who needs green beer?

so on st. patrick's day, i heard talk of a parade. i heard this from murmuring lips as i was leaving my flat to go to work. my ears perked as my shoulders drooped: a parade! downtown! right in my fucking 'hood! and i have to go to stinkin work! what a fekkin drag, man. i love my job, but fuck man, i LOVE parades!! i sighed slightly and made my way to work...

flash forward to the next morning. though i had enjoyed a friend's birthday bash (happy st flick!) the night before, i had deliciously avoided the green-beer-hangover. hurrah! so when i was awakened by strange siren sounds coming from what seemed like my deck, it wasn't a nuisance but a mere point of lazy curiosity. it was that sound they make when they don't quite turn on the siren - that half-blurb of whoop. you know? i just shrugged, rolled over and started drifting back to sleep.

and then the bagpipes started.

i know people for whom waking up to bagpipes would be downright nightmarish. not so with me! i instantly bolted up, loudly exclaiming "no fucking way!!!" and raced to my gorgeous deck. below me stood hundreds of people waiting to start a parade. at my doorstep!! under my smiling gaze, the marching bands and stepdancers and irish wolfhounds and leprechauns unfurled in the throng-lined streets.

i felt like a queen, entertained by loving and loyal admirers. and i loved them right back.

wonderful

wonderful
wonderful
busybusybusy
wonderful


i love my life.

(as soon as i get a chance, i have to tell you about the parade that unravelled right before my balcony! i felt like a fucking queen. whee!)

wonderful
wonderful
wonderful

flirting

he smiles slyly: "you like to flirt with danger, don't you?"

she laughs raucously: "flirt?? i fuck it! and then i don't give it my number in the morning..."

another loud and beautiful night in vancouver.

stumbling distance

i am LOVING my new home. deep in the city's guts, it is stumbling distance to everywhere i want to be.

stumbling distance to the pita pit where the other morning, sputtering through the haze of another-last-night's beer and tequila and champagne, i tripped into its too-bright lights and too-bright signs. i averted my eyes in pain and they fell upon the pierced, dreadheaded countergrrrl. "please, make me something," i pleaded gently, "i eat anything." she stared blankly for a second before stepping up to my challenge. "ok," she said, and went about making my mystery breakfast. grilled chicken and condiment choices i would not have made blended into a delicate, subtle taste explosion. clearly, she was a Mistress of the Pita, and i let her have her glorious way with me. thank you, Mistress.

stumbling distance to the megaplexotheatre where last night, riding a whim of sudden freedom, i met up with a friend for "Black Snake Moan" - a great movie with a lamentable ending. but a great movie and oh how i crave already to see again that scene, with Samuel L. Jackson singing some dirty bastard blues and Christina Ricci (alarmingly skinny but still sexy as ever) writhing among a mob of sweating smiles.

stumbling distance to some of the city's finest diner dining, where this morning i skipped through a sunny spring morning to sit at a weathered table and enjoy sweet sustenance while reading words like "Holy flowers floating in the air, were all these tired faces in the dawn of Jazz America." (yes, i'm *still* reading Kerouac - i've been busy dammit!!)

stumbling distance to that classic lounge where the dirty-haired hipsters muse and marvel. old school whiskey shack with sly-grinned servers and addictive characters, like the captain who inspired a fascinating fable and my wild-strawberry-and-swiss-alp-haired brit.

and where shall tomorrow's stumblings take me? i wonder, i wonder... la la la-la...