pulling shapes

2012-01-31T22:20:00.000-05:00

you and me, babe.
how 'bout it?

2012-01-27T08:10:00.001-05:00

not soon but now.
please.

2012-01-25T07:37:00.000-05:00

no. no. no. NO. no!
no?

i don't know what to do.

2012-01-23T22:18:00.003-05:00

from russia with love.

i wrote an article about love, dating, online connections and quasi-stalking and i did quite well. so well, in fact. i made you look so much better than you deserved. but we're learning.

what i asked just could not be done

the world can keep turning.

2012-01-22T19:49:00.001-05:00

temporary.

2012-01-22T15:07:00.002-05:00

unfinished business.
this is what my life has amounted to these days. why do you flee?

2012-01-17T21:53:00.003-05:00

and when we have nothing left to say, what do we do? oh, we keep moving and growing and loving and reaching and caring and smiling. we'll have something to say to one another at some point but not now. i don't get to tell you the big things in my life anymore, like how i don't get to hear the big things in yours. we exist separately in realms so similar but the distance is palpable. i long for the day when the spheres we're in become fluid and we can say these things to one another again. but now, oh now, we live and we live well. we love.

and you.
the big things happen when you want them to. we have no time to be passive.
you.

2012-01-05T20:19:00.002-05:00

and when the fire dies out

i’ll breathe into you,

energizing you,

until it sparks again.

last chance dance

2012-01-03T12:41:00.003-05:00

i hate having this many options. don't get me wrong, i love options. if you give me two, i will always find a third and fourth. but what i have here is much too much. and what i want i can't have (twice over) so i'm ready to call the whole thing off. it's probably for the best but i'm not in the business of doing what's good for me these days.

when four months feels like three separate years, there is a problem with my concept of time. absolutely swept away by things i cannot control.

looking for answers in unsavoury places

2011-12-26T15:47:00.002-05:00

lost and low.

but not really. it's christmas! or it was. christmas extends from the week before to a few days after. my christmas ends tonight. everything has gone by too quickly.

i made a christmas pact of sorts. i think it's a pretty good one. i jinx things far too often. perhaps i am getting superstitious in my old age. maybe not because i'm not actually that old but i am finding myself cautious about certain things. why would you speak of it? you'll jinx it, girl.

i'm a good woman

2011-12-11T20:38:00.003-05:00

i've never wanted to go home more in my life. i like running away. can you catch me? i'm sure you're trying. are you? are you really? this time we'll be running to the same place, at the same time. it's been over sixty days since that happened. whatever will we do?!

it's all entirely too passive.

be brave

2011-12-09T18:23:00.004-05:00

in one week i will be done my first semester of college. one week. between september and now the entire game changed. fuck. boy, did it ever! i'm not the same person i was when i started school and it took me ages to figure that out. i'm oblivious sometimes--not the best journalistic quality.

i've never truly had a mentor. in my mind i'm always been taught new things by christiane amanpour but, really now, it's me channeling christiane (poorly, i might add) and me telling myself what's up. but i found one. now he's gone. my one link to what 13 year-old me wanted the most in life and it's gone. nothing is worth doing, ever, unless it's challenging. truth! what is the point if you can just coast through life? i hate it. the one challenging part of my budding career was taken away and i can't get it back.

i sit here trying to piece together my october mistake. that's what i call it. i wore shorts then and they are too big and i wear smaller sized jeans with moccasins as the snow falls on me. funny. it isn't really funny but i'll laugh soon enough. my eyes want to close and it's only 6:30. i wanted to curl up with(!). but i won't.

i'll never get to put my arms around him

onwards to my third tea of the day. is it really friday? i don't believe you.

2011-12-04T14:52:00.000-05:00

wednesday. there are no words.

2011-12-01T22:32:00.002-05:00

come home.
i'm pulling my ribs out one by one
just to pass the time.
i leave deep holes in
my sallow skin.
i've grown dark.

come home.

2011-11-23T10:59:00.002-05:00

i think i made it all up.

it was the loveliest dream.

2011-11-20T14:49:00.001-05:00

my strange creature

2011-11-13T18:57:00.001-05:00

2011-11-13T18:31:00.001-05:00

well, fuck.

here we are.

and you weren't having any of those

2011-11-12T21:48:00.005-05:00

maddening and bewitching.

it's like i am taking my first breath. i've emerged from this murky pool, worn out and exhausted, ready for normacly (again.) no more late nights, distracted pauses, muses on various public transit across the big smoke about where i am going (philosophically and metaphorically, of course). i'm gone. not there, not anywhere, really, and i'm going at it alone. there is nothing like the universe being silent and letting you (me) stew until it all clicks into place.

and i never had a dream about. never. not once. my dreams rule my life, apparently. that keen capacity of physical sensation, yes it was there, but oh my oh my. not in my dreams.

but that photo. oh it's still in my grasp.

cheap sangria does the trick. i'll sleep tonight and won't wake. i know.

2011-10-15T10:36:00.002-04:00

i sort of feel bad for my landlords right now. in an attempt to focus on writing something pithy and great re: hot rollers i have plugged in my major headphones and am slowly killing my hearing by listening to laura marling (LOVE) at the highest volume. while doing that, you better believe that i am singing along so loudly as well.

i said i sort of felt bad for them.

i'm having a big laura marling, mumford and sons, noah and the whale moment. i'd really like to be part of a musical collective. sure, i have no tangible music skill RIGHT NOW but it could happen. maybe? teach me guitar or i'll just be stuck playing tambourine.

bottom's up. ha.

2011-10-10T16:13:00.002-04:00

string together sickly sweet sentences
that become a sonnet,
until it’s blank verse soliloquy you’re trying to create.
anticipation has a tendency to stack and reach
and work you over into a ball of insanity.
your skin is pale, sallow and rubbery.
kneading you like soft dough,
ready to rise when cooled or cooked.
whisper to me;
be my conversationalist.
be yet still until you rise.

2011-10-08T12:50:00.002-04:00

during one of those times when being cool is essential, i find i am struggling. go figure. when am i NOT struggling? my skin feels like ginger ale. it pops and shakes, shudders and eventually feels calm. trying to piece together my existence right now is difficult on a whole other level. it's just funny that this weekend, this goddamn weekend, is so ridiculously vital to my experiences. this weekend.

i see this pile of work in front of me and i can't even focus. everything is a blur.

POV

2011-09-30T08:00:00.002-04:00

i don't hate it. i don't love. it could be structured better, teachers maybe shouldn't laugh while giving "constructive criticism", the work could be better and so forth. it's high school 2.0 but my best friends aren't there with me making jokes and making it better. but it's done in april. well, the first year. i'm ready to be a journalist.

but i like my city. i am trying to love it. my neighbourhood already feels familiar and i want to be on queen more or bloor. two very different directions. my gal pal keeps me anchored just by the very fact we're in the same city, even if we don't see each other all that often.

oh and then there's him. that one. i don't know how i survived that one.

2011-09-04T22:43:00.003-04:00

when i went home this weekend it all felt like i had never left. i moved so fluidly through every room and did my normal activities. but when i came back here, for some reason, i sighed a deep sigh of relief. i am materialistic. my stuff is mine and where it is, i feel the safest. it's not the clothes, the shoes, the rings, my kitchen supplies or whatever else i have that i cherish so. my pictures ripped out of magazines six years ago or maps of the soviet union from a national geographic out decades ago are the things i so deeply cherish. my memories are everywhere. i need to be able to see them in some way again for them to truly be real.

i could easily live the life of a hermit. i'm treading so carefully here. i go to and from familiar places and come back light hearted. i'm slowly testing my boundaries. i can't control life or whatever the fuck is going to happen but, in my first little while of being on my own, i'd really like it if nothing terrible happened. please.

of course i get sick and/or have the worst allergies in YEARS, which happens to be TWO DAYS before i go back to school. we use WEBCT. it felt like i never left. i think about my money and how i don't have a job and how leaving a very comfortable job for more debt seems stupid and then i see it. i see the courses, the skills ahead of me, the people i will meet, the career i've wanted for a decade and it all doesn't matter anymore. if i hate it, i hate it. i won't know until i try.

i've made leaps and bounds here. why aren't you around?

settled

2011-08-29T22:37:00.002-04:00

you've never made an effort before. but i like it.

today was an ordeal, yesterday was easy and it felt like home. tomorrow should be better, more organized, easier.

and then. oh and then. i hope this makes up for what you did by not telling me about your other gal.

2011-08-19T10:27:00.003-04:00

i got really twitchy last night. i wore a night gown, my hair in rollers and i sang into my hairbrush. i felt like a 1950s cliche. well, i was singing super loudly to kate nash. i sang to myself as i looked into my mirror, which i haven't packed yet and probably should when i get home today. i was, indeed, packing. my pajamas were covered in dust as i peeled posters, pictures, postcards and other such memorabilia off of my walls. they were the last thing to be taken down. it felt really real then. those walls are who i am. now my floor is cluttered with boxes, packing tape, sharpies and various other little things i forgot to pack. the relatives will arrive tonight, pack everything in a big ol' truck and tomorrow i'll send my stuff to toronto. i won't see it again until next weekend.

i'm excited. this is a very excitable time! a few days ago i was morose and lulled back into this dark place of sadness because i won't be seeing all my familiars anymore on a daily basis. i see the streets of this town in my mind the moment i close my eyes. i'll be able to do that in time in toronto but it felt so daunting. six years ago you couldn't stop me from wanting to leave here. i was determined. now i am comfortable, but not settling, with this place. will i be back here in a permanent way? who knows. i love my mother and sister dearly so i don't know how long i can be separated from them. but new york calls, moscow, london and so does los angeles.

where did the summer go? stuff happened that has been eclipsed by the accident and moving. i held all of these moments in my hand but in a moment they went POOF and now they are gone.

the leaves are turning colours, the work is winding down and all have is a week. a full week.

never heal myself

2011-08-11T20:32:00.002-04:00

so, i almost died. but that's old news now i suppose. i'm walking around, talking, thinking horrible thoughts (okay, a few are dirty AND delicious), packing and generally existing. so it couldn't have been that bad, right? hardly but why dwell on it. instead i'm packing up this existence and moving it to another place.

moving is such a daunting task. insane emotionall cycles and having to deal with adult shit just do not mix. i wish someone had warned me. i won't lie: a good part of the emotional roller coaster of my life has to do with the car accident so maybe i'm extra sensitive when i run across old scripts of plays i was in or my university acceptance letters or notes from high school crushes as i pack up this existence of mine while i still have it. but setting up cable and dealing with osap and the national student loan place are just asshole adult activities that, in this state of heightened emotional stress, are just fucking ridiculous to me right now. so i rant. i rant and look at the walls in my room. i dread peeling all of those posters, set lists, maps and pieces of memorabilia from my lavender walls. i don't want to see the awful things i wrote on the back of my door in black sharpie when i was sixteen, angry and such an idiot. don't get me wrong, i still idealize that carefree naivety and all the love i felt but when i was dark, fuck, i was an idiot. what did i have to be sad about? that brendan arnott didn't like me back or that my sort of high school boyfriend tom was a douchebag? those are all tucked away in the back of my mind normally but now they are bubbling up to the surface as i tape small boxes from lowe's.

sixteen year-old me is so angry at twenty-two year old me. she's all "WHY, MAN? WHY? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO CHANGE?" the thing i didn't get then is that i can't be the same forever, no matter how hard i try.

but i'm leaving. finally leaving and starting (somewhat) over. no one knows me there besides my landlord. okay, lies. i have buckets of amazing friends in toronto but truly no else really knows me. the city has so much potential. why squander it now? i have the gut feeling that this needs to happen no matter the outcome.

the one thing i've learned from that dreadful almost dying situation is that i never want to die in a car accident. ever. and i just got my g1 again.

for writing

2011-07-25T14:26:00.004-04:00

my life is spilling over. somewhere in-between the boxes of shoes, books, cooking utensils and wash cloths, the things i have done, have lived for, are falling out of these hidden places. i look at the bursting closet of clothes that finally fit the way they should and how half of my closest is just dresses. dresses! not too long ago i loathed nylons and the way they trapped my skin. but, somewhere too in-between all the boxes and conversations about moving, my whole life right now has become about leaving it all behind. it, this, this!, my life up until this point. maybe it's my insane need to be reflective right now, in the last month of this long awaited stretch of time, but this doesn't make it all any less surreal or painful. in the quiet moments i want to be back as a teenager --not in this time but when i really was one-- musing over the love and loss i had endured, curled up listening to elliot smith or coldplay when they were good and just writing. in my more heated, jubilant moments i want to unpack everything in my apartment, re-arrange my life to what i finally want it to be like, and finally settle into something that is wholly mine, however i want it to be. but then i'm sacrificing the entire reason for this move: my writing.

i haven't finished the journal i started over a year ago. i have prided myself on being able to quickly document my existence in such a ridiculous stream of consciousness form. what is there to write about? new york three times over in the last eight months or bonnaroo or work or him or this triumphant life moment? i'll never stop being cryptic. never. my freelance work has dried up for now and am sporadically at best publishing my articles or quips. has my life been depleted to 140 characters? i am a twitter fiend. somewhere in this mess i realized that my life is dedicated to a certain thing at the moment, yes, but the things i loved for so long shouldn't be left to the wayside while i pack up my existence.

i sometimes look at my journals as long lost friends. they have the most detailed information i could ever give. some of my closest friends don't even know half of the stuff that i tell my journal. as a small child i used to write, "dear journal, how are you today?" and sort of expect some kind of implicit answer that it too was alright and ready to let me pour my heart out. now i write about heartache, though not recently, the perils of a full-time working life, detailed physical accomplishments, championed my self-esteem and that of my friends and where i am to go from here. that's always the trickiest because i can see into the future so well and get excited for it while tomorrow seems like a loss. the future i see now is hazy, perhaps because it is all actually happening. the metropass, the apartment cheques, the cable inquiries, bills, bills, bills and employment. in the grandest way possible, adulthood has arrived on my doorstep and refuses to leave. i should really tell my journal this. it would understand and console me in the only way it knows how.

and so here i sit thinking of writing instead of writing out the packing list for new york that glares at me with its icy blue stare. i shall blithely write it out and still i will be unsatisfied with what i have written. give me two choices and i will always seek a third and fourth. always. five days just isn't enough time away with only three and a half of those days in my beloved city. saturday night's mistakes will not recur this time around. with this new found responsibility and adulthood, i find myself strikingly in tune with everything my mind and body wants. everything. this saturday night there will be no mistake.

2011-07-07T14:57:00.003-04:00

i have got to stop thinking that death cab will be playing as our background music during some momentous reunion.

it'll never happen.

#teenagegirlproblems

2011-06-30T09:50:00.003-04:00

i wrote this about the loves of my life. i wrote it when i should have been thinking about other practical type things. you know, work. that is just for suckers. you know? but it's the truth. even if they don't read it -- or do read it -- i wrote it because it needed to be said. support wins.

i don't know if i can ever tell you the ways in which you hurt me by just growing into one of those people; the ones we made fun of because they were lame and judgmental. please don't visit me. ever. if i told you all of the things that sucked about this you'd look at me, shake your head and walk away. that is how i know this is the right course of action. i don't want to be the type of friend you occasionally bring out to say hi to just to fulfill some sort of obligation you have created in your head. hypersocialization of the internet makes it really hard to just forget someone. and i so want to forget you. forget forget forget. when i leave, those people in that article are the ones i leave behind; breaking my heart every moment that i'm away. those people and other people you don't even know about! or care to know about.

2011-06-26T17:51:00.001-04:00

yeah guys, cos i don't look any different.

FUCK.

2011-06-20T19:29:00.001-04:00

i have an apartment. the first and only place i looked at in person. it's mine. i have an old water heater in my half bathroom. i love its unique set-up. shower room next to the laundry room; half bathroom with toilet near my bedroom/living room. it's small-ish with lots of storage and character. my neighbourhood is green, leafy and old. historic. it will squash my fear of basements. my neighbourhood is the polish neighbourhood. go figure.

i have an apartment.

christ, this is all real now, isn't it?

jasmine cherry blossoms

2011-06-05T11:04:00.002-04:00

my eyes are so red. oh, gosh. the poor lady at the bank yesterday. so sweet like sugar, but not the kind that makes you feel sick, rather the nice, wrapped up in warmth kind. i looked so haggard. and yet it continues. my left eye is fused shut is puffy and swollen. there is a film across it. it's gross, i know. not as gross finding your sister's cat eating the face of a newly killed bunny. she is still mad we didn't praise her for such an epic kill.

two days from now i'll be on the road to tennessee. deep south. i reckon i'll come back with a (poor) southern accent. southern mother? oh jesus. why do i even bother? but anyway! this week is very necessary for my sanity. decompress. chill out. life will go the way it goes.

why are you leaving next weekend? it feels like we've been friends for years and yet it hasn't been that long at all. too far away for two months.

2011-06-01T19:48:00.003-04:00

we used to drive around for hours gabbing and singing along to our new favourite songs. our feet stomped through parks, trailing dust and sand behind us as we ran from spot to spot, and not one thing could put us in a bad mood. sometimes i forget that a handful of years really isn't a decade or two. so young and vibrant. what happened to you?

2011-05-31T19:54:00.002-04:00

i'm calling bullshit on this whole thing. soften? OH COME ON.

2011-05-18T09:13:00.003-04:00

i am against marriage. it is no secret. prompted by such a hilarious movie, i feel that, more than ever, in spite of my views on this institution we can peacefully co-exist. we being the marriage types (whomever) and the non-marriage types (myself and whomever else). i think it comes down to respect. assuming that because i don't support the institution i will automatically hate anyone who gets married is so awful. it hurts. when someone else makes my decisions for me i get into a specific kind of rage that i can hardly ever come back from. i don't know how this outrageously inappropriate movie (totally up my alley in every singly way) left me feeling elated because of the myriad of life lessons. we stay the same but shift and grow, not necessarily changing. or if we do drastically change, i think it's fueled by some other selfish purpose. but all i really wanted to say was to anyone i know who will get married in their lives, i love and support you. truly. sincerely. always.

and on that note, something entirely different!

3.5 months until the big move. 3 weeks until bonnaroo. 2.5 months until new york part VI.

i've been in the crummiest mood lately. i am not entirely sure why but today feels like none of those bad moments ever happened. it's dreary but i love it. i have a list of magazines, websites and news outlets i want to write for on a freelance basis. stuff clicked. it clicked like it did for me a few months ago about health. i am that weird protein smoothie consuming asshole now. and i love it.

now,
i need to find a goddamn apartment and everything will be perfect.

tonight:

2011-05-11T13:43:00.000-04:00

28 days, 22 hours and 16 minutes until bonnaroo.

it should hurry the fuck up.

2011-05-04T11:56:00.005-04:00

fuck you, universe.

how do you know it was a mistake if you didn't even make it? another year and a half, at least!, until what? what, i ask you, what?! it isn't this place, that's for sure. but all those faces and places! i'll miss them the most. those faces. i want to talk about this until i am blue in the face but nothing will come of it. i'll pack up my bazillion boxes and start a new home in september. someone will tell me it's the right thing to do - and of course i know that - giving me the biggest bear hug at the same time. my writing is shit these days. at least it isn't like yours. WHAT. when did i get so bitchy? yesterday was probably the reason. why am i even doing things for you? you haven't bothered with me in so long that this obligatory thing we've got going on is so ridiculous. cut. you. out.

a year off is a good idea in theory. never in practice.

isn't it terrible that i just want to go and workout now instead of doing what needs to be done this very moment? my to do list is a mile long and it only gets longer. i just want to make sure my knees are on top of my ankles and feel the burn. (who am i?)

2011-05-03T14:32:00.001-04:00

i feel like i am using your rhetoric when i talk about my future and what it holds.
it disgusts me.

2011-05-02T19:25:00.000-04:00

see you july 29th, new york.
<3

2011-04-28T12:01:00.004-04:00

the best feeling in the world is the chill going through my entire body within the first few seconds of a song playing.

that if we were all we had
that's more
than most people ever have

man, you had me fooled

2011-04-27T15:52:00.004-04:00

oh boy, it hurts. i am married to a city. my back aches to the point of tears. my spine is all twisted into a knot and, hunched over, all i want to do is peer into the sky, surrounded completely around buildings.

in reality this pain is caused from a shitty econo-chair bought in bulk to supply a three thousand person building with somewhere to park it for eight hours. but my heart is palpitating. i'm battling someone for something i don't even care about. with every pulse of blood flowing through my body, it is so much clearer to me.

the battle seems so futile now. no, it doesn't seem like that. it IS futile. why bicker passive aggressively over bullshit? i am not right. no one is right. i have this. i want this. i will have this. and you'll have a grey cube. you won (this), asshole but i have the love of my life.

10

2011-04-20T14:49:00.003-04:00

i have never been one for grieving publicly and i don't think i ever will. privately, secretly, slowly will i let you see what is tearing me to pieces. ten years ago today the one person, besides my mother, who loved me unconditionally died. what ensued was a circus of grief, showcase, silence, bickering and, eventually, the break-up of my parents. the latter wasn't a direct result of the death but it started to fracture very quickly until its complete break in july. and so, ten years later, i sit in a cubicle, so far removed from the thoughtful twelve year old who barely recognized death. i sit in nylons when at the funeral i was tugging at them because they felt like chains, keeping me contained when all i wanted was to breathe easily.

i often wonder what you would think of me had you lived. precocious, loud and selfish. would you have loved that? anti-establishment, quasi-socialist, atheist, historical asshole, attention to detail son of a bitch. you loved my quirks when i was twelve. i was already budding then.

if you were still around, i would have called you monday night and told you what he did. though five hours away, you would rant and rave until the moon was at its peak in the sky about how no one treats me that way. what would you have said to the bevy of jerks in my arsenal? did i deserve it? had i turned out like my mother? (unfair) or would you have a change of heart? would you have seen someone void of nurturing and only in need of an ear or a shoulder and that your job was done?

oh maxie. we'll never know.

i can still remember the kind of chicken noodle soup i ate that day and how, in the quiet of night just a touch before 12, i held your hand and said it. it it it it. your hand was still so warm.

flannel and hot rollers

2011-04-07T17:16:00.003-04:00

I won an award last night for article of the year from Blueprint. It was this one.

I was wearing a plaid flannel shirt, my $5 I Love NYC t-shirt, shorts and I had my hair in hot rollers. Clearly, this is what writing life is like.

our hell

2011-04-04T20:42:00.005-04:00

despite all my qualms with her, emily haines sure is a brilliant lyricist.

when did i turn sixteen again? when did i walk through the threshold not wearing a dress but a green zip up, white tee and jeans? my bones ache at the thought of going back to that kind of worry and wonder.

the lost year

2011-04-01T09:47:00.002-04:00

the past twelve months sort of seem like a write off. i am in the home stretch. in trying to furiously reach my goal i think i might be acting reckless. so unreal.

slow down friday morning. let's kick it spring 2006. it's all blurring into one set of experiences and i can barely grab hold of them.

worth

2011-03-16T18:53:00.004-04:00

so i have to make a budget. my excel spreadsheet is open, blank and ready to have numbers inserted into its cells. i work with excel everyday--filter, autofilter, search-- but i don't really do anything with it. i have never made a budget using excel. it's the littlest big first so far.

i've never lived on my own before, let alone trying to do so with school, so the task is a bit daunting. it's not just a bit, i suppose, it's mind-fucking and weird. things are put into perspective. do i need that magazine or nail polish? will i actually wear that dress? i have to pay for a cellphone, cable, internet, rent, cat food, litter, groceries and a TTC pass, just to name a few biggies. i will be doing this all on my own. osap? maybe but i still have that funny business of my debt for going to laurier. entertainment? i love concerts and i will finally be in the city i have been religiously going to for the past six years because of that love.

the excel spreadsheet is still blank.

i packed up my winter clothes/ pjs/ grubby clothes last night. that isn't even most or half of my closet. i have a lot of shit. but it was an odd experience knowing that i won't see these shirts or pants until september. everything will be this nostalgic for me. i have the empty nest syndrome and my nest isn't even empty. it isn't even my nest! pouring over subway maps and bus routes and google streetviews of neighborhoods doesn't really help this quiet panic. i suppose it's a bit loud now.

tomorrow will be green. find me a date before may?

once again it's happening

2011-03-13T19:32:00.007-04:00

i am having a harder time than usual adjusting to the time change. my morning lounging felt like afternoon hangouts but it was only 11AM. now it is after 7:30 and i feel like it's 4 o'clock. my body and brain are disconnected. hasn't it always been that way though, metaphorically?

i woke up from a long nap yesterday and felt like writing. i think i only scribbled a few lines in my sad journal but my bones ache to write. they are tender, bruised and ready to feel something lovely. so, i write. it's all i have some days. i spent the afternoon sitting in a coffee shop completely tuned out to the hubbub around me and focused on political implications of high and low art and cultural priorities. when i think about the remaining six months i have at my full-time job i feel the most grateful for getting into school. it is holding me together at a time when i feel like i might break apart into a million pieces if a good wind blew into me. it is a tenuous hold though, since the next step means the big, permanent step. i am in love with everything and nothing; i am standing here but walking away. straddling this fine line of life is hard at best and i don't even want to think about the worst. the thought of writing is comforting me. i stare at this beautiful leather journal my sister bought me for my birthday. it was purchased at columbia, though not made there, but it's a very powerful symbol for me. something special, the greatest thing ever, should be written in it. its pages cannot be used lightly. so i am afraid of it. i am afraid that my writing might ruin it. you need to play writer as well editor to create something of worth and i don't think i've accomplished the editor part yet. i can barely edit the things i do in life so putting it to paper is tricky.

anticipation. remember when? it's not the same as it used to be because we were young, small and naive, but it's still so special. i get why people have selective or no memory of their years as teenagers because of the silly choices made but i hold on so tightly to those memories. you can squeeze out the sweet, lovely bits and not be such a stuck-up son of a bitch. everything looks perfect from far away. it's true. shivers. just trying to feel. don't try so hard!

maybe i am picky. maybe i am worth something that you don't see. maybe i am just this person who is walking around trying to feel my way through the thickest fog. maybe i just am. the purest kind happy i have been in a long time occurred in new york and this past friday night. in new york, when the wind was just starting to viciously blow, i ran down christopher street and squealed with excitement because it was time for an adventure. it was adventure time in new york fucking city. friday night i was jumping, moving, laughing and rubbing (involuntarily) against everyone under black lights. it was loud, sweaty and awesome. my voice went hoarse as i screamed the lyrics to "last nite" to a boy with a white t-shirt. he still couldn't hear me.

i'm tired of being vulgar. it's funny sometimes but it's just a veil. remember when we wrote silly love songs and poems? you believed in the romance because there just had to be something better than this? you still should. the vulgarity ages you. but don't be a prude. you'll be wound so tight that no one will touch you. i don't want to be a confidant liar anymore. i know what i need.

i know it.

think of me as a train goes by

2011-03-06T13:39:00.002-05:00

it should be late spring at dusk. sitting on a swing. cool breeze. flowy dress.

you.

but you're bringing me down

2011-02-26T00:11:00.003-05:00

i am a ghost.
a ghost with a really bad cold.

i am thinking really terrible thoughts. they are the kind of thoughts that you shouldn't ever think or say. i won't say them, that's awful, but i am thinking them. but my eyes are rough, dry and a weird fleshy pink red colour. the left one is closing on its own, kind of like i am winking at someone, and my limbs are tired. i slept in my bed this afternoon after consuming so much spicy soup. full belly of hot goodness. at least that sleep wasn't plagued by dreams of pregnany and sushi. no way. this sleep won't have you in it. couldn't even believe my subconscious. i need someone else to distract me now because this is getting un-fucking-real.

2011-02-23T12:53:00.002-05:00

i am farther away from it now but when i walked around snow covered columbia i felt really complete. it was an odd kind of feeling. between the trek from 34th street on the subway to 116th and broadway, my feet were taking me places without my brain really telling them to.

i stomped all over greenwich village this past weekend. it was my stomping ground.

there are so many things i want to tell you. there are also so many things that i don't think you deserve to know about. i am so mad at you. it's not in a i-am-going-rage-and-scream-and-yell-and-get-all-red-face about it kind of mad. but i am mad. irked. questioning. tired of it. i can rant here all i want about it but you'll never know. since we're on this oh so lovely condescending two different paths kind of thing, i am sure you don't really care anyway.

it should be june. then it should be september. no. wait. i take it back. june forever.

you know i won't be going or visiting much, right?

college

2011-02-15T19:12:00.003-05:00

i am going back to school. i am going to college. it's so strange. the past ten months have felt like a blur of different motions rushing past me; each one i cannot fully grasp hold of. but now i am going to school. everything has stopped, stood still and it's right in front of me. september sixth. a week after that i am going to texas for so many shenanigans. it will feel like i've never left. but i will. i have to go apartment hunting in toronto now.

everyone around me is acting like they are grown-ups, whether or not they truly are. marriage, cars, engagements, houses, full-time careers, etc. it's weird how measurements for success or adulthood are completely subjective. in this case, science isn't purely unbiased. i measure my progress by the experiences i have, like many others, which include trips to europe, new york, soon the southern united states, concerts, playing cards for hours on end and moving out to pursue the career i have always wanted; that i have dreamed of since middle school. it may not be columbia and i may not end up at the new york times but it's here. it's really honest to zeus in my fucking lap.

2011-02-12T13:39:00.003-05:00

my hair is now almost black. i feel like a porcelain doll.

it's good to go back to this. i'll miss ya, red hair, but my heart will always belong to dark dark hair with pale ivory skin.

saturday night

2011-02-05T23:45:00.000-05:00

2011-01-30T19:26:00.002-05:00

i thought i liked twenty-one best. then i turned twenty-two. clearly i was stuck on seventeen for awhile and then nineteen rolled around with all its perks but was never truly fabulous. i think i like twenty-two. it is an odd calendar year this year. those are always my best years. perhaps not. i have only been keeping track since about two-thousand-ish. the first part of the last decade is kind of a blur. two-thousand and five. growing up is daunting and i am not particularly partial to it but, having just gone through six years worth of pictures and stories, i think i like twenty-two best. maybe next year it will be twenty-three i like best.

she said that if you only keep people around to remind you about the times that were, you really are not getting any benefits at all. she was not talking about me, rather, she was talking about herself. so and so is doing this now and oh gosh did you hear about this person doing this thing? if we are not growing up together, then why should you be kept around at all if you only want is to remind me of what was? we are different now. it is not a shun or a goodbye, it simply is. she said this to no one is particular but it was striking. what is nostalgia worth?

back to new york

2011-01-27T14:30:00.003-05:00

it will be almost three months since i've been in the city when i board my night fly to go back. it was crisp, sharp weather then, without any snow, but this time the city will be covered in white and slush. it's really odd. i love new york with all its complexities and yet, the last time i was there, something was off. maybe it was because of the season (christmas) or that it was late fall or that i had a different traveling companion, i am not sure. all the variables are different and though i felt like it was new york, it wasn't. perhaps the magical appeal of the city is lost on me and instead of seeing it as this wondrous faraway spot, it is, indeed, like my second home. the city wraps me up with its luminosity, frighteningly tall buildings and sea of faces and familiar places.

it is so proletariat of me to shun the bourgeois pigs who spit on the city, calling it dirty and busy. where in the world would you want to go? do you enjoy supporting third world nations with corrupt governments just for the sake of an all inclusive five star resort package? i paid three hundred and fifty dollars for a place to sleep and a way to get there when you're chortling that an eighteen hundred dollar package is perhaps just okay.

#corporatestories

four and a half days isn't enough.

2011-01-11T21:36:00.002-05:00

one week really wasn't enough.

2011-01-10T19:37:00.002-05:00

i think i am going to be one of those crazy vain old ladies. you know, the ones who have a million pictures of themselves on display for everyone to see? that kind. i don't know if it's purely out of vanity though, because i like seeing the evolution of my maturation. it's not as though i am going to have just my face all over the dusty walls of my house. i want to see where we all were at a certain point and why we aren't together anymore or what made us stronger. i want to see my life all over my walls. i suppose that's why i started putting up postcards, ripped pictures, glossy magazine editorials and crappy printouts of pictures on my walls here. it's an easy walk down memory lane. but it's so morbid to think about what i am going to be like, or rather how i hope to be, when i am older. i am not talking fifty years old here. i am definitely talking about the eighties and the nineties. that is prime senility right there. i hope to be the most senile. and i won't even know it!

i am feeling awfully motivated. i am not exactly sure why i am motivated but i kind of like it. i don't talk about work anymore, so don't even ask. it's not my cup of tea--and that's saying it nicely--so when i leave at four, i really leave and mentally check out at four. it's nice and really rather liberating. i am halfway done my contract and then it's all up in the air for what my future holds. school? maybe. job? probably back at starbucks if i go to school. it's easy cash dollars. fo realz. i have squirreled away some money and i love seeing it grow. but, more often than not, i get really tense when i use it to put on my visa or spend it on something. not saving and spending it on shoes, clothes, perfume, books , vacations and hair appointments prevent me from being tense. that is such a stupid way of thinking. i am trying to reverse it.

but enough of that! i am alone and sitting on my bed with hot rollers in my hair. i did the dishes, cleaned my makeup brushes, made dinner, watched my soap and am getting ready for yoga and cat litter duty. i think my cat likes the smell of his own piss. it's a hoot. he never actually makes it to the litter box sometimes, just around it and on the mat. he is male. aw yeah that is awful. retreat. abort last statement. downloading is such a bitch these days because rogers is an asshole with an affinity for making me internet-less for fun. my music blog is lacking. revamp soon with more updates. man, when i am a real journalist, i am going to be so happy. maybe even a real writer. wait a minute. i am a real writer!

resolute

2011-01-04T22:43:00.004-05:00

today has been a trying day. my body finally succumbed to the flu and inbetween my burning fever and frigid cold shakes i had to send my best gal back to england. there is no way i will ever stop the crying on those days. today though, we blamed it on my sickness. she felt bad because she didn't cry like me but she was going home so why cry? it felt like perfect symmetry to have her home. a week after almost three years is never enough. and yet, it felt like we've been living near to one another for ages.

the year changed over, apparently. i can barely remember it. it was an odd kind of a new year's. the little i do remember is a burning rage toward smugness. burning. that and how frustrated i was with stupidly spitting tequila all over myself. who does that? i got kicked out of a stupid bar, ended up with familiar faces, and one face i kind of detest now, and said happy new year because everyone else was and then floated through time. it was one of the most surreal night's in a long while.

i feel confident in the so-called resolutions i have made for myself. it's a stupid thing to set up expectations and think you'll actually follow through with them. but this year it's different. perhaps it's because my main theme of this refreshment in time is to not care as much and chill the fuck out. you're gonna do what you want to do and so will i. i can easily save ten grand in three months so why don't i? just do it. deciding not to apply to and/or go to grad school a few months ago was the catalyst for that. i have no real plans for this year, besides moving out, which fits in nicely with what i am going for. college? if they accept me. increased yoga? ahh that's a must but not a pressured kind of deal. pulling y'all closer? of course. i have eightish more months of work until freedom and in about four of those months, i'll have been at sun life for a year. fuck buckets. this year won't speed by me like the last eight months of twenty-ten did. no ma'am.

i really need to buy a new wall calendar. right now though, i really need vaseline for my nose and another advil.

i sold you for parts

2010-12-28T16:33:00.002-05:00

i was right. you are going to make a really good husband. i called it.

merry merry merry merry happy

2010-12-25T14:40:00.003-05:00

i am going to fall asleep momentarily. i've been up since six because my cat just didn't understand that i really wanted to be awake for seven-thirty but i'm cool with it. instead of just tossing and turning, i read my time commemorative edition about america in world war two. and then the flood of other war stuff came my way a few hours later. three, THREE world war two documentaries, a book on the holocaust and a book chronicling the war. they will be my coffee table books. i know, it's odd. my tree exploded with presents this morning. it was so lovely. a gustav klimt print the same height as me, a bar set, penguin plates, a classy cat carrier, a(nother) shoe rack, dresses, nail polish, rings, sweaters, etc etc etc ETC. so many goddamn awesome presents. my mom loves to give. she gives and gives and gives and gives. so we gave her the very first stocking of her life and she cried. fifty plus years and no stocking. then we ate more chinese, cleaned up and now i am waiting for turkey, good white wine and baking, not one but, two delicious treats for the other amazing holiday date i have tomorrow. i can't even begin to describe to you how in love i am with every single person i am seeing tomorrow. and then monday. monday brings my dear home after three years since our last visit. three fucking years. that is not right at all. but tomorrow. love love love love love love. we have a great surprise and they have a great surprise but i don't know what to wear. mission: find something to wear after nap.

but for now, pleasant dreams for an hour.

2010-12-23T08:32:00.001-05:00

one of the greatest things from my childhood.

2010-12-19T19:17:00.008-05:00

there is a girl on my shirt suggestively eating a banana. oh lolita. best twenty-five dollars i spent on a shirt. my knees are so bruised. my own doing. i fell up the stairs in a hungover haze on only four-ish hours of sleep and now my chest, shins, knees, elbow and possibly my dignity hurt real bad. i better have some gnarly ass bruises on my right leg for this.

i thought about what happened a year ago this week and then it me hit that it was a year ago this week that shit happened. where the fuck did the time go?! a lot has happened in a year, oh gosh it has, but it feels like a blurry blip! we finally, finally parted ways this week. i think i am in this supremely apathetic state that i should probably shake before keg makes her transatlantic journey. that isn't appealing. who do i appeal to? no one, really.

i am feeling very trapped for some reason. it's kind of pissing me off beyong belief. i dreamt about it during my second sleep this morning and woke up in quite a state. i think i held onto whatever it was we had for so long for the sake of, oh i don't now, familiarity but what you did only mere moments ago was kind of terrible. not kind of. it was. it was really mean and judgemental. thank you for that, now toodle-oo! this town, man. eight more months. here's hoping i go to school. maybe? college isn't as prestigious as grad school but, let's be honest, what prestige do we have in this country? u of t, you'll never be fucking harvard so get over it. i am in such a state! i swear, i haven't been like this all day. i wrapped presents, for christ's sake! in about thirty minutes i am going to slip into my childhood and watch santa claus is comin' to town. clause. grammar. grade nine. mr. goddamn marshall. clause. this week.

christmas is the only commerical holiday i adore in all its capitalist, ridiculous ways. stability was never something i truly knew as a child, even as a teenager and an adult it's shaky, but christmas was always just family time. after my dad left it turned into the three of us and for two days it is just us. no bickering, no fights, no one left out, it is just us. two whole days. that's all i ask for. it's the one time of the year i can look back fondly on my childhood and get all mushy, soft and wax nostalgic over claymation movies, yogi bear and herman the hermit. now with new(er) traditions with my created family, this week is that much more special to me. now it's three days and the third day we drink, eat delicious food and talk about growing old, the eight of us, and how we'll always just be together.

2010-12-15T20:30:00.000-05:00

i had a really morbid thought on my walk home from the bus today. the lightest, fluffiest snow fell to the ground as i listened to the iron and wine cover of postal services' "such great heights" and i thought about how, if i should die in a freak accident, it would be behind the shoppers a mere four minute walk from my house. everytime i walk that way as of late i clench my fists and hold my breath in preparation for the inevitable. whether it be a zooming car not looking before "stopping" to get onto the main street or me hiking the poorly mapped pathway up the hill-- to shave a minute or two off my walk -- that results in me tumbling to my death, i am doomed. it's odd how that is the way i picture myself dying in this city. i don't think it will actually come about but if it does, i am prepared. i love you all.

i have to fight the urge to sleep because, though do i have to get up thirty minutes earlier tomorrow to take the bus to work, going to bed at 8:20 is just insane. insane and cements in the fact that my life truly is a joke of epic proportions whoever is up there, or may be up there since i don't really believe in you, knows how to pull a wicked prank. and by wicked, i mean awful. it's so easy to shrug off responsibility on some vague idea that has been around for a millenia or so but that isn't my style. own up to it. you fucked up big time, girl. you fucked up what you wanted. and for what? the future.

twenty-two

2010-12-14T10:24:00.003-05:00

spinster (n):
a woman who is not married, especially a woman who is no longer young and seems unlikely ever to marry

this shouldn't bug me as much as it does but i feel justified in my rage because the person who said this doesn't really know me. i know that that in itself means i should shrug it off but the term too is concerning since it no longer applies to modern life choices. that social and hierarchial structure is layered now and taken apart by every choice against it. i wear tacky diamond-esque jewelry on my left hand to make a point that this is for fashion and accessorizing only, not to symbolize that i am now owned by someone else. because this is not the life i want to lead, it seems like hilarious fodder for the people who don't understand why i won't accept these social implications.

in the end though, i am twenty-two. what the fuck do they know?

to mark, my friend from harlem

2010-12-07T19:38:00.001-05:00

he knew. maybe i didn't really believe him because his rant was peppered with swear words, which i would normally love, except, when he said it, he meant it. but that's beside the point. the point is why didn't i know it when i was sixteen?

love actually is

2010-12-04T23:35:00.001-05:00

lazy saturday full of food, comfort and my own love. i trap myself in my room on days like this and wish i could create an entire apartment from my mind out this lovely seclusion. my room is a bit tiny, actually.

2010-11-30T11:13:00.003-05:00

my room is a disaster zone, again. this time i brought home at least ten pounds of new stuff and i have to organize it. running on a few hours of sleep, little patience and gloomy news, this day seems a lot harder than it should be. but yesterday morning i was in new york. it always seem so much shinier from a distance. taking the 1 train to 42nd street and switching to the B train to go down to 8th ave at nyu don't seem out of the ordinary but, sitting at my desk now with familiar materials and photos on my wall, it all is so surreal. i went to brooklyn. i wandered around the streets of brooklyn, took two trains to get there (and back again) and made friends with a little boston terrier named pickles. columbia was basically on my doorstep, even though, thinking about it now, columbia is grad school material and nyu is better for undergrad.

i wouldn't necessarily call me patriotic in any sense but i am so happy to be home. it's comfortable, lovely and so soothing. i have my haunts and, even when i move away to the big smoke soon, places there will become familiar to me too. some of them already are! gushing about where i come from was hard before because it seemed tougher and edgier to hate it but i don't. i'd rather move to europe than move to any american city.

2010-11-21T10:45:00.004-05:00

sometimes i humiliate myself in the grandest way possible. i can't even be upset because what's the point? but i do act like a turtle when these things inevitably come around. pulling myself tightly into my shell, i sit and wait. when i stop cringing, i know i can come out. i think i can come out now, mostly because i'll be somewhere different for awhile where no one knows me and i can breathe.

my freshly dyed hair feels slightly like straw. it's my fault. i curled it, brushed it out and then put too much hair spray in it. i have such big hair but i wouldn't want it any other way. it looks like wine now. it is so deep and dark and i dread the shower i'll have tomorrow night that will wash it all away. the next time i wash it, it'll be a different colour too. it will change and change everytime i step out of the bathroom. it's sort of like shedding skin. i should feel fresh after each time but something is in my way.

there is a giant empty suitcase in the middle of my room. i have magazines, christmas presents, birthday presents, hangers, books and socks littered everywhere that it's a miracle i can make my way to my bed. allen ginsberg made me want to write. no wait. james franco as allen ginsberg made me want to write. but today i can't. i seem to find any excuse to not do these things that i fear i am turning into her. it's a paralyzing conundrum because i see it but i am not moving. static. but nevertheless this is the act of writing. wheels are metaphorically turning in my head to make the movement; knowledge and thinking are movements. walking around the brisk new york streets with be weighed down; my bag will hold water, two cameras, wallet and two books. that's all i really need. but i need to pack those things and we've come full circle to the empty suitcase that is both just there for decoration and something to toss my clothes on.

janglin' soul

2010-11-19T14:06:00.004-05:00

i could use my time productively but where's the fun in that? and by fun, i clearly mean zoning out in front of any kind of screen. i have half a dozen started books and magazines sitting on my nightstand and here i sit. it's november. it has been six months since the last time i actually did nothing. i spent two beautiful weeks after school ended lazing around in my pajamas and watching my soap on the tube at three in the afternoon. i don't necessarily want to go back to that but there is just something else that i want. my sister told me that if you daydream often, you will be disappointed by what is presented to you in reality. i didn't have the heart to agree with her because it's true. but why should we stop daydreaming?

i made a list in the car this morning of all the things i want for when i move out. i checked off tv, microwave, brand new couch, new bed, end tables, dining room table, new sheets, duvet and more. people i know are scrambling to find hand-me-downs of those things and i am making my boxing day shopping list for electronics and furniture. i want to buy a mac but i don't know if i should go laptop or desktop. do i need it? not necessarily. should i use it to help with potential work opportunities? i think you know the answer to that one. getting into college would be so easy. i'd have a decent set up and wouldn't be forced to throw myself at job postings. but. there's always a but. if i did land something decent, had enough in savings, got a nice apartment, then i would have my little life all set up. i'd be ready to go.

do you think that's daydreaming or planning? where is the line that makes them distinctive notions?

and then there's new york. there will always be new york. it's five days away and two of those days standing in my way are saturday and sunday, with monday and tuesday being my real hurdles. tomorrow i'll have redder hair and maybe i should think about dying my eyebrows. maybe? dark eyebrows look kind of nice with dark red hair.

i'm going back to my favourite bookstore, my favourite neighbourhoods, hell, my favourite place of all time. why does it have to be just five days?

boyzzz club

2010-11-16T15:23:00.004-05:00

makes me miss american history class. also, this makes me love martin scorsese (and his owl like adorable appearance) that much more.

2010-11-15T19:44:00.001-05:00

let's meet organically. sound good? amazing.

NYC in less than a week and a half. good god, why isn't it NEXT tuesday?

2010-11-10T18:38:00.004-05:00

do you remember those career tests we used to take in high school? there was a website we had to go to and answer bunches of behavioural and career related questions that told you the kind of direction you should go in for your job. the more questions you answered, the more "right" your choices were. of course, you could fudge it so that the job you really wanted came in the top five. but that's not the point. the point is that i remember taking those tests all the time and being so excited for what my future held. but now it's here and i feel like i am drowning. this seems to be the normal response post-graduation, post-whatever-else-you-want-to-say, but i am not always about doing things normally. i did the things i wanted to do and now i am twenty-two, at a job that pays my bills and frantically worrying about whether or not i should apply to grad school. the clock is ticking away and i find myself wondering if it's actually worth it. perhaps moving to toronto next summer and getting a job is better because of the freedom to do whatever i want is possible for me. i can increase my osap payments, which i did, and knock off the time they estimated it would take to pay my loan, which i have and three years is gone with just eighty-five extra dollars a month. i am going to austin, texas next september for the austin city limits musical festival and it's the tenth anniversary of it so it will probably be amazing. new york in two weeks (TWO WEEKS!), vegas in february, and i owe my gal in england a transatlantic flight at some point soon. but i applied to college, kind of want to get accepted because it will be different and new, and want the safety net that extra few years of education will provide me when i go to actually be a journalist. i need the net. a net. some kind of reassurance. and so i worry some more and look up jobs, get stomach aches when i think about being rejected from ryerson, perhaps being rejected from every other place and ponder what it is that i truly want. i want want want want want want want that. for now. because at least the distraction will make me happy for a time and i will not be just stuck here in this awful place. this sounds a lot like whining, which if you see it that way, then i agree, but it's mostly one of those stream of consciousness rambles that i like to have with everyone but my family. you see, they don't actually know how to handle anything and so, when i broach subjects like this for advice, i get nothing. but when they need to bitch about law school or their jobs, i am expected to sit there and listen. this is me raging about it. so i talk to you because who else am i going to talk to about this? who, i ask you, who? that apartment over uptown 21 sure is looking good right about now, even though it is over a restaurant.

2010-11-07T10:27:00.002-05:00

i'm ready. i really am. i want to start the life i have always wanted. two days after my twenty-second birthday and i am itching for a giant change. let me in, schools! let me move to toronto, away from this bitter bitter bitter place and into something different, quaint and mine. this isn't mine and i am not okay with it.

eight thirty-three

2010-11-04T15:27:00.003-04:00

it's my birthday tomorrow. right now i am running on four hours of sleep, adrenaline, iced tea, soup and a lot of gumption. i feel a lot older than i actually am, which is problematic to say the least because i am still so young. thinking about turning twenty-two tomorrow has got my stomach churning in a weird way. i know i am not old by any means but still, it's a bit of a big deal. i didn't expect to be here at twenty-two or doing the things that i am doing. instead of hearing a scoff at this statement, followed up with a "you're so young!" snarky remark, tomorrow i'll be surrounded around the people i adore who will tell me HAPPY BIRTHDAY and give me a hug.

plus i'm going to see a rad fucking band play on my birthday. it's no bob dylan but it's still something pretty special because of the people with whom i am going to share it.

<3

"where has all the rum gone?"

2010-11-02T15:01:00.001-04:00

i'm a pretty badass pirate.

2010-10-29T14:46:00.004-04:00

what if i wrote a letter? perhaps there is no reason for it because i find myself out of words. i thought really hard about all the things i wanted to say and found that, once again, i have no excitement for telling any of them. it's exhausting trying to pull out stories and anecdotes that become kind of tossed aside for no particular reason. i find that things which are present just for the sake of being there have no real purpose. i don't get it. i don't think i ever will.

so we're done, right?

never let me go

2010-10-19T21:14:00.003-04:00

ever ever ever ever ever ever ever

please don't complete without me.

sunday evening

2010-10-17T19:32:00.004-04:00

despite how i do my hair and makeup, or maybe because of it, i don't actually know a damn thing about beautifying oneself. i read the back of makeup packets and look confused when i try to figure out how to contour my eyelid. i know foundation but that took years to master. i know i have small brown eyes and that sometimes-- or a lot of the time-- people compare me to kat von d. i don't want to be compared to her. ditching the black eyeshadow was pretty much fueled by that. but i digress!! (a million exclamation marks)!! i looked at my hair today, all limp and brownish-red and was sort of disappointed. if my biggest (surface) problem right now is having a couple of bad hair days, i think i've got it pretty easy. bumps on the side of my head are not cool. i don't really know how to pin things back properly so i half-ass it. i am so impatient. impatience isn't good for the beautifying process. i should stop calling it that because it doesn't necessarily make me anymore beautiful, it should enhance the natural things i've got going for me. it only took me about ten years and countless horrible makeup/hair mistakes to get to that epiphany but i'm here, damnit (janet)! although i do sometimes miss the electric blue eyeshadow phase i had. or perhaps the icy, neon shadows that looked so awesome with black eyeliner. grades nine through eleven were very interesting.

if you can't make your mind up

2010-10-09T10:22:00.002-04:00

ha ha!
you have timing. i don't even know what to say. five years ago this weekend and you are still around. still! i am sure i know what that says about you but what it says about me is slightly distressing. i asked you what it was about me and you and you and me that has us back here again. all you said was you didn't know but come to starlight. i didn't.

the fest of oktober tonight should wipe you from my mind.

five fucking years.

jeudi

2010-10-07T08:38:00.005-04:00

dear thursday morning,

we may have started off rough today because i actually thought you were friday. though today is a pay day, thus making it special in some way, i am sorry for the confusion. speaking of confusion, i don't really feel confused. it's odd. not so odd for me to linger on talking about it because, frankly, (we can be frank, right?) i don't really want to. thursday, you hold so many wonders sometimes. you are the closest day of the week to friday; you often bring me money (at least twice a month); and you are quite serene most times. let's keep it that way. this week has been so brutal and painful and exhausting. i find myself shouting to the stars to make it the weekend; that luminous three day weekend with pie, turkey, parade with the kidlets and maybe a sushi date.

thursday, i look forward to so many things you have to offer. for example: new york round 3.5 is on a thursday; the american thanksgiving thursday, mind you. you should be quiet then. peaceful. serene. i wish that thursday was a pay thursday but we can't all get what we want, right?

thursday, can i ask something of you? can you be somewhat quiet today? i know it may be a big favour to ask but i need the quiet. i am collecting all my thoughts, thoughts that seem like weapons these days, and am furiously trying to organize them. i have always been a circular kind of person, talking and talking and talking. but. we all talk that way, don't we? but it's not even about that! it's about sitting down, watching rubicon when i get home or my soap opera and escaping. we can never truly escape any given situation or life or try to make it easier to shut it up and away but this momentary escape would be lovely. temporary. do you think, thursday, that this is all just temporary?

thursday, you are right to suggest that i put everything from mind. i mean absolutely every single thought from my mind. it's a bit of a cleanse, isn't it? because we're all too muddled up to really see through the thick fog. after sleeping nine peaceful hours last night, i'm ready to give into a leisurely few days.

thursday,
you've been good to me so far. thank you.

s.mac xo

2010-10-03T11:58:00.006-04:00

the october weather is getting to me. i am all curled up in my fleecy pants and long t-shirt, messy bun atop my head and writing with chipped off nail polish on my nails. that won't do. the point is: this leisurely routine i have developed on sundays is nothing short of perfection. writing. maybe it's because i read the boston globe, the new yorker, the new york times, harper's, the walrus and cbc.ca every single day that i am starting to reignite my interest in being a political/international journalist. the cord was bullshit for that. way to plagarize from the bbc.com. i looked up what the kids are reading in the poli sci program this year at laurier and found some texts on amazon.ca that would do me some good. i am slightly insane.

i wish i lived in uptown. most times it's a pain to get there on the weekend but i mostly love how close i would be to everyone and everything. i like having a friend's place to go to and stay late just chattin' on the couch while it rains outside. having said that, if it were toronto, i think i'd be slightly happier. how sad is it that i wish i got a king sized bedframe to fit a king bed? i have never had anything bigger than a twin but now i am insatiable for a california king. i bet all the kings in california have those kinds of beds.

are you still wearing last year's love?

you always tell me

2010-09-30T12:28:00.006-04:00

i wanted to write something essay-like but this is so informal in nature that i just can't even bring myself to do it. last night was one of those really great nights for no real reason. sure i had coffee (re: chai latte. c'mon, it was 7:30!) with one of my greatest friends, thought and talked about new york a whole lot, and came home at 10 PM to do the dishes. the last part wasn't so great. maybe it all felt so great because of the simplicity inherent in these kind of activities. i do wish i were simpler but that is such a stupid thought, i think it should have been kept buried very deep in my mind. disregard the last sentence then. it's seems like the footing i want to finally have is saying, "fuck you, sarah! you should wobble all over the place!" that's not cool. not cool at all. but maybe that's the point: to continuously move throughout this foggy plane called life on a see-saw. up and down. up and down. i remember tellling her that i was actively trying to be moody for years and then when i actually was, it wasn't at all how i figured it would be. it's the struggle i long for. somehow i feel the need to work for the essential things in life (love, sex, career, friends, etc.) and that it needs to hurt, at least a little bit. stream of consciousness it is. i find myself having a staring contest with a photo of a green and purple dinosaur. he is a wallflower. my space is like a fort. it's wholly mine but i barely keep anything recognizeable in it. but really. grounding oneself is never an easy task. if you're not going to fight to keep something around, then maybe it wasn't worth keeping. to be clear: always fighting to keep it close isn't worth it either but if you're passive and not even blinking at how perfectly calm it is, then that's just the way it is perhaps. perhap perhaps perhaps. but you're sliding out of it scott free. seriously. that's the worst part of it all because. but maybe i am not struggling hard enough in the sense that it is just passive action right now and simply longing for the end result. i should have prefaced this all with my happiness. it is sublime. i am too busy for most things right now, which is infuriating, i know, but that is the way it is. although i am bored and quitely panicking about life after august twenty-eleven. but get over it.

really.

2010-09-27T21:30:00.004-04:00

i have finally picked up a book to read. it has been far too long, my friends. i am restless, in a literary way; as in everything seemed so unappealing and i couldn't sit still with just one. i have gone to my favourite south american man. marquez, you are such a charmer. of love and other demons. that is what we should have been called. should we? perhaps not. perhaps perhaps perhaps. i wish my old computer wasn't smashed to bits before i could retrieve old scanned photos and love songs from yesteryear. it wasn't really yesteryear but you get the picture.

my dreams as of late have been quite vivid and i believe they have, in large part, something to do with being sick. it was like i was watching ponyo except no ponyo. the water was sky blue, like it was coloured in with a newly sharpened pencil crayon. remember when our school boxes were full of such things? even though we went back to school shopping, there it was, that burgundy box full of pencils, erasers and crayons. but i digress. the trees were drawn in so crudely, like i had done them myself, but it was still very real. i met a boy with ginger hair who knew what to do. he lead me to safety and i liked that. i really did.

he asked me today if i learned anything new about fidel. it stumped me for a moment because i have passively just gone on believing what i believe. do i see him differently? well, i suppose i see them all differently these days.

we thought they'd never end

2010-09-26T15:30:00.004-04:00

i wish i were a simpler girl.
i really do.

then things wouldn't matter so fucking much to me.

2010-09-19T16:58:00.001-04:00

fuck you

2010-09-18T23:20:00.005-04:00

i always feel like i write best when i am soothed, almost to the point of sleep. my eyelids are heavy and flutter up and down in anticipation that they will close, sending signals to all my neurons or synapses in my brain to let me dream. i never got very far in biopsychology but it sounds pretty neat that i ever learned it.

an education.
what can i say about such a lovely film? it made me feel all warm and idealistic, as if i were still romantic in some way. i think education both intensifies and squashes romantic feelings. i was never more romantic than when i was sixteen. but then again, i was sixteen. academics allows for one to explore the evolution of romance and love but we read it again and again until every syllable is accounted for in meaning, depth and connotation. but it's love. school can never really get rid of such lofty feelings and ideas.

i have red(ish) hair. it's beautifully ginger right on my crown and flows out into a deep, dark bloody red to the tips. it's both vibrant and muted. my eyebrows are cleanly groomed and shaped whilst being almost hidden under longer and thicker bangs (re: fringe). i wear blueish grey eyeshadow now and have a new quad packet entitled "stardust" ready to be used. i need new makeup brushes for that one. you can see my eyes. enhance it, don't hide it. i hide it all. i wonder what you would say about me now if you saw me. would say, well, it's you with different, semi-okay hair. or would you stop and really look at me. i mean really, truly stare into whatever you think is in front of you and try to find the meaning behind your perplexity. it's stirring up inside of you.

we used to see emo kids running in and out of our shoppe. because it was ours, wasn't it? they wore tegan and sara shirts, stretchers and thinly cropped, jagged hairstyles. they flounced around king with pink drink containers and the biggest laughs they could muster. now they work at h&m, judge harshly and barely blink at what, no, who they used to be. we all grew out of it.

if i said i missed them all you wouldn't believe me. i am the shittiest person sometimes. the last four years have been a blur of bitch and circumstance. there was no need for me to do the things i did but i did them. i gained twenty pounds then lost it. i had bad hair, bad clothes, bad face, bad everything. i hit my own academic rock bottom and found myself missing our solitary congregations around limey green lockers. those cement floors. i hugged you today in a mall that is so drastically different. we have known each other for almost eight years. where in the hell did that come from? and now i am sitting on this bed. this twin bed with newer sheets and pillows and a laptop atop it instead my own person at my desk typing away. my eyes want to close and they are winning the battle. i spoke no coherency then and i certainly don't now but i was so passionate about my incoherent thoughts. they were right. are we still ultra slick and cool? you'll have to tell me someday.

2010-09-15T19:54:00.006-04:00

simple. it was so much simpler then. i crave it. maybe not everything that happened. but. oh god, everything was simpler before facebook, wasn't it? i saw you there, we hugged, i leaned and then we'd walk down the streets of kings. it was cold. my nose tingled. there was hardly any doubt about anything. okay i lied. i lie a lot. we doubted everyone around us but somehow we were still. the chase was all i knew. but. i stopped running so long ago. i can't even remember. the last one wasn't even worth it. grow up. i live like a hermit in my own head. i scribbled on my hand, wrote all over my shoes and then took a picture. deep. we used to attack the bus with our sharpies. kiss me quick before i blink. it's etched into my brain. i carried my camera around in my purse. i never ever left home without it. it will never seem as good as when it was happening. but that's just it. nothing is happening. we are still once more. i broke it so i will take the first step back into this life. it's yours. you are a motivator, you know. it gets me up and moves me around when i want to be static. i am not static.

i miss you.

something is roaring

2010-09-14T12:10:00.004-04:00

i have abba's "waterloo" stuck in my head. i could be repeating the verse waterloo, waterloo baby over and over in my head because that was the last scene of mamma mia! i saw or i love waterloo. it could be both. i walked all the way from work to king and university yesterday. the response of many was "wow! that's a bit of a trek, eh?" followed by a weird look on their faces. it didn't even feel like i was walking; rather, i was floating over side streets and restaurants that i have populated over the years. i walked past memories if anything and it was pretty decent.

i don't wear black eyeshadow anymore. it felt like an addiction i needed to kick. i still have it in my makeup basket, my black eyeliner too, and the less i think about it the more i feel it was the right decision to make. why does making the switch from one eyeshadow colour to another have to be such a big deal? it was my comfort for many, many years. and like the electric blue eyeshadow, this too will be a symbol of my adolescent years (even though they aren't over just yet.)

so i have this year. it's a sort of transition year. i'll change my makeup, change my hair, wear different clothes but is it enough? physical adaptation isn't always gonna cut it for what it is you feel on the inside. this year is a transition in so many different ways than what i could ever articulate. i feel like i should put hash tags after some of these sentences like #mylifeisajoke or #srlsyeverythingisalright because they feel like tweets. my communication skills are so diluted. maybe this is good practice for me. professors always told me to be concise and writing 140 character posts forces me to be succinct. really, was i? how hard was it all, really? surprisingly not at all.

day two:
for so many other things.

2010-09-09T19:49:00.003-04:00

i came to a startling realization today: i don't mind kitchener-waterloo. i was walking down king street today, the wind blustering around me, and i was somehow kind of content. i walked around campus and it felt eerily the same, familiar and perfect. if i get into grad school at the good ol' wlu, i think i would be okay with that. despite the myriad of rantings four years ago about how much i hated it, i love it now. i love so much i wrote about it here. i have always been a big city kind of girl but i have my familiars here. i have my movie theatre, bubble tea with my crew, moose, stories on every corner of uptown that make my knees weak from laughing so much over them. for grad school, i could stay. i could nestle into a sweet little apartment in uptown and curl up in my giant new bed.

but toronto. oh toronto toronto toronto. i am young. that city is where i need to be.

it is all so different now. i never thought i would be sitting here thinking about what happened, what didn't happen and why it is all fading away. i shouldn't say never. boarded right up. but i suppose that was long ago. maybe i should open up one last time. i owe myself that.

ahh new york

2010-09-06T21:58:00.001-04:00

i can never seem to quit you.
and why would i?! see you in november!

2010-09-05T12:42:00.001-04:00

dangerous dangerous road ahead.
stop now.

2010-09-04T13:12:00.004-04:00

it's one of those curl up on the couch and/or bed with a good book kind of days. problem is i don't know which book to pick up. i have the bell jar, on the road and love is a mixtape atop my time magazine special edition of america in world war two. i have read the first two so this would be more a re-read situation. i want to read them all but i find my decision making skills when it comes to reading a bit wishy washy. maybe it's because i read for four solid years, countless books and articles, that i am in need of a break or due to that forced reading i am subconsciously against it now. so i write.

i am not feeling as terrible as i thought i would about not going back to school. i wandered through the bookstore on thursday quite free, feeling untied to the bonds of education but also close to what it offers me. i don't have to pay for it anymore. i have always felt that paying for education isn't a waste, ever ever, but it's liberating to know how freely i can walk amongst proust, burroughs, richard taylor and lawrence without a schedule or five hundred word assignments. i miss the structure, i do, but now i can focus on my possible freelance gig and contributing whatever i can to the writing world when i can do it.

i hesitate to say that things are different because it seems cliched, though i have uttered the phrase many a-time. the difference i feel isn't necessarily due to one thing in particular or anything like that. it's this whole moving forward while still recognizing the past thing i've got going on. i have a job but it's temporary. i live at home but it's temporary. i have italy and las vegas (and maybe new york in november) on the horizon. i am making more money than i ever have before and i could end up moving out next august completely debt free. but something is different. i can't articulate it in a cryptic enough way so i won't even try. it just is and i don't think it will ever be able to go back to what it was. i don't think i want to even go back that way if there was the opportunity. it is now. it was then. this is what it is. is is is. i am willing to trip over the past because it is me but this has always been temporary, i think. i suppose i failed to write in a non-cryptic way. it's what i do.

twenty-one. i like twenty-one. you'd like me to not be twenty-one.

tiger tiger ice cream

2010-09-03T11:56:00.010-04:00

2010-09-02T13:44:00.004-04:00

why was there a christmas tree behind you? you walked away for so long but then you came back. you really came back. i tug on my sweater sleeves now, trying to imagine how these arms wrapped around you for such a long time. never ever ever. let this go. i remember sitting with my knees pulled into my chest, rocking back and forth, wondering why you did it. their faces turned green and the slit of red where their eyes once were shone through the pitch black of my now dark room. how could you?! their voices rang out. but softly, murmuring into my ear, you said that they knew nothing and you never wanted to be around them. but why was their christmas tree behind you?

i shook you. i jumped up and down, side to side and ran across this town trying to shake you. i erased you! and yet. you walked up to me, tapped me on the shoulder and here we are.

and we'll hold your hand

2010-08-30T21:47:00.005-04:00

it's approaching again. instead of a cool breeze surrounding us in the cemetery there will be heat. thick, stomach-churning, sweat inducing, disgusting heat. and there she will rest. two weeks to the day. she fought for so long but when the one constant in her life left before she did how was she to go on? people around me today told me it felt very romantic to be with someone for so long and to die shortly after them because of such a powerful connection. they were each other's entire lives. dom and katie.

i shouldn't choose favourites but i loved her more. she pulled me into her arms, smelled so sweet, like candy and dough, and loved me so much. she beamed; literally and honestly beamed. she was the centre of that town. no one fucked with her. of course, she never swore. she washed church clothes, helped out with bazaars, made the best jam jam cookies ever and now she is simply a memory in a string of hazy familial relationships that have come and gone. when i spoke of this town i always referred to the little white house across the street from that church. it used to be part store, part house for six people at one time. now someone else lives there and it isn't the same. it doesn't mark my map properly anymore. so many babies were born there and now some assholes probably use it as a summer cottage. quaint. gross.

last time was so easy. i can't even believe how easily we slipped in with barely any concern. now there is over-concern. your good intentions aren't actually that good at all. i don't understand it but i have a perverse fascination with trying to. their beliefs are everything and they mean nothing to me so we are at a crossroads. they yell on one side and i yell right back on the other; they scream about goodness or duty, while i say something about fascists and city life. funerals are for everyone else but the deceased. you're ruining it and you don't even care.

2010-08-28T00:19:00.002-04:00

slippity slip slip. oops! and there you were. we were in a fishbowl. peering through the slick glass i thought madly how to get out of this one. i am out. it wasn't hard at all. actually, it's all kind of soft. all of it. your crazy, wild hair. i like what you've got going on there. why, thank you. i knew you even before you spoke like that. we never see each other. we shouldn't. never ever ever ever. i'll wear my heart on my wrist. small, black and not coloured in; it shall stay open. i sat there thinking, i want that. i want to hold someone so small in my arms, something that i made, something that is mine completely. i'll love your neurotic ways and nurture them as you grow. they are too afraid of little ones who are not normal. i would adore your idiosyncrasies. but i have never wanted that. ever. my insides hurt just thinking about it. but i would cradle you in my arms and watch you grow before my eyes. is this, i mean, why is this happening to me now?

and when you said you didn't like anyone to stay in your bed, i so pointedly said perhaps that is why it is empty. when i roll over, someone will be there. when you roll over, you are alone and void.

2010-08-22T10:59:00.003-04:00

where are my words?

it's quiet today. clutter clutter clutter. doom and gloom but, really? today feels like one of those stretch-my-legs-lie-in-bed-stare-at-my-ceiling kind of days. it's glorious.

quiet quiet quiet. you me us them. we are so quiet. have we nothing to say anymore? we are all out of words.

to preserve this face, i found more creams to pile on top of my skin. the more layers between you and the sun, she said, the better. you will mock but when i am fifty and look thirty, and you are haggard from your days of unhealthiness, who will be the victor then? i don't want to think about being fifty.

"congratulations on all your accomplishments. god bless you."
no thanks.

what is sometimes worse than a poorly worded compliment is one that is entirely vague and fragmented. what accomplisments? i am not sorry i didn't pop out a child and thus ruin my entire life. "oh don't worry, it took me to forty to have kids so you've got awhile yet." you are a nurse and yet you didn't connect the line from having children after thirty-five to having a child with a disability. stupid stupid stupid. no i don't want the life you are throwing at me. it's ridiculous and futile. i'll have parties once a month for being so awesome and not following your rules. it's selfish and so vain i can't barely stand it but hey! i rock. no big deal.

we have no more words for each other.

home

2010-08-22T10:30:00.003-04:00

spectacles

2010-08-18T09:29:00.003-04:00

the lake across the street is very quiet. or so i think. i am couped up in a hotel room with the tv on and two women calmly getting ready for a burial. flipping through a magazine, applying foundation, commenting solemnly that pleated pants are no good for a woman, i sit amongst them quite serene. last night's arrival was quick, fast-paced and i barely grabbed my thirty plus year-old typewriter and we were out the door; out that door which holds so many of my chilhdhood memories. it is all quick now. foggy, fragmented and perplexing

but we are here, in this room, so calm, like the lake. the lake is reflective of what our day will be like. i haven't seen it yet but if it has caps then i can assume our day too will be rocky. we haven't seen much of anything or anyone. driving up the pit road in the dark made my stomach flip like it used to so many summers ago. walking around these parts at night always made me wary; one should never walk around here at night.

perspectives. i find my life limited at such a young age and yet i am on my way to a funeral for a man that was seventy-five when i was born. he has always been old to me. now he is not old but a lived person; he lived, loved, lied and then died. he taught me solitare and i will always be thankful for that.

in and out. quick and dirty.
and we're gone.