This, mes amis, is a day composed of awesome.

Well, I still have essays to write; one on Frankenstein, and one on Mary Barton and Tess of the d'Ubervilles (I have read absolutely none of these books... these next few days shall be INTENSE. Never until my university student life have I identified so fully with Dante, gradually making my way through ever-widening circles of Hell). However! Today (which is 4 April 2007, no matter what the date/stamp for this post says as I have begun writing just a few moments before midnight, and will probably not finish until after I have entered the NEW DAY which may or may not prove to be as awesome) contained many instances of joy.

Joyful occurrence #1: The Reassurance of it Being Okay to Hand Things In Late, as the Late Penalty applies to every CLASS and not every DAY, as I had Mistakenly and Panicked-ly thought, giving myself ANEURYSMS and ULCERS

Joyful occurrence #2: The Return of a Term Paper of DOOM, which Surprisingly contained a Grade of A+ and much Praise, which Soothed my FRAZZLED Brain

Joyful occurrence #3: The Knowledge that nearly EVERYONE, Apparently, in my Film class handed in term papers Late, and I was NotAlone in that department, and thus Less Likely to suffer DREADFUL REPRECUSSIONS

Joyful occurrence #4: I Bravely Ventured Forth from my WOEFUL and MESSY apartment, to the deli on the street, where I bought Victuals of cheese and meat and bread. (I like the word 'victuals'. I learned it from Brian Jacques Redwall books. Oh, to be a talking mouse! Or hare! Or [dare I aspire to such heights?] a badger!) And when I Returned from my Brave Venture, who Called but the FEARFUL FRIEND, Enquiring as to my Availability for Fire-type Adventures!

To explicate, without the copious use of capitals, the Fearful Friend (henceforth known as 'FF'), is fearful on multiple levels. Her wrath when provoked, for one; her loyalty, for another; her ability to make you fear for your LIFE (oops... backsliding into capitals again...) on seemingly normal expeditions, for a third. Examples: a simple car ride to Superstore became an all-night jaunt out of the province, to Edmonton, where we broke down first by the side of a rural road requiring us to push the car out of the path of oncoming vehicles and sleep in the middle of nowhere inside of a car that DOES NOT LOCK, and broke down second right outside of Edmonton proper where we enjoyed the MORTAL TERROR of almost being run over by semis, and returned to Prince George, ingloriously, via Greyhound; a simple walk around the neighbourhood became a hike through brush and snow and ice, in BELOW FREEZING temperatures without jackets or even socks, and GETTING HORRIFICALLY LOST in places where No One Can Hear You Scream; and, for POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS reasons, I will not detail the event of The MOUNTAIN in the Winter that we CLIMBED UP and then Proceeded to FALL DOWN. (Well, I obviously fail at self control when it comes to capital-key use.... double man-yacks.)

Suffice to say, I am well-versed in the tribulations associated with hanging out with FF. As I have told her on multiple occasions, "To be your friend is to be masochistic. To know you incurs pain. I have come to expect it, and, through my expectation, to face it unflinchingly. I know with rock-solid certainty that every time I go somewhere with you, I will return injured in some fascinating new way. I have accepted this." FF laughs at me. She says, "I'm not sure what the right response to that is: I hope I disappoint you? That doesn't seem quite right."

In light of all this, the damage done tonight has been negligible. What's a branch in the eye between friends? And, as always, hanging out with FF is well-worth the possible death that may occur during said hang-out time. Tonight, after excursions to buy tropical fruit and chocolate and Starbucks coffee and mint tea and arrowroot cookies, we headed off for the river, upon which banks we built a (possibly illegal) fire.

Of course, getting to the banks was problematic and included STEEP hills, SHARP drop-offs, and Walking Across Water on LOGS. Every minute with FF is fraught with peril, as I have stated. I've grown accustomed to this; and so, managed to: climb down the steep hills with nary an injury, avoid instead of fall over the sharp drop-offs, and balance on the log as I walked across the water. If nothing else, being FF's friend has made me well versed in survival skills. In the event of an apocalypse or sudden zombie attack, I will have much to thank her for.

Once we made it safely (shocking, I know) to the rocks bordering the river, whose edges were ice, and deposited blankets, jackets, and backpack in a pile, FF and I parted ways: I, to go up and down the shore seeking out driftwood and dried out logs, and FF up the embankment, to where trees leaned over and roots poked through hilly earth. We called out occasionally to one another, but alas! The wind took our words away. Greedy thing.

Typically, FF is the one who provides the most firewood. (Our possibly illegal fires are a regular occurrence, and we have a certain method to it now, despite early terrifying instances of wandering out to the middle of nowhere with nothing but a box of matches and FF's cheerful exclamations of, "Of course I know how to make a fire out of snow and twigs! We won't freeze to death, I swear!" Out of the mouths of most people, such an assertion would seem worrying; FF, however, has an inexplicable power of making you believe in her honesty. During the ride home, afterward, she said, "I really didn't think I was going to be able to make that fire. Wow, I surprise myself sometimes!" Oh, FF. If I didn't love you so, they'd never find all of your body because I would have dismembered you out of justified rage and scattered the pieces all across the continent.)

Tonight, however, I held my own. I can truthfully say that I hauled the equivalent of three trees back to our pile of stuff. I carried trunks on each of my shoulders; they moved as if on waves. I love driftwood - like the bleached bones of trees, it's so easy to burn, and it's relatively light as well. FF and I, between us, carried an actual and entire tree back to our fire site. (This is where the branch-in-the-eye incident occurred. Only it was more like, 'tree-to-the-eye'.) In one of our earlier excursions, when there was a group of us sitting around a cheerfully blazing campfire chatting away, no one noticed that FF had been gone for a suspicious amount of time. We became aware of her absence by the approaching and ominous sound of a heavy object being dragged over ragged terrain. Lo and behold! FF, beaming, proud, showing off her captured log. So, the idea of us carrying an actual tree (which died through no action of our own and was just lying there, a tree corpse, for the taking), is not so outlandish. Not if you know FF.

We started our small fire with the aid of the Starbucks paper cups. Horrible for the environment, I know. Ah well. I don't drive. Driving is worse. So there. If you drive, judge me not. If you don't drive, well, you're just as pathetic as I am and I don't have to respect your opinion of me. By this time, night was falling on top of us - not like a tonne of bricks, but rather one brick at a time, gradually and steadily. Our small fire lit up a circumference that included the embankment behind us and a stretch of rocks that reached almost to the water. The water itself was a rush of moving shadows. We made an impromptu couch out of one of the logs I had hauled, not on my shoulders, but against my hips and with the support of my wrist. FF folded a blanket and put it on top of the log, and we sat together in front of the fire.

Campfire conversations ramble. I like this about them. We went from childhood to adulthood. We talked about fishing and about refuge. FF brought out of her backpack the starfruit I'd bought, part of our tropical fruit collection, and cut it in thick and thin slices with her ever-present knife. FF has a fierce affection for knives. I believe as a child, rather than stuffed animals, she was given sharp pointy objects. It would explain much.

Starfruit doesn't taste quite like any other fruit. It's oddly sweet. I think it tastes a little bit like kiwi, but FF disagrees. I held up one of the thinner slices of starfruit in front of the fire and looked at how the light shone through it. FF broke off a piece of white chocolate and ate her thicker slice of starfruit with it. We decided that was how starfruit was made to be eaten, and proceeded to do so. After, FF broke out the arrowroot cookies, and I peeled a guava with her knife (this is how I know we're friends: she shares her toys), throwing shreds of skin into the fire. The wind caught half of my scraps and pulled them, however, making FF laugh at my aim. That wind! We decided the mango wasn't ripe enough to eat, but the strawberries were just right; and, after a simultaneous, shared moment of genius, we invented a new type of s'more.

Anyone who has gone camping has had s'mores. They're like, a staple. It's not camping unless there are s'mores. Traditional s'mores are composed of melted marshmallow, chocolate, and graham crackers. Using the materials at hand, FF and I constructed the Strawberry S'more, with two distinct variations.

FF's variation of the Strawberry S'more: slice a strawberry in half, skewer half of a strawberry with a willow stick (said willow sticks gathered by FF, as I was too lazy and cold to move away from the fire once it started), put a slab of chocolate on the flat side of the strawberry half, balance carefully as you put the chocolate/strawberry combo into the fire. Once the chocolate has melted/bubbled, pull out, and top with half of an arrowroot cookie. Instant heaven.

My variation of the Strawberry S'more: take a whole strawberry and, from the thick end, poke a hole into its centre. Take a slab of chocolate and put it in the hole. (Carefully) Skewer the strawberry with a willow stick, and roast in the fire. Remove when you smell burning chocolate, or there is an excess of smoke. Instant nirvana.

My method admittedly didn't contain an arrowroot cookie, but it did have the virtue of being chocolate filled roasted stawberries. And you could eat the cookies on the side. For the record: roasted strawberries taste like wildstrawberry jam, freshly made. I strongly recommend it.

After our strawberry consumption, it was time to go home. The fire was still going strong, so we did what we always do when it comes to still going strong fires: picking up each piece of burning wood, we carried the fire to the river, and flung. I like the hiss that fire makes when it goes out, and there were sparks left on the parts of the river that were still ice. We left a scattering of coals as we tramped back up-hill. Let me tell you, what seems STEEP going down, is definitely GAH, I'M GLAD I HAVE HANDS SO THAT I DON'T FALL OFF going up. It was full-on dark by then, but weirdly bright enough to see; and though I almost lost my balance on the log over the water, I did make it without falling. I didn't even trip in the dark. Obviously I am acclimated to being FF's friend. It took a while, but I believe I have acquired the skills to make it through an FF experience without bleeding out. Thank God.

Now! If you have made it through this horrendously long blog-post, I feel I must reward (punish?) you with links to things that are awesome! Because I like to spread around the joy. Today I believe I shall make it a themed set of things that are awesome. And the theme? Anthropomorfic. By this I mean fiction that deals with anthropomorphized objects. (Get the pun? Anthropomorphic + Fiction = Anthropomorfic! ...god, I'm a geek.)

Anyways, anyways. If you are Queen of the Dumb Blog, then I have already exposed you to the tetris porn; however, porn does not have to be limited to just tetris! It can be houses, too! I guarantee that after you read these, you will not be able to a) play tetris in the same way ever again, and b) feel as if you aren't committing some perversely sexual act just by walking barefoot across your kitchen floor. To allay the suspicion that I only enjoy anthropomorfic that sexualizes inanimate objects, which would be admittedly WEIRD to the EXTREME, I include for your perusal the romantical tragedy or the tragical romance of the table and the table (warning: includes same table relationship), and, to lighten the mood, the love story of a pair of curtains, plus assorted objects including, but not limited to, surly bookcases. If, at the end of all this, you feel as if you could manage to make it through a horrifically good story that defies all classification, but suffice to say manages to be both metatextual and anthropomorfic (in that the story itself speaks), then I direct you to This Is The Title Of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times In The Story Itself.

And, if for whatever reason you were interested, the strawberry picture at the top of this post boasts as being the largest strawberry ever constructed at fifteen feet high and twelve feet across.

Now, I must be off. Frankenstein beckons. Well. Not literally. Because that would be just a little bit too anthropomorphic for me. I guess I do have some boundaries left, after all.