Author: foxtongue

Required listening: Zoe Keating’s INTO THE TREES

You know the drill. Stream Zoe Keating’s glorious new album through this widget or do the slightly more clever thing and click through to download the whole thing for $8 or more, depending on how much it’s worth to you that she keeps making music. For example, I’ve been waiting for this album to come out for what feels like half of forever, but I am poor, so I can only give $10 instead of the $25 I’d rather.


A truckload of bricks in the soft morning light

"Like a Dude", a commissioned photo for Brenno Van Sise. Purchase your own from my etsy shop, A Thread of Grace.

Taxes: T4’s arrived, but I mis-answered in the tax booklet. Again. Need replacement paperwork.
Employment: Spoke with Social Services this morning. Have a second interview with a video game company on Friday afternoon. Have more transcription work. Topic, Twitter.
School: Finally finished the arithmetic section of my maths book. Will test myself in three days. Next up, algebra. Tests are soon.
Driving: Need to hash out when I’m available for Young Drivers of Canada classes.
Photography: Updated and polished the Etsy store. One commission shot today. One shoot booked for later this week.
Cleaning: Almost all of my things are back in my room. Only boxes of miscellany remain.
Repairs: One of the cats pulled down our coat rack. The microwave suddenly does not turn on. The antique chest of drawers is missing a handle.

Other than all that, life consists mostly of tidying the apartment, doing laundry, folding things, investigating what might be left to try and sell on Craigslist, sending off endless, repetitive cover letters and resume, and wishing I had slightly more to eat. To shake things up a little, I went to visit Jenn and Steve today, who were darling, and stayed until almost far too late. As a bonus, I finally got a tour of the townhouse that they bought (which was also darling). Spurred on by this feat, I have once again reinstated my desire to see people again. I’ve been significantly more active lately than I have been over the last few months, as if I’m climbing, fumbling, out of winter, drained by gray and tired, into the bright social buzz of spring and summer, but I fear it’s not enough. As a gentle nudge back into the light, tomorrow’s plans are similar, mixing as they do the regular flat responsibilities of life, returning bottles, taking out the recycling, with sweet, social escape in the form of a tasty lunch with Sara. Her wedding is coming up, too. Seems to be the year for it, though I have physical evidence that I cringed away from Lisa’s bouquet.

living on small tragedy street

Word of the day – Gesamtkunstwerk: the total work of art, or rather, the idea of design for the totality of an object instead of individuation of its parts

How do you tell when you’re overly tired? I have certain mental tics that arrive, stupid songs that play in my head, this shit is bananas, simple, repetetive lyrics I would never otherwise be conscious of knowing, b-a-n-a-n-a-s, and I hold little conversations with myself, dumbed down to the point of ridiculousness, where the words like “yo” and “dude” and terms like “for reals” feature heavily. It seems that on the point of exhaustion, my brain dissolves into a ten year old internet pixie, the sort that spells “you” with only one letter. Not quite lolcat, but something similar, insidious, and slightly worse, as if a children’s television show producer has snuck into my skull and started scribbling on the walls in mile high luminous letters completely devoid of meaning.

I have so reached that point. In fact, I reached it a couple of hours ago, back when it was still yesterday, but instead of curling up in my giant cozy bed like a person who has good ideas then follows through with them, I have been fighting with my printer. My amazing, life changing, totally bonzo photo printer. That I love. When I do not hate it. Like I do right now. Because the damned thing, (though I coddle it as if was alive and cute, squalling like the useless infant it so obviously is), ran out of gray ink and will not go.

If it was only the printer that was giving me a hassle, I would have simply gone to bed upon this discovery with the full intention of getting up tomorrow, purchasing some ink, installing it, then letting it all ride wild, but no. My computer, as well, is refusing to run. I spent four solid hours using it yesterday, and let me tell you, it’s a freaking joy to work on, that screen is like staring into the caring eyes of some technocratic deity, and then it asked, ever so nicely, for a reboot, as there was some update that required such and oh, won’t it be sweet when I restart and everything is shinier? I figured, alright, sure. I need to pop out and pick up a tuxedo anyway. So I saved everything, hit restart, and head out the door. Upon my return, what did I find? A dead black screen.

My body, at this point, actually filled with dark, cold dread.

It seems that it did shut down, but failed to properly restart. Trying again begat identical results. Awful, terrible results. Running all the diagnostics possible brought me to the same dead screen, without even the comfort of a useless blinking cursor. Rolling back the boot failed, the memory test failed, the safe start failed, the whatever that other thing I found that I guess comes with Win7 failed. Everything. Failed.

So that was three hours of my life.

At which point, I finally turned to my laptop, though as photo editing goes, I’m not sure if there’s anything worse to colour correct with than a laptop screen. I figured, ah well, I will do my best, and my best will save me, it will be enough, and this project will lift from the ground and soar, even so. Hooking it up to the printer proved a bit of a chore, as at first it didn’t want to take directions from such a paltry machine after knowing the full glorious might of my desktop computer, but after a bit of a wrangle, I won, and it submit to my tender ministrations, as gentle and pure as a metaphorical lamb. By midnight, I was ready. Course, as soon as the pictures were all settled up, the printer joined in the technology hate party, mocking me with a dull red refill light, even after I was so damned nice to it, head cleaning, running a re-alignment, all of those things you do when you’re starting up such a beautiful machine after a sad month of sorrowful neglect. Which leads me to now, after two a.m., deciding upon the third recitation of the stupid banana song, (who is responsible for that terrible thing, anyway? I refuse to look it up. Or know.), that it is time to abandon my original plan, and instead go tomorrow and pay filthy dollars to some dime store clerk and have them do all my printing for me. Out of spite, you ask? No, out of worn to the bone exhaustion. It’s the wedding rehearsal tomorrow, the wedding the day after that, yet my rent needs be paid, and so I stay up and up and up, though I don’t have time for this. I don’t. Nor do you, probably, so I wish us luck and good night!

because I don’t already have enough photos to work on, obviously

Tony and I took advantage of the latest Threadless $10 sale and my street team points to stock up on some new t-shirts for summer. Aside from finally snagging matching Damn Scientists shirts, which I assure you we will wear while out together like the cutesy couple we are, oh yes, I picked out The Mississippi Phoenix, Globetrotter, and RED, and he picked out two of my absolute favourites, Ways of Making You Talk and Midnight Showing. We’re going to have a t-shirt photo day when they arrive, the better to stock up more street team points. Do you have a Threadless shirt you’d like a picture of for the site? Drop me a line. It’s going to be a really fun shoot.