final four - task 2

challenges

keep your fingers crossed! 

so i know this is long overdue. but i made it! i made the final six. i am the only canadian in the race for arrival magazines dream job! for the next three weeks they will be giving the finalists task to complete, and each week they will be eliminating two contestants.
i am even more riddled with nerves than i was before. now all i can think about is the contest. i know i have another adventure of my own steadily approaching, but i can not even focus on it. my mind is devoted to this contest.
each week after the applicants send in their completed challenge, the selection committee at arrival magazine narrows the list down by two! the first round of eliminations will be happening late this sunday night. and i am terrified!
so whenever they post our next challenge (which will be a video) make sure you head on over to Arrival Mag NZ on facebook and tell them who should win! or follow @arrivalmagazine on twitter and tweet the crap out of them!
so thanks for the support and keep it up!
i'll try and get one more entry posted before i head off to beijing.
talk soon folks :)

i found a boy

it is quarter to midnight and i am wide awake.
when i wake up in the morning i will know if i have made it on the shortlist for the arrival magazine job. it is hard to tell yourself to picture the worst. imagine myself not getting it. to close your eyes and run through what your emotions would be if you found out you weren't selected. that you were so close, but just didn't have enough.
my home in nova scotia is at the top of a hill. my dad would always tell me to look down at the ground when you walk up it. that way it looks flat, and you'll trick yourself into thinking you are walking on a flat surface. i remember him telling me that every time i walk up a hill.
i am packing up my bedroom. it is the night before my last night with this family. the eve of the eve. i am wearing a hot pink maxi dress with a big grey sweater on top. my hair in it's most comfortable position, a top knot.
my best friend alana arrived in calgary about an hour ago. our friend loraine picked her up. i am meeting alana tomorrow morning and spending the day with her. i feel like loraine and i are a separated couple and alana is our child. we are just starting to adapt to the in's and out's of shared custody. i made alana brownies yesterday. there is only one row of them left. i make really good brownies.
packing up my stuff. putting my possessions into boxes and shipping them across the country. i am glad  i am occupied with that tonight. because if i wasn't i would be pacing back and forth in my room wondering about my dream job with arrival magazine. i would literally be pacing my room. developing calluses on my feet from repeatedly pivoting on the same spot on my foot. most likely listening to something ridiculously inappropriate for the moment, probably adele's i found a boy. i am the worst at choosing a life soundtrack. my ipod playlists are one of the most embarrassing things about me.
by the time anyone reads this it will already be decided. i will already know. this insane contest will be one step closer to conclusion. five people will have smiles plastered on their faces. i am a great smiler. so hopefully i get the chance to show it off. humble.

2009 california white

i spent the weekend away with friends.
i hiked a mountain. my butt is sore. while bringing the rear of the troup up the mountain i thought a lot. i thought about how i love to write. and how i haven't done it much. if i need to make time to do something, is it actually something i should be doing? shouldn't i just want to write, and the time will come naturally? well this all got me inspired.
so when we returned back to calgary. and i came back to an empty mansion. i decided to spend my evening writing with a bottle of wine.
this is the result. enjoy.

writing turban

i am a writer. 

a writer who doesn’t write.

i wonder if i should have to make the time for it. if i need to. shouldn’t it just come naturally? 

it comes naturally. the writing that is. but the time, the time does not.

tonight i’ve allocated the hours of my evening for prepping the house for the family’s return tomorrow (laundry, dishes, making beds, vacuuming etc), and for drinking a bottle of white wine while writing. 

and in the morning i will guzzle down an electrolyte pumped gatorade and edit.

for dinner i started with onions. i sliced them, threw them in a pan with olive oil, added grilled mushrooms, and then burnt them. i am now adding pasta and parmesan. 

in the movie love actually colin firth’s character is a writer. he finds his wife cheating on him with his brother and he packs up and heads out to a cottage. you come to learn that  on several other occasions he has rented this same cottage. he goes there to write. to be secluded and to write. the cottage backs on to a large pond surrounded by foliage that i can only assume is a kin to what inspired monet in paris. 

i think of doing this. 

making time to write. when i imagine it the locale is different. i imagine going to thailand, renting a house from my friend susanna and spending a month there. just writing. going to the market in the morning to buy my forty cent breakfast, and a large pineapple. i picture myself wearing big full butt underwear and an oversized plaid shirt  sitting on the deck of her house listening to the waves crash against the sand below. and i imagine myself pausing between taking sips of warm thai beer to look down through the cracks in the wooden deck to see the water moving the garbage still left from the tsunami around to a new home, several feet away from its last. 

the pasta was cold by the time i ate it. the wine in a plastic stemless wine glass, meant for camping. which is ironic because the woman of the house who it belongs to couldn’t be farther from someone who lists camping as a hobby.

this weekend i went to canmore with my friend and her boyfriend. we stayed at their married friends house. i was the fifth wheel. on the drive we listened to joel plaskett. i could feel the bass rumble through the car doors. like a baby being patted on the back it soothed me. i sat with my legs stretched out over the back seat. i was staring out the window and was watching the rocky mountains pass by. i blinked and they were gone. dum da dum dum - dum da dum dum. the music made my eyelids heavy and made the corners of my lips turn up into a secret smile. i remembered looking out at the scenery in all of the different countries i have been in so far. looking at the mountains pass me from a train in austria, watching the night fall upon open fields in turkey from a cramped bus seat, and staring out at the pacific as i rolled down the highway in a beat up land cruiser. 

now i am eating the cold pasta. the sun is still out, i can see it from the kitchen windows.

i am very much a believer in the saying “it’s the journey, not the destination”. and also karma. 

i just walked into the home office. i stared at the oversized mom desk. it was covered in pink and yellow post-its with piles of papers about birthday party rsvp’s, school head lice warnings, and fall activity registration sign up sheets. i saw her large monthly calendar. it was flipped to september 2012. prepping for the upcoming school year. she was already jotting down appointments. kid 1 swimming three nights a week, kid 2 dance lessons sunday mornings, kid 3 art class thursdays, kid 4 starts pre-school. i smiled. i wouldn’t be here. 

i just finished the laundry and my third glass of wine. and in an unexpected turn of events a pan of brownies is in the oven. 

now i’ve made a cup of coffee. instant. i mixed together my instant coffee while beside me on the counter sat a five thousand dollar cappuccino machine, that i have purposefully not been taught how to use. 
the sound of music is playing. the movie, not the sound track. right now baroness schraeder just walked onto the balcony to find captain von trapp looking down onto the courtyard. his eyes following maria as she paced back and forth in front of the large iron gates that topped the staircase to the lake. one of my favorite movies. 
now maria and the captain are sitting inside the glass gazebo. discussing why she returned from the abby. it’s awkward and playful. they start to sing. 

“for here you are standing there loving me

whether or not you should

so somewhere in my youth or childhood 

i must have done something good”

the sun has left the back deck now. in the sky there are dark rain spitting clouds, tip toeing in closer and closer every time i look up. 

i left the writing for hours. now it is completely dark outside. my coffee is cold, the brownies are done and so is the bottle of wine. 

the thunder and the rain

when i was little i loved thunderstorms.
i remember camping through a thunderstorm on a family vacation to pei one summer. dad cooked outside in the downpour and brought the burgers inside the tent for me and mom.
i remember my mom and dad counting mississippi's in between the thunder and lightening to see how many km's away it was.
i remember going to bed when it was pouring rain outside. i would open my window wide, pull up the blind and fall asleep to the damp air and to the sound of rain drops pounding against the metal ease troughs.
i remember when the power would go out and dad would go for the flashlights and mom would get started on the candles.
when ever it is raining so hard that people stop to watch the water hit the pavement, when i see kids clutch their parents hands after a loud roar of thunder. i smile. i think of home and feeling so safe.

sunday night dinner

i don't lick the beaters when they have cake frosting on
them. but i sure as shit will lick this spicy blue-cheesey
heaven off of them!

ever since my move to calgary i have been spending each sunday night with my pseudo family, the nills. i've known them since i was wee. pseudo dad coached football with real dad and pseudo mom and real mom became the bestest of buddies. the rest is history. each sunday we usually have a dinner that is based around a hefty portion of red meat. red. alberta meat. farmed here in alberta on my pseudo dad's brothers cattle ranch, just a couple hours north east of calgary.
when i arrived tonight i saw a bowl full of ground beef sitting on the counter. ready to be squished and squirmed through aggressive fingers and formed into thick juicy patties.
pseudo mom plunked this recipe clipping in front of me.
"tonight we're making this!"

ULTIMATE BBQ TOPPER
1/4 C franks redhot original sauce
1/4 C mayonnaise
4 oz cream cheese softened (1/2 pkg)
3/4 C blue cheese crumbles *

mix all that crap together then put the bowl into the fridge to cool until you are ready to serve.
when you are ready to eat, take it out of the fridge and then use it to coat the shit out of your burger.
tonight i didn't even put anything else on my burger. just this.


*i fucking love blue cheese. it is by far my favourite of the cheeses.
blue cheese, cheese curds (squeaky cheese), brie (specifically baked brie with jam on top), goat, and real fresh mozzarella when it is in those little squishy ball things.

giddy giddy

a list of things i am extremely - consumes my thoughts - christmas eve belly excited for.

1. CONTINENT
my upcoming trip to asia. i fly into beijing on july 18th. i have nothing planned. no idea where i'm going or what i'll be getting up to. the unknown is intoxicating.

2. CONTEST
my submission to arrival magazine's DREAM JOB competition. at the end of june they will announce what is happening next. not sure if that means the short list will get announced or if they will announce the winner. either way i am beyond pumped. it is the first thing i think of when i wake up. i get flustered that because of the time change i may have missed a tweet or facebook post. the contest literally is consuming my thoughts.

3.CONTRACT
and then there is also the thrill of me finishing my job contract on july 6th!!!!! and i literally can't put into words how thrilled i am to be done with this job. i have never once been so excited to leave a chunk of my life behind. i am sad that this family and this position were not what i expected. but i sure have learned a lot from my time with them. and it has made me supremely aware of how i want to spend my time.

4.COMMRADE
on july 4th one of my best friends is flying into calgary to visit for stampede. i haven't seen alana since christmas. i can't wait to wake up and look over to the other couch in loraine's living room and have alana's morning face to look at. that's creepy right. well i don't care if it is. i miss that kid. i am going to crash at loraine's with alana while she is here. i imagine her visit will be filled with shot gunning beers, going to free pancakes breakfasts, and lots and lots of new memories.

so june and july 2012 are really turning out to be quite eventful months for me. lots of excitement. lots of changes. it seems a world away from where i was last june and july. in a depression riddled hell. not knowing where my life was going. not wanting to settle. feeling suffocated in my home. which wasn't really my home anymore. little did june 2011 me know that one year from then i would be planning another trip of a lifetime. that i would have all my money re-saved up from my last adventure and would have another one way ticket in my possession.

fingers crossed everybody. and please follow @mlenstewart and @arrivalmagazine on twitter to keep up to date on the contest happenings. thanks