Mirages of Matchstick Men (and you).

Sublime Oh Nine.

Made it through, didn't I?

It's not so cut and dry as beginnings and endings in some respects. And I don't know what I want to say right now, but I know I want to say something. So writing, sitting here on bones and in skin that isn't as uncomfortable to be inside as it was at this time last year, feels more right than I know or have any words to type. I need to say something honest, start this year with honesty. Be a real, apologetically honest human being.

hon·est (ŏn'ĭst)
adj.

1. Marked by or displaying integrity; upright.

2. Not deceptive or fraudulent; genuine.

3. Equitable; fair.

4. 1. Characterized by truth; not false.

   2. Sincere; frank.

   3. Of good repute; respectable.

   4. Without affectation; plain.

5. 1. Of good repute; respectable.

   2. Without affectation; plain.

6. Virtuous; chaste.

All of them. And find out what I've actually been hiding from all these years, and if it's really as scary as I've made it out to be in my head.

It's hard to trust, but it gets easier the more you do it.

And splitting yourself into a million selves? Easy. The only part of it that's a little tricky is maintaining them. But finding yourself, being one single self? Harder than it looks.

But it gets easier the more you do it.

Happy New Year!

and you just keep on getting closer.

crystallized from Fake TV on Vimeo.

Hi, hi, high.

those who don't never will. but those who do?

Rise and shine to you.
For you
The moon and the stars and
The sky. There is always
Quick heat in mouths touching, built
with brick around
frost, and hung
with a thousand particles of
light around brick.
Stolen, not taken. My world
is the same as any other (because
what is a world?) if a look is taken
at the brick and
the frost, the lights
in the dark.
But between? There, in the
tiny, apparent barren space that
no one bothers
or, maybe, looks close enough
to see?
There is a rise
and shine
to you
For you
Always sticking.
It is steady, it is even. and
I?
I have seen what a world is after all.

A year, in review.

This season. It doesn't feel like a single one that's come before it, not that I can remember.

Last year, same day. December 21. I wrote this.

Months and years past of train ticket machines click-click-clashing my passage to and from a place that I knew was my home. I took a train again this morning in a sweater two sizes too large for me, and stared out a frostbitten window knowing that I don't know where that home is anymore.

And, far more significantly, knowing that it's alright to not know.

I expect that having figured everything out at the age of 23 would make for a horribly dull, albeit easier and more manageable existence. I could be wrong, of course, so if there's a 20-something (or 30, or 40, or ever 50-something for that matter) out there who believes that they've obtained such clarity, please send me an e-mail...I'd love to hear all about it. So, for the time being, I'm unsure as to what direction this is all going in, and I mean that in the broadest sense possible. Past, present and future blogs, schools, careers, homes, shoes, cigarettes, planes, trains, automobiles, holidays - you name it, I've probably not quite figured it out. And the great clarity I've been seeking for a longer time than I would like to recollect kicks in when I remind myself that it's not something I even want. I'm in love with not knowing, and for right now that's good enough.

A few days ago my oft-alluded to man and I sat in our beautiful tropicana coloured kitchen nook, where we sit most every evening and enjoy the beautiful meals we alternately prepare for one another, and we talked. We always talk.

It's nice, being with someone who likes listening to you talk, likes the way your face moves when you listen to them talk, likes talking to you.

Our talks range from making silly noises and singing at one another to examining existentialist treatises to congratulating each other and ourselves on the accomplishments of the week (songs, chapters finished, meals made, dancing fun had). This time we talked about happiness. What it means, where you feel it, whether it's in your chest or bones or stomach or skin or brain or all of then at once. How it doesn't change who you are, it lets you be who you are. And even though I still don't know what it is, or how to explain to anyone how to feel it like I do...

Happiness. We came to this conclusion. When you can just be, it just is.

And this? This I know.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Not Here.

There's courage involved if you want

to become truth. There is a broken-

open place in a lover. Where are
those qualities of bravery and sharp

compassion in this group? What's the
use of old and frozen thought? I want

a howling hurt. This is not a treasury
where gold is stored; this is for copper.

We alchemists look for talent that
can heat up and change. Lukewarm

won't do. Halfhearted holding back,
well-enough getting by? Not here.

- Rumi

Us.

People sometimes forget that every beginning is an ending, too.

The change, the change...it all happened for a reason, didn't it?

I've made it. I'll keep it.

It's you, always.

Dear Yoko Ono

Dear Yoko Ono,

I like you.

You're strong.

And I think I understand you. Mostly.

Some afternoons I sit here in this very spot that I’m sitting in now and I watch you on my computer screen: burning it with all your clipped words of white-hot love. It helps me sometimes…I think.

It helps me think.

Either/Or.

And there you sit across from me in the screen, sitting the same way every time: being positive, elegant, generous and loving and all of the things that we all should be. We all should be…and yet none of us are. No one I know is. I try to be. I know I’m not.

But you! You are.

Even after the merciless and horrible things the universe has brought upon your tiny little head, still full of your shiny short hair at 73 years old, you are.

See, if I were you, Yoko, I don't think I'd ever be able to say I love you again.

And you! You do. You say it every day, to everyone and no one at all.

God, you’re so fucking strong, Yoko.

You make me entertain the thought that I, too, could maybe be as amazing as you are one day even though I’m admittedly selfish (and, quite simply, not as amazing; simply in that I never want to have to be). But I still entertain it. I let it loose up in my head, like hair that’s been confined from tight braids it’s been in for weeks, like a child who’s eaten nothing but Pixie Stix for days on end and runs up and down the block to burn it all off.

This kind of simplicity? It’s so nice to have sometimes.

I wonder, Yoko, if you too sometimes get sad or bored with yourself, and the feeling that you’re not actually very good at anything at all?

I try to be creative most days.

Most days I can't even tell if it's working or not.

Most days I think I could do anything at all and none of it would matter to anyone but me.

Or it could matter to everyone, but I think it would mean nothing to me either way.

What is being creative anyways? Just…creating? Well, I could create anything then. I could write you a letter, I could draw pictures of paper coffee cups piled up on desks with words like I’m so fucking sick of this scrawled over them, I could draw them over top of worse renderings of with tiny waists and long legs of extra-terrestrials spreading their fingers atop the open palms that face their audience in surrender, saying come in, I’m letting you in, have a fucking look and don’t fucking look at me and I could make a million dollars.

People make a million dollars making much stupider, much dirtier, much more inane things than these.

I wish my mind was clean.

I wish I could make a million dollars.

I wish I didn't wish to know everything all the time.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is…I feel like you must sometimes feel like I do, Yoko.

Do you?

You certainly never show it. I'm working on that, too, the not showing of it. Not letting it get in me in the first place is hard enough, but at least not letting it out...it's kind of like those affirmation things that you’re supposed to do when you’re depressed. Someone told me to do them when I thought I was depressed, but I don't think I really was. Just sad. I did them anyways.

So tell me Yoko, please, because I actually need to know whether or not it’s true.

Do you ever get sad? Do you ever go on your early evening walks and feel nothing but loose street gravel below the soles of your little feet, do you alternate between conversations and shapes and numbers in your head, do you find yourself unable to speak of it, not because you don’t want to but because you don’t know what your insides are made of, let alone what words to use?

I hope you do, Yoko. I hope you are sad sometimes. I hope you hate sometimes. I hope you’re just as confused and fucked and afraid as the rest of us.

But as much as I need to know that you’ve got bad on your insides too, Yoko, don’t worry. I know you don’t. It’s why I like you.

Writing a book.

...for me, it goes a little something like this:

1. Your water breaks. And the words, they come pouring out as though every major artery in your body (heart included) has just been swiftly and mercilessly slashed open. It's all kind of disgusting really, or would be if not for the fact that you're kind of excited because you're having a baby goddammit!

2. The birth commences. But you had to take public transit to the hospital during rush hour, and now that you're finally here, not one kind soul is being magnanimous enough to stab you in the ass with an epidural. Yep, this part fucking hurts.

3. Postpartum depression sets in. How on earth do you get this monster to go to sleep, or at the very least stop caterwauling at you for five minutes? You're approaching the beast from every angle, and it's deflecting your advances like a pro.

4. It is a screaming terror of a toddler, and there are moments, more frequent than not, wherein you believe that it is either you or it. Only one shall survive, and it's not looking like it's going to be you. You feel inefficient, paralyzed, and just about ready to put the thing up for adoption. Or kill it. There's always that option, too.

5. Alright, it's finally learning to talk and walk and is even starting kindergarten soon. Every day gets a little bit easier, and maybe you're learning to be good at this whole thing after all?

6. Ah, so this is why people do this. It's quite nice actually, having a little partner, a little consistency in the day, watching it grow into a more compact, recognizable version of yourself. You start to enjoy making it after-school snacks and tucking it into bed at night.

7. Nuh-uh. Wrong again. Did no one warn you about the terrible teens? It's become its own person, or so it thinks. Stays out too late with boys, talks back at you, is openly smoking cigarettes (and, you suspect, worse) and is its 'own woman', or so it thinks. Still lives under your roof though, and therefore your rules. Thems the breaks, kiddo.

7. Evil, evil teenage years. War of the wor[l]ds, every day. Where did it all go wrong? You need a vacation, from which you consider never returning. Or, once again, killing it. You brought it into the world, you can take it out. Right?

8. You can't help but sometimes marvel at what you've created, and the fact that, via some semblance of both a competence and will of your own, it's still alive. Holy shit! And really. It's quite beautiful, smarter than you usually give it credit for being, and objectively pretty damn cool. Still a pain in the ass sometimes, but who are you kidding? You love it to death.

9. The bittersweet day comes that it's accepted into college. You knew the time would come that it would fly the coop to go and become someone else's problem, and after all that you've been through, it's more than a little bit exciting. You'll see it on holidays and for the occasional visit when it needs money/attention/affection...but it's never going to be just the two of you again and you both know it.

10. "Hoorah! You're free! You're freeeeee!" chants a little voice in your head, over and over again. Yes, indeed. You are free. And you miss it terribly already. You sit back. You finally take that vacation. And you wish with all of your heart that it's being taken care of, that you taught it how to take care of itself, and that no harm comes to it. Ever, ever, ever.

Disclaimers:

1. No, I have never had a child. This is just what I imagine it's like.
2. I am currently somewhere around stage 8, occasionally reverting back to stage 7.
3. I think it's self-explanatory, but publisher/public = college/world.

I am a golden god.

yep.

Wednesday mid-morning coffee break.

Sometimes I just don't feel like using my words or my brain because sometimes it all just comes out the same way as it did yesterday and sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who knows what I mean.

Do you know what I mean?

Sometimes I don't want to write I just want to look at pictures of Anita Pallenberg in 1968 and study the angular sharpness of her face and wear more fur smoke more cigarettes draw my eyes black and heavy and wake up at whatever hours I want.

Sometimes I just want to be horrible and not care and not bite my hands, not hate my arms every time I pass by a mirror.

Sometimes I don't want to read about hope or love or see any more long-legged girls in beautiful outfits that I could never fit into or afford.

Sometimes I want no one inside my head but him and I take back everything I've done and...just, sometimes, oh.

Oh. Suck it back, stamp it out, oh.

half the world away

Don't accept anything less than big love. Massive, consuming, fast-paced, scary, wonderful, overwhelming, huge love. The kind of love that makes you want to put post-it notes with sweet nothings written on them all over his suitcase when he goes out of town for a night. The type of love that makes you suddenly understand why your mother has made you take your vitamins and fed you beautiful meals your whole life. Because long days and heavy eyelids don't matter when you've got big love. Nothing can keep you going like big love, because there's nothing in the world like it and once you find it? Oh my god you'll know.

Monday (Mondaze)

Currently laughing hysterically at my desk thanks to this.

My nearby co-workers surely think I'm some type of mental retard, but whatever. Thanks, internet.

Be-in.

Everyone should know how it feels to stand around in a muggy August hot kitchen, drinking wine too fast, talking too fast, changing songs too fast in the company of friend-love and love-love, wiping the smudged eyeliner out from under your eyes to see, so clearly, exactly where I am.

To be 23 and on my own was great. It was great, terrible fun. And it was what I needed, even when I didn't know that I did.

But to be 24. To be 24 and not on my own is more happiness and more sadness than I've ever known. And everyone should know how it feels to feel both.

Because when I'm wiping the playground sand off my best friend's shoulders as he runs off into the night, chasing something that even he can't say, I wish these moments of swing set park declaration huge, massive, overwhelming happiness for every living, breathing, thinking thing in the world. I watch the rest of them jump off picnic tables and let their feet take them where they're going. I know that just because I've been found...well, that doesn't mean that so many aren't still lost.

But the greatest thing about a love like this?

All it takes to heal the world inside my head is having him, at the end of the night, to rest it on.

As promised.

I wrote nothing to actually write here today (and for that I do of course apologize), but being the woman of my word that I am, here's one from the archives that was published earlier this month. Enjoy, darlings.

Make Out

phones with broken buttons

call back with broken words

typo send backs

on his back in my bed

for four days on end our heads

are not quite right but nothing ever

is when you're in the thick of it, wanting to live inside of a perfect

silver book of things that cannot be named until

you've at once known them, felt them and lost them

if only for a moment

in time.

It's not what you think.

Given my last few posts on here it may seem as though happiness has, to a certain extent, depleted me of my creative resources where writing is concerned in consideration of the fact that my posts have been...well, virtually non-existent.

But rest assured, my dearest few readers, I'm actually writing more than ever. The novel is coming along at a pace that surprises even myself, the short stories are being banged out on the weekly, the poems don't stop falling out of my fingers and it's all actually getting published. Which, of course, means I can't publish it here first due to the simultaneous submission rules. Such is life, and such are the consequences that I'm more than pleased to live with.

Alas, I am going to attempt to be at least a bit of a better blogger, starting today. Just don't expect anymore boy-directed nihilism, as I'm quite simply and honestly more and more in love with my man with every passing minute.

Real post tomorrow, cross my heart!

The universe giveth and the universe taketh away.

Dear asshole that stole the one thing I own that I actually care about (a.k.a. my bike) while I was out of town for the weekend cottaging with the man of my dreams,

FUCK OFF AND DIE.

Love, and many exes and ohs,

Lush

Darling.

You're my partner in crime on failed hotel pool romps, with my back up against the brick, spilling pop on city grates during garbage strikes and cherry flavour shot stickiness.

You're the Clyde to my Bonnie (circa Beatty and Dunaway because, like me, you wouldn't have it any other way) in Floridian seafoam green, clutching my pool blue fingernails and holding bottles of wine on my couch. Telling you stories of worlds I've never let anyone understand.

I'm in my war bride dress wearing a half-stupid smile running into my room with you, leaving traces behind that napkins could fix but in the meantime it'll make us laugh, laugh, laugh and I want to laugh with you forever.

We're in a bubble with books about Hollywood vs. Aliens, sunflowers and azaleas on the windowsills smiling at us while we curse my late alarm and break into someone else's place.

And as I sat there with salty hands and cupcake lips, shelling pistachios to the drifting sound of the gates going up next door, I knew in my heart that I've never really loved like this before.

July.

Diet Coke
making out in public
Californian red wine
Lucky Strike Mexico
scary movies
wonderful sex
answering e-mails from mom
photo shoots
perfect skin
Rolling Stones
boxes of office supplies
music videos
bathroom bang trims
late wakeups for work
early bedtimes for two
new sheets
broken paper bag groceries
typing things out
submitting poems
acrylic paint inquiries
mock-ups of banners
no time for my real job
writing a real book
meeting the parents
metric conversions
happiness that's so full it hurts
$4 pints on patios
festival weekends
being so into this
letters from the editor
wait times
simultaneous spreadsheets
flying monkeys
drunk koalas
walks for more wine
blue nail polish
quick dry
stolen sunglasses I miss
high waisted skirts that pinch
being in love. love. love. love. love. love. love.

Suburb.

night after a night of falling on
front lawns
in the expanse of this place's yellow lined pavements
and our lips that can't stop touching and pulling
at the throats of all of our friends in our blissful
reveries on the
front lawns
of where you grew up and you showed me
coloured concretes and red-bricked buildings
and birds of your father's
and kitchen sinks, dishwasher fillings,
interrogations lovingly spent over cups of
coffee and I took another sip, saw
into a flash of light, same
colour eyes and I think you could
really love me
after all.

The Sixteenth of July.

I’ve got offices to clear out and debts to call back and coffee change to be handed over to the ones who couldn’t for a second know what I mean about any of it (likewise, I can’t really bring myself to do any of it). To spend any more days, yet another day, with my legs at an appropriate 90 ninety degree angle while sitting and my fingers click-clack-clocking the time away on words just like these words and other words that mean even less than these words, it’s all so unbearably nothing sometimes, isn’t it? Nothing’s anything except pictures printed and pasted on my books of paper while on someone else’s dollar, and where are all of my morals now? The guilt hasn’t set in yet here and it’s been years. But oh, how these weeks sometimes fly.

So last night they watched from the step as I made my stumbling stop carrying bags of dryer sheets and cheap wine, and I expect they saw through the untruths that even now I don’t regret telling. Sometimes the change came fast and sometimes the change comes slow but most certainly of all we must, absolutely must at this point know that it’s going to. It’s going to happen to all of us. Unspoken but not unacknowledged, the awkwardness won’t really go away and baby I’m just a fool tearing all my heart out just for you.

The documentarian to it all, I consider that I may only do what I do because I want you to know that this was a time, is a time, when standing on dark July-hot pavement, covering wine-stain smiles and looking in each other’s eyes was all we had and all we needed. Refilling Evian bottles on broken headphone nights, tales of bike accidents and how someone else has ended up coming along for the ride. We need these moments like the sun needs love to shine itself upon in these recent glorious mornings.

So don’t count it out yet, go back to the drawing board and searching for your replacements as I’ve heard you’ve done so many times in your many moves around these streets that are so much smaller than they first appear. Don’t count me out yet, but when there comes a time that it’s the only thing left to do, just know that I’ve saved all of these words for you.

Help I'm Alive

To give a full and complete rundown of how my recent staycation was spent would require far more time, words and mental capacity than I'm currently willing to give it. Yes, there were the requisite club parties and cottage trips, purchases of $4 stars and stripes sunglasses and afternoons of finishing entire books on city rooftops, meandering bike rides and long-awaited brunches with best friends. So on and so forth. It was all fantastic, obviously. How could it not be when my life so unfailingly is these days?

But the most "unexpected and brilliant thing" also happened (and I quote these words because they're his originally, not mine).

I fell properly and totally, completely and surely, absolutely and fully IN LOVE.

I hesitate to use the above "i" and "l" words because, in my typical Cancerian fashion, I'm impossibly careful with them, likely to the point of often failing to admit to feeling them for quite a while after I actually do. In this case I do know, more certainly than I usually know most anything, that it's it, it's amazing, it's putting an unwavering smile on my face, it's everything I've wanted with someone for longer than I've even likely known that I've wanted it and IT'S FUCKING TERRIFYING.

I've fallen, fallen, fallen. And since this has all transpired I just can't help but feel as though I'm falling down into a crater, and one which is much deeper and longer and farther than I've ever been in before. Then again, I'm not really falling down - that would imply something apart from what it is, which is (again, in his words) one of the most brilliant and unexpected things that's ever happened to me. The clothes hanger stuck in my mouth making me wake up to an eye-roll-inducing expression on those around me tells me so.

I'm letting the ubiquitous guard down. I'm scared beyond any fear I've ever felt and happier than I've quite possibly ever been. I could write more about this, and have in fact done so in my new notebook...shitshitshit, what did I say about the dawn of every new notebook in my life?! Seems as though the transition between that red piece of shit and this new silver leather one has proved my point yet again...

But anyways. Just thought it would be fair to let you all know that my general misanthropy may be put on hold for a while. Or based from how this feels right now, forever.

Ugh, I even make myself sick with this FYI.

Staycationing.

And it couldn't possibly be more magnificent.

Details to follow...

A girl after my own heart.

I am by no means a thrower-around of the word soulmate, as it is one of the few words within the English language that I feel some sort of reverence towards.

That being said, I have most certainly found one such soulmate in the form of Miss Alexi Wasser of imboycrazy.com.

Although my lovably daft lesbian roommate continues to propose that I "just haven't met the right girl yet", I'm quite certain that I'm a certifiable, 100%, card-carrying H-E-T-E-R-O, and quite possibly the only one left in this city. Yes, that would be Toronto, the city in which seemingly everyone has pulled a Katy Perry (lame and over-used reference, but whatevs) and sucked face and/or other parts with a fellow female at some point or another. I'm a big fan of the 'to each their own' adage, but I simply like dudes way too much to ever even consider branching out.

If I were, however, to hypothetically switch teams, this chick would be my Numero Uno crush. She's hilarious and wise and basically me, albeit a little more confident, street smart and put together...alright, maybe a lot more of all of the aforementioned, but are you really keeping score?

I'm all too well aware that everyone and their dog's got a blog these days, but this one is actually unmissable if you're a chick who likes dudes, a dude who needs to learn how to be better at being a dude (read here, please and thank you), or just looking for a back-up plan.

What I've failed to mention is that she would likely hate me as I am a filthy smoker. But hey, you can't win 'em all.

24 and there's so much more.

Turning 24 this past Saturday was challenging and eye-opening to say the least.

Aside from 'the problems', I've virtually always considered birthdays to be more depressing than celebratory. I don't care much for the notion of a day on which all of the attention is focused on me, and instead the day on which I was born tends to bring a sense of my own mortality much closer to the forefront of my mind than it generally is...which is saying a lot, as I'm often fixated with it to begin with.

24 has always struck me as the age at which I'm meant to really, actually, truly, wholeheartedly grow up. Which, in essence, means setting the vast majority of my neuroses aside once and for all and becoming that confident, strong, take-no-prisoners kind of woman I've aspired to be for as long as I can remember. 24 is, in my mind, when I'm supposed to legitimately become a 'woman' for that matter (I don't know about you, but I certainly haven't considered myself to be one yet - Girl, maybe? Chick, definitely. Woman...yeah, not a chance).

When I awoke on the 27th of June I begun weaving this tangled mess inside my own head, effectively psyching myself out before the day had even brought me to my feet. Typical me.

But the universe often has a funny way of reminding us of those things we've forgotten, those conversations, images and thoughts which have been stored in the deep recesses of some convoluted memory bank, just waiting for the time and place at which it somehow knew there would be relevance to the seemingly irrelevant, all of which didn't strike you as at all worthwhile at the time.

Flipping through an old issue of Harper's Bazaar I noticed two images, both of which I'd discussed with my mother while we were getting pedicures a few months ago. They are as follows:

Daisy Lowe, in a [fantastic] Meisel editorial. Gwyneth Paltrow, in a Tod's advert.

There was little debate between us as to the physical attractiveness of either, as they're both, quite obviously, beautiful (in these specific photos at the very least). And so the topic of our argument was not who looked better, but rather concerned a certain taste level.

My generally adversarial nature aside, I ascertained that it was, in fact, Daisy who looked cooler, better, more awesome and so on and so forth. My mother, naturally, proposed the opposite. "What's so uncool about having clean hair and nice skin and not looking strung-out?" she asked me, to which I of course responded with "it's boring" or something equally dumb-sounding and ignorant. We continued to prattle on and on about this until the people scrubbing our feet were surely dead bored with listening to us, our polish had dried and we sauntered out of the salon - me slightly more defensive and pissed off, and her slightly more concerned about my general aspirations in life.

This was, of course, all swept under the rug by the time we reached the nearest Starbucks...god, I must sound like an insufferable yuppie right now, what with all this talk of pedicures and Starbucks....but I digress. On the morning of June 27th I came across these images again, and perhaps for the first time ever, I saw what my mother had seen.

At 24 years old I finally want to start being good to myself.

It's not that I have to grow up, it's that I actually, legitimately, whole-fucking-heartedly want to. I don't want to be a nail-biter, I don't want to have dark circles around my eyes, I don't want to eat shit food and then starve myself for a week, I don't want legs that are pale and bruised, I don't want to play silly games with dudes that I know are all wrong for me but go out with anyways. I don't want to, I don't want to, I DO NOT want this.

Starving artists are so goddamn romanticized, and at last I really do see that there's nothing romantic about it. I can safely state that, from my experience of being one and knowing many, it doesn't produce better art. It does, however, succeed in making you miserable and perpetually dissatisfied. And ugly. And, chances are, age rapidly (and I am nothing if not admittedly vain). It also grants you a free pass to make terribly bad decisions. Of which I've made many.

And so it goes. On the birthday that was chalked up to be one of the most depressing yet, I didn't get a party, but a what currently feels like a radiant, shiny new lease on life.

At 24 years old I'm going to embrace the inner Gwyneth, be my own best friend and listen to that little voice inside of my head that knew I would get here all along.

P.S. If it's been implied that I plan on turning into a pretentious, condescending, prissy bitch who never has any fun, I apologize for the lack of clarity on my end. It simply means the end of total wasterdom, and the beginning of this wonderful thing called self-care.

Unhappy Birthday.

Due to the ABSOLUTE FUCKING NONSENSE that has transpired over the past 24 hours, tomorrow I will be spending my birthday NOT in the Mojave desert having a deeply enlightening spiritual experience with copious amounts of wine and peyote, NOT gleefully spraying overweight lesbians with water guns on a Toronto Gay Pride Parade float while dressed up like a unicorn Rainbow Brite hybrid of amazingness, and NOT out and about in a shiny little dress.

Instead I will be home, alcohol-less, fun-less, sex-less and hopped up on painkillers (meaning I also HAVE TO EAT (a.k.a. be fat) lest I want to suffer internal bleeding too) due to a cripplingly painful bacterial infection I incurred from shaving my goddamn leg the other day.

Unhappy birthday to me in-fucking-deed.

P.S. If I sound beyond angry at the world/myself/Bic razors/hospitals/drugs that you can't drink while taking right now it's because I AM.

Old habits die hard.

As you may have noted from the above picture, I am indeed completely obsessive compulsive about my notebooks all being the same shape, size and weight. I'm a creature of habit, I like this specific brand, it's pretty self-explanatory, etc. etc.

Anyways. Of all of the notebooks I've had this year - the blues, the whites and the browns - it's the current blood-red leather bound one as seen above has taken the longest to fill up. I'm unsure as to whether or not it's coincidental or subconsciously acted out (I'm beginning to suspect the latter), but regardless it's true that each book has brought with it a different set of problems, vices and insecurities (the worst of which, in my opinion, are probably contained within this one).

In May and June of this year writing has been less of a priority and yet likely more of a necessity than it has been at any other point in 2009, but something about doing it has just felt too taxing for me to work through and confront. Instead, as has been my pattern with everything from my mental health to my credit card balance, I've chosen to stick my head in the sand like a goddamn idiot of an ostrich and pretend as though nothing is wrong. Nothing. At. All. In this case such metaphorical head-sticking involves not writing all that often. Obviously. Pathetic, I know.

But to bring things back to my initial point: I'm a creature of habit and am addicted to being a person with 'follow-through', and it is for this exact reason that I can't just let the stupid thing go unfinished and move on to the next one, which I have predetermined will be full of nothing but happy summer fun and romance and sunshine and kittens and good outfits and all of that nice, positive, wonderful shit.

So...yeah. As much as I don't want to finish this one (and I reallyreallyreally don't), I have to thanks to this sick instinct in me to be honourable and give it a fair chance.

Whatever. I'm so looking forward to hitting that last page. Even if it does take me another 869490570 days to get there.

Hyperventilation.

Wait, weight, fans, hands, nap time with yellow zigzag crosses in my eyes. Burnt skin, extra skin, birthday dinner, new rock n' roll, nervousness. So many sins and I can't breathe without them (or with them either). It makes me start, stop, sneak, wonder.

I asked for definite plans to no avail - more guardedness, more one-ended phone calls and tales of time rather spent alone. Leave me alone. Stomach empty, leave my lungs dry, water bottle filled and CD cases packed full of secrets in verse form because even poetry and music feel way too fucking crushingly honest lately in my bedroom still littered with liquor boxes and lies and ink-stained pillowcases.

What about what studies have shown and movie metaphors and sun-soaked Mojave wrecking yards that I see as beautiful alone? What about the dates alone and daytime promised to be spent together and always postponed? What about the hours of talking words and showing yearbooks? Old scars and dents on my calves haven't healed that fast, and neither has my head (it probably never will).

The laughing voices of men in button-up shirts outside my window are making me fucking insane, feel fucking insane, don't feel anything or just feel like my insides are trying to get outside, are moving too fast, are not letting me sleep. Text message wake-up calls in place of broken alarms shut off by fingers of faded black polish after drenching heat bike rides, story time, novel lies, search words, slutty girls.

And all I can think about is a Sunday night of hair bows with dark roots and all I can feel is wheels stuck in reverse upon streetcar tracks and pedestrian pushes on hospital avenues.

Weird, strange, fantastic fucking week I've been having...or was that already evident?

I didn't call him on Father's Day.

And if he ever cared enough about either of us to want to know why...well, this pretty much says everything that I still can't.

Hurricane Heart Attack.

I don't know where it was.

I thought I would die
(but always feel that way on rollercoasters.)

I'm going to go
down
with you.
Sitting down.

Ooh la la,
annhilation.

The more
I leave,
the less
I lose.

I was born, lucky me.

On Monday my beautiful bike was at last freed from the evil winter imposed confines of my family's garage, meaning I can now go where I please, when I please, at the pace I please (confession: not only am I without car, I am also without license. At almost 24. I know, I know.)

So, yeah. It's really, really, really nice having my bike.

A part of me wishes I could be more eloquent about exactly how nice it is, but that would require me going in to a lengthy and likely boring explanation of my preternatural disdain for public transit/the fact that I walk everywhere and it therefore takes me forever to go anywhere that's not within my 5-block radius of living. Which I won't do, because the acquisition of my absolutely gorgeous and enviable green and yellow cruiser is, after all, merely a footnote to the rest of this post.

I've had no shortage recently of pleasant dates with dudes and whatnot, but last night while riding about town on said bike I came to a really startling and wonderful conclusion which is entirely beyond the messiness of my current dating situation, and it's one that I think worthy of sharing.

Quite simply: there can be no date more perfect than the one you take yourself on.

I did this last night, and feel a metric fuck-tonne better about life as a result. I didn't start out the evening with the intention of taking myself on the best date ever, but somewhere between my amazing and completely uninterrupted by other people/phone checking/book reading/etc. meal on the patio of one of my favourite restaurants and my glorious bike ride over to a fantastically under-the-radar thrift shop (that I never go to because it's just too fucking far without a bike) I noticed that I couldn't stop smiling.

Singing, even.

Yes, that's right. I was warbling along with Ray Davies in the bike lane.

"Victoooooria, Victoooooria, Victoria, Vic-toreeahh"

I most certainly looked like a moron (albeit a moron with really great hair), and I highly doubt my voice sounded even remotely pleasant. But singing along to The Kinks, cruising down College Street (which, I feel it's important to note, was not even close to being empty), it occurred to me that, in the midst of the veritable insanity that is my life, I'd forgotten just how nice being nice to myself feels.

Ah.

Cosmopolitan.

Magic

Braid your hair. Chalk the sidewalk with Mr. Sun and colour blocks. Jump rope. Carve soap. Clean behind your ears and get 170% of your daily Vitamin C. Eat oatmeal raisin cookies. Replace the bronzer with catnaps in the sunshine. Wear too much blush. Party with pinatas. Finish the greens on your plate first. Put on your helmet. Double on bike rides to the outskirts of the city. Make messy piles of pretty clothes in your room. Frame pictures your friends have drawn for you and hang them on your walls. Invest in a good set of pencil crayons. Go to travel agencies and take brochures for exotic places (then sit cross-legged on your best friend's bed all night and tell each other stories about what you would do if you lived there). Get a dress-up box. Put stickers of flowers on everything you own. Say 'please', 'thank you' and 'good morning' to strangers on the street on Sundays.

I don't care what he says, because if being five years old on the inside feels this good then I'm pretty cool with never growing up.

"So I ran into him. He was literally metaphorical about you."

Stuff

A maelstrom of auditions that have entered my life this week. I don't believe I've yet mentioned that I'm an actress but yeah, I am (in addition to being a bored office worker, writer and semi-frequent generally debauched mess, of course); the benefit of this is not only the prospect of lots and lots of work that I enjoy coming down the pipeline soon, but also that there has been virtually no time for office boredom, wallowing in self-indulgent blog entries or going out every night and being a waster.

Although I was planning on a 'detox' of sorts from the drinking, drugging and dating anyways, the auditioning is most certainly making such plan easier to execute.

I feel not dead for the first time in ages. And my skin looks fucking fantastic.

Productivity has its benefits, no?

That being said, it's been seven days of a prim, proper and productive Lush, and I terribly miss certain things....Diet Coke, for one. And coffee. And substances. And my [party] friends.

How I'm even surviving being alive without the first two I've no idea; I suppose I have more willpower than I've previously given myself credit for. The other stuff...well, yeah. It's only been seven days, and for those of you who are far, far more well-behaved than I that might not seem like a very long time. I will elaborate no further than to say for me, it is. Very much so, it is.

Tonight brings some of my good behavior to an end, as I will be going out. I'm well aware that some people out there can, through what I assume to be some type of magic, voodoo or witchery of some sort, manage to abstain from drinking entirely when out at the various places I frequent, but I will never be an individual who can exert that kind of demi-god-like self-control over myself. So sue me, it's just the way it is (I also consider 'casual smoker' an oxymoron, in case you were wondering).

So yes, I will be going out and I WILL BE DRINKING. HOORAY!

I won't, however, be staying out all night.

Tomorrow morning brings yet another audition and a film shoot, meaning my usual hot mess Saturday self needs to be sans the mess part, for real. It's all kind of well-timed, considering I'm also in the middle of the Universe's curse that happens once a month to human beings unlucky enough to be born with vaginas. See, productivity really is bringing out a new responsible side of me!

The work day (and the aforementioned curse, for that matter) cannot end fast enough.

Happy Friday!

I'm always losing to win.

Aren't you so pleased with yourself, being out every night
with drugs and chalked love on the sidewalks outside
rejecting cabs that pass by?

Do you want to play dress up and mess up my room?
Do you want to lie down but put a line down instead?
Do you want clear skin and clean hair, not an ounce of waste anywhere?
Do you want tiny reminders to remember you were there?
Red and orange paints,
sleep all days,
dead phone calls,
new-old sweaters
fur hats and panic attacks?

What do you want?

All I can give you is
all the same words
on all the same days
stranger than the ones that came before them
and likely no stranger than the ones that await.

It's just, like...well, y'know...

I find myself wondering if everything is horribly, awfully wrong or wonderfully, magically right in my life right now.

My city has been taken hostage.

by Tamil protesters. And I've had enough of it.

I didn't complain when my walk to and from work every day became comprised by having to weave through thousands of shouting Tamils on too-narrow sidewalks on a daily basis. Nor did I say anything when I was knocked on the head by one violently waving around a massive sign with President Obama's face on it...and, like, what the fuck, he's not even our President (?!).

Four weeks of this have worn my patience, sure, but I get that Sri Lanka is 'in need' of Canadian intervention or whatever and have kept my mouth shut about the whole debacle accordingly. Politics don't particularly interest me and I'm not very informed about whatever it is they're protesting. They're quite vehement in their persistence, so I imagine it must be bad...but really, I have enough on my plate as it is and the plight of the Tamil people isn't something I feel equipped to add to it at this point in time (yeah, so sue me, I never claimed to not be self-involved...)

The reason I am writing this, though, is that they've finally gone too far. According to various news sources around the city the Tamils are planning on taking the TTC hostage at some point today - and I don't care who you are or how desperate your cause is, you do NOT fuck with our transit system.

Truthfully this isn't a selfish stance to take - I'm fortunate enough to live, work and access everything I generally require by walking, and any TTC service disruptions make absolutely no difference to my quality of life. Instead I'm thinking of the millions upon millions of Torontonians who do rely on a functional TTC to get to work, pick up their kids from soccer practice, meet their friends for dinner, etc.

This is no longer peaceful demonstration, it's terrorism. Not only are they getting increasingly scary in their downtown core protests, they're now hindering people's mobility as well. So I'm going to come right out and say what I've been wanting to, politcal correctness be damned:

GO BACK TO YOUR OWN COUNTRY AND FIX YOUR OWN FUCKING PROBLEMS. There are obviously enough of you to form a not-so-small army, and you seem to have the rage bit covered, so GO.

As if Sunday wasn't enough (yeah, you saw that right, that's the Gardiner Expressway. If you know nothing of Toronto here's a little backstory: whatever retarded city planners made the city made this stupid highway basically the only way in and out of it...and they blocked it for hours).

(Photos property of Torontoist)

I see the beauty in everything.

Rained-on couches, kitchen counter seats and spying texts. Forever car passenger rides. Being grown-ups, being children, wrong ways on the highways. Still high from the city sky and supersaturated vermilion fields, pie and flower stands on the side of the road. Wholesome sweaters, documentary tears, midnight toast, an increasingly sore throat.

There's no come down, and pictures just wouldn't do any of it any justice at all.

The Girl in the Dirty Shirt.

Old favourite Oasis songs and these ridiculously pretty Christophe Kutner photographs (which, FYI, are making me a little nostalgic for my uber-blonde hair) make uneventful Wednesdays far more enjoyable than they would be otherwise. Can this week just be over yet?

If I may be so bold that I just say something

come and make me my day.

The clouds around your soul don't gather there for nothing

but I could chase them all away

Why'd you need a reason for to feel happy?

Or be shining for the rest of the world?

Give me just a smile, and would you make it snappy?

Get your shit together, girl.

You've got a feeling lost inside it just won't let you go.

Your life is sneaking up behind it just won't let you go.

No, it just won't let you go.

Here's what I'm trying to say...

Is would you maybe come dance here with me?

Because to me it doesn't matter if your hopes and dreams are shattered.

When she says something, she'll make me believe

In the girl who wears a dirty shirt

She knows exactly what she's worth to me.

If you ever find yourself inside a bubble,

you've got to make your own way home.

But you can call me anytime you're seeing double.

Now you know you're not alone.

You've got a feeling lost inside it just won't let you go.
Your life is sneaking up behind it just won't let you go.
No, it just won't let you go.
Here's what I'm trying to say...

Is would you maybe come dance here with me?
Cos to me it doesn't matter if your hopes and dreams are shattered.
When she says something, she'll make me believe
In the girl who wears a dirty shirt
She knows exactly what she's worth to me.
And now I see.

Hey, there's nothing in my heart. I'd rather be cool than be smart.

That's not true, of course. But Come Down by the Dandy Warhols is a perrenial favourite, and I know far, far too many people for whom it is true, so...yeah.

Marvellous May has begun marvellously enough, what with a weekend just having passed which consisted of the usual wasterdom, vampiric sleeps and getting a lot of clarity where my various romantic interests are involved. And, moreover, it taught me a few things.

I've learned that nothing helps you get over one romantic lead like the emergence of another.

I've learned that one day, you will get that moment of revenge on the jock assholes you went to high school with. And it will feel every bit as good as you imagined it would.

I've learned that packing sunglasses in your purse when you leave the house at midnight to go out is always a good idea. Same goes for making your bed - you'll appreciate yourself for doing so when you finally climb back into it at 10 a.m.

And I've learned that at the end of it, after all of the drinks, drugs, outfit changes and plastic cups have been drunk, taken, worn and emptied, all you really need are the pages of a new notebook and a phone call from someone you love.

April Is Over.

It's all been a little serious and depressing around here lately, hasn't it? And I'm truthfully not as brooding or miserable as I might sometimes appear. So while April Oh Nine admittedly wasn't the best month ever, on the first sunny day of Marvellous May (n.b. thankfuckinggodAprilisover) I'm going to take a moment to wax poetic about what was nice about it.

Things I Liked In April

The small 'garden' (and I use that term loosely) of plants I made on my bedroom windowsill that I haven't had to water most days because it has rained all the fucking time. As such, the garden is flourishing in a manner that it most certainly would not if left under solely my care.

Chattering endlessly with friends about spring flings and summer loves and bikinis and beers and rooftops and all of the wonderful things that make our lives so fucking wonderful. It sounds and IS really lame, but they're gorgeous nights of being lame nonetheless.

Waking up to Snap Cup Love on the kitchen wipeboard! If you haven't seen the cinematic masterpiece that is 'Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde' then you won't really get this one. Meaning get thyself to a video store stat, rent it and come back to leave your jealous comments about how I really do have the best roommates in the world.

Chai tea with plain soy milk. I've determined that this concoction of deliciousness will never taste as good in any other month as it does in April. Why? Because it is comfort in an oddly reassuring Venti cup, that's why. And rarely have I required such comfort as much as I have in Awful April (it was initially called Awesome April, but that went out the window about four days into said month, so...)

Oh, and if you think my list is lame, please keep in mind the things that have made my life absolute shit this April, which include but are not limited to:

- finding out that my ex-boyfriend probably has cancer. Or is pretending to to get my sympathy vote. Either way.
- general impoverishment and being unable to afford the things I want
- feeling fat (those of you who know me in real life: SHUT UP. Yes, I know I'm objectively not fat. I just feel it sometimes, okay?)
- flaky hipster boys who only want what they can't have

...Yep, April. Is. Over.

Better off as the fool than the owner of that kind of heart.

I may have been the kind of girl who wore her heart on her sleeve at some point in my life, but I can say with a good deal of certainty that I haven't been that type for quite some time. Somewhere along the line playing my cards close to my chest seemed like the logical thing to do, and it's since become dangerously easy to simply never show my cards to anyone at all.

I'm not saying that my guardedness is wise or clever or particularly well thought-out, but everything and everyone is based on such fucking externality anyways that really, what difference does it make? So long as my thighs don't touch and my roots have been touched up and my heavily braceleted wrists are thinner than the girls' sitting next to me, it doesn't. So long as I go out often enough (but not too much) and drink this and know the bar staff there and that club owner here and am always welcome in the booth, it doesn't. So long as there's a vague sense of knowing that I'm smarter than all of this, more than all of this and not trapped by all of this, it doesn't.

Or does it?

The fortress of anonymity that I've built and fiercely protect around Nightgowns & Cigarettes can be somewhat problematic for me; just because they don't know me doesn't stop me from wanting them to at times...but, mind you, not enough for me to confess to anything.

So what will it take for me to stop being so horribly scared? The mention in a recent issue of Eye Weekly certainly didn't do it. As we sat there on our stolen couch, the newspaper print of the thin pages staining our fingers as they flipped through, taking note of the photos of our friends and columns about the bars that we get free drinks in, surveying the events that we'll accept and decline the inevitable invites to and it was there, caught in my throat right there with the smoke, and for a brief, fleeting moment I wanted them to know. "You see the word Lush there, in bold on the fifth page's Letters section? Yeah, well, that's me."

It would have been so easy, and it wouldn't, couldn't come out. It absolutely couldn't come out. For them to see it and know, to attach the faces and names to every post would be the death of all of the honesty I have in me and reserve for here. It's why I carry my notebook with me everywhere I go and hide it if I'm sleeping, showering or if my purse is too small to fit it in. It's why I lock all of my old, finished notebooks in a desk to which only I have the key.

Not to be too morbid on a Friday afternoon or anything, but here it goes: I often wonder what'll happen to them if I die unexpectedly.

...yeah, too morbid. But one more reason to stay alive long enough to see my eventual death coming I guess.

Friday Fun.

This week did not start out on the best of notes to say the least. A Friday and Saturday of unbridled, dangerously enjoyable debauchery resulted in me showing up at my soul-sucking gray hell of a Major Depressive Episode-inducing cubicle on Monday morning without the following items (or, for that matter, a clue as to what in the fucking fuck I am doing with my life):

- iPhone. Lost somewhere between Saturday night's fourteen trillion overpriced cab rides and the creepiest after-hours I've ever had the pleasure of curling up on a couch and chain-smoking in at 4 a.m. A few very nice young Irishmen sporting mohawks - who may or may not have been involved in illegal activity - attempted to help me look for it in said after-hours, but it was not found and I woke up at some ungodly hour the next day bemoaning my existence as a result. Never before did I know how utterly lost and helpless I would feel without a fucking gadget. Eww, am I technologically dependent or what?

- Contact lenses. Somehow I managed to rip one in half while it was still in my eye, which I discovered around the same time that I began bemoaning my iPhone-less life on Sunday. This really smart move of mine left me with no choice but to place an order for a new pair, impatiently wait for them to arrive (a.k.a. bombard the bitchy optometrist's secretary with demanding phone calls every six hours), and wear my broken, horrendously ugly glasses in the interim, lest my blindness wind me up in the middle of an intersection or something equally life-threatening/dumb.

- My dignity. This one I'm not going to get into for obvious reasons. But yeah, it might have gone missing there for a couple of days, I won't deny it.

Alas. To paraphrase the hottest Beatle (Mr. George Harrison), all things must pass indeed, and that they have...

I got my eyes back, I bought a new iPhone, and I have been having a seriously excellent run of good hair days. Tonight brings about a massive and expertly planned (by me, obvi) birthday throwdown for my amazing roommate, and tomorrow the weather is apparently going to be conducive to going outdoors with, like, bare legs and stuff. And did I mention that I also acquired the sickest pair of red, polka-dotted, heart-shaped Lolita sunglasses courtesy of my other wonderful roommate? And that the really nice Australian girl who works at the hostel I live across the street from has offered my roommates and I an open invitation to the delicious free pancake breakfast they make every morning? I'm fairly certain she's a lesbian and I'm also fairly certain that she's attempting to convert my hetero ass, but regardless. Yes, yes and yes.

One more thing to be happy about on this beautiful day: Kasabian are back on form after that trainwreck that was 'Empire'. Having heard 'Underdog' and this one that follows (which is accompanied by the coolest music video I've seen in years...take note, Primal Scream), I expect 'West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum' will be my glorious soundtrack to my glorious Summer Oh-Nine.
Enjoy.

Kasabian - Vlad the Impaler from Kasabian on Vimeo.



P.S. Expect the Shame Sprial that is my life to continue upon its usual course as of early next week, but let happy be happy for now, aiight?

What dreaming used to be.

Snow White.

Between the pages we've colored of fairy tales (that we've known for a long time are not and never will be true), she asks me if it's the prince who will kiss you when you're already dead that's the one worth waiting for. Dead, in the glass coffin that those who have loved you built, and he'll have enough life in him and love in him to save you both. She knows I don't know the answers either, so all I can offer is "don't build the glass coffin in nights upon nights of convincing yourself that the prince who has no life left in him is worth it. Princes with nothing to give to even themselves...your half-dead self won't be able to save them."

But then, I think another thought and it's down the rabbit hole again, spilling onto the pages as another drink spills soundlessly in the kitchen.

What kind of a prince is the one who wants you when you're dead? You're nothing but doll parts to him, to his kiss, when there's nothing left of you to begin with. And that's exactly why he loved you, didn't you know it all along? When you had no needs, all he needed was you.

So April showers will surely bring something in May, but what? We're not yet sure. For the time being we've got gloomy days of wearing glasses with blurry gazes at smoke stacks, photographs, pockets jingling with change and the change in the weather which has come so soon. We've got empty e-mails that mean more than millions of words. We've got last night's words about beautiful bed frames and driving out of this city in cars that we don't own, with licenses that we don't have. Visa debts, work visas to get, and scuzzy Los Angeleno sunsets playing out of our stereo with daydreams of surfboards and drugs we haven't done yet.

And we've got the sense that maybe neither prince is very good at all.

Played out (and still oh-so true)

"I always tell the girls: never take it seriously. If you never take it
seriously, you never get hurt. You never get hurt, you always have fun.

...And if you ever get lonely, you just go to the record store and visit
your friends."

Words from Almost Famous' Miss Penny Lane and the sky of unrelenting sunshine make all of this past week's nonsense feel pretty alright on this gorgeous Friday afternoon. And a photo of my favourite record store friend, of course, thrown in for good measure.

Careful, careful.

Watching women who's words I walked around with when I was only sixteen years old. I thought I knew what they were talking about then - as it turns out, I had no idea.

So I sit, watching, stringing chains around my neck, not unlike when I disrobed and re-robed in his room six nights ago. I won't admit it (who would?), but I'm also surveying in the moments in between all of this watching...now there are others, with their cellulite-free, tanned asses hanging out on his wall. One with an Eastern European last name that reminds me of a person I'm trying quite hard to forget as of late.

And so it is. Moisturizing my face tonight, watching those women who I thought I understood when I was too young to really know anything, I realized that I've never been 'rejected' because I've never let myself be. Careful, careful, because all of the good advice in the world won't do me any good when I'm up to no good, and it's just far too easy to tiptoe about and play this game with oneself.

So it is, so it is, so I keep watching. If I didn't quite comprehend these questions back then, then there's a chance that I may have missed the part with all of the answers too?

Random Thursday Happiness includes...

1. Finding the perfect dress to wear to this wedding I have attend on Saturday. The prospect of being stranded in a place outside of my agreeable realm of TTC service (I honestly don't remember the last time I went somewhere that the TTC did not extend out to..it's kind of terrifying) filled with strangers and family that I hate (Hi, Dad) is emotionally daunting enough for me thankyouverymuch, I don't need the added worry of looking sub-par. And now, thanks to the lovely dress I acquired last night in a post-work power shop, I won't.

I first learned this lesson from a wise, brilliant friend who always sauntered in to our most formidable 8 a.m. university exams looking absolutely and entirely impeccable. When I eventually worked up the nerve to ask her why this was the case, I was met with a bit of wisdom which has not been quickly forgotten: "If this all turns out shit, which it probably will, at least I know I can catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror later and feel better about life."

Moral of the story: A dress that makes your boobs look great combined with a healthy amount of narcissism can go a long way when you're out of your comfort zone.

2. The fact that I have the next four days free to do whatever I please with (with the exception of the aforementioned wedding uncomfortable-ness...but hey, it's an excuse to wear a pretty dress, drink on someone else's dollar and flirt with dudes, so it can't be all bad).

Knowing me this means that the next four days of my life will consist of little more than my usual chain-smoking/drinking/going out/sleeping in/eating food every once in a while, but then again most anything that's not being confined within the beige walls of office hell seems pretty fucking delightful by me.

3. This, this and this article by Kate Carraway for Eye Weekly. I'm pretty sure she's been following me around town given the absolute fucking spot-on ness of her columns lately in relation to my life. Or we're just the same person. Either way.

4. The following photos of impossibly beautiful Scandinavian-by-way-of-Seattle models living out my dreams of summer, being gorgeous and grunge-tastically bohemian. Whoever is the first to find me a hot Kurt Cobain-esque boyfriend, so-ugly-it-borders-on-being-cute floral crochet poncho and a turquoise van to play guitar on top of first wins at life...fuck it, find me even one of those things and I'll buy you a cupcake or something.

Come Down.

My thoughts as of late have consisted of little beyond the following subjects.

1. O Canada: I HATE YOU. People are not intended to live in dark, damp and freezing cold misery nine months out of the year. They're just not. I've yet to let you, winter, stop me from going out and living my life and so and so forth these past few horrible months...but really, don't you think enough is enough already?

So I've given up, you win.

I've come to terms with the fact that I will continue to be bored with the same unflattering baggy sweaters, the same black tights and the same three coats that I wear over and over and OVER again until you finally decide to let the fuck up and go away. I've also entertained the possibility that you will quite simply never go away, and have in fact decided to persist until the end of time. I hate you so much that I'm considering skipping the country altogether and going to live in the desert. Which brings me to my next point...

2. Joshua Tree, California, 24th birthday, road trip. At some point last week it occured to me that I absolutely, positively cannot be in this city on my birthday. I'm not sure why I came to this conclusion - I haven't had a 'Big Deal Birthday' since I turned double digits (pathetic, I know), but for some reason the prospect of being 24 is hitting me like a veritable tonne of bricks. Nor do I have any clue as to why I've chosen Joshua Tree, California as the place I'd like to spend it.
But I do.
And I will.
And I'm totally going and it's going to be ridiculously brilliant.

...and if it's not, there's always the slight chance that it'll actually be warm in June in Toronto and at the very least I'll be able to go about my usual activities of waster-dom in bare legs and sandals again. Not counting on it given the pure, unadulterated evil that is the aforementioned Canadian weather though.

3. Dating or something like it? This one's a bit more difficult to summarize, but I'll give it my best shot: what the fuck is dating? If I'm hanging out with and sleeping with someone on the regular are we 'dating', or just having casual sex *shudder*? Do I even want to be dating? Do I even care? And why am I wasting mental energy thinking about it?

Ugh.


...So yeah. Other than that stuff life is as boring throughout the work day/busy in the evenings as ever. Same old, same old, same old, same old. Whatever.

You never get wise, you only get older.

There's that evil beauty again

in the booths of booze and

slights of hand,

smock dresses and smokers stresses,

party favours through the favours of friends.

Glittering like a speck of sand

hit by the opalescent night.

The night is ours with our

skinny legs taking us nowhere

oh so fast

when we're everywhere

with everything for which

we didn't have to ask.

So get back

to watching videos of

destruction

and corruption

and the Power

of Positive Thinking.

Because our pictures are

in the newspaper box

and on the newspaper box

now too.

It's no crime?