Finally! I Got a Tattoo!

My Tattoo - Again!
Originally uploaded by sinkblue.

Since I was six years old I wanted a tattoo - but when my eighteenth birthday passed - I as too scared to commit to an image for the rest of my life - so I've been searching for that 'perfect' image ever since. Well, I was really looking for an image that would suit me and everyone I know.
I got fed up with sitting on the fence and decided that even though I didn't know what I wanted, I would have a tattoo by the end of the week. For a couple of days, I was working with themes I love - ocean, stars (I'm such a girlie-girl sometimes). But when I found a T-Shirt I designed in Australia, I had found my image.
Inspired by the dandilions you blow and make a wish with, I had printed cluster-abstracts of this flower on shirts. Some see it as fireworks, others as an emblem from 1950's pop culture. It doesn't matter to me because I love it.
I'm glad my new friend Gail was able to come with me - she wants to get a tattoo when she turns eighteen so she wanted to watch - and I wanted someone there. The Tattoo Man who worked on me was really funny - but I was too scared and nervous to laugh. I was happy that the staff was really supportive of my design.
When he finally started working - I learned that it hardly hurts at all. My piercings hurted more. It hurt a bit as the needle got closer to the bone, but I was surprised at how catastrophic I thought the situation would be compared to the actual event. Anyway - there are more pictures of having the tattoo done on my photo page.
Afterwards, I took Gail out for gelati to thank her for coming with me - and she laughed at the howls my car makes when I'm parallel parking.
The stress from the tattoo - or what I thought the experience would be, must have overwhelmed me so much that I went right to bed when I got home.

Look at Everyone's Trash

Trash
Originally uploaded by sinkblue.

To further update things - a couple of Mondays ago, Sam helped me indulge in my desire to take pictures of the neighbors' trash during the spring cleaning week by driving me around Coquitlam. Sam only had a couple of hours to spare before work so I really appreciated him hanging out with me - with everything that's going on it's been hard to meet up.

I like seeing what people throw out. It's the reason I used to wander through Value Village just looking at everything and not buying. I don't know why I'm interested in the stuff that people don't want anymore. Sometimes the stuff has a story to it, sometimes I imagine some horror story significance behind the object and scare myself (I'm a goof).

Sam found a forest path in Westwood Plateau, parked the car and into the green we hiked. I like that Sam and I make eachother do things we normally wouldn't. This crazy guy wants to go hiking and camping for a week . . . wonder if I'll tag along.

One Fantastic Play

Crazy for Life
Originally uploaded by sinkblue.

". . . behind her, a swell, a giant wave, rolling, gaining speed behind her, rolling, gaining speed behind her, totally oblivious. I call out, try to catch her attention, but she turns, faces the breaker, hit, arms up, body back, she shakes her head (pause) and hugs the water right back. Squeels and giggles mark the sky. Then, she starts the whole shabang again. Spins, waves, turns, hit - and embrace (pause) all over again."
From Crazy for Life
By Victoria Maxwell, the Bi-Polar Princess

A couple of Thursdays ago, I saw Victoria Maxwell perform her personal story of having bi-polar disorder. Never had I seen a monologue so engaging and expressive. Driven to educate the public about mental health awareness, Maxwell's humor is our ticket onto the Bi-Polar Express - and she's the conductor. Except I got on that train earlier than most people.
Her poetic imagery and precise portrayal of her illness examplifies what I wish I could spell out to those who have a hard time understanding what I've been through. Her enactment of her lows reflected my own so well that my throat squeezed on the inside and my eyes grew tense with hot tears.
More than her drama made me cry, she made me laugh. Over the last seven weeks, I have learned from my classes that my bi-polar disorder is an illness just like any other - not something I did wrong and not something wrong with my personality. Victoria Maxwell's humor only emphasized this.
After the play, I bought her CD - an audio-recording of her play. If any of my friends wants to borrow it - I would be estactic to hand it out.

"Hello Mom? . . . I'm safe. I'm with my friend Marc in the forest with an axe." Tues May 10/05

Mark's Axe
Originally uploaded by sinkblue.

Tuesday night:
Finally I get the opportunity to really hang out with Marc - without alcohal or a bike show. I'm late, he picks me up from Lonsdale Key and we drive to Seymor Valley where he lives. While he showers, I try some potatoe-swiss-cheese pasta that Marc had made earlier - tasty food.
We talked until his family came home and by that time it was dark. Having agreed to go swimming earlier, I didn't let on my big fear of dark forests at night.
Marc packed an axe for firewood- I found the idea of going out into the woods at night with a guy I met twice and his axe so amusing I took a picture of his axe sticking out of his backpack.
It wasn't until we were deep into the forest that Marc starting telling me about the bears and cougars that live in that forest. It freaked me out but Marc calmed me down and we made it to the river.
After collecting twigs, sticks and wood, Marc built the fire. It took him a long time to breath the small flame large enough to catch onto the wood. Knowing he's asthmatic made me want to stop him, but he declares he has the lungs of a horse.
He got the fire going and stable - time to go swimming! What a better way to start off a friendship than skinny-dipping! Marc rushed for the edge of the rock anticipating me to follow but I was crawling my way there. The sky was a deep navy blue so the rock was black. When I caught up to him, Marc was testing the water and said it was pretty cold. "There's only one way to do this" he calmly said before canonballing into the river. He surfaced with "Wow! That's cold."
This is the point when I usually say no and turn around. Dripping behind me, Marc said,"Come on, you didn't come all this way to turn around!" Picture me naked with my body huddled in a gargoyle crawl on the edge of the black rock. But there's something my friend Andrea said that always hit me whenever I think about it. She was talking about Improv Theatre, but when applying to life it works out pretty well. She said, "Nothing interesting happens when you say no." With that one thought, I leaped into the calm river, my body already as stiff as a board.
It's greenish-black. I see bubbles and my hair across my face. My whole body couldn't surface faster as shivers pinched my skin all over at once. Finally, air. And I'm screaming. Now I'm laughing and screaming as I punch water. For me, I was only slowly moving towards the rock, my body was not moving as fast as I wanted it to.
I'm out of the water, I'm just laughing. Marc jumps in again but I know I'm not going to try to match him and jump too. I'm trying to climb up the rock but I keep slipping. Marc gets up and hauled me up to our jumping point.
From there we scrambled to the fire for our towels. I'm still laughing. My short breaths warm me. We vigorously dry ourselves with the smokey towels. I'm sitting next to the fire still laughing but more calm. I'm taking deeper breaths. Marc sits down - his skin is amber next to the fire - mine would be blush-red in the blue light.
More talking like before, but this time we're pretty much naked and there's a fire. It starts to get late and I don't want to miss my class in Maple Ridge on Wednesday morning, so I tell Marc it's probably time to go. We start packing when one of his water bottles (one of those cool mountain equipment co-op bottles) rolls and bounces off the rock and into the river. We're already dressed. Marc goes after it - I poorly passed him a stick and he tried to lead it his way. To my horror, Marc slips into the river with all his clothes on. I scream like a priss. Marc gets out of the water. The bottle is still in the river. "Oh well, I guess since I'm wet anyways," Marc said before jumping back in for the bottle.
Back at the fire, Mark peels down to his skin. The poor guy was freezing and had to try to dry off with already wet towels. We kept blowing the fire that we had allowed to die down as we were packing up. Marc had an extra pair of shorts in his bag but nothing else - so I lent him my girlie, powder-blue sweater with the side zipper. Now, Marc is an athlete . . . which means he has muscular shoulders and biceps - the sweater, stretched over the shoulders, ended a few inches above his belly button and treasure trail - wish I had my camera.
The not so fun part is that he was freezing. We got the fire going more and I called my mom on Marc's cell to let her know I was alright but that I'd be home late and that my circumstances were questionable.
Finally, we decide it's best to make our way back to Marc's house. I suggest running to warm ourselves up, to which Marc informs me that running attracts predators. So we walk and walk. After twenty minutes, Marc stops and stands still. Then I see him take the safe guard off the axe. I huddle close and ask him quietly what is going on. He replies that something is following us. We continue to walk, I'm holding the flashlight wide-eyed. Marc asks if, whatever happens, that I shine the flashlight on the animal. I said "K" but who knows what would really happen when the fight or flight kicks in. We walk, Marc asks me to scream, but I'm so scared that I lost my voice. He starts yelling and it tremors my nerves. All I wanted was to get out of the forest as fast as possible but I can't run, and I worry about my heart beating fast.
It felt like a half hour hike before Marc said that he thinks the animal following us is just trying to check us out - it keeps it's distance.

I see houses and suburban street lights - orange glow behind the tree.
We're walking in the middle of the street - Marc is calm - I'm just calmer and trying to cool off. Marc said I am cute when I'm really scared . . . I don't want to be that cute again!
Marc also asked me if I peaked at him when we went swimming and what did I think - I'm blushing big time and I barely respond with "Well, did you peak at me? What do you think?" He replied, "I think you're cute . . . but kind of frail . . . not a lot of muscle." - and muscle is one thing I'm working on, but after thinking about it, I think a bit of squishy is good - squishy is fun to hug and squeeze!
All in all - it was one of the coolest nights of my life.

One Really Great Weekend!

Mark - My New Friend!
Originally uploaded by sinkblue.

After pleading with Marc (met at Natasha's birthday party) he allowed me to come watch him and his crew jump over trucks with their bikes. So after work on Saturday, I out to Surrey to see them. They are really professional and have done a lot of work. This one was to help promote Motorcycle World in downtown Whalley. I stood between the ramps and Marc leaped with his bike over my head. I loved holding my breath as his bike hung in the air for a few seconds before descending down the ramp.
I also got the opportunity to ride on the back of some four wheel off road thing - the driver was able to climb over piles of tires.
When the show was over (and the people that came and went were really impressed) I tried to help load the ramps onto the trailor without doing much good, so I decided to say good-bye to Marc with the hope of meeting up again when we can actually hang out and talk, and head to Burnaby to see Sam because I hadn't seen him in a while and missed him. Him and Steve were hanging around the appartment trying to stay awake. I got myself some awesome Thai food from a great place on Edmonds St and joined in on the lounging.
From there I took off to meet up with my new friend Roy. After mentioning it over and over again, I finally decided to take him up on his offer of having a pint of guiness somewhere. Somewhere turned out to be White Rock - and the beach was gorgeous, the guiness great. And it was awesome sitting across from from Roy (one of the handsomest guys I know) and talking about everything. He's so passionate about music that he compulsively shares it. He drove us back from White Rock and we didn't talk, just enjoyed his amazing compilation of songs. He then introduced me to strawberry tea with cream and sugar, and some amazing piano on dvd (don't remember the name of the composers unfortunately - one was Gould) - the fingerwork was amazing and hypnotic. I had a good time hanging out with him - new friends are always good. It's really great that I'm meeting so many different people.

Robin in Vancouver/Tour Bizarre

Robin
Originally uploaded by sinkblue.

As noted, I met Robin one very drunken night in Calgary. Since then we've spoken a bit on msn but nothing much. Knowing that he would be stopping in Vancouver on this way to Australia, I told him he had to call me up so that we could hang out . . . and on Sunday he did.
I asked him what he wanted to do, and since he replied with a lot of ambivalence, I decided to take him on a 'Tour Bizarre' of the Tri-Cities. A 'Tour Bizarre' is a tour of all the most bizarre or strange or unseen parts of a town. It started for me when Sue and I were in Prague and Sue's boyfriend's Dad's girlfriend's daughter Yana, and Yana's exboyfriend, decided to show us some things that tourists never see - a really ugly church, a crumbling building, the TV tower which had giant metal baby sculptures crawling all over it and a gross bar that only served beer in foggy mugs and their toilet was a hole in the ground.
So my tour bizarre of the tri-Cities included driving Robin around Riverview Hospital, showing him the shiny penitentionary for the criminally insane at Colony Farms and I tried to find the pig farm in PoCo with no luck. After yummy tofu and veggies dinner at a Chinese restaurant and a failed attempt to find Korean ice cream, I took Robin to the beach off the Barnet Hwy where you can climb on the remains of the old saw mill. Even though it rained, we must have meandered along the beach for an hour talking. Robin changed my approach towards beaches and rain. Along the beach, Robin was looking for large rocks until finally he disclosed his love for listening to the plunk of a large rock thrown into still water. We found that by each of us trying to throw a large rock we were creating a duo-toned harmony. If only I had a better throwing arm.
Robin had me listen to the rain both from under the branches of the trees and then from the edge of the shore. It takes a prairie-boy to help me realize how I've taken the rain for granted.
Robin could even pick up on the chirping of baby Canadian Geese behind their mother in the dark, and the splashing of some sea-mammal (a sealion?) in the water.
Wet and exhilerated, we headed down the barnet towards Burnaby. Just when I thought I had nothing left to show Robin, I remembered the giant Viking head at Burnaby North High School - that dooming horned behemoth imprisoned in the hill (welded by the high school kids). It's pretty gory in the dark.
After a good couple of yawns, I dropped Robin off at his friend's house around midnight with the commitment to meet again before he heads to Tazmania. That was the best Sunday night I've had in a while.

The View from my 'Office'

The View from my 'Office',
originally uploaded by sinkblue.

Since the evenings are getting warmer, my morning shifts now include collecting the almost-empty whiskey and scotch bottles the kids leave behind at night.
These guys are lucky to have the amphitheatre to hang out in. It's a really nice area. And sometimes they smoke pot during our open hours and we get phone calls from the neighbours to tell them to stop. We tell them we can't do that because they are smoking on public property. It makes me laugh that these winers think that little me has the authority to kick some teens off the property - especially since they're bigger than me. I always tell the neighbours to call the police if they have a problem but they usually don't.
Maillardville is Coquitlam's bad part of town . . . which is a laugh. The other day I actually found a letter in the paper considering that Maillardville could potentially be the next East Hastings if things aren't cleaned up. Yeah right. Coquitlam is pretty calm, even in Maillardville.

Stomach Flu

Ah so this is what I would look like on a date,
originally uploaded by sinkblue.

Ah, so this is what I look like on dates. Rebecca took this picture from across the table at Sammy J Peppers, and now I see what my dates see. Poor guys - I'm sorry.
This was the last picture taken when I was well. For the past three days I've been no farther than ten feet from the toilet - I have stomach flu. And it's painful.
The good news is that because the stomach flu has been so boring, I've updated some of my accounts and found that an elementary school friend has found me online - it's fun seeing how people have turned out - and he's heading to South America in the autumn which is awesome.
And I've been able to chat with Sarah - haven't talked to her in so long I forgot how much fun it is to talk to her. She's been busy getting over a concussion and being super.
I actually got to talk to my friend Mike and give him my full attention - he's going through sick stuff. Mike is my 'amazing' friend because he lost a lung and grew it back. For this he has been noted in the medical books twice! He's also a really nice guy which is a bonus.
During my stomach flu I've learned that Gateraid sucks, no teddy bear is too small and a couple of yoga moves. I also finished my new toque so my "Linus' Blanket" is back!
And I've been pondering this conundrum: Who are the better dancers - the kids from South Park or the gang from Charlie Brown? One jumps from side to side and the other bobs their heads. They both have such great moves!

You think you know me . . .

Your #1 Match: ENFP

The Inspirer You love being around people, and you are deeply committed to your friends. You are also unconventional, irreverant, and unimpressed by authority and rules. Incredibly perceptive, you can usually sense if someone has hidden motives. You use lots of colorful language and expressions. You're qutie the storyteller! You would make an excellent entrepreneur, politician, or journalist.

Your #2 Match: ENTP

The Visionary You are charming, outgoing, friendly. You make a good first impression. You possess good negotiating skills and can convince anyone of anything. Happy to be the center of attention, you love to tell stories and show off. You're very clever, but not disciplined enough to do well in structured environments. You would make a great entrpreneur, marketing executive, or actor.

Your #3 Match: INFP

The Idealist You are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world. Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships. It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close. But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop. You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist.

What's Your Personality Type?

Rebecca and Matt

Rebecca and Matt
Originally uploaded by sinkblue.

These love birds are so into each other and so happy - it can make you sick! All the same I'm happy for them.
I've know Rebecca since high school when we ditched classes and rode our bikes around colony farms. Her house was only about six houses away from mine so convenience turned us into close friends which became inconvenient for Rebecca when I started climbing her tree and tapping on her window to wake her up early for bikeriding - and one time I stole a lifesize Tim Allen cardboard image across from her bedroom door - only for her to get freaked out by it when she woke up. Her mother never locked the doors back then.
Matt, Rebecca and I had some dinner at Sammy J Peppers just to casually hang out and relax - I've been so busy I was pretty tired. After dinner we headed to my house to watch 'The Last Man on Earth' starring Vincent Price - a black and white about pathetic vampire zombies and only Vincent Price has an immunity to the air born virus.
Matt is a very entertaining msn person - he's gotten me through some pretty dull times! Yeah Matt!