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!

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Breathe in, breathe out, oh no you're drowning.

Say hello to a revolutionary device called the SmokeStik.

I discovered it this morning while checking my horoscope (which, by the way, has been uncannily dead on the mark as of the late) via this article in the Toronto Star, and am somewhat conflicted where it's concerned.

I totally, totally get the appeal, and am in fact even considering purchasing one for my mums and step dad; it's quite safe to say that I love them and would rather not have to see them with a trachea tube or whatever that thing's called that I remember turned me off television in a massive way when I was nine after seeing it in those terrifying Health Canada commercials.

Conversely, must the 21st century take the fun out absolutely everything? According to SmokeStik's distributors "it's like smoking with a condom on." Sounds really fucking attractive, no? A dude with a SmokeStik in a bar is certainly no James Dean, and I still want to find my James Dean goddammit. My point against the robot cigarette is pretty convoluted and most likely really, truly, severely misguided, but since all of two people read this blog and I know that they'll at least partially understand where I'm coming from, it is as follows:

I don't know whether or not ya'll have given our inevitable mortality any thought recently, but if I may, let me jog your memory using the grade-school 'hamburger essay' scheme...

1. Introduction: WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE ONE DAY.

2. Narration: Lots and lots and lots of people are smokers.

3. Affirmation: I enjoy smoking. Really, I do.

4. Negation: Secondhand smoke may or may not be harmful. No one knows for sure, regardless of what the crazy anti-smoking fascists might tell you. They do not actually know. Also: it's like smoking with a condom on. Need I say more?

5. Conclusion: We are still all going to die one day. I'm all about give and take...I'll gladly go to two hours of yoga and have a salad full of all of that Omega-3 and Vitamins A-through-Z bullshit, only to proceed to drink a half bottle of wine and chain-smoke throughout the rest of the evening. I enjoy both activities, and don't necessarily think that one cancels out the other. I do, however, think that I was put on this planet for a number of reasons, one of which is to enjoy myself.

Then again, I'm probably going to die all wrinkled and trachea-tubed when I'm, like, 30, so it's likely best to not take my advice.

n.b. I just read this back and realized I make virtually no sense whatsoever. Yeah, I'm an asshole, and one that will probably jump on the stupid robot cigarette bandwagon along with everyone else once this country's government allows it. Not for the death thing so much as the wrinkles...I admit it, I live in constant fear of the day I wake up to my first wrinkle.

Weeknights.

Recounting the drinks consumed, dancing shoes ruined, cab fares home after the separate ways we go. It's a daunting combination of lust, fear, loneliness and too many faces, too many pairs of eyes, too many numbers exchanged, unintelligible names.

Separate ways from our friends, and we all went home with someone in the end.

The laughing hours later about who was seen with who when and what word's been around town since then are so much easier than the long walk home and the carried over daylight from the night before.

But running through parking lots with a windswept umbrella and an empty stomach is harder without company. And once inside I'll listen to her count off the things she got for free. I'll do the same, because it's all just loss and gain. Vacant hearts too scared to be left alone, continuing to count off the minutes that we haven't been home.

We know we'll all go home with someone at some point again, but we lay in our thin-walled rooms tonight, unaware of tomorrow's enemies and friends.

I'm not that social, just a good drinker.

There's nothing like a Friday afternoon with nothing but time and unlimited internet access on your hands.

I considered doing some work on that thing that might one day turn into a book or something like it, but opted to instead do something that takes far less focus and creative energy, as I'm sorely, dearly lacking both at the moment. Perhaps once Sunday's big move is over I'll be able to finish one of the numerous half-done projects I currently have going, but until then here's a smattering of songs (in no particular order) which have soundtracked a February that I can't even begin to try to explain. Enjoy.


SeeqPod - Playable Search

Touché.

Missed Connections.

As previously mentioned, I'm completely obsessed with craigslist's missed connections.

And no, I know what you're thinking - I'm not on there looking for myself....for one, I've already found myself once or twice, thankyouverymuch.

Secondly, and more significantly, the people who actually go through with posting missed connections are, by and large, not the kind of people I would consider going on a real, live date with. This rule is, of course, circumstantial and dependent upon who such secret admirer is and whatnot, but I would go so far as to say it's true more often than not.

Especially when I see posts like this.

i saw you roughly 4-5 years ago on the 512 Keele westbound streetcar from st clair station (east) during the school year. you we're about 5'2" - 5'6", brunette or dark brown hair, with caramel skin and light coloured eyes (blue/grey/green/hazel). you we're wearing a sort of sailor's coat and jeans. you we're sitting near the back and i was standing infront of the rear doors. I never went up to say anything because i was very shy then and it was pretty crowded. i thought i saw you again near mt. pleasent and eglinton but when i went for the double take you were gone so i think i might have just been dreaming that one. i know it's a long shot but there hasn't been a day that's passed by that you haven't crossed my mind... and i really want to know why, i wish i had said something even if it was stupid so you would have atleast noticed me...i hope you did...

Okay, so let me get this straight...dude saw this girl who may have been between 5'2" and 5'6" who may have had eyes that were one of four colours 'roughly' four to five whole fucking years ago, didn't speak a word to her, has thought of her every day since, quite possibly experienced a hallucination of seeing her again, and is now turning to CRAIGSLIST MISSED CONNECTIONS to find her??!

If this isn't one of the most disconcerting things you've ever read...well, then I really don't know what on earth you've been reading, and nor do I want to for that matter.

Other cities are great to read as well. One observation I've made is that Paris tends to have the fewest missed connections posts while New York consistently appears to have the most (and, might I add, the craziest of the bunch).

I like to think of craigslist missed connections forums as social experiments of sorts; I feel like clicking through the postings in any given city provides me with some tiny bit of insight as to what the populus of that place is like....which, in essence, leads me to the conclusion that there are stalkers, innocent romantics, criminals, lovers and assholes all across the globe, and that they are more craigslist-savvy in some cities than in others.

But yeah, you know what I mean.

And moreover, who am I kidding? I so checked this morning to see if that guy reading 'On Being & Nothingness' and making adorable eye contact with me at Osgoode station yesterday posted anything.

Acid House Killed Rock n' Roll

Things I Have Learned In January 2009

[various sources]

Mondays are the new Fridays for going out and getting absolutely shitwrecked (not only are they more fun, free drinks are also easier to come by).
Tuesday nights are the new Sunday nights for being domestic and well-behaved (while only partially drunk).
Black is the new neon to "everyone who matters" (in this stupid, pretentious, late-on-the-mark fucking city).
EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYONE and nothing is private (particularly when you still don't have a door on your room).
My family are the best friends I could ever ask for in the world (I have no snarky comment to add to this, it's quite simply just true).
Sleep and food are important things for living human beings to get (but you can, on average, go 36-48 hours without either and be fine...or at least seem like it as far as your colleagues are concerned).
Not working with your roommates is a really, really good thing (getting their discount at the places they work, on the other hand, is).
Craigslist missed connections is the most entertaining thing to be found on the internet (the more hostile the post the better).
And sadly acid house did kill rock n' roll (but thankfully it also gave us Primal Scream).

You said the brains I had went to my head.

My brother driving, me in the backseat, changing the radio station and hearing the opening chords of 'Don't Look Back in Anger'.
At night.
Away from 1503 forever.
Exactly what I needed to hear when I needed to hear it.
And shouting it out the window into a cold, dark, typical January cityscape. Packed up in between all of the cargo of broken hearts and empty apartments. Lungs filled with cigarette smoke, cold air and relief. Feeling it in a place inside my chest that I didn't know existed until that very moment.
Exalted.

And you ain't ever gonna burn my heart out.

Lists.

I’ve been revolving my day around lists.
Lists, lists, lists, ubiquitous
and organized
and productive
and goal-oriented
lists.

Remember to eat, they tell me.
Respond to e-mails.
Wake up early enough to have time to shower.
Figure out what to wear tomorrow.
Call your brother.
Wear winter boots.

And then.
Somewhere in there between the things I’m reminding myself of.
Affirming to myself that I need to do, of which I do not need to be reminded or affirmed.
Are the real ones.
In a lyric.
In a phrase.
In a telephone conversation.
On new paper in a new book.

Raspberries and coffee taste delicious together.

Become everything you said you never would be.

Enemy fire. Filling me blanks.

Again and again and again
through my useless, symmetrical head
these useless sentiments ring.
It’s been six days
and already
the lists and reminders
have marred and forever burdened one hundred and two
once clean, lined pages.

I have frostbite on my toes from the cold.
And frostbite in my hands from you.

History.

In the beginning of the last month of two thousand and eight I wrote...

And so it ends where it began. With December, with the Verve, with text messages cryptically and neither wanting to appear too eager. I don't want to dream away my life with my hometown and stealing my brother's hats, with friends on Queen Street and with writing words down but not knowing what they mean. I don't think I ever really wanted this. Falling into the last three years was so easy, far too easy, to do. In it, and in it and in it some more, I of course grew to love you and even convince myself that I wanted to. But I didn't want to, and don't still.

I don't know what's going to happen to my life now that I've done what I've done. But I'll live with it either way.

Perhaps here I will write about relationships, perhaps I will write about clothing and perhaps I will write about the fact that I enjoy going to work on Wednesdays more than any other day of the week because the Second Cup downstairs brews that delicious ambrosia-like stuff more commonly known as Caramelo. I don't know, and I refuse to try to figure it out. All I can ascertain in this very moment is that I will write about anything and everything that crosses and has crossed my mind since the moment I wrote the words above in a little dollar store notebook on the GO train, and I might write it here sometimes. It makes me feel better to do so. I don't know why.