Summer music. Summer flowers. Summer television. Whatever.

Summer is here, summer is here. So this blog post will be filled with pictures of flowers. Whatever.

Buttercups & Bachelor Buttons

Summer, a time of increased insect traffic in your home, increased beverage consumption when siting outside and increased itchy sunburns. It's a time of summer music, this year it's the Dandy Warhols. I tried out a few others from my middle school days - Green Day (pre-American Idiot), The White Stripes, Blink 182 (oh god, I had forgotten about that video), but none of them have really stuck like they used to. The Dandy's have been playing pretty steady when I'm home. I've found this summer needs a bit more of a robust soundtrack than the combination indie/soft spoken Grizzly Bear sort of stuff that bore me through the rainy winter months.

I finally quit my job last week - which was a difficult, but necessary decision. As much as I really didn't enjoy working there anymore, it still provided a safe little haven where I knew everyone, I was skilled in my skill-less position and a steady paycheque. But really, I just want to get out there and meet people this year, learn new things. I can't do that stuck in the same place, nor can I do that with my perpetual, no exceptions 'better the devil you know' voice of my conscious. I mean really, it's absurd. So away we go!  I am a leaf on the wind. Landed a new job, different service industry, different duties and radically different time schedule. Should be alright for a while, I have a feeling it wont be too prime. But - this summer, I feel, is as much a time to be intrepid as ever. Out we go to experience life in general. I've even got a ladies rugby team all picked out to join once I settle into work.

Violas

A recent daily challenge of mine has been making decent dinner from rice and whatever is left in my house. Solution: super duper stir fry. Base: rice, plus! Leftovers, beans that have been in the freezer forever, egg, spinach, all that business. It turns out not that bad with a bit of olive oil, garlic and sometimes ginger.

And on the note of calling making edible food a 'challenge', I have also been facing tiny other 'challenges' on a daily basis. They're stupid little things, things really not worth telling anyone because they're so... itty bitty and seemingly inconsequential. But knowing how I work in a day to day environment and know how I react to some things (badly), I'm kind of able to make a little list of things to do that I don't usually do that will somehow result in a betterment of person. It goes much like this:

1. Example: after every conversation know what colour the other person's eyes are, or walk around without the protection of a giant bag for a day.
2. ???
3. Profit!

But really. These things just funnel my anxiousness into constructive means. So whatever.

Strawberries!

Transplanting things! First to sprout from my flurry of seeds outdoors was surprisingly pac choi. Closely followed by usual favorites, english breakfast radishes, mescluns and spinach. A few days later, beans and snap peas. On the indoor front, my Brandywine and Sasha's Pride tomatoes just sprouted the other day and are merrily putting up new growth. I recently transplanted peppers, cucumber and canteloupe that were bought as seedlings into larger pots with a healthy dose of Sea Soil Potting Mix. This stuff is gold. Jobe's tomato spikes and a handful of crushed eggshells was mixed in to my fourth garden bed with Sea Soil in preparation for tomato and zuccini transplant today. I've gotta say, in about three or four weeks the garden is gonna be bumpin'.

Anyways, that's what's up. I'm finding that, between my gardening and referring to my tiny animals as 'children', I am sounding rather domestic. Weird.

All the while, I repeat this summer's mantra: "Use your words".



Things to feast your eyes (and whatnot) upon:

   - Maitenance Man is being screened on May 31st at the Pacific Cinematheque, a CineWorks film festival project I gaffed for last month - Back Down the Highway
   - 24 Hour film race, look out for the SFU Film Workshop.
   - Girls - an HBO series in it's first season, I cannot express to you the weird kinds of joy that this show brings me, it's like what Sex and the City should have been, PLUS going through each and every one of my neuroses, making me feel slightly better that someone (however fictional) experiences much of the same. Feeeliiiings.

   - The independent film Choch is available here - read an open letter to supporters by filmmaker Brendan Prost here. Also be sure to check out this interesting independent film distribution phenomenon known as Distrify.

Joone. Looking past July.

Yeah what. I rainbow'd the felt box.

  Things have been rather stagnant this summer semester, punctuated by these incredibly tumultuous moments that sort of shake around the brain a little. A lot of evaluation and reevaluation has been occurring. Lots of attempts at backpedaling and not a ton of success at it. Summer's become something to just 'get over with', which is all sorts of wrong in my book. Waiting to see if I made the cut into the 2nd year of the program is just driving me up the wall. I'd just like to know if I'm a failure sooner rather than later please and thank you, SFU. All the things I've planned to do this summer have sort of fizzled. I was going to sew and sell tons of felties and make tons of movies and take tons of photos and learn tons of new things and go to the beach and garden and read lots. Let's just say I have done very few of those things. When work slows down in a couple weeks, I'm hoping I can get to the point where I can get up and just do something wonderful with my day, every day. There are two months left to make up for two months of nothing. Because why have a lame summer, when you can have a pretty alright one?

  I lost an awesomely dear friend recently, I talk about it on my video blog a little. It's here, if you'd like to see it. I get a little weepy, but I sort of just needed to talk about him a little. I still get weepy every few days, his loss is one that'll always be with me. But it's getting better, and I look back on the good times that we all had while he was here with us. I didn't make the trip home to attend the funeral, which, depending on the day, is a decision that I am somewhat glad or incredibly saddened I made. One thing that sort of shuffled out of the ashes, however, was a feeling of community that sort of reached out to me from the eastward province. The feeling has since dispersed, but it was very comforting to know that in times of grief, sadness and need, we could come together and make sure that everyone's doing alright. A lot of people were proud to call him a friend, as he was someone who was kind and friendly and always made a point of making other people laugh. Canmore gave him a good send-off. It's hard not being able to talk to or hug someone who meant so much to me and who was in my life for such a long time. I miss him a lot.

  In other, much, much more frabjous news, I've moved away from the basement and into the top floor of an old house. Some attributes I enjoy about my new residence: it has lovely, huge windows everywhere, the bathroom is orange, the kitchen is gigantic, we turned our two futons into a sectional, room to garden and we have our own doorbell! Some attributes I do not enjoy about my new residence: the fridge screams in agony every day or so, we think it is dying, my room is this nuclear blue that is unlike any colour I have ever seen, but I lack the funds and the pure strength of will to paint it and I have a fear of falling out of my bedroom window because it is sort of falling apart. But all in all, it's a pretty swell set up. My parents came out for two days and the move went super smoothly thanks to some burly film chums and Mickie! Thanks to the quick move, I got to spend some more time with my parents, which was nice. It wasn't near enough time, of course, but it was nice to see a familiar face from Canmore after John passed away. We took a trip to Granville Island and gave a toast to his memory and all-around awesomeness. He and I went to Granville Island and had a super time in 2009. He was here for his 19th birthday, so I made him Bender out of felt, because we both enjoyed watching Futurama to an extreme degree.

  Moving out of my old place was super surreal. Between losing John and packing up all of my belongings in the same week, it was a strange and empty feeling. Now I look back on it and it feels like I never really lived there at all. I was there for 11 whole months! I'm quite glad I'm here now. I've got a room mate who I can talk with when I get home instead of stewing in misery by myself. Currently, it's a little bit like Tetris trying to find places for everything. I have an extreme number of books, DVDs and film equipment and downsizing to a room probably half the size of my last one has been a bit of a 'where to put all of this shit I own' sort of challenge. My books are all in disarray and it is driving me all up the wall. Due to my large amount of film equipment, most of my closet is dedicated to my camera rack. Who needs clothes anyways.

  We've also got some new additions to the fish family. We went to buy a couple of tetras to make my green fire tetra, Miles, company. He's been all by his lonesome since around November and he needed some chums to school with. So we picked up an orange glowlight tetra and a silver tip tetra, whom we named Herp and Derp, respectively. It was tremendous to see Miles trying to school with Herp and Derp while they were still acclimatizing to the water temperature in a plastic bags. Now they seem to be best of friends. Yes, I'm a big fan of aquarium fish. Deeeeal with it! We also picked up a couple of new aquarium plants, as the tank now gets a fair amount of sunlight.

  I'm rather excited for August. Once my exams are all wrapped up and I (hopefully) never con myself into taking summer courses again as long as I live, I'm going to take a jaunt over to Vancouver Island to pay my Gran a visit for a week  or maybe a little less. Then I'm heading home to Canmore for a week or so! I'm so excited! I've been missing home a lot this past year and didn't think I could quite last til next Christmas to see those mountains out the front window, my puppydog Finnegan and my folks back home. My original plan was to start shooting some sort of documentary about my family this summer, but I just haven't developed a solid enough plan for it quite yet. I'm so excited to just have two weeks of no school and no work. Simply visiting and chatting and watching movies. It's been a while since I've had a bit of a break like that. So that's something to look forward to, film school or no!

  I've been trying to hash out a couple of film ideas, but I can't seem to form any of them into much of anything. Pages and pages of rather self-indulgent monologue, but that's about it. I apparently am a big fan of using voice overs, or perhaps I'm just a terrible dialogue writer and proceed to just lean on monologues to get the point across. Who knows! I guess I'll just keep writing and see what develops. I'd be looking forward to screenwriting classes come fall, but I don't want to get my heart set on anything (thanks again SFU!)

  The past few weeks, I've just been haunted by this feeling that I'm never going to get anywhere in life. Currently wondering how so many seem to work past that. And sort of just... persist. It's just hard to see past the end of my own nose, currently.

  Hope the end of June is most excellent for everyone and happy summer! Go frolic on the beaches and drink delicious slushed adult beverages and cook things over fire pits and stargaze and go on long walks in the wilderness and read in the sun and bask in the lovely, lovely heat.

Stay classy.

Some shout outs! I shall link them, and you shall go to them.

Next week, look for a post where I re-visit Choch! Brendan's put the whole damn thing online for two weeks for you to watch for free! Please take an evening and watch it, think about it, maybe discuss it with a friend or two. Then, perhaps you'd like to kindly donate to the cause - helping the film get distributed out to film festivals and into your own homes!

The Long Road Home also needs your help! They only have 8 days left to raise the remainder of their production costs!

Joel's 30 days of film - what a challenge! He's done nine so far! Just think, he's got another twenty one to go! In this one, number eight, get up close and personal with Joel's big toes.

Support independent film! Because it is oh-so-awesome.

Check out my exorbitant amount of other blogs:

Kingfisher Says - Video blogging because I'm horrible at speaking intellegently

Soup is for Winners - Indulging in GIFs and fandom beyond reason

Groove Nugget - Film and video Tumblr where I post all sorts of film and video I fancy