out in the woods

this past weekend i got my friends out to birds hill park to roast some weenies and drink some beer. it was so awesome! they all made fun of me for taking so many pictures, but i think they secretly loved it :) i was in charge of pictures and music, but i also helped push the car out of a rut and chop some wood. no big deal, guys! I wish i knew how to make animated gifs, cause then i would be posting one of me chopping a piece like a pro then doing a victory dance. i hope that we go out more often now... i don't know why we haven't done it before!

a complicated kindness

i wrote this sometime in the summer, about my favourite book:

i've just finished a complicated kindness by miriam toews. i had left it at work one day after starting to read and knew that it was the first book in a long time that was actually well-written and made me want to read. i went back to get it two days later...i missed it. i know that i'm definitely drawn to female writers, and writers who are from my province of manitoba, and writers who do not feel the need to tell me everything, because i'm not stupid. The book centres on sixteen-year-old nomi (formerly naomi) living in rural manitoba, reiterating moments of her life in relation to her mother and older sister's disappearances after being excommunicated from the church. much time is spend explaining how backwards the "mennos" in her town are, including her pastor uncle, and how it reflects upon her entire life. i dated a guy from out of the city, and this book reminded me of that time, and gave me a picture of how dead it can be, how hopeless and stranded you can feel, and how faith can have a death-like grip on people. small towns can make people crazy, and make them drink and smoke alot just because. i like when writers acknowledge where i live.. she mentions pantages playhouse and towns that i recognize. i'm there, kind of. she talks about the fields that i desperately want to get lost in right now, and i dig the character. she's her own person, very strong-minded, but vulnerable the same time.  nomi and her family are all romantically depressed due to their own self-awareness of being stuck.  nomi is telling the story, and she's miserable as fuck and wiggin' out. i know that i've been affected by a story when i feel a little altered, when i think differently for a while, and when i appreciate certain things more, if only just for a little while. i have images in my mind of the highway,grass,summer skies, and a buzz-cut hair girl in cut offs, a bikini top and motorcycle boots, with a fish-hook scar. next up will probably be summer of my amazing luck. i'm proud that miriam is from here, and lives here, and that this story came out of her head so i could read it.

from fffound