Trust The Gut

If your sad, and like beer...then i'm your lady.

Advice. So easy to give, and so hard to follow. Last night I received some advice, good advice, but the truth is hard to hear.

Instinct. It has told me many things I don't want to believe, but the gut is always right. Today my stomach hurts, sending me shots of pain every 15 minutes, making me grip my keyboard and hold on tight for the release.

I am back in Vancouver and the snakes have slithered back to their holes. Assuming my usual lonely venture through the city streets, I dined for brunch at a lovely little courtyard cafe in Gastown, alone. Determined not to spend the evening the same way, I ensured that I had somewhere and someone to dine with. But not before I celebrated my time in Winnipeg by visiting the cinema for the new Guy Maddin film The Saddest Music In The World.

Winnipeg's gift to the film world is Guy Maddin. Born and raised in Winnipeg, his films most often are made there, and involve his hometown in some way, rather than trying to disguise the city as somewhere else more cosmopolitan. The film is highly stylized, with haunting imagery that is subverted by the scripts humor. I suggest this film to you all, its unlike any I have seen before.

After the film we walked around the corner to a small cafe that served French Canadian food, sitting outside we drank bottle after bottle of Maudite, until the sun went down. We were a sad lot, but the beer and the advice being sent back and forth seemed to soothe things, temporarily anyway.

I walked all the way home, took me a half hour. From the Burrard Street bridge the city looked powerful but calm. The ideas that had been bandied about earlier circulated in my mind, providing me with some comfort, but I know all too well that my conviction is weak. I will try though, and eventually succeed. I imagine myself jogging into some kind of victory stretch, pushing my ribcage towards a finish line that does not exist. There is music, it is sad.