Wow. That website I mentioned in my last post is turning out to be quite profitable. I’ve already connected with this guy from a local band who’s willing to lend me recording equipment so I can make a demo as well as  introduce me to other musicians in the area and let me know about open mics.

Those of you in the Ottawa area, you may start hearing whispers in the wind about this singer named Nikki….

Last night I discovered a wonderful website. It’s like classified ads for musicians. Bandmix.ca is a place where you can put yourself out there and say ‘I’m a musician looking for a band!’ or ‘We’re a band looking for a musician!’. You can search through everyone who’s in your area or who’s looking for your type of talent and contact them. Bands can be formed over this site and it’s really quite exciting.

I put myself up on that site and have been participating in the forums in the hopes of meeting up with other musicians or just to learn from them. I’m hardly an experienced musician and I may never ‘make it’, but music will always be a big part of my life and I’ll always sing, even if the main venue is just my shower.

Check out my profile at http://www.bandmix.ca/sunneydaze .

I was a bit skeptical of the goings ons on Canada Day this year because I wanted to go have crazy fun downtown Ottawa, but I knew that Jesse had to leave early in the afternoon and Cole worked the next day and thus wouldn’t stay up late. Plus, neither of them are much for big crowds.

We left around lunchtime and after conquering a few obstacles, we managed to make it on the city bus heading for downtown. It was a swelteringly hot day and the packed bus didn’t help the condition any. We arrived in downtown Ottawa, sweaty and a little tired, and began our journey through the hoards of people and crowds around street performers. There was the guy that’s always at big celebrations trying to be cool on his unicycle. I’ve seen him at Canada Day every year in Ottawa as well as in Toronto for random festivals. He uses the same jokes and does the same tricks, though I think he recently added a flame-juggling act on his unicycle. My favourite street performer would probably be the robot dancing guy. He was really really good at it and I believe he was dancing to Thriller, with the moonwalk and stuff. His moves were so mechanical and controlled, it was incredible! I stopped liking him, however, when he stopped dancing, broke out of character and yelled that if we want to see more, we’ve got to pay him. I know that when you’re a street performer, getting paid is pretty rewarding and nice, but, if people like you, they’ll give you money. Once you demand money, they won’t like you anymore and then  you’re screwed which is exactly what happened. Everyone left. Rule one of street performance: Make your donation bucket/hat/container obvious and easy to reach, but don’t refuse performance without pay.

In the early afternoon, there wasn’t really anything happening on Parliament Hill, so we walked to the Chateau Laurier and wandered around in there for a while. We went up to the top floor and looked out the window overlooking the swarms of people. It was a sea of red and white. Quite breathtaking. We wandered around, ate some lunch and walked through the Market that was chock full of overpriced and cheaply made merchandise. There was a guy who called himself the Homeless Poet who would write poetry on demand, however, he was gone to eat lunch when we came around, ready to commission a poem about our awesomeness. Instead, we went into Chapters to beat the heat and flipped through books of photography as well as other things.

Jesse left around 4, and we saw him off. We felt a little deflated as our friend boarded the bus, but decided to soldier on. We went to the NAC which was putting on free concerts in the lobby. We watched a student orchestra which was comprised of mainly violins and a very small girl playing a very large cello. They were really wonderful and they finished off the performance with the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean.

After the concert, Cole and I wandered around looking for interesting things, but nothing was happening and wouldn’t be for another couple hours. We decided that due to the lack of happenings and the mass amount of pain in our feet and sweat on our brows that we’d go back home and have a picnic in the park and then go to the Barrhaven celebration to watch the fireworks and meet up with my mom and Marie.

All went well up until the fireworks when Marie decided to run off and not come back until the park had emptied out and every security person in the area was looking for her.

Canada Day turned out to be very different than what I expected, but for the better. I was glad that I didn’t feel the need to hang onto my past ideas of what Canada Day should be, because I’m sure I would have been disappointed. This may have actually been one of if not the best Canada Day.

Looking at pictures of myself, I realised that my hair’s been pretty well the same shoulder-length style for a few years. It’s time for something at least a little different.

I want to grow my hair out long. Like, nearly as long as it used to be way back when. Not quite down to the small of my back like before, but, long. Long enough to do stuff with. The nice thing about long hair is that if you’re having a bad hair day, you can just put it up really easily and it looks great.

I had a real hard time with long hair when I had it because I didn’t have the right styling products and just didn’t know how to take care of my hair, plus it was dyed which made it brittle and frizzy. Now that I know how to take care of my hair, I could totally handle long hair.

One thing I wish I knew though, is how to make it grow long faster. I mean, it took me a year or two to get it long before. That’s a long time. I want long hair now and I can’t afford nor do I want extensions. I guess I’ll just have to eat right and stay healthy and it’ll grow as fast as it wants. It’s about shoulder length when it’s curly and a little longer when straight…so I’m getting there I guess. It’s not too far to go, just a few inches. I say about 6″ is good. Yeah, I like that. I’ll go for an extra 6″.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’ve almost finished my first wedding veil and I have to say that it’s looking pretty good. The material is unfortunately quite flowy and I’m making a birdcage veil, which needs to be a little stiffer. It looks lovely, but I can only imagine what might happen if the bride was in the wind. It’s all cut to the right length and I’ve gathered the back, all I need to do is secure it a little better and attach some sort of accessory like a flower or some feathers. A lot of veils these days have feathers and I’ve no idea why. I don’t want to look like a bird died on my head.

Anyways, I’m thinking of selling it on etsy.com or ebay. Ebay will be good if people actually bid on it and drive up the price, but etsy seems a little classier and, well, I don’t know how that site works and would like to know. As for the veil-making, I now know that 18″ is slightly too long for a birdcage and that it should be closer to 14″ or less depending on where you want it to sit.

I really enjoyed making it so far and I can’t wait till it’s totally done. I’ll post pictures of it when I’m done and if anyone wants to comment and demand I make one for them, I’d be more than happy to take requests. I may be a novice, but it’s fun and not too difficult either.

The material I’m using right now has a pattern similar to the typical French netting that you see so often, but with some extra detailing throughout and it’s all so much softer than your average tulle. How do you say that word by the way? I say it like dull with a t, but is it actually more like ‘tool’? It’s a strange word anyhow and that’s all I have to say about that.

Cole, Jesse and I decided to go to the Port Elmsley Drive-In to see Kung Fu Panda and The Love Guru. Honestly, the most fun part of the evening was sneaking Cole in the trunk of the Firebird. Have you ever seen those trunks? There’s only enough room for a spare tire, and Cole’s a little bigger than a spare tire…but apparently not by much because he still managed to squeeze himself in there. With the mesh over top of him, you couldn’t tell anyone was back there.

Once we’d snuck him in for free, we quickly learned that we were newbies to the drive-in and there were a lot of people who’d come well-prepared. They had frisbees and soccer balls and beach balls to keep them busy before the movies started(you had to get there over an hour early if you wanted a good spot), there were bug nets and tents and blankets and pillows; snacks and drinks, practically whole meals. These people were ready for a night at the drive-in. Most people had bug nets for their cars so they could roll the windows down without falling prey to the mosquitos. We hadn’t thought that far in advance, but we did manage to borrow one from the people ahead of us who had an extra one.

It just went downhill from there. Kung Fu Panda was hard to sit through, but there was the odd funny spot and we realised that one of the characters’ voices was non other than Tobias Funke from Arrested Development.

During the intermission, a lot of families left, so we got to move up a few rows closer to the screen, which was playing old, fifties ‘Let’s all go to the lobby’ type clips. Apparently in the fifties you could buy Chilly Dillys at the concession stand. It was an elegant snack. The next time anyone gives me a strange look when they see me eating a pickle, I’ll just let ‘em know it’s classy as hell.

Those clips were far better than the movie that followed them. The Love Guru with Mike Meyers was terrible. There were one or two parts that made me chuckle, or do that half-laugh thing where you just breathe out a puff of air and smile. That was about it. Most of the jokes were crude and humourless and over all it was a big let down. Lucky for us, none of us figured it’d be good so we weren’t too surprised. It was actually so bad that the guy running the movies apologised afterward for how distasteful the movie was over the radio station. Do yourself a favour and don’t see it.

Despite the awful choice of movies, we left that place with a spark of enthusiasm for drive-ins. From now on, we’ll bring a bug net, a billion munchies and lots of things to do before hand…and maybe during if the movies suck.

I haven’t been feeling the greatest today since I got my finger slammed in a dresser drawer, not to mention being female and how THAT makes me feel every month like clockwork. My mom was going to leave the house for a bit to get some parts for our bed that she is assembling in the basement and she asked if there was anything I wanted her to get. I paused for a bit and finally resolved to say that a little chocolate would be nice. She smiles, says ‘That’s it?’ and then leaves.

About 20 minutes later, she comes back, walks into my room and takes out three bags full of various chocolate bars and asks which one I want. Three bags! Of chocolate! It was hard to decide because they’re all pretty good, but I settled on the Jersey Milk.

You really have to hand it to her. Sometimes my mom just outdoes herself.

I think I may have found ‘the dress’. Last night I went on to preownedweddingdresses.com and found a beautiful, 100% silk wedding dress.

I love the style of it. Very classic glamour that just sort of fits with what I like. It’s a bit theatrical, but hey, I’m a bit theatrical and what better excuse to wear such things as your wedding day? I’m planing on wearing a birdcage veil and having my hair in a very 40s-esque style. I’ve got natural, big curls, so I’m planning on leaving those sort of loose in the back. Maybe slap on some red lipstick and there ya go.

Any thoughts?

As of tomorrow I will be 20 years old. It reminds me of the song 20 Years of Snow by Regina Spektor, which is a very good song that I highly recommend. Twenty years old. Two decades. A fifth of a century. No longer a teenager. I’m glad I’m out of my teens because reall, I was never comfortable there. I was either awkward or too grown up. Now I’m 20. What are your twenties supposed to be like? I think it’s the middle of the transition into adulthood. I mean, you’re legally an adult at 18, but, most 18 year olds are far from grown up, but then again, so are many 40 year olds.

I can legally do just about everything but gamble, and I’m not big into losing my money anyway, so what should that matter? I feel like there is something monumental about turning twenty, but I don’t know why. Perhaps because it’s a new decade. That’s something. Maybe it’s that now I’ll be taken a little more seriously in the real world. That’ll be nice, though I’m sure I won’t be taken any more seriously than I already was, but I can pretend it made a difference.

What do people do when they turn 20? For me, it was going antiquing and making cappuccinos, and it was good.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say, but I think it comes down to this: for some reason I feel like I’m going to wake up tomorrow and some humongous change will have occurred and I will be all the better for it, but I know with my better judgment that tomorrow will be just like any day and I will not change any more than I did last night. Which is a little bit saddening. I think that every birthday should bring something new and life-altering. You should wake up on your birthday with a new epiphany or maybe even something more superficial like a change of hair or eye colour. Wouldn’t that be cool? Wake up one morning to blazing red locks when the night before they’d been chestnut brown. I’d like that. Unless the change was something terrible like facial hair or an inflated nose.

But alas, that will not happen. I will wake up tomorrow like any other day, and the day will last as long as any other day and though it may be slightly more eventful, it will ultimately be just another day.

Those of you who know me, know by now that my father has been a hugely negative influence in my life for really the bulk of my life, but especially the past few years. I often sit around with my sisters and mother and discuss everything we hate about him. It’s quite therapeutic really and helps us deal with the hardships he’s brought on us.

But despite all of the negatives, there will always be this one positive that I can thank my father for. He used to sit with me for hours discussing philosophies of life and theories of how things work on a spiritual level. I am not religious, but I have always felt very spiritual. I’ve lost that feeling now and again, but I always go back to it. I feel silly telling anyone other than myself about my spiritual thoughts, but, as flakey as these things sound, they’re really not.

My dad introduced me to a concept that I’d long suspected but had never really defined. He dubbed it ‘calling’ and I think now people refer to it as The Secret. I kind of resist the whole ‘Secret’ movement mainly because it’s the new popular fad, but in all honesty, I’ve been living on and off like that since I was a very young child. Basically you call things into existence.

I can remember being about to turn…8? I had heard that the forecast for my birthday party was supposed to be thundershowers all day. I didn’t like that. I went outside and I begged God or the universe, or whatever that energy is that we all know is out there, to just let it not rain until the party was over. I wasn’t asking for sun or a perfect day, I just wanted it to be dry so we could have fun outside. I wanted it so badly that it didn’t rain a drop until the second the party was supposed to be over. At 6:00pm EXACTLY it poured. It sounds small, but to me, it definitely felt like my ‘prayer’ had been answered. It proved to me that I can make things happen in a profound way.

As I look back on my life, I find that everything has been called. I called all the horrible things that have happened to me as well as the good.

Even though I know all this to be true (usually if something is true, it will immediately sit right with you), I still feel as I mentioned before like some big flake that’s just tacked on to the latest trend. Why is that? I’m a person that needs proof of things. Something that I’ve noticed about that is that quantum physics has been proving this theory. I’m still skeptical because I I don’t know how quantum physics works and I don’t know what “proof” they have, but knowing that science is beginning to back it up makes me feel a little more comfortable with it. Maybe it’s just sort of telling me to plunge into it all full tilt. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I guess we’ll see.

As for you dad, thanks for that one bit of enlightenment, it totally makes up for you being so crazy. Almost.