My address no longer says Vancouver but rather: New Westminster.
New Westminster. The first capital city of British Columbia. New West is the hipster of BC capital cities, being a capital before it was cool. Dude, we are so colonial that there’s a Union Jack waving in the breeze well within sight of our balcony.
I’m closer to work, closer to family. Further from downtown, too, but that’s yet to be an issue.
You see, the thing with New West is you never realise how many people you know live there until you start advertising the fact that you’re a new resident. All of a sudden everyone lives in New West. Old friends live in New West. So-and-so’s aunt lives in New West. That person I never really speak to but see in the hall all the time at work lives in New West.
It’s like New West is to affordable living in the Greater Vancouver area what The Smiths were to 80s pop music. No one really admits it, but everyone’s in on it.
We’re close to the apparent Heritage District, which is nice. We’re close to The Quay, which is also nice (if you like gelato and the sound of tugboats). We’re close to Skytrain, which is always nice.
And we’re just far enough away from fast food restaurants and the like that we’re forced to do weekly grocery shops and other grown-up things like plan meals.
I divide my time between a variety of poverty-inducing ventures: writing for fun and writing for torture; watching far too many movies and reading far too few books.
I have lived previous incarnations as bookseller, bureaucrat, filmmaker, zinester, student, and wayward traveller. I studied Film at Langara after seven years at Simon Fraser entrenched in English, Archaeology and about every other Liberal Arts and social science topic you can imagine.
I am very good at Trivial Pursuit.
I am related to Dr. Samuel Johnson, writer of the first English dictionary, which explains my perfect spelling and penchant for black cats.
I once lived in a house in the South Hill neighbourhood of Vancouver with six people, four cats, one goldfish, and a vegetable garden for a front yard. We called it The Commune. It was where I lived with my husband before he was Husband, before he was Fiance, before he was Boyfriend, back when he was just Boy Roommate. Life was a sitcom and we were the “will they/won’t they.”
We did.
Once we ran away to England because we like having adventures. But we didn’t like it that much, so we came home again.
I have the personality of a superhero’s alter-ego. Only I don’t fight crime. At least not yet.
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4 thoughts on “And the Dust has Settled”
These sound like the next two things on my to-do list.
Looks like a great place! Also, as a New Westie, you’re closer to “Surrey City Centre” 😉 We should get tea from that lovely tea shop in the Quay, and raspberry beers at the Central City Brew Pub!
I’m closer to work, closer to family. Further from downtown, too, but that’s yet to be an issue.
These sound like the next two things on my to-do list.
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Looks like a great place! Also, as a New Westie, you’re closer to “Surrey City Centre” 😉 We should get tea from that lovely tea shop in the Quay, and raspberry beers at the Central City Brew Pub!
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Aw, “dejected!” 😦 How are things going with your new place?
Love,
Former Lower Communist
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Glad to see you’re settled! Looks great!
Love,
Dejected Other Lower Communist 🙂
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