Auto-Whhaat?! The Revolution is Here!

Hi! I'm back from New York! Do you guys like Tegan and Sara? Good! Listen to this while I write about this, the most amazing thing to happen to planet earth and the universe and the stars. Here's a picture:


Maybe some of you don't know this but I'm interning for Autostraddle and we had a big party this weekend with a mechanical bull. For serious. Anyways, more about that will come when I recover. Goodnight! I love you!

The Stars Came Falling on Our Heads but They're Just Old Light

I was going to post a bunch of songs about New York but it turns out that takes too much work so I scrapped that idea. This weekend was kind of shitty 'cause big scary baseball coaches yelled at me and that makes me mad and since I have nothing to do at work I sit in my dungeon and brood about it for 4 hours. But I also read two harry potter books in two days that was cool. Anyways the other day I was also mad (am I always mad?) so out of spite I bought a Regina Spektor cd and an Iron & Wine cd but it turns out that neither of those were a waste of money.

So I've been listening to this Regina Spektor song and if you're a Regina Spektor fan you probably know it, it makes me feel sad and peaceful. I want to hug someone.

Yes, this post doesn't make sense.

[regina spektor - samson]

polanoid

A Little Bit of News, A Whole Lotta Love!

News: I finally got.. a.. haircut! That's right, I got rid of my lion's mane.

News: I bought an iPhone which I don't need but who needs anything besides food, shelter, and clothing.

News: I'm going to New York next week so there may be no posts for a few days, but expect something huge when I get back. Or perhaps Katrina and I will do something special if we have time (Katrina if you're reading this y/n?)


Love: you guys!


Click on it! Look at all those comments! Except that I probably just jinxed myself and everyone is going to stop reading.

More News: I got some pictures developed!



Again, click on the pictures to get a larger version. Paint took away some of the quality, unfortunately.

Time May Give You More Than Your Poor Bones Could Ever Take

[iron & wine - belated promise ring]

I just bought Iron & Wine's compilation cd Around the Well yesterday and it is awesome. I feel like I'm in a movie whenever I listen to Iron & Wine.

polanoid

Happy Music Monday everyone.

Top 6 Favorite Posts From the Last 6 Months

Did I forget to mention that last Monday was my 6 month blogiversary? Ok, well it was, and I forgot all about it. Six months ago I started out with 0.5 regular readers and now I have 5-7 regular readers which makes me feel really happy. Especially when they comment. Or when they get their sister to tell me over the phone, that's cool too. JK, sorry I said I wouldn't say anything about that. Anyways, I thought I'd be cliché 'cause I feel like it, so here's a top 6 of my favorite posts over the last six months!

6. Thursday, March 5 2009 Life is so Quick and Sometimes it Goes Away too Quickly

I think I'm the only person who liked this post, but I don't care, I really really like it. It was a bunch of thoughts added to each other written over 5 days or something.

sometimes i dont like punctuation
i like to learn
i never used to care if my friends loved me
but now i do.

I admit it's weird and I finish with a conversation with myself but that's okay because this whole blog pretty much started as a conversation with myself. Now that more people are participating maybe you will see the quirky, beautiful things I see in this post.

5. Thursday, February 19 2009 A Lesson in Geography

This is apparently a very popular post despite the surprisingly few comments (only one a month later??). I guess people think my condescending, pretentious manner is funny. Anyways I hope you all learned something. I've actually found it quite useful as I continue to refer to it when I hear people tell me they read my blog but "didn't know they could comment".

4. Monday, April 6 2009 Rummaging for Answers

This is a post consisting of 2-3 entries from my "diary". It ends with the bus story which remains, for some reason, a special point in that semester at Dawson. I actually saw the girl a couple of times at school which means I was clearly wrong about her being an art student at Concordia (??) but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's where she's applying at some point in her life. For now I like to pretend I was right about everyone else.

It's a source of comfort that if the bus had tipped over and I had died that day, I would have at least died with nice people. I think, somehow, that bus ride restored my faith in humanity a little. The thing about having connections with strangers is that your opinion of them hardly ever changes.

3. Thursday, May 7 2009 I Get by With a Little Help From my Friends

Well, what can I say? This is one of my favorite posts not because of the way its written, but because who it's written about -- my favorite people.

Also I love that cartoon.

2. Monday, February 9 2009 Ballad of Big Nothing

While writing this (which was not written with a blog post in mind) I was able to put something I discovered about myself into words which is sometimes hard for me. I guess this is the best example of how this blog is just a conversation with myself. If you agree, if you read something here that you agree with or you say "me too" then maybe we're having a conversation together seperately or maybe we're partly the same person. And maybe that is terrifying or maybe it's comforting. Maybe both.

I’m hoping that there’s a bed for me at home, someone warm to curl up next to, stairs to walk down in the morning and a lot of sunlight outside, a bus that comes on time, and then places, I hope there are places I can go. I hope I have some place to go, some place to return to, a space in time in the crowded world that is just for me.

1. Thursday, March 26 2009 Life is Full of Wonder




Here's to an awesome summer and another 6 months of conversation with myself!

Other Books I'm Reading

Okay, last time I read three books and was in the middle of reading the second Redwall book, Mossflower. Since then I've finished it, read the next one, Mattimeo, and then read three more books. That makes a total of 8 books (see? I can count). If anyone would like to suggest something to read, that's nice, put it in the comments and I'll add it to my list.


The Life of Pi by Yann Martel

My dad bought The Life of Pi for $2 at a garage sale. This is a book that won a very prestigious award (which means nothing to me) and other things, rave reviews, blah blah, and claims that it may make me believe in God. Doubtful of that I read it anyway hoping to be entertained for a bit. It made me lose a couple hours of sleep during the middle of the book when I absolutely couldn't put it down, but the beginning was a bit long and uneventful and I found the end disappointing. Overall it was a good story but yeah, that's it. And even though I have weird/mixed feelings towards God, it did not make me believe in him I don't know why someone would claim that.



On the Road by Jack Kerouac

This book made me feel high. Like I physically felt like I was on drugs when I read this. Some of my friends have said they only want to read On the Road when they go on a roadtrip. Obviously I didn't do that. I like the idea of re-reading it if I ever go across the country -- one of my favorite things about books is that reading it a second time is always different than the first. I'll probably be in a different place (metaphorically and physically) when I read this a second time and I can't wait to see what new meanings it will hold, because this book has a lot of meanings and secrets waiting to be found in its pages.

"I could hear an indescribable seething roar which wasn't in my ear but was everywhere and had nothing to do with sounds. I realized that I had died and been reborn numberless times but just didn't remember especially because the transitions from life to death and back to life are so ghostly easy, a magical action for naught, like falling asleep and waking up again a million times, the utter casualness and deep ignorance of it."


The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

If you didn't gather from the title, this book is fucking depressing. It's at times long and brutally honest. It also provided comfort and made me angry, made me weep, made me shameful but also proud, it evoked a self-pity but also pity for the world which can be so horrible, and it humbled me. I can't explain it in any other way except to say that this book made me feel.

"Our love may be faithful even unto death and beyond -- yet the world will call it unclean. We may harm no living creature by our love; we may grow more perfect in understanding and in charity because of our loving; but all this will not save you from the scourge of a world that will turn its eyes from your noblest actions, finding only corruption and vileness in you.

Because there is only toleration for the so-called normal. And when you come to me for protection, I shall say: "I cannot protect you, the world has deprived me of my right to protect; I am utterly helpless, I can only love you."

NEW MUSIC!!!!!! from Tegan and Sara

HOLY CRAAAAAAAAAP! it's so good.

Tegan + Sara + Me + Myself = Love/AWESOME 4eva and eva.

Also I suggest you keep up 'cause at one point Tegan and Sara are gonna come back and you don't want to miss that. I already have a new book on my list!

June Midnight, Light

It was cold though it was June. I watched the sun set over a soccer field and a man playing fetch with his German Shepherd. I was reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac for the first time -- well, that wasn't true, I had only read the introduction. I kept adjusting myself; the rock I was sitting on did not provide the comfort I sought. Less than a year ago I had sat by this very rock and drank shots of sourpuss late into the night and then stumbled down the hill, spinning in circles and rolling in sand.

It was the introduction of On the Road that made me feel like writing. I hadn't even read Kerouac yet and I wanted to smoke something or get drunk and wander the streets downtown. I hadn't even read Kerouac and I wanted to be Elliott Smith. Or Conor Oberst, who seemed to be a mixture of them both, an eternal wanderer and a singer songwriter. All of them inebriated somehow, or at least in my mind.

But I couldn't shake the urge of wanting to write, wanting to create. Poems weren't doing it anymore, they felt too easy as if anything written with weird spacing could become poetry. I thought of distant characters I had created before now, 'great' novels started and never finished. Maybe it was the lack of plan or structure or just idea in general. Or inspiration. I wanted to draw on my own experiences, but searching inside myself I found none I deemed worthy of writing about. I'd been in this place many times before but also before jumping into the 'experience' I narrated it first and then the moment passed. My inhibitions got in the way. I imagined it was my glasses, because how could you do anything with glasses on? They were cumbersome, a physical manifestation of my excuse, my fear of participating.

I was attracted by sounds from the baseball field. I wandered in the direction of the noise; little boys yelling, parents yelling, the sound of metal hitting a ball, the stomping of ground beneath my and their feet. I wandered to the baseball field in a straight line.

We Left Our Love in Our Summer Skin

It's June 1st! I don't really know what that means except June has always signaled summer to me, even though my summer started like three weeks ago. So I feel like today is the first day of summer, obvs it's raining and cold outside, and nothing significant is happening. Anyways since today is Monday I thought I'd post some songs in honor of June 1st and also to distract people from reading my retard post last night.

[bright eyes - june on the west coast]
i thought about my true love, the one i really need.. with eyes that burn so bright they make me pure. i long to be with you

[the decemberists - summersong]
Okay, this isn't really a happy song but wtvs I love it 4eva. Maybe if you like alliterations you'll like this song too.
summer arrives with a length of light, summer blows away.

[the ataris - boys of summer]
This was my favorite song for two years. It's actually a cover of a Don Henley song except this version is better.
out on the road today i saw a black flag sticker on a cadillac. a little voice inside my head says "don't look back, you can never look back."

Happy June everyone!