NXNE Day Five: The Things We Carried by Alex

I found this plant stand on the street, while walking to meet my friends for brunch at The Lakeview yesterday. I carried it when I went to pick up my bike at The Garrison, where I left it the night before (so responsible, no drinking and riding! Totally kidding, my friend made me leave it and paid for the cab, while I cursed him). I carried it to the park where we saw the amazing Army Girls and adorable Luke LeLonde and Gregory Pepper (who had a song about suicide that my girl Dorothy Parker would have seriously dug). I sat beside it while I longed to join in on the frisbee circle that was happening beyond us, the competition burning my soul. I carried it to shelter when it started to rain and we were struck up for conversation by an artist/writer/bike visionary ("it handles like a Porsche", dude, that's duct tape) who is writing a realistic moralistic horror romance and had with him Twilight, his rat with a massive butt tumour. My friends carried it on the streetcar to Yonge and Dundas Square, where I locked it to my bike and stuck the pots in my bag and rocked it the fuck out to Killer Mike and Ghostface and Raekwon (!!!!!!!! SO, SO, SO, SO GOOD!). 

I continued carrying it after two of the pots were smashed by some of the 8000 people at YDS. I carried it on my bike to The Village Idiot and explained to our server that yes, it was street garbage but I love it and yes, we had already used it to keep our park beers in. I cursed it when said server used that as a talking point every time he swung by and also insisted on getting as close as he could to me without actually touching me. I carried it home, fingers crossed that I wouldn't need to brake or use my bell; I rode one handed the whole way doing bicep curls because I have been too busy with NXNE to keep up with my weightlifting routine. I am now going to have to keep this thing with me forever, it's like our bond was forged in the fires of Mordor but in a happy way.

Oh yeah, pictures!

Tulips

Alex

books

Crystal and the Ghostly Dog

When I moved to Toronto from Winnipeg nearly six years ago I brought with me a Value Village suitcase jammed with clothes, an old bulk tortilla chip box from the Mexican restaurant I worked at filled with shoes and books, a print of Botticelli's Birth of Venus and this picture of two girls dressed up all harlequin-like.



I the decision to drop out of school and move across the country was one I came to rather spontaneously on day in March, 2005; I bought my plane ticket the next day and was gone on April 6th.

Before I left, my dear, dear friend, Crystal and I took a trip to Value Village so I could buy a suitcase. Crystal and I had, have been friends since we were thirteen. It doesn't matter how many kilometers separate us or how different our lives are or even how many months are between calls, we always pick up just where we left off. She is one of the silliest, most fun people I know and, hot damn, she has the best stories ever. Whether she's inadvertently crashing a sick kid fundraiser picnic with her bandana wearing toddler (who wasn't sick but put a scarf on a toddler's head and, voila, instant sick kid -- it got ugly) or hanging on to a deer spine we found one winter at my cottage and I won't even get into the cat cremation story.

Anyway, so while we were at La Village that day we came upon these two paint-by-numbers depicting the same couple of girls, one blond and one brunette, one with a parrot and one with a creepy white ghost dog. Well, hey, Crystal had blond hair and I had dark brown. Crystal had this creepy, ancient white cat and I kind of liked birds. Obviously it was kismet, we were meant to find those paintings.

We each bought one and promised one another that we would always keep them so that every time we looked at them we would think of the other. And, in so every bedroom I've had in the past six years the Crystal picture has had a place of prominence and sure enough every time I look at it, the picture warms this old lady's withered soul.

Not to mention, it really kicked off my love for paint-by-numbers and obsession with shabby-chic, bohemian home decor.