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personal style. huh. i've never thought i had any. i haven't changed much about the way i dress for most of my life. in one of the few home movies we have i'm on the front lawn in cut off jean shorts and a batman t-shirt. i'm 7 years old in the video and i wore the exact same outfit last night, 20 years later. it might be laziness; ain't nothin easier than jeans and a t-shirt. it might be inherent rocker syndrome from my parents (who were barely teenagers in the 70s). as a child i always looked up to skinny jeans and big hair, literally. my older siblings were tough as nails too and got me into metal realll early. my wardrobe grew darker and darker as the 90s eased me into my teens and i haven't changed since.
other than slight striations in cuts of denim*, different lengths/colours of hair and a mid twenties jump into mini skirts i look exactly the same as i did when all i wanted to do was play she-ra, ride my bike and listen to metallica. hmm, seems my fashion sense isn't the only thing maintainin'.
*remember when we bought jeans based on the circumference of the ankle opening? i generally had 30 plus inches! hahah, and now i wear jeggings. what a world.
we finished our table! it looks soooo sick. it's exactly like we wanted and, if i may say, comparable to the ones sold on queen west for a cool g... or more! we haven't started moving the other furniture around to accommodate it yet so i don't have any pictures (read: too anal to post evidence of an unorganized house) but there is a little teaser beneath the plate of that delicious fucking rib eye. did i mention it's nestled on a mountain of blue cheese risotto? that i made myself?! holy shit. it was so good. we've been making a ton of risotto lately (read: minimum twice a week since we realized we could) and this one was my absolute favourite. so creamy, cheesy and rich! so gluttonous and unnecessary! total food schwing!
sorry about october and september, readers. three entries in two months? that's pretty weak. however, in my short absence i have been cooking, working and partying up a storm. if you want to see the meals as i eat them and the drinks as i forget them (and feel free to ask for details/recipes) just check the sidebar to the right as my current photos/tweets will be circulating there. thanks & sorry again.
ahem, phil and i smoked meat for the first time! we bought hickory chips mooonths ago but felt summer wasn't an appropriate time to fill the kitchen up with smoke. now that it is cooler (read: fuckin freezing) we've been rocking risotto and roasts and yes, smoking chicken breasts in a wok lined with tinfoil. we saw chuck hughes do it on chuck's day off and have wanted to try it since. the chicken was moist and had great flavour, our house didn't reek too bad afterward and it was super easy to do (you could even smoke tofu, cheese, tomatoes or fish!).
thanksgiving weekend went well. i had turkey and quail and peanut butter pie and yams with marshmallows and beers and star-gazing and nice times. last week, my mom brought us an old dining room table she'd found in the garbage (like mother, like daughter) so we bought some legs for it on the way home from phil's parents house. we've got to wash, sand, (possibly) stain and assemble it still but we're hoping to have it up by next weekend for a little dinner partay. expect photos.
if you follow me on twitter, you'll know we've buckled into making everything from scratch lately... including mini hamburger buns (that were so adorable with their little sesame seeds on top) and pizza dough (a killer thin crust to house tons of tomatoes, zucchini and a fresh cracked egg). we've been eating like fucking champs. coming up this week: risotto, carbonara, squash soup, prosciutto pizza and possibly pumpkin pie!
i was just reading this (go ahead, it's a quick read... i'll wait.) and hating myself for not thinking to write that first or maybe i was just a little disappointed in not being the only one. i have friends who are also paycheque to paycheque, i have friends with expense accounts. i have friends with cars and friends with heroin habits. it's an interesting dichotomy living in a big city. i ate creamy truffle risotto with a bottle of nice red wine last night but i've got $17 in one account and -$15 in the other. i called in sick to work today because i really just wanted to buy some used records and finally put my laundry away. i'll be pissed at myself when i see my paycheque but, hey, i'll have this chrissie hynde record forever.
so, for now, i'll continue to tweet about the brilliant things i should/could be doing with my life while digging change from my paint covered backpack to buy a pack of rolling papers. it's a common tale of pseudo woe. a generation of over-exposed, under-utilized brains starving for the simplest ticket to the top.
so, i got a job. i'm making t-shirts. it's long hours spent standing up with short breaks and genuinely hard work. it's nice to actually produce something. we printed 5000 shirts my first day; i felt a great sense of accomplishment looking around at stacks of fabric my hands had touched, piled almost to the ceiling... i think i'll freak out if i ever see someone wearing one.
i can't wait to have money again. i'm gonna buy clothes and books and go out for dinner and maybe get a haircut and illegally download new music to listen to on the commute because, well, some things just don't change.
i love this city so goddamn much. anytime i'm down; i just peep it from a new angle.
the kimbot and i went to the island on monday for her birthday. we rode our bikes from edge to edge. when we were drinking some beers and eating some cheesey bread, a wasted dude that looked like jason mewes and his naked grandfather kept offering us booze, smokes and hugs. eventually grandpa fell down some rocks (he was fine) and we took off towards centre island. most of the rides were closed so we smoked a joint in the petting zoo and narrowly avoided being boxed in by massive, pigeon footed ducks. it was weird.
later, phil made us a delicious chicken dinner and we introduced kim to wipeout. those big balls, man... fat people getting catapulted is always funny!in other news, i fainted last week. we were standing in front of the commie and i had the hiccups. bad. i held my breath with my head between my knees (like an idiot, duh). so when i stood back up, i collapsed. i didn't realize what had happened at first (i still had a fucking smoke in my hand) when suddenly everyone i knew was up in my grill asking, "you okay?" "oh my god!"... then i noticed i was on the sidewalk. afterward i was embarrassed, sure, but mostly just relieved those goddamn hiccups were gone. oh, and now i have a giant blood bruise thing on my arm. hmph. at least i didn't get a concussion.
i'm feeling pretty depressed, guys. i've been sending out resumes for the last two months and nothing. well, actually, i got one phone call. one interview. i nailed it. we got along. it was a gig working with food and i fucking jinxed myself. that sounds ridiculous but i do this to myself all the time. get excited, tell everyone, assure myself it's happening and then... just... nothing. disappointment, i guess.
i dunno. what's a girl to do when she can't even get an interview at a fucking video store?! phil tells me that my resume reads like i'm over qualified. i was a manager (retail and tour); i'll get bored with remedial minimum wage bullshit. so, the question is this: how do i write my resume to show that i'm a pothead (but not on the clock) who doesn't want to take her work home and would prefer a tedious, teenage job so she can pursue her loves (photography, food) outside of working hours?
i'm broke! i will seriously take ANY job right now. my back tire is flat, my makeup is running low and, honestly, there's a new issue of bust that i would really like to read. i thought taking this huge step would allow my path to become clearer but it's still murky as all fuck and, while momentarily exhilarating, not even a giant pile of free records on the street can cheer me up today.
i'm back from camping! what a wild weekend. we drove to guelph thursday evening, set up camp, got wasted and struggled to sleep in a wild storm. the rain was honestly so loud that it kept startling me awake. couple that with our mattress slowly losing air through the night and i was not a happy camper (haha, sorry) when i woke up damp, hungover and laying directly on uneven rocky ground. i went for a swim in the lake and started drinking at 11am so, well, i got over it fast.
friday night joel picked me up in downtown guelph so i could make it to the spitfist show we stupidly booked the same weekend i was out of town. i showed up tired and sunburnt but had a great time. we sold a shit-ton of cds, a feminist rag wants to interview us and people actually sang along to the one song we posted on our myspace. fucking incredible night.
saturday morning i grabbed a bus back to guelph and while i didn't make it in time to catch what i heard was an incredible set by our friends in the wooden sky, it was another fun (read: drunken) day at a festival that, honestly, i couldn't explain if i tried. i took a ton of photos on my new half frame camera and should have the film developed later this week. in the mean time, the two lone photos i took with my dslr are below. for now, i'm off to wash the campfire smell from my clothes and try to acclimatize myself back into city life... at least that fucking heat wave is over.
i'd been waiting to make some vegan pancakes for myself ever since phil returned from a wedding with some locally sourced maple syrup (the bride's father taps his own sap). i had to do a bunch of running around this week to get the spitfist demo ready (we printed and hand assembled our own cds) and grab a tent, bug spray and arrange rides to hillside! wooo! camping this weekend, motherfucker! i'm so excited. if you remember last year, i was a little apprehensive about going to the hippie festival but my expectations were completely exceeded and it has happily become part of my summer routine.
back to the point, though. today was the first morning i didn't have to run to the printer, wax something or trim cd sleeves. i was stoked. i got this pancake recipe from some website i can't remember. i think i've had it for about a year and modified it a couple times. basically you need a cup of flour, a tbsp of sugar, 2 tbsp baking powder, pinch o salt, glob of oil and a cup of (whatever kind of) milk. of course, everything is interchangeable. i've used white, brown and chickpea flour, all sorts of sugar, oil and while i recommend chocolate almond milk... any kind will do. i love to put a lot of butter (or earth balance or margarine) in the skillet to crisp up the edges but the pancakes will be great without any fat at all. just cover 'em in chocolate chips or bananas or any crazy thing you want. then relax. sit back. put on the golden girls and just have a half hour to yourself. mmmmm, indulgence. 
sooo, the tracks are finally finished! we just posted a new song this morning and you can listen to it on our myspace.
this song and two others will be available on a she-d at our show on july 23rd. it's at the bovine and you can get more information here. yum yum yum yum yum!
we shucked oysters in the park! we SHUCKED our OWN OYSTERS in the PARK! we've been talking about this forever and finally pulled our shit together last weekend. i packed the shucking knife with our beers in the afternoon and as the day cooled down phil popped over to oyster boy and brought us back a dozen and a half. the restaurant sells them off cheaper when they're unshucked so it only cost us (read: phil) $22! it was truly a luxurious day full of dufflet cakes, chippy's fries and oyster boy oysters. i also used the camera on my phone for the first time. i usually have at least two cameras in my purse so, well, why use a lo-res cellphone? well, i just downloaded a new app called fxcamera and, humph, it's pretty cool. there are holga, polaroid and pinhole "cameras" with adjustable settings and they all look pretty cool. i'm sure it's similar to the hipstermatic thing for the iphone, except, y'know... better because it's on android. HAHAHA. i love saying shit like that. mac nerds are so testy!
back to the point however, i love living in this neighbourhood! the food! the park! the bars! the taut young hipsters! erhm, i mean... whatever. i'm happy to still be enamoured with my city almost a decade (and two really loud world cups) later.
it is so hot. so, so hot. most of the city lost power yesterday and for an hour i feared we were facing another long term blackout. we spent most of the long weekend drinking in the park so, of course, my camera and ipod battery were completely dead. the restaurant across the street started selling off their melted gelato so i hung out my window and watched all the queen st. regulars gather. it was pretty calm and quiet (a welcome change after the earthquake, riots, protests, parades and unrelenting rain of last week). the electricity popped back on just in time to catch the double xander episode of buffy on tv. i hurried to plug in my gadgets in case the power was short term. when phil got home we cooked up some taco salads and tried to not sweat all over each other. overall, it was a good day.
i haven't got many food pictures for y'all because, well, it's too fucking hot to cook. seriously. however, all my time off has forced me to finalize some things in the apartment. here is a glimpse of our kitchen, bedroom and letterpress display (hilariously enough, last christmas i bought the letters and composing stick for phil and he bought me the drawer... great minds, man!)
