Red Cedar

official summer

Posted on June 21, 2005 by Megan

i’m having trouble focusing today, a bit tired after a few days of total exhaustion (some combination of too many weekends away, stress and a low-level cold i think) – which is making it difficult to string together enough words to make enough sentences for a blog post. but i will make a valiant effort as it has been 4 days since i last posted and that is quite simply not acceptable.

this weekend was my housewarming party, for which i have posted photos under the gallery tricklehouse warming on my photo site. i haven’t quite got around to labelling them yet, but they are almost all of the children who attended, so enamoured was i of having so many little people in my home for the weekend. overall, it was a fine party – about 20 people showed up from the city and the coast, and there was much feasting and drinking to welcome the new home into my life. i am really very grateful for the amazingness of the people in my world – there were all sorts of really cool folks at my house – and they all seemed to get along and have a good time. no weirdness – hallelujiah!

other than that, i took my car around to icbc and the auto-body shop yesterday and am now awaiting parts to get my vehicle fixed. at icbc, the estimator talked about writing it off – to which i reacted with horror – though in the end he agreed that my car (with its low mileage) probably has a lot of life left in it and so worked to estimate it at a cost they would cover.

on my way up to deal with icbc, i picked up a hitch-hiker on his way to sechelt, who told me the story of his horrendous industrial accident (forest industry) that had left him with half a hand and unable to work. by the time we got to town, he was crying and profusely thanking me for listening to his story – i got the sense that i often do when talking to people dealing with significant health/disability issues – that no one really listens to you once you lose the privilege of the able-bodied. fuck.

then, since i had 30 minutes to spare (i was early for the icbc appointment) i drove to porpoise bay to think about my hitch-hiker encounter and found a shady place by the sea to watch a flock of canada geese and their young-uns swimming out in the inlet. i realized that i have not been in the forest for many weeks, and right there committed to spending as much time as possible on the sunshine coast this summer. no more trips to vancouver island until the fall, no more weekends in the city… this summer is about swimming in the chapman creek pools and hiking the heather trails as much as is possible. of course, planned travels are still going ahead, but i have realized the need to nip the burn-out weekends in the bud before they become an out of control weed binding me up in travel that is not restorative.

i have another pseudo-date this evening with a guy who i met once a couple of years ago through another friend. he “chatted” me on the georgia straight dating site, and i immediately remembered him from going to dinner on the drive. i am not sure why i arranged this meeting other than as a distraction from a rather stressful appointment tomorrow morning. i don’t even know that this is a date, as we have pretty much just agreed to drink a six-pack on his porch – but seems like a fine way to kick off the official start of summer and make a fun re-acquaintance. i’m staying in town tonight at margot’s which will be the only night this week that i am crashing in the city… phew for that! i am really feeling the need for some home-time these days.

girl meets guy, drinks beer

Posted on June 16, 2005 by Megan

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even though denny says i can’t be in the hopeless freak club if i actually have dates, i think he’s wrong, and i had a sortof date last night in any case. as i mentioned in yesterday’s post, this person from the internet turned out to be a co-worker which i knew would provide ample fodder for conversation if there was any lag-time involved so i agreed to meet him in horseshoe bay after work on my way home. it turned out to be a pleasant meeting, we had lots to talk about, drank a couple of beers (on an empty stomach – i was a bit drunk when i got on the ferry), and it generally turned out that we have some politics and other things in common.

so yes, it was a good meeting – and i think we will hang out again. i don’t have any other type of read though – and i didn’t have an immediate physical attraction (though that means very little for me, because i find physical attraction something that grows as i enjoy spending time with a person). he seemed to enjoy spending time with me and indicated he would like to meet up again. so we will see, it could just turn out to be an interesting friendship or something else. i really can’t predict this one at the moment.

awards and dates

Posted on June 15, 2005 by Megan

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more personal posting- i’m still trying to catch up from monday. so this post is about two strangely inter-related things… i received an award at work this week and i have a date tonight with someone i met on the internet. how could these things possibly be connected? apparently in random meg-land these things are more than possible.

on monday, i received an award at work for a project i completed a year and a half ago. i really didn’t want to make a big deal about it (awards – hokey and stupid, right?) but i have to admit that being recognized for three years of work in some formal way is pretty nice. i now have a strange-statue thing to grace the top of the bookshelf in my office and a certificate to hang on the wall. i keep meaning to take a picture to post to this blog, but haven’t got around to that yet. my friend george came in from chilliwack to be my “guest” at the ceremony which i really appreciated, and one of the directors who sponsored the award-request was also there and very pleased about the whole thing. interestingly, i was the only individual woman to receive an award, and only seven other women (out of fifty-one people to get awards in total) received awards as part of group projects. in all, i was happy to be recognized in such a way and at the very least i now have a solid statue that would a good throwing projectile if times should get dire.

as for the second part of this story – back on the weekend, i received a “wink” from a decent-seeming fellow on the georgia straight personals network… so respond i did on monday morning when i came into work, before i went out of the office for the day (i was working at library square in the morning and at the awards ceremony in the afternoon). this fellow describes himself as socially-conscious, into indy-culture, vegetarian and nature loving… all attributes which interest me of course… enough to promise some interesting email conversation at least. yesterday, i received a response to my email, which contained some interesting factoids (he lives on a sailboat, he lived on digby island for many years, etc.) but the one that stood out for me was where he works. which is (you saw this coming right?), for the same federal government department that i do – though not in the same building, and in a different capacity altogether. so ha ha, i thought, that’s a funny coincidence – i emailed him back and said – “guess what” just a brief note because i was almost laughing outloud from it. ha ha, he writes back, that’s funny – i was just downtown yesterday at the awards ceremony with some of the guys from work…… yup, and turns out he remembers me getting my award (i was the first one to be called up, hard to forget).

in a subsequent email he asked me to dinner at the foundation (one of my favourite east van veggie restaurants) but because of schedules and timing and ferries we are meeting tonight in horseshoe bay instead. normally i wouldn’t agree to anything like this so quickly, but he is a co-worker so the “stranger danger” factor is diminished somewhat. so there it is, an award and a date with a stranger….. plus george took me out for dinner last night – i can only think some goddess is smiling down on me this week…..

accidents….

Posted on June 14, 2005 by Megan

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i’m starting to get callouses in the right guitar-playing places which is very exciting to me. this learning how to play the guitar project is going quite well at the moment – i have not only figured out a whole bunch of chords and strumming styles, but managed to put chords to my latest song all by myself (though i’m having a lot of trouble putting them to 67,68,69 because i think the melody is too weird for chords – need to get help on that one).

so yes, where we last left off – i was going to victoria which turned out to be a bit of an ill-fated trip though i still think i came out ahead of the game. visit with the parents on friday night was fine, went over to anna & kyla’s in the afternoon and hung out for a bit, helped get things ready for the party. by the time the party started though i was becoming increasingly anti-social and tired. i think i have been going too hard in the last month and it’s all started to catch up on me quicker than i would like to admit. i have quite a bit of work-related anxiety at the moment as well that i’m having a hard time turning off. so yeah – i was tired and out of it – and then the victoria-guy-i’m-sleeping-with showed up which was great…. but i found myself even unable to make decent conversation.

he was in a fine mood, but also work-preoccupied so we decided to cut out and get a hotel room for the night which turned out to be the best option because i couldn’t fathom staying at the party until people cleared out and i could sleep there. it also meant we had some time just together — which i had thought wouldn’t happen because of circumstances. i probably won’t see him for some time since i have no plans to go back to the island until sometime in august and really, i think that is for the best. (yes, i like him, we have fun together – i’m pretty sure though that’s the extent of it, and i’m not very clear about what i want at the moment… i tend to develop attachments for people i am sleeping with even when it’s an ill-advised move, and i don’t think i should develop an attachment to this one because i’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be reciprocated – this is at least the process going on in my head at the moment).

so yes, all that said – sunday morning we got up to go for breakfast and while he was getting his bike from out front – i managed to pull the front of my car around into a concrete support post in the covered parking area. nice! not only did i do $1000+ in damage to my car, but i did it in front of a guy who i actually like – the double-whammy of feeling stupid. i was mostly just shocked though that i did it at all – *i* don’t do stuff like that! but apparently i am just human and i guess these things happen to lots of humans. at least i wasn’t hurt and i didn’t hit anything/anyone else. last night i realized that i might have put collision insurance on my car this year (couldn’t remember for the life of me) – when i pulled the papers out it turns out that yes! i did! which means i just have to pay the $300 deductible which is way affordable compared to what the repair might cost in total. in the meantime i need my car all week so i’m driving it as the wreck it looks like and hopefully will get to deal with it next monday.

after the accident, we had a lovely breakfast (though i couldn’t shake the slightly-sick, anxiousness from the accident) – and then i drove out to william head to visit my friend dustin who only has nine months to go inside, but nine months that could drive him completely nuts (time slows down near the end of the bid – i’ve observed this phenomenom in many other friends over the years). despite the fact that both he and i were a bit grumpy – we had a great visit – and made each other laugh even! the weather was nice so we got to sit outside by the sea and watch the birds – which is one of the things that makes that institution not so bad to visit at.

talk about a full weekend! but i managed to get on an earlier ferry back to tsawassen and got all the way back to gibsons on sunday night, which meant sleeping in my own bed. because of my totally yuck state by the time i got home with my beat-up car – my bed felt way more inviting than normal. all things considered, i still think the trip was more than worth it – getting to see my friends, and the guy, and managing to write two songs in transit – pretty priceless all of it.