dominion hotel

after visiting with Dr.B yesterday, i proceeded to Commercial Dr. to meet with Erika. Erika has a splendid character: she possesses a high degree of intelligence whilst being completely humble and somewhat insecure. this is the kind of person i am most attracted to as this is how i see myself. she was an arts student at emily carr; her specialty being sculpture. erika and i work together at Zesty's, and this was our first outing together. hers is tight-knit group of friends, all of whom live near and around commercial, and all of whom are emily carr arts students.
after having a mojito at Bukowski's, we trekked to her little apt. above the antique shop where we met with her sister-in-law (who is also an emily carr student), who then convinced us to purchase a 1 1/2 litre bottle of red wine. after depositing the red split into a Dr. Pepper bottle and a rasperry syrup jar, we took off to the Dominion Hotel in Gastown to view a very peculiar art exhibit.
26 rooms of the hotel were converted into individual pieces of art. even though there was huge line-up (around the block), Erika's boyfriend, Christian, managed to get us in ahead of the line-up. yes, Christian is also a recent graduate of emily carr (last summer he sold one of his pieces for a song and took erika to Germany for 3 months). the hotel was packed, and not surprisingly, almost everyone erika or christian collided with were emily carr students. everyone was smartly dressed, and by smartly i mean there was no shortage of fitted tweed blazers, skinny jeans, shiny flats, and meticulously styled, modish haircuts. of the 26 rooms, only 2 appealed to me. The first room was entitled "opposite to honeymoon suite." the room was red, everything was red. the lighting was red, the bed was red, the 3D glasses with which we viewed the room were red, the toilet seat was covered with a bouquet of red paper roses. the second room was only interesting because of a mistake on my part. erika and i wandered in, heavy coats in hand, to a room painted a dull, pale blue. over this blue paint were white rain drops, and in the same opaque white, there were scenes of alice in wonderland. you had to look for her as the white colour used to paint alice and the rain blended in with the dull blue. i turned to erika, and amongst the clamour said in her ear, "do you hear that?" amongst the roar of the crowds, i heard rain; or more poignantly, like the shower had been left on in the ajoining bathroom. I thought that this sound of rain was part of the piece, and erika seemed as elated at discovering this as i. then the sound of water ceased, and out of the bathroom emerged a party-goer, wiping her hands on her skinny, sparkle-encrusted jeans. erika noted that the piece would have been better if it was in fact accompanied by the sound of rain.
gazing upon one of the hidden images of alice, erika asks me; "is she drowning or swimming?" i said drowning, and erika nodded in agreement.