Category: fae

The Adventures of Faebala and Hezabelle

After more than eight hours of driving yesterday, I arrived in Pittsburgh! I didn’t even get lost, much. That’s probably thanks to the GPS. So, in honour of being here with Fae, I thought I’d flashback to us over the years.

The very first time that we met, aren’t our matching shirts hot?

Cheers, darling.

We asked a random bystander to take this picture and then hopped into the bathtub… He was very freaked out.

Mmm icing!

Sun bathing at the cottage!

We’re so attractive!

I have this picture in my wallet… So straight!

So cold!

In NYC, at Strawberry Fields.

In December!

Today! I think I look a little.. out of it… but this was the best of all of them.

The Long and Winding Road

I think it’s a North American thing, mainly. The love of the road trip, the vaste highway stretched out into the horizon, the feeling of the ground rushing beneath your wheels. The speed. The wind. The feeling that you’re getting somewhere - going somewhere.

The feeling that you’re leaving everything behind, or returning to it. The feeling that if you wanted to, you could just keep driving. Just keep moving and never stop.

The feeling of control over where you’re going…

And my wheels are turning to close the gap between me and my best friend. To bring us together for another short time.

I think the drive back will be harder.

My life, the cast of characters

I talk a lot about my friends and how much they mean to me, but I sort of mention them in abstract ways. This is a post dedicated to the cast of colourful characters that make my life bearable. Hopefully they’ll all forgive me for posting their pictures.

The best friend. My Faebala/Fae/Faerie/Elphaba/Sar/Sari is unquestionably my favourite person. She’s my other half. We’ve been best friends for almost nine years, despite living 8 hours away from each other. We see each other two or three times a year. We have been there for each other through the hardest and happiest times of each other’s lives. We’re writing a book together. We’ve traveled together, to Ireland, London and New York City. We dreamed of living in London together - and still dream that someday it will work out. In short, Fae is so important to me that she’s the only person to have her own tag on my blog, and is also one of my most commonly used tags. We also have matching tattoos, which we got together the week of Feb 15 (significant to us because of the Bright Eyes song) last year.

The roommates. The exploits of Apartment 4 are nothing short of legendary. I met Kristen when I was waking up at 4am every morning to do media monitoring in second year. We bonded over our mutual hatred of life at that hour of the day. We went out for breakfast a lot, where Kristen would make fun of me for getting nutella all over my face. (Kristen SEEMS like a nice person but she mocks you mercilessly!) I went over to her place for her birthday that year, where I was introduced to her roommates and the idea of the Vortex. This led to me, at the age of 20, throwing up from drinking for the first time… and second time. I went to Ireland that summer, and Kristen came to visit. She and Taylor moved into the same building, different apartment the next year. I spent almost every Saturday night (and often other nights…) on their futon. Exploits and adventures were had, notably of the drunken and journalism varities. This September, I moved in with them into a wonderful half room in the living room that we lovingly call the alcove. Many nights of boogling, cards, drinking, cooking, stressing and procrastinating were had.

The person I’ve known longest. I’ve known Kaitlyn since I was two years old. Really, we’re more like sisters than just friends. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who knows me quite like Kaitlyn. When I was a member of Journalists for Human Rights, I took a 24 hour vow of silence. During this time, I needed to eat… Well, Kaitlyn could order for me. Then we hung out. And somehow, her and I had an entire conversation without me speaking. It’s really quite astounding. And we always laugh that our families are like each other’s second families. We also share an incredible love of chocolate.

The neighbour. I‘ve know Jes almost as long as I’ve know Kaitlyn. We’ve been friends since about 4 or 5. She lives just down the street from my parents house. We walked to school together everyday for… probably almost 10 years. During those years we talked about everything. Interestingly enough, Jes and I ended up in the same program at Carleton, and we’ve since struggled through four years of j-school together and produced a really awesome doc.

The sister. My sister and I are really close. We have tea together at our favourite cafe, The Tea Party, almost every week. My sister has always been that person who really broadens my horizons. She teaches me so much, and I really look up to her. Even if she’s shorter than me. I really admire her, too, for finding something she really loves and having the courage to pursue it.

The Chris. The Chris, who used the word “the” infront of everything. The almost roommate, who comes over for dinner every week. Who eats fried chicken with me. Who amuses me endlessly with her stories, even when they’re about nothing at all (”and then I didn’t get into the class!”). Who inspired my love of blogging, and of chicken caesar wraps. Chris always makes me smile.

My Galway Girls. My summer in Ireland was probably the best time of my life so far. Those four months were more full of laughter, drink, tears, first times, last times and craic than any other time. And in the process I met my wife (at least on Facebook), Lain, and my Steph. Lain and I lived together, Steph and I watched Sex and the City together. They were months full of money woes, horrible jobs and rain… but also bicycle rides, weekend trips, concerts, dancing and talking for hours. I’ll never forget my Galway Girls, just like I’ll never forget Galway. I can only hope that some day, we’ll all be in the same place again. We have a five year reunion tentatively planned for The Puck Fair in 2012.

The family. I am incredibly lucky to have a really wonderful family. Also, to generally get along with my family, which is a plus. I love my parents, I still miss them when I go away. And more than that, I’m really proud of them as people, not just as my parents. Then there’s my kitten, who I adore. And my extended family, my grandparents, my cousins, my aunt and uncle. It makes me so happy to know that so many people love me and are looking out for me!

The lovable extras. Include my close group of high school friends, various school friends and awesome people who I should probably know better but sadly don’t. And you, because if you’re reading this blog you are also awesome.

Wide Open Beaver*

Via text message this morning:

Fae: It’s raining here, is it raining there?
Me: No, but they say it’s supposed to snow.
Fae: Ew, that’s worse.
Me: Haha yeah, leave it to Ottawa.
Fae: Leave it to Ottawa beaver! haha. I’m so amused right now.

And she was, apparently. Because soon enough this appeared on my facebook Graffiti wall:

Via g-chat, two minutes ago:

Me: hahhahahhah!!!!!!!!!!

Why are you so talented?
How do you make a beaver look so good?
Fae: I don’t think that’s talent
Me: omg omg
Fae: I think that’s bored.
Me: That’s what he said.

*Yes, that is a reference to Breakfast of Champions.

The Book

Fae and I are writing a book. Honestly. That word count to the left of this post isn’t just random. We’re finally doing what we’ve wanted to do since we were 13. The Book has almost four full chapters, and as of today over 30,000 words.

According to the omniscient Wikipedia:

Epic length novel 100,000 to 120,000 words
Full length novel 70,000 to 100,000 words
Mid-length novel 50,000 to 70,000 words
Novella 25,000 to 50,000 words
Novelette 15,000 to 25,000 words
Short story 1,000 to 15,000 words
Flash fiction 1,000 words or less
Micro fiction 100 words

So, we officially have a decent length novella. Knowing us, it will reach “Epic Length Novel” eventually, simply because we both enjoy the word epic and have definitely called our plots that before.

What is this book, you ask? Well, it’s the culmination of mine and Fae’s relationship, over 9 years of role playing. Not in the sexy way (much…) but in the RP way. As in, we have characters and we play scenes between them. It started out as a group thing, when we were 12 and 13. We used to RP Tamora Pierce books in Yahoo Clubs. That was where we met. Since then, it moved to just being the two of us, on Yahoo Messenger, and to a cast of over 500 characters who have nothing to do with Tamora Pierce.

Pretty much, it’s a nerdy fantasy book. But I like to call it post modern fantasy, because we’re not about the knights and dragons and names with apostrophes. Instead, our writing is very character based. And honestly, these characters could exist in any setting, it’s just that fantasy is what we’re familiar with and it’s fun to give them magical powers. But it’s not a typical fantasy at all. The fun thing is that we know these characters so well. I mean, for most of them we have their lineage planned out 6 generations back and 3 generations forward.

I have no idea what we’ll do with it when we finish. Obviously it would be great to get it published, etc… but I think right now we’re just doing it for us. Plus, we have a ways to go. We have at least two or three books planned out after this one.

Yup, we’re nerds.