Saturday, February 28, 2009

Dear Marie,

Ah, I'm back. I went into a hole there for a while! And today I found the bottom of it. I drunkenly ranted at a friend last night about everything accept what I really wanted to tell him, then woke up this morning feeling like ca ca and it just got worse from there. Until I didn't even have the gumption to spit my toothpaste out. It just sort of dribbled into the sink. I was SAD. Like how you get when you find out you accidentally pushed the "blow up the world" button instead of "save the planet" one.

I drug myself to my friend's house to do some sewing this morning, which somehow made it worse, to the point that I didn't even want to go to BUTTARS PALOOZA.
Chris Buttars, Utah Senator said these things:



I just got on my bike and rode home. On the way I saw a guy I met at the bar the other night when a friend was playing. He didn't remember me and was in a shitty mood too so we went to the Coffee Garden to mope together. Somehow, being around someone in a worse mood than me, who was having a REAL existential life crisis, made me feel better. So did biking up the hill back to my house. Get the endorphins running. And then I came home and found an envelope I'd hid that had $100 in it!!! Coup d'etat!!!

The reason I was in such a funk was because I have been working so hard at my 2 jobs and new business that I felt like I wasn't doing any of them well. And worst of all I am having a really hard time "keeping it together." But today, at the bottom of the well, I asked myself, "what do I even mean by 'keep it together'?"

Basically I felt enlightened when I just accepted that all I've wanted to eat this week is peanut butter and peach jam for breakfast lunch and dinner. Instead of getting so mad at myself when I'd "cave in to a craving" and just eat the damn food and know that I'm not going to eat PBnJs for the rest of my life, I'd feel ok again. Being 25 is just like being 4, only now your mom is inside your head telling you what to do.

Love you and will respond to the idea that real people are famous too and ideals shmildeals.
Jennica

Friday, February 20, 2009

Dear Jennica,

Holy camolee. There is so much media interaction with my life personally right now, its wild. and i dont mean in that 'wow, we live in a media saturated world.' i mean.. people i know. being famous and listened to and googleable. which is alot weirder than i thought it would be.

its my old life, in Canada.

Looking to get updated on Canadian politics, i went to our nationally funded broadcasting corporation, cbc.ca to get the downlow. But an ad caught my eye- its a TV show called 'The Week the Women Went' and the premise is this: take a tiny town and give all the women a week away at a spa. this will reveal the ineptitude of the local men and make excellent entertainment! it sounded like a neat idea, so i clicked to learn more.

Turns out this season's town to turn upside down is Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia. MY Tatamagouche where i stayed three times in 2007! Out of all the little towns in Canada, they chose this one! My heart racing, i clicked on. This town is so small, people in Nova Scotia havent usually ever heard of it. Its so small you dont have to even remember a person's address when you write them there- just put their name and Tatamagouche and the mailman knows where they live.

While most of the time in this town i was working on an organic farm and staying in this crazy house with 9 people, i also made friends and came back to stay longer in this one main street kind of town- namely with Cyd. A potter who lives in an off the grid, one room log cabin she built by herself. We ran around together for a week, just being girls and having fun in the woods. It was an amazing time for me, and suddenly her name is all over this website!

this town, where 60 cent ice cream is still a reality, and life is quiet, these people who i lived with, are being smeared up one side of fame and down the other!

this is Cyd and Tam:
http://www.cbc.ca/thewomenwent/people.php?id=52&season=0

and their relationship and lives are now reality TV!
its completely shocking to me, in a very unprecedented way. i never really thought about what it would be like to see someone i know intimately blown to pieces for entertainment purposes. TV is so judgemental and rude in a way that real people would never treat each other, its disgraceful to me suddenly.

anyways, the national news is even doing stories on these people, and everyday Canadians in the grocery store now know who Cyd is... what a strange thing to witness from all the way over here.


NEXT...
ok, so this one didnt find me. i found it. but i googled my cousin's name and bam! She's on the radio!

http://www.rabble.ca/audio/by/artist/alicia_gladman

alicia is so sweet and idealistic in this interview it breaks my heart. she's talking about an organization i used to work under too, and i remember saying things like she does... and its strange, because i am not there in that head space anymore. I was really, really, into bikes. And then i came here, to Copenhagen. Where there are so many bikes they have traffic jams of them. And all the idealistic stuff kind of drains away under the bright glare of the sheer number and success of bike culture here. Its exactly the opposite of what Alicia talks about in her interview- instead of amazing community involvement because people here are on their bikes and exposed to each other- people turn being on a bike into being just like in a car. When you are at a stoplight here, surrounded by strangers on bikes, there is no small talk. Socially, its just like being on a bus. There are strangers in your space, sometimes they annoy you, but mostly you just ignore them.

there were all these revolutionary ideas i harboured, believing bikes would be the answer and true way-- and instead, here, you can see what happens when a city fully embraces and facilitates bike culture. its still a city. its not suddenly a hot bed of change and enviromentalism. you still cant even recycle your tin cans here! but you CAN bike anywhere you want.

everyone biking here has even made other forms of public transportation ultra-expensive, because so few people use them. hello 4 dollar bus ride... so much for accessibility.

and for the record- people dont want to be enlightened with how to fix their own bike. this is something i have come to terms with. they'd just rather pay someone else to get dirty, just like how we arent all growing our own vegetables.

so- my next question is: is this also part of the new 20 something condition jennica? realizing the ideas we held just a few years ago were misguided and naive in a lovely, but hopeless way? and then watching people we know become media exposed? and what are we supposed to do with all this new depressing information? become wise or something? GAH.

thats all the selected news of the week.
ok jennica, tag you are it!
xxx
marie