I received this beautiful necklace as a christmas present from drummer Dan who makes the most beautiful jewelry (the photo does not do it justice so look at it in the bigger size by clicking the photo!). He couldn’t decide which piece to give to who, so we each just picked out a wrapped one and oddly enough we all seemed to get the piece that most suited us. On the back is the word Voyageur. I love this necklace so much its become a bit of a talisman – I don’t pay much attention to the way I’m putting it on, but I’ve found that whatever word faces out sums up how I have to navigate throughout my day – Onward for the days when I’m low or blue or puzzled by a friend’s hot and cold, or Voyageur for the days I have to be a little adventurous. It’s also made me realize what a great word onward is. And how much more I love our band, and our band name as a result!

I have to write some more about my new little camera, because I am so in love with it. Unfortunately the last two days have been a flurry of illustrating and christmas shopping (ack! I just started today!) so I have not been able to go out and take any new pictures, much to my dismay. In the meantime I have compiled some pics taken last week and posted them to the photos page.

I got the idea that it would be nice to have a little camera when I began lamenting not having one on my ipod touch. I’m not even sure how I came across this group – but seeing the pictures convinced me that this was the one I wanted, mostly because of its Holga-esque qualites (a camera which I do own, but I have to travel by bus to get film and anyone who owns one knows how costly it can become to develop the pictures). I was not disappointed – the pictures look a lot like they could come from the Holga, and I can shoot more than a hundred in one outing without paying through the nose for it. I love how colours look and the weird way that whites seem to glow. It sure does take some lovely pictures for a tiny-sized plastic 1.3 megapixel camera. I am quite keen to try some ir photos and some photos through anti-newton glass (although god knows if that will work with such a tiny lens). Now if I only had the time to go shoot some pictures!

I found out after today’s show that every time I thought Justin was looking at me because he was noticing my mistakes, he thought I was looking at him for noticing his. I’m glad we cleared that up. He didn’t make anywhere near a quarter of what I made.

About a minute before we went on stage Matt blurted out the he was nervous, and thinking about what could make him nervous made me nervous, and it took about 5 songs before I felt okay. Still, a great day so far: 105 photos (17 of which I actually like enough to post here), a nice walk, a fun gig with the band, and coming up: putting up the tree with the kids, canucks on t.v. and then working on the last few pages of the book for Simon & Schuster. I can’t imagine a more perfect Saturday.

Duplex! played the first of three shows at the cultch tonight, and I love a show that starts at 7 and ends at 8 – much more civilized! It just goes to show you, I love rock’n'roll, but the hours don’t really suit me.

It’s odd to say that I’m finally feeling more comfortable with the songs even though we’ve been together for something like 6 years, but we seem to do an annual show and that’s it, and then I end up having to clear out chord changes to make room for other mundane things like, don’t forget to pack the kids’ lunch! It seems for every show I’m having to relearn them. Not to mention I’m not playing much bass guitar these days, and for most of the practices the dominant feeling is “ow! ow!” because my fingers are hurting from all that walking around after no exercise. It makes such a difference to feel confident though, you end up having a much better time. I don’t think Justin was feeling quite as happy as me, I had to elbow him in the ribs to shake him out of it. By Sunday we’ll be rockin’.

I took advantage of the poor lighting to play around with my new toy, the Vistaquest 1015 keychain camera in all its one megapixel glory (hey, they’re cheaper on ebay! and don’t you love the pack of smokes size reference?). Of course it was gorgeous out the day I bought it, which was followed by days of unending sunshine, and then it clouded over the minute I pulled it out of its package. I haven’t had great results with those looming clouds sucking up the light, and even less still in a darkly lit theatre. But it was my first day out with it, and I absolutely love it – I’m hereby dedicating my whole life to toy camera photography.