Gearing up for the trip

Sunday morning I'll be flying out to Toronto for the first leg of my tour through Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and PEI. It seems like not enough time is left to properly clean up and pack! If I haven't already made plans, any time left before I go is dedicated to cleaning and packing.

See you from the road!

Cartoon Dreaming

The alarm clock woke me up from slumber this morning, in the middle of a strange dream. Well you know, the content is always odd but what set this one apart was the dream was an animation, kind of like bugs bunny but thinner lines, more "action" lines, and enlongated pen strokes.

The dream was about someone I know being in a hospital and liking it, this person was zooming around the halls in their wheelchair. It's on my mind because several close people in my family have spent some time in a hospital lately.

I can't explain the animation though, since I haven't really been reading or watching cartoons in the last few weeks. Except for one on the airplane, which I mostly ignored.

Knitta!

Last week I hosted my first mini "stitch-n-bitch" ;). Rachael and Mandy came over for dinner, and Mandy introduced me to knitting basics while Rachael worked on some of her shots of Kirsti. Now I can start to appreciate the work that goes into knitting! Also I can start to appreciate the talent demonstrated by a few of the knitters I know, wow do I ever know some talented people. What twigged me to knitting is a new style of street art whereby people knit "pole socks" and leave them to decorate, well, poles. Parking sign poles, stop sign poles, etc. I can't wait to decorate my neighbourhood!

Thank you Mandy!

Going against the grain: World peace?

If you frequent flickr, then you may have noticed many people changing their icons over to a black ribbon. This ribbon is meant to symbolize peace in the world, and it is a reaction to the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

I hate fighting and I hate conflict. I think war is ugly and unfortunate, and I wish there was no war. I can't imagine a world without war, mainly because I know war is caused by some very fundamental human desires. A community desire for control over it's own space, for example.

Here's where I go against the grain. This black-ribbon icon is beyond silly, in fact, it is damaging to the goal of world peace. Changing user icons is doing nothing to gain peace, it is just taking part in a tribal identification ritual. At any given time, there is military conflict in the world, and often we don't hear about it until everything is over, if ever. This campaign of black ribbons seems to make the statement that things are worse now than they usually are. The last time I checked, there was still a war in Iraq, and a war in Afghanistan, and our own government is taking part in both of them.

While I think the black-ribbon icon is silly, I do wish there was something real I could do. If anyone has some ideas for how to truly help world peace, I'm interested to hear them.

Give Everything Away

While on the bus yesterday I was playing with the idea of simply giving everything away and starting over. Of course I quickly realized that doing so is kind of silly - there is basic stuff that I'd want to keep (like plates and knives). Also it seems that just giving everything away without some kind of major life change attached (like moving) would be missing the point.

Have you felt this need?