May 26, 2015

Don't you ask me to give you a song

Bruno Freschi for Erickson Massey, 1967, Chartwell Place, West Vancouver, BC. © stacy reynaud

What am I going to write about? 
I need to be inspired. I haven't seen any good design pieces or heard any original music at all lately - 
although I do listen to my 70s Dudes playlist usually three times a day. 
You know what, though? 
The nice thing about having a blog is that it's my blog, and I can write whenever and about whatever I want. 
It's been seven years now, eh? Seven years! 
I remember when I was seven. 
Elvis died. 
My family and I went and saw Star Wars on opening night at the Stanley on Granville I'm a Han Solo kinda gal. Although Lando and his cape did give Han a run for his money - but just for a bit - until Han was f
rozen, then I felt guilty. 
Grade Seven, I remember Grade Seven. Mr. Coleman was my teacher, and Amy was my best friend. 
My hair was long and feathered to the side, and I liked drawing. 

What else? Hmm, how about the seven months in Kits before we were evicted? Yes. Seven months. Nope, not going to go into the whole ordeal. 
One word - Vancouver. 
You can look it up if you're interested.


me 1998

Okay, so I finished my philosophy course at UBC. 
My last paper was, What is Death? 
I finished the course with the same GPA I had twenty years ago, so at least I'm not getting any dumber. 
It'd been a while since I'd last been intense, so I thought it was about due time. 
For future reference, it might be less painful to just Jiffy than on a Stanfield's to remember - Intense (in all caps). 
It's the academic writing style that's painful, not the thinking. 
I'd hoped that style had disappeared with the 20th Century but no such luck. 
Ah, but wait! The Writing a Romance Novel workshop I took! 
What a fun day that was. 
There were only three of us - me, an eighty-year-old woman, and the instructor - who, by the way, was awesome. 
I'd tell you her name, but it's packed in my books in a bedroom box. 
What I can tell you is that she's a member of the West End Writer's Club, wears blue eye shadow and used to live in the Caribbean. 
A Gen X'er, a Baby Boomer and a Golden Oldie. 
You need to remember, of course, that in your 20s, you're living the romance novel, so you don't need to know how to write it. 
I'm working on one in my head - or is it an autobiography? 
So, that Kim Gordon book. What did you think? I need to read it again. 
Not because it's so friggin' good but just so I can understand it better - then I'll let you know. 
Kind of like when I heard In Utero for the first time. 
Can you please tell me that Virginia Woolf isn't as pretentious as she's coming across in Moments of Being
She's Tumblr famous, you know. 
Oh My Cat, speaking of pretentious - you need to watch - no, no, you have to watch Schitt's Creek. 
Catherine O'Hara. Can she be any cooler? 
The coolest Canadian in my books (and Anne Murray.)


Oh yeah. We went to a cider workshop in Mt. Vernon a couple weekends ago. 
I stopped paying attention after an hour into it. 
I cheated off Brad's notes. Joking. 
Those people who cheat - they don't end up making it - they fail at life. 
Why? 
Because you can't cheat reality.

Sometimes my cat Tilley smells like a Cowichan sweater. 
Sometimes she smells like one of those sleeping bags from the 70s. 
That's what she smells like right now. 
I love those sleeping bags. 
The ones with the flannel lining with images of camping scenes or ducks and guns. Hey, remember going over to a guy's house, and he'd have one of those sleeping bags as a bedspread (or was it his only blanket)? 
Holy mackerel, what a trendsetter. 

The sun came out.

top image: Bruno Freschi for Erickson Massey, 1967, Chartwell Place, West Vancouver, BC. © stacy reynaud
bottom image: © Lucasfilm Ltd

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