People

Brilliant. I got married and quit blogging. I'm a blogging statistic.

 I started out as a single blogger who read other single bloggers.

In all fairness, I was slowing down pretty good long before the conflict-free, recycled diamond ring.

I'm pretty sure I'll never write a Christian-wife blog or a mommy blog. But I guess you never know. A year ago I decided to pursue travel writing. And then I got married instead. I went to Australia, then took a couple courses and started writing full-time. Just not here. I love my job, but I think it hurt my love for rambling posts and Because or Why Not. Who knows what next year will bring.

Now at least three of my RL single friends have started marvellous travel blogs as they start changing the world in Uganda and the Philippines, or just explore the globe on their own terms.

I'm posting this because I still read your blogs. I do. Allison, Tabs, Risha, Alex... Sometime only every few months. But 20sb still taught me to care about people I've never met.

Google Reader is leaving us in July. And then I'm turning 27.

I miss this, but you can't have it all.

I will find a way to continue stalking reading your blogs.

And, Risha. How'd you do on 101? I thought it ended in April, only to find my cut-off was January. I will be making a new list this summer.

Broken Pieces

I think of you like yesterday,

(ElifKarakoc)

a smile on your face.

An array of broken pieces

all but dappled shades of gray.

I think of you as everything.

Deception that was chance.

The thought of what we used to be.

Fading error, trip and dance.

I think of us as nothing,

just the stories that we told.

The passion of a summer's morn.

Open water, flakes of gold.

I ponder.  Pensive.  Carefully,

a thought I should forget.

The heavy rest of midnights past

a glimpse I should regret.

For tightly tangled, hidden now.

Leather boots, my thoughts, this kiss.

The comfort of an autumn day.

So much I must dismiss.

Worth Having

Come Autumn I need change... and things. 

It's been a summer full of fun, confusion and living like I was free.  It was rope swings and barbeques.  Rock climbing and iced coffee.  It was boys and camping and a star spread sky.  To much rain and not enough lightening.  Best friends and family, the two of those combined.  Long talks, happiness and the world beneath my motorbike.  It was mistakes for all of us, decisions among us and more good relationships than I could possibly have hoped.

It was a summer worth having.

And now I'm here.  In a big empty beige house with no furniture.  And in classrooms discussing Philosophy, Psychology and knowing I'll be struggling through homework.  Learning how to write creatively.  Because I've never dabbled in that before.  Thinking about taking on more freelance journalism through this all.  With a blue-eyed boy I care for.  In a city I've always thought was unattractive discovering hidden places where beauty exists.

Feeling seventeen sitting on the back step drinking lemonade out of mugs because we don't have chairs or glasses.  Holding hands, smiling lots.  Opening crisp new school supplies and learning my way around.

It's more change than I could possibly hope for.  It should be a fall worth having.

Scratch That

I kind of forgot what blogging is about.  Actually, scratch that.  I never really knew what blogging is all about.  Quite honestly, I've always been confused there.  I know I don't blog strictly for myself.  I certainly don't blog for financial gain.  What is it that's so fulfilling about posting my ramblings on the internet?

Regardless, I still managed to somehow forget.  And, I suppose, sometimes a breather is needed.  I have no intention of actually going away.  I've been dreadfully sick with a tonsil infection but it's just now starting to clear up.  I still like mutual-like guy, and it's still mutual.  However, we just recently decided to just be friends for the moment.  Mostly due to my reservations.  It's kind of sad but also remarkably relieving and I'm happy with the decision.  In an ironic twist he gained a lot of additional respect by concluding that I needed to be confident with my decision and either jump in or step back.

Today it's raining and I have on my rainy-day mood.  All of a sudden I refuse to be carefree and I need to question everything.  Here I am.  Maybe that's what my blogging is about.

(Dannyst)

As Open as the Road Can Get

And a good time was had by all.

That's Me, Alright

Shayla: Oh, I love Taylor Swift.
Kris: I like Taylor Swift far to much for a self-respecting twenty-four year old who doesn't like country.
Shayla: I love country music.  You don't like country?
Kris: Nope.
Shayla: What do you like to listen to, then?
Kris:  Ummm, I listen to a lot of different stuff.  Mostly like....
Shayla (interrupting): Hip hop?
Kris: Errr, no, more like....  Wait.  Hip hop?   Do I strike you as someone who listens to hip hop?
Shayla: Yeah.  Or, you know, something you can groove out to.

Apparently I come across as a pretty groovy person.

Here

This post will not be long. It will not have photos, it will not rhyme, and my wording will not be impeccable. I will not be telling you to vote (my ballot was cast advance) or commenting on certain political developments. This is the first full blog post I am composing via iPad, but my reasons are good.

I am in Prince George, en route in a two week back-country hard-camping road trip to the Yukon. Last night we slept under Jasper stars and watched a hint of northern lights streaking the sky.

I recently turned down a job promotion, met a boy I share a lot of mutual like with, found a room mate with a thirst for adventure and a long history of learning to appreciate each other (we're succeeding). Pre-wrote half a month of paid posts and put my car on the road after biking for a month.

It's nice to have an open road, a full tank of gas and two of the coolest brothers you can imagine to share this with. This is here.

Lonely Again

My room mate is leaving tomorrow and I'd be lying if I said I'm not even a little bit sad.

(Aly-Wan)

Not because she's the best room mate I've ever had.  She's not.  Not because we spent a lot of time together.  We didn't.  I alternate between sadness and very glad that never again will she eat all my food when I'm not looking.  Never again will I have to listen to her boyfriend and her at 2:00 AM through cardboard walls.  Never again will all the dishes and the salt shaker end up in a pile on her bedroom floor.  Never again will she leave the toilet paper empty and the lights all on.  Never again will....  Umm...  That's it actually.  She's a beautiful (and incredibly hot) seventeen year old who's sweet and mostly pretty considerate.

She makes me want to mother her.  Not to worry.  I never treated her as anything but an adult.

I'm also kind of excited for her.  Because she's excited with the excitement of a seventeen year old who's never headed out on her own.  And I'm a little bit jealous because she's going on a road trip with the boy she loves to plans she's optimistically thrilled about.

Oh, to be seventeen again...

But I'm sad.  Because I'm not nearly as optimistic as she is.  Because we'll never eat popsicles for breakfast and talk about travel plans together again.  Because I never met her brother, never saw her step-dad's straw house construction, never talked to her about things I think are most important.  She taught me I'm not quite as confrontational as I think I am.  Especially with someone I don't know and wish I did.

And I'm selfishly sad.  Because I know in two weeks I'll be talking to myself again.  I'll be sitting on my couch eating a meal I cooked for myself.  I'll realize I'm more comfortable if I know someone else will come home.  Or that, even if she rarely emerges, there's someone else in my other room.  And I'll realize How much I don't like living alone.

Seventeen 'Till I Die

Today my room mate turned seventeen.  I told her, as I always tell people who turn that age, that seventeen is the best year.  In my mind I could fairly happily stay seventeen forever.  But why?

(xCoffeeAddict)

It was actually a pretty crappy year.  I was lacking direction and fought to no end with the school I'd chosen to graduate with.  This ended in tears and the principals office.  As well as fantasies of judo-throwing her incompetent self through the floor (she got fired the next year, and had been shuffled around repeatedly because she can't do her job).

I got kicked out of home.  It didn't last long, but was something of a reflection of my family situation in general.  I never got pregnant, did drugs or assorted rebel behaviour.  My parents just didn't get down with my lack of respect for imposed authority.

I spent three assorted months house sitting.  Nothing seemed more magical then a place to myself.

I questioned the beliefs I was raised with late at night, realizing they'd have to become mine, and not sure if they could.

I built.  Houses, with my Dad.

I passed my road test and took to driving like I was made for it.

I dedicated myself to judo, and subsequently reached my peak.

I struggled to establish a social group after the six month trip earlier that year threw a massive friggin' wrench in the one I was supposed to have.

For whatever reason, all that compiled into a belief that seventeen is independence, freedom and life more abundantly.

In the month before I turned eighteen I bought my own little car that I learned to love.  I also graduated, put a down payment on a place, moved out and got a full time permanent job.

Maybe it's just that I never much cared for being an adult.

I Hate the Fact

I hate the way he whispers

(AvrilkaTff)

in your hair when I'm around.
I hate the way you close the door
And pretend there's not a sound.
I hate the way you giggle
like you're happy, 'cause you're not
I hate the way I tell myself
I won't give this a thought.

I hate that this is temporary,
everything will change.
I hate the way you look at me,
you think that I'm insane.
I hate his twisted eyebrows
and his soft but piercing stare.
I hate that you convince yourself
you make a perfect pair.

I knew you as a child,
yes, I knew you better then.
Getting to know you better, now,
is something I intend.
It's hard, though, when he holds you close,
and knows I know the truth.
It's hard, though, when you hold his hand
and won't accept the proof.

I've made my own mistakes, you know.
I'm not one to pretend.
I'd take my own advice, you know,
if I could do it all again.
I've learned a few hard lessons,
guess they shaped me as I grew.
I think about it now,
the same will happen to you.

I hate him for the way I know
he'll let you down one night.
I hate there's nothing I can do
to help you learn to fight.
I hate the fact I care to much,
I just can't help you see.
But I know you're just becoming
the beautiful woman to be.

---

Hello to any awesome new followers, and welcome!  Don't worry, I only rarely inflict my "poems" upon you all.

Getting in Hot Water

"Can you girls just hand me that beer?"

Let me back up a little.

After taking the wrong back road we managed to arrive just at dusk (this is Canada in January so, like, 5:30).  My Civic braved the mining road like the gem she is.  We'd parked on the far end of the pull off and set up our tent on top of two feet of snow and three tarps.  After unrolling our sub-temperature sleeping bags (that means "You will survive."  Not, "You will be comfortable.) We finally shivered our way into bathing suits, hoodies and snow boots.

Cue: Classic natural hot springs.  A beautiful set of pools surrounded by snowy overhangs.  large flat rocks, river within fifteen feet, the toking crowd and snowflakes that melt in your hair.  A star spread sky.

What makes it all worth it, as inclusion to the joy of getting in hot water, is the chance to spend hours with people you care about.  The rare opportunity to do so without cell phones.  Without texting, social etiquette concerns or pressing engagements.

Finally as our single water proof time-piece neared one AM the girls in our group climbed back onto the path.  By now the only people left in the pool were the guys from our group and a few others we came to dub "The Canadians."  Strange, yes, seeing that the rest of us excepting one fit that definition ourselves.

Rather then braving the outhouses at the top of the trail we opted to change on the path.  Four of us took turns holding up towels and dropping our wet suits into a frozen heap on the ground.  I stood holding the towel for a very naked friend.  The other two of us were also engaged in providing and using these make shift change rooms.  That's when The Canadians piped up.

"Uh, girls.  Is there, like another beer up there?  Just, yeah, do you see a Molson?"

I glanced down.  three feet to my right I could spy the top of a can.

"Yeah.  There's one right here."

"Oh, yeah, cool.  Do you, like, think you could just hand it to us?"

I glanced down.  My friend was looking for a bra in our snowy pile.  I was balancing a flashlight and a the two corners of the towel.  Since we'd been at this ten minutes already I would've thought that The Canadians could have figured out the inappropriateness of the request.

"Seriously?  Hand you your beer?  Umm, yeah.  Just let me drop my towel on my friend here and hand you your beer."

No, I didn't say that.  I mumbled something about in a minute.  Canadian dude started scrambling up the bank.

"Oh, there it is.  Just out of reach."

Luckily girl number five managed to reach us in time to hand him his Molson and they faded off to the bottom pool.

Why did we call them the The Canadians?  They were proof as to where our stereotypes actually come from.  And very much thanks to this quote.

"I f***in' drink beer all the time.  F***in' Christmas shopping, I drink beer.  In the f***in' shower I drink beer.  Driving to these hot springs I drink beer.  F***in' love beer, man!"

We figured out a better process the next morning.  Arrive at the pools when there is nobody around.  Toss a frozen chunk of suits and towel into the hottest pool.  Proceed to change.  It's really too bad that the colder it is in open air the better the hot spring experience.

The Middle of Nowhere in the Middle of the Night

Dec. 31st, 2009, 11:30 PM.  I needed change.

11:30 PM and someone said we should climb the lookout.  In the middle of a wildlife reserve.  In the dark.  We were in the middle of this nowhere anyway.  We were tired of flying down an icy hill on over-sized tubes and throwing gasoline on the fire.  I was tired of chocolate Christmas baking and being the oldest in the group.  I was tired of doing doughnuts in empty parking lots and hours spent running in a mild winter out of pure frustration.

twenty five of us piled into four cars and sped down to the empty reserve and a clear starry sky.  We ran down clapboard paths over dead winter marshes and up the four flights of steps to the open top.  We made it, breathless, by midnight.

I screamed at the emptiness and my small town's lights in the distance.  I grabbed my blonde friend and we looked at each other, jaws set.

"Get lost, 2009.  We're so done with you!"

She was going to Calgary.  I was going to Arizona.  I haven't seen her since.  I miss her, but I know her life has gone the way she wanted.

And myself.  I just didn't know.   I'm not my brothers that were hugging me, lifting me, threatening to throw me over the rail.  I'd given up construction long ago.  I was twenty three.  I'd seen the world.

Twenty four of us yelling in the new year.  Crammed in an open look-out tower blindly hugging and looking forward to 2010.  And me.

'Cause That's How We Roll

(C-Money)

Guess what I did?

You didn't guess.

That's okay.  You wouldn't anyway.  I entered a singing contest.

It better be fun.  I managed to convince a couple friends to join me.  One of them has the voice of that's as rich and strong as hot honey.  Hearing her sing puts me to sleep.  I wish I had a recording I could let you hear.

Which means I'm not going to win, but I'll have a good time.  That's o.k.  Who enters competitions with an intent to win, anyway?  I just love music, and my voice has always been my strongest instrument.  I sing without realizing it.

So now I'm hitting up Youtube Karaoke to see what I'm actually capable of.

That's all I wanted to say and only  'cause I think it's cool.  Sorry :)

Hetzbasheket

Today I miss Silent Arrow. I miss almost everything about it. Dancing with poi in the courtyard, walking into Mitzpe to bring back grocery staples and asking for two reciepts in my best Hebrew. Laughing at absolutely everything all the time. I miss talking to Ori late at night and having him think I was insightful, despite his superior mastery of my language. I miss lighting the candles or stealing Sason's mp3 and listening to his techno because we didn't have other music. I miss the hand drums and the guitar.

I've talked about the desert before.  There's something about the silent sky, the blazing stars, the eternal aridness that calms this mountain girl. Silent arrow is where I learned this.  I'm not sure why this is so, or why I'd never learned it earlier in Mexico.  Perhaps I never needed it before.  Maybe it was being abandoned when I was vulnerable.  I miss sitting over the crater talking to Sason all night about our futures because we knew we'd never talk again.  I miss the stoners and the wanderers and being on my own.  

If you ever make it to Mitzpe Ramon say hello for me.

I miss feeling like I could be gone forever, or as long as I needed to be.  I miss walking barefoot over sun warmed stones.  I miss chopping crates for firewood and stoking the fire late at night when I should've been curled up beneath my hippi blanket.  I miss doing the dishes because my best friend cooked us dinner.  I miss endless cups of desert tea and I miss arak mixed with grapefruit juice.  I miss smoking sheesha with the kids who drove down on weekends.  

I miss the freedom and knowing everything would be alright.

All photos through Hetzbasheket on Facebook

Dance Like Summer Will Never End

(Timothy-Sim)

We'll blow the speakers by the end of the night playing last year's dance hits.  Everyone is here, now.  The kid in the fedora wanting to play dj.  There's always one.  The gorgeous indie girl kissing her boyfriend on the bale couch.  It's covered with a denim quilt.  The hipster, the player, the thinker.  Tonight this barn is the place to be.

The big dipper is visible through the door to this loft. I can lean on old silver wood and breathe in the field air. Fill my empty can from the hose or sit in the other room by an overturned washer to gossip with my best friend or chill with the guys.

We'll line dance, slow dance, and do the Macarena. Someone will teach me the Cha Cha and someone else the square step. Mostly we'll just dance and laugh and flirt a little.

It feels a little bit like prom night in skinny jeans and tank-tops. And a little bit like a bush party with a dance floor.  A little bit like the club we're trying to imitate.  A little bit alive and a little bit young. Christmas lights and a strobe light. Tonight we won't complain about the local nightlife. Tonight we've created our own.

You learn to love the summer nights here. The cool breeze on sweaty skin. An outdoors far too big to hold. Racing cars across the flats, evening fires by the lake, long talks and love and travelers to share a glance with. Autumn comes to soon.

---

I apologize for not taking any pictures of my own.  I came nowhere near finding a photo that captured this post properly.

This week I am Mama M's date from over at My Little Life.  Makes her the hottest Mom on my block.  I'm honoured, and a big welcome to all my visitors!

Also, I told you to visit The Spiraling Chronicles and leave a comment.  For my favourite followers in the world you're all pretty disobedient.  You're still the best, but you might want to think about it.

Fragments of Friendships

They're memories of you. All of you. Sometimes I don't open the drawer for months. Other times I take them out five times in a single day. Pulling these close to my heart, brushing them with my lips. Clenching them in my fists or throwing them back and slamming the drawer.

Random pieces. I like life a little better when I forget they exist.

A homemade necklace. A charm that says “friends.” Yours said “forever,” of course. We were twelve and we knew it. This one is a broken heart. That's not what it meant at the time.

I hold it now and it remember the confusion of torn families I only observed. Whispers over the phone. And you disappearing one week without a goodbye. The strong decision your Mom needed to make. I still see your Dad sometimes. I'm glad you're free, and I trust you grew into a woman that would make your Mom proud. Confirm she made the right decision. I know more, now. Things I wasn't ready to understand when I was twelve. Things you probably weren't either, but had to. I'm sorry. I wish my two letters could've said more then that I missed you.

Where are you now? I don't know. I guess I never will. I searched your name on Facebook, but it's probably not what it was.  I still have that piece of pressed metal that says “friends.” That's what I'll remember you as.

A sand dollar. I was sixteen now, walking with you down an abandoned Mexican beach. I was so proud to call you my best friend. So sure you were cool, you convinced me that athletic teenage girls like us looked good in over sized t-shirts. We would wrestle, and I would win. I believe that you thought it would last forever. I trusted you.

At nineteen we lost touch, but I still have that sand dollar. I wrote letters, e-mails. I poured my heart out and scribbled in my notebook. Life did get in the way. Such different paths, you and I. We share the most important now, but it's not enough.

I'm sorry. I try to hard.

A pair of drumsticks. They say you'll love me forever. I almost believed that, too. Luckily I was jaded enough to question it all.

I know I held you at arms length for longer then you thought possible. But you were my best friend. A misjudgment, but I wish that part could have been true. I cried with you well you held me. I cried when I left. I stuck by you until I couldn't any more. It was too long, yet far too short.  How you could blindly cut me like that, I'll never know.

These drumsticks will never tell.

And you. You haunt my life more then any other with these reminders. We shared our childhood, our struggles and, finally, my home. Others came and went, but you were like my sister. My sister with communication skills that would never match mine. Is that where we went wrong? This crumpled stack of notes, letters, ramblings? This giant paper clip, teddy bear and a heart. How unlike us, then. You and I with our hitch hiking, our first time swearing, our baggy jeans. The times we shunned each other and our mutual respect.

And this last letter. The one where you asked me not to reply. The one I'll never understand.

I'm closing the drawer for now.  I've learned that others will be added, despite my greatest efforts and my learned reservations. I regret that it's still so damn worth it.

(photo source: Barcarola)

When Skater Boys Strip

(Source: Afireoutsideme on Deviant Art)

Pretend it's June in North Ontario.  The sun is weak, the town is tiny and the area is stunningly beautiful.  It's also St. Jean Baptiste which means the Quebecers in my little group want to get wasted* and declare their sovereignty.

Now, I'm not all Vivre Quebec, but I enjoyed hanging out with the biggest Libre believer of them all.  Thom was a guitarist of the tenth degree.  A ponderer with a French-guy afro.  Funny, deep, and a little bit lost.  Being as it was Quebec's national holiday he got all introspective and wanted to wander off to the beach with his guitar.  I was bored on our free block and decided to go along.  Mostly, I confess, I wanted to sit looking over Lake Superior and listening to Thom's acoustic guitar.

As we got closer to the beach a cop car pulled up and informed us that a bear had just been reported on the beach.  There's another thing about this town.  It wasn't unusual to see black bears crossing the street in the middle of town.  With a dejected Thom I turned and meandered down towards main, stopping at their little skate park.

Laying on the curved concrete Thom played and I listened.

Groups of fourteen year-old boys can be a little obnoxious.  Especially when it's a birthday party and they're on the way to the corner store to try scam cigarettes.  They spotted us like prey on a field mouse.

"Dude, you're amazing.  Man, play us something."
"What do you want?"
"Play us some Slipknot!  Know any Metallica?  Dude, Slash!  Who's she?"
"Kris.  She sings."  I shot Thom my "way to try switch the heat" look.
"Dude!  Play us something and she can sing."

Kids don't shut-up easily.  Thom cued the opening bars of Hotel California, about the only song that we both knew he could play and I could sing through.  Amid just-breaking voices and experimental swearing he glanced at me.  Kind of a "just do it, I dare you."

As I started on dark desert highways and cool wind in my hair the miraculous happened.  The group shut-up.  They stood against the graffiti and stared.  When the guitar died they were all, "Man, that was amazing.  Amazing!  Beautiful!  Really."  That's right.  We got a fourteen year old male to use "beautiful" as description.

Then the birthday kid dropped twenty bucks in Thom's case.  Twenty-bucks!  We were on a youth volunteer program, so that was a night out at the Legion (yes, the Legion was the happening night life).  It was his birthday money, but he wouldn't take it back.

They headed off to the convenience store.  We returned to our non-heavy metal under the night sky, but it wasn't too long before they were back.

"Dude!  You were amazing!  But we're out of money, Man.  Here.  Have a rock."
"No way, Man.  They're too good for a rock!  Here, have my shirt.  No, seriously, take it!"
I was laughing.  Thom was like, "C'mon guys!  You can't go home without a shirt.  No, it's cool."
"No really.  Take my shirt.  Take my shoes."

"Here!  I'll give you my pants!"

To our chagrin a barely teen dropped his pants.  Right there on the skate park of a little northern town.

"Want my boxers, too?  I'll give 'em to you!"

Thom was freaking out a little.  I couldn't stop laughing.  We managed to get the kids to (mostly) keep their boxers on.  Eventually it was us who had to leave them running around the ramps partially dressed.

"I was scared," Thom confessed.  "Man, like, maybe we get in trouble for little kids strip in front of us!"

It was perfect.  My first and only St. Jean Baptist.  But regardless it'd probably be my favourite.

*Yes, I see the irony as the holiday is (apparently) named after a saint.

Rachelle

We have a history.  I think that's worth something.

I know you never liked me that first summer.  I was fifteen and obnoxious.  You were sixteen and insecure.  A good mix, I know.  We slept in that tent, rode in the back of pick-ups, napped in the afternoon sun.  We listened to a lot of Rebecca St. James.  I was on the right, you were in the middle, the glue was over there on the left.  We were a trio, so obviously meant to be thrown together.  Funny how we were opposites despite the circumstances

I never understood.  I was young.  Of course I knew everything.  I want you to know I still cared.

You've gone a little skate punk and stayed a little preppy.  I've gone a little hippi and stayed a little tomboy.  Are we a study in contrasts?  Still each on those opposing and identical journeys to figure out where we fit.

I remember working it out.  What we couldn't do face to face we said over e-mail.  Yeah, you were in Virginia and love, with so much discovery left.  I remember crying to you on my couch as I told you part of my past.  I never knew why I showed you that hidden vulnerable side of myself.

Boys, travel, school.  We've both grown through a lot.  You've become a beautiful woman.  Much different then anyone thought.  An artist, athlete, thinker and adventuress.

We've never been best friends.  I know we never will be.  I just want to thank-you for the effort.  The fact that, after it all, we can still sleep in a tent.  Maybe I'll be on the right and you'll be in the middle.  We can talk about how it doesn't make sense.  We listen to that mix c.d. and drive with the windows down.  You've taught me a lot with your searing honesty and occasional disdain.  Things your patience and frustration needed me to know.  I hope I've been a little bit worth it.

Photo source: Janne-landet on Deviant Art

Peel the Label

There will always be smokers cluttering the entrance.  Freshly exhaled nicotine wafting away in clouds.  I would step out with my friends to stand beneath the streetlights and discuss the crowds.  Escape the music and breathe the frigid night air.

Stepping back inside we'll drape our coats over a bar stool.  Everything a soft orange glow beneath neon signs advertising Labatt, Bud and Stella Artois.  Cheap hits play just loud enough so we have to lean in close.  Nelly Furtado, Les Cowboy Frigant, Usher.  We're all waiting our turn at the pool table.  No one is brave enough to step onto the ten by ten hardwood against the wall, yet.

I am aware of everything.  The way  I hold my beer, trying not to warm it as I drink it slowly.  The barmaids heels walking past my boots.  Laughing at a joke, biting my lip, running my fingers through my hair.

I'll drop a loonie in the table.  I'm usually the one with spare change.  This time I play a French artist.  We make a good challenge.  I'll break, loving that first tight shot.  The only one that always works.  Not really caring who wins, just how well I play.  I've learned to chalk my cue by rolling it with my foot, never doubting how cool this makes me.  My French friend plays well, although I banter with him about how he'll lose.  He is deep, that one.  Too deep, really.  I will miss him.

Leaning against the bar with the girls in my group we smile and talk about summers back home.  I sip their coolers and look back at the tables.  Brown bottles and green felt.  Beer and billiards.  It even looks good on a random who should really work out and wears slightly tacky t-shirts.  Or maybe I shouldn't order another drink.

We will walk down the street, our breath crystallizing as we hurry to that basement place where we can afford the two dollar cover.  Or maybe we'll go to the folky Rafiot with their live music, shandy and checker boards.  Regardless, we'll always stop at Tim Horton's on the way back.  I'll order a moyen Carmel Anglais for a dollar forty-nine and try to sit with whomever is still sober.  It ends up making no difference. 

Falling asleep on my rickety top bunk beneath that provided pink plaid comforter I forget to realize I'll never have a twentieth winter again.

Condensed version of a friend and I chatting online.  Unnecessary bits removed:
"What else has been happing?"  Inquired friend
"Not much.  Trying to get excited about staying here now that I know I am."
(Have I mentioned that I got a job.  This is an important bit of info.  It is also sufficiently freaking me out.  But I'm like that.)
Friend and I have similar backgrounds and very different personalities.  We're both the oldest of big families who were homeschooled and raised in this little town.  We both made a point of getting out of here, went and did a lot of (not at all related) things, and are now back.  This is where the similarities end.  But it was enough to put us in the same social circle.
"Oh yeah.  How's that going?"  Asked friend.
"Depends on the moment," said I, "sometimes I pull it of.  Mostly it's going to need a lot work."
"I dunno, but this thought just popped into my head.  What if we went and did exciting stuff here that we've never done before.  What if we treated this town like we weren't from here."
Now this, this is a crazy thought.  One that requires a entirely new approach.
"I'm intrigued!  What would happen If nobody here had any preconceived ideas.  Oh, and ps, I didn't have any preconceived ideas."
Let me explain.  I went on shift today.  I knew probably a third of people I was introduced to, and everyone is acquainted with at least two family members of mine.  I don't really know, but can you appreciate the implications of something like this?
"Well," Friend replied, "it would be hard to do because, in reality, those ideas exist.  But I'll leave us with that thought, it's time for me to go to bed."
I think this is a very interesting challenge, and I'm not quite sure how to start.  It'll take a little imagination.