'm glad I cleared that up.

Today's Theme Song: Rain Drops Keep Fallin' On my Head (Ben Folds version)

Awkward, at best

In case you were wondering this afternoon how dexterous I REALLY am, consider this: two mornings ago, while carefully shaving my legs with a new razor, I cut off a 2-inch long, half-inch wide strip of skin. I looked down at my bleeding leg and wondered to myself (in a terrifying moment of pain) how long it might take me to bleed to death.

15 band-aids and 24 hours lated, the cut is still bleeding. I refuse to believe that I need it stiched, however am confined to wearing long pants for at least the next few weeks while it heals.

And you wonder why I didn't end up becoming a doctor :)

Live from Niagara Falls

The concert last night was a lot of fun, but surreal at the same time (I was watching one of my favorite artists in a 3/4 full gymnasium populated with abercrombie and fitch-wearing floozies american university students...making me feel totally old and un-cool) Highlights: Hearing "Still Fighting It" (my recent Ben Folds life-theme-song, featuring the lyrics "everybody knows/it sucks to grow up/but everybody does/it's so weird to be back here"). 1 Angry Dwarf and 200 Solomn Faces (double time encore version). People watching from the top seat of the stands. Mr. Folds standing on top of his piano, leading the audience in a 3-part choral harmony to accompany "Not the Same". The improvised "Rock This Bitch (Niagara Falls)". Folds awkwardly playing the Star Spangled Banner on the bass guitar.
Overall, a very cool way to spend a Saturday night. I think I would like to go back to the Falls and spend more than 45 minutes there ... a very fantastical and alternate-universe type of city. I was blown away by how commercialized the community is. They've bastardized the most beautiful natural wonder in Canada ... the hundreds of Falls-centric stores, restaurants and casinos devalue what is so wonderful about it in the first place. It was fun and sad at the same time, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, here are a few pics (I didn't take many). Time to rent a movie and relax - a full work week ahead.
The street I live on (so pretty in the spring!)
Flowers in my neighbour's garden
Fat Guts goes international!



The American side of the Falls (we didn't have time to walk over to the 1,000,000 times more spectacular Canadian side)

Ben Folds Live

It snuck up on me without me realizing it - tonight I get to strike Ben Folds (without the Five, but still rockin', hopefully) off of my "Top 5 People I Haven't Seen In Concert" list (which still includes Paul McCartney, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and Norah Jones, but I digress)

I don't know what to expect from the show tonight. We're seeing it at Niagara University just across the border. I'm basically going in open-minded; I don't think that a lot of his newest stuff (off of "Songs for Silverman") is particularly groundbreaking, but he has such an incredible catalogue that pretty much anything is possible.

In particular, I'm hoping for:
The Luckiest (obviously, since I am a female)
1 Angry Dwarf and 200 Solomn Faces
Still Fighting It (my BFF favorite)
Fred Jones Part II
Best Imitation of Myself

I started listening to Ben Folds in 1993 when I discovered, by accident, Rockin' The Suburbs (I found the album in my school's lost and found where I volunteered ... at the end of the year when it went unclaimed, I took it home) Maybe for nostalgia's sake, it's still what I believe to be their best album. This night, therefore, is 13 years in the making for me and I'm sure whatever happens, I'm going to leave happy.

Pictures and review to follow. Happy Saturday!

New Job, New Bri

I just finished my first week of my summer job (for this year and potentially for next year), doing HR for a certain national fair that takes places in August and the beginning of September. Amidst the paperwork, coffee breaks and meeting about 100 new co-workers who I can't really tell apart, two things stand out to me so as being worthy of the following: Best Things About My New Job

Best Thing About My New Job #1: I have a 30,000 dollar expense budget for office supplies. Keep in mind that I have been very, VERY poor lately and haven't even had the motivation to window shop. Keep in mind how happy I am when I am let loose in the mall with a few dollars in my pocket. What does 30 grand and an empty office equal?

SHOPPING.

Not just any shopping. Catalogue shopping - the most delicious and forbidden type. I flip through the pages, mark down the order numbers ... and it magically arrives at my office later the same day. It's like communicating directly with God. I've bought pens, hole punchers, desk organizers, notebooks and whatever else I feel I might need to do my job properly. I get absolutely drunk on shopping power, and feel like it's christmas every time another box from Corporate Express arrives in my office via the cute-as-a-button high school mail boy. Right now, all I can think about is what I'm going to order on monday.

Best Thing About My New Job #2: The dusting Machine.

I don't know what to call it. I don't understand how it works. But the first thing I saw when I got my office was this: It's a duster. A duster that sprays air out a tiny hole, and is capable of dusting ANYTHING ... underneath my keyboard. In the corner of my windowsill where all the outside dirt piles up. In the little nooks and crannies of my desk that a swiffer would never dream of reaching. I am drunk on dusting power (and a bit intoxicated by the fumes).

All I have to say, after my first week on the job: bless us, everyone, who work in such amazing conditions.

8 months

8 months ago, I arrived in Toronto to start my MA degree at the University of Toronto ... and two weeks later, I withdrew, citing "irreconcilable differences" with the drama program. I started to wonder (now that I had moved all my stuff here and signed a year-long lease) what I was going to do for the next 11 months and two weeks before I went back to school. I felt overwhelmed. I felt disappointed in myself; I was desperate to complete all my schooling so that I could start 'life' at a relatively young age. A year off with nothing planned felt like a waste of my time and meant that my entire adult life would commence a year later than I had hoped (at the ripe old age of 24!).

Most of all, I was terrified of how I was going to survive in a city where I didn't know anyone and wasn't really doing anything; passing all of that time and managing to be happy seemed like an impossible task.

For the first 5 months I nannied for a wealthy family in Forest Hill, 60 hours a week. Every day felt like an eternity and I often came home at the end of my shift too tired to care about making my own dinner, after spending an hour cooking food for the family and then leaving just as they sat down to eat it. I was lonely (a four year old does not a best friend make!) and frustrated that my job duties were limited to changing diapers and being yelled at for various misdemeanors such as using the wrong knife to cut the kids apples, and (gasp) washing the frying pans by hands instead of putting them in the dishwasher. After coming home several days in a row and crying myself to sleep in January, I quit.

7 months to go.

I got a job working in a restaurant downtown as a hostess. In general, I've really enjoyed it, and as soon as I wasn't working 11 or 12 hours a day at a job I hated, time started to fly by. I made friends. Spring began. And all of a sudden ... it was the end of April. 4 months to go.

I just got back from a weeklong trip to BC and I start a new job on Monday morning, working as HR administrator for the Canadian National Exhibition Casino. For the next 4 months I'm going to be working long hours, making lots of money and hopefully time will pass by so quickly that it will be August before I know it.

I didn't mean for this to be such a long entry.

The point is -if I have a point at all: what I once considered to be a 'pointless year' that I just had to 'get through' has actually afforded me the opportunity to learn things that I would never have learned in school. I have been miserable, and survived. I have been worked like a dog, and survived. I have slowly become a citizen of toronto, navigating the transit system and walking home clutching my purse at 2 in the morning ... and survived. I am stronger, more mature, more open minded and more laid back than I used to be. I don't feel as smart, but I feel more prepared to start my adult life. I have had good naps and read great books. Most importantly, I have learned to value my friends - most of them are out of town and time together is precious.

It has been a wonderful and awful and scary 8 months. I am so glad to be in the 'home stretch' - looking forward to September. I am reminded now that there really is a silver lining in what feel like the worst days. I hope to make the most of what I have left in my useless year off.

My Four-Legged Friend

This is a video called "Waldo Takes it To The Bear" (and hopefully posting it here is successful!) The bear is a stuffed animal named Jasper that was a gift to my mom from her ex-husband ... when he split, the bear became Waldo's hump buddy. We like to think that they're friends with benefits. Waldo tends to hump Jasper at the most inappropriate times; when company is over, or if two people are snuggling romantically on the couch. It's a riot - he could hump for hours.

So without further ado, here is my adorable dog Waldo, taking it to the bear.

Victoria

I flew into Victoria, BC last night and am spending the day at my grandparents house on the tip of the North Saanich peninsula before catching a ferry back to the mainland tonight. Today my dad and I took a long hike through the backwoods and I got an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. I am SO thankful to be in such a wonderful place ... both right now (I love BC) and in my life.

I've had a few soul searching conversations lately that will probably spin off into a blog entry or two, but for the time being, here are some pics from this afternoon.

Felicia (my future-sister-in-law, I'm sure!) and me

DSC00211
Originally uploaded by just bri.

Me and my brother Regan

DSC00212
Originally uploaded by just bri.

Happy to be in BC!

DSC00215
Originally uploaded by just bri.

Procrastination makes it happen

I made a pact with the big guy that if I got into Teacher's College at U of T this year, I wouldn't pull a single all-nighter in a desperate attempt to get an assignment done the night before it was due. And I really plan on standing by this - I mean, he made good on his promise to me; it's the least I can do in return.

That doesn't mean, however, that the dirty habit of procrastination doesn't still live inside of me.

Two weeks ago, a tiny red flower in my neighbor's yard pushed its way out of the cold, frozen, barren, toxic Toronto soil. I was in awe, as I am every year, of the amazing power of nature; how things grow and survive in the strangest little worlds. Every morning, I would greet my tiny red little friend, growing alone in a garden that still appeared to be in winter mode. I decided that I would photograph the flower as the first sign of spring, post it in my blog, and continue to make posts as tulips and weeds and daffodils began to bloom in the houses on my street. A photoblog on spring.

Now, two... maybe three weeks later, ALL of the flowers, trees and plants are in full bloom. The red flower has died, already completing its miniature life cycle. And I still haven't taking a single freaking picture. It might as well be winter again for all I care, because I just can't seem to live up to my own big plans. Please just imagine how nice my little street is now with green buds on all the trees and floppy daffodils in every front yard, and imagine what a total reject I feel when I leave my house every morning, sans camera, and walk by all these plants that I planned on photographing. And if the plants aren't mocking me, well - I'm sure you will be.

Maybe next spring, I'll get around to those pictures :)