I've missed you.

Perhaps the oddest thing about winter is that it never seems so cold until the sun sets on that first spring-like day. Canadian winters have a way of teasing like this; there is a sudden break in the clouds and several days of warmth and light and then the temperature falls back down. There comes such a deep and unwarranted chill over everything that the night before would have thought the evening warm.

 Fortunately, February is (for me at least) also full of fun things inside. Check out the cupcakes I made for my cousin's sixth birthday! He is all about pirates right now.

The look on his face when I told him he should grab some of his "pirate guys" to put on the cupcakes was amazing. He was thrilled about the idea once I had reassured him that no one would eat his toys.

I think you would like her.

She sits in the park with her back to a tree and reads things that do not match. Beneath the spreading canopy she reads about robots and space ships and genetic modification where she should read classics or about settlers or about cats that talk and smile. Maybe she reads those books too. Perhaps she reads those books sitting in an apartment or a science lab that is too cold and modern and glaring to read of dimly lit trysts and whispered allegiances. You'd like her.

Planters and Pretty Things

These last winter months have been rather unpoetically hectic and poetically grey. Taking my time to enjoy its little moments though has been very pleasurable. Pausing in my walk home yesterday, I heard the steady dripping of a melting icicle hanging from the eaves and I waited until the dripping climaxed in the icicle slipping down and crashing into the shrubs below. Staying rewarded me with a second crescendo to the plodding sound of the drops in the snow.
In between midterms and studying- reading Chaucer and Shakespeare, which has likely been the most wonderful kind of studying I have experienced- the new IKEA catalogue has been catching my eye. I am utterly enamored with this sweet little greenhouse which is destined to find its way to my house and windowsill on my next trip to the coast.
Also, my fox has gained two new friends. My boyfriend so kindly surprised me with the adorable hedgehog the other day and the antelope was a rather impulsive purchase from the clearance table from the local toy store. He reminded me, however vaguely, of the forest spirit of Princess Mononoke.

God Jul

Best holiday wishes to anyone stumbling this way. May your day be as warm and fuzzy as Orion playing with the string of a Tim Horton's tea bag.

Essay Proposal

So, Essay, I think we should talk.

We’ve spent a lot of time together over the last three years. That’s not to discount the times we had flirting, passing glances, speed-writing during lunch breaks back in high school, but since then, we’ve gotten serious.

As I look back over nights spent in silence- you, me, a couple of tea cups in the dim light- I start to think about how else I could have spent those hours. Really, anything could have filled that time; nothing could fill it like you. The emotional highs and lows as we went, the euphoria of completion, it is all completely without like.  And you so flighty, so beyond my comprehension.  As the morning drew, it would seem only moments from our slipping out of the house to the nausea that would wash over me as you walked off with my professor. Truly, you are not kind to me.  I fret for weeks, wondering if you are doing well, if you are clear in your thinking, and then I receive a note, hardly more than an acknowledgement of that night, five digits short of a phone number. You’re gone. For months, you’re gone. You slip away while the seasons change and then, you appear again, peeking coyly out from behind the class syllabus.

               Essay, these ups and downs are killing me.  I can’t stop thinking about you. Sometimes I see us in the kitchen, looking down at little abstracts and I wonder if, maybe, this is meant to be. Maybe, we could make this work.

               I know that the semester is at an end.  You won’t look for me at finals and, when the break is done, you’ll only tease me, how far away you will seem! But, Essay, while you are away from me, I wonder if you would consider this, my proposal,

               Essay, will you marry me?

^This is the only way I can respond to yet another essay proposal  requirement. Creative steam must be blown off through writing things that are not required things.

Winter Reading

We have reached winter. The snow has yet to stay, but the cold is and slowly the more so. It seems like only a week or so ago that I saw the leaf in the picture below. While probably the best ward against winter I have seen yet, the snow came the very next morning.

In any case, it is a lovely reason to be inside with tea and a book. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say school work and a tea, given the schedule of the university. I am taking a class focusing on the gothic novel, the result of which has been a great deal of classic horror reading. I had not read much out that genre prior to this, but coupled with the weather and the coziness inside, it has been very enjoyable. "The Innocents" is on the agenda for tonight. It is based on the book "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James, one of my favourites from this course.

Lovecraft

If you have not yet read this book you need to. It is a collection of H.P. Lovecraft's short stories so, even if school is consuming your time like unattended Halloween candy, you can still enjoy it in those few narrow moments. The bus stop has been seeing more reading than my room of late. I was introduced to Lovecraft through 'The Color Out of Space', which has remained a favourite and has gained a fair share of company from this collection.