Day 20: Someone you love.

Not to show a bias against the rest of my family but this is my dad. I love my dad. A lot. A lot a lot.

Day 19: Sweet

Who doesn't love donuts?
This is a maple bacon donut from a specialty bake shop in Calgary. I wish one could accompany my every morning. That would be tops.

Day 18: Something you bought.

I'm a part of the experience generation. As a result, the feature 'something' I bought was the opportunity to  canoe on Lake Moraine. The water is unreal. I drank a lot of it out of our bail bucket. I couldn't resist. It was the best tasting water ever. Ever.

Day 17: Water

My dad grew up on the Oregon coast. I spent the early years of my life in Portland and love to return as often as possible. That's averaging about every five to ten years. Bummer. Isn't it gorgeous? 

Wind.

Today in my teenage angst, in the interest of full disclosure, I belong to the majority of America that is medicated. I take this medication to make me more socially functional. Some days it doesn't work that well. Today is one of those days. I'd like to get over those days and be able to accept them as a part of my existence but I can't.

It's really windy today. Really. Windy. 45km/h winds. Wind makes me anxious. It makes me anxious because my hair goes out of control and then I feel out of control and then my face skin hurts and I'm rude to the old man who thinks I'm seventeen and wonders aloud to me why I'm not in school.

I want to love the wind. The wind is a special part of the prairies known in its depth and breadth only to those who experience it every single day. Whole bodies of literature have been written on the prairie winds alone. Today, I wasn't even close to loving that wind I am supposedly so accustomed to.

I hated it and it hated me. And now I'm here in my coffee shop talking to Shaina and thinking about how I still have to walk home and how I should probably do it in a round about way so as to not hurt anyone with my dagger eyes and hands of anxious fury.

Day 16: Morning.

When I lived in St. John's a rescued a cat. He was the best. When we got him we thought he was a girl so we named him Lucille. We were really into Arrested Development. Then it turned out, upon further development, Lucy was a boy. So we called him/her gender confused. Okay, I called him/her that.

When I would roll out of bed in the morning I would stumble to the table to wade through pages and chapters and novels of feminist political history. Lucy would hop from the chair behind the table to my shoulders and lounge there for a while.

When I moved home I had to give him up. Because though it's allowed, it's not that pleasant to travel with an animal. I miss him. Badly. Every time I look at these pictures I remember our mornings together. Good times.

Oh hey Blogger.

Today in my teenage angst, I realized I was back in school. Which implies I haven't been blogging. But hey Blogger. You're neat.

Also. I dropped a class simply because it was too hard. Weak sauce. Lame sauce. Hot sauce. I'll get over it. I had like five seconds of disappointment in myself and then hours and days and weeks of relief that I don't have to wake up in the morning to wade through Darwinian theory in relation to the evolutionary development of the human genome project. Eww. So that's all. 

So while I'm not trying harder to pass that class, I'll try harder here. And because a bird in hand is worth two in a bush here's my post for the photo-a-day challenge. On which I'm a certain week behind. Whatever.

Happiness: watching Fargo for the first time at the age of 24 with my dear friend Shaina, also watching it for the first time, as we could really appreciate it. We heart the Coen brothers. It's okay if you don't. 

Sucks to your asthmar.

Today in my teenage angst, I'm going to try my hand at anonymity. A friend of mine started dating someone today and I am so. not. for it. You know when people just aren't good together and you see it but they don't see it, and no one else sees it so everyone keeps pushing them toward it? That's this. It's so outrageous. I'm trying to not be so ill about it but it's not working very well. You know when people that aren't good together get together and you know it's going to end badly so you just have to sit and wait for it to blow up? It's like waiting for a bomb to drop. I keep going on their facebook pages hoping for an update on the matter, to no avail. Bah! I'm over it. They're probably going to get married and have seven kids and be the happiest people alive.


In other news, I really thought the superbowl was next weekend but it's the weekend after. I seriously thought I didn't work that day. But I do. Superbowl plans ruined. Just kidding, I'm going to get out of it.

In other news, I got bangs.




That Ed and Bella picture is commentary on the fact that they're not really as good together as we'd like them to be.

Day 14: Something you're reading.

Today in my teenage angst, I'm superstitious. Day 13 was the classic - or annoying depending who you are - what's in your bag. My bag changes every day, depending where I'm going and what I'm doing. Nothing is constant. Nothing. Except my water bottle, but that's not very interesting. I do have a little bag, tho of things I always want and but never have so maybe I'll write about that later.

So I'm skipping Day 13 and going straight to Day 14: Something you're reading. Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell. I'm most excited to watch the movie when I'm done reading it.

Data Entry.

Working Girl, anyone?

Don't tell anyone, but today in my teenage angst, I love my data entry job. It gives me front line access to gems like these.

Day 11: Close up.

After graduation in 2010 I took a trip to the east coast to visit a friend from college. I forgot to zoom out a couple of times. This is on our way to Prince Edward Island.

Seriously, eastern Canada is the best.

Hipster.

Today in my teenage angst, I wear an apologist shoes. An apologist is one who defends. The development of this defense, for whatever, is usually developed over years of study and experiential practise. It was told me the other day that a group of girls I barely know, refer to me as Hipster Hannah. Cute? No.

In thinking about this I composed a list of defense against myself as a hipster.

1) I am a musical theatre nerd.

2) Furthermore, my favorite movie is Easter Parade, not My Life Aquatic.

3) I do not write songs or poetry.

4) While I knit, I do not knit well.

5) I wear hats and scarves for the purpose of warmth and comfort.

6) I would not be satisfied with working at the library for the rest of my life i.e. I have really high career ambitions.

7) I wear skinny jeans because they de-emphasize how short I am.

8) I don't have a tattoo.

9) I'm not usually successful at thrifting.

10) I don't have a subscription to Adbusters, Newsweek, Mad Magazine or UTNE.

11) I do however, have a gym membership. And I use it.

12) I wear a large gold watch because it was my Grandfather's. Not because I sought it out.

I am not a hipster. Eww. Don't go there.

Day 11: Where you sleep.

I have zero aversion to sleeping in public. I have slept in coffee shops, the library; when I was in college I slept absolutely everywhere I could lay down in the academic building. I'm a tired person, so when I need to sleep, I need to sleep. One time I took a nap on this couch type thing they had in the women's washroom. I stuck my hands between my knees because it was so cold in the building. When I woke up the cold of my hands had transferred to the inside of my pants making me feel like I had wet myself. I felt so desperate and tired, I wandered around trying to find someone I knew who would hug me. I hope that's not a 'tmi' situation because I think it's a pretty funny story. It was a pretty funny incident for myself, not long after.

This is not the point. This is my bed and on it, the beautiful quilt my aunt made for me.

This is dial of my mattress heater. It's a literal fridge upstairs and my parents are really nice people. 2+2=the purchase of an electric mattress pad. It's like an electric blanket but it goes on your mattress like a slip-cover so your entire bed is equally warm. Except where you're laying is obviously warmer because of the transfer of body-heat combined with the heat created from the currents in the actual heater. Anyway . . . Happy Wednesday.

Day 10: Your childhood.

This is pretty classic Beth and me. These are our outrageous ballerina costumes that affirmed in me, at an early age, my future as a ballet dance. I am not ballerina. It's kind of a bummer.

My favorite part of this phot (abbreviation for photo) is my sneakers. They're even funnier in the actual photograph.

Friday.

Today in my teenage angst, Rebecca Black is right. Friday is the best day.

Karlie and Suzy and I have not frequent enough get togethers every now and then and I hosted our post-Christmas Christmas get-together on Friday.

I set out my best loose-leaf teas. 

I put together a goody tray and a fruit one. 

Suzy and I exchanged kids picture books - our practise on birthdays and christmas for a year now. It's the absolute best. 

We talked about Karlie's baby in her belly. I learned that "baby don't like no carrots." Suzy had recently uttered those words to an unsuspecting waitress. Poor girl. 

Overall, it was a wonderful, casual and much needed time.

We all went away wishing it would happen more often. New Year's resolution??? Maybe.

Day 9: Your Daily Routine.

John Green came in the mail.

Day 8: My sky.

This is the sky at which I look as I go and get the mail out my front door. It is also the sky at which I look as I walk to work, the gym, the coffee shop and my sister's house. The sky is beautiful in Saskatchewan, unhindered by chemicals, tall buildings or natural landscape. The flatness of the land leaves the sky as the only thing at which to look. We're not sad though. Because it's beautiful. Just so beautiful. It greets us with amazing sunrises every morning and closes the day with equally stunning sunsets. These happen with such frequency it's overwhelmingly easy to become numbed to their beauty. 

Another element of Saskatchewan sky beauty is the Northern Lights. Scientifically referred to as the aurora borealis, these colorful lights dance around the sky dazzling all that gaze at them. This year at the Regina Folk Festival on Sunday night we watched them literally dance above us as we sat and listened and wondered the greatest of God. 

This is my sky.

Day 7: Favorite.

I went through this phase where I said everything was my favorite. If somebody made a joke I thought was super funny, I said it was my favorite. If a character on a show was particularly appealing one week, he was my favorite. My father got pretty sick of it. Was it really my favorite? Aren't there divisions of favorite things to be taken into consideration when claiming something as favorite?

As children, we often judged people by their favorite things. What's your favorite color? Pink or purple; good. Blue or gold, good. Green or orange; bad. As a child I never understood people whose favorite color was orange. I still hate that color in most contexts. As the coat of a cat or on someone's head, however, that's a totally different thing.

So this question confuses me. What's my favorite what? I don't have a favorite of the moment and I'm no longer in the practise of claiming anything and everything as my 'favorite.' Here are instead a few of the things I have been steadily enjoying as of late.

This show is truly the best of reality TV. It's fashion designers under intense pressure to create awesome outfits in limited time out of who knows what. 

Even though these books are giving me anxiety like nothing ever before - and I have strong opinions on the themes that may or may not be thoroughly translate to readers - they are so well constructed, paced and written. You've obviously read them, but if you haven't, get on it. 

I've identified forest green as my favorite color and recently picked up a discounted bottle of forest green nail polish. It's so fab. 

So there you go. I suppose these are my favorites.

Day 6: Something that makes you smile.

Matt Damon.

I know I know. It's just one of those things. Every girl's got one. My mom's was Patrick Swayze. One day she waited until my dad had gone to a board meeting before pulling Dirty Dancing out of the piano bench to watch with us in secret. Matt Damon is my Patrick Swayze.

This is the cover of GQ this month. Made clear by the large GQ in the corner. Anyway, when I saw it in the library I went permagrin and was may have squealed in my head. He's just too much. Oh man. Anyway.

He always makes me smile.

Day 5: Something you wore.

Once I dressed as a flapper for a murder mystery party I was attending. I was pretty proud of my costume from the neck up. I didn't have time to find a flapper dress however so a falsified a drop waist on an inappropriately long dress I had.

We'd all been assigned characters prior to the gathering and I was given a main role, for my overdramatic tendencies. I thought for sure I would end up as the murderer. It turned out I was innocent, but instead won the prize of best actress.

















Go me.

Patrons.

Today in my teenage angst, I was informed of my omnipresence. A reality of which I was not previously aware.

I'm pretty good with the patrons at the library. I can make conversation about absolutely anything with absolutely anyone. I'm never left in an awkward silence. This is a marketable and enviable skill. I don't, however, always feel the need to make conversation with them. If they're checking out an item that I have previously loved, I'll tell them and probably follow up with why I loved it. I usually say that the characters are captivating or the themes are well developed. They respond with a small excitement that they've chosen a good item. I never make conversation with the women who check out hoards of romance novels. Really, what is there to say. Sometimes we talk about the weather and sometimes we talk about their reusable shopping bags which have on them a pleasant pattern. Sometimes they ask me questions about my life and I tell them. Because if I asked a stranger what they were studying in school, I would want to know the answer.

Yesterday, this patron came with a book to check out and told me he needed to pay for a board book that his son had accidentally destroyed. He didn't look old enough to have a toddler but then he didn't look much younger than me and I am, oddly - strangely,  old enough, under the right circumstances i.e. marriage, to have a toddler. So I said, "Oh," and looked at his account. I told him the charge wasn't there yet but he did have a seven dollar overdue fine from the movie Passchendale. He probably could've bought it in the discount bin at Walmart for less than that. He said alright and that he would clear that fine. He also added that he hadn't even had the chance to watch the film. I told him I'd heard it was pretty terrible so it probably wasn't a big deal. Then he muttered something further.
"I'm sorry?" I asked.
"I see you everywhere," he said more clearly. I put together some syllables that had sounded something like astonishment that that could possible be the case in a town the size of Moose Jaw.
He emphasized further, "Like, everywhere. I see you everywhere I go. You're," he paused, "omnipresent."
I mentally noted that that was unlikely because I'd otherwise be a lot more productive. I continued dealing with his fine and the materials he wanted to check out.
"What's your name?" He asked. I told him honestly because it really is a small town and because I'm not quick enough to create an alternate identity. He followed up by telling me his name which I promptly forgot. So much for our new found friendship.

After a couple more minutes of avoiding eye contact with him, he thanked me, called me by my name and walked away. I guess he'll probably want to talk further about something we don't have in common the next time he's in. That's kind of a bummer.

Day 4: Letterbox.

Remember this letterbox in the 1994 movie version of Little Women? Winona's hair at this point is eerily similar to her hair in the Crucible which makes this more devastating than joyful. But for real, this letterbox is my absolute favorite. I want to receive a pear in this letterbox from the man of my dreams who will end up marrying my sister.

Day 3: Something you adore.

I adore many things. Here are some examples.

High Schoolers. They are the best. So confused and fragile and open to your influence. 

Kids. I adore kids. They are the most important.

Folk-fest. I love. love. love Regina Folk Fest. This is Obiju in 2010.

Score.

Today in my teenage angst, I totally scored. People come into the library to donate crap all the time. And its usually just that; crap. Sometimes they actually buy good stuff they see that's in good condition that we can actually use and just give it to us, price tags and everything.  I don't know why those people do that. They really love the library. It's usually Danielle Steel and John Sanford books but who cares. People love those.

The other day someone donated a bunch of CDs. I took one look at them and squealed. Everyone at the library is kind of bored; bored or just really mello (how do you spell mello? Mellow?). From what I understand, they're mello(w) because of a combination their personalities, years of library service, their angst-driven personal lives, etc. So when I get excited, so does everyone else. It's my main role in the group. I get excited. Which brings excitement. The CDs were a beautiful collection of obscure 90's Indie Rock and Electronica. I'm coming around to Electronica. Steve - my co-worker, on whom I will do an entire expose at a later date - said he'd been waiting for this day for a few years now. I asked him, what day? He said that with the depth of music digitalization there was going to be groups of people with scores and scores of CDs that they had digitalized and thus no longer wanted. While there were only six CDs, that day was here. Today, Kathy, the lady who usually goes through the donations to see if they're worth keeping and on whose desk I had left the CD's with the hope that we wouldn't want to keep them, slipped me the pile when no one was looking. I asked how much I should pay for them and she just shushed me and told me to go away. I told her she was my new best friend.

These are my gems.

Talking Heads, Fear of Music

Talking Heads, Little Creatures

Bjork, Debut

Bjork, Selmasongs

Air, the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for The Virgin Suicides

Did I mention they're all in pristine condition? Apart from a few cracks in their cases, that is. What a good day. 

Day 2: Breakfast.

Pomello, pomello, pomello! This is a strictly seasonal fruit that's mostly a grapefruit but way more naturally awesome. It as an inch thick rind and you can't eat the skin because it's grossly bitter. So what you're left with is these fair-sized pods of super awesome citrus juice. Half of one of these babies for breakfast is a pretty great way to start the day.

Nineties child.

Today in my teenage angst, I am a child of the nineties. What I mean by this is that I was an actual child in the nineties. When the nineties began I had left baby-hood and was entering childhood. Because of this, I relate so so so so so so closely with this article.

10 Things 90s Kids Will Have to Explain to their Children
Have you seen this??? It's written by Chelsea Fagan, and I think she is just amazing. What insight for us now as we have somehow, with this as a part of our upbringing, graduated to adulthood.

Photo a day challenge.

I love blogger challenges. Mostly because people give me things to post for thirty or so days. So along side Today in my teenage angst, I'll be posting a little photo awesome everyday.

Today is a photo of yourself. So here it is! That's all.

Goals and things.

Today in my teenage angst, I am oriented toward self-improvement. My friend Michelle is admirably always looking for ways to be better. She's a business grad so she's naturally geared away from laziness. I on the other hand am incurably lazy. So now, after a year of turmoil and self-doubt, I have made goals, plans and resolutions orienting myself toward self-improvement.

Resolutions

• Clean my bathroom every Sunday. Sunday is bathroom cleaning day. Even if I work. That's the deal. 
• Change my sheets every other week. This for real makes me sound like the most disgusting person. I'm not. I'm a little bit of a mess but I'm not disgusting. Changing my sheets is something I've never gotten into the habit of and will forget to do for gross amounts of time. So this year is good habit forming year. 

This picture represents incurable laziness.

Goals 

• My dad and I are running a 5K in May. We run but we don't enter races. This is a motivating tactic to expand our training and general running practices. A 5K isn't much but races are scary. So we're starting small. 
• Achieve 3.5GPA for both my semesters this year. I was close last semester and still might make it as I'm still waiting on one mark. This might be a bit of a stretch but having the aim on the outset of the semester gives me motivation to work hard from start to finish.
• Save tuition for my fall semester at Regina. This is a bigger deal because the school to which I'm transferring doesn't hold the provincial support and subsequent tuition subsidization as the school I now attend. So because I live at home and have generally small needs it's attainable but saving money still requires a decision every month to put that chunk of money away.
• Take my Harmony 4 exam in May or August. That's a vein of classical music theory. The variance in time depends on my teacher. She'll decide when I'm not too stupid to actually write the exam. Oh bless her heart for dealing with me. She's wonderful. 

2012 Book List
I'm always scared to make book lists lest I don't read at all. But I invariably read every night before I go to bed or I can't fall asleep. So I might as well be intentional about it.

• The Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins (we're off to a good start with this one as I literally devoured the first book on New Year's Eve)
• Miss Peregrin's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
• The Whole Truth - Kit Pearson
• Slaughter-House Five - Kurt Vonnegut
• Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
• The Alchemist - Michael Scott
• The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - Kate DiCamillo
• The Book Thief - Markus Zusak 
• Wonderstruck - Brian Selznick
• Winter's Bone - Daniel Woodrell 

You'll notice the overwhelming presence of Young Adult and Juvenile Fiction. This is because I'm largely done with Adult literature. I'm of the opinion that it's a lot harder to write for younger age groups because their cognitive capacity is so much smaller. As a result books end up portraying highly imaginative and deeply philosophical ideas in a much greater light than an adult novel could. Plus there's nobody having sex. That's the best part. So. Anyway. I'm really excited about this collection of books. And it's only twelve. So I'm not over-expending myself here.

I'm really excited about the possibilities of this year. By the end of it I should only have three semesters of school left. I'll be 25. And if my goals list comes to fruition, I'll have accomplished a great deal. This shows me that even for the incurably lazy, having expectations of yourself is not scary, it's healthy. May you, also, expect as much as possible.