Boy are we batting a thousand or what this month being 5 DAYS LATE BUT YOU KNOW WHAAAAT tough shit I’m tired. I’ve been working but its been busy and this is my first break day in like 3 weeks probably yaHOO
NEW MONTH SAME RULES LETS GET CRACKING AND MAYBE START SOMETHING NEW THIS MONTH~
500-1000 words a day
weekends are skippable
don’t miss more than 3-5 per month
editing doesn’t penalise
I’m going to try and see if this month I can try and combo editing & chipping away at drafts while also writing something new because I have a lot of really fun new shit i wanna write buuuut I also have a lot of guys sitting in the wings in need of a look-over. We’ll see we’ll see~
MAY 2025 PROGRESS:
MAY 01: ~EDITING~
MAY 02:
MAY 03:
MAY 04:
MAY 05: ~EDITING~
MAY 06:
May 07:
MAY 08: TAKE OUT — 845
MAY 09: TAKE OUT — 412
MAY 10: TAKE OUT — 396
MAY 11: ~EDITING~
MAY 12: TAKE OUT — 870
MAY 13: TAKE OUT — 810
MAY 14: TAKE OUT — 712
MAY 15: ~EDITING~
MAY 16: ~EDITING~
MAY 17:
MAY 18:
MAY 19: ~EDITING~
MAY 20: DRAGON’S BREATH — 477
AUGUSTINE CH3 — 80
MAY 22: AUGUSTINE CH3 — 672
MAY 23:
May 24:
MAY 25:
MAY 26:
May 27:
MAY 28: AUGUSTINE CH3 — 622
May 29:
May 30: ~EDITING~
MAY 31:
TOTAL WORD COUNT: 5,896
MAY 05
So I’m thinking this month I’d really like to:
Finish TAKE OUT
Write AUGUSTINE CH3
Write NARCISSUS
Edit DRAGON’s BREATH
I don’t fully know if I’ll get through all of it but those are the plans going into May~ (Picture me sweating because I know we’re already 5 days into May BUT HEY;;)
MAY 18
So I finished my run of TAKE OUT yesterday… heheheh…. yes it DID take a bit longer than I hoped but wow 80,353 words later and feeling really happy about it. I’m reaping the rewards today and doing some re-reading of this bad boy (and a couple more drafts of things to decide where my brain’s going next~)
It will likely be AUGUSTINE CH3 because Work but after that I’m deciding between: Farewell Tour, Dragon’s Breath or Narcissus… hmhmhmmmm~
May 20
Sometimes…. you look at an older draft of something and your brain, before you’re even a few sentences in goes–nopenope nuh uh. I get what you were doing here but this is not it–
and then you start the new draft without even finishing the reread LOL
Anyways, we’re working on a new more horror-esque version of Dragon’s Breath that feels… idk stronger already but maybe that’s just me. Some things just feel way stronger on a second draft.. like leaps and bounds over the first. I’m honestly reminded of this quote.
“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
— Terry Pratchett
MAY 30
Sometimes…. um… editing is just spending the day rereading an old draft ok?
Anyway there’s a story i wrote that might actually be 2 stories… so i’m carefully & surgically pulling them apart…
TL;DR…. there might be 2 horny dragon/knight/royal stories in the works because I can’t make up my mind and maybe it doesn’t matter and we’re giving people both chocolate and vanilla cake all at once.
The analogy makes sense in my brain just go with me on this.
OVERALL THORTS
WELL. It’s been a tough month for writing but I think thats just going to happen when you’re in the middle of editing/finishing/switching projects. Things get a little tangled. I got a bit tired this month haha. April really took it out of me this time around with the back-to-back cons so I took it a bit easier–AND i actually finished a BIG PROJECT.
Folks. TAKE OUT wound up being 80,353 words.
I’m so unbelievably proud of myself finishing such a big project… in what… 6-8 months? Idk feeling pretty badass about it. I’m eager to step into bigger prose/story projects next year. I’m ready to bounce back after drowning for so long.
Heheh continuing the tradition of…making a new challenge post a day late–but yesterday we were doing a workshop at a school teaching kids how to make ZINES so like, I’ll take it~
OKAY NEW MONTH SAME RULES.
500-1000 words a day
weekends are skippable
don’t miss more than 3-5 days a month
editing doesn’t penalise
LETS DOIT~~
APRIL 2025 PROGRESS:
APR01: –AT A WORKSHOP–
APR 02: TAKE OUT — 909
APR 03: TAKE OUT — 1,015
APR 04: TAKE OUT — 1,347
APR 05:
APR 06:
APR 07: ~EDITING~
APR 08: ~EDITING~
APR 09: TAKE OUT — 510
APR 10: TAKE OUT — 723
APR 11: TAKE OUT — 329
APR 12:
APR 13: TAKE OUT — 911
APR 14: TAKE OUT — 932
APR 15: TAKE OUT — 788
APR 16: ~EDITING~
APR 17: ~EDITING~
APR 18:
APR 19:
APR 20:
APR 21:
APR 22:
APR 23: ~EDITING~
APR 24:
APR 25:
APR 26:
APR 27:
APR 28:
APR 29:
APR 30:
TOTAL WORD COUNT: 7,464
APR 18
ohhhhhBOYEE
I did about as much writing as is feasibly possible with the crazy hectic month we’ve been having so… we will SEE what these next weeks bring and I’ll do what I can. I’m not planning on getting all that much done here since we’re travelling a bunch (and convention hours insist on being some wild shit like 9:30am to 7pm so that doesn’t leave MUCH time in the way of getting a good little hour to do some writing….)
BUT YOU NEVER KNOW~
OVERALL THOUGHTS
So, April’s been an insane month over here and I was doubting if I’d get ANY time to squeeze in word count. I was really hoping I’d finish TAKE OUT but woof, we got close and not quite. I was honestly torn between rushing the ending and actually getting to play it out Good… and opted for the latter since this is supposed to be something Fun for Me.
ALL IN ALL, though….
I honestly… that word count wound up being pretty close to an average month for me and that’s still 7,000 words I wouldn’t have written otherwise so I’ll happily take it! Here’s to maybe, a wee bit more writing in May~
Will this even show up on the website lets find out…. Oh cool it DID. You know what… to save me the psychic damage of coming up with an Actual first post…. I’m just gonna leave this here.
Our first show of the year kicks off with a bang. There were a lot of ups and downs (admittedly a lot more downs than usual, sorry this post is going to get a bit more Honest) but I went into it knowing there were going to be a lot of “Moments”. I think its important to establish that Calgary Expo is one of the many conventions bought by Fan Expo Canada so needless to say that since the pandemic started its only been getting more and more corporate.
Which honestly? Is really frustrating when you’re an exhibitor. But I digress.
Admittedly we were really nervous going into this weekend. The convention locked us into a really unreasonable contract we couldn’t get out of without losing the money we paid into it. The convention itself didn’t release the health and safety measures until two weeks prior to the convention despite this rigorous contract stipulating that we were going to get this information a whole 30 days prior to show opening. Their safety measures consisted of, ‘wear a mask if you feel like it,’ and ‘if you’re sick we recommend masking,’…. which didn’t satiate anyone’s attitude towards us while we were there and still opting to keep our masks on the entire time.
We weren’t fools, we knew Alberta’s health and safety guidelines were atrocious and they had done away with masks since January. Our main reason for visiting the province at all was to get to visit with my partner’s parents (and honestly that whole part of the trip was really nice). Tas had seen them November of last year but I hadn’t been back since the start of the pandemic (likely early December 2019). The change of scenery was really nice, even if Calgary has only grown ever more hostile over the two years we’ve been away.
THE SHOW ITSELF
We’ve done this show, twice before this I believe and in my time doing it the show has always been four days long Thursday-Sunday. This year’s schedule dropped us right back into insane work hours with Artist Alley/Vendor floor opening hours being:
(I don’t really remember Thursday & Friday being quite this terrible hours-wise but I’d have to find my old badges to confirm).
My opinion is the same every year with Thursday being an honest waste of time for AA/Vendors with such a quiet turn around of attendees and being several hours far too late for people to even want to BE at a convention on a week day!! It starts a lot of us off at this show absolutely exhausted and honestly feeling a little wary with so few sales being made for both Thursday AND Friday. I was was humbly surprised in my calculations after the con to find that this time the Thursday was pretty generous to us so I only take back a LITTLE of my angry bias towards it.
We’ve also found that if you tell people they don’t HAVE to wear masks you’re likely going to be at a 60-75% maskless crowd. The first two days were probably the most unnerving days I’ve had in two years but after this you get used to it. I’m still personally favouring masks at big public events (like conventions) even after we have the ok to go maskless because I err have done a couple now with masks and found that I don’t get as cruddy feeling overall when the event is over. (Almost like having a barrier is kind of a good thing? Shock and awe /sarcasm).
Calgary Expo is divided into two main buildings on the stampede grounds the BMO building and the Big Four. For my first year artist alley and Vendors were separated into the [favourites] and the [we have to fill this other building ig]. A few shows that year did the same thing which is honestly an atrocious way to make things work. In years since the Expo has decided to split the show so that vendors are in the BMO and Artist Alley is in the Big Four (and with some of the cute remodels to the Big Four I’m honestly glad for it). The Big Four is a nice and inviting building with all the string lights suspended throughout the space. Its one of the nicer venues I’ve tabled at (even if the staff/set up was a nightmare… who in the world doesn’t number tables during set up)?? Plus all the food trucks are right outside making it extremely accessible for artist alley folks who can stretch their legs and dart for a snack, but it also drives foot traffic to the Big Four which is the smaller of the two buildings.
THE WOUNDED HEART
All of this aside, the moments I’ll remember the most at this show are the ones we made with attendees and people who stopped to chat with us. We had a few weird experiences, more hostile than our usual just overall strangeness. But we had a few really good interactions that sent us on absolute cloud nine.
I’m gonna start with the folks out there creating uncomfortable experiences, because I prefer to end on a high note.
Both my negative experiences came from having to Explain Myself Or My Choices In Regards To The Queer Media I Create. And I’m having a hard time with a particular permeating attitude on this. One particular interaction came from a woman who, as normal, asked me about Myth Retold and what exactly inspired me to create these retellings (I love this question, by the way, and I swear I’m not being sarcastic. It will occasionally catch me off guard as I haven’t had a real chance to speak about these stories since creating them). Most folks take my statement at its face value and accept that I am a half-Greek queer person who likes to envision what ancient Greeks of the queer persuasion might have believed or their versions of the god’s stories they may have told. (This wasn’t err… a good enough reason apparently, and I was left feeling really uncomfortable having to justify it).
The second negative experience came from folks in my own community, younger than I am stating bluntly that our books weren’t ‘gay’ enough and that they were just ‘lesbians’ which frankly is just Rude. Hi, I’m an artist at a booth who can hear what you are saying. For what it’s worth, as a queer person you can engage with media that exists outside of your own lived experience to gain an understanding of your peers. Likewise, as my mom always said, if you have nothing nice or constructive to say don’t say it at all (or like, at least walk to the next aisle to trash talk with your friends, conventions are loud but we can still hear you and all of your weird opinions).
Phew. All that off my chest now (I know, its a lot) I feel like I can finally sit in all the good exchanges we had.
THE GOOD VIBES~
First off, this was The First Calgary show we’ve done with Paint The Town Red on the table which was extremely exciting. Most of our table’s stock was new even if some stories were re-dressed with fancy new covers. Folks had really good reactions to them and I shared very many feelings with those who also believed Medusa could have had a much better outcome in her story (for all those who got yourself a copy I hope the read is as cathartic as it was for me to retell the tale <3).
I absolutely live for folks pointing at our short-descriptions for Prism Knights, shout out to all of the sad bisexuals overcoming grief, you will get there one day. We’re all having a chuckle amongst one another but I hope you all find some sort of solace and peace. My most favourite interaction in this regard happened on the Friday I believe. This person is also a writer and felt compelled to re-visit our table after reading a part of Velvet. From one writer to another, you were absolutely right when you said that it was worth coming back and telling me about your positive experience with my work. We don’t always get the feedback but when it’s such a gleaming praise it will keep you on cloud nine for days if not weeks (I am still thinking about your glowing review as I work on my next story, it has really touched me to my core having worked on so many projects throughout the pandemic and getting to hear that others really connect with the work you’ve been making). I know that, now more than ever, a story like Velvet is likely to really resonate with folks, for better or worse. I hope it brings anyone who reads it some peace <3
Interactions like these are great reminders to myself to reach out and tell someone when I think their work is just amazing. When it connects with me so strongly. I want to be better at this. I want to be able to give someone That good experience in a show that may have been, overall, rather dismal.
Generally, throughout the weekend, interacting with people was definitely something I’ve missed. Watching kids grow wide-eyed at our wall of pins, crouching with their parents to show off their knowledge of planets and mythos. Watching groups of friends flip through our books and show one another.
It breaks my heart to know how cruel Calgary has been to its young queers, and brings me hope that some have found themselves in the work we were making. Someone told us we were one of the only two queer tables selling queer stories at this con, a great decline in the dozen-or-so before the pandemic. Keep strong out there. We will keep coming back to you if we can help it <3
We found our table decimated, coming home with only a few (1-2 copies) of only a few of our remaining books. I couldn’t be more proud of us and the work we have put into this small business and this strive to create strong queer stories for those who might need them.
OVERALL
Calgary Expo is a very weird space for us. It feels like we are fighting against the current at a show like this, that at any moment a shoe will drop. This is the first and only convention so far that I have felt weary being openly queer at. The space is pretty, but the hate in this city is thick in the air.
We’re planning on doing the show once more next year, we will likely keep doing it if it keeps proving profitable but there is a feeling here that makes it a little nerve-wracking for our next booth at this show.
Last year Tas and I made the executive decision to adopt a couple of cats now that we had moved into our new (larger) place. We began the search tentatively at first, looking up little faces on various shelter’s sites, imagining what it would be like to have them in our home.
We had a few criteria but nothing that couldn’t be bent if the fit was just right. We were hoping for a pair knowing that often pairs get split in the adoption stages. And knowing that having two to play with one another and to keep one another company while we spent the occasional time away doing conventions and trips would make their experiences a little less lonely.
I had a personal preference toward black cats, knowing their terrible luck in adoption circles. I remember when we found these two online and I remember the moment we excitedly decided to inquire. The disappointment knowing that someone else had inquired first and was going to see them first. Surely they would be snapped up the moment the other couple laid eyes on them.
But then we got an e-mail. The other couple bailed, changed their minds and everything fell into place like some sort of fate. We fell head over heels for these small slinky boys upon visiting them. The lady who was fostering them was nervous that we would waver but we couldn’t leave without them.
God the first few weeks were an absolute mess. Two eight month old little tyrants sprinted through the halls, scrambling through the hallways and getting us in trouble with neighbours. Pepper got into absolutely everything while Ghost was so afraid of us we could barely touch him to start with.
They’ve both grown so much in the short time we’ve had them so far. I figure I would take this opportunity to share some photos and talk about each one in their own right. They both have such distinctive personalities, its about time I introduce them a little bit more.
GHOST
Also goes by: Lil Goose, Goost, Gustav, Gustavio, Goost on the Loost, Loosty Goosty, Sweet Boy
This little guy is honestly the sweetest little thing. He started off really quite weary of us but is now quite fond of us. He still prefers Tas’ energy over mine and will demand her pets before bed and the moment she wakes up in the morning. He is an absolute snugglebug. If you sit on the bed by him he will pull himself out of his sleep to come purr and rub his entire body weight into your back.
His one and only terrible habit is that his sleeping all day generally means he will find that one toy at 5 am and decide to play with it in the same room as you until you get rid of it somehow. And man, when this kid has got the zoomies he can run.
We’re still working on being able to pick him up without him scrambling straight out of our arms but he has already come such a long way since we once got him. And I’m sure we will manage this last hill too.
PEPPER
Also goes by: Peb, Pebby, Pepperoni, Mister Peb, Beb, Bebby, The Peppered Roni, Little Gremlin, Bastard
He’s a bit of a dual personality this one and each of those has a name. His sweet side (Piment) usually consists of the moments he is most curious, watching us as we work on our packaging and playing with anything he can get his little paws on. Recently he has also become something of a lap-cat and insists on favouring my side of the couch/the bed– just me in general. He will roll and demand belly rubs.
His spicy side (Poivre) is every single moment he is too smart for his own good. He has a bad habit of scratching our couch for our attention, knocking things off shelves and honking his horrible little meow hoarse in the mornings when we kick him out of the room for being too rowdy.
The biggest question we get asked and perhaps isn’t too obvious in the photos is ‘how the heck can you tell them apart?’ And honestly we were wondering the same thing, getting ready to pick them up.
In person they really don’t look the same. Pepper has gotten much bigger and still has the very sleek frame. He’s also got a little patch of white fur on his chest. Ghost, we’ve noticed in the sun you can sometimes see some tabby stripes in his dark fur, and upon noticing these we couldn’t help but take notice of the way his personality falls in line with the tabby attitude. Ghost is definitely more stocky and timid and more ‘cat’.
Pepper is sometimes convinced he is also a human.
As a bonus here are some more photos from my horde that I really love!
Here’s to hopefully many many MANY more years with these two hooligans. <3
I get off a nine-hour flight of horrible airplane food and freezing temperatures into sweltering forty degree (Celsius) heat in long pants. The family is piled into a van with no air conditioning because when the AC is blasting, the person sitting the farthest back is blasted with heating. We’re sweating more than we ever have in our lives.
The apartment is up a couple flights of stairs, it is beautiful the view we get here in Athens, I wish I could enjoy it more. My skin feels like its burning right off of my bones. A second-aunt or a half-cousin–I honestly forget–hands us the keys and laughs a little bit at our comments about the heat. The apartment is sweltering even when we open up all the windows and doors… the AC unit in the small space barely stirs the air and the air it does stir is about room temp and not very cool at all. This first day is so long and so grating we’re sure it’ll never end.
But in the evening I walk with my Dad to scope out the locals, buy up some medication for my mom’s jet-lag, buy some groceries… and … goodness the bakery. We stumble into the most beautiful little bakery I have ever set my eyes on. They have pastries of every shape and sort, bread and treats. The smell in this place is incredible.
That night we also eat the first of many very delicious and extremely cheap gyros. The food in this country is absolutely out of this world. If there’s anything I really miss its this.
What I don’t miss is the heat. The first night I spend hours with my sister, jet-lagged on the stunning apartment balcony listening to the voices of the locals gathered in the town square enjoying the cool(er) breeze of the evening and chatting away. We learn quickly that the locals eat much later than our dedicated suppertime of 6-7pm in the west. The days are so hot here it’s difficult to want to get together in the middle of the day at the heat’s highest point. So, in the evenings, the locals gather in the town squares to socialize and I honestly grew to really love the atmosphere of kids playing soccer and the boisterous laughs as people cheered on teams or the muffled whispers of shared secrets.
But the thing I truly and vividly miss about Greece is the scenery and the history it brings. Having a tempered struggle with my own identity and connection to this culture that’s a half of me, this trip really struck me with the need to try and connect with it even more.
This is where my photo journey starts. I honestly took more video of this trip than photo and I am sincerely hoping to finally edit all of my footage together and to really outline my whole experience of it all… τζίτζικας included. But for now here is a taste of the wonderful things we got to see…
We started our trip visiting the Acropolis right in Athens.
Ακρόπολη
We are foolish, going to see the impressive and imposing structure that is the Parthenon. It has hardly been 12 hours since we landed, we hardly got more than a scattered 3-4 hours of sleep. We took public transit right to the Athens’ market downtown in even sweatier and more sweltering temperatures than the day before (or so it feels like it at this point). We make our way up to the Acropolis, stumbling into pockets of shade and trying to avoid other tourists who are from countries far hotter than ours ever get even in the summer months. When my sister and I order some lemonade, at the nearest stand, the seller asks us where we’re from.
“Montreal.” He gives us a knowing look and a little chuckle as he hands us 5 lemonades. We sit under trees for some solace in the shade. Luckily for us, in this dry heat the sun is forgiving when you’re not under his gaze. We rest for a few moments, my mom who is struggling with a migraine elects to stay put while the rest of us continue our journey on the last stretch to the Acropolis.
I am not feeling the greatest, my camera is overheating in my hand and it has hardly even been turned on but I tell myself that I will regret it if I come all this way without making the last stretch of the trip.
For our first location, the sheer size of the Parthenon, Zeus’ temple and the Theatre of Dionysus (don’t quote me on this one) are impressive and in the same instance, a little personally disappointing. There is a lot more construction and scaffolding surrounding a lot of these mythical structures. I take photos but they don’t have the same impact as the real thing standing so tall before me.
We don’t spend very long up here and this is when I worry for the future tourist destinations we have planned for our stay. This place is packed with bodies and the heat seems to close in from everywhere. My sister and I leave my dad and my brother behind to experience the Acropolis to their heart’s content but the two of us descend before my camera can die and the sun can stop burning the tops of our feet.
When we regroup again, we get food in our bellies and spend the rest of the day resting in the apartment and deciding we are all a little bit nuts for doing what we did and not simply choosing to stay home that day. We take this evening to relax.
We depart on our 3 hour road trip to Delphi in the morning.
Δελφοί
Delphi is a completely different experience.
The road trip is spent reading and laughing and breathing a little easier. Its still hot but the overcast skies provide just enough reprieve we aren’t exactly baking away in the sun. We spend a lot of time winding up mountain roads that make us a little nervous at the novelty and the narrow precariousness of it all. But when we reach our destination we are met with views unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
Delphi is a location that plays an important role in mythos. It is the location of a prominent oracle and of a temple of Apollo. Fitting as not only is he the god of the sun but of prophecy as well. Around this place feels like there is nothing but wonderful luscious wilderness. It’s hard not to imagine his twin all around us. Artemis kisses the scenery with green and cicadas hiss about in the heat all around us. We make it to the top, the experience is littered with pit-stops but on our way down from the summit the thick heat breaks enough to sprinkle some rain and relieve us of the beaming temperature.
But as the rain sets in we find ourselves rethinking our plans. Instead of continuing our journey to Dotsiko today and the Meteora the day after, we decide to go back to the apartment and take the trip tomorrow during the crummy weather instead.
Δοτσικό
This next destination… is less about it’s ancient history so much as it is just weighted in my own history.
Dotsiko is a small town in the Greek mountains (roughly) 8 hours out of Athens. It’s got a population of about 35 and a stunningly beautiful inn. The people are sweet and kind and excited to have visitors to talk to and learn about. It turns out we learn a lot from them too. We specifically took the trip out this far because our family in Canada told us that my παππού (pappou) had family here once, long enough to found this particular village. My dad speaks to the locals a lot about this though he doesn’t translate very much…
This is the home one of my ancestors built when he founded this village. From what I know this building still belongs to us to some degree though it is in terrible shape but has great character for photos. There’s something about it I really love. But I am also a sucker for things with history we might never truly know about. It might be worth turning it into a writing thought-piece of some sort down the line but for now I get to admire its looks and charm and the pieces of the story I have to hold on to.
While the temperature is cold today, the inn is a nice warm place to set up for the night. The sound out here is near-silent when we sleep.
Tomorrow our trip takes us to the monasteries and it is still a few hours drive to get there before we will make our way back to the apartment… Unfortunately we don’t stop by Mt Olympus and climb it to meet Zeus so I can kick his ass so he escapes me… for now.
Μετέωρα
My dad can’t help but stop the car a few times on this drive. The scenery taking us to the Meteora is some of the most beautiful landscape I’ve witnessed with my own two eyes. These are the images my mind is filled with when we head home. These are images that inspire Myth Retold. It’s hard not to want to let your imagination run wild to visions of what could only be described as fantastical.
And even when we reach the Meteora… the monasteries don’t disappoint. It’s hard to believe the following photo was taken by my own two hands.
This part of the trip leaves me emotional. I wonder a little how I can leave this place without having it follow me around for the rest of my life. I realize now, in writing this, that it never has really. Some of these moments stick so strongly in my memory I feel like I’m right there again.
Ολυμπία
A couple(?) days later we take a trip all the way out to Olympia. This is another Big Drive that we make. We get a little turned around and only make it there by late-afternoon… which honestly worked for a lot of my photos, the lighting was extremely rich and dramatic!
This location probably has the most melancholic feeling for me. Unlike a lot of the other sites that have been updated and maintained over time to keep their preservation, a lot of things happened to Olympia, the ruins here are in true fashion, ruined. Between the country’s earthquakes and the effects of multiple wars taking part in also defacing historical landmarks, there is not much that is left here but an outline, a shade of what once was.
There is a kind of beautiful sadness here. I feel like this place has more layers of history than the ancient history we know the best. This is where the first Olympic games were held. I can imagine ancients partaking in them. I read plaques about wrestling arenas, racing domes and the more intimate changing rooms.
But I also see army men using old artwork as target practice and an environment so unforgiving it topples the greatest structures here.
While we’re visiting, an archaeologist emerges from an underground-someplace and dusts off their latest finds and I’m sad I don’t know the language enough to head over and ask what they think they’ve found.
We have our fun here, but I feel the reflection among our whole group as we sip on our lemonades and consider all that we’ve seen on this trip and how this place I probably the most heartbreaking.
Μύκονος
Mykonos… Mykonos… Mykonos…
Oh is this ever the adventure of our trip. To take in these photos without taking in the sheer turmoil behind them would simply not do them justice. The last four days of this trip were supposed to be spent here, enjoying the lap of luxury and relaxing to the true vacation part of this trip. We selected an island with only a short ferry ride. It had a few iconic landmarks we could take our time exploring and beaches like no other (supposedly…)
This is what really happened:
We wake up so early it isn’t even bright out yet. We find our way to the ferry and snooze on board. Its packed with quite a lot of people, we get through the very distressing experience of disembarking as a crowd of people mixed in with our vehicles trying to crawl their way out. Its absolute mayhem these moments.
But this is still nothing as we spend the next few hours locating our airbnb… only to find that it is absolutely nothing like the images provided, it is the farthest walk from any beach on the island and our van cannot make the steep uphill climb… at all. With all of us packed in, the van nearly rolls off the side of the cliff before my dad can manage to put the breaks on. We all scramble out, he somehow gets it up the hill.
We spend time arguing with the guy who rented us the place, he refuses the refund, airbnb refuses the refund, we leave figuring we will find another place somewhere on the island, surely there has to be a room elsewhere…
Except this is also a holiday weekend in Greece and where do the folks from the mainland go for a vacation getaway? The islands. The hotels are booked, packed with people. We spend the whole day trying to find anything, anything at all before we finally come to the conclusion that we are going to have to go back to the apartment in Athens. We locate the ferry ticket booth (walking all around the island this time as if we aren’t tired enough), and the earliest ferry leaving the island is at 10pm…. we… sure have a lot of time to kill.
We eventually settle to enjoy ourselves in town. We walk through the city, buy a couple of souvenirs. I take these photos and I wonder sometimes if they aren’t the best ones I took all trip long!
We at least leave Mykonos having been able to say we visited an island and having the images to prove it, despite our turbulent day. We sleep like rocks in the apartment when we get home at 3am.
So we spend the last three days of our trip in Athens.
Ναός του Ποσειδώνα
We take the last few days easy. We visit the beach/cove in Vouliagmeni and swim one day, and in the evening we were told to visit the Temple of Poseidon, both by locals and family who told us we absolutely had to visit during sunset. So we go, its a nice little drive, the first time we spend a while with the structure waiting for the sun to set.
The first image is before the sun began to set, the second was the temple catching the orange glow as it descended from the sky. I think the image turned out lovely, but during our escapades across the country we had seen a few lovelier setting suns. The sky may have been a bit too clear so the setting rays didn’t have any clouds to catch on and really paint the sky for us.
The rest of the trip we take it easy. We spend another day at the beach, and one scoping out a local mall to escape the burning sun… and then we go home.
And I sleep for a solid week– kidding, but I sure needed a nap after everything. I wound up having a horrible migraine on the way home, strong enough I almost lost all my airplane meals before we stepped through the front door of the house.
And despite all of these ups and downs, I’d do it all again.
[For the sake of clarity and confirmation, all these photos were taken by me!]
In 2015 I graduated University with a bachelor’s in Fine Arts and a Major in Film Animation with a stocky little body of work and a thesis film I spent a year attempting to fine tune into perfection. I spent that spring and summer applying fruitlessly to festival after festival after festival in the hopes of pushing my name out there….
It… didn’t go so well. And as a fresh graduate watching your future drift away in a cloud of smoke as alum after alum from your program gets picked up by studios or manages to make a serious dent in their film fest applications…. there was… a considerable amount of panic on my end as festival after festival after festival rejected my entry.
But then I get a reply back from a festival in Switzerland and not only this, but they asked me if I would be interested in visiting the festival for the weekend so that I could speak about my film during a couple of 10am round-tables with some of the other directors.
Naturally I said yes…. and I managed to extend my stay for the week and brought my dad along for support and as a travel buddy because I hadn’t been this far out of the country ever, never-mind alone!
So we flew out in the fall for the festival. My first nine hour flight to Europe excited for what could possibly await me at the end of it. When we landed it was warm for September but not hot. We took a taxi from Zurich to Baden where the festival was being hosted, settled into our room at a little bed ‘n breakfast and enjoyed the view for a few moments– (these were not taken exactly the day we arrived but throughout the trip).
Admittedly this day we were a little bit foolish and didn’t consider how strong the jet-lag would be so we ventured into town to scope the place out and just barely made it to the first screening of my film… and both of us promptly fell asleep before the end of the screening. We saw my film but I don’t remember many of the others viewed during that particular one. From what I remember we went back to the bed n breakfast and absolutely crashed into bed that night.
Walking into town that morning we became more acutely aware that the walk was… a little bit longer than we remembered it being but we grew to learn that there were two routes. One slightly shorter cutting straight through a more metropolitan part of the city. We most distinctly noticed that if you even so much as approached or were but a mere couple feet away from a cross walk cars screeched to a halt to let you pass… Just a bit different than my experience here in Montreal.
Our second route (which we took far more often) was longer and more scenic. It took us down toward the river bend where we were met with more beautiful moments like this:
But as we made our way through the either the metropolitan area or our nifty little scenic route we reached the festival grounds and here we found big banners introducing us to FANTOCHE International Animation Film Festival. It was really pretty here. I liked these quirky parts of city spaces, more artistic, just fun.
This is also where we had definitely gotten up too late that morning and absolutely missed the first filmmaker round-table that I um… was supposed to be a part of. Woops. They managed to re-schedule me, luckily, and honestly everyone was extremely sweet and eager to help make us feel right at home. I had a little polaroid taken of me to put on a wall filled with other visiting filmmakers. I got a fancy little festival pass which I’m sure exists somewhere in my keepsakes. We were treated to vouchers for a certain number of free meals courtesy of the festival which was amazing. I think we got most of our lunch and breakfasts out of that.
As silly as this is about to sound, I honestly did not spend much time AT the festival as most would have in my place. Here I was, granted the opportunity to network, to make connections outside of my own small social circles. But I’m socially awkward and I struggle with these things and slapping down a German language barrier only serves to make my anxiety greater.
So, yeah, I did see my screening. I did pick one or two more screenings to view. Went to a talk. Absolutely knocked my filmmaker’s breakfast round-table out of the park. But who wants to be in a theatre all day watching short films when you’re in a brand new country? (No offence, obviously, to the filmmakers of said films, I’m sure they were all beautiful in their own right, but a young 23 year old is unfortunately not versed in enjoying artistic integrity and nuance and all that other jargon… when they’re in a new country for the first time…)
I’ll be honest, looking back, I don’t regret it at all.
While I didn’t spend much time cooped up in theatres and observing talks, I did spend a lot of time sight seeing, and taking photos of an environment that would only come in handy as inspiration later locations in stories of my own. I spent time loving every minute of this trip, squeezing in animation know-how into downtime moments with exhibitions. But most of my time was spent exploring the city’s nooks and crannies.
This trip comes back to me in bits and pieces, I remember small moments like the morning we first called home and distinctly realising how massive the time difference was.
Staying up late one night trying to quickly finish a small segment of animation so that it could fit into the festival’s trailer.
Exploring a small fortress with feet so sore I could barely walk the next day.
Experiencing small exhibitions throughout the festival grounds, there was a display for stop motion puppets and zoetropes. Small sets nearly impossible to imagine how anyone could animate on.
Walking through the small art store and touching all the hand-made notebooks there.
The long conversations I had with my Dad about the future.
Sitting on a terrace on one of the last nights of our trip and absolutely freezing our asses off because we started off this trip in a simple t-shirt and jeans and left Switzerland in thick jackets.
I’m a bit regretful that I don’t keep more of a journal in order to fully relive these sorts of moments.
