Festive and wine-filled

Yes, the holiday season progresses. It's winding down, actually, as this is New Year's Eve day.

It has been a festive time and a busy one. I've had to finalize paperwork and other bits of this and that in order to make my home owning adventure official.

January 19th is the day I get to actually possess it - I plan to move in on or close to that date.

And yesterday, I ordered a sofa and love seat. I feel very home ownerish now. (Sofa/love seat are a combination of leather & fabric - hard to explain. But once I get them I'm sure I'll post a photo. Earth tones, as seems to be my inclination.)

By the way ... that's Liz in the wine taking the photo. She's in her cups, if you will.

Looks like I'm a homeowner

This is the backyard of the place I just bought. Actually, I'm in the process - it's not final yet. Inspection, blah blah ... but the purchase agreement has been signed.

So last night I was standing outside thinking, "I've moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick from Edmonton, Alberta and I've just bought a house. What the hell am I doing?"

Truthfully, I'm very happy. The picture doesn't do the yard justice. It's enormous and it's beautiful. Hopefully I'll be able to take some better pictures soon.

In the meantime ... It appears I own a house!

When life gets really noisy

In an article called, "Sarah Slean attends the school of life," there is a pretty good explanation of why I moved from the west to the east (when everyone else is going east to west):

"It never ever goes away," Slean says of that sense of wonderment. "People just sort of tune it out. I think that's why I tend to wrench myself out of my comfort zone and go to Paris, or go to a cabin in the woods, or whatever, so that I can hear it again. It's always in there, but sometimes life gets really noisy around you and you get lazy and you can't hear it. By jumping out of the rhythm that you're in and going elsewhere into utter ignorance, you can hear it again."

And that's kind of why I'm now in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

(btw ... I'm negotiating a house right now. Hopefully I'll know today or tomorrow whether I'll get it or not.)

Yes, a new post - kinda

I seem to be preoccupied these days and blogging much less ... but I have posted something. However, with several blogs it's difficult to keep them all up to date. Anyway, for what it's worth, I posted something on one of my other blogs, Writelfe. It's the one called, Worldviews: a bit of this & a bit of that.

Woman, music – Sarah Slean, Molly Johnson

Last night I was at The Playhouse in Fredericton and, as the terrible cell phone image does a poor job of indicating, I saw Sarah Slean. It was a solo performance – just her and a piano.

For all intents and purposes, I knew nothing about her except her name and a few thirty second clips I’d heard on iTunes. As it turns out, I was greatly surprised. She was wonderful – good voice, good songs, good on stage presence. If I had to describe her I would have to do what most people do, fall back on comparisons even though they aren’t really indicative of what she does – she’s quite unique.

But my comparison would be to Kate Bush (as others have mentioned). Perhaps that has something to do with her voice and the piano. It made me think of early Kate Bush. Also, her songs have an odd quality – curious lyrics and interesting piano bits. Her humour, however, is not something I think of when I think of Kate Bush (not that Ms. Bush is humourless). The humour, in Sarah Slean’s audience interaction, came as a very pleasant surprise.

There's also a kind of cabaret quality to her performance - a number of people commented on that.

So the performance was great. And today I downloaded her most recent album, Orphan Music. It’s a good indication of her live work (though some studio things are also included). However, it only hints at her audience relationship, which is one of the nice things about her live performance.

I also downloaded her previous studio album, Day One. In both cases, I love them.

And since I’m talking about music … I seem to be listening to a lot of female artists these days. They seem to putting out the most interesting music, at least of what I have found recently. So let me suggest a few things I’ve been listening to a lot recently:

Sarah Slean – Orphan Music
Sarah Slean – Day One
Molly Johnson – Messin’ Around
Patty Griffin – Living With Ghosts
Patty Griffin – Impossible Dream
Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

By the way … the Molly Johnson? Two words: get it. Seriously. (It’s kinda jazz and r&b mixed together – or so it seems to me. Whatever it is, it’s great. So get it.)

What's your shoe size, hmm?

While searching for "average page size" on Google I came upon this rather curious link:

Shoe Size - Penis Size Conversion Charts

So now you know. Take a gander at a man's shoes and you'll be getting more information than he'd care to share. Or maybe he would like to share it.

For the record, my shoe size is 9 1/2. I think I'll put that in my online profiles along with a link to that page. I'm feeling quite manly right now.