Flash Fiction Friday 12.0

How are you all this fine, Friday morning?

It's overcast here in Vancouver, and cooler, so I'm feeling great! (seriously, I am such a wimp when it comes to heat...)

Mine, for sure, won't go up until much later today, since I'm heading over to meet the *roomie* after I scarf some breakfast and walk the dog. We're going to figure out everything we want to do to the place... and then perhaps head out and get some of the supplies.

...I'll have to head home in the afternoon for more walkies with Eva, but the planetarium tonight is showing the movie 'The Fifth Element', and since that's one of my favourite movies, I'm going to see the 9pm showing with some friends.

Any fun plans this weekend?

Here's the sentence for today, enjoy!

She held a gun to my head, and asked one question.

Kitsilano

No, that isn't a swear word in a foreign language...

It's where I might be moving to.

...after looking, and looking, and looking for several weeks, I may have found a new place.

My lease is up mid-October, and I don't want to stay there because: 1) obscenely expensive rent prices, and 2) it's the condo the soon-to-ex picked out/signed the lease on. I still can't sleep here.

Now, it's been really tricky finding somewhere I want. First of all, I did want to stay downtown... but, either the rent is astronomical, or they don't allow pets. Or they only allow ONE pet... and there's no way I'm choosing between Eva and Berkeley just to stay downtown.

The other thing I've been looking for is... I want a roommate. I've lived on my own since January... and I don't like it. See, I'm a pretty social person. Not that I constantly want to hang out with crowds of people... but it's so much nicer to eat dinner with someone, listen to music, hang out in the evening just chatting over a glass of wine/etc.

And if I want to go away... it's nice to know that someone will water my plants, right?

Now, the apartment I might be moving to is kindof a dive (so, just like the witch's hut, but without the ivy-ridden-acreage and herds of aggressive deer...), mostly 'cause the building is from the early 50's (so, no appliances other than a stove), but it has high ceilings, original wooden floors, we're allowed to renovate... and I have renovated a couple houses and a couple apartments in the last few years. I enjoy it. This place would be a fun project.

...and the girl who lives there is awesome :) Like, insta-bond where, within 30 seconds, you just know you'd be cool sharing space together :) We've been texting back and forth since I dropped by to see the place this afternoon.


Despite the fact that it is not downtown, Kitsilano is a really great place to live. West 4th is pretty much one huge long street of shops, so everything is within walking distance, especially most of the cool independent restaurants in the lower mainland. It's super safe, lots of people barely lock their doors, crime is minimal, it's right across the water from downtown... you could probably walk there in 20-30 minutes if you were motivated. Also, Kits' entire waterfront is a huge park:

Check that out... from Hadden Park in the east, all the way to the west, which turns into UBC. UBC refers to the University of British Columbia, and the extensive endowment lands it's set on, which has amazing trails throughout the Pacific Spirit Park if you like to run/walk/bike through old second-growth forest. 

The entire waterfront is all park & beach, and see the little red 'A'? I would be a very short 6 block walk (so, like 5 minutes) to all that. (For those interested, the upper right corner is downtown Vancouver, see the little words 'Coal Harbour'? That's where I live now)

(Kits is technically: east/west from Burrard street, that yellow N/S road on the far right, to Alma street, which is mid-map, and goes as far south as W. 16th)

 There are... kilometres of beach/grass/etc of open space for me and Eva to run around in, and it's all dog friendly. How happy would my little beagle be with that?


I have to admit I haven't made my final decision on this yet. I'm waiting to hear back on a couple things... but this is a very big transition for me. I've never done the roommate thing before... never really lived on my own before (other than the last few months)... never lived in this part of the city before... but I think it'll be a good thing.

...so, I might be spending the next couple of weeks painting, putting up tile in the kitchen, replacing light fixtures, installing cupboards/shelves, etc. which seems fun in and of itself :) ...I wouldn't move in until September 1st, probably, after all the reno stuff is done.

This will be move #11 in just over 10 years...

I feel... excited. Which is 180 degrees away from the sick-anxiety/stress that's been keeping me awake for so long.

Excited is good. It's been a really, really long time... :)

FFF 11.2

Mine turned out a little less like a story this time...

Here are my 200 words, please excuse any spelling/auto-correct errors as I am typing on my phone:

No matter what they say about happily-ever-afters, fairy tales are always tragedies. Sure, the youngest son always gets the girl, and the cursed princess always goes free, but what about everyone else? All the other princes usually die horrible deaths trying to slay the giant or ogre. Brothers who were not smart enough to solve the riddle are humiliated, and both sisters and step-sisters of the girl who marries the prince fall into ruin. Sometimes the king or queen is already dead, or dying from a mysterious wasting illness, or they can only have one child, so the fate of the kingdom rests on a single soul.

And those are the cleaned up fairytale versions. You don't really want to know what happened with Little Red Riding-hood, or Sleeping Beauty hidden away in her tower. Jack the giant killer wasn't exactly a hero, and Tom Thumb wasn't noble or stalwart. Kings and princes raped innocent girls, and queens and mothers killed children and ate their flesh.

Sure, sometimes there's a happily-ever-after waiting at the end of every tale filled with deceit, violence, selfishness, and debauchery.

Maybe that's the real lesson of fairytales. To find happiness within the anarchy.

Flash Fiction Friday 11

Wow, 11. I do love-me some prime numbers, though my favourite prime is (of course) 13.

I did something spontaneous yesterday... My family is up at the cabin this week -> parents, sister, nephew, and some friends of the family who go up with them every year -> so, a full house. I haven't been up with everyone for about 12 years, but yesterday, I threw the pets in the car and drove up. The weather is too nice, and my apartment is too hot, even with the new a/c going 24/7.

So, you'll get a lovely FFF written on my phone again. That isn't new... what IS new, is that I'm going to be trying to secretively type this up without anyone noticing. Yeah, I'm still a closeted writer to most people I know, though I did recently *come out* to my sister :)

Today's sentence is slightly influenced by Julie Dao's post from last week.

Happy writing to you all, and have a fabulous weekend!

No matter what they say about happily-ever-afters, fairytales are always tragedies.

Chameleonization

Yeah, not a word, I know :) Blogger is spectacularly dedicated to pointing out made-up words (or dyslexic-errors), with delightful persistent red-idiot-squiggles. (can you tell I'm half-asleep while writing this?)

A few weeks ago I was out with a friend, eating Brazilian food & listening to some sweet Brazilian jazz*, and during the course of the evening, I realized something.

I have very few things I'm passionate about, other than writing.

Sure, there are lots of things I like, or have liked, but it's on a casual scale. With music, I enjoy it, but I'm not about to commit a lot of time and money so that I'd be able to play it, or enjoy it, at a higher, or professional level. I played piano up to grade 10 of Royal Conservatory, I played jazz, I played in competitions, but I didn't love it. I enjoyed it, then I enjoyed moving on and learning something else.

One of the reasons I enjoy meeting new people, is so I can hear about everything they like, and why they like it, because then I can indirectly understand the virtues of something I'm currently unfamiliar with.

Also, I hold very few strong convictions, other than I think it's horribly wrong to discriminate, or treat someone else badly, for almost any reason. Respecting others is pretty much the only rule I refuse to bend on, and I'm willing to take any amount of flack, or a few bullets, to uphold that.**

The reason for having so few convictions is probably due to reading so much philosophy in my formative years. Very early, I understood that we, as humans, know very little in the grand scheme of things, and things we think we know now, could easily be disproved 5, 10, 100 years in the future.***

Even the basis we build our sciences on are founded on theories, which aren't actually proven.****

When people around me have strong ideas about the world, or about what's right or wrong, I'll often choose to argue the opposing view, even if I don't believe it, simply to get a better understanding of what others believe and why.

Belief in something that can't be proven, that fascinates me, just as the theory of gravity is fascinating. We know it exists, because we see how it affects us. Many very smart people have created theories, Einstein, Newton, etc, but we don't truly know how and why it works the way it does.


Now, I already knew that about myself... what hit me the other night was the understanding that my extremely malleable world-view is probably why the only thing I do have passion for is writing (and reading).

Because I'm not locked down, I can freely explore a wide range of characters. I can be a thousand different people, with a thousand different sets of beliefs, and know that in the moment of living within a particular character's skin, I will hold true to those convictions. Then, when the moment is over, I can slip into someone else.

It's the magic of words, of stories.

Unlike movies, where you're watching what's going on, with a story, you live it (or you do in well-written books :p).


Writing is slow at this particular moment, but for Project #6, it's certainly been interesting trying to live in Donovan's head and hold true to what he believes, even though it opposes my singular never-bend-this-principle of treating others with respect.

Perhaps it's okay because I'm trying to treat his convictions with respect, even though I don't agree with them.*****


Okay, that's enough weird self-analysis for one day...

Come back tomorrow for another Flash Fiction Friday!



* It's okay for me to be biased, my favourite cousin plays bass in the band ;)

** Not literal bullets, of course, but sometimes the figurative ones are more painful.

*** Humour my imprecise retelling: There's the old story about a friend of Socrates asking the oracle of Delphi if there was anyone smarter than Socrates, and the oracle said no. When her answer got back to Socrates, he laughed, and then investigated other people he thought were smarter than he was, and in the end, he said something along the lines of, "Other men claim that they know a lot, while they really know only a little, I on the other hand only know that I know nothing."

**** I trust no one is going to nitpick this, as I hope it's obvious I'm simplifying for the sake of making a point, not stating an absolute.

***** Yes, I'm aware I sound like a crazy person, since Donovan is a fictional character