losing steam.

i'm losing steam for a lot of things theses days...including this blog.

more details later.

maybe.

g. xo

i'm in.

i'm gonna make one of these fer sure.

you should too.

g. xo

i used to know a girl named tree.

that's the truth.

g. xo

wow and flutter.

just how fucking good is lemonade anyways? perhaps the world's most perfect beverage.
i had a weekend to be sure. it was filled with running around, some hockey, a meal or two and another viewing of an apartment just like my new. just flipped. mirror image of it. in a different building, right next door. i'd be excited about it, and part of me is but part of me has grown weary of waiting for it to be done. i have no idea how people who have put money down on places that won't be done for years do it, or deal with it. i sure couldn't.
the h2n2 has faded somewhat and i'm now just a little achy, and achy breaky, but nothing too bad. i feel crappy in the morning when i first get up and then as the day progresses it gets better.
some of the lawn order bills have yet to be paid...and i'm sad about that. not sad because the money out there that's owed to me is that much...i can eat just fine, but, i hate that people don't pay up...like that fucker laurie mercer. just for the record he's still an asshole. i mean, i cut the grass...what part of writing a cheque and sending don't people get? oh well...another year, a few more deadbeats.
a friend called me the other day to let me know he's finally taken the first step to becoming more honest with himself and is now going to N.A. meetings...i told him it was the best thing for him and that i was proud of him...i just hope this time he sticks to it...he's had other plans before that have fallen through. maybe it's time. maybe it's his time. i hope so.
and e.mails go out and then, sometimes e.mails come back. i ask people questions and try and make plans but, these plans don't get made so...(because the e.mails don't come back...) and i know, i know, we're all busy - i sure am...so i guess i shouldn't get too wrapped-up in it.
and i'm here to tell you that the squeaky wheel gets the grease...my imac was experiencing some 'burn-in' and while it wasn't much, it was enough to piss you off so...after a talk with apple..i got me a new screen. installed yesterday and back with me now. nice. looks the same, only better.
ok. lunch soon.

g. xo

day out.

i'm not sayin', but i'm just sayin'...i think the flu has come to my house. late in the day friday, at work, i started feeling crappy. senor crappy. not so crappy that i couldn't work or function - i wasn't shitting my drawers or anything...- but not great. i came home last night, had some dinner and was knocked-out cold by 9:45 pm...the cool kids were out doing whatever it is they do and i was sleeping. sure, i woke-up at 4 am ready to start my day but i made it through to 6:45 ish am until i finally got up. not much going on at that time in the morning around here i'll tell you. so i did nothing. for a while. and then a while longer.
when i had to i made my way over to pender st. and met-up with lisa, and later the garbs, to have a look at the new storm salon location. lisa has a few ideas she wants me to take care of...how can i say no? i was glad to lend an ear and now lend my talents (?) to her new place. a little bit of garn at storm salon. nice.
the after a quick shot to granville island i went and grabbed my pal nancy and had a nice snack at the noodle box on west fourth...just a short walk from my new soon to be home...when? i have no fucking idea....
bomber hockey was next and we finally won one...i sure do love the bomber hockey....
then it was time to go see some comedy. yup. jenny treated me to a night out at the red robinson theatre in coquitlam to see bob saget. yes. bob saget. mr. potty mouth. it was an odd performance that was littered with OCD style references and scattered sexual references and fucked folk songs. the audience loved him. loved him. and while it was funny for approx. 20 minutes of the hour plus performance, i get it. i get why they love him. thanks jenny.
now. neo citran and bed. i love that shit.

g. xo

the week that was and wasn't.

the weeks are blowing by on this number and there's no stopping this express train now - they're shot too much film. no going back now. and as shows go, this one is ok. really. good folks, great crew, all tucked together at the stages, no location work...everyone knows where they're going each and every day. nice. only one case of H1N1 has been reported so far - although i am feeling a little off today...soon i'll be off and home and asleep...big day tomorrow - hockey in the afternoon and potty mouth bob saget with jenny tomorrow night. (freebies at the casino...)
dan and i noticed some mushrooms growing outside and let them be...joel came by and picked them and placed them on a piece of paper near my desk...i then tired of them there and moved them to his area...then they began to rot. anf ooze stuff. and rot some more. i took pictures every day and you can now see how nature rolls.
joel wasn't impressed when he saw that they were still here after so many days. oh well.
ok. i have no real report. i just wanted to say hi and show you some pics of some rotting mushrooms.

life moves along.

g. xo

huh.

usually.

i don't pass on stuff from the net..well, not too much but, thanks to don bull i found a nice thing today that made me laugh out loud.

check it out.

when you see the pic click on it to make it bigger...

genius.

g. xo

pilot.

I’ve got a chipped tooth from when she hit me in the mouth with her bare hand last Saturday. We’d been out drinking and eating bbq and sometimes that’s all it takes to set it all in motion. The sauce is what gets me sometimes, it seems to make my heart speed up like two or three times its normal speed. I get pretty rangy on that shit and you add a couple beer to the mix and I’m like a spinning top inside. And she’s no better except that it’s apple cider, the English style 11 percent alcohol stuff that sends her reeling like a banshee. And Saturday after three strips of ribs and several ciders she just steps into me with a fist meant to deliver a whole lot of hurt. And it did. I was bleeding like a stuck pig and stunned at what she had done. All the while she was laughing like a crazy Hastings junkie with my blood all over her fist. People were looking at us, mainly her, like we were extras from deliverance.
I love her. I do. Crazy. I seem to love the crazy ones. I don’t know they’re crazy, when I first meet ‘em. But be it in the middle of the night or while eating bbq one night or after a show at a club, all of a sudden the crazy switch just flicks itself. One cried whenever I’d make her breakfast. True enough. Another would ask me about love triangles that I had no idea about. Or even knew the players involved. One girl opened the door while I was driving and before I could come to a complete stop, jumped out and ran into the street and waving at cabs to stop and take her away. I let her find her own way.
My lip’ll heal. No problem there and the sight of a scar won’t make anyone wonder. It may make me wonder but no one else. The line between love and lust and crazy and sanity are all so blurred for me now I can’t make any sort of comparisons between the four of them. And truth be told, there are so many other avenues of love or what we like to call it I can’t even begin to think of them all. Crazy. I think I, without knowing it before, love crazy. But sometimes there’s too much crazy. To bad you can’t order up just enough. Just enough crazy would be good enough for me.

change.

funny the difference a little change makes. in my case, not shaving for a week or so.
two people have asked me if i was depressed. not because i was acting any differently or any sort of mood swing, just the hair on my face. oh, and one person today also said he thought i may be depressed because i was wearing fleece. love it. maybe i wasn't a morning person he surmised. maybe. but not likely true.
funny. and it's no secret i have battled moments of depression but not at the moment. i just have decided to grow a little hair on my face - which could be gone tomorrow or next week or later today. or in a month.

so don't despair, it's all good. i've just lost my razor.

g. xo

green cans and bottles

So.
I was taking some bottles and cans back to the bottle depot and getting some cash for my daily Kraft dinner and…ok, it wasn’t for Kraft dinner but, I was, indeed, taking bottles back for the refund and I discovered something kinda weird.
I had in my bounty a few cans from Whole Foods, their house ‘365’ brand and when they were discovered amongst my loot they told me they couldn’t take them. Well, they could take them but they wouldn’t be issuing me any refund for them, as they were non-refundable in Canada. The cans were border jumpers. They would recycle them for me but no cash. Hhmmm. Ok. That’s cool.
But then I began to think about it. Were all 365 products, or at least beverage containers of all shapes and sizes, non-refundable in Canada? Are they charging a deposit fee at the till, which all places do when you buy canned and bottled beverages, or were they letting that slide because they aren’t refundable? Or do they make it so you can only refund the beverage containers at Whole Foods or Capers?
Just to make sure I couldn’t return any 365 beverage container I took a large plastic lemonade container bearing the 365 label to another depot and they too said no. We won’t take it.
Next stop Whole Foods to see if they take them back and if they are, indeed, charging a deposit fee on the containers at the till.
The cans and bottles have clearly been re-labelled for the Canadian market with stickers covering any US markings. But I wonder about a company that is so Green, or so they say, that brings in containers that are only refundable at the point of sale and not like all other containers in B.C. that are easily taken to any depot for the refund. We, as people, are lazy and if it can’t be easily refunded we’re not going to do it. And this goes for the binners as well. If it’s too hard for them, they’re not going to fill their carts with things that are too hard to get the cash for thus leaving, potentially, tons of cans and bottles littering the streets and alleys.
Just a thought.
Next stop a check of my bill at Whole Foods to see if they’re charging the deposit at the point of sale and if they take them back there.
I’m just doing my bit for the binners and the environment.

g. xo

one hit and it's a whole new ball game.

According the news, and the news knows what’s what, shoulder pads are making a comeback…first it was all the bands from my past embarking on re-union tours – Jesus Lizard, Butthole Surfers, Cracker, etc – now shoulder pads. I’m personally holding out so don’t look to me for advice on the right pad for you. Only you can know for sure.

It seemed there wasn’t enough peanut butter in the house last night to satisfy my craving…I gotta sort out some stuff at the house or I’m gonna need to be buying a lot of food..

The Dodgers managed to fuck it up late in the 9^th last night but the Angels managed to dump the home run hitting Yankees last night. That’s good. I don’t mind Jeter but A-Rod can go fuck himself.

Hey, they just introduced the new line of imacs and macbooks! Get out the credit cards! I may be upgrading my home laptop so if ya need one let me know…

I was gonna tell you something else as well but it’s totally slipped my mind…oh, I know. I want to thank those who made donations to the Canadian Cancer Society on my behalf this year in lieu of paying for lawn cutting…and to be honest, I have no idea if you actually did it or not but I know you said you would, and I trust and love you so, I can only assume it happened…so thanks!

g. xo

gaary, chairs and one last lawn.

the first tomato pie of the season was dinner last night....

it's over. more or less. the fifth lawn order season has come to a close. it was a great season, if only for a short hot period in the middle that caused a lot of lawns to go brown and not need my services but, in the end, all good...some new clients came on board, old one came back and more inquired near the end of the season for next year...it's always a little sad when the rains come and the lawns go into hibernation and leaves cover lawns once green and lush and needing cuts every week or ten days...shed a tear my friends for the end to another great season.
i managed yesterday to beat the rain and get my last lawn done in north vancouver....a geat lawn to end the season with. a big lawn with lots of different sections and weirdness...and yesterday was almost like a day off as well, as was saturday...the previous weekends have been very busy with barely a second to sit still...i had a few things yesterday besides the lawns - picked-up and delivered some chairs for 'he who can not be named on the blog' - worth a burrito i hope...some errands and such...but all in all some non-work type action as well..including some fuck and chips up on (g)arbutus with mishi.
the dodgers got waxed last night...although if the phillies win i'm ok with that...the yankees won as well over the weekend - i'm not so ok with that...
at the pickle yesterday garry had some admirers from ottawa who decided they just had to take him for ride around the streets of the island...pretty good...chantelle and 'jill', had a few laughs while navigating him around..
ok...off to the salt mine to start another week...(which has been pretty good actually...)
have a great monday...

g. xo

'jill' loves gaary.

as does chantelle.

rita's big day out

before my friend debbie left town she saw a bank in a store window that she just had to have except it didn't go on sale until after she was gone so..i grabbed it for her. the bank, now named 'rita', had a big day out today...don't ask why...she just did. i told debbie i was gonna take rita out and have her picture taken on a lawn i had just cut and debbie thought that that would be funny...i just took it a bit farther. rita made her way from gastown to north van to granville island and over to (g)arbutus and back again...
now settled back here i think rita's traveling days are over for now...well, until i move when she'll be boxed-up and taken there while she waits for debbie to come and take her home...

g. xo

rita and gaary.

rita tries on some jewelry at the pickle.

rita helps out at jj bean.

rita shows the garbs how to sew.

rita enjoys some fish and chips.

rita enjoys watching the traffic go by.

rita loves sitting on a freshly cut lawn.


mishi and rita share some fries.

ps....i'm not insane nor do i have a lot of cats.

meltdown...and the final best of the blog for 2009.

i had a bit of a meltdown last night - the details of which i won't go into but...suffice to say i was losin' it. ok. enough of that.
last night, too, saw me in an odd situation as well...i was at a place i often go for dinner...and the people in front of me knew me and asked who i was meeting there, i said it was just me. they asked me if i wanted to join them. i didn't want to. she's nice enough but i think he's an asshole. they asked me if i was sure and i told them i had to make it a quick meal and that i was also tired, etc...whatever. they asked one more time and i declined again, as politely as i could. they finally accepted and i was free. now this is a guy who is a good friend of a friend of mine but i had recently decided i was done with suffering him. why bother i think. he's not the world's worst person but he is, in my opinion, a very aggressive, guy-guy, who loves to have a few beers and ramp it up higher than i care to. loud. asshole. nope. no thanks.
ok...and here it is now, the final batch of pics for the best of the blog 2009.

i love you. i really do.

g. xo

best of the blog pt. 6 (?)

I’m just sayin’

There’s retarded, and not retarded as in mentally deficient (and please don’t e.mail me with shit about political correctness…just stop yourself…) and then there’s full retard, to use a term from Tropic Thunder – a movie I wasn’t moved by in any way but Robert Downey’s character is pretty good. Ben Stiller, humbug. But today outside our shop is a fine example of full retard. I need not say more than I have already said…as Rod said, every picture tells a story. Oh, the tales this one could tell.

Anyone who knows me knows this…I’m big on please and thank-you. And maybe this is why it bothers me sometimes, or all the time, when I don’t hear people using them when they should be. In restaurants, coffee shops, out and about, wherever I fucking hate it. Like people choosing to not use the turn indicators when they’re driving…but the pleases and thank-yous…and I find it even more disturbing when those same things don’t come home to roost. And I know, I know, one shouldn’t do things for the thanks, one should just do it because, and I get that too…but know this, I put those things in my brain whether I mean to or not – who has said thanks, and who has not…and maybe, perhaps, I won’t be so happy to help next time. I think that’s fair. Thanks for understanding.

So the Cards made a quick exit and now many and the Dodgers move on to the NLCS and see what they can do there. I’m sure Manny’s an asshole but so hard not to love for a whole load of stupid reasons. I’m taking the Dodgers over the Phillies. You don’t care but I’m telling you anyways.

It’s only been a few days but the hair on my face is bugging me. Not as much as the kids who work at the Granville Island Opus Arts store though…holy cow. I had to call in the big guns, Suzanne at the downtown store, to fix it…wow.

I need some fish and chips again.

g. xo

colors

have you ever heard "colors and the kids" by cat power...?

sure she's loopy but what a great song.

g. xo

the return of heartbreak...

well, maybe not heartbreak but the heartbreak beard may make its return...i decided not to shave today...and i may not tomorrow either.

let the itching begin.

g. xo

best of the blog pt. 5