a salute to an old sketchbook

The excitement of today is that I finished my sketchbook! Often, you can find me making notes and furiously sketching things I see passing by me while I'm on the bus.

Here are a few excerpts:


- a dancy tree

- JAZZ!!!!

- a man with beautiful hair on the bus,
it was abundant but well groomed:
facial hair, bushy eyebrows,
a volumninous, shiny head of hair
he couldn't keep his hands out of it...
and why should he?

- when you're looking for a date
with someone you just want to click with

- and for the grand finale, a two page spread!

a lucky find on a gray day

One miserably rainy day, I went out walking with a friend and spotted a my favorite bird standing on a wooden post.

"Look! A heron!" I shrieked.

My friend was skeptical, "I thought herons had long necks."

They do, only this one was posed much like I was at that moment. If he had hands, they would have been shoved deep into his pockets as he huddled against the ruthless pelting of the rain.

my foredoomed morning

This happened to me on Friday morning. At some point I should have given up and gone home, but I didn't:

1) Twenty minutes into my transit ride, the numer 10 bus pulled to the curb. Another driver climbed on and announced that the cables ahead were broken and that we could go no further. We had the choice to sit there and wait, or walk three blocks west to catch another bus going downtown. "How long is the wait?" someone called out. Grimly, the bus driver replied, "We don't know."

2) I walked the three blocks and arrived at a bus stop. "Hmmm", I thought, "there's only one number 8 bus that will take me downtown.  I'd better go to another spot where there will be more buses to catch."

3) Upon crossing the street, I see the number 8 bus pass by me to pick up passengers where I decided not to wait at.

4) Ten minutes later, I catch another number 8 bus.

5) The number eight idles at the bus stop I decided against, just to rub it in.

6) This is as far as I can go with the number 8, I get off to walk another three blocks to catch another that will take me to my destination.

7) I arrive just as a bus pulls in. It is the number 10 that I had impatiently alit when the cables were down. If I had only waited I would have ended up in the same place at the same time.

comfort food

When I directed my first video shoot a few days ago, I had everything organized - even what food I would serve to the crew and the talent. I had a grand spread that included doughnuts, muffins, (delicious, from Swiss Bakery) bread with spinach dip, a large veggie platter, and many more snack foods. The table was completely filled and I started to worry that I'd really overdone it.

Eight hours into the shoot, we still had many more scenes to capture. The crew was tired from working non-stop all day, and the talent was becoming impatient, always waiting for the crew to set up every shot. It was almost beginning to be a bad situation, but somehow after ten hours, we all managed to finish the day in high spirits.

As I nibbled on a doughnut at the end of the night, I thought about how there can never be too much food where there is boredom and stress.

oh no!

Yesterday night, I had a dream that my blog was on the news. People were concerned about my well being because I hadn't posted a blog for a week. Some speculated that I'd been kidnapped, others thought I'd won the lottery and moved to the Bahamas.

Sheepish and guilt ridden by my neglectful ways, I considered the idea of running away.

there's magic in the number three

I'm not doing a good job promoting the public transit system, here is yet another bit of strangeness I experienced the other day:

I was having a conversation with a friend about the diving competition in the olympics,

"Wow, and they can do it synchronized, can you imagine?"
"Yeah, when it played on TV, they took stills from different stages of the dive and compared their poses, it matched exactly! Isn't that amazing?!"


A woman tries to enter the bus with a small child, the door almost closes on the little boy's head. She then proceeds to the front of the bus to show her bus pass. The driver scolds her for using the back doors to enter but she ignores him.

"Isn't it? Isn't it amazing?"

A man starts to yell at the driver, at first I think it's because the driver isn't letting him on, but I see that the door is still open, I leaned forward to try to hear what he's yelling about.

"I mean, for every moment in time that they..."

The woman beside me decides to get off the bus, she sweeps by us, leaving a terrible stench and we notice that she is caressing a white rat on her shoulder, and the rat has a very large protuberance on the side of his stomach.

No conversation can survive events such as these, we let the topic die.

green screen

I want to shoot some video and use it with animated elements and backgrounds, so I have to film in front of something called a green screen. I don't know where to find such a thing to rent, so I "Cheapy Chee'd" it and bought 24 yards of bright green fabric at the Textile Clearance House - I'll make my own green screen!
The poor woman who had to cut the fabric for me, she asked me to repeat how many yards I needed three times because she couldn't fathom the idea of anyone needing 24 yards of bright green fabric. As she measured out the fabric yard by yard, I tried to think of what she might imagine that I would need this fabric for.












...

Surely I won't need ALL 24 yards of fabric for green screening, would I?

success story at the beach

A few weeks ago I attended a beach barbeque. I ate some delicious charred meats, then I lay around for quite a while. When my friend asked me to play frisbee with him, I felt guilty for being so sedentary under the beautiful sun...lazing around is clearly an indoor sport.

I wasn't very good at throwing the frisbee, most of the time it went in the wrong direction, once, it even came back and hit me in the face. My friend taught me that there is such a thing as the perfect time to release the frisbee so that it goes exactly where you want it to. Finally, after practicing quite a few more times I learned to feel the rim of the frisbee rolling off each finger and to let go at the right time. The frisbee soared straight ahead! My friend was able to catch and throw it back to me - this time it didn't hit me in the face.

wasp in the window

The new buses in this city have big windows, but small window openings. The sun beats into the bus, heating the air that can't escape the vehicle. The other day, when I settled into a sun warmed seat, I spotted a wasp in front of me.

It was loitering about, by the window when suddenly it reared back and smashed it's head into the glass. Disoriented, it flew around a bit before it banged into the glass again. This time it fell down to the window sill. Before long it got up, looked out of another section of the window - looked at the beautiful cool breeze tickling the leafy tips of the lush green trees. It rushed headfirst towards the glass again and fell to the window sill.

I understood. I pushed the button to signal that I wanted the bus to stop, and when the doors finally opened, the wasp followed me out.

how to fight insomnia #1

Today I was talking to my friend about her sleepless night. I think everybody has their own way of battling insomnia, but I just wanted to share a trick that always seems to work for me.

First, I settle into a very comfortable position (fetal is most preferable). Then I close my eyes and make sure that the room is dark enough. Now, I will conjure up images of things that make me incredibly happy...I imagine wonderful scenarios like what I would do with a million dollars, or what I would say at my coronation ceremony, and plan my acceptance speech at the Academy Awards.

The more enjoyable this reverie is, the sooner it is that my hateful mind decides that I've had enough fun. It then shuts down and abandons me to the unconscious dreams.

things to savour

I can't help it, I love birthdays. For some people it means partying with friends and being celebrated. I like to treat myself to some fried chicken.

It's not ordinary Church's chicken - it's special because I've been anticipating it for three hundred and sixty four days.

Anything will taste better if you've abstained from it for a long time. Try it!

me, me, me

People have been asking me what I've been up to lately. This is my favorite answer: "Last week I've been mentoring in a workshop!"

Then I like to gush: "It was with a really fun bunch of people who are writers!...and artists! and I get to work with them to make a digital storytelling pieces! based on wonderful things they've already written! They're all fun to be with! and funny too!"

Then before they get the opportunity to tell me to shut up because I'm practically yelping, and it's hurting their ears, I sneak in the final line "I miss them all already!"

What people also find annoying is that I now refer to dates as either pre-workshop or post-workshop. "When did he propose to you? Oh, you mean, three weeks before the workshop started."

It IS possible that I'm being too self-absorbed when it comes to sharing this experience. But I don't think I'm going to stop.

the swim suit search

The other day I bought a month pass to use the public pool near my house. Since I intend to swim a few times a week, I had to go to the mall to buy myself a second bathing suit.

Buying a bathing suit is not an easy task.

It's a solitary endeavor; you don't want new friends to see so much of you. And if you have very good friends who you like, you certainly don't want to subject them to that kind of visual torture.

19 times, I put on a swimsuit and decided that I looked nothing like the picture of the model wearing the bathing suit, on the tag. The women in the pictures look graceful, slim, and pose in a beach setting, though there isn't a hint of sand stuck onto their glistening bodies.

The twentieth time in the change room, I tried on a suit that had it's tag ripped off. I succeeded in looking just like myself.

So I bought it.