can't stop the rock

ST. JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND
November 29th, 2004

Hey kids. Sorry I haven't been writing regularly.....I know you all enjoy having your email accounts clogged up with my gigantic messages just as much as you love all that spam telling you your penis isn't big enough. So HERE IS WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING! YAY! Christ I'm tired; maybe the occasional YAY! will keep me on my toes.

Finally did some touristy-type stuff - a friend from Halifax is in town on business and he borrowed the company cube van so that we could go for a drive to Cape Spear and just around in general. So we did the local tour of whatever roads you can fit a frickin' cube van down. "As you can see, that's the heart of Quidi Vidi Village down there, but.....ah, fuck it." Cape Spear is real purty-like. It is , of course, the easternmost point in North America, and there are lighthouses and ocean and rocks and stuff, and, best of all, a creepy old semi-underground battery you can wander around. Halifax David took an official tourist pic of me sitting by the Cape Spear sign so I could prove I'd been there.......but the bummer part is that you can see that if you hopped a fence and clambered out on the slippery rocks you could get even further east. And kill yourself! All right! Now that would be a photo!

Other adventures: okay, now, nobody freak out, but, yeah, I went hiking along Signal Hill trail in the middle of the night. It was three a.m. and I couldn't sleep (normal), threw on a coat of Nicole's and went out and threw some stuff in the mailbox (still not so weird), and ended up out until eight in the morning (what?!). It was a beautiful warm breezy night, with an almost summer smell in the air, and I just started wandering on an impromptu walk. Went down to the harbour (briefly considered stowing away on a ship - you never know, maybe I could get back to Mexico - for free!), and then ended up gravitating towards Signal Hill again. In the back of my head was the fact that I'd been told that night that sunrise on Signal Hill is an experience not to be missed (I had, of course, scoffed, "Me? Sunrise?! Pah!".....and here I was.)

Really an amazingly warm and lovely night. I trekked up the roads on the side of the hill and then into the parks boundary and along the side of the hill, sticking to the trail and staying close to the side so I wouldn't, you know, plummet to a painful death on the rocks below. I had to open my jacket and my sweater after a time because I was hot - honestly, St. John's rocks! It is WAY warmer here than it was in Halifax. There was no way I was going to find my way to the stairs that go up the side to the top of the hill in the moonlight - it was far too dark - so I just curled up on a nice soft bed of moss on the rocky promontory that juts out into the ocean underneath the hill. (I hate trying to describe this....go and look at tourist pics on the web if I don't make sense.) And THAT's when it got really bloody windy. I didn't even have a hat - I'd been going to the mailbox, remember - and no scarf, no watch, no water, no phone, no anything (hee hee). So needless to say, I didn't manage to fall asleep out there, but I didn't freeze either; I had my awesome warm waterproof boots on (the ones I hated, but now love!) and Nicole's coat kicks my coat's ass. I managed to pull my sweater up over my ears enough to ensure that I would still have ears in the morning. And I made a rudimentary lathe out of some grass and a rubber band - just like I learned on McGyver! Why did I need a lathe? You tell me.

Morning approaches and the sky is beginning to lighten, so I run like hell along the path and up the eighteen million steps to the top of the hill so I can look out from up on high. And I get to the top....and the sky is getting lighter...and lighter...and lighter......and the sun is completely covered by clouds. Nuthin. It came all the way up, and I didn't see it for EVEN ONE SECOND. But the sky was a stunning study in shades of.....grey. God dammit. And I'm thinking that a drink of water would be a good idea right now, and cursing my lack of preparation. I run around Cabot Tower looking for a water fountain - no dice, so I give up and decide to hop one of the low stone walls around the tower and sit in the grass for a bit before heading home - and in doing so, I nearly sprain my ankle on a BOTTLE OF WATER lying in the grass. SEALED. True North brand, from Newfoundland. I guess it had just dropped out of someone's bag or something. Either that or it's a service provided by Newfoundland parks: bottles of water and first aid kits randomly strewn around for idiot tourists.

Time comes to move on, and I jump back over the wall - and hear ziiiiiip! I've broken the zipper on the borrowed red jacket. So picture me on top of a huge hill, in the searing, screaming wind, fighting with a zipper and cursing the complete lack of a sunrise. Damn you, nature! Damn you, technology! I shake my fist at both of you! I didn't manage to fix it (until yesterday, when Nicole was on her way home from Ottawa), but it wasn't all that cold.....and it didn't start to rain until I was almost home. I AM LISA, FROM THE LAND OF SERENDIP. BOW TO ME. And I know it's silly to go hiking by yourself in the dark, but to any of you who have protective feelings toward me: I already did it. Ha ha ha. And I am fine. (And I promise never ever to do it again.)

I still hadn't caught up on that lost sleep when the time came for a proper urban adventure. Dancing! Dancing! Lots of dancing! Another night on the town with Nicole's crazy friend Pat, and this time some of his gang, who have names like Tiffany! and Krista Sue! And who freaked out when they found out that I am TWENTY NINE, which makes me, apparently, the oldest living human being they have ever seen. Anyway, that was a blast - we danced at a place that has no name but that everyone calls "the bar above Peddlers", because.....well....it's above Peddlers. And ended up at a silly after hours dance club called "Liquid Ice". Ooooooh, how cool. I am so old. What I did love, and I think this is because this town is so small, is that there is no self-imposed social segregation in the way there can be in Toronto. The gay bar is the straight bar is the everybody bar. Everyone dances together! (Except the cripples. They can get their own damn bar.)

I have seen four black people in St. John's. And I can't prove that two weren't just the same dude on two separate occasions.

Went home, couldn't sleep, then up for brunch with Crazy Charlie, and then to the Santa Claus parade! So, yeah, if you're wondering where Santa is, we've got him in Newfoundland. He's down to the pub, gettin' loaded and kissin' cod. The parade was fun. Thank God I don't get hangovers, cause boy, those cadet bands were givin' it all they got. And then some.

Oh yeah, it's been decided (by Halifax David, and cute Newfoundland Nick, and me): Halifax boys. St. John's girls. For general hotness, I mean. There are obviously exceptions. But in Halifax, everybody dresses the same - and on the guys, the lumpy sweaters and the baggy jeans and messy hair are just adorable. They manage to be scruffy and stubbly, but still look clean. But it takes a particular kind of girl to really elevate the lumpy sweater look. (And the stubble? Yi.) In St. John's, the girls are kinda funky and cool (witness Underhay), wheras the guys, a lot of them, are just so much grease. The boys said theyd been out with some female friends, and the local "skeets" kept approaching, and using the ever irresistible opening line "dance or wha'?" I dunno.....maybe it works for them sometimes.

Anyway, I'm about to get kicked out of this bookstore....so this is the last you'll hear from me. (I'm about to hop a cargo boat to......somewhere.) Nicole is home as of last night, so I'm out of here! One more day - I'm recording some voice-over stuff tomorrow, before I go (how to get a gig in Newfoundland: answer the phone) and then back to T.O. Wednesday a.m. See some of you there.

Love Love Love,

Leese Leese Leese