looking for atlantis

Shane Koyczan
Another of Shane Koyczan.

I attended a Napoleonic Star Wars themed birthday party on Friday until the small of Saturday morning, dressed as a courtier/tie-fighter rebel pilot, lace ruffles fluttering from the cuffs of my orange pilot’s jumpsuit, a flouncy white cravat at my neck, hair snail-coiled into tiny Leia buns, lips painted in a tiny red heart, and then I walked three miles home in the incredible snow, taking the long route to see a man who wasn’t there, and stopping to buy ice-cream on the way. Coated in white, dripping as I walked up the counter, the windows obscured by flurries. Seriously, you should have seen the sales clerk’s face.

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Shane called just after midnight the other night, thrilled with his pictures, asking if I could shoot his band soon, too. Of course, I said, I would love to, so we set it up that we’ll see each other next month, when they’re in town rehearsing for When I Was A Kid, his upcoming show at the Cultch. If all goes well, however, I’ll miss it completely, as I’ll be out of the country as he stands on stage, somewhere I have never been before with someone I’ve never met yet utterly adore. (My favourite kind of exciting!)

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I have a job interview coming up on Friday, a follow-up to a promising phone call I had last week. I really hope I get this one, far more than usual, as it seems like a perfect combination: a company of good people doing good things, ethical, open-source, media-savvy, and clever, within an easy bike-ride from home. I’ve been keeping busy lately, taking pictures, writing, catching up on MIT’s open course-ware, learning new things, but underneath the triumphant glaze of productivity, there’s been an unwavering desire to jump back into the workforce, take part in more than my own little projects. This job, if I get it, could be the key to an entirely new level of personal satisfaction, so fingers crossed that I am what they need.

images I keep

365: 65 - 06.03.09
365: 65 – 06.03.09

It snowed here yesterday. Gigantic flakes, as big as my entire eye, in clumps the size of small birds. It was almost scary, how fiercely cold it suddenly was, how blindingly white. It felt like being in another country or traveling through time. January, 1993. Somewhere in the city, I am smaller, cold, looking out a window, ignorant that another version of myself is out there somewhere, speeding along in a vehicle with friends I couldn’t imagine having, to an apartment in a city where I would never believe I’m still living. Vancouver translated by the weather into a monochrome model of itself, a ceramic Christmas display for sale in the back of a Family magazine.

Oddly, even as the clouds blotted out anything farther than a block away, yesterday’s dry blizzard had me feeling more connected to the rest of the world, as the entire weekend was filled with reports of freak weather from friends all over this corner of the globe. San Fransisco mildly buried, Seattle laughing out in lightning and unexpected cold, cascades of vintage soap flake perfection drifting through New York. It let me wake feeling lighter today, glad that the trees were still heavy with thick cotton drifts of white, even as everywhere else the streets were melting back to damp black, leaving the sidewalks naked of everything but the usual ragged polka dots of spit out chewing gum.

Because of the snow I witnessed a beautiful thing today: flakes falling powdery out of a tree’s branches, (limbs sketched in charcoal strokes against the downtown morning), like a small, perfect, localized winter, the circular width of a dream.

Henchman’s Helper: a webpage filled with live video cams and weather information from around the world.

my menorah is broken, so I’m using tea lights. they lack a certain something


More goofy Salton Sea goodness via Lung

From the perpetually delightful brain of Mike Levens:

1. Get born in Mecca.
2. Move to Medina.
3. ???
4. Prophet!

Happy first day of Chanukah, everyone!

Apparently it’s Christmas this week too. Generally I notice a little earlier, reminded by parties with good cheer, but this year, not so much. Parties have been thin on the ground and I’ve barely seen more than ten people in the last week. I’ve been too distracted by my computer slowly imploding at home, the failing bus system, my thinning relationship, maybe not having enough money to successfully cover both rent and utilities, and feeling more trapped as every day New Year’s approaches a little more while I still have no plans to celebrate.

I’ve been trying to get my mind off it by jumping through the snow every chance I get, letting the pure child-like glee of all the cold white shoot in through my eyes and into every cell of my body. It really helps – I only wish I had a sled or a toboggan or even a crazy carpet.

Tonight I’m going to be filming the lighting of the hockey-stick shaped ice menorah downtown at the Denman St. ice-rink. (It’s by donation, you should come! There’s going to be latkes!) Tomorrow, though, I don’t have any plans after work. Would anyone like to come play in the snow with me?