my friend anne just made me watch this. I was mesmerized. Sat rapt. ALL MY TIME IN VANCOUVER. My past life flashed before my eyes.

Radar

Here is where i live now. It is called the 'radar apartments'. I love this image. It was built by the military
(awesome (that's sarcasm)) in 1948 as a SIGNAL STATION! I can feel it. I love living in buildings that were not meant to be lived in....but become that - living spaces. I like this because it feels very neutral. Having spent the last month at the 100+year old haunted Macaulay House in Dawson has loaded me up enough for the next decade. I need neutral. This new space is a very open space with the highest ceilings i've ever seen in a non-living space plus wall of windows plus a good eggshell white wall for me to work on. The light is outstanding. It is perfect light. I feel like a plant in a good spot.  I will get much work done in here.
Oh. And the hallways. Sick. Dark wood panelboard and just DARK and more dark and SHINING. I love it. It's totally weird and suits me just fine.
For now.

Now I Am Forty

 "Light from a cake is such a great light. Maybe we should just live in cake light", says Claire from Six Feet Under. She might have been stoned when she said that. But she is right. It is the best light.

This was fun. The painting in the background is still pencilled outline from Alice Munro's 'Lives Of Girls And Women'..but i blacked out those four letters. Everyone is making a big deal out of forty..it feels as epic and as on par as losing one's virginity...Forty feels better than 20 and 30. I've always known it would be this way. I've always known it would be better some day. And it is.
My friend Wendy threw a sweet and very special and very small little birthday party for me at the shack. She got me a  cake, bunny ears and sushi. It was perfect. I only like small parties from now one. Thank you Wendy!

other people's art

THIS photo (sorry..ART)  made me laugh! Let's get random. I love the styro foam he's using like wrist rests..and that he's propped up on work horse-whatever-those-things-R w/ boxes of sh*t underneath (AWESOME) and every other obvious thing about it that is hilarious (a single magenta croc (double gross), the poorly faked amputated knee (we can see that it's bent), cucumber fingers? sezza whatta?). Outstanding. bravo bravo.

this image is called 'crystal swallow' i think. I like it. ..to temper that sick other image is the great Simone d. Beauvoir (a quote of hers is the crux or nucleus of a current book project. How obvious is that?) and some more art. I found that art here...stumbled upon it while i was looking up  (one of)  the only galleries i like in Toronto.

My eyes are sore.
I'll snap out of my sarcasm like an elastic band listening to Elastica.
Just give me  5 minutes.

and lastly (it's hard 2 believe that word exists. it seems wrong but i'm using it)

IF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINES ARE THE 'YELLOW PLAGUE' THEN BUILD ME A CROUP TENT OR THROW ME IN QUARANTINE FOR 24 YEARS! FINE! NO PROBLEM! NO MORE NGMs! please!

(as much as i dearly love them).

Yes. still at residency. still sorting.
xo
ps. tried zumba today. no comment.
Alright. Comment: i have mild dyslexia and i can only move to my own moves.
it was alright. the music was awful so that made it a drag. Over produced processed latin beats? NO THANK YOU. fix the music and i'll reconsider.

NOTHINGNESS

this is part of an installation i did a few years ago. i like it @ this moment b/c it is almost Nothing. I have a love of nothingness.

WHEN YOU ARE BORED YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT

 like posting (stupid) pictures of yourself (cos no one else is gonna do it (my tagline))
And by using the word 'stupid', am i depreciating the self?

i'm quite into these hilarious LOOK AROUND YOU instructional videos (link is below) made by some brilliant UK jokesters from the earlier part of the 200000s. Micah Adams here at the residency showed me one yesterday. The details are outstanding: scientists pointing out everything with pencils...to the point of pointing out the pencils with pencils.

When you have 10 minutes to yourself i suggest kicking back with one (especially if you have a bowl of soup to eat).  MATHS is my favourite. I was watching the 'ghosts' one b4 bed last night. Bad idea. APPARENTLY the Macaulay House is haunted. I've been having bad dreams and i'd say there is something ghostie going on. It probably didn't help that we were out at an abandoned mining compound last night poking around through all the rubble. It's safe to say that ALL of Dawson City is haunted. There was a whole bike graveyard with turn-of-the century bike parts. So much junked machinery. Rust never sleeps.
PS that's a picture of me trying not to crack up and trying to capture some ghosts in the mirror. When you are bored you can do anything you want.

I wasn't bored. 

LOVE IS A BEACH

Collage: Over the Edge is the movie I have been watching since i was eight years old. Since 1978. The youtube trailer does not do it justice. I will talk about this movie again. Back to this: the textiles are mine - angora sweater scraps from making bunnies stitched back to gether to make a quilt (it'll be years in the works). Look at Madonna's eyebrows! Aren't they something! (not even a question). I spent a fair amount of energy looking at photos of her the other night. I read the comments rather in-depth (never do). It was revelatory. The consensus of the common people: She is a BITCH.

Ain't nothing wrong with being a bitch.
Although being a bitch for extended periods can eventually go All About Eve sideways.

I'm still in DAWSON CITY..Here's some Dawson for you: me wake up sitting at kitchen table drinking my coffee phone rings: "hi sonja. it's eryn. can you come and play softball? We need a girl. We need a girl in five minutes".
me: what?

so i hop on the junkie bike at the residency to join a freaking TOURNAMENT that's in progress...the opposition was a team of TOTAL PROS from fairbanks, alaska.
I did hit the ball. so hard. Eryn said, 'you've got the power. that's all that matters'.
The last time i played softball was in 1982. I was on a team. Just as i was really getting into this tournament, the game was over. We were C.R.E.A.M.E.D. Admittedly, I did do a lame thing which was whip back to the rez mid-game to  get my gumboots. i didnt want to destroy my multi-metallic adidas high tops with subdued gold laces. REFUSED. No one told me the field was all mud. (it only took 4 minutes to do this. Dawson is a tiny, tiny town).

ok! so the ROOKIE site/mag is going up Labour Day (that's RIGHT NOW. i started this post yesterday). I want you in front of your computer on Labour Day. Right now. I contributed some lovingly orchestrated collage compositions/illustrations and two book reviews (for two of my favourite books) and a song for the staff playlist. I want to hear that playlist. It hasnt been posted yet.
As for this project: I'm thrilled.  "Thrilled" as in:  i just got off a rollercoaster ride..or mid-way ride or at the beginning..of the ride.

Here is info on the site:http://www.thestylerookie.com/

and then HERE IS THE ACTUAL SITE:

ROOKIE