B got me new wheels for my birthday. Double pink Deep V rims, Profile hubs back and front, radial spoke threading in the front wheel (so pretty), a new back cog/lockring, and new tubes and tires. A complete wheelset! I was so unbelievably stoked (and surprised) - I’m so spoiled.

My bike
My back wheel was damaged just about exactly a year ago when I was hit by a Jeep. I went to Burning Man/New Zealand/Australia pretty quickly after that happened and didn’t ride my bicycle for a while, but when I got back to Vancouver, it became evident rather quickly that something was wrong - my back wheel had been damaged just enough that it was wobbly and couldn’t be fixed by truing. Now I’ve finally got a back wheel and with rims renowned for their strength. Perfect for activities such as bombing shitty East Vancouver streets, which is what the majority of my riding consists of.

(See discussion on the “bombproofness” of Deep Vs here. Please note that I do not mean this variation of the Deep V, also a hipster favourite.)

School starts next week.

a scanner
a queen-sized bedframe
a winter jacket

then, my life will be perfect.

p.s. letraset tria pantone markers are 10 for $10.00 at deserres. they’re clearing them out because they’re not using pantone for colours anymore. amazing! i’m going CRAZY colouring with markers on vellum and paper.

p.p.s. it was my birthday yesterday. i am now twenty-three years of age.

So, how about that cleanse… the Friday night after I wrote my last post, Britt, my cleanse buddy, brought me to the health food store and proceeded to tell me that I was doing the cleanse improperly. Basically, I was supposed to cut out everything that was making it not terrible (banana smoothies, greens in a smoothie instead of mixed with water [gross], and pineapple juice) - and she also told me that I had to start taking a tablespoonful of fibre every day. !! So, I decided to do the cleanse my own way.

And then I got grumpy.

I guess that cleanses are supposed to make you grumpy, but I hate hate hate being grumpy. I am generally a pretty cheerful person… but when I don’t eat for three days, grumpy is just one toe-stub or shitty conversation away. Bah! So, I ate a spoonful of peanut butter, and then I ate some grapes, and by the next day I was wolfing down spinach salad and gin… so I guess I failed.

Fuck cleanses. I’m a healthy vegan. I don’t need to cleanse. I love to eat. I officially cleansed for four days. That’s not so bad; I feel like I refreshed my diet a bit and got out of the habit of overeating. Since then I’ve been trying to be a bit more conscious of my food choices. Less seitan, more salad. Less oil, more water. It’s summer, after all, which is the time for fresh fruit and other delights.

Unfortunately, leaving my job has left me a little bit broke. After rent this month I am pretty destitute, so if you’d like to buy my art and support my habit of eating regular meals at the same time, I’ve got three paintings up for sale. Check here for photos and information. I’m also available to do commissions in watercolour and acrylic.

Day two of the cleanse.

Last night was pretty difficult. I had some food left over at home - dahl, basmati rice and seitan - so I brought it over to the studio last night. The smell of that food being reheated was so hard - and watching everyone eat it! - but I stayed strong and drank my herbal tea. The smoothie I made last night for my evening “meal” was really good, too; this is a fairly easy cleanse as far as cleanses go, so I shouldn’t complain. I just love to eat… I love it so much.

(That’s what veganism has done for me; it’s made me truly appreciate food.)

Today, day two, I am slightly headachey… but energetic. I woke up early this morning (despite a late last night) and cleaned, did laundry, made my morning smoothie/tea, and drank them followed by a big glass of water.

B wrote me out a schedule for the cleanse, so if you’re interested, this is what I am consuming daily for 7 - 14 days. All drinks are a full cup, that is, 250mL.

JUICE CLEANSE

Breakfast: Greens smoothie, herbal tea, water
Between: Herbal tea, water
Lunch: Greens smoothie, juice, herbal tea
Between: Juice, herbal tea, water
Supper: Greens smoothie, herbal tea, water
After: Herbal tea, water, juice

The smoothies I’ve been making have consisted of these basic ingredients, thus far:

CLEANSE SMOOTHIE

1 banana, frozen, broken into two pieces for ease of blending
2/3 cup pineapple juice
1 piece fruit, either frozen or fresh (one peach, 1/2 mango, one - two apricots, etc.)
2 heaping teaspoons Greens powder

Blend. Drink.

P.S. The shirt I’m wearing today says

FISH FEAR ME
WOMEN WANT ME

I got it: a Canon USM 28-105mm 3.5-4.5 lens. I haven’t had a working zoom lens in quite some time, as the Canon SLR kit lens only lasts so long before its autofocus fails; I’ve gone through three. I can’t wait to start using my new lens. I haven’t been excited about taking pictures for months - since I was in Australia - so hopefully this will revitalize my photographic spirit.

I’m on a cleanse. For the next week, I’ll be ingesting four or more litres of filtered water per day, four to five cups of herbal teas, natural unsweetened fruit and vegetable juices, and “meals” of Greens drinks. That’s it. Hopefully by the end of this, my body will be so cleansed and healthy feeling that I’ll be able to immediately return to drinking beer every night and eating seitan. … Just kidding… I’ll be following a mainly macrobiotic diet full of seasonal local produce and whole grains for the rest of the summer after this. But I will probably go back to drinking coffee and clear liquors. I don’t like to deprive myself too much.

Today’s the first day of my cleanse. I’m doing okay so far; yesterday I fasted (somewhat - I ate a little), mainly filling up on water and teas, so I was a little bit prepared for today. Over the next few days I’ll probably feel pretty crappy and weak but it should even out by the third or fourth day, from all I’ve read. Then I should be able to power through until next week.

Oh man! My parents came to visit and got me a food dehydrator. I’m so excited. Now I’ll be able to purchase nearly-done produce (bananas, mangos, anything that’s nearly spoiled), slice it and dry it, and I’ll have cheap amazing snacks forever. I love dried fruit and I spend a lot of money on banana chips, dried mango and dried apple… trail mix… the whole deal. There are also a lot of raw food treats that can be made with a dehydrator, like flax crackers. I am going to experiment a bunch and probably report my findings here.

Even though I’m not eating, here’s a recipe that Amanda and I have been using a lot lately at home.

Fried “Chicken” Seitan for Picnics

Equal parts

vital wheat gluten and water (one cup each, or thereabouts)

Mix water with vital wheat gluten. Stir together until a dough is formed. Knead dough for three to five minutes, flatten, and cut into strips, nuggets or steaks. I recommend using scissors.

Broth

2 cups vegetable broth (or veg chicken stock)
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1 - 2 tbsp tamari or soy sauce
1.5 tsp onion powder
1 - 2 tsp of some of the following: fenugreek, rosemary, sage, marjoram
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper (shake shake shake)

Mix broth ingredients in a pot with a lid. Bring to a boil and drop pieces of seitan in. Cover and reduce heat to simmer for one hour, stirring every ten minutes.
When your hour is up, you can either bake the seitan, covered, for thirty minutes at 300f, for a chewier texture, or skip that step and move on to frying.

Breading

1/2 cup flour (buckwheat, whole wheat, spelt, cornmeal, whatever)
2 tsp paprika
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
Breadcrumbs, if you have them

Stir together in a bowl.

Bowl

with unsweetened soy/rice milk, to dip

Dip cooked seitan into soy/rice milk and then roll in the breading. Fry hot in a nonstick pan with a small amount of oil. Serve hot or cold, alone or in sandwiches.

If you’re the omnivorous type, check out this article from MSN Health: Grass is Greener - Steak Without the Guilt. I’m all for more ethical, environmentally responsible and healthy alternatives to traditional Western consumption habits, and this is a great article filled with a tonne of information on just how and why.

But let’s face it: For a lot of people, biting into a thick, juicy steak ranks up there with make-up sex and cocktails on the company’s dime as one of those priceless MasterCard moments. So what’s a carnivore with a conscience to do? Instead of focusing on what you’re eating, how about taking a look at what your prime rib had for lunch last week?

Research is showing that beef from grass-fed cattle is leaner, healthier, and less costly to the planet — and may even be safer to eat than the heifers you’re chewing on now.

Truly a recommended read for anyone who doesn’t want to give up meat. I know that not everyone is willing to go vegan, but we all have a responsibility to work toward conserving our planet and making it a better place to live for all of its inhabitants.

P.S. Go vegan.

Hey, I posted some recent paintings.

I came across this reposted text while doing my morning email check and internet surf today: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Homosexuality by a Rev. Mel White. The point of this text, written to be a pamphlet, is that most people who say that “the Bible condemns homosexuality” haven’t actually read the verses in question… anyway, it’s pretty informative, and I’d suggest that anyone who’s unsure about their stance on these issues (or who’s simply interested) click along and read it.

So it’s definitely summer now and I’m definitely not going to be online so much. My bag was stolen about a week and a half ago, so I’ve lost my dayplanner and cell phone (I got the important stuff back, like my ID and keys) - which means I’ve got lots of time to do summery things like ride my bike and go to the beach - but I’m not so easy to contact. I’m going to be spending a lot of time over the next two months in the studio I’m now sharing with Amanda and Britt in East Van. Hopefully I’ll produce a huge wealth of work over this period.

Things I want (need?): A new back rim (Velocity Deep V Pink 32h 700c, I think), a set of Major Taylor drop track handlebars, a 24-70mm lens for my Canon 350D, a new sketchbook/recipe book/journal so I can record all of my amazing summer recipes.

I quit my job. This summer I’m going to be pretty broke but also very, very happy.
Here’s a rad smoothie I made the other day to bring to a dog’s birthday party in the park.

Early Summer BC Fruit Smoothie

1 - 2 bananas, peeled and frozen
1/2 - 1 cup local BC fruit, like nectarines, peaches and apricots, cut into chunks and frozen
1/2 cup coconut milk (add water if your coconut milk is more like coconut cream)
    You can use rice/soy/almond milk if you’re worried about fat content.
2 tbsp maple syrup or other liquid sweetener
1 tsp powdered ginger

Blend until creamy. Change the consistency with more milk, more fruit, or seeds/nuts if you like.
This smoothie is refreshing and sweet (but not oversweet). The ginger gives it a nice kick.

This is interesting - “Veganic” farming in New Mexico’s Espanola Valley. Don Bustos, whose family has farmed this land for generations, elected to go organic 15 years ago to protect his children’s health. Now, as the article describes, he’s gone veganic, choosing to use no animal byproducts in the fertilizers and no pesticides whatsoever.

Salmonella and e. Coli are bacteria that live in the intestines of livestock and are present in their waste. Livestock waste, or manure, can be used to fertilize fields, potentially contaminating crops with the disease-causing bacteria.

Crops can also be contaminated by contact with infected animals or their byproducts, including bone meal and blood meal, which are used as fertilizer as well.

Veganic farmers use crop rotations and composted plant matter — or “green manure” — to fertilize their crops.

I think this is fantastic and frankly it suddenly makes me feel really gross about my organic hothouse tomatoes. Blood meal… that is a hugely unappetizing image. Also, I feel like if we’re going to make an effort to support ethical food production - avoiding cruelly factory-farmed meats, dairy, and eggs, or, as in my case, avoiding animal products entirely - it makes sense to go all the way when possible.

“You think you are getting these clean happy vegetables, but more often than not they’re grown in waste from factory farms,” he said. “The animals … were fed non-organic feed laced with hormones and antibiotics. Those products bio-accumulate in the animals and it’s present in their waste as well.”

I’m not sure what the requirements are for organically grown produce. Do the animals whose waste is present in the fertilizer have to be on an organic diet as well? I’m going to look it up, but it’s definitely something to think about.

I hope that I can start purchasing “veganically” grown produce in my area soon. I think it’s absolutely worth the extra cost to purchase food that is produced ethically, that causes the least amount of harm to the earth, animals, the farmers, and the health of the consumer. After all, there is very little that is more intrinsic to our ability to survive than the way we produce and consume that which we live on - food.

How The Grinch Stole Marriage by Mary Ann Horton - a parody of Dr Seuss’ famous How The Grinch Stole Christmas. A really delightful read.

In 5 or 10 or 20 years, with plenty of visible same-sex married couples, the world won’t see us as strange or scary, we’re just the married couple down the street that happens to be gay. Eventually, the legal recognization of our marriages will follow.

If we allow ourselves to voluntarily sit in the back of the bus, we’ll never make any progress. Rosa Parks had to sit in the front of the bus to make a difference. We must as well.

It’s been big news that the ban on same-sex marriage was overturned in California recently. I know that I wasn’t the only one moved nearly to tears by the marriage of Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, who have been together for fifty-five years. I have to admit, though, that this little Grinch poem was just as touching. Aww. I’m a big sap.

On Friday I tried Bikram Yoga for the first time. Intense, difficult, but I feel like a hundred dollars after my post-class shower… definitely amazing. Unfortunately I think I’ve been pushing it a bit too hard because my muscles were so sore yesterday after my second class (they’d been sore before that, too) that I had trouble walking around the Vancouver Art Gallery yesterday. I managed it, though, because it was an exhibition that was right up my alley…

Krazy! The Delirious World Of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art is the first exhibition of its kind, a groundbreaking project that offers unique and dynamic insight into the world of comics,animated cartoons, anime, manga, graphic novels, computer/video games and visual art. Spanning a century of artmaking, the works in this exhibition reveal an extraordinary history of production, one that is poised to redefine the scope of visual culture in the 21st century.

Seriously amazing. If you have a chance to see this at any point I highly recommend it. It took a friend and I two trips to the Art Gallery to see the entire thing; it’s, apparently, the largest exhibit ever shown at the VAG. Every part of it was mindblowing.

Speaking of art, I really need to get some pictures of my recent paintings up. I’ve shot the photos… I just have to upload and post them. I’m really excited about them. I keep talking about them but haven’t yet posted anything. I guess that makes me a big tease.

This makes me so fucking angry - a teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah, has been placed on paid administrative leave for answering questions from her students about sex. The questions were not dealt with in the core curriculum; they were about subjects like homosexual sex, oral sex and masturbation.

“Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, opened a bill file this week and said he will introduce legislation in January that would enforce criminal penalties on teachers who deviate from state law governing sex education…”

Students at the school posted signs in support of their teacher that read, the article says, “We were the ones asking her questions.” The school’s principal, Michael Sirois, removed the signs “…because he does not want the matter to become divisive while it is still under investigation.”

I think it’s absolutely criminal that anyone would consider punishing a teacher for answering any questions their students ask, especially about something as important as sex. We’re a sexually repressed culture and it’s rare enough for children to feel okay asking questions like this, so for the teacher to be punished for giving informative answers absolutely blows me away.

Misinformation and lack of information about sex are, in my opinion, huge contributors so some of our society’s largest problems, like sex crime, as well as mal-formed identity and the shame and guilt common in our largely Christian culture.

If children are given a fair chance at an informative, honest sexual education as they’re developing personal and sexual identity, I think that they have a way better chance of growing up with healthy attitudes toward sex and toward themselves. It is not fair for anyone to be afraid of sex, or ashamed of who they are, the things they think and feel or do in private. We are all born with a healthy interest in our own bodies and how they work, and it is only this social conditioning that makes us ashamed of ourselves and unable to interact openly with others. Avoiding giving children information about masturbation will not stop them from doing it, and keeping them in the dark about homosexuality will not keep them ’straight’.

It’s impossible to expect adolescents to practice safe sex when they don’t understand sex - and I don’t know why these parents haven’t figured out that withholding information about sex will not promote abstinence.

I wonder if there’s anything I can do about this?