I’m visiting Calgary for the first couple weeks of December, alone. I’m imagining an espresso-fueled bender of cat-cuddling, manga-reading, project-finishing, family-cherishing, Daniel-missing, lurk-revisiting, happy times.

I logged in to Facebook and a Haagen-Dazs advertisement confessed to me that Oprah’s secret to staying slim and beautiful is their acai berry ice cream. I do love Haagen-Dazs; it’s probable that their coffee ice cream is my favourite ice cream ever. Oh, I’ve gone to their website now and it looks like their acai berry product is a sorbet, which makes more sense. I like their proposed idea of eating their fleur de sel caramel ice cream after eating salty oysters by using their shells as spoons, maybe I should try this except with the mussels I’ve been tempted to try every time I’ve gone to the French Meadow Bakery for the past five months and then I will die with pleasure.

I like this jacket a lot and it could be very useful as a top coat to my Prairie Underground hoodie in San Francisco. The reviews sound solid. I found it because on my way out today I had an idea for a coat to crochet, and was researching materials including a transparent waterproof shell or something. It always happens that when I get an idea for a coat, I find a sweet one that’s more suitable to the environments we plan to live in in the future. (San Francisco, Vancouver.) I could still manifest the idea I have, which is a longish hooded trench pea coat in red, probably this yarn, with silk lining. Honestly, the combination of all three could probably do me through this ugly winter creeping in. … Hmm.

Something smells like a sheep here.

It’s funny, if I haven’t eaten anything in a while then my mouth starts tasting like cilantro. No complaints here.

It’s a Sigur Ros day, rainy and dark and cold.

I never got around to announcing my approaching holiday to Canada to visit parents and friends, and when I got there I discovered that I had no idea what my WordPress password was; I had relied upon this computer to remember it. Then it was busy busy busy! between efforts towards house-cleaning, working, quitting my job and making investments in my artistry, which is what I will pledge myself to full-force during the lapse of employment. I do have my hopes set on another job, which I would probably like best at the low end of full-time. This job would be what I enjoy doing as someone’s employee: pumping out sdelicious espresso drinks all day long! And that was what the presence of an espresso machine fooled me into thinking this job would entail. Yesterday, I made one latte. And it was smooth and delightful and I fucked up the art on it but it looked intentional anyway. But I do like to make more than one a day.

I have been in a mood since watching a bit of the Illusionist at my parents’ house for stories of that complexity and time period. My last dream was something between I Capture the Castle and the Other Boleyn Girl set as usual in a distorted version of the house I grew up in: there were two princes and I was one of two princesses, but my sister was set up to marry the prince who was Daniel and I had a horrid gross prince for a fiance. He gave me a vibrator as a present. It was on when he did so and it went roaring around the floor. My parents were there, laughing hysterically. I just wept, and schemed of how to marry Daniel instead.

On Sunday’s flight back to the twin cities I ate a sandwich just before a very turbulent landing, and got so nauseated I had something of a 12-hour flu, all achy and feverish. Now I have a nice hacking cough, and the usual allergy symptoms here and there. We are approaching the dreadfully hot part of twin cities summer and I don’t know what I’m going to do about it, besides hound myself constantly about my water intake.

Visiting Calgary again was lovely as always, I always feel like I am waking up from a dream when I arrive there. Short visit though. But I got to see some people I hadn’t seen since before I moved, and unfortunately missed important other ones. But that’s how it goes. My old house is lovely in the summer, I spent a darn good amount of time on the patio or in the garden squeezing my cat and feeding him pea pods. I honestly try not to reflect on recently made memories from Calgary trips too much, not when I have to go to my job where I am miserable in an hour.

Doing my show rounds I discovered Joanna Newsom is to play a show on the day after Daniel’s birthday in Chicago. I did calculations despite the timely inconvenientness and it would be too expensive anyway. I would have paid in a heartbeat to see her play with Bjork there last fall if I had heard of it a bit sooner than after the fact, though! Although simply Ys with a full orchestra… well, I’m not going to think about it, but I know that there will come a time when she isn’t focusing on that anymore and I do hope I don’t miss it entirely.

We will be going to see the opening of The Dark Knight tonight.

Currently I am working on a blouse that was inspired in part by Bill Clinton’s would-be First Lady dress in the Onion, in part by current trends. :)