dad, for the thirty minutes we spend together every morning chatting and bonding as we drive to work,
mom, for working so hard to put a roof over our heads,
big brothers, for watching out for me and being a reliable source of help,
little sister, for laughing with me every night until I fall asleep,
boyfriend, for loving and understanding me like no one else can,
grandmother, for being so burdened to always make good food for the family,
friends, good friends, and old friends, for being right behind me in everything that I do,
church, for keeping me by God’s side,
former and current colleagues and bosses, for making work a great second home,
acquaintances, for the random, unexpected conversations that spark an inspiration,
Twitter followers, for responding to my tweets and making me feel heard,
mentors, mamabears, and papabears, for your advice, teachings, and encouragement,
Photo A Day regulars, for driving my passion for photography and making me want to keep taking photos,
role models, for motivating me to do more, be more, give more, and see more,
life’s lessons, for slowly revealing the golden nuggets in life – the truly important things,
Golden Retriever, for watching me leave for work in the morning and anticipating my return in the evening.

There is so much more to be thankful for. I love my life and I am surrounded by all things beautiful. I have little of the material riches of the world, but I am so rich in love, genuine bonds, treasured relationships, and a tightly knit family, and I have a heart that can barely contain my happiness, gratefulness, and appreciation for everything that I have. Happy thanksgiving, everyone. :)

I love it! I’ve been waiting to get my hands on my own wedding some day and plan it to death. But here’s what I think: If you have even a hint of an idea of how you’d like your wedding manifested, wouldn’t it be smart to start planning bits and pieces here and there way before you even get engaged? The idea is to spread the “planning” over a few years rather than jam it all into one, so that you’re never full blown planning and therefore, never full blown stressed, because you’re doing this little by little without time constraint pressures. Do it at a snail’s pace and it wouldn’t matter. You’re not in “planning” mode, you’ve just conditioned yourself to make note of things in your everyday life that may work for your dream wedding down the road. If you know what you want and these desires have lingered in your heart and soul since forever, then these desires won’t change all that much over time and your plans will remain relevant year after year. Put your thoughts and ideas in a scrapbook. Jot things down as you come across them. When you’re out for dinner somewhere and take a liking to the colour of the tablecloth, cut off a piece and paste it onto your scrapbook. When you’re shopping and you happen to see a dress in the windows that tickle your fancy to no end, take a photo and slap it onto your scrapbook. If upon leisurely browsing, you run into a photographer’s stream on Flickr whose style is your style and captures love the way you want yours captured, jot him/her down in your scrapbook. All of that spread over many years so that when you are engaged, the research is done, the foundation is laid, and you’re ready to execute (although execution is always the hardest part). But this makes total sense to me! Call me crazy but I’m going to stop by Michaels Arts & Crafts to pick up a scrapbook.

Skipped a photo yesterday because I had as little as thirty minutes to spend in my house, rushing to get to a friend’s wedding after work. The wedding was heartfelt and beautiful. This is a photo of some of the girls and I.

“We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It’s a death trap.” -Anthony Hopkins

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This photo is another one from Nuit Blanche, taken at Coupe Bizarre on Queen Street. The woman was the subject of live art, still as a sculpture, and the stylish young lad was one of many artists creating a sketch of her. You can see a few of the other artists through the mirrors.

A friend of mine passed away in a car accident three years ago on this day. Her and I only got close that summer before her passing and I can only be grateful that we had even that little bit of time together. Car accidents happen all the time, but when it’s a friend or loved one, it becomes a lot more than just another car accident. And my share of pain, grief, loss, shock is incomparable to her family’s, loved ones’, and friends’, who were closer to her than I was and who have known her longer than I have. Three years later, I still think that she’s just away on a really long vacation or that she’s living in another country and loving it so much that she has no desire to come back. Dorothy was the first death in my life that was close enough to pierce my heart. Her number is still stored in my phone directory.

But with mourning comes a celebration – a celebration of the life that she lived, the lives she touched, the relationships she built, the happiness she brought, the love she shared. A celebration of people’s love for her, people’s thoughts of her, people’s memories of her. A celebration of every soul at her funeral, who loved and cared for her. A celebration of her intellect, her talents, her beauty, her sweetness. This girl was flawless on the inside and out and I am certain that anybody who had the privilege to know her can only speak highly of her and I am also certain that every life that she touched was made better.

I am thinking of you, Dorothy. April 15, 1984 – October 5, 2007.

As if The Social Network hadn’t done enough damage as far as poking my wounded desire to be a student forever, last night’s reunion dinner with my Ryerson entourage threw me right over the edge. I was never one of those who couldn’t wait to get out of school. I never wanted to graduate, it’s just unfortunate that I also wasn’t the type to ‘take my time’ either because I was too anal for that sort of stuff, so graduation inevitably came for me and dropped me off in the real world. But my heart throbs at the thought of being a student encased by the walls of my university, protected from the big bad world, living and learning inside a bomb shelter, while making lifelong friends. The Social Network’s depiction of Harvard University is so stimulating that I like to imagine myself right there with them like a true boujie scholar. I would’ve loved to have a friend like Mark Zuckerberg who shared my excitement with HTML and blogs and websites back in 2000-2005 when nobody else understood or cared about it and when you were a nerd for taking interest in strange computer things and when ‘nerd’ was fatal to your reputation in high school. Who knew that being a nerd would become the coolest thing on earth in 2010? Now we have a whole bunch of self-proclaimed nerds! This paragraph has gone off on a tangent, but that’s okay. Back to my point – school will always have a place in my heart and we will be reunited.

This photo is another one from Nuit Blanche, taken at the Gladstone Hotel on Queen Street. This woman was symbolically ‘shredding knowledge’ by ripping pages from books and using a paper shredder to bestow death upon information that is no longer useful. That’s my take anyway.

Another one from Nuit Blanche. This is Hair Matters by the Toronto School of Art at Coupe Bizarre on Queen Street.

I really, really, really want to blog more about Nuit Blanche but I have to get ready for a reunion dinner with my favourite graduates from Ryerson University, :). Tonight’s another night out in Toronto. I am so in lust with Toronto. Don’t underestimate our city. We have a fabulous one.

More Nuit Blanche tomorrow.

It’s 2:00 am, I’m exhausted, and it’s technically October 3rd, but I am forcing myself to post for October 2nd. Nuit Blanche was fabulous and I am in lust with Toronto. This photo was taken in the lipstick bathroom in the Gladstone Hotel on Queen Street. You go in there to write notes on the mirrors with red lipstick. I can’t stop thinking about crawling under my blanket and sleeping, so good night.

I wouldn’t have to do this. But that’s not the case, SO: Can you do my friend and I a huge favour? We are trying to win a Walmart shopping spree and really need your votes to get there! All you have to do is click here, then click the vote button, then check your email account for a confirmation email to confirm your vote. This confirmation email usually ends up in your junk mailbox, so be sure to check there! That’s it! Easy as pie. Thank you so, so, so much.

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I don’t dread Mondays anymore because Fridays come so quickly nowadays with time flying off the hook and everything. And I don’t look forward to Fridays anymore because Mondays come just as quickly.

Wow, the second half is so depressing. I’m just joking though. The first half is true, the second half isn’t. Nothing could make me not love Fridays. If the second half becomes true for anyone, then I think it’s safe to say that you’ve lost all reason to live.

Spending the night at the theatres because there are so many good movies out. It’s an emotional dilemma between The Social Network, The Town, and Let Me In (because God knows how much I love horror movies). All three have superb ratings on Rotten Tomatoes at 97%, 95%, and 85%, respectively. We’ll see. Make it a good Friday night, everyone, and Happy October.

Ever wonder what it would be like to have people stare and laugh at you day in and day out for something you can’t help? They’re not staring at you because there’s something nice to look at, they’re staring at you because you have a disorder that you were born with. They’re not laughing at you because you’re funny, they’re laughing at you because you’re Narcoleptic and you fall asleep at random and this is supposed to be hilarious.

I ride the Mississauga Transit bus home from work four times a week and there is the same narcoleptic man there every single time. He’s probably in his 30s and is always dressed sloppy business casual. He takes a seat and immediately gets a fleeting urge to sleep. He loses all motor control, drops dead, and involuntarily falls asleep. The “funny part” is that when he falls asleep, he flings his head all the way back, drops his jaw all the way down, spreads his legs from side to side, snores like thunder, and sleeps like that for three or four minutes, and then he wakes back up. This repeats itself over and over. And as if these involuntary sleeps aren’t a big enough nightmare as is – an even bigger one awaits. Each time he wakes up from every single one of these helpless episodes, the first thing he sees are full grown men and women laughing, taking photos, or staring with appalled faces – behaviour that you’d expect from twelve year olds who don’t know any better.

I can’t even begin to understand how he feels. I am one of maybe five people in the entire bus that keep a straight face in an effort to prove a point to the idiots who seem to think that this illness is a bus ride comedy. People start looking my way to guide me to the narcoleptic man with their eyes to get me in the loop with what they’re laughing about because they’re thrown off by my disinterest. Thank you for the effort but I know exactly what’s so funny and I just don’t think it’s funny at all, and neither should you if you were any smarter. It’s getting harder and harder to bite my tongue with each ride. Gah.

Photo below was taken in Amsterdam. If you look closely, the photos on the display window are of naked women. I think they’re postcards. I didn’t realize this until I was editing the photo. Amsterdam scares me but the city makes good photos, so I can’t complain.