Between Lines Way.

Great Thursday! After a tough Monday and Tuesday in the work field, Leo and I had two really great days together. This morning he slept soundly until eleven. We met Mitch for a Jewish croissant at Cheskie's (more snap to it than a petit pain au chocolat) and a coffee at Naverino (Lo's counter). Lo's bakery supervisor, Anastasia, said the mom look suited me. So that's my look, huh. I laughed at that as I pushed Leo's orange buggy out the door with one hand and dipped my coffee good bye with the other. The afternoon went well together.

He is laughing so much these days. Everything is suddenly hysterical. Hey Leo, regarde! A ball on my head. Laughter. Leo, look here. An elephant. He giggles actually, it is so crazy to hear that everyday, get cheques for that! Awesome. So Mom, I am laughing more. We did his politically correct Recycling puzzle one hundred times and then danced for a bit while singing along with Adele. Leo is starting to sing. He has a real good ear for music already. And his dance! Arm flapping, lots of knee bending with a stupid grin on his face. I have quickly become akin to that Psycho Corydon Mother (you know the one I bet Erin) with the HUGE child strapped into his too small three wheeled stroller doing laps up and down the avenue. YIKES. On that note, it is incredibly nice to sing with and for someone every day, comfortably. He likes it too. Even in the streets. People laugh at us, babbling away.

For the parts of the day that I was alone, I floated on the idea of this new camera. A Russian camera being built by a Ukrainian worker, making it's ordered way. Crazy! This camera was apparently made in 2008 and has probably been sitting on a shelf since. It will definitely need to be broken in and used a bit. Roughed up. I can be so hard on my things, need to work on that. A new camera! Toot toot! Makes me want to hop on an Indian train. Train hat in India. Lately I have been thinking about a trip. The next trip. When that will be, I have no idea. I don't want to shoot myself in the foot by writing not anytime soon, but not anytime soon.

Yesterday I had a crazy flash of Creme. Then again, I always think of him anytime I look at cameras (especially on the internet). A sudden idea for a project combusted in my mind, a collaboration of talents, each teaching the other. Creme has taught me the most and a lot about photography, in a read between the lines kind of way. Forman I've had teach in the same way, its a smart way. Lots of sporadic afternoons in the past 5 years were spent smoking dope and talking shop in his house, listening to awesome records new and old really loud. Each of us with our own headphones, which is the best way to listen to a record in my opinion. Then we would go to his room and look at all his gear. Pick up a camera, ask something. Look through it, pick out the best parts of everything you see through the lens. Focus, or don't. Listen to Cat Power, both of us holding something be it an old Super 8 movie camera or a Russian. You never know with that guy. He has lots of avenues, some are more heavily invested in than others. But he is consistent in quality. Oh Creme, miss you man. He also builds mopeds!

And that brings me back to India (I have never been).

I am interested in making movies, these days. Super 8. My grandpa won a camera auction for me (bless him) and there are three rolls just sitting in my cache, begging to be used. Creme has a few cameras and a bunch of experience shooting. I used to carry around a video camera EVERYWHERE when I was 16 or 17 (so strange, I know) just shooting, stupid teen stuff in people's parent's basements. Spookytown movies, those are plenitful. Getting really drunk for the first time, caught. Summer, riding a BMX and not knowing how to do tricks. Dusk, happy town kids eating tons of Freezies and then puking rainbows on the concrete pad in front of the Bank. Haha, this is what I filmed. What a wiener.

Now I would like to film an adventure. Just a couple of kids in India with cameras. God only knows what would ensue if there were rented motor bikes involved. This is dream, a goal, a potential. I am turning 25, gotta cut loose.

Bonne soirée.

The Russian.

I hooked my Russian at last.

My computer is dying a fast death, so I will write quick while the Petit Poulet sleeps on. I am happy to announce that I have purchased my dream Russian medium format camera at long last. I rarely cruise Ebay, but for some reason I did today and the camera called out!

The latest addition to my stable is a Kiev-60 TTL black bodied beast; heavy as SHIT, as big as a truck, a two hander shootin' machine. No fumbling, rookie shooting or fast advancing with this thing. One great thing about the Kiev is that it has the same lens mount as many Pentax camera bodies, thus a myriad of lens options are now on the table. Wide angle? Fish eye? Okay. My F3 will pale in weight comparison to this honker. Creme said his weighs around 4 or 5 pounds, depending. Looking forward to sore wrists after 12 shots! Crazy!

I found it for a song and sometimes--debt or no debt--purchases of these nature cannot wait. School, here I come. Wedding photography, here I come. Portraiture, here I come.

Ever since I shot around with Creme's SLR MF, I have had a very specific camera body in mind. For two years I have been on the slow prowl for a MF camera that shoots like a 35mm SLR camera would, but with larger film. Waist viewfinders have their expensive charms, but I was holding out for something with a little more character. Lucky for me, I held out hoping we would find each other and like great love, we did. There are a shit tonne of wedding photographers out there (especially these days with the blog world exploding with cutesie-wedding mayhem) and someday, I too would love for wedding photography to be my Bread and Beurre. But different of course. How? I continue to struggle with articulating how exactly I would like to market myself in the future. While it is quite obvious (by my messy Flickr and my slop personal blog) that I am not nearly ready to launch a business or my own website yet, the Kiev definitely feels like a step in the right direction.

For now, I am pleased as punch to continue shooting the weddings of my friends and loved ones. What an honor to be asked! Such trust. In retrospect, I have learned some hard lessons in photography this year. Failing to check the batteries before my OWN SISTER'S wedding resulted in about one and a half rolls turning out of a whopping fifteen shot. Fuck! What a dummy! Thankfully, there were two amazingly talented hired photographers covering the wedding circus (not to mention a handful of talented wedding guest photographers! What a day). But lesson learned: baby one's camera. After two weddings like this (you think I would have realized after the first, but nooooo), I ditched batteries forever. Manual ONLY for this girl. I look forward to learning the feel of the new camera. While I hardly know a technical drop, I know the feel of my F3 like I know my own hands. We have a pretty good connection (not to mention the spirit of Aunty Marj whipping through that body every time I pick it up), I trust my eye, I trust my lens.

Who knows about this new camera though. I really like the fact that I will now have the option to look through it or to look into it. Flipped and upside down or straight on images, ohhhhh baby. Exciting learning curve ahead, folks.

Drex and Danika, you are up next! My only booked wedding for 2011, can't wait! I have a date and he is Russian. 120 black and white candid portraiture only. PAR-TAY. Get ready!

So psyched to shoot and so incredibly hungry to learn. The idea of holing up in a darkroom alone at Concordia late at night in just a few more months excites me to my very core. This is what I am supposed to be doing! DARKROOM! My color days are slipping away. Excitement fills me.

Below, meet my new Russian. Willa, get ready. Aunty Madge just ordered some new gear!

It's not a house, it's a home!

"Top of the evening to you Bob", she said. "I like your jam".

With limbs folded in tight grasshopper, I woke in JJ's lady bed to a soft buzzing. Bees? No, can't be. Beers? Nope. Spray? No, can't be on the Spray (no fallen logs to be found). Dad, hello? My phone. Shit! My phone! My phone!

I leaped out, quick as light. And then I remembered this part of that one Bob Dylan song (see below, just a scrap of a really good musical story) that has just been within me these days (while thinking of Willa, of James, of Giles and her girls, of Dirt Dog Lyle [where the hell did that cat get to, anyway?] of so many, a million faces reminding me who I should be writing letters to; thinking of you all! Walking fast with different parts of people smashing to the daily surface of thought).

And now, a part of a great song called "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" by Bob Dylan, my no. 1 track listen these days.

Well, Frankie Lee he panicked
He dropped ev'rythimg and ran
Until he came up to the spot
Where Judas Priest did stand
"What kind of a house is this", he said
"Where I have come to roam?"
"It's not a house", said Judas Priest
"It's not a house, it's a home".

Well, Frankie Lee he trembled
He soon lost all control
Over ev'rything which he had made
While the mission bells did toll
He just stood there staring
At that big house as bright as any sun
With four and twenty windows
And a woman's face in ev'ry one.

Back to the phone. Hello? Dear Wind, you got me again! Anyway, it was Anna from EM on the phone. Turns out, their prep girl jumped ship for the second Saturday in a row and Anna was calling to see if I wanted to be the new Saturday prep girl. "Yup. I'll be there as fast I can". It took 47 minutes to RUN from JJ's above the Petshop on Parc at St. Joseph, to my house in Outremont on Dollard, a fast change and then back to Mile End to my spot at the butcher block.

Holy fuck that felt good! It has been months stacked on top of months since I had stood at a station in a kitchen, on a payroll, holding a huge knife and having to decide which mountain to climb first--tomatoes or coriander? Coriander. Okay, I will back up as I am getting ahead of myself with excitement. This morning at 10:45 I stepped into the kitchen at EM Cafe wearing my first whites (that may sound strange, but considering how stinken' many kitchens I have cooked in in the last 7 years of my life, you'd be surprised what a pleasure it is to slip into your first cooking smock. It felt good! One size Petite left. Merci, I'll take it). A high and tight black apron against my white belle, a getting long braid and a toque. Face as plain as my nails.

"Hello boys, I'm Meg". Chef Benoit--who I doubt would ever want to be called 'Chef'--the fast flippin', fast talking French man is hysterical. He was tough and told me not to pinch my lips when I laughed because it offended him. Ha! I laughed aloud at that, teeth everywhere. Benoit doesn't have time for fumblers or criers or the lazy in general. Fast work, okay, I can do that. It took me a bit to get the feel for potatoes. The most efficient way to chop a vegetable 101 was flashing in my mind. What?

I was tisked on my first round of hash (too small, which is always better than too big) and praised for my small knowledge of reforestation (bless you, Ontario). Benoit's right hand, Simon (Nick Adamson's identical twin in face and spirit, how nice) who smiles calmly under the mustache while he plates food, greeted me and gave me my first task: potatoes. I took a quick look in his eyes and then at his feet and pants (wearing something James would wear) and I relaxed. Okay, I can do this. And I did. Hashbrowns start to finish, guac, Pico spicy hot, salad a million ways, grill bitch, breakfast burritos, bacon, all kinds of food were whipped up.

The table that is my latest work station has quickly climbed to the top of my Dream Dimensioned Work Table list. Weird, I know. But there is a certain feel to the length, breadth, depth and height of a work table (especially for the kitchen) and it is something I seek, something I look for first when I walk into a room. Furniture has so many stories (the older the better), and I am in love with it. But back to the kitchen table, it was the perfect working height for standing and mincing, chopping, you name it. It is two and a half inches of THICK heavy grained and heavily stained wood (not sure what kind). It is almost a square but not. It is tucked in next to a sliding door fridge. Underneath the wood is bread storage and in the fridge: dressings, leaf four ways, odds and ends, cheese, 'slaw and things like that. It felt nice to work really HARD! And fast. At one point during the brunch rush, I was told I was "efficient and dangerous". I was holding the mop. So this is my life, on Saturdays to come! Party. I skirted the conversation for the most part, just happy enough not to talk and just stand there whipping through a bunch of red onion.

Mercy! Who would have thought. This morning, when the buzzing stopped at hello, I just had a feeling today would be the day. Awesome. That was one of the best kitchen shifts I have ever worked. Looking forward to the Year of Learning, starting yesterday.

Saturday night, time to party in my room.

Easy does it.

Above, was one of the best days of 2010. All of this because I am missing lady company these days. Good memory.

Below, one of the best looks I have seen on the internet in while. Sass, respect. Chanel, POW! I love a good look.

Papa Bear.

Two times this week I have caught myself haphazardly drawing a hairy bear wearing a crown and playing upright bass. Colton, I have been drawing him as a bear playing Bob Dylan. I smell a bear. Today, with my mother in mind, I dug a little deeper and drew one hell of a house. The best house I have ever drawn. Once I figure out how to work my scanner I will put it up.

Thankfully, I am in much better spirits today. Say what you will, but I have hung a hard Larry onto Au Naturel ave. and am into it! Hairy armpits, take it or leave it. I smell like Will Belford these days which is nice as it reminds me of not only of William, but also of Maude. Funny how the scent of my own body oder can muster up so many feelings of longing for Winnipeg. Today was my first day wearing a D cup. HA! Always doesn't know SHIT!

I am listening to Bob Dylan's eighth album and my personal favorite, John Wesley Harding. I'll be your Baby Tonight. Oh yeah. Bring that bottle over here. I'll be your BABY tonight. The bass line just killllllllllllllllllllllls it on each track. Stand up. Upright, all the way. This album just gets me grooving. I am not quite sure what it is, but whenever I listen to it I can't help but think of my one and only Papa Bear, Colt Krachan (we might wed someday) who also kills it on the bass. Any kind of rhythm needed, that man knows how to shake it! Many a party in the bush started with Colt playing the drums with two sticks on an up turned pail.

I miss that guy. I had never met anyone quite like him and then we just kind of fell into each other, the way creatures of the same nature tend to do. I miss being called "Meggs and Bakey" in the morning. What a man! What a man, he is really something special. I have never met his parents Mike and Debbie, but I think it is safe to say they did a damn good job raising this man. We had a special understanding in the bush and were on the same crew. He is also as large as a bear. Colton, I love you.

Miss you buddy. Below behold, my friend Colt. And after that, another photo of Mama and Papa Bear taken in the Sand Pits of Sioux Lookout after a HARD six day work week by my friend Dylan Marshall. We be chillin'.

Love, Meggs Kracker.

Europe dreaming.

Okay, post three du jour. Time to think of some joyful things. My grandparents leave for Hawaii tomorrow! Aloha, goodbye, have fun you darlings! Be good, don't burn your skin! Travel, oh sweet travel. On nights like these, the open mouth crying face kind, dreaming of travel is all one can do.

Hand me a dog eared map, a sheet of looseleaf scrawled with Erin or Giles' Must Sees of Bali or India, five grand to piss up a rope, 25 rolls of 35mm color film and 25 rolls of black and white, one medium format Russian with 15 or so rolls for that, and one 8mm movie camera. Concordia won't know what hit them (when I learn how to write grants). Traveling Asia by moped armed with cameras and shooting a movie in my mauve dress and big hat, this is my current dream. I dream of India, I dream of blasting through a million rolls during the "Festival of Color".

A few days ago, I decided that after two or so years of school I am going to give everything I have to be able to study abroad come hell or high water. Amsterdam. Brussels. Bruges! Belgium was good to me, perhaps our love affair is just beginning?

White Widow jazz here I come. Europe dreaming, as always.

Sans everything.

I need to eat some kale. Or brussel sprouts, or bok choi, or something green and life giving. The idea of cooking life giving food is nice (and usually a priority in my day to day life) but lately it has been a series of cans and wrappers and bread and butter and toast and cheese. Crap. I feel like crap these days! (I just burst into tears writing that. Headphones and Adele made me forget that walls in Outre Mountain are paper thin and hand to mouth sobs can be heard all the way down the street, nevermind). Back to feeling like a big dump (as I spoon yet another bite of tomato soup into my mouth), this month has been an ass kicker so far. My work with Leo has been rough lately, he is frustrated, I am frustrated. He can't seem to express himself in any other ways than screaming or standing defiantly on the coffee table (not allowed). I can't seem to express myself in any other way than eating and crying. Crying and eating, eating and crying; I switch it up. The million miles treaded between my home here in this nice room and Leo's are innumerable. I wish red yarn rolled off of an unseen spool in my back each time I left one house to walk to the other. What a pretty pattern it would make. I switch up my routes, and cry on the walk home.

I don't feel like sewing (or showering).

Not to mention being incredibly conscious of time these days, tick-tocking away above the head of my bed on the wall; a constant reminder of the mountains of work to be done. And yet. And yet, what? Nothing is taking shape. No ideas, no imagination, no path. Footloose Margot. No clue where I will print my photos, no clue when I will make the time to draw eighteen more dossier worthy illustrations. The bitch of it is, time is not the issue (there are spots of time while Leo snoozes), it is pizzazz. Or lack of it. I am sans gumption and inspiration these days, weeks, months. I am dry and down, WORST feeling as an avid maker of things.

* Okay, so I am still sad and at a loss, but now armed with a letter from my mom in one hand and one more from Helen in the other, and thus I am digging. Digging for that something, whatever it is. I love to laugh, going to work on that. Begin anew here in Montreal, gear up, melt into this little person with crazy eyes, and just try to relax and just draw, even if it kills me. Mom before I read your letter, I drew a bear playing stand up bass. So thanks for the encouragement. I hope that DUMP is behind me. HA!