Even less by the time you read this.

This weekend has been one of randomness and awesomeness.

Bek and I went to the Musée des Beaux-Arts Montreal; they have a limited time exhibit featuring a bucketful of Impressionist painters. Bek being a visual artist, me being an art lover and Impressionism being my favourite era/style of painting, we knew we had to take the opportunity to see the work of the masters.

I saw my first real life Lautrec and Degas (my favourite artists), I stood in awe and I know what when I go to Paris (someday), I am not going to be able to cope with ALL THE FEELS that ALL THE ART and ALL THE HISTORY are going to impress upon me. I'm pretty much expecting to wander around the city alternatively swooning and sobbing, followed by drinking wine and shoving the best bread in the world into my face. I'm predicting the future here, so if anyone wants to come and hold the tissue box while I spend an afternoon sitting beside Oscar Wilde's grave and sniffling, or staring, frozen up at Notre-Dame, or wandering around Montmartre, declaring that I AM GOING TO MOVE HERE AND WRITE LIKE HEMINGWAY, DAMNIT, book your seats now, advance tickets are on sale.

We polished up some Christmas shopping, and came home. I began preparations for dessert for our Sunday Christmas dinner, baking up some ginger molasses cookies for a greater purpose than being just cookies, as hard as that might be to imagine.

We finally decided at about 11 o'clock it was a good idea to go out into the world and so we hit the Ostrich Bar, which I have labelled it because of the MANY OSTRICH HEADS MOUNTED ON ITS WALLS. I do not exaggerate. While we were there, we ended up sitting beside/ spending the whole night talking to a mash of guys who all hailed from former British colonies. I was psyched because one was from Melbourne, Australia, where Jill and Steve are moving. So I set about trying to ply them for information. We had a blast.

On the way home, we got our first French Happy Meals, which I ordered in English, patiently and carefully despite the never-ending line of intoxicated people in McDonalds at 4AM. We walked home, ate our tiny cartons of fries and passed out. Or at least I passed out, not before suffering the delusion that I was totally going to read another chapter of Les Miserables before I fell asleep. (HA, right.) Culture will always suffer at the hands of pints & exhaustion.

In other news, today is our Roommate Christmas, wherein we open gifts, watch Rudolph on TV and make ourselves a nice dinner since we won't have a chance to celebrate over the holidays together. Bek got me my very own Freddie Mercury shirt which she had specially screen printed, and Tom Waits's 'Bad As Me' album on vinyl. I'm smitten, I do believe I will keep her.

According to the internet there are 8 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 55 seconds until Christmas. WOO! I'm actually on top of it this year! (Mostly!)

Christmas Jam

Top 5 Christmas Songs (And the preferred versions....if I have them....)

#1. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Judy Garland (from Meet Me in St. Louis). 
Garland's trembling rendition to a family coming together against all odds during the holidays always punches me right in my gingberbreads. This version is my favourite also because it uses the line, "Until then we'll have to muddle through some how" instead of "Hang a shining star..." EMOTIONAL GRIT, PEOPLE. It's what's for (Christmas) dinner.

#2. The Little Drummer Boy - The Jackson 5
Besides the Jackson 5 being awesome by default, this version is one of the few in which a little boy actually sings the role of the Little Drummer Boy.

 #3. Carol of the Bells 
Epic. And that was before the Trans-Siberian Orchestra cranked it to 11. 

#4. All I Want For Christmas 
Is you!

#5. Baby, It's Cold Outside -Any version involving Zooey Deschanel
In the version off of the Elf soundtrack, the mellow jazz saunter of her duet with Leon Redbone makes you want to abandon the outside world, stay inside, turn up the ambiance and snuggle up with something hot and alcoholic. (Like a beverage or maybe your significant other. I don't know.) 

The quicker tempo and the gender reversal in the She & Him version with M. Ward is a fun take. So there.

#6. Claire Fontaine - Hawksley Workman
Claire Fontaine isn't really a Christmas song, and it's off of a Christmas album that really isn't a Christmas album. "Almost A Full Moon" sounds like Hawksley wandering around his life during the month of December with an acoustic guitar and an accompanying band, narrating the yuletide activities he espies everywhere. (Sample lyric: "Put away the turkey to make sandwiches tomorrow!") However, somehow, he makes it quork. (Yes I just made that up right now.)

That being said, I love Claire Fontaine. Fun story, when I first heard the song, I DIDN'T know it was a brand of notebooks (like Moleskine) and I thought Hawksley was literally singing to his lover who was some quirky indie girl who made her own paper. Then, one day I was in class and the girl sitting next to me had a purple Claire Fontaine notebook and my brain exploded.

BONUS: This Gift by 98 Degrees & Never Knew the Meaning Of Christmas by N*Sync 

My least favourite Christmas song, as I ranted to Rebekah on a cold Saturday night where we bundled up and got our march on to an establishment, is Jingle Bells. Jingle Bells is mediocre. Jingle Bells sounds like a baby got eggnog instead of milk and in a nutmeg induced fury, hammered out the same three notes on a piano until it was declared 'music' by everyone else at the party, who also happened to be swamped on Christmas cheer. A one horse open sleigh does NOT sound like fun, either you're going too slow and that's boring, or you pick up velocity, and the winter air cuts into you with a vengeance. HEY.

In other news, tomorrow is my last full day of classes for first semester. What. The. Hell.

QUICKMAS

Just a quick post. I'm writing this because I can't sleep even though it's Christmas day now (technically) and if I sleep morning will come faster! (Deep breath here.) So this is just going to be a wee tiny post. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

(If you don't celebrate Christmas, please take away from those two words all the well wishes and perpetual love you want this time of year! And if you don't want my well wishes and perpetual love, get the hell off my blog.)

I want to talk about my family's Christmas traditions BUT I took pictures which will at least make the content more palatable at a later date, so we can wait for those. In the meantime: OUTFITS.


The best part is, I think everything except the boots, jacket and hat were thrifted for this outfit.
Hat: Zellers (LOL)
Jacket: Fairweather
Boots: Aldo
I wore this to go to a karaoke evening with my friend Justin last Sunday. I had to wait for a little snow fall to wear the hat without looking like a crazy person, but it was WORTH IT.
I sang Somebody To Love by Queen, which I BOMBED hard from nerves. Then I sang Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash, which worked out better. Sometimes when I sing my voice has an old time country June Carter lilt to it, so that one was a little easier.

I dunno if it's fashionable or stylish even, but I like it. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.

Here's what I put at the VERY VERY TOP OF MY LIST THIS YEAR:

The Night Before BFFmas

BFFristmas AKA BFFmas. A time when two friends celebrate Christmas ahead of the actual date. Rebekah and I celebrated BFFmas (Biffmas?) this passing weekend. Friday night, after I worked and she finished at her workplace Christmas party, we got togetha' for a little yuletide cheer. With one weekend to go before the actual day, it was our big chance to get our gifting on and spend time together! We've been busy with work and other stuff lately, not having had a lot of time to see each other.

SO IT WAS TIME TO PARTY HARD!!!

We started out with scrabble.
This was followed up by hot chocolate with marshmallows and gingersnaps while watching this season's Community Christmas Episode. (Taran Killam + the regular Community people mocking GLEE? Sign me up. All the way up.)

The next morning I was extremely pumped to give Bek her gift: a functioning, 1960s vintage rotary telephone, with a handle done by Birks, and a copy of Velvet Goldmine. (A biographical parody of the relationship between Iggy Pop and David Bowie, as played by Ewan McGregor and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. YES? YES !)

And she in turn got me a HUGE poster for "Les Amours Imaginaires", a film by French Canadian director Xavier Dolan. Which is purple. And FABULOUS. It's something I would never buy for myself, but I love the hell out of it. (That's the sign of a great gift isn't it?) It will look GREAT on the wall of my future Montreal apartment.

Then, she surprised me with a second gift: A hand painted Matryoshka doll, all the way from Russia. REAL RUSSIA. She's beautiful... I have to admit it: I almost cried when I opened this one. It was so thoughtful and totally unexpected.
I can't go into each and every detail of the day because there was a LOT of day to talk about. But it did include: breakfast at Cora's. Thrift store shopping, chicken fingers, and a poetry slam!

The only unpleasant thing in a the whole day: a HUGE unexpected, accidental parking ticket. (Next episode of Life of Wiley: I go to court to fight with the establishment!)

Surprise: My Hometown Doesn't Suck

For a long time, I really thought Waterloo had nothing going for it as a place.

Moving back here felt like a huge retrograde after college. I was born here, raised here with my parents. In he same house, same street, same everything.
However, it wasn't until I moved away to school that I feel like I did a lot of growing up. Living away from home, on your own, you find out a lot about everything from your own eating habits, sleeping patterns, house cleaning (or messing), and your own personality. You begin to know who you are as an independent, instead of part of your family unit.

So moving back to the town where I lived for 18 years felt like a pretty big setback. I've had a couple of big anxiety attacks concerning it. I've had all over grey days where I just felt as though I was stagnating here. "What am I DOING WITH MY LIFE!?" Style panic attacks.
The pattern of work. sleep. work. gym. computer. coffee was okay, but I'm like the Little Mermaid. I want more.

Well, recently, I found more. I've re-friended my buddy Dave, who I was tight with in the old days, all the way back in primary school. Then, we were in-class friends in the final years of high school. (Like work friends...but in Media and Writer's Craft instead.) Now we've started hanging out in real life, which is cool. Dave's world is world I didn't know existed in my boring home town. This is awesome for me, because it means I get invited to do cool things. Folks, I have officially gotten a life. Or maybe, half of a life.

Thursday, Bek and I ended up in Café Pyrus, a local vegan cafe. We watched four different bands rock the house. (One of them was Mark It Zero, Dave's band!) I've dabbled in listening to punk music in highschool, but the awesomeness of seeing it live is way better. Watching people do something they enjoy, and being really good at it... That makes me happy. The hardest part was being psychotically self aware that I was A) New on 'the scene' B) Psychotically self aware. I'm sure no one was paying me any mind, but I felt like I was standing outside of a big fish bowl. A big hip fish bowl, not yet swimming. The music was good, if nothing else! Eventually the tension rolled off and I was able to just sit back and enjoy.

I took 20 pictures, but this one of Junior Battles is the only one that was useable!

I bought two tapes and got a 7" album for free. (The guy selling Merch asked me if I had a record player like it was totally normal. Even my PARENTS think having vinyl is weird. I knew I was more or less home at that point.)

The very next night, we ended up at Comedy Night at the Princess Café. (Just assume we is Bek and I, because...well. It is.)

The Princess Cafe and Awkward Comedian Extraordinaire Ben Stager
For five bucks, we got to see a bunch of comics do stand up. Some of them were hilarious, others just chuckle worthy, but we had a good time all around. Nothing quite like laughing your butt off in a room full of people. I have such huge respect for live comedy, because I know it's SUPER hard to make people laugh. The pressure would probably make me barf.

ANYWAY, that's what I've been up to.
Also: going to the gym.
Also: wrapping gifts and watching Christmas specials. (Elf, Home Alone, Santa Claus is coming to Town...)
Also: ending this blog.

Blue Christmas

With the snow JUST starting to come down in Waterloo, I might not be happy about that cold, but I'm feeling more excitement because of it. I can finally stop dreaming about a white Christmas and get into the spirit of the season.

If that's an excuse to bake cookies, wrap up in huge scarves, sing carols REALLY loudly and watch my favourite Christmas movies on TV, I'm all in. If that means getting to see my friends, get closer with my family and celebrate the one time of year where we actually seem to have traditions, count me in x100.

So if a little cold weather brings me closer to that holiday feeling, let it snow, baby.

The other day, Jill and I tried to bring a little more Christmas to the house. It was like the Life of Wiley pre-Christmas special sitcom. We had talked about just how our sad, single string of Christmas lights was NOT cutting it in terms of spreading holiday cheer. In fact, that lonesome line of coloured bulbs somehow just made us seem more sad about the whole thing.

Jill of course, has two modes: one being ALL-THE-WAY and the other being totally below zero. So she went out to the store and bought 90 bucks worth of Christmas lights, and we tag teamed decorating the outside of our house.
I think we, (she maybe more than I) had epic notions of what the lights would look like. We have a huge pine tree in the front, and in her mind in was filled from top to bottom with white lights, sparkling in the December darkness.

The front of our house has two Roman style columns in the front, and she wanted badly to wrap them in cascades of bright Christmas lights. First, we tried to wrap them, and the cords were not long enough. So we ended up using the column lights on this stumpy pine bush next to the porch that is shaped like the Grimmus. Then it was time to look after the tree.

It took about forty five minutes, an extension ladder, some freezing toes and lots of amputated pine tree twigs, but we finally got the lights up on the tree. By we, I mean I did a little bit, carried a ladder and watched Jill and my dad struggle to get the lights onto the branches high above our heads.

The end result was a little disappointing. It turns out 90 bucks buys you about five strings of Christmas lights. Not when enough to cover half of the GIANT ASS PINE TREE which is actually taller than our house. We managed a zig in the tree, even a ZAG, but it looks like a big S. We decided the S in the lights stands for 'Special' or 'Santa' depending on who you ask. Brilliant.

Maybe next year?

After that, we went out to the mall, but right before then I got Jill to take outfit pictures. You can even see the LITTLE TREE! (Which I now am calling The Grimmus. Forever.) I really like the brown in the boots and the the blue in the rest of the ENSEMBLE. (Fancy ass word, folks.)

Beanie: H&M
Dress: H&M (I bought it for 10 dollars. HOLLAH.)
Scarf: Thrifted
Cardigan: My mom's closet.
Tights: Who cares, they're black tights...
Boots: Aldo

And if you haven't seen it already, I'm still writing for Travis Magazine. Somehow, they think I know things about fashion (or at least STYLE) and continue to let me write my little column- Fashion Friday: Go Elf Yourself!

What are y'all doing to get ready for Christmas?