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

Dear Marie,

I started my very 1st office job 3 weeks ago. So, yea, I think I am ahead at the maturity game. But truthfully, I really don't think it's about being ahead, or winning at the maturity game. The only losers in maturity game are the winners.

The 1st two weeks of cubicle life were hell. I could barely see by the end of the days after staring at a computer screen all day, and the florescent lights gave me such a headache I thought I would faint. After sitting in an office chair for 8 hours, I came home complaining about my back, neck and shoulders saying, "now I know what all those painkiller ads on TV are for!"

By the end of the second week, I had confiscated a pair of speakers from an empty cubicle so I could listen to KRCL.org, the community radio station here in Utah, or Pandora.com on the internet. I stood on my desk and unscrewed the florescents, brought desk lamps and tea and chocolate and a comfy blanket. So now I work in a cozy den instead of a cubicle. But the thing that really gets me through, besides staying well hydrated as an excuse to stretch my legs and make frequent trips to the lady's room, is a picture of you I've pinned to the wall behind my monitor.

It's you so awed and thrilled at the Oregon coast during that road trip we took in '04 or '05. We'd pretty much just met and thought a road trip from Vancouver to Portland and beyond would be a good way to consummate the friendship. You're wearing that funny '20s hat of mine, and a blue skirt hiked up past your knees. We're barefoot in the freezing water. You're wearing that big wool sweater.

Whenever I start thinking that this cubicle is reality, I look up and see this snapshot of an adventure that shaped my resistance to what I had labeled "normal everyday life." Since that trip, my normal everyday life lead me from Vancouver to Ghana to Oregon to Northern California to Reno to all over Latin America and back to my home in Salt Lake City.

Now, however, I am redefining the adventure of everyday life as a search for stability. A steady job excites me. An apartment of my own is worth the work hours it takes to pay for it. But I'm still overwhelmingly frustrated because I daydream about arranging my work schedule instead of some next great art project. I keep making road trip plans (two times already this week) completely forgetting I can't just take off tomorrow and come home whenever the wind blows this direction.

You talk about resentment towards others that have what you want. My resentment/bitterness/jealousy comes from thinking people around me have an easy time maintaining the lifestyle I think I want. But, like you said about learning farm life was not the majestic one-ness with nature and romantic self-sufficiency you'd hoped, but discouragingly hard work. And really, it was the knowledge gained from the experience that has been the gift, not the lifestyle itself.

You're so right about accepting the path you've been down and being grateful you've had the experiences you've had. I was worrying to a friend the other day, "what if I'm not on the right path? What if I'm making the wrong choices?" And he said, "You're on the path you've chosen, what other path is there?"

Love, Jennica

P.S These are my daydreams: