summer: I miss it.

Luckily for me, this is the year of summer.  I'm headed to Australia and South-East Asia in three weeks.  I'll be there for almost four months at the height of the Southern hemisphere's summer.  I'll be arriving home in mid-May to the beginning of a hopefully beamingly sunny Okanagan summer.  We head to Sasquatch in Washington about a week after we get home, into four days of sunshine and alcohol and dust and friendship.  I'm expecting a solid seven months of summer in 2012.  Lucky me, right?  Meet me Asia, friends!

A little bit of housekeeping: I will be updating this blog throughout our travels!  Check back for updates, funny stories, and maybe some photos of me and 1/3 of neverthreemuch in the back of some stranger's truck.  

what's your type?

One of the most interesting things about people is learning what their type is, you know?  Who do they always date?  How much stock do they place in things like height, hair colour, religion... whatever? 

I date pretty much exclusively tall redheads or redbeards, which is crazy.  I think all redheads have a thing where we seek each other out in order to continue the species.  EW right?!  All of you are like "...gingers... :("  Too bad for you.  I will date all of the tall redheaded men on your behalf.

What else do these boys need?  To be funny and to listen to CBC.  At least a passing interest in reading books.  A nice peacoat always helps, and the right shoes.  The shoes make it or break it, dudes.  A beard would be nice.  Oh, and please be exceptionally bright.  No big deal, right?  I just need someone tall with broad shoulders who is cultured and funny and smart.  Uhhh.

Somehow though, they keep turning up.  I was giving a pep talk to a friend of mine the other week after a sucky break-up left them feeling sort of unlovable.  The thing is, people keep turning up and falling in love with us, and we keep falling in love with them.  No matter what happens, someone else always comes along.  You are tremendously love-able, and there is always someone around the corner looking for someone just like you. 

A very wise girl once texted me this: "Two things that always arrive with time: busses and boys."  Good advice.  Someone that is precisely your type is waiting to meet you tomorrow, next week, or in a month.  I love you already, they will soon. 

hi call me.

drinking is a terrible idea

Here are all of the things alcohol can lead to if you're me:

1. Usually yoga.  I think this is because part of my brain just sort of drifts off quietly.  It's the part that says "hey jill, it's not really that cool to show off how flexible you are to your fellow party attendees. It's actually kinda lame."  Without this particular part of my brain, I think everyone wants to see my backbends.  This leads to all of the athletic people at the party trying to go from standing to wheel which is actually kind of dangerous?  Anyways, my back is pretty sore now.  Thanks, caesars.

2. Losing everything I've ever owned.  I don't know where my phone is, and I left my toothbrush and my favourite necklace somewhere too.  Why is this?  I lose everything in the first place, so adding alcohol to the mix just makes it worse.

3. Hangogres.  This is new for me!  I never used to get hangovers at all, and now every time I try to drink to excess I get a stompy hang-ogre in my head.  This means the next day is dedicated to naps, coffee, and baths.  What a waste!

4. Personal stories.  I feel like we all do this and it's a classic.  You realize in the morning that you made absolute best friends with that girl from work who got hired last week and now she knows about your deepest and dirtiest secrets.  WHY.  Why do we all do this?  I think it's cause we fundamentally like to talk about ourselves, and alcohol just makes it easier to do that.  Loose lips sink ships, people!

5. Candy, ew.

things I actually miss about kelowna.

1. Mad Mango. HELLO five dollar breakfast! Five dollar curry bowl!  Five dollar everything!  The best place for the morning after or the morning before or the lunch anytime.  I love it, I miss it. 

2. My parents, ew. 

3. All of my warm coats!  For some reason in my head Victoria was going to be a perpetual 15 degrees, never colder.  I am, as ever, stupid.  Punch me in the face!  Bring me my coats!

WARM ENOUGH EVEN IN EDMONTON

4. A car at my immediate disposal.  Okay, it's my mom's toyota camry but heck.  It's a reasonable car for a reasonable family.  Say that last sentence with some swagger.  One time we wrote a rap about it, it was awesome. 

5. MY GIRL-TEAM omgomg.  The funniest, partiest, smartest group of lipstick-wearing beard-loving bitches ever.  I miss them with the fire and emotive power of one thousand rihanna songs.

ew christmas!

Okay so usually I am a grinch queen.  One time I wrote a whole e-mail about how much I hate christmas and then I accidentally sent it to my whole group of friends rather than the intended grinch-friendly recipient.  Them bitches were not impressed.  This year?  I don't know if it's working in a retail store that's had christmas on the brain since October or being in Victoria which is adorable and decorated right now, but I am kind of excited for Christmas!?

Today I went to my favourite stationary store (The Papery, I'm obsessed) and bought so many lovely things to trick my gift-wrapping out with.  Gorgeous wrapping paper printed in the USA! Sticky vintage-y gift labels! Cards! Nice pens to write cards with!  My presents are verging on extremely over-wrapped and I am trying to resist adding any more details to them.  They need more ribbons, maybe!  Maybe I could cut seasonal shapes out of contrasting wrapping paper and tape them on!  Labels AND cards should be affixed!

I even listened to almost ten minutes of christmas music this evening voluntarily!  I put it on on purpose!  Usually christmas music is my very, very, very least favourite part of the season.  Anyways.  WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME!  I feel so jolly!  If anyone has any cures please send them my way.

look how pretty it is!

annoying things.

1. When songs are ruined for you by past relationships.  Sometimes songs are made so much better by what you did while listening to them!  This time, though, they just make you wince.  I feel like every boy that comes through my life steals a few songs from me (or in some cases, whole artists and tv shows). 

2. When you make a perfect lunch for work or travel mug of tea for the bus and then you leave it sitting on the kitchen counter.

3. When you realize you're kinda homesick for the exact things that made you want to leave your hometown in the first place.  Sometimes that safeness and sameness and predictability seems really nice.

4. When you eat too much cotton candy. 

5. When your roommates don't understand the concept of recycling.  Paper. Does not. Go. In the. Garbage.  There is a recycling bin right next to the garbage, even!  I put a sign on it!  Don't even get me started on composting.

6. Boys.  All of them.

7. When you suddenly realize half-way through the day that you hate what you're wearing.  And then you're stuck!  Is this just me?  Sometimes I let myself out of the house in the craziest shit.  When I first leave it kind of makes me giggle about how crazy I look and then reality slowly sets in.   

8. When your mom is right.  She always is.  It sucks.