December 18th, 2001
London, Ontario

 

Hello strange and beautiful world,

It has been such a busy past month. I've been recording and writing and housesitting and businessing and running through the forests with Raven the dog. I am now officially on Christmas vacation (which means it's time to shop and clean and organize and sew and cook and label all my endless amounts of Remington Steele videotapes (...yes i have a small 1980's detective drama problem.) I will be in Ontario until the new year at which point I am heading south south south. Going back to Virginia for a spell and then onward to North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. I'm gonna hit Jacksonville for this year's International Folk Alliance conference. Yay Folk Alliance and all my friends I haven't seen in a year and total overwhelming sensory overload- hooray! And hey, any good reason to slip south in February is so totally welcomed. I am looking very much forward to Spanish moss and snapping turtles and warmer-than-here-ness, but I think I might forgo the whole Florida Epcot experience this time. (But, I must admit the Norway Viking boat log ride with flashing trolls was officially extremely fun.) Come the new year I will for sure be playing lots more gigs. I've also got some radio and television plans so I will keep you all posted!. Until then I will be stewing in my artist's shell and working hard on finishing writing for my new album "Root, Heart & Crown." I will be recording sometime in the spring and then hitting the road to sing and play my brains out in every little corner of the continent... so watch out.

October 19th, 2001
Toronto, Ontario

I'm in crazy Toronto at my dear friends Katie and Masina's house listening to the streetcars go crash-bang-boom outside the window. I am o so very tired and recovering from a long long long but amazing week. Had a great time at the OCFF conference last weekend and then intensely began working in the studio with my wonderful producer Ken Whiteley, bassist George Koller, drummer Davide Direnzo and an fiddle player Anne Lindsay. It was so great and everything sounds so amazing and I am so very elated right now. I'm gonna celebrate by having a big ol' bath in kt and m's giant beautiful bathtub and maybe sipping a wee bit of tequila while they're off at the bar watching Peaches sing. Tomorrow I'm heading back to London to see my parents off to Hong Kong, Thailand and Japan. But first, I need to zip down to Queen Street to score the one item I most desperately need to add to the aesthetic collection of my life...I mean, how can I resist a giant flaming pink mosquito net with crown velvet trim...impossible I think!!! I will be hiding out in London for the next month or so working hard on grant applications and writing writing writing...

October 4th, 2001
London, Ontario

Hey y'all

I am back safe and sound in Ontario after a somewhat insane adventure. I survived a couple tornadoes, the worst bad ass rainstorm I ever drove through, a bad bout of nasty poisonous insect bites and/or systemic poison ivy, my new van deciding to blow up in the middle of the mountainous nowheres and the list of insanities just goes on and on... believe me. Finished off the trip with a journey into the full moon bowels of Washington DC. Saw the incredible moon rise above the Washington Monument and then drove straight into the Hood. Went to see sweet Dar Williams at the 9:30 club in DC. It is always nice to see Dar. I am back in Ontario for a while. I'm gonna hit the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals conference next week in Toronto and then house-sit for my parents while they're off on a Southeast Asian adventure. Hoping to get lots and lots of writing done and maybe have some fun too. Let's hope! I got a new heart shaped ice cube tray that I'm real excited to try out. Bring on the margaritas. I deserve 'em.

Self portrait at Manassas National Battlefield, VA.
More photos here!

 

September 24th, 2001
Sperryville, Virginia 

I'm in crazy beautiful Virginia with the walnuts and the wild grapes and the locust trees. I can go outside and walk five feet and stick my head in the beautiful river that runs down from the Blue Ridge mountains. But you gotta be careful cause there's poison ivy and ticks that like to fall on ya and every once in a while a crew of F-16 bombers will haul ass through the sky and scare the hell out of the turkey buzzards. It is an intense time to be in Virginia. Where I'm staying is about 70 miles southwest of Washington DC in the Appalachian mountain range. It is so very lovely with the rolling green hills and the trees all changing colour...and yesterday I got to go stick my foot in the Shenandoah river and practice guitar. Now that's a good time!!! I will be here for another week or so and then heading back to Ontario to start pre-production for my new recording. Yeehaw!

Goodbye Esmeralda!

August 21, 2001
London, Ontario 

After seven and a half years of grand adventures (and nearly 300,000 km...) I said goodbye to Esmeralda the van today. Thanks Ezzie. You were such a good horse. She really wanted to be driven off the side of the Grand Canyon but I figure they'd probably catch me for that and wouldn't be very nice about it to boot. My new van is a sleek (yet still slightly soccer mom) Plymouth Voyager. Her name is Maybelle and she's a very delicious shade of burgundy. And her engine is young and she's excited to take on some mountains soon... I'm getting ready to head up to Lake Simcoe and Eaglewood Folk Festival next weekend. I'm excited for a little Ontario cottage country before I head south again. Then, back to Virginia for a little more sleazeball motel writing quarantine in the beautiful Shenandoahs...

August 7th, 2001
London, Ontario 

HOLY HOT DAMN. it was a lovely 106 degrees on Esmeralda the van's thermometer the whole way home from Rhode Island. Poor Ezzie's air-conditioning busted 'cause she just couldn't take it anymore. It wouldn't have been so bad but for the New York City bad-ass traffic jams and having to leave my poor guitar in the car... Spent hours running around the Bronx Toys R Us trying to cool off. And then, in the parking lot, the whole side door of the van just fell off. Oops. Almost died but at least I got a wicked new sword and knight helmet and a Harry Potter lunchbox out of it. Had an amazing time in Newport. The folk fest was a blast and I got to meet Emmylou Harris and her beautiful doggy Bonaparte. Very amazing. I am hoping to head back to the ocean soon. When I close my eyes I hear fog horns and I want the bogs of New England to eat me. (They like me 'cause I taste like raspberries.) I am going on a journey to find the house I will hide in all winter and write... Who knows where it will be. (I just hope there's a good Thai restaurant nearby.)

July 20th, 2001
Sperryville, Virginia

I am hiding away in the Blue Ridge Mountains, somewhere between the crystal fairyland caverns and the civil war battlefields. and as they say in Virginia "I reckon it be hotta than a fire storm in hell." And ain't it the truth! Me and my dear friend Jenny have been sitting on her porch watching the lightning bugs like Christmas lights as they dance across the mountain. Today was spent with much hiking, tequila and veggie corn dogs . YAY veggie corn dogs! I have been having such a crazy adventure. Today I hiked far into Shenandoah park's white oak canyon and found beautiful waterfalls and swimming holes... It is so glorious here I can hardly believe it and I am thinking of coming back sooner than later to live with Jenny again in her big lovely converted sleazeball motel apartment by the river...

July 2nd, 2001
London, Ontario 

Hey y'all.

Like the new website??

It's been quite the summer so far! I have moved away from my home on Vancouver Island and I am heading for the oceans of the east… Me and Esmeralda the van drove across Canada and next we are heading south to the Shenandoah Valley. I am taking some time out to write and rehearse in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. I am SO looking forward to finally having time to practice my banjo in the holler with the copperheads and the Virginia creeper (so long as the snakes are nice…). After that it's Nashville for guitar shaped nail clippers and sleaze ball motels. Hooray! I am also so excited for the Newport Folk Festival 'cause lots of my heroes are gonna be there (Emmylou Harris, Patty Larkin and the Indigos to name a few…)
I will be back in Ontario in August for a couple festivals and then off to the east coast in search of a new home…(Halifax?… Atlantis?… Amsterdam?…) Who knows. We'll just have to see.

Hope to see you somewhere out there.

All hail Queen Xena