just what i needed, that's what i was thinking of

our lady of seven sorrows

I read a book recently in which a character said that love is the greatest of the seven sorrows. So great, in fact, that he had forgotten the other six.

That reminded me of this.

When I was in grade nine I had two wishes.
One was to marry Daniel Johns, who was the lead singer of Silverchair, and with whom I planned to have two children, one named Neon and one named Ballroom.

The other was to be Catholic.
My friend Melissa and I often had sleepovers at her grandmother's house in Peterborough, where we would camp out in the basement and watch the videos for "Anthem for the Year 2000" and Will Smith's "Miami." One weekend while we were there, I got blue streaks dyed into my hair.



Another time, Melissa's grandmother gave me a medal of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travellers, to wear around my neck. My paternal grandfather has been travelling all his life, but he didn't like it -- papism makes him nervous. In 1969, St. Christopher started making the pope nervous. I lost the pendant sometime in 1999.

this might be a shout out

Another list/post inspired by the genius of Que Sera Sera. I have some friends with stories that basically define their personalities, or at least, the window through which I see them. The story that I'll shamelessly say "Okay, so tell me about that time that you...." over and over again. Particularly if I haven't seen them in a while, or if I'm introducing them to someone new. This includes stories for which I was present, and stories that I've heard so often that I could recite them verbatim, leading to frequent interruptions to correct minute details.

Such is the life. You're all saints, kids.

• Rachel - "That time your dad got lint on his pants and made the Zimbabwean tour guide pick it off."
• Streets - "That thing you overheard at Coffee & Co."
• Beav - "That time Ben got in a fist-fight with a turkey."
• Bale - "That time you fell in love with the heir to a tea dynasty"
• Jordon - "That time you refused to get an ashtray" OR "That one time you studied Howl and NPR at Dal."
• Barbeau - "That time it was your birthday and you had to go to the bank really quickly." OR "That time we saw MO. [in the Biblical way]"
• Tee Eff - "That time you saw Bran Van 3000 and told them they were the future of hip hop."
• Scheidt: "That time you had fleas at the apartment."
• Dorian - "That time you guys stole those boxes from Steve and he went to jail"
• Emmy - "That time the ferrets were running all over you" OR "That time we snuck in the backdoor at the Horseshoe and met the Gords."
• Carleigh - "That time you saw Chingy."
• Zeb - "The border crossing when you ran for the woods" OR "That time the car broke down in South Syracuse"
• Colin - "That time you stole the school bus"
• Meghan - "That time you bro'd down with John Tory at Little Shop of Horrors" OR "That time you wished you knew he was on ecstasy."
• Kate - "That time that guy's mom thought you were his ex-girlfriend when you were peering in his windows and started yelling 'It's okay, Sarah!' when you and your friends ran away."

Tell me more, tell me more.

a case of who?/i bet you think this post is about you/will you still read me tomorrow

This month's Vanity Fair has a story about three Rebel Angels--Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell and Carole King. While there's a lot of gratingly intense celebration of the fact that the three are women (!) writing songs (!) (including the use of the word 'Everywoman') that sort of invalidates a lot of the really great art they made, it does a good bio of Joni Mitchell (more so, at least, than the other two women), complete with descriptions of high cheek bones and a "Canadian Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz."

And of course this description of famous alum of the Seven Sisters schools made my mouth water: "...in stovepipe pants and ponchos, raising fists at political rallies, debating literary lions now viewed as troglodytes, producing theoretical tracts and carnal novels."

Check it (if only for the pretty pictures of hippy kids with guitars). Pretty sure the whole thing's online.

PS. In the article, Weller describes King as "getting younger as she got older (as one could do only back then)."

I've got a handwritten letter from my baby sister pinned to my bulletin board (one of those "if the house was on fire, and you could only save one thing," kind of possessions [sorry 'bout the drumkit, CS]) and a perpetual love for chasing the wind that pray that era's not over.


Johnny & Joni do "Girl from the North Country"
Joni - A Case of You

and what follows is this:

All my favourite stories are on the road.

Emmylou, doing Townes Van Zandt's Pancho and Lefty, a song that always reminds me of Don Edward's song, Coyotes.

baby do you know what i mean

Listening to a ton of Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris music right now, and finding it's the soundtrack to a rich life.

One of my favourite blogs, This Recording, has this post about the glory of Gram (including soft, earnest interviews with the martyr himself) which is definitely worth checking out.

Gram on Emmylou:
"She sang like a bird, man, and that was it... She can sing anything that you're doing in perfect harmony as long as you look at her. If you raise your eyebrows when you're going up on a note, she goes right up with you. She's beautiful."

Emmylou's farewell song to Gram, Boulder to Birmingham always stops my heart a little bit.
So far, this blog is the only place I can find it online, so go there, and click play.

writing to reach me

Originally published here, along with a ridiculous photograph.

In those awkward, self-aware years between childhood and adulthood, when I was buying Seventeen magazines in order to imagine the life of a 17-year-old and keeping copious records of descriptions of boys I liked, friends who had betrayed me and arguments with parents, it seemed as though I was always being instructed to write a letter to myself in the future. A time capsule to open in the year 2000 or when I graduated from high school or something, a memento of times past, a purpose-fuelled inspiration to motivate myself at 12 to dream big, and at 18 to pursue those dreams. The capitalist’s dream summed up in a Dr. Phil moment of self exploration, facilitated by a small-town schoolteacher whose favourite phrase was, “The sky’s the limit.”

I found one of them the other day, a record from my last year before high school, tucked between the pages of a pink diary guarded by the words “keep out” written in menacingly sparkling purple nail polish.
In the letter, I'd written myself about who my best friends were, (using the classic initial-only last name unique to public school days: “Ashley H.”), my favourite bands—The Beatles, Oasis, Tom Petty—and what I wanted for the future: “To become a famous author, and also a doctor (maybe).”
While I’m pretty impressed by my pre-teen enthusiasm for music that’s still dear to my heart, I’ve given up on the dream I no longer remember having to be a doctor.
The whole exercise, though more than 10 years in the making, was fairly anti-climactic. Far from mourning the loss of failed dreams, of being inspired by the purer hope I had once had, I was mostly creeped out by the letter’s eery and narcissitic address—”Dear Meghan,”—and signature: “Love, Meghan.”

The letter did, however, make me think about the tragedy of the one-way passage of time—how much better it would be if I could write a letter and pop it into some time-travelling post system that would take it back to the days of dollar-store eyeliner and “group dates.” I would write to myself about the things that really matter—that diary I kept, the books I was reading, the music I was clinging to, family, friends who were good at being friends—and the things that don’t: Grade 9 math class, boys who make fun of curly hair, bra size. Again there would be a distinctly Dr. Phil-like vibe to the whole thing: “hindsight’s 20/20.”

Now I’m in my fourth year of university, on the edge of something even bigger than high school appeared back then, and I don’t feel half as secure as I did then. There’s no road map from here on out, and I’m not really keen on drawing one just yet.

Dear Future Self,

The sky’s the limit.
Love, Meghan