Tonight's subject; appearances

Tonight I wanted to talk on the subject of appearances . I have been thinking on this for some time and now hope to bring forward a few thoughts on what the world sees as important and what I agree with and do not.

The appearance of youth.
This is something every one strives for, women fght for it and fill themselves with garbage while denying their body's food. The garbage comes in the form of plastics and chemicals. The latest is the Botox. I don't know about you but even the name makes me suspicious. Any word that has a root in "tox" makes me think toxic. No thanks.

The appearance of wealth.
Now what will give this appearance? One would say the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the house you live in, or the price you pay to get your hair cut. Let's go with the hair cut. Now in the salon of my apprenticeship the cost of a woman's cut is $30. Some may look at this in compared to your "great cuts" price of $6. But if you compare it to this price (click on "about us", "salon") you will feel great. Not just cause it was cheap but because we can do almost just as well.

Old age.
Something that my talk on youthful appearances proves that we as the human race do not want. I on the other hand will not agree. When the older women come into the salon I look at them and look forward to the day I am old and wrinkeld. Oh I can wait but I am not upset that the time is to come. I will say that at the age of 24 I have started to see the smallest evidence of gravity in my face. The laugh lines are just that little bit more prominent and I must say I am happy because of them. I hope that I am well furrowed in my day that you can look at me and see I lived a full life, with it's hard times and it's not so hard times. I look forward to being old.

The appearances of the human in every stage are beautiful in there own rights. I enjoy every sight that goes by. Be beautiful in God and know that you are loved beyond your looks.

Running scared

I have always been a runner. Not in the physical sense of the jarred knees and blistering feet but in a different sense of the word. When something is hard for me to handle in the place that I am in I run. If I can I run to a different part of the world. I have run far to the north to the south and across the country. At times I want so desperately to run and now would be one of those times. For me to run from this place would be absolute stupidity. I have a great job, great friends and a great apprenticeship program that I want to finish. Not only that I know of no place that would accept me and make my life easier for me.

So today I ran. I am running in my writing this. I have found a small way of escape. It comes in the form of my appearance. I am wearing the very pants that I wore while in south Africa, I have nastified my hair as it was down there, not the dreads just the look I had before, it can be rectified. I wear also the bandana I stole from my friend whom I met down there. I will then do some sort of drawing and poem writing to run. I will dive deep into my forgotten world of thought, leaning on the hope that there will be a freedom in those parts of my mind that I have not visited for sometime. Later I will rent a movie and escape into the world of the actors and their stories told through visual and audible effects.

The only thing about running that always scares me and yet, at the same time is the very draw of it, is the fact that I could get lost. Never to return to where I should be. Forget what I have that is good and believe it is all bad. My life is nothing near terrible, far from such a thing. I am one of greater imagination than even I will allow myself to believe. I imagine pain where there is none. Really the heart ache is my hunger from not having anything to eat yet today. My loneliness is my house empty of something it has never had, how can I miss what I've never had? My cold doom of forever being this way is me just not putting on a sweater when I need one. I will return but for today I shall dive into my rabbit hole here and enjoy a day of feelings.

Stranger things have happened

Something strange has happened to me in the last month or so and it has caused me once again to evaluate my life. I am always amazed at how quickly I can go from total confidence that I know what is going on to complete confusion. The details of my life right now are even beyond my own understanding so I will not, nor would I, attempt to explain. What I will do is show you that I can go from a light hearted state to a not so light feeling in a short, but intense week.

Now when it comes to this strange place of my life it is not new but I am thankful to say that how I feel about it is. This is only possible with my Father in heaven holding me in His mercy and peace. His peace surpasses all my understandings. The things that are around me at this time are beyond my control, there is no way I can do a thing about them and I want to so badly it hurts. The pain of it is deeper than I fear I have ever known before and yet I am at more peace than I have ever been. I find this place to be so ironic it makes me laugh, I am not all gathered into myself but instead feeling more than ever for the people around me. This is not usually the way I react to these things. The care I have for my fellow man is also beyond my understanding.

I want to impact those that I am near and I fear I am not. I wish for God to work through me but fear that somehow I have closed myself off. That somehow I have shut Him out of my life. Though I talk to Him daily have I in some way caused it to be impossible for Him to do/have His will in my life? I want for the world to know that He is my Lord and savior and that we all, as the human race, need Him. But do I live this in my daily life? Do people who I work with and live near know that there is a God who loves them, do they see this in me? And please do not think that I want an answer for these questions. This is not me asking you for affirmation about my well being but instead my verbalizing my thoughts so as to, if it is possible, come a little closer to understanding it myself.

I'M IN LOVE!

This record player is all I ever dreamed of. It has fulfilled my hearts desire when it comes to what I had hoped for. Not only that but the records that I bought even before having heard them are all good. There are only two out of twenty-one that are not what the cover said they were. I have now learnt to look at the record and not just assume that what the cover says is what is inside.

The Doobie Brothers ring clear and true and Keith Green is full of spunk. I love it. I now have a source of cheap music for my cheap-skate lifestyle and it's beautifull.

Records

It started back in July when I frist moved to Calgary, I got this notion that it would be great to own a record player and records, get back to some of the old sounds of childhood. I enjoy the grainy feel that comes from them. In this direction I headed, Sally annes are the best for this, they sell records second hand for one dollar each. I found a small amount that I had never expected to come across and lot more that I would never even wish to test.

For the player I started my search in the bargain finder, a small want add where people sell, trade and give away things they no longer wish to own. I found two that seemed promising so I called them up and then drove across the city (literally from bottom to top) to look at the one, well the sound that came out of this machine was not so nice, a little lacking in one speaker and a little to scratchy in the other. I told the woman that it was not quite what I was looking for but could I buy this record. She did not understand, not many people know who this artist is but he was a childhood favorite of mine and my families. In the end I bought it for ten dollars, Larry Norman is one of the first Christian rock and roll artists. I then found the other player located further south and had reason to believe that it should do fine. It needed a stereo so I found one in the, well where else do you think I would be looking, of course it was the Sally Anne. Nasty sounding piece of equipment. What can one expect for 7 bucks? In the end I was not happy, atually highly disappointed. I feared there should be no answer to my dilemma.

It then came at the most unexpected time in the least likely place from the most unlikely person. As I stood cutting a clients hair I over heard one of the regular clients going on and on about how she was trying to get rid of things from her house and the wonderful thing about this woman is that she is so annoying. She must describe in detail everything that is involved. If not for this I would not have heard her mention a record player that she no longer wished to have around. After a long conversation that just went in circles I managed to find a time when I could look at it. While looking at it and trying to make it work (it was very stubborn at first) she, being the very silly woman that she is, would go on trying in hopes that changing the recored would make the player go. Ah me that was a time just trying to figure it out while she kept on about useless things. Anyhow It works now and it is in my home, very well run record player that cost me nothing. I am a very happy girl.

Gas prices

Now I know that this is something most people complain about but I now have a story to go behind my complaints, Yes so does every one else but I thought mine might entertain a few of you.

Starting back a few weeks now the gas prices had gone down quite significantly, (Oh something like ten cents lower than it had been[63.9]). I had sat on my coin hoping it would go down a few cents more. You know just as everyone else does. Well as I walked home from work I saw how one station had raised the price to some obnoxious number (73.9) but the other had not yet given in to the tide. I decided I was to tired that night to get my car filled up. My first miserable mistake. I then hoped it would go down again because it had seemed to be see-sawing quit a bit. Well It worked it's way down to two cents cheaper (71.9) but that had been over a week and some days. I again was sitting on my cents in hope, I also had some stupid plan on seeing how far I could take my car on empty. Well I could now tell you exactly where it takes me. The week I was sick was the week that it ran dry on deerfoot and 16th Ave. About a five? block walk to the nearest station. I walked to it got the jerry can of gas and then filled up. The gas has since then stayed at the price of that day till now. Hoping against hope that it would lower for my trip down south I waited, today it found its way comfortably up at 76.9

Occupational hazards

Though you may think of hair dressing as a safe and happy job, a place where no one gets hurt and nothing goes wrong, other than having a bunch of ditzy woman all in one place, you are mistaken. One of the most dangerous things about having all us ditzy women together is that in and of itself, we are all in one place, together.

The list of dangers starts quite mildly

!:hair slivers, these do exist and have at times been removed by a doctor when they have gone so far in that the regular pare of tweezers will no longer get at them. These, I might add, are more painful then the floor through the sock sliver

It then works its way up to blood

2: dry and cracking skin, will dry so badly that I have watched in a half hour period my hands go from slightly pink to a pail deathly color, crack up and bleed. This is not an over dramatisation

3: large gashes all along the index and middle fingers of your left hand. These are kept at a minimum by the fact that it is usually only these two fingers that are endangered but I have heard stories of toes and feet being attacked by an overly zealous pair of scissors.

Now the dangers for ones life come into play.

4: electric fires and shock, This is rare but is partial to the bunch of ditzy women. The story goes as follows.

Two women had a flat iron that they shared between the two of them. (for those who are not in the world of hair this is similar to a curling iron but is flat so as to make the hair straight and not curled) now this flat iron did not have a regular place to be contained but was laid on the counter of one or the others stations. This had finely become too much for the both of them, for it kept finding its way to the floor in some clatter or crash. It was then discussed between all the ditzy hairdressers in the salon, what to do with this wonderful but cumbersome piece of equipment. It was decided it shall hang from the stations on a newly installed hook. It hung very nicely just in front of all the plug-ins. Cord after cord came swinging out around this lovely, hot flat iron. One was to the curling iron another to a blow dryer. It was the blow dryer whose fiat was doomed on that fatal day. The jaws of that nasty flat iron enticed the cord between their heat. Holding on tightly the cord sang the blues as the iron slowly but surely ate its favored meal, rubber and wire. The two wires connected and in a flash of anger the cord jumped back from the iron. The sparks flew and the snapping of teeth was heard. All we, as the ditzy hair stylist of that day knew was that things were not at right between the two of them. The flat iron was scarred for life (two nasty grooves in the metal plates) and the blow dryer had lost its will to live (the cord was cut [not cleanly] in two). We decided to separate them for life. Their discipline, To never serve their duty in a salon again.

Chapter two

The Hat

I then went home with a small plastic bag full of her unwanted yarn (many ends of rolls). I had in mind the very thing it was I wished to create and set out to it immediately. It was a hat. Now the hat in my mind is not a tuck nor is it your regular hat, this would fit into the family of the beanie a lot better than any other. It would be more of a rasta style than anything. My first time around went quite badly, for I did hope to have it loose but not That loose. I talked to my friend in the salon when she came in next and she said to make sure I measured my head correctly. I went home and undid the small amount I had done and set to it again, this time around I got a lot further. But alas it looked much like a tuck and less like the rasta I was hoping for. In a flash all my work lay in a heap around my ankles. In the midst of all this were the attempts at making the mismatched colors appear more friendly.
Chapter three: continued at a later date

So I found out today why it is I like to wear those baggy, unsexy pants I always am drawn to. I found this out in a nasty round about way. I had finely managed to find a pair of pants that were more form fitting that I felt looked good on me and that I could handle wearing. Now these pants were no where near as tight as most girls go these days but were nicely in between. I am either more active in my every day movements or just so used to the spare room my baggy pants give me that as I crouched down to grab my shoes in my not so feminine manner I heard the typically comical tearing in the lower rear of my pant. Yes my pants tore in my butt area. Thankfully I was at home and was able to change out of them into another pair (baggier and roomier I might add). It was that fatal tearing sound that answered the question of the tighter pant.

The cape

I had a funny thing happen to me at church yesterday. I was wearing my cape. No that is not what was funny. I was wearing it and had taken it off to head to the bathroom. Throwing it on the floor in amongst the kids I was with I left it there with my bag. I had left it there for quit awhile getting distracted here and there and getting back to it in about half an hour. Now I was not concerned for It was in the church and there were people all around. Well I finely was about to go so picking it off the floor I have this woman come over to me (one I had not as of yet met). She starts off saying that she had promised "them" that she would not do it without telling me. My mind says "what the heck is this lady about?" narrative goes on something like this
Lady: "I told them I would not do it with out telling you"
Me: "Sorry, I don't get it"
Lady: "I saw your cape and I have been so curious so when it was just lying there I had to"
Me: (Huh?)
Lady continues: " So I picked it up and put it on kind of just swaying and swirling it then I proceeded to smell it"
Me: (double Huh?)
Lady: again continued "you burn incense don't you?"
Me: Yah?
Lady: "Well I could smell it, I just love that smell. What kind?"
Me: "oh...I don't know"
Lady: "Well I hope you don't mind."
Me: "no of course not"
Lady: "I just love the way you dress and thought I should love to try it"
I then had to run cause I was having to go somewhere.
This is not the first time I have had someone say how they liked my dressing but it is the first time someone has tried on my clothes (other than my mom) without first asking. I truly did not mind though. What would I say if I did anyhow?

My double top five list

First of all please do not in any way be offended, neither fear that my life has gone down the tubs I was just thinking of this one day, made it up, and am now posting it.


TOP FIVE THINGS I LIKE ABOUT
CIGARETTES

5: The smell on a cool fall day when first lit up. (never lit one myself just walking by)
4:The way one looks whilst smoking (needed to fill in number)
3:The sparks that fly when flung from the car window (the reason I wanted to write this list in the first place)
2: The fact that they are something you can stomp on.
1: The smoke as it works to permeate the air.

TOP FIVE THINGS THAT MAKE ME SICK ABOUT THEM

5: The fact that they are addictive (so I've been told)
4:They cost so much ( though this could be helping with somes addiction?)
3:The fact that people don't always stomp on them
2:The smell of human hair permeated by years of smoke.
1:They kill people

The beer saga

Yes, the beer, What happened to the beer? You are all on the edge of your seat I am sure. Did she give it away? Did she water/beer her tree with it? Did she take the advise of others and feed it to the rodents? Where is the beer now?
Well a portion of it hit the gullet of yours truly and the rest sits in the fridge awaiting its doom. The reason I chose not to feed my beloved tree with it is because it made "me" sick and I just assumed the tree would feel the same. I do have reason to believe that a trees stomach is not as strong as that of a humans, though in my past I have been proven wrong. The next question you are all asking is "how come all ange can talk about is this stupid beer? Where did all her lovely insights go? What happened to all her wonderfully worded saying and thoughts? All she can talk of is beer and mice. How sad when one looses their mind."
Well first I want to thank you for thinking all my earlier entries were so smart and enlightened, second I guess I am to bored and the beer is all that is new and exiting in my dull life. Other, more wonderful things have yet to prove themselves worthy of my blog.
The hat, I will go into the story of the hat.
:CHAPTER ONE:
It all started in the days before Christmas. While wearing a very curious croched sweater of mine while at work I had an older woman ask if I had created it myself. On the answer of no she went on to tell me it was croched and that I very well could have. This I told her I did know but had yet to learn the talent of crochet. She offered I come over one day in the new year and she would teach me. When the new year came I took her up on this offer. Now I had dabbled in the art at times but never fully grasped the true meaning of it. She was quite surprised at my immediate grasp of this new technique. I did not let her in on the secret of past attempts.
:CHAPTER TWO:
my bed calls, the story shall be continued at a later date

Mice!!!!?

So this morning I awoke in the morning and was shocked to here foot steps up stairs. Now why I would be shocked to hear such noises when I live in a basement suite will be told shortly. It all started in November of last year with the moving in of myself into this small rabbit hole. The woman who lived up stairs was nice enough but it took no less than two or so odd weeks for the presence of her to be missed. Not, maybe, so missed as in sad just as in absent. I have since then been given the opportunity to live life in this house being the soul resident. I did not utilize the upper space but enjoyed instead the silence of solitude. Well last night as I was on the phone with my brother back home he will remember my commenting on the noise going on up there. I mentioned how it sounded as if someone had moved in up stairs and how that was seemingly impossible for the fact that it was at about 9:00 pm that I first started to hear the movement. I asked my brother how this could be possible for who moves into a new place at 9 at night? Well Ben does, Yes, Ben. After this mornings wanderings above my head and then again when I got home I was beside myself with curiosity so I marched myself right up those stairs and knock promptly at the door. There he was in an empty apartment just him, his two cats, and a tool box. I introduced myself and he did the same. He then went on to say that he had next to no stuff at the time and was waiting to meet the new landlords, as am I. As to what happened there my/our past landlady had sold the house but a day after she had rented it out to Ben and he now wanted to see if the new land owners would allow for painting and such. We are both a bit on the nervous/apprehensive side for we have not met them and do hope they will let us live as we, well as I, have lived in the past. In peace and with no intrusions. I do believe, of what I can tell from my first meeting, Ben is very nice and seems to be a responsible person. This I hope is true for he lives above me and if he is at all obnoxious it be very annoying.

Onion air

Got to love a small apartment where the air can be so permeated with the small amount of onion you cut there is no real escape unless you step outside. "why not open a window?" you may be asking me. Well.......Because I never know if this small place will warm up again. It is warm now and usually gets cold at night, to which it is now drawing near.
-Right now I am listening to the University statiion (you can listen too just click this link:cjsw 90.9)of this city and the singer sounds much like Bumsted from the cartoon show "King of the Hill" very funny
-This Thursday I will be having Gary and Merrelin over for supper. If no one remembers, they are the couple that had me staying in their house for over five months of my time here. Now wait I must go and open a door for I am getting a headache. Right.......Now I shall get on a bigger sweater. Put on my hand made hat (the one I made) (there is a story in itself) Hope that works. Anyways back to my guests, I have made a pork roast marinade that has beer in it. Now I find food that has beer in it is quite good to eat mind you I quite dislike the beer on it's own. Now why do I tell you all this? Well the beer I bought for this marinade was not all used up, matter of fact there is a very large amount of it left. I am unsure as to what to do with this stuff. Should I pour it out? Find someone on the street and hand it over? Water or 'beer' my plant with it? Drink it and try to enjoy it? If you have a better idea let me know what you think. Chances are I will have done what I chose before I find out what you think but I am still curious to hear what you have to say.