Night
This is not pride in the usual sense, not a listing of achievements, not something I'd place in a résumé, and definitely not a statement of sexual preference(!). Rather, these are the things I would like to remember when I lay on my deathbed and wonder what I did with my life... not so much as a fulfilment, but as a reason to lie back and smile.

My Dwelling
Where I lived... note descriptive sign, mysterious visitor, and world outside
Where to begin... at the beginning? I am proud to live on the extreme west edge of Canada, any further west and you'd get very wet. Sunsets here are incredible, the above glimpse was taken just accross the road from the house I own. There are trees that nearly touch the sky, and a silence that leaves one deeply enchanted... Paradoxically, I adore my sound system, a year's worth of paychecks lost in beautiful music. I've always despised Compact Discs, have never owned one and never shall... and I'm proud that I've never bought a thing from our nation's thousand Wal-Mart outlets. Coincidentally, I don't shop at the GAP, wear jeans that cost more then 3-piece suits (wasn't that the original point...?), or consider burnt orange to be an earthtone. My life is 100% Microsoft Free. I have never been trendy, I have avoided fashion and common sense at all costs. I once helped chase a Conservative MP out of a debating room and I was only eleven... I am proud of my house, where I live and work and play, the filtered light and hardwood floors, with my own shop downstairs... I have never spent a day in public education, my grade is officially zero. My friends are few but forever, my beliefs are non-disposable. I am poor but have gotten here on my own, I am tired but I dream well. The music I listen to today is the music I listened to last year, and the music I will listen to the next... never have I felt the slightest urge to smoke anything. I have sat on a quiet bluff at 3am and watched the moon rise over the heather, I have perched on the 15th floor balcony at 3am and watched the traffic wind across Lions Gate, I have danced in downpours and laughed with children and found myself in the strangest places, I have chased my dreams around the world and fought corporations and climbed lonely mountains and walked 5 miles of darkness and... Lightning Won...and I pace my room with windows thrown open and the wind moves about me like a living thing, whispering my restlessness back to me, and my hair is damp with unfallen rain but my eyes are alive with the lightning that is yet to come
(I remain far too proud of my words...)
Bros
admittedly, a picture: us happy brothers in 1997
kyle - joseph - robin

And none of this is enough, but I am a work in progress, and the best is yet to come.

And suddenly I feel quite breathless... if you've gotten this far, well, I'm proud of you too. Smile?

-Joseph