things i have learned lately.
a paper cup filled with icetea and left on a dashboard will leak after a couple days.
when most people talk about the Baldwins they are not talking about piano makers.
mel gibson looks really funny in an 80's haircut.
when you say albert camus the way i think it's supposed to be pronounced, it sounds like ALbatross, BEAR, CAmel, MOOse.

person a
very depressed, almost dangerously so, but not quite. fighting very hard, as far as possible, to keep it that way. brain tries to tell p.a. that there is no God, the world makes no sense, give up trying to find Him, etc.. a lot of time spent trying to shut off said brain, or fighting it. the energy to fight very effectivly may not be there, but the desire to and the effort is there.
a quote from The First Man, by Albert Camus
'All that was left was this anguished heart, eager to live, rebelling against the deadly order of the world that had been with him for forty years, and still struggling agaist the wall that separated him from the secret of all life, wanting to go farther, to go beyong, and to discover, discover before dying, discoverat last in order to be, just once to be, for a single second, but forever.'
this is a fairly good (if somewhat dramatized) description of p.a.'s condition, just lacking to energy to strive as fully as wanted and needed. also, p.a. cares. very much so.
what is person a to do? take meds so he/she can become like
person b,
who is not nearly so depressed. more energy, mental capacities better, in many ways. more content with life, more relaxed. risk of suicide practically non-exsistant. many aspects of normal life returned. the problem - no fight. all depth and spiritual fight seems to have gone in p.b., the desire to make God listen. caring seems to have fled. not truly, but sort of. almost as though the superficial layer of life has grown and taken over all of the realness it can(not all of it. one hopes that will never completely be destroyed.) and has thus become reality, much of the time. the thing to do, obviously, is to enjoy and relax in the good things, and try to fight to get that infamous fight back. but -
my friends, which is better? which would you choose? it's not as though person b has turned God away - just forgets about Him through sheer spiritual spinelessness on a regular basis.
and i can't even really say this is me then and me now, as i seem to have taken that verse 'we see through a glass darkly' to a whole new level when it comes to figuring out my life. i dunno. not i dunno and i want to know, but whatthehellidunnoidon'tcare. see the problem? so the point of this paragraph is, don't think of it as me so much as a hypothetical situation that you may be in and what would you do?
i'm gonna go ride bikes with the kids. as in 'dang it gemma, you are only allowed to run into my vehicle, not the neighbours! stu! look where you're going! aren't you glad that car was looking?'

imagine - i fieldish thing, but bumpy, with scrubby bushes, blue and orange wildflowers, trees and rockpiles in the background, etc. wild looking, in a way, and quite beautiful, if that word fits. one old camper trailer, a few newer lookatmei'mcool trucks, a wood pile, and a campfire. the scene being set, i shall now proceed with the dialogue.
vehicle noise in distance.
redneck#1 - woooo! it's the winabego!(sp)
me - *a what?*
rdn#2 - waren is a crazy dude.
rdn#3 - here he'll come in a minute, yaaah!
rdn#1 - wooooooo!
enter the winabego, an old awesome looking square camper going way to fast over the rocks. drives all around the vehicles, bouncing around over the bumps like....... a camper driving really fast through a bumpy field. warren leaps out. in a white cowboy hat.
rdn#3 - yeah warren!
warren - yeeeeeehaw, we started deepfrying the turkey yet?
rdn#2 - dude, where's the beer?

now imagine that same field, at dusk. a kid on a bike, you all know how it looks with daddy hanging on the the back of the seat cuz jr. hasn't learned balance yet. legs splayed out, daddy pushing for all he's worth. now make the kid loren, the bike a bright yellow croth rocket, daddy his boss. the reason for this? a dead battery. it was a great picture. don't forget the huge helmet bikers must wear. (actually i got to be on the back of the bike and it was lots of fun.)

now - a paunch, a pair of swim trunks, a farmer tan, a not yet middle age but not young anymore face, sandles, and maybe a can of something to drink. times 3. on a tailgate.

the last thing to imagine is me swimming. boy was that fun! and the turkey they cooked yesterday and today was awesome. hotsauce injected into the meat..... mmmmmmm.

i forgot to mention how i got to drive some awesome old tractors - like 60 years old or something. track things, cats in fact. with old plows behind, two stick brakes and two pedal brakes for steering. dude, it was cool. and i got to see a self-leveling combine pretend it was on a hill. like an old man falling over but first glueing his legs to the ground.
also, as i'm back in ab, my nosebleeds are back. my throat hurts from swallowing so much blood, and i've started to speculate on how gross it would be if i threw up around now.
those cats were da bomb!

some observations -
our old toyota van can do 130 at least. a tad hard to handle at those speeds, and probably unsafe, but heh. (the tendancy to wander increases, the feeling of almost taking off into the air but continually coming down to earth with a bump is much more distinct, the smell, the white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel needed to control things.....)
i saw my mother kiss dennis somewhat passionatly, and it was weird.
one should sleep outside away from the city whenever possible. the stars are stupendously amazing.
bill now only has 3 deoderants on his shelf, as opposed to 4.
i made my oldest brother very happy with only one dollar. go garage sales!
kris my haircut looks much better when i let it dry without combing it flat.
naomi gave me my bday gift already, a very nice red tank top with a maple leaf on it. all these free clothes i've been getting lately!
kevin would hate working on your farm kris. he likes organization and efficiancy and improvement. :)

selected scenes from the act entitled 'my mother got hitched' taken from the play called Life.

scene 4 - my relatives
dear uncle vic: my, this area is fertile.
cousin stephie: dad, how many times must i tell you that word has conotations?
duv: heehee, what fun to push your buttons.
cs: next thing you know he'll be talking about virgin forests!
duv: har har har.
[general laughter from the peanut gallery]

scene 11 - the aspirations of a dutch boy
sarah: who wants to go back to the house?
wins(db): are you going?
s: yes.
w: okay, i'll come.
s: *sotto voice(sp)* damn!
[exit s and w]
me: *singsong* wins likes sarah!
stephen: just what i was thinking.
mel: what do you know, i was gonna say that.
tina: dude, we all think alike!

scene 472 - across the praires
bright red skinny bug: looky dear, as awesome looking blue hippy van! i must have a closer look, i must, i mustaaaaaaaaaahhhhsplat!
bright red yellow fat bug: oh my dear, i cannot live without you, you are my world! i must follow! aaaaaaahhhsplat!
seethroughy yellow dwarfish bug: what? what happened? where'd they go? i must follow! ahhhhsplat!
horde of notverycoolplain clear bugs: look what the cool coloured bugs did! let's go! it's the fad. we must die to be cool....... one, two, three, all together now, aaahhhhsplat!
to slow wannabe bug: wait for me! i wanna come, wait! ahhhhhwoooosh oh my gosh i've invented windshield surfing without the death! i survived, look at me, guys! guys? hey, where'd they go? i'm alone in the world! ahhhhhhhhhhhsplat.

gonna give our computer back to the school today. might get on the library or not, we'll see. g'bye!

okay, it's been awhile, so i'll give you the highlights.
i'm back home, had a great grad party, learned some traditional dance steps, sleepovers, etc.
slept on kris' roof last night. sirens went by sometime after midnight, but we never did figure out why. sun woke us up at 4:30, so we lay there and swatted at mosquitos and then went back to sleep. speaking of which, they're huge this year.
kris' car stalled out on rach's driveway and rolled down and she stopped it in a big mud puddle and it took for ever to start.
kris was squeamish about swimming in the channel. said it had cow poo in it.
it was very very hot today, and it did not rain.
we rode horses again and nobody fell off.
we moved most of my stuff across the road. just my piano and other random junk left.
sarah is working very hard. yay for sarah!
i am tired and sunburned and happy.

i had another weird dream last night. i was suddenly engaged, and i'm pretty sure it was stephen, although i don't think he actually entered my dream. anyhow, we had both rings picked out already, but were still in the process of finding diamonds for them. they both needed some for some reason. then i realized how young i was, how short a time i'd been going out with him, and started panicking. and then, if it wasn't already weird enough, i told everyone i wasn't actually engaged i'd just dreamt i was. but i'm not sure if i made it up or if i really had dreamt inside a dream, or remembered a dream inside a dream, or if i'd made up the dream but started believing it to get me out of an sticky situation.
i watched M*A*S*H last night at midnight, and i laughed very hard. i'll have to try it again to see if it was the lateness or if it's really that good.
i mean to go for a longish walk in a few minutes, and i was thinking about it, and how i might stop in somewhere and get some icecream or hot chocolate. then i thought 'damn, that's no fun by myself' and suddenly missed home cuz i wanted to drag my sister with me or run over to kris' house or something. boohoo for me. not that the socialization is bad here. i hang out with loren and bill sometimes, inocent things like playing board games and going out for wings and going to church, and then sometimes i hang out with mel and allyssa, and sarah and tina (again, not mine) and that may not be always so innocent, at least not in the eyes of loren and bill, but it's all fun. not the same as home, but i'm lucky. new city, old friends. if i'm careful i can continue to hang out with both camps. good boys, bad girls. :) or good boys, bad girls. which ever way you look at it, if you catch my drift. that's a lot easier to do in person, make differant meanings out of the same words.
i'm gonna go take that walk. in my brand new runners! speaking of which, i don't want to throw my old ones out. they smell so....... smelly. kind of horsy. like i've worn them for 5 years and they've done a nice job of retainng memories without to much nasties.

my brother just bought me new runners. 120$ shoes for 50$. crazy, eh? i have grip now though, and more waterproofness. it actually started with my duct taped sandels, he said he was gonna buy me some new ones, and there was a sale at sport chek, 2 for 99$. but there were no sandels, so i said heh, new runners'd work as well, mine are old....... besides, i'd feel really weird wearing 50$ sandels. even if the regular price was 80$. i kid you not. it's a crazy world out there.

dan i have some beeder budder?
i want a danona bar.
dorrianne, do you know daren and al and daleb?

this is how gemma talks. and she separates all her syllables with a breath it seems like. it's quite funny, when it's not slow and painful. i took them to the park to puddle jump again today, and when we were done stu's collar was dry, and that's about it. i even got him to lie down with his face in the mud which was pretty great. they insisted on a shower after though. those kids have way to much fun in the shower and i say it's un-natural.

i've got to stop picking at my face. in Girl Inerupted the head doc says it's a sign of a phsyco/depressive/maniac/anxiety case or something. what say you? is that me? *g* by the way, that book is REALLY depressing. i only got through about one chapter.

neighbours are having a party. smells good, their steaks.
sitting in the livingroom.
smell of pot.
must be neighbours.
investigate by going out to the porch.
smell of loren bbqing overpowering pot before i get out there.
run into sliding doors on way out, bump on head.
make note to self not to ever smoke the stuff, if just one wiff makes me run into doors.
oh yeah, i run into things anyhow.
get my sorry clumsy ass outside.
loren grins and says - smells like *insert name of hometown here which, being in bc, is pot central* out here.
realize my nose is acting up and only if i turn my head the right way can i smell the smell i originally came to investigate.
even though it must reek, since the dudes are, like, 20 feet away smoking the stuff.
they have freaking kids over there at their party.
damn them.
use it, but don't make your little kids high from your smoke!
freaks.
but at least they're having fun!
right?
last i checked blue jays were beating oakland 2-0.
both solo home runs, i think.
yay for the hamburger i'm gonna eat!

you know when people in movies freeze time while they rob a bank or something? (inspector gadget, i beleive) well i was just watching a comercial where they did that, and i realized that if you froze time, everything would freeze up and you wouldn't be able to move anything in the frozen area., right? and if that's so, you couldn't even walk through the area, as the air would be frozen. and if i remember my science correctly, air is something, not nothing. :) just a weird thougt i had while watching tv.
last night i thought, someone walking into a bar and sitting down and saying 'got milk?' would be a great comercial for milk.
people are always trying to be bigger than themselves, right? we've always dreamed of flying. even now people are still trying to invent personal flying devices. hang gliding, bungee jumping..... any kind of extreme sport. any kind of sport period. dancing, music, art, love, ambition, even just trying to live ones life in such a way as to make someone else's world a bit better, and therefor your own. i quote kris - 'yelling and pounding and needing to be free.' - how many of us have wanted to just burst our lungs out in moments of extreme emotion? probably all of us. you know when you feel you just have to either fly or burst, scream or bust? when you wish we did get multiple lives just so we could try everything? some more things from literature to prove it's not just me, or just us, or just the young or weird. 'oh to have wings like a dove! far away would i fly. in the wilderness build me a nest, and remain there forever at rest.' psalms 55. anyone read cs lewis' suprised by joy? his discription of joy is that feeling of biggness, of bursting, of everything being just...... wow. you know when it's there for a second and then it's gone and you're left wanting it forever but knowing it'd probably bo way to big to sustain. in this world anyhow. which brings me to my conclusion, i think. it seems to me this wanting more, wanting to be 'bigger than life', is one of the biggest reasons to beleive in an after life. people have always beleived in some sort of heaven. why? partly because we hate the thought of this universe being deprived of our excelant selves forever(haha), but i suspect mostly because the belief in an afterlife is usualy the belief that after we're dead there's something greater, something better. why would we want something more, if this was all we've got? (i believe phillip yancey's book 'rumours of another world' deals with this in more depths than i could ever do, but i've only read a bit of it) of course lots of people would say we're just a bunch of delusioned idiots running around wasting t he time we have preparing for what's not there. but if that's so i think i'm happier being delusioned.

my brother is driving me up the wall. which is unfair to him. so are his kids, which is unfair to them. so are my parents, which is bloody fair to them. who thinks i should send them both the same letter telling them to smash their heads against a wall and grow up?
deap breath. give it to God and everything will be hunky dory, right? damn. God, are you listening? are you freaking there? i want a stupid sign. i great big neon lighted sign. 20 feet high, 60 feet long, if you please.
remember the starving kids in africa, right? how much worse they have it, right? well maybe they'll die and go to heaven and save themselves a world of pain.
maybe early menopause runs in he family. sarah's been having hot flashes. my moods are like the worlds biggest roller coaster. which really isn't that normal for me, in general. see, i already feel better. speaking of which, i've got an idea.

all right all my dear friends, guess what i did sat night? i went to a rodeo dance! wicked of me, eh? went with allysa and sarah and tina. (they're sisters, not my sarah and tina. siblings of the dude who owns this house. we left his birthday party to come.) allysa and sarah had to use the same ID cuz sarah's only 16, that was interesting. it was really to bad i don't know how to dance the twostep. i've never had the desire to before but it looked like lots of fun. and not just cuz i was drunk, cuz i wasn't. i'm certainly not a 100% country music fan but the music was great. people watching was fun, specially the dowdyish couple 2 feet away from us making out and the 50 year old lady who danced all night by herself.
anyway i had fun, especially since it was the first time i'd ever done something like that. would've been a lot funner if i'd known how to dance, as i've mentioned before..... i think i should take dancing lessons. but that would take money.

i want a fridge magnet that says
'only cowards cook on low!'
take that, oh dear mother of mine.

oh YEAH! i knew the mail'd start coming in soon. i got that 7 page letter from kris today with that cool thing in it. then i got a cd of barenacked ladies from stephen. then i got this awesome parcel on the bus from my home town! well, not from my home town, exactly, but from practically everyone in it. it even had a pair of sunglasses in it, probly the first i've ever owned.
i had a feeling it'd start pouring in today. i, am pumped!

okay folks, i am rich! stinking, filthy, rich. i have the grand total of 5 hundred and 50 dollars plus lose change. and that does not include my bank acount! my wallet won't close it's so full. and i'll be getting more each month. is that awesome or what? money may not make me happy, but it sure is nice to have!
i was on my way back home after a lovely jog/walk (i just love having the desire to run once in awhile. i's awesome!) and was about to climb the stairs when........ oops! wrong house! they all look the bloody same. the silly thing is, i did the same thing last summer while i was here. only that time i actually opened the door and started to walk in. have i mentioned my feelings for city life?
right now at this moment my biggest worry is how to get my creative juices working so i have ideas for more care packages. mel did have a good idea for me this morning though. i love that being my biggest worry.
i'm gonna go check the mail.

i had mcdonalds for lunch and i still feel yucky. that stuff is disgusting.
i feel like crap. and now that that is off my chest, i can get on to more cheerful things.
i was thinking last night how i have a rolling pin in my hopechest to add to kris' house when i move in with her (which i can hardly wait to do, by the way. it'll fix all my problems.) and then i was remembering where i got it. it was when we lived at wersigs(sp) house, (as opposed to the cat house, the strawberry house, the dairy, the river bottom, megnricks, etc) and i think there was 8 acres we were renting there. there was an acre or so of alfalfa that we could feed our animals and play in, bows and arrows being real good in there. there was a patch of christmas trees that were great for forts in the winter. there was a huge garden which included several fruit trees. one of the apple trees there was, i beleive, the only tree i ever fell out of. also in the garden was the gold wedding band of the old guy that owned the house, which he had lost many years earlier. i found it. we got a jar of cherry jam as thanks. (i thought it should've been a huge monetary reward, but heh.) there was also a goat pen, an this big old cool poultry pen thingy that was mostly empty but very cool and myserious to play in. and a play house, which the r kids and us spent many happy hours in making awful concoctions for our mothers to sample. speaking of them, they were over once when sunny, my goat, was about to have kids, so rach and i were sneaking around spying trying not to bother her and when we went in for lunch we got to tell our mothers all about the gooey mucusy stuff coming out her ass. not that we said 'ass', of course. (i could be more specific but i've probly grossed you guys out enough already) and there was this mother of a hole in the ground in the woods behind which was also very mysterious and cool. and the woods were awesome. across the road in the woods there, there was a great path that went forever and had a cave and cliffs.... the whole works. oh yes, the rolling pin. there was also a cabin in the back yard, with all kinds of old cool stuff in it. hence the rolling pin. OH, i almost forgot. there was a big old porch with aweful green fake grass on it, but it had a tree growing through it which made it just the coolest thing. except the squirels would come throw pinecones down at us while we were eating. they aimed, honest. and papa made this awesome tire swing with a loooong rope from one of the trees, and if i remember correctly it broke and sent rach flying at one point. and papa also made an awesome slide out of sheets of tin, really long.
you know, it's sounding like a childrens paradise. it's also sounding like i'm remembering it all as huge. i guess i was only 8 or 9.
so. those're my rememberings for today. that was one rockin' place!

i spent at least 15 minutes walking and running around the streets this evening trying to see the sunset over the houses. gah. beautiful night though. i even felt like running. (yay!) which is why i was running.......
today i cut my own hair. with a dull pair of scissors. just a few little adjustments here and there. i think it looks okay. my hair is very forgiving right now. think boys shaggy cut. sort of. with even that bit of curl. that's sort of how forgiving it is. didn't know i had curl in my hair till it was this lengh. it goes away if i actually brush my hair, but heh. dude, that is a lot of short sentances. i am very sorry.
i was sitting on the couch this afternoon craving cream of wheat and lamenting the fact that i'd have to go out and buy some (as opposed to grinding up some wheat corsely(sp) whith our handy dandy wheat grinder) when i heard allysa say something about porridge. so i went in the kitchen and there she was waving a box of the stuff around and saying she wanted some! so i had a lovely bowl. cream of wheat with cream, butter, honey, maybe a bit of milk....... hmmmmmhm.
i just watched an episode of that 70's show where kitty is pregnant. i've never seen a little kid running around though, so i wonder if it's just menopause skipping all the preliminaries. who knows. i should stop watching so much tv. then again, it's great mind numbing stuff. go tv!

okay, here goes my happy post - for real, not faked.
music - we went to the wave pool and i they were piping 'i want you to want me' over the sound system. it was great, cept it was near the end and i couldn't hear much anyhow. still great.
books - got a new stack from the library. aside from aiw, i thought i'd try some walt witman and dh lawrence. doubt i'll like either, but you never can tell. also i got a book on classical mythology, and a whole bunch of others. 4 or 5 wodehouse. (differant library, great collection of him)
siblings - my bro is weird. he was, like, always the rebel. crotch rockets, loud music, running away from cops at 240 kph..... now he's talking about getting him some pan flute music. he talks about the purpose driven life. he's always putting on generic worship music. he goes golfing. he's weird.
kris - yes, by all means, come watch seinfield with me. i'm sure they won't notice one more person in the house.........
i'm gonna go watch that 70's show and drink mint tea.