Lazy Saturday... Not

Yawn. I'm up. I could sleep a couple more hours, but I'm up. I'll sleep in tomorrow.

Today's a few hours of work and a bike ride, the latter of which I'm actually looking forwards to. I've got my camera charging, and my challenge is to take 15 good pictures today. (Out of far more snaps, I bet, too.)

These are some photos I took on my recent trip around the seawall. It's how I'm making my Saturdays at work be a little more anticipated. Today I'll get started earlier, and work less. I'm tired. Money's great, but tired sucks. I haven't had a two-day weekend in a month. I won't have one until Labour Day, really, and then I'll have a three-day one 'cos I'll be fucked if I'm working. I'd rather "just get by" and keep my sanity, thankyouverymuch.

I love riding around the seawall. I think I'll have a grand total of 30km today, which'll be the only good exercise I've gotten since last weekend, but at least it's happening. When I get home, a FEAST! I have a sexy Uruguayan steak I've got designs on, and I'm going to relax and harden my arteries the good way, and then I'll play with podcasting for a spell.

This is the first time in my LIFE that I have been depressed and NOT gained weight. No matter what else goes down right now, I'm fucking thrilled about that. I also had a few moments yesterday when I was On. I was Steff, with a capital S. I felt like ME. I was considerate, I was funny, I was rolling with what happened. That was nice. I miss that. I ultimately had a killer accomplished day. All these little things add up. I'm doing everything right. Soon, victory!

But now: Coffee. Here are my photos from last week, which are nothing spectacular, but I haven't had my camera out for a while and I haven't been on my game. I suspect tonight will have better yields.



I forget what you call these little itty islands near shore. Pfft. I know someone who probably knows the name, being such a word geek and all, but this is where the holes in my vocabulary emerge: Landscape.



Every time I ride through Stanley Park, around the Seawall, I do it like you're supposed to -- go counter-clockwise from the Coal Harbour side -- and I spend the whole time wondering if Rock Guy has been out. I want to call these Inukshuks, but they're not, not technically. This guy gets out there at the crack of dawn, with low tide, and does this for the hell of it. It's one guy and he's been doing this for more than a decade now, as long as I've been riding the Seawall, and probably more. Now and then he'll step outside his zone and do it along False Creek or in Granville Island, but near Third Beach in Stanley Park is where his heart is evidently at its ease.

This guy, hands down, gets my vote as one of my most favoured Vancouverites. He does what I love artists to do: Do it for the hell of it, and if money comes, then there you go. If not, then you have satisfaction. I fucking LOVE that in an artist, and this guy's at the top of that pack.





The city lies directly east of these rock art pieces. Dude's our own local Andy Goldsworthy.



I also love the steps you find around the park that lead down into the water. As a girl, I grew up in White Rock, and when you walked along Marine Drive in the late '70s and early 80s, you'd find staircase after staircase leading up from the drive, but you'd never see the homes they led to, much like some parts of San Francisco, because the grades were so deep.

Since then, White Rock has become home to the rich and the pretentious, and many of those rustic staircases have been done away with and much of the charm is lost. I miss the town of my youth, because the one that's there now is filled with the sort of yuppies I can't stand.

But this picture made me twinge with nostalgia, and for that, I like it.



There's nothing remarkable about this shot. It would be better on a cloudy day. It'd be better at sunset. It'd be better a hundred different ways. Yet still, I sort of like it. I'm still holding out for the ultimate photo of the Lion's Gate bridge. There's so much potential to come out with an incredible shot of that bridge, but it eludes me. One day. This is the photo I took this spring of the Granville Bridge, which I can officially stop taking photos of 'cos this photo's too fucking cool to trump, I think. One of those rare moments when it all works, y'know?