Biography
Mary Milne was born in the month of May on top of a hill on a small island in Canada. The island had been shipped to the country packed in straw and gauloise cigarettes sometime in the early 1600's. At the time of her birth a general malaise permeated it's cobblestone streets and Mary's family decided it would be best to move. They spent the next few years living in a renovated chicken coop in the nouveau French countryside. On especially windy days the outhouse would blow over.
Mary attended several schools in several towns over the next few years where she failed to be taught anything of practical value, such as the basics of auto mechanics, how to butcher your own livestock or how to play the guitar. She did learn the recorder at a young age and spent a brief period of time as a street musician in the small hamlet of Dewitville, but never made any real money due to the fact that the case was just too small.
Throughout her childhood Mary spent summers and holidays on the shores of lake Baptiste in a cabin painted onto the landscape by her grandfather, a painter of landscapes. It was here, during the long cicada-driven hours of summer, that she began to write, scribbling stories onto birchbark and etching small poems onto toadstools.
After high school Mary traveled to many places such as Europe and Wisconsin. She developed a passion for cheap motels and unemployment. This passion was, unfortunately, unsustainable and she was forced to get a variety of odd jobs. She became highly skilled at making waffles and blowing up balloons. She eventually attended university. She learned about black holes and Canadian literature and what a Zaroastrian was, which was interesting, although still probably not as helpful as knowing how to do your own oil change.
After university Mary returned to lake Baptiste to complete a novel on the area's vast expanse of birch trees. She arrived only to discover that an epidemic of birch-borer beetle had left the trees ravaged. Forced to find a medium of expression that did not require the use of birch bark,she taught herself to play guitar on a small acoustic she had won in a Christmas cracker the previous Christmas. Songs began to pop out of her suddenly and inexplicably. For the next few years she survived on these songs and on rainwater collected in a sap bucket she found abandoned in a nearby maple grove. The only person she played for was her mother who lived in a green house an eleven minute boat ride away. When her mother wasn't available she would play for her mothers dog, Laura.
After awhile Mary grew resless and left lake Baptiste in search of a slightly broader audience. She traveled to a nearby city. During the day she employed herself selling rollerskates to debutantes. In the evenings she began to play her songs in local barrooms and truck stops. Generally the audiences were larger and more receptive than her mother and Laura. Occasionally they weren't.
Mary continues to play in cities and forests for other people and other people's dogs. She travels between these places in a well-meaning blue van which is held together by scotch tape and bubbalicious. In the winter she warms herself by the woodstove. In the summer she cools herself in the shadow of the worlds tallest free-standing structure.
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